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In my last episode I had a powerful conversation with Chris Blunt. He had recognized the version of success he's been told to follow no longer fit, so he made a big change. He chose to honor everything he had experienced and been taught and take the leap into a different path, which was the one that was truly right for him. Hi, I'm Becky, welcome to Short Story Long. In this podcast we discuss ways you can integrate who you are into how you lead. Today I'm offering strategies for building your skills as a leader. Let's break down what's important as you restructure how you might be engaging with your world.

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Chris's story is different from my life story in many ways, and yet I find it also incredibly relatable. We grow up getting any number of messages of who we are supposed to be. It's not just parents and family members, it's people in our communities, it's our interactions with strangers. All this forms the stories and narratives we create about who we are and who we quote should be. Those stories aren't capital T true. They are built based on the lens we use and the experiences that we've had. Shifting the lens and gaining new perspectives helps reshape those beliefs and perceptions. It changes how we see ourselves and how we see others.

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That is the journey that Chris took. He was in a pressure cooker, to some extent of his own making, based on limiting beliefs. Yes, there were external factors. Those outside forces changed a couple of times, though, and the things he really had to face were asking himself the question who am I and who do I choose to be? Chris shared his reflections and insights and I'd echo his. That work can be intimidating and scary. He talked about the difficulty of stepping away from security. That, for him, was stepping away from a job that wasn't filling him up professionally or personally, but did offer compensation and benefits, and he walked away after a powerful discussion with his wife.

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You may know from my story that I had a similar conversation with my husband and left the job and the function that didn't fit me anymore. Both of our stories show how there's a shift in how you see yourself, how you see others and how you interact within the world. Chris said mine is mostly built around restructuring my life and how my expectations and things of how I grew up versus how I choose to live my life now. He continued on. I had these moments where it was sort of like a breaking point, where I didn't see myself really surviving that in a healthy fashion, and I decided to go against the grain and go toward my dreams. Again, I echo that Sometimes those messages that you get early in your life don't fit you, and that's okay, and sometimes you follow a path that no longer fits you.

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You don't need to leave your corporate role to feel this same kind of transition. It's what happens when you take on a highly visible project and that pushes your limits. Maybe you've been promoted and now you're leading those who were once your peers. Maybe it's you're reassigned to a project or role that you would not have chosen, and yet that's the right choice for you and your personal situation in that moment. Another scary example is that layoff that you may or may not have seen coming, and now you have to figure out what's next. In those moments you're asking yourself what Chris pondered who am I and who do I choose to be At this point? If you're a regular listener, this won't shock you. I have thoughts on that.

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A couple of key things that I think are really, really important. One is this idea of recognizing and prioritizing your mental health and well-being. Is this idea of recognizing and prioritizing your mental health and well-being. It's also that recognition of who you truly are and what's important to you and giving yourself some grace while also stepping into that idea of resilience and how am I going to continue to move through these situations. And yeah, sometimes that comes with really challenging decisions that you need to make. So let's touch base with some of those things.

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If you had a chance to listen to my interview with Chris or really more of a discussion there was a lot of laughter in our conversation and there were some deeply serious and somber moments too. Chris experienced depression and it reached a serious and frightening decision about suicide. Alongside my sadness that he faced that choice at all is the joy it gives me that he was able to find his path, with bumps, roadblocks and fears faced, and he was able to get to the other side of it With the benefit of reflection and distance from it. He speaks more objectively about those days he shared. I don't think about my mental health or happiness. I almost lost my life over this, so I think I needed to make a bold choice.

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Leadership requires recognizing that well-being is foundational to performance. Chris shares how ignoring this almost cost him everything. I know leaders who lost an employee or colleague to suicide. We aren't responsible for fixing the situation when there's depression and other contributing factors.

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As leaders, you can look for ways to support someone's overall well-being, though it's the checking in with what someone is feeling. We ask how are you doing? And the answer is as much a default as the question the answer I'm fine. Much a default as the question the answer I'm fine. Instead, as a leader, you might change one word and ask what are you feeling about this change? Or what are you feeling about this situation? It actually prompts a person to think differently about the answer because I'm fine no longer really fits that particular question. When Chris spoke to his wife, she had said to him it's no good to keep that job. If you can't be happy, that's not a bad day at work. That's the response when it's a slog at work over a period of time.

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You need to be aware of what is happening for you and your team so it can be addressed. Strong leaders learn to challenge some of these limiting beliefs and reframe their inner narratives, and to assist their team members with doing it as well. There's this model about self-awareness called the Johari window. It was designed to help people better understand their relationship with themselves and with others. Naturally, it's a two-by-two matrix, as so many models are.

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So, if you can imagine the four boxes, and each axis is represented by what you know and don't know about yourself and the other axis is what others know and don't know about you, there are two key boxes that I like to point out in this particular model. One points to a blind spot. That's what you don't know and others do know about you. The other key box is what I might call the mask that you wear. The other key box is what I might call the mask that you wear, which is what you know and others don't, and often we're in a place where we don't want other people to know. So for that blind spot, we can be asking for insights and feedback from other people and that can truly shine a light on those areas. We can start to see the things that, standing inside of our head, we're not able to see outside of us. That's complicated, that's difficult for us to be able to be that objective in looking at our own lived experience. I personally believe that work with a coach, and sometimes a therapist, is the right choice to explore those masks and those blind spots and be conscious about dealing with them.

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Chris talked about this. As we are the gods of our world, every passing moment offers another chance to turn it all around. This is the window maybe not the Johari window, but the window that we are looking through to be able to see what is next for us and who we are choosing to be, because that's a choice that we make every single day. I reinforce this idea of you can't come up with solutions for how to get you out of where you are when you're in some really heavy energy and feeling really deflated and sometimes depressed. You need to be able to tap into a possibility of an alternate truth so that you can see outside of the story and the narrative that you're telling yourself. Maybe you've heard the phrase what got you here won't get you there. This takes a willingness to offer yourself or team member a little bit of grace.

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Chris talked about leading others with empathy and we both kind of talked about ego can really block growth. His comment was it taught me to lead with compassion, because I know it's all a trickle-down thing and he was talking about that point in time when his employer was going to put him on progressive discipline because he wasn't engaging enough, and he even said I can't be mad at them. It's the system, and it's not about being right, that you need to be able to check your ego and a line that I really love that he tagged onto that as well you get no tax breaks for being right. His recognition was that the greater good is actually in your peace, and that's a little bit different than being right. In an earlier episode I talked to Scott Hanton and he shared a perspective that he had learned. It was maybe a little bit of feedback that he had received. Shared a perspective that he had learned. It was maybe a little bit of feedback that he had received and that line was do you want to be right or do you want to be effective? Sometimes you can't be both as much as sometimes we want to be both right and effective.

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It can be very, very challenging when we have so many conflicting views. Sometimes we have to be willing to let go of our way of viewing the world and consider the way that other people are seeing it and also show a little bit of compassion for some of the people who are around us that have a different lived experience and have a different set of rules that they believe that they're supposed to live by. This doesn't mean that you are required to hold space for everyone's feelings and sometimes whining about things. Yes, I've done my share of whining, so I totally know what happens. I think you may recognize some of those moments too, if you look at your history with some honesty and some objectivity. What it does mean is that you can offer the benefit of the doubt to people. You can gently, and sometimes directly, offer insights about things that may be blind spots. You don't know how much of a mask someone is wearing, since, by absolute definition, it's something you don't know about the other person. Absolute definition it's something you don't know about the other person. Maybe it's not even yours to know. Some folks are private and I don't know. Don't do a podcast and share about their lives and invite others to do the same. Allow that person their privacy, while also showing a willingness to hear about what is affecting their job performance or their job attitude.

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It goes back to asking that question what are you feeling about this situation? What are you feeling about this right now? One of the other elements that often comes into this is when we fall down, we need to get back up again, and leadership often demands the ability to recover from setbacks and keep moving forward. Chris highlighted this repeatedly. One of the standout moments was when he was talking about when his studio was robbed and he said there was a bunch of stuff stolen and I was like I just lost $10,000 worth of things, but I just kept going. I would never have been able to get to this point if I had given up. It isn't that the truth? That when we think about what is failure, it isn't the falling down that is the failure. It is the giving up that makes us feel like we failed. Naturally, my hope is that you are never robbed and lose anything in this way.

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Still, we all face setbacks in our own way. There's loss and grief over what is lost. We get knocked down and still we rise. This is easier when we have a support system colleagues, friends, family who will offer support and perspective. They push you when you need encouragement and they comfort you when you need acknowledgement. Who are those people in your life? Maybe you thought of two or three people just right out of the gate as I asked that question. This one might be a different lens to think about, which is when are you that person in other people's lives? When are you, as a leader, showing that encouragement and showing that acknowledgement? Sometimes, as leaders, you may not be able to help them get to the other side of whatever thing your team member is experiencing. Sometimes you need to make those tough decisions, own the consequences and recognize that choice is always available. Sometimes you have to make really brave moves that make you feel uncomfortable but are ultimately better for you. Chris said that also several times and in different ways.

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When I was in HR, I was considered tough on performance. Honestly, it was likely a fair description. Looking back at some of those situations, I think about the well-being of the people. I spent time talking to employees about what was happening. Sometimes that was tough love. That time that I said something along the lines of that log of all of your hurt feelings is really not helping you right now.

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Or some of the supportive encouragement that time when I would say to someone I see you're struggling, you need to buckle in to get this task complete. It's hard, but you are capable of doing this. Sometimes we need someone on the outside to help us make the decision that serves us best. Now I'd also be adding in the idea of what are you missing that is important to your career development. What are the things that you dread? If it's the whole job, you have something to think about here. It's not on the company to create the job you want. If you don't want what is currently available, you have agency to choose what's next.

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Chris took a huge leap. That doesn't need to be your path. You may change roles, functions, organizations, whatever it is that fuels you to do your best work again as a people leader. It is challenging, yet it's also your role to call out when you see a person who is disengaged. Look when Chris was told he wasn't engaging enough. And seriously, can we all do a collective eye roll right now about he wasn't engaging enough with customers and was now getting written up? Well, he left. He's like I'm out. That's his choice to make. I often talk to people. Actually, this is throughout my life and career. Every day you choose to go to your job until that day that you choose not to, and so it's a choice every single day.

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The organization does get to set expectations, though I'm not sure how you measure cheerfulness. Still, they get to set those expectations, one of the things that I pointed out as I was talking to Chris was there's always a choice. You just may not like the consequences of some of those choices, but there's always a choice. The consequences of some of those choices, but there's always a choice. There was so much in this episode with Chris, and there's an opportunity to truly reflect. If you're a person who is feeling dissatisfied in your role and it's really dragging down your energy in those moments, or if you're a people leader, observing people on your team and recognizing that they just aren't operating in the same way that you've seen them before something's changed, it's an opportunity to check in and in some ways, it's a responsibility to check in. So here's your skill builder challenge, if you choose to accept it. So here's your skill builder challenge, if you choose to accept it, and this is maybe something that you can do for yourself, or be looking at one of your team members, if that's more appropriate.

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I'd invite you to think of one area where you or your team member is out of sync with their values. Maybe it's an overcommitment, a draining client or a stale process. So, within the next month or so, make a clear move to change it, even if it feels uncomfortable. Chris's bold decision to quit his job was fueled by discomfort, yet it created space for his business. That same thing was true for me, and I have seen so many instances where leaders grow by practicing courage in small steps, proving to themselves that alignment is worth the risk.

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I'm not asking you and I want to reinforce this I'm not asking you to leave your job and start a new business. What I'm not asking you and I want to reinforce this I'm not asking you to leave your job and start a new business. What I'm asking you to do is check for that misalignment and identify strategies, even small steps that compound, in order to make the change that you want to see. Consider the impact of you gaining that alignment. I love yoga almost as much as I love running. If I don't practice yoga for an extended period of time, I feel that lack of alignment.

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Once things function well together, you get clear and early signals when they are out of sync again, so that you can adjust and realign as you go along. Sometimes we accept things are out of alignment or say that they are out of our control. Sure, some are, but don't let what you can't do get in the way of what you can do. As you reflect on Chris's story. Remember that leadership isn't defined by all of the rules of engagement that other people have given you throughout your life and throughout your career. That alignment is really based on what you choose to do, how you choose to show up and the changes that you make for your career along the way.

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One of the important, if not critical, things that you need to keep in mind during that process is what is this doing for me as a human? What is this doing for my well-being? Where is it that I can learn about myself so that I can give myself grace when I don't feel so amazing, but that I can also show that resilience and persevere when things got hard? And sometimes that hard thing is making the tough decisions and being uncomfortable with the direction that you need to go Back to that comment that I made about me being tough on performance. This is what I would share with you. This is a challenging thing if you're in this situation and you need to buckle in and do the hard work, because you're capable of making whatever change you need to make. Thanks for listening. If you found this episode helpful, share it with someone who could benefit from it. Until next time, I'm Becky Fraser, reminding you to integrate who you are with how you lead. Okay, bye.