Maybe It's Me

Anita Brick:

Hi, this is Anita Brick and welcome to Career Cast at Chicago Booth to help you advance in your career Today we're delighted. Well, I would say more than delighted to be speaking with Erika Alessandrini. Erika wrote an amazing book called, maybe It's Me, which we're going to talk about today. I will tell you, Erika, it kind of pulled my chain a little bit. I learned and experienced the book as I was reading it. She is a coach, facilitator, and author with more than 23 years in executive leadership and more than 10,000 hours of coaching. She's on a mission to make peace and satisfaction possible without sacrificing results after burning out in corporate life and nearly losing what mattered most. Erika walked away to build a new kind of success, one rooted in clarity, comparison and conscious choices, node for blending candor with compassion. She's both a truth teller and an ally. The kind of guide who will challenge you and champion you in equal measure beyond her professional life. She's a wife, mother, grandmother, daughter, sister and friend. Her family is her motivation and her faith is her fuel. Erika, thank you so much. I really appreciate your making time for us today. I had a lot going on, especially with all the different roles you play in your family and in your faith and beyond, so thank you for making time today,

Erika Alessandrini:

Anita. Thank you. I appreciate being here.

Anita Brick:

Alright, an alum for Boost said, I struggle with not saying yes to everything, every opportunity I'm given, this leads to resentment and burnout. Yet with my education, promotions and rewards saying no makes me feel like I'm being weak. How do you teach others to view No as a strength?

Erika Alessandrini:

Oh, to your alum. I can say that I feel you and you are not alone, but I would also say the inability to say no is almost always a belief problem, not a time management problem. The belief is usually one of two things. I'm responsible for making everything work or I am only as valuable as what I contribute. Both are self-sabotaging beliefs dressed up to look like work ethic. The reframe is this, every yes is a no to something else. You're always choosing. The question is whether you're choosing consciously or letting the pressure choose for you. When you say yes from fear of disappointing someone or fear of missing out or any of those fear ofs, you're not saying yes to the opportunity. You're actually saying no to your own judgment. So saying no from a place of clarity and clean values is not weakness. It's being precise and precision is what separates high performers from high producers. High producers do a lot. High performers do what matters.

Anita Brick:

Yeah, I think that's easy to say at times, but going from high production to really quality production I think is an art and a science. Okay, here's an MBA student and this one I can definitely relate to. If I make even a tiny mistake, my heart feels crushed with negativity. I know I am talented, well-educated and accomplished. I know all this in my head. How does a person resolve the crush of emotions from a misstep?

Erika Alessandrini:

Yeah, so what you're describing here is what we often call the inner critic, and it's important to distinguish it as different from the five self-sabotaging beliefs In the book. You see, the inner critic lives in self-doubt and the fear of being exposed, it takes a mistake and it amplifies it into evidence of unworthiness. That's its job. It's really good at its job. This person's you're talented in your head, but your heart hasn't caught up yet or gotten on board yet the belief is available to you intellectually and it has not yet become accessible. Under pressure is what it sounds like to me. A mistake is simply information. It tells you something about the gap between your intention and your impact to your result. What your response to the mistake reveals is your relationship with your own standards. Perfectionism is not representative of high standards. It's the belief that your worth is contingent on lawless performance.

Those aren't the same thing. Question one of my seven conscious questions is this, what am I feeling and what is that emotion signaling? Most high achievers skip it entirely staying in the feeling long enough to name it accurately without immediately trying to correct it or suppress it is where the work begins in. Question two, what is true for me? What is actually true here? Not what fear is saying is true because what is actually factually real about the mistake and what it means again are not the same thing. So perfectionism is not high standards. It's the belief that your worth is contingent on flawless performance.

Anita Brick:

I know and that is a very slippery slope because I don't know about you, but I can't be flawless. I can be pretty good, I mean better than pretty good, but flawless. I can't be, and it does set up a dynamic of fear and taking fewer risks.

Erika Alessandrini:

The source of most real fear is fear of failure, perfectionist tendencies. Most of us wouldn't say we want to perform flawlessly, but at the heart of it, that's what we're trying to do.

Anita Brick:

It's true. A lot of the things in the book talk about where the locus of change is, which is inside, and I think that this is a very honest person who puts the locus of change externally and wants some help with it and she said, I know I need to change. I get that, but in a moment of serious challenge, I look to find or at least share the fault with others or blame my circumstances. How did you break that habit and help others do the same?

Erika Alessandrini:

It was not an easy thing to do. I will just start there. This was not an easy thing to do and it's not easy for any of us who really take a lot of pride in our work ethic, in being responsible, in having high concern for others. So it's not easy to do first of all to this person I would say great job owning your part. As I hear you saying, I know I need to change, but hear me out, blame is a strategy for managing discomfort, not a strategy for managing outcome. Under pressure, the brain looks for relief, blame provides temporary relief because it moves the discomfort outward, but in doing so, it also moves the power outward. When you share the fault, you also share the solution and that means you're waiting for someone else before you can act. When I talk about 100% personal responsibility, that removes the waiting.

It doesn't erase anyone else's contribution to a situation or their responsibility for the solution. It simply puts you back in the driver's seat. You decide what you're going to do regardless of what they decide and the practice in the moment is this. When you feel the impulse to locate the fault outside of yourself, pause and ask one question, what is mine here? Not all of it just mine. What is the one thing I could have done differently? That question doesn't require you to absorb what belongs to others. Question four in my book would be super helpful here because it guides you towards where you have a role, but that means it also guides you to your power. So question four is what is the whole truth? Even if it's inconvenient, and I will say this, I see all five of the self-sabotaging beliefs in my own life. Still do not in the past, but in the present very much. This work is not about being perfect, it is about being willing to look inward, continuously. You are already doing that based on your questions, so I just want to congratulate you on that first big step.

Anita Brick:

The same kinds of behaviors mindset often exist and continue to exist even when we're aware of them and sometimes they just come in at a deeper level, but they persist. There's an alum who is a founder of a company. I like this question a lot, and he said, I've done things in my career and my life. Others see as courageous, innovative, and bold. Yet in my heart I focus on the decisions that I postpone out of fear, potential ridicule or rejection. What advice do you have for a startup founder who has a history of success and the achilles heel of foreboding defeat?

Erika Alessandrini:

Well, first I would say welcome to the human experience, especially founder, right?

Anita Brick:

You're right.

Erika Alessandrini:

What you're describing is not a weakness and it's not a contradiction, it's just how fear works. Fear exists to keep us safe and the situation that activates it most powerfully are consistent across every person I've ever coached. Fear of failure and specifically the perceived judgment of others, uncertainty about the outcome and high stakes. If nothing was on the line, you'd have nothing to lose If the outcome were certain you'd have nothing to lose. If all three of those are present in your situation, fear is the entirely normal response. The question isn't how to eliminate it though. The question is what you do in the face of fear, learning to work with the fear. So the answer for leaders is to lean into your compass, your personal compass in the seven conscious questions. Number five is the one that matters most in this particular moment, and that question asks, what do I want for myself and why is that important to me? In other words, what are your guiding principles and governing values? When you are clear on those things, fear loses its grip, it loses its ability to make decisions for you. It's present, but it's no longer in the driver's seat. Every situation where you feel frozen or you're not taking the action you know need to take the answer is somewhere in those seven questions. Foreboding defeats specifically, it's living in question five, so get clear on what matters and let that clarity be louder than the fear.

Anita Brick:

How do you do that in principle? Because sometimes the fear can be debilitating, immobilizing, I mean it sounds pretty easy the way you describe it, and I know it's, I know it hasn't been for you either, but how do you go from a question that makes perfect sense logically when sometimes it is our subconscious that is driving illogical behavior?

Erika Alessandrini:

Oh, sure. I think a lot of us ask questions, but they sound something like, what if someone's watching? What if they ridicule me? What if I'm rejected? Right? The combination of question two and three, what is true for me? What is true for others, what might be true for others, and what is the truth? Is the way to help break down the story into something more manageable. Because when we ask the question, what if we generally don't stay in that curious state long enough to chase the answer, so we need to understand what if so that we can take that story and break it apart. What if, let's go there. Let's go worst case scenario for a moment and see where it takes us because chances are there may be a little bit of truth, there may be something in there in the worst case that is helpful, but those three questions, questions two, three, and four together are a real powerhouse for breaking down those stories that are very powerful in our mind, but when we get them up and out and on paper or verbalize them and use those questions, they can unravel pretty quickly.

Anita Brick:

Okay, so let's differentiate because I think people have different definitions Of the three things that you mentioned, what's true for me, what's true for you and what's the truth? That last one trips me up a bit. Can you define them for us and maybe give us a teeny tiny example of each?

Erika Alessandrini:

Oh, certainly. I love the question by the way. So when we talk about what is true for ourselves, it's really the story we're telling. So we don't take in reality as it's none of us take in a literal readout of reality. We take in our interpretation of reality. There's what happens and then what we make that mean to us, our subconscious, our unconscious is what tells us how to make sense of reality. We all have a different set of mental models informing those things, so not the truth, not factual, not reality, a version, our own version of it, and while it's not factual, it's very important. So what you think, what you believe, how you see things, how you feel about things, very important but not facts, but how we see the world is one piece and it sits here next to it. The purpose of question three is to expand our perspective and try to see the situation from another perspective, maybe another person's perspective, maybe even go so far as to find someone who might disagree with you and see how they see the world. The idea is not to change your mind or be persuaded so much as just to see a bigger picture initially before forming a conclusion and making up your mind what might be true for others helps us see beyond our own self, our own story and look into the viewpoints of others. Now we have a fuller picture. Neither of those things are necessarily the fact, right?

Anita Brick:

So

Erika Alessandrini:

Now we have those sitting side by side and the piece that we need to fold in is what is actually the truth of the situation? What would a video camera record? What is undeniably factual, objectively neutrally true, widespread agreement does not make something a fact, even if we all agreed, it doesn't make something a fact. So when we can look at the facts next to perspectives, now we have the fuller picture and we can ground ourself in all of the pieces that help us move forward and make a more conscious choice.

Anita Brick:

I have a little tiny follow on question. Facts are kind of tricky these days. What is a fact versus what is my perception? Not to get too deep here, but I can even look at numbers and depending on what numbers I use to draw a conclusion, I worry about truth. When someone says, well, this is the truth, these are the facts, I feel like that is up for interpretation. How do we resolve that? Yeah,

Erika Alessandrini:

I would respectfully disagree with all the people who say that I don't believe in my truth and your truth. There's only one truth. There's my story, my interpretation, my assumptions, my view of the world and their sures. The facts don't lie. They don't tell a different story. There's one version. That's the hardest thing I ask people to do, Anita, is when they're struggling, and I ask these questions sometimes when I have them give me all of their thoughts about their challenge, they won't give me one fact.

Anita Brick:

Okay,

Erika Alessandrini:

We've got to do some digging. Let me give you an example just out of real coaching work. Yeah,

Anita Brick:

Please. This

Erika Alessandrini:

Is one I use a lot in my classes, but I had someone come to me and the challenge was my husband doesn't communicate. That just felt very true for this person. My husband doesn't communicate and okay, well that's your thought about your husband. What are the facts? She said, oh, really? Ask this person, and I'm like, we get so attached to our story that it makes it really hard to see the facts, and sometimes there's very little there. Her situation, it's like, okay, let's workshop this a little bit. How about my husband and I communicate differently?

Anita Brick:

Seems like a good start,

Erika Alessandrini:

But Erika, when you say it that way, it doesn't sound so bad. And to the point of facts, they're neutral in nature. Even though they don't feel neutral, they are neutral. They don't inherently have any meaning. They're objective, they're factual. So we may not have very much to go on wound up around the axle with what we're making something mean that we just can't see the facts, but they're there and they're not up for interpretation.

Anita Brick:

Well, and it's interesting. I think that perhaps truth, the facts get blurred and actually get morphed into my truth. Your truth, just like the example that you gave her husband couldn't communicate to her. That was a fact. It sounds like sometimes it's really important to get a third party not invested in your truth, my truth, but can help us find the bridge, which is very difficult because in today's world you see it in the workplace and certainly in other places. It sounds like it's a bit of a cautionary tale. Absolutely disagree if you do to make sure that the facts are not your story, that they are truly facts,

Erika Alessandrini:

They're truly facts, and there may be very few pieces of factual data and that's okay. I had someone come to a story about a mother-in-law, a narcissist, right, or something along those lines. The only facts we could find, I'm like, how about just you have a mother-in-law, you've got a mother-in-law, like, okay, let's give her a name. Let's start just there and we'll build from that. The other thing people do, which is where they get when I say this is some of the hardest work I'll ask you to do, I'm not kidding to find the facts where we get really tripped up when we're talking about our own true. What's true for us is we tend to use projections and assigned motive and things like that. I use an example, someone who's late for a meeting, we've all been there, somebody's continually late for a meeting. Now, if I say what's true for me is if you're the person late, if I say, Anita doesn't respect my time, Anita is disrespectful, right? If I start saying things like that, that's not true for me. That's me projecting

Anita Brick:

Onto

Erika Alessandrini:

Anita. Well, what's true for me? Sometimes we have to workshop that as well. We want to eliminate those things and get to what is true. So what's true for me is maybe timeliness is important to me. Maybe I feel disrespected. That's different than saying you are disrespectful and you disrespect me.

Anita Brick:

It's very true. That's a great example. But we do project, this is a really interesting situation. So this person said, he said, you talk about something I have struggled with my whole life. How do you advise someone to bring their best to a person? They are negatively judging and doing so without expecting anything in return. I was told my job was safe and I was actually up for a promotion. Not only did I not get the promotion, I was laid off as part of a restructuring. I feel like bringing my best to anyone who is connected to that company at all, even if I happen to run into them, is a waste of my time and energy and they don't deserve it. I appreciate your help with this.

Erika Alessandrini:

Such a good example. So first, what happened to you is genuinely unfair by most standards. Being told you're safe and then being let go is just a real betrayal of trust. That said, I want to offer something that I hope plans with the spirit. It's intended personal values are just words until they're tested. That moment was a test. The true measure of your character is not how you show up when things are going well, when people do what they said they're going to do and honor their commitments. It's how you show up when you have every reason not to. In the book I talk about giving your best unconditionally,

Cutting the strengths, giving without being attached to an outcome, without attaching something in return to your giving because the moment you make the quality of your contribution contingent on whether it's recognized, rewarded or reciprocated, you have made your integrity a transaction and integrity that is only available under favorable conditions is not integrity, it's performance. Other people's perceived worthiness does not determine your character. The people who walk away from hard situations with their standards in impact are the ones who will never let someone else's behavior decide who they are. You get to decide that, and right now that decision is the most important one available to you. I do have some thoughts around compassionate curiosity that we talk about in the book.

Anita Brick:

When you say that again, it sounds really good. I know how difficult that can actually be, so maybe part of the path, let's talk about it. I'm all about curiosity. Compassionate curiosity is a little bit different and maybe we talk a little bit about that because I don't think that you can tell someone, well, your integrity is transactional because now comes the projections. I made a decision, we go from there, which is human, right, great human to shifting a little tiny bit. How does compassionate curiosity help us shift from that was unfair. You didn't do what you said you were going to do and now look at what happened. How do you use that to move things in the direction of being able to see the other person's point of view and it's not personal, but to stop projecting at least slow it down.

Erika Alessandrini:

Yeah, so good. My own brother was in this exact situation about a year ago. Same thing happened, put an offer in on a home. He had his home for sale, his wife, my sister-in-law quit her job. So I feel this one, this one was up close and personal not that long ago. This is compassionate curiosity in its most difficult application extended towards someone you have a strong negative reaction to and most of us will face this dilemma at some point. I think the starting point is recognizing that judgment, your judgment of others is more of a signal than a conclusion. When you judge someone strongly, there's almost always a belief underneath the judgment about what people should do, how they should behave, what they owe you or others. That belief is worth examining before you decide what to do with a relationship. In some situations, the relationship is important and may want to be preserved and other situations maybe it doesn't.

Then the question becomes, do you want to keep your integrity intact? Whatever it is that you're trying to preserve, you get to decide that. There's almost always something we don't know in a situation. The person who made the promise, we don't know their motivation. We don't know what they were told just so much Anita that we don't know, and honestly, if the decision's already been made, maybe we can get some, express some empathy and try to understand it if it helps us. But the better use of our time and energy is figuring out what to do next.

Anita Brick:

How does the compassionate curiosity come in here? Sorry to interrupt, but how does it come in here?

Erika Alessandrini:

I would say might need to go out to question number five, which is what do I want? Why is that important to me before you circle back here? So compassionate curiosity might help you release some judgment of others and that's for your benefit, not theirs.

Anita Brick:

Okay, tell me how,

Erika Alessandrini:

Because there's bound to be an undercurrent of resentment building

Anita Brick:

His question. He said resentment was proliferating there.

Erika Alessandrini:

What that does is it helps us drop some of the blame so we can keep the judgment right. No one is judging the judgment, but it's that blame that needing to put the blame on someone else even though it is not your fault either. I think it's dropping the need to blame entirely and move more into the questions that help us get grounded in reality and compassionate curiosity is going to help us expand that lens. Not to excuse behavior, not to pretend that the impact on you wasn't real, but to widen that lens enough to see a full picture so that you can respond from that place because your next move is important and any of your attention and focus that is over here focused on trying to change the unchangeable is taking you away from putting 100% of your effort into your next move.

Anita Brick:

Okay, so the curiosity, is it asking a series of questions with a level of self-care maybe first and maybe it will go beyond you? Is that what that is? I'm trying to understand.

Erika Alessandrini:

So compassionate curiosity doesn't know it discovers. So what it's asking us to do is pause before we draw a conclusion. We ask the question what might be true for others right now that I don't know, what might they be carrying? What version of their inner world would make their behavior understandable? Even if I don't agree with it, I find that everything that other people say and do makes perfect sense to them and here the bridge to anything productive goes through forgiveness, if you will. It requires some compassion. I don't know if you're a Brene Brown fan, but she says that compassion is not a virtue, it's a commitment, and I love that because it removes the idea that you either have it or that you don't. It's a practice. So again, not about excusing behavior or abandoning your own needs, it's just about opening up that lens before you respond. It's helping us relax the strong judgment that we're holding of others

Anita Brick:

And it sounds like if we don't do that, we put ourselves in a weaker and weaker state and when we open the lens, we are gaining strength.

Erika Alessandrini:

Oh, for sure. Because when you are focused on the situation being different, which isn't possible, we're fantasizing about a reality that doesn't exist, the decision was made and there's things we don't know, we cannot change that. What we can do is focus again on our next move, understanding the situation better, relaxing the judgment so we can move on in peace

Anita Brick:

And that will strengthen us and give us

Erika Alessandrini:

More

Anita Brick:

Energy and more like at a higher likelihood that when we do have that next interview, the negativity and resentment will not seep in and destroy the possibility of getting an offer.

Erika Alessandrini:

Yes, because that negativity you are going to bring it through every door you walk through.

Anita Brick:

A hundred percent, a hundred percent. I totally agree. Do you have time for a couple more questions?

Erika Alessandrini:

I do.

Anita Brick:

What have you

Erika Alessandrini:

Got for me?

Anita Brick:

So here's a question and it's from an MBA student and she said, can you please share how you help people build self-agency when the world is divisive, uncertain, and change is happening so fast,

Erika Alessandrini:

The pace of change is very real and the world is very divisive. The way that we use these tools and do that in our work, the main thing I would tell this person is your superpower is pausing and not giving up your power to anything outside of you. And that sounds very coachy and like something you would read on a poster. You're

Anita Brick:

Kind of right, but it's true too, Erika.

Erika Alessandrini:

It is so true. When we don't own at least our piece of something, we have no power to change the future. So if you want to be powerful in your life, in your leadership, in your business, in your family, anywhere you want to be powerful, you must find how you are at least part of the problem by ignoring it. It could be a small piece. I say this and I can't say it enough, until you are part of the problem, you can see that clearly you have no power to change the world. That gives you your bridge to affecting change. Otherwise, you live at the mercy of your circumstances. You let life happen to you, and I want people to stay in their most powerful position and that might mean owning some uncomfortable truth about how you are contributing to the very things you are judging and wishing were different. There is no shortage of imperfect circumstances in the world, many of which we don't have a lot of power over, but I would beg you to take the little bit of power you have and resist the urge to give it away.

Anita Brick:

I like that. It's very easy though because blaming and even resentment in the moment people feel vindicated, but just for an instant and then it just goes downward. I like what you said, it's very important to own the things you can change. There are usually some things that are under our control, including our mindset and what we say and so on. At the same token, if there is something that we can change within ourselves, it usually is the beginning of dominoes kind of falling. We see the first one, I'm like, oh wait, here's another piece here, and it creates this growing cumulative power within ourselves and I think it's not just within ourselves because others can see it too, and it can really increase our credibility too.

Erika Alessandrini:

100%. There's a saying that energy attracts energy and we change the world by changing ourselves. So when you start with one small thing effectively, you are starting to retrain your brain about what's possible in your life in the world, and one win right now kind of goes up into that subconscious filing cabinet that we talked about that starts painting a different picture and then that second win starts to form a fuller picture, right? Our belief system, which is what this is all about. If you can see the book in one sentence, if you can see make your thought patterns and beliefs visible and understand how they're undermining you and how they're supporting you, that's where your power lives. So as we start to retrain our mind to think and believe differently, we create different outcomes

Anita Brick:

And

Erika Alessandrini:

When we change, we change the world.

Anita Brick:

A hundred percent think it starts by updating exactly the way you said. Okay, so here's some counter examples that actually show how I am able to do this, how I am able to motivate myself and others and find the one piece that is working and use that as a foundation. I thank you very much for our time and we like to end on a very practical actionable note. What are three things that someone can start doing right now to be able to take back more of their power, to really be able to start internally and create better outcomes?

Erika Alessandrini:

Yes. Okay. The three things I would tell anyone who wants to increase their success and wellbeing by working from the inside out is this. First, understand the pressure, fear, control cost cycle and learn to recognize it in your own life. Pressure is not the enemy, it's the trigger. So when pressure arises, fear enters quietly, not panic, not anxiety, but it's disguised, all dressed up to look like responsibility and caring and fear leads to control because control is what we believe will give us the security we're craving in the moment, and that control comes at a cost. Learning to see the cycle as it's happening before you're deep inside of it is the single most powerful thing a leader can do. That's one. Second, calculate the cost honestly, not just the downstream cost to the business or some other result, although that's real, but the full cost.

What is this pattern costing you in the relationships that matter most? What is it costing the people depending on you to lead? Well? What is it costing the version of yourself you set out to be? When the cost becomes visible and personal, the motivation to interrupt the cycle shifts from an intellectual one to one with more urgency. And third, understand that you do not have to believe everything you think challenging your inner world and separating what feels true from what is real are both important and they must be seen separately. Fear distorts what feels true. We talked about that. It makes the threat feel bigger, the stakes feel higher and the control even more necessary than it actually is. When you can see that the story fear is running is not the same as what's real, you can create the space to choose differently and that space is where conscious choices live.

Anita Brick:

I love it. Erika, this is not for the faint of heart. I sort of experienced a bunch of things ultimately positive, initially reactivating reading the book, and I thank you for that because it helped me grow another step. Oh, maybe multiple steps. Yeah. Well, I thank you for writing it. I thank you for sharing your time today. There's so much that we can gain if we are willing to notice what is just a reaction and to take some of the steps that you shared with us today. Changing internally will absolutely change the people around us ourselves and have more opportunities, and I would say a happier life too. So thank you for doing that. Book is a challenge, but it's a challenge worth taking and maybe it's me, I could tell it came from your heart as well as your mind.

Erika Alessandrini:

Oh, thank you for that. And thank you for calling out that it will be confronting. It will be. And just take that as a sign to maybe put it down and come back. I hope it's not a signal to abandon the book and its principles altogether, but maybe it's just a sign to come back later.

Anita Brick:

Agree. And it's worth it. Well, thank you again. Thank you for writing the book and making the time for us and we're really glad that you did.

Erika Alessandrini:

It's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. It's been great.

Anita Brick:

Thanks again and thank you all for listening. This is Anita Brick with Career Cast at Chicago Booth. Keep advancing.