#3: How to Save your Career Without Leaving your Job With Darcy Eikenberg

Description:

In this episode of IGNITE YOUR LEADERSHIP I am honored and excited to have our delightful and very wise guest, Darcy Eikenberg, Author of RedCape Rescue: Save your career without leaving your job joining us. 

Darcy is a Private Coach to Leaders & High Performing Teams. She is also an in-demand Keynote Speaker and Workshop Facilitator Darcy is on a mission to help us change our lives at work without having to change everything in our lives.

Bio:

Darcy Eikenberg is on a mission to help us change our lives at work without having to change everything in our lives, especially during times of great change (and face it—when AREN'T we managing change?) She's the author of Red Cape Rescue: Save Your Career Without Leaving Your Job which shows how to get more of what you want without resorting to drastic measures of changing careers or finding a new job—and without sacrificing your health or family life.

Her strategies help generate more clarity, confidence, and control—plus, they inspire a bit of courage to help handle our complex lives at work. She’s coached leaders at companies such as Aon, The Coca-Cola Company, State Farm, and Deloitte, and offers encouraging ways to change work for the better, for good.

Before launching leadership career coaching firm RedCapeRevolution.com, Darcy was a principal at human resources consulting firm Hewitt Associates (now part of Alight Solutions), where she served on both the Southeast and the North American Communication Consulting Leadership teams. She's been quoted in Forbes, Thrive Global, Mashable, The Ladders, CNN and more. Connect directly through her free Insider Community at RedCapeInsider.com and get the latest stories, career strategies, and free tools.

Links:

Company Site: redcaperevolution.lpages.co/book-chapter/

Company Site: redcaperevolution.lpages.co/help-for-someone-at-work/

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/darcyeikenberg 

Transcription:

(00:02):

Hello and welcome to Ignite Your Leadership. I'm your host, Tina Marie Saints here. And today we have another wonderful and powerful episode for you talking through being courageous at work. So, some things, sometimes things happen at work, right? Maybe it's not a conversation. Maybe you were not invited to a particular meeting. Maybe you have had leadership changes in a new direction of the company that feels possibly out of integrity with your own core values. Maybe despite your best efforts, you feel as though your only option is to plan your escape and leave a job you love. Dancing on eggshells at work is no fun. And so we ask ourselves, do I just let it go? Do I truly have a courageous conversation or do I plan my escape? So, what's your best move listening to this episode and our guest, Darcy Eichenberg, today, today on Ignite Your Leadership?

(01:03):

We are going to, you know, dive into this and so much more. The magic is in the conversation, and I am very honored and excited to have our delightful and very wise guest Darcy Eichenberg with us. She's the author of Red Cape Rescue. She's gonna explain what that means, and it's all about saving your career without leaving the job leaving your job. And so there's so much that we're gonna unpack here. I wanna give you a little bit more details on Darcy and why you want to look her up. Darcy's a private coach of leaders and high performing teams, and she's also in demand as a keynote speaker and a workshop facilitator for not only corporations, also associations, and she's on a mission. I love her mission. So listen to this. It's to help us change our lives at work without having to change everything in our lives. Isn't that awesome? So, Darcy, thank you so much for being our guest here on Ignite Your Leadership today.

(02:00):

Oh dear Marie, thank you so much for having me and for the energetic introduction. It is it is a mission to, to try to change things without having to change everything and throwing everything out and starting all over, which sometimes we think we have to do, but I'm really glad to be here to help people light up their leadership.

(02:18):

You're awesome. So what got you into this line of work coaching and, and helping teams and leaders in this regard?

(02:25):

Well, I was a consultant and then grew up to be a leader at a large HR consulting firm, and went through my own transformations where every three years I had new opportunities. Maybe I made a move, maybe there was a new client, and got to the point that I think a lot of people get to where the next step up wasn't a step that I saw for myself that I wanted. And I started asking that bigger question, what's next for me? And I had a inflection 0.1 night in a cold McDonald's parking lot when this was before Bluetooth. I'm in a rental car. My, my boss had been trying to reach me as I travel to a meeting, and I finally caught up with her and we're talking on the phone and she says she's gonna retire. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>. And then I realized in an instant, I don't want that job.

(03:20):

And then she told me, who's getting the job? And it wasn't me. I'm like, next job up is impossible for me, and I don't want it anyway. What's next for me? And that really started my journey of hiring my first professional coach. And I had no idea that it would be the world that I would spend time in, but I recognized some of my strengths and the things that I really love doing, which are helping other people be strong, great, better. I don't need to be the one out in front, but to be the person who's supporting those folks. And that's what it unveiled me with the world of professional coaching and then evolving into speaking and writing. So, and I'm very fortunate that's what I get to do today, still all these years later.

(04:09):

That's awesome. Well, thank you for doing it. I, I have the pleasure of being a friend, and I get to sit and listen to your wisdom. And it does pour forth. I mean you know, we, we know ourselves at some level, but when we get other people around us in proximity to also have eyeballs in and through us and even help us ask more pivotal questions, maybe not even questions we think to ask ourselves. It gives us new perspectives and of course, deeper answers to our own pathway. And you've been that for me. So thank you.

(04:40):

Oh, thank you. And you, for me, and, and I think the old phrase holds true that you can't see the label from inside the jar. I don't care how much of a professional coach you are, how much of a great leader coaches need coaches, leaders need coaches. We have to have some insight to help us see where we're stuck because we're human. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And it happens to all of us.

(05:03):

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So I wanted to start off with a, a case study and get your insights on this. Of course, any names that you hear on our podcast today are more than likely have been changed <laugh>. But basically I get this many times throughout the year, and I'm sure you do 'cause you specialize in this conversation. I get conversations where an executive a leader within Affirm comes and says, you know, I'm ready to leave where I am. Right. I, I, I, I'm, I'm having difficulty. So then I, you know, I pry I, I have a lot of questions. So tell me the nature of your work. How long have you been there? What are you doing? What do you love about it? What do you not love about it? And what, it's very interesting to me that, you know, I hear people that say, I love my job.

(05:52):

I just don't love the people I work with. Like, some of the people they work with, they have altercations with, maybe they, like I've said in the intro, I've been left away from the decision table. I, I you know, I've navigated as much as I can, and I don't know what else to do. But it, it's heartbreaking to me to hear that they literally love the work they do. They may love the team they lead, they may love the customers they serve, or the market they serve, yet something within their purview and communications has come to a place of pain and they're planning their escape. So, can we start there and what your wisdom is, and maybe a framework or some questions we ask ourselves when we get to this place?

(06:35):

Yeah. So first of all, if you're a successful professional mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, you've grown through, you know, lots of challenges. You're at a leader level. Often what I find is folks like this look good on paper, right? It's the great job, great company. Maybe they're paid well, maybe they're treated well. And yeah, you get a speed bump, a road bump, something happens. And sometimes that thing isn't even directly at work. Sometimes that thing is external. A friend gets an serious illness you have an illness or a family member has an illness. So there are often these inflection points. And for anybody who's gone through that or is going through that, first I'll say, hello, your normal, like, work can't be, life isn't happy and perfect and wonderful all the time, right? If we didn't have these contrasts, we wouldn't learn and we wouldn't know what we want.

(07:41):

So, but what happens is that we hit that point where we're like, oh, is this what I want? Is this situation? Is this all there is? You know, is this still working for me? That the external messaging that's been in our work world has been, well, if you're not happy, go find something else. Yeah. It's like, it, we've, we've pushed people to think to go leave. And this isn't just a recent phenomenon. You and I have talked about this a bit and I know you've seen it in, in your coaching that over time, you know, people have always acted like this. It's like something's wrong. So it, the better thing must be out there, right? And then what I find in a study like this is that, so maybe they dip their toes into what's out there. They surf on LinkedIn, or they Google how to write a resume, or how to update my resume.

(08:41):

'Cause They may not have touched one in a while, and they get caught in the swirl and the spiral of all that noise, you know, all the tactics, and it feels overwhelming. And it feels like, you know, it's just not possible. And so then they're like, well, I guess, I guess I should be thankful for what I have. And then they feel stuck, and then they feel stagnated and they get frustrated. So I believe that there's a really healthy place in between that you, when you start to have that speed bump, when you start to ask those questions, you don't have to immediately jump to. So if it's not here, it must be somewhere else. Right. And you don't have to jump to, well, I should be grateful for what I have, and I'm gonna stay stuck and sacrifice and, and, you know, feel like I'm not making progress. There's actions in between. And that's really what we cover in Red Cape Rescue.

(09:41):

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so help us understand the name of your book. 'cause I I love this story.

(09:46):

Yeah. So my business is called Red Cape Revolution. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And the anchor to that is remembering when you were a kid and you would grab a towel or a sheet and you throw it around your shoulders, and you would feel confident, you would feel in control. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And with that image, I realized, what if we could feel that way every day in our lives at work? Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>, what would change then for our workplaces, for our families, our communities? And most importantly, what would change for ourselves? So the idea then of Red Cape Rescue is recognizing that the hero who can rescue you in your workplace situation is always going to be you. That you have the control and the power. And the tagline of the book, the subtitle, save Your Career Without Leaving Your Job, is really the nugget. How can you be the hero of your own life at work and save whatever career that you have without again, having to change everything in your life.

(11:01):

Right. That's beautiful. And I see it. I, I remember a conversation that I had with a, with an executive early in my career. We're going up the elevator, the proverbial elevator up to the, I think we got to the 12th floor. And his name was Keith Kelberg.

(11:17):

And I was new in the corporate world. I'd graduated maybe two years prior from university. I'm new within the organization, relatively right. So I'm in my early twenties and this gentleman's, you know, approaching his sixties, and, you know, there's wisdom in, in that if you have the courage to ask. And so I asked him, I said, what's a piece of advice you can give a newbie like me? And I remember him saying, he said, not every day is going to be beautiful or perfect. And he said, stay the course. And so I remember that, that, and I wrote it down. I got to my desk, I got out, you know, my post-it, and I wrote down, stay the course. And it's been like an internal mantra for me that when things get hard or, you know, my mind wants to make it hard or, you know, all that means is that my expectations aren't being met.

(12:10):

Is that, you know, I say, I tell myself, stay the course because I truly believe there's, there's growth in every opportunity where it feels like there's conflict or chaos or confusion. I think here is a place to learn. And whenever I'm working with my clients, I don't know that that is the, the common purview in corporate America right now, that they're saying, there's so many opportunities out there, why don't I just leave and go somewhere else and see what's possible. But you are working with clients and, and you do get them through that confusion, chaos, conflict in a way that they, they do get to the other side and they stay the course. Correct?

(12:49):

Yeah. I think that, I think the, the nuance there is to be clear about what the course is for you. Because a lot of times we're, you know, we're working hard and we're heads down in our organization and we're grabbing at whatever is our definition of success at the time, or sometimes it's others' definitions of success. And we haven't done the work in our current stage of life to recognize what does success look like for me now? What is the course? What what do I want in the future? And a lot of times, the places where, if you've ever been where you feel like, you know, I have the foot on the gas, but also the foot on the brake, and I could do anything if I only knew what it was in this sort of, you know, tension. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> that a lot of times, the first thing that we'll do, you know, when I work with a client or again, we go through this in my book too, is to step way back and to get clear about what your values are and to get clear about what you want in this season of life now.

(13:59):

Because we often just don't stop and do that work. We just keep saying, I'll move forward and move forward. But the idea of being able to, as you were saying, stay the course really depends on knowing what is that course that you want? Because, you know, don't hear me wrong. Or anybody who's listening, who's interpreting the message as stick out in a toxic situation or a situation that's bad. Like to really recognize what is it that, what is my filter and what do I want for me? Because I'll often find that when we do that analysis of really getting clear on what your personal values are, and I know you do a lot of this work with your clients, is that it may not be one's good or one's bad. There's no, there's no good value, bad value. It just may be different. And I know I have a client situation where what we were able to uncover is that one of his core values was cooperation and really doing the teamwork and, and building, but it, what his company was starting to value, they had just gone through being acquired.

(15:18):

They were starting to value competition, which again, in itself, great, if your culture is competition, it's like win and go, but you put cooperation and competition next to each other, and it's like hitting two keys next to each other on a piano. You know, individually each makes beautiful music, but together Mm-Hmm. There's noise. Right? And so, recognizing your values, and it may not be, oh, my company is awful. It may be something's evolving that's not a match for me anymore. Or, or maybe it is a match and I'm just looking at it differently. So Right. Getting clear on what your course is, the clarity comes first.

(16:01):

Definitely. That's awesome. Thank you so much for that. We don't tend to give ourselves time to find that clarity, you know, and it does take time to sit down and ask those introspective questions, which I know you guide your readers through in your book, which is awesome. And another question came through as you were sharing, is, do you find that it's a protective mechanism inside of ourselves to make assumptions on what we believe is unfolding? And, and I'm gonna give another little example there. I have a, another client who, his leadership is acting in a certain way, behaving a certain way, saying certain things. And of course, we all listen and receive through our own filters. And so as he's receiving his filter ends up having him believe or assume a certain intent that feels painful to him at this juncture of his career.

(17:00):

He is like, I didn't expect this to happen. They're changing course, you know, they're, they're, they're putting this other department ahead of us now. We're gonna be, you know, left behind, things of that nature. So he's telling himself a story that to me, someone listening to his story sounds definitely painful and, and, and, and hard to manage. And so I asked him a question. I said, could your point of view possibly have some assumptions in it that you're making? Have you had a conversation with your leadership to verify the truth of what you're believing here? And he hasn't? So then the next layer under that, and so that's one thing I I ask you about that assumption, the assumption as mind, that we can have. And the next part was, as I asked him, you know, it sounds like you could have these courageous conversations with your leadership just to understand the truth of their intent and where the positioning is so that you know where things are without just, you know, making an assumption.

(18:03):

He had fear. He's like, oh, I couldn't possibly ask that. And I said, well, why not? He said, well, you know, what if they, you know, put me in line to be fired or exited, or I make somebody even more mad. So we, we dance this eggshells, right? Of, we have the potential for courageous conversations to get truth of our assumptions. Yet what's the risk on the other side? And many people believe, I see this, many people believe, if I say what's really on my mind, they're just going to either toss me out or not invite me anymore. What do you believe there? What are your, what's your advice there, Darcy? Yeah,

(18:40):

There is so much. We are all, we all make stories about what we see and what we do, our families our day. And that's just how the human brain works, right? Our brains are always trying to make sense and interpret and filter so much information. Oftentimes, we are not conscious of it, right? This is, this is where we can go down paths with being unconsciously biased about different things based on how we were brought up or our environment. But when we recognize that everything is a story, and, and we can make a choice, first of all, to say, can I assume positive intent? And ask ourselves a question, what else does this mean? And there's a chapter in my book that goes into detail about some of the conversations you can have around assuming positive intent. So it, for example, like to your person when he gets the memo that says, senior leadership is going to do this and that, and he's sitting there like, that doesn't make sense.

(19:51):

Or like, that was not what we said three months ago. His brain is making a story that says they don't listen to me. They're not, they're not out for the right things. But when we give ourselves the filter to assume positive intent, even though we may not fully yet know that, but to say, okay, if I assume positive intent, what else could this mean? And that's where, by opening yourself up, I often will call it, it's kind of like when we get triggered with these stories, we go into fist mode. You know, we, we like, I'm ready for the fight. I'm on edge. Right? It's almost like, and sometimes I'll ask my clients physically open up like a hug. Now you're not gonna hug people, but it just, when you're, I'm gonna assume positive intent, I would assume that email you sent was not meant to insult me, even though I read an insult into it, or I read disrespect into it, if I assume positive intent, I stop. And I say, so what else could be, what else could this mean? What else could we play here? And then being able to approach a conversation from that, not from a why did you do this, but to be able to say, help me understand when you did this. I wondered that. Is that accurate? So leader, when you sent the memo about the change in direction, I wondered if there was something that you thought I had missed or something else has changed that I don't yet know about.

(21:40):

You know, can you help me? Help me understand. And to be detached from the outcome to some degree, to be seeking data is often how I'll call it, it's just data. Mm-Hmm. They may say, yeah, no, you actually did miss these things. Great. That's good data for me to have. I don't have to react. I don't have to apologize for it. Like, thank you for sharing. Or it's like, oh, no, we forgot that we said these things three months ago. Thank you for reminding us. Oftentimes we load too much into a conversation. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so just starting with, if I assume positive intent and ask, what else could this mean? I, at a minimum can start the ball to clarify what's really going on here. Then with the data, I can make better decisions. I can say, huh, that's now a fact. That's not my making it up. So now I can choose a decision, what to act, what to say based on that.

(22:42):

Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>. Beautiful. Beautiful. So what I'm hearing is instead of being resistant with our own assumptions and the storyline that we've created for ourselves, that would put us in defense or fight mode. And of course, if we're in a defense or fight mode, we're automatically in that, you know, resistance, which the lower mind will say, I wanna be right. <Laugh> and the other person wants, is gonna automatically be wrong. Instead is, you know, opening up to assuming positive intent, which, you know, whenever you even di demonstrated, you know, opening your arms to, to, to be more open as opposed to in the fight mode with fists up, I innately took a deep breath. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> like my lungs went fill me up, <laugh>. So I took a deep breath there, and it's as though the mind relaxes a bit, right?

(23:31):

And it's like, okay, now I'm receptive at a new level. So my next question is with that, and, and whenever we're at these places of these intersections in our career that feel conflictual or confusing, or like, we're at a, a different level of power than others, right? And we're gonna get into your, your ideas of control. What that also brought up was the, the understanding that maybe our perspective isn't always the truth. So there's a humility in there, isn't there? There's a humbleness that allows us to open up to receive

(24:11):

Yeah. Well, and what is the truth, right? I, I mean, in our complex corporate world there you can look at the same thing and see it from many different angles, right? I I I, I use the example in the book of those magic eye pictures that you used to have as a kid. I guess we still do, right? And on first glance, you know, it's two vases and you're like, it's always gonna be two VAEs. But then you look at it harder, it's like, oh no, it's two faces. Oh, you know, the faces were always there. The VAEs were always there. Yeah. The two different totally different things were always in that picture, but it depends on how we look at it and where we're coming from. And I think there's a lot of situations in our work that have this same tension that we just have to appreciate and to recognize you might not be wrong if you, if you are against the project that I am pushing forward, you just have a set of beliefs.

(25:19):

I have a set of beliefs and how do we have better conversations around what we collectively need to believe? And we're not always going to get our way. We're not always gonna see things the same way. But that is really the but you know, to recognize that it's okay if we disagree or if we're different, and to not let it immediately, you know, take personal offense to it or to have you think, oh, I must be missing something if everybody else is not talking about this thing that I think is broken over here.

(26:00):

Yeah. And having the courage to bring it up. The courage to bring it up. Right?

(26:03):

Right. And to recognize it's all a story. And so validating your story and rewriting your story I have a chapter on this in the book, and we I, I talk about a client situation where mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> a woman that I worked with was, she was leading a large group, large department, and then the company got acquired. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And, you know, her story was, I'm the only woman at the table. They aren't gonna listen to me. I'm gonna have to fight for everything. And even before the first meeting, I challenged her and I said, what if you change that story? Like, without even anybody else getting any data from anybody else, right? What if you said, I have a lot to offer here. This is gonna be interesting. There's some new people I've got. I'm gonna get to learn things. I'm gonna teach them things. And to totally change your story going in, you recognize you have control of that in an instant. And she went into that meeting and soared. And she had been like, trying to gear up for a fight. And it ended up being so easy, so streamlined, but only because she changed the thought going into it.

(27:20):

Yeah. That's awesome. That is just so powerful. And you talk about three things that we, we only control three things, right? So you've already said one, the story that we're telling ourselves, right? And, and what are those other two things that we can control?

(27:33):

Yeah. Well, really it all comes into three core behaviors. So it's what we say or choose not to say, you know, what we do, the actions we take, but most importantly, it's what we think. So that goes to the story that we're making up, right? The story that we're telling, what we think, what we say, and what we do. And that's all that we ever have control of. That's it. Any of us. And so when we recognize that, and when I work with my clients and I'm listening to, you know, the well trying to get this team to do that, and we're trying to make this leader think this way, it's like, what's in your control, right? I mean, certainly it's in your control to start the conversation. It's in your control to speak up and to say, Hey, help me understand. It might be in your control to sit in a meeting and not say anything and let there be some space for other people. But sometimes the most important thing that you can control that we're not always taking as, as strongly is how we think about things. 'cause Our thoughts will drive how we feel about things. And that drives our actions. Yeah.

(28:54):

It drives our energy too. 'cause We can have different approaches to something in a meeting where we're either energetically putting ourselves in a you know, where the even peer level and we bring self-respect for ourselves and respect for others there. Or we could put ourselves in the victim seat. We could even put ourselves in the, well, I deserve this after all I've done. You know? So the energy of perception can determine how we take things in and how we, how, what actions, like you said, what actions and behaviors we, we we take.

(29:27):

Yeah. And, and it is really interesting too that when we choose a different thought, like if the thought's not working for us, if they, you know, oh, I hate my job, or, oh, these people, this, this, this team, they're lazy, or, you know, these young people don't wanna work, or whatever the labels are and the things that we're choosing and just experimenting with. Putting on another thought. I almost think about it like, the same way you choose the clothes that you put on. It's like, could I experiment with a different thought? And maybe it's not a totally 100%, like my team's not cutting it and I'm thinking they're lazy, or they're not paying attention. Maybe it's just boosting it up one more step to the positive. Because what that ends up doing, if we say, maybe my team doesn't really understand, right? Maybe my team maybe there's something else getting in the way that I need to do the work to find out. But if I can change my thought and level it up to a slightly more positive emotion, positive emotions put us in motion, negative emotions pull us back, right? It's that lizard brain at work. Fear, as you were mentioning the negativity. All that just makes us wanna hide as opposed to some level of, you know, strategic optimism, positivity. Not to the toxic end of, oh, everything is flowers and roses. Right? But one notch up, changing that thought can make a lot of difference.

(31:06):

That's beautiful. How would you, in fact, I wanted to just remind us all why we're here today. We're talking about having more courage at work. There are courageous conversations, courageous thinking that you're pointing out, Darcy, that we can have for ourselves, which, you know, asking ourselves different questions gives us different perspectives. And so, if something's happened at work maybe you feel as though you've left conversations or meeting and there's some tension there, or confusion or, you know more questions than there were answers. Maybe your leadership has done something that you feel has broken your trust broken your respect. Maybe you just feel like somehow you're walking on eggshells at work. What we're unpacking here with Darcy Eichenberg, the author of Red Cape Rescue is, is different strategies to approach this. 'cause We don't always need to plan our escape. So a question I have is, how would one know that their career is worth saving?

(32:06):

Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, that's a great question. And so I think the first thing is to recognize what is it that I really want at this stage in my life? So the getting the clarity about that, and you mentioned a key word that I just wanna go back to is we don't take the time. And so much of all of this gets exacerbated by time, right? When we are going so fast that we're not stopping to check in with the most important person in the room. And that's ourselves, right? What do I want? What is, what do I want my future to look like? Maybe just a future, meaning six months, maybe a year, you know, maybe we know 10 years, but a lot of us don't. But like, what's the progression? So first getting that clarity, and it's not necessarily about what job do I want.

(32:57):

I always think that's a, that's a road blocker for a lot of knowledge workers, right? Because you could do multiple things, but what are the experiences that I want? What's the flavor of the people that I want around me? And getting super clear about what is it that I want first and then looking at, great. So then what really is the broken piece or the piece that's not matching that in my current scenario? Because often, we'll, we'll just say, oh, it's all awful. I'm time to move on. You know, let me do, go. I would say I've tried everything. I hear that a lot. Yeah. I've done everything I can, right? I've tried, I've tried everything. I used to call that the, I'm gonna pack it up and move to Montana, but now apparently lots of people are moving to Montana. So they are <laugh>.

(33:46):

It's not as obscure anymore. But it's, it's when you just wanna burn it all down and it just feels easier to leave, right? Recognize than when you get super clear about what you want and recognize how much of that might be there. And it maybe that none of it's there anymore, then great, you've done the work and the data, and then it's time to make a decision. But oftentimes, like you were using the case study earlier, it may be that they like their team, or there's something about the work or the company that's interesting and intriguing, and it's just happens to be this one person and how they interact. And often, once we can pinpoint the pieces that we're, that are rubbing against our values, mm-hmm, <affirmative>, it's, it's, I often use the visual of, it's like you have a glass with clear water in it, and you've got one tiny little ink dropper, and you just drop one drop of ink and then the whole glass turns black.

(34:53):

The truth is, the volume of the water, of the, the nice clear water is so much more, there's so much more good there then that little drop of ink. But once that ink hits it, everything looks like it's damaged, right? So if we can isolate based on who we are and our views, what that ink is, then we can say, great. What can I control? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> I only control three things. You know, I, I, I, do I have to say something? Do I have to think differently? Do I have to do something? Do I have to stop doing something? Like I have a, a a a lot of clients who, you know, they live super busy lives and their work is demanding and they're ambitious, and they, they wanna be growing and they wanna be doing lots of things, and they can get into traps of being overwhelmed. And they're like, I'm so overwhelmed, this will never change. Maybe I need to go do something else. Instead of, maybe you need to do less. Maybe you need to make some more intentional choices about where you're spending your time and what you're doing. And these are not conversations that we are often having openly unless we say do less, meaning, I'm going to quit my job in go be a goat farmer in Vermont. It's like,

(36:12):

You know, you don't have to give everything up Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> to have more of what you want,

(36:20):

Right? So what I'm hearing is we, we want to find that clarity for ourselves. And it, and I, I imagine a t chart, you know, like if we take that proverbial eight and a half, five, 11 piece of paper, and we turn it on in vertically, and we draw the line, and I draw, draw the line down the middle, and on one side we have, this is what I love about my job and my career right now what's working. And then on the other side, it's what feels conflictual. I don't even ask my clients to say what's not working, because that it creates a divide, right? In inherently in our mind, we wanna go this or that. And I say, what, what's, what's conflictual or confusing or feels on edge? 'cause I, I see on the, the side that feels like it's not working. There's oftentimes, and, and I'd love your insights on this, Darcy, places where we haven't yet someon the courage to either give feedback, ask the proper questions, have a courageous conversation, and get the data that we, you referred to earlier to make a clear decision. Right? So how do we, how do we approach that, you know, the the negative column, so to speak, or the column that feels like it's against us so that we can, you know, stay in our position, but more than that, grow as an individual contributor or a leader.

(37:34):

Yeah. I think a lot of times, this goes back to assuming positive intent, right? We have the things that are the pebble in our shoe or the bolder, we feel like we're pushing up often we haven't taken control of asking for a different change. And, you know, we can ask, or we, and we can even ask ourselves of many different things. It might be different expectations. It might be having different expectations of ourselves. You know, one of my favorite experiments is, especially in the case of overwhelm, and it's like the things on that, you know, rubbing against my values is that I'm not, I not getting home in time to see the kids before they go to bed or to be at the little league game, or, you know, anything, or do my own work, read a book, get a workout in that we do an experiment where we pick a few things to just stop doing, to just drop and to not ask anybody for permission.

(38:39):

Just like looking at your to-do list, look at your list for the week and what is not high value and not in what I call your superpower space. You know, not the, the kind of the admin or supporting work that often just gets layered on and maybe seems like a good idea. Or maybe we did it three years ago and we haven't really lifted up and said, do we still need to be doing that? And picking one or two things to experiment with and saying, what if I just stopped? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and C, would anybody notice? Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. So that meeting that I go to where there are 20 people and two of them are on my team, what if I just stopped going to that meeting? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Would anybody notice? So to the your point around, you know, finding that, and then kind of taking back control over those things that are rubbing against your values that are the pebble in the shoe is recognizing I can experiment with different ways that I can take control over those.

(39:53):

You know, ask for what I need do, stop doing. I can change the way I think about it. I can, you know, if it's this person, maybe I actually want to think some different thoughts about this person. I'll give you a good example. So I have a client who when we started working together, was just frustrated with her boss. Mm-Hmm. Just very much feeling like we are do totally different people just not supporting of me. She, we, she just doesn't get me. And I mere back to her that I could feel that vibe if I could feel that vibe. We're, we're not good actors and actresses. Right? You know, it's, it's, people could feel that vibe too. Like what if you went into the next meeting with your boss, recognizing even just simple, she's doing the best she can. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> like, you know, it's just, she's just another human being trying to figure things out instead of, she doesn't, you know, we're, we're just too different and she doesn't get me.

(40:53):

It's like, Hey, it's my job to understand her and their relationship has done a 180 in terms of both how my client felt about working together and where she got more comfortable in being able to ask her boss for support and advocacy, but also in the fact that I think the, the boss's world changed that she was able to advocate more for this person because it just didn't feel so rough around the edges. Right? So we can change it. We can just decide to experiment. There's nothing wrong with like saying, Hey, for the next, for the next month, I'm just gonna choose a different thought and let me just see, do I, do I get a different result? You can always go back to the old thought, right? You know, it's still gonna be waiting there. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. But to take an experiment can be very powerful.

(41:44):

I love that. That reminds me of an experiment. I gave one of my executives at a major firm, and she was planning her escape. She didn't en enrolled me to help her position herself well in her industry in a new job career at some point. And I said, fair enough, we can do that. However, I want you to use this next month as a, a new purview into your current role. And so I, I asked her to wear different lenses, so to speak, that, you know, whenever you go into meetings, whenever you're talking to your your team members, whenever you're, you know, in your standups that you see them as, you know, you're, you're grateful for them, you, you think of a moment that was working that you appreciate, you, you look to understanding that, like you said, they had positive intent that, that people are coming together to get things done together and not just be roadblocks.

(42:39):

Right? So I asked her to use this as a just a new container, a new lens to go into her current role and see things in a different way. See how, ask yourself, how can I trust this person? What can I trust this person for? What can I expect and, and rely on and feel you know, happy about with this person in this project? And what it did over that, you know, it was, it probably only took a couple weeks. And she said, wow. She said, okay, honesty alert. She said, I think I've been creating my own problems here. And I'm like, oh, we're not gonna tell anybody that are we? And she goes, no. She goes, no, that's, I just think I, I've, I've run into so many things that weren't working and all I was seeing what was, what wasn't working or what wasn't going to work, and I just judge people.

(43:32):

I was judging all these people and now I'm seeing they're doing good jobs. They are creating good work. And, and she said, I, I didn't see it that way. And to this day, she's still working that company. She's been promoted at least two or three more times, but she had gotten into a very painful place where things just felt like they were against her. Like she was in the boxing ring, having to fight her way out on these projects and resource alignments and stuff like that, and m and a. And she was tired. She was just tired. And so whenever I gave her this new lens, she's like, wow, okay. I think I'm making up my own stories of how things are bad. Right? Have you seen that with your clients too?

(44:11):

Yeah. See, it reminds me so much of the old Wayne Dyer line that says, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. Yes. And we have more power than we give ourselves credit for. We have the control to try on a new thought. And often people are afraid to do that. 'cause They don't wanna put those fists down. They don't wanna get out of, of, of fight mode unless they feel someone's going to take advantage of them or that they're gonna open themselves up for something. But you're not, you, you, when when you are taking control and making an active choice, you'll always stay. You can, will stay in control. Others won't, you know, abuse you. Because you're gonna make a choice about your reaction and your behavior. Now, you know, there's no magic wand. This takes like any good thing in our lives, discipline and time and practice and learning. But when we recognize that's all I control, my thoughts, my actions, my words, mm-hmm, <affirmative>, and we can step into more conversations. We, you know, we can be courageous and we can have more of the life in the career that we love. Mm-Hmm.

(45:31):

<Affirmative>, I love it. I love it. This is such a great conversation today. And as a, you know, reminder as leaders I guess that empathetic viewpoint is what would we ask the people that report to us to also do? And so we, we are building up teams and what we want our teammates to be courageous and feel open enough to come approach us on things that they want to have conversations about and have feedback towards so that they feel fulfilled in their career. And what we're asking our teammates to do is the same thing that we can do to our, with our leadership above us.

(46:11):

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and, and with people in our lives. It, I mean, it all starts with your role model, your role model everywhere. How do, how do I want to be seen? Do I wanna be seen as sitting in, being in, in fight mode, or do I wanna be seen as asking the good, honest questions and, you know, being part of whatever change needs to happen?

(46:32):

That's beautiful. Ah, this is so fun today. I love it. Great nuggets. I wrote some, I typed some up here. Assume positive intent, of course. Using those, that beautiful phrase help me understand. And literally listening and, and taking in the data before we make assumptions. And then I really love Darcy that you shared. You know, sometimes we'll have that perspective that it's our leadership's job to understand us. Yet the truth is to bring those walls down and to create that connectivity. It's a great move to say, Hey, I wanna understand my leadership. Yeah.

(47:08):

Well, yeah. I want us to understand everybody, right? Or I want to at least approach them with that open stance with that this isn't just another, it's another human being, right? Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> they and not putting our judgements on top of them. Mm-Hmm.

(47:25):

<Affirmative>. So before we end, and we're gonna tell people where they can find out more, more about Darcy and her beautiful book, red Cape Rescue, I have a question because I'm of course watching here on the video. And for those that are listening to just the audio I see a, a beautiful woman in the background on your bookshelf. So I was curious, who is this delight, who's sitting next to your book there on your bookshelf behind you?

(47:49):

That is my grandmother. We called her Muzz. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. She's such an inspiration for my life. Was a probably someone who understood that you control your thoughts long before anybody ever was teaching this or ever that I thought about it. But very strong woman in my life and I like to keep her near me and inspiring me to keep getting through when I hit those speed bumps. And when I hit those tough times and recognize she'd done that too and continued to thrive and, and inspire other people. So so yes, so we call her Muzz and I think of her often.

(48:37):

Yay. Grandma Muzz. Awesome. <laugh>, thanks for sharing that with us, Darcy. So how do we find more about you? How do we follow you? How do we connect with you? I know you have a live show on LinkedIn too, so tell us, you know, how do we become Darcy fans?

(48:49):

Yes. Well, everything that I have and do is centered around@redcaperevolution.com. And at, I also do a weekly, what I call my insider community. It's the email where I share stories and strategies and tips that I don't share anywhere else. And that's red cape revolution.com/insiders. And there are also other free tools and things that are in on the website at the free tools section. So, but I, on social, I'm on LinkedIn. People welcome to connect with me there. Just send a message before you do to say, I heard you on Tina Marie's show.

(49:29):

Yay <laugh>. That's awesome. Well, you've been inspirational for me and, and I know that whenever I get stuck, you're one of my go-tos <laugh> to help get unstuck. So thank you so much for lending your wisdom today on Ignite Your Leadership. We have tons of nuggets that are coming away. And so everyone go to red cape revolution.com and follow Darcy and subscribe to her insider newsletter there. And you'll get the emails. And whenever you're a leader, we need these wonderful support people around us to help us have new insights and perspectives on how we can increase ourselves, be it a personal leadership in our own life, or leadership of others inside of our career. So thank you again for listening and watching, and thank you, Darcy, for being our guest here on Ignite Your Leadership.

(50:13):

Thank you so much for having me.