Leading With Authenticity

Hello, everybody. Happy Monday. My name is Jean Nichols. I'm excited to be here with you today. I take my furry friend hi, Alec. On a walk every single day. And we walk to a coffee shop. And it's usually peaceful and serene. And on this beautiful Monday, there's all kinds of constructions, but you can see him checking it all out. So he's joining our call today. I am calling in from Minneapolis. So if you are joining into the live stream, I would love, love, love to hear where you are from this beautiful Monday.

Okay, at Velasco. Did I get that right? Where are you from? Happy Monday. So yesterday on the livestream me time, I talked about gratitude and what I would love to hear as we pop in on this beautiful Monday is one thing you are grateful for right now, in this moment. And anyone when they jump in, I'll ask them the same question. So if you're not driving two hands on the wheel, focus. If you are able to type in, listening to it on replay, listening to it live, I would love to hear on this Monday one thing that you are the most grateful for.

And I'm gonna do a very honest share. I am grateful for naps, and I never take naps. And the reason I say that is I had to work at our studio this morning. We have a new general manager, and she's been working a lot of time. If I haven't mentioned before, or if you're new to me, I co own an indoor cycling studio. And our new general manager is coming in hot. And all this passion and energy oozing from her, I which means she's working way more hours than we expect her to work. And so this morning I told her to sleep and take the day off.

And I went to work for her. And I didn't get enough sleep last night. So I worked at her studio from 530 this morning until about 830 and then came home and took a nap. And now I'm taking my dog for a walk. And then I'm gonna get on with my day. Cause I have a lot of work to do, as do many of us. So in the chat, feel free to type one thing you're grateful for. And I am grateful today for naps. I'm also grateful for my four legged dog that makes sure I get outside and move every day, multiple times.

So today, on our professional development day and talking about authentic leadership, I wanted to get a little real about what boundaries do you put in place for yourself now? I opened with a funny story about our new general manager who is coming in. So excited. So much fresh energy, redecorating things, reorganizing things, organizing events for all of our community, and working a lot. And part of my job with her isn't to just say yes or no to her ideas. It really is to also help her learn how to set boundaries and bumpers, because she's new in this role.

She hasn't led a studio before. She hasn't managed a team of people before. Hi, Jules. Good morning. I'm asking everybody, as they pop in to type in the chat, one thing they're grateful for today. And I said that I was grateful for naps and my dog. And so this new general manager is coming in, and she's doing all of the things, and she's trying to do everything. And so in my weekly conversations with her, and I almost talk to her every day, we talk about what's priority, what's important right now.

And then I ask her specifically, have you taken a break today? Have you gone for lunch today? Because it's a fitness studio, so the hours are very different than a nine to five job. There really isn't the same type of hours, because if we're working with vendors or we're trying to reach out to individuals, we have a window of time that we can reach out to them. And then if we are working in the studio where we have rides, it's a spin studio where we have rides that are happening. Those are in early morning hours, late evening hours, sometimes in the middle of the day.

So setting boundaries can be really hard. And so I think it's really important that we do our own checks. Whatever kind of job that you have, what do you do to make sure that you get the fuel that you need to be the most effective in your job? For example, do you allow yourself the opportunity to go for a walk in the middle of the day? Do you allow yourself the opportunity to actually go have lunch? And what I mean by that is not always going out eat, but do you allow yourself to stand up, go to a cafeteria, go to wherever the microwave is?

If you work from home, go from where you're working to your kitchen to go grab something to eat, and then sit down and eat it without your computer, not on a call, not taking notes about the things that you have to do yet, just literally allowing yourself space and time to eat food. And I'm gonna be really honest. I am horrible at this one thing. I wake up in the morning, I walk my dog right away, I get him breakfast right away. Maybe I brush my teeth and by the time I get to a point where I've gotten through all of those little checkboxes, I may not realize until a couple hours later that I haven't had my protein shake or I haven't eaten anything yet.

So when I say this, I'm not saying it because I do this every day. I'm saying this because I also find that I need to set my own boundaries. I'm really good at setting that up for my team. And this new general manager, for example, she was supposed to have off yesterday. There were some things that didn't get done. So I sat with her at a coffee shop, and we got them done together. And then I told her to take today off. So do you see what I did right there? I made sure that she set boundaries for herself, and I held her accountable to the boundaries that I don't set for myself.

So in this day of leading with authenticity, it's great when we can set boundaries for everyone around us. It is insanely incredible when we say yes, to take on something more because we feel like we have capacity, knowledge, passion to take on the more. But what happens when we forget our own boundaries? What happens to us when we forget to wear the hat that we're human? First, we need to fuel our bodies. We need to hydrate our bodies. We need to take a nap if we need a nap and our brain is foggy.

We need to take space and time if we're going through grief because we lost somebody really important to us. We need to take time when our bodies are sick, to rest, hydrate, recover, recoup. But so often, myself included, so often we jump in and we keep doing until our bodies, our minds, our spirits tell us we can't do anymore. So a habit that I've gotten into. This is going to sound probably funny. My dog likes carrots. He eats a lot of vegetables. And it's funny because we'll buy a bag of carrots, and they'll be just for the dog, and it'll sit in the refrigerator in its own drawer.

And major, my dog. Hi, major. He's looking at my scone. He will stand at the refrigerator when he thinks it's treat time. And I'll go to the refrigerator, open the door, go get a carrot. And my habit that I started to do now, because I love carrots, is I will eat a carrot before I give him a carrot. So it sounds so silly, but it's a simple act of me doing something for me first before doing something for everybody else. So if I am you know, looking to go do a workout. There's a time where it's like, one more email, one more x, and then I run to my workouts late.

Maybe sometimes we have to get that email out or make that phone call. But it's also really important that that time that you take for yourself to recharge, recoup, fuel our bodies is one of the most important leadership moments that we can set, because now what we are doing is leading authentically by putting ourselves first, oxygen mask on first, like they say on the airplane, which allows us to model for the people around us, the teams that report to us, our coworkers, our colleagues. We are now modeling the way to being authentic leaders that can take time to take to put ourselves first.

So just verbally put all of that out there. And for those of you that are listening on replay or you're listening live, how does that sit with you? What are your initial thoughts or reactions to when I say, put your oxygen mask on first, eat your lunch first, make your protein shake first, then walk the dog, then send that email. I think about it, and sometimes my heart races a little bit because it's like, well, what if they need it? Well, what if they do? We live in a time today where information is accessible 25%, 24/7 we are accessible 24.

720 years ago, it wasn't like that. I had somebody say to me the other day, they liked when they had a flip phone and they had to do a text by pushing down on the number. If you wanted to do an a, b or c, you had to push once on the phone, twice, or three on that one button, and it forced them to slow down and be really conscious about sending a note through their phone. I don't know if any of you remember that we don't take that time. We don't slow down as much anymore. We respond instantaneously.

So when we're leading from a place of authenticity. My invitation today, my invitation to you on this beautiful week that we're just starting in the second half of the year. Can you believe it? We are over halfway through 2024. What are some little bitty things that you can tweak, just tweak, that can help make sure that you're putting yourself first in the equation for some of the really important things. Resting, healing, eating, exercising, taking a mental break. Because when we can do that for ourselves, then we can model that for other people that we're also helping to coach to become the next leader.

So when I go back to my general manager and I say to her, did you take a break today? She will also, we're good enough friends that she will look at me and say, well, did you? And we'll laugh and, and we can now hold each other accountable because she now knows that every manager that's worked before her, this is what I've done. And what's great about it is she will also challenge back to me and she will recognize in me that she's learning a lot. But also she sees when I block and tackle for the team, and there will be times where she needs to block and tackle for the team, too.

But it doesn't mean she doesn't block and tackle for herself as well. And so I'll ask her, what is energizing you this week? What is draining you this week? What can we delegate to somebody else? Because she is a high responsibility person and I know this, which means that she's going to assume that when I'm asking her something that she has to do it. And so our conversation over the weekend was, I'm not bringing these things to your attention because I expect you to do it all. I'm bringing them to your attention so you could help me hold the team accountable to doing their job when they're here and we're not.

So how might we continue to hold ourselves accountable? To fueling ourselves first, to recognizing when we're running redlined and leading the best way we can, which is leading from a healthy perspective, leading with gratitude, leading by setting bumpers to make sure that we can fuel ourselves before we decide to fuel everyone. And recognizing that every ask, every task that comes our way, it might not always mean that we are the ones that are accountable to it. Maybe it means we challenge the norm and we ask, in the list of priorities, where does this one rank?

Or we ask, is this a me to do? Or are you asking me to help our team do this better so that it doesn't become just me? So leading with authenticity means, in my mind, checking in, holding ourselves accountable, setting boundaries, and making sure that we can do that. So on this amazing Monday, I'm going to finish taking my dog for this walk. I'm going to eat my scone at a park bench, and I'm going to get back to the rest of my day. I hope that you all have an amazing day. If something really resonated with you, I would love to hear it.

Post it in the comments on this live stream. I'll come back to it later. Post something in a comment on the chat for everybody to see and I will definitely respond. I'll also post some things out there in the next day or so as well. I hope you have a great Monday and we'll see you soon.