Podcasts about so ellen

Dr. Katie Strong, Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Central Michigan University talks with Dr. Natalie Douglas from Central Michigan University implementation science and how this applies to aphasia practice.   Natalie Douglas is Lead Collaborator at Practical Implementation Collaborative, an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders at Central Michigan University, and an Editor at the Informed SLP. She completed her B.S. and M.A. degrees at Ohio University and after a decade of clinical practice as a speech-language pathologist in hospital and long-term care environments, she completed her Ph.D. at the University of South Florida. Her work aims to advance best, person-centered practices in communication and quality of life interventions for people with dementia, aphasia and other acquired communication disorders in adults. She additionally aims to empower local healthcare and educational teams to support best practices, quality improvement initiatives and person-centered care through applying principles of implementation science. In this episode you will:  Learn about what implementation science is and how this applies to aphasia practice Hear about how using an implementation lens can lead to better outcomes with clients and families.  Learn about Sam, the Bocce player, his sauce, and the importance of a person-centered approach to care in people living with dementia. KS: Natalie, welcome to the Aphasia Access Conversations Podcast. Thank you for joining us today.  I'm looking forward talking with you and having our listeners learn about your work.   ND: Thank you, Katie. I'm always so happy to talk with you, especially here today.  KS: So, I feel like we should share with our guests, a couple of fun tidbits about how you and I are connected before we get into the meat of today's conversation.  ND: Okay, let's do it. KS: So first and foremost, we are colleagues at Central Michigan University. We share actually share a wall. Our offices are in the same hallway, although with pandemic, it's been awhile since we have both been in the office together. So, we are colleagues and have a lot of great fun together. But we have another way that we are connected as well.  ND: Yes. So, we crossed paths. I think in the early 2000s. So, I was working at a certain hospital system from 2003 to about 2013. And then I came to find…this was in Florida, by the way, we're in Michigan now. And then I found out that you worked for that same hospital system, also as an SLP right before I started, or something close to it.  KS: I did! Yes, we came up to Michigan in 1999 so I was there just a couple of years before you were, and we had shared colleagues! ND: Amazing. KS: Crazy. ND: It was meant to be can't get away for me, I was going to find you!  KS: Absolutely, well fate! Fate. I love it! NS: Indeed. KS: Let me first congratulate you on being named a Tavistock Trust for Aphasia Distinguished Scholar. It's fabulous! Tell me a bit about what this award means to you.  ND: Thanks for that so much. And this award really means a lot to me. I'm just so truly honored, grateful and humbled to receive it, along with people such as yourself and many other esteemed colleagues. And upon finding out about the receipt of this award, it really kind of prompted me into a lot of reflection from when I first started studying speech language pathology. So, this was, you know, in my undergrad degree in 1997. And I, a couple years after that, was introduced to what aphasia was. And, you know, this was further nurtured by working with Dr. Brooke Hallowell. And then continuing, you know, through clinical practice and trying to improve life for people with aphasia, working with Jackie Hinckley in my PhD program. And it really had me become extremely reflective upon what I've been doing recently, which is more system level changes. So how can we ensure that people with aphasia and other communication disorders, how does everybody have access to the best interventions? How do we make it so that best practice is not based on where you have your stroke, geographically speaking? You know, how do we spread what we know, works for people? How do we get the word out so that it becomes routine based care? So, this award, it just served as a catalyst for a lot of deep reflection and gratitude for the work that I've done in the past and now and also for the work that needs to be done in the future. So, I'm just extremely grateful to the Tavistock Trust and colleagues and mentors for this really humbling award. So, thank you for that. KS: Congratulations! The award is well deserved, and we are excited to hear about your work, both the work you have been doing and the work the will come in the future too. Natalie, as we get started, I'd love to hear the story of how you became interested in implementation science as an area of research and expertise.  ND: Sure, so, I think like many of us, when I was working in a clinical setting, there were many problems that I didn't feel like I had the ability to solve with my clinical training. So, you know, I just, quite honestly would leave clinical practice at times feeling honestly, full of guilt and shame, quite frankly, because I felt like I wasn't giving clients and patients and people the best possible services for one reason or another.  KS: I feel like a lot of people listening who are working clinically or have worked clinically in the past can really relate to that. You know, we all get into this field to help people and then when you get into it, sometimes that help isn't as easy to do with a lot of the barriers that are in place.  ND: Yeah, exactly. You know, and for me, you know, there were some cases where it wasn't necessarily an issue of me not knowing what to do. So in in many cases, I had the knowledge and in some cases, I had the skills. Not in all cases, there was often a skill gap to but in some cases, I did have the knowledge and skills to provide a certain evidence-based practice, but I still wasn't. And until I came across implementation science, I thought it was my own personal, I mean, honestly, moral failing why I wasn't. KS: That's heavy. ND: Yeah. I don't know that everyone hits existential crisis, like I do. But I mean, I really did, because it didn't feel right. You know, it didn't. It didn't feel right. Um, so it was, you know, the inability to solve those types of problems that really kind of propelled me back into academia. And so, when I first started my Ph D program, with Dr. Jackie Hinckley, I thought I was going to do something with aphasia treatment research. And I don't know how she remembers this, but it was sometime around in 2009. Jackie gave me a monograph, just a little book by Dean Fixen and colleagues and it was about implementation science. And it talked about how there was an entire discipline, dedicated to really merging the gap between research and practice. And it showed that there are mechanisms kind of outside of me as a person that influenced what I was able to do clinically. So factors like, what the organizational culture is like, what the organizational climate is like, things like insurance, reimbursement, policy. You know, all of these factors that are really outside the individual realm of the clinician, that we have data to show that it really does, those other factors influence what we're able to implement on a clinical level. And so I just kind of devoured that monograph, and quite honestly, been thinking about it, ever since in one iteration or the other. Because it's not just our field, you know, it's not just speech language pathology, it's not just aphasia, you know. This is across education, mental health services, every medical specialty. You know, we the way that we've created these systems of academics and practice, we've kind of reinforced silos. And so, the two don't always meet without active work. And that, I think, is what implementation science can really do. It can provide tools to kind of bring those realms together.  KS: It sounds like it was really a mind-blowing experience for you to have that monograph in your hands. ND It was mind blowing. Indeed.  KS: And how lucky we are that it got into your hands. Well, I know many of us have heard that term, Implementation Science, but it isn't always clear what is meant by that. Could you help us to understand that a little bit more? ND: Right. I think that's a really great question. And I think it's definitely not something to take for granted. You know, as helpful as, as implementation science is to our discipline. Within implementation science, there are a lot of constraints in terms of like language and terms, so it can get a little bit foggy, hazy pretty quickly. But the NIH or the National Institutes of Health definition of implementation science is really the study of strategies to help to determine how to best implement an intervention or evidence-based practice into a typical practice setting, usually as delivered by typical practitioners. So, this is not a situation where you would hire an interventionist or a graduate student, for example, to implement your assessment or intervention tool in a typical setting. I mean, there's definitely nothing wrong with that. But that's not in that could be, you know, if you're following a stage model, you know, that could be a direction that you go. But I think the guts of implementation is having, you know, and I think the routine typical clinician is a beautiful, amazing thing. So, I hope it doesn't don't when I say routine and typical, I really don't mean it in a negative way. But to get just really everybody on board.  KS: You mean your average, fabulous, SLP who is out there working directly with clients and families.  ND: Exactly, exactly. So, what we can do is just like how you would study the effectiveness of an intervention, okay. So, you have, for example, communication partner training. That's an example of an intervention in our discipline has a lot of effectiveness data, right? We know that it works, right? When it under certain parameters, we know that it can support communication and other quality of life outcomes. So, what you would do is, in addition to studying the effectiveness of an intervention, or if the intervention has already been studied, you could study the effectiveness of an implementation strategy. So, for example, you might say, “Okay, if we put in some type of audit and feedback system, does that increase the uptake of communication partner training?” Or if we provide incentives in some way, like some type of certification, or honestly, you know, the ultimate, not the ultimate, but a very effective implementation strategy is paying people to do something, right. And so that's, we don't do that in our field. But if, you know, as I said, a little bit earlier, you know, this is something that's, you know, grown outside and kind of encompasses many disciplines. You know, if I think about myself, and what causes me, you know, to want to change my individual level behaviors, right? There's like, certain incentives that might get me to do that. But those are implementation strategies, and not necessarily the intervention itself. Right? So, implementation sciences, like how do we get it into that typical setting, delivered by a typical practitioner, in the best way? So, just like how you could comparatively assess, you know, two different naming interventions for aphasia, you could assess two different implementation strategies. You can say, “Okay, if I put audit and feedback in one condition, and then I put education and training and another condition, am I going to get different adoption rates?” Right, will, more people do it in x condition versus y condition? Does that make sense?  KS: Yeah it does. So, taking the example you used for communication partner training, and we know that it has a high level of evidence that it works, but I'm not sure if our fabulous, everyday clinicians are using it on a regular basis. So that would be a step to then have some sort of implementation study or protocol to help basically get the evidence out into practice. Is that what we're talking about?  ND: Yeah, it is right. So right. And you kind of said it without saying it. So, one example of an implementation outcome would be something like reach. Okay. So, it's like, if we looked at all of the potential places where communication partner training might be beneficial, right? How do we get that number up? You know, with fidelity to what communication partner training actually is, right? Which we know is not just handing somebody a handout, right? So, you know, those are the types of kind of questions that you might ask, you know, and we can use an implementation science framework to kind of guide our thinking, you know, like, how do we get this reach up? or higher? How do we know, you know? And it gets messy, you know, it definitely gets messy and there's, it's complex, a lot of these questions. But these are the types of questions that I really think we need to be asking if we're wanting to advance these positive outcomes for families. KS: Yeah. And I think that messiness kind of substantiates how you were feeling back when you were working clinically. Right? That you had this knowledge and skill.. ND: That is true. KS: But you can't actually get it going into your day to day practice.  ND: That's right. Yeah. KS: Thank you for explaining that. I really appreciate that, and I think our listeners will also. I do think it seems clear, and then it gets fuzzy. I know it's a deep area of science. Well, you and a few colleagues are working on a scoping review on the landscape of implementation science in communication sciences and disorders. Can you tell us a bit about what you did, what you found, and why this is important specifically for aphasia?   ND: Sure. Right. So, this is a project that I've been working on with some other colleagues. So, with Dr. Megan Schliep, Dr. Julie Firestein and Jen Oshita, and we're working on and again, we're, this is not published, so please take this with a with a grain of salt or 10. I mean, we tried to have good rigorous methods. So, we basically wanted to see because, you know, I, this, when I say this, like I, myself have wrote a lot of these papers. So, I'm like talking about myself, but we have a lot of talking about implementation science, and we have a lot of concept papers. And it's good, you know. We need to be talking about it. It's a new area. But we don't we wanted to know, where is the science, right? Like been we've been talking about it. So, the Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, they had a special issue in 2015. So that's like, you know, a few years ago now, the ASHA Foundation had an Implementation Science Summit in 2014. So, years are going by right? And so, we wanted to know, have these initiatives, you know, this discussion that we've been having has it resulted in any changes, right? Are we moving the needle when it comes to incorporating some of these methods into our clinical practice research? So, at this point, we ended up finding 82 studies that met our criteria. But what I think is really interesting for people with aphasia, is we did this communication sciences and disorders wide, so including all you know, pediatrics, adults, we did, you know, speech language pathology and audiology. We came up with 82 studies, but the, the patient population that was most represented, was aphasia. Out of all of those different, you know, potential patient populations. And I thought it was a really fascinating finding. You know, it makes me think that clinical practice, researchers in aphasia are really kind of on the cutting edge, you know, when it comes to studying how to get these best practices into typical settings. And I think it also means that in aphasia, we have a unique opportunity to move things down the implementation pipeline. So, like, we started, you know, you and I started talking a little bit about reach, right? So, it's like, how do we get something out? You know, get people doing it? Well another, you know, kind of further down that implementation pipeline would be an outcome such as sustainability, right? So, like, when there is no researcher in sight, right, like this clinical trial has ended years ago, how do we put mechanisms in place so that that intervention is still sustained right, within that own system? So I think in aphasia, we've got really, yeah, interesting opportunities to be able to look at some of these longer term outcomes. You know. Overall, like as a field, it seems like we're really, potentially overly relying on like training and education as an implementation strategy. And I think that can be, you know, a number of reasons that I'm speculating here but you know, most of us are trained from a behavioral education standpoint. So I think we're really comfortable, you know, in that realm, you know, in some of these other implementation strategies, I don't know that we really know about them or use them, you know, to this point. But I think, you know, overall, a lot of progress has been made. But of course, we have a lot of room for growth. But I think we have some really unique opportunities, especially in the aphasia world, which I think is very exciting. KS: Yeah, that is exciting. And I guess I'm feeling excited and proud and that kind of like ‘eek' as we are stretching ourselves and learning things about how we might move the science forward ultimately so we can help the people living with aphasia to live better lives or reach their goals or whatever it is that they are wanting to pursue. ND: Yes. Absolutely. KS: As you know, this podcast has a wide listener base with shared interests in aphasia. Researchers, clinicians, program managers, people living with aphasia, their care partners and family members. What are some steps that they can take to support implementation science? ND: I think that all of those people that you mentioned those different groups, so you've got researchers, clinicians, you know, program managers, administrators, people living with aphasia, and their families and friends, right? Every single group that you mentioned, right through an implementation lens, they are a stakeholder, an equal stakeholder, where their input engagement is not only valued, but also, I think, required, if we're going to have optimal implementations to support all the outcomes that we want, you know. And so, I think one of the biggest steps that we can all make, is kind of reaching across our silos are relationship silos, right? So, for a researcher reaching out to a clinician, if we're clinician reaching out to a researcher. We don't need to have these silos. Even though we might, we might say there's not a hierarchy with our mouths between researchers and clinicians. I think we kind of know that's not quite true, right? It's a thing that is maybe unspoken, but it can make people feel intimidated to reach out. But I think that, and it's not just clinicians and researchers, but also administrators, families, people living with aphasia, if we can all start to break down some of those silos. So, I think the project that you're involved in with Jackie Hinckley, the Project BRIDGE, is a really phenomenal example of that, where people are actively listening, and learning from another, you know. I think it's not just a nice thing to do, but there's data to support better implementation outcomes, if we do that kind of engagement work upfront. You know and something that I try to ask myself when we're having these types of discussions is who is missing? Right? Who was missing during these discussions? And how do we get them to the discussion? How do we get them to the table to discuss and to really, so that we can figure out what's important, and how do we reach across some of the boundaries that we have and start to have this conversation? KS: I'm envisioning a ‘talk with' instead of ‘about'.  ND: Absolutely. And you know, this is not…I see this as like a both a “both and” thing. And so, this is in no way minimizing or to the detriment of basic science work, right? Like, we're specifically talking about clinical practice research, which not everyone does, right? And we know that there's different stages. But this is kind of a “both and” right”? We need our basic scientists and we need that foundational level work, we do. But I think there's enough data in that research to practice gap to say that we need to start way earlier in terms of, you know, kind of start thinking about, if I'm a clinical practice researcher, and my intervention requires a certain amount of time. You know, so if it's like time per week, you know, in minutes or in days per week. And I know for sure that Medicare is only going to reimburse three times per week, right? Then it's like, okay, that's something that's so much easier dealt with upfront, right? And so I think this can allow us this lens can allow us to be a part of some of these policy discussions when it comes to third party payers and to say, “Hey, guess what, this treatment didn't work, when you only did it four times a week, you need to do it five” right? Or whatever the case may be, but to have to be thinking about the different layers. And I it's a lot to think about, right? It's a lot to think about. As opposed to, you know, getting this amazing level of evidence on a treatment, but then understanding that it potentially is not going to be feasible or acceptable in a real-life setting. Sometimes you can't fix that gap. You know, sometimes it might be a little bit too late, you know, so I think the more we can be thinking about that upfront, the better. KS: Yeah, I love it. I'm visualizing sitting around with our implementation lenses on with stakeholders at the table from all walks of life and moving things forward. Oh wow. I've got goosebumps, Natalie. ND: You do.  KS: I do. You are putting the challenge out. That's for sure. I'd love to switch gears a bit and talk about another recent publication of yours. You and Ellen Hickey have recently co-authored a book titled Person Centered Care and Communication Intervention for Dementia: A Case Study Approach. What was the inspiration for the book?  ND: Sure, yes. So, thanks for bringing that up and letting us talk about that, to appreciate that. So Ellen, and I were, you know, we were thinking, as you know, clinical researchers, and we both of us had spent, you know, several years in clinical settings, we were trying to make it easier for clinicians who wanted to implement Person Centered Care, kind of across the care continuum. And from what we could find, you know, there were a lot of outstanding resources available about certain techniques. So, you know, external memory aids, or maybe the Montessori philosophy, or spaced retrieval. But what we wanted to do was put everything in one place, if possible, with a real kind of focus on treatment, and emphasis on the person. So, one thing that we thought was exciting, was we went so far as to name each chapter after a person and their role in life.    KS: You sure did, I love it!   ND: As opposed to, you know, this is a chapter about vascular dementia. This is a chapter about aphasia, you know, but again, this is a “both and” situation, you know, we need to have that detailed information.    KS: You made that message loud and clear. Person centered, loud and clear.    ND: For sure, for sure. So, for every case, there's eight cases in there. For every case, we really dive in deep on what it would look like to do, you know, a person centered assessment, and then provide some kind of flexible templates and some gold banks, you know, we're hoping that it will give, you know, very bright clinicians, you know, who are already doing great work, more ideas. You know, and by seeing clearly, not every person is going to remotely resemble these eight cases in this book, but we hope that by showing and focusing on a lot of the nuance, it will help spark some more person-centered programming for some of our clients kind of across the Health care continuum.   KS: Thank you. It's fabulous. When I was reading the book, I noticed prominent in the chapters, you've adapted the Life Participation Approach to Aphasia and the Living with Aphasia: Framework for Outcome Measurement, a.k.a. the A-FROM, to working with people with dementia. You know Aphasia Access' work is so centered around LPAA or Life Participation Approach. I love how you are expanding this vision. Can you share how this came to be?   ND: Sure, sure. So, Ellen and I had both used the A-FROM in our clinical work and it really made sense to us that when we think about some of those layers. You know, you've got issues of, at the impairment level, if that's cognitive or language, you've got issues to consider around the environment, life participation and personal identity, right? We felt that these factors were really relevant across disorder types and that this could be a very helpful way to ground some of the interventions and planning for intervention, as well as look at some of the outcomes. So, the Aphasia Institute was generous enough to allow us to use that model, you know, in the book, and we just, you know, merely suggest. It's not been tested or anything, but we just suggested it might be appropriate for people living with dementia as well. You know? And I know that we've got a segment of our population with frontotemporal lobar dementia, you know, or with primary progressive aphasia variants, potentially, so I think sometimes it's good to think about some overlap across disorder types, you know, in terms of how we want to ground intervention and outcomes, right? Because when we're thinking about people with dementia, and aphasia, really, we have to think beyond the impairment not to exclude the impairment. And, you know, we're not doing that, but just to think, to add some layers to what we might want to measure, and what we might expect to see some changes in.   KS: Well I think it's fabulous. I wish people could see, but I'm actually holding the book in my hands as we speak. It's the right size.   ND: It's pretty skinny! (laughter)   KS: Yeah, the right size. (laughter) But seriously, I'd love to dig into one of the cases. In particularly, I'd like to talk about Sam, the Bocce Player who was inspired by your own grandpa. And I'm looking at the chapter and I see photos of your grandpa and our grandma and your children…and I mean Natalie, let's talk about Sam.    ND: So Sam is my grandpa, he is no longer with us. And he was just the most unique, hilarious, funny, just complete character. He was all about his Italian heritage. And, you know, it was extremely sad for him to struggle with a communication disorder towards the end of his life. And it was just really difficult to watch and see, of course. It was devastating. You know, that's why we're all here in this field, right? But the reason that I…there were multiple reasons I wanted definitely a way to remember and honor him. I'm very grateful for the time that we had together but he is definitely one who did and would like he would be the person who you would go into their medical room, if it was rehab or hospital and with the “usual tactics”, it would be a “patient refused” [scenario]. There's just like, no way that he would attend to activities like workbooks or, you know, traditional speech and language tasks. I mean, it just would not happen. And he would refuse things all the time. He was like super stubborn, but the things that he loved, you know, he loved. And I think he is somebody, that's a really great example of sometimes if we go in and we're not knowledgeable of the person, we could lose our opportunity to try to facilitate communication with somebody. So, what we have in the chapter and in real life, you know, really kind of focusing on passions, so he was able to be around my kids when they were smaller, his Italian heritage, and Bocce and food, you know. And using those things in kind of a nontraditional setting, we were able to have some really special moments of what I think were very joyful, participatory, person-centered moments. If we kind of went about it in traditional, you know, from a medical model, I just don't think that would be have been very impactful. So, the hope is that for those folks that we see that they're like “Get out of my room!” you know. We've all been involved and told to ‘get out!'.    KS: “You're fired!”   ND: “You're fired! Why are you here?” You know, trying to think creatively about what that might look like to support somebody's communication.  KS: Absolutely. And I think the way the chapter is set up, how we first learn about Sam's background, and his family, and job, and then we learn about the medical history. I know that's not how we always come across information when we're meeting clients, or patients, or people. Whatever we are calling them in the places that we are working, but I do think it influences how we view one another. You know. And being able to think about our clients as people. And how we might engage with them. This is fabulous. One of the things that I thought, you know I love to cook, Natalie.   ND: Yes, you do.   KS: You talk about Sam and his sauce throughout the entire chapter. And I'm guessing you aren't the one who isn't going to be the one to help me learn how to make the sauce, are you?   ND: I know. That's so terrible. When I was a kid, he owned a restaurant and on Tuesdays he would take me in there and we would make the sauce for the restaurant. And so, he would show me how to do it, and I basically just stirred it. And unfortunately, that's the only detail other than the love... I can't give you details about the sauce itself. And as you know, that's really not my jam at this point, but, you know.     KS: I guess as I was reading Sam's case, as well as all of the others, I just feel like you and Ellen have done such a beautiful job of bringing this very ‘person-first'. I could really see how I could adapt some of these ideas, assessments, and treatment strategies that you've put into the book, even if I didn't have someone exactly like Sam that I could implement them with. So, thank you. Thank you.    ND: Thank you.   KS: As we wrap up, do you have any final thoughts you'd like to share with our listeners?   ND: I again want to express my true, deep gratitude for chatting with you today and for the generous and forward-thinking community of Aphasia Access, truly a game changer for the field. If anyone is interested chatting more about implementation, I hope you reach out to me. I'm always more than happy to talk and brainstorm about ways that we can move this forward. There's also an Implementation Science and Aging Special Interest Group that's free to join. It's interdisciplinary with some people in mental health, nursing, social work. It's all people across disciplines who are interested in who are interested in merging the worlds of aging and implementation science, I can give you that info to put in the show-notes.    KS: Sounds great! We'll add that and your Twitter handle and website for Practical Implementation Collaborative to the show notes. Natalie, thank you for taking time to share your story and work with us. Congratulations again on the Tavistock Scholar Award.    ND: Thank you so much, Katie.    On behalf of Aphasia Access, we thank you for listening to this episode of the Aphasia Access Conversations Podcast. For more information on Aphasia Access and to access our growing library of materials go to www.aphasiaaccess.org If you have an idea for a future podcast topic email us at info@aphasiaaccess.org. Thanks again for your ongoing support of Aphasia Access.   Connect with Natalie Online Practical Implementation Collaborative  https://www.practicalimplementation.org/ Natalie Douglas on Twitter   @Nat_Douglas    Links Mentioned in Episode Implementation Science & Aging Research Special Interest Group  https://www.isarsig.org/  Project BRIDGE – Stakeholder Engaged Research www.projectbridge.online    Read More In-depth Bauer, M. S., Damschroder, L., Hagedorn, H., Smith, J., & Kilbourne, A. M. (2015). An introduction to implementation science for the non-specialist. BMC psychology, 3(1), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-015-0089-9 Douglas, N.F. & Burshnic, V.L. (2019). Implementation science: tackling the research to practice gap in communication sciences and disorders. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_PERS-ST-2018-0000  Hickey, E. M., & Douglas, N. F. (2021). Person-Centered Memory and Communication Interventions for Dementia: A Case Study Approach. Plural Publishing. https://www.pluralpublishing.com/publications/person-centered-memory-and-communication-interventions-for-dementia-a-case-study-approach  Schliep, M. E., Alonzo, C. N., & Morris, M. A. (2017). Beyond RCTs: innovations in research design and methods to advance implementation science. Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention, 11(3-4), 82-98. https://doi.org/10.1080/17489539.2017.1394807

If you’re gonna make cool stuff, there are gonna be flub-ups, and this week we recorded what turned out to be an un-useable episode. So Ellen’s here to recap the week, and say goodbye for the year. See you in 2020!

So Ellen

Do you want to accelerate your leadership development?  It starts with gaining self-awareness and leveraging a coaching relationship that adds value and magnifies your results. My guest, Dr. Ellen B. Van Oosten will share critical elements that you need to have in your coaching engagements to amplify your impact and growth.  She will also share the data and science that demonstrates the ROI of coaching as part of your Leadership Development Strategy.  Learn how move across the continuum of telling to inspiring as a leader through coaching. Podcast Transcript: Hi, this is Jill Windelspecht. Welcome back to another episode of Brain Hacks 4 leadership. I'm really excited about today's episode. (jillwindel@talentspecialists.net) I'd love to welcome my guest Ellen B. Van Oosten, PhD, an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior and Faculty Director of Executive Education at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University.  Dr. Van Oosten is also Director of the Coaching Research Lab. Her research interests include coaching, leadership development, emotional intelligence, and positive relationships at work.   Directs the Coaching Research Lab, which she co-founded in 2014 with Professors Richard Boyatzis and Melvin Smith Co-Author of Helping People Change: Coaching with Compassion for Lifelong Learning and Growth (available through Harvard Business Review Press in September 2019) 24 years experience as an executive coach Well, Ellen, thank you so much for spending time with us today. Really looking forward to your topic. It's something that's near and dear to my heart, so why don't you introduce the topic. Sure. Thanks so much, Jill. I really am delighted to be with you and your listeners today. The topic that I thought might be of interest to a lot of individuals and organizations is coaching for leadership development and I know you've done a lot of work around that, so tell us what is some of the science that you've applied? Sure. We've known each other for a lot of years and even going back to the early days when we were doing some work together. A lot of my experience over the past 25 years has been in helping organizations develop their leadership talent and that space has been one that I've not only spent time with organizations designing and delivering programs, but served as the bridge to pull together different faculty and instructors to create customized leadership development experiences. Most recently in the last seven years, I've added to that some focus in the space of research and that's what I'm excited to share with you and your listeners. Some of what we're understanding and learning in terms of how coaching can really help. That's great. What I love about what you're doing with yourself and your partners is not just saying coaching works, but measuring it in a very systematic way to demonstrate the benefit. Yeah. That's something we feel really passionate about and are very committed to do at the Weatherhead School of Management. One of the activities that helps us organize ourselves around that and make it a priority is called the Coaching Research Lab. It is a collaborative between industry practitioners and faculty at the Weatherhead School and Organization Behavior and so through the Coaching Research Lab we conduct a number of different studies - including one that I'd be happy to share with you that supports or is interesting to our overall topic of coaching for leadership development. So this study that I'd like to share with you, it started a number of years ago where we had an opportunity to conduct a leadership development program for a financial services firm in the Midwest and this particular organization was interested to break down some silos between various areas of the business and were challenging their senior leaders, the top 300 or so leaders in the organization to collaborate in new and different ways. The way they thought to go about it was to equip the leaders with some new knowledge and some new skills. And through that experience worked with us at the University to design a leadership development program. And as part of it, we included 360 feedback and coaching. So that's the backdrop. So the study looked at two things, primarily does emotional and social intelligence of leaders have any bearing on desired outcomes, and those desired outcomes at the organization level were job performance, which is kind of the gold standard. Very difficult to get that data. But if you can do it, it's really compelling. And then also we looked at some more subjective outcomes including work, engagement, career satisfaction. And then also the extent to which the leader could create a personal vision. So here's what we found through this study. Emotional and social intelligence had a positive direct effect on job performance and also we found that when you add a coaching relationship to the mix, it has an amplification effect on other outcomes including work, engagement and career satisfaction as well as personal vision. So let me unpack those a little bit more. A lot of organizations always want to look at the return on investment for leadership development and that is especially true when we consider what a lot of folks in organizations consider to be soft skills such as emotional and social intelligence. It's just really hard to measure it in a lot of cases. In this program, individuals received 360 feedback on their emotional and social intelligence and the organization was able to provide me access to annual job performance ratings. Those sets of data along with surveys that the individual leaders answered allowed me to triangulate the data so that we could look at the interrelationships between emotional and social intelligence and those competencies and outcomes such as job performance and others. The fact that we're able to show through our analysis that definitely emotional and social competencies led to increased job performance was really important for this particular organization and I think a lot of organizations, but then also what was interesting is when you added a coaching relationship that the individual perceived to be high quality to the mix. It had this incredible effect of amplifying what the leader reported around working engagement, career satisfaction and personal vision. So that's really compelling when you think about the decisions and investments that organizations make to develop their leaders and it was definitely something that this particular organization found very gratifying and helpful to their leadership development. That's great. You said it wasn't just the self awareness around their own emotional and social competency, it was the coaching on top of that, when they saw the coaching is adding value, that amplified their job performance and engagement. Did you find anything specific around the coaching relationship? One or two things that when they were present people saw it as a more beneficial to them. The main thing is that a coaching relationship is really important and has a lot of benefits to the individual and to the organization. So that is really kind of one of the big takeaways from this particular study and the implications of that extend at a number of different levels. For individuals working with a coach that's important to know that the relationship and the connection that they have together in the work that they do together is as important and often a big catalyst for their particular work. So taking some time to think about and maybe get to know your coach to make sure you're working with somebody who for you is a good fit and somebody feel really comfortable with is important. Another would be for professional coaches, but also for internal managers who are seeking to develop their own coaching capabilities, so they can develop their individuals and teams in the organization in expanded ways. This really points to the importance of developing a relationship and being able to have relational skills. And then for organizations who have coaching, either provided through internal coaches or who are hiring external coaches to understand the importance of coaching relationships in the mix. Yeah, that's an important piece. I agree. As a coach myself, I often have chemistry meetings first just to make sure that I'm a good fit for them. They're a good fit for me. And I think that's a really important piece because coaching is really personal, but the outcomes can really be tremendous. Yes, exactly. Yes. And I know, right? Yeah. So Ellen, how have you applied this to yourself? So for me, I'm, since I've been in this space of leadership development work for almost 25 years now, it's really personal and it's personal in a couple of ways, it is validating to the work that so many of us are doing with organizations that we see so many intangible incredible outcomes. Right? Just like you said, so many amazing benefits are often part of the experience and it's hard to measure it. So we see it, we know it, we can speak to stories and stories are definitely powerful. But when an organization needs to commit a couple hundred thousand dollars for a leadership development program, or even just five or $10,000 for coaching for a leader or whatever, the amount that becomes a business decision. And so being able to provide some evidence about the benefits and the value to the organization, but also to the individuals is something that I feel really excited by. And then for me as a coach, as I also been coaching and still do a lot of executive coaching, it's a great reminder for me of the importance of establishing a good open relationship with the people that I'm working with. So being able to come to that fully present, fully able to engage in an effective way as a coach is something that is important to me and what I take away from it. Yeah, that's powerful. So Ellen, what are other ways that leaders can apply this themselves or their team and organization so they can get this benefit? Well, I think if we stepped back from this particular study and just think about coaching overall, I think such a great reminder of how valuable coaching can be. And so, you know, if we think about what that even means, coaching is basically, or the way I think about it and the way we do it at the Weatherhead School is partnering with another individual or a group or a team to help them discover and achieve whatever their ideal self is. And so we do a lot of work with people and individuals, helping them to imagine what they really want to do and who they really want to be in the future. And the future we've pushed pretty far out and then work backwards from that and fill in the blanks around how one can take some step to move towards that. Not in a transactional way, but more in a transformational way. So for me, it's really a knowing and having some more collective understanding around what's really happening in coaching. What's the potential that's there? And you need to be able to then consider what some of the benefits, real time financial benefits could be for organizations. Yeah, I love that. And thank you for defining coaching and the coaching approach that you're using as well. And so just to level set so people understand, what is the typical length that you've seen is needed from a coaching relationship to make an impact. So I know it's not one or two sessions, that's just the tip of the iceberg, but what have you seen that is a minimum expectation for people to expect to get some real results from us? That's a great question, Jill. And at this point we don't really know from the science or from studies. I can offer some experience though and I would say it's somewhere between four and six meetings or sessions. They don't have to be in person meetings, but in sessions where you're interacting with the individual or the coachee. It seems to be that the sweet spot somewhere around there and the longer you can work together, often the more change you're able to affect or to see at a minimum we would suggest three sessions so you can get pretty far in three but you know, and in all fairness or to be fully transparent around that, what you can get to is laying a good solid foundation. And then the individual does a lot of the work around implementing the plans on their own. If you're able to have a coaching engagement that has four or five, six or more session, then the coaches able to walk side by side with the individual or again the group of teams and help them as an accountability partner to be able to implement a lot of the steps. So really goes back to what the overall objective is for the coaching engagement from the beginning. But in general, a good rule of thumb I'd say would be somewhere around four to six sessions. And how long is a session? Again, I can speak from just experience. We don't have good data or science on that yet, but at least an hour seems to work at the beginning of getting to know a client and working with them. We find that 75 to 90 minute sessions are not uncommon. So we often plan for about 75 minutes and allow 90 minutes for the first two sessions or more. And then as you move into having a plan established and the coachee is kind of working their plan towards their desired change, sometimes your sessions could be shorter, more around an hour or so. There's also something that , I know a lot of coaches embed within coaching engagements, sometimes it's referred to as spot coaching or intermittent coaching. What that refers to is when our clients and coaches are able to connect with us as coaches at a moment's notice, so as needs arise or you know they're going into an important meeting, they might benefit from talking to their coach. So those types of coaching conversations range, that could be as short as 15-20 minutes and it's very discreet. It could be 30 minutes, 45 minutes. But in terms of scheduled, planned deliberate coaching sessions, I'd say on average is at least an hour. Yeah, that makes sense. So the spot coaching is in between the sessions to just keep the momentum, maybe help with something they're experiencing right there that they know they're working on. What other examples have you seen, and maybe you go to the book that's coming out, "Helping people change, coaching with compassion for lifelong learning and growth". What's one or two things that you learned and doing the work around this book that you could share with us? Sure. Jill, thank you so much for allowing me to share a little bit about the book that we have that's coming out soon because we've been working on that for a long time and it's been really an exciting and um, just rewarding project to work with my coauthors, Richard Boyatzis and Melvin Smith around them. There's so many nuggets of, of information for me that it's hard to pick one or two. There's a couple of stories that really stand out for me in a couple of times that have been reaffirmed for me so I can share a couple of those. One of the stories that is in the book is a coaching client that I had the chance to work with years ago, and he was a senior leader in a large multinational US corporation and he was CFO at the time and had received some 360 feedback as part of a leadership development program that surprised him. He thought he was doing pretty well and had pretty good relationships with his seven direct reports, who they themselves were senior leaders as well. However, the feedback he received from his direct reports and others indicated that they really didn't feel like he was approachable, that he knew them, that they had good relationships with him or vice versa, and ultimately that he was listening to them. So this was really a shock to him. And I find that sometimes working with leaders and executives where in the absence of feedback, they think everything is fine until they have a chance to learn a little bit more about how people are experiencing interactions with them. And so working with this individual, we started to break down that feedback and that was an interesting process in and of itself of just self awareness for him. And so we unpacked it and what he decided to work on was pretty discreet and it was how to become a better listener because what was happening on a daily, weekly basis was that he operated with an assumption that he didn't want to micromanage. He had very talented people on his team, so he wanted to get out of their way, which he translated to be not interacting with them really at all. And when they did come to him, it was usually around a specific problem that they wanted to either update him on or just bounce off of him. So the nature of the discussions and conversations the senior leader in the C-Suite was having with other senior leaders that reported to him were these short, 20-30 minute transactional conversations, he really didn't know anything about them. He trusted, they were running their particular business issues, their business competently and they were, but at the end of the day they weren't feeling connected to him. And as a result they were less engaged. What we set out to do together was to really unpack a typical day or week for him and to have him consider different ways to engage with his direct report, which really meant getting out from behind his desk and being able to concentrate on listening to what individuals had to say, which means he had to learn how to ask questions and learn the art of developmental conversation and even just the art of a conversation period. But one that engaged the other individual and demonstrated he cared and demonstrated that he was listening. So we worked on that for a number of months, very discrete steps, and through that process and him really working on being a different kind of leader, he was able to create a different type of relationship with the people who reported to him. A positive one, one where 18 months later when he took it another 360 degree feedback, he received much more positive and much different input from his direct reports. So that's one story that is just a great reminder for me of how simple some of these steps are, but how crucial they are for us to be able to engage with one another in meaningful, authentic, and caring ways. I love that example because in working with a lot of executives myself as well, I know that they may avoid trying to be that micro-manager so much that they're removing themselves too much. And you said that these are senior leaders he's working with, they knew how to do their job, but they wanted to feel connected. Yes. Yeah, to them. Yeah. It's very mindful. A lot of managers and certainly leaders and executives, this is absolutely true. We have jobs to do, tasks that have to get done, but those tasks get done through people and the higher up one goes in the organizational hierarchy - there's more people that we need to work through. And so the approaches and the styles that we use to engage people then becomes even more crucial for our ability to be effective in that. And it becomes much more about inspiring others, motivating others, and less about telling. So the transition from task to relationship requires us to move from telling to inspiring and that those are continuums for people. They're not absolute states, but I find a lot working with Directors on up to those in the C-Suite that some people have never really thought about that continuum. It might still be managing others in a way that is just not resonant or effective for the individuals as well as the span of control that they have. Yeah. The continuum you pointed out from Telling to Inspiring. Yes. Jill another take away from the experience of writing the book that I would share. That's top of mind for me is the importance of renewal for all of us. Renewal for all of us as coaches, renewal for all us as leaders renewal for all of us in all of the roles that we serve in our work and in our life. And so we know more and more from the neuroscience that's being conducted at our University and elsewhere about the role of stress and the importance of renewal. And part of it is that as human beings, stress is inevitable. It's just that stress, that chronic and stress, that extreme, which is often associated with increasing levels of responsibility in organizations and elsewhere is something that we need to be aware of and be able to not so much manage, but be able to address. And so one of the important ways to address the inevitable stresses in our lives is to be intentional about renewal. And so that starts with being aware of how we respond to stress and what some of the sources are. It also requires us then to make it a priority to be intentional about renewal. Now, the good news is there's lots of different ways for us to do that. And for any given person, what might be renewing for one individual, you know, could look different and often is for another. So we get to customize that, be authentic to ourselves, which is really important. And also just a lot of fun. For some people it might be meditation. For others it might be exercise. For others it's prayer. For others it's walks in nature and usually it's not just one of these things. It's a combination. And so we're learning so much more about how different resources like meditation for instance, really can help us stay centered and help us with that renewal. There's also renewal for longer periods of time that we need, such as like taking a vacation and taking a vacation where we're actually able to disconnect. Not a vacation where you bring your computer and you're on your computer the entire time. That's just virtual work that's not really renewing. So how much time, I don't know if you've, you've measured this, you can say we haven't measured it yet or you could tell me what your greatest guesses, how much renewal time the leaders need. Is that, are you talking take a week off a day? Is it, can you renew in a half an hour? Well, there's different timeframes for renewal right, so in any given day, if you think of 24 hours, one way to just make sure we're staying healthy is to look at how many hours we're dedicating to good quality sleep. There's a lot of studies that are emerging have been in our continuing to emerge about the importance of sleep. We are a sleep deprived nation and it starting at younger and younger ages. I certainly see that with my high schooler and the kind of stress and the hours that a lot of high schoolers are keeping and then that continues often through college. We see that in the students on campus. The issue is that for many individuals as they move into their thirties forties fifties we are in a sleep crisis or sleep deficits are very real. So it's not uncommon for people to get five hours of sleep or less a night. Yet we need a minimum of seven hours of sleep to function minimum. And so in any given day, starting there and really working on getting better quality, sleep is a good place to begin. Meditation throughout the day is important. So being able to take 10 or 15 even 20 minutes throughout the day where you can pause and use meditation and Meditative techniques to be able to center yourself. So it's really about managing the mind on a daily, weekly basis. However, longer periods of time are needed for true deeper renewal. There's no science we're aware of currently that says, you know, it should be 8.5 days or anything like that, but here's what we know. Taking a weekend allows you to break set from the hecticness. So if you take a weekend away, maybe you can, you know, catch up on your sleep and just relax for a day or so, but you're not really away. If you take a week, it takes most people a couple of days to wind down from just the stress of getting out of town. I'm making sure the dog got to the Kennel, making sure that they mail is stopped, to making sure that the bills were paid, making sure that you know the water tank is turned off in the house or whatever the list is for each person. By the time you actually get to a point where you're really just connecting, that's assuming you don't bring your computer or you're not on your phone. Answering emails is often two or three days in. If you only have a week, you have a couple of days before, then the same thing's happening on the other end and you're starting to crank things back up. You've got to figure out how to make sure your travel plans are in good shape and you're going to be packing up to leave and head home and so you really want to only get a limited amount of renewal. Ideally, a lot of our friends around the world who are able to take two, three, four weeks off and often have that as part of the norms in their organizations or countries have figured this out a long time ago, that really two weeks or more allows us to truly renew. And yet for a lot of people, I know that sounds like that's unrealistic or out of reach, but that's one of my dreams. To be able to affect that for people or to give them permission to be able to take it. Yeah, I need to, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so important. Yeah. Yeah. The timing is right. It's so crucial on so many levels and it's just so reinvigorating if you're able to do it. I know for a lot of your listeners having something practical that they can do to even get started around this is helpful. So I wanted to offer an exercise. That's a great way to begin. It's in our book as well. We call it mind, body, spirit, heart as shorthand. I can walk you through it briefly here. If you just draw four circles, and in those four circles, have them be connecting and write the words, mind, body, Spirit, and heart. In each one of those four circles, and ask yourself, what are you doing currently that supports the health of your mind, body, your spirit, and your heart? And then take those four circles, draw them again and ask yourself the question, what would you ideally like to be doing that would support your renewal in each one of those areas? So you're examining what you're doing now and then you're dreaming and imagining in a perfect world, you know, what would you love to do? And that exercise help you to take some personal inventory and also be able to then consider where might you begin to incorporate more intentional renewal into your life. I love that. That's a great exercise, a great place to just get started, Mind, Body, Spirit, and Heart. What are you doing today? And then what you would like to do. Then obviously next step would be what do you want to put in action that you want to do but aren't doing today? Absolutely. In fact, there is another story is a powerful one that is in our book and it's one of my favorite ones and it's the story of a gentleman named Bob Schaffer and Bob went through that exercise that I just shared with you and your listeners in a leadership development program. And for him it was just a moment where he thought to himself, I'm not the kind of person that I really want to be in terms of my physical health. And he had formerly been really active in college, played college football, and his wife, who he met in college, was also quite athletic. Due to work and the pressures of raising kids and traveling for work and just life, he had not been very committed to a regular program of physical exercise for a lot of years and found himself, as he talks about, it a hundred pounds overweight. And through this exercise, he made a commitment in that moment that he really needed to change and wanted to change. It's really the wanting, Jill. That's the key that he wants to change. Nobody was telling him he had to lose a hundred pounds because we know that doesn't work. This is where inspiring versus telling comes into play. Right. So it was important for him and he talks about his dream, which is be able to walk his three daughters down the aisle so it'd be healthy enough and to be around for that. He also talked about another element of his dream, which is to run a race with his wife because she was a runner and he would take the girls to see their mom run, but he was always on the sidelines with his kids. And so part of what he wanted to do is to run a race with his wife. And so he walked out of that leadership development program and this exercise and called one of his buddies who had been seeing a personal trainer for years and said, I need the name of your trainer. And he called the trainer that day, told them the story that I'm telling you, and the guy said, I'll work with you, but I only have like 5:30 AM that's left as a possible slot and he said, I'll take it. So the next morning he began a journey of meeting with this personal trainer five days a week at 5:30 in the morning. And I fast forward the story over several months. He began to just transform his life physically and as a result, many other things began to be transformed for him personally. He ended up losing 96 of the 100 pounds. His trainers said I think you're, based on body mass, I think this is your equivalent of a hundred pounds. And he had galvanized this energy in the organization and his department and everywhere, because his transformation was so visible, he was in a senior leadership role. And so he became a role model for others and gave them permission to go out for a walk at lunch or to work out, even if it meant they didn't get there until 8:30 in the morning versus being in their seats at eight, even though that company official hours were 8:30 but in some organizations, it's important to be there and to be seen even earlier. So he gave them permission to go workout and take care of themselves just by his own actions. And then he just talks about many other things that happened for him, including being able to run the race with his wife that he had dreamed about. And to this day he heads up as a chairman for one of the local race organizations because it's near and dear to his heart. So, you know, on so many levels, this exercise for him created the initial spark and inspiration. And so we know it's powerful as it was for Bob. I love that story. So that's a real simple thing while, just because it sounds, just because it's simple doesn't mean it's easy to implement, but something that anyone listening right now could really take the time, draw those circles, mind, body, spirit and heart, and really do the work of thinking about where they are today and where they really want and need to be, and then take action for that towards that. I love it. Yeah. And then bringing it back to one of our topics, if you're able to do that with a coach, whether that's somebody you're working with through a workshop, professional coach, or a leadership coach, that's even better because again, somebody else will be there as a partner to help you think things through maybe a little more deeply or maybe a little more differently. But for those of us who maybe don't have a coach or aren't working with one currently, seeking a peer coach is equally as helpful and important. So maybe that's there's somebody who you share a desire to be more effective or to develop your capabilities at work. And so maybe it's something you do together and you could help one another in that way. Or maybe you do this with somebody in your family, maybe it's a spouse or significant other, or maybe even it's a child or maybe it's somebody in your extended family. So that's how we can adopt coaching and use coaching relationships and to be coaches for others outside of even just formal executive coaching roles. So I think the opportunities are endless and this is just one way that we can help each other be even more centered. And, and I'd like to think of it as even kind of returning us to ourselves a bit so that we can be grounded and authentic and be able to be the best version of ourselves. So part of the gift in coaching is whether we're peer coaches or we're working with executive coaches, or we are coaches ourselves in a professional sense, is that we have the opportunity through the conversations that we hold in the experiences we have together to help one another return to the best of who we are. And from that place is where we can lead authentically. We can be in relationships that are meaningful and where compassion for one another becomes what really holds us together. I love it. Well thank you so much and I can't wait to read the book, Helping People Change, Coaching with Compassion for Lifelong Learning and Growth, and I look forward to having you back as well to share a little bit more of some of the details and your experiences as you build your coaching lab and continue to work with executives and focusing on improving performance and engagement. Is there else you'd like to close with today? Well at first I want to, thank you so much Jill for the honor of being invited to be on your podcast series, so I've thoroughly enjoyed it, but also just really fun since I've known you for so many years in some of our previous roles. So I just am inspired by you and what you're doing here today. So thank you so much. Yes, I I'd like to close with something that for me, I tried to keep front and center as a coach, but also just as I walked through my day interacting with a lot of different people, and it's something that I learned from a short article that was in the Houston Business Journal years ago. It was back in 2007 and the reporter had shared a story. It was written about Andrew Carnegie, although some people mention it, it's about perhaps another Carnegie, but the essence of the story is that he was interviewed because he had 43 millionaires working for him at the time, and he was asked how is it that the people that worked for him were paid so much money? And he said, the way that people are developed is the same way that gold is mined. You go into the mine looking for gold. You don't go into the mine looking for dirt yet you need to move a lot of dirt to find the gold. And the takeaway from me is that there's gold in every single one of us. So there's gold in our kids. There's gold in our direct reports. There's gold in our managers. There's gold in our coaches, and our role is really to help one another, discover the gold and discover the gifts within, and to kind of polish them up for the world to see. So that's something that I'll like to just close with something that I just, like I said, I tried to remember on a daily basis, but it's inspiring for me. I've got a ways to go to be able to put it into effect. But yeah, it centers me anyway. I love that. I love that story. We have to go through a lot of dirt to get to that gold. Just remind yourselves of that. Yes. The journey will be worth it. Yes, no doubt. That's right. There's riches at the end, right? Yes, there is. There is. Do the work. Do the work. All right. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time and look forward to having you back. I'd love that. Thanks so much, Jill, all the best. Thank you. Well, thank you everyone for listening into today's podcast, brain hacks for leadership and I hope that you were able to take a few nuggets away, some things that you can put in place right away. I love the exercise that Ellen shared with us. So there's a very simple thing that you could put in place right away. Draw your four circles. In those four circles, you write the words, Mind, Body, Spirit, and Heart. And in each one of those circles, ask yourself, what are you doing currently that supports the health of your mind, your body, your spirit, and your heart? Then take those four circles, draw them again, and ask yourself, what would you really like to be doing that would support your renewal in each of those areas? Examine where the gap is and start putting an action in place that's going to make a difference for you. And most importantly, everyone around you. And she also talked about the importance of coaching as part of a leadership development strategy. It magnifies the impact on overall performance and engagement inside an organization. So if you're looking at getting started with improving your leadership or the leadership of your team or your organization, feel free to reach out to me@ Jillwindel@talentspecialists.net. I love coaching executives and leaders at all levels inside the organization. And I know as Ellen said, that everyone has gold inside. Sometimes we have to dig through that dirt to get to the gold, but everyone has value. Everyone has potential, and a coach can exponentially help you reach your potential. Thank you. And I hope you have a wonderful day.

   Episode #1 Description   Welcome to “What the Lyric?!?” In this episode, we bring our favorite bad lyrics from Pop Music (c. 2016-2019). One song from an artist who desperately wants to fix her “Reputation” with some cringe-y spoken-word lyrics. And another from a Brit whose time would best be spent learning to “let go” of the booze.   Transcript of Episode #1   Becky: Welcome to What the Lyric?!? -- the podcast that confirms...yeah, that actually made it to radio.   Matt: Is it recording?   Becky: Oh now we’re recording. Oh fun!   Matt: Oh yay!   Becky: Hello everybody and welcome to What the Lyric?!? where we talk about how much we love awful, awful lyrics. A little bit about me: I’m Becky. I will listen to anything once, and over and over again if it’s really bad. And then there’s Matthew over here, my partner in crime…   Matt: You know, honestly, if you had to summarize my musical tastes, the best way to look at it would be to say that my go-to karaoke song is “Promiscuous” by Nelly Furtado ft. Timbaland.   Becky: So you know we have good taste. That goes without saying. How this whole podcast is going to work is...We have one song each that {...} we get to pick off the theme of the episode. Today’s theme is Pop Music from 2016 to 2019. We get to do a dramatic reading, and after the dramatic reading, we talk about why the lyrics are SO bad and why we had to call it out. All right, so starting first is...Matthew.   Matt: Okay.   Becky: Get ready.   Matt: Definitely get ready for this. So I chose a song...just to give you a little context for this: it comes from, I believe, August of 2017. So put yourself in that state of mind. It’s a year after the election; things are terrible...still.   Becky: I was probably high.   Matt: I mean, weren’t we all?   Becky: Yeah.   Matt: It is Seattle.   Becky: You’d have to be.   Matt: And so this person has decided to reshape their image and, you know, I’ll just let the lyrics speak for themselves:   “I don’t like your little games Don’t like your tilted stage The role you made me play Of the fool, no, I don’t like you I don’t like your perfect crime How you laugh when you lie You said the gun was mine Isn’t cool, no, I don’t like you (oh!)”   Matt: And that’s the first stanza.   Becky: Okay, so I’m guessing… Who’d be packing heat in 2017, you said? August?   Matt: Uh huh. Changing the image!   Becky: Could be… Oh! Changing the image? Only because of the changing image thing, that would be Taylor Swift?   Matt: Correct.   Becky: Oh the Swifties.   Matt: But do you...do you know the song?   Becky: Oh Jesus! Is it that...It’s the one where she then breaks it down and says, “Oh, Taylor Swift isn’t here right now. Because she’s dead!” Something along those lines? *Laughs*   Matt: This would be “Look What You Made Me Do” by Taylor Swift.   Becky: Oh yes. *Repeats the phrase “Look What You Made Me Do” twice.* Or however the rest goes.   Matt: Exactly. And really, my choice for all of the songs in this podcast are based on what I like to call “Cringecore.”   Becky: I love that. We are going to copyright that.   Matt: *Laughs* Really any songs that have lyrics that [make you go] “Oh!” You’ve heard of cringe comedy; that’s kind of how I view these lyrics.   Becky: I like it.   Matt: And specifically the -- what makes this so cringey is what you already mentioned, the, let’s find it…”I’m sorry the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now” set to the background music of, “Ooh, look what you made me do.” “Why?” “Oh ‘cause she’s dead! Becky: The old Taylor is, like, what? 23? 24? I mean, she’s not old.   Matt: She’s got a guitar. I mean, her…   Becky: She’s country. Country Taylor.   Matt: She’s Country-Pop.   Becky: Yeah.   Matt: Don’t you remember when it was just a love song, baby?   Becky: Oh man. Oh God. Ohh...Getting a little gag reflex going.   Matt: And don’t forget the “I knew you were trouble.”   Becky: Oh is that the one with the turtle sex noise meme?  *Laughs*   Matt: *Laughs* That is exactly what that is. *Laughs*   Becky: My favorite ever!   Matt: So really Taylor...I had a lot of options, just based on Taylor, but I have to admit, the lyrics are just...a mess. Let’s keep it going. I mean, we’ve already heard the first stanza.   Becky: Oh yeah.   Matt: But then she continues to say she doesn’t like being the fool, but “[she] got smarter, [she] got harder in the nick of time.”   Becky: How does one get harder when they’re carrying their cat around everywhere? I see a lot of photos of her with her cat. Don’t get me wrong, [I’m a] crazy cat lady, but I’m not taking Kink with me...My cat’s name is Kinky Disco. I’m not taking Kink with me to the grocery store, to the gym...Okay, I don’t go to the gym, but like, I’m not taking her out on a night on the town.   Matt: Unlike Taylor Swift, which I will also say I find it interesting that for a woman whose last name is Swift, she didn’t choose “faster” for the lyric. Like, that would have made AS much sense… “But I got smarter, I got faster in the nick of time.” Okay! I’ll still take that!   Becky: She got badder? I’ve never heard her swear! I’ve never seen her not smile.   Matt: She doesn’t swear in this song either. The real question, and we can answer this question at the end of the analysis, but what, what, WHAT did we make her do? I’m just very curious.   Becky: Maybe make her carry a cat around all the time. *Laughs*   Matt: *Laughs* We did this to ourselves.   Becky: Maybe she has to date all these DJs. Maybe we forced that on her with our expectations of her music and turtle sex noises.   Matt: And her Starbucks lovers!   Becky: Oh God, that’s right.   Matt: “But honey, I rose up from the dead. I do it all the time.” Necromancer, interesting. “I’ve got a list of names and yours is in red, underlined. I check it once, then I check it twice. Oh.”   Becky: Wait, what does that mean? What are you doing? You checked it. Yup, still there.   Matt: Based on the lyrics alone, we have realized that she has gotten harder in the nick of time and also, presumably, become an elf of the Santa variety. She’s making lists; she’s checking them twice. Don’t know why she’s using a red pen.   Becky: Well it is festive. Red -- Christmas-y. Becky: See I can’t get past the “hard” part. She’s not like, all of a sudden, turned to Nicki Minaj-hard. Or like, back in the day, Lil Kim hard.   Matt: She’s not going to be Beyonce carrying around a baseball bat, breaking windows.   Becky: No, but she did bust out the band, the marching band.   Matt: Oh we can always get into that!   Becky: I saw that! I saw that!   Matt: But if that’s the case, then she still did not get harder in the nick of time because she’s still following Beyonce.   Becky: Yeah. And pink isn’t really a “hard” color for me. Like, it’s not a color I go, “Oh! I see Notorious B.I.G. is wearing pink. He’s hard.” That isn’t why I would have classified him as hard. I don’t think I’ve ever seen B.I.G. [in pink.] Maybe he did? I don’t know; I’d have to go back and look now.   Matt: *Laughs*   Becky: I feel like I’d have to look that up. *Laughs*   Matt: And then really, the rest is chorus, which in case you haven’t realized it, is just: “Ooh, look what you made me do. Look what you made me do. Look what you made me do. Look what you just made me...OOH, Look what…” Okay, I think we’ve got the idea.   Becky: I feel like someone got lazy. I feel like that happens a lot in lyrics. And that’s lazy.   Matt: Which part?   Becky: The just repeating the same line over and over and over again.   Matt: Yeah, it’s not a good look. And worse, is the next stanza:   “I don’t like your kingdom keys” Kingdom keys.   Becky: Keys? As in house keys? Car keys?   Matt: Yeah, apparently someone’s got a kingdom.   “They once belonged to me.”   Becky: Okay.   Matt: Uhhh, questions?   “You ask me for a place to sleep Locked me out and threw a feast”   And the best part of this is at the very end of the line is, “What?!” So even Taylor looked at these lyrics, “Locked me out and threw a feast...WHAT?!” And they just included it.   Becky: Yeah, they said fuck it. It’s Taylor Swift; it’s going to be huge. That’s exactly how it happened.   Matt: And ultimately, it was.   Becky: I know!   Matt: “The world moves on, another day, another drama, drama But not for me, not for me, all I think about is karma And then the world moves on, but one thing’s for sure (sure) Maybe I got mine, but you’ll all get yours.”   Becky: All of a sudden we’ve gone from one person to all?   Matt: Oh yeah. So whoever took her kingdom keys apparently stole her keys, stole her kingdom and was like, “No bitch, you don’t live here anymore.”   Becky: Could kingdom keys *laughs* be a metaphor for virginity, here?   Matt: But then which one? Which one of the Starbucks lovers is guilty of that.   Becky: *Laughs* I wish I had kids so that I could be like, “Kids, keep your kingdom keys as long as you can. Just lock them away.”   Matt: “Your chastity belts won’t rust. Don’t worry.”   Becky: “Just keep those kingdom keys to yourself and be sure to give them to the right person.”   Matt: Abstinence-only education.   Becky: “And if you are going to give them away, just keep them protected.”   Matt: Just keep them on a carabiner. Becky: *Laughs* Those Schneider keys that had the chain you could just pull and snap back.   Matt: Exactly!   Becky: Keep them safe. You’ve got to know where they are at all times.   Matt: Taylor did not follow that advice. She is thinking about karma apparently. She’s not going to do anything about how angry she is, which again really contradicts the meaning of the song.   Becky: The “Look what you made me do”!   Matt: Exactly. She’s like, “Oh karma will take care of it. I won’t do anything about it except sulk.”   Becky: I’m going to sit and just bitch about it.   Matt: Yeah. And honestly, the rest of the song. A) It goes back to, “I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time.” Return to that and then another amazing chorus of “Look what you made me do.” And the final, original set of lyrics is:   “I don’t trust nobody and nobody trusts me. I’ll be the actress starring in your bad dreams. I don’t trust nobody and nobody trusts me. I’ll be the actress starring in your bad dreams.”   And it just repeats until it transitions flawlessly into “Ooh, look what you made me do.”   Becky: Taylor. Taylor, I get that you’re young, probably started partying, started drinking a little bit and that’s where this came from, maybe. I don’t know.   Matt: Girl’s nearly in her 30s.   Becky: Yeah, I don’t get it.   Matt: Britney had a weird stage; I’ll allow Taylor one, but this was a…   Becky: Britney had a good one because she shaved her head.   Matt: *Laughs* She put on a show!   Becky: *Laughs* She is a showman through and through. Like, she shaved her head, tried to attack somebody with an umbrella…   Matt: I don’t remember the umbrella… Becky: Oh yeah, that was after she shaved her head. I think she went for somebody’s car window because they were taking photos of her in the car, so she went for that. Yeah. That’s a good photo to look up. It’s priceless.   Matt: That’s the next segment.   Becky: Yeah, that’s the second podcast. Photos of people going crazy.   Matt: That’s the first one!   Becky: Okay, so I think, universally, this song is incredibly awful. I think we can both agree.   Matt: Do we have a rating for this?   Becky: I would say she’s mild. Like, on a scale of 1 to 5 -- like, 5-star spicy crappy lyrics -- she’s probably right in the middle there.   Matt: I am inclined to agree.   Becky: It’s like a 3-4.   Matt: Right. It depends on your own taste buds, your ethnicity. Certainly when it comes to this song.   Becky: Oh god, yeah.   Matt: Honestly, on a scale of 1 to 5 yikes, I’m inclined to give it a 3. What nudges it toward 4 is the spoken lyrics...   Becky: Yeah.   Matt: “The old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now.” “Why?” “‘Cause she’s dead.” And then I just hear the teenager in me slam the door and yell, “You’re not my real mom and you never will be!”   Becky: *Laughs* I will say, also, [those lyrics are] my favorite part of the song.   Matt: It’s only the original part of the song!   Becky: It really is! It really is. That’s like her acting out. And you’re like, “Oh. Ohh. Taylor got edge.”   Matt: To be honest, what would have kept it at a 3, if they would have just deleted the spoken word portion. This would have been a goth “Call Me Maybe.”   Becky: Yeah. Ooh, yes! I like that. I agree with you on that one. So we’re going a solid 3 to 4 yikes on the awful lyrics scale.   Matt: I am inclined to agree. It’s not the worst. It’s certainly not the best lyrics.   Becky: It’s definitely not. *Noise of a truck* Sorry for the trucks in the background, people! This is what happens when you record in an old building. Alright, so mine...Honestly, I don’t know when it came out. This song is the reason this podcast is existing because my coworker heard me bashing these lyrics and said, “Oh my god, please record this.” So Ellen, here you go!   Oh God, how do I do this? Okay:   “I met you in the dark, you lit me up You made me feel as though I was enough We danced the night away, we drank too much I held your hair back when You were throwing up   Then you smiled over your shoulder For a minute, I was stone-cold sober I pulled you closer to my chest And you asked me to stay over I said, I already told ya I think that you should get some rest”   Becky: And then it goes into the chorus. Go ahead, see if you can guess this one. Yeah.   Matt: I’m going to need some more lyrics.   Becky: I’m going to go into the chorus right now:   “I knew I loved you then But you'd never know 'Cause I played it cool when I was scared of letting go I know I needed you But I never showed But I wanna…”   Becky: I can’t even get to this part without laughing.   “But I wanna stay with you until we're grey and old Just say you won't let go Just say you won't let go”   Becky: ...Which is the name of the song.   Matt: Ohhhh my God.   Becky: That is James Arthur’s “Say You Won’t Let Go.” Now James Arthur, if I remember correctly won, like, X Factor, which is a British TV show like…   Matt: America’s Got Talent?   Becky: Yeah! I think it’s something similar.   Matt: Are there buttons?   Becky: There are people who are guest judges or whatnot. I think it might just be music, so it’d be like an American Idol situation. And [this song] is one of the more popular wedding songs, which I find offensive.   Matt: Oh no.   Becky: Yes! Yes, this is played at weddings. People pick this as their wedding song. So I’m going to go ahead and we’re just going to start again. So he starts with:   “I met you in the dark, you lit me up You made me feel as though I was enough”   Sweet enough sentiment. Right?   Matt: I will say it sounds like they’re both getting high at a party, which I’m just like, “Oh okay.”   Becky: They’re young. They can do that. I mean, I don’t remember the last time we’d dance the night away. Here’s where I start to have some issues with this being at all a good song and even a wedding song, where he says:   “I held your hair back when You were throwing up”   Now, there’s so many things here for me. You just met her and now you’re holding her hair back. While she’s puking.   Matt: Wow.   Becky: Do you want to be with a girl who can’t handle her booze is my number one question. *Laughs* Like, is that a thing?   Matt: I mean, I have to hand it to him. I can definitely see a couple of things wrong with the dating culture. Number one -- women who look at this song and think, “You know what? I’m just looking for a man who’s going to hold my hair back 30 minutes after I’ve met him.”   Becky: She’s gotten to that point. It’s like in Singles where she’s like, I was looking for all these things, and now I’m just looking for a man who says “God bless you” instead of “Gesundheit” when they sneeze. That’s where she’s at.   Matt: I mean, it’s a pretty low threshold.   Becky: Yeah.   Matt: But I also think it’s very much a critique on straight men who are like -- there’s no such thing as a red flag to me. She’s vomiting in a toilet? I bet I could get laid tonight!   Becky: She is so beyond her means; if anything, we’re going in for the kill. Okay, so now it says:   “You smiled over your shoulder”   Becky: All I can picture at this point is puke-face, which is puke stuck in the teeth, her make-up is now down around her cheeks, she’s got raccoon-face. She is that girl at the end of the night who is missing a shoe. And is holding the other one in somebody else’s shoe in her hand. Her purse is open; shit spilling out all over the place. That’s the girl I’m picturing, and you’re like…”Yeah.”   Matt: Say you won’t let go!   Becky: *Laughs* This is the girl for me. Forever. No. No, I can’t...And a wedding song! I’m going to keep saying this. This is a wedding song. People pick this for their freaking wedding.   Matt: See, what I love about that is that it explicitly gives the couple permission to drink too much, to dance the night away. And THEN, as she’s puking, he’s going to be like, “It’s like the first night we met!” *Laughs*   Becky: Open bar at this wedding! Very clearly. We’re not going to have food, just booze because we’re going to relive our first night. I can’t. And then he says:   “For a minute, I was stone-cold sober”   Becky: Now, when you sobered up for that second, did you go, “What the fuck am I doing?” Because that’s [when] I would have gone, “What am I doing? Why? This girl is puking and I’m holding her hair back and that’s the girl I think…”   But then he went, “Nope! We’re good. I don’t know what that was about. I’m pushing that to the back. Pushing it to the back. That is not a red flag in any way.” I don’t get it. And clearly, puke-face is a turn-on for this guy because then he pulls her close.   Matt: He’s got a thing.   Becky: *Gagging noises* It’s giving me the gag reflex thinking about it. Then he says:   “And you asked me to stay over I said, I already told ya”   Classy. He’s good.   Matt: Wow.   Becky: Yeah:   “I said, I already told ya I think that you should get some rest”   Becky: Now I’m not sure if he’s just being nice because she just lost the contents of her entire stomach in front of him and he doesn’t want to embarrass her any more or he’s like, “I’m going to go in for the kill even though I said ‘Let’s just get some rest.’”   Matt: He’s closing the deal. Honestly, if he cared, he’d be like, “We’re going to get you some water and medical attention.”   Becky: This is a “Me Too” movement issue.   Matt: Yeah, a #MeToo moment.   Becky: And then he goes on: “I knew I loved you then.” Got to be a fetish. Like, puke-face fetish. I don’t know. Not anything I go for. “But you’d never know.” Yeah because she’s black-out drunk. Who remembers during black-out drunk-ness? And then he says: 'Cause I played it cool when I was scared of letting go.” Yeah because she could die of alcohol poisoning. *Laughs* There could possibly be a death that your fingerprints are on the body now.   Matt: He’s scared of letting go and yet, at no point does he think, “You know, there are medical professionals who are paid to take care of this.” Becky: Yeah, maybe urgent care. That’s all I’m saying.   Matt: She deserves better at this point.   Becky: Yeah, and then he goes into, “I know I needed you.” More like she needed you rather than the other way around?   Matt: Yeah, she needed you in the same sense that she needed to be hydrated.   Becky: Yeah, maybe needed to be told, “Maybe not that last drink.”   Matt: Exactly. And this is going to be a bad decision.   Becky: Stop spinning while you’re dancing. Doing that little spinny-dance. That hippie dance thing. I don’t know. I don’t dance. I have no idea what the kids do these days. So then we go into the he wants to stay with her when she’s gray and old.   When you’re gray and old and you’re still puking into a toilet, holding her hair back. That’s old.   Matt: My brain went the opposite direction. Of course he’s excited for her to get gray and old because then all sorts of bodily functions go haywire. He definitely has a kink for this.   Becky: He’s waiting for the diaper stage.   Matt: Yep. 100%.   Becky: So then we get to the next bit:   “I'll wake you up with some breakfast in bed I'll bring you coffee with a kiss on your head”   This is an intervention. She’s daydrinking; she’s hungover. That’s what this has to be.   Matt: Too many damn mimosas.   Becky: “And I'll take the kids to school.” ...Because Mom’s had too much Mom-juice? What is happening here? Now we’ve established there’s a cycle. There’s a problem. “Wave them goodbye.” Because Mommy’s going to rehab and you’re not going to see her for a little while is what I’m getting. I could be wrong. “And I'll thank my lucky stars for that night.” The puke night? You’re thanking your stars because now you are having to take over care -- ALL the care of your kids -- because your wife can’t get out of bed because she’s been day-drinking and going on the Mom-juice.   Matt: Alright, two things. Well, actually, two kinks really come out of this. Number one, he definitely has a thing for girls who are messes. Like, full-on messes. Number two, the dude was playing long-game. If I can get with an alcoholic woman, enable it…   Becky: There will be diapers sooner [rather] than later!   Matt: Exactly. *Laughs* And I cannot wait to get custody of the kids who don’t exist yet. So...interesting, James Arthur.   Becky: Maybe that’s all he wanted was kids. And he just needed some drunk, crazy lady that would believe anything he said to her just to get those kids.   Matt: I hate to say it, but I know a fair number of straight women who, if a dude held their hair back, they’d be like, “Aw, he’s got a caring, tender soul.”   Becky: Yeah, I probably would have said that in my twenties. I’m also 45 now, so I’m like, “There’s something wrong with this guy.”   Matt: That’s because it’s amazing when you get out of your twenties...the clarity through which you can see the world!   Becky: Oh my God, yeah. Okay, so then we go back into the whole, “When you looked over your shoulder. For a minute, I forget that I'm older.” And here’s where I become an asshole for picking this song because the next line is, “Because you’ve been too busy hiding her alcoholism from the family.” The song’s about alcoholism! People are playing this for weddings! Again, top wedding song -- alcoholism is mentioned in the lyrics.   Matt: Wait, repeat that exact lyric.   Becky: “Because you’ve been too busy hiding her alcoholism from the family.”   Matt: Wait, who is? He is?   Becky: He is. His whole little stanza is:   “When you looked over your shoulder For a minute, I forgot that I'm older Too busy hiding her alcoholism from the family.”   Matt: This took a turn…   Becky: I know! I’ve never gotten past the first stanza where he’s holding her hair and she’s puking. No idea that they would all of a sudden mention alcoholism. THEY MENTION ALCOHOLISM. How is this a wedding song? You people have got to listen past the first stanza. And then it goes into, “I wanna dance with you right now.” I’m assuming now because shouldn’t she be in rehab? And then, “Oh, and you look as beautiful as ever. And I swear that everyday'll get better.” Everyday’ll. That’s everyday, apostrophe, L, L. Get better. “You make me feel this way somehow.” I don’t know. What would that way be? Afraid of drinking?   “I'm so in love with you And I hope you know Darling your love is more than worth its weight in gold.”   Now we’ve just completely gone past the alcoholism. That was just a little blip. Just a little mention.   Matt: Just going to drop that in as a reminder.   Becky: Yeah. Then this one gets me, “I wanna live with you/Even when we're ghosts.” Really?   Matt: That’s eternity.   Becky: That’s really...no.   Matt: I have yet to meet a single person in my living life who I would want to spend an actual eternity with.   Becky: I don’t want to spend that much time with my cat.   Matt: Ah! But see, that is the precise lyric that made that a wedding song.   Becky: Yeah. OR “I'm gonna love you till/My lungs give out.” Till my lungs give out?   Matt: But then he just literally contradicts what he’s just saying. He’s like, “I’m going to…” What?   Becky: Be with you even when we’re ghosts. But now it’s just till my lungs give out. He backed it up a bit. He was like, “Ooh…”   Matt: There was a rug that he pulled out from underneath her, which is that he doesn’t believe in ghosts.   Becky: OR he’s thinking he’s got a better shot in the afterlife of hooking up with, like, Anna Nicole Smith or something.   Matt: I’m guessing. But no one says what Anna Nicole Smith looks like after she died. What form of Anna Nicole? Becky: He’s thinking ahead. FAR ahead since he cut it back down to just till my lungs give out. “I promise till death we part like in our vows”?   Matt: Yikes. That’s just poor sentence construction.   Becky: Well, again, this song is about alcoholism and it’s a top 10 wedding song.   Matt: That’s a winner.   Becky: I think it’s a top 10 wedding song mainly because he’s British and the Brits do love their booze. *Laughs* So I’m sure it hits home with a lot of Brits.   Matt: I’m going to give you the win on this one. It was never a competition. I’m giving you the win. That is a clusterfuck of a song.   Becky: That TOP hit...I don’t even know what it topped at, but it’s up there. Not only that...WEDDING SONG.   Matt: First of all, he didn’t just have a thing for ladies who were messes, he then also proceeds to move forward with it to be like, “You know what I really love about you? How you hide your debilitating substance use from your family. That’s a major turn-on for me.”   Becky: See? He gave us a little hint in the beginning, and we’re all like, “This guy’s just an idiot. They’re just young.” And then it’s, “Oh shit. They’re alcoholics.”   Matt: She’s got a problem! And then it should have just been, “I’ll love you until we’re ghosts, which will be soon because your liver won’t last much longer.”   Becky: Because cirrhosis is bad. I say this is right up there. I say this is a 4.5 on the yikes scale for me.   Matt: I was precisely thinking somewhere between 4 to 4.5, but I will give it credit. There’s no way it’s going to be a 5, only because there was an emotional journey there.   Becky: There was. He took you on a little bit of a ride, albeit a crazy rollercoaster of alcoholism clusterfucks.   Matt: I don’t think I would have ever..No, no no. AMENDMENT: I would have never guessed there was an actual major pop song that had the word alcoholism in it.   Becky: Now I feel like I’ve got to look it up, but he was up there. I can’t remember where it was, but it played a lot, and I was like, did anyone actually listen to these lyrics before it went anywhere outside of the recording studio?   Matt: I think they saw it and thought to themselves, “Oh my God -- the UK -- this is going to be relatable.”   Becky: *Laughs* These people drink like fish and they are going to love this song. Alright, let’s see if I can find it...where did this damn song hit. I can’t believe this song about alcoholism made the charts. Let’s see, Brit Awards...Video of the Year and Single of the Year in 2017. Also, Oh thank God, it wasn’t for Teen Choice Awards. Thank goodness!  He also won American New Artist of the Year that year!   Matt: No. This is #MeToo moment. First of all it was a #MeToo moment and then, following that, was alcoholism and neglect?   Becky: Peaked at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100. In May 2018, it was reported that The Script, also another classic band, had launched legal proceedings against him due to alleged copyright infringement in regards to this song.   Matt & Becky: OHH!   Becky: It just got ugly.   Matt: Although now I’m intrigued at the title because...does the title, “Say You Won’t Let Go” refer to…   Becky: The booze?   Matt: ...a Jameson bottle? Or James Arthur?   Becky: I’d go with the bottle of booze. *Laughs*   Matt: I think she’s certainly loving that!   Becky: THAT is good when you’re a ghost.   Matt: You know what pairs best with cirrhosis? Jameson. Informal plug.   Becky: Jameson if you would like to sponsor us…   Matt: Please let us know!   Becky: Please!   Matt: Please get us out of this studio.   Becky: This studio is hot and there’s guns a-blazin’ probably somewhere in Seattle right now. Okay everybody, thanks so much for listening. Please join us next time when we take a peak at the riveting lyrics of songs from the ‘90s. That’s right. I’m Becky.   Matt: I’m Matt.   Becky: And this was…   Becky & Matt: WHAT THE LYRIC?!?

Ellen Davis has a M.S. in Applied Clinical Nutrition, and she also happens to own ketogenic-diet-resource.com, which is an amazing site, full of incredible information about how keto can be helpful for a wide range of ailments. So Ellen was kind enough to sit down with me and answer some questions, and give some great […] The post Episode 107 – Ellen Davis discusses how keto treats a wide range of ailments appeared first on Ketovangelist.

Get ready to laugh! We've got another Brilliant Business Moms team podcast! We’ve got Carlee, Ellen, and Victoria here, sharing how they’ve found work as Virtual Assistants and their thoughts on using VAs in your business. I know they get questions all the time about how they came to work on the Brilliant Business Moms team, and these ladies have a wealth of knowledge to share. Listen to the Podcast   On the Podcast 1:20 - How Our Team Came To Be 14:02 - What About Competition? 17:07 - Meeting Your Online Team In Person 20:50 - Working Well With Clients 26:18 - The Question Beth Anne Has Been DYING To Ask 36:31 - Riding Big Learning Curves 41:18 - Standards in Service-Based Business 44:06 - Setting Limits in Service-Based Business 50:10 - When VA Relationships Don’t Work Out 1:01:45 - Boss Perks Beth Anne: Ladies, I’d love for you to start by sharing how you got into work as a Virtual Assistant. 1:20 - How Our Team Came To Be Victoria: Sure, I can start! I got started a couple of years ago, and really out of necessity. I wanted to spend more time with my baby but I still needed to bring in an income. So I put together the work I had been doing professionally prior to having a baby, and thought maybe I could do that same type of work as a freelance contractor. We laugh about how easy this is, but I literally sent emails to a bunch of people! I sent about 25 emails in a week to different individuals that I followed online. (I do have a small blog, it’s not monetized, just a place on the Internet. And because of that I had knowledge and awareness of different mom bloggers out there.) So I sent these emails along the lines of, “Hey is there anything I can do to help you? Let me know.” The very first VA job I did was make a media kit for someone. I didn’t know anything about media kits or graphic design, but I figured it out and did the job. As far as my connection to Brilliant Business Moms (BBM), I was a long time fan girl of the podcast and the brand. I reached out to you, and Sarah at the time, and asked if I could be helpful, and eventually that translated into the working relationship we have now. Ellen, you started similarly, right? Ellen: Yes! I had a blog, but was really enjoying the behind the scenes stuff way more than blogging or creating things. Through blogging I knew a few others bloggers that I liked and got along well with. At first I offered free (or super cheap) work, because I really wanted to get experience. Most of that was raising my confidence, helping me know if I could actually do the more technical work and get paid for it. Working with those first few ladies that I really knew helped me realize I CAN do this, and I can keep going. I think I mentioned in the BBM group that I was looking for work, and either Beth Anne or Sarah reached out to me about doing a simple job. That’s how my work with Beth Anne started. I was copying and pasting names from a spreadsheet, and they were really happy with how fast I was! A tip for when you get started: If you are doing free or cheap work, make a boundary for that, maybe 10 free hours or 2 weeks, so you’re both clear on expectations--but it’s a great way to get started! Beth Anne: I think that’s a great way to get started, you two. When you reached out to us, Victoria, I remember reading your email and wondering if you were really offering to do things for free! We asked, “Is she crazy!? How is she this nice?!” At that time we didn’t take you up on the offer to do things for free, but we knew because we had that relationship you were in the back of our minds for as soon as we could afford a VA in our budget. One of your first tasks, Victoria, was helping format our ebook Time Management Mama. And then in the meantime your clientele built up a lot and I remember thinking, “Oh no! I think Victoria’s too busy for us now!” And Ellen, I remember Sarah finding your post in our Facebook group and reaching out. (And we still encourage moms to do that! Post in private Facebook groups. Share who you are and what you can offer. It’s a great place to get started.) And Ellen did work so well and so fast Sarah and I quickly started to freak out that we weren’t paying you enough! What you were charging at that time was such a small rate, but it’s good that over time you’ve built confidence and increased your rate. It’s really important as a VA to value yourself. Victoria: Beth Anne, this is so funny to hear from your side! I do want to add that, in that time of waiting for a job, or if you have someone you know you want to work for someday, in the meantime as much as you can be helpful, do it. Support the people and the brands you care about. The group was still close enough that Sarah and Beth Anne often asked for input on projects. It’s a good practice to give before you expect to get back. In life, that makes you a nice, moral person. But in business, it sets up the organic working relationship. Beth Anne: And Carlee! You’ve been so quiet, but I’d love to hear how you started! Carlee: I feel like the newbie and almost the imposter in this conversation! It’s really funny how I started. I’ve always worked from home, but with jobs like grading papers and tutoring: on my time frame and pretty minimal because I homeschool my kids. But my youngest turned 10 last year, and has been doing well and getting more independent in school, my husband and I realized that I could take on more hours. I even actually applied to some jobs outside the home, and had no peace about it. I didn’t want the jobs and I didn’t want to be out there, and we were still homeschooling. For those of you who don’t know, Ellen is my (little!) sister-in-law. She was hesitant to tell me about VA work because a lot of people don’t really understand it or get what it means. (And now I face that too!) But when she finally explained what she had been doing, she told me she thought I would really enjoy the work and would be a really good fit for VA work. So I gave it a try! I did the same thing, I posted in our Facebook group and fell in love with BBM from the moment I started. I got a client right away who was excellent and paid me in courses. She knew what she wanted me to do and what classes would be helpful for that work. So I was able to work and learn all at once. Rather than paying me in money the first month, she paid me in classes. When Ellen’s husband was heading back to work for the school year and Ellen needed to drop her hours, there was a scramble to pick up the work that Ellen couldn’t do any more. There was the problem of the inbox and a few other issues! And if i remember the story correctly, she asked Ellen what Ellen thought of me coming on. Beth Anne: Yes! I think that’s right. Because Ellen, I don’t think you would have suggested it to me first. For reference everyone, and I have to tell this story because it’s so funny, Ellen literally had Be Brilliant mugs in her house for an entire year and was shipping them for me - and it took an entire year for her to ask me if she could have a mug and could I take it off her paycheck!!! It’s like, “Ellen! You can have as many mugs as you want!” So that’s very much Ellen’s personality. She wouldn’t have come to me to say I have this sister-in-law looking for VA work and she’s awesome. But the connection did happen organically. Carlee’s daughter, Mckenna, actually attended one of our Pinterest webinars. And once I found that out I gave Mckenna the course to help with her Etsy shop. And then one day the lightbulb went off. I knew we needed to add another member, and I knew the team member would be primarily offloading tasks from Ellen’s plate. But I didn’t want to have to jump back in and be that person to explain to a new person how Ellen was doing everything! And I also knew Ellen, and that she would absolutely need to feel comfortable telling the new person exactly what needed to be done. So I thought, “What about Carlee?” Carlee: It came out of those relationships. And to fast forward, Ellen does not have a problem bossing me around. I’ve known Ellen since elementary school, and I have been the boss forever. So Ellen has SUPER enjoyed getting the chance to tell me what to do. Ellen: Oh, I do. I do. :) Carlee: I love it. And Ellen’s personality is so sweet and genuine. She wouldn’t hurt a fly. If someone told her no or had been incompetent, she would have just fixed it for them and not said anything. So it works well that she can tell me point blank, that’s not right - do it again. 14:02 - What About Competition? Victoria: I feel like this is fun to get Brilliant Business Moms history. And I think this is a good place to point out one thing Beth Anne has done really well in terms of building our team. It’s stereotypical to assume that anytime you get a bunch of ladies together there’s going to be a bit of cattiness and jealousy. This is such a good spot to say we have 0, no we have negative 50 million of that, on our team. I would just imagine in other settings, maybe you bring a new team member and - wait, what!? she’s related!? How did she get in here? I’ve worked in places before where people had that negative outlook on life. What I love about our team is there is none of that. We were very much, “Yay! Carlee’s here!! We can get even stronger!” And Beth Anne, I think that was good insight and foresight on your part knowing your team well, and knowing how we needed to operate together to be successful. We all play to our strengths. And we said in a recent episode, this past year was our most successful ever. And I think it’s due in large part by putting the exact right people together. For the business owner out there looking to put a team together, if you even see a hint of any negativity - stop it, cut it out. You want people who work so well together. Carlee, I think you said that a win for one of us is a win for all of us. Carlee: From the business owner end, I totally agree. As the team leader you have to be aware of your team and foster good relationships. You have to pick the right team and shut down negativity. From the VA end, and this is something Beth Anne shows in all her business practices, it is not about competition. Victoria and I are not in competition, and our jobs overlap all the time. There are times she does my job for me and I do her job for her. It’s not about if I do it better or she does it better, or who does more. We are a team. A win for one is a win for, and a loss for one is a loss for all. So when a babysitter can’t make it and you lose work time, we all chip in. Or, in my case I had a chicken emergency this morning (#WyomingLife), when those things happen we gladly jump in and fill in for each other. There’s only collaboration and not competition among a team. 17:07 - Meeting Your Online Team In Person Beth Anne: I have to say I don’t know if I’ve done a great job of fostering this, but I think you all are awesome and do a great job working with one another! You two, Carlee and Victoria, especially have jobs that overlap all the time and you manage it and figure it out and work together so, so well. One thing that definitely helped is when we were all able to get together in person at the Business Boutique in Nashville. That was the first time I got to meet Carlee and Victoria in person! All of us getting to be together really solidified the team. We are all coworkers, but we’re all friends as well. We care about each other as people and that’s really important. Carlee: I think it helped because we all have slightly different personalities in person than online than everyone expected. Obviously, I’ve known Ellen forever...so that doesn’t count. Beth Anne was a little different than I thought, and Victoria was too. But that was so good! We’ve talked since then about personality and communication styles and strengths and differences. Choosing to be friends and enjoy, and help each other has helped us communicate better according to each other’s styles. Victoria: Choose conferences wisely: whether you’re building a team, working on a team, or working as a VA. I would even say look at the calendar of where you want to go, and check-in with your groups to see who will be there, and choose which events to attend that way. It can be hard in the online world to know how to connect. Even if you’re simply trying to meet people to put on your team, conferences can be a great way to meet a bunch of people in one location. Our team was able to meet in person for a longer work session in San Diego, and I know not everyone in business is in that spot. Conferences are more accessible, and while you’re there do as many auxiliary events as you can to meet people and network. Beth Anne: I totally agree. I had only talked on the phone to all of you before working with you. For someone looking for VA work, if you can meet up at a conference and interact in person how great would that be!? It gives them a better sense of who you are and what you do. I think I can know how a person communicates pretty quickly when I meet them in person. And doing online work you have to be a good communicator. 20:50 - Working Well With Clients Beth Anne: So obviously, you all are rockstars and I love that you all work so well together. I would love it to share with everyone what are your tips. How do you work well with clients? What do those relationships look like? Ellen: It may be cliche, but communication is so big. Being able to communicate over email is essential. Don’t be afraid to clarify, or ask dumb questions. It’s better to clarify up front when you’re working with someone on a project, rather than move forward unsure and frustrating your client. Communication really is just such a key part; especially with online work, when you can’t just go down the hall and have a conversation. Up front, you want your expectations to be clear, and know it’ll evolve over time of your working relationship. And even something as simple as responding to emails with new tasks, “That looks great, I’ll take care of it.” and offer a time frame of completion can be helpful. Beth Anne: As a team leader, whenever you ask for clarification, I love it. It shows that you care about doing the job well and about my vision for things. There is no dumb question! I want you to ask as many clarifying questions as you need. Carlee: And sometimes we’ll do a project knowing it’s not totally perfect or exactly right and submit the draft to you for feedback and tweaking or vision and direction. Sometimes it helps for us to take what Beth Anne has said, put it on paper, and see what we’ve missed. Victoria: I second the practice of sending drafts and getting concrete feedback. Something I’m consciously working on (not perfect at it!) is to take detailed notes as I work, especially when working with several different clients. It’s important to mark differences in the styles you need to keep track of between your clients. Or you need to write notes about how a particular client handles a certain situation. Especially if you’re working with a bunch of different people, those details can get lost or muddled. I can be a very creative, free thinker and sometimes I’m tempted to make up the answer to a problem for myself, which works in my life but not when I’m working for other people! Maybe this habit of keeping notes comes naturally to you, but for me it for sure does not. But I’m making myself do it! In the same breath as talking about communication, I think transparency is really important. Maybe you need to send a note to say, “Hey, I’m really struggling to understand how your sales funnel is working, but I’m taking notes and will ask you again if I have questions.” I also try to be really detailed with my time records so people know how long a project took me. I think having strong communication and being transparent builds trust. Ellen: Early on in my VA work I had to face the fact that I am very much a people-pleaser. Before I got started I read the Bootstrap VA -- and it’s an awesome book. It helped me learn to be okay with criticism. I knew going in that would be my big struggle, so I made a very conscious effort to prepare myself. Getting feedback isn’t bad, and you can’t take it personally. You have to be able to take critiques, learn from it, and work with it. But this tendency is probably something a lot of people struggle with; I knew for me it would be a particular weakness and I wanted to be prepared to work on distancing myself from my work so I could take feedback well. Beth Anne: That is true - and I give all of you all tons of feedback! Which brings me to my next question that I’ve been dying to ask you all! 26:18 - The Question Beth Anne Has Been DYING To Ask About 6 months ago or so, you all confessed to me that when you first started working for me, the first couple of months, you thought I hated you. But when you guys made this confession to me, we were obviously past that point, and I thought you liked working for me at that point, but I still wanted to know: Why did everyone think I hated them!? What made you feel that way? And why in the world did you keep working for me!? Victoria and Ellen: *Not it* Carlee: Okay, Okay. I’ll start. When I came on the team, we pretty much jumped right into a Kickstarter campaign - and then straight into our gigantic FB Brilliance course launch. Side note: If you’re going to do VA work, don't think you’re going to do only do one thing. That doesn’t actually happen. I was hired to handle our inbox. I had been around about two weeks, and suddenly I was writing a refund policy. I think the policy was for our planner. In my draft of the document I used lots of formal wording, which defaulted to my love of English grammar. Then I got an email from Beth Anne that said, “Never use the word ‘therefore’, ever again!” I was like, “Okay then. Sure.” Needless to say, we didn’t end up using what I had written! It was comical Early on I did lots of screenshare hangouts with Ellen as she was handing off tasks to me and teaching me how to do certain things. During one of our conversations I said, “Ellen, I don’t think Beth Anne likes me! I don’t think she’s happy with me.” And I kid you not, Ellen’s exact words back to me were, “Oh I’m so glad you think that because you’re one of the most confident people I know, and I feel that way half the time too, so if you’re feeling that way then I feel better about myself.” It was great for me. Because I knew Beth Anne loves Ellen! Beth Anne thinks Ellen is the best thing ever. So if Ellen is thinking that about Beth Anne, but Beth Anne totally likes her, maybe she totally likes me! So we just worked through it. Ellen and I helped each other through it. And when Victoria hit that same spot, Beth Anne told her, “Go talk to Carlee.” And so she did. (And Victoria made sure I knew Beth Anne told me to talk to her. It was not gossip!) We talked it through, and I was able to help Victoria see that’s Why did we stick around? Because we’d all rather have the person who says, “Never, ever use the word therefore!” than someone who will dance around and not give a direct answer. I don’t want to deal with the game and fluff; I want to be told what’s great and what’s not, and be done. It’s a waste of time to do it any other way. It’s a respect level. Because even when I questioned whether or not Beth Anne liked me, I knew I liked Beth Anne and I liked Brilliant Business Moms, and I wanted to stick around and get better. Beth Anne: I feel like the mean head cheerleader or something! And my team is all, “We like Beth Anne but she doesn’t like me!” Ellen: For me, because my feelings happened very early on, I knew I was learning how to handle criticism. I learned that I do like the direct feedback. I’d rather know exactly what you want, and move on with that. That’s just part of the working relationship--we have to learn to deal with criticism! Victoria: Okay, guys. I would not hate it if you threw a fluffy pillow to me and then gave me criticism. Just saying. But yes, at the end of the day, we all pursue excellence in our personal and professional lives. And it’s good to get it straight, and know how to move on. I also feel I need to be the voice of practical necessity here. In addition to what you guys just mentioned, part of me is like, “Well, I still need a paycheck, so this is going to be worth it.” On a very real level, there’s a sense of knowing that it may be hard, but it’s going to be worth it. Man, this is getting very deep quickly. I’ll just say that I’m painfully extroverted. I’ve been noticing in my life that I like to work really hard, but as soon as the work gets challenging, I want to sprint on to the next thing. The best things come from more of the marathons and not the sprints. I also realized in myself that it’s a sign of maturity to believe it’s worth sticking through the hard things, and having an uncomfortable conversation or two to get through the tough spot - and, in our case, preserve the team and progress we’re making. I don’t know if that’s a VA thing or a work thing. Carlee: It’s a work thing. I’ve worked a lot of jobs and they all come with great parts and hard parts. I can honestly say at this point, even if I couldn’t have those first few weeks, I’m living my dream. This is my dream job. I’m so happy to be here, but it doesn’t mean it’s always easy. The other day Ellen and I had to redo a project we spent a lot of time on, but that’s the nature of the job! It’s the nature of the fact that we’re all moms, working in the margins, doing our best. It can’t be personal. And it can’t be all fun and sunshine and rainbows and then when it’s not I’m out of here. That’s not any part of life--not marriage, or parenting. And that’s the best part about our team! On the hard days (and hard because they’re busy, not because they’re bad, they are hard because our to-do list is longer than the number of hours we have) we talk to each other and pick each other up. What’s great is the other day I was having a very hectic day and Victoria reached out to me and said, “What can I do for you?” Victoria: See? Here’s a fluffy pillow! The fluffy pillow is valuable sometimes! Beth Anne: Victoria you’re such a nurturer and I love that about you. You pick up the slack for others. Victoria: And vice versa! It happens to me as well. Beth Anne: I am learning more and more as a team leader to get better about knowing how my team likes to be led. So, Victoria, I know in some cases it would be better to pick up the phone and have a conversation with you, than just send an email - which is my default. That’s part of my responsibility as a team leader. When it comes to all that hard stuff, it’s the same for me too! There are days that I don’t want to get up and do the work I need to do that day, even though I run the show. Assembling a team that cares about the mission makes a big difference. 36:31 - Riding Big Learning Curves Beth Anne: And Victoria, I know that the podcast has been one example of how you pushed through something that was harder was working on the podcast. I’m sure there were times you were tempted to say it’s not worth it! But everyone is so excited to have it back and you’ve created a great system for us. Victoria: Yes! I can talk about that. But first I do want to say, we all do care about the higher mission. We have all bought into Brilliant Business Moms. And if someone is having a bad day, the other has good day. If you run a business or work in a business, you make a commitment. That basic level commitment is, “This work has to be done because it’s what I agreed to do,” and sometimes once you work through that basic level, then the higher level love feelings come back about why you’re doing it. I hope it didn’t come out crass to say working for a paycheck is sometimes what keeps you going, I didn’t mean it to! Beth Anne: No, it didn’t! Victoria: Right, it’s just that sometimes you have still put one foot in front of the other. Speaking of that, the podcast is a good example of what we’re talking about. Around the time of our San Diego trip we had a team growing experience. We had a show due on Monday, and in my mind I had it basically complete and ready to go, but it was not that way. Carlee and I proof for each other, and I sent the transcript to her for proofing. Since we were in person, Carlee looked over at me and said, “Victoria, these shownotes are awful. They’re not done at all. You need to go back and fix it.” At first, I was mortified. Then I went through the stages of grief, getting angry then accepting what I had to do. This all occurred later at night, pressing up against the deadline. We worked through it and we hurried to get the show finished on time, and I swore I’d never work that late again! And you guys still heard a great episode that day, having no idea what happened behind the scenes! It was good for me to see that Carlee didn’t hate me, she just made a judgement call on the work. Carlee: And that’s it! My thought process was, “You usually do this fabulous job, and this is not up to your own standards.” I wasn’t mad, it wasn’t personal, they were just bad notes. There’s no hidden meaning with us, and that’s how Beth Anne is, too. Beth Anne and I are similar in that, we really shoot straight but there’s no deeper, read between the lines insult. Victoria: We really learned as a team, that we’re all here for the listener. We’re here for the community, to put out good content. It’s time like that the bigger mission does help. 41:18 - Standards in Service-Based Business Victoria: I think anytime you’re in a service-based business, it’s so hard to not directly tie yourself to your service. I feel like with product-business ladies, it’s kinda nice to be able to hide behind the product. With a service-based business, it’s just you. You’re providing the service. And you have to work extra hard to separate the value of the service from the value of you as a person. As a BBM team, we will always fall short in some way,  but we have a lot of grace for each other. Carlee: And you’re making such a good point for anyone looking to be a VA or be on a team. If you’re not working in person, you have to over communicate. Honestly, in this moment I should have explained what I was actually thinking, “These are not up to your own standards, did I miss something?” And really I was wondering, “Are you okay? Is there anything going on? Victoria: And on my end I was thinking, “Nope, I just didn’t get them done as well for whatever reason this week.” Carlee: You’re so honest, Victoria. I love it. This is the real deal, guys. Victoria: Aren’t we calling these BBM Confessions!? It fits! I think you have to be honest, and call each other out, but also give grace and be willing to move forward together. That’s why we’re all here, Beth Anne. Beth Anne: As a team leader one of the things I can improve on is communicating when I need to give feedback or ask for something to be done to another standard. I always feel really, really bad when I want you guys to change something last minute. I don’t want to be that boss who controls every hour of your day. But because I’m such a work under pressure and last minute person, and I know I drag you into that. 44:06 - Setting Limits in Service-Based Business Beth Anne: So I want to ask: how do you set boundaries on your time? For example, I know that Victoria has set work times with childcare. Ellen and Carlee’s worktime feels more fluid. How do you make sure I don’t take over your life!? Sometimes I know I do! That really concerns me. Carlee: But you..so...okay *laughs* You do and you don’t. Especially for Ellen and I, you do take over our lives sometimes - but we know that in advance. It’s not a daily thing. But we are aware of an upcoming big launch or big webinar, and during those times Ellen and I structure our time around work. On the days when we have a work event at 6pm at night, my crew knows we’re going to eat at 4:30 and then Mom is going to lock herself away. That’s a choice we’ve made and we don’t have to make it. Ellen: And it’s not every day. It’s rare. Carlee: Yes. But what people should know too is we can literally say, “Hey, I’m leaving town for 3 days.” And while our tendency is to follow up with, “But I can still work!” Beth Anne says, “No! Take time off!” We have crunch time, go time, all hands on deck -- but we also get the rest time. It wouldn’t be possible without the rest time. Ellen: But there are times Beth Anne sends me a task on Friday night but she says it can wait til Monday. And often I will do the task that weekend, only because I usually work Saturdays, but there’s no pressure. Victoria: Communication is good. My tendency is to do everything, but because my kids are little younger and I have very structured work days, I’ve tried to get better about projecting when a task can realistically be done instead of saying, “Sure I’ll get that done tonight!” Early on as a VA I tried to do it all right away, and it wasn’t healthy! When given a job I would say, “Sure sure! I can do it” but I really couldn’t, and it was resulting in stressful moments for our family. But now, we have clear times - ‘This is when I work, and this is when I don’t work’ - and planning in advance has been helpful. We haven’t talked about working with a bad client yet, but in my bad client experience it was expected that I could drop and do whatever this person needed right away. But setting realistic boundaries and communicating them clearly is good. Now I try to answer, “I’m done with work for today, but I can do it first thing tomorrow.” Beth Anne: Carlee and Ellen, I would totally understand and appreciate if you want to be more structured! I want you to be happy with your work and stick around for a long time and I would have no problem with you telling me what works for you with your life. Carlee: We are happy! And we promise it’s working. We as a team assign tasks according to those schedules, too. For example, I homeschool from 8 to 11 am, so I don’t have tasks that have to be done at 9 am. Victoria’s jobs are things she can do ahead of time, for example. Ellen: For me, the late-at-night stuff isn’t good, but early morning is my time. Beth Anne: And let me say what I love about Ellen’s early morning time is that I can go off to bed with a wishlist of items I’d like done, and by the time I wake up and have actually logged into my email Ellen has them done! Carlee: Me too! I’m a late night person and just recently I sent Ellen a few corrections to landing page at like midnight or 1 am. I was worried I had woken her up with all these crazy messages! She wrote back first thing in the morning and said, “Hey thanks! Those were great. Changes made.” It had only been 5 hours since I sent the corrections and they’re done! 50:10 - When VA Relationships Don’t Work Out Beth Anne: So let’s start talking about when the relationship is not working out. And this still cracks me up, because I’m still confused about the warning signs! You all thought I hated you, but kept working anyway! Victoria: Honestly, what we just described is more a of a challenge of working online. Working in-person you can joke around at the beginning of the day, have a conflict in the middle, but end with a joke. I think the barrier of the screen means you have to overcompensate. It’s just hard! I still contend that online is what makes it weird. And on a blog or business, you can always put the best version of yourself out there. But when you’re working with someone online you don’t always get the time to polish in between. Beth Anne: Okay, that makes me feel a little better. Victoria: And you’ve done well at helping us compensate! Getting us together at the conference and again in San Diego, that was huge. Carlee: Oh Victoria! You are such an extrovert. This won’t be true for everybody. Victoria: That’s true. Carlee: For me, I haven’t worked for a bad client. But for me, the product is my big determiner. I have to believe in something. I have to look at the product and believe there is great value going out into the universe. I have to get behind something, so I guess I work at a philosophical level that way. I’ve said no to, and had a hard time working with a product that I just wasn’t able to personally endorse. Whereas, Brilliant Business Moms is totally a brand and business and community I can get behind. Ellen: If you feel uneasy at all about something..and uneasy is different than having hard times. There’s going to be hard times...but if you feel uneasy about the client or the work they’re doing, it’s better to say no and back out than put yourself in that situation. It’s better to be 100% confident about the people you say yes to. Carlee: So true. And sometimes the uneasiness might come later. We talked about boundaries previously, and if someone doesn’t understand or respect your boundaries it won’t work. And maybe it’s as simple as time zone problem, where the times they want you to work you’re putting dinner on the table. But everyone has to be on the same page. For me right now, I just don’t have the hours to work with additional clients. I’ve had to drop clients because I simply don’t have time to give them what they need. Ellen: That’s usually the issue for me, too. It’s not a matter of not wanting to work with them, I just don’t have time. In fact, I’ve had to fire a few clients because my plate has gotten full and I literally didn’t have the time to do the work. Victoria: Being realistic with what you’re able to provide is key. And be okay that you’re not the right VA for everyone. The case when I had to end a working relationship. The client wasn’t a bad person or anything. It was just that the things I needed to do I wasn’t able to do. There was a big task that had to happen every morning, very early. I tried so hard to make it work for a long time, but with two little kids it wasn’t possible. As we were talking I just pulled up my breakup email with this client. I wrote, “I don’t think I’m the right VA for you. I’m not able to give you the support and assistance you need on a daily basis. I’d love to keep working until you find a replacement.”   Peace out. (Just Kidding!) I do worry if I say no to a job, I’ll never get another client, or that they’ll think badly of me. I often worry about my name or reputation, and that if I end a relationship will I ever work again? But truthfully, the sooner you realize it’s not working out the sooner you can prevent those unrealisitic fears. I think as women we want to do everything and be good at everything, and that person doesn’t exist. Beth Anne: Right. No one is good at everything all the time! So much of what we’re talking about comes back to honesty. I give you honest feedback about the work, and you give me honesty back with your schedule or a job you can’t do. Carlee: And we’re getting so much better at saying No right away! Ellen: I love Beth Anne’s video feedback. I get giddy and tell my husband, “Hey Tim, Beth Anne sent me a video!” It’s so great to be able to watch one of her videos and know exactly what she’s thinking. Carlee: Ellen I don’t know if Beth Anne realizes that our entire families watch her feedback videos with us! If you haven’t had the privilege of meeting Beth Anne in person, she is exactly who she seems to be: strong, a spitfire, kind, genuine. So her videos are seriously so funny. She tells us everything good about what we’ve done, and everything really really not good. Ellen: Tim will ask why I’m laughing, and it’s because Beth Anne sent a video. Carlee: Ellen and I will watch your videos at the same time and just message back and forth and we laugh so hard. Ellen: It’s my favorite thing. Iit’s great to see the video, because I can go fix exactly what needs fixing. Beth Anne: It really is the next best thing since we don’t have an office. And working in different time zones is a struggle, so it’s much easier to give feedback via video. We can’t constantly schedule a Google Hangout to go over things! I try in my screencast videos to pretend you’re right there. Carlee: And usually in these videos she tells us stories or something that’s going on, which are always hilarious. Victoria: And my favorite is when you comment on your environment, like a car driving by, and it tickles me. Carlee: You know, I hadn’t put it together with that whole “walking down the hall...” but you really can’t email us to say, “There’s a line with the wrong shade of pink here.” It just wouldn’t make sense in email. The videos are great, and they do reveal your personality. Beth Anne: Ellen sees the most of my videos because she also sees my raw course videos - and there are some where I go off on a rant where something isn’t working and I am so frustrated. Ellen: My favorite is when I talk back to you and say, “Oh gosh! You just have to click the button, Beth Anne! CLICK THE BUTTON!” My husband will ask what I’m doing and I’ll just respond, “Talking to Beth Anne.” Carlee: In one of your recent videos Beth Anne was concerned that we hadn’t published a pretty important page. We actually did have the page published, she was just looking on the wrong screen. Beth Anne was saying, “We’re at crunch time, guys! This needs to be done!” Ellen: “Just click the button, Beth Anne!” Carlee: And that just reminds us that there are things we do more naturally than you, and vice versa. Beth Anne: It’s an ego boost for you guys! You get to see me at my best and worst. You know I’m a flawed human, and that’s good. 1:01:45 - Boss Perks Beth Anne: One benefit of being the “boss” is that I get to collect a team who all have strengths different from me. We show this face to the world, and it all looks pretty and fabulous and polished. And I feel like I get credit for all of that! And, not only that, but I don’t have to do the things that aren’t my strengths, hardly ever, because I’m the boss and I just get to tell someone else to do it. And sometimes it does feel unfair! I do acknowledge that. There are lots of things I totally stink at. Carlee: There has been a shift in the last couple of months. You’ve said more often “you and the team” are doing a project. And you’re asking us to put our name on the work. There’s more of a shift to ‘us’ rather than ‘you’. None of us want to be the face of Brilliant Business Moms or to be Beth Anne. It’s not a competition. But it is fun that you’ve started putting, “Beth Anne and the Brilliant Business Moms Team” because we are a team and it takes all of us to get all of these crazy things done! Victoria: And it’s nice of you to admit. I imagine it would be tempting to and easier to just speak in the first person always. It’s nice to share the credit. It’s tricky to walk the line and preserve the brand that you’ve built up and who you are and how you help people, and acknowledge the team. Beth Anne: You don’t want to work for someone who takes all the credit all the time. Victoria: But I’m saying you could, though, if you wanted! It’s your brand. But it’s so nice of you to include “and the Team’. Carlee: And it’s practical. Because we get emails, addressed to us, in the inbox that you’d just pass along to me anyway. It’s more efficient. And it’s good that people know who to talk to. It doesn’t all have to come from Beth Anne all the time, because you can’t be everything to everyone. Beth Anne: It does set expectations up in a better way. This is a total team effort. I like that we get emails addressed to the team, like, “Hey, Carlee!” or “Hey, Ellen!” or “Hi Beth Anne and Team!” because it means they don’t expect email answers only from me. And I’m not setting people up for disappointment. Ellen: And it fits really well with the BBM brand. How it started was a podcast that is all about the community and these women who are building businesses, it’s always been about that. And it’s neat to see the community come about as a team, too. Our team is a small part of the community, and we are also part of the bigger community, and we’re all working together. Beth Anne: Yeah, I have no intention of being a weird internet celebrity where people care about what I eat for breakfast. That’s totally differently than saying, “We are Brilliant Business Moms.” I would never want to be BethAnneSchwamberger dot com. That would be stupid long, for one. But it goes back to the brand always being about a community of moms, not one person. Carlee: And there are plenty of questions we get that both Beth Anne and I know Ellen needs to answer. It’s not even just the four of us, it’s the four of us and these incredible women in our community. We learn from them every day too, and they know things we don’t know. Brilliant Business Moms as a whole is not about celebrity. We’re about community. Beth Anne: Well thank you ladies for hanging out with me today. I feel like you each have a lot more to share because you’re all fabulous employees and I love having you on my team. And just an aside, this is seriously how much fun we all have together. We literally just got off topic for 30 mins talking about childbirth and labor because these ladies are awesome. Thanks for listening. Now it’s your turn to head out there and Be Brilliant!