Latest / SisterSmart Leadership / 32: How to Prepare Yourself for Failure and Build Your Resiliency as a Leader with Jessica Bacal

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32: How to Prepare Yourself for Failure and Build Your Resiliency as a Leader with Jessica Bacal · SisterSmart Leadership

• 0:00
  Jessica Bacal: it's important to remember that it's not that women are,
• 0:02
  naturally different or naturally more, take things harder, less resilient.
• 0:06
  It's really that we've been socialized, to, I think, to please people
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  and to make sure everyone's okay.
• 0:13
  And when you make a mistake you're letting people down.
• 0:16
  And so it can touch something really deep for women.
• 0:19
  Jill Avey: I'm Jill Avey, a career success coach, and this is Sister
• 0:23
  Smart Leadership, the show that explores how women can rise from
• 0:27
  director to vice president and beyond by fully leaning into their feminine
• 0:31
  energy as their biggest advantage.
• 0:33
  Let's get you one step closer to the recognition and promotion you deserve.
• 0:38
  What happens when you have a failure?
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  Like you made a mistake at work, even a big mistake, or you get
• 0:44
  rejected even for something that you thought was a sure thing.
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  I've talked to a lot of people about failure because this is a topic
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  that we don't often talk about.
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  In fact, it's sure tempting to hide away and lick your wounds
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  after something big has happened.
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  Sometimes people let it derail them or even end their career.
• 1:01
  But what happens when you use failure to propel you forward?
• 1:04
  It's my pleasure to introduce you to Jessica Bacall, editor of two top 10
• 1:09
  books, Mistakes I Made at Work and The Rejection That Changed My Life.
• 1:13
  I read her first book about a year ago and it was so refreshing to hear these very
• 1:17
  successful women talk about their own grit and resilience after their own setbacks.
• 1:22
  So Jessica, welcome to the show.
• 1:23
  Jessica Bacal: Thank you.
• 1:24
  It's great to be here.
• 1:25
  Jill Avey: So after writing these two books, what shifted for you
• 1:28
  in the way that you failure, both like mistakes and rejections?
• 1:32
  Jessica Bacal: I think part of why I was drawn to this topic
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  is because it is hard for me.
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  So, and that's why it was compelling.
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  So it wasn't like, okay, it's fixed.
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  And now if I mess up at work, like I just, I wrote these books, so I
• 1:50
  don't have any problem with it at all.
• 1:52
  But, I started to kind of, there were some strategies and some mindset
• 1:57
  shifts that were useful to me.
• 2:00
  So, like there were at least two people in my rejection book who talked about
• 2:05
  aiming for rejections on purpose, as a way to put yourself out there, like
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  instead of putting yourself out there and hoping you don't get rejected, be like,
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  I'm going to try to get 20 rejections.
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  I'm going to send out this manuscript, or, there's a story of someone who
• 2:18
  tried to get a hundred rejections, which led to some real successes, and I think
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  if you're putting yourself out there strategically and thoughtfully, it doesn't
• 2:25
  mean you should do a hundred willy nilly submissions that, where you're not, it's
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  not careful, it's not well thought out if you're a writer, for example, like
• 2:33
  me, but, I do like the idea of kind of flipping the script and being purposeful
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  and almost like planning for rejections.
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  And in terms of mistakes, I guess you could think about it the same way.
• 2:47
  You could even go into a new role and, think for yourself like, okay, I bet
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  I'm going to make, like, there's going to be at least three mistakes that I'm
• 2:58
  going to make and I'm going to have to like, get through them, be resilient.
• 3:02
  So you, you could try to flip the script in that way too.
• 3:05
  Jill Avey: You know, Dyson's kind of famous for that of really celebrating
• 3:08
  that they went through 10, 000 iterations to create the amazing
• 3:12
  vacuum cleaner that they have.
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  And that they really celebrated when something didn't work because of
• 3:18
  the learning that they got from it.
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  So I think that's kind of a neat.
• 3:22
  And you're also reminding me of when I was in sales early in my career.
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  I sold fax paper over the phone as the first job that I had in my career, which
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  is really a very long time ago now, but we used to celebrate it when we got somebody
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  that hung up on us because that was sort of the worst thing that could happen.
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  And it was, it felt so mean and hurtful.
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  When you started out, but you kind of got this thick skin and we would be
• 3:46
  like, I got hung up on, and just make it fun so that it wasn't something
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  we were afraid of and held us back.
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  Jessica Bacal: Yeah.
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  And I think that thick skin is something that the books have
• 3:58
  nourished, have helped me to develop, but it's also about just getting
• 4:02
  older and having more life experience.
• 4:04
  Jill Avey: That's true.
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  Yeah.
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  You can relate to all of the things that have happened throughout your
• 4:09
  life so much easier when you have, the more years of experience.
• 4:13
  Love that.
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  What advice would you give to somebody who's maybe been hanging
• 4:16
  onto a failure for a long time?
• 4:19
  Jessica Bacal: It's so individual.
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  I really, to be honest, I would say find a good therapist.
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  I've gone to a lot of therapy.
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  I think that like sometimes there are reasons that we're hanging on to a
• 4:29
  failure that have less to do with our career trajectories and like what other
• 4:34
  people think of us and more to do with things that those failures like bring up.
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  So, , if you don't have a therapist or I might look for one, I
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  think talking about the failures with people who you care about.
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  There's one interview in my first book with Danielle Offrey, who's,
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  and she talks about an error she made as a surgical resident
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  and, it ended up being fine.
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  The patient was fine, but she, held on to it for so long without telling anyone.
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  And now she really encourages young doctors to talk about their
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  mistakes because it's a way to improve patient care, first of
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  all, but it also, it kind of can disentangle like mistakes from shame.
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  And so I think talking about it, finding someone, maybe there's not
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  someone at work, like it's, sometimes we don't feel like we can talk to
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  someone at work, but, talking to someone to a friend or romantic partner.
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  Jill Avey: Yeah.
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  Brene Brown talks about shame withering in the light
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  Jessica Bacal: Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Jill Avey: I love what you're saying about if you're hanging onto it for
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  a long time, there's something more there for you to learn from this and
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  that it's bringing up something that's maybe it was from your past or how
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  you grew up or, your family system.
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  And that's really great to work through.
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  I think everybody should have a therapist to talk through these things with and.
• 5:51
  Jessica Bacal: Yeah.
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  And some people are more sensitive just naturally, I have a colleague
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  Malika Donaldson, who is an education professor here at Smith, and she studies
• 6:00
  mistakes, and she looks at kinder, kindergartners, and, there's some who
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  just really they can make a mistake and move on, and some even from kindergarten.
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  Who, are more demoralized than their, five year old peers.
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  yeah.
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  Jill Avey: That's really interesting.
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  And I think women tend to hold onto mistakes longer than men do because
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  men are more socialized to at least the men of our age group they're more
• 6:24
  socialized to just brush it off and, Oh, well, guys can do that so much easier.
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  It's just, Oh, well, I think that we're.
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  maybe hanging on to things more, ruminating about them
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  more, that kind of thing.
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  Jessica Bacal: yeah, yes, there was a researcher who people may know of
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  this woman Susan Nolen Hoeksema who was at Yale, she sadly died, I think,
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  about a decade ago, but her research was about rumination, women and
• 6:47
  rumination, and, that women are more likely to be ruminative, which is an
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  unhealthy way to respond to a problem, because it doesn't get you anywhere.
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  It's rumination is like, it's like processing it over and over, and oh, I
• 7:00
  can't believe I did that, just kind of going down into that pit that feels bad.
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  So
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  Jill Avey: Right.
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  And you actually re-traumatize yourself by going over and over again in it.
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  And so, yes.
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  Okay.
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  So that leads me to my next question of what would you recommend for
• 7:15
  people who have just had a failure?
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  So not ruminating over it would be our first recommendation, I think.
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  Jessica Bacal: yeah, there's a mindset thing.
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  I like see if you can separate like the failure from you, yourself,
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  like you are not the failure.
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  I do think talking about it, there are several people in my books who talk
• 7:33
  about like, it's better to be honest, if it's something that, that affects
• 7:36
  the company or affects a patient.
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  It's certainly better to be honest than to kind of get yourself into a bad situation
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  where you've covered something up.
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  So I think try to separate yourself from the failure, figure out what you need
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  to do to resolve it, who do you need to talk to, find those supports outside of
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  work who will help you, who will take you out for sushi or, make you feel a little
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  better or say, Hey, let's go to a movie.
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  And yeah it's just so hard.
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  So I do think you have to have that support system.
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  Take your dog for a walk.
• 8:06
  But just try to give yourself a little bit of a break.
• 8:08
  I do think people are so hard on themselves.
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  Jill Avey: Reshma Saujanii talked about this in your book of she
• 8:14
  went for a congressional bid and lost and she didn't have a plan B.
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  Like she wasn't, she didn't know what she was going to do next.
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  And she gave herself two weeks to feel sorry for herself and
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  to, to process it basically.
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  Yeah.
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  And that was, I thought that was so nice that she put a limit on it and
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  I'm going to give myself this time.
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  I need this time Yeah.
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  and yet I'm not going to stay in it.
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  Jessica Bacal: Yeah.
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  I think that's a really good way to do it.
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  Allow yourself, she says, I allowed myself to wallow, give yourself a time limit,
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  maybe you only need an hour or two, Yeah.
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  maybe you give yourself 24 hours, but then just say to yourself I'm going
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  to be done and I'm going to move on.
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  And then, in her case, she was able to really find well, what's
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  the kernel that, what was really making me want to run for Congress?
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  She really wanted to help people.
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  One thing she wanted to do was help young women in her district, young
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  people in her district stay plugged into technology as technology was advancing.
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  She represented a district in Queens and she ended up One of the things that
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  she's done a number of things, but she ended up founding Girls Who Code as
• 9:18
  a way to introduce girls to coding.
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  Jill Avey: And think if she hadn't have not gotten that job as a Congresswoman
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  and not gotten the next job that she got, which inspired her to start that, how many
• 9:32
  young gals wouldn't be, impacted by this incredible nonprofit that she has now.
• 9:37
  Jessica Bacal: Yeah.
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  Jill Avey: It's really, it's neat to, think about this is your second book
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  is, the rejection that changed my life and what happened as a result of that.
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  And I
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  Jessica Bacal: Yeah.
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  And sometimes the thing that you figure out, your pivot it might
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  feed the same, need in you or might even be better in a way,
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  I had an experience at Smith of I'd been here for many years and I
• 9:59
  applied for a job, the rejection book kind of emerged from this rejection.
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  So I, I didn't get the job that I wanted, but what I ended up being able to do, I'm
• 10:08
  still at Smith was actually even better.
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  I know that doesn't happen for everyone, but you know, it's like sometimes It
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  just feels bad to be not wanted, but you might end up like doing something that
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  feels meaningful to you in a deep way.
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  So you, you couldn't have imagined.
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  Jill Avey: that reminds me of the previous episode that I did where I talked about
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  Sally Krawcheck's experience, because she was saying she was, let go as a
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  CEO from two very large banks and she was saying, that when something like
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  that happens to you, by definition, that's not the place for you to be.
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  And so by recognizing that and saying, okay, well, what is the right
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  place for me and where do I fit?
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  And, when we can take the lesson that's in this, then we can make better out of
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  Jessica Bacal: Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Jill Avey: If you just move on and try to shove it into the closet and
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  pretend like it didn't happen, you won't get that lesson and you may not
• 10:57
  have that next great thing happen.
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  Are there any other differences that you see between how men and
• 11:01
  women handle mistakes or failures?
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  Jessica Bacal: I think the rumination is the biggest thing.
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  I think that's the biggest difference in terms of, what I understand.
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  My research, I didn't look at men.
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  I really just looked at women because I work at a historically women's
• 11:17
  college and I was, interested in women.
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  I think it's important, and I know you talk about this a lot in your work,
• 11:23
  that it's important to remember that it's not that women are, naturally
• 11:26
  different or naturally more, take things harder, less resilient.
• 11:29
  It's really that we've been socialized, to, I think, to please people
• 11:34
  and to make sure everyone's okay.
• 11:36
  And when you make a mistake you're letting people down.
• 11:39
  And so it can touch something really deep for women.
• 11:42
  But I, I do think that there's a major age component here where, it's such
• 11:48
  a boon to, grow up, to get older.
• 11:50
  I think, as we get older, I think we do learn from our, our own histories,
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  and from what we see with our friends, our colleagues, and, we can take
• 11:59
  lessons from everyone around us.
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  Jill Avey: And I love having women like the ones who are highlighted in your
• 12:05
  books to, to look to of, women who are taking risk and trying something big.
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  And even when it doesn't work out, they're still going bigger
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  and it doesn't have to stop you.
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  And so these are lessons that we can all take and get inspired from,
• 12:20
  Jessica Bacal: yeah,
• 12:21
  Jill Avey: Yeah.
• 12:21
  After some of the ups and downs of your career, what would you tell your
• 12:24
  younger self knowing what you know now?
• 12:28
  Jessica Bacal: Well, I think I felt a lot of pressure when I arrived at
• 12:31
  Smith to get things done quickly.
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  I was involved in starting center here, and I think I would
• 12:40
  tell myself a couple of things.
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  I would say, learn the culture where you are, don't try to like race past
• 12:47
  that, because if you, that's something like, it's hard to go back and when you.
• 12:53
  Trip over the culture and you for example, at a college people do
• 12:58
  things really slowly and they do things really collaboratively and
• 13:03
  and so you don't, you might get a center up and running really quickly.
• 13:08
  But annoy a lot of people in the process.
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  I also think I've learned, even in the past like five years, I've learned
• 13:14
  a lot about collaboration and that, collaboration isn't I have an idea
• 13:21
  and I get someone who's nice enough to like smack their name on it.
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  So this is ours.
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  Look, we're doing this together.
• 13:27
  I think real collaboration where you are building like collegiality and, The real
• 13:32
  collaboration is where you like sit down.
• 13:35
  Yes, you might have your ideas that you bring, but you're really listening.
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  You're not overly attached to what you're bringing to a project.
• 13:43
  You're willing to start at zero.
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  It's that over attachment to your own ideas and to your own way of doing it
• 13:50
  and to your own pace that I think can be and that's something that like has
• 13:55
  to different in different cultures.
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  I, I have come from teaching children actually and in that world you do
• 14:01
  have to do things really quickly.
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  I mean it's just teachers are so overworked and people aren't like worried
• 14:08
  about toes being stepped on or, it's Oh, okay, like you did this lesson plan.
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  Okay, can you give it to me?
• 14:14
  I did that.
• 14:15
  It's almost like being a parent or something like you have to,
• 14:17
  Jill Avey: Yeah, you got to move.
• 14:19
  Jessica Bacal: you got to move.
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  And in a college, I love working at a college, but it's just,
• 14:23
  it's just a different pace.
• 14:24
  Yeah,
• 14:26
  Jill Avey: Kramer talked about that in your second book where she was
• 14:29
  at a law firm and She stepped on the toes of one of the partners by not
• 14:34
  understanding the power signals he was giving her because she was like an
• 14:38
  intern and she didn't know those things.
• 14:41
  And then she didn't get the job because he didn't like her.
• 14:43
  And so that was, I think, a great example of really learning the culture
• 14:47
  and who are the people that matter to your success, and Then how that
• 14:53
  culture shifts from company to company and the examples that you're giving
• 14:56
  from, teaching school to being in an academic environment are the same.
• 15:01
  If you're working for, a startup versus a larger company, you know,
• 15:05
  it can be the same kind of shift that can be difficult to make if
• 15:07
  you're not doing that intentionally.
• 15:09
  Jessica Bacal: Yeah.
• 15:09
  And so, I think I know there's some book that I never read that,
• 15:13
  but it's never Eat Lunch alone or something , you know, about,
• 15:16
  Jill Avey: Keith Ferrazzi.
• 15:17
  Jessica Bacal: Get the point from the title, but just, really spending
• 15:20
  time getting to know your colleagues and asking a lot of questions.
• 15:22
  And that's something I think I didn't do and I didn't know I could do.
• 15:27
  Because I, didn't know I like had permission to do it almost.
• 15:29
  So I started on a grant funded project, it, but I do think like it's
• 15:34
  always okay to ask someone out for coffee or say, hey, do you want to
• 15:38
  take a walk and just ask people about themselves and about the environment.
• 15:42
  Jill Avey: Yes.
• 15:42
  I think that's underrated for sure.
• 15:45
  Sometimes we're building relationships and having that coffee, but we don't know
• 15:47
  what to talk about and what to, what the best information we can get from that
• 15:52
  person versus just getting to know them.
• 15:55
  And so when you have, this cultural understanding, that you can get
• 15:59
  from different people's viewpoints, because everybody has a different
• 16:01
  viewpoint of what the culture is too.
• 16:03
  And so that can be really helpful.
• 16:05
  How can we increase our resilience ahead of having a failure so
• 16:09
  that we feel maybe more ready?
• 16:11
  Jessica Bacal: this woman Patricia Linville talks about self she came up
• 16:14
  with the idea of self complexity theory, which is that, when we have these
• 16:19
  multiple parts of our lives and we don't identify only with work, but we also
• 16:24
  identify maybe as, I'm also a runner.
• 16:27
  I'm also a dog mom, or I'm also a friend.
• 16:31
  Those things um, I think bolster us when something, goes wrong at work.
• 16:36
  And so I do think like nourishing all of those parts of our lives
• 16:40
  instead of making our identities only about work I think that's helpful.
• 16:45
  I think having, finding, again, like those relationships at work,
• 16:49
  like finding the people who you can really if possible, having a
• 16:53
  lot of coffees or walks or lunches.
• 16:55
  So you find the people who you really connect with.
• 16:57
  And maybe there is one, I have a lot of people I adore at Smith.
• 17:01
  There might only be one who I think I could pretty much tell anything
• 17:05
  to, and so that, you only find that through getting out of your office.
• 17:10
  Jill Avey: Yes.
• 17:11
  Jessica Bacal: if you have an officer.
• 17:12
  Yeah.
• 17:13
  I think those are two different things, just the building the relationships at
• 17:16
  work and building a life beyond work,
• 17:18
  Jill Avey: That's great.
• 17:19
  so we also talk a lot in our program about self compassion and positive talk
• 17:23
  and how it's really vital to have great self compassion for yourself and to be
• 17:28
  able to be your own biggest cheerleader.
• 17:30
  And we draw on Kristen Neff's work, which I know that you and
• 17:33
  I are both fans of her work.
• 17:35
  And I'm wondering one of the things that you talked about in your second book,
• 17:39
  I believe is the concept of backdraft.
• 17:42
  Can you share that with us?
• 17:43
  Jessica Bacal: Yeah.
• 17:44
  It's interesting.
• 17:45
  So Kristen Neff talks about backdraft, which is if there's firefighters fighting
• 17:50
  a fire if they open a door, if they, even if they have the fire under control,
• 17:54
  opening a door and letting oxygen in can make the flames get bigger again.
• 17:59
  And she's using it, Emotionally, talking about that sometimes when we,
• 18:05
  just like allowing ourselves to go through those steps of self compassion,
• 18:09
  which are like mindfulness, like acknowledging, okay, this really sucks.
• 18:13
  And then talking to yourself, like you talk to a close
• 18:15
  friend you're not a failure.
• 18:16
  You made one mistake, but you know, it's okay.
• 18:19
  And then the universality everyone makes mistakes.
• 18:21
  This makes you human.
• 18:22
  Those are the three elements.
• 18:23
  It can make you feel like that can open the floodgates of sobbing, just if if
• 18:28
  you get home at the end of a hard day at work and you see, your romantic
• 18:33
  partner and you might, something bad has happened you might start crying, that
• 18:37
  it's like, When you're allowed, when the space is created to feel your feelings,
• 18:43
  Jill Avey: It's like giving oxygen to those feelings, right?
• 18:45
  Jessica Bacal: it can, that can feel bad.
• 18:46
  Like it's not automatically going to feel good having self compassion.
• 18:50
  It's not going to necessarily like quickly automatically feel better, but
• 18:54
  that's part of the, I think the work of self compassion is letting yourself
• 18:58
  sit with your feelings a little bit and not beating yourself up for having them.
• 19:03
  Jill Avey: I think that's such a great point to make because as humans,
• 19:06
  I feel like we're comfort seeking machines and we just, any bit of
• 19:09
  discomfort, we want to push it away so
• 19:10
  And really, the power in being successful in life is being
• 19:14
  comfortable with discomfort.
• 19:16
  Yeah And so to understand Hey, this might feel worse before it gets better,
• 19:21
  but I need to go through that process of it feeling worse, yeah, potentially.
• 19:25
  Sometimes it doesn't feel any worse, but sometimes it does.
• 19:27
  So, being aware that can happen and that's not a problem.
• 19:31
  There's nothing wrong here and you're not a horrible person because you feel
• 19:35
  worse, not better, but right the better comes for sure, the better comes.
• 19:39
  Jessica Bacal: yeah.
• 19:40
  Jill Avey: So you are also the Director of Reflective Practices at Smith
• 19:43
  College, and I'm a big fan of journaling.
• 19:45
  We use that a lot in our program, and so I wanted to hear from you how we can use
• 19:50
  contemplative journaling to bounce back.
• 19:52
  Jessica Bacal: Yeah, I think, writing is thinking, and so sometimes just
• 19:56
  sitting down and doing some writing can help you gain some clarity
• 20:00
  about where you are and what you think, and of course how you feel.
• 20:03
  I love this book, you might know it, The Book of Delights by Ross Gay.
• 20:08
  It's so beautiful.
• 20:09
  the initial project was every day he would write like a short essay
• 20:13
  about something that delighted him and he would do it for a year.
• 20:15
  And when I say short, I mean like a couple hundred words.
• 20:18
  And it's an easy read, a great read, and I think it's a good way of it's
• 20:23
  like a great model for a journal.
• 20:25
  I love it.
• 20:26
  I think I have some exercises in my second book that could
• 20:30
  be good prompts for journaling.
• 20:32
  They're poems.
• 20:34
  One is a poem.
• 20:35
  that's in the third person and it encourages you to write about
• 20:38
  yourself in a third person.
• 20:40
  And another is a poem that I've used a lot with students that's called
• 20:44
  Things I Didn't Put on My Resume.
• 20:46
  And I think it gets at that self complexity theory, that idea of
• 20:50
  generating, just sitting down and being generative and thinking about okay,
• 20:54
  what is there to me beyond my job?
• 20:56
  Jill Avey: Yeah, and I think that's so important, and using a prompt can
• 20:59
  really help you to get into that.
• 21:00
  Mode of thinking so that you're not in the room and you say we can ruminate in our
• 21:04
  journal too, and we don't want to do that.
• 21:07
  So, the first book I see that is bringing me more into a positive
• 21:10
  state and thinking about the good things that are happening as well.
• 21:13
  So that can bring some balance.
• 21:15
  And then the second one is looking at, hey, I'm more than this.
• 21:18
  And What a really good reframe that I've heard is I made a mistake.
• 21:23
  I'm not a mistake.
• 21:25
  Or I made a failure.
• 21:26
  I'm not a failure.
• 21:27
  And so I think that second exercise can really help bring you out of that.
• 21:31
  Both of them can.
• 21:32
  Jessica Bacal: And then, when you're right, then you can look back at your own
• 21:35
  writing and your own reflection and feel like, wow I was really beating myself up.
• 21:39
  Chill, I, it's okay.
• 21:41
  I wish I could go back and tell myself it's going to be all right.
• 21:44
  But you have some of those emotions, those feelings recorded, which can be useful.
• 21:48
  Jill Avey: Yeah, so often we don't go back to the journaling that we've done and
• 21:52
  read through it to see how far we've come because that can be confidence building
• 21:56
  and it can help us, have that confidence for next time we have something happen
• 22:00
  that we know okay, it feels bad at first, but I know I'm going to get through it.
• 22:03
  And it's okay.
• 22:05
  I came out on the other side and seeing that on the paper can be really helpful.
• 22:09
  Do you find that the act of physically writing is helpful for people?
• 22:14
  Jessica Bacal: I love physically writing.
• 22:15
  I've been doing that lately, just like writing by hand.
• 22:18
  I do think there's something to writing by hand.
• 22:21
  And I, when I work with students, I try to give everyone a journal, a notebook
• 22:25
  in the writing groups that I lead.
• 22:27
  Because I think that We allow ourselves to be a little messier
• 22:31
  sometimes by hand, and we can also take that notebook and go anywhere.
• 22:36
  Like sometimes it's really good to, get out of your house and, go to a
• 22:39
  cafe or go to a library and just give yourself a little time to be alone
• 22:44
  with your thoughts with that journal.
• 22:45
  And yeah, I think it's a great thing to try if, if you're not in
• 22:48
  the habit of writing a journal, it can be a great thing to try.
• 22:51
  Jill Avey: Yeah.
• 22:52
  We can draw pictures.
• 22:53
  You can do a little mind map.
• 22:55
  You can, even some of your doodles can be helpful in releasing those thoughts.
• 22:59
  So one of the things that I think is really great about your second book, and
• 23:02
  I really encourage people to get this.
• 23:04
  It's called the rejection that changed my life and you've got it here, right?
• 23:10
  Yep.
• 23:10
  And, And so, there's seven exercises in the back that are all excellent
• 23:15
  to go through and have on deck.
• 23:18
  Like you never know when something's going to happen.
• 23:19
  So it's really good to have this on your shelf for that time,
• 23:22
  because it's going to come.
• 23:23
  I hope it comes for you because if we're not pushing ourselves,
• 23:26
  then we're not making mistakes or we're not having rejections.
• 23:29
  And so.
• 23:30
  that is a sign that we're not pushing ourselves hard enough.
• 23:32
  So this should be happening for you in your life.
• 23:34
  And this is a great resource for when it does happen.
• 23:37
  And so Jessica has prepared for us the three shifts that and I
• 23:41
  always like to end the episode with something tangible that you can do.
• 23:44
  So, what are the three shifts that we can make today to kind of
• 23:49
  think of this topic through more?
• 23:51
  Jessica Bacal: Yeah.
• 23:52
  And I've mentioned these a little bit, but you know, one is That practicing
• 23:57
  self compassion, which is really hard.
• 24:00
  I'm saying to do this, and I'm not good at this but just know about
• 24:03
  it, and even being able to say it to a friend to, having the steps in
• 24:07
  your head to help a friend is great.
• 24:09
  And so that's a mindset where you, again, you acknowledge the feelings talk
• 24:14
  to yourself like you would talk to a close friend, and then acknowledge the
• 24:17
  universality of what you're, whatever you're going through, it's a human
• 24:21
  feeling, and people have gone through it before you and probably are going through
• 24:25
  it right now and will in the future.
• 24:26
  So, I think that's it.
• 24:28
  And I have an exercise in the book related to that.
• 24:31
  Jill Avey: Great.
• 24:32
  Jessica Bacal: writing about yourself.
• 24:33
  in the third person, even talking about yourself in the third person
• 24:37
  can be useful, but you know, I think writing is a great tool.
• 24:40
  Really allows you to get distance from yourself and whatever's
• 24:44
  going on there was a recent book called Chatter by a researcher,
• 24:47
  a psychologist named Ethan Cross.
• 24:49
  He's at the University of Michigan.
• 24:51
  So this comes out of some of his research about how useful that
• 24:54
  is in just like allowing a little distance between like Giving yourself
• 24:59
  a little distance from the issue.
• 25:01
  And then the third mindset is to just think of yourself as a complex
• 25:05
  person who is not only about work.
• 25:08
  And that's, resonant with self complexity theory.
• 25:11
  The poem that I really love to use with students and everybody is called
• 25:15
  things you didn't put on your resume.
• 25:17
  It's a narrative of a mom.
• 25:19
  It's a mom talking about bringing up kids, but it really, when you write
• 25:22
  those things that you didn't put on your resume, there's many things
• 25:25
  obviously beyond raising kids that, make us complex and interesting
• 25:29
  and give us rich, meaningful lives.
• 25:30
  So.
• 25:30
  I think I'd say those three mindset shifts or practices, really.
• 25:35
  And those are in the book and in the exercises that I shared with you.
• 25:39
  Jill Avey: Jessica has been so generous to share the full exercises for
• 25:43
  those three mindset shifts with us.
• 25:45
  So I'm going to share that workbook for you with a link in the show notes.
• 25:48
  So make sure you grab onto that because it's really helpful to be
• 25:51
  able to see the full exercises.
• 25:53
  Thank you so much for those, Jessica.
• 25:55
  So what did you find most insightful in this discussion?
• 25:57
  What is one thing that you will try when a failure happens to you?
• 26:01
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• 26:03
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• 26:04
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