Andrea DeWitt 0:05
Effective leadership is an inside job. We got to know what’s going on in the inside. If you’re being triggered by something, emotionally triggered, you’re not at your best. It means that you’re reactive, you’re not responsive.

Blake Schofield 0:27
Hi, I’m Blake Schofield, founder and CEO of The Bridge to Fulfillment®. Mom to three, USA Today Top 10 Professional Coach, and former corporate executive who got tired of sacrificing my life for a comfortable paycheck. My mission is to expand perspectives to achieve greater impact at home and work without sacrifice. This is The Bridge to Fulfillment®.

Blake Schofield 1:03
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Bridge to Fulfillment®. Today, I have guest expert Andrea Mein DeWitt. She’s an author and sought out speaker and dynamic leadership coach who teaches high performing leaders to see and step into their power, potential, and truth. Her career is proof that you are not too old and it’s not too late to pivot, modify, and revise your perspective, so you can become a better version of yourself. After more than 30 years as a successful academic, Andrea bravely shed her cloak of education and took the courageous and transformational leap into the world of coaching. Her platform teaches that it’s only through attuned awareness and self compassion that we heal ourselves from the inside out and form a potently powerful foundation to live authenticity in our truth.

Blake Schofield 1:50
I really enjoyed my conversation with Andrea, as I often say, success leaves clues. We may all get there in different ways or use different words, but proven principles always shine. Our conversation around being able to recognize when you’re out of alignment with your core values, what to do when you feel emotionally triggered, and how to begin to gain a deeper level of self awareness to become a more effective, happier, better balanced, and more fulfilled leader is really powerful. And I’m excited to share that with you now.

Blake Schofield 2:31
Good morning, Andrea, thank you so much for joining me on the bridge to fulfillment podcast.

Andrea DeWitt 2:35
Well, it’s a pleasure to be here, Blake!

Blake Schofield 2:37
I’m so excited to have you here. I know there’s so much synergy in the work that you do, the work I do, the lessons that we have learned together. And I believe there’s such power in sharing our stories and sharing what we’ve learned to help light a path for others who maybe haven’t experienced that transition or are currently at a place in their life where they’re trying to figure out how to create more of what they want. So with that said, I would love to open it up to you and have you share a little bit with the audience, about who you are and what your journey has been that’s led you here today.

Andrea DeWitt 3:12
Well, thank you, Blake, I always start off by saying that my story is proof that you’re not too old, and it’s never too late to really live an authentic life. I am a, an author, speaker, and a leadership coach. But I didn’t start out that way. I had a 32 year career in academics, everything from teaching elementary school and being a reading specialist and a mentor, to teaching at the college level. And when I was in my early 50s, I kind of had this moment where my, the wise woman that lives under my skin, was up for a job at the college and the dean called me to schedule the interview. I said to the dean, you know what, thanks so much. And I thought I wanted that job. I don’t think I want that job.

Andrea DeWitt 3:59
Right there. I kind of changed tracks. I mean, it’s like, the wise woman under my skin change tracks before I really knew what she was saying. And that’s when I decided to switch from academia to go back to school and to earn my coaching certification, which was really trusting that everything I had was right inside me. And so I’m 62 now. So I’ve been doing it for about 10 years. And for anybody that’s listening, when you hear that call of the hurt, listen! Because that is your intuition telling you to follow it. Because everything we do, even the mistakes, really lead us where we need to go. And you touched on it, I think in your intro. I think that the battled and bruised healers are the best healers because they know the pathway. And it’s okay to make mistakes because mistakes is where the magic happens. Truly.

Blake Schofield 4:55
Yeah. 100% I love that for you in that moment. When you were offered the opportunity you listened to yourself saying no. And this is something I think so important in our society, that I think is time to bring back. Meaning, as a society, I think we teach our children to ignore when they have to go to the bathroom, and wait for someone to tell them, to hug somebody they feel uncomfortable with, to do things that they don’t feel right about. And we don’t really encourage from very little to listen to what your inner compass, what your intuition is telling you. And so what I’ve seen really so much is this big disconnect. Adults don’t listen to or haven’t been listening to themselves for a really long time.

Blake Schofield 5:39
Or second guess or doubt. Well, I’m hearing No, but I should want this. And that’s what I said that I want. And then, and this is how we end up in a life that’s really misaligned and really unfulfilled is that when that moment comes and you hear no or you hear yes, you don’t trust it. So I’m interested to hear from you. Was it literally just out of the blue? Or had you been experiencing maybe more frustration or lack of joy or things coming up to that, that also, when that moment came, and it was like, No, I don’t want this job, you could connect it back to more than just that one moment of insight?

Andrea DeWitt 6:17
That’s such a great question. Blake, I think that dissonant experiences were so afraid to have them. And I think that dissonant experiences often are the most informative experiences. When you have and I do a lot of work with core value lead leadership. And so when something doesn’t feel right, when we have a dissonant experience with something, something you feel like it was a correlation, like this does not feel good. It’s important to listen to that, because that is telling us, Yeah, not that. So what do I need to do to bring myself back into integrity? And I think, especially for women, I think we’re, you said the word should, and I think we should ourselves a lot. I should be doing this, I should feel this, I should be making, you know, six, seven figures, I should be doing this. You know, we stretch ourselves until we just are drained energetically.

Andrea DeWitt 7:15
And I was tired of being drained energetically. And my desire to really be a better leader helped me get curious about leadership. I knew that I was an effective leader, but I didn’t think I was the best leader I could be. Because I got triggered a lot. And I started looking at okay, well, this is, you know, I miss but then when I, when I’m stressed, I go here. And that’s really not good leadership, how can I really bring in all parts of myself, and so that, that’s what really led me to looking at the qualities of effective, strategic, resourceful and graceful leadership. And so that’s really what set me on this journey.

Blake Schofield 8:00
Yeah, just so you were experiencing sort of this lack of energy, not the same joy or passion, and then the moment of not that?

Andrea DeWitt 8:09
Well, and the other the other piece is, I think that we were identities that no longer fit us. I mean, I had worn this academic teacher, mentor, college instructor identity, and I was, you know, I invested a lot of time in it. But it didn’t fit who I really wanted to be anymore. And I, I noticed that I was, I was in situations where these people that I was, you know, my colleagues weren’t happy. And I thought, I don’t want to be around. I want to be around, it was very constructive environment. And I wanted to, I want it to be around more expansive thinking. And in order to become who you really meant to be you, you need to release who you were, and be entrust. You know, my favorite saying is “Leap, and the net will appear“. Because if you’ve really tried everything you have, you know, the good stuff, the stuff that was challenging is going to serve you going forward. And I really believe that when I work with clients, I really say, you know, let’s get curious about, you know, what about that dissonant experience? Where did you learn? Wow, well, that’s gonna take us where we need to look to find out where you really want to go. Which is really interesting, isn’t it?

Blake Schofield 9:29
Yeah. I often say life is always teaching you lessons. The question is, are you listening? And I think most of us have not been taught how to listen to ourselves. And we haven’t been taught to understand how to take the circumstances we’re in and investigate deeper to understand what they’re teaching us. And every experience is teaching you something. And so it’s beautiful to hear you say, you know, as being emotionally triggered, I felt this desire for greater leadership. I wanted more expansion. And it was clear where you were at wasn’t that. I can relate so much to that because I spent 18 years in corporate retail, I kept hoping that the next job, the next company would finally make it better.

Blake Schofield 10:10
But six to nine, maybe 12 months into every job, I was like, Okay, I gotta do something else. And I just didn’t have the balance that I needed, or really wanted for my life. And I eventually began to realize, like, these changes I’m making aren’t solving that problem. And you know, at the time, I didn’t really know anyone who had transitioned out of a, you know, multiple, six figure income and do something else. And I believed I had to sacrifice and, you know, I was blessed to get connected with the right people to very early challenge my perspective on that, and change the trajectory of what my entrepreneurship business has been, and how I’ve been able to help challenge people to create that change without sacrificing, without compromising, without starting over.

Blake Schofield 10:57
But I think to your point, we often don’t think about the identities that we give ourselves, and how much holding on to those things is really destroying our lives. It’s the whole sunk cost fallacy. I put so much time and energy and effort into this, I’m so successful at the top of my field. But I’m bored, or I don’t want my boss’s job, or I don’t want to do this for 30 more years. But I’ve seen so many people say, well, I’ll just stick it out until retirement, or I’ll just, you know, X, Y or Z, not really understanding that whatever you’re experiencing today will get worse. It’s like carrying a 10 pound backpack that then a year from now is 50 pounds or 100 pounds. So when you talk about your experience in this moment of not this, how did you move from that moment of “Oh, my gosh, I actually don’t want this job, and I really need to do something next“. How did you move from that into saying, “Okay, I’m having this moment, it’s telling me my life is not aligned. The path I’m on is not what I want to do“. How did you begin to take that and say, What do I do next?

Andrea DeWitt 11:58
Well, I made it real I, I really made a bold move. I started to talk to people that were doing what I wanted to do, which was coaching. And someone said, have you read Co-Active Coaching, which is a book written by the Co-Active Institute, and I bought it and I read it, and I went, Wow, this is exactly what I want to do. And it was coaching. I didn’t know what coaching was, I thought coaching was kind of woodwork, I groobie. What is this? And what I found is this no, this is a you know, billion dollar business. And I read it in two days. And the Co-Active Institute is actually headquartered in the Bay Area where I live. I called the CO operative Institute, and I said, “What’s your next course starting?” And that was my leap, I bet on myself. And I signed up, and I did a year long coaching, intensive coach training certification. And that’s what I did. And right there, I switch tracks.

Andrea DeWitt 12:57
And so, when I did that, Blake, what I thought I was doing, what I thought it was gaining skills to help other people. But you know, what I was doing was I was learning about what made me tick and what my new identity was, and that everything that I had was inside me. And through that, through that work, I was able to go through certification, I’m, because I’m an academic, I love curriculum. So it really resonated with me. And I started a coaching practice and I, it was a superpower. I mean, I knew how to do I was like built for the work. It was quite, I thought wow, I’m actually really good at this. Because I, you know all those years of creating content, making it accessible, and then I during COVID, I wrote a book. And so the book is called Name, Claim and Reframe: Your Path to a Well-Lived Life.

Andrea DeWitt 13:50
And it is really taking all the tools, when you and I were talking about feeling lost and really wanting a way to get back. It’s about you know, Name, your emotional triggers. Why am I reacting to that challenge instead of responding to it. Claim, resonant actions that match up with my core values. When I know what my core values are what I really, really want, it’s easier just to gain clarity and to make choices that will keep me in integrity. And then to Reframe your mindset, to look at something by separating your ego and gaining a new perspective, because that’s how we get expansive. So name, claim and reframe which has turned into a whole thing. Book, workbook, salons programs, all sorts of stuff. And really I named, claimed, and reframed to get myself out of a muddy mess.

Blake Schofield 14:47
That’s awesome. I’m excited to talk with you a little bit more about your methodology and process. I know this type of process to work well. And my own version of it worked with many people that have done the same and, but before we dive into that, I think it’s important to kind of start at the place of awareness. I spent many years and I see, as a society, it’s often easier to look at the circumstances and people and things happening in our lives and believe that they are the problem. And so when you say, I recognize that I’m being triggered, I want to spend a minute here to talk about that, because what I often see is people don’t realize that they’re being triggered, or they don’t recognize that the trigger is actually a gift and an opportunity for them.

Blake Schofield 15:31
They see it as the micromanaging boss, or the, you know, terrible person on the road, or whatever those things are. And what I began to realize in this journey was that we victimized ourselves, by living life that way, by believing that our circumstances or the people around us are the reason we are unhappy. And really what it is, is projecting out what’s happening externally, right, as the problem instead of seeing it internally. So I’m interested to hear your thoughts, how does one begin to understand what emotional triggering looks and feels like for them? And recognize that versus get into what’s very standard in our society of thinking, somebody or something else?

Andrea DeWitt 16:17
Well, I mean, effective leadership is an inside job, Blake. We get to know what’s going on in the inside. If you’re being triggered by something, emotionally triggered, you’re not at your best, it means that you’re reactive, you’re not responsive. So the first step is to say, my prompt, “why am I reacting to this challenge, instead of responding to it?” You know, “what about this is triggering me?” Because, you know, we all have our places, and I, in my book, I talk about masculine leadership traits and feminine leadership traits. You know, however, you know, male, female, or however you identify, some of us show up more with, you know, masculine leadership traits. And some of us show up with more feminine leadership traits. My, my goal when I work with people, and I work with myself is to be integrated. To integrate both of those, and our natural leadership traits, but also know, what are my wounded traits? How do I show up when I’m triggered? I mean, one of the most alarming things that I noticed, when I’m wounded, and I tend to go with more sort of way or ask below the line masculine, I might show up as being aggressive, or territorial, or need to be right. I mean, those are not great leadership skills.

Andrea DeWitt 17:40
So noticing, ooh, I’m being triggered. What do I need to do to bring myself back above the line? Well, maybe I need to pull in some feminine leadership traits, maybe I need to get curious and ask some questions. So that I can say, oh, okay, well, help me understand. So I’m listening. I’m being receptive. I’m creating consensus, you know, there’s emotional intelligence in feminine leadership. And so it’s really about listening. Where am I right now? I mean, you may be triggered. But you have, you have the choice to choose, again, to bring it back above the line, what I would say above the line, to maybe show up in a better way. And that takes internal exploration, in the moment.

Blake Schofield 18:29
Yeah, and it also takes the willingness to take the time for yourself?

Andrea DeWitt 18:33
Our world works so quickly. We get, we get emails, we get texts, it happens so quickly. And I have a dear friend, who, her name is Sandy Abramson, she said, breath specialist. And she always talks about taking three deep breaths. And when I’m in a moment, I think, Okay, I’m going to take three deep breaths. And it’s, it gives me thinking time to just collect myself, because who do you want to be? I think I don’t want to be that triggered person. I would rather be the leader that elevates the energy of the room, than the one that is reactive. I mean, that’s, I want to follow the person that’s taking a deep breath, and thinking again, and choosing again, because you will be triggered, we all are. But you can choose again to respond. And you can even say, wait a minute, you know what, I’m sorry. Can I try again? Let me ask that question again. Because you caught me off guard there.

Blake Schofield 19:33
I think that’s a beautiful thing. And, you know, depending on the circumstances, the people around you, the industry or the company that you work at, I think some are set up to be more aware of emotional intelligence and the impact of leadership and others are not. But to your point, you always have the ability to control and take that time and what I often see is that we are reactive, because we are not honoring ourselves.

Andrea DeWitt 20:02
We are out of integrity.

Blake Schofield 20:04
Yes. And I think that’s so important because like I said, it can be easy to feel like you’re being taken advantage of or, you know, this person is asking you to do these things or putting things on your whatever that might be that I have experienced or seen in so many ways, in a work environment. And, but the reality is, in that moment, you are feeling, to your point out of integrity, you’re feeling like your needs aren’t being met, you’re feeling like you don’t have a voice or you don’t have control. And it can be as simple as a few deep breaths, it can be as simple as, you know what, that’s a great question, can I get back with you. It can be as simple as can I take a moment. And I think just being able to allow yourself to try these things.

Blake Schofield 20:50
Allow yourself to take that space, to your point you begin to see, what I see consistently with my clients is that they show up as better and stronger leaders. When they were afraid if they took care of themselves, they wouldn’t be seen as not team players, or, right, would not continue to get promoted. And it’s been the exact opposite, because we need more leaders who are aware of who they are, their emotions, and therefore are better leaders for their teams, and helping their teams manage stress, anxiety, overwhelm, lack of clarity. It is not that we don’t have enough time, it’s that we often aren’t spending the time that we have to get clear and still enough to see and know the right actions to take.

Andrea DeWitt 21:32
The key word that you just said, is team. When you’re working on a team, we’re thinking, Gosh, I’ve got these skills, you’ve got these skills. Wow, if we take those things that you’re good at and these things that I’m good at, and we pulled together. Oh my goodness, wow. And so when we think about, you know, when I think about really being a more effective, more integrated leader, think about “Wow, how can we harvest the best of all of us?” And that is by getting curious first and asking questions. And I mean, I’m always wanting to follow the leaders that are asking the questions saying, Yeah, I’m really not sure. Let’s talk about this. What do you think, okay, you think this, I think this, lets, you know, let’s think out of the box here, what could we do?

Andrea DeWitt 22:23
And I think you have more buy in from your teams. Everybody’s in, everybody’s part of it. And you talked about feeling seen and heard. My goodness, when we feel seen, and we feel heard and we feel valued. You’re all in. When you don’t, we shut down. We feel constricted, there’s fear, you don’t think, you know, I’m, no one’s listening to me. I don’t matter here. I mean, it’s just, it’s, it’s constructive. And I’m always thinking about how can we expand? How can we change perspectives, and oftentimes, when we separate our egos from it, and we were able to shift our perspective and see it a different way through, there’s so much available.

Blake Schofield 23:08
There’s so much power in that. And, to your point, I think, for me, when I started this journey, you know, I left my corporate career after 18 years. I started my entrepreneurship journey. And like you, what I came to realize was entrepreneurship was a personal development journey. And through that journey came to really understand a lot of the challenges that I had been having in my life and career really had nothing to do with the company, the boss, the industry, the role. Some of it did, some of it was absolutely never going to be aligned with my values and what I really believe in in terms of creating purpose in my life. But a lot of it, those same challenges came with me. And that was, for me, the big Aha moment to begin to really understand, oh, this is how you really work to create the change.

Blake Schofield 23:58
And this is why I spent 10 years making all these changes and didn’t really solve that. And I think the beauty for me and what I learned and you know, I’m just echoing what you’re saying in terms of leadership is the more I understood myself, the more I healed myself, the more I learned, to honor what I felt, what my values were, how I showed up, the more I put in boundaries to protect what was important to me and communicate that to others. The more I could understand others around me. The more I could see and understand what they were feeling and experiencing. The more I could see areas and places that I could help them. And the more I could see how I could show up and help lead people in a more powerful way. I often call it lead the leader, because I often see leaders struggle to lead the highest level, you know, executives in the company thinking that they don’t actually have the ability to do that. And in doing so, they actually give up the power that they actually have in that role, the visibility they have in that role, and therefore don’t really fully support their team in the most impactful way.

Blake Schofield 25:05
And so, you know, as we talked about this, I think just being able to apply what you’re talking about, right, name it, recognize it, name it, claim it and reframe it, you can control how you show up. And the more you understand this about yourself, you can help those around you show up more powerfully. And when all of those things work in an environment where people feel safe to feel whatever they feel, they feel safe to share what they share, the amount of collaboration and cooperation and possibility grows exponentially. It’s so incredibly powerful. But I think we often talk about leadership in terms of like, very tactical things, not understanding the biggest and most powerful way to show up as a leader is that level of self awareness, that level of authenticity, and then being able to create that safe space and authenticity for those around you.

Andrea DeWitt 25:59
What I hear you saying, and I use this word a lot, is really owning our part in whatever is going on. I mean, if you have a conflict, you got to own up to your part of that, that conflict. You know, I mean, and the best leaders to me are the ones that say “Okay, we’ve got a problem here, I’m gonna take responsibility for my piece on it, let’s, let’s come together and talk about this what happened?” I think there’s, there’s not enough ownership sometimes and earlier, like talked about people, you know, playing the victim, you know. When we play the victim, you that’s reactive. I mean, you’re back in your power when you’re, when you are the victim, you’re, you’re reactive. You know, if you are responsive, then you’re taking ownership. Okay, so this happened, but I’m gonna take ownership for the fact that I didn’t see that coming. That’s a, let’s be responsive here. I think there’s so much more when we can be collaborative and cultivate bridges. Instead of tearing them down, build them up.

Andrea DeWitt 27:06
And one of the, I always use this example, because I think the best negotiators bring a lot of, they have masculine vision, yes, they want, they have goals, they have you know that they know what they want. But they come into that negotiation with a lot of feminine ingenuity, and that they are receptive, they listen, they are trying to create a connection with the person they’re negotiating with. And right there, you know, you’re gonna, you’re gonna get more bees with honey than you are with vinegar. And so anytime you go into a conflict, if you can create that lets you know, we’re all in this together. Again, we go back to the team, how can we work together to make we’re so much stronger together. And in there is emotional intelligence. And I noticed that with a lot of my clients, they’d be really reluctant to show their emotional intelligence, in meetings to show emotion. But guess what? That is your superpower, when you can read the room, maybe this isn’t a topic that I’m going to bring up at the, in this conference room, maybe I’m gonna go and just talk to somebody on the side. And let’s come up with a plan together about how we’re gonna approach this really controversial subject or this strategy that might be a little bit tricky for some people. I mean, I think there’s so much here, and how to we can be integrated.

Blake Schofield 28:25
I love that so much. I would love to dive a little bit deeper into that, because I agree with you. The ability to read the room, understand how people are feeling, intuitively feel that something is right or wrong, is so powerful. And I think it’s a place I see people constantly giving up their power.

Andrea DeWitt 28:43
Yeah.

Blake Schofield 28:45
Either they don’t feel safe, or they doubt themselves. And I would love to just dive deep into this, because one of the most powerful things we can do is, is utilize that. And I think, you know, at least from my perspective, you know, I came from retail, I’ve worked with clients across many industries, the medical industry, media and TV, healthcare, just a whole host of them and consistently what I still see in many cases, you may not see it as much in California, because I definitely see demographically, there are differences, but there are still a lot of heavy, masculine principles around leadership, especially as you get higher up in leadership. And then therefore we are disowning or not really leveraging the fullness of our gifts. How would you speak to somebody who does have those natural gifts but feels like maybe it’s not safe? Or they’re not sure how to best use those to move things forward in an organization?

Andrea DeWitt 29:41
Well, I mean, I started by saying leadership starts from the inside. And Blake, I call myself a warrior in recovery. Because I lead most of my life as a warrior talked about masculine leadership skills. Oh, my goodness, I think if any, we all were under the impression that we had to show up, you know, assertive, courageous, we armored up to be, you know, to just, you know, barge in, push our way through. And I did this for most of my career. And once I said, Yes, I was. But I also felt like I intimidated people, I maybe didn’t get the most out of the people that I was working with. And so I really had to look at gosh, what am I missing here, when I come in so strongly masculine, and both men and women have both masculine and feminine leadership or how I should say, oh, however you identify, what am I missing here? And what I was missing was the ability to get curious and to listen.

Andrea DeWitt 30:50
When you listen, you gain new perspectives. And you also say, I see you I value you. Let’s, let’s collaborate here. There’s also innovation here. There’s resourcefulness. There’s versatility. And there’s also, you know, Brene Brown and one on one vulnerability. I want to follow that leader that’s willing to say, I’m not sure how to solve this. And I’m going to tell you I’ve not done this before. So let’s talk about this, because I think there’s there are ways we can do this, that are thinking out of the box. Let’s talk about it. Wow, I want to follow that person, don’t you? Because we don’t have all the answers, do we? We don’t always have all the answers, maybe, you know, everything we’d lead has led us to this challenge, but maybe we don’t know quite the way through, let’s talk about it. And right there, we’ve disarmed. And underneath our armor, I would say, is our magnificence. And when I’m working with clients, we look underneath there. And for me, as a leader, and I can save the client, my clients, underneath my armor, and all of our armor is our authentic selves. And that’s the ultimate integration, both sides of your wholeness.

Blake Schofield 32:12
100%. And it takes, it takes work and intention to, I think, ultimately, to come back to that. And remember that, right? Because we all end up with conditioning or things that we’re told or how things have to be in order to be successful. But I, like you, was the same, right? Very much a driver type A perfectionist, top of every company I ever worked for, delivered results, but was often told early on in my career that I was intimidating. I didn’t think I was intimidating. I didn’t understand why people felt that I was intimidating. I felt like I had to have all of the answers. As the leader people were expecting that from me.

Andrea DeWitt 32:53
Can I ask you a question? Because I’m curious now.

Blake Schofield 32:57
Yeah.

Andrea DeWitt 32:59
So underneath, because I would say I would say that’s kind of a warrior archetype. So what was underneath? What was your warrior afraid of? This is the stuff under the armor, what was she afraid of?

Blake Schofield 33:10
For sure, very typical of what I see with all high achievers, which is a belief system that you’re not really as good as other people think that you are. And it’s something we don’t talk about, far, like nearly enough, to help people understand that this is in a lot of respects part of the journey and the belief systems that we formed in childhood that just aren’t accurate. But if you are going through life feeling like you have to achieve in order to be successful, and that you’re not really as good as everyone else thinks, you won’t be open to showing that maybe you don’t know the answer. And you will feel fear, doubt, and anxiety if you get negative feedback, or if the work that you’re doing isn’t performing to the degree that you expected it to. And I worked in corporate retail and merchandising where you got a scorecard every day, you got sales every day, how your business was doing. And you know, I often think I worked at JC Penney for about seven years. And on Mondays and Fridays, we would have pep rallies, Andrea, and they would pull all of women’s apparel together and they would quartile each buying team and they would celebrate all the people in the top 25%. And if you are in the bottom, 25% you felt like crap.

Blake Schofield 34:24
And I have always been somebody who transforms people and businesses. So I would end up getting the business that’s in the fourth quartile. And I would you know, alongside my team work, and then be at the top. I was the my team was the number one team for two years in women’s apparel after being the worst, right, and I, I there was a piece about I love winning and being at the top of that board. But man, when you were not it was atrocious. And it was very made very clear that if you didn’t perform very likely you would get fired. And so I was in an environment that was also exacerbating that on a consistent basis, because there was this constant judgment and constant fear that you weren’t good enough. And if you didn’t perform right, you weren’t safe no matter what you had done previously. And I see that consistently with the clients that I’ve worked with that most of us that are high achievers. Are high achievers, because we were rewarded for achievement, or we felt like that was what was necessary in order to be loved safe or successful.

Andrea DeWitt 35:26
So I would argue that you mean, my goodness, when you’re, when you’re going every week to get that? That’s feedback, right? And it’s one, it’s one measurement. You know, this is what sold, these departments sold. And so if you were to shift your perspective, and look at that feedback in a way that you could respond to it, instead of reacting to what was your reaction to the feedback? What did you do? Because of the feedback? How did you react to that feedback?

Blake Schofield 35:55
Well, I mean, when you’re excited, right? You go buy more.

Andrea DeWitt 35:59
But what if you, like, when you say your team didn’t come in high? What was your reaction when you didn’t come in with the high numbers? What was your reaction to that feedback?

Blake Schofield 36:10
Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, this was, this was decades ago, but at the time, right, a lot of panic, stress and anxiety. It was alright guys, we have to fix this problem, we have to fix it now, that was the culture of the organization as well at trial. So even if it was like, Hey, this is okay, it’s just one week or things didn’t deliver, there was massive pressure from the top down of your numbers are bad, you need to explain it, we need to understand, you need to fix it. And so it was honestly, for me when I left that organization, almost 15 years ago, almost when I left that organization, I left because I felt like I was going to have a heart attack before I was 50. And what I was, I was very successful, in fact that your before I left, I was the number two, my team was the number two team out of the entire company out of 90 Buying teams. But I just kept saying to myself, this is not worth it, like the level of stress and anxiety.

Blake Schofield 37:05
And, you know, as I often share, if you don’t grew up in a home or environment where people teach you these skills, you don’t even know that there’s another way to process it. I didn’t even, like, I’d love that you had the awareness that you were being triggered. The reason I went back to that, when you talked about it is I was emotionally triggered a lot. So I didn’t even have the awareness to understand that there was a choice. Right? It was just like, oh my gosh, this micromanaging boss, or oh my gosh, this job’s so stressful, or oh my gosh, it’s this industry. Or oh my gosh, you know, to be in a successful career like this, you just have to sacrifice and it is like this. And so the reason I share that is because what I’ve consistently seen as most people don’t have the awareness at all, that through their day, they’re being triggered over and over and over and over again, because they’re literally living in fight or flight. And so they don’t even have the capability to stop and say, I’m being triggered, give me three seconds to calm down.

Andrea DeWitt 38:03
Exactly. And when you get feedback, like for instance, you know, just when you’re explaining every week getting that feedback, that feedback is not about you. It’s about the powers that be. So what does it tell you about the company you’re working for? If you separate your team’s performance, you know, this is I have a whole chapter about feedback, you know, refining feedback. So what does it tell you, Blake, you know, because what is tell you about that companies? What they value? What do they value?

Blake Schofield 38:34
Competition? Yeah, it’s a, it’s a beautiful thing, when you.

Andrea DeWitt 38:41
It’s right there, you’ve separated your, it’s like, this is not about me.

Blake Schofield 38:45
It never ends. And the environment was set that way. But it’s like, it’s a beautiful thing, like, like I said, to be able to understand those things. Again, I think most people, when they start their career, don’t know that they’re like, What company will hire me and I want I’m really excited about this job. And don’t really understand that each company has its own personality, has its own approach, has its own value system. And that, you know, I was a merchant or a buyer, that buying job, I did it multiple companies, it was a completely different job at each company. And that was where I started to really gain the awareness of, hey, this buyer, your job is not the same. And every company is not the same. And so I never had the awareness early on in my career to understand that I could look and understand what the company’s culture was and determined it was in alignment with my values.

Blake Schofield 39:40
I will say that working at JC Penney, that was my third corporate experience. And I remember, in the first month, I must have cried six or seven days, and the first month coming home. And I remember saying to my ex-husband at the time, I remember saying to him, wow, these people are really mean and some of the things they do don’t feel right to me. But I’d gotten a huge pay increase. My old job was a really far drive. And so I thought I just needed to suck it up and figure it out. And I did that for seven years and figured out how to navigate an environment that was in this alignment with who I am as a person and what I truly value. But yeah, I didn’t even have the capability or the awareness at that point to see what you are talking about now. And I think often people don’t know that. I talk to people all the time in their job search and they don’t know how to look for the signs because they don’t understand what they value. And then what that would actually look and feel like inside the right environment and that is so critical to have the right fit.

Andrea DeWitt 40:49
I really believe in what you’re talking to me, you know what you’re explaining to me in the lens that I’ve looked at this as making it was that core value lead decisions. You know, leadership is as helpful and to me, you know, when a client comes into a session and they have a kind of dissonant experience, the first question I will ask, okay, what core value was violated? When we can understand what about this has taken me out of my integrity. Because, you know, when you were explaining driving home and you’re in tears, okay, that’s a core value violation, something isn’t right here. And what do I, what do I need to do to bring myself back in integrity with myself, even when we have to do things that we don’t want to do, Blake. If we can choose a core belief, a core value to lead with, that will bring ourselves back with an integrity, and maybe that’s going this job is not for me. I need to find something where I can use these skills. This isn’t working for me, like when the dean called me and said, Let’s schedule that interview. And I said, yeah, no, no, thank you. But thank you so much. But no, thank you. That was a core value lead decision. And I had no idea what I was gonna do. But man, was I an integrity.

Andrea DeWitt 42:13
And I think I love what you were saying about I think it gives us permission to I think dissonant experiences, oftentimes are way more valuable than resonant ones. Because, you know, when we, you know, be with ourselves, we cannot sleep at night, because we are out of alignment with our integrity, we got to choose again. And if more people ask the question, ask themselves those questions, and got honest with themselves. And I will say that I don’t think I was really honest with myself, until I was probably in my early 40s, because I was, you know, trying to do whatever, doing the shoulds, right? And I see I have millennial aged children, and they are so much more honest with themselves. Well, maybe because I’m asking questions too, if I’ve invited into the conversation, I’ll ask a question that will say, Well, gosh, what about that is hard for you? Because when we can ask ourselves those questions, it can help us to really zero in on what’s not, what I’m not okay with.

Blake Schofield 43:16
Yeah, and I think as a society, we have begun to understand the importance of these things.

Andrea DeWitt 43:24
I think so.

Blake Schofield 43:25
We all learn uniquely, and we have different skills, and we have different ways of working. And that when you honor those, you get the best out of everyone. And that really wasn’t the case. 20, 30, 50 years ago, it was you just have to suck it up. And that was a lot of the cultures I was in early on in my career, you just need to suck it up and get it done. Right.

Andrea DeWitt 43:43
That’s when the Warriors were running the show. And now we all can choose to be gentle warriors with not that we’re going to get rid of that vision. But we can choose to lead with all sides of ourselves. I mean, I think my, when I get triggered, my warrior shows up, she sits on my shoulder. And I’ll say to her, Yes, I know, we could slay the dragon, we could we could slay the dragon. But you know what, there’s an easier way to go about this. And there’s a more intelligent way and a more resourceful way. So let’s, let’s try that. But I hear you. But that’s not smart, resourceful, strategic leadership. And I think it’s, it’s really, I mean, it’s more intelligent leadership, isn’t it? And it’s, and I’m, my favorite word right now is grace. And sometimes grace is keeping, keeping your mouth shut and listening and asking questions.

Blake Schofield 44:43
Yeah, I think what you said about being able to recognize that it’s a core value misalignment is super powerful. What we’ve talked about the entire time we’ve been together is about understanding how you are reacting or responding. What are you feeling emotionally triggered about? When are those dissonant moments not shutting yourself not ignoring them? Not projecting or blaming those externally but to stop and question and listen to yourself? And I think one of the lessons I wish I could go back to that mid 20s or early 30s Blake and say is stop asking other people their opinion of how you feel about this circumstance. I think women in particular do this a lot. We give away our power to somebody else in the belief system that they can see it more clearly than we can. And because they don’t have the same value system we have they don’t really see or fully understand it. Most people don’t have the gift and most of the people that we ask are not impartial, or they don’t have the gift of asking the questions to help us pull it out of ourselves

Blake Schofield 45:57
And so I spent many, many years talking about my lack of fulfillment, what was going on in my career, only to be met with, well, you should be happy you make a great income. Why don’t you just get a hobby? Why don’t you XYZ? Instead of really being able to understand my value system and life is people. Always has been. And when I was working in an environment that was only focused on consumerism and selling people things, I was never truly going to be fulfilled no matter how much how successful I wasn’t, no matter how many companies I went to, there was always this deeper desire of like, I thought my life would be more meaningful than this. For me, at the end of the day, my life is about creating that purpose and the impact I make on people. And it was never ever going to match the industry or the work that I was doing, no matter how hard I tried. And externally, if people, the person I was asking didn’t understand that we would never solve the core root issue of why it was misaligned.

Andrea DeWitt 47:00
Absolutely.

Blake Schofield 47:03
Andrea, it’s been such a pleasure talking to you today. I love hearing your journey, your approach in this and how you are really helping people understand that they have the power to create so much more for what they want for their life and for others and their business. Let me just end with this. Are there any questions I didn’t ask you that I should have, or anything that’s just really on your heart that you would like to share before we wrap up?

Andrea DeWitt 47:30
Well, we’re having this conversation, Blake, because I have a second book out. And it’s called the Name, Claim and Reframe Workbook: Your Companion Guide to Well-Lived Life. And we took the power the my best selling book, and we, we wrote a workbook. So people can use Name, Claim and Reframe, and really apply, try that system on, for themselves in a workbook. And it’s available with my book, anywhere books are sold. And I’m really excited because I’m seeing that organizations are using my workbook to help people be more resourceful, and strategic and graceful. With each other, and with themselves most. most importantly.

Andrea DeWitt 48:15
So that is, the one thing I do want to plug is are all my books, because it’s really helping people to live more fulfilled life was which I’m hearing is what you are really looking forward to. And me too. Life is so much better when we’re happy and feeling fulfilled. And I think that there’s more harmony, and the world would be such a better place if we all felt more aligned with our truth.

Blake Schofield 48:42
And we often don’t realize or even understand how much we give up not just for ourselves, but for those around us the impact we can make when we are not in alignment. And the huge gift that we get when we step into who we really are, what our gifts really are. And being able to have those real, authentic, vulnerable, truthful relationships with our friends, our family, our co workers. I love that you said grace, grace is another core value of mine. And I think we often don’t realize that stepping into stronger leadership is often about giving ourselves grace, about acknowledging the places where we feel like we haven’t done as well as we could or where we’ve made mistakes.

Blake Schofield 49:29
And the beauty in that, like I said, in my journey, when I see with my clients all the time is when you can love all of the parts of who you are, you can accept all of the parts of who, you know, of how you feel and what you’re experiencing, you begin to realize that we all have the same in human experience. And really to give grace to yourself that extends in your ability to give grace to others. And what a beautiful gift that you give to so many who don’t feel like they can give themselves grace. It’s just an incredibly powerful thing.

Blake Schofield 50:03
Well, thank you again, Andrea, I really appreciate it. And for those of you guys who are listening, I hope that you will take what Andrea has shared. And just in the next week, stop, when you feel an emotional trigger. Give yourself maybe three breaths, and then go through the process that she shared. Look at what happens when you give yourself the time to stop and learn from what’s happening in your life. It’s incredibly powerful will enable you to show up much happier much healthier, much more aligned and therefore a much better leader.