The central theme of this podcast episode revolves around the complexities of navigating professional environments and the inherent nervousness that can accompany encounters with individuals of higher status, such as CEOs and board members. We delve into the personal experiences of each co-host, sharing insights on how titles and hierarchies can influence feelings of self-doubt and anxiety during crucial meetings. The conversation highlights the evolution of confidence over time, emphasizing that familiarity and experience can temper initial apprehensions. We also explore the dynamics of communication and interpersonal relationships within professional settings, noting that many leaders grapple with similar insecurities despite their esteemed positions.

Ultimately, this episode serves to affirm that we are all human, navigating the same challenges, regardless of title or experience. An intricate narrative unfolds as the co-hosts of The Traveling Saleslady podcast engage in a profound dialogue regarding the nuanced relationship between professional titles and personal confidence. Each participant reflects on their respective experiences with leadership and the inherent nervousness that can accompany high-level meetings and interactions. They share personal anecdotes that reveal the initial fears they harbored when confronted with authoritative figures, particularly in industries where expertise is highly specialized, such as healthcare.

The discussion highlights the significance of experience in shaping one's confidence and the realization that, fundamentally, all professionals share similar human experiences, regardless of their titles. Furthermore, the episode underscores the essential role of emotional intelligence in professional settings, particularly in relation to communication and conflict resolution.

Thus, the episode advocates for the development of soft skills as a crucial element of effective leadership, thereby elevating the discourse on professional growth to encompass both technical and interpersonal competencies.

Takeaways:

• In the realm of leadership, confidence is a crucial element that evolves over time, particularly as one gains experience in their respective field.
• Many women in leadership roles grapple with feelings of nervousness, especially in high-stakes situations such as public speaking and meetings with senior executives.
• The conversation highlighted the importance of recognizing one's own perspective as valuable, which can empower individuals to engage confidently with those in positions of authority.
• Trust and safety within teams are paramount; without these elements, effective communication and conflict resolution become increasingly challenging.
• The speakers discussed the significance of preparation and practice in overcoming nervousness, particularly when addressing boards or large audiences.
• Lastly, it was noted that the essence of a person is not defined solely by their professional title, but rather by their character and the impact they have on others.

Learn more about The Traveling Saleslady Here

So, Lauren, I have a question.

Sure.

I know that you have a long career in risk management.

I know you recently retired from that role.

But prior to leaving, because I know you're newly retired, do you ever get nervous with all of your experience?

Because I think hopefully there's a lot of different age groups listening in and curious.

Just past, present, and maybe even future.

Did titles scare you?

Do you ever get nervous at meetings?

Or are you just so comfortable in your own skin?

You're good.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't get nervous, especially at the beginning of the career.

So as an example, I did a lot of health care consulting.

So I used to go into surgeries and observe surgeries and really walk, work with the doctors on, you know, safe work practices for the nurses and the employees that were in there.

And at the beginning, I was terrified.

You know, you have an orthopedic surgeon come in.

And I just.

That title just always got me.

And then I think it was because I wasn't confident.

I was young, I wasn't confident in my ability.

And I went into it, I was thinking, like, why do I.

Why should I have a seat at this table?

Right.

I'm in a surgery suite.

Like, why?

I'm young, you know, and they kind of treated you that way at the very beginning when you're young.

But as my career went on, no, I didn't, because I think with experience and you feel like, you know what, I know my stuff.

You just.

People just want to make sure that you're not wasting their time.

You're bringing value, added value to the situation.

Public speaking was another thing.

I did a lot of it at the beginning.

And I remember in the interview saying to the folks, is there a lot of public speaking?

Because that makes me really nervous.

They're like, oh, no.

Oh, no.

Well, it was 50% of my job at conferences and with clients.

And I'd speak to board of director, you know, boards of directors.

And again, at the beginning, very stressed out.

I would.

When I knew I was talking to the boards of directors, I would literally stand in front of the mirror and rehearse my presentation like five or six times so that I knew it cold.

But as I got on in my years, I just felt a lot better about my abilities.

And that stuff went away and it was old hat.

Yeah.

How about you, Aaron?

What's your take?

A Tale of Two Errands.

You know, I would say a while back, like when I was working inside of a senior living community, titles didn't mean Anything to me.

But when a regional director or the CEO was coming, like, I wanted to make sure I wore my best suit and introduced people, but, you know, they're a guest in my house.

And so it wasn't necessarily intimidating.

But I wasn't a person.

I worked for that person.

I wasn't trying to.

To have him buy anything from me.

And so as I started this role, all of a sudden it became like, oh, my God, I gotta talk to a CEO.

What am I gonna say?

You know, like, it's shifted.

And I have now understood that my perspective is powerful, and all I have to do is talk about my perspective, and then I will attract the right CEO or the right person.

I don't want to.

I don't want to shrink, and I don't want to expand myself too much.

I just want to walk in as myself.

And that has taken some practice, right?

That has taken some time for me to realize they're a human just like me, and I have a service, and either they want it or they don't.

That's just it, you know?

And I have also been able to see how they appreciate things differently.

Like, there's a new perspective that I have today of a CEO or another title than I did before, and just going into them or to speak to them and recognizing they put their pants on the same way that I do.

And I have a perspective that they do not.

Right or wrong, better or worse.

I don't make those judgment calls anymore, you know?

So good.

Now if I were to meet, you know, like, Michael Jordan in the airport, I would be very nervous.

I wouldn't know what to say.

I'd be like, oh, my God, I love the bulls.

I love you.

I love you.

Michael, how are you?

You know, I really like Torres Grant, but you're the best.

You're the best of all time.

You know what I mean?

That's how I feel.

Like if I saw the Rock in the airport, like, I love you.

I love you.

The Rock.

I love you.

I'm getting a visual of gate changes with Angie, Jason, the Rock.

And I know Michael Jordan, and I'm.

On film going, this is good content.

This is good content.

Yes.

Yes.

I was in.

Look, I was in Austin.

I was in Austin.

Actually, Angie and I were in Austin at the same time.

And I thought, if I run into Brene Brown, what am I going to say?

So I need to have everything that I'm going to say ready because I may run into her.

I did not run into her, but I was ready in Case I ran into her.

Good advice, Erin.

Always be ready to be your heroes.

That is funny.

Do any.

Angie, I'm just curious because I know you coach a lot of the nursing teams.

Does this come up in conversations about nervousness with team meetings or senior leadership meetings?

Yeah, I mean, they may not.

They may not talk about it in terms of being nervous, but most nurse leaders that I coach, 99% of them are clinically excellent, but do not have communication, relationship skills, how to move through conflict, confidence to have a conversation.

But that.

A lot of that also, that being said is.

Is because of the lack of feeling safe.

There's a lack of trust on the team, whether it be, you know, when I'm doing, for instance, group coaching, there's a.

There's a leader, a team leader who's their boss, and then there's them.

So there's two things that both.

Both people.

The leader also sometimes doesn't feel safe or trusts that she can be and say the things or the ideas or the frustrations or whatever.

Same for her team.

So I don't.

I don't know if it's nervous, I guess.

Yes.

But the core of that would be, you know, for those other reasons, not having the skills.

Number one, confidence in yourself and not having trust.

Yeah, I do.

Can I go back to that question of do you get nervous?

Because the things that we work on when.

When I'm coaching are all about, like, Aaron alluded to in not too many words, but, like, the.

The self confidence.

And, you know, I feel like I've been talking about this a lot lately.

Like, I feel like I think the word is audacity.

Maybe.

Maybe that's not the right word.

But I look back at.

Just because I didn't know what.

I didn't know that the titles and stuff.

I mean, literally, I look back and go, who did I.

Who did.

Who did I think I was like.

Like, what the heck?

And I'm.

I'm grateful that I had confidence, but no reason to feel confident, dude.

I had zero experience in anything.

And I just was like, I, we're gonna.

We're gonna do this.

So the heavy.

And then.

And then also.

So having that confidence in myself where I didn't.

And I kind of started later in life, y'.

All, you know, like, my.

My entrepreneurship didn't start until I was 40 or a little into my 40s, almost 45.

So I had all that experience to sort of just be bold and.

And do whatever, but the.

The titles and stuff never mattered to me.

And also, you Know again, Aaron saying something about the pants and we all put our pants on the same way.

Oprah's quote is, we all poop.

I love that one.

But the other one is also, I've been now in this long enough that we have this feeling that because it's a big organization or because it's a CEO or because they're the C suite folks or whatever, that they have their shit together and they know what they're doing.

I'd say that they don't know what they're doing, but at all.

Nobody at the top doesn't know what they're doing.

They're just freaking doing their best.

And it's a show now.

I just said it.

But it is like.

And you go.

And the first time you're like, what?

And then that.

That's very cool experience actually, because it really normalizes that.

Oh, I'm just going to show up.

Right, Aaron, Lauren, Just going to show up, show them what I got and we'll see what happens.

So that's what our job is as a coach to do, is teach those skills, teach that self awareness, the confidence, build the skills.

And at the end of the day, they got to just make that choice to stand on their own two feet and who they are.

Yeah.

Anyway, makes sense.

I always think too, at the end of the day, I always say, you know, I've never been to a funeral yet where someone is at the podium talking about the person that's passed as they were the greatest accountant ever and they had their spreadsheet by five o'.

Clock.

They talk about character, they talk about they made you laugh.

They talk about they were kind.

So I always think you're only as good as the role, so to speak, while you're in it.

But you can be as good as you are as a human and as a person your entire lives.

Okay, quick break.

Have you seen the traveling sales ladies?

Exclusive coaching collection courses built specifically for sales pros who live out of a carry on buyer mindset.

Road safety, work, life stuff, all of it.

Actual coaches, no fluff.

Take advantage of our bundled package for all courses.

Grab the link in the show notes and let's get back to it.

Angie, if you see something on the news and you're like, you're going out on Southwest, you said, where are you headed, if you don't mind me asking?

Oh, this next trip I'm going with my mom to see my sisters in Portland.

Okay.

Portland, Oregon.

Yeah.

Okay.

So if you saw that there were protests happening and not to get into Politics.

But if you saw protests happening in Portland, would all of a sudden that make you nervous to go or would you be like, not my issue, I'm going.

The things in the news contribute to how you travel or how you change travel plan.

I mean, not in the United States, they don't.

To me at this time, I can, I definitely think about it currently, especially my son and his girlfriend headed to Australia day before yesterday.

And you know, I, my sisters, speaking of, my sisters are great travelers.

I, I do get thoughtful about it, but I'm not traveling internationally very often.

If I was traveling internationally, I would give more pause.

My sisters doesn't slow them down.

They don't have any kids.

They travel internationally all the time.

And yes, I was thoughtful about my son and I said we need to make sure we have communication set up before you go so that if we need to contact each other, we can.

But it's, but as far as stuff in the U.S. it's, it's, it will be on my mind.

Likely while the war is happening.

Yeah.

How about you, Aaron?

Well, when the government was shut down and a lot of air traffic controllers weren't coming to work, I said I had a trip in December and I said, I'm driving, I'm not going to be flying.

I'm not going to fly.

I'm not going to put myself in that situation.

I'll just drive.

It's 12 hours.

I'll listen to a book or two.

But then they came back to work and I ended up flying.

So to me, that's the biggest hurdle, is if the air traffic controllers aren't coming to work, I'm not going to risk it.

That's.

Or set.

Or the, or the second string.

Or the second string air traffic controllers?

Yes, yes.

Would I go to a place with massive riots?

I, I think that I would think about that and then I would figure out how to go around it.

The news sensationalizes a lot of things.

So where is it?

Is it controlled to one area?

Am I going near that area?

That's what I would be thinking about.

Yeah.

How about you, Lauren?

Because we've talked about this in the past, right?

If you travel, travel, travel, then flying doesn't bother you.

But if you stop in between, you tend to be a little more nervous about that.

So as far as events coming into play, I was telling you, I share the same thing.

If I'm on a plane day in and day out, I have no issue still just go, go.

But if it's been a little bit of a Break now my mind's wandering, but are you like that too when it comes to events?

I am.

In fact, I just had this conversation with a girlfriend of mine that was visiting last week down here.

She's got a family destination wedding to Mexico in three weeks.

And she is really stressed out because she's trying to figure out, you know, do I want to be that person that cancels.

But she, on the other hand, she's thinking, I don't want to go with all the unrest and everything that's happening in Mexico.

She said, I don't want to go, to be honest.

So she's torn.

And she still hasn't decided it'll get, she'll make that decision.

I guess it'll be a game time decision for her, but.

It's more for.

Me what's happening in the airline industry.

So I did fly, fly during the government shutdown.

But I'll tell you right now, I was stressed out the entire flight and I called a very dear friend who is on the national transfer board, transportation board, and I was like, you know what, what would you do?

He said, I'd probably go, but I'd give it some thought.

And I, you know, it wouldn't be a clear cut.

I will go.

Um, so I kind of do my research and I think about it and for probably at nauseum.

But yeah, it does affect, you know, it, it does affect, you know, the airlines especially.

I don't want to hear that, you know, that they're short staffed on the tsa, that they're short staffed on, you know, the folks that are guiding planes in.

That freaks me out for sure.

Yeah.

Sometimes I think ignorance is bliss.

Right.

We could all just shut the TV off for the week before we travel and we'd be the happiest travelers in the whole airport.

That's right.

Of not listening.

So anyway, I, you know, what was interesting too is I find myself if, if there's a near miss or I don't want to get on the road of tragedy or whatever, but I mean, you hear about these situations where high turbulence forced an emergency landing.

If I'm flying the next day, in a weird way, I'm thinking, well, my probability would be so highly unlikely that that would happen.

Get that out of the way.

Now that that happened.

Now that that happened and those four, you know, but that sounds so cold.

And it's not meant to be cold.

It's just human behavior, you know, of.

Okay.

That can't happen twice, you know.

But yeah, that's so funny that you said that because totally, totally.

I'm like, okay, I'm probably good.

That's so terrible.

That's terrible.

You want to know if we're going to get into this kind of conversation, I think about those airplane mechanics.

Are they treating you good?

Are you happy that you're here?

Did you really make sure that everything was screwed in or are you sticking it to the man and I'm gonna have to pay for this, you know what I mean?

Like I wanna know, are you happy?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Talk about the importance of culture.

Yes.

Oh my gosh, that's true.

For sure.

Yes.

Well, how about when they say there's a delay because of a maintenance issue and people are all cranked up and I'm like, people, I don't want to get on a plane that isn't safe and just jury rigging it a little bit to get it off the ground.

Like, oh God.

Are you being safe little today?

Yeah, I know.

Are you being lazy today or are you going all in?

Like I need to know.

Yeah, yeah, I need you to be.

All in, non lazy today.

All in.

And I never want to hear.

I do appreciate those airport folks that are working that are all in.

Thank y'.

All.

Yes.

Appreciate it very much.

But please don't ever tell me to move my seat to balance the plane.

I've had that happen.

That does not comfortable if I'm being honest.

Can we balance some passengers that should be all electronic, digital, not.

Not human, I don't think.

But that's just.

Oh, they're eyeballing you.

And they're like, wow, she's a little bit of a heavy, heavy set woman.

We're going to put her on the right side, side and in the back.

And then I'm like, why am I moving?

Is there a weight issue or what?

It's the menopause.

Oh, that's funny.

That is funny.

That is a good one.

Hello.

Good one, Good.