Adam Larson: 00:06

Hey, everyone and welcome back to Count Me In. I'm your host, Adam Larson, today we have a special guest for you. I'm joined by Elizabeth Lortardo, author of the book Leading Yourself to talk about something we all face, how to take charge of your own mindset, actions, and relationships at work regardless of our job title. In this conversation, Elizabeth goes beyond the typical buzzwords and really breaks down what it means to lead yourself, especially during times of uncertainty and change. We dig into how to find purpose in everyday tasks, how to avoid burning out when work gets overwhelming, and even how to tackle those tricky relationships with coworkers or with your boss.

Adam Larson: 00:41

So stick around because this episode of Count Me In is all about turning challenges into opportunities by leading yourself starting today. Let's jump right in. So I'm really excited to be talking about your book, Leading Yourself today. I really enjoyed, really enjoyed reading the book, and I think it has a lot of great practical advice for leaders, potential leaders, and even just in general, if even if you don't have anybody reporting to you, you're leading yourself. You have to lead yourself to get through the day sometimes to get through jobs, etcetera.

Adam Larson: 01:15

So maybe we can talk about like an overview, like, what is leading yourself look like in practice? And maybe what do you mean by leading yourself? Maybe we can start there.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 01:22

It's core leading yourself to me is taking ownership of how you think, how you act, and how you relate to others regardless of the job you're in. And to your point, whether you're leading a team of a 100 or whether you are only leading yourself, we know that the ability to self lead is a predictor of workplace success. So, pausing to ask, what can I control right now? Even when things are swirly is always an option. And what I hope to explore in the book is how to do that.

Adam Larson: 01:49

So, one of the big themes in your book is finding purpose in a normal job. You know, because a lot of times when you're growing up, you hear people, you know, saying, Oh, what is your dream job? What do you want to do? You know, find the thing you love and you'll never work your day in your life. And I don't necessarily agree with that statement because everything even if you love doing something, it gets tiring after a while.

Adam Larson: 02:09

So let's talk a little bit about, you know, what what does it mean finding your purpose in a normal job?

Elizabeth Lortardo: 02:14

This notion of purpose is a noble one, but it has been so overinflated in the narrative around work. And I think that is for a couple of reasons. First, if you've seen that, like, icky guy, whatever graphic on LinkedIn where all the circles come together and what you do combines with what you love, combines with what the world needs, combined with what you get paid for, like, it all looks so perfectly aligned in this graphic. And the reality is no one has that work experience. Mhmm.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 02:46

So to suggest it is setting everyone up for disappointment. The second reason we tend to feel an absence of purpose is because organizations have gotten the message that, oh, you know, people want fulfillment in their jobs. And they advertise that in recruiting material on their website. They say, we have this really noble mission, and you you go in with so much inspiration and then you have to do some kind of boring stuff. And it feels really disconnected from that.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 03:16

So to reckon with this, what's going societal, on a cultural level, this notion of purpose, and you have to feel fulfilled and you wanna feel inspired when you're at work with the reality of sometimes work is hard and annoying is something I hope to to accomplish in that chapter of how do you find purpose in a normal job? And how do you for yourself contextualize the task you're doing every day so they don't feel meaningless and so they don't feel transactional? And I think in an accounting driven profession, that's really important because the numbers matter. Right? These spreadsheets are of crucial importance.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 03:56

And it's easy to lose sight of the fact that they help people sleep at night. They keep people out of jail. They enable businesses to make better investments, to hire, to innovate in ways they wouldn't have been able to do otherwise if they didn't have good accounting. It doesn't feel that way every day. But the more we can tie ourselves to that ripple effect, the better we experience the job that we have, even when it's boring.

Adam Larson: 04:21

That's easier said than done. You know, you have a especially if you have a transactional job like, you know, you've just entered like the accounting profession and you're doing a lot of kind of the what they call grunt work, right? You're doing the stuff that nobody else wants to do, that you're kind of learning how to do things. It's really hard to say, I'm tying myself to a greater purpose now and not become cynical. How do you manage that that those waters?

Elizabeth Lortardo: 04:42

So it works even if you're cynical. Your brain doesn't know the difference between your own, like, snarky, sarcastic remarks to yourself and actually believing it a lot of the time. So the the saying of, like, fake it till you make it, Amy Cuddy has some interesting research on fake it till you become it. Even if you're like, oh, my job is so meaningful, your brain is in a better place with that sarcastic thought than believing the true thought of my job sucks.

Adam Larson: 05:09

Really?

Elizabeth Lortardo: 05:11

I I don't mean to suggest that, like, every day you're gonna like, I'm so inspired. But even just once a day reminding yourself that, hey. I do hundreds of these reports a day for this business or for this person. This is their one. And they are placing trust in me to do it well.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 05:28

Like, yourself even if it's for five minutes on your lunch break, it does play out over time in some ways that are really significant. Wow. But I can appreciate the skepticism. Sounds kind of hokey.

Adam Larson: 05:41

It does. And I think this is from somebody who's kind of become a skeptic the older I've gotten. And so I when I talk when I think about these things, I always want to say, let's let's let's look at this real talk because not every day is going to be a I'm going to lead myself to do greater and better things. And some people can do that, but not everybody feels that way. And so how do you like, I I always struggle with, like, how do you overcome that?

Elizabeth Lortardo: 06:02

So two things on that. I don't feel that way. I had to learn it, which is why I was the right person to write this book because I spent the early part of my career unhappy, unsatisfied, unengaged, and I thought that was everyone else's fault but mine. So I hear you. The second part of that is, let's say you don't have it in you, right, to trace your own ripple effect and inspire yourself.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 06:29

Read customer testimonials. They exist on your company's website. They exist on social media, the good ones. But even reading that can fuel your spirit, even if you only partially believe it. So if it's feeling like, okay, I'm pouring from an empty cup, right?

Elizabeth Lortardo: 06:44

I'm skeptic. I don't really have a lot of inspiration to give myself right now. Let other people do that for you. Your company no doubt has case studies and testimonials that can, even if only partially, help you see your work in greater context.

Adam Larson: 06:58

Yeah. So in your book, you kind of broke it into three different parts. You got mindset, behavior and then working with others. What do you think is kind of like the most important or not the most important? What do you think?

Adam Larson: 07:09

Which of those do you think most people struggle with today? And why is that?

Elizabeth Lortardo: 07:13

I think people struggle the most with relationships at the end of the book, and then they struggle with behavior, and then they would say they struggle with mindset. And most people would approach the work in inverse order. Right? Dealing with all the problems of other people and then dealing with all the the behavioral things that are wrong. And then maybe I'll be happy, and my mindset will take care of itself.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 07:38

But what we know, what the research tells us, our own lived experience is that the inverse is true. Only when you lock in your mindset, and only when you really zoom in on your behavior is changing your relationships with other people possible. So again, that internal locus of control versus external locus of control. If you read my book backwards, that is an external locus of control. To read it in the way I wrote it, that would be a self leadership focused internal focus.

Adam Larson: 08:06

How do you know which one you are?

Announcer: 08:07

I think

Elizabeth Lortardo: 08:07

we're all kind of an external locus of control. Even if we don't admit it. I know I certainly am. Because it's human nature, right? Designed look for threats in our environment, to think about own behavior and our own, like, childhood traumas and how they're showing up at work.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 08:25

Primarily, we are geared towards an external locus of control and making sure, like, we're aware of every threat that's coming our way. But that doesn't make us happy.

Adam Larson: 08:36

True. So when you're speaking about threats, it makes me think of, you know, when you talked about quiet fear in your book. And so maybe we could talk a little about, you know, how fear shows up in our work lives especially because there's a lot of things we can't control in our work lives. Like you're maybe only over whatever your department is, whatever your team is. You may only be able to control those things, but there's a lot of especially with how fast environments are changing currently.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 09:00

Right. And the narrative around workplace uncertainty isn't doing us any favors. Everyone is experiencing layoffs, whether it's you directly or whether you know someone who is. Every company is looking at uncertainty as it relates to technology and the economy. So this is all around us.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 09:19

And in a way, recognizing that it is that everyone is a little afraid is freeing because it makes it feel less like you're doing something wrong because you're nervous.

Adam Larson: 09:27

Mhmm.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 09:28

You have every right to be nervous. But reckoning with that and working through it is within your control. And we know that when you are able to operate in the face of fear, you make better decisions and you get more opportunities. The challenge is, and I spoke about this a little bit, primarily, we are trained to identify fear and latch onto it. And our brain has not evolved at the pace our circumstances have changed.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 09:54

Right? We're still in kind of caveman brain despite working in an office, which is really weird. So it takes proactive effort on your part to identify and proactively look for the upside in a situation. So, yeah, AI, for example, is changing everything tremendously. There's predictions of a white collar recession because of this.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 10:11

And that 50% or more of entry level jobs will be eliminated. 30% or more of middle management jobs will be eliminated in the next three years. That is a terrifying statistic.

Adam Larson: 10:22

Yeah.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 10:22

But let's force ourselves to look for a potential upside, an opportunity for ourselves in the face of that. Right? So we know that's coming. What can we do now? This is our chance to learn new skills.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 10:34

This is our chance to get out in front of it and to diversify ourselves in terms of income. This is our chance to believe maybe that there's some opportunity for us that is meaningful on the other side of this. Sitting in the ways of all the possibilities that it could go poorly for us isn't really helpful. Like, it's what your brain wants to latch on to. But staying there costs you a lot.

Adam Larson: 10:56

You know, we were just you were just talking about how, you know, there's a lot of changing happening in environments and a lot of companies are shrinking, already shrinking in spite of what could happen in the future. And people are on the verge of burnout. Do you have like some tips and pointers for people who can lead themselves through those moments? Because the fear is very real. And if you have more work piling on top of you, how do you kind of pick yourself up out of that in spite of everything that's happening?

Elizabeth Lortardo: 11:27

Yeah. How can you reinspire yourself and be optimistic when you're already burned out? I think is Yeah. Right? Yeah.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 11:35

So some of this is going to be a mindset shift, and some of it is gonna be really practical. I'm not gonna sit here and be like, you can positivity think your way out of too many things to do. Right? The reality is the volume of tasks has to decrease for you to overcome burnout. There has to be more space carved out.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 11:53

There is not a list of brain hacks that can reckon with too much to do simply. So how do you do that? Some of it is having conversations with your manager, and that doesn't mean I'm burned out. I have too much to do. You can do this in a way that doesn't undermine yourself and say, as I look at the next six months, what are the most important priorities for our team?

Elizabeth Lortardo: 12:16

How do you think I can most significantly contribute to the objectives of our organization? I'm struggling to prioritize between x and y. What do you think is most important? Right? So this political subtlety of trying to push things off your plate is gonna play a factor in reducing your own burnout.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 12:34

And I also think recognizing your part in it is crucial. It's really easy to say, oh, well, calls me at 9PM, and that's why I'm burned out. Well, who's answering the phone? Yeah. And are you conveying behavioral patterns?

Elizabeth Lortardo: 12:51

Are you overestimating the consequences of not doing that And taking a hard look in the mirror of what have you done to create these conditions and how can you undo it?

Adam Larson: 13:02

So I want to talk a little bit about working with other people because I think that's, you know, it's a big we all work with other people, whether you are you whether you are a single person, you know, who has a single person, you have to work with vendors or you have to work with in a big organization. And a lot of times, you know, you're not going to like everybody you work with. You're going to have annoying people you work with, you know. So how do you kind of overcome those those barriers? Because sometimes, you know, we're human and people annoy us and sometimes you snap at somebody or sometimes you do those things.

Adam Larson: 13:32

Not that you should like you can overcome that, but it's how do you kind of overcome the just I feel like I'm at a loss for words because there's so much that we we deal with in our jobs. You know, you're you're dealing with your and but then, you know, there's workplace gossip, there's water cooler talk and all those things. And you have to kind of balance it. Sometimes, like, work feels like high school.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 13:55

Yeah. I think there's a song about that. It's a good Charlotte song, maybe, high school never ends.

Adam Larson: 14:02

Yes. It is.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 14:04

And that's true. And I think the root of your question is how do you deal with all of these frustrating people that you wish you didn't have to deal with. Right? I had one leader say to me, my job is easy. It's the other 250 people here that make it hard.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 14:18

And I think that's that's painfully relatable. I wish I had, like, a Band Aid for ridding the world of annoyance. I don't. But I have some tips to help you deal with it. And the first is to depersonalize it.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 14:32

And there's been a lot written about, like, you hurt people, hurt people, and that's easy to understand intellectually. But for me, when I started to realize that the way I treat people has very little to do with them and a lot to do with me and my beliefs and what's important to me and what I'm experiencing personally for better or worse, I was able to grant other people the same grace and take things a lot less personally, which just helps on a fundamental level, you know, reduce the volume of shower speeches that you give after your workday when you take things less personally. I've also seen in my client work that clear expectations tend to be the root of a lot of workplace strife. And people using language like, well, they should know, or it should be obvious that, or clearly I shouldn't have to tell them. So owning your part in setting expectations and voicing when expectations aren't met or if you failed to set expectations can make a big difference in some of those workplace relationships.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 15:37

And I think lastly, a dose of humility. Like, I'm annoying to people. We all are annoying to people sometimes. Mhmm. You've given a lot of shower speeches about everyone, and rest assured, some have been given about you.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 15:49

And I think just recognizing that as a natural outcome when working with a wide variety of people is freeing.

Adam Larson: 15:57

It really is. And I appreciate your answer. And as you were saying it, I'm like, oh yeah, I've done that too. Just like not making it personal like, oh, so and so must have been having a bad day. All right, moving on.

Adam Larson: 16:08

I'll still email them about the thing I need them for them later and not letting it not not necessarily like, you know, obviously, if somebody's being deliberately mean and terrible to you, you know, you can't just say, oh, they're having a bad day. You know, there's a there's a difference in that. But I appreciate that that not making it as personal.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 16:24

There's definitely some nuance. And I'm not saying you should tolerate injustice and assume that everyone is allowed to treat you terribly. But I think a little bit of graciousness matters. There was this passage in a Stephen Covey book that really stuck with me where he was talking about riding a subway train. And this dad and his four kids get on the subway train, and the kids are just bouncing off the walls.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 16:47

Right? The dad is not paying attention to them at all. He is just standing there staring out while these kids are like taking other people's food, like spilling stuff, yelling, climbing on strangers. His dad's like not doing anything. And everyone on the subway car is like, what a terrible father.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 17:06

Right? How could he not be controlling these kids? He doesn't even care that they're disturbing everybody. And someone said to him, sir, like, your children are really disturbing everyone else on this train. And he looked up, and the way Stephen Covey writes about it is he says, it was like he came to consciousness for a first time, and he said, I'm so sorry.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 17:28

We're coming from the hospital. Their mother just died. I don't think they know how to get how to handle it, and I don't think I do either. And, like, again, you don't have to grant repeated demonstrations of of not nice behavior all the grace, but one off, you really never know. And it wasn't that that guy was a terrible father, and he wanted people to be disturbed.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 17:49

It was the ten minutes that no one saw before that. And I always ground myself in that story when I get really frustrated with someone and I take something really personally, especially when it's the first time that that's happening with that person to remind myself, like, you truly never know. Mhmm.

Adam Larson: 18:05

I agree. And having gone through similar things in my life, you know, I I try to give people that grace too, because you never know what what happened right before they walked into this room and had that conversation with me.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 18:17

I think it comes down to demonstrable patterns of behavior. Someone is repeatedly that way, even if it's for a sad reason, like they had a rough childhood, you look at that differently than one off instances.

Adam Larson: 18:29

That's true. So we can't have this conversation without talking about leading up. You know, if you if you search leading up in like Harvard Business Review, you're going to find hundreds of articles on there. You know, you put it in Google. You're going to find hundreds because sometimes our bosses don't even understand the jobs we do.

Adam Larson: 18:44

Sometimes they don't have understanding of what we do from day to day, You know? So maybe we could talk a little bit about what does effective upward leadership look like and how can someone start practicing it? Because someone may be listening and saying, wait, I can do that?

Elizabeth Lortardo: 18:57

I love that you asked this question because as we see, like, specialization start to narrow and organizations get really wide, most people are working for someone who has not done the job they are doing. In some cases, they don't even understand the job that they are doing. And that puts the onus on the individual contributor even more significantly to lead up. So an umbrella message in leading up is to if you are frustrated with your boss and some of their idiosyncrasies, dial it into the behavior of theirs you are frustrated with. We're not gonna make moral failings of they just don't get it.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 19:37

They're so impulsive. Behaviorally, what behavior are they doing that is impacting you negatively? Let's use a really common example. They're micromanaging. They're constantly bothering you and in the weeds on your thing.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 19:52

So how can you lead up if that is the behavior you are trying to change? You can proactively set a checking cadence with them, even if it's a lot more frequently than you would like. You can keep them in the loop to a degree where they get annoyed at you. You can be so proactive in updating them that they know that they're I'm never gonna be surprised by anything. They're gonna keep me in the loop on everything, and unsurprisingly, they will start to leave you alone.

Adam Larson: 20:22

Mhmm.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 20:24

Another thing you can do from your individual c, if you are working for someone who is a micromanager, is articulate the cost of micromanagement to them. And I don't mean you're a micromanager and it makes me really frustrated and I can't focus. What I do mean is I'm really committed to this project that we agreed on. And to do this well, I'm gonna need some big stretches of focus time. Can we commit to three hours every other day where I can really dive in on this?

Elizabeth Lortardo: 20:56

And unless there's an emergency, not be interrupted. That is a perfectly reasonable request.

Adam Larson: 21:02

Mhmm.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 21:02

All three of those things will make a slight difference. Not a one eighty, but they build over time. And what I hope listeners see is that each of those things are completely within your control. And none of those were a choice to, I don't deserve a micromanager. They're so annoying.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 21:20

I'm just gonna take it on the chin and be grumpy. They're all proactive.

Adam Larson: 21:23

Yeah, it is. Because you can spend a lot of time complaining about a micromanager. You know, we've all I'm sure if you've worked you worked in a business, you've you've had a micromanager at some point in your in your career and it's just it's just how it is because at some point you're going to work with somebody like that. And that's Okay. You know, that's just how that's their managing style.

Adam Larson: 21:44

But it's how you react to it, I think, is the is the biggest thing. A lot of times we focus on what I've learned and a lot of conversations I see a lot of times we focus on what that person is doing and we forget that control what you can and do what you can and control yourself and control how you react to it. And that goes a lot further than continuously complaining about somebody's behavior.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 22:09

I think it's important to recognize that as individuals, when we rehearse narratives around how much we've been wronged, how much everyone else sucks and how unfair it is, Even if that's the truth, we pay a hefty price as people living in that place mentally. Relationships pay a hefty price. No matter how nice your spouse is, they don't wanna hear you complain about your job for years on end. I promise. We pay a price physically, increased levels of cortisol, reduced sleep, inability to focus and solve problems.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 22:44

Your brain changes when you stay in that place. So recognizing that giving people the benefit of the doubt and letting them off the hook for some things isn't of service to them. It's of service to you.

Adam Larson: 22:57

It is. And it physically kind of changes your outlook on things. You don't you're no longer negative Nancy. You're always you're not always the one saying, grumbling all the time, but you're actually you can actually grow in your job, grow in as a human and not just kind of stay in one place, I guess.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 23:12

So one thing I say to a lot of my clients is after they air some of their grievances is we're going to move from emotional resentment into tactical maneuvering. I'm not going to discredit that that was unfair. I'm not gonna say that it was right. We're just gonna move into tactical maneuvering and what you can control because that's the only thing that's gonna make a difference. And the ability to do that on the holistic and in individual situations can be profound in terms of career rocket fuel, that jump from, okay, this happened to me, instead of dissecting how unfair it is, I'm going to move into how I handle it.

Adam Larson: 23:49

We talked a little bit about, you know, how a lot of companies are letting people go. We've talked about what people can do, you know, when they're inside of an organization and all that's happening. But what about the people on the other side of that? You've been let go of your organization. You know, is there advice you can give to somebody who's kind of they want to lead themselves through this kind of uncertainty and change?

Adam Larson: 24:05

Because, you know, maybe they got a little and they've got to worry about COBRA, they got to worry about insurance, they got to worry about all those things. And there's a lot of stress in those moments and you kind of got to pull up your bootstraps and get yourself through it.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 24:16

Yeah. There's really no other choice to lead yourself right now because no one else is gonna do it. You don't have a manager who is gonna step in and lead you or some CEO who's gonna tell you exactly what to do. Now it's on you. I think you raise an important point around COBRA and the logistics and the financial strain of a layoff.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 24:35

So much has been talked about how you need to take a pause and breathe and use this as a time to self reflect. And I think that is a hugely privileged thing to say because such a small percentage of the workforce actually has that as an option. Most people are thrust into tactical maneuvering immediately because they have to be. So if you are in that spot of tactical maneuvering, I'm not gonna tell you to take a deep breath and stare at your belly button and contemplate the meaning of life. What I will say is to be strategic with your place.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 25:07

And as tempting as it is to index on quantity in a job search because you feel like if I, you know, put all these applications out, I'm gonna up my odds of having the right job come to me. But what we know is that focusing on quality, focusing on bespoke applications, following up regularly, reaching out to the specific people, and zooming in drastically increases your law your odds of finding the right job versus quantity. Everything that is easy apply on LinkedIn is getting thousands of applications that look just like yours and probably won't be seen by a person. You have to focus. It is the only way you are going to come out of this.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 25:57

And it feels like it's hedging your bets too strong. Like, if you only focus on 10 jobs, like, that's, you know, not enough. What if they don't work out? But focusing on 100 jobs guarantees that 100 jobs will not work out.

Adam Larson: 26:10

So you saying those things kind of made me think of your chapter about when knowing when to phone it in. Yeah. And it's kind of goes against that idea of hustle culture, like always trying to always trying to do things, which for some people works really well and they're they're really good at that hustle. But not everybody can handle that. And it kind of I was just pulling it up because I wanted because I like the quote you did at the beginning of the chapters that the more you try to do, the less you actually accomplish.

Adam Larson: 26:35

And maybe we could talk a little bit what the idea behind this is and and why it's so powerful.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 26:39

So I wanted to call this out for a couple of reasons. Number one, I despise the hustle culture. I think it is rooted in such deep privilege and a bunch of bros, no offense, that have wives who take care of their kids and can wake up at 5AM and have this, like, deep time to think. That's really nice for them. I think the narrative has been hijacked in a way.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 27:00

I also think that it sets a really unrealistic bar for most people from an energetic perspective, and then you feel terrible when you don't meet this completely unrealistic thing. So what I wanted to do with the chapter of identify when to phone it in was talk to high achievers who don't necessarily embrace the hustle culture and have been strategic on where to place their limited energy. And back to the quote, if you try and do everything, you'll end up doing nothing. There are parts of your job that you don't have to give your best self to. There are parts of your entire life that you can kind of phone it in.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 27:41

And giving yourself permission to do that frees up the energetic resource to pour into the things that really matter and that really benefit from giving your best to. And it it feels like kind of guilty, especially if you identify as performer and an ambitious person, but like, I'm just kind of gonna half ass that a little bit. But what the data tells us is that making that proactive choice enables you to bring even better results to something that is even more important.

Adam Larson: 28:12

So you're saying we can't just give 110% all the time, and that's what that person does all the time?

Elizabeth Lortardo: 28:17

No. Sorry to the bros. You cannot. Well, maybe you can for a really limited amount of time, and maybe there's some breed of which I don't fall into that can for their whole life. But the reality is for the vast majority of people, you will burn out in some way, and it will almost always be in an area you wouldn't have proactively chosen.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 28:34

You will have some health problem. You will have your relationship start to fall apart. Something of the spinning plates will crash. And the question is, will you choose it or will you let it be chosen?

Adam Larson: 28:46

I can I really appreciate that because depending where people in the era people grew up in, you know, I know when I was growing up, it was always like, you always have to give 100%? And hearing you say, well, not everything needs your full self. That one thing like that thing where you have to enter the numbers in for that spreadsheet for that one boss, that doesn't take your full brain. You don't have to give your full. Just do it.

Adam Larson: 29:07

Do it right. Send it on. You don't have to It kind of it's counterculture with how how the how companies and organizations are created. They are not created with that mindset because why would I tell my employee to give only 10% for this one or give a little bit it's it's it's like counterculture. Like, it's it's like my brain can't even process it.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 29:28

It is counterculture, but what we know is that it works because trying to do everything perfectly is really short term game. You're going to burn out personally or you're gonna make a bad mistake professionally. It's unsustainable. Mhmm. So proactively choosing that, you know what?

Elizabeth Lortardo: 29:44

I'll use myself as an example. I write a lot of proposals for client work. If I have a gut intuition that something isn't gonna close, something about it just feels kinda off, the size of it, a conversation I had, you best believe I'm not fine tuning that to the billionth degree that I am the proposal I'm really excited about. And giving myself permission to be like, you know what? I'm gonna work a lot harder on this one because I think it's more important.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 30:11

Yeah. Otherwise, I'm gonna lose both clients or I'm gonna win the one I don't want.

Adam Larson: 30:16

Mhmm.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 30:16

So I think the shift there into I'm gonna just let some of this go and do it kind of just okay enough to get by so I have the energy to pour into things that are really important.

Adam Larson: 30:30

What if somebody's listening to you just say that and they're like, but everything's super important. Like, how do you do you measure things in your life? Because some of it's listening to yourself, like you're saying, like you have that feeling and you have to learn to trust your instincts, but it's not always that simple or not that trusting your instincts is simple, but that's a developed thing that happens over time.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 30:51

Well, how do you tell your boss like, I don't feel aligned to this. I'm going to deprioritize it. So, think the root of your question is how do you pick and choose, right? Just the notion that you should, but through what lenses. Is that right?

Adam Larson: 31:07

Yes. Yes.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 31:08

So there are two lenses that I like to use in in my personal picking and choosing on when to phone it in. The first is long term value. And assessing six months, six years down the line, is this gonna matter? And the answer can be no, but it's something to consider. And the second lens is, what does this do to my energy?

Elizabeth Lortardo: 31:36

Does this completely drain me? Or does it make me feel energized? And it's not a hard and fast like, oh, if there's no long term value and it drains your energy, you don't have to do it. Because reality is in a work experience, if you work for someone, sometimes you have to.

Adam Larson: 31:52

Yeah.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 31:53

But looking through those lenses, especially in the long term of your career, can enable you to make better moves on where you spend your time, what you raise your hand for, and what you want your next play to be. So I don't wanna sit here and be like, oh, just pick and choose, like, where your energy is, and your boss will just have to get over it because it's not that simple. But the recognition that we are at choice for where we put our intellectual horsepower is a freeing one. And it doesn't always show up in these huge, profound calendar blocks. It shows up in micro moments where you're like, you know what?

Elizabeth Lortardo: 32:26

That's going to go with some typos and people are just going to have to get over it because I'm working on this.

Adam Larson: 32:31

No, I appreciate that. I really do. So, Elizabeth, this has been an amazing conversation. And I just wanted to maybe if there's one thing that you want people to kind of walk away from and as they're walking away, they can go to Amazon and buy your book. But, you know, what's one thing that they can walk away of?

Adam Larson: 32:47

And like, what do you hope that they can remember about be leading themselves?

Elizabeth Lortardo: 32:50

So I get this question a lot of like, when do you need to start leading yourself? And I think that question is funny because the reality is we are all already leading ourselves. The question is, are you doing a good job at it? And the sentiment I would leave people with is even though times are swirly, even though everyone and every organization is facing huge uncertainty, even though there are some real challenges we are all reckoning with, you are not powerless. And you can pour into yourself, you can up your skill set in self leadership, and you can create a different reality when you choose to.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 33:32

Not overnight. It's not a magic band aid. I can't right all the wrongs in the world, but you have the power to upskill yourself in a way that better enables you to deal with them. So you're not powerless. You you spent thirty something minutes upskilling yourself.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 33:47

Let the journey continue, and don't be too discouraged.

Adam Larson: 33:50

Well, thanks so much, Elizabeth, for coming on the podcast. It's been great chatting with you.

Elizabeth Lortardo: 33:54

Thanks for having me.

Announcer: 33:56

This has been Count Me In, IMA's podcast, providing you with the latest perspectives of thought leaders from the accounting and finance profession. If you like what you heard and you'd like to be counted in for more relevant accounting and finance education, visit IMA's website at www.imanet.org.