Sober Not Somber Hour

Hey, Cadre Sphere. Welcome, welcome Sober Not Somber Hour. We are here. I'm actually just outside of ModernWell. I had to like pull over because drive time is crazy. It's hard to get anywhere you need to be in the cities lately without delays and traffic. So. So yeah, I'm on my way to an AI event. One of my friends launched a new company called Mashalot AI and I'm heading there to support him. So, yeah, we are still in September as people are coming in. Hi Rick, welcome to Sober Not Somber Hour.

I'm Jen Barale, your host and today is the first time in six months of weekly sharing with you guys that I don't have any n a beverage in hand. Again, I'm just like, traffic has been wild today so didn't quite get to my destination on time. So here we are. But we have. Yeah, we've had a lot of conversations around safety this month in September and tomorrow it's true. Turning over to a new topic, which is Harvest and I'm super excited to dive into that. But today I'm just going to share what's on my mind related to safety and it has to do with collaborations in the workplace and as an entrepreneur and.

Hi Andy. I'm kind of just like really kind of going through it with, thinking about the current collaboration I just had today that felt so easeful and so safe. I've been an entrepreneur for 13 years and I'm very giving and sharing of my ideas, which has often resulted in good things. But it also can feel very like hurtful or harmful if you openly share ideas and then you see someone else take a version of that idea and put it out in the world and it felt like your idea. Has that ever happened to any of you?

It's like this, the safety to be in collaboration with one person or a group and feel like you can voice your idea and not have it, you know, be taken away from you. One example I will use, and this has happened numerous times, is I will submit a proposal for work and, you know, put all my ideas into that and then the person you know, I'm submitting it to, maybe they've received a few other proposals or submissions is a no. And then they take some shape or form of your idea and implement it themselves.

So for example, if I do a social media plan for an event or a campaign and you know, the person doesn't end up going with me and then I see kind of some of my ideas executed on social. Yeah. The creative ownership and licensing of all of that is wild. So. So I am just thinking deeply about what it feels like to be in a safe space to collaborate with people and actually trust in my gut that things are going to go well this time. This is a collaboration of anywhere from six to 10 people and it's one of the largest collaborative efforts that I've put together.

And I'm very excited about it. Very excited. It felt in I just got through with this two hour meeting and it just felt really safe and good. And everyone's intentions around the collaboration were sort of vetted just through conversation and listening to where everyone's at. So it just felt so good. And I use the word easeful as well. So safety feels. When things feel like they're easy and good, they feel safe. I definitely, looking back in my entrepreneurship career, have had moments, and maybe you've experienced this too, where you sort of put yourself out there career wise or, you know, in some situation where it feels a little unsettling and, and even though it's professional, so there's like not necessarily physical harm to you, but the mental toll that being in an unsafe space can take is huge.

I don't know if any one of you have ever experienced that, but what I'd like to share is some of my go to ideas around feeling safe in a professional space and what one of the biggest things that I have done over years, the last years, in terms of being able to feel safe going into collaboration and sharing ideas, is I set the stage, set the stage. In the beginning of sharing ideas, I would just, you know, put my ideas out there and voice everything and be overzealous about it and these things would happen.

So now when I collaborate, I spend time sort of vetting who I collaborate with and making sure that we're aligned not just on business goals, but like really our personal values and goals that we have in terms of a vision that we would want to carry out together. So there's a lot that goes into that. Yeah. Rick says having ideas stolen is a kind of a validation. Yeah. And it's a special kind of violation when, you know, as a female as well, I have tended, or I can tend to be more introverted. And what that leads to is not speaking up or voicing or owning those ideas or feeling empowered to.

And in this recent collaboration, I have flipped that. So I feel like I'm more in control of that. And it's an understood piece that I make clear to everyone I partner with that, yes, this is a collaboration, there's room for all of that. And if you respect my ideas, your ideas will be respected. And that also includes, you know, bringing in others into the collaboration, making sure there's boundaries set and expectations, because it can quickly get out of hand, and people oftentimes don't even realize they're maybe stepping into a space that is either taking your idea or making you feel unsafe.

So setting expectations is huge. And sometimes I felt a little ridiculous for over communicating things, stating it in many ways, you know, verbally in conversation, but communicating, whether in text and email, about the expectations of a collaboration, I've learned a lot. So, yeah, I'd encourage you to think about that. How, you know, how do you feel safe in a. In a corporate setting, or to move like a visionary or innovative idea forward. What does that take, you know, to really feel confident in that and knowing your idea will be received in the best light and not be stolen from you?

Oh, goodness. Yeah, that's what I have today. I am. And just sharing that because I feel like I've had so much personal growth in that area, even in the last probably three years or so. So I would encourage you all, as you think about, you know, the spaces you're in professionally, to strive to kind of set the expectations to make that a good and safe experience for everyone, you know, and if you are the lead, I feel like it is your responsibility to make sure those collaborators and partners coming in also know the expectations.

In the past, it's been easy for me to not want to overstep or be assertive in that way, but it is really paying off. And you can be assertive without being, you know, ridiculous and overly much. You know, like always being like, oh, I'm just too much. But you know what? It's paying off. So happy, happy Tuesday. I'm gonna go get myself an NA beverage. I'm gonna listen to this mesh a lot. AI grand opening. A lot of people in the Twin Cities are going to be there. And yeah, one of the co founders, Himanshu, is a fan of mine with the NA beverages.

So I'm really looking forward to what he has in store. Have a great day.