Your Secret Leadership Superpower

Think the secret to skyrocketing your leadership and team performance is all about working harder or networking more? Think again.

In this episode of the Association Chat Podcast, I spoke with executive coach Zovig Garboushian about why the most successful leaders might just be the ones who know themselves best.

During the interview, Zovig emphasized that self-awareness is “the evolving relationship that we have with ourselves,” a journey rather than a destination, driven by curiosity, compassion, and self-acceptance.

She illustrated how these components enable leaders to make faster decisions, be more resilient, and lead with authenticity.

“When we understand ourselves, we are our greatest source of truth,” Zovig said.

Self-awareness could be a great tool for breaking through emotional barriers efficiently.

Thinking further about this insight, it is hard not to recognize the challenge and necessity of embracing curiosity and compassion in personal and professional development. Some of my favorite topics!

For those inspired to explore further, the full discussion, including strategies to cultivate self-awareness and its impact on leadership, is available on the Association Chat Podcast (here’s a link to the episode on Spotify).

• Why It’s Time to Look Inward: Uncover why the inner game matters more than ever in today’s workplace and how it can transform not just your career but your entire team’s dynamic.
• Transformative Practices: Discover powerful practices that can shift your thinking, actions, and feelings toward greater success and fulfillment.
• Mindset Mastery: Learn how to recalibrate your mindset for ease, flow, and authentic confidence, setting the stage for leadership that inspires and achieves.

This interview was streamed live at 2 pm ET on Tuesday, March 5, 2024, with Zovig Garboushian, who I think is masterful at change and transitions.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast and newsletter for more wisdom-packed episodes and resources that promise to elevate your association game!

Check out this episode!

Transcript [PDF]: The Inner Lives of Effective Leaders with Zovig

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[Transcript of Full Episode]

KiKi L’Italien 0:00
Today, we are delving into a topic that could change the way you cultivate self awareness at work. And in your day to day life. It could change your life. This is important stuff. Joining us is xovis gar Bhushan, the fiery force behind boldness ablaze a boutique professional services firm dedicated to helping leaders rediscover themselves as the primary source of truth. Welcome, welcome. Welcome. zoic I’m so glad you’re here.

Unknown Speaker 0:30
Yes, I am, too. Thank you so much for having me. Kiki.

KiKi L’Italien 0:31
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it was so exciting. We were having a discussion and getting caught up on some other stuff. And we started down this path of talking about this topic. And I thought this is incredibly important for everyone. I know, I can’t think of some, I actually can’t think of anyone that I know who couldn’t benefit from talking about this. But following that, and following scheduling, having you on the show, I read this statistic that said, leaders today are not nearly as self aware as they think they are with 95%, calling themselves self aware in a world where just 10 to 15% of them actually are. And I know that on your own website, I was looking, and you talk about how the most effective leaders are the most self aware. So what is self awareness? look like? How do we know if we have it? Yeah. All of this stuff?

Speaker 1 1:29
Yeah. I think the term self awareness gets thrown around a lot. Right? And and I think that we are smart people, we are really smart people. And yes, we know about ourselves, we understand our personalities to a degree. And so I think that many of us can misunderstand what self awareness is, and the depths to which that can go and the vital importance that it holds in our lives. So the way that I define self awareness is really simple. It’s the evolving relationship that we have with ourselves. It is not static. It’s not a oh, I took this personality assessment are oh, you know, I’ve worked with a therapist a few times or, and by the way, those are amazing tools. I am not I use those tools. I am not knocking those tools. But self awareness is more than just that. There’s no sort of getting there. Yes, I’m aware. It’s an evolving relationship that we have with ourselves, because the relationship we have with ourselves is our longest term relationship. And one we can’t really get out of.

KiKi L’Italien 2:32
We’re hoping we don’t get out of that long term relationship, for sure,

Speaker 1 2:36
exactly. And so I think that we can sometimes sacrifice knowing ourselves because we can get very caught up in our lives and the doing of our lives. And we can go our whole lives, we can live in our body our whole lives and be the last people we get to know when I talk about self awareness. I talk about it as being the ongoing relationship that you have with yourself. And I think that I don’t think the way that I’ve crafted this is that it’s got three pieces to it. And the first one is curiosity for yourself. Having curiosity about why you are the way you are, why you react, the way you react, why you have the emotions you have, why you made the choices you have like just an ongoing curiosity about who you are and why you are. And when you have curiosity, then you can have compassion for yourself. And this one can be really tough, particularly for high performers, high IQ, people who self identify as high achievers, high performers, the consummate doers, the perfectionist, having compassion for ourselves can be a tall order, the more curious I am about who I am, the more compassionate I can be. Now, that does not mean I let myself off the hook. It doesn’t mean that I am not accountable. I’m extremely accountable within compassion. But compassion means i Under I give myself grace, I give myself the benefit of the doubt. And I allow myself space to make mistakes so that I can learn so that I can pursue excellence, not perfectionism excellence. I

KiKi L’Italien 4:00
think that’s such a hang up for so many people, myself included, because I find myself thinking, if I’m harder on myself that I’m somehow going to drive myself into more success. And, but there’s only so far that can get you before you begin to break down. And this idea of being curious, I think, is really interesting. Because on the front end, I’m thinking Absolutely. Curiosity is great. And then in the back of my mind, I’m thinking who has time for curiosity now?

Speaker 1 4:34
I know, I know. But it’s, we all have time for it.

KiKi L’Italien 4:37
Yeah. And Liz here says Hi, Liz. Liz says big hang up here too. Oh, man. Yeah, yeah, that’s me. Yeah. So

Speaker 1 4:44
if you have curiosity, and you have compassion, then the third piece of the self awareness is the self acceptance, both accepting ourselves for who we are, but also who we are not. Because I’m not everything to everyone and I don’t have any interest in being everything to everyone. I used to and I used to try. And that’s when things like impostor syndrome and anxiety would rear their heads because I was trying to be something I wasn’t. But if we can accept who we are, then we can simply be the best version of that, at any given time, instead of comparing ourselves to people or to others, that we think we should be more like,

KiKi L’Italien 5:20
Oh, man. Okay, so I’m struggling, because curiosity, I feel like okay, I can get more curious compassion gonna be harder. It’s gonna be harder with self acceptance. Oh, xovis.

Speaker 1 5:34
I have these are like works. These are lifelong works. Again, there is no there to get to. Right. I think that we also, I have thought this, can I just get there? Why is this still bothering me? Why do I still deal with this? Look, it’s because we’re human beings. And because every time we go through something, we change, we shift, and then that thing shows up again. And we’re different in relation to it. So it’s not like I’m still dealing with this. It’s a look at this, it’s showing up for me again, and look how different I am now, to be able to move through this in a different way. And accepting ourselves. That’s a lifelong work. That’s not a I have arrived. I’m fully self accepting. Because if it were just me, in this world, it’d be it would be so easy to focus on me and be compassionate about me and but I’m not living on a mountaintop by myself. Oh, we have other inputs happening. We have other information. We have people’s opinions, we have world events, we have all these things that can affect us and make us question and think. And so that’s why it’s a practice. It’s not a perfect moment is a practice, Curiosity is a practice.

KiKi L’Italien 6:42
That’s good, I need to practice I need to get busy practicing. I, I laugh, because it’s something that I know is so critical and so important. Liz here. So she says acceptance is hard to grasp, because for some not me, obviously, it feels like it can lead to complacency. And then we have Facebook user, hi, Facebook user, Facebook user, a Facebook user, not only are individuals often not self aware organizations, associations failed to be self aware, how do you apply the concept to associations as well as people? Oh, that’s a good question. Good question. Facebook user

Speaker 1 7:20
came with a good question. So this is true. Because as individuals, we tend to focus on what I do, how I do it, the results I’m producing, I have to do all these things in order to prove my value. And businesses are often set up the same way organizations associations are set up the same way. What are we creating? What are we putting out? What are the results? What are the, what’s the ROI? What’s the KPI? What are all the other acronyms we use in business? And those are the things that we reward our people for by producing, I say this a lot. No one ever got a bonus for being the most self aware. But maybe they should. Because when a person is more self aware, their ability to produce and be at a level of excellence is higher.

KiKi L’Italien 8:05
Okay, so pause, because that’s why we’re here, right? Because we’re talking about leadership. And that question of, of what is self awareness have to do? Why is it that this top 10 to 15% of leaders are the most self aware? What is the connection there? And so talk to me more about this. Tell me more? What is that connection between self awareness

Speaker 1 8:28
and leadership? Yeah, so the more that we understand, the more I’m going to say me, so the more I understand myself, the more I connect with what I know to be true, my true motivations, my true purpose, my true goals, my acceptance of myself as being this but not that, and that helps me make decisions faster, because I don’t get thrown by the committee that screaming their opinions at me, it helps me be more resilient because I know who I am. So even if I’ve made a mistake, which happens in leadership all the time, big and small, you can give yourself the ability to learn from those mistakes. And so your resilience is higher, right? You’re not beating yourself down. You’re not like Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda, or ruminating, and all all the things that didn’t work, and we can never let these things happen again, we’re not living in fear. When we understand ourselves when we’re connected to who we are. We are our greatest source of truth. I’m not talking about deluding yourself. I want to be clear because doesn’t just mean you’re deluding yourself. If you’re not taking outside opinion. I’m not saying don’t take outside opinion. I’m not saying make up your own stories about life. I’m saying check in with yourself because we often have the answers in us. It’s just the thing that prevents us from getting to those answers is that we have emotions, we have fear, we have to worry about getting it right or getting it wrong. And so self awareness helps us break through that clutter. Faster. Not never experience those things, right? It’s that we move through them faster, we move through them more efficiently and more intact, it doesn’t break us down, that

KiKi L’Italien 10:08
moving through them faster. When do you know that you’re skipping past the pieces that require the work to process them versus actually dealing with this legitimately dealing with it authentically and processing it in a healthy way?

Speaker 1 10:27
I’m gonna say this, and I don’t want this to sound like I’m being flipped. You know, I know when I’m skipping past my emotions, I know when I’m Skip trying to skip past the hard part and just get to the end. I know, because I don’t feel physically I don’t feel right. Like my physical body will give me clues as to like, I can feel nervousness, I, my stomach has butterflies, maybe my throat gets closes up a little bit, my neck gets a little tension. So my physical body will give me information. But also I need to look at what’s happening around me, how are people responding to me, if they’re not responding the way that I had hoped, or the way that I had intended for them, then there’s a gap here, I’m probably skipping something. And so that actually, it makes me think I need to say this, too. When we are self aware, we understand the impact that we have on other people. We don’t just move through and knock things over. And bull in china shop sort of metaphor, we don’t do that we are interested at looking at how we engage with others. And being intentional about that and understanding how others perceive us.

KiKi L’Italien 11:32
I think for a lot of us, especially even as we’ve been established for maybe a long time I’ve been I’ve spent over 20 years working in the association industry, I feel like I should know how to do this better now. When you’re in the middle of doing the work that you’re doing, and you feel that fear, you understand that maybe you know you’re struggling a little bit with that self acceptance part, you’re struggling a little bit with that compassion part. How can you get into the flow, so to speak, how can you get on track to begin to work on that self awareness so that you can move in a more positive direction more quickly.

Speaker 1 12:22
So when you if you’re aware enough to notice that you’re feeling a specific emotion, or that you’re having an experience, I think you’re one step ahead right there. Because the first thing we have to do is notice that thing is happening. We tend to object to our own emotions, I shouldn’t be scared, I shouldn’t be. I shouldn’t have anxiety, this is wrong, I need to make it stop. And so we try to push past it. Or pretend like it’s not happening. But if you notice that it’s happening, that’s great. Notice it, name it. And then get curious about it. What am I afraid of? That’s where Curiosity comes in. What am I actually afraid of right now what scares me the most. And this not to be like an indulgent exercise. It’s simply to unearth it so that you can face it, when we have a name for something, we can address it. If I have symptoms in my physical body, but I don’t have a name for what I have, it becomes really hard to treat it. And so it’s the same with our emotions. We and not just saying, Oh, I feel really anger. Oh, I feel anxious. Like those are yes, those are emotions. But there’s nuances to these things. Maybe it’s just frustration, maybe it’s dread. Maybe it’s a worry that something from the past is going to happen again, get really specific and get curious, why am I feeling this way? And what’s actually true about this? What is it about me that I know in my bones that will move me through this? I call that bone knowledge. I know in my bones that I can move through this stuff. And some of it also is just making the choice to move through it and say I’m going to do this with the fear with the anxiety with the whatever it is I’m feeling I’m choosing to do this anyway. And that’s working from the outside in then we see ourselves succeed. And look at that I did it and I didn’t die. Nothing happens. I just I did it. So

KiKi L’Italien 14:17
hard. This is translate to what ends up happening on the other side of it. Yeah, I’m learning how to process I’m learning how to get curious. I’m learning how to have once I identify that I’m learning how to have more compassion for myself. And to have more self acceptance, how does that end up translating to my relationships with others?

Speaker 1 14:39
Yeah, then we can speak our truths and set boundaries, because we’re not as afraid that people will walk away. Or if for some reason they do walk away we know and trust that we’ll be okay. In our personal relationships, it’s being able to own what’s important to us and be able to You know that we are an individual complete entity within this relationship. We’re not in complete without the relationship. So it’s feeling whole and complete. And that then allows us to speak up when we need to, to push back to take time for ourselves when we need it. And to be honest, and truthful and loving to the other person without expecting them to fulfill something for us in return. Yeah.

KiKi L’Italien 15:25
I love that. Because I think one of my favorite topics, anyone who’s a regular listener, or watcher of the work that I do, they know that I love talking about trust. And that’s one of the key things with trust, too, is that it starts with self trust. You trust yourself. You do the things you say you’re going to do. It allows you to trust others. Yeah.

Speaker 1 15:50
If you trust yourself, then it doesn’t matter what happens around you, because you know that you will find a way. Yeah,

KiKi L’Italien 15:59
yeah. Okay, so I have a serious question here. And that person, I like I’m revealing too much, because I want your information so much. And that is, okay. So I’m pretty good about feeling when I’m tense or worried about stuff. But what if I still have a little bit of that impostor syndrome? And I am definitely going like, does everyone think I’m a fraud? Does everyone is everyone waiting for me to fail all of these questions. And I asked this, because maybe when you’re starting out, you’re afraid that people are going to go on to say that you don’t have enough experience. Now I have a lot of experience. But I’m afraid constantly that people are waiting for me to fail waiting for me to make the next wrong step. Right. And so how do you deal with that? Talk to me about that one,

Speaker 1 16:49
I think sometimes we can have those stories go on in our heads, and then we own them like they are ours. This is where we can create a little bit of space between the experience that we’re having and ourselves. So I have experienced this word. I am feeling this I am the anxiety I am the worry, I am the self consciousness. No, those are just things I’m experiencing, but they are not who I am. And so I think language is really language, when we talk to ourselves is really important. When we use the words, I am something you better believe we’re going to go live into it. If I say Oh, I’m a total control freak, you better believe I’m gonna go behave that way. And so we have to be careful with how we talk about ourselves to ourselves, because we follow suit, right? Is Phil, instead of saying I am, I have impostor syndrome, like you own it, like you embody it, or I’m so scared that people are thinking these things of me. Consider it as an as an impermanent experience. Gosh, I’m really feeling fear right now. Firing through my head. And so when we talk to ourselves, that way, we can create space between ourselves and that story, because that’s really what it is. It’s a story. It came from somewhere. It’s not like it, it came from somewhere, right? There’s a reason that it’s there. But are we just reliving? Are we like trying to solve a problem that no longer exists with that story? Are we just making the choice to relive it, I don’t know that these are individual experiences, but putting a little space between us and the experience that we are having, and trusting that this is not a permanent state. It’s not a permanent state. And, and just saying, I am, I’m getting in my own head right now and noticing that the story can take on a life of its own. But who’s in charge here, Kiki, who made a story? So who gets to interrupt the story?

KiKi L’Italien 18:46
Yeah, it’s you. It’s me. You

Speaker 1 18:51
can tell me you can be like, Zelda, you’re the worst. Such an such ever. And I would say, Okay, that’s interesting. You could tell me you’re the worst executive coach ever. They fit me right. I don’t think he would say that to me. He goes, You’re lovely. But let’s say you did say that. That’s my livelihood. That’s what I do. And I would listen to that. And I would know, that is not inherently

KiKi L’Italien 19:12
true. Yeah, we have Facebook. Sorry to cut you off. Okay. Facebook user says, Yes, language is so critical and how we self talk, and similarly how we talk to and about others. Isn’t it though, is an I’ll tell a little story about my own family. This is something where my husband last year was talking about how he wouldn’t be able to find a job that would allow him to work from home where we are now and at the same level where he was before. And I said Don’t say that. Quit saying that. Don’t say that out loud. There’s no reason that has to be true by you saying that you’re limiting what you think is possible. Just don’t say that ye speak that into existence. And it can sound a little woowoo. But I don’t think it is I still have work to do on it. Man, I still have work to do. You’re not

Speaker 1 20:11
alone. Kiki, I think that what sets some people apart is the ability to admit, I still have I still work through this. And it still shows up for me. And I work through it and it shows up for me. Yeah, and that. And that doesn’t mean that I’m not excellent at what I do or worthy of being here or whatever. It doesn’t equate to that. It just means it’s something I still work through. Those

KiKi L’Italien 20:34
of us who are trying to improve, we’re trying to learn, we’re trying to get better at what we do. And we think, Oh, I’m on a good streak. I’m doing the things I’m supposed to do. I decided I was going to work out, I’m going to increase my energy. I’m going to put the cold water on before I get out of the shower. I don’t know. If we’re doing well, we’re going and then we hit that day, right? Something awful happens. And then something else awful happens. And I’ll speak for me. There are many times where that day happens. And at this point, it’s happened enough where I’m like, oh, man, don’t let this derail you don’t let it derail you, you know what can happen? But it can throw me off in the past, it has thrown me off where I’m like, What am I doing wrong? I start attacking myself, I start becoming very critical. Is it because of the one thing that wasn’t perfect? And just chiseling away at my self confidence on how I’m living my life. And it can be on the smallest things. Yeah. What

Speaker 1 21:39
you’re talking about is all or nothing thinking. Yeah, like unless it’s perfect, which who even knows what perfect is anyway? Less, it’s perfect. It doesn’t count. Unless I did it all myself. I didn’t actually do it. Unless I did all of the things every time every day. I’m not unless I work out every day or six days a week for the next 10 years. I’m not healthy. And that all or nothing thinking diminishes us.

KiKi L’Italien 22:08
It does. I catch it. I caught it yesterday, and I was getting ready. I’ve been preparing and working on putting out a new feature on Association Chat, go to Association Chat, comm to check it out. But putting this new feature because I wanted to put all of these different podcasts together, there’s a group of association podcasters, who have like we’re on WhatsApp, and we talk to each other regularly. And so I thought, oh, let’s organize this. And we’ll have a downloadable spreadsheet, we’ll add to it and there’ll be a playlist and people can listen to all of them. And I sent it to a friend of mine ahead of time. And I said, really nervous about putting this out there and just like promoting it and making it live. And she said Why? And I said, Because I’m afraid that’s not good enough. And she said, ah Watch out. That’s good girl thinking Be careful. And I’m like, Okay, I’m gonna go ahead and do it. And sure enough, it’s even in it I’m asking for and truly, if anybody’s watching this or listening, send in the podcast that needs to be on the list. That’s why we’re building it. But there was a post somewhere else where someone was like picking at it. And it really fed into my fear. Because I felt see, oh my gosh, that’s what I was afraid of all of the fear of putting something out. But if you listen to it, you’ll never do anything. If you listen to the fear. If you worry and worry and wait for perfection that day will never come it will not be posted it will not go live. That idea will not happen because of the fear.

Speaker 1 23:44
So this feels like it connects to a comment that’s in the chat that says that was said acceptance is hard to grasp because for some it feels like it could lead to complacency. When we’re not perfect, we’re complacent when we’re not beating ourselves up we’re complacent when it wasn’t done when it wasn’t done at 100% or what somebody else deemed 100% We’re complacent acceptance of ourselves compassion with ourselves giving ourselves a break is not complacency because I didn’t say don’t be accountable right we are adults we have accountabilities we commit to things we do them we do them to the best of our ability and then we get better at it every time but beating our there was I don’t know beating ourselves up at you remember that there’s a song like that website some E cards it like did snarky sassy. Yes. Was one e card that said the beatings will continue until morale improves. That’s hilarious. Yeah, yeah. And that just cracks me up now because it’s, we really do think that I have to pummel, er I have to humble myself. And to get this right in order for it to matter in order for it to count in order for it to add value. In order for me to have value And that does nothing but break us down. Would you do that to a friend? No, he wouldn’t do that to your child. You wouldn’t do that to a friend you wouldn’t. That’s just not how you behave outwardly. Why would we do that? Internally,

KiKi L’Italien 25:12
there are also the situations where the well meaning professional is moving through their life. And they’re saying yes, so vague, okay, look at I like I am getting curious about about these fears, or the emotions that I’m feeling the sadness or the loneliness, I’m getting curious. I’m asking myself what’s going on here? I’m giving myself compassion. I’m even giving myself self acceptance. I’m being accountable. But I’m and I’m not being complacent, being accountable. I’m walking through and still bad stuff happens. Welcome

Unknown Speaker 25:50
to life.

KiKi L’Italien 25:51
I mean, I know it doesn’t magic hypnotically? No, it’s not gonna make your problems go away, oh, it changes

Speaker 1 25:59
how you relate to those problems. It changes how you think about yourself in relation to those problems, you could have a problem. And then the result, the response could be, I’m not good at this. I can’t do this, again, can’t take any more risks, not going to put that podcast out the podcast collection now. Because that one person had a thing about it. That’s one way of responding. The other way is, okay, what’s true about this? What can I get from this? What’s some good feedback I can take away? And what’s the rest I can leave behind? And how can I strengthen myself? Because if I really want to do this, or I really care about this, or it’s in me to do this, why would I allow what happened with the cost to me, if I allow myself to be stopped? Bad stuffs, bad, quick quotes, if you can’t see me, I’m doing quotes, the bad stuff, things happen, everybody. It’s not about those things never happening, or you never feeling sadness or anxiety. It’s about how you relate to them, and how you move through them. That’s the difference.

KiKi L’Italien 26:58
So when we’re thinking about our mantras, when we’re thinking about our language, even as we’re just our regular language, and communicating with others, the way that we communicate and our emails and everything, but especially the way that we’re talking to ourselves, on an ongoing basis, internally, and just thinking through things. That’s not some sort of magic elixir, like these are not magic that’s going to protect you from trouble. Life will throw some challenges occasionally. But you are better able to be honest with yourself, look, and get curious and go through these steps and be able to be more resilient in the end. Because you’ve been training yourself on these good habits, right? It’s

Speaker 1 27:50
a good word training is a great way that’s a great way to think about it. Yeah, this is exercise for the mind and heart.

KiKi L’Italien 27:57
Mm hmm. I need more exercises. Avik, what are some exercises I can do? There’s all kinds

Speaker 1 28:04
of ways to cultivate your self awareness and to develop the relationship with that you have with yourself, there are the obvious ones, yes, if you have the means and the ability to work with a coach, someone like me or a therapist, if there are things, things that need to be resolved, do that. There are of course, there are all kinds of assessments you can take, there are groups and communities that you can join for different industries, also different personal challenges that we experienced. Getting feedback is a very cost efficient slash free to book the way of reflecting. If you ask people for feedback, listen to it. That’s a really great tool that’s a really good ongoing practice that we can do is to request feedback, and in organizations and companies to make feedback part of the every day. And it’s not always critical feedback. It’s appreciation. It’s coaching, and it’s the evaluation type of feedback. You can sit for five minutes in the morning we I don’t know when I hear I don’t have time. I’m like just five minutes. You got five minutes in the morning or five minutes right before you go to bed to sit and just reflect what worked today. What did I like about how I responded? How did I feel today? What do I have going on tomorrow? And give yourself the moment to reflect just those right? If you can handle because that activates a different part of your brain but writing these things down and getting them out of your brain and into the world is a really powerful practice it and when I hear people say particular people leadership like I don’t have time for coaching I don’t have time for self reflection. I don’t have time for that. It’s really interesting to me because what kind of leader do you expect yourself to be if you’re not taking care of yourself? How effective can you be in showing other people how to be resilient and high performing and be able to make decisions and own, have ownership and feel empowered, if you are not watering that garden in yourself.

KiKi L’Italien 30:09
If we’re not taking that time to reflect, we’re missing out on a huge part of what life is because we’re skipping past that piece where we’re supposed to be learning and applying and then moving forward. And I don’t know becoming better, more happily in meshed in our own existence in life. Yeah, what we were before. What’s the point? If we’re not doing Yeah, right. Yeah. So I think about this, and I think there are always ways to improve you the training never stops. Speaking of training, this came in Liz, she’s saying I love this the training on the good patterns before you need them. Put on the parachute before you fall out of the airplane. Yeah,

Speaker 1 30:56
yeah. All good metaphors, I’ve Yeah, I think that you have to reach out to trying to solve these problems in our own heads is just a one way ticket to disappointment. There’s only so much that can happen within our own minds. And usually our minds are full of so much clutter that you know, especially if there’s time of disaster in times of disaster, or real, big issues or big challenges, being in our own heads and alone in this stuff does not work. So whether that’s enlisting the help of a professional like a coach or therapist, or it’s creating great leaning on your community, meaning who are your three people, you don’t have to have a big community who are your three people coming out of yourself and acknowledging that there’s something going on, that you’re dealing with, whether that’s a work thing, or it’s a personal thing, or something in between acknowledging and getting it out of your head and into the world so that you can play with it and look at it from all sides and bring some intellectual power, but also some emotional power to it. To to figure out how best to get yourself through it. Usually, we don’t look at things unless they’re, they’ve totally gone kaput. Right? And I that’s why I love the idea of putting on the parachute before you fall. Because we don’t hopefully, we’re not waiting to start exercising the minute we get sick. But listen, that’s what happens sometimes, when we’re suddenly we realize, especially at work, I’ve been called in the times like, Oh, our team is not doing well, or oh, we were having disaster with this big change that we’re trying to go through. And we need some triage. That happens. But so the first thing to do is to recognize it acknowledge what’s actually happening. How did we get here? How did I get here? What choice did it make that got me here? And what choices do I want to make to get me out? Where do I want to be? I think it’s not just about looking backwards. It is more about looking forward. This isn’t what I want them. What do I want to create?

KiKi L’Italien 32:49
Oh,

Speaker 1 32:51
what do I want to create here? Because then active, you’re not complacent. You’ve gotten curious. You’ve been compassionate. You’ve had acceptance for what’s happened. But now you’re being active. Yeah. Where do I want to go?

KiKi L’Italien 33:05
Where do you want to go? What do you want to create? What do you want to have in existence? What would this look like? Yeah, if it were working out and better? Yeah. And it can be

Speaker 1 33:16
this big existential question, like, what do I want in my life? And that’s great. I love those conversations and talks. But also it’s like in the moment in when a problem is happening, okay, what’s, what do we want here? What’s the solution? What’s the immediate solution? What’s the first step we can take? What do I want to actually have in existence, and then we go toward that, then we have a place to go, then we know what to do. Or at least we know what to try. Love that Facebook

KiKi L’Italien 33:44
user low write us there. And I’m so glad I tuned in hashtag awesome. I’m glad you tuned in to. I have to say people are probably going to want to reach out and follow I know you’ve got a podcast is coming up and all of this stuff. What are the best ways that they can find you? Yeah, where should they reach out and seek more resources? Yeah,

Speaker 1 34:09
a couple. So I have a couple of websites. My coaching website is boldness ablaze. coaching.com and wholeness ablaze. coaching.com. And then my yeah, there it is. boltless Elise coaching.com. And then you can also reach me at just zubik.com That’s where I keep all of my speaking. stuff. So zoic.com And then I am launching a podcast. It’s called when does it get good and it is live with a trailer on all the podcast platforms, Apple, Spotify, all of the above. So when does it get good as the name of the podcast? You can also honestly I’m gonna give you my email, email me at Zomig at boldness ablaze.com. Do you want to send me a message if you’re curious about what this is all about? Coaching etc. I’d love to have you and then of course LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn as well. Find me everywhere. finder everywhere. Yeah. Thank you Kiki.