1022: How–and Why–to Stop Overapologizing with Shira Miller

Pete Mockaitis
Shira, welcome.

Shira Miller
Hi, Pete. Glad to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m glad to be chatting with you. We’re talking apologies, and I’m excited to dig deep into this notion of apology speak. Could you kick us off by sharing your own apology story?

Shira Miller
Oh, boy, do I have one. I spent the first 40 years of my life in a constant state of apology. I’m talking about apologizing when I won speaking trophies, and for when I would win awards at work, and the men in my life maybe weren’t so excited about that. And the most significant apology story I have to share took place back in 2009.

I used to have a public relations firm, and from the outside it looked like we were doing so well. We were in a fancy office tower, I had big-name clients, we’ve won a lot of awards. And then, I remember, in May 2009, we had about four pieces of business out for bid, and none of them came back, and that was highly unusual.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that the Great Recession was coming through the country and that it was about to demolish my business along with 200,000 others across the country. So, I was caught unawares, I had $100,000 worth of business debt, I had to let go of wonderful employees, and I spent my time constantly apologizing.

I honestly knocked myself out for the next four years to take care of all the work, to get rid of the debt. I did it all by myself. I ran my health into the ground. And then, at the end, when I should’ve been celebrating because I survived, what did I do, Pete? I apologized. That’s what I did.

Pete Mockaitis
To whom?

Shira Miller
To the world. I kept telling people, “Gosh, I feel stupid. I can’t believe that I got myself in this situation.” Instead of standing proud to think, “I got through one of the biggest challenges of my life,” I put myself down, self-deprecating language, constantly said I was sorry to anyone that would listen.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, tell us, Shira, what’s the harm or problem in saying we’re sorry often? Isn’t that kind of a polite, friendly thing to do?

Shira Miller
You know, you would think that it is on the surface, and sometimes that is people’s intention with it, but when you apologize for no reason, you are telling the rest of the world, subconsciously, that you don’t matter. You are trying to maybe diffuse a tense situation, perhaps you don’t want to shine brightly and you dim your own light to make other people feel better about themselves, but it’s saying to the world and yourself that you are coming in second, and that your opinion and your ideas don’t matter.

And when it comes to work, if there are two people up for the same promotion, who do you think is going to get it? The woman who stands in front of a room and says, “I’m sorry” as the first words out of her mouth, or the person, the woman who stands there confidently, owning her accomplishments?

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, maybe we can disentangle or distinguish a little bit what’s up. Because I imagine, from your perspective, and you tell me if that’s the case, it would be appropriate to apologize when we have genuinely injured another, made a mistake, failed to deliver on a promise or an expectation. These seem like fine times to apologize.

Shira Miller
Absolutely. The whole premise here is that when you’ve done something wrong, all of the examples you gave, if you’re thinking about the workplace, if you missed a deadline, you took credit for someone else’s ideas, you cast a shade on somebody else, you need to own that. That is worthy of an apology, and issue one.

But in those circumstances, when you’re using apology speak, which is my name for starting a sentence with “I’m sorry,” when you’ve done nothing wrong, or self-deprecating phrases, like, “In my humble opinion,” when you start out by saying that, or, “I’m not an expert but…” you’re literally telling the room, “Okay, I don’t know as much,” or, “My great ideas, they don’t matter.”

Pete Mockaitis
So, could you share with us perhaps any data, evidence, research, science studies that speak to, really, the big stakes impact, consequentiality, if that’s a word, of this stuff?

Shira Miller
So, if you dig into the why of why we’re doing it, I know your audience is primarily female so I’m going to go with that example, the University of Waterloo did a study, and they found that women apologize more than men. And to that I say, “Duh!” I mean, we all know this but Mila Jovanovic, who is a sociologist in Canada, she digs deeper into the theory of why we’re doing it.

And her theory is that women are socialized into being people-pleasers from a young age, and the apology speak is part of it, when we’re taught to say “I’m sorry” to go along or get along, or diffuse a tense situation. But if you dig deeper into the research, a lot of it stems from impostor syndrome. KPMG came out with a study a couple of years ago that found that 75% of female executives felt impostor syndrome.

And, as you know, that is a behavioral phenomenon where you might have tremendous accomplishments but you don’t feel good enough. You feel like you don’t deserve that seat at the table even if you spent the past 5, 10, 15 years working for it. And that can really undermine your confidence.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, over-apologizing, in some way, sounds as though it’s a bit of an indicator or a symptom of some underlying stuff, which might be low self-esteem, or a tendency to people-please, or put others’ thoughts, opinions, priorities, needs above your own habitually. And so, that’s kind of what I’m hearing. But, in addition to the indicator, it sounds like you’re saying that the actual act of over-apologizing does us harm.

Shira Miller
It is a form of self-sabotage. It hurts your career. It hurts your credibility. It hurts you at home as well. It’s hard to have really rich conversations about difficult topics with the people you’ve got relationships with if you’re feeling overwhelmed and you just start saying, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” to shut down a hard topic. You’re not really digging into what’s going on, and that hurts you professionally and personally.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, could you dig into that example a little bit more? There’s a conversation going on, and you say, “I’m sorry,” and bow out.

Shira Miller
Yes. Let’s say that you’re having an argument with your significant other. Maybe it’s about finances, about latest credit card spending, and when you are asked the question, “Why did you spend all of that money?” instead of thinking, “Okay, let’s talk. What’s going on? Is it a budget issue that I need to talk about with my significant other? Is there a problem? I’m earning my own money,” instead you just raise your hands in the air and you deflect it, and go, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

But you’re not actually dealing into, “Are you dealing with a control freak? Are you dealing with a spending problem you’ve got? Is it a lack of communication about your budget parameters?” You’re not going into the real stuff that helps us have good relationships at home as well as at work.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, that’s one form of apologizing. It’s almost like we’ve got a taxonomy of apologies here…

Shira Miller
We do.

Pete Mockaitis
…is the avoidance apology, “I’m sorry.” Can you share with us some other flavors or categories and how they’re harmful?

Shira Miller
When you start apologizing for things that are out of your control. For example, “I’m sorry it’s raining,” “I’m sorry traffic is bad.” Unless you’re Mother Nature, you’re not controlling those factors. And when that’s the first thing out of your mouth, rather than acknowledging the person or what the subject is that you’re going to be meeting about, it takes away the focus of your interaction or the time.

Another work example is when you say, “I’m sorry to bother you,” because when you’re using that language, you are immediately setting up your conversation as an imposition. You’re saying that their time matters more than yours, whereas, you can shift the language to, instead, say, “Do you have a moment to talk about an important issue?” or, “Can I get your perspective on this project?” Those are words of ownership, and you deserve to have their time because it’s going to make everybody work smarter and better.

Pete Mockaitis
I see. So, in a raining environment, I’m imagining of an event coordinator. We’re having a lovely picnic in the park event, and it’s raining, and that’s genuinely disappointing for all of us who imagined a different kind of a scenario.

So, it’s intriguing because in that context, if you’re the event planner of this, you are disappointed that things have not gone the way you had hoped, and you recognize that they, too, in the crowd, are disappointed. It has not gone your way.

But to apologize for the rain, you’re right, it’s sort of nonsense, as you’ve said, in terms of, like, you did not make it rain. And yet, here we are experiencing some disappointment due to rain. So, what would be a superior linguistic substitution?

Shira Miller
What you can start out with is acknowledging your audience, the people in the group, “Thank you for your patience. We’re dealing with a rain situation but you guys are so resilient that we’re easily going to be able to take everything, move inside, and get on with our meeting, and have the best time yet.”

Pete Mockaitis
You know, it’s funny, as we’re talking about when it’s appropriate to apologize and not apologize, I’m sort of imagining the response following the “I’m sorry.” It’s as if the response “I forgive you” is nonsense, then maybe it’s probably not right to apologize in that moment, like, “I’m sorry it’s raining.” “Hey, I forgive you, Shira, for making it rain.” It’s like, “Oh, okay. Point taken. It doesn’t really make sense here.”

And that’s a whole other conversation but in terms of “I forgive you.” It’s funny, with my wife, I like to hear that. She does not like to hear that because it feels like, if I say, “I forgive you,” I’m acknowledging, “Yes, in fact, you have wronged me,” and she would prefer a “No big deal,” or, “That’s okay.” But I like “I forgive you” because I know I screwed up, and to hear that I’ve been released of any debt or burden or obligation or ill will associated with that error feels nice to me.

Shira Miller
And it sounds like you are very clear on your linguistic choices and hers in feeling acknowledged in a conversation.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. Well, it’s funny, now that we’re talking about romance, I recall, one time, I was driving home to visit my mom and dad, and I had my girlfriend at the time in the car. And so, I was driving, and she wanted to text them to let them know how the timing was unfolding. And it was really interesting in the moment because she’s texting on my phone because I’m not texting and driving, and so she’s writing on behalf of me.

And so, she said, “Okay, I’ll text them right now. I’m saying, ‘Oh, sorry, it looks like we’re going to get there in about 4:30.’” And I remember saying, “Hmm, can we delete the sorry?” And she’s like, “What? Why?” And we had a whole conversation. This is, like, the only time I’ve talked in depth about the apology language prior to now.

And I thought, “Well, I don’t think that we’ve actually done anything wrong in terms of we have not communicated a specific timing expectation. We didn’t make any unwise choices and it just feels out of place.” I wasn’t even thinking about harm. It just felt off to me intuitively.

Shira Miller
You’ve got a great intuitive meter because, yeah, when you start with a sorry and you’ve done nothing wrong, there was no established arrival time, then it might set it up for another apology when you show up, where you were bringing your girlfriend home. Your family was probably delighted to meet her, and it was a time for family togetherness and joy. There was no need for an apology.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s right. Well, tell us, if we do need to interrupt somebody, that’s one time I think of sorrys happening. It seems kind of appropriate to me to apologize for interrupting, even though the thing needs to be communicated immediately. What’s your hot take there?

Shira Miller
I think you can do that in a couple different ways and a lot of it depends on your tone. If someone is starting to go in detail then you know it needs to be corrected or added on. It can be, “Emily, I love your point. And can I please add one more thing to your message?” When you kind of pop in and you make it fun, acknowledging the person who’s speaking, that’s a way to do it.

Or, you could say, “Hey, pardon my interruption for just a second. I got to add something to your message right now,” or, “Here’s my clarifying point.” When you start it that way, as long as you don’t take away from the messages that are being communicated by the person who’s got the floor.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. I’m also thinking that if you’re apologizing frequently, that sends a message, maybe like in a negotiation context, and many contexts are really negotiation contexts under the surface, “I want something. You want something. And so, here we are in conversation.” Kwame Christian is a friend of mine. He hosts the podcast Negotiate Anything, and he’s wonderful. He’s a former guest.

And he said, “A negotiation is conversation which somebody wants something.” And so, I think in that definition, a person who apologizes frequently, I get the impression as a counterparty to that negotiation, and I try not to abuse this. I get the impression that if I’m a little bit more assertive, I’m likely to gain concessions because of their discomfort, because I know I’m a people-pleaser, too.

It’s like, “Oh, this person is kind of like me. So, if I let them know that I have an expectation or I’m a little bit unhappy with the thing,” which I am, honestly, I’m not, like, faking it to game the negotiation, “then I have a higher probability of receiving consideration from them,” as oppose to a stone-cold negotiator, like, “I don’t care if you don’t like it. This is what I can do.”

Shira Miller
Well, what you’re doing is recognizing an opportunity, because when someone starts with an apology speak, they don’t feel solid in their position. There’s some sort of weakness. They don’t feel confident. That’s what it’s saying. Even if they are the most brilliant person in the room, because of their language, they’re not coming across that way. So, when you’re talking about the example of a negotiation, you’re just being a smart negotiator spotting an opportunity that you will leverage to have a better deal.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. And it’s funny, I was just in a negotiating conversation yesterday, I almost said I’m sorry. She asked, “What’s the price?” I said, “$12,000.00” She said, “Can you do 10?” And I said, “I respect and appreciate you asking but I cannot.”

Shira Miller
Beautiful. You had no sorry in it, right? You just said no.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it was almost there, though. It was close. Cool. Well, so tell us, you’ve got a system, five ways to break the cycle of unnecessary apologies. Lay them on us.

Shira Miller
Well, you are so brilliant. You already started going into this. So, the first step, Pete, is to determine if an apology is necessary, and sometimes it is. If you have actually done something wrong, we went through several examples earlier, issue a genuine apology. And I’m going to give you a non-work example here but it’s just a really public one that we all know of.

If you think about the Academy Awards, when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, he needed to issue an apology, and he didn’t issue one right away to Chris Rock. He apologized to his family and the world but it took him a while. Now, Chris Rock didn’t accept the apology. That was his prerogative, he didn’t have to. But Smith absolutely had to apologize. He did something wrong.

But when you don’t, when you’ve done nothing wrong, reserve your apologies for when they actually matter. Because if you’re the constantly-saying-you’re-sorry person in your language, it diffuses it when you actually have done something wrong and need to make an apology. So, that is step one.

Step two is to pay attention, and this is a really quick homework assignment for anybody who’s listening that wants to immediately change a situation. Start writing down, it could be a hash mark, it could be the details. Every time you find yourself over the next three or four days making an unnecessary apology.

Like, let’s say that you’re at the grocery store, you’re minding your own business pushing your cart, someone else is playing on their phone, they’re not paying attention, they run into you and your cart, and you look at them, and go, “Oh, hey, I’m sorry.” You didn’t do anything wrong. So, just note all of that and look at the end, three or four days, if you’re trying to be real A student, do it for a week to really find out, and then start tallying it up.

If you’ve done it a couple times, that’s one thing. Maybe it’s in the dozens, this is a real problem. So, start to find the connection points. Is there a common denominator? Is there a director at work who’s really difficult and he prompts that situation whenever you’re in a meeting? Or maybe it’s your mother-in-law. I’m not even trying to go to vaudeville jokes here, but it might be a frenemy.

It could be somebody like that. You find yourself constantly apologizing when you’re with that person, they’re the trigger. And when you understand it by paying attention, you can plan ahead not to apologize and choose other words instead.

Shira Miller
The third step is to reframe your words. So, think about what you’re actually trying to communicate with an apology. Often, the intention is to connect with another person. Maybe you’re trying to express sympathy or empathy. Make the sentiment the focus of your words. So, let’s say you’re running late for a meeting.

Instead of running in the room, “Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I was late,” and constantly talking about it and why and the parking garage was a mess, just focus on “Thank you for your patience. I’m so excited to dig into this presentation today,” and then get into the meeting. You’ve acknowledged the people for their graciousness, and then you move on. So, it’s a point of connection, and reframing your words to actually fit the sentiment.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, Shira, if I can pause there for a moment.

Shira Miller
Sure.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, in that context, it seems like it may very well be appropriate that as a person who is late, you have, indeed, I don’t want to be dramatic, but you have harmed people. You have harmed people by your tardiness, and I mean, it’s not life or death, but, yeah, it is an inconvenience, a distraction of time has unfolded as a result of your tardiness.

And so, “I’m sorry” doesn’t seem out of place to me. Now going on about the parking garage, of course, burns more time, which is so that’s worse than make it snappy. But what’s your take on that one?

Shira Miller
I think that’s a great question, Pete. If you are really late, if you’re 15, 20 minutes late, yeah, you need to apologize. I’m talking if you’re a couple of minutes late – the elevator was slow, the parking garage was a problem. If you’re one or two minutes late, okay. If you do know, though, this is knowing your audience, let’s say that you’re talking to some prospective clients, and time management is really big on their list of priorities, yeah, you do go into that and say, “I’m sorry I was a couple of minutes late. I appreciate your flexibility and your patience. Let’s get right into this.” That’s knowing your audience.

But it’s the dramatic, “Oh, my gosh, I was late, and here’s why. And my kid was sick this morning and traffic was horrible.” People don’t want that verbal vomit with the sorry.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Next step?

Shira Miller
Next step is something I call claiming your accomplishments. And so, think about one thing that you were great at. So, before you start your day each morning, take a minute to think about your one good thing, and how that quality or skill makes you feel.

Does it make you feel happy? Proud? I want you to say it out loud and express your gratitude. Because when you start your day by thinking about your best quality or skill, that helps you unlock your full potential. It helps with the feelings of impostor syndrome, the feeling you’re not good enough, and it strengthens your confidence muscles so that you’re not delving into the state of over-apologizing.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Shira Miller
Final step there is to set boundaries, and start from a place of confidence. Think about the good work that you do and the value that you offer. You don’t need to over-prove yourself all of the time. Say no when it’s a project that you simply don’t have time to handle. It’s all in the delivery. If it’s an opportunity that you’re not interested in, when you say no to others, you can say yes to yourself more often. So, setting boundaries will also help you stop over-apologizing.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Beautiful. And can we dig into a little bit of, I suppose, the underlying foundational psychological thing in terms of if we really do view ourselves as less than, inferior, dumb, not worthy of whatever, we’re impostors, do you have any…you mentioned claiming your accomplishments, which is phenomenal. Can we expand upon approaches by which we develop this inner strength and confidence?

Shira Miller
I’ve got two things for you here. So, the first is a lot of the self-doubt comes from your inner saboteur, and that is the internal voice in your head that is talking trash about you to yourself, so it’s negative self-talk. And it might’ve started years ago when you were trying to protect yourself, “Oh, don’t get on that slide. You might get hurt,” when you were a kid, or, “Don’t raise your hand in class. You might sound stupid.” So, it might’ve started young. But when you’re doing it as a conscious adult, it’s holding you back.

So, when you start to hear that critical voice in your head, and part of you knows that it’s completely off base but it’s just an old habit, that’s what a negative self-talk is, just like apology speak, you can actually talk back to the self-talk. You can say, whether it’s an out-loud conversation, as long as there aren’t a lot of people around thinking that you’re going off into a crazy spiral, but you could say, “Thank you but I’m done now. I don’t need that protection. What you’re saying, I’ve outgrown it. It’s actually incorrect.”

You could write yourself a letter. You could journal about it. That is a tool to try to deal with negative self-talk. Another tool that I’ve created is something called a reverse bucket list. And you know the concept of a bucket list, things you want to do, aspirations, before you die, before you kick the bucket. In this case, I ask people to take 10 minutes and write down a list of everything you’ve accomplished, and I want as many things as you can think of.

Did you put yourself through college? Did you end a cycle of family addiction? Did you get promoted in your first job after two years? Are you the first female director in your organization? Everything. List it. And then once you take the time to write that down in 10 minutes, go back and read it because what you’ve done is created evidence, proof of your capabilities, of your resilience, and you can take that list out, that reverse bucket list anytime you’re not feeling confident. It’s an instant trick that will help build your confidence.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, Shira, I did, in fact, create a list like this in college. I was being rejected for a lot of things, and I was sad. And it was very helpful because self-doubt really did creep in, I was like, “Oh, maybe I’m really not that smart or capable, in general. Geez, everyone keeps rejecting me for these cool opportunities and things I’m applying for.”

And so, I made a big old list, and I referred to it, and it was quite handy. I went to it often. But now I’m thinking back to a conversation we had with Victor Cheng in episode 500 about developing unshakeable self-confidence. I’m curious about our underlying foundation, and we’re getting real philosophical here, Shira.

Shira Miller
Love it.

Pete Mockaitis
In terms of it’s not ideal to pin our sense of value and worth to accomplishments, although it can be handy in a particular context if you think, “I’m no good at this,” like, “Hey, here’s the evidence. You’re pretty good at this.” But even at a deeper level in terms of, like, your general sense of goodness, worthiness, capability, do you have any thoughts on that?

Shira Miller
Yes, and I think that’s a very powerful message. The tool I just talked about is great if you’re not feeling confident in a work situation, or, honestly, a personal situation. You can just change the attitude, the mood, the mentality but you really do need to go deeper. The most important relationship that you have in this world is with yourself. And you need to have an innate self of your worth. You need to be able to trust yourself, and it’s deeper.

And so, I’ve done a lot of work on that over the years through journaling, therapy. Some people work with a professional coach such as yourself. Those are some wonderful ways in which you can build stronger, deeper, unshakeable confidence that will bolster you no matter what you face in your life. It is a deeper journey on the long term.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, this is a lot of cool stuff, Shira. Could you tell us a fun story of someone who stopped their over-apologizing ways and what kind of impact that made for them?

Shira Miller
So, the first person coming to my mind is a friend who was a partner in a $500 million consulting company. Very successful. She was raised in a hard situation, grew up in a double-wide trailer in Alabama, her parents constantly put her down, so she felt like she always had something to over-prove, and didn’t feel like she deserved a seat at the table, ended up putting herself through to good schools, worked for some of the biggest companies in the country, but she always found herself apologizing.

And even as recently as about a year ago, and, again, she’s a partner, she’s a board member at this $500 million company, when the CEO was talking to her one day about a co-worker who wasn’t performing, what did she say? “I’m sorry.” She kept apologizing because a co-worker wasn’t performing. She did nothing wrong. The CEO was consulting with her to try to get a solution, and that was her first indication, “Oh, I really have a problem.”

And so, when she realized this, we started talking about it. She knew that I could offer her some tips, and she started the exercise I said about actually writing it down when you’re doing it. Her name is Cindy. I know she’s not going to care if I use her name. Cindy wrote it down and realized that the list was pretty high, especially for somebody who has such tremendous accomplishments.

So, for her, it was gaining the awareness. And whenever she found herself in conversations that would normally trigger it or with people, she came in there armed and ready to stand more in her power than apologizing for somebody else not delivering work or a situation she had no control over.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And then what happened?

Shira Miller
Oh, gosh, I’ll tell you what. It did great for her well-being. She finds herself just really, and this is a woman who is in her 50s, so you can change this at any time in your career. I just want to be really clear about that. It decreased her stress at work.

She realized, “The whole problems of this company and the world are not on my own shoulders. I don’t need to take that on. I don’t need to say ‘I’m sorry for that.’ I can listen. I can be empathetic to it, but, really, people want me to talk more about positive solutions, and I’ll take ownership of a problem that’s not mine.” So, it’s greater well-being and less stress.

Pete Mockaitis
Fantastic. Well, Shira, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Shira Miller
I just want you to know that you can stop over-apologizing at any time. I did. When I was about 46 years old, there were a whole bunch of circumstances that happened that just made me realize, “I’m done with this BS. I’m not going to sit there and apologize for things when I did nothing wrong anymore.” And it was such a sense of empowerment and ownership, and you can start immediately.

You can practice. Go into one situation that you know, that normally triggers over-apologizing, and don’t do it, and see what happens. See what happens in the room with everybody else, and see how you feel about yourself. It’s going to be a big confidence boost and I bet that it’s going to help you own your greatness even more at work.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. Now, could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Shira Miller
So, this is from Albert Einstein, and he said, “Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than one with all the facts.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Shira Miller
Gallup does some wonderful research on workplace wellbeing. And what I love is that they have shown that when employees prioritize their physical and their psychological wellness, your overall well-being, and whether that’s through exercise, having good conversations, engaging in things that align with your values, you’re going to have better job satisfaction, your wellness is going to be better, your actual health, you think smarter. So, I love that people realize, and studies like this that well-being at work is really critical to your performance and the overall success of the company.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Shira Miller
It’s called Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success. This book came out like eight or nine years ago, but I constantly go back to it because it has so many helpful tips.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, Brad Stulberg was on the show talking about that, and it is fantastic. And a favorite tool?

Shira Miller
I have become obsessed with ChatGPT. I do a lot of writing, I have to do a lot of research at work, and it can’t create original content well, but whenever I’m trying to dig into a topic and get more insights, it’s a wonderful tool to just go deeper and give me different perspectives, insights, research. It has saved me so much time. I love it.

Pete Mockaitis
Could you give us an example or prompt that has made all the difference for you?

Shira Miller
Yes. So, recently, I’ve been developing a new keynote that is about activating the remarkable and it’s harnessing the power of optimism in the workplace. So, I wanted to go in and I wanted to get examples of companies that had really inspiring value-based purpose statements because that’s one of the ways in which you activate the remarkable. You help people reignite the why, find their purpose.

And so, I went in, it gave me a bunch of examples. And then I said, “Drill down even further and I want you to have companies that did well in 2024,” because I wanted profitable companies. And so, it came back and, for example, Airbnb is high on the list, Netflix, Moderna. And so, I was able to go ahead and get those examples rather than spend hours and hours of research just by using ChatGPT, the paid version.

Pete Mockaitis
I see. So, you said, “Hey, give me an example of someone at Moderna who did this thing.”

Shira Miller
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
That is a great use case there in terms of I think you said it just right. I don’t trust its words to be good but I do trust it to surface swell things faster than Google and with more specificity. I like Perplexity for this as well. So, right on. And favorite habit as well, could we hear that?

Shira Miller
I am one of those early morning exercisers. I did not start that way. I was not a morning person 30 years ago, but that is how I get my magic and how I start the day doing something completely for myself. So, I work out almost every day before I get the day started. And it just gives me energy and optimism and makes everything go smoother.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you often?

Shira Miller
No matter where you find yourself in life, I don’t care how old you are, what your circumstances are, you can get unstuck. You can start today. You can start now.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Shira Miller
I would say follow me on LinkedIn. It’s Shira Miller. I’d love to have you there. I always post new content. I’ve got a newsletter. I’ve got videos and a lot of helpful content that I’d love to share.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Shira Miller
If you want to be awesome at your jobs, I want you to own your greatness, and you can start immediately by stop apologizing when you’ve done nothing wrong. We’ve given you the tools today. Pick one step. Start to do it, and you’re going to be amazed at how your confidence soars.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Shira, thank you.

Shira Miller
Thank you. This has been wonderful.