hello everyone welcome to real talk with tia and jill welcome hello thanks for spending part of your day with us whether you're live or you're on replay or on the podcast yes yes which is a new feature for us this season right where you can now listen to us you don't necessarily have to see our faces which we do appreciate but now you can also hear our voices and take us along with you to your commute to wherever you listen to podcasts Yeah. I listen to him even like, you know, while I'm cleaning, while I'm cooking. So I would love for people to tell us like, where do you, where do you listen to podcasts? Like, are you doing an activity or are you just hanging out? Yeah. Yeah. Because these different avenues, right. Of watching, we go live on YouTube. So if you watch us on YouTube, that's where we are. Right. You can see the video, you have our audio on podcasts, but these different mediums, right. Depending on where we listen, where we are, right. I'm balanced between looking at the visuals versus like being on the podcast, depending on, like you said, like while you're cooking and stuff like that, I really don't need the visuals. Right. Just listen to the podcast or I listen to a lot of podcasts when I'm driving. Yes. Yeah, I do. Like in the car, I try to do them, but it goes in streaks and that's okay. Cause it's all about what you need in the moment. There we go. Yes. It's about taking care of what you need, because if you can't get your, if you can't take care of yourself, you can't take care of others. And that's really what our topic is, right? About taking care of you. And the reason why, you know, I really thought about this topic is because there's a lot going on, right? Like there's a lot going on in our world, in our space, in our industry, with people, right? And sometimes it's hard to just take care of, take care of you. Yeah, I think especially in these moments where, like you said, there are so many things happening externally to us and at a rapid pace. You know, between I mean, last week, how many companies announced more rounds of layoffs and big numbers like thousands of people that's on top of the federal government here in the U.S. shutting down and like laying people off and trying to fire them. There's all this talk about AI and we're getting rid of jobs because of AI, which that's a whole nother topic. Right. A lot about especially, you know, my pain with chat GPT right now. There is no replacing humans is all I'm going to say. but there's so much stuff happening. And I think we, we can get so caught up in all of these things out here that we don't even pause to think what what's happening to us in here. Yeah. We might feel some ink, you know, we might feel a little anxious. We might feel a little bit on edge. We might feel maybe even a little bit like complacent, like, right. Yeah. I just need to step out of it. But how do we really tap into what, what it is that we're feeling and needing in those, especially in these moments. Yeah, yeah. Because in reality, right, like we're still here, right? We're still on earth. We still want to be on earth, right? We're still moving forward and making decisions. And with all of this chaos, you know, if we are not taking care of ourselves, even in the little bit, right, in the little bit of peace we can find amongst ourselves, right, or with others, if we're not really taking that time, right, it can become completely overwhelming. And I'd say even to layer on top of that, especially if you're kind of, you know, whether you're an official or unofficial leader, not only are you dealing with what you're having for distractions, every single person probably around you is also dealing with that. Yes. And so for you to be able to recognize, I mean, right, like, gosh, it's not that they're being all forgetful and not being able to do this right now. It's like they have so many distractions. What's pulling them away? Yes. Yes. Or it could be, you know, some of the things like, man, they're really on edge and they're not being the best team member right now. Have you taken time to see what's happening in their world? Yeah, it's about that curiosity, right? Like being curious about what's really going on. But before we kick off on the topic, we do like to do our What's Trending. And today I pulled just a little funny comic strip that I'm going to share. If you're watching on YouTube, whether live or on a replay, you can see it. But I'll read it for the people who's just listening. Dilbert Classics, we love them. Dilbert classics, right? Right. Okay. So the first one, it's a guy, he's kind of holding up, he's kind of holding up a tablet maybe to the other guy and says, you know, I'm reading, I'm reading a book about what it takes to be a great leader. Do you know what Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Gandhi, and Ryan Seacrest have in common? And the other person, none of them read this book. Yeah, that's what Dilbert says. None of them read the book, right? And the other guy, which I don't know if the other guy has a name, but another guy. And they are carbon-based life forms. Right. That's that's what these leaders have in common. And I thought this was really funny because there's so many. Oh, this is what leaders do. You know, in order to do this, you need to wake up at five a.m. You need to do this. You need to do it this way. You need to write. There's so many ways on how can I be a great leader? But I think that this bubbles it down to. anyone can really be a great leader you really just need to build those skills right that's really what it what it's saying to me is that we've all read different books right we all have different backgrounds we all have a preference right on how we lead based on who we are and the teams that we work with But at the end of the day, all great leaders, the thing that we have in common is that we're human and we're people. And great leaders actually have figured out, have become more aware of themselves and of others and how they show up. So if you are a carbon-based life form, you can be a great leader, right? Like you don't have to wait. You don't have to rely on someone else. Like you really have everything it takes to be a great leader. You might just need the skills to do it. Yeah, I think this is kind of one of those myth busters. Yeah. Because how often do you hear people who are like, well, we're going to be looking for people with specific leadership skills to move up. Uh-huh. Yeah. Here's the thing. Anybody can build these skills. It just takes a bit of learning, practicing, reflecting. Those are the key things we like to talk about. Mm-hmm. I can read a book, but if I'm not going to actually practice it, if I don't actually think about like, gosh, why, why has it been so hard for me to do difficult conversations to begin with? Yeah. I'm never going to be able to step into it. Even if I do practice, I'm still going to shy away from it. So if, if we don't do the other parts, right. It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. And one thing that we, you know, we talk about a catalyst, right? And even just the difference between you and I and how we lead between being an extrovert, introvert, right? How we show up, how we like to, how we like to connect with people. You know, like one thing that's great about, I think it's great about us is that like we have seen different parts of leadership, right? We are different leaders in our space. And in order to be great leaders, right, like you don't have to show up the way Tia shows up or you don't have to show up the way Jill shows up or you don't have to show up the way insert this person. It's all about figuring out what type of leader do I want to be and how do I show up in those spaces in a way that feels right for myself as well as for my team. And that looks different for people. You know, I always say the hardest part of leadership is the fact that each person is unique. Yeah. These person's unique. So you have, that's what you have to figure out. And that's the hardest part around leadership. But once you do, right, once you become more aware of yourself and others and really start to build on these skills, it makes leadership still hard, but easier, right? Because you have the tools, you have the tools to be successful. Yeah. And I think, you know, even as we talk about tools, Tia, I know you know well, and if you're a regular on our show, you probably will recognize when I talk about One of the things about being a leader, and I've done this, like, hey, I'm leading pretty good. Like, we're making headway. I go to a webinar once in a while, or maybe I feel like I've been networking. But I can look back and know that when I wasn't intentionally looking at myself and understanding where I was leaning in or pulling back as a leader, I wasn't leading well. Right. Yeah. And I think that's one of the things too, is we think about even like books and programs and we have programs, but that's also why we use the science of coaching. Yeah. That is a game changer when you think about how you actually become a better leader. Like I went to this fantastic networking event last week with women in the food industry and it was fantastic, but it's certainly not a space where I'm learning to be a better leader. I'm interacting and building my network and it warms my heart to be around these fantastic people. Yes. But it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm building my leadership skills in those moments. Yeah. So I think it's also having some awareness of like, where are you, where are you getting what you need, which kind of goes to what we talk about today. That is such a good, that's a good point. Because even as we think about leaders who feel like, oh, I'm a pretty good leader, what they do is that they don't actually build on their skills. They do things like what you're talking about, like networking with other people or, you know, going, being a part of these groups, which is awesome, right? That's something else, right, that we need to be doing as leaders. But we miss the actual skill building, right? The learning, the practice, the reflecting that must happen for us to grow as leaders. leaders yes yes well we are excited about today's topic and we want to welcome you welcome to real talk with catalyst food leaders and this is really we go live every monday at eleven a.m eastern ten a.m central time to have um honest conversations on how to lead people forward in food And so I am Tia. This is Jill. And today's episode is called Taking Care of You in the Mists of Chaos. Because like we said, there are so much going on between shifting labor dynamics, shrinking resources, drops in engagement and team engagement, but also individual engagement. And just the pressure of doing more with less. And we know the chaos is not slowing down. We see no end in sight. But that doesn't mean that we just dive into it without taking care of ourselves. As a matter of fact, if we do that, we're going to burn out. Right. Yes. Yes. And it may not be tomorrow. It may not be even in three months, but at some point. Yeah, I always go back to, and this is a bunch of yoga roots in me too, disease is dis-ease. When we do not have ease in our life and our daily flow in some way, shape, or form, it doesn't mean every moment is brilliantly easy. Yeah, yeah. But if we're not creating these moments to do that, like our body is going to tell us. Right. Yeah. Whether that shows up and it's like, wow, like, gosh, I feel like I have a cold or goodness. I was just diagnosed with something like, yeah, we know a lot about prevention and we know a lot of that has to do with stress levels. Yes. Yes. I feel like we don't talk about that enough. Just like the level of stress and how it impacts our bodies. It's like, I mean, that's like the number one, the number one thing that impacts our bodies and what we do is our stress level. Right. And it sits there. under the surface and that's the thing about stress sometimes we don't even know that we are stressed we feel like oh we love big projects right we love firefighting we love doing these things oh i love getting into the weeds when in reality you're just like you're you're like chasing that high right that dopamine high of being always included in the know when in reality you're stressing your body out Yeah, and I would even say our stress hormones, like, right, we all talk, if you're in any type of process control, we always talk about gathering baseline, right? Like, baseline. Yeah. When it starts to shift and we don't notice the signal that's gone off, and we mean the early ones, like... Nine in a row below, you know, within one standard deviation. That means shift. A lot of times people shut those alarms off because they don't want to respond. But those are the early ones that you should be responding to because all of a sudden your stress baseline level is an entire standard deviation higher than it was before. You don't even notice. And then all of a sudden it builds a little bit more. And before you know it, you are so far away from a place of ease and flow in your life. You don't even know what it looks like to be there. That's such a great analogy because it little by little it's rising. Right. And we don't, like you said, we just do not notice until finally we notice. we get overworked. Right. Yeah. And we sort of grab out. Yeah. Until like, I'm going to say like voice of customer, which is probably this physical body we're in says no more. Exactly. I'm shutting you down. Yes. Yes. Yes. But we don't, we don't want you to get to that point. Right. We want you to start thinking about like, even if, even if it feels like you have no time or you have no energy, whatever it is that you're feeling, we are here to say that you have to take a little bit of time to take care of yourself because the chaos is not slowing down and it's going to continue. That's happening in your space, in your world, right? Like even if we're just talking about the food industry, like this chaos is not going to go away. No. And so we have to carve out this time to take care of yourself. And we hope to give you three quick little tips on what you can do to take care of yourself that really hopefully will take Just a little bit of time, not a lot, right? It doesn't have to be hours and hours of self-care, but just a little bit of time that maybe you can do every day to kind of, again, take care of yourself. Yeah. And if you're going, wow, how am I going to do this? Well, T and I have been there. That's why, that's why clients like working with us because we came from the food industry. We've lived it. We've been there. We understand when a hundred and one things are coming at you. How can I even consider pausing for a moment? Yes. Well, the way we grew as leaders, I'm going to talk my experience, the way I grew as a leader was by being very intentional about carving out that time. Otherwise, I was just reacting, reacting, reacting, even though I thought I was responding. Yes. I wasn't. I couldn't even have like perspective to understand. I was still just reacting. So we hope this encourages you and invites you and gives you permission. Yes. Just a few minutes to pause. Just a few minutes to pause. Yeah. Okay, let's talk about the first one. The first one is really getting out of this firefighting mode. And this is like, I feel like this is the we started with a big one, right? Because a lot of us when even in your example, Jill, about your experience of reacting, reacting, reacting, we're really in this firefighting mode. And sometimes because we live in this fire all the time, we feel like, like you said, we're being proactive or, yeah, I'm going to jump to this meeting and this meeting and this meeting to show my presence because they have these questions, right? And I'm jumping on these things. When in reality, you're just firefighting. There's no real process in place to flow without you. Right. Like you have to be there or you feel like you have to be there in order for it to be successful. Yeah, I think that this one is obviously huge. People come to us all the time because they're wondering, how do we stop doing so much firefighting? And I mean, I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but it's when you decide it's time to stop. Yes. Otherwise, what you you get, what you tolerate. So if you're like, I'm just going to let this these fires keep going and pulling me in, you're going to live in firefighting. You are. You are. And we talk about this during boot camp, right? Like this is actually a module in our leadership boot camp that we focus specifically on firefighting, because just like you said, like you have to decide as a leader that you're done with fires. right it doesn't mean now i want to put a little asterisk it doesn't mean that fires don't come up right but fires should be rare right your house shouldn't be on fire all the time you know you shouldn't be in this crisis of fires all the time and in order for you to stop right you have to identify those fires and put them out and decide hey I'm not going to create new ones. We're not going to create new ones as a team. We're going to build processes, right? We're going to build our leadership skills in order to have the tools, right, to deal with things before they become fires. Yeah. And if you're out there going, cool, our team has built processes and systems, but we seem to get pulled out of them because everybody else comes to us with the fire. Wow, what a fantastic opportunity for you as a leader. You get to step up and have next level conversations with these people outside your group to say, how are we going to stop all this firefighting that's pulling my people away, that's pulling your people away, that's probably creating a lot of rework and waste. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, and that's why leadership skills are important. Exactly because of that. Because those conversations that you need to have, the friction that's going to be there, right? Because you're not the only one filling these fires, right? You're not the only one thriving off of these fires, right? So to have those conversations, to be able to relate and put solutions in place that are best for all, you need to build those leadership skills around it. Yeah. And I think it's a huge gift as a leader that you can even give your people. Yeah. If you followed us, you know, I come from the meat industry and I love it. And you know that in almost all industries these days, there seems to be a lot of foreign material. oh yeah we had foreign material and our teams were reacting so often that we couldn't even get to the preventive measures because we were doing all these things so collectively as leaders like me and the director of ops we said here's what we're going to do going forward Some of these incidents, they don't deserve our time. We just need to take that product out. We already know why the belt broke. We already know why this happened. We don't need to spend our time trying to troubleshoot this exact thing. Let's dispose of product and let's focus our efforts and energy on this part. That's going to stop it from happening. Yes. Like that's what leaders need to be focusing on because otherwise we're spinning our wheels here when really we know we need to get over here. Yes. Yes. And you have to stick with it. Right. Like once you figure out like this is how to stop this fire, you have to do it. Yes. That's the that's the discipline part. Like this has been kind of flowing in here with Catalyst. That's the discipline part of sticking to it. And that's where leadership comes in. Right. To say, no, we're not going to do this fire anymore. Yeah. Right. Right. And it takes people challenging that because your natural tendency is going to be to do what you've done before. Like fire, everybody hoses here. Like you've got to have someone be like, wait, last week we said that situation. We're not going to do that. Like either what's different there or do we need to pause right now? Mm hmm. yes yes people I and I think people underestimate how difficult that is right like I I think about a time in my in my career exactly what you're talking about where we're having these quality issues downstream and we figure out that really the problem is the product coming into the facility so we put a we actually empowered the receiving team to reject poor product, right? Coming in. Okay. The first time it happens, right? There's pressure. We need to receive. We need to make our cases. There's pressure there. We held the line. OK, what is this product? Does it actually fit our quality, our quality standards? No, it doesn't. It needs to be rejected. OK, let's reject it. Right. Fingers crossed. What what, you know, phone calls are going to come from corporate. What? Right. Kind of riding that wave. But you know what? The first time was hard. The second time was easier. The third time, the fourth time, the fifth time it was this is what we do. Right. And it completely eliminated our quality issues. Right. And moves you from having to fight fires to we have a process we follow so that we don't have to keep reacting and pulling away our time and having waste. Yes. Yes. And it doesn't mean you can't pivot. Right. We we worked on that process a couple of times before we felt really good about it. but the fires went away, right? We didn't have to deal with the downstream fires because we put this in place. And I would say the key, right? And you brought this up too. And it's just such a key point that I want people to hear it again. It's not really about the process, right? The process was put into place. We know the reject product that comes in, right? Like we have this information, we know these processes. It's the leadership that's going to keep it on track, to keep us from going back to our habits. That's actually what changed the fact that we were seeing fires, not because we added the process. Which then, because the leader could step into doing this, that shifts the culture. Yes. It takes the leader to say, this is okay for us to do next. This is how we're going to do it. For the culture then to be like, wow, they're actually serious. Like we're actually going to do the right thing and we're going to keep on this path versus rehashing it over or being like, well, let's bring it in and we'll do it anyways. And like, no, leadership sets the tone. yes yes yes and it doesn't always have to be senior leader you all know that like right t i know in this example like you were the one who was like this is what we're doing like you came in and you said This is what we're going to be doing. And that changed everything. It changed everything. I was the middle manager, right? I was the quality manager of the site. And like I said, we wait. Are we going to get a call from corporate? And we did, right? I had those conversations. We did. And I had those conversations, right? I stuck to it. And like you said, the culture started to shift because people started seeing the outcomes. You know, we talk a lot about Catalyst, how the missing piece around culture is leadership. That's a really good example on if leadership wasn't there, people would have fell back into their old habits. Right. We would continue down that path, continue down the path that we were going down versus actually shifting that culture. Yes. And, you know, if you're out there, you're probably like, oh, yep, this all makes sense. This is logical. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. I don't think I can do it like that. well you already have things at your tools at your disposal number one i'm sure you've got a list of hold tags that hopefully you have itemized by like what's causing this problem start there what's the biggest one how can you be like let's put something in place to fix this so i don't have to firefight so my team doesn't have to so my facility my company doesn't you probably have a list of corrective actions And if you're, especially if you're GFSI, you've already like trended those out to see what's going on. Start there. Yes. And be diligent. Yes. Yes. This is where you get to really step up as a leader and say, where am I leading on purpose and having impact versus just checking the boxes. This is how you take care of you and those around you. Yes, yes. And people feel that care. You feel that care because you don't feel like, oh, I'm running around with my hair on fire. It's really around, like you said, leading with that purpose, right? And I love it how you say, take a look at what you already have. You're already dealing with these issues, right? You already need to work through them. Choose one that you can really make an impact on it. And like you said, am I leading from purpose, intention? or am I just reacting to these things? And that alone takes care of you. It really does get your mind in the right mindset, right? Around how do I lead with purpose today versus reacting? Yes. And you know, I'm a fan of affirmations and intention statements. So of course, you know, I got post-it notes here and it's not pelted with post-it notes. Because I need to focus on the two or three things that are most important for me to show up, even here as we're working together with our clients. So if you're like, how do I do this? What is a good way for you to remind yourself every day that this matters, that you matter, that doing this work matters? Put that in play. Put that in play and put it somewhere that you can see it every day, right? At the start of your day, because that's how you start the day by taking care of yourself, right? Getting into that mindset of, am I showing up in my purpose? Yeah. And that really goes into the second thing that we have, which is self-talk. Yes. I mean, people aren't crazy if they talk to themselves. In fact, I wish we would be more in tune with what our heart and gut is telling us. Yes. We lead way too much with this head up here. thinking data numbers process when really there's other parts of our bodies are telling us things all the time they're telling us something we're telling ourselves something right like we're having conversations with ourselves like even just spend a day just thinking like what are the things that i'm saying about myself and about others you know you're having these conversations in your brain and it's shaping the way you show up or the way that you think about situations because I was having a self-talk moment this morning. You know, I told you I woke up and I was irritated. I was, for whatever reason, irritated with myself, with whatever. I don't know if I slept bad. And then I'm working on some software thing and that didn't work. And I went on a walk with the dogs and I was just, I went, Jill, pause. You can let this have power over you, or you can step up, put your big girl panties on and be like, no, I have agency here. I have agency here. And I get to decide, do I want to stick in this attitude and mindset that I brought with me today? Or am I going to step up and be like, yep, that sucks. It is where it is. It's not what I hoped for, but here we are. And I need to move forward. Yes. I think about that and just the chaos of Today. Right. Of like, OK, this is where we are. Right. What? Like you said, you have agency. You you can take action in your circle, in your space. So thinking, OK, what can I control? Right. What are the what are some things that I can do that's actually one hundred percent in my control that will make me feel better, alleviate some chaos in my area that can help someone else, whatever it is. Right. And then what can I influence? Right. What is that thing that's annoying, but I can have some conversations around it, or I can connect with someone, or I can delegate or empower someone else to make a decision. Those are the things that you can do. And when you really break it down to say, okay, I know I'm in a mess of chaos. There's things around me I cannot control. It's going to happen. where am I today, right? How do I show up differently? How do I wanna show up? Like that's the first step, right? Cause you could have woken up and there's times that I'm irritated, you know? And I'm like, you know what? I wanna show this irritation. i want people to know today my inner critic is like you just let them all have it you know but some days that needs to happen right some days you need to show that this thing is frustrating or this thing is irritating some days you're irritated and you don't need to show that right so like just being able to say to yourself okay how do i want to show up today Right. How do I want to show up today? Is it full of gratitude? Is it I want to put my kindness hat on and show multiple people kindness? Right. Do I want to? Is it a day I need to actually appear calm because I have my whole team here with me and they also know that it's chaotic. whatever it is right or times i need to be frustrated they're frustrated i'm frustrated they need to see me as a leader frustrated whatever it is it's about being intentional and using that self-talk to help you again i mean we're all about mindset today right get you into the mindset that you need to be in to be a leader yeah and i think it's even when you pause to just notice like i said i had these thoughts going on in my head this morning i knew i was a little bit riding the edge. But I didn't actually, until I paused to be like, whoa, pump the brakes. I don't have to be in this space. Otherwise, all I was doing was playing into the things in my head that were like, this isn't fair. This should be better. This should have been different. Like, I am... irritated that people aren't helping me out critic critic critic critic whether it's about me personally or about others i had to stop and be like no that is that is not being helpful right now like what what is the voice that's going to be helpful so that i can move forward and i always think about like you know my kids are in hockey and baseball and i love when they start talking about sports psychology Yeah. Because for whatever reason, like it's okay in our society for if you're in sports that you can be like, I'm always doing good mental talk to myself. Right. Yes. Like that applies here as a leader. That applies to you in your life every day. You deserve having that person there who's like, look, it's going to be tough today, but I can do this. Yes. I can be here. I can show up and I can step into the person that I am. Who's just me. I can be me. mm-hmm yes i can be me right i told tiana i can say repeat after me i can do hard things right from brene brown are you yes yes i can do hard things right because it's like sometimes especially in chaos it feels so heavy right it is heavy but we can carry heavy things right and we can help ourselves really set ourselves up for success so that we can show up with a clear mind right and that we can use a tool like self-talk to get us in the right mindset to be the type of leader that we want to be yeah and i know that there's different tools right like i love even with you saying that you are walking your dogs and like going on that walk and and being intentional and thinking right like pausing to um acknowledge right what kind of talk are you telling yourself so like even just taking a quick walk or journaling right is also super popular writing down you know three things you're you're grateful for You know, just even for me, it might be like even when I'm brushing my teeth, I'm not I'm not a type of person that typically has like time for meditation, time for journaling, time for I'm just I just struggle with that versus like, you know, my husband, he's like really good at it. I feel like you're really good at it. but for me i'm not so like it's maybe it's when i'm brushing my teeth and i'm thinking about my day and i'm thinking about like again how do i want to show up or how do i need to show up you know for my clients or you know for you as my partner for our organization you know i i think that when i'm brushing my teeth in the morning so it's like how do you take these moments to really become aware of the things you're saying to yourself yeah And I like to think of it as the whole mental toughness. Because we learn, we have, we talked about this, I think, was it last week or two weeks ago? Like as leaders and as humans, we have these moments, especially where, like when we're in the fire, we're learning, experiential learning. Yeah. Let's like, when we think about building mental toughness, a firefighting exercise is like, oh my gosh, I could lift the car off the baby today. Like, wow, this astro, like incredible power came to me in the moment. Yes. But the mental toughness comes from, you know what, I'm going to the gym and I am lifting every, every week. I am building toughness in my head. I'm building strength. So I don't have to wait for a fire to lift the car. I could be like, dude, watch me lift this car. The same thing needs to happen as humans. It's not just I mean, yes, you can wait for the crisis and hopefully it kicks in where your brain can isn't on shutdown and can lift you to the space you need to be. But instead of like hedging a bet on that, you can start by doing mental toughness in these everyday moments, whether it's brushing your teeth, whether it's ten minutes of journaling, whether it's taking dogs on walks. that is how you build the mental toughness that you need. Yes. And I feel like that's even more important today because like, I feel like generations, right? The generation shift. I feel like we have been so conditioned to think, yes, these firefighting times are times that we learn best, right? They build character. Right, exactly. And first of all, it's not true, but also the younger generations that's coming into the workforce, they're actually not interested in being in these firefighting mode all the time, right? Just because of mental health, right? Like we don't need to be in this space. They've seen our baseline creep up, up, up, up, and they're like, we want none of that. yeah we don't want to be a part of it so that means as leaders we have to build that mental toughness right like we have to we have to provide them with tools so that they can build that mental toughness so that when they do encounter fires like you said they already got it under control they already know how to lift a car they already have the tools to do it they don't need this extreme energy that at the end you're going to collapse you know after you lift a car no they have the tools in place to be able to do it to do it safely to you know ensure that everyone comes out okay and people are able to work the next day right they're able to do something the next day they're able to go on vacation the next day because they're not like drained from being in this fire like that that is not just ideal state that's the state that we need to get at if we think about retention, engagement, right, of the younger generation, because they're, they're not gonna, they're not gonna do things the way that we, we did it. And neither should, they shouldn't, right? We taught them that they should not, because they see, like you said, they see our baseline, they see what's been happening, and they don't want to be a part of it. No. And, you know, just this weekend, I was in a car with a couple teenagers, teenagers and a couple others. And they were actually talking about how, like, They don't want to buy into this world that we've created for them. Like there are parts of it where they're like, why did you do that? Like, why have you made it like that? And part of it is, you know, this mental toughness. Like, can we stand in the person we are? Can we live in these values? Can we make sure our mental toughness aligns with that? So in these moments where we are questioned, where we are challenged, where we aren't sure, we've built toughness to come back and just go, hmm, let me check in here. Yeah. And I can get guidance to go forward. That is a human superpower, a leadership superpower. It really is. It is. It is. And, you know, we, our goal is to help equip people with that superpower. Right. And in leaders in the food industry, because we really, we truly need more of it. We do. Absolutely. But that also means to be able to do that goes in our third thing, right? Yes. Yes. You have to slow down. Right. To show up. And we've been talking about that a little bit. I'm like, OK, take a step back and identify your fires. Right. And where you want to focus. You know, take a step back and think about how you are doing your self-talk. Right. This whole piece of slowing down and taking that ten minutes. Right. Or taking that time before a meeting or taking that time before your toothbrush. Right. Exactly. Before you show up for the day. is so important. Like I wish myself as a leader growing, I wish someone had said like, no, like this is real, right? Like this is really real. You need to take that time. to set your mind right you know you need to take the time to really reflect and um be intentional and we don't we do not do that we do not do that no and it's powerful like one of the first people we ever had come through boot camp After doing one of our coaching check-ins had said, oh, I'm struggling. Like I get home, like this person was a newlywed. They get home and they're like, you know what? Like we're just, I'm just sitting on the couch watching TV. Like we have dinner and like I'm drained. And when we pause to look back, we're like, well, what has shifted over the past couple of weeks that's causing this? What it came down to is in bootcamp, we ask people, they're like, what routine can you put in place to create time? She had stopped doing her end of the day, like before I leave work, her five minutes of recapping. What did I do? What didn't go well? Like, what am I going to focus on tomorrow? She related that to what was going on and she's taking that home with her because she didn't have closure. on her day. She didn't pause to be able to be like, I can move into this next part, you know, into my home life with a little more ease, but even prepping for coming back. And so she was carrying that with her and she wasn't even aware of it until we paused to see what's happening. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Oh, that is so powerful because she said she didn't take two hours to do that. Yeah, I didn't need two hours. She just needed like five minutes. Five minutes. Right. All she had been doing. But it's things started coming up towards the end of the day where she's like, oh, my gosh, I need to get out because I have something going on after work or I need to get home or whatever that was. And just was like, maybe I don't need that. I'll cut that off. Right. Exactly. But no, that was the most important thing for her. Right. To be able to enjoy the rest of her night. Wow. I think that's so that's so powerful because just that little five minute slowdown. Right. And I mean, honestly, I wouldn't even call it a slowdown. I think it's a part. It's really a part of your life. Routine or it should be a part of your habits. Right. On what you do, because that will allow you to be successful later on. Yeah. And that was what worked for her and what works for others isn't always the same thing, but it's creating what that is for you. Right. And being disciplined enough to do it. It doesn't mean it won't ever change. Like, you know, I've talked about my stuff changes. All of a sudden I'm like, gosh, I feel like I'm more an autopilot doing this. So I need to shake it up and I do something different for a while. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it goes back to knowing yourself, right? Knowing yourself and being aware. And I love the example that you gave of this client because it really shows that, you know, this person doing that five minutes, right, reflection was taking care of themselves. Yes, that's taking care of themselves so they could be there to take care of others. Even in chaos, right? Like she said, she's exhausted. It feels like a whirlwind. But when you actually take care of yourself, take that time to take care of yourself and set yourself up for success, it doesn't mean that the chaos goes away. It doesn't mean that the whirlwind is not around you, but you are centered around Yeah. And, you know, what it probably was is like mentally her brain was still trying to kind of like re like review the day and hadn't been documented. So it's hanging on to that. And then emotionally. Right. That's all connected. So then emotionally not being able to get that out, then that's tied to it. So this power of really allowing our brain to release that isn't just there. Yeah. It's the other parts that how it shows up once again, circling all the way back to like our stress level, our disease and all those things that keep elevating. Yeah. Yeah. It's taking care of you, taking care of you. So we want, you to make this a priority for you. I mean, new month, right? Kickoff. We want you to take, we want you to take this and really think about how do you make yourself a priority this month, right? How do you really focus on getting out of that firefighting mode, right? Like eliminating some fires. You might not be able to eliminate them all this month. We're not saying that. We're not saying go wild. Pick one. Pick one and think about how am I leading with purpose, not just reacting. Yeah. You know, like how do you get out of your head with self-talk? Yeah. And it might even be something, it could be something at work. It could be at something in your home life. Like I'll share mine. Like lately I'm like, what are we having for dinner? Oh my goodness. I know that feels, that sounds maybe a little, but you know, that progressive commercial where they're like, yeah, you've graduated and you get to decide every day what you're having for dinner. I'm feeling that load right now. And it sounds so ridiculous, but every night it takes brain power and firefighting. So I'm like, I need to sit down and like pull out an old meal plan. and just start there. Even if I'm like, I don't love what's on it, but yes, I, something in my personal life is going to free up space and emotional needs for me to take care of myself here for us and our clients better too. Yes. Yes. Oh, that's such a good one. Yeah. I need you to share because I'm like in that mode too. Like that's now, that's a good fire, right? That's a good personal fire of like, what are we going to have for, what are we going to have for dinner? And then it's like, what is Tiana going to The biggest thing. But that's real, right? It is. Or think how many times like you're like starting the week off. Here we are on Monday. You're like, oh, my gosh, I have these piles of medians on my calendar. What are they for? What if you took five or ten minutes and just kind of look through your calendar and wrote down one thing about each one, whether it's a question, a purpose, what what you're bringing to it? Yes. Yes. And you know what? If you don't have anything, maybe shouldn't be there. That's true. Right. Maybe maybe shouldn't be there. Yes. So think about that. How do you get out of firefighting mode? You know, the second one we talked about is using self-help, using self-talk really as a leadership tool and really using that to set your mindset, right? For your day, for your action, for your meeting, right? Really get out of your head or maybe get more into your head, but really using your head, right? To set you up for success versus pulling you into chaos. I'm going to say use your heart and your gut too. Too often we cut that off and then we are out of balance. We're not grounded. I'm just talking from my own experience. Feeling disconnected from my body and from others. Right, exactly. And maybe that's what that means when it's like, get out of your head, because it's like, we're always, we're always here, right? How do you connect it with your heart, your gut, right? So that you're not just in your head, you're connecting to your full body, right? And being just aware and intentional. I feel like intentional is like the word that should flash across the screen during this conversation, because it really is about intentionally tackling fires, intentionally thinking about your self-talk. And then the third one intentionally slowing down right to show up to show up yes yes yes that is one of my favorites yes and if this is like if this for you you're like i really i really need to do this and it's so hard for me to find the time it's so hard for me to um you know to to be in this space like we're inviting you to our free leadership reset week Yeah. Let me add this in here. This is why we've created it. We know people will have a hard time putting it on their calendar, but we're here for you to be able to show up and then be accountable for a couple of days where you get to pause just for a little bit of time each day. Yeah. And for you to really think about, right? Like how do I want to show up as a leader going into the new year? Right? Like we're challenging you this month, right? Like to take care of you and really reset before we go into the holidays, right? Before we start thinking about other people and how, you know, how we cater to them and show up for them. take this time for yourself to do this. Because just like the example, Jill, you shared, once we take this little bit of time for ourselves, we actually show up as better leaders, as better people in our lives for others, right? Yeah. And we have someone in our strategic program right now who said, wow, I'm a good leader and I've been taking care of people all around me. I didn't even realize I wasn't taking care of me. Yes. I wasn't looking at how am I intentionally growing? And that's why they're part of our program. Because they recognized for me to be able to, you know, it's the cliche to fill other people's cups. I need to fill my own. That's right. Yeah. And it's true. Right. It's true. And this week, you know, it's free. If you've been with us before, you know, it's going to be interactive. You know, we're going to give you time to really reflect and think about how does this show up in your life? Right. What actions can you put into place for yourself, for your team? Right. And like that, it really is designed to give you as a leader in the food industry, the time and space that you feel like you never get enough. And that's one thing that we take away even from our programs, right? Like we, a big part of our programs is meeting at our group sessions. And that is really time to learn, practice, reflect, right? When people kind of end our programs and they're like, ah, I need this time, right? I need this time to reflect. Well, we say join enrichment, right? That's our monthly time for you to reflect. This week gives you three powerful days to be able to set Who am I who am I going to be right moving forward? Who do I want to be moving forward? Oh, yeah, it's going to be good. I'm excited about it, of course. And when you register and save your spot at, you know, here's the QR code or you can go to CatalystFoodLeaders.com forward reset code. dash week when you do that you'll also then have access to download our culture change starts with you worksheet because you can start right now thinking about this so that when you get into that week make it all it can be yes yes yes we're excited to have you there we're excited to see you We're excited for you to even think about, right? Like, how do I take care of me? Even when I feel the chaos. So speaking of taking care of you, you know, with this kind of like relaunch of, or, you know, new epi season, new season, not new season of real talk. One of the things that I always ask at the end is, you know, what's one leadership belief. And I'm going to say around taking care of yourself that you've let go of and why. Or maybe I should be like, or not taking care of yourself. Right. Right. Yeah. You know, I'm going to, you know, I'm really, I'm going to pick the, um, the taking the time to slow down and really taking the time to reflect and think about like, how do I want to show up as a leader in different spaces? And, you know, like I said, early on in my career, I wish someone had said, no, really, you need to do this. You need to do it after a meeting. You need to do it before a meeting. You need to do it in these spaces. You need to do it before you have a conversation. You need to do it, you know, you need to do it in every single moment because you need to be intentional about how you show up as a leader. And I feel like there were moments that I probably did just fine with it. And there were moments where it's like, I wasn't prepared for that conversation. Right. Or things came up in that conversation. I wasn't quite ready to even have a conversation about or inserted. Right. And it's something that I feel like we don't talk about enough with leaders. I mean, if you've been in the catalyst space, we talk about it all the time. But as an industry, We don't talk about it at all, right? It's a vital part of being a strong leader. Yes. Or I'm going to pause and say, you might hear it in like a webinar, a one-off webinar you go to, or you might hear it like, you know, I'm in a couple of groups where they'll have like a monthly feature speaker, which is cool. It's great to hear other people's stories, but you got to practice it. You have to do it. Hearing it doesn't mean you're doing it. It goes back to our, our trending, right? Like reading the book doesn't mean it's going to change who you are. You have to actually do the work, right? You have to actually take this time, which again, we challenge you in November, figure out how do you take care of yourself? How do you take care of yourself in this chaos? What about you, Jill? You know, I'm going to say something to let go of. It's the belief that to move ahead, you have to do more. I think there is this myth that if I want to get to that promotion, I need to do more and more and more. And I need to be doing part of that job before I'm in that job. And I need to be doing this before I can do that. Let it go. Because you doing more is, I don't know, do you like volunteering at work and not getting paid for it? Like, that's what you're doing. Yeah. I want you to reframe. Like, why am I doing so much more? Be intentional, maybe. Or I'm not going to say maybe. Be intentional. If you're like, I want to take something on to be able to show something or... lean into a new skill, be intentional, but don't just feel like, oh my gosh, you need to do more and more and more so that people see me or that it feels like I'm having more output. That's a, that's a big old lie. In fact, people will probably not promote you because they're going to be like, you're such a good worker bee. Why would we have you move up? Right. Exactly. So you need to really think about that. Well, and I, even as I think about, you know, the books that I read about those leaders, many of them talk about, they might have full schedules, but they always, always, always make time for their self-care, for prepping for their day, for closing out their day. All of them. All of them. And you can do it too, right? You don't have to be a millionaire. You don't have to be the CEO. You don't have to be the top dog. You don't have to be that. You can choose your time so you can take care of yourself. And yeah, that's such a good one. That's such a good one, Jill. I even think about people who are in toxic cultures where it's like, I need to do more. I need to do more. I need to... No, you don't. right no you don't like think about what do you have control over what do you have influence over and you're not the only one making decisions i always said like i can't care more about this business than you right like i can't care more about it than people who are you know making the highest decisions decisions in the organization or even my counterparts right like even when i was the highest person making decisions around food safety and quality I don't work in a bubble, right? So it's one of those things that, okay, like we have to decide how to move forward. I cannot be the only one. And sometimes you have to let that go, right? And you have to say that, okay, nothing illegal is happening here, right? My deal breakers aren't here. So it doesn't mean I'm going to quit on the spot, but it's something where it's like, okay, well, I've communicated the risk. This is what we've decided that we're going to live with and I need to let it go. I can't take on more just by myself. And I know we're in a time, we started with, we're in this time where we've been seeing mass amounts of, you know, people are getting laid off, roles are being eliminated. You know, last week I talked to somebody who said, gosh, I was actually doing three people's roles and now I'm just doing two people's roles. Yeah. I get that that's real. And I get, we all have factors in our life that are like, I can tolerate that because I still need to bring a paycheck home. I still need to put food on the table. I still need, those are all legit. We're not saying those are not important, but we also will challenge you to think about how do you slow down for those moments to think about where is this going? Yeah. Like, what do I need? And like, Once again, what's in your control versus not, because you have more agency over who you are and how you're showing up than all those things around you. absolutely absolutely and we we hope that you join us for our reset week because absolutely even if you feel like oh man this is still overwhelming i don't know where to start we'll give you a place to start right for you to start thinking about how do i carve out this time to take care of myself when it feels like everything is out of my control yeah yeah well You know, one of the things we always talk about is leadership doesn't get better by doing more. It gets better by being intentional. Yes. So we hope that is part of your takeaway from today, being intentional. Yeah. And of course, we always want to hear, you know, what are some things that you hope to work on or practice or what is your takeaway from today? Put it in the chat. Send us a DM. We love seeing your messages as well, whether it's an email or a message on LinkedIn on what you're practicing, what you're reflecting on. How are you taking care of yourself in November? Yeah, so if this sparked something for you, share this episode with someone else who's in food, who is leading through all of this every day. Subscribe to our YouTube channels or to our podcast so you catch the next conversation. And of course, remember that when leaders grow, cultures change. That's right. We'll see you next time. See you next week. Bye, everyone.
