29: Helping Women Find Their Voices with Beth Fisher

Welcome to my podcast called you'd Must Be out of youf Mind. My name is Dr. Don Wood. Everyone has experienced some trauma at times during their life. These traumatic events and experiences create a significant impact on how your mind works on a day to day basis. At the same time creates long term effects on your emotional and physical health. It will interfere with your ability to stay present and in the moment. After years of research, I used my knowledge of neuroscience to to create what I call a memory reset. This memory reset reduces and eliminates the impact of the trauma and allows you to experience peace and clarity. My podcast will share many stories of people experiencing similar symptoms to you and how their lives have been positively impacted by our TIP program. I can't wait to share with you how the impossible is possible and why you must be out of your mind. And there it is.

Well, welcome to another episode of you Must Be out of youf Mind. I'm your host, Don Wood, and as you know, we always bring on really special guests that have so much to contribute. And today I have another amazing guest, Beth Fisher, who's going to share with us a lot of the stuff that she does. She's an author, business, professional development coach, doing some really amazing work in a lot of areas that I want to discuss directly with her. But before we do that, let me introduce Beth Fisher. How are you doing, Beth? Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you. I'm doing well, thank you.

Excellent. So I know you're doing a lot of stuff in the development world, like working with women, you know, in particular.

And so we're going to talk a little bit about some of the things that you've got coming up, but can you share a little bit more? I know that was a pretty brief introduction, but tell us about what you do as an author, a speaker, and development coach.

Sure, absolutely. And as I like to tell people, when I am speaking, I affectionately say my resume is very checkered. And I say that in the most loving way, which is, I think many of us, you know, you live enough years on this planet, in the world, and where we are today is not what we at once envisioned. Right. Our trajectories are typically not completely linear. And so that was very true for me. I grew up in a small town in Northeast Ohio and always had a penchant for learning and words and people and inspiration, motivation for me. You know, I'm still a sucker for an underdog story, if you will. You know, I like rules, but I also like to break them. I asked for a lot of Forgiveness and not permission. Because I've always been the girl that asks the questions. Well, who decided that should be the rule in the first place? And so to that end, I found myself in a corporate sales and marketing career for about 25 years and I was selling business process improvement. So, so I came to understand very quickly that I love business acumen and organizational structure and culture because really what I love are the people within those structures. And so for me, that was a very good fit for many, many years. And I specifically was just, I guess, drawn to the women in the workplace. It's not that I didn't have to work with men obviously in typically the decision making positions, but throughout that sort of those discussions and those engagements, I would, I would very much find myself in conversation with women about all sorts of things. Like tell me your, your story. How did you get here? What do you love about your job? What do you hate about your job? What are you frustrated by? How are people seeing you? Those sort of questions. And that has led me to the things I do in the world today. Yeah, it's just that sort of inherent love and questioning, I think, that got me here.

Well, that probably challenged a lot of people, right? Growing, you know, coming up in that kind of a world because especially the corporate world, it's more of, you know, well, this is the way it's done. Didn't you get the manual?

Right, exactly right, exactly. I'll never forget one of the things that, you know, when you're close to something, you're sometimes too close to it to recognize it as a red flag. And I was very young when I started my career. I graduated from college, I was 21 years old, just had turned 21 and went right into that sales career. And so I'm in this like ill fitting suit and these pantyhose that are rolling down and I'm like this, I think this is what women are supposed to look like in the workforce. I don't know, I kind of miss my sweats and my ponytail and. But I thought, I'm going to do this professional woman thing and I'm going to do it well. So I arrived at a regional office with my cohorts. I had met them a few times prior, but this was like the first business meeting that I was going to be a part of and I'm in a conference room filled with men and at one point a man looked at me. I asked a question. To your point? Yes, I asked a lot of questions. And he said, huh, it's a good thing you're pretty because you're not very smart. Whoa. And I said, well, it's a good thing you're smart. So I'm not sure that that landed, but what that brought up for me many years later was a sense of I was in self defense mode and I didn't want to be. You know, it becomes very tiring and taxing for women in the workplace to always be in this position of I feel a need to defend myself unnecessarily when really what I want to do is contribute to the structure, to the team effort, to the mission of the organization.

Well, yeah, and I. And I could see how quickly that could happen with this guy saying that, because especially if you started right out of college, you didn't see a lot of women in that and that type of business. Right. So now all of a sudden you come along and that's a threat, you know? And that guy's comment. Right. Was a threat. That's why he was responding that way.

Yeah. And thank you for saying that because for a long time I felt somehow responsible for being a threatening. And truly I'm not. I'm a very loving, kind, a little precocious, but yes, very much someone who is always wanting the best for myself from a personal improvement, personal development standpoint, but also for others. And I never understood why my presence would threaten others when I would be the first person to say, how can I help you? So I had to learn over time how to change my tone. And that is the name of my program, because for again, a long time I refused. I refused to change my tone because where I would go was a defense sort of posture. And I would say, well, that's not. That's not my problem. That's on them. If they don't understand me, I'm not going to change. Why should I have to change? This is me. And I know that I'm a kind, loving, smart person. Too bad they don't understand that. Well, that didn't get me very far, as you might imagine.

Yeah.

Yep.

And that's really what I do in my whole program is I talk exactly about that, is that if the tone is so important, it's what I do in my whole program. Because if you don't understand how to communicate with other people, you'll just run into walls. And the idea is to. I love the same. My wife has this up on her computer and it really came from the Mumbai tribe. When they greet each other on the street, they say, I see you as opposed to hello. Right. And what she wrote everybody wants to be seen, which is true. Right. But and again, Lou Holtz said it really well. He says, I never learned anything while I was speaking.

Which I love, because you listen and you're going to hear and if their tone is off, it's how you respond. So I'm absolutely 100% right in line with what you're saying about tone.

And so share a little bit more. And I want to share something about what I found from research about tone as well.

Sure. So I love what you mentioned with your wife because people do want to just truly be seen and heard and valued. It doesn't mean that we have to all be the same. In fact, we should not all be the same, but what we should be is respectful and intentional and to say and see in others. You are gifted in this area. I'm not threatened by that. I am wowed by that. And I'm going to. As someone who's a leader, I coach a lot of women leaders. And as someone who is in a leadership position, what I am always encouraging others to do what I have to do myself. Now I work for a faith based mission. I work for a homeless shelter. This has been the trajectory of my life too. Things I never saw coming. But on my team, I will say I see this person for who they are. This person is gifted in this area. They're not a high D on the disc. They're not a three and an eight on the Enneagram. They are gifted in this way. So how can I best plug them in? You know, I played sports my whole life. I am five foot four. I should not have been a center on our basketball team. My job was.

And you're a center.

No, I should not have been. Right. I should have been the point guard. And I was the point guard. And I was. My job was to bring the ball up the floor because certainly our 63 center should not have been doing that. I needed her to be under the boards, getting the rebound so that as a team we could play well together. Yep. And in any sort of organizational structure, it's the same thing. But people need to be first seen for who they are, accepted for who they are so that you can lead from a place of transparency and vulnerability. And those aren't cliches. That's real world what we need to be doing if we want healthy organizations with healthy people who work within them.

I agree. And one of the things I wrote about my second book I called Emotional Concussions. Right. Because we get emotional concussed throughout our lives. Right. But one of the things that is a result of these emotional concussions are people that get out of their lane. Exactly what you're talking about. Because it's a fear. I need to do everything right so I stay valuable. And what they end up doing is not doing many things well. And they think, well, I'm a jack of all trades. I'm doing everything. And people say to me, well, I multitask really well. And I go, no, you don't. Nobody does. Right. As much as we think we're multitasking, we're not as efficient when we multitask, we're a lot more efficient. Our brain works better when it can focus, as opposed to trying to juggle 10 things. Doesn't mean you can't do it. But I can tell you, you're not doing any of them really, really well.

Yeah, you're exactly right. You're exactly right. It's sort of like, find out what you like, who you are. And when I swipe my number one leadership principle, it's like, do you want to be a leader or do you want to be liked? The answer is typically both. Of course. Who doesn't want to be liked in the world? But yet, if you truly are a leader and even if you don't have a team of people whom you're leading, you're leading yourself every day. How are you showing up every day? And what are the choices that you're making within? Especially, you know, in my area of expertise, the workplace, because we are equally responsible for our impact as we are our intent. And so many people say, well, I didn't mean to come across this way. I didn't mean for that person to think that I am bossy or direct or uncaring. Pick an adjective.

Right?

And what I will say is, yeah, you may not have meant to. Your intention may not have been that. But what is the impact? Because ultimately, at the end of the day, it impacts us as individuals and as somebody who really wants to do a good job. It's so easy to get into that sort of doom loop of blame. And people will say, it's not my fault. They don't know who I am. It's not my fault. They took this the wrong way.

There's another one of my emotional concussions. Successful people don't blame other people. They accept responsibility. So in that kind of a situation, the successful person would say, I don't think I explained that very well, as opposed to, you didn't understand me. Right. And learning that kind of language is really Powerful because it takes the onus away, you know, from you're blaming them as opposed to. I'm taking it on. Let me try to explain it this way and see if that resonates with you. Right. As opposed to why don't you understand me? I was pretty clear in the way I described that. Right. Then they become defensive.

Right.

And now you're dealing with somebody on defense.

Exactly right. Exactly right. And so it's a, you know, the onus is on us to change our tune, our tone. And I have always understood.

What that meant cognitively. But it took me a lot of years emotionally and maturity wise to put it into practice and to finally say, I can do this. It doesn't mean that I am a lesser version of myself. It doesn't mean that I am inauthentic. It means that I care enough about the overall goal of this organization, this team, this mission, myself to put in the work, to take that responsibility.

And you're a sports person. So I use sports all the time in my analogy. So being a basketball player, you understand the importance of team and playing your role. Right. And a lot of times people, they want to be the center. They want. Or they want to be the person that I want to bring the ball up the court. Right. Why am I not the guy that's doing that or the girl is not doing that? Well, that's not their skill set. Right. They're the defensive player. They're the person. You know, again, you take basketball. Dennis Rodman was not the scorer. Right. But he was the best in defense. Right. And he helped Michael Jordan win championships.

Right? That's right. So, yeah, yeah. And the Jack of all Trades analogy, I love that you use that because again, I think it goes to being seen. Everything ties back to that theme. Because often people will say, well, if I don't speak up in a meeting, people will think I'm irrelevant. That means people won't see me unless I'm using my voice. And we've had some people on our team here, I can say that feel like in the past they needed to be the loudest voice in the room. And I would pull them aside and say, you know what? Leaders don't always have to be talking. In fact, leaders are strategic. We have to come from a place of strategy rather than emotion. And our emotional selves are the first to lean in when we feel irrelevant and we overcompensate. And we'll say, well, I'll just. I'll just interrupt really quickly. I'm going to add a Point to this person. I'm going to parrot what this person is saying. And that's ineffective from a team perspective because if somebody's yelling out the play and four other people in the court are also yelling, there's chaos. What are we running? Are we running a motion offense here? What are we doing?

No. Exactly. And one thing is I have audios. After people go through our program, they listen to a series of audios. And one of the set of audios are on communication and connection. And I talk about some of the most effective communicators. And Winston Churchill as an example was obviously a great communicator. A lot of people, you know, thought that, you know, he was just a natural communicator. He was not a natural communicator. He had to learn how to do that. He painstakingly went over. Right. His speeches beforehand to make it look like it was natural. Right. But he spent a lot of time on making sure that he was very effective in what he said. And at the same time, brief. Just exactly what you're talking about. He didn't give one hour speeches. I mean, I think the most famous one he did is he gave the commencement speech. I don't know if you ever heard that story, but he walked out and he goes, I think it was something to the effect of never ever give up. Right. And then walked off. He goes, never ever, ever give up.

Nothing else to be said. Right. And that one of the best books, smart brevity. It's true. And I always have a little bit of skepticism. My, my, again, my guard goes up when there's a collaborative meeting. Collaborative, but yet there's no collaboration because you've got one voice in the room. And so what I am always encouraging and coaching people to do is to take a really hard look. You know, introspection is not often an easy task. But to say, if I'm a leader and I want respect, as especially a female leader, what can I do to earn that respect? Right. It isn't earned. I believe, I believe that team don't just happen. It's with intentionality and with strategy. And to your point, often brevity to say, this is it. Clarity is kindness. I'm going to be clear that equals kind. This is what the charter is, this is what we're going to do. And consistency.

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So I often teach, too, that consistency matters because you teach people how to treat you. And if you are inconsistent in your leadership behavior or your responses, because one day you're strategic, one day you're emotional, it's kind of like up and down. Even in our personal lives, we can, I'm sure all of us have examples where you're like, what? How are you showing up today? Yesterday you were like this, Today you're like this. I'm not sure how to respond.

That comes all the way back to our childhood, which is one of the things that I talk about as well. Children want consistency. Consistency brings safety, right? Because they know what to expect. They may not like it, right? They may not like what they're being told or what they're experiencing, but they will, like you said, get respect for it and then understand, right, that this is who you are and this is what they can expect. And that consistency is a major key, especially in leaders. And what you're teaching is so powerful when people can learn that. And a lot of times they think, well, the more I talk, the more effective I am. And before I got into this, I had an organization that dealt in sales as well. And we had one guy that the guy was so smart. He's an mba, really smart guy, worked really, really hard. And every week would have hardly any sales and would come in and sit down and say, I don't know what I'm doing wrong. We'd go over things and over things, and every week he come in the same thing. And I don't know why, it took me a little while, but eventually he came in one day and he said, I don't know what happened. You know, I didn't close anything this week. And he starts talking. I said, oh, I just figured it out. He goes, what? I said, I know what the problem is. And he says, what? And I said, you don't listen. I keep telling you the same things every week. And you keep saying, nodding your head like, yes, yes, yes. And then you go out. So if you're not listening to me, you're not listening to the client. And so the clients probably told you five times they want to buy it and then they just eventually tried to figure out how to get you out of the, out of the house.

Right, exactly right. I, you know so many sales stories from the course of almost 30 years, and one of my favorites is I was visiting one of our regional offices and I was in our VP of sales office and I could hear out in the hallway that another one of our reps had called for him. And so the admin assistant answered the phone and let him know that this person was on the line for him. He says, I don't put him in my voicemail, I don't want to talk to him. And I had a little bit of a non poker face. And he said, what's so funny? And I said, well, if you don't want to talk to him, neither do our prospects.

Yeah, exactly.

So it matters. It really matters because we are holistic people. So whatever experience we are having at work really does carry over at home and vice versa. So we can put things into practice. And that's a lot of what I coach about is people say, how do I change it? I said, wait, intentionality. Right. Practice it. So if you are having a hard time as a strong female in the workplace because your superior is also a strong female, that's sometimes some tension there. Practice that with somebody who is in your sphere, who is a safe person to you that you are not as tense around, but who has those same sort of characteristics and qualities. Right. You practice that. And to your point, when people say, wow, Winston Churchill was a fantastic communicator. Well, not by chance, by choice.

Yep, it's one of the things that I use. I was working with a military veteran who had a lot of post traumatic stress. Took him all through that. But one of the other things that he said is he says, I can't talk to women. He goes, I get totally tongue tied, I don't know what to say. And I come across terribly. And he goes, I, I want to be better at it, but I'm just so afraid to talk to women. So I said, well, here's what we're going to do. I said, I want you to have, start developing, having inconsequential conversations. And what I mean by that is you're not having an intent. You're not trying to go up as if, oh, it's a really pretty lady. I want to be able to talk to her and maybe communicate with her. I said, talk to any woman. I said, in the grocery store, ask for directions. Ask for. What do you think is this cantaloupe? Right. I don't care what it is. Right. But get to the feeling of safety around women. Right. And that it's safe to talk to them. And I said, if you keep having these inconsequential, they're not going to feel afraid to talk to you in the middle of a crowded room. I said, you know, you don't want to walk them to them in the parking lot at 8 o' clock at night. I said, but do that in a place that they feel safe and they're not going to respond anyway, but pleasantly with you. Right? And so that's what he started to do. And I said it. And so afterwards we finished the, the session, we went down and we were in the elevator and I started talking to people in the elevator. And when I got out, I said, did you see what I just did? And he goes, what? And I said, I just had inconsequential conversations with strangers. And you see how easy it was to be able to talk to them. And they communicated. I said, because I wasn't asking them their name or where they live or just things that are just not going to create that kind of distraction for them. And they'll talk to you.

Yeah.

And that's that. I'm a big believer in intentionality. If you want to change something, you have to be intentional. Otherwise the. The brain does not like. It will go always to a default of safety. So if you. And what I talk about is behaviors and habits are codes. Your brain is constantly coding. So if you walk two miles every day to get food, and every day you have to navigate through snipers and landmines, Right. And then somebody tells you, why do you go that route? That's two miles. It's very dangerous. There's a grocery store 100 yards down that road, and it's really safe. Well, your mind doesn't know that. So it will not go to an unknown, it will go to a known, because that's safe. So the only way to change that is to be intentional and go 10 yards down one day, 20 yards down the next day. Become intentional and think of repetition as research for the brain. So the brain learns through its research, that there is a better way. But you have to be intentional and stick with it. Otherwise the mind will go back and default to what's safe.

That's exactly right. That's exactly why I had such a long history of going into self defense mode. And I would become a little defiant, a lot less loving in my responses. And today if somebody and I get this question a lot, what do you do to be so, quote, successful or whatever? And I say, I, I just got nicer and I said it sort of tongue in cheek, right? A little bit in jest, but I truly mean it. It took intentionality for me. It's not that I'm not an inherently nice person because as you mentioned in childhood, that was my self preservation. That was my mechanism to get through all of those sort of labels and the things that people would throw at me because they didn't take the time to know me. They just saw what they thought they were seeing without taking the time to be proximate, to understand, to see again, to see me. Right? We said that earlier. So when somebody is not seen, they go back to, well, let me one of two things. Let me either just totally give up, right, and just pretend I don't care. I'm not going to try. I'm going to become complacent and sort of a forget you attitude, or they overcompensate and overcorrect. And that was me as an achiever, as somebody who likes to be busy and do those things. I just was all the time doing that with disregard for how I was truly coming across with my tone and my demeanor. So I'd intentionally say, you know what, I'm done with that. I am done. And I had those inconsequential conversations with people that I knew I could trust and would not think, quote, less of me. They would say, oh, there she is. I always knew you were a nice, loving, smart, kind person. Yes, that's true. Thank you.

And again, that's all about what we do in our program. What I talk about is. And from my research, one of the things that I found is, especially as children, if a child has had a traumatic childhood, they are highly sensitive to sound. And this is what I talk about with my wife. My wife grew up in a very traumatic household. I grew up in the complete opposite, like zero. I mean, it was drastically different. And so I could never understand when I first met her why if I said something like, no, I don't like that, she could start to tear up and cry and she would Come back with, why are you upset with me? And I'd go, I'm not upset at all. She'd go, yes, you are. You're getting upset. She wasn't wrong and I wasn't wrong. I didn't say it that way yet. That's how she heard it.

Right.

And the reason being is because she was so sensitive to sound. If I was a little tired at the end of the day, right, Maybe just tired or maybe a little frustrated on my drive home, if my tone changed just slightly, she could hear that, like I was yelling. She was so sensitive to it. Now, if you'd have paid me to hear me with and without that tension change, that tone change, I could never have heard it because I didn't experience what she did. So that's why it's so important, if you're a business leader, to understand why did your staff, the person that you just talked to, get upset after you just maybe made a point about, you know, that report? You know, I think this was, you know, needs to be changed. And they get very defensive is because they had probably trauma and they're becoming defensive. Right. Because they all of a sudden feel threatened. And when the brain goes into that threatened mode, it's going to attack.

You're exactly right. Exactly right. And so that is exactly what we talk about. And, you know, it's. It's everything that you said coupled with the oftentimes still in 2023, gender inequities in the workplace. And that is something that I really spend a lot of time with females to say, how are you coming across? Because if you, truth be told, that what you just shared, there's a lot of overlap with that because many of us as, quote, strong females, our threats in our past typically came from men.

Oh, 100%.

Yep. And so how are we carrying that into the workplace? And, you know, what is ours to do? I asked that question as well. Like, where is the onus on us, especially as female leaders? Because what is changing, thankfully, happily, is that there are more women today in leadership roles than there were when I was growing up in the 70s, clearly. But yet how are we showing up with our tone? How are we informing other leaders in the room? I sit on an executive leadership team and I am not the only female, again, happily. But there are men in there as well. So it is a combination of, to your point, understanding everybody's experience in that room is different. We're coming from different places and backgrounds and experiences. Experiences. So as leaders, our job is to say, I need to Read this room. Well, to have my voice heard and so that people see me for who I am, which is I. One of my coined phrases around here is, I refuse to believe that you cannot be both compassionate and strong. It's not one or the other. It's just not.

No, you're right. And it comes back to. Because I grew up in a home that had no trauma, my mother was a very loving, compassionate, but not a strong woman, but strong in a different way. She wasn't vocally strong or didn't push anything on you, but it was just total respect. So I grew up with a lot of respect for women. And one of the things that I talk about. You're so right. And men need to really understand this. And if there's any, you know, men listening to this, make sure that you explain to your sons the importance of respect for women, because that's where the world is not as safe for women as it is for men. Why are more women ending up with dementia, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's? Because I believe that they have been in threat mode so much more. So they're stressed a lot more. A lot of it is coming from men. But I could walk outside of our office building here at 10 o' clock at night and just walk right to my car. You can't do that, right? Because you've spent your entire life learning that the world is. I've got to be careful. Is there anybody in a car? Is there any cars that are on? Is there anybody walking in the parking lot? I don't think that way because my world has been different. Now you keep that constant churning going, right, of that threat mode, it's going to burn out, all right? And so the more we can do to make women feel safe, right? And that's really on us men, not on women. You guys aren't doing anything wrong. The guys are doing it wrong, right? And to learn that, like. And. And I really learned this. My dad was so good at this. He never, ever yelled at any of us, including my mom, ever. Never raised his voice. And one time, I remember I was about 15 or 16, and I said something, my mom said something, and as I was walking past, I went something flippant, like, whatever, right? And he stopped. I didn't know he was there. He stopped me, tapped me in the back, right? And I turned around because I know he was there. And he says, she may be your mother, but she's my wife and I don't allow anybody to speak to her like that. Now stop it. And. And Beth I just, I wasn't, I didn't yell, I didn't raise my voice, I didn't swear anything like that. I was just not respectful.

What an incredible mentor, right? What an incredible father to pour into you like that. And that is the, especially the population that we serve in a shelter. The most misconstrued, the biggest misperception is that if people would just get a job they would not be homeless. I'm using this as one of many examples in our world, but really it's what you just explained. They didn't have relationships, they didn't have people in their corner to say this is how you treat people. And so many people in the workplace just have not had that kind of privilege. They have not had those sort of mentors and familial structures and people who poured into them took the time to say that's not okay behavior. So if growing up we didn't have that sort of mentorship guidance, we're going to take that into the workplace and it's going to convey in a way that somebody along the course of time is going to say this is not okay. Now what's interesting is you have organizations sometimes in toxic cultures where there is not transparency and like one on one conversation and people instead do like what I call middle school behavior which you know, it's like let's form clicks. We're sort of the cool kids. We're going to do this and can you believe that? So, and so Bob down on three over here, he just, you know, he's not one of us. So we're not going to take the time to pour in and mentor. And that is so incredibly unfair across the board. The organization ends up being one of a very toxic culture induced situation where it's really hard to move forward because there's that blame and I want to camp if I could on one of the things that you said. It really resonates deeply with me as a woman and that is when you said safety. It's so true. I'm a runner from a marathoner. That's my outlet. And so I cannot run by myself in the mornings at 4:45 in the dark. A man down the street, my neighbor, he does all the time. I see him with his headlight. He's by himself, no problem. But I won't do it. I've had too many female friends who have been accosted on a greenway. And to your point, that is always, we're always on high alert. Now I have two failed marriages behind me. I do And I thought, I'm never getting married again. Maybe I'll go to the convent if they'll accept me. It might be a long application process and I might not pass. But at any rate, I'm also no quitter. So I am remarried third time.

Good for you.

Thank you. Yes. But I had to change. I changed my tone in my relationship with my husband. Of course, we've been together about nine years. But what is even more interesting to me is how long it took me to believe that I was safe in that relationship. He, he, he never did. And to this day, he's never yelled at me. I mean, you know, of course we have to quote discussions because we're human, but there, he's the kindest, most loving, most patient man on the planet. And I knew those things cognitively and I knew them relationally, but I still didn't believe them for the first six years we were together.

Well, because the trauma loop was running.

Yes. Right.

And so your mind was saying, and what happened when I would say to my wife, no, I don't like that. I thought it was what I said, and it wasn't what I said when I said that. And she heard that tension change in my voice. Her mind does a Google search. What do we know about men who start to do that? And a flood of data about her father would come in, and that would dysregulate her nervous system. I couldn't change that because she kept looping through that trauma loop. And until we got the trauma resolved. Right. That was the only way to permanently fix it, because that's the way she would have continued to respond. So I always say the same thing to everybody. There's nothing wrong with anybody. There's nothing wrong with anybody's mind. Your mind is responding to your events and experiences in your lifetime, and it can't do it any other way. And so once we reset that, then your mind can change and can change to your benefit.

That's right. That's right. And it's often that exact example. I think people, especially women, understand that and accept that in an intimate relationship. But it's harder to say, well, wait, that doesn't happen to me at work. What you just explained, those triggers, that's not in a workplace, because work is work and home is home, and we have to be okay with understanding it absolutely is what's causing us to have these frustrations in the workforce, to have these frustrations that were being overlooked, unheard, unseen. It's because there's a trigger inside of some sort of collaborative environment, whether it's our team or superiors, where somebody says something, it's not the words to your point, it's not the actual words. It's the tone that that conversation is being conveyed to us, how we're receiving it. And often what's interesting, too, is it's not just men speaking to women, it's women speaking to women. Same deal. So if you've had trauma in your past, were maybe there when you weren't included. Right. Women, girls can be mean in middle school, very mean.

I have a daughter. I know all about that.

Yes. And so I really do believe that women can be, and we should be our strongest advocates for one another. But still, to this day, I also see time and time again when I coach organizations that have women that are supposed to be fostering inclusive environments and mentoring and advocacy. It's not happening. It's not happening.

And a lot of that's just coming from trauma. But again, this is. This is why I'm such a big advocate on, you know, fathers, husbands. You need to work with your sons on establishing that base of what it means to treat a woman like, my dad did that with me. He didn't really have to do it a lot. I mean, that was a very big, impactful thing when he did that, that one day with me. And so I have a VP that's working for me. She's a VP of marketing and sales. Right. And she's a dynamo. She's so good. And so one day, my assistant comes in and she closes the door and she sits down with me and she says, it's none of my business. She goes, but something just happened. I don't understand it. You have to explain this to me. I said, what's that? She goes, I saw her pay. And she goes, she's making more money than you. How are you okay with that? And I said, I'm totally okay with that. I said, she makes my life so much easier. I said, I have no problem in paying her every penny she's worth. It's not an ego thing. Right. And I think that was a direct connection to what I was brought up with, about respect for women. And if we can get men to respect women, we'll improve the workplace. Because women can make such a difference in your business. If you can get your ego out of the way and understand that, again, they have tremendous talents. Right. Don't lose the talent because you think, I'm a guy. I should be making more than her.

Thank you so much. Yes. We could go on about this right in the pay gaps and inequities. But we need people like you in our corner. And they. And that exists too. This is certainly never to say, you know, it's only about women and there are zero support of men. That's not true. It's to say, how are we showing up again, that introspection. So what is mine to do as a leader in the organization or perhaps as somebody who wants to become a leader in an organization? What is my career trajectory? Right. What is my professional development path? Well, what do you want it to be? And who do you need to have as an internal champion to help you get.

Yep. So. So again, totally on path. I love what you're doing. Right. Women need to have women leaders like you, empowering them that way and understanding because so many of them have heard the opposite message for so long. And it's great when a. When a woman can deliver that message as well. Right. And from experience. So I don't want to forget about asking about what you're doing now. So I know you're working with the homeless, Right. So the ministry is called Mel Trotter Ministries, correct?

Yeah. In Grand Rapids, Michigan. And so that's my quote day job. I have a team of 18 people. I'm the BI Title Chief Advancement Officer. But my coaching program is just starting out. You know, I've had women over the course of my career say, can you help me? Can you help me? And so I'm very pleased to say that answer has always been yes. It continues to be yes. But now there's a formalized program, an eight week coaching program. It's actually kicking off next month on April 14th. It's open for registration. But my mission, the second half of life, is to really just sort of have a movement for women. You know, if I have a daughter who's 26, and if I have to hear one more time as she starts her career path, mom, why? Why am I not included? Why do people think that I am mean? Because I work hard, those sorts of things, you know, I'm boy, this is why I'm saying, olivia, I got you. I will help you because there is the reason for this. So really my mission is to bring women together, of my age, of women starting out in the workforce to say, how can we join hands, how can we link arms and be truly advocates as opposed to adversaries? And how can we really come alongside each other and change the landscape of the working world?

And it's possible. Right. And I think we're seeing a lot More of it. I know the. That's sort of a, I guess, overused thing right now with the MeToo movement. But. And. And as much as I was pretty aware of how much damage men had been doing to women, I'm still shocked. It's. It's so amazing to think that this has gone on for so long, because I never participated in it. I remember one time being downstairs at our. At our. At our club, and I was getting changed to go upstairs, and there were these guys. I knew them, but I didn't hang out with them. It wasn't like I played where it was a tennis and golf club. I never really played with them, but I knew they were members. But they're all down there, and they're all talking about, you know, this woman and that woman and who they were going to be sleeping with. And this woman was this. And I had finally had enough because I was going up to sit with my family, and I just said, you know what I said, you guys are gutless. I said, I would challenge you to walk upstairs and in front of your wives, have this conversation.

Yeah.

You don't have the guts to do that.

Yeah.

And they're like, what's your problem?

Right?

And I said, you're my problem. I said, have respect for your wives. I said, I don't care if that's a thought in your head, keep it as a thought. Right. I said, I'm not judging anybody. I don't stay. I'm perfect. But to do that in front of other people. Do you understand what other people now look at your wife. Like that will change the way they see your wife. Is that really what you want? Right. That's what you're doing.

Good for you. Yes. And we. We need that. That's exactly what I want women to do. I want women to. To be privy. Well, first of all, I don't want those conversations to continue, obviously. But when they do, I want a woman to speak up, just like you did on our behalf, and men as well. But I want us to say, yes. That is not proper behavior. It's not. Okay. And so you said that that made you tired. You were sick of hearing it. Oh, my goodness. Be a woman. Let me tell you how sick we are. Right? That is. That's. It's tired. It's the oldest trope in the world. Like, move on. It's not even. Not even a new thought. Like, this isn't even original. Can we just please get past all this? And can we be decent humans in the world trying to do the best we can do every day to be better versions of ourselves, to lift other people up to and to not put up with bad behavior along the way. I love that you used his wife as an example. I walked in last story. I promise I have many of them. These are great.

This is awesome.

Early in my twenties, I walked into a sales meeting, again, probably in that ill fitting suit. And well, I wasn't a skirt. I do remember that because I walked into the quintessential CEOs office and there's just this large wooden desk and bookcases. It's like every movie you've ever seen in the 80s. And I'm like, hi, I'm Beth. And I put my hand out to shake it. And he sat back in his chair and he said, well, with legs like that, I'll buy what you're selling, anything you want to sell me. And I mean, I'm in my 20s, so I could have done one of two things. I could have just cowered and cried, or I could have played into that sort of old trope. But instead, instead I used my voice, I changed my tone. He heard my tone, and I said, do you think your wife would appreciate you speaking to me like that? Because I got news for you. If my husband ever spoke to other woman like that, we would no longer be married.

Yep. It's so true.

And that's what men need to learn and understand. But that doesn't start in the CEO's room. That starts in their childhood. And if you don't start teaching your sons right to, to treat women like that, and a lot of it will come about how you treat your wife. And if you treat your wife right, disrespectful, that's what your son's going to learn. And so it comes all the way back to that, that stage. So.

And again, model behavior, it's modeling, right? Lead by example.

Yes. Yeah. And if you don't do that, don't expect anything to be any different. But I think the you know what's going on now, and I think even good men are starting to go, wow, I didn't realize it was that bad. And it was worse than I ever imagined. And I knew it was already bad. I had no idea that this was what was going on.

So I'm glad there's that messaging going out there and I'm glad we're having this opportunity to share that as well, because you're sharing that with a lot of women, but there are a lot of really good guys out there that Also believe in that.

Absolutely. Many of the women cohorts that I coach were actually sent to me by male presidents of those organizations. So. Yes.

Awesome. Yep. So I know I want to definitely talk about. So you've got this course coming up. So tell us more about that and how people can reach out and find out about that.

Yeah. So the best way is just on my website. It's bethfisher.com no see in fisherbethfisher.com and the program is called Change youe Tone. It's a career elevation bootcamp. Again, it's eight weeks. It's live coaching. I'm there every single week with a cohort of many women around the country, sometimes internationally. And we are in these cohorts going through very specific methodology in terms of, okay, we understand. We're on board. Tell us how we do this. So there's a very specific intentional methodology. And we walk through every week, and then the following week is more of a Q and A. And we bring real world experiences to our collective cohort and say, this is a struggle that I'm dealing with. I heard this information from last week. Here's how I tried to apply it. Can somebody give me another example? So anybody else explain experiencing this? So it's really hands on in that regard. And again, it's eight weeks, and we have the best time and we stay in touch. It's really just a whole network of women coming alongside each other and being our greatest cheerleaders and advocates.

Awesome. I love that. So anybody listening to that, get ahold of Beth. I think you guys will really benefit from that kind of experience. It sounds like you're doing some amazing work. I love what you're doing with the homeless population. We're a big believer. And that as well. We donate, you know, a lot of our programs to people with addiction. You know, a lot of. A lot of the homelessness, again, before I truly understood everything that's going on, I really didn't understand homelessness. I was probably one of those people who would have thought, well, you know, they just don't want to work. But a lot of them, that's not where it's coming from. And if you understood the problem right, you can see that there are people out there trying to change it. So congratulations on what you're doing. Right. And changing the world that way, and then also coaching all these different women. So I can't thank you enough for being in on another episode of you Must be out of your mind. Anything else you want to share before we finish up.

Just. I'm very grateful. Thank you for your time. And thank you for the advocacy that you're doing in the. In the working world, too. I appreciate you.

Very good. Well, thanks, Beth. And thanks, everybody, for listening to another episode of you must be out of your mind. And there it is.