Latest / Business for Humans / Reclaim Your Work Life Balance: Lean Out, But Stay Valuable

Transcript

Reclaim Your Work Life Balance: Lean Out, But Stay Valuable · Business for Humans

0:00
I'm Jaime Gennaro, business coach, consultant, and founder of Practica Consulting.
0:05
Today's episode is a little different.
0:07
It's recorded outside in my backyard on a bad microphone just to give you a
0:13
chance to understand why I had to take a break from the podcast for a minute
0:17
and why I'm coming back with new energy and invigoration. Enjoy.
0:23
So i've taken a break from the
0:26
podcast and the reason was because
0:30
i couldn't figure out how
0:34
to talk about things going on at work things going on in people's businesses
0:40
and not be tone deaf to what is happening in the world and also like understanding
0:47
where our work fits into this.
0:51
Like, how do we just keep showing up at work and keep pretending like we care,
0:57
when there's so much going on in the world?
1:00
And I just couldn't figure out how to reconcile those two things and want to
1:07
come across, I don't know, not salesy or trying to, I don't know,
1:13
make it about marketing.
1:15
I want to make it about helping people. right? That's kind of always been my
1:20
ambition is how do I help people?
1:22
But then i started thinking well what's the best way to help and who are the
1:26
people i'm really trying to support at the end of the day and when i launched
1:32
my business during covid the,
1:36
ecosystem was so different everybody well
1:39
not everybody but there was kind of this new reframe about work and how we show
1:44
up at work and what else is important to us and how important our family time
1:50
and our sort of purpose was to us.
1:57
And there was the great resignation and people were looking for more purpose-led work.
2:03
And I was helping people navigate that territory from being in a consistent
2:09
workspace to potentially starting their own business or just moving into a company
2:15
that better aligned with them and their values.
2:19
But things have changed so much.
2:23
And if you know me, you know that I also support small businesses with consulting.
2:29
So I help small business owners with some mindset, with some.
2:35
Of the roadblocks to get in their way with some of the burnout stuff,
2:39
but I also just help them grow and scale their businesses, but always from this
2:44
grounded purpose first, profit second place.
2:49
So that's always been a part of my business and I've never really advertised
2:53
it or talked about it, but I do love that work because it integrates the stuff
2:58
that I've done, like coming from agencies, companies.
3:01
Advertising, marketing, and startups, being consistently working with startups,
3:07
it felt like a good place for me to focus my energy and help people both with
3:14
kind of that coaching aspect and burnout and growing their businesses.
3:19
So I'm not abandoning that part of the business, but I think I made a mistake
3:23
and I sort of like pivoted everything towards that.
3:27
And obviously, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while,
3:30
you know that I generally am trying to support people who have small businesses
3:34
or are looking for more alignment in their work.
3:38
And I'm not changing that. But what I feel like the thing that I just finally
3:45
landed on after all this time,
3:47
after the last six years of constantly trying to reinvent myself and figure
3:51
out how to keep doing this work sustainably,
3:54
like in a way that still supports my family,
3:57
still staying connected to being an entrepreneur and helping people and wanting
4:02
to make impact in the world.
4:04
I just feel like I've been disconnected from how to talk to people in a way
4:09
that's not just a bunch of AI-generated bullshit.
4:13
So hence this more kind of off-the-cuff thing.
4:18
Podcast episode. So anyway, where I landed was what is my purpose?
4:23
What is the reason why when business slows down, I stay in it and I stay committed
4:29
and I stay determined to make this work and to keep it a sustainable business
4:34
where I can support my family?
4:37
Like what keeps me in it when it's really hard?
4:40
And the truth is my mantra has always been at the end of the day,
4:46
I want to remove the pain that people have at work.
4:51
Why? And I started asking myself this question.
4:55
And I think the reason I want to talk about this is because I think a lot of
4:58
us are struggling with this right now. How do we make it matter?
5:01
How do we make what we're doing matter?
5:04
So you can go through this exercise, like, why are you doing what you're doing?
5:08
Like, what are the various layers beneath it?
5:12
And even if you feel like your job at the end of the
5:15
day is not like your day-to-day tasks are
5:18
not making an impact where can you make an impact
5:21
in the other part of the work
5:24
that you do so i was
5:26
kind of asking myself like what's underneath that like why
5:29
do i feel like i want to remove pain and it's
5:32
a couple of things i think a lot of the
5:35
jobs out there in the world right now are jobs that
5:38
at some point are going to put money in a
5:41
billionaire's pocket and that is
5:44
like the machine like that's the
5:47
man and i think that when
5:50
we sacrifice our health and our well-being and our mental health for that end
5:58
game which is basically prophets that basically ultimately are going to do something
6:04
to degrade the earth like that's usually like the end game,
6:09
at some level, there's going to be some deterioration.
6:13
Of the earth's resources with all
6:16
these corporations right so how
6:20
do you you know how do you reconcile
6:23
make impact despite of what that company might be doing but at the end of the
6:29
day when i'm like i want to remove the pain people have at work it's like if
6:32
you work at one of these corporations that's kind of generally like not doing
6:36
great things in the world why are you sacrificing your well-being,
6:41
the thing is you need that job. You need to support your family.
6:45
I think I've gone from the position of leave the job, leave the toxic environment.
6:51
Find something more aligned, start a business.
6:55
I've moved away from that because the reality is the world's on fire.
7:00
There's a lot of instability. If your job creates stability,
7:04
don't let go of it it's creating money
7:08
survival you know
7:11
it's helping you support your family so don't let go of it but i want to make
7:16
it feel better i want to keep you there because it's safe but i want to help
7:22
you lean out and that doesn't mean doing subpar work it doesn't mean not showing up,
7:29
it doesn't mean losing any integrity in the way that you work,
7:34
but it means stopping the sacrifice,
7:37
stopping working on weekends,
7:40
stopping working on your vacation, checking email. Why are we doing that?
7:46
Why are we still working like that? So what's underneath it all for me is that
7:51
I fundamentally want to change the way that we work.
7:56
Why? Because this whole thing was set up the way we work, this nine to five
8:02
grind, be a cog in the machine, take a salary,
8:08
don't get any, you know, equity in the business. I mean, some people do.
8:13
I know there's a lot of people who work for corporations, you get stock and, and that side of things.
8:17
But like, you're always a cog in the machine, like you're always taking a salary.
8:22
Jeff Bezos doesn't take a high salary. He takes like $83,000 a year and he just
8:27
takes loans against the stocks, right?
8:30
So like he doesn't have to pay taxes.
8:34
We're all, you know, we're all the ones paying the taxes on our like low salaries
8:40
in comparison to how much money these people are making at the top of these corporations, right?
8:45
So you can lean out in a way that still maintains your integrity,
8:51
but also maintains your personal health and well-being.
8:55
I want to fundamentally change this whole patriarchal system,
8:59
and I think we can do it by finding our own core values, holding true to those values,
9:06
but leaning out when we don't need to be putting in 150%.
9:12
We can put in 75%. We're still a really viable, valuable employee.
9:18
And I would say, and I know your brain is going to try to talk you out of this,
9:23
but when you lean out, you actually become a better employee.
9:27
And I know that you have co-workers and you also see people younger than you
9:31
leaning out and you're like, F those people.
9:34
They don't do any work and it's super frustrating. And also I'm like, in awe of them.
9:39
But the truth is, like, you need to learn this balance for yourself where you're
9:43
still proud about what you're doing.
9:45
You know the impact that you can make. You know that you make impact beyond
9:49
just your day-to-day tasks.
9:51
You stay valuable in the market by bringing human value to the table.
9:58
So if you're doing a lot of data entry and, like, paperwork,
10:01
you're going to get axed out of a job.
10:04
If you're leaning out and being strategic in the way that you think about work,
10:09
in the way that you think about your approach, if you're spending extra time
10:13
on those things, that's the value add.
10:15
Where can you bring your own creative approach to solving a problem?
10:20
And that's at all levels of the food chain. if you're approaching
10:23
your work in a way that's like creative and
10:26
nuanced and unique and very bespoke
10:29
and specific to what you do you're going
10:32
to have more value and that's what i want to try to do with this i mean i don't
10:37
even want to call it a pivot but just with this like sort of integrated way
10:42
of coming forward i don't want to be creating all these like ridiculous offers
10:46
that people don't want and because i feel like sometimes i'm just like what do i think people need.
10:51
Okay, here's an offer. Here's an offer. Here's an offer. And I'm like stuck
10:54
in this cycle of I need to sell.
10:57
I need to sell. I need to sell. And what I'm forgetting is like,
11:00
I need to remove people's pain.
11:02
That's what this is about. I do need to make a living also, but I don't want
11:09
to do it from the old way or the patriarchal way that we tend to do this, which is like,
11:16
I'm going to drive like a bunch of people into some group coaching program or
11:20
into some online course.
11:23
Like that all feels like total bullshit to me right now.
11:27
I feel like what people need is very nuanced human to human support.
11:32
They need someone who's going to help them break patterns, who's going to help
11:35
see body language and work with them long enough that they know where those
11:41
patterns are coming from.
11:42
Continue to remind them to break those patterns. It takes time.
11:46
Time if you're in an environment where you're
11:49
so sure that it's the environment that's
11:52
creating some kind of negative emotion or reaction
11:55
if you can't make the connection that there's something about the way you're
12:00
thinking about it the way you're approaching it there may be something that
12:03
you can empower yourself to control and change but we just have so many old
12:08
patterns and so many ways of approaching work that we've been trained into,
12:14
that you can still be super highly valued.
12:18
And really good at what you do without grinding and trying to do it the old way.
12:25
So if you're feeling stuck, if you're like, okay, I hate my job, but I have to stay,
12:29
or I'm running a business and it's stagnated, I
12:33
just would invite you to consider why are you still doing it why are you still
12:39
there and not to find some kind of negative reason but if the reason you're
12:45
there is to create financial stability for your family that's a great reason,
12:51
so then go one layer below that right like how is staying making an impact.
12:56
How is it making an impact on your team? How is it making an impact on your family?
13:01
Right? So don't dismiss the reason that you're there or the reason that you're staying.
13:06
Just keep digging a little deeper. Like, okay, my business has stagnated.
13:12
What is the reason why I still want to do this? And then just double down on that reason.
13:18
I want to double down on removing people's pain at work.
13:22
And I haven't solved all the problems of like, how do I do that?
13:26
How do I get in front of people? But I don't want to think about that part.
13:30
That's the part that satigues me. I don't want to worry about marketing.
13:33
I just want to worry about how can I do this better?
13:36
Like when I'm talking to a client, how can I meet them in a place where they're
13:42
going to see the pattern?
13:44
They're going to start recognizing the pattern. They're going to start changing
13:47
the pattern because they're having a human connection with me.
13:52
It's not just putting some prompt in chat gpt
13:55
and then getting some kind of like sluffy response there's
13:59
a there's a feedback element when you're a
14:03
manager or you're a coach or you're working with
14:05
people on performance enhancement right there's this part where like feedback
14:11
is critical and that means constructive feedback pointing out what they're good
14:17
at and also recognizing the places where they need to tweak or challenge themselves
14:22
or push themselves in a different direction.
14:25
Sometimes people will come to me and they'll banter off a bunch of stories and
14:29
I'll just stop them and say, that sounds like a story.
14:32
An AI bot is not going to do that. The AI bot is going to take all your prompts
14:36
and all your information. It's not going to learn that much about you.
14:39
And it's just going to generate like very generic information back that's not nuanced or human.
14:46
I think what we need to do in this new paradigm shift of work is keep connecting to the human side.
14:56
When we're struggling at work, it's rarely because of computer level issues.
15:03
Like there's process stuff. But usually the struggle at work is a human problem.
15:09
Right? It's usually like a management issue, or if it's hard to give feedback
15:13
to someone, or you're having trouble getting someone motivated,
15:18
or you're having conflict with someone who is intimidated by you,
15:22
or I mean, the problems that work, especially in big corporations,
15:27
tend to be human problems.
15:29
So, you know, I'm not only trying to say that, like, I'm trying to differentiate
15:33
myself from AI, but it is like, I want to solve human problems with humans.
15:40
Hence, you know, years ago I started my podcast, it's called Business for Humans for a Reason, right?
15:47
I think if we're trying to make impact and we're trying to solve problems with
15:51
our businesses, we have to find that human-to-human connection because usually
15:56
we're trying to sell something to humans in our business. That's what we're doing.
16:02
So to get computers to solve human problems, I'm not against AI.
16:07
I definitely think it's a great like process tool.
16:11
It's good for, you know, simplifying really easy tasks or getting like modern, like what's the word,
16:20
getting repetitive tasks taken care of, getting it to, you know,
16:27
sort through information quickly.
16:29
I think there are great uses for it. I think when you're trying to solve human
16:32
problems, it's not the right tool.
16:34
And i just don't want to keep using ai to
16:37
like create content for me i think it's like real bullshit
16:40
and it gets easy to just rely on it because it takes less time and there's this
16:47
whole freaking content machine that's constantly on and constantly running and
16:53
it's fatiguing all of us and i don't want to just keep contributing like bullshit
16:57
content to that machine like i really.
17:01
Struggle with social media and i struggle with making this kind of content but
17:05
i don't struggle with this kind of content i struggle with like i need to the
17:10
quote-unquote like i need to or should be making more content i should be showing
17:14
up a certain way i should be like.
17:16
Emulating people that do it a certain way or the people who have the most followers
17:21
or whatever and i'm just like i haven't been showing up because i've been so
17:25
fatigued by all of that like that hamster wheel that there's no exit.
17:33
Like there's no, you're not going to win the race of social media or content creation.
17:39
I don't want to be in the race. I just want to make sure that,
17:43
I'm getting this idea across and people who resonate with it can find me.
17:48
I mean, that's ultimately what marketing is, but I don't want to be like part
17:51
of the marketing machine.
17:52
I just want to be like, hey, if you feel like you have pain at work,
17:56
if you are struggling with feeling like you need to provide for your family,
18:01
but you also are really feeling like you're in like a soulless job and you feel stuck,
18:06
let me help you stay, but make it better.
18:09
Let me help you lean out but stay a
18:12
valued employee let me help you like beat the
18:15
ai you know layoff scenario
18:19
and really increase your value add as an employee not because you want to make
18:24
those people more money but because you need to create stability in your life
18:28
you want to be you want to maintain integrity you want to stay really good at
18:32
what you do but overthinking and not sleeping and stressing out about work is not making you better,
18:39
and it's not making you a better parent and it's not making you a better partner.
18:44
You're losing your, you know, all that self-care stuff is going out the window.
18:50
So this isn't a bunch of like.
18:52
Woo-woo bullshit stuff. Like I know how to manage people.
18:58
I know how to solve internal company org problems. I come from an operations background.
19:04
I've worked in startups. I know the game of like who you need to talk to and
19:09
how you advocate, how you move the pieces around.
19:12
But I also know it's really important to know what's driving you,
19:16
to know what impact you're making, to find your own personal measurements for that impact.
19:23
When I worked in advertising, my goal was to elevate the people on my team, hands down.
19:31
If there's anything I cared about at that job, it was meeting one-on-one with
19:37
every person on my team. I met with them for an hour.
19:40
I had a lot of other work to do. I never put
19:43
that work on the back burner because I wanted
19:47
to make sure that the people
19:50
on my team that were working under me felt valued felt
19:53
seen felt like someone was removing the obstacles in their way felt like they
19:58
were you know somebody was looking for where their potential was and helping
20:01
push them in that direction of maximizing their potential and just yeah like
20:07
helping them find confidence and all of that that was the impact that.
20:11
And I think anyone who has worked with me at that level would say,
20:16
like, maybe I didn't do it 100% effectively all the time, but it was definitely my mission.
20:21
And it was definitely people could see that that's what I cared about,
20:26
that that's what my passion was.
20:27
Ultimately, at the end of the day, that's what when I felt like I was doing
20:31
a good job, it was when I could see that my team was elevating and growing and
20:36
stepping into places that were outside their comfort zone and then nailing it.
20:40
That was where I got all of my job satisfaction from.
20:47
It wasn't like the marketing thing or meeting with big clients or going on campus
20:52
of big brands that never really filled my cup.
20:56
But being able to support my team was where I felt like I was making impact.
21:02
So there's always a place where you can make impact.
21:06
You need to know what's driving you. You need to feel connected to that.
21:10
You need to find that purpose inside of the situation that you're in.
21:15
And so i am just going back and again i don't want this to feel salesy at all
21:19
but just to like be transparent about where i'm at in my business i'm just going back to 100 101 coaching,
21:26
i'm happy to work one off one session to do like a program this work takes time
21:33
like if you have patterns of overthinking or over worrying about work or just
21:38
over giving those things take time to unwind, I'm going to be honest.
21:43
It's not a quick fix. I'm not going to give you some empty promise.
21:48
I create transformation with people, but it takes time.
21:52
So if you're ready to kind of get out of old patterns and find more freedom
21:57
and time, then we're going to be a great fit.
22:01
And I'm not going to make up a bunch of bullshit offers anymore and try to sell
22:06
them to a group of people who have already worked with me.
22:10
I am really hoping that I can make bigger change.
22:14
I set a goal for myself, 100 people staying in their jobs this year.
22:21
I want to help 100 people stay in their job and find more freedom, more impact.
22:29
More connectivity and alignment with their role and job, despite people they
22:37
might not get along with, despite the environment that they're in.
22:41
I want people to feel the safety and security of being in their work,
22:44
but also find the freedom and empowerment of being able to unlock the roadblocks
22:51
that are in their mind that are keeping them from taking care of themselves first.
22:55
So if you're into that we're gonna
22:59
be great together and if you know anybody who's
23:02
feeling a lot of pain at work like I always keep my
23:05
calendar open for consult calls
23:08
with people but I'm just gonna like clean the slate and go back to my core of
23:13
what's really important to me and if it doesn't work I'll go back and get a
23:17
job and then I'll make impact however I can inside that job but i am i've been
23:22
doing this for six years i'm really dedicated to this mission.
23:27
And i'm gonna change it up you might notice maybe
23:30
maybe it won't seem any different to you
23:33
from the outside if you've been following my podcast for
23:36
a while it might not seem any different but it feels different
23:38
to me i feel really committed to just doubling down
23:43
on the human bit again the
23:46
podcast has always been called business for humans it's funny
23:49
i'm just like finally aligning to how important that feels
23:52
in this moment so that's it
23:56
that's my soapbox for the day i hope there are some little nuggets
23:59
that you might be able to apply if you're feeling stuck in any way right now
24:03
i just want to acknowledge that it's kind of a weird time and it feels it feels
24:09
a bit unstable and i think we just need to support each other in the best ways
24:13
that we can not be in competition with each other, not feel like.
24:18
I don't know that sense of like i need
24:21
to be um i need to always be the devil's advocate like i think if we all resonate
24:29
with these types of messages we need to just find ways to work together and
24:33
connect and like make this easier on all of us it shouldn't be so hard right,
24:39
um so anyway i'm gonna leave it at that and i will talk to you next week.