444 Pivot Point: A Recent Story with Lessons from the Past
Watching the drama unfold at the airport brought it all back to me, the challenges of being a parent, especially of a toddler, and the ridiculousness of the judgment I experienced. Judged if I lost track of the toddler and judged by having the wrist tether on him. Judged if I give in to the tantrum and judged for walking away from the cartful of groceries.
It’s hard enough being a parent, with all the self-doubt and exhaustion, do we really need to add a stranger’s judgment to the equation?
Offering compassion to that father was a full-circle moment for me, a pivot-point in the realization that my experiences from the past truly shaped who I am today.
Summertime is hard on podcasters!
We lose a lot of our listeners this time of year and it can be difficult to be motivated to keep putting out quality content when we know people aren’t as likely to listen.
This summer I’ve been focused on brief, less than 20-minute episodes that keep a person’s attention while still offering insights and entertainment.
What you’ve been hearing, and will continue to hear in each episode, is a brief story of pivotal moment in my life, and then a thread pulled to generate insights about it. I have two goals for you, dear listeners:
One – to uncover your related story for you to add to your collection to practice and have ready when the opportunity presents itself.
And two – to demonstrate storytelling in a practical, approachable way so you hear how I compose my words, phrases, and use tone-of-voice to add dynamics and meaning.
In today’s episode you’ll hear two stories from my past, and a recent story that demonstrates insights from them. We experience meaningful moments every day, things that shape who we are and how we behave into the future, but most of us don’t think about life that way.
I’ve heard people talk about how raising kids takes a village, but when it's time to offer assistance and support, they quickly turn to judgment instead. Shaking their heads and “tsk tsk”ing under their breath, as if a parent doesn’t see your expression or hear your judgment.
And that’s not helpful.
Most of us have been on the other side of the equation, accidentally cutting someone off in traffic, and then a few minutes later honking at someone who does the same thing. Or allowing our frustration to erupt in a loud voice at our kid, and years later judging a parent for the same behavior.
It was my experience as a parent that helped me see things from that perspective, but it shouldn’t take being in their shoes to offer compassion and assistance.
Watching the drama unfold at the airport brought it all back to me, the challenges of being a parent, especially of a toddler, and the ridiculousness of the judgment I experienced. Judged if I lost track of the toddler and judged by having the wrist tether on him. Judged if I give in to the tantrum and judged for walking away from the cartful of groceries.
It’s hard enough being a parent, with all the self-doubt and exhaustion, do we really need to add external judgment to the equation?
Offering compassion to that father was a full-circle moment for me, a pivot-point in the realization that my experiences from the past truly shaped who I am today.
Listeners, now it’s your turn:
Did a memory come back to you when you heard my stories in the episode?
Did you see yourself in one or more of the characters, and did that generate an insight or discomfort in you? Remember, discomfort can be a powerful tool for self-reflection!
Is there something you’ll intentionally be more aware of after listening? Something you’ll try to do differently when faced with an opportunity for compassion and support instead of judgment?
After more than 430 episodes of this podcast, I was recently inspired to change the format of the show.
The new format for my show aligns with what I’m learning about narrative identity (how the stories we tell about ourselves internally and externally influence our identity) and demonstrates what I’ve been teaching for years: Sharing a story to reveal who you are and what matters to you.
My hope is that future episodes will offer more clarity about great storytelling and how to find and explore pivotal moments to demonstrate who we are.
About Sarah:
Sarah is a Montana based workplace communication trainer, TEDx speaker, DisruptHR speaker, public speaking coach, professional storyteller, musician, and podcast host. Her workshops and coaching packages with teams and their leaders are known to address and reduce miscommunication – the most common cause of tension and stress in the workplace. Using the team’s results from the StrengthsFinder assessment, she guides teams in learning to speak each other’s “language”, learning to value each other’s strengths and connecting with each other through enhanced self-reflection and effective listening.
Sarah’s nearly 20 years working in government agencies inspired her to complete her MBA and to achieve her StrengthsFinder certification to improve work environments for others, guiding teams toward increased satisfaction, productivity, and happiness.
Visit her website to purchase her book, Your Stories Don't Define You in paperback or audiobook.
443 Pivot Point: Realizing You Predicted the Future
I don’t know who unearthed this old episode, but when I looked at recent analytics for my website and podcast, this one had suddenly re-emerged. So I looked at it and listened to it and had a pretty big insight.
Some of us were already talking about the desperation for connection we were seeing in our communities, even before COVID-19, even before our political environment was so seriously compromised and created irreconcilable division.
It feels meaningful, this recovery of an old episode right now, as if I could see where things were headed and voiced my concern years before things really devolved.
Your stories don’t define you. How you tell them will.
Hi! I’m Sarah Elkins, your host and chief storymaker at Elkins Consulting.
If you’ve been listening to my show for a while, you’ve probably noticed a big change in the format in recent weeks.
Summertime is hard on podcasters! We lose a lot of our listeners this time of year and it can be difficult to be motivated to keep putting out quality content when we know people aren’t as likely to listen.
This summer I’ve been focused on brief, less than 20-minute episodes that keep a person’s attention while still offering insights and entertainment.
What you’ve been hearing, and will continue to hear in each episode, is a brief story of pivotal moment in my life, and then a thread pulled to generate insights about it. I have two goals for you, dear listeners:
One – to uncover your related story for you to add to your collection to practice and have ready when the opportunity presents itself.
And two – to demonstrate storytelling in a practical, approachable way so you hear how I compose my words, phrases, and use tone-of-voice to add dynamics and meaning.
In today’s episode you’ll hear an early episode of my podcast, #17, recorded and posted in December of 2017 called Desperate for Connection.
I’m re-sharing it, nearly 6 years later, because it’s still so relevant – even more relevant now.
I don’t know who unearthed this old episode, but when I looked at recent analytics for my website and podcast, this one had suddenly re-emerged. So I looked at it and listened to it and had a pretty big insight.
Some of us were already talking about the desperation for connection we were seeing in our communities, even before COVID-19, even before our political environment was so seriously compromised and created irreconcilable division.
It feels meaningful, this recovery of an old episode right now, as if I could see where things were headed and voiced my concern years before things really devolved.
After you listen, it’ll be your turn:
Did a memory come back to you when you heard my stories in the episode?
Did you see yourself in one or more of the characters, and did that generate an insight or discomfort in you?
What will you do with this insight or discomfort?
I hope you’ll see yourself in one or more of the characters at different times in your life, and that you’ll make active, intentional decisions to shift the dynamic of loneliness by connecting with someone with genuine care.
Whether that’s offering a real, loving smile to a cashier at the grocery store or coffee shop, holding the door open for the person behind you, smiling and waving to let someone into a busy intersection or highway, or offering assistance to someone struggling to carry a heavy load.
Thanks for listening to Your Stories Don’t Define You, How You Tell Them Will. Are you curious to learn about working with me? Visit my website, elkinsconsulting.com to schedule time to chat and sign up for periodic updates about my work, and connect with me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook for content about strengthsfinder, storytelling, public speaking.
After more than 430 episodes of this podcast, I was recently inspired to change the format of the show.
The new format for my show aligns with what I’m learning about narrative identity (how the stories we tell about ourselves internally and externally influence our identity) and demonstrates what I’ve been teaching for years: Sharing a story to reveal who you are and what matters to you.
My hope is that future episodes will offer more clarity about great storytelling and how to find and explore pivotal moments to demonstrate who we are.
About Sarah:
Sarah is a Montana based workplace communication trainer, TEDx speaker, DisruptHR speaker, public speaking coach, professional storyteller, musician, and podcast host. Her workshops and coaching packages with teams and their leaders are known to address and reduce miscommunication – the most common cause of tension and stress in the workplace. Using the team’s results from the StrengthsFinder assessment, she guides teams in learning to speak each other’s “language”, learning to value each other’s strengths and connecting with each other through enhanced self-reflection and effective listening.
Sarah’s nearly 20 years working in government agencies inspired her to complete her MBA and to achieve her StrengthsFinder certification to improve work environments for others, guiding teams toward increased satisfaction, productivity, and happiness.
Visit her website to purchase her book, Your Stories Don't Define You in paperback or audiobook.
442 Pivot Point: Crafting Your Legacy
I remember sitting next to my husband and listening intently, beyond the words being used to describe her, to the way they held their hands as they spoke, the expressions on their faces, the way their eyes softened when they looked at others in the overfilled room, the subtle, loving affection among her loved ones.
Over the next few weeks, I kept coming back to moments I witnessed that evening, and the most common stories shared. Even now, years later, I reflect on that service and how it moved me – changed me – to be more present and more conscious of a legacy I want to leave behind.
Your stories don’t define you. How you tell them will.
Hi! I’m Sarah Elkins, your host and chief storymaker at Elkins Consulting.
If you’ve been listening to my show for a while, you’ve probably noticed a big change in the format in recent weeks.
Summertime is hard on podcasters! We lose a lot of our listeners this time of year and it can be difficult to be motivated to keep putting out quality content when we know people aren’t as likely to listen.
This summer I’ve been focused on brief, less than 20-minute episodes that keep a person’s attention while still offering insights and entertainment.
What you’ve been hearing, and will continue to hear in each episode, is a brief story of pivotal moment in my life, and then a thread pulled to generate insights about it. I have two goals for you, dear listeners:
One – to uncover your related story for you to add to your collection to practice and have ready when the opportunity presents itself.
And two – to demonstrate storytelling in a practical, approachable way so you hear how I compose my words, phrases, and use tone-of-voice to add dynamics and meaning.
In today’s episode you’ll hear about a pivotal moment that changed me, a story filled with grief and joy in the same moment. Jewish tradition emphasizes that humans are uniquely capable of holding space for seemingly contradictory emotions at the same time, grief & joy, sorrow and gratitude. That it’s part of our human experience, and the reason grief can feel so heavy and liberating at the same time.
Given that my family experienced a lot of grief over the course of around two years, first my father-in-law, then two close friends who had fatal accidents but were otherwise healthy, and then my father, it’s not surprising that those two years had me deeply rethinking my priorities.
Which is why this pivotal moment, the one I’m about to describe, came as a surprise to me.
I was sitting in a church, attending a memorial service for the mother of a dear family friend. I don’t have a memory of reading her obituary, though I’m sure I did. What was deeply memorable was what the majority of people said as they took turns standing and speaking about their mother, grandmother, aunt, colleague, and friend.
Almost every one of them mentioned receiving birthday cards and letters every year. They spoke about what it meant to them to see the envelope with her handwriting on it, that they waited until the day of the birthday to open it, no matter how many days ahead it arrived, that they treasured seeing the perfect card she would select, the beautiful, thoughtful words she would write, the way they felt when they held the paper in their hands – seen, loved, valued.
Witnessing this outpouring of similar stories made me wonder what stories my family and friends will share when I'm no longer living among them. It was a pivotal moment - a reminder - that if I want to avoid regret, I must live in alignment with how I want to be known.
Listeners, now it's your turn -
What stories do people tell when you're not around?
What stories are you sharing about your loved ones that will continue their legacy beyond your lifetime?
The stories we tell about people say everything about who we are and what matters to us, so what stories are people telling about you? Are they consistently in alignment with the legacy you want to leave behind?
Thanks for listening to Your Stories Don’t Define You, How You Tell Them Will. Are you curious to learn about working with me? Visit my website, elkinsconsulting.com to schedule time to chat and sign up for periodic updates about my work, and connect with me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook for content about strengthsfinder, storytelling, public speaking.
After more than 430 episodes of this podcast, I was recently inspired to change the format of the show.
The new format for my show aligns with what I’m learning about narrative identity (how the stories we tell about ourselves internally and externally influence our identity) and demonstrates what I’ve been teaching for years: Sharing a story to reveal who you are and what matters to you.
My hope is that future episodes will offer more clarity about great storytelling and how to find and explore pivotal moments to demonstrate who we are.
About Sarah:
Sarah is a Montana based workplace communication trainer, TEDx speaker, DisruptHR speaker, public speaking coach, professional storyteller, musician, and podcast host. Her workshops and coaching packages with teams and their leaders are known to address and reduce miscommunication – the most common cause of tension and stress in the workplace. Using the team’s results from the StrengthsFinder assessment, she guides teams in learning to speak each other’s “language”, learning to value each other’s strengths and connecting with each other through enhanced self-reflection and effective listening.
Sarah’s nearly 20 years working in government agencies inspired her to complete her MBA and to achieve her StrengthsFinder certification to improve work environments for others, guiding teams toward increased satisfaction, productivity, and happiness.
Visit her website to purchase her book, Your Stories Don't Define You in paperback or audiobook.
393 Being Direct and Intentional in Conversations
It can be far too easy to let yourself be passive in conversations, whether it be to let another person make a decision or to avoid conflict. However in doing so we rob ourselves and others of deep meaningful connection, which is why it is so important to be direct and intentional with your words.
In today’s episode Sarah Elkins talks about these points while also bringing up times in her life where she was passive and direct in conversation, and why it is so important to her to be direct and intentional.
393 Being Direct and Intentional in Conversations
It can be far too easy to let yourself be passive in conversations, whether it be to let another person make a decision or to avoid conflict. However in doing so we rob ourselves and others of deep meaningful connection, which is why it is so important to be direct and intentional with your words.
In today’s episode Sarah Elkins talks about these points while also bringing up times in her life where she was passive and direct in conversation, and why it is so important to her to be direct and intentional.
Highlights
Be direct and honest with your words, don’t leave room for doubt or miscommunication.
Don’t leave a conversation completely up to one person. Communication goes both ways.
Being intentional in conversation, as well as understanding and compassionate.
Quotes
“I realized a lot of miscommunication and unintended injury happens when we’re passive in our language.”
“I also remembered a few people from my past who were especially difficult, insulting, and actually cruel in their communication with me. I thought about how I interacted with them – things I could have handled differently - for the purpose of learning, not regret, and thoughts about”
Dear Listeners it is now your turn,
I encourage you to listen to last week’s short episode and then try using a less passive voice in your communication. What will you do differently so you can move past injury and grow into better, safer, more satisfying relationships?
And, as always, thank you for listening.
About Sarah
"Uncovering the right stories for the right audiences so executives, leaders, public speakers, and job seekers can clearly and actively demonstrate their character, values, and vision."
In my work with coaching clients, I guide people to improve their communication using storytelling as the foundation of our work together. What I’ve realized over years of coaching and podcasting is that the majority of people don’t realize the impact of the stories they share - on their internal messages, and on the people they’re sharing them with.
My work with leaders and people who aspire to be leaders follows a similar path to the interviews on my podcast, uncovering pivotal moments in their lives and learning how to share them to connect more authentically with others, to make their presentations and speaking more engaging, to reveal patterns that have kept them stuck or moved them forward, and to improve their relationships at work and at home.
The audiobook, Your Stories Don’t Define You, How You Tell Them Will is now available!
Included with your purchase are two bonus tracks, songs recorded by Sarah's band, Spare Change, in her living room in Montana.
Be sure to check out the Storytelling For Professionals Course as well to make sure you nail that next interview!
392 Intention and Mindfulness In Conversation
Inevitably we will have to confront the reality of how certain comments, remarks, and individuals make us feel, especially when it is in a negative way. Unspoken expectations lead to resentment, and if we do not have the hard conversations and practice curiosity and active listening we not only do a disservice to them but to ourselves as well.
In this episode Sarah Elkins takes us on a hike with her dog Jocko, while teaching us the importance of mindfulness and intention in conversations, and how important it is we talk to and listen to people we want to maintain relationships with.
392 Intention and Mindfulness In Conversation
Inevitably we will have to confront the reality of how certain comments, remarks, and individuals make us feel, especially when it is in a negative way. Unspoken expectations lead to resentment, and if we do not have the hard conversations and practice curiosity and active listening we not only do a disservice to them but to ourselves as well.
In this episode Sarah Elkins takes us on a hike with her dog Jocko, while teaching us the importance of mindfulness and intention in conversations, and how important it is we talk to and listen to people we want to maintain relationships with.
Highlights
Sharing things we enjoy with others.
How do you approach conversations that involve or may lead to conflict?
Knowing when, where, and how to start the hard conversations. Be mindful of your audience.
Stay curious about someone’s intentions and remember to actively listen.
Quotes
“Passive versus more direct approaches in having conversations, particularly in times when we feel like there is going to be conflict or we’re addressing something that could create conflict.”
“Anyone who has ever been in a long term relationship knows that timing is everything.”
“It’s all about Practice.”
About Sarah
"Uncovering the right stories for the right audiences so executives, leaders, public speakers, and job seekers can clearly and actively demonstrate their character, values, and vision."
In my work with coaching clients, I guide people to improve their communication using storytelling as the foundation of our work together. What I’ve realized over years of coaching and podcasting is that the majority of people don’t realize the impact of the stories they share - on their internal messages, and on the people they’re sharing them with.
My work with leaders and people who aspire to be leaders follows a similar path to the interviews on my podcast, uncovering pivotal moments in their lives and learning how to share them to connect more authentically with others, to make their presentations and speaking more engaging, to reveal patterns that have kept them stuck or moved them forward, and to improve their relationships at work and at home.
The audiobook, Your Stories Don’t Define You, How You Tell Them Will is now available!
Included with your purchase are two bonus tracks, songs recorded by Sarah's band, Spare Change, in her living room in Montana.
Be sure to check out the Storytelling For Professionals Course as well to make sure you nail that next interview!
194: There are Three Parts to Our Lives, and One is Undercover
She grew up in a solidly middle class household with little exposure to the underbelly of her community. As an undercover cop posing as a prostitute, Diane Halfman got a quick and unlikely education about that world.
She had to learn to trust her instincts and own her space, her power, and her current coaching clients get the benefit of her knowledge and experience doing just that.
Diane Halfman: Stories from Undercover
Diane Halfman quote and image, podcast cover art
She grew up in a solidly middle class household with little exposure to the underbelly of her community. As an undercover cop posing as a prostitute, Diane Halfman got a quick and unlikely education about that world.
She had to learn to trust her instincts and own her space, her power, and her current coaching clients get the benefit of her knowledge and experience doing just that.
Our conversations shifted between her experience tracking a serial killer undercover to her "ah ha" moment with a former boyfriend as she navigated a kidnapping ordeal with a friend. Diane shared intimate stories of how she became the powerful, insightful coach she is today, and why what she does matters not only to her clients, but to the circle of community her clients will influence.
Diane Halfman image and quote, podcast cover art
When you've listened to this episode of Your Stories Don't Define You, it may take a few days to fully process what you've heard. And when you do, you'll want to follow her work, subscribe to her podcast, and connect with her through her social media platforms.
Consultant, Trainer and Podcaster, Diane Halfman, utilizes her survival instincts from her work as an undercover prostitute to empower business leaders to move through crisis, manage boundaries and to not second guess yourself. She is the host of the Live Your SPAlife podcast. The SPA in SPAlife stands for Seek Power Always - that power within you to do your deeper work in the world.
ABOUT SARAH:
"Uncovering the right stories for the right audiences so executives, leaders, public speakers, and job seekers can clearly and actively demonstrate their character, values, and vision."
In my work with coaching clients, I guide people to improve their communication using storytelling as the foundation of our work together. What I’ve realized over years of coaching and podcasting is that the majority of people don’t realize the impact of the stories they share - on their internal messages, and on the people they’re sharing them with.
My work with leaders and people who aspire to be leaders follows a similar path to the interviews on my podcast, uncovering pivotal moments in their lives and learning how to share them to connect more authentically with others, to make their presentations and speaking more engaging, to reveal patterns that have kept them stuck or moved them forward, and to improve their relationships at work and at home.
The audiobook, Your Stories Don’t Define You, How You Tell Them Will is now available!
Included with your purchase are two bonus tracks, songs recorded by Sarah's band, Spare Change, in her living room in Montana.
Episode 189: Podcast Brief 3 - Ideation & Adaptability Gain Momentum
In this week’s episode I’ll round out a description of my top five talents with Ideation and Adaptability. Ideation being the one that I imagine as a hamster on a wheel in my head, constantly running, coming up with ideas about what I’ll do next, ideas to solve problems, sometimes completely random ideas about why things happen the way they do, how things work (usually unrelated to anything that actually matters in my life), and how to express concepts so they’re sticky and/or persuasive.
Adaptability is the talent that allows me to switch gears easily, and that makes me a good person to be around when a project goes sideways.
StrengthFinder Results Can Bring Clarity to Your Communication Patterns of Friction
Podcast brief 3 – Ideation / Adaptability
Podcast cover art with image and quote from Sarah Elkins
This week’s episode of Your Stories Don’t Define You is part 3 of a series I’m exploring to clarify how StrengthsFinder results can provide clarity around your life's patterns.
Two weeks ago I shared what it’s like to have Command in your top talents using the StrengthsFinder assessment, and last week I shared stories about my top two talents, Strategic & Activator: how they used to look to me, what they look like now in my life, and some of the strategies I use so they work for me instead of against me.
As a Gallup certified StrengthsFinder coach, I’ve taken opportunities to work with other coaches for two reasons, one is that I believe in this stuff, the idea that when we understand our own way of thinking, our natural, instinctive talents, and when we understand where we might be getting in our own way, we find more satisfaction in our lives. Another reason is that to be a coach and to have a coach demonstrates my belief that this works, that working with a good coach adds value. I know that the more I know about my own talents and blind spots, the more effective I can be for my clients.
Image of a hamster running in a wheel.
In this week’s episode I’ll round out a description of my top five talents with Ideation and Adaptability. Ideation being the one that I imagine as a hamster on a wheel in my head, constantly running, coming up with ideas about what I’ll do next, ideas to solve problems, sometimes completely random ideas about why things happen the way they do, how things work (usually unrelated to anything that actually matters in my life), and how to express concepts so they’re sticky and/or persuasive.
Adaptability is the talent that allows me to switch gears easily, and that makes me a good person to be around when a project goes sideways.
My top five talents combined; Strategic, Activator, Ideation, Command, and Adaptability are what make me great at what I do, they’re also the things that get me into trouble when I’m not using them with intention. When I look back at the experiences of significant friction in my life, I now know part of why they happened, how I contributed to my own struggles, and maybe ways I could have done things a little differently.
It doesn’t help, necessarily, to think about the “what ifs” directly, I like to think of it more as identifying patterns so I can make changes in my responses & reactions when similar situations appear, which happens a lot.
When I was 18 and struggling in a job, I told my mother I was thinking of quitting.
“Sarah, if you quit now, this same scenario will come up over and over again until you learn the lesson you’re supposed to learn from it. It’ll be different people, but a very similar struggle.”
I stayed, and yes, I did learn a lot from the experience. I was proud of myself for sticking it out, I felt strong, resilient, and ready for the next challenge.
Though I learned a lot about myself and the world around me in that job, it took another 20 years to truly uncover the pattern that began to emerge that year. That’s the beauty of self-reflection: When you uncover negative patterns from your past, you can begin to change them for your future.
Prior to about 2015, if you changed jobs more than twice in a 5 year period, you were considered a “job hopper”, which made hiring managers pretty uncomfortable when they looked at your resume. In the 2020s, between the lack of consistency in industries and the gig economy making waves, we’re seeing a much needed change in that way of thinking. Maybe I was just ahead of my time…
It wasn’t until I saw my results in the StrengthsFinder assessment, with Adaptability in large, bold font on the report, that I understood my self-created label of being a “2 to 3 year employee.”
When a job lasted longer than that, I can see in my rearview that the job shifted often enough to keep me moving, motivated, and interested. For instance, when I worked as a software consultant, implementing large-scale HR programs, the longest contract I was on lasted 14 months, and then my company would move me onto a new client project.
Many years later I was a compliance officer for a Federal grant - and I don’t even like rules. Looking back, I know why I applied for the job – to get more financial skills to round out my business experiences after completing my MBA – but I have no idea why they hired me or why I accepted the position.
The first few weeks were spent reading the rules related to the grant, reporting requirements, and everything I could get my hands on to make sure I understood all the strings attached to the 2+ million dollars that would be moving through our project.
The next few weeks were spent with that hamster in my head that I mentioned, constantly coming up with ideas about how to collect the required data from our 44 sub-grantees, how to manage our budget, and how to make sure our sub-grantees understood their role in compliance.
Using Microsoft Access, I created a robust database for data collection and budget management. I created easy to use forms to enter data, using drop down boxes, radio buttons, and select fields as much as possible to limit typos and errors in formatting.
Looking back, I can easily see how my top strengths made me successful in that position, despite being in a job that wasn’t a great fit, and with a boss with significantly different motivation and perspectives on work and management.
When I look back now, I realize I knew two things when I started, even though I didn’t think intentionally about them at the time:
1) To ensure compliance from our sub-grantees, I needed to have strong, positive relationships with them. They must WANT to be compliant, rather than HAVE TO be compliant to make this work smoothly and get the most positive impact out of the investments we were making.
2) I needed structures and processes that made sense in collecting data, managing the budget, and creating required, accurate reports, because I knew myself well enough to know that once I got into maintenance mode, I was unlikely to be as good at managing details.
I mentioned the boss & I had some friction… This is what happens when your strengths are significantly different from others in your team, and communication styles aren’t addressed early in the relationships.
My mouse hovered over the send button.
The email message was pointed—direct—and I felt strongly that these words needed to be shared with my boss and a director of the agency. But I hesitated as my mouse hovered.
I had felt lethargic throughout the weekend. From the time I left the office on Friday evening until Tuesday morning, I couldn’t shake this lack of motivation. A few minutes after I sat down at my desk on that Tuesday morning, I looked up at my calendar, and the lightbulb in my head went on. Monday had been my two-year anniversary at that job.
When I left my previous position, I made a “deal-breaker” list. It was basically my top priorities for my next job. A micromanaging, cruel boss was at the top of my list of deal breakers. Next was my workspace. An internal cubical, small and without windows, was also a deal breaker. There were a few others, but those were the big ones.
As I walked into the building for my third interview, and was shown to what would be my third-floor office with huge windows and a fantastic view, I knew this would be mine. And here I was, exactly two years later, feeling lethargic and sad despite this phenomenal view from my desk.
I shifted the mouse pointer away from the send button and reread the message.
A memory from my previous position floated to the front of my brain.
My mouse pointer had hovered dangerously over the send button two+ years prior at my previous job. I absolutely knew this message was likely to create drama with my boss. I rationalized hitting the send button: “It’s a reasonable thing to forward. I’m not doing anything wrong.”
I totally underestimated the drama, and seconds after I hit the button, my boss was next to my desk, her voice rising in pitch and volume.
I blushed, angry at the overreaction and embarrassed at the attention she was drawing to our cubicle, as I tried to explain why I sent the email. Nothing I said made a difference, and she stomped away from me, furious.
A few minutes later, as I was walking around the building to get some fresh air and perspective, it dawned on me. I totally earned that embarrassment. I poked the bear. I knew I was going to poke the bear. I knew I was antagonizing her when I hit the send button on that message. No matter how rational and reasonable the content of that message, I knew I was stirring up trouble and I did it anyway.
Why?
At that point in my job, I was in maintenance mode. I had set up systems to manage reporting and compliance, and most of my days were spent reviewing spreadsheets and building reports based on the data I was collecting. It was relatively quiet for our team that week, and I was probably bored, so I sabotaged myself.
Fast-forward two years later as my mouse pointer hovered over the send button, my memory of the other experience vivid and ready to be applied. I stopped myself. I reflected. I was bored, and I was about to sabotage myself . . . again.
I realized that if I was bored, it was up to me to find a more constructive way to address it. In that job, I had a lot of autonomy and freedom to work on projects, so I took some time to think about what I wanted to learn more about, what projects would truly benefit the organization and our community, and those I could persuade my boss and other leaders in the organization to support and implement. Making a list and starting to carefully word my next proposal, I saved that email message for another time, and as a reminder to avoid sabotaging myself again.
Now that you know how my Strategic, Activator, Ideation, Command, and Adaptability show up, you could probably pinpoint exactly where they served me well, and where they didn’t in my past.
Without being conscious of my top talents, I can be very good at what I do, but there will always be a limit to my growth. Not only because I’m not practicing with intention to grow my use of those talents, but because I would be unaware of the ways my talents are creating unnecessary obstacles and struggles.
The only way we grow as humans, the only way we can truly find satisfaction in our relationships, is to be self-reflective. This is not the same as being hyper critical of ourselves!
Being self-reflective means understanding our role in every situation, in every relationship. What am I doing to move this conversation in a positive direction? What was my role in the conflict with my coworker? What natural talents am I using in ways that are positive, and where am I getting in my own way?
Please send me a message if you enjoyed this series of podcast briefs! If they were useful to listeners, I’ll do another series in the future.
Next week’s episode of the Your Stories Don’t Define You podcast features Terre Roche, vocalist and guitar player famous for her performances with her sister and their band The Roches! Hearing her stories of touring across the country at 17 years old, her love for music, and her accidental career will inspire you to look at your life in a different way. Don’t miss it!
ABOUT SARAH:
Elkins Consulting logo with image of Sarah and her dog.
"Uncovering the right stories for the right audiences so executives, leaders, public speakers, and job seekers can clearly and actively demonstrate their character, values, and vision."
In my work with coaching clients, I guide people to improve their communication using storytelling as the foundation of our work together. What I’ve realized over years of coaching and podcasting is that the majority of people don’t realize the impact of the stories they share - on their internal messages, and on the people they’re sharing them with.
My work with leaders and people who aspire to be leaders follows a similar path to the interviews on my podcast, uncovering pivotal moments in their lives and learning how to share them to connect more authentically with others, to make their presentations and speaking more engaging, to reveal patterns that have kept them stuck or moved them forward, and to improve their relationships at work and at home.
The audiobook, Your Stories Don’t Define You, How You Tell Them Will is now available!
Included with your purchase are two bonus tracks, songs recorded by Sarah's band, Spare Change, in her living room in Montana.