L&D In Action: Winning Strategies from Learning Leaders - Know Yourself First: Mental Habits for More Fulfilling Relationships in Work and in Life

Episode Date: February 13, 2024

Conversations at work are different from conversations everywhere else. Whether you’re speaking with your boss, an external partner, or an internal stakeholder, it’s likely your dialogue won’t resemble what you might experience with a friend or family member. All too often, a greater degree of detachment from the people in our professional lives means that we’re more likely to fall into bad communication habits. This week, mindset and mental wellness coach Kirsten Larsen helps us identify and work through the thought patterns and conversation traps that have negative impacts on relationships of all kinds.

You're listening to L&D in Action, winning strategies from learning leaders. This podcast, presented by Get Abstract, brings together the brightest minds in learning and development to discuss the best strategies for fostering employee engagement, maximizing potential, and building a culture of learning in your organization. In this episode, we speak with Kirsten Larson. Kirsten is an occupational therapist, speaker, and mindset and mental wellness coach. She began her career working in inpatient psychiatry, facilitating group sessions that taught communication and emotional regulation

skills. In 2022, Kirsten founded Peace of Wellness, her coaching business, through which she strives to support individuals and businesses' employees looking to better care for their mental health and wellness. For my listeners here on the week this episode released, happy Valentine's Day. While this episode does not focus on romantic relationships or love directly, I chose Kirsten to join me this week deliberately. As you listen, be sure to think carefully about your own interpersonal communication habits and keep yourself open to changes that could improve all the relationships in your life. Romantic, familial, friendly,

and professional. Let's dive in. Hello and welcome to L&D in Action. I'm your host, Tyler Lay, and today I'm speaking with Kirsten Larson. Kirsten, thank you so much for joining me. It's wonderful to have you today. Thank you, Tyler. So you worked for years in inpatient psychiatry, and I'm intrigued by this experience of yours. I saw you speak about it on another podcast, and I've read a little bit about it from your posts and things that you've written. And if I'm not mistaken, you were working with folks who were really at their lowest of lows, if you will. Some folks who had attempted or planned suicide and some people who were just really in a dangerous space and planning to do dangerous things to themselves or others. I want to hear about this experience overall. about it and how it sort of guided your career, but also what you learned about humanity,

what you learned about people, the brain, communication, wellness, mindset, etc. Would you mind just telling me a little bit about that? Well, there's only about 100 answers to that question that you just asked, Tyler. So I appreciate you setting me up here for success. But yes, so my very first big girl job was in Baltimore, Maryland, a place I had never even been from Kansas. That's where I went to school in Nebraska, where I grew up. And I was coming from undergrad and grad school in Kansas and growing up in Nebraska. So talk about a brand new city, brand new life in Baltimore. And I would say, you know, the biggest thing that I learned there was just to be a caring human, like being a human is a universal language. I was coming from Vanillaville, Nebraska, and my entrance into Baltimore, a city that

is 65% Black. My patient population was probably closer to 90% Black. And I was bopping in with very little life experience at 24 years old, had not been through much hardship, and really was not great at my job as far as being able to relate to really hard experiences. So really what got me through, carried me through and helped me connect with a population that, you know, we're coming from two very different places is the fact that I just care. I'm very caring. It was very easy for me to care. It's always been easy for me to care about strangers. So empathy, you know, compassion is something that I just sort of have. But I think that that's really what carried me through. And at the time, the person that I

was dating, who's also a therapist, would always say, Kirsten, research shows that being a caring therapist is nearly as effective as being a good therapist. So just be caring. It'll be fine. And so, yeah, it was an insight into a life and experiences that I just truly couldn't imagine coming from a very urban population with a lot of mental health issues, high poverty, high crime. It was a totally new world, you know? Dealing with an array of mental illnesses like that and people in such challenging states. I mean, did you learn how to communicate in entirely new ways that you hadn't had to do before to reach people and to connect with them? One of the biggest things I actually learned was the power of silence, oddly enough,

coming from a wonderful mother who loves to fix things. I love to fix things. And I want to help problem solve, find solutions, you know. And what I learned was that some things are not for me to solve, right? They're not even for me to suggest solutions. And of course, people can get to the point where they can take in that information and that can be helpful. But there's a period of time for a lot of people where they literally just want to be heard. They just want you to sit and listen. And for someone who loves to chat, Tyler, I had to learn to shut the F up because I didn't know how powerful just truly being a present person could be. One of my favorite quotes from television is Ted Lasso when he's in a conversation with, I can't remember her name now, but the woman who owns the football team and they're having a girl

talk session. He goes, wow, sometimes it seems like girl talk is really more like girl. Listen, that really resonated with me. I think that's what we're getting at right here. I we're going to talk a lot about care in this episode. And if all goes well, this will be published right around Valentine's Day. And that's one of the reasons that I want to have you on the show is because I think that we can have a really insightful conversation on relationships, not romantic, but interpersonal relationships. And in particular relationships at work and with, you know, colleagues and in the professional space. There was a time when I was in college, my college newspaper raised about $80,000 in two days to save the newspaper. And in order to do that, we had to convince a local business car salesman magnate with many, many hundreds of millions of dollars to donate a good chunk

of that to us. He kind of saw us in the news and then sent us a bunch of money. And then we took him out to dinner. And when that was all finished, he looked at us and he said, do you guys want to know what my one tip for success is? This was very funny to me said do you guys want to know what my one tip for success is this was very funny to me but do you want to know what my one tip for success is and we said sure ernie bock jr uh it was ernie bock jr from massachusetts and he said you just have to give a shit ernie i'm sorry if i'm giving away a lot of things right now if this is your you know true secret success i'm sorry that i'm revealing it to the world. Yeah. He said, you just have to care. And in that moment, me and my several newspaper colleagues kind of look at each other and we were like, that's really simple. It seems really, really simple. And we get it. Like we're, we consider ourselves very caring people because

we just saved our independent volunteer based student newspaper for which we work 60 hours a week with zero pay. So like Ernie, we think that we care for sure. Yeah. And in that moment, I started to think, what does it mean to care? What does it mean to give a shit? And you've used the word care and caring and being caring. And I think what I'm getting at is that there is a dichotomy here of what we should care about in the workplace. So what I see a lot of in the careers that I've had, not anymore, but in past careers, is people really, really care about the success of the business. They care about revenue, they care about growth, and they care about market share and those sorts of things. And that dictates conversations within and without the

company. Company culture still exists. And there's an HR department and people are dedicated to making sure that people feel good within the company, but care for one another just more or less seems to be, you know, kind of on the back burner. And I'm curious if you've seen this too, in the work that you've done, you know, working with individuals, talking about their business relationships, their professional relationships, working with companies, you know, occupational therapy is what you do now. A few of my recent guests on the show, we've talked about this, where it really just seems

as if we need to call for a departure from this brand of impersonal and detached communication that exists in the workplace. It really characterizes a lot of business relationships. And it comes with a refocusing on empathy and connection. You've already brought up empathy, which is very important. So I'd like to ask, first of all, do you see this happening in the work that you're doing? And if so, are there any deliberate sorts of practices that we can follow to change that and to bring our humanity back into the work? Sure. You know, I, as a, as an eternal idealist and optimist, I have to believe that, you

know, showing empathy or showing care is a skill that can be accumulated, you know, that can be taught or practiced or really focused on because we got to hope for something, right? Yeah. So I think that for those folks that it doesn't come so naturally to, I think that it's still a skill that can be practiced, you know? And for me, it's like, I like really tangible action steps. With my coaching now, that's what I want for people. I don't want to just do this, you know, motivational, inspirational workshop that they leave and they're like, yeah, I'm fired up, but I don't know what I'm fired up to do. So I want to talk about really what are some action steps. So for empathy or for building

that skillset, I think it's really important to really just get to know who you're working with. I think that sometimes people are so agenda focused. They're not necessarily thinking about, wait, what's the connection that I have with this person? How can I connect with this person? And that's talking about things that have nothing to do with work. Do you have an animal? Do you have kids? What sports do you like? What hobbies are you into? That kind of thing. And really taking the time to foster those relationships over the lunch hour or over breaks or whatever, and talk about things that are not work-related. That's one of the easiest, most tangible action steps I'd say, right? And then once you build

some sort of knowledge of who that person is, then you're able to see where do I connect with them? The more people feel like they understand another person or have a connection or a tie, the more empathy naturally they'll have. But if you remain a mystery or an enigma, Tyler, say to me, if we're in the same workspace, then maybe I don't really care what's going on with you. But, you know, if I, if I assign or learn some, some aspects of you that feel human, naturally I'll be, you know, more empathetic to that. And that's kind of getting away from my own agenda, you know, that's putting my ego aside. Yeah. And looking at like, really, how can I get to know this person, even if maybe on paper, it doesn't seem like we have anything in

common. So where does the onus fall for making this happen? Obviously, anybody can talk to anybody in the workplace, but they're in some workplaces, there's a limitation as to how much you can talk just by virtue of the agenda that you have to accomplish and your action items. You have things that you got to do. You got to get them done. And there might even be some workplaces that just really discourage extensive conversations, which is just obviously unhealthy. So my point is, is it up to leadership? Is it up to HR, human resources?

Is it up to the individuals to have these conversations of their own accord? I suspect the answer is all of the above to some extent, but who are the most important forces in this? And what are the most critical actions that we have to take to facilitate and enable these sorts of conversations that feel comfortable and safe? Well, I have a couple answers for this that are probably conflicting, which is one, we can only control ourselves, right? So we have to believe that what we can and choose to do and say is going to have an impact on how we're feeling and our commitment to the company or the commitment to our coworkers and the people around us. So one, of course, like we can control ourselves. We can look for those opportunities.

And yeah, I mean, of course, we're not necessarily supposed to be sitting around just chatting about nonsense, you know, during the workday for hours. But I think that really quality conversations can be had, you know, in snippets too. But number two, to your point or to your question is, of course, like leadership and management positions are ultimately responsible for creating a culture within a company, you know, and they have to be leading by example. And to create an environment, you know, that people are interested in others, well, you have to feel like your boss or your manager is interested in you, you know, that's what we're wanting from management and leadership. And

to say that I understand that you have an agenda and you're trying to make sales and try to generate a revenue or income, right. But at the end of the day, you're not going to have any people to do that if you're not investing in your people, you know? And so how do you create that culture or environment? You, you have to actually care about them. We're going to circle back around to leadership. I want to save one specific question for last, cause it's, I think it's a good one based on one of your LinkedIn posts. So we'll come back to leadership a little bit later, but for now I would like to dive into, I guess, sort of interpersonal relationships and conversations, dialogue, and how to best

conduct those things. On your appearance on that part, which is a podcast, I believe Ms. V is the host. You started off talking about cognitive distortions, and you did it almost as if like giving the host a bit of a session, a therapy session, and you're talking about cognitive distortions. This seems to be a theme therapy session, and you're talking about cognitive distortions. This seems to be a theme in your work and helping people identify their cognitive distortions. And I think that these probably range in severity from like, you know, like really associated with mental illness, but some in some cases, I would also argue, smaller versions just in sort of conversational and dialogue. And I just want to ask you, can you discuss the importance of assessing one's own thought patterns, extrapolations of their thought patterns and how they take action in response to them and their beliefs and just in general,

the importance of questioning oneself? Yeah, absolutely. I really, really believe that every feeling that we have and every action that we take starts with a thought, right? So if we want to feel differently, if we want to behave differently, we have to target those thoughts. But even those, even those, we have to, we have to question the thoughts, you know, of course. So that's kind of the whole premise of, of a lot a lot of what I do. I think that then begs the question to a lot of folks is like, well, then what can we trust? If we can't trust our thoughts, what can we trust, right? I think that in a lot of situations, it is really guiding us one way or the other, and we're not necessarily in tune or listening to it. But as far as the thoughts go, the whole premise of the distortions is the fact that our perceptions are only perceptions. They're not reality, right? not reality, right? So how these even come to be, these patterns of thought are all the experiences,

all the situations, all the adults that we grew up with, you know, kind of dictating our reality as we are kids and in our childhood. And all of those things are impacting them so much that they create these patterns that we have to really shed and challenge to be able to, I think, have a better gauge on, you know, what's right for us or what, or what will be fulfilling to us in our lives, you know? Yeah. When you said gut feeling, that sort of thing, how do we parse or identify the difference between a gut feeling and like our survival instinct, for instance? I spoke with Minette Norman. I think it was my last episode. It was rather superficial because neither of us are, you know, psychiatrists or neuroscientists. We both wanted to be actors before we ended up in the careers that we're in.

So we kept it to the surface. And that was one of the reasons that I wanted to invite you on the show, actually. But, you know, counterproductive communication habits, you know, it's we get triggered when we are told a certain something or when we feel a certain way in dialogue in conversation, for instance. And there are physiological things that happen to us that begin to steer conversation and the way that we speak to our interlocutor in a bad way. You know, we start to take on reactions that are just bad and negative, and then that other person does the same, and we're just kind of causing each other to feel really bad,

and the conversation is no longer productive or sincere or genuine or anything good. And there's a lot of ways that this can happen. genuine or anything good. And there's a lot of ways that this can happen. There's a lot of just similar patterns of communication that I think are just not effective. And what I'm thinking is that most people don't really understand that their sort of survival instinct comes into play if they're maybe insulted or feel challenged or something like that. And they'll allow that to carry them in a conversation. This is something that I learned recently myself, to be quite honest. And I want to make sure that we kind of, we talk about that first of all, but also just the difference between like a gut feeling or intuition or something like that,

and something that might be sort of a triggered feeling of survival. That's such a great question because to your point, we've all developed maladaptive coping skills and defense mechanisms, right? All of these things are coming out of us for a reason. And that's what I always want to make sure that my clients understand is that we have developed these defense mechanisms for a reason. We've developed these distorted thoughts for a reason. But what we have to do is tease out why, you know, like tease out what's going on. Why do you get defensive if I give you feedback,

Tyler? You know, is it because of like a critical parent or a critical schooling situation or, or a critical schooling situation or, you know, and so truly to understand these behaviors, we have to dig into what and why, what they are and why. And then you have to, you have to bring self-awareness to them. We can't do anything about something that we haven't even admitted to ourselves that we do, right. Or that, you know, is a trait of ours. So first, we have to be able to admit that they're happening, be aware of them happening, and then we have to ask ourselves why and be honest, if I sense that in my personal relationships, not just even like romantic, but friendships, I really limit my interaction and relationship with that person because it generally means that they have a hard time taking accountability, right? If you can't

even hear what I'm saying, you're probably not going to take accountability for what it is that you potentially did to hurt my feelings, right? So one, I think it's just super important that people are aware of it. And along with the distortions is one that's personalizing. So it's taking things personally. I have to start letting go of the death grip that I have on you giving me some feedback and how personally I'm taking it. I have to look at, do you have, you know, hopefully my best intentions, you're giving me something that hopefully is coming from a good place, right? And what I've learned over time is that anytime someone gives me feedback or gives someone else feedback, and it's not coming from a malicious place, it's coming from a good place,

there's a kernel of truth in it. So then coming from a good place. There's a kernel of truth in it. So then it's my job to find out what that kernel of truth is, right? It may not be 100% on target or correct because that person is biased and skewed as well, right? Like they have their own misperceptions, but I still have to figure out where the truth lies in that, you know? And that's the whole essence of really what I do. You actually have a post about accountability from someone recently on LinkedIn that struck

my interest. Um, I'm curious about accountability in the frame of business, in the frame of the workplace, because that's very different from, you know, a romantic relationship or even a friendship relationship where the things at stake are generally, you know, relatively insular within that friendship, maybe within the community or the family, that sort of thing. But when it comes to accountability at work, not only are you generally talking about an interpersonal relationship between people, if somebody is being defensive, or being asked to take accountability, you're talking about putting

other things at risk or other things that might be harmed, like entire team dynamics, the company culture, the revenue revenue the bottom line you know all those things we're really talking about bigger impact when a mistake is made at work whether it's an interpersonal sort of injustice or if it's you know somebody does something wrong operationally and then like doesn't want to take accountability that that's very different from the sort of interpersonal stuff there. So do you have anything to say about this? How should we approach accountability in the business setting? Once again, when when we can truly only control ourselves, right? I think that in the workplace, you can do so much by modeling, by modeling, truly, you know, and so if I, if I know I made

a mistake, and I can take accountability for that, and just, you know, say, Oh, hey, sorry, did this x, y, and z, then one, I think that that's helping to create that culture. The thing about the workplace is, is that like you're saying, it's, it's higher stakes in some ways, right? You can get fired if you admit to a big mistake, for instance, and that can be life changing. And that just generally makes it harder to take accountability as far as I can tell. A thousand percent. No, a thousand percent. Yeah. And so one from the stance of management or leadership, you know, they have to be creating a culture where mistakes are okay, as long as you're not losing hundreds of thousands of dollars and killing someone. And, you know, so there's like levels

and tiers to that. Everyone should be able to admit that humans are flawed and are going to make mistakes, right? So it's inevitable. But then it is kind of, you know, a lot of the workshops I'm doing is with management teams. And so I talk with them so much about how do you create a culture of safety? People have to feel safe enough to be able to admit that. Right. Well, then if to create an environment of safety, you have to be building trust. And what is that? You know, those two are interdependent. You're not going to have trust without feeling safe. And, you know, if you're feeling safe, then you can build trust. So, so much of that comes from management kind of creating that environment and also leading by example. They, the more that they can say,

hey, oh yeah, that was on me, whatever. But again, this goes back to a previous question that we had putting our pride and ego aside is critical for that. You know, one thing I like to talk about too, as far as showing others empathy and connecting with our coworkers is that, you know, you approach your coworkers with kindness as far as, you know, hey man, I think you may, you might've messed up on X, Y, and Z. What can we do to fix it? Or how can we, you know, and so there's a lot of like language around, or I say I talk about the language around approaching others on mistakes or really kind of soften criticism, even though constructive criticism surely has to be delivered at times. But there's a big difference between, you know, you're worthless and how did you make this mistake versus like, hey, I see that this happened. What can we do to fix it? You know? Yeah, I've been practicing nonviolent communication myself. That's the sort of

framework or concept that I've been following in the last few months and teaching myself. work or concept that I've been following in the last few months and teaching myself. But I want to dive into this a little bit deeper. What are some other sort of communication traps, you know, much like cognitive distortions? What are some other dialogue based or conversational communication traps that people fall into that just create bad scenarios? This sounds like a really good one, giving criticism in a bad way, you know, giving it in an unkind way. Are there any other spaces or types of communication that you see that really derail conversations or really just cause a lot of issues that are relatively common that we should

just be actively working to fix in our everyday lives? Yeah. Talking about getting defensive, that's one for sure. Another really big one I think is listening to others just enough to prepare your own argument. That is so ineffective. A lot of people are not truly listening to what the other person is saying. And so taking in what the person is saying without just, you know, your mind going and going about like, oh, how am I gonna, like, what's my rebuttal for this? How am I going to challenge that? I think that's huge. So that's kind of a common trap. I think that too, Um, I think that too, it's very easy for some folks to make assumptions and jump to the worst case scenario or conclusion of what you're trying to say. So if I come to you and I say, Hey, Tyler, you know, I was just going to ask you about this project because it looks like you're getting a

little behind and, you know, you could be thinking, Oh my God, he thinks I can't do it. Or she, sorry, I'm a she. Sometimes I think in scenarios and I don't even know what's going on. But you can be just really jumping to conclusions and making assumptions and be like, oh my gosh, she thinks I can't do this. She thinks I can't handle it. She's set with me. Maybe my job's on the line. All of those are distorted thoughts. They're not based in reality. They're me, they're you, they're me jumping to conclusions based on snippets of information and going truly to the worst case scenario. And that happens so frequently. And I think too, just taking, I talk to people a lot about the words we use. Our vocabulary and our language completely frames the way we think.

So if we use really harsh words, like, oh my gosh, I freaking suck. And that was the worst thing ever. If we're using those extreme words, we're going to be feeling like crap. Like, you know, people are not going to take that well. Of course. Boundary setting is a big topic that has made its way from sort of like, you know, just therapy sessions to the mainstream. I feel like in the last few years, I've seen a lot more folks talking publicly about boundaries and their relationships and how to set them and how to have those conversations. And that's one thing that requires, I think, very precise language and care and time to establish. It feels like something that's easier in romantic and maybe even, again, personal sort of like friendship relationships.

But I absolutely know that boundaries at work exist too. And I think we can all think about times in our careers where we've, you know, thought, I really wish that I had drawn a boundary. I really wish I had said no to that thing. I really wish that I had not just accepted all these assignments or, you know, agreed to take this thing on or agreed to work with this team or kept so close to that individual who I didn't like. So because it's different, because we're talking about work, and it's just a totally different relationship style. How do we structure those conversations?

Do you have any advice for how to set boundaries at work and just how to go about that in general? My biggest, biggest, biggest recommendation for boundaries and setting them is to set expectations early. Okay. As early as possible. Because people are actually pretty reasonable if they know what's coming. You know, you're just really setting yourself up for success. If you say, hey, new client, I love working with you.

I love working on this project together or whatever, but you know, after 6 PM, I don't look at my work emails. I don't answer my phone, you know, whatever, whatever that boundary is for you. Um, Hey, just so you know, you know, I am, am a morning person. I will start seeing emails or texts at, you know, 7 a.m. Anything before that, I'm not going to, you just won't be hearing from me. The biggest, or I guess the most helpful thing you can do for yourself and for the others around you is try to set those expectations. Because when people, some people are just unreasonable. There's a small percent of the population that are just unreasonable humans. But for the rest of people, they're pretty reasonable. If you shape their expectations

accordingly, that is really like the biggest thing we can do. I'm going to throw this out there. I feel like that sort of doing that sort of thing might be more risky for some people than others. I would argue that women are probably more likely to receive negative feedback if they set expectations up front about, you know, how they conduct their work and that sort of thing. I'm curious if you've ever experienced that while explaining to a client, you know, this is how I work. This is what I do. sort of thing. I'm curious if you've ever experienced that while explaining to a client, you know, this is how I work. This is what I do. But I have worked in many settings, making a lot of content and working with a lot of experts and authors and that sort of thing. And I've heard stories about how when women set their expectations kind of in advance like that,

that they tend to get, you know, those those typical accusations of being this way or that. So do you have any advice for, you know, working around that and addressing the sort of, you know, the challenge that can come with just general, you know, unequal treatment in the workplace and expectations based around gender or other sort of divisions that we have? Tyler, being a woman in business is extremely difficult. Because do you know what is completely inappropriate is getting a text at 9 50 p.m on a sunday about netflix and chilling from a real estate client oh dear okay for properties for i am so sorry i wow that's that's one of oh I don't know, a thousand examples I have. So it's so tough. And I was just having this conversation with a male friend of mine yesterday saying that,

because so tonight is my first men's group. And I'm really excited because I am offering a platform for men to be able to express themselves and create community and come together. So I'm really excited about this. Right. And he was saying, well, you know, you got to watch out because, you know, some might be trying to holler at you and get at you and hit on you and whatever. And I said, you know, honestly, I really cannot concern myself anymore with what every single person thinks of me. I really can't. It's exhausting, you know? And so I think that for, for women in business or people of color in business or, you know, any minority working in business, the more that we can just continue to show up, be present and be as much our authentic self as possible. We have to do it for our own sanity because there's really, there's so many things that can be taken or misconstrued all these

different ways. And just doing what I do is already exhausting. You know, I can't, I can't worry about every person's perception of what it is that I do too. And I think though, but this has, this is Kirsten coming a long way, Tyler, in the last five years of, of having our own business, because there was a point where I was like, Oh, I don't want to say this because it could be read this way, or I don't want to do this because it could be perceived this way. And I still have that. I'm a, I'm a naturally a people pleaser to begin with, but it's just too exhausting. It really is. And so now I just have to say, you know, this, these are my work hours. I will gladly respond to you between this and this

time. And, and we, I think that we have to have some faith in the fact that the people that are meant for us are going to find us and the people that we're for, we're going to attract and the rest are just going to fall by the wayside because otherwise, you know what? We can't. this happens so many times where a boundary is set and then you have to set a boundary on top of the boundary because you're treated as too assertive or too demanding. Like, you know, criticism comes in about, you know, the boundaries that you're setting and it's like, okay, well now I got to double down on that thing. And that, you know, eventually a certain level, you're, you know, risking the business or something like that. And that, this is just a part of, you know, as you said, being a woman in business, unfortunately. But I just I want to address that because I've seen it happen so many times. And I think there's also that category of like internal

boundaries, which it seems like you're describing where at a certain point, you just don't engage with certain kinds of people anymore. And that's really sad that some people like me, I, you know, I very rarely have that sort of thought where like, this is a kind of person who because they're treating me this way, I just don't want to engage with them anymore. I would argue that everybody who sends me a cold marketing email, I treat that way by assuming that they're awful people, but I need to, I think, fix my mindset around that. But that's, you know, that's the worst that I get as a white man in business. So I'm just curious in general about like, you know, setting an initial boundary, setting

an internal boundary. And it just at a certain point, where does the additional sort of work there have to stop? So it's not easy. Yeah, I can imagine. Another category of challenge that people can face in the professional world is mental illness. I think that there are still so many categories and kinds of mental illnesses that go ignored, unnoticed, unaddressed, misbelieved and disbelieved entirely, especially when it comes to just interpersonal interaction, how it might affect someone who's working remotely or in person.

And I think those things are just largely left alone where they could be better addressed. And I think those things are just largely left alone where they could be better addressed. I'm not sure how much you've really encountered this, but it does seem based on your description in your LinkedIn profile that you've dealt with folks with mental illnesses. How do we as leaders address the difficulties that people are facing in that sense, those like less addressed mental illnesses? And also as a follow up, how can those with mental illnesses safely seek the support that they need or find the support that they need without, you know, feeling like they're asking too much or seeming needy or falling into any of those traps? A lot of these answers have a lot of overlap, Tyler. I think, you know, as leaders, it's just really, really important to create the culture that people are accepted, regardless of where they come from, their background, their, you know, their orientation, X, Y, and Z. And so creating that culture of acceptance and just safety, like this is a safe place and you're safe here as long as you work hard and show up and be reliable and be consistent.

You know, putting a focus on like values or traits that as long as people are being reliable and diligent and, you know, like then then this is a community for you. I think that's just hugely important. community for you. I think that's just hugely important. The other thing that I like to mention about empathy is that empathy doesn't mean that you have to condone or like, I mean, it's a version of support, right? But like, it doesn't mean that you have to condone what that person is doing or saying. It just means I'm going to try to understand it. I'm going to try to understand that perspective. It doesn't mean I have to live that way, right? It doesn't mean I have to believe it or whatever.

I just have to understand that from someone else's perspective or experience, they could be feeling this, doing this, saying this, right? experience, they could be feeling this, doing this, saying this. Right. And so I think that some people think that like, oh, well, if I'm, if I say I'm okay with it, then I have to go out and live that life. Like that's not even what it is. Right. Um, so that's the one piece as far as for individuals with mental illness, it's really hard because there's still so much stigma and stereotype with it that I really, I know that for some, they feel out the situation. And certainly some management groups or some bosses are much more approachable or, you know, more understanding than others. I think that it has so much to do with the leadership,

really how much they're willing to be open with it or discuss it or even mention it at all, which is, you know, heartbreaking because it's a serious illness like anything is. High blood pressure, you know, you're taking medication. If something came up and you needed to go for an appointment, it's like a no-brainer. Okay, hey, yeah, that's fine. Take care of your health.

And then something with your mental health is just people have a harder time. It feels more subjective. It feels harder to define. And people just have a really hard time with things they can't define, you know. So as far as those individuals with mental illness and trying to find their space and place in the workplace, probably my best recommendation is to, you know, look at your management team and your co-working team and see, you know, who you can tease out as your safe person or safe place, you know, and who you can have that

more trusted relationship with, because it can certainly be tough to find in some settings. Yeah, I found a good amount of solace in Reddit communities on the internet. I feel like, you know, finding an external community that maybe deals with similar issues and going to those sorts of groups for help. Have you ever seen somebody just utilize, you know, external groups, whether they know them or not, but that sort of thing, resource groups outside of the company that then help them inside a company? Yeah, a thousand percent. I hate to say it, but some companies are just really limited with their resources or like the support that you're going to find. And, you know, to your point, some of them will have like an employee assistance

program. They'll have those EAPs, they'll have outlets kind of set up. But I know that a lot of them are kind of clunky or, you know, not super accessible. So, you know, there are those things from within. I would agree that the more you can do to strengthen your support network and strengthen your outside community, the better you are just in general, you know, and the more kind of stable and safe you feel in general. And hopefully that gets you through a tough work day if that's the case, you know? Yeah, for sure. All right. I want to wrap up with a question I mentioned earlier. Another LinkedIn post of yours, you quote from Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,

the book which is perennially the most consumed as a summary on Get Abstract, the platform. The quote, I'm going to read it here leadership is communicating others worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves uh easier said than done in my opinion this is one of those things where there i in my head i have a picture of somebody who is so enthusiastic about their direct report that they're just singing their praises to you know the entire company and to others and just making that individual feel so good and so inspired. Oh, man, I've, I have such great strength within me, I must go and, you know, triple the sales of my territory. But this is hard. I mean, it's difficult to as a leader to be observant of somebody so

acutely, that you can really identify strengths and not that you can identify that you know they're good at their job or that they have this sort of promise but to be observant enough to see what's good about them and then to translate that into effective language and inspirational communication that really actually pushes them in such a direction that they feel so deeply inspired and motivated. So and I this is kind of how I think about seven habits is like it's a classic book. It's a little bit older and it's very sort of pie in the sky in terms of what we should strive for. But that's why we're here to talk about how we can actually communicate that way.

So what's your advice? How do we as leaders truly know our people and also inspire them, know them enough to be able to inspire them through the manner in which we praise and encourage them? Yeah. I love this question because I think that, you know, going through occupational therapy school, coming from that lens where we literally talk about strengths-based approaches all through school. So it's just so natural to me to look at a person's unique strengths, you know, because you know, of course, that they're going to have areas of improvement and you're going to discuss those. But like, let's celebrate what there is to be celebrated, you know, because every person is bringing something beautiful and unique, and contributing in their own unique way. And so I think for leaders to truly look at their team as far as who has what strengths and how can I set them up and support

them to really allow those to flourish, you know, to really like showcase those. I mean, that is, that is a trait of like a really wonderful leader. Right. And I think that it goes back to our previous conversation about really getting to know your team even outside of work, because that's how we complete a picture, you know, like reports. I don't really even know anything else about you. Like what else is going on? So the more completely I can fill in those holes and look at the picture as a whole, I think that that really would support leaders and seeing like, hey, you know what? This guy shows up to his son's baseball game every single Thursday at seven. What does that say? That also tells me that he's reliable in general, you know? And so I can praise a skill that of course I can see in the workplace, but that I know is a more universal skill for that person, you know? And I think that's really what it comes or what it boils down to is the more we can see people as people, regardless of everything that gets in the way, the more we can really, you know, encourage them to let their lights shine and, you know, be be the or showcase whatever strength they really have that's unique to them, you know?

See our people as people. I think that's a really critical final message there. Before I let you go, Kirsten, thank you so much again. Can you just let our listeners know where they can learn more about you and your work and if they want to, how to get a hold of you and maybe work with you? Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. So Kirsten Larson, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm also on Instagram as Kirsten, K I R S T E N period L I N N E A Kirsten Linnaeus. And then my business is peace of wellness. my website is peaceofwell.com p-e-a-c-e-o-f-w-e-l-l.com and you can find me in any of those spots so thank you so much yeah thank you again for joining me this was a great conversation to everybody listening at home we will catch you on the next episode and have a wonderful valentine's day cheers you've been listening to lnd in action a show from get abstract We will catch you on the next episode and have a wonderful Valentine's Day. Cheers.