Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 179. Real Talk: Lynne's Mental Health Journey - Lynne Wester

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179. Real Talk: Lynne's Mental Health Journey - Lynne Wester · We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

• 0:00
  Jonathan McCoy: Welcome back to Mental Health Week presented by give butter. It's day five. And today we're sitting down with one of our dear friends Lynne Westar to hear her personal mental health journey. We're so glad you're here. Hey, I'm john.
• 0:13
  Becky Endicott: And I'm Becky.
• 0:13
  Becky Endicott: And this
• 0:14
  Jonathan McCoy: is the we are for good podcast.
• 0:16
  Becky Endicott: nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.
• 0:25
  Jonathan McCoy: We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.
• 0:34
  Becky Endicott: So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropist, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
• 0:45
  Jonathan McCoy: So let's get started. Hey, Becky.
• 0:48
  Becky Endicott: Hi, john. We have well we have our first ever repeat guest on the we are for good podcast.
• 0:55
  Jonathan McCoy: And he's also like one of our favorite people in the entire world. She has been one
• 0:59
  Becky Endicott: of our favorite people for years long before we had this company. And I want to I want to tell people why. It's because back in the day when we were working in nonprofit shops, we Lynne Wester who is like the donor relations global queen in the nano sector, if you don't know her name, you need to go to donor relations guru.com and go check out all of her incredible resources, her story, but I just remember her as being I don't even know if I want to call it the dissenting opinion in the room. But she would frequently, you know, stand raise her hand when I was in conferences or workshops with her. And say the thing was the most disruptive thing than that I was thinking I was not brave enough to say, back in the day. And to me, she's one of these original voices of innovation, disruption, doing things better, and building community alongside all of that,
• 1:54
  Jonathan McCoy: I think you perfectly summated Lynne Wester because I felt the same way. I mean, I always admired her from afar. And she has like, from a consultant perspective, she does it all. And I always looked up to her because she had this side hustles, she had this full time job, but she served and she gave so freely. And it really laid the groundwork, I don't think I've ever told you this land, but you laid the groundwork for man, I want to do that in our own way and seeing you on stage and just how people connected with you and served wanting to serve more because of you. So So Lynne's
• 2:26
  Becky Endicott: just been in the nonprofit sector for a very long time. She's worn many hats. She has 1000s of organizations that she's worked with over the year.
• 2:34
  Becky Endicott: And when you look at donor relations guru in the company that it is, I think you don't know the story behind it, because it just is such a well oiled machine. There's so many people that follow it. But Lynn said something to us a couple months ago. And we were talking about mental health. And we were talking about self care. And I'm kind of sharing a little bit of my mental health story that I shared on the podcast this week.
• 2:57
  Becky Endicott: And she said, Oh, yeah, I have kind of a similar journey to that. And we said, Would you be willing to share it? And she said, Yes. And so the bravest person in the room, you know, five to 10 years ago when we met her is gonna be one of the bravest people on this podcast.
• 3:15
  Becky Endicott: And so Lynne, welcome to our show.
• 3:18
  Lynne Wester: Thanks so much.
• 3:18
  Lynne Wester: I'm so happy to be back. I feel like I'm one of those regulars on Jimmy Carson. Hopefully, we'll sit there and eat popcorn and peanuts or something together, I have so much I want to share. And I think it's important to use our platforms to share both the good and the challenge of our lives. I've been in fundraising for 21 years now. I used to have a career at Disney and left that and finally found what I wanted to do in my life to find your vocation is really important. But it hasn't always been easy. I never knew I was going to be an entrepreneur.
• 3:55
  Lynne Wester: That's for certain. I've worked at Rollins college and Hopkins Medicine and NYU and Yeshiva University and North Carolina, Charlotte. But the work I do with organisms has really been the work that has fueled me to this day. But running my business wasn't a clear path. It wasn't. It hasn't been easy. And it's also something that I don't think we talked about enough. In terms of the journey to that or, you know, you guys say that I was the one in the back of the room being the disrupter. when really it was me trying to cope with my reality in the nonprofit world and in higher ed, fundraising, and then what I saw on the stage not being all the way authentic sometimes, or I was asking the tough questions because at conferences we would put on these notes outfits and we get our nails and hair done.
• 5:01
  Lynne Wester: And we put on our best, you know, foot forward and we'd say, here's what we do here. And here's all of our success. But I didn't all the time to hear the challenges or the failures. And so when I got up to speak, I always made sure that people knew that I struggled with the same things they struggle with.
• 5:19
  Lynne Wester: And I think that's been very advantageous in our consulting practice as well is that we failed, and we've failed really well. And coping with my mental health has been a journey for me, I have an anxiety disorder.
• 5:37
  Lynne Wester: I've had it. I've been diagnosed for more than 15 years, but I've had anxiety my entire life, I just never, the doctors never called it anxiety, I'd have a weak tummy, or I'd get sick when I was when it was stressful times, or there were a lot of physical manifestations of my anxiety. But nobody ever said, Hey, you should go talk to a psychologist. Until I found a really great doctor who said, I've run every single test on you. And I don't know why you haven't eaten for 11 days. But I couldn't keep what what ended up happening is I couldn't keep down food or water and ended up at a GI doctor going What is wrong with me, there has to be something wrong with me. And after having many, many uncomfortable tests, I had a doctor who said, You know, I think this is your mind body connection. And as a person who never grew up in a household of my parents are not hippies, they're in their 80s. And that whole mind body connection, like I don't know about my chakras and other people's chakras and stuff that my dad would call it Heebie Jeebies stuff didn't, didn't enter into our household much. And it's even been a journey of my parents to learn how to deal with a child who, as an adult, have has an anxiety or disorder. And you know, it goes all the way back for me. So I was a gifted and talented kid.
• 6:56
  Lynne Wester: But they didn't figure that out until I was in third grade. So I skipped and got kicked out of kindergarten, and then I got skipped out of third grade. And so you ended up being two years younger than everybody else in your school. You're super, super smart, but you have no emotional coping capabilities. And then you end up University at 16. And you're smart as heck, I have no coping skills, none of that stuff. And then you're always the person overachieving in the workplace. And you're supposed to cope with that. And so you end up coping, coping, coping, but not really dealing with any of that. And so it wasn't until the stress of the job caught up with me. I was working full time and speaking. So I'm dealing with it, and I'm on a journey with it. I'm on a tropical island because of it.
• 7:50
  Becky Endicott: We're going to talk about that. I love how humanizing and vulnerable you are to share that because I think the Lynne that people see out front, you know, it took a while for that girl to emerge as her true self. And, and I absolutely applaud you saying that we are too often in nonprofit talking about our successes, but how in the world can we fix the things that are broken in our industry, if we don't talk about him. And so that is why we wanted to have an entire week dedicated to talking about the thing that nobody is talking about, because we wanted to socialize mental health. So we can break down the stigma, we want you to see, we don't have it all together, I don't have it all together. Lynne doesn't have it all together. And the other thing that I want to lift out that's really, really important about what you said is that these things don't just happen.
• 8:46
  Becky Endicott: Sometimes they are such a slow build. And we don't even know that the build is coming. I wonder if you could give us just a little bit of background you've given us you know, some taste here about your nonprofit journey, you know, coming out of college getting into nonprofit and, and what led to sort of this story that we're about to unpack.
• 9:08
  Lynne Wester: Yeah, I think for me, when I came into higher education and nonprofit work I found so I was the kid that never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. Whereas my brother had it all figured out straight line engineer, like computer engineer like he got it. And that was always messy for me not knowing and being interested in everything and curious about everything. When I found fundraising and I found donor relations more specifically, because I tried to be a frontline fundraiser. And I learned quickly that frontline fundraiser wasn't for me because I couldn't control the outcome.
• 9:43
  Lynne Wester: I could do my job perfectly and a donor still wouldn't give and I could not handle not being in control, which is part of my anxiety, right? Like I need to be controlled at all times. I need to feel like I have a handle on it. And so the process driven work of donor relations with its big fatty Heart in the middle, allowed me to tap into the work that really fueled me that I've got to make people feel good. But in the higher ed world, in nonprofit world, I ran into so much bureaucracy and politics, we had that at Disney.
• 10:16
  Lynne Wester: But it was to a heightened level, if you brought a good idea to the table, but you were the wrong person that brought the idea, then your idea wasn't listened to. Or if someone higher up on the food chain, wanted your idea, you had to give it to them. And you couldn't take credit for your own work, or you couldn't be competitive. And I go home and think about why I was unsuccessful. And that carried on into business and imposter syndrome and standing in front of the room. And you're on the stage in front of 300 fundraisers. So how it manifested for me is unfortunately, I would get sick every time I spoke in public, I love public speaking, I have a gift for it. And I didn't realize that my adrenaline rush even though it was excitement was part of it, I have an anxiety issue. And so getting my head wrapped around turning my anxiety into excitement. And you know, learning how to eat or not eat before or control, you know, my protein intake or just, you know how to deal with the fact that every time I get up in front of a room, it's the most amazing feeling in the world.
• 11:32
  Lynne Wester: It's also the scariest damn thing. You know, like, as a keynote speaker, there's nothing that it's the thing I miss the most about my former life, I don't miss the travel, I miss an audience looking in my eyes and laughing along with me or nodding and smiling or having that moment of Oh, I feel the same way I missed that terribly.
• 11:51
  Lynne Wester: My body doesn't miss the huge till now afterwards, I shake and I have to be somewhere quiet and small after I do a big speech.
• 12:01
  Lynne Wester: And I need to eat some protein and drink some water and let the adrenaline rush.
• 12:08
  Becky Endicott: I do that too.
• 12:08
  Becky Endicott: And I had no idea that I i've never in my life connected the physical to the event. And so I'm even thinking of you who are listening right now I want you to think of a moment. And this is the one that popped up in my head of a board meeting at your organization. And all of your board members are talking your CEO is there your executive director is there I can remember several times where board members would be either having dissenting opinions, or they would be completely in consensus. And I would be thinking in my head, oh, no, this is not the way to go. And I would have to pump myself up.
• 12:47
  Becky Endicott: And I'm a pretty bold and fearless person. And I still would have to pump myself up.
• 12:54
  Becky Endicott: And I would say the thing and I would say what I needed to say and then afterward, I would get the shakes, too. And I and I have had those shakes. And I have never connected the anxiety. So thank you. I mean for even bringing things up it is the adrenaline and I had no idea what to call it. So yeah, I'm really appreciating and aligning and connecting with so much of what you're saying
• 13:18
  Lynne Wester: when I was a young staff member and a boss would send me an email saying, come into my office, I would break out into hives, my stomach would go into my throat and I would start getting sweaty thinking I was going to get fired because I'd spent so much time as a dissenter in the HR chairs apologizing for people's feelings. Yes, initially, me anxiety.
• 13:40
  Jonathan McCoy: Thank you for kind of sharing some of these experiences because I can remember sitting in the audience looking at you thinking she's got her complete act together and is owning the stage. And I don't know what point of the journey it was when I was there.
• 13:53
  Jonathan McCoy: It's probably 10 years ago. But I just think Lynne Is there a what was the moment? Or maybe it wasn't a definitive moment, but when did you wake up and say, something's wrong? Like I need help like and how did you seek it out? Who did you turn to?
• 14:06
  Jonathan McCoy: What was that moment like in your life?
• 14:44
  Lynne Wester: I had two low point. So the The unfortunate thing about getting sick is sometimes can't stop spasming.
• 14:52
  Lynne Wester: And so I went 11 days without eating food or and keeping it down and ended up in the hospital with a GI specialist Tell me if you keep speaking you're gonna die. And he's like you're tearing apart your innards. So we got to get control of this after we ran all the tests and everything. It's a combination of physical and mental. So he gave me a pill that would, it was my magic pill for years. For five years. I took the pill every time I spoke or every time I had an anxiety attack, and it was a combination of an antispasmodic and avalue.
• 15:24
  Lynne Wester: But I also started seeking professional help and got diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. And I go weekly to a psychologist who I love and now we do it. remotely even. But there have been years when I don't seek help. So, my business I, the business kind of got bigger than me and I had a ton of imposter syndrome. And I wasn't taking care of myself I was traveling 300 nights a year on the road, because whenever somebody wanted me to speak or a client wanted me I never said no. And I would I would fly from Baltimore to LA in one day and then I'd be in New Jersey the next day and in Florida the next day with no care or concern for myself. And at that point, I had no time to take care of myself so I wasn't seeing a psychologist. The business was booming I had my first million dollar year like everything on the outside I was keynoting NACA with 15,000 people and you would think oh my god, she's it you know, like she is it she's hot stuff. And you know what, when I do go on the stage, I do I blacked out and I go into the zone and I'm on and you know what, it does feel great. And it is my home. But they don't think about all the times when I'm home alone, not home alone, not home alone. I don't have anybody I'm dating because it's hard to date on the road and have a relationship. And I'm alone in a daze in, you know, some college campus eating Panera takeout?
• 16:55
  Lynne Wester: Because that's what was available. It's not the glamorous life that people think it is, you know, I'm not, I'm not in private jets, and I'm on regional carriers, you know, and, you know, wearing the same dress three days every week as I come home to do laundry. And a couple of years ago, I ended up having a nervous break, a nervous breakdown. It was a series of panic attacks or anxiety attacks, as they call them. That led me to have to take two weeks and just stop what I was doing. It actually happened two days after my birthday, where I should have been happy. It happened around my group team meeting where the people that I love and cherish the most were around me. It happened in Vegas, which is also so I was I came off of a vacation for my birthday. I hadn't been taking care of myself, I was overstimulated.
• 17:46
  Lynne Wester: Our business meetings caused me the most things I'd have anything out of, because I'm trying to plan for what people are going to do. I have, you know, 11 families counting on me for money. And I had a break and I lashed out, I wasn't myself, I cried uncontrollably for no reason. Like, there were so many symptoms like I didn't eat, I couldn't get happy no matter what happened. I mean, I even came here to came on three days before, I couldn't get happy. I saw my favorite people in the world. I couldn't get happy. And so we put a stop to everything for a couple of weeks and I got myself help and I reached out to a professional and did some very intense work. For those two weeks, my friends called my parents and they sent me home on a direct flight to Austin and I had to take care of myself but it every day I have to work at it every single day. I work at it. You know my mom and dad were in their 80s I love them and they're really supportive but sometimes when my mom will say Are you better now? It's It's not like that. And so like when Simone Biles decided to choose herself. I spent that day down like in tears crying about it because I understand what it's like people are like well all she needs to do is go out there and do what she does every day.
• 19:11
  Lynne Wester: And I'm like First of all, she could die flipping in the first well I can't even do a somersault Yeah, and this woman is like the air twisting and flipping and stuff and she lost where she was in space. Can you imagine how terrifying that is?
• 19:25
  Lynne Wester: And you've got the whole world staring at you going we're waiting for you to win your gold medal. For me I had nothing. I had people who said we can't you know we need need, you're here to solve our fundraising problem or we need you to speak at our conference and I couldn't handle the stress of that plus my wife so I cried a lot with her and for her and I'm so grateful to her for talking about it and others who have been talking about it because it can be ABS you you can't you can't function like I had somebody feed me. You know, like people like the way you're overweight. Yes, well, I don't eat when I'm sad. I don't eat I do the opposite of eating.
• 20:03
  Lynne Wester: And so it's really interesting all the ways that the AIP manifests itself. So a year ago in December, I left the states because I was not feeling well.
• 20:17
  Lynne Wester: And thank God I had my doctor and my friends and my family saying your you know, I knew I was going back down of not self care path. Instead of doing everything. I started not doing everything because I was trapped in my heart. When I was scared of human beings, I didn't want to leave my apartment because I was scared I was going to get COVID. And whether or not that fear feels real to anyone else, for a person with an anxiety disorder not to be able to control the environment they're in. And to think that as I have comorbidity and so to think that I would die of this virus, or that it would take my parents, that was an everyday occurrence, and I started feeling unwell mentally. And so I moved to an island where there is no I literally relocated 3000 miles away, to support my anxiety and to support my mental health so that I could support the families that count on me so that I could be and I'm happy, I'm happy and I'm you know, I had already made the decision not to go back until January of 2022. If then, but I left everything I knew and move to a foreign country to not ever have another nervous breakdown.
• 21:35
  Jonathan McCoy: Taking a quick pause and today's combo to think our mental health week presenting sponsor give butter, give better powers more than 35,000 good causes with their end to end fundraising solution.
• 21:43
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• 21:51
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• 22:27
  Becky Endicott: Okay, I want to I want to pause here because I need to make a couple observations about this, that and in because I am I am bobl heading right now because of what you're saying. And Julie is texting me and saying she is learning so much about herself right now. And I think anyone who's hardwired to be anxious to take care of people to nurture and make the thing grow. We're just going to take all that on, and we're going to take it in, and we're going to bury it. And I remember having this conversation with you in December and right before you were moving to the Caymans. And I remember, we were talking about how people would likely perceive that. And I want to like hit that square between the nose, because what you just said is the most important thing right there. And it's something that I've learned about myself too. And self care, it's when you start to feel those triggers. You have to make a massive change. And it was your moment where you stood up. And you said, I don't care what anybody else thinks. I don't care what your opinions are, your judgment is, in my mind, I'm like sitting in the audience again, as you're doing this. And you're standing on stage and you're saying the disruptive thing. And as someone who also had a nervous breakdown, I call it losing my marbles. I think in some ways, it was a great thing for me because life became so clear, and you start to understand what those triggers are. So the thing I want to say to you right now is thank you for doing that. Thank you for making that public. Thank you for giving so many people permission to do the thing that makes them the healthiest version of themselves. And if it's going to a Caribbean island great saying I'm not going to compete in this Olympics, great if it's me saying I'm taking three months off of work and I'm going to take short term disability great everyone needs to find the thing that is going to help you get back to the healthiest version of yourself
• 24:36
  Lynne Wester: and it doesn't like my decision to move it to a COVID free environment because I did I was I'm still scared of the judgment you know I also gave up being able to see my family and friends and all kinds of other things and I gave up Taco Bell which really hurts me because I'm so cheesy gordita crunch every now and again. I joke about that but to say the other steps are things like going to Pilates or I have a sacred hour every week Shannon my assistant my concierge who I like a second mom to me takes care of me. She knows that my doctor our can never be moved like that's my doctor our I'm going to get my medication and my medication is talking to him and I get my root beer or I get my sprite because I don't drink caffeine. And because that helps with my anxiety not to have caffeine. And so you know that's that's the thing so it could be as simple as that. Call your employee assistance program, you could say, you know what, maybe donor relations isn't the life for me or maybe I don't want to frontline fundraise, I want to be in donor relations. Or maybe it's I need to take FMLA and get get a hold of myself. Or maybe it's, I really enjoy spending time with my kids. So I need to find a job or a career path that lets me do that, or I want to be a gardener the rest of my life, and I want to leave this career behind all of that. You don't have to do big things, it could be, you know, for me, self care is in the small steps that add up to the big stuff. And the other thing about self care is setting compassion, like, I'm not very good at compassion for myself, I get frustrated with myself, I held myself to unrealistic standards all the time. But now it's, I'm gonna end my day tip Fridays at
• 26:30
  2: 30pm. Because then I can go to happy hour, it starts at four, I can go to the grocery store here, or I can go put my feet in the water, or I'm going to go swim, like all those little self care things, or even here on island where I do have a very good time saying to my friends, I'm cool, I'm going to go watch Ted lasso for the 44th time, or I'm gonna go real housewives it up, or something like that self care doesn't have to be radical, but it can be, and you need to, like I just would say to people to give yourself the grace, to even if it's telling a friend, hey, I don't feel very good. You know, or reaching out to someone, when you can reach out to me, I'll listen, I'm not a professional. So I'm going to tell you to go to a professional though. If If I burned myself, and I go to the doctor, and fix my burn, there's nothing wrong with it. But if my brain is Bert, and I go to the doctor and try to get help for it, all of a sudden, I'm a weirdo. Because I have a psychologist or a cat or a dog or, you know, whatever else coping mechanism there is and it's not weird, it really helps. And the other thing that, frankly, I struggle with as a business owner, and this is something my donor relations guru, teammates are gonna laugh at is worth, what is an hour of my time worth? What is my advice worth? I tend to be very cheap in my estimations, and that's the biggest mistake I ever made in my business was undervaluing myself, I used to go on site for three days, and charge them $500 plus travel. And there were consultants out there, putting in receipts for the cola, they got out of the vending machine.
• 28:14
  2: And I'm like trying to eat Taco Bell did not charge the university for what I really want, which is a steak, I got a steak taco. And you know, if I got extra sour cream and Glock, I would never pass that on.
• 28:23
  2: Because I didn't want them to have to pay for it just and not valuing the worth of the beating that my body would take flying back and forth across the world.
• 28:36
  2: not valuing my time. So like when they would pay for me to be on site, you know, breakfast, lunch and dinner on site to and not saying I need, you know, I need to have dinner on my own.
• 28:49
  Jonathan McCoy: Thank you for everything that you're sharing.
• 28:51
  Jonathan McCoy: I think I relate hearing the burden of family and families relying on you. And I just I feel like an exhale like I'm sitting across with such a dear friend that I just so appreciate you being vulnerable and showing that it's okay. And just creating space to have this conversation. Thank you so much.
• 29:12
  Jonathan McCoy: I don't know where to go next.
• 29:12
  Jonathan McCoy: But I just think boundaries, I start to hear about boundaries and kind of what you're saying.
• 29:17
  Jonathan McCoy: And you've figured out ways to stand up that conversation with your clients with your team.
• 29:21
  Jonathan McCoy: With all the other different inputs in your life. Could you talk about what that's looked like for you? And in what kind of boundaries do you think are the most helpful to set up?
• 29:34
  Lynne Wester: apologize to you guys when I got on zoom at 103?
• 29:38
  Lynne Wester: Because I wanted to go to the bathroom. Right?
• 29:43
  Becky Endicott: I think you know,
• 29:44
  Lynne Wester: all the time.
• 29:44
  Lynne Wester: Yeah. And I know you and I apologize to people when I get on a zoom call and I'm eating peanut butter. Because it's 2pm and I haven't eaten since 6am.
• 29:54
  Lynne Wester: And I apologize for it. So So apologizing for things that are just self care and compassion is something I still work on. But boundary setting so I've set boundaries around. I'm a morning person by two or three in the afternoon. Just shit for brains.
• 30:10
  Lynne Wester: I just, you know, I can't do it.
• 30:10
  Lynne Wester: And so at my last job job before I left for the business, my administrative assistant I said to her, no meetings after 3pm unless you outrank me by to that point that was the vice president and the chancellor. So if you're the Vice Chancellor, the Chancellor you can call a meeting after 3pm with me, everybody else Dude, I come into the office at 7am at three o'clock up there to answer questions and fiddle fart around with my email and think about what I want for dinner is really what's happening at three o'clock.
• 30:45
  Becky Endicott: That is so smart. And I want you to keep going on this. But it's like Know thyself, know your strengths. We don't need to fit into the eight to five box, you know. And I mean, john, this is so funny, you're talking about eating because I was telling john literally some morning as he was trying to eat breakfast, but we had back to back calls.
• 31:07
  Becky Endicott: And I said, eat our client is not care if they're talking and presenting something, and you're eating something, you know, this is the new world and why would we starve ourselves? Why would we apologize? I love that we're bringing these things up. And we continue to humanize them. So please keep going.
• 31:26
  Lynne Wester: There's also another factor for me. Yeah. And I don't want it this but also as a person of SOP. There's shame around eating because you think that people think you're eating all the time. So when I bring out food, it's a completely different situation than when john brings out food. Because there's a stigma around. If I just ate less, I wouldn't be fat, or things. And so I'm constantly self conscious about eating around people because they think I eat because I'm fat, or because I just got I'm like, I'm not eating a Snickers three times a day people and I'm not in the drive thru with wrappers in my car, I'm trying to have an apple and peanut butter, so I don't pass out in front of you. And I had an insurer for breakfast. So I'm, I'm not, you know, and if I want to eat Doritos, and cupcakes for breakfast, who gives a crap, it's my life, like, I get to make those choices. And I have eaten Doritos, and cupcakes for breakfast, not this week, but during the pandemic, but like, so there's also a shame and a stigma that comes for me as a person of size, eating in front of other people, or asking for a moment to have a snack, or those kinds of things. Like when I first started speaking, of course, I had to throw ups. And Shannon would ask people, what is what is the breakfast that you're serving? And people would get offended? and be like, why are you asking us what breakfast we're serving. And she said, Well, Lynn needs protein before she gets on stage. In one speech, I usually walk two to three miles on the stage with my nervous energy, right? I have to have protein, so I have something good to throw up. So that I can go and speak on stage, I gotta at least have it.
• 33:12
  Lynne Wester: But I was self conscious.
• 33:12
  Lynne Wester: Because as a person of size, they're probably like, Oh, no, she needs peanut butter and toast so that she can function for the day or, you know, so boundaries. I've set boundaries around my time and my schedule.
• 33:28
  Lynne Wester: I've set boundaries around who can have access to me, I don't take on scheduled phone calls anymore. I set boundaries around my inbox. So when I first started my business, if you emailed me, I would email you back within 15 minutes. And if it didn't matter if I was on the wing of a plane, upside down consulting with a client with no internet, I would scramble and it didn't matter if you were a paying client or not. You got my full, undivided, massive email.
• 33:56
  Lynne Wester: So I set boundaries around my email and my phone. I don't allow clients to text me For example, unless there's a true emergency or an urgent situation happening. Shannon is the one that controls my calendar, I don't schedule and that's not to be fancy or bougie. It's because I'll screw up my calendar. But also she knows my boundaries. So she knows she doesn't want to work me deep into the night on a day when I've started at 5am with Pilates and other stuff.
• 34:24
  Lynne Wester: But email boundaries I used to when my business first started, I answered every email within 15 minutes. I mean, it didn't matter where I was I would go in a bathroom stall at a conference and answer emails. And it was such an unhealthy relationship.
• 34:39
  Lynne Wester: Because I'm an inbox zero person. And people I would give a speech and then they would flood me with questions or and these weren't even paying clients. These are, you know what Adam Grant would call takers, right? The givers and the takers of the world. And so I would feel guilty because I wasn't getting back. And so I finally had a conversation about worth and boundaries. And my doctor said, your inbox is full of other people's priorities.
• 35:03
  Lynne Wester: And until you realize that your inbox is full of other people's priorities, you will never be able to run your business successfully. You know, I'm here to serve as a resource for the industry. But I need you to have smarts about how to do that. And I've set boundaries around it.
• 35:22
  Lynne Wester: There's a way to approach people who have something to offer. And there's a way not to approach people that have something to offer and we all have value and worth. It's just I've had to Set harder boundaries and even I'm comfortable with I. I remember I was with my friend Maureen. We were at the case district one conference. And we were walking together and I said, Maureen, can we just go up to your to my room and hang out? I just want to hang out and she goes, Oh, yeah, but don't you want to go to the thing about bapa and as a free bond, you know, get some nuts to something and I was like, I'm a little exhausted, and people are kind of, it's starting to catch up with me. I said, I want to go to the bathroom. And then let's go take a breather, and she goes, I will talk about it, Lynn and I said, Okay, I start going to the bathroom. And a woman starts by asking me a question about my session. I was like, Yeah, I said, I'm just gonna go to the room. And you know what? I'll be right out. She followed me into the bathroom,
• 36:16
  Becky Endicott: I was afraid to you're gonna say that.
• 36:18
  Lynne Wester: And I literally put my hand up, and was like, this is where our relationship ends. Boundary Maureen saw that have come back out answer lady's question I say to Maureen, Maureen goes, let's go up to your room. We're going to order some room service, and we're going to talk. And she was like, I had no idea was this bad, Lynne, I had no idea that these people would not give you peace.
• 36:38
  Lynne Wester: I said, I can't eat a meal. So I'm in there with Maureen in the room, and I'm crying. And I'm like, and it's never good enough. No matter how much of my gift to myself, I give to these people. It's never good enough.
• 36:51
  Lynne Wester: But people say well, we'll what gives you anxiety, shit like that.
• 36:55
  Becky Endicott: And the fact that you almost have to build this protective barrier around yourself. I'm just, I'm, I'm feeling very deeply for you right now. And so I wonder like, what do you think, is the state of mental health right now in the nonprofit sector? What are your thoughts about it?
• 37:15
  Lynne Wester: I think we're in deep trouble. I agree. I think, um, I think there's a huge wave of resignation is happening already, you know, we have we have more job postings on our gigs board than we've ever had, we have 32 openings. Right now.
• 37:31
  Lynne Wester: It's unheard of. I think people are not being tolerant around this easing back into the workplace. I think people are not understanding of some of the trauma that COVID or not COVID has caused on our mental health.
• 37:42
  Lynne Wester: I think we, if you're a manager of a team, I encourage you to be having conversations and doing more than just Are you okay?
• 37:52
  Lynne Wester: Because if you would have asked me the day before my nervous breakdown, if I was okay, I would have been like, Yeah, I'm fine. Let's go get some lunch, we're fine, I'm fine, I'm fine.
• 38:03
  Lynne Wester: If I say to you, I'm fine. I am not fine. And if I brushed it off, I think we need to be more vulnerable in our industry about saying, every job is a stressful job, whether you're a gift processor, whether you're the VP, whether you're and we got to take care of ourselves, and taking care of ourselves looks different for every single person at the organization. But I think we're in deep trouble.
• 38:29
  Becky Endicott: I worry, I worry about us. But I you know, I'm a sunny optimist. And so I always think that, doing things like this is going to just very slowly start pulling back the layers of what's beneath us. So by virtue of tuning in to this conversation, I'm so proud that you're here and that you're listening to this, I encourage you to share it with a friend or what you took away from this conversation. It's really about keeping your radar up and checking in. And I love the advice about going further than how are you and are there tools to use. And I hope you get some of those resources this week on the podcast. But yeah, I think all of that was excellent advice.
• 39:13
  Lynne Wester: I also, you know, I wrote a blog about my mental health. It was great. And it was it was torture to write honestly, and I cried a lot. And I couldn't believe how many people said, Hey, thanks for even talking about this, or you made it safe for me. Or, you know, and all I did was say, Here's why I'm here. And here's what's going on, and we need to talk about it. And like, I just but I do think we're in trouble because I think I'm a realist.
• 39:42
  Lynne Wester: I'm not an optimist. I'm a realist, I had hoped for it, because we're making it safer.
• 39:49
  Lynne Wester: And things like Simone Biles and Naomi osaki. And but we have so much healing to do, from a pandemic from, from racial and social injustice that still hitting us from, you know, like, just I just think about, you know, people who are in we're all in the same store, but we're in very different boats. And it is a journey and it is a lifelong pursuit to have mental health. I'm not seeing good signs from our industry in terms of flexibility.
• 40:19
  Jonathan McCoy: I mean, I think that's so telling and and the conversations we've had to is, we haven't stopped to think creatively of how can we reimagine our work you know, we're not even pausing to like, consider that So, when this has been amazing, and now I'm just we're All bobbleheads, we're all affirming you are Wish we give you a hug. Yeah, your journey has probably just crystallized so many things that should be true of how we show up how we lead in this way, you know, and so I wonder if you have something today that everybody could implement to take better care of themselves and their teams?
• 40:54
  Lynne Wester: Sure, I think one of the things that you reminded me of my younger self when I used to be a disrupter at conferences, is what if we were a disrupter for our own mental health and self care? What if we did something disruptive every week to take care of ourselves.
• 41:10
  Lynne Wester: So I'm trying to do Pilates. And my Pilates is now from seven to 8am. I'm trying to do it four days a week, Monday through Thursday. And by Thursday, I really, really got pray a lot.
• 41:24
  Lynne Wester: By the time I get there on Thursday, but I wanted to do this for myself four days a week. But my client calls starts today. And this is a client who is a very significant client.
• 41:35
  Lynne Wester: And I you know, I'm working with very hard. So last week, I come on and my hair still up and it's wet been and I've got on my Pilates shirt. He said, I wanted you to see me like this. Because I've decided to do Pilates. I know, I'm crazy. But I decided to do Pilates reason I push back our meeting, drive from Pilates back to the house, change shirts, and talk to you and and do my client work. And she said, Well, I said yes. And I said, Yeah, but I felt like I had to justify it. Why I was moving back our meeting 15 minutes. And she's I think you're crazy for doing something active at seven o'clock in the morning.
• 42:15
  Lynne Wester: Absolutely so proud. You're taking care of yourself. And I said, I preach that we got to take care of ourselves. And yet I was scared to ask you to move my meeting back 15 minutes to do it. So every week on Thursday, I'm going to come in rolling in our meeting, chillin and she don't care if you're still sweating, you know? And if you need more time, you need to let me know. And I said, No, I want to roll right into my day. And she said, no big deal. And so do something disruptive to take care of yourself. So it was disruptive of me, in my world in my ethos to move 15 they're paying. And what I found out is that client was willing to give me more grace than I even asked for.
• 43:00
  Becky Endicott: I love that story. I'm so proud of you for doing that for yourself. And as you were telling that story, I just kept thinking to myself, What if we stopped apologizing to our people? And what if we instead circled back to them and said, I don't know if you're aware. But by doing that, you really helped me with self care and with anxiety and I want to thank you for being a part of that. I mean, I think completely disarm even somebody who disagreed with you making that change because they understand that it's a personal boundary.
• 43:37
  Becky Endicott: And it's something that we have to do if we're going to continue taking care of them and ourselves. Great storyline.
• 43:44
  Becky Endicott: Okay. I didn't think it was possible to love you more. But I do when people come on to this podcast, and they are so vulnerable, and I know what it took. I want to thank you so much to if you are listening out there, and you are someone who is hearing your story threaded in Lynn story, if you are hearing her talk about symptoms or triggers that you weren't even aware were happening in your life. please reach out and talk to someone please look for those Employee Assistance Programs. Talk to a friend, a mentor. If you truly have no one I want you to get on your email and type in Becky at we're for good, calm. I'm not being facetious. I truly want you to email me. I will visit with you.
• 44:30
  Becky Endicott: I will find someone else to visit with you. If I cannot, Len will visit with you. There is absolutely no scenario where you should be going through this alone
• 44:44
  Lynne Wester: agreed and you can reach out to me anytime. I will make time. I will make it a priority to help you take care of yourself.
• 44:53
  Jonathan McCoy: This has been amazing Lynn, thank you so much.
• 44:55
  Jonathan McCoy: And we're just grateful for you,
• 44:58
  Becky Endicott: rooting for you all the time. If anybody else wants to reach out to you what's the best way to connect?
• 45:04
  Lynne Wester: Lynn at donor relations guru calm or at social media. It's all at donor guru.
• 45:07
  Lynne Wester: So trying to keep it easy for people. Thanks for having me back. I'm so happy to be to time. I want to be like you know, Alec Baldwin that has hosted Saturday Night Live like seven times. Alec Baldwin,
• 45:22
  Becky Endicott: really appreciate everybody joining us today. Go check out the resources and please go follow Lynne on social media. Not only does she put incredible donor relations content out there, but she could human putting wonderful content Out
• 45:34
  Lynne Wester: Awesome, thanks.
• 45:36
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• 46:09
  Julie Confer: Thanks friends. I'm our producer Julie Confer and our theme song is sunray by Remy Boris boom