The Power To Work Happier
Episode 492 | Host: Emilie Aries | Guest: Stella Grizont
How can positive psychology help curb burnout?
The Bossed Up community has a lot of overachievers, and one common thread between us is our tendency to burn out. It’s painful, unfortunate, frustrating, and—as today’s guest explains—perhaps more avoidable than you might think if you’re willing to work on “working happier.”
Stella Grizont was named the world’s leading happiness expert by TIME Magazine. She has a master’s degree in Applied Positive Psychology (aka the science of happiness!) and spent the last 17 years working with leaders and organizations across the globe, coaching them on finding personal career fulfillment and improving the well-being and engagement of their workers. She joins me to chat about her recent book, The Work Happiness Method, and how her approach can help you enjoy work more and end up burned out less.
What is positive psychology?
Traditional psychology studies what is wrong with people and how we can get them back to normal; how to go from a minus 10, say, back to baseline. Positive psychology uses the same research-backed approaches to focus on the other side of the spectrum: how do we help people at baseline go beyond, to flourish and thrive?
Get playful
One of the many sections in The Work Happiness Method that intrigued me was Stella's connection between uncertainty and play. If you’re anything like me, you’re a little neurotic—focused on trying to get ahead through dogged preparation. That’s great…and it also means that when uncertainty hits, it can really throw us off.
Stella explains that adding “play” into our lives isn’t necessarily about any specific action or behavior. You don’t need to take up skydiving or join an immersive play gym to qualify. Instead, it’s a mindset game. “Anything can become more playful,” Stella says. “It’s really about our willingness to be more open and more curious” when engaged in any situation with an uncertain outcome.
Whether it’s navigating a disagreement with your partner or searching for a job, you can change the dynamic of the whole experience by giving yourself permission to choose curiosity instead of dropping right into the negativity bias that is biologically ingrained to make us categorize every uncertainty as a threat to our survival.
So much of our experience in uncertain circumstances comes down to waffling between anxiety and excitement. We’re anxious that we won’t be able to pay our bills if this goes on much longer, but we’re excited about that next opportunity for our careers.
Stella reminds us all: “Each waffle is there to expose an opportunity for us to grow and transcend something.”
Return to the boring basics
Trying to remember to be curious and open can feel like a lot when your mind is reeling from all that stressful uncertainty, so let’s keep it simple. Stella says we all need to go back to “the boring basics.”
I think about how I interact with my toddler when he’s throwing a tantrum. I try my best to keep my cool and consider what might have prompted the outburst: has he eaten recently? Does he need a nap? Does he just need a hug? And yet, when our own brains want to lie down and kick and scream, how often do we extend this same patience and understanding to ourselves?
The “boring basics” are those basic needs that we know we must meet but, for whatever reason, sometimes forget to prioritize. Things like movement, getting out into nature, seeking moments of love and connection, drinking enough water, and eating nourishing foods. Things like breathing, even!
First and foremost, we need to return to these simple steps. But Stella acknowledges that, sometimes, that's the hardest thing to do.
Identifying your vision
I wanted to pick Stella’s brain on the question of vision. So many of the women who come through Bossed Up express the same sentiment: their past work experience has taught them what they don’t want to do, but they’re still a bit hazy on what they do want. Oprah said the people who get to where they want to go get there “because they know where they want to go.” That’s inspiring, but what do you do when even figuring that out feels overwhelming?
Someone might not know what they want, Stella admits, but if they sit down to think about it, they usually know how they want to feel. That’s where you have to start, and from there, you can work toward opportunities that deliver that feeling.
Stella has a workbook all about identifying your vision, and you can download a free copy right here. It can help you identify the environment that will lead you to become who you are “when your heart is singing.”
Our conversation and Stella’s must-read book dig even deeper into what it takes to grab the happiness reins of your own career (and life). Without a doubt, there are systemic issues at play that can make it harder to realize more joy. This just makes it all the more important that we take those bits we can control into our own hands and be our own champions of what we need to flourish and thrive.
What did you think of this discussion? What kinds of uncertainty spark that waffling between anxiety and excitement in you, and which of Stella’s excellent actions are you going to try next time it happens? Join us in the Courage Community on Facebook or our group on LinkedIn to share your thoughts!
Related links from today’s episode:
The Work Happiness Method: Master the 8 Skills of Career Fulfillment
Sign up for Stella’s newsletter on her website
Connect with Stella on LinkedIn
Connect with Stella on Instagram
Oprah speaks to finding your vision
LEVEL UP: a Leadership Accelerator for Women on the Rise
LEVEL UP to a happier career that matches your vision:
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[INTRO MUSIC IN]
EMILIE: Hey, and welcome to the Bossed Up podcast, episode 492. I'm your host, Emilie Aries, the Founder and CEO of Bossed Up. And today, I am so delighted to share this conversation with my fellow overachievers who find ourselves burnt out on the regular all about how we can work happier.
[INTRO MUSIC ENDS]
Joining me to break this down is Stella Grizont, an author that Time Magazine named a leading happiness expert. She's a speaker and an executive coach. And Stella works with leaders who are seeking deeper career fulfillment, as well as with organizations that are dedicated to elevating the wellbeing and engagement of their employees. Her debut book, based on her signature coaching program, The Work Happiness Method: Master the 8 Skills to Career Fulfillment, was an instant USA Today bestseller. In the last 17 years, Stella's coached over 1,800 individuals in over 30 countries, and some of her corporate clients include Google, Audible, Cigna, and Amazon. She was also one of the first 150 people in the world to earn a Master's in Applied Positive Psychology, AKA the Science of Happiness, from the University of Pennsylvania. And she holds her bachelor's in Economics from Barnard College at Columbia University. Stella's tuning in from New Jersey, where she lives with her husband, daughter and son who continue to teach her what life is all about. Stella, welcome to the Bossed Up podcast.
STELLA: Thank you. Thank you.
EMILIE: And congratulations on this new release. We're recording this in the summer 2024. This episode won't come out until February, but it's still. It's not going to be a year old, so this is still a new release of The Work Happiness Method. Congratulations. This is quite a feat.
STELLA: Thank you. Thank you. I bet the soft cover might be coming out probably by then, so, yeah.
EMILIE: Well, it's quite a book. I love how practical, tactical, engaging, and also interactive this book is.
STELLA: Thank you. That was my goal. So that's music to my ears.
EMILIE: I love it. And that's really how we roll here at Bossed Up. So tell me the origin story. How did you come to writing The Work Happiness Method?
STELLA: I mean, I just was miserable at work, you know, I just. I love work. I love, I was always an overachiever and I was always giving it my all and feeling really passionate. And then I noticed a cycle of like, then getting burnt out. And then I was like, oh, well, it must be when I was working in advertising, the client's fault, let me go find a different agency. And then I found a startup to work for and then I. I felt so passionate again and I gave it my all.
And then I found myself miserable and burnt out again. I was like, uh, it must be the leaders. Let me go start my own business and then I'll be in total control. And then I found myself in the same spot and then I finally was like, oh, maybe, maybe it was me. And so, it's not to blame. I'm not blaming myself, I'm not blaming anyone listening. But what I realized in that moment was like, oh, I actually had more control and power than I believed I did back then and then, so after I kind of resuscitated myself using the tools that I had gained through positive psychology and studying the science of happiness and just doing my own coaching and my own programming, then I realized, oh, here's how I can get my power back and how I can help others do the same.
EMILIE: Yeah, I mean, we've seen that pattern repeat itself so many times in our community. Here at Bossed Up, I've talked openly about my early career burnout. I feel like I burnt out again last year in 2023, with a whole new flavor, quite frankly, of burnout. And it's a hard reminder, and it's really hard to even accept that when you're in the midst of it yourself, that like, maybe these are about the habits that I'm bringing with me to different environments, maybe this is about what I can control, which is just hard to hear when you think you can out run burnout, when you think you can out run being miserable at work and grinding and hustling through that kind of culture, right?
STELLA: Yeah, and I think that happens because, especially to overachievers, because we are so capable in many ways and we also have a system that's not necessarily working for our well being. But I park that aside because there's still things within our control that we can influence and that's what this book is about. It's about teaching inner skills, the skills that we need to really manage ourselves so that we can show up and flourish.
EMILIE: That's great. Yeah. I think the note about systemic injustice and like late stage capitalism being part of the fault here is important. And as we always say here at Bossed Up, you know, we gotta play the cards we've been dealt while we change the game. So you mentioned positive psychology, help me understand what that is and how it factors in here.
STELLA: Yes. So traditional psychology is a deficit model and it studies what's wrong with people and how do we get them back to normal. And that's been tremendous in helping us diagnose mental illness. And so essentially you can think of it as like, how do we get folks from negative 10 to 0, back to normal? Positive psychology uses the same empirical approach, evidence based approach, but it asks a different set of questions. It asks what's right with people and how do we help people flourish? How do we help people live their most alive life?
EMILIE: Mmmm. And you studied this at UPenn, right?
STELLA: I studied at UPenn and it was one of the, I think I was the fifth class. And it was, It's a very new field. And so that was very exciting. And yeah, I got a degree in happiness, which I was like, what better degree could you get?
[LAUGHTER]
EMILIE: That's awesome. I remember seeing that program when it first came out. And you're right, this is like the bleeding edge of psychology and of understanding how we can go from baseline to thriving, which is really what today is all about. And I'm so delighted to hear more about that.
STELLA: Yeah, I mean, you know, for thousands of years, mystics and philosophers and teenagers have wrestled with the questions that science has finally started to answer. [LAUGHTER] So finally we've gotten on board.
EMILIE: It is funny because my hyper-analytical self, who probably over-intellectualizes my feelings, you know, as my therapist might put it, is like, yeah, but, you know, we can't listen to the psychics and the mystics and the like, deep wisdom within, natural earth sciences and like millennia of people living on this planet. But now that we've got psychology programs about it and science, we can listen. But the conclusions are probably similar, I would hope.
STELLA: In many ways. In many ways, yeah. So that's cool. That's very exciting.
EMILIE: So one of the parts of your book that really struck me, and this is so selfish of me, but I know lots of listeners will relate, is your approach to dealing with uncertainty. The antidote which you provide is play, which was really surprising to me. I think a lot of women listening to this podcast are like myself, we run a little on the neurotic side of the spectrum. And we're here because we're trying to get ahead. We're here because we're trying to figure out how to navigate and prepare for uncertainty. And that kind of anxiety drives a lot of high achievers, doesn't it? So what is the deal with incorporating play and how does that relate to uncertainty and navigating it all?
STELLA: Oh, so great. This is actually why I went to study positive psychology, is because I had this vision for, [SIGH] I was doing all these workshops trying to figure out what's my purpose, and I just had this vision for, oh my god, I want to create an immersive space for people so that they can be brought alive and be their most creative, and awake, and connected like that, seeing in technicolor, where, you know, we could just feel the limitlessness of each other.
And so I created this business that we were doing immersive play experiences. And we were splashing around and playing paint and breaking things and crawling through tunnels, and it was a really screaming in the back of moving trucks. [LAUGHTER] It was wild before, like, immersive museums are like, really like, that was a very long time. And I realized I hated doing it. I hated, because it was so production heavy. And I was like, I do not belong on a ladder. I should not be going to Home Depot every day. This is not my jam. I loved the 30 minutes I would see people lit up and then everything else was so painful.
And it was a beautiful lesson in me realizing that play is not about the activity you're engaged in, but it's about your mindset. So when I say play, it's not about Legos or doing anything in particular. I mean, it's about your mindset and your willingness to see more so anything can become more playful. It's really about our willingness to see something and to be more open and more curious. And that took me a very expensive, painful lesson to realize. [LAUGHTER]
EMILIE: But it also makes play feel more accessible, though. You're not saying we have to have adrenaline pumping once in a lifetime experiences to have fun, right?
STELLA: No. And I talk about, I don't, now, I'm forgetting if I mentioned this example in the book, but I try to be playful when I'm having a fight with my husband. It's like, play is really about, so maybe we're in the middle of a, you know, debate, I could be like, okay, I wonder how he might surprise me and he might say something that I don't expect, or to be a little curious, like, I wonder what, you know, how might this be an opportunity, instead of feeling like something hard or something to dread?
So it's really about. I talk about it as if, like, you're opening the window just to crack and you just get that fresh air and it changes the dynamic of the whole room. And that's what happens to our minds. If we give ourselves permission to be playful, especially in a moment where we want to contract, we're able to see more possibilities.
EMILIE: I'm glad you mentioned your husband, because what came to mind when you were describing that mindset was that I married someone who has that mindset. And I remember when I first met Brad, we were playing volleyball in the National Mall down by the Lincoln Memorial, and we barely exchanged like five words in our first meeting, but we were in a playful environment, quite literally. And we ended up sort of meeting a few different times while playing volleyball. That was our first domain of connection.
And I remember thinking, I didn't, you know, I was like such a snob, first of all, because I'm like, I'm living in DC, working in politics, like living and breathing the 24 hours news cycle, right? And I assumed everyone in DC was doing the same. I was probably 24 years old. Yeah. And this guy comes along and he's like cracking jokes all the time and he's like introducing me to stand up comedy. And, you know, like, he genuinely just brought an infusion of laughter into my life.
And I remember the first summer we met, I said to him, wow, I haven't laughed this much in as long as I can remember. And he looked at me with like, a raised eyebrow and was like, what? Like, that's really concerning and sad. Like, what's wrong with you? [LAUGHTER] And it was just like this levity. He's like, he is a playful guy who brings a levity to the very serious things that he does and like, the very, like, the pride he still takes in his work and the work ethic he brings to everything. But it can be done without clinging and clenching to that outcome, right?
STELLA: Yes. I love that example because I'm obsessed with comedy. And I think part of it is because comedians are willing to see more. They turn, you know, they look at something really dark and they find the light in it.
EMILIE: They find the funny, yeah.
STELLA: They find the funny. And so, the thing is the difference between, like, if you think about uncertainty and most of our brain is primed to tag uncertainty as a threat in many respects because it represents potential loss. So we have this negativity bias, which means I'm, you know, hyper alert to, we're all hyper alert to threat. We don't want to lose anything because that could represent a threat to our survival. And so uncertainty can feel really scary. So that if we think about uncertainty on a continuum, on one end is we're operating from our negativity bias and we're afraid to lose.
EMILIE: And that's where anxiety lives, right?
STELLA: That's where anxiety lives, okay. It's like worrying about something that's not true, but a potential loss. On the other end, though, if we're operating from our play mindset on the other end of that spectrum is actually embracing uncertainty. It's actually seeking out uncertainty. And that's when we're planning a vacation to somewhere we've never been. [GASP] We're like, I can't wait to go to all these new places. I can't wait to try this new restaurant. I can't wait to learn about this culture, right. So we actually, instinctually, also within us, have the capacity to seek out the unknown. You know, the unknown can be the same, but the difference is our mindset and how do we move ourselves into a play mindset versus being operated by our negativity bias. It's really about how safe we are in our bodies.
So if we in our bodies are very stressed, then we're more likely to perceive something through our negativity bias. If we actually feel safe, you guys were playing volleyball. He was cracking jokes. You're like, maybe, who is this guy? [LAUGHTER] Like, flirting is a perfect example of actually play, it's like, it's like a, it's really a fun exchange. You can, like, be a little. It's risky. Play has a level of risk in it. That's what makes it exciting. And that's also the unknown. That's what makes it the, it's like that level of risk.
EMILIE: Well, risk without your safety being on the line, right. I think that's really key. You know, what's coming to mind, Stella, is a lot of our listeners are navigating the job search. And the job search can be exciting when you have severance coming in, when you have unemployment checks coming in and you've got your basic safety needs met, right? When your financial safety is not in jeopardy, the job search can be fun and exciting and exploratory. And then six months later, the job search can be exhausting and terrifying.
And that's where I see people's mindset really help or hamper their ability to continue to put themselves out there in a positive way. Like, how do you navigate the waffling that I could imagine people do, because I've been there myself when thinking about uncertainty? Some days I'm feeling safe and secure and positive and grounded and can have that positivity. And then other days, I'm feeling like this is never going to work. I don't know what I'm doing. And that anxiety just drives my behavior. So how do we move to that side of the spectrum that keeps us in a positive frame when we, like, what can we control about that piece?
STELLA: Yeah, I mean, the first thing is I would just have some compassion because, yeah, not having a job, I mean, you have mouths to feed or, you know, that is nerve wracking, of course. And so, you know, part of the, I kind of have this, a way to remember how to get in the play mindset is an acronym play.
And the first is to give yourself permission to be playful. And that's to say, okay, like, I'm going to, in this moment, see what else I can see. Let me see if I can step into the play mindset because I'm noticing myself, like, really get dragged down by anxiety.
And then L is like, letting go of judgment. And so, when we tend to get really nervous, we also tend to judge ourselves for it. Like, what's wrong with me? Why can't I be more playful, right? You know, like, why can't I get it together? Like, everything's okay, but I'm still, still, you know, so we start to judge ourselves. So then maybe we could just be like, all right, I'm noticing that judgment. All right, let's like, can I, can I give that a pause for just like, the next hour and see if I can extend some self-compassion.
The A in the play mindset is really accepting this moment as it is and acknowledging all the feelings as they are. So, alright, yeah, I am feeling nervous. I'm feeling depressed. This f****** sucks. So it's a horrible market to be looking like they're, everyone's so talented. No one has jobs. This sucks.
And then Y is when we, “yes and”, that's kind of the foundational role of improv, which is say yes to whatever is. I don't have a job. It's been six months. A severance is running out. And that's where we get to control. What's my next step? What's my next move for just today? Do I need to take a nap? Do I need a glass of water? Do I need a walk? Do I need a hug from a friend? Do I need to get my a** in a coffee shop and actually just make a list of five people I'm going to network with?
So that's what we can control, is our next right step. And sometimes that's self care, sometimes that's self compassion. I think waffling is just part of it. Like, that's okay. That's totally. I mean, my whole writing this book took almost a decade, and it was a big, waffling mess, like, it just to get to the finish line. And I'm so grateful for that. Like, I learned, like, each waffle is there to expose something, you know, an opportunity for us to grow and transcend, you know, something. So it's not bad. It's not bad.
EMILIE: I love that so much. And I feel like that is a big part of your book is like the reminder that this is a skill set we can practice and learn and improve upon. And what you just described sounds like a thought exercise that's quite physically taxing, much like real exercise, right. Like being able to be that mindfully aware of, oh my gosh, I'm having a waffle. Like, I'm waffling between that side of the spectrum that's anxiety, versus I want to get over to excitement. And the playful mindset and the safety element underpinning all of that just really keeps coming back to me as so key. It's like, what can I do to create a sense of safety even in this five minute thought exercise, to go through that acronym and kind of get myself in the right mindset to help me move forward?
STELLA: Yeah. And getting yourself. If your nervous system is just, it's on high alarm because you're stressed, which is understandable. The first, and I talk about this in chapter one, like, we want to return to what I call the boring basics. It's like, I mean, like, it's the stuff we're so tired of hearing and it's the stuff that our body needs. Like movement, a walk in nature,...
EMILIE: Breathing.
STELLA: …breathing, right. Like being connected and feeling loved, Laughing, eating well, eating like nothing that's gonna make your blood sugar go whack. Hydrating. So just returning to those. Resting first. We might just need a really chillax and that is, I find that the hardest thing to do sometimes.
EMILIE: I mean, they're the greatest hits for a reason, right? The whole medical community has been talking about these basics. I do like that you call them the boring basics, though.
STELLA: I'm so angry sometimes. I'm like, ugh, you know, like, I'm like looking for like the next big healer and it's like, no, just take a freaking nap. Your toddler kept you up all night, Stella. It's not complicated.
EMILIE: Well, I was just about to reference our respective 3 year olds, because it's like, mommy needs a nap is so relatable. Like, if my 3 year old's throwing a tantrum, I'd be like, what? What did you eat? You know, do you need a nap? Like, do you need a snack? But we are reticent to do that to ourselves and we really need to parent ourselves, much like we would parent a tantrum-y toddler, isn’t it?
STELLA: Exactly like being that sturdy leader, being like non-judgmental and just getting those needs met.
EMILIE: Well, one of the terms that I really resonated with back actually in chapter one as well was learned optimism. This idea that we've been talking about already, but that we can actually kind of practice positivity. Can you help me understand what learned optimism is?
STELLA: Yeah. So that was a term coined by Martin Seligman, who actually is, he was the head of the American Psychological Association, and he is one of the great founders of positive psychology. And so he stumbled upon, well, I wouldn't say he stumbled, but he noticed that first, he noticed this condition called Learned Helplessness, which is when we feel like no matter what we do, you know, this is just the way it is. And so he was experimenting on animals and he saw that there was a pattern where sometimes an animal would get zapped, and zapped, and zapped, and feel like, okay, I'm gonna just give up, because no matter what I do, whether I take this or I take that, I'm gonna get zapped.
And so in our life, sometimes we feel that way too. Like, no matter how many times I go on an interview, no matter how many diets I go on, no matter how many first dates I go on, it's not gonna work out, right. But then he also noticed that there was a population that actually could find their way through a lot of uncertainty.
And so we can teach ourselves to be optimistic even when we feel hopeless. And the way we can is by shifting our conversational style to ourselves. So instead of seeing something as personal, like, ah, ah, like this didn't go well because I suck as a human being and I'm never going to be successful, or instead of seeing something as permanent, like, I'm never going to be successful, I'm never going to get the job, I'm always going to keep, like, staying in this, like, middle management, whatever it is, or maybe seeing it as pervasive, like, I didn't get this interview and now my whole family is going to suffer and my kids are going to, I'm not going to go to good schools, like, whatever.
We tend to spiral when things are going off track around these three P's and learned optimism is basically is turning those three P's around. So seeing it as not permanent, like, actually, this one thing, this one interview didn't go well. I have other interviews. It's not personal. You know what? This one interview didn't go well. There's actually things I can do to prepare so I know I can learn to interview better, and then it's not pervasive, meaning like, I'm still a great leader. I have great relationships. I have a lot of value I can add. And so I'm not. I'm not letting this bleed into every aspect of my identity and career.
So learned optimism is this idea of, like, I see it as containing the spill. When you spill a glass of water on your countertop, what do you do? You rush and you put paper towels around it so it doesn't drip all over the cabinets and onto the floor. [LAUGHTER] When something goes wrong, you want to contain the spill and talk yourself through it slowly so that you're not letting it seep into your identity and feel like you're locked into this really crappy situation.
EMILIE: Yeah, or let it ruin your not only day, but week, but month, you know?
STELLA: Yes. Or longer. Yeah.
EMILIE: Yeah, or year, or decade.
STELLA: Exactly. Exactly.
EMILIE: Yeah. I can feel that way when bad things happen multiple times. You know what I mean? But, yeah, that learned optimism is. Is to contain it. I love that metaphor. I'm like, we need a Bounty sponsor. [LAUGHTER]
STELLA: I know. Exactly. I'm always. I'm always talking about the paper towels. So, yes, that's good.
EMILIE: Okay, well, I could talk to you forever, Stella, but I want to make sure before we wrap that we hit on another big topic in your book, around vision. Because when I hear folks getting out of a rut, right? Feeling like, okay, I'm trying to not perpetuate burnout or continue to find myself in toxic work environments. I'm trying to contain the spill. That has been my last three career moves, right? I find it hard for folks to really positively frame what I do want. They come to Bossed Up, stop and say, here's what I don't want, you know, here's what I'm not looking for.
And actually, there's this quote I want to play for you from Oprah that comes upon my feed every now and then. That really came to mind when I was reading this part of your book. And it's somewhat infuriating, actually this is from an interview that Oprah did with Trevor Noah from The Daily Show. Let me just play this for you real quick.
[AUDIO CLIP BEGINS WITH BACKGROUND MUSIC]
TREVOR NOAH: You've talked to everyone in the world who is successful. What would you say is the one common characteristic that you find gets people to where they want to go?
OPRAH WINFREY: People get to where they want to go because they know where they want to go. Most people don't know where they want to go.
TREVOR NOAH: Oh wow.
OPRAH WINFREY: Most people. A lot of people are going and Being driven by what they think they should do,
TREVOR NOAH: Right.
OPRAH WINFREY: what other people say they should do, what they have carried in their mind for a long time they should do. But the most important question you could ever ask yourself is, what do I really want?
TREVOR NOAH: Wow.
OPRAH WINFREY: And the answer to that, once you can establish for yourself what the answer to that is, and have everything you do, every choice you make, move you in the direction of what you say your vision is.
TREVOR NOAH: Right.
OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah. And when you do that, the forces of life rise up to meet you.
[AUDIO CLIP ENDS]
EMILIE: So I hear that from Oprah, and I go, yes and, to borrow the improv phrase, what about the millions of people who say, I don't know what the hell I want to do with my life? And it's really hard to know what I want when all I've experienced is what I don't want. How do you begin to navigate that?
STELLA: The thing is that people may not know what they want to do, but they do know how they want to feel and be, and that's where we gotta start. And so I agree with everything that Oprah said, because once we know how we want to feel and be, then we can look for opportunities, choices, moments that fortify that type of being. Whether it's, I want to be more creative. I want to have more flexibility. I want to have greater influence. I want to be more organized, I want to be more playful, I want to be more rested. You know, we know how we want to feel and be.
And so the exercise that I offer in the book the Vision Generator, which folks can download for free without even buying the book at visiongenerator.com that helps to surface that information from within. That's really about getting in touch with what are the conditions that bring me most alive? Who am I when I am shining and feeling energized and my heart is singing? Because sometimes we forget those parts of ourselves and, you know, we need some prompts to remember.
And the good news is that that's where we have control. Like, we might not have the perfect lineup of responsibilities, but if it's important for me to be more creative, I can challenge myself to be more creative without even talking to my boss. I can dress more creatively. I can make a more interesting breakfast. I could ask different questions in my meeting, I can do a report differently. Like, I actually have so much agency. We all do to be who we want to be a little bit more. And in certain conditions, it becomes there's a lot of resistance. And in those conditions, we want to examine what changes do I need to make. But first, at least start with where you're at.
EMILIE: I love that you're reminding me of another quote, which I can't remember who said this, but it's like, if you clarify how you want to show up in the world and the environment you're in is one that rejects that version of you, then it's your job to move your environment, change your environment, right? I'm paraphrasing, but someone else said that way more eloquently than I just now.
But it's like, once you tap into, okay, what. What can I control here? Who do I want to be? Let me go be that even if it feels risky and if I'm getting continuous negative feedback, then I have to change my environment, right?
STELLA: Right. And so when people come to me and they're like, I got to quit my job or I want to change careers, I first say, well, are you practicing being who you want to be at work? Do you even know what that is, what your values are? How can you do that a little bit more? Maybe that involves having some conversations with your boss. Maybe that involves setting some new boundaries. Maybe that involves you going for that project that is thrilling for you. First go do that and then see, see how things are. And then if the environment continues to not support where you want to go, then by all means.
EMILIE: Yeah, I love that. Wow, Stella, there's so much more in your book that we didn't have a chance to tackle. So where can our listeners get their hands on The Work Happiness Method and keep up with you?
STELLA: Oh, well, anywhere books are sold. So wherever you like to get your books. And folks can follow me on Instagram, on LinkedIn, and if you go on my website, you can join my newsletter where I share whatever's on my mind and upcoming events and opportunities to work together.
EMILIE: Amazing. I will include all those links in today's show notes. Thank you so much for being part of this conversation.
STELLA: Oh, thank you. This was so good.
EMILIE: For links to everything Stella and I just discussed, head to bossedup.org/episode492. That's bossedup.org/episode492. And now I want to hear from you. What do you make of this discussion? How do you find yourself waffling between anxiety and excitement when it comes to navigating uncertainty?
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Please tell me I'm not alone on this. As always, let's keep the conversation going in the Bossed Up Courage Community on Facebook, or in the Bossed Up LinkedIn Group. And until next time, let's keep bossin’ in pursuit of our purpose and together let's lift as we climb.
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