Episode 146: Self Love for Service Driven Leaders
Happy Valentine’s Day, improve it! Peeps! Today's episode is all about you - so put your feet up, relax. Stop carrying all of the invisible loads. Allow yourself to have a moment for you.
Self-love is relearning the love that we were put here with from the very beginning. Fear is what we’ve learned over time, love is what’s innate and always there to return to.
In this episode, Erin spills her own journey to self-love, tactical strategies you can incorporate today, and what it means to choose innate love over learned fear. Press play now, and get ready to give yourself some love.
ICYMI – Your Post-Episode Homework: If you want a refresh by doing something new, come learn how improv can relate to your career and help you show up as a better leader. Our first Public Workshop in Chicago has your name on it. Link below!
Show Links:
Want to book Erin to speak at your organization or large-scale event: Learn more here!
Send us a voice message here!
Did today’s episode resonate with you? Please leave us a review for a chance to win a self care package from us!
Connect with Erin Diehl:
Connect with Erin Diehl:
Email Erin: info@learntoimproveit.com
Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief “Yes, And” officer of improve it! and host of the improve it! Podcast. She’s a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award.
This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre.
When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and beach dates with her husband and son, and their eight-pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl.
You can follow the failed it! podcast on Instagram @learntoimproveit and facebook, and you can follow Erin personally on Instagram @keepinitrealdiehl here. You can also check out improve it! and how we can help your organization at www.learntoimproveit.com. We can’t wait to connect with you online!
“I love this podcast and I love Erin!!”
If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing this podcast! This helps Erin support more people – just like you – move toward the leader you want to be. Click here, click listen on Apple Podcasts, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with 5 stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then be sure to let Erin know what you loved most about the episode! Also, if you haven’t done so already, subscribe to the podcast. That way you won’t miss any juicy episodes! Thanks in advance, improve it! Peeps :)
Episode 146 Transcription
Erin (00:00):
Hi, new friend. I'm Erin Diehl, business improv edutainer, failfluencer and keynote speaker who is ready to help you improve your it, it being the thing that makes you, you. So think of me as your keeping it real professional development bestie who is here to help you develop yourself into the best version of you possible so you can develop your team and lead with intentionality, transparency, and authenticity. Oh, and did I mention we're improving your IT through play? That's right. I'm an improvisational comedy expert who uses experiential learning to help you have your aha haha moments. Those are the moments when the light bulb goes off and you're laughing at the same time. So grab your chicken hat, your notebook, and your inner child, because I'm gonna take you on a journey that is both fun and transformative. Welcome to the Improve It Podcast.
Erin (01:09):
Oh, improve It Peeps. Ah, today's episode is all about you. So I want you to put your feet up. I want you to relax. I want you to stop carrying all of the invisible loads and just let yourself have a moment for you. Better yet, I want you, if you're listening to this podcast inside, I want you to get up. I want you to get out the door and go for a walk. Or if you're listening while you're driving in your car, I want you to roll the windows down, let the breeze hit your face. If it's raining, take a shower. And speaking of showers, if you're listening in the shower, then I want yourself to give yourself a shimmy right now, or a high five when you look in the mirror, as Mel Robbins would say, and make it today all about you. The shower part got weird.
Erin (02:12):
You know what? I just went with it. So hear me out. You know, failfluency. I'm doing my best. So improve It Peeps today, this month is literally all about you. After the Self-Healing Series, I decided that every month is going to have a monthly theme or an intention, and we're gonna bring on guests, and we're gonna have show topics that relate to that monthly intention, because I wanna make sure that you are not just getting one 30 minute episode on self-healing or self-love. I wanna dive deep. I wanna not just scratch the surface, I wanna go below the surface and make sure you have all the tips and, and tools and tricks and things that I have in my toolkit to give to you. So February is all about self-love. Now, here's what I wanna talk about. Self-Love is an act of kindness to you, and I wanna pour into you.
Erin (03:26):
Now, I wanna give you some self-love because just by showing up here today, by hitting play on this episode, you are giving yourself some self-love. However, we about to get real, and it peeps, you know, that's how I like to keep it. I'm gonna give you a list of actions, okay? And these are some things that could happen to you in any given day. And as I read off this list, I have them written down. I want you to count with your fingers on your hands, the number of things that you relate to. If any of these scenarios sound like you, I want you to give yourself a point, all right? All right, take a deep breath.
Erin (04:16):
I'm congested, so it sounds a little icky for me, but take one more. All right, here we go. I want you to be really honest with yourself as I go through this list, and if it does sound like you in any capacity, give yourself a point. Do you give to your phone? That could be your email or your texts or your social media first thing in the morning. If that sounds like you give yourself a point, do you wake up and immediately take care of others? That could be your pets, your plants, your kids, your partner. Before you take care of yourself in the morning, give yourself a point in your mornings, are you juggling breakfasts, making coffee and running around and getting out the door and everyone else out the door in a state of panic? If that sounds like you give yourself a point, do you run late almost daily and feel like there are never enough hours in a day to get it all done? Give yourself a point.
Erin (05:37):
Do you give time to your team? So that could be you answer Slack messages or Microsoft Teams messages or emails before you dive into your own work each day. That sounds like you, you know the drill. Give yourself a point. Do you finish your workday in a flurry so you can rush home and put on your next hat, whether it's coach, whether it's parent, whether it's partner, whether it's caregiver. Are you rushing out the door in a flurry? If so, give yourself a point. Do you complete your days in your days by doing for others? Whether it's making dinner, checking in, caring for others by giving them a bath, talking about my toddler here. If that's you, give yourself a point.
Erin (06:39):
Finally, do you give the one to two hours that you have to yourself at the end of each night to social media, to mindless television, or talk to that friend or relative about their problems? If that sounds like you, give yourself a point, all right, improve it. Peeps. The time has come. Tally up your points. Here we are. If you have one point or you gave yourself one, one finger raise, this episode is for you. If you have 2, 2 7 raised, oh oh, this episode is for you. And if you have like maybe a half point, I'm gonna go ahead and say, this episode is for you. Now, we did not collectively improve at peeps. Just go through the Self-healing series this podcast for nothing. And if you haven't listened to the Self-Healing series, this was episodes one 40 through 1 45 all through the month of January here in 2023.
Erin (07:54):
I will say it's not a prerequisite for the work that we're gonna do this month, but I would highly recommend you check out maybe one or two of the episodes just so you can get an idea. Truly, I'd start with episode one 40, because that kind of carries into today's episode. So check out the Self-healing series and know that today is all about discovering you and loving that amazing, awesome person within. This is what you'll hear about in this self-healing series. This is what my own personal self-healing journey led me to. And this return to love, a return to loving myself is what I'm hoping that I can guide you on after listening to this show. Now, I'm gonna preface this. I didn't put this in my show notes, but it feels like I should should say this. I am not a therapist. I don't have a medical degree.
Erin (09:01):
You know what? I have a brain, a soul, a human experience, and that's what I can share with you. I'm not gonna give you scientific evidence because there is a lot I'm gonna share with you, a real human journey, a real human connection, because it is from stories and from shared experiences that we learn the most. So I wanna start off with this is gonna get real, y'all, something that someone once said to me that could have gone one of two ways. One, I could have been like, you are the worst. That is so mean. Instead, it was actually the best compliment I've ever received. So someone, okay, I'll share, I'll spill the beans. It was my little brother, okay? He said to me once, God, you just love yourself so much.
Erin (10:10):
Now let me say that again. You love yourself so much. Now he is my younger brother, my only brother, so his viewpoint, and he's my only sibling, so I wanna just share that. But his viewpoint definitely comes from being the younger sibling and growing up in a household with a very loud sister. I'm gonna share that for free. I know it. But that comment that he made, oh, it was not always true. I did not always love myself. In fact, for a very long time, for a very, very, very long time, I hated myself. Hated. I was too big. I was too loud. I was too over the top. I was too much. I was some of the areas too plain. I wasn't cool enough. I was super chewy. I wasn't funny enough, I wasn't smart enough to stand on stages, lead people and teams, and do the work that I know.
Erin (11:19):
I'm called here to do. The improv community won't think I'm funny enough, and corporate America doesn't think I'm smart enough. It took many years of exposure therapy, putting myself in uncomfortable situations to grow personally and professionally, to finally realize that I had the power within me to build and prove it. The company that I run, the company that will leave a legacy on my life, the podcast that you're listening to that will hopefully help develop you into a better person, a better leader, a better human, a better soul, a better everything. It took me years of telling my ego and my inner critic to politely scram and years of unlocking my own inner voice to be able to stand and command rooms of hundreds, to be able to stand and command rooms of thousands of people. It took publicly failing hard many times in my life.
Erin (12:33):
It took privately failing. It took 39 years to finally unlock all of the unprocessed emotions I was covering up and disassociating with by overworking, by over pop, positively toxifying things with laughter, by covering up with the idea of I'm so busy to really and fully appreciate who I am. These were the things that I used to disassociate myself from fully loving myself, this overworking over positively toxifying things, being so busy hustling, that's me. You could disassociate from discovering your own self-love by over drinking. And I did that at times over controlling, still working on that one, over obsessing every day, co depending, overeating, hiding, attacking. We can find so many ways to express and disassociate from really uncovering our true selves and learning to love that person. So that comment was made to me probably, I don't know, 10 years ago, and it hurt. I thought, wow, he thinks I'm really selfish and I, my brother and I am gonna just preface this, have an amazing relationship. We're four years apart, still my best friend. But when he said that, I thought to myself, wow, he, he really thinks that I'm so into myself. I, I just care about me. I'm selfish.
Erin (14:24):
And if he said that same dialogue to me today, if he were to say to me, Aaron, you love yourself so much, I would say thank you. I worked so hard to do that. It's truly the best compliment I could receive at this point in my life, because I really do love me. I really do. I accept me flawed in awe. I call myself floss. Some, I forgive the past versions of her that did some real stupid stuff. I love my big loud, sometimes over the top personality. I love the compassion and the empathy that I feel for others, and the chance to unlock my truest highest potential by bringing the work of improve it to this world and using my two greatest instruments, my mind and my voice to help you. Yeah, you do the same. So I can promise you one thing and prove it.
Erin (15:38):
Peeps, <laugh>, let me say this. Self-Love does not come overnight. I did not wake up one day and said, oh, today I love myself. What a great day. No, you have to work every single day. You will have to work. If this is like, Hey, I wanna get there, listen to me, this is not gonna be an overnight success story. It's like going to the gym. The more you go, the more you work those muscles, the stronger you get, the better your arms look in that graphic tank top and the summer. You know what I mean? The opposite of this is true. And, and this is literally, this came to me yesterday as I was driving to my acupuncture appointment, which is something I say now because I love myself. But let's say your car isn't working properly. Now, you wouldn't just go look under the hood of the car, give it a little spit shine, like give it a little pat on the hood and say, try to keep running. No, you need to get that thing fixed. You need to take it to a shop, get it examined. It might need a new battery, might need a new engine before you can use it to get from point A to point B.
Erin (16:56):
So in order to really love yourself so you can be in service to others, you are going to have to be willing to look under the hood, get Gracie, be okay with a new battery. This one might last longer. You might need to replace the engine. You might need to smell like gas. You get the metaphor sometimes. I don't know where I go with these, but that one just felt right. Okay, so here are my steps to help you make self-love possible. So you can show up as the amazing person you are to your family, to your team, to your organization, to the communities that you serve, to the associations you're a part of. I know you do a lot of things, so make sure you got your car in park, your credit card in hand, because I'm handing you the free 99 advice over here. And no, I won't gouge you with overpriced parts like the mechanic at your local car shop. I'm gonna give you tips that are free, tips that are tangible, and I want you to be able to say to yourself, self, I think you're pretty awesome. So feel free to write these down, pull out your notes or just listen and let them sink in because they go in sequential order. So here is step one. Put energy into you first before you start your day.
Erin (18:38):
I sound like a broken record if you've listened to the show for forever. You know, I love a morning routine. A morning routine is going to set you up for the day. This could be waking up 30 minutes earlier than you normally do. Just set your alarm for 30 minutes, literally 30 minutes, get up and start journaling or meditate or go for a walk for 30 minutes or read from a book that you've been wanting to read from with a nice cup of coffee. Like give yourself that time before you give to others. This is so funny because I, my grandmother worked her entire life. She had the same schedule for tw 30 plus years, and it was always waking up at 6:00 AM having an hour before she got to work to just sit and be mindful. And literally she would just sit with her cup of coffee, had to be really hot and just be still, that was meditative for her.
Erin (19:48):
And after she retired, she still did that. So it, it's something that becomes a habit. Make it a habit, and oh my gosh, you'll crave it in the mornings. So set up a morning routine. All I want you to do is set your alarm for 30 minutes earlier, get up and give yourself 30 minutes to you before you go and do anything for anyone else. Do not look at your phone. That is a big no no, no, no, no. I have a whole episode on morning routines from earlier in this podcast. We'll link to it in the show notes. My morning routine has shifted over the years, but it looks like this. I wake up around six 30. I go right to our little playroom area where I have a Peloton or I'll go for a run. I just get up, put on workout clothes and go, because if I overthink it, I just won't do it.
Erin (20:46):
So I, I go, I do my workout for 30 minutes of movement. Some days it's really hard. Some days it's really easy. Then I come back and I meditate. Right now that meditation looks like just sitting with my journal and writing for seven minutes. It also looks like I'm reading a book called A Course in Miracles right now. So I do a little devotion in that every single day and exercise. Then I shower, and then I get up my son and take him to school. So that is my morning routine. Do something that makes you feel good before you give to others. You did not hear me say look through email. You did not hear me say respond to text. You did not hear me say, scroll, social media, give to you first. So that's step one.
Erin (21:41):
Hey, improve it. Peep, I wanted to interrupt your learning really quick to thank you for turning into this show. Now, each week, myself and the entire improvement team are working tirelessly to give you the content you deserve to help you use play to become your best self personally and professionally. Now, if you wanted to return the thank you, that's okay, you don't have to, but if you did, would you leave us a five star review on iTunes? It takes two minutes to leave five stars and maybe a comment or two on how this show has impacted you. Just scroll to the bottom of this show on iTunes and you'll see the opportunity to leave five stars. Now, once you do that, please send a screenshot, take a screenshot from your phone and email it to info, learn to improve it.com. That is info, learn to improve it.com.
Erin (22:37):
This way we know it's from you. We will be drawing one name per month to send an Improve IT podcast care package too. This care package is the bees maze. It will include branded goodies from the show, some of our favorite books and products from previous guests in a few more surprises. So thank you for the opportunity to tell you thank you. And if you want to thank me by leaving a review, then I will say thank you by potentially sending you a care package that shows our full appreciation. So thank you for thanking me, and we thank you will really like the goodies in the care package. Okay, back to improving it. Thanks.
Erin (23:24):
Now we've gotten the day going. Here comes step two. Anytime your inner critic, a k A, your ego pops up throughout the day, we are going to replace that negative self-talk with something I call new choice, okay? And that is going to be replacing that negative talk with a more positive, loving, kind thought. Instead, new choice is an improv game that we play just in the theater. It's something we use in our workshops, and really it's a game that's used to help people postpone judgment and just think more quickly on their feet. And that's really what this is all about. So let's stay that you're starting the day and you get home and you're like, Ugh, I have to deal with X, Y, Z today. So maybe it's a client you don't wanna talk to, or maybe it's a team member, and you know you're gonna have a hard conversation first.
Erin (24:34):
Forgive that thought. So don't beat yourself up because your human, your ego is there, your inner critic is there, and it's gonna happen. Then instead of going deeper into that negative self-talk and loathing that thing that you're about to do or that conversation, we're gonna replace it. So I am a leader. I get the opportunity to chat with Susie today and help shape her to be a future leader. It's not gonna be easy, but I got this. That's new choice. If you're going about your morning and you get an email, and it's just one of those emails that you don't wanna respond to right away, but it gives you that ping in the bottom of your stomach and you're like, oh, God, don't wanna respond to this. So instead of saying, Ugh, I don't wanna respond to this new choice. I do have to deal with this later today. I don't have to do it right now, and giving myself space will actually allow me space and time to come up with a more loving response.
Erin (25:42):
So love and positive thoughts are not toxic. All right? This whole idea of positive toxicity over making things positive, I'm, I will say there have been times in my life where I go straight to the positive and that has served me, but it's not negative to replace negative thoughts with love. Love is actually what we were born with. Fear is what we have learned. Friends, do you think that you were put on this earth to sit in agony and pain and anxiety? Now we were put here to love each other, to connect with each other, to spread joy, to literally connect. So self-love is really undoing or just relearning the love that we were put here with to begin with. The love that we have here in our hearts, it's energy. Love is energy. So if you can new choice your way through that negative self-talk, oh my gosh, you're gonna start to feel good.
Erin (27:01):
When you start to feel good, you know what happens. The people around you feel good because you're putting out great energy into the world, and you know what that happens? You start to attract more goodness into your life. So this leads me to step three. Check in with your yourself. And one of my good friends, Judy Hollerer says this, check yourself before you wreck yourself. It's from a song, check yourself before you wreck yourself. I don't know who sings it, but check in with yourself. So when you are in a self sabotaging moment, you're about to do that new choice, or you've just done the new choice, you've re forgiven yourself, replaced that negative self-talk with a more positive loving idea, you're gonna check in with you. What do you need in this moment? So for example, this actually happened to me yesterday.
Erin (28:11):
I was downstairs in our kitchen, myself and my husband and son, and John is my best friend. So just let me, let me just say this. Every couple, he has little tiffs, okay? So we had talked about giving Jackson the yogurt in a pouch because he's stopped eating these yogurt pouches, and we have like 800 of them in our fridge. We've talked about giving him those for breakfast and putting them in a bowl with granola. So actually squeezing them out of the pouch. Well, John Hands, Jackson, one of my yogurts that I ate for breakfast, and I said, oh no, we, we talked about giving him the pouch. John then mutters something under his breath about, I don't E to be honest now, I don't even know what it was, but it was a sort of, let me give you a tip. Parenting advice, mutter under the breath.
Erin (29:07):
And you know what it did? It sent me into an orbit. I was like, I don't need to be told how to parent. We talked about giving him the yogurt pouches, like, who cares, right? So I went upstairs and did some of my best thinking while dragging my hair at always where it happens. And I checked in with myself. I promise you, there is a point to this story. Stay with me. So as I was dragging my hair, I checked in with myself, what does Erin need in this moment? And I said, okay, I need to give myself a moment to just breathe. It is not a big deal. Here's the second part of step three. After you've checked in, try to figure out the root of the problem. So why did I get so frustrated when he tried to give me some parenting advice and I thought about it and I said, oh, I was triggered because it reminded me of a parental figure in my own life who likes to give out free advice that I never ask for, and it frustrated me.
Erin (30:21):
And in that moment, I realized I wasn't really mad at him. It's not really a big deal. He was coming from love. I was coming from love. Jackson's gonna get fed, we're gonna have yogurt for years. And I let it go. And then I walked in his office, gave him a big hug and kiss, and we laughed. But I could have chosen, instead of checking in with myself to fester on that problem, to make it a bigger deal, to come up with a million reasons why he was wrong. I was right, but instead I chose to move on. Now, this is a personal story. This type of scenario can happen when you're in a heated conversation with an employee or a team member and something sets you off. Check in with yourself and ask yourself, where is this frustration and emotion coming from? And guarantee you, once you check in, ask yourself, what do you need? Okay, I might need to say, let's put a pin in this and have a conversation later. Or I might need to just sit back and pause and really listen and stop talking so I can hear their version of the story. This can happen with a client. It could happen in a conversation with a senior leader. You might check in and say, okay, this conversation happened.
Erin (31:53):
How am I doing? What do I need? I need to go on a walk. I'm hungry. I need food. I have low blood sugar. Let me get some food. I need to take a break from my screen. I need to hold my dog. I need to dance in my mirror by checking in with ourselves. It allows us to quiet our minds, and it allows us to be fully present with ourselves in that moment. And when we are present, we aren't overthinking, we are not judging ourselves, our others. We are genuinely connecting with ourselves and not allowing the ego or fear to step in. So that's step three. Step four, my friends, is following through. So actually doing the thing that you said you needed when you checked in with yourself. So let's say it's the end of the workday and you're tired and you're frustrated, and you are just not thinking clearly.
Erin (33:02):
Have a moment of check-in. What do I need right now? You know what? I need to shut off my laptop. I need to go outside. I need some fresh air to go for a walk. Step four is actually doing that, not just checking in and thinking, oh, a walk would be great. No, walk out the door, put on your shoes and start stepping. So when we heal our mind and we take action because we've actually processed what we need in that moment, you'll be able to really fix your body or heal your body. Your body will calm down. And then guess what? You'll be able to be in service to others because you can't go from the end of the day to being a parent still angry from the day. You have to check in and follow through with yourself. Find. Finally, step five is to shampoo.
Erin (34:07):
Not saying take a shower to rinse and repeat as needed with steps two through four. Now, on stage and improv, we call this a callback. So if we're in a scene and at the top of the scene we talk about baseball, at some point in the scene down 20 minutes later, we bring baseball back, it's a callback. The audience is like, ha. Yes, they were fully present at the top of the show. They're still present with me now, and they are going to continue this sort of theme throughout this amazing improv show. How do they do that? It is an art, my friends. Step five is an art. You're gonna call back these steps as much as you need and as many times as you can each day, because a return to love, to loving yourself, because we remember we were born with love in our hearts is going to take work.
Erin (35:12):
So I actually read a book, <laugh>, you're Like, she reads a lot. I have been, I read this book called A Return to Love by Maryanne Williamson. It's an older book. It's a phenomenal number one bestseller, and I wanna read to you a passage from it because this book was one of the last books I read as I was going through my own healing journey, and it just brought everything full circle. So Marianne writes, A real self is the love within us. It's the child of God. Now, you may thank God, you can say God, source, universe, whatever it means to you. Higher power, the fearful self is an imposter. The return to love is the great cosmic drama, the personal journey from pretense to self, from pain to inner peace. Later she writes, let's ask for a new world. Let's ask for a new life, the personal journey from pretense to self, from pain to inner peace. Wow, I gotta tell you that my intention for 2023 is inner peace.
Erin (36:37):
And if you're following along the self-healing series, I've commented several times that I've never had it before. So this is really what self-love is. It's a return to self peace. Funny enough, Aaron, my name means peace, and I've never lived out the meaning of my name. It took me 39 years, and I am almost there. I think I'm just scratching the surface though, of the work that I'm going to do in the next chapter of my life. But what I've realized is that when we give to ourselves first, and we love ourselves first, that we have so much more space to give to others.
Erin (37:30):
And I started writing about this last year with a keynote called I See You, and the You is the letter You, and it looks like a magnet. And it's all about magnetizing a connection to ourselves and our teams through play. Obviously I use improv in there, and it's so interesting. I wrote it at a time when I had a lot of pain and I hadn't really processed it fully, and now I've been reworking it and rewriting it and doing all kinds of things with that content. And oh my gosh, I just know it has the power to change lives, has the power to change rooms. And if we can just start with us just with our own self-love, imagine what that can do to your team. If you spread that love to your team, what that does that infiltrates your organization. Your organization is your mouthpiece to the world, the for what your company does, the people are your mouthpiece.
Erin (38:39):
So it starts with us. I'm so excited about this keynote, and just shameless plug, would love to share it with you and your organization. So please spread that message. Would love to spread that love. I wanna make sure you've got these steps and you've got 'em locked and loaded because they're so important. If you can put these into motion, oh my gosh, imagine the piece that you can feel on the day-to-day. So remember step one, put energy into yourself first before you start your day. Step two, you're gonna new choice. Every fearful thought that comes to your mind, forgive it and replace that fearful thought with a more kind loving thought instead. So, okay, here's the negative thought. Boom, new choice, more loving, kind thought. You're gonna move to step three. Check yourself. Before you wreck yourself, check in. Ask yourself, what do you need in this moment?
Erin (39:38):
What is the root of this emotion? Step four is to actually follow through with a thing that you said you were gonna do when you checked in with yourself. And step five is to shampoo, to rinse and repeat. Steps two through steps, four, as many times as needed. Actually step one through step four as many times as needed. So I want you to try these steps. I want you to tell me what it feels like. I want you to really give yourself an opportunity to feel peace, because remember what we talked about in the beginning when you were giving yourself points, imagine the opposite. Imagine instead of giving to your phone, your email, your texts, your pets, your kids, your plants, or your partner, first thing in the morning you gave to yourself through your morning routine, whether it's exercising, whether it's journaling, whether it's reading, whether it's gratitude.
Erin (40:40):
Imagine the opposite of running late each day and feeling like there's never enough hours to get things done. That would be a sense of peace, a sense of calm, a sense of knowing that you're being guided, that love is real. Fear is not. Imagine the opposite of giving time to your team or your slack or teams, messages or emails before you dive into your own work each day instead of just going straight to their problems. What if you said hi in the morning and then you set up your day so you can tackle your own projects first so that you have space, you have free mind space to give to them after you tackle your own projects. What if instead of finishing the workday in a flurry, so you can rush home and put on your next hat, which may be making dinner or juggling after school activities or helping with homework or whatever it might be, you actually checked in with yourself at the end of the day and ask yourself, what did I accomplish?
Erin (41:49):
What do I need now? What can wait until tomorrow? And how do I wanna show up when I get home? What if instead of completing the day by doing for others, whether it's making dinner, checking in, giving caregiving a listening ear, what if you could actually feel purposeful because you've allotted that time for them and know that you're giving your best self because you've already checked in with yourself. You know what you need. You know what you need to do, and you know that you're gonna make space for that time. And when you get home, you can give to the ones you love because that is the time that you want to pour into them. It's intentional. What if giving that one to two hours, you have to yourself each night to social media, to mindless scrolling on social media, to mindless television, or to talking to that friend or relative about their problems.
Erin (42:57):
You checked in with you at the end of the day and you said, what do I need? Is it a bubble bath? Is it time alone staring at a wall? Is it a good book? Is it a hobby? Is it coloring in an adult coloring book or a children's coloring book? Is it researching improv workshops? I got one for you. Stay tuned. I struggled with this the most. The end of the day is really hard for me, and I've really started to put together a more mindful evening routine. In fact, I actually think I wanna make an episode for you about that, because how we start and end our day is so important, and it really matters in how we show up to ourselves the next morning. It's an act of self-love. So stay tuned for that. And if you need a hobby or wanna check out some improv and how it can relate to your career and help you show up as a better leader other than this show, we're doing our first public workshop in Chicago in 2023.
Erin (44:05):
Sorry, if you're not there, would love for you to be there. But if you know someone in Chicago at Catalyst Ranch, which is an awesome venue that we've partnered with for years on March 2nd from six to 8:00 PM we will be doing our public Effective Communication workshop and would love to have you there. We'll drop a link to that in the show notes. The evening is really meant for you to check in with yourself and give to you after you have given to others. We are giving all day long. I want you to realize improve it peeps, that when you are in service to yourself, you can be in service to others. That's it. So this is the longest solo episode I've ever done. Thanks for staying with me. I had so much to share. I just want you to keep failing, keep improving, because this world really needs that very special it that only you can bring, and I can't wait to see you bring it.
Erin (45:22):
See you next week. Hey, friend, did you enjoy today's show? If so, head on over to iTunes to rate and subscribe. So you never miss an episode. Now, did I mention that when you leave a five star review of the Improve It Podcast, an actual team of humans does a happy dance? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>? That's right. So leave a review for us on iTunes, screenshot it, and send me an email at info learn to improve it.com. I'll send you a personalized video back as a thank you. Thanks so much for listening. Improve it! Peeps. I'll see you next Wednesday.