Better than perfect! Guest: Joanne Trotta

Today, Joanne shares with us why she exchanged an (enviable!), high-level executive role in big corporate for entrepreneurship and how this journey positioned her to build her successful venture.

We're illustrating how and why to share an origin story. If you're considering how to tell your story, it can be difficult to decide: What to share? What to hold back? How to tie your journey to your ability to help clients today? This is a brave, open and focused discussion. You will see from our discussion that the key is to find those pivot points. When did you reach the end of the road with what you were doing? Why? What did you do about it? How did life change as a result? How do you offer greater value as a professional because you went through this transformative experience?

Why are these origin stories so powerful? They are relatable. They are connecting. As Joanne openly shares here, they are authentic and vulnerable, quite the opposite of the perfectionism we were once taught to pursue. So, in some ways trying to be perfect might be a hidden obstacle on the way to building trust, the cornerstone of success in professional practice. 

So, what's better than trying to be perfect then? Leaning into your true voice, more and more every day, and playing a bigger game as a result. 

If you are interested in learning more about Joanne Trotta, please go to:
https://www.leadersedgeinc.com/

You're listening to Get in the Driver’s Seat! We’re telling stories about leadership moments in small to mid-sized professional practices. I’m your host, Sandra Bekhor, Practice Management Coach for lawyers, architects, consultants and other professionals at Bekhor Management.

Transcript

00:55

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. This is 'Get in the driver's seat'. We're telling stories about leadership moments in small to mid-sized professional practices. I'm your host Sandra Bekhor. Practice Management Coach at Bekhor Management. I'm excited to introduce our guest today. Joanne Trotta, Managing Partner at Leaders Edge Inc. Her firm offers leadership development, specialized training, coaching and consulting services to medium and large companies worldwide. Capitalizing on Joanne's 20 plus years of corporate experience in telecommunications and energy and services, she helps organizations achieve success, including selling more products and services, cultivating the right culture and leadership competencies, driving improvements in employee engagement, customer satisfaction and bottom line results. She works with Global Fortune 500 & 100 companies, not for profits and associations. Welcome Joanne.

08:35

Thank you so much Sandra for the opportunity to be here.

08:41

So it sounds like you've had an exciting career. And we're going to learn all about how you got here. Because our theme today is telling your origin story. So for anyone out there who has ever thought about sharing their journey in a way that strengthens connections with clients with community, this conversation is for you. And we're not going to tell you how to do it. We're going to show you how with a brave, open hearted, focused dialogue. So Joanne and I have discussed some questions that will help us to guide our conversation towards telling this story in a way that is focused. One of the things that we talked about that is important in telling your origin story is to know how much to share and how much to pull back on. So that you're helping the audience to come along with you in a way that is compelling without telling them everything that happened to you in all 50/40 years, whatever, that's past. Okay, so I'm gonna get started with the beginning. Joanne tell us a little bit about what was it that got you to decide to leave corporate? Because when I look at your LinkedIn, I can see you had some juicy roles. Corporate and not just corporate, like big corporate. You were sitting pretty there and you could have stayed there for the rest of your career. What made you jump and go off to start your own business?

10:24

I love sharing this journey because it took years of personal and professional development to push me out of my comfort zone. The organization that I was working for at the time, unbeknownst to me, created an opportunity that opened Pandora's box in terms of really pushing me to follow my following and my true passion which has always been leadership. I mean, you look at my track record. I've been a leader my entire career. Even when I was growing through university and when I was in high school, every job I took I ended up in like leadership or management or in like some sort of head or lead role because I loved rallying people. I loved creating excitement. I love challenges. I love working with people, and I have followed that path my entire career. When I was in corporate, we had partnered with a UK based firm. Our executives partnered with them to offer leadership development. When I was in corporate, training was in my portfolio. But I wasn't a facilitator. I wasn't out working with teams of people internally on skill development. I had teams of people that offered that to our organization. Well, we had actually partnered with a firm to offer leadership development to all of our executives right down to frontline leaders, high potentials. And I got selected to get certified because we wanted internal leaders to support one another to embed some of the best practices and common language. So I got tapped. And I'll never forget this conversation. So my boss says to me, we want to put you through a certification process. We want you to go through the program first. But then we want you to go out and start training all of your colleagues some senior leaders, right down to frontline leaders across North America. Hey, I thought he was kidding. I had all of operations. I had a very busy job. Long story short, fast forward, I took the program. I fell in love with it because even though I had been on this journey of self improvement, how do I rewire what's going on up here so that I can actually achieve my goals? And even though my track record looked great, that's not how I felt internally at all, because I had been struggling with anxiety my entire life. And again, we didn't go around advertising it. That's not something I shared. Because mental health, early in my career, it wasn't even a topic of discussion. So the appearances are that Joanne had it all together, calm, cool and collective. But that's not often how I felt internally. So I was doing a lot of work. And I have always done a lot of work in terms of, well, how can I actually start to feel comfortable in my own skin. It wasn't actually until that partnership took place. I got certified with the program itself, which is still one of our marquee offerings. So I'm now partnered with that firm, I've pivoted out of corporate. I started training my colleagues and that's when I realized I was like internally doing this work. I found my true calling. I had always loved leadership development. But now having the opportunity to coach and mentor and support leaders get comfortable in their own skin. And I had found my calling

13:47

It is such a great story. It's interesting how being in corporate gave you the gift of something that you would do out of corporate.

13:58

Truly a blessing. Yeah.

14:00

And that manager obviously had a very good instinct to pick you for that program.

14:08

His rationale was you have the lion's share of teams in the organization. I had the largest number of you know, indirect reports, big teams, lots of responsibility. And he said your engagement scores are really good for your functional teams. You've got to be the right fit for this job, man. We'd love for you to do it. I was really nervous. So how do you go from leader of a team to now facilitator of soft skills and hard skills? It took me a while to get really comfortable with that transition also.

14:42

Makes sense. And you know, thank you for sharing that because some of our listeners may also be embarking on some kind of change like that, but hesitating with what today is known as impostor syndrome, thinking, Well, I don't know if I'm the right fit. Maybe someone else could do it better than me. But just for them to hear that, you know, anybody embarking on something like this is going to have some of those feelings. It doesn't mean it's wrong for you. It means it's new.

15:17

I honestly, believe like those sentiments around, I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough like that internal wiring. That requires work, because if you listen to it, it will get in the way every time and I have a flurry of self sabotaging examples, which we're not going to talk about here. But I kept getting in my own way until I did the work to rewire what was going on in my mind. Okay, that internal dialogue so that I could actually start to feel comfortable in my own skin and it took a long time. And it's a never ending journey.

15:52

Yeah. So being patient is part of being successful.

15:59

Absolutely. Well you understand that also,

16:02

I do and I'm known for being patient. But I think part of what helps people to learn to be patient is to recognize micro success along the way. So even if you have this big, big, hairy, audacious goal, like this is where I'm going. Okay, great. That's great. It may take you six months to start you know, really seeing progress. But every day, if you really look, there's some kind of shift that you could find. And if you learn how to train your brain to notice those little shifts, it will help you to be more patient with the process. Joanne, can you talk about your version of what I just said?

16:49

I love what you just said Sandra around you have to train your brain. Part of that is planning. Part of it is prioritization. Part of it is being intentional and purposeful. So I think in order to achieve and recognize and celebrate those little wins, we've got to be in the moment. Okay, we've got to be present. We've got to be intentional and purposeful, which means, you know, planning, like having a big goal is wonderful. But how are you going to get there? It doesn't happen overnight. You and I both know that. A lot of hard sweat and tears went into building the practice that you have and that I have and there weren't all wins along the way. You need to feel you know those failures or oh gosh, why didn't that go well okay? They're not interested in my services. We need to feel the failure or the situations where things don't go well in order to really appreciate the wins and being like kind to yourself and setting realistic goals. Like prioritization is key because success means different things to different people. My goal wasn't to create this multimillion dollar firm. My goal was to enjoy what I do, really help people, help organizations level up their performance, but enjoy the ride. Enjoy the journey. I have amazing relationships with my clients. I feel like I'm an extension of their team because we go deep, we go deep, we do the work. We do the work that is required to achieve those big audacious goals whether it's in corporate or outside of corporate.

18:31

So that actually leads me to a question that goes a bit deeper on this. Why did you leave corporate to start your business? So you had this opportunity handed to you to go and do the training. And then you did it and it was working well. So it seems like you had everything. So why did you leave?

18:52

I recognized and again, being respectful, the organization I was working for at the time was going through a lot of organizational change. And let's be frank, sometimes we see examples of leadership that does not exude the leadership that we would advocate. Okay, and at that point, we were going through a massive reorganization, massive reorganization, I would have ended up having to pivot in my career because we were shutting down our Canadian headquarters within 18 months. So here I am, I get this gift of becoming this facilitator right so they invested in my own development, professional development, which is pretty cool. But I recognized I was like, why am I hiding? Why am I hiding? Why am I playing small? And I just decided I was going to continue to get help that I needed to rewire you know what was going on there. And when I got professional help, I talked to an actual therapist. And it wasn't until that moment that she said to me, Joanne, why are you here? Like why are you here? You're a coach /consultant. I said, Well, I can't coach myself. And through that discussion, the light bulb went off. And it was an opportunity for me to rewrite my story because I had created a narrative that wasn't true. And so I started to do the work, okay, to help me get comfortable in my own skin. So I had the confidence to show up as authentically as vulnerable as I could. So I could create that safe environment, okay, in partnership with my clients, but also selfishly for myself. I heal. I learn. When I'm engaged with my clients. It's a very selfish proposition because I'm learning from them. I'm a seed planter, but it also helps me stay on that path and continue to do the work so that I can lean into this new narrative that I've created. It's been very freeing for me. The imposter syndrome is gone. It appears every once in a while. But now I know how to silence it. So that I can I can just show up and do good work and enjoy the process along the way.

21:06

Well, and that's why you're able to help your clients because they're trying to do what you just did for yourself.

21:14

In a lot of cases. Yes. Yes.

21:20

Well, okay, so can you share with us a little, You talked a bit about how you found support along the way now, I'm a big believer of course, we're, we're coaches and consultants. We are big believers in looking for support. Because you could coast you know, and just keep getting a little bit closer to your goals every day. But when you ask for help, the help that you really need, then you take a bigger step up. And I love the phrase you used Joanne about why am I hiding? Why am I playing small? Because I do think that's the difference. The difference is asking for exactly what you need. And then that's when you start to play bigger.

22:05

Being willing to accept the help.

22:06

Yeah. Being willing.

22:09

To truly accept it and be vulnerable enough to say I don't have all the answers.

22:17

Who taught us that we're supposed to have all the answers?

22:22

Well, the bar is high right? We set the bar so high that we create a lot of that pressure and perfectionism is not our friend. Perfectionism sometimes, you know, gets it gets in the way. I have chosen to remove that word from my vocabulary because it is not realistic.

22:46

Okay, so talk to me a little about that. Because I think that these are examples of, you know, you talk about the narrative in your brain and what you want it to change so that you feel successful, so that you feel happier in your life, and you're moving towards your goals. And I think when you talk about perfectionism or needing to know everything that kind of, you know, controlling feeling, these are the types of self sabotaging methods that I think are relatable to pretty much everybody. So can you talk about that idea of perfectionism, of removing perfectionism? What, what did it used to look like? What does it look like now?

23:29

Perfectionism? Years ago, before I made this big, big shift. I assumed I wasn't capable like I had such a negative mindset. Actually, contrary to what others might have seen. I was always very optimistic. I was always very supportive. But my internal dialogue Oh, I was very unkind to myself. Why would they want to listen to me? I don't know what I'm talking about. And I would do the work. I would do the prep. And most of the time, it was good enough. But it wasn't good enough for me because I had set the bar so high and actually used to use the word. I'm a perfectionist. I used to market myself that way. And it wasn't until I realized I'm using language that is unkind that I had to do some work on also the language that I was using. Life is all about choices. All we can do is prepare, do our best and show up at our best and it's going to be good enough in that situation. Like when we have unrealistic expectations of ourselves. Sometimes we set ourselves up for failure because they're just not achievable. So I think part of it's about being prepared. It's about doing the work and doing the best that you can and if you need help, be vulnerable enough to say, I need some help. I can't do this alone. We now live in the world of collaboration. Okay, bravado, leadership. Those days are long gone. It's about collaboration and support teamwork. It's about bringing people to the table to achieve collective success. You don't have to go that journey alone. Why would you put so much pressure on yourself? And I actually say that a lot. So leaders don't feel like you have to figure it out, collaborate. Talk to people, make them part of finding a solution, change management 101, do it together, involve as many people as you can. So that together you achieve collective success.

25:29

Those are great examples of how letting go of the need to control, the need to know everything, the need to present as this authority figure. You know, sort of learning how to let go of all of that actually will lead you down a path of more engagement with your team, which I know you post a lot about on your LinkedIn and these are some real sort of concrete ways that people can see a shift from here's what it looks like when you don't try to understand, why do I have this need to control, why do I have this need to be perfect or to seem authoritative. Without making those shifts, your team may actually feel that from you and be disengaged.

26:20

Because it might not land as authentic to them. Which dampens trust, it actually breaks trust. It creates potential challenges in the relationship, right? Because it's all about trust. It's all about people at the end of the day. And when we're not authentic and true to ourselves. People can feel it. You can feel it right when someone's trying to tell you something because it feels like I'm saying all the right words, but it's not authentic. It doesn't align with who you truly are. You're not speaking your truth.

26:52

I love that you brought up authentic and I know this is very important to you as it is to me and can you tie authentic to that feeling of perfectionist? So if you say well, I used to be a perfectionist, I even used to use it in my marketing language. Well, if I had asked you 10 years ago, is being perfectionist authentic, do you think you would have said yes?

27:17

Naively at the time, probably. But now? Absolutely not. Perfection is like you're striving for whether it's an image or a set of standards -it's all great that the bar has been raised in that they're high and you want to do something awesome, but it's just not realistic. Human connection happens when we can be ourselves, when we speak our truth, when we're comfortable in our own skin. It doesn't happen overnight, like between individuals. But authenticity is key. It's part of building trust and creating mutual respect with other people personally and professionally.

28:04

So well said. So it's almost inherently true. That perfectionism is not authentic.

28:12

Can't say so. It can't be because it's not realistic.

28:17

That's a gold nugget there.

28:21

Well, thank you for helping me find it. We found that nugget together. Sandra you and me.

28:28

Are there any other stories that you can think about that relate to your clients and in a way that you see them playing out something that isn't authentic to them, and because of what you've gone through in your own journey, you are better able to see it and to help them let go of it. And what is the success that comes out of letting go of it?

28:54

I love that you asked this question because I'm presently working with a lot of newer leaders who are going through that transition of how do I pivot from an individual contributor, team member to leader. I'm listening to stories and challenges that they share, and unknowingly and we actually talk about this in the work we do. Unknowingly sometimes we end up repeating how we were treated. By our current leader or previous leaders, good and bad. We repeat those behaviors because we become products of our environment, at the time, knowingly and unknowingly. And I say knowingly and unknowingly because sometimes we make a conscious choice. Oh, I love that style, or I love that approach. I'm going to replicate that. And I see sometimes newer leaders trying to be like their existing leader or a past leader, and I'm like, hold on a second here. Let's talk about your values. Let's talk about your beliefs. Let's talk about your strengths. Okay. Let's find the leadership philosophy that's going to work for you based on who you are, play to your strengths and guess what amazing things will happen. And again, that's a journey in itself, but that's a big one that I see a lot especially with newer leaders that are making the transition and have that accountability now to lead, to inspire, to help motivate others.

30:24

It's a very interesting concrete example of how finding your authenticity actually makes you more successful as a leader, particularly at that first leadership challenge of having your team. I've seen this play out, it's really tricky. Particularly when sometimes you have to manage your peers, who used to be your peers. And can you just talk about Joanne the other piece of this that might be tricky for some of our listeners. Is when you're in a bigger organization. I know these are your clients, bigger organizations, and you are leading your team within that. So finding your authentic, authentic voice, your authentic style, your values, all of that is great. How does that connect to the bigger picture for the company and in a way that makes you successful within the bigger picture and aligned within the authenticity of the company?

31:20

You asked such a great question because that's so important. That's actually part of the discussion that we have in some of the group work that we do, which is we have a discussion around are your values truly in alignment with the organizational values, are your beliefs in alignment, are the behaviors that you observe in alignment. Most people don't stay if they're not in alignment, they will pivot out because it feels very sketchy, it feels very unsafe. Where you might not feel comfortable being authentic. And just based on my experience, and watching people in transition. When values are in alignment, magical things happen, when we can identify how we add value to the organization's bigger picture. Amazing things happen, right? That's part of the emotional connection. When you know exactly how you can make a difference, doesn't matter how small or how big that might be. That's where high performance lives that's where employee satisfaction lives. That's where employee engagement lifts.

32:27

Yeah, actually, I've done a few podcast interviews with owners of professional service firms that talked about just this topic, where you know, how did you get to the successful stage in your career of running your own firm and, you know, growth and all of that, to the high profile. It's about leaning on these shared values, and looking for a way to hire people and to partner with people both in your firm and you know, within your greater network,tThat share your values. Doing it very intentionally starts with knowing what your values are, which we were talking about earlier.

33:07

Absolutely, getting that clarity is like your internal compass, right? 

33:12

I think there's also fear in walking away from the company. So you know, if you're coaching somebody and they're realizing, okay, these are my values, actually, they're not really in alignment with the company, then they're probably going to feel fear that you know, what does that mean? I'm going to lose my job, what's going to happen to me? And the same thing happens with my clients that you know, talk about, Oh, okay. Well, if I get clear on my values, and I'm not in alignment with my partners, now we're going to have conflict, maybe we're better off just leaving things the way they are. Or maybe I don't really want to rock the boat with my referral network and talk too much about what matters to me because maybe they won't agree.

34:01

Right opportunity to act as an internal like Change Catalyst. Thinking differently, is okay, we want that diversity of thought we want people to chat and I hear this a lot from the executive teams that I work with, in the various organizations that I support. We don't want order takers. We want people that are going to challenge, that are going to offer different points of view. Because we want to drive innovation, we want to drive creativity and not aligning with groupthink is leadership in itself. It's having the courage to say actually that's really interesting, but I actually have a different perspective. Here are my thoughts. That is an example of leadership in itself. It's having the courage to speak your truth and to try and collaborate, innovate and get others to think differently and together come up with even better ideas. I think it's a great opportunity sometimes to level up and truly show your value.

35:03

That sounds like at the heart of your own path, that you actually had to find your own values. You talked about that, but finding the courage to speak them. That that actually is hard. Can you talk a little bit about that because it sounds like that is something that you did for yourself and now that you were able to help others do.

35:28

Part of the journey that led me to exiting corporate. I felt like part of that and I wasn't sure how this was going to play on our conversation, but I'm going to be really transparent. I'm going to be very respectful. Also. I was asked to do something that did not align with my values, which was kind of like calling others out or trying to lay blame or point fingers because there was a lot of chaos going on in the organization at the time. We had a lot of like billing issues, ongoing challenges. And I felt compromised, and that's when I realized it is now time to take the plunge. Entrepreneurship, I was always enamored with it and there was a little bit of it in my family also. So I always thought maybe at the tail end of my career, I'd become a consultant. I didn't think sort of like mid to the latter part that I'd be pivoting out. I thought I would save that for you know the tail end because that's what a lot of, you know, executive senior leaders do. They'll spend a ton of time in corporate and they may go off and support other organizations. But my values I felt were compromised, which really helped me solidify my decision. I was already down that path but then it was just like the nail that just sealed it right on the head. I was like this is, I gotta go. This isn't for me anymore. It's time for me to speak my truth and to carve my own path and so I did

36:54

And you get it respectfully,

36:59

Very respectfully.

37:02

That's great. And your story sort of illustrates that even if you feel that fear while you're, you know, confronted with okay, this does not align with my values. Maybe I should just you know, get smaller and just go along with it. You could, that's always an option. But it's helpful to hear these stories because it reminds us that if you face that fear what comes after it may be actually be better than what you have now that feels safe.

37:33

Oh my goodness, so much better. If I stayed, I would have been unhappy. I was up for the challenge. I've never shied away from a challenge, but I would have never landed here. I had no idea that there was something so amazing waiting for me on the other side. But I wasn't willing to compromise my own integrity to do something that just felt so wrong.

38:03

There's a lot of noise in the marketplace these days about diversity. Some of it to me doesn't sound authentic, you know about being really open or just doing the policies. And I feel like I'm at least just from what I'm seeing with clients with what I'm reading online, that sometimes people are afraid to rock the boat on these issues. And that really takes a lot of strength of character. This is where authenticity shows up in a way that can possibly make a difference not just for yourself, but for everyone at your organization. Is there anything that you can say about this Joanne that just, you know, that you have seen maybe with your clients, where you inspire them to have a little more confidence to use their voice and maybe to do it like you said, in a way that is respectful? That doesn't rock the boat harder that needs to be rocked?

39:04

What a what a powerful discussion. I mean, that requires a deep discussion. And those moments have come up in my practice, whether it's through my private coaching practice or the group work that we do at the leadership level, where you could have the fanciest values and mission statement, you can have all the policies in place, but when it isn't in alignment with the behaviors that you're seeing in the organization, that's where it creates conflict. That's where it feels uncomfortable. And very delicately. I have partnered with some of my clients, okay, let's figure out how you can use your voice in a way that's going to honor you. I'm very direct in my communication. I'm very respectful, but I'm also very direct. Let's figure out a plan or a strategy that will allow you to use your voice in a very kind, but purposeful way. And I do work with some leaders that are a little more bold and they have confidence. And so it's like there's almost like they just need permission to say... Is this right? Is this wrong? Because they're in it right? So they kind of need that sounding board to say this just feels wrong, but I just need a third party perspective. And then I'm just the extra little support mechanism that they need to use their voice sometimes. But yes, like that happens a lot. You can you can come up with the best values, mission statement policies, all that wonderful stuff. But if you have leaders that don't live it, breathe it, aren't in alignment with it, it will create conflict for others and themselves I'm sure too.

40:43

so having those people that you can go to for help it whether it's your coach or consultant, your therapist, whoever it is, your friends, your advisors, colleagues, whoever it is, that is your go to, that can actually be your way of building confidence to show up more authentically when faced with these kinds of areas where you're not aligned with your values, either with your supervisor, with your team, with your colleagues with your company. It takes courage. And what you said Joanne, what I got from what you said is leaning into those support systems can help you to strengthen your courage to go in and face those situations.

41:29

Human resources is a partner within the organization and I hear mixed messages around well I'm not sure I can trust HR, they're corporate /internal. They have an obligation to do what is right for their people. And in my experience, whenever we've had like a leader or team member lean on HR, it's been really positive. It's never backfired. It's never led to them losing their job because there's no there's an obligation there to do what's right. Don't get me wrong. I'm not naive. Okay. I know that sometimes politics exists within organizations. HR is a great vehicle but then having the courage to go to stakeholders that can actually help you. Like absolutely why would we you know, not try that? If it doesn't work, then let's come back and revisit what your options are. All you can do is try.

42:26

Yeah, because there's, you know, there's a difference between the truth of the situation and the internal fears. So if you feel oh, I'm not in alignment. I'm really scared to say something about this. Okay. Now you're listening to your fears. And that doesn't mean it's exactly accurate. So I love that you talked about how you know clients talking it out with you helps them. It's almost like checking the truth. You know, check the truth is, you know, is what I'm saying a normal way to handle something like this? Or am I really being you know, someone who's starting a fight or is my language, you know, inappropriate.

43:13

Yeah, yeah. Am I gonna be sold out for using my voice? Are there gonna be repercussions for me, you know, calling something else that isn't in alignment with who we want to be as an organization.

43:29

So I can see from our discussion, how you show up for others differently now because of the work that you've done for yourself. And I imagine that just continues to evolve and grow and I guess the problems that you'll see from clients will continue to evolve too. Is there anything else you want to share about stories or examples that you've seen from clients that relate to the you know, the changes that you've gone through yourself?

44:03

This correlates to actually what I do overall. So like, there's some common themes here. So as a leadership coach, consultant, it's about how do we help people evolve, level up, right, their performance, etc. Organizations at the organizational level also go through a maturing process. Part of that is definitely influenced by the leadership at the top, actually all levels of leadership. Okay. And I think part of the journey is recognizing where am I at, in my evolution, where is the organization at in their evolution, sometimes when we're not in alignment in terms of being at the same place or as evolved? It can feel uncomfortable, it can create conflict, it can be frustrating, actually. And it's just recognizing where am I at organizationally, that's part of being self aware and situationally aware, right? Is reading that environment. So that you can figure out okay, how am I going to add value based on the circumstances, based on the world I'm living in right now? And then it's having a plan so we can create those small wins that you talked about earlier.

45:28

And add value. I'm relating to what you're saying because, you know, as, just as you're talking about yourself, when I think back, you know, 10 years ago, what is the difference in you know, a suitable client situation for me to add value to help versus now are completely different because I've done so much growth over those years. And just very easy small examples of that would be boundary setting. You know, and boundary setting is huge in terms of creating a comfortable work life. It even relates to profitability, it relates to everything. So you know, clients who have trouble with boundaries, in their own life sometimes also create difficult situations for their coach, for their consultant. And I remember encountering that in my own practice, and not knowing how to handle it earlier in my days, and today, um, I handle it with ease. And that ease helps me to help them. So I think, you know, that's an example of what you're talking about. So, you know, I'm just remembering a few situations where clients are telling me oh, we run into these difficult clients who are complaining and it creates so much stress, like the stress is just like hot you know, at the peak when a client is complaining and they just keep calling and calling and calling and, and, you know, they don't know how to handle it. And we start talking about very simple strategies, managing expectations, right up front, being direct about what is my role, what is your role, creating policies that establish clarity for roles and responsibilities internally with your team? This is what you're supposed to do versus what I do. This is what you tell the client right from the beginning. These very simple procedures help to be game changers when it comes to boundary setting, and they make your life less stressful, and I can help with my clients with that today, whereas years ago, it wouldn't have been a good fit for me, because I had trouble with those boundaries myself.

47:48

Oh most high achievers, do.Wwe want to do it all? I want to do it all, right? Why can't we venture and start, you know, a new offering, a new market? We can only do so much. Setting prioritization works hand in hand with boundaries. Like all those best practices to help you be happy as an individual, but even at the organizational level, they all correlate. We use different language, sometimes when we're talking about things at the organizational level versus at the individual level, individual level.

48:30

Can you just say anything about anticipation? I love the idea of the empowerment that comes with helping clients to foresee these things before they happen. It's like oh, okay, yeah, I'm not good at boundaries. Oh, I need some, you know, some ways to handle it, or this is the thing that's really stressing me out. Okay, so not only are we gonna have strategies, now, let's anticipate When is this gonna happen? Can you talk a little bit about that?

49:01

Love that word because of the emotions the actual physical feeling that comes with anticipation is so exciting, or is it oh my g-d. It's the what could be possible? Part of how we take clients through that is a lot of visioning work, or what if you could, it's asking a lot of those open ended questions which as a coach/ consultant, this is what we do you I know. I'm speaking to a fellow colleague here. This is what we do. We help plant seeds by asking questions to get them to think differently. They're coming up with the big ideas. We're just supporting them through the process. It's a lot about visioning work. What could the organization look like? What could life look like for you? If you were to make the small changes? It's exploring what's possible and love visioning work, as you can tell, I think I just came alive when you asked that question, because, yeah, what's possible? What can we do? I mean, that's where innovation and creativity lives, right.

49:59

Fantastic. I think Joanne, we did exactly what we set out to do. We had an open brave focused conversation about what got you here. And it's such a great model for how do you tell your origin story? And then how do you make that connect to how clients benefit from the journey that you took?

50:24

Thank you for that, Sandra. You're my partner in crime on this journey. It's been a pleasure.

50:30

And do you have anything that you wish to add before we close? Not that you need to. We covered a lot of ground.

50:39

One thought the one thing I wrote down, okay, as I was kind of mentally getting in the zone to have this conversation with you today, which is decluttering my mind so that I can be really clear and present and focused for you and for myself. Life is all about choices. Life is all about choices. In every given circumstance, whether it's good or bad. We do have the power to choose. Which sounds so simple. But that would be my final thought to wrap up our chat today.

51:14

I love that final thought. I got shivers as you said it because it is so empowering to remind ourselves that we have choices, even if the choice is to do nothing, own it. It's a choice. And the next moment you can make a different choice. You can even make a choice to think about it later. Defer. Yeah. Oh, wonderful. That was such a great chat. Joanne, thank you for being open and sharing your journey and for your time and for your insights.

51:53

Thank you, Sandra. It's been amazing to be here.

51:56

And to our listeners. If you are interested in learning more about Joanne Trotta, please go to leadersedgeinc.com You've been listening to Get in the driver's seat, stories about leadership moments in small to midsize professional practices. I'm your host, Sandra Bekhor, Practice management coach at Bekhor Management. Take care of everybody.