Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #261| Here’s Why Fixing Everyone Else's Problems Is Making You Overwhelmed And Resentful (Tip: Stop Trying To Be So Helpful)
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: When you listen today, you'll learn why you should just stop trying to be so helpful and why trying to fix everyone else's problems is making you feel overwhelmed and resentful.
- 0:14Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:21Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
- 0:26Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's Working Woman experiences.
- 0:31Michelle Gauthier: And in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease, and relaxation to your life.
- 0:41Michelle Gauthier: Hi, friend.
- 0:42Michelle Gauthier: I'm excited to introduce you to my guest today, Leah Marone.
- 0:45Michelle Gauthier: I had never heard the term serial fixer before.
- 0:48Michelle Gauthier: But when I heard about her book and figured out what serial fixing is, I knew immediately that I had to have her on the podcast because it's something that so many of us struggle with, which is the idea that we are in charge of solving all the problems in the world.
- 1:02Michelle Gauthier: So when you listen today, you're going to learn what serial fixing is and why empathetic, high-achieving women are especially vulnerable to it.
- 1:09Michelle Gauthier: The difference between supporting someone and solving their problems, because those are two different things, and why that difference really changes everything.
- 1:17Michelle Gauthier: And then you'll learn Leah's support don't solve method that you can use and have as a tool to remember the next time when you want to solve a problem that doesn't belong to you.
- 1:27Michelle Gauthier: Leah is a therapist and an organizational consultant who works with high achievers and leaders.
- 1:32Michelle Gauthier: So let's get into it and talk with Leah about serial fixing and how we can stop.
- 1:36Michelle Gauthier: Thank you, Leah, so much for joining us today.
- 1:39Michelle Gauthier: I'm so excited to talk to you.
- 1:41Michelle Gauthier: Oh, I am too.
- 1:42Michelle Gauthier: Thanks for having me.
- 1:43Michelle Gauthier: I have been really looking forward to talking to you.
- 1:45Michelle Gauthier: Give us a preview.
- 1:46Michelle Gauthier: Tell us what you mean when you say serial fixing.
- 1:50Leah Marone: It's that you find yourself hearing something that's emotional.
- 1:54Leah Marone: You hear a problem, a hurdle, something that somebody's going through, and you immediately jump into this fixer-solver problem.
- 2:00Leah Marone: We quickly take ownership of things that might not be ours, and we're operating two to three steps ahead of everything at old times.
- 2:07Leah Marone: And you can see where this is a recipe for not only overextension, psychical exhaustion, but it's also letting all these external things, which are the people that we love and that we support and that we lead, be the sole structure of how we generate connection.
- 2:22Leah Marone: And we leave very little space for us and giving ourselves the same courtesy that we are bending over backwards to give everyone else, I think.
- 2:30Leah Marone: Yes.
- 2:32Michelle Gauthier: I just love the way that you've termed it being a serial fixer.
- 2:35Michelle Gauthier: I've just never heard it talked about that way.
- 2:37Michelle Gauthier: And I'm so intrigued to learn more.
- 2:40Michelle Gauthier: So that makes so much sense.
- 2:41Michelle Gauthier: Tell me how you got from wherever you were before to being the professional on helping people not be serial fixers.
- 2:49Michelle Gauthier: Like where did you start?
- 2:50Michelle Gauthier: Were you a serial fixer?
- 2:52Michelle Gauthier: How did you realize it?
- 2:53Michelle Gauthier: Tell us a little bit about your background.
- 2:54Leah Marone: I definitely, I think, would like to categorize myself as a recovering serial fixer.
- 2:58Leah Marone: Of course, I'm in the work, so you always have to be mindful of my habits too.
- 3:02Leah Marone: And what I found, not only through my clinical work, but working with teams and organizations and focusing a lot on overextension and local burnout, is that we do a good job these days of regurgitating kind of the symptoms of burnout.
- 3:16Leah Marone: But I really wanted to get to the psychology behind it, the root of it.
- 3:20Leah Marone: And a lot of times it is these roles that we place ourselves in when we are constantly, rather than letting people keep ownership of what is theirs while we support with empathy and compassion.
- 3:32Leah Marone: We just step in and we fix and solve.
- 3:34Leah Marone: And I found that people with high levels of emotional intelligence and that do have high levels of compassion and empathy and are in roles that really that's a necessity.
- 3:44Leah Marone: These are the very people that are constantly serial fixing to maintain the graces of everyone, to not be stamped or categorized as something negative, to be premature in taking care of something that may not even come to fruition.
- 3:59Leah Marone: And we see this a lot with women because I think our emotional intelligence is.
- 4:03Leah Marone: We can read a face quickly, we can read a room quickly, and we also have this drive to make everyone else around us okay so that then we can be okay.
- 4:13Leah Marone: But sometimes it's control disguised as compassion.
- 4:17Michelle Gauthier: Yes, to all of the things that you just said.
- 4:19Michelle Gauthier: Instead of letting another adult person manage their problems, we think I'll fix that for you.
- 4:26Michelle Gauthier: I probably, I'm speaking for myself here, I probably know how to fix that for you.
- 4:31Michelle Gauthier: And don't you worry about a thing, and we will just make that feel better.
- 4:35Michelle Gauthier: And what I see a lot in my clients when they come to me with that is actually being pissed off and resentful that they're always doing it, but also still doing it.
- 4:44Michelle Gauthier: It seems to be a cycle that we get into.
- 4:47Michelle Gauthier: So, how did you even get interested in this work?
- 4:50Michelle Gauthier: What is your history that even made you enjoy psychology?
- 4:54Michelle Gauthier: Or where were you being a fixer in your life?
- 4:58Leah Marone: My mother's a psychotherapist, so I grew up watching her go through grad school, her internships, and really have just the clinical work and kind of vibe as I grew up.
- 5:07Leah Marone: And I was just always fascinated, even from a child, just with people's stories.
- 5:11Leah Marone: And I felt an immense amount of privilege when you know someone could access vulnerability in my presence.
- 5:17Leah Marone: Like I just loved the energy exchange.
- 5:19Leah Marone: I loved creating that space.
- 5:21Leah Marone: I loved learning through people's stories and what they've gone through and what they've tried.
- 5:26Leah Marone: And so I think that was just something that really drew me and was always fascinated with just what humans work.
- 5:31Michelle Gauthier: So you liked growing up with a therapist as a mom.
- 5:33Michelle Gauthier: That was good for you.
- 5:34Michelle Gauthier: You always hear the hear the jokes of oh, my mom was a therapist, so you can imagine.
- 5:40Leah Marone: And I think she was in grad school when I was young, and so I saw her morph into a therapist as I was growing up.
- 5:46Leah Marone: So it wasn't like this was something she had done for him as born.
- 5:50Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, my kids will say to me though, I'm not a therapist, I'm a coach, but they'll say, Can you just please not coach me right now?
- 5:55Michelle Gauthier: Don't step out of your professional role and just be my mom for a second.
- 6:00Michelle Gauthier: And you played division one sports, I saw somewhere, right?
- 6:03Michelle Gauthier: What did you play?
- 6:05Leah Marone: I played basketball and I was an anxious mess.
- 6:08Leah Marone: I was one of those players that was really good in practice because my critic would calm down.
- 6:13Leah Marone: The pressure was a little lower, and then come game time could have been 24 hours later.
- 6:17Leah Marone: I just had intense battles with negative self-talk and my inner critic.
- 6:22Leah Marone: And that's not the type of recipe that you want when you're trying to form athletically or in any yes.
- 6:28Leah Marone: So I really was told and coached then, like, just distract yourself, just just have fun, just don't worry about it, just play.
- 6:36Leah Marone: And it really was the wrong message because when we try to suppress, when we don't try to understand and kind of align with certain parts of us or understand where they're coming from and what they're trying to protect, they get creative and they sabotage.
- 6:47Leah Marone: And so I took that and have really tried to help high performers and people with spear center critics and people that are operating with a high level of urgency and being two steps ahead, soothe those inner parts and quit fixing ourselves in that realm and then therefore in turn fixing externally.
- 7:05Michelle Gauthier: I love that because if just have fun or just calm down or just don't worry about it worked, neither one of us would have a job and life would be a whole lot easier, that's for sure.
- 7:14Michelle Gauthier: I was trying to get pregnant for seven years, and if I could count the number of times people were like, just stop worrying about it.
- 7:21Michelle Gauthier: If you could just relax, and then you feel like it's your fault too.
- 7:24Michelle Gauthier: Oh, this is something I'm doing that's preventing this.
- 7:26Michelle Gauthier: It's so frustrating.
- 7:28Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so you had this sort of high pressure D1 sports situation.
- 7:33Michelle Gauthier: You had a mom therapist, and you have this genuine interest in people, and so you put all these things together and you come up with your practice.
- 7:42Michelle Gauthier: And then as you were working in your practice, did the idea for your book, Serial Fixer, come up based on your experience there?
- 7:49Michelle Gauthier: Or how did you get to that point?
- 7:52Leah Marone: I guess it was 2018-ish.
- 7:54Leah Marone: I started doing more consulting work and was stepping into the corporate space and nonprofit space and working with educators and HR professionals and push them on boundaries in general.
- 8:03Leah Marone: And especially people in highly empathetic fields, they weren't trained like coaches and therapists to how to do that and have the boundaries and not take false ownership of things.
- 8:12Leah Marone: And we have to work hard at that too, even though we were educated on that realm.
- 8:15Leah Marone: And so I came up with this whole support don't solve framework.
- 8:18Leah Marone: And that's what I really started helping people, teams, organizations, leaders with, and that morphed into the book.
- 8:24Leah Marone: This doesn't the whole problem with serial text and people showing up to relationships and exchanges in a way that's really the main ingredient in just burnout, exhaustion, disconnection, and trying to burn it at both ends and feeling resentful and feeling this lack of connection that is so confusing because you're working so hard.
- 8:43Michelle Gauthier: And to your point earlier, when you tie your enoughness or your value to doing that, to being the fixer of everything, it never actually gets satisfied because there's always something else that you have to be doing.
- 8:56Michelle Gauthier: So, how can you be a person who is a compassionate friend in relationship with someone without fixing?
- 9:05Michelle Gauthier: How do you care without fixing someone's problems?
- 9:09Leah Marone: Yeah.
- 9:09Leah Marone: I think the very first thing that I tell people is first you have to collect your data, right?
- 9:14Leah Marone: And so you just be aware of yourself and be mindful of when a friend does share something that they're going through or oh, it happened again, or I just can't believe I'm in this relationship or whatever.
- 9:22Leah Marone: And your first inclination, and it might be a repeat of conversations you've had with this friend for weeks, your advice is spot on, but they're just not doing it.
- 9:30Leah Marone: And so it's really being mindful of are you jumping in immediately to fix and solve, give advice, prematurely relate.
- 9:38Leah Marone: Will you just hurry up and be okay?
- 9:39Leah Marone: And so, right out of the gate, I always tell people just start with validation.
- 9:43Leah Marone: So if a friend comes to you and says, Oh my gosh, we were at it again, this huge fight erupted, and I just had a crazy week and all the things.
- 9:50Leah Marone: And our first thought is like, when do you get out of this relationship?
- 9:53Leah Marone: I hate seeing you hurt.
- 9:54Leah Marone: Come on, what can we do?
- 9:55Leah Marone: Just end it.
- 9:56Leah Marone: Rather than that, and repeating that is just saying something like, Oh, no.
- 10:01Leah Marone: I mean, you really haven't through it.
- 10:02Leah Marone: It's been such a challenging week for you to validate the message and the emotion that they are sharing with you, nonverbally and verbally.
- 10:09Leah Marone: That's all validation is.
- 10:10Leah Marone: You may not agree with it, but you're meeting that person where they're at.
- 10:14Michelle Gauthier: You're the receiver of that validation.
- 10:17Michelle Gauthier: It feels so much better.
- 10:19Michelle Gauthier: Nothing is worse than someone giving you advice that you haven't asked for when you're already feeling crappy and they're like, You should have done this or you should do that.
- 10:26Michelle Gauthier: It's that's not what I need.
- 10:27Michelle Gauthier: I need you to be like, You're right, Michelle.
- 10:29Michelle Gauthier: That's awful.
- 10:30Michelle Gauthier: I'm sorry that happened.
- 10:32Michelle Gauthier: Yeah.
- 10:32Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so first thing is validate.
- 10:34Michelle Gauthier: Yeah.
- 10:35Leah Marone: So we validate, which can come in so many different forms, right?
- 10:38Leah Marone: So you're validating, you're interweaving that with your empathy.
- 10:41Leah Marone: And then it's like that inquire.
- 10:43Leah Marone: And that's where you're asking those things or saying, Tell me more, or what do you think is going on, or what would your next steps be?
- 10:48Leah Marone: Or how can I support you?
- 10:49Leah Marone: Or what are your next options?
- 10:51Leah Marone: I have two teenagers and they would probably say, if you ask, what does your mother always say?
- 10:55Leah Marone: What are your options?
- 10:56Leah Marone: Because they say this a lot.
- 10:58Leah Marone: And there are times I have to refrain from I'll just call the teacher, I'll just do this, let me just wrap this up so that we can move on with our lives.
- 11:05Leah Marone: Exactly.
- 11:06Michelle Gauthier: And sometimes it's easier to just call the teacher.
- 11:10Michelle Gauthier: It's harder to let the kids suffer, teach the lesson, make them send the email, whatever it is.
- 11:16Michelle Gauthier: So, yeah, not only do we have this like desire to fix things for our children, but also it can be easier.
- 11:23Michelle Gauthier: So it's like we're taking the hard route twice in order to teach ourselves a lesson and teach them a lesson too.
- 11:30Michelle Gauthier: Absolutely.
- 11:30Michelle Gauthier: Okay.
- 11:31Michelle Gauthier: So when we do that, when we help them think through what their options are and make sure that they're okay and validate their feelings.
- 11:40Michelle Gauthier: In the example we're talking about, like I'm picturing talking to a close friend in this situation.
- 11:45Michelle Gauthier: I also think that there are serial fixer tendencies.
- 11:48Michelle Gauthier: I definitely used to have these myself.
- 11:51Michelle Gauthier: So how do we sometimes just not even engage?
- 11:55Michelle Gauthier: Is it ever okay to just walk away from a problem?
- 11:58Michelle Gauthier: Yeah.
- 11:59Michelle Gauthier: And I think that's the thing.
- 12:00Leah Marone: It's finding that sweet spot, right?
- 12:01Leah Marone: Where the goal is not to completely disengage and look at people and their problems and be like, that's yours.
- 12:06Leah Marone: It's like we still want to lead with that empathy and compassion, but there is this fine balance of gaining comfort in the discomfort.
- 12:13Leah Marone: And what I mean by that is like when someone is going through something, whether it's just any feeling that everyone under the sun does not like to feel, oftentimes just gaining that pause and that understanding and letting them own it as you're there as a sport.
- 12:29Leah Marone: That can be so effective.
- 12:31Leah Marone: Sometimes just saying, Are you okay here?
- 12:33Leah Marone: What's going on?
- 12:33Leah Marone: Like checking in and pausing.
- 12:35Leah Marone: We don't do that enough.
- 12:36Leah Marone: We jump to conclusions and we take the beat.
- 12:38Michelle Gauthier: Yes.
- 12:38Michelle Gauthier: I have my he's my boyfriend, but I call him my handsome man friend because I feel too old to have a boyfriend, too mature to have a boyfriend.
- 12:45Michelle Gauthier: But every time he sits down in a chair or something, he always sighs.
- 12:48Michelle Gauthier: Oh, like it's just his natural reaction, like a relaxation thing.
- 12:52Michelle Gauthier: And I literally had to say to myself, for like years, he's not upset about anything.
- 12:57Michelle Gauthier: He doesn't have a problem.
- 12:58Michelle Gauthier: He just sighed.
- 13:00Michelle Gauthier: Because to your point, I would be so tuned into that.
- 13:02Michelle Gauthier: I'd be like, What's the matter?
- 13:03Michelle Gauthier: Do you need something?
- 13:04Michelle Gauthier: Did you have a hard day?
- 13:05Michelle Gauthier: Do you not want to watch TV?
- 13:07Michelle Gauthier: Jumping all into it, and not only to your point, it makes it all about me, but also it's coddling an adult man who, if he did have a problem, would be like, I just had a rough day.
- 13:18Michelle Gauthier: I do not have to solve that.
- 13:19Michelle Gauthier: And I do not have to solve the problem of someone at the grocery store who can't find something.
- 13:24Leah Marone: Yeah.
- 13:25Michelle Gauthier: Okay.
- 13:25Michelle Gauthier: Once we understand sort of the steps to take to break away from this serial fixing, in your experience, how long does it take to get into the habit of not being like that?
- 13:37Michelle Gauthier: Is it usually pretty quick?
- 13:39Michelle Gauthier: Does it take some practice?
- 13:40Michelle Gauthier: What do you recommend to people?
- 13:42Leah Marone: Oh, it takes a lot of practice, just like anything else.
- 13:44Leah Marone: It's kind of like when you get in shape, right?
- 13:46Leah Marone: You got to get your reps in.
- 13:47Leah Marone: But the big thing is that the alarm bells with your protective parts are going to be very noisy at first.
- 13:54Leah Marone: The pleaser with within you, the critic within you, the rescuer within you, they're going to perk right up because you're not following protocol.
- 14:00Leah Marone: You're not doing what you normally do.
- 14:01Leah Marone: Yeah.
- 14:02Leah Marone: And so you're going to hear that feedback internally.
- 14:05Leah Marone: And that's when some of the self-talk will happen of if you don't take this off your coworkers plate, they're probably not going to think that you like them anymore or that you're as passionate or that you are a leader.
- 14:15Leah Marone: And so you'll hear some of these things because these perceptive parts are like, well, what's happening?
- 14:19Leah Marone: So that's where you have to start setting these internal boundaries and having this talk with yourself and all of your parts.
- 14:25Leah Marone: I'm experimenting with something.
- 14:26Leah Marone: We're not all or nothing.
- 14:28Leah Marone: I'm not losing my compassion.
- 14:29Leah Marone: I'm not losing my availability in this respect.
- 14:32Leah Marone: But what I'm doing is I'm experimenting with something.
- 14:34Leah Marone: I'm trying to work on not taking ownership right out of the gate.
- 14:36Leah Marone: And let's just collect some data and see how this goes.
- 14:39Leah Marone: And once those protective parts of you start to realize, wow, you didn't actually destroy all of your relationships.
- 14:45Leah Marone: And you actually do have more space.
- 14:47Leah Marone: And you actually are able to be a little more present and actually be more authentically empathetic because you're not on zero all the time.
- 14:54Michelle Gauthier: Those protective parts start to calm down and trust you.
- 14:57Michelle Gauthier: I love how you said just think about it, not like all or nothing, but like I'm trying something out.
- 15:03Michelle Gauthier: Like I'm trying on a new coat.
- 15:04Michelle Gauthier: I'm gonna see how this fits.
- 15:06Michelle Gauthier: And then you start collecting evidence that, yeah, this does work.
- 15:09Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, I do feel better about this.
- 15:11Michelle Gauthier: I love that suggestion.
- 15:13Michelle Gauthier: Okay.
- 15:14Michelle Gauthier: What else would you recommend to people who are really feeling like they're picking up what you're putting down, so to speak?
- 15:21Michelle Gauthier: Is there anything else, any other steps you would recommend or things that you recommend that people do to try to unattach from this idea of being the fixer of everything?
- 15:30Leah Marone: If you remember one thing, I think it's that support don't solve.
- 15:33Leah Marone: Am I supporting or am I solving?
- 15:35Leah Marone: And I think that's such a great way and kind of a reminder of what really is mine, what is my role here, and why am I jumping the gun or why am I trying to fix this immediately?
- 15:44Leah Marone: Those are great questions and rounding questions and reflective questions to ask.
- 15:48Leah Marone: And I love the analogy if you think about everyone having a tangled mess, tangled ball of yarn, and serial fixers have their arms wide open to catch everyone's tangled mess to try to unravel it for everyone, or they just grab it out of people's hands because this keeps them busy, keeps them structured, and they don't have to deal with their own tangled balls of yarn.
- 16:07Leah Marone: Yeah.
- 16:08Leah Marone: And so think about rather than like being that give me all your tangled mess, I'll fix it for you, I'll create all these microcodependencies in every walk of life.
- 16:17Leah Marone: Everyone needs to keep ownership of their tangled balls of yarn.
- 16:20Leah Marone: We all have them.
- 16:20Leah Marone: Your job is to help people pull certain threads, but they keep the option, they keep the timeline.
- 16:26Leah Marone: It probably won't be yours.
- 16:27Leah Marone: They probably won't follow the exact steps that you think that they should.
- 16:31Leah Marone: But that's where people gain their own self-trust.
- 16:33Leah Marone: That's where people gain their own repetitions, and you're still there as that border.
- 16:38Michelle Gauthier: I love that visual.
- 16:39Michelle Gauthier: That is so good.
- 16:40Michelle Gauthier: I feel like this is much more complex with kids than it is with other adults.
- 16:45Michelle Gauthier: I have an easier time being like that as a capable adult human who can take care of their own problems.
- 16:50Michelle Gauthier: And I feel like sometimes it's a fine line with kids.
- 16:52Michelle Gauthier: So it sounds like we both have two teenagers.
- 16:54Michelle Gauthier: What's your recommendation on what at what point is there a certain age?
- 17:00Michelle Gauthier: Is there certain situations where we should stop solving things for our kids?
- 17:05Michelle Gauthier: Like when a kid's three and they're like, I'm thirsty.
- 17:08Michelle Gauthier: Okay, here's your drink of water.
- 17:09Michelle Gauthier: Or maybe you give them the cup at that point.
- 17:11Michelle Gauthier: I don't know.
- 17:12Michelle Gauthier: But at what point or age would you recommend that we stop solving every problem for our kids?
- 17:17Leah Marone: Oh gosh, I think as early as you can.
- 17:20Leah Marone: Okay.
- 17:20Leah Marone: Again, it's more of this discussion.
- 17:22Leah Marone: It's this pause.
- 17:23Leah Marone: It's sometimes instead of going into immediately, oh, let's problem solve this.
- 17:27Leah Marone: It's sometimes asking, like, where is your water or what would you like to do about that?
- 17:31Leah Marone: Or tell me more about you know what you're thinking.
- 17:33Leah Marone: These pauses as a parent are golden at any age because what it does is it channels that back.
- 17:40Leah Marone: The child has to teen child, whoever has to then think, I am feeling this.
- 17:44Leah Marone: Okay, what would a next step be?
- 17:46Leah Marone: Rather than again, just having this codependent kind of relationship where here I'm my tangled mess.
- 17:51Leah Marone: Yeah.
- 17:52Leah Marone: And then when we want to watch them, they're like, I really have no practice with this.
- 17:56Leah Marone: And then as parents, we're like, oh God, what did it work?
- 17:59Michelle Gauthier: Why can't we figure this out?
- 18:00Michelle Gauthier: Yes, as early as possible, just doing that validation and talking through some of the options with them.
- 18:07Michelle Gauthier: I love that thought.
- 18:08Michelle Gauthier: With my own kids, I feel like I had the opportunity to be a single mom and not be able actually to do everything and to not be there all the time.
- 18:19Michelle Gauthier: And sometimes I will see my kids solving their own problems and what I thought made me a bad mom.
- 18:24Michelle Gauthier: Now I'm like, okay, that is actually great.
- 18:27Michelle Gauthier: My daughter the other night was hungry and we had just gotten home from being somewhere.
- 18:30Michelle Gauthier: And I went to my room and I came out and she was making bacon and pancakes and all this stuff that she knows how to make because she's had the opportunity to do that for herself.
- 18:38Michelle Gauthier: And I was like, look at that.
- 18:39Michelle Gauthier: She didn't even present that problem with me.
- 18:41Michelle Gauthier: She just was hungry and she made herself something, and it felt so good.
- 18:46Leah Marone: That's a wonderful example.
- 18:47Michelle Gauthier: Especially of something that I thought was bad.
- 18:49Michelle Gauthier: If I would have stayed married, I think I would have tried to cater to my kids as much as possible.
- 18:54Michelle Gauthier: Like I wanted them for such a long time.
- 18:56Michelle Gauthier: It's so much better to just give them the tools.
- 18:59Michelle Gauthier: Okay.
- 19:00Michelle Gauthier: There are two questions that I ask every guest on the podcast.
- 19:04Michelle Gauthier: And the first one is what is a rule that you have for yourself that you made for yourself that you very rarely break?
- 19:11Leah Marone: Rule that I have for myself that I very rarely break is to operate my day in bookends.
- 19:16Leah Marone: And so my AM bookend is typically a workout, and my bookends are just something that I do for me.
- 19:22Leah Marone: And so they could look different every day.
- 19:24Leah Marone: But like that I have control of something that I do for me as my AM bookend, and then something at the end of the day.
- 19:30Leah Marone: And these can be very small, like they don't have to be elaborate, like they could just be something where I'm not multitasking.
- 19:35Leah Marone: But it's this confirmation of like, all right, I can control these two things.
- 19:39Leah Marone: The middle might be a big old mess.
- 19:41Leah Marone: But like I have these grounding things.
- 19:43Leah Marone: And so I rarely stray from that.
- 19:45Michelle Gauthier: I'm a morning worker outer too, but I don't do it every day of the week.
- 19:49Michelle Gauthier: And so sometimes in the mornings I feel a little, okay, now what do I do on the days that I don't work out?
- 19:54Michelle Gauthier: So I love the idea of having journaling be a bookend for me in the morning if it's not the workout.
- 20:00Michelle Gauthier: Okay.
- 20:00Michelle Gauthier: And then my second question is what is something that you love or are just into right now that has nothing to do with work or anything that we're talking about?
- 20:07Michelle Gauthier: Like, what's just lighting you on fire these days?
- 20:10Leah Marone: I love houseplants and my children, my girls.
- 20:13Leah Marone: Like it's so funny because I will I shop at Aldi sometimes and they'll have these great houseplants, and I'll come home and they'll be like, Oh my God, you bought another plant.
- 20:21Michelle Gauthier: I'm gonna have to go to Aldi.
- 20:22Michelle Gauthier: For me, it's Trader Joe's.
- 20:24Michelle Gauthier: I always come home with Trader Joe's or flowers.
- 20:26Michelle Gauthier: It's just either one.
- 20:28Leah Marone: It's amazing.
- 20:28Leah Marone: And it's so funny because I always joke.
- 20:30Leah Marone: I'm like, at least it's plants and it's not like some other thing that I'm collecting.
- 20:34Leah Marone: Yeah, exactly.
- 20:36Leah Marone: Exactly.
- 20:37Michelle Gauthier: But it they make me so happy.
- 20:39Michelle Gauthier: Like the amount of happiness.
- 20:41Michelle Gauthier: Have you seen that meme that's once you get to a certain age, you have to decide if you're gonna be like a plant girl, a sourdough girl, or I forget what the third, oh, I think a weighted vest.
- 20:53Michelle Gauthier: I was like, that is so good.
- 20:54Michelle Gauthier: So I'm glad I went plants.
- 20:56Michelle Gauthier: I like my yes, and I'll talk to them and encourage them too when I'm watering them.
- 21:02Michelle Gauthier: I'm like, you're doing so good.
- 21:03Michelle Gauthier: I see you got a new little bud coming out, and my kids are like, oh my god, mom's lost her mind.
- 21:08Michelle Gauthier: Don't care though.
- 21:09Michelle Gauthier: That's the great thing.
- 21:10Michelle Gauthier: Don't care.
- 21:11Michelle Gauthier: So if people are interested in learning more about you and your work, obviously they can read your books.
- 21:17Leah Marone: I love working with teams and corporations.
- 21:19Leah Marone: So facilitating workshops or just keynotes on boundary setting of all kinds.
- 21:23Leah Marone: And um, so yes, I'm very active in that space.
- 21:26Leah Marone: And then yeah, my book, Serial Fixer, you can find it on my website, leahmarone.com.
- 21:31Leah Marone: It's pretty much anywhere where you buy books online.
- 21:33Leah Marone: You can find it.
- 21:34Leah Marone: And yeah, if you do read it and it resonates, I'd love to hear from you.
- 21:38Leah Marone: You're not alone.
- 21:38Leah Marone: There's so many serial fixers running around, and I think it's just these little tweaks that we can do to feel like we're adding ourselves back into the equation.
- 21:46Michelle Gauthier: Yes, and of course, we will add all of this to the show notes so people can get a link directly to your book and your website.
- 21:53Michelle Gauthier: But thank you so much for being with us today and teaching us such interesting and useful information.
- 21:59Michelle Gauthier: Okay, friends, that's a wrap for today.
- 22:02Michelle Gauthier: If you know someone who is a serial fixer, forward them this episode.
- 22:06Michelle Gauthier: I think this was really enlightening and helpful and has some easy ways to make changes where you're not automatically taking on everyone else's problems.
- 22:14Michelle Gauthier: Have a great week.
- 22:15Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 22:23Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at MichelleGauthier.com.
- 22:29Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.