Welcome to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d get slapped with a diagnosis of paracusis if I had to hear that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with the highlights. Hey, Tony, this week it’s how to thrive when work doesn’t love you back. Thats Mikko Marquette Whitlock new book. And he returns to share his wisdom. The mindful techie has advice, like honor your priorities, negotiate your boundaries, embody your well being, mind your meds and quite a bit more on Tony’s take two hails from the gym. Turn off your speaker phone lady were sponsored by virtuous, virtuous, gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and go giving, virtuous.org and by donor box, outdated donation, forming your supporters, generosity, donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org here is how to thrive when work doesn’t love you back. It’s a pleasure to welcome back again and again, Miko Marquette Whitlock he is the nonprofit techie. He’s a workplace well being strategist. His new book is How to thrive when work doesn’t love you back. A practical guide for taking care of yourself while changing the world. His practice and his book are at Mindful techie.com. And you’ll find Miko on linkedin. Welcome back, Miko. Thank you for having me, Tony. It’s always a pleasure to talk with you. No, thank you. It’s a pleasure to have you back to talk about this book which I very much enjoyed reading. Uh easy read. Valuable, lots of lots, lots of tips. Here’s what to do. If you got five minutes, if you have 15 minutes, if you have 30 minutes, we’ll get to that. Every, every, every chapter is chock full. Uh I love the book. I real, I enjoyed reading it. Tell your story. You were uh you, you, you were in a, in a dark, sad, uh burned out place at one time. Yes. So I’ve, I’ve worked across nonprofit and, and government sector most of my professional career and I very much enjoyed the work that I was doing. Um I worked in a number of different roles related to communications and technology and in my last role before starting my current work, I was communications director for a large organization focused on ending HIV and Hepatitis. Uh We worked with public health officials in the US and around the world and the continent of Africa and the Caribbean and, and lots of other places. Um And I really enjoyed the work. Um But that mission was very heavy and the, the mandate that I was given in terms of building a team, building out a department. Um that was a lot and it caught up to me. Uh I started out, I was really um excited and, and willing to put in the extra hours, willing to, to go the extra mile above and beyond. Um But it reached a point where that wasn’t sustainable and I hit up a really low valley. You know, I was, I was depressed. I had gained a lot of weight and I didn’t feel like I could bring what I was feeling, what I was experiencing to anyone in the organization. I had this idea that that was inappropriate that I needed to sort of suck it up and figure out how to, how to essentially figure it out on my own. Right. That’s, that was the space that I was in. And I reached a point where I faced a potentially life threatening illness. And that was the beginning of a wake up call where I realized that there had to be a different way to do this work. Um that it, it shouldn’t be an either or, or a binary choice. There has to be a way that we can take care of ourselves and do this work in a sustainable way. And one of the questions that I kept asking myself as I was moving through. This is that if I’m burned out, if I’m not at my best, if all of us are sort of at some point of our journey, we’re, we’re experiencing something similar when we’re working in the sector, then who would ever be around long enough to actually do this work, who would ever be around long enough to do the work that this sector was created to do. And that was the start of a, a journey of, of healing for me. And fortunately for me, I had a supportive team, I had a supportive organization and that allowed me to think more holistically about what I needed to uh take care of myself while doing the work and setting appropriate boundaries that empowered me to be able to support my team in doing the same thing. And um that was the start of our journey that brings me to where we are here today. How many years ago was your wake up call? Um That was more than 10 years ago. Were you able to stay with that nonprofit that you were working with as you improved your your own well being you, you I stayed on for a few years um after I had this inflection point. And um one of the beautiful parts of that journey was that I began to share this story. I began and I began to share this journey and I spoke at a conference I believe I it was, it was intent. I gave a short, one of the short ignite talks about my experience. And one of the reasons that I ended up doing the work that I’m doing now and the way that I’m doing it is so many folks came up to me after that short talk where I shared this, this my journey and sort of where I was in that journey, they shared that they resonate with what I was sharing. Um So that let me know that I wasn’t alone. Um They wanted help with these challenges and they wanted to hire me to help them. And a light bulb sort of went off and said, you know what I, as much as I’ve enjoyed the work that I have done, I had also reached a point where I had done what I had been asked to do and I was ready to figure out what was the next leg of my professional journey. And this seemed like a natural progression for that. I think that’s instructive because you, you were able to stay in the organization as, as difficult as the work had become for you. Uh Personally, I don’t mean the substance of the work a as maybe sort of as, as toxic as the demands had become, put it that way you were able to stay, you were able to negotiate your own boundaries and uh a acknowledge your, your limitations, things like that, you know, we’re gonna, we’re gonna get into, within the organization that had been so difficult for you to, to be with and that it had driven you to, uh needing a wake up call. Absolutely. And I wanna be clear that it wasn’t the organization that did something to me. Um, it wasn’t, um, like a particular person that did something. What we’re talking about is, is structural and systemic um, issues that contribute to this being not just a um experience that’s that I experience, but it’s, it’s like an experience that’s very common to change makers around the world that are doing this type of work. Let’s uh II, I define um mindfulness. You and I and Jason and Beth Cantor have talked about mindfulness, but I don’t think I’ve ever asked anybody, you know, what, what does it mean to you, please? Mindfulness as I think about it is, it’s an innate quality that we all possess to essentially pay attention to the present moment, to be fully present and to do that without judgment, right? And when we think about mindfulness, we often associate it with formal practices like meditation and yoga. Those are certainly ways to cultivate mindfulness. Um But this innate quality of being able to pay attention is something that has existed since the beginning of our species. And as a matter of fact, when we think about caveman Daves and the lions and the bears and so on and so forth, a certain level of mindfulness was required in order for us to be aware of threats and to be able to respond accordingly. And so when we talk about um mindfulness in that sense, it’s not a part of a particular religion or particular tradition. Um It’s something that we all possess. Um but there are different ways to, to cultivate that, but that’s how I think about mindfulness. Interesting uh uh additional component to it is that, you know, without apology, to being present, without uh having to justify it to, to, to, to others or to an organization or, you know, anyone out, anyone beside yourself. Um Because, uh you know, I asked that, you know, sort of at the outset because II, I think, I think, I think of your book is essentially creating mindfulness. Uh You have lots of different steps and, and just mindfulness, intentionality and all without uh all without apology. Yes, all without apology, all, all without judgment and being able to extend to yourself grace that even in the space of being mindful and intentional um that what you are experiencing might not feel good, but being willing and being courageous enough to be with whatever you are experiencing allows you to figure out. Ok, well, how do I constructively move through whatever it is that I’m experiencing at this moment? There are so many outside forces too that are, that are challenging us. Um You know, you talk about prolonged uncertainty, social anxiety, you know, these, these forces acting on us that we’re very well not aware of, well, not, not aware that it’s happening and not aware of how toxic they are. Share, share your thinking around those. Yes. So there are, when we think about the the work in the change making sector or the nonprofit sector in particular, there are certain externalities that contribute to for some of us, the overwhelm that we experience at work. Um One of them is um and particularly in the US, you know, we most organizations work around what we consider to be a 40 hour work week, right? We put that in air quotes. Um And that is really a relic of a of, of a previous area era that made certain assumptions about what your family situation looks like. It assumes that you’re one person is able to go out and make enough money to be able to support the entire family, the other person stays home and takes care of the kids in the house and, and all those things. Well, that has shifted our economy has, has fundamentally transformed. Um We think differently about who stays at home. And um you know, in many cases, both parents are working. Um And so what childcare looks like is, is very different. So you have that aspect of it, the pandemic. Um The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally reshaped our life and our work and it has surfaced what for some, some of us has already been there and it has exacerbated things um to you to your point about the uncertainty, right? What’s what’s happening next? What is this, what is, what is the residual impact gonna look like in terms of our life and the work moving forward? When we think about A I, for example, with a lot of folks that I work with now, there’s lots of anxiety about, you know, will I still be relevant, right? How will my work transform? Right? Um People are feeling anxious about feeling like there’s yet one more thing that I have to learn, one more tool that I have to learn in order to stay relevant in order to um stay up to speed and to actually make a valuable contribution um to this work that I care so much about. So all of those are weighing on us in terms of the overwhelm and then you have, you know, the sector in general where we have been structurally underfunded to, to begin with, right? So that creates another set of externalities that, that, that further compound things I think that’s important to understand, but it’s not the place that we stop. So the book is, the book recognizes that those things exist, but it also recognizes that as individuals inside of organizations, you may not be in a position where you have the influence because you’re maybe you’re not a manager, maybe you’re not at the board level, maybe you’re not the CEO or executive director, you may not be able to influence a top down approach to culture shift in your organization in a way that improves well being overall for your team and, and for you. But there are things that you can do as an individual. Notwithstanding that um to begin to experience a shift, to begin to change your experience over time and to begin to make space over the long term to address the issues um at a broader level. So there’s the um what I call the spheres of impact um in the book where similar to when we’re flying, many of us have probably heard this from flight attendants, you know, in the event of an emergency, an oxygen mask might drop down from the ceiling in that event that that that happens to secure your own oxygen masks first before you support someone else. The same applies here, many of us including including me, part of the experience, part of the burnout that I experienced was the result of me jumping head first and wanting to serve this higher mission, wanting to serve my organization and my team, but I had not fully resourced myself. And so I experienced short term success, but I reached a point where I petered out and that began to have some negative consequences across a number of different areas of my life. And so when we think about this, in terms of um where do we start as individuals. I always invite people to start with, what are you doing to fully resource yourself first. Notwithstanding all these other externalities that are, that are pressing up against you. If you’re able to fully resource yourself first, you’re positioning yourself to long term in a, in a sustainable way, address some of those other issues. I often remind folks that you can’t control what happens to you, but you can control how you react to it and that you’re, I mean, you’re your theories and your, your strategies are are I think, right, right in line with that. Um And, and that we have to take care of ourselves before we can take care of others. I love your reminder about the the airline uh you know, the airline briefing. Um Yeah, you, you, you, you have to take care of yourself first and then you can be graceful and generous, thoughtful, empathetic, productive, valuable or others or other stuff. So before we talk about um change your five, your 55 strategies for change. So just to make it explicit what’s on the other side of the journey, what is, what is thriving when, when, how to thrive when work doesn’t love you back? What does thriving look like? Thriving means in the context of us as change makers that are doing good work that are having a mission to change the world that you are sustainably resourcing and taking care of yourself. So that you are positioned to give your best in service of whatever mission it is that you are serving. What that means at the individual level is we are finding healthy ways to navigate even the difficult parts of our work. Um We’re avoiding um or, or reducing the likelihood that we’re going to, to burn out. And then on the mission side, what we’re looking at is um essentially elevated and amplified impact, organizational impact. Um because you aren’t having the cycle of burnout. And we know that on the organizational level, what does that actually translate to? It means that you’re probably gonna have issues with retention, right? As a hiring manager, I understand how costly in terms of time and also in terms of money to actually hire a new person. Once someone leaves, right, there are estimates that show that it costs 2 to 3 times the salary in some cases of the position. Um And the time wasted to, you know, put together a position description, do the recruitment, bring someone on board, get them up to speed to fill this gap that was left by a culture that perhaps created this cycle of, of, of turn, for example. So th that’s just very, that’s just one concrete example. So uh my, my, my thought process on this is that if we’re able to intentionally apply some of these concepts to our situation that we can create healthier individuals and healthier organizations that are able to more effectively meet their missions over the long term, in a sustainable way. Let’s talk about how to get there to change, change. Absolutely. So the change is change are the commitments that in my view, when we are embodying these commitments that we are positioning ourselves to do the work long term and sustainably while also taking care of ourselves. Um One of the ways that I think about this is if you are driving a car and you have your, your dashboard, you have the different indicators that show you your fuel level, that show you the oil level that show you the temperature of the engine, that show you how fast you’re going. All of those things are simultaneously important in some respect to understand how well the car is functioning and helping you to get from your starting point to your final destination. Similarly, we want to be operating at a certain minimum level in each of these um commitments in order to be functioning at a high level and sustainably as a change maker. So really quickly, what does it look like in terms of change? So the C is for connecting with your why or reconnecting with your why? So why do you actually do this work? What is your um end goal um that can be as noble as you wanting to end homelessness or it can be, you know what you want to make enough money to retire, right? The there’s no judgment. The, the invitation is for you to be clear about what that, what that Y is Miko. Let, let’s just tick through the, the five. So folks get, folks get the overview and then we’re gonna all, well, of course, we’re gonna come back. Sure. Um The H is for honoring your priorities connected to your Y um The A is for acknowledging and confronting those limiting beliefs that might get in the way of fulfilling that Y um the N is for negotiating and renegotiating boundaries. The G is for generating space to go within and then the final one is bringing them all together, which is embodying well being while well doing. It’s time for a break. Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity. Virtuous believes that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world and in the heart of the giver. It’s their mission to move the needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers. Responsive fundraising puts the donor at the center of fundraising and grows giving through personalized donor journeys that respond to the needs of each individual. Virtuous is the only response of nonprofit CRM designed to help you build deeper relationships with every donor at scale. Virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising, volunteer marketing and automation tools. You need to create responsive experiences that build trust and grow, impact virtuous.org. Now back to how to thrive when work doesn’t love you back. So let’s focus on the connecting to your why. But you, you, you, you, you spend a lot of time talking about goals. Uh Well, what is, you know, identifying your why and goals and prioritizing? But what, what uh how do I just identify my why? Absolutely. Uh So one of the places to start, if, if you’re struggling with, with your why is really just first understanding that it doesn’t have to be this lofty high-minded thing that comes down on high in terms of your why, right? You can be very specific about, OK, for the next 90 days or for the next year, my vision of success in this particular role or in my life overall is fill in the blank, right? So my vision for success or my, my why is that I want to, in my case, have a fully staffed communications department so that we can move the mission of the organization forward, right? That’s very concrete, very time bound. Um It can be loftier and more broad than that. But if you’re struggling with making it more concrete, I invite you to shrink the time frame and get very practical about at the end of that time frame. What’s the result that you want to see and work backwards from there? So once we’ve identified, then how do we take steps to uh to actually truly connect with our y So the there are two parts to this. So one is thinking about how would you go about the work of actually fulfilling that, that’s an important part of actively connecting and reconnecting to it. So what are the, what are the measurable goals that you are engaged in? Um What are the day to day action items that you’re engaged in to actually move that forward? So that’s one aspect of that. The second aspect of that is what is your ritual look like on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual basis of actually reconnecting with that. So for me, I have a planning tool um that I use that, that I created called the Intention Planner. And I use that on a daily basis. When I’m planning my day, I identify what is my intention for that day. What’s my vision for success? And it’s tied to the larger vision that I have for that quarter and, and for that for that year. And that’s one of the ways that I connect to and, and reconnect with that. I just want, I just want listeners to know that uh the intention planner is also at mindful techie uh dot com. Alongside, right alongside the book, there’s the intention Planner. So you’re using your intention planner. Yeah. So the, so with the book and with the planner, this is not a theoretical work for me. So this is not something that I’m asking you to do that. I’m not doing when I created the intention planner I didn’t intend to have that be for sale. I created it because I didn’t see anything out there. That made sense for me in terms of how I think about intentionally planning my day as a change maker. And so I had a podcast interview, cinema similar to this. And the host asked me, so when is this gonna be available? And I like, but when I was like, oh, ok, people actually want to buy this. And so I made it available for sale similar with the book. There’s lots of research that backs backs up the process and the approach that I take. But this is really a practical approach that I live by and that I teach to my clients. This isn’t something that I sort of just summarized a bunch of articles or books that are already out there. This is, this is, this is actually the, the path that I live and this is actually what I teach. OK. Um And then, so once you have, once you have goals identified um and time bound and tied to your, to your, to your larger y and your work um prioritizing. Yes. So honoring your priorities. So prioritizing essentially means that at any particular point in time, you can have a gazillion goals that you want to achieve that might be relevant to or aligned with your why. But the reality is that we have a finite existence, right? We have a limited amount of time and resources and energy, even though our energy is renewable, if we are, you know, taking care of ourselves. And so what that means is that we have to identify, going back to your, your, your question about mindfulness. What do I have the capacity to focus on in this moment? Right. What do I have the time and energy to focus on in this moment? And that’s gonna let you know what your priorities are. So if you have a gazillion things on your to do list for this week, based on how much time you actually have available, what do you actually have the capacity to focus on? Uh and what’s gonna be the most relevant for you in terms of moving um your, your y forward for folks that are struggling with identifying priorities. One of the analogies that I really like is an analogy from um the book called the one thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papain. And they give us the imagery of a domino display. So if folks have seen these memes or you’ve seen the videos online where you have these large set of dominoes that are set up, right? And you knock over the first domino and then that has a cascading effect where it knocks over all the rest of the dominoes that first domino using a s analogy would be the priority, right? So if you’re struggling with where to start, I often invite people to think about if I could only focus on one thing for this moment, what one thing could I focus on that by doing that would make everything else on my to do list, either easier to do or irrelevant to do because I’ve chosen the highest ranking priority for this moment. Uh So I invite people to moment by moment, just say for this moment for the next hour, for the next day, for the next week. If I only accomplished one thing, what would that one thing be? And then you rinse and repeat that process uh as you get better and better with identifying and focusing on those priorities. What do we do with the distractions that, that uh uh are, are, are bound to uh are, are bound to come to us to, to face us. You know, I don’t know whether it’s an email distraction or it could be a bigger personal distraction. You know, we’ve got our priorities for the, let’s say, even just for the day. But, but there’s stuff incoming. How do, how do I navigate myself around the distractions or do I maybe the distraction? Maybe, maybe that’s a higher priority than what I set aside for the day? You know, how do we, how do we deal with this? And then not, then not uh beat ourselves up over it. The first is, is simply acknowledging that distraction is a natural part of the human experience. So we have internal distractions. So those are the thoughts, the feelings, the emotions, um, maybe, um going back to the caveman days, maybe there’s actually a legitimate fear, um, that you have about getting eaten by a tiger or attacked by a bear. Right? That, that’s, that’s a very real thing and then we have external distraction. So that’s the email coming in, that’s the phone buzzing. Um That’s someone walking into your office. Um You know, so th those, those distractions are real. So the first person starts by acknowledging that those things do exist and that you can get back on track. Um Once you acknowledge the distraction, that’s where the mindfulness piece comes in, right? Uh The second part of this is being flexible. So to your point, something very well might come up, that changes what you thought was the top priority and we get to be flexible, we get to give ourselves permission to allow things to, to change. Um Just because you have a clear sense of direction right now, that doesn’t mean that that may not change. You know, we, we can be flexible to change based on our life and how our work is flowing in a particular season. So when we acknowledge those two things, that distraction is a natural part of the human experience. Number two, we get to, to be flexible and give ourselves a little bit of grace to, to change. Then that allows us to, to do the third part of this, which is about um doing our part to set boundaries or parameters that protect our priorities. So if you are working on a, a time bound project that has a tight deadline and you wanna remain accessible, one of the strategies I’ll talk about in the book is establishing your rules of engagement and that’s where I might say, you know what um Tony, I’m working on deadline, but here I, I recognize that that an emergency might pop up if that’s the case. Here’s the way that you can reach me if and, and the true emergency pops up. I’m gonna have my phone. Um beside me, you know, feel free to call or text if, if this is actually a true emergency. If not, you, you won’t hear from me until the rest of the day until I finish this particular project. Right? There are, there are strategies like that, that we can right size depending on the appropriateness for our project or for our organization um to support us in honoring our priorities. Recognizing that distraction is a natural part of the experience, but also doing our part to minimize the distraction so that we can um focus on as much as we can the most important priority for the moment. So we’re right. So there was a very subtle transition and we went from acknowledging your limiting beliefs to uh negotiate boundaries where, which is negotiate boundaries was my favorite of the, of your five. Because they are, they’re essential. II, I just II, I don’t know, I’ve just known this for, for a long time that they’re essential to, to well being and honoring yourself. And I, I think when we talk about negotiating bounds, I think it’s important similar to the distraction for you. So simply acknowledge that for many of us that this might be an uncomfortable thing for us to do. Let’s just acknowledge that it’s uncomfortable, right? That it might not feel good and part of setting and protecting boundaries means we have to simply acknowledge the reality that there will be disappointment. You will be disappointed, you will disappoint someone else as much as you try not to. That doesn’t mean that you’re being unkind, but that just means that sometimes things aren’t perfectly aligned in terms of what we need and when we need them from different people and it’s ok if when that happens, the the the larger point is how do we respond when those things happen? And in the book, I talk about ways in which you understand when and how to say yes to things or no to things or not right now to things and how you can do that in a way that preserves the the personal relationship, how you can do that in a way that helps to educate the other person um about what your needs are, how you can do that in the way that you can help the other person figure out, OK, is there another way that I can support you in, in helping you get what you need while I also honor my current priority for this moment and vice versa? Right? How can you process and deal with the disappointment when you may need a want or desire something in a certain way by a certain time frame and the person that you are um inviting or asking to support you with that is not able to give you what you need right then and there how do you then you know, process and, and deal with that. Um You have exact language that we can, you just copy, you can copy and say not right now or no, I know this is not right for me. Like basically ever, you’re, you’re more, your wording is more eloquent, but you have the exact language we can just, I can just copy it into my email actually. Absolutely. So, and there, there are different options. Um And the the invitation is to use your best judgment um and to recognize, but all the things that we’re talking about this is a continuous practice. This is not something that you do one time and you sort of flip the switch and you’re like, you know what I got it all figured out. One of the beautiful things about the life that we’re living is that we get an opportunity to start again and again and again, to practice over and over and over again. Uh And when we can recognize and when we can accept that, I think for some of us that helps to lower the level of anxiety that we feel about, you know, moving through life and moving through work and trying to figure out like, how do we put these things? That’s a practice in a way that is sustainable and it works for us. It’s time for a break. Imagine a fundraising partner that not only helps you raise more money, but also supports you in retaining your donors, a partner that helps you raise funds, both online and on location. So you can grow your impact faster. That’s Donor box, a comprehensive suite of tools, services and resources that gives fundraisers just like you a custom solution to tackle your unique challenges, helping you achieve the growth and sustainability, your organization needs, helping you help others visit Donor box.org to learn more. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Thank you, Kate. These characters at the gym. You know, they, they, it’s not, it’s not the same characters all the time because people come at different times and uh I go at different times. It’s always morning. Um I, I don’t get there after like 10 o’clock in the morning. Usually. Never, probably never. So, but you know, you see different people. And uh uh this woman, I’ve seen a number of times this one time she had her speaker phone on and So we all had to listen to the conversation that, uh, her friend was telling her about. There was this, uh, it was the night before and there had been some kind of an assault, she was assaulted or her boyfriend was assaulted or so somebody was assaulted in a parking lot. Uh, and then, you know, they, they like, saw assaulted, like, just, you know, like pushed or something, you know, nothing like beaten up but still an assault, not appropriate but, you know, not bloody or anything. Apparently based on the story, you know, a as it was relayed to me via this woman’s uh speaker phone. So there she went home and her guy was with her. It’s not clear what the relationship is. They went home, they called the police and the police came, the, then there was, there was some, there was some questioning but then a neighbor comes over and the neighbor is an attorney. So he was asking the detective who came to the, to the house to, to take pictures of the woman or the, uh, and thank goodness the neighbor is an attorney because otherwise I wouldn’t have thought of that myself. You know, this woman is saying, and, you know, I, I don’t, I, I mean, I just, I, I don’t need to hear Peyton Place, you know, as the world turns the guiding light, you know, I don’t, we don’t need to hear these, uh on speaker. Turn your damn speakerphone off, go out in the hall, go out the building actually going to be on speaker. You should be outside the building for Pete’s sake. Exasperating with these women. Well, with the people, th this was a woman who just uh I don’t know, she just didn’t figure it out. So we all had to listen to this five minute uh drama unfold with the, the, the, the police and the, the neighbor lawyer. And thank goodness. And, uh, so please, you know, it’s to turn your phones off to turn the phone off or jump right outside, you know, or Pete’s sake. I mean, I don’t even bring my phone to the gym. Literally, it stays home every single time. I don’t even bring it. I, I don’t need it, but if you need it for timing or something, don’t, don’t, don’t take calls, don’t, don’t take calls on the speaker phone for PT or even on the phone. We don’t want to hear even just your side of it. I Thats Tonys take too Kate. He sounds very aggravated. No, I’m not angry. I’m exasperated that she doesn’t get me angry. I’m, you know, I’m having, I’m having a good workout but she’s exasperating. I feel like Jim should have the um, you know how movie theaters have the little messages, like don’t talk or text during the movie. I feel like Jim should have that as well. Yeah, I don’t know whether they projected on the wall or something, you mean? Or, or, I don’t know, sign, you know, turn your damn speakerphone off. That’s the sign I would put up. They do have signs for, wipe down the equipment when you’re done. Uh, it’s a very civil gym. Maybe I should talk about some positive thing. It’s very, it is very, everybody’s so polite. It’s not like my New York City gym. I used to belong to, uh, I mean, they have sanitizers everywhere and, and wipes and towels. Maybe I should talk about something positive about this North Carolina gym. Hey, uh, great fun. Last week with the, uh 700 the show, by the way. Oh, I know. It was so nice to see everyone and everyone was so happy. The game was so much fun that Claire did. It was quiz. Yeah. Yeah, that was, that was fun. She stumped me in a couple. Um, and, uh, but uh, Scott and Gene and um, Blair all did uh generous uh social posts in different places. Scott was on Facebook. Uh Claire was on, it was on linkedin J. Did a big blog post at nonprofit law blog.com about the show. Yes. Very uh, very generous. Where’s your social media presence? You’re the, you’re the J Yeah. Where the hell is your social host for the 7/100 show? You’re embarrassed. Uh No, I’m, I’ll be honest. I know I’m Gen Z but I am so bad with social media. Like I never post, I know. I, I should, I should post a little something. Go, well, maybe for the 700. Not that you should be active in social media. That’s up to you. But, but just for the 700 show. Yeah, it would be appreciated. Yeah. Let leave it at that. We’ll leave it at that. Get on it. Well, we’ve got VU but loads more time. Here’s the rest of how to thrive when work doesn’t love you back with Miko Marquette Whitlock, talk about the uh FOMO versus Jomo. Absolutely. So going back to your point about distractions earlier when we talk about FOMO, FOMO is what some people describe as fear of missing out, right? So one of the examples that I give when I’m training people about setting boundaries, I give the example of at one point in my career um that if I were working on deadline, sometimes I would procrastinate or I would distract myself with email. And part of the reason for that is that I fear that if, if I wasn’t responsive and sort of looking at my email inbox all the time that I would miss something very important that I would drop the ball on something for a team member or a client or a member and that, that would have disastrous consequences. And so I feared literally missing out for some people. It’s about social media, connecting with friends and family and fear like you’re gonna miss the the latest and greatest gossip or you’re gonna, you know, you’re gonna be the last person to know about this party or event that’s happening that your friend is hosting or whatever it is. Uh So that’s very real and that’s very legitimate. So we can acknowledge that. And as part of shifting away from this, when we acknowledge that this is a real thing for us, the other end of this is Jomo. So this is the joy of missing out and the joy of missing out invites us to recognize that, you know what? I only have a certain number of hours in a day and in a week, I’m only gonna live a certain number of years and tomorrow is not guaranteed. And so I get to make peace with the fact that I can’t do it all and have it all. And so I get to make an intentional choice about what I choose to give my time and attention to right now. And what I choose to intentionally miss out on. Uh one of the ways I’ll talk about this in the book is to proactively identify your regrets, right? So whenever you are making a choice to enforce boundaries, there are gonna be certain things that you’re gonna miss out on, right? You’re gonna, you may have to miss a happy hour right after work with your, your colleagues for a certain time period. If you’re working on deadline on a special project for example, um you might have to deal with the fact that because you’re saying no, um, that your relationship with someone that you really care about in your life might shift, right? And you have to make a decision about whether or not that is something that you are willing to, um accept and how you’re willing to process that. So, um understanding this and, and processing it in this way, can position you to get to a space where it’s less fear and it’s more about joy. Recognizing that you get to make an intentional choice as opposed to reaction based on something that happened. Your example of the party invitation doesn’t resonate with me because I just knew that I would never be invited. So I just, you didn’t fear missing out, didn’t land with me. No, not, not the parties. No. Um You know, this is, it’s beautiful. Um because, you know, this is a life practice and over your life as people know you, they’re gonna, they’re gonna come to recognize that you’re not routinely saying no, you know, o over, over their relationship with you, you’ve been there for them, maybe, maybe something they had urgent rose to the level of um offsetting your other priorities for the, the day or the week or the month, depending how dire the, the the emergency or crisis may have been. You may have been there for them. So over the over, over the span of your relationships with people and with organizations, even institutions, they’re gonna come to see that you don’t, you don’t routinely say no. You don’t reflexively say no as you’re enforcing the boundaries. But occasionally, um, you do say no and, and they’re gonna, they’re gonna, when, when you do, they’re gonna, they’re gonna have the grace for you that you’ve shown them over the span of your, your relationship with them again, whether it’s a person or institution. Absolutely. So this is about recognizing that in most cases, people are reasonable and going back to the examples with the language, it’s important to do what we can to mitigate misunderstanding. Um And to provide sometimes providing context is helpful. And so um in the book, I give examples of how to say no, because I, I understand the perspective that no was a complete sentence. Yes, that is true. If you talk to, you know English professors. Yes. No, it was a complete sentence. And we also understand at least in, in the Western world, in English. Um It matters how that’s communicated verbally like in terms of your tone, it matters if, if you’re telling someone no period over text or, or, or over email that can be interpreted in many different ways, right? And so the more we can do to provide context, the more we can do to provide options in my opinion. And in my experience, um the more we can get to what you’re talking about, which is people beginning to understand and be able to extend each other grace, right? I think where we get into trouble is where we avoid having these conversations. Things go left unsaid. People have these storylines in their head about. This person doesn’t like me or this person is mean or, or this person thinks this or thinks that uh and that can often make a bad situation worse. Whereas if we just have the courage to be upfront, be proactive, um, over time, we get what you’re talking about where we’re able to have this ebb and flow of people giving each other grace. Um When things just don’t align for whatever reason, talk about getting good with apologies. Absolutely. So this is tied to this idea that there are going to be failures in your life or learning opportunities as I’d like to think of them, they’re going to be disappointments, right? You’re gonna disappoint people. People are gonna disappoint you. Um It’s not going to necessarily be intentional, but it’s just we’re all living our lives and that’s just a consequence of the fact that we’re sort of all doing, you know, different things at different speeds and we have different things that we’re called to and, and so on and sometimes you are going to, even if it’s unintentional, you’re going to, you know, hurt people’s feelings, um, disappoint people and a accepting that one of the ways that we can um remedy, remedy that and continue to have healthy relationships is to get good at acknowledging when that happens and to apologize when that does happen. And one of the examples that I give in the book is a little model of an apology from uh the de I strategist conclusion, Strategist Amber Cabral, where she talks about this idea of acknowledging by saying, you know what, I’m sorry, or apologize for X fill in the blank, whatever the X is, um moving forward, I will fill in the blank, whatever the change of behavior that you’re going to follow, moving forward. So I can model this now. You know, Tony, I apologize for canceling our interview last minute. Um Moving forward, I’ll make sure that I give you advance notice if I need to make a shift and schedule whatever it is, right? And actually making a commitment to do better, right? So that you’re not continuously having to apologize for the same thing over and over again. I think that’s the key here. Let’s take a break from the, these very valuable strategies and tactics. Um tell a story, tell a story about a, a client person or institution that made their way through. Uh you know, the, the um the difficulties, the unwellness, the mistakes, mistakes as you, you call them in the book, we may have a chance to talk about mistakes and, and found their way again, either as a person or institution to uh to, to thriving to, well being. So one of the, the examples that I give the book um is from a client um Sheri that I met when I was doing a series of training for nonprofit professionals on leadership and resilience in Virginia. And she was at that time, a VP of communications for a community foundation. And she came to one of the classes I did AAA full day class on essentially mindfulness based approaches to leadership. And one of Sharia’s biggest challenges was around setting boundaries. And this was at work and also at home, one of the, at, at work, one of the biggest things was around feeling like she had to be constantly connected to her devices and to her social media because she, after all, she’s the VP of communication. So like if, you know, if she’s not fully connected and being, you know, 100% responsive all the time, then like the world’s gonna fall apart if she’s, if she’s not doing that. And that’s the job you had when you were with the NGO. Exactly. Exactly. And you know, we talked about some of the strategies that we’ve talked about here today. Um You know, we had, and we had an opportunity to work together beyond that, that one full day class. But one of the things that was changing, life changing for her and, and this, these, these are her words essentially is the idea that she could set those boundaries like, and it wouldn’t be the end of the world, right? And that she could release this idea of having to be the perfect VP, having to be the perfect mother, having to be the perfect wife. And to recognize that if she wasn’t resourcing and pouring it into herself and setting boundaries to allow that to happen, that she wasn’t gonna be good to any of those, any of those roles for her being good at her work, being a good wife, being a good mother. Those were things that were critically important to her. And so this allowed her the freedom to actually release that and be more effective in her role. Um Another example that I would give on the personal side for, for she, she was able to stay in that job and fulfill her commitment to her family and, and do, do both in, in a, in a way that she felt she was succeeding. Exactly. And so this gets back to one of the ways that she was able to do this. So looking at the personal side, um, she has, she and her husband have three young boys. And so as you can imagine, for, for parents out there, that’s a lot of laundry. And so one of the things that really overwhelmed Sheri was this idea, she had this idea that in order to be a perfect mother and wife, that laundry had to be done and folded and clean, you know, 24 7. Right. Like, you can’t have what she called the laundry chair. And one of the things did she call it the, the laundry chair? So, it’s essentially where you have, you have clean clothes but they’re not folded. They’re just sort of sitting in the laundry chair as she called them. Right. Exactly. So, essentially people are sort of picking out the clean clothes from the, from the laundry chair as opposed to pulling them out from a, from a drawer because they’re not always folded neat, uh, neatly, um, all the time and she made peace with that. That was one of the things that she was able to release and let go of and to say, you know what, the clean laundry is not gonna always be folded neatly and you know what? That’s ok. It’s not the end of the world. My husband and my Children still have clean clothes. I’m, I’m guessing too because of your advice in the book that you, you would, we would encourage Shari or others, you know, to take things incrementally, a small, a small step. Now, you know, we can all decide on our own whether we think the laundry chair is a big step or a small step, you know, for Sheri, maybe that’s a big step, but whatever it is, right, incremental. Take a step, take something manageable. Absolutely. And so the, the book, um, I emphasize this throughout which is to start small because the reality is that we know from the science of behavior change, um, the smaller the smallest bite of change that we can chew off, that we can do sustainably, the more likely we’re able to stick with that over the long term. Right? And so we see this with people that make a commitment at the beginning of the year. So, you know what, today’s, this year is gonna be the year that I’m finally gonna get into shape and get fill in the blank, whatever your ideal body type is, right? And they’re going hard for maybe a, you know, a day or two or maybe they’re lucky, maybe they make it through the whole month of January and then they sort of jump, drop off and you don’t see them anymore. And part of that is because, um, they went from sort of 0 to 100 overnight and that wasn’t sustainable. Now, there are examples of folks like, you know, ex marine David Goggins, like a very extreme example, like people that can do that, right? But for the vast majority of folks, that’s not the case. We have to take it slowly and we have to start small and be consistent with the small wins and then we can gradually build up to, to bigger things more sustainably over the long term. This week, I’m gonna dedicate 90 minutes to working out and that, that is. Yeah. And, and, and throughout the week I’m gonna devote 90 minutes. I mean, there’s a, something more manageable than, you know, taking on a whole year. Absolutely. All right. All right. Uh So, all right. We’ve connected to our, why honored our priorities, acknowledged our limiting beliefs, negotiating boundaries, generate space to go within. This is one I had to read. II, I had to spend more time with this one. Absolutely. Uh Personally, I’m just my own personal journey through the book, uh which, you know, there’s obviously a lot more detail, you know, you just got to get the book. Um again, how to thrive when work doesn’t love you back. Um Because you know, there’s only so much Miko and I can talk about in our time together um generating space to go within. What, what’s your thinking here? So we talked earlier about the instruction from the flight attendant secure your own oxygen mask before you help someone else secure theirs. This particular part of the book is focused on the space and the activities that you’re engaged in to refuel yourself. This is the area where if you aren’t making space to do this in a consistent way, really, none of these other things are gonna matter that we talked about. And the way that I think about this is you, some of us have probably heard the phrase time is money, right? And time is the most important thing that you could have. I actually disagree with that. I think our energy and our vitality is the most important thing because you can have all the time in the world. But if, if you’re not well enough and you don’t have the energy to actually maximize that, then what good is all the time in the world to you. And so this particular chapter is um generating space to go within is about how you carve out the space in the midst of all the things that are happening in life and work to make sure that you’re continually refueling. One of the simple strategies that I give as a starting point for this is about establishing what I call your start and your start routine for your day. Um Particularly if you have a very demanding and very challenging and sometimes unpredictable um, work schedule. This particular strategy is about however small that is if it’s only five minutes that you have at the start of your day, doing something that you do just for you, not for your kids, not for your partner, not for your dog. But what are you doing for yourself? Is that sitting by yourself and having a cup of coffee? Is that, um, sitting on your porch and, and, and looking out at the backyard? Is that doing yoga? Is that meditation? Is that listening to your favorite music? Whatever that is. What are you doing to pour into yourself? Even if it’s as little as five minutes or less? And then what are you doing on the back? End of your day before you go to bed or after your work day ends to do the same thing. Um You know, ideally, you know, over time, maybe you are able to create more space, right? But the invitation here is to think about for your particular day. What do you have the capacity to take on and making space to do that? One of the examples that I often give is that I have proactively identified like short, medium and long term versions of my workout. My workout is one of the things that’s very important for me in terms of how I generate space to, to, to go within and, and renew myself and energize myself. There are days when I need to do a five minute version, there’s, there are days when I can only make time for maybe 32nd stretch and an ideal day, I have 30 minutes or more to, to do that. I ask myself, what do I have the capacity to do today? What does my schedule allow me to do? I do that, whether it’s the 32nd stretch or the 30 minute workout and I give myself credit for having worked out for for that day. Um What that allows me to do is it allows me to be realistic about how my life and my work is unfolding. And I also need to be realistic about the fact that every day I wake up for any number of reasons. I’m not always motivated. Right. I’m not always inspired. I’m not always fully energized and that’s OK. We all have peaks and valleys and, and ebbs and flows. But what can I, what do I have the capacity to give myself in that particular day or in that particular moment? So, you, you need to, you need to make time because, you know, a lot of people say, well, when I find the time I’ll, I’ll, I’ll work out. But the, the, the time is never going to tap you on the shoulder and say, you’ve, you’ve got, you’ve got five free minutes or you’ve got 90 free minutes, you’ve got to be intentional and, and set the time for yourself. And then, you know, likewise you explained, you know, give yourself credit. That’s a, that’s an important mindset shift, I think, give yourself credit for the five minute workout rather than berating yourself for not having done the 30 minute workout. Absolutely. And so for me, whether it’s a 32nd stretch or the 30 30 minute workout, it’s, I can check it off in my planner that I did my, my workout for me. They’re, they, they are equal in, in my eyes. Uh One other thing I will share is in terms of a tip is one of the things that I think sometimes stresses people out about this is that people feel like sometimes they have to, if they pick a ritual or routine, it has to be the same one every day and it has to be at the same time in the same way every day. And I wanna invite people to reconsider that I have a bucket of things that I choose from. I have a bucket of things that are ideal based on if I have the ideal amount of time. Um, but maybe it’s not working out, maybe it’s, you know, going for a walk some days if I have time. I, I like to do all of the above. Right. The other part of that is like on days like this, I typically like to do my workout in the morning today. I didn’t do that. I was preparing for this and doing some other things before I joined you here today, Tony. And so I looked at my calendar and I’m gonna do it this afternoon and that’s fine. I, I think of it, I think I about to talk about this in the book, but it’s sort of like, um, eating breakfast for dinner. You know, breakfast is one of my favorite meals. It’s there iii I love the idea of having breakfast for dinner. It’s a for me there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. So I wanna give people options to consider, to make this work for them. It, it doesn’t have to look like someone else’s schedule or routine. Um, the point is that it, it works for you and that it’s serving you giving yourself grace. Absolutely. If you can give yourself grace, then you increase the likelihood that you’re able to extend grace to other people. And if we’re in a continuous cycle of being able to extend each other grace, then how wonderful would that be to live and work in the world where we’re able to do that for each other? This is the chapter where you have um advice about intentional meetings. Yes. Share some of your thinking there, please. Yeah, so there, there’s some basic things in terms of intentional meetings. Um The first is really asking the question. Does this meeting need to take place? I think we Presuppose in many cases that a meeting needs to take, take place so that it’s the right solution. Um instead of thinking through, you know, Tony, let’s just schedule a meeting and talk about it later. Well, what if we just talked about it now? And, and maybe it’s like a 32nd answer and we don’t need to schedule a meeting for it, right? And so one of the ways I think about this in terms of answering this question is this being necessary, you know, do we have an agenda? Is it clear? What question we’re trying to answer or what problem we’re trying to solve? Are we clear about who needs to be there? Are all those folks gonna be there or we’re gonna have to have another meeting about the meeting because a key person wasn’t there, we gotta get them up to date. So we just gotta have another meeting about, about that to catch them up. So thinking about even just those basic things that I just share with you asking the legitimate question is this meeting necessary, having an agenda with a clearly stated intention about what’s the purpose of this meeting? How we’re measuring success? How will we know that we actually achieve that because we’ve answered the question, right? Or we have addressed the issue, we’ve identified some next steps to help us to, to move forward. Um Our final thing I’ll share about this is thinking about what is the length of the meeting need to look like. For many of us, we assume that by default. And I think this is really the partly we can blame some of the technology out there. Um That’s fortunately has evolved, but um for many calendar settings for the longest time, the default meet length of the meeting was an, was an hour. And so we just, we had a meeting and we just sort of stretched it out for an hour when it really didn’t need to be that, right? And so thinking about if a meeting is important, do you really need an hour to, to dive through what, what it is that you need to, to do if a meeting is longer than an hour? I really question if people are clear about that. Um What the intention is I work with a client in planned giving that. They, they have a biweekly every other week meeting on the, on the calendar, but we are often canceling it because there are no agenda items. So, emails go around, let us know a day but the day, the day or two before, but the meeting and the agenda items and, and then we’ll find out the day before there are no agenda items. So this, the next week’s meeting is canceled. Absolutely. I admire that. So we have the space set aside, but we don’t always use it. Absolutely. And I think that’s a smart way to make sure you have the space set aside. People can schedule accordingly, but you can also give people back their time if you recognize that. You know what, we don’t really, we don’t really need to have this meeting. And there’s, there’s a lot more advice, you know, you, you talk about the devices spending time away from your devices, but you and Jason and I just talked about all those uh time saving and, and uh apps that make you more efficient and strategies for using your apps and your devices. So we’re not gonna, you just, you know, if you want to get the, you gotta get the book, that’s all, you know, you gotta get the book for you. If you want to talk about, you wanna know more detail about digital social distancing. Um because we’re gonna move to embody well being while well doing the e and change. Yes. So embodying well-being while well doing is the way that I think about this is when you have reached a place where you are embodying at a certain minimum level, all of the previous five commitments in terms of connecting to your why? Honoring your priorities, acknowledging and confronting limiting beliefs, um negotiating boundaries and generating space to go within. When you are actively doing work in all those areas, it have to be like 100% in all those areas. But you’re moving the needle in some way in all those areas, sort of simultaneously, then you’re setting yourself up to be in this cycle of what I talked about previously where you’re in the practice, right? It’s not perfect, right? But you’re, you’re moving the needle, you’re in the practice. You, you are consistently and sustainably refueling yourself and you’re setting yourself up to be able to, to live your life and to do your best work in a sustainable way. That is really what this final commitment is, is all about. We are a little over our time together. Do you have, do you have more time or do you have to go? I don’t want you to be stressed. I’m not stressed. You’re ok. I built in time before and after. So we’re good. All right. Thank you. I do, I, I did, I, I did too. Uh I’m fine too. Um You, you you talk about taking your meds. This chapter define our meds for us. Yes. So our, our meds are mindset, mindset, exercise, diet and sleep. Yes, mindset exercise, diet and sleep. So, one of the things that is challenging for folks when we talk about this particular topic is sometimes we don’t believe that the simple basic things actually work. And so we’re always on the search for like it, it can’t be that easy. Like there has to be like a more complicated solution. So I’m just gonna read a gazillion books. I’m gonna watch a gazillion, you know, Ted talks, I’m gonna, you know, scour social media for this hack or for that hack because the stuff people are saying about um you know, our mental fitness, the stuff people are saying about just getting some movement in walking and exercising stuff. People are saying about eating your fruits and vegetables and eating a balanced diet and, and sleep. Um like that can’t be, be the thing. The truth is now we have decades of research, like literally decades of research, like going back to like the eighties. And even before, if you do meta analysis, you look at meta analysis of, of the research out there and you look at performance, you look at health outcomes in a whole range of areas. There are some factors that are that, that are within our control, that are pretty consistent and it’s these right, you know what your mindset or mental fitness or in other words, like, what do you believe, um, is possible for you? Um, how are you taking care of yourself in terms of your mental and emotional well being? That’s a critical aspect of our overall well being. Are we getting enough movement exercise? Are we eating the right things? And are we getting enough sleep? And this is not just theoretical or regurgitation of advice? This is something that I know to be true because it’s something that I’m actively practicing for myself. Um And I’ve seen tremendous results with that and it’s actually going back to my particular story and my journey, it was one of the things that I had recommitted to that made a tremendous difference in me being able to navigate the, the valley that I shared with you all earlier. And it’s something that when I share this with, with clients. Um It’s something that makes a tremendous impact as well as a matter of fact, one of the first places that I start when I work with a client, um I wanna know, have you worked with a therapist before? And when was the last time you went to a doctor? Because oftentimes one or both of those things and how you’re addressing those makes a tremendous difference in my ability to be able to support you over the long term. I can give you all the strategies in the world. But if your basic health and well being um isn’t being taken care of, then we’re not really setting you up for success over the long term. We’re just sort of putting a band aid over, over a gaping wound, right? Uh And what we wanted to be able to do is to set you up for, for long term success. Now, I’ll give you one last example here. So I share with you previously the example of the, the dominoes and prioritization knocking over the first domino and it knocks over all the other dominoes for me in my personal life. My first domino is going to bed on time. Why is that? I know that I go to bed on time. I’m more likely to get up on time. If I’m more likely to get up on time, I’m gonna have time for my start routine, which includes prayer and meditation and working out and all those things. I’m gonna have space to think about and plan my day before I jump into doing things like this and working with clients. And when I do that, I’m gonna be fully available, I’m gonna be fully present. I’m gonna be energized. I’m not gonna be sleepy um or cranky and I’m gonna be able to do my best work and I’m gonna be able to be fully connected and engaged with the people that I’m connecting with. When I don’t do that consistently. It has a similar ripple effect in the, in the opposite direction and So that part of what I wanna get across in the book is that the things that we can do as individuals to change our experience with how we are showing up at work and how we’re taking care of ourselves. None of this is rocket science. It’s, it’s really not, it’s, it’s very basic, it’s very simple, but we have to be committed to, to doing it in a consistent way. We have to be willing to give ourselves grace and to, to practice continuously. I’d like to leave it right there with, with you, Miko. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for sharing your own story and your valuable strategies and tactics for reaching AAA thriving state. Uh The book is How to thrive when work doesn’t love you back, a practical guide for taking care of yourself while changing the world. You’ll find uh Miko’s book and his practice at Mindful techie.com. You’ll find Miko on linkedin Mika. I thank you again. Beautiful. Thank you very much. Thank you, Tony. I appreciate it. Next week. Sherry Quam Taylor returns with high ro I development and marketing communications teams. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I do beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com were sponsored by Virtuous, virtuous, gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow, giving, virtuous.org and by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor. Box.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate Martinetti. This show, social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guide and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty be with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.