Can we ever obtain a fully productive work life, or a fully productive organisation? What does that even mean? This rich conversation with impact coach and business consultant Danni Ermilova Williams will give you a fresh perspective on how to reshape work to create more meaningful, sustaining experiences.

Danni and I explore what it means to live and work well. We dig deep into how we put unseen limits in place and how we can create space for busting those limits for ourselves and our organisational cultures so we can get on with doing and being what matters most. We explore the idea of control versus surrender, and how the power of language can limit us, or open us up to new possibilities.

You can find Danni at Website | LinkedIn 

Check out my services and offerings https://www.digbyscott.com/

Subscribe to my fortnightly newsletter https://www.digbyscott.com/thoughts#subscribe

Follow me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/digbyscott/

My guest today is Danni Ermilova Williams. Who's Danni? If you check out her LinkedIn profile, you'll see that she's a change consultant and coach, which is a good title for her because she's worked across a multitude of different sectors during her career, including academia, recruitment, public sector, one of the big four consultancies, and now she's self-employed. So Dani definitely knows a thing or two about change. She's also won the prestigious HRNZ for HR...

Fuck that up. So I'll do that again later on. HR professional of the year, which makes her a standout in my book. But what I think is most interesting is what else is in her LinkedIn profile. Right at the top, it says Disruptor of the status quo. So I sense that we're just about to meet a true pioneering spirit. Danni, welcome to the show.

Kia ora, thanks for having me Digby.

I want to know why you've put that at the top of your LinkedIn profile, disruptor of the status quo, because don't we have enough disruption going on at the moment already?

Yeah, we do, but what's another one, hey? Look, I put it up there because somebody said to me, oh, you're always ahead of the game. And then it happened to me again, somebody said it to me. They said, I love how you do the things that people think about, but don't have the courage to do. And I thought, oh, well, there's a bit of a theme here. And then it happened to me a third time. And well, if you're a consultant, you know that three is the lucky number. So that's like, you know, perfection.

So I thought maybe there's something in that. Maybe it is how people see me. And I tried to reconcile that back with my own values and brand. And I think I do pride myself in saying what I think is the right thing, not necessarily the best thing for me. And yeah, I'm a bit of a disruptor. I'm the kind of annoying person who talks when I shouldn't really talk maybe. So.

You it's kind of like you're just deciding to own who you are, really. The sounds of it. Can you give us an example? If you can think back to one of those times when people said, you're always ahead of the game, you're thinking about what other people are afraid to do. Can you tell us a little bit about a time when that was going on and people pointed out?

Yeah, I think so.

I can't really think of like a big moment, but it's in all of those little moments that matter and I think this is part of leadership, right? Even if you're not a people leader, the moments to lead are not big, fancy moments where you satisfy your ego to look good. It's in the little moments where you stand up for something or someone or you voice an idea or...

you provide space for a voice that really matters. So I think for me, it's those moments that I probably can't find one single, but I'm that person who will email the chief executive or go and talk to them and say, hey, did you know when you said this like this, the impact of that is for this group? Would you like to rethink that?

Yeah.

Where do you reckon that comes from, that kind of baseline disruptor energy that you've got? Because in some ways it's not even disruption, it's just sort of doing the right thing, which may be less common than we think. Where do you reckon that all comes from?

Oh, I think, and to that point, Digby, I reckon it's in everyone has the intention, I think, well, I believe everyone has the intention to do the right thing. It's whether or not you then put it into action. And I think it probably comes from having a sassy mum and living in a very extroverted and playfully competitive family. I would say that that's kind of shaped my desire to speak.

a lot about what I think.

I want to know about Sassy Mum. Like, when you say Sassy, what's she like? Tell us about her.

Um, mum's playful. So she, she says the things that people don't wanna say or don't wanna hear and she just owns it. And I think back to being a kid and she was that mum at school camp that would always be, you know, the kids loved her. The adults weren't always sure, but it's because she's the one who would play the pranks with us on the principal or, you know.

Hahaha

get us to kind of make fun of the teachers at the end of camp play, for example. So yeah, she's very much like that. She'll say what she thinks, regardless of what people think of it.

And how did that inspire you? I'm wondering about when that sassy came out and you as a kid, like how did that show up?

I think I've always been super extroverted and I will say what I think because in our family that's what we do. We say what we think and you can clean up afterwards but you know saying it is the important bit. But I think you know probably like a lot of females and a lot of high performing individuals you know you go through life trying to do your best and be studious. And so

you probably hold back on a lot of that stuff and I definitely did. And then it's only when you sort of feel the courage to be able to be your whole self and not have to hold back some of that, that it started to really come out. And I'd say probably under certain leaders.

Tell us about that because I love this, it's kind of an emergence. It's almost it's always been there, the sassy kind of disruptory energy. And there's a time by the sounds of it when you started to notice it shining a light a bit more strongly. When was that in your life?

Yeah, 100%. I think that there are moments, right, where you realize that you can't kind of live for other people. And one of those defining moments was probably my parents separating. And it was during my postgraduate year of university. And I took myself off to a counselor for 12 months and explored lots of things. And...

the thing that comes up time and time again, when I go and see, psychs are this people pleasing part of me. But that's not really conducive to saying the things that people don't necessarily wanna hear. So there's that tension there, right? And so for me, it's kind of like a permissioning thing, but the difference being, you're not seeking the permission from someone else, you're seeking it from yourself, or quite simply just giving it to yourself. And I think that that's the mindset shift.

Yeah.

for me and it's not a black and white thing. I think it's definitely a spectrum. So there are moments in my life where I'm full of boisterous confidence and I am at one end of the spectrum and then there's sometimes where, you know, naturally on a shitty moment in my period, I'm doubting myself hard and I'm at the other end of the spectrum where I don't say all the things that I really wanna say. So yeah, I think it's that permission inside that matters.

I find that fascinating coming from a family where we didn't say what we thought and we were very polite, particularly my mum's side of my family was very nice and polite and everything was pleasant. And I thought, oh, this is a lovely, safe place to be, which it was. Yet, you know, for me, that people pleasing and just even simply having a voice and asserting that voice was something that was it took me years and years and years as an adult.

to give my pills self permission to use your language to do. And I'm finding it fascinating that you're coming from a family that well, no, we say what we think, right. And still there was a people pleaser in you, which. Yeah, that's fascinating.

Oh yes. Yeah, yeah, and it's, yeah, and I was just thinking as you're talking about it, right? So, you know, my family, we would say what we thought and then we'd go say to someone's house and there was the politeness. So we were very polite, very well behaved and then we'd come back and it would be ruckus. So it was, again, there were places and spaces where we could be that. And then there were places and spaces where we were expected to not be so much of that. And I think, you know, my...

my family, my father, I love him to pieces and he's achieved some incredible things. And part of having him as my dad meant that I really aspired to achieve incredible things. And so, sometimes there's bits of you that are helpful to progressing that achieving amazing things. And sometimes there are pieces of you that aren't so helpful. And I think it was just trying to understand and unpick how...

really leaning into who I am authentically and letting that play out to be the reason for my success as opposed to something that I needed to manage or monitor or importantly control to enable me to have the impact I wanted to have. I didn't have to be perfect, rather I just had to be myself.

And isn't that just a beautiful reminder for all of us? Tell us about what were the people, places, conditions that nurtured that voice as you were in your kind of post-grad getting into career sort of space? How did your what helped your voice as a leader come to the formal?

It would have been probably other leaders. So I'm just gonna say it, this may be a bit controversial, but I've been surprised at how many HR leaders don't necessarily create the space for authenticity and nurture as much as I would have expected or hoped.

And so I think for me, there have been a couple of standouts, like a handful of leaders in my career that I've worked for that have really challenged me to be fully myself without even making that overt challenge right. And when I think back on perhaps some of the common traits there, I would say probably a bit of swearing. There was quite a bit of swearing. There was humor.

And they weren't necessarily extroverts like myself. They were mostly introverts actually. But there was this deep trust. They would absolutely have my back and let me go be me. And they would be honest with me about what was working, what wasn't working. But yeah, definitely the humor trust piece was big.

And so this idea of creating the space, right. It's interesting because it's not necessarily time as in time and space, but it's more about the way that they were with you by the sounds of.

No, no, no.

Yeah, that's a really good question. I haven't thought too hard about this, but I'm just gonna go with it. So I often talk about being a free range turkey. I don't wanna be penned up, and that's always been really important to me in looking for a job. And so I talk to people quite regularly about a fenced paddock. When you're in a fenced paddock, you know...

what's in there, you're comfortable, and life is good, or so you think. But the things that give us security keep us secured. So for me, I look for an open paddock with no fence, and it's surrounded by bush, and all I can see is options, and I'm free to go and explore what that is. And so the jobs that have given me great joy in my life have been the ones where there are no boundaries, really.

and the boundaries that exist are probably there to be tested. But I can run with it.

That's so powerful and it speaks to something for me. I remember years ago when I worked for a, I was a director at a consultancy, mid-size consultancy here in Wellington. And I'd been there for, I reckon, my use-by date had sort of passed, right? In my sense of mojo around the job, my sense of energy and engagement around it. And I remember a mentor, Jennifer Garvey-Burger, mentor slash friend, she said,

horse that's running around in a paddock that's too small for you. And and it would hit me between the eyes. Talk about giving space to be authentic. It was this it was a kind of a naming of a thing that I hadn't seen, you know, like David Foster Wallace talks about fish in water and they don't realize that there's water and know what water is. And it was a little bit like that. I couldn't see the fences that I put in place for myself. And

The visual.

What I'm hearing in you, Danni, is there is a curiosity and a and a well, a to not have fences or if they are, they've got to be miles away. But B, I think more importantly, that you're looking for the fences and you're looking to see whether those fences can be pushed over. And you know that. How good this is and good learning going on here. We're digging deeper, right? Yeah. That, you know, and I think about I'm wondering if I could test.

I love it. I'd never thought about it like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

how that showed up for you in when I first met you, you were at PwC and you were director of People and Culture or something like that. I can't remember that you can correct me there. Yet there was this you and I have both worked in those big four environments. I started my career as an auditor and one of them back in Perth. And then I spent a very short amount of time about 15 odd years ago in another one here. And I found them

personally to be places where the fences were close. And I think it was in my own mind more than the actual fences were there specifically, but I wonder how you found. The balance to exercise freedom with the PwC way, if that was if that's a thing. And of course, I'm making all of this up, but I'm curious about what it was like for you further on in your career, right? Once you.

your voice had come out. Tell us a little bit about that time and that idea.

Yeah, look, there's lots in there. And can I just touch on the fact, you've said this twice now, the fences that I have seen in my mind, or I've, you know, referring to yourself, because there's two types of fence, right? There's the fence that we put around ourselves, and then there's the fence that other people put around us, of which both I rebel against, and I'm sure you do too. But I think with the PwC piece, I think that's what made it so,

so good and so bad in so many ways for me. Like I loved working there, but there is no fence in my mind and in the consulting space I was working in. And perhaps that's different with audit and that audit is typically a more structured space. And by the very auditing itself, you're in a controls space, right? Whereas consulting I feel is looking at big,

problems that are not defined and you need to find ways to put some fences around them to make them doable. And so in many ways I was in my element where I would get put on a job and no one knew, lest of all me, what I was going to be doing or why I was there. We hadn't really defined the problem and then suddenly within three weeks the problem needed to be completely solved.

my job was to turn nonsense into sense and figure out how to do it in a practical way. For me, that's like my catnip. It drives me crazy in a good way. But if there's no boundaries around what that means for everything else in your bucket, it means that your bucket is overflowing with one thing. That's what happened for me. I pursue...

my passion at all costs and I still have to manage that. So loved it, but needed to walk away from it so that I could have balance.

You, you, so that's a beautiful segue because 2023 was a big year for you. Um, year of change. Why don't you tell us a little bit about the walk away and what that was all about afterwards.

Yeah, and I like how you put it the walk away, right? Because we know big change is kind of like a gripping story. It's got a beginning, a middle, and an end. And we often jump from the crappy stuff to the success story, but there's lots in there in the middle. So, Hubby and I went through a lot of really challenging stuff leading up to walking away. He was studying for his medical exams, which is like a full-time job, outside of a full-time job in a hospital.

as a doctor and I was working at PWC doing really interesting stuff, but doing very little else because I didn't have time. We had a few miscarriages. All of them resulted in surgeries for me and complications. So from a physical, mental, emotional space, I was basically falling apart.

sticky taping it up as you do and just keeping on going. Like there was one instance where I had my surgery on a Saturday so it didn't disrupt my program. And normal people don't do that when they sit down and really think hard about something. And then some other stuff was going on and I went and saw a psych and I just thought.

you know, I'm out of my depth. I can't fix myself. I've applied all of the stuff I've learnt, but I'm not able to help myself. And there's nothing worse for a fixer to not be able to fix what's going on. So we were on an aeroplane and it's the best time to catch your other half for a coaching session when they don't know it. You know, when they're like, don't use your HR voice with me.

A captive audience.

What was that like, that realisation?

Um, it was, it was twofold. I think it was, oh shit. What does that mean? And then the other part was like, Oh, I'm so glad that I now realize this. So I don't keep peddling hard and thinking that I'm getting somewhere when actually I'm just peddling my life away towards nothing.

There's a, there's the truth will set you free sort of element in that, isn't there? It's a relief. You can hear it in your voice now even. Yeah.

Oh, 100%. Yeah. I know. I know. I'm like, I'm so glad I figured this out before I had a heart attack or, you know. Yeah.

Well, ain't that the truth? Because you know, if you don't work it out for yourself, then life will force you to work it out.

Yes, and in some ways I guess you could say perhaps the miscarriages were just that, my body saying, you're kidding, I don't think you're fit to do this right now. And so we talked about it, we talked about it every day for quite a long time and we said to ourselves, we just need to stop, let's make it a fresh start. And so we talked about Break Free 23. And we wanted to be absolutely,.

on that, that we were breaking free because you can't, when you're super busy, I found you just can't take stuff out of the bucket and put new stuff in. You don't know where to start because your brain doesn't have capacity. So we tipped the bucket over and we quit our jobs and everyone else around us was quite nervous, especially our parents, bless them, you know, they're like, what happens if you can't get a job? We were like, oh, you know, we'll figure it out then. Yeah, I know, right?

Yeah, let them do all that worrying for you, I say.

I know. And it comes from kindness, but also their own fears, I guess, and that's okay. Yeah, so we tipped the bucket over and we just left and we decided that we're going to have a whole year of doing only things that we wanted and chose to do. And that's what we did.

And that's a that's a powerful exercise and a powerful mantra. And it. A couple of things come up for me. One is I watched a talk that you did in preparing for today where you were reflecting on COVID and how our organizations, you were talking about the future of work. And there was this thing you said in it, which was COVID forced us to go from

COVID forced us to go can't becomes must. And that we can't do things to, we must do things. And I sense that that's what the PWC situation and then the decision was also about for you. It's like, I can't stop, I must stop. Yeah, and you are living that yourself.

Yes, yes. Yeah, that's a really nice way to put it. And you know, the other piece in there around the can't and must is this word that I absolutely despise, should. It makes me sick to my stomach. And if I hear it, I'm a very, so my love language is words. So I listen to every single word and I feel sorry for my husband because we negotiate.

specific words in our disagreements. And there are certain words that set me off and should is one of those words. Because, you know, you get when you when you say I can't do something, you think, well, actually, that's not true. I can. And then it becomes I should be doing something. And we just, when you tell yourself you should be doing it, you repel against it. That, you know, the research tells us.

that when you have options, you're more likely to choose the right option. But when you think that you should do one thing, you repel against it. So, yeah, for me it was, it can't be should, it can't be can't, well then it must be, must. Yeah, it's a survival thing.

must and want to write and. How I'm curious about the thought you had this blank slate or to use the metaphor we've been playing with the empty bucket, right? And how easy or difficult was it for you and your husband to exercise the wants to muscle? And the reason I ask the question is because in a in an environment where it's like head down, go hard.

And it's like a full bucket to empty that out and go, what do we want to put in the bucket? For some people, I can imagine that's a really scary question. How did you go with kind of learning to use that muscle?

Yeah, and that's a good question. There's two parts to that I would have to answer Digby. And the first is when you have an empty bucket, you don't have to immediately fill it again. And I say that to my coachees, just because you take something out doesn't mean you have to replace it. Otherwise you're just doing the same thing you always did. And second part of the answer is I did just that. I had a spreadsheet in my bucket and...

Ah!

And this was the thing, right? So I went from organizing at work to organizing at home. And I had a spreadsheet for our year and a shared calendar. And I'm so sorry, I look back, but this was part of the learning. Learning isn't just being able to switch from one thing to the other. There's always a messy middle. And this was my messy middle. And it was most of Break Free 23 that I managed to organize our way.

Oh, you're making me feel sick.

to do all of these amazing trips and spend quality time with people. And it wasn't until I thought I was gonna step back into normal life again, that I stepped quickly back out of normal life again and said, I haven't learned a thing. I've actually just recovered and it took a year. But now the really hard stuff happens, which is what do I really, really wanna put in my bucket? And that's when it happened in December.

100%. Yeah.

So it took a year.

The year of unlearning almost, isn't it? First.

Yep, yes, 100%. Yeah, I think you go.

No, it's well the what's coming up for me is I took a six month sabbatical as well last year for the first half of last year. And I found it hard to feel like I was using the time well, there was this pressure that I again, a fence in my mind about what do you do with this time? And following my nose was kind of part of it.

There was a letting go, then there was a following my nose. And then there was a, ah, this excites me. I want to go there. And I think what I observe when I work with leaders, as you do, that there is a propensity for busy and busy and spreadsheets and achievement and using the story of using my time well every day. Remember talking to Derek Sivers about this idea of non-optimized time? And I think.

It's an antithesis, right? It's this idea of we have to optimize our time all the time. And I think when you're forced to stop, and I think most of us probably do need to slow down, there's a discomfort that comes with that. There's this comfort with not doing, with being unhurried and unproductive. Yet my view is that you are being productive. It's just not tangible. It's just not visible.

You're actually doing work that's important, but it may not be seen by the outside world or even you. And it sounds like your story is very similar, right? It's like the. I've got to learn slow down. What helped you do you think to kind of navigate that discomfort?

Yeah, and I just want to touch on something you said before that. It was again words, right, Digby? You talked about productivity and productivity is an interesting concept, right? It's perfect for insecure high performers like myself, you know, who get attracted to work in big fours and places like that. Productivity is never attained. It has no end point.

There's no point at which you are fully productive. There is always more required. It's a take, take. And so you're constantly pursuing greater productivity. And when you do that, you become narrow in your mindset and you don't necessarily think about this bigger picture and you end up taking things you don't really want to have taken away. Whereas sustainability as a concept,

is about an ecosystem where everything finds balance. And so if we think about trying to have space that is still productive, but not filled with stuff, I wonder if, I find it hard to still use the word productivity, because for me, I'm not interested in productivity, I'm interested in sustainability, and the ecosystem that is me says that, I'll do the work.

and it will take what it takes to do the work well so that I'm comfortable with it. And overall, it's about finding a balance. So I try to steer away from this productivity piece these days because it's, yeah, it's a big ask of people to try and always think in a productive, yeah, productivity mindset.

I love it.

Yeah. Yeah, it's there's a there's a cultural norm that is so prevalent. Again, it's like the fish in water. We we talk about productivity and busyness as if it's the water we're swimming in. Yet it doesn't have to be that. And I love the way you use language around sustainability. It's interesting. We're standing on the shoulders of some giants here, right? So Cal Newport, who's written Deep Work and a number of other books, his latest one's called Slow Productivity.

And I wonder whether he debated. I'd love to learn. Did he whether to put the word productivity in the title? And I think perhaps what he did making this up is he did it because it is a hook for people. Yeah, it's you know, it's the it's the meet people where they're at right now, because I'm partway through writing a book and I was going to call it unhurried productivity, but I think I'm just going to call it unhurried because.

I was just thinking of the word hook. Yeah, 100%. Yeah.

Mm. Nice.

There's something about moving away from the idea of productivity, which we're both. Yeah, yeah, it's almost like it's a yeah, you got to make things happen, but it's not the point. Yeah.

Yes, please do that.

No, no exactly. And if everything in our lives is focused on productivity, we're pursuing something we can't put our finger on. And if we can't define what success is, we spend our whole life chasing something that we never reach. And how satisfying is that truly?

Yeah, yeah, it's the chasing Oliver Bourkeman's 4000 weeks book is a big proponent of I remember reading that right early on. There was this let get this into your head, reader. Your to do list will still be there on the day you die. You know, yeah, yeah. No, I love this. So coming back to your year out and there was this realization

Yeah, well exactly, right? And no one's going to talk about that list.

Sorry.

towards the end of it that now is the time to go, what do I really want to put in the bucket? Tell us about well, what's in there now? And more importantly, I think how did you go about deciding what gets to go in the bucket?

Well, good question. So my bucket at the moment has capacity. And this is something that is completely new to me. And it's really uncomfortable. So my husband and I decided that balance was everything in our new life. So this year is grow and mature 24. And that's about staying true to what we took away from last year, growing it and maturing it into the way that we now live our lives.

So we talk every day about how we're moving closer towards our mission, sorry, our aspiration through this mission. And part of it was to get work that doesn't, you know, it's like, so I'm a vegetarian. I don't buy a piece of meat and then put some veggies around it now. The meat being the metaphor for work. I create a dish with all of the things that are good for me and it's tasty.

So my husband got a job that's three days a week, no longer working 10 day shifts or crazy shift patterns. And so I said, well, I'll start my own business and I'll work approximately three days a week as well on the same days that you work so that we have four day weekends most of the time. And that is so uncomfortable. I honestly don't know what to do with myself because...

I need to find things to do or do I? I don't know. So I'm still trying to figure that out. We've instituted a date day, so that's one of the days, but we still have three other days. But we sit, we sit in nature, we have cell phone free days. We read, we don't feel, we're starting to not feel bad about it, but it's a foreign concept to...

Ha. Yeah.

work less days than you have off. And I get that not everyone has that, but we're really lucky at this moment in time to have it. And it's interesting. Yeah.

Well, let's zoom out to that because first of all, let me just underline. I love it that you're sitting with the discomfort, that you're not swinging back to old version of you and your husband. Right. There's like, no, there's an intention here. And but if we zoom out and we think about how work is designed and workplaces are designed and, you know, you've come out of that relatively recently, that kind of structured environment.

Mm.

Hmm. Chimching. Ha ha ha. Yeah. Hmm.

Mm.

Mm.

You know, someone listening might go, well, Danni and Digby, that's all good for you to you're self -employed. You get to choose your hours. What what do you think? What's the what's the leverage point or the focus that we need to put on workplaces to enable a sustainable way of living for people while still getting paid and doing meaningful stuff?

Yeah. Yes.

Well, I think technology is gonna answer some of that for us. It's gonna give us the opportunity to answer it. But I want to have faith. But when I see us still discussing on LinkedIn whether or not flexible work is a thing or should be a thing, or whether or not we should try and control that, I have moments where my faith wanes. I think for me, it's the moment we stop trying to control and we start giving agency back to people that is the turning point.

Yeah.

As a leader, you know, I don't, I don't care how many hours my staff do. I don't care where they are. All right, you know, obviously I care, but I don't, that's not my job to control it. I believe that

you're not carrying the burden of control.

No, adults, you have a workplace full of adults. They know what they're there to do. They know what the ask is, if you've done a good job as a leader. So I just genuinely think that if people want flex, we just need to trust people to do what they're asked to do and let people build flex into their lives and the ways in which it's meaningful.

It comes back to your experience of HR leaders providing space for authenticity. It's also space just to get on with it in the way that they see fit. Right.

Ah, totally.

Hmm, we don't have to justify our existence as leaders. There is so much stuff that we can be doing that isn't managing and isn't controlling. And, you know, yes, there are the odd occasions where you have to step in and really lean in to support someone, but most of leading isn't telling an adult how to do adult stuff. And so I think in terms of the future of work, we...

don't necessarily need to be thinking about 40 hour work days, or work weeks, sorry. What we need to be thinking about is, how do we enable people to work with most impact in the workplace? Because I don't know how many years we've been talking about, underutilized skills, and do you bring your whole self to work and all of these sorts of things. And yet we haven't nailed it and I don't understand why.

Yeah, I'm drawn to the idea of facilitative leadership as a concept and as opposed to directive leadership. And the metaphor that I've been working with is the leader is Gardner. You know that you need to plant seeds. You need to tend to nurture. You can't just walk away. Yeah, you can't force it either. Right. You've got to allow whatever's in the garden to do what it's there to do and knows how to do. Yeah.

Nature will take its course. Yeah.

And yeah, the to me, that's an ego shift that there's a you talked about, you know, we don't have to justify ourselves as leaders. And I think for some people, that's quite a confronting idea that, you know, that actually I'm a leader, I need to show that I had value. And the best way I can do that is by telling people what to do. And. Yeah. Mm hmm.

100%. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, totally. I look for ego all the time. I look for it. And I agree with you, you know, you just reminded me, most of the time as a leader, you don't know if you're doing a great job. Well, you, in fact, you often think you suck, because there's always more you could do to support people. But it dawned on me, you know, the most impactful leadership moment I ever had was from somebody who I had.

So true.

initially performance managed. And there were sex and cultural differences that played into this. And not into the reason for performance management, but there were layers to this about how I navigated it. And it got to the point where this person turned around,

and they did amazing and out of the blue, I gave them an increase in remuneration and a new title. And they cried, they were like, you don't know what this means to me. And I'm like, I think I do. But it wasn't until my leaving due that this person got to see me as a leader because I let my guard down finally. I felt like I could breathe again and they saw me have a bit of fun.

And they were like, I didn't realize that you were so fun. There's a bit of a long story here, but the point being as leaders, you know, we hold ourselves, whether it's our ego or it's the controls that we control ourselves as well as trying to control all of the things that we can't control. These things hold us back from being the leaders that we can be. And those are the reflections that I have after the fact. And I'm like, wow.

Yes.

That's great learning. Yeah, I think it's from ego to ego, ego centric to ecosystem centric. You know, it's the attention, not attention in on me, but attention out on the system I'm serving. You know, and that shift is I think it's work that we both do. Right. It's probably core to the sort of leadership work that we do. Hey, before we press record, we were talking about we want to talk about regrets.

Nice. Yeah, I love it.

Let's go there. Tell us about when I say the word regrets. What comes to mind?

Yeah. Okay.

Um, I feel it in my tummy is what I feel. So I, yeah, I've been pondering regrets a lot lately and, um, not so much the actual regrets I may or may not have, but the concept of regret itself. So I was reading a book called life worth living and it's by three Yale professors who run this course at Yale university.

And it breaks down the big question of what a worthwhile life is into sub questions. So it's quite a deep philosophical and theological look at life. And there was a sentence, just one sentence, and it was probably the most profound sentence in the book for me, even though it was a deep book. And it was about regrets.

That one, yep.

And it got me thinking because I've always said, I don't have regrets. And the reason I say I don't have regrets, having pondered it, is that, not that I don't regret things that I've ever done or said or felt in the past, but rather, I don't wallow in those regrets because there is no goodness to be had. And for me,

I've just been pondering whether or not I want to allow myself the ability to have regrets and to talk about the fact I have regrets because I feel comfortable now in the delineation between having regret and holding on to regret.

That's a lovely distinction, isn't it? Because it's there. It's part of your makeup. It's part of how you've learned to be who you are. It's taught you something. Yet the word wallowing, that's a powerful word. It's like, well, if we just stay in almost like martyrdom land, who is it serving?

I know. Yeah. It's not a very nice home. I wouldn't buy it. Let's just say that. Living in regret.

I'm sorry.

How do you think that idea will, if you embrace that idea of not wallowing, but owning, having them and knowing that you have them, how do you think that might serve you as you go forward?

It's a good question. And I think I'm still pondering it. I feel the more inquiring you are and the more curious you are, the more you find it hard to have a stick in the sand on something. Hubby and I were talking about that last night. And I think for me, it's perhaps not even just about the regret. It's the questioning piece and being comfortable to question. Because for me, it's a...

not so much a shift in my position on regret, but it's a shift in my position from control to exploration. And I feel that my entire career and life in many ways has been a form of self-control. And every time I've tried to address it, the slippery little bugger like an eel will just slither into another part of my life and then I'll control there.

And so every time I think I've let go of it, it's simply evolved into a spreadsheet for my year off, for example. And so for me to ponder some of these levers of control is to ponder the concept of stepping away from control full stop and looking at what it means to simply not worry, not try to own everything, not try to manipulate everything into how I want it to be, but just to be.

Which links to the idea of the gardener metaphor again, doesn't it? You know, this idea that you still have agency and you still have. Contribution to make yet. There's an ego shift when you realize, well, there's only so much I can actually do. And there's something about the word surrender, right? There's something that there's incredible power in the idea of surrender. That's what I'm hearing.

does.

Great.

Oh, I love that. Yeah. I haven't used that word before, surrender, apart from, you know, tickle fights or something, but. But I think I really love that surrender. I was thinking about vulnerability in there as well, because, you know, there's so much strength to be had. It doesn't have to be control strength, but rather strength through vulnerability, surrender.

simply observing, listening, being, and having space.

Yeah, because I think a lot of people might think when they think surrender, it's completely letting go and becoming like a leaf in the wind where you just are, you know, completely at the mercy of other forces, other people. Yeah, it's not really about that, is it? You're still present, yet you're not trying to control.

No, surrender is a choice. It's a choice. And it's a very powerful choice because it's saying, I'm not trying to control you and I'm not trying to control my outcome. I'm simply putting my hands up. And ironically, two hands up like this is the most powerful body language pose you can have. It is surrender.

And for people that can't see this, it's Danni's got her two hands sort of up near his shoulders with palms out.

Yes.

Yeah, it's kind of like that taxidermy cat, that white cat that people have in memes all the time and it's sort of sitting there with its arms out going, hey, no, pause up. Yeah.

It's not quite me a cat, is it? It's not like paws down, but it's kind of fingers up

Love it. Hey, Danni, I'm wondering about if I was to ask you, what's your growth edge at the moment? You know, we've talked a lot about your growth through your career and finding your leadership voice. It's I'm sensing it's something about learning to let go. But if you were to sum it up, like, what do you what's your what's your growth about next? What would you say?

That's a really good question. And I think I'm still in the middle of my story. So I think I'm still sitting with discomfort and learning to sit with discomfort and being incredibly vulnerable. And you will know this Digby, when you start your own business, the control in me was like, great, I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do this and it's gonna be like this and everything's gonna be like that.

you are so vulnerable in so many ways. You're at the mercy of your own doubt. And so for me, I'm sitting with a discomfort of learning to let go of control in every way I can think of in my life and watch that play out without a plan, without a specific angle or path that I'm pursuing. It's quite simply

open season which it really never has been before.

I would love to help you with that. I know we were going to be talking fairly regularly. And I I'm wondering if there was a question that I could ask you as we go along. Yeah, and doesn't have to be me. And this is obviously in service of the listeners, too. Like for anyone else wanting to learn to let go of control a bit. What's the best question I could ask you? I wonder, Danni.

Please do. Yeah.

do.

best question you could ask me about letting go of control.

Yes.

What does that bring you?

Ha, beautiful question.

Simple, simple. It's, it makes you think about the why. If you were to let go of it, what do you get? And it just lets your mind be curious rather than scared.

I love that. What does that bring you? And the other one is what does how does controlling serve you and how does it limit you? There's there's a bunch of questions that bounce off that one. Right. So, OK, I'll tuck that away in my back pocket. I've got I've written it down. It's right there. I love it. Awesome. This has been an amazing conversation. I felt just so immersed in.

so many.

Great.

Yeah, it's been an easy hour, hasn't it?

It's been an easy hour. And, you know, it's called Dig Deeper, this podcast, because, you know, we both dig deep into ideas. And my intent is that we all learn something through the conversation. I've learned a bit about regret and reframing regret. So thank you for that, because it's really something that I used to be feisty. So we should never have regrets like you, right? We should just learn and move on.

So thank you for the reframe there. I wonder what have you learned through the conversation?

I think in the course of us having a korero here, I've been thinking a little bit about some of the words I didn't realize that would come out of my own head. So I hadn't really thought about control being a bit of an eel before. And through your careful questioning, it has become apparent to me through our discussion that it will, the seal isn't dead.

It still lives on. It'll be somewhere else in my life. And I've just got to be curious about where it might be hiding, so that I can call it for what it is. And I think the other takeaway for me is the beauty in the word surrender. I honestly, as I said, I love words, big fan. And it's not a word I've used in conversation before I don't think. And I don't know why I haven't, and I want to change that.

Beautiful. I wonder what it will bring up for you as well as for people who are on the other side of that conversation as well.

Oh, I'm so excited. It's going to be my new hot word. But, you know, it's funny. It got me thinking though, I was looking for icons earlier. I'm doing a leadership workshop and it was about vulnerability. And all of the icons, if you Google vulnerability and it comes up with these really awful icons that suggest it's a weakness. And so I'm reframing it as emotional strength.

Beautiful.

because there's this connotation. So I wonder if surrender and vulnerability need to go for a drink and have a discussion about rebranding thoughts.

And maybe the icon is the hands up, you know, open palms. I wonder something like that. That's awesome. Hey, if people want to get in touch with you, find out more about you, what's the best way for them to do that? Any?

Yeah, with a little flag or something, I don't know.

Ha ha ha!

Look, I've got a really tricky name. People struggle with the Ermilova bit. So my website is www.danniermilovawilliams.com. That comes from my husband who was born in Russia. So yes, get in touch with me via my website or hello at daniermilova.com.

So good. Thanks so much, Danni. It's been brilliant.

Yes, always great chatting with you. It's never a dull conversation. Thanks, Digby.

Thanks, Danni. See you soon.

See you soon.