How to Avoid The Dangers of Pursuing Perfection w/ Michele Molitor

In this episode of Relationships at Work, Russel chats with executive coach, author, and international speaker Michele Molitor on avoiding the dangers of pursuing perfection as leaders.

Michele shares her insights and experience on...

• Perfection is personal and subjective.
• Embracing imperfections is healthier.
• Perfectionism as a trauma response.
• Striving for excellence vs. toxic perfectionism.
• Vulnerability as a strength.
• Self-awareness of personal motivators improves connection.

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Transcript

Russel Lolacher: And on the show today, we have Michele Molitor. And here's why she is awesome. She's an internationally recognized speaker, certified executive coach, organizational development, consultant, trainer, hypnotherapist, and writer. Michele is the founder and CEO of Nectar Consulting, helping teams create a more productive and committed workforce by enhancing the overall wellbeing of employees.

I'm not done breathing yet. Here we go. She's also the coauthor of three bestselling books, including her latest - I Am Perfectly Flawsome. Yes, that's right. You heard the word flawsome, not awesome. There's a reason for that. How Embracing Imperfection Makes Us Better, which you can pick up right now. Hello, Michele.

Michele Molitor: Hello, hello! It's nice to see you, Russel.

Russel Lolacher: You as well. As I alluded to from the book, there is something to flaws and pursuit of perfection that we're going to dig into today. But before we do, I have to ask the most important question, Michele, which is the one I ask all of my guests, which is what is your best or worst employee experience?

Michele Molitor: Well, that's easy for me. My worst employee experience was actually a very painful catalytic moment in my career. My former life, I was a creative director in high tech and web development and essentially got bullied out of my job. And it was super painful. It created a massive case of corporate PTSD and imposter syndrome for me.

And, you know, it was very clear that the two men that I hired for my team really didn't like working for a woman or me or some combination thereof and did their very best to make life really challenging and difficult at a lot of levels. And it really tanked my confidence. And ultimately I ended up getting laid off and, it was super painful and challenging because I was like, I've spent the last 10 years to get to this illustrious, golden handcuffed place, right?

And, not only to have the carpet ripped out from under my feet and left wondering, well, what do I do now? And so it actually led me to this new thing called coaching. And in the process of being coached. My whole spirit kind of went, oh, this is what we're supposed to be doing. So I ended up pivoting, got trained and certified and started my own company, Nectar Consulting in 2001 and have been doing it now for almost 24 years and it's been quite a joy ride on many, many levels.

Russel Lolacher: I want to dig into that just a little bit because I've often, I ask that question for every episode. We're getting up to about 200 very, very soon. And anytime I asked that question and it's a bad experience, it's always from decades ago. It's not like this happened last week or last month. It is something that is top of mind, like you, it took you no time at all.

It was immediately there. That's not a bad day. That's trauma. That is something you're carrying with you. So I'm assuming you didn't just leave that organization with a feeling of imposter syndrome, a feeling of crushed confidence and go, you know what, coaching, There must've been sort of that, what was that bridge?

Because you may have, did you try other jobs? Did you, did your confidence just not have you apply for the same positions? Like, where were you in that journey?

Michele Molitor: Sure. Well, it, it, it really, I felt like a deer in the headlights. Like that was the most painful thing I've ever experienced. I don't ever want to do that again. What do I do now? And I took, I took about two months off. And ultimately I did get another job as a creative director and another startup, with what I thought was a no can lose. We're got a hundred million in private funding coming was super exciting. And six months later, they ran out of cash. I got laid off again. And this time I get short changed about 40,000 in salary. And then a month later, 9/11 happened. And so it was like the universe shaking me by the shoulders. Like, no, not that. That is not where you belong.

And I was like, Oh, okay. And so it, it was like, really was painful on many, many levels. And I happened to. I have stumbled my way into coaching to figure out what to do next. And in the process of being coached, it was that light bulb moment, literally like that. My whole spirit knew that this was the work that I was meant to be doing.

And so I went on to start my, professional learning journey of becoming a learning junkie. Can I have another workshop, please? And I got trained and certified through the Coaches Training institute and I've been doing some level of coaching and workshops and training and personal development ever since, because I just, I love understanding what makes humans tick and I, I love helping others sort out not only how they tick, but how do they.

improve their relationships at work and personally, right? Personally and professionally so that their life becomes more joyful, more meaningful, more satisfying.

Russel Lolacher: I won't say I won't love that you just slipped in the name of the podcast in there. Thank you, Michele.

Michele Molitor: It just so happens.

Russel Lolacher: I know. I love that. I appreciate that as well, because I don't think a lot of leaders understand that, and colleagues and anybody we work with, understanding the impact we have on people's identity.

You saw yourself as this. This is who I'm going to be. This is the path I have. And then to have that pulled away from you, it's not, oh, I'm going to get another job. It is a whole, but I worked so hard. This is, this is my idea, and I know this is going to get into our conversation today, this is my deal of what success looks like. Maybe not perfection, but this is what success looks like to me. And that's kind of been taken away.

Michele Molitor: Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. Hit the nail on the head. And I didn't realize at the time how much my title was my identity. You know, I, I worked 10 hard years to get to that corner office and that illustrious position and. And to have that, you know, yanked out, I was like, well, what just happened? And, and then to make, to make matters worse, the day that I was laid off, Russel, I went home and I called my mom, like, mom, I'm having a bad day. I lost my job today. And my mom was pretty stoic. She said, wow, I'm sorry you lost your job today. Our friend Al is dying. I was like, what? And so it was like a, so what, I lost my job. My friend is dying. And the sad part was that he was allowing himself to go down that path because he was too ashamed, too afraid to admit who he was, which was, you know, a man in a small town who was very closeted.

Right. And a week later he passed away. And that day I swore to myself and to spirit above and to, and to him in honor of him. I'm like, I'm not going to live from a place of fear. He died because of his fears. And I'm like, I'm going to put my big girl panties on and figure out what I'm going to do and get on with doing it. And, and it has been my, my guiding star, I guess, ever since then. Even when it's hard, even when I'm falling down, because we all fall down from time to time, I have to remember that moment and go, you know, life sucks sometimes, but we'll get through this and we'll figure it out and we'll keep moving. And that's what I've done.

So if nothing, I'm tenacious to the core.

Russel Lolacher: That, that leads me to my next question, which is of course our topic today, which is the pursuit of perfection, because everybody comes into their career with some, well, maybe not an idea of what their five, 10, I hate that question. What's your five, 10 plan. I hate that. But they do have an idea of what success might look like for them.

As they go down that path or leaders might have that perspective of what it looks like for their employees to achieve a thing. So thank you for sharing that story with me. A very personal story with me. I appreciate that. So in the pursuit of perfection, maybe we should just pull that back a bit and go, what is perfection?

How would you define perfection in related to something that we're trying to achieve?

Michele Molitor: Sure. So perfection is an ideal that we have in our head. Right? There's, I would assert that there's no such thing as perfection. Everything is perfectly imperfect. You can look outside, you can see a tree, a blade of grass, a flower, everything is unique and perfectly imperfect. And so when we get caught in that idea of, oh, it must be perfect.

My life must be perfect and it must look a certain way, it is because we are going through life with a set of blinders on. that says it has to be this particular way until the moment you go, maybe that doesn't actually work for me, right? And we start to pull back the blinders and see all else that is available to us in its own imperfect way, right?

Russel Lolacher: How does that apply in the workplace too? Because leaders will have the idea of what perfection looks like. Employees just starting their job might have a different perspective. You might have a different perspective based on where you are in your career. It could have a diversity lens. How is it different in the workplace?

Michele Molitor: Well, as you said, everybody has their own lens. We all have our own life experiences that says this is what's perfect. So my definition of perfect and your definition of perfect might be very different things. However, we all make the assumption in a workplace that this is what's perfect. But if my lens is different than your lens, then I'm seeing it differently than you.

So think of it as this, this crystal has all these different facets to it, right? And we both might say this is perfect, but is it this side that makes it perfect or this side or the, you know, what aspect of it is what makes it perfect and each of us is gonna have a different take on what that is or what it should be.

Russel Lolacher: So that worries me a bit in the workplace because if we have different definitions and we're singing from different song sheets, how does that friction show up in the workplace?

Michele Molitor: Well, I think in my experience and what I've seen is it, it shows up as misinterpretations, miscommunications, misinterpretations. People starting to feel grit between them that then lowers productivity and collaboration because ultimately when we make those misassumptions and misinterpretations... because I'm thinking well, everybody sees the world this way, right?

Right? Then we start unconsciously violating each other's dignity because we don't recognize that your perspective is just as valid and important as mine. It's just different.

Russel Lolacher: But that seems to change based on where you are in the hierarchy.

Michele Molitor: Well, I would say that we all inherently have dignity.

Russel Lolacher: Okay.

Michele Molitor: Right? We're all deserving of being respected for our value and worth, right? For what makes us unique. But when we make assumptions about each other thinking that, oh, well, we should all be this way, We should all be perfect, or our work should all be this way and should be perfect, then we're not taking into consideration what are the unique motivational factors that drive you which are different than what drive me.

Those motivational factors about how you see the world, how you move through the world, how you hear the world, how you process information, each one of those is different for every single person. And it's human nature to assume when we all see the world through the same prism, when we don't, you know, we can lump us into different groups, help us understand each other and how we might think about something.

But ultimately my life experiences are different and unique than anybody else on the entire planet, which is going to make my prism different. So it's being curious about, well, Russel, what, what is motivating you in your work? Or on this project? So I understand where you're coming from and the choices that you're making so that we can find the level playing field and the common ground to move forward really more effectively and more collaboratively. Does that make sense?

Russel Lolacher: It does. But I'm also curious as you coming from a coaching lens, if you're talking to a, an executive who has a particular way of doing things and gosh, darn it, their title and their paycheck basically dictates that they're right. At least in their lens. How do you get them to that aha moment of your pursuit of perfection might get in the way of things like innovation and actually coming up with new directions they may not even realize... how do you get to that point?

Michele Molitor: Well, part of it is having data, right? You know, yes, Mr. Vice President or Mr. President or Ms. President or Ms. Vice President... we, we see your perspective on this and, and where you want to take that. And, we think there are these other aspects of this that maybe you haven't seen or taken into consideration that we would like to run by you or try out or expand the pie so that the offering is that much richer or more valuable to the user experience of whatever the widget might be.

Russel Lolacher: Right.

Michele Molitor: So. One of the, one of the tools that I use Russel to help folks with this is it's called Dignify, and it's a patented survey that my colleague Joe Kittinger invented to help initially was to understand how to speak to his stepson better, 15 something years ago.

And he's developed it into this whole platform that not only allows me to understand you by understanding your top five dignity traits, but what are your do's and your don'ts at work? How do you want to be treated? How don't you want to be treated? What country are you from? As he likes to call them. We have perfect country, control country, peace country, and fun country.

So when you understand the mentality of the people from your region, right, you can speak and so they're listening more effectively so that we get on the same playing field and we can move together much more effectively.

Russel Lolacher: I love that. The thing is though, is that when we go into organizations and we talk to those leaders, I don't remember anybody ever saying, this needs to be perfect. They don't actually ever say the words because nobody wants to admit that perfection's the goal because again, we all know perfection's not, and yet the actions and the micromanagement to get to this form of perfection seems to happen. How do you combat that when the words they're saying is, I agree with you, Michele, who can achieve perfection? Meanwhile, the actions are completely going down that path.

Michele Molitor: So this is where we get into all the interesting internal stuff that drives each of us, right? Because perfectionism, the pursuit of perfectionism is actually a trauma response, Russel. Whether that happened in a workplace or as a child in some way, shape or form, being around overly critical other people, adults, caretakers, whatever that might be, that then tells you, let's say when we were kids, right? You have an overly critical parent. It has to be just so, right? Everything has to be in its place. And so we, we adopt that. We absorb that as a sponge because that's how our brains are as kids.

And so that's the water you're swimming in. So that's the water you absorb. And so you move through life. Everything has to be just so it has to be just perfect. So then you become a leader and everything has to be just so, and everybody on the team follows the leader. So then everybody else is trying to make it just so.

And so you create, it can create a toxic environment from the head of the fish down because of someone's behavior. trauma wounds that they didn't know that they had, right? Because I hadn't looked at it through that particular lens. So that's the work that I do with folks is really getting at that underneath, that unconscious, subconscious level of, well, what are the beliefs that you decided about yourself and how to move through the world in a safe way when you were one or five or 10 or 15, right?

And how is that showing up in your world now? And is it working for you, or is it working against you? Because if it's working against you, then, well, let's change that. Let's change the beliefs we have about ourselves, find a more empowering perspective, and then start to lead from that place.

Russel Lolacher: How do we know it's not just, but I have high expectations, Michele. I'm not a perfectionist. I just have high expectations for my team. Like, is there a boundary to this? Is there a line to cross or are they, can they be confused for each other?

Michele Molitor: Well, so in our book, I'm Perfectly Flawsome, and we talk about the difference between toxic perfectionism and striving for excellence. Striving for excellence, will liken it to a healthy type of perfectionism, right? Versus toxic perfectionism is the one that is, is having you overwork, overgive, people please, burn yourself out, stress yourself out to the detriment of your own health and wellbeing or to those around you, right?

So it's about finding the healthy balance of what is the striving for excellence place to arrive at as an individual or a team so that we are all bringing our very best doing our very best and knowing that nothing will ever be perfect.

Russel Lolacher: So then that gets me into definitions because we started this conversation defining perfectionism. Who's defining excellence?

Michele Molitor: So that's where the, the leadership of the, you know, of a team comes in based on their experience and their know how, to set, to set the bar. This is where we're going as a team and we are striving for excellence and we want to do our very best and we also want each of you to have healthy work life balance.

So it's not about going from perfectionism to mediocrity. It's not what I'm saying, but it's about finding that healthy place where everybody gets to bring their best to the table. And, and we can go home at night knowing, well, I did my best today. And sometimes that is better than others. We all have bad days, right?

Russel Lolacher: I think that just really cements the point of A. Communication and B. Visions and missions and goals and... those aren't just platitudes. They are things that leaders need to create, this North Star so that people have a motivation. They have a direction. It's not perfectionism. It's inspiration. It's motivational. It's aspirational.

Michele Molitor: Yes, exactly.

Russel Lolacher: Yeah.

Michele Molitor: That's why, that's why I find it so important to, have, whether it's a team or a whole organization to create a set of shared values. I would liken the, your top five dignity traits to someone's core values. I've always done values assessments with every client I've ever worked with over the last almost 24 years.

And when I discovered the dignify tool, I was so excited because it's the closest thing to a values assessment in an algorithm form that I've ever found. And so I immediately started using that because it also gives you a lot more data and more tools to use as an organization. So finding and deciding what are those organizational values that we are all rowing in the same direction towards, but then having each person identify, well, what are my top five dignity traits and how did those play into the values that we have as a team, right? I, I had a team that I worked with just in May and they did this at their retreat, they've got their five team values up on the wall, for the work that they do and then they each took their top five dignity traits on stickies, very scientific method. And like, how do my values align with the values of the team? And then they had a discussion about it because that way it allows us to see into each other at a deeper level of, Oh, this is what's driving you to do this work versus how it's driving me to do this work and how my values aligned with those values.

So it creates a much more synergistic workplace and team because we are seeing each other as humans, not just as you're the team lead and I'm the widget maker and you're the programmer, right? Whatever it might be.

Russel Lolacher: You nailed something that I've been trying to scream to the mountaintops for ages, which is, well, we do these values exercises. I know I've done like a million of them, but the secret sauce that I don't think we do enough of, and you've illustrated it there is, we don't communicate our values. We just keep them to ourselves.

We're just like, here's your five top 10 values. Great. Thanks. I know me better. And then you go home. How is anybody supposed to know how to interact with you if they don't know your values, your motivations, because I'm going to talk to somebody on my team a lot differently, who has a motivation that's motivated by, oh, I don't know, money versus new opportunities, I'm going to talk to them.

I'm going to try to motivate them in completely new ways, but if I don't know them to approach them in that way, then it's a wasted effort.

Michele Molitor: Absolutely. Absolutely. Let me just grab this. So, this is, this is my top five, my, this is what my snapshot looks like, right? And so as teams, we have everybody take their snapshot and then we get a little printout and you put it on your desk. So when I come to talk to you at your desk, I can see what your top five dignity traits are.

And I can go into the system and we can have what we call a check in. Russel, tell me about your number one dignity trait of creativity. What does that mean to you? And why is that important to you in how you do your work each day? So when we have these regular conversations, it's not a one and done kind of thing.

It's a regular conversation between employee to employee, boss to employee, to see into each other for who they are authentically, because ultimately we all want to feel seen, heard, and respected for the gifts and the talents that we bring to the table. I haven't met anybody yet who doesn't want to feel appreciated and respected for their work.

So this is a way to help understand what makes you awesome or 'flawsome' as the case may be, right? And how can I as your leader, how can I bring out the best in you by honoring who you are instead of trying to put a square peg in a round hole? It's like you wouldn't put an introvert at the front desk to greet people because they would be like, this hurts me. I don't like doing this. So...

Russel Lolacher: Or maybe that introvert wants to learn and get uncomfortable, but you have to know them well enough to know that they want these new opportunities or that they want to shadow somebody that maybe is better at this so they can mirror their efforts to learn. But again, we have to be, leaders, have to lead by getting to know our people. So it's not just throwing bodies at a problem, it's getting to know our people, to know what the right fits are.

Michele Molitor: Yeah, absolutely.

Russel Lolacher: So what is our, what are we pursuing then, Michele? Are we pursuing excellence? Because if we're not pursuing perfection, are we pursuing... Hmm, flaws? Are we pursuing imperfections?

Like you've caught you coined flawsome. So maybe I should ask you to define that before we find out where we're going.

Michele Molitor: Sure. Well, we, we define flawsome as the ability to be flawed and awesome all at the same time. Embracing our imperfections and being continuous, lifelong learners. So I'm continually learning every single day to be the best version of me that I can be. I'm different and better and more knowledgeable than I am today than I was yesterday.

So we are striving for excellence while holding the, the concept that we are flawed and awesome and, and can, and we'll bring our best each day to the best of our ability. So as a, as a team asking everybody to, to bring their best on any given day... And again, that's going to vary because you might wake up in the morning and get out of bed and smash your toe into the dresser and break your toe and being in a really crappy mood the rest of the day cause your foot hurts. And so, It's, you know, we do the best that we can with what we have. And, and that changes moment by moment.

Russel Lolacher: What guardrails do we put in place to keep this consistent though? Because we can certainly talk about, Oh, I flawed perfection, but suddenly there's a fire alarm problem that executive wants fixed tomorrow. And suddenly it's all about producing and being perfect. Oh, wait, but I need to get back to where I was. Like, how do we keep ourselves on track as opposed to slipping.

Michele Molitor: Well, that's a great question. And I would say being mindful of what's the dialogue in our head. Right. There's always going to be a hair on fire moment at work, and the boss needs this thing right now, and we're going to, we're going to do our best. You know, let me, let me give you a great example of this.

This is another one of those, I can't believe that just happened moments at work. Back when I was a graphic designer, the... I was working for a company that did multimedia for the pharmaceutical industries, right? Training stuff. And I was pulled out of lunch by my boss, who was a little whoop. And he said, I need you to do the chyron on this edit while the editor does the editing.

Cause we have to get this done right away. I'm like, okay, great. Let's sit down. And the way the machines were configured, the editor would do and then I would do, but we couldn't do at the same time. And he walked in and saw me not doing while the editor was doing, and he starts screaming at me. He gets up in my face, picks up the computer.

This was in 1997, so you can imagine what that looked like. The little, he picked up the computer and literally threw it on the ground. Screaming at me and I still to this day don't know where this came from and he's literally like 10 inches from my face. And I'm like, 'Michael, throwing the computer on the floor will not solve the problem.'

And he was all like... walked out the door. I'm all, Holy crap. What just happened there, right. And so in moments like that, you have to like, find that place of inner resolve and listen to your insights that are coming through versus the Negative Nelly that might pop up in your mind. The negative looping thoughts that can get in our way and slow us down, if you will.

Russel Lolacher: We're focusing a lot on the individual and teams. What's the culture's role? Because executive can be set modeling a culture. What do they need to be doing to let people know that being a little flawed is okay.

Michele Molitor: Well, I think allowing our leaders to be vulnerable. is important, right? You know, Brené Brown talks about it beautifully and I wholeheartedly agree with her. You know, vulnerability is our superpower. When I was in one of my very first coach training courses, it was a corporate, corporate coaching course, one of my former teachers, John Vercelli, came up to me and he's a very tall man, he's like six foot five or something, he's like, you know, you're much more approachable when you're vulnerable.

And I was like, no, thank you. That sounds really scary and icky. And, and it took me several iterations of getting that lesson, that reminder over and over again to go, Oh, now I understand what he means. Or what he meant by that because as we become more vulnerable and share our personal stories, people take us down off of the pedestal.

Oh, you're this and you're that. You're this VP or that president or whatever whatever And you're like, you're just another human being who puts her pants on one leg at a time. And that allows us to be able to relate with others at a different level to then find that way through in a conversation with greater authenticity, I think.

Russel Lolacher: So it makes me, so yeah, I completely hear that. And I think culture has such an influence. What I also think people misunderstand is culture is many things. Culture is not one thing. It is 17,000 cultures within an organization. Two people can have a culture. But we look at it of what's the cultural solution.

I'm like, no, there's so much middle management, so many executives that are in charge of their own team culture, much less the larger organization. So I think to your point, modeling the behavior, showing that vulnerability in those moments. I remember there was an executive I saw do a presentation, didn't know the executive very well.

Up until that point in the organization, any executive did a presentation that had a personal story was all about them going, look at all the jobs I always applied for. And it was always successful. And my, I've been a rocket up this ladder to like, no, no hiccups, no failures, and then this one, one executive basically just talked about all the jobs she didn't get and how it impacted her and how she adjusted.

And she showed her resiliency and her adaptability. She was generally, she's a huge introvert, introvert, crazy introvert, and kind of standoffish is the perception. After she did that, she was swarmed. I'm sure as an introvert, she hated it, but as far as connecting to other humans and getting a better reputation, she was modeling a flawed story that she was a part of that everybody else felt relatable to going, Oh, I'm okay not to get that job and look where you ended up. I could still, I can still be successful even if I didn't get that job or that job or that job. So it was, it spoke volumes.

Michele Molitor: Yeah. You know, and, and to that point, Russel, it literally took me years before I could talk about what happened to me in my, in my career because I had so much shame around it. I thought, Oh my gosh, I'm a horrible person. It's all my fault. And I was just cloaked in it. Deeply cloaked in it.

And it, it took a lot of work on my own part to remove that and finally go, yeah, this is what happened to me. I mean, it probably took at least 10 years or more before I could kind of say it out loud. But as I did that, A, it was really cathartic because I wasn't holding it in my nervous system anymore.

And B, it made me so much more relatable to all the other people out there who had been laid off as well. And, you know, we've all messed up at times. We've all... things have happened. Life happens, circumstances that are all out of our control. And we tend to, as human beings, make it personal. Oh, it was my fault.

I was bad and wrong. And again, that all goes back to the programming that we got as kids as to what is right, what is wrong, how life is supposed to look, et cetera. I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs. So, you know, I had a particular perspective of what success was supposed to look like. And I spent many, many years trying to meet that bar, but while only continuing to raise my bar and never quite getting to the bar.

So it created burnout in me. It created an imposter syndrome in me. And it took a lot of undoing of those thoughts and patterns to get to a much, much healthier place.

Russel Lolacher: How does this butt up against terms like personal branding? Because people are all trying to sell themselves now in organizations. And we focus on, this is our identity. This is how I sell myself to executives so I can have another opportunity, a better paying opportunity. And that tends to be wrapped around this personal branding, not vulnerability, but what problems they can fix for other people, how their job title, loftier, the better.

So there is this piece where they're not going to be successful unless they create this brand of either who they are or who they're trying to be for that next opportunity. That sounds like perfection to me. That sounds like being wrapped up in an identity to me. And yet this seems to oppose that in some way,

Michele Molitor: Well, I would agree with you that what you just described is let me put up this perfect facade. It's like social media, right? There's so much comparison culture happening now in social media that is so detrimental to our mental health. The statistics are staggering for, for young people in particular, but across the board because we all want to show this is our perfect life and everything's fine and I did everything right when nobody's life is perfect. I'm sorry. It's just not. And so it's, it's about as a, as a personal brand, I would say countering that with, yes, these are the things I've accomplished. These are the hurdles that I had to get over to get those accomplishments. These are the places I fell down, but this is what I learned from it and how I got better because of it, right?

So, 'flawsomeism' to us is that constant learning, growing, improving. There's no such thing as failure. There's learning, growth, and improvement. So, if you'd asked me, you know, 10 years ago, my definition of what had happened to me, I would have been like, Oh, it was utter failure. Now I recognize, no, it was a growth opportunity to shake me up, to get me to see the place that it was actually supposed to be.

Albeit it was painful. They don't always come with nice, cushy soft landings, but helping people be their authentic selves is what I think is most important. And I understand that that doesn't always work in corporate America today, because there's still a lot of, how shall I say, negative feedback negative perceptions, stereotypes that people come up against.

I'm not Pollyanna about any of that for sure. So each person's circumstances is going to be unique and the place that they are looking for work is going to alter or influence, I guess is a better way to put it, how they approach their unique brand identity in the workplace.

Russel Lolacher: If someone's listening to this right now and they're like, okay, I... am I a perfectionist? Should I be more flawed? Should I embrace this vulnerable side of themselves? What would you give them as advice for the first step for them to understand their situation and maybe start down that path?

Michele Molitor: Sure. Well, I think awareness is the first key, is the first step. Making note of what is the internal dialogue that you're saying to yourself. Do you have a lot of negative looping thoughts? Are you getting down on yourself consistently that makes you feel bad? If the, if the negative thoughts you're telling yourself make you feel bad, pick a different thought, right?

I always tell folks, if, if you, let's say you're telling yourself, Oh, I'm not good enough. I can't do this job. Well, what if, hypothetically speaking, you told yourself, I am good enough? Well, how does that feel differently than I'm not good enough, right? You can literally change your perspective inside of a few minutes.

And, and, and see how it feels different, how it feels better, and then it's chocolate vanilla chews. Which one do you want to feel? Do you want to feel crappy, or do you want to feel better and lighter and more inspired? I'm gonna go with more inspired every day of the week. Now, it's not always that easy, I understand.

However, the moment you can start catching yourself and flipping those negative thoughts, into more positive ones, even if it's just a little baby step in the direction that you want to go, that's going to help a lot to help you start releasing, as I like to call it, the junk in your trunk. The old emotional baggage that maybe has been driving your bus for too long and you got to let it go and find a new, new path to take.

Russel Lolacher: We don't have to believe our beliefs. We really don't.

Michele Molitor: Right.

Russel Lolacher: The stories we tell ourselves. Yeah.

Michele Molitor: As I, as I said earlier, as we're growing up, we're, we're swimming in this water, this environment, this energy that is our own household, whatever that may be good, bad, or ugly. And the person next door has a very different fish tank that they're living in. Their water may be crystal clear and yours is kind of murky and gross.

But you don't know that yours is murky and gross because that's all you've ever known. You think, oh, well, this is just how life is. Until one day you realize, oh, my neighbor's got crystal clear water. Look at that. Wow, look at all the stuff you can see. Who knew? I didn't know what I didn't know. So it's starting to recognize the things that you didn't realize, that you didn't realize.

And, and starting to make new decisions, new choices about yourself. I am enough. I am worthy. I am deserving. I belong, whatever that might be for you so that then you can stand up a little taller, a little bit more confidently. and do the amazing work that you're here to do with your unique gifts that nobody else has.

Russel Lolacher: One of the key things I've sort of learned on my journey of doing this episode and my own learning and insights is that the biggest relationship at work you can have is the one you're having with yourself and the one you really need to start there, first. Thank you so much for this conversation. I really appreciate and understanding the, the, the traps we put ourselves in or the situations, other people's forcibly remove us from, as you illustrated from your story.

Michele Molitor: Shoved off the bus.

Russel Lolacher: Before we wrap it up, Michele, I've got one last question for you, which is, what's one simple action people can do right now to improve their relationships at work?

Michele Molitor: Get clear on their own internal motivators, what's important to them, and share that with someone is important to you, personally or professionally, right? So they can see you through that lens. And so if, if folks are interested, And understanding what their top five dignity traits are, for example, is one way to do that.

They can go to dignify.com and if you use the code FLAWSOME, you'll get a special discount to take this 15 minute survey to help you identify what that is and why it's so important to you so that you can share that with others.

Russel Lolacher: That is Michele Molitor. She is an internationally recognized speaker, certified executive coach, organizational development consultant and coauthor of I Am Perfectly Flawsome, How Embracing Imperfection Makes Us Better. Thank you so much, Michele, for being here.

Michele Molitor: Oh my gosh. Such a joy, Russel. This has been an awesome conversation. Thank you.