Managing a Difficult Relationship With Your Boss

This is not a podcast about being broken, although you may have been. This is a podcast about strength for women who find themselves in difficult relationships, including that sometimes difficult one with yourself. We'll look at your relationship through a lens of psychology, faith, and a little dash of my own kind of feminism. We're not fixing them. We're fixing you. And that changes everything. Welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. Save yourself, heal your relationships. Listen in. Hey there, welcome. I'm your host, Dr. Zoe, and I'm so glad that you're here today. The topic today is dealing with a difficult boss, which is a little off topic from what I usually talk about, which is your relationships with your marriage, your partner, or yourself. But we spend the majority of our time at work, and so it makes sense that we would talk about difficult work relationships, because if you're having a difficult relationship with your boss, it's affecting everything. So I have a guest. His name is Jake. Jake Brown knows what it takes to survive a bad boss. He spent nearly a decade leading creative teams to do good work and have fun while dodging the landmines of a really bad boss. And now he helps people turn the prison of work back into a playground. Jake also lives in Texas with his wife and their 4 kiddos. So I'm excited to talk about navigating a bad boss relationship. I have friends and colleagues who have had that experience. It sucks. It's, it can really put a damper on your life. So I'm excited to get to the interview, but first up, my win and my fail. My win for the week is that I have prepped a number of speeches because I am going to be speaking at the HOPE Conference in Sarasota, Florida, January 17th through the 19th. Some of you may know I am the host ambassador for Hope Writers, and if any of you are near Sarasota, Florida and you are a writer, a podcaster, speaker, an entrepreneur or wannabe, you should be at this conference. You can DM me for a good discount to the conference. And then I'm flying right back to Orange County to speak at the Well Defined Women's event in Orange County. I believe that's on January 23rd. So that is my win, that I am prepping for these speeches. And in lieu of a fail this week, because I really cannot think of one, I'm going to tell you what my new business manager, Chris— hi, Chris and Sarah, who also will be listening and probably editing and putting this podcast up— he listened to my last episode, or maybe it was a couple episodes ago, where I talked about my fail, walking into my daughter's school with no shoes on, how embarrassing, and made a wonderful suggestion to me. Why don't you just keep some sandals or some shoes, an extra pair of shoes in your car? And so guess what I did? I put a pair of sandals in my car, slipped it into my trunk organizer in the back. Thank you, Chris. So what I want to be sure is that I never share the same fail with you twice. Because then that's me not learning, right? And part of the purpose of honoring our fails is also honoring the learning that takes place. But it's got to take place. You've got to learn from your fails. At least that's the goal. On to the topic, managing a bad relationship with your boss. Jake, I'm so happy to have you on the show today. I, I feel like I've been saying this a lot because I rarely have men, but recently I've had a couple of really great men on the show. So I'm glad to have you as one of the handful full in the past 5 years of doing a podcast.

Awesome. Thank you, Dr. Zoe. I'm glad to be here.

Great. So your book, and I always dive into books, but I want to dive into the topic of this book because I wanted you to come on today because so many of us spend the majority of our life at work, right? And I'm always talking about relationships and your life, but if you're spending the majority of your life at work, you're going to have some relationships there. And so it makes sense that we're going to talk about having health and relationships at work as well. So you wrote this phenomenal book. I found it on HopeWriters, and it is called Leader Shit: Tales and Tools to Survive a Bad Boss and Have Fun at Work. Now, I don't, as a course— I'm sure that's the first time I've cussed on my podcast.

Well, it's not. It's a new word.

It's one word, right? It's a new word. Yeah. So I don't, as a course, do that. But your title was so engaging, and your book was as well. So can you share with my audience first how you came up with the title.

For sure.

And then we'll talk about relationships with your boss.

Yeah, I'd love to. Um, so the title came, um, as a family, we also, you know, we don't cuss. But, um, what happened is I was coming out of a leadership meeting, and I just typed a memo. And this is in the introduction of the book. Actually, if you go on Amazon and read the intro, you can read this story. But I went in and I was just sending a memo to somebody who wasn't in the meeting, and I had a typo. Instead of a P, somehow I hit the T. Maybe it was a strange Freudian slip. But what happened is I have this typo and it goes out and I don't even catch it. But the lady that I sent it to, she replies, and she's having a really bad day, and she's— it just, it broke the moment, the tension in her day where she was just kind of like, I needed that. And when she said that, I noticed what it— I noticed the word, the typo. And it kind of, from that point on, it kind of like, we laughed hard at it and it was a good day, even though we had a bad meeting. She was on a bad call. It was just, it was a moment of hope in that day. And I started thinking about is these meetings never had a purpose. They never helped anyone. And I thought, well, how do we become better leaders? How do we make, turn it from leadership to leadership? And how do I do that for me? Because nobody was leading me. I wasn't leading other, like we weren't leading other people. And, um, I mentioned when we were just talking that the, um, this typo.

Yes.

Um, it, it was a laugh that day.

Yeah.

But it has since, I mean, years later now, it has changed my career. It's changed my, with the way that I work, it changes the way that I parent. It's changed the way that I've, um, led every person that's worked for me or that I've coached or anything. And now this typo has become a book that apparently is upsetting some people. But anyway,

that's Which isn't necessarily bad.

But it's a— right. It's just, um, it's not something that I set out to do or that I thought, you know, was a marketing ploy or something. It really was, um, it was a mistake that I made that was a gift to me, and it shined light in a dark place because I didn't even realize at the time how dark that work environment was. Um, but it just broke through and had a little bit of— it shined a little bit of light and humor and fun and camaraderie in that moment. That sparked something in me that, you know, fun kind of led to a little bit of hope and the team getting together, which ended up on accident. Like my stupid antics and the goofiness that I brought into the situation rallied us together and became growth. And then one day that growth really became hope. And that's the point that honestly, I had to evaluate and say, I have hope. Do I have to get out? Or can I, can I keep shining light here? Can I be a part of that? Or do I need to get out? So that's, that's the story behind the title. That's what it means to me and to my family. I went from working 70 hours a week to 30 hours a week now, 4 kids in tow. So like I said, it has changed. It's a typo that changed my life.

I love it. I love it. And I love that you stuck with it. The title, I mean. Um, so why do you think so many people have issues with bosses, have bad relationships with bosses? I have to say, maybe 30% of my clients that come in, I mean, most of them are romantic relationship issues, but many of them are, they're burned out at work. They have this bad relationship with their boss. They're in this place of, I thought I liked my work. I don't even know if I like my work anymore because this relationship is so bad. And I think I need to just leave. Yeah. There's so much toxicity. Why do you see these things happening?

Why do we have troubles with the boss? Um, honestly, I think the biggest issue is expectations and communication.

Yeah.

And what I like to say is, uh, it— so at the end of my book, there's kind of a real simple framework. And the 2 questions I like to ask is, are you aligned? Meaning, are you aligned with the boss, with the company, with where it's going, with the purpose, the mission? Like, are you aligned? Are you in alignment? Are you grading against it? And then the other question is, are you able? Like, are you able to do your job? And there's 2 parts, I think, to being able. And that is, one, are you skilled? Do you have the capability and the skills to do the job of what's expected of you? The other one is, are you allowed to do your job? Because for most people that I found, they're not allowed. And we get mad because the boss doesn't trust us.

Mm-hmm.

But from being a boss and from talking to hundreds of people, you know, over the last couple years, I've realized that most bosses don't actually trust themselves to delegate well.

That's right.

So they hold onto, and then they meddle thinking that they're helping, but it's 100% meddling and it's intolerable from below. You know, if you're trying to work for somebody, now this is bad management leadership skills.

Right.

I have the disclaimer in my book, like, if somebody's doing something illegal or immoral, like, get out.

Right.

Like, that's different. Like, I don't cover that. If that's happening, you know, um, yeah, you got to get out. But we expect leaders to lead us and develop us, but most people are trained to manage and contain. So if you want to be better at work, a good leader who's going to develop and raise and coach you is actually harder to find. Um, and I would even say if you find one, like, awesome, like, soak that up, you know, grow there. And eventually a good leader will help you grow and then basically kick you out of the nest and say, um, you've grown to a point where the only way to grow is to find you a new— like, we need to plant you somewhere else. Like, if you reach your maximum, they will help you find another place to be. I've been, I've been helped that way. And I've also helped other people find more room to grow. Kind of, we called it promoting out of the building. That's what we called it.

That's phenomenal leadership. And I don't think that you see it very much.

You don't, because it's actually, it's like, it's to my advantage to keep good people.

Yes.

Even keep them contained, because my job is easier if they can do their job. Um, but expecting people to grow you and invest in you, um, that was a big turning point. Like, after I had that typo and I started figuring out some stuff, I realized that nobody was investing in me. And, um, but in, in my story, I talk about how nobody was investing in me, and I was worn out. I was exhausted. Um, I was controlled and upset that I wasn't doing enough work. And I mean, it was lots of interfering and a lot of psychological stuff just beating me down. And it was very dark. And I'd come home and I had almost nothing left to give my family,

right,

at the end of the day. And at night, there were times that I was just too exhausted to even get on LinkedIn and look for a new job. I was just so beat down every night. That was the situation. And there were other people that I was working with that I knew were the same way,

right?

Um, but through just goofing around in games, and like I said, this typo, It just, you know, like when it's a tense situation, sometimes a smile or a laugh, it just— something breaks and then you can just keep going.

Yeah.

And that's kind of, that's kind of what happened. And like I said, I didn't have anybody developing me and I came up with those 2 questions and I asked myself those 2 questions every month. And then every quarter I would have my own kind of review. Like my own employee review, cuz nobody was checking in with me. And I would do those 2 questions and then I would update my resume. Even if I was at the job, it's like, okay, I'm gonna answer these questions. I think I'm gonna update my resume that way. If anything happens, it's ready to go.

Repeat those 2 questions again.

Okay. One is, are you aligned?

Mm-hmm.

It's, are you aligned with the mission of the company? Are you aligned with what they're doing? Are you aligned with the team, the owner? Just, are you the boss? Are you aligned? And then the other one is, are you able?

Are you able?

And specifically able, that's are you capable and are you allowed to do your job? And based on those, it's a 2 by 2 matrix in the book, and each one of those has a role that, you know, so say you're, say you're aligned, but you're not able. I call that the intern. And I talk about like, you are basically an excited puppy that just pees in the kitchen. Like you are so excited, but you're not getting the work done. Well, are steps that you can do to get better, to become more able to do your job, you know, um, that you are.

So those are the, so those are the 4 roles, right? Is that the 4 roles? Okay. So let me talk to, talk about this. So I have a friend who is very high up in, um, corporate and she has a very, very bad boss. And her boss micromanages. She's completely capable, probably a little more capable than her boss. The boss doesn't allow her to take on the roles, to act independently. And so she's definitely capable. She's definitely able, but she's not allowed. And so that's where she's so very frustrated. In the relationship because the boss, it's exactly what you said. The boss has her own issues where maybe she doesn't feel that she, maybe she has her own imposter syndrome or she doesn't know how to lead. Um, and so when you're in that situation, when you've maybe been doing this for a decade or 2 and you're very skilled at your work and then a new boss comes in, it's a whole nother thing. What, what are the options then? Is it just you gotta get out? Yeah. Or are there some options?

No, there's definitely options. So real fast.

Yes.

One thing that I learned is that there are 2 competing things. You can either have control or growth.

Yes.

And then working between them, like you have to find a way to be in between them, but you can really only drive one of them at a time. And a lot of times managers, especially higher up, they— higher-ups tend to get, you know, They get ejected more often than somebody lower down. So they tend to control out of a defense mechanism is kind of what they're thinking. And again, I think that is a— a lot of times they have a fear of failure and they don't trust the delegation. They don't trust the systems and themselves to delegate more than they don't trust the employees. This is what I'm finding more and more. But as the employee, we don't see it that way because we can only see it as us. Right. You asked me to do something, and then you held my hand and kept me from doing it.

Exactly.

I don't see it the same way.

And we take it very personally.

Yes, because—

Now we've got personality things going on and emotions flying back and forth.

Yes. And we're looking up to this person to be a leader, to take us somewhere.

And

they're actually holding us back.

Right.

So we go into our career thinking that these leaders are going to guide us and develop us and make us better and take us to our future career. Well, if somebody's standing in your way or holding you back, it's like they're actually doing the opposite of what we expect them to do.

Yeah.

And in their minds, they might even think that they're helping. So I think first off, if you can have an honest conversation, you know, I think that's good. I'm not a big fan of the whole, um, when you do this, I feel this way, because when I start talking feelings, I get angry and it doesn't go well.

Yeah.

So, but if you can find a way to have a good conversation, if it's a healthy enough relationship, great. If it's not, then this is what I say. I'm gonna go back into the book. There's a chapter called Gold Meddle Delegation, but it's meddle, M-E-D-D-L-E, because we were watching the Olympics and I just jokingly came up with this. We came up with this worksheet in order to reverse delegate, to get information out of the bad boss. And we said it's gold meddle delegation. We all knew that it was meddling, like we were stopping the meddling, you know. Right.

Yeah.

But she was like, oh yeah, I'm good at delegating. And I'm like, you're good at delegating when we use this form. So that is one thing, and I can give that to you, Dr. Zoe, to share with your audience if you want that PDF.

Absolutely.

Um, and that's just a real simple way to— you check the boxes. So what I do is if I was working on a project, I could go through those things and make sure I had what I needed to deliver. Um, looking at— I'm gonna go back to the 2x2 grid real fast. You said somebody who is skilled, but they're not allowed,

right?

So are they aligned or not? Are they aligned with the mission of the company and everything that's happening? You say yes?

That's a good question. I, I think I would say before everything is kind of deteriorated with the boss, I think the answer would probably be yes.

Okay, so if they are aligned and they're capable but not allowed to do their job, then what you're looking at is you're stuck kind of on that bridge between what I call the winner Because if you're allowed and able, or if you're aligned and able, then that's gonna be the winner. That's the great place to be. If you're aligned but not able, that's that intern role where you're kind of trapped. And it feels like you're trapped and you're handcuffed. But to increase the, that trust, that allowed to do your work, real, I have a couple of things in there. But really, the best one that I have found. Right. Is when somebody gives you a task to do, you do it, you do it well, you accept the task, you do the task. And then the key is you go back and have a meeting or a conversation about the fact that you did the task. Because the way that we— that with my kids, I've noticed this. And then at work, I've noticed that the way I define trust is that you know that someone does what they say they're going to do. So if you do that backwards, say you're gonna do it, then do it, then make sure they know.

So it's about building trust in that boss who's micromanaging it.

Right. They— you're— you can earn trust, but they have to give it. And you have to teach them not just to trust you, but to trust themselves when they delegate. So that's what this tool is for. It is to get the information you need out of them. But at the same time, they will start to know the information that they need to hand off beforehand. Like, they'll be trained to give information. So that helped the flow as far as getting the information. They started to trust themselves more. But if you go in, you do the project, and you say— my favorite way, say you're— let's go with, say you're designing a flyer, something, you know, something pretty simple we can turn from home. You say, when we launch this project, you asked me to do X, I did that right here. You asked me to do Y, I did that right here. And you wanted to do Z, and look, we did that right here. So what you did is said, you asked me to do these things, I said I would do these things, this is where I did it.

Right.

In that, having that meeting, having you go over that where you show them that you did what they asked them, what they asked for you to do, then either they realize they asked for the wrong thing— that's a different conversation that you can learn and move forward— Or they realize, yes, you're doing what you said you were going to do. Because as humans, you know, we, we are looking for the problems, for safety problems. We're kind of— our brains are wired to like escape like danger and survival. Right. We don't really need that in our normal lives anymore. But what we do is we look for the fires and we're focused on all the fires. So if they don't know, if a boss doesn't know that they can trust you, if they haven't learned to trust you yet, and that's on them. If they haven't learned that yet, then they're going to be looking for fires. They're going to step in and meddle to make sure there's not a fire because they're going to assume that there might be a fire. And we always fill those voids, those gaps of silence with a bad story.

Mm-hmm.

I don't know anybody who has ever said, you know, oh, my, my husband's 2 hours late from work today. I'm so happy he's having a good time.

Like, right, you know, we don't— buying me flowers and getting me things on the way out.

He never jumped to that side. Um, so letting the boss know that you're doing what you're supposed to. Now, I'm not saying like pester them and, you know, brag and all that kind of stuff, but ask for those reviews.

Have complete transparency.

Even if it's just a quick conversation where you're like, hey, I did this. This is what I, you know, you asked for this. I did it here, here, and here. Here's the project because They're focused on all the negatives. If you can bring in the positives, and also what I found is if you're the person who keeps bringing positives, what they're going to typically do is give you fires that they don't want anymore. They're going to load you up, not in a bad, like, overload you way, but you're going to rise to a leadership, to a promotion type scenario because, um, you're basically a fixer. You're a firefighter for them.

Mm-hmm.

Um, but you have to be careful. Of the boss, because one of the issues that I've always noticed is, um, uh, bosses who like to put out fires often have an arson problem where they run around and set the fires.

Yes.

Or they're like, here's an empty, um, fire extinguisher, and then they go off and do something. Then you're like, ah, the fire's going, I can't even put out this fire. And then they zoom in with a hero complex again. If they're not letting you do the work because they have a hero complex Um, there's not a whole lot you can do about that. Um, just make sure you are mentoring yourself and raising yourself up and doing what's right. Try to do the reverse delegation, you know, the gold medal delegation,

right?

Try that kind of stuff. But, um, if it's just, uh, the fact that the other person's overwhelmed, that they need help and they're being controlling and they're in fear, um, you can actually help alleviate that and they will depend on you more. build trust. Actually, it's like hypertrust. You can build that trust so fast if they need stability.

Right. I think a big aspect of it as well, and why it's so important to implement what you just said to implement, is because we get emotions involved. We get passive-aggressive. We get irritable. And then we've got these underlying kind of psychological battles going on. Really, it's a control thing. And so we're not maybe giving them what they want because they're micromanaging and we feel like I'm, you know, I shouldn't have to be micromanaged instead of, like you said, just saying, let's just have complete transparency. Let me make sure that, you know, that I can trust, that you can trust me. And then if that doesn't work, then it may be time to figure out how to exit a situation like that.

Yes. Um, and you, what you were just talking about, um, uh, we went rafting I, I— stories make sense to me. We went rafting last week and, um, the rafting guide, he was, uh, we were talking about it and he said you can either work really hard against the current.

Yes.

Or you can steer with the current. And the— what he was getting at is choose where you want to go, because if your career, if you were working on projects, are you wasting a bunch of energy just fighting with the boss or making up stories in your own mind and all this kind of stuff that, um, aren't actually on your path? So you're just like rowing and spending all this energy going nowhere.

Right.

Or is it something where you can go, you know, for instance, my boss just sends these emails and berates us. But, you know, that's the boss trying to communicate. That is the boss trying to inspire us to move faster. It's wrong and it's not working. And basically, how do I receive that? Do I say my eyes are on the goal, my eyes are on the destination? Can I adjust and go there? Or do I need to sit here? Like, do I need to look at the destination? Or do I need to look at the boss? Like, where is my focus? And again, if you can do that and you can adjust and work with that, great. But if you are so like misaligned, if you are so against the boss that you're like, I'm aligned with the destination, I'm not aligned with the boss, well then the question becomes, is there an HR? Is there somewhere that you can go to? Is there a system that you can go to? Right. But if it's, say it's the owner of the company, or there's nowhere to go where it's like the son of the— I don't know, like if there's a reason that you can't talk to someone else about that boss, then yeah, you definitely start looking and saying, okay, well, um, is this aligned with the life that I want or is it not? Because that's where I got to the point where I was like, I really liked certain aspects and everything, but, um, I just couldn't carry the burden of that one boss relationship anymore.

Right. Yeah, I think that's probably where my friend is. Okay, so I want to talk about those 4 roles. So one is the intern.

Okay, so in order, in order, um, if you're aligned and able, I call that the winner.

Okay. Yes.

And if you're aligned and not able, I call that the intern.

Okay.

Um, if you are not aligned and not able, I call that the prisoner.

Yeah.

Because you're just stuck.

Right.

And, um, if you're not aligned and you are able, um, I call that the expert. And,

okay,

and when I did that, I actually wrote those out and it turned out When I turned it, um, the acronym's WIPE, which goes really well with the book cover. Um, so what I say is, you know, uh, the boss is gonna leave marks.

Yeah.

You have to wipe yourself. Like, the boss leaves marks. It's up to you to wipe yourself and grow yourself. So that's what I have people do is you ask those questions, you figure out which quadrant you're in and say, you know, I'm the winner. Okay, if you're the winner, then your goal is to keep other people clean, wipe them, teach them to wipe themselves. Like, it's to create good leaders, to create people who can grow themselves. Like, that's what you want to do in that winner spot. The intern, really, um, at the intern, uh, you're aligned, you're not able— either not allowed or not capable of doing your job. And you have to decide, um, do you want to grow or do you want to wait and see what happens? Um, because you can either grow toward the boss, you can either grow to, um, be allowed to do your job or grow in your skills to be able to do your job. It's your job. It's your responsibility to do what you can to grow that.

Right.

And the third option is time to get out.

If you're an expert.

Okay. So if you're an expert, that means you, you are full-on able, capable, allowed to do your job, but you are not aligned. No longer aligned with the boss, the company, whatever. And I have found that to be actually the loneliest role. Um, as I went through my story, because you're basically on an island, you're like a mercenary, you're a hired mercenary. And if things go south, um, they don't really need you anymore. You have this idea that you— it's very easy to be lulled into the idea that they need me more than I need them. Well, now that's even more divisive on the alignment issue. Um, and if you're in that expert role,

right,

why not find alignment? And be the winner and help other people. And that's where I found my point was if I was great at my job and I was allowed to do my job, but I was misaligned with a lot of the stuff. Well, I actually found alignment in helping my team, like guiding, growing them. So I became— that's when I switched into that, you know, that winner role.

Right.

Is my alignment was more with the team and the company goals And we kind of worked— I used to say around, through, and despite the boss.

Got it.

We found ways to navigate the minefield but still get where we needed to go because I didn't have control to change outside of me. But me and my team, I could influence that. Right.

OK, that makes a lot of sense. So if you find yourself that you are that expert, so you're completely able, maybe more than able,

right?

But you're no longer— because I think sometimes we can fall out of line with company values or, or, you know, leadership. For sure.

I mean, if a boss changes— so I call it sliding— if a boss changes, you can get pushed into a different square. Or if company values change, or your life, like, you know, life event changes or something, at any point you could slide between the different quads. You could end up somewhere else. But I've also, from talking to everybody, um, like, I've taken I've taken 400, over 400 people through this in the last 2 years. And I've realized that you can't go diagonal. You have to pass through a box, like one of the boxes beside the other ones. That's the only way anybody's ever— you can't change 2 things at once. You can only change one thing.

That makes sense.

So, but yeah, being in that expert role where you are, honestly, you're great, but you might be in the wrong place. You just aren't aligned. It's lonely. You either have to find a way to reignite, connect to the mission of the company. You have to— you can put your ego aside and say, I'm here to make somebody else look good or to grow other people. Mm-hmm. My favorite thing to do with people that are stuck in that expert role and they don't know what to do, but they don't necessarily want to leave or don't feel safe leaving, whatever, they feel like they're in the right place. But they don't fit is find someone to invest in, find someone to delegate to them, teach them how to do the wipe thing. Because all of a sudden it's just like, you know, being a parent. Um, when you have somebody else to care about, your problems, they're a lot—

yeah,

they kind of go, oh, they don't feel as heavy. Like, I mean, don't get me wrong, problems are heavy, but when you have someone else to focus on, um, it gets easier at times.

It does. It works the same way with depression. Getting out of yourself actually can help relieve some depression.

Like Viktor Frankl. I mean, having a project to work on, right?

Yes, absolutely. Well, thank you. This was so— I think this was really helpful, especially for a lot of people who really struggle in relationships in their workplace. And I have to say that this was really good, meaty information today. Your book is also hilarious.

Well, thank you.

And so it's both really funny and also gives you some really good, meaty advice. There's a quote that I'd like for you to share that we talked about before we hit record. Do you remember what the quote is?

Yeah. And I'll say, I wrote the book and I said this in the book and it was just something I noticed in passing. But I've had so many people email back and respond that this is the quote. This is the thing that stood out to them. And it's that you can't find happiness at work. But you can pack joy like a sack lunch the night before and bring it with you.

Thank you. And

the idea there was just that once I found my own hope, my own joy, and brought it into the workplace, then it sparked others and it created that community. And that added— that led to fun and growth and enjoyment. And, um, when we stopped trying to take from work and we brought joy in, it brought that community. So yeah, like I said, that's the quote that I said it because it, it was real for me and it seems to be resonating with a lot of people.

That's beautiful. That's beautiful. I think that that is very on point for people who, who are employed. I don't know that that's the same for people who are self-employed. I love my— I find so much joy in my work, but I'll tell you, people are employed.

Some of the people that I know that have the worst bosses in the world are self-employed.

Oh really?

They just abuse themselves, you know, like I'm sure you've seen it. People that just abuse themselves.

That's so true. There's definitely Definitely truth to that. And that's your own inner work with yourself that you got to do.

Don't call me for that one. Definitely call Dr. Zoe. She'll help you there.

Yes, very true. Jake, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciated all of your wisdom. Can you tell my audience how to find you and your book? And by the way, we will put that PDF in the show notes as well.

Awesome. You can find me— actually, the easiest way to find out about me or the book is to go to leadership.co. Or if you, you know, are a little bit hesitant, you can go to leadershit.co, one word. You can go there. And I will say, if you get the book there, one of the bonuses that you can download are covers that say Leaders Hit instead. So you can like print out a cover to wrap your book, whether it be at home or office, safer. Whatever. Um, that's how we have them playing out at home with our kids around. Brilliant. Um, but yeah, again, you go to either leadershit.co or leadershit.co and, uh, find me there.

Beautiful. Thank you so much, Jake. Good luck with the book.

It's been a blast. Thank you.

Well, that was a little different from my normal topic, but fun. And as I said in the opening, those relationships that we have at work are crucial to our overall sense of wellbeing and just quality of life. And so I hope that this episode gave you some space and time to think about and evaluate your work relationships. What's working? What isn't? Do you have a bad boss? And what can you do about it? Thanks for tuning in. Have a strong week. Thank you for listening to Stronger in the Difficult Places. Please hit that follow or subscribe button so you don't miss an episode and share and review to help others find Me too. If you haven't already, go to drzoeshaw.com to sign up for my newsletters to get freebies, quizzes, and encouragement that will help you strengthen your relationships. Connect with me throughout the week on Instagram. I love hearing from you all. Until next time, have a strong week.