How Rituals (Not Routines) Transform Leadership and Life | Erin Coupe | 678

And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and you're joining us on the podcast, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. Today, my guest is Erin Koop, and I'll give you a little bit on her. She helps leaders, teams, and organizations shift from survival mode and burnout to clarity, presence, and sustainable performance. Sign me up for that. I'd like that. She's got a new book out called I Can Fit That In, and she has a podcast by the same name. So I can go on and on about her other accolades, but I'd rather just talk to her. So welcome, Erin. So I Can Fit That In. So tell, like, where did this come from and, and what, what's the problem we're solving here?

Yes, absolutely. So I Can Fit That In came from, um, my own journey with personal transformation and, and really it's, it's all about the inner work that I did on myself in order to change the way that I approached my life and my work. So, um, I guess going back several years, you know, I spent many, many years in corporate America and saw the good, the bad, and the ugly. And unfortunately, I saw a lot more bad and ugly than I did good. And I realized over time, you know, I'm actually a part of that. You know, I'm not, I'm not perfect, and I'm not someone who is unscathed by, you know, either my own resentment and anger and that showing up in the way that I showed up, or just the fact that, you know, I didn't necessarily have the human skills it took to really lead myself well for a long time. And that's what I wanted to develop in myself. So I Can Fit That In became about me fitting in the things that mattered to me so that I didn't operate from burnout. So I didn't show up from a place of depletion.

So stay there for a second because if I've gotta put the book and the content in a bucket, mm-hmm. I don't think I wanna put it in the time management bucket 'cause that tends to be very, don't check your email in the morning. Like these practical, do this, do that.

Productivity hacks. Yeah. Yeah.

Productivity hacks. And they work for about an hour and then we go back and do the same old stupid stuff. So I would, and, and push back if I'm not reading the tea leaves right, put this more in sort of the mindset set where, yeah, you're right, might be better use of your time, but stay with that a little bit 'cause it, it's not about getting 40 hours worth of work into a 24-hour day.

Not at all. And, and that's, you know, that's like the last 2, 3 decades of this type of content, right? It was how much can we squeeze into a day so that we are optimizing every single minute, which is just not realistic. It's not sustainable, right? So what this is, and this is where the subtitle of the book becomes really important. The subtitle is How Rituals, Not Routines, Transform Your Life. Routines in some way, shape, and form become about checking a box. They become about a means to productivity, to do things faster, more efficient, more effective, you name it. And when we're in that way of being, it's not that it's problematic in and of itself. There's nothing wrong with creating new rhythms and structures in your life and sticking to those. That can ultimately just be called discipline. It's when those routines become draining because we are just trying to just check the box and get them off our plate and/or We are doing them out of obligation. We are doing it because we don't want to fail. We don't want to feel like a failure. Lo and behold, we end up feeling like failures because we don't stick to those routines forever. And it's those feelings of failure that send people down the emotional drain and then down the tubes of the thoughts that match those negative emotions, right? So instead, what I'm saying is create rituals in your life, which are repetitious rhythms. They're very intentional. And instead of being a routine, these are about choosing the things that matter to you, but you put them where you want to, when you want to.

You don't have to— so words matter, right? I think words matter and routine is like brush your teeth, you know, file your expense report, do the, you know, it's like, okay, it might not be anything I'm engaged with, but there's something, um, something interesting about the ritual word, right? 'Cause usually you think of a ritual as it could be, you know, one end of the, it could be sacred, it could be spiritual, it could be, there's something special. Light a candle, do like, it's not like, no, the outcome might be do, you do all the other things that you need to do, but how, how do you differentiate a ritual from a routine?

Yeah. So a ritual is something that you choose because it energizes or uplifts or empowers you. Now, a ritual can also be with other people. It can be with your coworkers. Peers and colleagues, you know. So something as simple as a weather check-in at the beginning of a meeting once a week, you know. And hey everyone, tell, tell me, if you were a weather pattern, what would you be? That's a ritual. You're creating connection intentionally. That is a ritual. The, you know, with yourself, it could be something like a meditation or brewing your coffee and stillness and setting an intention for your day. It could be grounding yourself in nature. It could be a certain, you know, hike you like to do or a walk. It doesn't have to be a certain type of activity. A routine, on the other hand, like you said, yeah, routines are just things that are kind of, they keep you in survival mode going from point A to point B. It's about what do I need to get done and when, not how I get it done.

So it sounds like two of the differentiators are sort of agency and personalization. So your routine of brewing a cup of coffee, if I was a tea drinker, I'd go, okay, well that's lovely, but it doesn't do anything for me. Right. We're only one person. I'm a late night per— like, So there's, there's agency and customization. What might be special to you isn't special to me.

Spot on, Rich. I, I talk about rituals as a strategy, but you are designing your own. I am not telling you what rituals are going to work for you. And that's a big difference, right? The productivity hack books and the time hack books, they're saying, do this and take 3 of these and it'll do this for you. You know, that is not what this is. This is giving you the guidance, first of all, to make that mindset shift. From I am too busy, I have no time, I'm so overcommitted to I can fit that in. And then to design the rituals that suit you.

Great. So let, let's, um, pivot for a couple minutes if we could into, that's a good sort of setup of what, what's the it here? What's the IP? So that's pretty cool. And I think we're all kind of struggling from this to varying degrees. As a founder and a CEO of a thought leadership-based company, right? Your company's based on this. Who's paying you to do what sort of things and what are the benefits that the clients are getting from working with this and embracing this type of work?

Yeah, great question. So a lot of my business is speaking, about 50% of that. So I do everything from, you know, the keynote speeches. I have got a talk soon with, you know, 7,000 people. It's the largest women in tech conference in the world. Cool. Um, so everything from that where I'm giving not only the emotional, emotionally connected stories to the audience, but then the insights and the actionable tools. Where they can go and apply these things starting today in their lives. The next step is that I do a series of workshops within corporations.

Yeah.

And so, um, typically what that looks like, let's just use a 6-month program as an example. It would be 3 workshops that are experiential learning. So there is me teaching concepts and then giving people the tools, and then people go away and practice them and they come back in between those sessions, in between those workshops, and we do group coaching. And so in that group coaching, we're talking about what What's worked, what hasn't, what's an obstacle, what's a challenge, what's an, what's an aha moment. So everyone is learning from each other as they're creating this common language. I then do cohorts. So these are private cohorts that people sign up for, and they're very deep and very transformational because we're moving quickly with a group of people who otherwise don't know each other, right? So these are leaders and executives from all kinds of different companies, all walks of life that purposely enter this container for growth and transformation. Um, that is my favorite work because it's where I get to really experience most of the transformation with my clients. And then executives within organizations will hire me to do another cohort-based type of learning. This is really interesting. For a while I coached people and it was executives saying, hey, can you coach my direct reports? And I did that and realized, you know what, half the time this is really, really, uh, uplifting for me. Half the time this is extremely draining because not, not always do people want to to grow. Not always do they want to become self-aware, right? So the ones that are cohort-based within organizations are a lot of fun because those people are opting in to say, I wanna be coached and I wanna grow.

So I think I comment on that, that, mm-hmm, you know, the one-to-many, the workshop, traditional ways we work, we, we've done things work to an extent, but when you get a group engaged rallying around an issue or a problem or something, so there's a self-selection piece to this. Hey, we're all committed to dot, dot, dot. And because your work isn't the 10 hacks too, there, I would argue that if I were to be a fly on the wall in one of those sessions, it's not 80% you, you talking, but they're sharing with each other, hey, here's a thing I created. And somebody else might go, geez, can I, I'm gonna borrow that, but I'm gonna put a twist on it to make it more me. And then you might say, well, I actually have this other client that did it this way. Right? So it's, it's really getting the, once you give them the language, the model, the methods and the frameworks, people are smart and actually can help one another through the— without having the years that you do of experience in the space, right?

And then I don't need to be there for a long time either, right? Because this isn't therapy. You don't have to keep coming back and seeing me, you know. And I'm not, I'm not your guru, right? So it's like, I like to be there to give the tools, the insights, and really get people on their way, but I don't need to stay there forever.

And what are the things you're hearing, either that you're capturing the data on or anecdotally, where a client will say to you, okay, so I I've been doing this for 4 to 6 months and here's what's different and here's what's better and da da da. What are the types of things they'll, they'll share?

I mean, I hear, I hear so many things and I feel really fortunate that, you know, my, my testimonials doc is like forever long because I, I keep adding to it and adding to it. I will hear everything from people who are sitting through my keynote saying, you know, oh my gosh, I've been practicing, I've been practicing this, you know, new way of breathing as a ritual. You know, every, every time I get off a meeting or every time I have a text message come in from my mom that stresses me out, you know, people are applying this in work and life and it is making them more calm and more resilient. You know, so little things like that to full-on teams that are saying, we now have built trust and transparency in a way that wasn't possible for us before because we're now connecting intentionally. We are carving out the space in order to do that. Yeah. Rather than just, you know, whatever comes at us and, you know, we're finger-pointing at each other and we're not building trust and we're not being intentional.

Yeah.

So those are just kind of two on camera.

So, there, just a second. Because one of the things that I've observed over the years is that, you know, you can go after this from a B2C or B2B place. Clearly you're B2B, right? That's the place I play in as well, right? But you don't have to explicitly tell people, and I find this really fascinating, by the way, you could use this as home, right? When you think about some of the greatest content, the most powerful and transformative content from a B2B standpoint is things like emotional intelligence. Listening skills, questioning skills, collaboration skills, and nobody explicitly says on page 52 in the book, you can use this with your kids or your sig— it just happens because like, why wouldn't it happen? Right? And I think once it, people have taken it home, like I don't think people come home, or I hope they don't, and over dinner talk about, uh, I just got certified in Six Sigma and we're gonna like increase the productivity of this relationship 2.3%. Right? Like, you don't wanna hear that. But if you share with your partner, I got exposed to this stuff, I'd like to share with, let's have a conversation. I think that's one of the most rewarding things you can hear as a thought leader. How do, how does, how do you react to that?

Absolutely. I mean, the people that I've seen go through some of my cohorts who say to me, gosh, I would love this for my spouse or for my partner, or geez, you know, Erin, do you work with like 25-year-olds? 'Cause this would be great for my son, my daughter. And it's, it's profound. And I always say to them, share it, share it, teach. Go be the teacher, right? You can teach them. And I think that that is the greatest compliment to this work.

If you're enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a 5-star review at ratethispodcast.com/LTL. And share it with your friends. We're available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps, as well as at thoughtleadershipleverage.com/podcast. And the, you know, the flip of fitting something in, I would imagine, is not fitting something in by intent, which is saying no and realize, like, my first knee-jerk reaction every time my boss comes to me with a pile of stuff isn't, yes, boss. Yeah. Like, How do you gracefully say no without sandbagging your career and all that, right?

Yeah, you know, and I go through this in the book because you're spot on. You know, the, the reason I have a Luna moth with scissors inside of it on the book cover is because the Luna moth symbols transformation and growth. The scissors symbolize cutting things out. So I can fit that in, but I also have to cut out what doesn't serve me, right?

Right.

Being able to set healthy boundaries— healthy boundaries are about how you respect yourself. It's not about being cold and detached. It's not even about pushing back on people. It's just about respecting yourself first, and that is not selfish. It is actually selfish to expect someone not to respect themselves, right? So when you start to do that, you actually teach others how to not overstep, and you show others how to not, um, you know, expect too much out of you that you're not willing to give. The other thing I'd say is that you do have to intentionally say no sometimes, right? So you have to figure out— I always say like Say no, let go, and speak up, you know. So speaking up isn't about like, oh, I'm just going to share my voice everywhere and just, you know, you know, throw it on people or project it onto people. It's about speaking up and communicating why it is that something is just not aligned for you right now, right? It's not about being rude, it's just saying, you know, I don't really have space for that in my life right now, let's revisit that next week. There's nothing wrong with that.

Is there a way that this manifests generationally that might be different? Mm-hmm. 'Cause one of the things I'm hearing a lot now with, you know, as I get older and grayer, I put myself in the senior bucket, right? Not senior citizen, but like more Peter bucket.

Right.

No, no offense to my friends that are, but you know, you hear things like this generation or my generation or whatever. Does that, is that something like that? Because part of the answer to that is, okay, you can either whine about the millennials or the Gen Zs or whatever. Or figure out what's different about them that's probably good. And maybe, maybe, God forbid, you're gonna change the way you lead or manage, right?

Like, you know what? It's so funny that you're saying that, Peter. I literally had a conversation with a, a C, a CPO, chief people officer.

Yeah.

At a very, very large organization recently who was expressing that, you know, they have a problem because their CEO has this perception that the people are not giving discretionary effort in the organization. And the reason he has that perception is because they're required to be in the office 4 days a week and they leave at 4:55, right?

On the days we have to be there, right?

On the 4-day, and then on Fridays, of course, they, they notice that email traffic is way down. You know, everyone's working at home that day and they're not as engaged. However, you know, when I ask about engagement surveys, you know, employee engagement surveys, and they're, they're fantastic scores. Yeah, the shares are— I mean, the stock is doing great. The shareholders and the board are happy. I mean, there's nothing that points to a problem, right? So my point was, rather than trying to change all of these people to be people who are willing to stay until 5:55, you probably have to change the CEO's perception and help him understand that, yes, people don't work like you did at McKinsey. They just don't. Well, and, and however, doesn't mean they're not productive.

Well, and there's also the, you know, what they call the invisible second shift. So even if I am out the door at 4:55 because A, B, C, and D, childcare, catching the—

exactly.

Whatever.

Different.

You know, it used to be you left the door, you left the door unless it was in your physical briefcase. Right. But now it's like, okay, we're all checking in. Maybe not all, most 7 o'clock once again before we go to bed. Like, where does that add up? Like, that's a mystery.

That's exactly right.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, and I mean, I, you know, you know my background. I worked at Goldman in my 20s before we had the ability to work at home. And that was all about FaceTime. You know, you were in the office before your boss and you left after your boss left. And it was just, I know I was there 12, 13, 14 hours a day. Was I super productive in, in some of those hours? Gosh, no. 'Cause I was exhausted. Right. I was drained. So it's way better to work 8, 9 hours.

Right. But that was cultural. If you were the newly minted associate making a ton of money out of a top school, and you decided to roll in at 5 to 9, not 7:15, all of a sudden Brand Aaron is like, uh-oh, that's in the discount rack. Like that's not, and some of that is just, whatever the, the machismo, it's just a silly cultural thing of, oh, if you can get in at 5, I can be in at 4:30 in the morning. Or if you can stay till 8 at night, I can stay till like, okay. But you, but you know, to your point, how are you measuring productivity? Right. You know, are you measuring throughputs and all that? There's a lot of it is just an optics game. Interesting. What are the other things that you're thinking about as the book's about to come out that you might do or thinking about doing relative to the work, the way, the way the work is codified in the book?

Yeah. You know, I mean, one of the things that I'm thinking about is, um, expanding these cohorts inside of organizations and the ways that I go about working with people on a group level. I really like group work. I'm not a one-to-one type of coach. It's just, that's not, that's just, it's not my energy. I do that with like about 5 people at a time, but I'm pretty picky on where I invest my resources in that.

Right.

So I love the one-to-many, and I'm thinking about, I mean, things, things like you and I have talked about, right? Like how do we make this more widely available to more people in an organization? Not just, you know, 15, 20 people who are the lucky few who get access to it. So that's one thing.

Stay there a minute because if you, you've got an organization of, or just take it to the team level. If I'm the only one on the team that's subscribing to this way of thinking, I might be tissue rejected if the other 8 people on the team aren't sort of experiencing that as well. They're like, what's up with this guy? Why is he like, uh, you know, why is he like, whatever. I think there is power in people experiencing things at the same time so that we all realize it's an experiment. We're gonna try something new. It's not all gonna work, like whatever, whatever. But even just verbalizing that and saying, okay, this is, this is new ground for all of us. Let's go through this together in a supportive way.

Right. Yeah. And I think there's so much power in that. And again, creating that common language and then also that lived experience together is, is really powerful. You know, we're also, I mean, humanity is shifting, right? Like we are becoming a more self-aware collective humanity. We're becoming more interested in how do we fully trust ourselves? How do we know ourselves? We're becoming more intuitive. Those are all skill sets that can be honed and also, um, you know, cultivated so that people are showing up truly aligned and no longer in this place of like, woe is me and how am I gonna ever get through my life? It's like, this is a gift. All right? Like, let's treat this like it's a gift. We get to do this. And most of us, if we're not in jobs that are toxic, which if you are, then find a new job, right? But if you're not in a job that's, that's toxic, then look at it like your livelihood and how can you bring your best self to it and allow it to be what you need it to be in your life, right? So I always talk about like things like purpose and meaning. Purpose is about how are you serving humanity and meaning is about how is humanity serving you. And part of that humanity serving you is your job. How does that serve you? Right? Yeah.

This has been great. I wish you the best of luck with the launch and, and the sustainability of the, the book going, getting out into the universe. And, uh, appreciate your time today, Erin. Thank you.

Thank you, Peter Winick.

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