Ep. 53: Rachel Druckenmiller - Invest in Yourself | Self-Care & Self-Leadership

Contact Rachel:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelbdruckenmiller/
UNMUTED: www.UnmutedLife.com 


FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Adam: (00:00)


Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things
affecting the accounting and finance world. I am your host, Adam
Larson, and this is episode 53 of our series. Our featured expert
guests who joined Mitch for this conversation is Rachel
Druckenmiller the founder and CEO of un-muted Rachel is a keynote
speaker who uses her compelling speaking engagements and live
workshops to energize and engage workforces. And her discussion
with Mitch, Rachel talks about self care, self leadership and
explains how individuals can manage expectations of others to
meet the expectations and personal goals of their own. Keep
listening to hear more about this valuable leadership
topic. 


 


Mitch: (00:43)


So as we started talking about this conversation, we really said
we wanted to focus on what we're calling self-care and self
leadership. So the first thing that came to my mind was, you
know, how do we effectively assess expectations? And I'm just
wondering if you can kind of share your thoughts on, you know,
how do we assess our own expectations against what other people
are looking from us? 


 


Rachel: (01:13)


Yeah. There's a, there's a book written by a woman named Bronnie
ware called The Top. It sounds kind of morbid. It's called The
Top Five Regrets of the Dying. And I share these with people when
I speak at different events and conferences, but the number one
is tied to tied to expectations, the number one and regret that
people say that I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to
myself and not the life others expected of me. So I think
expectations come in two forms, I think in one form for us to be
honest about what it is we want out of our lives and being
intentional about designing a life that we want. Because
otherwise, if we're not calling the shots, other people will be
happy to kind of tell us what they need out of us and, and, and
basically design our lives for us. But when it comes to a
professional setting, I think a lot of times we have, we make
assumptions about what people expect of us because we see how the
people before us have handled themselves professionally. And so
if they've just driven themselves into the ground, we assume that
we have to and we don't necessarily, you know, get curious and
ask questions about what is truly expected and from other people
and what are the expectations that perhaps are not justified that
we're putting on ourselves. 


 


Mitch: (02:35)


That's great. And how do we go about prioritizing this though?
You know, you always want to put your priorities, your goals
first. You know, that's kind of the message and being
intentional. But um, once you get to know what other people
expect of you know, how do you go about reaching their needs to a
point where you're still successful? 


 


Rachel: (02:55)


I mean, for part of it I feel like is you know a matter of really
being really being honest about you know what you need from
people. I think a lot of times we're afraid to ask for what we
need. We're afraid to ask for support. We're afraid to ask for
clarification. We're afraid to ask people questions about things
cause we don't want them to see us as incompetent or an
inadequate in some way. And so part of that I think is around
making sure that we have the courage to be vulnerable and to be
honest about, you know, what we need. But then I think, you know,
another side of this is that, um, we have to, we're working for a
business, you know, and so it's important for us to be clear with
whoever we're working with that, you know, what are you, what are
you expecting of me? So that I can measure my own success. Cause
there's, there's a, there's a book called the truth about
Employee Engagement. And one of the things that he talks about is
that a measurement is one of the key factors that leads to job
misery. So basically not being able to gauge our own success and
progress. So I think you know, as employees, as leaders, one of
the things that we can do to really make people feel, you know, a
sense of engagement at work, and this is also tied to
expectations, is to really be clear on how they can measure their
own success. And so if we don't know how to do that, if it's not
clear to us, we need to be willing to ask those questions and get
that clarity. 


 


Mitch: (04:23)


That's a great point. And I actually just looked over, I have
that book on my bookshelf right next to me in my office. So
that's a great reference. Yeah. I guess, you know, the next
question, maybe flipping the perspective here a little bit, but
you know, we're talking about someone else's expectations of us.
How about those who aspire to be leaders, you know, particularly
our listeners, they look to be CFO's, business partners leading
in the accounting and finance world. When you are the leader, how
do you really, you know, not just develop your own personal
leadership style but you know, consider the expectations of
somebody else and make sure that you, uh, you know, work with
them also from the other side of it. 


 


Rachel: (05:05)


You know, it's interesting, I think a lot of times, especially in
very technical profession, so I've, I've often speaks to people
that are in technical fields like, like finance, accounting,
engineering, architecture and design, construction. So people
that are in spaces that are generally very, very technical. And
there's an assumption that in order to advance that we have to
have the most technical knowledge, that if we're the most
technically competent, that is going to be the thing that is
going to help us advance and grow. And what I've come to learn
through experience but also through a lot of research that's been
coming out lately, is that there's this study done that looked at
over 50,000 managers. And what they found is that warmth. So when
we think of warmth, we think of approachability, accessibility,
kindness, care, honesty, being present with people, that warmth
was a greater predictor of leadership effectiveness than
competence. And that surprises a lot of people because we assume
that if we're just the most technically competent, that's going
to get us ahead. And it's changing. So what's expected of
leadership is, is changing and it's evolving and it's even been
framed by Josh Berson, right? Futurist who has a lot of influence
in terms of, you know, talking about leadership and the future of
work. And, and he is reframing what we often call soft soft
skills like these, you know, the skills related to emotional
intelligence, Jensen communication and listening and kind of the
behaviors associated with warmth. But he's reframing those and
calling them power skills because those skills, if you can do
those well they give you real power at work. They give you real
influence at work. So I would encourage people to focus if you
want to get to the top level of leadership to focus as much if
not more on more of these these power skills like your agility
people management ability to effectively, those are the things
that are going to help elevate you. You still want to be
competent. I mean we need people who are technically competent,
but it's the combination of those two things that really sets
people apart. 


 


Mitch: (07:14)


That's really interesting. And I like the kind of re
categorization of ...