Ask Me Anything with Bernadette Boas

Blog Talk Radio.

Hello and welcome to Shedding the Bitch Radio, where you can discuss, debate, and get advice on how to discover and shed the bitches of fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negative mindsets so you can realize your dreams and life purpose and create and accelerate the riches you want in life. Join us here live every Tuesday at noon Eastern and dialogue with us at 818-572-2910. You can also chat with us at blogtalkradio.com. Shedding the Bitch, or share your stories on our website at sheddingthebitch.com. Whatever the bitch is that's holding you back from living your life to the fullest, it's not worth giving up the riches in life that you deserve. So call in now and let Bernadette Boas know what's holding you back.

818-572-2910. Good day, good day, good day everyone. How are you on this Tuesday of November 2019, and it is our Ask Bernadette episode, but I'll get to that in a minute. Hopefully you woke up on time, or you probably woke up a lot earlier on Sunday morning when we had the time change. I— it was beautiful, I have to tell you, it was absolutely beautiful. And it— I had 5 dogs at the house and And I had mentioned to everybody on the program last week that I was given a tip, though I have no children, human children that is. I heard a tip that parents, if they really want to help their kind of kids adjust to the time change, should put their kids in bed 30 minutes early beginning like Wednesday leading up to the time that you had the time change. And I all of a sudden thought to myself, wow, these dogs, because it's light out, you know, that early now, these dogs are going to be getting me up at like 5:30, 6 o'clock, which I don't care about getting up, but I can't let them out when I have a renter on my property that lives in the main house because, you know, there's 5 dogs and they'd be yelling and screaming and waking everybody up. So, I thought to myself, I wonder if it will work on dogs and myself, quite honestly. And so, that's what we did. I don't know that we started Wednesday, but definitely Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night. And they were beautiful. They slept in even though with the skylights and everything, it was very bright in here by 6:00, 6:30 in the morning. And yet, if I don't budge, they don't budge, and it was— Fabulous. So I have not had an adjustment issue like I typically do when we do the, you know, moving forward or backwards. I hope the same for you, and I hope, you know, you've been able to kind of just walk very comfortably and very calmly and very easily into the new season. The new time change and season. But I did mention today is our Ask Bernadette episode, or sometimes we call it Ask Me Anything because we're a little bit schizophrenic here in the Shedding the Bitch community. And what we do, for those of you who might be listening for the first time, we ask you and offer you the opportunity to post your question, story, or challenge that you might be having out on Facebook, out on Twitter. You could do it on sheddingthebitch.com. You can send it to me at BernadetteBoas@SheddingTheBitch.com. You can even reach out to me, which majority of the people do, on LinkedIn in a direct or private message. And people do ask all kinds of questions, whether it has to do with their career, business, or life. But within that, a lot of people are just asking about trying to, you know, deal with conflict, deal with bullying, deal with "Goal setting, deal with time management issues, deal with a horrible boss," whatever the case might be. And I immediately respond, or as soon as I see it, and I provide you some tips, some advice, sometimes tough love. You also have an opportunity to come onto the program live if you're available at noon Eastern time, from noon to 1:00. You can call 1-818-372-3032. Whether you already posted that question or you are listening to the program and you want to jump on, Deborah of Parker House Virtual Services, she is manning the board as we call it, and I'm also online even watching the chat room, which you can go to blogtalkradio.com/forum Shedding the Bits Radio, it'll bring you to our radio site, and then you scroll down to this particular episode and you'll see a chat room. So if you don't want to, you know, kind of necessarily call in and/or you're just sitting online listening to the program, you can post a question, story, or challenge there, or any type of feedback or comment. At the same time, if you aren't able to listen to this live and you've downloaded it, whether it be on BlogTalkRadio, SheddingTheBitch.com, or Apple Podcasts, then feel free at any time to reach out directly. And don't let it— you know, just because you missed this particular program live, don't let it prevent you from getting the help and the support that you need. So that's what we do the first Tuesday of every month, and that's— and we have some great Excuse me. We have some great questions today. One's about creating boundaries. So a mother of 3 needs some help with creating boundaries. One was— is about how to write a book. And this actually could be a whole episode, so I am going to try to keep it as simple as possible. And maybe we do need to, especially maybe at the beginning of the year, some of you may set a goal that you want to write a book. I have set a goal that I'm going to have an outline for my next book done by December 2nd. So this could be a good conversation to have as we get into— toward the new year. And then I received a question that came through actually from a couple of my clients. We had a group coaching session, and one wanted to know how to go about suggesting to her manager how to hire for themselves, not for the person that was giving me this situation that they're in, how they could suggest to their manager that they might need a leadership coach, an executive coach. So we'll talk about that. Our recent programs have covered also a number of topics.

We—

last week I really wanted to focus on mental health. It was Mental Health Week. Stop the stigma. CBS This Morning is kind of the program that moved me, I guess, activated me into wanting to have that conversation when they focused for a week on stopping the stigma. So that was last week's program, was Shed the Mental Stigma, bitch. We've talked about confronting the tough conversations of it. Or the tough life topics such as dying, depression, abuse, bullying, a number of things, whether it's you personally or someone that you know. We had Sharon Williams, who is a healthcare management consultant and friend. We met up and I actually had her come in the studio and we filmed as well as recorded our discussion on mortal moments. Mortal moments. You could go onto our Shedding the Bits YouTube channel to check us out on our video, or you can download the program itself. And then we've had a couple of programs around visualizing your goals, so vision boards and that kind of thing. But we also had a whole conversation about now that you've visualized it, you really need to believe in it. And this was a very personal type of conversation for me because I've questioned my, my God and myself a lot over the years about, okay, I've defined them, I visualize them, and yet they're not happening. And all of a sudden I'm like, is it because I'm lacking true belief in what it is that I'm working toward? So all of those programs, like I mentioned, can be found on blogtalkradio.com. Just look for our radio site on that. Sheddingthebitch.com, you scroll down, you'll see the radio channel, and you can link into kind of the last number of years of episodes that we've had, as well as a number of streaming podcast sites but the main one being Apple Podcasts where we are getting a lot of activity and a lot of traffic. So you can check them out on any one of those streaming platforms. All right, so let's see what else is happening before we take— oh, okay. We don't necessarily have a rich question for you today. Our rich questions are a question that would ground you into the conversation for today. Think about our topics— creating boundaries, writing a book, suggesting to your manager that they may need a leadership coach. Maybe there's something in there that you resonate with. If not, let's give you a rich question, shall we? Let's just say, what question do you have? And if you do have it, then you could always call in, again, 1-818-572-2910, or shoot me an email, or a Facebook or Twitter post. But it will at least stimulate, huh, you know, Bernadette's a professional expert, successful career leadership business coach and consultant, so maybe she would have some really good advice or tips for me. And I would love and be honored to help you. Now, if you want to post and comment and share, You can use our rich tags, as we call them, #AskBernadette, #AskMeAnything, or #ShedTheBitch. As always, we have hashtag #ShedTheBitch. All right, we're going to take a commercial break. When we get back, we'll dive into these questions regarding your career, business, or life and hope and expect that we'll be able to shed some tips and guidance for you that you can go out and apply in your life today. We'll be right back.

You are listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. We are inspiring individuals around the globe to discover, confront, and shed their bitches of fear, insecurity, and negativity so they can create the riches in their career, business, and life they deserve. Be sure to check out Bernadette's book, Shedding the Corporate Bitch. Shifting from Bitch to Rich in Life and Business, available on Amazon and sheddingthebitch.com. We also want to thank our sponsors, North Georgia Tax Solutions, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate size clients. Go to ngtaxsolutions.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium-sized businesses. Email Deborah Parker at deborahparker.va@gmail.com for more information. To become a sponsor or advertiser on our program, email us at mediarelations@sheddingthebitch.com. Shedding the Bitch Radio airs every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Be sure to go to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitch Shedding the Bitch Radio and follow the program for all the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. Now let's return to Bernadette and Shedding the Bitch Radio.

Welcome back everyone. Today's episode is Ask Me Anything. It might apply to your career, your business, a situation in your life, whatever the case might be. And we haven't a few really great questions, and a couple of them actually can get very, very deep, so I'll be very conscious of the time to ensure we get to all 3 of them. The first one is Pauline. Now, I had to kind of— I had to call this down. She listened to one of our programs, and I didn't notate which one, over the last 3 or 4 weeks, And in those programs, they were the ones regarding mental health, stopping the stigma, visualizing, believing, those type of things. And I repeated a common analogy a lot of people use, and you may be very familiar with, and that is when you're on an airplane, the attendant will make announcements, and one of those announcements is about the oxygen that will come down in case of an emergency. And what they'll say is, put it on yourself first before helping other people. So our conversations in the past several weeks has been about that really is a very good and strong and powerful visual around self-care, taking care of yourself first, because if you take care of yourself first, everyone else will be taken care of. If you put everybody else first, then you're not going to be taken care of, you're not going to be at 100%. In order to really give yourself and everyone else the real you and the complete you. So, long story short, she had listened to one of those programs that that analogy came up, and she made a comment to me after she reached out following that program that it almost caused her to start hyperventilating. You know, and if you're someone like myself, you start visualizing, it can become very, very real. And she went on to say that she really needs oxygen in her life, like she feels like, you know, she's breathless and very anxious and just overwhelmed. So her bottom line, what she was asking was, she has 3 children, she has a husband, she has a job, she does volunteer work in the community, she has basically it all. And yet she just feels like, you know, she doesn't have any time and any care for herself, and that self-care that we've been talking about a lot. So she's just asking about boundaries. How do I create boundaries? And that has been, that has been a subject over, you know, I would say the last couple of months, and we've talked about, you know, no, no, but we'll get to that in a minute. So if it sounds familiar, it is because we've touched on boundaries and saying no. But I think it goes much deeper than that, at least it does for Pauline. Because I don't know about you, but if you've ever had a panic attack, or if you ever had a point in time, and again, try to visualize this, though I don't want it to be so real that you start hyperventilating or, you know, just becoming very anxious. I know for myself it looks like when you're just kind of going into life full force, and it doesn't mean that it's very aggressive or just— and it's very full of gusto and speed. It just might be the fact that there is not a minute in the day from the time you wake up to the time you put your head on the pillow, that you're not doing something, and 99.9% of the time, those somethings you're doing is for everybody else but yourself. And I just know for me, it was a period of, I would say, 2, 2.5 years, and this is going back about 8 or 9 years ago. I was starting my business, I was writing my book, I was getting all kinds of attention around Shedding the Bitch, and I was going, going, going, going. I was sitting on my couch, I was sitting at the breakfast table, I was sitting just working, working, working up until the time I just dropped into bed. And it got to a point where I was, I was very much what Pauline was explaining. I just felt like I was hyperventilating, I felt like I was just constantly trying to find air, trying to find breath, and I just couldn't bring myself down. So picture for yourself if you've ever had that moment, maybe. Maybe it's been a short period of time, heavy deadlines, heavy family obligations, whatever, or it has kind of stretched out to be, you know, longer, especially for those of you with children. It could be from day one to 18, you know, and they're out of the house, that this, you know, this period of time lasts for basically you caring for your children and your extended family unit, I'll say. So what can you do, you know, in order to set boundaries, in order to just find that breath, whether it's moments, minutes, hours, you know, or days. And more so, how can you, like the analogy, put the oxygen mask on yourself, meaning self-care, and then help everybody else? How can you ensure that you're kind of caring for yourself first and then, not before or after, it's not a, you know, it's not something that you should feel selfish or shameful that you want to, you know, put that mask on yourself first. I want, want you to shift your thinking and your belief system around the fact that it's actually better for you to put that mask on yourself, make sure you're taken care of, because then you're going to be fully present, fully aware, fully yourself for everyone else around you, and it will benefit them and you far more than you just running around, uh, taking care of everybody else except for yourself. So let's just run through some things that you can do and you can consider in order to really learn how to set boundaries. Now, before we do that, I just want to let all of you know that if you do have a question, you can call 1-818-572-2910. If I see that you come into the studio, I may right then and there, especially, you know, if we haven't gotten into another question just yet, I may open the line and ask if anyone has a question. You don't have to say a word if you just dialed in so you can listen to the program. You don't have to say a word. I just want to make sure that we don't miss an opportunity that if you did want to talk to us, talk to me specifically, then you have that opportunity. So let's just do that really quick before we get too far into this. Does anyone have a question for me?

Yeah. Hi, you're describing me to a T right now.

Are you following me by chance? No, I'm kidding.

Am I what?

I said, are you Pauline by chance? I was kidding, I was kidding.

No. Oh yeah, no, I'm Deborah. Um, I couldn't even sleep last night. Hi. I, my heart is fluttering. When you said you couldn't breathe, that's exactly how I feel.

I have a—

what's happening?

Bully manager. My manager is a bully, and, uh, I've taken it for like 3 and a half years, and she does all her— she blames us. If she gets in trouble, then she blames us. And so I let the lady above her know, and she said she would take care of it, but you know, the lady's not going to stop it. Um, and then I take care of my mom, and she's difficult. And, um, a boyfriend that I've let go too long as well, you know. I mean, he, he's nice but not nice enough. So I'm— my nerves are fried. I can't sleep. My hair's falling out. I'm at that point.

Oh no.

Oh, and I don't know if I should just quit my job because the lady is not going to change. It's almost like a mental illness. I'm like, right, right. Somebody said that this started from my mom, you know, treating me bad, that it's like a wound. So I track these people and I have terrible boundaries.

Okay, all right, wow. So let's see, okay, mom, um, listen, okay, so for everyone listening, and this is going to get into boundaries, so we're still staying with that subject, but I do want to help Deborah, um, with the— and she brought up a number of things in this, and of course, uh, maybe any one of you out there listening can relate just as Deborah has related to this particular question and scenario. So Deborah, I am so sorry. First off, I want to just say I'm sorry for your pain.

Thank you.

But let's do this right now. Let's just, everybody, just take a deep breath and let it out. Breathe it in deep and then just let it out. Because, Deborah, what I'll offer to you first— yeah, keep breathing— and what I'll offer to you first is you do need to feel it. You do need to, whether it's on a, you know, program with me crying, whether it's just by yourself, you know, if you need to yell, you need to scream, you need to cry, you need to write, you need to walk, whatever it is, you need to allow yourself to feel the overwhelm that obviously you're feeling. But you need to, like, you're feeling it, but you're not, like, looking at it in the mirror. And not just you, that's a general statement for everybody. Many of us get upset and we cry and we get emotional and we get, you know, angry, but we're not really feeling and allowing us to accept and give us our permission to not like the situation that we're in. And so I wanted you to get to a point where you're okay with the situation you're in, Because now you can kind of put that aside and say, okay, what do I need to do to address it? So let me give you a few suggestions as to what you brought up. But then what I really would love to do, Deborah, because this will be a kind of a deeper conversation that you should have and you deserve to have. So I just would offer that, you know, you can reach out to me, call me. Send me a note and let's get some time that you can just— we could talk through all of this in a very much deeper way. How does that sound?

Sounds good.

Yeah, yeah, because I wouldn't want to leave you even after this discussion. I wouldn't want to leave you, um, kind of feeling alone, and you probably feel alone on a— on an island by yourself trying to figure this out for yourself. Is that a fair assessment? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so let me just at least touch on a few of these things, and I am going to kind of bring it back to— I'm going to bring it back to the boundaries. But I will say, just because if you have the time to stay on for the whole time, I will say— Oh, I will. Okay, great. Because your bully manager comment as well leads me to you benefiting from the discussion that we would have around the fact that a the other person's question about how do I tell my boss he needs a leadership coach. And it's because of the fact that it's a bully manager and a kind of a micromanager. Yeah, so you'll benefit from multiple parts of this conversation, okay?

Oh my gosh, yeah, they were going to give her sexual harassment training because She kept touching me. Like, I asked her not to touch me, and then she'd be like, oh, I love your, your new necklace, and then just put her hands on it when I've asked her. Like, find ways to touch me. Oh, did you get new hair? You know, color? And I've asked her, so I've had to call, and, um, and they're, they're saying it's a bully. It's not sexual harassment. It's like, you're my bitch, I'm gonna touch you when I want to, right? And I'm like, I'm a 15-year-old woman. I don't want to be touched.

I would agree with, I would agree with your assessment that it is bullying. It's not sexual harassment. She's just trying to dominate and intimidate. And I know that area really, really well.

Right.

Okay, okay. So let's first, everybody, let's talk about boundaries. Now boundaries come down to First off, anyone listening, boundaries comes down to your own beliefs in yourself that you deserve and you're worthy of boundaries. Because many of us are afraid to say no to anyone because of the fact that, well, they won't like me, or I won't look good in their eyes.

They'll fire you.

They're gonna— yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So I would first make sure that you know what your boundaries and limits are. And obviously Deborah has pointed out that she knows at least one of her boundaries, and that is she doesn't want to be touched. She doesn't want somebody putting, you know, their hands on her in any way, shape, or form. And so what I would suggest everybody to do initially is really sit down and think through, and you know everybody how big I am on journaling and getting it out of your head and onto a piece of paper. I won't go through that again, but I would just suggest doing so. And really put down on a piece of paper what do you stand for, because that's what boundaries is. It's you knowing what you stand for. What do you believe in? What do you want? What don't you want when it comes to any area of life, whether that's health, fitness, money, relationships, investments like risk. Your religion, your career, your work, your employees, your boss. You've got to look at all of that. What do you like in your— like Deborah had mentioned, you know, the sexual harassment. What do you like from an intimate type of environment and then contrast that, you know, in a business environment. You're certainly— you expect this, but you don't expect this. So you need to really get clear So you know what you stand for. And, you know, I have to tell you, it doesn't matter if I'm working with somebody out of college just starting a career or a business or a most seasoned, seasoned— and that's not just age, that's also number of years in their career or business— and they can't articulate for me what they truly stand for. It's almost like they're embarrassed or ashamed to acknowledge it and admit it because then it makes them seeing X, Y, and Z. Well, guess what? You are what you stand for. So you need to learn for yourself what you stand for. So that would be the first thing. After that, what I want you to do is take that list and kind of organize it, like, and get your priorities. So, for instance, for Deborah, I would suggest do that from a work environment perspective, and that will help kind of help them frame a conversation that she may have to have if it would be appropriate with her boss, but it might need to be boss and HR, or boss and the boss's boss, something like that.

Yeah, I've already gone to the above.

Yeah, and we'll get to that in a second, but so write out a plan, like what— so for all the things that you've you've been able to define as what you stand for. What are— and what you stand for means now you know what you'll say yes to and what you'll say no to. And sometimes there's a gray area. So, for instance, I have someone right now who's been reaching out to me to come on board as part of their team. And so I've made it very clear, and at the same time, even when I go out and look for consulting, new consulting clients or coaching clients, I'm very clear on my boundaries. I'm very clear on my work hours. I'm very clear on how they can communicate with me, how they can reach me, what my service level agreement in regards to response time would be, the fact that I, you know, I don't work on weekends and rarely on the holidays when I'm out on vacation unless it's a 911. And I define all of this. And therefore, the point of that is if you come up with your boundary plan, so to speak, then you can use that to communicate to anybody else about what it is that you stand for and what it is that you'll accept and you won't accept.

Right.

And then the, and then the next part after that is learning to say no. Now, this, um, you've tried this, Deborah, yourself, but for boundaries as a whole, because you mentioned In this particular case, Pauline mentioned that she too has, you know, everything from being a mother of 3 to, you know, she's a wife, she has a career, she works in the community, and she has a very difficult time in saying no. You need to learn to say no, people, women, ladies, and I know we have men listeners, but you need to say no. You're not doing anyone— no one's going to, like, on your tombstone, it's not going to say, "We loved her because she never said no." You know, and if that's what it's going to say, you don't want it to say that. You want it to say that, you know, she cared for herself and all those around her. She, you know, work-life balance, however you want to term it. So you need to learn to say no. And how do you do that? And just a few little tips, because I have a very I'll call them intimate conversations with clients around this, and they'll get emotionally upset when they have to consider saying no. You know, because it comes down to I don't want to disappoint somebody, I don't want to, you know, appear as if I'm being selfish, I don't want to, you know, kind of look bad in the boss's eyes, that kind of thing. I'll give you a quick for instance. One of my clients called me the other day for a 911. I have 911 calls with my clients. So she sends a 911 saying, I need to talk to you. And so she's on vacation. I knew she was on vacation. And so all of a sudden she's explaining that, and it was a Friday at like 2. So she was explaining this scenario and she was letting me know that she needed to get something to her boss. I said, well, wait a minute, you're on vacation. And she's like, I know, I know, I just want to get it to him, you know, before the end of day. I go, It's Friday. It's 2 o'clock. Can you not let him know, or ask him, can it wait until Monday morning at 8 o'clock? I mean, that's only like 2, 3 hours of work time that he'd be waiting. And she wasn't comfortable with that. And so what I would suggest to everybody is get comfortable with it because you deserve your vacations. You deserve— your time at the park, or time at the gym, or time at the, you know, manicures and pedicures and a glass of wine with your girlfriends, or whatever the situation might be. You, you know, you need to understand, especially, so for instance with Deborah, her mom, her boyfriend, I won't touch the bully manager when it comes to this, but you know, the mom and the boyfriend, I mean, the way to The way to show other people that you don't want to be mistreated or taken advantage of or disrespected is to stand up for yourself. So understanding boundaries, like I said, is knowing what you stand for, and what you stand for, you then have to stand up for, and part of that is learning how to say no. So what I would want to challenge you guys with is You know, start with a day. Start with a day and, you know, if you have to put it on your, you know, on your hand or your wrist or somewhere, you know, just write no. And as you go through the day and things come up and you really don't want to do something or you don't feel like you should need to do something right then and there, or you just want to fit in and you don't want to cancel that manicure appointment or delay that, you know, walk in the park. Then just simply say that 2-letter word, no, and see what happens. See what happens within yourself and see what happens when it comes to the other person. I can guarantee you if my client had called her boss and said, hey, you know, I'm just wrapping up vacation and can this wait till Monday morning, or what kind of priority is it that it's needed before Monday morning? I can guarantee you, because I know her boss very well, I can guarantee you he'd probably say, no, Monday morning's fine. But we don't ask. So just kind of work your way into little things and then bigger things in regard to saying no. And I can guarantee you, you'll be surprised, shocked actually, the response, because it'll be more for you than going against you. All right. Okay. Now, But like I had mentioned, it does take you believing in yourself that you deserve it and that you don't deserve being mistreated or disrespected or mishandled or, you know, any of the negatives, so to speak. So if you, you know, need to work on your self-belief, then, you know, we can have another conversation and go into that because we talk a lot about it here on the program. But give yourself permission to care for yourself. Give your— be okay. Say, when someone asks you something and you really want to say no, not only say no, but be okay with, you know what, that's okay because I need to— I need X, Y, and Z. So give yourself permission that it's okay for you to take care of yourself. Now, a lot of— now I'm huge into time blocking. If any of you have been part of the community for a while. Time blocking is just putting anything and everything on your calendar and treating anything personal or professional, money or religion, treat it as an appointment. We take our PTA meetings, we take our work meetings, we take our doctor's appointments very seriously. If you need to, to create yourself some boundaries, then you can create them. And you know what, all you have to tell someone if you really have a hard time saying no, the easiest thing to say is, I have an appointment, I have a conflict at that time, I can't do it on Saturday because I'm, you know, I've got this thing. No, you know, you don't have to explain yourself, you just You know, just say, "I have a conflict." And you're not lying, because you're taking care of yourself is an appointment, it is something that needs to be done, just like any of those other appointments need to be done. Now, the next thing, and we mentioned this slightly at the beginning, the next thing would be the best way to do, to kind of help with your boundaries and help with your self-care is to include the people closest to you in it. So when you have laid out your, when you've laid out your boundaries, what you stand for, what you'll accept, what you won't accept, what you want out of your self-care, out of that time to put the mask on yourself first before helping others, communicate that. Let other people know. Women, people aren't mind readers. Especially men. Men aren't mind readers. Your kids aren't mind readers. So communicate. Sit down and have a conversation with your boss, with your family, with your friends. You know, if you're starting a new goal or you're overcoming something or you're struggling with something and you don't want to talk about it maybe, or you want help, or you don't want to overeat, or you don't want to go out to certain places, or you don't want to be going to places that are going to cause you to want to drink when you don't want to drink. The only way to do that is to know that, which you will have already done by defining your boundaries and then communicating that out to others. All right. Okay, okay. You know what, we're not even going to take a break because I just noticed the time and I do want to get to these next questions and I'm going to switch it up and get to another question that Deborah could be benefiting from, which is going to be the question about when a boss needs a coach. And they don't know it. And then we will get to writing a book, all right? But like I said, that in itself, because I had literally a 2-hour discussion with someone when they asked me this question just last week. So we can always have that discussion. But let me get to Christine— no, that was the book question. I'm sorry, I don't have a name on this one. So let me get to the question about "how do I go about suggesting to my boss that he or she"— and I just kind of genericized it there— "needs a leadership coach?" So basically what this is saying, very much like Deborah, you know, how do you confront someone— and don't be afraid of the word confront, everybody. It's not a negative word. How do you address, if that makes you feel more comfortable, with your boss that their leadership style is not working, their management style is not working, and there could be options out there for them. They could go and find a coach or training or whatever the case might be. How do you go about that? Well, as Deborah has voiced and has probably found out, you have to go about it carefully. Yeah, yeah, you actually have to go about it as and put, put yourself— now, um, are you in corporate?

Yeah.

Okay, you're not in a small business like a family-owned business or something? It's a corporate organization?

It's corporate, yeah. It's kind of cosmetics, but it's, it's not like a corporation. It's a small company that's nationwide. Well, right, and, and other countries too. But I, I did talk above her head. I did go above her head already, and the lady agreed with me because I told her I had one foot out the door anyway. And she goes, no, you're not going anywhere. But then it's— it— she will only— this lady will only calm down for a little while and start back up. I mean, this is who this woman is, you know. She just does— when you said leadership, she never has been a leader ever. And I When you said that, that's why I laughed, because I'm like, this is perfect, that's what she needs. But she won't accept that. I know this woman for 3 and a half years, she's not going to accept that.

Okay, now, now, um, so let me ask a couple of questions because I, I, I'm going to work to sway your mind, uh, but let me ask you a couple questions. Do you know what motivates her? What her goals and agenda— let's call it an agenda for somebody like that. But do you know what it is that person really wants?

She wants to stay number one, I guess, in sales, but she also wants not to get fired. That is her number one goal every day is not to get fired.

Does she verbalize that or that's her behavior?

Yes, she verbalizes it and she tells us that it could happen to us. All the time. You— if you don't do this, you could get fired. If you don't do that, you hear it so much, you're like, we'll do it already. Like, really?

It's like being tortured, right? Right. Okay, so good. Well, good. I'm glad we know kind of her motivation and her agenda, which is, uh, the number one sales is beautiful, that'd be great, um, but the not to get fired is very concerning. Okay, so for anybody out there—

well, she steals them from other people because she's lazy. Like she makes people, you know, do the work and then she steps in and grabs it because she doesn't do the work.

Oh, oh, oh. Okay, so we're not going to try to address that right now. You and I can definitely have a deep conversation about it. But I do want to address and relate it back to Susan's questions about suggesting to her boss that she needs a leadership coach. So because the first thing I was going to say is to clearly understand for yourself, so Deborah, this is for you and/or Susan and anybody else, what is the problem? So obviously you know what the problem is with this individual very well. And what is, which you touched on, but, and I'm saying to, when I say to understand this, I mean, Write it out and document it and put it in paper so you have a plan that you can work with. You also want to really understand the value, the benefit, or the impact that any change they could make would have on them. So, for instance, if she went from, you know, not using the, you know, that type of communication style around getting fired and whatnot, and she changes to be more positive, productive, What would that do not only for herself but her team members and for her results in the business? So to really understand what the—

I know that, I know that. It sounds great. She's not going to accept that. She's not open to a change.

Right. So if you— so, okay, so let me walk through these steps for everybody. And then let's talk as it pertains specifically to this individual. So once you understand, you know, what the problem is and the impact, and that's the more so the negative impact it's having on the business, on the individual, on their agenda, on their goals, on their aspirations, on their, you know, ambitions, and you also understand the value that it would have to the business should she should she or he change, you lay that out. Now, in Deborah's case, you've known her for a while, 3.5 years. You then need to ask yourself, to those listening, you need to ask yourself, how well do I know this individual? Deborah, for instance, knows, and Susan does as well, knows, you know, how that person is going to respond or react, and/or they're just not going to be open-minded. But how well do you know this individual? Because that will help you possibly come up with an approach that even is counterintuitive, but yet might work with this person. And then you identify the solutions. And this is where we kind of came around to the leadership coaching with Susan. So we identify various solutions. You know, maybe it is becoming part of the leadership development program, or getting a coach, or going to training, or working with, you know, finding a mentor or a sponsor or in the business for this individual. Then you would have to definitely frame the conversation and the discussion. It's basically, you know, one— and again, Deborah, I know this might not work with yours, but for anybody else, you want to ask permission. In coaching, the number one thing coaches should always do is ask permission to provide feedback. May I give you some great observation. May I suggest some ideas for you? It's basically, you know, the term that we use is ask permission. So you would start the conversation once you've established a very private location and a time, you know, to ask permission to provide observations and feedback. You want to use that along with understanding this person's agenda. I know you're looking to be the number one salesperson, the number one manager, get promoted next year, become the next VP or CFO, whatever their motivation or agenda is. But I think there's just some things that I'd like to point out that could be hindering that, and I know you wouldn't want that to be happening. I know you wouldn't want— X, Y, and Z to impact how other, you know, senior leaders look at you, or how, you know, HR judges and evaluates for promotions or bonuses or raises or whatever the case might be. So you lean into their goals and their agenda as far as, you know, opening up this conversation with them. You focus on then turning it to, you know, if we were to X, Y, and Z. "Hey, you know, you'd be able to definitely secure that number one sales position or have this team be very productive and all working toward your goals, Mr. or Mrs. Manager," whatever the case might be. So it's asking permission, it's leaning into their goal or agenda, and then focusing on the benefits and values it would have to that goal that they have. And then you would say, you know, and then you wait for their responses, obviously, and you kind of lean into what, what they provide you back. And in Deborah's case, it sounds like it would be a lot of walls, a lot of, you know, breakdown. She might not even get this far in the conversation.

The funniest thing that you said was the lady above her is very tough, and I've only met her like 4 times, and she's very tough. When I was so frustrated and almost out the door, I called her and just laid everything on the line, and I was unbelievably impressed that she listened. And she said that she was my manager, not the counter manager. And I was like, wow. So I got great support from above her. So That was good. This woman is, uh, in the middle though, is still sneaky. And, um, something like even just yesterday happened. And so she sent out like a mass email to the owner of the company, the vice president, that something should be done a certain way, but I wasn't able to do it. So I sent her a text and told her why she sent out the email. So I screenshotted the text where she actually apologized to me, and I sent it to the woman above her today after the email because I don't know how to— what is not catty, what is, you know, because I'm fighting with a catty person, you know what I mean? So, right, that's, that's where my boundaries are so, um, um, I'm blurry. I I don't know at what point do I sound like a catty person or the person that tells on people, or you know what I mean? Because it is relentless. But I did it, I did it today.

That, yeah, that I wouldn't call catty or boundaries. What I would call that is just purely what is needed is how to communicate. And 99% of what I do, which I never realized when I started doing— when I started coaching, um back in 2008, I didn't realize how much life was around communications, how much the pluses of life is communication and how much the negatives and the stress of life is purely as a result of communication. So in your case, so in your case, it would be, you know, very quickly, you know, what I would have asked you had we been working, you know, to kind of together on this, because that's what we do is a sounding board. I would have said to you, okay, so when you go to this boss's, you know, this person's boss, and she's very open and seems very supportive and very engaging, you know, I'll ask you right now, did you ask her specifically for what steps will be taken after this and what can you expect to be done to ensure that, you know, this environment changes?

Well, I told her, I said that, um, the people before, and like about 10 people have left, the reason that they don't report her is because they're afraid of her retaliation. And she said there will be no retaliation. If there is, you call me. Well, she did it sneaky by sending out a mass email because I didn't turn something in. I didn't turn something in because everything closed down and this all happened at the very end. So I wanted— right, you know, and she didn't do what she was supposed to do, but I did give her the numbers that she needed, and I gave them like at 7 o'clock at night so she could have had them in by 9 PM. But at 11:30—

okay, okay, but I'm going to hold— but I'm going to hold you up for a minute. I'm going to hold you up for a minute. So, but when you went to the person that— that person that supported you and that said there'll be no retaliation Did they give you an action plan of what it is that they're going to do next to manage?

She told me she was going to be on her ass every day. She told me she was going to be on her ass every day.

Well, what does that make for?

Really checking her, checking her like constantly. And they are checking her.

They—

I think they know she's bad, but, um, right, they are— they're on her so badly. But how she expresses it is to turn around and attack us. So their plan is not working, not in my opinion.

Well, yeah, well, I, you know, I would have never wanted to hear from an HR person that the only thing— or not, not HR person necessarily, but a person's boss— that the only thing they're going to be doing is being on their ass. That's not really an action plan. Uh, specific things such as getting back to our question such as specific things needs to be, you know, well, we're definitely going to get her some, some, um, uh, not sexual harassment training, but we are going to get her some, uh, leadership development training, or we're going to get her a coach, or we're going to provide her some, you know, whatever.

Payroll company offered me that before because we go through a payroll company, and they said if I made a formal complaint, they would but it was sexual harassment classes. That's not going to help. Right, no. But if they said leadership, that would be awesome.

Right, right. Yeah, that's not going to be— that's not going to help. So let's, um, okay, so because you and I definitely would have a lot more to talk about, but let me just— let's finish this up really quick, everybody. Okay, so you—

I'll just flip—

oh, that's okay, that's all right. So you ask the permission, you lean into their goals, their agenda. I put agenda in there specifically, that term, because Certain managers are motivated by agendas. They're not motivated by goals. They think agendas sounds much more— I don't know what they think, you know, what they think because it's not true. But anyway, so you lean into that. You focus on the impact, the values, and the benefits. And then you give them suggestions, but you have to ask permission. May I give you some ideas? Or may I make some suggestions? Now I would never tell— I would never use the word coaching. I wouldn't use that term to somebody, especially somebody like even Deborah's boss. I wouldn't necessarily say that. I'd come up with something else. Or I would use an example like, well, you know, I know a friend of mine, you know, herself, they offered her an executive coach, or they offered her, you know, a mentoring program, or whatever the case might be. You know, I would also ask someone or make the suggestion, Well, you know, you can take my word for it, or, you know, have you ever thought of doing a 360, having a 360 assessment done to gather information that's anonymous from the people that you work with up, down, and across, and get feedback in regards to that. Now, these suggestions may not work for, for instance, Debra's boss, or this individual with Debra, but it may work as suggestions that that Deborah would give that person above that is open to hearing it. They understand what the issue is. But there should be some specific actionable things going about to happen. And that's either, you know, some sort of training, coaching, 360 assessments, performance, you know, assessment, something actionable needs to be going on. So when you're looking to provide any type of feedback, especially when you're trying to coach up, because that's what you're doing. This person would be acting as a coach to the person that even they report to. It's just a matter of asking permission, stating the problem with the solution, feeding into someone's goals and motivations and agenda, and then making suggestions as to what can be done. So, Deborah, I'm just going to suggest that you and I can even either hang on or you can call me back., and we can continue this conversation or set up a time that we can talk even more so. How does that sound?

Yeah, it sounds good.

Okay, um, okay, so I really— I want to get to very quickly because we only have a couple of minutes, um, I just want to get to— and then I'm going to post this whole thing on, um, on, uh, our showyouthinthebitch.com blog post, and I'll also share it out, a link to it to Facebook and Twitter. But it was Christina that asked about writing a book. Now again, this is going to take a lot of time, but let me just say this. If you should decide you want to write a book, woo-hoo, you go for it. We all have stories. We all have things that we can share with others and others can benefit from. You need to determine why you want to write it. Do you want it to be a bestseller? Do you want it to inspire or educate somebody? Do you want to use it as a business card so you can get speaking gigs or consulting work or to promote it? Do you want it to make money? Now, the reason why this particular one is very important is because it's going to be what everybody asks you, and it's going to be what publishers want to understand. Is why are you writing this book? And there's a lot of reasons behind that. You're going to want to determine your writing style and approach. Don't have time to get into all that. And you want to set a deadline and goals with metrics. You want to write a summary of what the book is about. You want to create an outline of what it is you want to say and work from that outline to begin writing. And then you want to write, write, write, write, write. Then you're going to market. You're going to do research on now the publishing, and you— and I'll explain in another post why that one's all the way down at number 8. You want— then want to just continue writing, reading, editing, have others read and edit it, and then you'd launch it. Now, of course, like I said, I could spend, you know, an hour program just on this subject matter, and I had a lot more details to go over with you today, but at the same time I thought it was very, very important for us to support Deborah and feed into the conversation today. Anything that we can give back to her to make her situation a lot more bearable. But I will post that entire list of— to that question about writing a book out on, out on ShannonTheBitch.com, and we'll make sure that we do schedule a full-hour program toward the end of the year in case you have a 2020 goal like I do to write a book. Deborah, did you want to hang on or do you want to call me back?

I can hang on.

Okay, so hang on. We're going to— we'll end the program at least— well, I might hang up on you actually.

Make a note.

Do you have a pen?

Yeah. I have to grab it.

Oh, sorry.

Okay, that's it. Of course there's never one.

Okay, okay, real quick: 678-438-1908. Yes, anybody can call me on that number should you need me. Uh, but I do— everyone, I'll look forward to having you right back here next Tuesday. We're going to talk about intimidation. How to shed the intimidation bitch. All right, but I want to thank you all for being part of today's program. Thank you, Deborah. I'm thrilled that you called in to get some support, and I look forward to talking to you in just a moment. But until next week, have a great week, everybody. Bye.

Thank you. Thank you for listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. Join Bernadette every Tuesday at noon Eastern as she helps help you shift your bitches to riches. And the dialogue is always going on at sheddingthebitch.com. See you next week.