December 10, 2024 • 34 mins
Where Does Your Self-Worth and Resilience Come From?
This week, we had the privilege of speaking with Jane Boulware - a global business leader, former Microsoft VP, and now an inspiring author of the new book WORTHY.
From her humble beginnings in the cornfields of Iowa, Jane defied expectations to lead billion-dollar businesses and rise to the top ranks of Microsoft leadership. By the age of 52, she had launched three major ventures, navigated the largest corporate merger in U.S. history, and helped shape the careers of countless leaders along the way.
Driven by a deep passion for helping others recognize their inherent worth, Jane now dedicates her time to mentoring, serving on boards, and enjoying nature with her family. What’s more, all proceeds from her book WORTHY are being donated to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s Youth of the Year scholarships, making her work a beacon of hope for the next generation.
In this episode, Jane opens up about her remarkable journey, sharing personal stories and professional lessons that emphasize the power of family support, self-acceptance, and the courage to ask for help. From navigating high-stakes corporate roles to overcoming personal struggles, her insights are invaluable for anyone seeking to grow as both a leader and an individual.
Together with host Nicole Jansen, Jane explores thought-provoking topics like turning differences into strengths, fostering positive self-dialogue, and embracing diversity as a critical element of leadership. Whether you’re building resilience, nurturing self-worth, or stepping into a new leadership role, this episode is packed with actionable strategies and encouragement to help you thrive.
Don't miss this empowering conversation with a leader who proves that no matter where you start, you are worthy of success and fulfillment.
What We Discuss in This Episode
- Turning setbacks into opportunities for personal and professional growth.
- Exploring how women and men often perceive and estimate their capabilities differently—and what we can learn from it.
- The invaluable role of family support in achieving balance between career aspirations and personal life.
- An unexpected lesson: how selling used carpet in university became a turning point in Jane's journey to success.
- Building self-worth and resilience through personal growth, embracing challenges, and learning from experiences.
- The transformation of Jane's leadership style over the course of her career and the lessons she’s learned along the way.
- Simple yet powerful daily habits Jane relies on to nurture and reinforce her sense of self-worth.
- Why diversity in leadership isn’t just a moral imperative—it’s a critical factor for business success.
- Practical strategies for overcoming imposter syndrome and stepping into leadership with confidence.
Podcast Highlights
0:00 – Imposter syndrome: A universal challenge across all experience levels.
5:30 – Why women often underestimate their performance and how to overcome it.
7:13 – The power of stepping into discomfort to unlock career growth.
9:57 – From selling homemade rugs to fund tuition: Lessons in grit and resourcefulness.
13:35 – Embracing risks and leading with courage in overseas roles.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the leaders of transformation podcast. The number one
show for business leaders and entrepreneurs passionate about uplifting
others and making a greater impact in the world. Now here's
your host, transformational coach, speaker, and business
advisor, Nicole Jansen.
(00:21):
Where does your self worth come from? Our guest today is Jane Boulware.
She is a global business leader and former Microsoft
VP, and she's the author of the book, Worthy. It
is so good. I had such a pleasure reading
it and listening to it. I had the audible version as well and it's
amazing. Today, we are gonna be talking about her journey
(00:43):
from the cornfields of Iowa to the corner office and what
she learned along the way about self worth, resilience,
leadership. We've already been having such a great conversation. I was like, we have to
hit record so that we can bring you all into this conversation as well. So,
Jane, welcome to the leaders of transformation. We're glad you're here today. I have been
so looking forward to talking with you. It's been such an honor already, and thank
(01:05):
you for inviting me to join you. Oh, my pleasure. I wanna do a shout
out to Tricia, who's at FSB Associates for
the introduction. Thank you for connecting us because if it
wasn't for all of the amazing booking agents and, you know,
PR consultants and so forth that send us amazing guests, This show wouldn't be what
it is today. So thank you to Tricia for this. Jane, let's talk about
(01:27):
your book. Like I said, I loved it. I love the stories.
You had me captivated. Like, I was in my car listening to
it, driving back and forth. I had a trip to LA and I'm
listening to it. It was captivating. And so thank you for
that. Let's talk a little bit about what inspired you to spend the time to
write this. It's like an autobiography. It is. I mean, it's a collection of
(01:49):
50 stories and I didn't intend to actually write a book. I
promised to write down my stories. And in the process of doing that, it became
a book that someone then passed on to a publishing company and the ball rolled
from there. But the genesis of it, it is yes. I was born at the
4th kid in a 1 bedroom house and made it all the way to the
top executive at Microsoft, but it's not a rakes to riches story. And
(02:10):
that's why it's called Worthy. But if you look at the book, the on is
crossed off because it's so much about undoing the uns
in your life that limit you, the circumstances, the
people, the voices that keep you small rather than
help you identify playing field and acknowledge
your worth. You know, I left Microsoft and
(02:32):
checked my calendar before I left. And at the time that I'd left Microsoft,
I was meeting with about 27 different people, mostly
women, who were mentoring or coaching or coffee or whatever.
And regardless of their level, whether they were the most senior
level within Microsoft or a newbie, they all were
experiencing many of the same things. They were experiencing imposter
(02:54):
syndrome, unsure about their capabilities, about
how you know, comparing themselves and all of those things. And
oftentimes, I just needed to reflect to them what they already
knew or were accomplishing or had accomplished so that they acknowledge that
within themselves. And so I wrote the book as much as anything to
communicate that there's no secret sauce, that you don't get to a certain
(03:16):
level and have everything all figured out and that it's okay not to
know. It's okay to make mistakes. It's
okay to fail and to begin again and again and again.
That's the human experience. So a lot of what I wanted to share with people
is not how to get to the corner office, but what I had learned about
starting again and about failure and about resilience along the
(03:38):
way And how, in fact, by beginning again and making those failures
and on acknowledging and learning, that is in fact how I got the critical
skills that I needed to be successful personally and professionally. Yeah.
Well, I thought it was so fun because you were telling stories about like as
you were growing up and some of the things that you were doing and this
tenacity that you had and just like I'm gonna
(04:00):
figure it out. And like you said, that that helped you to develop the critical
skills. What are some of those skills? And yes, I know that
every strength taken to an extreme can become a weakness and we can wear
ourselves out. And, you know, we were already talking about that before
starting this recording is that, you know, like this whole grinding it out and hustle
and grind like this mindset that that's what's supposed to be. That's
(04:22):
how what success is, and it's just not true. And yet there are some
good qualities of, like, that tenacity that I'm
gonna figure this out. And it doesn't matter. Like, you talked in your
book about the fact that you're not the first person necessarily that
was offered the job, but you were the last. So talk a little bit about
that. I was often not the first person to be offered a job, but I
(04:44):
was always the last. And the truth is I took a lot of jobs that
other people just didn't want. They were too risky. They were too not
glamorous enough. They didn't think that they were conventional
in terms of on that ladder, that corporate ladder of success. And yet when I
was offered those jobs, I was like, yeah. Yeah. I can do it.
And almost every time, I felt like I wasn't qualified.
(05:07):
I felt like, oh my gosh. This is such a stretch. I felt
like Gumby. I felt like I was always trying to catch up and learn what
I thought other people knew because that's kind of what we project, right, that we
got it figured out. But again, the thing I've learned is
that it's really important to say yes to opportunities
unless you know that it's not right for you. If you're afraid,
(05:28):
say yes. You will grow into it. And oftentimes, I always
answered with somebody would say, Do you know how to do that? Have you had
this experience? I would say, Not yet.
Or, Yes, I've had something similar, and then know that I
could get there. The reality is that and I've got these stats
here, that women actually
(05:51):
underestimate their performance relative to men by a significant
amount. So if they do the same types of jobs, women will say
that they rate their performance at 46% versus
61% for men who say they do an outstanding job. But if others
are looking at the same performance, they will often actually rate
women higher than the men. So women self rate
(06:12):
lower than the men, but others rate them above the men for the same performance,
for the same job in this test in this study done by Harvard over and
over again. And there are so many studies like that that suggest that women in
particular wait until they're ready for a position before they
accept a position. And I would say, no. Don't do that.
Say yes. Take the leap. And that's what I did. I over and
(06:35):
overtook the jobs that either nobody else wanted or that I thought I
maybe wasn't qualified for. Maybe I wasn't qualified for. But you became
qualified as you dove in. You know, that's interesting because I had seen
that statistic as well as women, when they go for a
job, they'll look at the job description and be like, okay. Have
I done all of those things? Then I'm qualified
(06:57):
and or maybe at the very least, maybe 80%.
Whereas guys are like, yeah, throw me in coach, man. I'll do it.
Sure. And they sell themselves. For sure. They sell their
potential. Wherever it is. It too. And believe it. Uh-huh.
So we can learn something from that. Absolutely. I mean, don't wait until
you're comfortable. By the time you're comfortable, you should be going on to the next
(07:19):
thing already. So don't wait until you're comfortable to be there, which is honestly
part of the reason why I wrote the book because the feedback has been
fantastic because people will say it resonates with them whether they're men or
women, older or younger. But particularly younger women in their
career are saying, wow. I'm really glad you wrote this. And part
of the reason I wrote it is because I really want people who
(07:41):
don't have that confidence but do have that capability or that
potential to continue to ascend in their career because I
believe so strongly that we need new voices
in the corner offices. That the more diversity of thought and decision
making we have, the better decisions we'll make. And if people are opting
out, that's not good for anybody. No. And right now,
(08:03):
1 out of 5 women are in leadership executive positions
despite the fact that there are more women graduating with
bachelor's degrees than master's degrees every year and
they stay in the workplace at the same rate as men. What does that tell
us? It tells us, a, we need to do a better job of putting our
foot forward and putting our hand up, and we need to recognize and
(08:25):
claim our worth and make sure that we're confident in putting ourselves in
position to say it. And undoing those uns is so important.
I'm unable the stories we tell ourselves Yeah. Were hard
in yourselves. I'm unable. I'm unconfident. I'm unsure.
I'm unqualified. I'm unready. Those unes.
I am qualified. I am able. I am ready. I am
(08:48):
going to do this. Yeah. While you're speaking to something that is near
and dear to my heart is the I am. Right? It's like whatever we
say after that, I am becomes our identity,
and that can be extremely limiting. And a
lot of times it's because of what other people have said or our
perception. That's why we need examples, that we have to have examples. If you don't
(09:10):
have an example, be the example. But if you have those examples, those role
models like your book where people can read from your story and
say, well, she did it, I can do it too. I think that's really
important. Tell us a little bit about one of your favorite jobs
and maybe how you got into that role. Maybe it was, like,
something unconventional or yeah. Not gonna be what you
(09:32):
my favorite title for myself is used carpet salesman. Okay. I don't know if
that's what I'm I remember that story. I remember that story. Yeah. Well, and the
story was that I went to college, and I paid a 100% of my own
college. And I had no money, and I had every job you can imagine.
But I was in my dorm room one day, and I was freezing. And my
girlfriends who were in the dorm room with me were freezing because we had tile
on the floor. It was cold. It was Iowa. And and they said, geez.
(09:56):
This floor is freezing. Why is there no carpeting or rugs? And my
mind went to my dad's garage because my dad laid carpeting for a living and
used to keep the scraps in the garage. And so I was like and I
went home that weekend and asked my dad to teach me how to glue
the scraps and sew the scraps together to create rugs. And
I rolled those rugs up, and I put them in the back of my scrappy
(10:17):
little car. I mean, it was I don't know how the wheels even went around
because it was weighted down, and I'm going down the highway hoping they wouldn't come
out. And I just rolled up into the parking lot of the
dormitories and put a sign up to sell them and they sold out like
that. And I made enough money for tuition for a lot of years for that,
even after I was married because I got married really early. And so there's
(10:39):
an example, I think, of probably one of my favorite
jobs because I created it from a need that was genuine.
I took a risk. I was proud and did it and did all the marketing
and everything from that myself. And then ultimately got other
people involved and we had an absolute blast doing it
and feeling really good about it. It helped other people do it as well. So
(11:01):
maybe you're looking for something more from Microsoft, and I've got lots of examples
from that. But I think there's an example
where you got to give yourself credit. Sometimes I think people think of
positions and titles, and they identify their skills based on
the title they get. I was one of the top 150 people at
Microsoft, and one of my favorite titles, if not my favorite title, was
(11:23):
used carpet salesperson because that was so pivotal to whom I
was. And I think about that, and I thought, I can do that. When I
face the challenge, I'm like, I can do that. I know that we can find
a way because I've done it. We'll figure it out. Yeah. Well, when you
talk about even I was thinking more like Kimberly Clark or when you
were down in Latin America, all those experiences, fascinating
(11:45):
stories. Yeah. If you would like a Kimberly Clark, one of the best
stories, I think was it when there was a bomb threat when I was shot
at? I think it was, like, late at night when I was reading through customer
reports for I was working on pull ups and we had just launched pull ups
disposable underpants and people loved them. And there was a
packet of stories about from consumers whose
(12:06):
children were too big for pull ups. And they said, We need a product for
when the kids get a little older for wetting the bed. And it wasn't a
big enough market. I did the research. It wasn't gonna be a big enough market
for Kimberly Clark? But we had a group of people who learned about
this. We shared the letters and they became convinced that we could do this. And
we found a way to do it in a low cost way on a machine
(12:27):
that had actually been mothballed because it had been piloted and it didn't work.
And long story short, a small ragtag group of
people put together a business plan, put together a product on a
machine that was mothballed and brought it out of being mothballed, and it's now a
$1,000,000,000 business. And not only that, but more importantly,
it changed lives. The letters we got after
(12:48):
we launched, they were really something. That was really that was a
highlight of my career, not only because of the financial and business success,
but it made such a difference. And I know and still in touch with all
the people that did that. It's pretty cool. That is cool. Well, you know
what? Business is really I always say business is just a vehicle for us
to create value in the marketplace, to solve a problem, to fill a
(13:11):
need in the marketplace. And that's really what it's about. And I think we forget
that when we get into reports and
profit sharing and stakeholders and what everybody's
expectations are and just the day to day thing. But I loved
that story where you shared that. And again, it's the same principle.
Carpet sales, same thing here. It's like, you know what? There's a problem. There's
(13:33):
a need. How do we solve it? You know? Fortunately, Kimberly Clark had
such a great culture that they let us take the lead on that and they
let us try it, and it turned out to be so exceptional. And it's
really when people take a risk and especially when you take a risk
on someone else. I was offered a job in South America when I
was 30 years old, 31 years old. I had a 1 and a half year
(13:54):
old child and the job was in charge of Latin American operations, all
the marketing and so on and forth. And it would have been for the 16
countries South of America or South of of the US. I
lived in Neenah, Wisconsin at the time. I think I had never used a
passport. I'd never been overseas. I'd had only seen the ocean a few times at
this point having come from Iowa. And I was offered a job for Latin American
(14:16):
operations. And I was like, I have a one and a half year old child.
My husband works here.
I don't speak Spanish. I am a woman and that's a very much is
my culture, and I'm one. Thanks, but are you sure you
got the right door? And it was actually my husband and I. My husband, we
went for a walk. We said, you know, if we say no to
(14:39):
opportunities now because they scare us, let's talk
about instead of why not, let's talk about what if. What would it
take? What would it look like? And there's an example of a job
where I said yes. I was not the first person offered the role, but I
was the last. And I took it, and it changed my life. The doors it
opens, the way I looked at the world was so different after that
(15:00):
experience than before. I didn't know what I didn't know. And I made a lot
of mistakes. Oh, boy, did I make a lot. I even flew into the wrong
place. Again, a story in the book, but it was a really great experience.
And had someone not taken a risk on me, supported me, and said,
I think you can do it even when I didn't think I could. And then
me saying, I can find a way, my husband supporting me and enabling us to
(15:22):
do it together was a great experience. And having your spouse support you,
I think, is such an important thing. Your family to support you in that process.
It's one of the things that I saw throughout the whole book is your husband
being so supportive in the midst of all of this. You're
working long hours and fully committed to the work and so
forth. But, yeah, all these challenges, raising kids in the
(15:43):
process of this. What was your greatest challenge? I mean, we can talk about
Microsoft, but even maybe before then, what was your greatest
challenge that you had to face, and how did you overcome that? I don't think
I knew how to ask for or have permission to ask
for help. Growing up, it was an every man for himself
situation in our family. Everybody pitched in, but it wasn't
(16:06):
like The Waltons where everybody was working hard and we were, Hey, I'm Jim
Bob or whatever. It was, If you can do it, do it.
Even when I told my dad I was going to go to college, he kind
of scoffed at me. But it was one of those, well, if you can find
a way to do it, don't know why you'd want to, but okay.
And so it was very much a I have to figure it out myself. I
(16:27):
have to pull myself from my bootstraps. If it's going to be, it's on to
me. All that stuff. And so I always felt a little
bit unworthy, a little bit like a frog. And I often
was that kid that came from very blue collar means. I
didn't have multigenerational wealth. I had never
seen the ocean till I was 27. I hadn't
(16:48):
seen a town bigger than 10,000 people till I was a teenager.
And so I didn't want to let other people in see how afraid I
was. And I think that held me back because I didn't ask for help. I
didn't know that it was okay to ask for help. I didn't know it was
okay to acknowledge that I didn't know something. And once I
failed enough and at Microsoft and others, but when I got to Kimberly
(17:11):
Clark, I started to realize that my differences were really
they made me that I thought a little bit differently. My background was a little
bit different. Everybody's different and that that's okay. And then I
started to open up and ask for help. And that's when when I learned to
do that, things changed. But until then, I started to take on some
practices that were really self destructive. And I put
(17:34):
in the book, you know, I talked about my eating disorder and
how I would try to numb myself, which I think a lot of people do,
whether it's alcohol or drugs or whatever. My numbing agent
of choice was bulimia, and it was in the process of
addressing that that I realized it was okay to get help and ask for
help. And that changed my leadership style, and, ultimately, that
(17:55):
changed, I think, a trajectory for much greater success than if I had
tried to do it on my own. How did it change your leadership style? Oh,
it's influenced my life in so many ways. It changed my leadership
style because I couldn't hide anymore. If the more I
tried to hide something, it's the you're only as healthy as your secrets,
and in the process of asking for help, I in essence
(18:18):
said, You know and have a skill that I don't know.
Will you share that with me? Will you bring that to bear
on the business or on the problem or with me? And all of a
sudden I realized all these people, once I invited them,
had these skills that I didn't see because I was so caught up in
protecting my own self that I flipped and started
(18:40):
to realize it wasn't about making myself better, it was about making
others better. And I know that sounds trite, I get it, but I
didn't have to have all the answers. I knew that they did, essentially.
I took the business. I became the leader of the Windows business in the
US and was given 4 days notice that I was assigned to that. And
I came to Microsoft without a technical background. I came as a
(19:03):
marketer in a business person, not as a technologist, and I told them that. But
they put me on the Windows business, which wasn't doing so great at that time.
I had to go to howitworks.com to understand what an operating
system was and how it works. Windows for Dummies, I read it. I was still
dumb. I didn't get it. So it sounds funny, but I
was really like, what the heck? I don't even understand the sentences on some
(19:25):
of these. So I went to the business and I said, you guys know so
much more than I do about this business, but I know how to build businesses
and I know how to build people. And I'll give you what I got if
you give me what you got. And that's how overcoming my eating
disorder and getting the help that I needed and changed my thinking
is that have to be about me by myself. And I think as we talk
(19:47):
about this idea of worthiness and self worth, I think a
lot of us think we have to know it all. It's we're
really proving it to ourselves that we are worthy of
that position. And it's interesting because I'm hearing
in your stories and from reading your book is that
your worthiness, your self worth didn't come necessarily
(20:09):
from the accomplishments. It came from
recognizing that, yes, you could figure it out and you'll you'll
put the effort in, but really from actually collaboration
and realizing as I forget who it was. One of our
guests said this, like, I'm everything that I am. I'm everything that I'm not,
and I'm okay with that rather than this constant proving. And I
(20:32):
think so many leaders are trying to prove themselves to
themselves, let alone anybody else prove to themselves that they're
worthy because of that inner dialogue that's going on and trying to
outrun the not enoughness that they're
actually stuck in. It's like a self fulfilling prophecy, and it's
they're stuck in that. Yeah. You know, and I think we've all heard it. Like,
(20:54):
if I don't love me, how can I love you? Yeah. If I
don't think I'm worthy, how can I value your worth?
Exactly. If I don't think I'm worthy, how can I elevate
you and recognize what you bring when I
dismiss what I bring? And you talked a little bit about the I ams
earlier. I don't get out of bed in the morning anymore. My feet don't touch
(21:16):
the ground until I tell myself something something's nice
about myself. Because I used to wake up and the alarm would go off and
I would go about the day and everything that was gonna be happening and all
this stuff. And it almost make me anxious before even my feet hit the ground.
And now before I get up, I validate myself and the things that I love
about myself. And I say to the rest of them, it's gonna be okay. We're
(21:37):
gonna learn and we're gonna grow on this. And that's such a different
way of approaching the day than I did when I was sick or when I
was so fear based. I would say that every time I
used to imagine difficult things, I now realize that
I can do them, and it's okay. And if I can't, there's someone
there that can help me. So let's talk about because you mentioned about that daily
(21:59):
habit. And there are other things that I'm sure you do
throughout the day or, like, even just telling yourself the
inner dialogue about your own worthiness,
saying I can figure that out. I know that was one for me. It's like,
I may not know it, but I can figure it out. That has served me
well over the years. And there are some things that I've said to myself that
(22:20):
didn't serve me well. So there's those as well. Appreciate that.
Yeah. So but let's look at some of the daily habits, like, practically
speaking, somebody who is saying, I'm struggling with self worth right
now. How do they move forward and start to develop
that self worth? I think it's hard to feel it if you don't acknowledge
it or see it. I mean, everybody look, we can't be so grandiose
(22:42):
that we don't acknowledge that there are things that we do well. Everybody does
something. There's something about yourself that you
like, whether it's something in your appearance you like, a smile
or your hair or your sense of
whatever, anything. And something that you have received feedback on
that you know when you talk to someone that they respond positively
(23:04):
to or that you feel good about. Embrace those. Own
those. You know, there's a 5 to 1 ratio according to
John Gottman's research between positive to negative. That if you want
someone to hear a positive, you have to have a takeaway
positive comment. You have to have 5 positives to every negative.
So if I say 5 things positive to you or 4 things positive to you,
(23:27):
Nicole, and then one little thing, you gave a great presentation. Boy, that
really resonated well. And the way you laid out that presentation was
great. And by the way, you are so articulate. You ask the
best questions and you're such a good listener. The thing is I wondered if maybe
you were looking off to the side a bit. If you don't say enough positives,
you're like, The only takeaway is I looked off to the side or something weird.
(23:48):
So we have to internalize that for ourselves as well. We have to tell
ourselves when we do a good job, well done. If you take a shower,
good job. If you made the groceries, you got the groceries, whatever that might
be. And so focus on the things that you're doing well and
don't simply dismiss. And that's a practice that
you're going to build. And again, before you get out of bed and do that.
(24:10):
I have listened to videotapes. I have listened to Louise Hayes. I've done lots of
different things. What you listen and what you put in your brain will make a
difference to how you think about yourself. Yeah. Well and especially now as
we have so much negative news, it's like, turn it off. There's so
much fear. And that fear is that external. It's
like you're taking it on. And if you're an empath, as I am, and you
(24:32):
pick up that energy, it's like, it is so heavy.
So I think you gotta also realize, like, what you what I'm hearing is you
Got a filter. You gotta filter and you gotta recognize what's
yours and what's not yours in that process as well. But that
inner voice is, you know, I think most of us, unless
we have been made aware of it, do not recognize
(24:54):
that that internal dialogue is going all the time. There's a young
man that I had mentored. I've known him for 15 years now. When I first
started working with him and I kind of introduced him, we were doing some
business coaching, but then we got into quickly into life coaching. And I introduced
him to this idea that there was this little voice in his head that was
talking to him. And he said, all of a sudden, like, I'm hearing this
(25:15):
voice all the time, and I'm hearing it in other people
too. Like, everybody's got a little voice of what they're saying to
themselves. And that's either saying I am or I'm
not. And so what you're saying is so simple, but
yet so important, so necessary. Because without that,
it doesn't matter what anybody else says to you. It's gonna
(25:37):
bounce off if you don't allow it to come through. And to do that, you
have to acknowledge it yourself within yourself. I have a gratitude
journal. It's a 5 minute gratitude journal. I do it every morning. I do it
every night. And one of the things that sometimes I have to do is I
usually do my gratitudes about other things that happened during the night. I started doing
my gratitudes about myself. Yes. Not about other
(25:59):
people, not about what happened to me, although sometimes I do. I started doing
my gratitudes about myself. And and it was a way for me
to capture, I'll say, what I love about myself.
It's a bit of a capture it and be grateful because not all that
stuff exactly comes from you. Right? And it's really easy for us
to be grateful for things out there or see something and
(26:21):
acknowledge beauty out there or in others. Good. Keep doing that. But,
by gosh, don't overlook any gratitude about what you
have and what you possess and what you've created and what you've worked
on and what you achieved. Be proud of that. As women, we dismiss
that so much. Yes. There's so much
energy we give away without even acknowledging
(26:44):
that we've done that and we've done a good thing. I make it a
practice of smiling at people, especially when I get groceries or I go for a
walk and I try I know that's so dorky, but it makes a difference. I
feel like I'm giving a gift. And in the process of doing that, I just
feel better. Smiling makes me feel better. And in the process of doing
that, it reinforces what's good about myself. And one of those core qualities
(27:05):
that I want for myself is positivity. How can I be positive if I'm not
giving it only? And if you're not giving it to yourself. And giving it to
myself. Interesting. You were talking about that gratitude exercise because I teach
my clients this gratitude exercise in about 95%
of the time when I just give them the exercise to do
it and they come back and they tell me, okay, here are the 10 things
(27:27):
that I was grateful for each day this last week. It's always the
outside. It's all the external stuff. It's not actually,
unless I say to them, make sure you include yourself in it.
95% of people will not do that. And they don't think about it. They don't
think about it. And so that is where it starts. Because if we
are not giving it to ourself, we're not gonna have it to give to
(27:48):
others as well. So so good. You know, it's so
true. I think you've gotta feel it and you've gotta claim it.
Yeah. And I think if you don't claim your own worth I mean, I did.
I talked I went through so many doggone titles for this book,
but the unworthy undoing those uns, why we un
ourselves to death, what we can't do. And take that un away and start
(28:11):
thinking about how courageous you are and how able
you are and how ready you are and all of
those things. And you will. That makes a huge difference. And
maybe it's a small thing, but it will grow. I really genuinely
believe that. And one other thing I'll say is when I was mentoring or
what, I've been told a lot, I want to be fearless like you. I want
(28:33):
your secret sauce, Jane. I want your secret sauce. There's no secret sauce. I want
to be fearless like you. And that used to make me feel really good. I'd
be like, Oh, yes, I'm a fearless leader. What a crock of
crap. I'm just going to say, I don't even try to be fearless anymore.
Hearing that makes me feel uncomfortable. I just want to
fear less. That's good. And I am
(28:54):
now afraid of not being afraid because when I'm
uncomfortable, a little bit afraid, you eat a little bit. When I'm
uncomfortable, I'm stretching, I'm growing, I'm outside my comfort zone,
I am doing something that is going to make me bigger than I was
before, and I don't wanna be small. I don't wanna stay in my place and
stay in my comfort zone. So I don't wanna be fearless. I want to
(29:16):
fear less, and I want to be
enough fearful that it pushes me outside of my comfort
zone and gets me experiences that help me to be a better
person that I might not otherwise have done. I love that. Yeah. I think
if we're not afraid of it at all, then we're in our comfort zone. Yeah.
And that goes back to not going forward. Leadership and being the kind of leader
(29:38):
that maybe is authentic to you that may be bucking the the culture a little
bit or a job that maybe nobody else wants, but that's gonna stretch and grow
you. And that's maybe a little bit of a leap of faith. And that's
okay. Yeah. That's good. Failing forward. Talk about your
vision with this book. You wrote it. You are giving all the
proceeds away. So as we wrap up, just gonna share what you hope
(30:00):
to accomplish with this book from that perspective with boys and girls
club. And Yeah. I'm really involved in the boys and girls clubs. And the reason
for that is when I was in high school, I didn't have a lot of
guidance. I didn't have a lot of positive, you can do this
kind of people in my life, except the gnarly old nun who asked me what
I was gonna do after high school, and I didn't have a good answer. And
(30:22):
she said that she helped me get a scholarship. It was just $320
to go to college, but it was validation that I was college material. It was
the reinforcement that someone believed in me, and it was
translating encouragement into action. And I think the Boys and
Girls Club does that for kids. It just does. Especially for
kids who need a small, that don't have that positive influence, it provides that.
(30:45):
So part of that is the people and the support that they receive, but I'm
also using all the money, all the proceeds from the sale of this
book, not just the profits, but all the proceeds to go and
donate it for scholarships for kids from the Boys and Girls Club because you know,
you gotta pay it forward. Right? And I'm at a place I'm grateful in
my life that I worked to make a living, and now I get to work
(31:06):
to make a difference. And this book is my opportunity to help
do that. That's so good. Well, I'm gonna suggest we leave it
there, and we recommend that people go get a copy of your book and maybe
get a couple. We're getting very close here. There we go.
Yeah. Holidays are here and by the time this is gonna be
released. And so this makes a great, great gift.
(31:28):
What a great way to start the year is
with a fresh perspective on someone's worthiness. And
so I'm gonna encourage our listeners no matter what time of year,
but specifically as we're into the holidays and choosing
gifts for people that we care about is what about giving this book
to all of the not just women, but also the men who
(31:51):
in particular women who are struggling with their self worth
is to give this to them as a gift and give them the gift of
self worth. Hello. That would be a great gift. Yeah. So
we'll make sure that the link is in the show notes. Of course, this book
is gonna be it's all on Amazon. You can get a copy of it there
and we'll make sure the link is also the show notes as well as Jane's
(32:12):
website, janebuillware.com and Jane's
LinkedIn will be there as well. And I always say leaders of transformation take
action and sometimes that action is pulling
back and taking a moment to self reflect
and say, how much do I believe in myself? How
often do I cut myself down? If I'm complaining
(32:34):
about other people and people are making me feel a certain way, then
maybe it's time to start looking at and saying, what am I saying? Let alone
what they're saying. Forget. What am I saying to me? And I also believe that
which is probably a whole other podcast in itself is that we also teach people
how to treat us. And so there is a bit of that as well, but
I encourage you to self reflect and sit there and say, what are you
(32:56):
saying to yourself every day? And how is that
impacting your confidence? How is that impacting your own sense of self worth
and your willingness to go and step out in faith and apply
for that job that maybe you're not qualified for. And maybe you need to change
your, you know, that internal dialogue and start saying like Jane, you know,
has described it's like that internal dialogue, start talking to yourself in the morning. The
(33:18):
first thing in the morning, it's like start pouring into yourself.
That's where you get the best version of you can show up and everyone
has something that they're great at. What is it for you? Hold on to
that, build on that. And that's what it takes. And we talk about leaders of
transformation. Transformation begins within us. Be
transformed by the renewing of our mind. We have to renew our minds so
(33:41):
we can be transformed, and then we can beat the transformers that
transform others. So I encourage you to do that. And, Jane, again,
thank you for being here. Oh, I'm so enjoy
talking with you, Nicole. And thank you again for having me on the on the
podcast. Likewise. Such a great podcast. So thank you. I appreciate
it. Yeah. And thank you to our listeners and viewers. Again, we're appreciate you
(34:03):
being here. Hope you enjoyed it, and we're inspired. We look forward to
seeing you next week. We've got another guest that will have it next week and
just continue this journey of creating transformation, making a difference in the
world, and helping you to become the leader of transformation that you're capable of
being. So have a great day. We'll look forward to seeing you next week.
Thank you for listening to the Leaders of Transformation podcast with
(34:26):
Nicole Jansen. If you're enjoying the show, please click the follow
or subscribe button, and leave a rating and review wherever you listen
to your podcasts. And remember to join us on social and get
connected. Together, we can make this world a better
place for everyone. We'll see you next time.
Welcome to the leaders of transformation podcast. The number one
show for business leaders and entrepreneurs passionate about uplifting
others and making a greater impact in the world. Now here's
your host, transformational coach, speaker, and business
advisor, Nicole Jansen.
(00:21):
Where does your self worth come from? Our guest today is Jane Boulware.
She is a global business leader and former Microsoft
VP, and she's the author of the book, Worthy. It
is so good. I had such a pleasure reading
it and listening to it. I had the audible version as well and it's
amazing. Today, we are gonna be talking about her journey
(00:43):
from the cornfields of Iowa to the corner office and what
she learned along the way about self worth, resilience,
leadership. We've already been having such a great conversation. I was like, we have to
hit record so that we can bring you all into this conversation as well. So,
Jane, welcome to the leaders of transformation. We're glad you're here today. I have been
so looking forward to talking with you. It's been such an honor already, and thank
(01:05):
you for inviting me to join you. Oh, my pleasure. I wanna do a shout
out to Tricia, who's at FSB Associates for
the introduction. Thank you for connecting us because if it
wasn't for all of the amazing booking agents and, you know,
PR consultants and so forth that send us amazing guests, This show wouldn't be what
it is today. So thank you to Tricia for this. Jane, let's talk about
(01:27):
your book. Like I said, I loved it. I love the stories.
You had me captivated. Like, I was in my car listening to
it, driving back and forth. I had a trip to LA and I'm
listening to it. It was captivating. And so thank you for
that. Let's talk a little bit about what inspired you to spend the time to
write this. It's like an autobiography. It is. I mean, it's a collection of
(01:49):
50 stories and I didn't intend to actually write a book. I
promised to write down my stories. And in the process of doing that, it became
a book that someone then passed on to a publishing company and the ball rolled
from there. But the genesis of it, it is yes. I was born at the
4th kid in a 1 bedroom house and made it all the way to the
top executive at Microsoft, but it's not a rakes to riches story. And
(02:10):
that's why it's called Worthy. But if you look at the book, the on is
crossed off because it's so much about undoing the uns
in your life that limit you, the circumstances, the
people, the voices that keep you small rather than
help you identify playing field and acknowledge
your worth. You know, I left Microsoft and
(02:32):
checked my calendar before I left. And at the time that I'd left Microsoft,
I was meeting with about 27 different people, mostly
women, who were mentoring or coaching or coffee or whatever.
And regardless of their level, whether they were the most senior
level within Microsoft or a newbie, they all were
experiencing many of the same things. They were experiencing imposter
(02:54):
syndrome, unsure about their capabilities, about
how you know, comparing themselves and all of those things. And
oftentimes, I just needed to reflect to them what they already
knew or were accomplishing or had accomplished so that they acknowledge that
within themselves. And so I wrote the book as much as anything to
communicate that there's no secret sauce, that you don't get to a certain
(03:16):
level and have everything all figured out and that it's okay not to
know. It's okay to make mistakes. It's
okay to fail and to begin again and again and again.
That's the human experience. So a lot of what I wanted to share with people
is not how to get to the corner office, but what I had learned about
starting again and about failure and about resilience along the
(03:38):
way And how, in fact, by beginning again and making those failures
and on acknowledging and learning, that is in fact how I got the critical
skills that I needed to be successful personally and professionally. Yeah.
Well, I thought it was so fun because you were telling stories about like as
you were growing up and some of the things that you were doing and this
tenacity that you had and just like I'm gonna
(04:00):
figure it out. And like you said, that that helped you to develop the critical
skills. What are some of those skills? And yes, I know that
every strength taken to an extreme can become a weakness and we can wear
ourselves out. And, you know, we were already talking about that before
starting this recording is that, you know, like this whole grinding it out and hustle
and grind like this mindset that that's what's supposed to be. That's
(04:22):
how what success is, and it's just not true. And yet there are some
good qualities of, like, that tenacity that I'm
gonna figure this out. And it doesn't matter. Like, you talked in your
book about the fact that you're not the first person necessarily that
was offered the job, but you were the last. So talk a little bit about
that. I was often not the first person to be offered a job, but I
(04:44):
was always the last. And the truth is I took a lot of jobs that
other people just didn't want. They were too risky. They were too not
glamorous enough. They didn't think that they were conventional
in terms of on that ladder, that corporate ladder of success. And yet when I
was offered those jobs, I was like, yeah. Yeah. I can do it.
And almost every time, I felt like I wasn't qualified.
(05:07):
I felt like, oh my gosh. This is such a stretch. I felt
like Gumby. I felt like I was always trying to catch up and learn what
I thought other people knew because that's kind of what we project, right, that we
got it figured out. But again, the thing I've learned is
that it's really important to say yes to opportunities
unless you know that it's not right for you. If you're afraid,
(05:28):
say yes. You will grow into it. And oftentimes, I always
answered with somebody would say, Do you know how to do that? Have you had
this experience? I would say, Not yet.
Or, Yes, I've had something similar, and then know that I
could get there. The reality is that and I've got these stats
here, that women actually
(05:51):
underestimate their performance relative to men by a significant
amount. So if they do the same types of jobs, women will say
that they rate their performance at 46% versus
61% for men who say they do an outstanding job. But if others
are looking at the same performance, they will often actually rate
women higher than the men. So women self rate
(06:12):
lower than the men, but others rate them above the men for the same performance,
for the same job in this test in this study done by Harvard over and
over again. And there are so many studies like that that suggest that women in
particular wait until they're ready for a position before they
accept a position. And I would say, no. Don't do that.
Say yes. Take the leap. And that's what I did. I over and
(06:35):
overtook the jobs that either nobody else wanted or that I thought I
maybe wasn't qualified for. Maybe I wasn't qualified for. But you became
qualified as you dove in. You know, that's interesting because I had seen
that statistic as well as women, when they go for a
job, they'll look at the job description and be like, okay. Have
I done all of those things? Then I'm qualified
(06:57):
and or maybe at the very least, maybe 80%.
Whereas guys are like, yeah, throw me in coach, man. I'll do it.
Sure. And they sell themselves. For sure. They sell their
potential. Wherever it is. It too. And believe it. Uh-huh.
So we can learn something from that. Absolutely. I mean, don't wait until
you're comfortable. By the time you're comfortable, you should be going on to the next
(07:19):
thing already. So don't wait until you're comfortable to be there, which is honestly
part of the reason why I wrote the book because the feedback has been
fantastic because people will say it resonates with them whether they're men or
women, older or younger. But particularly younger women in their
career are saying, wow. I'm really glad you wrote this. And part
of the reason I wrote it is because I really want people who
(07:41):
don't have that confidence but do have that capability or that
potential to continue to ascend in their career because I
believe so strongly that we need new voices
in the corner offices. That the more diversity of thought and decision
making we have, the better decisions we'll make. And if people are opting
out, that's not good for anybody. No. And right now,
(08:03):
1 out of 5 women are in leadership executive positions
despite the fact that there are more women graduating with
bachelor's degrees than master's degrees every year and
they stay in the workplace at the same rate as men. What does that tell
us? It tells us, a, we need to do a better job of putting our
foot forward and putting our hand up, and we need to recognize and
(08:25):
claim our worth and make sure that we're confident in putting ourselves in
position to say it. And undoing those uns is so important.
I'm unable the stories we tell ourselves Yeah. Were hard
in yourselves. I'm unable. I'm unconfident. I'm unsure.
I'm unqualified. I'm unready. Those unes.
I am qualified. I am able. I am ready. I am
(08:48):
going to do this. Yeah. While you're speaking to something that is near
and dear to my heart is the I am. Right? It's like whatever we
say after that, I am becomes our identity,
and that can be extremely limiting. And a
lot of times it's because of what other people have said or our
perception. That's why we need examples, that we have to have examples. If you don't
(09:10):
have an example, be the example. But if you have those examples, those role
models like your book where people can read from your story and
say, well, she did it, I can do it too. I think that's really
important. Tell us a little bit about one of your favorite jobs
and maybe how you got into that role. Maybe it was, like,
something unconventional or yeah. Not gonna be what you
(09:32):
my favorite title for myself is used carpet salesman. Okay. I don't know if
that's what I'm I remember that story. I remember that story. Yeah. Well, and the
story was that I went to college, and I paid a 100% of my own
college. And I had no money, and I had every job you can imagine.
But I was in my dorm room one day, and I was freezing. And my
girlfriends who were in the dorm room with me were freezing because we had tile
on the floor. It was cold. It was Iowa. And and they said, geez.
(09:56):
This floor is freezing. Why is there no carpeting or rugs? And my
mind went to my dad's garage because my dad laid carpeting for a living and
used to keep the scraps in the garage. And so I was like and I
went home that weekend and asked my dad to teach me how to glue
the scraps and sew the scraps together to create rugs. And
I rolled those rugs up, and I put them in the back of my scrappy
(10:17):
little car. I mean, it was I don't know how the wheels even went around
because it was weighted down, and I'm going down the highway hoping they wouldn't come
out. And I just rolled up into the parking lot of the
dormitories and put a sign up to sell them and they sold out like
that. And I made enough money for tuition for a lot of years for that,
even after I was married because I got married really early. And so there's
(10:39):
an example, I think, of probably one of my favorite
jobs because I created it from a need that was genuine.
I took a risk. I was proud and did it and did all the marketing
and everything from that myself. And then ultimately got other
people involved and we had an absolute blast doing it
and feeling really good about it. It helped other people do it as well. So
(11:01):
maybe you're looking for something more from Microsoft, and I've got lots of examples
from that. But I think there's an example
where you got to give yourself credit. Sometimes I think people think of
positions and titles, and they identify their skills based on
the title they get. I was one of the top 150 people at
Microsoft, and one of my favorite titles, if not my favorite title, was
(11:23):
used carpet salesperson because that was so pivotal to whom I
was. And I think about that, and I thought, I can do that. When I
face the challenge, I'm like, I can do that. I know that we can find
a way because I've done it. We'll figure it out. Yeah. Well, when you
talk about even I was thinking more like Kimberly Clark or when you
were down in Latin America, all those experiences, fascinating
(11:45):
stories. Yeah. If you would like a Kimberly Clark, one of the best
stories, I think was it when there was a bomb threat when I was shot
at? I think it was, like, late at night when I was reading through customer
reports for I was working on pull ups and we had just launched pull ups
disposable underpants and people loved them. And there was a
packet of stories about from consumers whose
(12:06):
children were too big for pull ups. And they said, We need a product for
when the kids get a little older for wetting the bed. And it wasn't a
big enough market. I did the research. It wasn't gonna be a big enough market
for Kimberly Clark? But we had a group of people who learned about
this. We shared the letters and they became convinced that we could do this. And
we found a way to do it in a low cost way on a machine
(12:27):
that had actually been mothballed because it had been piloted and it didn't work.
And long story short, a small ragtag group of
people put together a business plan, put together a product on a
machine that was mothballed and brought it out of being mothballed, and it's now a
$1,000,000,000 business. And not only that, but more importantly,
it changed lives. The letters we got after
(12:48):
we launched, they were really something. That was really that was a
highlight of my career, not only because of the financial and business success,
but it made such a difference. And I know and still in touch with all
the people that did that. It's pretty cool. That is cool. Well, you know
what? Business is really I always say business is just a vehicle for us
to create value in the marketplace, to solve a problem, to fill a
(13:11):
need in the marketplace. And that's really what it's about. And I think we forget
that when we get into reports and
profit sharing and stakeholders and what everybody's
expectations are and just the day to day thing. But I loved
that story where you shared that. And again, it's the same principle.
Carpet sales, same thing here. It's like, you know what? There's a problem. There's
(13:33):
a need. How do we solve it? You know? Fortunately, Kimberly Clark had
such a great culture that they let us take the lead on that and they
let us try it, and it turned out to be so exceptional. And it's
really when people take a risk and especially when you take a risk
on someone else. I was offered a job in South America when I
was 30 years old, 31 years old. I had a 1 and a half year
(13:54):
old child and the job was in charge of Latin American operations, all
the marketing and so on and forth. And it would have been for the 16
countries South of America or South of of the US. I
lived in Neenah, Wisconsin at the time. I think I had never used a
passport. I'd never been overseas. I'd had only seen the ocean a few times at
this point having come from Iowa. And I was offered a job for Latin American
(14:16):
operations. And I was like, I have a one and a half year old child.
My husband works here.
I don't speak Spanish. I am a woman and that's a very much is
my culture, and I'm one. Thanks, but are you sure you
got the right door? And it was actually my husband and I. My husband, we
went for a walk. We said, you know, if we say no to
(14:39):
opportunities now because they scare us, let's talk
about instead of why not, let's talk about what if. What would it
take? What would it look like? And there's an example of a job
where I said yes. I was not the first person offered the role, but I
was the last. And I took it, and it changed my life. The doors it
opens, the way I looked at the world was so different after that
(15:00):
experience than before. I didn't know what I didn't know. And I made a lot
of mistakes. Oh, boy, did I make a lot. I even flew into the wrong
place. Again, a story in the book, but it was a really great experience.
And had someone not taken a risk on me, supported me, and said,
I think you can do it even when I didn't think I could. And then
me saying, I can find a way, my husband supporting me and enabling us to
(15:22):
do it together was a great experience. And having your spouse support you,
I think, is such an important thing. Your family to support you in that process.
It's one of the things that I saw throughout the whole book is your husband
being so supportive in the midst of all of this. You're
working long hours and fully committed to the work and so
forth. But, yeah, all these challenges, raising kids in the
(15:43):
process of this. What was your greatest challenge? I mean, we can talk about
Microsoft, but even maybe before then, what was your greatest
challenge that you had to face, and how did you overcome that? I don't think
I knew how to ask for or have permission to ask
for help. Growing up, it was an every man for himself
situation in our family. Everybody pitched in, but it wasn't
(16:06):
like The Waltons where everybody was working hard and we were, Hey, I'm Jim
Bob or whatever. It was, If you can do it, do it.
Even when I told my dad I was going to go to college, he kind
of scoffed at me. But it was one of those, well, if you can find
a way to do it, don't know why you'd want to, but okay.
And so it was very much a I have to figure it out myself. I
(16:27):
have to pull myself from my bootstraps. If it's going to be, it's on to
me. All that stuff. And so I always felt a little
bit unworthy, a little bit like a frog. And I often
was that kid that came from very blue collar means. I
didn't have multigenerational wealth. I had never
seen the ocean till I was 27. I hadn't
(16:48):
seen a town bigger than 10,000 people till I was a teenager.
And so I didn't want to let other people in see how afraid I
was. And I think that held me back because I didn't ask for help. I
didn't know that it was okay to ask for help. I didn't know it was
okay to acknowledge that I didn't know something. And once I
failed enough and at Microsoft and others, but when I got to Kimberly
(17:11):
Clark, I started to realize that my differences were really
they made me that I thought a little bit differently. My background was a little
bit different. Everybody's different and that that's okay. And then I
started to open up and ask for help. And that's when when I learned to
do that, things changed. But until then, I started to take on some
practices that were really self destructive. And I put
(17:34):
in the book, you know, I talked about my eating disorder and
how I would try to numb myself, which I think a lot of people do,
whether it's alcohol or drugs or whatever. My numbing agent
of choice was bulimia, and it was in the process of
addressing that that I realized it was okay to get help and ask for
help. And that changed my leadership style, and, ultimately, that
(17:55):
changed, I think, a trajectory for much greater success than if I had
tried to do it on my own. How did it change your leadership style? Oh,
it's influenced my life in so many ways. It changed my leadership
style because I couldn't hide anymore. If the more I
tried to hide something, it's the you're only as healthy as your secrets,
and in the process of asking for help, I in essence
(18:18):
said, You know and have a skill that I don't know.
Will you share that with me? Will you bring that to bear
on the business or on the problem or with me? And all of a
sudden I realized all these people, once I invited them,
had these skills that I didn't see because I was so caught up in
protecting my own self that I flipped and started
(18:40):
to realize it wasn't about making myself better, it was about making
others better. And I know that sounds trite, I get it, but I
didn't have to have all the answers. I knew that they did, essentially.
I took the business. I became the leader of the Windows business in the
US and was given 4 days notice that I was assigned to that. And
I came to Microsoft without a technical background. I came as a
(19:03):
marketer in a business person, not as a technologist, and I told them that. But
they put me on the Windows business, which wasn't doing so great at that time.
I had to go to howitworks.com to understand what an operating
system was and how it works. Windows for Dummies, I read it. I was still
dumb. I didn't get it. So it sounds funny, but I
was really like, what the heck? I don't even understand the sentences on some
(19:25):
of these. So I went to the business and I said, you guys know so
much more than I do about this business, but I know how to build businesses
and I know how to build people. And I'll give you what I got if
you give me what you got. And that's how overcoming my eating
disorder and getting the help that I needed and changed my thinking
is that have to be about me by myself. And I think as we talk
(19:47):
about this idea of worthiness and self worth, I think a
lot of us think we have to know it all. It's we're
really proving it to ourselves that we are worthy of
that position. And it's interesting because I'm hearing
in your stories and from reading your book is that
your worthiness, your self worth didn't come necessarily
(20:09):
from the accomplishments. It came from
recognizing that, yes, you could figure it out and you'll you'll
put the effort in, but really from actually collaboration
and realizing as I forget who it was. One of our
guests said this, like, I'm everything that I am. I'm everything that I'm not,
and I'm okay with that rather than this constant proving. And I
(20:32):
think so many leaders are trying to prove themselves to
themselves, let alone anybody else prove to themselves that they're
worthy because of that inner dialogue that's going on and trying to
outrun the not enoughness that they're
actually stuck in. It's like a self fulfilling prophecy, and it's
they're stuck in that. Yeah. You know, and I think we've all heard it. Like,
(20:54):
if I don't love me, how can I love you? Yeah. If I
don't think I'm worthy, how can I value your worth?
Exactly. If I don't think I'm worthy, how can I elevate
you and recognize what you bring when I
dismiss what I bring? And you talked a little bit about the I ams
earlier. I don't get out of bed in the morning anymore. My feet don't touch
(21:16):
the ground until I tell myself something something's nice
about myself. Because I used to wake up and the alarm would go off and
I would go about the day and everything that was gonna be happening and all
this stuff. And it almost make me anxious before even my feet hit the ground.
And now before I get up, I validate myself and the things that I love
about myself. And I say to the rest of them, it's gonna be okay. We're
(21:37):
gonna learn and we're gonna grow on this. And that's such a different
way of approaching the day than I did when I was sick or when I
was so fear based. I would say that every time I
used to imagine difficult things, I now realize that
I can do them, and it's okay. And if I can't, there's someone
there that can help me. So let's talk about because you mentioned about that daily
(21:59):
habit. And there are other things that I'm sure you do
throughout the day or, like, even just telling yourself the
inner dialogue about your own worthiness,
saying I can figure that out. I know that was one for me. It's like,
I may not know it, but I can figure it out. That has served me
well over the years. And there are some things that I've said to myself that
(22:20):
didn't serve me well. So there's those as well. Appreciate that.
Yeah. So but let's look at some of the daily habits, like, practically
speaking, somebody who is saying, I'm struggling with self worth right
now. How do they move forward and start to develop
that self worth? I think it's hard to feel it if you don't acknowledge
it or see it. I mean, everybody look, we can't be so grandiose
(22:42):
that we don't acknowledge that there are things that we do well. Everybody does
something. There's something about yourself that you
like, whether it's something in your appearance you like, a smile
or your hair or your sense of
whatever, anything. And something that you have received feedback on
that you know when you talk to someone that they respond positively
(23:04):
to or that you feel good about. Embrace those. Own
those. You know, there's a 5 to 1 ratio according to
John Gottman's research between positive to negative. That if you want
someone to hear a positive, you have to have a takeaway
positive comment. You have to have 5 positives to every negative.
So if I say 5 things positive to you or 4 things positive to you,
(23:27):
Nicole, and then one little thing, you gave a great presentation. Boy, that
really resonated well. And the way you laid out that presentation was
great. And by the way, you are so articulate. You ask the
best questions and you're such a good listener. The thing is I wondered if maybe
you were looking off to the side a bit. If you don't say enough positives,
you're like, The only takeaway is I looked off to the side or something weird.
(23:48):
So we have to internalize that for ourselves as well. We have to tell
ourselves when we do a good job, well done. If you take a shower,
good job. If you made the groceries, you got the groceries, whatever that might
be. And so focus on the things that you're doing well and
don't simply dismiss. And that's a practice that
you're going to build. And again, before you get out of bed and do that.
(24:10):
I have listened to videotapes. I have listened to Louise Hayes. I've done lots of
different things. What you listen and what you put in your brain will make a
difference to how you think about yourself. Yeah. Well and especially now as
we have so much negative news, it's like, turn it off. There's so
much fear. And that fear is that external. It's
like you're taking it on. And if you're an empath, as I am, and you
(24:32):
pick up that energy, it's like, it is so heavy.
So I think you gotta also realize, like, what you what I'm hearing is you
Got a filter. You gotta filter and you gotta recognize what's
yours and what's not yours in that process as well. But that
inner voice is, you know, I think most of us, unless
we have been made aware of it, do not recognize
(24:54):
that that internal dialogue is going all the time. There's a young
man that I had mentored. I've known him for 15 years now. When I first
started working with him and I kind of introduced him, we were doing some
business coaching, but then we got into quickly into life coaching. And I introduced
him to this idea that there was this little voice in his head that was
talking to him. And he said, all of a sudden, like, I'm hearing this
(25:15):
voice all the time, and I'm hearing it in other people
too. Like, everybody's got a little voice of what they're saying to
themselves. And that's either saying I am or I'm
not. And so what you're saying is so simple, but
yet so important, so necessary. Because without that,
it doesn't matter what anybody else says to you. It's gonna
(25:37):
bounce off if you don't allow it to come through. And to do that, you
have to acknowledge it yourself within yourself. I have a gratitude
journal. It's a 5 minute gratitude journal. I do it every morning. I do it
every night. And one of the things that sometimes I have to do is I
usually do my gratitudes about other things that happened during the night. I started doing
my gratitudes about myself. Yes. Not about other
(25:59):
people, not about what happened to me, although sometimes I do. I started doing
my gratitudes about myself. And and it was a way for me
to capture, I'll say, what I love about myself.
It's a bit of a capture it and be grateful because not all that
stuff exactly comes from you. Right? And it's really easy for us
to be grateful for things out there or see something and
(26:21):
acknowledge beauty out there or in others. Good. Keep doing that. But,
by gosh, don't overlook any gratitude about what you
have and what you possess and what you've created and what you've worked
on and what you achieved. Be proud of that. As women, we dismiss
that so much. Yes. There's so much
energy we give away without even acknowledging
(26:44):
that we've done that and we've done a good thing. I make it a
practice of smiling at people, especially when I get groceries or I go for a
walk and I try I know that's so dorky, but it makes a difference. I
feel like I'm giving a gift. And in the process of doing that, I just
feel better. Smiling makes me feel better. And in the process of doing
that, it reinforces what's good about myself. And one of those core qualities
(27:05):
that I want for myself is positivity. How can I be positive if I'm not
giving it only? And if you're not giving it to yourself. And giving it to
myself. Interesting. You were talking about that gratitude exercise because I teach
my clients this gratitude exercise in about 95%
of the time when I just give them the exercise to do
it and they come back and they tell me, okay, here are the 10 things
(27:27):
that I was grateful for each day this last week. It's always the
outside. It's all the external stuff. It's not actually,
unless I say to them, make sure you include yourself in it.
95% of people will not do that. And they don't think about it. They don't
think about it. And so that is where it starts. Because if we
are not giving it to ourself, we're not gonna have it to give to
(27:48):
others as well. So so good. You know, it's so
true. I think you've gotta feel it and you've gotta claim it.
Yeah. And I think if you don't claim your own worth I mean, I did.
I talked I went through so many doggone titles for this book,
but the unworthy undoing those uns, why we un
ourselves to death, what we can't do. And take that un away and start
(28:11):
thinking about how courageous you are and how able
you are and how ready you are and all of
those things. And you will. That makes a huge difference. And
maybe it's a small thing, but it will grow. I really genuinely
believe that. And one other thing I'll say is when I was mentoring or
what, I've been told a lot, I want to be fearless like you. I want
(28:33):
your secret sauce, Jane. I want your secret sauce. There's no secret sauce. I want
to be fearless like you. And that used to make me feel really good. I'd
be like, Oh, yes, I'm a fearless leader. What a crock of
crap. I'm just going to say, I don't even try to be fearless anymore.
Hearing that makes me feel uncomfortable. I just want to
fear less. That's good. And I am
(28:54):
now afraid of not being afraid because when I'm
uncomfortable, a little bit afraid, you eat a little bit. When I'm
uncomfortable, I'm stretching, I'm growing, I'm outside my comfort zone,
I am doing something that is going to make me bigger than I was
before, and I don't wanna be small. I don't wanna stay in my place and
stay in my comfort zone. So I don't wanna be fearless. I want to
(29:16):
fear less, and I want to be
enough fearful that it pushes me outside of my comfort
zone and gets me experiences that help me to be a better
person that I might not otherwise have done. I love that. Yeah. I think
if we're not afraid of it at all, then we're in our comfort zone. Yeah.
And that goes back to not going forward. Leadership and being the kind of leader
(29:38):
that maybe is authentic to you that may be bucking the the culture a little
bit or a job that maybe nobody else wants, but that's gonna stretch and grow
you. And that's maybe a little bit of a leap of faith. And that's
okay. Yeah. That's good. Failing forward. Talk about your
vision with this book. You wrote it. You are giving all the
proceeds away. So as we wrap up, just gonna share what you hope
(30:00):
to accomplish with this book from that perspective with boys and girls
club. And Yeah. I'm really involved in the boys and girls clubs. And the reason
for that is when I was in high school, I didn't have a lot of
guidance. I didn't have a lot of positive, you can do this
kind of people in my life, except the gnarly old nun who asked me what
I was gonna do after high school, and I didn't have a good answer. And
(30:22):
she said that she helped me get a scholarship. It was just $320
to go to college, but it was validation that I was college material. It was
the reinforcement that someone believed in me, and it was
translating encouragement into action. And I think the Boys and
Girls Club does that for kids. It just does. Especially for
kids who need a small, that don't have that positive influence, it provides that.
(30:45):
So part of that is the people and the support that they receive, but I'm
also using all the money, all the proceeds from the sale of this
book, not just the profits, but all the proceeds to go and
donate it for scholarships for kids from the Boys and Girls Club because you know,
you gotta pay it forward. Right? And I'm at a place I'm grateful in
my life that I worked to make a living, and now I get to work
(31:06):
to make a difference. And this book is my opportunity to help
do that. That's so good. Well, I'm gonna suggest we leave it
there, and we recommend that people go get a copy of your book and maybe
get a couple. We're getting very close here. There we go.
Yeah. Holidays are here and by the time this is gonna be
released. And so this makes a great, great gift.
(31:28):
What a great way to start the year is
with a fresh perspective on someone's worthiness. And
so I'm gonna encourage our listeners no matter what time of year,
but specifically as we're into the holidays and choosing
gifts for people that we care about is what about giving this book
to all of the not just women, but also the men who
(31:51):
in particular women who are struggling with their self worth
is to give this to them as a gift and give them the gift of
self worth. Hello. That would be a great gift. Yeah. So
we'll make sure that the link is in the show notes. Of course, this book
is gonna be it's all on Amazon. You can get a copy of it there
and we'll make sure the link is also the show notes as well as Jane's
(32:12):
website, janebuillware.com and Jane's
LinkedIn will be there as well. And I always say leaders of transformation take
action and sometimes that action is pulling
back and taking a moment to self reflect
and say, how much do I believe in myself? How
often do I cut myself down? If I'm complaining
(32:34):
about other people and people are making me feel a certain way, then
maybe it's time to start looking at and saying, what am I saying? Let alone
what they're saying. Forget. What am I saying to me? And I also believe that
which is probably a whole other podcast in itself is that we also teach people
how to treat us. And so there is a bit of that as well, but
I encourage you to self reflect and sit there and say, what are you
(32:56):
saying to yourself every day? And how is that
impacting your confidence? How is that impacting your own sense of self worth
and your willingness to go and step out in faith and apply
for that job that maybe you're not qualified for. And maybe you need to change
your, you know, that internal dialogue and start saying like Jane, you know,
has described it's like that internal dialogue, start talking to yourself in the morning. The
(33:18):
first thing in the morning, it's like start pouring into yourself.
That's where you get the best version of you can show up and everyone
has something that they're great at. What is it for you? Hold on to
that, build on that. And that's what it takes. And we talk about leaders of
transformation. Transformation begins within us. Be
transformed by the renewing of our mind. We have to renew our minds so
(33:41):
we can be transformed, and then we can beat the transformers that
transform others. So I encourage you to do that. And, Jane, again,
thank you for being here. Oh, I'm so enjoy
talking with you, Nicole. And thank you again for having me on the on the
podcast. Likewise. Such a great podcast. So thank you. I appreciate
it. Yeah. And thank you to our listeners and viewers. Again, we're appreciate you
(34:03):
being here. Hope you enjoyed it, and we're inspired. We look forward to
seeing you next week. We've got another guest that will have it next week and
just continue this journey of creating transformation, making a difference in the
world, and helping you to become the leader of transformation that you're capable of
being. So have a great day. We'll look forward to seeing you next week.
Thank you for listening to the Leaders of Transformation podcast with
(34:26):
Nicole Jansen. If you're enjoying the show, please click the follow
or subscribe button, and leave a rating and review wherever you listen
to your podcasts. And remember to join us on social and get
connected. Together, we can make this world a better
place for everyone. We'll see you next time.
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