Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #223| How Being Unruly Makes You a Better Leader And Helps Beat Guilt & Overwhelm

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#223| How Being Unruly Makes You a Better Leader And Helps Beat Guilt & Overwhelm · Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing

0:00
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: I think everyone should experience the imposter syndrome, not suffer from it, but experience it if you're pushing hard enough.
0:11
Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
0:19
Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
0:24
Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's working woman experiences.
0:29
Michelle Gauthier: And in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease, and relaxation to your life.
0:36
Michelle Gauthier: Hi, friend.
0:39
Michelle Gauthier: I don't know about you, but I am just not a huge fan of rules in general.
0:43
Michelle Gauthier: And today I'm talking to Lauren Wittenberg Weiner.
0:46
Michelle Gauthier: She is the author of a book called Unruly, and she knows exactly how to break the rules, but do it strategically.
0:52
Michelle Gauthier: She built a company from zero to a hundred million dollars in annual revenue in a space that has a ton of rules, government contracting, and then sold that company.
1:02
Michelle Gauthier: When you listen today, you'll learn from Lauren how to spot the difference between a rule you need to follow and one you should question.
1:09
Michelle Gauthier: Why imposter syndrome might actually be a good sign.
1:11
Michelle Gauthier: That was a new perspective for me.
1:13
Michelle Gauthier: And how rational optimism can help you make bold moves without being reckless.
1:19
Michelle Gauthier: So whether you're running a business or managing a team or just trying to stop feeling guilty about missing spirit dress up day at your kids' school, this conversation will give you permission and a plan to be a little bit more unruly in your own life.
1:33
Michelle Gauthier: Lauren, thank you so much for joining us today.
1:35
Michelle Gauthier: I'm really happy to have you here.
1:37
Michelle Gauthier: I just want to start off by saying that I read your book cover to cover and I really loved it.
1:42
Michelle Gauthier: It's bold and it's smart, but it's practical.
1:45
Michelle Gauthier: The thing that appealed to me right from the start was that I, like I just said, I don't like rules unless they make sense to me, which I feel like is a perfect fit because you're not saying just be a rebel.
1:55
Michelle Gauthier: You're saying understand the rules and think about what you want to change within those rules, and then sometimes work on changing the rule itself.
2:02
Michelle Gauthier: So it just really appealed to me, and I'm excited to share what you talk about in the book with our audience.
2:08
Michelle Gauthier: But before we do, take just a minute and tell us a little bit about why you wrote Unruly and who you really wrote it for.
2:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's funny because I wrote Unruly after I sold my company, and I really honestly started writing it just as a therapy for me, right?
2:25
Speaker 2: I had been the CEO of this firm that we had grown from nothing to a hundred million dollars in annual revenue, and I was no longer the CEO.
2:34
Speaker 2: And there was a new CEO who was there who was wonderful, but not me, and just very different than me.
2:41
Speaker 2: And so everything that he was doing, I was sitting there.
2:44
Speaker 2: I had to, Michelle.
2:45
Speaker 2: I literally at one point sat on my hands.
2:48
Speaker 2: Oh, literal sitting literally sat on my hands.
2:51
Speaker 2: I because I was like, oh my God, I have to not talk.
2:55
Speaker 2: And I'm not good at not talking, not surprisingly.
2:58
Speaker 2: And so I was trying to figure out how did we get here?
3:02
Speaker 2: Everyone told us for years, you can't do it this way.
3:06
Speaker 2: You're gonna fail.
3:07
Speaker 2: That's not how you do it.
3:08
Speaker 2: And inevitably, the way that we did it is why we did as well as we did.
3:13
Speaker 2: And so I was sitting there just trying to get my brain around it.
3:17
Speaker 2: And it was at first, it was a couple of LinkedIn posts and a couple of like maybe an op-ed here and there.
3:22
Speaker 2: And I was like, there's more here.
3:24
Speaker 2: I was typing and typing, and it just came out.
3:26
Speaker 2: And then I sat down.
3:27
Speaker 2: I said, I think this actually is a book.
3:29
Speaker 2: So I called one of my mentors who has written now five New York Times bestsellers, and I said, I think I have a book in me.
3:36
Speaker 2: Do I have a book in me?
3:37
Speaker 2: Am I crazy?
3:38
Speaker 2: And he was like, We know you're crazy, right?
3:40
Speaker 2: But and also And yes, you have a book in you.
3:44
Speaker 2: And so he walked me through, and that that's who wrote my foreword is Stan McChrystal.
3:49
Speaker 2: And he told me how he did it.
3:50
Speaker 2: And I'm like, Yes, sir, but you're Stan McChrystal.
3:53
Speaker 2: I'm not.
3:53
Speaker 2: And it turned out worked exactly how he said I should try to do it.
3:57
Speaker 2: Put it out there.
3:59
Speaker 2: It's funny.
4:00
Speaker 2: As we've been working through the marketing of the book, he told me flat out, you were gonna love every minute of writing the book, and you were gonna hate every minute of marketing the book.
4:09
Speaker 2: And he was entirely right.
4:10
Speaker 2: Not I love this stuff.
4:12
Speaker 2: I love talking to people about the contents, but the targeting the marketing, figuring out the social media, all of that piece, it's awful to me.
4:22
Speaker 2: And so one of the things that we realized is we didn't have a target market because is it women?
4:28
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Yes.
4:29
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Is it women in midlife?
4:31
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Gosh, yes, because that's where I am.
4:33
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And so I think it speaks to people in the same space that I am.
4:37
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: It speaks to young women and women pivoting at different points in their careers, but it also speaks to not surprisingly enough, a bunch of military guys, because that's where I came out of was the military milieu.
4:49
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: That was actually one of the hardest things that we had to do was figure out who are we targeting in this.
4:56
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And we ended up figuring out that there are just multiple messages.
4:59
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And so when I'm talking to an overwhelmed working women group, there's a lot of different conversations that I have with them than tonight.
5:08
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: I'm actually going and talking to military people, mostly guys who are coming out of the military and transitioning into a civilian career.
5:18
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: So those are different conversations, but they're the same underpinnings.
5:22
Michelle Gauthier: Yes.
5:22
Michelle Gauthier: I don't know if you're a Kindle reader, but if you read on the Kindle, you highlight the stuff that you like, and then you can email yourself the document.
5:30
Michelle Gauthier: And there were just so many little pieces.
5:32
Michelle Gauthier: Like even if you just took one thing away from it, that would really be good.
5:36
Michelle Gauthier: So I think you're right.
5:37
Michelle Gauthier: Like any audience could pick and choose from it.
5:39
Michelle Gauthier: So just in general, to give everybody an idea of what we're talking about, essentially Lauren's company that she started and eventually very successfully sold did contracts with and for the government and the military.
5:51
Michelle Gauthier: And so from being a former army wife, I know that the level of rules in the military is like off the charts.
5:59
Michelle Gauthier: And that everything is not optional.
6:01
Michelle Gauthier: This is how you do it, this is how it's always been done, etc.
6:05
Michelle Gauthier: There are a lot of examples regarding the military, but as I was reading it, I'm thinking, and there are ways that it is just done in corporate America, and as a business owner, and even as a life coach.
6:16
Michelle Gauthier: Like these are the things that you follow as a mom, whatever.
6:19
Michelle Gauthier: So there are these sets of rules anywhere that you're looking.
6:22
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Yeah.
6:22
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: So the book is in three parts.
6:24
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: It is know the rules, challenge the rules, and change the rules.
6:28
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And know the rules is really understand the written and the unwritten rules better than anyone else.
6:35
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Make sure that you truly understand what it says, what the expectations are, but you do that in order to be able to ask why or why not.
6:44
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: So if you just say, I'm not gonna do that, you're gonna get yourself in trouble.
6:48
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: If you just say I'm gonna blow through the rules and not worry about what the rules say, you're gonna get yourself in trouble.
6:54
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: But if you know the rules and you can turn around and say, But I don't that I don't have to do it that way.
7:00
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: That's not the way that it has to be.
7:02
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Then you can really change the way that everyone expects you to do things or everyone else does things and really upend the way that you're gonna go about whatever you're going about doing, right?
7:15
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Yes.
7:16
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: But then there are times when, look, and I think we know it now more than ever, the rules stop working.
7:23
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: There's no space within the rules to do the right thing.
7:25
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And so that's when that third piece, that advocacy piece, or the mentorship piece, what I call the Sherpa piece, where you're bringing somebody along with you to change their path or to change the actual rules themselves.
7:40
Michelle Gauthier: Yes.
7:40
Michelle Gauthier: When I'm thinking back on my career, and I think everybody listening can think of being up against some rules that weren't great for them, where they were just told this is how it is.
7:49
Michelle Gauthier: I got to a point where I was the only woman at my level who didn't have a stay-at-home spouse or a live-in-nanny or both.
7:57
Michelle Gauthier: And I wanted to work part-time and still keep the team of people I had and were not be working on days that they were working and all these things.
8:04
Michelle Gauthier: And it was like, nope.
8:06
Michelle Gauthier: We looked across the entire company with hundreds of thousands of people.
8:09
Michelle Gauthier: Nobody is doing that.
8:10
Michelle Gauthier: And so I feel like that's a good example of those are the rules.
8:13
Michelle Gauthier: I understand the rules.
8:15
Michelle Gauthier: I looked into it, those rules were not really written down anywhere.
8:19
Michelle Gauthier: Right.
8:19
Michelle Gauthier: I think the unwritten rule was like, don't make yourself too big or ask for too much.
8:25
Michelle Gauthier: Yeah.
8:25
Michelle Gauthier: Get in line.
8:26
Michelle Gauthier: Yep.
8:27
Michelle Gauthier: Soldier without being in the military, get in line.
8:30
Michelle Gauthier: And so I did have that experience of trying to push against those rules gently.
8:35
Michelle Gauthier: What's your approach to when to question the rules?
8:38
Michelle Gauthier: How do you know that you should question the rules or try to find what you call a hybrid solution?
8:43
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Right.
8:44
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: I think when you start hitting a wall, right?
8:47
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: When you start saying this isn't working for whatever reason.
8:52
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And I think, look, I grew up as a rule follower and then I turned into never a rule breaker, but this kind of unruly concept.
9:00
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: But I it took me a little while to realize push on only the rules that are going to actually make a difference, that are actually going to differentiate you.
9:08
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: For a while, when we were starting the firm, we got onto this unruly track and we were like, we're gonna do everything differently.
9:15
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And 95% of what we needed to do, it had a standard protocol, and there was no reason to upend that standard protocol.
9:22
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: But when there is something that is stopping you from doing what you need to do, in your case, stopping you from having the balance you needed to have with your work in your life, that became a stopping point.
9:36
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And most people will turn around and say, okay, I have to get off of this treadmill and say, wait a second, do I have to?
9:43
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Do I really have to do it that way?
9:45
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Is there a different way to do this?
9:47
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And sometimes there's not.
9:48
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: They could have turned to you and said, sorry, that is not the way that we do things.
9:53
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: This is it.
9:54
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And then you figure out the next mountain to climb, the different mountain or the stream to paddle down or the hammock to lay in for a little while.
10:02
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: But everyone has these expected mountains that you're climbing next to next.
10:06
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: If you can figure out that's not gonna work for you, then you start questioning, okay, but could I do something different than what the expectations are?
10:16
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: I think you can get there when you're asking the right questions.
10:20
Michelle Gauthier: I just lucked out with a boss who was supportive of the idea.
10:24
Michelle Gauthier: So it wasn't a hundred percent like, oh, I made this happen.
10:28
Michelle Gauthier: No, but I was in the right situation.
10:31
Michelle Gauthier: I hopefully asked the right questions.
10:33
Michelle Gauthier: And then to your point, after I was in that position, then I had lots of part-time women on my team.
10:38
Michelle Gauthier: Right.
10:38
Michelle Gauthier: So pay it forward, create that situation for somebody else.
10:42
Michelle Gauthier: But I feel like I struggled through that.
10:44
Michelle Gauthier: I would have loved to have your book.
10:46
Michelle Gauthier: I would have loved to know how to do this and how to work through that.
10:50
Michelle Gauthier: Right.
10:51
Michelle Gauthier: In your book, there were a couple standout things for me that we talk about a lot on this podcast.
10:56
Michelle Gauthier: For example, I really loved your take on imposter syndrome.
11:00
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: So I think everyone should experience the imposter syndrome, not suffer from it, but experience it if you're pushing hard enough.
11:08
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And I think there are three types of people who don't experience imposter syndrome.
11:13
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: The first one is the one that's not pushing.
11:15
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And you're comfortable enough, that's okay sometimes, but recognize that if you're not experiencing that imposter syndrome, probably means you put yourself in a very comfortable position where you're not necessarily growing.
11:26
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And then there are two other kinds of people who don't experience it.
11:30
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: One of them, and there's a business owner here in town where I live, who fits this, where he just had all of these big ideas and he was like, We're gonna do this, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this.
11:41
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And I was like, Those things are really hard.
11:44
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: How are you doing that?
11:45
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And he was like, No, it's not that hard.
11:46
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: He didn't know what he didn't know, and he was too oblivious to recognize it.
11:51
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: So he just he was confident with nothing underpinning it.
11:55
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And he did fine in a lot of things, but when it was complicated, when it was big, he would bring these things out and he would announce them and then he would fail and it would just quietly go away.
12:05
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: The more toxic one is the people who don't experience it because they're not introspective enough to recognize that they have a fragile ego.
12:15
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: These mostly guys have these huge egos that are very fragile.
12:20
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And anytime something threatens their ego, they defend against it and they get very, very toxic.
12:26
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And so those don't make good leaders, right?
12:29
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: They don't suffer from the imposter syndrome.
12:31
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Everyone around them suffers from their imposter syndrome.
12:34
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Right.
12:35
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: In my mind, the imposter syndrome actually brings you to good questions.
12:41
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: It brings you to an understanding that I don't know exactly what I'm doing here.
12:46
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Let me ask, let me figure it out.
12:48
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: But it also is a great signal that you're pushing hard and doing the right thing.
12:52
Michelle Gauthier: Yes, I feel like women in big positions always have imposter syndrome.
12:57
Michelle Gauthier: I feel like everyone I talk to does, myself included.
13:00
Michelle Gauthier: It happens sometimes.
13:01
Michelle Gauthier: And I love the way that you flip the script on it by saying if you don't have imposter syndrome, it's not necessarily that you're doing something wrong, but you're just in a very safe position.
13:11
Michelle Gauthier: And I also love just the subtle difference in the way that you described suffering with imposter syndrome and experiencing imposter syndrome.
13:20
Michelle Gauthier: I just think that's such an important distinction that really changes the way that we can look at it.
13:25
Michelle Gauthier: It takes courage to take the next step on anything, and you cannot get courage without having a little bit of fear in there.
13:32
Michelle Gauthier: And it feels like that imposter syndrome is that little bit of fear that happens when you have the courage to take a role that is too big for you in air quotes.
13:40
Michelle Gauthier: And I love the story in the book when you were talking about your brother, how you told him, I can't get this job because I haven't done that.
13:46
Michelle Gauthier: I can't get this job because I haven't done that.
13:48
Michelle Gauthier: He's like, if you're getting a job where you have already done everything, what is the point of getting that job?
13:53
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: I had a conversation the other day with one of my friends.
13:56
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And there are some women who actually don't experience imposter syndrome for good reason.
14:01
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: One of my good friends is a black woman here in town, and we were talking about the experience of imposter syndrome for black women.
14:09
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And because they know that they've had to work harder and longer and really proven themselves to get anywhere, they actually don't experience the imposter syndrome the same way, at least that I do, in that they know that they belong there.
14:23
Michelle Gauthier: They don't feel like they tricked somebody to get there.
14:25
Michelle Gauthier: Exactly.
14:26
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: I feel like I tricked somebody.
14:27
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Somebody's somebody's gonna discover me and I'm ducking and covering at this point.
14:31
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: But when I was talking to my friend Jessica about this, I was like, Do you feel the imposter syndrome?
14:36
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Slicky.
14:37
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And then she's like, I don't think I feel it the same way you do.
14:39
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: I'm worried somebody's gonna think that I don't belong there.
14:43
Michelle Gauthier: Oh, yeah.
14:44
Michelle Gauthier: Okay.
14:44
Michelle Gauthier: And but she knows she does.
14:47
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: I want to borrow some of that absolute knowledge that I've busted my tush to get here.
14:52
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: I deserve everything I got.
14:54
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And oh, by the way, because I'm pushing hard, now I'm feeling uncomfortable.
14:59
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: But that feeling that somebody's gonna discover you, that suffering is what we need to get away from.
15:05
Michelle Gauthier: Yes, yes, exactly.
15:06
Michelle Gauthier: You can experience imposter syndrome without suffering from it.
15:10
Michelle Gauthier: I love that take on it.
15:12
Michelle Gauthier: And then the other thing that I wanted to call out was rational optimism, because as an optimistic person myself who is sometimes accused of being Pollyanna, the term really stuck out to me.
15:23
Michelle Gauthier: And so I was hoping you could explain what it is and how it's different than full-on Pollyanna.
15:28
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Yeah.
15:28
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: So I am a Pollyanna as well, or I have pieces of pessimism in me just from how I was raised, but for the most part, I am by nature an optimist.
15:38
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: So I run through in the book this exercise between pessimism and optimism.
15:44
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: The paralysis of pessimism is a problem, but the Pollyanna of optimism is also a problem.
15:50
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And I talk about in the book, my daughter was going off to high school and she didn't immediately get into the high school that we wanted her to get into.
15:59
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And I ran down this whole pessimistic, like, I know there goes her whole life type situation.
16:05
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: I got her to homeless and on drugs in three steps, right?
16:09
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Oh, exactly.
16:10
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: My daughter is not going to be homeless and on drugs.
16:12
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: But there is this doom spiral that pessimists go down, that optimists don't go down.
16:17
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And I think it's actually useful to go down this doom spiral without the panic-induces of the doom spiral.
16:26
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Go through an entire what's the worst that can happen concept and brainstorm everything that can go wrong.
16:32
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Because if you can brainstorm everything that can go wrong, number one, you can figure out ways to mitigate as much as possible.
16:39
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And number two, you can then make a reasonable decision as to whether or not the risk is worth the reward.
16:46
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Yes.
16:46
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And so it's not saying always go down and do it anyway.
16:51
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: That's not rational optimism.
16:53
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: You might be way too optimistic.
16:55
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: But it's also not saying stop and don't do anything.
16:58
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: It is find the way to mitigate as much risk as possible, find a way to quantify as much of that risk as possible to see if I've got this that happens and this could be really bad.
17:09
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: But then this and then this would have to happen.
17:12
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: One, two, three, and four would have to happen.
17:14
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And each one of those is infinitesimally small in terms of the probability of it happening.
17:20
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: The probability of the catastrophic happening is almost nothing.
17:23
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Being able to rationalize through whether or not this is a risk you're willing to take and how to take that risk most effectively is a point of rational optimism.
17:34
Michelle Gauthier: Yes.
17:34
Michelle Gauthier: Yes, exactly.
17:35
Michelle Gauthier: I've heard the a similar concept called strategic pessimism as well.
17:39
Michelle Gauthier: Like I'm thinking strategically through the worst case scenario, but I like the title rational optimism.
17:44
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Well, there's actual research that shows pessimists are right generally in their estimations, and optimists do better in life overall.
17:52
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Yeah.
17:53
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: So would you rather be right or would you rather get to the right outcome?
17:57
Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, I'll take the optimistic path.
17:59
Michelle Gauthier: And I feel like that can get a bad name because it's like everything's always gonna be okay.
18:03
Michelle Gauthier: No, it's not.
18:04
Michelle Gauthier: Yeah.
18:04
Michelle Gauthier: But a lot of times it is gonna be.
18:06
Michelle Gauthier: And if it's not, you can believe that you will be able to figure out what that next step is.
18:11
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And it's incredible what your mindset can actually do for you.
18:14
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Again, there's great research in if you believe that it's not gonna happen or if you believe that it is gonna happen, you're right in both cases.
18:23
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Yeah.
18:23
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Because it's your mindset that's gonna do.
18:25
Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, absolutely.
18:26
Michelle Gauthier: Okay, the last thing I want to touch on is guilt and responsibility and boundaries.
18:32
Michelle Gauthier: And in the book, you say that no one can dish out guilt like a Jewish mother.
18:36
Michelle Gauthier: And since you have a Jewish mother and you are a Jewish mother, that you are very well versed in guilt.
18:41
Michelle Gauthier: And it's funny because I grew up Catholic and we say the same thing, but we have been Catholic.
18:45
Michelle Gauthier: Oh, yeah.
18:45
Michelle Gauthier: I feel like Jewish moms and Catholic moms are really similar in this.
18:49
Michelle Gauthier: So you're saying that you got a heavy dose of guilt and that culturally speaking, we both grew up in those kind of environments.
18:56
Michelle Gauthier: So why do you think high-achieving women carry so much guilt and what should we do about it?
19:02
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Oh, this is like the million-dollar question.
19:05
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: So look, if you are trying to be the best you can be, you're gonna have guilt, particularly interpersonal guilt, if you don't meet the standards that you need.
19:15
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: But I think it goes along with the perfectionism that I talk about in the book, in that there are things that you can do that are perfect and need to be perfect.
19:26
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: There are very few of those.
19:27
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: There are lots of things that you can do not perfectly, and there are lots of things that you don't have to do at all.
19:35
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And so I talk about ruthlessly curating your priorities, which I think is really important.
19:41
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: When my kids were tiny, I hated every spirit week at school.
19:47
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: It would kill me every time.
19:48
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And I'm like these stupid at camp and then at preschool and then this.
19:52
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And they would have these ridiculous days.
19:56
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And some of the moms, because it was their priority, would have these elaborate costumes.
20:02
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And it was great and wonderful.
20:04
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And I would forget until the morning of, or inevitably, actually, one of our good friends, thankfully, knew me well enough that she would just buy a second costume.
20:13
Michelle Gauthier: Oh, that's a true friend, yes.
20:16
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Right?
20:17
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Still my daughter's best friend to this day.
20:20
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: But I would look at this and I'd be like, this is not my priority.
20:23
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Even if I wanted it to be my priority, it couldn't have been my priority, but it wasn't my priority.
20:28
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: This is not how I get joy.
20:31
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: It didn't matter to my kids.
20:33
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: My kids are probably gonna go to therapy for plenty of things.
20:37
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Not being in a costume for Spirit Week wasn't one of them.
20:41
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Yeah.
20:41
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Right?
20:42
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: I had to be okay with not having the perfect Instagram picture of my kid looking as cute as everyone else's kid.
20:50
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: I have to be okay with saying, that's really adorable.
20:53
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: I'm so glad your kid looks so cute and actually enjoy it for them and not care about it for me.
20:59
Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, exactly.
21:00
Michelle Gauthier: I think to your earlier point about just the way that you're thinking about things, you could spend your whole day and be distracted at work and upset that you forgot the costume, or you could be like, okay, it's not that big of a deal.
21:12
Michelle Gauthier: Like carrying the guilt around is just gonna screw up the whole rest of your day.
21:16
Michelle Gauthier: And it doesn't matter.
21:18
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Again, when it matters, make it matter.
21:21
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Right.
21:22
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: If it's really going to matter, I am going to do everything in my power.
21:26
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: That is my priority, and I'm gonna ruthlessly curate that priority.
21:29
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: But then sometimes what ends up happening is this just happened to me this summer with the book.
21:35
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: I was out doing my book tour, and the book tour was the highest priority.
21:38
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: We managed the kids' stuff so that we could make sure they were taken care of so I could go do my book.
21:44
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And then my mom got sick and passed.
21:46
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And it was like, nope, as much as this was a priority and it still is a priority to me, it couldn't be my highest priority at that point.
21:55
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And so ruthlessly curating those priorities is a Constant evolution, even when something is a priority to you, if something else takes over, then that's what takes over and you've got to be okay with it.
22:08
Michelle Gauthier: Yes.
22:09
Michelle Gauthier: Yes.
22:09
Michelle Gauthier: I feel like you just have to believe that you're always doing your best to try to prioritize and give your attention where it's needed.
22:15
Michelle Gauthier: Okay.
22:15
Michelle Gauthier: So normally I ask the same two questions to everyone at the end of the podcast, but I've actually already had you on as a guest when I asked you those questions.
22:22
Michelle Gauthier: So I have a slightly tweaked version of it, which is what is something that you do to be unruly in a small way?
22:31
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: I think it is just honestly giving myself grace.
22:36
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: I get on these treadmills because all of us do.
22:38
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And I will start listening to the voices either like actually in my head or the people around me who are parroting what I'm supposed to do.
22:47
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And I will literally stop myself when I start getting spun up on this and go, stop.
22:53
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Unruly.
22:54
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: What is my priority?
22:56
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Do I want this?
22:57
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And it is so hard to get off the treadmill.
23:00
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: It is so hard to stop listening to what other people think you should be doing.
23:05
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: And so I think that's the biggest thing that I do on a day-to-day-to-day basis is stop myself and say, is this me or is this someone else who's telling me that I have to do this?
23:15
Michelle Gauthier: Yeah.
23:15
Michelle Gauthier: I think that's the perfect takeaway that anyone listening can take as their unruly move for the day is just to remember that what someone else wants you to do is not your rule.
23:25
Michelle Gauthier: Yes.
23:26
Michelle Gauthier: And do you want to do that?
23:27
Michelle Gauthier: Or do you have a different priority for yourself?
23:29
Michelle Gauthier: I love it.
23:30
Michelle Gauthier: Oh my gosh.
23:31
Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so I hope everybody goes out and reads the book.
23:34
Michelle Gauthier: So tell us where we can find it, where we can find more information.
23:37
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: You can get it anywhere.
23:37
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: You can get it on Amazon and Books A Million, or you can go to my website.
23:41
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: We've got all sorts of fun stuff around book clubs.
23:45
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: I've got a book club guide that if people buy the book and come back to me, I've got a book club guide they can use.
23:51
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: We've got some talks.
23:52
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: I'm giving talks for D1 women athletes.
23:55
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: So lots of really cool how to be unruly as an athlete or how to use your athletic background to succeed elsewhere in life.
24:04
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: So you can go onto my website and find how to get in touch with us, and we can create something for your group or your organization, your company around the booknet.
24:15
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: Yeah, that sounds fun.
24:16
Michelle Gauthier: I used to run the women's network, and I would have loved to do a book club and just gotten this for everybody at my office.
24:22
Michelle Gauthier: I love that idea.
24:23
Michelle Gauthier: Okay, great.
24:24
Michelle Gauthier: Tell them what your website is, and we'll link it in the show notes as well.
24:26
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: It is LaurenWittenbergWeiner.com.
24:29
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: It's a very long name.
24:30
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner: It's my German husband and my German father, but LaurenWittenbergWeiner.com, and I'm on all the socials, and I'm on all the places.
24:39
Michelle Gauthier: Thank you so much for being here with us.
24:41
Michelle Gauthier: It was great to talk to you, and I wish you much continued success with your book, and I loved it.
24:46
Michelle Gauthier: So thanks for coming on and talking to you.
24:47
Michelle Gauthier: Thank you so much.
24:48
Michelle Gauthier: Thanks so much.
24:51
Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
24:58
Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at MichelleGauthier.com.
25:04
Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.