You know how every home has that one spot, the place you think
about throughout the day where you can finally exhale?
For me, it's my bed. But here's The funny thing, It's
not just my bed anymore. Be honest.
Who in your house tries to sneak into your bed the most?
At mine, it's a toss up between my husband and my daughters.
And I get it. Like, it's technically my
husband's bed too, but it's my bed, you know?
But I get it. Because of the cozy earth
sheets. And I have the silk comforter
and the linen duvet cover on the silk comforter.
It's like being the VIP lounge of the house.
It's like sleeping on a cloud and being wrapped in a cloud
hug. And I just love it so much.
In fact, as I'm sharing this with you, I want to go and lie
in bed right now. Their sheets, as I've shared
with you, are made from viscos from bamboo, and they naturally
Wick away heat and moisture, so you sleep several degrees
cooler. That means even on those nights
when it feels impossible to get comfortable, I actually wake up
refreshed. Thank goodness, because I need
to wake up feeling that way. And it's not just the blanket,
of course. You can get any of their
blankets like the bubble Cuddle blanket or as I've shared, I
have the silk comforter. It's a really true full on
experience. The bubble cuddle blanket, in
fact, has such a plush texture and midway feel that it's
perfect for curling up in the bedroom or draped across the
couch as a cozy centerpiece for all of your guests.
And we're approaching fall, which is my favorite season, and
then winter is my second favorite season.
So that means that it is the perfect time to cozy if I, as I
like to say, your homes. And honestly, it makes those
mornings when you just can't get out of bed even harder.
And that's kind of the point when life feels stressful.
That's the spot I can't wait to retreat to.
My cozy earth bed feels different.
It's where my comfort and comfort for my family lives.
And once you try it, I guarantee you, you'll never want to go
back. The best part of course is that
there is 0 risk. You get a 100 night sleep trial.
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heard about Cozy Earth right here.
Because your bed should be more than just a place to sleep.
It should be your happy place too.
Cozy Earth makes that possible. Welcome to the bringing the
human back to human resources podcast.
I'm Tracy Chernoff, and I've spent my entire professional
career in HR. Each week, we'll explore the
delicate balance between people and business with the aim to
reconnect the two and create meaningful outcomes.
Listen in as I share my own experiences, challenge the
status quo, and chat with guests from various industries about
our mission to bring the human back to human.
Resources. Hi, everyone.
Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here
for another week. If you are watching on Spotify
or YouTube, don't forget to give this video a review or a thumbs
up, whatever you got to do. And if you're listening, you can
still make sure you're subscribed and you can also give
a review like on Apple Podcasts and all the other places.
Either way, I think this is going to be an episode that
you'll want to share with someone that you love or someone
in HR. Because we're going to talk a
lot about preventing burnout. And not just that, we're going
to talk about how HR is often this shield for all of the stuff
and chaos and craziness that might happen within an
organization that we are inevitably blocking other people
from and what that means and how you keep your, how you keep
your, keep your Shields from having cracks in its, in its
facade, right? So in order to talk about this,
I have a guest with me. Her name is Lindsay Karnick.
She's an LCSWMSWMA and the owner of Onward Psychological
Services, a Colorado based private practice providing
psychotherapy to adult individuals and couples in 10
states across the United States. In addition to her anxiety and
stress management specialties, Lindsay sees clients for
depression, anger, life stage changes and issues.
She also presents workshops nationally at conventions,
retreats, and public and private events on practical and tactical
stress management and other topics impacting professionals,
such as related to stress, work life balance, effective
communication, and other topics. Lindsay earned her Master of
Social Work degree from the Graduate School at Indiana
University, Purdue University in Indianapolis, and a Master of
Arts degree in American Studies from Purdue University.
She has served as a counselor for a wide range of individuals
from high stress backgrounds, including military leadership,
attorneys, professional athletes, incarcerated
individuals, business owners, physician couples, tech
printers, and working parents. So basically anyone because
everyone has some sort of stress and stress management.
And by the way, she is an avid reader, writer, runner, and
loves spending time with her family and friends.
Lindsay's superpower is eating dry cereal straight
out-of-the-box. I share in that superpower with
you. I love a dry cereal.
Get us some of those. We, you know what someone,
someone have Cheerios sponsor the podcast or like Honey Nut
Cheerios specifically. What's your favorite cereal?
Rice Jacks. Oh, those are good.
Those are good. Or it's aggressive cousin, which
is the Quaker Oats Square. No, I'm not.
The Quaker of Square is a lot like a rice check.
Not rice based, but it's more it's more robust in a way.
They fight back. A little more Oh, I love a
robust square. Against you, right?
Actually, it's an Octagon. How crazy is that?
How do My question is if anyone from like General Mills can just
chime in. I want to know how do they make,
how do they cut the cereal like perfect little, you know, like
I've thought about it. Can I make my own Cheerios for
my kids? You can.
I happen to know that you can.
This is. This is.
Available but like. What are you doing on intro
Teeny? Tiny little.
Circle Yes, you do. You make every single little O
which we. Love.
Oh my gosh, you know there's some. 5.
Yeah, right, right, right. Well, if they're my kids,
they'll grab handfuls, shove them in their mouths and then
throw them all over the floor. Then you better just and then
eat them. Yeah, right.
I think that's I think that's the way to go.
But this is this is good too, no, you know.
Family size, sister that's. What That's Yeah, right.
I love the family size from Costco.
Also, I will say another shout out to cereal.
This is a very sugary cereal, but the pops, you know that like
the corn pops of. Course slogan.
Gotta have my pops. Gotta have my pops.
It's true. And you know what?
I'm salivating at the thought I probably should buy some.
Oh, I'm gonna have to buy some with like whole milk pops and
then you just. And some of them are crispy and
some. OK.
Anyway, we are here to talk. This is how you manage stress
you find I think. We're here to talk about cereal.
I think it's a change of plans. I think so.
Maybe we should change our plans.
This is now a Serial podcast. That's funny.
That's very clever. Yeah, right.
Anyway, Lindsay, thank you so much for being here and for
sharing your favorite cereal cereals with us.
How should we start off this topic?
Like where did obviously as a as a psychotherapist and having
this background, there is this element to what you do and
focusing on the, the person behind the emotions and the work
and all of that. But when you think about like
the workplace and HR specifically, where where do you
start in in this thought around like preventing burnout?
Well, I think it's helpful to start by acknowledging the
realities of what it means to be in that position, which is
somewhat unique in the sense that, you know, you mentioned
SHIELD and you and I were talking about that HR folks are
in a really unique position, which is they're shielding 2
groups of people in both directions, right?
In some ways, they're serving both the organization, but also
the individuals who sometimes may be a cross purposes, right,
or may have contending interests.
And nobody goes into HR because they don't like people, right?
And so you have this lovely group of people who want to be
helpful and want to expedite a good experience for, for people
coming in and people you know on at the top and, and sometimes
their interests aren't in alignment.
And that is really hard on the people in the middle, which is
ultimately HR, right? How, how does one function in
this environment where you care about all these people?
And sometimes their interests are at cross purposes, right?
Or their perceptions of how things should or shouldn't be or
what is fair or unfair are not in alignment.
That's really hard. And it's particularly hard if
you're a nuanced person who can see all sides of an issue,
right? You can go like, well, I mean, I
get that. I get what they're saying and I
get where they're coming from, right?
And now, now here we are. It's sort of an impasse or a
perceived impasse where feelings are high.
Perhaps the stakes are high. Sometimes the stakes are very
high. And that's a really rough
position to be in, especially for people who care.
So it's ironic that this is a field full of people who care,
who are destined to be giving bad news to someone, if not
everybody. Yeah, isn't that funny?
I never thought about it that way.
It's rough. It's really rough.
Yeah, some people really struggle with it.
Like people I have seen people who have had really successful
careers in HR just do one too many or handle one too many
employee relations issues and then or one too many reductions
in force. And that's kind of it for their
careers. They're like, all right, I'm
moving on. And I do think that there is an
element to this, to this job, but also to what we're talking
about where people do have to create healthy boundaries.
And I've talked about it on my podcast, just from my own
experience that sure, I've had moments where I've had to
furlough or layoff people and I, I cry at the end of the day
because it's really hard. And you have to like release
that. This is how I release emotion.
I have like, you know, rather than scream, I'd rather cry.
I can scream too, but I'd rather not do that.
And when you get to a point in your career where you're like,
OK, this is how I actually cope with it without necessarily
having to do that. That's something that I've
learned over time is how to cope in anticipation of those things
and how to kind of reconcile the emotion and be able to execute
my job in sometimes a way that can be difficult without taking
it home. And that's the thing that you do
ultimately learn over time. I certainly have.
I haven't necessarily cried over work in a quite a long time.
But I think also, if you don't learn it and you don't like you
have to experience it to learn it.
But if you if you also don't walk away with that knowledge,
then you are ultimately going to end up at a place where you're
at a crossroads. Like do I continue this or do I
stop? Right, for sure.
And perhaps there's a component of, of chaplaincy in a way to
this role. I, you know, when I think about
chaplains, particularly in hospitals, right, chaplains are
called in to sit with people through difficult times.
They cannot prevent the difficult times.
That's not in their control, right?
The chaplain cannot change what's happening in a operating
room or an emergency room, any of those places where chaplains
are called to, right? That's that's not their role,
but they can have an impact on that person's quality, the
quality of their experience by being with them through it, not
by trying to solve it right or, or make it something it's not.
Nobody can do that. It is what it is, right?
And I think sometimes we underestimate in our in our
lovely person. I I hate to see people suffer.
I hate to people see, see people sad way we sort of get fixated
on the idea like, well, this is just a bad situation.
So this person's going to feel bad, right?
And that's largely true often. And also, that doesn't mean that
in any one of a number of roles, we can't be with people through
things in a way that sort of makes their experience more
palatable, right? We can be a companion with them
and that's very valuable. You don't have to be able to
tell somebody, oh, actually turns out you're not getting
furloughed. If you can sit with them in that
moment, right? And just be company, be good
company for something that's difficult, that's incredible,
incredibly meaningful to people. People aren't dumb, right?
They know that that you didn't make this decision or it's not
you're not doing it to them. They're not asking you, no
matter how distressed they are to make it not So they realize
even even if maybe that comes out right in a moment of, you
know, panic or catharting, they know you don't have control over
that. But what you do have control
over is how you are with them in that moment.
And that can have profound, profoundly positive implications
for how they're, they're bigger experiences, just like going
through anything else difficult, right?
If you're in a hospital setting and something sad is happening,
it makes a big difference how the people in that hospital
interact with you. Whether they can change the
outcome of the sad thing or not is not, is not the issue, right?
How are they with you in that setting?
And that's something I think we all have a tremendous degree of
influence on anywhere, anytime in our lives, right?
When we can't fix something or solve something, but we can
influence the course of that persons experience within it
just by showing up in a certain way, we don't.
Fix it. This is a great point.
I've never thought about it with that analogy before, but it
makes a lot of sense. And I also think about how this
is really indicative of the difference between empathy and
sympathy. And that sympathy.
Look, I am not an expert on this, but, and this is not a
technical definition, but to me, sympathy is kind of when you
take on some of that emotion and you feel the emotion, you, you
sympathize for someone. So it's it's not just like with
empathy to me, it's like demonstrating I need to like a
want to understand and be able to be there or like support
someone and have consideration for someone, but you're not
putting yourself so much in their shoes that you're then
also feeling what they feel. Is that fair?
Yes, I think it's fair. Like I think and I think people
might have various iterations of empathy versus sympathy, right?
But I think what you're saying is absolutely accurate.
There's a difference between being with somebody through
something and it versus experiencing it directly, right?
And in a way, I think it's helpful.
You know, empathetic people tend to do that by default, right?
They just sort of vicariously soak up what else is going on
around them, right? And it can be very hard not to
sort of sponge, sponge that up. And we might say that being
overly empathetic, experiencing what that person's experiencing
is not helpful to them. That would be like if you were
in a, if two people were in a raft and one person fell
overboard. And so the other one's like,
wait, I'll jump in too. Yeah, like, no, no, no, no, stay
in the boat. Please talk from life vest.
Be helpful. Do not get in there and start
splashing around with them, right.
Somebody has to stay in the boat to rescue the other person, so
to speak. And so if you want to be helpful
to somebody who's having a hard time, you need to stay in the
boat, right? To some degree, you need to stay
in the boat so you can help them, You can assist them, you
can reach out to them, you can present them with any number of
supports and and helps to get back in the boat.
But if you jump into the water with them, it's probably going
to get worse, not better, right? And perhaps some people, in
fact, you know, I, I know this, some people do worry that if
they're not in there with the other person, it's like a lack
of solidarity or showing a lack of care, like no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no. It's the opposite of that,
right? If you care, you will stay in
the boat where you can help this person as opposed to being in
the water where you're both kind of flailing around inhaling
water and. Not doing great, right, Right.
Yeah, that's another great analogy.
And of course, if anyone thinks similarly to me, I was like,
This is why you put on your own oxygen mask before you put on
other people's oxygen masks. I just, it doesn't also bring me
to a thought where some, and you kind of touched on this too,
when people are overly empathetic.
I think I just recently did an episode on the by the time our
episode comes out, it's not so recent, but I did an episode in
the spring where I talked about some of the misconceptions to
being in HR and that sometimes people choose this career.
They think that it's all about caring for people.
It's all about helping people. And it's not really that like
you have that. If you, if you like those
things, you'll probably like being in HR depending on the
role that you're in. But it's a whole industry, let
alone an entire career with many different kind of points of, of
like forks in the road, let's say, where you can start out in
one thing and you can go into these different specialties.
And, and I say all of that to mention that I think sometimes
people in HR and also people who are not in HR, but are people
leaders, they think that being overly empathetic to your point
is how they demonstrate their care for their team member or
their people that they're, you know, kind of taking care of or
representing. And to your point, when people
do too much of that, it, it, it inhibits them, I think.
And in my experience in HR, when I used to handle a lot of
employee relations issues, which basically is, you know, a way of
handling a lot of conflict. And so you are effectively like
an expert conflict resolver and you're an expert in conflict
resolution. And people in HR either love
employee relations and handling those things or they hate it.
And I was someone who really loved it because I felt like I
was able to solve problems, which then kind of in turn
relates to people who then want to go into a more strategic
role. Again, all of this to say that
in roles like that, where you're really dealing with people and
their nuance and all of their flaws and all of the things that
you know, it's a very, it's very Gray.
You have to be able to manage a lot of emotion and a lot of
different stories or a lot of different facts, quote UN quote
facts. And when you overly empathize,
you can sometimes lose sight of what is real, what is fact, and
what your responsibility is in that moment.
Like when you're in a very high, highly emotional environment
because you're dealing with two people who had a relationship
and then one person said that they didn't consent.
And now you're dealing with a lot of emotions because two
people are saying their own side of the truth and both things
could be incorrect. You have to, you can't actually
empathize. You have to fully remove your
own emotions from things like that.
So I think it's, it is it, it adds another layer of what we
understand to be our roles in HR and for people leaders.
Because again, when you overly empathize, depending on the
situation you're in, you could be doing the opposite of what is
your job. Yeah, it makes you less
effective, not more. We could compare it to being a
cheerleader versus being a coach, right?
Nobody's gonna say either of those.
Those are not meant to be the same role, right?
It's very clear what cheerleaders do and what coaches
do, right? And if you, a cheerleader has to
be somebody who's not in a coaching role because a coach
may have to give you some feedback, that doesn't fall into
the realm of cheerleading, right?
Hopefully your coach can cheerlead.
Yeah, But your cheer, the person who's just, like, hyping you up
is probably not going to be the one to give you the feedback
that you need to grow. Exactly.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that makes sense.
Those things, yes, 100%. So I think that is difficult and
when maybe we can always say that we can empathize on a high
level 100,000 foot view that this is very difficult for
everyone. Like clearly none of these
parties wants to be in this situation and we can feel
tremendous empathy and even sadness that two people find
themselves in that situation. Nobody wants to be there, right?
Clearly something has gone wrong.
Right where? We're at and that's sad, right?
That is super sad. And it's sad that it has gotten
to this point where, you know, this person in HR is seeing them
and now it's conflict, you know, and mediation and all of these
things. That's all very sad, Sad.
And we can be sad about that without getting invested in one
of the storylines. Totally.
Like this is not a drama like this is.
Yeah. Or like a Real Housewives show,
like some of my favorite shows where I'm very deeply invested
in all these people storylines. But that is not the case when we
are actually dealing with real people's lives and how we help
to mediate those things. Yeah, it's, it's a good point.
And I guess we could also flip the script and say that when you
lack empathy and when you don't have enough empathy, depending
on the circumstance that you're in and probably every
circumstance, you're also going to find a lack of efficacy in
your role. Absolutely.
I think that's true for 900% of roles in general, right.
But but particularly in the, in the line of work, we're talking
about being able to dial in and read the subtext and see people,
right? And sometimes see past what
they're saying to what they're meaning, right?
Because sometimes people are meaning something that's not
quite what they're communicating.
And that can be a little bit of a red herring.
And they're not doing it intentionally.
They're probably doing it to save face.
They're probably doing it because of their pride or their
something they're embarrassed of, right.
And so if we can empathize with how difficult it is for anyone
to come forward and voice a concern, right?
That's difficult. Even people, you know, I think
it's interesting. Even people, you know, you think
about, I don't know, maybe somebody who routinely
complaints at restaurants, right?
Like I want to talk to the manager.
I want to talk to the manager. I want to talk to the manager.
I want to talk to the manager, right?
Like superficially we could say, oh, that person really is
comfortable with feedback, right?
And is really comfortable sort of bringing.
That at least giving it, yeah. Exactly.
At least giving it and if you're, if that's, you know, the
same Applebee's and you know the same manager is getting drug out
every night or every Monday night to hear from this one
person, they're going to get pretty cheesed off.
Pretty quickly, right? Yeah.
Like pick another establishment. Absolutely.
Exactly. Clearly when you're not happy
here, right? Like, but with your feet,
please. But we could also say like, oh
wow, what is it? And this is a form of empathy,
right? It's a form of curious empathy
to kind of say to oneself, huh, wow, that must be doing
something for that person. And that's sad.
Yeah. Like that says something else
about what needs of theirs aren't getting met in the rest
of the world or in the rest of their life, that every Monday,
like clockwork, they're in here complaining about Applebee's or,
you know, or whatever it is. Gosh, gosh, that's a bummer.
That's a bummer for them. That's a great way to like.
I'm sure that many of us think that way in our personal lives
when we interact with someone who to us seems maybe crazed or
really impassioned by something so small.
Like maybe a fork was missing from their take out bag just
like a random example that I could.
Think of Applebee's. Yeah, right.
Specifically for Applebee's is really catching strays here.
As I don't know why, clearly I'm in the mood for like, fries.
I don't know. You'll get fries and I'll get
pop cereal. Love it.
But I, I think if we take that to the next level and we say,
OK, well, we're going to bring this to the workplace and we're
going to think about all of these potentially negative
interactions that we have with people, especially the higher
you go, sometimes those interactions become more
frequent, depending. And it's like, oh man, this
person really likes to argue. Maybe this is the only maybe,
like it is kind of sad. Maybe that's the only time
they're actually interacting with someone else is like
through or like. This is how they were raised.
Or maybe you are the only person they're comfortable arguing
with, and they're the time they're invisible or in a
position where they feel really silenced.
Yeah. And like, of course, none of
this is justification, right? We're not justifying anything.
But it's helpful in terms of bringing your own blood pressure
down to be curious about what animates other people.
Right. My favorite joke in the whole
world is that it's like the classic why did the chicken
cross the road? It doesn't matter what answer
you come up with, but there's always a reason and human
behavior always. Nobody does anything for no
reason or nobody does something just to be a jerk.
Or if they do, that has a reason, right?
It's it's doing something. And I think it's really helpful
as we interact with people, particularly in challenging
conditions, right? Whatever the nature of those
challenging conditions are is to be sort of baseline curious at
all times about what animates them as opposed to what are they
doing what what is behind what they're doing is so much more
interesting and blood pressure reducing, right, because the
face value version doesn't tell you much.
Yeah, that's really interesting. I, I'm going to have to reflect
on this too, because I think part of my thought process here
is that I'm thinking about someone in my mind who really
gets very amplified by like very small things at work and what,
what the reason for that is. And maybe there's a, maybe
there's a take away there that like when we think about these
things that maybe we can do something to help them de
amplify and, and feel a little bit more of like a sense of calm
or maybe it's control that they feel they don't have or
whatever. That might be.
Because most of the time people have this like, you know,
intense reaction to things because of fear or anxiety or
control, meaning not anxiety necessarily as a diagnosis, but
because they're, they're anxious about something or they feel a
loss of control. I mean, all of these things seem
perfectly reasonable to me. And all of that I think does
kind of connect to this thought process around HR having and
being a shield for much of an organization depending on where
they sit and how HR people are also human.
We are in this like interesting position where we have to
support the business needs and we also are expected to support
employee needs as an at an individual level.
And how we kind of go between those two things which have
competing priorities and competing demands and not find
ourselves in a position where we are losing sight of what we need
to be balanced and with boundaries and and not burnt
out. Absolutely.
And I suspect, you know, based on personal temperament, you
know, there are some people who are probably more able to
distance themselves a little bit than others.
And I think there's a real fit question, you know, if you're a
person and you know that it will eat you up, right, to feel
ambivalent or to feel torn between the the employee need
versus the company policy, then maybe you need to work somewhere
where the set of policies are more in alignment with your
personal values, right? Where you're not going to feel
that you've been put in a position where you have to make
this choice, this terrible choice, right between your value
of supporting this individual versus your value or sort of
necessity of, of supporting the organizational policy or
whatever it is. And, and I think that's a really
good thing to think about. That's true everywhere, right?
Is am I in an organization that fits with me in terms of my
temperament and how that's reflected in their values?
Can I be on board with that? And particularly when you're in
HR, where you will become the sort of gatekeeper of those
organizational values, it seems really important to me that
those values are in alignment with your values or those
organizational frameworks are in alignment with your values on
some basic level so that you don't feel conflicted when you
have to enforce those in whatever way that happens.
Yeah, that's a great piece of advice.
And when I think about that, what you've just shared around
making sure there's values alignment and how if someone is
feeling conflicted, there might be something there that there
isn't that that alignment exactly.
It does make me think about how people often say, oh, I'm in a
toxic work environment. I work for a toxic whatever.
You know, of course, I'm not doubting that there are toxic
people everywhere and there are toxic experiences everywhere.
But I think there's also an element here where we can
further define what the breakdown is.
Like, is it is it truly that someone is like harassing you
and it is a toxic environment? Or is it that the values of the
company or the person that you're working for are not a
values match? Or is it that they work
differently from you and you don't like that?
Like it could be so many things and, and it's not to devalue or
or like justify when people are treating others badly.
That's not what I'm saying. But I think that there are
sometimes where people can be like really direct and someone
who doesn't like that, they don't take it well.
They think that person is rude and toxic and all these things
and all the words. And instead of figuring out what
the issue is, they just, you know, have this reaction.
So I think there is value in really understanding where
breakdowns in, you know, either someone's feelings around like a
negative feelings around a situation or an experience are
coming from, but also to better learn what they need for
themselves. Yeah, it's a question of is it
the weather or the climate, right?
Weather is temporary, weather comes and goes.
Weather is seasonal weather, right?
But climate, climate's pretty conclusion.
And if you don't like the climate, waiting for the weather
to change, not going to do much. Oh, I like that right.
This is why I don't live in Florida.
I, you know, I can deal with warm weather 3 months out of the
year, not every day. That's really interesting.
I like that you have like every analogy that I could ever dream
of. Like every single.
It's the weather of the climate I'm using.
I'm going to take that. I will credit you please, but
I'm going to. I'm sure I didn't come up with
that originally, so please don't credit me.
I'll. Be like Lindsay told me about
it. It was on his podcast it.
Was Robin. I think actually you can.
You can. Oh, thank you, Robin.
Robin. Yeah, shout out to Robin Weather
versus climate. That's so it's, you know, the
thing about analogies and it's why I'm like a storyteller in my
podcast. And anyone that's been here is
probably heard the same story kind of a million times.
That's what my husband tells me is I repeat stories anyway.
I don't think I do it so much on my podcast.
It's just him. This is he married me.
That's what I get to do for the rest of his life.
I get to torture him anyway. When I do, when I tell these
stories, I try to like come up with examples or like visuals
because it's so much easier to put into perspective what
weather versus climate is in the sense of what we're talking
about because we can understand that we get it versus having to
think about what that might actually mean.
To us, and if you, if you, if the climate is not to your
liking, the weather doesn't make any difference.
No. Right, you've got to find a new
climate and that's OK, right? That's there's nothing in the
world wrong with that to say, hey, my temperament in this
climate are not in alignment and that's not good for either of
us. So let's go somewhere else.
Let's see you're that's not admitting defeat.
That's quite frankly a success to be able to define for
yourself that, oh, I see, I, this is actually the bigger
picture is not in alignment with my temperament.
So square peg, round hole. Why?
Why would we try and do this? You're not saying that a square
peg or a round hole is bad, you're just saying they don't go
together. Fine, good, right?
No problem, move on. Right.
Yeah, I love that. I love that.
And I, I will say my my parents, I remember when I was like very,
I think it was actually my first job.
I worked at Target. And I remember there was like
something that was stressing me out.
I don't know, I was like, maybe I need to leave.
And my parents were like, your first job is not always your
last job. Like don't, don't feel like your
entire life and your entire existence is riding on this one
experience. And it's really very true.
And you know, when you're like, I was young, I'm so young by the
way, but when you're young, just in case anyones wondering, I'm
young really when you're young and it's like it is your first
job or maybe your first experience in whatever role
you'd it feels so intense. Like there's such an intense
feeling around like I have to make it, I have to make it work.
I have to do well, like there, especially when you're super
driven and you have to, you know, there are certain things
that people hold themselves to. But when you think about the
weather versus climate understanding and you realize
that not every job is going to be your last job.
And you can always find something new where there's
potentially a better climate out there for you.
Then you remove all of that emotion, you remove all that
heaviness, and you can just think logically about the
circumstances that you're in. Yes, yes.
And you can hopefully notice when you're being judgmental
about it, right? So when people get stuck in that
loop of like oh I should like the climates.
Right, right. It's.
So interesting. I mean, you talk to people in
Florida, they'll be like, how do you not love this, right?
How do you talk this? You show.
Up like it's 100° with 100% humidity.
What are you talking? You're like, how do you love it?
I don't understand. No compute, right?
Yeah. But I think people get easily
caught up in that, understandably, particularly in
careers, Right? Because the climate and fitting
into or not fitting into the climate sort of morphs into this
referendum on their good enoughness, right?
Instead of going like, oh, I don't think this is a great fit,
they go, oh, I need to be better.
And now making this work has become a referendum on my
abilities, my competencies, my ability to be a team player or
game or work under difficult conditions.
And, and we have to be really, really careful about letting
these questions of fit become referendums on worth, right?
Because that's a dangerous road to go down to have yourself be
in a position where you are determined to make something
work because to not make it work feels like some negative
commentary on you. And that's that's rough because
you'll be there for the next 50 years.
Yeah, and you're not going to be happy and no one around you is
going to be happy. But like, all the power to you
if that's what you want by yourself.
No, but this is, this is so, so, so true.
I'm like sitting in this for a moment because I have made that
mistake. Me too.
Where yeah, and it's really interesting we're in this
together. It's so amazing how through
like, you know, living and growing and aging all the.
You learn so much about yourself like I it's just so interesting
to think about how it's. And it's still easy for me to.
Do by the way. I don't know if it's still easy
for you to do where it's like, yeah, yeah.
It's like, oh, of course this isn't working out because I'm
not working hard enough. You're like, wait, but I'm
working. I am working hard enough.
I am doing enough. I am really.
And it's, it's so interesting how easy it is, especially if
you are working for someone who also is not a climate match for
you, who then, you know, maybe it, it's like a pile on of this,
like, oh, I'm not doing well. Enough.
If you were working hard enough, you would be happy.
You would. Right, you would be happy in
this like very sunny climate year round.
And there's no way to disprove that, right?
There's no there's no way to unprove that.
It's yeah. Absentia.
So it's kind of, it's the same thing that happens right when
people are in relationships that are not a good fit and they keep
going. But if I would learn to
communicate better, if I would stop doing this or the other
person would start doing this, or if I would start doing this
right, then, then, then, then, then people are really reluctant
to just go. Not a good fit, right?
People are afraid of being accused either by themselves or
other people, like being a quitter, basically.
And they go, oh, no, no, I'm going to prove to you that I
went so far above and beyond to make this thing work until
there's not a shadow of a doubt that I did all the things that
could have been done on my end. Because I can't stand the idea
that anybody might say, well, you tapped out a little early to
know. Didn't you Right.
It goes back to elementary school.
Like don't be a chicken. Like it literally, it starts
when we're like six years old, we're told.
Don't be a quitter. And don't be a whiner.
And don't be, yeah, don't want to add it.
Don't be a baby. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, really. I mean, I think we can all say
that this is a matter of degree, right?
If you're in a position that doesn't feel like a great fit,
if you're safe and you're not being harmed, you should
probably try some things and see if it's the climate or the
weather, right? You won't know until you spend a
little time there. I mean, we could say that
literally about any other climate weather situation.
You don't know if it's the climate or the weather until you
spend some time there, although sometimes you can know, you can
read. About you get a yeah, yeah,
yeah. Right.
And this is true. I mean, we could say that people
look and make these assessments all the time about companies and
industries, right, By going like, I don't think that'd be a
good fit for me because that's like that.
And I'm like this so mismatch, right?
Yeah. Or they can say that about other
people, like before they go out with somebody like, oh, I don't
know. That person loves to do nothing
but fish and I love to do nothing but pottery.
So no way, right. I don't leave the house.
Well, you can make some general assessments about fit sometimes
at the get go at the outset. More often we have to find out
by experience, right? And and the real trick I think
is, is letting yourself have the gift of going.
You know what I've lived here, wherever here is whether it's a,
a geography or a job or a role or a company or a career.
I have lived here long enough to determine that the weather is X
and the climate is Y, and there's no changing Y because
that's a climate issue and I've given it a fair shot.
I've experienced all Four Seasons, right?
And I have determined it's the climate because I've given it a
fair shot and then have the sort of confidence and the sort of
quiet conviction to go, I don't like this climate.
This climate might be fantastic for somebody else who is not me.
And yay to them. I'm going to present them with a
nice warm chair. Goodbye.
And off you go to a different climate where somebody has left
a warm chair for you because that was not the climate for.
That, yes, yeah, I love that. And isn't that, isn't there so
much Peace of Mind that comes with that when you realize you
know what? I did the best that I could.
My best is always good enough, and I'm going to go find where
my best is like exactly what they need, absolutely.
And it's a perfect. Fit like look, I might add an
addendum to that. Maybe you didn't do your best
and you still figured out the climate wasn't for you.
That's. Also, maybe that's why you
didn't do your best, right? Because that climate was really
demoralizing to you or unhealthy for you or any one of a number
of things. Not doing your best doesn't mean
that you're not capable of taking the temperature and
looking around and determining the climate for yourself at all.
Yeah. I mean, you know we're laughing
about Florida, right? You can go to someplace
geographically and not see every city or experience every
landscape or park and determine that that's not the climate for
you. Even without having tried it
all. You'd be like, no, I didn't.
I didn't need to try it all actually.
Like if someone hates rain, that you're not going to go to the
Pacific Northwest. Or humidity.
Right, Right. Yeah, it's fine.
But if they like love hiking and they love being outside, maybe
Colorado is where they want to. Go exactly.
Or maybe if you you hate those things but love those things,
maybe you will tolerate one or it's enough of a trade off for
you and that's fine. There are 1,000,000 iterations
of this in which it works, right?
I think the the challenge is simply to be open and accepting
that something not working is not necessarily really a
commentary on you. It could be, but you are in a
position to be the judge of that.
And you can say any one of a number of things, including,
yeah, you know what? I didn't try my best, quite
frankly. And what's also true is this
isn't an environment that makes me want to try my best, which
makes it not the right climate for me.
Right. That's.
Fine, good. On you.
Yeah, I love this. I think that's, it's kind of
like a mic drop. It's like, OK, well, look, the
you're only putting pressure on yourself.
Like you can be the judge of your own, you know, kind of
future and work and you are not stuck anywhere.
And people of course, are always hesitant to leave places because
they don't know, you know, the, the fear of the unknown.
They don't know what they don't know.
And they're, the market is hard and all these things.
However, you can say that at any point at any time, whether the
economy is amazing or the, whether the economy is bad, it
doesn't matter. There's always going to be that
thing that we use as our reason to get out of making a decision
that could be the right decision for us.
So I think Lindsay, you've, you've provided so much insight
and, and we shared a lot of laughs on this episode too.
So I, I really appreciated you bringing yourself and your
analogies and all of your wisdom to us this week.
And I, I think I'd love to pass you to share with the listeners
where they can learn more about your philosophies on these
things and connect with you. Tracy it's been super fun.
I'm so glad we were able to do this.
An absolute blast. I'm findable I'm findable on
Instagram at onward psych services.
I put out a practical tactical coping skill every so often
which are super fun and some other videos on fun things.
Yes you can find me on LinkedIn. I have a website
whichisonwardpsychservices.com psych is PSYCH onward
psychservices.com and I have a phone I.
Actually, you know those oh nice thing you can make.
Calls. They they do stuff like a
landline, which line doesn't even need anything.
Mostly kids don't know what this is.
They do this now for anyone who's listening.
We're we're doing like the pinky and the thumb for the phone.
Phone like 90s phone. Yeah, like click, yeah, like
hang up the receiver. But kids these days, you know,
because they don't know what pay phones are potentially and they
didn't don't have a landline. They take what is like a phone
because the phone is usually just like a rectangle and they
put it so they take their whole palm.
It's weird. That makes it's weird.
In a non ethical way so people can call me on the phone at
720-362-8164 if they're so inclined or text me at that
number. That's fine.
Oh, amazing. Amazing.
Well, we'll have everything in the show notes.
Thank you so much, Lindsay. You're amazing.
My ask for a. Pleasure.
It's been so fun. Thanks, Tracy.
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