Welcome to the new manager podcast. I'm your host, Kim nickel. Hello and welcome. I'm glad you're here and I hope you're doing well. If you are new to this podcast, a special welcome to you. I've noticed a lot of new listeners lately. I'm very excited to welcome you in. You are in the right place to learn how to be a better manager, whether you have been managing folks for a really long
time and you're ready for a new perspective. or you are new to managing people and you're feeling like, you're not exactly sure what you're doing, you are in the right place and today I wanted to share this idea of managing your mind and what I mean by that is okay, you are a human, you have a mind, it is filled with thoughts, you have lots of experiences, all of this shapes, your T''v your worldview, how you see things and that shapes the decisions you make the way that you build
relationships, the way that you work with other humans. And we can often overlook this part because, when we're at work, you know, we often think I need to deal with this stuff outside of me and we forget to deal with the part on the inside. I sometimes think about this as every issue has two. The outside part and the inside part, the inside part is where you manage your mind and the first place is really understanding how your mind
works. What are the stories that you tell that explain how the world Works to you and this starts really, really early. So for example, I have two nephews right now, they're five and eight. Super sweet boys. So cute and a couple of years ago. When they were really, really young my brother, their dad had taken an exam. He was changing careers. He had to take an exam as part of his studies and he did really well on the exam and this happened all around the holidays.
So when I learned that, my brother did really good on his exam and it was near the holidays, I sent them a box of see. Is candy. And if you are familiar with See's Candy, you know, it's kind of a tradition around the holidays, especially in California, where I grew up and I thought, oh, this will be perfect, I'll send them a big box of assorted chocolates, and it will be in celebration of my brother's exam and also it'll be
for the holidays. And it'll just be a nice thing to do. So I sent them this box of candy and I Put a note in it. That said, congratulations on doing, so great, on your exam and have a wonderful holiday weekend. And apparently, when they got this candy and my brother, you know, they open the box and he read the card and he's like, oh, this is from your auntie. You know, she said, she she sent us this candy. Apparently, the eldest boy looked at his father and said,
so seriously. Well, you Better take more exams so that Auntie sends more candy I thought, right? That's what we do. When we were kids, like, we're trying to put together how we think the world works and what mate seem very logical. You know, when we were like five years old. When we take a step back, and take a bigger perspective, we realize, oh, that's, that's not actually how it works. But at the time he thought, oh my, you know, Dad did great on his exam.
Auntie sent us candy. That means that Dad needs to take more exams, do really? Well, we'll get more candy. So, we all do this in different kinds of ways. I know for me, one of the ones that I had for a really long time, was this thought of if I perform really well at work, someone will notice and I will get promoted. I didn't realize that's not quite how it works because I had
been really good. School and in school, like that is an environment where people do pay attention to how you perform and that's directly correlated to your advancement to the grades. You get to, you know, moving on to the next level. And I had just taken for granted like I didn't even realize that I had this thought. So if I'm doing a good job at work, somebody is paying attention and I should just automatically get a promotion or
get a raise the whole idea. Idea of having to have an active conversation to initiate that conversation especially early in my career felt so foreign to me and it felt so scary this thought, like, but would that be rude? I mean, isn't someone supposed to be paying attention? I just didn't make the mindset shift for quite a while until I realized. Oh my boss is busy. Have a lot of people to manage, they have a lot going on. It's very easy for my good work to actually be overlooked.
Especially you know, if I'm not the one speaking up and advocating for myself and telling my boss what I want, I think that's a transition. A lot of us go through in our 20s and even into our 30s, right? Is trying to understand, how do we advance, how do we get recognized? How do we We have the conversations around what we want, and what's required to get there and how do we enlist the support of others in our organization to help us to move forward?
So, in terms of managing your mind, you want to understand how your mind works, you want to understand, what are the thoughts that you're holding that kind of organize your
thinking about the world? Sometimes, I like to think of this As though you have a library inside your mind and it's filled with books and all these books are about how things are supposed to be, you know, you've got books that describe how other people are supposed to be, you've got books about how you are supposed to be. And all of these books, you've gathered over the years and it kind of just sit in the background, you don't always notice that they're there until
there's a conflict or something doesn't go. As you had expected or what happens as we rise into levels of leadership and responsibility and we get older and our careers. The way, we've been making decisions about our life and our work stop being effective like we outgrow that, you know, understanding and then we have to choose something new. So let me give you an example.
Here's something that I think a lot of us hold as kind of a general rule like it's in our book of how we're supposed to be and how the world works. You should share. If you have a lot of something you should share it. Seems kind of you know, nothing special, right? Kind of like yes, of course, if I have a lot of something and somebody wants them, you know it's a good thing to share. Now, where this can get you in trouble is around your calendar
and your schedule. Just because you have open time on your calendar and somebody wants some of that time doesn't always mean, you should give that time to them. That is how we Have No Boundaries, that is how we overcome it, an exhaust ourselves. And this is one of the things that I end up teaching and coaching a lot of my clients on is, how are you looking at what you're saying, yes to And how are you looking at, what is
getting on your calendar? And why I had one student who said, you know, I've got this got all these meetings that I have to do every week and we looked at that and I asked her. Well, are there any that you don't have to say yes to and she had never thought of that before. She was operating from this perspective of you know, if there's time on my calendar and someone asks for a meeting, I have to say yes but And as a result her calendar was filled
with meetings. She didn't have any time set aside for doing focused work, you know, heads down no interruptions and it hadn't occurred to her that just because she has an open spot on her calendar. She can actually choose to keep it that way. And not simply give that time to somebody else. And so, when you realize, okay, the thought that I've Been using to guide me in this very broad sense like in this example share and somebody wants some time with me.
And so I should give that to them because I you know, I have some open time then what happens is we need to look at, is that useful here? Is that serving you? And how do you want to make decisions about this category or the situation of thing? Like how Do you want to think about making decisions rather than from that default book that sort of default sense of? Oh any time somebody asks I should say yes. How do you want to make
decisions instead? I know for me lately I've become really aware that I do need dedicated time where nothing is scheduled and this has been so hard for me because I tend to get excited about things. There are a lot of Of, you know, opportunities, both personally and professionally and my tendency is to be a little over generous in scheduling things, but when I do that, what happens is I start to get exhausted, I start to get a little bit resentful.
Like I'll look at my calendar and think who put all this stuff on here. Oh right, I did why did I do that? Oh, cuz I was just so excited. You know, to say yes and to be available that is not a successful long-term strategy. It is not sustainable. So instead you want to really pause and question, okay, how am I currently thinking about things? And how do I want to make decisions about, you know, calendars or about commitments or about relationships?
What's great too? Is that as a manager, you are often a role model in ways that you don't realize Eyes. And so when you are really intentional and when you're making decisions from a mind, that is really grounded and thought and thought through when it's, not simply being reactive, but you're really choosing to be responsive that also has a positive effect on the people that you work with and the people around you, that's also how we create a microclimate.
Within our organization, one of my clients over the last couple of years has built up a team that she's trained and she's really created an incredibly High. Performing High trust culture within her bigger organization. And initially, you know, she had a lot of Doubt. Like, am I doing this right? You know, I don't see other managers or other leaders addressing their teams in this
way or working with their team. As in this way, what's been really exciting to see is that as she's come to really trust herself and make decisions based on, you know, here are my values and here's how I want to create this team. Now other folks are noticing how she and her team work and they're like, how did you do that? Like, how do you have such a solid team of really high performing people who Are a joy to work with and are focused and supportive and like how did you do that?
And it's really cool like it's just really cool to see so you create micro cultures little micro climates within your organization based on the way that you're thinking, how you're managing your mind, your awareness of how your mind tends to work and you know how you make decisions and all of that ends up having this really cool ripple effect. So one thing I see a lot is that as a human when we Face uncertainty, one of the things the Mind tends to do is it fills
uncertainty with - possibility? It's interesting to notice how quickly the brain goes to create potential negative situations. What if it goes wrong? What if this doesn't turn out the way I thought it would, you know, like All the scary things whenever we're faced with the unknown. The - ideation just comes right in builds a whole Vivid scaffolding and then all of a sudden were feeling anxious and fearful and worried and you know, things could go great,
right? When things are uncertain it's also possible. Things could go better than you had imagined, but our tendency is not to do that. The tendency is for the mind to go into uncertainty and to create a lot of fear to fill that space. So you want to be aware of that. You want to be able to notice when your brain is doing that so that you can pause. Get a little bit of a reality check, calm yourself, get grounded and then consider, you know, is this helpful?
Like how else do I want to address this ordeal with this? I think this is also really helpful. Remember, if you are onboarding people who are remote, one of the ways we tend to learn as humans is by observation, when we observe how things work, when we observe, how other people talk to each other, when we can just observe, you know, the energy and the very subtle communication Styles. We learn a lot simply by observing and when folks are
Being on boarded remotely. They're unable to learn through that method because they're only view into the workplace and into how other people communicate and relate with one another is through a screen and through written messages, and it can be really scary. And all of the uncertainty of, oh my gosh, am I in the right place? You know, my insecurities and impostor syndrome can flare up. Oh, I need to prove myself right away. I can't really see how people are communicating or working
here. I don't know if I'm communicating too much or not enough. There's just a lot more uncertainty when we are onboarding, folks, remotely. And so the more clear that you can be about that, like as you understand how to manage your mind and you understand how To help other people manage their mind. Then it allows us to be more effective to create more safety to get everyone onto the same page and really working together in the most effective way.
So ask yourself to how do you like to learn? What do you do when you're faced with uncertainty? Like understand where your Goes and what your thoughts are doing. Because if you've ever heard this phrase, what got you here, won't get you there.
That also is what we're talking about when we're talking about how to manage your mind, the thoughts and the, you know, ways that you've been dealing with things that have gotten you, this level of success, that might not be what helps you level up in this new place, right? Right and with the new challenges that you're facing so we'll talk more about this in the coming weeks I think it's a
really useful topic. I think there's a lot of different angles to it that I want to explore with you but for now just you know consider this thought like managing your mind like you are the first person that you manage before you manage anybody else notice and understand. How does your mind work? What are those? Stories that you hold, that explain the world to you, that might be getting in your way. What do you do when you're faced with uncertainty? Is that - creativity?
Something? That happens really quickly for you or not, just have an understanding, the more you can learn about how your mind is working the easier, it is to manage it and the easier, it is to work effectively. With other people and like a whole range of people. So that is what I wanted to share with you today.
Thank you so much for listening. I hope you have a really great week and I will talk to you next time if you know it's time to level F but you feel your perfectionism Self Doubt and uncertainty getting in the way then come work with me. We'll have six months of one-on-one. One coaching and it all starts by going to my website, chemicalguys.com coaching and joining my waitlist talk to you soon.