How to discover your superpowers, own your story, and unlock personal growth | Donna Lichaw (author of The Leader’s Journey)

Summary

Donna Lichaw, executive coach and author of The Leader’s Journey, joins Lenny to explore the power of personal narrative in leadership. She argues that the most impactful stories are the ones we tell ourselves, which shape our identity and effectiveness. By becoming the hero of our own story, we can unlock greater confidence and influence.

The conversation delves into practical methods for identifying your unique superpowers and understanding your kryptonite—the traits or habits that seem like weaknesses but can often serve a functional purpose. Donna emphasizes a data-driven approach: challenging self-limiting beliefs by gathering feedback from colleagues, much like conducting user research. She shares examples, such as a CEO who believed he was “too nice” but was actually perceived as heartfelt and caring by his team.

A significant portion discusses reframing common challenges like imposter syndrome. Instead of trying to eliminate these feelings, Donna suggests asking, “How is this serving me?” Often, the anxiety of being an “imposter” drives harder work and learning, which can be functional up to a point. The key is to manage it so it doesn’t lead to burnout.

The episode provides tactical advice for discovering your strengths by analyzing peak experiences from your past and present. Donna advises against relying solely on personality tests, recommending instead to look for themes in moments when you felt energized and at your best. She also translates product development frameworks, like running small experiments, to personal growth, encouraging listeners to test new behaviors and gather data from their head, heart, and bodily sensations.

Recommendations

Books

The Leader’s Journey — Donna Lichaw’s book, which is the central topic of the conversation. It provides frameworks for using your personal story to become a more effective leader.
The User’s Journey — Donna’s previous book on product development, which she mentions combining her favorite ideas and philosophies.
The Art of Possibility — A book by Benjamin Zander mentioned in the lightning round. Donna references his practice of having students give themselves an ‘A’ at the start of a semester and write about how they earned it.

Movies-Shows

For All Mankind — A TV show on Apple TV+ that Donna recommends for fun. It presents an alternate history of the space industry.
Ted Lasso — Recommended by Donna and her clients for its insightful and sweet portrayal of leadership themes.

People

Dolly Parton — Frequently referenced by Donna for her wisdom. Quotes like “Find out who you are and do it on purpose” and “If you don’t like the path you’re walking on, pave a new one” are highlighted as guiding principles.

Tools

Fidgets / Squishies — Donna highly recommends using fidget toys during video calls to provide physical stimuli and help ground yourself, combating Zoom fatigue. She mentions pointy fidgets for morning energy and squishy ones for the afternoon.
Strengths Finder / VIA Character Strengths Tests — Donna mentions these as popular assessments some people find useful for identifying strengths, though she personally prefers a narrative-based approach.

Topic Timeline

00:04:25 — Introduction and Donna’s Origin Story — Lenny welcomes Donna Lichaw, executive coach and author. Donna shares her origin story, explaining how a leadership retreat where executives rejected traditional storytelling workshops led her to a decade-long journey into coaching. She realized that effective leadership isn’t about telling product stories, but about understanding and leveraging the personal stories leaders tell themselves.
00:09:21 — The Power of Being the Hero of Your Own Story — Donna explains the core concept of story-driven leadership. Humans naturally want to be the hero of their own story; it’s how we make choices and understand the world. For leaders, this means having a mission, facing obstacles, and not going it alone. The most powerful stories are the ones we experience and tell ourselves, which our brains treat as reality whether they are true or not. Leveraging this allows you to consciously become the hero in your life and leadership.
00:14:51 — Using Data to Debunk Self-Limiting Stories — Donna provides a concrete example of working with a CEO who told himself stories like “I’m too nice” and “Nobody listens to me.” To challenge these narratives, she gathered data by talking to his team. The feedback revealed he was seen as heartfelt and caring, not too nice, and that his senior executives didn’t want to be told what to do—they wanted a grand vision and problems to solve. This data-driven approach allowed them to co-create a better, more accurate story of his leadership.
00:21:23 — When Feedback is True and Reframing Kryptonite — The discussion addresses what happens when feedback about a perceived weakness is accurate. Donna shares an example of an executive who was told she was “too quiet” in meetings, which was true and detrimental. However, digging deeper revealed she was a deep listener who needed processing time. The solution wasn’t to talk more, but to communicate her working style to her team. This leads into the concept of ‘kryptonite’—traits that seem weak but can serve a function, like imposter syndrome driving someone to learn and work harder.
00:31:48 — Reframing Imposter Syndrome and Kryptonite — Donna advises against trying to simply affirm away imposter syndrome. Instead, ask “How is this serving me?” For a founder, feeling like an imposter served her by triggering intense learning and skill development whenever she hit a growth edge. The problem arose when it led to overwork and burnout. The goal is to embrace these feelings in small, functional doses, much like Superman using kryptonite for surgery, but avoiding a toxic amount.
00:36:45 — Identifying and Leaning Into Your Superpowers — Lenny and Donna discuss the critical importance of identifying and amplifying your strengths rather than fixing weaknesses. Donna shares a personal anecdote about their initial email exchange, where both leaned into their preferences (Donna avoiding calls, Lenny avoiding long emails) as a way of playing to their strengths. She argues that using your superpowers gives you more energy and allows for greater impact, whereas fixing weaknesses is often a waste of energy.
00:43:57 — How to Tactically Identify Your Superpowers — Donna provides a practical method for discovering superpowers that she finds more effective than standardized tests. She advises looking at peak experiences from your childhood, recent past, and your career path. Lay these stories on top of each other to find common themes—these are your superpowers. She gives an example of an executive told her superpower was “attention to detail,” but through this exercise, she discovered her true strength was “connecting” ideas, trends, and people.
00:52:45 — Applying Product Frameworks to Personal Growth — Donna explains how to use product thinking for self-development. Drawing from Gestalt coaching, she emphasizes creating change not by force, but by embracing what is and running small experiments. Just like in product development, you form a hypothesis, test it, and gather data. She extends this by advising to run experiments through three filters: head (thoughts), heart (emotions), and hands (bodily sensations), as our bodies store experiences and guide our next actions.
01:12:56 — Envisioning Your Future and Lightning Round — Donna answers a question on helping people articulate subconscious goals. Her method is to start with the ending: vividly imagine your ideal future years from now, engaging all your senses. Then, work backwards to figure out how you got there, treating it as an experimental roadmap. The episode concludes with a lightning round where Donna shares book recommendations (her own), favorite shows (For All Mankind), and life mottos like “Isn’t that interesting?” and Dolly Parton quotes such as “Find out who you are and do it on purpose.”

Episode Info

Podcast: Lenny’s Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
Author: Lenny Rachitsky
Category: Technology Business Entrepreneurship
Published: 2024-02-25T12:01:00Z
Duration: 01:27:03

References

URL PocketCasts: https://pocketcasts.com/podcast/lennys-podcast-product-career-growth/aff3edd0-c8a4-013a-d954-0acc26574db2/how-to-discover-your-superpowers-own-your-story-and-unlock-personal-growth-donna-lichaw-author-of-the-leaders-journey/fd37efc1-8d0f-42c0-90d0-b9dd25ccbcf9
Episode UUID: fd37efc1-8d0f-42c0-90d0-b9dd25ccbcf9

Podcast Info

Name: Lenny’s Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
Type: episodic
Site: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/podcast
UUID: aff3edd0-c8a4-013a-d954-0acc26574db2

Transcript

[00:00:00] When superheroes discover what their superpowers actually are,

[00:00:03] they wreak havoc and they make a mess and it’s uncomfortable.

[00:00:06] And even Superman tries to get rid of his superpowers.

[00:00:09] It’s hard to know what you’re really great at.

[00:00:12] How does somebody identify their superpowers, their strengths?

[00:00:17] Pull your superpowers out of your stories from your past, your present,

[00:00:23] and then eventually figure out how to apply them and transpose them to your future.

[00:00:27] The person’s story. This is central to becoming a better leader.

[00:00:31] The most effective stories are the ones that we tell ourselves.

[00:00:34] They may or may not be true. Our brain doesn’t know the difference.

[00:00:37] Once you can really understand that, you may as well leverage it to be that hero.

[00:00:46] Today, my guest is Donna Lishow.

[00:00:48] Donna is an executive coach, speaker, and bestselling author.

[00:00:52] She helps founders, CEOs, and executive teams level up their leadership skills

[00:00:56] and scale their impact.

[00:00:57] While staying true to their mission, their purpose, and themselves.

[00:01:01] Donna has worked with leaders at companies like Google, Disney, Twitter, Microsoft, and Adobe.

[00:01:06] And she’s also the author of the book, The Leader’s Journey,

[00:01:10] which is what we spend our time on.

[00:01:12] In our conversation, we talk about why the story that we tell ourselves

[00:01:16] has so much impact on our success and failure.

[00:01:19] Why knowing your superpowers and also your kryptonite is so important to your career

[00:01:24] and how to identify these two things.

[00:01:26] How to reframe your future.

[00:01:27] How to get rid of feelings of imposter syndrome and actually use it as an advantage.

[00:01:31] How to identify your life goals, even if you have no idea what they might be.

[00:01:35] Plus a ton of examples from her coaching practice of people unlocking their career

[00:01:40] using her frameworks and how they went about doing this and so much more.

[00:01:44] If you enjoy this podcast, don’t forget to subscribe and follow this podcast

[00:01:48] in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube.

[00:01:51] It’s the best way to avoid missing future episodes and it helps the podcast tremendously.

[00:01:55] With that, I bring you Donna Lishow.

[00:01:57] After a short word from our sponsors.

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[00:04:25] Donna, thank you so much for being here, and welcome to the podcast.

[00:04:28] Thanks, Lenny. It’s exciting to be here.

[00:04:31] So we connected through a former colleague of mine who could not stop raving about how much

[00:04:36] value she got from working with you. Also, you have a new book out right here that I have,

[00:04:42] The Leader’s Journey. And so I thought it would be awesome to bring you on and share your wisdom

[00:04:48] with a wider audience. I love the podcast. My clients love your stuff and newsletter and

[00:04:53] everything. So very excited to be here. Amazing. And congrats on the book, by the way.

[00:04:58] Thank you.

[00:05:00] You actually were a product manager in a previous life. You’re also a designer in a previous life.

[00:05:06] These days, you’re an executive coach. Just briefly, I’m curious, what pulled you from

[00:05:12] product management, design, and the things you did before this life into executive coaching?

[00:05:17] And maybe another way to ask this question is, what’s your origin story? And this is a little

[00:05:22] foreshadowing to the stuff we’re going to be talking about later.

[00:05:25] Actually, it’s funny. Like all origin stories, there were actually,

[00:05:28] multiple episodes, multiple moments that led me to an epiphany. But the biggest aha moment was

[00:05:38] when I was working several years ago, almost a decade ago at this point, with an executive team

[00:05:46] in Silicon Valley. And we were at a leadership retreat. And we were supposed to, at the time,

[00:05:56] I was facilitating a program.

[00:05:58] On effective product leadership, how to be a great product leader, product executive. And

[00:06:05] the biggest thing that companies wanted at the time and teams wanted was their teams to be better

[00:06:11] storytellers. And it’s still something we hear today, which is, you know, to be a great product

[00:06:16] leader or leader in general in any industries, you’ve got to be a great storyteller. And so at

[00:06:23] the time I was teaching and facilitating storytelling workshops and exploring that

[00:06:28] with teams. And it was a few people on this team specifically, who I so appreciate their,

[00:06:36] their honesty and candor here, which is what this giant tech company is known for. Very blunt

[00:06:43] people working there. And they pulled me aside halfway through the offsite. And they were just

[00:06:51] like, honestly, storytelling is not going to fix our problems. This is silly. And what they were

[00:06:57] able to tell me is that, you know, I’m not going to be a great storyteller. I’m going to be a great

[00:06:58] person. I’m not going to be a great person. I’m not going to be a great person. And they were

[00:06:59] able to tell me that their, their leaders wanted them to be more effective by having greater

[00:07:04] influence. And, you know, these are terms that we throw around all the time. Be more influential and

[00:07:09] be a better leader, whatever that means. And what was happening on the ground with these executives

[00:07:15] was that they were all fighting. So, you know, I’d hear, oh, the head of engineering is such a jerk,

[00:07:24] or this person won’t listen to me, or my team is demotivated.

[00:07:28] and I get it, but they need to step up and work more. And there’s just a lot of conflict going

[00:07:32] on here and there that storytelling wouldn’t fix. Like when that happens, and I talk about this in

[00:07:39] the book about a bunch, no one wants to hear your stories. You have to actually be able to

[00:07:43] connect with people and to work with people and feel good as a leader in order to really step up

[00:07:49] and lead. You know, I didn’t have an answer for this team at the time, and I left this offsite

[00:07:53] just honestly feeling terrible and not knowing what to do about it, except telling them,

[00:08:00] I think you got to go work with a coach because this is beyond my pay grade. But when I left that

[00:08:06] day, I just couldn’t stop thinking about this team because I had hunched that stories were still

[00:08:12] a part of something, but not what they needed. Telling stories was not the answer. And so

[00:08:19] I ended up spending what now is the next decade figuring out, all right, how do you

[00:08:23] become a coach?

[00:08:23] How do you become an effective leader? And of course, because I can’t do anything lightly

[00:08:27] once I went down that path, I ended up switching up my entire business. And now that’s all I do

[00:08:32] is help people be better, more effective, confident leaders who really make the impact that they want

[00:08:37] to make. So along those same lines, what’s interesting is you actually found that this

[00:08:42] idea of storytelling was actually much more effective in your coaching practice instead

[00:08:48] of helping them figure out the story of the product. It’s the story of the person. And so

[00:08:52] kind of transitioning into the meat of your approach to coaching, I think you call it

[00:08:57] story-driven leadership. Essentially, your finding is that story and the person’s story

[00:09:04] is extremely important and powerful in helping them level up as a leader and also seeing

[00:09:10] them as the hero of their story. So I guess just with that foundation, you just talk about

[00:09:14] why that is so powerful, the idea of figuring out your own story and why you need to be

[00:09:18] the hero of your own story and just what all this means.

[00:09:21] We all as humans.

[00:09:22] We all as humans want to be the hero of our own story. It’s how we live our lives. It’s

[00:09:26] how we make choices. It’s how we understand the world around us. And it’s how we communicate

[00:09:33] back to the world. With leadership, it’s much the same, which is we have a mission

[00:09:42] that we want to accomplish. No matter how big or small, it’s something. We’re driven

[00:09:47] to do something. If you’re a leader or you want to be a leader, you have to be taking

[00:09:51] yourself.

[00:09:52] You have to be taking people somewhere. We also have obstacles. So that’s a part of any

[00:09:58] great story. There are challenges. It shouldn’t be easy. It shouldn’t be so hard that you

[00:10:03] fail. That’s a tragedy. But there are challenges and it makes life more exciting. You don’t

[00:10:09] do it alone. So it’s rare that a story just has a single individual. It happens, but that’s

[00:10:16] not most of life. And there are other elements that I ended up uncovering.

[00:10:22] When I look deeper into what makes the most effective leaders effective. And the biggest

[00:10:29] thing is stories that we tell people, it’s like the tip of the iceberg. And if anything,

[00:10:34] it even doesn’t matter. I’ve worked with a lot of folks who their teams say, stop it with the

[00:10:39] storytelling. Stop talking at us. And they don’t want any of that. But the most effective stories

[00:10:44] are the ones that we experience as we live life and that we tell ourselves as well. Because

[00:10:52] we have the ability by saying things like, oh, I’ll never succeed or, oh, she’ll never

[00:11:01] go for it or he’s such a jerk or whatever the stories are. These are all stories and

[00:11:07] they may or may not be true. They’re usually not true, but our brain doesn’t know the difference

[00:11:13] where our brain, it’s like the most powerful ability our brain has is to understand and

[00:11:18] see stories everywhere. And so once you can really understand that, you can really understand

[00:11:22] that you may as well leverage it to be that hero in your life. And even as I say it out loud,

[00:11:27] it sounds so cheesy, but it’s true. This is neuroscience and psychology. We just want to

[00:11:32] be the heroes and that’s what our focus is. So I want to delve deeper into that idea there. So

[00:11:39] people listening to this might feel like, okay, cool. Let me think about the story of my life.

[00:11:43] This sounds like a fun thing I could do. But I think your point is this is central to becoming

[00:11:49] a better leader, figuring out the story of your life. And I think that’s a really good point.

[00:11:52] And kind of that changing your perspective on yourself and giving you more, like unblocking

[00:11:58] you, I think is a big part of it. You just talk about more just like the power and why this is

[00:12:02] so important because it’s not just like, cool, I’ll sit around and think about, oh, here’s my

[00:12:06] story. I was born here. I did this thing. Why is this so important to do? It’s a little antithetical

[00:12:13] in a way because it sort of, it goes against what a lot of us believe, especially if

[00:12:22] we have, I’ll say product backgrounds or just business backgrounds or tech backgrounds or

[00:12:29] anything where we’ve built things for people. For years, we’ve had this idea that we build

[00:12:36] companies in a user-centered way where, all right, build for the customer first and all else will

[00:12:43] follow. And there’s some truth to that on the one hand. And I used to think leadership was the same,

[00:12:50] which is, well, it’s not about you as a leader.

[00:12:52] It’s about who are you bringing along on your journey and how do they need to be heroes? So

[00:12:58] how do you enable everyone you work with and everyone you want to follow you to join you and

[00:13:03] feel amazing with it? That’s the kind of user-centered approach where it’s not about you.

[00:13:08] It’s about who you’re bringing with you and the impact you want to make. But what I learned is

[00:13:16] that it’s actually, it doesn’t work that way. And you need to flip it.

[00:13:22] Flip that, which is when you start with you first at the center of the equation, and then I’m going

[00:13:29] to do, you know, everything for me is a diagram. So I’m thinking of concentric circles. You start

[00:13:35] with you. And this isn’t also, Ken Blanchard has a great model for this, where you start with you.

[00:13:42] It’s the inner circle. Then you are able to lead yourself. Then you can lead others. It extends to

[00:13:48] one-on-one relationships. Then once you’ve got that, you can lead others. And then you can lead

[00:13:52] groups, teams, and then outward towards the business. When you figure that out and you come

[00:14:01] from the inside out, it’s much, much more powerful because it’s not selfish like I would have thought

[00:14:08] years ago, but it’s purposeful. You as human, we all are driven by a mission, by purpose,

[00:14:18] by a reason for what we do. And when we’re

[00:14:22] able to have that power us, it then empowers us to connect with others so that we can bring it to

[00:14:29] life. And especially in a business context, but this is the case in anything, communities and

[00:14:34] family, but especially in business. So it has to start with you. You need fuel from somewhere.

[00:14:40] And if it comes from without, it’s like an eggshell that’s just ready to crack. It’s not

[00:14:47] sustainable if it comes from outside. Can you give an example of someone you

[00:14:51] worked with that changed their story and what impact it had on their career to make this even

[00:14:57] more real? I can think of a CEO I worked with a few years ago who on the outside was so put

[00:15:07] together. He was the CEO of a billion-dollar company, successful,

[00:15:13] raised money.

[00:15:17] No one’s business, was able to get people excited about what he was building, join him.

[00:15:23] And when we started working together, he had recently hired an executive team, members of

[00:15:30] an executive team that were just superstars, Silicon Valley and just incredible. And they

[00:15:36] were so excited to work with him. He was so excited to work with them as well. But on the inside,

[00:15:45] the story he kept,

[00:15:47] telling himself was he’s too nice. Nobody listens to him was another story.

[00:15:55] People don’t take me seriously was another story. And then there were what I call horror stories.

[00:16:02] This is not a scientific term by any means, but horror stories that he told himself were

[00:16:06] things like we’re never going to make it or they’re never going to listen to me or I’ll never

[00:16:15] learn to be a real,

[00:16:17] CEO. And the problem with stories like that is they end up taking over your identity. They shadow

[00:16:26] and cloud your everyday and actions you take and interactions you have with people. And when you

[00:16:33] focus on them so much, they very well will become true. So that’s one example. I could tell you

[00:16:41] a little more about that, what we did about it.

[00:16:45] Yeah, that’s exactly what I was going to ask.

[00:16:47] And then I’d love to. And then yeah, so if you could share what you did to help

[00:16:50] shift his story, and then also just how do people do this for themselves?

[00:16:55] Perfect. So in, in this case, and this is this is like, everyone I work with, and this is absolutely

[00:17:03] something that everyone listening and everyone in the audience can absolutely do is take a data

[00:17:15] driven approach.

[00:17:17] To the stories that you tell yourself. So for example, you know, the story, I’m too nice,

[00:17:26] you know, it could be true could not be true. How did we get down to the bottom of that? In this

[00:17:32] case, what we did is I went out there and talk to his team. And this is something you can do for

[00:17:37] yourself as well. If you’re extremely busy, you can have someone else do it for you. And I found

[00:17:44] out how people actually do it for themselves. And I found out how people actually do it for themselves.

[00:17:47] experienced him and his leadership. And I didn’t hear he’s too nice. I heard he is

[00:17:53] so heartfelt, and so caring. And that’s a really cool thing. I mean, how rare is that for you know,

[00:18:03] to hear about a CEO, especially a founder, oftentimes you hear the opposite, which is

[00:18:09] not really true. Usually when founders are not nice people, their insecurities at play. But in

[00:18:15] this case, yeah, he would people.

[00:18:17] We’re like, well, you know, we love him. He’s wonderful. That’s why he recruited us. And so

[00:18:22] great. All right. Validated and a little debunked. Really nice, but not too nice. That was not a

[00:18:29] problem for anyone. So then we hear things like, okay. You know, one story he told himself was

[00:18:36] like, people don’t take me seriously. They don’t listen to me. What’s what’s going on? I need to

[00:18:40] command respect and they need to just do what I say. And I hear this all the time. So I’m using

[00:18:45] this one example. But

[00:18:47] this could be anyone I’ve worked with. And what we heard from people instead was

[00:18:52] it’s not that they weren’t listening to him. But when you’re hiring super senior whip smart

[00:19:02] executives to work for you, they don’t want to be told what to do. They want to have a grand

[00:19:10] vision that they’re excited about. They want maybe some goals to latch on to. And

[00:19:17] help possibly with a strategy to get there. Although probably they they can they got the

[00:19:22] strategy all on their own. And they want to then show you how they can help you in the business

[00:19:28] meet your goals and align towards that vision so that you can build the company that you want to

[00:19:33] build. So that story, no one listens to me. It was the wrong story to be telling. What the actual

[00:19:41] story was, is that people wanted him out of their business.

[00:19:47] And to feel empowered doing their seed level and super senior executive level work. But we don’t

[00:19:55] want him to be absent. Because when he does that, it doesn’t work. And it’s very frustrating when

[00:19:58] he just disappears for two weeks. So we need him involved, but want him to give us problems to

[00:20:05] solve. Give us a vision. Give us problems to solve. Let us do it for you. And so they were

[00:20:11] able to write a better ending of that story together. He, you know, it was exactly like

[00:20:16] you said.

[00:20:17] Research of any kind or customer discovery, which is you find out what could be possible from

[00:20:22] your customers. And then you can you ideally you co create a better ending together. If you’re

[00:20:29] building products or services, that’s how you do it. If you’re a leader, you do it by showing up

[00:20:33] and helping others do what they need to do in a way that feels good for you and then aligns with

[00:20:42] how you want to be doing things. And so this is one example.

[00:20:47] But I find using real research and data and actually talking to people is most effective.

[00:20:55] There are other ways to take best guesses. And I’ll use the product metaphor again, which is,

[00:21:02] you know, you can try things and experiment and then see how it works and not talk to your users.

[00:21:09] But you should probably talk to your customers, in other words, your colleagues and everyone who works for you and really find out what is the

[00:21:16] true story and what is possible.

[00:21:19] There’s all these stories that people believe about themselves.

[00:21:23] And to your point, many of them are not true.

[00:21:25] When you actually look at the data, you talk to your customers, a.k.a.

[00:21:28] your colleagues. I imagine many are actually true or there are feedback you get that is like you are not clear enough about stuff.

[00:21:37] Like there’s things that you actually hear from other people.

[00:21:39] Does this approach help there as well?

[00:21:41] Or is there a different tactic for something’s actually OK?

[00:21:44] You are actually too nice.

[00:21:45] It’s not.

[00:21:46] Just a story in your head.

[00:21:48] Absolutely. There are times when the stories that we tell ourselves are true.

[00:21:53] And when we go out and find out.

[00:21:56] What’s possible, it is something that we’re doing that needs to change or isn’t working.

[00:22:06] And so one example is.

[00:22:09] And this comes up sometimes as well, one.

[00:22:13] Executive who I worked with once.

[00:22:16] Kept getting this feedback that she was too quiet.

[00:22:21] And when we went out and got feedback, it was true.

[00:22:24] People were like, she needs to speak up more.

[00:22:28] And this is becoming a problem because she was so quiet that her team thought she was not interested in them.

[00:22:40] She would just sit back in meetings, not say anything.

[00:22:43] And they were like, God, she sucks.

[00:22:46] Like.

[00:22:46] This is the worst boss ever.

[00:22:49] I don’t even want to be at this meeting.

[00:22:51] And why is she here?

[00:22:52] Why am I here?

[00:22:53] And it really was detrimental to them all working together.

[00:22:57] And then she was frustrated because she was always wondering, well, why are they not performing?

[00:23:01] They’re not stepping up.

[00:23:02] And so it was frustrating all along.

[00:23:04] And it was true.

[00:23:05] She as far as they saw it, her not speaking up was the problem.

[00:23:11] But.

[00:23:13] When we got down to the bottom of what was really.

[00:23:16] Going on for her and not speaking up at these meetings is she was just listening.

[00:23:22] Her processing style was she had to listen and then maybe a few hours later, she’d have thoughts.

[00:23:30] And so even though the team said we do want her to participate, what they really needed to know was it doesn’t have to do with speaking or not speaking.

[00:23:38] What they really needed from her was to know that she was listening to them and that she actually heard them.

[00:23:45] And was going to do something about it and that she wouldn’t, she was quiet in these meetings.

[00:23:50] She was not checked out.

[00:23:52] And so simple solution for that.

[00:23:55] You know, she could start trying to yell more and talk over people and be obnoxious, but nobody wants that either.

[00:24:01] And so she just started communicating with them more about, Hey, this is, this is my style.

[00:24:05] I’m a little, little slower.

[00:24:06] I often need, you know, a couple hours to really process things.

[00:24:10] I’m here.

[00:24:11] And I want you to know that.

[00:24:12] And the irony of.

[00:24:15] Yeah.

[00:24:16] Yeah.

[00:24:16] I do like that.

[00:24:16] Yeah.

[00:24:17] Uh,

[00:24:28] yeah.

[00:24:28] Yes.

[00:24:28] Yeah.

[00:24:28] Talk more

[00:24:34] about perspective.

[00:24:37] Anyway,

[00:24:38] For that funds to build trust with those people and like,

[00:24:41] put in a savings package.

[00:24:44] How would that,

[00:24:45] which is hey these are my work styles this is how i process this is how i do things these are great

[00:24:51] ways to work with me and here’s how i’d love to work with you and they ended up doing a lot of

[00:24:56] that and worked it worked out really well but but it was true she was not speaking up and it was it

[00:25:00] was having a detrimental effect but the answer was not talking more it actually was listening more

[00:25:06] and just having a better relationship with people that’s an awesome example by the way on the work

[00:25:10] the personal os and another term for that i’ve heard is readme like your own personal readme

[00:25:14] file oh i like that too yeah isn’t that great so it sounds like there’s kind of these two buckets

[00:25:20] it’s probably more buckets but one is a story of yourself that is not true that you can disprove by

[00:25:26] looking at data talking to people and then there’s like some almost a story people have about you

[00:25:31] that they don’t quite get what’s going on and then you could change their story

[00:25:35] by communicating here’s what i’m really doing i’m actually just listening and i’m actually

[00:25:38] really deeply paying attention if we pick an example say

[00:25:43] you

[00:25:44] imposter syndrome which comes up a lot on this podcast where people feel like

[00:25:47] i am an imposter in this role nobody knows how bad i like i have no idea what i’m doing it’s all

[00:25:52] going to crumble if i mess up so say someone has that in their head like i everyone can tell i am

[00:26:00] an imposter and it all crumble how would you recommend someone that that this this is real

[00:26:06] or not to understand is this a story in my head or is this real and what do people actually think

[00:26:10] like you go talk to people how do you recommend people go about that

[00:26:14] certain stories we tell ourselves are actually quite functional and do not necessarily need to be

[00:26:28] rewritten so imposter syndrome for an example if you’re going around saying i feel like i’m

[00:26:39] an imposter i can’t believe i’m doing this

[00:26:44] you can try to fake it till you make it you can try to i always think of stew i’m totally dating

[00:26:50] myself here but stewart smalley and in uh saturday night live in the 80s and 90s he would look in a

[00:26:57] mirror and do these affirmations and say you know i’m smart and i am whatever and like good enough

[00:27:03] i’m strong enough and gosh darn it people like like me or love me there you go so it’s like you

[00:27:09] you could do that and it’s kind of all very mechanical and the other way around but i’m

[00:27:14] not sure if that’s the case or there’s ways to sort of prop yourself up but what if you took

[00:27:20] a counterintuitive approach and looked at that story i’m an imposter and instead asked okay

[00:27:29] that’s a good story how is that serving you because when we default to these behaviors

[00:27:38] imposter syndrome is something everyone has at one point or another when we default to these

[00:27:44] behaviors of oh god i’m an imposter okay over and over and over again i know it doesn’t feel good

[00:27:50] but we default to that because it’s serving us in in one way otherwise it wouldn’t become a habit

[00:27:55] and you know i always think of habits as a um an itch so if you have an itch you scratch it

[00:28:01] you feel better so there’s a reason why we scratch itches it feels better if you do it too much

[00:28:08] it hurts and something like that telling detrimental

[00:28:14] stories have that impact but when you can intercept them at just the right time and say

[00:28:21] okay what if that is true how does it serve me to constantly say i’m an imposter whenever anything

[00:28:30] gets hard well there are so you know one co-founder i worked with a while back she did

[00:28:41] this whenever she things got too hard and then she was convinced that she was going to be able to

[00:28:44] do it again and she was convinced that she was going to be able to do it again and then she was

[00:28:44] convinced and founders have this a lot i who am i to be running this company and what am i doing here

[00:28:49] and oh my god i can’t be doing this but when we looked at how that habit of calling herself an

[00:28:56] imposter served her what she realized is that every time it kicked in she worked harder and

[00:29:04] it just meant she was hitting some kind of a growth edge so when she would jump into action

[00:29:09] she would learn something new she would read 20 books she would go

[00:29:14] out and do something new and she would do something new and she would do something new

[00:29:14] take a class she would listen to podcasts and then on and on and and she would get better at this

[00:29:21] new thing it was fun for her and then she would feel less like an imposter over time so it was a

[00:29:28] very functional thing for her the problem is when she did that too much and this is the case i work

[00:29:36] with a lot of women who this is the case for she often did way too much work and so she took on

[00:29:43] emotional labor for other people she did 10 times as much work as she needed to do like actual work

[00:29:51] as you know in her role she was playing coo and cfo and c you know eo and it’s just like she didn’t

[00:29:59] need to be doing all of that and so on a spectrum of it’s actually helpful give yourself a pat on

[00:30:07] the back for jumping into imposter uh zone every time things get hard to the other side of the

[00:30:15] spectrum which is okay but when it’s too much you burn out you’re doing way too much work for other

[00:30:23] people you’re falling into these unfortunate conventional gender roles that doing extra work

[00:30:29] you don’t need to so you want to find a happy medium but i think that the the trick is to with

[00:30:35] imposter syndrome to not deny it

[00:30:37] to

[00:30:37] embrace it as much as you can but not embrace it so much that it ends up holding you back so

[00:30:44] yes functional even things that we think are bad for us are actually good

[00:30:48] i love that advice it’s so much easier to just like okay yep it’s true maybe i am an imposter

[00:30:55] but here’s how we can maybe help me while i feel this and it this actually reminds me of another

[00:31:00] coach who did a guest post in my newsletter a long time ago and her advice is like yeah you

[00:31:04] probably are an imposter you’re in a role you’ve never done before and

[00:31:07] that’s pretty normal and that’s okay and here’s how you should approach it yeah especially in

[00:31:13] tech where half of the roles we have are all made up you’re probably the first person ever to have

[00:31:18] your role anyway whether you founded the company or you’re you’re doing something else at your

[00:31:22] company so yeah it’s a great thing embrace it so the takeaway advice there is essentially ask

[00:31:30] yourself okay this may be how i feel how is it helping me and don’t try to push it down and

[00:31:36] convince yourself

[00:31:37] that you’re not necessarily an imposter but how is this feeling helping you how is it serving you

[00:31:42] it’s what um i have a whole chapter on kryptonite in in the book which is it’s it’s what i call

[00:31:48] kryptonite and i use superhero metaphors pretty pretty heavily in in the book because i’m i guess

[00:31:54] a grown child and i like comics and superhero stories but and so are my clients so i think

[00:32:00] because i work in tech i get to do that i get to do this but i it’s um i liken it to kryptonite

[00:32:05] which is what i like to do and i like to do it because i like to do it because i like to do it

[00:32:07] the things that we think harm us actually when we look at how they serve us they can serve

[00:32:15] a function like kryptonite for superman it’s how um uh people are able to operate on him they use

[00:32:21] a little kryptonite so they could get in there and do some surgery and then get out so it serves

[00:32:25] a function but it’s um you know when it’s too much that can be detrimental so yeah how does

[00:32:32] it serve you this is a question that it’s so important and so so powerful

[00:32:37] are some examples of other types of kryptonite that you find leaders have and how do you find

[00:32:41] that it ends up maybe serving them and be useful they’re the kinds that you should avoid and can

[00:32:50] avoid so for example um scheduling things is my kryptonite but i do meetings for a living and i

[00:33:01] love being in meetings strangely and so not scheduling is not an option but there are ways

[00:33:07] so i automate everything and some people hire assistants and there are ways to do it

[00:33:11] so that’s the kind that you’re better off avoiding there’s nothing

[00:33:15] there’s nothing that serves me about having to schedule things or my inability to schedule

[00:33:22] things properly how is that serving me you know what i don’t care it doesn’t matter so

[00:33:27] just the kind that you need to avoid or you know you could say um toxic people or people who just

[00:33:35] don’t add anything to your life you know they’re kind of you know they’re kind of you know they’re

[00:33:37] just like all right done moving on but then there are the kinds that it’s usually on the inner

[00:33:45] kryptonite side where you can look at okay well how does how does this serve me and so sort of

[00:33:54] wide swath of people example is dyslexia so i work with a lot of founders ceos and and

[00:34:07] executives who are dyslexic very very very common especially for ceos

[00:34:13] you could say well that’s kryptonite you know having to read things or do things with text and

[00:34:23] and and it can feel like that to a lot of people yet when you look at the science of something

[00:34:30] like dyslexia it’s not so much an impairment it just means that your brain is not able to

[00:34:37] operate in a different level in a different way than most people same thing with adhd and and you

[00:34:44] could extend it to autism and a ton of other things as well but when you’re dyslexic you’re

[00:34:52] thinking spatially you’re thinking big you’re thinking visually you’re not you know so yes

[00:34:57] you mix up letters or you’re struggling with big blocks of text that’s fine if you’re like

[00:35:03] founding a company you know you’re not in documents all day long you’re not you’re not

[00:35:07] working anyway probably so that ability to think big and spatially and visually is probably how

[00:35:12] you created your company in the first place or how you know if you work at a large corporation

[00:35:16] how you you catapulted into executive leadership that way because you’re a visionary and you do all

[00:35:21] these things so i think kryptonite the inner kind of kryptonite that’s how i like to think of it

[00:35:29] which is you think it makes you weak but when you can look at how you it serves you it’s often not

[00:35:35] the case so it could be something

[00:35:37] that is you know often classified as a disorder like dyslexia adhd and it could be quirks like the

[00:35:45] one earlier i’m too quiet um well no she was just a really good listener she just didn’t

[00:35:50] realize that she had a poker face on when she was listening and no one knew she was listening so

[00:35:55] everything it just look at how it serves you so it’s the kind you need to avoid the kind of

[00:36:01] kryptonite that you need to really look at and embrace and once you embrace it just like a

[00:36:07] superhero it becomes ideally something that’s useful in small doses like superman or it could

[00:36:15] be something more like hulk which is you know you could say his kryptonite is his anger but that’s

[00:36:21] also his superpower and he can’t get rid of it or if he does he becomes mark ruffalo being really

[00:36:27] boring uh like in the latest avenger movies and he’s all meditating around yeah i don’t know what

[00:36:33] the point of that is so yeah that’s how i see kryptonite it’s actually a really really amazing

[00:36:37] amazing tool that we can all leverage the flip side of kryptonite is a superpower and i definitely

[00:36:45] want to spend time here so i’m a big believer in this you are too of just how important it is to

[00:36:51] lean into your strengths and identify what you’re better at than most people and use that as your

[00:36:58] way of getting ahead versus trying to say just remove these kryptonite slash things you’re not

[00:37:05] good at for me it was really a big

[00:37:07] deal i actually worked with a coach while i was working and this was in the biggest

[00:37:11] uh step changes for me is just realizing i will never be amazing at xyz but i turns out i’m really

[00:37:18] good at these things and so let me just use those things to achieve the things i’m trying to do

[00:37:22] as one example i’m never going to be an amazing public speaker i hate that stuff even though i

[00:37:28] do this podcast it’s not my strength and it turns out i much prefer writing and sitting there and

[00:37:33] thinking and that’s what led to this newsletter i started doing the thing that was

[00:37:37] public speaking and i started doing the thing that was public speaking and i started doing the

[00:37:37] and was easier for me and ends up being really successful because that’s another way of

[00:37:42] achieving the same thing it turns out so here’s the question why is it so important to think about

[00:37:48] your superpowers how do you identify your superpowers and just how do you think about this

[00:37:52] area you know on the one hand there’s so many studies that show that when we play to our

[00:37:57] strengths we’re much more effective than when we try to fix what’s broken it’s a waste of energy

[00:38:05] to fix what’s broken and it’s a waste of energy to fix what’s broken and it’s a waste of energy to fix

[00:38:07] what’s broken for the most part but when you can amplify your strengths and figure out how to use

[00:38:13] them productively so that you can fulfill your purpose meet your goals do what you need to do

[00:38:21] in life and bring others along with you it’s just that it’s you’re you’re you’re such a bigger impact

[00:38:29] that way i’m gonna um give you an example and it’s funny that we’re here talking about this

[00:38:37] because

[00:38:37] so a while back i remember we first met over email i was thinking of resurrecting my newsletter

[00:38:45] and i hate writing and i’ve written two books i hate writing and but more than hating writing i

[00:38:53] hate email like i hate sending emails reading emails i really struggle with it and but yet i

[00:39:00] have this newsletter that people love and and people were begging me to send more of over the

[00:39:06] years and at the time i was like i don’t know i don’t know i don’t know i don’t know i don’t know

[00:39:07] i was like oh maybe i’ll you know dust it off and i remember emailing you about this and asking if

[00:39:16] we could have a call because i had questions about newsletters and your answer was no no no no i have

[00:39:22] no no calls it was i don’t know if it was that something like this it’s just like i prefer to

[00:39:29] prefer to avoid calls whenever i can yes there you go so i’ve read avoid calls whenever i can

[00:39:34] it was very polite right but it was like you know um happy to answer any questions you have can you

[00:39:38] shoot me an email and i think i don’t remember if this was my answer but you know my i think my

[00:39:45] answer to me was no no emails i cannot shoot like i can’t i can’t give you my questions written uh

[00:39:52] maybe if i can record them for you i’ll think about it and um and i think in the end uh the

[00:39:57] irony is i ended up resurrecting the email uh what email list a while later and now i do send

[00:40:03] occasionally

[00:40:04] newsletters that that i actually like writing and people enjoy but you know i knew okay i’m not

[00:40:10] gonna it’ll take me like five hours to write down my questions for you over email and i knew that

[00:40:15] was not right for me you knew you know having a meeting was not right for you that was fine that

[00:40:22] was great because in the end it was easier for me to write an entire book than to write that email

[00:40:27] to you it probably was faster to write my book than it would have been to write the email

[00:40:33] to you

[00:40:34] and in the end here we were having having that first conversation which is really fun but it’s

[00:40:40] a way that feels good to both of us play to your strengths and and good things happen it’s not

[00:40:45] worth it trying to like i i could get better at writing emails but you know what not worth my

[00:40:50] time and you could have more meetings and not worth your time either let me tell you about a

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[00:42:06] Is there an example you can think of of someone that you work with

[00:42:09] where identifying their strength and then leaning into that made a big impact on them?

[00:42:14] Gosh, I see this all the time. I especially see this with founder CEOs because there’s this

[00:42:20] very heavy misconception that when you

[00:42:27] you

[00:42:27] , again, catapulted into some kind of senior leadership position that you’re supposed to be

[00:42:32] a certain way and you’re supposed to be loud and opinionated and controlling and tell people

[00:42:40] what to do. But I’ve worked with some amazing CEOs who are just incredible listeners instead.

[00:42:50] And it’s the same thing, which is they embrace what works for them and they don’t try to be

[00:42:56] what they’re supposed to be.

[00:42:57] Well, they have to learn that. And I think of Bob Iger as an example from Disney. I haven’t met him. I know people have met him and I just always hear, such a sweet person, so nice and such a great listener. So you can control the world and do it in your way. And so, yeah, I see this all the time. Any of your strengths, they operate again on that continuum with kryptonite. But if you can figure out how to leverage them and really be comfortable with them,

[00:43:26] you’re going to be able to do it.

[00:43:27] Cool things happen. Cool things happen.

[00:43:31] The big unlock for me was realizing that you can achieve all the same things using different strengths. Like you can be an amazing CEO being very loud, charismatic, visionary. You could also be a great CEO being very quiet and thoughtful and deliberative and working in small teams versus like, hey, everyone, listen to what I have to say.

[00:43:51] Exactly.

[00:43:52] Okay, so how does somebody identify their superpowers?

[00:43:57] Their strengths? I know there’s some tests they could take. Very tactically, what do you recommend people do? What do you send them to, to figure out, here’s what I’m really good at?

[00:44:04] There are tests out there. I have personally not found them as helpful, but some people love them. And so if you’ve ever taken a strengths finder test, or there’s a VIA character strengths test, I think it’s called, those are the two most popular. And you can, you know, just take a multiple choice quiz, and it’ll tell you what your strengths are.

[00:44:26] Your top five strengths or characteristics are. And I don’t find it useful, because if I just get a list of things, I will never remember what the list is. And it also has no context for me. And so what I do, and what I find works better for my clients as well, is to pull your superpowers out of your stories from your past and your present.

[00:44:52] And then eventually figure out how to apply them and transpose them to your future.

[00:44:56] But if you look at your peak experiences from, from life, from work, but especially from, from life, because even if you’re, you want to be a better leader in a work context, the difference between work and life, it’s, it’s very blurry. So it’s better, you’re better off not, not separating them.

[00:45:17] But if you look at your, your peak experiences from your past, so I would go back to when you were a kid, what something you did when you were a kid, like a project you worked on.

[00:45:26] Or something you were a part of that completely, totally lit you up and that you were so excited about. And I would then look at something from your more recent past, like what’s a project or something you worked on in the last maybe 10 years that just jazzed you up and you were just so excited to do.

[00:45:48] And then I would also look at just how did you get into your line of work?

[00:45:55] The thing that you’re doing.

[00:45:56] Now, what’s that meandering path?

[00:45:59] And when you can look at these three stories as moments in time, and you can kind of lay them on, on top of one another, what you see at key moments is your superpowers popping through.

[00:46:16] And they’re the things that empower you to make an impact.

[00:46:23] They are the things that.

[00:46:26] Do make an impact.

[00:46:29] And so an example I’ll give you is one of another executive I worked with a while ago.

[00:46:38] She kept being told in this dreaded 360 reviews at her company, they were obsessed with is another big, big tech company.

[00:46:47] They were obsessed with superpowers at this company.

[00:46:50] And so she would get these 360 reviews from her team telling her what her superpowers were.

[00:46:56] And so they kept saying, attention to detail.

[00:47:00] And she was like, what on earth?

[00:47:02] I hate details.

[00:47:04] Like, that’s my kryptonite.

[00:47:06] I cannot deal with details.

[00:47:09] Yet they kept telling her, wow, you’re so great.

[00:47:11] You have this attention to detail.

[00:47:12] And then they kept giving her more detail oriented stuff to do.

[00:47:16] And she was like, I want to be, we should be doing strategy and high level stuff.

[00:47:21] What is happening here?

[00:47:22] And so, you know, with her, when we, you know, she could say.

[00:47:26] Hey, my strength is strategy.

[00:47:28] And I hear that all the time.

[00:47:29] I’m a strategist.

[00:47:30] Like, that’s not a, what is that?

[00:47:32] It doesn’t even mean anything.

[00:47:33] It’s not a superpower.

[00:47:34] Like, may as well say, I don’t know.

[00:47:37] It just, that means nothing.

[00:47:39] But when we looked at her past and her stories, what we were able to pull out is that she was really great at connecting, connecting things together, connecting themes, connecting pieces, trends, and connecting people, connecting ideas.

[00:47:56] And then connecting people to ideas.

[00:47:59] That’s when she was happiest.

[00:48:01] And that’s when she was most effective.

[00:48:04] And so eventually that being a connector, it was a superpower.

[00:48:09] One of her superpowers.

[00:48:10] It also became part of her identity.

[00:48:12] And over time, she was able to shed that whole, the, you know, great attention to detail thing as she just started embracing that ability to connect.

[00:48:21] And it made her much more effective at her job in the end.

[00:48:24] So, yeah, look to your past.

[00:48:26] And you can pull out key moments and see what your superpowers are.

[00:48:30] We’ll link to these tests that you recommended just for people to explore.

[00:48:34] I took a couple of them.

[00:48:35] They were actually really useful to me.

[00:48:36] So I think it’s, if nothing else, it’s a good little context to have while you do this other exercise.

[00:48:41] And I don’t know if I got this right, but one is think about peak experiences in your life, including, like, childhood or, like, mostly adult life you recommend.

[00:48:50] Yeah, I would go back as far as you can.

[00:48:52] Definitely childhood.

[00:48:54] Childhood.

[00:48:55] Like.

[00:48:55] Like, amazing, like, happy experiences.

[00:48:58] Is that what you look for?

[00:48:59] It doesn’t have to be happy or sad.

[00:49:02] It’s just, you were at your best.

[00:49:05] It lit you up.

[00:49:06] And so, for example, like, I mean, I have a few, but, you know, well, no, let me ask.

[00:49:12] Enough about me.

[00:49:14] So other people can hear this in action.

[00:49:16] What is, when was a time when you were younger or a kid or any time in the past when you were just at your best?

[00:49:25] Right.

[00:49:25] Really, really lit up doing something that just fueled you?

[00:49:31] To me, I guess I think of not necessarily a specific example, but just, like, accomplishing things always gets me energized.

[00:49:39] Like, I did this.

[00:49:41] I did this hard thing.

[00:49:42] Like, selling my startup.

[00:49:44] That was a peak experience.

[00:49:47] There’s one.

[00:49:48] Selling your startup.

[00:49:50] Yeah.

[00:49:50] Okay.

[00:49:51] And starting the startup.

[00:49:53] And starting the startup.

[00:49:55] What compelled you to start the startup?

[00:49:59] I always had this goal of, I want to start a company, which is a terrible reason to start a company.

[00:50:04] But I had a goal.

[00:50:05] I wanted to start a company.

[00:50:06] So I had set this goal.

[00:50:07] In two years, I’m going to leave this job and start a company.

[00:50:09] And two years later, that’s exactly what I did.

[00:50:13] What was it about starting a company that made that something that you were so interested in doing?

[00:50:19] I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it, I think, is the core of it.

[00:50:23] Like, I just want to, I keep reading about startups.

[00:50:25] All these people are doing interesting things.

[00:50:28] I want to just see if I can pull this off.

[00:50:30] Okay.

[00:50:31] So you wanted to just see if you could pull it off.

[00:50:33] Yeah.

[00:50:34] And I also felt like I had the skills to do this compared to other folks that were starting companies and trying to, their hand at a startup.

[00:50:41] So you wanted to do it because you want to see if you could do it.

[00:50:44] And you thought you, you thought you could do it.

[00:50:48] What’s so cool when you do this exercise, if we were to do it, we’re not going to do it now.

[00:50:53] It would take a little while.

[00:50:54] But if you were to…

[00:50:55] If you were to unpack enough of those stories, even if you can’t go far back to your childhood, because sometimes, sometimes it’s not, it’s, you don’t have those memories.

[00:51:05] If you could unpack at least three of those scenarios, you would find themes.

[00:51:12] So, for example, it could be that one of your superpowers is doing things because you can do them.

[00:51:23] And that’s…

[00:51:25] That’s really cool when applied in, in the right ways.

[00:51:29] I don’t know if you, if you said you did the exercise.

[00:51:32] I’m curious to know what you, what you came up with.

[00:51:34] What, what I’m thinking about as you talk about this is I was very shy my entire childhood.

[00:51:40] And I think people didn’t expect me to achieve big things because I was always just like this nerdy, shy guy.

[00:51:46] So I think there’s always this like chip on my shoulder of like, I’m going to show, I’m going to show people what I can do.

[00:51:51] I want to show that I’m capable of more.

[00:51:53] So I think there’s a lot of that there.

[00:51:54] Yeah.

[00:51:55] And look at that in context.

[00:51:57] What you could see is you could see how it’s helped you through life, even if it came from adversity.

[00:52:05] I’m sure you can also see times when that has not served you.

[00:52:10] And when over-indexing on, I’m going to do it just because I can do it has actually done a disservice to you.

[00:52:19] Yeah.

[00:52:19] And so that’s, that’s how you end up using them, which is you really look at, all right.

[00:52:25] From here to where I now want to go, how can I use this and what do I need to watch out for if I’m going to over-index and, and use this too much?

[00:52:38] Um, yeah, another blanket example that I’ll, I’ll give is, um, problem solving.

[00:52:45] Like this is keen ability to solve problems.

[00:52:47] I work with a lot of high achieving, especially founder CEOs who are amazing at solving problems.

[00:52:54] And that’s.

[00:52:55] How they got to where they are.

[00:52:57] It’s usually why you start a company or solving something for the rest of us.

[00:53:02] Um, maybe you do it because you want to see if you can do it.

[00:53:06] Otherwise it’s just to solve the problem.

[00:53:08] But when you’re a super senior executive, at some point you can’t be solving problems for everyone.

[00:53:18] And if you’re just in the weeds solving problems all day, that’s when you’re, you’re not doing your real job and you’re going to be driving your.

[00:53:25] The whole team and your whole company nuts.

[00:53:27] And so you have to figure out, okay, if this like keen ability to solve problems is a superpower, how do you apply it differently?

[00:53:37] That’s super resonates.

[00:53:38] A lot of times you just, you’re interested in the problem.

[00:53:39] You just want to, it’s like a puzzle and pulls you in and that gets you in trouble.

[00:53:45] So to answer your question, what these tests told me, my number one strength was, was adaptability that I could just adapt to situations, which has pros and cons, but I super resonates.

[00:53:55] I find that I could just fit into things and, and adapt.

[00:54:00] It’s in, it’s a perfect example.

[00:54:02] And as you see, it has, has its pros pros and cons.

[00:54:06] So again, just for people to think about, cause I really think this is such an important topic and it makes me want to write a newsletter post about this.

[00:54:13] Just like how powerful it is to identify.

[00:54:15] Here’s the things I’m very strong at and why it’s important to double down on those versus think about solving your weaknesses.

[00:54:22] So your advice here is maybe take these quizzes.

[00:54:25] That’ll.

[00:54:25] Give you a sense of maybe your superpowers and then think about your peak life experiences when you’re the most yourself, I think is how you describe it.

[00:54:34] When you’re, uh, at your best, at your best, okay.

[00:54:37] Yep.

[00:54:38] And, and there’s an element of also when you’re energized, which came up a few times on this podcast, like look for things that give you energy because there’s something there.

[00:54:46] Yep.

[00:54:46] Because then if you subscribe to, um, I’m sure, uh, your audience is familiar with this idea of managing your energy.

[00:54:55] Not.

[00:54:55] Not your, your time.

[00:54:56] And, um, which is great for managers.

[00:55:00] Great for anybody.

[00:55:01] This will help you do that.

[00:55:02] If you’re using your superpowers, you will have more energy.

[00:55:07] If you use them too much, then it’s going to detract, but you want to be doing more of that.

[00:55:12] More of more of what lights you up more of what you love and figuring out how to manage the rest, whether it’s outsourcing or sometimes fixing, but I don’t know.

[00:55:22] We’re all grown adults.

[00:55:23] It probably is a matter of.

[00:55:24] Outsourcing or getting help or supplementing, we don’t have to fix everything.

[00:55:30] There’s a, this guy that we’ll link to in the show notes by another executive coach, Matt Mishari, who we had on the podcast, who is, it’s just like a walkthrough of how to do an energy audit on your day so that you can identify what gives you energy.

[00:55:44] And this is actually exactly what led me to this path.

[00:55:48] When I left my job, I specifically paid close attention to what gives me energy.

[00:55:53] After a meeting I had after a call, after things I did in the day and what saps me of energy.

[00:55:58] And I just decided I will do more of the things that are giving me energy.

[00:56:01] And that ended up being this newsletter and eventually this podcast.

[00:56:04] So it really works.

[00:56:06] There you go.

[00:56:07] And I know Matt Mishari works, um, similar to me, to me with a lot of founders, CEOs, where you have to do that.

[00:56:15] You have to do that because chances are you’re spending, you’re, you’re exhausted, you’re burnt out and you are spending your energy in the wrong places.

[00:56:23] And so, I mean, it applies to anybody, but especially when you are leveling up in leadership and doing something new and hitting that growth edge, you got to be doing it.

[00:56:35] It’s just, yeah, you’ll run yourself into the ground.

[00:56:38] Otherwise, I imagine many people listening to this are feeling like, like, I wish I could not be in these dumb meetings that I’m in all the time and these stupid reviews.

[00:56:46] And like, there’s a lot of stuff you have no control over that also very energy sapping.

[00:56:51] What advice would you give to people?

[00:56:52] People thinking that.

[00:56:55] Well, okay.

[00:56:55] Let me qualify this with just, this is why I’m not a career coach, by the way.

[00:57:00] Like, I don’t help people figure it, navigate, um, how to change jobs or leave jobs.

[00:57:05] Because I think if you’re spending most of your time in your day doing things that are sapping your energy and you hate your things you’re doing in your job, maybe you’re not in the right, in the right job.

[00:57:15] So, um, I don’t know if I was a career coach, I would just tell everyone, yeah, quit your job.

[00:57:19] I don’t know what you’re doing there.

[00:57:21] But, um, but.

[00:57:22] There’s, there’s a lot of truth to that, which is if there are things that you can control energy wise, great.

[00:57:31] Manage your energy, not your time.

[00:57:33] If there’s really nothing you could do about it and it’s the context and it’s the situation, then your next best thing is trying to figure out how to change the context or the situation.

[00:57:46] So I’m pretty ruthless there.

[00:57:50] I think this is what I still bring from product management.

[00:57:52] I’m ruthless when it comes to, you know, prioritizing things.

[00:57:58] I love it.

[00:57:58] This is prioritization.

[00:58:00] Yeah, there you go.

[00:58:01] This reminds me of a Steve Jobs quote that I love of his advice is just if you wake up every morning and you’re feeling dread for the thing you’re doing, it’s okay to wake up sometimes and feeling that and feel like, ah, I’m not excited about this day.

[00:58:15] But if it keeps happening over and over and over and over, that’s a sign that maybe you should make a change.

[00:58:20] Yeah, I think there.

[00:58:22] I mean, there’s.

[00:58:22] Something there’s something there and actually made to, you know, bring this back to kryptonite if it’s something little like, let’s say, zoom fatigue, for example, it’s I know it became definitely a topic when the pandemic hit a bunch of years ago, but I’ve been working remotely for God years, years and even pre pandemic.

[00:58:49] And I I’m in meetings all day.

[00:58:52] I love it.

[00:58:53] I love working with my clients.

[00:58:55] We can’t only they’re all over the world, so we can’t always travel to be with them.

[00:58:59] We do sometimes they can’t always travel to be with me.

[00:59:02] But, you know, the video is the next best thing.

[00:59:05] But it also it can be exhausting.

[00:59:08] And so, you know, does that mean I’m not just never going to have video calls ever?

[00:59:12] No, because I love what I what I do.

[00:59:14] And so I’ve discovered little, you know, little hacks for that one, which is like, don’t schedule too many meetings a day.

[00:59:22] Great.

[00:59:23] Do lots of active stuff in between gym walks, whatever.

[00:59:29] Try to get in-person social time, no meeting days.

[00:59:33] And then and for during meetings, I’ve got right here.

[00:59:38] I’ve got one of my my squishies.

[00:59:39] There’s a neurological thing with Zoom where it, you know, we’re just getting stimuli from through our eyes.

[00:59:48] But we.

[00:59:50] And through our eyes.

[00:59:52] But we’re not getting like physical stimuli the same I would be getting if we were in a room together hanging out, even having you just be on the other side of the room and we’re chatting.

[01:00:01] It would be a very different physical experience that would close that circuitry for me and leave me more satisfied as opposed to on Zoom.

[01:00:13] I’m all like my brain’s like on the lookout for something.

[01:00:16] And so I and a lot of my clients do this to use fidgets help.

[01:00:21] Ground me when I’m on Zoom calls and it’s like, OK, great.

[01:00:26] So there’s things you can manage.

[01:00:27] But yes, like that Steve Jobs quote, you know, our idea is like if you God, if you really don’t like and are getting energy sucked for most of what you’re doing and it’s constant, you’ve got to change your situation.

[01:00:43] I really like that tip.

[01:00:44] That’s very practical and buy something that you can play with with your hands.

[01:00:47] I use this pen actually is what I’m playing with usually with this podcast.

[01:00:50] I need something squishy.

[01:00:51] Maybe if there’s anything you recommend, let’s link to it in the show notes.

[01:00:55] Oh, my God.

[01:00:56] I know.

[01:00:57] I know.

[01:00:57] I one of my superpowers, that’s actually my kryptonite.

[01:01:02] But if if I’m humorous about it, I’ll call it super superpower is starting things that I don’t finish.

[01:01:09] And so I have I think I have a picture of it somewhere on my website, a superhero supply kit that I prototyped a while back that has all these different types of fidgets.

[01:01:20] And chocolate and like all these things to get you through your your meetings.

[01:01:24] And there are like pointy fidgets that give you energy in the morning.

[01:01:28] And then there are squishy ones for the afternoon.

[01:01:31] And I’ve done way too much research.

[01:01:34] I should send you one at some point.

[01:01:36] I have a few boxes prototype and I never ended up doing anything with them.

[01:01:41] So I just send them to clients sometimes.

[01:01:43] I’ll take it.

[01:01:44] Good.

[01:01:46] I’ll put that on my list of things I need to do.

[01:01:49] Just also my kryptonite.

[01:01:50] OK, so there’s just a couple more things I wanted to touch on and then I’ll let you go.

[01:01:56] One is you have this interesting approach of using product frameworks that people know in their day to day of building product to translate that to personal growth advice.

[01:02:07] And so in your book, you use this like that design thinking double diamond framework for helping people think about their own life and career.

[01:02:13] Is there a couple you could share that people can maybe think about and use of just like, here’s something, you know, in product.

[01:02:19] Here’s how you can actually.

[01:02:20] Use this in your life, in your career.

[01:02:22] I trained with Gestalt coaches and therapists when I moved in to coaching Gestalt psychology and Gestalt therapy.

[01:02:36] The idea is that, well, it’s a lot of what what I talk about, and especially in the book, this idea of when you want to create real, lasting, powerful change, you don’t do it by forcing change to happen.

[01:02:50] You instead do do it by embracing what is and what’s working and then figuring out how to leverage that.

[01:02:58] And so it works for individual therapy.

[01:03:01] It works for for coaching and also works more broadly for organizational change and giant transformational development projects or initiatives or any any kind of change.

[01:03:11] But one of the theoretical underpinnings there is when you do understand.

[01:03:20] What’s working and you start to get an idea of what’s possible or something that you want to go try or do or create or make happen.

[01:03:31] You don’t just go and change everything or do it all at once.

[01:03:35] You take one tiny step and run a little experiment to get data.

[01:03:41] And so the way I work and the way I learn to work, at least through Gestalt coaching and Gestalt therapy, was.

[01:03:50] You don’t leave a session with me without having tried a little experiment first.

[01:03:58] So the analogy there is, you know, we would call it an in the room experiment versus then get out of the building and do an experiments.

[01:04:05] And if you subscribe to, I guess I’m going to call it lean methodology.

[01:04:10] Although I feel like these names change all the time and oh, that’s so ten years ago and I don’t care what anything’s called.

[01:04:17] But the idea of experimenting and getting data.

[01:04:19] And so I think that’s a great point.

[01:04:20] and then using what you learn to make informed decisions on how to change things and then how

[01:04:26] to build things and how to make things even more successful. It works for the digital products

[01:04:34] that we build. It works for the businesses that we build. And it works for ourselves. And ideally,

[01:04:41] do it for all the above. And so anything you think is true or you want to do, it’s a hypothesis,

[01:04:49] until you test it. And you go out, get data, and then you can do a bigger version,

[01:04:56] bigger version, bigger version. So it works with human psychology and all the things we want to

[01:05:02] create and learn in life just as well as with products.

[01:05:07] Is there an example of one of those little experiments you were in a session?

[01:05:10] Bring us back to the example of that one executive from earlier, to keep the continuity here, who

[01:05:17] thought she was too quiet.

[01:05:19] And her team was complaining about her. And actually, the irony, often when people come to me

[01:05:25] with things that they’re embarrassed by, on the outside, she was actually quite loud. As a person,

[01:05:34] she was really loud and brash and all these things. It’s just that in terms of her team,

[01:05:39] they didn’t like how quiet she was in meetings. Especially that dissonance there was confusing

[01:05:46] to them because she was so loud and boisterous and energetic.

[01:05:49] But using that as an example, I remember when we first realized that the reason why she was so

[01:05:58] quiet in meetings is because she was spending a lot of time doing deep listening. She started

[01:06:04] to chill out a little bit about it and stop beating herself up as much and started realizing,

[01:06:10] oh, that’s a good thing. Why am I so insecure and getting so angry at myself for doing this

[01:06:17] all the time? That’s good.

[01:06:19] She started to chill out a little bit. But then the idea of her, a bigger experiment was

[01:06:25] in your next meeting later this afternoon, see what it feels like to sit there and just listen

[01:06:32] for an hour. Just see what it feels like and then see what you make of it. And then we’ll

[01:06:37] figure out what to do about it. But just see what it feels like to listen and be in awe of,

[01:06:44] wow, I’m really listening. And so that would have been like a,

[01:06:49] you know, sort of get out of the building experiment. But the idea of doing that petrified

[01:06:56] her because she’s like, I can’t sit for a whole hour just like being like, yeah, patting myself

[01:07:01] on the back. I’m a good listener. I’m a good listener. Look at me. Or like not even good or

[01:07:06] bad, but wow, I’m really listening. That’s all I ever want from people. It’s just this like

[01:07:09] radical appreciation, this awe of, wow, I’m doing this. Everything changes when you figure that out.

[01:07:17] But we decided to run a little experiment.

[01:07:19] Because that was just, you know, why waste a whole hour of her life when we could just do

[01:07:24] something in 30 seconds in the room right now. And so we tried a little role play of like,

[01:07:32] all right, what would it be like to just sit here for 30 seconds? And I talked about I don’t know

[01:07:38] what. And just listen to me. We’re having a meeting. What does it feel like for 30 seconds

[01:07:43] to do that? And we did that. And her answer was, that was terrifying.

[01:07:49] You know, like, that was God awful. Like, oh, my God, I have to do that for a whole hour.

[01:07:58] And eventually, over time, it got it got easier. It was very uncomfortable. I mean,

[01:08:04] this is where I’ll bring up the whole superhero analogy again in superhero stories when when

[01:08:10] superheroes discover what their superpowers actually are. They don’t just say, oh, thanks

[01:08:16] for this gift and then run and save the world. They don’t just say, oh, thanks for this gift and then run and save the world.

[01:08:19] Every superhero has a really hard time accepting, oh, this is my gift. Hell no.

[01:08:29] Or what do I do with this? And they wreak havoc and they make a mess and it’s uncomfortable. And

[01:08:34] even Superman tries to get rid of his superpowers often because he doesn’t like being super. And so

[01:08:40] it’s hard to know what you’re really, really great at. But when you can run little experiments

[01:08:48] that.

[01:08:49] Get bigger and bigger over time and really learn how to whether it’s embracing your superpowers or

[01:08:56] anything, let’s say there’s something you want to try, something scary or like look at me with my

[01:09:00] superhero supply kit. I was like, oh, I really want to build a gift box. Let me prototype that.

[01:09:05] OK, fine. Five years later, have I done anything with it? No, but I built it. I saw what it’s like.

[01:09:10] It felt good. And then as I got bigger with my experiment of thinking about, hmm, how can I mass

[01:09:16] produce this? Hmm. Where would I sell it? Hmm. What about?

[01:09:19] What about taxes? Oh, God. And, you know, not for me. And that’s fine. So I give them away as gifts.

[01:09:26] But whether it’s product for you or your business, small experiments, get data, go bigger,

[01:09:33] adjust, iterate all of it. You will accomplish incredible things.

[01:09:39] And I think a lot of the power there is you feel like, wow, there’s something new here I didn’t

[01:09:43] expect. And this is like a new, interesting learning. Let me see where else this can go.

[01:09:48] Yes.

[01:09:49] I think the biggest difference that was took me a long time for me to learn is that as opposed to

[01:09:54] product development, you’re going you’re testing things, not just how are how is it working and

[01:10:01] what are the numbers? Well, even with product, I mean, we’re not just looking at, you know,

[01:10:05] not just looking at numbers all the time, but you’re when you’re experimenting with yourself

[01:10:11] and with people you work with and with your teams and with your companies, it’s you run it through

[01:10:19] three filters. So and this is not my term, but I’ll say head, heart, hands is what I like to

[01:10:25] think of, which is head. OK, how’s this going? What are my thoughts? You know, you might think,

[01:10:32] yeah, OK, I’m trying listening. That’s fine. OK, next. Emotionally, how is this going in your

[01:10:39] heart? Wow, I’m terrified. This feels awful or this isn’t so bad or whatever it is. And or maybe

[01:10:48] that’s fine.

[01:10:49] I hear that a lot. That’s that was fine. But then how does it feel in your body? Our bodies are

[01:10:55] ultimately where we store all of our where we take in our stimuli and and then store all of

[01:11:03] our experiences. And our body also tells us what next action we should take. And if you run an

[01:11:10] experiment and scan your body and it’s like, yeah, that felt fine. And then how do you feel in your

[01:11:14] body? Oh, numb. Well, that will tell you something.

[01:11:19] Or I hear this all the time. Or how do you feel? My hands are on fire. Or I was working with one

[01:11:27] one client yesterday, and I think she said something like that. That was fine. And her

[01:11:32] whole face turned bright red. And and then after a minute, you know, we were able to say like,

[01:11:41] OK, what’s going fine versus your face turned bright red? What happened there? And then she

[01:11:46] realized, oh, I’m burning up.

[01:11:49] This is not OK. So, yeah, run it through head, heart, hands. Life is like product thinking. And

[01:11:58] it’s also not. We have to go deeper and more broad with our experiences. And then we’ll learn

[01:12:04] the most and be able to make the most informed, amazing decisions. And so cheesy, but you live

[01:12:11] a live a good life and make an impact and be a great leader and do all the things you want to

[01:12:15] do that way. Beautiful.

[01:12:19] Point you just made about how much of our. Thinking is driven by our body. We just had a

[01:12:24] whole episode on this a few episodes ago with Johnny Miller, where we talk about the nervous

[01:12:28] system and how most of our neurons go up to our brain versus down from the brain and our body’s

[01:12:33] telling our brain what we’re feeling. So there’s a lot. If you want to explore that as a listener,

[01:12:37] that’s a great episode. We’ll link to it in the show notes. OK, good, good. OK, let me ask you a

[01:12:42] question that my colleague suggested. She gave me a few suggestions to ask you. And I imagine this is

[01:12:48] what worked for her.

[01:12:49] And you two working together. So question she had is how is how as an executive coach, do you help

[01:12:56] identify slash bring out goals or wishes that people have in their subconscious but are unable

[01:13:03] to realize or articulate? Start with the ending. Come up with how you want things to turn out and

[01:13:09] then work your work your way back and start as far out as you want. It could be, you know, decades

[01:13:17] from now. It could be five.

[01:13:19] Years from now. Could be three years from now. Could be a year from now. It could be a quarter

[01:13:23] from now. You could do all the above. And really imagine. Close your eyes. Imagine you’re there.

[01:13:30] Engage all your senses. What do you hear? What do you smell? What do you what do you see? Who do you

[01:13:35] see? What do you feel emotionally, physically? And what are you doing? What have you accomplished?

[01:13:43] What’s amazing? And then if you’ve got,

[01:13:49] something exciting, go back to the beginning and then figure out imagine how you got there and just

[01:13:57] write that journey out and think of it as if you think of it as an experimental roadmap,

[01:14:05] then start thinking, all right, what’s the first thing I want to need to learn to know if this is

[01:14:10] right? Work your way towards that and onwards. If you do that and you really you’re like, I have no

[01:14:18] vision, which I remember.

[01:14:19] This is what happened in this case. You sit with it for longer. You can’t write that journey if you

[01:14:24] don’t have that ending. And so you sit with it for as long as they need until you get it. And then

[01:14:31] you create it. And again, it sounds so cheesy in a way. And I’m you know, and I know it’s not like

[01:14:40] I’m subscribing to this, like anything you want in life, you just say it and accomplish it. I

[01:14:45] know life doesn’t exist like that. But

[01:14:49] dream it, see it and then start taking steps to get there. What you end up creating will very

[01:14:58] likely be very different than you ever imagined. But this is what’s going to fuel you. We’re human,

[01:15:04] we’re visual creatures. And so yeah, that this is and I have the whole mission section of the book

[01:15:11] and I have lots of choose your own adventure options for troubleshooting and and the pitfalls

[01:15:17] to look out for. But yeah.

[01:15:19] that’s that’s my long-winded answer envision it then figure out how you might have made it happen

[01:15:25] and go make it happen i was gonna say this is a great tease for uh a part of your book we didn’t

[01:15:30] get to too much so a good reason to go buy the book um something i was gonna say as you’re talking

[01:15:36] as i with this coach i worked with once we did this exercise and i was like okay in five years

[01:15:42] or maybe 10 years i’m not working anymore here’s what i’m doing i’m living here family she’s like

[01:15:47] everyone in tech is like in five years they’re not working anymore it’s like done they’re tired

[01:15:53] everybody’s in that that’s their future which is not obviously realistic but it’s hilarious

[01:15:59] yeah i remember years ago 10 years ago i was like 10 years from now i’m definitely not working in

[01:16:05] tech definitely not working in tech and then here we are but it’s funny how things end up but what

[01:16:12] matters is that you’re clear on the impact that you want to make

[01:16:16] and how you make it

[01:16:17] make it who knows what will end up being the case but and that you’re doing it true to yourself

[01:16:22] and impact is another chapter in your book which we also didn’t get to so there’s a lot of so many

[01:16:27] teasers yes go buy the book teasers donna is there anything you wanted to share or leave listeners

[01:16:33] with before we get to our very exciting lightning round no no this has been so it’s been so delightful

[01:16:40] chatting with you no nothing else well with that we’ve reached our very exciting lightning round

[01:16:46] are you ready

[01:16:47] i’m ready

[01:16:48] first question what are two or three books that you’ve recommended most to other people

[01:16:54] here’s a funny thing is i used to have all these different books for different topics i’m going to

[01:16:59] give you the worst answer but it’s true all these different books for different topics and similar

[01:17:05] to when i was working in product all these different books and whatever and then eventually

[01:17:09] i realized i need to write the book that i really want to recommend and so i did that with my last

[01:17:14] book the user’s journey which is all about

[01:17:17] product development and i sound so conceited but i really believe it i now recommend my book the

[01:17:23] most and it combines all my favorite ideas philosophies books out there and you can check

[01:17:32] out the bibliography to see all the 30 50 books that you can read otherwise but um man i sound

[01:17:39] like such a jerk no i get this because this is what my newsletter was originally is like i will

[01:17:44] just do my best to define my book and i’m going to do my best to define my book and i’m going to do my

[01:17:47] answer to this question i get often and put it together and make it really good so that i could

[01:17:51] send people here’s my best answer to this question but every time i do that they’re like oh brother

[01:17:55] just like yeah sending your own blog post to me like just tell me what an answer like but i’ve

[01:18:02] written the best version of it here i this is going to answer everything you’re looking for

[01:18:07] so i go through the same the same pain okay next question do you have a favorite recent

[01:18:12] movie or tv show that you’ve really enjoyed a show i’ve been watching recently

[01:18:17] and i feel funny saying this because the the fourth season was on recently and it was

[01:18:21] i didn’t enjoy it as much but the first few seasons were so much fun was

[01:18:25] um for all mankind on apple tv have you seen it the yeah yeah um it was so much fun it was all

[01:18:35] like what if the um the space industry was like in an alternate reality and the last few decades

[01:18:42] were different than what they were so that was very fun and uh if you

[01:18:47] um you know for work stuff you could always a lot of my clients love watching ted lasso

[01:18:51] for um you know all the leadership stuff and it’s just such a sweet show but um yeah for

[01:18:57] all mankind is recent that’s really fun next question do you have a favorite interview

[01:19:02] question that you like to ask usually this is meant for people interviewing candidates but

[01:19:06] is there anything that comes to mind when asked this question the question i always ask when i’m

[01:19:12] interviewing clients because if we don’t if i’m not excited about what you’re

[01:19:17] doing we’re not gonna work together and and um if i yeah i want to know what that is and so

[01:19:24] imagine it’s a few years out and

[01:19:30] you’ve had the best however long year or three years of of your life what would you be telling

[01:19:40] me and i like to add a twist to that which is from uh benjamin zander’s

[01:19:47] in a book called the art of possibility where he with his students he used to say give yourself an

[01:19:53] a if you could give yourself an a at the end of the semester what what would you be writing like

[01:20:01] write the ending and so i love doing that with clients just seeing what could be what could be

[01:20:06] possible that we could create if we if we work together same thing with job candidates although

[01:20:13] it’s reminding me the one of my first jobs i ever got out of college

[01:20:17] this is in the early dot com days i remember my then who became my boss he asked me that question

[01:20:23] when uh he was interviewing me like how where i saw myself in five years and i remember at the time

[01:20:28] my answer was not here and hopefully making documentary films and this is like a dot com

[01:20:36] job uh but like in hindsight i can’t believe i answered it that way i was like yeah i’m gonna

[01:20:42] be doing something else in five years and he loved it so much that he hired me like on the

[01:20:47] spot and we’re still we’re still friends many decades later so um yeah that’s my favorite

[01:20:53] interview question all around it’s similar to question people often using product of just what

[01:20:58] is the ideal experience that what’s the perfect version of what we’re building and let’s work

[01:21:02] backwards from that or what’s like the 10x version exactly or um you know if you want to add to that

[01:21:08] like if you could wave a magic wand it’s the same same kind of thing what could be possible

[01:21:13] yeah i love the leveraging of product always too

[01:21:17] coaching i love it next question do you have a favorite product that you recently discovered that

[01:21:23] you love maybe you already mentioned the squishy thing maybe something else comes to mind my

[01:21:28] fidgets all my fidgets i have so many many different kinds they’re so much fun i’m sure i

[01:21:33] have a better answer somewhere but yeah i would say my if you can if you can point us to your

[01:21:38] favorites in links that would be awesome i’m sure people are curious what you discovered i curate

[01:21:44] them i will definitely do that they all have it

[01:21:47] yep and there’s also the long one the sticky monkey noodle so many purple so many amazing

[01:21:53] do you have a favorite life motto that you often find yourself coming back to sharing with friends

[01:22:01] or family either in work or in life it’s a phrase that i got from my one of my mentors and i i teach

[01:22:09] it to all my clients which is her catchphrase is isn’t that interesting and

[01:22:17] i have it as a sticky sticky note on my like a physical sticky note on my my computer monitor to

[01:22:23] remind me which what it reminds me to do is get into what gestalt folks call an optimistic stance

[01:22:33] and i’m a chronic serious like a cute pessimist anyone who knows me i’m cranky but i love this

[01:22:42] reminder to be in this optimistic stance and it’s not like again not that stewart smalley well i’m

[01:22:47] everything’s great woohoo but it’s a kind of radical appreciation not isn’t this good or bad

[01:22:53] but wow I just stubbed my toe and it really hurts isn’t that interesting let me feel that

[01:23:01] throbbing toe or wow someone just my uh someone on my team just talked over me in a meeting

[01:23:10] 20 times in the last hour actually this happened with a client recently I was I was there at an

[01:23:18] executive team meeting and it’s like you know someone kept talking over the ceo over and over

[01:23:24] and over again and you know often when that happens you like bark right back or you get

[01:23:28] angry or you get quiet or whatever it is but when you can really fully appreciate

[01:23:31] isn’t that interesting my shoulders are really tensing up right now wow you know whatever’s

[01:23:39] going on you’re you’re you’re you’re you’re you’re you’re you’re you’re you’re you’re you’re

[01:23:40] You often have more informed, not often, you will always have more informed, mindful actions

[01:23:46] that you can take or not take.

[01:23:49] And so this is like, you can’t pay me to meditate or anything or do yoga.

[01:23:55] But mindfulness, yeah, if you could just think to yourself, isn’t that interesting?

[01:24:00] Anytime something extreme happens in life, you will be shocked at what you learn and

[01:24:06] what you do accordingly.

[01:24:10] Very Buddhist, non-judgmental awareness.

[01:24:12] Exactly.

[01:24:14] It’s exactly that.

[01:24:15] Not deciding it’s good or bad.

[01:24:16] Yep.

[01:24:17] Final question.

[01:24:18] I’m surprised you haven’t used any Dolly Parton quotes in this conversation.

[01:24:22] Clearly in your book, you’re a big fan.

[01:24:25] I’m curious, what is a wisdom or quote that comes to mind that always that you think of

[01:24:32] from Dolly Parton?

[01:24:33] Yes.

[01:24:34] And thank you for reminding me because that was originally what I was going to say, which

[01:24:39] is,

[01:24:40] one of my, I mean, there’s so many Dolly quotes.

[01:24:42] And I think all my favorites are in my book, of course.

[01:24:46] But one of my favorites is, find out who you are and do it on purpose.

[01:24:54] That’s, you know, amazing.

[01:24:56] Another one, you don’t like the, I guess my two favorites, you don’t like the path you’re

[01:25:00] walking on, pave a new path.

[01:25:03] It’s, I mean, what more in life do you need than that?

[01:25:07] There’s all, yeah, you know, Buddhist and Gestalt.

[01:25:09] And mindfulness or whatever.

[01:25:11] But you could just do what Dolly does and you’ll be all good.

[01:25:14] Donna, thank you so much for being here.

[01:25:17] Two final questions.

[01:25:18] Where can folks find you if they want to reach out, maybe work with you?

[01:25:21] And how can listeners be useful to you?

[01:25:25] Great questions.

[01:25:26] As always, the best way to find me is through my website, donnalishow.com.

[01:25:32] And that’ll be in the show notes as well.

[01:25:35] And reach out to me for a conversation.

[01:25:37] I, one of my.

[01:25:39] Superpowers, that’s also my kryptonite, is accessibility.

[01:25:43] I’m that author who will always email you back.

[01:25:47] Even though I hate emailing, always email you back within a day if you send me an email

[01:25:51] about the book.

[01:25:53] Same thing about working together.

[01:25:54] I always make time, or just conversation.

[01:25:57] I make time for any conversations with interesting people if it is exciting to both of us to

[01:26:06] make it happen.

[01:26:06] So find me on my website, donnalishow.com.

[01:26:10] I’ve also got tons of free stuff there that you can download as well.

[01:26:14] Everything that we talked about today.

[01:26:15] A lot of things that we talked about today are available there to play with as well.

[01:26:20] Amazing.

[01:26:21] I think we’re going to create a lot more superheroes with origin stories, superpowers, kryptonites,

[01:26:27] missions, impact, all the things we’ve written about in your book.

[01:26:31] Donna, thank you so much for being here.

[01:26:34] Thank you, Lenny.

[01:26:35] This was a treat.

[01:26:37] Bye, everyone.

[01:26:39] Thank you so much for listening.

[01:26:41] If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or

[01:26:46] your favorite podcast app.

[01:26:48] Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review, as that really helps other

[01:26:52] listeners find the podcast.

[01:26:54] You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lennyspodcast.com.

[01:26:59] See you in the next episode.

[01:27:00] Bye for now.

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