Jill Griffin
Our podcast is hosted on Anchor
But you can listen in most places such as: Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Radio Republic.
My executive career coaching, strategy and innovation has generated multi-millions in revenue for the world's largest agencies, start-ups and well-known brands.
For 20+ years my approach to busting through the BS (which stands for belief systems) and building a culture from the strengths of both the team and leadership is responsible for creating repeated and consistent results. I’ve worked with the brands we all know and look up to including: Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Samsung, Mondelez, and Honda.
Advertising Age recognized me as one of the "25 Women to Watch", and I was named one of the "50 Most Influential People in Content Marketing" by NewsCred. I’m also a two-time winner of AdWeek-Mediaweek's Media Plan of the Year.
As a founding member of 212, NY's Digital Advertising Club, I was honored to be a recent Visionary Award recipient along with the other founding members.
I’ve been quoted by leading media outlets like AdWeek, Advertising Age, Forrester Research, The New York Times, Newscred, Newsday, MediaPost, MediaWeek, Departures, and The Wall Street Journal.
Whether I’m working with startups, thought leaders or renowned global organizations I’ve sat on all sides of the table. I’ve been able to blend cultures and help people feel understood while up-leveling their performance regardless of the environment.
My experience as a Gallup® Certified Strengths Coach, has helped hundreds of clients amplify their strengths, increase visibility, create their career narrative, and design a bigger and brighter future.
My clients call me the 'Wendy Rhoades' (the performance coach on Showtime's Billions) of career coaching. And everyone needs a Wendy.
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Hi, everybody. This is Gustavo, the host of the Enabled Disabled podcast. I am super excited to have Jill Denise Griffin on the show today. She is a career strategist and executive coach. She has worked with famous brands from Coca Cola to Microsoft. She has a phenomenal podcast and we are here to talk about during her career in the corporate world, she had a traumatic brain injury and she has some really interesting experiences about how she adapted to corporate America and also how that helped her branch out into her own business. Today we're going to focus on some topics such as micro, quitting, setting the correct goals for people, and getting into her background. A quick description of myself. I'm a middle aged Latin American. I am in my conference room right now with beige walls, and I have some photos in the background of some work that I've done in theaters and home theaters. I'm wearing a blue Polo shirt and my hair is dark Brown combed to the front. So, Jill, welcome to the show. Can you describe yourself a little bit, please?
Yes, thank you. Thank you for the warm welcoming. Yes. I'm Jill Griffin. I also I guess I'm middle age, although I'd like to say otherwise. I am honey Brown blonde shoulder length hair. I have on a red Plaid shirt with a white puffer vest because I'm in New York City and it's cold. I'm in a room that is a light green in color. And I have a beautiful horse behind me, a painting of a horse behind me, which is very significant, which we might talk about today, as to why it's so significant to me as a backdrop. And I'm really glad to be here.
I'm really glad to have you. So let's dive right in. I'm really curious to hear if you could tell us a little bit about your childhood. What were some of the things that you remember that you were drawn to interested in? What were you like as a kid?
That is a fun question. So I am the middle child, and I would say that I'm pretty textbook middle child. Hey, pay attention to me. I'm here and I'm the only female between two brothers. I had an insatiable curiosity and creativity where I would often spend hours either in books or in coloring or art or making my own arts and crafts. Probably why years later, I worked for Martha Stewart, the domestic diva, all that she has created. I also would get lost a lot in what I would say fantasy around, but not Poly fantasy. The way most people think about it, fantasy around doll houses. So I would spend a lot of time in setting up the interior decorating and what would the actual doll's house look like and how should the bedroom be decorated and having just that level of intricacy of like, wallpaper and setting the dining table and just again, a level of creativity. But a playful fantasy too, and that was a lot of how I would spend my time. I was very active and athletic, playing in various sports like basketball and volleyball. I also played soccer and loved being outdoors and for a long time I thought I wanted to be a veterinarian as a child and I just have a huge love for animals and wanting to do that.
But the creativity side of things ended up winning out and went into more creative work as I continued to work through school and then eventually after College and the jobs and the roles that I've taken were you always a good student?
Did you have a good relationship with school?
I was a good student. I went to Catholic school for most of my life and they don't really have much tolerance for bad students, one would say. So by default I was a good student. No, I really enjoyed school. I definitely had to work hard, meaning I would get distracted easily, maybe a little bit of ADHD. So studying, but got very good grades, but I put the time in, whereas I feel like my older brother didn't really study and got the same impact in his grade. That's just the way it works out. But for me it was about paying attention and being a good student. But yeah, no, I was a top student as far as both in high school and then of course in College I was in the top percentage and that was important to me to achieve academically. It's just something that I value personally because clearly as your career.
Which you will get into more, but you seem like a very driven, focused human being. So did your parents help influence that or did you think that was your way of standing out of getting the attention or was it something that just curiosity to play a part in it where you just wanted to learn these things and see what was out there?
I think it's the latter. I just had this insatiable curiosity. Obviously my parents encouraged me to do well in school and academics was very important, but I didn't have what I felt to be undue pressure from my parents. Also, I was doing well, so there wasn't maybe necessarily need to put pressure on me? No, I always was asking why and I always wanted to know the question behind the question. I eventually went into media and I remember as a kid staring at the television and wanting to understand how the picture got in there, like how do the people get in there? Until I understood more later, but always having that just insatiable curiosity to understand and to know, which has fed my discovery, my exploration, and the various roles that I've done in my life is always just being in this quest for understanding and knowledge.
What did you study in College?
So an undergrad. I study business and communication arts. I wanted to originally go into television, either being in broadcast news or in radio. I did have a radio show in College which was super fun, and it was a morning show on the University campus, reporting mostly news and whatever contemporary hits radio was at the time. I left University and got a job at Atlantic Records. So staying within sort of entertainment and media and the work at the University level definitely helps with understanding the production side of things where we actually learned how to run production Studios and camera and things like that. I was on the marketing side of Atlantic Records. I wasn't actually in the product and production, but still having an understanding of how those things work, the time commitment, the investment both in resources and people needed definitely helped me be a better marketer because I understood sort of time constraints and how to work within them.
Interesting. So what was marketing something that you fell into with Atlantic Records, and once you got a taste for it, you wanted to learn more, or was it something that you were already interested in?
Previously, I wouldn't say that I was interested in marketing. I have an insatiable curiosity about people and understanding people, which has fed various careers in which I'm doing. So for the most of my professional years, I was what was called a strategist of really understanding the voice of the consumer at the table in the discussion between the brand, the product the brand was selling, and the actual consumer. So I didn't know. Again, when I was younger, that was called marketing. But that idea of understanding strategy and understanding the consumer and then you're young and who doesn't want to? Maybe not who I should say for myself, being young, I was like, that sounds amazing, going to work for a record label and being in New York City, and my roommate, who was a good friend of mine, also worked for a competing record label. So we would laugh because we were two young women in our 20s who at any given night would be at some of the top clubs and venues in New York City, working the door or helping our various bosses Scout from an R standpoint because they needed young people to do the jobs that the older people wanted to go to bed and didn't want to stay up late for.
So we would often come home from work, maybe get home by seven, do a quick change, and then have to be at CBGB or a club in New York City that would maybe having a live venue or live Rose Land. These clubs don't exist anymore. I'm totally aging myself and get there by ten or eleven and then beg off by 02:00 A.m. Because we had to be back at the desk at 830. But that's what you can do when you're 22 and 23 years old.
So when you were in these venues, what did you take away from Besides the fun and the experience and the glamor of being there. Right. Like in the scene in New York, did you start observing people and learning? Okay, this is why this band is taking off. This is what they're doing. This is why they're connecting with these people.
What were some of the amazing question? Yeah. Again, I don't know at that young age that I had the vocabulary or the language to really understand that they were building a brand presence, what in corporate we would call an executive presence, but how they were really commanding the stage because you could have a band that is ridiculously musically talented, but they didn't have what they would say is like the star factor or the rock star factor. And then you'd have to put a lot of promotional dollars behind them to get them promoted because they didn't have the it factor, even if their sound was amazing. And then you could have and we know this today, there are people who are just so magnetic that you want to be around and their music is okay. But it's finding the two sides of that that was so interesting. And again, I think where it was such a natural, organic discovery, where my roommate, her name was Laura, and I would talk the whole cab right home and be like, but did you see this? And you see that we were not taken by the celebrity. We were respectful and knew that we were in a position that not many people get to be in.
We were more enamored with the business of this is how it works. Wow. This is an entire business. We just hear music on the radio when people were predominantly listening to terrestrial radio, where there's an entire business behind making of the music, which was so neat. And of course, we would go out and read every book on every Jerry Wexler rhythm and Blues, like all the books that were around the start of that era gone. That's the entire Atlantic record era, the two brothers that basically coined the jazz music and brought that as a popular thing to New York City. So to be in the environment and just get to look on the peripheral of what was happening was a pretty cool time.
That's amazing. And I think I'm curious. You see it in Hollywood. I don't know. I think it feels more manufactured today than it did back then, where you get into these traps of we only want this type of actor right now because these are the people that are selling the tickets. These are the movies that are going to make a profit. These are the artists that we have to promote. And it feels like a lot of good musical talent slips through the cracks. And is it really just stage presence, or are they copying and pasting what they already found works and trying to ride that wave out as much as possible? Right. How much opportunities are they missing out on because their field of vision starts to narrow once something works.
Yeah, that's a really insightful question. So I can't answer for today. I was doing this in the early nineties. I'm sure there was a formula. I don't know that I could articulate that for you. I'm pretty sure we can all guess based on what's making it today that there's also a formula. I didn't stay in the music industry that long for two reasons. One, there was this thing called digital music that started a lot of the music then was moving. I wasn't in the era where we were on LP, I was in the era where we were on CD. Right. But still it was pre itunes, it was precision of music. So that era really shifted things and also shifted marketing and promotion budgets accordingly. So that was one of the beginning of the ends. And also I think it's for me personally, I think it's a lifestyle that is so fun, but I think it has a very short half life where you just get really tired and you're in these places and you're going out but you're actually working. So yeah, you're having fun, don't get me wrong, but you're still working. So while you're, as I would always say, your civilian friends are going out and having fun, you're going out and you're probably having fun but you're still working.
So at a certain point, as much as I am a huge music person and love the industry, it just was the best for me to start thinking about cool. How else could I recreate what it is that I love about the excitement and the moment? For me it's always about the moment it all comes together. And how do I recreate that excitement? So it just naturally ended up going into advertising, which may not seem so natural, but basically the people that we were working with from Atlantic Record standpoint to help us with some of our promotion and advertising, I just went to the other side and then started working on that side of the house. Different company, but that side of the house. Yeah.
So what was the next step after Atlantic Records?
So after Atlantic Records, I went to work for what is now one of the large there's four or five large advertising agency holding companies that each holding company has a couple of anywhere from 50,000 to a couple hundred thousand employees depending on the size of these holding companies. And I went to work for one of them in pre digital. So there still was no necessarily digital marketing yet. And myself and a colleague were working in TV advertising, meaning doing the media and understanding the strategic way to place media based on what it is that you needed. Anything from infomercials all the way to regular commercial product. And we had a client who asked if we knew how to do digital and myself and my colleague were like, maybe I'm 25 at this point. Myself and my colleague are like, we know how to do digital. And they're like, great. Were you interested in pitching our digital portion of our business? And we said, sure. And we stayed in the office all weekend. We taught ourselves digital. We pitched, we told the CEO and they were like, alright, because we didn't really have these skills that we had this capability of the agency, the division we were in.
So we stayed in all weekend. We pitched the business and won the business and then almost vomited because we have to service the business. And the fat first account was Carnation Baby Formula. And we came up with a partner. We created a baby named Database, which subsequently went on to be purchased by Jay and be a large I don't know what the URL is today, but the additional iterations of it, you could type in your name and see various meetings in various languages, various translations, the various ways of spelling it. And we did this all on behalf of Carnation Baby Formula. It sounds funny today, but that's where we started. And overnight we became these little digital darlings that kind of figured it out and super scrappy and got it done.
That's amazing. So clearly, even at a young age, you were super resourceful and you had resourceful crappy and resourceful.
Which is, say, I like cheap and cheerful.
But that's impressive, though. So how did you make this connection between, like you said, this moment where everything comes together? Where did you find that in advertising? Was it making that successful Advertisement, making that successful moment where the brand was connecting with its users.
With its people, a little of all of that. So the moment to where strategically the plan makes sense even before it goes live. So how are we using all different mediums to tell the story that we want to tell? And how are we making sure that we're shaping the creative story and the storytelling within the right medium? Because again, this doesn't happen as much today. But back then you would create a commercial and then you would just drop it into paid media time. Whereas we were taking a situation and saying, wait, if we're going to be in programming, like that afternoon programming, then we should have a message that kind of caters to that audience versus if we're going to have evening programming, then we should have a different kind of message, that kind of targets. And again, that was very new and not being done. And now it's pretty commonly done where you want to make sure that your message is hitting in the right audience. But again, back then, myself and my colleagues, I think, were some of the few in the industry who are really thinking about how the medium and the message come together to tell about a story.
And then as I continue to progress and get promoted. Throughout my career, I spent the last quick math. I would take the last five to seven years working in corporate leading strategy of creative storytelling within the agency. So finding a way in which you're leveraging the media dollars that you're going to be given to Disney anyway, to be across all of their networks, from Hulu to ESPN to ABC, and having a conversation with them about how to use the media dollars that you're buying time creatively to get yourself access to talent, that you can actually have talent in your commercials or have a live read from talent so that you're doing it in a different way that really stops and gaps the attention. Think about something like, I didn't personally do this, but one of my bosses did this. If you think about America's Next Top Model, which was a very popular program at the time, they woven CoverGirl, which is a perfect fit into that show. So how do you create that level where they're doing shoots each week and dressing and getting ready and putting their makeup on and they're using CoverGirl makeup.
So again, that's something that is very commonly done today. But I consistently had this history of being at the forefront of being in places where I was getting to work for some of the best brains in creating the environment, to tell a story in a different way and really be on the cutting edge without knowing ahead of time.
And this is going to I think this has a good transition as well into your consulting business now as a strategist, how did you know when the story felt right? How did you know that you had a better chance to succeed in that process? Because it's a guess, right? You don't know until you put it out there and you see what happens.
I think for me, there's an internal knowing before that happens that I just know. I do credit a lot of it to being at this point like a 35 year meditator every day. And I think when you're constantly connecting in and cleaning the slate and connecting into what's possible, both from cleaning your mind out and then coming out of meditation and having a very fresh slate and getting into I'm just going to call it a level of intuition that I don't know that I can teach people how to do, but I'm so glad that I know how to do it. I think I'm a born strategist for being super curious, understanding, wanting to understand people, wanting to understand the environment in which they're in and then putting connections together to say, how about what about could we try and constantly looking over the tourize? And where are we going to go next? Where should we take this? What's possible? And it's just the way my brain spins, you know, to raise the sights of everyone is to raise the sites of possibility of what we can do together.
And so you have a moment at some point in time where you say this matches, this feels correct. Whether or not you execute on it is another matter. So we don't know if it's going to be successful, it's going to be. But internally, you know, when it's right.
Yeah. There's an internal knowing that I think others could probably identify, depending on what their craft is. If there's a moment of eternal knowing, I would imagine various artists in different ways can think about if we're going back to the music analogy, when they lay the track and they pull it all together before it's actually out there, that was it. We just nailed that. That was the right thing. I think there's just an internal knowing that when you talk about mastering and practicing your craft, and I think when you think about the amount of hours in advertising, 70 to 80 hours a week, you get to mastery pretty fast if we're talking about the 10,000 hours. So I think there's just an internal knowing that comes again, you have to be in the right place, you have to be asking the right questions. You need a little bit of luck of being exposed to the right people in the right campaigns and the right brands who are willing to take risks. But all of that comes together.
You get to start to learn patterns and knowing were you able to maintain those long hours because you were so interested in the work and you were driven to just keep going, or did it come to a point where that amount of effort for me in my twentys and in my 30s, it was a lot easier to put in those hours than it is today?
Yeah. I think what happened was the brain injury made the decision for me. So I was putting in those hours. I didn't always mind. There were some days that you're tired and cranking your mind. But I think what agencies do really is they get a lot of like minded. And by like minded, I don't mean the lack of diversity of thought, complete diversity of thought, we don't agree. But in that we are all insatiably curious and we all are striving for collaboration to create or be in an environment that's really innovative. That's what I mean by again, outside of that, everyone's bringing their own backpack to the race and it takes on lots of different forms. But I think what agencies and marketing companies and media companies do really well, at least then if you get a group of people that are hired, give or take, around the same time and you gel and you're in it together and I can feel like you're on the set of an Aaron Sorkin screenplay where there's just like this harmony that's happening and it's fun and it's intellectual wit and it's snarky and sometimes you take the piss out of each other, but you're all working towards the same common goal and you're having some fun and some joys and some Holy Moly.
We just pulled that off and that was amazing. And sort of that group pride of everybody working towards a common goal, I think keeps you working even when you're like, I'm so tired, I need to go home. And you just do it. You just do it together. But for me, having the head injury stopped a lot of that. I still did it. But the impact of what it was doing to me to keep up that pace, it started to become more severe.
Can you talk a little bit about the head injury and what that experience was like? And I'm interested too. I've spoken to people who on the show who have had vestibular conditions where they had a lot of issues getting the proper diagnosis and understanding what was actually happening to them. And it actually took years for them to figure out what that was. Did you have a similar experience?
Exactly. It took me 13 years post injury to figure out. And there's been many articles and many books written about how the medical community especially doesn't take female seriously and thinks a lot of it's emotional. I had neurologists telling me if I felt so dizzy I should carry rocks in my pocket so I can feel more stable. And I can't actually say what I said in response because you have to bleep it out. Yeah. So I'll start at the top. So I took a solo trip to Australia. I was going hiking. I signed up with a local group once. I was on the ground in Australia to do like a five day hike. And while I was on that hike, I was crossing like a stream that was very mossy and slippery and I fell. And then just the way I hit and then tumbled, there was like a little waterfall connected to it. So I don't actually remember feet or meters wise, but I would say I probably fell somewhere between two and 5ft down the waterfall. So I got pretty banged up and cuts and scrapes and stuff, but I definitely lost consciousness a couple of seconds and then the next couple of days, at least.
What I understand from my own experience and what I've read is brain injuries can be very insidious for the next couple of days. I just was like drunk. I remember I was a freelancer at the time. And I remember living in the United States with employer sponsored health care. I remember because I was a freelancer, I was buying my own health care. And then I remember buying like an extra package to be protective for myself when I'm out of the US. And I remember it said, if you need to be meta backed out, it was $250,000 by helicopter. And I remember saying to myself, okay, we will never get meta backed out. We have to make sure we're not meta backed out. And I don't know now, almost 20 years later, if I should have been again. Arguing with reality is exhausting. So it is what it is. But I do remember the moment of coming to and having two tourists be like, do you want us to get you medical attention? And basically the moment of asking. And I remember seeing in my head that piece of paper that said that. And I was like, no, I'm good.
Denied myself medical attention and then spent a couple more days in the Outback. We're up in far North Queensland, if anybody knows Australia and didn't go on the remaining hike state. At base camp, I was just feeling like. I just felt drunk. I just felt really woozy, really drunk. Very like, if you've ever taken cold medicine and you feel like you're in that fog and just felt very foggy. Eventually got back to Sydney, and I can only imagine what I looked like. I think I looked like a pretty beaten up, like, dish rack. My clothes were shredded. I still had mud and blood. There's no shower in the Outback. So I'm still wearing a lot of the outer garments that got banged up. And I remember walking into the lobby of the hotel that I was staying at, and another tourist was like, can someone get this woman medical attention? I didn't even realize how bad I looked. And again, same thing I deny, because I was like, I can't afford this. I'm fine. Left two days later to come back to the States. And then when I got back into the States is when I went to the doctor, they were just like, okay, you had a concussion, you got concussed, and it can feel pretty crummy for a while, and you'll eventually get better.
And that was pretty much it. Except I wasn't getting better. I was getting worse. I was having such challenges. I remember distinctively being in a restaurant that had curtains that were very long, white flowy curtains that were moving because the window was open. And I remember I got to get out of here. Like, I was so dizzy because of the constant. Basically, the walls were vibrating because of the level of flow, the wind against the curtains. And I remember standing up to start to say, I got to go. And, like, lunch hadn't even been served. I was with a couple of colleagues, and I fell over, and they were like, what's wrong with you? Meaning, because no one was drinking. It was a lunch meeting. And I was like, I don't know. And then, of course, I laugh at myself now because I just went back to the office and I didn't go home. I was like, I'm just going to go back to you. And I have so much compassion for that girl today who just didn't know what to do. And just lots of episodes like that where the stibute walking down a very bright white hallway and being very distorted and then having to hold the wall and having a senior leader come by me and being like, Griffin, were you drinking at lunch?
I'm not even slowing down to hear the response. Just like throwing out, like, a snide comment at me. And then I'm like, oh my God, people are thinking I'm drinking on the job when I'm not. What's happening? And then just again, going to lots of different doctors, various practitioners, specialists for cranial, sacral and massage and chiropractic for everyone to try to help me figure out what was wrong. And no one was coming up with an answer. And again, it took I think it was around 13 years later because of my day job. I had a friend who worked at Sports Illustrated, and as we know, football players get head injuries a lot. And he tipped me off to a doctor in Chicago who apparently did some work for the Chicago Bills and various sports stars and various sports players who had traumatic brain injury. And he was like, I can make a call for you. I don't know how long the wait will be, but maybe you can go see him. And it took about three months, even with connections, to get into him, I flew to Chicago. At that point, I had somewhere between ten and 13 years of data and films and MRIs, and I sent that all to him in advance.
And I walked into his office and he said, I know what it is, and I'm going to spend the next three days proving it. And I just burst into tears because it was the first time someone was like, I got you. I know what this is. And it didn't matter what he told me at that point. It was just the fact of hike. It was almost like, very sacred, like someone is witnessing and telling you for the first time, I know what this is. I can tell you. I can give it a name. And once it has a name, you then know. At least for me, I then knew where to focus and where to go and what to continue to do to heal. And again, prior to that, like lights and environments. And if a colleague had a baritone voice or someone is making a point and pounding the conference room table or someone shaking their leg in a meeting or a fluorescent light in the conference Zoom is flickering. All of these things could knock me to the floor. So on a regular basis, I'm working in New York City, where sirens and the screeching of the subway break sometimes could be enough, where my eyes and ears, everything is vibrating so much that I'm like, knocked over from the sound.
And again, people telling me it's all in my head. I would put mascara on in the morning, which for anyone who wears mascara, you tilt your head a little bit to get to the eyelashes. That alone, I would have to hold the counter so the bathroom counter so I wouldn't fall over. Yet continuing being told that it's just in my head.
Jill, that's really powerful. How did you looking back on it, how are you able to live and adapt and keep going without knowing for that long? I've talked to people on the show. It's three years. It's five years. I've never heard somebody 13 years. You showed an incredible amount of resilience and grit and self belief to keep pushing through it and keep trying and keep maintaining your career and your job. Like, what kept you going through that?
Yeah. First again, going back to employer sponsored health care. If I didn't work, I didn't have health insurance, and if I don't have health insurance, I don't get well. So that it was a non negotiable, I had to work. Now, could I have found a different job? Probably. But now I have a preexisting condition. So are they going to carry if I go to a new healthcare company? Again, I didn't know these things, but I was almost afraid to signal to find out because I talked to a lawyer right now there's a record, and it was all like solving things in my head that just going, okay, failure is not an option. There will be no failure. You will figure this out. So I definitely put definitely a lot of resilience, a lot of resource will definitely grit. It also meant at times that I just had to tap into a very spiritual level of faith of this has been brought to me. This is my reality. So I'm going to do something with it. I'm not just going to sit here and with her. I'm going to fight whatever that looks like for myself. So my prayer every day to myself or like the mantra to myself.
And my meditation was like, let me take the necessary actions today to be one step closer to clarity, to be one step closer to healing. Because I knew that I couldn't figure it out overnight and I knew that it was going to be like a process of figuring out different triggers and signals and starting to get better. But I also knew that I had to have a forward momentum. Otherwise, I'd feel rudderless. So this idea of every day, let me who do I need to meet? What's the conversation I need to have? Who's going to introduce me to who? Who's going to tip me off? What's the next doctor to talk to? What's the next New England Journal of Medicine article I can read, what do I need to know? And what I started to put together is two things. One, I had a neurologist telling me that I was going to need to avoid planes, trains, automobiles. And I was like, what am I in a freaking John Candy movie? Like, I live on an island called Manhattan. How do I avoid planes, trains, and automobiles and both like, It's an island. You need to get around.
And I just can't remember there was something in that moment where I was done. I was like, I am done on letting other people tell me how my life is going to go. So thank you for sharing. But we are done. And he was still talking, and I stood up and I was like, I'm done. And my mom had come with me to that because she wanted to hear and whatever. And I remember her being like, Honey, the doctor is still talking. And I was like, Then you can listen. And I'll meet you in the lobby. But I remember looking at him and leaning over and being like, you are not my God. And you don't get to tell me how my life is going to play out. And I like, Women of entrances and exits have stormed out very dramatically because again, I think he meant well, but I think his delivery was far away from my liking. And at the same time, we have to understand that when we are in positions of influence, our words can have a lot of power over people. And I thank God that I was strong enough to be like, you don't get to write my story, dude.
I write my story, step aside. And then had so much anger towards him that became the fuel. So today I think about that neurologist. And thank God for him, because had he not been a jerk, who knows? It might have taken me even longer before I got the spark to be like, Uhuh, came over. I'm in charge now, olive, you don't know me. And since you have nothing to to say, then I'm going to start figuring this out. And that just then became a process of. I started to write down everything. I kept a Journal. I would grade my days on good or bad, like, on a scale of one to ten, and start making notice. And I started to notice that certain food would take me above or below my baseline. And food that would be really confusing because it would be like, and I'm not saying this is for everyone. This is for me, for my body, an Apple or almonds. And most nutritionists will tell you those are super healthy. But for me, they had a particular amino acid in them called tyranny, which can trigger vertigo and migraines. And then it would take me above my baseline.
So I was spending so much of my life running around on the plane and jumping into airports where what was I doing all the time? I was grabbing the shrink wrapped Apple in the airport because it was easy and to go food. And I was grabbing the pack of almonds and jumping on a plane, not realizing that those two foods were causing more havoc on my ability to reduce the inflammation in my head. And reduce what the symptoms and vestibular impact that I was having. So I started to study functional medicine and functional nutrition, which is the root cause resolution where anatomy, physiology meets food. And by food we mean everything from what we put in our mouths to mold and toxins to lighting to meditation to environment. Like, how are you nourishing yourself? And started to really isolate what was causing it. And today I don't have a perfect understanding. There are times where I'll be like, the last couple of days I've been really busy and I don't know why and I'm trying to figure out what did I do? But for years I'd be so hard on myself. Like, you triggered it again, Jill.
You got to be smarter, you got to be faster, you got to be focused and realizing that just sometimes it's kind of trigger because environment and life and that became my path. And as I started to study the brain and food and the impact on the brain, I started to learn about cognitive behavioral therapy and positive psychology. And that started to make me feel a lot better because I can choose my thoughts and then those thoughts give me a feeling and then I take action from that feeling and suddenly I'm creating a different result for myself than coming from a negative thought. And then I start to apply that back into my day job. And that's really where things also changed is like the next major shift where I was going from doing a decent job, but now I'm really excelling. Now I'm getting promoted. Now my team is performing well. Now everyone's saying they want to work on my team. People are saying, hey, can I sit on the couch in your office and just work in this environment? Today people are wanting to be around me, HR joking, like, My peers are going to get mad because I'm coaching everyone and I'm like, no, I'm not.
They're coming to work for me, I'm not recruiting any of them. And it was like clients were happy, leadership was happy, we were performing and delivering and that the morale was different. So really understanding that's when I first got turned on again to the mindset and the coaching, which is I got certified as through my own journey, but bringing that back into my day job and not necessarily having any desire to be a functional nutritionist or to be a coach, I was just doing it for myself and survival. And then suddenly the impact on those around me, people were experiencing shifts in their life too.
Amazing. Did you have any friends, family, coworkers during this process who you could lean on and who believed that it wasn't just in your head that you were actually going through it or was it a lot of solo work somewhere in between?
I think from a family standpoint, my parents, they're pretty big fans of mine and they know that I'll figure it out. I think they worried a lot, which I also didn't want to be around that energy, because once I understood what that could create for me, they're worried. Fear and worry are contagious, and if I'm around that, it then gets me stressed. So I also had to like, I love you, mom. I can't talk about this. I don't want to keep talking about this. I don't know that my friends definitely knew I had this. I don't know that they knew what I was really going through. As in, I didn't want to be the drag, I didn't want to be the I don't feel good. This is what's happening. Like I said, I was afraid of being voted off the island. If I'm the pouty person, then I'm going to lose friends. So a lot of this was again, I think people knew, but I don't think I'd be surprised if they actually really knew what a day was like when I'm holding onto the wall to make sure that I don't fall over and then trying to appear, quote, normal, whatever normal is, right?
Trying to appear normal so that I'm a young woman in New York City who wants to go on a date and have a lot of thoughts around. If I don't represent in a certain way, no one's going to want to date me. So I had to work through a lot of those thoughts, too, until I was like, you should be so lucky to date me. That's eventually where I got to and married to a wonderful man. So it all worked out. Okay.
So let's talk about I see so much. I hope we can do more episodes because there's so much there that you can teach and we can learn from the way you are so methodical. You started to break things down. You use your curiosity. You didn't let other people define your story and your limits and who you were. All of that you just started to come together slowly. And is that when you had your first AHA moment with, I should be a strategist. I should go out on my own. Look at this morale boosting. Look at these performance levels that I'm generating from just being me and being here and putting in this work was that the light switch went off.
I was trying to see that. And again, my experience in corporate, for the most part, was excellent. Yeah, I got some doozies of stories, and I'm sure we all do from our jobs, but for the most part, it helped make me into the excellent person I am today. So I wasn't running from corporate or from working. What I was realizing is that after a while is my work here was complete, that I felt that my mission was bigger than what that environment can offer me. And I'm being called on an emotional level to do this work. And I look at the work that I do as a Ministry and that I'm being I need to step into that. And that my mission needs me. And my mission is career wellbeing and employee wellness and understanding, having agency of self and how to work your mindset to create what it is that you want in your life. And yeah, I'm an award winning strategist, so let's throw some of that in there too. So once we get clear on what it is that you want, you definitely want to tap into my strategic brain to figure out how to get there.
So it started to become what's next here? Meaning I could have rotated with the company or transferred to another division or whatever, but it really became, I think, this part and I had to mourn it too, by the way, because I love advertising and media. I just loved it so much. But I also had to be like, okay, this part of my life is taking a different shape now and it's time to go on. And I didn't know exactly what it was going to be or how it was going to look. I just said, okay, it's time. And in the first year or so, as an entrepreneur on my own, I had more consulting work where I was being hired by brands to do strategy work, extra set of hands on the business, lead a team, get them through a challenge, helping certain clients navigate COVID in the early start of the pandemic. But through all of that, the one on one coaching, the private coaching, meaning, yes, I was working with team dynamics and helping teams succeed, but I get a lot of joy of helping a leader show up and find that moment of truth for them.
It's like, what is the leader they want to be and what is it that they want to create for themselves and their team? And how do we get there? And that became so important to me that we're creating leaders who know how to manage their mind so that when they have a tough day, it's not trickling down to their teams.
I know this is a big question, but I don't often get, at least not yet to speak to somebody who's had the level of success and experience in corporate America that you've had. What do you think they're missing in corporate culture and in these companies that we're not seeing more people with a disability contributing and being seen as an untapped resource.
Right.
An untapped talent pool. If we want to reduce it even to that we have so much talent, we're being under utilized, underemployed, underappreciated as a group. What's missing in corporate America for that connection to get made?
That is a really powerful question in my experience. I think first it comes from awareness where I hid my disability because it was easy. It's not apparent, it's invisible. If you hung out with me long enough, you probably noticed some things that were off or different. But if you were just in passing, I could fool you like I'm an Academy Award winning actress and I was afraid that if you knew, you would look at me as a liability. This doesn't mean this is true. This is what my thoughts were, that you would look at me as a liability and therefore not take a chance on me. So I hit it a lot. That said, I do not recall in all my years of working, hearing, or reading anything an employee handbook about an invisible disability or non apparent disability. Right. So if our leaders, our division heads don't know that colleague who's in the bathroom a lot has some digestive issues, also chief colitis or Crohn's or has some issue that according to the American Disability, that is considered an invisible disability. They don't know that someone who's having chronic migraines or Ms or any of these other conditions that impact, depending on where you read, somewhere between ten and 20% of Americans, if they're just going on visible awareness, I don't blame them because how would they know?
And until you get made aware of it, now you're accountable. So I think it starts with making sure that in the ways of working the employee handbooks and lean leadership training that we're talking about diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, and also understanding that disability needs to be part of that, whether it's visible or invisible. Now the onus is on me, especially if it's invisible, to decide if I want to make it known publicly or at least to the proper paths. Hr. And there are times in which if I felt like I had a boss who is an ally, I would let them know. And other bosses didn't know because I felt like it would be used against me. But the onus is on me. So I can't assign blame if I haven't told people. But I also think that if you make it an environment where it feels safe to come forward and say, hey, light above my head by my Cube has been flickering for two days and I'm afraid I'm going to have a seizure. Can we get that fixed versus it just being an annoyance, right? Or hey, my desk is facing a window, and I realize that's a benefit for so many people, but seeing the constant movement of cars coming down the street all the time is actually causing me a problem.
Can we move the desk? Or can I move my seat? Whereas I felt at the time it be looked upon as unappreciative, we gave you a window seat. Isn't that the big coveted thing you want to sit in? And I appreciate that, but it doesn't always work for everyone. I needed to be at a wall that was solid. I needed to not be in direction of the main hallway in the elevator bank because I couldn't have constant movement coming past my eyes. Yet I often was in positions or sitting in positions where that I think it just comes down to we as individuals need to be able to speak and say what we need. And again, I have compassion for that younger me who was too afraid to do that. I think that's changed. But today I think there is much more understanding of diversity, equity and inclusion. And I do think that I had this been today, I would have felt safer about saying something than 20 years ago. So the onus is on me to say something. But the onus is also on the company to create an environment and educate its readers to make sure that they know that bringing in diversity in all sites in all ways that we can think about it.
It's only going to overall improve the product and the business and the outputs so that we have a diverse solution.
You need to see the benefit of that, because a lot of people that sounds intellectually true, but I think until it's proven and it's starting to get there. I know Microsoft has a big disability inclusion. They seem like they're doing a great job. They have these accessible controllers now for people with various disabilities. And so you see certain companies starting to lead the way, but it feels like it's great that they're turning the corner, but it's still at the beginning.
Yeah.
And I think leadership I want to get into this really fascinating topic of micro quitting, which was a phenomenal episode on your Career Refresh podcast. But let's talk a little bit about leadership. Like, what is leadership to you? What does a good leader look like and how do you help a leader become a better version of themselves?
So I take leadership all through the lens of diversity and that I don't know that there's one type of leader, but I think the ingredients of a strong leader is someone that's really clear in their own personal strengths and what they're really good at. It's someone who knows their skills and knows when something Burns them out and when it gives them energy. Right. As employees, we can't always choose the kind of work we're doing. But if I know something Burns me out, then I can think about my own time management and do it at a time where I'm not going to then have an impact the quality of the work or get cranky or short sighted with my colleagues because I'm in a bad mood, because I'm doing something that Burns me out. I also don't think it's about getting clear on your values. And you can have workplace values and you can have personal values. And, for instance, innovation is a workplace value of mine. But I don't necessarily need innovation in my personal life. It's okay if it's not in my personal life. Whereas as I define, love needs to be in my personal life.
But I don't know that I need love and corporate. I would probably translate that to community, connection, collaboration, teamwork. Getting clear in what you need personally in your values and what you need professionally in your values is also going to help you stand up and be a leader. And then I think you take these ideas of knowing your strengths, knowing your skills, knowing your values, and working with the people that report to you or the people that you're working with and help them to find the same things. Because when everyone's operating towards what they're good at and we stop anxiously trying to fix what we're not good at, again, this doesn't mean that we're going to have a perfect world where we're always going to do things that we're only good at. We need to do things sometimes that we need to fail. Fine. But I have a big opinion about performance reviews and I think they suck. And I think we spend too much time in what you need to do better versus really celebrating what you are doing well and how we can create experiences for you, for the company, the client in which you're leaning into what you're doing really well and therefore you're shining more.
And if you're doing it well, you're creating whatever the OKR, whatever the objective and key result is for what it is that we're trying to create, you're creating more of that. So I think when you're thinking about leadership, I think you need to have that. I look at the personal leadership foundation, skills, values, beliefs, strengths, knowing what they are for yourself and helping your team get there too, and looking at team dynamics and how people can complementary work with each other to get to the end result, then I look at a layer of what I would call is you got to release your own BS, right? You have to have a no asshole. I don't know if you need to believe that out, but like a no asshole or no jerk policy, right? And then I have to apply for yourself. As much as how you are rooting that out in the organization culturally, it's inevitable that it'll happen. But if there's enough good culture, it will keep those episodes and instances very small and very infrequent versus it spreading like a toxin through the entire culture. And I think as leaders, we're responsible for that.
We've all known famous business people and we've all probably worked in situations where someone utterly ruthless, but they were brilliant, so they were kept around. And I just say it doesn't have to begin either, or can we find a way that you can be brilliant and we can help you not be so worthless? Because again, it trickles down. Like when I see the work that I do with people privately and when they have a tough day and they tell me that they're sitting in the car before going back into the house because they don't want to bring them to their roommate or their spouse or their kid. Again, when you're someone of influence in an organization, how you behave in what you say has an impact on people's lives. And I choose to believe in my heart of hearts that people don't mean it because it's not worth it for me to think about it any other way personally. But I don't think that people really realize that the way you spoke to someone, on the way you treated someone you're now impacting. Again, we all have agency. I can choose to think about things differently, but we're also human.
If we have a tough exchange with our boss around something, even though I get to think about how I want to think about it, it might stick around. And now I'm sitting in the car in the driveway before getting back into the house. So I just think we need to everybody's responsible for their own thoughts and actions, but if you're causing harm, you need to own that and clean that up. So that's at least the BS. And then I think you need to be really clear on the goals that you're trying to achieve. Personally, the goals Department of the company is trying to achieve, and then figure out how they're measurable, because if they're not measurable, they're not those people. So we have to be able to measure them. So those are my three tiers of leadership. The first being this idea of a personal foundation of leadership for yourself, how you're helping your team do that, releasing your own BS, and then getting super clear on goals and actions. What is the result then that this team of people is going to come together and create?
And when those things don't happen or they're not as effective to me, that starts to break. Things start to break down, and we get into this really interesting concept of micro quitting. If the bosses if the leader isn't saying anything, then why should I care? So I'm going to tune out and I'm going to stop and I'm going to just let this slide, too. And so it starts to spread and it starts to snowball and things start to happen. And before you're unhappy at your job, you're quitting your job. You start to coast through a lot of other things. So tell us a little bit for the people that haven't heard the episode a little bit about how you started to think about this idea of micro quitting and how you tell the difference between what that is versus I'm just exhausted and I need a break today and I'm going to take the night off.
This is a fun question. So I look at micro quitting as quitting ahead of time. You didn't quit because you were exhausted. You gave it your all. And you're like, you know what? I'm going to put this on the shelf and I'm quitting today or I'm quitting permanently. Right? My quitting is a subtle self sabotage. It's this idea like the macro quit is, you know what? I'll feel like doing this anymore. I'm done. You're clear. You're done. You're looking for a new job. You're changing the behavior. You're doing the thing. The micro quit is like everything sounds really logical, and that makes sense. Jill, take it easy, put your feet up. It's like that kind of idea that we start a diet or we start a food protocol or an exercise regimen, and we say we're going to do something X amount of times a week and within two days and we haven't renegotiated. So life happens. And maybe I was supposed to work out tonight, but something came up and I can't. The micro quit is just saying, all right, I can't. The work that I would encourage you to do is say, okay, if I can't work out on Tuesday, let me look at this week.
You know what? I'm going to change the day on Thursday, and I'm going to make sure I work out on Thursday so that you're not quitting. You're renegotiating so that you're still moving towards your goals. Because the idea of micro quitting is just making excuses because you want as I was saying to you before, I have a mentor who says you want a big life, you need little tough, everyday goals that will get you that big life. So it's in that smaller actions that we're taking every day. And I look at it as I call it, my one by one, it's one behavior, one action. 1% better is what keeps you out of the micro quit. So we're not expecting you to leap tall buildings in a single bound and fix everything. But if every day you're striving for 1% better, you can do the math. Right after a month or so, you're going to have a significant incremental increase on what you're doing better. And again, the micro quit just comes from you're tired, you're lazy. I find that when we're in halt, hungry, angry, lonely, tired, it's really easy to go into the micro quit.
You know what? It's not that big of a deal. It's just one day, and one day isn't that big of a deal as long as you make up for it. And that's really what is the change in the mindset there.
I think it's super interesting on a couple of levels, which is if we go back to your process, this incredible grit and determination that you showed in those 13 years before you knew what was happening, I'm sure you had your days just like your human being. We all did. But you could have micro quit in so many ways over such an extended period of time. But you didn't. So were you renegotiating with yourself all the time? So that concept was already somewhat formulated in your head?
Not consciously, but yes, because, again, there's no hero. I have to be the hero. Nobody's coming to fix this for me. I had evidence of that. Years of doctors basically patting me on the head and saying, okay, little woman, go home and rest up. No one's saving me. So I'm the hero I'm waiting for. And it just meant like, how do I want to live this life? And do I want to live this life in a micro quit where it's lazy. It's resentful. Why me? Why not me? Why not me? And having that and going, okay, so this is what I got. How am I going to play it out? How am I going to work within this? How am I going to challenge it up? Challenge it too much, too exhausted now overdid it. Okay, I need a time out tomorrow. Fine. I'll take the day, I'll take the pass. Okay. But in two days from now, I'm going to come back at it and then just that constant, that drive. I guess for me, it was an internal fight where I ain't going down this way. This is not the end of my story.
I think people can take there's so much to take away from there because you read it. I haven't spoken to anybody exactly who said this, but you get that sense of it's a little bit more difficult when you're faced say, I'll just take myself as an example. Right. I haven't felt this way in a long time, but it's so easy. As somebody who I have these multiple physical disabilities, I could have quit and nobody would have necessarily thought less of me except myself and my friends and close family and friends. I feel that I'm going to take the easy road out because I can. And why not? But I didn't. And there's been certain periods of time in my life where I sacrificed health for work. I sacrificed a lot of things for whatever goal was in front of me. But as I rebalance, those things seem worth it because they were part of the journey and I learned about myself and I discovered that my limits, whatever I thought they weren't my limits. Like I had to push beyond several layers before I found out what the hard stops actually were in that process. It's like you said, even if it's 1%, you can still meet people where they're at.
Somebody may have a chronic condition or a disability where maybe they've got 1 hour a day or 1 hour a week where they can give themselves to whatever it is they want to do. But give yourself for that hour, wherever that place is. Don't let that define you completely and stop you.
Yeah. And it's also the ambivalence that I think can be really deadly and lead you towards the microwave. Right. Like, it doesn't matter, or I'll do it tomorrow or it's under performing, knowing that you could do more, but someone is expecting less of me. So I'm just going to stay below the radar and make my day really easy. I'm not saying we need to be in the hustle and grind. I'm just saying, within our own ability, are we leaving anything up? I don't know. That every single day you need to do everything on the field. That's not what I'm saying either. But where are you folded it in? Where are you just, like, checking the boxes and not really doing it and not really showing up. That's I think the places where when we say you're cheating, like the company or if you're doing work with somebody. Sure. Okay, so you are cheating. And one could call that stealing, right? As far as they're paying you a wage to do a job and you're micro quitting and not doing it. But I think the bigger part of it is that you really impact your own integrity and you really erode your own self trust.
Because if you don't even believe your word, then when you really do need to do something, it's going to take that much more to get the fire onto you, to do something, because you've always given yourself the out and the micro quit. So again, there's no hard and fast line. A micro quit, for one, is a win for somebody else. We're not saying there's a one size that it needs to be. We're just saying for you, where are you giving up ahead of time? Where are you taking the easy way out? And there are some times where I will fully join you in the easy way out. But when it comes to the big things, the things that matter, it's just that thing. It's like taking the easy way out. It's going to make my life harder in other ways.
And if you find yourself in a position where you've let those things accumulate and you said it's harder to bring that fire back, can you give us some actionable steps to bring yourself back, to start to bring yourself back?
Yeah. So first I think you need to notice your sneaky little thoughts, the little buggers that they are. And it's probably things like, you know what I can't do? I can't get this done today. You know what? I can't handle this. Now. If I had more help, I could get this done. I'm so busy. I can't do this. If we fall into this, like, busy Olympics, there are no cash and prizes for being busy. So why do you want to be busy? I want to be productive. I want to be creating value. I don't need to be busy. So first I would say, watch the sneaky little thoughts. Then you got to be honest with yourself. Is this a quit? Is it a permanent quit? Is it a micro quit? You're not feeling well? Yeah. Let's pause for the day and be clear. Also be clear if you really are a hard, firm. No, you just don't want to do it. It's okay. Just be honest with yourself. Don't be in that half place. That's going to lead you to a level of decision fatigue where you're like, man out and you think you've made a decision, but you really haven't.
You just have a lot of thoughts because a decision is a committed thought with a committed action. Otherwise you just think you're going to do things and then you're constantly renegotiating the decision. I also check yourself. Have you done this before? Is this a pattern for you? When things get hard, do you start to check out and other ways that you can check out? And micro quit is like when I've had a hard day, I go into over consumption. So whether that's social media, alcohol, recreational drugs, food, shopping, the internet, like whatever your overconsumption is, if you're an overconsumption, it's usually because you're trying not to feel something. Are you trying to avoid feeling something about a certain way about something? And if you're like, I don't know what that is, stop your over consumption. And you'll know pretty quickly because it'll be all there for you. Get clear if you want to recommit and then you want to be understanding that at times you're going to feel overwhelmed and that's okay. We think sometimes if we feel overwhelmed or uncomfortable that something's wrong and there's no offramp for the human experience, like discomfort, overwhelmed, or just part of the package, they're going to be there.
So doesn't mean we need to stop. It just means we have to coach ourselves and ask ourselves, okay, what am I doing here? Is this thought true? The best way when you have these thoughts is if you ask yourself if the thought is true, and then ask yourself if you can prove it because you're going to say, of course it's true, this is what's happening. And then I want you to prove it. Prove that thought is true. And I'm going to bet that at that point you're not going to be able to prove that it's true and therefore we know it's just your crummy little thought self sabotaging you. And then, like I said earlier, noticing when you're in halt, right, if you are hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, take the past today, you're angry, you're lonely. You had a really hard day at work, but don't take the pass unconsciously say, I'm not going to do this today, but then it's the renegotiation, but I'm going to take this off this weekend. That's the difference between the full quit or the micro quit. The micro quit is this sneaky. I'm just not going to do it today.
But we don't actually make up for the lost when or the lost time or whatever it is that we're trying to create.
You are an incredible human being. I was taking up a lot of your time. I really appreciate it. I could talk to you for hours. Last two things. Is there anything that I've missed in this podcast that you feel is important to talk about? Maybe the painting of the horse or something else that we haven't gotten to that you want to say, yeah, the horse.
It's a really impactful experience for me. It was suggested to me to try equine therapy because I had a lot of fear of falling again and I lived alone and at times would really paralyze me or get me afraid of things that I would do or just feel like a low level of anxiety all the time. So it was suggested that I try eat coin therapy, and I didn't really understand it. I would say, if anyone just Googles the American Psychology Association and looks up equine therapy, there's a ton there. And basically that various branches of the US military use equine therapy with soldiers coming back from experiences they've had. And there's a lot of benefit there. And where we started off in this conversation, I love animals. So I was like, all right, I'm willing to try this. And we are where I'm at the horse farm. It's rescue horses, so it's also extra special to my heart. And the therapist puts me in the center of the ring, enhance me a carrot and says, don't move. And this ring, I'm so bad with spatial things, but I don't know, maybe it's like a half a football field.
Like it's a big ring. And there's, I don't know, 50 or more horses milling around of all different sizes, big workhorses to Clyde style to race horses that are all just doing their Horsey things and working around. And it was such an amazing experience to have the understanding of how the brain works and then watch how the body worked. And she then jumps out. The therapist jumps out of the ring and makes some calls to the horses and starts stirring them up. And I could feel my body literally shaking. I thought I was going to lose my bowels because they're running past me now, like, rushing past me. And they're not hitting me, but just the wind of the power of this 1000 pound animal coming by me. And I'm sitting there and I'm holding the dead carrot and I'm shaking. I see a horse, like, all the way at the other end of the ring and it starts running. And I don't really again, I've horsed back many times, but I'm not a professional, so I don't exactly know. Was it a trophy or a camper? Right? It was fast. It's coming at me.
Therapists on the side, Missy over there being like, don't move. My God, sweet baby Jesus, what is happening? And I'm shaking and I'm scared and I'm thinking that it's going to nail me. I'm going to Ricochet, there's a tree over there. I'm going to smash against the tree. All of this. Does she not understand? Is she not here still running at me? She's yelling, don't move. It's getting closer. It's getting closer. And then it hits me. In this moment, I am safe. When I future trip. When I worry and think of all the things in the future that could happen to me, I'm in fear and seconds away of a horse looking at me is still the future. It is not now, but in this moment, I am safe. And when I stay in this moment, I'm not afraid. And it clicked to me what she was doing. And then, of course, the horse gets to me. He skid, stop, starts licking me, munching on my collar, looking for the carrot. Once again, Jill cry because she gets the impact of, like, in the present, there is no fear. And that's really what I've worked with leaders on is finding that fearless moment for yourself so that you understand when you are present, there is no fear so that you can then take the next right action for whatever it is, personally or professionally, that you want to achieve.
And that's why there's that big gorgeous. His name is illuminari. That is not the horse that I met on Eastern long island right now. And there's a horse farm nearby, and he's from the horse farm.
That's beautiful. That's an amazing story.
It's a great experience. It was like crazy experience, but I was like.
What is happening and amazing that you had the realization just as the horse was approaching you. It's great.
Yes, ma'am.
How can people connect to you? How can people listen to the podcast? How can people reach out and work with you?
Thank you. That's wonderful. I have a podcast called the career refresh with Jill Griffin. You can find that on all platforms. It's all streaming platforms. You can also go to Jillgriffincoaching.com. I work with people one on one. I also have a group launching shortly in which I do group work with people around their strengths and their values and their skills and help them create the results that they want in their life. So you can also find me on Instagram. It's Joel Griffin official. You can chat with me there. There's plenty of places that you can find me, and I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to hear what you're thinking after listening to this podcast, too. Let's chat.
Absolutely. I'm so happy we connected. I really enjoyed this episode. Like I said, you're incredible, but in a way that you're approachable too, with all the success and your mind and your openness and your willingness to share, I just think there's I hope people reach out to you, work with you. I'm looking forward to keeping the connection going and just thank you so much for the time and the generosity and the amazing insights.
Thank you so much for savvy this has been amazing and what a treat to get to talk to you today.
Helpful links:
Website: jillgriffinconsulting.com