Today my guest is Lizabeth Wesely-Casella. Lizabeth is the founder and CEO of L-12 Services; a Washington DC firm focused on internal communications and organizational development. She and I met a few months ago at a brunch organized by our mutual friend Janette Gallardo. You may remember, Janette’s the one who turned the tables and interviewed me for episode 25.

Lizabeth and I are talking about the downside of growing up valuing social justice, the discomfort of celebrating your wins, and what happens when your calendar looks like Walt Disney threw up on it. Hear who she wanted to be when she was growing up and how she’s doing with visualizing that person now.

With more than 20 years of experience as an administrator and policy and programming consultant, Lizabeth works with businesses to improve workflow, processes, and culture by leveraging the institutional knowledge of existing team members.

Based on what she said about the importance of social justice in her upbringing, it makes sense that one of her favorite quotes is “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.

Here's a link to L-12 Services Attrition Prevention Survey (7 quick questions): https://l12services.com/quiz/. It’s for leaders to take a quick 'gut check' on what's just under the surface in their organization.

Lizabeth’s hype song is High Hopes by Panic at the Disco.

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizabeth-wesely-casella/

If after listening to this episode, you can relate to Lizabeth’s over-booked schedule and lack of personal care time, and you’re ready to add a bit more peace and groundedness to your life, I can help. Pop over the ZenRabbit.com webpage and sign up for my VIP list. That way you’ll be the first to get all the tools and tips on finding calm amidst the chaos of life.

Lori Saitz:

Hello and welcome to Fine is a 4-Letter Word. My guest today is Lizabeth Wesely-Casella. I'm so excited for you to join us today. Welcome.

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

Thank you so much for having me. Pardon the frog in my throat. It is great to be here.

Lori Saitz:

So let's just jump right into the first question that I like to ask, and that is what were the beliefs and values that were instilled in you as you were growing up?

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

Lori Saitz:

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

Right. It was so fascinating. Right. That's like two different centuries. It certainly is.

Lori Saitz:

So then how did those values of social justice play out as you grew up and started your career?

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

Well, the upside is it made me really interested in and aware of diversity, diversity of thought, diversity of skin color, all of the various diversity that we have going on. The downside, though, is that it also led me to a lot of black and white thinking, so good and bad, there was no real Gray area. And that translated into the goals that I set for myself and the expectations that I had and whether or not I was successful and eating disorders in the whole nine yards. So I've struggled with finding a happy medium in some areas where I need to be more happy. How did you define success before and how do you define it now? I defined success as being the very busy, the always sought after, the one thought leader the best. And I understood that that wasn't realistic. It's not as though I'm the only person that does what I do. I was never going to be the thinnest or the prettiest or the smartest or the fastest, but always striving for that seems to be my MO. And a lot of people will call that a type A personality. I don't think I'm a type A personality because I'm really good at being chill. I'm really good at making space for people where they can be comfortable and goofy and all of that. But the idea that my business needed to be up and running and making a significant revenue by a certain amount of time or I needed to have a certain number of people on my team, and once I had the people on my team that I needed to be able to provide them extra goodies, there was never a point at which I was going to reach success and say, hey, goal met. I feel good about everything. Time to relax a little bit.

Lori Saitz:

Yeah. Are you better at that now?

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

I am now, but it's taken me years to get here and some existential kicks to that.

Lori Saitz:

Yeah, I got you don't feel badly because we've all been there. Some people are still there. And that's what we're doing with the show, in part, is helping them evolve to. Okay. You don't have to put yourself through the Ringer like that to find success in that way. Can we reevaluate what that is? I was listening to I don't know where I heard it, actually. I think it was Brendon Burchard was talking about integrating your wins and celebrating, not just celebrating them, but which is a whole thing. Like, we don't do that enough either.

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

Right.

Lori Saitz:

Like you said, every milestone is like, okay, so I reached that. What's next? Reach that what's next. There's always something else. And so we never sit and celebrate or even celebrate, appreciate, acknowledge even the wins. He was talking about integrating the wins really sitting, recognizing what you've accomplished and appreciating. Like feeling the gratitude for it.

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

Yes. And I think that there's a disconnect and a level of discomfort when people consider celebrating their wins. I think that the disconnect is that celebration means external gratification. Like you need to blast it out on social media and tell everybody that you have this $30 million month or whatever it was. And the disconnect for understanding that, celebrating and pausing and feeling it is an internal piece that's really necessary. It's a grounding and a gratitude piece that really kind of starts to build balance in and creates harmony and sometimes clarifies.

Lori Saitz:

Yes. You're speaking my language and you're using my words, gratitude and groundedness and all that. Right. Because when you really start looking at success, the definition of it. And we've talked about this on different past shows, too. Everybody has their own definition of success. There's not an external definition that you can apply to yourself and say like an off the shelf version of it.

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

Right. And for me, the idea of success when people would talk about, yes, integrate all of the joy in your life and the peace and the yoga and the meditation and the family. And I think that's absolutely right. And I'll do it when you yes, I haven't earned that yet. It's a form of soft skills, and I'm a big believer in soft skills. Why I couldn't apply them to my own life in this certain area is really something I'll probably be thinking about for a while. Maybe not the why I don't want to go down that rabbit hole, but maybe that helps you.

Lori Saitz:

I love that. And I will join you on that journey. Okay. Yeah. And I'm willing to bet a lot of my listeners will join on that journey, too, because we have this vision of, okay, this makes sense for everyone else, not for me, because I am somehow special. And I don't mean that in an egotistical special way. It doesn't apply to me. I will do it when I get to the next stop, as you said. But for everybody else. You should be celebrating and integrating your wins right now.

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

Yes. Do as I say. Not as I do.

Lori Saitz:

Tell me some of the things that you've done to move from where you were to where you are now on this journey.

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

The one that is immediately top of mind is the one that I'm really actively working on and struggling with to a certain degree. But it's managing my calendar. I color code everything. And my previous idea of the road to success meant that it looked like Walt Disney threw up on it. There was just color everywhere, and there were no spaces in between meetings. And it was ten to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, and I'm not exaggerating there for a good two, three years. I was doing 14 hours a day, seven days a week, and it was bananas part of it, I will readily admit. Rolling into the whole pandemic and isolation thing, I think it was a way for me to manage my fear. So the more I worked, the less time I had to listen to everything else that was going on around me. Like, give me the major points. I got to wear a mask, I got a social distance. I got to figure out how to order groceries. But the other piece of that was that I had been working my entire life thinking successful people are these over scheduled, chronically busy, never stopping, never always moving. And now what I'm doing and it's hard, is I'm learning how to say no, or I'm learning how to be comfortable with saying yes, however, there needs to be a block of time later down the road. I can't get to that right now, whether it's I can't get to that right now because I've got other work, or because I won't be able to keep my sanity or because I need more rest and we can get into that later. The point is that my calendar is now actively blocked way in advance, where my phone calls are on two days and then the other three days, I'm putting chunks of time in there where they're just focused time, whether it means that I'm taking that time to write up meeting notes from the day's previous meetings, or I'm banging out that task list, or it's just a time where I can focus and work on one project. I'm much more productive and sane, even though I have to feel a little bit uncomfortable while I'm moving into this and turning it into a habit.

Lori Saitz:

Yes. I like that it is going to be uncomfortable because you're creating new habits, like you said, new pathways in your brain, new ways of thinking, and overriding those old ways of thinking is hard because all those years of doing it that way.

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

Yeah. It's almost as though it was that almost addiction model where there was immediate gratification. If I was just doing tasks right then and there and from different business models I've been part of, whether it's executive assistance work that I've done or advocacy work that I've done, there are pieces of that that are low hanging fruit that you can just churn through and get done, get done, get done. And the work that I do now is more strategic and planning and relationship development. I'm counseling people how to create an ecosystem that helps their teams want to stay on board at their business, basically preventing and reversing the great resignation. So that requires thought and time and space rather than block time to perform tasks.

Now, since I run my business and I manage my team, I do have to have some of that time in there. But that means I need to honor that. I need to honor the work that I do, and I need to be gracious yet firm about my boundaries when it comes to external things like networking or volunteering or you name it. And not being able to do that immediately or put it on the calendar with no time in between is a new framing of what my being successful looks like. Because it's not immediate gratification. It doesn't always feel like, yes,

Lori Saitz:

I love that you use the word boundaries, because that is a big, important thing to point out here. Boundaries important. Yeah. I get it. You don't like them. Okay. Still so important and what you're doing for your clients, you have to also be implementing for yourself. Right. It's interesting to me that what you're talking about. I don't want to say struggling what you're challenged with learning is kind of what you're stepping into these organizations to help them with.

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

Yes. And I really go back to that black and white thinking. I don't want to be the situation where the cobbler's children have no shoes. If I can't walk the walk with my small team, how can I give people advice with their larger teams? And it's the same thing I think with a lot of professions, especially service professions, bookkeepers, they're always the last to do their own books and so on.

Yes. I feel like, though, that when you can show the universe, this is how I am being, it gives you more opportunities to have clients help others do the same thing.

Lori Saitz:

Yes, you can help them even if you're not doing it yourself, but you can help them in a greater way when you are when you are being in integrity. Is that the best way to put it?

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

Yes. It's funny that you say that, because the definition of success that I used to hold was not in alignment with the vision that I always had of who I wanted to be when I was a grownup. I wanted to be cool breeze, walk in the room and shake the hands and smile and talk to people and have a general energy of relaxed and happy. And people would want to be with me because that attracted them to a space that was calming, and they felt as though they were in the hands of someone who was being vulnerable and open.

if I look at that and I look at the task list heavy side of me, that's not what that person was. That was a raving chipmunk. That person was the go getter, but never would have produced a sense of calm in another human being. So getting more in alignment with the person that I wanted to be, even though I don't have the opportunity to go out and wear the clothes that I dreamed about, I will when we all okay.

Lori Saitz:

Yeah. It's interesting that you had this idea of who do I want to be? And we ask children, what do you want to be when you grow up, but not who. And I like the who question much more. It's so much more powerful, flexible

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

It had a foundation. There's a weird memory that's just burned into my brain. And it's a moment in time. I don't even know where we were, but it's a picture of my mom when I think she was her most beautiful through little girl eyes. And that person made me feel that way. And the way that she looked at the time, though, it was the 70s, just like that glowing aura that she carried with her. And so when I picture myself down the road or now or whatever, and I'm thinking, that's going to be my successful speaking event, I'm going to impart some wisdom. I'm going to make people laugh. I'm going to come on stage and just be relaxed. I'm in a bone white suit. I'm wearing Navy pumps. Like, I've got the whole thing down, the whole visualization.

Lori Saitz:

That's what you need to have to make it happen. Perfect. Yeah. Fabulous. Okay. So you alluded to some things that came out of not being fine, having that packed calendar, that version of success. That wasn't true success. What happened?

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

Yeah, well, during that period, I thought I was fine. And it was. It was no longer fine. I'm fine. Everybody goes to this. Everybody flocks to this. Everybody's suffering or dealing with trauma right now. This is just the way that the world is. And I was working extraordinarily hard and not listening to both my psychological health, but I wasn't listening to my body, which ended up being more important.

I found myself feeling awful during a business trip. It was my first business trip. It was supposed to be posting at that point, but it was actually the beginning of the peak for Delta. And I created workshops and set up meetings and flew out to the West Coast. And I was going to be gone for a month. And I got to Portland and watched my calendar disintegrate and couldn't figure out why while I was in the taxi. And when I got to the hotel, the news was starting to talk about the spike and all of the measures that were going to have to go into place and people just didn't feel comfortable with each other.

So there I was in a hotel room that I paid for for a month. And I thought, okay, this'll be my Walden Pond moment. I'll use this to really dig and think and strategize and all that. And I didn't feel good in my body. And I kept thinking, when was the last time I actually felt good? And I couldn't remember. And that freaked me out. So while I was kind of going through the metal jiu jitsu, I realized that the time I was taking that I thought I was going to be decompressing wasn't making me feel better either. So I made an appointment with my doctor when I knew I was landing back here in DC.

And it turned out that I actually had ovarian cancer. Yeah. So I can't connect the dots and say my crazy schedule and my out of balance ideals caused cancer. But what I can say is there's a place in between where my body was so broken down that it created a happy environment for a disease state. And if it wasn't cancer, maybe it would have been something else. But whatever it was, my body was saying timeout not doing this anymore. You really need to start paying attention and reprioritizing your needs. So I went through… go ahead.

Lori Saitz:

I was going to say, we hear this all the time. Like when you are not listening to what's going on in your body, the messages get louder and louder until you cannot ignore them anymore.

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

So I went through the surgeries and all of this stuff, and thankfully, they caught the type of cancer that it was at a stage where it was manageable and I didn't have to go through chemo, which was great. But I did require several weeks of just down. Like, I had to shutter the business for a couple of months, which was terrifying coming from that old perspective.

But during that process, I realized that I'm not a whole human being. I am a workhorse, and I don't have any of the other stuff that makes me really interesting or happy or fulfilled because I've lost sight of pursuing those things. And so I started thinking about what will it take to get back to being who I not just who I expected to be at this age, but who I want to be at this age and how do I want to work and really questioning whether or not all of the advice I've been given and all of the education that I've sought out and professional development that I've paid for, whether it was speaking to what I truly need to do in order for me to feel this new definition of successful that you and I are pursuing now.

So I've decided that for me, the answer is cutting the noise. So I talked a little bit about the calendaring piece, but that goes hand in hand with a lot of the things that I previously thought were really important and a must do that I'm letting go of. I'm not going to be on social media platforms posting multiple times a day just to get somebody's attention. I think that contributes to the noise, and I think that the noise is the problem. I listened and adopted too much of the noise, and now I don't want to contribute to the noise. I'd like to occasionally post something that I think is really important.

Maybe it's talking about how do we reduce the noise and what does that look like? So I'm not saying I'm shuttering everything, but what I'm not doing is I'm not creating a funnel of perpetual motion. I don't think that not only do I not think my clients are in that space, but I don't think that I'm contributing in any really valuable way because who has time to read all of the great content?

Lori Saitz:

Yeah, I'm feeling similarly because it's so much to consume. It's overwhelming to the brain. And not just the brain. The entire body system. It comes in through eyes, ears, overwhelms the brain and then overwhelms the rest of the systems in the body. And yeah, it does not contribute to healthful conditions.

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

No. And I think that it's one of the contributors. I know it's one of the contributors to the attrition that we're experiencing now. I know people are tired of the phrase great resignation, but it is an easy way to have a common language. We not only have all of the noise around us, but this kind of zeitgeist level of noise everywhere also includes changing systems and iterations and processes and all the things that we're working with to try and adapt quickly or in an agile like manner within our businesses. I'm glad that people are prioritizing their health and their wellbeing and their psychological well-being and their joy to align with what they do or don't want to do. I think there are ways that businesses can reduce the way that they contribute to noise, but that's another subject matter.

What I'm trying to say is human beings are getting hit at every angle. It's just like being bashed with a Nerf bat.

Lori Saitz:

There's a visual.

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

And a lot of people are choosing their work life. I mean, like, you're not going to get rid of your pets. You're not going to get rid of your kids. You're not going to get rid of your family. There are things that you like to do that you're not going to get rid of. What's the one most painful one? And a lot of people are saying that's employment.

Lori Saitz:

Yeah. Going back to the age when our grandfathers were born and the amount of information coming at people 100 years ago or 120 years ago, they didn't get as much information in an entire lifetime that we get in a day. And we're not designed for that.

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

No. Well, they also didn't have gyms back then if you wanted to exercise.

Lori Saitz:

Right. My grandfather was chopping wood even when he was 90.

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

Right. That's what they did.

Lori Saitz:

And he grew up on a farm.

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

Yes, exactly.

Lori Saitz:

So this ties into exactly what I'm teaching and going into companies and teaching is how to manage all of this overwhelm this anxiety and overwhelm people feeling like clowns are going to jump out from behind a corner at any moment and teaching them how to use gratitude, how to use meditation to calm their nervous system so they don't have to walk around all the time feeling like their hair is on fire. And they're terrified of what's around the next corner.

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

Right. And that fear being terrified about what's around the next corner, to a certain degree, has to do with control, having a lack of control. And if you and I were to go in and talk to an organization together, you would be talking to the individuals about how to have control and manage that piece. And I would be talking to leadership and saying there are things that you can do to create a sense of control and a sense of confidence in your staff members. Problems within the organization most often are best solved by asking the people who do the work what is the current problem and why aren't we getting the results we want and letting them create the solution in between that and doing that not only clarifies what success is. So the worker knows exactly what's expected of them, but it creates a sense of investment as well, because the worker has helped to create the steps that will get them to the solution, which.

Lori Saitz:

Yes. I was just going to say that same right now in investment. Everybody is invested. And whether you're doing that in a family or in a work environment, getting everyone's input, one gets them invested, but two gets you valuable information. It's not just the leaders who have the answers.

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

Right. And a confident team will be the first to come up with innovative ideas because they know that they're not going to get slapped down. And they've actually enjoyed thinking through the process of whatever that solution might be. It might not always be the right one, but I guarantee you, if they are comfortable, they have a sense of confidence, they feel a sense of trust in the relationship. They'll come back with more ideas.

Lori Saitz:

Yeah, that works in companies. As I said, it works in families. I can see it working in classrooms. Let's get the students involved and invested in their own learning. Yeah, very cool. Okay. So what's next for you?

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

Well, you know, I think that one of the things that will be interesting for people to hear as I'm going down the road, speaking or performing workshop work, is to talk about what the next phase of post grade resignation looks like and also really actionable ways to reduce the noise and create trust and confidence. I think that's where my voice is probably going to have the greatest stage, so to speak, or amplification. I see where our work is applicable in a lot of different organizations. But to bring it back around to the personal life and to family life, I think what I'm going to be doing is taking those blocked times in my calendar and my newly found weekends and figuring out ways where I can develop myself and further develop my relationship with my husband. I mean, we've been together forever, but there's always more to mine. He's growing alongside me, so I'm sure he has interesting things to say, many of which I probably missed out on by keeping my Blinders on in my head down.

Lori Saitz:

Are you Kenny Chesney fan? I bring him up because he has a song called Noise. And it's exactly what we're talking about right here. Which leads me into my next question, which is what is the song that you listen to when you need to get hyped up in baseball? It's a walk up song. Hype song. What's your song for me?

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

It's High Hopes by Panic at the Disco.

Lori Saitz:

Good one.

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

Have you seen the video?

Lori Saitz:

I can't say. I don't think I have. Now I'm going to have to go look as soon as I turn off the recording.

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

Yeah. Check it out on YouTube. It's just cheerful all the way around. I know that there's a tendency for Panic at the Disco to get a little dark in some of their videos. This is the antithesis of this. It's all just good, cool stuff.

Lori Saitz:

All right. We'll put a link in the show notes, and also I want to put a link in the show notes of where people can reach you. So where is that? If they want to continue a discussion with you.

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

Oh sure. So the website is L12services.com. It's L, number one, number two and services.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn. I think I'm the only human with my name spelled the way that it is. Mum and dad messed up all my vowels when I was a child so it's Elizabeth with no E at the beginning Wesely with the E's in kind of wrong spots and then a hyphen Casella C-A-S-E-L-L-A

Lori Saitz:

Perfect. Yeah, like I said, we'll put that in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining me today on Fine is a 4-Letter Word.

Lizabeth Wesely-Casella:

I've loved this. I always love talking to you but this is going to be the highlight of my week. I just know it's my pleasure.

Lori Saitz:

Take care.