SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hello, I'm Jamie Lee. I'm an executive coach for smart women who don't like office politics. And I help them get promoted, get better paid without throwing anyone under the bus. How? By blending proven communication strategies with brain-shifting neuroscience techniques. In this podcast, we explore the stories and strategies of Gutsy women and allies who've braved speaking up and navigated their careers forward. We're here to de-risk the conversations that feel the most daunting. Advocating for yourself and your growth. Let's dive in. Welcome to Risky Conversations. And why risky conversations? Because everything worthwhile is on the other side of a risky conversation. And today I'm really delighted to have Irena Cosma. Irina Cosma PhD is an organizational psychologist, an executive coach with over 20 years of experience helping C-suite executives, leaders, and entrepreneurs become better at who they are and what they do. She specializes in expanding what people think is possible, helping them see more options when they feel stuck and develop the mindset of a possibility thinker. This isn't so much need right now, probably more than ever. So I want to hear more about Possibility Thinker. But also, Arena is a frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review. She teaches at Purdue University and has held leadership roles at Salesforce and Wells Fargo. And Irina is originally from Romania and she's lived in four countries and is now based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Welcome to Risky Conversations, Irina.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Jamie, Jamie, thank you so much for having me. The title of your podcast got my attention. Such a beautiful title, such an important title. So so happy to be here.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

And speaking of risky conversations, you know, feel free to answer it whether professionally or personally. I am curious for you, what was one of the riskiest conversations that you've engaged in and why was it worth it?

SPEAKER_00 2:21

I think many times we are put in those types of situations, willingly or not. And the question, how do we react and what do we do? Sometimes we initiate the conversation, sometimes somebody else initiates. I was at the receiving end on some conversations that were more like aggressive people screaming at me that I had no control on. But I will actually answer your question from a conversation that actually I initiated and I felt like I have more control on. So that's a story of a time on when in my innocence I decided to give feedback to my manager at the time.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

How young were you? And where were you in your career when you decided I'm going to give feedback to my manager?

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Such a good question. It was later in my career. Very good question, yes. In retrospect, if I have to think right now, yeah, I don't know when the pendulum tilted for me to be able to have this type of initiatives in my professional life. I would also say that on the same time, I'm from Eastern Europe. Eastern Europeans are known to be more direct. I, my personality is also very direct. So I wouldn't, I had other examples of me saying something that looked like risky a couple of times in my career, not on the feedback side, but other times. So I think when one of your fundamental values is being violated, it's not like there is no, there is no much options that you have. It's like it just spills out of you because one of your fundamental values was violated. So now that you asked me this question, I remember early in my career, uh, fairness, which is one of my fundamental values, was violated. Back then I did not know that fairness is one of my fundamental values. But and I speak up when I said something that in retrospect looked like crazy and courageous. And the example that I'm about to give, it's another value that again is very fundamental to me, which is freedom. And I didn't feel like I have a choice not to take the action, not to give the feedback, not to have the courageous conversation. That my brain couldn't know any other way than forward and doing something about it.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

And how was your like what was happening that you like? I have to give feedback because my fundamental value of freedom is being violated.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

I went through my career being pretty lucky on the managers I had, and all my managers usually gave me a lot of freedom. You know, you don't know what you have until in retrospect you realize what you had when you don't have it anymore. And I was very able, and they were very able to work with me, like the way I was. Like, give me something, I'll figure it out, I'll come back to you if I get stuck, if I make a mistake, be sure I'm coming and I'm going to let you know. So, how we correct the mistake. So they trusted me that I can figure it out and I can do my job. That was a wonderful gift that all these managers gave to me in retrospect. And when I encounter a manager that couldn't give me that gift, my brain was like completely in shock. Like, what's happening here? I didn't know what's happening to me. It took me a while to understand why I cannot breathe, why I feel like I'm in jail. And and when I realized, again, by then I already did the work on the values, and I know that freedom is one of my values, so I was more aware of what's happening and verbalizing them. So, yeah, like I was like, okay, what options do I have? The first option is to do something about it, try to influence something here. And again, I'm again I am having hard conversations with people because again, I don't know how not to have them many times. So this was like, let's figure something out. And I think it was a one-on-one, so I didn't schedule a special meeting to talk about this. It was during the one-on-one, and I was like, no, I mean, I I catch a moment that when she said like she had so much work to do, she stayed until midnight to finish some things, and and I knew that she is very much into my business and tries to figure it out everything that I'm doing. And I was like, I can take more, I can do more. Let me give me a little autonomy when you don't have to work until midnight. And give more to me. I can take more. Uh let me do work. I can do work, let give it to me, release it, and it's a win-win, you know. I get to do things that I love to do, and you have more free time. So it was like a very nice pre pre proposition from my point of view.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

You advocate for yourself, you advocate for yourself, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Yeah, so even me again, me the direct one, try to be as I try to package as much as I could that conversation and not be too blunt or too rude in that conversation. And uh, to my surprise, again, I don't know how the conversation went. At one point, she did say, Oh, I got feedback before in my career that I should delegate more. I will try to do more of that. So I was like, I had a mixed reaction when I heard that because I was like, okay, so you know about it. It was said to you before. It's not news to you. So in a way, I felt relief. I'm like, ooh, I'm not saying something here that you did not know, so you can get aggravated with me. So you say information that you already had. But also I got a little skeptical. So she had this information for many years, and here she was not being able to make any change, as far as I could see. But she here she was saying again the words, I will try to do something. And again, me in my naivety and my innocence, I believed it. And like if a person says I will, I'm like, okay, let's see it. But uh, she couldn't, nothing changed. It became even a little harder, I would say, which again broke my brain. I'm a coach and I understand, I mean, logically understood what's happening. I mean, you know, we are coaches, you know how hard behavioral change happens, and even somebody needs to want and needs to put the work and time and energy and effort. That's a lot of hard work. So I understood that she didn't even know how to do the work. She didn't thought about asking to work with a coach, probably. So she was helpless. Even if she wanted, she couldn't. So that was a pretty interesting combination. And again, because I didn't know what else to do, I decided to go and have a second conversation with her.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

We were having a persistent, risky conversation. You're like, it's not enough that I was courageous once, and the leader heard me, she gave me a hint of self-awareness, but she didn't change. Let's try again. Persistence. Okay. And then what happened when the second time you engaged your manager who was micromanaging?

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Yes. So this time uh she was not so willing to have a more amicable conversation. We had this comp, I mean, I remember the words because I'm like, again, in retrospect, oof, I'm so sorry for a person like that. But in the middle of it, I was like, I mean, it broke my brain. She literally said that she needs to know everything that I do. And I tried to explain to her that in the 21st century, in a white-color knowledge worker type of environment, you cannot literally know. I cannot remember all the things that I did, also. And you cannot do this with all the direct reports. It's not humanly possible. I mean, it's not to me, this is a fact. And this is what I said, this is a fact. And she literally said, This might be a fact for you. It's not a fact for me. I need to know everything. So, this level of illogicality, I didn't know how else to do. And um, and what happened after that is that she scheduled meetings with me every day to ask me what I'm doing, what I'm going to do, what I'm doing, what I'm going to do. So again, pretty mind blowing. I'm very proud of myself that I had a lot of conversations, but again, to me, it was not even courage. It was like I it was a survival stuff. It was like that's the only thing I know what to do, how to make sense of the situation.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

So, so in hindsight, what did you gain from that experience that made this experience worth it? Because, you know, when somebody hears that, it's like that almost sounds like you encountered backlash for speaking up for yourself, you know? But you you gained something because the question was, why was it worth it? So, what did you gain in hindsight that made that experience worth having?

SPEAKER_00 11:30

In the retrospect, that was one of the biggest gifts that somebody gave to me.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Whoa, that was one of the biggest gifts that somebody gave to you. Wow. And when did you learn that it was the biggest gift and what kind of gift?

SPEAKER_00 11:46

I realized it, I mean, I realized that portion of it after the fact pretty early. But when I fully realized it, when I had a client myself who came and told me a pretty similar situation. And I realized that if I would have met this client one, two years earlier versus meeting them now, made a very difference how I'm coaching and how I'm approaching that client. So that client was very lucky that I had that experience and I was able to be a better coach for them because I had that experience. So that was kind of broke my brain in the moment. I was like, oh my god, out of approach is so much different a couple of years ago. And now, because I had that experience, I could I could see an alternative option in reality that I was not being able to see maybe one or two years ago. And this is a difference, and this is, I know we're talking about this particular example, but I don't know if you can agree with me on this. There are things that we intellectually understand, but it's not the same if we emotionally understand them. Right. So this is a difference. The more experiences we have, even if they are pretty traumatic and pretty negative in the moment, then it in retrospect, they all become experience that allow us to empathize better, to understand better the realities of other people. So it's kind of painful that you have to go through that pain in order to understand somebody else's pain at the same level. Otherwise, you can understand it theoretically, you know, you can understand it logically, which is pretty good, but it's not the same.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

So may I ask how you did coach this client who was going through a similar experience as you, micromanaging manager, resistance to resistance to feedback.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Yeah, I'd assume those are the similarities. And maybe just to generalize a very difficult manager. A very difficult manager. But very difficult that she was mentally exhausted. She didn't know what else to do. And uh, how would I have coached her a couple of years before? I would have gone very heavily in influencing. And what else can you do?

SPEAKER_01 13:58

And how else, and where else, and what words, and in other words, who who are the other people you can speak to? Is that what you mean by influencing, or do you mean something different when you say influence?

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Both direct influence or indirect influence. Strategic influence is one of my favorite things to culture on. And I think our life it's continuous moments of strategic influencing. So I would have found a way, like okay, let's find a way, let's think, let's play three-dimensional chess, let's uh what, when, how, what do you prepare differently? How what's the sentence you are saying? How I would have pushed a little harder on that. Now I feel like there are multiple options, and one option is to remove yourself from the situation. Yeah, try all of this, definitely give again. I gave it a try twice. So definitely play with it. Uh but have realistic expectations of what's possible and if and when and how people change or not change. Try to diversify the option that you have available. Because now I understood that, but again, I didn't know the manager. This manager might have been a more agreeable manager that would have made an effort and made a change. I don't know. So this time I didn't say, let's not do anything, let's just find another job for you. But I say, okay, let's have more realistic expectations. So even this idea of realistic expectations and hope for the best, prepare for the worst, or the other way around. Give her more credit that she knows what she's talking about.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

And that creates when you say that who are we giving credit to? Are we giving credit to the client or are we gonna giving credit to the micromanaging manager?

SPEAKER_00 15:40

The client that they understand, and I I again I would have pushed it more like it's possible, there is a way we can find it, you know, and sometimes you cannot find it. And again, I calibrated my own realities and expectation of what's possible because again, in even me going to that person twice, it tells you a lot about me because I think it's possible. I really think it needs to be like you need to tell me no many, many times for me to stop.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Yeah, this makes me think of how you know I I coach clients who encounter difficult people at work, and you know, sometimes I ask them, what do you want them want to happen? And they're like, I want that person to change. And I'm like, Yeah, but they're not in the session, right? The only person you can influence or change is yourself, right? And so what I'm hearing is when you expand the scope of possibility, it it you know, realistic includes let's acknowledge we can't change other people. We can in we can give our best effort to influence their decision making. And we also take a wider perspective and think about who are the other players, other people who can help influence that decision making. But what I'm hearing is hey, just acknowledging that people can't change, some people don't change, is also part of it's part of all the options that you you know lay on the table. It's like all the cards are on the table. Yes. This person doesn't change, we can leave. And that could be the best thing that happens ultimately.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Yes. And even now in I always give them a glimpse of hope because I want to still believe. I say, you know what, maybe it's an exception. And in this case, maybe this person can change. But again, right, we cannot bet on that.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Exactly. Let's not bet on other people changing so you can feel better. It's like no, why don't you took ownership of how you want to feel and what you want to change? Okay, excellent, excellent. So I I guess we sort of already touched on this, but I want to I want to learn about your possibility thinker framework, right? So I'd imagine based on what you just shared with you, part of that is like explore options and expand them, but maybe you can walk us through what does it mean to be a possibility thinker and how do you become one?

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Yeah, I'm imagining somebody who has kind of almost absolute freedom, like somebody who can always count that there is something they can do about a situation. So that's the fundamental thing. Like how you never feel stuck, like again, how I mentioned earlier, like I felt like I was in a jail. I felt like I was like, I didn't know what was happening to me. So I want everybody who we are going to be in those situations, we are going to feel like that. My hope is that we have some tools to get ourselves out of that a little faster than otherwise without having this mentality. And this concept started with me starting writing a book in 2023. So when I started writing the book, it was not so much a framework or just like individual strategies that I knew I'm doing with my clients in my coaching sessions. And fundamentally, this is over time I this is the words I start putting on it. I was like, what I do with these people actually, I'm opening their brains. They come to me and they say, I don't see it. I cannot, I don't know what else, I don't know how. And from my vantage point, I'm like, oh my God, there are so many things you can do. And I need to stay there with them for them to see them also. So this idea of open up the brain of the person in front of me, and how I do that in my point of view is giving them alternatives, show them how many possibilities. So when you are stuck in jail, like oof, you're not in jail. Here is there are so many things. What and like how you said, put let's put all those things on the table. Some of them might not be ideal, some of them you might not like, some of them will be difficult, some of them might not be plausible, but they are all there. So let's talk a little about them and see what happens when we talk about them. So over time I came up with this framework of inner possibilities, relational possibilities, and process possibilities. So each of them have different strategies under them, and yeah, so that's that's and it's fundamentally what I'm working with my clients. And you might be one of the first people to to hear about this, but I just sign a contract with Ratledge for a book based on this framework. So by the time this podcast will come live, I will also announce the world at one point. But that's that was a book that I started three years ago and went through different permutations, and the framework came into my brain. I had the concept, the idea, but it was kind of separate topics, and then they all got some shape and became a more coherent framework over time.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Congratulations! This is very exciting. And inner relational and process possibilities. So do we start from inner or do we start from does it matter where you start from?

SPEAKER_00 20:49

In theory, no, but in practice, I think it's always better to start with inner.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

And how do you know? But we'll let you know that you're you're like expanding the scope of inner possibilities.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

So inner possibilities are ideas, like uh as if I remember all my three, four strategies. Even the first chapter in the inner possibilities. So again, inner possibilities are things that you can do with you inside of you, and once you do them, nobody can take them away from you from you. And this is another thing, like when people sometimes say, Oh, I have to start from scratch, I have to start from zero. I'm like, oof, you never start from scratch, you never start from zero because you have all this foundation that you build that you know and you are aware, so it's never zero. For example, one thing you can do, and it's all of them once I'm going to share, they are so basic, but all of them so hard work. One of them is just literally learning a little more about how the brain works and understand a little what this piece of meat in a dark place, as Lisa Feldman Barrett says, what's the deal with this piece of meat in a dark place? How much actually power and control can we try to insert into? It so just learning a little about that, I know it gave me a lot of options and possibilities and freedom, knowing that you know I can do this, I can do, I can influence it. The brain shouldn't tell me what to do, I should tell to the brain what to do. And there is a lot of things like I'm keep learning, I'm not a neuroscientist, but I'm reading and watching a lot of neuroscientists. And I think by the book comes out, it's going to that will be the chapter that will need to be updated the most because there are so many things that we learn from this field. So even that, that's uh like just information. The other thing that I don't know if you experience this with your own clients. One thing that I do in all of my coaching sessions, the first coaching session, I give them some assessments and we do a debrief. The first session is a debrief of the assessments. But one question that I ask before we go to the assessment, I ask them to tell me about their strengths and development areas. I don't know, maybe for you the different population, but for me, I think majority of people they have to think what are their strengths. Yes, right. And they're like, oh, let me think about it. Okay, maybe then, maybe that, and they're rambling and it's not coherent and it's not clear, and they forgot the first one until they said the last one. So it's a little messy. So my what I'm trying to sell here is the idea that if you are crystal clear on your strengths, that's something that nobody can take away from you from you, and it's something that you can count on. Whenever you are in a challenging situation, whenever you are under stress, under pressure. The same with values. You know, like we just heard the example how my value move me to action of freedom. Once you know your strengths and once you know your values, things become easier, not easy, easier. You are in trouble, and relationship building is one of your strengths. Go deep into relationship building, talk with people, reach out to people. Do one of my superpowers is speed. When I'm in trouble, when I'm like, oof, speed, I can do lots of things at times, like I can move mountains in a very short amount of time. So I know I can count on that. So if it's crystal clear, it's in our brain, and again, this is why the brain is the first chapter, because you really need to understand why the other chapter are important. If your brain is crystal clear, what are your strengths and values? When you are in a challenging situation, you know what to grab to move forward with more ease.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

Can I ask you a challenging question about that? Because sometimes I feel like I'm super clear on my values and strengths on a great day, on a sunny day, when my hormones are not a certain way or a certain time of the month, right? And what if, you know, it's a crappy day and I wake up in a crappy mood and my joints hurt, and I'm like, oh, I don't want to do anything. And then like strengths, oh, you know, I'm like, I don't know. Or like, what were they? Do they even feel relevant? Like, what if you know the conditions of the body, because the brain is in the body, have you either forgetting your strengths or disregarding your strengths or even doubting your strengths?

SPEAKER_00 25:21

Then what happened? Such a good question, Jamie. A couple of things. First of all, to normalize that those days exist and those days will happen to all of us. I'm not the only one. Let's make a club, the human club.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

Yes, the human club, seven billion people.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Yes. And what uh a little separate coming back, but a little separate of that. What I always always say to myself and my clients if needed, uh let yourself, I mean, if you want to feel sorry for yourself and go for it. I mean, go for it.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Oh, yeah, you you you write them permission slips.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

And I'm writing to myself many times. Yeah, it's a disaster, it's whatever. And I think we're talking before the session, like, yeah, I have back pain, upper, lower back pain for more than one year. And I'm I think I can give up PhD and back pain right now, based on how many things I learned about back pain. So, yeah, that happens. There are days when I'm like, I don't know, I'm like, I'm exhausted, I don't know what else to do with my life. I'm like, why I my brain is exploding of how much pain and like ongoing, you know. So yeah, there are days like that. But here is where something like values and strengths can come in. So, that example in how I integrate this in my particular case. So, and I think you said earlier I'm persistent, like with a manager. Like, yeah, that's kind of a thing, and I think many you probably the same. You have this characteristic, many entrepreneurs, it's no other way to do this type of line of business, otherwise. So that persistence is a thing, you know. So, okay, yes, I feel bad. Okay, yeah, what else can I do? This is a very useful question. What else can I do? Okay, uh, because being in pain is not the best option, it's an option, but it's not the best one. Like, what okay, who else can I talk? What else can I learn? What else can I ask AI about? Like, how many times I explained to AI all my symptoms and give me idea solutions, what can I try next to do? And so this is how you draw in one of your strengths, okay, persistence or one of my values, like the freedom. Okay, I want to be free of this stupid pain. So, my job for myself is to figure it out the way forward, to stay in alignment with my values and with my strengths. Nobody's going to do that work for me than myself. But again, I can take a break and I can feel like, okay, I'm going to feel sorry for myself in 24 hours, and I'm going to think I'm the yeah, the most unluckiest person in the world, and uh think all the things and feel all of all the feelings, but then you have to snap out of it because you made some decisions that these are the values you want to live. Yeah. And you know that you have something at your disposal. You don't, you're not lost in the universe, you can do something.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

And there's something really clever about giving ourselves that time-boxed period to feel whatever it is that we're feeling, or think all the thoughts. I I was very sick earlier this year, so I experienced a lot of pain. And so what I'm what I'm hearing is you can have your strength, but it can just look different when you're going through something, especially you know, physically, right? And what you just shared, I I had to do, I had no choice, you know. I had to be on my side or you know, prone, lying down, yes, asking AI. And then just I had to like accept, I had to allow myself to feel what I'm feeling, the pain and the fatigue and like the self-pity. And I just had to be like, yes, it is what it is. I have to just allow myself to be with it. And then I did this thing where I intentionally chose to be grateful for, I'm like, I have a body, you know, I I even have a business I can put on pause, right? And I I've been told from other people who study the brain science that gratitude ignites different neurochemistry in the brain, right? So it kind of reduces the cortisol and it can help, you know, maybe, maybe help ignite some endorphins or some that good feeling serotonin. I I'm not precise on that, but but thank you for sharing that. It's like your strength can look differently in behavior when you feel good, and when you don't feel so good, it can look differently, but before you know it, you're still activating that strength of whether that's persistence, not giving up, freedom, yeah, the values. So thank you for sharing that. Thank you for sharing that. And I'm really excited to hear your book is going to be published. You'll have to come back and, you know, market, tell us more about the book when it is published. Yeah. So, you know, something that you mentioned earlier that you're Eastern European, you're very direct, and you lived in four different countries. You live in Romania, you're now in North Carolina. What were the other countries you lived in? Republic of Moldova and Spain.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Which one was your favorite? It's very hard to answer that question. Um, but I will say there are two cities in this world where I feel like home. And the two cities are Barcelona and New York City.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Ah, okay. And what did living in all the different cities? Barcelona, New York City, Moldova, Romania. I think you also mentioned you lived in Japan briefly. So what did what did living in those different countries and cities teach you about possibility thinking?

SPEAKER_00 30:51

I think the fundamental thing that I realized, and by the way, even this realization came actually from different podcasts. People asking me similar questions, and I'm framing it for myself. But what I realized at one point, and this is my point of view, somebody else can come and have a different point of view. But for me, there is so much, or maybe might be the most obvious thing that I'm going to say. There is much more common across countries. So for me, actually, country or is not a variable of so much interest anymore. Even if in grad school, actually, all my studies are in cross-cultural research, my my dissertation also on globalization and values and cross-cultural. So I lived in the space of cross-culture for a long time. Maybe because of that, or maybe not, again, my brain now is believing that we are so much more similar. And the cultural it is a cultural layer, but I wouldn't give it more than 10-20% of the cultural layer. Otherwise, I feel like a human is a human is a human. And then again, it's a pretty freeing way of thinking about people that you don't have to overthink, overanalyze. It's just a human if you understand a little how the brain works, if you understand a little how personality traits work, if you understand a little uh, I mean, you can and there is actually research on this that there are more similarities across countries for people who are in the same social economical status that across people who are inside inside of the same country across different social economical status. So I have more in common with somebody from Germany and Brazil that are went to school, have a white-colored job, all of that. Even there is research that says that my house will look pretty similar with their houses, with some layer of cultural differences, versus how my house looks comparing with somebody who is a billionaire or somebody who is uh living under the bridge. So the differences maybe times inside of a country are much more bigger than across a country. So that's something that I'm what I'm thinking when I when I think about this question.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

I'm taking away, don't overthink it. That works. That that's great. I mean, I'm a bicultural person. I also live in Japan sometimes, so and I'm Korean American. And so sometimes I'm like, if I start overthinking it, that's when I know I'm like some of them. And I get like hesitant. I'm like, but I teach women how to advocate for themselves. Why am I feeling timid? And so this really helps. It's like, hey, we're we're a lot similar than we think. Yeah, the there are maybe some customs and language differences that I have to learn, but actually, and in what you just said, if they went to college, they have an advanced degree and they have a professional job, or there were certain socioeconomic class, our experience is probably a lot closer than different. That's that's good to know. Is there anything else you'd like to add to that?

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Let's see, I wanted to say something, but it escaped my brain. So let's see if I'll remember it. Um, I wanted to say that uh I mean, for sure, for better or for worse, there is some truth in cultural stereotypes. They exist for a reason. And they also can get us in a lot of trouble. Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

So in and out of trouble, you said can get us in trouble, can get us out of trouble.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Yes, so it's both. And this is again uh coming back to possibility and options, and how do you hold multiple things in the same time? So this is the hard work that all of us can do, you know, to understand not over-index on one or the other, and not to make assumptions, and maybe I like how you said not overthink it so much. Like uh go be there, be present, and that's maybe all you need to do. You don't need to know present, and that may be all you need to do.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

That's a great takeaway. That's really great takeaway. So, is there anything I haven't yet asked that you think people should know about possibility thinking or anything else?

SPEAKER_00 34:59

Uh maybe I'll say uh I'm uh opening a class on possibility thinking early next year. So if anybody wants to join and be aware, the best way to be informed is either LinkedIn or my email list. Usually I'm offering some additional discounts on for my email list. So if you jump on my email list, you'll have some preferential uh uh investment price. But yeah, that's a kind of a group session where I'm basically walking people through all these three types of inner relational and process possibilities. And I don't believe in training, but I believe in very hands-on workshops. So that's how this is going to be. It's going to be very a piece of theory, and then individual, you do actually something. You know, you think about your strengths, you talk with somebody else about your strengths, you think about your values, you balance polarities, you do something very, very practical in the workshop, and you have homework before the workshop, after the workshop. So it's a very kind of hands-on type of thing that actually my hope is that people will remember something from it and they will be able to implement and have something so they will never ever before will find themselves saying, I'm starting from scratch, I'm starting from zero, I don't know what to do, I'm in a jail, I'm stuck. You'll never be stuck again after you have all of those techniques from that possibility thinking program. Never be stuck again.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

That's that's powerful. Where can people go to learn more about your email list, your upcoming workshop?

SPEAKER_00 36:35

LinkedIn is the best place. I always say LinkedIn is my office. I uh work, I work from home, but I work on LinkedIn, so please connect with me. Uh Jenny, I heard you saying earlier something about you being timid or something. I'm an introvert. I'm trying to find my voice, try to speak more about my thoughts. And so if anybody wants to see and how how how an introvert is doing, how how an introvert plays a LinkedIn game, come on LinkedIn and uh once you are there, you'll find all the other information about me.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

All right, I will link to your LinkedIn profile in the show notes. Thank you so much, Arena. Very happy to be here. Thank you, Jamie. Thank you for joining me today on Risky Conversations. Remember, everything worthwhile is on the other side of a risky conversation. And when done well, your self-advocacy becomes an act of service. If you're ready to de-risk your own career evolution, I invite you to book a free hour-long consultation at jamiewecoach.com slash apply. J A N I E L E E C O A C H dot com slash apply. We'll map out your custom blueprint to confidence and get you on the path to being better paid on your own terms. Let's make your next conversation the one that changes everything. Toxin.