117: Making the Workplace More Human with Liz Ryan

Pete Mockaitis
Liz, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to Be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Liz Ryan
Hey, thanks for having me, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’d love to start us off. If you could tell us a little bit about the backstory there of being a professional opera singer and how that ties into everything else you’re doing.

Liz Ryan
Well, I started out at a high school going to conservatory to study vocal performance to be an opera singer. And I’m still an opera singer now, but I kind of got sucked into the HR vortex somewhere along the way. Actually, way back in 1984, I was working an office job because a lot of opera singers wait tables and so did I. I was waiting tables in New York. And then I moved to Chicago when I was 19, but I didn’t realize the drinking age was 21 in Illinois back then.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, wow.

Liz Ryan
And so I couldn’t wait tables at a decent place where I could make good tips, so I had to go inside and get an office job. And that’s how I became an office person and then eventually an HR person. But I think that there’s nothing about business that makes it less artsy than anything else, than painting or drawing or singing opera. We only have agreed. We’ve sort of gone into these group agreements that business is somehow less art-y than other parts of life. And I don’t believe that’s true. You don’t believe that, do you, Pete?

Pete Mockaitis
No. It’s so fun. I have all kinds of fun and creative ideas. And that’s one of my favorite things to do at work, business, is to try them out.

Liz Ryan
Exactly. Express yourself. And so, to me, this idea of arts in work is a powerful idea that can change the way we look at work. Certainly, if we just boil down work to the idea that it’s a transaction where one person puts in hours and elbow grease, and the other person gives them money, that’s really a degradation of what’s possible when people bring themselves and their creativity to work. And so my mission at my company, which is called Human Workplace, is to get this human piece back into work. And so, long story short, I became an HR person, like I said, in 1984 when the Cubs won championship.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s right.

Liz Ryan
And that’s long I’ve been an HR person. And doing HR all that time, I really saw that when people are allowed to be themselves at work and bring their creativity and their passion and connect to their own power source, whatever that is, at work, it’s just a better deal for everybody, for the shareholders, the customers, of course the employees. It’s just a healthier environment. And so, as an HR person, that’s what I’ve always tried to build. And now I teach it from the outside as a writer and publisher and speaker and whatever, is this idea of people powering work in a way that really the mechanical model that we typically follow today really gets in the way of and impedes.

Pete Mockaitis
Interesting. So if your objective at the Human Workplace is to bring humanity back into the workplace, I’d love to get a sense from you, if you think historically, when did we start losing humanity in the workplace, or was it always absent from the get-go? And how are some means by which we can identify, “Ooh, some humanity is lost there and needs to be restored”?

Liz Ryan
Well, it certainly goes back to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, Pete, when we started to view the people part of work, the part of work that people contribute, which is 90% of work, right? Machines are great, from the earliest industrial machines to the machines that we use today, but they are powered by people. And when they’re not anymore, then I don’t know what I’ll do for a living. But for now, work is powered by people. But we tend to cancel that part out and we say that your job description could basically be filled by anyone. You just fulfill these tasks and take on these responsibilities. And it starts here, and it stops here. And then the next piece of the machinery is that another person takes the work and they do this to it.
So we’ve really mechanized this human part of work, which is idiotic because people are so much more creative and passionate and innovative and collaborative than their job descriptions really allow them to be. And so we kept down that flame that people could bring to work every day. And it’s because of fear, Pete. It’s managerial fear of letting people just bring their awesomeness, letting people bring their passion and their power, and speak with their own voice. And so we gird them and hem them in with policies and rules, which don’t make any sense.
I was an HR person, Pete, for a company that grew from 100 employees to 10,000 employees, and $15 million in annual sales to almost $3 billion in annual sales. And we did it by trusting the people that we hired. We just said, “You know what? You’re awesome. Come and work here. Figure out the job. We’ll help you. Bring your best. Give your good ideas.” And we didn’t have the bureaucracy and we didn’t have any problems. We didn’t have attendance problems. We didn’t have an attendance policy, and we didn’t have attendance problems, and we didn’t have claims and disputes and conflicts the way I hear HR people talking about incessantly because we made it a human environment full of love and trust and creativity and good humor and winning. And that’s I think what every organization can do.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that sounds quite lovely to be in that kind of an organization, in that kind of an environment. And so I guess I’m wondering. There’s probably some degree of rule or policy or guideline or boundary that’s in play even if it’s minimal. So you’re saying, “Hey, forget the attendance policy. That’s not necessary.” What would you say are some things that do belong in terms of keeping order or structure?

Liz Ryan
Well, when you say keeping order, that’s right away… When did you ever get together with people, Pete, in the grocery store or at the farmer’s market or at the school, so you could watch your kids in the sixth grade choir perform? And the first word is order. You said “keep order.” Why do you have to keep order? Is it an unruly mob? It’s just a weird frame of mind.
The only reason we talk about keeping order at work is because we’ve drunk so much toxic lemonade that tells us that employees will somehow be unruly if they’re not managed. It’s just utter garbage. It’s not true.

Pete Mockaitis
I guess you’re right. The phrase “keep order” conjures up an image that you’re speaking to with regard to we need to be in lines and rows and matrices and desks and seated and well-behaved. I guess what I was trying to communicate with “keep order” was ensure that we are progressing toward the objectives of revenue, profitability, shareholder value creation, etc.

Liz Ryan
And again, you’ve got the house and you’ve got all the working people coming in in their own car or their own truck, with their own crew. “Do the drywall. Do this and that.” There’s no order to be kept, but there is a foreman probably. There’s a general contractor who walks around saying, “How is it going with the electricity? It’s doing all right? Okay, cool. You need anything from me? You got any problems?” You see what I’m saying?
That contractor treats the craftspeople who show up at the job site like businesspeople and like adults. And we tend at work, in this frame we call employment, to treat people like children, back to the school and the rows. And that’s the big difference. For some reason, we honor entrepreneurs with dignity in a way that we tend not to do with employees.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. It’s a great point. It seems like they’re glorified entrepreneurs. I see a lot of podcasts. It’s so funny. I’m distinctive apparently as a podcast called “How to Be Awesome at Your Job” because most podcasts in the career space are like “Escape the 9:00 to 5:00. Abandon the cubicle nation. Get out of there.” And so you’re right. There is sort of like a societal or cultural something which seems to say that the entrepreneur is really where it’s at.

Liz Ryan
Absolutely, Pete. In fact, not only is it glorified. And believe me, I know all about entrepreneurs, and I want people who have a job, who have a salary job, a W2 job to be entrepreneurs in the sense that they run their career the way an entrepreneur runs his or her career, so that we don’t say, “Well, it’s my boss’ decision. What are you going to do? That’s just the company policy. What are you going to do?” Oh, no, baby doll. You’re going to step up and be yourself and bring your voice.
Find your backbone and your vocal cords, and you’re going to speak about the things that are important to you, up to and including if you need to leave your job, you’re going to leave your job and go to a place where they deserve you more. So this idea of being passive because you’re an employee, that’s nonsense, too. That’s buying into the brokenness and the toxicity. Some people solve that problem by working for themselves, which is great. And some people solve the problem by demanding a workplace that actually deserves them.

Pete Mockaitis
This is powerful stuff. Thank you. So I would love to hear maybe some examples of times that you’ve gotten your hands-on influence on an organization or team and seen some transformations there in terms of “We had some soul-crushing, humanity-draining, bureaucratic stuff that then got lifted,” and then what happened with that.

Liz Ryan
Yes. So it’s the consulting side of our business. In terms of consulting with organizations, nobody has ever contacted us at Human Workplace to say, “We have draconian, inhuman policies that we need to fix,” because that’s not the way… Nobody calls for that reason. They call because they have pain.
So I write and talk incessantly about pain and solutions, pain relief. And people call because they have pain. Organizations call because they have turnover that’s unacceptable. People have lost faith, so they have cultural problems. They have that thing called presenteeism, or people show up to work but their hearts are not in it. They’ve had management changes. They have a problem that’s actually hurting them. It’s hurting them in the pocketbook and it’s hurting them in their bonus, and all of these tangible things that get people to pick up the phone and say, “Maybe we could use some help.”
So it’s not that they’ve done anything wrong.  They just flew too closely to this mechanical model for work that all of us have been sold over the last 200 years, including in business schools and workshops and seminars incessantly. “Here’s how you manage.” No. Garbage, garbage, garbage. “Here’s how you keep employees in line.” Nope, nope, nope. So we’re just talking about breaking all of those rules that just crush people and smash them down and don’t let them feel like people and value creators at work. And the reason they got unhappy and the reason they stopped caring and the reason they stopped working and the reason they quit, and the reason your customers go away and your competitors eat your lunch and your profits decrease, is because of these management issues. There’s no other reason.
So when people call us, it’s always because something isn’t working and they know it could be better and they don’t know how to get there. And it generally has a lot to do with communication and trust, or the lack of trust. It has to do with the way managers are managing. It has to do with the way teams are communicating or not communicating. It has to do with the way people are rewarded and acknowledged and given latitude to do their jobs their way.
And it really has a lot to do with logjams, roadblocks to get between talented people and their goals, meaning unaddressed conflicts, murky plans, or the absence of a plan, role confusion about who’s supposed to be doing what. Fear. Fear is the great unaddressed topic in corporate America and every other company. Fear of getting laid off. Fear of not looking good to the CEO. We have to get this stuff out in the open and talk about it, raise the trust level, lower the fear level. And then it’s magical what happens because everything gets better when you start to talk about things that were previously considered off-limits.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s powerful. Yes. And could you share an example in which you saw just that happen?

Liz Ryan
Okay, here’s one. Somebody contacted us and said they needed help with their performance management system, specifically their performance appraisal system. And we said, “You’re calling us for help with your performance appraisal?” We’re not big fans of performance appraisal, Pete. And I’ve written about that a lot. So they said, “Well, we’re thinking a lot about taking our performance appraisal from a 10-point scale to a 5-point scale.” And I said, “Why?” and they said, “Just to make it simpler.”
I said, “Simpler. Simpler in terms of what? It’s not simpler.” You could have an infinity point scale. Changing from 10 to 5 will help you in no way. And any change in any process always complicates people’s lives. If you’re going to complicate people’s lives with a change in your performance review process, consider getting rid of your performance review process altogether. It’s stupid. It has never been shown to be helpful in any way to sit down with someone and go back over the past year. “While you did this well, this wasn’t so great.” That’s not how people learn. It’s not how they feel affirmed.
If there was a big problem back in February or April last year, and I hope you talked about it then, no need to revisit it now. You need to give someone a raise if they’re getting a raise. That’s important. But apart from that, really you could do a goal-setting meeting and you could share feedback in both directions, manager to employee, employee to manager. And that really could be the meeting, and you could get rid of this whole grading, rating, grade school nonsense, giving people A’s and B’s and C’s and whatever. And we got them to do it, and they did it, and they got rid of performance appraisals.
But their original request had been “We need help simplifying it.” It’s because change is so aversive to people that they think that small, incremental change is going to be better than big changes when it’s often you’re just fixing a problem that doesn’t even exist. You’ve got to enlarge the frame, pull back the truck, as we say, look at the issue and say, “Why are we doing performance appraisals at all?”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s fun. So now help me here. In the Liz Ryan philosophy worldview, in a world that doesn’t have performance appraisals, what are the means by which you determine who gets paid more, how much more, and who gets promoted?

Liz Ryan
I’ve been administering (I regret to say, but it’s all learning) performance appraisal systems for decades and sitting down and filling out the form, and never was the true calculation by which we decide what to pay people… Believe me, managers know what they want to pay people. Then they fill out the form to justify what they put down as the salary raise. So that’s the first thing we have to acknowledge. It was never about “Oh, I’m shocked to find by completing this appraisal form that Samantha is my best employee. I would never have thought.” It makes no sense, and that would be a crap manager to begin with, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Understood.

Liz Ryan
Because they know it’s organic. They’re getting the signals every day. They know who their best employee is. And what they’re thinking about, as they drive back and forth to work or take the train, is “How can I get my budgets to give Samantha enough money to keep her happy and to make me feel good about acknowledging her and have something left over for everybody else?”
It’s never about the form. The form is nonsense. We do not need to say, “Well, back in October, you had that little thing with accounting. I have to write that down.” We’re not children. We either learn in the moment or we don’t learn at all. You’re not going to learn six months later because your manager puts it on your performance review form. It’s absurd and it’s insulting. And most of the mechanical structures of work are likewise very, very insulting.
So that’s why I’m trying out here to empower people to get jobs that are not just the first job offer they get, but a job that really deserves them. And that’s the reason I wrote this book, “Reinvention Roadmap,” which just came out in the beginning of December, and luckily, it’s flying off the shelves. I’m happy about that. But it’s really a book about breaking the rules to get the job you want and have the career you deserve.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Well, tell us, what are some of those rules we should consider breaking right away?

Liz Ryan
Well, the first rule to break is the idea that job ads run your job search. I’m going to look at the job ads and that’s how I’m going to get a job based on what’s available out there, based on what I see on the job ads at the moment that I start looking. So it’s very kind of transactional approach, right?
You’re going to get a job because an employer, some organization, large or small, public or private, not for profit, for profit, whatever, has the kind of pain that you can solve. So you’re going to write a letter called a pain letter directly to your hiring manager, the very person inside the organization who will be your boss. If you’re a purchasing person, it can be the purchasing manager or materials director or director of procurement, whatever it is. There’s only half a dozen titles.
But you’re going to find that person specifically on LinkedIn, and you’re going to write them a letter directly, not an application through the website those things are dead, I call it the black hole, filling out online job applications. You will seldom hear anything back. And if you do, you’ll be invited into a horrible, byzantine, soul-crushing process where you’re filling out online tests and waiting weeks to hear anything.
So I’m teaching people to just skip all that. Break the rule that says you can’t reach a hiring manager directly. Who says? Break the rule that says you have to brand yourself like a zombie or a robot or a clone trooper, results-oriented professional, the bottom line orientation. It’s nonsense. That’s not you. You’re creative and you’re unique. You have a specific path. You have wonderful experiences. You have a life story no one has ever had. No one ever will have. We’re going to bring all that out in human voice. That’s the message.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. So this pain letter, I’m very intrigued. Could you give us maybe an example of that in action, or a couple of sentences or a paragraph in it?

Liz Ryan
Yeah, it has four parts. I’m going to go through it super quickly. The pain letter has four parts. First part is the hook. You have to open an aperture in your hiring manager’s mind. Now you know their name. You’ve found them. You’ve read their profile on LinkedIn. You know something about them. You’ve seen their picture. You know their story. That’s really powerful. And you’re going to make a hypothesis in your mind we call pain hypothesis. What do I imagine this person’s greatest problem is?
And by the way, you have not looked at job ads necessarily. You could, but let’s say you didn’t. You haven’t looked at job ads, but you have your eye on certain employers. You’ve created a target employer list, Pete, and one of the employers is a chocolate manufacturer called Angry Chocolates. And you want to reach out to your prospective hiring manager, and that’s the accounting manager at Angry Chocolates. So you’ve got to have some context. You haven’t seen a job ad. You’ve got to have some context for what they might want in accounting, if they want anything at all. It doesn’t mean they have formally defined a job or put a salary to it, but maybe there’s some pain and maybe you can nudge that pain a little bit, just poke a little Q-tip in it and say, “Does this hurt?”
And so you read about the company and you see, “Wow, they’ve grown. They were $30 million, which was a really good size for a startup last year, and now they’re planning to be $42 million, which means they’re really still growing very fast. And maybe, as they’re growing faster, accounting infrastructure hasn’t kept pace.” That’s a reasonable hypothesis for a company in that high-growth mode. They’re only seven years old.
So you write to the manager of accounting and you say, “Dear Paula.” You address her by her first name. Other than military, medical, law, maybe finance, you’re probably going to address her by her first name. “Dear Paula, I was thrilled to catch the tail end of your CEO’s talk at the Natural Foods Expo last week, and I especially appreciated his observation that kelp is the new hemp.” I don’t know. But that’s your hook. And what you’re trying to do is say, “I’m awake and aware. I’m paying attention, Paula. I’m not a drone job seeker. (‘I was intrigued by your job…’)
I’m not going the lowest level of mad libs, throwing in the blanks, sending in my paperwork, and giving you a stack of identical pieces of paper to look at, whether it’s on a screen or on your desk. I’m speaking to you as a human being who has a pulse and who’s awake and aware. And I’m being honest, too. I caught the last half of his talk. I’m not going to lie and say I camped out to see it. But I wasn’t aware of your company; now I am. I’ve researched you and I think it’s cool.” You don’t want brownie points. You’re just saying, “I’m a human being and I’m out here, and I’m awake and I’m aware, and I’m talking to you, Paula.”
So that’s your first little paragraph as the hook, and then you go into your pain hypothesis. “And I could only imagine that with your new distribution deal with Whole Foods, your accounting systems might be feeling the strain of your rapid growth.” Then you tell a little quick story we call a dragon-slaying story. “When I was at Wiggly Devices, I helped build their first…” I don’t know accounting, Pete. I don’t have an accounting story.

Pete Mockaitis
Debits/credits.

Liz Ryan
“I helped build their first executive dashboard for quick decision-making by consolidating five unwieldy reports and tried to be as responsive as I could to the flexibility needed in a fast-growing organization.” Boom. That’s the end of your second paragraph. These are tiny, short paragraphs. Two sentences. The last one, the last piece after the dragon-slaying story is your little call to action. “If any of this resonates and you have time to talk, I’d love to start an email correspondence or perhaps chat by phone. All the best, Jaclyn McManus (whoever it is).”
So it’s a very short letter. It uses up a tiny amount of black ink on white paper, so it’s inviting. It’s not going to deter the reader from even starting because it’s this thick forbidding wall of text. And you flip it over on the one staple, and what’s behind but the beautiful one- or two-page human-voiced résumé that likewise has a human voice and uses the first person? “I’m an accounting person who loves startup energy, and I put systems together.”
Maybe there’s a little short dragon-slaying story right up in the summary, and then it goes through the reverse chronological, just like we’re used to, but all in a human voice. You worked for Wiggly Devices. Well, who are they? “Wiggly Devices is a Tallahassee startup that was founded by the guy who founded whatever, and it’s grown to $10 million. I was brought in when I spoke to the CEO after a talk that he made on my campus.” We’re getting so much humanity through these words and taking up no more space, but so much more power and heft is coming through.
And between the pain letter and the human-voiced résumé, trust me, if they don’t like you, baby doll, they don’t deserve you. So it’s pure branding. It says, “Call me in. If you think we could have an interesting conversation and if my nontraditional approach in this résumé, in this pain letter, speak to you, let’s talk. And if you don’t like them, throw my stuff in the garbage because I don’t have time for anybody who doesn’t get me.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you so much. It’s so fun. I think my favorite sentence you said there was “I could imagine with the bringing on of Whole Foods that that could create some strain on this.” It’s nice because it’s not presumptuous, like “Hey, you don’t know us. You’re not in our business,” but it’s super reasonable and it’s probable. And even if not, they might say, “You know what? We did kind of dodge a bullet. Thank goodness we had this something-something in play. That might not happen next time. I still want to talk to this person.”

Liz Ryan
It’s going to be respectful.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Liz Ryan
You’re right. You’re never going to say, “I know what your pain is. That’s horrible.” Who responds to those web designers that say, “Your website sucks, but I can help you”? Who responds to that? Nobody wants to be insulted. These guys are working hard, these hiring managers. They want a kindred spirit. They want a comrade in arms. They want somebody who’s going to be with them. They don’t want somebody who’s going to poke and tell them they have made mistakes.
It’s saying, “Hey, we’re all just trying to get through the day, right?” And you say, “I can only imagine. I wouldn’t be surprised. I was thinking that it might be possible.” It’s a gentle approach, but it’s real. It’s not me, me, me, which is what we were always taught to write in a cover letter. Me, me, me. Who cares? I cannot care about you, my pumpkin, until you care about me. And so your very first introduction in this pain letter is you are talking about them, not yourself.

Pete Mockaitis
Right. Okay, very good. And so with the human-voiced résumé, now the individual bullets. Are you suggesting that they don’t start with past tense verb, but rather the word “I”? Or how do you envision the bullets themselves?

Liz Ryan
It’s very situational, so I can’t give you a flat formula for some of the bullets. In the bullets, you’re going to set up the company. You’re going to find the employer first. Find your role. This is in the chronological, your career history. First, you’re going to frame the role and say, “Who is this company? What was this role?” You have to put a picture in their mind. You want the hiring manager to see you like a movie in their head in action. So your bullets are going to be little, tiny dragon-slaying stories, but they’re going to lay out what was wrong, what I did to fix it, and then why that was the right solution.
So here’s an example of a bullet in a human-voiced résumé, Pete. It would be like “When our two biggest rivals merged, I launched a grassroots email campaign that increased revenue 16% to $2 million the next quarter.” So it’s a whole story because you’ve got why you had to act: “Well, our two biggest competitors joined forces. That was scary, right?” What you did: “Hey, I did a grassroots email thing. I was like, ‘I’m reacting to this right now.’” And then why it was a good thing to do: “Well, it got sales to go up, not just the percentage. The percentage is useless by itself. If we don’t know the dollars, we can’t put that into context, right?
And so, what you’re saying is when people have been taught all the years to say, “Hey, I have these skills, those skills, negotiation skills, administration skills,” why should we believe you? Number one, you say you have skills. I’m not sure I would agree. I want to hear a story so I know that if you have these skills, you know when to take them off the shelf and use them.

Pete Mockaitis
Uh-huh. Very good. Well, then, so I’m also curious to hear. So if you had to take a wild guess in terms of the percent of organizations that see your approaches and style as “Ah, finally, a breath of fresh air,” versus “What the heck is wrong with this person? I don’t like this,” what would you estimate the split to be these days?

Liz Ryan
Once again, it’s contextual. How are they feeling that day? How bad is their pain? How big is their flame?
But I can tell you that HR people in droves are telling me, and it’s even in the book, a couple of stories that some of them were [not fans of] this approach. Who could blame them? It walks around and runs their stone lions at the front gate with the topiary, and you’re supposed to come in this way and fill out this form. And a few times they were rustled when a hiring manager came into their office and said, “I got this letter and I want to meet this person.” The HR person would be like, “What? Who’s sending you this letter? They’re supposed to fill out an application.” And then they saw. The person came in. The person was awesome. The person got hired. They were the only person who applied to that job because it was never posted. See what I’m saying?
And they’re like, “Wait a second. These enterprising people that jump over our stone walls are getting the job. They’re saving me countless person hours in placing the job ad, screening résumés, interviewing candidates, going through the rigmarole. I like this.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, then, is there anything else that you would like to convey before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Liz Ryan
Well, we could talk for hours. I’m good with whatever you’ve got in your list of questions there, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite book?

Liz Ryan
Oh, gosh. I’ve got so many favorite books. “The Alphabet Versus the Goddess” by Leonard Shlain is so influential in creating this Human Workplace vision because it’s talking about the alphabet as the first major technology that sort of came about when our brains evidently historically, evolutionarily were kind of splitting into two parts such that we can talk to ourselves in our heads, the bicameral brain. And it’s judgment and it’s the idea of class, where there are people who are the reading class and people who cannot understand these little…
Because before the alphabet, it was just ideograms and you could write things down and they would like what they were, like a sheep or a pig or a goat or whatever, and then it was this new technology, the alphabet, where a mark doesn’t stand for a thing, but it stands for a sound, and you combine the sounds and you get the thing (sheep, pig, donkey, whatever it is). And so it divided the people who could understand that language from the people who could not, and it still does today. But the impact of that on history and society is incalculable. And if you read this book, “The Alphabet Versus the Goddess,” you’re going to see that.
Anything by Brian Greene, “The Fabric of the Cosmos,” “The Elegant Universe.” Brilliant physicist. He makes it very understandable, digestible, but it gets you thinking on a much broader scale than what we typically… “Ten Tips for Writing a Better Cover Letter” or whatever. Favorite books, apart from that, a brilliant book (I’m sorry to say I forgot the author’s name) called “The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light,” about the origins of consciousness. Kind of related, but a little more spiritual, metaphysical kind of vein, on and on and on.
Fiction, anything by Ellen Gilchrist. Of course, Kurt Vonnegut. Well, I love Elmore Leonard for detective. Really fun stuff. Carl Hiaasen. In fact, I read a lot of dialogue and I totally learned everything I know about writing dialogues from Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen, who are both two sort of rollicking mystery writers. So yeah, some of my favorite books.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. And how about a favorite tool, whether it’s a product or a service or app or something you use to be more awesome at your job?

Liz Ryan
Just LinkedIn. I think most people do not use LinkedIn anywhere near its full potential. LinkedIn is such a great tool for anybody who is job hunting or working. People tend to think, “Well, I used LinkedIn when I was job hunting. Now I let it got.” No, honey bunny. This is how you build your brand and your voice, how you find your voice. I found my voice through writing and speaking. I started writing and I was like, “Oh, I didn’t even know I felt like that until I wrote it down.” And I started drawing, and I draw the illustrations for my LinkedIn stories now and also for the book. A hundred and fifty, or I don’t know how many illustrations in the book, and I drew those.
And I think that your art is not less important just because you’re an accountant or a lawyer or whatever. Bring it out. Play the clarinet. Pull that cello out of the closet. And if you sold or gave away your cello, go get a new cello. I don’t care if you’re 54 years old or 67 or 35. Have a journal. Write in it. Cook if that’s your art. Do your art in the garden. It’s part of us. And we are not robots, and we don’t need to just go to work and plow ahead and say, “Oh, good for me. I hit five items on my to-do list.” When do you get to actually bring your spark and your flame? And so, any opportunity you can find to do art, any little way, any way at all. Just stand at the window and look at the landscape, and don’t think about the meeting that’s coming up in half an hour. Take that opportunity to go to a higher place. It’s always going to be good for you and the people around you.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you. And how about a favorite habit in terms of something you do that helps you be more awesome at your job on a regular basis?

Liz Ryan
The number one thing that I encourage people to do, and I also do myself, is you know how you have voices in your head, and sometimes they’re really encouraging and sometimes they’re really discouraging? And the negative voice will come in, “You can’t do that,” or “You’re going to suck at that. You’re going to embarrass yourself. Why do you want to do that? Don’t even try. You messed that up the last time.” All that stuff. I just talk back as consciously as I can. That voice shows up and says, “Who do you think you are? What makes you think you’ll be any good at that? You’re going to fail.”
I say, “So what if I do? Big deal. What if I do? Who cares? What do you care? Who are you anyway? Shut up. If I’m going to fail, let me fail on my own terms. If I’m going to fail, fine. I’ll fail. What is the big deal? Who do I have to be embarrassed in front of?” Who do you have to embarrassed in front of? Whose opinion matters? Only the people that get us deserve us. Those are the people that matter. Anybody who is going to criticize you, who is going to put you down, who is going to make you feel small, God bless, they’re on their own path. You don’t need them. You don’t need their approval.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s so fun talking back to the negative voices. I experience that, like I’m going to be speaking shortly somewhere and maybe I’m nervous about it, and so the voice will ask the question, kind of like, “Are you scared?” And then I talk back, like “Well, am I scared that I will irrevocably transform all of them and their lives will never be the same? Well, yeah. That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

Liz Ryan
Beautiful.

Pete Mockaitis
And so that kind of puts the kibosh on that.

Liz Ryan
You’re going to rule at that speech. You’re going to kill it. You’re going to crush it.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Thank you. And how about… is there a particular nugget or a Liz Ryan original quote that seems to really resonate with folks and gets them retweeting and taking notes?

Liz Ryan
Yeah. I mean, the thing that gets retweeted all the time, there’s two things of mine. In this book, “Reinvention Roadmap,” I say over and over, and I say in my columns over and over also, “Only the people who get you deserve you.” And the flipside of that is if they don’t get you, they don’t deserve you. And this is what every job seeker and working person needs to keep in mind. You want to be awesome at your job from the standpoint of hitting your goals. That’s half of the equation.
But you want to be awesome at your job from the standpoint of loving the job and going in there every day feeling like this is exactly what God or Mother Nature wants you to be doing. So hitting yardsticks is cool, but who cares if you hit the yardsticks if they’re not your yardsticks and you don’t care about them? You don’t want to use your precious time on this planet pleasing somebody else and not yourself.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Thank you.

Liz Ryan
So this idea of not everybody gets you. And some of your listeners could be working in a job right now where they definitely are not gotten to the degree that they need to be to feel healthy and to feel alive. And this is a call to action to say, “Hey, if these guys don’t get you, believe me, it’s a big world.” There’s seven billion people. And seven billion people will never agree on anything, and not everyone will like you. And if you feel disapproval coming from people, and you feel criticism, and you feel people saying, “Who do you think you are?” those are obviously people who don’t deserve you, so don’t worry about their opinion. Don’t dim your flame for anybody.
And when it comes to going to work, another thing that gets retweeted a lot that I say is “An employee’s job is to go in and give their best work every single day at work, and a boss’ job is to give that employee a reason to come back to work tomorrow.”

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. And what would you say is the best way for folks to contact you if they want to learn more or see what you’re up to?

Liz Ryan
Follow us on Twitter, @humanworkplace. Come to our site, www.humanworkplace.com. And check out our stories on LinkedIn. I think I wrote about 400 stories for LinkedIn, thousands for forbes.com, and stories on our blog, podcast, videos, all kinds of stuff. And this book, “Reinvention Roadmap: Break the Rules to Get the Job You Want and the Career You Deserve.”

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Thanks. And do you have a final parting call to action or challenge for those seeking to be more awesome at their jobs?

Liz Ryan
Yeah. I mean, if you’ve listened this far, then you already have patience and an inquiring mind, which is wonderful and not 100% assured in the general population. And I say if you’ve gone this far, then just take a step for yourself, some little step. Drive home a different way today. Make a new recipe. Read a new book, maybe “Reinvention Roadmap” or something else. Take a step for yourself.
This idea that your life is good when you have a steady job is a sad idea. It’s really a sad idea. It’s one step. It’s cracking the code, and it’s a beautiful thing when you figure out how to support yourself. And it’s huge and absolutely something to pop open a bottle of champagne over, but then what next? Now, what about you? What about your happiness, your satisfaction, your fulfillment, your exercise of your creativity and your art? That’s why you’re here on the planet and not to please somebody who isn’t you.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Thank you. Well, Liz, this has been a treat. Some fun new perspectives to chew on and work through. I wish you and “Reinvention Roadmap” tons and tons of luck and success. And keep on rocking.

Liz Ryan
Thanks. You, too, Pete. And I know you’re going to kill it at that speech.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. Well, it happened Tuesday, and it felt great, so I appreciate it.

Liz Ryan
All right.