Vince Chen (6:23)

You are one of the few guests, or maybe even the first, who has such deep experience on both sides of transformation, I.e. organizations and individuals. So I love to hear your take. What are the similarities between These two types of changes, and just as important, what are the differences? I feel like you're in a rare position to speak to both and probably one of the best people to break it down clearly.

Rebecca Sultans (7:03)

I think one of the similarities is the importance of articulating clearly what a win looks like, what success looks like. And I think in certain business contexts that might be more obvious than others. So for example, if I'm in a private sector firm that values shareholder value, profitability, revenues, market share, those kinds of things, you still need to have a bit of a conversation about those benchmarks of success, those performance indicators. But it's generally pretty well understood in the kinds of work that I do organizationally because I'm working in largely big community facing initiatives. So that might be a university, it might be an organization working say in food security or affordable housing, or a multi service, social service, large agency or something. We often have to start with conversations collectively about what are we going after, what does a win look like? Because sometimes the wins are very hard to define or other various people around the table have different definitions of what a win looks like. So one thing that's different in an organizational and individual context is organizationally we need to have conversations as a group or multiple groups to say, is the picture in your head of success matching the picture in my head or his head or their head or your head, and really develop that shared joint picture of success. Whereas when I'm working one on one, I only have to have that conversation with one person. But the conversation is similar in that you can't easily go after something if you don't know what it is you're going after. So I intentionally build into the strategizing processes that I do. And that's personal strategy and organizational too. Lots of time to talk about what the win looks like. I talk about how we're not, we're not like. I sometimes wish I was like a rower or some other kind of athlete that had a finish line and a time clock. And you just know if you've improved, you know when you're done because you know when the race is over, you know if you've improved your time by 3/100 of a second or something. And you just have this really clear metric of success. Most of us don't have that in our individual lives or even in our corporate lives where we go, yes, that was a win. So I think part of what I can bring to a conversation is clarity around the jointly defined picture of success so that you can then go after that because there's tons of ways to define success. There's all kinds of ways to be finding that win. So I mentioned earlier part of. For me earlier in my career, flexibility to be available to my family was part of my definition of success. I still want that, but I don't need it as desperately. Now that my children don't live at home, I'm looking for other kinds of abilities to combine paid work and travel, for example. That's one of my newer metrics of success. And I really value learning. And so I've really built in some experimentation and some learning opportunities very explicitly into my work. And so helping my clients do that as well individually and collectively is a really important piece. And I think when you're doing it as a group, it also does depend on where in an organizational hierarchy or food chain you are actually intervening. So I do tend to work with the boards and the C suite executives of an organization who have a certain amount of ascribed power, at least to be able to make the kinds of changes we're talking about. But even in that around the C suite table or around the board table, you need to have dialogue to say, do we have a shared understanding of what's going on or what, what we're going after? And so that's where my facilitation skills do come in really handy, because part of what facilitators are good at is structuring a conversation and making elements of that conversation visible to the whole room so that people can go, oh, that's where we are now. Now let's have this conversation. Okay, that's where we are now. Let's have it again. And so it's providing some structured activities and almost like conversational containers to move a decision collectively forward. That's not that different than what I do in coaching. I provide containers, language steps that say, first let's talk about this, then let's talk about this. And I think overall what happens, I mentioned that I deal in energy. I do, but also in sort of feeling like people have some clarity, some insight, where you go, oh, it just even taking the time to pause and have those conversations has a learning element for the people involved. Because so often we're just, we're going right? We're on autopilot, we're doing our things. I think pausing strategically and wisely to say, what do I actually think? What do I actually want? And I can share a personal example about that. When you, for me, at least, when I raised four kids, I hadn't actually asked what I wanted. Clearly, for quite a long time. What I wanted was kids. And so once you answer that question, what mom wants may not get asked again very much for the next 20 years. And it's actually a much harder question than you think, especially if that muscle of asking and answering it has been atrophying. And so part of what I'm helping my clients to do in both of the spheres of organizations and individuals is to say, what do you really want? And it's. That's part of what goes into building that vivid picture of that imagined future. And that can take some time because it's actually a very. For most of us, it's a hard question, and it surprises us that it's hard. You feel like you're supposed to know the answer to that. And some people really can just come up with the answer very quickly. But for others, it takes some time to reconnect with what makes you sing, what lights you up. And organizations can drift away from that too. So I see a lot of similarities. Kind of a big picture dot connect, connect your kind of brain. So I seeing the similarities across those two modalities is clearer to me than seeing the differences.

Vince Chen (13:11)

Earlier you said something that really stuck with me, that history is a springboard to the future, not a drag or inertia. It made me think of the comfort soul. Sometimes that song becomes so comfortable, people don't want to leave it. Given your own life experience, raising four children now with two grandchildren, you've lived through many transitions yourself. So when you work with people who are in that more mature stage of life, how do you help them reimagine, gain clarity, and actually take action? How do you get them to use their past as a launchpad, not a reason to stay seated in the same old armchair.

Vince Chen (14:13)

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Rebecca Sultans (15:13)

I think for me, on a mindset level, really going deep in thinking about whether I believe that the best is yet to come or whether the best days are behind me, as someone who is at midlife is has been a really important exercise and also thinking about the math of it because for those of us that live with a certain level of privilege, we can probably expect to live, say round numbers to a hundred. And so if I'm 55 this year and I'm thinking I'm just on the later side of halfway done, if that's true. I think so much of our CV and life experience gets child in our 20s and 30s and we still have this ingrained ageism and this ingrained sort of time frame that says something like work goes till we're 65 and then what happens? You've got like potentially another 35 years after that. And so I think rethinking the math and helping other people to realize that, all being well, we have a long story and a lot of life ahead of us, not just behind us, can help. The other thing I think about is I wrote a book last year called Elastic and you talked about comfort zones and it's a bit about that. Where we need if we think about the metaphor of a rubber band is not useful just sitting on our desk. And in fact, if it does just sit on our desk, it gets brittle and you go to use it and it snaps and crumbles in your hand. Right? An elastic is only useful if it is stretched. But if you stretch it too fast, too much for too long, it is also not useful. And by definition an elastic snaps back into its original shape. But sometimes snapping back into old shapes isn't what we most need either. So I think about post pandemic life when people were asked to snap back into old jobs or old ways of doing old jobs that they were going, I no, I used to do that, but that's not who I am now. And so I feel like that helping people through the use of metaphor can also be helpful to say in our midlife or later years, are we still willing to stretch? Or have we just sat on the desk and getting and we're getting brittle, Are we still stretching but not stretching so much that we will snap or lose our stretchiness like our stretchy pants? So I think giving people some images like that to Say, what does an optimal level of stretch look and feel like for you? And that's where some of that adaptability work comes in for me. Because again, it's not about will you be adaptable or not, will you adapt or not. It's about what's your personal preferred pathway to adaptability. So some people lean into certain aspects more than others. So if you're a really persistent, perseverant kind of person, you're going to leverage something like grit or resilience to be adaptable. Somebody else says, no, that's not me. I'm not the climb Mount Everest kind of person. But I am a really good big picture thinker. Okay, big picture thinkers are more adaptable than really highly detailed people. That's useful. Or I'm going to leverage my team support inside the corporation where I work. Because our environments and our individual relationships can encourage us to take risks and push our edges of our comfort zone in some ways, whereas other team environments will keep us risk averse and small. So there's lots of different tools in the toolbox to push us into learning spaces without feeling like we're going to snap or without feeling like we're having to take somebody else's path to get there. So that's the reassurance that I enjoy exploring with people is you don't get to choose whether you adapt or not, but you do get to choose the extent and the speed and the pathways you take to get there that feel like you. And so helping people visualize both the changes that we are moving toward or that are being put upon us, but also what continues. Because I think the other thing we can do to reassure our brain and our nervous system is to be clear that not everything changes at the same time. It did feel during some of those darker years that that everything was changing. But even in the midst of pandemic insanity, we still had to buy groceries, we still had to cook dinner, we still had to look after our families or whatever it was. And so helping our brains calm down by saying some things are not changing even as other things are can really reassure us. And so reading with an individual person or an organization to say, are they, Are they someone who craves challenge and adventure? Could we tap into that? Are they someone who craves connection and belonging and relationship? Can we tap into that? Do they need more contribution? They've become more a bit sort of self focused? Do they need some outward orientation and more service in their life that's going to put them in a whole different mindset toward paying Attention to what's going on with others around them rather than themselves. There's just all kinds of tools we can use to help people push a little so that they feel energized and that they're making a meaningful, purposeful contribution, but they don't feel so threatened that they shut down.

Vince Chen (20:25)

Here comes the great place to close our conversation. If one of your four children came to you and said, mom, I feel stuck in my career or just in life, what would you say? They're probably in the 20s or 30s now, right in the thick of building their lives. And as we know, every generation is facing its own challenges in today's world. With all your experience guiding others, individuals, leaders, organizations, how do you bring those same lessons and tools into your own family life? Or do you blend in those insights in a subtle manner through how you show up as a parent, maybe even now as a grandparent? I love to hear how your work and wisdom show up in the most personal part of your life.

Rebecca Sultans (21:29)

Yeah, I love that. Thanks for asking that. There's things that you want to talk to your parents about and there's things that you don't. Right. And. And so I'm grateful that I am close with all of my kids and we talk about lots of things. And also I'm sure that there's things that they don't share with me or that I wouldn't be the person that they choose to come to. I. I want to honor everybody's space to choose who they want to speak to about certain things. But we do have a bit of a joke in my family that I should have been one of those high school guidance counselor kind of people I love. I've really enjoyed helping my kids figure out what university to attend, for example, and what pathways to follow. And as I mentioned, we love travel, and there's a lot of sort of trip planning and trip imagining and dreaming that goes on. We took a sabbatical I told you about in 2017, but we certainly have. We've done home exchanges and lots of other creative ways to. To travel the world. And so I feel like if any of them were sitting here, they would say, what do I ask mom to do? I ask her to edit my essays, I ask her to plan my trips, I ask her to help my friends, and I decide what. What schools to attend. Those kinds of things come up. And you mentioned that I host a book club. I do. I host a monthly leadership book club. And the idea is that we cover four to six titles a month. But you don't have to read the books. I read the books. It's one of the occupational hazards of having a PhD is that I know how to read really quickly. So I read the books and I talk about them for an hour or so. I'm like the human blinkist. When people come on for an hour and they hear about four to six recent titles in the leadership and self development space and decide if they want to read them or if that gives them enough of a sense, if it comes up in conversation, they can at least chat about it intelligently. And a couple of my kids come to that book club. And so it's interesting to me the different little parts of my work that, that are starting to intersect with their lives. They're all into their own things. But it's, I think it's really important that obviously the skills that we bring to our paid clients are also ones that I don't know. It makes me think of the word integrity, and I mean that from the actual meaning of the word, that there's a fullness that says this is the kind of person I am and this is how I show up in the world. And whether I'm talking about those things with my own children or with my paid clients or with my friends, it's how I show up. And I think when you have, I guess, a personal brand as opposed to a corporate brand, there's an authenticity there that I think has to come through. And I won't be for everyone, that's okay with me. But I think if I can be can show that level of consistent integrity across what I do, I'm hoping that my own family and my paid clients would know that what is what you get. And, and the way that people describe the work that I do is this warm energy combined with insight. And if that can be helpful to my own family, so much the better.

Vince Chen (24:11)

Yes, absolutely. And you're so right. The balance between guiding and letting go is such a delicate part of parenting, especially for those who lead others in their careers. You want to share what you've learned, offer your support, maybe even pass down a few tools. But at the same time, your kids aren't your clients. They are their own people. So instead of controlling the outcome and even the process, it becomes more about preparing them, helping them view their own judgment, confidence and resilience. And yes, that means allowing them to make decisions, even the wrong ones, and being there to support them through the consequences.

Rebecca Sultans (25:07)

I was going to say, I feel like you've just described the parenting journey, but I think one of the things that we've really valued in our family is learning is teachability. We've, our kids have had the benefit of having some really great coaches in the sports that they've done and their music and that kind of thing. They've had some really great teachers. They've had some really not great ones. And we've really encouraged them to seek out good role models and good mentors and be people who value feedback. Three of our kids were dancers and they learned through one particular dance studio that they studied with for years that corrections are gold. They would say that if I said to any of my girls, corrections are, they would all say gold because they learn that being, giving, being given feedback to get better is a gift and they know to thank people for that. And, and so I hope that has really permeated and it makes me realize that the people that I most enjoy working with are people like, whether they are my kids or paid clients, are people who are teachable, people who really want to learn from people who inspire them and who want to get better and who want to level up. And I want to be modeling that in my own practice and work. And I want to encourage that in other people, whether they choose to tap into any wisdom that I might bring or to what other people are saying. I really, I'm valuing that combination of curiosity and teachability that, that I think great leaders have.

Vince Chen (26:32)

Sure. Rebecca, we've covered so much ground today. Truly a lot, a lot of rich and thoughtful insights. Before we close, is there anything you'd like to add?

Rebecca Sultans (26:46)

If folks are curious about giving some language to maybe what they are experiencing right now that feels like transition, we'll make sure in the show notes that there's a link to a page, a podcast page on my site that takes them to a little. We've got a little quiz that, that you can try that will give you some idea of where you're at right now across five different areas that most people in transition are craving. And also you can order there an e copy of the book Elastic that I mentioned and so would love people to get that in their hands. It's got that metaphor. It's got an acronym of elastic across seven different leadership qualities that I think are under written about, underplayed in terms of leadership work. And it's got some interesting case studies that are not the typical large kind of American Silicon Valley case studies, but that are more local organizations that are really putting this adaptable, nimble leadership into practice. So I'd love to draw people to that space to get some of those resources. And Vince, I really appreciate the opportunity for the conversation today. Thank you for it.

Vince Chen (27:50)

That's where we'll leave it. Rebecca doesn't offer tidy answers, but she does offer frameworks, metaphors, and the kind of permission a lot of us need right now. Reinvention doesn't mean changing everything. Sometimes it's just seeing your life from a new angle. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you like what you heard, don't forget, subscribe to our show, Leave us top rated reviews, check out our website and follow me on social media. I'm this Chen, your ambitious human host. Until next time, take care.