287: Establishing Motivation, Intention, and Boundaries Like a Boss with Emily Thompson and Kathleen Shannon

Pete Mockaitis
Kathleen and Emily, thanks so much for joining us here at the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Kathleen Shannon
Pete, we are so excited to be here.

Emily Thompson
For sure. We are ready to tell people how to be awesome at their job.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Well, you’ve been doing it for a while and you do it in style with fun. Your branding – well, that’s what you do. It’s so awesome with regard to the colors and the photography. It says boss through and through.

Kathleen Shannon
Our brand board was like Lisa Frank, me, The Craft, like that witchie ‘90s movie, basically.

Pete Mockaitis
When you say it that way, it kind of makes me look at the purple smoke in a different way.

Kathleen Shannon
Do you see it in a whole new way? Like, there’s going to be a unicorn flying through, and a Tarot reader, and a crystal ball.

Pete Mockaitis
That is funny.

Kathleen Shannon
They might make it rain.

Emily Thompson
Definitely make it rain.

Pete Mockaitis
Nice double meaning there.

Kathleen Shannon
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
I much appreciate it.

Kathleen Shannon
I’m glad that you got that.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, cool. Obviously I’ve got to get into so much good stuff. I learned, Kathleen, you shared that you like to work in complete silence. What’s the story here?

Kathleen Shannon
I know, so you asked me one thing that people might not know about me and as Emily knows and as our listeners at Being Boss know, I’m kind of an open book. I’m probably talking about things I shouldn’t be talking about. But the thing I think that people don’t know about me is that I work in complete silence. I definitely give off this vibe that I’m this crazy, cool, creative. At least, that’s a vibe I hope I’m giving off.

But I find myself working in complete silence because whenever it comes down to getting focused and doing the work, I find myself even listening to ambient music, tuning it out, so it becomes this extra distraction that my brain is having to work around in order to do the work. I think it’s just maybe the one thing that people don’t know about me is it is dead quiet. You can hear a pin drop whenever I’m working.

Pete Mockaitis
Intriguing. How do you enforce quiet around you? Isn’t noise just going to happen? I shopped around at length to find a sound-blocking door. I totally resonate with this. What are your tricks?

Kathleen Shannon
Well, so I do work from home. My kiddo is in full-time daycare. My husband is at his day job. I am completely alone during the day at my home office. This is part of the reason why I decided to work from home and not go to a co-working space.

I do have an agency. I live outside of Detroit and I have an agency located in Oklahoma City where all of my partners and employees work. I did build out in that space two little office spaces with doors and sound proofing for podcasting and that sort of thing. But I have a spray bottle to keep my cats away from me and that’s about it. That’s how I enforce it.

It’s just like in the decisions I’ve made along the way, I suppose. At some point every creative does kind of have to decide, like, “Oh, am I lonely being all by myself at my house or should I go to a co-working space, should I go to a coffee shop?”

I certainly have the tools. I used to work in an open office space before I started working for myself, so I can go to a coffee shop and tune things out, but I get so focused then that it’s almost like silence, where you would have to get eye-contact with me to make sure that I’m listening to you, like I’m that focused on my work.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear that. When my wife comes in sometimes I’ve got the headphones and the noise cancelling on and maybe even ear plugs underneath the headphones straight up.

Kathleen Shannon
You’re not messing around.

Pete Mockaitis
I’ll like be startled, like, “Oh, there you are.” I’m resonating. Thank you. Tell me, Emily, how do you find yourself in the work groove?

Emily Thompson
I’m pretty similar where I used to listen to music. The first time Kathleen told me that she worked in complete silence, I was shocked, like, similar where I felt she was probably just like dancing around her office listening to Beyoncé all day, every single day.

Whenever she told me she worked in complete silence, I was super shocked because I, at that point, liked to listen to music while I worked but I found myself as, I’ve guess grown in my entrepreneurial endeavors where I’m responsible for all things, this sincere need to get super focused. I can only do that when it’s pretty quiet.

Now, I do home school my child. Actually, hear her in the kitchen right now banging forks and plates around. I’m trying not to get too terribly annoyed at. So I do have to drown out a whole lot of noise, but I’ve kind of gotten used to it. But otherwise, like pretty quiet. I’m not listening to music.

Here’s a funny tidbit though. I used to develop websites. That’s what I did as I began growing my online career. I do code best when I’m watching TV.

Pete Mockaitis
Intriguing.

Kathleen Shannon
I was about to say that too, Emily. I feel like our jobs have changed, where you used to be coding, I used to be doing a lot more graphic design and busting out that Bezier pen tool, any designers listening know what that is, and this kind of redundant work where you can listen to music or watch TV.
That’s my favorite, are days whenever I have to do some design and I’ll sit down in front of Keeping Up with the Kardashians and just knock some stuff out.

Kathleen Shannon
Now we do so much writing that I feel like it requires a different kind of focus where it’s harder to drown out those outside noises and it’s harder to get that focus with background noise happening.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Yeah. Well, thank you for setting the stage here and could you maybe continue that. But first, I want to make sure – I first learned about your show from one of our mutual listeners. It’s Beth in Baltimore. Can we just talk about how great she is?

Kathleen Shannon
Yeah. Beth, high five.

Emily Thompson
Thanks for spreading the Being Boss love for sure.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. Shout out accomplished. Tell us, what’s Being Boss all about?

Kathleen Shannon
Being Boss started as two business besties, that would be me and Emily. We were really craving that connection and conversation, so, as we mentioned, we’re working alone out of our homes, sometimes in complete silence. That can get kind of lonely.

So we became creative peers and colleagues whenever we were hiring each other for the work that we were doing. Beyond that, we started to connect on a more friend level. We would hop on a video call and really talk shop.

After a year or two of over Skype talking about what was working, what wasn’t working, our conversations were getting deeper. We were talking about real numbers, like sharing money, which is kind of taboo.

We were sharing our biggest secrets as far as business secrets, the kind of stuff that people like to keep to themselves. We were sharing insights as to how we were juggling work and life and time management and growing families while growing careers.

Emily was even there when I was like, “Okay, I’m thinking about starting a family. How am I going to make this work?” She’s like, “Okay, you need to automate. You need to get some systems in place and you’ve got to put that kid in daycare.” Well, that’s not entirely true because Emily homeschools, but I definitely had to do the daycare. Anyway, all this to say, we were having these conversations.

One day Emily sent me an email saying, “Hey, you know those business bestie conversations we’re having, we need to hit publish on them. We need to start a podcast. Other creatives are craving this kind of conversation and probably feel just as alone as we did and we could be their work buddies.”

Our podcast, Being Boss, it really did catch on pretty quickly and we became the go-to podcast for other creatives and aspiring entrepreneurs who wanted to hear some insights and real talk about what it takes to do the work. ‘Do the work’  has essentially become our mantra because we all know making a living doing what you love isn’t always easy and it takes hard work. That’s the conversation that we have been having for the past three years.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s awesome. But I’ve seen several Facebook ads that tell me if I just follow this bulletproof system I can make millions of dollars online easily working from home.

Emily Thompson
Yeah, yeah and how has that worked out for you?

Pete Mockaitis
That’s like all the ads I get on Facebook. I guess like some of the wrong things that get me targeted for that.

Emily Thompson
Yeah. There are so many people in the online space or not even in the online space, who have laid out these blueprints or plans or mapped out success in a way that if you follow them, X, Y, Z, you’ll get the thing that you want.

Kathleen and I, we’ve done some of those probably back in the day, like here’s how you build a six-figure launch or whatever it is. We quickly realized that that’s not how the world works. It only took us a time or two to realize that’s not how things go down.

That’s really what a lot of those beginning conversations were, were here’s the thing that I tried. Here’s what worked and didn’t work. You do it, find out what works for you, and then let’s share back and forth.

We realized that everyone’s success is defined differently and therefore the path to your success is always going to be different from someone else’s. That’s really been the core of what Being Boss is, is define success on your terms and then take the steps that you have to take to get there. It won’t look like anyone else’s journey; it will look like your journey and that’s what makes it all the more special.

Those blueprints and things, they may work for three or four people, which is great for those people, but buying into those things is a mistake when what you really need to do is define success on your own and make it do the way you need to make it do.

Pete Mockaitis
Well said.

Kathleen Shannon
One of the things I always think about are working actors, like those actors that have tons of jobs but you never see them as the lead role, but they’re probably living a pretty nice life. I kind of think of us as that as well. We are working creatives who are in it with you. We’re not those million dollar overnight successes, but we’re going to show you that you don’t have to be a million-dollar overnight success to do the work and do what you love.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I love that. That reminds me of the documentary, maybe you’ve seen it. It was pretty engaging. It’s called That Guy … Who Was in That Thing. It’s all about those actors.

Kathleen Shannon
I love that.

Pete Mockaitis
Interviewee after interviewee are like, “I kind of recognize that guy.”

Kathleen Shannon
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
“He was in that thing.” He sort of talks about the struggle. I love how you talked about defining success on your own terms as opposed to sort of just knee-jerk reacting to, “Hey, quit your job. Leave the rat race,” because for the most part, my listeners enjoy their jobs most of the time or are actively trying to find a switch and are finding some fulfillment and fun and flourishing – oh, alliteration – in the world of being employed at a place as opposed to being the sort of the owner CEO.

But, nonetheless, you talk about boss in many ways as a mindset in your upcoming book, Being Boss. Could you unpack that a little bit?

Emily Thompson
Absolutely. I mean for us it all starts with mindset, with the sort of foundational belief that you can do whatever you want. You have the right and ability to define things the way you want them to be and then you have the ability to go make it happen for yourself.

If you don’t believe those things, it’s not going to happen for you. It’s really important to get into that right frame of mind in order to tackle all the challenges that come at you, whether that’s creating your career or building your life and doing those in a way that you find fulfilling.

It’s being confident. It’s seeking out motivation and inspiration. It’s committing to setting and working towards really big ass goals or maybe not really big goals if you’re not a super big goal kind of person.

We also believe that a lot of it comes into trusting yourself, trusting that you’re going to make the right decision and that you’re going to be able to show up and do the work and get the thing. It all starts with that foundational mindset that you can do what it is that you want to do as long as you show up and do it.

Kathleen Shannon
Yeah, whenever I think about the boss mindset and all of the people that we’ve interviewed and even in our early conversations with each other, it’s this idea of self-reliance, trusting that you’re not going to have all the answers, but that you can absolutely figure it out.

Emily talked about trusting that you can make the right decision, but I’m going to take it even a step further and trusting that no matter what decision you make, right or wrong, trusting that it’s going to get you where you need to go. That definitely is that primary foundation that we always start with is mindset. Part of that is really understanding your values as well.

This can be applied for people who are working for themselves or working in the context of an organization or a company where they are an employee. It’s really understanding what you value and bringing intentions and action to those values so that you are living them out not only in your life but in your work.

Pete Mockaitis
I am loving that. As you say values, you’re firing off some connections for me, thinking back to my Coaches Training Institute training back in the day. How would you define a value and can you give us a couple of examples of what a value is and what’s not a value, like you said that is a value, but that doesn’t quite sound like a value?

Emily Thompson
Sure. I mean values are sort of the foundational beliefs that you sort of build your own characters. For me, I value freedom where whatever I am going out into my work or even my life, like that’s something I’m consistently seeking, it’s something that I value seeing in other people. Wherever those opportunities are presented to me, those are more intriguing than the ones that aren’t.

For me, something that I value is freedom. Everyone has values, whether you value kindness or assertiveness. Kathleen, feel free to jump in with any additional one.

Kathleen Shannon
Yeah, so one of my biggest values is authenticity. I know that’s a word that’s being really used a lot lately, but I can’t think of a better word for it. It’s one that resonates with me.

This is another thing whenever it comes to values is choose words that resonate with you on that kind of cellular level because there are a lot of words that mean the same things and so once you start to unpack your value, really explore all the words that are similar to that value or synonyms with that value.

Mine is authenticity and that is really, whoever I unpack that a little bit, it’s being who you are 100% of the time. And as I’ve gotten a little bit older and hopefully wiser, I realize that being who you are 100% of the time takes a lot of self-awareness and it takes a lot of questioning and curiosity. I would also say being who you are 100% of the time and seeking out who that is.

For me, anything I create – I use my values as a guidepost for making those hard decisions. I think that decision making is one of the hardest things whenever it comes to being your own boss or even making tough decisions about if you’re working a day job, whether or not to leave or to switch careers or to switch companies.

For me, I run every single decision I have to make through the question is this going to help my listeners, readers, whoever is consuming or engaging with me in any way be who they are 100%. If the answer is no, I’m not going to do it. If the answer is yes, alright, let’s go. For me and Emily too, we both use values as a way to really set boundaries in our business and to really draw that line between what we’re willing to do and what we aren’t willing to do.

Pete Mockaitis
I think that’s so good. That point about thinking about what resonates at the cellular level and thinking through some synonyms. Because I might say integrity. I’d think we’d all agree, yes, that’s important. Integrity is good. But for me, if I think about synonyms, I think about count-on-able, which is a little weird way to articulate it.

Kathleen Shannon
Nice word.

Pete Mockaitis
But it resonates more. I want to be someone that can be counted upon as opposed to, “Oh boy, that flake.” You know?

Kathleen Shannon
Yeah, totally.

Pete Mockaitis
It just resonates more and I think it’s powerful in terms of making them all the more real as opposed to I guess – and exciting as opposed to just sort of obligatory, like, “Yes, I should do that because that’s a value,” as opposed to, “Oh, this is how I roll, so I’m fired up about it.”

Kathleen Shannon
Oh yeah. It should absolutely be something that you’re fired up about. This is a monthly practice for us, if not daily. But every month Emily and I set intentions. Sometimes we do use the word value and intention interchangeably, but the way that we like to think about it is that intentions help you bring actions to your values.

We’ll set intentions every month. I think what was mine last month was to rally. Another word for that could have been reliable, like I want to be really reliable this month, but I really wanted to rally and bring enthusiasm. For me it had this whole other kind of energy beyond reliability that really resonated with me.

We like to also do this on a monthly basis to explore new values and to really test some out and see what sticks and see where we can work on our own character by bringing in more of these intentions into kind of a practice in our personal lives and in our business.

Pete Mockaitis
Those intentions, that is powerful and one of our best episodes was How to Have a Good Day with Caroline Web. It’s so powerful. When you set an intention, all sorts of things go off in your brain in terms of what opportunities you notice and the decisions you choose to make in each of those opportunities. It’s a little thing, but it really has profound cascading ripples that go down when you’re living life.

Emily Thompson
Absolutely. I think the most I ever sort of got out of intentions or I guess the time that I realized they were probably so powerful, several years after – Kathleen and I sort of had this intention practice for a couple of years now. We share them with each other. We hold each other accountable. We’re always cracking jokes about having adopted the other one’s intention or whatever it may be.

I was listening to the Making Oprah podcast. One of the episodes of that podcast was when Oprah decided to start adopting an intention practice. She made her entire team at Oprah do it. Everything they did had to be based on some sort of intention. There had to be a good reason for doing everything that they did and how much of her sort of life and success she has placed on this adoption of an intention setting practice.

I was like, “Well, if Oprah can do it and be Oprah, then this has to be super powerful. It gave me a whole other level of appreciation for this practice that Kathleen and I have sort of kind of accidently fell into but we definitely see how profound and life changing and business- and career-changing it can be.

Pete Mockaitis
I love it. I love it. I’d like to get maybe a little bit even more sort of tactical into the day-in, day-out in terms of if someone is in a job, what are some of your top tips for being more boss like or some top boundaries that might make great sense to set right away?

Kathleen Shannon
Oh, I’ve got one.

Emily Thompson
Yes, ma’am.

Kathleen Shannon
I do. I do. This is to stop checking your email in the evenings and on weekends.

Pete Mockaitis
There it is.

Emily Thompson
Yeah.

Kathleen Shannon
That’s it. It’s funny because whenever we were writing our book and running the first draft by our publisher, our editor said, “Hey, what about emails? How do you pry yourself away from your email?” This is something that Emily and I do not have a problem with. We are not slaves to our email. I think it is because of some of those early foundational boundaries that we set in place. It’s just kind of a non-issue. We forgot that some people might even have an issue with that.

We really thought it out and I think that this applies to anything though, anything that is capturing your attention that you don’t want to be giving. I think that email is a huge one.

Really tactical, turning off the alerts on your phone for email. It is not a text message. Don’t open your computer. You don’t have to check your email. I think that this can be hard too because a lot of it is setting those boundaries with your coworkers and that can be really tricky.

But one of my favorite mantras is ‘it’s only as weird as you make it,’ right? If you can be strong enough to set this boundary and just say, “No, it’s actually more weird to check your email in the evenings and weekends,” then you can just own it. That’s a big part of being boss is just owning who you are and owning that time.

Another thing that I do and I’ve been doing this since I’ve had a … is scheduling time for myself on my calendar and literally putting in a meeting on my Google calendar and pretending as if it’s the most important meeting of the day because so often we treat our deadlines and our client meetings with more importance than our meetings.

For me I’m scheduling every day my daily workout. I’ve been doing this since I’ve had a day job. I have a kid and I can still squeeze it in.

One of the things that Emily and I are constantly talking about is your to-do list will fill up with as much time as you give it, so I just give it a little bit less time and I prioritize myself and I find that I’m more productive whenever I do that. I would say scheduling time for yourself on your calendar is another really great boundary that you can literally see that boundary.

Then also looking at your calendar can help you see what you value and if what you value and where your intentions are aren’t being reflected in your schedule, it’s time to update something.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that. Emily, more.

Emily Thompson
Sure.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m demanding.

Emily Thompson
Right. We have this little exercise that we have people do occasionally, I even think it’s in the book, where we tell people to write their own sort of employee handbook for themselves.

If you are an employee, you have an employee handbook, but it probably – actually, I think number one is actually read your employee handbook if you haven’t already, if you’re not super familiar with it, to really see where the lines are already drawn because those boundaries are so important.

If you have a boss who’s overstepping those boundaries or if you have a coworker who is trying to nudge you into showing up too early or staying too late, too often or whatever it may be, knowing what the employee handbook already says, can be super helpful for helping you draw those boundaries.

But I also like the exercise of creating your own employee handbook, like what is not outlined in that employee handbook that you need to outline for yourself and whether that is stretch your communication boundaries or making sure you’re giving yourself an extra 15-minute moment in the afternoon to regroup so that you can really give the rest of your day the best you’ve got.

Defining some extra rules for yourself so that you can really show up and do the best work that you can do.

Pete Mockaitis
I love this. I’m just sort of imagining how it can play out in practice in terms of with the email if there’s resistance like, “No, I can’t.” I think you can just have some candid honest conversations, like, “Hey, I’m trying to unplug and be more present to my family, so I’d really appreciate it if something super urgent that you’d give me a call or text message if it’s in the evening time,” and there you go. It’s kind of hard to override that.

Kathleen Shannon
You know what? Unless you’re a doctor, unless you are saving lives, then at that point you’re also on call and getting paid for that. There is no emergency. Emily used to deal with this a lot with launching websites. People act like that is a life or death situation and it just isn’t. Maybe this is some tough love here.

Pete Mockaitis
I love it. Keep it coming.

Kathleen Shannon
I don’t want anyone texting me either or calling me. I don’t even want them to have my phone number.

Emily Thompson
Yeah, yeah. I think it’s looking at the points in your work where there is pain and trying to define your way out of that pain. If you are getting text messages from your boss and you don’t want text messages from your boss, tell your boss to stop texting you or whatever it may be, maybe it’s a coworker or whatever the case may be.

Those boundaries are super important. They keep you really good at your work and not resentful of the relationships that you have at work.

I also want to point out here that people will only take your boundaries as seriously as you do. If you say, “I won’t be emailing on the weekends anymore,” but you’re sliding out emails on the weekend, then no one’s going to respect those boundaries. You have to hold those to the highest standards as you set them and people will follow suit.

I’ve had people ask me before, “Your employees or the people you collaborate with, do they have issues with your email policies?” Because Kathleen and I are not emailing outside of regular 9 to 5 business hours and people would assume that the people we work with struggle with that or have issue with it.

What we’ve actually found is that people respect us more and they definitely respect those boundaries because we know what we need to do to get the job done and that does not mean responding to an email at 9 PM. We’ll be there at 9 AM to respond and you’ll get us fresh and ready to go. We’ll have really great relationships in the life outside of work as well. It really only holistically makes the entirety of our efforts better by putting those boundaries in place.

Kathleen Shannon
Okay, I want to mention that Emily has been her own boss like forever and I do come from an agency world where I did have a boss. If any of your listeners are like, “Oh my gosh, there’s no way I can tell my boss like, ‘Sorry, I’m not responding,’” because I know that that can be tricky. I think for me the hardest thing is what you don’t say.

You can respond to the text or to the email on Monday morning at 8 AM or whatever your working hours are. That’s a more subtle clue as to here are the times you can expect me to respond.

Then I also think that being really fully present and working your ass off while you’re at work and really staying focused means that you’re going to get more done in that time and you’re going to be more present for your co-workers and your boss and whoever else during that time, that they’ll start to see like, “Oh, maybe this actually works, this whole work/life being intentional in all the places kind of thing.”

Pete Mockaitis
I appreciate that you brought that into real experience if folks are having some resistance to this notion. I think I can think of a person, Kelsey, who told me just that. I was like, “Oh, you’re consulting, is that really draining you?” She’s like, “You know what? I just kind of told people how I work best and it works.” It was almost like, “Whoa, you can do that?”

I’d love it if you could maybe bring in some additional experiences from maybe your listeners or those you’ve interacted with who are in jobs who have had kind of a case study or a success with this.

Kathleen Shannon
We talk to a lot of entrepreneurs. But one thing I was going to say as Emily was sharing earlier with writing your own employee handbook, one of the things I have found to be really helpful in my own business is creating my own policies and saying things like, “Hey, it’s not my policy.” I’m just going to keep using email as an example since we’re there, but this could apply to a lot of things.

Like, “Hey, it’s not my policy to work for free,” or, “It’s not my policy to email on the weekends.” I wonder if there’s a way that if you are working a day job, like really think about your own policies and even using that verbiage to go with your boundaries might be really helpful for you.

I am married to a guy who has a day job. It’s been stretching him recently and it’s been kind of tricky navigating because you want to please the people that you work with, you want to be a good employee, you want to show that you’re enthusiastic and that you’re in it and that you’re a team member, but you also have to show them that you are a responsible parent or you’re a responsible husband and you’ve got more obligations or even if you don’t have kids or a wife or any of that, you do have a life outside of work.

I think that a good thing whenever it comes to that that you can do is kind of blend – like instead of this work/life balance and separation, is blend a little bit of it, so maybe even sharing with your coworkers what you’re doing outside of work and really just setting the stage and saying, “Hey, I’m going to go pick up my kid,” or, “I’m going to go hiking on the weekend.” I think whenever you can do that, it can help them get a sense of who you are outside of work and make them respect that time even more.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. I’ve noticed that often, other professionals will have sort of a respect or awe or admiration for, “Well, good for you. I’d really like to do that myself.”

Sometimes if it’s kind of heavy, what you’re dealing with, like, “Hey, you know what? My mom is sick so it is really important to me to be able to spend some extra time because we don’t know how much time we have,” or there’s a hospital or even with the hiking example. It’s like, “I find that I am so much more brilliantly refreshed and creative at work if I’m able to do this,” so everybody wins if this works out.

Kathleen Shannon
Right. I want to point out here that the key here is communication. It’s talking about what it is that you’re doing and how it is that it helps you be better at your job.

I can’t speak a lot to having conversations with people who have day jobs, but I do know that as a boss of people who I’m providing their day job, we talk about those kinds of things all the time. I do prompt a lot of it because I do understand how that makes for a much healthier work environment for all of us, but they also bring those sorts of things to be.

I’m super cognizant of the fact that there are ways in which people are more efficient and more effective and those are the sorts of things that I want to nurture.

I recently had one of our employees, who’s actually a contractor, come to us recently and say, “I think that I would be more effective if I were to focus at being boss on Monday, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and leaving Thursdays and Fridays open for other endeavors that I’m working on.” I was like, “Great. That’s absolutely fantastic. We can adjust some things to make sure that we’re only relying on you on those three days,” and it wasn’t an issue.

It was clear communication. If she had stopped showing up on Thursday and Friday or was only half putting in the work on any of the days, that would have had a negative effect on what it is that we’re trying to build together. But it’s just that direct and clear concise communication that is appreciated and effective and allows us all to move forward and creates an organization where we’re all working better for it.

I think very often, even in large organizations, people think that their efforts don’t affect everyone or that their hike on the weekend isn’t going to make anyone’s job better but their own, but the truth is that it affects everything. You’re a part of a larger system and the more you can really give to that part whether it’s your communication or your undivided attention or your best self because you took that hike, the better off everyone is going to be for it.

Pete Mockaitis
I love this stuff. Thank you. To shift gears, I know you’ve got some great wisdom in the realm of confidence and dealing with fraudy feelings. What are some of your pro tips there?

Kathleen Shannon
Oh, I’ve got one. I love it whenever I need to cultivate confidence or overcome what we call fraudy feelings, which is kind of imposter syndrome, is to throw a dinner party. For me this is kind of calling on my inner mentors. I pretend as if I’m hosting a dinner party with these people who can give me boss advice and really guide me in this super mentored way into where I need to be going.

If my dinner party includes Beyoncé, Neil deGrasse Tyson, maybe Bill Nye the Science Guy. I’ve got a couple of scientists there. It may be a comedian like Dave Chappelle. I’ve got a few guests at my dinner party. You might be thinking like, “Wow, Kathleen is super connected,” and I’m not. I’m not.

This dinner party exists only in my head, but it really does help me cultivate this confidence of what kind of advice would Beyoncé give me if I feel like I’m struggling with having a hard conversation with a business partner. It’s really fun to kind of almost play it like an ad-lib game or have unexpected people give you unexpected advice to the problems that you’re trying to solve, like how would Neil deGrasse Tyson, how would he help advise me in solving this design problem.

It can really lead to some creativity and innovation. Whenever you’re feeling creative and curious and innovative, there is no room for feeling bad or feeling sorry for yourself or having fraudy feelings. At that point, you’re energized and excited just to make the thing. That’s how I like to do it.

Emily Thompson
Love that, Kathleen, your fake dinner parties. I like to be a little more practical I think. I always look at
proof.

One of the things that Kathleen say to each other and ourselves consistently is ‘I can do hard things.’ We know this because we’ve done it. We can look at the past, at what it is that we’ve built. I imagine anyone listening to this, you’ve done something hard in your life at least once or you probably wouldn’t be listening to this podcast on that cool device that you have in your hand or in your pocket or wherever it may be.

You can do hard things. If I ever need to bolster my confidence and get something done that I maybe haven’t done before or it seems a little daunting or I’m trying to tell myself that I’m not going to be able to accomplish it, I always look back at all the things that I have done.

If I can’t do it for myself, I call up a friend or pour a glass of wine and go talk to my partner, David, and we’ll go over some of the things that I’ve done, whatever I need to do to remind myself that this is just one more hard step on a very long path and journey of hard steps. It’s not quite as fun as Dave Chappelle and Beyoncé, but I find it just as useful.

Kathleen Shannon
Well, Emily, one of the things that you’ve always done that’s really inspired me is to approach everything as an experiment and to know that you can test and change. I think whenever you approach a project as an experiment rather than like, “Oh my gosh, this is my livelihood and I need to make some money,” you’re open to failure because aren’t scientists looking to fail. Aren’t they looking to prove themselves wrong?

I think that that’s what we’re trying to do as well is really see what works and what doesn’t through the lens of an experiment, like this is a thing that we are trying. Yes, our livelihood does depend on it, but whenever we can get curious and be open to failing, we succeed nine times out of ten.

Pete Mockaitis
That is powerful. I love that notion ‘I can do hard things’ feels like a much more tangible and specific belief to cultivate as opposed to what you might call self-esteem or self-confidence.

This brings me back. Boy, when I was a freshman in college I remember, I just kept getting rejected from stuff. I wanted to join all these clubs and they wouldn’t have me. I was like, “What the heck? I was such a rock star in high school. This is bogus.” It really did kind of bring me down in terms of what you’d call self-confidence.

So I made a big old notebook with bullet after bullet of cool things that I’ve accomplished. If you sort of look at those evidence points for not just, “I’m great,” but, “I can do hard things,” I think that’s really galvanizing and resonating.

Emily Thompson
Yeah, it’s important. It’s so easy to start beating yourself up and forget that you’ve gotten here because you did cool things or you did something and the next thing is just the next thing that you have to overcome. It’s just an easy, simple tactic for getting you there.

Kathleen Shannon
One of the things I’ve been thinking about lately is that it’s not supposed to be easy. No good story doesn’t come without some challenges. We’re on a hero’s journey and that means we’re going to be falling on our faces sometimes and that’s okay. We’re supposed to.

Pete Mockaitis
This is so good. Tell me, is there anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear, rapid-fire, your favorite things?

Emily Thompson
My favorite quote, it’s not even inspiring, it’s one of those things that drives me a lot. It’s really funny, I also have to share the story that surrounds it. The quote is ‘Look for what’s different.”

It came from a teacher that I had once. I think about this all the time. It was in reference to looking for four-leaf clovers of all things. We’re like out in the school yard, looking at clovers, and she told us to look for what’s different because it’s the four-leaf clover that’s different from the three-leaf clovers.

I think about that all the time. I absolutely know that little mindset nugget, that little just quote that seems so simple, is one of the things that’s definitely brought me to where I am, where it’s not the 14-step blueprint that’s going to make me 18 figures or anything like that. It is the thing that’s different that will take you down the path to what it is that you’re supposed to do.

The quote that I’m always thinking of is Dear Ms. Thompson, because we did share a last name too and that’s just a whole other level of magic there, this idea of you should be looking for what’s different, not at what’s the same.

Kathleen Shannon
Is that how you find so many four-leaf clovers? Is that your secret?

Emily Thompson
Yes, it is. That is my secret. I also just shared the secret to how it is that I find four-leaf clovers more easily than anyone I’ve ever met.
Kathleen Shannon
Wow, I love it. Mine is – I’m going to butcher his name, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and it is “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

Pete Mockaitis
And it rhymes. Thank you. How about a favorite book?

Emily Thompson
Daring Greatly by Brene Brown. This one changed my life and we’re often asked what business books we recommend and this isn’t a specific business book, but it is one that will teach you the power of vulnerability and resilience and it has changed my life.

Kathleen Shannon
Mine is just Harry Potter, all of them.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely, thank you. Could you share a particular nugget that really seems to connect and resonate with your audience? You hear them quoting it back to your often.

Kathleen Shannon
Do the work. It’s so funny whenever we were writing our book, we were asking our audience, “Is there anything that we have said that really stands out for you?” All of them said, “You’re constantly just telling us to do the work.”

That means to get into that mindset, to get into your habits and routines, and to establish those boundaries and to lean on your wolf pack, and your tribe, and your community, and to really be who you are 100% of the time in work and life and that takes a lot of work, but you can do it, so do the work.

Emily Thompson
I agree with that one, except I think I’ll expand because one of things that I feel like comes back to me often, I feel like there’s been some Instagram graphics made out in the world where at one point I said, “Do the work is what happens between the wanting and the having,” so a nice little definition there for it’s all the work that happens between wanting something and actually having it.

Pete Mockaitis
If folks want to learn more or get in touch where would you point them?

Emily Thompson
BeingBoss.club.

Kathleen Shannon
I was going to say, www.BeingBoss.club.

Emily Thompson
Good job. Good job Kathleen.

Kathleen Shannon
We’ve had our listeners get stressed out about the way I say www.

Pete Mockaitis
I was thinking that. I noticed that myself. I’m like interesting choice.

Kathleen Shannon
Yeah, yeah right. We have an interesting URL, so I like to include the www for context. But yeah, that’s where you will find us.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a final challenge or call to action you’d issue forth to those seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Emily Thompson
I do, and Kathleen, I look forward to hearing what you have to say about this one. One of my very favorite ones and I think this is especially for people who have jobs because I think there are a whole other set of rules, it applies to both, but job people. I think I challenge people to say no three times this week.

Kathleen Shannon
That one makes me start to sweat a little bit.

Emily Thompson
I know it does. I know it does.

Kathleen Shannon
I have a hard time with it.

Emily Thompson
I think it’s a good one.

Kathleen Shannon
Mine is going to be make space for what you want, whether that is on your calendar or whatever that looks like for you, make space for what you want. I would say on your calendar and schedule it and make it happen.

Pete Mockaitis
Mm-hm. Well, Emily, Kathleen, this has been such a treat. Thank you for sharing the good stuff. I hope that your book is a smash success and you keep on being boss and flourishing in all you’re doing.

Kathleen Shannon
Thanks for having us, Pete, this was so much fun.

Emily Thompson
Yes.