In this episode of "HR Mixtape," host Shari Simpson welcomes Heather Hansen, CEO of Advocate to Win, keynote speaker, and former trial attorney. Heather shares her journey from medical malpractice defense to empowering leaders with advocacy skills. She emphasizes the importance of using psychology and conflict resolution techniques in high-stakes corporate environments.
Key Takeaways:
- Advocacy Skills: Learn how to effectively ask for what you want in your career and for your team, using the energy of delight.
- The Three C's: Discover the significance of compassion, curiosity, and credibility in conflict resolution and leadership.
- Reframing Failure: Understand how to reframe setbacks as opportunities for growth, enhancing your resilience and decision-making.
Guest(s): Heather Hansen, CEO, Advocate to Win
Books:
- The Elegant Warrior: How To Win Life's Trials Without Losing Yourself
- Advocate to Win: 10 Tools to Ask for What You Want and Get It
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
You're listening to HR Mixtape Your podcast with
the perfect mix of practical advice, thought-provoking interviews, and
stories that just hit different so that work doesn't have to feel,
well, like work. Now, your host,
Joining me today is Heather Hansen, CEO at Advocate
to Win. A keynote speaker, author, and former trial attorney,
(00:31):
Heather, thank you so much for jumping on the podcast with me today. Oh, my
gosh, Shari, it's my pleasure to be here. I love the podcast. Oh, I
love that. I love to hear that. And it's just it's
great that we were finally able to connect. And I love if we could start maybe
with you sharing a little bit about your background and how
My goodness. So I went, I got an undergrad degree
(00:53):
in psychology and I immediately went to law school and I immediately became
an attorney. I started working at the firm that I just
left a year ago when I was in law school. So that firm
did medical malpractice defense work. So I became a medical malpractice defense
attorney and I loved it. And I did it for 20 years and I
really used my psychology degree to help the
(01:15):
doctors and nurses and techs. that I represented to learn
how to testify and speak to juries. And
then it just, I stopped loving it the way that I had. It's
a lot of conflict, but also I wanted to try new things. I
had written a book in 2019 called The Elegant Warrior that had
some momentum behind it. And I started doing
(01:36):
some speaking. And I started to recognize that the tools that I used in
the courtroom and the way that I taught witnesses to testify could
be used outside the courtroom to teach people how to ask
for whatever they want and get it. And so I started doing speaking. I
wrote another book. And so now I do speaking and
consulting on these very tools. How do you use stories and
(01:56):
evidence and the energy of your body to make the case for your
ideas or your team? or a raise, or
your potential, or to get your partner to put a pool in the backyard.
I love that last one. And we'll make sure to throw links to
your books in the show notes for anybody who wants to go ahead
and grab those. You know, I'm always fascinated when I meet people who
(02:19):
didn't start out in the thing that they're doing and hearing about
their journey to get there. It's just so unique to
hear what inspired you and then for you to make that pivotal moment to say, Hey,
I've learned a lot in this profession and I think I can give back in a different way.
Um, I love that. How, how is your, how
do you pull in some of that psychology and conflict resolution when
(02:41):
you're teaching things like advocacy, especially, you know,
there's sometimes we're in these high stake corporate environments where we
have to show up in a different way than maybe we're used to. Walk me
Yeah, I think, you know, it's interesting. Most lawyers didn't graduate
with a psychology degree. That might be changing now, but
I think it's the most valuable thing that could have happened for
(03:02):
me because it's just the same in the courtroom. The
witnesses have to be a little bit more formal, a little bit more prepared for
the conflict of cross-examination. And yet they still want to be
themselves and they have to be themselves or else they're not going to be effective. And
so I talk a lot when I talk about the energy of your body. You
know, the C technique is S-E. and it's the energy of your body. I
(03:23):
talk a lot, Shari, about the energy of delight. And
what I mean by that is you have to, whether it's in your corporate environment
where things are high stakes or in the courtroom where things are
also high stakes, you have to believe in
what you're asking for. Because when you do, you will have that
energy of delight, which is so compelling to the people that
(03:44):
you're asking. And it doesn't mean, so when, let's
get specific about the corporate, atmosphere. If you're
asking for a raise or for a resource or for help, it
doesn't mean that you have to be all rainbows and butterflies and happy about
it. It means that you have to take pleasure in the fact that what you're
asking for is going to benefit the team. It's going to benefit
(04:05):
the organization. It's going to benefit you, which will then benefit
the team and the organization. But you have got to believe yourself.
And I think the psychology background and the conflict resolution background
has made me very good at recognizing what it takes to build
a belief and helping people to do that for themselves and
their own brains, and then to build the belief in the other who
(04:29):
I'm so amazed at the people that I've met in my life
who don't know conflict resolution, especially
in our profession. And maybe they've taken a class here or there on negotiation, you
know, as we deal with unions. But that conflict resolution piece
is so important, especially in today's current climate. I
think that we've heard a lot around civility and those types of conversations. You
(04:51):
have a unique model, though, when it comes to teaching people this,
Oh my gosh, it's actually funny because the three E's are an older
version of my work. I now focus on the three C's.
If you want to talk about the three E's, we certainly can. But if
you want to get me started on those, I'm happy to talk about them and then we can switch over
(05:13):
Yeah, I would love that. I would hear to love to hear where you came from and
So I think one of the E's and the thing that I talk about most, I
think, is empathy. And empathy is an interesting topic. I
could talk about this for the full time of this podcast because there's
two forms of empathy. And I don't think that people always recognize this.
I actually have a TEDx talk on this. There is and Daniel Goleman is
(05:35):
the person at Harvard. who's sort of the father of empathy. He's
written the most about it. And he points out that there's these two
forms of empathy. There's cognitive empathy and there's affective or
emotional empathy. And we tend to think about empathy as
feeling what other people feel. That's the emotional or affective type
of empathy. But it's the ability to see what others see,
(05:56):
which is the cognitive empathy, that's actually most important
in my work and has now turned into what I call the three Cs,
which are compassion, curiosity, and credibility. And
that compassion piece is taking empathy and putting it
into action. The reason this is so important, Shari, is
because think about my cases. If I
(06:17):
feel what the doctor or the nurse feels in
the courtroom, I'm going to feel anxious, nervous, afraid,
mad, sad, and none of those are going to
make me more effective at my job. So I don't need
to feel what they feel in order to serve them well, but I do need to
see what they see. For example, I will often talk to opposing counsel.
(06:40):
I have good relationships with opposing counsel. When they see
that, it might make them feel weird. Like, why is she buddies with
the other attorney? So I will talk to them about that ahead
of time. in order to make sure that I see what they see and
that I speak to it. And this is really important when it comes to
conflict resolution. Because most of the time in conflict, the
(07:01):
enemy is not the other person. The enemy is confusion. And
so you want to get over that confusion. One of my favorite
ways to deal with conflict is with questions. asking
the other person, what is it that they see? How do they see the world? What
am I missing? Because that's going to allow me to speak to them
in a way that's going to hopefully slay that
(07:23):
idea of confusion. And so the empathy piece is
one that has carried over, but I think in compassion is
taking that empathy and putting it into action, actually doing something about it.
It's not enough for me to see that my doctor may be or nurse may be freaked out
that I'm speaking to opposing counsel, but to also put it
into action and say, this is why I speak to them. This is
(07:43):
what we're talking about. This doesn't mean that I'm not going to be fighting
for you when the time comes, if that's necessary. So that's
that compassion piece. Curiosity is imperative in
conflict. You have got to be curious about the other side and
what they're experiencing and what they're seeing and how they're seeing the world
and how they are interpreting it. And you have to be curious about
(08:04):
yourself and feeling, because we are, as human
beings, we are animals. When we are in conflict, the emotions happen
and you have to be curious about what am I feeling? What is the belief that's
leading to that feeling? What could I be believing instead? What
can I do to change my body's reaction? And
we can talk about jinshin, which is a Japanese art of acupressure
(08:26):
that really helps in conflict situations. Let me just put a star
there. So you have to get curious about it. And then the credibility piece
is really building that belief so that even in conflict, you
can believe in yourself and that you have your own back. and
the other side that can believe that even if you disagree, you
have a certain foundation of trust and
(08:48):
belief that's not going to go away. There is so much
I love a couple of things. I want to highlight a few things because I think there's a
few nuggets that I think have been really helpful for me in my career as
I've grown and understood more about relationship dynamics.
I like that as you were talking about compassion, you kind of
separated it from what I'd like to call the warm and fuzzies. Empathy, compassion,
(09:12):
like we don't have to teach managers to emote differently,
potentially. We have to teach them, like you said, how to deep dive
into that cognitive piece of it and really have some understanding
of somebody's situation. And that comes with the curiosity that you mentioned. You
know, so many times throughout my career, I've gone into that defense
mode instead of being like, huh, why do you think that?
(09:35):
Why do you think that's the best? option to approach this? Why
do you think that's the best way to handle this employee? And having made that transition in
my own life, I've learned so much more about just
how people think that I'm like, oh, I would have never considered it that way.
I've never thought of it from that angle. And it's changed my ability to
be a good business partner because I can give different recommendations now
(09:56):
that I have this good sense of that. And then, you know, just the credibility
piece. That's something that I think HR people often
lean into that they have to come as this perfectly formed person.
And I'm sure you've experienced that in your career. How have
you kind of helped them understand the dynamic of
credibility a little bit deeper than just I have to show up perfect and
(10:18):
Oh my gosh, perfection is not the basis of credibility. And in
fact, it's quite the opposite. So in my work, I have what I call the
belief triangle, because there's different types of
belief, right? You need people. So the belief triangle, one side of
the triangle is people need to believe you. When you make a
promise, you keep it. When you set an expectation, you meet it.
And when you can't, you own it. And that's where that perfection piece
(10:41):
comes in. The ability to own a mistake or
to say, I don't know the answer, but I'll get it, is
a huge credibility boost. So faking like
you're perfect and you know all the answers actually makes you
lose credibility in those situations where you don't. So
the first side of that belief triangle is people have to believe you.
(11:02):
The second side of it is they have to believe in you. And this
is where we get that imposter syndrome and often this faking of
perfectionism. But believe in you just simply means
that you have to collect and create evidence that you
can do the thing that you want to do. And sometimes that
means you do need more education or training or experience and
(11:23):
you go out there and get it. You create evidence by doing the
things that you want to have credibility around. But you also
need to be able to look at your past and say, you know, I may not have
done this exact thing. I waitressed for many, many years, Shari. And
I will tell you that there's so many things about waitressing that I
brought to my job as a trial attorney. You know, the ability to manage
many things at once, the ability to manage difficult personalities
(11:46):
in the kitchen. All of these things were transferable that
I could use it as evidence that I could believe in myself and other
people could believe in me. But you have to sort of play with
the evidence to make that piece work. And then the most important
piece is the foundation of that triangle. And it's the piece that people forget most
often. And it's that they have to believe that you can help them.
(12:08):
And so for others, it's really, it gets back to that cognitive empathy.
What do they need? What is their problem? What do they care
about? And also, when you're doing this credibility triangle
for yourself, it's knowing that you have your own back, that
what you need is important, and that you will take care of your needs. And
if you have to disappoint someone, it's not gonna be yourself. And so this
(12:30):
triangle applies to our outer jury, the people around us
who give us our wins, but also our inner jury, the
part of us that decides what to believe. And it's a consistent thing
Well, and it leads into my next question, because I wanted to talk about the concept
of advocacy. You know, you mentioned asking for a salary
(12:52):
raise or going into a meeting, maybe asking for more headcount. How
have you helped leaders understand how to advocate better
for the things that they need personally in their career and they need for their
So I describe advocating as knowing what you want, asking
for it out loud and with delight and mastering the
art of the ask. And so people have challenges with
(13:14):
each of these parts. Sometimes people know, I just talked to someone yesterday who
was in HR. We're going to be working together to do some projects for her team.
And she was saying, you know, I feel complacent. I feel like
I'm having this like two to three year slump in this position, which is a
different position. She had she had moved up the ladder. And she
said, I know that I want something different, but I don't know what. Well,
(13:35):
that's not helpful to anybody, because, you know, if she goes to her leaders and
she's like, I'm not happy, I'm complacent, but I don't know what I want. It
doesn't work. And so you've got to know what you want and you've got to be willing
to be wrong, right? You can say that you're not a
tree. You can say that you want something and if that's not exactly the
thing, you can then move on to something else and iterate and take these
(13:55):
little tiny steps. So knowing what you want is a big part
of advocating. The next big part is asking out
loud and with delight. One of the things that I see happen all
the time is that people, and this often happens with
women, but it's everyone, They think they've asked because
they've given. Well, I used to do this when
I was a young lawyer. Well, I volunteer for all these things and
(14:18):
I do this pro bono work and I go to all these client meetings and I bill
more hours than anyone else. Of course, I want to raise. Of course, I
want to be a partner. But I never actually asked for it
until I was so resentful, so frustrated, so
angry that I did ask for it with resentment, frustration and
anger, which is not a very effective energy to actually get
(14:40):
what you want. And so the next part of advocating is really
believing that what you're asking for is going to be of service to
you and to others. And then asking before you get to resentment
or frustration or confusion or anger. And then the last part
is mastering the art of the ask. And that's knowing your jury. And
I put that in quotations. It's seeing things from the perspective
(15:01):
of the people that you are asking. What do they like? What are
they afraid of? What do they want? What's their biggest fear? What's
their immediate problem? And how does your ask serve
them? And then when you put those together, you will become a very
I just I'm hearing you talk about this and thinking
about being in the courtroom and bringing all of that knowledge. And
(15:24):
I'm assuming as a trial lawyer, you do not go into that
situation with a plan of how you're going to handle defeat. obviously
going with a winning mindset. That being said, I'm sure, well,
I guess I don't know. I'm gonna assume you haven't won every single trial
you've ever tried. How did you wrap around these concepts
to when you met the triangle, you go in, you have this
(15:46):
great presentation, you're confident, and you still don't get the thing that
Yeah, and it's very hard. In my first book, I talk
about the fact that rejection causes physical pain. And if you take Tylenol
before you get rejected, the pain is less. There's research that shows that
that's true. And so it's never fun. It's never, you
know, I can count my losses on one hand, but I will remember them forever. But
(16:08):
I will say that the key to not allowing them
to stop you from advocating again or from hurting your belief
and that belief triangle and your credibility with yourself is
reframing them. And sometimes that takes a little bit of time, but
I've been able to reframe each one of my losses. I
remember one time someone else helped me to reframe my
(16:28):
loss. It was my first loss and it was a big loss. My cases were
worth a lot of money. And so this was a million dollar verdict for the other
side. And I was embarrassed, and it was
in the paper. I was mortified. It's very public, my
job. You know, your losses are very public. And I sort of crawled
into my office and closed the door and didn't want anyone
(16:48):
to see me. And an attorney for another firm who
did similar work called me. And he said, I saw
the verdict in the paper. And I was like, yeah. And he said, just remember,
if you're not losing, you're not trying. And
that is something that really has stuck with me because it's true. You
know, we settle more cases than we try. And so you can
(17:10):
go through your your career as a trial attorney, not trying a
lot of cases to verdict. And that's not why I became a trial attorney. I
want to serve my clients, but I also wanted to try cases. And it also
applies outside of the courtroom. Right. If you're not losing, then
you're not trying. And life is for the trying, because the
trying another reframe that I often use with my clients is this
(17:30):
is where the growth happens. You know, I think that we're here for earth
school and we're here to learn. And you don't learn
as much from your successes as you do from those failures. And
so those reframes and I would often also tell myself a
new story. I remember one time what happened in the courtroom got complicated,
but I lost. And I put that in quotes because it wasn't a definitive loss. But the
(17:51):
patient on the other side, the person on the other side had a
young child and she got a nice sum of money. And
so I told myself the story that she was going to use the money for a better education for
her son, and maybe he would go on to do big things. And I didn't know. But
that reframe, Shari, helped me to live with it
and move on from it and not perseverate and let it
(18:11):
bring me down and make me think that it was the worst thing possible. I
do think that a big part of the ability to get
through this life is the ability to change your perspective
and to be imaginative and curious about it. What else could it
Until you find something that feels better. We end up in
so many situations in our lives where we tell ourselves stories.
(18:34):
You brought that up a couple of times and that's something that came across. that
phrase, my radar, only about five years ago. And the
amount of times now that I use it when I'm coaching people or even
talking to my spouse, like, OK, I hear you. It
sounds like the story you might be telling yourself is this. Yeah, it
sounds like the story I'm telling myself is this and how I reacted to what you
(18:55):
had to say. What a great tool to be able to just reframe
It's one of the biggest gifts of being a trial attorney, because remember, In
the courtroom, there's two sides. Sometimes there's a lot of people on the defense side, but
there's two sides, right? And we have the exact same data.
Now, with that data, we turn it into different evidence and
we tell different stories, completely different stories. And
(19:19):
when each witness gets up and swears to tell the truth, they're
telling their truth, their story. And
so one of the things that I often do is say, what's another
story? There's an exercise that I use, the victim-villain-victor exercise.
So if someone is telling me the story that they are the victim, I
will ask them, tell me this story as if you are the villain. Tell
(19:41):
me this story as if you are the victor, the hero of the story. And
just that it is a neuron that you need to fire in
your brain. But the more that you do it, the more you start to
recognize, well, this story isn't serving me. What's one that does?
And then you have to believe it. That's the next piece. If it's a fairy tale,
then your emotions aren't going to respond to it. So then you
(20:02):
have to collect and create evidence to support the new story.
But that's also possible when you recognize that evidence is
Heather, as we wrap up our conversation, I'd love for us to end
with you sharing about the leaders that you've worked
with. And you made the comment of like the
two sides of the table having all the same data, all the same information. Often
(20:26):
leaders receive the same training in an organization, the same opportunities,
the same everything. What sets the leaders apart
You know, there's so much great data about leaders and we know that
leaders are better at making decisions. They make decisions more quickly
and they tend to make decisions more effectively. You know, Jeff Bezos talks
about the two door decisions versus one door. And
(20:49):
if it's a decision that you can come back from, it's fine to make them
quickly. I think that the leaders that do well
tell themselves the story that this is a
decision that I can come back from, that I have the team
around me and the knowledge to make these decisions. They
tell themselves positive stories. Leaders tend to
(21:10):
be, good leaders tend to be optimists, not delusional, but
optimistic. They see the positive. And when things happen,
they're able to overcome it. And that is true. We're all leaders. You're
leading your family. You're leading your life. If you can start to
recognize that there's another story that will make you feel better,
maybe get towards that feeling of delight and great pleasure, you
(21:31):
are going to be more effective at telling that story to yourself, which is going
to change your energy and change the way that your team responds to you. And
Heather, just having this short conversation, I feel more
inspired. I can't wait to dive into your book. So thanks
for sharing those details and jumping on the podcast with me today. Thank
(21:54):
I hope you enjoyed today's episode. You can find show notes
and links at thehrmixtape.com Come back
You're listening to HR Mixtape Your podcast with
the perfect mix of practical advice, thought-provoking interviews, and
stories that just hit different so that work doesn't have to feel,
well, like work. Now, your host,
Joining me today is Heather Hansen, CEO at Advocate
to Win. A keynote speaker, author, and former trial attorney,
(00:31):
Heather, thank you so much for jumping on the podcast with me today. Oh, my
gosh, Shari, it's my pleasure to be here. I love the podcast. Oh, I
love that. I love to hear that. And it's just it's
great that we were finally able to connect. And I love if we could start maybe
with you sharing a little bit about your background and how
My goodness. So I went, I got an undergrad degree
(00:53):
in psychology and I immediately went to law school and I immediately became
an attorney. I started working at the firm that I just
left a year ago when I was in law school. So that firm
did medical malpractice defense work. So I became a medical malpractice defense
attorney and I loved it. And I did it for 20 years and I
really used my psychology degree to help the
(01:15):
doctors and nurses and techs. that I represented to learn
how to testify and speak to juries. And
then it just, I stopped loving it the way that I had. It's
a lot of conflict, but also I wanted to try new things. I
had written a book in 2019 called The Elegant Warrior that had
some momentum behind it. And I started doing
(01:36):
some speaking. And I started to recognize that the tools that I used in
the courtroom and the way that I taught witnesses to testify could
be used outside the courtroom to teach people how to ask
for whatever they want and get it. And so I started doing speaking. I
wrote another book. And so now I do speaking and
consulting on these very tools. How do you use stories and
(01:56):
evidence and the energy of your body to make the case for your
ideas or your team? or a raise, or
your potential, or to get your partner to put a pool in the backyard.
I love that last one. And we'll make sure to throw links to
your books in the show notes for anybody who wants to go ahead
and grab those. You know, I'm always fascinated when I meet people who
(02:19):
didn't start out in the thing that they're doing and hearing about
their journey to get there. It's just so unique to
hear what inspired you and then for you to make that pivotal moment to say, Hey,
I've learned a lot in this profession and I think I can give back in a different way.
Um, I love that. How, how is your, how
do you pull in some of that psychology and conflict resolution when
(02:41):
you're teaching things like advocacy, especially, you know,
there's sometimes we're in these high stake corporate environments where we
have to show up in a different way than maybe we're used to. Walk me
Yeah, I think, you know, it's interesting. Most lawyers didn't graduate
with a psychology degree. That might be changing now, but
I think it's the most valuable thing that could have happened for
(03:02):
me because it's just the same in the courtroom. The
witnesses have to be a little bit more formal, a little bit more prepared for
the conflict of cross-examination. And yet they still want to be
themselves and they have to be themselves or else they're not going to be effective. And
so I talk a lot when I talk about the energy of your body. You
know, the C technique is S-E. and it's the energy of your body. I
(03:23):
talk a lot, Shari, about the energy of delight. And
what I mean by that is you have to, whether it's in your corporate environment
where things are high stakes or in the courtroom where things are
also high stakes, you have to believe in
what you're asking for. Because when you do, you will have that
energy of delight, which is so compelling to the people that
(03:44):
you're asking. And it doesn't mean, so when, let's
get specific about the corporate, atmosphere. If you're
asking for a raise or for a resource or for help, it
doesn't mean that you have to be all rainbows and butterflies and happy about
it. It means that you have to take pleasure in the fact that what you're
asking for is going to benefit the team. It's going to benefit
(04:05):
the organization. It's going to benefit you, which will then benefit
the team and the organization. But you have got to believe yourself.
And I think the psychology background and the conflict resolution background
has made me very good at recognizing what it takes to build
a belief and helping people to do that for themselves and
their own brains, and then to build the belief in the other who
(04:29):
I'm so amazed at the people that I've met in my life
who don't know conflict resolution, especially
in our profession. And maybe they've taken a class here or there on negotiation, you
know, as we deal with unions. But that conflict resolution piece
is so important, especially in today's current climate. I
think that we've heard a lot around civility and those types of conversations. You
(04:51):
have a unique model, though, when it comes to teaching people this,
Oh my gosh, it's actually funny because the three E's are an older
version of my work. I now focus on the three C's.
If you want to talk about the three E's, we certainly can. But if
you want to get me started on those, I'm happy to talk about them and then we can switch over
(05:13):
Yeah, I would love that. I would hear to love to hear where you came from and
So I think one of the E's and the thing that I talk about most, I
think, is empathy. And empathy is an interesting topic. I
could talk about this for the full time of this podcast because there's
two forms of empathy. And I don't think that people always recognize this.
I actually have a TEDx talk on this. There is and Daniel Goleman is
(05:35):
the person at Harvard. who's sort of the father of empathy. He's
written the most about it. And he points out that there's these two
forms of empathy. There's cognitive empathy and there's affective or
emotional empathy. And we tend to think about empathy as
feeling what other people feel. That's the emotional or affective type
of empathy. But it's the ability to see what others see,
(05:56):
which is the cognitive empathy, that's actually most important
in my work and has now turned into what I call the three Cs,
which are compassion, curiosity, and credibility. And
that compassion piece is taking empathy and putting it
into action. The reason this is so important, Shari, is
because think about my cases. If I
(06:17):
feel what the doctor or the nurse feels in
the courtroom, I'm going to feel anxious, nervous, afraid,
mad, sad, and none of those are going to
make me more effective at my job. So I don't need
to feel what they feel in order to serve them well, but I do need to
see what they see. For example, I will often talk to opposing counsel.
(06:40):
I have good relationships with opposing counsel. When they see
that, it might make them feel weird. Like, why is she buddies with
the other attorney? So I will talk to them about that ahead
of time. in order to make sure that I see what they see and
that I speak to it. And this is really important when it comes to
conflict resolution. Because most of the time in conflict, the
(07:01):
enemy is not the other person. The enemy is confusion. And
so you want to get over that confusion. One of my favorite
ways to deal with conflict is with questions. asking
the other person, what is it that they see? How do they see the world? What
am I missing? Because that's going to allow me to speak to them
in a way that's going to hopefully slay that
(07:23):
idea of confusion. And so the empathy piece is
one that has carried over, but I think in compassion is
taking that empathy and putting it into action, actually doing something about it.
It's not enough for me to see that my doctor may be or nurse may be freaked out
that I'm speaking to opposing counsel, but to also put it
into action and say, this is why I speak to them. This is
(07:43):
what we're talking about. This doesn't mean that I'm not going to be fighting
for you when the time comes, if that's necessary. So that's
that compassion piece. Curiosity is imperative in
conflict. You have got to be curious about the other side and
what they're experiencing and what they're seeing and how they're seeing the world
and how they are interpreting it. And you have to be curious about
(08:04):
yourself and feeling, because we are, as human
beings, we are animals. When we are in conflict, the emotions happen
and you have to be curious about what am I feeling? What is the belief that's
leading to that feeling? What could I be believing instead? What
can I do to change my body's reaction? And
we can talk about jinshin, which is a Japanese art of acupressure
(08:26):
that really helps in conflict situations. Let me just put a star
there. So you have to get curious about it. And then the credibility piece
is really building that belief so that even in conflict, you
can believe in yourself and that you have your own back. and
the other side that can believe that even if you disagree, you
have a certain foundation of trust and
(08:48):
belief that's not going to go away. There is so much
I love a couple of things. I want to highlight a few things because I think there's a
few nuggets that I think have been really helpful for me in my career as
I've grown and understood more about relationship dynamics.
I like that as you were talking about compassion, you kind of
separated it from what I'd like to call the warm and fuzzies. Empathy, compassion,
(09:12):
like we don't have to teach managers to emote differently,
potentially. We have to teach them, like you said, how to deep dive
into that cognitive piece of it and really have some understanding
of somebody's situation. And that comes with the curiosity that you mentioned. You
know, so many times throughout my career, I've gone into that defense
mode instead of being like, huh, why do you think that?
(09:35):
Why do you think that's the best? option to approach this? Why
do you think that's the best way to handle this employee? And having made that transition in
my own life, I've learned so much more about just
how people think that I'm like, oh, I would have never considered it that way.
I've never thought of it from that angle. And it's changed my ability to
be a good business partner because I can give different recommendations now
(09:56):
that I have this good sense of that. And then, you know, just the credibility
piece. That's something that I think HR people often
lean into that they have to come as this perfectly formed person.
And I'm sure you've experienced that in your career. How have
you kind of helped them understand the dynamic of
credibility a little bit deeper than just I have to show up perfect and
(10:18):
Oh my gosh, perfection is not the basis of credibility. And in
fact, it's quite the opposite. So in my work, I have what I call the
belief triangle, because there's different types of
belief, right? You need people. So the belief triangle, one side of
the triangle is people need to believe you. When you make a
promise, you keep it. When you set an expectation, you meet it.
And when you can't, you own it. And that's where that perfection piece
(10:41):
comes in. The ability to own a mistake or
to say, I don't know the answer, but I'll get it, is
a huge credibility boost. So faking like
you're perfect and you know all the answers actually makes you
lose credibility in those situations where you don't. So
the first side of that belief triangle is people have to believe you.
(11:02):
The second side of it is they have to believe in you. And this
is where we get that imposter syndrome and often this faking of
perfectionism. But believe in you just simply means
that you have to collect and create evidence that you
can do the thing that you want to do. And sometimes that
means you do need more education or training or experience and
(11:23):
you go out there and get it. You create evidence by doing the
things that you want to have credibility around. But you also
need to be able to look at your past and say, you know, I may not have
done this exact thing. I waitressed for many, many years, Shari. And
I will tell you that there's so many things about waitressing that I
brought to my job as a trial attorney. You know, the ability to manage
many things at once, the ability to manage difficult personalities
(11:46):
in the kitchen. All of these things were transferable that
I could use it as evidence that I could believe in myself and other
people could believe in me. But you have to sort of play with
the evidence to make that piece work. And then the most important
piece is the foundation of that triangle. And it's the piece that people forget most
often. And it's that they have to believe that you can help them.
(12:08):
And so for others, it's really, it gets back to that cognitive empathy.
What do they need? What is their problem? What do they care
about? And also, when you're doing this credibility triangle
for yourself, it's knowing that you have your own back, that
what you need is important, and that you will take care of your needs. And
if you have to disappoint someone, it's not gonna be yourself. And so this
(12:30):
triangle applies to our outer jury, the people around us
who give us our wins, but also our inner jury, the
part of us that decides what to believe. And it's a consistent thing
Well, and it leads into my next question, because I wanted to talk about the concept
of advocacy. You know, you mentioned asking for a salary
(12:52):
raise or going into a meeting, maybe asking for more headcount. How
have you helped leaders understand how to advocate better
for the things that they need personally in their career and they need for their
So I describe advocating as knowing what you want, asking
for it out loud and with delight and mastering the
art of the ask. And so people have challenges with
(13:14):
each of these parts. Sometimes people know, I just talked to someone yesterday who
was in HR. We're going to be working together to do some projects for her team.
And she was saying, you know, I feel complacent. I feel like
I'm having this like two to three year slump in this position, which is a
different position. She had she had moved up the ladder. And she
said, I know that I want something different, but I don't know what. Well,
(13:35):
that's not helpful to anybody, because, you know, if she goes to her leaders and
she's like, I'm not happy, I'm complacent, but I don't know what I want. It
doesn't work. And so you've got to know what you want and you've got to be willing
to be wrong, right? You can say that you're not a
tree. You can say that you want something and if that's not exactly the
thing, you can then move on to something else and iterate and take these
(13:55):
little tiny steps. So knowing what you want is a big part
of advocating. The next big part is asking out
loud and with delight. One of the things that I see happen all
the time is that people, and this often happens with
women, but it's everyone, They think they've asked because
they've given. Well, I used to do this when
I was a young lawyer. Well, I volunteer for all these things and
(14:18):
I do this pro bono work and I go to all these client meetings and I bill
more hours than anyone else. Of course, I want to raise. Of course, I
want to be a partner. But I never actually asked for it
until I was so resentful, so frustrated, so
angry that I did ask for it with resentment, frustration and
anger, which is not a very effective energy to actually get
(14:40):
what you want. And so the next part of advocating is really
believing that what you're asking for is going to be of service to
you and to others. And then asking before you get to resentment
or frustration or confusion or anger. And then the last part
is mastering the art of the ask. And that's knowing your jury. And
I put that in quotations. It's seeing things from the perspective
(15:01):
of the people that you are asking. What do they like? What are
they afraid of? What do they want? What's their biggest fear? What's
their immediate problem? And how does your ask serve
them? And then when you put those together, you will become a very
I just I'm hearing you talk about this and thinking
about being in the courtroom and bringing all of that knowledge. And
(15:24):
I'm assuming as a trial lawyer, you do not go into that
situation with a plan of how you're going to handle defeat. obviously
going with a winning mindset. That being said, I'm sure, well,
I guess I don't know. I'm gonna assume you haven't won every single trial
you've ever tried. How did you wrap around these concepts
to when you met the triangle, you go in, you have this
(15:46):
great presentation, you're confident, and you still don't get the thing that
Yeah, and it's very hard. In my first book, I talk
about the fact that rejection causes physical pain. And if you take Tylenol
before you get rejected, the pain is less. There's research that shows that
that's true. And so it's never fun. It's never, you
know, I can count my losses on one hand, but I will remember them forever. But
(16:08):
I will say that the key to not allowing them
to stop you from advocating again or from hurting your belief
and that belief triangle and your credibility with yourself is
reframing them. And sometimes that takes a little bit of time, but
I've been able to reframe each one of my losses. I
remember one time someone else helped me to reframe my
(16:28):
loss. It was my first loss and it was a big loss. My cases were
worth a lot of money. And so this was a million dollar verdict for the other
side. And I was embarrassed, and it was
in the paper. I was mortified. It's very public, my
job. You know, your losses are very public. And I sort of crawled
into my office and closed the door and didn't want anyone
(16:48):
to see me. And an attorney for another firm who
did similar work called me. And he said, I saw
the verdict in the paper. And I was like, yeah. And he said, just remember,
if you're not losing, you're not trying. And
that is something that really has stuck with me because it's true. You
know, we settle more cases than we try. And so you can
(17:10):
go through your your career as a trial attorney, not trying a
lot of cases to verdict. And that's not why I became a trial attorney. I
want to serve my clients, but I also wanted to try cases. And it also
applies outside of the courtroom. Right. If you're not losing, then
you're not trying. And life is for the trying, because the
trying another reframe that I often use with my clients is this
(17:30):
is where the growth happens. You know, I think that we're here for earth
school and we're here to learn. And you don't learn
as much from your successes as you do from those failures. And
so those reframes and I would often also tell myself a
new story. I remember one time what happened in the courtroom got complicated,
but I lost. And I put that in quotes because it wasn't a definitive loss. But the
(17:51):
patient on the other side, the person on the other side had a
young child and she got a nice sum of money. And
so I told myself the story that she was going to use the money for a better education for
her son, and maybe he would go on to do big things. And I didn't know. But
that reframe, Shari, helped me to live with it
and move on from it and not perseverate and let it
(18:11):
bring me down and make me think that it was the worst thing possible. I
do think that a big part of the ability to get
through this life is the ability to change your perspective
and to be imaginative and curious about it. What else could it
Until you find something that feels better. We end up in
so many situations in our lives where we tell ourselves stories.
(18:34):
You brought that up a couple of times and that's something that came across. that
phrase, my radar, only about five years ago. And the
amount of times now that I use it when I'm coaching people or even
talking to my spouse, like, OK, I hear you. It
sounds like the story you might be telling yourself is this. Yeah, it
sounds like the story I'm telling myself is this and how I reacted to what you
(18:55):
had to say. What a great tool to be able to just reframe
It's one of the biggest gifts of being a trial attorney, because remember, In
the courtroom, there's two sides. Sometimes there's a lot of people on the defense side, but
there's two sides, right? And we have the exact same data.
Now, with that data, we turn it into different evidence and
we tell different stories, completely different stories. And
(19:19):
when each witness gets up and swears to tell the truth, they're
telling their truth, their story. And
so one of the things that I often do is say, what's another
story? There's an exercise that I use, the victim-villain-victor exercise.
So if someone is telling me the story that they are the victim, I
will ask them, tell me this story as if you are the villain. Tell
(19:41):
me this story as if you are the victor, the hero of the story. And
just that it is a neuron that you need to fire in
your brain. But the more that you do it, the more you start to
recognize, well, this story isn't serving me. What's one that does?
And then you have to believe it. That's the next piece. If it's a fairy tale,
then your emotions aren't going to respond to it. So then you
(20:02):
have to collect and create evidence to support the new story.
But that's also possible when you recognize that evidence is
Heather, as we wrap up our conversation, I'd love for us to end
with you sharing about the leaders that you've worked
with. And you made the comment of like the
two sides of the table having all the same data, all the same information. Often
(20:26):
leaders receive the same training in an organization, the same opportunities,
the same everything. What sets the leaders apart
You know, there's so much great data about leaders and we know that
leaders are better at making decisions. They make decisions more quickly
and they tend to make decisions more effectively. You know, Jeff Bezos talks
about the two door decisions versus one door. And
(20:49):
if it's a decision that you can come back from, it's fine to make them
quickly. I think that the leaders that do well
tell themselves the story that this is a
decision that I can come back from, that I have the team
around me and the knowledge to make these decisions. They
tell themselves positive stories. Leaders tend to
(21:10):
be, good leaders tend to be optimists, not delusional, but
optimistic. They see the positive. And when things happen,
they're able to overcome it. And that is true. We're all leaders. You're
leading your family. You're leading your life. If you can start to
recognize that there's another story that will make you feel better,
maybe get towards that feeling of delight and great pleasure, you
(21:31):
are going to be more effective at telling that story to yourself, which is going
to change your energy and change the way that your team responds to you. And
Heather, just having this short conversation, I feel more
inspired. I can't wait to dive into your book. So thanks
for sharing those details and jumping on the podcast with me today. Thank
(21:54):
I hope you enjoyed today's episode. You can find show notes
and links at thehrmixtape.com Come back
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