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®.

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®.

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®.

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®.

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®.

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®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• Coping with exhaustion and anxiety in a changing work environment
• Why consistency matters more than hustle
• The importance of boundaries and self-care
• Building and nurturing business friendships
• Using reflection, mantras, and rest to reset for the new year

Episode Highlights

Time-stamped inflection points from the show

00:12 — 2025’s tough realities: burnout, layoffs, and financial stress

02:20 — How consistency (not hustle) leads to real, sustainable change

04:11 — Boundary-setting in the workplace as a buffer against burnout

05:27 — Building business friendships as an essential support network

09:26 — End-of-year reflection ritual: listing your accomplishments to spark optimism

Top Quotes

02:01 – “Consistency beats hustle. We all think we’ve got to get up at, you know, 6 a.m. and get moving. And you see the TikTok videos of the guy that’s up at 4 a.m. and he’s out the door by 5:15 and he’s already worked out and, oh my God, just thinking about it makes me tired.”

04:26 – “I watched our team at the agency that I run set some boundaries, and it was fantastic. Not, you know, not asking, ‘Can I have time off,’ but saying, ‘I need this time off,’ or, you know, ‘I need this flexibility,’ and that has helped us alleviate some of that burnout by paying attention to the boundaries that you have power over.”

05:52 – “And that kind of support, you can’t buy that. You have to build it. So make it a point in 2026 to build some relationships, to make three new business friends that you’ve gone out to lunch with four times or something over the course of the year, to really get to know them and add them to your network.”

14:20 – “You’re not behind. You’re exactly where you need to be. Chin up. Keep going. You’ll make mistakes. Grit will get you through. Rest matters.”

Transcript

00:12
Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Work Mom Says, Don’t Be an Idiot. I am going to talk to you tonight about 2025—let’s wrap up this year—and then ways to ease into 2026. Because, let’s be real, we need to talk about 2025 before we can do anything with the future. It has been exhausting. If you’re out of a job, it’s been really difficult in the job market. If you have a job, you’re being expected to do more with less. You may have a coworker that got laid off, and you’re the one left standing, and you are expected to do both of those jobs, or at least take a big portion of that work without more money. Companies are keeping wages low, but prices and inflation are up, so it’s really hard, and things aren’t happening quickly. Matter of fact, they seem to be in a holding pattern.

01:16
There’s mixed news about the economy—in, you know, as of December 2025 when we’re recording this, it’s the 22nd right before Christmas—and a lot of us are really burned out. We’re working hard because, again, there’s job loss all around us, and we see our friends who have been disemployed and are struggling. So we feel burned out. There’s lots of pressure on us at work, there’s pressure on us at home, there’s pressure on us financially. It’s not been great.

01:49
However, there are some things that came out of this year for me personally, and most likely for you too, that you can use as a springboard for next year. One of the things that I learned is consistency beats hustle. We all think we’ve got to get up at, you know, 6 a.m. and get moving. And, you know, you see the TikTok videos of the guy that’s up at 4 a.m. and he’s out the door by 5:15, and he’s already worked out and, oh my God, just thinking about it makes me tired.

02:20
What I learned is that consistency is more important than anything else, and it’s a personal story, but I’ll share it because it’s just evidence of something that I didn’t really realize—with my ADHD personality—could make things so much easier. And that is: just be consistent. Do something three times a week. I hired a weight training coach in 2021—late 2021, I think—and started doing weight training two to three times a week, and eventually got that two or three days a week consistently. And I have lost a significant amount of weight. I haven’t really had to change how I’ve been eating, but I’ve just been showing up for myself for that little half-hour session three times a week, and then I have cardio in there too, but really just not even focusing on results at all; just focusing on showing up and doing it even when it was hard, even when I was so sore and I’m like, “I can’t do this today,” and I just do it anyway. I mean, I may have to take some Aleve when I go to bed at night because I’m sore, but the results are showing up.

03:29
And there was no rushing it. There was no burnout. I didn’t push myself so hard that I hurt myself or got myself into a situation where I didn’t want to do it anymore, because that can happen too. I was just consistent three times a week, and to me, three years later, looking back at that, I’m surprised at myself, because that type of consistent effort over an extended time period isn’t easy. It’s not easy for any of us. Things change. You might have kids, you might be pregnant, you might be retiring, you might be just out of college, and things are just really transient and changing.

04:11
But can you create one consistent habit? And that might be something to put a pin in and hold onto for the 2026 conversation. The other thing that I saw is boundaries are really important. I watched our team at the agency that I run set some boundaries, and it was fantastic. Not, you know, not asking, “Can I have time off?” but saying, “I need this time off,” or, “I need this flexibility,” and that has helped us alleviate some of that burnout by paying attention to the boundaries that you have power over.

04:49
I mean, you might not be able to be, like, super tight—I’m only nine to five, and I’m not going to work on these other kinds of projects. Certainly, you have to be flexible in the office, especially during times like this, but you can say that my weekend is mine. I need my weekend so that I don’t burn out, and so that I can bring my best self to work on Monday. And that is not a bad thing to say. So I learned that in 2025: boundaries are really important. And also, relationships—create some strong relationships with people that are in the business community, whether they’re friends, whether they’re coworkers, people that work in a different department that you don’t really engage with, but maybe you see each other in the kitchen and you’re like, “Hey, we hit it off.”

05:27
People that you meet at events, you know, association events and things like that—pay attention and develop some strong friendships. Because what happens is, if you’re in a business community together and you’re friends, and you talk regularly or go out to lunch regularly, you’re going to be able to support each other. And that kind of support—you can’t buy that. You have to build it. So make it a point in 2026 to build some relationships: to make three new business friends that you’ve gone out to lunch with four times or something over the course of the year, to really get to know them and add them to your network. As you do that consistently over time, you will find that you know so many people in your community that your career will inevitably elevate as a result. It’s just how it works.

06:21
Things that we don’t say out loud, that I want to make obvious on this podcast, because I think we’re all feeling it: it’s December 22, we’re all fried. We’re going to get through the year and hopefully see new things happening in 2026. There’s an opportunity there to do some things differently for ourselves and for people around us. We’re all experiencing money stress, so pay attention to your money. But if you’re feeling stress about it, guess what? So is everybody. You’re not alone, you’re not stupid, you’re not unable to manage it.

07:00
We are currently living in a society that is experiencing inflation, and there are profits coming out of every aspect of life and raising basic costs of living for Americans, for sure—and most of my audience, I know, is American. When you are experiencing anxiety about something that’s coming up and you don’t know why because you’ve prepared for it, you’re ready to go, but you still have that anxiety—know that that’s normal.

07:20
Confidence is not always consistent, and you don’t have to be 100% confident to perform. Just do what you got to do to get through and do the best you can in your office and on your job. If you feel a little anxiety, tell it thank you for sharing, put it aside, and keep moving. Anxiety shouldn’t rule you; you rule the anxiety. Don’t let it get too big. Don’t focus too hard on it, because anxiety is really common in today’s economy, in today’s workplace. It should alleviate; it usually does. These things go in cycles. We’ll get through it.

07:56
But you may want to look at your 2026 goals a little differently, because this year was a burnout year, and we can’t go through that again. You—as an individual—shouldn’t go through that again. So I’m trying to help you not do that.

08:11
I have a thing that I do every year at the end of the year to give me some inspiration and motivation and to affirm to myself that I am working hard, and I am having some success in a lot of different areas—I just don’t often acknowledge it. And so I will sit down with a pen and paper (I think it’s important you do it by hand), and I will write a list of 50 things that I have done over the course of the last year that I think were new, different, fun, positive, helped me move forward in some way or another, or just enjoy life more.

08:40
Some of the accomplishments I would put would be: consistent Peloton, consistent weight training, consistent water, eating lots of vegetables, getting all my health maintenance appointments taken care of, maintaining our employee roster and adding someone new, and doing some really great work for our clients. I mean, you can see how it can add up pretty quickly—a book that you read, an old friend that you reconnected with, a friend that was going through a difficult time that you supported. As you go down this list, you’ll go, “Wow, I really did a lot of cool things this year,” and it helps you start the new year on a really solid and positive, optimistic footing.

09:26
So I would encourage you to do that, and then just tuck it away. At the end of 2026, take a look at it—it’s a completely different list that you’ll write then—but it’s really fun to have the one from the year before to reference when you’re setting your 2026 goals.

09:50
I encourage people to pick a phrase. My phrase for 2025 was “This is my big money year,” and at the beginning of the year, I thought, “Yeah, I’m going to make a lot of money this year.” Well, okay, that didn’t quite work out. We’ve seen what the economy has done. We are in Metro Detroit, so we are being impacted by the tariffs, and I think everybody’s being impacted by things that are happening in financial markets, and it’s just really kind of wild right now. So we’re all feeling a little heavy, and we have worked really hard, and now we have to take some downtime. We have to really look at what we need to do to shore ourselves up during this difficult time, because we don’t know if 2026 will be better or not. We can decide to make it better for ourselves.

10:41
So I would say, pick a phrase that says something that you would like to see in this year. It doesn’t have to be specific; it can be kind of ambiguous, like mine: “This is my big money year.” I thought, “I’m going to make a lot of money.” Well, you know, it didn’t happen. So what happened instead was I learned a lot about money. I did a lot of workshops. I worked with a financial coach. I have a new accountant. I did things in that money space that helped me think bigger about money, understand it better, know when a resource I’m calling on is a good resource versus a not-so-good resource. As a business owner, sometimes the decisions you make with vendors can take you down the wrong path, and when that happens, you gotta back up and start over again. We’ve had to do that a couple of times. It’s not easy, but we’re enjoying it on a lot of levels. So we just keep pushing forward. So, things that we’re doing in 2026 to keep ourselves moving beyond that phrase—like, “This is my big money year,” “Everything always works out for me.”

11:53
A few examples of that mantra would be: “This is my big money year.” Obviously, I’m my biggest cheerleader. “I can do big things.” “I can appear on major stages.” “I can create a school of transformation.” Things that you can visualize, but maybe there’s some flexibility in what it really means. You repeat that to yourself on a regular basis: you put it on a piece of paper, on your whiteboard, maybe on your desktop, maybe on your screensaver on your phone so that you see it consistently and constantly, and it will help you stay focused on making the changes that it requires to actually embody that mantra. And trust me, it works in the most interesting ways. I learned so much about money this year, and that really wasn’t my intention at the beginning of it, but I think it’s what we needed to know in order to reach the next level. So there you have it: it’s my big money year.

12:49
So another question to ask yourself as you go into the new year—and maybe meditate on or write it up and put it somewhere so you can reference it—is: What would make 2026 feel lighter? Is that maybe giving up your nightly hour of doom scrolling, where you’re just scrolling and looking, you’ve seen all your friends’ content, you’ve connected with everybody there, you did that in the first five minutes, and then you kept scrolling for another 50 minutes. Maybe give that up—things that you can let go of. And trust me, I’m the biggest—I have the biggest problem with things like that, with doom scrolling; it’s just my nature. I’m a news junkie and I really have to moderate, and when I don’t, it’s a real energy suck.

13:32
So I am actually committing in 2026 to allowing an hour of quiet time every day, and that might not sound like much, but I am constantly ingesting news, listening to music, watching television, listening to radio talk shows or whatever, but I’ve constantly got something coming in, and so I need to commit to that quiet time because it will slow me down and make the year feel lighter.

14:06
So ask yourself, what would make you feel lighter going into 2026? I’m going to close out with a couple other recommendations and things to remember as we go into another year that could be chaotic. You’re not behind; you’re exactly where you need to be. Chin up. Keep going. You’ll make mistakes. Grit will get you through. Rest matters. If you have a weekend where all you do is just lie around or rot—as they say—in bed or on the sofa, that’s okay, because sometimes that is what you need. Sometimes you need to rest. So let’s make rest something that we elevate and do more of in 2026.

14:49
Work Mom is proud of you, so I will see you in 2026. Please get in touch with me if you are watching this on YouTube—I would love a subscribe. Hit the like button, share my content; I would love to reach a bigger audience with helpful information that helps you play the emotional contact sport of business so you can experience less drama and more success. I have a website at workmomsays.com, where you can get in touch with me. I am also an open networker on LinkedIn, so connect with me there—just let me know in your connection request that you’re a listener. Thanks again for joining me. I’ll see you in the new year.

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 58 – Still Standing: What 2025 Took, Taught, and Left Behind appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• The emotional stages of finding out you have ADHD as an adult, from relief to regret to acceptance.
• How ADHD symptoms show up beyond childhood hyperactivity—affecting focus, impulsivity, emotions, and even money habits.
• Why high-functioning, high-performing adults often go undiagnosed, and what unique challenges they face.
• Tools, resources, and everyday hacks for thriving with ADHD: therapy, coaching, medication, accountability partners, books, and digital supports.

Episode Highlights

Time-stamped inflection points from the show

00:12 – Lori & LJ Discover Their Adult ADHD: Lori opens up about receiving her ADHD diagnosis in her late 50s, while LJ shares her experience with childhood diagnosis and how both reframed years of quirks and self-judgment.

05:07 – Impact on Relationships & Emotions: They explore how ADHD affects relationships—especially emotional sensitivity, rejection dysphoria, and the untrue belief that ADHD is just for hyperactive kids.

15:00 – LJ’s Stages of Adult Diagnosis: LJ explains her “What the F*ck to Thriving” stages: relief, regret, anger, grief, and how acceptance leads to hope and practical change.

22:33 – Coping and Thriving Strategies: Real-life solutions such as therapy, coaching, medication, accountability buddies, and task-management hacks like using timers and tiny commitments.
34:47 – Finding Resources: Lori and LJ recommend helpful books (“ADHD for Dummies,” “CBT for Dummies”), the ADDitude Magazine, and tips for getting affordable support or self-help if therapy isn’t accessible.

Top Quotes

08:14 – “For the ADHD mind, non-preferred tasks feel like the end of the world. For us, it feels like you’re telling me to push a boulder up a mountain by myself.”

15:20 – “When you get that diagnosis, the first thing you feel is relief, because it’s like, you no longer have to carry the weight of how you spoke to yourself.”

20:49 – “ADHD, anxiety, and depression is like…you know they have the triple dipper at Chili’s? That’s what that is.”

29:37 – “Once you accept that’s not a flaw, it’s not a defect. Now you get to learn: I am this new person, and I’m learning all these new things about myself and my brain.”

41:04 – “If you are high functioning, high performing…there are a lot of really good books out there that you can kind of band-aid yourself up with.”

Transcript

00:12

LORI: Hello everybody. Welcome to this episode of Work Mom Says, Don’t Be an Idiot. I’m your host, Lori, and today we are going to talk about adulting with ADHD. It is hilarious when you discover that you’ve had ADHD your whole life, and you discover that as an adult. It changes everything you knew about yourself. It changes all the judgments you’ve made about how you behave and the quirky little issues that you have. I personally was diagnosed with ADHD in my late 50s, which is hilarious, because a lot of us with ADHD are very high functioning, but we can be labeled as distracted, disorganized, or just too much, and that happens a lot. So my guest today is LJ Gamble. I have known LJ for a few years, and I always laugh because we both have the initials LJ. She uses hers as her name, and I have them, but people call me that all the time. It’s so funny. It’s just a fun little, little quirky thing we have. 

LJ: LJ and LJ.

LORI: Yes, LJ and LJ. So, LJ… I’ve known LJ as a coach, but she is also a therapist, right? You have been a therapist? You’re trained? 

LJ: Oh, no, God, no.

LORI: Used to be.

LJ: I used, for a hot minute. Not anymore. 

LORI: Wasn’t your thing, huh? 

LJ: That didn’t last. 

LORI: So tell us what you do.

LJ: Yeah, for a hot minute. But now I do- I’m a life coach and YouTube content creator. 

LORI: So if you need guidance, right? 

LJ: Yes, yes! I call myself the Millennial Oprah.

LORI: I love it. 

LJ: That’s what I call myself. Yeah, coaching, guiding other Millennials trying to figure out this shit show that is life for us right now.

LORI: Yeah, it’s especially right now. It’s insanity. But we were talking about how we might collaborate on a podcast episode, last week, and we started talking about ADHD. So what is your connection to ADHD, LJ? 

LJ: My connection? Other than being a lifelong subscriber? 

LORI: Are you? I wish I knew lifelong. But when were you diagnosed? 

02:32

LJ: So I was first diagnosed when I was about nine years old. And then, this happens for a lot of people: we’re told that we grew out of it. So I would say I was only treated for ADHD for maybe a couple years, and then it was thought that I grew out of it, so I spent the rest of my life still with the symptoms of ADHD. The distractibility, having difficulty focusing, impulsivity, and being so… What’s the word? I had to say chaotic, but like that restlessness that you get when you have ADHD. And so because we thought that I had grew out of it,I thought those were just personality flaws, like just these personality traits that I had that I just needed to figure out a way to fix them, and fix myself. Not realizing, like so many people, “Holy shit, this was ADHD this whole time.”

LORI: Yeah, I get that. Because what I realized is I am either hyper-focused, avoiding everything, or have to be doing everything at the same time. Does that make sense? 

LJ: Oh my God, yes, yes. I talk to my therapist about that. I can watch a movie, and then I’ve got music playing, and then I’m also coLORIng, and then I’ll pause from coLORIng to start doing something with paint, and then I’ll get- start organizing stuff. But then, like, once I get up and see the paints, I see that I left this out from before, and now I got to organize it.  

LORI: Yep, yep. I get it. It’s so funny because you don’t really understand if you haven’t been diagnosed, or you think that you don’t have it because you grew out of it. I mean, the way it can show up is in ways that make you think you’re nuts. Or you’re just not organized and-

LJ. It makes you feel defective. 

LORI: Yeah, you’re, you know, in overwhelm. Some of the things that I as a business owner think is really funny is I am either really hyper focused or I just don’t want to do that thing over there. Or I’m bouncing around, and because I do social media, a lot of times, I’ll be bouncing on social, and I’ll go over to social media to put something up on a client’s account, and then 10 minutes later, I’m like, wait, what was I doing? And why am I… wait, what? And it’s just what happens. My brain, you’re just easily distractible. That’s part of it, right?

LJ : Yeah, that distractibility. Yes, yeah.

05:07

LORI: Now, how does it affect your relationships and communication, do you think?

LJ  Looking back at prior relationships and having the knowledge—what did they call it? Like foresight is the gift of hindsight? So looking back at past relationships, I can see how like my behavior in the relationships, because, you know, when you have ADHD, it’s also really common to have that rejection dysphoria,  

LORI: Oh, yeah. That’s huge. 

LJ: So being in a relationship and just thinking that, like I’m over emotional, or, again, you go back to, there’s something wrong with me. I’m defective, like, why am I not able to just be normal?

LORI: Yep, yep, I get that too. I know a lot of- in the relationships to me, it’s the sensitivity, what you just mentioned, that rejection sensitivity. People wouldn’t think that would fit in under ADHD, but it’s common. I wondered why I was like that. I’m like, why am I so sensitive? And then I got my ADHD diagnosis with my therapist, and then I started to figure out, oh, there’s a lot of things about ADHD that aren’t things that we traditionally think about. We think of hyperactivity, distraction, but you and I were talking about this earlier-

LJ: You think about kids that can’t sit down.  

LORI: Yeah, they can’t sit down.  

LJ: When you say ADHD, people think about kids that can’t sit down. 

LORI: Yep. But it’s actually as deep as affecting your money management even, 

LJ: Oh my God, yes.  

LORI: I wouldn’t think that was related. I wouldn’t.

LJ: Yeah, because you have to think that it’s a—I don’t want to say like a dysfunction—but the way your brain is wired, it is different. And you do learn differently. And so with money management as well, with having those distortions that you have with ADHD. Yes, it impacts that impulsivity or being hyper focused on something, and then you spend tons of money on it—whatever this new hobby was, or this new shiny thing that you need to have, and you know you’re going to dedicate yourself to it, and you spend the money on it, and then you lose interest in like, two weeks. 

And it’s so unfortunate, because then we say to ourselves, like, I’m bad with money. 

LORI: Yeah. Yeah, I say that all the time.

LJ: I take that on as a personality trait. Like, no, you’re not bad with money. Your brain just, unfortunately, wasn’t wired to understand it the best. It’s not a personality trait, it’s a skill, and if it’s a skill, that means you can learn it, you can master it, like a muscle.  

07:46

LORI: Right, right. And I have found that for some of us with ADHD, for me anyway, it seems like building healthy habits, creating rituals, which are things that they tell us to do to be healthy, high functioning humans are exceedingly difficult, right? To be consistent? I don’t know how to do that.

LJ: And you know what? It’s because, for the ADHD mind, non preferred tasks feel like the end of the world. Like, for some people, it might be like a minor annoyance or something they really don’t want to do, but whatever. For us, it feels like you’re telling me by myself to push a boulder up a mountain. It just seems like the worst thing in the world. There’s no way that I can do that. Please don’t make me do that. I can’t do it. And, yeah, no, that is so real.

LORI: It’s funny, my trick around that is I’ve convinced myself, if I can just do it for one minute, I can quit, and once I start doing it, because that’s the hardest part, I’m usually like, well, that wasn’t that bad. This isn’t that bad, and I kind of work my way into that task that needs to be done by convincing myself—self negotiation is a big part of it—convincing myself that it’s going to be okay. Just try for a minute, and that’s all you have to do. If it’s really bad, you don’t have to do any more. And when I start, then I’m usually good to go, right? 

LJ: Yes, as soon as you get started. The start is the hardest part. 

LORI: Yep, it is. So based on what you know about, ADHD, LJ, tell me a little bit about, like, what are the typical symptoms? Because I only know related to myself, like, what my symptoms were, you know, distractibility, the typical things.

09:42

LJ: I actually just went and like, got the book for you so I could just read it out, because not everyone has the same symptoms, and so some people- and not everyone experiences them the same either. And what I’m also seeing is there’s a lot of crossover with people being diagnosed with ADHD and autism spectrum disorder at the same time, like cooccurring. I’m seeing a lot of that, and that makes it sometimes that can make it difficult as well to kind of pick out what is coming from where. And it’s something that I’ve had to think about myself like, should I also, is this something that I need to, you know, be getting checked out or see about? But yet, no. So it’s just, it’s crazy how everyone experiences it differently. There’s, you know, the common symptoms that you need to have in the DSM-5 for a diagnosis. But I’ve it’s almost like the symptoms when you talk about them, it’s like you finally found someone who understands you, how your brain works, how your your actions… and all of that.

LORI: Yep, and I will say too, that if you have some of these behaviors, like easily distracted, have to do more than one thing at a time. I literally tell people I am physically incapable of doing one thing at a time. I mean, I’m doing that right now.

LJ: Distractibility, the focus. Even irritability, too.

LORI: And then we’re ashamed of ourselves because we think it’s a character flaw.

11:21

LJ: Yes, yeah. You just think that again, like, oh, I’m defective. This is just something that I think, this happens all the time, is we say, oh, that’s just something I’m not good at, or I’m not the type of person that can be good at that. And so we internalize it. And once you do, once you actually say that, whether you say it out loud or in your head, once you accept that as truth, then your brain accepts it as true. 

LORI: Yeah, yeah. 

LJ: So you have to challenge that. You can’t just say—and even as someone who’s fully aware, know about my diagnosis, all of this, I still have moments where I have to stop and say to myself, don’t say that. Don’t say that. You’re you’re taking this on as a personality trait. You’re internalizing this. Like I forgot to—earlier today—I had made cookies and I forgot to set the timer, and I was like, oh my God, you fucking idiot. You forgot to set the timer.

LORI: Been there done that. 

LJ: Yes! And even if we think it’s just like self deprecating, the subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference. It’s not—it doesn’t know the difference between you’re saying it seriously, which is usually, I mean, saying it jokingly, which usually has a little bit of truth in it. And so it’s about catching those little things like that and flipping them, you know, reinforcing them-not reinforcing opposite of reinforcing them, but like catching those little things.

LORI: Catching those times when you verbalize that negative thought about yourself, because I agree with you 150% what you say to yourself matters hugely. And if you’re shaming and blaming because you think you’re lazy or inconsistent or you know, I don’t have any discipline, I’m just this and that, you’re judging and you’re creating it. 

LJ: I have no discipline, that’s a really common one too. No self control. I’m just lazy. I can’t get that done. There’s something wrong with me. I’m just, I’m not the type of person that’s disciplined. And then you take that on as your identity. 

LORI: Oh, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done that. And then I finally got the diagnosis, and I went, oohhh. 

LJ: Relief.

LORI: Yeah, huge.  

LJ : Like, the first thing, that’s number one, is that relief. 

LORI: Now you have four stages of getting a late ADHD diagnosis as an adult, right?

LJ : So, I call it—this isn’t in like a DSM diagnostic journal or anything—but I am going to say it’s based off of my professional experience, I am willing to say that. But I call it the “from what the fuck to thriving”. And it’s like everyone goes through it’s kind of like the five stages of grief. It’s similar to that when you get that ADHD diagnosis as an adult. So the first thing you feel is exactly what you just said. Relief. The, like, wow, oh my God. It’s not me. It’s not just like, there’s this relief, because you had all of these negative thoughts about yourself, even if you tried to joke about it, there was still that hurdle of truth in it. So you had all these negative thoughts about yourself. And then finally, it’s like, you realize none of that’s true. And you’re relieved. You’re like, finally, there’s a name for it.

LORI: Yeah, and you can say, yeah, that’s just how my brain works. Yeah, oh my god, it’s a forgetfulness.

15:00

LJ : Yes. The forgetfulness, the impulsivity, struggling with focus, you start to, or thinking that you’re lazy, you’re like, oh my god. You look back and you can see, like throughout your life, how many times you actually did say to yourself, or situations where you had those kind of thoughts. And when you get that diagnosis, like, the first thing you feel is relief, because it’s like, you no longer have to carry that weight anymore. That weight that you had, of how you thought about yourself, how you spoke to yourself. Like, once you get that diagnosis, once you know that there’s a name for it, and then there’s treatment options, it’s like, it’s like a weight lifts off your chest, because you don’t have to carry that weight anymore. You don’t.

LORI: Yeah, it feels good. It feels so much better right away. But then what happens?

LJ : Then there’s that second step of regret. Even though you are like, oh my God, yes, I know what this is. Great. When you do look back at the points in your life where you can see where things were, like, really bad, you have that regret. Because you know you’re never going to get those moments back. You’re never going to get those relationships back. Depending on how bad it was, you’re never going to get that job back.

LORI: Right, absolutely.

LJ: And so you have this regret, because you know that there were lost opportunities, there was time loss, there may have been relationships, lost, missed opportunities, and struggles that you endured that actually really happened. And so you have that regret of it all, and you just look back. And a lot of times people blame themselves, like, why didn’t I notice sooner? Why didn’t I get a diagnosis sooner? And we blame ourselves. Finding a way to blame ourselves for when it’s not… But, yeah, you have that regret. 

LORI: And then what? What’s next?

17:05

LJ: So then you get kind of pissed the fuck off. So after that regret, because you spend that time wishing that you had a different path and a different life, and now you feel like you’re late to the game, and this shit is not fair because I didn’t oversleep and be late to the game. Like, no, I got in the car, and the car took me to the wrong place. Like, that’s what your ADHD brain did. And it feels so unfair. And you get pissed off, and you get angry, 

LORI: Yep. Oh my god, so true. 

LJ: Yes! And then you start thinking about how many times, like for myself—like again, I was diagnosed at nine, but only a couple of years, so I still was in school for a long ass time—how did nobody pick up on this? Especially a child that had the diagnosis before? How was that not picked up on—and so you get angry.

LORI: Yeah, it’s funny. I have to drop in here and add something.  You mentioned being nine years old, and one of my best indicators to me that I was ADHD as a child is when the therapist asked me, like, were you punished as a child a lot? Were you, you know, told to behave more than other kids? Were you constantly getting in trouble for talking? 

LJ: Yes.

LORI: There’s a story in my family of my fourth grade teacher calling my mother to school to for a council meeting, for a meeting, to tell her that I needed to stop bringing my Barbie dolls to school. Because I would play with my Barbie doll on my desk, you know, behind the person in front of me, thinking he couldn’t see. And reality was, he kept trying to catch me and catch me, not knowing the answer, and I’d know the answer. But he told my mother, LORI may be able to learn while she plays with her Barbie dolls, but I can’t teach while she plays with her Barbie dolls. 

LJ: Oh my God. Shitty teacher! 

LORI: And it’s a family story. 

LJ: Shitty teacher! 

LORI: He was, he was good, though he was. This was back in the 70s. 

LJ: I have to remember. I’m sorry, yeah, this is a lot. 

LORI: This was a long time ago! 

LJ: But no, what you said! Getting in trouble a lot in school. That was me getting in trouble a lot in school. That was me. And I think we had said this earlier, especially when you’re high functioning, that’s when it really gets missed. And so I know, like growing up, like in elementary school, I always would get the material, like, two, three weeks ahead, in advance, because I would just get the work done. But then at a certain point they like, well, we can’t just keep giving you new material, because you’re going to run out. So then I would just be in the classroom. Of course, I’m going to be distracted and have a hard time focusing, right?

LORI: And want to talk.

LJ: Yes, and get into trouble. But I think a lot of it was because I was so high functioning, I was always a straight A student, there was never, I guess, like, suspicion or, you know, like, oh, maybe she needs help with something. Because when you’re high functioning, that’s exactly what it is. You’re high performing as well. 

20:24

LORI: Right. And I think a lot of people with ADHD are high performers. We are high performers. We make our way around it. We build up, you know, crutches and support for ourselves. But I do think because of that, because of the struggle that it takes to be that high performing with ADHD traits. There’s a lot of anxiety. That’s common. 

LJ : Yes, there’s so much. ADHD, anxiety, and depression is like… you know how they have the triple dipper at Chili’s? That’s what that is. And we can throw Autism Spectrum Disorder in there as well for dessert. 

LORI: It’s like soup. 

LJ: The ADHD, depression, anxiety is like the triple dipper at Chili’s, like it all comes together on a platter. You get salsa, you get ranch, you get buffalo sauce. Like it’s all one package. 

LORI: And you got it all. 

LJ: Yes.

LOR: You got it all. 

LJ: But yeah, no, you’re right. 

LORI: It’s crazy. But let’s talk about, what does it look like to get help? There’s a ton of different things you can do. I always use a lot of digital tools. I use a lot of accountability groups and accountability pals. You and I were talking last week about being accountability buddies in videos on YouTube so that we’re sure that we do it. It’s like, if I have—if I’m doing it, because you’re expecting me to do it, it’s a lot easier for me to do it than if I’m just doing it for myself, right?

LJ: So I’m gonna be honest, and sometimes people love it, sometimes people hate it, I think the best thing to do, assuming that you have healthcare coverage, is going to see a therapist. I think that because so many of us are high functioning and high performing, we feel like we should be able to figure this out ourselves. We should be able to cure and medicate ourselves, not with like, actual medication, but with like, Coke. Actually, you know what, no. I’ve heard people, they do try to medicate ADHD with like marijuana and mushrooms. And I’m like, oh my Jesus, please talk to a therapist.

22:33

LORI: Yeah, I actually would, when I’m stressed out, I over medicate with caffeine. So would go into the office when I was younger (when I worked in an office, I don’t anymore),  I would line up the Red Bull, the Diet Mountain Dew and the coffee, and that would start my day. 

LJ: Oh my goodness.

LORI: Is caffeine a self medication for ADHD? It’s got to be right? 

LJ: I’ve never used it, but, oh, Jesus. I don’t think caffeine works on me, though. I always hear that caffeine is supposed to get you buzzed up and moving. That never happens to me when I drink caffeine, so I don’t know. That’s something we’re gonna have to find out.

LORI: Yeah, that was one of my things I do when I was really stressed out. So I have a feeling there’s a connection there. But therapy, coaching… Coaching is good, there’s ADHD coaches, right? 

LJ: Yes, there are. And I think what people what I always want to tell people the difference between therapy and coaching. So imagine a line. A zero is like a baseline neutral, we’ll say. Therapy takes you from out the negative to get you to a nice baseline, and then coaching picks up from there to add to it. And so what I worry about is people who probably should be in therapy going to see coaches. And because these coaches do not have the training of a therapist, is they don’t recognize it, or they just say they can handle it. So I would say, and a lot of people I know who see ADHD coaches, they have a therapist, they all of that so, but I would just say that’s the only thing I would—if you are if you do have ADHD, especially if you suspect that you haven’t had an official diagnosis—I would recommend maybe checking with a therapist first before a coach, because coaching is an unregulated field. Despite people saying, I have a certification from this place, and I can give you a certification life coaching is an unregulated field. Anybody can say that they are a coach, and there’s no regulating body that’s going to check them, that’s going to do any type of training, nothing like that, which I know that probably you guys are probably like, why the hell are you a coach, than? 

LORI: Because you know your lane and you were a therapist, right?

LJ: Yeah. So I do, I actually have the training and the experience and the knowledge. But what I found was that I liked coaching because with therapy, it’s treating the mental illness. And again, coaching is kind of, once you’ve got that under control and manage, helping you go to the next level. Like you’re past the baseline, you’re ready to go forward. And so that’s what I really love doing with people. That’s why I love that Yes. So that’s why I decided to do coaching instead of therapy, because I love—and let’s just first of all, shout out to all mental health care workers, especially right now. Shout out to all of them. So much love and respect. Yes, yes, yes. You guys are doing the hard work. Yes. That I know I do not want to do again.

25:48

LORI: Hey, we know what works. You have to know what works for you, right?

LJ: First was relief. You’re like, oh my god, yes, oh shit, it’s not just me. Then you have that regret of everything you missed out on, and then after that regret, you’re angry, and then that anger, that’s when it turns to grief. And that’s when you’re actually having this heart broken—that’s the best way to think about it. Regret is more like, why didn’t I know about this sooner? Whereas grief is when you’re actually allowing yourself to process those emotions. It’s like the regret is when you kind of notice it, but then when you get to the grieving part, that’s when you feel it and allowing yourself, and that’s the thing you have to. Because I don’t know anyone, especially people who are diagnosed late in life, who don’t have a relationship, an opportunity, something that was missed because the ADHD diagnosis that was missed. And so allowing yourself to truly grieve the loss, and allowing yourself to grieve for the version of yourself that—and like you said, kind of you had said earlier that it almost feels like you’re a completely different person—and yeah, that’s the thing you were that person for. However, for you, it was 55 years. You were that person for 55 years, and now that you’ve got this diagnosis and everything makes sense, you’re saying, bye to the LORI Jo of the last 55 years, because now that you know you’re not her anymore, and you can look back and actually see where, like, again, like foresight is the gift of hindsight. You’re able to look back and just see all of those things, and you need to grieve that, because you’re not that person anymore. And what does that look like. 

LORI: Right. I’m sure it was lots and lots of tears for me. It was lots and lots and lots of tears. Yeah. I worked through all that stuff. I didn’t give up my therapist for about nine months, 10 months after I got my diagnosis, because I had to process it. 

28:01

LJ: Yes. Yes. And finally you feel hope, and that’s after you allow yourself to really, truly process everything and not try to run from it and feel your feelings and cry, go to therapy. For me, medication has been amazing for the triple dipper platter. I can think about my life before I was taking medication and my life after. And it’s again, it’s two different lives. It’s two different people. But then once you’re able to come to terms with that, you start to feel so—you start to accept your ADHD, and you find new ways to work with your brain. Like what you were saying, accountability buddies. What I do is—  you were saying that earlier before, like, if I could just do it for one minute, that I know I can do it. I’m like, you can suffer through just about anything for 15 minutes. So what I’ll do is I’ll put on a timer for 15 minutes, and I’ll say, just do this one thing for 15 minutes, and then you can do something else. And so you start seeing—especially if you’re in therapy or even if you’re doing there’s a lot of really good self help books out there as well—you start seeing ways that you can, and I want to be careful how I word this, not ways to fix yourself… But you learn that because your wiring is different, you require things that are different. And once you accept it like, oh, that’s not like a flaw, that’s not a defect, then you’re like, o h, I get to learn I am this new person, and I’m learning all these new things about myself and my brain, and I’m also learning that. How to work with my brain too. 

LORI: Instead of against it? 

LJ: Then you start to feel hopeful. 

LORI: Yeah. Huge, huge hope. Well,  I want to go revisit real quick what you said earlier about medication, because, again, I am not a doctor. I am not practicing medicine. I’m not practicing therapy. I’m not licensed. None of that. However. I take Adderall.

LJ: Me too! 

LORI: What noticed, is that when I when I’m not on Adderall, I could draw a picture of myself, and there are 11 billion arrows coming at my head. All the different possible things I could be thinking about doing, worrying about concern—it’s like arrows coming at me. And then I take my Adderall, and I give it a half hour, and, oh, there’s only three or four arrows. I can control which one I grab and take a hold of, instead of always feeling like overwhelmed by thoughts and ideas and and, you know, worries and concerns like to where it’s just a mush. Sometimes I would get to where I felt like my brain is just mush right now, because there’s so much going on. And when I take my Adderall, it’s like the angels sing and the choir sings, and the  lights shine and, oh my gosh, I have clarity. Do you feel that way?

LJ: Yes, the Adderall, there’s a clear difference between me when I remember—and I usually do remember to take it in the morning—but there is a clear difference in my ability to focus, stay on track when I take my Adderall and when I don’t. And what I also notice is that  when I was originally only dealing with the depression and anxiety, when we started treating the ADHD, the depression and anxiety symptoms declined significantly.

LORI: Nice, really, nice. That’s amazing. 

LJ: And I could say, like, if I had to pick which one is the one that I feel like may make my life the hardest, which one exacerbated the other ones, I would say it was the ADHD and getting that under control helped get everything else under control.

LORI: It does. Yeah, it really does. It really does. I think it helps you with your sensitivity. I think it helps you  with anxiety. I mean, I literally have less anxiety now than I’ve ever had. I lived with a kind of a low hum of anxiety, and I don’t have that anymore, now that I’m medicated and I can accept myself and how I think and not be so judgy, it’s just easier. Everything is easier. 

32:38

So let’s talk about if you are undiagnosed, if you think you might be undiagnosed ADHD, or even if you never gave it a thought, what red flags should people look for?

LJ: Oh no, not red flags, don’t call them red flag. 

LORI: What would you call them? 

LJ: What would I call them? So we’re talking about what should you look for if you think you might have ADHD? First of all, if you’re thinking you have ADHD, you probably have already looked up several books and know what the symptoms are. You’re like, yup, you’re making the connection. But I think what is kind of a—not to not answer the question—but I think what’s a bigger concern is that why there are so many people that are undiagnosed. Because of that lack of health care coverage. I feel like that piece is even more important. That’s why we have so many people who don’t have an official diagnosis and aren’t able to get help because of the lack of health care and mental health care. 

LORI: Cause the test is really expensive, right? Test for it? I mean, I didn’t get a formal test. Did you get a formal test? 

LJ: I did, yes. 

LORI: Yeah. I have a psychiatrist I see, and he said, we could put you through this test, and it’s like $1,200 which, again, how many of us have that? 

LJ: Yeah, several hours. 

LORI: And he said, but knowing you like I know you and you’re seeing someone who is a therapist who is specialized in ADHD—because there are therapists who specialize, which I think is really good recommendation—he said, I’m very confident you have it. And I was like, great. And so he’s prescribed the Adderall, because you do need a doctor to prescribe the Adderall that you need. If it’s something that you want to try. 

LJ: Yeah it can’t be like a counselor or like an MSW, or nothing. You need somebody with a medical degree. 

LORI: Yeah, even then I would say a specialist, right? Somebody who knows about it. 

LJ: Yes, you know what? Because, honestly, my primary care physician refused to prescribe me Adderall and made me go to a psychiatrist. So, yeah.

34:47

LORI: Yeah, yeah. Smart, really smart. So I think if you, if you think you have it, if you can afford therapy, that’s the place to go. If you can’t afford therapy…

LJ: I wish I could think of all the books that would be good. 

LORI: There are some great books and great podcasts too. I spent some time listening to some podcasts. Was amazingly helpful.

LJ: You’re gonna laugh, but the ADHD for dummies book is fantastic, fantastic. I think that the biggest thing, if you suspected you—even if, just in general, I think this is good advice—don’t be hard on yourself. Don’t say these negative things to yourself, and take on these negative labels, as if it’s an identity. Regardless of whether or not you’re able to get an ADHD diagnosis, because I’m pretty confident saying the problem is not that you’re lazy. The problem is not that you’re defective or there’s something wrong with you or you’re broken. The problem is probably—and I didn’t even call it a problem—because I don’t want to say that you know, our brains being different as… it’s a problem for everybody else.

LORI: I get that. Well, and it also, there’s some some strength there too, I think. There’s some positives to it, who we are, right? Who we are as people. 

LJ: I was just messaging about this, that like, when there’s a long weekend off, like, how we just have Black Friday and Thanksgiving, I will get like 20 projects done in 15 minute increments. It is insane. That is the ADHD brain right there. Like 20 different projects will get done over the course of, I spent 15 minutes cleaning up this, and then I spent 15 minutes organizing this, and then I spent 15 minutes doing that, but just know that I’m going to get, like, four weeks worth of work done in those little 15 minute increments. Yes, in three days, in 15 minute increments, I’m going to get four weeks worth of stuff done. Who else can do that? We can do that! 

LORI: Exactly, exactly. So it can be a superpower. And I would suggest if you’re not sure, or you’re in between health plans, which I know a lot of us are, to look at the ADHD workbooks, listen to the podcasts, if you can, get to a therapist. Right? 

LJ: Oh! There’s a site. ADDitude! I believe it’s called ADDitude. I used to be on there a lot. They have articles. They have free webinars. If you sign up for their webinar and you can’t attend, they’ll send you the recording for free. They’ve got books. They’ve got manuals. I’ve actually bought three of them.

LORI: This is the site, wow. It’s called attitude. It’s ADDitudemag.com. There’s parenting, adults. There’s a directory for professionals. There’s symptom checkers, symptom tools, ADHD 101, oh what a gold mine.

LJ: Oh, my God, yes. Please, please, please. And again, free webinars. They talk about the impact of music on the ADHD brain, just all kinds of niche things that you’re like… They’ll have a webinar, and I’ll be like, how did they know I was going through that? How did they know I was thinking that way? Like it’s an amazing resource. And if you see a webinar, even if you can’t attend, sign up for it and they send you the replay. They’ll email it to you. Positive psychology.com. Has been a good resource as well.

LORI: I mean, the podcasts are amazing too. There’s so much resources, there’s so much about there. 

LJ: I haven’t had a chance to get into podcast. I think I’m like, so behind. I feel like everyone has one.

LORI: If you go out and just put ADHD in your favorite podcast platform, you’ll see a ton of them. Take a listen to three or four of them and find one that works for you, and it’ll help you feel normal. And I don’t mean normal is a good thing, because sometimes it’s not, but it’ll help you feel—to me, I always felt so weird, like I was just weird. I did do things differently, and I’m odd and unique. And you know, of course. I made that not necessarily a good thing, right? But in reality, if you are on the ADHD spectrum, I could call it, it’s okay. It’s totally okay. 

If you are someone who thinks you have adult ADHD, it is common and it is manageable, and you can get answers. And I think we’ve given you a ton of different resources, right? 

LJ: Yes. 

LORI: And don’t ignore the patterns that trip you up. Get curious if something resonates with you and you think you should, you know, go get some therapy or some medication. Keep going in that direction and see what happens, because even small changes can make a huge difference in how you function, right?

39:54

LJ: Yes, and again, you’re gonna judge me for this, but let’s say you can’t even find a therapist that’s sliding scale, honestly, the ADHD for dummies and the CBT, that’s cognitive behavioral therapy for dummies. Those are incredible. The first of all, shout out to the whole four dummies, cast. All of their books are amazing. I own no less than 60 of them. That’s not an exaggeration. That’s probably an underestimation. But the CBT one, cognitive behavior therapy, it tells you about your—so with ADHD, you have those executive functioning skills that are, I don’t want to say impaired—but what it does is that helps you with those thoughts that you have, and being able to recognize them, stop them in their tracks, and reverse them. Again, like I know that there are so many people who probably, who don’t have healthcare coverage, who this isn’t even something they’d be able to afford. If you are high functioning, high performing, there are a lot of really good books out there that you can get and kind of band-aid yourself up for it. 

LORI: So okay. LJ, where can people reach you and see what you’re up to and follow your work?

LJ: So, ah, it’s a Facebook. Well, I do have my Facebook, business page LJ the Coach. I don’t spend a ton of time on there. I would rather you check out the YouTube channel, because that’s where you’re going to get the real value. You’re going to get my coaching videos for free, and not just ADHD, but again,that triple Dipper platter, ADHD, anxiety, depression. I also talk about recovery, overcoming childhood trauma and complex PTSD. That’s something that’s really important to me, so I talked about that as well. And I’m very eclectic. I do tarot, I read astrology. I just I’m ADHD. That’s why you’re watching this. Is because we’re so fucking eclectic, and we do like 13 different things that seem contradictory, but we make that shit, we blend it in a pie, we make it work. So yes, if you’re, I think you know, if you’re my people, definitely. It’s called the empowered as fuck channel. There’s somebody, somebody else stole that name. It’s a guy. Clearly, it’s 

a white guy. So if you put it in power as fuck, and you don’t see a black woman, clearly, that’s not me. Also try LJ the Coach, and then check me out on threads too, LJ the Coach. 

42:39

LORI: Love it. Love it, love it, love it. Okay, thank you so much for joining me, LJ, I really, really appreciated you sharing all your thoughts, and I think we could probably go on for an hour and a half at least. Because there’s so much to talk about. So I really appreciate you for being here with us and sharing your things, and we will have you back. For sure. I think we should do a CPTSD episode. I really do. There’s so many. Of us that suffer. 

But in the meantime, if you are watching this on YouTube, please do me a favor, subscribe to the channel, like the video, and if you know someone who has been talking about maybe they’re ADHD and they’re looking for resources. Turn them on to this episode, send it to them. It could be helpful to them figuring out what path they want to go on to work better with their brains wiring, because that’s really what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about diagnosing yourself with a disorder that you know, oh, it’s going to change your life forever because you won’t have that disorder anymore. We’re just talking about the things that you can do to work better with your current wiring, not work against it, but work with it. And that’s what’s really going to help you be successful and more than that, happy, because that’s part of what I think we should all have, some of that joy and peace and, you know, happiness that is part of being human. So yep, that’s it. So thank you again, LJ, and we will be back soon with another episode of Work Mom Says, Don’t Be An Idiot, where we help you learn to play the emotional contact sport of business, and we also share life tips, things like that, things that can help you be more successful. So thank you so much. We’ll see you again 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 57 – Adulting with ADHD appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• Grit as perseverance and passion—not just toughness
• The power of purpose (“know your why”) for fueling perseverance
• Consistency: building habits and showing up even when you don’t feel like it
• Resilience: learning and bouncing back from failure
• How a growth mindset helps you turn setbacks into personal progress

Episode Highlights

Time-stamped inflection points from the show

00:12 – Lori defines grit as key for entrepreneurs and career success, explaining it’s more than just being tough.

01:52 – Lori shares a personal low point and reflects on how grit kept her moving forward despite tough times and temptation to quit.

04:41 – Explains the importance of knowing your purpose and future self as a first step in building grit.

05:17 – Shares her experience with showing up consistently—how hiring a trainer and sticking to a workout schedule developed lasting habits.

07:26 – Discusses resilience and growth mindset: how failing, recovering, and learning from mistakes are critical for building grit.

Top Quotes

02:51 – “Grit is what happens when commitment lasts longer than motivation. Motivation is fun, but motivation wears off. Grit is that part of you that doesn’t stop, and even when things get hard, you keep going.”

04:17 – “So one of the things that they say right off the bat to develop grit and stick-to-itiveness is to know your ‘why.’ Purpose fuels perseverance.”

05:30 – “You can’t binge grit. You can build it through boring reps, that’s what I would say.”

15:15 – “Developing grit is not glamorous. It’s sweaty, it’s lonely, it’s unfiltered, but I personally believe it is the foundation for every great success story.”

Transcript

00:12
Hello everyone, 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 how to develop grit even when you’re really tired of trying. We were on a call the other day with a bunch of entrepreneurs, and what came up was grit as being something that’s really, really important if you’re going to have your own business. I would say it’s also really, really important to career success. And it’s not about being tough. I mean, people think grit—they think of the old westerns and, you know, you’ve got to be tough. And that’s not what it is.

00:57
What it is—is when you are willing to keep going even when things are really difficult, even when your motivation is just kaput and nobody’s paying any attention to what you’re doing. And I feel like I’ve had an opportunity to seriously develop some grit with this digital marketing shop that we own. My husband and I run it, and I was going through a period of time where it just felt really, really hard. Now, we’re bootstrapping. We do not have oodles of money sitting in the bank account letting us lose money on this business, or letting us just kind of play with this business. This business pays our bills, and that means that you have to keep going, even when you don’t feel like it. And most business owners, you know, especially in the early stages, that’s what’s simply true for us. And so there are times when you just want to quit.

01:52
I mean, I was having a really bad day. One day a client was acting up, and another client had to get fired from our client roster. It was just a really rough week, and I told my husband, “Honey, I’m going to go get a job at Target. I just think it would be so much easier to deal with the general public than it would be these business-to-business marketers,” because it is hard. And it was a thought, it wasn’t an action. I didn’t say, “I quit. I’m going to go work at Target.” I said, “Yeah, that’s an interesting thought.” But what actually is grit? It’s a combination of perseverance and passion. And I’ll say, grit—there’s research. A woman named Angela Duckworth did some research that shows grit predicts success better than talent. And it’s not about being fearless, it’s not about being angry. It’s about staying in the game when you’re scared or you’re discouraged. Grit is what happens when commitment lasts longer than motivation. Motivation is fun, but motivation wears off. Grit is that part of you that doesn’t stop, and even when things get hard, you keep going. Because honestly, what other way are you going to be successful?

03:12
I have seen a couple business people over the last few years who had significant amounts of money. Both of these business owners—or, you know, people with businesses—are wealthy, and when things start to get tough, they veer because they can. I also would say they veer because they don’t know any better. If you are in a position where you need to work hard for your money, that’s a way to develop grit. That’s how grit comes into being naturally for some of us. But there are ways that you can develop it, even if you don’t think you have it—if it’s easier for you to quit than it is to stick through something. A couple things I can suggest to help you build some grit, to help you make your career soar: If you give up all the time, your career is not going to soar. Period. That’s just what it is. Your life isn’t going to soar if you give up whenever it gets hard. So one of the things that they say right off the bat to develop grit and stick-to-itiveness is to know your “why.” Purpose fuels perseverance. So when things look tough—I know that I have a lot of goals out there that I still want to reach, and if I quit, they aren’t going to happen. They’re just not going to happen.

04:41
So number one is: figure out what your purpose is. Figure out what you really, really want. I would recommend that you look up Benjamin Hardy. He’s an author. He does work on future self that will help you figure out what your purpose is. And once you have that purpose, everything else leading to it gets easier. He’s a really huge proponent of your future self—visualizing who you want to be, feeling what that is, and then pulling yourself toward it. So if you’re interested in learning what your purpose is, I would suggest you look up some Benjamin Hardy. Great guy.

05:17
Number two, consistency. If you show up daily, repeatedly, over and over, you will do better than someone who just lets things kind of fly out the window. For example, you can’t binge grit. You can build it through boring reps, that’s what I would say. And one of the things that can be difficult if you have a purpose—or one of many purposes, because we all have more than one. One of my purposes was to get more muscular, to develop my strength as I got older. I want to make sure that I’m strong, that I’m not allowing my muscles to atrophy. And muscle is so much better for you than fat. If you have more muscle, your body burns more insulin and burns more sugar, and you end up with more stable levels of blood sugar. And there’s a lot of other reasons to lift, and that’s what I’ve been trying to do, or was trying to do, for a while, and I was having a really hard time showing up. Showing up can be difficult. Showing up consistently is hard.

06:25
So what I did was I ended up hiring a trainer, and I met with her every Friday morning. She’d put together a custom workout for me, we would do the workout together on Friday, and then I would do it two more times through the rest of the—you know, the remaining seven days of that week. And what happened was, over time, I realized I didn’t really need to work out with her three times a week, four times a week. Knowing that she was creating these workouts for me, it was expected of me that I would be doing them, I didn’t want to disappoint her. I developed grit around working out. Now, if I don’t work out—it’s been, like, two and a half years—if I don’t work out for a day, I feel a little weird. So I have shown up consistently, and it has helped me build that steady habit and a better physical body that’s going to be better at doing all the things I want to do, and keep me healthy and strong. So that’s another thing that you can do. Number two, consistency—show up daily.

07:26
Number three is resilience. How do you recover when things get hard? We all fail. I have failed miserably. I have missed meetings—maybe for some reason it didn’t make it into my calendar—missed meetings and then missed an opportunity because I missed that meeting. How do you recover from that? Now, what I personally do is, I’ve been in business for so long that I understand that failure happens, and no one is judging you as harshly as you are judging yourself when it happens. That’s the thing that most of us don’t know. Redefine failure as something that you can get through, and that happens not infrequently. Most of us fail. Most of us try to run away from failing or try to hide failure, but failure is a really great way to learn. If you are trying to learn French, you’re going to learn a lot more making the mistakes in Paris trying to speak the language than you are on Duolingo, where it doesn’t matter if you make mistakes and nobody notices. So redefine failure as another way to build your grit.

08:36
Number four, growth mindset. Before you can improve, you have to own that you have some things to learn, and believe that you can improve—believe that you can learn. If you try something and it doesn’t work, if you try something for six months and it doesn’t work, if you try something for a year and it doesn’t work, you have learned so much from that year of failure in doing what it is you want to do. Give you another example: I want to learn how to play the violin. I am scared to death I’m going to sound so horrible. I’m not going to like it. I have a violin I bought 10 years ago sitting in the closet. I’ve got to get it out and fail and know that I can improve. Having a growth mindset is a really great way to grow your grit. So moving along, what does grit look like in real life? Grit in real life looks like a business partnership failing. I had a business partnership for probably 10 or 12 years, and it just kept failing. No matter what we did, we just couldn’t get traction underneath us to get regular business coming in, and it was a customer service training based on a book we wrote back in 2006 called Who’s Your Gladys: How to Turn Even the Most Difficult Customer into Your Biggest Fan.

10:03
Well, we all know what happened in 2008—recession. Nobody was spending money on customer service training, but we kept beating that dead horse, just beating on it, and eventually I had to own that it was a failure. I read a quote one day in a book that said, “If you find yourself riding a dead horse, the first thing you should do is dismount.” And it was so telling. It was like, wow, okay, I’m riding this dead horse, I keep trying so hard, it’s failing, I need to start over again. And that was about the time when I lost my day job, which—I had a day job and a customer service attempt at a business—and the day job laid me off, so I had a failed business and I got laid off, and I went, “What do I do?” I really had no choice but to start PopSpeed Digital Marketing with my husband and gear that up and do whatever I could to make a business out of that. And fortunately for me, it did work out. We’re hitting eight years in February—a lot of small businesses don’t make it past five, so that feels really good.

11:15
And the other thing about it is, I think every person that has grit that I know has a relationship with a serious failure, and they’re not afraid of it. They’re okay with failure, they know that failure happens and it makes you stronger. It really is true—what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And so all those things that happen during your career, all the mistakes you make, ladder up to you being able to handle more disappointment, to be able to be more resilient, to have more success. So how can you build a grit plan? How can you become one of those people that just never gives up? Because I’ll tell you, being one of those people that never gives up—I can tell you, you will get a lot of things you want. If you are tenacious, you hang on and you keep going toward what it is you want.

12:07
So I’ll give you a quick takeaway: Pick one goal that matters deeply to you and commit to showing up for it every single day for 30 days, even if it’s only 10 minutes, and then at the end of that 30 days, journal about what you learned. And I’ll tell you—one of the things that, I mean, this is a great piece of advice—I use it myself, I forget where I got it, but when I got my Peloton bike back in 2018, I really wanted to develop a habit, and that can be difficult when you’re a busy person. And, you know, it’s not real pleasant to work out hard for me, anyway. I like the feeling I get afterwards, but whenever I have

something like that coming up, I will make a challenge with myself to follow it, do it every day for 30 days, even if that seems unreasonable, because by doing that, within 30 days, by the time that’s over, you’re like, “This is just something I do,” and then you can dial it back a little bit and maybe just, you know, like—I started riding the Peloton three to four times a week. Great! Works for me, does a great job, helps me keep my weight down, keeps my cardio health strong, and it’s one of those things that you can reward yourself with something too. I think—I know this was 20 years ago—but I was really trying to get into another workout habit. I use it for workouts a lot. I was trying to develop an early morning weight training habit, and so I had seen this really cute little watch, one of the little tiny face watches, and I really wanted it. But I went, “Wait a minute, let me tie that reward to this 30-day exercise plan.” And if I make it the 30 days—no mistakes, no, you know, no mistakes—I would get myself that watch. And I did, and it really helped, and I think it kind of set me up for a lifetime of working out more frequently. Then I had to kind of figure out what specific workouts worked for me.

14:04
But there are really great ways that you can develop your own persistence—your grit plan. So I would encourage you to give some thought to that, because it really does make a difference in who you are. And when you become the person that never gives up, it changes how other people look at you. They go, “I’m going to call Lori, because Lori will not give up. If they put barriers in front of her, she will keep knocking those barriers down.”

14:30
I’ll give you one more example. I’m working with a political candidate right now, and in order to advertise on Meta for political causes, you have to jump through some serious hoops. I had to send a picture of the front and back of my driver’s license. I had to mail that in and then answer a bunch of questions about—kind of like a credit report: What streets did you live on? Do you know these people? What kind of car did you drive? And they say that wasn’t enough. I actually had to go to a notary public, have her identify me and sign a specific agreement for Meta, and then make a PDF of that and turn it in. It took three weeks, and it was constant—going back to Meta and, “Okay, what do they need now? What do they need now? What do they need now?” Well, guess what? That was, you know, three weeks ago we started the effort, and now we’re advertising political ads on Meta. And she—even the client—even said, “Oh my God, Lori, I know none of the other candidates are going through this because that’s ridiculous—it’s for a little tiny small town, you know, where maybe 600 people live there.” So it was just really interesting, and it’s an example of how grit will help people think about you differently, in a way that will contribute to your success.

15:55
So developing grit is not glamorous. It’s sweaty, it’s lonely, it’s unfiltered, but I personally believe it is the foundation for every great success story. You don’t have to be born with it—you can build it one choice at a time. And I would encourage you to get started on that journey and actually share this episode with someone who’s in the middle of something hard right now, because continuing to go forward, to take that next step, over and over again, is what will get you through those challenging times. So that’s what I’ve got for you today. Again, I’m Lori Jo Vest, this is the Work Mom Says podcast. I have a website at workmomsays.com. I would love to hear from you if this is the first time you’ve heard one of my episodes. I’ve got a whole catalog on most of the podcast platforms, as well as on my website. So I would love to hear from you. I’m also an open networker on LinkedIn, so just connect with me there and let me know that you listened to the podcast. And I am also on YouTube—if you are watching this on YouTube, do me a favor: subscribe, hit that like button, leave me a comment. I’m really trying to grow my audience there as well. So thank you so much for joining me today. I will see you again 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 56 – How to Grow Your Grit (Even When You’re Tired of Trying) appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• How to shift your mindset and reframe the parts of your job that bother you
• Strategies for managing frustration and finding things to appreciate, even in tough environments
• Identifying when a job is beyond saving and how to build your exit strategy
• Using gratitude, skill-building, and small wins to turn a bad job into a stepping stone
• The importance of documenting your progress, celebrating accomplishments, and planning your next move

Episode Highlights

Time-stamped inflection points from the show

01:42 – Lori shares a real-life “I hate my job” story and what she did for relief and perspective

04:45 – Discovering that you have control over your mindset, even when you can’t control co-workers or a boss

06:13 – Identifying the true source of your job misery, weighing negatives against positives, and focusing on what you can control

07:31 – Lori’s “three thing gratitude list” as a simple trick for feeling better fast, even at work

10:43 – The “paycheck plus progress” approach, documenting your wins and using your current job as a bridge to something better

Top Quotes

04:47 – “No matter what happens, you have control of your mindset and you have control of what you choose to see.”

05:43 – “You are not stuck. If you’re in a really icky job right now, you are not stuck. Small changes in how you look at things can make a huge difference.”

08:24 – “You don’t have to love your job, but you can find things about your job, your co-workers, and your environment, your paycheck, that you like.”

13:01 – “Reframe, turn your focus toward the things that you love and minimize the things that you hate. Are they really that important? Or can you let them go and then use where you are to get where you’re going?”

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. Today we are going to talk about how to love the job you hate. Now, that sounds crazy, right, but what I have to say is there are moments when you will hate your job, and even jobs that I liked, there have been moments when I hate them. So sometimes you may outgrow your job. You may get a new boss that is just not a good fit. Have a new co-worker that makes you miserable. Sometimes you really don’t want to be there, and quitting isn’t an option. And when that happens, maybe you, you know, could start looking for a job, but you can’t just quit. You’ve got to stay and if you hate it, your performance will suffer, and actually your attitude will suffer, your entire experience, your joy will suffer. So you don’t want to keep hating that job when you could actually figure out ways that you can get through it without too much drama.

01:20
So in this episode, we’re going to talk about some strategies you can use to shift your mindset, reframe what you see at your current job, and turn that kind of job into an experience that is good for you, that helps you build your skills. And I know it sounds crazy, but it’s it’s true, it can be done.

01:42
And I’ll tell you a story. I had a position with a great big production studio in Metro Detroit, back in the oh gosh, it was 95 to 2000 and it was a really pretty big company for the industry that we were in. There were about 200 people. And there were some people that you know were really not going to stand up to the CEO no matter what. They weren’t going to stand up to him. So he would tell them to do things that they didn’t want to do, or add something to their plate that they didn’t want, you know, to have under their purview. And they would get mad, but they wouldn’t go to him with it, they would fight with each other.

02:23
And one day, I was in the range of fire of a guy that led the production department. It was a production studio, and he had been told by the boss that, you know, his guys weren’t going out in the field shooting. So since they weren’t, they were going to be paid, but they weren’t actually out in the field. They should help clean up the studio for a big party that was coming up in about three weeks. Well, I was in the marketing department, so it was our party. So that production director called me up one day, and he had just talked to the boss, and he was furious, and he just read me the riot act. What do you want me to do? These guys are pissed, they work their asses off and and now the one day where they could go a little easier, he’s got them out here painting and, you know, scraping paint and doing all these really horrible things that they don’t want to do when they’re really mad. What am I going to do about that?

03:19
And now, by the time he asked me that question, he’d been going on for about 10 minutes, and I was just listening, and I was close to tears. Now this was 20 years ago, so that tells you something, right? No, it was 30 years ago. I was close to tears, and I just said, I don’t know. I don’t know, Dan, I have no idea, but I’m going to go now. And I hung up my phone, and I picked up my purse, and I left my office, and my assistant saw me on the way out, and said, you know, are you coming back? And I said, I really don’t know. I’m having a really difficult time right now. I’m just going to go take a break, and I’ll call you later.

03:53
And I headed off to the bookstore, and I found a book. I mean, the bookstore was a great place to escape. It still is. Unfortunately, there just aren’t as many of them as there used to be. So I went off to the bookstore to escape, and I found, you know, in the career section, I was specifically looking for what to do when you hate your job. And I found a book I can’t recall the title. I mean, it’s been a long time now, but it was something to the tune of how to love the job you hate. And when I started reading it, I sat in the bookstore, and I just, you know, got a coffee and sat down and started reading this book, and it gave me such great information and insight that allowed me to go back to the office within an hour with a whole new attitude.

04:45
And here’s why, no matter what happens, you have control of your mindset and you have control of what you choose to see and what I was doing at that point when the production guy had me on the phone was I was feeling really attacked, but the reality was he wasn’t attacking me. If he could have, he would have gone and attacked the CEO. He couldn’t do that. And I wasn’t the right person, but I didn’t have the strength or the wisdom to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. I am not the right audience for this conversation.

05:22
Now, if it happened today, that’s what I’d say. I am not the right audience, but just taking a break when that happened, because there will be times when something really ugly happens and you just don’t even want to deal with it. If you can take a break, if you can take a walk, if you can go to the bookstore, you will give yourself time to change your mindset. You are not stuck. If you’re in a really icky job right now, you are not stuck. Small changes in how you look at things can make a huge difference. And having a job you hate can actually make you a better employee, because you are never going to work anywhere where everything is always perfect and you love everyone on your team, you will always have challenges with other people. We’re human beings. We bump up against each other. Sometimes it’s just how it works.

06:13
So let’s talk about why you might be hating your job: burnout, bad manager, not getting enough training opportunities. Maybe you feel unseen, you feel unappreciated. Got it? Okay? So if you’re having a bad day, that’s different than having a bad environment, and you need to figure out which one is which. So what drains you the most about your job? Give some thought to that. And is it something you can reframe if it’s your, you know, your co-workers really annoying. Oh, my God, but your boss gives you wonderful benefits. You get lots of paid time off, and you only work four days a week. Guess what? You might want to tolerate that annoying co-worker, because you can see that the balance is such that the good outweighs the bad, and that’s what you need to shift to if you can’t control something that’s really making you crazy, change your focus and focus on what you can control. You can control your attitude. You can control what motivates you. You can control how you feel when you go into the office.

07:31
And I’ll give you a little tip: there is a way to reset your attitude really quickly, called the three thing gratitude list, and that is, sit down with a piece of paper. Might take you a minute. You can do it in your phone. What are three things that you’re grateful for? You’re grateful for that really funny co-worker that always gives you a really goofy wave when you come in, your friend that always brings you coffee as she’s going to her desk, she drops one off for you. The fact that your boss, if there’s ever a time when you’re just mentally exhausted, you can say, I need a mental health day. If you have those kinds of things going on at your office, write those things down so that in that moment when you feel like, Oh God, I can’t stand this, you can quickly turn and look at, Yeah, but look at all these good things. You don’t have to love your job, but you can find things about your job, your co-workers, and your environment, your paycheck, that you like. And that really changes everything. It can change it in the moment, and it can change it over time, because you’ll learn if you focus on things that are important, that you can control, you also figure out how unimportant some of those things are that are bugging you. I mean, seriously, some of the things that bother us are really not that big of a deal, and putting those things into their proper context so they don’t upset you is really important.

09:02
So let’s talk about strategic love. How do you find the good in what you’re doing? Lots of different ways. When I was early in my career, I changed jobs probably every three or four years, and what I said was I could tolerate anything as long as I was learning, as long as I was, you know, raising my skills. I was selling higher numbers, I was developing substantial new business. I was mentoring young professionals. We were doing really good—wait, really great work. And that those strategic thoughts, what is it that I absolutely love about this job, is what kept me there.

Now, at three and a half years, when you’ve learned everything there is to learn, I’d get to that point and I’d be like, well, you know, I’m kind of done with this now, because the good doesn’t outweigh the bad anymore. And so by celebrating those small wins, by focusing on what you have that is good at your current position, that’ll help you. If you really don’t think it’s a good idea to leave, if you’re making a whole bunch of money and you’re going to have to take, you know, a 50% pay cut if you leave, find things to focus on that are good and stay where you are, or maybe make a lateral move to another department. You know, those kinds of things. So figure out whether you are in a position that you can manage or in a position that you truly, truly need to leave. And in most cases, with most jobs, it’s just a matter of reframing and figuring out how to be grateful for what you have there.

10:43
So the exit strategy, let’s talk about that now. If you want more, or you get to the point where you know, you know, I’m just not—I’m just not thriving here, you know the boss is stepping on me. They’re not letting me bring my ideas to the table, then it’s possibly a good idea for you to start looking for a new gig, and what we call that is PayCheck Plus progress. So you’re going to get your paycheck from where you are as a as a bridge to the new job that you want. So you’re going to appreciate your paycheck and appreciate the progress while you plan your next gig. And I would say, start documenting your wins. I have a little notebook that I have all kinds of stuff in. I just keep it by my desk. I take notes. I write things for accountability. And what you can do is start documenting the things that you do that are really awesome whenever they happen, just write them down, and that will help cement your wins and help you feel better while you’re staying in this job and trying to look into your next job.

If you are truly miserable because the people there are not letting you progress, if they’re abusing you by, you know, pushing you to work 60–70 hours a week, if they’re rude, if there’s harassment of any type, illegal or, you know, unprofessional behaviors, then yeah, you got to leave, and you may have to quit before you get that next gig. In most cases, you’ll want to stay, stay there and keep learning and keep working while you get your next position. But if you can’t, you want to make sure you’re not miserable while you’re there, you know, for the remaining time. I mean, it can take you three to six months, maybe even a year, to get a new gig, especially in today’s economy.

12:35
So a quick recap of what we talked about. This is not a long episode of this podcast, but I think it’s something that’s really important. In order to figure out, do you really hate your job, you’ve got to spend a few minutes thinking about what’s real and what’s not. What are you taking personally that you might be able to let go? What are you not focusing on that’s really kind of awesome, and you know what’s real about the situation? From there, you want to reframe, turn your focus toward the things that you love and minimize the things that you hate. Are they really that important? Or can you let them go and then use where you are to get where you’re going? I’ve heard this said so many times, it’s easier to get a job when you have one than it is to get a job when you’re unemployed. I’m not sure why that works, but it does. That’s how it you know, kind of how it’s always worked for me.

So before I let you go, I want you to remember you may not love your job, but you can probably find parts of it that you love and learn while you’re there. So how do you love the job you hate? You focus on what’s good and determine if you need to stay or go, and if you need to go, do the best you can before you leave.

13:51
So that’s what I’ve got for you today again. Lori Jo Vest, Work Mom Says, Don’t Be an Idiot. Please visit my website at workmomsays.com for more helpful episodes that are created to help you learn to play the emotional context board of business so you can experience less drama and more success.

If you are watching this on YouTube, please do me a favor, Subscribe, Like, Share—all those things—really trying to grow my channel there to reach more people with helpful career advice. And you can also visit my website at workmomsays.com and use the contact form to get in touch with me if you’d like to suggest a guest, or if you’d like to be a guest on the program.

And finally, LinkedIn is where I live, so if you are on LinkedIn, I’m an open networker there. I would love to hear from you. Lori Jo Vest on LinkedIn, and that’s what I’ve got for you today. I will see you again soon with some more helpful information, take care.

Thanks for listening to Work Mom Says, Don’t Be an Idiot. For more information, you can email Work Mom at L, O, R, I, workmomsays.com. That’s lori at workmomsays.com, and remember, 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 55 – How to Love the Job You Hate appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• How the discipline of boxing shaped Trae’s mindset as an artist
• Why continuous learning is the key to resilience and growth
• The story behind one of Trae’s most challenging mural projects
• The importance of community for emerging artists
• How following childhood passions can point you toward your purpose
• Trae’s leap into app design through the Apple Developer Academy

Connect with Trae:
TraeIsaac.com
Socials: @TraeIsaac on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube

Episode Highlights

Time-stamped inflection points from the show

0:12 – Meet Lori & Trae – Lori introduces Trae Isaac, a Detroit-based artist whose work spans fine art, murals, and product design.
2:13 – Becoming a Creative Tailor Trae shares how he approaches art like a tailor—customizing his work to reflect communities, organizations, and cultural values.
5:00 – The Discipline of Practice How boxing taught Trae the importance of repetition, discipline, and being addicted to progress.
7:35 – Growing Up in Detroit Trae talks about his close-knit family, his grandfather’s boxing legacy, and the values instilled in him as a child.
12:09 – Loss and Resilience The deaths of his brother and mother shaped Trae’s journey, pushing him from boxing into art as a new form of healing and expression.
17:39 – Boxing Lessons for Life How the ability to “lock in” during a fight translated into resilience, recovery, and focus in art and life.
19:24 – Building a Career in Art From painting clothes in high school to earning mural commissions, Trae explains his path to becoming a full-time artist.
21:13 – The Five Ps The mantra that drives his work: Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.
22:25 – The Godfrey Hotel Mural Story Behind the scenes of one of Trae’s most challenging projects, including negotiating unexpected costs and conquering a fear of heights.
30:13 – Finding Your Purpose Advice for young people: follow your passions from childhood, explore continuously, and don’t be afraid to pivot.
35:00 – From Murals to Mobile Apps Trae shares his latest leap—joining Apple’s Developer Academy to learn coding and app design.
40:00 – Marketing Mindset
Lori points out Trae’s natural gift for self-promotion and authentic storytelling.
42:47 – Looking Ahead
Where Trae wants to take his career next—and an invitation to reconnect in a year to talk about his new apps.

Transcript

[0:00] Lori Jo Vest – Welcome to Work Mom Says: Don’t Be an Idiot. I’m Lori Jo Vest, and I’m here to help you learn to play the emotional contact sport of business—so you can experience a whole lot less drama and a whole lot more success.
Today, I’m so fortunate to have my guest, Trae Isaac. Trae is an artist—and I don’t even know how to fully explain who he is. I met him on Facebook of all places, and then I just had to bring it into real life, because I have so much respect for him as an artist and for how he moves through the world. I wanted to share him with you because I know he’s got wisdom that can help you move toward your own goals.

[1:23] Trae Isaac – Thank you for having me. Thank you for the love, the appreciation, all the good energy and feedback. It’s all genuine, and I’m grateful.
[1:40] Lori Jo Vest
Fair warning—I like to “mom” people sometimes, so if I do that, just forgive me.
[1:46] Trae Isaac
It’s all good. I accept it.
[2:13] Lori Jo Vest
Tell us a little about what you do. You’re an artist, you sell your work, and you also create these incredible murals.
[2:40] Trae Isaac
I like to call myself a lifestyle artist-slash-creative director. Since I started my journey in 2006, I’ve worked across so many mediums that it’s tough to land on just one title. On business cards, I usually put “fine artist, creative director.”
[3:30] Lori Jo Vest
I think I first bought a pin from you—rose gold angel wings, so detailed and gorgeous. Later I got earrings. You sell pieces on your website, but how did you get into murals?
[3:52] Trae Isaac
For me, committing to murals meant understanding that my art had to appeal beyond just my circle. When you create work for communities, organizations, or corporations, they have standards and expectations. Art may be subjective on a hobbyist level, but once you’re professional, you become a “creative tailor.” Like a tailor makes clothes to your exact fit, I create artwork tailored to each community’s history, values, and culture.
[5:00] Lori Jo Vest
That makes sense. How did you step up your skills to get there?
[5:12] Trae Isaac
Practice and repetition. I drew from my boxing background—constantly training, challenging myself, learning to love the feeling of progress. Growth became addictive. Every time I improved, I wanted to keep going.
[6:10] Lori Jo Vest
That’s something we share—the mindset of continuous learning. If you think you know it all at 25, you won’t get very far. But if you stay curious, you’ll keep growing.
[6:42] Trae Isaac
Exactly. That mindset drives me.
[7:35] Lori Jo Vest
Would you mind sharing your origin story? From what I’ve read, you’ve turned trauma into strength and growth.
[7:52] Trae Isaac
Absolutely. I grew up in a very tight-knit family—my grandparents and my mom raised me in Detroit. My grandfather was a Vietnam veteran, a boxing coach, and a cutman for professional fighters. He stepped in as my father figure. My grandmother was the loving backbone, and my mom kept me focused on school.
[8:59] Trae Isaac
They made sure I was both educated and street smart. My grandfather taught me to fight and play chess. My grandmother pushed me into reading and science programs. My mom kept me on track with homework. Being Black in America, and a skinny little kid, I had to know how to take care of myself in every way.
[10:00] Trae Isaac
I spent nearly a decade as an amateur boxer. My life was cardio, school, gym, homework, repeat. We all lived in the same building—my grandparents on one side, me and my mom on the other. I’d run across the hall when I needed them.
[10:55] Trae Isaac
When I was nine, I won my first amateur boxing championship—the same day my baby brother was born. Later I learned I actually had 17 siblings on my dad’s side, but at the time, it was just me and him. Sadly, my brother developed the same genetic cancer that eventually took my mom. He passed at age seven. Two years later, my mom passed as well.
[12:00] Lori Jo Vest
That had to be incredibly hard as a teenager.
[12:09] Trae Isaac
My brother passed in 2006 when he was just seven. I was 16, attending Cass Tech High School. Losing him, and then later my mom to the same cancer, was devastating. That’s when art became a lifeline for me.

[13:01] Trae Isaac
At Cass Tech, surrounded by kids with the latest clothes, I couldn’t keep up. So I painted on my own clothes—shirts with scriptures and images inspired by church sermons. That’s how I started experimenting with visual art.

[15:00] Trae Isaac
When my mom passed two years after my brother, it was a reset moment for the whole family. My grandfather, who was also my boxing coach, was grieving too. Art became the new path I poured myself into.

[17:10] Lori Jo Vest
The death of two family members had to be incredibly challenging. You’ve written that the tenets of boxing helped you through it.

[17:39] Trae Isaac
Yes—boxing taught me to lock in, focus, and move on. In a fight you only have 60 seconds to recover between rounds. That mindset helped me cope and find resilience in life.

[19:24] Lori Jo Vest
Tell me how painting on clothes turned into an art career.

[19:32] Trae Isaac
I was stubbornly determined. Slept on friends’ floors, avoided 9-to-5 jobs so I could focus on art. At first it wasn’t lucrative, but it felt like my purpose. As my technical skills grew, I started getting mural commissions.

[21:13] Trae Isaac
That’s when my grandfather’s mantra came in: the five Ps—Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance. I live by that in every project.

[22:25] Trae Isaac
One of my most challenging murals was for the Godfrey Hotel. I had to use a swing stage suspended 90 feet in the air—something that wasn’t in the original agreement. I had to renegotiate terms with the city and the client. It was scary but also a huge win when I finished.

[28:56] Lori Jo Vest
I love how you handled that negotiation. You didn’t walk away, you renegotiated. That’s a big business lesson.

[29:37] Trae Isaac
The words I used were, ‘Due to your egregious oversight, we find ourselves in this position…’ That phrasing helped me reset the terms professionally.

[30:13] Lori Jo Vest
So today, what does your career look like?

[30:24] Trae Isaac
I see my purpose as making things look good. I’ve pivoted from clothes to canvas to murals to products. Now I’m broadening my work instead of being narrowly focused.

[32:18] Lori Jo Vest
That’s great advice for young people—look back to what you loved as a child. My son was a Lego kid, and now he works with cars. Passions leave clues.

[34:56] Lori Jo Vest
You’re also learning app design at the Apple Developer Academy. How did that happen?

[35:23] Trae Isaac
A fellow artist friend, Jimbo, inspired me. He graduated from the program and encouraged me to apply. Now I’m learning coding, design, and teamwork—building apps that solve problems, just like I used to solve challenges through murals.

[39:58] Lori Jo Vest
I love that you even marketed your first week of school outfits on social media—that’s a natural marketing mind at work.

[40:15] Trae Isaac
There’s no method behind the madness—I just try things and see what works. Authenticity has always been my approach.

[42:00] Lori Jo Vest
Two big takeaways from your story: community matters, and fearlessness in learning new skills takes you far.

[42:47] Lori Jo Vest
Trae, thank you so much for joining me today. Where can people follow you?

[43:12] Trae Isaac
I’m on all social media as @TraeIsaac, and my website is TraeIsaac.com.

[44:00] Lori Jo Vest
Thanks again for joining us! To our listeners—visit WorkMomSays.com for past episodes, blogs, and resources. And remember… 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 54 – Charting Your Own Path with Trae Isaac appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• The importance of showing up and being visible in your career and community
• How discomfort and self-doubt are natural but invaluable for growth
• Building your network beyond your own company and why it’s key to advancement
• Practical strategies for networking, joining associations, and volunteering
• The unique impact young professionals can make by simply being present

Episode Highlights

Time-stamped inflection points from the show

00:44 – Lessons from a breast cancer survivor: show up, dress up, and speak up

02:06 – The value of getting comfortable being uncomfortable, from jobs to meetings

03:57 – Lori’s experience joining an intimidating accountability group that transformed her confidence

06:13 – Why networking, industry events, and association involvement matter—even if you feel like an outsider

07:22 – The power of industry communities, volunteering, and creating connections outside your company

09:51 – Why young professionals stand out simply by showing up in real-world spaces

10:17 – Practical tips for “tag-team” networking and showing up, even if you’re nervous

Top Quotes

03:23 – “If you don’t show up in those places where there are other successful people, you will not become one of them.”

05:32 – “Even when that little voice in your head is telling you, ‘Oh, you don’t belong here’ … say thank you for sharing and let it go.”

06:37 – “You will be able to push yourself out of your comfort zone, make some solid connections, because that’s another way you grow your career.”

10:50 – “If you are willing to be present, it’s inevitable that you will win.”

Transcript

00:12
Hello. I’m Lori Jo Vest, also known as Work Mom and I so appreciate you joining me for another episode of Work Mom Says: Don’t Be An Idiot! Today, we’re going to talk about “you must be present to win.” I heard that phrase the other day, and it just really stuck with me that if you want to be successful in your career and in your life, you have to show up. And showing up means a lot of different things. So we’re going to start with a couple of stories.

00:44
I have a dear friend that I’ve known for years that she got breast cancer. And she got breast cancer when she was transitioning from one job to another. She was unable to work the new job during treatment, she lost her job, she lost her insurance, it was a really difficult time. Fast forward 10 or 15 years, and her charitable organization that she formed to help women financially during treatment and men, they also help men, but to help people during breast cancer treatment is national, and when she talks to groups, I mean, I’ve nominated her for some different awards. I’ve seen her speak at different events, and what she always says is, you need to show up, dress up, and speak up. And if you can do all three of those things, it might be in a different order—it might be dress up, show up and speak up, I think maybe that’s it—but those are the things that are really important, and that’s what has led her to the success she has today. She has a national organization that helps hundreds of women every year get through breast cancer treatment by paying their mortgages, their bills, their car payments. It’s just amazing.

02:06
So part of what I notice with some of the young people that are in my sphere is that it can feel difficult to show up with your full self in new situations, like at the office, for example, going to a new job. Oh my God, I don’t want to start a new job because I don’t know what to expect, and there’ll be a lot of anticipation around that when you’re a young professional. Well, the reality is, everybody feels that way. If you get a new CEO for a global corporation, he’s never been CEO for that corporation before, trust me, he has anxiety. We all get it. It can be tough. But one of the things that you should remind yourself of repeatedly, and it’s a phrase I’ve used since—oh my gosh, I first heard it probably 20 years ago—is if you want success in your life, get comfortable being uncomfortable. If you’re not comfortable showing up with your full self at the office, do it anyway, because the best way to get comfortable is by doing something over and over again until it’s no big deal, and that includes speaking up in meetings.

03:23
You have to speak up in meetings if you want to be seen as a thought leader in the office, as someone who contributes and who should be promoted. If you are not someone who feels comfortable networking, guess what? Networking requires you dressing up, showing up, and speaking up. If you don’t show up in those places where there are other successful people, other high achievers, you will not become one of them. So even if you feel like you don’t fit,

03:57
I’ll tell you a quick little story. I joined an accountability group back—I think it was a year after the pandemic started, so I think it was early 2021—and the group had been formed during the pandemic to help people that were no longer going into the office for work, so they were staying home. Everybody was depressed. We were all worried about what was going to happen. People were dying left and right. It was a really difficult time. So a dear friend, a woman who’s a dear friend of mine, now that I didn’t know then, her name is Jan Griffith, started a group called the Accountability Lab, and at one point she had two sessions. I was in the 7:07 group, and she did something on LinkedIn. She did an event on LinkedIn talking about it, and I immediately joined, because some of the people that I really like were in this group and on this call promoting participation. So I immediately went and joined. But when I first joined, I was so intimidated, because these were some serious movers and shakers. I mean, these people had podcasts, they had all kinds of, you know, high level business positions, they were entrepreneurs that were really successful, lots of really great people on the call.

05:16
And it was a little antsy about it, like, oh, do I belong here? Am I good enough? Am I smart enough? Am I smart enough? Are they going to think I’m goofy because I’m a little goofy? And here it is, four years later, and I’m still on that call every single morning, Monday through Friday, unless it’s a holiday. And what I learned in a lot of new situations like that is, even when it doesn’t feel great, even when that little voice in your head is telling you, “Oh, you don’t belong here,” or “they’re going to think you’re dumb,” or “they’re going to think you’re too sensitive,” say thank you for sharing and let it go, because that voice in your head will always hold you back. That’s your brain trying to keep you safe. New experiences can be or feel unsafe, and so your brain is just warning you, oh wait. What if they this? What if this happens? What if that happens to prepare you? But the reality is, you don’t need to be prepared.

06:13
If you want to go networking at an event, Chamber of Commerce or trade association event, or some big awards dinner that’s happening and you feel like you want to go, or you know that attending it would be really beneficial, do it, even if you do it all by yourself. Go. You will find people to talk to. You will find things to do. You will be able to push yourself out of your comfort zone, make some solid connections, because that’s another way you grow your career. If you go to extracurricular activities like award shows, and, you know, economic club events, and, you know, all those kinds of special industry gatherings, I guess you could say, if you go to those, you’re going to meet people in your industry, and one of the best ways to keep that career going strong is to have a lot of strong, connected friendships in your industry. And that doesn’t mean just in the company that you’re working for. You want to expand outside of that company, and one of the great ways to do that is to join associations.

07:22
So I’ll give you an example. In Michigan, we have a pretty strong defense industry. We are, you know, the arsenal of democracy is what they used to call us during the first few World Wars. And because of that, because of our manufacturing expertise in automotive, that manufacturing expertise also applies to defense. And what’s wonderful about defense is it’s a really tight-knit community. There’s the National Defense Industry Association, there’s Women in Defense, there’s a lot of places and things you can do to involve yourself in that community, if you want a career in defense, or if you already have a career in defense, and you’re looking to grow and to maybe get a higher level position, knowing people in that industry outside of your current job situation is what will help you get there. You won’t get there by sending in a resume to your competitor. You’ll get there because you’ve met people and they know who you are, matter of fact, volunteer, get on committees. Volunteer to do things you’ve never done before, on trade association volunteer boards, or whatever it is that that organization allows, as far as involvement, jump in there and get involved, because if you don’t show up in those environments, you will not develop that really strong network that will help you grow your career.

05:51
Another thing I’ll mention is, I’ve said it before, but I think it does warrant another conversation. Your current employer knows your strengths. They know exactly what you do, what you’re good at, but they also know your weaknesses, and some of those weaknesses can hold you back. So while I’m not trying to tell you, you should just be stepping over people and hopping from job to job, no matter what position you’re in, you should make sure that you’re known in your industry. And as a young person, if you’re under—you know, if you’re under 30, you’re in your 20s, and you show up at these organizations as a volunteer, or run for the board, or just go to all the meetings and get to know everybody, you will stand out. It’s not common that young professionals really get involved. And with this new generation graduating from college, you guys have had a lot of social media in your faces. You have had a lot of screen time that is probably much more comfortable than in-person situations where you’re meeting new people. The only way to do it is to do it. What I’ll say is, you learn more French in Paris than you do in French class. If you want to learn to network, you’ve just got to jump in with both feet and start doing it.

10:17
Bring somebody with you, partner up with, you know, a friend, so that you have someone to talk to if there’s not somebody right there that you, you know, feel comfortable engaging with. When there’s two of you, you can talk about each other. There’s a lot you can do, tag team networking. Don’t hesitate to do it. Show up. Show up in your office. Show up in your boss’s office, ask questions, express what you want out of your career, and show up at networking and industry events. If you are willing to be present, it’s inevitable that you will win.

10:55
So that’s what I’ve got for you today, short and sweet. Again, Lori Jo Vest, Work Mom Says. I have a book on Amazon called Work Mom Says: Don’t Be an Idiot! 38 Lessons You Don’t Want to Learn the Hard Way. I learned them so you don’t have to. You can benefit from my experience and save yourself some problems. That’s the only reason I do this work is I’ve made every mistake there is to make, and I just hope I can share the things I’ve learned with you, so that you can maybe move a little faster than I did in your career.

11:27
So there’s a website at workmomsays.com, please go there and contact us if you have a suggestion for a guest, or you would like to be a guest, or you have a question you’d like me to address. I’m also an open networker on LinkedIn. I’d love to hear from you there. Just mention that you listened to the Work Mom Says podcast in your connection request, and I will see you 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 53 – You Must Be Present to Win appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• The risk of staying quiet: why silence rarely serves you or your team
• Overcoming the fear of speaking up and the myth of perfection
• The power of showing up, voicing your thoughts, and being present
• Language you can use to share controversial or dissenting opinions constructively
• How speaking up can lead to growth, leadership, and new opportunities

Episode Highlights

Time-stamped inflection points from the show

00:12 – Introduction to speaking up, even when it’s uncomfortable, and why it matters for your success.

01:04 – How quieter, smarter voices often stay silent while less qualified ones get ahead.

02:19 – Lori shares a real-world example of voicing dissent to a CEO and the mixed results.

05:33 – Learning to share your viewpoint: “It’s about showing up and contributing.”

06:54 – Tips for constructive language when you need to disagree or add a new angle.

09:21 – How speaking up gets easier with practice—and why good leaders want your input.

11:06 – Action step: raise your hand and try speaking up at your next meeting.

Top Quotes

01:50 – “Your silence doesn’t serve you and it doesn’t serve your team.”

05:39 – “If you really know and have an opinion on something you really need to share, share it.”

06:29 – “It’s not about having the perfect answer. It’s about showing up.”

11:29 – “Get used to being uncomfortable, because that’s where the gold is.”

Transcript

00:12
Hello, I’m Lori Jo Vest. Welcome to this episode of Work Mom Says, Don’t Be an Idiot. I am here to help you play the emotional contact sport of business in a way that lets you experience a lot less drama and a whole lot more success.

So today, we’re going to talk about something that can totally shift your career. You may not realize it, but if you’re not speaking up, you’re missing out. Even if you’re 100% comfortable kind of sitting in the background and not wanting to say anything, and that works for you, it’s not going to work for your career. You need to speak up, be present, share your wisdom—even when you’re not totally comfortable doing so. It’s something that you’ll want to learn to get comfortable doing, and the only way to get comfortable is to practice.

01:04
So why this matters: one of the biggest things that you’ll run into at the office is people who have egos that are much bigger than their talent, and those people love to speak up. But the reality is people who don’t have those egos may have an even more important voice in the room. Too many really smart people stay quiet out of fear, afraid of people thinking that they’re dumb, afraid of making a fool of themselves, afraid of being wrong. And less qualified people that know a lot less than you do are out there just talking up a storm, getting all kinds of things and making bank because they are not quiet.

Your silence doesn’t serve you and it doesn’t serve your team. It doesn’t serve your boss. Your employer wants your thoughts. They want to know what you think, because they hired you based on your talent and your skills, so even when you’re not sure.

And so let’s talk about what happens when you’re in a room and they ask a question and you don’t really want to speak up, even though you have an impression or an opinion that matters.

02:19
I’ll give you an example. Sometimes it will backfire on you. I used to work for a company that had a huge campus, I mean, maybe seven acres with three great big buildings on it, and probably about 200 employees. And it was just this beautiful campus, wooded, you know, just lots of wildlife and, you know, grass and weeds and stuff like that.

And we had a weekly management meeting, this entire team for this company. And every Wednesday morning, at 10 o’clock, we’d all gather in the conference room in the corporate building and go through whatever the CEO wanted to go through and talk about right there was a time when the company wasn’t doing very well financially. We were doing layoffs. It’s very, very difficult. And the owner, the CEO, had this idea that we should invite our employees, the ones that were left that hadn’t been laid off, to come in on the weekend, Saturday, and we’d feed them pizza, and they could help do the landscaping for the company. He thought it was a great idea. I didn’t think so, and neither did anybody else in that meeting.

There were 10 or 12 of us, and people had been talking in the hallway. Did you hear what John thinks we should do about the landscaping? And you know, because the landscaping was really expensive on a big property like that, and he honestly thought that the employees would feel like, you know, the volunteer to clean the highway, that it would be a really pride-inducing exercise, and everybody would love it, while the leadership team, with the exception of the CEO, knew that it would actually be demotivating, that nobody wants to come in on the weekend that they had watched people get laid off and having your coworkers laid off, and then being told the company can’t afford to have the landscaping done and wants you to come in on your day off for pizza and do the landscaping. It was a really bad idea.

We’re not sure who he got it from, where it came from. Maybe he drove by a highway cleanup sign. I mean, that could be that simple. In the meeting, I was the only one who stood up. He went through the whole plan, said, This is, I think this is a great idea. What do you guys think? And there was silence, and I said, you know, John, I just can’t not speak up. I have to tell you, I think it’s a really bad idea, and I think it’s going to hurt the morale of the company, and I would kind of consider doing something else instead.

And what happened next was something I’ll never forget. I got dressed down. I had no pride in the company. I didn’t understand our employees. I mean, all kinds of things were thrown at me. He was very angry, for one thing that I questioned him, and for another thing that I seem to be the only one in the room that thought it wasn’t a good idea. The reality was no one else in the room thought it was a good idea. They just weren’t brave enough to stand up and say anything, and I was, but there were days that I thought maybe I shouldn’t have.

5:33
So what the lesson is there is, don’t stay quiet out of fear if you really know and have an opinion on something that you really need to share. Share it. There may be some repercussions, there may be some fallout, but that’s okay, because I honestly felt like if I hadn’t voiced the concern that we all had, it would be unfair to the boss, the CEO, and unfair to our people, so I did it. And you know, it wasn’t the best experience to have. It was very uncomfortable, but I still feel like I did the right thing.

And you may not ever have to give that type of feedback to the CEO of the company you work for, and you may choose not to, but when you are in a room and people are asking you for your impression or your opinion, it’s not about having the perfect answer. It’s about showing up. It’s about thinking through possible answers to a question or concern and contributing, being a part of the conversation—that is really, really important in the workplace. When people hire you, they hire you because you have a talent, a skill and ability, and they want you. 100%, they want you to show up.

6:54
So in those kinds of situations, it can help to have some sample language that you can use to bring up that controversial thought. I’m going to drop a couple of these in here, just because they’re really helpful, and I found them helpful over the years. So here’s a thought that might be helpful or, this might not be a fully formed idea, but what if, right, or another one—can I ask this question from a different angle? Are we considering the perspective of this group? Should we solicit other opinions before we make the final decision? So what you want to do in those situations, rather than just, you know, express a hard and fast, conflicting answer that contradicts the answer they might be looking for, soften it a little bit. What if we thought about this? Or have you considered that? You can bring it up as a question, and that sometimes will help guide the conversation in the direction that you feel comfortable that it should go, because there are times when you know even a CEO has an idea that’s not a good one.

And if you’re on the leadership team, or even if you’re in a team meeting, and your boss, who’s not the CEO, is considering doing something that you think would be destructive, express it. It’s important, and it makes a difference. I have actually been the kind of person that continually speaks up. And there are times when you will regret it, absolutely, and there are times that that will lead you to a leadership position in your company, because people will know that you’re actually considering things from all angles. You’re not just, you know, a yes person, because a good leader doesn’t really want a yes person on their team. They want someone who will be, you know, more expressive and provide a new and different perspective.

So consider that the people that you’re talking to in your meetings rarely expect perfection, or—especially if you’re in your 20s and 30s—they don’t expect you to know everything, but they really respect initiative and perspective that you can bring. So remember that when you’re feeling less than confident expressing your thoughts and opinions in a meeting.

09:21
So let’s go over this really quickly before we wrap up. What should you be doing when you’re in a meeting and things start, you know, people start asking opinions and it’s your turn to talk? Speaking gets easier with practice. Speaking up in situations like that—the more you do it, even when it’s uncomfortable, the more comfortable you’ll get. And the more you do it, the more comfortable you’ll also get maybe expressing the thought you had that’s a little controversial in a way that can be heard. Those controversial, you know, those controversial opinions are important to good leaders.

So, don’t let that get in your way. If you have a leader that will not listen and that never wants to hear what you have to say, maybe time to shuffle off to a new position, because a good leader will appreciate input from the team. So that’s just a basic management tenant. So even if your perspective is different than other people’s, it still has value.

And the other side of the coin is, if you’re in a meeting where people are asking for opinions, and you just sit there quietly, it can be interpreted as you’re either disengaged or you just don’t have any ideas, and you don’t want to be that person either—that just comes into the room, sits quietly and leaves—because they’ll stop inviting you, and that will affect your ability to rise through the ranks of that business and your ability to learn to become a more outspoken person in the workplace. Trust me, the people that are going up those ladders in different companies are not—they’re absolutely not—sitting in the corner quietly during that meeting when everybody’s talking.

11:06
So what I’d like you to do is take an action step after listening to this episode. The next time you are in a meeting and they’re asking for ideas, speak up. Ask a question, raise your hand. Try it and see what happens. If you’ve been shy and you’ve been quiet and a little introverted, get used to being uncomfortable, because that’s where the gold is. That’s where the learning is, and raise your hand.

So that’s what I’ve got for you today. Even when it’s uncomfortable, speak up. If you have a friend or family member or a teammate that should hear this lesson, please forward this podcast episode to them. I would love it. If you’re watching on YouTube, if you could subscribe to my channel, give me a like or a comment, and if you’d like to get in touch, I’m an open networker on LinkedIn, and I also have a website at workmomsays.com, where you can reach me and suggest a guest, suggest a topic, ask a question. I am here for you, so take care, everybody, and I’ll see you in a few weeks.

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 52 – Say It Anyway: Why Speaking Up (Even If You’re Not Sure) Can Change Your Career appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• The necessity of using PTO for personal health and productivity
• Overcoming the fear of taking time off in a demanding work culture
• The benefits of taking breaks for creativity and mental clarity
• Strategies to successfully unplug and make the most out of your PTO

Episode Highlights

Time-stamped inflection points from the show

00:40 – Lori reveals her own struggles with not taking PTO despite encouraging her team to do so.

01:57 – Lori’s personal experience of finally taking time off after five years and realizing the sky didn’t fall.

04:41 – Reasons professionals avoid PTO and why these fears are largely unfounded.

06:50 – A reality check: You are valuable but not irreplaceable, and that’s okay.

10:31 – Strategies for using PTO effectively without anxiety, including setting boundaries and planning ahead.

Top Quotes

04:13 – “PTO should be non-negotiable, and there’s a reason for it.”

07:03 – “You are valuable to your employer, but you are not irreplaceable, and that’s okay.”

08:03 – “When you don’t take that time off, you’re essentially gifting your employer free labor.”

13:06 – “Taking your paid time off is not slacking. It’s strategic.”

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!” This episode is for young professionals who think the office will crumble down without them. We’re calling it, “You’re Not That Essential. Use Your PTO.” PTO stands for paid time off, and if you have it, you need to take it.

00:40
And I’ll tell you what I think is really funny. I need this reminder just as much. I was talking to my team about what the next episode should be about, and what came up was “use your time off.” My team that works for me at the digital ad agency that I run with my husband, they know how important I think it is for them to take their PTO. But when it came to me, when they brought that up, I actually said that would mean I’m a hypocrite because I don’t take my time off. Now, my time off isn’t paid as the owner. It’s a whole different thing going on here.

01:17
But what I discovered is that my own fears of being away from my desk or not plugged into our company and what was happening and how I could contribute—I had a lot of fear around that. What if something fell apart while I was gone? But the reality is, it’s really funny, is that I could take a week off, and because we work at home and weren’t going anywhere, if I needed to step in and take care of something, it takes five minutes. It’s not a big deal.

01:57
So before recording this episode, I forced myself to take my five days off. I hadn’t taken five days off in about five years. So how did I do? I did okay. I worked probably most days for just a few minutes, checking in on emails, answering questions, making sure things were flowing like they should, right? I probably shouldn’t have even done that, but baby steps, baby steps.

02:29
And as the owner of a company, this is the first time I’ve ever owned a company, so I’m still learning. And I got through that five days, and nothing fell apart. Nothing happened that was, you know, a terrible mistake. Everything is fine. The clients are still happy. It’s all good. So I am learning what I’m teaching. They say if you want to learn something, teach it, and you’ll learn it that much more.

02:53
So I guess what I’m saying is that if my company can survive without me for a week, and it could have, then your company can survive without you for a week or even two. I mean, sometimes two weeks is a really great extended time to refresh, decompress. When I used to work for other companies, I would say a vacation’s not a vacation until you forget that you work, and that could take a couple of weeks.

03:21
So if you’ve relaxed enough in another country or on a beach or, you know, in the woods, or in, you know, some wonderful place, try to get to the point where you forget that you work, because that’s when you know that you have actually decompressed and rested and become a human being again. Because a lot of us spend our time being human doings. Me in particular, I’ve always got to be doing something, and if I’m not doing something, sometimes I feel like I’m not a productive person. And if you’re not a productive person, you’re not contributing. And oh my God, you know.

03:58
So I’m learning myself that lesson. I’d love you to learn it sooner. As most of my lessons, I prefer that you learn them sooner than I did, so you can have more years of good professional living. So anyway, PTO should be non-negotiable, and there’s a reason for it. It’s good for your health, it’s good for your career, and it’s really, really good for your creativity. Which no matter what field you’re in, one of the things you do when you’re at work is you create, whatever it is that you create, and your unique ideas and contributions will flow much easier when you are rested and refreshed. So remember that. That’s really important.

04:41
So why don’t people take their time off? You know, lots of different reasons. Some of us are afraid, if we take the time off, maybe we forgot to do something before we left, and if they can’t reach us, things will fall apart. People will think I’m lazy, my boss. May think that I would rather hang out with my wife and my kids than, you know, work, which is true, but a lot of us want our bosses to think a certain thing about us and believe certain things. And we may feel that PTO puts some negative things on us. It doesn’t. It really doesn’t.

05:23
If this is a toxic environment that you’re in, and toxic productivity and people working while they’re on vacations is the norm, you may think about going to another company, because your PTO should be important. We could learn a lot from the Europeans. We have a global client, and when they’re on vacation, they are on vacation. In a lot of countries overseas, it is actually illegal for the employer to contact the employee on their time off or their vacation. That would be amazing in the US. We don’t do that here, but maybe we should.

05:58
I used to say when I worked for other people, I worked for a production company in the—I think it was in the 90s, late 90s—and because this was pre a lot of email kind of things, I used to say a vacation wasn’t a vacation until the FedEx truck came. And the FedEx truck typically came at least once to every one of my vacations. When I worked for this organization for five years, it was one of the reasons that I left. The boss was immersed and lived his business, and he really expected you to do the same thing, and that often meant not taking vacation, or not taking time off, or staying late, unexpectedly, all those kinds of things that I would never want my team to do and would never recommend you do. You are entitled to have a life, and when you prioritize having a life, you become a better employee, and a good manager knows that.

06:50
So remember that too. A good manager knows that PTO is critical to keeping their team from getting burned out and unhappy. So just things to remember. So let’s take a minute for a reality check. You are valuable to your employer, but you are not irreplaceable, and that’s okay. What actually will happen if you take your paid time off is people will miss you. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. In a lot of cases, people will understand more clearly the part that you play at the office when you’re not there. Systems will adapt. People will step in. People will find what they need to find. They’ll get what they need to get. And better yet, you will gain perspective.

07:36
You are not being—you are not stealing time from your employer. You are taking something that has been given to you, which is compensation. Paid time off is compensation, and employers use it often to entice people. If you’re at a place getting two weeks vacation, your new employer may say, “Hey, I’ll give you four weeks,” as a way of bringing you into the fold at the new company. It is a benefit. And when you don’t take that time off, you’re essentially gifting your employer free labor, and you don’t need to do that.

08:11
So that’s the reality of it. You are valuable, not irreplaceable, and PTO is a benefit that they are giving to you. You are entitled to it. If you don’t do it, you’re giving your employer free labor. Stick that one up there. Remember it next time you fill out that vacation request form, give it a couple extra days because you deserve it.

08:31
So the benefits of a break are another thing to really look at when you think that maybe you shouldn’t take that time off because taking a break, being refreshed, resting your mind, resting your—you know, your thought process, your brain burns a lot of mental calories when you are working, and it can get tired, and taking time off gives you clarity that you don’t have when you’re just constantly hustling. Taking a break gives you fresh eyes. I think you make better decisions when you get back to the office.

09:09
Not only that, but it’s better for your physical health. Stress reduction. You can get a sleep reset. I know when I took my five days off that I’m just coming back from on Monday, I napped a lot. Oh, my God. Naps are so good for your mental clarity. Just taking a break, shutting down in the middle of the day, and letting your brain rest, letting your body rest. You can do that on vacation. You wouldn’t necessarily do that when you’re working, and it’s good for you.

09:40
So you are also helping yourself avoid burnout when you are constantly hustling, and like I’ve been doing for five years, when you’re constantly hustling, I think the lows are lower. The times when you may feel a little down about your job, or you’re having a really hard day, that hard day may feel harder. Yeah. If you have truly put everything into your job and not enough into your personal life. So that’s another big part of PTO is just you are entitled to a personal life, and if you don’t have one, you will burn out a lot faster. And your lows, I truly believe, from my own personal experience, those lows that are inevitable in careers will be lower because you won’t have the stamina to bounce back like you would if you were truly taking care of yourself. And PTO is self-care.

10:31
So how can you use your PTO without getting anxious? This isn’t hard. It really isn’t hard. Plan your exit Monday before your departing, make yourself a list. Here’s all the things that I have to take care of before I leave on Friday afternoon, and make sure that you have got a very clear people designated to handle the different things that may need to be handed off. Remind your team at the end of the week, in case there’s anything they need to ask you about, or, you know, have you take care of that maybe the boss had something they wanted to get to you, and they forget that you’re leaving on Friday and are expecting you there on Monday with this thing that they want before you leave.

11:20
A few days before you leave, remind your boss, “Hey, I’m going to be out next week. Is there anything you need? If you do, please let me know,” and that helps them deal with that separation as well. Because as a boss, when you have really good employees, it could be anxiety-provoking to have them go on vacation. So prep everybody for your departure.

11:43
Use that out-of-office time like a boss. Don’t check your email. Have clear boundaries. If somebody calls you, don’t pick up when they first call. You listen to the message. If it’s really urgent, call them back. But it may not be, because some people will think, “Oh, she’s just at the airport. I’ll just catch her before she gets on the plane,” or, “Oh, I’m sure they’re not at the beach yet. I’ll just ask her a quick question.”

12:06
When you’re on vacation, don’t pick up the phone. Listen to the message and then determine if you need to call back. Don’t fake PTO, which a lot of people do, myself included. And that means you’re working in secret. You know, maybe you’re back at the hotel room while, you know, hubby and the kids go down to the pool, you pull out your laptop and you’re trying to get a couple of things done. Don’t do that. It defeats the purpose of extended time that you have to yourself. So totally unplug, even if you are on a, you know, what we call a staycation. Even if you decide that you’re just going to take time off and work around the house, still use that time as recovery and rest. Sure, clean the basement, you know, plant your garden, but take a nap, binge-watch some really great TV, go to a park or take a hike or do something that you normally wouldn’t do, so that it truly is different than what you would do during, you know, a regular work week.

13:02
So anyway, that’s what I’ve got for you today. So wrapping it up, taking your paid time off is not slacking. It’s a strategic decision that helps you create a better future for yourself. I mean, seriously, if you don’t take your vacation, you’re going to get sick, you’re risking getting sick, you’re risking getting burned out, and you just aren’t going to be as sharp as you would be if you did.

13:29
So not slacking. It’s strategic. So my challenge is, after you listen to this episode, go grab your calendar and take some time off, even if it’s some three-day weekends this summer, if it’s a week off to go on vacation in November or even next year. Schedule a trip to Europe. Schedule a trip to somewhere you’ve always wanted to go. Pay for it in advance, and guess what? You have to go because you’ve already paid for it.

13:54
So I’m challenging you to do that. Get that PTO on your calendar, and make sure that you take that time, enjoy that time, and think about work mom if you think about checking your email or calling anybody. So again, that’s what I’ve got for you. Lori Jo Vest, signing off. workmomsays.com is my website. There’s a contact form there. I am also an open networker on LinkedIn, so feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. I’m happy to take your suggestions for topics or guests, answer professional questions if you have a challenge, and maybe I can cover it in an episode. And I also have a book on Amazon, “Work Mom Says: Don’t Be an Idiot!: 38 Lessons You Don’t Want to Learn the Hard Way.” Pick up a copy. There are 38 lessons that I learned the hard way that I hope you can avoid the trauma and drama that I went through early in my career. So take care, and I’ll see you 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 51 – You’re Not That Essential, Take Your PTO appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• The critical role of enthusiasm in professional success
• Strategies to maintain and boost enthusiasm at work
• Recognizing and mitigating factors that diminish enthusiasm
• Leveraging positive energy in personal interactions and meetings

Episode Highlights

Time-stamped inflection points from the show

00:12 – Introduction to the concept of enthusiasm as a key differentiator in career success.

01:38 – The importance of bringing energy into spaces and communication projects to stand out.

03:47 – Examples of how to demonstrate genuine enthusiasm in the workplace.

06:40 – The science of energy: How positive energy and enthusiasm can influence others.

08:36 – Common factors that kill enthusiasm and how to combat them with micro-breaks and reframing techniques.

10:49 – Practical tips to boost enthusiasm, including daily learning goals and volunteering for new projects.

Top Quotes

00:31 – “Enthusiasm differentiates the seriously successful from the people who just slog through their days.”

03:22 – “Multitasking throws your enthusiasm off. You cannot have enthusiasm for something you’re not paying attention to.”

13:01 – “Volunteer for something that’s slightly outside of your comfort zone… build the plane while you’re flying it.”

13:53 – “You don’t have to be the loudest person in the room to be enthusiastic, but you need to care.”

Transcript

00:12
LORI: Hello, I’m Lori Jo Vest, aka Work Mom, and I am so happy to be here today with you. I want to talk about something that’s really important to your career success, and what that is is how enthusiasm is a secret weapon. Enthusiasm is something that differentiates the seriously successful from the people who just slog through their days. There’s a lot to be said for it. So we’re going to dig into a couple things: reasons that you may be losing yours, how to beef it back up, and why it’s so important.

00:48
So, do you ever wonder why some people just light up a room? You know, they walk in and everybody perks up, and they talk to everybody, and they greet everybody, and they’ve just got a really great positive energy. And some other people just kind of slither in, or wander in and sit down and don’t say anything. That’s the difference between having enthusiasm and not having enthusiasm. I’m not talking about cheesy, over-the-top, loud, obnoxious, fake stuff. None of that. I’m talking about genuine interest in other people, genuine commitment to being a positive person in the workspace. Those kinds of things are what are going to help you with enthusiasm.

01:38
We have the ability to bring energy with us into spaces and communication projects, even on the hard days. When you can do that, you will differentiate yourself from the vast majority of people. And the reason is, these days, we’re looking at quiet quitting. People are frustrated, prices are high. You know, there’s a lot of crazy things happening in the world, and people are just kind of on edge. If you can be the one that’s consistently positive and brings that positive energy, it’s huge. I mean, it’s absolutely amazing, the difference in how people perceive you.

02:21
So a lot of things happened during the pandemic that brought us into a place of lack of communication, low energy. We were on Zoom, we had Zoom fatigue. We were burned out and low energy. And I know myself, I’ve sat on Zoom calls where you’re, you know, not as much recently, but in the last five years, I’ve sat on Zoom calls where you’ve got, you know, six people on the call, and five of them are doing this looking at their computer, and you can tell they’re working. They’re not paying any attention. They have checked out. And when that happens in a meeting or in a workspace, it just drains the energy and the productivity out of the event or the meeting. So if you’re in a meeting, don’t be that person that’s not paying attention. Don’t be that person that is, you know, while important things are being discussed, is sending an email to somebody. Multitasking is great, but if you want to build a career multitasking completely just throws your enthusiasm off. You cannot have enthusiasm for something that you’re not paying attention to.

03:31
So put a pin in that one and remember that you know, skills matter, but energy and positivity and interest in what’s being talked about, or, you know, manage whatever’s happening and the people in the room is what’s going to make you stand out and also make you more effective.

03:47
What does enthusiasm actually look like? How can you force yourself to be enthusiastic? Well, you might think I’m going to tell you to be loud and make big smiley faces and all that. That’s not what I’m going to tell you, because that’s not natural for everyone. What’s natural for you when you’re interested in something or somebody, you might ask good questions, you may show up early and offer to help do something that maybe isn’t directly part of your job description. You jump into situations where the group is working together, and you make sure that you contribute, and you follow up with people. When you’ve had a great meeting and you’ve got a couple items that you want to make sure people don’t forget, you send them a little note that says, “Hey, great meeting. Thanks so much for taking time.” And you actually, you know, communicate with them that they are important to you, and that’s why you want to make sure nothing gets dropped. So that is a form of enthusiasm.

04:48
I’ll talk to you about some interns that we had, and this will give you a really good picture of what to me enthusiasm for your work, for your career, for your success looks like. I’ll give you an example of enthusiasm in the form of somebody really early in their career, an intern. I’ve had two interns. One of them was really good, followed up on things, was very detail-oriented, paid attention to what she was being taught, took notes, sent good emails, all kinds of things, and was very attentive to her career, to growing her career. We had another intern, and that intern was committed to showing up at the meetings, listening quietly, doing her assignments, turning them in when she was asked for them. And as the internship went on, it lasted for 12 weeks. Toward the end of that internship, we weren’t even giving that person or that intern any projects, because when they were given back to us, you could tell that they hadn’t paid attention. There were misspellings. They were sloppy.

05:59
So you can tell that this intern lost enthusiasm for what they were doing, and that happens if you are, I mean, just sidebar here, if you are doing a job or in a position that you cannot be enthusiastic about, whether it’s because you just don’t like the job, it just doesn’t suit you, or the people you work with are kind of jerks, or maybe your boss is a narcissist. That does happen. You may find yourself in a situation where you can’t generate enthusiasm. In that case, turn anything you have and create enthusiasm around a job search and find a place where you can be enthusiastic.

06:40
But in assuming that you have put yourself in a position, you’ve got a job that you actually like, and you’re trying to build a career, that’s what we’re talking about here. So we’re coming off the sidebar, coming back, and we’re going to talk about the science of energy. There’s something that happens when somebody enters a space with positive high, what they call vibrational energy. It’s contagious. We have as human beings what are called mirror neurons. So when we see people, we might mirror how they’re feeling, what they’re doing. We’re biological beings, and we react to each other biologically. And so when someone comes into a room and they’ve got great energy, and they’re happy and they ask questions. That changes the room. It changes how everyone else in the room feels. And that’s something to develop in yourself, if you can develop that ability to come into a space, be welcoming, you know, be authentic. Be interested. Pay attention to each individual person in the room. That’s enthusiasm. It’s not hard to do that. It really isn’t. It just takes being consistent and understanding that who you are in an office or work environment is different than who you are at home.

07:59
At home, when you feel like crap, go ahead, sit on the couch with a blanket, eat ice cream and, you know, watch bad television. Great. I’m all for it. But when you’re at the office, you have a persona that is enthusiastic, positive. It’s a strategic decision that you’re making to be enthusiastic. So keep that in mind too. That’s a really good one to remember that it’s you know, it’s up to you to strategize how you behave and you can. You can do it much easier than you think, once you actually realize it, understand it and start putting it into practice.

08:36
So what kills enthusiasm? So many things: toxic coworkers, burnout, boredom, lack of recognition. Maybe you just finished this great big project and you’re so proud, and they say, “Thanks a lot,” and they give you another one, and they don’t even give you any acknowledgement. It happens, especially early in your career. That will happen a lot, or worse, you’ll be in a meeting and someone else will take total credit for it, or if it goes poorly. They’ll blame it on you, because that’s corporate America. That’s how it works. So you have to get used to those things. Don’t take them personally, right? But in the meantime, they will affect you. We are again. We’re human beings. We are affected by these things. Take small breaks. Get up from your desk when you’re just feeling like maybe just just can’t handle the idea of even putting your fingers on the keyboard, get up, go into the kitchen, get a bottle of water, take a walk around the block. Something that changes the scenery. What they call a micro break. Five minutes or less can make a huge difference. I actually have a friend, Candice Lazar, who is teaching breathing, this type of breathing exercises that can calm you and change your mood, you know so easily, so I’ll put links to her material in the show notes for this episode. You’ll want to check that out, reframing your purpose if you’re burned out. And you know you’re just struggling.

10:03
When’s your vacation? Is your vacation in two weeks? My vacation’s in two weeks. I can handle this and and reset your commitment and just get through those two weeks. Reframe what you’re doing, if you think you are, you know, just not being appreciated, and you can’t believe you’re working so hard and nobody pays attention. What’s the bigger cause of your work? For example, we do social media for nonprofits that do amazing work. So when I get a little, you know, worn out because I’m working a lot of hours that week and it’s on that particular client, I look at the bigger picture, and that can change your level of enthusiasm for getting that work done. Because, trust me, enthusiasm can help you fight procrastination, too, and we all suffer from that. I know it.

10:49
So another thing you can do is set one goal a day for something that’s going to energize you, something you want to work on, something you’re happy to do, and that, again, will help you get that enthusiasm back. And I would actually describe enthusiasm as a form of self-leadership. It’s things that you can, you know, create behavior patterns. You can create things that you can put into place. You can put them on your schedule. You can run them down on paper, whatever you need to do so that you can use these tools to bring back your enthusiasm. It’s well worth the effort. So how could you boost your enthusiasm today? Here’s some great ideas. Matter of fact, I would just put these into play on a regular basis: smile and say hello first when you see someone. If you’re walking down the hallway, you come in in the morning, be the one with the smile and the greeting. It makes a difference. Write a killer thank-you note if you met someone at an event. Matter of fact, I’d need to do this this afternoon. If you met someone at an event, send them a little note. Send them an email saying, “Hey, it was great to meet you. Let’s stay connected.” If it’s someone that’s worth reaching out to, set up a coffee date. Go ahead and do those things, do those outreaches, because those will not only create enthusiasm, but they also build your network, and that’s really important.

12:11
Make a commitment to yourself to learn something small every day. Now that is a really interesting idea. I really love the continuous learning mindset, and if you can cultivate that again, will contribute to your success, but just something small every day. What is it that you’re interested in? If you want to learn how to, you know, be a sommelier. You want to go to wine tastings, read about it, go to events. Make that hobby, you know, something that helps you learn every day. I am a big fan of a lot of the nature documentaries—Planet Earth and those kinds of things. You can learn things and they’re also very relaxing, and can take out the stress that can get in the way of your enthusiasm.

12:57
Another thing you can do at the office to boost that enthusiasm is to volunteer for something that’s slightly outside of your comfort zone. When they’re saying, “Hands up for a project,” and you know it’s in the direction you want to go, but you might not be there yet. Volunteer anyway, get the position, or get the project, and then learn how to do it quickly as you go, or, as we say, build the plane while you’re flying it. It is possible, and it’s honestly how most people learn. You learn really well by doing more than by studying. So if you’re studying and you just don’t think you’re ready, just get out there and do it. Trust me, when you have that anxiety and fear of the early stages of a new job, you have a lot of enthusiasm in most cases. So yeah, it’s another way to, you know, get out of that comfort zone, and you will immediately boost your and boost and elevate your energy.

13:50
So my final tip is, you don’t have to be the loudest person in the room to be enthusiastic, but you need to care. And when you show that you care about the people in the room, about the work that you’re doing. People will pay attention. They will, and it will help you get to that next step on the career ladder.

14:10
So again, Lori Jo Vest, Work Mom Says is my podcast. If you’re watching this on YouTube, please give me a like, a share, a comment. I’d love to hear from you. If you’re on Spotify, please hit some stars for me, and you can also visit my website, where we have some blog articles and all of the past podcast episodes. And that is at workmomsays.com, and finally, I am an open networker on LinkedIn. I have a book on Amazon called Work Mom Says, Don’t Be an Idiot: 38 Lessons You Don’t Want to Learn the Hard Way. Go get a copy. It’s a great set of lessons for young professionals to teach you to play the emotional contact sport of business so you can experience less drama and more success. So pick up a copy. And I will see you again 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 50 – The Career Hack They Don’t Teach in College: Enthusiasm appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• The importance of continuous learning for career development
• Building and maintaining strong professional relationships
• Taking proactive steps and embracing opportunities before feeling fully prepared

Episode Highlights

Time-stamped inflection points from the show

00:13 – Introduction and overview of the three key pieces of career advice.

01:03 – Learning how to learn: Emphasizing the need for continuous skill development, especially in fast-changing environments.

03:58 – Relationships are everything: How networking and building strong connections can open doors and provide opportunities.

05:34 – Take action before you’re ready: Encouraging proactive behavior and embracing opportunities despite self-doubt.

Top Quotes

03:07 – “Learning to learn, becoming a lifelong learner, is really important to long-term success.”

04:47 – “Your network will open more doors than your resume.”

06:39 – “Get the job and then figure out how to do it. You’ll learn faster on the job than studying or taking a course.”

07:52 – “None of us are ever ready. And a great piece of advice that I tell people is don’t be fooled. Nobody really knows what they’re doing. We are all just making it up as we go along.”

Transcript

00:13
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!” So I was thinking about what to record today, and what came to mind is what would be the best three pieces of career advice I could give to anybody right now that would change their career trajectory?

And here’s what I came up with. It’s so true. It’s just these are the things that helped me grow in my career and that helped most people grow in their careers. So focus on learning how to learn, building strong relationships, and taking action before you feel ready. And let’s dig into this a little bit deeper.

01:03
Learning how to learn. Things are changing constantly. AI is everywhere. There are all kinds of skills that will help you in your career. Everything from writing to reading a lot, learning how to digest complex information. You need to continue to learn in order to elevate your skill set and your performance. So I’ll give you a couple of examples.

01:32
When AI first started, this was probably three and a half years ago that we first started hearing about it. And I run a small digital marketing shop, and we got a project that involved writing SEO copy descriptions, product descriptions for 4,000 different luxury carpets. That’s a lot of copy. And so we knew in order to hit the client’s budget targets that we would need to bring in some kind of an AI tool. That’s what they suggested. We’d never done that before.

There was a really early one called Jasper. And what we did was we would go into this tool, enter in the colors, the pattern, the materials, some adjectives. After we entered that information into the tool, it would spit back, you know, different angles on that copy. And that was the hardest thing about it. When you have to write repetitively, it can be really challenging to come up with different angles. And Jasper did that. It didn’t always do it well. And it came up with some really crazy things. At one point, it suggested that this 8 by 10, you know, beautiful Persian rug would be something that you would bring with you to parties so that you could stand on it. It would be good enough for you because no one else’s floors were, you know, up to your preferences. So, no, it wasn’t always great. And it really helped us. And it was one of those things that we did because we knew that the new technology was coming and we needed to learn about it.

3:06
So learning to learn, becoming a lifelong learner, is really important to long term success. That could mean on your way home from work, you have a couple of topical podcasts that you listen to. That could mean that you have a book club with three or four other professionals and you, you know, read chapter by chapter together and then talk about those in a weekly phone call. There are a million ways to learn. Oh, I don’t want to forget this one. Go to events and listen to speakers. You’ll get a lot out of that. You’ll learn all kinds of things that you didn’t know you needed to know. And oftentimes at industry events, what’s being talked about is what’s timely in your industry. And you really want to know about that because you want to be one of those people that can talk about things that are happening because you’re knowledgeable.

03:58
Which brings me to relationships are everything. Point number two. Relationships are so critical in business. I’ve been in the Metro Detroit advertising community for about 35 years. I know so many people that when I started my own digital marketing shop about eight years ago, I knew so many people in the industry that I was able to hang up my shingle and get some work right away. I made relationships wherever I went. If I, when I worked at the ad agency, if I saw somebody was really into, you know, personal development books or business books, I would make a point of stopping by to talk to that person about that because that was an interest I had.

Relationships are everything. Your network will open more doors than your resume. Show up. Show up at virtual events. There are virtual events everywhere. Show up at in person events. Show up, and if you’re looking for a job or looking to make a career change, when you’re talking to people, especially as a young person, ask for their advice. Let them know that. You never know who you might meet that knows about a job opening that suits your skill set perfectly. You never know if you put it out on LinkedIn and mention that you just, you know, got downsized out of your position and you’re looking for a new gig. The more people you know, the more likely someone is to say, hey, let me share this with my network and see if I can help. So number two, relationships are everything.

05:34
And number three, I love this one. This is one of my all time favorites. Take action before you think you’re 100% ready. It’s kind of like when people decide to have kids. When you’re in your 20s and 30s and you’re trying to decide when to have kids, and you think, well, we’re not quite ready yet. Guess what? You’ll never be ready. You don’t know what to expect. And so in the work environment, imposter syndrome can really get in your way. You may think you have a lot more to learn. You may think that you’re not quite qualified. You don’t want to apply for that position inside your company, because if they thought you could do it, why didn’t they offer it to you? Well, maybe they didn’t know you’d be interested. So take chances. Do things. Take action. Don’t wait until you’re ready.

06:24
I got a really great piece of advice probably 15 years ago from a woman that I just met briefly. I had, you know, she was a client for a short amount of time. We had lunch a couple of times, and I haven’t seen her in 15 years. But one of the things that she said is get the job and then figure out how to do it. So that was her motto in life, and she went really far. She worked for Oprah in Chicago for quite a long time. She was one of those people that, you know, put together huge sponsorship packages and things, and she’s just brilliant. And she said, go for the job and then figure out how to do it. You are smart. You’ll learn faster on the job than you will ever learn studying or taking a course, ever. So learning by doing is not a bad thing.

07:13
I’m going to go back over these three best pieces of career advice for this week. Learn how to learn. Become a lifelong learner. Make a point of becoming curious. Dig deeper into subjects that interest you. Relationships are everything, number two. You will be able to find mentors. You’ll be able to make friendships that can be lifelong. If you prioritize relationships in your career and work environments at all levels, you’ll be really surprised how well that serves you. And number three, take action before you think you’re ready. None of us are ever ready. And a great piece of advice that I tell people is don’t be fooled. Nobody really knows what they’re doing. We are all just making it up as we go along based on our life experiences, our work experiences, our maturity, our emotional health. We’re making it up. Do the same thing. You will be really surprised how well that will serve you.

08:17
So that’s what I’ve got for you today. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of Work Mom Says. If you are watching this on YouTube, please subscribe. Hit that bell, get notified, give me a like or comment. I have a website at workmomsays.com, where you can also contact me there. You’ll find all of the episodes of the podcast that we’ve done so far there, as well as on Spotify and all the popular podcast channels. And last but not least, I’m an Open Networker on LinkedIn. If you’d like to connect with me there, just mention that you are a listener and feel free to reach out with subjects you’d like me to cover or guests you’d like me to have on the program. So again, thanks so much, and I’ll see you again 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 49 – The Best Career Advice You’ll Get This Week appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• Observe, don’t absorb
• Personal experiences of being the calm in the storm and making yourself an asset
• Identifying anxiety-inducing work environments vs one-off stressful situations
• Immediately move into problem-solving mode

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

02:30 – Observe, don’t absorb: Instead of internalizing the stress and negative emotions during a crazy work situation, take a step back and look at the bigger picture before you respond.
04:00 – Stressful workplace vs stressful situation: If you’re under constant stress and unable to function at work, it might be time to find a new job
06:00 – Personal story of keeping calm in chaos: Work Mom shares a crazy work story from her video production days when she stayed calm and solved a huge problem without a freakout.
08:30 – Mindset shift: If you can get into a problem-solving mindset, there’s no room for drama and chaos because you’re in action already.

Top Quotes

00:45 – “Staying calm under pressure when things are nuts is really important to both your productivity and your mental well-being.”
04:00 – “How important is it really that you respond right now? In most cases, you have at least a few minutes. Do you have enough time to step away and take a few deep breaths? It’s surprising how breathing techniques can help you feel calmer immediately.”
05:45 – It can be really difficult working for someone who is constantly chaotic and pushing fast and moving fast if that’s not who you are. And if that causes you a lot of anxiety, it may not be a good fit for you.
08:30 – Once you move into that problem-solving mode, you’re in action, and it’s a lot harder to be stressed out and freaking out if you are in action toward a solution.

Transcript

00:00
Hello, I’m Lori Jo Vest. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Work Mom Says. Today we are going to talk about keeping your calm when everyone around you is freaking out. It happens. Things go haywire sometimes. And you can’t let overwhelming or overwrought emotions get in the way of figuring out what happened and how to fix it or figuring out just how to get through the situation if it’s just going to be a difficult one. And that will happen as well.

So what I want to talk about is what have you ever felt? Get rid of that. Staying calm under pressure when things are nuts is really important to both your productivity and your mental well-being. Both of those things are really important to your success. And if you can practice staying calm and growing your emotional intelligence, you will have a skill that you can use for the rest of your life.

01:00
And I’ll give you an example. When someone comes at you, let’s say you’ve got an angry client or an angry coworker, and they’re full on coming at you loud, angry. What do you do? Give that a second of thought.

What do you do? Do you go into fight, flight, freeze? That’s naturally what our brains want us to do when we feel unsafe or attacked. We’ve got a little tiny part of our brain back here about the size of an almond called the amygdala. And it tells us, you know, it’s basically the center of our trauma response.

02:00
So when something happens, how do you react? And if you react with anger under stress, that’s not good. If you react with fear under stress, that’s not good either. Anxiety, not good. Flight, running away, or what they call freeze, where you just don’t confront it. None of those are good responses to stressful situations at work.

What is, is a strategic mindset. And I’ll explain that. There’s a couple of ways to look at it. But I’ll explain it in terms that I’ve been thinking of it in a lot lately. There’s a lot of crazy things happening in the world. And to not get pulled into it and end up with a much higher stress level, what I’ve been doing is practicing observe, don’t absorb. And that little mantra will take you really far. If you want to observe why that person’s yelling at you, give some thought to what they might be trying to accomplish by yelling at you. Pull back and just look at the big picture.

03:00
How important is it that you respond immediately? Do you have time to take a few minutes? I need to step away for a moment. I’ll be right back. I need ten minutes to manage something else. Can you take time to calm yourself? Absolutely.

In fact, in a lot of cases, it’s necessary if somebody’s, you know, coming at you, you know, which by that I mean, you know, blaming you for something, getting angry at you, acting really, you know, obnoxious about something. trying to push something through that might not be right for you. In those kinds of situations, it really pays to pull up and look at the situation with a long view.

04:00
How important is it really that you respond right now? In most cases, you have at least a few minutes. Do you have enough time to step away and take a few deep breaths? It’s surprising how breathing techniques can help you feel calmer immediately. You know, five or six really deep breaths can change how you feel.

If you’re under a lot of stress just on a daily basis, and let’s say you get the Sunday scaries every week, That kind of long-term stress might be something you could consider. Either are you in a job that is serving you or are you in a position that will always leave you feeling incredibly stressed and, you know, unable to function or unable to function at the level that you’d like to function at.

05:00
And if that’s the case, the answer might be find another job. Because in some situations, you know, there’s some high pressure, chaotic environments with perhaps, you know, bosses or CEOs who are just prone to creating a lot of tension. In those situations, that kind of that kind of stress happens. That’s not what I’m talking about.

In that case, you may want to find another gig or move into a position where you aren’t exposed to that person and their behavior. Because it can be really difficult working for someone who is constantly chaotic and pushing fast and moving fast if that’s not who you are. And if that causes you a lot of anxiety, it may not be a good fit for you.

06:00
Staying calm when things get crazy is really important. And I’ll tell you a story. I had gone to lunch one day. I worked for a video production facility and I came back to the office and noticed that the machine room, back when they had really expensive video machines, they kept them in what they called the machine room. And the machine room, the carpeting coming out of the, into the hallway, was wet. There was a dark spot.

I was like, what is happening? I snuck around the corner and looked into the room to see it wasn’t raining out. What’s going on? There was water running out of electrical outlets and down cords. Fortunately, the cords looped back up so the water was dripping off the end of the cord and not going into the machine, which it might have done.

07:00
I could have freaked out. For one thing, we had no idea what it was. Turns out the air conditioning unit was on the roof and had just a big problem with leaking. And there was a drain that was plugged that was on the roof and it was causing all kinds of problems.

And the first thing we did was solve it. Go into, you know, fix it mode, unplug everything in that room, unplug all the, you know, turn off the fuse that went to that room, pull all the cords out so that there was no more water dripping, you know, no more chance of the water dripping into the machines. And then get the HVAC people on the phone, get them out to fix it ASAP.

08:00
Go into all the rooms where the clients were, that they were working and explain that we were going to be down for at least the rest of the afternoon. And we would do whatever we could to make sure their projects got done on time. If that meant working extra hours over the next few days to make it up, that’s what we would do. But no time for a freakout because we had clients in the building and we had potential fire hazard, electrocution hazards.

What you’ll find is if you can get into a mindset when things are you know going haywire going sideways if you can get into the mindset of okay how do we solve this and go immediately from observing the problem to problem solving mode, there’s not really any room in the middle for a lot of drama and chaos. Once you move into that problem solving mode, you’re in action, and it’s a lot harder to be stressed out and freaking out if you are in action toward a solution.

09:00
So those are the suggestions I have for you today. One of the most important things you can do as an employee for a company is be that calm in the storm. You’ve got it in you. I know you do. It may take practice. but that’s okay. Sometimes we learn as we go.

So when you come upon a crazy stressful situation, think of work mom, take some deep breaths, step away, take a break. If it’s a constant problem, consider leaving the company, finding a less stressful boss or a less stressful job. And if it’s a problem and a crazy thing that’s sprung up out of nowhere, immediately go into “observe, not absorb,” mode and solve the problem. Those are the things that are going to help you get through when things go crazy at the office.

10:00
So that’s what I’ve got for you today. Again, I have a website at WorkMomSays.com where I share all of my podcast episodes as well as show notes and things like that. The Work Mom Says podcast is on all of the standard podcast platforms. And if you are watching this on YouTube, do me a favor, hit that subscribe button. Give me a like, give me a comment. Would love to hear from you.

And I do have an open networking policy on LinkedIn. So if you are interested in suggesting a guest for the podcast or a topic you’d like me to discuss, I’m happy to do that. And of course, check out my book on Amazon: Work Mom Says, Don’t Be An Idiot. Thirty-Eight Lessons. You Don’t Want To Learn The Hard Way. Look it up on Amazon. It’s got a lot of great, helpful information to help you play the emotional contact sport of business so you can experience less drama and more success. I’ll see you again 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 48 – Keeping Your Calm When Those Around You Freak Out appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• The importance of professionalism when leaving a job
• When to offer a two-week notice and the benefits of doing so
• Identifying and responding to toxic work environments
• Personal experiences and lessons learned in career transitions

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

00:12 – Introduction to the episode: Lori discusses the key considerations when giving notice and the importance of maintaining professionalism.

02:10 – Why a two-week notice is beneficial: Lori shares insights on how a formal notice period can leave a positive impression.

02:40 – Personal story from an advertising career: Lori recounts an experience with a seemingly promising job that turned out to be problematic due to unprofessional behavior.

05:05 – Red flags at a new workplace: Inappropriate conduct and lack of boundaries at a digital shop.

07:25 – The value of bridges unburned: A former employer reached out with a job offer after Lori’s professional departure.

09:02 – When not to give notice: In certain toxic environments, immediate exit is sometimes necessary to protect one’s well-being.

Top Quotes

4:07 – “So my first day on the job, she told me, hey by the way, I’m in a relationship with the owner. And I just immediately knew that was probably not a good sign.”

5:05 – “Well, then he asked me to do his social media and we had a couple of meetings and I started taking some stabs at what I thought might be appropriate. And his first piece of criticism he began with: if I was the client and you were the agency, I would fire you.”

7:25 – “Since I had given a really great two week notice…my phone rang and it was that agency saying, hey, can you come back?”

9:21 – “And if you’re working in a place that’s kind of a toxic shit show and the owner may be using the staff as his dating pool or you know, you’ve got drinking all day long or you’ve got sexism or racism or inappropriate behavior, don’t worry about two weeks because in a lot of cases people that support that kind of behavior at the office will make those last two weeks a living hell for you.”

Links

Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!

Transcript

00:12

Hello, everybody. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Work Mom Says “Don’t Be An Idiot!” I’m Lori Jo Vest, and today I want to talk about giving notice from an employer. When it’s time to go, you have made your decision, and you’re giving notice. Do you always have to give a two week notice? No. 

Depending on where you’re employed, how your employer treats you, if they are a very professionally run organization, a two week notice is totally appropriate and I would actually recommend it in those situations. If you like your job, but you were simply leaving to look for the opportunity to get a promotion or more money or maybe you were moving. In those situations where you don’t want to burn a bridge, a two week notice is a really good thing.

When you give a two week notice, you get to take those two weeks and make it easier for your employer to fill the position with the next person. I’ve actually offered—depending on, you know, what size the company is and where you fit in that corporate structure—I’ve actually offered to find my replacement and I’ve done that at several places because that really does put you in a good place with the employer.

I mean, it shows that you still care, that you are highly professional and that you don’t want to leave them in a lurch. Right? That’s really, really appropriate. So yes, when you are leaving an employer that’s been good to you or even just moderately okay, go ahead, make that a two week notice. Prepare the next person for the position, finish up your projects, do a really good job wrapping it up.

02:10

Here’s why. A two week notice can be really helpful. I’m going to tell you a story here, true story. I was working in a creative department of an advertising agency, writing social media copy and blog articles and email copy, things like that. And I was a worker bee and I really enjoyed it because I was, you know, in my late 40s in the creative department of an advertising agency and I just had a blast. Creative departments are typically a little more raucous than other departments in the agency. They’re a lot more fun and you have creative minds, so the antics can be absolutely hilarious. 

But I was kind of tired of being a worker bee and I wanted to move into more of a, you know, higher level of responsibility, make a little bit more money. And so I went out and I found this really, what seemed to be a really cool little digital shop that might be a good place for me to land. So I actually reached out on LinkedIn to the owner and we had lunch, and then I think we may have had another meeting at the office. And before you know it, I was hired there to work. And the owner was incredibly charming. He was about maybe a few years younger than me, maybe in his 50s, and very stylish and charming and funny and handsome and I mean, his clothes always dressed to the nines and just really had it together. So it looked.

03:38

But as I continued to work there, I experienced some really, really strange behavior from his team. I found out that he was actually- that about 10 years earlier, he had broken up his marriage publicly with a new creative director he had hired. So he hired a woman, broke up his marriage to be with her, and kept her as his head of creative at the agency.

So my first day on the job, she told me, hey, by the way, I’m in a relationship with the owner. And I just immediately knew that was probably not a good sign. When you have got the owner of the company in a relationship with someone on the staff, unless you’re talking about a company that maybe the founders were married, that kind of thing, that’s typically okay because it’s a family business. Those can be really good to work for. They can also be really horrible to work for. But this was a, you know, gentleman that owned the company and he hired a woman and then started having an affair with her, publicly broke up his marriage and started a new relationship with his VP of creative. Okay so I find that out on the first day and I’m disappointed because I know that really points to a lack of boundaries with the leadership team and can be an indicator of trouble. 

05:05

Well, then he asked me to do his social media and we had a couple of meetings and I started taking some stabs at what I thought might be appropriate. And his first piece of criticism he began with, if I was the client and you were the agency, I would fire you. Whoa. Okay. Well, that’s a really good way to start a feedback session with an employee that’s been with you for about three weeks. It was horrible. And then, you know, more weeks go by and I’m noticing more crazy things happening, and there’s a lot of drinking in the office and there’s just a lot of drama and it was crazy. 

So what really got me was the day that he came up to my desk. I had a young woman on my team that was in her 20s and she was a social media strategist. Beautiful young woman, just gorgeous. Married, two little kids. And what I knew was she was married and had two little kids and there was no talk of her getting a divorce or being separated, none of that. And this owner of the company comes up to my desk and he rubs his hands together and says, she—and he points to my young team member—likes older men and just gives me this really creepy look and walks away. And I am shocked because… What? Why are you telling me that somebody on my team that works for me is a potential target for your inappropriate sexual behavior in the office? He was in relationship with the VP of Creative. What are we doing here? 

There were a lot of other things that happened. And I literally told my husband one day, oh my God, I’m not going to make it. I can’t work here. This is so stressful. I was just, you know, talk about Sunday scaries. I had the Sunday horror show. I mean, I would just get so anxious, you know, starting Sunday morning that I would have to go back. And I came home one day and told my husband, you know, I just, I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I got to get out of there. And it had only been about nine months. 

07:25

Well, since I had given a really great two week notice and had done all I could at the other agency, they called me. My husband had actually suggested, you should call them and see if they’ll take you back. And I was like, oh no, they’re not going to. They’ve already hired somebody. And I knew that, and they don’t need me. And you know, that’s not going to work. And the very next day my phone rang and it was that agency saying, hey, can you come back? The person we hired didn’t work out. We’d love to have you back in the role. What do you need and when can you show up? How long do you need to give notice? And I said I don’t need to give notice, not in this crazy place. Nope. 

And so I went in on a Sunday night and I, you know, left notes on some of my co workers desks and I sent—got home, you know, got all my belongings, got home that Monday morning, left my key on my desk and everything, wrapped it all up, got home—sent an email to the CEO and just said I’m done. And you know, it’s been a very difficult time and I do not fit in your culture, so thank you, bye. And you know, I was polite but honestly with the type of behavior and the type of people that worked there, I wasn’t worried about, you know, references. I was never going to use them as a reference. They don’t show up on my resume, my LinkedIn, nowhere. Nobody knows I’ve worked there. Unless you dig pretty far back into my history, somewhere on the Internet you may find it, but I just- it wasn’t appropriate. 

09:02

So when we say you should give two weeks, you should always give an appropriate two week notice and behave to the highest levels of professionalism. If you would ever want to go back to that employer in any capacity, absolutely you should. And if you’re working in a place that’s kind of a toxic shit show and the owner may be using the staff as his dating pool or you know, you’ve got drinking all day long or you’ve got sexism or racism or inappropriate behavior, don’t worry about two weeks because in a lot of cases people that support that kind of behavior at the office will make those last two weeks a living hell for you. I’ve seen it happen and you don’t want that. So when you’re in a toxic relationship… bye! Work through the day and head out. Otherwise give a nice two weeks notice.

I hope this was helpful. So that’s all I’ve got for you for this episode. Short and sweet. My name again is Lori Jo Vest. If you are watching this on YouTube, please hit the subscribe button. I would love to have you on my list and give me a like and maybe a comment. That would be awesome. I’m really trying to get my YouTube presence up and get some great content out there. Or you can also visit my website at workmomsays.com where I have a contact form and I am also an open networker on LinkedIn, so reach out to me there if you have any ideas for guests I should have on topics I should cover. I would absolutely love to hear from you. So that’s what I’ve got for you. I’ll see you again 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.

The post Episode 47 – Is 2 Weeks Notice ALWAYS Necessary? Nope! appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• Understanding resilience and its importance in the workplace
• Strategies for emotional regulation and self-care
• Building a strong support network for professional and personal growth
• Continuous learning and shifting mindset to handle setbacks
• Practical techniques for reframing challenges as opportunities

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

00:20 – Introduction to resilience: Understanding resilience as a skill to quickly regain composure after facing disruptions.

01:25 – Early career experience and a story of resilience: An example of staying calm during a company financial crisis.

05:07 – Defining resilience in a professional context: How managing emotions and adapting to challenges is key.

7:54 – Self-care as a foundation for resilience: The importance of physical and mental well-being to maintain composure.

09:00 – Emotional regulation as part of resilience: Managing mood and emotions effectively in the workplace.

11:10 – Building a support network: Creating a system of mentors and friends to navigate workplace challenges.

12:14 – Continuous learning and mindset shifts: The importance of learning about resilience and reframing challenges as opportunities.

Links

Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!

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!” Today we’re going to talk about how to grow your resilience. Resilience is a really important skill. And basically what it means is that when something happens, good, bad or otherwise, you are able to quickly get back to your normal setting. 

For example, if you are on the phone, you hear something terrible happened. When you get off the phone, maybe you have a client meeting. Resilience means that you can take some deep breaths, put that aside, get to it later, and face the next thing you encounter from that strong foundation of calm and stability. 

Because resilience is- it’s one of those things that if you can be the calm in the storm—that would be another way I would define it—if you can be the calm in the storm when crazy things are happening, when things are chaotic, you’ll be the one that people rely on when things go crazy, because they’ll know you’ll be the one that’ll be, you know, steady and stable. And, you know, I’ll give you a quick story.

01:25

I’ve told this one before, but you may not have heard it if you didn’t catch the episode. Early in my career, I worked for a company that was a television production studio. I was recruited into this organization. And at the time I remember thinking, ‘If they hired a recruiter, recruiters are expensive, so they must have a lot of money. This must be a really solid company.’ And they hired me for marketing. They hired a gentleman named Tom for sales. And Tom felt so strongly about this company and its possible success that he moved his wife from Chicago to Metro Detroit. She was six months pregnant. She had a really good job at Bloomingdale’s. 

And about I’d say two months after the hirings and—you know, Tom and I were settling into our jobs and there were about 20 other people at the company. It was a small company, but we were doing great, you know, great work for big organizations, for automotive companies like Ford, lots of great things were happening—and we found out that the major financial backer, the silent partner, had decided that they weren’t profitable enough and they were losing money. And he needed to start making some cuts to the budget immediately. 

And one of the first things that he said he was going to do was start with a payroll budget. So he was going to meet with each one of us that same day. Now, keep in mind, the day before, we felt like everything was great. And then we get called in for an early morning meeting and we’re told that finances are really bad. And we are going to leave work that day knowing how much less we were going to get paid for our jobs.

And now think about Tom. He just moved his wife from Chicago. She was a little against the move. She wasn’t real happy about it. She went along, but she wasn’t really happy about it. And Tom, all that day and over the next week while we figured out what was going to happen, was just calm as a cucumber. We couldn’t believe it. We were like, ‘What? Tom, what’s your secret?’ Because, I mean, everybody else was freaking out. How am I going to pay my bills? And what’s going to happen? And Tom was like, just smooth. And, ‘How’s it going?’ ‘I’m doing good. I’m hanging in there. We’ll figure it out.’ So smooth. 

And I asked him one day, ‘Tom,’ you know, ‘how do you do that? What is it that’s keeping you so much calmer than the rest of us?’ And he said, ‘I really love spy novels.’ I was like, what does that mean? And he really was very into spy novels. Reading about these international spies who could create brand new identities for themselves and engage in these really long programs or whatever they call them, you know, projects where they would have to embody this new person for months on end in order to get to a certain person that they had to stop or get information from or whatever. It was really interesting. And he said, so as far as I’m concerned, if I take what I read and I apply that to the situation, why can’t I stay calm? How good does, you know- what good does it do me to get upset? And I just keep reading my spy novels and I get through it.

So it was a really interesting approach. There are lots and lots of ways of approaching resilience. And that was just one example of many, many ways that you can develop your own resilience so that when things go a little sideways, you’re not the one that’s emotionally overwrought and unable to manage it in a professional way.

5:07

So what exactly is resilience in a professional context? That means you are able to manage negative emotions in a way that brings you back to a steady emotional state and do it quickly. And there’s a lot of different things that happen. There’s a lot of uncertainty There’s a lot of setbacks, there’s a lot of stress in the office.

Resilience doesn’t mean you just push through it. Resilience means that you adapt. You look at the situation, you act as the observer. That’s one way of being resilient. It’s just kind of, stop for a second, instead of jumping in and starting to gyrate around something that happened. Pull yourself back. Look at it from a distance and consider,—especially an emotional distance—and consider what you would do if you weren’t emotionally invested, if you were strategic, if you were able to be non judgmental, if you were able to look out for everyone’s best interests instead of reacting out of anger or stress or sadness or whatever it is. Resilience is a strong leadership skill. So it’s worth developing. It’s worth taking the time to study it, to talk about it, to maybe put together a group of people that look at your different skills that you need to grow and find resources to help you grow those skills.

The kind of challenges that you’re going to run into during your career can be things like not getting that job that they told you you were this close to getting. Career setbacks, getting laid off, imposter syndrome. You may go into the office one day just feeling like you don’t even know how to do your job. Why did they hire you? Regular stress can cause emotional issues and cause you to react in emotional ways, maybe even inappropriately. You may get a new boss that’s extremely challenging. You may get a whole bunch of new responsibilities without the accompanying pay increase. It happens when you have the ability to be resilient in those kinds of situations, you will handle them in a more positive way that creates stronger relationships and helps you become a better leader and become a stronger employee and honestly just a better person.

Because if you’re resilient, then if something happens in your personal life that can be really, you know, can knock you off your feet, you’ll be able to pull yourself back up and so again, just such an important skill. 

7:54

So let’s talk about four different ways that you can build your resilience. Couple things: self care. Believe it or not, self care is a huge part of being able to manage your emotions and be resilient. Getting enough sleep, eating properly, being hydrated, not being out drinking with, you know, friends on a work night, or you know, coming into work hungover in the morning. All those kinds of things are self care. Taking care of yourself so that you can bring your best physical self to the office. That does translate to your emotions. 

And self care also includes quiet time. If you’re one of those people that you just run hard all week long, maybe you’re in sales and you just run hard all week and you need to take the weekend to just power down and you know, lock to the couch and watch some Netflix. Perfectly okay. Whatever you need to do to practice self care and get yourself back to an even keel will help you be resilient. 

9:00

The other thing that we can talk about is emotional regulation. One of the things that I would study early in my career is mood management and emotion management. Because when you are in a state of emotional dysregulation, you can’t really handle anything properly. 

Let’s say you, you know, you had- were in a- just having a bad day this morning and you woke up and there wasn’t enough air in your tire and you had to fill that and then you, oh my God, didn’t have enough gas in your tank and you had to stop there. You went to Starbucks and the line was really long and you’re just really annoyed and you get to the office and somebody stops you and says, oh, that thing you turned in yesterday, it wasn’t right, you’ll have to do it again. If you are not able to regulate your emotions, you will not respond to that situation in a way that’s positive.

And guess what? It will happen. It’s- part of life is like that. So emotional regulation means you take a breath and you put the effort in to handle the situation properly, no matter how you feel. What resilience means in a lot of cases is making sure that your feelings do not dictate your behavior.

We all have a logical side to our brains and to the way we think that we can call on. The more you call on it, the stronger it gets. So when you’ve had that horrible morning and you walk in, and that coworker says that… Deep breath. And you’ll know if you take a second before you react and you give yourself a minute to respond instead, you will know that the right thing to do is to say, give me a minute, let me settle into my desk, and I’ll come see you so we can talk about it. And you’ll keep going to your desk, and you won’t let that ruin your day at the office. 

That may mean taking a walk around the building before you go to your desk, if the morning was really that bad. But don’t bring your dysregulated emotions into the office if you can at all help it. Not a good idea, and it’s not productive. 

11:10

Another thing you can do is build yourself a support network. And that means making some friends that are maybe a couple notches up the ladder from you at your office, finding a few mentors in your industry, having girlfriends or, you know, male friends, having friends that you can talk to that will help you when you are, you know, struggling with the situation at work.

You may have a new boss that is just, oh my God, all over you with minutiae. And all of a sudden, everything you’re doing is being picked apart and you just can’t handle it. Well, you can handle it and you will handle it. And if you have a good support system, what’ll happen is when you go home, you’ll be able to vent some of that by calling someone on your support system list.

You know, whether it’s your friend, whether it’s your, you know, your old boss, whoever it is that can help you kind of figure out what’s going on, make sense of the, you know, of the spaghetti mess, and move forward in a positive way. 

12:13

So let’s see, what else do we have here? Continuous learning. Another way to build resilience is continuous learning. And what that means is study it. You know, look, do a Google search. Spend 15 minutes a week. Do a Google search, how to grow your resilience. It will be so worth your while. Do that for 90 days, once a week, 15 minutes, you’ll know everything there is to know about it. You’ll know enough about it at that point. To build your resilience. It’s really not that hard.

12:43

One final way to build your resistance is to shift your mindset. And there’s two things I’ll recommend here that I really, really love. One is called reframing. And what that is, is consider this. There’s what happens, and then there’s what you tell yourself about what happened. And what you tell yourself about what happened is the framing that you’re giving to that situation.

For example, if I get a new boss and all of a sudden that new boss is just all over me and wants to see everything I do, I can frame that in many different ways. I can say, she doesn’t think I could do my job, she thinks I’m incompetent. Or more positively, I can frame it as, she just got here, she’s trying to figure out how I do my job, how to best manage me, if my work, you know, dovetails with her vision for how she wants the work done, those kinds of things. And that is a much more positive way of looking at that situation. And it is a form of resilience.

Another way to reframe is to look at failures as learning opportunities. When something really crazy happens, instead of gyrating around it and going down the rabbit hole of self hatred and all of that, immediately go to, ‘Why did it happen? What did we learn and how can we prevent it from happening in the future?’ And when you frame failures and mistakes as learning opportunities, it’s a form of resilience. It helps you get past the negative feelings and into a much, much more productive mindset.

14:25

Those are the tips I have for you today around resilience. I hope they’re helpful. If you would like more career advice from Work Mom, I have a 40-year career in business. I would love to have you tune into my podcast on Spotify. I’m on YouTube. If you are watching this on YouTube, please hit the subscribe button. Give me a like, help me spread the word. I am here to help young professionals learn how to play the emotional contact sport of business. I have a website at workmomsays.com where I have some blogs and a contact form if you’d like to suggest a guest or ask a question. I am also an open networker on LinkedIn. So if you have heard this podcast out in the wild, please, please feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. I’d love to hear from you. So that’s all I’ve got for you. I’ll see you very 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.

The post Episode 46 – Resilience as a Career Skill appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• Adapting to bridge jobs and finding growth opportunities
• Navigating post-college career challenges in a pandemic world
• Importance of customer experience in career advancement
• Embracing commission-based roles
• Addressing workplace challenges with empathy

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

00:50 – Guest introduction: Kyle Elsasser shares his journey from a pandemic graduate to a flourishing career in the automotive industry.

03:01 – From entry-level to expertise: Kyle discusses the transition from an express lane service advisor to his current role.

04:59 – Finding the value in seemingly temporary roles: How Kyle transformed his ‘bridge job’ into a fulfilling career.

22:55 – Handling conflict with customers: Building empathy and tackling problems collaboratively.

28:59 – Advice for recent graduates and early career professionals: Making the most of your current job while seeking new opportunities.

Top Quotes

5:38 – “I decided I wasn’t just going to use it as something to do for a few months. I decided I actually might as well do something with it.”

15:47 – “Being yourself at the office is different than being your best self at the office.”

17:09 – “…when you’re being paid to work, it’s not just your performance in your job, it’s not just your work product that is the- should be the result of that. It should also be your work persona.”

30:21 – “Even if it’s really hellish, focus on what you’re learning. When you start to get antsy, look back. Are you still learning?”

Links

Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!

Transcript

00:12

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!” Today we’re going to talk about making the best of where you are. There are times when you’re in a position that you didn’t really expect to have to take.

You may have a job that is less than you feel you deserve. You may feel that you are too experienced for your job or should be making more money. All kinds of things can happen. However, sometimes you have to stick with that job that you’re not so happy with for a little bit longer than you’d like.

So our guest today is Kyle Elsasser. Say hi, Kyle.

KYLE: Hello.

00:57

LORI: A 26 year old University of Michigan grad. He graduated in 2020 during the pandemic and things were extremely difficult and the place that he thought he was going to go right after college, that position evaporated. So he ended up taking what I would call a bridge job, meaning you take that job while you wait for something bigger and better to come along. Right, Kyle?

KYLE: Yeah, that was the plan.

LORI: Tell us about what happened when you first graduated.

KYLE: I had an internship with Mopar. I had a whole- everything lined up, you know, getting an interview set up for the second, third week of March of 2020. That was quote unquote, a formality to go move out of state and start a new job as a district manager. Covid happened, said, oh, we’ll just wait a few weeks, we’ll wait a couple months. And here we are, five years later.

LORI: Yea, no kidding. So what was your first position? What did you find out there and how did you find it?

KYLE: Well, again it was- I was originally intending to go work for Mopar, which is the service and parts division of FCA or Stellantis Chrysler. Ended up taking a job as an express lane service advisor at a Chrysler dealer that my uncle was the general manager of. Just figured it’d be something to fill my time while we were waiting those couple of weeks to a couple of months…

LORI: Couple of weeks, couple of months, couple of years. So what was the position and what were your duties? What did you do?

KYLE: So it was, again, an express lane service advisor, which basically means, it’s a big dealership. If you need to come in and get your oil changed, something quick, tire rotation, wheel alignment, what have you. You drive in the service lane, no appointments, and I was the guy that greeted you, set you up for your oil change, told you to go sit down and wait, and came and grabbed you when you were done.

03:01

LORI: Okay, so now fast forward five years, what are you doing now?

KYLE: I am a service advisor for the main shop, not doing oil changes and such. And I work for our premium brand of Alfa Romeo.

LORI: Okay, and Wagoneer too?

KYLE: A little bit of backup Wagoneer stuff, mostly Alfa.

LORI: So tell me what the difference is in those two positions.

KYLE: Express lane is very entry level. You know, it’s pretty, pretty standard. You don’t take anything from day to day. It’s just every customer that comes in, you say hi to them, tell them to sit down and an hour later you go grab them, collect your 50 bucks or whatever for the oil change and see you later.

Whereas what I’m doing now, I’m juggling every single Italian car that comes in that dealership from top to bottom, whether that is your oil change or whether that is your forty thousand dollar engine that blew up and, you know, keep your car for six months and I handle the process from start to finish.

LORI: So one of the other differences is, you make how much more money than you did when you first started?

KYLE: Considerably more. You know, that certainly does make a difference.

LORI: Two times? Three times?

KYLE: Somewhere between two and three. Yeah, for sure.

LORI: In four and a half years, basically, you made that happen, right?

KYLE: Yeah, yeah pretty much.

LORI: So, let me ask you, how did you decide to stay there, and how did you make this transition to a job that paid so much more and was so much more in keeping with who you are as a, you know, as a college graduate, etc.?

KYLE: I mean, when you start you’re making $12 an hour, again, as a bridge job, right? I kind of thought a little bit, you know, I wanted to make the most of it, right? At the time my going to be real job would have been valuable experience to have this little bit of express lane job experience.

LORI: Okay, so how did you do it? How did you- what do you think made you different that allowed you to make that transition?

KYLE: So again, it was originally a bridge job. Just get a little bit of experience. But then I kind of realized there was more to it. Right? You know, there was the customer experience aspect of it. There was some small portion that was commission in that first part of it. And I decided I wasn’t just going to use it as something to do for a few months. I decided I actually might as well do something with it. Which, again, originally was to be able to take that experience into the next step at Stellantis.

But over time, one, that next step at Stellantis seemed further and further away. And two, I realized there actually really probably was more to it than just writing up oil changes, collecting my 12 bucks an hour and going home. As I said, the customer experience aspect of it is huge.

That’s something that’s in the dealer industry is one of, if not the most important things. And I realized I certainly did have kind of a knack for it, I guess. I saw what other advisors were doing in the main shop. I saw that there was potential to be had there and then kind of carved out my spot as the customer experience guy and actually ended up in a position that didn’t exist. Taking care of only the quote unquote, premium customers expect that expect a little bit more out of their service.

06:44

LORI: So personally, how would you say you did that? What was it that took you from that more entry level position to growing your income, growing your responsibility, growing your, basically, career in a job that you thought was going to be entry level and kind of just a stopping point along the way. What was it about you that made it possible for you to do that, do you think?

KYLE: Well, one thing, one of our managers that came in out of a- actually used to work for a Lexus store. You know, they’re very, very, very much into the, again, quote unquote premium experience. I kind of got closer with him, kind of understood how he did things. And we both, between me and him, came up with this position that didn’t exist. And then I also, another side of it, was my mom, this lady that raised me, actually once wrote a book a long time ago about customer experience.

I kind of had that in my head from the get go. So really that is the biggest difference, is actually keeping track of customer experience, and making it a priority is what made this more of a possibility for me.

LORI: Now to talk about customer experience, just for people who aren’t as familiar with what we mean by that: what Kyle’s talking about is when the customer comes into the dealership, that dealership is representing that entire organization to that customer. And that may be the only relationship that they have with the corporation through, the dealership, until it’s time to buy another car.

And if that experience isn’t good, they’ll go to a different dealership and potentially to another brand. So for an automotive manufacturer, that customer experience is a huge, huge thing. And Kyle, you even mentioned that they get discounts on the cars they purchase if they have good customer service scores in the service area?

KYLE: Yeah, so I mean it’s highly incentivized by the manufacturer, and that’s across the board in the entire auto industry. But part of the way that Chrysler does it is, or Stellantis does it, is if service scores at a certain dealership are at whatever level they want them to be at, they actually do discount their cars for the dealership.

So I mean you’re talking 1,000, 2,000 dollars on every single unit just based off of if customers indicated they were happy during the oil change experience. So it does make a big difference.

LORI: So customer surveys are a big deal, and basically what that means is the dealer buys a car for this much and they sell it for that much. If they can buy it from the manufacturer for a couple thousand dollars cheaper on every vehicle, that adds up, that adds up over time.

KYLE: A bit of profit.

9:43

LORI: Yeah, exactly. So I really like how they’ve done that, how they tied service to sales and how they are making sure that the dealers understand that that service aspect is really critical. But they’ve not- traditionally, that’s always been a challenge in the dealerships to find the people that really understood, or to train them. Maybe that’s the issue. I’m not in that business, so I don’t know. But training people on customer service and how to be what you naturally are can be really challenging. And what I would say is you appear to be really naturally service oriented and wanting to make sure that the customers are happy, that that’s kind of part of who you are. Would you say that?

KYLE: Well, yeah. I mean, again, I remember when I was an eight year old I was talking to my mom about her customer service book, right? I mean that’s one side of it. But also, I mean I truly enjoy helping people with their cars. I mean that makes a big difference, actually wanting to do the job. If you’re coming in with your, just for my example or whatever, your Alfa Romeo or whatever, your nice Italian car that you saved your money up for and you’ve always wanted, and oh, you got an engine light and ‘Oh my God, that’s a huge deal. I don’t know what it is. I’m not a car guy. I just got my fancy Italian car.’ I’m happy to be that person to walk them through that and, ‘We’ll take care of it. We’ll make it a seamless process. You’ll be back on the road in no time.’ I mean, that’s something that’s pretty fulfilling, actually.

LORI: Yeah, because you are the car guy, right?

KYLE: Yeah, I mean, I’m explaining things about cars to my friends and family. I might as well do it for work too.

11:26

LORI: Exactly. Well, I do think there’s a lot to be said for that tie to what you’re passionate about. Makes it easier to do a really good job when you enjoy it. And you’ve always been a car guy, so let’s just veer off for a second. How many MINI Coopers do you have?

KYLE: I have six, working on seven.

LORI: And how many have you had in the last 10 years?

KYLE: Ten.

LORI: Ten. Okay. So yeah, the car guy getting into the car business really makes a lot of sense. Kyle just thought he was going to be more on the corporate side, helping the dealers from the corporate side, and instead he’s actually boots on the ground helping the customers. Which is- I would beg to say that was almost more important to the manufacturer’s success than anything else.

Okay, so let’s talk about what do you think- what mindset did you have when you took this job that allowed you to continue to grow and turn this into something better?

KYLE: I wasn’t intending to be there forever, but it really did start with, I wanted to actually make this not quote unquote important. Just bridge a job and use it as something that would be good experience for what I thought my real job would be. I mean, that’s really where it started. You know, I could have just collected my paycheck and just waited, sat around until the actual job showed up. But I thought it could be something useful. And just in doing that, that’s kind of when I realized that I wouldn’t have to skip out to the corporate side. I could actually make something useful out of what I was doing.

And then additionally, I mentioned that that my uncle was the one who was the GM at the time. He’s since retired, but when I had him in my back pocket telling me, ‘Hey, there is something to this. Give the dealership, the franchise side of it, a shot because there’s certainly a career, plenty of careers to be had in that side of the industry as well.’ So I took that knowledge and kind of just, again, rather than just sitting around and waiting for my, quote, real job to come in, to come up, I decided to make the most of it and see what I could do.

LORI: Well, you just nailed it. What you said when we were preparing for this recording was, you chose to make this a career, not a job. And when you choose to even take that first, what I’d call piddly little job that you don’t necessarily want and do your absolute best…

14:01

How many people do you hear that are CEO that started off as the receptionist or started off in the mail room, or started off, you know, you’re going through the ranks of the service department and learning how it works from that entry level position. So we also talked about being promotable. What does that mean to you, Kyle?

KYLE: I mean, I guess showing willingness and ability to do more than what you’re doing. I mean that’s my one biggest- I’m not very far in my career or whatever in terms of time- but in my one proper promotion of going from a very replaceable job to something that hadn’t existed before.

I mean that was really what it came down to was I was talking to management saying, ‘Hey, I don’t want to do this forever, but I want to see what I can do with this company.’ And then having the numbers and results to prove it when that position appeared, I was the one to do it.

LORI: And couple things I’d highlight as we talk about this is that when you go into a job with the mindset that it’s a career, I would say you’re more earnest, you’re more enthusiastic, you’re more likely to present your best self than you would if you were just going to your job. Does that make sense? And you mentioned that in that side of things, there’s a lot of people out there that are telling young professionals that we need to be authentic. Be as authentic as you can, that’s what people like. And there’s a lot to be said for that.

But, being yourself at the office is different than being your best self at the office. Right? So how would you say when you go into work every day, you’re your best self? Because you mentioned some things to me when we were talking earlier about, that you just have a different attitude no matter how the other person is acting. So tell me about that.

KYLE: Yeah, I mean that especially comes into play with the job that I’m doing. Customers typically aren’t walking up to my desk thrilled to be there. It’s usually because their car is broken, right? So I mean the biggest thing is just approaching the day with a smile on your face.

It sounds a little bit goofy, a little bit cliche or whatever, but especially in a customer facing job, I mean that is what you got to do. It’s, ‘Hey Mr. Customer,’ you know, and, ‘I recognize you’re not really thrilled to be here, but let’s figure this out. Let’s make this the least inconvenience we can and then we’ll get you back going.’ I’ll be honest, I don’t approach every single person in my daily life with a big bright smile and a hello.

LORI: Well, yeah.

But at work I do.

LORI: But when you’re getting paid to do it, you do it.

KYLE: Sure. Yeah, exactly.

17:03

LORI: I mean, that’s the thing that I think some people maybe forget earlier in their careers, is that when you’re being paid to work, it’s not just your performance in your job, it’s not just your work product that should be the result of that. It should also be your work persona.

And we talked about how when you create really connected positive relationships with everybody you work with, even the crabby-ass people, you’re going to end up being better able to perform your job. And you mentioned somebody that isn’t necessarily friendly every day, but you’ve taken an approach to him that makes him easier to work with. Right?

KYLE: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we’ve got all kinds of different folks at the dealership level. Right? I mean from- there are plenty of folks that are just there to get through the slog and do the job and that’s it. But you gotta be able to work with everybody.

You gotta be able to, again as it is, as I said, smiling and then hello, and that makes a big difference because when I need this job out of this technician to get done or whatever, if I’m the guy that’s always having a brief chat with them and asking how they’re doing or whatever, they’re a little more likely to work with me. Even if they are the less cooperative type of person.

LORI: I would say you earn their reciprocity,

KYLE: Yeah. And I help them out too. I mean, if they need something from one advisor and that advisor is either busy or having a crap day and doesn’t feel like helping, I absolutely step up for stuff that’s absolutely not my job.

And, truly, as someone that’s only paid on commission, I’m literally handing out my time. Here you go. Let me take a few minutes to help you. I don’t get anything out of it. But, you know. And that makes a difference in a workplace, right? I’m spending 40, 50 hours with these people every single week. You might as well get along with everybody.

LORI: Yeah. And that’s the key too is getting along with everybody. You can’t pick people you do or don’t get along with. Everyone that works there deserves your positive performance. And if they don’t deliver their side of the bargain? Oh well, that’s them, you know? And you’ll still find the crabbiest people will go the extra mile for you because you’ve been kind to them for so long.

I’ve seen that over and over and over. People are like, ‘You got that person to do what?’ Like, yeah, I was just really nice to her for a really long time. And before you know it, I could get her to do whatever I wanted. I mean, reciprocity. People appreciate it when you are kind. Especially people I think that are seriously maybe crabby all the time. Not very many people are kind to them. So when you stand out as repeatedly kind, it makes a difference, it really does. In what you get back. And also how you’re able to perform your job. When you need something, you need a favor, you need help, you can get it.

20:04

So let’s talk about this whole commission thing. I know commission, a lot of people are afraid of it because they’re like, ‘I want to have a guaranteed salary’ and you are 100% commission, right?

KYLE: Yeah, yeah. And bonuses and whatnot, sure.

LORI: How does that work? I mean, why doesn’t that make you anxious?

KYLE: I mean, I certainly did the math right before I agreed to it. I mean, one positive is that there are, well, in one way, there are other advisors at the dealership who I could talk to and see what the numbers are and see what comes in every day to make sure it’s something that I can sustain myself.

But also, again, it was kind of starting a job that didn’t exist before in that I’m only working with the one premium brand that kind of just got sprinkled through everybody, through all the advisors prior to me showing up. But having all that as kind of a- I don’t know if really captive audience is the right word- but I knew that I was going to continue to have work coming in. So I knew that that baseline, whatever that baseline would be, I knew that I wasn’t going to be going completely hungry one week. Right? I knew that something was going to be coming in and I would have that. I just decided I’d go for it and see what happened. And it worked.

I mean, there are absolutely some weeks. There’s my little ADP app that tells me ‘your pay went up whatever percentage up or down’ I mean, there are some weeks where it says my pay was down 75% from last week. But also ones that were 300% or whatever. Right? I kind of had a vague idea of what came in the door and I knew that I could make it work. As long as I’m not living or dying on my one week that I happened to make $300 on because it was a slow week or whatever.

LORI: Right, right. I do think that commission, if you do the homework to make sure it’s a good deal for you, is one of the ways that you can make a lot more money than you would in a salaried position.

KYLE: Yeah. And that is how it’s ended up working too is that if you zoom out from the week to week to the month to month, to what you take home over a year, it adds absolutely worth it, at least in the spot that I’m in. And I’m sure a lot of commission jobs don’t end up that way, but I imagine most of them do.

LORI: Yeah the episode we just released was about how to make more money. And one of the things that I say, if you work for a small or a mid sized company and you can influence customers coming in, a lot of times you can get a bonus or commission on that work, even if that’s not specifically your space. You know people or something like that that may come in, a lot of times you can get a little bump on that depending on what type of industry you’re in.

22:55

So a couple other things, I know you are in an industry, Kyle, that has a lot of probably more heated conflict with customers than a lot of industries. Because somebody pays $60,000 for a car, they buy it brand new, they don’t expect anything to go wrong. And just like any other type of product, sometimes something goes wrong early and they’re mad, and you’re the first person that they talk to. How do you manage those kinds of conversations?

KYLE: I mean, it’s all case by case, right? But over the few years I’ve gotten better at gauging people, right? You kind of have to know what they expect, and if you can meet and/or exceed that, then you’re doing well. And then not everybody- you’re not going to be able to win them all. You know, every once in a while I get the, ‘I just bought this car two weeks ago, I want you to buy it back from me and give me a brand new one.’ You know, I can’t-

LORI: Yeah, you can’t. You’re not the guy in charge of that.

KYLE: Kind of a benefit of being at the dealership, you know, part of that, the dealership guy, is that the expectations aren’t always the highest out of everybody. So if I am the guy that- if they say, ‘Oh, whoa, this guy actually does care that my car gets fixed’ if I hit them with immediately, ‘I know you just spent $60,000 in this thing. It’s broken. Let’s get it fixed. I don’t know what it is. We’re going to figure it out and we’re going to make it,’ you know, ‘we’re going to get you right back going.’ Usually that’s that little bit of, kind of caring and understanding, ‘Hey, this sucks. Yeah, I get it. Let’s make it not suck’ is enough to disarm get people to make them happy at the end of the the day.

LORI: So I’m hearing two things. Major amounts of empathy. ‘Oh my God, that does suck.’ And we against the problem. You are not the problem. The problem is over there and you and the customer are over here looking at it. Right? And trying to figure out how to solve it. So it’s we against the problem.

KYLE: That’s something that a lot of service people, at least internally, say is, ‘Hey man, I didn’t make the car.’ Now, I don’t find that’s helpful when I tell- if you’re going to tell a customer that. I don’t do that. But that is what we say internally, and that’s the truth. You know, I didn’t make the car. I didn’t cause the problem. So hey, this really sucks. Let’s figure it out. Let’s get it sorted out. And that, I guess also probably helps. You know, I’m not going to tell folks that in that many words. But also, most people know not to- most, not all, know not to immediately attack me for the problem they’re in.

LORI: So I gotta ask you though, when somebody’s yelling at you, and you know, ‘Hey, I didn’t make the car,’ what thoughts do you think or what do you tell yourself so that you don’t get pulled into the drama?

KYLE: I mean, not to be condescending or anything, but I know that if they’re yelling at me, if they’re yelling and swearing and pitching a fit, they’re being immature about it. Right? You know how to handle somebody that’s like that. I just let them get through it. Again, just keep with the passive, ‘Hey, we’re gonna figure this out. We’re gonna handle, we’re gonna do this, that and the other thing,’ rather than taking it to heart, obviously is not helpful at all. In my experience usually, I find almost every single time, if you just let them let it out, let them kick and scream, you don’t feed back into it, they’re gonna come back and apologize. I can’t count. I can’t count how many people I’ve had kick and scream and swear at me and call me mean names. And then either by the end of the call or the next day, they, ‘Hey Kyle, man, I’m sorry about that. I know you’re trying to help. I got a little bit heated.’ Yeah, you’re good. You just let them get it out of their system, and usually that’s all you need.

LORI: And if you had struck back or gotten defensive, then you’ve taken away that opportunity. Then you’ve taken away the opportunity for them to apologize and say, I’m sorry.

KYLE: Then it’s not me and Mr. Customer against the problem. It’s Mr. Customer against me and the problem. I’m not at odds with the customer ever. If they want to try and make that, it’s not going to happen. I’m not going to allow that. I’m not going to fight with them. It’s not as common as you might make it seem. It doesn’t happen very often, but the few that do get heated, again, as long as they come to the realization that I’m trying to help them, usually they calm down.

LORI: And let’s surface one more time that these are very expensive cars. So when they break down…

KYLE: Yeah, sure. As a representative of the company or whatever, I don’t know how much I should be saying, but Stellantis has had some quality problems. I’ll leave it at that, since-

LORI: All automotive companies have quality problems. Yeah, they really do.

KYLE: Maybe since before the merger. But post the Peugeot Stellantis merger, there have been some quality problems. So there has been a lot of opportunities for me to get through that situation.

LORI: Yeah, and they’re lucky with those kinds of problems- that’s one thing about manufacturing is when you have those kinds of problems, you want people like Kyle on the other end with the customers. Yeah.

KYLE: And I’ve seen my own dealership and also anywhere else where it takes that one shot and, ‘All right, I’m never going to buy a car from this manufacturer ever again. All right, I’m going to go to get my, instead of my Alpha, I’m going to go get my Lexus or my BMW next time. See you later.’ That’s something that happens all the time. Diffusing those situations makes a difference.

28:59

LORI: So sitting where you’re sitting, four and a half years post-pandemic, what advice would you give to somebody just out of college, took that first job because it’s what they could find, they’re not perfectly happy with it… Now what?

KYLE: I mean, keep on searching for sure. Don’t give up on whatever it is you think you’re actually looking for. But also realize more than likely at 21, 22, however old you are when you just got out of college, you don’t actually know what you’re going to be doing. You might have an idea, but you don’t have any idea. You don’t really know what you’re doing, what the future is going to hold. So where you’re at, make the most of it. If you’re flipping hamburgers at McDonald’s, sure, maybe find something else. But more than likely wherever you’ve landed, there are people that have been there longer, that have made careers out of it, that are making good money and have some success. Figure out what they did and what you can do to move in that direction. And if whatever it was you thought you were looking for comes up, then you’ve gotten the experience out of what you were doing and you can move on. There’s no downside to it.

LORI: I think there’s lot to be learned in productivity and in customer service. In most positions, I tell people to focus on what you’re learning. And even if it’s really hellish, and I’ve had hellish jobs, focus on what you’re learning. And when you start to get antsy, look back. Are you still learning? If you are, stay. If you’ve learned everything you can learn there and it really is a hellscape, get out. But if it’s tolerable and you’re still learning and there’s opportunity, stick it out. You never know what could happen, right? That’s what I would say. So, yeah.

So I think that’s what we’ve got for today. Thank you so much, Kyle, for being here. I’m Lori Jo Vest. Again, this is Work Mom Says “Don’t Be an Idiot!” We have a website at workkmomsays.com where we house all of our episodes. We also have a blog there and an intake form. If you have someone that you would like to suggest as a guest, if you would like to be a guest, or if you’d like to submit a question that I should answer on this podcast. Please visit my website at workmomsays.com. I am also an open networker on LinkedIn. I would love to hear from you. And finally, if you are watching this on YouTube, hit the subscribe button, give me a like, and I’ll see you again soon with some more helpful information on how to play the emotional contact sport of business.

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.

The post Episode 45: Making the Best of Where You Are appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• Taking on more responsibility to earn a raise
• Recognizing and overcoming barriers to promotion
• Exploring side gigs and commission-based opportunities
• Strategies for career advancement

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

00:23 – Making more money in 2025: The importance of increasing your value beyond your current role and making yourself indispensable.

1:19 – It’s about performance, not time: Longevity alone doesn’t guarantee a raise; taking on more responsibility and making your boss’s job easier is crucial.

2:35 – Barriers to promotion: A personal story highlights the importance of developing essential skills like client communication.

5:05 – Exploring side gigs: Consider opportunities such as selling products on platforms like Etsy or taking on seasonal retail work.

6:30 – Commission-based roles: Finding commission opportunities can lead to higher earnings, especially for those initially hesitant about performance-based pay.

8:02 – Increasing your income: Evaluate your job performance, consider changing positions, monetize hobbies, or seek commission roles if feeling financially stuck.

Top Quotes

3:35 – “Your current employer knows your strengths, but they also know your weaknesses, and that can be a problem.”

6:04 – “If you have an interest outside of what you do day to day, that you would enjoy something like that, feel free to add that to your roster. A lot of those kinds of positions, it’s commission based.”

7:06 – “I would advise that if you want to make good money, find a position that allows you to get compensated for bringing in business or for encouraging customers to make a purchase…”

8:12 – “Consider whether you’re doing enough at your current position. Consider whether it’s an appropriate time for you to move to a new position. Consider if you have a hobby or a passion you can monetize. Consider if you could take a job that offered commission.”

Links

Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!

Transcript

00:12

Hello, I’m Lori Jo Vest, also known as Work Mom. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Work Mom Says “Don’t Be an Idiot!” I am so happy you’re here. Today we are going to talk about what you should be doing in 2025 if you want to make more money. 

A couple of things to talk about. In a lot of cases when people are earlier in their careers, they may not understand that it’s really, really important that if you want to get a raise, you have to make yourself more valuable beyond the position you’re currently holding. 

Business owners and corporations have specific budgets for specific positions based on profitability and operations expenses, etc, etc. And if you can take the salary that you have and the job that you have to the very highest level, so you get to the top of that budget range and the top of the performance range, then you can talk to your boss about getting a raise or a promotion.

1:19

One of the things that I hear people say, as I’ve been doing this job for two years now, “I should get a raise.” It’s not a matter of time. It’s not about time. It’s about more responsibility. It’s about making your boss’s job easier, maybe being that one size fits all person that can volunteer to take on pop up projects. Those are the things that make you valuable to your boss in your current position, and it’s a great way to get a raise, is to just always be on, always have goals, always look toward getting the next promotion in how you perform your current position- you’re setting yourself up for success. 

So what if you’re at the top of the budget range, and you want to make more money, but you know, it’s not going to happen right away? Sometimes your boss is limited. Maybe there’s people that are in the positions they’d like to promote you to, but you’re ready, and that person’s not. Or that person is, you know, firmly ensconced doing a great job and happy. 

There may be some barriers to you rising through the ranks at your current employer. It can happen. What those barriers are? One is that your current employer knows your strengths, but they also know your weaknesses, and that can be a problem. 

2:35

And I’ll give you an example. I had a wonderful employee, probably 12, 15 years ago, absolutely wonderful guy, and he was really wanting to move into the next higher position at the company that would allow us to give him a raise. And he did get a few opportunities. We gave him a few opportunities to sit in that chair, and that position that he wanted to move into required client communication and client collaboration, and that can be difficult for some people, and sometimes early in your career, if you’ve not been trained, it can be really hard to be good at that. And we had allowed this young guy to sit in that chair and be on a project with a client, and it started to go a little south. 

Now, in the business I was in, I was in video production, it wasn’t unusual for there to be little missteps along the way, because we were always trying to bring a client’s vision to life. Creativity is very subjective, so you were always working towards something and asking the client along the way, are we getting there? And sometimes there are blow ups. I mean, you’ve got creative people. Sometimes, you know, a creative producer will have an emotional response to something that they see, that they don’t like. And this particular guy got really defensive when the client said they didn’t like what he had done. 

Oh, it was bad. Let’s just say I had to do a lot of apologizing, and I had to have a meeting with him and go through the reasons that I felt he wasn’t ready to sit in that client-facing spot yet. And he didn’t like what he heard. He didn’t like it. 

And I actually talked to him and said, hey, you know what, one of the things that you may have to do, and I understand it if you do, is move to a different company in order to get the jump that you want to jump. Maybe a different industry, there may be other opportunities out there, but this is what I’ve got for you now. I’m happy to work with you to help you gain those skills. But in my opinion, you’re not quite ready to be in a client facing position independently, yet. Soon as you are, I’ll promote you. Can’t promote you right now. You need to make more money right now, you may have to go somewhere else.

And it was perfectly normal to consider that. I mean, a lot of employers won’t go that far in a conversation with you, but I think they should, because you deserve an honest assessment of what’s happening at the company and what your opportunities are in the next three months, six months, one year. And so that’s one way- be the best employee. 

5:05

The next thing to consider, if you want to make more money is, do you have the opportunity to have a side gig? And I’ll give you an example: I have a client that is making a product that she sells on Etsy. It’s pretty expensive, and she’s doing pretty well, and she’s selling a ton of them. She’s hiring her friends and family members to come over for 25 bucks an hour, help her pack, you know, beautiful packages of her product to go out to her customers. And that’s an opportunity to make a little extra cash. I have a friend who is a huge fan of a designer brand, so let’s just say she’s a big Gucci fan. During the holidays, designer brands need help. So if you are a huge Gucci fan, go to Gucci in December and see if they need assistance, and if you can get on their list to be called in and work the floor at a beautiful Gucci store, or maybe at the Chanel counter. 

If you have an interest outside of what you do day to day, that you would enjoy something like that, feel free to add that to your roster. A lot of those kinds of positions, it’s commission based. So if it’s a product that you are really passionate about, you can hang out with people, talk about the product, make commission, make new friends who come back and buy from you repeatedly, and it’s a kind of a side hustle that can be part time and kind of a passion hobby/source of income. 

6:30

Another thing you can do is consider taking a position that offers commission. And that can be challenging. Some people are afraid of commission. They want, you know, big salary and a little commission. 

And I’ve been guilty of that myself early in my career, I didn’t like big commissions because I was always afraid that I would have those dips in pay and maybe not be able to make my bills. So I was particularly picky about where I worked based on the size of the salary over the commission percentage. And I mean, it worked for me, but I wouldn’t advise it to others. 

Honestly, I would advise that if you want to make good money, find a position that allows you to get compensated for bringing in business or for encouraging customers to make a purchase, or hire a service that you offer. Even if that’s not a direct part of your position, if you can figure out a way to influence customers and potential customers, prospects, do that. And then see if you can get a commission on that, bringing that in. 

It may not happen in a large corporation, but in a lot of smaller to mid sized businesses, if you can become a source of revenue by actually bringing in customers, you can add a percentage to your pay. And that’s not unusual at all. I know we do it at our agency. If you go out and meet somebody and they just end up becoming a client, then you get a little bump in your pay every month for as long as they’re with us. So there’s a lot of things like that that you can do. 

8:02

So if you think you’re stuck in your job, you can’t get a raise, you’re never going to make any more money, and it’s really depressing, it doesn’t have to be. Consider whether you’re doing enough at your current position. Consider whether it’s an appropriate time for you to move to a new position. Consider if you have a hobby or a passion you can monetize. Consider if you could take a job that offered commission. 

So those are four ways that you can increase your income in 2025. Work Mom says, you have it in you. If you want to succeed and you want to make good money and you’re willing to be as productive as you can, set goals, meet those goals, every day, you will be successful in your career. It’s just inevitable. It’s how it works. 

Because a lot of people out there are calling it in, they’re phoning it in, they are not showing up. They’re in the Zoom call, but their mics are off and their cameras are off and they’re not paying attention. Be the person that stands out, because you do want to be productive and successful and have strong relationships, and that will help you make more money this year and many years into the future. 

9:09

So that’s what I’ve got for you today. Again, I’m Lori Jo Vest. I have a website at workmomsays.com where I house my podcast episodes. You can also listen to me on my podcast on those standard channels, iTunes, Spotify, etc, and I am an open networker on LinkedIn. I’d love to hear from you there. 

Please give me a subscribe and a like. Comment, tell me what you think, I’d love to hear from you. I’m always willing to consider ideas for guests and topics, answer questions. There is a contact page on my website at workmomsays.com. I would love to hear from you. So take care, I’ll be back to talk to you again 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.

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

The post Episode 44: New Year, More Money appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• The quality of your professional presentation and behavior
• The importance of emotion or mood management
• The quality of your work output
• Getting the work done vs creating the best possible work

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

2:30 – Presentation is everything: ALWAYS remember that you are being paid to behave on behalf of your employer, and that means representing your company with positivity and professionalism.
5:30 – Mood management: Paying attention to your behavior at the office will help you grow past emotions so that your emotions are no longer controlling you. When it’s inappropriate to express them, you put them aside.
8:30 – Improve quality of your work: Is your work accurate, is it thorough, and are you making the effort to produce quality work at all times?
10:00 – Don’t just get it done: Meeting deadlines is important, but making sure your work is the best it can possibly be while meeting deadlines is way more important.

Top Quotes

3:40 – “You are being paid to be there, and you’re also being paid to build productive, effective relationships with the team, and that’s something that a lot of people miss.”
5:10 – “It’s really good for your humanity to be forced to be patient with people, to be forced to be compassionate, and that’s one of the things that paying attention to your behavior at the office will help you do. It will help you grow past emotions, so that your emotions are no longer controlling you. You control them, and when it’s inappropriate to express them, you put them aside.”
6:15 – “Self-awareness will serve you really well in managing the quality of your behavior at work.”
10:00 – “However, the best way to think of it is to make sure it is done and done well. And that takes a little bit longer. It takes more effort, it takes more focus. It takes proofing.”
10:50 – “It’s a competition in some ways, not necessarily direct, but it can be a competition, and your behavior and how you present is one aspect of it, and your quality of your work is another.”

Links

Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!

Transcript

00:00
Hello, I’m Lori Jo Vest. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Work Mom Says, Don’t Be an Idiot. I have been doing this podcast, I think, for three or four years now. I really love to share what helped me rise through the ranks in my career and helped me get to new levels of success regularly.

So that’s what this podcast is about. I want to teach you how to play the emotional contact sport of business because it is an emotional contact sport. There are things that will stand in your way. There are emotions that you will have that will cause you to perhaps behave in a way that is not as productive as you should be if you want to succeed in your career.

So there are a lot of things we can talk about, but today, I want to talk about the quality of your work and how and why that’s so important. There are so many people that come through companies that are early in their career that you can tell they just don’t get it. And by that, I mean they’re still in the college mindset, or they’re still in the mindset of, you know, I am myself everywhere I go, I behave the same way everywhere I go.

01:30
While that may sound appealing and it may sound like the advice people are giving you when they say, be authentic, it’s really not. When you are in a work situation, you are being paid to act and behave on behalf of that company. So if you keep that in mind at all times that you are representing your employer during business hours and at business events, you will behave in a more strategic fashion.

And one of the things that that means is you will look at the quality of your work, and for this episode, I want to talk about the quality of your work in both your presentation and how you behave and how you talk and build relationships at work, as well as the quality of the actual work you’re doing.

Say you’re a copywriter, you’re a welder, you’re a mechanic, you’re a customer service person. So there’s two different aspects to this. One is how you present, and when I talk about the quality of your presentation, again, think about it this way, you are being paid to behave on behalf of your employer, and with that comes some responsibility, and the the more you represent that brand, with positivity, professionalism,

03:00
You want to be able to express the culture. you want to be what I call on, and what that means is you are presenting your best self, your best behavior, so that when someone comes up to you in the middle of your day, they can interrupt you in the middle of something.

You’ll say, “oh, excuse me, just one minute. Let me just finish this one thing,” and then give them your full attention and be positive, even though you may be slightly annoyed. That’s not how you will present, and that’s not how you will behave.

You are being paid to be there, and you’re also being paid to build productive, effective relationships with the team, and that’s something that a lot of people miss. I’ve seen it, and if you pay attention to this podcast and other career advice resources, you’re going to hear a lot about your behavior and how you think plays into your behavior.

04:00
So for example, I just gave you a story of someone or a time when you might be really annoyed because somebody interrupted you and you were on deadline, and oh, my God, you’re late. And and so you feel that bit of emotion coming up based on the fact that you are wanting to be a stellar employee and wanting to rise through the ranks of the company.

To be successful in what you’re doing, that bit of emotion would be put to the side, because, again, you’re being paid to behave and a certain way, and by managing how you feel, it’s easier to behave your way to success.

So for example, it can be so annoying when somebody, for example, I mean, I was talking to my husband earlier today, and there was a guy I used to work with that if you asked him a question, maybe he had to explain a process to you, and it was eight steps long, and you got to the fourth step and you had a question,he couldn’t answer your question without going all the way back to the first step and going through it, 1234, now, this man knew his stuff.

5:00
He was so valuable and had such a incredible depth of technical knowledge that you had to put aside that annoyance and just be patient. And honestly, it’s really good for your your humanity to be forced to be patient with people, to be forced to be compassionate, and that’s one of the things that being paying attention to your behavior at the office will help you do it will help you grow past emotions so that your emotions are no longer controlling you. You control them, and when it’s inappropriate to express them, you put them aside.

That’s the kind of thing you want to learn in order to have quality in your work relationships. It’s really important. It’s called mood management. Emotion management. It’s basically getting to know yourself and then pushing your own limits.

How much can I reframe what’s happening in this difficult situation, and act in a way that’s positive and creates a connection, even in high conflict. I mean, I have been in really high conflict situations in the office. It happens. Mistakes are made.

6:00
People get angry, people get sad. You know, people have emotional breakdowns. People get depressed. I mean, things happen that are related to emotions in the workplace. So you want to focus and on learning about that aspect of yourself.

Self awareness will serve you really well in the quality of your behavior and managing the quality of your behavior at work. So that’s part one.

Part two of this is the quality of your actual work. And what I mean by that is, if you’re an accountant, do you turn your reports in on time? Are they accurate? Are they thorough? Do they follow all the accounting rules? Do you turn them in on time in the format that your employer desires.

07:00
If you’re a copywriter, are you putting in your best effort to write really good copy in the right voice? If you’re a journalist, are you digging deep to find more information, instead of just writing the who, what, when, where? Why are you going deeper than that so that you’re writing something that has more meaning. If you’re a musician, are you practicing enough? Are you really focused?

If you are the front desk receptionist, are you presenting a solid, wonderful face for the company that you represent at the front door? The people that man those front desks and security stations, in my opinion, never get the right amount of attention and kudos, because when if they’re going to do it, well, it requires someone who can just consistently be on and just say good morning every day, remember names, make an effort.

And you can see how that making an effort to to produce quality work plays out in several different types of job categories, so the quality of your work is really important. You are in a competition with other people that want to get that same boost up the career ladder that you do, and if your work isn’t at the highest quality, you won’t get there.

8:30
So what can you do to improve the quality of your work? I’ve got a couple great tips as a writer, and I know this is just as effective for people in accounting, other aspects of business, problem solvers. If you feel like you’ve come up with the best solution, you’ve written the best thing of copy you can in your first draft, your first attempt, and you think you’re done,

You’re maybe not done. Maybe go away from the job for a couple hours, turn to another project for a couple of hours, and take your attention focus off of that particular thing so that you can come back and see it with fresh eyes.

9:00
And in a lot of situations, not just copy, but, you know, in all kinds of business situations, maybe a letter to a client, maybe you’re developing a report, you’re doing an Excel spreadsheet, or you are, you know, building a frame for a door.

You may find that when you come back with fresh eyes, you see something you didn’t see before that could make it better, or that could correct a mistake, or make it more efficient, make you look better. And it’s really important, especially early in your career, that those details get attention.

I have some new people on my team. I always have new people on my team, and there are constant situations where the new person turns back in a work product, and I look at it and there’s typos and there’s maybe some, maybe it’s not quite what was spelled out in the written instructions.

10:00
People can very, very easily get in the habit of focusing on getting the work done, and that’s a great thing. I mean, the work has to be done. You’ve got to meet your deadlines. However, the best way to think of it is to make sure it is done and done well. And that takes a little bit longer. It takes more effort, it takes more focus. It takes proofing.

If you’re a welder, you don’t just slap the stuff on there and you’re okay, I’m done, and keep moving, because people will see that weld. You want it to be the best possible weld? If that means you have to practice, if that means you have to get advice, you have to research materials or temperatures.

Then, as a person who is career oriented and wants to do better in their career and make more money, you will practice and you will do that extra work that makes your work shine above your competitors, because that’s what the work world really is.

It’s a competition in some ways, not necessarily direct, but it can be a competition, and your behavior and how you present is one aspect of it, and your quality of your work is another. And I’ll tell you something really funny. I had a client that had a young assistant that they hired, and this woman was just delightful to talk to.

11:30
She was so positive, and she was so gracious and pleased and thank you and and we really enjoyed working with her the first few weeks. And as time went by, we realized that she wasn’t really doing the work the way she was supposed to be doing the work. It was thrown together. It was late. She would forget.

And when you confronted her on it, she was so sweet. I mean, just sweet as can be, so you’d feel bad being angry at her. And I used to threaten my team, because they would get really mad at this woman, because they had to create newsletters and and do work based on what she gave them, and it was always like, half done or lots of errors or not done at all.

And so they really struggled with her. But I was the only one that was ever on a call with her, and I used to threaten the team I’m going to make you get on the call with, let’s call her Sharon, so that you can see how perplexing it is to work with someone who presents so well and is So, you know, fun and kind, but whose work product is horrific, but you couldn’t hate her.

So, I mean, there’s just some really interesting situations. You don’t want to be that person who does, you know, really crappy work, but everybody likes them, because really crappy work will not keep you at your job, and it also will not get you that promotion or that higher-paying new job. Part of your reputation is your behavior and your presentation.

13:00
The other half is the quality of your work. So work mom says that over and over and over again, the quality of your presentation, who you are, how you behave, the relationships you have, deserves just as much emphasis as doing the best quality work you can, putting in the extra effort, showing up early, meeting your deadlines, asking the right questions, those two things together will make you soar. I swear it’s just amazing.

When I meet a young person that has both sides of that coin, they’re unstoppable. So you want to be unstoppable too. So keep following me.

If you’re watching this on YouTube, I would love it if you would give me a subscribe and hit that like button and maybe even share something that I said that you, that resonated with you.

14:00
I also have a website at workmomsays.com and that is where I share all the episodes of my podcast as well as, you know, helpful articles. And I have a contact form there if you’d like to get in touch with me. And last but not least, LinkedIn, I’m an open networker there. Would love to hear from you. Just let me know that you know that you are a listener to the work. Mom says, podcast and YouTube channel, so thanks again. I will see you again 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.

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

The post Episode 43: The Quality of Your Work Determines Your Career Success appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• Workplace politics involve unspoken dynamics, power structures, and power struggles
• Being strategic and intentional with your language, actions, and decisions is essential
• Build alliances with power players in the workplace
• Handle conflicts successfully to avoid burning bridges
• Collaborative conflict resolution–finding solutions together–is most effective
• Be authentic while also being strategic by bringing your best self to work

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

00:28 – You must make connected, positive relationships a priority in the workplace
02:42 – Be mindful of joining an organization where the leadership team has romantic relationships. It may indicate a toxic business culture.
04:03 – When you go into a new company, find the power players and align with them by creating strategic relationships with them.
06:10 – When emotions rise, step back so you can come back when you’re calm and manage the situation strategically.

Links

Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!

Transcript

Hello. I’m Lori Jo Vest, also known as Work Mom, and I am here to talk to you today about workplace politics. There’s so much they don’t tell us when we start a new job or a new career, and politics is important. There’s a lot to be said for your relationships at the office, and those relationships will either serve you or hold you back.

One of the things that I will say right up front is that it’s critical that you make connected, positive relationships a priority in the workplace. Anybody that you work with, even if you socialize with them as well, the positivity of that relationship, the level of connection that person feels with you, how well they feel they know you, how authentic you are. Can they trust you?

Those factors are really critical to being successful in your job and in your career. So politics. What is it in the workplace? What does that even mean? It means basically the unspoken dynamics. Whenever you have a group of people working together, there will be a power structure. There will be power struggles. There will be people who truly believe that they know more than others. There are people who truly may know more than others who don’t think they know that much. There will be people with big egos who want to come in and take over because they know their way is the right way. There will be people who will be sideways with how they get things done and how they get their way. It’s really interesting.

One of the most critical things you can do at the beginning of your career, throughout your career, and especially at the beginning of any new job, is to be very strategic in how you think and be intentional in what you do.
So when you get into a situation in a meeting where it seems like you may be going in a direction that you know is not going to serve the client or the company or your job, do you say something, or don’t you? That depends on the strategic answer.

Sometimes, in a meeting like that, you would say, “Hey, you know what, guys? I have a devil’s advocate perspective. I’d love to share,” and share your perspective. But there are other times when maybe you know that the people in charge don’t want to hear it, and it’s just going to backfire on you when you may choose not to do that.
The power dynamics in a workplace are really important. One of the things that I would advise you to look for while you’re getting a job or considering a new job or a new company is look at the relationships among the leadership team.

Often in smaller organizations, you will see maybe not often, but sometimes you’ll see bosses that are in relationships, romantic relationships, with members of their team, never a good idea, never a good situation. In most cases, there’s a power dynamic there that has led to boundaries being broken.

A boss should never have an affair with someone who works for them. If you know of that happening at your company, probably a really good indicator that the politics there are toxic, that people who show well, like, you know, the show ponies, or what one of my friends used to call the High School Musical cast, um, those people may be in control because they show well, while the people who do really good work but don’t have those connections to the power players may be shoved to the side and may not get the career kudos or The the promotions and accolades that they should get.

So when you enter a new company, look into who those players are and get to know your coworkers. Hold some things back. If there are things that may make you controversial at the beginning of an employment engagement, you may just hold on to those things a little bit and be strategic and intentional in everything you say and do. Build some allies.

One of the things that’s really, really helpful is to have people on the team that you’re close to that you maybe every morning, you come in at the same time and you get your coffee and or you’re, you know, the first ones on the Zoom meeting. So you have a little bit of conversation and get to know each other a little bit. You can also have lunch outside of the office or coffee outside of the office to get to know people who can help you. Don’t go for the sad sex in that situation. Don’t build your ally ships and relationships with people who are not performing well or are known to be difficult. Make your allies among the power players. So really look at ways that you can build relationships with those people that you can tell people look up to because you want to be among that crowd. You want to be seen as one of those people.

And other things that come up in workplace situations that would be considered political would be how you handle conflicts. Conflicts at the workplace are so challenging sometimes because someone can push your buttons, trigger all your trauma, and you have no idea how they did it.

They just came in; they reminded you of your nasty stepmother, or maybe a friend of yours, that the relationship went sour. You know, those kinds of people. You’ll see them at work, and they will cause conflict, and they will, you know, bring disagreement. How you handle those conflicts, and disagreements, and the things that they do that might not be pleasant or expected will determine your success in that workplace. You never want to burn a bridge.
So, in any conversation where you feel the emotions rising, you can’t play politics. When emotion goes up, logic goes down; playing office politics, which is a necessity in any workplace, is absolutely necessary. Playing politics by being negative never works. Going through a conflict and letting somebody have it and burning that bridge never works if you don’t have conflict resolution skills. There are books you can read, there are counselors you can go to, there are mentors that will help you with that you want to be sure that in a conflict situation at work, you can manage your emotions to the point where you can look at what the person’s trying to get from the conversation, instead of taking what they’re saying or doing personally.

And you know, I’ll give you an example. I had a co-worker that was just really quiet. And I thought, after, you know, three or four weeks sitting next to each other, she never talked to me. And I thought, maybe she just doesn’t like me. And there are 65 things you can do when you feel like someone doesn’t like you. You can gossip about it to somebody else. Do you know her to show that I don’t think she likes me? You can keep that thought in your head and say, “Oh man, she really doesn’t like me. I better be careful.”

Or you can get curious. In conflict situations, getting curious is the best thing you can do if someone asks you to do something that maybe there’s a deadline that you know you can’t meet.

Instead of getting angry and causing something ugly in that conflict, stop for a minute and think; get curious. Are there any other solutions out there that I can suggest besides doing exactly what this person wants, which I know is impossible, but they don’t want to hear no.

When someone comes to you with work on a tight deadline, they often do not want to hear no. So, just by saying, oh, gosh, not sure if I can do that. You’re causing a conflict. So when I say conflict, think of it that way. It’s not like people raging at each other. It’s more like just the little things that happen that can get people upset over the course of a business day. So, never burn a bridge during those conflict situations. Always look at the problem from the same side as your coworker or your client. So it’s not the two of you arguing with each other and going against each other; it’s the two of you looking at the problem and going, huh, together. How can we solve this? That is a sure way to resolve and negotiate conflict in a way that helps everybody see all the different facets and come to a collaborative decision. It really, really works. It’s not a conflict between the two of you. It’s a conflict between the two of you and the problem.

So keep that one in mind. There are times when you don’t want to play the game, even though office politics can feel like a great big game; you know that you have to make the right decisions and, you know, be strategic and move the right way and say the right thing to be successful.

There are times when you will not want to go along, and in most cases, that’s if somebody’s asking you to do something illegal, they’re asking you to do something immoral, or they’re asking you to, you know, to tell an untruth, to lie, cheat, steal, any of those kinds of things. If that is part of the culture of the office where you are playing those political games, get out. So keep your head down and start looking for that next job, because in some of those types of situations, you may think if you play along, it’ll be okay, but you could also become the target, people can target you and say you caused that problem, even if you were just going along and it was never your idea to do any of the illegal, immoral, untruthful things.

So it’s always best to stay away from those situations. Find yourself another job if that’s what’s happening. And finally, one of the things that people talk about a lot is being authentic in the office, which means that you should bring your full self to work. And I 100% agree that being authentic has so much value when you are showing your true personality and being you know your true self and expressing your honesty, your honest thoughts, you know who you are as a human being, people will be more likely to trust you, and that’s really important in business relationships.

However, don’t just bring yourself; bring your best self. So if there are things that you might do in talking to your sister or your husband that are a little snarky or a little sarcastic, that might be a side of your authenticity that you don’t want to bring to the office.

Dry humor is great. Sarcasm, anything that could be construed as being hurtful, not so great. So when people tell you to be yourself, be yourself, but be your most strategic, best self, and that’s really the best place to start if you’re playing office politics. So that’s all I’ve got for you today. Thank you so much for listening, and I will be back soon with a guest or two and some more career tidbits to help you climb the corporate ladder and play the emotional contact sport of business.

If you watch this on YouTube, please hit that subscribe button for me. Give me a like, give me a comment. I am an open networker on LinkedIn, I’d love to hear from you there.

I am an open networker on LinkedIn. I’d love to hear from you there. I also have a website at work. Mom says.com, you can contact me there if you’d like to suggest a guest or you have a question or a topic you’d like me to cover, looking forward to connecting with you, and I will be back soon with some great advice and information. Take care.

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.

The post Episode 42: Office Politics for Beginners appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

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

Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!

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.

The post Episode 41: The Power of Personal & Professional Growth for Career Success appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• Normalizing career uncertainty
• The importance of self-discovery
• College isn’t always the right choice
• Ways to stay motivated in the career search
• Skill-building > job titles
• Handling rejection and career stress

Featured Guest

Expert Guest: Kerry Doyle, the Career Dad

What He Does: He helps parents and teens explore their intended career path before wasting thousands of dollars on college tuition. He’s not anti-college, but he helps young people consider the many career avenues available since college isn’t the best choice for everybody.

Connect: You can find him on LinkedIn and his website

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

4:00 – Normalizing career uncertainty: Knowing your career calling in your twenties is VERY uncommon. It’s better to explore what you might be interested in to find the right fit rather than search for that perfect career.
9:00 – College isn’t always the right choice: From trade schools to excellent jobs that don’t require degrees, there are tons of options out there. College may not be the right choice for you; it’s just a matter of doing your homework and exploring your options. Kerry can help you do that!
10:00 – The importance of self-discovery: Strengthfinder assessments, career counselors, and talking to people in your intended industry are great ways to figure out the right career path for you.
18:00 – Handling rejection and career stress: Consider rejections as learning experiences. Take the lessons learned, learn to pivot or shift directions, and keep it moving.
23:00 – Skill-building > job titles: Entry-level jobs and jobs that aren’t your dream job can be the best option because they teach you tons of skills AND can get your foot in the door. Don’t turn down a job just because it isn’t perfect.

Top Quotes

6:40 – Kerry: My advice is to look for that experience beforehand, before you make the investment. I’m not against college. Do some homework before college, something that you’re not used to doing. Get out of your comfort zone. And don’t assume that college is always the right choice.
7:30 – Kerry: We’re responsible for our careers, our own lives. It’s not the teachers and parents anymore. It’s us.
10:00 – Kerry: You can connect with them digitally, you know, through LinkedIn or something, but explore and get in conversations with people, go meet with them in person or through Zoom or something, and find out what it’s really like.
12:00 – Kerry: There are a few reasons I wouldn’t put all my weight into the assessments. One, it’s a snapshot in time and our personalities and our interests change over time. It’s also based on theory. Yes, it’s based on statistics and behavior and surveys and other things, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to sync up with you.
14:00 – Lori: A good career counselor is probably an even better option. Someone who can sit with you and ask you questions like, do you like to make things with your hands? Are you a woodworking kind of person as a hobby? Well, then maybe skilled trades would be a good place for you.
18:00 – Kerry: You take those moments that are difficult and you look at them as learning experiences and say, okay, I need to strengthen that or maybe shift here, pivot here, whatever. But it’s all a data point.
20:00 – Lori: One of the things that I would suggest people do is find people in the industry that you think you’re interested in. Connect with people either that you know or on LinkedIn and ask for an informational interview.
22:00 – Kerry: Anything new to us can be scary, and it usually is. But that fear gets magnified the longer we think about it, the longer we overanalyze it. Once you take the action, that fear gets reduced. And the more action you take, that fear gets reduced and reduced and reduced to zero.
23:00 – Kerry: If you get to know more people, whether they have an opening or not, they will refer you to somebody else when they hear of an opening. So the side door, the stepping stone jobs, that’s more likely to happen than going to a job posting and saying, oh, there’s my perfect job. I’m going to apply for it and get it.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!

Transcript

00:00
Lori
Hello, everybody. I’m Lori Jo Vest. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Work Mom Says, Don’t Be an Idiot. Today, my guest is Kerry Doyle. And Kerry is starting a business called Career Dad, right? Is that what it’s called? TheCareerDad.com. Yes, Career Dad. TheCareerDad.com.

And so what we want to talk about today is how it can be really difficult to find the right career path when you’re just out of high school or in your early twenties. So we’re going to focus on what happens after you’ve graduated.

Maybe your friends went off to college or maybe you went off to college and decided it wasn’t for you. Or maybe you’ve been out of college for a few years and you still haven’t found that sweet spot where you belong, you make good money, and you’re happy. And what I want to start out with right off the bat is finding the right career is not as easy as people make it seem. Right, Kerry? It’s just not that easy.

01:00
Kerry Doyle
Correct. Sorry. Yes, it’s not that easy. It can be simplified. I think people overcomplicate it. But even when it’s simplified, it’s still not easy because you have emotions and other things that come into play.

Lori
Yeah. Right, and the perfect job that you think would be great for you might not be a fit, or it might not be available when you’re ready. So I’ll tell you a little story about my early career days.

I envisioned being a radio DJ. I was going to be on the radio. I didn’t even think about television. Had a broadcast degree, really loved radio, loved the whole DJ thing. And then I realized that in order to make it in that business, you basically have to work in teeny tiny towns, making teeny tiny money, sitting in a room by yourself. And I’m a major social animal. I’m like, I just love being around people.

02:00
And so what happened when I got out of college is I was kind of at a loss. What should I be doing? And I decided that advertising was probably a really good place for me. So I sent out, I’m serious, probably one hundred fifty resumes. That was back in the day when you sent out a paper resume in an envelope with a cover letter and you waited for them to call you back.

And I got a call from that first batch of a hundred that I sent from a company that did outdoor advertising. Now that’s billboards. And not only was it billboards, which is the poor stepchild of the advertising media, but it was outdoor advertising ads. targeted to the black ethnic market, which back in the eighties was not very popular. And it was on the sides of liquor stores and grocery stores in the city.

And I, I had no choice. I needed a job. I took the job and I was so lucky because my boss in that position basically taught me everything I needed to know about sales. It was absolutely amazing. I really had a lot of fun in the job. Um, I was, um, his punk rock account executive. He called me cause I had the hair and I was all like, you know, just out of college. And, and I stayed there for three and a half years because I learned so much. I was able to make a little bit of money.

03:00
And as soon as I started to get kind of bored and kind of like, okay, I need to look for something else and opportunity in television production came up. And that’s where I spent the majority of my career. Um, First out of college, first thing out of college, that wasn’t an option. I didn’t even know who to talk to or who to communicate with to try to find those jobs.

But once I was in the industry, then I kind of got the lay of the land. Three and a half years later, I kind of knew where to go and an opportunity presented itself. So the first thing that you end up doing that’s a career job might not be the career job.

So today we’re going to talk about a couple of things. We’re going to talk about how normal it is to be uncertain about your career in your twenties, some self discovery tips, building some resilience so that when you get the no’s that you’ll get, they don’t take you out. They might knock you down, but you stand back up and keep going.

04:00
And then I want to talk a little bit about how you can continue to grow your career once you do get that first career job. So, Kerry, let’s talk about how the current situation in society tells young people that, oh, there’s a job out there for you and you just go find it. Live your passion. Live your dreams. Is that realistic?

Kerry:
I don’t believe so, no. If you pick up many career books, talk to many career counselors, they’ll tell you, find your passion, find your calling, find your perfect job. And guess what? There isn’t one perfect job.

And in terms of callings, unless you’re in the clergy or something, it’s very rare as well. The responsibility is on us as people to find out what’s in the market and do the homework and find out what fits. And there won’t be just one perfect fit for everybody. There are multiple.

05:00
I mean, there are thousands and thousands of career paths, fields, and jobs. really depends on the situation so you might think oh I I like medicine I want to go into medicine and you get in there you get into the situation like yeah this isn’t quite the right fit well maybe it’s not medicine maybe it’s the people in that group you’re working with you know it can be so there’s so many different variables people want to find that perfect thing and it just doesn’t it doesn’t exist people will find the right fit after experimenting multiple times

Lori:
Yeah. And I also, I found a statistic that people will change jobs, most people, twelve or more times in their thirties. And when I think about that, I worked at McDonald’s, then I worked in media production, then I worked in outdoor advertising, then I worked in video production. And now I work in social media and I do a podcast. I mean, we all have lots of facets to who we are.

So you have to find a job that matches what your interests and talents are. Not always easy. So I also think some people make it look really, really easy when it’s not. So if you see people on social media that are out there, oh, I just got out of college, got my perfect job and I’m making millions. They’re not sharing the dark and ugly side of it, right?

06:00
Kerry
Right, right. Well, yeah, exactly. And the other thing is the default path is find something you’re interested in, get a degree, go out there. Well, you thought your DJ path was going to be different than it actually was after you got the degree. Yeah. um so the other things we all and then once you got into your outdoor job you said you learned everything from sales from the person you worked with, that’s how everything works.

Get experience and learn from the experience. It’s on the job experience. We don’t train people that way we say hey go to kindergarten through twelve and then plus four more years and a hundred grand and then go start working and get that experience.

My advice is look for that experience beforehand, before you make the investment. I’m not against college. I’m just saying do some homework before college, something that you’re not used to doing. Get out of your comfort zone. And don’t assume that college is always the right choice, right?

07:00
Lori
Absolutely. It depends on the career. For the last fifty, sixty years, it was pretty much the default path. graduate from high school, go to college, or you’re going to end up in a low paying job, that dead end job. It’s not the case anymore.

You know, I believe in education. I believe in higher education. I just don’t believe that is the default path. I believe there’s so many other options for education. And I believe we are responsible for it, not the college. They’re not responsible for finding us that perfect job. We are.

Kerry
The other thing is, Lori, as you said earlier, you didn’t know until you got there. We tend to lean towards careers we’ve been exposed to. Our parents, our friends, something on TV. We know what we’re exposed to. And my advice is get exposure and say, well, how do you get exposure? Well, Talk to people, network, explore. Again, we’re responsible for our own career, our own lives. It’s not the teachers and parents anymore. It’s us.

08:00
Lori:
Right. Absolutely. Well, and I want to tell a quick little story because my son, he really thought that he was going to work in corporate America in the automotive industry. He graduated from University of Michigan.

He had done a internship at Stellantis/Chrysler. He was overseeing dealership operations in their service department, and I think it’s called parts and service department. And he was excited. They had actually given him the three shirts with the three brands on them, and he was going to graduate and then go to work for Stellantis, and he was all excited about it.

And then the pandemic happened. And those jobs just disappeared. There was nothing there. There were no jobs. He went to get what he thought was his pandemic job as a service advisor at a Chrysler dealership. He knew all about it because he’d been on the corporate side in that area. So he went and got the job and he thought, you know, low paying, I’ll just kind of hang out here until Christmas. things open up a little bit in the automotive industry.

09:00
And what happened is fast forward four years and he is a service advisor on Alfa Romeo and Wagoneer. He’s making six figures. He is a hundred percent commission and he did not need a college degree for that job. What he needed was a passion for automotive and he loves helping people with their cars. And that’s probably the business he’ll stay in. He may become a service department manager. They make even more money.

But there are a lot of industries like that one that you wouldn’t know. I had no idea that a service advisor could make six figures and also that they were commissioned only. I mean, it’s crazy. But there’s a lot that you don’t know if you don’t explore.

So how do you suggest, Kerry, it’s based on your experience, how… young people, you know, before or after college can try to figure out what industries they’re most interested in.

Kerry
Well, I would recommend before or at least early on in college to explore more than, you know, after, after spending the hundred, hundred, hundred K. Yeah, we could have gotten away without spending that hundred K. So exploring, again, it’s not easy, but it’s fairly simple and straightforward. It’s doing things that may not be in someone’s comfort zone.

10:00
All the way through high school, people were given an assignment. Study, take a test, do a report, do an assignment, get an A. Life is good. Maybe do some extracurricular activities. Maybe join a sports team. it’s all pretty much spelled out for you.

So if you want to explore the work world, there isn’t a cookie cutter approach. It’s a bit of trial and error. We do have LinkedIn where I would encourage everybody, even in high school to get on LinkedIn and start networking and start exploring and have, get real conversations with real people. Everybody wants to be, you know, doing this with their phones.

Guess what? Use it the old fashioned way and make a phone call. You can connect with them digitally, you know, through LinkedIn or however, but explore and get in conversations with people, go meet with them either in person or through Zoom or something and find out what it’s really like. You would have found out if that existed back in the day, you would have found out what real life is as a DJ if you were able to do that exploration. We have so many ways to explore.

11:00
So anyway, LinkedIn is one, but friends, family, other social media networks actually make connections with people and talk with people. I just feel like the human contact, you know, we’re, I read something that says we’re digitally connected, but socially disconnected, socially isolated.

And I believe that, That is where young people are comfortable being digitally connected, but they’re socially isolated and they don’t have the same habits you and I were forced into.
You’d walk down the street and knock on the door and say, hey, you want to come out? Now it’s, you know, this on a phone. So, you know, it’s, it’s getting out, it’s, it’s some of it’s going back to, it’s using technology where it helps. But it’s, it’s doing some good old fashioned communication.

Lori:
And looking at your passions, what do you really love to do? I know I’m a social person. I’m so social that social media was just a natural thing for me to get into. I always loved to write. So I’m a writer. I’ve always been a writer in any job I had typically ended up handling the marketing too. Sio lots and lots of writing, wrote a book.

12:00
What do you think about tools like personality assessments and, you know, those kinds of things, the, like, what color is your parachute? I think is a book out there that still gets a lot of kudos for being a great tool for investigating what your personality and skills, how they match up with a particular industry or career, right? What do you think of the tools that are out there?

Kerry:
Well, uh, I believe, and even, even what colors your parachute, which is probably the longest standing, uh, best-selling career book that has actually changed over time. And the author, uh, Richard Bowles, I believe his name is, he actually says, take, you know, you can use some of these assessments, but don’t, um, rely a hundred percent on them. Don’t, don’t rely heavily on them. They give you some information, some general.

But he also advises to explore on your own because there’s a gap and there are a few reasons I wouldn’t put all my weight into the assessments. One, it’s a snapshot in time and our personalities and our interests change over time. It’s also based on theory anything based on theory it’s yes it’s based on statistics and behavior and surveys and other things, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to sync up with you I’m naturally an introvert and a very shy person I.

13:00
You know, those tests told me I should be behind a computer or in doing programming or something. But you know what? I also liked to teach and I was afraid to stand up in front of an audience until I took a Dale Carnegie class and it forced me to do it. And I found out, you know what? I love teaching. And I love getting in front of people and talking to them, but I was scared to death to do it.

So if I relied on an assessment, they would have told me, stay behind a computer, stay behind a screen, do something that is not with people because that’s my natural inclination. But once I was exposed to it, I enjoyed it it scared me yes it was uncomfortable yes but I learned to really love it.

I feel like and uh the author of what colors your parachute also agrees I’ve read the I’ve read many career books um that one included um that there’s some good information but it’s not the end all be all you need to explore yourself.

Lori:
I think StrengthsFinders is a really good one for anybody on the planet, basically, as soon as you’re old enough to take that one.

14:00
Not because it’s going to tell you what career you should explore, but because it will call out what your strengths are. What are you really good at? And I found it to be so accurate. It gives you five strengths. What are you really good at? And what happens, if nothing else, is you come out of that experience of taking this assessment and getting your results feeling really good about yourself. And there’s nothing wrong with feeling god about yourself and your unique skills. So I would highly recommend StrengthsFinders. I know there are all kinds of different tools out there.

A good career counselor is probably an even better option. Someone who can sit with you, ask you the questions like, do you like to make things with your hands? Are you a woodworking kind of person as a hobby, well, then maybe skilled trades would be a good place for you.

The Carpenter and Millwrights Union has an apprenticeship program. Maybe that’s something to explore. And just because you explore it doesn’t mean you have to stick with it your whole life. I have had three very distinct careers in my life. And Kerry, I’m assuming you have too, right? You’ve had more than one.

15:00
So let’s talk about what happens when the search gets really hard. How can someone, a young professional or young wants to be, you know, want to be professional, how can they keep their inspiration, their motivation, their resilience when they’re sending out resumes and trying to figure out nothing’s happening? Because that will happen. It will happen.

Kerry
Well, a couple things. You know, you said it’s hard. It’s nothing worth doing, I think, in life is easy. Everybody wants the easy button. So I think understanding that and expecting that there are going to be challenges along the way, expecting that and understanding that up front is part of it. Yes. And then also being able to control what you can control.

16:00
You said you sent out one hundred fifty, two hundred resumes back in the day. So if you flash forward to today, we don’t send out paper resumes and envelopes and lick the stamps anymore. But we make connections with people, whether it’s LinkedIn, phone, in person, whatever. it’s still a numbers game and it’s, you can’t get discouraged on one. You, you have to do them over time. And then again, you control what, how many people have you reached out to? How many interviews have you gone on?

You can’t control what they think, how they react. All you can control is what you can do. So if you say, oh, I sent out two resumes or I made two connection requests on LinkedIn, I made two phone calls. It’s not enough. It’s not enough. Or even I made a hundred, but nobody called me back.

17:00
Guess what sometimes people are busy and you follow up that’s another thing I don’t think people are used to okay oh you know what they’re automatically going to call me back I emailed them or I called them they’re not they’re busy call them again it takes persistence and yes It gets exhausting.

Yes, it gets discouraging. It’s difficult. Again, but it’s a good life lesson forever because it’s not a one and done thing. That is going to be the rest of your life. I’m experiencing it now. I’m making a bit of a change myself. And it’s, you know, it’s, I think… It’s exciting and discouraging at the same time. It’s challenging, but it’s, you take that, you take those, I say, I shouldn’t say discouraging.

18:00
You take those moments that are difficult and you look at them as learning experiences and say, okay, I need to strengthen that or maybe shift here, pivot here, whatever. But it’s just, it’s all a data point.

Lori:
And one of the biggest piece of advice I would give people is just keep going. Don’t stop. And you may have to take a bridge job. You may have to take like that or advertising job. I thought I would be there for six months. I needed revenue for my personal revenue. I needed a job. I needed insurance. I needed the things that come with a job. So I took it. Did I expect to like it?

19:00
I actually had gone into the meeting, the last meeting I had with David Laster, who was my boss, who was an amazing human being. And to tell him that I wasn’t taking the job, but I had connected with him. I’d had three interviews. I felt like I owed it to him to tell him in person.

And that shows you what a great boss he was because he had created a personal connection with me that I felt obligated that I had to go tell him in person and walked out of there with a job. It was like, what just happened? I’m so fortunate that that’s the way it worked out because the things that he taught me, I use every single day. And a lot of it is relationships. I’m going to kind of veer off of our outline here.

20:00
One of the things that I would suggest people do is find people in the industry that you think you’re interested in. For example, I was interested in broadcasting. And find people, connect with people either that you know or on LinkedIn that And ask for an informational interview.

I know, Kerry, you and I both, if somebody, some young person approached me on LinkedIn, nobody ever does. But if somebody did and said, hey, I would just like to talk to you about what your aspect of the business is like, I would take a twenty minute, thirty minute call happily. And you’ll find most people do because you will stand out by asking for something like that. You will appear to be more of a goal getter kind of person. And it’s really helpful.

21:00
You don’t know who they know either. So don’t hesitate to reach out. It’s part of being in a successful career is being fearless when it comes to making connections. And you might as well start now. Even if you’re scared to death, do it anyway. I mean, that’s one thing I always, I lived by the mantra when I was in my twenties, feel the fear and do it anyway. because it’s not going to kill you. At least it probably won’t kill you. I don’t know. Maybe it would.

But most cases, you’re not going to die because you picked up the phone or you sent an email and you asked somebody for something. Give them the opportunity to say no. Don’t say no for them. I learned that in my charitable work. Don’t say no for them. Let them say no, right?

22:00
Kerry:
Absolutely. And mentioning fear, anything new to us, It can be scary, and it usually is. But that fear gets magnified the longer we think about it, the longer we overanalyze it. Once you take the action, that fear gets reduced. And the more action you take, that fear gets reduced and reduced and reduced to zero.

Lori
Until it’s just what you do.

Kerry
Exactly. And I’m glad you brought up the informational interviews. That’s kind of what I was leaning toward when I said make connections and conversations. I think you’re actually more apt to get a job in that route, being proactive when talking with people and creating relationships.

23:00
Most jobs are hired from people who know people. If you get to know more people, whether they have an opening or not, they will refer you to somebody else when they hear of an opening. So the side door, the stepping stone jobs, that’s more likely to happen than Going to a job posting and saying, oh, there’s my perfect job. I’m going to apply for it and get it. Be proactive. Talk to people before the job is posted.

Lori:
Yep. And I’ve, I mean, how many people have you heard that are C-level executives or, you know, on the board of these major organizations and they started out as the receptionist or the mailroom? There’s a reason they talk, you know, maybe they don’t talk about it as much as they used to, but the mailroom used to be a really big deal.

24:00
Mailroom was like the entry level position and those entry level spots, even if they aren’t exactly what you want to do, will get you in the door. And that’s part one. I mean, that’s the most important step is getting in to the industry that you think you might want to be in and playing around a little bit, seeing what, what you might be able to create.

So anything else that you would offer encouragement or anything else, Kerry, resources, let me know. What do you think?

25:00
Kerry
I will do that. Well, I think I’m actually creating a pool of resources at thecareerdad.com. And there are good books. There are good tools out there.

But I guess I would like to add an interesting little story since you mentioned the mailroom. I got my under undergraduate degree in marketing. So I wanted to go into marketing. My first job was Coca-Cola in marketing and I hated it.

So I worked there for a couple of years and thought marketing’s not for me. So I went back to school, got my MBA in finance. And while I was interviewing for jobs at financial firms, I worked in the mailroom at an ad agency because I knew the people there. And I was just part-time. I was working in the mailroom.

26:00
They made a joke, MBA, mailboy always. I was working in the mailroom with an MBA in finance. That’s great. And one of the vice presidents pulled me aside and said, Kerry, what are you doing interviewing these finance companies? He said, you don’t belong in finance. You belong in advertising and marketing. He says, we don’t have anything here because I’m going to set you up with an interview with a friend of mine at Donor Advertising. Would you go over there and talk with them? And I said, sure. I went over there, got a job. I never ended up in finance.

Lori
That’s awesome.
Kerry
The mailroom is where things start sometimes. Yeah. Yeah.

27:00
Lori
And even the proverbial mailroom. Right. Which I’m not really sure what that means now. What is what is the mailroom now? It might be like an coordinator or a junior project manager. I mean, you just never know.

But I would like to just encourage you, if you are in that place where you’re in your twenties, you can’t find that that career path that you thought would be easy. Keep going. Consider bringing in a career coach. Consider, you know, really studying up on how to find that perfect career. Google is your friend. I would even say chat GPT is a great place to look for options.

28:00
If you do your strengths finder and you find that you have these five particular strengths. I would drop them into chat GPT and say, Hey, what job would I be great for with these five strengths and see what it says, but just continue to explore. Don’t give up. You will land in a great place. So any last words of wisdom, Kerry?

Kerry
I just, I’d like to echo your advice there and all of those things were great advice, but then if chat GPT or somebody points you in a direction, then you, reach out to somebody and actually talk with them and get that informational interview. Find out from their perspective what their day-to-day life is. And if you can shadow them for a day or they become a mentor, they’re happy to talk to you.

29:00
More people are happy to help you help young people out than you think. Yeah, they’ll make time. They will make time. Yes, exactly. And just don’t think you’re going to find that perfect job. You’re going to find something that’s a good fit for that, for that point in time. And then you’re going to grow and you’re going to learn and you’re going to probably adapt and change.
So yeah, nothing’s forever.

And have those twelve jobs before your thirties. Right. So it really, it does. We all have lots of them. We all have lots of them. So that’s what we’ve got for you today.

30:00
. Please visit my website at workmomsays.com. That’s where the podcast lives. You can go all the way back to the early silly episodes. They were really fun. We’re a little more serious now. And I also have a contact form there., If you have a particular question you’d like me to answer, a guest you’d like to suggest, or any other things that you might want to talk to me about, please get in touch with me there.

I am also an open networker on LinkedIn at Lori Jo Vest. And Kerry, you’re an open networker too, am I correct? Absolutely. Awesome. So catch up with us there. And thank you so much for being here today. Thank you, Kerry. Thank you, Lori.

Who is our ideal listener?

This podcast is for young professionals, so they can 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.

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

The post Episode 40: Finding The Right Career Path appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• Jumpstarting your career while still in college
• Professional student organizations get your foot in the door
• LinkedIn is your best friend
• Trade organizations expand your network
• The power of intergenerational networking
• Be a continuous learner

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

1:00 – Getting involved = getting your foot in the door: Joining professional student organizations for your industry is a game-changer for finding internships, mentors, and opportunities.

1:45 – LinkedIn. LinkedIn. LinkedIn.: Start your LinkedIn account by your third year and connect with any adult you know. You never know who could connect you with your first opportunity.

4:00 – The power of intergenerational networking: When you form close connections with peers with decades of experience, you can ask them for advice or even a new opportunity when things go wrong.

6:30 – Reluctant networkers unite: If you’re introverted or just hate networking, check out our recent interview with the Reluctant Networker Greg Peters for his foolproof ways to get the most out of networking.

8:30 – Be a continuous learner: Learning about business etiquette, behavior, and mindset will get you far. From there, continue learning everything you can to elevate your skills, abilities, and emotional intelligence.

Top Quotes

1:00 – When you get to campus, you should start looking into student trade organizations and get involved. It will have you meeting people who are in your field, your peers, and leaders in the industry.

2:00 – It’s not a bad idea to connect with your parents and your parents’ friends, uncles, or aunts. Anybody you know who’s an adult in business will help you grow your network on LinkedIn.

3:00 – “In the Women’s Ad Club, I found a group of women that, when things were going sideways, I could go to and say, “What do you guys do when this happens?” I mean, I was twenty-three, twenty-four years old, and some women in their fifties had great answers for me.”

6:00 – “When I got my pay cut, I got home, picked up the phone, and called a couple of my girlfriends…I was employed within two weeks, moved right into that new job, never got laid off, and recovered from that bit of early career trauma without a lot of muss and fuss because I knew people.”

8:30 – “When you’re a continuous learner, you’ll move more, you’ll learn more, you’ll meet more people. Your career will continue to elevate. You’ll elevate your skills, your abilities, and your emotional intelligence.“

Resources mentioned in this episode

Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!

Transcript

00:00
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’re going to talk about things you can do while you’re still in college and immediately afterwards to really jumpstart your career. Most of us pick an industry. We try to get into it, but we pick the industry while we’re in college.

So while you’re still in college, get some experience in your industry—a couple of things. If you’re not a club joiner, start joining those clubs. Most industries do have student chapters of their major trade organizations. There are ad clubs, if that’s your thing. There are manufacturing clubs, there are engineering clubs.

Most of the universities and colleges will have organizations that are student chapters of national professional organizations. As soon as you get to campus, you should start looking into those specific organizations and get involved. It will have you meeting people that are in your field, your peers, as well as people that are leaders in the industry.

01:00
And it will help you maintain and get access to internships, student apprenticeships, opportunities that you may not hear about if all you’re doing is going to class, taking your finals, writing your papers, doing your productions, whatever it is, and going home, you really want to use that extracurricular time, at least the last two years that you’re there, to grow your reputation, grow your skills, add to your resume, and make connections. That’s number one.

Number two, start your LinkedIn account while you’re still in college. Again, by your third year, you should be putting up a LinkedIn account, putting in volunteer things that you’ve done, jobs you’ve had, making sure your resume is there.

Make sure you use industry keywords. I mean, if you Google how to prepare and present a solid LinkedIn profile, you will find some great advice there. So I won’t go too deep into it here. But there are experts you can follow.

Get on LinkedIn, start using it, start connecting with people you know. And I’m going to tell you, it’s not a bad idea to connect with your parents and your parents’ friends, uncles, aunts, anybody that you know that’s an adult in business will help you grow your network on LinkedIn. It’s a great place to start looking for internships, micro internships, things like that. So make sure you are on LinkedIn.

02:00
Now, when you are just getting out of college, stick with that approach of being involved in organizations and staying on the business social media. Because once you get out of college, you can actually join the professional organizations.

And I’ll tell you a story. When I first got into the advertising business, which is what I do now, I had a boss that told me that I needed to join two or three of the local trade organizations. There were a couple of different ad clubs. There was a women’s ad club. There was the Adcraft Club of Detroit. And then there were some marketing communication type organizations.

And I joined three different ones and I went to their meetings and I got on their committees. I think I even served on the board. I think when I was twenty seven or twenty eight, I was president of the Detroit chapter of the Women’s Advertising Club because I started right out of college.

I did their newsletter. I did, I served on committees. I actually, you know, created events and worked as a volunteer. And I built up a lot of skills. I grew my writing skills. I grew my production skills. And then I could put together a newsletter, my interview skills because I’d interview people. I also learned how to network effectively.

03:00
And it gave me a group of people in the Women’s Ad Club in particular, It gave me a group of women that when things were going sideways, I could go to them and say, what do you guys do when this happens? I mean, I was twenty-three, twenty-four years old and there were women that were in their fifties that had great answers for me.

I remember at one point, I was getting somewhat sexually harassed by a client, and I had no idea what to say. And back then it was a little it was something that you didn’t want to even acknowledge had happened because as a woman, you felt like you may have somehow contributed to it. That’s the way we were socialized. We were socialized that way, trust me. The eighties and nineties were not so good for women’s growth and development. It was a really difficult time, but I didn’t want to talk to my boss or much less the client.

04:00
So I had a group of women that were thirty years older than me that were able to give me advice on how to handle it with finesse in a way that wouldn’t get me in trouble, that wouldn’t alienate the client, that would put distance between me and the client. And that would allow me to continue to work in a professional fashion without being sidelined by somebody else’s behavior.

So those kinds of things are really, really important. So I cannot overestimate the power of going to events and volunteering for committees, getting involved in organizations as soon as you get out of college and stick with it. Join the committees, go to all the meetings, really get to know the people in that group.

And the other advantage I’ll tell you about that I will never forget is when you’re networking like that, if something bad happens, you have the ability to ask those people, something happens at your job. You, you know, you’re going to get laid off.

05:00
You can call them and say, Hey, you know, our company’s going down. Something really strange is happening. And, and we’re, you know, they’re, we hear they’re cutting the payroll budget and, You know, that kind of thing. You can call your friends that you met in your networking groups and say, hey, I’m looking for a new position.

I had to do that once. I took a new job. I was recruited by a headhunter, which kind of implies that the company has some money because headhunters are not cheap. And within six weeks on the job, we heard the major financial partner was coming in and cutting budget because we were in a massive sales slump and that he was going to start with payroll.

Now, what that means is they’re going to start cutting pay. And he went person to person to person all day one day and told us each how much less we were going to be worth when we came in the next morning. And it was between twenty and thirty percent. It was incredibly painful for everyone that was on that team.

06:00
However, I was able to when I got my pay cut, got home, picked up the phone, called a couple of my girlfriends. And one of them said, hey, Tom’s looking for somebody just like you at this other facility in town. And I was able to go over there. I was employed within two weeks, moved right into that new job, never got laid off and was able to really recover from that bit of, you know, early career trauma. without a lot of muss and fuss because I knew people.

Now, if you’re an introvert, then you want to go back and listen to the, there’s an earlier episode of Work Mom Says at workmomsays.com about networking. If you are an introvert and networking scares the hell out of you, get a partner, network with someone else, look for a friend that will go with you, plan out your networking, practice your networking.

07:00
Do it regularly. Go to luncheons. Go to dinners. Go to breakfast. Go to coffee. Go to events. And learn how to network by actually networking. And what will happen is you’ll figure out that there are things that you can say that light people up, things that you can say that people are immediately more interested in what you’re saying if you drop the line or two, you know, that you’ll figure out what it is that you say that has people perking up and paying attention.

And networking is really not that hard. It might feel like it, but it really isn’t, especially if you can partner network with someone. That makes it one hundred fifty thousand times easier. So, another suggestion is partner networking and other things that you can do after just getting out of college.

Study business etiquette. Look into EQ, how you should perform while you’re at work, how you should think about your work. Read career books and career advice because it will help you see things in a way that you may not just coming out of college.

08:00
And there is a certain way that you should be looking at work. It’s different than college. It’s different than your McDonald’s job or whatever job you did while you were in high school, babysitting, nannying, whatever it is. The business realm is much, much different.

So you want to make sure that you spend some time studying and learning what that business etiquette is so that you are able to present as the best possible image for yourself and be the best possible person.

So that’s the last thing I’ll tell you here is to be a continuous learner. And the first thing you should start with is basic business etiquette, behavior, and mindset. And those topics will get you really far.

09:00
And from there, just recycle, you know, what do they say? Lather, rinse, repeat, keep doing it over and over. You’ll move more, you’ll learn more, you’ll meet more people. And and your career will continue to elevate. You’ll elevate your skills, your abilities, and your emotional intelligence.

So that’s what I’ve got for you today. I hope you enjoyed it. Please visit my website at workmomsays.com. If you’re interested in having me interview someone or you think you have a great topic that I should cover, I’d love to hear from you.

10:00
I also have a YouTube channel, Work Mom Says, where I have daily videos that are the chapters of my book, Work Mom Says Don’t Be an Idiot, Thirty-Eight Lessons You Don’t Want to Learn the Hard Way. So go over to YouTube, hit the subscribe button. Have a look at what I’ve got going over there. And we’d love to see you there as well.

Again, if you have any ideas for subjects or any questions, I’d love to hear from you in the comments there as well. So that’s what I’ve got for you. Have a great day. Know that Work Mom is here for you. You can do this. Take care.

Who is our ideal listener?

This podcast is for young professionals, so they can 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.

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

The post Episode 39: Kick-Starting Your Career When You’re Just Starting Out appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• Get the facts straight first (without emotion)
• Throw yourself at their mercy
• How one store failed to problem-solve and lost a customer in the process
• Collaboration is key when problem-solving
• Conduct a post-mortem

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

1:00: Facts ONLY: First, do a factual audit of what happened, and calmly get all the facts without blaming anyone or being overly dramatic. During this stage, you’ll also identify the right person to manage the situation, whether that’s you, your boss, or a coworker.

2:00: Honestly is always the best policy: Once you have all the facts, admit what happened to the impacted party as soon as possible. Express your regret and move to a solution mindset.

4:00: Making good: Whenever you mess up, always work with the impacted party to figure out how to make it right.

5:30: Post-mortem: Once the situation has been resolved and everyone is calm, get the group together and go over what happened. Ask what happened, how we solved it, what we can do in the future to avoid a repeat, etc.

Top Quotes

2:00:  In my experience, the best possible thing you can do is throw yourself at someone’s mercy. Own up to what happened as soon as you possibly can. Tell the truth in all of its gory detail. 

4:30: You have to come up with a way to make good. When you mess something up, it’s best to work with the person on the receiving end of that problem, the one that was impacted, and work together to figure out what to do to fix it. 

5:40: It will serve you on a personal level to follow those steps. It will serve you on a business level to follow those steps. You can be the leader in solving problems by being an honest, authentic, open, and apologetic person. 

6:00: So when something really horrible happens, tell yourself right away, well, here’s my opportunity to practice how to handle difficult situations because you will experience many difficult situations in your career. 

6:30: You go at it with a collaborative approach. armed with your intention to solve the problem and to prevent it from happening again, and you will be better off.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!

Transcript

00:00
Hello, everyone. 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 what to do when things go horribly wrong, and they will.

They may go horribly wrong in the context of you making a horrible mistake and having to own up to it and figure out how to solve it. They may go wrong in the context of one of your coworkers doing something that they made a big mistake and you’re the one that gets to deal with it with the customer.

A delivery that was supposed to get to the company didn’t make it on time. Something got broken, somebody, you know, something got broadcast that maybe was inappropriate.

Basically, shit happens, and you may get stuck in the firestorm of that shit. It happens at the office. It will happen to you. It happens to everybody. So accept that. And if it hasn’t happened to you yet, it will. So go ahead and accept the fact that it will happen and get to solving it.

01:00
So when something goes horribly wrong, one of the first things I advise people to do is to take a serious review of what the current situation is with no emotions. What are the facts? What happened?

And in a work environment, sometimes there are cultures where people like to blame each other. We don’t blame. What you want to do is you want to figure out what happened and maybe why. But quickly, when it first happens, you have to get about solving it as well. So you get everybody together. You figure out what the facts are, what happened and why.

And then you figure out who the right person is to manage the challenge. If it’s just you and you made a mistake and you’re talking to your boss, that’s going to be a different type of response than if it’s your whole team that made a mistake or you’ve got a whole team that’s responsible for something. And maybe your boss is the right person to manage that, or maybe you are. So, if it’s just you, you have to own up to something that happened.

02:00
In my experience, the best possible thing you can do is throw yourself at someone’s mercy. Own up to what happened as soon as you possibly can. Tell the truth in all of its gory detail. Express your feelings and emotions. Usually that means you’re regretful. I am so sorry. Here’s what happened and why.

And then ask, how can we make this right? What would you like to do to help solve this problem? How can we fix this for you? How can I make good on this thing that I did that may not have been suited to the company or the mistake that I made? And you want to avoid accusing or blaming anybody.

One of the most important things to do is do again, a factual audit of what happened. And then you’re going to move to solutions pretty quickly. So you move to solution mindset and go, okay, what can we do to fix this?

03:00
And I’ll give you an example here. My husband is a regular customer of a particular store brand. And they give him points based on how much he buys. And then he can take those points and turn them into dollars off of a future purchase. And he got to the point with this particular brand where he was so excited that he was almost up to $100 in his points. And he was like super excited about it.

So he went online this morning to shop. And he saw that, oh, guess what? We got bought by another company. And now we’ve changed our rewards, our point system, our customer rewards program. And now you only have less than $50 in your rewards account. no notice, nothing.

So he calls the store, the retail store, and they say, Oh, we got bought. There’s nothing we can do, but here’s who you can call and get in touch with her email. So he sends an email to the, you know, the company that bought the smaller organization and they got back to him with an email that said, Oh, Well, here’s our new customer rewards program. In case you don’t understand it, please contact somebody at the retail store.

04:00
Well, the person at the retail store, all they could say was that company, you know, the ownership said this was our new program. And all the ownership said was go to the retailer and they’ll tell you about our new program. So he was completely frustrated and mad and ready to take all of his, you know, sizable purchases moving forward to a different store.

And that makes sense. They don’t know how to handle an angry customer. They don’t know how to handle a mistake. It was a mistake to change the rewards program. So every loyal customer lost. And not announce it ahead of time. Now, they made that mistake worse by not owning it and making good.

You have to come up with a way to make good. When you mess something up, it’s best to work with the person on the receiving end of that problem, the one that was impacted, and work together to figure out what to do to fix it. Well, what would you like me to do to make this right? And that’s going to vary by situation.

05:00
So when things go horribly wrong, honesty is the best policy, always. Keeping your cool and talking specifically in facts is number two. Not blaming anyone is number three. That means you look for the facts, you find out what worked and what didn’t work. You don’t go, whose fault was this? Number four, you get to solving the problem, preferably collaboratively with the person that was most impacted by the problem.

And then number five, it’s always good to do what they call a post-mortem, which is when you look at what happened, everybody’s calm. You don’t wait too long because you don’t want people’s memories to fail. But you give it a couple of days and then you get the whole group together and go, all right, that’s behind us now. What happened? How can we solve it? Is everybody okay? What can we do better next time?

And it will serve you on a personal level to follow those steps. It will serve you on a business level to follow those steps. And you can be the leader in solving problems by being that honest, authentic, open, apologetic person. There are a lot of people that don’t know how to do that or they don’t understand the importance of it. The only way you get better at it, at dealing with problems, being authentic, being truthful, going into problem solving mode is through practice.

06:00
So when something really horrible happens, tell yourself right away, well, here’s my opportunity to practice how to handle difficult situations because you will experience many difficult situations in your career.

So this is a real short episode, but I just wanted to get that out there. When things go horribly wrong, there are specific steps you can take. You go at it with a collaborative approach. armed with your intention to solve the problem and to prevent it from happening again, and you will be better off.

And the more it happens, the better off you’ll be, the more you’ll know about how to be that creative problem solver that can go into challenging situations when things go horribly wrong. make it come out on the other side in a way that’s positive and everyone learns from it. So that’s what I’ve got for you today.

07:00
If you are listening on one of the podcast platforms, please drop me some stars. I’d love to hear from you there as well. So drop me some stars, and some comments, and also visit my website at workmomsays.com. We have blogs there. We have the entire catalog of all of our episodes, even the first silly ones where all we did was laugh. Then we got a little bit more serious and we hope to give you some really solid advice.

So go to workmomsays.com. I have a contact form there. I would love to hear from you. Tell me who you’d like to have on the show, what topics you’d like me to cover, what questions you have, and reach out to me.

I’m also on LinkedIn as an open networker. So Lori Jo Vest on LinkedIn, I would love to hear from you. Just make mention that you are a listener to the podcast.

08:00
And I also have a YouTube channel where I’m going through right now, 38 days of work mom. And so it’s every chapter in my work mom says, don’t be an idiot book. here available on Amazon. There’s videos on each of the chapters on YouTube. I’m kind of right in the middle of creating that series.

So look for it there, subscribe on YouTube, like my videos, comment, give me some love there as well. And I’ll be back with more helpful, useful information for young professionals very soon. Take care.

Who is our ideal listener?

This podcast is for young professionals, so they can 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.

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

The post Episode 38 – When Things Go Horribly Wrong appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• What is mental toughness
• Jacqueline Laurencelle’s mental toughness journey
• Benefits of mental toughness
• Discipline vs Motivation
• Tools for building mental toughness
• Rather than wallowing, ask yourself what lesson you can learn

Featured Guest

Expert Guest: Jacqueline Laurencelle

What She Does: Jacqueline is a classically French-trained Chef, social media influencer, and healthy cooking coach. She’s on a mission to make healthy cooking accessible, fun, sexy, and delicious through her wellness brand and her TV show, Jacqueline Cooks!

Connect: You can find her on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and her website.

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

2:00 – Start of her journey: While walking down the stairs during a fire evacuation, Jacqueline experienced so much pain that she wasn’t sure she could get to the bottom. This prompted her to start working out for her health, which kickstarted her journey.
7:00 – What is mental toughness: It is choosing to do difficult things to increase your capacity for resilience
11:00 – Benefits of mental toughness: It will help you tolerate failure, reduce your anxiety, and fear, and help you embrace and overcome obstacles.
16:00 – Motivation vs discipline: Discipline is more important than motivation because with discipline, you will just go do it. If you’re waiting to get motivated, you’ll wait forever.
20:30 – Tools for building mental toughness: Build habits and a morning routine that you will commit to and can do every day. Whether it’s doing the morning pages, affirmations, gratitude journaling, or starting your day with a workout, find what works for you and stick to it.
32:00 – Lessons: Instead of wallowing when something negative happens, mental toughness helps you swap your mindset to “what can we learn from this experience?”

Top Quotes

8:10 – Mental toughness is choosing to do things that are difficult, that are good for you, in order to expand your capacity for resilience.
11:00 – It’s cyclical. The more mental toughness you get, the more tenacious you’ll get. The more you tolerate failure, the more mentally tough you get. The more mentally tough you get, the more you can tolerate failure.
11:50 – I can promise you that the more mentally tough you get, the less anxiety and fear you will have. It won’t just help you push past it. It will help it decrease in your life.
16:35 – If you respect yourself, that’s what self-love is. And doing things that are good for you is what brings those things about.
17:00 – Your current situation is exactly what you’re committed to because you’re doing everything that supports your current situation.
20:40 – So I started super beginner so I wouldn’t get sore and ease into it. And then I just started to feel better because more endorphins were happening. So humbling myself a little bit, and really starting at the beginning was a crucial tool.
22:30 – I also made a decision to let go of being a victim…Like I got this one life to live and what am I going to do with it? I got to go out and do something. I can’t just sit here and exist anymore. I can’t do it.
24:00 – I’ve decided that in order to build a strong habit, I’m going to have to push really hard at first and do it every day so that it feels weird not to do it.
29:30 – You can act yourself into a better way of thinking, and think yourself into a better way of acting. So if you’re in doubt, take action.
30:45 – Choose your hard.
32:00 – Mental toughness is also about learning to see life from the perspective of what are the lessons I’m learning that will help me be a better person?
34:00 – Recognize that wallowing in the past or worrying about the future is where all the pain is. The present is the only thing you have any control over anyway.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!

Find the resources that Jacqueline mentioned in the episode below: 

• 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class by Steve Siebold
• The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday
• Sunrise Manifesto journal

Transcript

0:00

Hello, everybody. I’m Lori Jo Vest. I so appreciate you joining us for this episode of Work Mom Says, Don’t Be an Idiot. Today, we are talking to one of my dear friends, Jacqueline Laurencelle on the subject of mental toughness. 

Jacqueline is what I would call: she’s exploding onto the scene as a social media influencer and healthy cooking coach. She’s working on a television series. She’s got all kinds of wonderful things going on and a fabulous transformation story that has her talking about mental toughness, which I know is important in the business world. 

If you cannot buck up and handle what’s happening in a way that’s non-emotional, if you can’t get your stuff done because you can’t hold yourself together to do it, you will not be successful. It will impact your success. So this is a really important subject and one of my favorites. So Jacqueline, welcome to the show. Tell us a little about yourself.

1:00 Jacqueline –  Hi, Lori. Thank you so much for having me. Hello, everyone. As she said, my name is Jacqueline Laurencelle. I hail from the Detroit area of Michigan. I grew up outside of Detroit, and I now live in Chicago. I am a classically French-trained chef, which was actually a second career for me. I originally worked in social work and pastoral ministry and then decided that I wanted to do something a little more creative. 

And so the work that I’m getting ready to do now with the show that you mentioned and my social media and health and wellness transformation coaching will bring all of those things together in my life. So I’m very excited about all of the things that the future holds. 

2:00 Lori – Oh, it’s been an amazing thing to watch over the last three or four months as this has been coming together and You’re on TikTok and Instagram and all the different channels. So tell us why you are on this journey. When and how did it start? 

Jacqueline – Sure. It was the day before my 52nd birthday, which was about 14 months ago now. And there was a fire in the condo building that I lived in. And when we were evacuated, I had to walk down 20 flights of stairs with two dogs and a backpack. and I have to be honest I was pretty uh confident overly confident like oh I can do this because I had also packed a suitcase and I thought well I’ll take the dogs first and drop off the backpack which had all the valuables and the passports and the cash and all that kind of stuff I’ll drop that off and then I’ll go back up and get my suitcase. 

3:00 Yeah. About five floors into going down the stairs, I was in a lot of pain. I was hurting. I couldn’t breathe. I was a mess. And I was like thinking to myself, I just want to get down. I don’t even know if I’m able to get down these stairs. Like what am I going to do? I have to get down. And because there’s no one coming to get me, right? There’s no elevator. There’s no option. The only way I’m getting out is to walk down these stairs. 

So I got to the bottom barely and I was in so much pain and I could barely walk. And I was about 100 pounds overweight. And I just something happened inside me that day of like something has to change. I’m not getting any younger. I can’t keep going on like this. It was like for the first time it really became not about vanity anymore and just about like I have to be able to function in my life. 

And so that kind of started, that was a little spark or the catalyst or that thing that happens in your life, an event that happens that you say to yourself, okay, something needs to be different. I need to do things differently. 

4:00 Lori: So that’s really the story of how it got started. Right. And how’s it going? 

Jacqueline: Yeah. Well, I was going to say within, it took a couple of weeks for me to kind of pull everything together. And I just started and I promised myself I was going to start working out. And I said, even if I never lose a pound, I have to start working out for my health, for my aging, you know, muscle mass, all of that. So it has now been 14 months and I’m down 85 pounds. 

Lori: Awesome. That’s amazing. That’s tough. That is tough. 

Jacqueline: It is, but for the first time in my life, it’s not as hard as it used to be. And I think a lot of it comes to the topic of what we’re talking about today, which is the fact that throughout this process, I have been building mental toughness. So I have to say it is easier than it was when I started. And now that I see it as a lifestyle and I see it as there is no end game. 

5:00 People keep asking me like, what’s my goal weight? I don’t have one. I don’t know what that is. And I don’t care what the number on the scale says. I care that when I get to whatever that goal is, a weight goal, it’ll be the next goal, right? What’s my flexibility? Can I do a handstand? Can I, whatever, whatever it’s going to be, you know, that I realized it’s just, it’s not about going on or off a diet. It really is about figuring out how to make this my life so that I can live a better life. And mental toughness was a huge part of it. 

Lori: I think mental toughness, tell me if I’m wrong, but a lot of times when you’re starting a great big transformation journey like that, a lot of us want to do that. But to start part of that mental toughness is in the support you put around yourself, right? 

Jacqueline: You know, it’s interesting. I don’t really feel like I had a lot of support. Yeah. And I didn’t. And I’m one of those people, because I had gained and lost weight so many times. And let’s be honest, weight is a very public, visual issue. 

6:00 So you can’t hide it. And I had gained and lost weight, lost and gained weight back so many times. I wasn’t going to tell anybody because I, I didn’t, I didn’t want to go through the humiliation again of, and also I’m a little superstitious of like, okay, don’t want to jinx it. 

Lori: Love that. Love that. I’m the same way. 

Jacqueline: Yeah. So I was like, I’m just going to do my thing. So I started and I lost about 20 pounds on my own. And then I found a program and I have a code, you know, I have an online coach and there’s weekly zoom calls and, And there’s a big group of ladies and we support each other. So I did get support from them once I would say I got started. 

But in my regular life, I just kind of decided to just keep it quiet and not really talk about it because I feel like I wanted to because I realized it wasn’t really about that. It was just about me trying to figure it out for myself. But that’s what I would say where. um yes the group of women that I ended up being supported by definitely helped to promote me and motivate me.

7:00 But I i do think mental toughness though in many ways is a solo journey you have to put the work in daily for yourself and no one can do it for you and no matter how many great quotes you get and I believe me I am following all of them on instagram and get 50 of them a day and they’re great And that’s wonderful for a second. It makes you feel good. But you still got to put in the work every day to get mentally stronger. 

Lori: Absolutely. So let’s talk about what is mental toughness. Now, I think of it as, you know, I looked it up and I tried to find like, what is it? And there’s a lot of different facets to it. What first came up was the word grit. which I think is kind of cool. But how do you define it? 

Jacqueline: I define mental toughness as… Okay, so… I was having this conversation with someone about resilience versus mental toughness and are they the same thing? And I said, I think resilience is your ability to handle when something in life unexpected happens to you. How resilient you are is your ability to get through it, handle it.

8:00 But mental toughness for me is choosing to do things that are difficult in order to expand your capacity for resilience. So let me say that again. 

Lori: Okay, say it again. 

Jacqueline: Mental toughness is choosing to do things that are difficult, that are good for you, in order to expand your capacity for resilience. 

Lori: Okay. I like that a lot. I like that a lot. 

Jacqueline: So that’s why, you know, people laugh at me, but I do cold plunges. That’s why I get up at four o’clock in the morning that I did not used to do. And I do my books every day. I don’t want to get up at four o’clock in the morning. Who wants to get up at four o’clock in the morning? Especially when it’s zero out. I live in Chicago. Nobody. 

9:00 But here’s the thing. By doing that every day, because then, because with that time, I’m investing in me. I’m doing meditation. I’m reading things that are expanding my mind and challenging me to grow and doing journaling. And then I go and do my workouts. I don’t want to do my workout every morning at 5 or 5.30. Nope. Not interested. But that’s how you gain mental toughness.

And that expands your capacity resilience so that when life punches you in the face, because it will, it’s going to punch everybody in the face. Just a little side note, anybody who believes that life is fair, you were lied to. Whoever told you that, lied. Lied, lied, lied. Life is not fair. It’s not designed to be fair. And we shouldn’t even be trying to make it fair. It’s just not how it works. It’s how we are resilient or mentally tough enough to gain a larger capacity for resilience, be able to handle it and move forward. So that’s what I would say my definition of mental toughness is. 

10:00 Lori: I love it. I love it. A couple other things that came up in looking up the definition was the ability to persevere despite obstacles, which means if you get up and you have a little cold, you still work out. 

Jacqueline: I would say embrace your obstacles. Yeah. I would say the more mentally tough you are, the more you will embrace obstacles and actually not see, you’re not necessarily always going to seek them out, but you’re going to not be afraid of them or run away from them. 

Lori: Exactly. Like I think of myself, I broke my ankle about three years ago, getting the mail, went out to the mailbox, broke my ankle. And the first thing I asked the doctor after I got the boot is how soon can I ride the Peloton? Because I got myself a Peloton five years ago, and part of my happiness is getting on that bike. And I knew if I could push past it, I rode that thing with a boot. It was great. It was fine. I didn’t stand up, but I rode it with a boot. 

11:00 Being able to tolerate failure. Yep. Fear and anxiety, refusing to give in until you succeed, like continuing day after day toward your goal. All of those things require mental toughness, right? 

Jacqueline: They do. And it’s one of those things where it’s cyclical. Like the more mental toughness you get, the more tenacious you’ll get. The more you tolerate failure, the more mentally tough you get. The more mentally tough you get, the more you can tolerate failure. 

And the other thing about fear and anxiety, because we know that the younger generation really struggles with a lot of anxiety. And what I would say is the more mentally tough… Mental toughness is a choice. You choose… to make yourself mentally tougher. You choose to do hard things when you don’t want to. That is what will make you mentally tougher. 

And I can promise you that the more mentally tough you get, the less anxiety and fear you will have. It won’t just help you push past it. It will help it decrease in your life. 

12:00 Yeah. That’s huge. And I don’t think people are told that. I think they’re just trying to constantly manage anxiety and not realize you can actually lessen it. 

Lori: Absolutely. And honestly, this isn’t a therapy show. However, if you are suffering with a lot of fear and anxiety, there are therapists out there that can really help you. There’s a lot to be done. So if you suffer it and you can’t get past it with mental toughness, know that sometimes you’ll need a little help. 

Cognitive-based therapy, talk therapy, some of that kind of thing is really important and will help you push through those kind of things that are brought on by either trauma, medical conditions, that kind of thing. your day-to-day fear and anxiety yeah push through it 

Jacqueline: Can I add to that though, with my social work background I would say that I would also add yes do not um avoid or uh therapy like I I’m a huge supporter of therapy but I would say it’s a both and not an either or. 

13:00 So you need to go to therapy and you need to go out and take a walk every day, even if it’s for 15 minutes, breathe some fresh air, take some deep breaths, get the sugar and processed food out of your diet. Like those things affect your hormones and your hormones are what affect your anxiety. It’s all together. It’s not one or the other, either or. And they’re not separate there. They really are connected. So do both. Do all the above.

Lori: I have I worked with a guy who had some severe anxiety and he went to a therapist who sent him to a psychiatrist who told him to stop drinking coffee. He stopped drinking coffee and the anxiety went away. So there’s things that you can do. And, you know, if it’s constant, get some help. 

Jacqueline: Yeah. It’s all of the above. 

Lori: Absolutely. Get help and keep doing those things that help you build that mental toughness. Exactly. 

14:00 So how do you build mental toughness? You’ve done this. You’ve gone from, you know, from, like you said, being a lot more… I was 236 pounds. A lot more difficult for you to do what you needed to do. So how did you build the mental toughness that took you to where you are today? 

Jacqueline: Well, I would say creating a routine and sticking to it. And the thing is, is keeping your word to yourself. We… people so often we talk about you know keep your word to other people right when you say you’re going to do something do it but it’s amazing particularly women how we just don’t think it’s worth it we don’t think we’re important enough to keep our word to ourselves and here’s the thing if you don’t keep your word to yourself that means ultimately you don’t respect yourself right.

 And so when you start to keep your word to yourself, which is, again, doing what you don’t want to do, but it’s good for you. It’s doing things you don’t want to do that are good for you and not doing things that are bad for you when you really want to do them. Even when they’re fun. The strength, my coach often says, the strength is in the restraint. It’s in the restraint. 

15:00 And so when there are things that you know you really shouldn’t be doing for yourself, like you don’t need that second piece of cake. Or maybe that day you don’t need a piece of cake at all because you had a piece of cake the day before. That’s the restraint. 

Or the idea of there’s freedom in the structure. He says that too. There’s freedom in structure. So creating structure for yourself. And I struggle with that because I am like a fly by the seat of her pants kind of girl. And structure has always felt very like suffocating. Yeah. But I realized by balancing having some structure, and it’s helped me accomplish a lot more. So that builds discipline and discipline. 

16:00 I just talked about this the other day in my stair chat about motivation versus discipline. And the truth is discipline is more important than motivation. Now if you’re waiting to get motivated, you’re gonna be waiting a real long time. You just have to go out and do it even when you don’t want to do it which is what discipline is and then that builds the mental toughness and then the motivation comes because then you start to see results. You start to feel better about yourself. You start to have some self-respect And you don’t want to give that up. 

Once you start to really feel that and feel, to me, self-love is really about self-respect. If you respect yourself, that’s what self-love is. And doing things that are good for you is what brings those things about. 

Lori: Yeah. I know we’re reading a book in our book club by Benjamin Hardy, and he talks about how your current situation is what you are committed to. Interesting. Your current situation is exactly what you’re committed to because you’re doing everything that supports your current situation. 

17:00 So if you’re committed to something else, well, then you need to give up some of your current habits and things to get to that space. And this applies in all kinds of things. It’s not just weight loss or healthy living. It can be getting that degree. Like maybe you’ve been out of college for five or six years and you really want to get your master’s. Start now. The most important thing you can do is start. 

Jacqueline: And I struggle with that. Like I have to have the perfect conditions or I’m like, I can’t do it. And then I’m like, nope, just start. And you’ll make start. And here’s the best part of them. The thing is, is that’s the fear of failure. We don’t start because we’re afraid to fail. And we have to remind ourselves the only way we learned how to walk is to fall down. That’s how we learned over and over again. 

But it was interesting you were saying that current situation because I always say to people, don’t tell me what your values are. Where you put your time, your energy, and your money is what you value. So if you really want to know what you value, spend some time reflecting on where do I spend my time, my energy, and my money, and then you’ll know what you value. Doesn’t matter what you say. 

18:00 Lori: So true. So let’s go back. Let’s jump around a little bit, but talk about the tools for mental toughness. One of the things that I do every day and I, and part of it is I’m kind of a chaotic, I’m kind of a chaotic ADHD kind of human. Okay. I’m in a lot of groups. I’m in a lot, but the one I joined during the pandemic, I think is the one that’s been the most life changing. 

And it was started by a woman, um, at the beginning. Like, I think it was like April or May of 2020 and people were struggling to get out of bed. Things were so chaotic and crazy. Exactly. Drinking wine. Um, And she started two accountability, what she calls accountability labs. And we meet, there was one at 6.30 and one at 7.07. The 6.31 has disbanded since people went back to the office. But those of us who stay are in the 7.07 group. We meet every single day. 

19:00 And we make a commitment personally, professionally, and a mindset. Monday through Friday. Monday through Friday. But every single Monday through Friday, 7.07. Bedhead. Runny mascara. Like what if you go on vacation? If you go on vacation, you might not go, but like my hair is always like all messed up and, and I’ve got the, you know, I, and I’m in my pajamas and it makes such a difference. 

I went from doing my little, I’m going to be a solopreneur on the sofa to now I have an office and I have, you know, five employees and, you know, we’re growing this agency. And I don’t know, I, as far as mental toughness, I, I talk about what I need to learn. And I really need the accountability from other people. 

Because for example, yesterday I said I would do my weight training workout on my morning call. About 8.30, I hadn’t done it yet. So trust me, I didn’t want to come this morning and say I didn’t. So I got my weights out and I did my workout at 8.30 and it was perfect. So there’s a lot of things that, tools that might work for you. So what tools worked for you? 

20:00 Jacqueline: Oh gosh. Well, I would say part of it that worked for me, which is going to sound odd, but when I started working out, I had been an athlete for a lot of my life. Okay. So when I started working out, I went to a beginner program for people who had never worked out before on purpose. 

One, because I didn’t want to get sore because I knew if I got real sore the first day, like I could do it all the first day. Great. And then I wouldn’t be able to walk for three days, which is what happened when I went down the stairs. And I was like, yeah, and I’ll quit. I know myself. Yeah. 

So I started super beginner so I wouldn’t get sore and ease into it. And then I just started to feel better because more endorphins were happening. So that humbling, I would say humbling myself a little bit. Like it. Really starting at the beginning started. That’s also mental toughness is humility is saying, okay, I’m not as, you know, I have some work to do on some things. Yeah.

21:00 I would also say. Like habits. I mean, my morning routine is now it’s a ritual. I call I don’t even call it a routine or it’s a morning ritual. I can’t start like that. I can’t start my day if I don’t spend some time quiet by myself with me and whatever your spirituality is. For me, it’s God. And I spend some time with God and I spend some time getting to a place of gratitude in the morning and doing affirmations and reading the daily stoic that I do. 

And those things have been crucial to my ability to be successful. And I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now because 14 months ago, I had some dreams that someone had told me that I said, if someone had told me I would have left a bad relationship, lost 80 pounds and be doing my dream of starting a TV show, you know, doing it on TV. I would have told them they were absolutely had lost their minds, crazy people. And you must be smoking drugs because that’s never going to happen. 

22:00 I was 52. I had given up. I had given up and thought, I’m just, I’m done. So I’m sorry. No, it’s good though. Super stuck and wallowing in a lot of self-pity and victimhood. And that’s the thing. Mental toughness. 

I also made a decision to let go of being a victim. I was like, I’m done. I won lots of gold medals in the victimhood Olympics that I gave to myself. And I decided to turn them all back in and say, you know what? Like I got this one life to live and what am I going to do with it? Yeah. I got to go out and do something. I can’t just sit here and exist anymore. I can’t do it. 

Lori: Yeah. I love that. Love that.

Jacqueline: That helps in terms of things I did, but it’s practical things. I mean, it’s non-negotiable, and I started to keep my word to myself. And if that’s, you put it on a little calendar yourself and exit off on your fridge, you know, in our app that I am with the ladies, we check off our boxes of our, you know.

23:00 I’m going to tell you to turn off the news. Stop spending lots of time on news and doom scrolling and all of that. You know, those things are just not helpful. 

Lori: They’re not helpful at all. I found it’s really useful for me personally to make, like when I need to break a habit. And sugar has always been kind of an emotional, emotion management tool. Yeah. I mean, they say it’s like crack cocaine, right? 

Jacqueline: It releases the same dopamine that heroin and yeah. 

Lori: So at the beginning of April, I made a commitment to myself that I was going to do 90 days sugar-free. It’s almost the end of June. I broke my sugar fast on my birthday so I could have my pie and ice cream and I got right back on it and I’m still on it till the end of June. 

24:00 I kind of think by now it’s just a lifestyle, but a lot of times I’ll do that. Like I did it with the Peloton. I’ve done it with weight training where I’ve decided in order for me to build a strong habit, I’m going to have to push really hard at first, do it every day so that it feels weird not to do it. 

And then I have been weight training and on the Peloton for probably four years and weight training for about a year and a half. And I’ve been consistent and I’m seeing results, smaller pants, better energy overall. And that helps you succeed, right? 

Jacqueline: Yes. I mean, I, I can say for me, I decided to do sober October last. 

Lori: Oh, I love that. 

Jacqueline: And, um, I never considered alcohol something. I mean, I enjoy drinking and stuff, but I didn’t go through the COVID started drinking like crazy, gain a bunch of weight. That was not me. I just, not how I’ve ever been a drinker. And I’m not saying I haven’t drank too much at different times in my life. I’m just saying, I’ve never said I had too many one night, but I’m just saying I just wasn’t a big drinker that way.

25:00 But I gave it up in October and I haven’t drank. I’ve had, I had two drinks in November and I have not had a drink since. pretty much at all. So it’s been about eight and a half months. And I don’t know if I’ll drink again because I just know I sleep better. I don’t have to ever worry about a hangover. I don’t, I don’t have to ever worry about my energy level going down, you know, like kind of sad and blue and all that. Cause it is a depressant. And since I had a lot going on in my life at the time, I just realized it wasn’t going to serve me. It wasn’t going to help. 

So I agree with you and I do agree. I think it’s easier. I’m going to be honest and I agree with you. When you’re going to do something to make a big habit change, do it all 100%. Like when you’re first learning how to be a different person, be all in, like you said, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days of no sugar or no alcohol, or I’m going to walk every day for 20 minutes, rain or shine. Doesn’t matter. 

26:00 Listen, when it was 50 below, when we had some 50 below, I walked the stairs. I walked the, my, I live on the 29th floor of my building and I walked up the stairs and walked the floor and walked up the stairs and walked the floor. Because that’s what I had to do. And I was like, I’m not going to not do something that’s good for me.

Lori: Love it. Love it. Love it. Now you mentioned, um, the daily stoic and some of the stoicism books. If you are listening to this podcast and you have not discovered the stoicism concept, dig in, dig in. Um, there’s such good books, but which ones do you rely on? 

Jacqueline: So I do a morning devotional and then I do, and then I pray and meditate. And then I do, I read a passage from the daily stoic by Ryan holiday. I highly recommend it. And then I read a passage from a book called 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class. It’s a mouthful by Steven Siebel. I don’t know. I think I hope I pronounce that correctly. And I do those three every day, every morning.

27:00

There are some days I will do what I know some people know about called the morning pages. If I wake up and I got a lot on my mind that day before I do anything, I might sit down and do the morning pages. Now I don’t do the three, eight and a half and 11 sheets. I do the three in my journal sheets and just make myself write and get all of that out. 

I’ve also had women in our group. They do something called if you really struggle with a lot of negative thinking and negative self-talk, um, Um, they do think they call, they have like a negative dump journal. It’s a separate journal and you just write all the negative stuff and get it out so that you can then turn and focus your mind on positive things and putting positive things into your mind. 

And then I finish my morning routine with what’s called the journal called the sunrise manifesto. And it’s about gratitude. It’s about things you want to accomplish that day. I design, uh, my coach has designed it a little differently in terms of how the pages are laid out is different than how I do it. 

28:00 I do affirmations. So there’s a page that’s kind of a brain dump page, but I do all my affirmations. So I do lots of “i ams” and lots of written visualizations of what I want my life to look like and what I want to attract into my life. Wonderful. And I listen to positive podcasts and music and you know, That’s kind of what you ingest is really important. What you become. Yeah. Every aspect, physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally. 

Lori: Yeah, seriously. Well, we will put notes to these recommendations that Jacqueline has talked about in the show notes on the workmomsays.com website. So if you’re listening to this on Spotify or Apple or one of these other podcast platforms, feel free to run over to our website and you can get the show notes and the details and links to purchase these books and things like that. 

29:00 Jacqueline: Can I say one thing? Sure, please do. We’re talking about strategies for mental toughness. And we’ve talked about getting a routine and recognizing that discipline, you know, forever is built one day at a time. Yeah, for sure. Sometimes it’s one meal at a time and sometimes it’s one workout at a time. And that’s all you’ve got the strength for. And that’s OK. But just do it. 

Literally, the Nike saying of just do it is seriously great. Stop thinking about it and just do it. And don’t the Stoics say, Laurie, you can act yourself into a better way of thinking. Yes. And think yourself into a better way of acting. So if you’re in doubt, take action. If you’re in doubt, I can’t tell you, I never used to be a big walker. I can’t tell you how many walks I take now. Sometimes it’s 10 minutes. I just go outside my building. I walk for five minutes one way and turn around, walk back just to clear my head.

What I wanted to say about that was don’t stop trying. Like what works for Lori and I might not work for you, but the important thing is to keep looking, keep searching, keep But you have to give it more than a day or a week. You have to commit to something for 30 days and really commit to the program as it’s designed by the person who designed it. Yes.

30:00 Because if you’re struggling, it means what you’ve been doing and thinking you’re smarter than everything else and everybody else ain’t working. People who created it, do it the way they want you to do it for 30 days. And then you can tweak it once it becomes your own and you make it your own in your own habit. 

Lori: Absolutely. Now there’s a quote that you use and I’d like us to close with about things being hard. Oh, yes. Yeah. This is a really good one that you really want to keep in mind. I want it on a shirt or a necklace or something or I can get a tattoo. 

Jacqueline: You could use it for lots of different things, but I have used it for losing weight. No, stop. Repeat. Being overweight is hard. Losing weight is hard. Maintaining a healthy weight is hard. Choose your hard. Yeah. And it’s a choice. 

31:00 Lori: Yep. And life is hard. I’m sorry, but there are times when it is so hard, you know, and 

Jacqueline: Suffering is the only thing that life will ever guarantee you. Yeah. Yeah. That is the one guarantee in life is that there is suffering and there will be suffering in your life. And that’s why you want to be mentally tough. That you can withstand it and move on and see that life is happening for you to teach you lessons. Mental toughness is also about learning to see life from perspective of what are the lessons I’m learning that will help me be a better person? 

32:00 Lori: Absolutely. Love that. And when something catastrophic happens or something negative happens, it’s really helps me to be tougher to immediately look for that lesson. Well, that wasn’t, that didn’t work. And what did we learn? We learned what didn’t work. 

Jacqueline: It also helps because it gives you perspective of realizing I’m going to tell you somebody always has it worse. Yeah. And there’s nothing wrong. And it’s important to remember that if this is happening to me and I hate it and this sucks. Yeah. But to remind myself, I know there’s somebody else who has it way worse than I do. And so that helps to get perspective so that I can, again, get through it. And then that helps mental toughness as well. 

And the one thing I want to say that it also is if you’re here and you’re listening to this and you’ve been through some really difficult things in your life, you already have some mental toughness because you’re still here. And you’re listening to this, which means you want to learn more about how to get mentally tougher. 

33:00 So here’s the deal. Accept that it happened to you. It’s not about you. Accept it happened to you and realize where do I go from here? Yeah. Where do I go from here? 

Lori: Immediately swap your mindset from, oh my God, look what’s happening. Right. To what do I learn from this and how quickly can I move on? Instead of why me, you want to say, how do I fix it? How do I move beyond it? Yep. And move into action. Exactly. Exactly. Action is always the best choice when you’re in a situation. 

One person I used to work with used to say, one of the best ways to be successful is to lead with your face and have a bias for action, which means bring 100% of yourself to it and have a bias toward action over inaction and move forward. 

34:00 Jacqueline: And recognize that like wallowing in the past or worrying about the future, that’s where all the pain is. The present is the only thing you have any control over anyway. And so, you know, if you focus on today, I just have to work on this today. And like I said, sometimes it was, I just got to eat this meal because all I really want to do right now is eat cupcakes. But I’m just going to eat this meal and I’m going to have the cupcakes, but I’m having later. 

Delayed gratification, by the way, is another very important aspect of mental toughness. Doing delayed gratification will make you mentally tougher.

I think of how many times you- And you know, rush time. Here’s the reality. I really believe this. The human brain can only process things at a certain rate and it doesn’t matter how fast the computers get. And that’s why people are freaking out because our bodies and our minds, it’s not the way the human experience is. Yes.

35:00  We have all this great technology and it’s wonderful, but just remember the human experience operates at a different pace. And if you accept that and you embrace that, it will help a lot. I know. 

Lori: Slow down to speed up. That’s another good one. Slow down to speed up because if you slow down, you don’t make mistakes. You’re more, you’re more measured in what you’re doing. You can be more intentional. So slow down to speed up. We have a lot of great, great phrases to give people. We need a line of t-shirts, Jacqueline. We do. 

We’re going to wrap this up. Thank you so much for Jacqueline for being here today. Tell us how people can get in touch with you. 

Jacqueline: Well, first, I want to thank you so much for inviting me to be on. It’s my honor and pleasure to be here with you. And you can find me at www.jacquelinelaurencellel.com. I will spell that out. My name is a mouthful. So it’s www.jacquelinelaurencelle.com. L-A-U-R-E-N-C-E-L-L-E.com. You can also check me out at JacquelineCooks.com. Same spelling of the name.

36:00 And my Instagram is JacquelineMLaurencelle. So J-A-C-Q-U-E-L-I-N-E-M- L-A-U-R-E-N-C-E-L-L-E. Check me out on Instagram. I’m also on TikTok and YouTube and all the good places and Facebook, of course. 

Lori: She’s all over the place. She is all over the map. So be sure to follow her. Be sure to follow Jacqueline because she not only is she sharing her story of transformation, which is really compelling and interesting, but she also acts as your healthy cooking coach. 

So she talks about things that help you make menus that are. you know, meals that are more healthy and how to use, she’s got a video I saw the other day about how many knives you should have and how to use them and spices and how to set up a great kitchen. 

37:00 Jacqueline: Yeah. I’m very lucky because I’m able to use my French, my classic French training cook, you know, chef training to be able to realize that healthy food is sexy and delicious. And that’s the only way I want it. I I’m not going to spend the rest of my life eating cardboard. I’m not interested. So, so healthy food is sexy and delicious. 

Lori: So that’s her motto. So yes. And please, I’d love to hear what your thoughts are. Yeah. So do us a favor. Um, go ahead and Check out our website at workmomsays.com. That’s where you’ll find show notes. You’ll find the book links. You’ll find links to Jacqueline’s social pages and her websites. So if you didn’t write that down because you’re listening in your car, jump over to workmomsays.com and you’ll find that there. 

38:00 If you are listening on a podcast platform, please drop me some stars. Those really help with viewership. Write me a review. And on the contact form on the website, I’d love to hear who you’d like to have me interview on Work Mom Says. I’m open to lots of different guests or if you have a question. that I can answer for you related to EQ and work and how to play the emotional context board of business. I’d love to hear from you. Until next time, take care. Bye.

Who is our ideal listener?

This podcast is for young professionals, so they can 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.

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

The post Episode 37 – “Mental Toughness” appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• The importance of setting and holding your boundaries
• Why it can be SO hard to say no
• What to do and consider before you say no
• Reasons to always say no
• The softening the no formula
• Never be resentful when you must say yes

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

1:00 – Boundaries matter: You are responsible for setting and holding firm to your own boundaries. Decide how you want to live your life and draw your work boundaries accordingly; otherwise, you will likely be miserable.
6:00 – Saying no is hard: If you’re a chronic people-pleaser, tend to be self-sacrificing, or work in a command-and-control type of company, it can be difficult to say no, but your boundaries are always important to uphold no matter the pushback.
10:00—Considerations before saying no: Before saying no, ask yourself strategically if you should say yes. Is the request annoying, or do you not like the way you were asked? Is there a benefit to saying yes instead? Are you compromising your personal time?
13:00 – Reasons why you can ALWAYS say no: If you’re too busy, have a personal commitment, or are asked to do something inappropriate or immoral, these are always good reasons to say no.
20:00 – The Saying No Formula: The formula for softening a no is a positive intro (I really wish I could), a reason (I’m slammed), and a suggestion (can we do this instead?).
23:00 – When you can’t say no: Sometimes you can’t say no, so do what needs to be done with grace, and don’t do it resentfully.

Top Quotes

2:00 – Even if someone gets irritated or tries to push on those boundaries, it’s your responsibility to be mindful and pay attention to your own beliefs and values and be honest about what you can and can’t do, even if it hurts someone’s feelings or makes them a little upset.
5:40 – If you don’t like what’s happening at the company and you really feel like you’re also not able to hold your boundaries, consider finding a new environment to work in. Consider finding a place that’s more culturally relevant to you so that you don’t feel like you have to constantly be pushing their boundaries or have them pushing yours.
10:00 – When you find yourself struggling and you really don’t want to say no, take 30 seconds to think about it before you respond, because that’s really what’s going to help you make the best decision and just to, instead of just a decision.
11:00 – Ask yourself strategically before you say no if you should in fact say yes. Is there a benefit to you for saying yes, like demonstrating your skills? If it’s a new type of project that maybe you’ve not done much work on before, if it will help you build a key relationship, consider putting the extra hours in and saying yes.
14:30 – When you have to say no and you absolutely don’t have any ideas for someone else to help or another way to handle it, best thing you can say is I wish I could, but I just can’t make that work. And then shut up.
18:00 – No, that’s not something I’m interested in doing. No, I’m not going there doing that or playing any part in that. Or no, I’m not comfortable with that at all. Those are all answers you can give when someone asks you to do something inappropriate.
19:45 – Just because a request is annoying doesn’t mean it’s something that you should turn down.
22:45 – If you tried to say no and that no was rejected and you just can’t say no, don’t go into the project resentfully because it will backfire and lead you to failure

Links

Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!

Transcript

0:00
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. Great topic today. We’re going to be talking about how and when to say no at work because it will happen to you. Something will come up and you’ll have to say no to your coworker who wants you to work over the weekend, to your boss, to your supervisor, to your mom. There are a lot of times when you will have to say no.

So we’re gonna dig into that And talk about when you should say no and how you should say no. Because there are circumstances where your no should maybe be turned into a yes. So consider that as well.

But before we get going too far, let’s talk about boundaries. Boundaries is basically you setting a standard for how you want to live and then holding yourself accountable for that being true. And I’ll give you an example. I’m one of those people. I love to go to bed at 930. I go to bed at 930 because I get up at 630 and it feels good to me to get a good night’s sleep. I’m productive during the day and physically I feel really good.

1:00
And if someone comes along and says, Hey, there’s this event at 10 o’clock on Tuesday night, let’s go. I’m going to say no. Because one of my boundaries is I prefer a good night’s sleep to a late night evening and a half ruined next day. So that’s holding a boundary.

Now, there are occasions when you will have to hold a boundary and the person on the other side of the conversation doesn’t want to hear what you have to say. And they may tell you you’re being inflexible or this isn’t good for you or are you sure you really want to say no?

And in some cases, you’ll change your mind. But in others, you’ll hold that boundary because you are the one that is responsible for how you live your life and the standards you set for yourself.

2:00
So basically, it’s your responsibility. Even if someone gets irritated or tries to push on those boundaries, it’s your responsibility to maintain your side of the fence, to be mindful and pay attention to what your own beliefs and values and being honest about what you can and can’t do, even if it hurts someone’s feelings or makes them, you know, a little upset.

Be honest about what you will and won’t do, because there will be occasions when someone will ask you to work on a holiday, maybe, or work the entire weekend. And if you’ve got toddlers at home, that doesn’t fit your lifestyle. That doesn’t fit the standard that you’ve set for your life. So boundaries are really important.

3:00
So just to reiterate that part, because again, I think it’s so important. It’s your responsibility to decide how you want to live your life and then to create the environment that allows you to do so.

So for example, if you are a jeans and t-shirt kind of person, honestly, I’ve turned into that in the last six years, working at home and running an agency that’s 100% remote, jeans and t-shirts, comfy, can express yourself comfortably. you know, easy to launder, put on, no ironing. I mean, there’s a lot of reasons that that wardrobe is attractive to me. But I probably wouldn’t try to get a position at a bank and expect to bring that with me. I would have to compromise that standard. If I’m not willing to compromise that standard, then I wouldn’t take that job.

4:00
So don’t go into a conservative company and think you’re going to get away with being a wild child. If you want to be the wild child, go into more creative industry, make sure you’re looking at the companies you interview with for a culture fit, because that will help you determine if your maybe casual demeanor, jeans and t-shirt lifestyle is a fit for that culture, because that’s important.

And also if you get into an organization and you start to feel like, you know, this isn’t exactly what I want and you start trying to push for change, Be careful doing that. I would say don’t be a bull in the China shop constantly trying to push change because you will lose and you will look bad while losing. So that’s just a little side conversation there that once you decide how to live your life, make sure that the career environments that you put yourself in match with that.

5:00
So when you are interviewing, be the buyer. That’s something I heard, I think, J.B. Glossinger say. Always be the buyer. So when you go on a job interview, consider whether they’re going to be able to meet your standards. Consider whether you’re going to be able to express yourself fully in that environment so that your boundaries won’t be that hard to hold, right?

So a lot of times if you go into an environment that doesn’t fit with you culturally, you may try to push too much change. And despite your enthusiasm for making things more casual or better in ways you perceive, you will lose. And if that’s what’s happening, no matter how much enthusiasm you have, you will lose.

So if you don’t like what’s happening at the company and you really feel like you’re also not able to hold your boundaries, consider finding a new environment to work in. Consider finding a place that’s more culturally relevant to you so that you don’t feel like you have to constantly be pushing their boundaries or have them pushing yours. So just a little conversation on boundaries.

6:00
Um, so let’s talk about why it’s so hard to say no. Lots and lots of reasons. When we go to school, we’re taught to cooperate. We’re taught to be good, you know, good classmates to be collaborative. Um, And in a lot of cases, I hate to say this, but we’ve been traumatized. A lot of us have been traumatized and we’re people pleasers.

I just saw Lenny Kravitz interviewed on CBS Morning News by Gayle King, and he just turned 60. And he’s this, you know, superstar. And here he is at 60 saying, I’m a people pleaser. My whole career, I’ve suffered with that. And now at 60, I finally feel like I’m doing what’s right for me.

And a lot of people feel that way because as people pleasers, we may not discover that were people pleasers till, you know, our forties, fifties, or even sixties, because it’s just a behavior pattern that’s so natural based on, you know, your personal trauma response that you don’t even know you’re doing it until you’ve been doing it for a really long time and it hasn’t worked. And then you go, wait a minute, what’s happening.

7:00
So if you, um, if you have a trauma response that is people pleasing or what I call fawning, that’s how you’ll see it defined. Um, you will naturally find it hard to say no, because most people don’t want to hear no, they want you to say yes, you know, and when you can, you will.

But, um, if your trauma response is fawning, it will be difficult, even more difficult for you. Um, a lot of us just worry that others will think less of us if we’re not always cooperative. When in reality, if you think about the people in your life, somebody who’s told you no before, um, Were they awful people? No, they weren’t. Did you hate them forever? Probably not. So if you think that others are going to think less of you, try to put yourself in that position. Would you think less of you if you had to say no? Probably not.

8:00
So we’re worried about what other people think of us. We also may think that if we can’t do it all, we’re not good enough. that we, we should be able to take whatever’s thrown at us. Well, that’s a real old school way of thinking.

Um, back in the eighties, you know, sixties, eighties, nineties, um, you would find a lot of that happening where, um, you know, super woman, women can go to, you know, go to work in the morning and pick up the groceries on the way home and make a beautiful dinner and read the children a story after their baths and just be super woman. You can do it all. Um, No, nobody can do it all. That myth was debunked a long time ago. Nobody can do it all.

So when you find you have to say no because you cannot do it all, just remember there’s no such thing as superheroes. You are not a superhero. You do not have extensive powers that allow you to get more than 24 hours out of a day. So pay no attention to that one.

9:00
We think we’re self-sacrificing or we are self-sacrificing. Maybe we’ve been conditioned that it’s best for us to do what others think we should do. um, over our serving our own needs. And that happens a lot. Um, many of us come from families where there was maybe a dominant family member who always got their way and you went along. And so you became what I call self-sacrificing. You don’t have to be that in a work environment. You can experiment at work, um, by trying to hold your boundaries and trying to say no when you need to.

Um, the other thing that happens frequently, because we have a lot of, um, command and control type leadership in the United States anyway, in large corporations. So you may have said no to your boss or to a coworker in the past and gotten called out for it and kind of forced to do what you didn’t want to do.

So let’s say you said no in the past and nobody listened. Just because they didn’t listen then doesn’t mean they won’t listen now. Doesn’t mean that other people at other companies where you work won’t listen.

10:00
So those reasons, um, that make it hard to say no are things to keep in mind. And when you find yourself kind of struggling, like, I really don’t want to say no, take a minute, take a pause, um, take 30 seconds to think about it before you respond, because that’s really what’s going to help you make the best decision and just to, instead of just a decision.

So a couple of things, um, Now you know why you have a hard time saying no. Let’s talk about what you should do before you say no. Ask yourself strategically, should you actually be saying yes? Are you one of those people that maybe has what is called demand resistance, meaning somebody is demanding something out of you, you don’t like the way they asked you, or you’re just not happy about being asked, so you immediately say no or think, no, I’m not going to do that.

11:00
Ask yourself strategically before you say no, especially at work, if you should in fact say yes. Is there a benefit to you for saying yes, like demonstrating your skills? If it’s a new type of project that maybe you’ve not done much work on before, if it will help you build a key relationship, consider putting the extra hours in and saying yes, because it could be a career builder. Will it help you grow your skills? Then say yes, always. That’s one of those things.

If you can possibly do it and do it well, and maybe you’re a little intimidated because you’ve not done it before, well, the only way to learn is to try new things. So if you’re concerned you might not have the skills, definitely say yes and let other people help you learn those skills that you might be lacking.

Are you compromising your family time too much? That’s something you definitely need have to be mindful of. If you have a partner and kids or just a partner and fur kids, you are entitled to have a good life. And that means spending time with your family and having personal time as well as being available and doing your best work.

12:00
So maybe lean toward no if you’re compromising your family time too much. And you know when that happens. So it can be a tough balancing act, but be strategic about it. You may have to compromise once, you know, one weekend and then don’t for six months just to show that you’ve got, you know, some skin in the game and you are willing.

Or like one of my girlfriends did, you know, three or four years ago, she quit a job because they expected her to work till nine o’clock at night and over the weekend once she got there. And she very clearly explained, I have small children at home. This was not what was explained to me when I first started here. So I found another position.

13:00
And it was really, to me, it was really outstanding to see a young woman stand up for her family that way. Because we often feel like we can’t do that. Like our families aren’t as important. Well, if your family’s not important to your boss, find a new boss. I got to tell you.

Okay, let’s talk now about when you have to say no. here are reasons to always say no. When you simply can’t do something effectively because you’re just too busy. Um, I, I’m just, maybe I’m just jamming out 60 hours a week and somebody tries to put something else on my schedule with a tight deadline and I know I can’t do it.

A couple of ways to approach that would be say no and discuss the options for having other people do it. Um, maybe I can’t do it, but you know what? I know that Melissa, uh, is really good at that kind of work and she might have some open time. So you say no, but you discuss options and help them find someone else to do it.

14:00
Say no and see if you can negotiate to take on part of it or push the deadlines. I’ve done that before where I’ve worked on projects and they want me to, you know, maybe write all the social copy and select all the stock images. And I know I can’t do both. So maybe I say I can write the social copy. And can you have John, you know, work on the images for me? Then we can meet that deadline. But I can’t do it all myself.

Another option. When you have to say no and you absolutely don’t have any ideas for someone else to help or another way to handle it, best thing you can say is I wish I could, but I just can’t make that work. And then shut up. That’s all you need to say. I just can’t make that work.

And then be quiet because there’s a tactic in negotiations, really effective that when you say something like that, we all have a tendency to say, Oh, I wish I could, but I can’t make that work because I have this and that, and then this and that. And before you know it, you’re talking yourself out of your know. So I wish I could, but no, I can’t make that work. And then be quiet.

15:00
And the thing in negotiations is whoever talks first loses. So even if there’s 30 seconds of quiet, just wait for their response. Because what you’ve done is you’ve set down a boundary that maybe you have a wedding that weekend. Maybe you have a, first communion or you have a birthday party or an anniversary, or, you know, you have to get home for your wife’s birthday. You promised her you would take her out to dinner, whatever it is, you have the ability to say no and the responsibility to yourself to say no.

So one of the best ways to soften that is I wish I could, but no, I can’t make that work and say it in a tone that under that expresses your sincerity, that you really kind of feel bad that you can’t do it.

16:00
So when you’re too busy, when you have personal commitments and you absolutely have to say no, those are some great suggestions. We will put some additional resources into the transcript, the show notes for this episode. So you can look there and find some more resources on how to say no, because it’s a really difficult thing to do sometimes. But anyway, back to the when to say no.

Another time you have to say no is when you’re being asked to do something inappropriate. Maybe it’s against the rules. Maybe it’s against your moral character. Let’s say, you know, we’re going to punch up this invoice with 10 extra hours a week, and you know that 10 extra hours of work aren’t being done. Or this guy should have this discount, but since he hasn’t asked about it, let’s not give it to him.

Those kinds of things are kind of dicey. They’re on the edge of what you can say, you know, I won’t do, however, you can say no and reiterate it with a reinforcing phrase. So let’s talk about that.

17:00
You know, I, Lori, I need you to add, you know, 10 hours a week to this invoice. We just have to catch up on some financing and, you know, we’re working way too hard for them anyway. And some answers you could give would be, I’m sorry, but that’s not how I do things. Um, And for example, that’s not how I do things. Is there a better way or can we inform the client that they’re out of scope and that we need to bill more hours and they will expect that and it will be handled appropriately? Can we do that instead?

Another answer for that is no, that’s not something I’m interested in doing. You know, if somebody is asking you to, to lie about something, to be a backup commentator on someone’s performance or, you know, anything that sounds like gossip or, you know, lying or, you know, just being less than stellar in your moral character at the office should be shut down.

18:00
No, that’s not something I’m interested in doing. No, I’m not going there doing that or playing any part in that. Or no, I’m not comfortable with that at all. Those are all answers you can give.

And it may sound a little out of the normal realm, but having been in business for 30 years, I can tell you people will, you will come across those people that will do completely inappropriate things in your company and ask you to play along. They are out there.

I have worked in, you know, at least six different companies where, you know, the owner had difficulties not dating the staff or, you know, they, people were HR told everybody what everybody made when they weren’t supposed to, or people were asked to do things that were untoward. And you have to say no to that. You are within your rights to say no.

19:00
But then one of the best things that you can do is to find another employer, if that’s what’s happening, because you shouldn’t have to tolerate that kind of thing. And if it’s not honestly, if it’s not on the up and up, you don’t want to get caught in it. So it’s best to say no.

So when you find yourself annoyed and irritated by a request, That is not enough of a reason to say no. Before you say no, find out what’s going on with you. What’s got you annoyed? What’s causing the problem? Is it, you just don’t like this coworker or maybe you’ve done, you know, them a ton of favors and they just keep pushing favors on you, but they’re not doing favors for you. There’s no reciprocity, those kinds of people.

You may want to stop yourself for a second, take that 30 second break and then, Think about why it’s upsetting you so that you can get clarity before you decide if you should say yes or no. Just because a request is annoying doesn’t mean it’s something that you should turn down. So that’s something to consider.

20:00
Moving along, it’s really important to know how to soften a no. And that’s not saying, nope, I’m not doing that, because I had someone do that to me once. I was in video production. We’d hired an audio guy, or we were going to hire an audio guy, and it was a real complex project, and it was pretty expensive.

And so my job, I thought, as the account rep, getting the quote was to ask the question at the end, When I got the quote, can you do any better on price? That felt like what I needed to do to be fiscally responsible for my clients. And one audio guy, he just cracks me up in hindsight, but he said the answer to that would be no. And I was like, ooh, ouch. Didn’t feel good.

21:00
So when you have to say no, learning how to soften it can be really helpful to the relationship. So some examples. I really wish I could, but I’m slammed. Can we do this instead? I’m so sorry I can’t make this work. Is there any flexibility on the deadline? I’d love to help, but I’m on a few heavy deadlines that are taking 100% of my attention. Can I help you find someone else to do that for you?

And think about it this way. There’s a formula for this softening a no. And that is a positive intro, the reason, and it doesn’t have to be detailed, but just a reason, and a suggestion. For example, I really wish I could. That’s a positive intro. But I’m slammed. That’s the reason. Can we do this instead? That’s the suggestion. Again, positive. Another way, positive intro. I’m so sorry, but I can’t make this work. That’s the intro and the reason. And the suggestion is, is there any flexibility on the deadline? Because maybe if they change their deadline, you could get the work done. You never know.

22:00
So those kinds of things, positive intro, the reason, and a suggestion. If you can remember that, those no’s will be a lot softer when they land on the other side with the recipient.

Now, when you can’t say no, there are times when you just can’t say no. This happens a lot in the ad agency world. And I’m sure at tax season, it probably happens in the accounting world. And there’s all kinds of deadlines that come up. And sometimes somebody will pile stuff on you and you can’t say no.

And in those cases, do what needs to be done with grace. Don’t do it resentfully. Keep the emotions out of it. Be a professional 100%. If you tried to say no and that no was rejected and you just can’t say no, don’t go into the project resentfully because it will backfire.

23:00
And once you know you have no choice and you’ve been forced to say yes, just honestly fake it till you make it. Pretend that you feel good about it until you feel good about it. Being resentful after you’ve had to say yes to a request will definitely lead you to failure. And nobody wants failure. You don’t want failure. Your employer doesn’t want failure. Whoever’s asking you to do the work doesn’t want failure. And most of all, you don’t want to look bad.

Resentment will never make you look good. Resentment is always something you want to explore and figure out and get behind you before you discuss an issue with a coworker or your boss. or a client.

24:00
So that’s basically what I’ve got for you today, how to say no and when to say no at work. So please keep in touch with me. I’m an open networker on LinkedIn under Lori Jo Vest. We also have a LinkedIn page. I think I mentioned that earlier. You can go there to, you know, comment on our content and um, read our blog posts, things like that.

On our website at workmomsays.com, we have a contact form and we’d love to hear from you. Tell us who you’d like us to have on as guests. If you’d like to be a guest, let us know. Tell us what you’re thinking. What should we be covering? We’d love to hear from you.

And if you’re listening on one of the podcast platforms, please shoot me some stars. Let me know you’re listening. I’d love to hear from you there too. So again, signing off. This is Lori Jo Vest. Work Mom Says, don’t Be An Idiot.

Who is our ideal listener?

This podcast is for young professionals, so they can 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.

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

The post Episode 36 – When and How to Say No at Work appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• Try the eagle’s eye view perspective
• Be mindful of how you receive feedback
• Is it a hill worth dying on?
• Learn lessons in the feedback
• Own your failures AND successes

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

2:00 – Eagle’s eye view: When you get negative feedback, pull way back and look at the situation from a wider perspective. Can you look at the feedback in a way that brings out a positive feeling? If you start doing this, you’ll create a pattern of behavior so you never get crabby about feedback.
5:00 – Let it go: If it’s not a hill worth dying on (which it almost never is), it’s always better to let go of your ego, not fight the critique, and accept the feedback.
5:45: How you receive feedback matters: Are you overly dramatic or sensitive? You WILL lose credibility with your team because they know it’ll become a fight if they offer any feedback.
6:20 – Lessons: What lesson are you being taught when you’re critiqued? Whether you’re learning how to keep cool or that you’re not always right, you can learn tons of valuable lessons when you receive criticism.
8:00 – The work isn’t yours: In a corporate environment, it’s essential to remember that the work you’re doing belongs to the company or client – not you. If you can keep that in mind, it’s easier to accept feedback and be collaborative.
9:00 – Defensiveness never works: If you start getting defensive, take a quick break to calm yourself down. Defensiveness immediately creates barriers between you and the other person. Instead, take a breath so you can accept criticism with a calm mind.

Top Quotes

2:00 -You may have incredible talent and you may be doing a really, really great job. But the person that’s responsible for receiving your work has a different perspective than you do.
2:20 – If you pull back on an eagle’s eye view of what’s being discussed, it’ll make it a whole lot easier to handle it and to manage it with grace. And what I mean when I say manage it with grace is by being the person that is steady, that doesn’t get knocked over by criticism or negative feedback, somebody who’s able to keep a nice emotional even keel.
4:30 – Collaboration and accepting and incorporating other people’s points of view into your work is what builds relationships in the workplace.
5:15 – Is the concern, the criticism, whatever’s being brought up, is it important enough to you that it would be an appropriate hill to die on? Most of the time, the answer to that question is no.
6:00 – Learn to receive the lessons in the feedback, even if it’s just in keeping your cool and giving up some of your egoic feelings. What is the lesson? What are you being taught when you’re being confronted like that?
10:00 – If you really want to get in someone’s good graces and create a strong relationship, ask them for feedback when the project is over. How did I do? Is there anything I could do to have managed this better, more efficiently and in a way that better serves the team.

Links

Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!

Transcript

0:00
Hello, everybody. I’m Lori Jo Vest, and I’m so glad you chose to tune in to this episode of Work Mom Says, Don’t Be an Idiot.

Today, we are going to talk about how to handle feedback and criticism with grace. It is not easy. And as a young professional in the workplace, you will receive a lot of criticism and feedback, positive and negative. People will critique your work.

And one of the things that I say right off the bat here that I want you to remember is feedback is love. Feedback is what people provide to you as an opportunity to improve your work. Now, are they always right? Maybe not. If they’re superior to you in their position, you want to listen.

1:00
So, basically, I want to encourage you to consider feedback, criticism, and conflict from what a friend of mine recently called the eagle’s eye view. You want to pull way out from what you’re looking at, what’s happening at the moment, that negative criticism that you received from your coworker or your boss. You want to pull way back and go, okay, let me look at this from a wider perspective.

If I’m not coming from my ego, can I look at this feedback in a way that actually brings out a positive feeling in me? A lot of people struggle with feedback because they know they’ve done a great job or they’ve worked hard on something, and they’re really attached to the work. So put a pin in that and hang on to it for a second.

2:00
You may have incredible talent and be doing a really, really great job. But the person responsible for receiving your work, elevating your work to the next level, turning your work into the client, or whatever that means has a different perspective than you do. And sometimes, things may come out that are kind of frustrating.

But if you pull back on an eagle’s eye view of what’s being discussed, it’ll make it a whole lot easier to handle it and manage it with grace. And what I mean when I say manage it with grace is by being the person who is steady, who doesn’t get knocked over by criticism or negative feedback, somebody who’s able to keep a nice emotional even keel. That should be what you work toward whenever you’re in the office.

So, I’m going to share a quick little story. It was one of the most interesting pieces of feedback I ever received on my work. While it really didn’t make a lot of sense to me at the time, everybody else in the room agreed. So we had to go through it, and I had to accept it.

3:00
I was writing social media copy for an ad agency for a brand that was targeting women, women at midlife. And one of the things that we women in midlife suffer from is being overweight. Um, it’s really easy to gain weight as your hormones change, that kind of thing.

And so, I had created a social post that had a little quote on it and it said, basically your dress size is no more important than your shoe size. And that was the quote and it was on a little graphic and it was implying that you, you know, we don’t really think about, we don’t ask people what their shoe sizes are. We don’t lament that our shoe size is bigger than the person sitting next to us, you know, in the movie theater. We just don’t worry about it.

So I thought it was a great quote. I thought it worked really well for our audience. And one of the art directors in the room said, what about people who have big feet? And the whole room got quiet. We were reviewing the copy. The whole room got quiet. And I said, well, hopefully there aren’t very many of those people who would be offended. Well, I turned into it, you know, 10 minute discussion and, And I said, okay, let me find a new quote because it wasn’t worth fighting over.

4:00
When I pulled back and looked at it with, you know, with a wider view, I realized it wasn’t something that I needed to fight over. It wasn’t something that was going to be worth making a production about. And then if I could just put my feelings aside and, That, you know, that’s kind of silly. I mean, I’ve never heard anybody beat themselves up about having big feet, but then I don’t have big feet. So maybe I’m missing something.

So anyway, put that aside and keep moving. That is what we do in the workplace. Because one of the things that you always want to prioritize is that connected, positive relationship. Collaboration and accepting and incorporating other people’s points of view into your work is what builds relationships in the workplace. You want to remember that. You want to always put that top of mind when you’re in the workplace.

Because what will happen is you will develop a pattern of behavior that when you receive criticism or, you know, a nasty comment at the office, you’ll pull back. go, is this really something worth fighting over? No, it never is. It might be something worth negotiating over with a calm, clear head, but no criticism is ever worth getting bitey or crabby about. It’s just not.

5:00
So be mindful of how you are receiving the criticism. Are you being overly dramatic? Are you not feeling good? So maybe you’re a little more sensitive than you usually would be. Is the concern, the criticism, whatever’s being brought up, is it important enough to you that it would be an appropriate hill to die on? Most of the time, the answer to that question is no.

Next question to ask yourself would be, what would happen if you just let it go? If somebody said, I really want to do it this way, and you go, oh, it should be done that way, and they come back again and say, I really want to do it this way, Is it worth fighting for? And what would happen if you just let it go? A lot of times that’s the better option.

Fighting for small things, especially if you’re a person that’s kind of sensitive, if you fight about a lot of things, you start to lose credibility with your team because they won’t want to talk to you about things, won’t want to bring up criticism, because they’ll know that they’re going to be in for a fight.

I think a lot of us have worked with that person who’s always got the negative thing to say, or you make a suggestion and they’re not open to it. Don’t be that guy. Don’t be that person who doesn’t know how to accept feedback or criticism with grace. It’s really important to your success.

6:00
So another great way to look at it is to learn to receive the lessons in the feedback, even if it’s just in keeping your cool and giving up some of your egoic feelings. What is the lesson? What are you being taught when you’re being confronted like that? And I will tell you the shoe conversation, I won’t forget it for, I don’t think I’ll ever forget it because it hit me as so incredibly ludicrous. And everybody else in the room said, yeah, we should probably not use that quote.

So I was like, all right, the lesson is you’re not always right, Lori, that’s your lesson. And giving up my ego and just letting it go was absolutely the right choice. So, um, learn to receive the lesson, um, use it as practice for keeping your calm as practice for say, you know, for staying in a positive space when maybe something negative is going on around you or you’re being criticized.

7:00
And the other thing that really plays into this whole, um, being sensitive to feedback is a lot of times if you’re being seriously sensitive, you’re being what I call too precious with your work. Like it’s your work, you own it. You wrote it or you created the spreadsheet or you made the, you know, the website, whatever it is that you did. And you’re really proud of it.

And then somebody comes in and the first thing they say is, you know, that color is a little off or that’s the wrong font or, you know, why didn’t you put this other calculation in here? Why doesn’t this spreadsheet have six more columns with this information?

8:00
Well, the way I would encourage you to look at your work in a traditional corporate environment is you are being paid by someone else to do it. So it’s really not your work. It’s the company’s work. And the company is asking you to be collaborative with your team. So not being precious with your work and just giving it up to the team once you’ve created your first version or your first draft. And then going immediately into collaboration mode will help you better handle that. criticism, feedback changes, that kind of thing.

So last but not least, one of the most important things you can do to be able to handle feedback and criticism with grace is to own both your failures and your successes. Don’t get defensive. Defensiveness never works.

9:00
If you feel yourself getting defensive, take a couple of deep breaths, maybe say, you go to the ladies room or the men’s room, walk around the hallway. Just say, I’m just going to take a quick break. Hold on a second. I’ll be right back.

They don’t have to know that you’re just outside in the hallway, walking around in circles, but do whatever it takes so that you aren’t defensive because a defensive posture immediately creates barriers between you and the other person that you’re communicating with, you don’t want to do that. So accept the criticism gracefully. Thank you so much.

10:00
And if you really want to get in someone’s good graces and create a strong relationship, ask them for feedback when the project is over. How did I do? Is there anything I could do to have managed this better, more efficiently and in a way that better serves the team. And if you go back and even ask for more feedback and input, then it’ll become a habit and you’ll become the kind of person that is always looking for input so that you can truly collaborate and also truly do your best work.

Doing your best work in a corporate environment is a collaborative process. You get input. You put out output. That becomes someone else’s input. It’s a collaborative world that we live in in our careers.

11:00
So think about those things. Let me know if there’s any other advice I can give you. In that area, or if you have any questions about handling criticism, I would love to do an Ask Work Mom episode. So please feel free to send me any questions you have. Our website at workmomsays.com has a contact form that will allow you to ask me any questions you’d like.

I also am an open networker on LinkedIn, so you can find me there, connect with me, send me a private message. Happy to engage with you. Just mentioned that you have Listen to the Work Mom Says podcast.

12:00
I’m also looking for reviews. We are on Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, all the different podcast platforms and would love a couple of stars if you enjoy what we’re doing here. Drop me some stars and show me some encouragement. And send me your topics. Send me your suggested guests. I’d love to hear from you.

So that’s all I’ve got for you today. Thank you so much for listening to Work Mom Says. Don’t be an idiot. Where we like to teach young professionals how to play the emotional contact sport of business so you can experience less drama and more success. See you next time.

Who is our ideal listener?

This podcast is for young professionals, so they can learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience less drama and more success.

The ideal listener is anyone struggling on an emotional level in the workplace. Work Mom Says it helps you learn to be strategic at work. This means you can look at the big picture without getting lost in the weeds. 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.

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

The post Episode 35 – Handling Feedback and Criticism with Grace appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• How Greg became the Reluctant Networker
• Networking has become the family business
• In-person vs online networking
• 3 components of networking
• How to properly network online
• How to properly network in person
• Intergenerational networking is the best!
• LinkedIn networking
• Networking is about human connection

Featured Guest

Expert Guest: Greg Peter

Title: The Reluctant Networker

What He Does: Greg Peters coaches individuals, trains staff, and presents to associations and other groups on developing skills and systems to build better connections and stronger networks. 

Connect: You can find him on LinkedIn. Learn more on his website. Check out his book, Hello and a Handshake.

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

5:00 – Reluctant Networker Origin Story: Greg built his web development business by becoming a successful networker. When he decided to change careers, a friend encouraged him to teach people how he grew his business! And the Reluctant Networker was born!
6:00 – Family business: Greg’s primary role is speaking engagements, while his mom brings the training aspect.
7:00 – In-person vs. online networking: Virtual networking allows you to connect with people all over the world, but we still lose a bit of that connection when we aren’t in person.
9:30 – Partner Networking: If done correctly, partner networking is HIGHLY effective.
11:00 – The 3 Components of Networking: 1. Know who you are and what you do. 2. Develop your relationships. 3. Be prepared when people want to help you
19:00 – Online networking: When you’re put into networking breakout rooms, act like you’re the host. Others will be grateful that you took charge.
22:00 – Networking in person: Have a specific goal when you walk in.
28:00 – LinkedIn networking: You have to participate and engage. Limit the number of groups you’re in because you can only actively invest in three at the most. Otherwise, you’re not making quality connections.
33:40 – Networking across generations: You don’t network with a group. You network with individuals. So even if they’re a different generation, social status, or gender, treat everyone like a fellow human being and it’ll be that much easier.

Top Quotes

5:00 – Lori: If you create a career for yourself and 20 years later decide you don’t want to do it anymore, it’s allowed. You can make a change.
8:00 – Greg: That little bit of a connection loss is more than made up for by all the benefits we gain from being able to connect with people all over the world.
10:00: Greg – A lot of people have this misconception that, okay, I’m going to show up with my friend Lori and the two of us are going to talk. But that’s not effective. If you’re going to do that, just go to a coffee shop. Don’t go to a networking event. You are there to support each other. And there are different techniques and strategies you can use. But at the very minimum, walking around together and then having one introduce the other, just makes things so much smoother.
14:30—Greg: If we make it about us, the people we’re talking with will feel it. They’ll know they’re being sized up. But if you make it about them, about being of service to them, about developing that longer-term relationship, that’s where the strength of a network is. It’s in building those connections over time.
16:00 – Lori: Don’t make people burn a lot of mental calories trying to figure out what you do and who you serve.
17:00 – Greg: You might keep it as simple as, hey, I would love to connect on LinkedIn. Can we go ahead and do that? Or it might be, would you be willing to read the most recent article I sent out and give me some feedback? Or it could be I am looking for leaders in particular industries. Can you connect me with them to bring on my podcast?
20:30 – Lori: If you’re in your 20s and you go to a networking event, don’t feel like your lack of experience means you shouldn’t actively participate. Because when you participate, the older people in the crowd always want to support the young people.
22:30 – Greg: If you know that your goal is to meet two people that you have not yet met, make a connection, and possibly even schedule a follow-up coffee, those are specific goals. Once you are done with your specific goal, you can reward yourself. But the idea is to know why you’re there and have a specific goal in mind of what you’re trying to achieve.
25:45 – Lori: The energy and enthusiasm of intergenerational networking is a big thing for me. I think there’s so much to be said for knowing people in every age range and having friends and associates in every age range because it’ll contribute to your success. It just will.
30:30 – Lori: When people do have a business need or know somebody who does have a business need with something that you create or provide, they’re going to think about you. Because not only do they know who you are, but they know that you’re out there making stuff happen.
34:00 – Greg: We connect as human beings. And so any conversations we have should be about our human experience. That’s how we connect, regardless of the barriers of social strata.
36:00 – Lori: Drop the labels and just look at it as making a friend, making a connection, creating a strong, positive relationship. And you’re not going to do that with everybody. It’s not going to always be a fit. But in a lot of cases, you’ll find something you have in common.
38:00 – Greg: Your success in every aspect of your life is directly connected to how well you have created your network. The lone wolf doesn’t survive.

Links

Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!

Transcript

00:00

Lori: Hello, everybody. I’m Lori Jo Vest, and I am the host of Work Mom Says Don’t Be an Idiot. Thank you so much for joining me today. Today, we’re going back to that topic that we could probably revisit again and again and again for young professionals because it’s a tough one, and that is networking.

So we entitled this podcast episode Reluctant Networkers Unite, because our guest today is a gentleman that I actually met at a networking event probably 10 or 15 years ago. It’s been a while, Greg, right? It’s been a while. Greg Peters. 

1:00 

And he had… Right out of the gate, he just made an impression on me that I’ve never forgotten, calling himself the reluctant networker, he trains people and helps people learn how to get the most out of networking for business. Even if you’re the most introverted, anxious human being there is, Greg’s got something for you. 

So Greg, tell us a little bit about yourself and your company. You mentioned when we were prepping for this podcast that there were some serious changes that happened with COVID. And we’d also love to hear about your book. So how did you get into this business? So you want that all in like two or three minutes, right? Take your time. We got all the time in the world. 

Greg: All right. Well, let’s see. I mean, it’s funny because when I meet people at networking events and I tell them I’m the reluctant networker, they say, well, you don’t seem very reluctant. Well, that’s who I was and who I help. Yeah, because there’s a lot of people who are reluctant about the whole networking thing. 

2:00

And, you know, so much of it now is really it’s just a series of processes. And once you learn them, it’s just a learned skill set. And so I actually started my company I was a, I worked for the University of Michigan as a computer programmer. Yes. With all the social skills that that implies. We know about that. 

We were lured out of our offices for, with donuts on Wednesday mornings, just because, you know, we’re, we’re not social creatures, but I decided I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I’m sure you can see the Cape blowing in the wind now.

Lori: Um, You were innocent. You were optimistic. 

Greg: What’s the word? An idiot. An optimistic idiot. Optimistic, yes. Unrealistically optimistic. 

When you start a business, someone should tell you that you’re the one responsible for getting the business. I discovered very quickly that if you aggressively wait by the phone, nothing happens.

3:00

Lori: —nothing at all.

Greg: So I decided I could either try the cold calling, which just seemed like a recipe for instant rejection, or I could learn how to do this networking thing. Yeah. And at the time, my mom was actually teaching a class on networking. And so I took the class and ask me if I got the family discount. 

Lori: No. Did you?

Greg: I did not. Uh, my mom’s, uh, I think she’s very much as firm a work mom as you. I paid full price because I had, that’s how you, you’ve got, you’ve got a flesh in the game. So I learned and I read books and I tried things and I, I slowly got better, uh, to the point that I decided to leave my job at the University of Michigan and go full time on my business.

4:00

Lori: Nice. 

Greg: And, uh, that went well. Unfortunately, that was right around 2007. If you remember that time period, that was when we had the Great Recession. It was tough. It was a really tough time. But the cool thing was that because I built my business on networking, my business actually grew. 

Lori: That makes sense. 

Greg: It actually grew like 50% per year. It got to the point in 2009 that I had more work coming in than I could get done. 

Lori: That’s amazing. Exactly what kind of work were you doing?

Greg: I was doing web development. This was back in the day that anybody could open up a web development business and just do it. But I never really wanted anybody working for me. So I was trying to get the work all done myself. 

And it was one night, I still remember it now, it was 3 o’clock in the morning. And I’m trying to get the work done. And 3 o’clock, 3 a.m. is probably the loneliest time. that exists. There’s no one’s awake, you know, my entire house is asleep. And I had been a computer programmer for 20 years and I suddenly realized I don’t want to do this anymore. Yeah. This is not making me happy. 

5:00

Lori: Yeah. Well, let me jump in here as a work mom. This is a sidebar. Okay. If you create a career for yourself and 20 years later decide you don’t want to do it anymore, you’re, it’s allowed, right? In that career, you can make a change and Greg is going to tell you how, right? 

Greg: Well, you know, the funny thing was the next day I was meeting with a friend of mine from the chamber, Cheryl O’Brien, and I was complaining to her about my revelation of the night before. And she listened for a while as good friends will. And then she said, did you ever think of teaching people how you grew your business? 

Lori: There you go. 

Greg: It was at that moment that the Reluctant Networker was born. A few years later, my mom and I combined our businesses, so we became Third-Generation Networking. 

6:00

Lori: I love that. I love that part of the story. It’s such a great part of the story that you and your mom have a family business now. 

Greg: And honestly, my wife is, we are all partners, but my wife is the managing partner. So women in my life boss me around from morning to night. 

Lori: And you don’t mind. It doesn’t seem like you mind a bit. 

No, I have learned through my life that yes, dear works very well. So that’s how we kind of came to, we hit the beginning COVID and that was challenging. My primary part of my business is speaking. I go to associations and businesses and I present the concepts of networking to them. The part of my business my mom brought in was the training aspect. 

Well, we were in the middle of two in-person training programs in Toledo and Cleveland. These are 10 week long programs. And suddenly we had the first week and then March 13th, March 13th, 2020. And we had to do some fast moving to get everything online.

7:00

 And so we started training online and we also had to learn how do you network online? Because back then we just didn’t have that. So it was a little bit of a learning curve for all involved. But I think people have gotten better at producing online networking programs and we have gotten better at attending them. 

Lori: Yes, we have. And I think it’s changed some things for the better because things that didn’t used to be global can now be global. I’m in a masterminds group and we’ve got somebody in Germany and somebody in Denmark and somebody in California and somebody in Australia. And we meet once a week for an hour. And it’s awesome because I never would have had that type of global network without that, you know, necessarily being available. 

8:00

Greg: Oh, virtual provides so many benefits that, you know, yes, there is, there’s a slight benefit to being in person. There’s just some aspect of, and you and I were talking about it earlier, is where do you look on the screen? Do you look at the person or do you look at the camera? Because then you’re not back and forth. So there’s a little bit of that weird body, but we’ve gotten used to it that people aren’t looking directly at our eyes virtually. And that’s okay. 

But that little bit of a loss, I think, is more than made up for by all the benefits we gain from being able to connect with people, as you put it, all over the world. 

Lori: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So now tell me about your book. It’s called Hello and a Handshake. 

9:00

Greg: Hello and a Handshake. Yeah, it’s basically all the little techniques I had to learn to be successful going to a networking event. Got it. Everything from just sort of the mindset we need to have walking in to techniques on how to start up conversations, what groups we should be looking for, how to have goals, even how to partner network, how to go in with someone else and not spend all our time talking to that other person. 

Lori: I’m not sure if I should share what I do or not. 

Greg: Always, always. I’ll be writing it down and adding it to the next book. 

Lori: Partner networking. Oh my gosh, it’s so fun. I always like to find some really funny or interesting fact about the person that I’m with that we can say, oh, I’m Lori and I’m Cary. And by the way, Cary has five daughters. And then that gets the conversation going about Cary and his five daughters and his wife that he lives with. Talk about being the minority in the household. 

Greg: But you’ve described exactly what you’re supposed to do with partner networking. A lot of people have this misconception that, okay, I’m going to show up with my friend Lori and the two of us are going to talk. But that’s not effective. 

10:00

If you’re going to do that, just go to a coffee shop. Don’t go to a networking event. You are there to support each other. And there are different techniques and strategies you can use. But at the very minimum, walking around together and then having one introduce the other, it just makes things so much smoother. 

Lori: And I can sing your praises much more naturally than you can sing your own praises, right? Oh, yes. That’s a part of it. But I have to tell you the other thing I used to do to my girlfriend, Vula, who I love with my whole heart. Vula, she’s Greek and that’s a nickname for Paraskevi. So I would say, oh, meet Vula, but that’s not her real name. And then I would just stand back and the whole conversation would just go on its own. And then we’d be, everybody would be comfortable and laughing and she thought it was funny and it was super fun. 

So, I mean, I really do think having a networking partner is, that you go with to events is a fabulous idea. Such a great way to do it. 

Greg: Oh, and actually, I think I’ve met, I think I’ve met her. I think I met her actually at that event where you spoke and I was in the audience. 

11:00

Lori: I may have said Vula Praskovy. Pronouncing it, I’m sure I’m butchering the pronunciation, but. It’s very possible that we were together that day. It’s been a while. So moving along, I really liked how on your website, Thereluctantnetworker.com, there’s no the in front of it, right? 

Greg: No, mine is thereluctantnetworker.com. 

Lori: Thereluctantnetworker.com. Okay. On Greg’s website, he discusses the three components of networking. Tell us about those and share a little bit about each of them. The first one is knowing who you are and what you do. 

Greg: Yeah, know who you are and what you are trying to achieve. That’s really kind of fundamental to almost any aspect of business. If you don’t know who you are and who you serve, then you don’t know where to network. You can’t network everywhere. So you need to know who you’re serving so you can either network with them or you can network with those who serve them. 

12:00

And the second one is better. Because if you’re networking with your customer or whoever you’re targeting, then they kind of know they’re being targeted. But if you are networking with those who serve them, then you can create strategic partnerships where you are helping each other, where you’re providing referrals and recommendations for each other. 

Lori: That’s the best. I mean, a referral network. And I find it doesn’t usually have to be formal. If you keep putting yourself in places, like, for example, we have a digital marketing shop. We network with the SEO guys because the SEO guys are doing beautiful websites, but they need the words and the pictures to go in those websites. So we network with them and we refer each other. And before you know it, you’ve got just a nice network of referral partners. 

13:00

I used to like to become… the resource. So people would call me as when I was in sales, when people called me for something completely unrelated to what I did, I loved it because it basically meant that they considered me a resource hub. And that is one of the best ways to network is to know a ton of people. And it kind of happens naturally with networking, don’t you think?

Greg: Yes. In fact, that’s one of the one of the things you should always be doing when it comes to networking is you are building your network to be of service to your network. And the more you do it, the more value you bring, the more people are going to want to be in contact with you, the more likely they are to know when they need to connect you with opportunity.

Lori:  Yeah, absolutely. So that gets us to the second point of these three components, which is develop the relationships. Somebody that might not do what you do or might not do what your clients do could be such a great person for you to know, right?

14:00

Greg: It really is true. I mean, there’s a number of aspects to this, but the first thing is we kind of have to approach networking with sort of a split personality. We have to know who we are and what we are trying to achieve so we know where to go. We have to be strategic about that, get in the right place. After that, though, it has to be about them and not about us.

Because if we make it about about us, the people we’re talking with, they’ll feel it. They’ll know they’re being sized up. But if you’re making it about them, about being of service to them, about developing that longer term relationship, that’s where the strength of a network is. It’s in building those connections over time. 

Lori: Yep. And then you won’t be that person that’s always like in the middle of the conversation going like this, trying to see who else is there that they should be talking to instead of you.

15:00

Greg: Oh, don’t even get me started on that. I was at an event one time where there was a gentleman who literally was looking over, just as you said, looking over my shoulder. It’s bad enough when they stop you in mid-sentence to go and talk to someone else. He stopped himself in mid-sentence to go talk to someone else. It’s like, okay, I guess I’ll go find someone else to talk to.

Lori: I can’t roll my eyes hard enough at that one. So you know who you are, what you do, and why you’re there. You’re working on developing those relationships, and then you get the benefits. That’s part three. 

Greg: Part three is about getting the benefits. And for this, it’s important that we just be prepared. You know, at almost any level of connection, there are going to be people who want to help you. And they’ll come right out and say, how can I help you? You need to be ready for that.

Because the worst, I hear people say all the time, oh, I don’t know. well, guess what? You’re not going to get any results out of that. Or just send me anyone who needs my stuff. They, you know, the person you’re talking to has got their own life to live and they don’t have time to figure out your life and your business. 

16:00

You need to be specific so that when they ask how they can help, you can give them something real because otherwise, otherwise the words you’re going to hear next are, I’ll keep you in mind. and that’s true. Until they walk out of the coffee shop. Yeah, and never see you again.

Lori: I call that burning mental calories. Don’t make people burn a lot of mental calories trying to figure out what you do and who you serve.

Greg: I love that. That is great. That is perfect. Yes, it’s exactly what it is. They don’t have any extra mental calories to burn on you. So make it as easy and clear as possible. And that might mean you need to have a list of possible things you could ask for. 

17:00 

You might keep it as simple as, hey, I would love to connect on LinkedIn. Can we go ahead and do that? Or it might be, would you be willing to read the most recent article I sent out and give me some feedback? Or it could be, I am looking for leaders in particular industries. Can you connect me with them to bring on my podcast? 

Anything you ask for, You know, I might, if I know someone well enough, you know, and I know, say, for example, I’m talking with a financial advisor and I know they’re part of the financial advisors association. I might say, could you introduce me to someone in leadership at your association? Because I’m looking to speak. 

Lori: Yep. There you go. So you’re bringing us to another point. You talked about networking on Zoom. It is very different. I always really enjoy it when you’re maybe at a longer meeting, like say it’s an hour long and they put you into breakout rooms. So you get to know people individually. I wish everybody did that because it’s so effective and you can really get, I find a lot of women will go deep right away in those conversations because that’s what we do. 

18:00

But how is it different? What is it about networking on Zoom that sometimes it’s easier, sometimes it’s harder than in person? 

Greg: Well, I mean, first is the challenge that we have people that, that don’t make the effort, for lack of better words. They show up and they don’t turn on their camera. They don’t have their microphone on. I mean, that’s the equivalent of standing outside the door at an in-person. 

Lori: Standing out in the hallway at the chamber event. 

Greg: And so much of our visual, so much of our brain is dedicated to visual input. So if I don’t see your face if I can’t see the expressions you’re making, I can’t detect any body language, then I kind of turn off from that.

19:00

The other challenge is people who are trying to, well, multitask. You know, they’re on, but they’re not really. They’re, you know, especially, you know, if I see someone who’s looking off to the side over here, I mean, like, are you really? Is there a camera over there? Or are you not aware of where your camera is? Or are you doing, you know, at least put it up in, you know, put your email up in front of the camera so that you can look like you’re looking at it. Exactly. 

Lori: Though you can still tell because they’re like looking up and down. 

Greg: Exactly. I mean, it’s the equivalent of someone who, you know, goes to a… in-person meeting and sticks their phone on the table. Yeah. That’s, that’s telling me that you’re probably not entirely focused here right now. 

Lori: You’re not going to make any connections.

Greg:  No. And I would say that, you know, for those situations where you’re in a breakout, take charge. Yeah. Pretend you’re the host. And just, if they don’t, okay. If they’ve, if they’ve got someone who’s already taking charge, let it go. But most of the time, You know, everybody just kind of sits there and looks at each other for the first five minutes and it’s uncomfortable.

20:00

 But if you decide to just become the ringleader, if you become the host of the situation and say, hey, Laurie, you know, we were given this question. Why don’t you go ahead and start? Yeah. You know, it puts that one person a little bit on the spot, but most people are grateful that someone has taken charge. 

Lori: Absolutely. And another work mom sidebar, because we’re speaking to young professionals. One of the things that I really want the young people to understand is if you’re in your 20s, especially like maybe just out of college or mid 20s, and you go to a networking event or let me tell you, don’t feel like your lack of experience means you shouldn’t actively participate. Because when you participate, the older people in the crowd always want to support the young people. 

Am I right, Greg? Always. Always. When I see a 22- or 23-year-old at an event and they’re bold enough to be there early in their career like that, I’m like, come here. It means that they’re leaders. Because most people right out of college find it very difficult to put yourself in a networking environment and actively participate. Do it. It’s really not that hard. And what can you lose? 

21:00

Greg: Yeah. I mean, that’s a challenge, I think. I’ve spoken to college students and even some high school students, and they’re like, well, what do I have to offer? You have the gift of attention, first of all. Most of the people who are my age and older who are going to networking events, they’re already successful. What they’re hoping for is to leave a legacy to help and support. 

If you can pay attention and listen to them and listen to the lessons they’re trying to convey and get back to them, tell them, hey, you know, I tried that thing you suggested the other day, and this worked. My wife is amazing at this. She connects with people and then asks for their advice. Why not? You are paying someone one of the highest compliments if you can ask an intelligent question and get their advice.

Lori: Absolutely. Can you give us a couple of tips for networking in person rather than online? Pick whatever speaks to you. 

22:00

Greg: Well, you know, it’s funny because I’m a little hard of hearing. And so for me, online is so much easier because I can just hear. Yeah, that makes sense. With respect to one of the things I would always recommend with either of them, but especially with in-person, is to know what you’re trying to achieve walking in. Have a very specific goal in mind. 

Because if you just walk in and network, whatever that means to you, there’s a good chance you’re going to get to the end and feel, Oh, well, that was a wasted effort. Yeah. But if you walk in knowing where the finish line is, if you know that your goal is to meet two people that you have not yet met, And make a connection and possibly even schedule a follow-up coffee. I mean, those are specific goals. 

Then once you are done with your specific goal, you can go visit the buffet counter. You can go and chat with people you’ve already met. You can reward yourself. But the idea is to know why you’re there and have a specific goal in mind of what you’re trying to achieve. 

23:00

Lori: And if you’re so-called… Don’t be afraid to be bold in those goals. We were talking right before this recording that my first boss out of college was just this wonderful man, David E. Laster. I’ve always mentioned him because he’s just, he taught me everything I know about sales. And I was very green and very sassy when I was 22 or 23 years old and worked for him. 

And, and he, at one point, he would, he was so funny. He’d say, well, Laurie, you know, I know you’re going to this Adcraft Club meeting this evening. And I also know that Marcy Brogan is going to be there. And Marcy Brogan owned her own ad agency and she was another woman in business. And he knew if I sat next to her that she would want to help me because that’s what people do. 

24:00

And so he’d say, I’d be really disappointed if I find out tomorrow that you didn’t sit right next to her. And then he’d smile at me and walk away and it would be like, oh, no. But sure enough, the next morning I’d come in and say I sat next to Marcy Brogan and add to that I developed a relationship with her. And to that, got a huge account from her agency, which I never would have gotten had he not pushed me to be bold. 

I mean, he just like walked away so he’d be disappointed. And I took that as a challenge and sat next to her. And because I was like 23 just out of college, I stood out. Maybe like a sore thumb, but I stood out. And she was really interested. Like she met with me. It was amazing. So don’t negate your experience in the industry that you’re in. Just know people will want to help you. You know, I find that. Don’t you find that?

25:00

Greg: Yeah. And I would even go further than that is realize that you may actually still have information that they don’t. I mean, especially technology is moving so quickly these days. Yeah. I mean, you talk about AI and social media and all these. There are people who have been in the business who just I mean, it’s moving past them. I was a technologist. I was a computer programmer. Yeah. And things are moving faster than I can keep up with. 

So you don’t think you don’t have valuable information just because we’ve not been out there for a long time. You probably have had more in touch with new technologies than the person you’re talking with.

Lori: Yeah. And the energy and enthusiasm of intergenerational networking is a big thing for me. I think there’s so much to be said for knowing people in every age range and having friends and associates in every age range because it’ll contribute to your success. It just will.

But okay, so let’s look at networking on LinkedIn. I’m a big, big LinkedIn networker. I love LinkedIn. I’m on there all the time. We’ve started doing lives. Super fun. What do you think best ways to network are on LinkedIn? 

26:00 Greg: You know, I have to admit, when I first started out, I was more of a Facebook guy myself because it’s more social. Yeah. But… That said, we had a speaker as a part of the Academy for the National Speakers Association talking about how LinkedIn does its algorithms and how it’s completely different than pretty much all the other social media sites, at least as of this recording. 

But it is really designed to encourage conversations. And that is something that I think is truly special because it rewards you for putting out information that encourages conversation and developing relationships through conversation is what networking is all about. 

27:00 So, you know, you can get on there and you can have conversations, you know, like there’s a gentleman here in Detroit, Terry Bean, who’s an expert in networking also.

Lori: I love Terry Bean. Terry Bean. Isn’t he awesome? Look him up. He’s like networking king of Detroit. Yeah. 

Greg; But he’ll put out an article there and I can say, oh, Terry, yeah, this is awesome. And here’s something else. And hey, have you considered this aspect? And he’ll get back to me and there’ll be this conversation going, which can actually, despite the fact that it’s an asynchronous mechanism, we’re not talking in real time, it can create stronger connections. So that’s the first thing I would say is when you’re on LinkedIn, be looking for conversations that you can have. 

Lori: Engage, make comments, participate. 

28:00 Greg: It’s not enough to lurk. You have to be there. And honestly, I would say that about any aspect of networking, you have to engage. When you become part of a group, you can’t just put your name on the roles. You have to show up. You have to participate. If you’re a part of a larger group, look for opportunities to serve in that group. You can get on committees and leadership and whatever, because that’s what makes you a part of the group. 

And that’s why you want to limit the number of groups that you’re a part of. I’ve talked to people and said, so how many groups are you a part of? I’m on this and this. If you go past one hand’s worth of fingers, you’re on too many groups.

Lori: So five is the max I’m taking? Five is the max? 

Greg: I would actually say three. If you’re part of more than three, you cannot fully invest yourself in that group. You’re barely making it. So yeah, I would say three is the max you should ever be a part of. 

Lori: Well, I like what you said about investing in the group because that’s the other thing that I think gets lost is you don’t go out networking, meeting this meeting, that meeting, this meeting, that meeting, you select those groups.

29:00  And I’ll give you some examples, chamber of commerce. If you find the chamber of commerce is a good source for you, then invest in that chamber of commerce, go to their events, go to their breakfast, go to the open houses. You know, when they, when they do a new grand opening for a business in your, you know, in your town.

Because what will happen is you’ll eventually get to know a whole bunch of people that do the same thing, that are regular attendees at the events. And pretty soon, you know, 30, 40 people. You might not know them really well, but you know each other. You know what each other does. You could pick up the phone and call and they’d say hello. 

And that is what it means to invest in a group, right? Even get on a committee, get on the board of directors. 

Greg: Yes. Participate in it. Most chambers have what they call like an ambassador corps or a welcome committee or whatever, and whose sole purpose is to act in the role of hosts at events, or they go out and meet the new members or whatever it is. But those are so easy to get into. And you’ve suddenly surrounded yourself with people who are firmly connected to networking. 

30:00 When I first started my network, web development business, I joined the Ann Arbor Chamber and became a part of their ambassador corps. And I actually got work directly from one of the other ambassadors because he heard what I did and said, hey, I’ve got a client who needs your services. Can I connect the two of you? And it was a great job. But that’s because we were suddenly serving in a common capacity. And that makes a stronger connection. 

Lori: And it also, I think, elevates your personal brand when people see you out there doing things. You’re a doer. You’re a member of the community. You can be counted on. So when they do have a business need or know somebody who does have a business need with something that you create or provide, they’re going to think about you. Because not only do they know who you are, but they know that you’re out there making stuff happen. That’s huge.

31:00 When I was in my 20s, I was in the Women’s Advertising Club of Detroit. It doesn’t exist anymore, unfortunately. But the Women’s Ad Club, I was probably 23 years old because, again, David Laster, Lori, go join this club, go to the meetings, get on the board.

 And I did their e-newsletter. And I did their, not e-newsletter, I did their paper newsletter. What am I saying? It was a paper newsletter that we mailed out, stapling and putting labels and postage on. I’ll never forget it because there would be hundreds of them and I’d be sitting there watching TV putting these together, mailing them out. 

Greg: Did you at least have the sticker postage?

Lori: Yes, thank God. Thank God they were sticky. But what happened as a result is I always knew what was going on because people would send me their stories. And I also learned how to produce a newsletter. And I had samples. So when I went to my next job, I could say, see what I’ve done. 

32:00 And anything that you can do that you’ve never done before that can help you develop skills, a lot of the chambers of commerce, those organizations will give you a chance to do that, to do public speaking, to set up a scholarship program and run the scholarship program with judging committees and Anything that you can do like that is going to elevate your skills to, you know, give you something to go on your resume. So it’s not always just about contacts either. It can be about skills. So love that part.

All right. Let’s talk about networking across generations, social status, gender divides. Your website says that you can teach someone to bridge the status, bridge the status gap with anyone despite differences in age, social status or gender. How does what does that mean and how do you do it? 

33:00 Greg: Well, OK, here’s the thing. You know, everyone I’ve had people ask me, you know, how do you how do I how do I network with millennials? Or how do I network with Gen Xers? Yeah. 

Lori: Gen Alpha’s coming up. They’re crazy. 

Greg: Gen Alphas or whatever they are. They’re 12. They’re 12 right now. That’s my daughter, apparently. 

So my response is you can’t. Yeah. You cannot network with a group. You network with individuals, right? Individuals have their own individual needs, their desires, their goals, their dreams. That is how you network with them. Yeah. You know, you’re sitting next to them on the bus. Guess what? They’re human beings also. Yeah. And they’re going to be far more likely.

34:00 If I’m chatting with the CEO of a company and I’m trying to connect with the CEO of a company, I’m not going to because I’m connecting with a position. Yeah. But if I’m connecting with Sally Fox, who’s a grandmother who just took her grandkids to Disney World, and we can share that common experience of going to Disney World with kids, that’s a connection.

We connect as human beings. And so any conversations we have should be about our human experience. That’s how we connect, regardless of the barriers of social strata. 

Lori: Yeah, it does make a difference if you’re sitting there talking to someone and in your mind you’re going, they’re CEO, they’re CEO, they’re CEO. Then you’re not focused. You’re not there. You’re intimidated. Why?

35:00 Greg: Here’s nerd boy here. I every year go to a science fiction convention. And one year we were down in Atlanta. And one year I was there and was waiting in line for breakfast. And a, okay, I’ll just say the name. It was George Takei. got in line next to me. And I just started chatting with him. And it was funny because he wasn’t this huge, scary guy. He was talking about how he was worried because there was a hurricane coming in and whether he was going to be able to make it home to Los Angeles.

And it’s like, no, these are real people with real needs and real concerns. Stop treating them as if they’re on a pedestal. Most of us, you know, it’s funny. As a speaker, people sometimes think I’m this celebrity. I’m not. I’m a human being. But then the funny thing is, I remember seeing speakers and thinking they were the ones on the pedestal. But it’s not true. We’re none of us. 

And I’m sure, Lori, people think, oh, she’s got her own podcast. She’s work mom. But no, you’re a human being just like us. You have those challenges that you face on a daily basis. And if we can connect in that way, It stops being about the celebrity. It stops being about the pedestal. It starts being about us as human beings working together. 

36:00 Lori: And I would even say that if you’re an older person and looking at a younger person and feeling like, oh, they’re too young, they wouldn’t be interested in what I had to say. Or if you’re a younger person looking at an older person and feeling it, it’s the same sentiment, the same concern. 

And if you drop that, drop the labels and just look at making a friend, making a connection, creating a strong, positive relationship. And you’re not going to do that with everybody. It’s not going to always be a fit. But in a lot of cases, you’ll find something you have in common.

It’s, you know, it was one of the things I used to say in sales is give me 10 minutes with anybody from the ages of six to 90. I will figure out in just a few minutes what we have in common. Could be golfing, which I don’t golf, but maybe they do and they want to talk about it. So I’ll listen.

37:00 Greg: I had a great conversation with a guy one time. You know, I talk about, you should ask people about what they do both for a living and for, for fun. The follow-up question is how long have you been doing that? Which still seems like kind of limiting, but if they’ve been doing something for longer than three years, ask them what’s changed. Because there’s chances are there’s, if it’s been three years, something has changed. And they quite often have a very strong opinion about it.

I talked with a guy about kite flying. I don’t fly kites myself. I mean, I did when I was a little kid, but he’s an adult. He was an accountant, as I remember. And I asked him, what do you like to do for fun? And he said, I like to fly kites. Really? How long have you been doing that? Oh, since I was a kid. Oh, really? Has anything really changed? He was so excited and passionate to talk about all the hobby of kite flying. It became so much fun. And I learned so much about him as a person. 

38:00 Lori: Nice. Yeah, that’s how to do it. So what do you do for fun? I mean, you can always ask that. Always. What do you do for fun? And people love to talk. So if you’re a reluctant networker that’s an introvert, you have the amazing skill of listening that most of us don’t have, like me. I like to talk. I love to talk. I’m working on my listening skills. 

So if you’re an introvert and you want to, you know, you have that amazing ability. Ask questions and let them talk. Everybody loves to talk about themselves. 

Greg: Yes. Very much so. And that’s my recommendation also is don’t worry about what you’re going to say. Worry about what you’re going to ask. 

Lori: Oh, that’s great. That’s like stellar advice. So any other final advice you’d like to parlay to our audience before we wrap up?

Greg: I would say the most important aspect, the thing to keep in mind at all times is your success in every aspect of your life is directly connected to how well you have created your network. Yeah. The lone wolf doesn’t survive. 

39:00

Despite the fact our movies and our cultural media shows the lone wolf as being the guy who always ends up victorious in the end, it’s not true in real life. I mean, if you have the greatest ideas in the world, but you have no one to share them with and no one to walk with you on the path, nothing will get done. It will be wasted ideas. 

So the whole idea of making connections, this is how you make success in your life and beyond that. how you make your life significant. 

Absolutely. If you don’t have a community around you, are you really living? That’s what I’m saying. I’m all about my community though. So Greg, tell us how people can keep in touch with you, access your resources. Tell us how to get in touch. 

Greg: Well, you can always access me through my website at thereluctantnetworker.com. And I would love to connect with you on LinkedIn. That’s where I do live most of my social media time. 

40:00

Lori: I love it. So Greg, thank you so much for being here and thank you to our audience for joining us. Again, my name is Lori Jo Vest. Our website is workmomsays.com. We have a contact form there. We would love to hear from you. Tell us what you’d like us to talk about. If you have suggestions for guests, we’d love to hear that too. And I am also an open networker on LinkedIn. So if you connect with me there, just mention that you listened to the Work Mom Says podcast and that’s what we’ve got. Take care. Thank you so much for joining us. We’ll be back soon.

Who is our ideal listener?

This podcast is for young professionals, so they can learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience less drama and more success.

The ideal listener is anyone struggling on an emotional level in the workplace. Work Mom Says it helps you learn to be strategic at work. This means you can look at the big picture without getting lost in the weeds. 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.

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

The post Episode 34 – Reluctant Networkers Unite appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• What are mastermind groups
• How mastermind groups have changed my life
• Rules of Mastermind groups
• How to find a mastermind group

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

1:30 – What are mastermind groups? In mastermind groups, you surround yourself with like-minded people who are either at your level or above your level regarding business success. These groups hold you accountable and help you reach your goals.
3:00 – How mastermind groups have changed my life: They helped me through a divorce, reconnect with my mother, write a book, and launch my company.
4:00 – The rules of mastermind groups: To be the most effective, groups need rules like committing to coming to every meeting, no cross-talk, and keeping the group conversations private.
8:30 – How to find a mastermind group: There are many ways to find mastermind groups.You can start your own group; search for free groups on Meetup, Eventbrite, or LinkedIn; or join paid groups like JB Glossinger’s Morning Coach group.

Top Quotes

2:45 – “One of my favorite projects and dreams I never thought I would achieve was writing a book. That first mastermind group inspired me to take that project all the way to the finish line.”
4:30 – “There was no cross-talk. People say, don’t yuck on someone else’s yum. So we wouldn’t criticize what someone else was up to. We might ask questions to help them think more thoroughly about an idea or offer them support.”
6:00 – “Everybody talks about what they want to commit to that day, personally, professionally, and then the mindset. You write it down. Then the next morning, you come back and report. How did you do the day before? And what are your personal and professional commitments and your mindset for that day?”
9:00 – “They will amplify whatever you’re doing, escalate your career progression, and help you reach goals that you’ve never thought you would reach.

Links

Check out our LinkedIn episode for more ways to effectively grow your network and get that next opportunity.

Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!

Transcript

1:00
Hello, everybody. I’m Lori Jo Vest, the host of Work Mom Says, Don’t Be an Idiot. Thank you so much for joining me today. I am going to be talking about masterminding. If you’re one of those goal-oriented people and trying to figure out how to get where you want to go and reach your highest, loftiest goals, masterminds are an amazing way to do it.

And if you’ve never heard of the concept, I would encourage you to look it up. It’s all over the internet, and people use it in both personal and business contexts. How I like to explain masterminds is you surround yourself with like-minded people who are either at your level or a little bit above your level when it comes to success in business, or maybe they’ve written a book or they’ve done some, you know, big, consequential thing that you really want to emulate and you feel really good about who they are as human beings, invite them to create a masterminds group with you.

2:00
One of the best ways to do this is to reach out to people in your life who you know will support you in living your dreams. And that’s how I got involved. I had a friend, Sean Duparin, back in the day. Oh my gosh, I think it’s been 22 years now. I think my son was three years old.

She invited me into a mastermind group with a bunch of her friends, people who were really interested in living their best lives —some she knew well, some she didn’t. We were in that group for about 13 years, and it made a huge difference in my life.

One of my favorite projects and dreams I never thought I would achieve was writing a book. That first mastermind group inspired me to take that project all the way to the finish line. I did it with a co-author from the group, so that was kind of awesome.

3:00
So anyway, I was in that group for about 13 years. It helped me through a divorce and helped me through getting into a better relationship with my mother. I hadn’t talked to her in 10 years probably, but I was able to rekindle and at least create some sort of relationship with her. It may have been non-traditional, maybe not what others would expect out of a relationship with their mom, but it It was a productive time in my life when I was a part of that group.

People kind of evolved in and out. Some people would stay for six months or a year. Some people would stay for a couple of weeks. Because with the masterminds group, you have to have some rules. Our rules were that you had to be on time and commit to showing up at every single meeting. And we had two meetings a month.

And that commitment had to stand strong. If somebody was getting married or you know you were having a baby or your daughter was having a baby, of course, you could get away, you know, not come to masterminds. Still, everyone knew it was best to make a solid commitment to their schedule, so that was one of our rules.

4:00
Another rule was that nothing that was said in the group was ever to be repeated out of the group, so it gave you a sense of privacy, and you know you could be more vulnerable. And let’s see what else. There was no cross-talk. People say, don’t yuck on someone else’s yum. So we wouldn’t criticize what someone else was up to. We might ask questions to help them think more thoroughly about an idea or offer them support.

We had two meetings a month. We met on Saturday or Sunday, usually for three hours, and everybody got a big chunk of time there. Plus, we would have time to get to know each other and engage socially, which was a really important part of it.

5:00
And then, alternating two weeks, we would have a quick breakfast at a little diner restaurant. Those breakfasts were a check-in. What commitments did you make? Because that was the final part I’ll tell you about: At every meeting, we would make a commitment that we would have to keep in order to, you know, come back and feel really good about ourselves at the next meeting.

It was an accountability group, and it’s really important to set one up for yourself if you want to have long-term, sustained success. I did that for 13 years.

Since then, I’ve been in several groups. I’m in an accountability lab that meets every morning with Jan Griffiths and several other people. We meet at 7:07. It’s not a mastermind, but it’s kind of got a piece of the mastermind process, which is the accountability piece. We get together at 7:07. Sometimes, there are two of us on the call. Sometimes, there are six.

6:00
Everybody talks about what they want to commit to that day, personally, professionally, and then the mindset. And you go through that, you write it down. And then the next morning, you come back and report. How did you do the day before? And what are your personal and professional commitments and your mindset for that day?

I’ve been doing that for a while, and it’s really changed how I look at my business and how our business is growing. It got me off the sofa as a freelancer and into an office. We now have three employees, plus my husband and me as my business partners. And we’re doing great things. Accountability helped me get there.

If you have big dreams, accountability partners are huge. A mastermind is a really good place to find accountability and support all kinds of other things. So I don’t want to give you massive details on how to do it because there are lots of different ways.

7:00
I just joined another one. It’s a global mastermind group through Morning Coach, which is JB Glossinger’s group. If you’ve not heard of Morning Coach, I highly recommend you find his podcast. He does a daily podcast. He’s got a community, and it’s affordable if you’re just starting your career. He’s got a community full of resources, accountability tools, productivity, and great stuff. So I highly recommend you check them out.

But I joined his masterminds group, which is global masterminds. I think he’s got two of those with 10 people in each one. We’ve got people in Denmark. I know one is in Australia, and I believe all over the world. We bring ourselves and whatever we’re working on at that point to a weekly call. And then we stay together in touch on Slack with messages and check-ins, and there are health challenges.

There are some people that are going trying to go without drinking any alcohol for extended periods. Others that are making commitments to health or something like that. So I made a commitment to get this podcast recorded. So I thought, why not do this podcast about masterminds? Because they’re such a wonderful tool.

8:00
If you don’t know how to start one or go look on Google, you’ll find instructions. If you want to start one with a group of friends and you want to set your own rules and maybe they’re unique to that group, go for it. You have to start somewhere. It may not be perfect at first. It may have to evolve. You’ll see people come in and out before our group settles. So there may be some tumultuous times at the beginning.

If you can’t start your own or you’re not interested in starting your own, then I would suggest you go to places like Meetup, Eventbrite, or LinkedIn and look for groups that you can join. Then, search online to find out if there are mastermind groups that you can join as a paid option.

There are individuals out there who run mastermind groups. You can find them on the internet. You go meet them, see if the goals for their mastermind program are similar to what you’d want to get out of it. And if so, give it a try. Don’t sign anything permanent. Don’t make it a year commitment, but try it for 30 days and see if it’s a fit.

9:00
There are tons of different ways to do masterminds. They will amplify whatever you’re doing, escalate your career progression, and help you reach goals that you’ve never thought you would reach.

I never thought I’d be running my own company, and I certainly didn’t think I would have full-time employees and have to pay taxes on them and all those crazy financial things. I’m a creative person, so it’s been really interesting running a company, but I’m doing it, and I’m really enjoying it. I have support all around me in the form of the groups that I’ve set up that really share my passion for making things happen.

10:00
So that’s what I’ve got for you today. It’s a little short, but keep listening and visit my website at WorkMomSays.com. I have a contact form there. I’d love to hear from you. If you have an idea for a guest or you would like to show up on the show yourself, please contact me there.

I’m also an open networker on LinkedIn. I would love to connect. Just message me with your connection request, indicating that you are responding to having listened to the Work Mom Says podcast.

And last but not least, please leave me a rating or a review. Podcasters live on our reviews. We’d love to know that you’re listening, that you’re enjoying yourself, that we’re giving you valuable, useful information. So that’s all I’ve got for you today. Thanks again for listening. See you soon.

Who is our ideal listener?

This podcast is for young professionals, so they can learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience less drama and more success.

The ideal listener is anyone struggling on an emotional level in the workplace. Work Mom Says it helps you learn to be strategic at work. This means you can look at the big picture without getting lost in the weeds. 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.

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

The post Episode 33 – Master Your Mind with Masterminds appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• There’s no such thing as job security
• Entrepreneurship = most independence and job security
• Don’t be afraid of the side hustle
• The power of career cushioning
• Don’t wait to take control of your career

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

4:00 – Job security doesn’t exist: When you’re working for someone else, you are always at risk of losing a job.
7:00 – Entrepreneurship = independence: Working for yourself gives you the most independence and the most control over your career.
9:00 – Don’t be afraid of the side hustle: Side hustles can be a second revenue stream, expand your skill set, and even turn into your full-time career!
11:30 – Career cushioning: Make sure your LinkedIn, resume, and portfolio are always up to date, so you can be ready if something happens.
12:30 – Don’t wait: If you want to launch a side hustle or monetize a hobby, start now! It can only help you grow your skills the earlier you start

Top Quotes

4:45 – I had thought that I had job security. It was a huge lesson in the fact that there really is no such thing. Anything can happen at any time. A business can lose a client. Somebody can die. Somebody can leave the company, your boss can decide to move on to a new position, and the person replacing them doesn’t like you so much. Things happen.
6:00 – All those secure positions were not secure at all. And there really wasn’t a secure position unless I made it myself, unless I created it unless I owned the opportunity, I wouldn’t be able to have true independence.
7:40 – If you want true independence, building your own is… the most rewarding and the most responsible way to do it. You have the most control over your career situation when you’re an entrepreneur.
9:00 – I highly recommend side hustles. They give you a side revenue stream. So if something happens and you get laid off, you have some money to pay your bills. There are a lot of things you can do on the side to make money.
10:45 – If you were to do a side hustle, what would you enjoy doing? What hobbies could you monetize? What skills do you want to develop?
13:00 – The worst of all the best possible outcomes is that maybe you get a raise at your current position or you get promoted because your skills are higher. You’re more enthusiastic. You are learning things faster, and you’re more committed to your career
14:00 – You are 100% responsible for what happens. How you respond is what determines what happens. And you are in control. Don’t ever forget it. It might not feel that way. Keep trying that on and eventually it will feel very comfortable because you are in control of your career.

Links

Check out our LinkedIn episode for more ways to effectively grow your network and get that next opportunity.

Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!

Transcript

[1:00]
Hello, and thank you for joining me for this episode of Work Mom Says Don’t Be an Idiot. I’m Lori Jo Vest, your host and work mom. I want to talk today about your independence and also the responsibility that comes with that independence. And I’ll start with telling you about a book that I read, oh, probably 20 years ago.

Jack Canfield has a book about creating your life. And one of the things that he says very early on is that you are 100% responsible for whatever happens in your life. And I remember reading that and going, no, I’m not 100% responsible.This person did that and that person did this and this person did this and all these things happened.

[2:00]
Well, you can look at it that way or I could look at it and think, well, I did create the ability to go to college. I searched for financial aid. I studied and took the tests and got in and I got my degree. I was better able to get a job because I had been responsible enough to get the degree, pursue the funding, follow through. And then I’ve gotten jobs ever since I started right after college.

I’ve had really good jobs. I’ve had not so great jobs. I’ve had secure jobs. I’ve had not so secure jobs. But I’ve always been responsible for what happened with my career, how I performed at work, that’s on me, what positions I chose to accept or pursue, that was on me.

So I want to encourage you to really back away from the, you know, the really close up lens of
having to have a job in order to have a career. And I’m also going to ask you to challenge
your own thinking on what it means to have job security or does job security even exist?
So I’m going to leave you with those two things. Then we’re going to wander off over here and I’m going to tell you a little bit about my own experience.

[3:00]
I always believed that I had to have a job. I had to have a career. I could go through the rise through the ranks of a corporation. I could become a managing director of an organization, but I would be working for someone else because that felt secure. They were taking the risks.
So I went through probably a 35-year career doing that and believing that a job meant security.
Working for a company that wasn’t mine meant security.

And at one point, back in the early 2000s, I was working for a small television production studio. Well, I was there for about 11 years. I was running the company. Most of the people who worked there I had hired. The week before that same company owner had given me a really positive review, he said in a meeting that I took care of his company exactly like he did and how lucky he felt to have me.

[4:00]
And then a week and a half later, he called me in for a seven o’clock meeting on a Monday morning and said, it’s time. And I said, time for what? Well, I knew it was coming because I’d gotten, you know, the grapevine, grapevines run fast, just say it that way. The grapevine had gotten to me. And then he set a meeting for seven o’clock on a Monday morning, which was highly unusual in our business. And I just kind of knew it was coming. So we had the meeting. He let me go. He said it was a financial decision and I was out on my butt and I had thought that I had job security.

It was a huge lesson in the fact that there really is no such thing. Anything can happen at any time. A business can lose a client. Um, somebody can die. Um, somebody can leave the company, your boss can decide to move on to a new position, and then the person that replaces them doesn’t like you so much. I mean, things happen.

[5:00]
So after losing this job that I’d had for 11 years and was really comfortable in, but I think I knew
I’d outgrown it already, but a lot of times we ignore those things for comfort. The next opportunity I took I thought I was going to do really well. And I was bringing in business and I’d been there about six months and they decided to do pay cuts in the sales department. Not very smart, but that’s what they decided to do.

And I said, well, I’m going to be cleaning up my office this afternoon then. And I left.I mean, it was a 30% pay cut and there was no good reason for it. It was just a decision that they were making. And so I left the company.

But the next opportunity after that was working for an ad agency. Super excited about it. They just got the client, but it was a solid relationship. They were doing all kinds of work for them, websites and social media and apps and just all kinds of really great work. This was back in 2012.

[6:00]
And that job lasted six years until, oops, the client decided to downsize the account. And I was called into a room with 12 other people and let go. Well, by this point, I was 54 years old. Oh, man.That’s a point in your career where you hope to be kind of winding down or in a solid corporate leadership position that you can stay in for a long time.

And I wasn’t. I was booted out of that job and left to decide, do I look for a job somewhere else at 54? Or do I start my own business? And I made the choice to start my own business.

And what I realized is that all those secure positions were not secure at all. And there really wasn’t a secure position unless I made it myself, unless I created it, unless I owned the opportunity, I wouldn’t be able to have true independence. And so that’s been about six years ago.

[7:00]
And let me tell you, it’s been… absolutely a roller coaster, but it also feels more secure than anything I’ve ever done. When we have a client come in that is, you know, acting like an asshole, let’s just be real about it. People do that sometimes. I have the ability to say, we’ve got to part ways because I don’t like the way you’re treating us or the way you’re treating our staff.

And that type of freedom comes with a high level of responsibility because if you don’t have motivation, if you’re not someone who’s very accountable to tasks and to being at your desk at, you know, 7.30 or 8.30 or whatever and staying, you know, working 50, 60 hours for the first couple of years, you won’t make it. However, if you want true independence, building your own is… the most rewarding and the most responsible way to do it.

[8:00]
You have the most control over your career situation when you’re an entrepreneur. You just do. So why am I selling independence? So that if you do get laid off from your first or second or third job, I mean, it happens. Sometimes you think something looks really great and two weeks later they let you go because they had a big change.

So what can you do now to prepare yourself in the future? Lots of things. I started a side hustle. I wrote a customer service book with a lovely co-author, Marilyn Suttle, in 2008. And we did some customer service training. And we did some workshops. We developed an online course with a company called Business Training Experts. We did speaking engagements. And it really helped me elevate my skill set, elevate the proof of what I knew and what my talents were so that when it came time to, to make a job change, there was a lot more there to show than just here’s a job I’ve had.

[9:00]
So it, you know, I, it really worked for me to do that side hustle. So I highly recommend them. And also that you have maybe a side revenue stream. So if something does happen, you get laid off. you’ve got some money to pay your bills. There’s a lot of things you can do on the side to make money. And I’ll give you a couple of examples, people that I know.

I have a friend that discovered an amazing ability to paint. She took it up as a hobby about five years ago, and she still works in advertising, but she also sells these beautiful paintings in galleries on a regular basis I have another really great friend that got into pottery and now she’s does art fairs on the weekend and she’s transitioning to being uh you know a potter i guess that’s what you’d call them to being a pot thrower um 100% of the time.

I have another friend that you know started writing mermaid fiction. She’s a graphic designer and she wrote a couple of books. She knew she could write. She wrote a couple of books and she ended up, instead of being a graphic designer in television and, you know, motion video, she moved into being a communication director at one of the larger local churches here in Metro Detroit. Loves her job and is so happy there.

[10:00]
And, you know, as a graphic designer in television, the pressure’s really high. But she found a job that really suited her by expanding her skill set.

So a couple questions to ask yourself. If you were to do a side hustle, What do you enjoy doing? What hobbies could you monetize? What skills do you want to develop?

My friend that used to work in television graphics knew she could write. She wrote mermaid fiction and had a really nice audience. She used that side hustle, you know, and that hobby to
completely change her career into something that required both graphic design and writing.

[11:00]
So what are you interested in real estate? Do you like animals? Do you possibly have an interest in pet sitting or house sitting or, you know, dog walking? What side hustle could you create that allows you to do something you really enjoy and create a revenue stream?

And while you may not need that revenue stream right now, there’s a new trend. I read about it in Fast Company. I think it was in December 2023, an article on what they call career cushioning, which again, I highly recommend. And what career cushioning is, is making sure that your portfolio, your resume, everything is up to date at all times. Your LinkedIn profile is up to date and you’re active there so that if something happens, you’re ready.

And career cushioning can also include looking for or preparing for another position. So by being 100% responsible for what happens in your career, including, you know, really looking at all of your options and expanding your skillset and expanding your ways to make money. That’s how you create a hundred percent responsibility mindset towards your career. And it will lead you places you have no idea you wanted to go.

[12:00]
And the other thing is, looking back now, what I see that I didn’t see before is that I could have
done this 20 years earlier. And I probably could have been much more successful had I started sooner. Now, would I have all the skills that I have at this point or when I started, you know, PopSpeed Digital Marketing? Would I have had all those skills? No, but I would have developed them.

So I guess one of the things that I’m saying as your work mom is don’t wait. If you have any idea that your industry is a little turbulent or that you may eventually want to do something completely different, start now. Start with a side hustle. Start with a hobby that you can monetize.Put some effort into this career cushioning trend and see what you can make happen for yourself.

[13:00]
Because the worst thing that can happen, in my opinion, the worst of all the best possible outcomes, is that maybe you get a, you know, a raise at your current position or you get promoted because your skills are higher. You’re, you know, more enthusiastic. You are learning things faster and you’re more committed to your career. You are a hundred percent responsible for what happens in your career and in your life.

That’s where the gold is. So think of your career in that way. You are 100% responsible for what happens. How you respond is what determines what happens. And you are in control. So, work mom says you are in control. Don’t ever forget it. It might not feel that way. Keep trying that on and eventually it will feel very comfortable because you are in control of your career.

[14:00]
So that’s what I’ve got for you today. Let’s see. We have a website at workmomsays.com.
I would love to have you visit and fill out a contact form and tell me what you’d like me to talk about. Are there guests you’d like us to have on?

I’m also an open networker on LinkedIn under Lori Jo Vest. Would love to hear from you. You can suggest guests or ask questions of me there as well. And we’ll be back with another episode soon. Signing off

Who is our ideal listener?

This podcast is for young professionals, so they can learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience less drama and more success.

The ideal listener is anyone struggling on an emotional level in the workplace. Work Mom Says it helps you learn to be strategic at work. This means you can look at the big picture without getting lost in the weeds. 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.

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

The post Episode 32 – You’re 100% Responsible for Your Career appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• Early in your career, your job is to make your boss’ job easier
• If your work is accurate AND timely, you’re already way ahead of your peers
• Accountability, proactiveness, and resourcefulness = Carolyn’s top 3 traits in new hires
• Strong communication skills, empathy, and team-focused behavior go a long way
• Those who add value to the company get promotions

Featured Guest

Expert Guest: Carolyn Sauer

Title: Director of Business Development at Schaltbau GmbH

What She Does: As Director of Business Development, Carolyn Sauer leads Marketing and Communications strategy development and works with customers and prospects to help solve their high-voltage challenges.

Connect: You can find her on LinkedIn.

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

5:15 – How can I make my boss’ life easier: Your job is 50% your listed job responsibilities and 50% doing anything you can to help free up your boss’ time.
7:00 – Accuracy and timeliness go hand in hand: If your work is on time but it’s full of errors that someone else must fix, it’s not actually on time.
11:30 – Carolyn’s top traits in new hires: If you are accountable, resourceful, and proactive, you will be an easily trainable asset to any team.
14:40 – Email syndrome: You have to be empathetic, a strong communicator, and team-focused in order to truly excel at work.
20:00 – Value Added: Want to get promoted? You have to be a valuable asset who is tenacious, empathetic, and a creative problem solver. You must add value to the company in order to last and move up the career ladder.

Top Quotes

5:10 – What I noticed is, I mean, you’ve heard the old adage, common sense isn’t so common, is that a lot of people, even if they’ve been in their careers for maybe 10 or 20 years, may not really truly understand why these specific things are so critical because no one told them.
6:30 – I have my job description, but that’s part of what I do. The rest is how do I help? What do you need me to do? Where can I pitch in? You know, when you see a team is very busy planning for a presentation or an event, maybe you don’t have experience with it, but you still want to ask, how can I help?
7:50 – Early in my career as a manager, I cannot tell you the number of times I had projects or presentations turned into me at the very last minute they were due. They were on time. But then there were mistakes and there were errors that needed to be fixed. And so if it’s not accurate, it’s not on time.
9:30 – I am not your teacher. I am your manager. Hopefully your coach. Hopefully your mentor. I’m not your teacher. I don’t want to receive something back from you, red line it. and give it back and try it again. That’s not how the business world operates. If I had time to do that, I would have time to do it myself, and I don’t; that’s why I hired you.
11:20 – No matter what position I’m hiring for, I look for someone who can be accountable, proactive and resourceful. If you have those three things, I can train you on anything else.
16:45 – Being a nice, pleasant nudge is an incredibly valuable part of the communication process, especially early in your career when it’s your responsibility to get something done, but you may not have the authority to demand people respond to you. You just have to be persistent.
18:10 – What you’re assigned to may be really important to somebody, but not to most people on your team that you have to get information from, so you’ve got to be persuasive.
22:00 – They’re creative problem solvers. They’re tenacious. They’re empathetic. They’re stellar communicators. Those are the ones that get promoted. Those are the people that you look to who can take things on when you’re not around and handle them well in a way that adds value to the situation.

Links

Check out our LinkedIn episode for more ways to effectively grow your network and get that next opportunity.

Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!

Transcript

[00:00:00]

Hello, everybody. And thank you so much for joining us for this episode of work. Mom says, don’t be an idiot. This is going to be a really, really good episode for career newbies. But I also think there’s room for people who may be in their career and are wondering what they can do to jumpstart their career to get ahead of people around you. It’s not that hard.

So what I would just as an introduction want to share is jumpstarting your career is about who you are at the office. Are you the problem solver or the troublemaker? Are you the complainer or the person who gets things done? Do you get your work done or do you get it done really well?

[00:01:00]
And those kinds of questions are the questions that people who excel in their careers ask themselves on a daily basis. Um, you’ve got to be paying attention to how you behave at work and also pay attention to kind of figuring out what would make you stand out. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

So I have with me Carolyn Sauer. Carolyn is with Schaltbau GmbH North America. And a long-time friend of this podcast and me personally. And I really think Carolyn’s got some really great advice. She speaks to college students and she’s also in a hiring position. And, you know, has a few years of her career behind her.

So, Carolyn, say hello and tell us a little bit about yourself. Hi, LoriJo. Thanks for having me on. Uh, yes, just a few years I have on me. I’ve, uh, been in the sales and marketing and the automotive industry for, um, 24 years and, uh, in a variety of capacities. Um, so some of them, you know, related more to marketing, some more related to sales.

[00:02:00]
I’ve fluctuated between both over the years, uh, and really have enjoyed both. So now, uh, Tell me how, where did these guiding principles that we are going to talk about today come from? Yes, so this is an interesting story. So one of my tasks when I was at North American Lighting as a manager of sales administration and marketing, was to create a year round internship program so that we would have bench support when we are looking at hiring full time employees.

Um, you know, there was never a shortage of candidates, but there was always a shortage of the right candidates. And so we wanted to groom our own talent, bring them in, teach them our methods, and then hopefully, if all goes well, be able to hire them full time. You know, once they’ve graduated as part of that.

[00:03:00]
Yes. So, as part of that, um, you know, in that hiring process, as we were onboarding, you know, new interns every semester, I found that a lot of them did not have experience having ever worked In an office environment, they had typically done retail or worked in a restaurant while they were, you know, saving money.

And it’s a very different environment and a very different atmosphere. Because when you’re in retail or restaurant, your duties are. Right now, you just, you do them, you knock them out, you go home, you forget about them. And that’s not exactly how it is in sales and marketing and the automotive industry.

So once we started onboarding very different, right? So once we started onboarding them, I realized they really need some type of guidance. Of course, we wrote a very specific job description so that they had their own responsibilities. But beyond the job description, I think it was helpful for them to know what was expected of them.

[00:04:00]
And, you know, if you want to be successful in a leadership position, or as a manager setting those expectations is the 1st step. And so I came up with 10 guiding principles and really. Shared them with my entire team as a way to say, Hey, you know, including the interns, we had a meeting, we launched this and said, these are the 10 guiding principles of how we need to behave in the workplace in order to get things done in order to have fun and be successful there.

These are basic things, and that’s really how they originated. But what I noticed is, I mean, you’ve heard the old adage, common sense isn’t so common, is that a lot of people, even if they’ve been in their careers for maybe 10 or 20 years, may not really truly understand why these specific things are so critical because no one told them.

[00:05:00]
And so maybe they’re wondering why they didn’t promote it, right? Yes, exactly. I think, you know, that’s something all of us as managers come across is what, you know, the question when someone expects to be going to that next level of their career, why, why not me? And it’s something that you can plan for ahead of time, just following some of these basic.

You know, guidelines, but you’re right. And that’ll, I love, I love the common sense comment because I don’t think I actually acquired common sense until I was in my early twenties. That was definitely something that alluded me and needed to be gained through experience. I think I was well into my thirties, but anyway.

We don’t need to go there. No. So let’s, yeah, no thanks. I’ve talked about my train wreck 20s plenty on this podcast. So let’s talk about, let’s get, let’s just dive right in. Um, what are the first three things that you talk about as very Basic things that people need to understand. So the very basic, the very basic, basic premise, you have been hired to do a job in order to help the company achieve its goals.

[00:06:00]
And I always looked at it as how can I free up my boss’s time, right? My boss is super busy. He or she is doing a lot of activities, some of which they should be focused on. Some of which they shouldn’t, but are doing it because no one else is. So at the very basis, it’s important to understand your job is really to free up your boss’s time.

And how do you do that? So the, the three principles for that are, you know, one, it’s just, like you said, common sense, right? How can I help here? I have my job description, but that’s part of what I do. The rest is how do I help? What do you need me to do? Where can I pitch in? You know, when you see a team is very busy planning for a presentation or an event, maybe you don’t have experience with it, but you still want to ask, how can I help?

[00:07:00]
And how can I help is what’s always going to get you to understanding the bigger picture, the bigger goals of the company and how you are contributing to that. Absolutely. And I would add that if you become the person that people know is willing to jump in and help, it helps you create those strong relationships that you really need at the office to get promoted.

So helpful. It really does. It does. And so the, the second two are accurate and timely. And the reason I like to talk about these together are because early in my career as a manager, I cannot tell you the number of times I had projects or presentations turned into me at the very last minute they were due.

[00:08:00]
They were on time. But then there were mistakes and there were errors that needed to be fixed and there were formatting things that needed to be fixed. And so if it’s not accurate, it’s not on time. And that’s something that I think is really hard for people to understand to say, okay, this project I’m working on is due tomorrow.

I’m going to turn it in early, or I’m going to have my colleague look at it and do a sanity check to make sure that when I turn it in. It’s ready to be delivered to the audience it is intended for. And so those again are really just, you know, at the basic heart of my work needs to be on time and it needs to be accurate.

[00:09:00]
And if I can focus on doing those two things while being helpful, that is a really sound basis that will set you up for success once you get to the other. guiding principles. Absolutely. And just to go back to what I said earlier, because I do love repetition is accurate and timely are two very important things because what happens and what I hear have heard often and I’ve had a lot of, um, I’ve led a lot of teams is rushing to get it done, turning it in, moving on to something else, not realizing that rushing to get it done causes mistakes that can then kind of domino effect into other people’s workplaces.

You know, you put the wrong file up, but somebody had to add it. So they edited the wrong file and now they have to do it again. So accuracy, right? Just as important as timely because having to do it again or having to have your boss fix it. I mean, I’ve, I’ve say this all the time. I am not your teacher. I am your manager.

Hopefully your coach. Hopefully your mentor. I’m not your teacher. I don’t want to receive something back from you red line it and give it back and try it again. That’s not it. How the business world operates. If I had time to do that, I would have time to do it myself and I don’t, that’s why I hired you.

[00:10:00]
So it’s really, really important to have that timely and accurate. And there seems to be a mindset of, you know, I need to get this all done and I’m checking the boxes. But again, if you haven’t taken the time to check your work or set it aside and come back to it a few hours later and really looked at it and you turn it in and there’s errors, it’s not as helpful as you think.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Let’s keep going. Now you’ve got another three that can make you stand out, right? These are really good for standing out. So, yeah, so these, these next 3 are, um. Really interesting to me because over the years I have interviewed hundreds of people for hundreds of different positions, whether they were applying for an entry level coordinator position, uh, a mid level, you know, marketing or sales position, a manager position.

[00:11:00]
I often get the question, what are, what are you looking for in this job, in this role, in this position? And it surprises people when I tell them, I look for the same 3 things, no matter what position I’m hiring for. I look for someone that can be accountable, proactive and resourceful and those 3 things If you have that, I can train you on anything else, but I think that they’re very important because, you know, we talk about timely and accurate part of that falls into the next one, which is being accountable.

You know, you need to take ownership of your job. If I have 12 direct reports and I’m managing all of them, I don’t have time to manage their day to day. I don’t want to micromanage them. You don’t want me to micromanage you. You need to understand. What your priorities are, what needs to be done and take responsibility and ownership for it.

[00:12:00]
And beyond that, you know, there may not always be time to get detailed training. You know, I might just give you minimal pieces of information and throw that over the wall and. That requires that you then be proactive and say, Oh, you know, this is what I need to do next on this project. And this is what I have to figure out and then to be resourceful because I don’t always have the answers.

Um, and if I have to look it up. You could look it up just as easily. So, you know, understanding where to go, you know, can I look this up online? There are so many tools now online with Google and chat GPT and, you know, cautionary tale, you do have to check accuracy of those tools as well. But at the same time, there are so many resources at your fingertips, you know, dig into it, figure out what you can, and then.

Not only are you being, um, a better supporter for the team, but how, how much more proud of yourself are you when you can say. You did this on your own with minimal input and minimal direction. And so it’s really a win for the team member and the manager, and it’s a great way to be working together.

[00:13:00]
Absolutely. I always say, Google is your friend. So if you need to learn how to take really good meeting minutes, go to Google. You need a format for a budget report, go to Google. You need to know what a marketing plan looks like, go to Google. And you’ll find so many examples of those kinds of documents and things that you may be subjected to.

You may be told to go create, um, by looking at all the things that are already out there and then creating one that’s your own. Um, but Google is always your friend. Be the person who can, can find the answer. And that takes practice. That just takes doing it. So, all right, what else you got for us, Carolyn?

[00:14:00]
Um, so these next three, I like to categorize as, um, I sent an email syndrome because in addition to being proactive and resourceful and all of these other things, when you’re working on a project, it’s very far and few between that you are working on it by yourself and we’ll be able to complete it by yourself.

There are a lot of opportunities to work in teams, to work in groups. Um, some people that are in your department, some that are outside of your department, some that are customers and. There’s nothing more frustrating as a manager, um, as going to someone and saying, Hey, how’s this project going? You know, it’s coming up to the deadline and getting a response that’s, Oh, I sent an email and sending the email was not the, that wasn’t the assignment.

Right. So, yeah, I get it. Now you’re, you’re running into roadblocks. That’s a different discussion. So these 3 are to communicate, empathize and be team focused. So within. Communication, it’s a 2 way street. There’s a lot of opportunity when you’re sending an email or texting a friend for there to be 1 way communication.

[00:15:00]
But when the communication I’m talking about here between, you know, you and your boss is listening, understanding the point of the assignment, what needs to be done asking questions and also, you know, listening really, you know, listening to what. Each person is saying, maybe even repeating it back. I think you told me to do X.

Is that correct? Yes, that’s correct. So now you have the same basis, but it’s incumbent upon you as the employee to make sure that you are communicating clearly and that you understand the assignment. So that is, um, that’s the essence of, of communication, two way communication. Make sure you got it, write it down.

[00:16:00]
If you have to obviously ask questions, if you don’t understand it, or you need to clarify, um, but make that effort to do that. Absolutely. Yeah. I think communication, um, outgoing communication, what I’ve seen is, you know, the, I sent an email syndrome is what happens is a lot of the people just coming out of college might not understand how incredibly important it is to learn how to be a soft nudge to get the reply.

Yes. That if you send a reply, you send an email out to somebody and they don’t answer. That doesn’t mean that you’re bugging them if you call them or send out another email, it may mean they’re so busy that if you can’t get to the top of their inbox, you are never going to get your concern managed. So two way communication and being a nudge, a nice, soft.

Pleasant nudge is an incredibly valuable part of the communication process, especially early in your career when it’s your responsibility to get something done, but you may not have the authority to demand people respond to you. You just have to be persistent. So, yeah, exactly. And that’s exactly where.

[00:17:00]
Being empathetic and team focused comes in. Um, you know, you really need to understand that just because you need information from this engineer doesn’t mean he has nothing better to do than sit around waiting for your email and responding to you. He has a whole nother set of priorities that are over here that look nothing like what you need to get done.

And so you really need to look at it from their perspective to say, okay, it How can I help you to get this done? Is there somewhere I can go to get this answer without bugging you? You know, um, and we used to call it, we used to joke at NAL, we used to call it the three prong attack, I mean, approach, um, three prongs being the email didn’t work, then pick up the phone, number two, and number three, go camp out at their desk, and in the time that you’re chatting with them, they can probably get it done.

[00:18:00]
You know, so there’s different ways to approach it. And like you said, it, it has to be a softer nudge. It can’t be demanding. And especially if you’re in a lower level position, like that’s a real hard way to try and earn respect when you’re in a lower level position, demanding that someone else do something when you don’t understand that’s not their core job, they’re going to be doing this to help you, you know?

So I think. You know that. And that, that your priorities don’t always line up with everyone else’s. Exactly. You know, what you’re, you’re, what, what you’re assigned to may be really important to somebody, but not to most people on your team that you have to get information from. Exactly. So you’ve got to.

You’ve got to be persuasive. I mean, you have to have all kinds of great communication skills. I really, really recommend that young people take communications classes, business communications, read articles about it. Um, if you have a problem, you’re like, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve, you know, sent an email to this person six times and they still haven’t replied.

[00:19:00]
Yeah. Go to Google. How can I get somebody to reply to my email? I have clients where I put. Urgent in uppercase letters in the subject line with a colon and then my message or please reply because there are times that will stand out, you know, so there’s a lot of different ways to skin the cat. Right. Um, all right.

So basically. It’s a lot. A lot.

Oh, I was going to say, even, even in my current role as a business development director at Schaltbau, there have been times when I’m not getting a response from customers that I need to be able to give an update to. And I will go to my boss and say, Hey, is it okay if I copy you on this? Because maybe them just seeing your name will trigger something.

Or can we try calling them from your office? Because maybe they’ll answer. From your number, you know, you don’t know. You don’t know. Sometimes people are hierarchical and they’re, they’re like not going to be bothering to, Oh, well now the president wants to talk to me. I’ll call, I’ll see what he wants to do.

[00:20:00]
So it doesn’t hurt. Just like you said to, to go back and say, okay. How can I get in touch with this person? I’ve tried this, this, this, and this, can I pull you in on it? And it’s okay to do that. Um, yeah, and that’s where, um, so then we kind of transition into, you know, the team focus because we’ve already established that.

Everyone on the team has their own set of priorities, and you really do have to consider how your work is impacting others. A lot of times, work is a process. So person A will start it. They might come up with a format, pass it off to person B and C to fill in information. But if you didn’t do it right from the, from the beginning, then the next people downstream for you from you will also have to redo that activity.

[00:21:00]
And that really impedes efficiency and causes a lot of frustration. So it is important to recognize what you’re doing is going to impact somebody else and think about it from their perspective as well. Absolutely. So how do you want to wrap this up? What’s the, the, what’s the 10th principle? So this is like the culmination of Everything like you have mastered these nine principles, you are nailing it.

And now you are considered number 10. You are value added. You are saving the company money. You’re saving the company time. You’re being helpful. You’re knocking it out of the park and really contributing to the overall success of the company, whether it’s directly or indirectly. And that’s what we are really seeking.

You know, when hiring someone as someone that’s going to add value to the organization, bring your ideas, bring your creativity. You know, think about how you’re contributing to the profitability of the organization and every step that you’re taking and how it does that. And once you have that, then you’re ready to, you know, ask for that next level of promotion, ask for that next career shift in a, in a different direction, because you’re able to understand.

[00:22:00]
What you’re really bringing to the table. Absolutely. Yeah. That value being that value added person. I mean, when you go into, when you run a company, say you manage a small company or department, you know, who your power players are. You may have seven people, you may have three power players. Those are the ones that have all these things nailed.

They’re creative problem solvers. They’re tenacious. They’re empathetic. They, they’re stellar communicators. Those are the ones that get promoted. Those are the people that you look to that can take things on when you’re not, when you’re not around and handle them well. in a way that adds value to the situation.

So anything else about those principles that you want to drop here, Carolyn?

[00:23:00]
Um, good question. I think we pretty well covered them. I think it really, it just starts again at the essence of being helpful and how to transition that into being a value added employee once you’ve gotten your feet on the ground and have been in the position for a while and continue to develop it.

Yeah, and I would add that if you think you’ve heard all this before, consider how are you really applying what you know, because a lot of us know that we need to communicate, we need to follow up, we need to do these things. You may have heard it before, but how are you applying it? Are you at 100%, even 90%?

I always say attendance is 90 percent of the grade. So if you’re even doing it at a 90 percent level, you’re good to go and you will stand out, right? Just show up, just show up and be present. That is so important. Half the battle. All right. So we want to close out with Carolyn’s best piece of advice she’s ever received that has helped her in her career.

[00:24:00]
Go ahead. Yes. So this, this goes. I was back quite a few years. I was working at a small family owned company called Ray Lighting and I was going to school full time so I was paying my way through Oakland University and at the time I was working in a part time role, saw an opportunity to move into something totally different that was full time with this company and asked my dad for some advice and he said, Carolyn, You just got to tell them how good you are, because if you don’t tell them, they don’t know and they don’t even know you’re interested.

So that was, I mean, simple advice, but really eye opening, you know, you may think that because you’re achieving things and doing well in your current role, that you’ll automatically be considered for something different. But if your boss doesn’t know that you’re interested, they may not think about you.

So you have to go in and ask for it. And I did, I went in and I said. You know, these are the things I’ve accomplished in this role. This is what I want to do. And then, and you know, this full time role and why I think it would be a good fit and they took a chance on me and they gave it to me, but it really could not be their way.

[00:25:00]
The rest is history. The rest is history. I moved on from there and did all kinds of things with other lighting. And yes, absolutely. Yeah. It really, it really does. You gotta advocate for yourself. You do. I have a friend who was in advertising and she was a copywriter at an ad agency and she was, became known as one of the longest employees at Campbell Ewald.

And People, they do, they do layoffs twice a year. So if you can stay there for like 20 or 30 years, which she did, one of the things that she did was every Friday she would send an email to her boss. These are the things I’ve accomplished this week. Here’s an update on what I did this week. And I’ve always thought that that was connected to her longevity because she didn’t have to, you know, you can’t expect your boss to necessarily know what you’re accomplishing as much as you do day to day.

[00:26:00]
So it’s a lot easier to just kind of keep that path of information flow and let them know. So it really, it really is. It’s actually a good point. I, I. Typically have in the past and still try to continue to encourage my team to keep an evidence file of evidence of things they’ve done well, or things that they’ve achieved, or if they did a really awesome presentation or project, put it in a folder or save it online in a folder, because at the end of the year, when their boss is giving reviews, they don’t necessarily remember what 12 different people did.

They know what stands out, but not necessarily all of it. And you want to be able to have that to say. This is what I’ve done so that they remember and then they think of you for those next challenging opportunities. Absolutely. So sing your own praises. Don’t worry about the egos. Yeah. Sing your own praises.

[00:27:00]
Don’t be humble to the boss. Yeah. Humble. They don’t know. They don’t know how good you are until you tell them. Exactly. Alright, guys, thank you so much for joining us. This is our, uh, wrap up for this episode. I’m Lori Jo Vest, AKA Work Mom. Please visit my website at work. Mom says.com. I have a book on Amazon work.

Mom says, don’t be an idiot. 38 lessons. You don’t want to learn the hard way. Um, pick up a copy of that for yourself or your favorite recent graduate or soon to be recent graduate and get in touch with me there. I have a contact form and I’d love to hear what you want me to talk about. Who do you want me to talk to?

Um, if you think you’d make a great guest on the show, please submit your name. I’m an open networker on LinkedIn, so please connect with me there. Carolyn, you too. Are you an open networker on LinkedIn? Absolutely. Absolutely connect with me. Yeah. And Carolyn does a lot of, uh, mentoring young, you know, young, recent college graduates.

[00:28:00]

Not that I’m telling you all to flock to her, but you know, if you have a question or something, you can be willing to answer. Yeah, exactly. I always have time to answer questions for curious minds that want to be successful. I’m happy to help in any way I can. Absolutely. So thank you. And we’ll be back with another episode soon.

Who is our ideal listener?

This podcast is for young professionals, so they can learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience less drama and more success.

The ideal listener is anyone struggling on an emotional level in the workplace. Work Mom Says it helps you learn to be strategic at work. This means you can look at the big picture without getting lost in the weeds. 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.

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

The post Episode 31 – Jumpstarting Your Career appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• What is imposter syndrome?
• The degrees of imposter syndrome
• Making friends with your imposter syndrome
• Symptoms of imposter syndrome
• Times where I have experienced and overcame it
• Practical tips for overcoming it

Resources Mentioned in the Episode

• Little Voice Mastery by Blair Singer
• The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: And Men: Why Capable People Suffer from Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive In Spite of It by Dr. Valerie Young
• Follow Benjamin Hardy on LinkedIn

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

1:30 – Definition of imposter syndrome: It’s a psychological phenomenon in which a person doubts their intelligence and accomplishments despite evidence to the contrary.
2:20 – Make friends with your imposter syndrome: If you really want to grow in your career, you have to be willing to be a little uncomfortable. Otherwise, you won’t grow and be successful. So acknowledge your imposter syndrome and let it drive you toward your goals.
3:40 – If imposter syndrome is having a significant impact on your life, professionals can help: If your imposter syndrome is causing you to lose sleep and it’s stopping you from taking on new challenges, a therapist can be really helpful.
6:00 – Practical ways to overcome it: Challenge negative self talk, focus on your strengths, and celebrate every win, no matter how small!
7:00 – A support group makes all the difference: Joining a business community or networking group can give you the support and mentorship you need to overcome your self doubt.
8:00 Self-compassion is key: Feelings aren’t tangible facts, so when you feel like an imposter, master the mean little voice in your head.

.

Top Quotes

1:30 – “Imposter syndrome is a psychological phenomenon in which people doubt their accomplishments and have a persistent belief that they are frauds, despite external evidence to the contrary. Those who experience imposter syndrome believe they’re not intelligent, capable, or deserving of success.”
4:00 – Imposter syndrome can cause young professionals to not take risks, not pursue their goals, or they don’t reach their full potential because they just feel like they don’t deserve it and they just don’t bother.”
5:00 – “Acknowledge those feelings, journal about them, and then challenge them. Is it true that I’m not really capable? Because if I wasn’t capable, why did they hire me?”
6:20 – “Continue to see the good in where you are going because when you’re trying to go somewhere big, it’s hard. And if you’re constantly looking at your failure more than you are your success, it’s that much harder.”

Links

Check out our LinkedIn episode for more ways to effectively grow your network and get that next opportunity.

Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!

Transcript

00:00:30
Hello everybody. I’m Lori Jo Vest. Thank you for joining me for this episode of Work Mom Says Don’t Be an Idiot today. We’re going to talk about imposter syndrome. Now, this podcast is for young professionals, id level professionals maybe, to help you learn to play the emotional contact sport of business.

00:01:00
So you experience more success. And less drama. And the drama part is what we’re talking about here. Um, imposter syndrome is a huge topic in, you know, in social media and in the news these days. And I looked it up to see like, what is it and what do we do about it? And the definition that I got, I think I got it from dictionary.com is imposter syndrome is a psychological phenomenon in which people] doubt their accomplishments and have a persistent belief. That they are frauds, despite external evidence to the contrary, those who experience imposter syndrome believe they’re not intelligent, capable, or deserving of success. There are degrees of imposter syndrome.

You can have, like, you can get it once in a while when you go into a meeting with, you know, a lot of people you don’t know or high level execs, or you may have it all the time, like, I can’t believe they gave me this job. I don’t know what I’m doing. And I’ll tell you, I have a different take on it than most people.

Um, I think imposter syndrome should be something that you make friends with, because if you really want to grow in your career, you need to feel a little bit uncomfortable most of the time. And the reason I say that is because if you are comfortable, you’re probably stagnant. If you’re stretching, growing, doing new things, you’re going to be a little uncomfortable.

[00:02:00]
So I didn’t learn until I was well into my thirties that if you want to be successful, get comfortable. Being uncomfortable is a really good mantra because those of us who are out there stretching, growing, um, making things happen are frequently doing things that we’ve never done before. And that can make you feel uncomfortable.

If you follow me on LinkedIn, If you don’t, please do. I’m Lori Jo Vest. I’m an open networker there. And I just put a meme up a couple of weeks ago and it was really good. And it says, I have no idea what I’m doing and you can’t stop me. And I love that because if you. are always doing what you know how to do.

You’re not growing, you’re not learning, you’re not developing as a human being. And imposter syndrome, you should be in rooms where you may not quite belong there yet. That’s how you learn. That’s how you stretch. That’s how you grow. But let’s talk a little bit about what They say are symptoms of imposter syndrome, feeling like you don’t belong, feeling like you’re going to be found out as a fraud, feeling like you’re not good enough.

[00:03:00]
You don’t want to take on any new challenges. You’re overworking and you have difficulty taking credit for the work that you do. When someone tries to compliment you, you might, you know, shoo it off because you’re just not. you know, don’t feel like you deserve any congratulations. So it can really affect your career if you don’t handle it well.

And it can have a significant impact on young professionals because it can cause you anxiety, stress, depression, inability to sleep. Um, if it gets to that point where you feel like you can’t sleep and you’re having difficulty, you know, taking on new challenges, get a therapist. Um, there are a lot of therapists out there that can help you with the psychological aspect of um, imposter syndrome.

[00:04:00]
It may go deeper than just your typical being challenged kind of thing because that happens. Imposter syndrome can cause young professionals to not take risks, not pursue their goals like I’ll never be an author, I don’t know how to be an author, it’ll never happen. Why not just take the steps toward it and see if you can learn as you go.

Or they don’t reach their full potential because they just feel like they don’t deserve it and they just don’t bother. Because it does take, you know, some emotional lifting to get past that feeling of not being good enough and not being able to do what you think you should be able to do. So practical tips.

Overcoming imposter syndrome is Um, it’s an emotional thing and one of the things you should do right away is just acknowledge it, give it some attention, go, wow, isn’t this interesting? I feel like I, I don’t know what I’m doing. What am I even doing here? And just acknowledge and explore. I would suggest you journal about it because often journaling will help you get, um, help you process emotions and feelings that might not make sense because in order to write about them.

[00:05:00]
You have to be able to make sense of them. They have to be in a logical order or you won’t be able to put words to them. So h I remember taking my first job at a big ad agency.

When I was in my late forties and I did not feel like I belonged there. Everybody, everybody was 10, 15, 20 years younger than me. And it was just a really strange, uncomfortable feeling. And I felt like I was an imposter because I wasn’t cool enough. I wasn’t hip enough. I felt like I didn’t know enough, but within about six months, you know, I’ve got the agency culture and figured out how that worked.

And I turned out to be pretty good at my job, you know, to the point where I left and they called me and brought me back. I quit and went to a new job and that didn’t work out well. Fortunately, big agency land called me back. And, um, that can happen if you don’t burn bridges, when you leave a place of employment, don’t burn the bridge because you may need to go back quick, teachable moment there.

[00:06:00]
So challenge those thoughts, focus on your strengths. What are you really good at? If you’re a really good writer or you’re really good at negotiating with, you know, angry customers, or you have really strong relationships with your coworkers, focus on those strengths. What are you good at? Celebrate every win.

I have a coach that I’ve worked with for years, Denise Roberts, and she taught me that celebrating even the smallest things could help you. Continue to see the good in where you were going, because when you’re trying to go someplace big. It’s hard. And if you’re constantly looking at your failure more than you are your success, it’s that much harder.

So celebrate the small wins. Um, look for support. Um, when you’re feeling that way, if you really want to power ahead and power through, get into a support group, um, join a business community, join a trade association, find a meetup group or an online networking group and go regularly meet people, make friends.

[00:07:00]
And, and you’ll get the feedback that you’re looking for, because you’ll hear from those people who have your best interest at heart, usually, that, you know, you’re doing a great job, you know, you can develop relationships in those communities with people that are older than you, more experienced than you, maybe have a different personality style than you do, and don’t be afraid to look for mentors in those groups too.

So look for support. And then the last and most important thing is practice self compassion. You feel like an imposter. All that is, is a feeling. Feelings are not tangible facts. You feel like I’m an imposter in your job. Well, you’re in your job. So that’s a pretty good indication that you’re not an imposter.

And there are other things you can do beyond those practical tips. I would. offer some, a few books here that I would advise you to pick up or look into for, you know, to process it a little deeper. If it’s something that’s really bothering you. Uh, one is little voice mastery. We all have a little voice in our head.

[00:08:00]
Some of us have 37 little voices in our heads and they’re all screaming. Some of us have monkeys in our heads and they’re all throwing, you know, bananas and poo at each other. Um, the voices, the voice, That you speak to yourself with is very powerful. So little voice mastery is a book by Blair Singer. And he talks a lot about how to turn that little voice and do more of a coach than a punisher.

And it’s, it’s really important that you learn how to do that. If you want to really fly and hit those high targets. So there’s also imposter syndrome overcoming the fear that haunts your success by Valerie Young. Great book. Um, and we’ll help you work through some of the things that are, that are, you know, help holding you back because you don’t feel like you deserve them.

[00:09:00]
And my last recommendation is that you follow Benjamin Hardy. Benjamin Hardy has so much great material and he’s Always advises you to put yourself in rooms where you are not the smartest person, put yourself in the company of company of people who are doing what you want to do eventually, and make friends in high places, basically.

And don’t be afraid to chase. The really heavy goals that you dream about, because the only way you’re going to get them is if you chase them. So that’s what I have for you today, guys. Uh, thank you so much for joining me. Uh, we did take a little hiatus there, but we are back and hope to have an episode every two weeks.

We’d love to hear from you on what you would like us to cover. Um, who you’d like just us to talk to this season. Um, my, uh, website is workmomsays.com. There’s a contact form there. Um, make your suggestions. Give me feedback. Um, tell me what you’d like me to talk about. So thank you so much again for joining me.

[00:10:00]
Work mom says signing off. Thanks for listening to Work Mom Says Don’t Be An Idiot for more information. You can email work mom here. And remember, don’t be an idiot.

Who is our ideal listener?

This podcast is for young professionals, so they can learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience less drama and more success.

The ideal listener is anyone struggling on an emotional level in the workplace. Work Mom Says it helps you learn to be strategic at work. This means you can look at the big picture without getting lost in the weeds. 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.

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

The post Episode 30 –Overcoming Imposter Syndrome appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• IQ doesn’t equal EQ
• Poor listening = poor leadership
• Overworking yourself hurts your career more than it helps it
• Increasing your failure tolerance
• Tenacious leaders see more success

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

7:30 – IQ is not the same as EQ: Elon has a genius-level IQ, but his emotional intelligence is basically non-existent. His emotional reactions, defensiveness, arguments with employees in public and firings of anyone who disagrees with him are clear examples of his lack of EQ.
8:40 – Good leaders listen: Refusing to listen to your people is the mark of poor leadership because they often know much more about the inner workings of the company than you do.
11:30 – Overworking yourself can be detrimental: If you overwork yourself like Elon does, your brain will start to shut down. You won’t function well cognitively when you’re not well rested.
12:20 – Increase your failure tolerance: If you’re more fearless and more willing to take risks, you’ll inevitably increase your failure tolerance. With a high failure tolerance, you’ll be more innovative and ask for things you want because you’re less afraid of a no.
16:00 – Tenacious leaders see more success: Tenacious people don’t give up, they’re persistent, and they don’t take no for an answer.

.

Top Quotes

5:40 – Emotional intelligence means you know how to be in positive, connected relationships with other people. You know how to predict what might happen. You know how to consider everyone’s emotions and feelings in a situation. You know how to communicate. 

8:10 – He basically publicly outed himself as someone who likes to snap back at people, who likes to attack, and who’s very defensive, and that doesn’t present an intelligent position. It doesn’t present an intelligent leader. 

11:40 – You will not be as calm and able to handle your emotions as you would be if you gave yourself enough time to rest, relax, and then get back to work.

13:30 – Feel the fear and do it anyway.

17:30 – “When you are that person that is tenacious and persistent and doesn’t take no for an answer, you’ll get more yeses than nos because sometimes what it takes to really get to that level of success is to ask.”

18:00 – “If you’re fearless, you have a high failure tolerance, and you focus on tenacity, never giving up with those three things, you will move faster down the career path than anybody else because most people give up easily.”

Links

Check out our LinkedIn episode for more ways to effectively grow your network and get that next opportunity.

Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!

Transcript

00;00;00;00 – 00;00;12;13
Announcer
Welcome to work, Mom says. Don’t be an idiot. And now here’s your host work. Mom.

00;00;12;15 – 00;00;42;21
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’m here to help you play the emotional content sport of business and learn how to experience more success and less drama. So let’s get started. Today, we are going to talk about Elon Musk. And my premise is that Elon Musk is not any smarter than you.

00;00;42;23 – 00;01;15;11
Lori Jo Vest
Matter of fact, he’s not any smarter than a whole lot of people. So I want to kind of hit on how our culture really elevates the wealthy and thinks that if you’re a wealthy businessperson, you must be really intelligent. And we’re seeing a lot of examples of that, a lot of examples of people in our country, in the U.S., being really impressed by really wealthy people and not realizing that maybe those people started out with a whole lot of money and maybe they aren’t as smart as we think they are.

00;01;15;11 – 00;01;52;14
Lori Jo Vest
And maybe if we didn’t think everyone else was smarter than we are, we might try harder and do more new things and innovate more often, etc., etc.. So a couple of things. I had to do a CEO article for one of our clients about Elon Musk and how high is Elon Musk’s IQ. And the reason that came up was because apparently that’s something that a lot of people search for and they wanted to get some Google juice from that question How high is Elon Musk’s IQ, if you know, how smart is he?

00;01;52;15 – 00;02;17;12
Lori Jo Vest
All those kind of questions. So I was given the opportunity to go out there and dig into Elon. Who is he? What does he do? Why do people love it so much or hate him so much? I guess he’s got like a personality that you either love him or hate him. And how smart is he, really? And what I came up with was that Elon is has an IQ of 155.

00;02;17;14 – 00;02;54;23
Lori Jo Vest
Yay, Elon. That is amazing. That’s a genius level IQ and the average person’s IQ is about 100. So that’s telling People think you have really smart. Elon is pretty smart. However, a couple of things to talk about. Elon started out with a whole lot of money. Elon comes from money. There’s money in the family, there’s emerald mines. A lot of the money he’s made has been through buyout purchases, investments in companies where people were already making great things happen, like, you know, PayPal, Tesla.

00;02;54;26 – 00;03;28;15
Lori Jo Vest
He hasn’t invented anything, I guess you could say. So when you think of Elon Musk, don’t think of him as being like somebody who’s really innovating. He works really, really hard and he’s obviously smart, but he’s not necessarily that much smarter than the average C-level executive. And so let’s talk about what they mean that means to you. Most of you, if you’ve listened to this podcast before, you know, I have a 24 year old son named Kyle, who is a graduate from the University of Michigan to graduate in 2020.

00;03;28;17 – 00;03;53;14
Lori Jo Vest
He’s out there making a really happy life for himself. Very proud of me. He’s very happy. And he went to some really high performing schools when he was starting out in third grade. And that’s great. I love being surrounded by high performers, so I really kind of wanted my son to be surround by high performers because that gets you in the mindset of becoming a high performer.

00;03;53;17 – 00;04;19;27
Lori Jo Vest
And Kyle always felt like through the magnet school we went to from 38 at the high school, he went to International Academy. He always felt like he was going to school with people that were really, really smart, and that meant that he wasn’t quite as smart because he wasn’t the fastest kid and the math whizzes and he wasn’t the he had to plan along and do some work to get things to to reach certain goals.

00;04;19;29 – 00;04;42;26
Lori Jo Vest
As he watched some of his fellow students that just zipped on through everything. And yeah, they studied, but they just naturally seem to have this habit or this ability to to succeed. So he came out of college a little concerned, like, you know, we went to University of Michigan, other high performing school mom, you know, I just don’t know what it’s going to be like up in the work world because I am not that high performer.

00;04;42;29 – 00;05;04;23
Lori Jo Vest
And I had to bite my tongue during a lot of conversations because it came up a lot and he was really worried. And I just basically told him, Hon, you have no idea that when you get out in the real world, you’re not necessarily working with a ton of high performers, maybe one in ten or one in 20, but the average person that you run into at the office is not Elon Musk.

00;05;04;25 – 00;05;29;04
Lori Jo Vest
They’re not as committed, they’re not as passionate. They may not be as intellectually smart. They may not have really high IQs, which is your emotional intelligence. So the people that you run into at work are not going to be Elon Musk level people. Plus, there is some evidence out there that Elon might not be as smart in areas that you can work on.

00;05;29;07 – 00;05;53;04
Lori Jo Vest
There’s several types of intelligence. One of them is emotional intelligence and that’s what we focus on here in this podcast, is emotional intelligence means, you know how to be in positive, connected relationships with other people. You know, how to predict what might happen, you know, how to consider everyone’s emotions and feelings and situation. You know, how to communicate, you know how to re communicate.

00;05;53;06 – 00;06;34;01
Lori Jo Vest
You know how to hold your own emotions in check so that what you’re doing is is really positive when you’re in a business situation, even when things get hard. So emotional intelligence is really, really important. And one of the things that I wrote down here is that Elon hasn’t exhibited a whole lot of emotional intelligence. And I’m recording this on the 4th of July holiday in the U.S. And we just had a weekend where Twitter was basically throttled and people were getting a message that they had exceeded their use for for the day to come back another day come back another time.

00;06;34;03 – 00;06;56;25
Lori Jo Vest
That paid verified post would get more views. You know, if you were a paid person and somebody who was paying to get that little blue checkmark, I think it’s, I don’t know, $8 a month or something. Then you could see more content in any given day and it just kept going and going. And then there was all this gossip about he’s not paying Google for the cloud space for Twitter.

00;06;56;25 – 00;07;29;18
Lori Jo Vest
I mean, who knows if that’s true? Nobody knows. But it was this big conversation about how Elon kind of made an investment in Twitter of $44 billion and quickly came in and put his own lack of emotional intelligence on display. And that is something I would like to present in this podcast as a learning opportunity. It is a teachable moment to take a look at what he was doing and figure out how you can avoid doing those kinds of things in the future.

00;07;29;18 – 00;08;02;20
Lori Jo Vest
So so let’s go through it real quick. One of the things that that Elon did when he first came into Twitter was, you know, bring a kitchen sink, create some drama, let go of a whole bunch of people, argue with the employees in the public square on Twitter, fire people that had a conflicting view of what he thought, just argue and basically publicly out himself as someone who who likes to snap back at people, who likes to attack and who’s very defensive.

00;08;02;20 – 00;08;30;21
Lori Jo Vest
And that doesn’t present an intelligent position. It doesn’t present an intelligent leader when you’re doing the kinds of things that even a high school kid may know better than to do a snap back at something in the public square. Don’t do it. It’s not you know, it’s an emotional reaction. It shows a lack of emotional intelligence. So ditch the woman, number one from Elon’s behavior.

00;08;30;24 – 00;08;53;03
Lori Jo Vest
There’s a lot of things coming out lately about the Tesla and how the self-driving capability of the vehicle. I don’t know the technical details about it, but how his engineers were coming back to him and saying, Elon, you know, the auto self-driving is not ready yet. That future is not ready to go. We don’t want to release it until it has a particular visual component.

00;08;53;05 – 00;09;31;05
Lori Jo Vest
And Elon said we’re going anyway. And now there’s all these problems with the Teslas and their self-driving capabilities. And in spite of the fact that they continue to tell people a self-driving car still requires monitoring, you’ve got people that are, you know, I don’t know if you’ve seen the videos on Twitter, YouTube, wherever, but there are people who are basically driving down the freeway in the driver’s seat with their head low back, taking a nap, and, you know, the police cars going up beside him, trying to get him to wake up and, you know, the siren doing all kinds of things to get them to wake up.

00;09;31;07 – 00;09;59;15
Lori Jo Vest
And Elon, self-driving cars are not ready yet for that level of self-driving. So, yeah, you start if you dig in a little bit, you can find some stuff there that he just decided not to listen to his people. And in business, not listening to your people is a really huge sign of poor leadership and listening to your people and letting them tell you what they know because they’re often like boots on the ground into the details.

00;09;59;15 – 00;10;22;01
Lori Jo Vest
Situations that you as a CEO may be missing or you as a coworker, even if you’re not in a leadership position yet, listening to the people around you is what will make you informed and will contribute to your success. So listening is a huge component of IQ that Elon’s not exhibiting. A couple other things at sea. Overworked and escapism.

00;10;22;01 – 00;10;53;22
Lori Jo Vest
Let’s talk about that. Okay. This is a teachable moment. That’s what I like to call a teachable moment. A teachable moment here, people. Time for another teachable moment. I just read last week that Elon gives himself 7 hours a day to sleep, shower, do everything else besides work. So he has a 17 hour a day worker. He wants all his people back in the offices, back in the plant.

00;10;53;24 – 00;11;24;15
Lori Jo Vest
And he is, you know, committed and passionate and he sleeps at work. You know, I think most professional psychologists and medical professionals will tell you that if you don’t give yourself a break, your brain is not performing at the level that it needs to for you to be successful. Maybe Elon 155 IQ only denigrates down to 240 when he hasn’t slept or he’s not giving himself any downtime.

00;11;24;18 – 00;11;41;00
Lori Jo Vest
But if you’ve ever gone through a really extended busy time, maybe while you were studying for finals or you have a huge presentation to do at the office and you are just pounding on the keyboard, getting things done, but you’re up till three in the morning and then up the next morning at seven and you just keep going.

00;11;41;02 – 00;12;04;26
Lori Jo Vest
Your brain will start to shut down and your physicality may even start to shut down. You will not be as healthy as you will not function as well cognitively, you will not be as well rested. You will not be as calm and able to handle your emotions as you would be if you gave yourself enough time to rest, relax, and then get back to work.

00;12;04;29 – 00;12;34;25
Lori Jo Vest
Because it’s really important. It’s important for your success in the office, It’s important for success in life. So couple more things. Let’s see some of the things that I think are really interesting that he does really well. Again, more teachable moments. This podcast is just loaded up with teachable moments. Mr. Elon is incredibly fearless, and when you’re fearless in business settings, you will take more risks.

00;12;34;27 – 00;12;58;19
Lori Jo Vest
You will ask for more because you won’t be afraid of the no, you will just take more chances. You’ll be more innovative. You’ll have those difficult conversations, You’ll ask for things you want, that you’re not sure if the other person’s going to say yes. Being fearless is something that Elon obviously does really, really well and it’s something that you can cultivate.

00;12;58;21 – 00;13;17;26
Lori Jo Vest
One of the mantras I have a steal the fear and do it anyway. Feel the fear and do it anyway. One more time. Feel the fear and do it anyway, because things will come up that will scare you. But if you don’t try, how do you know that you will have succeeded? And the only way to succeed is to take risks.

00;13;17;27 – 00;13;47;10
Lori Jo Vest
Risk is really important to business success. So a couple more things. Elon has a really high failure tolerance. Obviously they just shot off a rocket, SpaceX X shot off a rocket I think a month or so ago, and it went up in the air and exploded. And they were like, Yeah, And look, one of the things we learned and they didn’t complain or come out with any negative press really about the failed launch.

00;13;47;13 – 00;14;08;22
Lori Jo Vest
They were very optimistic and said, Hey, we got it off the ground. We got it up to a certain height, and now we go back and figure out why it crashed or why it burned out. So having a high fail top failure tolerance is really important. I have a really great friend that put out an event a couple of weeks ago and very few people showed up.

00;14;08;25 – 00;14;36;27
Lori Jo Vest
I mean, she got a venue, she had food, very few people showed up. The people that showed up were very important people. And so when we talked about her event the next day, there were three or four of us on our accountability call in the morning. And what I suggested is she’s building her failure tolerance. She had an event and two people came and it’s all downhill from there, meaning it will only get better.

00;14;36;27 – 00;14;57;01
Lori Jo Vest
What did she learn? And we talked about unpacking it and looking at why that might have been. A lot of times when you do online registration for events, people don’t take it seriously. If you don’t charge for the event, people may not feel bad about canceling at the last minute. It was in the summer, in the evening. Is there a better time to have it?

00;14;57;03 – 00;15;19;24
Lori Jo Vest
Are people more used to those kinds of events being on Zoom? So we kind of unpacked it and basically what she learned was how do we increase her failure tolerance? And that’s important to success. It’s also very important to IQ because when you take a chance and you ask for something, you make it a no. Or when you try something new, you may or may fail spectacularly.

00;15;19;27 – 00;15;39;26
Lori Jo Vest
You may fail in such a big way that you lose a lot of money. It happens, but you don’t know how successful you could be if you never try. So the last thing I want to talk about, about Iran and the last teachable opportunity we have here is he’s got incredible tenacity. Okay? This is a teachable moment. That’s what I like to call a teachable moment.

00;15;39;26 – 00;16;10;24
Lori Jo Vest
A teachable moment here. We’ve got time for another teachable moment. Tenacity is a skill or a skill or a talent or a mindset, but it basically means you never give up. You keep going, you stick to it, you go hard. You have people around you to keep you on track and you just don’t stop. And that is tenacity.

00;16;10;24 – 00;16;29;08
Lori Jo Vest
And I remember back when I was in television production, that’s a ten years now, but I spent a good chunk of my career in television production, and we were always trying to do things that had never been done before. The client comes to you with the script. They say, We have this idea, let’s do this, and you try to do it.

00;16;29;14 – 00;16;57;17
Lori Jo Vest
And sometimes you fail and sometimes the client needs something on a certain day and you can’t find the piece of equipment that you need. And maybe this time you’re just you just don’t you can’t fail. So you head out and call everybody. You know, you go to other markets, you call every single person that you know in the production business and you ask and you find what is needed for your client.

00;16;57;20 – 00;17;24;14
Lori Jo Vest
And when I was in production, I was known as that person that if you couldn’t find a turntable, call Lorie. She’ll figure it out. If you can’t find an experienced script supervisor, you can’t find a caterer for your shoot color biracial. Figure it out. The reason was I was so incredibly tenacious. I was not giving up. I was going after things like, you know, like, like a terrier, you know, like they say a pit bull on a pork chop.

00;17;24;16 – 00;17;51;27
Lori Jo Vest
And when you are that person that is tenacious and persistent and doesn’t take no for an answer, you’ll get more yeses, the no’s, because that’s sometimes what it takes to really get to that level of success is to ask. And when you fail, keep going. And when you fail again, be persistent, then keep going. It’s the kind of thing that will take you into a higher realm.

00;17;51;29 – 00;18;24;19
Lori Jo Vest
If you’re fearless, you have a high failure tolerance and you focus on tenacity. Never giving up with those three things. You will move faster down the career path than anybody else because most people give up easy. They let fear rule their lives. They don’t stick to things. If they fail, they they struggle and suffer. There’s a lot you can do by focusing on those three particular things that Elon Musk has loads of.

00;18;24;19 – 00;18;43;29
Lori Jo Vest
He is built for that kind of work. Everybody doesn’t like him, but you can’t say that he’s not doing amazing things out in the world. Now I’m a little upset about what he’s doing over Twitter, but that’s a whole nother conversation. And all you have to do to find out what I think about Twitter is see me on Twitter.

00;18;44;01 – 00;19;06;11
Lori Jo Vest
There’s a lot of work to be done there to get it back to what it was before he took on and made some crazy changes that impacted us all. So anyway, that’s all I’ve got for you for today. A couple of things to talk about before I wrap up completely. My new book is on the shelves at Amazon and Barnes and Noble Online.

00;19;06;11 – 00;19;24;25
Lori Jo Vest
It’s called Work. Mom says don’t be an idiot. 38 Lessons You Don’t Want to Learn the hard way. Seriously, You don’t want to learn these lessons the hard way. I share all the lessons I learned in my twenties and thirties and hopefully save you the trouble of doing some of the things that I did that weren’t quite appropriate, did serve my career.

00;19;24;25 – 00;19;42;24
Lori Jo Vest
Success didn’t really help me get where I wanted to go. So second thing work. Mom says dot com has a contact form. I would love to hear from you. Please share what you’d like me to talk about. Do you have a guest you’d like to suggest? Would you like to be on the show? Would you like to sponsor the show work?

00;19;42;24 – 00;20;10;11
Lori Jo Vest
Mom says dot com has a contact form there for you to put that information in. Comes right to my inbox and I’ll get back to you. So. And besides that, please, if you’re listening on Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes or any of those other platforms, please leave me some stars. Reviews make the world go round as podcasters, and I would love to grow this podcast into something a little bigger than it is.

00;20;10;13 – 00;20;37;00
Lori Jo Vest
And only you can help me do that. So that’s it for this episode. See again soon. Thanks for listening to work. Mom says don’t be an idiot. For more information, you can email work mom at l0ri work Mom says account. That’s Laurie at work. Mom says com and remember, don’t be an idiot.

Who is our ideal listener?

This podcast is for young professionals, so they can learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience less drama and more success.

The ideal listener is anyone struggling on an emotional level in the workplace. Work Mom Says it helps you learn to be strategic at work. This means you can look at the big picture without getting lost in the weeds. 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.

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

The post Episode 29 –No, Elon Musk Isn’t Smarter Than You appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• The data shows just how much young people want more flexibility
• Make your personal life a priority
• Hobbies feed your personal life
• Prioritize your health, mentally AND physically
• Go touch grass
• Stand firm in your boundaries
• You know when it’s time to go

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

3:00 – The proof is in the data: According to a Gallup report, employees spending 60-80% of their time working remotely had the highest rates of engagement and productivity
6:20 – Make your personal life a priority: No one else is going to make your personal life a priority, so you have to do it for yourself. When you don’t prioritize yourself, your employer WILL take advantage of you to the point of burnout.
9:15 – Get some hobbies: Trying new hobbies and learning new skills are essential for creating a rich personal life outside of work.
10:20 – Take care of yourself: Overworking yourself often takes a massive toll on your physical health because you’re not eating healthily, sleeping well, or getting regular exercise.
12:00 – Go touch grass: Spending time outside can ground you and make a huge difference in your happiness.
14:00 – Be persistent with your boundaries: Set your boundaries at the very beginning of a new job, and don’t let anyone make you break them.
16:30 – Recognize when it’s time to go: If your employer refuses to respect your work-life boundaries and you have minimal personal time, you need to find a new job.

.

Top Quotes

2:15: “More than 80% of millennials say they seriously consider how a position will affect their work life balance in making their job change decision.”
5:45 – “Your boss is not necessarily going to look out for your work life balance or your blender. Your blender is up to you where do you want to put work, where do you want to put your personal priorities, and how do you want those to to work together.”
6:50 – “An appropriate work-life blend and prioritizing that for yourself will bring you more joy and more success because again flexibility is so important to the worker, and it does change how you perform.”
9:45 – “Any new skill you learn helps you with all your other skills, and it gives you more confidence and makes you more robust in your skillset and your intellect.”
10:10 – “You will never look back on your life and wish you had spent more time at work.”
11:35 – “If you take care of your health, you don’t have as much anxiety, as much depression, low energy, all those things. So taking care of your health will take care of your career in a way as well.”
13:00 – “You’re only going to get one life and if you don’t take care of yourself and get outside and enjoy it, you’re not going to be a happy, joyful person. And that’s an essential part of success.”
16:30 – “Set yourself up for happiness because you can’t let an employer dominate your life to the point where you have no personal time or no sensible balance in your life.”

Links

Check out our LinkedIn episode for more ways to effectively grow your network and get that next opportunity.

Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!

Transcript

00:30
Hello everybody thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Work Mom Says: Don’t Be an Idiot! I’m your host Lori Jo Vest also known as Work Mom and I am here to help you learn how to play the emotional contact sport of business. That means a lot of different things. It means your attitude, it means your relationships, you’re learning and growing your skills, all kinds of different things.

So today. We’re going to talk about what’s traditionally been referred to as work life balance. Um I was on a call this morning and we were laughing that it shouldn’t really be called balance. It should be the work life blender because with us all working at home and you know not going to the office, hours are moving around and people are a lot more flexible. They want flexibility in their work. It’s more like you’re blending your personal life and your work together and so we were laughing that it could be considered we work from home and we home from work. It’s all mixed up.

And if you’re lucky, you love what you do, and that makes it a lot more manageable to be able to be flexible. If you’re not so lucky and you don’t like your job and you have to go into an office that’s toxic, the first piece of advice I would give you is to find another job.

01:25.68
But if you just have a kind of a mediocre situation and you’re not quite sure how to commit more closely to your personal time and your personal life and growth this episode is for you.

So basically what I did was I poked around and found some research to find out what it is that millennials want, millennials and the generations behind them. What do they want in work life balance?

I came across an article in Forbes and it says younger workers expect and demand more flexibility from their jobs than previous generations. Tangibly impactful benefits are at the top of the millennials desires in a job, and these benefits must support a healthy work life balance. In fact, more than 80% of millennials say they seriously consider how a position will affect their work life balance in making their job change decision.

So. It’s really important that management people, leaders and company owners understand that the younger generation really does want more flexibility. They want to do things their way. If they’re good workers and you can be flexible, do it. It will pay off.

So another gallup report and this is targeted to those leaders who think that people have to go back to the office. They don’t have to go back to the office unless you’ve got a job that has to be performed on site. Maybe it’s heavy equipment or it’s a safety issue or a restaurant and they’re serving customers.

03:00.70
Great, I understand that. That makes a lot of sense. But if your employees can work at home, why not let them? Again in that same Forbes article, there is a gallup report that said employees across various industries who spent 60 to 80% of their time working remotely had the highest rates of engagement and productivity. Companies are increasingly making this transition. The article mentioned Amazon and United Health group as 2 of the top 10 companies that have been offering remote work since before the pandemic.

So that’s really telling. It is changing. 60 to 80% of people report that they’re happier, more productive and more engaged when they work at home. So leaders think about that.

So if you’re one of those millennial young professionals, you know in that age range I know we talk a lot in these interesting segments these days about millennials and boomers and you know gen x and all these different age ranges. I’m just going to say young people and that means basically anybody under 30 that’s still growing their career and learning as they go.

It can be really hard to divide up your day in segments for work and personal. It can be incredibly challenging whether you have a doctor’s appointment or you have a child at home. You have to scramble in the morning to get everybody up and off to school. Flexibility is really important.

05:31.45
You have to give yourself some flexibility because what I’ve noticed in the last you know so many years in talking to young people and to people on my team is that your boss is not necessarily going to look out for your work life balance or your blender. Your blender is up to you where do you want to put work, where do you want to put your personal priorities, and how do you want those to to work together.

There’s a couple ideas that I came up with to help you do just that because if you don’t do it, nobody else will. The first one is to make it a priority. If you feel like you are just working way too much, you gotta start to scale back and make it a priority to also invite some personal activities into your life, some hobbies.

If you’ve always liked to read. If you always wanted to, you know, maybe you’re a movie buff and you always want to see all the latest movies that come out. Um you want to spend more time with your wife or you’ve got a baby at home or a teenager that’s getting ready to leave the nest or you just want to be healthier, mentally and physically.

An appropriate work life blend and prioritizing that for yourself will bring you more joy and more success because again flexibility is so important to the worker, and it does change how you perform.

07:00.72
When you feel like people are looking out for you and you’re looking out for yourself, you’re more balanced. You are more productive. You’re more efficient so make yourself a priority.

I’m going to share a quick story from a young woman that was on this podcast I think early on probably 10 episodes ago or so and her name was Kelly. Kelly talked about how when she was working at a small agency and putting in 60 to eighty hours a week, she was in her mid 20s maybe 25 and needed to you know felt like she needed to prove herself. She had a lot to learn and she just threw herself 100% into her job. That’s wonderful. Yay Kelly but as time went on because she was so competent, they kept giving her more and more before you know what? she’s just you know can’t be competent anymore. She’s just burned out and she quit her job. It makes sense.

That’s what happens when employees get unhappy. They quit or they move on. They become vulnerable to poaching from recruiters and all kinds of things. In Kelly’s case when she got out of that kind of hothouse agency environment., she realized that nobody was going to make Kelly’s work life blend a priority if she didn’t because the employer will take advantage. That’s just people, that’s human nature for god’s sake. It’s human nature that we will take advantage of if someone’s going to give and give and give, we’ll take. In a capitalist society like ours, employers will give you more if you’re competent. They will keep giving you more and it’s up to you to say whoa I can’t take this I need some of this work to be offloaded to someone else.

08:30.99
I need a new job description. I need a different position, or in some cases I need a new job. So you have to make yourself a priority, and that can be really hard to do early on but practice makes perfect even when it’s not comfortable doing anyway.

Okay, the next suggestion for how to create a nice unique work life blend that works for you is to get some hobbies. What did you used to do when you were maybe in high school, college, just out of college and had time for hobbies? What did you Love. Did you do art? Um, were you in a book club? Did you run?

There are so many different activities and hobbies and things that will really feed that personal side of your life. Um things that you don’t get paid for whether it’s volunteering, volunteering at a homeless shelter or gourmet cooking taking cooking classes. I mean there’s so many things you can do but get a few hobbies because that I think balances out your personality, your learning, your skills. Um, any new skill you learn, I don’t care what it is, helps you with all your other skills it and gives you more confidence, makes you more robust in your skillset and your intellect. So get a few hobbies, take a watercolor class, take horseback riding, horseback riding lessons and if you really like it, buy a horse.

10:00.89
It will take up a lot of your time but it’s personal time and doing something that you love and are passionate about instead of time spent at work. You will never look back on your life and wish you had spent more time at work. It does not happen.

So okay, the next tip is to prioritize your health. Um. 1 of the things that happens often when people don’t have a very good work life blend is they will um, put everything into their career and they get home at 8 o’clock at night and they grab some fast food on the way home. They gobble that up, play a little bit of video games or watch TV, go to sleep, get up the next morning and do it again. That is not healthy. It’s not productive and it will negatively impact your health and your productivity at the office so prioritize getting a good night’s sleep, getting regular exercise, whatever works for you, walking, biking, running. Um.

Do those things that make you a healthier, happier person and eat less sugar. I’m just gonna tell everybody to eat less sugar. Sugar is the devil. It’s bad for us. A reasonable amount is fine but most of us you know in our daily sad american diets um, eat more sugar than we should so pay attention to those things. You’ll notice you have more energy. You have more passion. You have more joy. Um, you have less stress hormones. All those things are exacerbated by not taking care of your health.

11:33.42
If you take care of your health, you don’t have as much anxiety, as much depression, low energy, all those things. So taking care of your health will take care of your career in a way as well. It also helps you with work life balance because putting your health in the personal basket is going to give that a little bit more weight. Pay attention to it. It really is important.

One of the things that I’m seeing lately that I think is so funny online is when somebody’s acting crazy on a social post somewhere, somebody will say go touch grass. I’m telling you it’s really really good advice, not just for snarky people on the internet but for everybody. Get outside and prioritize time spent outside.

One of the things that I think it does is it helps you understand that you are just a teeny tiny little speck. When you’re outside and you look up, you know, look at the woods or you look up at the sky and and see the stars or the beautiful blue clouds and you realize that that goes into infinity. You realize that you are a teeny tiny speck on a random planet and it helps things that might seem really really important feel a whole lot less important. It helps you keep your priority on being happy with your little tiny, one life that you’re ever going to get.

13:00.22
You’re only going to get one life and if you don’t take care of yourself and get outside and enjoy it, you’re not going to be a happy, joyful person. That’s the whole reason I do this podcast is to help you play the emotional context sport but also part of that success is joy and being outside getting outside taking walks skiing in the winter. Taking walks in the winter you get those snow track things that go on the bottom of your feet and you get some poles and you can head out into the the woods or maybe snowshoe. Um, there’s all kinds of different things you can do outside year-round wherever you are. It’s worth it if you go outside for 10 minutes a day it will change your life in a lot of different ways physically and mentally.

It’s a personal theory but we’re starting to see a lot more about that out in the world that getting outside frequently makes a big difference in your happiness and to me that’s part of that work life balance.

The next tip, second from the last there’s only 2 more here, is to be persistent about your boundaries. We talked earlier about um, not working in environments where you’ve got sixty to eighty hours a week going consistently and constantly and no time for yourself. Don’t do that, and matter of fact, don’t do that from the beginning of your new job.

I have worked with a woman I just absolutely adore and her name is Lisa and Lisa is very clear. She’s got 2 small children. She’s um, happily married and part of her priority as a parent is that she’s there for her kids. She can get them off to the bus and take them to school, and she’s there on the weekends. She’s spending time with her kids.

14:34.76
She’s there after work. She’s out at the games and the soccer games and the brownies and cub scouts and taking the kids on field trips. All the things that you would like to do if you’re a parent are really wonderful things that feed your personal life and your family life. And so if you are starting a new position or even in a position you’re currently in and say you have a child or you make a new commitment to taking a class or you know something that’s going to require you to leave at a certain time every day or not work weekends, hold firm to those boundaries.

Let your employer figure it out. You are allowed to have boundaries and in a you know to create your own unique work life blend, boundaries are required. You have to hold onto them and I’m not going to say it’s easy because it’s not when you are faced with somebody saying I need you to stay late. You’ve got to stay late. We’ve got to get this done. There are times when you’re going to say but I’ve got this commitment. When you have to do that, suggest alternatives. You know if you need to get to your kid’s soccer game and you can’t stay late, can you come in an hour early the next morning so that you can deal with that issue that was needing attention.

There are ways to be persistent about your boundaries and also negotiate what your employer needs. So Keep that in mind but also know that anybody that asks you to break those boundaries consistently and constantly is not looking out for you and that’s important. You are important and a lot of times in a work environment if the leaders aren’t caring people, you feel like they don’t care and you do feel like you’re not important.

16:09.00
The reality is you are, but in some situations you’re the only one that’s going to take care of you so be persistent about those boundaries. Um.

And last but not least, we already touched on this earlier, if you need to, find a new job because your current employer is just forcing you into this ridiculous situation where you’re working sixty eighty hours a week there’s no possible way you can get enough personal time in to replenish you which is what that personal time does or even to rest from work that is time to it’s time to go. It’s time to find a new gig. Um, you don’t have to let them know that you’re looking, you just kind of slowly quietly do it in the background.

Set yourself up for happiness because you can’t let an employer dominate your life to the point where you have no personal time or you know, no sensible balance in your life, so you just can’t let it happen. It can be tempting because they will put a lot of pressure on you sometimes. When you need to find a new opportunity, that’s going to bring you more happiness and more success.

So I hope this was helpful. Work life balance and the blend of professional and personal is never an easy conversation, especially if you’re a career oriented individual and you always want to serve your boss and serve your company so you get that next promotion any of these things that we’re talking about in this podcast.

17:36.74

None of those should get in the way of your success or being promoted or growing. In fact, they’ll enhance that and that’s what I’m here for is to help you enhance your career and achieve more success.

So um, signing off for now. Um I’m Lori Jo Vest. If you have any questions or guests you’d like me to have on the show, please visit workmomsays.com. I have a contact form there that you can put your name and contact information in to ask me any questions you have. I’m also an open networker on Linkedin and it’s Lori Jo Vest and you can connect with me there to ask me any questions. Um. Tell me what subjects you’d like me to cover. I’m happy to do that or if you’d like to be a guest and you have something you think is important to talk about I’m here I’m here for all of that.

The last thing I’ll do before I sign off is that my book came out in the middle of April. It’s called Work Mom Says: Don’t Be An Idiot Thirty Eight Lessons You Don’t Want To Learn The Hard Way. I took all of my crazy stories from my twenties and thirties when I really didn’t know what I was doing. I call them my train wreck 20s and my thirty s I don’t have a real great name for those. I’ve heard people say dirty 30 s but I wasn’t dirty I took showers and I was clean.

19:34.53
My thirties were tough too because I was still growing up and learning and trying to hit that next level of management and not having anybody that you know in my family that had had management experience or knew how to advise me. I was on my own, and I learned so much and I shared all those lessons or 38 of them anyway in this Book. It’s available on amazon.com and at Barnes and Noble. It will soon be available in independent bookstores. But again you can see the link to the book on workmomsays.com and read more about it there. So that’s it for this episode. Thank you so much for being here and stay well.

Who is our ideal listener?

This podcast is for young professionals, so they can learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience less drama and more success.

The ideal listener is anyone struggling on an emotional level in the workplace. Work Mom Says it helps you learn to be strategic at work. This means you can look at the big picture without getting lost in the weeds. 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.

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

The post Episode 28 – Mastering the Work-Life Blend appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• Consistency is key
• Dress for success
• Be ready for the next opportunity with an updated resume and LinkedIn bio
• Increase your LinkedIn presence
• Stay up to date with industry news and trends
• Personal websites are SEO gold

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

1:40 – Consistency is key: Consistently working hard and doing your job to the best of your ability will help you outperform most people.
4:55 – Dress for success: While how you look isn’t the ONLY important part of your reputation, it’s still an essential aspect of your personal brand. Why? Because your personal presentation affects how others perceive you.
7:40 – Update your resume and LinkedIn bio: Always keep your resume and LinkedIn bio updated because you never know when that next opportunity could present itself.
10:20 – Active social media presence: You don’t have to be a social media expert to effectively use LinkedIn to grow your network and find new opportunities.
11:30 – Referrals are your best friend: If your friends and connections know what you do, they can refer you to your next great position, and those referrals are infinitely stronger than applications to help wanted listings.
15:00 – Pay attention to industry happenings: Staying on top of industry trends and news helps you be a better networker because you can contribute to the conversation and leave a better impression.
16:00 – Create a personal website: A personal website not only gives you space to show your work but it also gives Google more to show in search results other than your social profiles and old information.

.

Top Quotes

4:25 – “You will rise through the ranks if you are consistent in your behavior and develop a strong reputation for working hard, being kind, and being gracious.”
5:15 – “Do you present yourself in a way that amplifies the impression you’re trying to make or one that detracts from the impression you’re trying to make? You know which side I’m on. Always try to be on the side that is going to enhance the person’s perception of you.”
6:30 – “Personal presentation is part of what they call your personal brand, and your personal brand is your reputation, how you present, and how you perform all wrapped into one.”
8:50 – “You are more likely to advance through the ranks with a new job than at your current job. Your current employer knows your strengths, and they know your weaknesses. They may not choose to promote you to the next position you want until you’ve addressed those weaknesses. A new employer or recruiter looking for somebody may give you the promotion to get you to join their team, and all they see are your strengths.”
13:40 – “Those kinds of referrals are always meaningful when you come to a new or an open position through a referral and someone who knows the person hiring. It’s a lot stronger than trying to answer an ad on Indeed or Linkedin or a help wanted ad.”
15:10 – “Make sure that you know what’s happening in your field, so that when you go out there and network, you have something interesting to say. You’re aware of what’s happening in your industry.”
17:40 – “Is there anything out there on the internet that Google can find that paints a not so good picture of you? If that’s the case, you want to do blog articles and have a website so that that kind of information is pushed down to the second or third page of the Google search results, where all those kinds of things go to die.”
19:20 – “Yes, you want to look good. Yes, you want the things you put out in the world to look good. But you want some depth to your reputation, to the content that’s out there about you on social media. You want some depth, and you want to make sure that you are presenting yourself as a person with integrity, with moral character. “

Links

Check out our LinkedIn episode for more ways to effectively grow your network and get that next opportunity.

Connect with me on LinkedIn. Order my book!

Transcript

00:00.31 – Lori Jo Vest

Hello and thank you for joining me for Work Mom Says Don’t be An Idiot. I’m your host for this podcast, Lori Jo Vest, and I am here to help you learn to play the emotional contact sport of business. You’ll hear me say that often. It’s something that needs reinforcing. Business is an emotional place to go. It might not feel like it all the time, but there will be those times when someone says to you ‘I’m disappointed in what you just did’ or maybe they’ll just snark at you, make fun of you, or send you a nasty email and CC your boss. It happens. I see you, and I’m here to help. 

So today we’re going to talk about marketing yourself, and marketing yourself means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. So I’m going to of course convey what I believe about marketing yourself and a big part of it in my opinion is your reputation matters more than you know. 

01:25 – So one of the things that I will tell you to focus on, and it might take a while for you to get there, but focus on being consistent in your behavior. One of the ways that you create a reputation is with consistency. Work hard. Be kind to other people that’s pretty much all there is.

If you work hard and you do your job to the best of your ability at the moment you will be outperforming most people. It’s surprising, I know. 

My son Kyle is 24, and he went to a lot of high performing schools, where you know there are a lot of people competing. They all want to get A’s, and they’re the kind of schools you had to test to get into, always very college-oriented, science-oriented, and technology-oriented. And he always felt like he was a little behind like you know, “Mom I go to school with these people that are so much smarter than me. What’s it going to be like out in the world?”

I told him, “No, everybody’s not smarter than you. They may have better work habits than you. They may be better able to retain technical information or have other talents that you don’t have, but odds are most of the people you meet are pretty much in a similar education level.”  

So when he went out into the work world after graduating from University of Michigan, what he discovered is yeah all you have to do is work hard and be kind to other people, your coworkers and your customers, and you will be more successful than the people around you because so many people aren’t doing their best. They fall into a routine or it’s comfortable to do the same thing. So maybe they’re not in a continuous improvement mindset or they’re not in learner mode or they’re just not consistent. They let their emotions run away with them. 

Consistency in your behavior will serve you incredibly well. As you build your reputation and market yourself. It’s a huge part of um, making sure that you are employable and that you’re able to climb the career ladder.

03:30 – Kyle is now in the service department at a dealership, doing really well and kind of at the top of the food chain there. He’s the service advisor that serves the people that drive the wagoners, you know the $100000 vehicles. He’s 100% commission-based and doing really well financially, which I didn’t even know was possible in a service department at a dealer. 

But what’s important in all business relationships, including a service department at a dealer, is professionalism, strong positive connected relationships, kindness, and hard work. He’s doing that, so it’s paying off for him just a few years in. Those are the kind of things to remember: you will rise through the ranks if you are consistent in your behavior and develop a strong reputation for working hard, being kind, and being gracious. So my number one point is work on your reputation. It does precede you um people will um, talk about you out there in the world if you’re exceptional in the workplace and that will help you get that next job.

04:50.51 – Number 2 on the list of ways to market yourself is your personal presentation. What do you look like when you get onto that Zoom call if you’re working remotely? Is your hair done? You know, do you dress nicely? Do you have the camera on? Do you smile? Do you participate actively when the opportunity arises? When you’re in person, you are dressed nicely with your shoes not worn out and dull. Do you take care of your hair? Cosmetics aren’t mandatory, but if you do wear them, are you wearing them in a tasteful fashion? Do you present yourself in a way that amplifies the impression you’re trying to make or one that detracts from the impression you’re trying to make? You know which side I’m on. Always try to be on the side that is going to enhance the person’s perception of you.

One of the things that I got out of one of the old style for business books, and this was back in the 80’s, and there was a gentleman, John T Malloy, who wrote a book called “Dressed for Success.” And the only thing I took out of that was to really look at how you’re being perceived. How you dress determines how you’re going to be perceived and that you might want to consider dressing just a notch above someone else in the same situation. 

So if you’re meeting a client for lunch, don’t wear jeans that day or put a jacket over your t-shirt. Do something that elevates your look just a little more than expected. I mean you’re not going to wear a formal gown to a lunch meeting, but you may throw a jacket over your really cool funky t-shirt and your jeans and wear some nice black boots or some heeled sandals if you’re a woman, something that will make the impression that you thought about how you presented yourself, how you put yourself together that morning because personal presentation is part of what they call your personal brand and your personal brand is your reputation, how you present, and how you perform all wrapped into one. 

Some people will say personal brand is you know what colors you wear, what you look like on Linkedin, but there’s so much more to it. If you just focus on what it looks like, you won’t be successful. You’ve got to have some meat and that’s where your reputation comes in.

07:30.75 – Lori Jo Vest

The third most important part of marketing yourself for career success is to make sure that you have an up to date resume and an up to date Linkedin bio. You want to make sure that you are always ready for that next opportunity. Or the next time you get fired and trust me, you will get fired. People get fired, and it’s not necessarily for performance. People get let go because you know the economy and that industry you know took a dip, and the boss got a little freaked out and let a bunch of people go. 

You may work for a large company, and they may lose a client. They lose the client on Friday; you don’t know anything about it until Monday morning. You get an email to go into an eight o’clock meeting with 10 other people and you’re all let go that day. It happens and the reality is  if you don’t know when it’s going to happen. You can’t predict when it’s going to happen. 

The other thing is if you’re on Linkedin, and you have an up-to-date resume that looks good, you may get a call from a recruiter. I’ll tell people this frequently as you’re growing your career: you are more likely to advance through the ranks with a new job than you are at your current job.I’ll tell you what I mean by that. Your current employer knows your strengths and they know your weaknesses.

08:58.80 – They may not choose to promote you to that next position you want until you’ve addressed those weaknesses, and a new employer or a recruiter that’s looking for somebody may give you the promotion to get you to join their team, and all they see are your strengths. So don’t be distressed if you don’t get promoted where you currently are because it may be because you have some weaknesses to work on. It’s going to take you a little bit longer. 

But if you want to move through the ranks quicker, make sure your resume is ready to go. Make sure your Linkedin profile is up to date. So if a recruiter does a search and kind of stops by and looks at what you’re up to, they’re seeing really current information. I don’t care how long you’ve been at your job. If you’ve been at your job for 5 years and you think you’re going to be there for another 10, still make sure that your Linkedin and your resume are up to date. It’s just good form. 

10:00 – Let’s see number 4 on our list is to make sure that you are out there on social media regularly talking about what you do. So if you are not yet on Linkedin, get over there, build a profile, and go at least 3 times a week. 

You can take 10 minutes with your morning coffee or after work when you’re kind of sitting around, you got Tv going in the background, take 10 minutes to go over to Linkedin and engage with your people. If you don’t have a lot of people there, start looking people up past coworkers, business friends, past clients, past bosses, people you went to college with, people you went to high school with, people that you met at a networking event., etc.

When you go to networking events, take your phone. When you meet someone new say hey, let’s connect on Linkedin and connect with them right then. And that will help you grow that following that’s going to be really important to your future success.

The other thing I would tell you to do, and this can be a little intimidating, is to create original posts of your own. You don’t have to be a social media guru. You can be someone who you know looks through entrepreneur magazines or Forbes or the New York Times or The Atlantic and you see a really interesting article that applies to what you do, what your industry is, or you know things that people in your industry would be into. Share the article and share your point of view on it. 

I do social media for a living. I have a small agency that does social media as our primary focus and I will often share things that I see on you know, social media today. There’ll be some really interesting articles about new ways of using Linkedin and how the algorithm has changed, and I’ll share just a quick sentence or 2, a couple of hashtags and the link and then people know what you’re into and what industry you’re in. They also know that you are paying attention to the media. You’re keeping up to date in your field. Share an interesting inspirational quote that expresses who you are. There’s a lot of different types of content. 

We have a Linkedin episode that we recorded last summer of 2022 that you can look up and it gets into a little bit more detail. Make sure you are on Linkedin at least 2 to 3 times a week, comment on other people’s posts, go in and create your own posts. When someone comments on your content, answer their comments. Say “hey thanks for sharing that. That’s really interesting” or you know further the conversation in some way. And that will keep that post appearing in the Linkedin algorithm so that you’ll be getting more attention and more people will see it so make sure you’re on Linkedin. 

The other thing I would say is to make sure that once in a while on your other social channels mention what you do. Some of your friends may be a source of referral or the source of your next great job, and if they know what you do, they’re a lot more likely to mention to you “hey you know I know somebody who’s hiring for someone to do exactly what you do.” Those kinds of referrals are always meaningful when you come to a new or an open position through a referral and someone who knows the person hiring. It’s a lot stronger than trying to answer an ad on Indeed or on Linkedin or a help wanted ad. 

So you always want to be thinking ahead in terms of referrals and potential future employment opportunities when you’re on Linkedin. You don’t have to say “hey I’m looking for a job” because sometimes that can be hard to do when you have a current employer. You don’t really want them to know that you are just making sure you’re ready in case you decide you want to go. But they should understand that as a business professional or a career professional, you are interested in what’s happening on the social platforms in your field. So you want to follow other companies that are doing what you do you might follow your competitors so you can see what they’re up to. 

14:58.12 – That goes into number 5: part of your reputation, your brand, your marketing of yourself is to make sure that you know what’s happening in your field, so that when you go out there and network, you have something interesting to say. You’re aware of what’s happening in your industry. You may have just seen an article about one of the big companies and how they had some trauma drama and you want to be able to talk about it. You want to be able to say to someone that you met at a networking event, “Hey, did you hear what happened at Volkswagen? Did you hear what happened at this big HR firm? They had a big problem with a new accountant and wow that’s crazy” It just shows people that you, as an industry professional, are paying attention to what’s happening out there and again it elevates your personal reputation, your personal brand.

15:58.15 – Lori Jo Vest

My next tip and this one isn’t as hard as it sounds: make yourself a website if you do anything in the creative fields, if you are an editor or a writer or an artist designer or customer service professional. It depends on your field, but I would advise just about everybody to buy the url that is your name and put a one pager up that introduces you. I had one up for a long time and it was just a one pager that talked about who I was, what I was up to, the different projects I was involved in, and my resume. That gives Google something to search for besides your Linkedin profile.

If you’re not about having your own website because that seems like a huge lift, then I would suggest you find someone to help you buy the url of your name and let that be something that forwards directly to your Linkedin profile. That’s what mine does right now. If you put in lorijovest.com, it takes you right to my Linkedin profile where you’re going to find all the things that I do and all the different projects I’m involved in. That’s another way to give Google some juice to want to show more in a search for your name than just your social profiles.

Google yourself. It’s important that you know what’s out there because your employers will be doing that. I can tell you most of us do go in and take a peek at what’s out there because some people have really strange hobbies. I’m not saying strange hobbies are bad but you know there are some people that might have some things on the internet that would indicate that they might not be a good fit for your company. That’s something to think about. Is there anything out there on the internet that Google can find that paints a not so good picture of you, and if that’s the case, you may either try to get it removed or you want to do blog articles and have a website that kind of thing so that that kind of information is pushed down to the second or third page of the Google search results which is where all those kinds of things go to die. People don’t usually go past the first search window on Google, so if you do have something you want to kind of you did something you did in high school or something that’s out there that you don’t want to have seen, fill up the Google search with relevant current things through a website and a blog.

18:40 – I think that is basically it for marketing yourself. There are a lot of things you can do. We’ve talked about networking. There’s a lot of little you know little tips I could give you but I think the things we’ve talked about in this episode are the big things that are going to help you market yourself up the career ladder.

If you want a personal brand, I would say hire a personal branding expert but don’t let them tell you that it’s all about how it looks. It really isn’t. It’s more about who you are and how you show up. Yes, you want to look good. Yes, you want the things you put out in the world to look good. But you want some depth to your reputation, to the content that’s out there about you on social media. You want some depth and you want to make sure that you are presenting yourself as a person with integrity, with moral character. You can do that with your social content, believe it or not, depending on what you share with a strong work ethic. 

That will help you with referrals and people who know you are more likely to recommend you for a position if they move on to a new job. They might say hey, “My new employer wants somebody just like you, are you ready? and help you jump.

What I’ve said in this episode really will help you maybe over the long term and help you get a reputation that precedes you. Five or six years in an industry, if you’re out there networking and meeting people, you will create a name for yourself. It’s really not that hard to do. It’s just a matter of putting the effort in, so put the effort in to do what needs to be done. Get out there on social media, attend remote events, attend live events, in person events, and just be there. Be where the people in your industry are and then present yourself with the tips that I’ve shared in this episode. 

So that’s all I’ve got for you today. I would like to know what you would like me to talk about. I am an open networker on Linkedin, and you can find me there under Lori Jo Vest. The company I own is called PopSpeed Digital Marketing, so you’ll know it’s me.Connect with me there and send me a message that you were listening to the podcast and you have a suggestion for a guest.

21:02.54 – Lori Jo Vest

 We also have on our web site at workmomsays.com a contact form so you can go in there and suggest guests you’d like us to have on. We also have our book Work Mom Says: Don’t Be an idiot! Thirty-Eight Lessons You Don’t Want To Learn The Hard Way. It was just released on Amazon a few weeks ago. So I really do hope you’ll go there and pick up a copy. I’m getting really great feedback about it. 

Think about it, this time of year is great for graduation gifts for recent high school and college graduates. If you know someone who is struggling in the workplace and having difficulty at their job, there’s some really great advice in this book. It’s called  Work Mom Says: Don’t Be an idiot! Thirty-Eight Lessons You Don’t Want To Learn The Hard Way. I would love to have you pick it up. Give me a review. Um I need book reviews. 

If you love this podcast, please throw me some stars on some of these podcast platforms: Spotify and Apple Podcasts. It’s out there on all the different platforms, so whichever one is yours, do me a favor and throw me some stars. It makes a difference in the people that will see  podcast and have the opportunity to listen. So again thank you so much. My name is Lori Jo Vest. I am here to help you play the emotional contact sport of business and I wish you the very best and I’m here for you. I see you. I’ll talk to you again soon.

Who is our ideal listener?

This podcast is for young professionals, so they can learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience less drama and more success.

The ideal listener is anyone struggling on an emotional level in the workplace. Work Mom Says it helps you learn to be strategic at work. This means you can look at the big picture without getting lost in the weeds. 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.

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

The post Episode 27 –Marketing Yourself appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• The origin story behind the podcast
• Do as I say not as I do
• How you show up counts
• Nobody cares how you feel
• Avoid office romance at all costs

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

1:30 – The origin story: I wanted to help young professionals build successful careers by sharing lessons and advice that I learned the hard way.
8:00 – Do as I say, not as I do: I’ve made just about every mistake there is to make in my own career, so I’m sharing all of them here to help you be strategic and successful in every aspect of your career.
9:30 – How you show up counts: Always dress the part of a successful employee because others will form their opinions of you on how you present yourself.
11:30 – Nobody cares how you feel: Don’t let your emotions get the better of you in the workplace. It’s essential to take care of your mental health, so it isn’t negatively affecting your performance.
14:00 – Don’t date your coworkers. EVER: Office relationships can get messy and are awkward for everyone, so just avoid them at all costs.

Top Quotes

3:00 – “What you want to do is create as many of those authentic connected relationships as you can because that will help you not only just rise through the ranks but learn and grow and get that next opportunity and succeed.”
4:15 – “Experience is the best teacher. It is also the most expensive when you make those big mistakes. There are usually consequences and it usually takes a little bit to get back on your feet and learn from them and do it better next time.”
8:20 – “As I was writing this book, I kept thinking ,’What makes you think you’re the person to tell people how to act at work?’ What bubbled up is that I’ve done all the crazy stupid things I talk about here I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve made just about every mistake there is to make in my own career”
9:50 – “If you find that you’re in the workplace and you really have a problem managing your emotions, maybe you cry easily, you get angry easily, or you snap at people, get yourself to a counselor because that points to a deeper problem.”
10:30 – Whether you like it or not people will form their opinions of you and your competence in your work by how you present yourself.

Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

00:00:00:21 – 00:00:03:06
VO
Welcome to work, Mom says.

00:00:03:10 – 00:00:05:02
Lori Jo Vest
Don’t be an idiot.

00:00:05:13 – 00:00:12:18
VO
And now here’s your host Work Mom

00:00:12:29 – 00:00:41:07
Lori Jo Vest
I’m Lori Jo Vest Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Work. Mom says today we’re going to talk a little bit about my own origin story. I made every mistake there is to make. I’m just going to be honest with you. I started my career in the eighties, late eighties, early nineties, and I came out of college with a chip on my shoulder, a big attitude.

00:00:41:19 – 00:01:05:06
Lori Jo Vest
I was angry at the world. A little bit of a party girl, but I wanted to be successful. I knew I wanted to be successful. I didn’t have a lot of family support and certainly not any family financial support. So I knew right away I needed to make enough money to take care of myself. And I had sent out, you know, a couple hundred resumes.

00:01:05:19 – 00:01:29:20
Lori Jo Vest
And that was the only job that came back and said, okay, let’s interview, let’s hire you. And I didn’t even really want the job because it was in sales and it was selling ad space on billboards. But I didn’t didn’t want to live with relatives, you know, I wanted to be on my own. And I decided that, you know, I would take the job and see what happened and maybe I’d end up leaving the job after a little bit.

00:01:29:20 – 00:01:51:13
Lori Jo Vest
But I at least had some money coming in and, you know, we’d see what would come of it. So I was really fortunate that Mr. Laster was so generous and he would spend half an hour every day. He told me if I came in early, he would spend a half an hour every day teaching me what he knew.

00:01:52:06 – 00:02:43:15
Lori Jo Vest
And let me tell you, it was like boot camp and it was amazing. He’s the one that taught me the value of connected positive relationships in business. You’ll hear people say it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. And I would add to that, it’s not what you know, it’s who you are in relationship with. And as a new person, you know, a new person that’s new to the career world, what you want to do is create as many of those, you know, authentic, connected relationships as you can, because that will help you not only just rise through the ranks, but learn and grow and get that next opportunity and succeed.

00:02:44:02 – 00:03:07:05
Lori Jo Vest
And David had a lot a lot, lot, lot, lot of patience with me. And there were a lot of times when, you know, I’d bring him a problem, but I wouldn’t just come and dump a problem in his lap instead of trying to figure out what the solution would be on my own. One of the first lessons you learn Don’t go to your boss with every problem.

00:03:07:05 – 00:03:28:09
Lori Jo Vest
Come up with a solution. Then go to your boss and say, Is this the right solution? But he taught me all those different lessons and I was extremely fortunate. One of the things he used to do, which I recommend any boss do to their younger staff, because it’s kind of a challenge that they can take on that will teach them how to be comfortable being uncomfortable.

00:03:29:06 – 00:03:54:15
Lori Jo Vest
He used to say to me, David would catch me, you know, on a Tuesday afternoon and say, Hey, there’s a meeting of this ad club on Friday. And I know that this bigwig from this big ad agency is going to be there. And if you come back and tell me that you didn’t sit next to her at that event, I’m going to be so disappointed and I would be like a deer in the headlights.

00:03:54:15 – 00:04:22:00
Lori Jo Vest
Oh, my God, don’t make me do that. But because he knew I could and he knew I could, you know, connect and meet people and make an impression, he challenged me and I would I would go to the meeting and I’d sit next to that person. And before you know, it, I had a relationship, a connection with that person and those kinds of things from a really good boss or mentor will help you grow your career.

00:04:22:14 – 00:04:43:15
Lori Jo Vest
So part of what I like to do with this podcast and with my book that’s coming out in middle of April is be that person for the young professionals. I want to be that person that gives you that advice, that helps you succeed and helps you avoid some of the mistakes that I made and some of the mistakes that a lot of people make.

00:04:43:15 – 00:05:14:27
Lori Jo Vest
We’re human as we learn, we make mistakes. Experience is the best teacher. It is also the most expensive. When you make those big mistakes, there are usually consequences and it usually takes a little bit to get back on your feet and learn from them and do it better next time. So I guess you could say after working with young people, as I’ve gotten older, I thought, wouldn’t it be kind of cool to help young people not make those dumb mistakes that I did?

00:05:14:27 – 00:05:42:00
Lori Jo Vest
Because I’m hoping that you’ll get into a situation and you’ll hear my voice in your head saying, No, no, no, no, no. Be strategic, because that’s the primary bit of information I’m always conveying is be strategic when you are trying to jump start your career. Being strategic and thoughtful about your actions and your words is what will help you be successful.

00:05:42:00 – 00:06:24:18
Lori Jo Vest
And one of the secrets that David Laster taught me that I have to mention constantly, because I think it really is one of those top tier aspects of business is connected. Positive relationships are the backbone of a solid career. How many people you know, it’s not who you know, it’s who you have good relationships with. And so everywhere you go in business, make friends, make connections, stay in touch with people on LinkedIn, ask people to go to lunch, call people just to see how they’re doing, stay connected, send little notes.

00:06:25:02 – 00:06:44:04
Lori Jo Vest
And those those kinds of things are what will help you be a successful professional. But there’s a ton of other lessons too. And I put this book together basically. It’s called Work. Mom says Don’t be an idiot. 38 Lessons You Don’t Want to Learn the hard way. I learned the hard way. I’d like to help you avoid that.

00:06:44:16 – 00:07:11:21
Lori Jo Vest
So I’m going to spend a little bit of time today just reading a couple of chapters from the book. It’s very short. Each lesson is one page and you can open it up and start reading from any section and you’ll get something out of it. Very self-serving here, but it will make an exceptional gift for new graduates, for birthdays, for people who have just two or three years in their career, people who are hoping to grow and succeed.

00:07:11:21 – 00:07:34:01
Lori Jo Vest
So it’ll be on Amazon and probably Barnes and Noble and some of the other booksellers online by the end of April, hoping for mid-April. But I want to read a few things. I’m first, I’m going to read the chapter that tells you why I wrote it, and it’s called Do As I Say, Not As I Do, because again, I made the mistakes.

00:07:34:09 – 00:07:53:17
Lori Jo Vest
I don’t want you to make the same ones. So here’s here’s from page 17. Do as I say, not as I do. As I was writing this book, I kept thinking, What makes you think you’re the person to tell people how to act at work? What bubbled up is that I’ve done all the crazy, stupid things I talk about here.

00:07:53:29 – 00:08:19:24
Lori Jo Vest
I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve made just about every mistake there is to make in my own career. I’ve been the youngster at the office who thinks she knows everything and quickly learned that she doesn’t and said dumb things in meetings and been entirely embarrassed. When I got shut down by my boss. I’ve said something less than complimentary about a coworker and seen that comment fly through the staff ranks and back to the coworker about whom I said it.

00:08:20:09 – 00:08:46:25
Lori Jo Vest
Uncomfortable and an ignorant choice on my part. I’ve had an office romance and regretted it. Too many cocktails at the company Christmas party and been fired for talking politics. I’ve also managed teams of young creative professionals that set an example of how to enter the workforce and build a solid reputation and career over 30 years in business, making idiot mistakes and working with young people to help them grow their careers.

00:08:46:25 – 00:09:06:26
Lori Jo Vest
I’ve learned the lessons I’m sharing here. I hope they can benefit you. That’s a little bit about why I wrote this book, but let’s talk about let me read through a couple more, a couple more chapters for you. They have really fun little lessons, and it may inspire you to pick up a copy for yourself or your friends or your family members.

00:09:06:26 – 00:09:37:15
Lori Jo Vest
So chapter five is how you show up counts. When you go to work. You’re being paid to be a representative for a company they think enough of you to add you to their team in return. Think enough of them to dress the part of a solid, responsible employee. Follow the adage and dress for the job you want. If top leadership dresses business casual while others dress like they’re hanging out in the couch on the couch at home, which one do you think you should mimic?

00:09:37:15 – 00:09:58:02
Lori Jo Vest
If you want to rise through the ranks and to have a successful career with the company, watch the personal presentation culture of the company and follow the unwritten dress code of the most successful people there. Whether you like it or not, people will form their opinions of you and your confidence in your work by how you present yourself.

00:09:58:02 – 00:10:26:06
Lori Jo Vest
Are you dressed appropriately? Are you well-groomed? Do you have clothing or an accessory like a watch or statement jewelry that makes you feel more powerful and helps you make the powerful impression you want to make? Wear more of that. A good test of how put together you should be when you head to the office is this If your boss asks you to meet with your biggest client that day, would you be prepared in both your mindset and your attire, your answer should always be yes.

00:10:26:16 – 00:11:00:06
Lori Jo Vest
Presentation really matters. It does. It does matter. Even in these days of very casual work attire. Think about the people that you would like their jobs and watch them, how they present themselves, what they wear, how they act and bounce off of what they do. Maybe in your own way. But think about the impression you get when you meet someone who’s dressed well and sharp and has a fresh haircut versus somebody who looks like they just rolled off the couch and came to work.

00:11:00:27 – 00:11:27:21
Lori Jo Vest
Big difference. Big difference. So, okay, let’s move on to chapter ten. Now, this one sounds pretty harsh, but and it is a little harsh, but the workplace can be really harsh. So chapter ten Nobody cares how you feel when you see a theatrical production. You expect the lead actors to perform and give you their very best. You may have spent $150 a ticket to sit in those seats and watch that show.

00:11:28:01 – 00:11:48:17
Lori Jo Vest
You don’t care if you just got a divorce and he’s playing a romantic lead. You don’t care. That’s pretty much how people you work with feel. They don’t care if you’ve had a lousy morning, spilled your coffee, got stuck in traffic just got a call that you’re behind on your student loans. Well, they might care a little, but they’re more concerned about getting their jobs done.

00:11:49:11 – 00:12:12:29
Lori Jo Vest
Your being paid to be there, put on your best face and do your best work every day no matter how you feel. That is what it means to be a professional. If you have a problem with your negative behavior to the point that you can’t perform at the office, consider taking a day off, seeing your doctor or engaging a therapist to help you become that person who can better manage your emotions and most circumstances.

00:12:13:29 – 00:12:43:22
Lori Jo Vest
You will never hear me say that I’m a therapist. I am not a therapist. I have some coaching ability. I am not a therapist. If you find that you’re in the workplace and you really have a problem managing your emotions, maybe you cry easily or you get angry easily. You snap at people, get yourself to a counselor, because that points to maybe a deeper problem that could benefit from some verbal ventilation and guidance that a counselor, psychotherapist can help you with.

00:12:44:04 – 00:13:05:27
Lori Jo Vest
So you’ll hear me talk a lot about how taking care of your own mental health is going to make a huge difference for how you perform at work. So, you know, don’t ignore your mental health ever do it. And if you do, you’ll do so at your own peril. So let’s move on to another chapter here. Let’s see.

00:13:05:27 – 00:13:30:27
Lori Jo Vest
How about let’s talk about this one, because this is this is kind of funny. Chapter 22. Get your bread, not your meat at the office. I’ve done it and I’ve seen other people do it. You meet someone at work and you like each other. Before you know it, you’re dating, living together, working together. And it’s awkward for everybody.

00:13:30:27 – 00:13:49:19
Lori Jo Vest
Oh, and then you break up, and then things really go to hell. And you can’t stand seeing them at work. And everybody wonders why you’re acting funny. You, of course, don’t think you’re acting funny at all, but you are. People at work know about it, and it’s a sign of inappropriate boundaries to start a romantic relationship with someone from the office.

00:13:49:19 – 00:14:12:09
Lori Jo Vest
Work is work. Play is play. And when you mix the two too much, you get chaos. Just don’t do it. If you find yourself wanting to date someone at work, consider finding another job before you start dating them. It’s one of those best practice kinds of things. Trust me, just don’t. And if either of you is married and you start some kind of romance nonsense, you suck.

00:14:12:19 – 00:14:36:18
Lori Jo Vest
People will judge you. And that’s entirely appropriate. You earn that kind of judgment when you don’t adhere to critical agreements like marriage that you’ve made with someone. That’s a tough one. I get a lot of flack about my advice to not have romantic relationships at work, but I’ve seen so many of them fail, and when they fail, it’s ugly for everybody.

00:14:36:18 – 00:15:02:29
Lori Jo Vest
So, you know, it’s best to just consider people you work with as not good dating material. It makes sense and it avoids a lot of awkwardness. If you do start a relationship, one of you should start looking for another job pretty quick so that you can get out of that uncomfortable relationship slash coworker situation. And because it’s uncomfortable, maybe not for you, but it’s uncomfortable for other people.

00:15:03:18 – 00:15:22:15
Lori Jo Vest
I remember when I worked in the agency world, there was a there were a couple of people in the creative department that we all kind of started to notice that whenever you saw one, you saw the other and he was married and she wasn’t. And but she kind of followed him around and he followed her around. And before you know it, he was getting a divorce.

00:15:22:20 – 00:15:44:12
Lori Jo Vest
They were having an affair. Everybody in the office knew it. And it caused us all to kind of feel differently about both of them because, you know, he’s married and he’s cheating on his wife and she knows he’s married and she’s having a sexual relationship with him. Not a good look. It’s just not a good look. No matter what your beliefs are outside of the office, I’m not discounting those beliefs.

00:15:44:12 – 00:16:19:07
Lori Jo Vest
But people at work will judge you for the behavior that you exhibit at the office. And marriage is a contract. And you know, married people, people who believe in that contract will judge you if you’re blatantly disregarding it. And I know that’s hard for some people to understand, but it’s just reality. And so it’s a really good thing to remember if you decide you want to start a relationship with someone that you know through work, take it offline or, you know, find another job and and try to keep it on the hush hush until one of you leaves.

00:16:19:20 – 00:16:41:01
Lori Jo Vest
So it just makes sense. So that’s all I’ve got for you today. This is a short episode, but I hope I’ve given you some really valuable information. Again, take a look for work. Mom says don’t be an idiot. 38 lessons you don’t want to learn the hard way. Coming out on Amazon, some time in April, mid to late April, not quite sure on the date yet.

00:16:41:16 – 00:17:04:06
Lori Jo Vest
And I would love to hear from you. If you do pick it up, please leave me a review variant. Just interested in reviews. Also looking for reviews for this podcast. So if you’re a regular listener, please drop me some stars on Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, anywhere you’re listening. And I always have to remind you that there is a website at work.

00:17:04:06 – 00:17:29:27
Lori Jo Vest
Mom says, Don’t be an idiot where you can listen to all these episodes, read the show notes, get more information and find links of things that we talked about. I’ll put the link to purchase the book in the show notes for this episode, and so you can go there and click on that link. If you want to buy the book, you can also at work mom says dot com Fill out my contact form and get in touch with me.

00:17:30:07 – 00:17:50:05
Lori Jo Vest
If you have a question. If you have a subject you’d like me to address, if you have a guest that you think would be fantastic, send them my way. Lori at work, Mom says, or through the contact form at the work mom says dot com website. So again thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate all of my listeners.

00:17:50:18 – 00:17:58:18
Lori Jo Vest
Hope I’m providing you helpful information that will help you play the emotional content sport of business. Thank you and take care.

00:17:59:13 – 00:18:01:03
VO
Thanks for listening to Work Mom says don’t be an idiot.

00:18:03:27 – 00:18:15:09
VO
For more information, you can email work mom at l0ri work mom, says dot com. That’s Lori at work. Mom says dot com. And remember.

00:18:15:09 – 00:18:18:04
Lori Jo Vest
Don’t be an idiot.

Who is our ideal listener?

This podcast is for young professionals, so they can learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience less drama and more success.

The ideal listener is anyone struggling on an emotional level in the workplace. Work Mom Says it helps you learn to be strategic at work. This means you can look at the big picture without getting lost in the weeds. 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.

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

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

She offers three important ways to do the work yourself: take the Project Implicit test and modules, examine your friend groups and the diversity of the people you surround yourself with, and immerse yourself in the Black experience and Black culture.

Themes discussed in this episode

• Allyship and antiracist work is personal
• Different types of microaggressions
• White people often don’t recognize their own racism
• Overt racism vs. quiet racists
• Racism is not black people’s problem to fix – It’s white people’s responsibility
• Racism is a spectrum
• Ways to be actively anti-racist

Featured Guest

Expert Guest:  Ayana King

Title: CEO of Maximum Communications

What She Does: Founder and CEO of Maximum Communications, Ayana King has hosted hundreds of Diversity + Inclusion workshops and webinars nationwide. Her partners include small businesses, nationally-recognized nonprofits, startups, and organizations ready to better understand and accelerate DEI advocacy.
Connect: You can find her on LinkedIn and her website

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

3:00 – Anti-racist allyship is intentional, personal work: If you want to make a change in the workplace, the change has to start within yourself.
8:00 – Your feminism must be intersectional: If your feminism doesn’t address ageism, racism, ableism and homophobia, it is not feminism.
15:45 – Different types of microaggressions: There are three main types of microaggressions: micro-assaults, micro-insults, and microinvalidations.
20:00 – Overt racism vs quiet racists: Quiet racists are more dangerous to many Black people than outspoken racists.
23:00 – Ending racism is not Black people’s job: From the systemic level down to the interpersonal levels, it is white people’s job to do the heavy lifting and end racism.
31:00 – Share what you learn: Take all the anti-racist education you learn back into the white communities where you have influence.
37:30 – Ways to do the work: Take the Project Implicit test and modules, examine your friend groups and the diversity of the people you surround yourself with, and immerse yourself in the Black experience and Black culture

Top Quotes

8:00 – I always say specifically to white women who openly say they are feminist: Listen if your feminism does not address racism and ableism and ageism in all of that stuff, you are not a feminist.
12:00 – If you believe yourself to be a good and fair and just person you will always be looking for those parts of yourself that are sometimes unjust and unfair and trying to fix that. If you are not doing that intentionally, you are not doing the work period. You can try to make all the excuses that you like, but this is very intentional work.
16:30 – “I don’t see color” is a microinvalidation. Because you invalidate me when you choose not to see my color and if you are a person in a position of advantage and power and you’re talking about equity and you’re talking about how to get to a place of equality. There’s no way you can get there when you don’t see my skin color.
20:15 – Passive racism is worse to me because I’d like to know who I’m dealing with, and at least with an overt racist, I know who you are. I don’t like people who sneak around and like to dip around the community because it feels good for them.They love the music but hate the culture and don’t like the people. Those people are dangerous to me.
27:30 – I don’t think that there are any white people in this country who do not grapple with racism because it’s ingrained in everything you learn.

Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Work, Ally, Anti-Racist

Intro
Welcome to work, Mom says.

00;00;03;10 – 00;00;05;01
Lori Jo Vest
Don’t be an idiot.

00;00;05;13 – 00;00;08;15
Intro
And now here’s your host work, Mom and.

00;00;12;09 – 00;00;46;03
Lori Jo Vest
Thank you for joining me for work. Mom says don’t be an idiot. The podcast that aims to help young professionals play the emotional contact sport of business. And today I have a guest that has been with us before, Ayana King with Maximum Communications. And Ayana is is just a rock star in the area of D-I. She says what needs to be said, she tells you what you need to hear and she does it in a way that’s just really straightforward and and honest.

00;00;46;04 – 00;00;57;16
Lori Jo Vest
And a lot of us we were just talking before we started the recording this session. A lot of us don’t want to be that honest. And so I honest here today. Ayana, tell us a little bit about yourself.

00;00;58;16 – 00;01;23;17
Ayana King
Thank you so much for having me today, Lori. I am Ayana King and I own a small little D-I education agency called Maximum Communications, where I am doing diversity, equity and inclusion education nationwide, both in person and via webinars. And it has been the joy of my life, honestly, outside of having children. It’s the other joy in my life.

00;01;24;18 – 00;01;50;01
Lori Jo Vest
It’s your baby. That’s your baby. And I know we talked probably about two years ago. We talked a lot about at that point about being black at work and helping people who are not people of color understand the roadblocks and challenges and difficulties that people of color experience in our workplaces. But here we are two years later. Honestly, I don’t know if anything has changed.

00;01;50;24 – 00;02;19;19
Lori Jo Vest
I know you’ve been out there doing the work, but I thought a really good topic of conversation for us today would be those of us who really want to be good, strong allies and help, you know, kind of I mean, eradicating it would be amazing. But even chipping away at the, you know, the hidden biases and the racism at the office we know exists, It’s that nasty underbelly of corporate America.

00;02;20;04 – 00;02;29;23
Lori Jo Vest
And so I know you’ve been doing this DIY training for companies for the last couple of years. What do you think young people at work need to know?

00;02;30;12 – 00;02;58;26
Ayana King
Yeah, well, I started back in 2018, and obviously after the murder of George Floyd, my agency, the work that I’m doing as well as other folks doing this work, we saw an explosion of people who all of a sudden were appeared to be wide eyed, very ready. Let’s have the conversations, Let’s do the work. But it did not take very long to recognize that folks were not ready.

00;02;59;18 – 00;03;25;26
Ayana King
What for? Folks were really interested in doing was not appearing to be racist. That’s really what it was about. And so, you know, one of the things that I always challenge my client partners and those who come through my workshops to do is look at themselves, okay, this is very personal work. So if you want to make a change in the workplace, the change starts with you.

00;03;25;26 – 00;03;53;28
Ayana King
I know that sounds very cliche. That change starts with you, but no, it really does. It really does, because it does. You have to do the personal work first and then especially if you are in a position of influence or advantage, a position of leadership, then you can share what you know in your circles of influence. But if you don’t learn it first, if it is not personal to you first, it’s performative period point blank.

00;03;54;07 – 00;04;25;03
Ayana King
And folks from marginalized communities, whether that be black folks or brown folks, whether that be folks from the LGBTQ community, whether that’s older folks or folks with disabilities, we know we know when somebody is blowing smoke and when it’s for real. And I’ll say, you know, I have just been very proud and very happy to work with the organizations I’ve been working with because I’ve been able to say that to them without sugarcoating it.

00;04;25;10 – 00;04;34;13
Ayana King
And they have answered the call and they have begun to do that very personal work. And you’re not going to bring everybody along. But that is the goal. The work is personal.

00;04;35;03 – 00;05;01;12
Lori Jo Vest
And it really is. I don’t know if you saw the Dr. Phil episode that was on a couple of months ago. I was fascinated by this episode and really surprised to see it on his show of all places. And he invited these two women. One is Indian, the other is a black woman. And they had a documentary they produced called Deconstructing Karen.

00;05;01;22 – 00;05;15;18
Lori Jo Vest
Yes. And they put a whole bunch of white women around a table and they started talking to them and they said, raise your hand if you’re racist. And they all sat there with their hands down and just kind of.

00;05;15;18 – 00;05;16;03
Ayana King
Crassly.

00;05;16;15 – 00;05;31;16
Lori Jo Vest
Looked at each other because nobody wanted to really look into our own perceptions that have been created by living in this country where racism is steeped in it.

00;05;31;27 – 00;05;32;15
Ayana King
Yes.

00;05;32;16 – 00;05;41;15
Lori Jo Vest
And a lot of us don’t want to admit it, but it was fascinating to see it on afternoon talk show television like that. Like, wow. I don’t know.

00;05;41;15 – 00;05;41;29
Ayana King
That we would have.

00;05;41;29 – 00;06;02;12
Lori Jo Vest
Seen that a couple of years back. It was surprising. And the women that he brought on that said they weren’t racist, they looked bad. They really did look bad like they weren’t following the rest of us. But I have a feeling there’s a lot of us that think more people are in on this than there really are, correct?

00;06;02;25 – 00;06;39;14
Ayana King
Yeah. And and listen, it shouldn’t be that fascinating because Phil Donahue was doing this. Okay? Phil Donahue back in the day, he had some very charged conversations. Right. I will say it was not fascinating to black women. Okay. It was fascinating for white women to see it. It was uncomfortable for white women to see it. And I always say and hope that this will really sink where it needs to sink for people who are really interested in doing this work, in deconstructing Karen.

00;06;39;14 – 00;06;55;24
Ayana King
Yes. But also unlearning their own internalized racism. Yeah. Most people, in my experience, most white folks are more afraid of being called a racist than they are at considering whether or not they are.

00;06;56;07 – 00;07;14;28
Lori Jo Vest
Right. Right. That’s what I thought was so strange. It’s like, have you not been paying attention for the last? We should have been talking about it for the last 400 years, but the last two, two and a half years, we’ve all really been, you know, digging into it. You’ll see more and more if you’re paying attention at all to the media.

00;07;14;28 – 00;07;29;25
Lori Jo Vest
You see more coverage of how do you release your hidden biases, how to uncover your own racism, all that stuff. So to me, all I could think of is what bubble are you living in? And then I realized we’re all kind of living in our own bubbles.

00;07;30;04 – 00;07;53;05
Ayana King
Yes, right. And you might not even be watching television that would bring that up because if that is not in your purview, you know, if that is not in your scope of something that you want to understand, you wouldn’t be watching that anyway. There are lots of white women, I am sure of it, who love Dr. Phil, who skipped out on that?

00;07;53;21 – 00;08;21;05
Ayana King
Oh, you skipped out on that because that’s not for me, right? That’s not for me. That’s not who I am. I don’t need to hear that. Yeah, you do. Sure you do. And I always say specifically to white women, specifically to white women who openly say they are feminists. Okay? I always say to them, listen, if your feminism does not address racism and able ism and ageism and all of that stuff, you are not a feminist, okay?

00;08;21;24 – 00;08;40;11
Ayana King
You are trying to attain the same power that white men have in this country. Just say that, okay? Just say that because I will respect that. And then we can work from the truth. But we can’t work from a place where you start out with a lie, rather you lied to me or you’re lying to yourself. That’s not how that’s not how we move forward.

00;08;41;06 – 00;09;06;17
Ayana King
And so I think the real challenge, whether we’re in the workplace or at a table, is telling the radical truth to ourselves about who we are and how we are. And that is really difficult. Even in my own life, even in my own experience with white women in my in my vicinity. Okay, that’s hard to do.

00;09;07;07 – 00;09;12;29
Lori Jo Vest
It is hard. Yeah. Well, and it requires a high level of discomfort.

00;09;13;09 – 00;09;13;28
Ayana King
Yes.

00;09;14;06 – 00;09;42;23
Lori Jo Vest
It really does. And I don’t mean that to say that it’s anywhere near the discomfort that people of color and marginalized communities feel. But when you’ve been living your happy little life in this country and you all of a sudden somebody says racist and you’re like, I’m not racist. Yeah, you’re like, Oh, honey, give it some thought. And you could probably come up with two or three questions to ask that person that they would go, Oh, you’re right.

00;09;42;23 – 00;10;15;04
Lori Jo Vest
Yes, I have a lot to work on. But the the the impetus or reason to get yourself uncomfortable seems to be missing. So the motivation to get that uncomfortable, I mean, you can tell with what’s happening in Florida with the, you know, African-American studies, you know, Black History Month, taking those out of the curriculum, there is a certain percentage of our population that just doesn’t think that white people should feel bad about their history.

00;10;15;16 – 00;10;38;09
Lori Jo Vest
And I’m not I don’t think we should all walk around feeling like shit all the time as much as let’s acknowledge what happened, let’s cry or tears and let’s move on and change it and dismantle it. But without acknowledging it and experiencing that discomfort, it’s just not going to happen. Right. So in your work, how do you get people to get that personal connection?

00;10;39;28 – 00;11;06;22
Ayana King
It takes weeks and weeks and weeks. It really does. I ask them hard questions. I ask them to consider whether or not they actually are racist. I ask them to consider how they were brought up. I ask them to consider the root on that tree. I ask them to take an implicit bias test. I ask them their level of comfort of stepping in and speaking up.

00;11;07;22 – 00;11;25;00
Ayana King
And I do this again over the course of 4 to 6 weeks. Okay. So I’m not hitting you with a one day workshop and all of a sudden you’re going to get it. No, I’m. I’m jumping on you week after week after week, and then I’m coming back to you week after week and saying, what did you notice?

00;11;26;15 – 00;11;58;21
Ayana King
And it takes a long time for people to start even speaking up and saying, yes, I can admit that I am a person who has been a perpetrator of microaggressions. Yes, I am a person who can admit that my unconscious bias would lead me to look at a person who was different from me and automatically make negative assumptions about them based on what I’ve been told or based on what I have experienced, rather my experience or somebody else’s in the past.

00;11;58;27 – 00;12;27;04
Ayana King
It takes a very long time to get people to even consider that they and still they might not even admit it out loud. Right. But I’m exposing them to truths over and over, over a period of weeks, and at the same time being vulnerable and sharing some of the things that I have done, some of the mistakes that I have made, acknowledging that anti-blackness is for everybody.

00;12;27;05 – 00;12;27;20
Ayana King
Okay.

00;12;28;12 – 00;12;29;09
Lori Jo Vest
Right. Right.

00;12;29;17 – 00;12;59;19
Ayana King
And in the black community as well. And so, you know, really getting people to understand that if you believe yourself to be a good and fair and just person, you will always be looking for those parts of yourself that are sometimes unjust and unfair and trying to fix that. And if you are not doing that intentionally, you are not doing the work, period.

00;13;00;02 – 00;13;20;03
Ayana King
You know, you can try to make all the excuses that you like, but this is very intentional work. I don’t care how many black friends you have. Do you really have a black friend? That’s the number one question. Okay. Because if you have a black friend and you are not having any of these questions specifically since 2020, guess what?

00;13;20;03 – 00;13;22;00
Ayana King
You ain’t got a black friend. You don’t.

00;13;22;05 – 00;13;23;03
Lori Jo Vest
You have an acquaintance.

00;13;23;29 – 00;13;43;18
Ayana King
You know, black people. And so, again, people have to be able to look themselves in the mirror and say, you know, I got some work to do. And if you are not willing to do that, that’s fine. But don’t pretend that you are, because guess what? What is a blind spot for you is very clear to other people.

00;13;44;14 – 00;14;14;14
Ayana King
And so, you know, again, if we go back to the workplace, I just think about my own experience in all the workplaces I was in, whether they were predominantly white or not, I think about how I knew I was safe and whom I was safe with and why I knew that. And for the vast majority of places that I have worked as an adult, specifically, those places that were predominantly white, you know, that was not always a good environment for me, even though I had some good experiences there.

00;14;14;20 – 00;14;37;03
Ayana King
Ultimately, you know, when you’re talking about experiencing microaggression or really just not being able to show up as your authentic self, when you talk about having to be the stand in for all black people. Yeah, that don’t feel good. It’s it’s not a good feeling and it’s not good for you know can.

00;14;37;08 – 00;14;53;14
Lori Jo Vest
Let’s talk about microaggressions. Tell me about what tell me what kind of microaggressions do people tend to throw your way not realizing that they’re doing it? Because I know that has to happen. Yeah.

00;14;53;26 – 00;15;18;09
Ayana King
So, first of all, what people really need to understand about most microaggressions is that most microaggressions the person on the giving in the perpetrator, in most instances, they have no idea that they’ve said anything that’s offensive in many cases, they think they are saying something that is helpful. They think they are saying something that is positive. They think they are saying something to really endorse you as a person.

00;15;19;20 – 00;15;37;14
Ayana King
But it’s one of those backhanded compliment. So there are three kinds of microaggressions that I always tell people about their micro assaults, which are the most heinous kind. These are not accidents. These are things that people say they know it hurts. Okay? But what they’ll do is they might pass it off as a joke and then they’ll gaslight you.

00;15;37;14 – 00;16;03;15
Ayana King
Oh, you don’t know how to take a joke. Then there’s micro insults and micro and validations. So a micro insult might be something someone saying like, Oh, you’re not like the other black people I know or somebody saying something as seemingly innocent as, Wow, you, you are really articulate. Like with wonderment like that. I could speak intelligently. Right?

00;16;04;04 – 00;16;29;15
Ayana King
So these are micro insults because they think they’re saying something that is helpful. They think they’re endorsing you as a person. A micro invalidation that I hear again and again and again. And I tell people all the time, if you’re serious about doing this work, stop saying this. The phrase I don’t see color. I don’t see color is a micro invalidation because you invalidate me when you choose not to see my color.

00;16;29;15 – 00;16;52;07
Ayana King
And if you are a person in a position of advantage and power and you’re talking about equity and you’re talking about how to get to a place of equality, there’s no way you can get there when you don’t see my skin color. When you refuse to see me as a black woman, you also then refuse to see all of the challenges I have because I am a black woman in certain spaces.

00;16;52;23 – 00;17;15;28
Ayana King
So all of those things are red flags, the people who know the difference. All right. People who are experiencing this kind of stuff on a regular basis, all of those sorts of phrases is and you know, you’re not like them or you’re so different, all of that. We know what it is when we hear it, even though the person saying these things, you know, they think they’re being helpful.

00;17;16;21 – 00;17;17;07
Ayana King
You know, I.

00;17;17;07 – 00;17;21;25
Lori Jo Vest
Don’t like black people, but I like you. Yeah, I know what they’re saying.

00;17;22;00 – 00;17;34;27
Ayana King
Right, Right. Let me tell you something else that really, really irritates me. Okay. So, you know, we live we well, I’m in Wayne County, I think. Are you and Wayne in Oakland?

00;17;35;16 – 00;17;36;06
Lori Jo Vest
I’m in Oakland.

00;17;36;22 – 00;18;02;13
Ayana King
Okay. I’m Wayne County. I’m in a small city, literally a short drive to Detroit. Okay. And so the number of white folks who are here in the suburbs who talk about not going to Detroit, I’m not going to go to Detroit. People I know, people I know it is such a red flag for me because you’re not looking at your own neighborhood and the meth addict who be walking around through your backyard up and down your street.

00;18;02;26 – 00;18;26;15
Ayana King
You’re not talking about these people on that knoll who are breaking into houses and stealing. You’re not talking about people who are harming children in your own community, but you are so focused on I don’t want to go to Detroit because it’s dangerous. Sir, Ma’am. Madam, your living room. Yeah. What you need to be worried about. Okay. Your neighborhood is what you need to be worried about.

00;18;26;15 – 00;18;45;05
Ayana King
And that is a red flag for me. Because what you’re saying is this city that is predominantly black is a dangerous city because it is predominantly black. All of that. You know, that’s a red flag for me. I see you for who you are. Just just say I’m a racist. But the thing is, is that makes exactly. I don’t know that they’re racist.

00;18;45;14 – 00;18;48;07
Ayana King
They just don’t know it. You know, they don’t know.

00;18;48;08 – 00;18;51;11
Lori Jo Vest
How to find out how. How do they find out?

00;18;51;18 – 00;19;11;11
Ayana King
You don’t. They don’t until they run into somebody like me or somebody like you who’s willing to say, you know, you’re a racist. Right? You know that’s racist, right? Because in their minds, a racist is someone who goes around dropping the N bomb. Right. A racist is somebody who, you know, is just more overtly hateful.

00;19;12;02 – 00;19;13;08
Lori Jo Vest
But not racist. No.

00;19;13;19 – 00;19;20;15
Ayana King
Yes. Who’s more or aggressive? Right. But you know what I say. You know, quiet white women are very dangerous.

00;19;21;11 – 00;19;27;20
Lori Jo Vest
They are racism. Yeah. Passive racism is just as bad. Listen, if not worse.

00;19;28;09 – 00;19;50;16
Ayana King
Worse to me. Because you know what? I like to know who I’m dealing with. And at least with an overt racist, I know who you are. I don’t like people who sneak. And, you know, you know, like to dip around the community, you know, because it feels good for them. You know, they love the music but hate the culture, you know, don’t like the people.

00;19;50;24 – 00;20;29;06
Ayana King
Those are the people who are dangerous to me, the people who are in relationship with overt racists. Okay. But who still want to try to be your friend. You’re no friend of mine if you are also friend to racist. I see you. You are dangerous for me. Those are the folks who I think are I don’t know who who really need to hear it most because they think themselves to be pious, you know, not only want to get into the church, but yeah, they they see themselves as not being part of the problem.

00;20;29;14 – 00;20;38;02
Ayana King
But wow, I think about the damage that has been done just because a white woman has cried. Right. Will see it for what it is.

00;20;39;11 – 00;21;07;07
Lori Jo Vest
Let’s talk about that a little bit, because I find it really interesting that so many white folks don’t understand why what there’s two concepts, and I don’t think people get that They expect their black and other marginalized community friends to do the heavy lifting for them, to tell them about it, to explain it to them, which I’m kind of doing today to sorry about that.

00;21;07;07 – 00;21;25;17
Lori Jo Vest
But it’s one of those where you invite the experts on to talk. Right. But but people expect their black friends to do the heavy lifting and tell me why that’s a problem. Yeah, why is what I said a big deal? No, no, no, no, no. Don’t do that. It’s not your black friends job to tell you why you’re being racist.

00;21;26;13 – 00;21;51;11
Ayana King
Look. Oh, let me point out the difference, though. Let me point out the difference to here, though, Lori, is that you and I do have a relationship. Yes. And it is a friendship. The issue is, again, you have white folks who know black people. That does not mean they are friends and then accost black people to do the heavy lifting without there being a relationship.

00;21;51;17 – 00;22;13;09
Ayana King
Okay. So I know a lot of white Ford or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell me why this isn’t right. No, go find out. Because it’s emotional abuse to me for you to all of a sudden think because you have a black person, you have access to a black person. Now you have access to the answers, but you don’t.

00;22;13;15 – 00;22;31;20
Ayana King
I’m friendly with lots of white folks, but that does not mean I am your friend. Right? Okay. So I do this for a living. Unless we are friends, I’m a go tell you to go find out or I’m gonna tell you where you can book an appointment. Okay. And I’m asking how much it cost to come through a workshop.

00;22;31;29 – 00;23;00;23
Ayana King
That’s what I’m going to do. So I think that I think it goes back to really entitlements. Yeah. And lots of white folks not understanding it as being entitlement, but that’s what it is. You believe because now you have access to this black person. You can just ask this black person for all of the answers instead of going doing your own work.

00;23;00;27 – 00;23;11;19
Ayana King
The work begins with you, not with you. Asking a black person why this or that is wrong. Ask yourself why you think it’s okay for you to do these things right, that that’s where you start.

00;23;12;02 – 00;23;19;13
Lori Jo Vest
And you’re retraumatizing people by forcing you to discuss it with you because they don’t think you’re safe or not.

00;23;19;28 – 00;23;41;25
Ayana King
Specifically in the workplace. So when I do my workshops, I start at the top, okay? I start with executive leadership because that’s almost always who needs it first. I start with boards and I tell them, just because you have a black employee or many black employees who are willing to share this experience with you does not mean they’re doing it gleefully.

00;23;42;01 – 00;24;03;08
Ayana King
I want you to recognize that you are a person with power and advantage. And so when you come to your folks on your downline and to maybe ask them their experience, some of them are probably going to share it gladly and some of them are probably going to share it with a smile. But that does not mean they are happy to share.

00;24;03;09 – 00;24;30;17
Ayana King
It means that they understand the rules and they understand where they are in the company and where you are in the company. And so people need to understand that. Go do your own work. There are lots of people who are doing this work who are giving you access to their work, sometimes many times for free. Don’t you dare go and ask people you are not in relationship with anything right now.

00;24;31;14 – 00;24;34;19
Ayana King
And when you don’t do that, you are telling on yourself.

00;24;35;06 – 00;24;35;15
Lori Jo Vest
Right?

00;24;36;04 – 00;24;41;14
Ayana King
Okay. Because you’re saying I deserve to know this and you should be the one to tell me because you know it.

00;24;42;08 – 00;24;52;00
Lori Jo Vest
Right? When in reality that’s the complete wrong person to ask. Listen, I have been through your workshops right now.

00;24;53;11 – 00;25;18;25
Ayana King
There’s so many different ways that you can learn. Okay. You might not have time to go to a workshop. You might not have time to read a book, but you can watch a documentary. Probably you can probably listen to a podcast while you’re doing your workout or while you’re on your way to work. There are lots of different ways we have to get creative and stop going back to the default of.

00;25;18;26 – 00;25;29;29
Ayana King
I’m just going to ask a person, I’m going to ask a black person. I’m going to ask a gay person. I’m going to ask a disabled person. Unless you’re in close relationship with them, don’t ask them nothing.

00;25;31;12 – 00;25;32;07
Lori Jo Vest
Seriously.

00;25;32;28 – 00;25;33;14
Ayana King
Don’t ask.

00;25;33;14 – 00;25;58;24
Lori Jo Vest
Them. Yeah. I personally think there’s a lot lot, lot, lot. A lot of books. Mm hmm. You can listen to them on Audible, like you said, when you work out or take a walk. There’s so many great books out there. They’re amazing and there’s so many consultants and workshops and videos and documentaries and things that you can watch to make yourself uncomfortable.

00;25;58;24 – 00;26;18;27
Lori Jo Vest
And if you’re a person of Caucasian descent and you are not making yourself uncomfortable to get rid of your hidden bias, then you can pretty much just put that racist label across your chest and keep moving because that is not going to change without you doing the work. Right. Just stop it.

00;26;19;18 – 00;26;36;00
Ayana King
And you know what? I when I read Isabel Wilkerson’s book, Caste, it really changed a lot for me because I stopped really asking the question because of her book about who was racist or not.

00;26;36;08 – 00;26;36;19
Lori Jo Vest
Mm hmm.

00;26;36;29 – 00;27;07;14
Ayana King
Instead, I think about the caste system. Right. And to be honest with you, I look at racism as a spectrum now. I don’t think I know. And I’m married to a white man, Right? I don’t think that there are enough white people in this country who do not grapple with racism because it it’s ingrained in everything you learn, everything that you are taught.

00;27;08;16 – 00;27;31;11
Ayana King
Almost every experience you have had with a nonwhite person. And so I don’t ask the question so much any more of is this person racist or not? Maybe I think of it when I meet people and I talk to them is how racist are they? Exactly. You know. Right, right, Right.

00;27;31;22 – 00;28;05;06
Lori Jo Vest
I mean, that’s it. Because, like, we you know, if you that was the book that really kind of just completely changed my life. I lost sleep over it for days. I didn’t sleep because it’s so in our history that we don’t acknowledge or even know about. It’s so toxic and so abusive that as soon as you read that book and you just like take it to heart, which I don’t think anybody can read it without taking it to heart, you start to understand the whole systemic what people mean when they say, yes.

00;28;05;19 – 00;28;22;04
Lori Jo Vest
I just heard that the AP courses were taking the words the stomach out from in front of the word racism and as part of meeting the standards of the new far right people that are trying to erase history.

00;28;22;16 – 00;28;33;23
Ayana King
And so what an exercise. What an exercise. Right. And what racism is that that white people in power get to now tell you what systemic racism is or is not. Right.

00;28;34;03 – 00;28;38;08
Lori Jo Vest
There’s no such thing. We’ll just eliminate it and act like it doesn’t exist. Exactly.

00;28;39;13 – 00;29;07;25
Ayana King
Exactly. So I just don’t think that is helpful for me to go around trying to figure out, you know, if Laurie is racist or if Kim is racist or if any of these people who I enjoy being around who I like, who I have relationships with, are racist or not. Instead, what I have to think about all of these people who I have relationships with and who I like is are they willing to see it for themselves and are they willing to change?

00;29;08;03 – 00;29;11;07
Ayana King
That’s a better question for me then. Is someone so racist?

00;29;11;29 – 00;29;13;04
Lori Jo Vest
Yeah, that makes sense.

00;29;13;08 – 00;29;32;20
Ayana King
Is that person a person who’s willing to see themselves and to make a better environment for me and my children to live in? Right. For me and other people who look like me to live in for for me and, you know, undocumented folks to live in for me and folks from the LGBTQ community to live in. Now, if they pass that smell test.

00;29;32;20 – 00;29;51;29
Ayana King
Okay, then maybe we could be friends. Yeah, they all passed the initial smell test. The smell test to me is, are you racist or not? Because the answer in my mind is always going to probably go, you know, I don’t know how you could be. Yeah. The litmus test for me is, do you know yourself? Are you doing some intentional work?

00;29;52;17 – 00;29;54;01
Ayana King
Are your eyes opening up?

00;29;54;18 – 00;30;04;07
Lori Jo Vest
Yeah. Are you willing to look at that dark side of yourself? Yes. Because there is we’ve all had of that shadow self that is, you know, that’s in there.

00;30;04;23 – 00;30;26;15
Ayana King
Yes, yes, yes. And what do you do when I. Yeah. And so when I do look at some of the relationships that I have with folks and when I also say to myself, man, I really want to like this person, but there’s something about them. I’m asking myself, like, do I think they’re doing the work? Are they uncomfortable when I bring up race?

00;30;27;08 – 00;30;56;16
Ayana King
I’m looking at their body language. Are they trying to change the subject? All of those are red flags for me. And yeah, again, this work is very personal. You know, if the only time you’re talking about race is when you’re with me, we can’t be friends because you’re with the therapist. You know what I mean? You should be talking to other white folks about this stuff because those are the people that you have influence with, you know?

00;30;58;05 – 00;31;20;29
Ayana King
So when you learn something new, I’m always telling people that come through and I’m telling you I have the most wonderful client partners and I’m I am always just saying to them, everything you learn, don’t hoard it for yourself, Take it back into the communities where you have influence. Okay. I love for people to go to marches and, you know, march for equality.

00;31;20;29 – 00;31;44;16
Ayana King
I love that. I think that’s really important. But I always say our much rather you walk your behind into your living room and talk to your husband or talk to your in-laws or talk to your siblings or talk to your friend groups because those are the people that you actually have influence with. Okay. You might. Walking in, walking in a march might feel good.

00;31;44;25 – 00;31;48;29
Ayana King
Okay. Might look good even on social media. But did you do anything?

00;31;49;25 – 00;31;50;28
Lori Jo Vest
Yeah. What changed?

00;31;51;03 – 00;31;54;19
Ayana King
You come home and not have any conversations with the people who you actually live with.

00;31;55;12 – 00;31;55;22
Lori Jo Vest
Right.

00;31;56;12 – 00;32;03;04
Ayana King
That’s the litmus test for me. It’s not a march itself. The march is not the litmus test. What did you do after the march?

00;32;03;21 – 00;32;04;03
Lori Jo Vest
Right.

00;32;04;16 – 00;32;08;17
Ayana King
Who did you talk to after the march? Are you only talking to me? Okay. Red flag.

00;32;09;07 – 00;32;33;06
Lori Jo Vest
Yeah. Seriously, though. Yeah. I never really understand that. And I don’t know how people. I think that our culture has also set us up to fear the different. To fear anything that’s different. So people that are older than you, people that are, you know, that are a different skin color than you. People have a different religion than you.

00;32;33;16 – 00;32;56;00
Lori Jo Vest
Like, for example, I remember going out to a restaurant with my aunt when I was like 15, 16. It was just the two of us. And she looked around and she said, I can’t believe how many Jewish people are here. And I had just moved to Michigan from down south, and I knew I was like looking around going, Well, how can you tell.

00;32;56;28 – 00;32;57;18
Ayana King
Me what.

00;32;57;18 – 00;33;19;27
Lori Jo Vest
She was talking about? I mean, there’s too many Jewish people. It would look like people at a restaurant and it just. I’ll never forget it because she was so upset and I could say nothing except for a bunch of white people in a restaurant don’t. But, you know, the fear of the different is so dug in, so deep in our culture.

00;33;19;27 – 00;33;34;23
Lori Jo Vest
And I don’t know, how do you get people to give that up to just go, You know what? Besides exposure, besides people, you know, talking to each other and being more open. And now that’s how And it’s white people talking to other white people.

00;33;35;18 – 00;33;36;05
Ayana King
Yes.

00;33;36;13 – 00;33;36;29
Lori Jo Vest
Right.

00;33;37;13 – 00;34;02;18
Ayana King
Yes. Yes. Because I know you’ve heard this said many times before, racism is not for black people to fix. No. We know how to navigate in this world with people who hate us. We know how to excel in an environment where people literally loathe us. This is not our issued effects. This is for white people. Racism is ours exclusively.

00;34;02;25 – 00;34;24;18
Ayana King
So you will hear black people say, black people can’t be racist. Black people can’t be racist. I just want to touch on that for a second because I think people don’t understand the difference between prejudice and racism. Racism has to do with power, okay? Racism has. That’s why you will hear black people saying, we can’t be racist. Listen, we can be hateful for sure.

00;34;24;25 – 00;34;48;13
Ayana King
We can be prejudiced for sure. But racism is about power. Okay. I’m I’m not going to, in most instances, be in a position of power over white folks. I’m just not going to. If I am the victim in a situation and the police are called, I’m almost always going to be accosted first. That has to do with power dynamics.

00;34;49;00 – 00;34;54;23
Ayana King
So people really need to understand that specifically in the workplace so we can go back to the workplace for a second.

00;34;55;15 – 00;34;55;24
Lori Jo Vest
Yeah.

00;34;56;07 – 00;35;20;04
Ayana King
This is why this work has to be intentional and you have to know yourself. If you’re if your first thought when someone of a different race, someone of a different ethnicity challenges you, if your first thought is they are being hostile. They are being angry. If you’re if your first thought is you need to tell somebody. You need to tell on your damn self.

00;35;20;27 – 00;35;39;04
Ayana King
Okay? Not because you’re a racist, because you understand power dynamics, which is why you say things like you’re being hostile, you’re being angry. All right. I can’t talk to this person. You know, I’m a person that talks with my hands a lot. I can be boisterous.

00;35;40;14 – 00;35;40;29
Lori Jo Vest
Safe.

00;35;41;19 – 00;35;45;23
Ayana King
That doesn’t mean that I’m angry, but you and I would be categorized very differently.

00;35;46;04 – 00;35;56;21
Lori Jo Vest
Aggressive. I get called like you’re just so aggressive. You’re so. You’re just too aggressive. You know, it’s. No, I would call it assertive, but because I’m a woman, I get called aggressive.

00;35;57;01 – 00;35;57;11
Ayana King
Yes.

00;35;57;11 – 00;36;02;20
Lori Jo Vest
And I’d say black women suffer even more from the angry black woman trope.

00;36;03;02 – 00;36;03;19
Ayana King
Definitely.

00;36;04;08 – 00;36;04;18
Lori Jo Vest
Right.

00;36;04;18 – 00;36;30;26
Ayana King
Definitely. So much so that when someone is actually discriminating against you, when someone is actually maligning you in the workplace, you will for me personally, I remember this doing mental gymnastics. Was it worth it for me to speak up or not? Because I knew I would be chastised, you know? Was I reading too much into it? You know, was I somehow being unfair?

00;36;30;27 – 00;36;59;07
Ayana King
Was I being extra sensitive? Because I was aware that I was the only Blackbird? All of those things happen. So people in the workplace really need to be, again, doing that intentional work. And I always say go to Project Implicit. It’s free. Take several modules. They will help you uncover your own blindspots. And it might not feel good to recognize some of these things about yourself.

00;36;59;13 – 00;37;07;01
Ayana King
But I always say it is much easier for you to swallow that than for somebody to point it out to you, honestly. You better know yourself.

00;37;07;22 – 00;37;20;00
Lori Jo Vest
Seriously. So if we were to give people like three different things that they could do to uncover their own hidden bias, that sounds like one right there. Go to project. Yes.

00;37;20;20 – 00;37;22;25
Ayana King
That’s. That’s top of my list now.

00;37;23;01 – 00;37;24;25
Lori Jo Vest
And then the other thing. Go ahead.

00;37;26;01 – 00;37;33;20
Ayana King
The other thing I think people should do is consider their friend groups. Are your friend groups diverse?

00;37;35;22 – 00;38;09;02
Ayana King
Do your friend groups include black and brown folks who can really share their experience? And if you say yes, my friend group includes black or brown folks, but you are not having these conversations. I want you to consider whether or not you are a safe person for these folks. That’s number two. And then number three, really immerse yourself into the black experience and you might not be able to do that on a personal level, especially if you don’t have family members by extension or friend groups.

00;38;09;11 – 00;38;32;02
Ayana King
But again, read books, watch documentaries, look at sitcoms and movies. You know, I think a lot of white folks always think as soon as you put the word black on front of something, it means that it’s only for black folks. But that also is not true. Support black businesses. Go in there. Walk around. See the things. Smell the smell.

00;38;32;06 – 00;38;56;08
Ayana King
Get to know the people. Do all of that. Immerse yourself in the culture. And again, if you are not able to do that physically. Technology is wonderful. Look at documentaries, sitcoms, movies. These are people who are sharing the experience. And if you are somebody who is purposefully doing the unlearning, this is part of that process.

00;38;57;22 – 00;39;20;07
Lori Jo Vest
Absolutely. Like I like to put myself in social situations where I am the only white person or one of two or three, because it’s the way that we immerse ourselves, that we start to break down those biases that come from living in the lily white suburbs and never seen a black person. So it’s like, Oh, I don’t. They’re different.

00;39;20;07 – 00;39;41;16
Lori Jo Vest
They won’t like me. Well, how do you know if you’re an asshole? They won’t. But what do you mean they just won’t like you? And that’s a lot of the fear. Like, Oh, I have a Jewish person. I’m sharing an office with a Jewish person. Now, what if I say something that makes them uncomfortable? Well, you might, but then want to apologize and keep moving and know and learn from it.

00;39;42;01 – 00;40;07;07
Lori Jo Vest
So the fear of putting yourself, you got to give that up. And that to me has been one of the best things I’ve ever done, is just to stop, look, look for options, look for places, look for opportunities. I hired a black woman as my business coach. Yeah. Leaps and bounds. I have grown, and she has a group where there’s like eight of us, and two of us are white, and the other six are black.

00;40;07;24 – 00;40;37;00
Lori Jo Vest
And it just, you know, again, just. Okay, let’s just. Why is that a problem? Why should I even have to think about it is I think this day and age in 2023 that we have to think about that and be purposeful about it is a little annoying or a lot annoying and pretty disgusting, but it’s really a fun, pleasant way to drop a lot of that stuff that I’m going to be to different and they won’t like me.

00;40;37;27 – 00;40;50;23
Lori Jo Vest
Yeah, that’s what I that’s what was in my head. I’m too different. I’m going to put my foot in my mouth, make a dumb mistake, and then they’ll hate me. Well, why? Because you don’t trust yourself. Are you that bad that you’re going to do something really mean? No.

00;40;52;18 – 00;41;19;24
Ayana King
You know what? I think sometimes and I had this conversation not too long ago with my husband, I network. Okay? I’m in professional circles. I’m part of my local chamber, which is predominantly white. So I am many times. One of the only black women in the room. Okay. Right. Not always, but oftentimes. And I think about how many of them would be willing to put themselves in that situation and they wouldn’t.

00;41;19;24 – 00;41;38;19
Ayana King
And I am convinced it is because, you know, your own people group. And so you assume that the same way your people group behaves at times, the things that they say out loud, you know, unashamed. You think that that’s that’s what will happen in the black community. Guess what? We won’t be doing that bullshit.

00;41;39;01 – 00;41;40;07
Lori Jo Vest
Yep. Yeah.

00;41;40;21 – 00;41;41;20
Ayana King
It ain’t the same.

00;41;42;03 – 00;41;42;25
Lori Jo Vest
No, it’s not.

00;41;42;25 – 00;41;43;25
Ayana King
It’s not the same.

00;41;43;26 – 00;41;46;07
Lori Jo Vest
It’s not. Yeah, it’s not.

00;41;46;08 – 00;41;46;29
Ayana King
Probably where.

00;41;46;29 – 00;41;50;20
Lori Jo Vest
That comes from or the feeling of this comment.

00;41;51;03 – 00;41;57;18
Ayana King
Yes. Yes, I am. I am. I’m almost certain.

00;41;58;09 – 00;42;15;20
Lori Jo Vest
I think that’s the moment of clarity. That’s a moment of clarity. Because, I mean, I went through some difficulties personally just feeling like I’m going to say something dumb. I’m going to put my foot in my mouth, I’m going to be an idiot, and I’m just going to be, you know, thrown out.

00;42;17;04 – 00;42;33;13
Ayana King
Well, that is because you navigate white spaces where, you know, people say the most overt and racist bullshit, okay, And then just go on with their lives no matter who’s around and you worry about that being your experience as the only white woman in a room full of black folks. We don’t get down like that.

00;42;34;04 – 00;42;35;15
Lori Jo Vest
And I’ve never had it happen.

00;42;36;13 – 00;42;37;14
Ayana King
And you probably wouldn’t ever.

00;42;37;27 – 00;42;39;26
Lori Jo Vest
I’ve been accepted and nothing that hasn’t.

00;42;40;07 – 00;42;57;24
Ayana King
Yeah. Yeah. And I’m not saying that hasn’t happened to someone. I’m sure it has happened to someone somewhere, but I think that that is rare. But I also think that there are some folks who will say that is also because black folks have been conditioned to be welcoming to white folks.

00;43;01;03 – 00;43;02;00
Lori Jo Vest
Mm hmm. Again.

00;43;02;18 – 00;43;15;21
Ayana King
Yes. Right. Yeah. So many, many, many, many layers. It’s many, many layers. And we won’t fix it until we do the work ourselves again. Very personal.

00;43;15;21 – 00;43;36;19
Lori Jo Vest
Work. Yeah, until we talk. And we keep talking. And we keep talking and we keep talking. And we make concentrated efforts to hire black people. Pay black people. If you want someone to help you with your hidden racism, pay a black person for their work, go to their shops. You know, I mean, that’s how.

00;43;36;23 – 00;43;38;24
Ayana King
Hiring executive process. Yes.

00;43;39;08 – 00;43;42;21
Lori Jo Vest
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Do you do executive coaching?

00;43;43;17 – 00;44;02;20
Ayana King
I have just started doing coaching with some of the folks I had already been working with in larger groups. So now some of those folks are saying can do some one on one. Like, what does that look like? And I have to be honest, that was weird for me at first because I think I had a lot of notions about who a coach was or what a coach was or what a coach did.

00;44;03;01 – 00;44;08;04
Ayana King
But I’ve been doing that work again since 2017, 2018.

00;44;08;27 – 00;44;10;04
Lori Jo Vest
So yeah.

00;44;10;04 – 00;44;15;18
Ayana King
And I am enjoying it. And I think that that’s another one on one is another really good way to, to build friendships too.

00;44;15;24 – 00;44;38;18
Lori Jo Vest
So is that. Absolutely. Well, I want to thank you so, so much for joining me today. And you just always have so many wonderful tidbits and insights. And I think we just got to a really deep place of why we all feel so uncomfortable because we expect to be treated the way that the white community treats others. And it’s not always good.

00;44;39;06 – 00;44;51;07
Lori Jo Vest
Matter of fact, a lot of times, if there’s any differentiation, it’s it’s used against us. You know, or against people that have differences. So where can people find your material and learn more about you?

00;44;52;08 – 00;45;15;07
Ayana King
They can go to my website, get Max Carnes dot com that is Getty. masc0mm. S dot com or they can find me under Ayanna King on LinkedIn. About 90% of all of my clients come from LinkedIn, so I love it so much. And yeah, it’s been great for me.

00;45;15;07 – 00;45;15;29
Lori Jo Vest
That makes a lot of us.

00;45;15;29 – 00;45;17;08
Ayana King
Thank you for having me on today.

00;45;18;03 – 00;45;42;19
Lori Jo Vest
Awesome. Yeah. Thank you for being here. So that’s it for today’s episode of Mom says Don’t be an idiot. I’ll keep in mind we have a book coming out April 1st, I.A. giving us a review. We have all our guests. We asked all our guests to give us a review of the book. Lots of great helpful information and advice on navigating the emotional landscape of business.

00;45;43;03 – 00;46;06;20
Lori Jo Vest
It’s crazy out there, and I don’t think it’s gotten any better. If anything, it’s gotten stranger in the last couple of years. But please, we’d love to have your feedback. We are looking for reviews on the different podcast platforms. I’d love to hear what you think. So send me a review and you can also in touch with me on LinkedIn at Lorrie Jo Bascom.

00;46;06;28 – 00;46;26;29
Lori Jo Vest
I’m an open networker there and our website is work Mom says dot com. If you have any ideas for a guest that we should have on or a topic we should cover, please go there and submit a contact form and tell us about it. So again, thank you so much Ayanna and thank you for joining us. We’ll be back with another episode soon.

00;46;28;02 – 00;46;28;21
Ayana King
Thank you.

00;46;29;19 – 00;46;31;08
Intro
Thanks for listening to work.

00;46;31;08 – 00;46;33;27
Lori Jo Vest
Mom says Don’t be an idiot.

00;46;34;03 – 00;46;44;14
Intro
For more information, you can email work mom at l0ri work Mom says account. That’s Lori at work. Mom says dot com and remember.

00;46;45;14 – 00;46;48;13
Lori Jo Vest
Don’t be an idiot.

Who is our ideal listener?

This podcast is for young professionals, so they can learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience less drama and more success.

The ideal listener is anyone struggling on an emotional level in the workplace. Work Mom Says it helps you learn to be strategic at work. This means you can look at the big picture without getting lost in the weeds. 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.

Episode 25 – “How to Be a Better Ally: You Have to Do the Work” appeared first on Work Mom Says.

The post Episode 25 – “How to Be a Better Ally: You Have to Do the Work” appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

I share 3 never-before-seen chapters from my new book, so you can get a glimpse of all the advice I share in those 38 lessons.

Themes discussed in this episode

• Stop listening to that mean voice in your head
• Reframe what you see and you’ll see things differently
• You don’t actually know sh*t

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

3:15 – Ignore the mean voice in your head: Don’t let the mean self-talk stop you from reaching your full potential.

5:00 – Reframe what you see: We all look at the world through glasses that color our understanding and our expectation of what happens. Luckily, we can reframe what we think by choosing different lenses.

6:00 – You don’t know sh*t: You may feel the need to prove yourself in your first job by constantly sharing what you think you know. Instead, listen to your more experienced peers, ask questions, and learn from them.

Top Quotes

3:00 – What is that mean little voice in your head saying? Is it keeping you from bringing creative ideas and solutions to your job? Practice controlling those thoughts. Acknowledge that ugly little voice and then shut it down.

5:00 – Reframe what you see and you’ll see something better.

6:50 – In the first five years of business, you’ll learn exponentially more than you know when you’re just starting out.

7:15 – Always listen with an open mind to what others say. It’s a really excellent way to get the information you need and earn their respect at the same time.

Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Work, Accomplishment, Commitment, Writing, Thought, Talk, Year, Subconscious Mind

Who is our ideal listener?

This podcast is for young professionals, so they can learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience less drama and more success.

The ideal listener is anyone struggling on an emotional level in the workplace. Work Mom Says it helps you learn to be strategic at work. This means you can look at the big picture without getting lost in the weeds. 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.

Episode 24 – “A Sneak Peek at My Upcoming Book” appeared first on Work Mom Says.

The post Episode 24 – “A Sneak Peek at My Upcoming Book” appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• Ending the year feeling accomplished
• Create an ongoing commitment to learning for 2023
• Take action on the changes you want to make
• Prioritize rest in 2023
• Visualize what you want in the new year

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

1:15 – End the year with a feeling of accomplishment: Write out your accomplishments of 2022, no matter how personal or small. This will help you end the year with confidence and set a great tone for the new year.

2:00 – Commit to learning in 2023: Create a commitment to ongoing learning, so you can improve your personal and professional skills, your knowledge of business, and your overall performance. 

4:00 – Take action: If there are life or career changes you’ve been wanting to make, now is the time to take action and finally make them a reality. 

5:45 – Make rest a priority: Rest is essential for creativity, productivity, and quality work.

9:10 – Visually represent your goals: Whether you make a vision board or write it out in a journal, take the time to visualize your goals and clarify your plans for the new year

Top Quotes

2:00 – There’s a lot of things that get done in those three hundred and sixty five days, but we don’t always appreciate them. I suggest that you start off with that 50 things list. That will leave you with confidence, with a feeling of encouragement, and some pride in what you did.

3:00 – Even reading 1 business book a month puts you into a brand new category of lifelong learners, and it will improve your personal relationship skills, your knowledge of business, and your ability to perform well.

4:30 – We’re all more critical of ourselves than anyone else is, so if you have a dream of a new job, take action on that

8:40 – If you are well rested, you will naturally accomplish more.

12:00 – Letting your mind flow and just writing what comes to you will help you clarify what your plans for the new year should be.

Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Work, Accomplishment, Commitment, Writing, Thought, Talk, Year, Subconscious Mind

Announcer 0:00

Welcome to work mom says, don’t be an idiot. And now here’s your host. Work, Mom.

Lori Jo Vest 0:12

Hello, everybody, thank you for joining me for episode 23 of work mom says, Don’t be an idiot. I’m Lori Jo Vest your host. And I am here today to talk about five things you can do right now to start the new year off, right? Everybody’s always looking at you know, dieting, and exercising and all these things as being, you know, the things that you’re supposed to do to start the new year, and you’re supposed to make resolutions to lose 40 pounds and all that. But I don’t know that that is the way that works.

Obviously, so many people break those commitments. And so I have a couple things that have worked for me that I would love to share today. And I hope they’re helpful for you, too. So first things first, ending the year right is always important. And what I mean by that is, you should have a feeling of accomplishment, there’s things you did this year 2022, that were probably pretty darn awesome, you may have forgotten about them. So what I’m going to ask you to do is get a piece of paper and a pen and write out 50 Things that you accomplished in 2022. And that may mean getting out the calendar. And looking back at what happened in January, you’ll be able to tell by appointments you had and people you saw. So you’ll want to get that calendar out, sit down for about a half hour might take you longer, and just write out the things you accomplished.

I’ll give you a few examples. If you adopted a dog, that is an accomplishment. If you learn to make bread, that is an accomplishment, if you started getting up half hour earlier every morning, so that you could take a walk with your partner, that’s an accomplishment. If you got six new clients, whoa, that’s amazing. That’s really great. If you started writing your book, whatever it is, you did, and there’s a lot of things that get done in those 365 days. But we don’t always appreciate them. So I’m going to suggest that you start off with that 50 Things list that will leave you with confidence with a feeling of encouragement. And you know, some pride in what you did. And that’s you know, that’s how you should feel as you look into the new year, what you want to make happen in 2023. So number two on this list of five things is create a ongoing learning commitment. And I know that sounds like bluff, boring, but what that really means is make a commitment to things that are going to teach you more about yourself about life, about your career, all of those things are relevant to the things that happen at work, so I’m going to push all three of them. That might mean adding a few new podcasts to your rotation.

If you’re a podcast listener, or making a commitment to read a certain number of books, I have a friend that committed to reading 50 books in one year, that’s a lot of books. Even one business book a month puts you into a brand new category of ongoing learners. And it will improve your personal relationship skills, your knowledge of business, your knowledge of how to perform well. So create some kind of a commitment to ongoing learning. And then follow it if you fall off the wagon for a month, get back up on it, keep going. Because it really is something that once you get used to doing it, you’ll never give it up. And lifelong learners are also usually high performers. That’s what I found.

Number three, consider the changes that you’d like to make in your life and the things that you would like to get done. What’s been hanging around what’s been hanging out there for a really long time. Did you have you know, did you mention to someone three years ago that you wanted to eventually write a book? Did you think about maybe going back to school and getting your master’s degree? Are you really dreaming of a job at you know, big company that, you know, you just don’t think you’re good enough for at that level yet. Stop yourself right there. You don’t know where you are. We’re all more critical of ourselves than anyone else is. So if you have a dream of a new job, take action on that take action on those items.

Because one of the things that that people frequently talk about is how they feel stuck. They feel stuck. They’re bored, they’re not motivated. Well, the solution to all of that is action. And if you give some thought to the changes that you’d like to see in your life, improving relationships, getting to know people at the job, getting to know your boss, documenting the work you do in a way that has you be able to go into your annual review with some numbers behind you, any of those things that you’ve been thinking about and haven’t done yet, make a list, start taking actions. Again, this will build your confidence, and it will build your productivity and your feeling of accomplishment, which then brings more accomplishment. So you see where I’m going here. Now, I’m going to take a hard right turn. And the hard right turn is take some time to rest, make a commitment to rest in 2023. I know hustle culture is the thing. We’re all running around trying to get as much done as we can. And we’ve got jobs and side hustles. And friends we want to see and things we want to do build in some rest time, as well.

Lori Jo Vest 5:48

One of the reasons I like to talk about that is based on some work by Benjamin Hardy, he’s a personal growth and I guess, goal achievement specialist expert guy. And Benjamin Hardy, great guy, really great work out there. And he’s the guy that will help you figure out how to get where you want to go. And he talks about how one of the barriers that’s in our way, as that we’re so busy with what we’re doing all the time, that we don’t take enough time for leisurely, creative thought, we don’t allow our subconscious minds to bring thought to the surface. Because we’re just constantly filling our brains with, you know, entertainment, or, you know, whether we’re reading or watching TV or watching a video. I mean, it’s, it’s a lot. And with our smartphones that we carry around with us, it’s really easy. If you’re standing in line somewhere, to pull your phone out and start watching videos or reading texts. What if when you were standing in line bored, you left your phone in your pocket, and you just kind of let your mind wander.

That’s where creativity comes from. That’s where subconscious ideas and thoughts can bubble up. The other thing he suggests is if you need to be a little more proactive about it, which I know I do, is that you spend 2030 minutes a week listening to binaural beats. Those are sound tracks that are created with sound waves, they sound kind of like music, but they’re more actually like a like spa background noise that’s supposed to relax your brain and cause you to relax. And it really works well. If you’re stressing out over something, put binaural beats in the background. If you want to let your mind rest, put some headphones on lay down on the couch for 20 to 30 minutes. And just let that kind of spa music roll over you. And you’ll notice that after 510 minutes, your mind will start bubbling up thoughts and things you haven’t thought of before and maybe thinking of things in a new way. So I highly recommend it. Keep a pen and paper handy. So that you’re able to scribble down those great ideas that you came up with, and, and make a commitment to allowing more of that downtime to because there’s a lot of talk about how you know we want to accomplish and accomplish and I’m guilty of that myself.

However, if you are well rested, you will naturally accomplish more. There’s a saying going around a mantra that people are talking about that slow down to speed up. If you’re slowing down and allowing yourself time to think and to rest, you’ll not only be more productive, but you’ll also be more accurate, less likely to make mistakes, because you’ll be calm and resting. And that internal environment is a critical piece of being able to accomplish great things which I know we all want to do. So my last item on my list, this is going to be a short podcast.

The last item on my list is planning. Make sure you take some time to after you’ve done these other things. To plan what you’d like to see happen in 2023. Really give it some thought what would you like to see happen? vision boards are a great tool. What I usually do with a vision board is grab a stack of magazines cut out a whole bunch of random photos and sayings and imagery that appeals to me with no thought as to why no one tension, no thought just oh, this is pretty I like it and pull out images. What I find works after that happens is I’ve got a big stack of images and I can start sorting through them. And I’ll notice things like for example, if I have a lot of outdoor shots, a lot of you know plush greenery trees that will tell me you need to get outside. If I have have, you know a lot of yoga meditation Zen kind of images, that tells me I need to do some more, you know, spend some more internal thinking, and meditative time. So it really can help you figure out with your subconscious mind and your creative mind what you really want in the new year. And another way to do that, if you’re not really much of a visual person, or just, you know, cutting and pasting things doesn’t appeal to you.

The end game of a vision board is you take all those sorted images, and you put them on a, whether it’s a poster board or a canvas, and put them all on it in a way that is very visual and visually represents your goals. And then you put that up over your desk or in your bedroom, somewhere where you’re going to see it. So the idea of if that idea doesn’t excite you, you know, cutting and pasting, and ModPodge and all that stuff, then consider journaling. That’s another way to, you know, not typing on the computer. But writing out in longhand, can pull things out of your mind that you might not come up with otherwise. And there’s a lot of things on the internet, a lot of if you Google, you know, planning my future questions to help plan my future. You don’t, they’ll be out there. But you can do something as simple as by the end of 2023, I would like to have blank, and then just start writing 12345 mine might be, I would like to have you know, to have developed a fitness habit that I’m significantly stronger than I am now, I would like to, you know, be a little bit healthier than I am.

Now I’d like to lose a little bit of weight, not putting any numbers on it, but I have things that I would like to do. So by writing it by the end of 2023, I would like to have blank. And just letting your mind flow and just keep writing what comes to you will help you clarify what your plans for the new year should be. And then put those words, phrases, images somewhere where you’re going to see them so that they you can keep your attention on your intentions. That’s what most of us struggle with is putting our attention on our intentions. So those are my five recommendations for ways to start this new year off right.

I hope you have enjoyed this program. I would love to hear from you. At Work mom says.com I have a contact form that you can use to get in touch. Tell me what you’d like me to talk about. Who would you like me to have on the program? Would you like to be on the program? Do you have questions? Love to hear from you. Also, if you are listening on Spotify and iTunes and those other podcast platforms, please leave me a review. I would love to hear from you. Keep on keeping on. Make it a good new year and we will catch back up with you in 2023 with more guests. WTF moments and career advice that will help you play the emotional contact sport of business. I’m Lori Jo Vest signing off. See you next time.

Announcer 13:06

Thanks for listening to work. Mom says don’t be an idiot. For more information. You can email work mom at lori at work mom says.com That’s Lori at Work Mom Says.com. And remember, don’t be an idiot.

Who is our ideal listener?

This podcast is for young professionals, so they can learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience less drama and more success.

The ideal listener is anyone struggling on an emotional level in the workplace. Work Mom Says it helps you learn to be strategic at work. This means you can look at the big picture without getting lost in the weeds. 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.

Episode 23 – “5 Ways to Make 2023 Your Best Year Yet” appeared first on Work Mom Says.

The post Episode 23 – “5 Ways to Make 2023 Your Best Year Yet” appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Young professionals Kiley Transit and Molly Wagner join me for a fantastic conversation about the top ten things they’ve learned in the first few years of their career that they wished they learned in college.

Themes discussed in this episode

• It’s not personal
• Being stuck is a choice
• Be strategic with your job
• Work to live, don’t live to work
• Time management is a really big deal
• You get to define success
• Your major doesn’t (always) matter
• Organization matters. A lot.
• You can be authentic and appropriate
• Your mental health is worth more

Featured Guests

Young Professional: Kiley Transit 

Title: Digital Marketing Specialist at PopSpeed Digital Marketing LLC, 

What she does: Kiley creates content and manages social media channels for clients in a variety of industries, including restaurants, healthcare, and education. 

Connect: You can find her on LinkedIn. 

Young Professional: Molly Wagner

Title: Digital Marketing Specialist at PopSpeed Digital Marketing LLC

What she does: Molly creates content and manages social media channels for clients in a variety of industries, including tech, law, and education. 

Connect: You can find her on  LinkedIn.

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

12:50 – Don’t be afraid of a side hustle: If you’re feeling stuck in your current role, it doesn’t hurt to lean into your side hustle. It could turn into a full-time job like it did for Kiley.

13:10 – Be strategic with your professional relationships: You never know if a difficult coworker or client will circle back to you in the future and give you your dream job or become your biggest client. That’s why it’s essential to maintain positive relationships with everyone, even the difficult ones.

19:00 – Prioritize the work life balance: You can love your job and the work you do without making it your entire life. Work to live; don’t live to work.

32:40 – Your degree doesn’t (always) matter: If you graduate and don’t want to pursue what your degree is in, you don’t have to!

Quotes

7:30 – Molly: I really struggled with this in college and at the beginning of my career because I’m a writer, so up until now everything I’ve done has had my name on it. So, anytime I got feedback, it felt really personal. Even though I know at the heart of it, it was just constructive criticism, and everyone just wants it to be better. But now I’ve been able to shift my thinking and realize that what I’m producing is for a client. It’s not mine.

12:05 – Lori: While you’re wallowing, you have to continue to sell the idea to yourself that you aren’t really stuck. You can take action.

19:10 – Kiley: I was in a weird phase of life where I was easing out of sports being my identity, so I took a hard left and made my job my identity. I would not shut off when I got home. There was no balance. I remember I had so many people telling me ‘do not answer emails after five o’clock ever,’ and it was within the first week that I was doing that.

21:40 – Lori: For years, the culture had us convinced that we had to just run run run run run, and if you wanted to succeed, you better be there at ten o’clock at night. We’re not there anymore. We have learned and evolved.

22:50 – Lori: Work doesn’t feed your soul. It might feel like it does sometimes, but what really feeds your soul is your relationships.

32:40 – Molly: If you make it to graduation and you absolutely hate what your degree is in, you don’t have to do it. I noticed in my job search that companies just care that you have a degree, not necessarily what it’s in if you have the necessary skills.

36:00 – Kiley: When you’re with the right company or under the right leader, they want to get to know you. They don’t want to get to know the version of you that’s always on and so prim and proper.

Who is our ideal listener?

This podcast is for young professionals, so they can learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience less drama and more success.

The ideal listener is anyone struggling on an emotional level in the workplace. Work Mom Says it helps you learn to be strategic at work. This means you can look at the big picture without getting lost in the weeds. 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.

Episode 21 – “What’s Your Trauma?” appeared first on Work Mom Says.

The post Episode 22 – “Ten Things They Don’t Tell You in College” appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• What is trauma?
• Complex PTSD
• Types of trauma responses
• The importance of therapy

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

3:45 – ACES: The Adverse Childhood Experiences Score is a scale that measures the number of major life-changing events you experienced as a child. If you have experienced a specific number, you likely exhibit the effects of PTSD.

6:20 – Effects of unresolved trauma: From anxiety to insomnia to addiction to difficulty managing emotions, unresolved trauma can cause a variety of reactions that stick with you far into adulthood.

9:30: Complex PTSD: This is a reaction to trauma that was repeated over and over again during a difficult childhood or an extended period of trauma. The feelings aren’t attached to any particular memory.

11:30 – Types of trauma responses: The four types of trauma responses are fight, flight, fawn, and freeze.

Quotes

4:50 – “Trauma is the unique individual experience of an event or enduring conditions in which the individual’s ability to integrate his or her emotional experience is overwhelmed, and the individual experience is either objectively or subjectively a threat to his or her life, bodily integrity, or that of a caregiver or family member.

5:55 – “A trauma survivor can be a CEO, a marketing executive, a journalist, a doctor, your neighbor, your teacher, your coworker, or your boss.”

9:00 – “You might wake up in the morning and just feel really fearful and anxious, and you have no idea why. Nothing’s happening. The bills are paid. Everybody’s happy. And you just have this horrible feeling of pending doom. That’s a trauma reaction that can happen to people with complex PTSD.”

14:20 – “We blame ourselves for things that happen. We think everything’s our fault, and it all goes back to those childhood experiences and the beliefs we created as children that are stuck in our brain somewhere.”

Who is our ideal listener?

This podcast is for young professionals, so they can learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience less drama and more success.

The ideal listener is anyone struggling on an emotional level in the workplace. Work Mom Says it helps you learn to be strategic at work. This means you can look at the big picture without getting lost in the weeds. 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.

Episode 21 – “What’s Your Trauma?” appeared first on Work Mom Says.

The post Episode 21 – “What’s Your Trauma?” appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

We invited Angela Buccellato of the Resume Rescue to join young professional Molly Wagner in a discussion of the power of LinkedIn when you’re just starting your career.

Themes discussed in this episode

• The six degrees of separation
• Authenticity on LinkedIn
• Connect with everyone you meet
• Stop being your own worst enemy

Featured Guests

Expert Guest:  Angela Buccellato 

Title: Owner of the Resume Rescue

What She Does: She helps clients at every stage of their career streamline the job search process. From resume writing and interview prep to LinkedIn profiles and career coaching, she takes the headache out of finding a job.

Connect: You can find her on LinkedIn and her website

Young Professional:  Molly Wagner 

Title: Digital Marketing Specialist at PopSpeed Digital Marketing LLC

What She Does: Molly creates content and manages social media channels for clients in a variety of industries, including real estate, healthcare, and education.

Connect: You can find her on  LinkedIn.

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

8:40 – Shoot your shot: It never hurts to message or connect with people that interest you. The worst they can do is not respond.

10:10 – Be your authentic self: Post about who you are outside of work on LinkedIn. 

16:10 – Engage with others: Commenting on others’ posts helps them get to know you.

17:15 – Connect with everyone: Even if you aren’t in the same industry, connect with everyone you meet. You never know if they can give you an opportunity.

20:00 – Six degrees of separation: Any two people in the world are separated by only five connections.

24:41 – Don’t talk negatively about your job on social media: Never complain about your job on LinkedIn because it negatively impacts how people see you and could cost you future opportunities.

Quotes

2:40 – Angela: “I think we worked with about 850 clients last year, a good 650 of those came from LinkedIn. So that’s amazing. It’s one of our best referral sources, and it’s just opened up opportunities that I would not have had outside of it.”

16:20 – Lori: “LinkedIn loves comments more than they do likes. So commenting on someone’s someone’s LinkedIn post is a form of love. And then the other thing is it helps them get to know who you are.”

19:05 – Angela: “You never know if you’re next to a CEO. You never know if you’re next to someone that can ultimately change your life, launch your business, or get you a job. I always say to be nice to people, have open conversations, and just connect with them. It’s as simple as that.”

21:50 – Angela: “That one interaction of just something as stupid as white claw playing bags (or cornhole or whatever anyone wants to call it) set the trajectory of me, not only like joining networking groups and expanding my reach of opportunity, but also connecting with people on LinkedIn and meeting you.”

23:05 – Lori: “The more people you know and have connected positive relationships with in business, the more successful you will be.”

Who is our ideal listener?

We do this podcast for young professionals, so they can learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience. We also do it to help them experience less drama and more success. 

The ideal listener to me is anyone who is struggling at work with emotion management and anyone who’s struggling on an emotional level in the workplace. Honestly, that happens to all of us at some point. We get all knotted up about something. Someone was nasty to you in the parking lot before you went into work, so you’re a little anxious to start. The person that you sit next to gives you a dirty look  or slams their office drawer. There’s just all these things that happen in your life day to day, and they create an emotional response. 

At work, we’re expected to be logical. How can you be more logical and less emotional? Be strategic. What we talk about on Work Mom Says has a lot to do with being strategic at work, being able to look at the big picture, not getting lost in the weeds. I tell people to back up, you put down the magnifying glass, look at the big picture when you’re responding to something. In doing this, you will understand that what’s really upsetting you right now will be something you don’t even remember next week. 

Being crabby, saying something negative to somebody at the office, or putting a snarky comment in an email isn’t really productive because from a strategic point of view, it’s all irrelevant. You should be looking at it from a logical perspective. Some of that involves framing, reframing, and being attentive to what you want your end goal for the situation.

What value can people get from listening to this podcast?

Listening to Work Mom Says is a really good way to grow your personal mood management skills, to grow your ability to reframe situations, and look at things from a strategic point of view so that it’s easier to go into a work situation and get the most positive results.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

When emotions go up, logic goes down. So, when you can keep your emotions steady and stable, and not grab a hold of that feeling of angst and make it worse, you’re going to be more logical in what you do. You’re going to make fewer mistakes. You’re going to be more productive overall. You’re going to have stronger relationships.

Another value I think people get out of this is learning to create connected positive relationships that last over time. That’s not always easy. A lot of what we talk about on Work Mom Says involves being able to create connected positive relationships and work environments, so that people want you on the team. You become an asset, and when you’re an asset, you’re going to be more successful.

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.

Why do I do this? 

I do this because I naturally fell into the Work Mom role when I worked in the ad agency business, and I had so much fun with it. I also realized I had made just about every mistake there is to make. I don’t hold myself out there as any kind of stellar example of truth and how you should be. I hold myself out there as someone who has been bruised and battered and beaten up and learned some really 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 that I was, and I was an idiot. However, I learned so much, and it’s really rewarding to share that with young professionals and help them avoid some of those mistakes and get to that success sooner. 

I also want to help them realize that a lot of 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 you can succeed. 

Episode 20 – “Just Do the Damn Thing (on LinkedIn)” appeared first on Work Mom Says.

The post Episode 20 – “Just Do the Damn Thing (on LinkedIn)” appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• The importance of joining industry organizations
• Conquering the fear of public speaking
• How to build your personal, professional brand
• Don’t settle for a toxic workplace
• Take advantage of every opportunity
• Don’t take rejections personally
• Be prepared to reinvent yourself

Featured Guest

Expert Guest:  Bob Cargill 

Title: Adjunct Professor, President of AMA Boston, Social Media Consultant, Content Creator, Copywriter, and Public Speaker

What He Does: He is a copywriter, content creator, social media marketer, consultant, subject matter expert (SME), teacher and public speaker. He also has a podcast on marketing and a YouTube channel with hundreds of videos.

Connect: You can find him on LinkedIn, on his Website, and on his YouTube channel.

Buy his book, Twenty Jobs, Twenty Lessons – a Long, Strange Career in Marketing, from Junk Mail to Social Media.

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

6:10 – Join industry organizations and network, network, network: Industry and trade organizations are a great place to build leadership skills and create strong relationships.

14:20 – Ways to build your online personal brand: From LinkedIn and other social media channels to blogs and podcasts, there are so many ways to build your personal brand.

24:30 – Workplace culture now vs 30 years ago: 30 years ago, Bob would have told people to develop thick skin and toughen up to survive the workplace. Now, don’t be afraid to leave a toxic workplace and prioritize a more people-first company culture.

34:20 – Rejection can really hurt: You shouldn’t take rejections personally, but sometimes it’s healthy to let yourself feel the hurt and cry it out.

41:20 – Reinvention is critical: Whether you’re fired or choose to move on, it’s necessary to change, grow, and evolve in your career.

Quotes

• 4:05 – “I haven’t come this far to only come this far. I’m still hustling and have a lot ahead of me.”
• 7:45 – “With any volunteer group or industry association, if you work hard enough and stick around, you’re going to get a chance to lead that group.”
• 9;10 – “I will strain my potential until it begs for mercy.”
• 38: 15 – “I’ve had a lot of highlights and a lot of triumphs, and it’s all due to hard work and less being gifted with natural talent than being gifted with natural drive.”
• 38:55 – “Separate yourself from the competition. You have to deliver more and more and better.”
• 44:40 – “I’ve always felt it’s important to be changing and growing and evolving. That makes life more interesting if nothing else.”

Who is our ideal listener?

We do this podcast for young professionals, so they can learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience. We also do it to help them experience less drama and more success. 

The ideal listener to me is anyone who is struggling at work with emotion management and anyone who’s struggling on an emotional level in the workplace. Honestly, that happens to all of us at some point. We get all knotted up about something. Someone was nasty to you in the parking lot before you went into work, so you’re a little anxious to start. The person that you sit next to gives you a dirty look  or slams their office drawer. There’s just all these things that happen in your life day to day, and they create an emotional response. 

At work, we’re expected to be logical. How can you be more logical and less emotional? Be strategic. What we talk about on Work Mom Says has a lot to do with being strategic at work, being able to look at the big picture, not getting lost in the weeds. I tell people to back up, you put down the magnifying glass, look at the big picture when you’re responding to something. In doing this, you will understand that what’s really upsetting you right now will be something you don’t even remember next week. 

Being crabby, saying something negative to somebody at the office, or putting a snarky comment in an email isn’t really productive because from a strategic point of view, it’s all irrelevant. You should be looking at it from a logical perspective. Some of that involves framing, reframing, and being attentive to what you want your end goal for the situation.

What value can people get from listening to this podcast?

Listening to Work Mom Says is a really good way to grow your personal mood management skills, to grow your ability to reframe situations, and look at things from a strategic point of view so that it’s easier to go into a work situation and get the most positive results.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

When emotions go up, logic goes down. So, when you can keep your emotions steady and stable, and not grab a hold of that feeling of angst and make it worse, you’re going to be more logical in what you do. You’re going to make fewer mistakes. You’re going to be more productive overall. You’re going to have stronger relationships.

Another value I think people get out of this is learning to create connected positive relationships that last over time. That’s not always easy. A lot of what we talk about on Work Mom Says involves being able to create connected positive relationships and work environments, so that people want you on the team. You become an asset, and when you’re an asset, you’re going to be more successful.

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.

Why do I do this? 

I do this because I naturally fell into the Work Mom role when I worked in the ad agency business, and I had so much fun with it. I also realized I had made just about every mistake there is to make. I don’t hold myself out there as any kind of stellar example of truth and how you should be. I hold myself out there as someone who has been bruised and battered and beaten up and learned some really 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 that I was, and I was an idiot. However, I learned so much, and it’s really rewarding to share that with young professionals and help them avoid some of those mistakes and get to that success sooner. 

I also want to help them realize that a lot of 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 you can succeed. 

Episode 19 – “Teachable Moments In One Man’s Career” appeared first on Work Mom Says.

The post Episode 19 – “Teachable Moments In One Man’s Career” appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

We explore multiple facets of sobriety from the common fears of becoming “boring” when you quit to the healthy ways to cope with your trauma.

Themes discussed in this episode

• Using alcohol to numb feelings temporarily rather than process them.
• Calling yourself an alcoholic vs addicted to alcohol
• Your trauma doesn’t go away when you walk into work
• Healthy ways to cope and heal from trauma and alcohol addictions
• The benefits of somatic therapy

Featured Guest

Expert Guest: Chrissie Zavicar 

Title: CEO of e-link Consulting and CEO of First and Sober

What She Does: As the CEO of e-link Consulting, Chrissie leads workshops for LinkedIn Profile Optimization for individuals and teams. Chrissie is also the CEO of First and Sober, a newsletter about her journey with sobriety.

Connect: You can find Chrissie on LinkedIn and on her website.

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

6:08 – Numbing instead of processing: We numb ourselves with alcohol to make our stress go away temporarily rather than processing it in a healthy way.

9:15 – Examining your shame: working through feelings of shame and trauma can be extremely difficult, but it’s important to get yourself into a healthy space to really feel those emotions. 

13:50 – Samuel L Jackson and his sobriety: When he was getting sober, he was concerned that he wouldn’t be as good of an actor, but in reality, the opposite was true.

16:10 Peer Pressure: Anyone who pressures others to drink does not have a healthy relationship with alcohol.

22:42 – Yoga for healing: We disconnect from our body when we try to numb our feelings with alcohol. Yoga is a great way to pay attention to your body and reconnect your mind and body.

23:49 – The Body Keeps the Score: In this book, they did brain scans of Vietnam veterans and other people with trauma. They mapped their brains while reading them accounts of their own traumatic experiences. They found that when you’re triggered, your brain believes that you are actually back in that situation.

Quotes

5:50 – “But in reality it’s numbing out from whatever’s causing the stress. So instead of sitting there saying why am I stressed, what’s going on, why am I having such a hard time and processing that, let’s just make it go away temporarily.”

11:00 – “I actually think that does a lot of people a disservice because it’s a great excuse for people to be able to say, ‘well I’m not an alcoholic. I don’t look like the guy on the street with a paper bag who’s stumbling around and doesn’t have a home to go to. That’s an alcoholic. I’m not an alcoholic.’”

12:28 – “I think that’s the thing people don’t realize is that you’re using an addictive substance and the more you use it, the more your body gets used to it, so you need more. You don’t need to be quote unquote born an alcoholic to develop a drinking problem. You can develop a drinking problem just by continually drinking.”

14:46 – “I knew that if I continued drinking, I would not reach my potential as an entrepreneur, as a business owner. My productivity was crap. My focus was bad, and I knew in the back of my mind if I don’t stop this I’m never going to be as good as I can be.”

23:35 – “If you research actual trauma, talk therapy does not help real trauma.”

24: 44 – “These studies say that when you’re triggered, your brain believes you’re actually back in that situation.”

29:11 – “You don’t become a different person just because you walk into your office. You’re still carrying all your past baggage of all of these things, but there’s this expectation to just leave it on the doorstep, and it doesn’t work that way.”

Who is our ideal listener?

We do this podcast for young professionals, so they can learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience. We also do it to help them experience less drama and more success. 

The ideal listener to me is anyone who is struggling at work with emotion management and anyone who’s struggling on an emotional level in the workplace. Honestly, that happens to all of us at some point. We get all knotted up about something. Someone was nasty to you in the parking lot before you went into work, so you’re a little anxious to start. The person that you sit next to gives you a dirty look  or slams their office drawer. There’s just all these things that happen in your life day to day, and they create an emotional response. 

At work, we’re expected to be logical. How can you be more logical and less emotional? Be strategic. What we talk about on Work Mom Says has a lot to do with being strategic at work, being able to look at the big picture, not getting lost in the weeds. I tell people to back up, you put down the magnifying glass, look at the big picture when you’re responding to something. In doing this, you will understand that what’s really upsetting you right now will be something you don’t even remember next week. 

Being crabby, saying something negative to somebody at the office, or putting a snarky comment in an email isn’t really productive because from a strategic point of view, it’s all irrelevant. You should be looking at it from a logical perspective. Some of that involves framing, reframing, and being attentive to what you want your end goal for the situation.

What value can people get from listening to this podcast?

Listening to Work Mom Says is a really good way to grow your personal mood management skills, to grow your ability to reframe situations, and look at things from a strategic point of view so that it’s easier to go into a work situation and get the most positive results.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

When emotions go up, logic goes down. So, when you can keep your emotions steady and stable, and not grab a hold of that feeling of angst and make it worse, you’re going to be more logical in what you do. You’re going to make fewer mistakes. You’re going to be more productive overall. You’re going to have stronger relationships.

Another value I think people get out of this is learning to create connected positive relationships that last over time. That’s not always easy. A lot of what we talk about on Work Mom Says involves being able to create connected positive relationships and work environments, so that people want you on the team. You become an asset, and when you’re an asset, you’re going to be more successful.

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.

Why do I do this? 

I do this because I naturally fell into the Work Mom role when I worked in the ad agency business, and I had so much fun with it. I also realized I had made just about every mistake there is to make. I don’t hold myself out there as any kind of stellar example of truth and how you should be. I hold myself out there as someone who has been bruised and battered and beaten up and learned some really 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 that I was, and I was an idiot. However, I learned so much, and it’s really rewarding to share that with young professionals and help them avoid some of those mistakes and get to that success sooner. 

I also want to help them realize that a lot of 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 you can succeed. 

Episode 18 – “How to Work for an Idiot” appeared first on Work Mom Says.

The post Episode 18 – “Sober is the New Black” appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Themes discussed in this episode

• Everyone can be perceived as an idiot
• Idiot engineering and learning how to “finesse” people
• Lori tells a story of an idiot boss
• How to stay strategic and look at this job as a stepping stone to something else
• The cost-benefit analysis of staying vs leaving

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

1:31 – Reframing your idiot boss: Choose to view your idiot boss as a person with good qualities and faults rather than just an idiot.

7:22 – Idiot Engineering: Make your working conditions more conducive to your career growth.

11:28 Don’t make meaning: Rather than make meaning out of an annoying occurrence, can you focus on what you want to accomplish instead? 

12:50 Make them look good: When you do good work and make your idiot boss look good, they will treat you better.

Quotes:

• 2:11 – “Look at someone as a full one hundred percent human being with both wonderful qualities and faults and flaws, just like you, so that compassion can help you reframe that idiot boss and help you see them as people rather than just idiots.” 

• 7:35 – “Even though idiot bosses are inevitable, they are not terminal.”
• 11:40 – “We are meaning-making machines. Something happens, we make a meaning out of it, and then we behave, talk, act based on the meaning that we gave that occurence. So instead, are there things that happen that your boss does that you could just ignore, and focus instead on what you want to accomplish?”
• 13:08 – “They really like it when you compliment them, when you manage their personality, and when you give them what they need. They will think more highly of you”

Who is our ideal listener?

We do this podcast for young professionals, so they can learn to play the emotional context sport of business and experience. We also do it to help them experience less drama and more success. 

The ideal listener to me is anyone who is struggling at work with emotion management and anyone who’s struggling on an emotional level in the workplace. Honestly, that happens to all of us at some point. We get all knotted up about something. Someone was nasty to you in the parking lot before you went into work, so you’re a little anxious to start. The person that you sit next to gives you a dirty look  or slams their office drawer. There’s just all these things that happen in your life day to day, and they create an emotional response. 

At work, we’re expected to be logical. How can you be more logical and less emotional? Be strategic. What we talk about on Work Mom Says has a lot to do with being strategic at work, being able to look at the big picture, not getting lost in the weeds. I tell people to back up, you put down the magnifying glass, look at the big picture when you’re responding to something. In doing this, you will understand that what’s really upsetting you right now will be something you don’t even remember next week. 

Being crabby, saying something negative to somebody at the office, or putting a snarky comment in an email isn’t really productive because from a strategic point of view, it’s all irrelevant. You should be looking at it from a logical perspective. Some of that involves framing, reframing, and being attentive to what you want your end goal for the situation.

What value can people get from listening to this podcast?

Listening to Work Mom Says is a really good way to grow your personal mood management skills, to grow your ability to reframe situations, and look at things from a strategic point of view so that it’s easier to go into a work situation and get the most positive results.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

When emotions go up, logic goes down. So, when you can keep your emotions steady and stable, and not grab a hold of that feeling of angst and make it worse, you’re going to be more logical in what you do. You’re going to make fewer mistakes. You’re going to be more productive overall. You’re going to have stronger relationships.

Another value I think people get out of this is learning to create connected positive relationships that last over time. That’s not always easy. A lot of what we talk about on Work Mom Says involves being able to create connected positive relationships and work environments, so that people want you on the team. You become an asset, and when you’re an asset, you’re going to be more successful.

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.

Why do I do this? 

I do this because I naturally fell into the Work Mom role when I worked in the ad agency business, and I had so much fun with it. I also realized I had made just about every mistake there is to make. I don’t hold myself out there as any kind of stellar example of truth and how you should be. I hold myself out there as someone who has been bruised and battered and beaten up and learned some really 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 that I was, and I was an idiot. However, I learned so much, and it’s really rewarding to share that with young professionals and help them avoid some of those mistakes and get to that success sooner. 

I also want to help them realize that a lot of 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 you can succeed. 

Episode 17 – “How to Work for an Idiot” appeared first on Work Mom Says.

The post Episode 17 – “How to Work for an Idiot” appeared first on Work Mom Says®.

Angela Ficorelli is a designer and owner of Subtle Design Co. You can find Angela on LinkedIn and on her website.

Molly Wagner is a digital marketing specialist at PopSpeed Digital Marketing LLC, where she creates content and manages social media channels for clients in a variety of industries, including real estate, healthcare, and education. You can find her on LinkedIn. 

Episode 16 – “Play More at Work” appeared first on Work Mom Says.

The post Episode 16 – “Play More at Work” appeared first on Work Mom Says®.