756: When It Feels Like You Don’t Belong, with Muriel Wilkins

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:00]:
You may have spent years aiming for the leadership role you now have, but now once you’re in the job, it can be really disorienting to feel like you don’t belong. A conversation today about this reality that a lot of us run into and how to handle it when you do. This is Coaching for Leaders, episode 756. Production Credit: Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:32]:
Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is Coaching for Leaders and I’m your host, Dave Stachowiak. Leaders aren’t born, they’re made. And this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom through insightful conversations. One of the things that leaders run into, I certainly have in my career and I see it all the time and the folks I work with, is feeling like we don’t belong. We don’t belong in the role, we don’t belong in the room, we don’t maybe even belong in the organization. It’s such a common and normal thing for leaders to run into. And the question is, when we do run into it, how do we handle it in a way that’s effective for us and the people around us that we’re working to support Today, I’m so glad to welcome back a guest expert who’s going to help us to navigate that feeling a bit when we run into that moment when we feel like we don’t belong.

Dave Stachowiak [00:01:27]:
I’m so pleased to welcome. Welcome back. Muriel Wilkins. She is the founder and CEO of Paravis Partners and a sought after C suite advisor and executive Coach with a 20 year track record of helping senior leaders take their performance to the next level. She is the co author of Own the Room and the host of the Harvard Business Review podcast, Coaching Real Leaders. She’s just released her newest book, Leadership Unlocked: Breakthrough the Beliefs that Limit Your Potential. Muriel, always a pleasure to talk to you. Welcome back to the show.

Muriel Wilkins [00:02:00]:
Thank you so much, Dave. The feeling is mutual. I’m delighted to be back.

Dave Stachowiak [00:02:04]:
This is so normal, this feeling of feeling like we don’t belong. I still run into it occasionally in my work and I’ve been doing this for 15 years. The role I’m in today, it is something that is so common in so many leadership roles, isn’t it?

Muriel Wilkins [00:02:23]:
It sure is. Right? It sure is. And I think a big piece of it is when we recognize that we’re not the only ones who feel that way or might have that little voice in our head that says that it can lend itself to saying, oh, not only are we not alone in this, but perhaps There are others who’ve dealt with it, and we can learn from it.

Dave Stachowiak [00:02:43]:
There are all kinds of places this shows up, but there are places where it does tend to. And times when it does tend to show up a bit more. When you’re working with folks and you see this show up more, what are the indicators? What are the times that it does tend to happen?

Muriel Wilkins [00:03:02]:
So the way that I see this show up is probably in two different categories. The first category being where a client or a leader is experiencing change, and that change might be in their role. They might have gotten promoted, it’s a stretch assignment, or the challenges around them have just ratcheted up, and it’s not something that they’re used to. And quite frankly, they just don’t know if they’re ready to deal with what’s in front of them. The second category is more when they are part of a group that historically shows up as being the first, the only in the room. And so these are any groups that are underrepresented, either in their profession or at the level that we’re at. We often see this with people of color in executive positions or women in executive positions. Anyone who really feels like they are underrepresented where they tip where they are in the seat that they are.

Muriel Wilkins [00:03:58]:
And so there’s a feeling of I don’t belong. Because when they look around, there’s nobody else there who historically has looked like them or who currently looks like them.

Dave Stachowiak [00:04:09]:
And you highlight some of the indicators that often folks feel when they are in that situation. And it’s. It’s a little bit of noticing things like feeling like others aren’t bringing you into discussions. It’s a little bit of you’re taking more of your cues from others on how you’re doing based on how others are engaging with you. It’s a. It’s. It’s external. It’s looking for the external indicators more than maybe you normally would.

Muriel Wilkins [00:04:40]:
Yeah, yeah. And so the big sign of feeling like you don’t belong is you feel disconnected, Right. You feel disconnected from your peers. Primarily, it is from. From the folks that are at your level or folks more senior than you. Sometimes it’s even with your own team. But a lot of times, the way I see it is feeling disconnected from peers, feeling excluded from discussions. And then the action or the behavior that ends up happening is that you then disengage.

Muriel Wilkins [00:05:09]:
Right. You pull back. You don’t assert yourself as much as you typically would the other way, which I don’t necessarily address in the book, but Sometimes it can go the polar opposite. The reaction to that is you overcompensate and try to push your way through to sort of force the feeling of belonging. Right. And so most people try to address it by going straight to actions. What can I do? Oh, you need to speak up more, you need to do this. But they don’t really hone in on what is leading to those behaviors and actions, which is again, this feeling which is supported by a thought, a belief that you don’t belong there.

Dave Stachowiak [00:05:46]:
And as you mentioned, that belief holds you back from engaging. And then of course other folks see you not speaking up, you seem deferential, you’re not asserting your point of view and you highlight this as it’s a bit of a vicious cycle, isn’t it? Like you’re waiting to be included and then others are waiting for you to engage and it’s. If you don’t break the cycle, it stays there.

Muriel Wilkins [00:06:15]:
Yeah, exactly. And look, this is not to absolve other people. Right? It’s not to. Should other people include you? Absolutely they should.

Dave Stachowiak [00:06:23]:
Right, right.

Muriel Wilkins [00:06:24]:
It’s not to absolve them. It’s not to absolve even a culture that tends to be exclusive and saying, oh, you don’t need to be a more inclusive culture. What I’m suggesting here is every dynamic is co created and when I coach individuals, I don’t have the rest of those people in front of me. All I have is individual who feels like they don’t belong. And so what I’m looking at is, well then what is in your control? And what is in your control is the way that you think about yourself, the way you think about the other folks and the way you think about the context. And if the way you’re thinking about it reinforces the sense of not belonging, then guess what you’re going to do? You’re going to behave in a way that actually makes you feel even more and more disconnected, I. E. Not engaging in conversation, not reaching out to those people, not trying to forge the relationships, pulling back and then reinforcing the fact that you actually don’t belong.

Dave Stachowiak [00:07:20]:
Yeah, and I’m hearing a distinction there of you’re not excusing or whatever the behavior of the other party, right or wrong. Right. It’s what’s the part of the pattern that I have control over as a leader and it’s the internal part and like I can do something about that regardless of what other folks may or may not do or the behavior may or may not be.

Muriel Wilkins [00:07:41]:
Yeah. Because, Dave, what I’ve come to learn through both my work with individuals over the past 20 years, but even my own work is for any given situation, you have a variety of options in terms of how you respond to them and therefore how you experience them. And so even if you have people who are not inviting you to meetings, who are not inviting you into the conversation, who are not asking you what you think, you can either choose to experience that as not belonging or experience it as something else which then drives and puts more power in your hands in terms of how you respond.

Dave Stachowiak [00:08:24]:
I was going to ask you about this later, but what you just said got me thinking about it right now, that there are times that people are being excluded. And it’s not just in your head, right. There are, oh, yeah, there, there is sexism, there is racism, there is ableism, and all of that is real and shows up. And as an unfortunate. It is an unfortunate reality of the world and a lot of organizations. And you write on this, at the end of the day, whether the cause of this hidden blocker is due to circumstantial context or systemic bias, you are faced with the question of whether or not it serves you to hold on to that belief. And for most leaders I work with, the answer is no.

Muriel Wilkins [00:09:05]:
That’s right. Because, you know, in a way, and look, I’m as direct with myself with my clients. This is not a sort of idealistic view on things to say, oh my gosh, no, those isms don’t exist. They absolutely do. So the first step is to be eyes wide open and say they exist. And am I going to follow the script of what they are actually telling me, which is that you don’t belong. Right. Or am I going to choose my own script? Eyes wide open that others may not agree.

Muriel Wilkins [00:09:39]:
But is that the way that I want to carry myself and walk in this world or do so differently? So there’s this notion of when we start internalizing the beliefs that others might have of us, we end up losing the control and power that we actually have, which is over ourselves.

Dave Stachowiak [00:09:58]:
One of my favorite lines in the book is this one. You write, if you’ve been invited to the party and you’re at the party, you belong.

Muriel Wilkins [00:10:08]:
Yeah. Because, you know, I always think there’s a difference between belonging somewhere and being accepted. And I think what most people are looking for is to be accepted in, in order to feel valued and feel worthy. Right. But that is a different question than whether you belong there. I mean, if you are physically at the table, you are There, where is the question of whether you belong or not? Like you’re there. So I don’t understand what the question is now. Are you being accepted by others is a different story.

Muriel Wilkins [00:10:48]:
And you have then a choice to make. Would it be easier with my path of leadership or career progression or whatever it is that I’m trying to do, would it be easier, would it facilitate it if I have more acceptance by the other? If the answer is yes, then you have a choice to make. How do I need to behave or in what way do I need to act? That would ease the path to acceptance from the other. But the danger there is is you’ve got to also make sure you’re not abandoning your own self acceptance. And that’s where people start feeling the burn. Right. And so this to me, yeah, when I work with clients and they realize, oh, I got the job, I was hired, I am at the table, I am being asked or expected to do XYZ and deliver on it, I belong, I’m here. Now the question is, how do I do this work in a way that vibes with the context that I’m in? And that’s where the acceptance piece plays in.

Dave Stachowiak [00:11:51]:
I’m reminded how as human beings, we sort of have these two things that we all really want is we want acceptance, we want belonging, of course. And then of course we all want to also be recognized as the individual beautiful people that we are. And you point that out in the chapter and say, just because you do things differently doesn’t mean you don’t belong. And uniformity is not required for this. In fact, it’s probably better if you’re not uniform because then you’re not adding value. Right?

Muriel Wilkins [00:12:24]:
Yeah. I mean, look, Dave, if you sort of peel back the onion on it, this need for belonging, and I know it’s not a word we used often in the workplace, but for to feel loved. Right. If we go according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it’s one of the fundamental needs after, one of the essential needs, after physiological and safety needs.

Dave Stachowiak [00:12:45]:
Yeah.

Muriel Wilkins [00:12:45]:
And so there’s no wonder that we go and look for it in one of the areas in our lives that is so dominant, which is work life. The question is though, there is this sense of if you were to come to work with a healthier sense of you actually already being worthy, actually being somebody who’s valuable, you don’t look for it as much in terms of identifying whether others accept you as an indication of your worth. Right. It’s just an indication of Whether they accept your work or not, but it does not value you any less as a human being. And I think that’s where people get it twisted. Right? They try to. They. They almost try to fulfill a need that has been laying low for a very long time that may have been unmet in other aspects of their lives or earlier on in their life, and try to get it rewarded through work.

Muriel Wilkins [00:13:41]:
And sometimes work does provide you with that, but sometimes it doesn’t. And so then what? Right? And so my suggestion here with my clients who face this is if you recognize that you do bring value to the table, you know what value you’re bringing to the table, there is a place for you here. You are here. You belong here until you’re told not to be here. Right? Then, yeah, you don’t belong. You know, if you get. If I get kicked out of my house, you know, I don’t belong in my house anymore, but I belong somewhere else on the outside, but I belong over there.

Dave Stachowiak [00:14:13]:
Yeah, indeed. There’s some really beautiful mindsets you invite us to consider, and one of them, I think, captures so much of what you said, is instead of waiting for others to make you feel like you have a seat at the table, act like it’s yours.

Muriel Wilkins [00:14:30]:
Yeah. But you know, Dave, like, I have a lot of empathy and compassion for individuals who carry this narrative. I’ve been there myself, by the way. Okay. And it’s taken some self coaching and some work and some practice to even come to grips with. No, I actually do belong. And the reason why I have compassion and give folks grace around this is because it’s no surprise that we tend to identify our worth through external validation. Right.

Muriel Wilkins [00:15:02]:
When you think about it, much of our life is based on making sure that we are responding to how external people think about us. When we go to school, it’s the grades that we get even before school. You know, do our parents smile when we do certain things? Can we make our parents laugh? And then we get into, you know, if you choose to, and you go look for a relationship, right. And a life partner. Then you’re like, oh, am I doing? Am I responding to that person’s love? Languages. Right? And then at work, it’s reinforced. We get performance reviews and our salary and our bonus and our promotions are all grounded on what other people think about us. So there’s no surprise that many, many individuals live, quite frankly, their whole life based on reacting to how others think about them and letting that then drive how they behave.

Muriel Wilkins [00:15:57]:
And there’s a whole notion around adult Development theory that says actually they’re only, I think, what the research shows. This is based on Robert Keegan’s work and others, but I’ll name him. There’s research that shows that only 35% of adults actually reach a stage where they overcome their reliance on others approval to be able to gauge their own worthiness and their value. Right. And the nirvana of it is when you can hold both. Right. What I think about myself is important and what others think about me is important, but neither one actually dictates my value. I am valuable.

Muriel Wilkins [00:16:38]:
I do belong no matter what.

Dave Stachowiak [00:16:41]:
Yeah. As you were saying that, I was thinking about that last part of that line, act like it’s yours. It’s really easy to say that. And we all want that for ourselves and others and for the person and persons. And in fact, most of us who have gone through all of the things you described at our life experiences and haven’t really been able to consistently hold both. Both the external, yes, I’ve got all that things, but also the internal. When you see leaders start to turn the corner just a little bit on that and start to be able to hold a little bit more of the internal. Of like, okay, regardless of what some of the other external variables are that I feel like I can show up and belong and contribute, what is it they do or think that starts to help them to turn the corner just a bit?

Muriel Wilkins [00:17:32]:
Yeah. So first of all, let me just say it feels very uncomfortable. So when I see leaders, particularly my clients, get uncomfortable because they’re holding things differently, I’m super happy because I’m like, okay, we’re on to something now. But it feels uncomfortable because you haven’t. This isn’t the way that you’re used to holding the fork. Right. You’re holding it with a different hand. And you had the capacity to hold the fork all along.

Muriel Wilkins [00:18:01]:
You just weren’t holding it in this way. Okay, so A, I celebrated. That’s the first thing. Right. Again, give yourself some grace, give yourself some compassion. That it might have taken a while, but you’re there. But what I also start seeing is that they start being a bit more inquisitive around their behavior. So rather than just acting, rather than just saying, I’m speaking up, let’s get real tactical.

Muriel Wilkins [00:18:27]:
Right. I’m speaking up in meetings more or I didn’t speak up in a meeting, they will actually pause and reflect. And it doesn’t take a tremendous amount of time and say, what is it that I’m telling myself that is getting in the way? Of me speaking up in that meeting, or what is it that I’m telling myself that is enabling me to speak up in the meeting? That is the biggest thing that I see differently is they go under the hood to really look at the operating system, to look at the assumptions that then drive the model. And then when it starts becoming second nature to do that, I know we’re onto something. Because they can then apply that across the board Whenever they feel dissonance between how they’re behaving and the impact that they know they want to make. Rather than just say, I’m just going to change my behavior, which ends up being a flash in the pan, they’re able to say, okay, before I change the behavior, let me understand what’s driving that behavior. That’s within my control. Right? That’s within my control.

Muriel Wilkins [00:19:32]:
Because I know that when I look at that, I have various different options of which when we get to this, I don’t, you know, I don’t belong here. It’s what, other than beliefs or assumptions that I can, that I can make that will then drive the assumption. So they start opening up the window, the aperture of beliefs that they can actually hold.

Dave Stachowiak [00:19:53]:
And to your point, that’s uncomfortable. And when you were saying when folks are seeing some of that discomfort, like, that’s a bit of a celebration for you of, like, great, that means they’re moving. I had that same thought of when I see that with the folks I work with, I’m celebrating too. And yet it is sort of ironic in the work we do that we’re not aiming for discomfort ever. And yet discomfort does tend to be highly associated with learning, movement growth, trying something new. And so when I see that, I often have a similar response to like, oh, good, like, yay. That you’re, like, doing that and pushing yourself. And it often is the thing that’s the leading indicator for someone really shifting how they show up.

Muriel Wilkins [00:20:41]:
Yeah. I mean, it just tells me something’s happening. Right. And so I actually, I don’t know. You know, you say we don’t aim for discomfort. I aim for discomfort. I don’t aim for danger. But I tell my clients from the get go, like, we’re going to get uncomfortable.

Muriel Wilkins [00:20:54]:
Okay. And if you’re not willing to get uncomfortable, then I don’t really know if we need to be doing this work because the discomfort is not for the sake of the discomfort, as you just said it, Dave. The discomfort is. It’s an indicator that something is happening. The reason why it’s hard to Open up the aperture. The reason why it’s uncomfortable to move to the different beliefs is because, you know, we chatted a little before this around Marshall Goldsmith’s. What got you here won’t get you there. We’re so attached to the beliefs that we believe gave us success, which they did.

Muriel Wilkins [00:21:28]:
Right. They are what got us here. We’re so attached to them that we’re afraid if we let go of them that all hell is going to break loose, we’re no longer going to be successful, rather than seeing that, hey, beliefs are actually malleable and you get to pick and choose which one is going to be most helpful to you in the circumstance, in the context that you’re in. And oh, by the way, just because you let that one go doesn’t mean you need to let it go forever. You’re actually not letting it go. You’re just putting it to the side for a little bit and picking up another one. Right. You can always come back to it when you need it.

Dave Stachowiak [00:22:06]:
You have some wonderful invitations on first steps that can help us. Like when we find ourselves in a situation and we’re feeling like we don’t belong for whatever reason, that helps us to get started. And one of them is the invitation to define your value proposition. Tell me what that looks like.

Muriel Wilkins [00:22:24]:
Yeah, I mean, I think this is key, right. And let me sort of scratch a little bit below the surface on why one might feel like they don’t belong. I was just having a conversation with a client on this yesterday, and there’s a common thread, and the thread is that somehow we feel like we are not deemed as worthy in that particular situation. So in my client’s example, it was in senior level meetings. He’s already somebody who’s senior, but it was people who were more senior than him and he was experiencing the. I’m not speaking up as much as I typically do. I’m not engaging in the way that I typically do. I don’t.

Muriel Wilkins [00:23:05]:
I’m not sure what’s going on. And then when we got to, he’s like, I feel like I don’t belong there. Okay, what is it that makes you feel like you don’t belong there? He’s like, I don’t really know if they value what I have to say. And there’s that word, we all want to feel valued, of course. And so what I did in that situation, I said, look, let’s forget them for a minute. Do you value what you have to say? And I think a lot of people bypass that step. They Expect everyone else to find what they have to say, who they are, their role, everything that they do as valuable, and yet they haven’t bought into it themselves. Right.

Muriel Wilkins [00:23:47]:
And so this whole exercise of defining your value proposition, nobody is going to hand that to you on a golden platter and say, here’s where you add value, maybe do early on in your career, but the more senior you become, the less that happens. So you better well figure out for yourself what is the value that I bring to my team, to this organization, to my role, to. To this meeting, and walk in with that as the stake in the ground and then use external people to validate or mis. Validate that hypothesis. But you better have a starting point. And so the starting point is let’s actually put pen to paper. Let’s define what is the value that you bring to this meeting if we get that concrete. And one of the ways that I think my clients have found it really helpful to do that is I sort of turn the question on them and I say, well, what difference would it make if you were not in that meeting? You specifically, not your role, not your position, not your title, but you specifically, Dave.

Muriel Wilkins [00:24:47]:
Right. If you weren’t the one doing this podcast, what difference would it make? And then they are forced to sort of list it. And I’m like, there’s the value, there’s the secret sauce.

Dave Stachowiak [00:24:58]:
Yeah, that’s huge. I was just thinking about a conversation I had with a leader, a similar situation that you just described this week. And one of the things that came up in that conversation is he said, if I don’t say this, no one else in our organization ever will because they don’t have the technical expertise, the background, they don’t know the risks and all those things. And we zeroed in on that as the value proposition. And what a great way to surface that of being able to decide what is that for each one of us.

Muriel Wilkins [00:25:30]:
Yeah. And I think the other thing that happens, Dave, is a lot of times we sort of get mixed up around what the value is that we actually bring and what the value is that we think we should bring. And particularly when we are in the game of comparing ourselves to either our peers or those more seniors. So what I have found is particularly, and this was what happened with my clients, is he was feeling like he wasn’t bringing his value to the table because he was initially placing expectations on himself that he needs to deliver the same value that the senior level people are delivering. And I was like, that’s not your job. What’s your job. And we made a distinction between Their job is to be able to make decisions around where to invest. His job is to be able to provide information and facts and alternatives so that they can then make informed decisions.

Muriel Wilkins [00:26:29]:
He can give a perspective, but he’s not the decision maker. And so the level of expectation that he was placing on himself was out of whack with actually the value that he needed to bring to the table. And it was therefore even undermining the sense of what he could deliver and therefore making him feel like he didn’t belong, reinforcing that narrative.

Dave Stachowiak [00:26:48]:
Again, speaking of reinforcement, one of the other actions you suggest is reminding yourself of the shared values and goals with the group. What is it that’s helpful about that?

Muriel Wilkins [00:27:00]:
Yeah, I mean, look, I think particularly in this aspect of I don’t belong, there’s a sense of isolation and disconnection. And so the work, there is. Where are the. Rather than focusing on where there’s disconnection, try to find where there is intersection. And the intersection may not be the one that you would like, but as long as there’s some intersection, focus on that. And so part of the work is, okay, where do we have some commonality? Do we all want. And it doesn’t matter what it is. Right.

Muriel Wilkins [00:27:30]:
I think most people are like, I want everything to be in common. We all like each other. We are aligned on all the goals. We all approach our work the same way, and we all have the same perspective. That’s not the reality of it. But if there’s intersection around. Okay, using the example I was just using, if the intersection is, we are all here to make sure that the best decision can be made around these investments. Okay, now I can focus and say, yes, I have something to add to that, therefore, I belong in this room.

Muriel Wilkins [00:28:04]:
But if we start focusing on. No, we also have to have intersections. And, you know, I’m being glib here, but, like, we all have to like the same foods. Well, the minute everyone likes, you know, tacos and what I want is pancakes, then I obviously. And I’m bl. And I’m basing my value on how others feel about me, then I’m, of course I’m going to feel disconnected rather than saying, nope, it’s just a difference, but we’re still aligned on the thing that matters most.

Dave Stachowiak [00:28:29]:
Some of the people I have learned the most from in my career and ended up being some of my best mentors were people that I really had some fundamental disagreements with on lots of things and wouldn’t be the kind of People I would have hung out with on the weekends or become personal friends with. But I realized like by being able to hold what Dale Carnegie would call a nobler motive and say, like, okay, I’m not going to be friends with this person. We have some things we’re really different, we have different beliefs on, and yet we’re in this organization and we are tied to a larger goal by doing that. Boy, it shifted like so many of my relationships, how much I could learn with people. It took me a while to get there though. And so I love this invitation of like, just starting to think about that. Of like, what’s that bigger, nobler motive and identifying that for yourself. Reorganization.

Dave Stachowiak [00:29:19]:
Because I think it helps you to then overcome the little stuff that sometimes we run into. We’re like, oh, I can’t work with this person. Because whatever, it just elevates. It’s, you know, so much about leadership is altitude. It elevates the conversation.

Muriel Wilkins [00:29:32]:
Yeah. And I think it’s, you know, there’s this question around, like, how much, how much connectedness do you actually need, right. To get whatever it is that you’re getting done done, and that we tend to think about it as black or white. Either we’re connected or we’re not connected. And what I’m suggesting is between 0 and 100, there are 99 other numbers. So there’s some gradients. So even this, you know, I don’t, you don’t have to have this like top quality, 150% level of connectedness and belonging where everyone feels like they actually belong to each other. Like, yes, in an ideal world it would be amazing, but that’s not the reality of it.

Muriel Wilkins [00:30:12]:
So if you can think about what is the level of connectedness and intersection that I need to have with these individuals in order for us to support or for me to support whatever the goal is, then that’s what it is. I had a coaching meeting earlier actually where my client was having some friction with one of his peers. And he’s like, you know, I could offer to have one on ones with her, but I really don’t want to. What do I have to get out of it? And I said, well, what would you have to get out of it? And he said, well, she’d probably feel better and it would make my job a lot easier in dealing with her. And I was like, well, is that something worthwhile for you? He’s like, heck yeah. So there’s no direct line to the out the financial outcomes, but it is. There’s a direct Line in terms of him being able to lead with a little more ease.

Dave Stachowiak [00:30:59]:
And you also invite us to identify a few supportive people and build relationships with them. And as I think about that especially, one thing I’ve changed my mind on, Muriel, in recent years is I used to think about leadership, not exclusively, but a lot, through the lens of, like, okay, the people above me in the organization, the people below me. And one of the things that I’ve realized was a blind spot for me earlier in my career is peer relationships. And especially as you move up in an organization, especially your more senior level like that becomes so much more important. And being able to find a few of those supportive relationships, that’s key.

Muriel Wilkins [00:31:39]:
Yeah. I mean, look, we’re human, right? And so even in this. This notion of not letting the I don’t belong here narrative drive you, I also understand that, again, we have a fundamental need to feel connected and to feel like we belong somewhere. And so in the interim. Right, in the interim, and this was advice that was given to me, I remember complaining because I had a group of people that I was seeking to belong with, right? And I always felt like, I don’t belong. I don’t belong there. I don’t belong. And then one of my very sage mentors and teachers basically said, well, go find other people you belong with.

Muriel Wilkins [00:32:19]:
And she put the onus on me. She said, you can still hang out with them, but don’t. Don’t seek this thing that you’re trying to need from them, because they’re giving you all the signs that they can’t give it to you. So go find it other people. You can still hang out with them, but then recalibrate what it is that you get from them and find the people who you feel will make you feel you belong. Find it elsewhere. And for me, at that point in time, it was outside of work, right? But I still needed it in some way. And so that’s what I’m suggesting here.

Muriel Wilkins [00:32:50]:
Like, everybody needs. I mean, some people don’t, but for most people, we do still need that sense of connectedness. And if you’re not getting it from those individuals that you’re dealing with, you can still operate with them, but make sure you’re getting it elsewhere, or else you’re going to continue to seek it from those very individuals who may not have the capacity to give it to you, or you may not be in a situation where you can receive it.

Dave Stachowiak [00:33:17]:
I have two invitations for everyone listening. One of them is to grab the book. And I was mentioning to you, Muriel, before our conversation today that Marshall Goldsmith’s book what Got yout Here Won’t get yout There, like, such an iconic book. And one of the really brilliant things he did in that book is he pointed out, like, what are the things leaders need to stop doing? And Leadership Unblocked is, like, such a great starting point. If you find yourself, especially at an inflection point, of, like, what are some of the things I need to, like, stop doing and let go of. I think you’ve done a brilliant job of that. And we’ve just zeroed in on one message in the book. There are so many others, so many of the common things that leaders run into you and I see all the time.

Dave Stachowiak [00:34:01]:
So I hope folks will utilize this as a starting point, especially if you are at an inflection point. And my second invitation is I hope folks will listen to your podcast as well. Coaching Real Leaders. Similar name as our show, but a very different format. You do something, I think that is so different and harder than I do, which is you’re coaching people, like, in real time. Like, folks come on the show with real situations, you have a coaching conversation. And it’s just, I think it’s a great complement to what we’re doing here of, like, really seeing some of these conversations in real time, the insights that people are having, what you’re saying, how you’re inviting people to think about things differently and next step. So I hope folks will do one or both of those as a next step and starting point.

Dave Stachowiak [00:34:43]:
If you are in this situation where you feel like, hey, I don’t feel like I belong so much right at this moment.

Muriel Wilkins [00:34:49]:
Thank you, Dave.

Dave Stachowiak [00:34:50]:
My pleasure. Well, and I’ve got one last question for you. You know, I often ask people what they’ve changed their minds on. You’ve spent a lot of time putting together this book, thinking about all of the different client situations and experiences that you’ve had and bringing them together into this. As you did and as you put this together, what, if anything, have you changed your mind on?

Muriel Wilkins [00:35:10]:
Yeah, if I can be a little vulnerable here, I think I went in writing this book, there are seven beliefs that I highlight that really get into leaders way. And I was pretty clear that there was one that definitely was the one that I held on to the most. And as I wrote the book, every time I would dive into one of these beliefs, I would come out on the other side and say, oh, my gosh, I’ve held this one, too. And so the thing that it changed my mind on is we all hold these in one capacity or the other. There are just some that are more in the CEO or driver’s seat than the other. And number two, it’s not about letting go of the beliefs. It’s actually cozying up to them and befriending them so that we can then tell them it’s your turn to take a little bit of a rest while I exercise a different one.

Dave Stachowiak [00:36:06]:
Thank you so much for doing it. Muriel Wilkins is the author of Leadership Unblocked: Breakthrough the Beliefs that Limit Your Potential. Muriel, thank you so much. Always a pleasure.

Muriel Wilkins [00:36:17]:
Thank you so much Dave. Likewise.

Dave Stachowiak [00:36:25]:
If this conversation was helpful to you three other episodes, I’d also recommend. One of them is episode 617, how to start a Big Leadership Role. Carol Kaufman was my guest on that episode. We looked a little broader in that conversation. Of all the aspects that tend to come up for leaders when they start big roles, this one of them, of course, many others and how we can do a better job of navigating those. We also talked about peer relationships extensively in that conversation. I think it’s a great compliment to Muriel’s words today. Episode 3617 for that.

Dave Stachowiak [00:36:55]:
Also a great compliment. Episode 635, how to start better with Peers. Michael Bungay Stanier, your author of the Coaching Habit and I talked in that conversation about a framework that is actually helpful with starting so many relationships. Whether that relationship is with a manager, with direct reports, with peers. As we looked in in that conversation and taking Michael’s invitation to have what he calls the best possible relationship, oftentimes we don’t take the time to be really intentional about that at the beginning of relationships. Michael has a five step process that helps us walk through that in episode 635. And then finally recommending episode 696, the habits that Hold Leaders Back. Marshall Goldsmith was my guest on that episode. We talked about his iconic book what Got yout Here Won’t Get Yout There and the reality that so many leaders run into at inflection points in their careers, which is the work that is now part of their role as a leader is not the technical work so much anymore.

Dave Stachowiak [00:37:51]:
It’s not what they’ve been trained for most of their careers. It is now about the people stuff that behaves, behavioral stuff. And how do we make that shift? Well, Marshall and I talked about some of the common habits that we tend to fall into that hold us back and how we can overcome them and do better. Episode 696 for that. All of those episodes of course you can find on the coachingforleaders.com website I’m inviting you today to set up your free membership at coachingforleaders.com it’s going to give you access to the entire suite of library of episodes all the way back to 2011. You can access the entire catalog on all the public podcast apps, but you can’t search by topic. And so we’ve taken the website and made it into a tool for you to use for being able to find what you’re looking for right now. And you can set up your free membership to do that, plus lots else at coachingforleaders.com also one of the conversations Muriel and I had today was about the importance of relationships and identifying the supportive people that will help us during the inflection points of our careers.

Dave Stachowiak [00:38:55]:
It’s one of the big reasons that I bring Leaders together in the Coaching for Leaders Academy to help leaders thrive at some of those key inflection points. Those relationships are such a big part of that. If you’d like to find out more about when the Academy next opens up for applications, go over to coachingforleaders.com/academy that that’s the very best place to find out more and also to request a future invitation when we next open up the Academy. Coaching for Leaders is edited by Andrew Kroeger. Production support is provided by Sierra Priest. Next Monday, I’m glad to welcome Goldie Chan to the show. We’re going to be talking about the key elements of a powerful personal brand, something that’s important to every leader. Join me for that conversation with Goldie.

Dave Stachowiak [00:39:40]:
Have a great week and see you back on Monday.