On this episode of BEP Talks, I sat down with Susan Schmitt Winchester, a powerhouse in human resources and co-author of Healing at Work. We explored how childhood experiences shape our workplace behavior, why self-acceptance is key to breaking unhelpful patterns, and some practical techniques to move from stress to freedom on the job. Whether you’re an executive or just starting your career, Susan’s insights on emotional intelligence and self-awareness are game-changing for anyone looking to thrive at work and beyond. Check out Healing at Work and start transforming your work life today.

If you ever dread Mondays or find yourself reliving old stories at work, you’re not alone—and there’s a path to greater freedom and joy.

Check out "Healing at Work" on Amazon, and connect with Susan Schmitt Winchester at: https://www.Susanwinchester.com

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Well, hey there and welcome to this edition of BEP Talks.

I'm your host, Beth Johnston, coming to you from the BEP Talk

studio at the Global Society of Empowered Women, where it is my

great pleasure and honor to introduce you to amazing

people from all walks of life, from around the world,

different ages and stages in their career and in life. But

all who come here to so generously these and openly share

their beliefs, their experiences and their passions.

And we have never, ever, ever had an exception and we're not going to start

today. My very special guest today

is Susan J. Schmidt Winchester. I just

love that name. Now Susan comes to us with

36 plus years of experience as a

human resources executive and currently

holds the highest honor in that category as a

fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources.

So you can see how excited I am to have someone of that caliber

joining me here today. Now Susan comes with 36

plus years, as I mentioned, and

has so many passions that she's going to share with us today. She's worked

with Fortune 100, Fortune 500 companies, has an illustrious

cross industrial combination of experience,

experience, all which I think has probably come together. And something I'm very

excited to talk to her about is the book she co authored

called Healing at Work. I can go on and

on about Susan J. Schmidt Winchester, but let's get

right to it. Please welcome to the BEP Talk stage. Susan.

Hi there, Susan. How are you today? I am terrific and

very excited to be here with you today. Well, I am excited to have you

here and thank you for those very, very kind words.

I kind of don't know where to begin because you have so many

accolades about which we can speak. And we will. I mentioned

your 36 plus years of experience as a human resources executive

again across many different industries. What was it that

originally attracted you to hr?

Well, that's a great question. I had gone to college and

I had a double degree in psychology and French. I had no ide idea what

I was going to do with that. And so I went on and got a

graduate degree in industrial organizational psychology, which

I really loved. It's a nice combination between the quantitative and the

qualitative. So my very first job in Chicago

was working as a compensation analyst for at that time a private

company that made a variety of different hair care

deodorant kinds of products. And I was

incredibly blessed to to fall into a career by accident

that became the most fulfilling experience one could imagine

personally and professionally. It was an amazing, amazing

journey. You know, you said kind of by

accident I personally don't think there are any coincidences

in life. I think we end up where we're destined to be. And

we, all of us, like you and I, cross paths

when we are supposed to. That's fair. I completely

agree. I never expected it to be so amazing. I

loved the work. I just didn't expect all the blessings that would come from the

work, from the relationship with lots of different people, lots of very

complex people. My own journey on that path and

I reflect back on it and I just am incredibly, incredibly grateful. I

have so much gratitude for that. You think yours do,

right? That's kind of where we all find ourselves. You

are also a very sought after keynote speaker and a

TEDx speaker. How did you get into speaking?

Well, I, you know, Martha and I wrote the book back in 2021

and I felt an incredible, compelling

feeling. It was, it was really a feeling that I had that

it was my responsibility to share what she and I discovered

in the writing of the book. And I learned back in the early

two during the leadership seminar that my purpose

for being here on this earth is to teach self acceptance to

create a more joyful world. And I feel like the book

Healing at Work was all about

helping people to find a deeper level of self acceptance.

And it was really that whole experience

that led me to want to share it on stage. And I've been

very blessed to be able to speak to audiences all over the world.

So some amazing experiences literally in Europe and Asia

and in the US and all kinds of different audiences.

At first it was kind of scary. I mean, I'm a pretty good speaker when

I'm working in the workplace. But getting up on stage and talking about

the personal journey that I experienced, being open

and vulnerable was a completely different approach to speaking.

And it took a little bit. In fact, you and I were talking a little

bit before I almost didn't publish the book.

Literally, it took me, I think I worked on the book for about

from 2004 until 2018. So it was a long journey of

writing a manuscript. And I was very blessed to

partner up with Martha Finney, my co author, who is a professional

writer, extremely creative. And she and I spent another

two and a half years writing the book. And so 17

years the book was in process. And when we were ready to publish,

I said, I can't do it. I was afraid of being

judged professionally and personally and I won't go into

all the story behind it. But Martha helped me break through that

by introducing me to somebody who really helped me understand

that my purpose for writing the book, my why, was

way bigger than my fear. And once I had that clarity,

boom, I was able to get on stage and talk to anybody.

You know, it's all about the why. If your why is big

enough and you are committed to it, really nothing can stop you. You might hesitate

or take an extra couple of years to make the why big enough. But we're

so grateful that you did so. The book, long

in process. I'm curious,

because through 2004 and 2018,

like a whole new generation entered the workforce

during that time. Was there a lot of editing going on? Because

did your perspectives change based on

the years on the calendar, so to speak? It's a really

smart question, and my answer is probably not going to sound too

smart. I never

intended to write a book. I felt, however,

compelled that I had a responsibility to write the book. I feel

like I have a great faith in God, and I believe

that it was God's

love that guided me to keep writing. And I didn't even really know what

to write about. And I had had

an opportunity to speak to a team that I was working with when I was

at one of my companies in Singapore, and they'd asked me to speak to them

about my career, which I thought, well, you know, who wants to hear

about someone talk about themselves? You know, I just didn't seem like a good topic.

And so one of my mentors said, well, maybe

you should just talk about the good and the bad of your career. And I

ended up calling the presentation the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

And it had such a profound effect on the audience.

I was really surprised because when I talked about the things that had happened that

were bad and ugly, not only in my career, but in my life,

I felt. I just. I'm getting chills right now. I felt so

connected to the audience, and you could have heard a pin drop.

And when I came back from that trip, I knew that

the writing that I was doing was supposed to be based on

different experiences that I'd had. And I love the work that you're doing

with experiences and passions and beliefs. And so

I just continued writing stories I had. You know, you talk

about thinking about the context of the new generation entering.

I was thinking about that in my work world, but it had nothing to do

with my journey of just basically writing stories.

I wouldn't even really call it a. Well, it was a book, you know,

certainly a manuscript was a lot of stories written over many years,

loosely sewn together by an amateur.

And. And it really, it was really. I just

kept thinking about, well, what has happened in my life that was good and bad

and ugly, and that's essentially what led to the manuscript.

So I was disconnected from my

work experience and what was happening in the world of people

and talent because I was just so

frustrated. It was taking me so long to write these stories,

and so I was not as clever

to think about how might this affect our future generations. I can

definitely see it now. If I could go back in time to when I started

in my career in 1988, January 4th in Chicago,

I would have paid a million dollars to know the insights that I know

now, that I teach now that I coach on now,

because it's life changing. I mean, I am a different person because

of the insights that Martha and I discovered together, when we came

together. I didn't have those insights until Martha and I worked together.

And so I was frustrated, of course,

because I wanted to publish a book. But then Covid happened, and it gave

us lots of time to continue doing the research and the work that

led to Healing at Work, which actually was just recently

an international bestseller in five countries. So I'm really proud of that.

Congratulations. Oh, that's wonderful. That's wonderful. I have

to say, clearly you were meant to speak because you are so

particularly wonderfully good at it. Thank you. And the message is,

might you agree with me that regardless of the story. So the book

wasn't meant to be a textbook kind of a thing. It wasn't an educational thing.

It was storytelling. Do you believe,

as I do, that regardless of what the story is

or whose story it is,

listeners find themselves in the story?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Without a doubt. I have lines of

people coming up to me after I speak, wanting to share their own

experiences related to what they connected to in the talk.

So when you touch the heart and the soul,

you have a profound effect on people. And that is so to

your credit. Thank you. I want to ask you a couple of

questions we kind of talked about. Well,

tell me, you tell me. Who is your audience? Who should be

reading Healing at Work? Well, basically anyone who

dreads Monday morning, honestly, the

books, for anybody who is working in a job, it

doesn't matter what job you're working in, and who

goes into the workplace and experiences what I call the pit of

painful suffering, emotions, anxiety, stress,

fear, worry, disconnected, alone. If

you're feeling those things, if you're feeling upset

because something's not happening for you in your career,

if you're angry at a boss or at a colleague, any of these

things that you're experiencing. These are all things that

Martha and I call these bumper car moments, which are moments when we're

working, when we crash into somebody or somebody crashes into

us and it's an emotional crash. And, and so if you're

anything like me, for 30 years of my 36 year career,

I was in a bumper car moment all the time. I had stories going on

all the time in my head, you know, blaming and judging the other person

that had wronged me, you know. So if you're experiencing any of this, this

book is definitely for you. Oh, wow.

I'm thinking it's for everybody then. Yeah, pretty much everybody.

I'm going to say pretty much for everybody. We all have those moments.

Earlier in this conversation, Susan, you mentioned

self acceptance.

Based on that you use that term and based on what

you just described, what's the connection between,

is it lack of self acceptance, therefore we look to blame

everybody else? It's never about us, it's never our fault. Is there a

connection there? Well, here's the connection. So there's some

amazing research that was done by Kaiser Permanente and the Centers for

Disease disease control and two doctors that led the research,

Drs. Felipe and Ananda. This was back in the

late 90s. And what they were studying was the impact of

childhood trauma on health. And they did a

survey of 17,000 people in the US which by the way, has been

replicated in many countries now, asking them to review a

list of 10 what they called the adverse childhood experiences,

also known as the ACEs. And these are 10

significantly traumatic things that can happen to someone when they're little before

the age of 18. Things like sexual abuse, physical

abuse, social abuse, neglect, physical or

emotional, substance abuse in the home, an

incarcerated parent. I mean, the list is 10 significant things,

addiction, et cetera. And what they found in

their research, which really surprised them was that

nearly 2/3 of the people that responded indicated that

experienced at least one ace one of those adverse

childhood experiences. And there were many people who

also experienced even up to as many as four or more.

I know I was surprised when I took the survey and found that I was

in the four or more category of adverse childhood experiences,

as was my co author Martha. And so to bring that

together into the workplace, if you think about many of us

have grown up in dysfunctional childhoods. And when we're in

that dysfunctional childhood, we are taking on certain beliefs about

ourselves based on whatever's happening around us. For

me, for example, my dad, who was. And by the way, this isn't about judging

parents and caretakers. I think they all have their own traumas from the past.

So that's not what this work is about. But my dad,

well, he was brilliant, very worldly, very,

he was just a very strong man. He suffered from

some past experiences. I, I, I, I'm not going to go into the details of

that. But basically it manifested as

unpredictable rage. And so small things would set him

off. Like I remember one day

he was really angry when I slammed a screen door.

And he was a big man, he was very obese, he was very scary. And

I was a small little girl and he would charge at me like a bull.

And so what happened as a result of that living in that state of kind

of chronic hyper vigilance was

I came to believe that

everybody else determined my worth and value and

my job was to be as perfect and people pleasing as possible to earn

that validation. And so I never learned that self

acceptance was my job. I believed that I was accepted

only through performing or pleasing other people. Use

different strategies and they all fall into fight, flight,

freeze and fawn, which is pleasing. So people that use

fight to create a sense of safety and predictability are the

bullies in our workplaces. The flight. There are

people, you and I were talking a little bit about people who leave companies, the

retention, you know, engagement story. Too

many people are leaving because they're blaming somebody in the workplace for

their poor experience. There are a lot of people

who freeze in the workplace. That was their strategy.

And they don't speak up, they don't disagree with a senior level person.

We have this kind of state of people not speaking up in the workplaces. I

think a lot of those people freezing. I remember one

time a woman I worked with at one company said, Susan, I've been here 30

years and I've never spoken first until spoken to.

And I thought, oh my gosh, talk about freezing and hiding.

And so these dynamics are playing out at work. I think

going back to your original question, the self acceptance connection is that

we learn things about ourselves that we had to do something in order to

be loved and to avoid pain. And

we didn't know that our job. I never knew self acceptance was

my job until Martha and I wrote the book to realize that

nobody else gets that power. You know, my boss, you know,

I obviously want to do good work for my boss, but I am not

going to go into that pit of painful suffering emotions we were

talking about just because my boss may be unhappy about something.

But so many of us are unaware. Call it the unconscious,

wounded career path where the past unconscious beliefs

and patterns about ourselves and others, especially people in authority,

are playing out in the workplace every single day. And

so I have a chart in one of my keynotes that talks about we're not

only bringing our professional adult self into the workplace, we're bringing our

childhood reality with us. And guess what? Nearly

2/3 of the people in the workplace are doing the same thing. It's no wonder

we have bumper car moments every day. Boom. Right?

What else do you know? I always think that you either

repeat what you know because you know it and that's

all you know, or sometimes you might do, depending, of course, on the

severity and the situations go completely opposite, which

is not always the solution. That could be perhaps even more

devastating than repeating. But the

fourth one you said, fight, flight, freeze. What is the

fawn? Fawning is pleasing. It's a form of pleasing

in order to earn validation. I'm an expert at that. It's the

perfectionist pleaser. It's the overachiever, which

of course, can lead to burnout and overwhelm easily.

I find that. I call that looking for love in all the wrong places. Perfect.

I love that. That's a simpler way to say what I just said. Yeah, well,

no, it's just I can, you know, I. Yep. I talk to a

lot of people and you kind of hear,

while every situation and combination of two people, of course, is unique. That

there are patterns, Right? That there are patterns. So

are there solutions that by the time. Let me. Let me back up

a little bit. In speaking with other people, they say that what you learn,

what you hear, what you experience by the age of seven, which I

know we used to call the age of reason, where you could kind of begin

to, I don't know, rationalize,

judge, discern, is what kind of

forms you and you take forward. Is that still

the feeling in today's world? Well, I don't

have broad research around that. What I do Is have the ACEs research,

which has been replicated many different times. And

so I do believe that our beliefs about ourselves

and behavior patterns that we take on to create

a sense of safety and security are formed. Well, certainly,

you know, depending on where. When you experience a trauma

and. And that it has a profound effect

on how we experience the workplace. And it's all. Most

of it, for most people, it's unconscious. That's what's so unique about

healing at work. The book is, normally we think about the workplace as

a source of stress and pain and what we're doing is teaching

people that actually can be quite the opposite. It can be a place for healing

on many levels. And we always say, you know, instead of the

dog biting the man, the man's biting the dog. That's what our work does to

teach people that they can reverse, not reverse. They can become

aware of how much their past is shaping

their experience here at work today. And actually, even

people that did not experience one of those aces often come up to me and

say, you know, I had wonderful parents, they were loving. I didn't experience any

of those 10 traumas. And then they tell me another story.

And my dad was highly successful in the job he was doing and I never

felt like I measured up to that or,

you know, my mother was very concerned about me and so she spent

too much time with me, so I thought maybe something was wrong with me. So

we form these beliefs, you know, unconsciously, we're not

aware of it. And again, we just bring it into the workplace

and repeat and perpetuate unconscious

patterns and beliefs. Which I know because,

you know, the, the way I experienced

this is again, I was the performer over performer,

overachiever, perfectionist, pleaser. And

you know, a lot of people look at that personality in the workplace and think,

oh, they're driven for a need for success. It was actually not

driven by need for success. It was driven by my fear of failure

and getting in trouble because that's what I learned when

I was little. And so

it really, it all boils back to becoming

aware and conscious and to recognize that there's nothing

wrong with you. I think this is part of the human condition and that there

is a path forward for learning new ways of

interacting with difficult people, situations, our

reactions, et cetera, using the workplace. That's

what's so neat about the book. That is so neat about the book. And as

I said earlier, I am sure every reader will find him

or herself in one or many of the stories

that you share. So in addition to the book

being a vehicle, if you will, to help

people, you also are an executive coach.

How do you work with people? Well, it

may be my most joyful part of my post retirement experience as the

executive coaching. I have amazing leaders

who I'm coaching. And so basically what we do, of

course there's a journey where you build the relationship, you build the trust.

And as we get more into the relationship,

generally every client, and by the way, I'm also coached by an amazing coach,

so I know this to be true for myself too, is that things come up

at Work sometimes that can really set us off.

That can really cause us to have a strong charged

reaction, a triggered reaction, an activated reaction, however you want to describe it.

And so when that happens, what

I do with my client, when they're talking about a certain situation at work

and they're experiencing this painful experience, I'll often say

something to the effect of, by the way, I'm not a therapist, I'm a

workplace expert. So I stay very focused on the workplace. All I

say is, first of all, I say, what did

you take it to mean about yourself when that happened? What was the belief you

had about how that other person treated you? So that's

the first thing I remember. One person that I was working with said

that they felt extremely disrespected by another

leader that they were in partnership with. And

I said, okay, you know, and this person had a very strong anger

reaction. And I said, can you think about anybody in your past

that might have caused you to feel disrespected?

And it doesn't matter where it could have been a basketball coach along the way,

who they felt disrespected them, and, you know,

so just help them tap into the experiences that they've had related

to the belief they're feeling at that particular moment.

And then all I say is, is it possible that that past experience

is accentuating or influencing your reaction today?

Because what I noticed after working for so many years with so many people

is that when someone has a story, an overreaction, like they are

overreacting to something that's just happened, it's always,

I always believe it's a bumper car moment that's happening in their own head

based on experiences of the past. In fact, my TEDx talk,

which is tackling perfectionism at work, it's only nine minutes

long, but it's me talking about getting extremely triggered

by one of my early bosses a long time ago, a

woman who got very angry at me. And I immediately.

The thought that came into my head at that moment when I was sitting in

the chair in her office with hot tears streaming down my face was,

I deserve to get into trouble, because that's what I believed with my dad.

And so her ridiculous out of control

rage episode, I blame myself for it.

And it was totally. It was such a total overreaction to what was

happening in the moment. I clearly, I was a bumper car

moment for her. She was for me for different reasons.

But, you know, working with my clients, we try to get at the root about,

you know, you know, and I'm not trying to fix personal relationships. I'm

trying to help them with difficult work related relationships. What

they can start to detach from, you know, this person really triggers me

because they remind me a lot of my younger sister.

And then we can work through. Okay, are you putting too much energy

on the situation with this person? And by the way, I teach a lot of

different techniques for people to help process the emotion that's going

on because I've had wonderful mentors and

advisors throughout my career. But first of all, it's just

a realization, the conscious awareness of, yeah, you know what, you're

right. My brother was really awful to me. Or I had several brothers

that would beat me up and there was this fighting instinct that this person

had. You know, there's always a story. You and I were just talking about that.

We all have our stories. And depending on whatever story you've

had in the past, it can easily be triggered in the moment at

work if somebody at work has hooked you.

I. My hook was angry authority figures.

Right. And I kept trying to hook into angry authority figures,

hoping that I might resolve this all unconscious, some unmet emotional

need that my dad was never able to give me. Yeah. So, yeah,

the work with the. That my coaching clients ranges because of the breadth of the

HR experience I've had. Sometimes they're working through some difficult issues

with structure or communications, but when it gets personal

and they're really emotionally charged by another person, that's when

healing at work comes into play. Right, right. Interesting. When you send it

back to Trigger and the person that you had that difficult moment with and you

said, you know, warm tears streaming down your face,

triggered moments can

set off a ripple effect. Yep. And

one person, and then there's two, and then it affects the department, it

affects a company that it's. It's really

something that needs to be somehow harnessed.

I don't know that it can be controlled, but it needs to at least be

recognized. And at least when you recognize it,

then maybe. Well, then I would say then there is a potential to do something

about it as opposed to let it go on. And I would say that that

happens in family structures also. It does. It's

just a different environment. And you're saying that's where so much of this that you

take to the workplace came from. The household, family

environment. You know, life can be so difficult, can't

it? And to think that it starts with children at

such tender ages that they don't realize it

and how it can affect them, us,

everybody, for the rest of our lives. It's.

Yeah, that's fascinating. You know, the other thing that you made

me think about, too, is that when. When you're working in a company

or a team and the leader who's responsible for

leading people is unconscious, unaware, and

dysregulated, it can absolutely not only

affect how people experience their workplace, but it can

actually start to erode the culture of the entire company, depending

on the level of the person. And so, I mean, our senior

leaders, our politicians, you know, all of us are.

Well, many of us are carrying these old past pains and beliefs about ourselves

unconsciously. And because we never. I never learned how to

regulate my nervous system. Most of us don't. So my way of

regulating it was alcohol, Chardonnay and I were best friends for many,

many years. I'm very grateful to be sober now for 22 years.

These patterns are playing out everywhere. And

so, you know, the impact of somebody more

senior in the company who is unconscious and

unaware and dysregulated can absolutely not

only affect the system at work, but people will take their own

pain home from that leader, and it would be diffused

in their own family. Right.

Somewhere. Right. You can't keep it all in. Yeah.

Actually, I'll just say one other thing.

After writing this book for so many years, I almost didn't publish it because I

was afraid of personal and professional judgment.

And then as we were talking about, you know, helping me realize my why was

bigger. My why was because I was so

concerned about what people thought about it me thought about me at work, because

I was so hard on myself and beat myself up at night thinking about work.

I also neglected my own sons growing up

because I was emotionally unavailable for them because I was so

consumed with the need for approval and validation through the workplace.

So, you know, I worked with difficult people. There's no

question about that. But I'm responsible for my reaction. And

so, you know, it is. It is affecting the entire company, our

families and generations to come. And

life is 10% of what happens and 90% of how you

react to what happens. I have to

appreciate you for so many reasons. I want to point

out your. Your candor, your transparency,

the vulnerability that you've put out here of yourself

and the value of that for other people, because we all

have it. How much time do you have? Kind of a

conversation. But I think that that is

so cathartic for other people.

And I'm going to say, particularly for women, that's typically my audience and who

I deal with, to know that you're not the only

one. You're not alone. Right. As

unique and special as each one of us is, and yes we are,

that there are patterns, there are trends, and most

importantly, and I want to say this and thank

Susan as I'm saying it, that there are

places to go, people to see. It was a great song from Bye Bye Birdie.

I think to find help, to find

relief and release and whatever

stage you're at of Fight, Flight, Freeze or Fawn, that

there is another step you can take, right. And

you can identify your triggers. If you haven't already, you were blessed

that you identified yours. And when you identify it, you

kind of arm yourself. Do you not just say, here it comes

and I'm ready, I'm ready and it's not going

to set me off this time. Right. That I love

that. In fact, I was just talking to a friend last week, Ben, and he

said, you know, talking about the next step rather than fight, Flight, Freeze and

Fawn, he said, then we can get freedom.

When you started saying that, I immediately felt freedom. Yes.

Well, and that is so true. And again, we don't have time

to go into all the practices, but there are ways to

learn how to become regulated, to learn how to

recognize those limiting beliefs. And you said it so beautifully

earlier, is that when we're not aware of these things, we are

ruminating throughout the day, at night, we are

having fear, anxiety, stress, worry, unhealthy self

soothing habits. All these things are playing out. But there

are techniques, and I can share some of them, depending on our time today,

of how you can actually break through that to get to the freedom. Because

when you get to the freedom of releasing the belief that other

people get to decide your worth and value,

it is absolutely a place of freedom, without a doubt. Thank you.

Can you share one, at least one very important way for

us to all find that? Yeah. I'll give you a really simple technique and

it's called, it's a key question. It's a simple question to ask the

next time you feel upset by something

someone's done at work. Ask yourself this question.

Because we always are telling ourselves a story about why we're upset. The question is,

am I sure? And what I mean by that is if I'm

sitting in a meeting and my boss gives me,

let's just say, a dirty look, I read it as a dirty look and I

immediately assume that he didn't like my presentation.

He doesn't think I should be in my job. I mean, I'm telling myself a

whole story Stop yourself and say, am I sure?

Maybe my boss is just having a bad day. Am I sure? He's

really angry at me and judging me, you know. So it

immediately causes the body to go back into the

prefrontal cortex, the executive functioning, problem solving part of our brain.

When we're lost in fight, flight, freeze and fawn, we are unable to

problem solve. We are distracted. But just asking, am I

sure? You know what, I'm not sure. Maybe he's mad at the guy sitting next

to me. I have no idea. That's a very simple, easy to

implement practice. Another practice that's really easy to

implement is to start a journal of

when you experience a bumper car moment when you get upset at

work. Something's happened, someone's mad at you, you've done something, it

doesn't matter. There's so many, you know, you get left out of a meeting, somebody

interrupts you in a meeting, you know, oh my gosh, there's so many

different things that can happen when that happens.

Start taking a journal. Write down, this is what happened. What was my

belief, you know, what was the limiting belief and story I was telling

myself about when this happened and what were

my reactions? What did I tend to, what did I, what was my response? What,

how did I react? Did I stay quiet?

Did I get angry? Did I want to run away? Did I want to leave

the company? Just start noticing and becoming aware

of your limiting beliefs, the stories you tell yourself, and

the behavior patterns that you then play out at work again.

I think self awareness and self regulation are the two most important

capabilities we all need at work, particularly those of us in leadership

roles. So those are two very simple practices

that to start and then there are other,

there are other things as well, but that'll get people started. Is just start, start

to wonderful. Does the book get into a little bit of that?

Yeah, you know the book. It does, absolutely. It gets into that.

Martha and I wrote the book in 2021. We're now five years later.

So I've evolved and simplified some of the techniques

I have. I mean, I have lots of things I can provide. I have

digital courses that I can offer people. Obviously coaching is

one of my most favor to really get into some of the

work. Because the other piece going on here is that

when we experience those traumas when we're little, when we experience

stress and anxiety at work, it's all showing up in our body.

And it's really important that we learn some of the body techniques, the

somatic practices to release that out of our bodies.

And so there are different techniques to help people do that.

And so that's another technique that's a little bit more sophisticated.

So I know that your book Healing at Work is an Amazon

best selling internationally. So the book is

available on Amazon. And I urge everyone healing

at work. And work might be the workplace, but for a lot of people, and

again, I'm going to say, particularly women, the workplace is the home

and that there are stories in there that will be relevant,

relatable to you. I have to share with you, Susan.

Growing up, I'm one of six children. Bumper cars were always

our fate. Well, and roller coasters. We were like, you know, adventurous kind

of kids. But we loved bumper cars. I'm not sure why, but we loved

bumper cars. And I was getting visuals of all that, how you'd

aim for someone and go in and what happened. When I talked about the

triggering effect, I was picturing bumper cars that once two

hit, it's likely a third one is going to hit and a fourth one. And

you see it in real life, you know, on the highways, unfortunately,

you know, pile ups, pile ups. That small

things can become huge things. And anything that we can do

to mitigate that and it always, always

comes from within. The seed may have been planted

by our elders, our parents, our grandparents, what have you. That's

been going on forever. It's what we know, it's how we're raised.

But there comes a point where, as you say, we can identify it

and self awareness, self regulation,

self respect. Right. Has to become part of it. And

I'm going to throw in self accountability.

Yes, self responsibility, responsibility account.

I'm very big on that is to say, you know, well, we've all grown up

and it's easy to say I'm here today because you know, how many years

ago, how many decades ago someone said or looked at, at me this way or

that way, There comes a point where, well, you either,

I guess that's a freeze moment. You just accepted it, right?

You just kind of accepted it. You froze in that moment and now you have

a built in excuse for everything. Let's get over that because

we can. And we have a brilliant person by the name of Susan J.

Schmidt Winchester who is a KeyNote speaker, a

TEDx speaker, you've heard her here. She's magnificent in what she knows and how she

shares it. She, along with her co author

Martha Finney and the book Healing at A guide

to using career conflicts to overcome your past

and to build the future that you deserve.

Beautiful. That's right. Please go to Amazon, look for that

book. Susan, you're one of these people. I feel like I could just, I feel

like I know you for a long time. We met less than an hour ago,

truly for the first time. And I know I could speak with you

forever. I'm going to get the book because that is how you and I will

be able to keep this conversation going. I love it.

Everybody, Chapter one is intense. I mean, it is. It is. Oh, okay.

That's the whiplash for the whole book. It sets the stage. But I just want,

I always like to warn people that be prepared. Well, you know what? I think

you just increased the sales based on that very good little promo. We like

those kinds of things. Yeah. Susan, thank you

so much for being my very special guest here today on BEP

Talk where the vulnerability that we share

helps other people to step forward. And I hope

to want to share their story here on BEV Talks where you believe your

bring your beliefs, your experiences and your passions in a very

authentic way. And it would be my honor. Please go to beptalks.com

see how to become a guest on BEP talks. And

as we always say, until we talk again,

may the best always be yet to come. Thanks for joining

us and we'll talk again soon. Bye for now.