296: Redefining Success: Why High-Achieving Women Still Feel Unfulfilled with Michelle Pollack

Michelle 0:00

That's really the first step is to give yourself permission to explore what might I want. If I get to be excited in a year, what do I want without the three-ring circus in your brain that's telling you all the reasons you can't or shouldn't even try?

Camille 0:26

So you want to make an impact. You're thinking about starting a business, sharing your voice. How do women do it that handle motherhood, family, and still chase after those dreams? Listen each week as we dive into the stories of women who know. This is Call Me CEO. Welcome back, everyone, to Call Me CEO. This is your host, Camille Walker, and here we celebrate women, mothers building businesses and leading families. And what does that look like? And how do we define success? With so much pressure, so many hats that we're wearing, today's conversation is one that I think many of you will feel deep in your bones because let's be honest, you can check all the boxes, be getting all of the things done, and yet still feel like something is missing. Like this should feel better than it does. And yet you're still feeling a little bit uncertain of what that means. In this episode, we are talking with Michelle Pollack, who is an executive leadership coach. She's a strategic thought leader and a speaker. And we're going to be talking about how to break that down from the surface, really find fulfillment and finding success in a way that feels really, really good without the burnout. This is something we talk about a lot, but something we want to really dig into here today is if you are feeling connected to a traditional ladder where it has to be one rung to the next to find success. It doesn't have to feel that way. We want you to feel that maybe that's not even the right way anymore. Maybe it's something about creating powerful, honest success in your heart in a way that feels fulfilling. So if you're stretched or stuck thin or secretly unfulfilled, let's dive in. Michelle, thank you so much for being here on the show today. It's so nice to see you. Yeah. So tell our audience a little bit more about you. This is a topic that you speak about all of the time, and you're coaching very successful executive women. So this is not new for you. So I'm really thrilled to have this conversation. Give us a little bit more background about you, how you got into this field, and maybe a little bit more about your journey.

From Theater Dreams To The Ladder

The Moment Values Became Clear

Michelle 2:37

Yeah. So um, I mean, like so many women um who end up doing what you and I do. We end up here because we're helping people do the thing that we got stuck in, right? So I was that person who was kind of stuck on a ladder, so to speak. Um I was a an well, it actually goes back. I started I was an actress. Um, I went to school for theater and I had wanted to be an actress my entire life. So from when I was in third, when I was three years old, and I got like they kind of had to pull me off the stage because I wouldn't leave because I wanted to blow kisses at the end of my recital. And then, you know, my aunts and uncles used to like cringe because they'd be ready to leave the house and I would be like, I hate to tell ya, but it's time for a show. And then I would proceed to do like a one-woman show of Annie, right? Miss Hannigan, Pepper, and Annie all rolled in one. Um, and that just I so I did go to school. I studied theater at school, and then I moved to New York City, and I was at a national tour callback for the show Annie, get your gun. And I was cartwheeling across the room, and something in me just like clicked. I was like, this is not what I want to do anymore. This isn't what I don't want to leave New York City. I don't want to do the same show, eight shows a week. Something just wasn't fitting anymore. Um, and I decided I wanted to get to the other side of theater and help to create really creative, innovative stuff. So that was the direction I headed in. And the thing was that I had some incredible jobs. I mean, I went and worked with the producers of Rent. Um, I helped them to open Avenue Q on Broadway. From there, I moved out to um Los Angeles and I worked at a television network and I worked on shows like The New Adventures of Old Christine, which if you're a mom and you haven't watched that show, you should watch it. It's fabulous. Um but I just kept feeling like every step of the way, you know, I left theater because I was like, oh, theater's too small. I need a bigger ladder to climb, right? I felt like I had gotten to a point where I needed more of a corporate structure so that I could climb more to get more to the top, right? And every step of the way, I would climb the next rung and climb the next rung. And I kept going, like, is this how this is supposed to feel? This is I've got this shiny, sexy job in Hollywood, or you know, working with these major producers, and something just does not feel right. Um, and so I was often really questioning is this all there is? And so I was searching and searching and searching. And during that time, I had so many thoughts about ideas I wanted to explore, entrepreneurial ideas I wanted to explore. But there was that ladder, ladder in front of me of you have to go to this rung, then this rung, then this rung. And I had no idea what that looked like as an entrepreneur. And so because I didn't know what I looked like, I didn't think I could do it. You know, I just that was like the mindset I had. I don't know how to do this, so I must not be able to. Um and at a certain point, I was sitting in the bathroom stall. Um, and there were two network executives. I was at the network, I was going to the bathroom, and there were two networking executives that I really lit looked up to, and they were um standing in front of the sinks, you know, at the mirrors chatting. And one of them, they were, you know, women I really looked up to. And one of them was talking about how it was her daughter's spring break, and how when she left the house that morning, her daughter, daughter was complaining, you know, I can't believe you're not gonna be here for spring break and that we can't go anywhere, we can never go anywhere for spring break. And I'm sitting there listening, and what struck me was not so much that she wasn't able to be with her daughter on spring break, because as much as I want to be with my kids whenever they want to do something, that's not always realistic, right? Anyone who's a parent knows that there are times where your kids want something and it doesn't always work out that way. It was her resignation about it. You know, she was like delivering the news like it was the weather report. Like there was no, this like this was standard, and I just was struck by the fact that I didn't want to ever feel that way when I had a family. I never wanted to feel zero sense of sadness that I wasn't able to be with my kids on their spring break, right? And I also was really aware that I actually wanted a life where I was able to make those choices for myself, not to have an industry making them for me. Um, and I didn't even have kids yet. But it just started to flip something. But the problem was the thoughts that started to come up when I started to explore that freaked me out because I was on the path that I had always thought I was gonna be on, right? I was going in the direction that I had determined I wanted to go and I was having success. And so I didn't know what to do with this idea of what if I don't want this anymore, right? That was so foreign to me. And it took me many years to actually completely let go and recognize that I was ready to try something else. And it was kind of a series, like the universe kind of shoved me there a little bit, to be honest with you. Um, I had gotten promoted and then when I was four months pregnant and nobody knew, and then I got laid off in 2008 when I was eight and a half months pregnant. So it was the I just aged myself for everybody, but it was the top, it was right, you know, around the 2008 recession, and I was devastated. Um also that would never happen today. No one would ever lay off an eight and a half month pregnant woman. But I really actually, in hindsight, know that it was truly what was best for me because I'm not sure I would have been able to that high achiever part of me that was like, no, I have to get to the next thing. I have to get to the next thing. I can't let go of the goal that I've had for myself, otherwise, that's failure, right? All those ideas I had floating around my head that were not truths, but I believed they were. I believed they meant something about me, were dictating where I was going. And so I think the universe kind of just gave me a little kick and was like, this is not for you. Uh, this is not where you're meant to be. It's not what you're meant to do. But it still took me time after I was laid off and after I had my girls. I was looking at jobs in the entertainment business. And I actually went and I was hired as a creative consultant on Grease Live, um, that was on Fox in 2016, I think. And that was for me the nail in the coffin. And I think what did it was that I had kids at that point. And it was so clear to me that I was, I did not want the life that I saw in the entertainment world because my family had become more important to me than that ladder that I had been climbing. And I couldn't name it at the time, but it was really a values mismatch. My values had shifted. I think it was a values mismatch from the outset. And that's really where I find most people end up needing to look to discover what it is that's creating a lack of fulfillment for themselves. Um, but it was so crystal clear to me in that moment. It was like, yeah, I don't need my ambition to be in conflict with my family. I need them to work together. So that was it. And then I went and I decided that I wanted to explore coaching. And I don't know, I can't tell you if it was what I learned in the process of coaching that allowed me to say, okay, I'm ready to just kind of explore this and see what happens in a way that I hadn't been able to around anything that came up for me with entrepreneurship before.

Camille 12:30

Yeah. Ooh, that's a really beautiful through line to recognize that and look at that afterward. Because I think there are moments in our life that stick in our memory of having importance and meaning, but it's sometimes and not until we get to a place later that we look back and go, oh, that's why those women talking in the bathroom left such an impression on me.

Michelle 12:54

Yeah. And for them, that by the way, I want to be clear, there's nothing wrong with the choices they made. Right. Those were the right choices for them. But the feeling that I got in my gut made it very clear that it was not the right choice for me. And yet I kept pushing forward because I was climbing that ladder, right? And so the part that I think we forget is to stop along the way. It's not, there's nothing wrong with climbing the ladder, but we gotta look, stop and look and make sure we're bringing the parts of ourselves that are important to us along with us. Yeah. Right? Yeah. I don't know if it was required of me to abandon myself as I was climbing up that ladder, or if I just felt like it was. I wasn't conscious of it while it was happening. Um, I didn't think I had a choice. Right. And I think that's really common. We start a career that we're really excited about, and we see the people in front of us that have gotten to where we think we want to get, and we think, oh, I'm gonna go in their footsteps and do the things they did, and I'm gonna get where they are. And we start to follow blindly, and we miss the little trade-offs that are happening along the way. But they happen and they happen slowly, right? Like on the first rung of that ladder, we stay quiet in a meeting when we have a really good idea. On the second rung, we laugh at our boss's joke, even though we don't think it's really very funny, right? On the fourth rung, we're giving feedback that somebody's told us we have to give, even though we don't believe in it. And so on and so forth. And all those moments have an element of self-abandonment. And so that's where when we get to this place of why doesn't this feel the way I want it to feel? It's because you're not showing up as the person that you want to be in the world. You're doing all the right things, but there's a big difference between what do I have to do to get ahead and who do I want to be in the process.

Camille 15:21

Yeah. That's really fascinating to talk about it that way because I think you're right. There's always when you're saying yes to something, you're saying no to something else. And that can be so easily something that we lose sight of or track of as we go through. And to think the people at the top, they must be happy because if that's the top, that's where happiness lives. Where I think that's where you can get to that point and think and look around like you did and say, Oh, wait, this isn't what I thought this would feel like. And that can be a big wake-up call. It's interesting doing these interviews because so many of us, it takes a big life shift moment, whether it was COVID or the 2008 recession or a big health crisis that makes us look around and really evaluate how we're spending our time and if it lines up with our values. And if it doesn't, sometimes that's when those big shifts have to take place as someone has to kind of pull you, the universe, God, whatever it be, yeah, to help you kind of take a wider perspective shot of what's actually happening.

Small Self-Abandonments Add Up

Michelle 16:28

You know, I love that you're highlighting that because I thought about taking that leap so many times in those years, but it was so overwhelming for me to think about it because the idea of reversing course made my head want to explode, right? And the thing that I hear from so many women that I work with, there are women that I work with who had my name for two, three, four years before they called me because they were afraid that by reaching out to me, they were gonna have to blow up their lives. Like working together was gonna require them to blow up their lives. They thought that the second they slowed down and took stock, that meant they were gonna have to burn it all down. But the fact is, what you're saying is really interesting because rarely, if we're doing this in a day-to-day and it's not a huge change like the 2008 recession or COVID or somebody getting sick, whether it's themselves or a family member or a close friend, what I find is that most of the women I work with, a lot of them aren't even changing their jobs, never mind their careers. When they really start to look into the foundation of what's really important to them and their core values and where those are actually active in their lives and where they aren't, that shifts their entire perspective. And sometimes it means moving on to something else entirely, but a lot of the time it actually doesn't. A lot of the time it goes back to how am I showing up that is abandoning those core values. And I've had women shift their way of being, and it feels for them like their lives change, but externally, everything's staying the same. Um and the thing that I think is really interesting is that when people don't take stock, when they don't slow down to evaluate, that's often when they end up burning it all down, right? Yeah. If they just keep trudging along, they hit a breaking point where you can't do it anymore, right? Like they'll just throw it all away. So it's actually the reverse. You're more likely to blow up your life because you're not taking stock of things than you are when you actually take a moment to slow down and get some clarity about what are the directions you want to go in, what are the choices you have, and who do you really want to be in your career, in your life as a parent, all of it, right? And what does it all look like together?

Camille 19:35

Yeah, I love that perspective. I think that that can be, I love that you're talking about the it's almost like that daily upkeep or like that quarterly evaluation, rather than like, okay, you're 10 years in now, what? And people are drowning. So I would love to know what's something you see behind the scenes with successful women that most people don't talk about.

Michelle 19:57

Wow, that's a great question. Um, I mean, to me, I think it's the fact that so many of them have this shiny looking, like great resume, great LinkedIn profile. They've got the house and the finances to match their very successful career. And they're still sitting there going, This is it. Like this is, I've gotten all the gold stars, I've checked off all of the boxes, and this doesn't feel the way I wanted it to feel. It doesn't feel the way I imagined it would. Um, and I really do think that, you know, listen, I'm not gonna sit here and say that there aren't certain times that you have to show up in certain ways. But I think so many of us forget that we have choices. And so it's really looking to at that to go, okay, if I go in that direction, I have to show up that way. Is it important enough to me to go in that direction to have to show up that way? Or are there other directions I can go in where I can show up in a way that feels more aligned for me and get to a similar on, you know, a similar place? So I think the thing that I I see most often is that when people get to a certain place in their career, they forget that they still have choices. And I truly believe no matter how old you are, you always have choices. You always have and sometimes people will say, like they'll just keep choosing the thing that they thought they were stuck in, but it's really different when you realize that you're choosing it, not that you're stuck. It just everything. Everything about it feels different. You take on a different perspective about it. Your thinking, your thoughts about it are different. And so that's the thing that I think most people forget is every step of the way, there are always choices. You might not love both choices. Sometimes both choices are going to be hard. I mean, I just had this conversation with my 17-year-old daughter. You know, she is incredibly true to herself. And sometimes that means she's not going to do the things all her friends are doing. And though that choice is not an easy choice for anyone, never mind a 17-year-old. But I believe firmly in my heart that will serve her in her life so much more. She always chooses herself because it feels so terrible for her to go along with the crowd knowing she's abandoning herself. And that's just in her. But what if it's possible to have both? Maybe not everything and maybe not all the time, but we've cut ourselves off at the knees because we don't even look there.

You Always Have Choices

Camille 24:12

Right. Let's talk a little bit about the person who's listening right now. If they identify with what you're describing of feeling like they have the success, or maybe, maybe they're on their way to that success and they're still looking around, like, oh, that I just, I don't, this doesn't sit right. I don't feel right. This doesn't feel like what's making me excited to wake up in the morning. Like, what are some first steps that they could take to reset the alignment, redefine what success looks like? What are those steps that we could go through together to help them make those first steps?

Michelle 24:49

I mean, again, I do think it comes back to getting really honest with yourself about what you want. That's the place I start with everybody. Um ask yourself the question if I got to wake up excited about my life in a year, like a year from today, today, I'm jumping out of bed, super excited about my career, my life, just excited. What am I excited about? What does it look like? You know, without that little voice that lives in your head going, yeah, you can't do that because, or no, that's not possible, or how do you think you're gonna do that, or you're not good enough for that, or oh, you'd have to go back to school for that. You gotta take that voice, it's gonna come up and it's gonna be loud. And you have to just say, I'm playing a game, I'm playing, even like literally let yourself play, make believe, let yourself dream, and just say, for five minutes, I need you to step outside of the room. I'm just gonna explore for a second. And the thing I really love to do is try this exercise and then close your eyes and focus on your breath. Not, you don't have to do a 10-minute meditation for literally, it can be as short as 30 seconds. It can be as long as you want it to be, but you must focus on your breathing. Focus on what it feels like as it comes into your body and goes out of your body. Notice like the feeling of your body in your chair, feel the temperature of your breath, listen for the sound of your breath, and then do the exercise again. What's happening in that moment when you're breathing and you're focusing on your senses and you're clearing your brain is you're actually shifting your brain activity from your survival, fight or flight part of your brain into the part of your brain that is compassionate, creative, curious, communicative, where and it will it will quiet that voice. It will quiet that voice down and allow you to just go deeper with yourself. So that I mean, that's really the first step is to let yours give yourself permission to explore what do what might I want? If I get to be excited in a year, what do I want without the three-ring circus in your brain that's telling you all the reasons you can't or shouldn't even try?

Camille 27:33

I love that. Is that hard for your clients to do and to take that step back? Have you found that to be so big?

Michelle 27:40

When I ask people that question, the first thing that I would say 90% of the people that I say that to say to me is, oh my gosh, that's a really good question. I've never thought about that. So, and so I think it is. Which is so simple, I hope it's like, yeah, just like that. Well, that's exactly right.

Camille 28:01

Yeah.

A One-Year Vision And Breathwork

Michelle 28:01

And honestly, like, keep asking yourself that question. And it can change. The answer can change. And it can change. And here's the really beautiful thing. When when I work with somebody and we start to look at goals, so we're looking at what it is that they where do they want to go? The most important part of this process is giving your self permission to change your mind along the way. Because if you're exploring things that you haven't explored ever or in a really long time, you're gonna discover information that you didn't know before. And that gets to be taken into account as you're making decisions along the way. And so I like to say some people are gonna stay on the ladder. That's the choice they're gonna make. But some people are gonna step off the ladder and instead go on paths. Because when you're going on a path, usually there's different choices. Like, think about you, you know, you're in Utah. I'm imagining you go for hikes sometimes. Yeah. Like I used to hike in LA all the time. Even here, I walk around, you know, our beautiful neighborhoods. I'm making a choice about which street I want to go down or which, you know, and in LA, when I would hike running canon, it was which path do I want to go on today? Each of those paths bring me different views, different ideas. I'm discovering new things, and that's kind of the same thing you're doing when you're exploring things and opportunities and options that you've never explored before. And you don't have to know how to get from A to Z. Because when you by the time you get to D, you might decide you don't want to get to Z anymore. So give yourself permission to take baby steps forward and get to know yourself as you're exploring something new.

Camille 30:02

That's so powerful. I love that idea of the different paths because I agree with that. I think that there are, like you say, opportunities and also talents or things that you may be really good at and discover, oh my goodness, I had no idea. And isn't that cool that the plasticity of our brains that we can continue to evolve and change and big events when things happen where your kids are now in school full-time, or now they're moving out of the house, or now you have retired from what you did for 30 years and now you want to do something new. We can evolve and we can change and we can also change our mind again. And I think that allowing permission and curiosity is so powerful.

Michelle 30:45

You know, when I did work in theater, I worked on a show called Avenue Q, um, which was a musical. It was kind of like it was a very tongue-in-cheek musical about recent college grads getting out into the world and trying to find their purpose. And it was really fun and really funny. But the closing song of the show was called Everything in Life is Only for Now. Ooh. And there's such a funny line in it that says, except for death and paying taxes, everything in life is only for now. And it's so true. I mean, what made me think of that was you talking about the different phases of your kids' growth. I remember when my kids were really little, it was like we I'd just get used to them being in one phase and like, oh, this is how they're gonna act. And then they'd change. And if we and it took me so long to actually like be okay with that, I would get so frustrated because I was like, I just figured it out. Totally. You know, it's still not that different when they're 17. But I think like you do realize when they're that little, you think you're never gonna sleep again and you think they're never gonna go to college, and then you blink and you're looking at colleges with them. And so there's always opportunity in every phase to explore and shift and determine what you want to focus on next. And I think women get so stuck in the like, you know, we were fed that whole you can have it all. I actually don't think that's true. Well, let me shift that. You can have it all, but not at the same time. And that's where the choices come into play, and that's where sometimes hard choices come into play. Right. You know, when I was determining if I wanted to go back to work in entertainment before I took the job, the consulting gig, where it was like, oh, I definitely don't. There was a woman I met with at NBC who I really, really liked. And at the end of our interview, she said to me, Listen, this is fabulous. I think you would be so perfect for this job. Before we move on to a second interview, I need you to think about something. This is a really intense gig. You need to be able to sleep and eat this job. And you're a new mommy, and I was a new mommy once, and I understand what that means. And so I want you, she was effectively saying, I want you to make the choice. I want you to know what you're choosing. And it was so hard for me. And if it had been five years earlier, before I had children, I would have taken that job. I loved her and I would have been cool sleeping and eating that job, but I wasn't anymore. And it was a really hard choice for me because I wasn't yet clear that I didn't want to go back to entertainment, but I was clear that I wanted to sleep and eat with my children, you know. So I don't know how I got there. I don't know what made me think of that. Oh, you can have it all, just not at the same time. I think like that's where the choices come into play, you know? And so I but I also think that's true for men. I don't think that's just true for women. I think it's true for all of us if we actually get conscious and intentional. And we all talk, we're so like into balance. And I think what we really want is to be more intentional and to make choices about what we're doing and also to remember we can always change our choices.

Camille 34:46

Yeah. Ooh, I love that. I'm curious, after all the time that you've spent with different women, can you share a simple script or mindset that helps women maybe to set those boundaries or to say no in a way that feels because I feel like that's something that as women we talked about bumping up against where we feel like we need to say yes immediately, or if I don't say yes to this, I'm gonna miss out on all the opportunities, or you know, that sort of thing. Do you have an idea of what that could be?

Paths Over Ladders In Real Life

Michelle 35:15

Yeah, so to me, the guiding compass always comes back to your core values because that is where fulfillment lies for you. And so I think your core values also help you in terms of setting boundaries. When you're looking at what is most important to you, and you come, you have a question about whether or not something is what you want to do, or if you can quote, say no, you can always say no. Um, but those core values help you to say, well, is saying no to this aligned with my core values? And if I'm saying no to this, what am I saying yes to, as you brought up earlier? Or if I'm saying yes to this, what am I saying no to? So if I said yes to that job, I was saying no to being around my kids when they were babies and getting to be there for that part of their life, which I'll never experience again. You know, and it's really hard for women. I think this is really important. Women have such a hard time saying no because it is in our DNA because we said yes to everything when we needed other people, men really to survive. And I know it seems like that was hundreds of years ago, but it and it was. I mean, it was hundreds of years ago when we couldn't own land or we couldn't, you know, have a job. But it wasn't that long ago that we couldn't have a bank account on our own or a credit card.

Camille 37:03

I think that was like 1970 or something so crazy.

Michelle 37:06

And a business loan was 1980, right? Yes, yes. And so, but like even though it was 1850 when that started, when we needed to have a man to either have a roof over our head and food on our table, whether it was our father or our brother or our husband, it is scientifically proven that that fear of what would happen if we upset those people still lives in our DNA. And so you have to imagine if our survival relied on making those men happy to have a roof over our head and clothes on our body and food in our bellies, then we said yes to what they asked of us, right? We didn't feel we had a choice because we didn't.

Camille 37:55

Yeah.

Michelle 37:56

Now we do. But that fear that comes up for us, we still think there's like it's subconscious, but we still think I'm gonna die if I say no. If this person isn't happy with me, I'm gonna die. It's not true, but it feels that way.

Camille 38:18

Yeah, and I don't know. I've never heard it put that way. That's really interesting. Yeah.

Boundaries That Reduce Resentment

Michelle 38:22

And so it's a slow, what we what has to happen is a slow, um, we have to slowly take risks and we have to get a little uncomfortable in order to shift that. But the what you're doing in shifting that is you're starting to shift the DNA for future generations. Yeah. So when we are trying to decide between saying yes or no, I'm gonna bring another element in here. The thing that tells us the most is not our brain, it's actually our bodies. And we ignore the physical symptoms, like the physical, I'm keep using the word symptoms. That's not the right word, but thank you for my menopause. Yeah. Signs, thank you. I'm with you. We ignore those and go to our brain. But if you start to actually slow down and notice, do you feel a little spark of excitement by that thing? Does it do you feel like, ugh, I don't want to do that? Sit with that, notice why is the uh I don't want to do that. Does it make you feel the way like there's a there's this great exercise from this woman named Megan Hillerer? She is a coach. Um, and it's called your inner navigation system. And it's she asks you to somatically like get in, think about something you really love and then notice how your body feels, and think about something you really don't love and notice how your body feels. And it's like the game warm and cold, right? Like you want to follow the excitement and how your body feels when there's something you really love, whether it's a person or a place or a vacation or an article of clothing, an animal. It could be anything, but something that just makes you feel at home in yourself. We all know what I'm talking about when I say that, right? We all have those people or those locations, you know. Um, and we all know what it feels like when something doesn't feel so great. And noticing, even when I say that, I feel it in my body, like I feel it in my chest. So noticing how your body reacts to invitations or requests, slowing down to notice, that doesn't mean, again, you're always going to get to say no to the thing that you want. Like sometimes you have to go to your cousin's wedding because your family is important to you, right? But maybe you don't have to say yes to the play date when you have 7,000 errands to run and your child needs to be with you for some of them. But we get so nervous about saying no and we don't take the time to check in with our bodies. So here's the tip I gave one of my clients, who the play date example is from her. She was like, Michelle, I cannot. I pick my kids up from school, and parents are like, hey, can so-and-so come over today? And I feel so overwhelmed in that moment that I just say yes, and then I'm resentful and angry and frustrated. And I said, Okay, the here's the answer to any question you get like that moving forward for a little while. I have to go to the bathroom. Give me one second. That removes you so that you can take a moment for yourself and you can take a deep breath and say, Does this work for me or does it not? And she would say to me, This is so ridiculous. And I would say to her, it's not ridiculous. You are going into fight or flight in that moment. And in shifting this, you're actually going to help yourself to shift other things that are more important around yes or no. And so that's what she did. For a few months, every time it came up, she would go to the bathroom to like reconnect with herself until that question stopped putting her in fight or flight. And she could say, you know what? Let me think about it right there in the moment with the person. I just need to go through my afternoon. And you can use that for anything from can my kid come over for a play date today to, you know, I don't know, I'm trying to think of something important and big and I can't think of it, but you get the idea.

Camille 43:01

Oh, yeah. Well, and I I was talking to a friend about this the other day because when we grew up, we had a buffer of people having access to us. We had a family phone, someone was picking up that phone and asking, hey, so-and-so is on the phone. Do you want to talk to them? And we could say, Oh, just I'm I'm not home or I'm not, I'm not feeling well, or whatever. And it was almost like we had this buffer of space and peace where we had a little more time for ourselves, where now our kids are growing up in a time where cell phones are on us all the time. People think they can call or text and get an immediate answer. And it's putting all of us into a space of immediate reaction instead of reflective thinking with decisions that come our way like that. Where it is completely fine to say, you know what? I don't have my schedule right in front of me. Let me get back to you. That's an interesting idea. Or, oh, I I think that could work, but I'm not sure. And then it just removes that emerge that emergency response of like, okay, yeah. And I'm I'm guilty of that and I've learned ways to figure that out. Let me have some time. Let me look at my calendar. And the receiver on the other end is totally fine with that. And I think too often we don't give ourselves the space and the grace to be like, oh, that's fine. And guess what? That gives them permission to do the same thing if they get presented with something and then think, oh, they might need some time with this. Maybe I'll send a text and say, hey, with this work, think about it. Get back to me. And I think that that is such a wonderful way to approach life where so much, especially in America, if you've traveled outside, it's not like that. People aren't always running around from one fire to the next or like appointments and things to do and where to be and all the things and we always have our schedule full. And I've really tried to adopt that from traveling other places and thinking, ooh, I really like the feeling of this. What is it that it's missing? And it's usually that I needed to put in a little bit more space for answering demands and just having empty time to think my own thoughts. And that alone 100% yeah huge.

Michelle 45:12

I do have so um I do have a resource I actually have um the guide to stop saying yes when you really mean no. Perfect. And so and it goes through like I actually take you through one of those like choose your own adventure pathways in there of like how to help you make that choice. And it also gives you lots of different ways to say no that aren't just that might feel a little um lighter for somebody who's trying it out, especially at work. You know, one of my favorite things because women have so much trouble when they're asked to do something the tendency is just to feel like you have to deliver. And so one of the favorite ways to to to really do this, it's kind of what we do with our kids when they want something and we're like you can have this choice or this choice. Those are the choices right now, right? And you can do the same thing with a boss.

Camille 46:13

My husband hates when I do that to him. He's like I'm not a kid I know what you're doing. It's so effective though I don't need you it is I it's great.

Scripts To Say No And Next Steps

Michelle 46:21

It's what I can offer it's the same thing at work. So okay you're asking me to get this done you've also asked me to get this done. I can't get both of them done in the timeframe that you're asking which one is most important. So you're not saying no but you are creating a boundary. Yes that I can't kill myself right so that you can have these things, especially when half the time our bosses don't know everything our jobs entail. So they don't understand why you couldn't do it. It's this is the thing about boundaries that's really hard. It is an incumbent upon us to maintain them. Nobody else is going to keep a boundary even if you say to your boss, listen I need to start being home by this time and they say great, no problem. They're not going to honor that unless you uphold it. And Melissa Urban has the best definition of boundaries I've ever heard because people are freaked out but by this idea of boundaries and her definition of boundaries I'm not going to get it 100% right but it's something along the lines of boundaries are um communication we have about what we need in order to keep ourselves and our relationships safe and healthy. I love that it's so good because it totally reframes it's not like I'm throwing down my you know the gauntlet on I'm not putting up with that. It's no if we really think about it when we say yes all the time to something that doesn't work for us we start to resent that person. That's not good for our relationship. And it's also not their fault if we're saying yes all the time and we've never said I really don't want to do this. Yes. You know and that's where we usually go we say yes and we say yes, we push down how we really feel then we explode. And I think that's why so many people are freaked out by the idea of boundaries because they don't know what it looks like to go, what will actually work for me here? What am I willing to say yes to what do I need to say no to and how do I do that for myself in a way that works to keep myself and my relationships healthy healthy.

Camille 48:44

Ooh I love that oh this has been so good. I have loved everything that you've shared Michelle this has been such a good conversation please tell our audience where they can learn more about you um you can find me on my website which is Michellepollock.com and that resource that I mentioned is right there for you.

Michelle 49:05

I am on LinkedIn you can shoot me a DM there and say hi I would love to connect with you and same thing on Instagram but on Instagram I'm Michelle E Pollock um the because the other one was taken already. So there's an E after the E in my first name on Instagram shoot me a DM and um you know let me know what hit home for you in this conversation today.

Camille 49:31

I would love to hear from you. Awesome. Well once again thank you everyone for tuning in I hope that you've taken away some inspiration about what success means for you. Try out those practices that we talked about and DM me. Let me know what you discovered about yourself. We are all cheering you on and hope that you know that every effort that you make has value and so do you. We'll check with in with you next time. Thank you for being here. Hey CEOs thank you so much for spending your time with me if you found this episode inspiring or helpful please let me know in a comment in a five star review. You could have the chance of being a featured review on an upcoming episode. Continue the conversation on Instagram at call me CEO podcast and remember you are the boss.