So, Here's My Story...

It's our final episode, and we have a lot to say, including thank you so much for listening! Why is that important for business?  We are sad (and grateful and excited and…) to announce this is our final episode. As we reminisce about some of our favourite memories – including our live event and the Stalking Face Cake – we also want to impart some final lessons from our decision to end the podcast here. And obviously, we want to thank everyone for listening and supporting us since we started this podcast.  It is our testament to having faith and trusting that if something is real to us, it will resonate with the right people. And like works of art, sometimes you have to say: “this canvas is complete”. There is an assumption sometimes that keeping going is inherently better than ending a thing. But stories can't go on forever.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.

Is your business in a rut? Is everyone showing up with “Non-Player Characters” energy? When you have an Organizational Depressive State, it can be hard to get out of it – or can it be as simple as one person, one change? Let's discuss! Why is that important for business?  When you walk into a business and feel like your life force begins to immediately drain – like everyone is walking around with NPC (Non-Player Character) energy, it can feel like it's impossible (or at least exhausting) to fix. But if just one person showed up with different energy, would that reset the tone? For someone to change things, they have to first notice they are being a Non-Player Character, and they have to care enough to make that change, which is part of the problem. It can feel like an Organizational Depressive State. Of course, positive energy can be sucked out of someone by an organization stuck in a rut as well. If someone comes in with positive energy, there's a race to see whether that person's energy makes positive changes, or whether that person's energy gets beaten out of them. It's a race to see if the person or the place wins. The energy you bring into a space can affect other people, and you can also be affected by other's energy, if you allow it.  Other Resources Mentioned The Midnight Library by Matt Haig https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52578297-the-midnight-library Free Guy (movie)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2m-08cOAbc What We Do in the Shadows (tv show) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7908628/ What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

How do you strike the balance between keeping things that you might not ever need, and getting rid of things that you might regret not having? Why is that important for business?  Having exactly what you need but nothing extra is a Nirvana that few can ever attain.  It might show up in the amount of stuff you have, in your processes, or even in your systems.  Even space can be hoarded – there is something about having more space that is associated with success, and something about downsizing (or right-sizing) space that feels like going backwards.  There is a trap of equating quantity of value and worrying you won't have when you eventually need it. How do you decide what you keep and what you can get by without, and when does not having it become more of a problem than having it around? Perhaps we need a spring cleaning in business, not just for our stuff, but for the processes and systems we have.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Do you expect to be heard? Or do you just assume that how things are is how they have to be? Why is that important for business?  Do you have a say or a voice? Do you expect to be heard? If your whole experience in life is being heard, then it is more likely that is your expectation. If you are systematically and systemically overlooked, it doesn't build the confidence to speak with authority about things.  Where can you start using your voice where you currently think you have no power? How do you start acting as if you have the authority? What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Like all good lessons about asking for what you need in business, this lesson starts in a massage parlor.  Why is that important for business?  You need to be aware of your needs (in business and in life) and communicate them effectively. Sometimes, when you are staring at a blank page, you just need to figure out what the first sentence should be and start from there.  There is nothing about work and leading that doesn't involve identifying what is needed and asking for what is needed.  In the book, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, we learn there are internalizers and externalizers. A lot of conflict in teams comes down to friction between internalizers (non-direct communicators) and externalizers (more direct).  A lot of conflict in teams comes down to the friction between internalizers and externalizers (or direct and indirect people) and how they handle things.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

When you find out you are riding with the descendent of a nationally acclaimed blind wrestler, you know you're in for some stories. And it turns out, we can turn those stories into some business lessons! Why is that important for business?  There are interesting challenges to being blind when pursuing a sport like wrestling – it can be harder to see what's coming, but you become very skilled at dealing with what's in front of you. An honest understanding of your strengths and weaknesses, whether it's in sport or in business, can mean all the difference in how you perform.  There are also lessons to be learned in regards to hiring – what assumptions are you making about your needs – maybe in terms of education or experience – that aren't actually necessary to find the best candidate. In either case, whether hiring someone or dealing with your own perceived weaknesses, you need confidence to see the path that isn't obvious to everyone. When you can see further than other people can, it can be frustrating to be underestimated or misunderstood. But if you want to forge a path that not every other person has plodded down, you'll have to get used to being misunderstood and slowing down your thought process to explain things over and over again. There is a set of luggage that comes with being able to see things others can't.   What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

We don't talk about endings enough, especially not ending things well, with as much celebration as we began them. And that is exactly what this episode is about. Why is that important for business?  Consider ending your business, or a product line, or even a relationship with a client or a team member – are you putting in the same effort to make a beautiful ending as you did when you started? Instead of ending by tapering off into a fizzling nothingness, celebrate everything that was; end with as much joy as you started with. Just because something is ending, doesn't mean it was a failure; endings aren't inherently bad. That is the belief that allows people to hold onto things they shouldn't. In public speaking, there are two aspects of the talk of particular import: primacy and recency. Primacy is the first thing you say, and it is what will be remembered. But recency, the last thing you said, is equally as memorable. So when considering how you want to be remembered, or how you want your business to be remembered, consider both the beginning and the end.  It is also important to remember that quitting is an art. We often have weird hang-ups around ending things or quitting things. But we need to allow endings to be thinkable, to be okay. If the possibility of an ending is unthinkable, you shut down so many options. It doesn't have to be sad or wrong to say “this is done”; it is important to know when the last brush stroke has been applied to the painting. But take just as much care with the final brush strokes as you did with the rest, or your work may be ruined.  This also applies to letting someone go.  “The time has come for us to help you succeed somewhere else.” Paul Ricks When someone is not a right fit, love them enough to not let them stay somewhere they don't shine. Help them find where they belong and let them leave as a valued member of the team. Put as much effort into that ending as you did with the onboarding.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Whether it's politics, sports or happy hour, sometimes your company culture can make others feel uncomfortable. At what point do you make changes to include people, and at what point is that watering down an important aspect of your culture? Why is that important for business?  In the office, sometimes cultures develop that can be polarizing. How do you handle it when new people come into conflict with the existing culture? How does diversity of thought and perspective reconcile with not wanting to break what works? There is a whole new social ritual happening now in offices, and it requires a new skill set of empathy.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Your company culture, a new board game, and all the ways they relate. Why is that important for business?  A new board game allows people to make choices that would benefit everyone. And more people were interested in taking that choice – to advance the game for everyone – instead of just progressing closer to the ultimate goal of winning. People who played the game chose collaboration over playing simply for the objective of winning. Which makes us think about company culture.   What are the other strategies and ways that you can create a company culture, realizing that your department can't win at the expense of other people at the company? If you aren't aware of this, you can easily accidentally incentivize the wrong behaviors.  It's also important that the rules – of the game or the culture – not be arbitrary and make natural sense. This requires a full understanding of the “if-then” – it requires a lot of transparency.  Other resources mentioned Wingspan game: https://stonemaiergames.com/games/wingspan/ What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Culture – whether in your business or in your family – isn't just established in big picture planning. It is established in the little decisions that you make all the time about what's important to you in the moment.  Why is that important for business?  Sometimes in business, we make lists of our values and try to establish a culture around that. But often it is the small moments – where we have to make decisions about what really matters in that moment – that create culture. What you prioritize doesn't always exist on a big sheet of paper somewhere, but it shows up in the little decisions you make.  If you don't like your culture, look at those decisions. Look at what values they transmit. It is in those moments that you are accidentally or intentionally creating culture.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Feel like you're languishing right now in these uncertain times? Let's talk about reframing that experience a bit.  Why is that important for business?  There is a lot of uncertainty in the world and in business right now – lots of things are changing and many people feel unsettled and unmoored, or even like they are languishing.  A recent episode of Hidden Brain, featuring Anthony Burrow, focused on this experience: “A lot of the identity contingencies – the way in which we think of ourselves - are interwoven into the everyday life experiences, and so the school relationships, the work relationships, close family, friends, etc, when those things end or are coming to an end, you might start to wonder: “who am I? What am I going to do today?” Languishing isn't just a description, a sort of wallowing or a float in a pool. It is an attempt to describe a whole set of affective emotional, behavioural circumstances of simply not feeling engaged in one's life. There's a sort of disconnection. And so if you are in this sort of place, whereas I've experienced it, where you can't fully make sense of up or down, heads or tails because you're languishing, you can't keep score of how to move forward and get more of what you want and less of what you don't like. You're sort of floating in the wind.” Maybe being unsettled isn't this terrible place to be. Perhaps it's more like gears changing – in order to move up or down a gear, you have to hit the clutch to disengage. Only then can you re-engage in the new gear. Disconnection can be purposeful to help you get your gear shift into the right place, reconfigure and re-engage.  Of course, uncertain futures can be either something to dread, or something to feel hopeful about. Like Red did in Shawshank Redemption: “I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel. A free man at a start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain.” He was looking at what could be added to his life. But for many of us, it's been a long time since we felt like our uncertain futures weren't going to be taking away. Regardless, it can be helpful to rewrite the story of languishing as some sort of depressive state, into a purposeful disconnection so that you can reorganize things in a direction that you really want them to be.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

There are a lot of logistics to consider in coming back to work, but one thing you might not be thinking about is the change to community. Does community still matter, and how will it look different in a post-COVID world? Why is that important for business?  There are ripple effects to this isolation. The next phase of business evolution, post-COVID, will look different in terms of building community, and it's worth considering what that will look like. We have been talking policy, but we haven't considered what else might be missing. And it maybe won't feel as “community-ish” as it once did. It might require us to work harder and look farther or deeper to fulfill that connection need. And there may be things we got used to during isolation that we don't want to give up in order to gain that community.  We may have been perfectly fine when we thought of quarantine as temporary. But when we realize we don't know what “normal is going to be, it can be a bit more disconcerting. Things begin to feel more permanent, like we might become a society that just doesn't get together in person.  Maybe we just need espresso shots of community to take us through our time on screens.   This is an unfolding experience with more questions than answers.  Community is important. It matters because it creates a space for conversation or connections that don't otherwise have a chance to be. But maybe, as Smokey Robinson said, “a taste of honey is worse than none at all”. What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

What if trying new things was like football training camp, and you had an audience – and even media – present while you were trying to figure things out? Wish you had time to practice something new in private instead? Maybe it's not as simple as one or the other.  Why is that important for business?  To be successful in business, we need to give people the freedom to try and fail and evolve. And it would be nice to be able to do that in private. But there is also the danger that you can get stuck in a “getting ready to be ready” place. So how do you practice in a lower stakes environment that still matters enough so that you can evolve?  You are not going to be able to own your new skill until you experience it. No words that can replace the feeling of doing stuff. But you also need to discern where it's time to graduate and up your game. As Ira Glass talks about in this video, you know what good is, but when you start, you are aware that you aren't that. You have to play through that gap. If you don't recognize that that gap is supposed to be there, you might practice in that quiet place forever.  And while it's perfectly acceptable to slowly get your feet wet instead of jumping directly into the deep end, you still have to build your confidence through action. Confidence can only come through action.  In business, it needs to be okay to fail. Some lessons can only be learned the hard way, and you need to expect that. If you don't find ways to move forward, then you risk staying stuck exactly where you are.  The price that you pay to satisfy the need to get better is the risk of embarrassment.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Ever have to muster the energy to do something you don't want to do, but really should do? How do you change your energy? And how do you know when it's a losing battle? Why is that important for business?  What do you do when things just are not working? How far do you push a lack of energy? Sometimes, when you have to make it work, changing your environment can totally shift your energy – it's like layering other colours into the fabric.  You can also change the rules to match the energy - shuffle the deck for how you are going to accomplish the thing you can't put off. Just start by asking, “what can I change about this?”  And sometimes, simply getting started helps, What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

REPLAY OF EPISODE 75: Audience Q&As can quickly devolve. Someone wants to share a story instead of a question; someone else wants to demonstrate their own expertise and “teach from the seats”. No one seems to know how to ask a succinct and relevant question and you can feel the frustration from the group. As the leader – whether it be in front of a large audience or just at your staff meetings – you must consider the impact of these contributions on the room, and your goals.  This episode is about being clear on your objective and helping everyone make the best contributions possible. It's also a little bit about Jodi's terrible poker face.   Why is that important for business?  There are people who are always going to answer, regardless of the question, with the answer they want to give. It can feel like they are not taking responsibility for the care and feeding of the group, nor considering the impact to the group.  As the leader, it is important to frame the rules of contribution before asking people for their contributions. For example, instructing them that the first sentence should end in a question mark. Give the Processors in the group time to think about what they want to say, and how to frame it within the guidelines you have given them. Set the expectations early.  However, it is also important to recognize that there are things that can get stuck in people's craw, things they need to be acknowledged before they can move on. You don't have to let this get you off track, but you do have to deal with the pothole in the parking lot, or it will keep coming up all day long.  Leadership is key here, and will affect the happiness of your team, and retention. You need to be clear on your top priority in the moment. Is it to keep train on the track, or is it to surface new thoughts and ideas? Are you trying to assuage concerns or present information? Each priority needs a different style of leadership. And you need to periodically asses if your leadership is angling you towards the outcome you want.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Have you ever found yourself saying “I'm going to regret this”, but doing it anyway? Let's talk self-sabotage and the frustrating world of pregrets.  Why is that important for business?  Often, we think too much about the consequences of making a bad decision, and not nearly enough about the consequences of making no decision. The decisions made through indecision/lack of a decision have consequences that we often ignore – sometimes they set a precedent, or simply waste a lot of time and energy.  And then there's the part of it that isn't about the decision at all, but how you communicate the decision.  So why do we do this? Are we just broken, or is it a glitch in the human operating system? Some of it might be because we can fatigue the pre-frontal cortex, which assesses consequences and manages a lot of decision making. And then we find our Monday selves really hating our Friday selves.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Opportunities, luck, and leaving room in your business life for what you actually enjoy – just a few of the things we need to talk about in this episode.  Why is that important for business?  “I skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been.” Wayne Gretzky Luck is not a cloud of magic that you walk into. Luck is opportunities realizing they are standing in the same room together. If you want to do something different than what you are doing, you have to let other people know that you are interested in a thing. Otherwise, that's how ruts get created – you only dig into the stuff you have already been doing. The value of how much you enjoy something is wildly overlooked. “You are here to do what you can't not do.” Lissa Boles.  Think of it like putting your taxicab light on. What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Can you build confidence directly, or do you have to come at it obliquely, through just being yourself? Let's discuss. Why is that important for business?  People often think of confidence in terms of external validation, but if that's the case, it can easily be cannibalized because you get worried how people will react. But what if the most confident thing you can do is just be you? This can look like put on a “CEO posture”, where you are filtering the perception of confidence through what you think people want to see vs being yourself and using your strengths. If you have to run confidence through a filter of the feedback you get, maybe it isn't actually confidence.  When you look at it this way, you eliminate the fear of being good enough, because what you are going for is simply the truest expression of yourself. It isn't about putting on blinders and doing what you want, but about not letting feedback or external opinions stop you from taking action.  Some things are obliquely arrived at – you can't pursue happiness, but you can pursue meaning and get happiness as a by-product. Maybe you also can't pursue confidence directly, but instead you arrive at confidence by the pursuit of grounded surety in what you want to create and who you are. Confidence comes through taking action, and anything that gets in the way of that action will stymy confidence.  Other resources mentioned NPR interview, One Woman Band Joan Armatrading Releases 22nd Album: https://www.npr.org/2021/06/20/1008449139/one-woman-band-joan-armatrading-releases-22nd-album What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Where does your responsibility to keep your employees end, and their responsibility to speak up start? Let's sort that out in the next 20 minutes or so! Why is that important for business?  Trying to help an employee who seems unenthused find their spark for work can be important to help retain your staff. But maybe it's not your job to fix something without even knowing if work is the problem.  Reading other people's energy is a skillset, but at some point, you have to trust the person to communicate their own needs. If your spidey sense is going off, ask them. But you have to be able to trust what they do (or don't) tell you. You have to let them handle their own business. Make it clear that you are available for the conversation, and then trust them to do with that what they want.  In the Blessing White Engagement Model, we see this often overlooked piece – role of the employee in their own engagement.  Like with parenting, it's your job to expose them to things to see what lights a spark, but it is not your job to find what sparks for them. At some point, they have to pick up the mantle. They have to help co-design what comes next. Other resources mentioned Blessing White, Engagement Model: https://blessingwhite.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Employee_Engagement_Capabilities_Brochure_2019.pdf What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

This is a rant about a bad experience at the bank, but it also ends up being an important lesson about a metric you've probably never heard about: apologies per hour. Why is that important for business?  An interesting metric for a business to consider is how many apologies your people are issuing per hour. If you have that many apologies to make, then there's a big problem. It's demoralizing for your team, and probably indicates you have prioritized something else over customer care.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Learning a new board game can be frustrating – it's a lot of information to learn without any real context. And it might also reveal a lot about things in your business, like onboarding staff. Why is that important for business?  Just as it is with learning how to do a new job, learning a new board game can mean a lot of new information that doesn't have a lot of contextual meaning. But what if you change how you learn a new board game – a brief summary of the rules and goals of the game, and then an open round or hand where you can talk through strategy and decisions to help everyone understand the game better, before you play “for real”?  Or is there more value in jumping in immediately to play, and learning through the process of failure? Some of this depends on learning styles, but the universal truth is that people can only take in so much information when they don't have context of where to put it or why it matters. This is often revealed in the questions they ask: those questions often show how much they understand or misunderstand about the point or context. Ultimately, there are limitations to how much you can do in advance and how much you have to learn by doing.  And even if you have the most logical, well thought out onboarding process, it is not necessarily going to be accepted. Just as people can be resistant to a way of learning a board game they are unfamiliar with, new hires can be resistant to a way of training. And the reason they don't accept it doesn't have to be rooted in logic. Leaders must figure out if they are more attached to things being done a certain way or adjusting the learning as needed.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

When you get a chance to be among random groups of strangers, it can quickly become clear that there are always commonalities that bind us. And we can learn a lot about company culture by observing our common needs and behaviors.  Why is that important for business?  Experiencing the commonality of what everyone is going through can be very reassuring. It’s also what makes up company culture. Culture isn’t organized, catalyzed or sparked by a mission statement or a team building meeting. Culture is what happens in the interstitial moments of shared experiences.  And sometimes, in certain moments, what is required of leaders is not an overarching strategy, but simply about taking charge and finding certainty in that moment.  Figuring out how you are going to navigate the new rules of business post-COVID is going to be like going through a drawer in your house: you have to take it all out and decide if it matters and why it matters, and decide what goes back in. You need to ask yourself if you are actually solving the problems that you have, or if you are creating rules for rules’ sake.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Leadership means making decisions for your company and everyone in it. And sometimes, especially when it comes to things like COVID and health, those decisions are extra challenging.  Why is that important for business?  When it comes to coming back to the office, there are more variables than ever to consider – who can work remotely, do you wear masks, is everyone vaccinated are just some of the more complicated problems leaders are dealing with right now.  When you are in charge of a large group of individuals, everything gets exponentially challenging. You might be used to the thick skin necessary to brook dissension for unpopular decisions, but it’s harder to do this when the ramifications are about other people’s health, not just having a great quarter.  Right now, leaders have a heightened responsibility to check in with the pieces of your perspective and make sure they are built on a solid foundation. We need to be incredibly clear on the metrics we are using.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

What can we learn from a software used to ring up pastries, that ends up helping with cancer treatment? If this episode is any indication, a lot.  Why is that important for business?  In Tokyo, a pastry shop in a train station wanted to make it easier to ring up pastries without packaging. And it led to a big development in cancer treatment (you can read the story here). So what can we learn from this?  There are lessons about perseverance. About connecting your people, culture, and company to something important. How having a sense a your work “mattering” can help with engagement. And how you can choose to connect to something that matters, even if you aren’t doing something that seems to deeply matter – as the Talmud says, “whoever saves a single life is considered by scripture to have saved the whole world.” You can still connect to a larger mission, even if you aren’t fulfilling your dreams. You just have to look at individual impact and think of ways to make things better just because you were there.  We imagine culture exists only on the macro level, but it is stitched together by the pieces of culture at the micro level.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Have you ever thought you nailed an interview – maybe even had a standing ovation-level interview – but still ended up in second place? Maybe went out and celebrated and got yourself a giant celebratory hat? Let’s talk about that hat, and what it symbolizes.  Why is that important for business?  There is a critical excitement you feel at the beginning of a journey whose end is uncertain. Everyone is susceptible to that energy and even need to feed off of it sometimes. As an entrepreneur, you have to – to some degree - get excited about the chicken counting process. No, you shouldn’t base your psychological wellbeing on those unhatched chickens, but you can’t thrive in business without forecasting incredible futures from this thing you are labouring so hard to create. You have to put yourself out there.  Complacency takes energy out of the system. You have to know your hearts at risk and might get dashed against the rocks - there’s no other way to go about it.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

You can learn a lot about how to handle change (and seemingly never-ending not change) by taking two 20-hour train rides. Or you can just listen to Jodi’s story instead.  Why is that important for business?  Things feel like they are on the cusp of some sort of return to “normalcy”, in business and in life (as we talked about in episode 199, The Next New Normal). And we all have to sort through the stack of things that have changed because of COVID and consider what we are excited to bring back (and can); what we are excited to bring back (and can’t), and the buckets of things that we are now realizing we don’t want to bring back.  As we consider this next shift, it can help to give yourself a longer runway – having something to look forward to but keeping it far enough in the distance that you have time to prepare. And maintain compassion for yourself and others and avoid judging who is farther along on the track of normality.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Ever struggle between what’s best for your client, and what’s best for the culture of your organization? Both are critical to your long-term success, so let’s talk about how to navigate those decisions.  Why is that important for business?  In your business, you have to take the long view. Culture works on trust, and if you allow bad behaviour among your team, you can be indicating that clients are more important than culture.  As a leader, this is the balance you have to navigate. You are balancing a three-legged stool - competency of service, fiscal responsibility, and culture – and all are equally important. You can’t short-change any of the legs or the stool won’t stand up for long.  Part of this is controlling emotional responses. If you want to be a leader, you have to learn to manage your emotional reactions to other people.  And, at the same time, you can’t exist in a pressure cooker without a release valve. You need to be able to communicate, either directly or to a third-party, about inevitable conflict.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Have you ever thought about a scammer, “you are very bad at your job?” What if, instead, it’s an issue of leadership at Scam Headquarters? What if scammers could use business coaches too?  Why is that important for business?  A scam is essentially a business, and because of this, flawed leadership and personnel issues can plague them just as they can your business. Some even have customer service lines to help you process your extortion payments or send fruit baskets for participating. So, if a company running a scam can learn about business, what can we learn about business from a company running a scam? Giving your employees directives can be helpful in getting them to do exactly what you want. But if they don’t understand the larger picture – if they don’t have general guidelines to create an internal GPS of what their job is – they won’t know how to react to situations or come up with solutions on their own.  In our 2nd episode, we talked about the importance of making things easy. And while confused minds say no, creating confusion can also benefit a scam. But one thing must never be confused – you cannot be confusing about the path you want people to walk. There must be one clear door out.  While we don’t want to give advice on how to scam better, there is something about business we can all learn from companies that scam.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Text 410-632-6894 to start a conversation with us.  Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

What are you excited to return to, post-pandemic, and what parts do you plan to bring into your “new normal”? Sometimes, a meme can spark some really interesting conversations.  Why is that important for business?  We didn’t get a lot of choice when this pandemic hit – we had to adapt, and we had to adapt fast. And now, as it finally feels like we might get some semblance of “normal” back, there are a lot of things we are excited about doing again. But there are also things we have experienced from the pandemic that we want to hold onto. And we need to start thinking about those things now.   We are going to be experiencing a next new “normal” and we need to consciously consider how navigate it and negotiate for what we want. If we don’t ask these questions and get clarity now, we’re all going to accidentally go back to a reality that we might not actually want.  We need to acknowledge the legitimacy of all the ways people have been making it work and look for intersection points in our business where it also works for us (instead of making people build their way of doing things around your business’ structure.) But this isn’t a one-shot deal on conversation. We all have the capacity to help design this next normal and help surface the things that were easily glossed over before.   What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

REPLAY OF EPISODE 69: When illness befell the Hume household, Jodi learned an important lesson about empathy, and how bad we can be at empathizing if we haven’t experienced something for ourselves. It turns out, empathy involves more than emotional intelligence. Why is that important for business?  So often in business, we jump to conclusions about the motivations, experiences and decisions of others. Sometimes, this lack of empathy is a matter of needing to develop some emotional intelligence. But perhaps more often, it is simply a lack of knowledge or a need to ask more questions.  Lack of empathy is often a lack of curiosity. We think we know what we are looking at and don’t take the time to do additional diagnostics. In the moment when you want to be frustrated with a behaviour, there is power in being willing to ask a couple of questions.  In this way, empathy in general is more like a shared understanding as opposed to an emotional response. If you don’t understand why someone has a problem with something, maybe it’s because you don’t understand the problem enough.  This lack of empathy often lives in a blind spot and usually isn’t a conscious choice we make. It is important to pay attention when our inner dialogue is dismissive – and where we are making assumptions about other people – if we want to develop our ability to share understanding with other people.    Resources Mentioned Empathy Exams, by Leslie Jamison. http://www.lesliejamison.com/the-book/  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

How do you pick a mentor? What is necessary to being a good mentor? And do you still need a Sherpa if you have already summited the mountain? Why is that important for business?  Mentors or NA sponsors are something that successful people use to succeed in business and sobriety. But once you’ve “made it”, do you still need on?  A mentor isn’t someone that gives you the answers. A good mentor or sponsor is there to help you avoid falling into your usual traps, and keep you focused on the line of thinking that got you to the summit in the first place. They need to know and understand you so they can help you evolve. There is a weight and gravity that comes with the title, and they need you to be able to not figure out if something is a good idea, but if it is a good idea for you. They need to know you well enough not to necessarily answer, but to help you re-orient you back to yourself.  Once you are reoriented, you often know what the next thing is. And they need to be able to recognize what a valuable failure for you is, as well as invalid (or not good for you right now) success. Mentorship is getting them back to who they are so they can make whatever decision is right for them. Even if a mentor thought they had all the right answers for themself, they should be insightful enough to see that they don’t have all the answers for someone else.  And this isn’t (just) about accountability. Sometimes, what people need is to be nudged into action, but sometimes what they need is to let their own processes unfold. There is an art to knowing the difference. Accountability is only valuable if it is action in the right direction.  You need a mentor who gets who you are so their feedback is you-shaped.  Other resources mentioned Dismantling the Myth of the Self-Reliant CEO: https://www.fastcompany.com/3060235/dismantling-the-myth-of-the-self-reliant-ceo What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

It turns out, you can train a dog to stop barking if you train him to retrieve throw cushions instead. Let’s find out how that trick can work with humans. Why is that important for business?  When you see a behaviour you don’t like – barking at the door, for instance – you may have better luck stopping it by introducing a new replacement behaviour – fetching pillows - than by focusing on the barking. It can be much more effective to train a dog to do something instead of training them not to do something.  And it just might be the same for those of us on two legs.  But it is important to not step over the part where the dogs had training. “Do this instead” works best when the “instead” is clearly communicated and sufficient or necessary training occurs. Like here.  Be aware that in every interaction you have, you are training people how best to interact with you and how to get what they want from you. If you respond to an email immediately, for instance, you are teaching someone that that is a fast and efficient way to get what they need from you. When you notice that subconscious training is happening all of the time, you can direct it to encourage the behaviour you want more of.   But beware – the conversation is important. Though often people can figure out things on their own through reinforcement “training”, you may need a Care and Feeding conversation to make the behaviour stick. And before you do that, you need to recognize not only what isn’t working, but what behaviour you would like instead. That frustration, of seeing what you don’t want, and turning it into an opportunity (what you do want), is what being an entrepreneur is about. If you act like an internal entrepreneur in your own company, you can look for the frustrations and find an opportunity to change things for the better.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

A lot of car ads discuss the importance of going from zero to 100, but rarely they talk about how well they go from 100 to zero. And it turns out, neither do businesses.  Why is that important for business?  Business owners focus a lot on growth, scalability and everything to do with speed, power and velocity. But safety, or measured initiatives, aren’t as sexy. Sometimes, to go fast, you need to build your brakes up so you don’t spin out on the curves.  Braking is an art in and of itself.  We have to learn to ebb as hard as we flow. Look at the meme below, and consider honouring all of the parts of endurance, including the pausing. Leaning back is often accompanied by guilt or the need to justify. But what if you asked yourself, “what do I need to do right now to do my best work? Is it pushing forward or leaning back?” When you take the guilt out of the conversation, and consider that – on a racetrack and in business too - knowing when and how to brake is part of completing the race. There is a large Venn diagram overlap between break and brake, but only one involves guilt. Maybe there is a brain hack there – tell yourself you are using your brakes, not taking a break. And how much do I need to brake/break before it has served its purpose? There is an art in applying just enough brake to maintain speed.  Other resources mentioned “Winning with Accountability: the Secret Language of High-Performing Organizations” Henry J Evans https://dynamicresults.com/winning-with-accountability/?fbclid=IwAR1vpKExjUby8RE7iVnoqpjfGr7zhRYjc8b8e6Zbpi-Qt5FIBkiEvGVo9O0 Dr. Hallowell: https://drhallowell.com/ What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

When you see a business opportunity, it’s natural to focus on the potential return on investment, and the consequences if it doesn’t work. But it’s important to remember another key question: what happens if it does work? Why is that important for business?  When examining a business opportunity, we need to look at what happens if it fails, but also, what happens if succeeds. If you were to imagine yourself celebrating everything working out from the opportunity exactly as designed, would you be happy or excited?  What kind of business joy would be inherent in the successful venture? Especially during these COVID times, businesses have fought really hard to get to ask the question: is this the kind of work we want to do? But if you have that ability, it is important to consider the difference between work that you get to do and work that you have to do. It’s a discipline to ask those questions and remember that you can ask those questions. While turning down opportunities can feel like a luxury, sometimes you have to consider all of the costs (not just monetary) of that work. The more you take on things that bring your energy down, the more you are decreasing the chance of getting more of the work you want.  As a leader, you are always modeling what questions can be asked and should be asked. And just because a question is not being asked doesn’t make the need for the question go away.  Other resources mentioned Brene Brown and Glennon Doyle podcast conversation: https://brenebrown.com/podcast/glennon-doyle-brene-on-untamed/ What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Overwhelmed with all the plates you have to keep spinning as an entrepreneur? It might be time to examine some of those plates and see which ones you don’t actually need to be spinning.  Why is that important for business?  In business, you have a lot of decisions and things you need to be aware of, and all of them have a weight. But sometimes, you are worrying about things further down the decision tree that won’t actually come up if you make some of the more pressing decisions. It can help with overwhelm to examine all of the decisions you have weighing on your mind and consider which ones you actually need to make right now.  It might also be true, in pandemic times, that you have some degree of planning apathy because you can’t possibly know what’s coming at all. In that case, you might just need to examine what you do have some degree of control over and focus there.  It can be hard to see when you are stuck in either end of the continuum, though, which is why you need some outside help sometimes – it’s difficult to read the label from inside the bottle. What you need is clarity on what actions you can take, because paralysis (either from planning apathy or overwhelm) is rarely a valuable place to stay in. Even if the action you decide to take first is rest or intentional inaction. It is important to find actionable clarity so that you aren’t stuck in paralysis.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Whether you are responding to a college applicant or your insulin-dependent wife, sometimes it can be a thin line between building expectations and letting them build expectations in a vacuum.  Why is that important for business?  There are many times in business where you are going to be confronted with your own and your client’s uncertainty. And while it is usually important to share what you know early (and be okay not knowing much), you also don’t want to set people up for disappointment with early information that may not be accurate. And a lot of this might depend on the stakes being discussed.  In episode 158, we talked about the need to communicate, even without an answer. And it can be especially important to map out the client experience and find points of high anxiety where extra communication might be welcome. But it’s also critical to be aware of the expectations you can be setting up.  Some people need to calibrate their chances, with percentage likelihoods, for example.  The important thing to keep in mind is that you want to share what you do know in a way that is helpful, by answering the questions that are in your audience’s minds. Not addressing them at all is allowing them to fill in the vacuum with their fears. But tread carefully between building expectations and letting them build false expectations in a vacuum.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Feedback is important, even (maybe even especially) if it is negative. But in the absence of something that tells you when you are getting warmer, it can be hard to find the right path. Why is that important for business?  In business, whether it is among work colleagues, employers or clients, you need help to understand how to do a good job. If you only ever get expressions of dissatisfaction, without any inkling of what is working, it can make it nearly impossible to meet expectations. It’s like playing the “colder-warmer” seeking game – if you only ever get told you are “colder”, never “warmer”, you can’t find the spot. You need some kind of signal to navigate towards, not just away from. You need some feedback as to where the value is. This can’t be formulaic or prescriptive or it can backfire. But if you notice a good thing, you should mention the good thing. If you want to lead people to something, you have to add some “warmer”. This isn’t about compliments, which are usually about the person, but about positive feedback on the action.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Referrals – they’re the lifeblood of business, so they say. But how do you make sure you keep your referral cred (much like street cred, but with referrals) when you can’t assess the quality of the work of the person to whom you are referring?  Why is that important for business?  When you are referring out, it is usually because that is not your area of expertise. So how do you know the person is good?  Making a referral is about trust. You have to assess whether you believe them to be generally competent, and whether or not you trust them. Look at the type of questions they ask, the way they take care of clients, and the way they make an effort to understand and address their client’s specific needs. You have to separate the process from the results, because you can’t always evaluate results objectively. What each person considers “good work” is different. There are objective aspects, but a lot of it is subjective, and those are the parts that you communicate when referring to a person. You have to manage expectations. Then you’ll have to trust people to make their own choices from that information.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Business and life are full of moments of overwhelm and disorientation. And in those moments, we need to take a moment to identify what works to help us locate some grounding. We need to find our stomp, or our spit.  Why is that important for business?  We’ve all found ourselves spinning in circles, not knowing which way was up. Like if you are caught in an avalanche, the thing you need to do before you do anything else is orient yourself. And sometimes, that means spitting to find out which way gravity is pulling. Or when you’re dizzy, sometimes it is just stomping to reminding yourself of the one thing you know – where the floor is. You need to narrow your perception to that one thing, and there is where you get your bearings.  In work, it might be finding that thing amongst all of your work tasks that gets you in the flow (even if that is a spreadsheet).  That thing that reorients you often needs to be a very physical thing. There is no such thing as level without a physical reference point.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

How do you delineate when work ends and home life begins when both happen in the same space? Why is that important for business?  There is something important to many people about the distinctions between work and home life, whether it be the commute (as we talked about in this previous episode) or having an office outside of the home. Having a physical or at least psychological separation between the two can be important. You need a work place, not just a place of work.  Having a distinct space can also influence the quality of our efforts, both at work and at home. The benefits of working out of the home, when possible, means there is no porous boundary and you can focus on the task at hand, instead of laundry and emptying the dishwasher, and any other thing that happens to catch your eye. Having everything you need to do in front of you at all times makes deciding what is most important a little more challenging.  It is important to at least think about ways to create a ritual or practice that acts to separate the beginning and end of the workday or work week. The absence of things to demarcate time causes everything to blur.  Other resources mentioned The Power of Moments, by Chip and Dan Heath: https://heathbrothers.com/the-power-of-moments/ The Power of Full Engagement, by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/68985.The_Power_of_Full_Engagement Life is not a Marathon http://psychologyofwellbeing.com/201410/life-is-not-a-marathon.html?fbclid=IwAR0kZ4hif-iXu2ksQIy6QPabdrQhwZIrrd8HD6gaWOxdY0LjxLkBajA58fw What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Do you ever get data that has historically proven accurate and helpful, but just ignored it because…you wanted to? How do you determine when to listen to recommendations, and when to follow your intuition? Why is that important for business?  Business owners get a lot of information, and it can sometimes be interesting to simply say, “that’s interesting” and move on. But when we put effort into getting reliable metrics and then continuously ignore them, it might require closer inspection.  This past year has been all about uncertainty in business and demonstrating that perhaps we are capable of navigating without so much data and certainty.  And…if good data is telling you something that goes against what you think feels right, it’s worth considering.  As GPS demonstrates, sometimes even the best data has flaws and you’ll need to override the advice given. But when you find yourself consistently ignoring the suggestions given, it is worth considering if you really want any of that data at all. Sometimes you have to let go of the “should” that data represents. There is an art to knowing when to follow the data and guidance, and when to follow your gut (and when to ask more questions).  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

How do you balance too many rules with too few? How about exceptions? And where do you fall on Methodists and Evil Kevin? Let’s talk about all of that (and more!) Why is that important for business?  It is easy to overdo or underdo rules and regulations. It is easy to fall into the trap of assuming that your team does not need rules because they can be trusted. But your team won’t always be the same, both because situations in their lives will change, and your team will change over time. Assuming best intentions is wonderful, but you also have to ask, “what’s at risk?” You might worry that rules assume everyone is bad or insinuate distrust. But they also protect your employees. And it warrants asking what the maximum level of threat is and if it warrants rules to protect you and the employee. There is a sweet spot in the middle where rules don’t inhibit the behaviour you do want, while not discouraging the behaviours you wish to see less of. Rules are there to put guardrails on things, but you can always step over the guardrail whenever you want. And like guardrails, they might exist only in places where the most danger exists.  To sum up: Good luck with rules. You should have them. Maybe. Probably. But you may not want to always enforce them. But make sure you don’t overdo them. Or underdo them. In short - good luck.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Is there a generational divide in your business or place of work? Leaning into the differences – and the superpowers – of each generation can make your business stronger. For instance, how can you exploit the Gen X superpower of tolerating boredom? Let’s talk about that.  Why is that important for business?  Usually, we give a little too much credence and attention to the differences between the generations. But there are differences. In business especially, those differences can actually help, if you aren’t afraid to focus on the strengths and shape the role to fit those strengths. Whether people are primed for the world they will have to usher in, or are shaped by the changing world they occupy, each generation has different skill sets that, instead of mocked, can be incorporated to make them even better at their jobs.  How do you cater to the innate tendencies of each generation? How often do you roll your eyes instead of thinking how that generational trait might be a skill? And where do you need to make some adjustments in terms of setting up processes to get the outcomes you want instead of just setting up the process you want? The oversimplification of generations segments it in a way that is less useful. But each does have its own superpower. And just like in superhero movies, each have their own thing that they bring. You want to leverage those superpowers, even if it requires some sort of accommodation.   Additional resources Want to read all about Gen X and how suited to boredom (and pandemics) they are? Here is the article Jodi references in her story: It Took a Global Pandemic, But Generation X is Finally Getting Love What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!  

Billy Joel and Hamilton sang about it, but what is your relationship with satisfaction? How can entrepreneurs, with their knack for always striving, develop a relationship with satisfaction, and is it even important to do that?  Why is that important for business?  Is there an incompatibility with entrepreneurship/business leadership and being satisfied? Is it a cardinal sin to say, “yeah I’m good”, or is that foolish? Satisfaction lives on a spectrum, and even if it might not be necessary for an entrepreneur to find their way all the way to contentment, it might be important to develop the capacity to at least appreciate. One version of an unhealthy relationship with satisfaction is not even being able to notice the point where you achieve a goal. But it is also true that not a lot of entrepreneurs come at life with an abundance of satisfaction – the itch for striving might be a necessity for this kind of leadership.  So how do you cultivate a healthy relationship with satisfaction, and do you think it’s even important to do? It takes fuel to stay at the same altitude, and there is a danger in relaxing into satisfaction or contentment too much, but where does being “unsatisfiable” cheat you out of enjoying what is there and has been created? Sometimes, it is important to look back and consider what parts you are satisfied with, where you simply maintain altitude.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Ever been so focused on the planning that you don’t take into account the delivery method? Ah, the lessons we learn from a garbage bag full of salad, lobster-chip cookies, and acres of pizza.  Why is that important for business?  This issue – considering the delivery method – has come up a lot in business in 2020, largely because of remote working. When you have a way of doing something – launching a strategic plan before a holiday party, when everyone is together, for instance – and you don’t consider the change in delivery mechanism (i.e. you didn’t consider that it would be different to do this on Zoom), the outcome can suffer. And this change in delivery method can really get people tied up in knots about any kind of planning.  But we also need to be aware of where we are using COVID as an excuse to do nothing. Instead of just thinking about how it will be less in these circumstances, we need to focus on how it will just be different. When you struggle to see the possibilities, it can help to imagine yourself in the future, being interviewed on how you accomplished your goal in these exceptional times.  Working remotely can add a layer of challenge to certain organizational aspects of business, and you have to be sure you are still making decisions as part of the whole, not in isolation. And those conversations to make sure we are considering the whole – the purposefulness of this contact can feel like overkill, but without it, you might have a garbage bag full of salad.  Other resources mentioned If you really want to watch the episode of Family Ties that Eliot mentions, it is Season 4, Episode 8 “The story I am making up is that…” exercise from Brene Brown http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/brene-brown-rising-strong-excerpt What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

There is a big difference between how the haves and the have nots think and talk about money, access and resources. Those differences show up in your business, too, and we should talk about it.  Why is that important for business?  Just as rich people teach their kids different things about money than poor and middle-class parents, so to do these differences show up in businesses, especially in management teams and start-ups. There is a difference between approach and culture, and mindset about accessing resources and advice. It is practically the birthplace of “you don’t know what you don’t know”. Certain options never even occur to people who aren’t used to thinking of those options. When you don’t even know what is possible, it’s hard to know what questions to ask.  People who are accustomed to financial and business success have more access to resources, yes, but the bigger piece might be the mindset piece. It can be seductive to want to feel like the smartest person in the room, but if you are, you are in the wrong room. The constant drive to not be the smartest person in the room is not only great for your own personal development, but also a great leadership skill to develop. You need to surround yourself with people who make you better.  Other resources mentioned Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! By Robert Kiyosaki Dismantling the Myth of the Self-Reliant CEO, https://www.fastcompany.com/3060235/dismantling-the-myth-of-the-self-reliant-ceo What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

“Tell me the truth” – are there any four words more fraught with potential discord than those?  But if someone asks you a “tell me the truth” question, it’s important to consider that might not be the question you should be answering at all. Why is that important for business?  If someone asks you a “tell me the truth” question in business, there is the potential to do a lot of damage, regardless how you answer. But almost always, there is an opportunity to ask more questions and gain more clarity, without ever answering the original question. Be curious and find out what they are really asking before you answer. When you ask the right questions, you can help bring them to the conclusion they want to reach, without risking the relationship. It can be the difference between “you’re right” and “that’s right”. The honesty question is the wrong first question - the first question should be other questions. It might be the question laid on the table, but it is not the question that needs to be picked up. If you keep probing, you can usually find the right question. Because your answer isn’t going to be helpful if you aren’t answering the right questions.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

If you’ve ever seen a debate about student loan forgiveness, then you’ve heard some version of, “I had to pay my loan back, so should they.” But at what point does “fairness” become lack of leadership, and focusing on individuals cripple a system? Why is that important for business?  To be successful, companies have to be nimble and not beholden to the past. At the same time, we have to be careful not to blithely dismiss or alienate those who have concerns – is there merit in the process (like a chick needing the struggle of hatching to develop) or is it merely an issue of “I suffered, so should you.”  If there is an opportunity to fix a systemic issue in your business that might be holding people back from exceling, personal experiences shouldn’t trump the needs of the company. It is the responsibility of a leader to help people grow in how they think about an organization. If senior people are too side-tracked by things remaining the same as they experienced, it is a signal that you have work to do. You will need to work to help your team build their muscle of seeing from an organizational wide perspective instead of as an individual contributor. If you or someone on your team thinks people need grit or struggle to be better at their jobs, it’s worth asking: “is there a better way to build grit?” What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

For a lot of companies, bonus season is coming up. Because this has been an especially strange year, it feels extra challenging to balance the desire to show your people they are valued, while still being responsible to the future needs of your business in uncertain times. Essentially, this episode is all about helping Eliot make decisions, but we get to come along for the ride.   Why is that important for business?  Considering how strange and unprecedented the events of 2020 have been, forecasting the cash reserve needs of 2021 feels extra daunting. And there has also been lots of opportunity for the best people on your team to show how very valuable they are this year. Saving for the unknown that is next year is responsible but can also make it more challenging to show staff they are valued. You want to be a bright spot for those that made this year better, and you want to make sure they have a job in the future.  It is important to recognize that the assumption that people won’t feel valued if they don’t get a monetary bonus might not be correct, and it might help to involve them in the conversation. Of course, if bonuses have become an expectation (as we talked about in this past episode), this decision becomes trickier. But for most people, expectations are well-tempered this year, and many are just grateful to have a job at all.  It’s important to ask some questions to challenge your assumptions, like: what’s the purpose of the bonuses? How do I want my people to feel when they get them? And can I accomplish that while still preserving most of our cash resources for the great unknown that is 2021?  A well-intentioned mistake that leaders can make is stretching their business too far to make their people feel valued. If you overextend, you set yourself up for very tricky 2021. And you may be putting your people at risk. Getting creative with showing your appreciation without putting your business in danger is important.  And if you don’t know how to create that sense of value, you might need to rewind and learn more about your employees first.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup   OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Remember snow days? Remember how exciting it was to have that found day? It’s important to find ways to incorporate these experiences into your lives, even when everything is virtual.  Why is that important for business?  It’s also important to create these experiences – these blips of normality or shared experience – in your business as well. We talk about the quantitative parts of business often, but the qualitative experience is just as important – how people feel is not something to be overlooked. Culture for companies is often talked about as an “other” thing that lives in its own room, when it is more like interstitial tissue woven through everything.  Sometimes, it is as simple as refusing to forfeit some of the joy that come with normality.  Especially as go into winter, with the weight of not having many things to look forward to and lacking spontaneous found joys that come with semi-quarantine, we have to be mindful about how to incorporate snow day energy into our businesses and our lives. We need more emphasis on seeing see people and interactions beyond the transactional. The interpersonal is a chance to create another texture to the conversation that is missing.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

What can a peach the size of your face teach you about expectations? Let’s discuss! W How do you manage expectations to avoid disappointment, while avoiding complacency? How do you go from the perfect peach, to whatever it is that they sell at the grocery store.    These are the questions we tackle in this episode, and you can listen here. hy is that important for business?  When you have the perfect peach as a child, every other peach will reliably be a disappointment. When you have an amazing first experience, you often have to contend with unmet expectations, so how do you manage those expectations, in life and business, so you aren’t perpetually disappointed.  “Satisfied” can sometimes feel like a dangerous word. How can you give conscious thought to creating an experience for our staff, for instance, so they are as happy with the decision they made on day 418 as they were on day 1? How do we balance desire and expectation with satisfaction, while avoiding disappointment? Satisfaction feels like it can easily dribble into inertia and complacency without a little hunger. If every single peach met the standard of that first one, it would just be a peach.  “Fine is something you pay, not something you get” – wisdom by Eliot.  From The Incredibles Helen: Everyone's special, Dash. Dash: Which is another way of saying no-one is. As we talked about in Episode 149 Everything’s a Blur, we mark our time with individual blips and the punctuation of life, and sameness tends to cause life to blur. The answer to fear of unmet expectations isn’t to keep our expectations low, but to communicate about them. The problems with expectations happen when they haven’t been discussed, or when they are confused with certainty. And most importantly, expectations without truth are dangerous.  What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours! Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery. Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take a moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!