Episode 70: Hybrid Work Series: Three Secrets to Self Care for Leaders of Hybrid Teams

 
 
 
improve it podcast

Happy Wednesday, improve it! Fam! We’re back with a series you don’t want to miss. Erin, your hybrid hype woman, is sharing four weeks of awesome tips and tricks as you enter the new and improved world of hybrid work. 

Listen in to week tohree of this series because improve it! Fam, this one is All. About. You.  

Tune in to the secrets of self-care as you work from home and/or in office during uncertain times.  

 

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Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief “Yes, And” officer of improve it! and host of the improve it! Podcast. She’s a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award. 

This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre. 

When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and beach dates with her husband and son, and their eight-pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl. 

You can follow the failed it! podcast on Instagram @learntoimproveit and facebook, and you can follow Erin personally on Instagram @keepinitrealdiehl here. You can also check out improve it! and how we can help your organization at www.learntoimproveit.com. We can’t wait to connect with you online! 

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Episode 70 Transcription

Erin (00:00): 

Mic check 1, 2, 1, 2. No, this is not a test or something. I need to edit, improve it! Family. It's the start of another show. Another show as part of the hybrid work series here on the improve it! Podcast. Thank you for hitting play. Thank you for bringing me along with you wherever you may be today. I am so excited to chat with you. This has been something on my heart. Something that I have really been thinking a lot about when I talk to our clients, when I talk to other leaders, I know, and I know you improve it! Fam. You are the person leading your team. You are the person working from home. You are the person preparing to go back into the office or not preparing to go back into the office. You are the person searching the internet for news on the Delta variant wondering will work ever get back to quote unquote normal all the while you're managing your day-to-day schedules, as well as the health and the well being of your team. 

Erin (01:17): 

And you're prioritizing your family and their needs above your own. Well, my improve it! Fam I am here today to give you a much needed reprieve from everything going on in the world - today is all about you. So I want you to put your feet up and if you're on a walk or run, just take like a little mental moment and put on your face mask if you are lying down, close your eyes. And I want you to think about you because you deserve this moment today. I want to talk to you about three secrets to self care that are going to help you through this crazy time and this crazy thing called hybrid work, because my improve it! Family, nothing works unless you do. Let me say that again for the people in the back, nothing works unless you do. 

Erin (02:23): 

Are you a leader or change maker inside of your business organization or corporation? Are you looking for new, innovative ways to drive morale through the roof? Are you looking for fun and exciting icebreakers, team building exercises and activities that will foster team growth, friendships, loyalty, and completely transform your organization from the inside out? Have you been searching for a fun and unique way to create change instead of this same old dry, boring leadership books and icebreakers that aren't actually working? Hi, I'm Erin Diehl, business improv edutainer, failfluencer, and professional zombie who is ready to help you improve it. My mission in life is to help you develop teams and leaders through play improv and experiential learning. And this podcast, we will deep dive into professional development team building, effective communication, networking, presentation, skills, leadership training, how to think more quickly on your feet and everything in between. We have helped everyone from fortune 500 companies to small mom and pop shops transform their business, their leadership, and their people through play. So grab your chicken hat. We are about to have some fun, welcome to improve it! The podcast. 

Erin (03:58): 

All right. So before we dive in, I want to tell you about two things involving today's show. Number one, if you haven't yet we are on this journey in the hybrid work series, but if you have not yet grabbed your PDF from episode, I'll call it one. But really it was episode 68, where we started the hybrid work series. We have a downloadable PDF for you that is going to just help guide you through this crazy thing called hybrid work. We started at episode 68 with the why, and that's what this PDF is for, is for you to remember the why. And it is an acronym that you'll have to listen to episode 68 or grab a copy of this PDF to understand and to keep. And if you have it, I hope you have yours handy. Add notes from today's show to that PDF. 

Erin (05:03): 

You can find it in the link on the show notes, or you can find it on our website, learntoimproveit.com/hybrid-hype, lots of H's hybrid-hype. There it is. So I also want to just encourage you if you haven't yet to take a look at our left breaks, we'll link to those in the show notes as well, as well as our workshops. So for your hybrid team, we have in-person workshops, or we have virtual soft skill training workshops here to help you navigate these crazy crazy times. Or we have our laugh breaks, which are there to break up boring monotonous zoom meetings and help infuse some laughter for your team. But speaking of workshops, we do have a public workshop on September 21st at 11:00 AM central. So that's noon Eastern, and it goes from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM central. So an hour and a half session on Tuesday, September 21st, you will train a slack community. 

Erin (06:14): 

This is our leadership workshop and it is virtual. So you'll get to meet some other members of the improve it! Fam we are experimenting with this slack support and community group for the improve it! Fam. So join us on this public workshop. You'll be joining the slack group. We love to gather your thoughts because we talking to you by we, I mean me, I talk into this podcast all the time and it's so nice to hear from people when I get emails from you or you send me a DM on Instagram or a LinkedIn DM. So the slack community is a way for us to communicate outside of the show. But you'll only get access to that right now through our public workshop on September 21st. So take a look in the show notes, and you can also find that on our website, under our events tab, learntoimproveit.com under the events tab and take a looksie and join us! 

Erin (07:13): 

Back to our regular scheduled programming, improve it! Fam had to do a song interlude right into it. So I want to start right into this topic of self-care and self care my friends comes in many different forms. Okay. You know, the metaphors put on your own oxygen mask before you put on an other person's oxygen mask on an airplane. I totally botched it, but you get the point put on your oxygen mask first, right? Fill your tea kettle so that you can fill others' tea cups. You can't fill others teacups unless your kettle is full. All of these metaphors mean take care of yourself. That's all they mean. And there is a million of them, but those are two of my top two, but you have to take care of you. If you are like me and you have a demanding job, you have a child or kids, or maybe you have a toddler like, like ya girl. 

Erin (08:33): 

And you work all day from your home office and you end work at the end of the day, and then you immediately have to switch to mom mode. So there's no commute anymore. You literally leave your work from home office. That was me snapping my finger. You leave your work from home office. You take the one minute down the hall or down the stairs to your child. And you're immediately transitioned from leader to mom, right? There's no commute. So we go from leading and caring for our teams to then leading and caring for our families. And it's time that we gave and we cared for ourselves. So I'm going to give you three secrets today on how you can do just that. And these aren't secrets. You can't, you know, this isn't something like, let me whisper in your ear. These are things that we know. 

Erin (09:29): 

These are things we should do. And these are three easy waves to start making you a priority. So I want to start with the first secret. And I feel like when I say secret, I should be like secret. So the first secret it's like, I don't know why. I just thought of Ryan Seacrest, Ryan Seacrest. I don't know that. Anyway. I digress first secret on how to take care of you or give you some self-care is establish a morning routine. So this is number one. Number one, the number one secret that I honestly have found so much success in is our morning routine. And by our, I mean, me, I don't know why I keep speaking plurally there's one of me here. So I made an entire episode on this episode, 10 and it of what was the failed it! Now improve it! Podcast. 

Erin (10:32): 

No more morning fails. We gave you five tips on how to rock your AMS. Okay? This episode has packed a punch. I know many members of the failed it! Slash improve it! Fam who listened to this and really started to implement some of these fundamentals into their day. It's very simple. If you don't want to go back and listen to episode 10, let me give you Cliff notes. Start your day for you. Let me say this. I was not a morning, Meghan. Okay. I was like don't talk to me, Debra. And it was rough. I hated mornings. I literally hated mornings. So when I tell you that, when I started a morning routine about five ish, years ago, now everything changed. Everything changed. So here's what I want you to do. It's so simple. Okay. I want you to wake up one hour to an hour and a half earlier than your usual time. 

Erin (11:33): 

So if you are a 7:00 AM or you're now a 6:00 AM, if you're a 6:00 AM, 5:00 AM is rough, but you can do it. Okay. As soon as you get up, I want you to put your workout clothes, gym, clothes, comfy clothes, whatever next to your bed, slip them on. Okay. And then go move for body for 30 minutes. Okay? 30 minutes of movement. If you have time after this 30 minutes, I want you to be still - meditate. Sit with Gus, which is either God universe or this source, this sitting in you, any successful human, you know, talks about meditation. Okay? And it's really a time for you to sit and allow inputs to come to you. You're constantly putting out outputs right? All day long. You're caring for your kids. You're caring for your team. You're caring for your parents. You're caring for your pets. Meditation allows you that time to sit and be. No technology, no scrolling on any social platform. 

Erin (12:50): 

No limiting beliefs. No. Comparisonitis nothing you are receiving. And you were generally receiving from a voice within, okay? So let's say you spend your first 30 minutes of that hour working out, take five to 10 of those minutes for you to sit and be. And then the rest of that time, allow yourself time to do something that is going to improve you. Do you see it in there? You saw what I did. Take time to improve your mind. This could be taking a course right now. I'm currently taking a digital course about how to make Instagram reels. If you follow me on Instagram @keepinitrealdiehl, just shameless plug. You might see some real doozies. I'm in the course right now, but I'm failing through it and I'm learning and I'm trying, but I'm really using this time in the morning. I take about, I try now to get up an hour and a half earlier. 

Erin (13:49): 

So I have about 45 minutes to take on this course. Okay. You can, instead of a course, read a book, read a business book, read a book that makes you feel good. Read a book that's going to motivate you to start your day. I discourage reading a book that is about doom and gloom first thing in the morning. So read a book that is going to motivate you. Take that time to learn. This is filling your tea, kettle. This is putting your mask on first. Okay. You can do this before your commute into the office. So back in the day when I was in an office every single day, I did this prior to showing up the learning part is new for me. So the learning piece is something I've implemented as a little addition and add on to the morning routine, but do this because it's going to start the day right for you. 

Erin (14:42): 

You have given to yourself, you have given that space in your day for you, for your development, for your learning, you are not doing for others. You are doing for you. So morning routines are just so clutch in that self care space. Please try this. And if you try it, I want to hear how it works. I want you to send me an email info at learn to improve it. Dot com private message me on LinkedIn. The only Erin Diehl at improve it. The @keepinitrealdiehl on Instagram. But I really do want to hear how this works for you because I know several members since we ran the show on episode 10 of no more morning fails, who've started their morning this way, and it has been life changing. So take a moment for you. Number two, this is the second secret in self care leaders. 

Erin (15:37): 

Here it is - balanced breaks during the work day, whether you're in office or you're working from home, you have got to schedule breaks. So your brain can balance everything that is processing. So to take like a wide lens here, and kind of you were talking about the course of a day. I want you to go and I want you to expand your mind to think of the course of a week. Sunday nights are crucial to success for me. They are literally, I put my son to bed about eight fifteen. I sit down and I look at my calendar and I map out the entire week and then I have it on my Google calendar. But then I put it in a physical planner just so I can see I'm that type a, this improvisor is that type a. I put little stickers there. It's fun. It's a whole thing. 

Erin (16:35): 

But I start my week with this planning session. So I know every day, what needs to happen. So I schedule in there movement and break time. And what I do daily is after I do my morning routine for me, I have to wake up my son. I get him dressed for the day. We get his childcare together. I make a cup of coffee or maybe another cup of coffee because coffee is queen. Okay. and I go back to my desk and I sit down and I've had a list on a post it note of everything I do on my day. So my calendar is literally time blocked to the T including breaks. And then I write down everything from my calendar onto a post it note that sits right in front of my keyboard that I cross off. As I do each task, I'm telling you it's super type a, but this is what keeps me in sync with myself and with what I need to accomplish. 

Erin (17:35): 

So included in that I've got things like lunch. Okay. I schedule lunch. I put 30 minutes on my calendar for lunch. I put walk and post. So I implemented this about a month ago. It's been really awesome because I realized only had been taking about 5,000 steps a day maximum when I was sitting at my desk all day. So I would get up and start my day. I always post something on either Instagram, well actually on both Instagram and LinkedIn. And then I do this now, while walking, I have a little route in my neighborhood, which results in me walking towards the ocean because I now live very close to the ocean. And there's this beautiful lot, which has been torn down a family is building a home on. So, so proud for them. But their view is right now with nothing. There is beautiful. 

Erin (18:34): 

They've put a port-a-potty in front of my beautiful view that I'm not really happy about. Anyway, I digress. But my whole point is I walk and I post and I do things while I'm moving. And I actually write a lot of the captions for my posts. Sometimes I brainstorm things and ideas for the show, but I'm, I'm walking and I'm moving and I'm scheduling this. It's not a break. It's a balanced break because I'm not just sitting at my computer. I'm walking and I'm moving - movement is medicine. Okay? Put your lunch, break on your calendar in your calendar. Put a break to get up and move for 10 minutes in your calendar. Step away from your screens. At both of these times, you cannot be staring at your screen all day. Put 10 minutes of endorphin. So put a 10 minute calendar break on there where you talk to your doc, literally pet your dog, petting a dog, Eagles, endorphins, endorphins, make people happy. Make your favorite meal or lunch. Take a 10 minute break. Watch a clip from your favorite show. Take a walk, listen to this podcast. Hey, or just take a break, a silent break away from your screens. You need to take a break leaders. I'm telling this to you with a lot of love. You need to take a break or you will break. Let me say that again. You will take a break or you will have to take a break or you will break. 

Erin (20:11): 

If you have a job that requires you to be in back-to-back meetings. And it's not something that you can really control. I want you to try this, ask somebody, especially if it's an internal team member. If you can do a walk and talk and that's, Hey, I don't want to be on FaceTime right now on zoom. Can we just do a phone call for the next 30 minutes? I need to get up and move. Can we do that and still talk about what we need to talk about. I guarantee you, they will be actually relieved. They probably don't have their makeup or their hair done, or I don't know. Maybe they don't have on pants. They will be happy. Okay. So talk to especially internal team member about a walk and talk. I want you to remember this movement is medicine. So take a balanced break by moving your body or moving away from your screens. 

Erin (21:08): 

That is secret number two, which gets me to secret number three. So you've got your morning. You've got your balanced breaks throughout the day. The third thing that we really need to think about, which not a lot of people think about, and I'm going to tell you, I've been very mindful of recently is to establish an evening routine no matter if you're in the office or you're working from home. Now, if you have a hybrid team and you've got people in the office and you're working from home or you're in the office and people are working from home, all of these things apply. This is really about self care for you in either situation and you can use this knowledge to help your team. So let's talk about what is an evening routine. We all know about the morning. I never had an evening routine. 

Erin (21:57): 

I'm going to be real. I'm going to tell you what my old evenings used to consist of. Okay? This is being a mother, put child, get child fed, get child bathed, get child to bed. Probably have a glass of wine in there. Maybe have another glass post bedtime. Scroll my phone for an hour. Just mindlessly looking on Instagram, seeing LinkedIn, checking out Facebook. Maybe I'll jump on Pinterest. Oh, I don't know. Now let me just buy some things on Amazon that I don't need. That was it. That was literally my evenings. And then I would say, okay, well it's 10, 10, 15 time to go to bed and I'd go wash up and go to bed. I have since really put a lot of thought into the way that I in my day. And I want you to think about the way that you're ending yours. What are you doing? Are you having the glasses of wine? And then how does that make your future self feel? How does that mindless scroll make you feel? I'm going to say this. I definitely, during the pandemic had a lot of alcohol. 

Erin (23:14): 

I drank every night. I had a glass or two of wine every night because I was just stressed out of my mind. I mean, we had to pivot this entire business. I had a one year old, we moved across the country. So it became a habit. And since about two and a half, three months ago, I really examined my relationship with alcohol. If you're a longtime listener of the show, you'll remember Judy holler, one of our guests, good friend of mine. She is doing a sober curious year or just alcohol free. And it really motivated me to take a look at my own relationship with alcohol. So I now limit my alcohol intake to the weekends. And literally it could be Thursday night. I want to, you know, a glass of wine. Great. But not like Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and Friday and Saturday. 

Erin (24:13): 

So I now limit that to weekends only. And I'll tell you what I don't. I really don't know if I feel better. I really don't. I can't sit here and say like, oh, I've lost weight or my skin's glowing or my hair shine. You're no, but what has happened is that I examined that thing. That was, I feel like controlling me and I said, okay, I'm not going to give you that power. I'm going to take my power back. And so now my evenings look like same kind of thing. If you have children, you feel me here. If you don't, you know, know that I was again, an infertility warrior for a really long time. And this was something I hoped for. So I don't want to sound complainy, but it is a lot of work. You have to feed your kids, bathe them, put them to bed. 

Erin (24:59): 

The whole process is like an hour and a half process over here. Now, after that, I don't have a glass of wine or anything to drink, but what I do is after we put him down, I find a show or something that brings me joy. So right now I've binge watched schmigadoon with my mom is actually staying with us right now. So if you know the show schmigadoon on apple TV, it's hilarious that a lot of people from SNL, it's a musical or just a show that makes me happy. So I'll sit down and watch a show or I'll do a meditation of something that I feel like is something I need to work on. But I'm doing something that is allowing me to wind down and not have to be on. And for a long time, I didn't allow myself this. I thought I had to keep doing, doing, doing till right before I hit my head on the pillow. 

Erin (25:51): 

And that's not, that's not true. It actually wasn't doing me any favors. And I do think not drinking a glass or two of wine every night has really allowed me to wake up with a clearer mind. And it's also allowed me to know that I can do it right? So here's what I want you to try - do something in the evening. That brings you joy, whether it's a new hobby, but it's something that you don't do during the day. Maybe you want to learn to play the guitar. Maybe want to learn to play the banjo. Maybe you want to join a volleyball league or you want to join a running group, but it's something that shifts your brain out of this constant worry for other people and for the job and the company that you're working for. It's something that shifts it back to you. 

Erin (26:39): 

I will tell you, there's also a supplement. It's an herbal supplement that I've talked about here on this show before called holy basil leaf. It's literally like a vitamin. They do not pay me to say this. I know no one who works there. Remember I'm a failfluencer, but it is an amazing herb that helps just relax and relieve stress. So I take a little capsule every night, right before I go to bed and it just sort of sues me. I take a shower, I take one of these little holy basil leaves. And then I go to sleep and I will tell you that this has been a work in progress. It took many attempts to figure out what works for me, but I want you to figure out a routine that works for you in the evenings. So improve it! Fam these three secrets to self-care to take care of your mornings, balance yourself during the day, and to carve out an evening routine that allows you to stop. 

Erin (27:35): 

All of these things. Take care of you. It's actually selfish to be selfless when you don't cake. Let me say this again. When you don't take care of you, you cannot take care of your team. You cannot take care of your family. You can not take care of the people that you lead. What we are seeing after a year and a half of this pandemic is burnout on so many levels. People not shutting off people, working overtime and expecting their teams to do the same. I'm going to give you some tough love here leaders. If you expect that from your team that team's going to leave mark, my words, they will leave. It is not sustainable. And many other companies are realizing self-care is so important and they are taking suit. So think about how you are allowing self-care into your life and how you're allowing it into your teams. 

Erin (28:47): 

Normalize, taking mental health days, normalize taking days off and not checking email, normalize self care for you. Remember that there are so many eyes watching what you do, and if they see you not taking care of you, what makes them think it's okay for them to do so, let me ask you a question. Who would you rather work for? The balanced Betty. Okay. Who has the balance of work, personal life who takes vacations and trips and sees the world, but not just their laptops, the world who takes care of themselves and the people around them, or would you rather work for burnout Brenda, who works around the clock, who never takes vacation, who emails on PTO days, who was only there to push their way to the top of the corporate ladder and doesn't care what it takes for her or the people on her team to do so in order to get there. Praise, went to church praise on a personal note, I have worked for both balanced Betty and burnout Brenda and I left Brenda after a year and a half. Okay. By Brenda legit could not sleep. I cried on Sunday nights and I had constant adult onset acne. This is a true story. You can ask John deal. My hubs, I, it was, it was crazy. Now I moved on from Brenda and found Betty. Betty is balanced Betty. Remember that? So I stayed with Betty for six years and she molded me and she actually encouraged me to leave and to start improve it. So who would you rather work for? I want you to be that person. Who would you rather work for? I have so much love and so much respect for you, improve it! Fam. And I'm honored that I get to share the microphone with you and share your earbuds and share time. 

Erin (30:59): 

If today resonated with you, I want you to consider leaving a review. If you haven't, that really helps us bring more people to the improve it! Fam and share all of these concepts with the world. So please leave us that review. And if you don't want to leave a review, please share the show today with a friend, just copy the link, send it to them in, in text or share it on Instagram or somewhere that you can provide it to your friends and family. Because there's so many leaders out there who are burning out, who are not taking the time to really think about the way that they're showing up for themselves. It's so important. This message needs to get out. So I want to remind you that self care is caring not only for yourself, but it's for the people that you lead. Self-Care is caring not only for yourself, but for the people you lead. I'll leave you with that. Improve it! Fam now go out there and improve your self care habits because the world needs that special it that only you can bring see you next time. 

Speaker 2 (32:15): 

Hey friends, thanks for tuning in to improve it. I am so happy. You're along for the ride. If you enjoyed this show, head on over to iTunes to leave us a five star review and subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode. New episodes drop every Wednesday. Now, if you're really feeling today's show and you've improved it even just a little bit, please take a screenshot and me @keepinitrealdiehl on Instagram and share it in your stories. I'll see you next week, but I want to leave you with this thought, what did you improve today and how will that help your future successful self? Think about it. I am rooting for you and the world needs that special. It that only you can bring, see it next time. 

Erin DiehlComment