Getting Unstuck Part IV | Strategies for Breakthrough Growth

Join Brooke Page-Thompson and Alec in "Getting Unstuck Part IV" as they explore strategies to overcome workplace challenges, foster innovation, and achieve breakthrough growth. Discover actionable insights to navigate career and business roadblocks effectively.

Episode Transcript

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Music.

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Hello everyone, and welcome toanother episode of The SCORR
cast. I am once again joined bythe fantastic Brooke
Page-Thompson, and I am soexcited for our conversation
today. Now you've you've heardBrooke Page-Thompson's name a
ton of times on the podcast.
You've probably seen us live onLinkedIn, at times, annoying you

(00:32):
with LinkedIn messages andinvites to come and watch us
live. And we've done threefantastic episodes that you
could actually listen to on theSCORR cast on Spotify Apple,
wherever you get your podcast,you could also find it on my
page, Brooke's page and thenSCORR marketing's page on on
LinkedIn as well. But today, weare recording a special episode

(00:56):
of our getting unstuck seriesthat we thought we would take
offline, if you will, recordthis so we can really get into
the nitty gritty here, which Iam really excited about. Our
first couple of episodes,Brooke, if you recall, and for
those who haven't listened, wehad three previous episodes on

(01:17):
getting unstuck. And Part onewas how work has changed over
the last six months, over thelast 18 months, over the last
five years, since the beginningof the COVID epidemic or
pandemic, we had unstuck. Parttwo, successful work life
integration, which I have afeeling is going to come up
today a little bit as well. Andthen number three, right before

(01:41):
the holiday, had a reallyimportant conversation around
unpacking mental health andunderstanding how to deal with
how busy I am and, oh, I'malways busy. And all of three of
those lead right into this topictoday that I think maybe we
shied away from a little bit youtexted me maybe, maybe a couple

(02:02):
weeks ago and said, I think it'stime that we we finally record
this episode on control. Andright away, I said, That's a
hell of an idea. Let's do it.
And then as we led up to today,I thought, shit i I'm now a
little bit more nervous to talkabout this and to talk about the
impact that control has from apositive lens, from a negative

(02:25):
lens, how it goes in with whatwe can control at work, what we
can control at home, what we cancontrol in the world, and then
how that balances everything. SoBrooke, before we get started
and talk about control, controlas humans, control as a leader,
control in the workforce and athome. Let's just, let's just

(02:47):
check in a little bit, we've hada lot of conversations over the
last couple of months, in threefull episodes of The getting
unstuck series. How are you?
How's 2025? Treating you. How isthe getting unstuck series
treating you so far. Whatthoughts do you have leading
into this? This episode oncontrol here today?

(03:10):
Well, it's a pleasure to beback, and I'm with you. I'm kind
of, like, super excited to talkabout this, but also no shit.
Moment of you know this is, thisis a meaty topic. And if I look,
if I look at just the last twomonths, or end of, almost end of
February, and just look at likehow all the other topics have

(03:32):
led up to today, 2025 is, if I'mgoing to be honest, it's been
tough. It's been I've had to doa lot of self reflection on, how
am I treating boundaries that Ithought I had really good
control over, that have had tochange or shift. And, you know,
I ended 2024, pretty burnoutmyself, even though I was doing

(03:56):
all the things and I really hadto have a little come to Brooke
moment and think about like,what am I? What am I still doing
that is causing this pain that Iwill call some of the boundary
setting that we try to do, andwhy am I still so tired? And why
do I still feel like I'm notdoing all the things that I
should do? And I actually havetaken a huge step back in the

(04:19):
last two months, reallyprioritizing sleep and self care
and not working like crazy atnight. And I've and it's hard
for me because I'm such a a typecontrol freak, that to not just
push, push, push, push push isreally hard for me, and so I've
had to get really comfortablewith, like pausing, taking more

(04:44):
breaks, making sure I'm eating,going to bed at a normal time,
letting myself sleep if I needto sleep. And I just didn't
realize how I think chronic, howmuch chronic fatigue I had in my
own system that I'm a whole.
Full that some of the tools thatI'm doing I get back to somewhat
homeostasis in the next coupleof months. But for me, this year

(05:07):
has been definitely a selfreflection year. How about you?
Yeah,well, I think your answer goes
to some of the intros that we'vehad on the last episode, which
which is that you and I are notmental health experts. We are
human beings that are in theworkforce who are also trying to
enjoy being in the workforce,and are almost talking as we

(05:32):
experience a lot of the samethings that everybody else is
experiencing, and trying ourbest to shed light on hey, if
I'm experiencing this, maybeBrooke is maybe so and so is
maybe so and so is and so that'swhy we're having these
conversations. Is not from thelens of expertise, but from the
lens of I'm in it, I'm in it,I'm in it with you. And that's

(05:55):
how I have felt. 2025 has beenthe longest year of my life, and
it's two months and 25 days, ora month and 25 days in. Part of
that is, we're expecting ourfirst child in April, and so by
the time this airs, I'll be,like, days away, you know, a
couple of weeks away from fromthat coming and being really

(06:16):
exciting. But it's just felt solong. The weather hasn't helped.
The the market, the just the waythat people are talking about
things from an economicstandpoint, the level of
optimism, frankly, the level ofrage. Right now is a problem
again, no matter how you sliceit, no matter how you look at
it, there is just a lot ofanimosity and a lot of pain

(06:39):
that's happening. And then, youknow, I talked about this before
we we started to record, but thetopic of control is so
interesting right now, becauseyou can look at it in such a
positive way, you can look at itin such a negative way. And last
week, now, maybe, maybe three orfour weeks ago now, in February,
I thought I was going to be incontrol, and my wife and I were

(07:00):
going to have just a killerweek, and we were going to be
really productive baby orientedthings. The family was coming in
town for the baby shower, X, Yand Z. And so we made a list of
all the things that we couldcontrol before the baby comes.
And the first thing on that listwas, let's just get a tune up
for our furnace. And about eighthours later, we were stranded in

(07:21):
a hotel room because our furnacewas leaking carbon monoxide, and
then it led to me working fromthe hotel bar, a co worker's
living room, the hotel floor,all of the above for four days,
including one day of having tobe at the house, working in 37
degree temperatures, wearing aparka and a beanie Because of
how cold it was in the house.

(07:42):
And I think that's such aninteresting lens of this
conversation, because it wentfrom something that I thought
that I had control over tolegitimately having control over
nothing, and then just trying tosurvive the work week. And
what's funny is I actually feltlike I had a productive work
week. But by the end of it, itfelt like I had had 17

(08:04):
productive work weeks because ofthe exhaustion and the noise and
all of the other thingscrumbling down around you that
work is almost irrelevant atthat point, and so I think it's
just a really interesting topicand a really interesting time,
given everything that happenedlast week, and it was a real
test of my type A and my versionof ADHD, and my version of

(08:29):
control, which is having a pulseon basically everything right
now. And that's that's notalways the easiest, easiest
thing to have,no and and when we came up kind
of with this idea of control, weknew it was going to be tricky,
because it has so many differentlenses, like you were talking

(08:51):
about. It's got there's apersonal lens, there's a work
lens, and then there's wantingto control people and situations
around you, right? And if wejust want to jump in with what
is a definition absolutelycontrol, right? If people are
like, well, but because somecontrol is good, right? And
we're not saying that controlisn't a good thing. It's just

(09:12):
you need to be mindful of someof this. And so if we look at a
definition of control, it's thepower to influence or direct
people's behavior or the courseof events. So if you just break
down that that one definition,it's a control of people's

(09:32):
behaviors. If you think aboutespecially type A personalities,
we have people that like to tryand control what happens in
their home. They try to controlwhat happens with their children
or their spouse, right? I wantto control that person's
behavior because I don't I don'tlike how they're showing up in
the world. We never flip themirror around and say, Well, how

(09:55):
am I contributing to this? Andwe want to try and control the
core. Course of events. So ifyou look at just what's
happening in the world aroundus, regardless if it's at work
or at home, we've all been putin our places in the last year,
really, but the last six months,we've all been put in our
places. Of you can't controlwhat's going on around you,

(10:17):
really at all. And I think themore aware you become of the
fact that the more I try tocontrol something, the harder it
becomes. There's a reason forthat, because we're trying to
control a situation, a person, athing that's external to us,

(10:37):
versus recognizing the onlything I have control over is
myself and the way I show up inthe world and how I treat other
people, and that is a journeythat will take a lifetime to
learn how to do. But the moreaware we become of that, the
better we are at the rest ofthis. So that's our that's our

(10:58):
kind of preview definition ofwhere we're starting with, with
some of this discussion, yeah,and there's no, there's no
ceiling here. In my opinion, youdon't get better at this and
then stop and you're the best.
It's something that is going tochange. And I think you talked
about this before we went liveand or started recording. And

(11:22):
I'm curious if you could talkabout it in terms of at the
workforce, right? We talk abouthow work was prior to 2020, and
then all of a sudden, everybodyloses control with everything,
day to day existence, butspecifically in work is, hey, we
need to go home, and then wehave this semblance of normal,

(11:46):
that new normal phase thateveryone referred to. And then
now we're in a completelydifferent phase, and we're
losing control again, or controlmight be shifting. And so can
you just talk a little bit aboutthat process and what control
has looked like, and how that'skind of shifted hands, and what

(12:08):
that, what that impact actuallyis on on individuals at the
business level, at theindividual level, too. Yeah, I
was thinking about it as I wasgetting ready for this. And I
thought, you know, I think partof where people are really
struggling right now with thisconcept of return to office
isn't necessarily the ask ofreturning to the office. It's

(12:28):
the loss of something. And whenwe had the pandemic in March of
2020, right, everybody wasmandated to stay home, unless
you were critical in the in theworld, and that was, you know, a
handful of positions or roles,but you didn't have a choice.
You couldn't leave your house.
You You were mandated to docertain things if you did leave

(12:50):
your house, and you needed tohave a really good reason to do
that, that that had a tail on itfor quite some time, and people
fell out of control in theirability to travel and their
ability to go into the officeand see people to have control
over how they structured theirday and time, because they had
children at home, their spouseswere working next to them. There

(13:11):
was no control, quote, unquote,from that standpoint. Yet at the
same time, companies started torelax their control over people.
By saying, you work the hoursthat you need to work, you
create the boundaries and spacethat you need to be productive
in the workforce, we saw thegreat resignation happen, where

(13:34):
people started boomeranging allaround the place because they
got more money, especially inyour industry, in life sciences,
we saw people even like crazyfrom jobs, because everyone else
was paying really high dollarbecause there's so much research
happening in the world, and nowa lot of that's dried up. And so
now there's a shift that'shappening again. But if you look

(13:57):
at the last 12 months, really,this is when this all started.
Ai came into play in a big waythat's challenging the way
people work, and no one knowswhat to do with it right now,
all these corporations aremandating return to office and
and I think we talked aboutthis. I think it was in the
third one, because Amazon hadjust announced, maybe it was a

(14:20):
second, yeah, and I justannounced their return to office
policy, and we had a littledebate about that. But I think
had the employees, if employeesfeel like they're being part of
the discussion, or at least, Ihad a chance to voice an
opinion. There's, there's asense of control. I feel like I
have some control over thedecision, and companies are just

(14:40):
like, Too bad there's no youhave no control over this, and
it's not so much the ask toreturn to office. I think it is.
People have had a lot of leewayand a lot of control over how
their life evolved during thepandemic, and now there's this
stark. A line in the sand of nomore. And if you want to do

(15:04):
this, go find another job, andthen everybody's laying
everybody off, and there'snowhere to go. And so you're
like, Well, I'm kind of, onceagain, I'm being forced to do
something I had no control over.
I have no decision on, and I'mexpected to show up and be happy
about this, this thing calledwork, and if you really think

(15:25):
about it, Alec people, peopleare so out of control in
general, with what's happeningin the world. There's no control
over inflation. There's nocontrol over how my family is
responding to things. There's nocontrol over what my boss asks
me to do. And now I'm I have nocontrol over where I get to

(15:48):
work. And it's almost like thatlittle nugget right there was
the was the catalyst explosionfor people of now you've taken
one more thing away from me. Ihave no control. And they're
they're pushing against thesystem a little bit, because

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where else can I do it? I can'tdo it anywhere else, so I'm
going to do it at my job. Andnow companies are feeling that a
little bit. So how are theysupposed to respond? And you've
got two sides of a coin that Idon't know is ever gonna equally
meld together because both wantcontrol.
Yeah, well, I think you make areally good point on both want

(16:28):
control. The reason that, thereason that we're seeing a lot
of these back to Officemandates, is because the company
is feeling like they don't havecontrol, and so they are making
those decisions to try to, youknow, understand exactly what
you're doing 24 hours, likethere is a control narrative
that's happening there as well.

(16:49):
And then saw a report just maybelast week about how, as Amazon
employees are coming back toOffice, there's not desks for
them, there's not desktops,there's not laptops, there's not
in that, in that episode, and soit's like, okay, so now I, I'm,
I'm doing this thing, but I'mnot supported. It's, there's a

(17:11):
big difference, right? Like,okay, if I'm gonna, if someone
is gonna control where I work, Ibetter have damn good amenities,
right? Like, everything betterbe lined up for me now it's not
so now. Why would I even put upwith that control? And so I
think there's, there's hugelayers to this. And then, you
know, this was back in January,but the the new administration

(17:33):
in office right now has come outpretty harshly against working
from home, and believes thatmaybe 10% of the time people who
work from home are working fromhome, and I vehemently disagree
with that, because I'm I tend tobe more productive at my house.
I also feel better about it whenI'm at my house and I'm able to
do things. But that's that'sanother angle of this, and I

(17:56):
find it really curious, becauseremote work existed before 2020
and it wasn't the same, butSCORR had remote work before
2020 The difference was, isthat, instead of everybody being
on camera, we use those, youknow, those awful little phone
things that sat in the middle ofthe office, and we all would

(18:17):
lean in to speak over and so,but we did it. There was remote
work before. There will beremote work forever after. It's
just now. Who knows how longthat exists? Who knows what?
What role the organization'sgoing to have in it, what role
the person's going to have init. I want to be able to wake up
in the morning and choose whereI want to work from. And that is

(18:38):
like core to who that's core tothe control that I have to have.
And if I like, I'm at the officetoday. I'll be at the office
every day this week, becauselast week, I didn't work at the
office once because of thefurnace situation. That's I have
to be able to have thatflexibility. It would break me
as an individual, if someonesaid from eight to five, this is

(18:58):
where you have to be the entiretime I physically, mentally,
emotionally, spiritually, wouldnot be able to handle that. And
that's it's crazy that somepeople are being put in that
position right now and thenbeing blamed for wanting to work
elsewhere and having theirloyalty questions and all of

(19:20):
those things when that's so it'ssuch a core, in my opinion, it's
such a core aspect of of being ahuman being.
There's a theory that we talkabout in some of our leadership
programs. It's called Theory X,Theory Y. We might have briefly
brought it up before. Theory Xleadership believes that people
only show up to work for apaycheck, that there's no

(19:41):
intrinsic motivation or reasonfor them to be there, and theory
why believes the opposite, thatpeople intrinsically want to be
creative and support each otherand be surrounded by others. And
I think what we're starting tosee is there's some there's
definitely. Definitely someunderlying currents that we're

(20:02):
probably not going to talk abouttoday, because that would
totally derail the conversation.
But, yeah, but I think what Iwhat I do hear from some
leaders, is just to that point.
There's when I can't physicallysee someone working. I'm having
to, I'm having to trust, trustthat they are a decent enough

(20:24):
human being, that they're not,quote, stealing from me, yep.
And that's how companies feelright now, for people working
from home, where they, you know,look at your calendar and it's
not completely stacked. There's,there's a lot of white space.
Well, if you have white space,my assumption is, is is that
you're not doing anything? Yeah,and that's been around for

(20:44):
years, that that didn't happenin the pandemic, that even took
place in offices, where, ifpeople looked at your calendar,
it was like, well, you must notbe busy. And it's like, the work
I have do, the actual work atsome so when am I supposed to do
that? And I think we're we had apendulum swing. We had a
pendulum swing completely in onedirection during the pandemic.
Of you know, I think we'vementioned this before. I used to

(21:07):
have people that would put stuffon their signatures at the
bottom of their emails. If youreceive this in a in a time that
you're not working, please don'tfeel obligated to respond. Yeah,
those are gone, right? Becausethis flexibility that we thought
was necessary at the time, allof a sudden, drastically swung

(21:29):
back the other way. And at somepoint, I do think there'll be a
healthy balance in the middle.
But I think what's happening isthere's there's ecosystems and
structures that are beingchallenged by not having office
space full. Yeah, there's awhole real estate side of this
that we're not even going totalk about. But there's, there's

(21:50):
that aspect. There's, you know,people that don't didn't
commute, you didn't have as manycar purchases, you didn't have
there's, there's a wholeecosystem that is surrounding
some of this that I think isdriving some of the decisions,
whether it's inherent or notinherent. I think it's all
driving certain things. Andwho's getting stuck in the

(22:14):
middle. It's the it's the humansthat are middle class, you know,
just trying to make a good lifefor themselves. Now they're
stuck with these decisions thatthey have no control over, and
they have nowhere else to go.
And it's and it's frustratingfor people, and they're, they're
responding in very negativeways. Think you're seeing a lot

(22:37):
of that in some of the justposts externally, and the way
people are reacting to things,it's this sense of, I feel like
my world is on fire. I have nocontrol over the fire, and it's
about to consume everythingaround me.
And and they might actually feelthat way, depending on where

(23:00):
they live and their views onclimate change, but that's not
why we're here to talk aboutthat. If you're still listening,
please don't hang up the phonejust because I said that. But I
do. I want to. I want to seguein a minute to some of the
business side and the controland trust and hiring that that's
that side of things, but reallyquick. I do want to ask a

(23:22):
question. I had mentioned thisbefore, but I had reached out to
a friend who works at anotherorganization now, and just said,
how are you? And the answer wasjust right away, you know,
essentially trying to not leteverything that's happening and
the crumbling of what they'reseeing in the world impact their

(23:45):
every thought and intrudeeverything they're doing at
work. And so I'm just trying tosurvive, and I think that this
is where I want to flip controla little bit as a positive and
controlling what we consume andcontrolling the narrative that
we're telling. Because I knowthat there are days and there

(24:05):
are weeks, especially since 2025started, that I have consumed
everything, and by the end ofthe day, there is no hope left.
There is I have to, I have torestart the engines, and I have,
I have let in every piece ofinformation that possibly exists

(24:28):
enter into my brain, and I haveconsumed it all, and I have felt
every piece of that puzzle. Andthen the severance idea sounds
like a pretty decent concept forme by the end of that day. So
what can you say about just alittle bit of control and taking
back the boundary setting thatwe've talked about before, and
just, you know, reallyunderstanding the duality of it

(24:51):
used to be work life balance,and now it's way bigger than
that. And so how do we take alittle bit of control, use that
as a positive thing, tomaintain. Maintains, I don't
know, just stability in our dayto day existence right now.
It's a tough question, becausesome people are going to listen
to this and be like, You guysare living a pipe dream. And

(25:14):
there's no way this is possible,because when we do allow
ourselves to consume a lot ofcontent that that seems doom and
gloom and like the world istruly ending tomorrow. It's hard
to understand that there's thatyou have some control over this.

(25:36):
And I think what's been helpfulfor me with my team and people
that I surround myself with isis I always remind people you
have to remove yourself from theneed to feel like you need to
control it. So the minute youstart to that, there's there's
an actual physical reaction thatstarts to happen for people, you

(25:59):
can sense it right, like youryour muscles get tighter, your
jaw starts to clench, your braingoes into all these different
scenarios of, well, if theywould just do this, or if I
could just do this, or if Icould change this, that that is
what we call a self reinforcingloop. Yeah, we talked about
shame spiraling the last time,and that's where all this kind

(26:20):
of starts, and I think when wecan step back and recognize
there's only so much one humanis allowed to control, and
there's only so much content weactually should consume in a
day, and social media has takenthat construct and thrown it out
the window. Right? If you readthe book, it's called the burn

(26:42):
book by Kiera Swisher. I loveher stuff if you've ever
listened to her podcast, but shedid a lot with Facebook,
Twitter, Google, early on and inthe early 2000s when the tech
boom was happening. And she'slike, the whole point of these
social media platforms is forscreen time, so all they're
looking for is, how long can Ihold Alex attention? And that's

(27:05):
why reels are becoming such athing. And so people are either
drowning all this out by gettingsucked into social media with
all the positivity quote outthat's out there, or sucked in
on all the negativity that's outthere. And I think when we talk
about boundary setting, that isreally a personal decision that
you need to make of how muchcontent should I be consuming in

(27:27):
a daily basis? If that means Ineed to limit my screen time
these these devices callediPhones or galaxies or whatever
you have, they are likeaddictive like crack, and
they're designed to do that.
There are optimization tools,but they're also designed to
keep you tethered to them, andso putting it down and actually

(27:49):
recognizing I can control theinformation that's coming into
my system, I can't control that.
I can control who I spend mytime with. I don't have to go
spend time with that friend thatjust wants to talk about all the
problems in the end of days,right? I can control that. It

(28:12):
may be hard because I have arelationship with someone that
now I'm maybe changing orputting a boundary around which
they may not understand. But thecontrol that we do have is I can
control the time that I haveevery day and what I do with it.
So sitting on a couch and bingewatching severance might be fun

(28:33):
for a while, but then you mayhave to stop because it's like,
wow, this is starting to hithome a little too much. Yeah,
right. And then you need to gofind something else to do with
your time. I've started aroutine at night now, as much as
I can, I try to end screens by830 and I don't. I don't sleep
with my phone in my room. I knowsome people you know, need it

(28:54):
for family and stuff, but Idon't. So I leave my phone
downstairs, and I go into myspace and I meditate for 10
minutes. I just try to clear outthe day. I'll do a little bit of
journaling, and then I'll justlet my body start to decompress.
I'll throw my legs up the wall,or I'll do something that's just
very relaxing. Maybe turn onsome ocean sounds with, you

(29:18):
know, whatever system I have upthere? But I've recognized that
if I don't give myself somespace between when I turn a
screen off and I go to bed, mysleep is disrupted. I have
horrible dreams I'm likereliving the whole day. And I've
had to really get mindful ofthat this year in particular,
that that is a non negotiable Ihave to keep because it lets me

(29:43):
shut off all that stuff thatcame at me during the day, and
now I feel like I'm a humanagain. And I think we all need
to find something, whether it'sin the morning, middle of the
day, or the evening, or allthree of those, you control the
time you. Have you control whatyou consume, and you you need to

(30:05):
be more conscious of that sothat you can have more
appreciation for life. I thinkthat's where we're getting a
little stuck. If I'm beinghonest, and winter's hard for
people, I get that there'sespecially if you live in the
Midwest where it's, yeah, nasty,gray and cold. I I've lived
there, I've been there, but Ithink we forget sometimes, when

(30:26):
we're so consumed with socialmedia and people's opinions and
all the stuff that's coming fromus at the world, we have this
beautiful moment in time wherewe have a short amount of time
on this earth. Call it chi. Is acertain amount of chi, and when
it's gone, you're gone. And ifwe waste all of our time

(30:48):
worrying about or trying tocontrol a situation, we miss the
moments where life is life. Wetalked about it in one of our
podcasts, live in the moments ofpause, right? And I think if we
can come back to these momentsof where can I pause or just go
outside and take a deep breath,be grateful every day for the

(31:12):
things that I have. Be gratefulfor the the experience of life
that is mine, whether it'sbeautiful right now or it's hard
right now? Can I have gratitudein this moment? And the more you
remove yourself from needing tocontrol it and being grateful
for what you do have right theneed to control starts to

(31:33):
diminish a little bit, becauseyou don't need to control that
stuff anymore. It's just that'slife. You can't control other
people. We can't control thegovernment. We can't control
inflation. Control inflation,but we can control how we spend
our time, who we spend it with,and having little moments of
gratitude throughout the day.
Yeah, justgoing to pull that entire answer
and broadcast it on national TVfor everybody to to listen,

(31:56):
because I think we all need it.
And I think it's, you know, itcomes down to all life really
is, is the passage of time, andyou have to decide how you want
to spend that passage of time.
So I love love, love that, and Ithink it's great advice to
anybody that's feeling this way.
I do want to pivot for the endof this episode, next 1012,

(32:17):
minutes or so, to talk businessside of things. And I know we
both kind of went out and didsome anecdotal research on
things that were tough to letcontrol go of in our settings.
And you know, for my side, it'smore on the marketing and
business development side, whichis letting control, letting go

(32:39):
of the control of the economy ofbuyer buying behaviors and
buying cycles, and that that'sgoing to be extended on the
leadership side. It's you knowhow to let let go of some of
that control as a leader,letting the people that you hire
come in and actually do the workthat that you hired them for.

(33:00):
And I thought that one of thethings that you said earlier was
really interesting about thecontrol over like watching
someone in the white space ontheir calendar. And I think that
the less control you have as aleader, the more pressure is on
you to be a good leader and tobe good at hiring and
identifying talent and buildingand investing in talent and then

(33:24):
giving them the opportunity tosucceed. So I know through your
research, you had a couple ofthemes. Is there any theme that
stood out from the businessperspective? I know we talked
about, you know, the controlwith high standards and quality
of work, trusting others, thepersonal investment in every
outcome, and like needing tohave hands in every project to

(33:45):
make sure things are going okay,communication and delegation
challenges. And then, you know,just the importance of
surrounding ourselves with theright talent, the right people.
Was there something that stoodout there, or one of those areas
that you're like, Oh, I reallywant to talk about, because I
think all of them areinteresting. But anything that
stands out right out of thegate, on on control as a leader,

(34:08):
specifically?
Yeah, I think there were twothat really resonated with me
out of kind of the five themesthat we had. The first one was
letting go of high standards andquality of work, not that we're
saying that you shouldn't havehigh standards and that things
shouldn't be done the right way,but I think the more you move

(34:29):
into a leadership role, youforget how you approach things,
even five years ago, before youhad the knowledge that you have
today. So I'll give you aperfect example. I used to have
a boss who will not be named,and she had moments right where
she self implode and tempertantrums and the whole nine

(34:51):
yards, and she had very highstandards for anything that we
presented to her, because shehad to go to a board of
directors or to an executiveteam and everyone. One there had
high standards. It was aeveryone there had a had a
marketing bend, and soeverything had to be beautiful.
And I remember presenting thingsto her, and she would just like,
look at me like I was a completeidiot, and I didn't have the

(35:14):
knowledge that she had, so Ididn't know what she needed, and
she wouldn't tell me. And so Ilearned over time. Now that I'm
in the role I'm in at velocity,I'm getting the same thing from
people that I was doing to her,and I'm recognizing I have a
choice on how I'm going tochoose to control this
situation. I'm either going toimplode and get pissed off and

(35:37):
mad because you didn't do itlike I wanted you to do it, or
look at it as a learning moment,to say you didn't know because
you've never had the experiencethat I've had. So can I teach
you what to do next time? So I'mnot frustrated now, if we keep
having the same discussion overand over again, then there's

(35:59):
probably going to be a problem.
I do have high standards, butI've had to get better at not
judging people, because thestandard that they bring to me
isn't what I would haveexpected. They if they can get
there over time, that's awesome,but this concept of quality of
work needing to be the way thatyou as a leader, assume it's

(36:22):
going to be is, one, stiflingcreativity for other people, and
two, it's not allowing forinnovation to do it differently,
right? And that's really hard asyou take on leadership
positions, because you got tothat role because of the work
that you did, and now you'repossibly presenting information

(36:43):
that someone else did on quote,your behalf, that's different,
not up to the same standards.
And you have to be okay withthat, yeah, or you're going to
burn yourself out because you'regoing to do all the work
yourself sowell. That's exactly right. It
goes into there's a ton ofleaders that I, I've seen over
the last three or four yearsthat shouldn't be involved in

(37:06):
some of the things that they'reinvolved in. And they see a
little mistake, they see a bigmistake, they see a little bit
of a different way to do things.
And it's just, I'll just do it,I'll just handle it, just throw
it on my plate, and I'll justget it done. And that it's just
terrible for the culture of thethe training. It's terrible for
the individual leader. It'sterrible for the individual who

(37:28):
was trying to do the work. Andit also creates a like really
big gap between leadership andexecutioners and individual
talent. And I think that Iunderstand that at really large
companies, there are a lot ofsteps between the individual

(37:48):
contributors and middlemanagement, senior management
and upper management and so ondown the line. But I think the
companies that are bridging thatgap and letting there be
involvement across the board andideation on how to do things
better and not needing thatsense of control. I think those
are the companies that arewinning and are going to

(38:09):
continue to win in 2025 andbeyond, from a from an employee
engagement perspective, from anemployee recognition and a
turnover perspective, I thinkthat's a huge piece of the
puzzle that I think is oftenoverlooked is that leadership
involvement and more of thecoaching, and not just, Hey, I'm
going to step in and do thisthing in a completely different

(38:31):
way, because I think it's betterhow I do it type of deal,
yeah, and, and it comes to thesecond one that really stood
out, which was leadership growthand strategy. And this one went
into things like right talent todelegate effectively in a proper
delegation, which we talk a lotabout with our leaders as well,
but less control and relyingmore on the team. And then the

(38:53):
one I know you love is thetension between efficiency,
trust and personal attachment.
To quote, how things should bedone. And that, I think, is the
Achilles heel of a lot ofleaders is, if you've been in
the industry, or you've been inyour in your physical form, in a

(39:13):
work environment for 20 plusyears, you have a lot of
knowledge on how things havebeen done over time. And we're
in a very unique moment rightnow where, how, you know, I'm
talking to companies aboutsuccession planning right now,
and a lot of them are, you know,we ask the question of the

(39:34):
executive team, is there anyindustry knowledge that would
leave with you if you lefttomorrow? And more and more, I'm
hearing No, which five years agowouldn't have been the case,
because they're like, it's not,it's not about what the past had
to tell us. It's about what thefuture is going to bring and
preparing ourselves for thefuture and and yet, there's

(39:54):
still the leaders that sometimeswill say, but that's not how
we've done it before, and theycan. Can't quite break out of
that rut of I want it this waybecause it worked before, not
recognizing it may not work now,because we've evolved in three
or four years, things haveshifted so dramatically that to

(40:18):
assume that the way we used todo financial reporting or
marketing or businessdevelopment is going to look the
same. That that should not bethe assumption anymore. It
should be more of the mindsetof, what is the possibility
here? Right? How can we do itdifferently? And allowing your
teams to come up with thosesolutions? That's where leaders,

(40:40):
I do think struggle sometimes,because as a leader, I'm just
going to be honest, it's notfun. Yeah, being a leader over a
company is not always fun, yeah,because you're dealing with
everything that comes at you,plus all the crap in the
administration side of stuffthat no one ever talks about,

(41:03):
but when a new idea pops up, theleader sometimes gets frustrated
or jealous because it'ssomething they want to be a part
of. Yeah, and maybe they canhave a small role in all of it,
but honestly, you need to letyour people do it, because
that's what we hired them for,and that's not your job anymore.

(41:26):
And you need to let go ofneeding to control that and
letting it evolve as it needsto,
and them doing a good job. Yes,good for you is good for you.
And you know one that youbrought up that this is my
favorite area of this conceptthan it is and and the what
we've always done language, Ithink, is even bigger in the in

(41:49):
this specific aspect ofmarketing and sales for a lot of
companies, because tried andtrue is, is what we throw out
there time and time again. Butyou mentioned, you know,
finances and other areas ofbusiness operations, if you hire
the right people and they aretrying to change something, I

(42:10):
promise you, there is a reason.
They are trying to change it,like I always get the you know,
if it's not broke, don't fix it.
I know. I'm not talking aboutsomething that is not broke. I'm
talking about something that wehave been doing. And yes, we
have always done it this way.
And yes, it worked from 1990 to2014 but starting in 2014 we

(42:32):
have struggled 1011, years in arow, and we have not adapted.
It's not that we've fallen offthe face of the cliff, but we
are not as efficient as we werein 2002 when we first started
doing this. And I think that alot of this goes back to again,
your principles as anorganization and as a leader

(42:52):
from your hiring perspective, ifyou hire somebody that you're
confident in and then you aretelling them actively, hey,
don't try to change that. Don'ttry to change that either. Two
things are the case. One, youhired somebody that you do not
believe in, or two, they'regoing to quit, like, flat out,
if that is a really smartperson, and you tell them

(43:15):
numerous times, don't worryabout that. We've we've got a
good pathway for it. I know youhave ideas, but I don't want
them that person, if they are asgood as they were when they were
hired, will not work at yourcompany in a year. And I think
that's the harsh realizationthat leaders need to come to
here in in 2025 as we goforward,

(43:37):
agreed, and they need to becomfortable with one of my
teammates, sat on, we, do we? Ilove Burson. Josh Burson, he's
in the industry, in the HRindustry, talent management
industry, is kind of the guythat looks for future trends.
And this year, she sat on awebinar with his team, and they

(43:58):
were talking about 2025, trends,and the the new term for the
work worker in the workforce isit's like a super talent. And
they they're recognizing thatit's no longer this linear path.
That super worker, I think, iswhat they called it. There's no
longer a linear path ofcapability a lot of the incoming

(44:21):
workforce, and even those thathave been here for 10 years,
don't, don't want to just followthe traditional path of lead.
And a lot of don't even know ifthey want to be in leadership,
and yeah, but they want, theywant to learn, and they want to
grow, and they want to beinvolved with things, and they
want to know that they havepurpose and they belong in the

(44:42):
organization, which is a lot ofthe cultural nuances that I
think we're starting to see isit's not it's not necessarily
that it's the company that'scausing a lot of this churn.
It's the company is pushing on aboundary that they didn't know
they'd already created. Right?
And now the employee is startingto question, what is my purpose?

(45:05):
What is my role? And they're notgetting answers to that in a way
that's meaningful. And so whenthey don't have the answer, they
create their own, and it'seither a positive answer or a
negative answer, and then theystart to resent the organization
for not doing the things thatthey felt they were promised in

(45:26):
a job interview or an offer orfill in the blank, someone else
gets accommodation, someone elsegets something, and you're not
giving me the same and and it itcomes down to a couple of and we
could probably do the nextpodcast on this. Is this concept
that we call them snowflakes.
And there's a lot ofindividualization happening in

(45:49):
the world right now whereeverybody thinks my issue or my
needs should circumventeverybody else's, when we've
forgotten we're all in thistogether. And so where I need to
give you grace, at some pointyou'll have to do the same for
me. And so by limitingourselves, by saying, Well, what

(46:10):
about me? Every single time,takes away the humanality around
we're all struggling. We allcome with our own baggage every
day. Some of us have more thanothers, and we can't hold to
your point. If a return toOffice mandate is happening,
there still needs to be someflexibility in it, and we can't

(46:31):
go back to well, if you need towork from home today, you're
going to have to take part ofyour PTO or sick day. We've
already proven we can do it.
There shouldn't be a discussion,right? It should be an option
that we can have a collectivedialog about and figure out what
the best solution is. Butwhenever there's these hard and

(46:52):
fast rules, I think that's wherepeople are just like, Screw you.
I'm not going to do it. Yeah? Imean,
I just feel like that should bethe end of the podcast. We just
have Braden cut it right there.
Just screw you. I'm not going todo it. This was 50 minutes of
fast paced content, and I thinkwe're not going to be able to
wait three months before thenext recording because of how

(47:15):
relevant the topic is. Finalfinal takeaway from me, and then
I'm gonna toss to you for finaltakeaway, and then we'll sign
off is you gotta give yourselfgrace. You just mentioned it at
the end. It was kind of what Iwas thinking about the entire
time. Is the not an easy time asa leader, if you're able to give
yourself grace, it'll be easierfor you to give others grace.

(47:37):
Also your team will see thatyou're giving yourself grace,
but also at the individuallevel. If there is a day that
you over consume, you know, andthen you shame spiral, it's
going to go the other wayaround. Or if you under consume,
you could still shame spiral.
And so you have to give yourselfgrace, and you have to have
those touch points andcheckpoints to remind yourself.
I've been, I've been sending atext to one of our, one of my

(47:59):
good friends here at SCORR test,I just say feet on the ground,
and I'll go, sometimes I'll takeoff my shoes and I will just put
my feet on the ground, andthat's just like I am. I'm not
necessarily saying that I'mgrounding myself, but I'm just
reminding myself that I havefeet and they are on the ground,
and that is a good it's a goodplace to be. And so that's,

(48:20):
that's my final takeaway.
Brooke, what's your finaltakeaway? So
something I put in a newslettera couple weeks ago that really
still resonates with me is youare the only one who has control
to change the tide of yourenergy. Only you. No one else
can do it for you. No controlover yourself or someone else is

(48:44):
going to change it. You have tobe in control of where you're
putting your energy. And we talkabout this a lot, your energy
will follow your attention. Soif your attention is on the
negativity, negativity of theworld, your energy is going to
become a negative energy tool,because that's where your
attention is so to your point,giving yourself grace, but also

(49:05):
recognizing you are the one incontrol of how you show up in
the world, how you'reinteracting with other people,
how you're consuming content andinformation. You're the only one
who can change it. If it'ssomething you're not enjoying or
liking about your life. You'rethe only one who can change it.
No. Tiktok is not going to stopsending you reels. Facebook is

(49:28):
not going to stop posting eventsor ads on your page. You're the
only one who can say, I'm notgoing to look at this right now.
So just recognizing that yourenergy will follow your
attention, find moments ofgratitude, to be grateful for
the the life that you've beengiven, and do the best that you
can with it, because it's allyou have.

(49:54):
That's it, that's it, that's it,that's worth that's worth the
price of admission, as alwaysbroke. I always leave our
podcast recordings feelingsmarter and more equipped and
also a little bit happier havingthe opportunity to connect with
you. I know anybody that doeshave the opportunity to listen
to this, they feel the same way.
So thank you, Brooke PaigeThompson, once again, for taking

(50:16):
time out of your day to talk andappear on this episode of The
SCORR cast. If you are listeningto this episode, don't forget,
you really gotta leave us somefive star reviews. I don't ask
for them enough. I'm trying toget my podcast host capabilities
down, but I'm being hounded tosay, Hey, make sure you listen
to this. And we're on all theplatforms and but I always joke

(50:38):
that I'm the worst podcast hostthere is I just like talking.
And I like talking to peoplelike you, Brooke, so thank you
again. If you do listen and youwant to reach out, Brooke and I
would be happy to have aconversation on LinkedIn, send
us an email, maybe we'll haveyou on a future episode of The
getting unstuck series. And asalways, thank you so much for

(50:59):
listening. Have a great day.
As always. Thank you for tuningin to this episode of The SCORR
cast, brought to you by SCORRmarketing. We appreciate your

(51:25):
time and hope you found thisdiscussion insightful, don't
forget to subscribe and join usfor our next episode. Until
then, remember, marketing issupposed to be fun.