Allie Stark (00:00.088)
I've worked long enough to know that no one knows what they're doing, ever. We're just making it up all the time.

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Jessica Grossman (00:45.74)
Welcome today. We are discovering what I actually do. I mean right it's about time I mean it only took me what 10 episodes to explain what it actually means to be an executive and leadership coach And we're not even getting into the team component of this today It's a what better way than to introduce coaching that to bring on a fellow coach And I will say there is something very special about talking shop on this passion that I have

But before we jump in, I want to just start with some of the basics. Like what exactly is coaching? And I will say there's been many attempts to try to define coaching. And so I'm going to give you a couple of definitions for you to create your own interpretation. So James Flattery's book, Coaching, defines it as a way of working with people that leaves them more competent and fulfilled so that they can contribute to the organization and find meaning in what they're doing. Another definition, and this is from the book Coaching Skills, which is by Jenny Rogers. And she defines coaching as an art of facilitating another person's learning, development, wellbeing, and performance. And that the whole aim of coaching is to close the gap between people's potential and their current state. What does this mean in like real terms? The way I think about it is that sometimes in our current environment, something's just not clicking anymore. Maybe the system that we thrived in previously just isn't a fit anymore. And an example of this is like when you're an individual contributor, those skills that you developed in hone that make you good at that job, those might not always translate into a management job or an executive job because every new level that we move in an organization or every new role, has new challenges and different skills. So the ones that got you there might not be the ones that will take you to the next step. So what are some of the outcomes that we're always looking for as an executive and leadership coaching? I think in today's environment and society, we're always looking at performance in a very short term mindset. And so as a coach, one of the things I love is I get to pull you out of that and really understand some of those decisions. for long-term excellence in sustainability. The second aim as a coach is I help clients see and recognize the patterns of when things are working and not working and then make those adjustments. But I will say what separates coaching is that the goal is for me to provide a process for them to learn how to self-correct independently. Because I'm definitely not your coach forever at all.

I don't want anyone to need me in the future. So the real success for me comes when my clients no longer need me. And so I want my clients to outgrow me.

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So how did I arrive at coaching? I like to say coaching is a part of my DNA. It seems to keep finding me, or at least I guess I keep saying yes to it. My first job, I was a soccer trainer and a coach in college. And then after college, I decided to volunteer to coach high school soccer after work. And by my mid 20s, I was the head coach for sixth grade girls basketball. I mean, who says yes to that? Even as a trader, I felt a desire to coach and understand the performance barriers of those around me and also obviously including myself, which is a pretty rare desire in that industry. But when I actually found leadership coaching, it was not love at first session.

I quickly learned that it was not about teaching, giving answers, which is a bit more of my style in the other coaching contexts. It was lot more about restraint, curiosity, and deep listening without judgment. Which oof, those are tough ones for me. Coaching is all about meeting people where they are, holding their stories lightly, and helping them connect their own dots. Not me connecting all the dots for them, which is what I love.
And this was all very challenging for me because these skills were not my strengths yet. But over time, I actually discovered that this part of me does exist. The part that can be present and can listen and not rush to judgment. Well, at I'm working on all these things. And what I struggled with at first actually became the very thing that drives my passion for coaching in this path today. It was a different underused muscle that

makes me a better person. So today I'm really thrilled to talk with Allie Stark, a leadership coach, facilitator and founder of Allie Stark Wellness, which is a powerhouse team of five coaches. She's also the co-founder of Noria, which is a leadership platform looking to redefine modern living and leading. Allie guides entrepreneurs and leaders to launch impactful organizations.  She trains coaches in her unique methodology and leads workshops for some of the world's biggest brands. So this conversation is a special, special, special peek into the world of coaching, growth and all things leadership. And even if you're not a coach, this episode is definitely for you. I will say the podcast platform that I used weirdly glitched during this episode because it only recorded me and not Ellie. So this episode is actually going to be audio only. So let's jump in.

Today we have Ali Stark on the podcast and I'm excited to have Ali because she's doing some really impressive things in the leadership world. So welcome to the podcast, Ali.

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Allie Stark

Thanks, Jessy. I'm so happy to be here and to get a little bit of time with you today. For those of us who don't know that much about your background, we'd love to hear just a little bit more about you and how you came to leadership coaching. I got my way to leadership coaching was kind of long and winding. It started with me being really into yoga at a very young age, around 12 or 13 years old. And eventually I wound up teaching. I got a yoga teaching certification when I was 16 and taught my way through college. And in my early twenties, I dealt with a lot of chronic autoimmune conditions and I was really struggling to find solutions in Western medicine. So

I sort of felt like I was hitting my head up against a wall. And at the time I was living in San Francisco and I had found this grad school that offered a master's program in integrative health. And it had one of the first health and wellness coaching certifications that was built into it. So I really went back to grad school as a means of healing myself. It was just kind of like to experiment and be weird with my own health. That was, I was pretty like,

drawing outside of the lines during that period of time. But I loved the curriculum. I really loved coaching and what coaching did that was very different than therapy. And so it kind of progressed from health and wellness coaching. I worked with a lot of people that had chronic autoimmune conditions. And then it transitioned into life coaching because I felt like

The health and wellness space, especially in the nutritional coaching space, I felt like I was kind of getting at symptom care. That was just my own experience of it. So I was really interested in what's underneath the surface, meaning and purpose, relationship building, et cetera. And over time, as my practice grew and the work I was doing in the world grew, it really transitioned into leadership coaching, especially for entrepreneurs and small business owners who really wanted to grow.

So I think it's really common as a coach that you wind up coaching people a lot like you or doing similar things to you because it's a bit of a mirror of your own lived experience or things you're working through and working on. So a lot of the work that I do at this point in time is with new, unestablished leaders that are looking to grow and scale heart-forward businesses in a myriad of different industries.

Jessica Grossman (09:32.78)
I love that. All of our passion always starts with trying to fix ourselves to a certain degree. And what I think happens, I don't know if you'd agree or disagree, but we come to more accept ourselves as whole. I totally agree. I mean, I think that like, you know, if you want to look at it this way, obstacles that you go through in your life or opportunities for growth or development or healing.

And I think so often ways that we have callings, if those are the words we want to use for it, which can mean so many different things, you know, but it's like, it's based off of your own lived experience. What have you, like what walls have you butted up against? What struggles have you gone through? What experiences have been challenging that create more expansive empathy or compassion for you in the world? Cause it's like, I don't know, it's more, at least for me, it's more interesting to like,

work with what I'm working through. I think like for me, it's like you try to understand the support that maybe you didn't get that you needed. And then how do you serve and support others in their journey, which is completely different from your own. How are you then using like your own journey in terms of you started your business? Yeah, I love, Jesse, what you said about, you kind of want to teach from or coach from or lead from whatever it is. It's like creating

a resource for people to have something that you didn't have. And again, it's it's messy and it's imperfect and everyone needs different things. But I was just thinking about when I started working in the coaching space, I felt like I had this narrative that I was a sick person and I was young, I was in my 20s. And so I felt like,

I was really supporting people and coaching them through the mental narrative of what it means to have chronic illness or chronic pain. And at this stage of my life, don't really, like, of course I still have the things that I had, they're chronic, so they don't go away, but my relationship with illness, like, is not.

Jessica Grossman (11:54.252)
really something I ever think about. Like it's just managed at this point. And so, you know, I think that it's sort of like there is a part of me that has healed from that. And so doing that particular type of work became maybe less interesting. I also get bored kind of easily. Like I like a lot of different inputs. But I think to the place that I'm at today and working with leaders is

this opportunity to really, it's like, A, what product or service are you putting out into the world? Why does it matter to you? And it can be anything. You could bake pies. You could have a tech product. You could be a clown who makes balloons. It doesn't really matter what it is. As long as it has meaning to you, then it's of service to the world in some way or another. So I think that's a big part of it. And then also, how is that

business and the way you're leading, working out some of your inner shit and really bringing it to the surface so that you can be a better person in the work that you're doing. So, and I feel like I'm a very imperfect person and a very imperfect leader. So I feel like the opportunity to face up against that stuff in my own leadership is like ongoing and all of the time. You talked a little bit about your entry into life coaching.

And you felt as though that was a more effective than something like therapy. Like most people are kind of confused. Well, what is the difference between coaching, life coaching and therapy? And what is the difference to you and why do you find coaching to a certain degree more effective? I don't know if I think that it's more effective. I think they serve really different purposes. So I'm someone who's been in therapy for most of my life. So I'm a huge therapy proponent.

I just think they serve really different purposes. So, Jesse, I bet you've heard this quote. There's a particular quote that sort of defines the difference between therapy and coaching, which is that therapy is there to comfort the afflicted and coaching is there to afflict the comfortable. I haven't heard that quote. I love it. It's a cool quote. And I think that it really succinctly summarizes the difference that's taking place

Jessica Grossman (14:16.576)
in the two and of course it's not binary, right? It's not black and white. There's lots of shades of gray in both professions. But I do think that a therapeutic approach is oftentimes, it's like great when you're in the midst of crisis or a trauma response is taking place or you really wanna dig back into history, family dynamics, et cetera. And that helps you make sense of who you are today. And coaching is a lot more forward thinking, goal oriented.

tool-based, skill-based, et cetera. And it's like, let's take all the stuff that you know about yourself and let's help move you in the direction forward. And I enjoy the process of digging into people's, I don't wanna say I like afflicting the comfortable, that feels a little bit of a strong word, but I do like supporting people in breaking rules, in taking risks.

Like I think I'm a pretty risk forward person. And I think that what I like about coaching is like you get to define and redefine and change as often as you want in your life. And that's so much of coaching is about shifting you into a new or next place of alignment in your life. And I like, I like that tension point. So what made you move from life coaching to now focusing primarily on leadership coaching?

It's a great question. So I feel like there's so many similarities between the two like things I'm not I'm not like an executive coach I'm not the person that you generally hire if you are working at a corporation and want like skill based executive coaching I'm really looking at the person Holistically, so what are the relationships like in their life?

What are their self-care practices? What's their emotional, mental, spiritual health like? And I really use a lot of that in tandem to support them in being a better leader. I like to tell people, I'm not the coach that you wanna hire if you like someone who's super wooey. And I'm also not the coach you wanna hire if you want a hardcore executive coach. I kind of live in this bridge between this very soulful spiritual place and very, very strategic.

Jessica Grossman (16:42.134)
And I think that's what keeps the work interesting to me is like, you know, wherever you go, there you are. So whether you're wearing your leadership hat or your life hat, you're the same fucking person. So you might as well have like the same set of skills to help you operate in those ways. Yeah. So I feel like I kind of skirt between the two. Ellie, so we talked.

Earlier before we started taping you mentioned this idea of like this inside game versus this outside game What what is it? you referring when you when you use those two phrases? I really feel like in order to be a leader that can show up and hold space and do good work It's like kind of hold the qualitative and the quantitative pieces like be good to your people build culture and rapport

in addition to keeping them motivated and hitting deadlines and goals and all that sort of stuff. The Inside Game is really about building your own self-awareness and skills and self-regulation. So it's this understanding of who am I, how do I show up in the world, when do I get reactive to people, what are some of the things, I feel like the word trigger is very overused, but what are some of the things that kind of activate me where I can...

react in an oversized way? What are some of the things that are gonna show up that are gonna feel really confrontational for me? I know for me, I come from two self-employed parents and money in our house was always very up and down from an entrepreneurial point of view. And so it's like, I'm aware of there's certain things that are gonna show up around money that are gonna be more activating for me because of where I came from. So I think that inside game is really like,

how are you in relationship with yourself and how does that awareness and that observation grow when you're in one-on-one relationships and working with your team and building a culture of meaning and purpose? So it kind of really moves from the inside out. And then I think the outside game is like all the skills that feel very tangible. have my coaching practice and then I have this L &D platform that's for leaders that's teaching them awakened leadership skills.

Jessica Grossman (18:59.864)
And one of the first questions that we always get, Jessie, is do you teach how to give and receive feedback? And to me, that's actually an outside game. It's like a band-aid and it's a really important band-aid. It's a really nice skill set and an important skill set to have. But if you don't have your own self-awareness and self-regulation when you're doing a giving and receiving feedback conversation, like all hell breaks loose and you can just throw the whole thing out the window.

So I think like the outside game or, you know, goals, skills, things you're moving in the direction of, and the inside game is, do you know yourself? And does that come across in the way you're leading other people? Can you slow down enough to actually take stock, to ensure that, you know, the goals that you've set are still aligned with values? Like we change all the time. What I cared about 10 years ago is very different than what I care about now.

So I really think it's about that self-investigation and self-discovery that matters a lot as a leader. OK, so who cares? I'm activated by money. Who cares? Who's not, also? Let's just say that. Is that the question? Who cares? I'm activated by OK, cool. I learned I'm activated by money. Who cares? So I think that that's going to influence how you make decisions, right? So if you discover that you're activated by money, you may.

be unwilling to take certain financial risks that are actually going to help you grow your business. You may be like something I notice a lot as a solo entrepreneur is how important it is, especially for your contract based work is like getting paid on time matters. You may get really triggered when someone doesn't pay you on time and you have to hunt them down to pay you. Or you may not pay someone else on time, right? It's like there's some weird expectation setting and stuff that can show up.

You may have a hard time asking for what you're worth, what your rates are, what you should be charging for things. And all of this, and money is just one bucket of examples we could draw from, but all of this is gonna impact your bottom line of what you wanna do in building a healthy, robust, resourced company. These things show up all the time. mean, it's like there's all kinds of buckets that are going to impact how you show up as a leader.

Jessica Grossman (21:26.504)
and how successful your business is. What have you noticed as some of the biggest barriers to leaders graph?

I think a current trend that I'm noticing, and I'd be curious, we may coach very different leaders, but I'm curious your experience. So I work with a lot of small business owners that are in many different industries. They could be in CPG or advertising or education, et cetera. I think in this like cultural moment and zeitgeist, it could be like Amazon's taking over the world or an election year, whatever else it is. But something I have noticed,

is that a lot of small business owners feel a little bit like they're screaming into the void. It's like, how do they kind of live in this like in between, you know, it's not tiny, tiny, they're not contractors, they're not working by themselves, they may have a few employees. But I think that it can feel a little bit like you're trapped in some kind of Hades of like, it's not small enough and it's not big enough to move the dial. And so and I actually don't have an answer for this. I feel like I can kind of

be a little bit in this space with one of my businesses. But I feel like on a business level, that's something that I'm really noticing that I didn't notice five years ago. The struggle of the small business owner. There's like a couple of other, I think leading different generations. How you communicate, talk, set expectations for Gen X versus Gen Z versus a millennial, et cetera, and having all of the tools and how you communicate effectively amongst different generations.

I think a lot of leaders feel really lonely. It's like, you know, there's the expression of like, it's lonely at the top, but I think that that's only enhanced in a culture of like remote first or remote only working where, you know, it's just like, there's a lot of isolated work that's taking place. And I think that we're all in this process of solving for that. Like, I don't think there's a solution yet. I think that we're all in the process of

Jessica Grossman (23:33.848)
How do you feel a sense of connectedness and community when we're all, don't know what your space is at home, but working from our pantries and closets still for so many of us at home? Yeah, I'm in my extra bedroom. Great. And yes, my mother-in-law, my first couple podcasts definitely pointed out that she could see the bed in the video. And I was like, I don't care. Of course you like, are you sure you don't care?

Yeah. Aren't we all? Are we all working out of an extra room? I don't know. Yeah, it's like that space of like belonging, connectedness, loneliness. I feel like those are huge things that like leaders are solving for and experiencing. It's so interesting because like we coach such different. We coach at different levels and populations like.

Yeah. I mean, and especially because like my clients, this is usually their first coaching experience. It's just, you know, it's a different experience of what you're working with people on. And also I don't work with small business owners typically. Yeah. I think my smallest business owners, like they have 350 employees. I do feel like this idea of healing comes into play in all of my coaching. And the people I coach, they want to get as far away from healing as possible.

They're like, don't use that word. That word is scary to them. They're not ready for that. But it is beautiful to see that in coaching you can see the healing without having to target the healing. Yeah, I think that's so beautifully stated. And I think it's really cool that we work with really different populations because I feel like in its simplest form, and I honestly and sometimes think that like when coaching is at its best is it's just opening the door.

to Pandora's box of what's possible. And so you may kind of just tap a foot into them examining themselves as a leader, growing their self-awareness, learning skills about how to communicate better, whatever else it may be. And then you may not ever see that person again. And Jesse, you may have been a part of the equation where 20 years from now, that person's like,

Jessica Grossman (25:49.678)
really grown in a personal development or self-awareness state and you just, I love really not knowing where it's gonna go. That's kind of the beauty and the opportunity, which whether you're starting, like, I oftentimes am not starting with someone who's, it's their first time experiencing coaching. And I tend to not work with like C-suite, a huge corporations. But I think that no matter where you're meeting someone, you just get to like start, you start where they're at.

which I think so rad, it's different for every person. And I always think you're always going through some unlearning process. Like what are their perceptions of reality? What they think about themselves and the world around them? What holds them back? Self-limiting beliefs, you may never use those words, ever.

You know, but you're really kind of like, where are you starting at and what can we unpack that's not real here? And then it's like off to the races. And again, it's like, it can go in a million different directions. I do think it's part of what keeps our profession so interesting. I don't ever think about like my clients in 20 years. I just think about them in this present form and then they move on. And I guess I just don't see my impact from.

that level, like I could be part of someone's journey in 20 years. And yeah, it's just interesting that I never think about my profession in that way. It's I'm meeting you here in this moment and what you need and then you move on in your life. I guess maybe I just hope my clients outgrow where they meet me and they outgrow me to a certain degree. I think that when you said unlearning, the thing that came to my mind is I'm also unlearning, like every relationship and client.

I'm with I, I myself in that relationship on unlearning. And I think that's what I love about coaching is because before coaching, thought coaching when I first started was like, because I love teaching and talking. was like, I get to teach and talk, which is exactly what you don't do as a coach at all. And so I was like, I would go into these relationships, but I was always kind of like skeptical of people. And it's coaching where you really get to connect and be with the humanness of whoever that person is. And I think it

Jessica Grossman (28:02.68)
gave me a love for people. I love coaching people who are nothing like me and to work with people who have never experienced any type of conversation at that.

It's making me think about two leaders in a most recent cohort of our NOREA program, Shift Way Lead, and they work at a construction company. So these are not people that are exposed to coaching and one of the team members that they were managing, they're about to put on a PIP, a performance improvement plan. It was only in the last year that I like learned what that.

was for. They were in our course and the woman was sharing with me she's like I would have just like that's all that would have happened in the past I would have just put this person on a pip and instead because we teach coaching skills she used coaching skills in a conversation which is like here's my experience let me get curious let me ask more questions let me dig beneath the surface let me create a safe environment etc etc and what came out of this conversation was

like this team member revealed all of this stuff that would never have come up had he just been put on a pip. And it basically transformed the whole relationship. Like all of a sudden, it was sort of like he was on board and wanting to perform in a different way and demonstrate that he really should be there. And I just, the power of coaching is like wild when you really just get curious.

ask more questions, reflect back what you're hearing, to understand it more. And it doesn't have to be woo-wee literally at all. I just, think I'm always like amazed at the power of coaching, which is just like lean back, keep leaning back, ask more questions, get more information, respond to people with exactly what they're saying so they can hear themselves and see where that kind of takes the conversation. So.

Jessica Grossman (30:08.844)
I don't know, especially in the leadership space, to me leadership and coaching are pretty synonymous. You can't always wear a leaders or excuse me, a coaching hat in leadership, but you can often wear a coaching hat in leadership. And yeah, I think it's a really cool place to like be a leader from. Yeah, I think that makes me think back to like our question around therapy and coaching. And I do think one of the powers of being in a coaching relationship is you get to see the power of coaching and you get to leverage that within your own relationships.

And it's almost like I think of myself as a model to a certain degree when I coach. I'm modeling coaching skills to you and you get to use these skills, whether or not you really are aware of that or not. But you're never going to model a therapist's skills. That would be bizarre. That would be a very bizarre... It just shows that there's a different... It's a different relationship, for sure. Yeah, as a leader, you're not going to look at your team member and go, mm-hmm.

You know, it's like, and I do think that like also what is being a coach? Being a coach to me is also, it's like being a coach is synonymous to being a leader, which is synonymous to modeling the behavior that you want people to reflect back to you. Like they all kind of fit into the same umbrella. Yeah, it's like my therapist every day, every time would be like, how are you doing? She's like, fine. Yeah, exactly.

Don't ask me about my life. I will not tell you anything about me. I am a strictly professional person. Exactly. I don't know how you coach, I feel like something I love about coaching is it does remove the veil a little bit. When I'm working with a client, we're not in a hierarchical relationship where I know more than they do at all. And so there is vulnerability on my side.

often will say is there permission for me to share something personal that's like arising or because I think that it humanizes the experience and in my experience of coaching which I've done for a long time at this point, people like get more comfortable and more at ease. It's like I don't have all the answers we're just trying to figure this out together. Yeah, that's an interesting thing like there is a vulnerability when you coach because you're

Jessica Grossman (32:25.326)
supposed to be leading it and you usually don't know. You don't have the answers as a coach and you're not supposed to have the answers. So it is a relationship that does require to a certain degree a level of vulnerability. And I never thought about it that way. But I think that that like that's why I started coaching. Part of it was it just made me a better person. And I was like, this is something I need to ground myself. My whole grounding of value as an answers. Like that was just how I was taught that that was important.

And coaching was the first time that I didn't need to have an answer and I was still valuable. And that was so meaningful to me that I knew it was something I would never give up. I'm more than my answers. I'm more than my expertise. I am valuable as is. I can just be present and that's enough. There's this beautiful quote that it's by Maya Angelou and I'm going to butcher it so I'll just synthesize it. But it's like, like everyone grows older, but very few people.

become adults, it's something like that. And it's sort of like the concept of being an adult is like taking responsibility for the space that you take up, taking responsibility for what you know and mostly what you don't know because the pie chart on what you don't know is so much larger than what you do know. And if we're to, you know, create a bridge to leadership, I think it's so powerful as a leader to

name when you don't know something or when you're like in a gray zone and invite other people into the mix without, you know, instilling fear. I think there's ways to do it where you're just like making things visible and transparent, inviting people into the fold, asking questions, using group wisdom. I've worked long enough to know that no one knows what they're doing ever. We're just making it up all the time. Yeah, it certainly makes it easier being a solo entrepreneur, when you

digest that information. In trading, we used to always say, if you wait to know you're right, then you're wrong. If you wait till you're right, then you're wrong.

Jessica Grossman (34:30.83)
Yeah, that makes sense. I'm like my brain's like wrapping itself around. So you said you've been doing this a long time. So how have you seen it shifted? There's so much research that's showing it's like we're more burnt out than we've ever been. So how do you create a culture of well-being? How do you support your team members in ensuring that there's boundaries and self-care is prioritized? And it's not like productivity for productivity sake. I think

you know, as technology gets more advanced and we are all working from home, it's like you could just work all the time if you wanted to. And I think that that leads people to feeling really burnt out. So I think like you also have to know how to like create wellbeing practices at the forefront of your business because when people burn out, they're way less productive and effective and less motivated and there's way more absenteeism and they quit all of that stuff that actually winds up costing you a lot more money.

as a business owner and a business leader. My favorite is I've heard a complaint from millennial leaders on Gen Z and they're like overly like, I'm sending my boundaries here. I'm going to take care of my mental space. I'm just going to, how do you coach a leader that's frustrated with a Gen Z workforce that has gotten mental health support their entire lives and now walking into the workplace saying, well, you know, in college I could just, you know.

My therapist could just email my professor and tell them I need to move my deadline because my mental health was at risk. Okay, so maybe this is an unpopular opinion. We love those here. so I'm someone that is under the belief system that challenge and grit and struggle is what helps to create resilience. And I feel like we've gotten

real soft as a culture. And I'm not even making that specific so much to Gen Z, but I think like life is not about getting what you want all the time. Like that's not why we're here. He can't always get what you want. But sometimes you can get what you need.

Jessica Grossman (36:55.926)
Like, so the lyric of that song is so perfect. you know, so I think that to me, like moments that I felt the most proud, the most satisfied, the most confident have come after challenge, struggle, strife, a lot of grittiness, a lot of being dropped to my knees. So I think kind of my kind of first part of the response, which I suppose then I...

am supposed to have a tool for this or like how to solve. But what I would say is life is quite, it's beautiful and it's challenging and you need to be like ready to roll with the punches. And I think, I do think that technology and I'm a full user of technology, but I think getting to have access to everything that you want immediately when you want it is like such a huge part of that issue is like, you're supposed to be bored. You're supposed to wait for shit. You're like.

that's, you're supposed to not have everything at your fingertips. And Jesse, I don't have the solution for this, but I think kind of where my mind initially goes is how do you create and like working with your team members to create almost like small goals that they're meeting, like how you would as a coach, it's like behavioral change where they're getting to do a project where they gotta kind of like work through the grittiness of it, but the reward becomes so sweet.

that it creates a positive feedback loop where they want to do more of that. Because it's like, you need to acknowledge the mental health and wellbeing of your team members. And I think to your exact point, stuff still needs to get done. It's a job. Like, it's a job. And so I think that there's a little bit about how do you create a positive feedback loop where those muscles of resiliency start to grow. And it really is a reward. It's this own internal reward system. It's like,

I did something hard, I feel really good about myself afterwards, it makes me want to do another hard thing. And so I would say like, find low hanging fruit to start that process and then grow from there. I agree with that. I I didn't actually did my research on resilience and like resilience is a process. Biles, like we didn't know at what point in her story, we had no idea. She ended up being a resilient human being, but if you'd talked to us a year ago, you might not have judged that. Resilience is a process. And so we don't know where we are in that.

Jessica Grossman (39:20.654)
process, you don't know where someone is in that process. And so you don't want to put the training wheels on and make someone feel like they're riding a bike, but in reality, they're not learning anything. You're keeping them from being able to really ride a bike because you're just putting training wheels on it. I think one of the skills that leaders could most develop is the idea of dichotomies, to be honest.

Do we need to have results and outcomes? Yes. Do we need to be empathetic and compassionate? Yes. Like, do we need to put mental health first? Yes. Do we need to put productivity first? Yes. The work that they're doing is always, to a certain degree, feels like it's in competition with one another. But when you put these things together, you realize they fit really well into a puzzle. So if you can accept that two things can be true, I think as a leader, your life is a lot easier. I think that was very, very wisely said. And I think I would even say it's like...

It's not even like two things are true at once. It could be three, four, five things are true at once. But I think that was very, very wise. It's like your ability to polarizing things at the same time. And I think in the moment decide where you want to prioritize time. It may be a day where it's like something really bad happened to the world and we're prioritizing mental health in the workplace today. That's the priority, right? That's the priority.

And then it may be another day where it's like, today we're meeting the goal. We're getting the work done. I'm really sorry. I'm sorry you're having a hard day. You can have a hard day and still show up and do your job. Both can exist at the same time. love that, right? It's like, yes, maybe you didn't have a lot of time to prepare for this meeting. And yes, you are feeling stressed about it, but we're still going to show up and we're going to do our best. Like we can still show up even when it's not, you know, it's not going to be perfect.

And I think of a bicep curl, it's two movements, it's not one. Most people think of a bicep curl as just working the bicep. But in reality, you're also working the tricep too. So it's the dichotomy of movements that we have to be able to move multiple ways as humans with our physical body. And the same thing goes with leaders. It's not always you just have to work the bicep. You you also have to let go. I do think if leaders can learn one thing, like, it's just, is that there isn't a silver bullet to their job.

Jessica Grossman (41:40.978)
We're going to move to a quick, I call this Jesse's jolt of insight. We're going to get some quick hitting answers from you. So list three words that would describe the current state of mind of the leaders that you're working with.

frenzied, deeply caring, overwhelmed. How would you describe your state of mind right now? Frenzied, deeply caring, and overwhelmed. I wish that I was going to put inspired into that list, but that's not how I'm feeling today, so I'm not going to lie about it. Well, we'll talk about, you know, setting emotional boundaries with your clients later, Alec. What is your favorite millennial quality about yourself?

Jessica Grossman (42:30.072)
So funny, I feel like I don't even know, like I don't feel so versed in like what exactly makes us millennials.

I think that I'm kind of in like the guise of like, think anything's possible. We can build whatever we want. We can like make crazy shit. It's all possible. So I think that's where I go. What's one thing you want to change people's mind about? I would love for people to feel like they can have a greater sense of ease. Work can be hard. Like we sometimes we have to work hard. But I think living alongside hard work and leadership can be.

it feels easeful all at the same time. And those are very different things to me. Like putting your head down and doing hard work is very different than like, still feel easeful in my own skin and like I'm able to lean back in that process. And I think that as a leader, you're oftentimes kind of gritting your teeth through things and it's like, how can we feel a greater sense of ease? And I think it's totally possible. And interestingly, this is supposed to be a jolt of insight, but I'll break my own rules to the game.

It's all, you're all about rule breaking so much. One of the interesting parts of my research that I did on resilience was that when there were stressful daily households or events, but people just saw them as part of the job, there was no narrative about it. It was like, this thing is stressful and it stresses me. It's just a part of the job. And then we're like, actually what made them more resilient or more composed long-term. I just thought that was something that really jumped out at me at the research that I was surprised by.

So I that gives you that easefulness, because it's like, yeah, this is a stressful thing, but this is just kind of, this is a part of it. This comes from the territory. Yeah, I think I love that part where it's like something you could also change is like assigning a narrative to everything that happens. It's like, we can make as much meaning or as little meaning as we want about things. And there are some times where it's just like, a crappy thing happened at work today. Moving on, I'm not going to assign narrative to that or a story around it. I'm just going to like,

Jessica Grossman (44:34.99)
move on because it allows my life to feel more useful. That's really cool. I like that, Jessi. Yeah, I have to say that's been a big change for me in the last year, which is I used to have to like understand everything. One day my therapist was like, you know, you don't have to know why you're sick. Like you could just accept that you're not feeling well today. And I was like, really? I don't have to know why I feel this way? Nope, you could just feel that.

You don't have to have a narrative around it. There doesn't need to be a reason for everything. And that made a big difference. All right, and then the last jolt of insight is if you could offer one actionable piece of advice to our listeners, what would it be? In a moment of overwhelm, take a beat, slow everything down. And this doesn't need to be like some deep breathing exercise that you do, but actually just like take a moment to pause.

to step outside, maybe walk around the block to create space and actually allowing yourself to slow down because it's when we slow ourselves down that the feeling is there about what's arising or the solution is there about what's arising. I feel like in our high demand, fast paced, nonstop, overwhelming world, it would be find ways to slow yourself down at just doing stuff that really allows your nervous system to get a bit calmer and more regulated.

because it allows you to be a better leader. So I preface this whole interview that you're doing some really cool things out in the world of leadership. So I want to make sure that we learned about what those cool things are. Thanks, Jessie. Thanks for asking. So I co-founded a company called Noria that has a foundational leadership program called Shift the Way You Lead. And the program is a year-long program. It has an asynchronous component to it.

that has multiple online modules that you go through at your own pace, at your own time. I like to tell people it's like the anti sexual training that you would do at work where you wanna like put your head up against the wall. It's like modern and sexy and engaging and filled with podcasts like interviews and hip leaders that are sharing their own stories and experiences. So there's an online component to it.

Jessica Grossman (46:52.066)
and there's a live component where you get to meet other like-minded leaders, be a part of a network and a community of people who are really looking to grow some of the skills that we talked about in this podcast and lead in a new way. The course lasts, you have access to the course for a year and that can be found on our website. We also offer a free class.

to get to know the program that's called Stress Less, Lead More. So that's a nice way to dip your foot into it. And then of course I have my practice where we do more of the deeper one-on-one type work. So Noria is a group, it's much more a group format, a big community format for leadership and learning from the wisdom of the group. I love that. I've really.

enjoyed the dialogue and your sense of humor. And I appreciate the opportunity, Jesse. Thanks for coming on the podcast. We're wrapped. We're We're wrapped. All right. Thanks so much.

Jessica Grossman (47:59.234)
Thanks for joining today's conversation. In the most recent episodes with Libby and now with Allie, this idea of resilience has come up often. And so today I figured it would be nice to dig into what I really mean by resilience. Resilience is typically defined as the ability to adapt positively in the face of adversity. Facing challenges without compromising our mental, emotional, or behavioral well-being. But too often,

this term is used to fuel a toxic grind culture. Because the way it is used is as though resilience is simply about just like, toughing it out, no matter the cost or what is being thrown at you. So when we treat resilience as just pushing through, we're implying that the responsibility falls solely on an individual. But true resilience isn't about that blind endurance.

So what is it about? It's about adapting meaningfully and sustainably, getting through challenges and knowing you can handle appropriate stressors. So yes, it is somewhat about those things. But also, and even more important to resilience, it doesn't just come within us. It is also strengthened or undermined by the systems we're a part of. The connections.

we have and the support we feel from those around us. So leaders, take note, resilience isn't built by placing people in difficult environments and then telling them to simply deal with it. And if they don't deal with it, well, they just weren't resilient enough. No, it is your responsibility as well to support and enhance other people's resilience. You are a part of that outcome.

So again, resilience is more than personal coping or stress management. That is just one part of being resilient. Don't place the burden solely on individuals. Please help them build a resilient narrative by creating supportive environments. So as you go through your week, think about how you can cultivate this real resilience within yourself,

Jessica Grossman (50:24.246)
and if you're part of a team within those around you. Because, one, resilience is not about endlessly pushing forward. Two, resilience is also not about creating frictionless paths. It is a balance of success through discomfort built on action in building your confidence. But three, it's also about having a strong support network and putting the right systems in place.

And that's a wrap for today's episode of To Millennial. If you found yourself nodding along, you know the drill. Smash that subscribe button wherever you're tuning in. And if you want a daily dose of leadership wisdom with a sidekick of quirky parent jokes, catch me on Instagram at Coach Jessie Grossman. But hey, if you're serious about leveling up yourself, your team, head over to zlncoaching.com.

where we have great tools, resources, and case studies that will help you unlock your potential and enhance your team's resilience and performance. Because here's the truth. When we don't invest time in building our own leadership skills and the skills of those around us, problems fester. We feel disconnected, and it's just so hard to get work done. So if you need an executive coach, a sounding board, an offsite facilitator, a team consultant, get in touch. Thanks for hanging out with me on Two Millennial.

Until next time, stay curious, stay bold, and keep growing.

Jessica Grossman (51:56.45)
Why Noria? The reason why we called it Noria is that a Noria is an ancient water wheel that would pull up water and resources from the earth, from an estuary, from a river, and it was responsible for feeding the surrounding community. Our feeling is that leaders need more support, and what we're here to do is act as the Noria for you and your leadership so that you can be the Noria for your team and your company.