Minisode 25: The Failfluencer Files with Rachel Oliveros
Hello? It’s your next failure.
I'm calling just in time to tell you something I wish I’d told you sooner: Today may be the day that you make the mistake that will save you.
In today’s episode, Erin and improve it! Podcast Manager Rachel Oliveros discuss a call-in failure left by improve it! peep Shelly.
If you’re looking for a fresh perspective on why you should make failure a habit, this is the episode for you.
ICYMI – Your Post-Episode Homework: Think of a tiny fail that you might’ve had today, this week, this month, or this year. Redirect this fail with a, “Fail yeah!” Like, actually say it out loud and add a fist bump when you do.
Connect with Rachel Oliveros:
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Tell us about your fails and/or send a question/voice message on SpeakPipe here!
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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!
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Minisode 25 Transcription
Erin (00:00):
Welcome to the Improve It podcast. Omg. We've got Rachel back on the podcast. Rachel, you're giving me all the feels today. You can't see her improve it peeps, but she is glam. She's giving me Kardashian vibes and this leather jacket. Okay, <laugh>. She is styling. She's influencing me in Los Angeles. Rachel, welcome back.
Rachel (00:35):
Thank you. And thank you for thinking I'm Glam <laugh>.
Erin (00:39):
You are glam you are here. It's like the, it's part of the Kardashian episode where they're sitting, giving the interview. That's where I feel like I'm at. She's in glam. She's looking at me. She's giving me glam vibes. Rachel, everyone needs fall. Rachel on Instagram. She is a, she is a budding influencer. She influences me to move to LA and live my best life. That's really what this is about. <Laugh>. Guess what? It's a
Rachel (01:04):
Great time. I try to live my best life.
Erin (01:07):
Ah, okay. Well tell everyone your role. Why? What do you do here, Rachel? What you do and improve it?
Rachel (01:14):
That's a great question. What do I do at Improve It? So, I am the Improve It Podcast manager and that requires me doing everything behind the scenes. So the social posts that you see, I did that and helping book the guests and give them all the information that they need in order to have a successful episode with you.
Erin (01:35):
Ugh. And we could not, would not do it without Rachel and Rachel's been on the show a few times. So we were just talking before <laugh>. We hit record. Don't know the episode numbers, but we're gonna put 'em in the show notes for you if you wanna hear more of Rachel. Yeah. Cause she is amazing and literally so many people tell me how fantastic you are just behind the scenes coordinating. So thank you for all you do. Let's make sure we give Rachel all the love cuz she does so much. It's the
Rachel (02:04):
Virgo with me. It's my organizational skills. <Laugh>.
Erin (02:07):
Oh my God. I know. My best friend is a Virgo and it's real, it's a real thing. So it's a great trait. Okay, well we are having you on the show in the month of April. Our theme as we've been doing in 2023 is evolution. And Rachel, I could even say, you know, I've known you a long time. Evolution is inevitable. But what would you say the evolution means to you?
Rachel (02:34):
Ooh, that's a good question. Evolution. I would say it's kind of like a storyline on your process of who you are as a person starting from when you were born to today. And it can be like a growth process, but any, anything that happened throughout your life, I feel like that's just evolution.
Erin (02:56):
Yes. And I gotta tell you, girl, you know, I'm turning 40 this month. Okay. She's evolved. There's been many evolutions. You almost 40 guys <laugh>. It's called Botox and prayers. Botox and prayers. But truly I will tell you, it is, it's a wonderful word. I love it because that's what improve it is all about, we're all about evolving and improving and focusing on that. Where this month is really cool because I'm just excited for all the guests that we have. I'm, as you know who they are, the topics we're covering. We're doing three shows a week. So we've evolved. I mean, we've came from the Failed It podcast to now approve it podcast. And we're even evolving that. It's a, it's like the 4.0 version at this point. So when we talk about failure, this is one of my favorite things is getting these sound clips from the Improvement Peeps, listening to their questions.
Erin (03:51):
But this, this time we're getting a clip from Shelly who is sharing a fail moment. Now, a fail is not an influencer like Rachel, it's gonna be one day <laugh>. It's, and we're not giving out Amazon links. We're given out the opportunity to link back to yourself by failing forward, by celebrating failure, seeing it as gifts and doing it often. So this is all a part of the F-word that were keynote that I've been doing, which is so fun. Just had an amazing audience few weeks last week in Chicago. And what better way to evolve than to see as something that we might have been beating ourself up about for the longest time as a gift. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to play this file from Shelly Raach. Okay, let's listen and then we're gonna talk about it. Here we go.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Okay. This is my fail influencer failure story. So one time my coworker asked me to come into the office because she was having a bunch of our big clients on site and she wanted some folks to kind of help with small talk over lunch. So we had probably, I don't know, like five to 10 clients. And I sat down for lunch and I started talking to this one gal. And also an important fact to note our company has recently expanded significantly. Like we've almost tripled in size with the pandemic. We're not all working in person and I haven't met everyone face to face. You probably already know where this is going. So I sit down and I'm just chatting with people and I kind of am connecting with this one gal. And so I turn up the charm to level 10 complimenting her outfit. And you know, she told me your name didn't ring any bells.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
I'm like, okay, cool. Nice to meet you. We can call her Susan for the sake of this story. So I'm like talking with Susan, like, oh my gosh, this is great. And I remember one of the managing partners kinda looking at me like a little, a little bit like, why are you like so into this conversation with, with Susan here? Didn't really think anything of it. Patted myself on the back. Fast forward a month later and Susan sets up a coffee chat with me, which is just something fun we do to connect with coworkers internally. And I saw her name, but I didn't really put two and two together at that point. So I turned on the coffee chat. Lo behold, Susan is sitting in front of me and I kind of like, like looked at her for a second and I was like, she looks familiar. And then it dawned on me and I had to practice my poker face. Susan was in fact one of our new hires who had come on board a few months prior. And I just totally didn't recognize her at the client lunch. And I felt so dumb. I didn't want Susan to feel bad, so I just like played a cool, did not let her know of my mess up, but totally rattled myself out to my friend who organized the client luncheon after that. So that's my story.
Erin (07:00):
Okay. Oh my God. Shelly. Shelly <laugh>. Shelly. Okay. Rachel, what do you, what do you think about that moment?
Rachel (07:11):
I was going to say, I feel like I can relate because like you're talking, when, when you talk to somebody in person versus online, it's, you kind of picture them in a different way. Like you don't know how their body looks like, you don't know how tall they are. Short they are. So I've done like the opposite where I will meet someone in person, I'm like, oh, hi, it's nice to meet you. And then I don't, I like meet their, they say their first name, but then I don't think anything of it. And then they start saying things, I'm like, oh my gosh, do we work together? <Laugh> and I'll, I'll like ask for their last name. I'm like, oh my gosh, I totally know you. So I've done the opposite. But you know, we can relate and it's okay. Shelly <laugh>. It's ok.
Erin (07:55):
OK.
Rachel (07:56):
Moments <laugh>.
Erin (07:57):
Yes. And I think that that, especially when companies grow so fast, it's just hard. You can't recognize everybody. But I do think that celebrate okay, now we can laugh about it. Shel in the moment it's probably mortifying and you're so mad at yourself. And one of the things that I love about what we do with failure here is we have a methodology that we use in our efforts at work Keynote to literally help you move on from these failures. I'm not gonna spoil it, Rachel, I want everybody to know there is an episode about this. But I will say moving on from that takes a lot of just, and you know, Shel this, I don't feel like it's like the worst fail in the world. It's not a good, it's definitely not, but it's not the worst in the world. What would you say to Shelly Ra to help her process this and fail fluids forward?
Rachel (08:55):
Oh, I would just say that that happens to everybody and she is not alone. And just move on from it. And yeah. Now you work together and <laugh> just make up for the lost time, I guess.
Erin (09:08):
<Laugh>. Yeah. And never tell Susan. Never tell Susan. Thank you. You know, I know. It's so funny too because I mean, we can sit here and think of a million fails that we have every day, but I'm gonna give Shelly a big fail Yeah. For that fail.
Rachel (09:22):
Yeah. Shelly
Erin (09:24):
Fail. Yeah, because you know what, the more we talk about them, the more we can laugh at ourselves, the more we can say, okay, these mon, I don't consider this a mundane fail, but those tiny fails that we have every single day that bother us and literally that fail could be like, I woke up late. But we carry that fail with us throughout the rest of the day and it just changes our mood. Instead of allowing it to change our mood, let's celebrate it and be like, Phil, yeah, look what I did and look what I learned and look what I'll never do again. Right, exactly. It's the bigger fails that take more time to process. But this was, this was a tf shell a tiny fail. What, what Can I get a Rachel moment? What's something that you have failed at recently? Like a mundane, tiny fail, like you woke up later, like you spoke coffee on your really cool outfit, or what's something you've done
Rachel (10:17):
A tiny fail? A tf. I like that. That one's a new one. Oh, okay. So I <laugh> so context for everyone. I live in Los Angeles and this comes with a stereotype. I am a Maa gal. Diehard Maa gal. So on my drives I will pick up a maa and you know, they put it with a straw and it, cuz I have iced and I'll be like wearing a white t-shirt. And I'm, I'm very neat. I'm not messy. I don't like to call myself messy, but sometimes the cab just does isn't all the way or something. There's like triplets or something from the straw. And so I got matcha on not one, but not two, but the three shirts in like the past month because I just, I guess I just didn't learn from my mistakes and I had to throw away those shirts because Maa does stain. Ma
Erin (11:09):
No, no, I don't that that is not cool. Maa. That is a, i I don't like that very maa. I was trying to pun it out. I was trying to pun it out. That was too planned. It was too planned, but oh my god. That is, that is annoying. I would be so mad at myself. Ok. But yeah, Rachel. Yeah. It's
Rachel (11:29):
A love hate, macho relationship. <Laugh>.
Erin (11:31):
Oh my God. Okay, well Philia, and if you're listening, I want you to think of a tiny fail that you might have had today, this week, this month. I mean, I got a list for days y'all, and I want you to try to redirect it with a fail. We have so many more methodologies that we talk about in the F Keynote that you can, when if it win, we can never come to your organization that we'll get into. And we probably talked about them already on the show, but I want you to just think about for now, redirecting that failure with a failure. Yeah. Because now we can laugh about the matcha. Now Shelly can laugh about this incident with quote unquote Susan. And we can all embrace this idea that failure is a fundamental to our success. Ultimately, it leads to lessons learned, it leads to great stories and it leads to breaking rage back on the show, which I'm so grateful. Four. Okay, Rachel, tell people if they wanna find you on the grammy gram where they can find you. Oh
Rachel (12:32):
My gosh. If, if you wanna follow me on the grammy gram, as Erin says <laugh>. It's Rachello, but with two and two Ls. So R a a c h e l l O.
Erin (12:44):
Yes. And everybody give Rachel some love and tell her thank you for helping us bring this show to life. Okay. Rachel, I adore you. Thank you for being here so much.
Rachel (13:00):
Of course. Happy to be here and fail yeah people.
Erin (13:03):
Fail. Yeah. Keep improving, keep failing. Cause this world needs a special it that only you and Rachel and all the Phil Lewiss can bring.
Rachel (13:15):
Amen.
Erin (13:16):
See you next time. Bye <laugh>. 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.