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- [00:00]
Rhea Wong
Hey, you. It's Rhea Wong. If you're listening to Nonprofit, load on, I'm pretty sure that you'd love my weekly newsletter. Every Tuesday morning, you get updates on the newest podcast episodes. And then interspersed, we have fun special invitations for newsletter subscribers only and fundraising inspo because I know what it feels like to be in the trenches alone. On top of that, you get cute dog photos. Best of all, it is free. So what are you waiting for? Head over to riawong.com now to sign up.
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Foreign.
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Welcome to Nonprofit Lowdown. I'm your host, Rhea Wong.
- [00:38]
Hey, my guest listeners, it's Rhea Wong with you once again with Nonprofit Lowdown. Today My guest is Dr. Dee Franey. We are going to talk about all the things related to burnout being a nonprofit executive, especially in this day and age. Dr. D. Franey, is it okay if I call you Dr. D?
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Dr. Dee Franey
You can just call me D. That's fine.
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Rhea Wong
Okay. But So I like Dr. D. It feels okay. Dr. D is a life coach, a business coach. She's a lifelong professional change maker. She has a background in entrepreneurship, and we are excited to talk to her today, particularly about all of the things that I know my nonprofit leaders are experiencing out here. So, Dr. D. Franey, welcome to the show.
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Dr. Dee Franey
Thanks so much for having me here. I'm so excited for this conversation.
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Rhea Wong
I am as well. So before we jump into the nitty gritty details, because I know a lot of people are out here having lots of feelings about lots of things, tell us a little bit about yourself and the work that you are currently doing.
- [01:36]
Dr. Dee Franey
Yeah. So I don't know. I think I crawled out of the womb with this crazy, like, injustice sensitivity. And anytime I was told life wasn't fair, I'd be like, why don't we make it fair? And it just led me to a career in nonprofit. Started out as a fundraiser and then worked my way up into management because that's the place where you go to help the people and make the change and then through some crazy shifts and changes, ended up in higher ed and then left that and started my own practice coaching consulting practice, working with social entrepreneurs, often the people who were the helpers and the givers who burnt out in the industries that were trying to kill them.
- [02:17]
Rhea Wong
What's so funny, Dee? I love literally was it just the other day interviewed one of the many folks that used to be a nonprofit now are starting their own consulting business. So I want to talk about nonprofits and why it is we're burning out. I also recently did an interview With Evan Wildstein about the high turnover rate in nonprofit. His research showed that seven out of 10 nonprofit folks were considering leaving their jobs. And I feel like this is not a surprise. As former nonprofit folks ourselves, I think we can at least speak to the burnout is real. So I know that when we first talked, you said the nonprofit sector can feel like a parking lot for potential change makers. So talk to me about the moment that you realized that parking lot was full and that you were ready to off ramp out of that parking lot.
- [03:06]
Dr. Dee Franey
I was working as a coo, running statewide ops for an international ngo, working on my dissertation about leadership in change making organizations and how do we increase our impact and our effectiveness and working like 80 to 100 hour weeks consistently nonstop. And when I left that job, my health was a mess. I was clinical burnout was, it was not good. And it was this kind of moment between the academic research that I was doing with this realization of, oh shit, we don't need a better, more impactful nonprofit. We need a society that doesn't necessitate nonprofits. And this realization that I could not keep going at the rate that I was going and have my health as a priority if I wanted to be in integrity alignment was saying that taking care of my body and my needs was one of my top priorities. I would never be able to do that in the nonprofit sector that is intentionally under resourced, understaffed, under supported and designed in a way where you have boards who are only so committed often and yet making all of the decisions, even though they're not necessarily in the trenches. And there's just so many of these factors where it's like, oh, nonprofits are a feature, not a bug of a capitalist society. We are parking potential change makers. The people who are values driven, values aligned, who see a more liberated future future where all humans matter, where all humans should give. We should start at same starting place, have the same access to resources and care. They're taking us out of our most effective and impactful way of showing up by putting us in a sector that is designed to burn us out.
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Rhea Wong
He said a mouthful. So.
- [05:03]
Dr. Dee Franey
But that moment where I'm like, I spent my whole career working towards leadership. I was in a position where I was interviewing for 80 roles. I had raised millions and millions of dollars. I was very good at what I did. And this moment of if I'm going to be in integrity, in alignment, if I'm going to role model my values as a leader, this hate, I unfortunately.
- [05:28]
Rhea Wong
I agree with you. I think though often I see nonprofits being held together by the sheer will of individuals who are willing to sacrifice for the cause. I think the way that we've set up nonprofits in this country is ultimately unsustainable. Even the word nonprofit indicates lack. And so I'm curious, do you think that there's any way to make this job sustainable? Because people like myself, like you, are drawn to nonprofits because we care, we want to help, we want to change injustice in the world. And yet the structure of how this happens feels like it extracts so much from us. Personally.
- [06:10]
Dr. Dee Franey
Yeah. I don't want to take away from the good work and important work that people are doing inside of the sector. I think that the liberated future that we're all fighting for is yes and not either or. And so we're going to need people who are coming at all flanks. And some of it is from inside the system, some of it, like us, who have a higher risk tolerance to come from the flanks. Right.
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Rhea Wong
And oh, are we doomed? Is the sector doomed? Is there a way forward that feels.
- [06:41]
Dr. Dee Franey
And how do we be more sustainable? Yeah, yeah, sorry. And I think the important thing we need to remember is that this is intergenerational work. This is a marathon, not a sprint. And it's also a relay race. And so we need to be passing the baton, tapping in, tapping out, so that we can take care of our own needs as leaders in the field. We don't want to transfer all of the suffering we're trying to alleviate onto ourselves because our problems aren't as big as the ones out there. I see so many leaders in the sector, helpers who are trying to prove that they are power with, not power over type people. Right. I'm not doing this for the status. I'm not doing it for the power. I'm not doing it for the money. I'm doing it because I care and because I see a better, different, liberated future that we could all be a part of. But the problem is that in Truvit trying to prove that I've not in this for power over, there's this selflessness that's already baked into us as women, people of color, people who aren't the cis, have white man at the top that gets very toxic and goes into martyrism, right? Where it's like, who am I? I need to prove that I am the most committed to this cause. Therefore I'm not going to take care of my own human needs, my own fullness. And so it becomes a singular focus on work, proving the cause, not having Any boundaries, not having a whole existence that we're nurturing and groping and not allowing ourselves to have joy and play and rest and pleasure and all of the things that sustain us and nurture us until we've reached this end point where the mission is executed. But. And that's that weird binary that it might not happen in our lifetime. So you're just continuing. If you go in this way to deplete your takes, and it's like you're in towards burnout, you're running towards compassion fatigue, you're sprinting towards leaving because it's not sustainable, you're going to get to the point, like me and I think a lot of others who are like, I can't keep doing it this way. And unless we question the premise and thinking about doing it in a different way, it becomes an either or decision. I either stay in the fight or I leave the fight.
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Rhea Wong
Yeah.
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Dr. Dee Franey
What if I adapt the fight? What if I adapt how I'm approaching this so that I can be more sustainable in the fight?
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Rhea Wong
Or what if it's not a fight at all?
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Dr. Dee Franey
That too.
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Rhea Wong
It brings to mind an interview on this podcast I did with my friend JJ Mubarak about Healing the Wounded Healer and how a lot of folks do enter the social justice space, or the, I like to say, social mission space. I feel like we need to rebrand nonprofit the Wounded Healer.
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Dr. Dee Franey
Yeah.
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Rhea Wong
So it reminds me of a conversation I had with my friend JJ Mubarak on this podcast about Healing the Wounded Healer and the fact that a lot of us go into justice work because of stuff that we haven't resolved in our own lives. And I'm not saying that's the case for everybody, but I do think there's. There's almost like a badge for suffering in the nonprofit world. And I feel like you don't get a star. Like, you don't win anything if you suffer more.
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Dr. Dee Franey
Yeah. I think it's in a larger culture, too. Right. Anyone who has overcome adversity is a story we want to tell. We format everything as a hero's journey. And so then it's almost like we need to elevate that suffering. But I think it's for a lot of us, we have seen the hurt in the world, whether personally with like, capital T trauma or lowercase T trauma, of just existing and oppressive society. And we want to have that integrity between our values and the world we live in. And really showing up to want our work and our effort in the world to matter and to reduce that and to make it better. But often we're trying to change the world from the outside in rather than the inside out. And we hear so much in like liberation and anti oppressive spaces about doing the work. And really that work is inside out. That work is really deconditioning the really crappy hierarchical domination culture that has been installed into us so that we can be in integrity with our values, so that then we can influence the change that we want to seek in world to have the greater impact that we want to have.
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Rhea Wong
I think that is really powerful and resonates. So I guess the next question is cool D. How do we do that?
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Dr. Dee Franey
Right?
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Rhea Wong
Because I think when we say we consider the culture of nonprofits and we also consider the culture of capitalism, we consider the culture of this interconnected global economy that we've built and it just feels, it becomes like an end. And like I, by hitting myself and not wanting to hustle all the time, like am I extension trying to change like capitalism? So I guess my question is like, how does one begin with this work in a way that feels doable?
- [11:59]
Dr. Dee Franey
The only person that we can control is ourselves. The only person that we can truly change is ourselves. And yeah, like you doing this work is your direct impact on changing capitalism. And if everyone took that responsibility for themselves and doing that work for themselves, the whole system would crumble. And so in that sense, like leadership is about role modeling. It's about influencing others. And it's not about power, it's not about authority, it's not right, sure there is some, like their leadership that is role where you've been entrusted by the community to make decisions and lead the organization. Like leadership is role modeling, influence. Like I think subconsciously we all know this, right? Like the type of people that we want to follow and the type of people that we don't.
- [12:48]
Rhea Wong
So let me ask you this because I was an ED for many years and I definitely think I burned out. But I. It was almost a point that I didn't realize I was burned out until way after I was burnt out. It wasn't until I stopped being an Ed that I was like, wow, I feel really burnt out. And that's not entirely true. There were definitely indications along the way, but I, I just pushed it out of my mind. I was like, we just got to keep grinding, keep hustling. So I want to talk a little bit about hustle culture. And I guess my question is certainly in nonprofits as in any business, there are just times when you have to hustle, right? There are busy times. You just Gotta grind it out. So what is the thing that it. What leads to burnout versus just I work really hard?
- [13:35]
Dr. Dee Franey
I. Yeah, that's such a good question. I think it relates to the last one too. It's really the underlying belief system of what am I trying to earn my worthiness? Am I trying to prove something here? Or am I doing this because I love it, because it feeds me, it fuels me? And I think that it's. Sometimes it's. When you're in it, when you're in the trenches, it's hard to see that there is a huge difference between depleting and energizing you. But I think that if we pause long enough to really ask ourselves, we know. We know. When I was working the nonprofit slog and could barely get up out of bed in the morning and kept hitting snooze more and more times and, like, how little time I had for my marriage and for working out and for. And that's not it. That's not like the good hustle. Right. I think there's a way, like, when we're hustling because it's enriching us, it looks and feels so much different to your human body. And like, how do we make that change? It's like we gotta slow down to speed up and we need to really take an assessment and see, like, where am I living in integrity with my values? Where am I out of alignment? Where can I bring greater integrity to those things? In decisions and my actions, in my beliefs and the way that I'm treating myself? And how can I work towards greater embodiment of my values?
- [15:10]
Rhea Wong
Is there anything that you would offer the audience as far as practices to check in with yourself? Because I know there are folks who do somatic work, for example, meditation, other yoga, other forms of being able to embody. So any tips that you would recommend for folks to be able to check in with themselves about where they are emotionally, spiritually, mentally vis a vis their values?
- [15:35]
Dr. Dee Franey
Yeah. For me, like, part of the big shift was that, like, breath, work, mindfulness, bringing greater presence into my life, doing the hard work of saying, what do I need to delete? What do I need to outsource? What do I need to delegate? If I stop trying to control everything, if I trust that other people can do some of these things or trust that some of these things that I've been chasing, I don't need to chase because they don't actually make me worthy. They don't actually fulfill me. They don't actually. They're not necessary for me to be effective or impactful, we start to bring back some of our energy. I really like Adam Grant and Given Speak. His book talks about there's giver or there's takers, there's matchers, there's givers. And givers are prone to burnout because we don't have boundaries. And so he recommends being other ish, which is being a helper, a giver who has some boundaries, who says, I'm going to take care of myself first, gets rid of this idea of selflessness. Because guess what? There's no you without a self. So, like, you can keep trying to be selfless, but you're just going to deplete and hurt yourself. But if you start to have some boundaries to say, okay, what are my physiological needs? Start there. Because if you're working in a nonprofit space and you're on the edge of burnout, you probably have a long history of not even catering to your physiological needs. Are you getting enough sleep? Are you getting enough to eat? Are you drinking enough water? Are you pausing long enough to go use the restroom? Can I tell you how many times I was sitting at my desk being like, I just got to get one more fee, one more fundraising call. I got to get two more emails out. Oh, I got to get the notes to the board for that committee meeting. And then like, oh, my God, I've had it. Had to pee for, like, well over an hour. So bad.
- [17:22]
Rhea Wong
Well, been there. Go talk about how I would go through my day and like, at 4:00, I'd be like, why do I feel terrible? Oh. Cause I haven't eaten, I haven't had water, and I haven't peed in, like, X number of hours. And it's like, I just shut down all of the physical needs because I was just grinding.
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Dr. Dee Franey
Right?
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Rhea Wong
This inbox just needs to. I need to get to inbox zero, and I need to make sure that those emails go out. And.
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Dr. Dee Franey
Yeah, and how often did you get recognized by your board and your funders for doing that?
- [17:49]
Rhea Wong
Pretty much zero.
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Dr. Dee Franey
Yeah, they were like, great job. Thanks for trashing your health so that you could get two more emails out today.
- [17:57]
Rhea Wong
Yeah, exactly. Like, there are. There's no metal for suffering.
- [18:01]
Dr. Dee Franey
Yes, there. And there is no suffering Olympics. We don't need to be transferring the suffering from out there to ourselves to prove that we're a better leader or that we're more committed to the cause. We need to be other ish. We need to take care of ourselves first so that we can be whole, so that Our efforts can be more sustainable. Really, it's. Here's a really great practice. Where in. In what places do you think that you need to be more productive or more efficient? Because that's really. That's so capitalist. How can I do more faster? It's the wrong question because all you're going to do is add more to your plate. Really sensing on. How can I be the most effective? How do I get the highest ROI for my effort, for my attention, for my care? And that goes back to that. Where can I delegate, delete, outsource, or just completely or do. What are the things that I have to do? I think so many of us don't want to slow down enough to say, oh, shoot, I've got 22 things on my to do list that I could spend 10 minutes to train my junior staff how to do. Or I trust them and I can mentor them to do the things. Sure, it takes me a few minutes today, but in the long run, if it's a monthly report and I teach them today, that's once a month that they don't have to do that report. I just need to review it once a month rather than do the whole. So sometimes it's like slowing down just enough so that you can see where you can take stuff off your plate.
- [19:35]
Rhea Wong
I also think that the notion of good enough is one that we should embrace. Like, I know a lot of people are burdened with perfectionism. I not burdened with perfectionism. So I really believe in doing it messy. And I once heard this and I think it really shifted for me, it's if someone can do the thing at least 80% as well as you can, let them delegate it out. And I think sometimes when we're so focused on there's a standard, and I need the standard to be this. And I'm the only one who can get that thing to this standard. That's a recipe for burnout.
- [20:10]
Dr. Dee Franey
Yes. Amen. There is a coach that problematic now, but something that she used to share that helped me with the Perfectionism is B minus. Work saves lives. Right. There's no one. Your board's not giving you an A. No. You're not collecting gold stars for suffering. If you are the leader, your job is to delegate. Your job is to mentor. Your job is to help bring others up with you. It's not to do all the things and do all the things perfectly. Good enough. Good enough. Okay.
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Rhea Wong
D. All right. I'm just gonna be a Gen Xer out here in these charity streets, right. Because I came Up. And I don't know if this is your case, but I came up with the hustle and grind culture. Like, I started at the bottom, worked my way to the top, came in before the boss left. The boss, they say jump, I say, how high? The whole thing.
- [21:01]
Dr. Dee Franey
Yeah.
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Rhea Wong
Now I see folks like the Gen Zers who are entering the workforce, things like work, life, balance, or I'm not going to do they have healthy boundaries. And honestly, I'm just going to be fully candid here. My first reaction is, what? What are you talking about? Like, are you being a slacker? And then the reaction is, wait, hold on. I didn't know it was an option to say no.
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Dr. Dee Franey
Right.
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Rhea Wong
Like, I'm. I'm envious that I didn't think that I could say no. But I think the question I have here, especially as someone coming from the Gen X, maybe the boomers are out here, maybe even the millennials are out. How do we know the difference between healthy boundaries that I think a lot of our Gen Z colleagues actually us versus people who are, like, just not doing the job. Like, really just not taking the work seriously. And I don't know, maybe it's a. It depends situation. But I think a lot of folks. I'm just going to speak on behalf of the Gen Xers out here. There is this sense of kids these days, like, they don't understand the work ethic.
- [22:03]
Dr. Dee Franey
Yeah. Might be a little crass. It's almost the same idea as I got spanked and I turned out fine.
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Rhea Wong
I've heard, like, it's just like, tradition. Right.
- [22:12]
Dr. Dee Franey
This is the way we do it. So we're gonna, like, shut up a color, take the abuse, swallow. Yeah. And it's okay just because that's the way it was when you grew up in the nonprofit sector. Is that what we want to perpetuate? Because I think that didn't work for you. It's not working for you. And just because it's the way we've always done things, is that what we want to keep doing? Because then isn't that some internalized, oppressive thinking that, like, we're trying to do this liberation work where we're not going to do things the way we've always done things, but then we're perpetually perpetuating it through our leadership. We've always been abusive in the nonprofit sector, so we're going to keep being that way. How we continue to raise nonprofit leaders, nonprofit employees who want to leave, who burn out, who don't leave in this sector. Do you want to help address the 70% of your employees that do better in your organization, do better in your leadership, maybe tackle some of these ways that we are tracking these expectations and these fallacies are like not working for us. And so I'm sorry that you, that we came up in a sector that treated us that way. If we want to be effective and impactful, we cannot continue to do it that way. And so then it's. We're holding our gen zers accountable and responsible for their job description, for the things that we have paid them to do, but we're not expecting them to sacrifice their whole humanity for the cause because we know it's not sustainable, because we know that is a recipe for compassion fatigue and burnout, because we know that is a key driver of turnover.
- [23:52]
Rhea Wong
It's interesting, this notion of accountability, because do you think you, as you say it, it sounds very obvious, like, yes, of course that's what we should do. And, and I think as a leader, it can be hard to calibrate what that means. Exactly. So, like how my internal work.
- [24:08]
Dr. Dee Franey
Right, you as a leader needs to deconstruct decondition and change these beliefs that you're holding onto that aren't serving you. They're making you less effective, less impactful, and they're perpetuating harm inside of the organization. And I'm not saying let them come in 11am when they're scheduled to be there at 8 without consequences. There are consequences to the decision. There's accountability, there's responsibility. And where are we have, like, where do we have unrealistic and harmful expectations? There's a difference. And it's. I think it's really like even just slowing down to pause and ask yourself as leader, is this accountability and responsibility to the job that we have hired this person for, or is this an unrealistic expectation? Even just pausing long enough when you're like, I need to correct this action or I need to. I'm having this thought about my employee, pause and ask yourself, is this fair? Is this just. Is this holding them responsible and accountable, or is this a toxic expectation that I have that maybe needs to be cleaned up a bit?
- [25:18]
Rhea Wong
Yeah, it's so interesting too, in the context of AI because I think technology promised us this future where we could outsource to the robots or outsource to tech and we would have more free time. And actually what it has done is quite the opposite. It's just ramped up the amount of productivity that we need to have. And so I'm just wondering, how do you see the integration of technology and the holding of boundaries to be human.
- [25:49]
Dr. Dee Franey
Wow, that's a big question. This is because I was talking in a coaching group yesterday about my. The conflicts I'm having with AI, Right. I have big ethical issues with AI in general and like the lack of legislation or bumpers to make it ethical and sustainable and not horrible for the environment. But the coast happened to is. She was only using her data and using it to help her help herself. And in that sense, like, yeah, why wouldn't we work smarter? Why wouldn't we use a tool that helps us be more effective and more impactful? She's not acting the AI to mine every other creator and artist ideas out there. She's saying, here are my ideas, here's my body of work. Help me see the things that I can't see in this. So if we're doing this as a non profession, why wouldn't we feed it all of our organizational information? Why wouldn't we feed it industry trends and all of these things and ask us to do that labor? If we're talking about like a nonprofit organization being under resourced, understaffed, underfunded, maybe AI is a great way to bridge some of that gap between I don't have enough employees. The employees that I have don't work as hard as we used to. And we're not like, we're in a down economy and funding is down. Like maybe, maybe asking it to write first drafts of grant proposals. Is that a bad idea?
- [27:24]
Rhea Wong
Yeah.
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Dr. Dee Franey
Here's all the grant proposals we've written in the past. Here's the questions for this thing, spit it out for me. And then the humans that you have on the team edit it, turn context and all the other things. Right?
- [27:37]
Rhea Wong
Yeah. I think there's a world in which AI certainly improves efficiency and builds capacity. Right. So especially with the AI agents that they have coming out now, there's a world where maybe I don't need as many people on my fundraising team and communications team, or maybe I can automate some of the things that used to be manual. And my hope is that if we can outsource a lot of the grunt work to the robots, we can free ourselves up to be the humans. Right. Because as we know, in fundraising, it's people who give to people. If I could have some robot preparing my, my keynotes for me and I can spend the time actually just having a conversation with my prospect, how much better is that?
- [28:18]
Dr. Dee Franey
Okay. Real connection. Real. The robots can't do that connection piece. Right. And that the most effective Fundraisers, the people who can relate to other humans, build connection, build trust, build, build inspiration in the effect of those donations. And yeah, my friend used the robots to do all the, like you said, the grunt work or the behind the scenes stuff that like they can't do, they can't connect on the human. I think it's really important and this is even my own reflection in this is that I don't want to sound end up being like one of those boomers who are like, I'm never going to get on social media emails the way to go. Because that was the new big invention for them and for us. Me as an elder millennial, xennial, whatever micro generation was seeing kind of both sides of it and the rise of social media. I don't want to outdate myself by not using AI and these tools that are changing the game and csen. So like I can have my ethical concerns and I can learn how to use these tools as ethically as I can use them. Just like I'm using social media as ethically and intentionally is I am doing that. So it's, I want to timed out of this change or not have the skills. And so I think it is an important question as leaders to ask ourselves how, where can we use these tools to advance our mission to be more effective, to be more impactful, to level the playing field in a lot of ways, right. When you have like corporations that have so much money to spend on marketing, like all facets of marketing, all facets of copyright, like all these different things and you have what, one or two marketing staff maybe? Or if your organization, if you're part of a national organization has yanked that all the way to the national level and you don't have someone locally. Yeah, why not?
- [30:06]
Rhea Wong
Yeah, yeah. It's an exciting time to be in the world. So I think we should use AI responsibly. So let me ask the last question because I think, especially as fundraisers, I think that there is this connection that we make to outcomes and our own worthiness and value. So it's like I get the gift, I'm a good fundraiser. If I don't get the gift, I'm a bad fundraiser. And I quantify my value based on a monetary goal.
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Dr. Dee Franey
Right.
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Rhea Wong
Or if the revenue came in, then I hit my mark and I'm good, I'm a good employee. And I think we obviously, we need to keep a score is the wrong word. But we obviously need to track our results and outcomes. And I talk with fundraisers all the time about decoupling your value as a person and as a fundraiser from the result. Because at the end of the day, you have no control over whether or not someone says yes or no. Like you don't have the ability to incent their mind and make them say something. All we can control is, did I do everything within my power to set this up in a way that I could and if it didn't go the way way that I wanted, what can I learn from this for the next time? And so I guess long winded way of saying, like, how do we share the message with folks around their inherent value? Like, you have value whether or not you get the gift, do the thing, you work the 80 hours, or whatever it is, you are inherently valuable.
- [31:38]
Dr. Dee Franey
Yes. Okay, so when we tie our worthiness to something external to us, we will never feel worthy, we'll never get there because it could always be taken away from you. If someone else has to give you a donation for you to feel worthy, it is unstable, it will never be stable, it will never be achievable because it can always be taken away from you. One of the most liberatory, anti oppressive beliefs that like really collapses every ism that we have is I am inherently worthy exactly as I am. I'm inherently worthy because I exist. Why else I have been created to walk here on this earth if I wasn't worthy of existing, if I wasn't worthy of my humanity and like, intellectually, I think we can get there. Feeling that truth in our body is really hard because of the social conditioning that we have inhaled since birth. Really starting asking your fundraisers, the folks that you're working with, to start decoupling their worthiness from the fundraising is a huge start. But in so many other places and spaces, our worthiness is tied to external expectations, external goals that can be taken away from us. And so just like starting to take inventory of all the ways that you think you need to earn and prove yourself to feel worthy and really start working on, I am worthy because I exist and, and really breathing that into your body and into your existence until you know it is truth, because it is true. And I think that like us compassionate folks who are doing this work can look at every other human on the planet and say they're worthy because they exist, but we don't extend that same belief to ourselves. And that's that integrity police, right? If I continue to oppress myself, treat myself like crap, if I unkind to myself, if I am selfless for the cause at the expense of my humanity, I am Not a walking, talking embodiment of my values. I am inherently worthy because I exist. I'm here. Why else would I be here if I wasn't worthy of existence, if I wasn't worthy of this humanity?
- [33:58]
Rhea Wong
I'll just share one quick thing because I've been thinking about this a lot. So I 10 I try not to spend a lot of time on social media, but for whatever reason, the other day I got sucked into like the Instagram black hole. And I look up and an hour has passed. I'm like, what just happened? And somehow in that hour, and I am like a fully grown human woman, I feel very healthy sense of self, all of the things. Somehow I got sucked into the algorithm and I was like, I really just need this $3,000 bag. If I had this $3,000 bag, my whole life would be different. Like, my whole wardrobe would really get tied together. And I turned off the Instagram and I was like, what the hell am I thinking? There is no world in what I would ever buy a $3,000 handbag. But somehow like the Instagram algorithm like stepped it into my brain and I was like, I just made this handbag. And I was like, good Lord, if this is happening to me, a middle aged woman, like, how must this be affecting the brains of younger people? Like teenagers whose brains aren't fully formed yet? So anyway, all the same, that I think part of it for me is just being really careful about what I'm consum.
- [35:08]
Dr. Dee Franey
Yeah, social media is just a new format, but this has always existed. Think about all the magazines that we used to read when we were teenagers. Like I had old ones that were telling us that I wasn't worthy if I wasn't size two, that if I. Oh my God, like Kate Moss. Like heroin. Skinny, chic, emaciated. That was the thing. Like we were getting all those same messages. It was just a different format. And I don't know, is it worse now? Probably because of just like the quantity and the speed, but like this conditioning has always existed. I don't know, is it helpful to say it's so much worse for them now? No, it's just. It's a different format. Is it? Maybe it's slightly more effective because of the analytics and the data reading. Sure. But also, like, the kids are savvy too. Like they are getting some digital literacy that those of us who are older didn't get. Like, how many Think about our. The boom. Our boomer parents who are who fall for every Facebook broad thing. Like every. The phone calls are like, this is the irs. We need you to give your social and all your information. It's like they have no digital literacy. So the children these days have digital literacy. So they're actually, I would say, better equipped than those who are older, who didn't get that training, who didn't grow up in that environment.
- [36:26]
Rhea Wong
Yeah. I think the big picture takeaway from me here is don't believe the lies.
- [36:31]
Dr. Dee Franey
Right.
- [36:31]
Rhea Wong
You are inherently valuable, you are inherently worthy. And don't believe or feed into all of the things that are trying to tell you otherwise, even your boss, even your work life, even your social media feed. And so I think the more we embrace the truth of who we really are and are mindful and discerning about all that does not feed the story that we believe to be true about ourselves. The better off we will be.
- [37:00]
Dr. Dee Franey
Yeah, I think that sometimes people think that if I believe I'm an inherently worthy, even if I haven't gotten to where I want to be and achieved all these things that I want and gotten through the personal development growth that I want, that I'm going to become complacent, really, acceptance of this is where I am. I am inherently worthy. I will always be worthy. And accountability. Did I do the best I could today? I said I want these things. I said I'm working towards these things. Did I do that? Did I. Was I effective in that? Did I at least have a be my effort towards it? Did I do enough today? And we're going to look at the information and decide, make decisions on what am I going to do different tomorrow. We're not looking at that information to be an asshole to ourselves. We're not going to beat ourselves up. We're going to say, okay, assessment time. How and where can I do differently? Do I need to adjust the goal? Do I need to adjust the expectation? Because sometimes as overachievers, hustlers, we're like, yeah, I can do five years of work in seven days. No. But sometimes it's like when we do this honest assessment, we can say, do I need to change my behaviors? Do I need to change my actions? Do I need to change my expectations?
- [38:11]
Rhea Wong
Yeah, I agree. I think the other thing, and this gets me a lot, is being careful about comparison. Comparison is the thief of joy. And it's always so easy, I think, to compare, like, oh, that nonprofit has this much money, or that person raised this much money, or this person has a more successful business. And the comparison game will kill you.
- [38:31]
Dr. Dee Franey
You don't know anything that's going on behind the scenes. And I think in this current culture there's so much like hype and people are gonna give you the highlight reel and not like the actual hardship. And what's the truth of what's going on? Because it's scary to be vulnerable and to say, I'll have it all figured out or this isn't going well for me. So it's just an incomplete story. You don't have all the information. And so it's. The only person again that you can control is yourself. The only person that you can truly change all. So it's if I want use the other people, that, that and the other results that triggering you into comparison to say, okay, that's showing me something that I want. And how can I make that possible for me? How can I make that possible for my organization? Great. They got a grant from this funder. I would like a grant from that funder. Cool. How can I get a conversation with that foundation? How I build a relationship with them so I also can get funding for our organization. Instead of saying, I'm not doing something good, I suck. Beating yourself up or robbing yourself of your joy because that other organization doing good, use that as a. Oh, that's possible for us too.
- [39:45]
Rhea Wong
Yeah.
- [39:45]
Dr. Dee Franey
And how can we do the work to get there?
- [39:47]
Rhea Wong
Yeah. That's really powerful. Thank you so much for your time. This has been a really great conversation. I hope folks take it to heart. We will post all of your info on in the show notes if folks want to get in touch with you. Can you briefly talk about how it is that you help organizations?
- [40:04]
Dr. Dee Franey
Yeah, I love helping people who want to make a difference in the world with their work. Be more impactful, be more effective. An example is a former government employee who left government service who started her own tax practice. The first year she had a support staff doing a few hundred thousand dollars in revenue and came to me and said, I paid these people all this money and they didn't do their job. I had to do all the work for them. And really helping her shift to this, to this idea and her self identity as the leader, as the manager, as the person who needed to lead the organization, not just do the taxes. And in the very next tax season, she like more than tripled her revenue. She had a team that was working the next season. After that she was taking vacations during tax season, which is insane.
- [40:51]
Rhea Wong
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [40:55]
Dr. Dee Franey
Like now she's got four locations. She's just opened a her first franchise this year and it's only been a couple years. So it's really like that. How can we do this work? How can we do it better and how can we do it more aligned with our values? So awesome. All right.
- [41:12]
Rhea Wong
We will make sure to put all the info in the show notes including how to get in touch with you. But in the meantime, Dean, thank you.
- [41:16]
Dr. Dee Franey
So much for your time. This has been a great conversation. Thank you so much.
- [41:20]
Rhea Wong
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