Latest / The Well with Dr. Wendi / Who Are You When the Title Is Gone?

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Who Are You When the Title Is Gone? · The Well with Dr. Wendi

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Well, a wellness-centered podcast for leaders.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: Wendy Williams.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: I've spent more than two decades working with leaders and studying the relationship between work and wellness and how that shapes and feeds our leadership.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Wherever you are on your leadership journey and wherever you lead, you will learn something here.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: You are welcome here, exactly as you are.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the well.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: Hello and welcome to the well.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Wherever you are, whatever you've carried in with you, you don't have to carry it for the next little while.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go ahead and place that down.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: This is a place to draw from.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Not one more place that has something of you.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: So let's take a breath in together.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: And let the outbreath be the longer one.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: Let it linger a bit.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: Slow it down.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: You've been holding something up, maybe for a long time.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to name it.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have to fix it.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: Just for now, set it down beside you.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: It will certainly still be there when we're done.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: But you won't be quite as alone with it.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: We will be in the well together.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: And this is what the well is for.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: You came to replenish.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: And when you're ready to lead from a full place, not an emptied one.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: So one more breath in.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: Let's begin.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: And welcome to the well.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: I am your host, Dr.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Wendy Williams.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: This episode, episode five, focuses on who you are when the role either changes or leaves or is taken away.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: And within our R cycle, it is one in which we're doing two things.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: We are remembering, we must remember who we are.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, because in that remembering is the ability to know that you have somewhere else to go and that you are going to be able to transgress this situation even though it's difficult.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: We lose a role.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: We've aren't naming ourselves after vice president of this, dean of that, director of this or that principal of whatever, right?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: We have to talk about what hurts in that.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um and we're gonna turn into it and we're gonna go in it and we're gonna go through it.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, cause it's so important to face things in order to get through them.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: So we're talking about identity.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, stop asking you, uh asking only what was taken from you when a role was taken, but who is still there?
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: Who's still there?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: There is still you.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: You are still right there.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Not who are you, but who are you?
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we can over-identify with the title, with the role, with the job.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so when it is taken away, or when we are removed from it, it can feel like we've lost all of ourselves.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that simply is just not true.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so today is not about trying to rebuild back there, right?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: We are where we are right now.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: And time doesn't work that way.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: We don't go backwards, we don't grow backwards, we grow forward.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: So let's begin where this is all very true for us.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, think about what that might mean for the future.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: And remember that you have actually a lot uh to lean on uh from what you carry into that future, and there's some hope there.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna start with the naming of what happens and what has been happening.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: Who are you when the title is gone?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Strip away the line you lead with, hi, I'm so-and-so, I'm with such and such and such and such, and I do this, that, or the other there.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: What sentence is left?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: What descriptors are left?
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Who is there when all of that is gone?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm remembering a story.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think I may have told you all uh at some point.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm telling you now, I used to have a podcast uh early in the pan, not early, midway through the pandemic.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, I want to have a podcast too.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: I've always been interested in leadership, and the focus of this podcast was on women's leadership.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so I interviewed a good friend of mine.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Her name is Dr.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Nadia Lopez.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, she is an educator in New York or was, and uh, she had a story about coming through significant stress-related health issues that were related directly to her work.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: She was a school principal in New York.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's just really heavy lifting and really heavy work.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, she was speaking then through about the realization that she had as she was reclaiming herself.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: And the quote she said, something along these lines is, you know, God did not create me to do this job, you know.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it was almost like um a revelation for her, you know, that uh in fact, that there's a calling and a purpose on her life.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it was not about a job.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: It was about activating that life for us in a particular way in the world, but not necessarily housed in this building with these people or with this supervisor or whatever was happening with her there.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what she was doing was separating the calling from the purpose, from the calling purpose, rather, from the labor for money, that transaction that we all engage in as workers in a society.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: If if you are one who works, you are exchanging your time and your labor for money in order to satisfy needs that you have.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's just the that's that's what we do.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's our economic and human services policy context.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: That human beings get their needs met in this society by working somewhere and making money in order to pay for those needs.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Her words always have stayed with me because I think that that's why it's so hard to name ourselves when the titles are gone, because sometimes there can be this connection between how we see ourselves and the work that we do for that money to take care of those needs.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: What I've watched and seen with everybody, it could be with clients, but it certainly has honestly been with friends and family who've been caught in some of these recent workforce shifts, is that losing the role what resulted in grief.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's loss of retirement, uh, just being pushed out from the role and what that had felt like to not be wanted, to not belong anymore, or whether they opted to walk away, that ultimately there is just this sense of grief in the conversation for them.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's the part that's expected, the money for sure.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're looking at loss of income, but also this lack of having something to do.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when you have a very busy schedule because of your work, that signals a sense of purpose to your mind, body, and into the world, right?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: So when you all of a sudden have all this free time, what does that mean?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the relationships.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: We work these jobs.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: I know that I have worked very many long hours and have been a part of teams and organizations where listen, I love those people.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: I love them so much.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: We're still in touch.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: The bonds that you form and forge through good and bad times connect you to people who you love, who you care about.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so the idea of all of that being gone all of a sudden, really, uh, can be really hard, can be really hard.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's this second wave, which is kind of a type of vertigo, really.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because there's this way in which you're used to reaching for this sense of meaning, connecting with this sense of purpose that this is who you are and this is what you do, a sense of purpose.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's gone.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you reach for it, it's almost like a phantom pain and and and and there's nothing there.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: And for a moment or two, you can find yourself kind of disoriented.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: And again, this is, you know, a lot of times we're talking about the loss of purpose and role and in many ways more recently within push out and and and being let go or walking away.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: This happens in all sorts of ways.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: One can uh develop an injury that no longer allows them to do their work, or they could retire.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: There are so many ways in which, uh particularly for individuals who are over-identified with the work that they do, that that can be taken away or can be shift, and this becomes then, you know, a loss and a loss of identity.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: What we want to name here is that that's not vanity.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: The role tells us that it's ego.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I get it, you know, there's a status loss.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Some of that is really real.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you were the president or the director of this, or you did this one thing, or you're the principal of that school, or you were the teacher here, or you did that, or all the kids loved you, or all the community members adored you because you were whatever role, right?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: The mayor, the mayor's, whatever the case may be, you know, you'd you definitely take the loss.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, that's fair.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: We're human.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and there are real psychological benefits to identity and being attached to a role that's held in high regard by a community and by individuals.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: But there's there's another piece that's there too that I think we have to be fair with ourselves about, and that we have to ensure that we don't weaponize that that truth uh as some sort of problem that, oh, you just over-identified with your job.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: You care too much.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that can sometimes be the type of wisdom that's dressed up that looks like wisdom, but really it feels more cruel, I should say.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: So cruelty dressed up as wisdom is the way I think about it.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and really it's kind of like kicking somebody while while they're down.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I would always just ask, you know, if that's kind of where you go, who is that question for?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you're really focused on the human being in front of you and if you care about them the way you say you do, uh, this may not be the way to approach that conversation with them.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: So today, this episode, this conversation is not about Shane.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's really not.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's about explaining what's happening, giving yourself some meaning around that.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I have to be honest, for me, this is my go-to.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: I am a very uh I'm a very loving and emotional person, but I fool people around that because they see me as a very organized and rational human being.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: But the reality is that I love facts, I love information, I love reality.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: So if you give me that, that actually just calms my soul.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm hopeful that the engagement with my rational brain can tap into that part of your brain that's rational too, and that can help the side that has felt uh that is feeling all the feelings attached to the loss can also understand it within a larger picture.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: And in my work, we call that consciousness raising, right?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: That we raise it outside of the individual experience so that individuals can have a sense of where they live in the larger landscape of things, that it is happening to you, but it is not about you.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing that you did to deserve what is happening.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: It is a function of larger systems and structures, a plan, a policy, a design, if you will, um, but certainly not anything that you brought on yourself per se.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that feels it really important.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: So let's get into it.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna go through uh the teaching as we as we tend to, and where I want to share with you some information that is drawn out from our organizational and psychological science to sort of make some of this a bit more real and more clear.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to first name that having a calling is not a flaw.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: That is not like a bad thing.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Having a calling is a good thing.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we are all born, the breath of life is given into each of us, and there are just things that we're good at, you know.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: There are things that we are, you know, that we're just good at.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: I know mine.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: I am such a feeler.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: I am someone who can connect with other people and really see them.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: And when another individual is with me, they know that I absolutely can be with and see you.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: That is a gift.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't create that.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: I was made this way.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so we want to talk through, you know, this idea that feeling connected to work in a way that feels meaningful doesn't negate the fact that also you can identify, maybe even over-identify with it in such a way that then can feel a sense of loss of yourself, of your identity when you lose it.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not a matter of or us coming in attack mode with the like, don't let your job be your identity or your more than your work and these kinds of things, which again, cruelty dressed up as wisdom.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: But like, let's really talk about like why people do connect with the work that they do uh and and what that can be about and why, why that happens.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um so let's talk about that.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, and I'm gonna screw up this name, but the the uh the the bright spelling and all that will be in the show notes.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I want to share with you um some research that comes um uh out of a researcher, Rzinski.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Rzinski.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: I know I'm ruining it, but again, show notes will have the proper spelling and ways that you can find the study if you're interested.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: But essentially they found three, they found three ways that people hold work, hold work, think about it, you know, make meaning of it.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: The first way is just the practical, a job.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: So people think about work as the thing I do in exchange for this paycheck.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then also work can be held as career.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: This idea of advancement, this idea of a specialization in a particular area or particular type of thing that I do.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so that can lead to that advancement.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then the third way is as a calling.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and in in and of itself, you know, bound to who you are, what your gifts are, what your talents are, what you were born for, you know?
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I shared with you mine.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um other people have others, you know?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh our hope is that perhaps there's a way in which what we're good at is something that then we are employed to do uh that work in such a way that our our gifts naturally come of that and and and that works out.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: For this audience, for y'all, I'm imagining that um these categories don't sit as cleanly.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think about like when you put accidentally find a red sock inside of the whites and you get all these different blurred visions and shades of pink because, you know, nothing is ever as clean as all of that.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that happens with work.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you get a job because you need to work, you need a paycheck, but then maybe you get the career because you're specializing, you're building better relationships and sort of really centering and narrowing your focus because of what that skill set is.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: There's better odds of getting a job, keeping a job, having a good job.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes if we're lucky, uh, that work can be aligned with our values.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so again, these are not bad things.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, they can work out pretty well for us.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: And you see this sort of lineup for some people, whether no matter what their vocation is.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: Working in your calling can be special.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll add, it's what hurts most when the workplaces, the people, the politics there undermine those values, right?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: If it were just a job, if we were just, you know, moving widgets from this ball uh table to this table, probably not a lot of meaning there, not a lot of motivation.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: But if you lose that, it's like, uh, you know, whatever, I don't care.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but the idea that there are values, that there's personhood, that there's a sense of who I am attached to this thing that I do, it can cause it to strain your sense of your own identity and your humanity inside of that.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: A calling is what happens when the gifts you were born with meet a need in the world and something in you says, you know, this is actually the thing that I'm supposed to do.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um and again, I think about some of those instances of people who do that.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oprah looks like that to me.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, gosh.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: Kiki Palmer looks like that to me.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many folks, you know.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think of some of these athletes that are just so like phenomenal.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think like Naomi Yosaka or oh Simone Biles.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, who else can flip like that?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like she was made for this, you know?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um each of us has it, and and it's important to figure that out.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's one of the most important things that we can do for the children in our lives is to help them see, find, and value their gifts.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: When that happens, the impulse is to pour your life force into that work.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, you do so because it's work that matters and it feels sacred.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: Loving your work is not a crime, it's not a mistake.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's a response to a vision for your life and a sense of alignment that's there.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: And to hold it sacred.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's, you know, I think what helps you find your path forward.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: In my first book, Black Women at Work on Refusal and Recovery, I talk about this distortion that happens for black women in our labor experience because the fact is that if you are told that you have restricted opportunities for the types of work that you can do, you know, because you are in the body of a woman and your skin is black, or you're in the body of a man and your skin is black, or another color, and this is what you people do, we've we're now having external factors interfere with a more divine sense of what should be happening in any context.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, that that is a distortion.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's really important that we allow that to openly come through.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: But unfortunately, we do live in a society that tries to pigeonhole some of us and put us in the position where we, you know, aren't necessarily speaking into what is our calling.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a double-edged side here, too, that I think we need to name.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, calling does have a shadow side.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what do I mean by shadow side?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: So in psychodynamic theory, uh, we talk about the shadow or the underbelly, the underlying motivations that can carry um some of the darker feelings, shame, guilt, et cetera.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so I want to talk about the shadow side of a calling because it's one of the things I think that kind of gets us locked into situations that can be a little bit difficult.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um there was a study uh on zookeepers.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now, apparently being a zookeeper is very difficult work.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: You start to think about it and it starts to make sense.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: You're dealing with animals of all different types and sizes and uh different conditions.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, maybe it's very dirty work and very messy work, work where you have to lift heavy things and, you know, deal with the personalities of the animals who probably don't feel so good about being locked up in cages, but that's another story.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, Bunderson and Thompson did this study and they found that zookeepers were really committed to their work.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: They considered it sacred work.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh likely people who love animals, you know, um, those are very special breed of folks.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: And what they found is that zookeepers were, you know, tended to be paid low and have hard conditions attached to that work.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: And what Bunderson and Thompson found, or, you know, shared was that those hard conditions for that important work actually created this dynamic where it felt ennobling.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: Folks felt that this was important and valuable work.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: They were ennobled by it, but also it bound them to it.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: They were binding.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: The thing that inspires the devotion is the thing that makes you sacrifice yourself, right?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: You love those animals.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: So you're like, well, this is what you get paid for this, but it's really valuable and important to me to be a carer of animals.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so maybe you get paid less when you work more time and it's not as comfortable, right?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: You sacrifice your pay time and your comfort uh in order to do that work.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: And for some people, they may even feel a little selfish for advocating for themselves in those contexts.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's as if they've sort of make this commitment to uh not getting what they need or feel that they should have in that role.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: I have to say it almost feels like a type of gaslighting.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: The depth of your devotion becomes the lever by which more is and more is asked of you.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: Somehow uh to love it is to require that you sacrifice for it.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: There are so many professions that are like this.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking about the teachers of the world.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm thinking about folks who work in palliative care and who do some home home health aids, you know, uh real connective, intimate spaces of supporting, you know, the human development and condition, and yet some of the least valued workers in in our society, at least according to pay and time off and all that kind of stuff.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: So the other thing with the calling is that we can distort that intrinsic re award, reward rather.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we don't work in a vacuum.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: We exchange our love for that work, our calling, with some um external measures, typically money and rank.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so the internal gets wrapped up in the external rewards.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: And before you know it, this thing you love to do is now associated with salary and whether or not you get the right title, and do I have the right office?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: And do I have a window?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: And did I get the prize at the end of the year?
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: Did I get the A bonus and promotion.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas you probably would have, if it's something work attached to your calling, you would have done it anyway.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now you don't know if it's valuable unless those secondary reinforcers are there.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: Money is the classic secondary reinforcer, particularly in a capitalist society.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's not valuable in and of itself.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's valuable for what it can get you, food and safety, namely.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: There's some research that shows us that this happens over and over again.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Desi is a seminar, seminal uh researcher in this area, has talked about the overjustification effect and has completed uh a meta-analysis, which is basically a study of the types of studies uh that have uh been done with his colleagues.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: They looked at over a hundred plus studies and they found the same thing over and over again, and they've couched it within the framework of self-determination theory.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: But the idea is that you can start to replace the intrinsic reward for the secondary reinforcer of that.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: And before one knows it, their love for the thing is locked up inside of whether or not they um get a reward for that.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my parents always said you can't give you money for getting good grades because then you won't value learning.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if I believed it, but according to the researchers, this is true.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so there's something to think about there.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want the reward to become the reason, but that dynamic is just a reinforcement mechanism.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: And we're human.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we will respond to that.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's just psychologically what we've seen over and over again with different um studies and and different maneuvers with folks.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: Across a career, you start with your calling, primary reinforcer, it gets layered with the secondary reinforcers.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Then the secondary reinforcer eclipses the primary.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: You navigate by those markers, and before you know it, um, when that title or that role is taken, you are sort of out here without the most foundational important aspect and important aspect of that work, which was your love for it.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not greed, it's reinforcement.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um we just kind of get locked into it.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's the gamification, if you will, and it's why some of us can't put down our smartphones when we're playing some of the games on them.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: Karl Marx talked about this, and so this is before any psychological theory, and this is no matter where your politics land, it just is what it is.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Talked about alienation, the idea of meaning being severed or taken away from the work when labor becomes an exchange for wages.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: And again, it doesn't matter your politics.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: We're human.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so this is just a reaction to an environmental uh dynamic around, you know, the reward and the behavior.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: We're just human.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: None of us are immune to this, actually.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it is entirely possible to be well paid, well-titled, and thoroughly estranged from why you started.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: And when it comes to push out and losing a job or walking away or retirement or a big accident or something that sort of snatches the role away from you, you don't, you know, you realize it on when that rug is snatched up from underneath you and at one of those transitions.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it is very disorienting.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's psychologically demoralizing.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: And for some people, it can cause and lead to some self-blame.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: Did I do something to cause this that I over-identify with my job?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um I so ego-identified with the work that I do that I allowed myself to not remember who I am.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: As I said, we're human, so it's it's about more than that.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Hey there.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that you all are enjoying this episode.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I also wanted to just take a quick moment to remind you that there are multiple ways for you to engage some of the work that we have happening at the well.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we have this wonderful podcast and this community that we're growing, a newsletter as well.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: But some people are looking for something a little bit more, some direct work and service with me.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that can happen in one-to-one coaching, coaching with your institution or your organization.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so if there are ways in which you'd like to dive a little bit deeper, please feel free to find the link below in our show notes.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: You can click on to book a discovery call and we can talk through a path that's right for you and your organization.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: As always, you are welcome at the well, and we always want you to be well so that you can lead well.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to figure out the next step alone.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: We're right here with you, and we will be here together.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: We also have to think about then what we lose when we are attached to the secondary reinforcer.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, the cost before any job is lost is to the connection or to the meaning of the work.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: We may just not see it until we lose the secondary one, too.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the hard part.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we can be living inside of that.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, a lot of burnout and overexhaustion can be attached to working in this way without the connection to the love of it.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the way in which that can place some perspective around that.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so it can look like you're winning because you're getting all the awards and all the raises and all those things, but you're kind of running on empty.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I know that I I have felt that for me.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I went into university, um, first of my family to go to college.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I just love learning.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: I would love being the student when my siblings and I would play.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the middle of five children, and I loved being the teacher uh when we played and when I got to play with my friends.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: As an adult, though, and in higher education, I just felt there to be such a strong, sacred, beautiful relationship between teacher and student.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: I have always said that I love teaching, but I hated grading.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: And the truth is I did not like grading.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of long nights uh trying to get through all the papers.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: I was very tired and exhausted and get get grades in by a certain deadline.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: But even on those long nights, I loved seeing my students show me what they learned.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: I used to teach the research methods course and the program that I taught in.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, uh I assigned a large research paper uh through the course of the term and read all the papers.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it brought me a lot of joy sometimes to see some of the lessons come to life, some of the work that, you know, certain projects that the students were working on and certain skills that they were individually working on come to pass.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: I loved seeing having a vision for what they would learn and see how that manifested within their coursework.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: It was very powerful.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, then, you know, I mean, I was good at my job and uh promotions came, leadership came.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: Leadership in higher ed administration means less time with students, farther from the site of the work that I actually found so incredibly meaningful.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: And while I was able to advance uh the broader, what I would say is the power to exert a broader equity focus and higher standard of learning and educational opportunity for the students in the program in those roles.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: It also meant that I didn't get to have as much time with them to witness them benefit from it.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, certainly on the exterior, but there's nothing like being in relationship with students directly and at the microsite of their learning.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: That left me with a hollowness, and I know many people can relate to it.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's a spiritual signal, I think, you know, not just a personal feeling like, oh, I don't feel connected anymore.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think of it as sort of like an unconscious uncoupling of the primary and secondary, made really visible because you can feel it, you know, you're exhausted, but you don't have your reason why, right?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: So unlike the zookeepers, you just can't see it.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's because you're further away from the work.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: The title is a thing that folks can take, but that was always there and theirs to grant to you.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: But that feeling that you have about the work that you do, the calling, the wisdom you bring to it, and that you grow in in every piece of work that you do, the architecture that deepens and gets more complexified within you, those are the things that are always going to be with you.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it is a shock to your senses to realize that your sense of self migrated to a title or to identify too much on a role, uh, that it even is resting on one of the most fragile things, the one thing that others can take from you, uh, those external conditions, the actual job.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but remembering and coming back to that inherent architecture, I think, can be incredibly important and I think soul-saving in many ways.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: The thing we want to remember and appreciate too is that the loss is about more than losing income.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, in the 1930s, there was a research, can you believe it, in the 1930s, um, a study um by Jehota.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, what they did was looked at a village where one factory closed, which, you know, a small village, a factory sort of employed all these people.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: And they noticed that two things happened, that there was this manifest function of work and identity.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but there was also this latent function of work that really shaped things.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: So manifest is like the thing that's obvious on top, the paycheck.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you stop working, you don't see a piece of paper or money or something with your name on it, or, you know, those coins, as the kids say, come to you in order for you to uh buy and purchase the things that you need to live.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: But there were some latent functions that also uh sort of ran right underneath that manifest uh function that also came through.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I I know that coming up as a child in the 80s and 90s in Southern California during the crack epidemic.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: This is something that I saw, you know, with time and structure removed from people's lives, much more time hanging on the street, much more time um buying and selling drugs because that was one of the products that could be moved in our community.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, loss of contact with others that were about productive work, um, collective purpose or sense of being useful loss.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I saw what happened to some of the men in the community that I grew up in as they no longer were gainfully employed at the factory down the way or wherever you know they were prior.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um and purpose in terms of being a provider, because patriarchy makes us make that connection.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um they just didn't see themselves as useful, and that was hard, which led to a lack of status and identity and necessarily a reason to be active.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: We never think about, you know, the mental health of those who we see as criminals, but oftentimes what is causing the criminality, at least in this situation in the 80s and 90s and the epidemic of crack cocaine in my community, had so much to do with the loss of infrastructure and purpose around adult life for folks in my community.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: Think about that.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: Time, belonging, purpose, status, identity, and activity, that's what you lose when you lose the work.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: You lose all six at one time.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that then, you know, this whole architecture of an ordinary day is just wiped away.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's a race with just one pink slip, if you even get that.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: And you can, you know, you can have savings in the bank and it you still feel that, but not having any savings in the bank, not having any resources to move through this moment, you could be grieving the manifest, but also the latent or latent rather um functions as well.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: And those are really a whole grammar for belonging to a society, being a productive member.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and those are policy choices that create the sense of whether one can or cannot, you know, find their meaning there.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: So who are you when the title is gone?
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: For a while, um disoriented for sure, confused, scared.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: But more than anything, you're human.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: More than anything, any reaction you have is one about being entirely and fully human and responding to the tragedy, to the trauma of what it means to have been released and pushed out of society in that way.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: And this brings me back to, you know, uh in the first episode, I talked to about the 600,000 plus black women that have been pushed out at the start of 2025.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: That number has now grown to about 700,000 and it's counting, uh, growing.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I returned to them as a type of avatar for the moment because I think this, you know, obviously I'm a black woman and I am very much affected by, and um, this topic and this story is very relevant to me.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that there's also to this sort of shared lens of harm and the possibility of recovery that is embedded in the story of what's happening with black women, especially as it's paralleled by many other groups and communities too, who are also seeing themselves pushed out of work.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: Their loss, the loss that we've described, is concentrated and intensified.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in the public sector, it's concentrated, government, public relations, public institutions, rather, and mission-based work, work focused on uh impacting communities for social good, um, often serving the communities and the people that they love, right?
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, becoming a teacher, becoming a social worker, becoming, you know, someone who is doing work in a community that is also providing and is contributing to the social good means that they are a part of a working class, a middle class that is also supporting and providing for a societal need as well.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh research by Perry and Wise show and tells us that public service work uh is there's a motivation for doing public service work and it's driven by purpose over pay.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: Again, these folks are not the ones being paid the big bucks.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: They are the ones, though, sort of like the zookeepers who feel a sense that this is important work and meaningful work.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so even if I'm not paid a whole lot, I'd still do it, right?
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: They make that exchange uh between meaning for money.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: And they're good with it.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: They're good with it.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: But when that work is taken, unceremoniously even, they are bound, double bound, I should say.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: They have already given up the money.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't make as much as they could have had they gone into the private sector if that were work that they wanted to do.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: But then they also lose the purpose itself because whether it's equity, science, the public good, just caring about people, when the society now declares that that's a worthless endeavor, they don't even have this as a way to sort of pump up the work that they do and their sense of who they are in the world anymore.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: That work is being defunded, um, dismantled, and told by the most powerful voices that it never mattered.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: And even though in our hearts we know that's not true, um, it also is quite hard to justify and to resonate within what is true when when it's being attacked like that.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: Those losses are stacked.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the money as well as the meaning.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: This becomes a bit too heavy to bear on shoulders.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it can lead to mental health effects, anxiety, depression, frustration, anger.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: Nowhere really to put it.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's really a violation of the psychological contract.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: Rousseau talked about this, the unwritten promise that us meeting our gifts with a loyalty uh to our society would mean that we would all be okay.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so for the loyalty to not to have been let down on the side of the deal, uh I think feels like a particular betrayal.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think of it as like this tension, you know, this on one end are those workers, those uh those workers in the public service space holding tight, you know, doing this work, even if not as well paid, and even if not um as glorified, right?
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: But they're doing it, society, the government, the, you know, the society is saying, but it's valuable work and we're gonna pay you what we can and we're holding it together.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: And on top of the tension of that rope is a society that needs them to do that.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: So when we tear the contract, when one side just drops the you know, the rope and and these folks fall over here, it's not just them falling, it's the whole society that was built upon the idea that the tension between these pieces is what is holding up the values of a society.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: It starts to then re remake and and and rethink, gets us all rethinking, what are those sacrifices for?
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it can lead to some nihilistic thinking, and that's not that's pretty dangerous for all of us.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: And this isn't just for black women, and I know I always say it because it's true.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, black women were first and most severely hurt and hit by this, and that can never be diluted.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and failure to care for them breeds a type of indifference to structural harm, right?
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: And what happens then if we don't have a sense of really addressing those structural issues, that means that that structural harm remains a mechanism that can harm and hurt others.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: Think about that.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: AI deciding what's efficient for us, tariffs and market shocks, a government that is redrawing overnight what counts as valuable or meaningful, science, care, equity, culture.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: That can apply to anybody.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: That does and has been applying to many more people.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so even though there was some initial comfort or at least not as much disruption when it was initially occurring for at the at the first drop of the 300,000 black women and then the four and then the 500,000 that lost their jobs, as those numbers have also risen for other demographic groups.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we're seeing folks in the numbers of beyond the millions of job loss in this country.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: We have to ask ourselves the question of what we're going to do.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: Black women are certainly the canary in this coal mine for sure.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: We were coughing first, singing first, trying to get people to pay attention to this story.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: We were the first to feel the air change, but the air is changing for anyone and everyone else because it's air.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: The next round of cuts are just around the corner, and they may have your name on it.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't wish that on anybody.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I do wish for us to have then more clarity around what policy that can uplift those most harmed and the least among these will be required and that we focus on that.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, that is my humble opinion.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: But these are now at the level and of harm and the structural impact that that has occurred.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: It is a policy question that we need to more than likely settle at the ballot box.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: But here's the thing it is not all gloom and doom as hard as it is to live and to see.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: As hard as it is to live and to see, it is not all gloom and doom.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: The architecture, the skill, the judgment, the wisdom, the way of seeing gathered over years of living and leading and working, that is that is, those are some of the ingredients for your pivot.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I know folks are feeling like, what do you mean, pivot?
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even have enough time, energy, or authority to think about that.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I get it.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I don't mean in terms of, you know, go find your next million tomorrow in this direction or that direction, because for many people, that's not the nature of who they were and what their work was.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: But what I want to say is, though, too, that you did not walk away from these spaces empty-handed, that to it you brought yourself.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: You brought your architecture to that place.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that is something that can never be taken away.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: And when you walk away from that place, there are experiences, relationships, wisdom drawn and developed within that context that you walk away with too.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: The world has the causation backwards, and that's fine.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: They think that you get your experiences from the these places.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: But the reality is that's not true.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we walk in oftentimes we can tort and fix our resumes and CVs or only hype up the things that are relevant for that place to get that job, but it doesn't mean that everything else around what you've done and where you've done it has not paid into that and has not grounded you.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: It has.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the place that we need to practice from.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: Every hard decision that you've made, every crisis that you steered, every person that you've mentored, every plan that you've built, every pivot that you made within the context of that organization are also pivots that you can make in your own life.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: You don't use that architecture up.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: You continue to walk with it.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: It only gets more deeper and nuanced, more uh complicated grooves and curves, like what happens when we're thinking in our brains.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: It just gets more folded in on itself because it's smarter.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: And your architecture is your intelligence, more nuanced, more texture, all yours.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: The title was never the source of that, and it never will be.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: It never will be.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: It was the site, that place, that job.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's just where you did that.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the site is gone, but the architecture of who you are is still within you.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: And an exercise for us to think about is articulating to ourselves what that architecture is.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: Who are you when the title is gone?
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: You are the one who had the calling before anyone paid you for it.
• 43:59
  unknown: You are
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: The one who built the architecture.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_02: The institution merely borrowed that you lent in exchange for wages for pay.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_02: You are the one.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_02: You are the one.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: You are the primary thing.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_02: You are the one.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: Not the secondary.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_02: The primary.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: You are the one.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: And nothing secondary can strip that away.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: The title was the thing that could be taken.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: Everything made you worth the title is still there.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: Everything that made you worth the title is still there in your hands.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what you walk with always.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, in my tradition, we would say that that's a word.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it is.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: It is a word.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope you hear me.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um now we're going to get ready for our replenished assignment.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it is about thinking about your architecture.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that that's been a theme for us for some time because I do have a sense and feeling for those who are walking around feeling a sense of loss relative to opportunities, to jobs, to whatever the experience is right now, that you need to be reminded about who you are.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_02: I want to say a curse word.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: You really, really do.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: If nobody else will tell you, you have to tell yourself.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: If nobody else will tell you, you absolutely have to tell yourself.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: So here's what we're going to do: our replenishment assignment.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'll take you through it and then we'll we'll close out.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: For this assignment, I want you to subtract the title.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so in one sentence about yourself with no job, role, or accomplishment, tell me who you are.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: And notice how hard or easy that is.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever you feel around that, there's a lesson in there for you.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: If you can get straight to it, that tells you how strong and connected you are to your architecture, to your core, to your backbone of who you are.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: If it's a little troubling, that's okay too.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: But you have some work to do there.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: Number two, name what you are carrying for others, what you do carry for others.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: Three things that you hold up that no one sees.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want you to solve them.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: I just want you to name them in your own hand.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: Three things that you hold up for others that nobody else sees.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: I can think of some for me.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm that strong, I'm the strong friend.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: I have required not being the strong friend, but I am crazily strong, emotionally and spiritually strong, strong enough to be vulnerable, though, right?
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's something I hold up for others.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: What are yours?
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: What are some of the things that you hold up for other people?
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then number three, last one, say aloud that you're going to reclaim one of those things.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: Before I was anyone's title, whatever that was, I was someone who did that thing.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: Before I was anyone's title, I am someone who did that thing.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: We're going back to primary motivation.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: We're going back to how you define your worth and your value and where that calling comes from.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: We have done some work today, and I'm so glad that you tuned in to the well with Dr.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: Wendy.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that there's something valuable that you were able to take with you, some new learnings and ways of understanding yourself in systems that were not made for you, uh, but that you learn how to survive and to navigate anyway.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: So let's find some stillness before we let go.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: Just taking a couple of breaths deeply, lengthen your breath.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I want you to bring to mind the title self, that person, the one who was so important walking around with that title and that job.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I want you to thank them.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: Thank them for caring such a great deal for you and ensuring that you had and you and your family and your community had some of the important resources that you needed.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now I want you to take another look at her and or them and set that title down beside them.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_01: And look at who's still there.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: You the one who had the calling in the first place, that built the architecture, who was there before and is here now, and who will always be with you so long as you are breathing.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_02: One breath in for who you were and one breath underneath all of it, and always enough.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'll say it again and then I will say it again and again.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_02: You are not the title.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_02: You never were.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: You're still carrying the gifts, you always will.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: Building or no building.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's what you got.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, it may fall behind you.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: We sometimes see that happens.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: Who you are when the title is gone, you're the architect.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_01: You're the blueprint.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_02: You're the master plan.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_02: You always were.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: I will be back soon.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: But until then, I want to just say to you how much I value you and the community that we are sharing and gathering in.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: If you feel there's something here that you want to share with others in your networking community, please do so.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_01: Stay close to the name underneath who you are and be who you are wholly.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: Remind others of that too if you can see that they need that message.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_02: Until next time, be well.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_02: Bye.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for listening.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: I hope this message found you in a good place and left you even better with something that you can use in your work this week.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to learn more about the well and the work that we do, please visit drwendywilliams.com.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_01: W-e-n-d-i, not why, drwendywilliams.com.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_01: And also follow me on Instagram, on LinkedIn, at drwendywilliams.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to hear from you.
• 50:13
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• 50:17
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• 50:18
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• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: We know that there are many people who are trying to lead well in this time, and we want to make sure to broaden it for our community and you are the number one that can help us to do that.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Well.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_00: See you next time.