Interview with Alisa Cohn — YOU Are a Start-Up

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From advocatetowin.com this is the Elegant Warrior. It's the podcast about elegance in all of its forms. We're talking about our definitions of elegance and how we maintain it during times of trial. We're also talking about how we can advocate for ourselves and each other a.

Little bit more elegantly.

Hi there.

Before we get started on today's episode, I wanted to tell you about another shift.

As you know, if you've been an.

Avid listener, I've always had interviews in my podcast. I have interviewed all kinds of fascinating, wonderful, illuminating people, and I have loved every minute of it. And then some of you were asking for more solo episodes, more about the work that I do teaching people how to advocate for themselves.

So I've tried that. The past few weeks.

I have done mini solo episodes, and while they're so much fun and many of you have loved them, I miss the interviews. I miss the fabulous conversations with fabulous people and the lessons I learn from those people. So I'm going back to that. I will be trying to interject more of my teachings in the conversations and in the introductions. But I want you to have the benefit of all of these different guests, knowledge and insights and the things that they say that have empowered me like today's guest. Today you're going to be hearing from Elisa Cohn. She is a phenomenal and, dare I say, famous coach. You'll hear more about her when I introduce her. But I want you to listen to this podcast and think about how it applies to your inner jury, the part of you that decides what to believe and what not to believe.

At one point in this conversation, Elisa.

Talks about self talk and that you have to talk to yourself in a motivational way, especially during times like we've had in the past few months with Corona and all of the unrest here in the United States. That self talk is when you're talking to your internal jury.

She also talked about the fact that.

Constraints bring creativity, and I loved that because it is a different way of looking at constraints. One of the tools of an advocate is perspective.

And one of my favorite things is.

When my coaching clients say to me, I never saw it that way, that means that I've helped that client see things from another perspective. In our conversation that you're about to listen to, Alisa helped me to see constraints from another perspective. I hope this conversation is as valuable for you as it was for me. And I want you to know that I have some amazing guests coming for you the next few weeks. I'll be interjecting more about how these conversations apply to the conversation you're having with your inner jury and your outer jury.

Let me know what you think. Be sure to leave us a review and take good care. Okay, guys, I have a fabulous guest for us today. She has been named the number one startup coach in the world at the 2019 Thinkers50 Marshall Goldsmith coaching Awards in London. She is one of the top 30 global gurus for startups in 2020 and women's business named her one of the top 10 coaches. She is also a freestyle rapper and one of my very good and newest friends in New York City. Welcome, Alyssa Cohn.

Thank you so much. Heather. I'm so excited to meet with you.

I'm so excited to talk to you because, you know, you are in. You are the number one startup coach in the world. And I feel as though this is the perfect time to be talking to a startup coach because everyone is sort of a startup at this. No one knows what's next. No one knows what they're doing. How many people have reached out to you and said, I feel like I'm a startup even when they wouldn't have thought so before.

Yeah, it's a great point. It's time for restarting. It's time for you to restart your startup in some ways. And large companies I'm working with are restarting. They are working remotely now. They are finding new ways of working. They're finding ways to be more efficient. One of my clients said to me, we did something. They got me on their system or something. We did that in an hour. It would have taken in the past 15 days with lawyers. So it's about also being streamlined and it's also a personal. Personal regeneration. Personal startup. Right.

Well, and I think that that's the biggest thing that I wanted to talk to you about today because my audience is made up of a lot of people who work for businesses and people who work from home and people who are stay at home moms. And so I wanted to really talk to you about starting up as individuals and the way that that same skills that you teach your startup founders are also transferable to the individual. What do you think is the main thing that we as individuals now, now that Covid has sort of settled in, we seem to be starting to slowly return back to going back to work and back to normal. What do you think that people can learn from startups that they can apply to their lives?

Well, it's a lot, and I really think right now it's time to have an entrepreneurial mindset. The entrepreneurial mindset has to do with thinking about how to constraints bring creativity. How do you want to be proactive and resilient in the face of, you know, sort of different circumstances you weren't expecting? And how do you be persistent and try, try again on various different topics? And the last thing I would say is how do you kind of take this moment is like, okay, well, I didn't see this coming, so I may as well try something new. That's also very uncommon entrepreneurial.

Yeah. And I think that your, your first point, it sort of falls into your last point there, where it's the best time, as good a time as any, to try something new because you've got to tap into that creativity. Constraints. Would you say constraints cause creativity or.

Yeah, creates that you. Constraints set you free. And constraints also drive innovation, ingenuity and creativity.

Yeah. And so it's, it's something that I think that people sort of might balk at because they feel as though there's so much that they can't do and so much they have to be doing. As far as teaching kids from home and working from home and working out from home and trying to do all the things, how would you encourage people to use the constraints effectively?

Oh, that's such a great question. I mean, it's really being iterative. So it's first of all accepting reality. Right. Not fighting with reality. So you have to kind of understand that whatever you just said, for example, having to deal with your kids and homeschool your kids, for example, working from home and feeling, you know, sometimes some people are feeling definitely that they're sort of shut in. You can't be like, oh, I wish it weren't that way. It's so depressing. It's that way. You have to be okay, so this is what I got in the context of this sort of container. What can I do? If I couldn't work out outside, how could I work out inside?

Yeah.

You know, if I can have the same kind of comradeship that's built in. In the workplace. How do I build my own comradeship? And how do I think about it even differently to engineer it the way I would like it to be? That constraints can drive creativity.

Yeah. And it's so true. I mean, you think about. And you're. You and Dori Clark are some of the first people that I did a Zoom happy hour with. And now it's sort of the norm. You guys were. Soon after we were under a stay at home order here in New York. You guys were organizing that and putting that. So it really is one of the many ways that we can sort of make the best out of a not so great situation.

Yeah, I'd like to actually talk about that specifically, because we're actually writing an article for the Harvard Business Review about that specifically. You know, we have done. Dori and I have done a lot of, you know, sort of dinners and cocktail parties individually and then also together in New York. So what do you do? You invite people when they come to New York. You invite people in New York, and.

Then we have to do a Zoom happy hour.

Oh, we wish we could do it someplace else, but we can't. So. Okay, let's do it on Zoom. Well, what does that open up? Obviously it opens up geography and have people who we would not have normally had as part of this specific, you know, event. And it's lovely. It's really a great equalizer in that sense. And then also we hate that we go to the restaurants and you can't hear people and whatnot. And it's lovely to be able to have just quiet and be able to hear people.

Yeah, it's a great way to not only use creativity, but to start to look at things through a different lens. You know, I always talk about changing your perspective changes your life. And if you look at these Zoom calls as well, I can't touch the person and I can't read their body language the same way, and I can't have proprioception the same way, then you're going to be bummed out about it. But if you look at it the way that you just said, and, you know, you can listen so much better, you can be so much more intense. You can invite people that otherwise never would have been there. There's always sort of a silver lining.

Definitely. And I would add that right now the creativity energy in the air is just trying it. Whatever. We're all experimenting with a whole bunch of different things. And, you know, it sort of feels like the Stakes are lower in terms of, oh, it didn't quite go as planned. Don't worry so much about it.

Yeah, I think that that's so true. I think that people are being so much easier on each other. You know, I have my coaching business and consulting, but I also still practice law, and lawyers are, you know, inherently sort of nasty and don't get along very well. And even lawyers are giving each other a break, mainly because they don't have a choice. But it does. You know, it's. I think that. Well, what do you think? Do you think that people will look back and wish they had taken more advantage of that when things start to return to the regular business outlook?

Well, I think I'll just say that when this all first happened, what I thought to myself is, I'm thinking this is a project, and for the moment, the project doesn't have an end date, which is just about, how do I make the most of this time? Then you have to think about what does it mean this time? So I would suggest to everybody, wherever you are right now, in that concept of, oh, I'm sure back to work or whatever it is, I would invite you to step back right now and say, if this is going to go on another week, another month or another few months, whatever this is for you and your geography, what would I want to look back on? To really say I did that, like, I had did this as kind of a piece of my life's work or my professional work that I was able to sort of bite a chunk off and land in that period?

Yeah, I think you're so right. One of my coaches has talked about, how will you leave this time? And I think that we can all really think about how we will leave this time. And I know you do a lot of work and you write a lot about leadership and how will you lead yourself through this time, I think is really important. Do you find that your leaders need to be reminded of the necessity of leading themselves first during this? During this?

Yeah, actually, that's a great point. They're doing a great job leading their teams, are concerned about their teams. They know the communication has to happen. They all spontaneously found rhythms within their teams with obviously much more contact than they were having when they were in the office. What they neglected at times was creating routine for themselves, centered, keep themselves kind of resilient in the face and restored in the face of this difficulty. Also maybe not quite realizing how much their people were going to look to them to answer the unanswerable questions, prepared for that that's the way the leaders I have coached have to lead themselves.

And that's an interesting thing that you and I have talked about, vulnerability and how it's not my favorite word. But I, you know, and since we talked about it, I've thought about it some more, and I think humility might be the word that I, that I would cleave to. But in whatever word you use, leaders do have to be willing to be a little bit more human, showing and because they can't have answers to everything. Is that something they struggle with?

Oh, yeah, definitely. A lot of the CEOs I work with, they kind of want to be the hero that swoops in, that fixes everything, give people only good news, make people feel good. That's a wonderful sentiment and it's a wonderful humanity. And it doesn't work in this time. They have to actually think more about how to make their people bulletproof and how to help their people navigate through inevitable uncertainty. Because what we had during this period is uncertainty, that's for sure.

Yeah. And that's, I think, what everyone struggles with the most. I mean, we human beings are so not. We're so adverse to, to uncertainty. And now it is just a given and it really makes things tough. You. One of the articles that you wrote for Forbes, I think about, about the A Game Leadership was the name of the article. So, guys, listeners, I want you to know that Alyssa writes for all kinds. She writes, as she mentioned for Harvard Business Review. She writes for Forbes, she writes for Inc. You can find her. I'll put some links to some of her articles, but you can find her writings in all of those things. If you follow her on LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram and you'll get a sense of all of those things. But one of the articles about a game leadership, you gave three points for leadership. But I really felt as though these three points are fabulous for us individually as well. You know, just as you said, we're all sort of starting up. And these three I want to go through just really quickly because I think it's important for everybody who's listening to recognize that these apply to you every day, especially right now. The first is protect the asset. So tell us a little bit about that as it, as it applies to individuals.

So protect the asset starts with you. You are the asset. So first of all, the first person you lead every day is the person who wakes up in your pajamas. It's important to recognize that first of all, second of all, you have this sort of inner experience right so it's both about leading yourself, but also about taking care of yourself. Taking care of yourself, mind, body, and spirit. So that means getting enough exercise or movement. People think, oh, exercise, no, I don't like to run. That's okay. It's about movement and it's about clearing out the cobwebs in your body. And it's also about finding the ways to have good mental state first thing so that you can sort of protect yourself and then be the best you can be for everybody else around you.

Yeah. And listeners, you should know that for Movement. Alyssa is a huge kettlebell fan. And the way, like, you're awesome at it. She posts on occasion on Instagram or Facebook, and she looks like it's like her second job. So protecting the assets by using kettlebells is one option for you guys, but it's really, as you said, it's movement. It's doing something to sort of shake off the cobwebs, taking good care of yourself, eating well, getting good sleep. All of those things certainly makes sense. And I think that it's even more important right now. You know, I remember when. When everything started with COVID and people were talking about, you know, h. Wearing masks, I was very focused on how can I optimize my immunity. Like, I stopped. I stopped drinking completely, which I'd never been a big drinker. But getting better sleep, eating more greens, you know, protecting the asset from the. From the virus, hopefully.

Totally. And treating yourself as an asset. That's the point. Treating yourself in a way which is, I've got to make sure that I am good. And so to your point, doing the nourishing things for your body and your mind and your spirit, you're great at reading inspirational literature and recognizing that that feeds into how you're doing in terms of mind, body, for sure.

And then the next one is one where I struggle some days more than others. But today, for sure, it's stay focused. Now, this article was, as I said, written for leaders of businesses or startups. But staying focused is so hard for everybody right now, don't you think?

Oh, yeah. Everyone's quite distracted right now. There's no question reading the news too much, reacting to various things too much. And that's actually why I think it's even more important to stay focused. Also, people are home right now with tons of distractions. That's normal. And if you haven't been working from home for a while, you don't quite know how to organize yourself. Really helpful to think about what are the one or Two things I really want to get done today and keep coming back to that or what is my big picture vision or big picture kind of thing? I have to do a project I want to complete or thing that's important to me, keep that in a visual place, like put on a sticky note, put it on paper near you so you can keep coming back to that time and time again. That's how we all have to operate to stay focused in a very distracting time.

So, Alyssa, for staying focused, one of the things that I know works for me and we have a mutual friend in Nir Eyal, and he has come here on the podcast and he talked about time blocking. And that's something that I've done since law school, but if I can follow it, it's very effective. How do you help your clients, you know, set expectations for themselves and meet them that way?

Yes. No, that's a very powerful question. It's really about saying, this is what I'm going to do. And then when you find yourself not doing that, like all of us, it's about, okay, how do you talk to yourself in a motivational way that will help you take one baby step towards that? So you can block out time, block out, you know, one to three to do something specific, and then you find yourself procrastinating. So then it's about breaking it down into small pieces. Okay, I'm just going to do this one little thing. It's not about 1, 2, 3, just one next action, next action, next action. And then also not expecting so much. Like, I don't have to do this brilliant piece of work to do one and three. I just have to move the ball forward. When you think about it from that point of view and break it down, it's very helpful.

Yeah.

And I think that your point is so well taken about. It doesn't have to be perfect. Like, I. My book is due in June and I've been writing every day from 9 to 11, except for today. Like, as I said, today was rotten. But I now sit down and just say, it doesn't matter if it stinks. It doesn't matter if you end up not using it. You've just got to do it because it does make you feel a little bit more accountable and believe yourself a little bit more that you're going to do it tomorrow.

Right? Definitely. And your point about believability is good. We have to all be able to count on ourselves.

Yeah, I think that that's huge. And then the third one of your in this, a game Leadership article you also write about in an ink article about Jeff Bezos, and that is about acting decisively.

Yes.

Tell us about the import for that for the individual.

Well, I think what people do is they sort of overthink and they perseverate and they wonder and they're wondering, then they're thinking maybe later. And they never just do it. There's somebody I coach, and one of the things that, you know, he's a fantastic leader, but when it comes to task, he tasks he doesn't like to do. He can just sort of be indecisive about how to approach it. And what he needs to do is pick away and just go for it. And there's a lot less friction on that. And to recognize that not everything is high stakes and we don't know how things are going to turn out before we start them. So just.

Yeah, it's something that I think that people really don't recognize how powerful it is and how it makes you more powerful when you're decisive. I don't know if you've read the book the CEO Next Door. It's a fabulous book. And in the book they talk about that, you know, one of the attributes of CEOs is that they're willing to make decisions and they will make decisions. And then one of the quotes from that book is, it's better to make a bad decision than no decision. And I think so many people don't see it that way.

That's right. People are waiting to have the perfect decision. I mean, while time goes by and they don't get to do the thing that they said they were going to do. So it's. I think that I have read that book. That's a great book. And I think decisiveness and also sort of bias to action, those are things which help drive everybody forward. Leaders in large companies, but also you personally, helps drive you forward.

And don't you think, Alyssa, that it also engenders confidence?

Oh, definitely. It genders confidence from other people in you and then you and yourself. Definitely.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's something that as a lawyer, I saw even as a young lawyer, when the other lawyers would be sort of not willing to make a decision. And I was. People look to me to make decisions. They're like, oh, she's the girl who makes decisions.

Respect as well.

Yeah, yeah, it's great. And then the other thing that I remember from the CEO next door is they said that research shows that people with higher IQs actually struggle with it more. Why do you think that is well.

Because they can weigh all the options in their mind and they can kind of do the math in their head about what if I do this and what if I do this and play almost like too much chess too far ahead. Yeah. Especially now. I think uncertainty is really the watchword of our time. And it's helpful just to realize, oh, with all this planning, I didn't know this was going to happen or, oh, actually, I don't know what's going to happen there. May as well just try to move forward.

Yeah, I think that that's true. I know one of the things that you do quite a bit with your clients is scenario planning, where you look at, you know, what are the different ways that this could play out. But to your point, no one ever thought that this would be a way. So it's really taught people that they can do all the scenario planning in the world and still not be sure.

It's so true. Just not be sure. And therefore, what. How do you create certainty in an uncertain world? It comes back to that same question. That's right.

Yeah. It's funny, when I have people that I work with, I have them do look at all the evidence and what evidence will help you win and what evidence could make you lose. And then I always have them write down what weird things could happen. So like, you know, and I, we always try to imagine like somebody could pass away or in one of my cases, someone bought a uterus and a mason jar into trial. Like, just weird stuff. But no one would have ever met. Well, I shouldn't say no one. I mean, there are people that we know now that said, oh, a pandemic is coming. But very few people would have imagined that a pandemic was coming. And so it's a great, as hard as it is, it's a great reminder that we can't control everything. And that's often, especially for your leaders, I bet.

Very freeing. It is very freeing. And also to find the right people on the team to help balance out the question marks and also be able to be agile in the face of what actually happens.

Yeah, it's fabulous. Now, I wanted to move on to one more. Your most recent article, Inc. Magazine, I think it's called how to keep your team upbeat during a crisis. This is again, guys, I'll link to all of these in the show notes, but this is an INC Magazine and you have some great tips in that article as well. And one of the things that you talk about there that I have really been focusing on a lot lately is Clarity. And you say clarity is motivating. And talk about repetition. Tell us a little bit about that.

Well, I mean, first of all, communication, the thought in startups, and this is really true, as you're growing a company, you've got to repeat yourself so much that you're completely sick of hearing your own voice. And as a leader, not just in startups, as a leader, you've got to do that over and over again. So why? Because people don't hear you and they're focused on lunch and they're not thinking about you and they're distracted by all these other good ideas or bad ideas that are around them. And also they don't really want to do that. Then they want to do something very different. And you've got to keep repeating yourself, repeating yourself in order to get across clarity. And then once people know what to do, they feel free to take action. Taking action. When they say you take action, when you're taking action, it is motivating. That's why clarity is motivated.

Well, and the clarity in what they're supposed to be taking action towards. Because if you're sort of talking about all these different things and not repeating the same message over and over again, people sometimes struggle to take action just because they're not. They don't know where they're going. So I think that your point about repeating yourself, and you can do this with yourself as well, because I can find myself being like, I have to work on the book, I have to work on the podcast, I have to work on my course, I have to work on a marketing, and I have some speaking to do and another verdict, you know, and so you can sort of be all over the place. And if you have your own personal mission statement as well as your mission statement as a leader, and you repeat that so that everyone knows where they're going, making decisions becomes easier, acting becomes easier, moving becomes easier, and communication becomes easier.

Right. And therefore progress becomes easier. Right. So when you get in progress, which I also talked about in the article, the notion of seeing the evidence of your work, seeing the way you're winning, markers of progress, that's also motivating. So clarity frees up the ability to have those wins and see that progress.

Yeah.

And that's the next point in that article. And it's so great. I loved it and couldn't agree with it more than that. Quick wins, especially right now, when people aren't feeling like they have a lot of wins and they're struggling to see evidence of their capabilities and their strengths. And their ability to work as a team. How do you help people create? So, for example, like in the law firm, you know, we're not going to trial, so you have to sort of name wins differently, don't you?

Totally. And frame wins differently. I was just on the phone. On the. The phone on a video. Strange thing, we don't talk on the phone anymore. We're all on video now. I was just in a video executive team meeting with one of my startups, and the head of sales said, listen, I'll be honest with you. Since it's hard to sell in this environment, and since they don't have camaraderie around them, they don't see their progress. It's kind of demoralizing day in and day out. So we talked about how do we give them different kinds of work to do to break up their day, to help them find something that can be meaningful and successful at. To help kind of cheer them up in light of a difficult environment to sell it. So it's about how do you frame the work and reframe the work to help them have this quick win?

Yeah. It's so important. And to your point, you've really got to reframe it because what used to be a win just might not be possible. A win at trial isn't going to happen for a little while. So a win might be a really good conversation with a client.

Totally. And then in this case, you know, the win might be they're continuing to just make the calls, you know, the sales calls. And also being able to be reallocated to a marketing project. Yeah, Operations project. Where they can actually see the results of their labor more quickly.

And for the individual, a win might simply be sitting down for those two hours and working on the thing you said you were going to work on. Yeah, it's. It's. I. I encourage my clients at the end of the day to write down all of the evidence they've collected of their strengths. And another way to put that is, what are the wins that you've actually done today? Like, today was pretty rotten, but I did have a really good meeting. So you've really got to look for those wins every day. And as a leader, whether you're leading your family, leading yourself, or leading your business, make sure that you recognize each other's wins as well. I think that that's a great point. And the third point that you make in this Inc. How to keep your team upbeat during a crisis is you want to be sure to focus on what's possible yes.

That's again, about breaking down work into what we can do. Right. So it's about all these constraints we have around us. Absolutely. But what is possible within those constraints? And actually, there's a lot of Jews in brainstorming what is possible in that period.

Well, and it goes back to the very beginning of our podcast when you talked about creativity and innovation and the idea that zoom happy hours are now possible and bringing in people from across the world rather than in New York City. It really, I think that, you know, sometimes it just depends on where you're looking. And if you're only looking at what's no longer possible, you're never going to see the host of things that are actually possible.

That's very profound, actually. Yes, that's very true.

And I.

It's.

It's an interesting year, Alyssa, because I know at the beginning of the year, you chose a word for your year, and if I remember correctly, your word was experimentation. Right?

Yes.

And here we are, like, you could not have gotten a better 2020 to test your word.

It's so true. It's so funny because actually I do a three word resolution. So I chose three words for the year. But to be honest with you, I think in my heart my three words were experimentation. Experimentation. Experimentation have resonance for me at the time, but they now really don't have residence for me. Now it's all about experimentation. And I found that to be very liberating. You know, we're all like, in this freeform situation. You know, as you mentioned earlier, I do freestyle hip hop rap, and specifically improv rap. And that was, in fact, my first real foray this year into experimentation and just letting it go and seeing what it's like to not be good at something. Yeah, it's like to see what happens when the words come when you're not prepared. And then another thing, when once this whole Covid crisis happened, I sort of changed up a whole bunch of things from the point of view of. All right, well, I guess this year is not going to be as planned, so may as well.

Yeah, it's. So I also had BJ Fogg on the podcast, and one of the things that I love from his book Tiny Habits is the idea that mistakes are just discoveries. And if you're looking at life as if it's experimentation and not like a plan or a goal or you've got to get this thing done, all of a sudden all of this stuff is just like, well, what can we make of it? What can we make of COVID What can we make of this crazy mess of things that I've mixed up together? And what can we make that's good of it? Very much like I would imagine you do when you do your freestyle rapping. Like, what can we make of this now?

Yes, what can we make of this now? Especially in a group. So what can we make of this now? Like, because we're in this together. So it's also about forming that kind of camaraderie people around you and doing it quickly and then building something together, all together.

And so what are you going to make of all of this? What are your big overreaching experiments that you want to come out of this thing having completed?

Well, it's both experiments and it's about, I guess, I think this is projects, right? So when I, when I entered this space, I myself said, okay, I'm going to double down on content. Content, content, content. I've been publishing a lot of articles. As I mentioned to you earlier. I'm working on a book project. More.

I didn't want to say it until you did. It's so exciting.

More on that later. And then here's the answer. And I changed up my newsletter, which sounds like, like a very small thing, but actually for me was a big deal because I was like, I changed my newsletter. It's so weird to suddenly change your format, to change your structure, and then it's like Covid hits. Not weird, nothing weird. Right?

I mean, oh, my gosh, that's so true. That might be the mantra of this episode. Nothing's weird. Anything was weird is not weird. So wait, tell the, tell the listeners where they can find your newsletter, because I know they're going to want to sign up for it.

They can. Thank you. They can come to alyssacon.com a l I s a c o h n dot com. They can sign up right there. And let me tell you, is action packed.

Yeah, you've got some great stuff. And again, the links to all of this will be in the show notes. But Alyssa has, I mean, as I mentioned at the beginning, Marshall Goldsmith. Goldsmith, who is the premier coach in the, in the world, I would say you've done interviews with him, you've done things with Dory, you've got on LinkedIn, you're on podcasts. I mean, you are really prolific, even before this. And now that you've been creating so much content, I'm just eating it up. So you guys want to sign up for Alyssa's list? Alyssa, before I let you go, I want to end with the same three questions that I ask everyone at the end of our podcast, our time together. The first question has to do with elegance. So the root of the word elegant is to choose, just like the word elect. And we believe that you choose your elegance. What does elegance mean to you?

Elegance to me means to be clear eyed, to strip away artifice, and to see what is true. The truth to me is elegant.

Wow.

I love that. And, you know, I really love that Clear Eyed, because your point in that INC article that clarity is motivating really resonated with me and the idea of being clear eyed. I think that I have not appreciated how important clarity is until this. That's probably the gift of COVID for me is clarity. So clear eyed is a lovely. I really. And truth. It's really a wonderful definition of elegance, and I love it. All right, my next question is, what book would you recommend to the listeners to help them with their elegance or even to help them through this crazy time?

So many books, I mean, I think don't go through this crazy time. I really like Marshall's book. What got you here won't get you there.

Me too.

The reason I like it is because, you know, what got you here won't get you there. And I think it's important for us to see that we're constantly shedding or we need to constantly shed our identities of who we are now to get to be the person we were meant to be. And I think that's very important and profound in a deep way.

And we have to be willing to shed those identities, you know, and that's another gift of this, that maybe people are a little more willing to do that.

Definitely. Yes.

All right, last question is always my favorite question. And your answer to this question will be added to our elegant warrior Spotify playlist, where all of our songs are collected. Alyssa, when you are walking onto the stage of life, what song do you want playing?

The Indigo Girls Closer to Fun.

Oh, my gosh. That is one of my favorite songs. And no one has picked it yet, so I'm so excited to add it to the Spotify list. Does it have special meaning to you or is it just the. The lyrics are so awesome.

The lyrics are so awesome. Right? I mean, you know, it's. The less I seek my. My source for some definitive yes I am to find.

It's so true.

It's so true. Yes.

Oh, my gosh. And it's so. Now that you've said that, it's so perfect for this time. Like, there is no definitive Everything's uncertain and we are all maybe, hopefully, as we stay healthy, getting a little closer to fine.

Yeah.

Alyssa, thank you so much for your time and for being with me. I just treasure our friendship and I'm grateful that you were able to come on.

Oh, Heather, it's so great. I loved it and thank you so much for having me. It was fantastic.

Today's episode of the Elegant Warrior was.

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