There are so many obstacles that can prevent us from being happy at work, from salaries and commutes to incompatible teams and weird smells from the break room kitchen.

But some of the most difficult challenges aren’t external at all. We carry them with us from home to the office, and back home again. These are intensely personal things like uncertainty, doubt, self-criticism, or the many varieties of fear.

We sat down with Lia Garvin, a renowned author, operations leader, and sought-after speaker who has worked with some of the most influential companies in tech, including Microsoft, Apple, and Google.

Garvin joins host Elisa Tuijnder to discuss some unique approaches for moving beyond those internal obstacles and using them as the foundation of a new, happier, and more satisfying career.

Want to learn more about redirecting your own feelings? Check out the Management 3.0 module on Emotional Intelligence where we look into how understanding our own emotions can make us more effective and successful managers and leaders.   

Transcript

*Please note that the transcript has been automatically generated and proofread for mistakes. However, it remains in spoken English, and some syntax and grammar mistakes might remain.

Elisa Tuijnder: [00:00:00] There are so many obstacles that can prevent us from being happy at work salaries and benefits, commutes, incompatible teams, and supervisors. Weird smells from the break room kitchen, but some of the most difficult challenges to our workplace happiness. Aren’t external at all. We carry them with us from home to the office and back home again, things like uncertainty, doubt, self-criticism, and fear of being an imposter fear of missing out fear of speaking out, fear of being stuck in a role we never imagined for ourselves in the first place. Today, we sit down with a renowned author and speaker who has some unique approach. For not only moving past those internal obstacles, but for using them as the foundation of a new, happier and more satisfying career.[00:01:00]

Before we dive in, you are listening to a new season of the happiness at work podcast by Management 3.0 where we are getting serious about happiness.

I’m your host, Elisa Tuijnder, happiness, enthusiast and Management 3.0 team member. We may sound a little different, but we’re still sharing insights from industry experts, influencers, and thought leaders, but what it takes to be happy motivated and productive at work so that loving your job becomes the norm and not the exception.

We will be publishing every fortnight on Friday. So be sure to tune in and subscribe wherever you get your

Lia Garvin: podcasts.

Elisa Tuijnder: Our guest today is Lia Garvin, an author operations leader, and sought after speaker, who has worked with some [00:02:00] of the most influential companies in tech, including Microsoft, Apple, and Google. She has made it her mission to in her words, humanize the workplace one conversation at a time. Thank you so much for joining me.

Lia Garvin: Thank you so much for having me today. Oh,

Elisa Tuijnder: fantastic. So we’ll get into all of your amazing work in a moment, but here on the podcast, we always start with the same question. What does happiness mean to you?

Lia Garvin: Ooh. I think for me, it’s about being present and really the ability to enjoy what you have right now and not be chasing the next thing.

And the next thing, because when we’re always looking towards the future, we forget that what we have right now worth enjoying. And so that’s really, I know when I feel most happy is when. I’m really in the zone, in a flow state, either with my family or friends or in my work and feeling really content in the moment.

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah, I like that. I sometimes need to remind myself of that, because I can be like a deer in headlights with too [00:03:00] many possibilities, totally coming at me at once and I need to enjoy the now sometimes more than what’s coming next. So yeah. Great. A great answer. You stated your mission is to humanize the workplace one conversation at a time.

I love that phrase. So why do you think humanization is so important in today’s climate and how are you approaching that in your work.

Lia Garvin: Yeah. So I think, one, one thing that the pandemic made really clear, especially folks that, left the workforce within the great resignation or have changed jobs or have indicated they’re wanting to is people started voicing what they probably felt like before, but really came to the forefront was really needing to feel connection to their work, needing to feel more purpose in their work and needing to feel recognized and appreciated. And I think, humanizing the workplace is about reminding leaders and managers and teams that we’re all humans, people at the center of this work. And we think we can separate the people, stuff from the work stuff. We’re really, not understanding that, that central thing that [00:04:00] people are doing the work and if they don’t feel appreciated or not, they don’t feel seen. They’re not able to do the best work that they can because that starts weighing on us. And maybe we can really perform at a high level for a short period of time. But eventually we start saying, Hey, what else is there for me? The way that I address this is, I’ve worked as a operations leader in tech through many years, working with product teams on making sure people have the tools that they need to communicate effectively to build psychological safety.

And now I’m working. As an organizational consultant in a wider range of teams and industries to really spread this message, help, especially organizations and industries, where some of the conversation around psychological safety and feedback being a two way street and inclusion. Aren’t necessarily as common in the day to day. And how do we still support our teams and really infuse that focus into any kind of company.

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah, it’s so important to keep reminding people that humans are at the base of [00:05:00] everything, the human touch and digitalization, and that humans have needs and humans have feelings and exactly we’re not robots and we need appreciation and recognition.

And and I think we also see this a lot in, we talk about what we see a lot is in, for example, agile transformations. People completely missing the point because the whole agile manifesto was. People first and not systems. And what’s happening is the opposite where people are just focused on Scrum and Kanban and whatever, any of these very helpful systems, but they’re just focusing on the tools for it.

Not actually, I’m sure that as well, that they’re not focusing on the people, especially you being from such a fast paced tech

Lia Garvin: environment. Totally. And it’s funny. I think working in operations kind of roles, always in a position of driving and establishing and optimizing process when you first say the word process, people can roll their eyes and think you’re trying to make things more complicated, but how I’ve approached it, as you say, is.

Is by simplifying and looking at, okay, what are actually people [00:06:00] struggling with? What are the pain points? And then removing steps and saying, Hey, here’s how this helps you. Here’s how this makes you your work easier. And then I’ve been able to really reframe process and how, and ensure.

Things like yeah. Team transformation are, or accepted more, more quickly with more enthusiasm because people realize, oh, this isn’t about just checking a box, bureaucracy, all that. It’s about making my life easier. And then who wouldn’t be on board with that? Yeah,

Elisa Tuijnder: exactly. So getting back to people.

So you’ve spoken a bit about self-criticism which a lot of us suffer from imposter syndrome. Self-criticism well, however we wanna call it, but not only is it not only it’s prevalence among workers, but it’s power actually to limit and even redirect people’s career. So you’ve flipped it on its head and made it something or tried to make it something positive.

So could you give us some examples of. Process can play out, because I think we can all learn from that.

Lia Garvin: Yeah. And where do I begin with the inter yeah, big question. It’s so prevalent. I think for all of us, you mentioned it can be [00:07:00] more prevalent for women or folks in underrepresented groups when there’s not as many of us in a situation.

And then it feels if I get this thing wrong or mess something up or the stakes can feel too high, then, I’ll let myself down and I’ll never make it. And I think the more we. Are either told by external forces, unfortunately that we’re not good enough or signaled because there’s not many of us in a situation.

Or, and the more we tell ourselves that the more we start to believe it, and this inner narrative of, ah, you can’t get anything. If you make a mistake, all, You’re not good enough. You can’t do anything. You’ll never make it. You’ll never this. We stop trying as much. We stop going after, taking risks or job changes or pivots or these, really high-impact opportunities that could propel our career for.

And so I think As a lot of folks are thinking about right now, career pivots and transformations, really getting a hold of what that inner narrative is telling us, because if we are feeling stuck and we do wanna make a change and our inner [00:08:00] critics saying Nope, not gonna do it. It’s not gonna happen.

You don’t have the skills; you don’t have the experience, all of these things, then we’re not even gonna start. And so we really need to get a handle on that. And, but that can be really.

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. It’s almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy then if you . Yeah, exactly. Keep telling yourself that. I I can’t remember which study it was, but I did read a study at one point, whereby especially women when we see there are 10 things that are key skills that are needed for this role, that we only will go for the role.

If it’s. If we have all 10, but that men will often go if we, if they have oh, I have six and maybe those four will come later. so it’s a really interesting thing to, yeah. And we can learn new skills often, the culture and the mentality and the, if those are a fit then we should be going

Lia Garvin: for that role anyway.

And I actually talk about that exact study and in my book, unstuck yeah. And how. Like you said, we, I think there’s a tendency of women overvaluing expertise in having proven ourselves. And it’s often because [00:09:00] when we do apply people say, oh, you don’t have this thing yet. So we’re fed it in both directions.

We’ve heard that. Or we fear that. And like you said to think a lot of this is about really adopting a growth mindset of okay, I can learn that. I can develop that. And how, and I think another thing that I like to talk a lot about is. How we talk about our work because I think one of the traps, why we may not go after something until we have a hundred percent of the qualifications is because we haven’t really thought about how to connect the dots between things that may feel less related or less exactly the thing that was needed for this role.

But for example, if. We worked as a real dot connector and relationship builder, like in the restaurant industry, we might think how would I apply this to working in tech? It might feel really disconnected. But part of figuring out the narrative around our work.

And not already disqualifying ourselves before we start is about thinking, okay, let me extract what were the key things that I was doing, like helping reduce [00:10:00] conflict or helping people communicate better or organizing teams on a goal? Those things are completely transferable into another industry.

And so I think that’s another way we can tick off, qualifications 7, 8, 9, and 10, if that’s what we wanna get to, because oftentimes we’re actually Downplaying skills we actually do have, or experiences that could be relevant. Yeah,

Elisa Tuijnder: absolutely. It might not necessarily come from, work environment, but could also come from yeah.

Having a busy family life and juggling multiple things at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. So the self critic or the self-criticism, so what can we do with it? We know. Yeah. It helps when we recognize it. That’s our, probably our first step. So how can we maybe redirect it as well? Are there any other things that we.

Do to make it into a positive factor instead of this voice that nags us .

Lia Garvin: Yeah, totally. And so you called it out. The first thing really is recognizing it. I think sometimes when we’re feeling a sense of stuckness and just overall funk, we don’t realize that our inner narrative is really [00:11:00] loud and really negative.

Like we think, oh I had a frustrating meeting or there’s a lot going on in the world. I’m really stressed about XYZ. We think it’s external to us. We don’t recognize it’s internal. And so I think the ways to recognize that it’s present are a couple of things like looking at this kind of all or nothing, absolute language, like when we’re thinking I always, or I never, they always, they never, this is a real good clue that we’re having that negative.

Self-talk. Another clue is the kinds of questions we’re asking ourselves questions and they, it’s just one word dead giveaway. Why? Why did this happen to me? Why are they doing this? Essentially all versions of why me and when we’re in a why me space, it’s really hard to get out from that because it’s a lot; the answers are all defenses.

And so once we’ve recognized we’re in this head space, that’s where we apply this tool of reframing, which is the central theme of my book, unstuck, the central theme I work, which is to stop and say, okay, how else can I look at this? And once we recognize, [00:12:00] once we ask ourselves, how else can I look at.

What else might be going on potentially what’s going on with the other person in this equation, bringing in empathy. Then we start to see there’s a lot more possible for ourselves. And so let’s say we applied for a job and we got to be a finalist. We were reallexcited about it. And then we didn’t get at the end, we might say to ourselves, why does this always happen to me?

Why didn’t they pick me? All these things. The answer is typically when we’re in that space, because I’m the worst. I’m not good, or because they don’t get it. So it’s not a productive place, but if we say, okay, what else might be going on? Then the answer might be. There was a lot of qualified candidates and I did such a good job by making it to the final round that I’m really close to finding a job because I got that far, what might be going on with the other person? They had to make a decision quickly and this, the other candidates had a couple more of the pieces of experience than I did. What else might be going on? Hey, [00:13:00] it’s time for me to revisit my resume. Maybe can get some support or make sure I’m really articulating my skills in the right way.

So that’s the, like the productive space we get to when we ask ourselves these reframing questions and then we can take action, right? The why me? There’s not really action. We can take. but what can I do differently? What do I wanna approach for the next time and got to that final round? What’s gonna set me over the edge.

Now we can make a plan.

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. Not falling into that pitfall of, yeah. just oh, I’m horrible. And yeah. And now that I’ve gotten to, to be at the other side of interviews, I also realize that often you have a number of good candidates and it can be the smallest of difference.

Exactly. And it’s actually, you’re a very strong candidate at the same time. Exactly. One of the things that really preparing for this for this interview was the, the talk or you talking about FOMO now, already said in the beginning I’m sometimes like a deer in headlight as well with all the possibilities and that kind of.

To all this FOMO and for some of the listeners who dunno what that means, that is fear [00:14:00] of missing out. So you said that FOMO isn’t necessarily a bad thing. And in fact with the right framing again, thank you where your book is about. We can use FOMO as a sort of catapults to accomplish our goals.

Could you expand

Lia Garvin: on that? Yeah, absolutely. I think, I talk about comparison in my book and the kind of self-judgment that comes up with that, because I think this can be one of the things, especially with, social media, LinkedIn watching other people’s accomplishments, all this, we can really get in our heads around.

Ah, I’m not this, I’m not that, why does this person have this right. And we can get in a cycle of comparing and competing about things that we don’t even want. And sometimes we actually achieve those. And then we look back and say, was this even my goal at all? I don’t even know. And the way that I like to talk about FOMO is when we start experiencing feelings of FOMO to ask ourselves questions about it and to first say, do I really want this?

If we see someone landed a new job in a different industry or took a vacation that we, are feeling jealous of or whatever, [00:15:00] ask yourselves.Do I really want this? Sometimes the answer is yes, but a lot of times it’s no, I don’t really want that. I, in the book, I talk about an example of a colleague showing pictures of his camping trips, on Mondays.

And I’d be like, oh, that’s so awesome. Like I wanna do more stuff, but it’s I’m not a camper person. Like I don’t need to say, oh, I wish I was doing that. It was. And then that brings us to our second question. What is it that I actually want? And so one with that camping example, I actually wanted to be a little bit more spontaneous or adventurous, right.

It didn’t have to be with camping. And so when we experience feelings of FOMO, they can actually help us tease apart, just general purpose societies of, wanting to have more. And this comparison thing onset by being able to see into people’s lives so much versus a goal that we actually have our.

So to, to share a different example, Several years ago, I got an email from a colleague saying she was starting a coaching certification. Folks wanted to sign up for free [00:16:00] sessions because she was building up her hours. And when I got that email, I felt the biggest sense of FOMO. And I was like, ah, I wanted to pursue coaching.

Why am I not doing that? And it was all this. Why me negative thinking? And. I said, wait a second. Wow. I didn’t even realize how much I wanted this thing. And it was this signal of FOMO that showed me, Hey, I need to kick this into high gear. And so instead of getting further into this pit of why didn’t I do this?

I don’t have time all that. I took action. I figured I found a program. I signed up, I started the classes and this sort of the FOMO jump, started me on this whole other trajectory. And so I think when we feel FOMO, I encourage folks to look at, Hey, is this, is there a signal in here around and unexplored goal?

Because if that’s the case, then now FOMO might have given us a little bit of clarity and then we can get started on working towards achieving. Yeah,

Elisa Tuijnder: like examining what this FOMO is about and going back to the why is it giving me FOMO? Exactly. Reframing it.[00:17:00]

If you want to learn more about redirecting your own feelings, then check out the Management3.0 module on emotional intelligence, where we look into how to understand our own emotions. Can make us more effective and successful managers and leaders for more info and planned workshops, visit management30.com/modules.

I think all of us, at one point in our careers, or maybe at multiple points in our careers have felt. Like the role or this work or disposition is all I’ve ever going to do. And I can’t see a way to move beyond it. So what advice do you have for, or for workers who feel stuck, who are possibly looking to pivot to another phase of their career and to examine the FOMO that they might be seeing on LinkedIn or whatever and to make that step?

Lia Garvin: Yeah, totally. Like you say, when we’re feeling stuck we often Feel might feel like there’s something wrong with me. I can’t get outta this. [00:18:00] Like we’ve already talked about. And we also tend to feel like we’re out of options. If we didn’t feel like we were out of options, we probably wouldn’t feel stuck.

so stuck, like the end of the road place we get into. And, as I alluded to earlier, when we feel stuck, it’s the moment to ask ourselves what is a completely different way to approach this. And I don’t mean like a little subtle, different way. I’ll send the same resume to a few different kinds of jobs.

It’s what is something I have not tried yet? And what is maybe even the opposite of what I’ve tried or something I had ruled out that I should come back to. And this is again where bringing in this growth mindset, especially the aspect of asking for help, I think really comes into play. I think, I, when I was For a long time, I had wanted to do a TEDx talk and I had applied for several years to different venues, even brought in different kinds of talks.

And I kept getting rejected, and I kept saying, ah what’s wrong with me? Why can I hit this? And after literally the third year in a row of getting [00:19:00] rejected, I said, I gotta try something different. Something I’m not doing isn’t working. I still really want this. I still really wanna get my message out there.

My idea. And It’s worth it. So how else can I approach this? But I knew I was stuck, so I had to ask that question. And so I got a coach, I got a TEDx coach and I worked with them on how was I positioned myself? What was, in the talk that wasn’t landing and right away after I fine tuned it.

I got selected for the Boco Raton event that I did this January. And so I think why I like to share that experience is a couple reasons. One, when you see someone did a TEDx talk, you might think, oh, I could never do that. And yes, you can. because if you have an idea that you wanna get out there into the world I encourage folks to do that.

You can get your idea out there. And to also you can, if you refine your approach and you’re willing to examine it and say, okay, is it that I’m not bringing enough story into it? That the way I’m positioning it, is it, I’m not offering, a different, a new angle enough, [00:20:00] is it, X, Y when we really can ask ourselves.

Sort of questions that might be hard to ask is my message not landing or, do I have to consult more experts and maybe I don’t like asking for help. Those things can be hard, but when we really dramatically change our approach, we dramatically change our outcome.

Yeah.

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. And sometimes, maybe the changes didn’t need to be that vast. exactly. It could have also been some minor points where they’re really sticklers to or just really wanted to have more emphasis on. But yeah, asking for help asking for, and that actually leads me to do you think organizations can help employees in reinventing themselves as well?

Cause obviously, throughout the pandemic, I. 2021, for example, at one point was referred to as the year of the job description because people were doing different things than what they were doing before the pandemic. And do you think, or in your opinion, what you’ve seen as a coach, do you think organizations can play a bigger role in that in guiding people towards these kinds of exploring these new things?

Lia Garvin: Oh, I love that question. And I [00:21:00] also love the point you made of it can be subtle shifts. And I think that ties in here as well, is that I think. In helping organizations can really help both connect the dots for people around, I think it’s our role too, to connect the dots between what we do and why we matter, why it matters to the organization and the organization can do it right back.

Hey, here’s why your work is important. Here’s why it’s mission-critical here is how you fit into the strategy into the bigger picture. Because when people don’t feel that way, they do start to feel like whoa, does it even matter? And so I think organizations making that effort to make sure they’re showing that.

All roles are important. There’s not like a team B team sort of glamorous roles versus behind the scenes. I think that alone is a small thing that organizations can do may take shape in, highlighting different kinds of roles and work in a newsletter or in a town hall meeting or sending more.

Thank you. And, Wanted to share an email about this cool thing this team did, that maybe doesn’t usually get visibility. I think [00:22:00] organizations can start with doing that. And then two, the more organizations I’m hearing this to be more and more common, it’s been awesome is prioritizing learning and professional development.

I think that’s the way that we can keep growing and expanding and always be pushing ourselves to go after more kinds of things that are interesting to us or push us outside of our boundaries, help us stretch for our goals is giving people the time and space and even budget to, to take classes, bringing in external speakers having training, giving people opportunities to, to choose based on what they’re interested in.

All these kinds of things can help people actually explore that there’s more out there for them. And I think that’s where we can also. Feel more invested and engaged in our company. So I think it really is becomes a reinforcing retention strategy is like, Hey when I’m in this environment in this company, I see they’re really investing in me.

Absolutely. And it can be really powerful. And we see, wow, this company really cares about me. It doesn’t want me to feel stuck. [00:23:00] It wants me to be my live, my full potential. So I’ve seen that to have really powerful gains on retention and a sense of belong. Absolutely. Yeah.

Elisa Tuijnder: because that new role or that new unstuck ness might be in the same company might be in a different one, but then yeah.

They’re ambassadors and they might return with other new skills in the future. How do employees know when it’s time for change? Is it like an innate thing that, that is in us or is there times that we should feel the Mar or understand the markers a little bit or the tell telltale signs?

Lia Garvin: I think for ourselves it’s tuning into what is your own telltale sign, as you say? I know for me, when I’m feeling really. Burned out or drained. I’m I get really tired. Like I know at around two o’clock in the afternoon, I’m like yawning and ah, like what’s wrong with me even if I slept and had coffee and exercise.

And so I think when we’re feeling really drained, whatever that might look like, maybe we’re tired. Maybe we’re irritable. We feel sad. I don’t know whatever it is, we can’t, we feel distracted. I think we start to tune into, again, like we tune into the inner [00:24:00] critic, we wanna tune into our sort of own feelings, our body what’s going on and ask ourselves, okay.

Maybe it’s time to think about, what else is out there. And, we talked about learning a minute ago. I think I’ve heard people say, you always want a job. You wanna be either earning or learning. And I. The learning piece has become so much more forefront as we just talked about.

If people don’t feel like they’re stretching themselves or being fully utilized or just at that outside the comfort zone, which is where that flow state is. I think they can start to feel disengaged. It’s been, I can’t remember that curve is called, but, conscious.

Incompetence or something or conscious confidence. There’s

Elisa Tuijnder: I know it’s when you mean by the,

Lia Garvin: and it’s Hey, if we, if it’s too easy, we feel like, and we get bored of it after a while. Yeah. So we find our best work at just outside of our comfort zone where we’re learning, but we’re still feeling like, okay, I got this.

And so I think when we don’t feel that at all, and we feel like it’s just, yeah, I can do this, my sleep. That’s another signal that, [00:25:00] Hey, maybe we wanna either talk to our managers or about about different kinds projects in scope. Yeah, exactly. About other roles or make a bigger or make a bigger change.

And I think. One thing I really like to talk about for folks that are thinking about making a change and potentially are getting stuck in the cycle of overthinking my TEDx talk ends up being about overthinking decisions, which is a huge thing that I struggle with , but I think, to really separate the decision from the outcome. I think a lot of times when, if we make a job change, we think, oh God, I’m the worst decision maker. Why did I decide that? But we actually, what motivated us to change? It’s different

Elisa Tuijnder: than the outcome. Yeah, exactly.

Lia Garvin: Yeah. Maybe we wanna be in more of a leadership position or we have a toxic manager or we wanted to live in a location.

These things, we may be able to achieve those, even if the outcome is different than we expected. And so I think if we’re worried about making a change. Because we’re overthinking all these kinds of [00:26:00] things that could go wrong remembering we can’t predict the future. It’s actually always a gamble.

We actually never really know it’s gonna happen. Staying is just as uncertain. And then yeah,

Elisa Tuijnder: you saw that with the pandemic. , nobody would’ve guessed that.

Lia Garvin: Yeah. Nobody would’ve guess that. And so to really reframe the finality of decisions, remembering that we, it’s always a guess.

We’re always just making the decision for the right decision for right now. And to think about what’s important to me about the next thing. What are some things that I’ve learned from this previous job experience that I wanna make sure I do differently next time. What are ways I could ask those kinds of questions in an interview or meet with more team members to suss that out?

 Then. We’re gonna always be taking a chance then to just go for it, if it’s, if it feels right. Yeah,

Elisa Tuijnder: absolutely. Yeah. We can never predict a future and we’re all kind of complex complex beings. And we just don’t know if you pull out one thread, what it’s gonna do beyond along the line. And maybe that decision was not the right one.

Or was the right [00:27:00] one, but not at the time, you didn’t see it yet, but maybe in the future, because you walked away from a certain job or a situation, it ended up giving another opportunity, maybe a little bit further in the future.

Lia Garvin: Exactly. Yeah. Now,

Elisa Tuijnder: I wanna bring it back. We’ve spoken a little bit about this, about women in the workplace.

So you’ve spoken at length about this and about their unique challenges and highlighted it as traps sometimes, or that we encounter traps waiting for them, waiting for us in our careers. And so what advice would you offer to women hoping to avoid those pitfalls?

Lia Garvin: So I think that the tough thing is a lot of, these are biases and double standards and stereotypes that we, that exist, whether or not we, and I think while we are pushing against those and are working collectively not only as women, but as a society to, to change those watching for when we are starting to internalize and believe those.

Sure. So for example, there. Just biases and cultural, I don’t [00:28:00] know, things people say around don’t show off or don’t brag, like women are socialized to appreciate what you’re given. Don’t ask for too much. So then we stop negotiating, we start talking, stop talking about our work.

We stop feeling confident in these situations, and then we believe these things are true. And so I would say the trap is, Is when we don’t actually push against these things and say, okay, I know that these are myths. How can I find an authentic way to push against it? And I think that’s the key is doing this in a way that’s authentic to ourselves because a lot of times what can come up is women feel like.

You just told me to do this in like man’s way of explaining, like this isn’t authentic to me or in this way that sort of traditionally associated with man, I should say it’s not really, implicitly gendered, but I think And we feel like God I asked for this thing because this was what’s supposed to work and it didn’t work for me.

And actually that’s where a lot of the start of writing unstuck came from was I kept trying all the advice and [00:29:00] reading all the tips and doing all the things that were suggested for women to, had, and it kept falling flat. It wasn’t working. And I felt this is telling me to be somebody else.

And maybe that’s why it isn’t working. And so what I talk about unstuck is about finding the way to do that authentically for yourself, by letting go of some of these limiting beliefs. Figure out how well, how can you negotiate in the way that feels right for you after you’ve done these steps of doing your homework, having conversations with people, to understand, where, what the ranges are for salaries, actually just talking about money more in a way that you can, letting go of the, maybe cultural, societal expectation of not talking about this, then doing that in a way that’s authentic to you so that you don’t feel like you’ve.

You’re playing someone else and then it goes wrong and then you actually get stuck because you don’t know how to complete that

Elisa Tuijnder: conversation. Yeah. Yeah. It’s unfortunately we have to walk on a tight rope. do all these things that are and [00:30:00] pushing boundaries and then being authentically.

Authentic added at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. So here at the podcast, we’re really big fans of tangible practices we’ve given or you’ve given us a little bit of those, but, so I really wanted to put that out there as the last question. What are things listeners could start implementing tomorrow?

So what advice can you offer employers leaders out there who wants to have a more enjoyable career and want to help more and want to help create more satisfying workplaces and experiences for their team members. And also maybe from employee point of view as well.

Lia Garvin: Yeah, I think from the employee point of view, I would, say again really when we encounter roadblock.

When we get stuck, when we have a setback to remember, it’s not about us, it’s about our approach and to ask ourselves, how else can I approach this? What else can I try? And these reframing questions, and then to actually do something totally different, right? Whether it was asking for help or, re reframing your positioning, how you’re talking about your work and to do.

You know right away. [00:31:00] And if you’re feeling stuck right now to look at, make a list of like top three stuck areas and say, what else can I try and just go for it with that? I think with leaders and managers remembering that everyone is going through so much right now, everybody. Stress, there’s so much going on in the world.

There’s so much going on, we’re in different countries in the United States, there’s racial injustice, gun violence, women’s rights. That’s right. I There’s this is weighing on everybody and to recognize that with empathy. And I think one thing employers can do right away is to have conversations with their team members about, what they need to feel like they can be productive, but also have the space that they need to just be dealing with everything going on because we’re still in a pandemic also.

Right. yeah. There’s still, summer kids are off school. It’s just it’s a really overwhelming time. Yeah. And when I talk. Talking about flexibility. I think teams that say [00:32:00] flexibility, take what you need. People don’t take anything, right? Because it’s like when you have unlimited vacation, I think it’s been studied.

People take less people. Don’t take

Elisa Tuijnder: you any vacation yet until unless they’re boss. They’re direct boss. Exactly.

Lia Garvin: Exactly. So not just saying we’re flexible, but sitting down with a team member and saying, Hey. Here’s, let’s talk about what a hundred percent looks like. Let’s talk about what 80, like here’s some things that I think could come off here’s are things that are less priority.

Here’s some ways to create some space and offering that from the giving some over like air cover for someone. So they see, oh, okay. If I take space, my job will be there for me. Or if I take space and the project has to move forward, this new thing will be there for me and I have support.

And so I think we need to do more to, to model that and to show people that we really mean what we say. And I think running out of time, but one of the things that I talk about most in my consulting with managers and teams and leaders is really reframing our relationship with [00:33:00] accountability and talking about the power that accountability has to help people feel like, and step up as owners of their projects of their work is of their careers. And when we do that, we see pressure come off, managers, people feel more inspired, motivated. They feel like, Hey, I am empowered to solve problems. And I think that’s a real shift we can make right away.

Elisa Tuijnder: Absolutely. Yeah. I always joke as well with my friends the last pandemic they at least got the roaring twenties and we just getting, we’re just getting piled and piled. So yeah, giving people space and also allowing that psychological safety, we talked about.

People having room to breathe, having room for all these kind of things. Yeah. So obviously you talked a little bit about your book and I’m sure some of our listeners would really love to check it out or at least check out your website. If you have one, I think you do, because I’ve been on it.

So so yeah. Let do let give us a plug. Where can people find.

Lia Garvin: Yeah. So check out my website at [00:34:00] Liagarvin.com. You can also pick up my book unstuck there also available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target. I ,have YouTube videos across a lot of the topics we talked about. My YouTube channel is called reframe with Lia.

You can also ,find me on LinkedIn, shoot me a message, share, what you thought about our conversation or find me on Instagram @Lia.garvin – So any of those places probably starting at Liagarvin.com is the place to find all of

Elisa Tuijnder: it. Many places and to go, to get in contact. Okay.

Lia, I wish we had more time, but there’s been a great conversation. I really thank you for coming on the podcast today and sharing so much wonderful insights.

Lia Garvin: Thank you. So

Elisa Tuijnder: you’ve been listening to the happiness at work podcast by Management 3.0, where we are getting serious about happiness. Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you [00:35:00] enjoy our shows, don’t be shy. Write us a review, share the happiness with your colleagues, family, your friends.

Follow us on Twitter. Facebook or LinkedIn under Management30.