In Business Archive: Bringing Your Whole Self to Your Work with Elizabeth Rosenberg

Learn more about Elizabeth Rosenberg: https://www.thegoodadvicecompany.com/

Transcript

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friends today, we're talking to Elizabeth Rosenberg. She is the founder of the good advice company. And I'm going to tell you, I love this conversation. We focus in on leadership coaching and stepping into how we want to show up as our whole selves. Not necessarily with balance or equilibrium, but just from a space of, this is how I'm living. I love this conversation. I know you will too. Let's get into it. Elizabeth, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I am so excited to chat with you today. We'll kick off as we always do. Tell us a little bit about you and the work you do on this. Great. My name is Elizabeth Rosenberg and I'm the founder of the good advice company. I am a marketing and communications consultant that works with C-suite leaders, startups creative agencies on their brand proposition, and also the value proposition. I most recently have really started working with a lot of C-suite leaders on personal branding sessions, which I know you do a little bit as as well. And it's really important for me, for us to not be defined as our careers, but really as the people that we are. So the more I can do that, the better, I love that. I think that there is so much space for us to be out there in the world and to be ourselves. But how we do that in big organizations can feel. More difficult than it is. Where do you see people struggling to show up? I think People believe that there is such a thing as work-life balance. And I have a huge issue with that phrase because I don't actually think there is ever a balance. I think there are times in your life where work is going to be more important. There are times in your life where family will be more important. There are times in your life while your self care will be more important. And to think of it as balance is honestly just like the wrong word. Like we have to figure out how to rebrand and not in 2021. It's I don't like the word. I think therapy has a really negative connotation. And honestly, I feel like everyone should be in it. And if it didn't have that connotation, more people would participate. So there's a lot of stuff like that, that I think that hopefully will literally rebrand and, they all need to logos, new colors new definitions. You can tell I'm a marketer. No, I think that's such a. It's such a nice way to look at rephrasing. It's that it's not that, you can't have some amount of ease and flow in your life. It's that when we put the label of balance or when we put the label of therapy on something, it changes how we show up for it in a way that's maybe counterproductive for our goals. And I think it also leads to unrealistic expectations. Yeah. Going towards balance. And if you can't ever get to it, you feel unsuccessful. Yes. And that's the exact opposite of what it's supposed to do. Yes. When you think about the word, a better word or a better interpretation of it, how do you see it in your own life? Playing. That's a great question because in all honesty, and I, let me back up with a second, for a second to tell a little bit more about my story. About six years ago, I was working for a very large company with a very well-known brand. And I had a severe case of corporate burnout and personal burnout. Honestly, I feel like I tell everybody it was like I had physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional breakdown pretty much. No one could tell him the outside. Honestly, I couldn't even tell. Until I ended up in the hospital with a migraine where I lost all of my motor skills, they thought that I was having a drug overdose. They thought that I was having a stroke. Nope. I couldn't speak. Nobody could tell me what was wrong with me. And then I went on this like very extensive healing and wellness journey that I'm still on to both combat my migraines, which I've had since I was four, but also to really uncovered. Who I am authentically and how I want to show up in the world and the people that I want to surround myself with. Now a lot of that is unbelievable privilege that I have the opportunity to be able to take the time and have the finances to be on this journey. But it has completely given me the okay. And the permission to throw balance out the door. One of my good friends calls it more like work life, product. Which I think is a great word. I know somebody said harmony the other day, which I thought was really interesting. And honestly, I just don't really think that there should be a label on it. I think whatever works for you because the amount of expectations that we put on it, you're still going to constantly try to reach. And you may. But I also think, just being honest with yourself about like where you are in your life and what you need out of that time. We are all in our highest earning years. If that's what you want to do, and that's what you need to do in order to set yourself up for, whatever, or you have to take care of your family or something like you need to know that your work is going to take some precedence over some other parts of your. Yeah, and be okay with that. Yes. And recognize the trade-offs that you're making that when you're making them, I think the intentionality of it is where it creates agency and ownership of the decisions that you're making. It's when you don't have that ownership and agency, when you're not being intentional, when it's just happening to you and not for you. That's where people can really come to a place of stress. I love that you said that the happening to you, because that is the one thing that every time I tell my burnout story and I recently I decided last year to finally write it down and share it. And it was in business insider and it got a lot more attention than I was anticipating. And I got hundreds of emails from people who had experienced something similar. We're just happy that somebody was telling the story and that it was relatable. It was both empowering and also like heart crushing that so many people experienced this. But when you talk about happening to you, I, part of the story that I always want to make super, super clear is that I loved my job that I was at. I think that there's this misnomer that when you burn out, it's because you're miserable and I was not miserable. I was thriving and truly loved the people that I was around, loved the projects I was working on. I loved everything about it. And no one was forcing me to work that hard. The goes back to expectations, right? What I believed people needed out of me, no one actually needed out of me. I could have worked at a seven and been totally fine. Instead I was working at a 12 and it was just. Not sustainable. I want to just underline this because there's so many times I'm talking to an executive or even a friend, how many in line at Starbucks. And they think that it's not burnout because they do love it. They think it's ridiculous. And it's yeah, but it is still burnout. It is still a depletion of your resources. Of time, energy and money, whatever that might be. You're depleting your resources beyond what you can sustain and how you felt in that moment of doing it. Is it's actually love. It probably actually is. Cause I don't know about you, but I can't do something. I hate to exhaustion. I can't. I will. I can't either. No. And I think the other thing too, is people also think that you only burn out when you've been working for 20 years. If you have no college kids who have burned out, I know people who just, interns who have burned out, like there is such a. Wrong definition of what corporate burnout entails. And I do think that the pandemic has shown a huge spotlight on what different kinds of burnout looks like. I feel so deeply for parents who have been at home who have been doing 17 jobs, in addition to like their teachers they're cleaners, they are chauffeurs they're chefs. And then they have. C-suite positions that they're also running companies that we're all dependent on. So I think when you think of it that way, how is someone not going to burn out? Yes. Oh, I think that's such an interesting reframe. If you see yourself on that trajectory, how do you course correct in a way that it doesn't end in. Hospitalization, or an eat pray, love moment, right? That's I'm constantly looking at this and thinking, all right, how do we rewrite this? How do we change this experience before we are off the rails? I think there's two things and this is probably not a popular answer, but it's what I believe. I don't think anybody should have to go through burnout, but I will also tell you. It was the single most important event in my life to change my trajectory in my life. Without that experience, I would not be where I am today. So I also look back at that and think if that hadn't happened, I would be an unbelievably different person who was not living as their true self. So I have to I am. In a very weird way. I'm grateful for that experience. Sometimes the only way to something new is through, oh, that's a great phrase. Yes. A hundred percent. But on the flip side, I also do a ton of corporate training and talks about different ways that both managers and people who are managed can. Combat, but also help prevent burnout. And they don't want us to, it's like little things like don't have your phone in your room and you're sleeping. Like I, that took me years to, to train myself, to do and to be okay with it. Take social media off your phone. The outrage of people yesterday with the Facebook, Instagram that WhatsApp down debacle was blowing my mind. I'm like, do you guys know how nice it is to not be on those things for a few hours? Take a breather. This is great. I also think, and it's so funny cause I, as a communicator and a marketing consultant, like love streamlined communications. There's no reason to go, beat around the Bush. Let's just get it done. But things like constantly I'm messaging G chats, slack. Those notifications are built in to trigger your brain, turn the notifications off. Yeah. Especially on the weekends. Like I think it's and I think a lot of young people, especially don't think that they can set boundaries. They don't have permission to and you also don't necessarily, that's a conversation you need to have with your manager about what those boundaries look like for you. For instance, at my last company, everybody on my team wasn't therapy, everyone. I was like, I was, trust me. I had a very high functioning team. It was fantastic. Everybody was on it, but I had parameters around when they could go through. Because of the type of team that we are rendering running, and also just different time zones and all that stuff. It was like, you can go early in the morning or you can go after 3:00 PM on these days and everyone fit it in their schedule. So it's I think as a manager being cognizant of what the needs are of the people that are working for you are very important. Yeah. Yeah, I love this idea of this perception. Again, I think we're breaking all kinds of different illusions that we've had or beliefs that we've had. This perception, that boundary setting is something that, that you earn the right to get. I will get to a point when I'm a manager, I'll be able to set the boundaries and it's no, that's not the case. The higher up everybody goes. The more people. Have expectations of you, the boundaries, aren't something that you build at the end. There's something that you build at the beginning. Yes, but I also think as managers this was the thing that has always blown my mind in a corporate setting. No one teaches people how to manage. No, never, no. You just you're just especially like people who are managing 10. 2000 people like have zero training on how to do that properly. And some people are not meant to manage. And that is totally okay. But especially when you manage with people who have a high IQ, then it just throws everything into a loop because if that's not how you communicate properly it makes everything quite difficult. So I also think that there needs to be many more. Then there needs to be different training on how to manage people, because I just made up my own management book. I threw out how reviews were done. One of the things that I actually wrote, like a LinkedIn article about this. So in January, I would ask everybody on my team to retake the love language test with work in mind. So I knew how everybody on my team likes to receive positive feedback. And affirmation and it was different across the board. I had one person that's wanting quality time. So I knew that I, all of our meetings needed to be, one-on-one like walking meetings. We needed to be outside, just needed to be asked. I had another person who, words of affirmation. So I needed to make sure that when they did something good, an email was sent with everybody CC. So they felt valued. But I also did something that I remember my boss was like, oh God, why did, like, why is that part of the review? I asked everybody what their dream job was with the knowing that we no longer live in a society where someone is going to be in a job for 30 years. Yeah. So I'm like, cool. If you want to be Oprah, let's figure out the skills that you need in the job that you currently have to get you to where you need. When I started doing that, everyone got better at their job because everyone knew that they were working towards what they wanted to be doing. Eventually you created that line of sight to their purpose. Oh, I love that. Yes. That's exactly what I did. Yeah. And I think that there's, it takes a level of your own. Authority to give other people the space and hold the container for them to do that work and to not feel exposed, vulnerable scarcity around that, because I can, I'm just imagining, I'm working with this one leader right now and they're a wonderful person. They're a wonderful person. But if they were to ask their 10 direct reports, What their dream job was the amount I can just, I can feel the tension through the chest, up into the neck for this individual, because there are people on this person's team that want their. There they are positioning for that job. They want to be above that person. And that is very confronting for a leader to be like, oh, you want to be, do you want to be the CEO of this company, please? Behind me. Thank you very much. There's a lot of energy in doing that and you have to be a pretty self-aware person to hold the space for other people to get what they want. Yes. And I also think one of the biggest benefits that I have had in my leadership journey is that I have been given an executive coach. Yeah. And companies who are not investing in coaching are missing out drastically. It's just, it is hands down both in my corporate career, but also in my personal life. Coaching has changed me as a person it's it, it has not only allowed me to communicate better, but also to hear better. And I think as a leader active listening is like a skill that like, you really need to practice. It's very hard. Yeah. The coaching. Conversation, I think is one that is coming up more and more because there's an understanding now that individuals, if you have a desire for an individual to be on a leadership track, if you will, they need more input than just their direct manager telling them what to do. They need coaching and they need to be receptive to coaching. Like both of both receiving and being receptive, I think are two different skills that coaching helps you find a hundred percent. Yes. Not all coaches are created equal. No, not all people are created equal now. And it's, it's funny, as I always tell people that coaching is. You really have to find somebody that you like jive with, that you are willing to hear your faults from. But like you said, too, not everybody's coachable. I jumped into and I didn't have coaching until after my kind of burnout episode. So I jumped into this being like, if anybody wants to help, this is great. And I love being able to receive tools and homework of things that I can work on myself, but I know that not everyone is like that. And I'm, don't have a solve for that. I don't know how to make uncoachable people coachable because that's it's a bigger issue. I think that lies in self-awareness personal trauma, all of the stuff that. Tapped into it. There's a receptivity that I completely agree either you're receptive and you're not. And like you're not, I've had some people that have reached out to me for coaching or they've wanted me to refer a coach that maybe I've worked with in the past and in whatever season they're in, it's just not right. And that's okay too. Recognizing. Our journey is not some linear. I stay the same. It's like we're iterative ourselves. And so we might be coachable in this one moment, but the next moment, not so much. Oh yes. It really depends on where you are your journey. Yeah. Yeah. When you think about. How to advocate and ask for the support that you need and getting a coach in a leadership role. How do you approach that? Because I've got a lot of people, a lot of people are asking me this I want a coach, how do I go to my senior leadership and tell them I need a coach without coming across week, less than needed. That's such a good question. I'm not sure I have a great answer. I think there's two things that I would say one, I think that people who are coached, stay at their jobs longer than people who are not because they have the tools to deal with people around them. But I also think there is a. An interesting play here in the great recession or the great resignation and how so many people are leaving right now. I think there is huge opportunity for coaching to help curb that people who are coached become better, coaches like become better coaches themselves. I my team didn't have access to a coach. They had access to me who was being coached, where I could impart the lessons that I was learning. And I believe several members of my team stayed significantly longer than they would have if I hadn't had those tools to. Yes. So I think that is financially. You're pretty like your return on investment on that is huge. It's an easy sell because I think the thing that's the hardest part is selling and coaching because coaching is yes. Yes. And companies should pay for it. It's a talent tool. I think so. And I think I really am grateful that you answered that question from a place of not knowing and you talked through it. I appreciate that because I've really, I've been struggling with how to answer that question too, but I think. Approaching your leadership from a place of, I need to be a stronger coach of our team so that we can have stronger retention of my team in order to do that most effectively, it's going to come from a place of learning. And so I need to learn in action with a coach of mine. Yes. I also think the best time to negotiate bringing a coach with you is when you were in a career transition or a job transition, and you say you hired me because I'm great at what I do, but also an amazing manager. The reason I'm an amazing manager is because I have been with my coach for the last, however, six months, two years, whatever. As part of my package, I would like my coach to come. I have never heard anyone who has positioned it that way to a new job who has not had their coach come with them. Amazing. I think there's so many people that are in that place of negotiation. And if you've been, Ted a listener, that's thinking, okay, I don't know if I can stay here or if I need to go outside to do that, it might be a good opportunity to go to. Immediate supervisor and say, I'm in a point of reflection. I believe that a coach will help me get to a point of resolution and hopefully stay here and continue to invest my skills within this company. Is this something that you'd be willing to fund for a period of six months until my next review, where we can discuss it again? I think that's a great way to put it. I think the other thing. To your point is saying, starting off with and invested in my career here. And I'm invested in the company here. I would love you to invest in me to grow here as a leader. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Always double down on loving the job if you don't want to leave. Yes. Do you think that poaches and residents in organizations is something that we're going to see or do we need to have greater access to variety? I think it's both. I think coaches and residents should never actually be employed like full-time employees by the company. They should be contractors when they are full-time employees by the company. They are not trusted by the people that are being coached. I've yeah. I don't think that's a great solution. But I also think it's unbelievably helpful. It's like the coach on billions where like you have one coach and she can like. Navigate the waters and help leaders diffuse a situation before it becomes a situation. So if you have somebody who's coaching several people, they know how to help you navigate that early. That is a game changer and I think it's unbelievably helpful. I also think a coach who can do group sessions. So everyone is always on the same page. The biggest issue that I have always run into as a consultant is the C-suite is never agree on anything. So nothing, everything takes forever because we sit on calls, not agreeing. And I think that's why people bring me in. So we can all get onto the same page and someone can speak truth to power and say we all need to either do a or B, like we're making a decision. Yeah. For people who are, who don't have coaching and residents, I think you really need to find the right coach for you and what it is that you want to do. If you want to stay in your job and you want to grow in that job, there's a specific coach for that. If you're looking for wellness in your personal life and kind of. To figure out how to work that in, within your professional life, or you have a side hustle that you really love that you want to start working on. You need a different coach for that. So you need to figure out what what your needs are before you, you dive in with somebody. And again, I think you just like everything you interview people to figure out what is the right fit. Yes. I always say at least half to three different coaches before you make a decision. Yeah. And what's this for your friends, won't always work for you. That's my favorite thing. It's oh my God, I have this amazing coach. And then you're like, oh no, I did not like that person that did not work for me. That's so interesting. I found that really interesting and the people that I've met in group coaching environments have become a completely different type of friend than situational. Like that has been one way that I've really loved growing my personal. I think it's very hard for women to make friends as an adult. And some of my best friends that I've made have been in group coaching environments because we come from similar, you have a theme values. That's not even true. I don't even know how to frame this, but I feel like you have shared and you have shared experiences that you can grow off of. Yeah. So that I don't disagree. I'm a member of chief, which for C-suite women, I just, I can't rave highly enough about it really is fantastic. And they have core groups there that are led by coaches. And. Members of our core group have become so close, not only in the pure coaching, but also in the kind of like group coaching settings. And we're all different walks of life. We could not be in different industries, different jobs, different parts of our lives. And it's been really exciting to watch that kind of blossom. So I don't disagree. And I also think when you were at a leadership level whatever your age. You need other women to bounce things off of, we are still living in the patriarchy. We still need a support system. Yes. Yes. I think chief is a great resource at the top. I'd love to have. Another resource that we can point people to that chief light. I know chief later it's like manager. I don't know there's a space for that for sure. Yeah. We've covered so much ground Elizabeth. Thank you for having me. Yeah. Is there anything that you were hoping that we could get into today that we haven't? I think just a little bit that we talked about at the beginning is I just can't stress enough. The fact. Especially in a leadership role and in a manager role, we need to figure out how to redefine ourselves and our personal brands by who we are, not what we do. In different ways of introducing ourselves in the room. I know on your website, you have that. And I love that so much of how, somebody or what brings them joy versus, oh, this is Elizabeth and this is what she does for her. Yeah. And I think in the last 18 months as we've been inside and in locked down and we've watched so many people pass away, the lives have been celebrated in a way that looks like people are reading resonates. And I said if I were to die tomorrow and. You say that I worked on campaign and that, these are the companies that I worked at oh, we'll come back and haunt everybody. That cannot be my legacy. Like I have to be known for something else or not even known for something else. I have to be remembered for something else. I want people to remember me as being a kind person who advocated for women who amplified the voices of others, who, there's other ways to talk about ourselves. Just the more I can stress that bios need to change what we talk about, needs to change. And also just, I think having the bravery to truly be ourselves. I think there's a lot of fear around that. I've experienced that a lot in the last year of am I more scared of people accepting who I am or I'm more scared of people rejecting. Who I actually am. So there's a lot of a lot of self discovery, but we also need to just dive in head first. It's what's the point of waiting around? Yeah. I think the stepping into our authenticity being brave for whatever's going to come out of that and having a little bit. Non attachment to the outcome, just to say, I want to know what it feels like to actually just show up as myself. Like I'm curious, but that will feel like, yeah, that's brave. And if other people have a reaction to it, recognizing that's there. You know exactly. It's really interesting. I'm a mom. I have four kids. My 13 year old is very 13 right now and I'm just constantly reminding myself. Oh, wow. Okay. I'm the roller coaster operator. Not on it. I am not on it. I don't need to scream and be in a suspenseful moment at the top of the hill. I don't, I'm not on it. I'm the operator I'm gonna push the aversion. She, I can't even say it. I keep going to push the emergency shutoff at that needs to get pushed, but this is her ride. Yeah. That's an amazing way of looking at things. It's hard because it's very easy to want to be on the ride with people and to take their experience of something and make it your responsibility. Yes. There's something that's FOMO, right? Yeah. In a lot of ways too. Yeah. I was talking to somebody the other day about like the joys of turning 40 and you're just oh, okay. Yeah. There is just like a sense of acceptance of just that is not part of my journey and not my monkeys, not my circus. And I'm just going to be okay. Not being part of that, but there's so much of your life where you have such anxiety about not being part of the. It's a very weird feeling when you make the very cognizant decision to let that go. But everyone lets that go in their own time. You can't tell people to let it go because then it won't work. It's the equivalent of saying calm down. That's my that. And can you smell more my two least favorite phrases? Yeah. Yes. Calm down, smile more. And also just let it go. Just be free of this. It's I'm going to hold on to this until I absolutely don't. You don't have to. And then I will be like, wow, I carried that around for an excessively long time. I know. What do you think about that? Yeah, I think. Great freedom as we step into forties and older where we're just like, oh yeah, this is weird. Do you remember your mom turning 40? No, I remember my mom turning 50. Okay. Because we we were in our twenties and we like at the throw her party for her and we thought it was so cool. But no, I don't remember her doing 40 at all. I remember my mom turning 40 and I. I remember just being like, wow, that is just so old. And now I remember very young and in my head I'm like, my mom is still 40 and yet it is very difficult for my mom to remain 40 when I am now 40. Oh, that is the truth. Yes. I said into my aunt is, am I still think that my aunt is like 43 and I'm like, that's not possible because. Yeah, I'm very close to that age. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's just very interesting how it really shifts and changes as we get older and our understanding of how we can use time and how time is just one measure on this giant chart of life. And let's be real the last year and a half has just been. It was like, wait a second. It's been a year and a half there's people that you haven't seen in two or three years. And you're like, how did that happen? I had a coffee with a couple of women this morning and I was like, wow. I feel like I haven't seen you in forever. And she's yeah, I haven't seen you since, before the pandemic. I'm like, I don't know. That was like two years ago. And she was like yeah, it's wild. But I also think. I know that I maybe not that I'm alone in this thought. I really see the pandemic for me was a gift. Oh, totally. For me, it allowed me to really rethink what I wanted to do. I built a business, I got rid of some people in my life that I didn't need there. I invited some new people into my life that had. Unbelievably enriched and powerful. And I think if you actually I don't think that people needed to learn a new skill necessarily, but I think if you had the time to actually think about what brings you joy and I also learned the difference between happiness and joy. For me, I have the idea of something being very fleeting and something being very sustaining. And that is something that I will be forever grateful for. Yes. Yeah. There's so much in there going, I want to dig into more. I know, sorry. The podcast itself, it really could be. I think the, for me, the pandemic was this leveler. And so much was just not an option. And so as we've ramped back into something completely new, it's been a great invitation to say, oh, am I going to do that again or not? But as women too, who have to make decisions all day long, About everything. It was so nice for the world to make a decision for me. I was like, oh, I don't have a choice. This is what I have to do. That's fantastic. I don't have to do this. Great. Yeah. The limitation actually fostered a whole lot of improvisation and innovation that really unlocked something interesting. And it was like, okay. So I can't do literally any of the things that have brought me joy in the past. So I've got to come up with a completely new set of skills to bring me that light up feeling. Okay. Cool. Let's get moving. I made absolutely zero sourdough successfully. I tried lots. I think I like at the end, I think I probably had three loaves that were like, Ooh, this is good, but I, yeah, I wasn't, I'm not as. I'm not a great baker. No. I said a lot of sourdough starters with absolutely zero success. Oh my God. That's so funny. We tried, Hey, here we go. It wasn't for me. Good to know. I've got a lightning round of questions, but Elizabeth, before we get into those, where can people find you online? You can find me on Twitter at good advice, co and then you can also find me on my website at the good advice company. What is the go-to song. You listen to when you want to up your energy. I've been really back into Atlanta these days, and I'm fairly certain. My neighborhood is not loving my rendition of you ought to know that I'm singing at the top of my lungs as I'm stressed, walking through town, but really back into it. What time do you wake up? I wake up at seven o'clock. What's his breakfast look like during the week it's normally black coffee. I'm on the weekends. I love scrambled eggs or I also, this is the pandemic thing I've gotten really into chocolate chip protein pancakes, the Kodiak cakes. Love them. Do you have a favorite ritual? I work out twice a week. It is in my way. It's the thing that's keeping me sane. It's keeping me strong and it's almost like my meditation, a book you've given or recommended the most. I love the Alchemist. And then the boy, the mole, the Fox by Charlie maxi. Awesome. I think the boy of the mole, the Fox, the horse. Okay, cool. What are you doing in perfectly, but with great joy. I'm living as my true self. I've done a lot of healing and work on myself the last five and six years. And I've uncovered parts of myself that I really love. I think there's a lot of joy there, but there, as we discussed, there's a lot of fear too. And so much of it is imperfect, but I think that's what makes it great. Love that. Thank you, Elizabeth. Thank you.