Transforming Setbacks into Opportunities: Insights from Amy Schoenthal

Imagine turning every setback into a stepping stone for growth and innovation. Join us as we unpack the incredible insights from Amy Schoenthal, seasoned marketing professional turned leadership expert. Amy discusses her new book, "The Setback Cycle," and shares her personal journey from marketing to leadership, illustrating how curiosity and self-awareness can transform life's challenges into opportunities for success.

Amy guides us through the various stages of setbacks, from recognizing and embracing them to exploring new passions and strengths. We delve into practical tools like the alarm clock checklist to assess engagement and energy levels, and discuss the emotional journey that follows a career setback. You'll discover the importance of playful experimentation during the exploration phase, where merging passion with strengths can lead to unexpected opportunities and a renewed sense of purpose.

Finally, we address the complexities of identity and the importance of developing a sense of self beyond one's profession. Amy shares practical strategies for overcoming inertia and finding your North Star, which can guide decision-making and set boundaries. The episode wraps up with a touching story of a young athlete transitioning into the workforce, underscoring the universal impact of life's challenges and the value of fostering curiosity and empathy. Tune in for an enlightening conversation that promises to equip you with the tools to turn setbacks into a more meaningful and resilient life.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

It's one of the most important things that's going to get you through the setback cycle. I feel like we talked so much about the introspection and getting curious about yourself and what you can learn from what you did wrong or what someone else did wrong and how you responded to it, and about getting curious in the explore phase about what you're passionate about and what you might be good at. I mean, there's a chapter dedicated to curiosity, but it's really a theme throughout the whole book because if you're not curious about what more might be possible for you, you're never going to know, You're never going to learn. You know, and that's. That goes back to the floating along. You can float along and stay in your comfort zone as long as you want and if you're not curious and you don't take action to really like foster that curiosity, you'll never know how capable you are.

Speaker 2: 0:58

You are listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture.

Speaker 2: 1:04

Our consulting firm has been doing this work for the past 25 years so that leaders are mentally engaged and emotionally healthy.

Speaker 2: 1:11

Hello everyone, my name is Nathan Freeberg and in this episode we're going to share with you in the interview that we had with Amy Schoenthal, who shared insights from her new book, the Setback Cycle, amy, with her rich background in marketing and freelance journalism, discusses how setbacks often lead to the most significant innovations and personal growth that we can experience. She explains the concept of the setback cycle, where it came from and how identifying, embracing and exploring setbacks well, that can really lead to some resilience and creativity. We talk about the stages exploring setbacks well, that can really lead to some resilience and creativity. We talk about the stages of setbacks that she outlines in her book, the importance of self-awareness, and she also shares some tools that she provides to help navigate these challenging times. Now, whether you're a leader facing restructuring or simply just dealing with the all too common unexpected turns that life throws at us, amy's perspective offers valuable guidance for all of us. This is the Leadership Vision Podcast, enjoy.

Speaker 1: 2:15

Not to put you on the spot, brian, but have you read the book? Because I feel like it's very up your alley a lot of the motivating people to sort of achieve their highest and most exciting goals.

Speaker 3: 2:27

Yesterday, nathan and I spent an hour going through your book. So read, oh, thank you, but with no. Nathan does a ton of research on the books that are submitted and he briefs us in pre meetings for what we're to talk about, and so we went through every chapter of your book. We looked at the people that you were interviewing, the topics, et cetera, so there are so many overlapping things here.

Speaker 2: 2:57

Topics Brian reads about neuroscience for fun, so I feel, like that will be a good point

Speaker 1: 3:02

of connection. So that's all I can say Absolutely. Oh, my God, you guys really prepared. Wow, I'm excited, I'm nervous.

Speaker 2: 3:08

Amy, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Speaker 1: 3:10

I'm me.

Speaker 1: 3:11

I'm Amy.

Speaker 1: 3:12

I have had a pretty robust marketing career for the past 20 years with a side of freelance journalism and writing about some of the people that I think are doing such great work to shape society for the better, and I've had the privilege of doing that and I used to call it my writing hobby that my marketing career supported.

Speaker 1: 3:38

At some point I was able to sort of make that little writing hobby more front and center and I gained a little more visibility and I was asked to interview some really high profile folks to speak on some stages, to be invited into rooms I would have otherwise not been invited to. That led to lots of new opportunities. My whole business was born of those opportunities because I started taking on thought leadership and ghostwriting projects for some of the founders who said I captured their voice very well. And while I was doing this, I came up with the idea for the setback cycle because I couldn't help but notice that so many of these people were going through a similar. You know, when you do something enough, you notice the themes and the patterns right. And someone recently referred to me as a leadership expert and I was like what? And they were like well, you spent years studying the habits of successful leaders and then wrote a book about it.

Speaker 1: 4:34

So yeah, and I was like, okay, yeah, I'm a leadership expert, that's fair, I'll take that title. And it's true, when you see something enough, you start to notice a pattern. And the pattern I noticed was that everyone's was the thing that came from a setback. You know, and I think if you draw like the little map of your life, you can really point to some of the setbacks that propelled you forward in some way. And so I started researching, okay, like where's the literature on this? And I looked at all these business psychology books and I found little hints of it here and there, but I really didn't see anyone going into the setback as a concept in itself, except for a couple of sports books that I found.

Speaker 1: 5:31

And that wasn't really yeah, it really. There were no books really focused on business setbacks in the way you know, in a way that that I wanted to understand them, and so I started interviewing not just the founders who had been through them, but experts, psychologists and executive coaches and a neuroscientist, and I started to shape what you now know as the setback cycle, because it is such a universal experience and we can all think back to a setback we had, and especially when you dive into the definition of one, how it's not necessarily a trauma or a mistake, like a setback is its own thing. It's really just something that we all experience. So why not have the tools to work through it so that we can emerge on the other side with that same sense of innovation and resilience that I saw in those founders that I that I interviewed?

Speaker 3: 6:26

Okay, this is really good. Now I'm going to get caught up in the content. Because of the work that we do in coaching and consulting, this is a repeated theme, and so I feel like I'm attending a masterclass while hosting a podcast.

Speaker 4: 6:42

So, amy, attending a masterclass while hosting a podcast.

Speaker 3: 6:45

So, amy, could you share with us a little bit about how the book came to be?

Speaker 1: 6:57

So I have been interviewing some of today's most prominent founders and leaders and cultural innovators for my Forbes column, and when you do something enough, you start to notice the patterns, and so I couldn't help but notice that every single story of theirs, every time they spoke about their career journey or their business journey or what it took to get them to build the business they created, it just seemed like every story came from some sort of setback. And I didn't land on the term setback for a really long time, but there was some consistency. I was seeing through all of their stories and I wanted to understand what that through line was. So I did what I do best and I started talking to people, but this time I went to experts. I went to psychologists and executive coaches and a neuroscientist and I said what is this? What is this thing I'm seeing? Because it's not always post-traumatic growth. We have a lot of literature about post-traumatic growth and why that sparks innovation, but not every setback is a trauma, and we have a lot of information about why it's important to learn from our mistakes. We learn that at a young age, but not every setback is a mistake. Sometimes setbacks are well beyond your control or, frankly, they're the fault of someone else. So not every setback is a mistake, and so nothing I was. What I was seeing wasn't falling into any of the categories that I understood.

Speaker 1: 8:28

And then and then and then, I came upon the definition of a setback, which is the dictionary.

Speaker 1: 8:35

Definition of a setback is a reversal or check in progress. So it's when you're on a path and you're moving forward and you're working towards a goal and you're unexpectedly bumped off course, and it's what you do in that moment that really sets you up for the comeback. You know, and I think a setback is such a universal experience, whether you experience it in your career, your personal life, or if it's a societal setback like the one we all emerged from, as we all experienced the pandemic over the past few years. That was a setback for all of us in so many ways, but how much creativity came from that. You know how many businesses were born of people having to shut down what they had built, because they built it in a world that existed before March 2020. And I just I kept noticing that this like creative rebirth moment came when they found a new path forward, but it always started when they were on a different path, and that's how I came up with the setback cycle.

Speaker 3: 9:40

So, when you're talking to people about setback, what are some of the stages that a person has to go through to acknowledge the setback and really embrace the emotions that are obviously within the setback experience itself?

Speaker 1: 9:54

Well, this is the hardest part for so many people acknowledging that they're in a setback. Admitting the obvious is usually the last thing you want to do. Admitting that you've failed, admitting that someone maybe you know didn't believe in you, admitting that you have to stop building what you've been building for so long. That is so hard. It is so, so, so hard and, frankly, that's why so many people coast. And, as you know, as one of the executive coaches in the book, Shoshana Hecht, says, floating along. So many people just start floating along because it's easier. It's easier to just keep doing what you're doing than to course correct. But what happens when you keep floating along? You eventually have to course correct anyway. So you might as well do it when you start to see the signs. And that's why, when I came up with the setback cycle, I made a whole phase about this. And that's why phase one is called establish, because there is so much to just establishing that you're in a setback. It's so much harder, it's so much less intuitive than people think.

Speaker 4: 11:05

Yeah, naming it. Um. Uh, like you said, acknowledge, admit. How have you seen people do that? Is that acknowledging it to a coach, acknowledging it to a loved one, just writing it down? Or is it just this internal like yep, this is hard right now, or?

Speaker 1: 11:24

this is really. It's really different for different people. There's also you know, you have to be ready to acknowledge it there's also the fact that some people can see that someone else is going through a setback before that person sees it for themselves. And so when I was experiencing a career setback, a lot of times I would say to friends or family members like it's fine. It's fine, you know, yeah, this is bad, but other people have it worse. I can handle this, I'm good and I wasn't good. I wasn't fine, but I wanted it to be fine, so I acted like it was fine. And so how many people do you know who stayed in a relationship for too long Because it was just easier to continue than to stop, but then, once they finally got out of it, and then how many people do you know who stayed in the corporate world too long and waited to launch their own business?

Speaker 1: 12:21

And when they finally did. They just said I wish I had had the guts to do it earlier. I wish I'd started earlier. That's people's biggest regret not starting earlier, because you're going to do the scary thing anyway, so why not just do it now?

Speaker 3: 12:33

So, when you refer to the idea of pause, is it the pause to accept and acknowledge what's happening, or is it for something going forward?

Speaker 1: 12:42

It's both, it's both. You have to accept and acknowledge what's happening before you can move forward. I do have, in the established phase, an alarm clock checklist that you can run through. If you think you might be sleepwalking through your own setback, I have something that will wake you up. Nathan, I feel like you're trying to get a question.

Speaker 2: 13:04

That was kind of. It is where, like how do you, because life is hard, right, like life is difficult, parenting is different, like everything is just just hard. How do you know when, like oh, this is a legit setback versus this is just you know, kind of how life operates?

Speaker 2: 13:19

the everyday challenges of life and how do you make that distinction? I feel like that alarm clock exercise is a good one, but is there some stories you can share or examples you can give of somebody who, because I think we would, well, I'll just. I would like to hope that I am someone aware and self-aware enough to be like all right, something's not working, let's course correct. But also, you know, every little bit of difficulty isn't like oh, I got to change, this isn't perfect, so I got to do something different. Does that make sense? I think there's a question there somewhere.

Speaker 1: 13:50

Yeah, no, that does make sense.

Speaker 1: 13:52

And look, you might be experiencing micro daily setbacks and you might be working through the setback cycle over a five minute period, or you might be working through a major life changing setback over the course of five years. There's no set timeline to the setback cycle, but if you're always open to it, you'll see it. And I think two of the questions I asked during the alarm clock checklist are what are you energized by and what are you disengaged with? And if you, maybe if you have a journaling practice or, if you like, start your day or end your day with just like a some sort of reflective exercise. These are two really good questions to prompt you. And if every day, you go through, like three times a week, you answer these two questions and then you look back a month later and you just review your answers, you might notice some patterns that indicate whether or not you're in a setback.

Speaker 1: 14:46

Now, this exercise can be great at waking you up. That's what it was built to do. But now that people are reading the book and talking to me about it, a lot of them are saying, hey, I was afraid I was heading into a setback, but this exercise actually was the exact thing I needed to remind me of how energized I really am in my work, and so it can have that effect too and that's a very powerful tool. I would say do it frequently enough so that if you are energized in your work, that's great, but, you know, check in three months later, like, continue to map the patterns and review your answers so that you can see if. Because even if you're not in a setback, if you're not energized by your work, you know it might be time for a change.

Speaker 4: 15:30

So in one of your comebacks, as you were so getting personal a little bit, you were talking about just there were a lot of things going on at once when you were writing the book. Are there sometimes where these setback cycles overlap, like in one area of your life.

Speaker 1: 15:45

You can find yourself in a setback cyclone If you that happens to so many of us yeah, totally. Totally, especially if you have been trying something new or learning a new trade, learning a new industry, uh, experimenting with a new idea. You're not going to nail it on the first try, you're going to experience it. I mean, has anyone here ever tried to build a company? Oh yeah, how many setbacks did you experience in that?

Speaker 3: 16:12

first year. Yesterday, today Especially.

Speaker 1: 16:16

Exactly, exactly, exactly. So you're going to experience setbacks and you're going to recognize them, and some of them will be easier to cycle through than others. But when you're really putting yourself out there, you're going to experience probably a lot at once, but having the tools to work through them is going to help you get to the next phase.

Speaker 3: 16:40

Since yesterday I've been waiting to ask this next question, amy.

Speaker 1: 16:44

Oh, my God, I'm so excited.

Speaker 3: 16:46

Well, it's going to be easier for you. Can you explain what you mean by Chapter 3's title Name?

Speaker 2: 16:52

the asshole in your head.

Speaker 1: 16:54

Yeah, that's my favorite chapter there, okay Okay, so I guess we're allowed to curse.

Speaker 2: 16:59

I'm so excited Um just opened up a whole new realm of possibilities.

Speaker 1: 17:05

Yeah, yeah. So there is an asshole inside each of us that can get really, really, really loud at times, especially during setbacks and especially when you're trying something new, and the more clinical term is your inner critic. So your inner critic is um, you know something and this is a psychological term, I didn't, I didn't make this up Um, but your inner critic is that voice inside you that is just like roaring at you, saying that you're not qualified to do something, you're not capable of doing something, that you should just quit, you should just stop and you should like stay in your lane, you should stay in what's comfortable. And a lot of psychologists recommend giving your inner critic a whole persona, a name, a personality, a visual, because when you do that, you disarm it, you give it this persona, because then it's not you, your inner critic.

Speaker 1: 18:07

That asshole in your head doesn't define you. It's just a voice and you need to acknowledge it, because if you pretend it's not there or you try to ignore it, it's just going to get louder. But if you give it a name and a whole personality, then it's easier to just like talk to it as a separate entity rather than letting it define you. So my inner critic's name is Mama Razi, I call her Roz for short Long Island, right Long Island, that's where.

Speaker 1: 18:35

I'm from and, yeah, mama Razi Roz, good old Roz. She is the epitome of all my childhood friends' moms who for some reason would yell at me to stay in the backyard. And she's smoking a cigarette and she's got a really raspy voice and she's going get back here. Yeah, she's definitely bathrobe curlers, the whole thing. Get back here. What are you doing? Going to halfway down the block? Get in the backyard. That's Roz and she says, like what are you doing standing on that stage? You don't deserve to be there. Get in the backyard and like, sometimes you know she gets really loud, but when you picture roz in her bathrobe smoking her cigarette, it's a little easier to not listen to her.

Speaker 1: 19:23

She's an unhappy woman she's an unhappy woman and she's more comfortable when you don't evolve and this is is in the phase you call embrace. Yeah, this is the hardest phase.

Speaker 4: 19:38

Yeah, so talk more about that.

Speaker 2: 19:40

Well, can I say, before you do that, how important or how critical is identifying naming momoraz before you can do any of this work? Like, is it possible without that? Is it too, because it seems like it would. Just, you're constantly like you know, I suck, I suck, I'm terrible, I can't do this. Like, if you don't get past that, can you complete any of these phases? Chicken in the egg? I don't know.

Speaker 1: 20:01

Naming your inner critic is a tool. You can use it. You can, you know, if it becomes too much or it's not working for you, maybe shift the persona, maybe like change her outfit. But if that's not working for you, like you don't need it. If you have other ways to overcome your self-doubt, that's great. This is just sort of like a tried and true easy. It's kind of fun, it's like funny to talk about and it's fun to do. And then, once you have your inner critic, you can name your inner hype person, which is the one.

Speaker 1: 20:33

That's like. You know the saying talk to yourself like you would talk to a best friend. That's that person, and so you can give them a whole persona and a name. I, throughout my whole book tour, I had a friend, jessica, and she, you know I was going on, I think, new York one.

Speaker 1: 20:47

And it was one of my first live TV interviews and I just texted her. I said, oh, I'm going on New York one tomorrow. I'm nervous, um, and she, she used to work at New York one and that's why I texted her and she, and she left me a voice memo and it was like Amy, you were once sitting in your setback and now look at you like you've got that. It was just like this incredible, like hype voice memo that I listened to, not only on like when I was going into that interview, but for like everything I did through the whole book tour. That was just like no, you deserve this. So I didn't. So maybe I took that idea of the inner hype person and I just like had that voice memo as as what I needed to hype myself in that moment.

Speaker 1: 21:31

So you take what you need. Shout out to Jess yes, yeah, so you take what you need from these tools and if it doesn't work for you, you know you don't need to force it.

Speaker 4: 21:43

So let's go back to the like, filling out a little bit more of we've established um, the setback, we've been able to name that, and, moving to the embrace phase, tell us more about the worst.

Speaker 1: 21:55

Embrace phase is the worst phase, yeah.

Speaker 1: 21:59

I think so. For me, I think it's the hardest, because embrace is when you have to kind of like, sit in your setback and do the evaluation of why this happened. What factors led to this? What didn't you see? What did you see that you ignored? Factors led to this, what didn't you see? What did you see that you ignored? What role did you play in this setback happening? What mistakes might you have made? What you know?

Speaker 1: 22:22

Don't get stuck in a cycle of blame and shame, like don't like totally shame yourself for any mistakes you made, but don't totally blame others. You know it's usually a combination of someone else's fault and your fault and some other factors, and so can you kind of acknowledge where things went wrong, but move on. Like that's what we kind of have to do in the embrace phase Take what we learned and use it to move forward without getting stuck in like rumination or obsession. And it's really hard, it's really hard to do. This is also where we have to look at the stress response, because the stress response, we know, is fight or flight, but there's also freeze.

Speaker 1: 23:02

There's a third option that nobody talks about and a lot of people do that, especially in the embrace phase of a setback. You fight, you don't fight or flight. You don't know what to do, you don't know if you're supposed to fight or flight. You just freeze, you pause. And so another exercise I have is thaw yourself out. So, if you're frozen, here's a couple of questions you could ask yourself so you can thaw yourself out and move forward. And again, these are just. This is just guidance, this is just something to help you if you're really, really stuck because you've been working towards something for so long and now it's been taken away from you for one reason or another.

Speaker 3: 23:37

Yeah, I'm hearing many themes of mindfulness and mindfulness practice as you're talking. A lot of those trigger words that you're mentioning makes me, then, draw a conclusion that the more mindfully aware you are of your emotional state, your surroundings and need to let go the things that they are mentioning, the more I hate to use the word even successful you are at addressing or embracing the setbacks. That's intentional. That connection is that. Is there right? Am I hearing correctly and like, what's the theme there for you?

Speaker 1: 24:15

I think mindfulness is super helpful, but I think what you're saying is more along the lines of self-awareness. You need to understand yourself and how you're reacting to something. And why you're reacting to something I mean a lot of what happens during the embrace phase is we have to understand why we're impacted so strongly by the setback, Because a lot of times, it's not just about this one thing. It's like where have you felt this before? And like where you know, like I was, my career setback was being sidelined after I came back from maternity leave and feeling like I had to prove my value at work, and what I realized in that moment was this wasn't the first time I'd been made to feel like I needed to prove my value, and so this moment brought up all of that. You know self-doubt that I always carry around, and you have to understand why, when you're working through a setback, if you're being impacted so much again emotionally, what else is in there? And so, yeah, you kind of have to like peel back the layers and dig a little deeper and even when you think you found an answer, keep going, keep digging, say what more, what more, and it look it helps you. It's uncomfortable, this phase sucks. I hate this phase. I always want to fast forward through this phase, even when I encounter setbacks and I'm the setback expert and I want to blast through, embrace even though I know I can't.

Speaker 1: 25:37

And, yeah, I think it's really more about just self-awareness and getting comfortable understanding yourself and how you operate. This is like the bad part of that to explore. In the explore phase, which is phase three, we get to start to understand more about how great we are and what our superpowers are and how we can move forward because of all the things we're good at, and so the self exploration has to happen in this phase so that you can really or like the self understanding has to happen in this phase so you can get to the self exploration and the thriving that you get to do in phase three okay, so peel like talk about that, tell peel back the onion like we are ready we are ready to hear about the explore piece, because I think sometimes we get stuck in the embrace like we can even not just rumination, but that's also true, it's bad and you know, taking some agency and saying okay, no, I'm going to, I'm going to stay in the awesome.

Speaker 4: 26:40

Stay in the explore.

Speaker 1: 26:42

At some point you just have to say, okay, here's what I've learned and there's no more peeling back to do, like not that there's always more peeling back you could do, but like at some point it's like, okay, I've learned this and now I want to take that learning and use it in some way.

Speaker 1: 26:57

Right, maybe I learned what I'm not good at, maybe I learned what I'm not passionate about. So what am I passionate about? So when you go into phase three, this is when you get to have fun. It's like the reward for getting through embrace. So I love explore because we get to play, we get to decide what we want to do, what we're good at right, we get to merge our passion with our strength. But we don't have to commit to anything yet, we don't have to choose the path forward yet, because we're still just playing with what we might be able to do, what we might be able to achieve. And I mean this is where, like you go take the tap class and you see what it unlocked, right, you got, you got laid off. Go take a tap dancing class, cause you love doing that when you were five, right, and like this is where you get to do.

Speaker 1: 27:46

Everyone's like, oh, go take a pottery class. And it's like, why would I do that? That's a waste of time, it might not be, just go try. And yeah, you're probably not going to become like a millionaire selling clay pots. I mean, maybe you will, why not? But doing something that's like drastically different than working a 10 hour day and like manufacturing, the scenario where you got laid off and you're taking a pottery class and maybe you were in a really stressful job. And going back to your point about mindfulness, like the mindfulness about just like working with your hands and not staring at a screen just might unlock something that you never would have expected had you not gone and done that exploration what we want to do, what we're hoping to do, what we did before, what was what we were good at then and what we could bring to something new now. It's like there's so much possibility in the explore phase.

Speaker 4: 28:42

Something that I read or either heard you say in a previous engagement. You said I live in this phase always, and it was. I was like, oh yeah, I can't wait to meet her. I can't wait to meet her because there there is that contagious nature that almost gives you hope in the embrace, or like I'm okay, I can establish this, I can embrace this, um, because I get to that, that place, and then so I'm guessing, even with so many things that you have going on, that there is a lot of life there. Is that what you see with some of the people you work with?

Speaker 1: 29:17

Absolutely. I mean, I think we can all be perpetually in the explore phase even as we're cycling through the other phases of the setback. Right, if you think about your identity, how you identify and how so many of us especially leaders, high achieving people we start to identify as, whatever our profession is, whatever our title is, there's a trap so many of us get caught in and I think as a society we're kind of coming out of that a little bit, but not enough. So many of us still identify as our jobs and our industries. I got caught up in that for so long.

Speaker 1: 29:54

But if you start to explore outside of whatever identity you hold, whatever job you hold, whatever role you play, even if you're building your passion business and you're so excited about it, you should also do other stuff. You should also have an identity, an identity outside of that role, because you just never know how number one bringing in that outside inspiration is going to help you in that role you're so passionate about. But also, again, if you're like in the corporate world and at risk of job loss or restructuring, if you have passions outside of that, the hits not going to hit as hard. It's just not.

Speaker 3: 30:38

So is part of the process that you're describing in this explore phase. Um is is part of it a conscious and unconscious unlearning of some of the behaviors and habits, not just a disassociation with a career or a title.

Speaker 1: 30:53

So much. Of the setback cycle is an unlearning, so much of it.

Speaker 1: 30:57

I was unlearning as I was writing it, you know. I mean the book is really like a you. You kind of come along the journey with me as I'm learning about all the things we can do to to work our way out of the setback cycle. But I think even the embrace phase is even established. It's all an unlearning because as a society, you know, we have been conditioned to avoid negative feelings and discomfort and you know all those things and so. But in order to really work through a setback and anyone who's ever had therapy knows this like you have to embrace the discomfort and the uncomfortable feelings. Because what's the saying? The only way out is through. It's true.

Speaker 3: 31:36

It's so true I thought it was the only way out is avoid. Is that just me?

Speaker 1: 31:41

That's what we were all taught. That's what I would wish. I wish it was true, that's what I would prefer to do. But here we are. The experts say otherwise. Yeah, yeah, it is true.

Speaker 3: 31:54

I just the experts say otherwise. Yeah, I absolutely love the intentionality and simplicity of the process. I'm always looking for handles that people can put their hands on to help them progress through some of the more difficult things in life and in this conversation about setbacks, I love the simplicity just in the beginning of this conversation and as we look to the emerge phase. Is this where people get excited? Or is this where people have a little bit of fear, knowing that through this process of unlearning, disassociation, habit breaking, whatever it is, that new part can sometimes be the more terrifying part?

Speaker 1: 32:36

It's both. Have you ever been super excited about something you're about to do without also being a little afraid?

Speaker 3: 32:43

Just a little bit.

Speaker 1: 32:45

Everything worth doing requires a little bit of fear, don't you think?

Speaker 3: 32:48

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 32:49

The embrace phase is awesome, but it is terrifying because you have done so much introspection and then exploration and planning and strategizing and now it's time to take action and sometimes taking action is the hardest part. You have to get off the couch, you know it's easy. I always think of how I feel on January 1st like. January 2nd, whatever that first business day is, and you're like, I have all these plans I have made, I have done all the journaling. Like I'm a big like, not like journaling, like feelings journal, but like planner, like.

Speaker 1: 33:26

I have outlined my goals for the year I have decided what habits I'm going to change. I'm going to drink more water. And you're like, yes, I'm going to do it all. And then you wake up January 2nd and you've got your giant water bottle on the table and your you know planner in front of you and you're just like God damn it. Now I have to do all the things.

Speaker 2: 33:49

Why did I write that down?

Speaker 1: 33:52

I know, I know but it's written in my planner as a yearly goal, so now I have to do it. I do have an exercise, I think, called get off the couch.

Speaker 2: 34:01

I was going to say. That's why there's like those couch to 5K plans and there's something about that metaphor of sitting on the couch that nobody wants to be that person, so shoving you off the couch is important.

Speaker 3: 34:12

One of the things I want to ask you about at this point, because there are a couple of key phrases you use when you're getting towards the end of the book that I think people will identify with but not necessarily understand it from the perspective that you're giving, like the decision-making process, our decision-making framework. We all know what that kind of process is. What do you mean by that? And lighting the way, the North Star navigating through it all. What are these? How do they work together?

Speaker 1: 34:47

Well, your North Star should guide your decision-making, should guide your decision making. So if you're a person that's like I am going to build, you know, a marketing consulting company, right, this is my goal and I am going to reach this level of revenue in the next six months. That's your goal. It's like a very specific goal, but that's your North star, right? Okay, this person from this part of my life just asked me to do a coffee at, you know, 3 pm on a Thursday. Is that how I want to spend my time at 3 pm on a Thursday? Is it in service of my North Star? That's going to guide your decision making. I think we all talk a lot about boundary setting and a lot of times it's really less about the setting of the boundaries than the holding of the boundaries.

Speaker 1: 35:38

And I think that if we right I mean I I just, by the way, I struggle with all the things I'm talking about, um, but like I know what I should do, but I struggle with all of it. And so I think that if you have a North star, like for the past few years, until 19th 2024, my North Star was, like I am publishing, like I'm writing this book, I am publishing this book and now I want to make sure people know about this book. That was my North Star, right? Like my mission, like in general, is just to elevate the stories of underestimated founders and leaders who are doing the work to solve society's biggest problems. And the way I reached that North Star over the past few years was in writing this book.

Speaker 1: 36:23

You know, this was a big part of that larger mission, and so anytime I and again, like I'm in New York City, there's a lot of events, there's a lot of things that are kind of like pulling at my time Am I going to go to this event? Am I going to um, have lunch with this person who, you know, wants my advice on something? Like I wish I could have lunch with everyone who wants my advice on something, but my time is finite and in the past few years, if, if it took away from book writing, it was really, you know, it really had to be a decision right, like social connection and catching up with old friends, of course. But when I took, you know, new requests from people, I was like, well, is this in service of that North Star? And it really guided my decision making.

Speaker 1: 37:10

Now I'm talking about time specifically, and like having coffees and going to events, but there's all kinds of decisions that you can guide and that can be in service of that North star. You know, um, and I think that's really really helpful, especially for those of us who, like me, are recovering people pleasers who, again, we want to say yes to everything. We want to help everyone. We want to make sure that person feels supported. I want that person to like me. Well, what's your North Star and is this request in service of that? You really have to use that to guide your decisions.

Speaker 3: 37:45

I love that.

Speaker 4: 37:45

Now you've met with some incredible people. I'm wondering about any of the stories that you received from readers of your book that you know maybe aren't in the in the spotlight on a daily basis that really were impactful to you. Do you have a example?

Speaker 1: 38:04

or two. Oh my God, so many, so many. I did a TEDx talk in Washington DC on GW's campus and George Washington University's campus and students came up to me after that talk and a lot of them just wanted to know, like how can we work through setbacks as we're entering the workforce and things like that. But one woman came up to me and she said you know, I'm part of the sports team. You know, she's a college athlete. And she said I'm part of the sports team.

Speaker 1: 38:41

I thought that this was my calling for years. I'm, you know, going into my senior year and I don't think this is for me anymore, but I'm so good at it, I'm so good at it, how could I stop? How can I stop being this athlete? And I said you don't have to stop being this athlete to go explore other things, you know. And I just thought that was so interesting and like just saying that to her and like seeing her react, and she was just kind of like, oh, that was so interesting and like just saying that to her and like seeing her react, and she was just kind of like, oh, and it's almost like she just wanted someone to give her permission to do that, Like to just go maybe I don't know go major in microbiology or something, and you know she doesn't.

Speaker 1: 39:21

It didn't have to make sports her life or whatever it is she wanted to do. She was really struggling with again that like identity shift, shift of. But I've always been an athlete like clearly she was recruited for her athletic status and like to join, uh, this team and I I just felt like she needed someone. It didn't have to be me. In that moment, it was me to give her permission to do something other than what she had clearly been working toward. And that was that one really impacted me. I was like, wow, you know what you need to do.

Speaker 1: 39:53

You just need someone to sort of give you the green light.

Speaker 4: 39:56

Yeah, I love that example, thank you.

Speaker 3: 39:59

So, Amy, in light of the time, in thinking about all that we've covered so far, is there something, is there a topic or a point that you want to emphasize or reemphasize that we can queue up Like something you're thinking?

Speaker 1: 40:13

I'm just saying no, just I. Since I wrote the book, a lot of what I've been doing is going into companies and working with teams and departments that have been through restructuring and helping their middle managers, like navigate, leading through tumultuous times, and I think that's where I'm starting to really get a sense of people's stories now and people's setback stories, and this is more specifically in the corporate world, and I've been going to a lot of the big tech companies because they they've been hit with a lot of restructuring and I'm, you know, when people are laid off, you think of the people who were laid off and that being the setback, but there's people who have been left behind to fill all these gaps and do all these roles and they're expected to just be grateful because you still have a job, but their job doesn't look anything like what it used to, and that's a setback too.

Speaker 3: 41:40

And so I've been really having pretty intense conversations with those teams, because restructuring can be terrible but it can also be an opportunity for a reset, and that's just another thing that has come from the setback cycle that that might be relevant to your audience. No, that's really good. I think what I'm hearing is when you put yourself in the place of the people that are endure all the stages of successfully or you know, or just navigating through a setback is so that we can have a more empathetic or compassionate connection with people who are going through it themselves, whether it's similar to what we're going through or just a setback in general. So oftentimes you know, when human beings do the work of being human, it makes them more accessible and relatable to those that are experiencing the setbacks or challenges that they're facing. So I really appreciate that last observation of yours and the podcast, but plugging with the work that you do, that's also important to have that.

Speaker 1: 42:25

Yeah, well, and it's, it's related and I mean, like you said, I think people can use the workbook in the back to understand how to work through those setbacks again, like just because yours isn't as bad as someone else's, it doesn't mean it's not a setback and that you shouldn't acknowledge it and work through it.

Speaker 3: 42:45

Nathan, anything else, I mean. What are you thinking?

Speaker 2: 42:49

I mean, we could talk for a lot longer, but I just I don't know if this is to close, but I just want to say that kind of. My two favorite chapters were four and five what babies can teach us?

Speaker 2: 42:57

and cultivating your curiosity because yeah not so much that, but I think what I do learn from my kids is just this idea of being curious, constantly asking questions about things, and too often I I think leaders or just adults, leaders, adults, whoever we get in this place of feeling like I have this position of influence, of power, of whatever, and I have to know everything, I have to be the expert, and sometimes I think that we lose that sense of curiosity and being willing and open to learn new things about ourselves, about the people that we're leading, and so I don't know. This is maybe a final point, but like what is how important? There's two chapters basically about curiosity. How important is that in this whole process?

Speaker 3: 43:45

Good question.

Speaker 1: 43:47

It's one of the most important things that's going to get you through the setback cycle. Good question curious in the explore phase, about what you're passionate about and what you might be good at? I mean, there's a chapter dedicated to curiosity, but it's really a theme throughout the whole book, because if you're not curious about what more might be possible for you, you're never going to know, you're never going to learn, you know and that's. That goes back to the floating along. You can float along and stay in your comfort zone as long as you want and if you're not curious and you don't take action to really like foster that curiosity, I appreciate your courage, I appreciate your drive to even get these words into people's hands.

Speaker 4: 44:56

I find you very inspirational and, yeah, it's really meaningful, because the more handles we can give to people, that's I mean, that's, that is our life's, uh, life's work, and so, thank you for um being real with us, thank you for you know bringing yourself to this conversation, um, and we just we wish you great success.

Speaker 1: 45:21

Thank you so much. This might be one of the most fun podcasts I ever did. It really felt like sitting at a dinner table with a family that I was like invited to join for.

Speaker 2: 45:31

Thank you Five stars. Smash that like. Smash that like um thank you. That's um thank you that we do appreciate. Thank you for taking the time. I know you're like you said your time is finite Of course.

Speaker 4: 45:43

You um wonderful use of it.

Speaker 3: 45:45

Awesome.

Speaker 4: 45:46

He's got a good thing to say.

Speaker 3: 45:47

I do.

Speaker 4: 45:48

First of all, I part of the reason I love my husband is he loves strong women Um so like my one, stronger the better, bigger, bolder stronger, give me some cab.

Speaker 3: 46:03

Um, okay. So on the back end of this conversation I'm always asking myself, like what stands out and there's a variety of of things that that stands out. But then I have to ask myself what am I going to share? The universal applicability of your topic, that's what stands out for me, because it falls outside of the realm of you know what we've committed our professional life to doing. You know, oftentimes we talk to people or host podcasts where we're talking in a lane. I feel that your topic is a horizons with of applicability for human beings of all ages and at all stages. That level of accessibility makes me wonder. You know how much you're hitting the gas on getting this out there, which I know you are. But that to me, like just has so much. It's a backup. There's so much to the message that needs to be heard, not only in the recognition that we all experience setbacks, but we need to embrace the setbacks, to connect to human beings who are going to experience setbacks to come that they don't see coming.

Speaker 1: 47:10

Yes, how is it?

Speaker 3: 47:11

that we can gather together as a community and be willing and open to share the lessons that we've learned with others so that they can proceed as well. Because I just can't imagine a conversation that I've had in the last 25 years that hasn't included some type of setback, whether it's traumatic, emotional to occupational like what you were sharing to health, death of it. Just there's so much wrapped up into that. It just seems to be like one of those, um, like a base beat of what it means to be a human being. It's always there, it's always available, but I think many of us try to skirt around it or step over the process. I'm glad you're emphasizing the process.

Speaker 1: 47:53

Thank you so much for saying that, and I also am worried that I'm not hitting the gas hard enough and that not enough people know about the book and I'm doing as much as I can, but who knows what more I could be doing. So always trying, always trying to get the word out. So I appreciate you inviting me on this podcast and sharing it with your audience.

Speaker 3: 48:13

Yes, well, thank you, and we'll do our share to hit the gas in the next couple of weeks.

Speaker 1: 48:17

Thank you so much Thank you.

Speaker 2: 48:20

This has been wonderful, really wonderful Thank you and thank you for listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. If you found value from this episode or any of our other resources, we would appreciate it. If you would subscribe to our newsletter, review our podcast, subscribe to our podcast, join our social media channels and really just connect with us. We share a lot of great content and all kinds of information about helping you grow as a leader and helping your team grow to be the healthiest team, the most functioning, capable team it can be. Another big thank you to Amy for having this chat with us. It was a lot of fun and in preparation for this and then after talking with her, I was just really impacted by the stuff that she shared.

Speaker 2: 49:08

And, as Brian said, it is kind of a simple thing but it universally touches all of us in some way, some shape, some different form throughout life. That it really is that kind of horizon sort of topic that we all experience. We probably don't talk about enough, we certainly don't know how to get out of it and it's just kind of inevitable. So go check out our book. There is a link in the show notes to find that, and we hope that you will join us next week when we're back for another episode. My name is Nathan Freeberg and, on behalf of our entire team, thanks for listening.