Women Inspiring Each Other to Greater Resilience, Fulfillment and Effectiveness

0:00 The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not those of W FORCY Radio, it's employees their affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show, program, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability explicit or implies shall be extended to W Forcy Radio, its employees or affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FORCY Radio. What's Working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their highest potential. Business can be such a force for good in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we all want Working on Purpose. Now, here's your host, Doctor Release Cortez. Welcome back to the Working on Purpose program. If you're tuning in, I'm your host, doctor Elias Quartz. I've been hosting this program since February of twenty fifteen, and I'm very proud to do so.

1:11 If we have not met yet and you don't know me, I'm a management consultant, organizational logo therapist, speaker and author. My team and I, at least Quurtz and Associates help companies to enliven and fortify their operations by activating purpose and meeting and building inspirational leaders and cultures activated by meeting and purpose to turn those companies from a flatline EKG to vibrant destination workplaces. There people are intrinsically motivated to perform at their best, grown to the floor potential, and are committed to stay and help deliver on the company's mission. You can learn more about us and how we can work together at a last quartz dot com Now listen. In today's program with us is Jennifer Pestikus, who's the senior vice president of business Development at a Chicago and financial institution. In addition to her corporate work, which and also leverages her experience with her personal company, Brave Women at Work, which offers career and leadership coaching for women. Also with us once again is Hope meal or back from two nineteen when she first appeared. She's an executive, small business owner and author. She's the founder of Hunter Street Press, a boutique publishing company focused on motivational material that positively impacts readers. With multiple Amazon bestselling publications launched. We'll be talking today about the book they launched together, called for Women at Work, Stories of Resilience.

2:23 Jennifer and Hope, Welcome to Working on Purpose. Thank you, Thank you so much. It's so great. Great to be back right. Thanks Hope. I really really enjoy talking about your first book, Hope in twenty nineteen, and Jen getting to be on your podcast a couple of months ago talking about one of my latest books. Thanks. Against just great to be in such a great company. So we have to first talk about how in the world this book came to be? How did Hope and Jen come to produce this book? Okay, Hope, do you want to go or do you want me? You tell it? You tell it so great? So you get started, okay, Okay. So I started my podcast post Burnout in twenty nineteen, and I was introduced to help via another colleague, Natalie Benebu, and then had on my show and at the end of it, I just had this intuitive hit Doctor Elisee. I was like, I got to ask Hope if we want to write a book together. It was like this like little chirping thing. I was like, just asked, just ask how I asked Hope. I'm like, hey, do you want to write a book together? And she I was thinking she thinks I'm crazy, and she's like, yeah, let's do it. And so then I thought I'd never hear from her again, you know, just writing me off. And then we talked again and she's like, yeah, let's no, I'm serious, like we're going to really write this book. And so yeah, we've written two books together now and we continue to collaborate and it's been an amazing friendship, partnership and collaboration. So that's kind of the story. So Hope, I don't know if you have anything else to add. Yeah, Jennifer

3:58 didn't think she was going to hear back from me, and I think maybe a week later, I sent her an entire project plan of how we were going to make it happen, and as she moved into it, she's like, we're going to call this naive Joy. This is our naive joy journey and we did enter into that space together and we've done you know, we've collaborated on a ton of projects under that umbrella, just going after it, learning together along the way. Incredible partner, So thankful she is in my life under our naive joy efforts. I am thrilled that you listen to that voice, Junfer, and you didn't just dismiss it as crazy and you acted on it. I've done crazy things in my life by listening to that little voice inside me saying do this. I want you to do this. And hope it doesn't surprise me at all that she created a whole strategic plan to make it happen. That's my girl. Oh, fantastic women at work.

4:55 Okay, now we have to talk about this. One of the great things about reading someone's book when they talk about themselves, if you learn these really cool, interesting timpits about them that you wouldn't otherwise. No, hope, you're you're you know, opening a few lines in your book is just remarkable. You know, breath you know what I want to say. Arresting is the right word. And Jennifer learning about that your favorite movie in the whole world is Rocky. I love that movie too. And then of course, how that that relates to your notion of women. I'd love for you to share one, what do you love the movie Rocky? And how do you see Rocky in relation to women? So there's a little backstory there. So my dad and I when he was alive, when I was a kid, every Friday night we would watch w w F together, Like remember like hul Cogan and Ronnie Ronnie Piper and all most people. So we would watch all that together. So we always would watch the fights together, and so that was kind of something that we shared and he was kind of my emotional touchdown.

5:54 So then when you know Rocky was you know, it was already out because I think it came out in seventy six and I was already born. But he kind of ushered me into those movies too. And so it's a wonderful connection that I have to my father. And the reason I love the story line is that it's the story of the underdog and the story of passion and dreams and stuff like that. And so in many places and spaces in my life, if you read you know that we're talking about resilience or you're talking about the new book on Confidence. I've been in that place, and a lot of female leaders have been in that place, in that space, and I think that especially with the work that I'm doing with Hope and all the projects, we are really trying to represent like all women because we feel that we've come from that place of the underdog and hope and we're just not having it anymore. So we're getting all the resources of the education and providing all the platforms for them to step into their greatness. I love that, Jennifer, I really love that. I really really resonate with that, and I do find and you know, I don't exclusively work with women. I work with work with men and women. But I very much align with with what you said in your book about this notion of the importance of that reading these stories. This is a collection of stories from various really amazing women that you hope that in reading these stories that people will recognize that there's comfort and solace, that we're not alone in this journey, and that you know, we can manage ourselves, doubt, our imposter syndrome, this feelings of fear, these are all part of the human condition. And by the way,

7:24 these things happen in men and women, but I do believe that women suffer from them more often or deeply. It seems so this whole inner critic that we seem to have that is just, you know, always sitting on our shoulder, watching us wherever we go, and very quick to whisper in our ear that we're not doing something right or we can't do something is present. And I really appreciate that you have collected a collection of stories of women that really share very openly, including you, Jennifer, what they've gone through to become who they are. It's really beautiful. Thank you. Yeah, I read the whole thing. Of course I'm prone to do, and I reached out to all of the women on LinkedIn and to connect with them because I couldn't. I couldn't, I couldn't help myself. After I'd read their story, I'm like, I want to I want to be in your world.

8:09 Well, that's amazing, thank you for doing that. You're welcome. You're so welcome. I am curious how you found these women. So Okay, So for the first book, so we were talking about resilience, the stories of resilience, brave women work, and then stories of resilience is subtitle, so Hope you know assign that to me, which was a whole new experience. I just go find people. And so a lot of people thought that when you know, when they read the book, they're like, oh, Jen knew these people were hoping these people. We didn't know any of those women. And so what I did was I kind of did you know, like a you know, if you help wanted like who wants to be an author? Kind of like post in Facebook. And I have to tell you we attracted you know, I think that the universe and God has a way, So like we attracted the most amazing women first round for Resilience, and we continue to attract amazing women in that process. And so that's kind of how we found the first crop of women. And there are some women to this day that continue to champion our cause for brave women at work and find us new authors all the time, which Hope can definitely speak to. I know that we keep her busy over in Las Vegas, and so we so we brave Women at Work lessons and confidence. We found that cohort much quicker because we have the first book out and then people were coming to us, so we are now we have already called the Cohort two for Brave Women at

9:41 Work Lessons in Leadership. Kick off will be in September, and we are about five authors in our fourth book, Brave Women at Work Lessons in Letting Go. And at this point we just have authors and you know, folks who want to join in, and it is humbling. These women are powerhouses right there. I think we had five six doctors on the last book, and they're just they're so amazing, and each one of them have an incredible story to share, and each of them share their story either of resilience or confidence in a different and nuanced way, which is also great for the reader, right so that you know what might be really interesting for one style of writing or a different style of writing the reader can you know, it's like choose your own adventure. Oh, I really love this author, and you know, she's really resonating with me. But you learn from all of them, you know, I really appreciate that the Red Book Behind Me, which is called Passionately Striving, Why that's a collection of twenty five stories from women around the world that I also wouldn't found. I found them on LinkedIn and then I invited them to come in and a couple of them report other people.

10:58 But I really appreciate that whole rec method. And now you guys can actually go for eternity on various topics with this whole model, So you know, be careful what to have just opened up here? I see this big It is a wide open now. So the other thing, another reason I wanted to have you both on one. I treasure you both, and I appreciate who you are being in the world, and you're talking about something in this particular collection of resilience and also the confidence one about stuff that's really important to navigate well if you want to live your fullest and best life. And I believe that work is one of our best playgrounds, and so talking about how this plays out in our lives and our work is critical. So what I wanted to do was I pulled out little nuggets from most of the women's stories here that I wanted to converse over. And whether you speak about it from the advantage point of what they wrote in their story, or whether you want to talk about it from your viewpoint, either is great. But if we start with Maryland Vetter's story, I really appreciated what she said, and women listen to this, you can all probably relate to this. In several of you men as well, they're listening to this today. She says, like many females, I thought working my taloff would give me visibility and move me to the top of the list for promotions. Silly me. It wasn't until later in my career that I realized I needed to ask for promotions and raises. No one was going to hand them to me. Why not me, my male cann of parts ask for raises and promotions without hesitation. So I really appreciated that she is talking about something that I hear all the time when I'm working with women, about the need to champion ourselves, to ask

12:31 for what we want, to ask what we think we deserve, to ask for raises and promotions. If one of you were both, if you could speak to this, I think this is a critical topic to open with. I'll take it if you're okay with that, Jen, for two reasons. One is I love how Marilyn talks about it in that chapter and how important it is to be an advocate for yourself. But really, how she comes to the clothes in that chapter is how we in every all of the readers, all of the authors, and all of us leaders have to reach out and train all of those folks coming up, men, women, all young people, all emerging leaders of Hey, you have to advocate for yourself.

13:15 Train them how to advocate for themselves, train them how to negotiate. So I think, you know, that chapter is so powerful. It's the reason why it was the start of the book, you know, to talk about that. And she not only talks about her own experience, but then she really pulls it through and says, hey, all of us, it's a call to action, go out and teach this to other folks. And then secondly, the reason why I took this question is as the managing editor of this work, all of I mean, these women are amazing, right, I think there's five or six doctors in there. In the first round of the entire book, no one used the word promotion. Yeah I promoted.

14:01 None of them said I got promoted. They tortured their words around to try and say, oh, I got more responsibilities in a bigger title. But even in a book about confidence, you know, with no one said I'm promoted. So I think that's another really big learning is it's okay, and be encouraged to use the real language, to use powerful language to say I was promoted. It's not bragging, it's not you know, over the top, it's not arrogant. It's just a fact I was promoted. So you find it in the book now. But that first draft, with all of these amazing women, with all of their big accomplishments, never once had did they say I was promoted. That's powerful And to that end the other a little bit more that Marilyn Better said in her story that I really really aligned with. She's talking about author and yell professor Zoe Chance, and she talks about how she attributes the inability to see women's potential in our society and culture because we associate leadership as a masculine trait. And then Chances quote captures these findings perfectly. She says, quote, women feel forced to compete on their record, whilst men can compete on their vision. That's very It's a powerful distinguishing statement. Yes, I think that also goes part and parcel where we know that it's the studies are clear that women will only apply, or speak

15:31 up or do things that they have you know, nearly one hundred percent of the skills, whereas men will, you know, kind of be like, hey, I've got about you know, fifty percent or whatever. The person said like, I got it, I could do that's right. So I think that women need to have a little bit more of that confidence that that's why we're putting out this work to say, hey, you know what, I can do this? You know, why not me? Beautiful? On that note, let our listeners and viewers reflect on this. Let's let's grab our first break. I'm your host, Doctor Elie's Quartez. We've been on air with Jennifer Pistique as an Hope Mueller who collaborated to bring forth the collection of stories from women called Brave Women at Work Stories of Resilience. We've been talking a bit about where this book came from and why it's important. We're going to hear about more of the stories. We've come back. Stay with us. Doctor Elise Cortez as a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose.

16:32 An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies visioneer for a greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at Elise Cortez dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortez. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with a lease, send an email to a lease Ali se at Elise Cortez dot com. Now back to working on Purpose. Thankteresting with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortez, as I am dedicated to creating a world where people actually want to come to work and realize the potential They were led by inspirational leaders that help them find and contribute their greatness, and we do business of letters the world.

17:33 I keep writing books because I need amazing people like Jen and Hope on my show who teach me important things that I then fold into what I know and then it becomes a new work. So one of my latest books, which came out in March of twenty three, is called The Great Revitalization. How activating meaning and purpose can radically enliven your business, and that is designed to help leaders understand what today's workforce really wants and then offers twenty one best practices to equip them to provide it through their leadership and culture. You can find it on Amazon dot com and learn more about any my books at at least Cortez dot com. Now back in today's program, we have Jen and Hope here talking about their latest book, A wonder latest book books Gray Women at Work, Stories of Resilience. So I want to keep going on the stories here Again, as I said, I selected some different parts that it just really spoke to me. And because this program is really largely curated, I try to build on stuff we haven't really treated well before. So then I want to go on to what and tell me if I've got this pronouncement right here, Doctor Prava Kumsen's right. What I wanted to talk about from her story that I thought was really compelling here is she talks about several things that she's learned along the way. One she says confidence development is multifactorial and builds from within. That's one thing, But I really also wanted to talk about what she says is one grows from pain in unexpected ways. I have found pain to be a fantastic teacher when we respond to it in a way that helps us realize our strength and just how brilliant we really are. But the

19:03 other third thing she says, and you come into any of these, she says, intentionally taking time to reflect on one's experiences is essential for growth and development. I completely agree with that one. If you want to echo or expand on any of those points, all right, So I'll start off Hope on my side. So for doctor Probe, I think her story was so beautiful, and I know Hope will comment on this. I believe her intro paragraph was, like Hope you said, it was like one of the most beautiful pieces of writing that you've ever written. Like I think that I have cheered up a little bit the beginning of that chapter and just giving credit to doctor Probe. I mean, she wove kind of the genealogy of her family into her story and how she's come so far. I mean, she's moved all over the world for you know her, you know, in her lessons and her career and just everything that she's done. And she wove in those stories of confidence, you know, and given credit where credit is, you know, in her family. She had her own fault you know, failings, and you know wobbles and you know things like that where things were kind of like bouncing back and forth. But I think she reflected on them so beautifully. And why I will comment on, you know, the idea of growing from pain, I'll just relate to doctor Prava's story, is that I had many people ask me, William, why did I write the first book for resilience and talk about some of the painful things, or even on confidence, like why did I why did I write that? You know, why am I sharing these stories of pain and lessons that I've learned? And I

20:34 think that that's part of the part of the process is that after I've processed pain like doctor Prava processed, and her story and the lessons and the failures and kind of getting up and dusting yourself off, it's time to pay it forward. It's time to actually help another woman and share those learnings. So hope, I don't know if you have anything else to share on doctor Prava's story. Now, I think learning through pain and Jen's Gen's contributing chapter, and both lessons and resilience and lessons and confidence are really a reflection of that in many of the contributing chapters. We do learn through pain, and I am sick of the phrase of you know, doesn't what doesn't kill you right, like I don't want any more just makes you stronger, Like I don't want any more of those things that are going to make me stronger. I've had my I've had my fill of that. But you use the word arresting a lease with my you know, the initial chapter of Hopie, but the first paragraph and doctor Proba's submission was just so real and true and she like fully embraced herself and knows her identity. And that is something that comes through in all of the chapters that in order to embrace your full self and be confident, you really have to know yourself and be confident in yourself and believe

22:10 in yourself first. And so that foundation she really built on, and she just the words were I didn't change a single word in her submission, her first chapter or her first paragraph to her chapter, and I've never done that to anything, So you know, through three rounds of revisions, still didn't make a word change on that first paragraph. It's amazing. I think another word that comes to mind that I have to utter about it is powerful. It's just really powerful, really powerful, and just ladies listening to this emmanuelcome to check this out too, of course. But but ladies listening to this, read this book. Just pick up this book. It's amazing. But the stories you will, you will. And this is what I find, Ladies. I host these, you know, women's storytelling events, and I do it. I've been doing it all over the nation. I've been doing it for years and I really started doing it even more frequently once you know, the passionately Striving her Wife book came out. And what I find is when I gather women over story and we really do share beautiful like you just did in this book, and we do it together, what happens is we each get an enlarged by that experience. We leave bigger than when we left.

23:18 And what happens is we take on the wisdom, the heart and the knowledge of those who've shared it and it becomes part of us. And the same thing happened for me when I read your book. I love hearing that. I love the smile that just smacked on your face when I said that, Hope, that was that was worth the price of admission right there. Okay, Well, let's go on to doctor Belinda Higgs Hippolyte. Do I say that, right, Hippopolyte? Anyway, what I want to talk about from her story that I think is critical for us to talk about is she addresses this bit that we all tend to do, an overkill called negative self talk. What I know is nobody can beat me up better than me.

24:03 Nobody can. I don't care what you guys bring, you don't have what I have. I can always talk more trash talk to myself than you can, and so can many other women. So can one of you weigh into this notion of you know, identifying our negative self talk and what can we kick what we can do about it, whether it's Belinda's words or yours. So, hope, do you want to start this time? Now? Go ahead? I think okay. So for doctor Belinda, well, first off, her chapter in particular really touched me. I just felt like, if if you want to like just sit with wisdom, like, she has so many truth bombs in her chapter and so much information that I think that one would bear repeating or reading through twice, maybe taking a highlighter or whatever.

24:52 But in terms of negative self talk. I've been there. I mean my chapters called Imposter, So you know, I've I have an intimate relationship with imposter syndrome and doubt and fear and all of those things. And so you know, if you would have asked me, I don't know even five years ago, would I'd be sitting here with you, doctor Leez, would I'd be saying, you know, probably not. I would probably would have laughed at you and said, I'm not going to be, you know, an author of two books. I'm not going to be you know, having other authors line up in the future for other books I'm not part of. You know, We're going to be doing a retreat, you know, in February. Like there's just so many amazing things that come through when you start noticing the voice of the inner critic and start saying, you know what, I got this, Like, I know you're scared, but I have so much wisdom that I have a master throughout my life that I can take the range from here. So if you can figure out how to harness that and kind of silence it, I think it comes up through your life. I don't think you can beat it back. I think it just it rears its rears its head every now and again. But I think if you can learn how to manage that energy and use to your advantage, I think you can do amazing things. I completely agree I Hope. Did you want to add anything to that? That was pretty fantastic? She might be frozen? Um.

26:10 What I wanted to add to what you said, Jennifer that I really appreciate it is that it does come and go, and yes, it does take something in us to be able to find ways to address that that negative critic etc. And there are ways for us to do that. And when we go to the next bit and point here that I want to give to our listeners and viewers, it's one thing that we can do to help Hope you come off being frozen. Did you want to respond to what we were just talking about there with Oh, yeah, it was just I was just saying, as you know, pulling all of it together, one of the things that comes really clear is that all of us seem very comfortable granting grace to others and our friends and our family and saying oh that's okay, you're doing great, And it really takes a lot of effort to give ourselves a measure of grace and to be really conscious about it and consistently do it. I think it's just going to be a lifetime activity. But if you can always, if you can give it to other people, it is good to give yourself a measure of grace. Completely agreed with that. Okay, So now, because in this show you may not remember this, Hope and Jen, you may not know this, But in this show, I always like to be able to inspire and educate our listeners and viewers. So we are already we're already clearly working on the inspiration piece. Now I want to do a little bit of education here that will help our listeners and viewers walk away with something that they can they can fold into their being and go back and refer to, especially when they need some resilience or confidence. And this again comes

27:41 from doctor Belinda Higgs Apopolite stories or story. She has this acronym. She says, what do you need to grow and build your confidence? She says, it's actually through the acronym of courage. And so I want to take each one of those things and just speak to them. I have them written down so I can refer to them. But maybe if we could just quickly go through each of them and if you want to comment on any of them that that would be great. Is that all right? Yeah? Okay? So the courage acronym the first to c of course, um that that she starts with hear um. Courage C is for create space for failure and explore new possibilities. I think that's really a great thing to put forth. So the first part of this acronym, courage is creating space for failure and explore new possibilities. You want to you want to weigh in on that. I can. I can start by saying that I think that you need to have that in order to expand you know, we talk about growth versus fixed my mindset. I've talked about it on my own podcast, and so I think that you can't close down and say oh, I failed, and you know, and be in the same presence of new possibilities. I think you need to reflect on those failures and still allow yourself, like hope, decide the compassion and grace to move forward to new things. Okay, great, Oh is open your heart to new opportunities and new experiences. And I think that's also, you know one the last one really speaks to giving your giving yourself grace to fail, and when you do fail, giving yourself grace for that.

29:14 Now we're talking about opening our heart to new opportunities and new experiences. I'll jump in on that, and I'm just gonna say one phrase, it's naive joy, right, I gotta open up, gotta jump in, and you know, be willing to be willing to fail, quite honestly, right, and be willing to succeed. So you know, go after it with a naive joy and know that along the way you're going to learn a lot and you're going to be better for it. Beautiful Hope. Okay. So then that you encourage is understand your purpose and embrace that you are original. Oh that really speaks to my heart. So we'll bounce back and forth, Hope. So I I think that just like you have your fingerprints and you know that you're unique, I think we have to remind ourselves that we are a unique individual with unique gifts. So the thing that works beautiful about Hope and my partnership is that you know, we each have it was really cool, Like you know, she's like, I'll take the editing, and I'm like, I don't want anything to do with editing, Like I really like marketing and she's like, oh, I don't like marketing. So I mean, we each have our own strengths and we play off with one another, and that's when the beauty and the magic happens. It's not when we're trying like I'm not trying to be Hope. Hope's not trying to be mean.

30:30 We're swimming in our own lanes, and I think we just need to remember that we each bring our own brilliance. I really appreciate that. Yeah, into yes, to stand in that, to stand take your place in the sun with that, I think that's really really important. Okay, So then they are encourages to respect yourself and respect others. Boy, that's another thing. Starting with respecting ourselves. I think that's really critical. You know. I always come up with this concept of you know, when I'm always trying to please someone else or be somebody else right, or be someone else's version of myself right, which actually doctor Hippolyte talks about rights. That's a lot of her story. That's what the respect is. It's like, oh, no, I have to respect myself. I have to know who I am first, because otherwise I'm always on the back foot trying to prove myself to be something that I'm not, so respecting exactly who I am and embracing that.

31:32 That's one of the foundations of being able to have your confidence. Indeed. Okay, So then the a encourage is to ask questions to increase your knowledge and understanding. I love asking questions. Part of the reason I was the show. Yes, so I'll take this one. So I too, So doctor Lease, Like, I have a podcast, so I ask questions like all week blocks to guests. So I think that, Well, I had a paper in college of law. Teacher told me I'll never forget what he wrote on the top, and he said, curiosity cannot be taught. And so I think that, you know, you need to be able to be curious. And I think there's another, you know, famous quote, it's like if you don't ask, you don't get. And so I think that's also foundational for confidence, is that you have to be able to ask those questions and be curious to move forward. Yeah, and let me also let me just give you a quick shout out here, Jen, because you interviewed me on your podcast and I really appreciated the beautiful depth of your questions.

32:30 I thought we really generated a beautiful conversation and that really does speak to your capacity to ask an interesting, curious, intelligent questions. So I have been on the I've witnessed this. We have one person for sure that has proved this is true. Okay, you're welcome. The G encourages for grow in grace and remain grounded in your values. Oh that's critical. I this this one is probably resonates a lot with doctor Hippoly. You know, she's very spiritual. It's part of her being, it's part of her fabric. It comes through when you meet her. It certainly comes through and her chapter chapter and being grounded in yourself. Again, it comes back to a respect of who you are. But you know, staying humble. I think largely many of us are pretty good at staying humble. You know, it's harder to give ourselves grace than you know be you know, staying humble, but being grounded exactly who you are and what your values are. Otherwise you're just striving to be somebody else, or striving to be somebody else's version of yourself.

33:44 Totally agree. Okay, the E encourages, which of course, I really resonate with encourage yourself and others so important. So I think that's what this is. I mean ties it really nicely into a bow. I mean, that's what we're doing. You know, if I could say to any woman or any person listening, you know, like help encourage someone, right if they're having a bad day, help encourage them. And I think that's a lot of what jazz is. Hope and I as we're like, we encourage one another, but we're so excited about what we're doing because we know it's encouraging other people. We know it's inspiring other people, and so when we get it, it's funny what you know, whether it's one common an Amazon or you know, like whatever it is, we're like, oh, we've encouraged someone, and you have no idea how much that inspires us too in turn to produce more good content. Oh, I think I have an idea. I think I know what that feels like and why why you want to keep doing it. On that note, let's grab our last break.

34:39 I'm your host, doctor, or at least Cortez. We went on the air with Jennifer Pastikus and Hope Mueller. We've collaborated to bring forth the collection of stories from women called Brave Women at Work, Stories of Resilience. After break, We're gonna hear more about Gin's story and why this work can mean the difference to you in your lives. Stay with us, will be right back. Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at Elise Cortez dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortez. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with a lease, send an email to elease a l I se at Elise Cortez dot com. Now back to working on purpose. Thanks for doing with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose. I mentioned in the last break that we had here that my latest bookers came out, The Great

36:13 Revitalization. How activating meeting and purpose can radically enliven your business. I also, along with that, created an organizational assessment for you to be able to learn the extent to which your company's leadership and culture are actually meeting the standards of today's workforce. It's a very simple three page assessment. You can find it at my website at least Cortez dot com. You can find it in various places, but specific when you go to how do we help tab you can find it at the very bottom of that page. So check it out. It's free, something for you to work from if you're now just joining us. My guests are Jennifer Pastikus and Hope Mueller, who have brought forth the collection of stories called Brave Women at Work Stories of Resilience. I'm your host, Doctor least Cortez. So for this last segment here at Ladies, I wanted to hit one more story and then of course get Jennifer's. So what I got here from reading doctor Cindy German story is she talks about feeling undervalued and relationships with managers who are that are the top reasons people leave jobs.

37:08 And I know this to be true, so for years you know along the way. I've been in human capital for twenty five years and one of the things I did for directly for several years was employee engagement consulting. I still do it today. And we found then that the number one variable for most organizations, the people rated that was important for their engagement was feeling valued and appreciated. And so then again we also know that the relationship that we have with our immediate boss is critical. And she talks about how you know, these are the two number one two things that are driving whether when people leave their jobs. Either of you have any commentary on that. Do you want to take that one? Help? Yeah, I'll take that. You know, Cindy's a lot of Cindy's or doctor German's chapter is about also about anxiety. You know, she really struggled with anxiety. Um here she is stacking up, you know, a massive pile of education, really you know, successful career. She runs her own consulting firm, and she talks about, you know, behind the scene, she's anxious and maybe some of that comes from the relationship she's had with different bosses. And we do know that the relationship with you, your boss is so critical to your ability to enjoy your job, to be successful, to really embrace your own identity. Um and so you can't put enough you know, weight on that. When you're

38:40 interviewing for opportunities and you're you're talking to your potential boss, you are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you. Is that somebody you want to work with? That's somebody that you want to work for because you know that that one idea you know, is so critical to your success and you just in your enjoyment and your career. So take the time it takes to really explore that relationship. And if it goes sideways or you have a good relationship and then it starts to falter, have the courage to broach that with your leader, right or your leader, you know, have the courage to say, here's what's working for me, here's what's not working for me, because there's no way for them to improve if they don't know what those things are.

39:31 So understand it's a really critical job and it's a really critical relationship. And then be encouraged, you know, being encouraged to take action or have hot, tough conversations when you need to, Oh, that's a beautiful hope. I really align with that, and listeners and viewers, look, leadership is not something that we are born with. We are developed and made into leaders. That's why I know I do the work that I do. That's why I created the vitally inspired program. You need help to do this stuff, and so learning how to be a good leader, you can be a much better leader. You can be the kind of leader that people actually never forget that makes a profound difference in someone's life, or you can be the leader that literally people literally come home from work and they then spend two hours complaining to their loved ones about how awful of their day was. And we hear about both of those. So I really appreciate I had to talk about this because it's so so important that that relationship and feeling valued and appreciated work is critical to be fulfilled and to stay someplace. And if you if you're not feeling in that way, please do something about it. Okay, now, jan now we have to talk about your story. So I really really love Savored and just read and scrap it, just lingered over every word in your story. And I really, of course I had no idea Who've been through all this, my friend, I did not know. So if you would maybe just share this story, we are We've got about probably five minutes left here for this bit, so it's powerful. So if you would share

41:01 your story of what you went through here. Yeah, so with the lessons and confidence that particular story. So I had a mentor. My boss at the time was also my mentor, and we had such a close relationship. And I was young at the time when he hired me, and I was naive. I was naive. I didn't know, and I didn't know. He was a like a work hard, kind of play hard gentleman, and you know, so I compare him to the Rolling Stones because he loved the Rolling Stones. I think he saw him like fifteen times. You know, he just loved it. And that's kind of how he lived his life. And so it was super fun for me because it was like being like in college, like you know, we would you know, party after work.

41:45 It was just like a totally different atmosphere. But I didn't understand behind the scenes until later that he was slipping and so he was having alcohol issues. And later I found out and really understood. Actually watch a program on Hulu called Dope sick with Michael Keaton, and if you've never seen that, I highly recommended. And I saw the people kind of withdrawing from opiates and it kind of hit me, like within the last couple of years before I was writing the story that not only did I have to write it, but I had to kind of like be like, oh, this is what he was going through. So he had an opioid addiction that I figured out until much later. It was very late in the game, and I told him and warned him again intuitively, I said, Hey, I don't want to speak at your funeral because I really cared about him, and he kind of waved me off because we all do that, right we don't. We don't think that we're ever going to be the one. And so he ended up passing away from those issues and it left me and the whole team kind of an a lurch. And so I had a choice at the time, you know what do I do? Do I abandon ship? Do you know what do I do with it? And I basically asked to keep the team going on and did that for eighteen months, and I really put my health at risk, which is something that hope reminds me of on a regular basis to take care of myself. And so I did it in this scenario as a younger professional, and I was taken advantage of by the company. And I didn't negotiate salary. I didn't negotiate pay, I didn't negotiate title. I thought,

43:19 just working really hard. And then I also had the added stress of trying to, you know, kind of shadowbox with his ghost in a way like you know what would he have done? You know what would he because everyone loved this man, because he was like the life of the party, in the life of the office. And so it was a very hard eighteen months and I learned that from that moment forward, I needed to really put a stake in the ground and advocate for myself. And I learned that unfortunately, after I interviewed someone, and I came home and told my husband that I just interviewed my boss and I didn't know, but I knew, And sure enough, like within the next couple of weeks, there he was. And I mean, I have nothing against him, wish him well, and I know he's selling the industry. But that was the end for me.

44:02 And I had some learnings that I had to learn from that experience. Now, there's one of the thing that's really important for us to talk about here, Jen, and that this is the manifestation of all of that stress, lack of sleeping and not taking care of yourself, and that you were in the kitchen and you collapsed. You just completely lost consciousness and collapsed and you were you awoken to the sloppy, you know, kisses of your dog and you said you're grateful you didn't hit your head on you know, something on the way down. But that's a pretty strong indication of your body saying I told you, did I not tell you in strong enough terms? This is too much for me? Um, completely you know, gave out on you.

44:45 And that is that's really important that we talk about. That is that that is an indication of just the extent to what you were going through. Yeah, and so, Um, I've had to learn this a couple of times. And that's why Hope reminds me. Um, So I thought I just talked it off to stress and that I was young and I kind of wrote it off. And unfortunately I've gone through this a couple times. So hopefully I don't have to go through this anymore. But yeah, it was scary. I mean it was really really scary to be up one moment and conscious and then you know, down on the floor the next. And I was by myself with my little puppy, so he was kind of a little hero that day to kind of awaken me. But yeah, I don't recommend it for anyone. And if you ever feels like I think the learning is tapp into your body and what your body is saying, because the innate wisdom is there. Yeah. Yeah, The Body Keeps Score is one of those books. So we're getting close to the end of time here. But if you can just you know, briefly, just a couple of lessons did you get from that? What did you learn from that experience? Well, I learned to advocate for myself, so you know, whether I've got to talk to, you know, other friends I've called hope on some things like hey, what do you think of bouncing ideas with your internal like board of directors, like your cheering section. To make sure that you're advocating for yourself is absolutely critical. And I think the idea of speaking up and it's really the precursor, if you think about it, of everything that I'm doing now because I don't want women to fall apart in the kitchen. I don't want people to burn out. I don't want women to not get promoted or get raises like I just I just can't. I just absolutely can. It's part of my life's work to avoid this from happening to other women. Wow. Um,

46:22 it's just really powerful, Jennifer. And when you know it's there's there's power in stories, right. I believe in that and that's why that's why I have my anthology out too, That's why I do the women's storytelling, you know, evenings, etc. Power in stories. So thank you very much for sharing yours. Now we've come to the close of this and you both probably know that this this this podcast is listened to by people around the world, and what we're really out to do in this podcast. People listen to this because they want to be part of creating the workplaces where people actually can come alive and realize their greatness. They are led by those inspirational leaders that bring them into a place and level that they couldn't get on their own. Now we're doing business at Betters in the world. Would you'll have to leave them with I hope I'm going to Voey this to you. I'll definitely go first. We must hear from you. I think I think at least you know on the topics of these books and the Brave Woman It Works series, how it's shaped up so far as you know. The first and most important step is to believe in yourself. Right, you must embrace who you are, all of the great things, all of the things that need work.

47:28 And you have to believe in yourself first. If you spend your life trying to be someone else or someone else's vision of you, you will never be satisfied. And quite frankly, those they will never be satisfied. Hiding does not work. Hiding from something or hiding from your true identity doesn't work. Making yourself smaller doesn't work either, And in this book women tried all of those things. You have to believe in yourself and you have to embrace your full self to step into your full commence. So start there, start with believing in yourself and embracing your whole self to become your full, confident self. And I would just add in there, I think you did a beautiful job, hope. I would just say that it doesn't have to be monumental leaps. You know, maybe the first step is just reading like a chapter or a day or a week of this book or you know, any book that will help you understand, you know, like the greatness inside yourself that you can you know it. We as women just are always like, oh, I can't, I could possibly not do that, you know, or I'm not qualified enough. It's just take the incremental steps that you need to take today to grow your confidence so that we can see the brilliance that we know is inside of you. I think one of the saddest things is to let your brilliant stay within you at the end of your life. So let's see your brilliance and we know you can beautiful way to finish both of

48:59 you on very grave, will have both of you in my lives. Thank you for coming on, working in purpose and sharing from your heart and your soul so beautifully. Listeners and viewers have gained from that so much. Where what website? Where can people find you at to give more information? So for me, you can find me at Brave Woman atwork dot com. Okay, hope you can find me at Hunter Street Press dot com. And you, of course can find our books all of the Brave Women at Work series on Amazon, any retail channel, or either one of our websites. Excellent, Thank you so much. Last week, if you missed the live show, I can always catch it be a recorded podcast. We were on air with doctor Karen Kramer. She's a neuro linguistic programmasters coach, divorce and relationship breakthrough coach, speaker, author, and leadership development facilitator. We talked about her forthcoming book, which is due in fall of twenty twenty three with a working title of Healthy Grief, Normalizing and Navigating Loss and a Culture of Toxic Positivity. Next week, we'll be on the air with Robert Lingel talking about his new book A Place for Tea giving voice to the tour in our hair brained world. Amazing, It's really, it's amazing when he's done here.

50:02 So this is something totally different when we normally cover in the show. See you there. Remember that works in integral an important part of our lives. It can be one of the best adventures and means of realizing our potential and making the impact we crave. So let's work on purpose. We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to Tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortez, each week on W FOURCY. Together, we'll create a world where business operates conscientiously. Leadership inspires and passion performance, and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning and purpose they crave. See you there, Let's work on Purpose.