Laugh, Learn, Lead – Building Connection through Improv & Play

October 14, 2024
Season 4
Episode 142
 Connection, Featured, Podcast, Self Love 53:18

August 30, 2024 / Mom &… Podcast Episode 142 / Guest: Erin Diehl

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Show Summary:

In this episode of the Mom &… Podcast, hosts Missy Stevens and Susanne Kerns welcome guest Erin Diehl, founder of Improve It and author of I SEE YOU: A LEADER’S GUIDE TO ENERGIZING YOUR TEAM THROUGH RADICAL EMPATHY. They discuss the transformative power of play and improv in the workplace, including how it can lead to higher engagement and a positive shift in team dynamics. Erin shares her journey of starting Improve It through a series of dares, and her passion for bringing joy and empathy to corporate environments. Additionally, they touch on Erin’s personal experiences as a mom, her struggles, and her learnings, offering valuable insights for both working professionals and stay-at-home parents. The conversation also includes a deep dive into the concept of radical empathy and practical exercises to foster genuine connections and understanding.

Topics From This Episode:

  • 00:00 Introduction to the Podcast and Hosts
  • 00:58 Welcoming Erin Diehl: Business Improv Expert
  • 02:23 Erin’s Journey: From Childhood to Improv Comedy
  • 03:52 Balancing Motherhood and Career
  • 07:04 The Importance of Play in the Workplace
  • 11:50 Implementing Improv in Corporate Training
  • 18:05 The Power of Radical Empathy
  • 29:26 Transformational Leadership Workshops
  • 30:53 The Importance of Leader Participation
  • 32:06 Introducing the Book: A Leader’s Guide
  • 32:27 Applying Leadership Lessons at Home
  • 33:49 Self-Love and Healing Journey
  • 36:10 Big Wick Energy: Maintaining Self-Care
  • 37:39 Connecting with Erin Diehl
  • 39:04 Look, Listen, Learn: Recommendations and Reflections
  • 51:27 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Look, Listen, Learns

Missy:

Erin:

Susanne:

More About Erin Diehl:

Erin “Big” Diehl is a Business Improv Edutainer, Failfluencer, and Professional Zoombie. Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin created improve it!, a unique professional development company rooted in improv comedy, that pushes leaders and teams to laugh, learn, play, and grow. 

She is the proud host of The improve it! Podcast, a Top 1% Global Podcast, which helps develop leaders and teams through play, improv and experiential learning, and first time author of the Amazon Best Seller & Top New Release: I See You! A Leader’s Guide to Energizing Your Team Through Radical Empathy.

Among her many accolades, Erin is most proud of successfully coercing over 39,000 professionals to chicken dance. 

Connect with Erin Diehl:

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Musical Notes

Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock.

Transcript is auto-generated by a robot. Apologies in advance for misspellings or errors.

[00:00:25] Missy: Welcome to the mom and dot, dot, dot podcast, the podcast that helps you make your ellipses count. You know, all those dot, dot, dots that come after I’m a mom and I’m Missy Stevens, mom and dot, dot, dot writer, foster care advocate, and today the parent of a high school graduate. We’re all done. It’s very exciting.

[00:00:45] Susanne: One down, One to go.

[00:00:47] Missy: It’s right.

[00:00:48] Susanne: Well, and I’m Suzanne Kearns, momanddotdotdotwriter, LGBTQ, and sex ed advocate, and today, the parent of a high school student! Well, the eighth grade graduation is coming up. Complete. And I gotta tell you, the first kid did not have the eighth grade graduation. His school made it like a whole thing.

They walked across the thing and everything. Impressive.

[00:01:10] Missy: Pretty cute. Yeah, we didn’t get to do that with, uh, my oldest either. We didn’t really get to do eighth grade graduation.

[00:01:16] Susanne: I guess each principal gets to decide how fun they want to be.

[00:01:20] Missy: Yeah. Yeah. Well, we are really excited today to welcome Erin Deal to the podcast. Erin is a mom and dot, dot, dot business improv edutainer. Fail fluencer and professional zombie. Through a series of unrelated dares, which I want to talk about later, Erin created Improve It, a unique professional development company rooted in improv comedy that pushes leaders and teams to laugh, learn, play, and grow.

She is the proud host of the Improve It podcast, a top 1 percent global podcast, which helps develop leaders and teams through play, improv, and experiential learning. And a first time author of the American bestseller and top new release, I see you a leader’s guide to energizing your team through radical empathy.

Among her many accolades, Erin is most proud of successfully coercing over 36, 000 professionals to chicken dance. Welcome.

[00:02:12] Susanne: I

[00:02:12] Erin: Thank you. Thank you. I am a very proud chicken dance enthusiast. Um, and I’m excited to be here. I love the mom and that is, that is the best. That is the best ellipses I’ve ever, I’ve ever heard. And we’re, we’re all those things. And, and, and I’m here to talk about it.

[00:02:32] Susanne: Oh, well, we are so excited. I was just telling you as we were getting started that sometimes the world just brings us the right guest at the right time. And I feel like I am super in need of everything that you have to teach us today. But before we get into that, can you give our listeners a little Erin 101, kind of a snapshot of your career and your life leading up to where you are now?

[00:02:57] Erin: Yes, I’ll do a 101. I’m going to do cliff’s nose version. Okay. Childhood moved around a lot. Okay, but always in acting and a love of comedy, a love of home videos and being putting on a wig was like my favorite thing to do. And, uh, then college went to Clemson University, wanted to be a talk show host post college moved to Chicago to pursue Chicago to become Oprah Winfrey.

That did not happen, uh, but I found improv comedy and improv comedy became my passion and it became the thing that made me feel the most alive and the thing that when I watched other people do it, I saw sparks and I had what I call an aha, haha moment, which is. When the light bulb goes off and you’re laughing at the time.

And I said, I’m going to create a company that brings improv into corporate America and businesses and teams and helps them learn to be the highest versions of themselves through play. Improve. It’s been around for 10 years. We have a team of 22 amazing improv professionals, an internal team of six, and, uh, we are all over the U S.

Just wrote a book, as you mentioned, I See You, and that has been a wild journey. Through that all, my personal life, I’m a mom. I have a miracle baby boy. When I say miracle, like, lots of science, science backed baby boy, okay? And, uh, he is a five year old. We had some genetic disorders on top of the science, and proud to say he is extremely healthy.

Hearing, because our genetic disorder was hearing loss and deafness. Five year old, almost five year old, right now he’s a fournado, a four year old

[00:04:45] Susanne: Oh, boy. Yes.

[00:04:47] Erin: turns five in about five weeks. And, uh, yeah, it’s been a journey, all of it, but I would say, I would say out of all those creations, he’s my greatest one.

[00:04:58] Susanne: Oh, I love that. And the fournadoes. Oh, my gosh. I think both Missy and I, every time we hit these milestones, like they’re graduating the eighth grade, graduating the high school, it always ends up seeming to go back, like, into the photo albums, because usually the teachers are like, oh, for the slideshow, for this graduation, we need their baby picture, whatever.

And you can’t just look at a baby picture. You got to look at the twos and the threes and the fournadoes and the videos. And yeah, it’s UV.

[00:05:27] Missy: pictures now. Because I spent weeks making a graduation slideshow because. You go down the rabbit hole. You can’t just be like, well, that’s a cute picture. I’ll put it in. You have to look at every picture and you had, then you’re caught up in that moment again, and you’re reliving it all. And my mom said, you’ve been doing this slideshow for weeks.

And I’m like, because it takes like. A day to go through a year of pictures, at least because I just can’t so start a little file, set them aside and move over a little slideshow picture every so often so that it may be won’t take you weeks and weeks, but you’re still going to go down memory lane

[00:06:01] Susanne: oh, it’s so fun. But yes, you just have so, you have so many fun things and milestones ahead of you. I’m kind of jealous and excited for you.

[00:06:09] Erin: yes. He just graduated 4k last week, so he will be in kindergarten next year, which I am. I have already had tears about, um, but it’s okay. It’s supposed to happen. I know. And I’m like, okay, I can, you know, this is, this is going to be a big change for him and us. And, um, when I go back and like you said, I look at some of his videos and I just remember being in that moment and thinking, Oh my gosh, is this ever going to end?

Cause it was so hard. And now I go back and I’m like, I miss those moments. Why wasn’t I more grateful for those moments?

[00:06:51] Susanne: Yes.

[00:06:52] Missy: just being human. I think, yeah, you’re caught in the moment. It’s like, it’s, it is hard. And sometimes it’s not just that it’s hard. Like it’s highly unpleasant. Not all the moments are great.

[00:07:02] Susanne: Or boring.

[00:07:03] Missy: Yeah, then you can’t, you’re not supposed to appreciate all of it. I don’t think. Some of it’s really awful, but yeah, then all of a sudden it’s over and you think, where’s that little person?

[00:07:12] Erin: I know

[00:07:13] Susanne: Oh, my gosh. Look at us, Missy. We’re not, we’re not allowed to record the week after any important events that are.

[00:07:19] Missy: No. Yeah. I should not be recording anything today. I’m still in the emotional fog of it, all of it. So let’s pivot from our sweet babies and talk about your other child and prove it.

[00:07:32] Erin: Yes.

[00:07:33] Missy: One of our favorite quotes, and it is Brian Sutton Smith, but we heard it via Brené Brown years ago and she’s talked about it for years, is that the opposite of play is not work, it’s depression. And you teach leaders how to bring that play to work so they can avoid depression and burnout. We don’t even really know where to start with diving into all of this. It’s overwhelming, I think, to talk to people about embracing play in our culture that is so product driven. So where do you even start?

How do you find your clients and get them on board?

[00:08:04] Erin: Oh my gosh. Well, such a great quote, number one. Number two, the word play, I always have an intentional word for every year. So I always have a one word intention. And my word for 2024 is play. And I, and I’ll say why in just a moment, but I have a vision board specifically behind my little podcast studio I have right here.

It’s a closet. Okay. I’ve, I made a closet into a studio. Um,

[00:08:31] Susanne: true.

[00:08:32] Erin: Okay. Okay. I say studio to glam it up. I’m giving you behind the scenes, real deal. So, but behind me is a vision board, and I have the words PLAY just in giant letters. So I love that you started with this because it is literally top of mind for me.

Because I was, if you ever heard you’re the teacher who doesn’t do whatever you’re teaching, I was the teacher who wasn’t playing. I’m the improv expert who wasn’t playing. And I will say this, having my son, watching him engrossed in play every single day. Losing any judgment of what other people think, engaging with the people around him in pure joy is one of the greatest things to watch because what happens, and I know this won’t be forever when he gets older and when society takes hold and they say, Oh, drop the imagination, focus on real life, focus on the real world.

There’s going to be a mask that he puts on to hide. That beautiful mind that is there right now. And so what happens when we engage in play as adults is we’re actually activating to get a little psychological, our childhood selves. And we are letting go of the judgment of ourself, and we’re letting go of the judgment of others.

And so using improv as a teaching tool is, in my opinion, the greatest teaching tool because it allows us to drop that mask that society has placed on us to be a professional. To be show up in a certain way and it allows us to fully be engaged and be in the moment. I actually have a bracelet. I had to take it off because it dangles, but it says be here now.

And when you are focused in play, you were in that moment. And what’s so joyful about that moment is that’s what we’re here to do. Be present to our lives, to be in this body and to give to those around us moment to moment, but we don’t allow ourselves to do that. So full play allows you to be present and it allows you to drop that inhibition and that mask and our clients find us because the people, what is so wonderful is our actual clients, the people who booked this for their teams. Are the greatest people because they understand this concept and I created so many friendships out of our clients because they’re just great humans. They see how this could work. There’s not really a lot of convincing when you, when you put those vibes out and you attract them back. And, um, it’s my greatest, it has been the greatest joy of my career too. Watch the case studies unfold and watch the teams go into a room and watch them go in, let’s say it’s a group of 20. They walk in 20 individuals and they walk out this cohesive ensemble of human beings who have interacted together in a way that they never would have if play was not involved.

[00:11:48] Missy: Yeah.

[00:11:50] Susanne: Okay. So if we have any business managers out there listening, just thinking of the, they want to do this for their team. Like, what does that look like? Is it a whole day thing? Is it an hour? Is it a couple hours? Like, what should they be thinking? Thinking about what types of teams can benefit the most from this.

[00:12:05] Erin: So many. I know this is good. Okay, so here’s how we figure out because we have 10 different offerings. And each one is a different soft skill that we can help develop your team on. And each, each different soft skill has its own pre work. And the pre work is actually a comedic video that myself and team put together that is the opposite of what we’re going to teach you.

So the comedy comes in is this is how not to do.

[00:12:32] Missy: I

[00:12:33] Erin: is how not to communicate. This is how not to present. And then we show them through laughter. What that looks like, what the negative of that looks like, then we have a, uh, a survey, for lack of a better word, that we send to participants to understand what they want to achieve and what their challenges are with that particular soft skill.

Then we do something called a laugh break. Before we come in, which is short form improv over zoom. So we get them together for 20 minutes over zoom and we show them what improv looks like. And then we either do it in person or virtually. It’s a two hour session or it’s an hour and a half over zoom. If we’re in person, it’s two hours over zoom, an hour and a half. People are on their feet if we’re live in person. There’s no technology except for the screen behind us, which has a few words on it to guide the workshop and play is the forefront of everything we do. We use play to get to the thesis statement, to get to the objectives that we’re hoping to teach them on.

And it’s through that play that we show them what that active learning feels like, and then we debrief it. And that’s where the learning happens and the aha moments take place. And then we have an e learning course built in conjunction with every workshop to, to reinforce all the things we taught in the live session and help them add a few additional skills.

And that happens for three weeks post the live session. So we get really clear with the leader on what are their objectives? What do they want people to walk away with? What are their challenges? And most of the time we have a soft skill training workshop that can meet those. And we, we marry those together and the magic happens.

[00:14:15] Missy: think it’s incredible that you have created this business. And so I want to backtrack for a minute and talk about the series of dares. That got you here because I think it’s pretty fascinating that it came out of a series of unrelated dares, you say, because it’s so much more than simple improv.

Like you really have gone in and figured out how to teach people things to make their work better. It’s not just a game. So tell us about the dares that got you here.

[00:14:43] Erin: That’s so funny. I know I loved what you’ve called that out of the bio. That was so great. Nobody really asked me about that. So this is fun. So I will tell you, I started this idea when I was working at a recruiting firm in Chicago and I was doing business development. Now, first of all, I’d never done business development a day in my life.

Okay. I got this job. Um, and I wanted to be a dare because I wanted to be a talk show host. Oprah Winfrey at the time I had left her Oprah Winfrey show and was starting her own network, the Oprah Winfrey network own. And she had this reality show competition called your own show, where you could apply to be a talk show host.

And then the public would vote and they would say who they want to see as the top 10 people competing. So my friend dared me to enter this competition and I was like, duh, done. And we, we made a video, this is back, like Instagram wasn’t around. This was like probably 2008, 2009 era. Okay. Facebook was around, so I was getting everyone and their brother to get on Facebook and vote, vote, vote.

And I did make it into the second round, but I didn’t make it into the final. To get on the show. So I was dare number one. Then I decided at the job at the time I was working at Was not recruiting. I was working at a marketing firm and I was just tired of the rigmarole I was very burned out which I is I talk about this in the book itself.

I was extremely burned out and so I I did that. I was going to look for a new role. And at this time, another friend of mine was like, well, why don’t you just send your resume around and you know, we’ll figure out somebody to help you when you start sending your resume, send your Oprah video was the dare.

Okay. So this was how this went down. So I sent my resume with my Oprah video to a recruiting firm that I had worked at as an, as a temp. I was a temp at a temp agency. And my former boss. Now, former boss, I’m telling this story very, very not chronologically. The woman who hired me never actually interviewed me in person.

I had two phone calls and she loved my Oprah video and was like, I’m going to hire you immediately, which led me to a Full time job that was nine to five and I was able to do improv comedy six to midnight every day of the week I wasn’t traveling which is what was the majority of my life in this marketing firm So dare what number one was get on the oprah show dare number two Was send your oprah video along with your resume to get this job I got this job which led me back to improv which led me to improve it which Led me to this former boss jen d’angelo who is literally a chapter in my book I see you because she is the case Study for selfless leadership.

So that was a really great question, Missy. I need to get, I need the chronological order better, but that’s, those are the dares.

[00:17:47] Missy: pretty amazing. And I like that you can look at your life and go, this, this led to this, and this led to this. And we talk about all the time that there’s no wasted opportunity. There’s, there’s no. Um, nothing you’ve done, even if it didn’t feel like the right thing, nothing is a waste because it all leads to the next thing somehow.

[00:18:05] Susanne: Yes. And now I’m pivoting a little bit but in your book and on your website and things, one of the topics you talk about is radical empathy. And so I just, I’d never heard that phrase before. I was really intrigued by it.

So what does, what does that mean and how do we weave that into our everyday lives?

[00:18:27] Erin: Okay, I’m so excited you asked this question because it’s, it is the topic of my book, right? But it’s also something that I am so inspired by in everyday life. So, to me, empathy isn’t just putting on a pair of your shoes. Like, for example, I love Nike Dunks. Maybe, Suzanne, you like Nike Dunks. It’s not putting on a pair of your Nike Dunks and walking around with them.

It’s putting on a pair of your Nike Dunks, walking around in them, getting the blister, telling you what that felt like from my experience, and then understanding you on a deeper level. And there’s an activity in the book, because I use improv at the end of every chapter to teach every lesson. And it’s called empathy.

So if y’all are open to it, I would love to share this activity with you because it’s super, super easy and you can do it anytime, anywhere. Would you, would you humor me in playing along? It’s not hard. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, um, all right, Missy, can you tell Suzanne, a challenge that you have currently going on in your life.

In just a moment, Suzanne, your objective is to listen intently and then repeat back in the first person as if you are Missy, what her challenge is. So keep it just like one or two sentences. And then Suzanne, you repeat it back those one or two sentences in the first person.

[00:19:58] Susanne: Okay.

[00:19:59] Erin: Okay. Missy, here we go.

[00:20:02] Missy: All right. So summer just started and I am really struggling with having everybody in the house while I’m trying to get work done because it is noisy and I feel like I am not a very good mom in these moments because I am cranky with everybody for making noise while they’re just having their summer.

[00:20:20] Erin: Good. Okay. Suzanne, repeat that back in the first person.

[00:20:25] Susanne: I am struggling being able to get things done during the summer while there’s a lot of activity going around me from various family members.

[00:20:36] Erin: Yes. Okay. So, Missy, let me ask you this. How did it feel to hear Suzanne repeat back your challenge?

[00:20:46] Missy: Uh, Transcribed It’s really validating actually. Like I, I know that she was just repeating me. Like, I understand we were doing an exercise, but like, Oh, I’m not alone.

[00:20:56] Erin: Yeah.

Yeah.

[00:20:58] Missy: me. You also can say you are struggling.

[00:21:01] Susanne: Yes.

And it

is also very true.

[00:21:04] Erin: Yeah,

[00:21:06] Missy: That might help.

[00:21:08] Erin: but Suze, what was it like repeating it back? Missy’s challenge in the first person?

[00:21:14] Susanne: Oh, well, because I like to overthink things. I just wanted to make sure I really captured the hardship that Missy’s going through accurately. But I also, like I said, I have an office that is right next to the kitchen, which I always joke, the dogs will walk through. Two times out of their way to come through my office to get from the living room to the kitchen instead of just going directly through.

And now I’ve got my daughter home from college, and I’ve got my son off of school, and my husband works from home, and he comes and gets lunch in the kitchen. So yes, I was feeling her on a very cellular level.

[00:21:49] Erin: Yes.

[00:21:50] Susanne: Because I want to, I love being surrounded by all my people and having them like within arm’s reach, but I also need to be able to prep for a client call.

So yes, I obviously I, I took this to a very deep level in that

[00:22:03] Erin: No, this

[00:22:04] Susanne: I,

[00:22:04] Erin: great. This is great. But that’s that was empathy like that. So anytime you have a challenge or let’s say your your child or your teammate or your client has the challenge. This exercise is so easy. You can just filter it through your own lens and saying it will filter their challenge through your own lens by saying it in the first person.

And it allows you to connect on a deeper level and understand something that you might not have understood before. Because a lot of times we hear things transactionally, and this allows us to think about the human being, not just the human doing.

[00:22:44] Missy: I love that. And that’s what I love about improv. And I’ve dabbled in it a tiny bit. I took a class and I really loved how much I was able to take the yes and concept into my life because it is helpful in parenting. It’s helpful in relationships. But I wonder, so we were not prepared for that exercise, but we were prepared to talk to you.

We knew what we were doing today. We were excited about it. We’re all in. But if you came to work and told me unexpectedly, Hey, we’re going to go into this workshop and you and your colleagues are going to do some improv based learning, I think I would sweat a little bit, even, even though I’m an advocate for it. What’s it like to face a room full of people who maybe not are all in on this? Like how do you win them over?

[00:23:29] Erin: Oh my gosh, such a good question. Okay, so we’ve been doing, and trust me, you’re not alone in that feeling. And this is why our pre work exists. So we want them to get to know us. Sometimes the people in the video aren’t the facilitators, but they at least get to know who we are. And then they also see from the survey that we care about their growth and we care about their challenges and their objectives.

Then we also love to have that laugh break ahead of time. Virtually. Laugh breaks are only virtual. And even if everybody is in the same office, we say, Hey, get on your own zoom. So everybody has their own little box and that way they can see we try to make sure the same facilitator for the laugh break is the same as it is for the workshop.

So they get to know us another level and we say we’re not going to do this exactly in your live session, but you get to see how improv works. And so they’ve got two warmups to it. And then by the time we get in the door, there probably are, I would say, 50 percent of the people have some trepidation. So we spend the first 20 minutes of every workshop, warming them up, creating a safe space, letting them know the chicken dance is something we do in every workshop, by the way.

So we chicken dance collectively, not one person, everyone is chicken dancing. And we crown an improv chicken champion at the End of every workshop because this person is the most enthusiastic and committed chicken dancer. Um, because every time we say the word improv, we chicken dance and that just sets the tone right there.

We’re going to break, break it down. We’re going to kind of go from a low risk activity to a high risk, but the first 20 minutes is always warming them up, creating the safe space, letting them feel the positive vibes, letting them know we have their back and letting them know that we have, they have each other’s back.

This isn’t just us facilitating. They’re actually more of the workshop than we are, because we’re just facilitating the energy, right? They’re doing it. And so it, it is transformational. I have had hundreds of thousands, maybe thousands at this point of workshops. There was one time that there was one person who was so uncomfortable.

I mean, she was so uncomfortable and she left and that’s okay. And that is real. That’s real. And that’s, and I realized in those moments too, this has nothing to do with what we’re teaching. There’s, there’s so much beyond that. So I, you know, went out, made sure she was okay, gave her a hug and she had to leave and go on.

That is a one time instance in 10 years. Everybody

[00:26:03] Missy: good record.

[00:26:04] Erin: Yeah. I mean, it just, it’s, and I’ve had so many clients who have trepidation. One of my clients one time was like, he was the head of this consulting firm and they had all 100 consultants in Chicago at the same time. He’s like, Aaron, I’m going to lose my job next week when you come in.

He was like this, and then at the end, he’s hugging me, everybody’s high fiving, everyone is in the best energy, and he was like, what, what do you need? I’ll give you a testimonial. Give, I’ll do any client, you know, referral you need. What do you need? So it, it, it does take that opportunity to break down walls for yourself.

in order to make it work, but we guide you through that.

[00:26:45] Susanne: I mean, you must see some incredible aha moments within these companies. And so I’m curious. What they’re bringing you in there for may not be the thing that you discover in the end as the thing that they really needed you for, but like, what are some of the main common threads that you’re seeing within company cultures that is causing people to think they need you and then also what you realize in the end, what they really needed you for.

[00:27:14] Erin: Totally. Well, I want to, I’m going to address that first part and then I want to talk about what you realize at the end because I have so many thoughts on that too. But what people usually reach out to us the most for? Interpersonal communication in a hybrid work environment. That is like the number one.

How do we communicate? So we have an effective communication workshop. How do I create culture in a hybrid work environment? Team building is a workshop we offer. We have a lot of sales teams, too, that we work with. So we offer things like networking and presentation skills. They want to improve their executive presence or their presentational presence.

We work with a lot of emerging leader groups, and so we have a leadership workshop. So how do we get this group of high potential leaders to see big picture is another big challenge. We also have. So we have companies that might have gone through a merger or an acquisition and people are hearing, well, this is the way we always do it and they’re resistant to change.

So we have a Taking Initiative and Creative Risks workshop. We work with a lot of intern groups and it’s those interns. Groups are really like a sell for the company. So they want to do something outside of the box to retain and attract the talent. So we have an intern workshop. Um, it we also have a vision setting workshop that’s really popular at the beginning and end of the year that helps teams get aligned and prioritize and cast goals in a different creative way.

So I could keep going, but those are, I would say the high level. And then the ah, okay, the aha moments at the end of a workshop are wild. So what is so cool is we always tell leaders, you have to be a part of this. You can observe, like, if you’re going to lead this, you can’t sit on the sidelines and just, you know, take notes.

That’s not how this works because people feel judged. So they have to be a part of it. And what happens Is that these participants, teammates start speaking up. They start saying things that you wouldn’t hear. And I’m not talking about bad things there. You’re, we use positive reinforcement as the end result, as the goal to drive every communication forward.

But what a leader hears in these two hours is more than they would hear in a one on one like it. Truly people are so guided and pushed to think good. Higher higher picture higher. They’re just pushed to a higher consciousness is how I like to say it They’re thinking with love versus fear. That’s the goal.

And so what? leaders walk away with with participating in a workshop with our teams is transformational information that can activate and cultivate and attract and retain talent and maintain or Enhance their culture. So You can have a CEO and an intern in the same room, and that CEO is going to walk away with more value than that intern because they’re listening actively to what the participants say.

[00:30:25] Missy: kind of got chills when you talked about it because how often in a work environment are you able to do something like that where everyone is together and you’re not feeling judged and you’re not feeling like, well, the boss is over here being the boss and now I’m doing the chicken dance, you know, like you’re doing the chicken dance with your boss and that has bound to open something up pretty amazing.

[00:30:49] Erin: Thank you. Yeah. And it, it, you know, okay, I’m going to call out my dad for a minute. My dad, love you, dad. My dad ran a business for a long time. It was a home repair business. And this was early days of improve it. And it was just me. And normally we have a lead facilitator and a co facilitator, but I just did this for my dad and his, um, his group of technicians.

My dad was on his phone. The entire time he was like talking to people whispering, and I had to go up to my dad and say, this isn’t working because you’re not doing the work. And he finally got involved and off his phone and in and people bought in then, but the leader has to buy in, it has to come from the top and the ones that don’t, it doesn’t work as well.

And we’ve had to kind of guide that conversation before a workshop happens to make sure leaders know, like you’re not just sitting on your phone. You are here. You’re doing it.

[00:31:54] Susanne: So important.

[00:31:56] Missy: So important. Yeah. We want to.

[00:31:59] Susanne: we only have a couple minutes left. So I want to make sure we talk a bit about your book,

[00:32:04] Missy: Yes. We’ve got to get

[00:32:05] Susanne: which we’ve kind of touched on with some of our topics. But I see you. It’s a leader’s guide to energizing your team, which sounds career specific. And I know we’ve been talking about a lot of in office stuff.

But we also have a lot of stay at home moms who listen to the podcast. And I do think that what are stay at home moms other than leaders of a home team? I mean, so, uh, so how can, or how would you recommend, you know, these stressed out stay at home moms use lessons from the book? In their day to day lives, even if they’re not technically managing an in office team, it’s their in home team.

[00:32:46] Erin: Oh, okay. This is the most full time job of all full time jobs. Okay. And I have so many friends who are stay at home moms. And we always talk, the grass is not greener on this side and their grass is not greener. We always go back and forth because there’s some days I want to burn it all down and be a stay at home mom.

Let me tell you

[00:33:07] Missy: Yeah.

[00:33:08] Erin: that. But I also love what I do. And I also know how hard it is. Um, you know, how hard it is to be a parent and how much energy that you are giving to these people who need, like, they don’t just want you, they, they need you. Yeah. And it can be the most energetically draining job to do this all day long with little to no breaks, praying for a naptime.

I mean, the days that I’m home full time with my son, I know how hard it is. And so. This book is actually written, and I preface this in the preface of the book, a leader is a leader of a home, a leader of an organization, a leader of a community, a leader of a team. And when you don’t give to the most important person in your life, you first, you’re doing a disservice not only to yourself, but to the people that, that need you, your family.

And I Talk about the very beginning of the book and the reason just to give you full picture why the book is written. I went through a really big self healing journey myself. I was going through a period of time I called the three P’s, which was I was pivoting my business. I was people pleasing, which is a lifelong pattern that I was trying to destroy but reared its ugly head.

And I was in pain and I wasn’t talking about like Out I stumped my toe pain. It was chronic pain in my back and my shoulders that I later found was because I had these unprocessed emotions from my years of infertility, the pandemic that took away my business, my new identity as a mother, my new identity as this Giver to this important life that I just conceived but also to my friends my family my team my clients And I didn’t know how to stop.

I just gave and gave and gave until there was nothing left and the very first part of the book is all about self love part one is called self love because You have to give to yourself in order to be The best version of yourself for everybody else and there’s all those cliches saying you can’t pour in others cups if your kettle is dry Put your own oxygen mask on first, but they’re so true and I was living breathing proof of this And so once I started to process all of these things My physical pain did go away in the very beginning of the book part one is giving you six chapters With tangible activities at the end of every one to help you give more to yourself understand what it is you want out of your life and Keep the candle flame high So you don’t burn out.

I call it having big wick energy. Okay. I said wick and

[00:36:06] Missy: I like that.

I’m stealing that.

[00:36:08] Erin: yes,

I better. That should be a book title. Big wick energy.

[00:36:13] Missy: And you need to trademark it right now. Like when you’re done

[00:36:16] Erin: Okay. Okay. That might be the next book. I don’t know. But, um, Yeah, that is. And so stay at home. Mom’s listening. I just want to give you the most love because you have such a full time job that never gets an off switch and you deserve to give to yourself.

It is not selfish to give to yourself. It’s actually a need. It’s a need. It’s a necessity. And so. I am just for, for your audience listening, just pouring this love into you. And I hope that today you listen and you give to yourself at some point today, whether it’s a walk, a 15 minute nap, or a journaling moment in your day.

There’s so many different ways to give to yourself, but you have to slow down and listen to even understand what that is and what you need. Yes. Yes. Yes.

[00:37:09] Missy: Right. And the fact that it can manifest itself in chronic physical pain. I think there’s a lot of people walking around carrying stuff like that and we do, we deserve to feel better.

Oh, amazing. Okay. Well, we could talk for hours because there’s still so much more I want to talk about, but I want to respect our time.

And so before we jump into look, listen, learns, tell our listeners the best place to find you and especially if they want to connect with you to hire you.

[00:37:38] Erin: Oh, that’s so sweet. Well, you could go. I think the best place is my website. It’s Erin Diehl. It’s D I E H L dot com. It’s Erin Diehl dot com. And the book links will be there. You’ll get links to my show, the Improve It podcast, and all my Instagram. I like to have a lot of fun on the grammy gram and that’s at it’s Erin Diehl.

So that’s where I hang out the most. So please come over and say hi and, um, just know to, I, anyone listening, I would love to, to make sure that they know where to get the book. And we also have a book club freebie that we’re giving away. If you want to start a book club, we have a checklist that they can go through on how to start your own book club for friends, family, but this is an awesome way to give to yourself by putting this timeline together.

Getting a book club together. It doesn’t have to be ICU, but any book, because that’s an awesome way to give to yourself and to allow yourself some time for you.

[00:38:39] Susanne: Oh, and what a great one to do a club with.

[00:38:42] Erin: Yeah.

[00:38:43] Missy: It would be a great one. And now’s like a nice time for people. Like maybe you have a little window of time in the summer, like start a book club.

[00:38:50] Erin: Yes. Yes.

[00:38:52] Susanne: Love it. Okay, so it is time for our look, listen, learn. This went too fast y’all. Oh,

[00:38:57] Missy: Way too fast.

[00:38:58] Erin: So fun.

[00:38:59] Susanne: But these are always a fun thing to wrap up the show with each week We share something that we have been either watching, reading, listening, or all the above And so that maybe if you’re looking at something to add into your own entertainment list for the summer, uh, you can pull from there.

And we do not like to put our guests in the hot seat. So Missy, you want to go first with your look, listen, learns?

[00:39:24] Missy: All right. I meant to bring a book in here. I did not. But I’ll. We’ll throw a picture of it in the show notes or the, the links will be there, but I just finished reading Harlan Coben’s newest. I love Harlan Coben, um, and his newest is a new one in his Myron Boletar series. And Myron is one of my favorite characters of all time.

Uh, so that was fun. I read it in like two sittings and just hung out with Myron and his crazy crew of people that he works with. Um, so the book was called Think Twice. I don’t think I said it. Um, So just finished reading that, and I am also listening to a book. My listen is Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez, who’s, this is my first of Abby’s books to listen to.

I’m not very far into it, but it is so delightful. So I highly recommend it. It’s a great summer read, um, or listen. I’m really enjoying listening to it. Um, And I already kind of talked about my learn. My learn is that I’m once again, learning how to do summer. I forget every year how to do summer and I’m always really excited, but then it catches me by surprise that it’s chaos here.

And there’s people in and out of the house who don’t live here. I woke up this morning and there was someone who doesn’t live here on my sofa and it’s. I am happy they’re here. I’m

[00:40:34] Susanne: hope someone knows who they are.

[00:40:37] Missy: yeah, several. I mean, I know them actually, but they don’t live here. And, um, you know, they’re just around.

And so my learn. Is that, um, it’s noise cancelling headphone season. I can put those on. I can still hear enough. If there’s an emergency, I can hear it. But I can actually focus because I have the same office situation you do, Suzanne. It’s near the kitchen. It is a pass through and no one thinks twice about passing through and talking to me.

No matter what it looks like I’m doing, I can look very busy and very serious. And I’m like, what’s for dinner or, you know, or can you wash this? It’s dirty. You wash it. You fix dinner. Like I

[00:41:20] Susanne: same life. No wonder I empathize so much for your repeat

[00:41:25] Missy: made it very easy for you.

[00:41:27] Susanne: Oh my

[00:41:27] Missy: yeah, I highly recommend the noise canceling headphones.

[00:41:29] Susanne: I need to get this. I’ve

[00:41:31] Missy: those are an outward symbol that like, Hey, she might be working, like, They don’t really care. They will still stand in front of me and be like, Hey, but it stops them a little bit.

[00:41:40] Susanne: They just yell louder.

[00:41:42] Missy: Yeah. Yeah. Like, I can’t hear you.

I can’t hear you.

[00:41:44] Susanne: I’ve got the ones that are like supposed to be for jackhammering, and they still don’t work. But they, I need to get some that are

[00:41:52] Missy: Yeah. I get like the, you know, the bows or whatever.

[00:41:55] Susanne: But if nothing else, they are that outward symbol of just like, I’m trying to have it quiet even if these aren’t cutting it. This is

[00:42:03] Missy: think they think I’m just listening to music or something. I’m like, I’m working.

[00:42:08] Susanne: should just mark them up with, like,

[00:42:12] Missy: Flags that say like, I am busy.

[00:42:15] Susanne: Oh my goodness. And then I really don’t know how to let the dogs know, but that’ll be phase two. Phase two. Oh, what about

[00:42:24] Missy: to. What about you, Aaron?

[00:42:26] Erin: Oh, I love this so much. My cheeks are like really raw right now. Cause I was just smiling so hard. You definitely need to get those headphones and I need, we need to make signs. Okay. There needs to be signs. Okay. I love this because, okay. What I’m reading first, right? What I’m reading. Look, look, is

[00:42:41] Susanne: what, it could be, if you’re

[00:42:43] Missy: it can be

[00:42:43] Susanne: at a piece of art on the wall, it could be whatever you’re looking at.

[00:42:46] Erin: Well, I just, this is timely. I just finished an amazing book called Change Your Schedule, Change Your Life, and the subtitle is How to Harness the Power of Clock Genes to Lose Weight, Optimize Your Workout, and Finally Get a Good Night’s Sleep. And I think we were talking about this earlier, about the perimenopause.

It’s real. Um, and I, I have read this book, and I’m trying this new schedule. And. It’s actually been working. I’m on day two. So I’ll report back after after 60 days, but I just finished it. So that’s awesome Listen, I also listen to audible. I love listening to books and I finished Jamie Kern Lima’s book worthy

[00:43:27] Susanne: Hmm.

[00:43:28] Erin: Okay, it is a long one.

It’s about it’s about a night listen not gonna lie However, I have I have sent physical copies of this book to so many girlfriends It is a book for women about worthiness, and she says that 80 percent of the women in today’s world do not feel worthy, and she sort of changed that. By the way, she is donating every proceed of the book to charity.

So,

[00:43:53] Missy: Well, I’m going to buy a copy for myself and everyone I know.

[00:43:56] Susanne: That’s amazing. I just wrote it down.

[00:43:59] Erin: So good. And what am I learning? This one is a little tough, but I, I’m actually taking a digital course right now. Um, I’m all about women supporting women. And my dear friend, Judy Holler is a keynote speaker as I am too. And she created this digital course called speaker school that I’ve been taking.

And she’s, Even though I’m a seasoned keynote speaker, I’m learning some new things. I’m making some adjustments. It’s so great. And Judy’s energy is so good. So I would highly recommend that for anybody who’s listening who might think about public speaking or dabbling into that. But I love digital courses.

I’m kind of like, that might be my toxic trait. I’m always taking a digital course.

[00:44:44] Missy: I love them too. I love them. I don’t necessarily always do the thing that I learn. Like I might learn it and then move on, but I like to learn new things.

[00:44:51] Susanne: It, it went somewhere into your brain and I think it impacts you even if you don’t think it does.

So

yeah,

[00:44:57] Missy: Like eventually it might come to fruition somehow.

[00:45:01] Susanne: love

it.

Okay. I wrote all those down.

[00:45:04] Missy: Yes. Yeah. I want to share that course with everybody.

[00:45:07] Susanne: Yes.

[00:45:08] Missy: All right. Well, what about you, Suzanne?

[00:45:10] Susanne: Okay. My look, I’m going to have to send you a really funny picture because my look is I am obsessively looking at my bird feeder. I’m like, I’ve gone full.

[00:45:24] Missy: age,

[00:45:24] Susanne: Yes, we are bird feeder age, and I just saw a funny meme about that too, but was I, when I was looking up, because in addition to my bird feeders, now I want to get a bird bath, which is a whole thing in Texas, because it can dry up in about two seconds, because it’s so hot, and also can become a big deal.

mosquito breeding ground. So now I’m looking at mosquito proof birdbath fountains and the whole thing. But one of the images on Amazon, I mean, it was just, It’s, I guess, AI created, I don’t know, it’s just a bunch of random like parrots and robins and whatever. And she’s just like, ah, looks like maybe she might be going to like catch one of the parrots.

I don’t know. But it brings me so much joy, this silly picture. So I’m going to have to share that with you makes me giggle all the time. But yes, I’m looking at my bird feeders, and I’m just so pleased that there are actually birds at them. And let’s see, I am listening to a new song. station, you know, how your Apple music and stuff can create stations based on a song.

Uh, when we were coming home from our bat tour, another fun thing to do in the Austin area, uh, during the summer, my brother and his wife and their two daughters were in town this weekend. And so my little niece was like, we need to Just like my daughter took my phone is like, you know, searching up her own music to play on the ride home.

And it is a song called Treehouse by Alex G, which I’d never heard of. And, but I just went ahead and built a station on it. And then when we got home, we put it on the Sonos. We did a station with it too. And my daughter came down for breakfast the next day. I was like, why are we listening to good music now?

So, apparently, my music before was not good, and, uh, this one is good if you have some multi age. I mean, so we’re talking like from the tweens to the teens and above into college age, seems to be. And I really enjoyed it, too. So, Good People Pleaser Treehouse by Alex G. basis station on it and you get some good stuff.

And what am I learning? Oh, I’ve learned, I mentioned that we were driving home from the bat tour. Um, so you get on the boat when it’s 100 degrees and then you sit on the boat and you just kind of putter around Lady Bird Lake until the bats are supposedly supposed to come out. And I’ve been there before when the bats do come out, lots and lots of them.

Um, apparently it is not in May that they do that because we sat there and sat there and you know you’d see a few come out and they’re like oh those are the scout bats. I think it might have been too windy.

[00:48:08] Missy: Oh, maybe.

[00:48:09] Susanne: They said that

[00:48:10] Missy: The weekend was really windy.

[00:48:12] Susanne: once they get started it’s like a nine hour or something non stop. Stop loop of flying.

So like they need to make it worth their while to actually go out. And so, and I also learned from this tour that in August is when they have babies. All the bats in the Congress Bridge are pregnant, pregnant ladies. They go to Mexico

[00:48:35] Missy: they don’t want to go and fly because it’s hot and they’re pregnant. They’re miserable.

[00:48:40] Susanne: it. Oh my God. Okay.

I learned so much. And I, my son gave me a great demo of this with some Wendy’s chicken nuggets yesterday because I also learned that the bats are the size, they’re the Mexican something,

[00:48:54] Missy: Mexican free tail.

[00:48:55] Susanne: Thank you, free tail bats. Um, they’re the size of a chicken nugget. Their bodies are, but their babies that come out are one third the size of a chicken nugget.

[00:49:05] Missy: One third of their body is

[00:49:06] Susanne: One third of their body comes out and then they’re, They are umbilical tied for the next month, while the baby nurses I know!

[00:49:18] Erin: This is what, this is bad news.

[00:49:20] Susanne: I know. This is I learned a lot.

[00:49:22] Missy: This is Batty.

[00:49:23] Susanne: This is Patty. I learned a lot. And the reason I learned a lot, and we did not see a lot, and we had two very disappointed nieces, um, but our tour guide, uh, it was Christy Vera.

In front of the Lone Star Bat Cruises, and I don’t know if y’all watch Parks and Rec, but she’s officially the April Ludgate of tour guides,

[00:49:45] Erin: yes. Yes.

[00:49:46] Susanne: was epic. I don’t know if it was an act or if this is her, but it was worth every penny, even if we never saw a bat. She’d just be like, So you guys in the hotel lounges?

Like, hotel has a good one. And she’s

[00:50:06] Erin: Oh

[00:50:07] Susanne: just, oh my god. She looked like her. She talked like her.

[00:50:11] Missy: Oh, I want to book her.

[00:50:12] Susanne: And she is a comedian too, I guess, and model. And she’s, uh, Got like, we looked her up on Instagram with us. That’s when, you know, you got a good tour guide when you come home and you look them up on Instagram and find their life story.

Um, I don’t know how you guarantee that you are on a Christy Vera boat, but look up her Instagram and then look for her and then get on her boat. Um, but oh my God, she just made it priceless and obviously conveyed a lot of amazing information about bats, even though we did not see hardly any. But

[00:50:43] Missy: Aww.

[00:50:44] Susanne: worth the tour, even if you don’t see them.

[00:50:47] Missy: Yeah. Well, now you know where to look for them. Like, I see them all the time now because you’re kind of aware. Like, we did a bat unit in the first grade with my now sophomore, but I still remember a lot of that and I know where to look for them and

[00:50:59] Susanne: Yeah. And you can hear them. You could hear them and you could smell them. You just, they didn’t want to come out. It’s too windy. I said, I’m

[00:51:06] Missy: Don’t

[00:51:06] Susanne: with you, mama. Don’t come out here. It’s windy. Exactly. All right. Well, that is all our Look, Listen, Learns. And oh my gosh.

[00:51:15] Missy: so good. Thank you, Erin.

[00:51:18] Erin: Thank you both. This was so fun. I love your energy. I feel honored to be here. Thank you for having me. This was so fun.

[00:51:26] Susanne: Thank you. I, I needed this today.

[00:51:30] Missy: when it, when it’s going to be out. I don’t know our schedule, but we’ll let you know when it’s going to be out. We can’t wait to share this with the world.

[00:51:36] Susanne: Yes. Oh,

[00:51:39] Erin: Everyone should leave you a five star review right now. I’m going to do it right

[00:51:42] Susanne: you know, we’re

[00:51:43] Missy: Erin’s lips to the reviewers ears.

[00:51:45] Susanne: Exactly. I mean, it’s the easiest thing to do and we forget to do it for some of our favorite podcasters, too.

[00:51:52] Erin: Right?

[00:51:53] Susanne: you’ve inspired me to go do a couple for some of my faves,

[00:51:56] Missy: Yeah. Every once in a while I have like a review afternoon where I sit and I send out some reviews cause it is easy to share and puts out some good juju in the

[00:52:05] Susanne: we’ll do a little review for the book, too.

[00:52:08] Erin: Thank you. Y’all are the best. Thank you. This was so fun.

[00:52:12] Susanne: well, thank you. And everybody, I mean, talk about look, listen, learn. We got some serious learns from you today, so I really, really appreciate your time. This is fantastic. All right.

[00:52:23] Missy: afternoon.

[00:52:24] Susanne: Have a great one, everybody. Bye bye.

Thank you so much for joining us for the mom and dot, dot, dot podcast. We hope you enjoyed today’s show. And if you know someone else who could benefit from the episode, please be sure and share it with them. And while we’re begging, please subscribe and rate us wherever it is you listen to podcasts. You can find links to all the things we discussed today in our show notes or over at our website, momandpodcast.

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