Just Keep Swimming: Owning Your Narrative

What You’ll Hear: 

• The Power of Self-Perception – How what we say about ourselves influences how others see us—and how we see ourselves. 
• Breaking the Burnout Cycle – Why pushing through exhaustion leads to the “capability trap” and what to do instead. 
• Nature’s Reset Button – How a simple walk in the sun can shift motivation and mindset. 
• Owning Your Narrative – The surprising impact of defining (and declaring) your strengths. 
• Aligning Who We Are With How We Show Up – The role of intentionality in leadership, parenting, and personal growth.

Notable Moments: 

“If you don’t take the time to care for yourself now, you’ll be forced to later.” (11:22) 

“I learned that I wasn’t a thoughtful person—and carried that story for 20 years before I questioned it.” (36:28) 

“You don’t need to fix your whole life—just figure out what fills your tank by the end of the day.” (17:28) 

“If you say you’re good at something, people will believe you. So what story do you want to tell?” (24:37) 

“Maybe we need more bold declarations in life.” (48:06)

This episode explores how the stories we tell ourselves shape our reality, how self-care impacts the way we show up for others, and how a little self-belief can go a long way.

Tune in next week as we dive into the ideas of bravery and validation—we can’t wait to unpack it with you!

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Intro
• 2:30 The Meaning of "Snackered"
• 11:00 Rebranding Mondays: Finding Joy in Routine
• 30:30 Winter Slump: The Importance of Self
• 50:00 Teaching Kids About Self
• 1:15:00 The Impact of Words on Self
• 1:40:00 Navigating Seasonal Change and Personal Growth
• 2:05:00 Embracing Our Strengths and Sharing Them

Transcript

Jess: 0:49

Hi, lisa, hi, how are you?

Speaker 3: 0:57

Happy day, happy day, happy week.

Jess: 1:00

Yeah, what was the word I used? I snackered snackered.

Speaker 3: 1:06

Sorry, I'm snackered, I'm snackered I was so which doesn't. I feel like it would be easy to think that that means like tired, which I think in your case it doesn't yes, exactly it's like. It's like hangry, but less, but more british and instead of like food, it's like a snack, it's like snack, snack. And haggard Is haggard. A word, haggard is a word. It means like tired, right Like run down.

Jess: 1:35

I don't actually know, but yes, I think so. But knackered is what I Knackered, like it's a, you know, I think it's a British term that definitely means tired and it's just, but it's like tired, almost to the point of exhaustion, yes, where you're like not thinking totally clearly, but then on top of that, you're also hungry, snackered snackered.

Speaker 3: 1:58

I think it needs it, it deserves. It deserves an addition to like urbanary or something like that, because it does it rings very true for lots of different situations.

Jess: 2:09

Exactly Including yours today. Yeah, so hangry is like angry, maybe because of being hungry or you know, definitely the combination of things. And snackered is like tired and peckish. But I'm not actually peckish because now you know, I've had lunch and it's great, but that's like I feel like Snackered is still a way of being.

Speaker 3: 2:32

Yeah, I like it, I like it a lot I'm glad you remembered it, cause I didn't. Yeah, of course, infinitely better at remembering things than I am. It's going to be one of those things that you know if people decide to listen to this podcast, they'll be like there's another reference of Lisa having a terrible memory and just having a great memory.

Lisa: 2:53

Oh goodness yes.

Jess: 2:55

Yes indeed.

Lisa: 2:57

But, um, but no, it's good to see you though.

Speaker 3: 2:59

And it's good to see you on a Monday, you know we're going to we're're gonna try to kick off our week with the podcast instead of ending. Actually, we're gonna do both. We're gonna do both.

Jess: 3:07

So we normally record once a week, but during our normal recording session I was on a plane to visit some very close friends in Chicago, and so we didn't get to record when we normally did. So this week we're doing it again and the end of the week.

Speaker 3: 3:22

We're totally bookending the work week, which is just fine with me.

Jess: 3:29

It's great. It is great. It reminds me of when I was in college and I had it was just my sophomore. Was it my sophomore year? No, it must've been my freshman year. I had a roommate and then I had two girls who lived next door, who were were pretty close, and the four of us would hang out and there were. There were some other people we hung out with too, but we would go over to this older friend's apartment and we would have to gym parties Like thank God, it's Monday and it just I definitely heard the gym parties and I was like so you'd go to the gym?

Jess: 4:07

no, no, it's not like a good party but and past Jess was definitely not into that, you know we would just say you know everybody talks about how awful Mondays are, but maybe if we give ourselves a reason to celebrate then it won't feel so awful oh my gosh, you guys were rebranding before.

Speaker 3: 4:23

Rebranding was even a thing.

Jess: 4:26

We are OG rebranders, yeah, and it really. It really did make a difference. I mean, we had fun. It wasn't always a big party, but it was just a nice way to to kick off the week and that's so. That's what I feel like we're doing today.

Speaker 3: 4:38

It's a gym recording to gym, to you too, to jump to you To Jim, to you too, to Jim, to you. Oh, my goodness, I think I'm just happy that the sun is shining and that it's not frigid, because it has been this has been, as we've mentioned several times quite a winter, quite a start to the year, quite a winter, quite a start to the year. And I am I was realizing it as I went for a walk today, which I usually do twice a day during my work day, kind of religiously. It's like something that I am really good at prioritizing typically and, oh my God, the joy that I received from just walking with the sunshine and it made me like in a weird way, and know what I wanted to kind of talk to you about today, but it made me motivated. It literally motivated me in a way that I didn't realize I was missing.

Speaker 3: 5:53

I had forgotten what being motivated felt like, because I've just been in this winter sort of slog and it's been. I mean, we get a decent amount of sun in Maryland, it's not gray all the time, but it's also just been very cold and unusually kind of wintry here and I was like, oh my God, I want to go for a run. Oh my God, I want to plant some plants, oh my God. And I was literally like the, the things that I typically would find joy doing. I didn't realize that I wasn't even thinking about, because there was this sort of like Paul set over top my house that just made it not feel motivating and I was like, oh my God, such a little thing can feel so dip, can like change your perspective in such a real way.

Jess: 6:47

Yes, I totally get that. I think for me, that feeling that you're describing is kind of like a spring fever yeah, it happens every year. Where it's it to your point, it's like you don't realize how oppressive it has been, until you have a glimmer of warmth and sunshine and getting out and doing the things. It's like it's the renewal of oh my gosh, yes, life is totally doable and life is totally doable.

Speaker 3: 7:16

That is the takeaway, for sure for me, like it's okay, I can do this, I can handle this, I can take on more, even I can see a way through this.

Jess: 7:27

Yes, I love that feeling and, I have to say, today I have a little bit more of it too, and so I definitely think it's related to the weather.

Jess: 7:35

It's related to the sun, because, I mean, my flight got in at, I got home at 1230 in the morning, which is late, and also it had been a jam pack weekend, right, and I had normal life things to do this morning and I was just dragging. But after stepping outside I'm not even wearing a winter coat, I'm just wearing a little sweater. It is very, it is motivating, as you said, it is reminding me that I can kind of come out of this winter cocoon. But I mean, the flip side of that is that maybe we should just try to do less in the winter.

Speaker 3: 8:12

You know, oh yeah, oh, I've heard this theory.

Jess: 8:15

We should just really slow down, because things are just harder.

Speaker 3: 8:20

Yeah, I forget, it was either a podcast or it was a book I was listening to or something like that, but it was basically like there is a real case to be made for a human version of hibernation, yeah, of the year that are, you know, busy and and motivating and there's much to be done. I think you know, going way back in time, you could say that this was like you need to have the strength to like, plant the seeds and and do all the stuff that that spring and summer kind of require of you to literally live through the winter. But that there's. There's a true case to be made, like on a circadian seasonal sort of level, for having lower expectations of yourself in those other months.

Jess: 9:11

I think this it kind of touches on maybe what we talked about in the first episode, where you know, december was I really had a hard stop in December and I just kind of I know that I needed it, but I also I just needed to let go of that sense of urgency and I just I want to bring that into now where I mean I am motivated but also maybe I don't need to go pedal to the metal all the time.

Speaker 3: 9:39

Maybe that's. The flip side of the lesson is like slow down in the winter but also don't kill yourself in the spring and summer and fall Right.

Jess: 9:47

Maybe don't create a situation in which you are ready to fail catastrophically because you are so burned out. And I mean what a lesson for life in general, I mean taking on less, because our capacity varies day by day and we need to give ourselves space to have days that are less productive.

Speaker 3: 10:08

Yes, I think the problem with that, though, is is that it doesn't feel like a conscious choice when those days sort of hit us like. I know very few people that very purposefully take the time that they need when they have a moment like that. Maybe I just don't know those type of people, but, like most people I know are just going to press through, and then, when they do burn out, it feels out of their control. It feels like a necessary sort of like push, not pull you know what I mean Like where you're just, you're being, you're being flattened by it.

Jess: 10:45

Yes, and you're right that that is where you're just you're being, you're being flattened by it. Yes, and you're right that that is a pretty well-known, well-documented phenomenon. We have in my consulting hat. We have this system simulation that talks about something called the capability trap, and one of the underlying things in the capability trap is that we prioritize mission, what mission functions in, whatever our context is. So in the mom context, maybe, that's all of the things for the kids and we don't prioritize it's at the expense of the capacity building functions, and so things like self-care or taking that pause and and really saying, oh, I don't need to fill that time with something else, I can just take a pause. You're right, we don't do that because we're not accustomed to that and it does have to be intentional to build that habit.

Speaker 3: 11:36

Yeah, we need to take ourselves offline to to recover and to not and also to continue I think I've heard you say this before Like you don't have time to not take care of yourself.

Jess: 11:50

Essentially, oh, absolutely.

Speaker 3: 11:52

If you don't take the time up front to take care of yourself, you'll end up being down longer in the long term.

Jess: 12:00

Exactly.

Speaker 3: 12:01

You're missing that piece of you, or you're exhausted or you know, whatever the case may be.

Jess: 12:06

I would wager that anybody who's listening, any parent who's listening to this podcast, can recall a time when they worked so hard that they got sick. Yeah, and then their body just said nope you have flu, You're not going to be able to do that now.

Speaker 3: 12:24

And I mean there are very healthy people who also get very soon for me to be hearing this anecdote, right, right I mean it's maybe flu is not the right call.

Jess: 12:34

I used to work with somebody who would do that, where she would just she was go go, go, go, go, go go, until she crashed and then she was out for like a week and it's it's. It's a really tough pattern to get into as a person, but in an organizational unit too, because if you think about what happens when mom goes offline for a week, there are a lot of pieces that have to get picked up after the fact, and so it's not just that one week, it's like the week plus then all the time to return to normal.

Speaker 3: 13:06

Yeah, so basically I'm feeling a renewed uh I don't know optimism in some ways. I've just felt so kind of distracted and a little bit disoriented maybe in the last few weeks and something about, like, I think, one returning to a thing that I do routinely that I have not been able to do. That was big.

Speaker 3: 13:34

And then, like, like you said, like I was wearing a, a coat, I was hot, walking in my coat, and yesterday I took the kids down to the big city to down to DC, to go to the Smithsonian, and I didn't wear a coat at all, I just went in a sweater and I felt I felt almost subversive in that act. But I don't know, it's just, it felt really really just nice and I felt I felt almost subversive in that act. But I don't know, it's just, it felt really really just nice. And I'm not somebody who is typically somebody who suffers from cabin fever, because I like our spring fever, whichever, whichever one it is, because I like the winter, I really enjoy cold weather and so this I think the thing about it that was the most striking was that it hit me out of the blue, that I was like, oh, I didn't even recognize that I was feeling this way until it was sort of lifted.

Speaker 3: 14:22

So, anyway, it was just, it was just really nice and positive.

Jess: 14:29

I'm so glad. I'm so glad. It sounds like kind of both things. It's the sunshine, the warmth of weather, but then also returning to that habit that you've been away from. That, I think, is in some ways symbolic of returning back to yourself and your it is.

Speaker 3: 14:46

It is definitely one of the things that I'm good at, that is self-care.

Speaker 3: 14:51

There's a lot of things that I am not good at with self-care, but that's one of the things that I actually do do very well with typically, and so I think that's been a little bit of.

Speaker 3: 15:00

The thing that has kind of made me maybe backslide a little in the self-care department is because I didn't have that sort of touch point twice a day, 20 minute walks where I knew I was taking care of myself and like I feel like that shows up in so many other ways in the rest of your life too, at least for me.

Speaker 3: 15:20

When I don't take care of myself during the day, like during the workday, let's say, I just have back-to-back meetings and I'm just, you know, in one sense crushing it and another sense killing myself. You know, to get through my workday, you know to get through my workday. I have always seen a lack of patience on the home front after that, and when I can build in just the right balance of taking care of myself, which these two 20 minute walks tend to do, I am so much more patient and kind and respectful in my communication to my family. And does it hold true 100% of the time? Probably not, because I'm sure that there are evenings that just go off the rails because they go off the rails regardless of what I did.

Jess: 16:10

But it gives you a fighting chance, yeah, without those things.

Speaker 3: 16:14

It sets me up for success, whether I, whether I snatched a feat from the jaws of victory or not, you know, could be something else.

Jess: 16:22

Right. I mean I think things are going to go off the rails if they go off the rails. But sometimes the reason things go off the rails is because we don't have the capacity to do the thing to do, to do the thing. And I think, even if I will say for myself, I do sometimes notice that my patience is is lower in the evening, or I've been doing a lot of heavy work during the day and then my family kind of I won't say they get the worst of me, but like I've used up my reserves, during the day and then you know I don't really have very much left to give to my family and it when I have a full tank going into the evening.

Jess: 17:03

Those things can just float on by and it might happen, but they don't feel as disruptive for me. They don't feel like such a big deal. They don't feel like I need to correct or do anything Like I can. Just I'm more likely to just let my kids be kids, not nitpick how they're sitting at the dinner table, just kind of like I can ride the wave, yeah.

Speaker 3: 17:24

And so the wave doesn't really it's not them, it's really just us. It's totally internal to us, it's how we are interacting with our world. But but yeah, if you can set yourself up to like have the best possible chance at that, then it's just like happy begets happy, rather than stressed and crunched gets stressed and crunched gets stressed.

Jess: 17:58

Right, yeah, yeah. And then I think the question is, instead of like how do I fix my life? Which feels?

Speaker 3: 18:00

really big.

Jess: 18:01

The question is what do I need to have a full tank when I'm done at the end of the day? Exactly? Which is so much more manageable, especially if it's something as small as I need to leave my desk and walk outside, and I would say two 20 minute walks is probably even. I mean, I think that's probably more than I would need. Like, I would just need to. I could do a little quick little lap around my neighborhood and it would be life-giving.

Speaker 3: 18:22

Yeah, yeah, it really is, and it's just so funny that so much of that came like in this very, very, very small moment of my life. I turned the corner to come back around to the house because I have this loop, and as soon as I turned the corner, the sun was like straight on me, and it was in that moment that I was like I could feel like my pace just kind of like clicking just a little bit and I could feel like just a little bit of springiness in my heels. That wasn't there before, you know.

Jess: 18:52

Yeah, the sun gave you pep in your step it did.

Speaker 3: 18:55

I totally got pepped by the sun.

Jess: 18:57

So it was very lovely.

Speaker 3: 19:00

Yeah, it was very lovely and it was just. It was so nice to feel all those yummy things that I'm kind of just, you know, typically used to feeling like excited and motivated and looking forward to things and all of that kind of stuff. So it was just very nice. But what are you unpacking today?

Jess: 19:16

You know how, sometimes, like you notice something and then, because you notice it, you notice it more and then it's like now, this theme that you're, it's just happening everywhere all the time. That's what I feel like this is. So the context is my middle child, my seven-year-old, is all of my kids are. I love them so much.

Speaker 3: 19:40

They're very amazing people and I would have to agree with that. Yeah, sure.

Jess: 19:46

So her teacher also very amazing had all of the students fill out this star of the week sheet. They got to pick out what pattern they wanted. Then they took it home, they colored it, they filled it out. There's all these different questions. It's like what do I think? One of them is what do I want to be? This is a picture of me and my family. Maybe people are supposed to like attach a picture, but my daughter drew a picture which is great and so she just has there. It's hers looked like a pair of overalls and there were maybe six different things that she was drawing and her favorite food, just like an about me poster.

Speaker 3: 20:25

Yeah, it feels like scrapbook clickbait, like a teacher, like doing what they can to give the parents that like memento that they're going to want to reference back to for 20, 30, 40 years to come.

Jess: 20:39

Sure, but her teacher did it in a really smart way. Instead of randomly selecting the child of the star of the week and then sending the thing home to fill out over the weekend and come back on Monday, she gave everyone in the classroom at the beginning of the year and said take a week, fill it out, bring it back on back to school night. And so my daughter was star of the week a couple of weeks ago and her poster came back home and she put it. She taped it on the wall in the hallway and we all got to read it and I remember, as she was filling it out, I was kind of like, okay, that's an interesting choice, I think that all the time with my five-year-old also my middle child, right right.

Jess: 21:27

So what the teacher does during that is the student presents their about me and then everybody else in the class fills out another worksheet. That and this I didn't know about. It was something I learned about you. There's maybe another question. There were like two questions that these kids are filling out and then on the backside it's like here's a picture of us, and so I was flipping through this book and then she binds them together and so we have a whole book of all of her classmates. And the thing I learned about you was and then all these cool pictures on the back, and there were not many things. It's like I learned you want to be an ice cream server when you grow up.

Lisa: 22:14

I learned that your favorite food is fried rice.

Jess: 22:18

I learned that you love the jungle, which was also news to you, clearly, which was also news to me. I was like, huh, okay, interesting choice, and red pandas and koalas Again do not, I don't know where this came from, but okay, cool.

Jess: 22:36

But the one that really got me is, I would say 80% of the class responded with I learned that you are good at swimming and now my daughter works really hard and I'm so, I'm so proud of her. I mean, she really she puts in a lot of effort at swim lessons but I would say objectively, she is not a good swimmer and like she's working on it. You know this is like no shade, no judgment, no anything I would say for myself I am also.

Speaker 3: 23:11

I can swim. I am not a strong swimmer, it is not something I've really cared to accomplish in my life, but yeah sure.

Jess: 23:18

Sure, and I mean, I was at one point a fairly strong swimmer. Now I would say I'm not to your point. I can swim, I am not a swimmer.

Speaker 3: 23:29

Okay, you've checked the life box of like I probably won't die this way, I hope not I, that's.

Jess: 23:35

I mean right, right, so. So it was really interesting to me that under the I am good at box, that was what she selected. It's that. That in and of itself is interesting, yeah, but okay, so that's all the context. But it occurred to me that there are now 20 students, 20 kids, who believe that my daughter is good at swimming and there is nobody fact-checking this at all.

Jess: 24:07

Clearly, I was probably supposed to fact-check this and I did not. I fell down on that job on both the jungle front and the swimming front, but it got me thinking about what we present to the world and what we say, we do and who we are. This definitely connects to the values conversation that we had last week, but I would say I have seen other people who say that they are X, y or Z. I don't question it at all. In fact, if you were to ask me what do I know about that person, I would probably say they're good at the thing. Yeah, unless I had some sort of interaction with them that I could add richness to that conversation.

Jess: 24:55

But, like I mean, when, when my husband talks about his coworkers, he'll paint them in a certain way and I'll say like, oh yeah, that's the person who's really good at that thing and I just kind of trust that the judgment that my husband made about this person is really good at that thing is trustworthy and true and a very valid perception. And this happens all the time. It's people I see on LinkedIn, it is people that my family talks about, it's the reputation I guess that's what it is. It's the reputation and how much control we have over our own reputations. So that's kind of what I want to unpack is just like wow, what does that mean for how we exist kind of in community, and specifically for me and for us and for our listeners? What agency does that give us to shape what we are actually good at or what people perceive that we're good at?

Speaker 3: 25:57

Oh, totally. I think there's so many facets to this and one of them is just straight up confidence. And I think the confidence that we, all of us present to the world is like, I think, people I don't know I could be going out on a limb here, but I think when we present something as a fact about ourselves, people are more apt to see that be true. And I think this goes back to your very first comment about, like, confirmation bias and things like that, which is like when you're looking for the red car, you see red cars everywhere. You see red cars everywhere. Like when you're told that somebody is strong in a skill. I think, intuitively, we kind of look for that to be true. Now, in drawing attention to that, you might, as the observer, find that is in fact not true, because you're looking for it and you're able to, like, create more judgment around that thing, but I think the burden of proof is so much greater.

Lisa: 26:55

Yes, I think so too, in that way.

Jess: 26:57

Because this is something that somebody believes about themselves. And I mean, I love my daughter, I love that she believes that she's really good at swimming, and in her mind, who am I to tell? Of course, I wouldn't call that a question, no, but exactly.

Speaker 3: 27:09

You assume that people are the experts in themselves, right, and so in that, like any expert speaking on a talk show or something like that, you're going to give them the benefit of the doubt that if they are considered to be an expert, like every person is supposed to be in their own, you know life, that they probably know what they're talking about. And so if you tell me that you are a world champion crocheter, I'm going to say, well, one of those things I could probably fact check. You can click Google search, but otherwise, like I'm gonna guess, you're pretty freaking good at crochet and I have no reason to not believe you, unless, in fact, I know you're a liar.

Jess: 27:45

So, yeah, and so it kind of goes into. I think there's some element of self talk that's here, because if other people will just kind of believe what we tell them, then I think we owe it to ourselves to paint ourselves in a good light and highlight our strengths. I think there's a parenting aspect here of we owe it to our kids to to help them develop positive self-talk so that they can be confident when they say I am kind, or I am a good friend or or whatever. Uh, and then yeah, I. I think maybe, as we're interacting with the world, I'm finding it fascinating to like look through that lens. What am I? What judgments not judgments in a bad way, but like what information am I taking in about this person that they are? Because they're telling me or because they're showing me? Which? Which assertions can I make based on empirical experience, or is it just?

Speaker 3: 28:50

what they're giving. Yeah, I think showing is one of those things that if you observe it long enough, it's way stronger than telling. But I think if you don't observe the person long enough, then hearing them kind of like come out with a certain like you said assertion about themselves or their skills is going to be much more impactful than waiting a long time to see whether or not they are in fact that thing, and so you're going to assume that that's the truth from the beginning, rather than needing evidence of it over time. But, yeah, yeah, there's.

Speaker 3: 29:24

There really is so much to unpack in this concept of strengths, because, when you look at, I think there's a lot of research that's actually been done about this, but it brings to mind the idea of smiling making you happier. Oh for sure, right, which is like proven that if you smile, you will in fact feel more happy. Yes, and I would be so curious to see whether something like this, like you said, like positive self-talk, like if she is claiming to the world that she is a good swimmer, I would bet she's going to be a better swimmer than she would have been had she not made this claim that she's a good swimmer. Yes, I absolutely agree.

Jess: 30:05

And now there are 20 kids who are thinking like, yeah, she's a good swimmer, so now she's got to be a good swimmer, otherwise she's a liar. She's letting all of those people who believe that she's a good swimmer Otherwise she's a liar. She's letting all of those people who believe that she's a good swimmer down. It is so interesting.

Speaker 3: 30:21

So then that goes into like there's like that manifestation.

Speaker 3: 30:24

So there's like confidence, there's actual strengths and skills, and then there's expectations that kind of get get put along with that too.

Speaker 3: 30:32

So yeah, I think I think there is there's much to be said there and I think you've done a lot of work. When it comes to strengths, you know way more about this topic than I could probably ever hope to know. But you know, it's claiming that you have a strength in something, there's a power in that, and and pursuing that. Now, if you don't actually have a strength in that thing, then pursuing it is kind of silly if you don't have a natural inclination to that. But I think that was something that I really learned when I when I did a kind of a quick Clifton strengths course, which I'm pretty sure I didn't even finish, if I'm honest. I kind of used it for the assessment and moved on with my life. But you know, in reading the book it was like people waste a lot of time not pursuing the things that they're good at and instead pursuing the things that they're not good at instead, because they want to be good at them.

Jess: 31:31

There's a bit of a paradigm shift in there, and I think that's at the core of the CliftonStrengths philosophy that if you are trying to raise up your weaknesses instead of strengthening the things that come naturally to you, then you're wasting a lot of there's a lot of effort there where you could just you can tap into things that are innate within you and have a better result.

Jess: 31:54

I think that is that is true. I have some mixed feelings about CliftonStrengths, not in a like it's a fine assessment, a fine tool, but I think there there's more granularity and nuance that can be added to how we view strengths as tools in our toolbox versus things that we are innately good at, because I think there's some intentionality that can be brought that is probably present in CliftonStrengths but that really ties the strengths to who we are and how we're motivated, instead of just. I wish that CliftonStrengths tied in more to our values and had more nuance in how we interact with others in the strength space.

Jess: 32:43

But I could probably talk about that for a long time.

Speaker 3: 32:46

The values piece kind of comes in and like what we choose to put effort into. So I believe don't quote me, but I believe it's Malcolm Gladwell who wrote about the 10,000 hours that if you put 10,000 hours worth of effort into something, you will be better than, like, some percentage and I'm going to get this completely wrong but, like, say, 95% of people, you will be better at it than that percentage of people. You will be better at it than that percentage of people.

Jess: 33:29

And so if your daughter put 10,000 hours towards being a good swimmer, she probably would be a very, very strong swimmer, despite her natural strength or lack of strength. You put you. Anytime you have more time on target, you're gonna. You're practicing, you're gonna get better and and I think it's just, if you are practicing something that you're already good at, you're gonna get astronomically better, and if you practice something that you are not innately good at, you will get better. But it there, it's going to be effortful and and this is not commentary on her capacity to be a good swimmer I think she has capacity to be a good swimmer. It's that she believes that she is a good swimmer and presents herself in that way to us to make sure that she has time on target so that she can deliver on that and continue to grow and get better. But it's, it's like it's the self view, yeah, and then sharing with the world in that way, but I mean, I think that does to tie it all the way back.

Speaker 3: 34:28

You know about positive self-talk and about the power of positive self-talk in that. Okay, let's just say for a minute that you guys decided to tell her and I'm not saying that she is, but let's just say you decided to tell her she's a mediocre swimmer, right? Not, she's a fantastic swimmer, you're doing so great, you're wonderful at this, all of that positivity that I'm sure exists all around her. But instead said like look, it's not your thing, it's cool, it's not everybody's thing, maybe find something you're better at and like only only in an experiment way. I'm not saying to do this like only in a conceptual model of like what, what? Then? Dedicated time, let's say she did really want to be a good swimmer and she did want to dedicate all that time, but she's not naturally good at it. All of that time and effort would then be put towards something that she, theoretically, if she found something let's say art that she is really naturally good at, and how much further would that 2,000, 5,000 hours go? I don't know.

Jess: 35:38

Yeah. I mean I cannot imagine telling her that she's I'm not going to burst this bubble. I can just imagine her the deflation that comes with that. But I think there are probably a lot of times that that has happened, where the person has just doubled down, yeah, has happened. Where the person has just doubled down, yeah, and to prove that they are a good swimmer in spite of this other person's estimation. I also think it's pretty damaging to carry that and to think like I mean, swimming is an example that's probably not so high stakes.

Jess: 36:12

But if I think about more personality attributes, I mean I remember it was just a passing comment that was said to me once that I remember you never think before you speak and I learned that I was not a thoughtful person from that experience and that is just so not true about me in that I am typically very careful with my words and thoughtful in how I speak. That self-talk was not questioned until I was 30 years old, which is just man. That is such a long time to carry something like that. So I do think there's a lot of power in words and power in how we communicate with others, but I just kind of carry it. I'm like oh well, there I go again, being thoughtless and how I communicate, or being impulsive or whatever.

Speaker 3: 37:10

I literally can't imagine that ever being the case. Literally can't imagine that ever being the case, but it does make me wonder whether you have really made a choice to be that way, since getting that possibly erroneous, possibly not erroneous feedback that made you decide. I am not going to be that type of person who can be perceived as thoughtless in my words. I am going to be incredibly intentional with everything that I say. I am going to be incredibly intentional with everything that I say and whether or not that actually made you become more that way.

Jess: 37:40

There was an amount of intentionality in that, where I was trying to prove that person wrong, yeah, and so I was intentionally working on that. But I also think that those words were very carelessly delivered.

Lisa: 37:57

For sure.

Jess: 38:00

And that this is the role of, like a deeper feedback conversation, where yeah, in a loving way and not in a flippant sort of like you always do this thing. Exactly. I mean, as an adult, I look back on that exchange and of course, that conversation was not at all about me, right? No part of that exchange was about me or my actions. Isn't that nice?

Speaker 3: 38:21

when you get introspection and you can actually look back and be like oh, that actually had nothing to do with me. That's cool.

Jess: 38:26

Right, but that thought lived rent free in my head for over 20 years before it was even questioned. And the only reason it even came up was because I was with a friend and I made some comment of like oh well, you know I'm not very thoughtful, or something like that, and she was like the record scratched, conversations ground to a halt. She loved me enough to call that into question in the moment. And we don't have somebody who's doing that all the time and we're not bringing to light those stories that we've been telling ourselves all the time. We're probably not even aware of most of the stories that we're telling ourselves all the time.

Speaker 3: 39:11

Good and bad apparently.

Jess: 39:13

Good and bad, right and, and so I think you know letting her continue. I mean, I think maybe what she was saying at at its core was I really like to swim, which is great. And if she really likes to swim then I will let her continue, having that. Whether or not she's good at it kind of doesn't matter, but it's where that interest and that motivation is and kind of following that energy, so that I think if we have all of the other voices, if they kind of pop out of our head naturally, with some introspection and some natural experimentation, we will find those things that we are innately good at or innately drawn to.

Jess: 40:04

It's just that people try to put us in a box all the time from the moment that we're born and and it's so. It's funny. There's this like this concept with little babies about being in a container and how babies move from one container to another container, and I think that's in like a literal, physical sense. But I think we move as people from container to container based on our relationships, and we don't often define what those containers are, but it doesn't feel always within our control to define the container.

Speaker 3: 40:36

We don't often define what those containers are, but it doesn't feel always within our control to define the container. We feel in the container and the container is self-defining of us.

Jess: 40:51

Yeah, I think we start to exist in different systems that have different expectations. We go to school, we have our family, maybe we have church. We have all of these different containers that we're operating in, and it's hard to find consistency of self among all of those, especially before it is developmentally appropriate to have a concept of self that pervades all of our different contexts. Yeah, but I think my takeaway in this is that maybe we have a lot more control over that container, yeah, than we think we do, because all we have to do is like say that we're good at something and we will become known for that thing, and then we will want to be good at that thing, and then we will continue to. That will then be a talent that we share with the world.

Speaker 3: 41:40

So yeah, I'm very interested to see how, how and in what ways this evolves in her life and how you know if she does decide to keep this as a as a core piece of her. You know abilities in the future, like is she going to define herself as, like, the good swimmer person and our people are going to know her as the good swimmer person and I don't know. I'm very interested to follow up Right as this develops you know right, she watched in you know 10 years.

Speaker 3: 42:14

she'll be Katie Ledecky and we'll all be eating our 13 Olympic medal or however many she got so many.

Jess: 42:27

Or maybe this is when the narrator pops in and like flashes back to her about me in first grade.

Lisa: 42:34

She said I don't know, I don't know, I don't know katie ledecky.

Jess: 42:37

I'm sure she's very lovely. She seems like a very lovely person indeed, right, and she is objectively very good at swimming.

Speaker 3: 42:44

Objectively, I think, very good I think we can use basically any measure that currently exists to say that she is very good at swimming. Yeah, this is great too. Too mediocre at best. Swimmers talking about the merits of swimming, it's not Well it just keeps you wondering.

Speaker 3: 43:03

If you tuned into this podcast to hear experts talking about talking about things they know a great deal about, you are going to be very upset with yourself, Perhaps in the wrong place, that's right are going to be very upset with yourself, or perhaps in the wrong place, that's right.

Jess: 43:16

But now, like you know, there's this. You got to think big. I'm thinking like what would I tell the world about me? To kind of manifest it or to put myself on people's radars. And now it feels intentional. Now it feels like a choice where I, you know, I have a tagline and I have a thing, and I'm on LinkedIn and I've got out my website, but is that really the message that I want to give? Is that really the message I? That's the thing that I want people to know.

Speaker 3: 43:52

I don't know. Here's what you got. Here's what you got to do. You got to march down to the first grade class and you got to get one of those about me pages, oh yeah.

Speaker 3: 44:01

And you can fill it out and then the rest of the world can learn something new about you, I guess, and it would be interesting. As adults, I think we do it in little ways. We do things like ice breakers, which everyone pretty uniformly hates that idea of maybe it's containerizing yourself down to a soundbite or two of who you are, and I think it feels like a lot of pressure sometimes. But if we thought about it like first graders, think about it and say I'm good at this and maybe it's as much as I like doing this and therefore it's one of my strengths, because I like it, I enjoy it, I spend my time doing it on the weekends.

Speaker 3: 44:47

I think knowing yourself really well is beneficial and also, like you said, like there is something to that positive talk of telling yourself this is something that I want to be true, right, and kind of have a little bit of maybe slightly delusional thinking about it, maybe, maybe, just a little bit of delusion is good.

Jess: 45:12

Maybe or or maybe that's where. So we? One of the things we were talking about kind of before we started recording was an interaction I had with a coaching mentor who said you have an edge. Sharpen that edge and use that as a, as a way to build your business or whatever. And I mean I don't really know necessarily what that edge is, but maybe, maybe this is part of it, maybe this is like what if I were to fill out that star of the week thing and say I am really good at this? I mean, I don't know, I am a really good listener, I am a really good synthesizer of information. You know that feels very abstract, but it definitely gives me food for thought of. Maybe that is where I should be starting.

Jess: 46:10

You know, I kind of went into this really big abstract what is my philosophy, what's my purpose, what is my process? And and maybe it's just not so maybe it needs to be more simple, yeah.

Speaker 3: 46:23

Yeah, I think I think starting simple is almost never a bad bad way to go. And I'm not sure that I could fill it out for myself either. I was just sitting here, of course you know, like we all do when we're trying to listen to somebody else. Just think about ourselves, you know, trying to say like I have absolutely no idea what I would put in that category. Maybe we need to fill it out for each other. Well, that would be way easier for me. I would. I would have no like. I would be to like use the back of the page if I was going to do that. But if I was doing it for myself, I would struggle. And I don't think it's lack of self-awareness, I think it's when you put ideas down on a piece of paper or you commit, in the way that your daughter did, to saying I am good at swimming, it feels final, it feels like an overture to the world.

Jess: 47:12

It is definitely a bold, bold declaration to say, but maybe we need a little bit more bold declarations in life.

Speaker 3: 47:22

I would say women in particular do. I would say that is definitely something that we need, especially women who are in a leadership capacity which you can define any which way you like to define it. But yeah, absolutely, we should be more than willing to say this is a skill of mine, I am good at this, I am an expert at this. If you feel that strongly, and I'm here to help you figure this out, because I know what I'm talking about, I don't know, I would be. I think it'd be better.

Jess: 47:58

Yeah, I think there it's an aspect of self-awareness to know how you are perceived by other people and to know what other people perceive your strengths are. And that's actually something I really like about StrengthsFinder as an assessment is that I don't think I necessarily had the vocabulary for the things that I was good at, because I just kind of did them, they just felt very normal. But strategic is my number one strength and so I mean I knew that, I knew that I was strategic, but I didn't really know how other people received that strategic and maybe what I needed to do to dial it down to bring people along with me. So that was really helpful and I think so building vocabulary but then also understanding how other people receive you is super important.

Speaker 3: 48:50

It is. It's the other side of the coin, because we don't move through the world in a vacuum. We move through the world in every interaction that we have with every other living being that we have. So, yeah, I think it. You can't. You can't say that, like your strengths get to exist, agnostic of other people's view of them. It doesn't work like that, unless you're in first grade, in which case you can say I'm really good at something and everyone will believe you and go along with it, especially since it really can't be verified in the classroom.

Jess: 49:23

It is unverifiable, but I would say probably a lot of things are unverifiable until we get into relationship with other people. And so bringing being really sure about ourself and what we're bringing into the space is helpful, but then recognizing that we exist in relationship with other people and that that is where the rubber meets the road, or we further dichotomize those containers to be a work self and a home self, or I don't know that dichotomize is the right word because I think that implies, you know, opposite ends of the spectrum, but certainly that compartmentalization of self and how we exist in, in our but just think how different our interactions might be if we thought, before going into them, about the things we're really good at and about the things that we want to showcase about ourselves in those interactions like that's a game changer in the in the 10 seconds before you have an interaction with somebody, exactly it's.

Jess: 50:33

I haven't thought about this conversation in a long time, but I had a mentor at one of my companies who was also very strategic, and he said to me pretty much something similar to that. You know, you have to think about the version of yourself that you present in each of these interactions, because that it's like you can say you're one way, but that's in this building relationship, that's how you're going to demonstrate that over time, they are already primed to see you in that way, because you've said that that is what it is. But now you can be intentional about what you show, and I think that that I hadn't really I haven't thought about that conversation in so long. But bringing it into this space like, yes, that is what that is. That's the secret sauce. You have this positive self regard of what you're already good at.

Jess: 51:27

You go into a space, you do a little 10 second prep ahead of time and you say what do I want this person to know? And most of the time in my coachy brain I'm not thinking what do I want this person to know? And most of the time in my coachy brain I'm not thinking what do I want them to know about me? I'm thinking what can I learn about them? And so that is kind of in and of itself a little bit of a paradigm shift. But then, going into all these other things, all these other aspects of my life, I can kind of take that, take that with me and just yeah, but but on the same line of what you just said, what can I learn about them?

Speaker 3: 52:01

What you, what you are bringing, is. I want them to walk out of this thing knowing that I was interested in who they were and that I wanted more of who they were in this conversation, and that's putting it back on yourself, putting it back on them in this very right, right right sort of way. But yeah, that's exactly like. You want them to know that you're interested in them and that's a strength that you're bringing is somebody who is interested in other people.

Jess: 52:28

That's, that's the curiosity. That's yeah, and maybe that's how that value shows up for me, up for me in those types of situations, absolutely Well, thanks so much for unpacking that. I know we are spending more time. It's maybe a little bit of a format shift. We're going to try it out where we spent most of today's time unpacking my thing and then, when we connect next, we'll spend more time unpacking your thing and see how that goes with the flow.

Speaker 3: 52:59

Yeah, I think, at the end of the day, we're going to, we're going to go with the conversation and the. The unpacking leads us as always. Yes, as always.

Jess: 53:08

Exactly. Well, I will see you at the other book end of this week.

Speaker 3: 53:14

Yes, you will definitely see me then and probably before then.

Jess: 53:19

Probably before.

Speaker 3: 53:21

Well, thanks, lise. All right, I love you. Thanks, jess, love you, bye, Bye. Hey, it's Jess and Lisa.

Lisa: 53:28

We've got stories to share From our hearts to your ears. Lots to unpack there. Tune in every week you won't wanna miss. Dive deep into life with Jess and Lisa.

Jess: 54:09

Sound effect era. For those who are listening, I have determined that I am in my sound effect era. This is just another example of that.