Liz Fosslien_mixdown.mp3

Liz: [00:00:00] Positivity paradox is that when you feel like you have to be positive, you feel worse because you're required to do what's called surface acting, and that's also I think it's very similar to emotional labor. This shows up a lot in customer service jobs. So if a customer is being really rude to you and you kind of put a smile on your face, pretend like they're being totally reasonable and take whatever vitriol they're spitting at you.

Harpreet: [00:00:36] What's up, everybody, welcome to the artists of Data Science podcast, the only self-development podcast for Data scientists. You're going to learn from and be inspired by the people ideas and conversations that'll encourage creativity and innovation in yourself so that you can do the same for others. I also host open office hours you can register to attend by going to Bitly.com/adsoh forward slash a d s o h. I look forward to seeing you all there. Let's ride this beat out into another awesome episode, and don't forget to subscribe to the show and leave a five star review. Our guest today is a speaker, author and illustrator, she's an expert on how to make work better and is the coauthor and illustrator of the Wall Street Journal bestseller No Hard Feelings The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work. She's currently head of content at Hulu, a company that uses behavioral science to make work better, where she helps teams and leaders develop the skills and habits that allow them to unlock their full potential. Prior to joining Qumu, she is creative director at Parliament and executive of Learning and Development Company. [00:02:00] She's also the executive editor at

Harpreet: [00:02:02] Genius. and was previously

Harpreet: [00:02:04] An

Harpreet: [00:02:04] Analyst at the analysis group.

Harpreet: [00:02:07] She regularly

Harpreet: [00:02:08] Leads interactive,

Harpreet: [00:02:09] Scientifically backed workshops about how to build resilience, help remote workers avoid burnout and effectively harness

Harpreet: [00:02:17] Emotions as a leader.

Harpreet: [00:02:19] And she's had her work

Harpreet: [00:02:20] Featured by the

Harpreet: [00:02:21] Likes of The Economist, Lifehacker,

Harpreet: [00:02:24] The Freakonomics blog and NPR,

Harpreet: [00:02:27] Just to name a few. So please help me in welcoming our guest today someone who has the magical

Harpreet: [00:02:33] Skill of eyeballing

Harpreet: [00:02:34] The leftovers and then choosing the absolute perfect Tupperware container. Liz bustling. Liz, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to be on the show today. I appreciate having you here.

Liz: [00:02:46] Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to dove in.

Harpreet: [00:02:50] Yeah. And I've got to give a shout out to our mutual acquaintance, friend Marc Freedman, for helping set this up. Really appreciate him for reaching out to you and linking this up.

Harpreet: [00:03:02] So I'd be remiss if I didn't shout him out right at the start, but yeah. Liz, thank

Harpreet: [00:03:07] You so much for taking time to come out and be on the show today before we get into your book. I'd love to learn a little bit more about you. So talk to us about where you grew

Harpreet: [00:03:17] Up and what it was like there. Yeah. So I was

Liz: [00:03:21] Born in San Francisco,

Harpreet: [00:03:23] And I would say

Liz: [00:03:24] I grew up more in the suburbs of Chicago. But my parents are. I'm an only child. My parents are my only family in the U.S. so I spent a lot of time going to Denmark, Norway, Germany during the summers. So I don't really feel a deep hometown connection to anywhere, necessarily. But yeah, I think it's probably a fairly when I was in the suburbs of Chicago, like a fairly normal Midwestern upbringing. And yeah, I definitely I one one really vivid memory that I do have, though, is

Harpreet: [00:03:54] When I was eight,

Liz: [00:03:56] My parents came to school was like, I meet the

Harpreet: [00:03:58] Parents day and I remember one [00:04:00]

Liz: [00:04:00] Of my friends asking, like, Oh, your parents, they speak really differently, like they have a strong accent. And what stuck out to me was that until that moment, I had never picked up on the fact that my parents spoke differently than anyone else. It was just like the way that they spoke. And so I've always thought that was an interesting like child psychology moment of just how we're not even aware of differences.

Harpreet: [00:04:21] Sometimes when it's as we kind of

Liz: [00:04:23] Take it like, this is how it is, this is what they do.

Harpreet: [00:04:27] Yes, really. It's really interesting because I grew up as a

Harpreet: [00:04:30] Child of immigrants

Harpreet: [00:04:32] As well, right? But I can imagine the it's interesting because like, you don't look like you're a child of immigrants, right? Like you look like your parents are American and you're born in America. So I'm interested to see what that immigrant experience was like for you. Did you ever kind of

Harpreet: [00:04:46] Feel different

Harpreet: [00:04:47] From the other kids

Harpreet: [00:04:48] That were in

Harpreet: [00:04:50] Your neighborhood or school growing up?

Liz: [00:04:52] Yeah, definitely. It was interesting. I think I was at the same time, more proud to be an American and also less prejudice

Harpreet: [00:05:02] Than other people because my

Liz: [00:05:04] Parents would often say that they came to this country because they had more opportunities. And there's a lot that happens in America that wasn't possible for them before. And at the same time, I would still go back to Europe, and this was mostly when I was older and when Bush was elected. And I would just hear because I also can present in Europe as very European. And so then people would just start talking about America and how bad the government is, and they can't

Harpreet: [00:05:29] Believe that people elected.

Liz: [00:05:30] So I think I both saw the opportunities that America presents for some people, but then also heard the unfiltered European hot take on everything that's wrong with the U.S..

Harpreet: [00:05:41] And something that I found common among a lot of children of immigrants is the choice of career pets that our parents lay out for us. It's either

Harpreet: [00:05:52] Lawyer, doctor or

Harpreet: [00:05:54] Failure. Did you have the same kind of

Liz: [00:05:56] I had lawyer, doctor, banker or

Harpreet: [00:05:58] Failure, but [00:06:00]

Harpreet: [00:06:00] You ended up you ended up studying economics, right?

Harpreet: [00:06:02] So you went into being.

Liz: [00:06:04] So my dad is a doctor and so economics, and I also studied math

Harpreet: [00:06:08] Was like a was a

Liz: [00:06:09] Fallback because I passed out at the sight of blood. So it was OK. Now that you're not a doctor, what else is quantitative that you could study?

Harpreet: [00:06:17] And so that

Liz: [00:06:18] Definitely informed my career path. I don't know if my. I've explicitly said this, but I harbored the belief that pursuing art or pursuing a creative path is just a really wonderful way to be poor for the rest of your life. And so, yeah, I definitely have the indoctrinated in me sort of quantitative skills get as many degrees as you can. And then also this idea of being a professional as you don't fail, you don't fuss, then you certainly don't feel you just do the job

Harpreet: [00:06:47] And try and sort of

Liz: [00:06:48] Solidly climb the ranks. So yeah, that I think until I was like twenty five guided my career choices completely.

Harpreet: [00:06:55] Yeah, it's interesting because I'm

Harpreet: [00:06:57] Very similar to you in in

Harpreet: [00:06:59] That sense, like my parents wanted me to be a doctor, but I can't stand blood like it. Yeah. And I ended up studying economics as well for for my first undergrad.

Liz: [00:07:09] That's so funny.

Harpreet: [00:07:10] Yeah, that's great.

Harpreet: [00:07:13] Well, because

Harpreet: [00:07:14] Like, I'm originally from California and I moved to the Midwest in like the south of Chicago in normal Illinois for for grad school. Oh, cool. Yeah. So it's

Harpreet: [00:07:24] Like we're we're like

Harpreet: [00:07:25] Crossing paths almost. It's like,

Liz: [00:07:26] Yeah, that's funny. It's cool to

Harpreet: [00:07:28] Discover those commonalities.

Harpreet: [00:07:31] So what kind of kid were you in in high school and what did you think your future would look like when you grew up?

Harpreet: [00:07:37] Yeah, I

Liz: [00:07:39] So I went to kind of a woo-woo creative private school until eighth grade. I had 15 people in my class that I started with in fourth grade, and it was the same 15 people until eighth grade. And then I went to a really large public school for high school. So that transition. And none of my friends from the private school were at that high school. [00:08:00] So I would say as a high schooler, I was mostly depressed for all four years, just probably a mix of hormones growing up and then not

Harpreet: [00:08:08] Having my friends and

Liz: [00:08:10] Feeling really out of place. So the person I wanted to be in high school was just someone in college, far away. And then in college, that's when I sort of had more crystallized career ambitions, where once I started studying economics and math at one point in college, I really wanted to be an investment banker. And looking back, I cannot believe that that was

Harpreet: [00:08:29] My life's

Liz: [00:08:30] Dream. I think I would have been absolutely miserable. But yeah, I saw myself as working at JP Morgan or Goldman Sachs, pulling long hours, just sort of climbing the ranks at one of those institutions.

Harpreet: [00:08:44] Yeah, that was me in high school as well. I saw the movie the boiler room. Did you see that movie at all?

Liz: [00:08:49] I have it.

Harpreet: [00:08:50] No. It made me want to be like a stockbroker or investment banker. That's what I ended up studying economics

Harpreet: [00:08:55] And never ended up going that route. But yeah, it's

Harpreet: [00:08:58] Funny because Boiler Room is about people who were selling like junk bonds and junk

Harpreet: [00:09:02] Stocks and getting rich

Harpreet: [00:09:03] Off of it. But anyways. But you ended up going to college in one of the Claremont colleges. Was Harvey Mudd, right?

Harpreet: [00:09:11] I was at Pomona, but

Liz: [00:09:13] They're all right next to each other. So very similar.

Harpreet: [00:09:15] Yeah, I used to

Harpreet: [00:09:16] Live in Pomona

Harpreet: [00:09:18] For a

Harpreet: [00:09:19] Small amount of time

Harpreet: [00:09:20] Walking distance to like the Claremont area.

Liz: [00:09:22] Oh, cool. So funny. There's so many missed opportunities. I know that

Harpreet: [00:09:28] You wouldn't want to know me back then. I was. I still in L.A. mode, but

Liz: [00:09:32] I was like, I wanted to be an

Harpreet: [00:09:33] Investment banker.

Harpreet: [00:09:35] That's awesome. That's a big it's awesome. But I remember clearly there's like two of my favorite

Harpreet: [00:09:40] Pubs or three of them

Harpreet: [00:09:41] Actually that that I really enjoyed. There was the press club. I don't know if you ever got a chance to go there and Claremont. And then there's a place called the it's called like the Abbey or

Harpreet: [00:09:50] Something like that. It was like a Belgian

Harpreet: [00:09:51] Style place where you can get all these craft beers and then there's really crazy like dueling pianos, jazz bar that I can't remember the

Harpreet: [00:09:58] Name of.

Liz: [00:09:59] I remember [00:10:00] the

Harpreet: [00:10:00] Press club, the other two

Liz: [00:10:01] I don't remember. We spent a lot of time on campus, so it wasn't like a go out on the town type of college, but it would have been fun. It was. Claremont is very it's very quiet. Yeah. I never found a place to go and be a college student and have a great time.

Harpreet: [00:10:19] Yeah, it is a cute little town, though.

Liz: [00:10:21] Yeah, yeah, it is.

Harpreet: [00:10:23] That's cool. It's cool getting to to know where you're from and what it was like there. Let's go ahead and jump into your book.

Harpreet: [00:10:28] But you know, before we do this,

Harpreet: [00:10:30] Let's let's help us get some clarity on what even is an emotion.

Liz: [00:10:35] Yeah. So there's actually not an agreed upon definition of an emotion. So if you ask 10 different researchers, you'll probably get 10 different definitions. But for the purposes of the book, in this conversation, we can just describe it as a strong

Harpreet: [00:10:49] Feeling that results

Liz: [00:10:51] From your circumstances, your mood, some kind of intuition. It's just like a strong feeling that you have.

Harpreet: [00:10:57] And so what would you say would be like some skills when it comes to emotions kind of for dealing with them in our day to day life, you lay out three core skills kind of towards the the end of the book, and I'm starting at the end of the book. We'll get to the beginning and talk about some of the other stuff. But I found it really interesting that you had these three core

Harpreet: [00:11:18] Skills for dealing with emotions in our day to

Harpreet: [00:11:20] Day life could share that. Bess.

Liz: [00:11:23] Yeah, so I might update them because the book came out two years ago, so I think what I would say now, the three core skills are still really similar, which is the first is acknowledgment and I would term that as partially emotional granularity, which is the ability to get really specific about what you're feeling. And that's been linked with all kinds of positive outcomes. So if we instead of saying I

Harpreet: [00:11:44] Feel bad, we can say, I

Liz: [00:11:46] Feel frustrated, I feel disappointed, I feel exhausted. That lets us more easily pinpoint the need behind our emotions. So that is first granularity. Then there's fluency, which is expression. So how do you talk about that emotion? If [00:12:00] you are frustrated with someone, how do you approach them? How do you have that difficult conversation without stepping on each other's toes? And then the last is understanding, which goes back to this idea of pinpointing the need behind a feeling. So every emotion is sort of a result of some kind of stimuli, and we can talk more about how to parse out what we should listen to. What's more, noise that maybe isn't as relevant to the situation, but it's still really useful to try and sit down and say, Why am I feeling this? Because then you can address what's going on

Harpreet: [00:12:33] And you talk about it pretty early on in your book as well. This really cool distinction between emotional intelligence and being reasonably emotional. Talk to us about that distinction and what's the difference between these two kind of ideas?

Liz: [00:12:49] Yes, emotional intelligence often has more to do, or it's described more often in the context of how you're interacting with other people so you walk into a room. Can you

Harpreet: [00:12:57] Perceive?

Liz: [00:12:58] Are people anxious or are they paying attention and reasonably emotional? Has a little more to do with what's going on within you. So when you have a feeling there's no one else around, can you parse out, OK, this is why I'm having this and should I actually act on this? So an example there is. If you've been stuck in traffic for two hours and you're feeling irritated and you go into a meeting and you find the other person really

Harpreet: [00:13:23] Irritating, they're probably

Liz: [00:13:25] Not irritated. You're probably just carrying that commute with you into the meeting. And so that's when it's really important to do that emotional, reasonably emotional, rational, emotional, whatever you want to

Harpreet: [00:13:34] Call it, work of saying like,

Liz: [00:13:35] I need to set this aside because it's not fair to the other person and it has nothing to do with them.

Harpreet: [00:13:41] Yeah, I mean, it seems like growing up, it was always like, Oh, emotions, you know, you got to keep them at bay, don't bring them to work, leave them at the door type of thing. But now I don't know if I don't want to call like a movement or whatever, but it's like now people become more smarter, more aware that actually, you know what? We are OK to [00:14:00] express ourselves to feel these emotions. What do you think has caused that change

Harpreet: [00:14:06] In belief or

Harpreet: [00:14:07] Stance in people over the last few decades?

Harpreet: [00:14:11] Yeah, there's a lot that has contributed to that.

Liz: [00:14:14] Probably some of the leading forces. One is women entering a lot of more traditional workplaces. So I think the way that men are socialized

Harpreet: [00:14:25] Often is keep the

Liz: [00:14:26] Emotions

Harpreet: [00:14:27] Suppressed. You're not. If you're if you're emotional, you're not rational.

Liz: [00:14:31] There's sort of used to.

Harpreet: [00:14:32] And it's a false

Liz: [00:14:33] Dichotomy, but that's put out there a lot and more often for men. And so just with women coming in, you know, they tend to be socialized to talk more about their

Harpreet: [00:14:40] Feelings, be more emotionally

Liz: [00:14:42] Intelligent, be more perceptive about people's needs. So I think that sort of socialization around genders and then more women in the workplace, more diversity in the workplace in general. So if you have people with different perspectives, it can feel a bit uncomfortable at first. But it's actually good to have that kind of conflict. But it just requires you to be able to navigate differing views. Understanding how to make a space in which people feel safe, sharing who they are. And then the third one. Yeah, I mean, the past year especially, I think, has really accelerated all of those trends that already existed. So I'm hearing in a way that I've never heard before companies really putting wellbeing at the forefront. Being concerned about

Harpreet: [00:15:23] Burnout.

Liz: [00:15:24] Having conversations about racial justice that never existed in the workplace before. So from just a variety of angles,

Harpreet: [00:15:32] I think talking more

Liz: [00:15:33] About our identities, our feelings in the workplace is it's just become impossible to ignore that. Talk about

Harpreet: [00:15:40] Burnout. You talk about this interesting concept in the book about being a work martyr.

Harpreet: [00:15:46] I don't know if the two are necessarily linked, but

Harpreet: [00:15:48] To kind of reminded me of that. Why is it that we have become these work markers?

Liz: [00:15:54] Yeah. So I think we often

Harpreet: [00:15:57] Conflate being

Liz: [00:15:58] Busy with feeling important. [00:16:00] So there's definitely and I had this for my parents to like working really hard. You get affirmation. Your boss sends you an email.

Harpreet: [00:16:09] I think the sort of constant

Liz: [00:16:11] Pinging of email and slack and everything it is in some sense, the constant validation just to have people to respond to. But then we tend to get sucked into our work and over the past year. Actually, the boundary between home and work for those of us working from home has disappeared completely, and so that makes it really easy. I found myself many days at

Harpreet: [00:16:30] Seven p.m. I've been in

Liz: [00:16:32] Meetings all day. I have not gone outside. I have not seen the Sun. I don't know what time it is. I've had no break between meetings and

Harpreet: [00:16:38] Then it's I think

Liz: [00:16:40] Once you're sort of in that mode, it's hard to pull yourself out because you start to think, Oh, if I take a break, everything's going to fall apart. So there's there's a lot. I don't know if this is such an eloquent

Harpreet: [00:16:52] Description, but one

Liz: [00:16:53] One anecdote I'll share here actually was my friend. She is incredibly ambitious, incredibly smart, and we had a conversation recently where she said she's realized over the past year she might have become a little less ambitious because she said she saw for the first time what her life would be like if it was only work. So for the first time, she was not seeing her friends. She was not, you know, she lives alone, so she didn't have anyone to interact with. And she was like, and it was really sad, like, I just wasn't a happy person. And so she has been thinking about maybe like still wanting to advance in her career, but maybe it's not the be all end all in her life.

Harpreet: [00:17:30] So as somebody who's and fellow introvert like myself here, being in meetings all day is super, super draining. How do you handle that? How do you find space throughout the day to kind of just detach from some of these demands that you have of your time?

Liz: [00:17:48] Yeah, I love this question. I am kind of obsessed with zoom fatigue or video call fatigue. So a couple of things. I think the first is blocking off heads down time for yourself [00:18:00] and then also especially if you're a manager creating with your team. So one of the recommendations I give is to create something called an it's OK to list. And so that's where you're taking these unwritten rules and making them explicit. So saying it's OK to block off time in the afternoon to focus, and we should all respect that. So do not schedule over someone's clock. Another one is if you can, if you know the person really well offering to turn the video call into a phone call and maybe both going outside and walking around while you're on the phone, being on a video call is incredibly unnatural. So if you and I were in a room, you know I might be looking at the window. I might be taking notes, but you would know that I was paying attention because we're in the same room together. But now, like if you took what we're doing now and did it in person, I would stand three feet away from you and I would just stare at you for an hour. And I think it would make both of us highly, highly uncomfortable. And not only am I staring at you, I'm staring at myself.

Harpreet: [00:18:52] So I think turning

Liz: [00:18:54] Off the video when possible is a small break. Hiding yourself view,

Harpreet: [00:18:59] I think, can actually reduce

Liz: [00:19:01] Your anxiety a lot because research shows that if we if there's a video of ourselves, we look at ourselves 70 percent of the

Harpreet: [00:19:06] Time. And so you're

Liz: [00:19:07] Hyper analyzing your expressions and how you look and yada.

Harpreet: [00:19:12] So yeah, I would say carving off

Liz: [00:19:14] Blocks of

Harpreet: [00:19:14] Time, normalizing

Liz: [00:19:15] That within your team. Oh, one last thing I'll say here that I found useful is switching to twenty five or fifty five minute meetings to give yourself that five minute break and actually starting the meeting instead of 10 a.m., starting at five a.m.. Because what I've seen is if you start at 10 a.m., everyone just blows past 10 twenty five and

Harpreet: [00:19:36] Suddenly you're you don't have that

Liz: [00:19:38] Break. So if you actually start meetings later, then you're building in that break time.

Harpreet: [00:19:43] I really like that idea in that tip of

Harpreet: [00:19:45] Blocking off

Harpreet: [00:19:46] Time in your calendar to to just say, Hey, this is heads down time.

Harpreet: [00:19:50] This time when I'm focusing, don't even think

Harpreet: [00:19:52] About scheduling a meeting at this time. How do we kind of communicate that to our team?

Harpreet: [00:19:56] Do we just say straight up like, Hey, look, I block

Harpreet: [00:19:58] Off time and [00:20:00] this is what I do? Please be respectful of it. Like, how can we make kind of normalize that in work cultures where people are just like, what are you talking about that we don't do that around here? Does that make sense?

Liz: [00:20:11] Yeah. So I think what you said is great just taking being a leader, whatever your role might be and setting aside that time, if you are in a work environment where it's not common, actually expressing why you're doing it. So saying I'm blocking at this time because I have these three projects and or like, I don't want to be blocking you, so I'm just going to try and finish a bunch of work. And usually, once you explain your reasoning, people understand and actually say, Oh, that would be useful for me to do as well. And then the second piece is what I mentioned earlier, which is this just getting together as a team and discussing the norms that you'd like

Harpreet: [00:20:47] To create and within that

Liz: [00:20:49] Creating space for someone to say, Hey, it would actually benefit me a lot to have two hours on Wednesdays when there's no meetings. I've actually I've heard from a lot of organizations that they're experimenting with no meeting afternoons or no meeting morning, so that's more of an institutional change. But yeah, I think just taking that first step as an individual is a good, good way to do it.

Harpreet: [00:21:09] And it's not as bad as like somebody might make it right. Like at first, when I was first doing this, I was like, Oh my God, people don't like, What the hell are you? So weird? Why is he just blocking time and telling me not to schedule time with him? But. It's like, oh, OK, well, that makes

Harpreet: [00:21:22] Complete sense, you work better in the

Harpreet: [00:21:24] Morning, so go ahead, block that time off. I won't bother you. It becomes OK when you just kind of explain yourself, right? Yeah. So speaking about burning out, I was going through

Harpreet: [00:21:35] Some severe

Harpreet: [00:21:36] Burnout type

Harpreet: [00:21:37] Of issues earlier this

Harpreet: [00:21:38] Year just because of all sorts of stuff, right? I didn't realize that I was starting to burn out until I was just getting headaches all day. I was constantly tired, cynical about everything. What are some ways we can identify that we're burning out before it gets to that point?

Liz: [00:21:56] Yeah. A friend recently said to me, so he

Harpreet: [00:21:59] Is [00:22:00] a burnout expert. His company is

Liz: [00:22:02] Called Join Flourish and they just consult people who are going through burnout. And he said that when it comes to burnout, there are moments when life taps you on the shoulder with a feather. And then there are moments when life hits you with a bus and your job

Harpreet: [00:22:16] As someone whose role is to take

Liz: [00:22:18] Care of yourself is to listen when it's a feather so that you don't get hit by the bus a

Harpreet: [00:22:21] Month later.

Liz: [00:22:22] And small ways to do that are exactly what you mentioned. So noticing if you're becoming really cynical, you every project, you're like, Oh, this isn't going to work or this company is doing well if you've become detached, so you're just not as engaged with your work anymore. Every day feels like a slog. There's nothing that you enjoy, and those are a couple of the things to look out for.

Harpreet: [00:22:46] And I mean, it is a serious issue. I guess the World Health Organization has labeled this natural type of illness. Is that the right way to call it or? Yeah. So it is real, and I think it's been exacerbated a lot by this pandemic situation and always on, always at work to have a culture moving on to another topic here. The topic I think Data scientists all love. Good paradox. You talk about an interesting paradox in your book

Harpreet: [00:23:14] The Positivity Paradox.

Harpreet: [00:23:15] Talk to us about what this is.

Liz: [00:23:18] Yeah. So the positivity paradox is often in response to people feeling burnt out or something.

Harpreet: [00:23:24] Going wrong is when

Liz: [00:23:26] You feel like you're forced to be positive. So always look on the bright side, just

Harpreet: [00:23:32] Cheer up,

Liz: [00:23:33] Just practice gratitude. Those are all sort of directionally nice

Harpreet: [00:23:37] Things, but again, they

Liz: [00:23:38] Place a burden

Harpreet: [00:23:39] On the person they're not

Liz: [00:23:40] Validating. Things are hard, especially over the past year. There's been a myriad of reasons why someone might be feeling might be struggling. So the positivity paradox

Harpreet: [00:23:49] Is that when you

Liz: [00:23:51] Feel like you have to be positive, you feel worse because you're required to do what's called surface acting. And that's also, I think it's very similar to emotional [00:24:00] labor.

Harpreet: [00:24:01] This shows up a lot in customer service jobs.

Liz: [00:24:04] So if a customer is being really rude to you and you kind of put a smile on your face, pretend like they're being totally reasonable and take whatever vitriol they're spitting at you, that's exhausting. And so this

Harpreet: [00:24:15] Performative positivity,

Liz: [00:24:17] That's when that actually becomes really damaging to the individual.

Harpreet: [00:24:21] And you also talk about this idea of the strategic optimist and the defensive pessimist.

Harpreet: [00:24:28] I just I love those names.

Harpreet: [00:24:29] I love those ideas that you had in your book. You talk to us about what they are.

Liz: [00:24:33] Yeah. So the defensive pessimist is someone who worries about the worst possible case scenario and then uses that as motivation to prepare. So I have a tendency to do this. I'll say, like, what if I bomb this presentation

Harpreet: [00:24:48] And I'll therefore

Liz: [00:24:49] Write out a script? I'll review my slides 15 times, do all of these things because I'm focused on this not failing.

Harpreet: [00:24:56] And then usually

Liz: [00:24:57] Things go well because I put in all this work. The strategic optimist

Harpreet: [00:25:00] Is kind of the

Liz: [00:25:02] Flip side, so they are always looking at what might go right. And yeah, so they envision kind of the best possible outcome and then work towards that

Harpreet: [00:25:11] And share a really cool technique. Or when you are feeling anxious, that's called reappraisal. I wonder if you could talk to us about how we can use that when we're feeling this tsunami of emotion coming to shore?

Liz: [00:25:27] Yeah. So reappraisal is when you take the physical sensations of an emotion

Harpreet: [00:25:32] And reframe it. So, for

Liz: [00:25:34] Example, the physical experience of stress or anxiety so your heartbeat quickens,

Harpreet: [00:25:39] Maybe your palms start to sweat.

Liz: [00:25:41] That's actually really similar to how our body responds to excitement.

Harpreet: [00:25:45] And so there's research

Liz: [00:25:47] From Harvard Business Schools Professor Alison Wood Brooks, and she found that if you find yourself incredibly stressed, let's say before presentation and you have all these physical symptoms, you can stop and say, I'm excited [00:26:00] to give this presentation and then that actually helps you perform better because you're harnessing everything that's going on in your body for a better outcome. So, you know, it's not always going to work, but I think it's useful to say like, OK, I have all this adrenaline rushing through me. I'm going to channel it and actually use this to perform better.

Harpreet: [00:26:19] It's really interesting that it's the same. Physiological response, right when you are anxious or excited and you can even use that like if you're going for like a job interview, let's say.

Harpreet: [00:26:28] Right.

Harpreet: [00:26:29] And instead of being like nervous about the job interview, just things yourself. Actually, this is exciting. I have an opportunity to speak with a awesome company and have an opportunity that could potentially change my life in so many positive ways. And kind of it's a subtle shift. I guess it

Harpreet: [00:26:45] Did. Did you find that it takes practice

Harpreet: [00:26:48] To start doing this reappraisal or

Harpreet: [00:26:50] Like, how can we kind of practice that

Harpreet: [00:26:52] In our day to day?

Harpreet: [00:26:53] Is it just, you know, when

Harpreet: [00:26:53] We feel anxious, just say, Oh, actually, no, it's excitement like it sounds hard to implement in practice.

Harpreet: [00:27:00] Yes, it's very much

Liz: [00:27:02] Easier said than done, but it is a skill to build and it's not. I think it's also having reasonable expectations around it. So it's not going to immediately change your life and all your problems are going to go away and you're never going to experience anxiety, but it does help. I think the example you gave is a great one before a job interview saying My heartbeat is quickening, I'm just feeling nervous. But that's actually also what my body would do if it was gearing up for something I really am excited about. And so maybe I can use the sharpened focus to just have faster answers like it actually might serve me a bit in this interview. And so that can

Harpreet: [00:27:38] Make you feel better. And yeah, I mean,

Liz: [00:27:40] I think even small, subtle shifts like that can go a long way in calming ourselves down.

Harpreet: [00:27:46] It's just that emotional kind of detachment, is that what you would call that

Harpreet: [00:27:50] Like, just

Harpreet: [00:27:51] Not not detachment, but like, what's that like, meta cognitive kind of stepping back and then just realizing what you are feeling,

Liz: [00:27:59] Right? [00:28:00] Yeah. So that's where I would say flagging your emotions is really powerful there. So often when we're in the grips of a really strong emotion, it's you just feel overwhelmed by it. And so even just stopping and saying

Harpreet: [00:28:15] I'm angry or I'm

Liz: [00:28:16] Anxious can help you take that initial step back of like, you know, another way to say it is even just to say, like, I'm a person who is feeling anxiety. And so you're again starting to remove yourself just from like, I'm an anxious person. I'm always like this. I've never able to get it together.

Harpreet: [00:28:31] So just like I'm a

Liz: [00:28:31] Person who in this moment is experiencing

Harpreet: [00:28:33] Anxiety. But if you can't do that,

Liz: [00:28:35] Then just saying, like, I'm anxious, I found that to be really useful, kind of jarring myself out of that, being in my head so much and taking that first step back to be able to analyze what's going on.

Harpreet: [00:28:46] Yeah, as somebody who is also in his head quite a

Harpreet: [00:28:48] Bit, I found

Harpreet: [00:28:49] Techniques like that to be very, very helpful in dealing with some of the crazy

Harpreet: [00:28:54] Emotions that go on in this thing.

Harpreet: [00:28:56] So changing topics again here, talking about remote work, now there's going to be a lot more remote work

Harpreet: [00:29:04] Happening in this world that we're in.

Harpreet: [00:29:07] Can you share some tips for newbies who are coming into an organization where maybe there's already these in-person relationships that have been developed and you're joining a team of colleagues kind of in this remote sense as a person on a screen like how can we develop meaningful work relationships if we're coming into a new environment in this virtual kind of world?

Liz: [00:29:31] Yeah, it's a great question, and I actually learned a lot. I talked to mark about this because he joined humor where I work during the pandemic. And so he started as a newbie and everyone else, not everyone, but a lot of people

Harpreet: [00:29:42] Knew each other and he

Liz: [00:29:44] Didn't know anyone yet. And a couple of things he mentioned that I think are really effective are just making it OK, making the new person know

Harpreet: [00:29:53] That it's totally

Liz: [00:29:54] Fine to ask questions and setting realistic expectations around onboarding. So even communicating, [00:30:00] we don't expect you to be up full like fully ramped up until six months. The first month is just about you understanding the organization,

Harpreet: [00:30:08] Learning the details of

Liz: [00:30:10] Your job, getting to know your manager. So ask a lot of questions. Set up meetings with a lot of people. If you're their manager, I think scheduling random one on one. So obviously they should meet everyone on the team,

Harpreet: [00:30:21] But also trying to mimic what would happen

Liz: [00:30:23] In an office. So if you're new, you bump into someone in the kitchen. If you're on marketing and they're in engineering, you're not going to normally interact with them, but it's still just good to know that person to feel embedded in the organization.

Harpreet: [00:30:35] And that's just not happening when we work remotely.

Liz: [00:30:37] So as much as you can as their manager facilitating that and then also starting onboarding before they even join. So I think what a lot of companies

Harpreet: [00:30:47] Do wrong is they

Liz: [00:30:49] Make a job offer and then you never talk to that person until their first day. And most people's emotional arc, especially in the remote world, is euphoria.

Harpreet: [00:30:58] When you get the job, you're so

Liz: [00:30:59] Excited you feel on top of the world, and then the closer you start to get, you just kind of go like this. Like, I'm so nervous. I don't know what it's going to be like. Why did I even get this? Can I do this? And so one thing I'll say there that actually hurt Idaho,

Harpreet: [00:31:14] Which is a global design

Liz: [00:31:15] Organization,

Harpreet: [00:31:16] Does is they do what's

Liz: [00:31:18] Called an interview. So it's a combination of interview and enter. And they take everyone who interviewed the candidate and they say, What's one thing that candidate did really well in the interview? What's one skill that you just cannot wait for them to bring to your team or company that you really need? And what's one thing you want to get to know about them personally? And then I think in the remote world, you could send this to that person a week ahead of time or on their first day. So they just automatically get this validation, this reminder of like you're bringing all these valuable things and a couple of conversation starters. So I think being really intentional around those first impressions, those first moments can make a huge difference.

Harpreet: [00:31:58] Yeah, really, really like that idea of that interview. [00:32:00]

Harpreet: [00:32:00] I mean,

Harpreet: [00:32:01] Me coming into a new organization, if I ever was like, I would love that people give me notes

Harpreet: [00:32:05] About why they think

Harpreet: [00:32:06] I'm awesome. Best thing. But then you also talk about this, the user manuals.

Harpreet: [00:32:11] So talk to us about

Harpreet: [00:32:12] Those, the user manuals and how can they help with developing and building team cohesion?

Liz: [00:32:18] Yeah. So basic premise of the book End of Life. For me, it's just different. People are different. And so it's really easy to bulldoze over someone's feelings if you have no idea how they like to work, how they like to communicate, if they're an introvert, extrovert, that kind of thing. And so user manuals. Molly, my coauthor and I did not come up with this idea, but we've adapted the idea and created our own, which we call like a guide to working with me. So they have five to 10 cups.

Harpreet: [00:32:45] Friends, you can come up with your own, you can Google online

Liz: [00:32:49] And find

Harpreet: [00:32:49] One. And they say things like

Liz: [00:32:51] When do you prefer downtime? How do you recharge? Are you an introvert? Are your extrovert? What might people misunderstand about you at first? What's the best way to communicate with you? What's one thing that drives you a little bonkers in the workplace? What do you value in a colleague?

Harpreet: [00:33:08] And it's really nice

Liz: [00:33:09] To actually schedule time and fill these out together as a team, and then you can make an activity out of having every person share what they're saying, and the goal is really

Harpreet: [00:33:18] To arrive at compromise.

Liz: [00:33:20] It's not. I've heard the questions sometimes where people say so if someone says that they like heads down time in the morning, does that mean I can never contact them in the morning?

Harpreet: [00:33:29] And that's not the goal of the user manual.

Liz: [00:33:31] It's more

Harpreet: [00:33:32] To just figure out

Liz: [00:33:33] A way of working together that feels good. So as an example, I did this recently with a team at Holmoe and our head of design. He really likes having focused time in the morning, and I really like having it an afternoon.

Harpreet: [00:33:45] And so what we agreed on

Liz: [00:33:47] Was that when we schedule meetings with each other, we'll try to schedule it like 11:00 a.m. or at one p.m. and we'll trade off so that we're both not scheduling over each other's focus times.

Harpreet: [00:33:59] I really, [00:34:00] really like that idea of the user manual. But is this something that we can implement regardless of, you know, the depth or length of a work relationship? Like, let's say you've been working with the same group of people for a while now, and maybe you don't know each other outside of a very specific type of context, right? How can we implement this without feeling weird about it? I don't know if it's just me that would feel weird about doing something like this. I feel weird about doing a lot of things. But, but but just like, Hey, here is a user manual for me, person. Like, how do we kind of make this happen? If it's not? I don't know if I'm rambling and my questions making sense,

Harpreet: [00:34:40] But that's trying to

Harpreet: [00:34:41] Think of ways to implement this. If we're already in a company that has a set culture and we're just trying to do something new.

Harpreet: [00:34:50] Yeah, it's a great question and one I

Liz: [00:34:53] Get these kinds of questions a lot when it comes to emotions at work where people say I'm bought in, but I don't know how to start making change. And I would say, whenever you're a little nervous about something where you're taking a small risk, it can be really valuable to frame it as an experiment. So saying, Hey, I listen to this podcast or I read this article and they do these user manuals, and here's all the things that it's supposed to help with. Why don't we try to do this together? I think also, if you're working with

Harpreet: [00:35:22] Someone new, it doesn't have

Liz: [00:35:24] To be as formal as

Harpreet: [00:35:25] Here's my worksheet. Fill out your

Liz: [00:35:27] Worksheet. Let's compare worksheets that can just be like, Hey, I think it'd be really useful for us as we're starting to work together more closely to just quickly chat about preferred ways of communication. You know, I think you can. You can sort of the nice thing is they can be flexible enough to accommodate any conversation, any team, any scenario. So I would really encourage people list out the questions that you actually are wondering about and that it would be useful for someone to know about you. And then you can also just frame it as a discussion, which might be a little less scary than the full worksheet experience.

Harpreet: [00:35:59] Yeah, because I mean, I absolutely [00:36:00] love all the stuff you talk about in your

Harpreet: [00:36:02] Book and,

Harpreet: [00:36:03] You know, like in life in general. I've been working on myself over the last few years and just trying to improve as a person in both personal and professional kind of life.

Harpreet: [00:36:11] And with a book

Harpreet: [00:36:12] Like like yours, no hard feelings,

Harpreet: [00:36:14] Which you guys should go get right

Harpreet: [00:36:16] Now. Get it on Amazon. I always feel like there's so many, so many good tips, right? But you know what, if I feel like I had this work persona or work personality or I have like a certain character at work and, you know, don't have this

Harpreet: [00:36:30] History of bringing my

Harpreet: [00:36:31] Whole

Harpreet: [00:36:32] Self to work, but

Harpreet: [00:36:33] Something that I want to do is something that I want to start implementing and then trying to implement some of the stuff that you know, you talk about in your book and maybe whatever other books people might be listening to feel like you're going out of character or more. Or maybe you're more

Harpreet: [00:36:46] Intentionally starting to try to bring yourself to work,

Harpreet: [00:36:49] If that makes sense, I guess. Can you share some tips for for someone like me who is trying to reinvent themselves, to talk openly about it? Is it as easy as just saying, Hey, look, maybe I haven't been the best colleague. I want to do better for myself, better for you guys. I want to try something that I read in this book. Here's what it is.

Harpreet: [00:37:05] Let's do it.

Harpreet: [00:37:06] How can we start doing some implementing some of the stuff that we're we're

Liz: [00:37:10] Learning books like yours? Yeah, that's a great question. The first thing I would say is the book is not kind of everything I say. It's not be a feelings firehose at work. You have to be so emotionally expressive.

Harpreet: [00:37:24] People actually have

Liz: [00:37:26] Different preferences and levels of emotional expression. So some people are under a voters. So they just their natural tendency is not to share so much about what they're feeling. And then on the other end of that spectrum, you have over motors and these are people where they feel it, you can tell right away. And so we all live somewhere on that spectrum. And I think if you are an underage voter, definitely trying to,

Harpreet: [00:37:48] Or maybe it's also

Liz: [00:37:49] Context dependent so you can be an overt voter with your friends, but then at work you're more of an underage voter. I think it's looking for small, safe ways to push yourself a little, but also being comfortable with the fact that [00:38:00] you're probably just never going to be dashing to all of your coworkers about everything all the time, and that's not actually not authentic to you. So it's a first it's OK to have a different base level of emotional expression than willing to share than other people. But yeah, I think it's

Harpreet: [00:38:15] A lot of it is building the

Liz: [00:38:16] Skill. And to do that. It's always best if you can do it in a safe environment. So I would start with someone at work that you trust that you have a relationship with. And maybe, yeah, you do the user manual with them first and then the two of you bring it to the team

Harpreet: [00:38:32] Or you share a little more

Liz: [00:38:34] About your personal life on a call and see what response you

Harpreet: [00:38:37] Get back.

Liz: [00:38:38] A really great way to facilitate more open conversations or more vulnerable discussions at work is also to ask questions. I think people often feel like to have a personal connection. It's depending on them sharing everything. But you can just say on a meeting like

Harpreet: [00:38:55] What's been hard for you lately or what was a

Liz: [00:38:57] Personal win for you last week? So something deeper than how are you feeling? And then the other person might share a little and then you might feel comfortable sharing.

Harpreet: [00:39:06] So I would say starting small

Liz: [00:39:08] Asking questions and starting with someone that you trust and already have some kind of relationship with.

Harpreet: [00:39:14] Thank you very much. I appreciate that because I've been on this, this thing over the last few years where I'm trying to really intentionally improve myself and just get better at life and being a colleague. And I work in general, and I remember when I first started doing things differently or trying to implement some of the stuff I was learning people just like, What the hell is wrong with you, man? Like, this is not not, you know, right? And it just felt weird ever since then. And I mean, it always feels easy to say, OK, I'm going to maybe I can start a new job and this new character can be me, and I'm going to be this new guy at this new place, like a fresh start type of thing. But not a lot of people can do that. Fresh start right away, right?

Harpreet: [00:39:52] And I think that's

Harpreet: [00:39:54] Really great

Harpreet: [00:39:54] Advice that you gave to

Harpreet: [00:39:57] Start implementing it where you're at. And if [00:40:00] you're curious whether you're under a motor or an open motor, you can go to listen for emotional expression and take the test. Turns out I am in under a motor

Liz: [00:40:11] Me, so I think a lot of introverts are.

Harpreet: [00:40:15] Yeah, yeah, it was. And there's a lot of cool self-assessments. You guys got there. Maybe we've got time. We can dig into them, but I really enjoyed them. Found the gifts

Harpreet: [00:40:25] You have for them. Really funny.

Harpreet: [00:40:28] It's interesting because I took the test for the decision making assessment and I got something that I thought was counterintuitive for me.

Harpreet: [00:40:38] But it was a in the moment healer.

Harpreet: [00:40:41] It talked us about what in the moment it is.

Liz: [00:40:44] Yeah, in the moment, feeler, how would I describe this? I think it's you tend to make decisions based on what you're feeling in the moment and treat those as important to the decision. And it's actually really, I would say, a always a good first step when you're making a decision is to stop because there's emotions that are relevant to that decision and then their emotions that are irrelevant to that decision. So if I'm thinking of taking a new job and the thought of not taking that job fills me with regret. That's a really important signal. It's telling me something about, I'm excited. I see this as an interesting opportunity. But if I slept really poorly and so the thought of taking a new job just fills me with anxiety and terror. It actually might be that I just slept badly, and so I'm less likely to take on risk and there's a lot of stuff going on. And so in that case, it's important we advise in the book like, write down everything you're feeling.

Harpreet: [00:41:40] So regret when I think

Liz: [00:41:42] Of Option A. I'm also feeling irritable. I'm feeling decaffeinated, whatever it might be,

Harpreet: [00:41:48] And then really

Liz: [00:41:48] Figuring out which of these feelings should I consider Data signals that I should include in my decision making process and which are really just noise like they're still valid feelings. I'm still experiencing [00:42:00] them, but they're not necessarily related to this decision I'm making.

Harpreet: [00:42:04] Yeah, I pride myself on being, you know, Mr. stoic philosopher who doesn't let his emotions cloud his

Harpreet: [00:42:10] Decisions unless he takes a step back

Harpreet: [00:42:12] From it. I was like, Oh my God, I'm actually

Harpreet: [00:42:14] In the moment.

Harpreet: [00:42:15] So, so counterintuitive to me. But but I really enjoyed these assessments that you guys have highly recommend. You guys check them out and they're all for free on the website, but definitely check that out. So let's talk about criticism a little bit. I don't know what it is, but I feel like

Harpreet: [00:42:29] Criticism is kind of like

Harpreet: [00:42:31] Destructive in a sense. Like if you look at the definition of the word,

Harpreet: [00:42:35] It's the expression of disapproval

Harpreet: [00:42:37] Of someone or something based on perceived faults or mistakes. So by definition, it's like kind of a negative thing to. Getting right, but how can we change that, how can we give criticism that actually helps someone and not make them feel like a piece of shit? And on the flip side, how can we receive criticism

Harpreet: [00:42:56] Without feeling like a piece of shit?

Liz: [00:42:57] Yeah. So I'll start with giving criticism. That's helpful. The first is the first point I would make is make it specific. So too often we hear you could have been better in that

Harpreet: [00:43:10] Meeting or

Liz: [00:43:11] That email just

Harpreet: [00:43:12] Wasn't so good. And that's

Liz: [00:43:13] Just horribly anxiety inducing because I have no idea what to do based on

Harpreet: [00:43:18] You could have been better in that meeting.

Liz: [00:43:20] So helping the person see like offering them a next step or getting as specific as possible so they can easily figure out the next step. So maybe saying, you know, in your presentation, you just immediately dove into the material. It would have been really great if you first gave like, here are the three points I'm going to make today to ground everyone so specific. And so it's the person is not going to spiral into this. Like, Am I a horrible employee? Do I do anything right?

Harpreet: [00:43:44] Because it's like, Oh, I just got to add the slide and we're good to go.

Liz: [00:43:48] And then a great way to give that kind of feedback is to frame it around bridging the gap. So saying, you know, you gave a presentation today. These were some strengths around it. I really believe that you could just [00:44:00] nail these kinds of situations. And so you could have people have an

Harpreet: [00:44:03] Emotional arc, be more

Liz: [00:44:05] Influential and really get your main points across. And the way to get there is to like, add this slide to do blah blah blah. And so there again, you're framing it as, I believe in you. Here's the picture of where I really think you can go. And then I'm going to offer you advice and mentorship along the way. So again, it's really priming

Harpreet: [00:44:23] The conversation and the

Liz: [00:44:25] Person to understand that you're really trying to help them, even if what you're saying is a little hard to hear.

Harpreet: [00:44:31] And how about for someone who's

Harpreet: [00:44:34] Finding themselves in a

Harpreet: [00:44:36] Situation now where they're going from being a coworker with someone on

Harpreet: [00:44:40] The same, you know, rungs

Harpreet: [00:44:41] On the ladder of the rest of the group, but now they're responsible for being the manager? Hmm. What? What tips can you share for somebody who finds himself in that position when it comes to giving feedback?

Harpreet: [00:44:53] Yeah, I would say

Liz: [00:44:55] I think it's still similar. So being

Harpreet: [00:44:57] Specific. And one thing that I

Liz: [00:45:00] Think is actually really important here

Harpreet: [00:45:02] Is often we withhold

Liz: [00:45:05] Feedback because we're afraid of seeming insensitive of hurting the other person's feelings. It's awkward, but when you withhold feedback, you're actually doing the person a disservice. So one of the people that I interviewed for the book, she was a black female engineer, only black person and only woman on her team. And she found that when her coworkers would sit together for code review, which I'm guessing your audience all knows what it is, but

Harpreet: [00:45:30] It's when you look over each

Liz: [00:45:31] Other's code and offer

Harpreet: [00:45:32] Feedback. They would just rip into

Liz: [00:45:34] Each other so they would be like Linus. Everyone is so bad I can't, even because they just had this friendly

Harpreet: [00:45:38] Relationship and they would just

Liz: [00:45:40] Go through the code for hours, telling each other what could be better. And when she would sit with

Harpreet: [00:45:45] Them, they would say

Liz: [00:45:47] It's basically great

Harpreet: [00:45:48] Like line

Liz: [00:45:49] Seventy one. I think there's a small change you could make, but overall, I think you're doing an amazing job. And then she finally had to talk with them and say, I'm not going to get

Harpreet: [00:45:58] Promoted because you're not [00:46:00]

Liz: [00:46:00] Telling me what I'm doing

Harpreet: [00:46:01] Wrong and I don't

Liz: [00:46:02] Want you to withhold that feedback. I want you to just kind of rip into my code in the same way that you would someone else's because you're like being the person you don't want to be by not helping me. And so I think that's just something really to keep in mind. Like if you become the manager and you see something that that person can do better,

Harpreet: [00:46:20] You should tell them. And again, there's like I said,

Liz: [00:46:22] There's those ways to frame it in a good way, but it's that's your job as a manager and you're actually helping them out by doing it

Harpreet: [00:46:28] Apart from from the feedback aspect of it. What are some other tips you might be able to share with that with our audience that find themselves in that situation where they've teammates now, all of a sudden,

Harpreet: [00:46:38] Their manager, right?

Harpreet: [00:46:40] So the relationship kind of does does change. Is there anything that we should watch out for any traps that we should avoid?

Liz: [00:46:47] Yeah, it's a great question. Yeah, I think they're part of being a manager or leader. Your job is to create stability and to not unduly burden your people. And so I think what you run, the risk of happening is that this was your peer that you used to vent to and you used to just talk about everything. And you probably need to walk back from that a little bit because you might be sharing things that aren't actually useful for them to know.

Harpreet: [00:47:18] You might be venting about

Liz: [00:47:20] Something that they can't really do anything about, and then that's a negative experience for them. And I think another thing to really watch out for is just favoritism of, you know, this person really well, you were on a team together and now you're maybe hiring new reports or bringing other people onto the team. So making sure that you're still creating an equitable environment. And I think all of that is just kind of inevitably it might feel uncomfortable at first. But if you do. It with transparency, so against thing like, hey, I really want this team to do well, I want to support you in your job. And there's a couple of things that need to change because of that. I think just as

Harpreet: [00:47:55] Much as you can be clear

Liz: [00:47:56] About why you're taking certain actions that can be really helpful as well. [00:48:00]

Harpreet: [00:48:00] And so I'm a very

Harpreet: [00:48:02] Introverted data scientist

Harpreet: [00:48:04] Who happens to find himself in a leadership position. I know many of my audience is likely in the same boat and someone like yourself who's also a introvert at a very high level leadership position. Can you share some tips for

Harpreet: [00:48:19] Us on

Harpreet: [00:48:20] How we can set ourselves up for success and how we can set our teams up for success if we've got kind of this

Harpreet: [00:48:27] Reserved introverted type of

Harpreet: [00:48:29] Demeanor?

Harpreet: [00:48:30] Yeah. So the best leaders

Liz: [00:48:32] Act as an observer, so that's somewhere in the middle. And one of the great things about introverts and especially introverted leaders is that they're much more likely to listen to the team. And so to elicit what are people suggestions, what are ideas because they're

Harpreet: [00:48:46] Not the care? Well, they can still be charismatic, but they're not the like.

Liz: [00:48:51] I'm going to run the show when I'm going to speak for 90 percent of the meeting, they're much less likely to do that. The place where introverted leaders tend to struggle a bit more is offering that one on one guidance, so having enough being available enough for conversations or giving feedback. So a couple of things I would say. One is just making sure, hopefully this everyone's doing this, but I think it's so important to have, like, very regular and structured one on one with each person on your team and to make sure that those are not just status updates that you're actually getting into. Like, how are things going? What's blocking your work? Is there anything I can do to support you, things like that that you're having those time for conversations, especially your extroverted reports, will want to have that connection with you and then in team meetings. One of my I think, especially now that we're on video calls by 4:00 p.m. if I'm on a video call, I just want to get to the material. Talk about it and be done.

Harpreet: [00:49:46] And then I just

Liz: [00:49:47] Want to stop talking to

Harpreet: [00:49:48] People. And so I've

Liz: [00:49:49] Had to build the skill of actually saying the first five minutes of this meeting are for personal connection. So let's start out with a

Harpreet: [00:49:56] Prompt and

Liz: [00:49:57] Maybe depending on the culture of your organization [00:50:00] that can be like, let's all go around and say, like one thing we did this week, that was fun. It can be like, what food is underrated, like whatever feels natural for you? But making sure that you're still setting aside that time for those interpersonal relationships for like, it's not as much or it is for you, but it's also for your team to come together and feel connected to one another. So I think making a priority to have like scheduled times for just connection, I think that's a really important one that sometimes is harder for introverts.

Harpreet: [00:50:32] Yeah, definitely. I mean,

Harpreet: [00:50:34] I'm guilty of not having

Harpreet: [00:50:35] Regularly scheduled one on one with the people who report up to me that are kind of more. They're not necessarily one on ones, they're just group meetings once a week with us three or four. Chatting together. But I could definitely

Harpreet: [00:50:50] See the benefit of having

Harpreet: [00:50:52] That one on one to further develop that relationship with the person and kind of understand how it can help them better. Candy team culture exist. That's kind of like a separate culture from

Harpreet: [00:51:05] Like the work culture.

Harpreet: [00:51:06] And how do we go about defining or cultivating a team culture?

Liz: [00:51:12] Yeah. So there's a concept called an emotional culture,

Harpreet: [00:51:16] Which is how you feel in a space. And Adam

Liz: [00:51:19] Grant, who's the Wharton professor who says you can often get at what an emotional culture is by saying, What is one

Harpreet: [00:51:26] Thing that would only

Liz: [00:51:27] Happen on your team

Harpreet: [00:51:28] Or in your

Liz: [00:51:29] Organization? And the stories usually indicate something about what that culture is. But yeah, I mean, a quick example of this is, I think in hospitals, this is in the research that Molly, my coauthor and I did. There's often one culture where nurses are interacting with patients. There's another culture where it's just nurses, and maybe they need to vent a little bit.

Harpreet: [00:51:49] And there's another culture

Liz: [00:51:50] With nurses and doctors.

Harpreet: [00:51:52] So there's definitely

Liz: [00:51:53] Different cultures that form. It's very normal. And then what was the second part of your question?

Harpreet: [00:51:58] Work culture is how we can [00:52:00]

Harpreet: [00:52:00] Study team cultures, how

Harpreet: [00:52:01] We can cultivate them if the kind of larger company

Harpreet: [00:52:05] Culture is radically

Harpreet: [00:52:06] Different from

Harpreet: [00:52:07] What it is that we're trying to create as a team. Yeah.

Liz: [00:52:10] So I think it's just good to know that you can have a different culture on your team. And the way that these cultures form is it really comes down to these small gestures. So when you walk in to a room or like if you join a Zoom call or people catching up with each other, are they saying thank you for someone who's helped them out? Are they offering praise to each other? Or does it seem like people care about recognizing someone's contributions? And those are not huge roll outs,

Harpreet: [00:52:37] They're not big programs

Liz: [00:52:39] Or initiatives. It's just as simple as saying like, Hey, I really appreciate you having me on the podcast today or just offering like a compliment. And that is completely within anyone's control to do within a meeting or a team setting. And so, yeah, I think it's just kind of recognizing

Harpreet: [00:52:56] What are the even if they seem

Liz: [00:52:58] Small, they can have a big impact. So what are those? Ways that you can influence the culture around you and then making it a point to actually act on that.

Harpreet: [00:53:06] Really like that question that you mentioned? I think it's a great question to ask, actually, when you are interviewing for a

Harpreet: [00:53:11] Company, what's something

Harpreet: [00:53:13] That would only happen on this team? Was that that question that were that right?

Liz: [00:53:17] Yeah. So I've done

Harpreet: [00:53:18] This and

Liz: [00:53:20] I've done it in these job interviews. I've done this and just like interviewing people for the book, and it's funny how either someone has a really quick, amazing response. So it's like what I needed to take time off. My manager was so supportive and it's this wonderful story.

Harpreet: [00:53:35] Or they have this like

Liz: [00:53:36] Frozen in the headlights moment where they're just like and you can tell that they're immediately thinking of

Harpreet: [00:53:41] Something bad.

Liz: [00:53:42] And that's usually a bad sign if their first reaction is just to, like, freeze up and not really know what to say. So, yeah, I think it can be pretty illuminating question.

Harpreet: [00:53:50] So the next couple of questions I want to get into touch on this theme of psychological safety. First question is it's about, you know, because as data scientists, we work on a lot of

Harpreet: [00:53:58] Really ambiguous [00:54:00]

Harpreet: [00:54:00] Problem statements. And I know it happens to me, and I know it happens to many members of the audience where

Harpreet: [00:54:07] They might be

Harpreet: [00:54:08] Scared to not ask a question because they don't want to look incompetent

Harpreet: [00:54:14] Or they don't want to look like they don't know what

Harpreet: [00:54:16] They're doing. So how can we go about asking for for guidance without looking incompetent? And I don't even know if I like the way I phrased that question, but hopefully you get the gist of what I'm trying to ask.

Liz: [00:54:30] The first is, I would say, hopefully you're in a culture where you can just ask questions and you don't see that psychological safety is feeling like you can ask anything. And no one's going to think poorly of

Harpreet: [00:54:40] You or think that you're immediately incompetent if you don't

Liz: [00:54:43] Exist in that culture. I would say flagging just why you want to learn it. So I think that sort of sets you up as really focusing on still being a high performer, a competent person and saying like, Hey, you know, I want to make sure that I'm doing this correctly. Can you clarify this piece for me again? So I think adding that little bit of context at the beginning is very useful. And yeah, I mean, I think another thing is, especially in a team setting. Yeah, I think adding the context and then it's hard. This is why I paused. It's hard to be the courageous person to do this.

Harpreet: [00:55:17] But often if you're the one

Liz: [00:55:19] Asking a question, other people have also been wondering what's going on. And so you're actually doing a service to the team. But it does take it takes courage. If you're not in a culture of psychological safety to be that person to ask the question,

Harpreet: [00:55:32] Can we like intentionally manufacture that type of culture in

Harpreet: [00:55:36] A team like, let's say,

Harpreet: [00:55:39] Maybe this team doesn't have the history of psychological safety? Is it something that we can

Harpreet: [00:55:44] Easily or readily

Harpreet: [00:55:46] Manufacture or is it, you know, either you have it or you don't?

Liz: [00:55:50] You can. So you have more sway if you are the manager or the leader, just because you sort of set the example and people are more likely to follow your behavior. [00:56:00]

Harpreet: [00:56:00] But even as an

Liz: [00:56:01] Individual, it can go so far to say something like if you ask a question in a meeting, and I just chime in and say, Oh, I'm glad you asked that I was wondering the same thing that just, I validate your question. I make it look like you're not

Harpreet: [00:56:14] Incompetent, that that just does

Liz: [00:56:16] So much. And again, I think it's really important also to validate unique perspective. So even if it's not a question, if someone takes a small risk in a meeting and says, I kind of disagree with this, here's why actually chiming in tonight, I'm so glad you pointed that out. I hadn't thought about it that way. And I think that's really useful. So it's again, it's these small moments of stepping in and amplifying other people, validating them, recognizing their contributions

Harpreet: [00:56:44] That do make people

Liz: [00:56:45] Feel psychological safety.

Harpreet: [00:56:47] But what about those people who just always seem to disagree

Harpreet: [00:56:51] And and

Harpreet: [00:56:52] Question everything that comes out of our mouth, right? How do we deal with with these people? So you talk about three the trifecta of bad

Harpreet: [00:57:00] Apples in

Harpreet: [00:57:01] The book, you got the jerk, the the center and the slacker characters, which, you know, I might have played a little bit all throughout my career in varying degrees

Harpreet: [00:57:11] Talks about

Harpreet: [00:57:12] How who these people who these people are and how can we how can we work with them? How can we deal with them? How can we navigate these types of individuals?

Liz: [00:57:23] Yeah. So if you're the manager, if you have a bad apple on your team, it's really important that you either work with them on improving or ultimately get rid of them because it's true that a bad apple poisons the bunch like it will just destroy your team's culture, even if it's just this one person. So the specifics are jerks. These are just people who are really mean are not going to listen to you or actively destroying psychological safety. And if you work with, you know, I think kind of the most straightforward piece of advice is just distancing yourself from them as much as possible. And so if the manager isn't taking action, if you can like when you're in a physical space, sit far away from them if you can get up and move to a couch. [00:58:00] Or if you can just slowly move away from being staffed on projects with them, again, it's just a bad situation. There's not a clear here's the right thing to do.

Harpreet: [00:58:09] Dissenters So these are

Liz: [00:58:11] People like you mentioned who

Harpreet: [00:58:12] Are just always

Liz: [00:58:12] Picking apart anyone's idea. So they're usually also not additive. So they're not saying like, I don't think that could work. Here's why. And here's a better suggestion. The one thing that we did at a previous company that I really loved was the manager made a rule

Harpreet: [00:58:27] Where it was.

Liz: [00:58:27] You always have to append Kolan suggestion to any time you dissent, so you're allowed to dissent. But it has to be like, I don't agree with that idea.

Harpreet: [00:58:36] Colon, here's

Liz: [00:58:37] What I think we should do instead. And if you don't have that second piece, you cannot dissent. And I think that creates

Harpreet: [00:58:42] A more supportive

Liz: [00:58:44] Or at least a culture of improvement. And then the third one, the slacker. If you're a manager, I think it's useful to think about the context in which this person is slacking like, is it that they were usually a good performer and now something's happening. And so you should have a conversation with them about it if it just seems like from day one,

Harpreet: [00:59:03] They're not pulling their weight,

Liz: [00:59:05] Starting to have conversations, but it's very similar. It's like to have a high performing team in which people feel safe and motivated. You need to weed that. At least we need that kind of behavior out really quickly.

Harpreet: [00:59:18] Of these three personalities, is there one that you just just really can't stand that just happens to just

Harpreet: [00:59:24] Really push your

Harpreet: [00:59:26] Buttons in the worst way?

Liz: [00:59:28] I think the jerk and the dissenter are very similar, so I would say, like the dissenting judge drives me up the wall because it's so easy to point out why something won't work. There's a billion reasons why an idea is not necessarily good or right, and you're always working within constraints. So to me, it's just like it takes no effort to do that and then to just sit back and be like, Now I've contributed.

Harpreet: [00:59:54] We're done here.

Liz: [00:59:56] I find it extremely frustrating.

Harpreet: [00:59:58] I fucking cannot stand those [01:00:00] goddamn dissenters. Do they get on my last like,

Harpreet: [01:00:03] You know, like there's like the

Harpreet: [01:00:04] Classic military line, either lead, follow or get out of the way. These dissenters want a fourth option. They don't want to lead. They don't want to follow. They don't want to get out of the way. Just want to tell you why the thing's not going to work. Yeah, I mean, it's so they just want to poke holes in things. And I guess it's OK to poke holes with things as long as, like you say, come up with a solution, right? Mm hmm. Yeah. But yeah, I cannot stand this

Harpreet: [01:00:28] That

Harpreet: [01:00:29] Cannot stand them. So I was wondering if you can help the dudes and Data science kind of understand how we can use our voices to support the women in Data science and just women in our organizations in general?

Liz: [01:00:47] Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, one is going back to this not withholding feedback. So I'm not advising you to suddenly go up to everyone and be like, here's the 10 things you're doing wrong. Definitely not saying

Harpreet: [01:00:59] That, but

Liz: [01:01:00] To think about. So one of the interesting pieces of research that came up is that male managers

Harpreet: [01:01:07] Will sometimes withhold feedback

Liz: [01:01:09] From women. Their reports are women because they're like, I don't want to make her cry. I don't want to make her sad. I just I'm afraid of having this like kind of awkward emotional situation. And the predominant reason that women cry in the workplace is not because they're sad, it's because they're frustrated. And so I would say one,

Harpreet: [01:01:26] Don't withhold the feedback. Be a mentor.

Liz: [01:01:28] Do it in the right way.

Harpreet: [01:01:29] Be specific. Frame it around

Liz: [01:01:31] Bridging the gap. Another is just really through amplification. So making sure that you're not inadvertently taking credit, or at least not giving recognition where it's due in a meeting. And this goes not just for men to women, it's sort of for everyone is noticing. I think on virtual calls, especially

Harpreet: [01:01:50] Like if someone

Liz: [01:01:51] Unmute themselves and then mutes themselves just being like, Oh, I noticed that Kelly kind of didn't have a chance to say something like, I'd love to hear from you, something like [01:02:00] that. Again, it comes down on an individual level to these small gestures that do create culture because they establish the norms.

Harpreet: [01:02:10] That's it. That's the

Harpreet: [01:02:11] Good one that noticing

Harpreet: [01:02:13] Who's like meeting and meeting themselves and giving them an opportunity to speak if you see that.

Liz: [01:02:17] I say this is someone who has unmuted and myself. And so along those lines, it's also with video calls in particular, especially if it's a bigger group. It's so useful to have a facilitator, so they're kind of meeting, monitor or whatever you want to call them. And their job is just to make sure that there's equitable discussion

Harpreet: [01:02:36] That people, if someone

Liz: [01:02:37] Unmuted themselves, that they can have a chance to speak,

Harpreet: [01:02:41] I think they can

Liz: [01:02:42] Take notes, whatever, but it's useful to have that role. What I've also found is if there's like 10 people on a video call having the facilitator say, like, we're all going to go around and answer the prompt and we're going to go in this order so that everyone knows like, OK, here's one, I'll be speaking, and it's not this awkward back and forth of trying to figure out. Who should say what one?

Harpreet: [01:03:01] Yeah, the really good advice. Part of what I do as part of the podcast that I host to open officers, one of them is a data science

Harpreet: [01:03:09] Happy hour that can get up

Harpreet: [01:03:10] To 50 people that sometimes just all talking about, you know, a discussion topic. And I feel like having to moderate and monitor that has

Harpreet: [01:03:19] Become such a

Harpreet: [01:03:20] Clutch skill to have in this

Liz: [01:03:23] World that

Harpreet: [01:03:23] We live in.

Liz: [01:03:24] Yeah, totally. It makes it it makes the conversation flow a lot more easily.

Harpreet: [01:03:30] Me, if you can hook us up with some negotiation tips

Harpreet: [01:03:32] Before we we

Harpreet: [01:03:34] Wind down here. There's one line in particular which we can put dollars in our pockets if we use it during a negotiation.

Harpreet: [01:03:43] Talk to us about that.

Liz: [01:03:44] Yes, this is Molly's line. So I. Let me see if I can remember it accurately. Otherwise, you should correct me.

Harpreet: [01:03:51] But this

Liz: [01:03:52] Is attributed to Molly, and it's one salary negotiation or in a salary

Harpreet: [01:03:55] Negotiation saying

Liz: [01:03:57] That you don't want salary to [01:04:00] be a distraction for you in your role. And what's nice about

Harpreet: [01:04:02] That is you're not

Liz: [01:04:04] Creating like an antagonistic

Harpreet: [01:04:06] Relationship. You're really framing it

Liz: [01:04:08] As, look, we both want me to be able to focus, to be here for a long time, to feel happy

Harpreet: [01:04:13] And to do that, I need

Liz: [01:04:15] Something more. So, yeah, that's an effective one. It's like coming back and saying, I don't want this to be a distraction.

Harpreet: [01:04:22] Yeah, absolutely love that. And if I ever find myself in a negotiation, I'm going to

Harpreet: [01:04:26] Try to implement

Harpreet: [01:04:27] That. It probably doesn't work well when you're trying to buy a car. Don't use that.

Liz: [01:04:33] So, yeah, it doesn't apply to all situations.

Harpreet: [01:04:37] So last

Harpreet: [01:04:37] Question before you jump into a real quick what I call

Harpreet: [01:04:40] Random round.

Harpreet: [01:04:41] It is one hundred years in the future. What do you want to be remembered for

Liz: [01:04:46] Giving people permission to feel feelings? And that's kind of

Harpreet: [01:04:51] Nebulous, but I have found

Liz: [01:04:53] So often

Harpreet: [01:04:54] A lot of the illustration

Liz: [01:04:56] Work that I do. People will reach out and say it's just so comforting to know that someone else is struggling with this or that someone else has felt this and that I'm not alone. And so I think when we feel bad, we often feel bad about feeling bad and then we only make ourselves feel worse. So if we can just kind of learn this muscle of I'm having a feeling it's OK if I have a down day, that's OK, too. How can I move forward? What? Like what? Even if it's something really small, what can I do to kind of improve the situation? I think that would be really amazing.

Harpreet: [01:05:30] Well, you definitely have helped me. So thank you very much.

Harpreet: [01:05:34] Right? And I love that. I love that feel feelings. You guys signed the book off with that at the at the very end, you'll feel it's a really, really like that. It is

Harpreet: [01:05:45] Something in the book where

Harpreet: [01:05:46] I guess it was someone's brother was messaging their sister and always ending with a with a message that was like, like, be happy or something like that. And she finally was like,

Harpreet: [01:05:58] Can't

Harpreet: [01:05:59] Can't be happy [01:06:00] all the time. That's yeah. Yes. I really mean, it helped change my perspective a little bit on that. I would always be like, Mr. Positive. And then I'm like, Oh, sure. Positivity is bad. Not bad. I mean, you know, like that.

Liz: [01:06:13] Yeah, I think it's really common for us. I have this tendency to, especially when someone is sharing something hard they're going through to just jump into fix it mode. So be like, here are three things you can try. Why don't you do blah blah blah? And sometimes they just want to be heard and to be understood. So one thing I'll I'll end with this before we get to the last question. I have a friend who has done a lot of emotion research,

Harpreet: [01:06:37] And when I came to

Liz: [01:06:38] Him and I was like, I just need to vent about something, he said, OK, stop one second. Do you want me to a listen and validate you and nod to be offer some solutions or see how you could fix it or you want me to see, just like vent with you and be on your team?

Harpreet: [01:06:53] And I thought it was

Liz: [01:06:54] So useful because I was like, I just want you to validate me. I'm not here to look for solutions. And so for him, it was like, I want to be supportive for you. Here are three ways that I can do that. What do you want in this moment? So I thought that was a funny, useful thing.

Harpreet: [01:07:08] I love it. That is. That's perfect.

Harpreet: [01:07:11] So let's jump into

Harpreet: [01:07:12] The real quick random around here.

Harpreet: [01:07:14] My first question is, when do you think the first video to hit one billion views on YouTube will happen?

Harpreet: [01:07:21] And what do you think

Harpreet: [01:07:22] That video will be about?

Liz: [01:07:23] Well, how close are we? Do you know how close we are right now?

Harpreet: [01:07:26] We're pretty damn for it right now. It's like Baby Baby Shark with nine billion views.

Liz: [01:07:31] Oh my god. What will it be? I think that's why I love Dogecoin, so I think Dogecoin is going to hit sixty thousand and then somehow a video around

Harpreet: [01:07:45] That will get it'll just break

Liz: [01:07:47] All the records in the world. Are you Dogecoin

Harpreet: [01:07:51] Billionaire?

Liz: [01:07:52] No, no. I'm a Dogecoin like thousand. Dare I say I put in like a hundred bucks?

Harpreet: [01:07:58] Wait a long time ago, [01:08:00]

Harpreet: [01:08:01] In your opinion, what do most people think within the first few seconds of meeting you for the first time?

Liz: [01:08:07] Oh, I don't know kind of what you said. They probably just think I'm just like a normal white girl. Yeah, I don't know. Probably how I present. I like, I don't.

Harpreet: [01:08:18] I don't feel

Liz: [01:08:19] Like I have that distinctive of a look.

Harpreet: [01:08:22] Yeah. Well, my next question is going to be, who do people tell you that you look like? But we can we can skip that if you like.

Liz: [01:08:28] I don't know if I've ever gotten. Something I'm going to say, people tell me I look like Scarlett Johansson.

Harpreet: [01:08:35] So what are you currently reading?

Liz: [01:08:38] I'm currently reading Pachinko, which is a novel about four generations of, I believe, a Korean family. I just started it. And let's see if there's some kind of hell on my desk. I have tough days, visual explanation books, so I'm a huge fan of his work. I think especially in Data science, like presenting that information is so important.

Harpreet: [01:09:00] And that's tough. How do you spell that?

Liz: [01:09:03] Edward Tufte. So he might be retired now. But he wrote a while ago three books all about data visualization and kind of like, very nerdy. So you have to be really interesting to read that visualization, but does best practices about making sure it's simple, not overcomplicating the Data. Like, how do you effectively tell an accurate story about Data to an audience that might not be Data savvy?

Harpreet: [01:09:30] Definitely enough to check that one out. Thank you very much for that. What song do you have on repeat?

Liz: [01:09:36] What song do oh, no, right now I have like a Justin Bieber song, and that's a good song, slightly peaches. That's good. I got to give credit

Harpreet: [01:09:50] Where credit is due.

Harpreet: [01:09:51] There you go. I got to go check that one out. Open up the random question generator.

Harpreet: [01:09:57] The first one

Harpreet: [01:09:58] From our random question generator is [01:10:00] What languages do you speak?

Liz: [01:10:02] German and theoretically, French, because I took it for many years, but I can't claim it. And then English, obviously,

Harpreet: [01:10:09] Who is one of your best friends and what do you love about them?

Liz: [01:10:14] I'm going to go with a corny answer, which is my husband and I love that he

Harpreet: [01:10:21] Makes me think I think he's

Liz: [01:10:23] Really good at. Especially when I have a strong reaction to something presenting an alternate perspective and just making me question some of the conclusions that I've jumped to.

Harpreet: [01:10:33] So I was watching one of your interviews. I think it was from the plywood, something out of plywood, something yesterday, and you're talking about how you were at a party just kind of hovering around and somebody was like, Oh, we're talking about this, why don't you come on in? Is that he ended up married?

Liz: [01:10:51] That's the guy. Yeah. So this is my introvert networking tip, but I don't recommend, which is just like standing near a group of people and hoping that someone will eventually engage with you.

Harpreet: [01:11:03] That's my thing to do. I do. I'm just like, but we let's say where somebody who's part of the circle and we see somebody on the outskirts trying to come in, how can we make them feel more welcome?

Liz: [01:11:18] Yeah. So it's just saying like, Hey, who are you? Here's me. Here's these people. We're talking about X, and you don't have to put them on the spot. But just like it can be that simple, or you can say, like, what

Harpreet: [01:11:28] Do you think? Or you can.

Liz: [01:11:30] Another great way is if there's a natural pause in the conversation just to start the conversation over, it's just giving them the full context so that they feel like they can jump in when they want to.

Harpreet: [01:11:41] Thank you. What's the best thing you got from one of your parents Legos?

Liz: [01:11:48] So I

Harpreet: [01:11:49] Love Legos, and I

Liz: [01:11:52] Saw my parents for the first time in a while. Last week I flew to Chicago and they had.

Harpreet: [01:11:58] They surprised

Liz: [01:11:58] Me with a Lego [01:12:00] airplane kit and I am three, and I still was like, This is the greatest thing I've ever

Harpreet: [01:12:05] Seen. That's so

Liz: [01:12:06] Awesome. Yeah, so never too old for Lego.

Harpreet: [01:12:10] I saw something floating around on LinkedIn earlier today, and if I find it, I'll give you the link. I think you'd enjoy it.

Harpreet: [01:12:16] And it was somebody had

Harpreet: [01:12:17] A Lego column wall right in their house. Whoa. Call those made of Legos, but it was like it was plastered in some places, so it looked really interesting. And then he'd open up like a little door and you look inside and it's like a Lego disco club with just these Legos.

Liz: [01:12:35] Just I love it. Yeah. Oh my God.

Harpreet: [01:12:38] If I find it, I'll tag unit or send it over. It sounds amazing. You really enjoy that. What's your go to dance move?

Liz: [01:12:45] I think it's more just an array of random jerking movements. But I'll go with this one.

Harpreet: [01:12:53] You guys will have to tune in to the the YouTube channel for those listening on the podcast to see that. What does that move called that like?

Harpreet: [01:13:00] Plugging your

Liz: [01:13:01] Called the. It's called the like snorkeling or something?

Harpreet: [01:13:04] Yeah.

Harpreet: [01:13:06] Liz, how can people connect with you and where can they find you online?

Liz: [01:13:10] Yeah. So I'm on all the socials, except for TikTok. Don't have that. Liz Fox Lane, Fox Listen, and then no hard feelings is the book. And Molly and I have assessments and guides and other resources that live in Molly. That's Molly.

Harpreet: [01:13:27] And then on Instagram as well, right? You got all your illustrations.

Liz: [01:13:30] Yep.

Harpreet: [01:13:31] Yep, a link to all of that right there in the show notes. Liz, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to be on the show today. I really appreciate having you here.

Liz: [01:13:38] Yeah, thanks so much. This is really fun.