How to Lead Through Disruption: The Human Connection Strategy Nobody Talks About | Jen Marr

Summary

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The Entrepreneur DNA

Episode: How to Lead Through Disruption: The Human Connection Strategy Nobody Talks About

Host: Justin Colby
Guest: Jen Marr
Date: April 20, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this insightful episode, Justin Colby sits down with Jen Marr, a “human disruption specialist,” Boston Marathon bombing survivor, and the author of Showing Up and Lifting Up. Drawing from her lived experiences with the Boston Marathon bombing and her support work following the Sandy Hook tragedy, Jen reveals strategies for leaders to navigate disruption—both in business and in life—through authentic human connection. The conversation explores the impact of AI on workplace relationships, how to hold supportive yet accountable conversations, managing generational divides at work, and the practical approaches leaders can adopt to transform disruption into growth.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Surviving Disruption and the Power of Showing Up

• Jen’s Experience: Jen shares how her proximity to both the Boston Marathon bombing (01:58) and weekly involvement at Sandy Hook deeply informed her philosophy on handling disruption.
• The “How’s today?” Conversation:
  • Jen stresses the profound impact of simply being present and checking in:

    “All we could do is: How’s today? And that simple line works in any case…making sure someone feels seen and valued and acknowledged.”
    (02:45, Jen Marr)

  • She encourages leaders and individuals to make daily check-ins part of their routine.

2. Human Connection vs. Technology in the Workplace

• Communication Crisis:
  • Jen identifies poor communication and lack of time as persistent issues in organizations, exacerbated by overreliance on technology.

    “Screens is really informing, it’s never communicating.”
    (05:02, Jen Marr)

• AI’s Role & Its Limitations:
  • While AI will bring efficiencies, Jen cautions against losing sight of the human element:

    “In every revolution...It is making us more stressed, with less time, because all of the change ends up falling on the human.”
    (07:55, Jen Marr)

  • The ultimate competitive advantage will remain how humans support and interact with each other, regardless of advances in technology.

3. True Supportive Leadership

• Balancing Support and Accountability:
  • Using football as a metaphor, Jen illustrates the difference between doing work for someone and developing them:

    “A true leader holds his team accountable…my job is to develop you, get you ready, help you get to where you are.”
    (09:55, Jen Marr)

• Managing Emotional Boundaries:
  • Jen emphasizes structured, time-limited supportive conversations to prevent leaders from being overwhelmed—a process that includes clear boundaries, listening first, and mapping out the next steps (12:59).
  • Leaders should “pull emotion out” and act as investigators, not therapists, offering support within their organizational capacity.

4. Stress, Burnout, and the Science of Human Bonding

• Cortisol vs. Oxytocin:
  • Jen explains why human connection is crucial for overcoming stress:

    “The hormone that overpowers cortisol…is oxytocin—our human bonding hormone…What we need is to sit down with someone and just vent and have someone say, ‘I got your back.’”
    (26:03, Jen Marr)

  • Quick dopamine hits from screens don’t reduce long-term stress—supportive conversations do.

5. Generational and Cultural Workplace Challenges

• The “Awkward Zone”
  • After tragedy, people often avoid or mishandle support conversations due to discomfort:

    “Our human behaviors go wrong. Some avoid, others overcompensate, and many deflect or freeze.”
    (18:29, Jen Marr)

  • Jen’s research shows that while most people rate themselves as empathetic, few effectively demonstrate empathy at work—especially across generational lines (20:30).
• Native Analog vs. Native Digital Divide:
  • “Native analogs” grew up with face-to-face communication; “native digitals” (Gen Z and younger) default to digital tools, often avoiding in-person interaction (30:45).
  • Emerging fears:

    “It used to be FOMO—fear of missing out. Now, it’s FOTP—fear of taking part.”
    (34:57, Jen Marr)

• Advising Senior Leaders:
  • Jen counsels Boomer and Gen X leaders to nurture, not judge, younger generations who struggle with spontaneous interaction and face high social anxiety (33:44).

6. Tactics for Supportive Leadership

• Fast and Frequent 1:1s:
  • Replace hour-long, agenda-heavy check-ins with weekly or even more frequent brief catch-ups focused on real-time needs (45:04).
• Practical Questions for Leaders:
  • What’s most important to you this week?
  • What’s keeping you up at night?
  • Is anything getting in the way?
  • What can I help you focus on today?
  • “Permissioning”: Give people explicit permission to focus on fewer, higher-impact tasks, helping to relieve overwhelm (47:43).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Listening:

  “Your initial conversation, you want to keep it short…Your first session is strictly listening. You’re kind of like acting as an investigator: what do I need to do here?”
  (12:59, Jen Marr)

• On Post-Tragedy Stress Response:

  “I thought I was fine...what I didn’t recognize was what this stress response was doing to my body...My thinking was clouded, and I was walking around saying, I’m fine.”
  (23:52, Jen Marr)

• On Overcoming Judgment:

  “I kind of think of everyone that I meet as an empty piggy bank, and what I need to be able to do is put relational deposits into that piggy bank. And the more that piggy bank is full, we won't have judgment anymore.”
  (39:07, Jen Marr)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:45] – Experiencing and addressing tragedy: “How’s today?” as a leadership tool
• [04:37] – The two biggest pain points in organizations: communication and time
• [07:55] – The impact and limitations of AI/technology on human connection
• [09:49] – Drawing the line between supporting and enabling team members
• [12:59] – How leaders can offer support without becoming therapists
• [26:03] – How stress (cortisol) is overcome by real human bonding (oxytocin)
• [30:45] – The generational screen divide: native analogs vs. native digitals
• [34:57] – Gen Z’s “fear of taking part” and the loneliness epidemic
• [39:07] – “Piggy bank” analogy for trust and overcoming fear of judgment
• [45:04] – Fast and frequent 1:1s: cadence, content, and advice for frequency
• [47:38] – Sample supportive leadership questions

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How to Connect with Jen Marr

• Website: jenmarr.com
• Organization: showing-up.com (Showing Up)
• LinkedIn: Jen Marr
• Books:
  • Showing Up
  • Lifting Up (Both available on Amazon)

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Conclusion

Jen Marr’s experiences and expertise underscore the urgent need for leaders to balance technological efficiencies with intentional human connection—especially in moments of disruption or rapid change. Her actionable frameworks and memorable analogies (from football to piggy banks) provide a roadmap for entrepreneurs and executives alike who want to create resilient, empathetic, and high-performing organizations in the digital age.

If you found value in Jen’s insights, you’re encouraged to share this episode and check out her books and training resources for deeper dives into creating supportive cultures!

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

What is up? The entrepreneur DNA family. This is a good one. I have a special special guest here. This is one who, she's a true gem to all human beings and you're going to want to stay on. We have a human disruption specialist who not only was 700 yards, I believe from finishing the Boston Marathon before the bombing hit, she was in the bombing, literally running the marathon and then also leaned on that experience to help adults, you know, companies, children through the Sandy Hook shooting. And she is now focusing on very high level leadership with the adult world, the entrepreneur world to help us through disruption. And Jen Mar is here. How are you?

[C]

Hey, thank you, Justin. I'm so excited to be here. Can't wait for this conversation.

[B]

Yeah, me too. This is something you have a very unique lens on this. You started with your need and then your awareness of the need you were needing during the Boston bombing during the marathon and then you took that and you became aware of what you were looking for and what you needed to get through it and you said, okay, I, I can actually go out there and be a light in this space and tragedies and just such disruptions as the Sandy Hook shooting. You can lead the charge and Help adults, help family members, help parents, help companies understand how to get through this. So let's start there. When tragedy strikes, what's the first thing that you think of? What's the first concept that goes through your head?

[C]

Well, I think what you're talking about, these two events were so intertwined. And actually I was in Sandy Hook right as I was prepping for the Boston Marathon. So I was running to get over what I was dealing with every week in the Sandy Hook school. And so, you know, when you are there as a support and imagine at Sandy Hook, here was, you know, 20 first graders lost their lives and six staff members. The school was just. It had to move locations. So what's on your mind every day is just, what now? What's next? What do we do today? And literally, that's all we could do, is house today. And that simple line works in any case. Still to this day is one foot in front of the other, one day, and just literally making sure someone feels seen and valued and acknowledged. And a simple line like house today opens the door if someone wants. Wants to say, living the dream, or sometimes not a high percentage, but there are those days that they need it, that they'll say, you know, it's not such a great day. Do you have a second? But each of those little moments builds up the trust that's needed in order to take that next step forward.

[B]

How's today? You know, it sounds so simple. Sounds good to say, how's today? How's the day? Is that something you actively go around saying in your every day today? Because I feel like it'd be very meaningful for someone. You know, I just saw. I want to say it was. Gary Vee just made a post about there's all these people walking a normal city street, right. And I think it was in New York. And they have all these little problems, and you have no idea what they're going through. They're just walking. Maybe a smile on their face, maybe not. How meaningful is that question? Do you go about your day kind of saying, how's your day?

[C]

Well, it's what I train. And I mean, I'm sure we'll get into the story, but, you know, I think the better question now, especially for leadership, is, how can I best support you today? What do you need? And it's the recognition that everybody's in the thick of it at some point. And the two main issues we have in any organization is, number one, communication's bad, and number two, nobody has time for anything. And so when you break down communication being bad and there's no time for anything. What's happening with human disruption is it gets more disrupted because people tend to look to their screens and I'll just send another email, I'll just send a text. And when that human to human element, when there's no space for that, those human problems grow and grow and grow. And whereas if you can just tackle them a little conversation at a time, not only do they not grow, but you end up saving time because you're, you get ahead of the game.

[B]

What would be one thing that the entrepreneurs these days need to focus on? Whether they're in leadership or even just they're running a business? How do they navigate when things go wrong specifically with other people?

[C]

Well, first of all, it's to recognize, you know, when we work with organizations, we start by a discovery process of what are your key pain points. And honestly, time and communication are always way up there. And so you have to understand that once you get to an organizational pain point, the only way through it is by conversation. It's never going to. And in our technologically driven world right now, so much communication has been taken over by screens and screens is really informing. It's never communicating. You know, you only really communicate with someone when you can see them eye to eye and understand that they understand that you are getting through. Otherwise, like who really reads emails anymore? They're written by AI and read by AI and replied to by AI. So there's no human part of it anymore. So it is coming up with these micro moments that leaders can find and take One of the key things, key foundational skills is what we would say the fast and frequent one on one. So, so get rid of those old one hour agenda driven one on ones and have the cadence and a framework and a structure as to how you are constantly checking in with people and making sure that priorities are set and things are in line and not falling through the cracks and you're supporting people through their bottlenecks and overwhelm.

[B]

So there's two questions I'm going to pose to here. With AI being so prevalent and to your point, everyone leaning into it like, oh, I'll just get it answered through AI, right? Like I won't have to really deal with the AI. We'll deal with it. What is your, what's your biggest suggestion for companies to overcome the ease of just using AI? Like everyone's just going to lean into it. We're all aware of it. It's every, everyone in the world is talking about AI. This and you can replace human intelligence, human workers, human everything. But where is that going to leave businesses?

[C]

Well, it's such a good point. And I mean, AI is going to have a great role somehow. But I ask people to consider. Let's start back at 1900. There's been one revolution after the next. Whether we talk about transportation, whether we talk about industrial revolution, whether we talk about healthcare, whether we talk about technology. And in every revolution, it's meant to make our lives easier and save time. And in every single revolution, it is making us more stressed, with less time, because all of the change ends up falling on the human. At the end of the day, when you talk about disruption, uncertainty, you know, you might be thinking you're talking about AI, but really what you're solving for is what, what is the effect? What is the fallout on the human? And so until AI rules the whole world, maybe that's going to happen, but

[B]

probably not in our lifetime.

[C]

But at some point, humans are still running the AI machines, humans still are in front of customers. Humans still have to make food and deliver services and do things. And so as AI takes over all of those other tasks, it's all going to boil down to how are humans treating humans and growing humans and developing humans in order to make all of these other AI driven efficiencies work?

[B]

Where's the fine line that I think leaders in organizations based around what you just said, coming in, having conversations, how can I help you today? Where's this fine line with leaders that some people are gonna literally give them all their work and say, thanks for asking, here's the things I need help with versus I'm here to help you, but I'm not here to do it for you. Where's that fine draw that line drawn?

[C]

It's such a great question and I love to. I don't know, are you a football fan?

[B]

I am.

[C]

Okay, well, I am a huge Indiana Hoosiers football fan. My daughter graduated there in sports media, interviewed Kurt Signetti, our. Okay, so I am going to use Kurt Signetti as the example. A true leader holds his team accountable. A true leader like Kurt Signetti, if you go back to any interview he has, he wants to win, but what does he look at his job to do? I got to develop them, I got to develop them. I got to get them ready. I got to help them get to where they are. I got to know if I've got someone on the injured reserve and who's going to take their place. So I think so often we've got this Mentality that if I, you know, if I look to support someone, they're going to take advantage of that. Whereas it's the role of the leader to develop them. And a good leader would never allow that. A good leader would just say, what do you need to support? And you know what? Focus on that today. And you want to know something? If a good leader has someone overwhelmed that has five tasks that need to be done and that person only is capable of doing one, then shame on that leader. The first place.

[B]

Absolutely.

[C]

And so it's. It has. It is not about a fear of that. It's about a leader having control of the game. Like Kurt Zignetti would never allow that to happen. So I love to be very. And Kurt Zignetti is not a warm and fuzzy person, but he is the most. The best example of a supportive leader you could ever find because he developed Fernando Mendoza in one season. Here was a kid that couldn't even walk on the team. They played in the national championship, and he developed them in one year to an Heisman Trophy winner. And so that is a supportive leader. I'm going to build you up to your potential. And if at any point it's my fault that you're overwhelmed, it's on me because I want to create you to be the best version of yourself as I can. That's ultimately what a leader is. And I think so many people lose sight of that today.

[B]

Geez, you know, I love football analogy. So business in. In sports, to me have so many analogous. I think is the right way of saying that, and I think that was a brilliant one. The leader who goes in and says, you know, how can I support you to do your job? I'm not going to do it for you, but how can I support you to do what you are expected to do in the role that you have? That's a true leader, right?

[C]

Absolutely.

[B]

Now, I do believe there's another fine line. Where's the fine line for leaders in organizations where it becomes an emotional venting session and they become psychologists or psychiatrists versus just a leader? Because as someone who has run organizations and I will have comments and say things and sit down, then next, you know, I'm like, I don't know if I needed to hear about your marriage, but it's emotionally affecting this individual, which is affecting their ability to perform. Right. So where's this fine line drawn in leadership in organizations so it doesn't become just. You become a psychologist or a psychiatrist?

[C]

Well, see, this is the whole reason I wrote the book, because all these, all of a sudden, now these things are happening, right? There's much greater need to talk about mental health. The leader has to know what are the boundaries between being a leader, sending someone to get mental health support, or sending them to hr? The simple answer to your question is we have complete supportive conversation guidelines for that. And what we do is train people. Well, first of all, train people how to ask for support in the right way. That's a whole nother training lane. But secondly, when someone does come to you for support, your initial conversation, you want to keep it short so it doesn't go into that long, drawn out thing. So you set a timeframe ahead of time and you just, and your first session is strictly listening. You are doing nothing but listening. There's exactly the questions you have to ask. You're trying to get the right information out. You're connecting the dots, you're affirming what they said. Is this what you said? You ask them, is there anything that you think you need? And then you say, give me a day, give me an hour, give me a week if it's an emotional thing, and I'll come back to you. And then we train that leader how to map out support and go back and have these little quick cadence conversations until that issue is resolved. So you pull the emotion out of it, but you're kind of acting as, you're kind of like acting as an investigator, like, what do I need to do here? It's not on you to take on the emotion, but it is on you to know. Maybe we break it into three areas. One is, who do I know that they should know? Maybe it's someone that's really lonely and maybe there's an organization I want to introduce them to. That's the first bucket. Who do I want to connect or who can I mentor?

[B]

Who do I know that could help this individual?

[C]

Right. The second one would be, what internally do we have? You know, most leaders have no idea what's all in the EAP. And EAPs are fully underutilized. And so if a leader can say, hey, you know, we actually have this great program, people with financial difficulties, hey, do you know you get a 30 minute free financial coaching session? Here's the number. Give them a call. So what, what do you have internally that you can lean on? And then third, what's your role as a leader? And when you map out that kind of support, it takes the emotion out. Just as Kurt Signetti would have to take the emotion out if one of his players sprained his ankle.

[B]

I don't know if that man has too much emotion. He does have now, but by the way, it kind of plays into what you're talking about.

[C]

Right.

[B]

I do believe today, especially with everything going on in social media, is the emotion gets heightened. And most of the time, at least I believe it's not reasonable. Right. There's no rationale behind the emotion is pure emotion for emotion's sake. Right. Is I want to fight for something and yell about something for some nut for no good reason except for I want to do it right. Then you have. You who's been in literally like catastrophic scenarios and been through them and then helped with them. And I believe just like the analogy to Coach. Right. Is if you can just remove. There's a great book. You know, this is one of my favorite books. I'm blanking. Um, the Obstacle is the Way. Sorry by Ryan Holiday. One of my favorite. Cause one of the biggest points. There's a lot of great points there is this. What you're discussing is remove your emotion. Remove that first and put yourself 30ft of 30,000ft above and look at the actual scenario. And if you do that, you'll usually come up with a better answer than when you're in the trenches, emotionally driven, you know, taking grenades, fighting your way out of the firefighter. It is an emotional reactive response. Right. I believe that there's this blend of you can't be emotionless, but you can't be driven by emotion. So I basically, I'm just supporting your point completely. When you go into these conversations with organizations and people, do your best to remove it. Let me ask you directly, what is a human disruption specialist?

[C]

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[A]

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[C]

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[B]

You know, just, just to stick that point. I believe people are. I mean, the person probably the loudest in our space is Gary Vee. Talking about empathy. He literally branded a wine company empathy. Right? Wine. Like, I don't believe people. Like, I actually believe women because they actually genuinely, in my opinion, relative to men, have much more empathy. Naturally, I believe they serve that much more. But I think when talking to men in, in the business space, I believe most men will say they have high empathy. And I, that is, my gut is telling me it is not accurate. They are just saying they're high empathy. But I don't think they are.

[C]

Right. But see, so here's the thing. They probably do. They probably go home and have really great friends and family. The issue is they don't. It's not, it's not for the workplace. Right? Like, so how you apply it at work is another thing. So these are the relational dilemmas I'm talking about. So, so people rate themselves very high. But then they'll also say, but no one has any idea what it's like to be me. Right? Like, no one has a clue what I'm all dealing with. So that's the second 80%. So, hey, I can see you. No one's seen me. And then the third one, we ask, well, do you tell people, no, I'm going to push through this myself? And then we ask, well, do you wish you could. Do you wish you could share more about this in the workplace? And that's the. 480 people want to be able to talk about it. It's not like the old rules of work where work is work and home is home. And I don't bring that stuff in the office. Well, people want to bring it in the offices now, which is why leaders are so stressed. Like, what is this? Because then that last 80% is, what do I do with that? It's so nuanced. Like, do I talk about it? Do I not? And so how, how we address that then is since that time at Sandy Hook is we go back to what we've termed the awkward zone. And it's a space where we can assess human habits, mindsets, and behaviors that are our blind spots. That when we are faced with disruption, we're getting wrong. And so we do things like deflect, like, that's not my job, not my place, you know, or we doubt, like, ugh, I don't, I don't think it's the right time. I don't want to make them more upset. Or we just try to fix it, or if we're face to face with them, we avoid it. So we have two of the buckets are just in our heads. We talk ourselves out of doing anything. The other two are when we're face to face and we're getting the behaviors wrong. And we can help people kind of have a common language of like, that's what I'm doing here. And now I need to do this instead. So it's kind of awareness building with skills that attach to those blind spots.

[B]

How do people. Well, your book probably goes into. First of all, can everyone get your book in Amazon?

[C]

Yeah. Lifting up by Jen Mar.

[B]

Lifting up by Jen Mar. Two Rs, everybody. Lifting up. There it is. Lifting up with the blue Arrow by Jen Maher. Amazon. Lifting up by Jen Mar. So I want to take two frames here. The woman who is 700 yards from the finish line of the Boston Marathon. What was your need? You were in the middle of it, right? You were the quote, unquote victim in this scenario.

[C]

Yeah, but here's the thing, too, that what I realized was how we get our stress response so wrong, because here I was, okay? So not only was I 700 yards, but I was 0.2 miles away, like, really close to the 26 mile marker, which is what I had just dedicated to Sandy Hook, right? Because they lost 26 lives in the school. So I didn't even get there. But I was so close to a spot where so many were injured that I walked away from that. And it took me two hours to find my family. It was very traumatic, like police saying, get out of here. We didn't know if there were more bombs. So it was a very traumatic time. And I did finally find my family two hours later. But see, I thought I was fine. And I think. And what I didn't recognize was what this stress response was doing to my body. And so, you know, I think stress does so much for us and it clouds our thinking. It. I mean, I just. My thinking was clouded and I was walking around saying, I'm fine. I was, you know, pushing through, like, I'm not injured. I'm okay. And so of all the things I take away from that, that's what I take away. Because at the time, I didn't think I needed anything because I wasn't hurt.

[B]

Right, so you were in defensive mode, right, where you're like, I'm fine. Everything's good. I'm fine. I'm fine. Because physically you're fine, right? Where were you?

[C]

Fine? Yeah. I had a friend that came and she says, jen, I'm going to come stay with you for a couple of days. I'm like, why are you doing that? I'm fine. And all of a sudden she's like, you know, the next day she's like, hey, Jen, we got to. I'm going to drive Erica to gymnastics. I'm like, oh, oh gosh, I didn't think of that. Like your brain just doesn't work.

[B]

So your, your physical where you were not fine was mentally. Mentally you just had a foggy brain is almost like you wanted to black it out. Was it like I want to get rid of this thought and. But it just kind of covered over everything. What were you actually. Physiology. What was your physiology going through?

[C]

No, it's. And I mean, Justin, this is what's happening every day in our organizations because our stress hormone is cortisol. So cortisol gets flooded into your system. If you hear like, you know, people in the military that have ptsd, it's because they have so much cortisol flooding in their system that it, it creates these things like foggy brain. It creates, you know, you either overeat or undereat, you sleep or you don't sleep, you know, like all these changes. But foggy brain is a big one. And but that's what's happening with burnout too. And so here's the thing and the science behind why I'm so passionate about this because the hormone that overpowers cortisol, which is our stress hormone, is oxytocin, which is our human bonding hormone. And what's happening too often today is people are looking for the quick dopamine hit because dopamine also you want to see if you've got a new notification or you want to play a game or you want to see if somebody commented on your post. You just want to self soothe yourself through the stress. But dopamine is a quick hit like oh, I'll feel good for a second. But it doesn't overpower the stress. Whereas it's the human. It's when a human will say, I got your back. You're not in this alone. What do you need today? I'm here to walk you through it. That is what will overpower the cortisol. Which is why I am so passionate about this work because it also is baked into our wiring and too many people are self soothing. And our screens allow us to go into our very favorite new self entertained thing. Yeah, what we need is to sit down with someone and just vent it and have someone say, hey, I got your back.

[B]

When you are going through Sandy Hook and you take the principles that are in your book, Lift up, right? Lift up Genmar and someone has the response that you had to your friend, right? No, I'm okay. And you're sitting here on the outside saying no, I know you are not right. How can you, as the person on the outside saying, how can I help you today? How are you patient with the person who's going to be defensive? Not in a bad way, but defensive, holding up this like, no, I'm okay. I got this. All good. Like, how do you be patient with that? How do you soothe? How do you be there for someone who says, you don't need to be here? For me?

[C]

Yeah. Well, I think it. First of all, it depends upon how well you know that person and what your relationship with them is. Right. Dot was a dear friend of mine and a very dear friend of our family. She knew my girls. She's a nurse practitioner. She knew what I was going to be going through, and she knew my family well enough that she could step in and drive my daughter to gymnastics. That's a very special relationship. When I was at Sandy Hook, that's what I faced every day. Right. And so my goal in that is just to build that trust. Just say, hey, I'm here if you need anything. You know, is it a teacher that just needed a break from the classroom and I could come in and step in? Is it a teacher that needed help with a student, whatever it was, you know, I think as a leader, you do have a certain responsibility for someone that's in the thick of it, because you can make or break their health at that point. And so if you see their work slipping or, you know they're going through something, it is your job to sit down and say, hey, share with me what's on your plate. What do you got? What can you do today? What. What do you not, what. What do you need? Like, that is a leader's role. It's not prying. You're not asking what's all going on in their life, but you're asking, look, what do you need? What's all on your plate? And I guarantee you there's 10 things they're stressing about not getting done that you could say, hey, just put those. Put those on hold for a second. Let's focus on this one thing. And giving them permission not to worry about all the things they're worried about makes a very big difference in someone's ability to sleep at night.

[B]

I'm literally taking notes because this is so good. I just think about my organization. And you at this point, are working with. Who are you working? I mean, you're working from the smaller organizations, but you're also working with very large companies that have really, probably much bigger issues. But who are you working with right now?

[C]

Well, I'm working with some organizations that I can't say I'm working with like a small team because there are just rules with that. But you know, look, I've worked with leaders from Microsoft, I've worked with nursing leaders for the hca, Healthcare, I've worked with law firms, I've worked with college campuses. And the things are all the same, the problems are all the same because human disruption is all the same. Right now you're. And I'll tell you, one of the biggest hot button issues is the generational differences. And it is those that. I mean, I talk about this a lot in my book because I saw it with. I talk do a thread through of my daughter Audrey, who just graduated college. And Audrey was the first generation with a smartphone. Her two older sisters still had phone phones. So the two older sisters still had. They had to make friends voice to voice, face to face. And it wasn't until like they were in high school, going into college that, you know, Facebook and you know, Instagram became a thing. And so the difference between those two generations or those two years is massive. And I don't think organizations even understand yet. I call so recent college graduates like last year down. Like that's the guinea pig generation. These people are terrified of face to face conversations. They want to do everything on screens. And leaders in the workplace are so unsure, number one, what to make of that. Number two, how do I talk to them? Number three, I have to recognize that these guys don't know how to network. They're not going to want to speak up in a meeting. I have to pull that out of them. I have to develop them into that. It's my job to develop that. And I think if our generation that grew up, we call them native analogs. We're the native analogs, they're the native digitals. If native analogs can say, okay, we gotta develop these guys, we put screens in their hand, it's not their fault. But you know what, they can teach us a lot too. And so it becomes supportive on both sides. That's how we're going to get through this phase. But too many Gen X and baby boomer leaders are like, hey, suck it up, come on. I had to deal with that when I was your age. And they just have no idea how different it is. And they're not taking into account what it was like for the Audreys of the world to grow up with a smartphone when us parents were clueless of what it was doing. You know, just like, hey, we can text each other. This is Cool. I can talk to you all day, you know, clueless.

[B]

So talk to the, the baby boomer. Right now you own a company, you're running a company, you're a C suite individual and you're frustrated all the time. What is the piece of advice you're going to talk to that individual about?

[C]

You have no idea what it's like to be them. You just don't. They look at the world different, they look at how they communicate different and they are, they. I love this generation. I think Gen Z and Genoff is too early yet, but I think Gen Z is the most compassionate, innovative generation ever. And I think if we can get them networked and if we can see, you know, here's the thing about this younger generation, I'll tell you a few things. Number one, they want guidance. They don't want direction. They don't just want a task driven leader like do these five things today. They want to know why am I doing these things and who should I be doing them with and who are these people doing these jobs and what's my role in that? That's number one. Number two, they don't want to really be leaders themselves. So we're leaning towards moving to a very difficult situation. They've seen their parents go through all the crises of the world and they're like, I don't want to lead people. They don't even like talking to people. Why would they want to lead them? Which leads to the third thing that every baby boomer parent should know is that we used to think of fomo, right? Fear of missing out. You know what it is now?

[B]

What?

[C]

Fear of taking part. Which is why you hear of so many people that don't want to stop remote working. They're afraid to come into corporate events because the social anxiety is so high. Like I don't know what to say. I don't know them. 75% of kids on college campuses right now, we found, are lonely. And so if they're unlonely and if they're lonely and they're on their screens all their time, what motivation do they have to want to come in and do a corporate networking event where they don't know anybody. Imagine how much harder it is for them than us and we find that awkward.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

So that's what we have to take in mind. We have to look at this generation totally different and we have to nurture and support them, which is why we have to lift them up. That's why I'm so passionate about it and I say it's the transformative power of support, supportive leadership. We have to support them. We got to develop them and also pull out all of their amazing skills that they can teach us. And so it's. It's a different world.

[B]

It is definitely a different world. You said something that I. I wrote down. Fear of taking part. It. I see it, like, as you say, I can see it in my own organizations, right? Everything. Covid started this whole world of, you know, zoom calls everything. And, you know, when you ask someone to meet and whatever, it becomes like, they're like. And I'm like, what. What happened to just going back to like, hey, let's have a meeting in an office. And doing X, Y and Z. It is. I find it to be very. I'm a. I'm a older parent. And while we're talking to entrepreneurs, I think there's a lot of this that goes into parenting as well. Right? Because even my younger children who don't have cell phones, they're young, right? Two and five years old, making sure that they're a part of the family in the same way that I was, right? The dinners, the engagements, it's not always screen time. You can't hide behind things.

[C]

Okay, I have a business question for you. Where did you get your domain on wix? It was really easy. Was it actually easy or are you exaggerating? No, really, it took like 90 seconds. I even built a full website. What do you mean? I just used Wix Harmony, just told it what I wanted, and it built a fully functional website for me in minutes. It also comes with hosting security, privacy protection, everything. Oh, cool. Yeah. Check it [e-mail] domains out on the

[A]

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[C]

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[B]

Talk to me about your thought philosophy. Ideology around fear of judgment.

[C]

I think everybody has a fear of judgment to a certain extent. And I think the only way around that is, you know, I kind of think of everyone that I meet as an empty piggy bank. And what I need to be able to do is put relational deposits into that piggy bank. And the more that piggy bank is full, we won't have judgment anymore because we'll know each other. And so I have to just start just putting deposits in there. Hey, how's today? What can I do? What's going on? You want to grab a cup of coffee? You want to go for a walk? Just little, simple relational exchanges, whether it's a text, whether it's whatever. And I think when we lean into just knowing that everyone around us is in the thick of it and we want to be supportive to each other, that's what's going to develop our relationships the most. And that's when judgment goes away. Because at the end of the day, that's what I learned at Sandy Hook. I didn't care if they were for gun control or not for gun control. I didn't care if they wanted to start a butterfly garden in response to losing a child or whether they wanted to storm Washington and fight for new gun laws. I didn't care. I cared that I was there to help them get through that day. And so if we can just have that focus, then all of a sudden you don't. You don't judge people because you just want to help them get through the day. And granted, everybody's different. Some people really grade on you. And it's. It's a lot easier for some people than others. It's a lot easier in some organ organizations than others. But there are some very basic human foundational rules that if we follow, we can make work a lot more comfortable and fulfilling than it is right now.

[B]

Yeah, I think, you know, people's fear of being judged also to me, outwardly, I. I see Them not actually living up to their potential. And it, you know, again, what did you call us? The, the analog. We're the analog group. Or like, I just look at that as borderline silly. I'm like, you have all this potential, but you're limiting your own self. Not because of me, because you don't want to, you know, maybe do it right, maybe do it wrong, have some level of judgment so it's easier to hide behind the computer, lean into AI doing the thing versus you grabbing the bulls by the horns. Right. And doing it and living to that full potential. Because I think there's a lot of people who want or, or would be potentially deserving of raises, of, of being promoted, but they hide. They hide behind it.

[C]

Yeah, exactly. Gotta learn how to seek that support.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

You know, anyways, phenomenon I, that I find, and I know you'll relate to this as well, but, you know, so us native analogs, we grew up in silence. Like, if you think about it, we had to walk around with nothing. Like, and so we would break that silence with stupid small talk. Right? Like if we're walking on a college campus, like, what dorm are you in? Where are you going next? Who's your professor? Like, silly small talk that has all gone away.

[B]

Oh yeah.

[C]

And so us native analogs, we just want to talk. Like, we're like, hey, you know, what's going on this net? Native digitals are not like that. And so what I see in the workplace sometimes, and I guess which is what I would. My last comment to native or to baby boomers and Gen X is, is sometimes what we view as just wanting to have a conversation. Native digitals will view it as a confrontation. Like, why are you asking me that? Like, you didn't prepare me for that. Like, or like in a team meeting, like, hey, Justin, what do you think? And you're. You weren't expecting me to ask you something after the meeting? A lot of times those native digitals will come back and say, you completely caught me off guard. Why didn't you tell me you were going to call on me? And you're like, I was just having conversation.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And so it's that, it's.

[B]

How do we overcome that? Because again, this, to me, when you say that, I think so silly. I go, what? Like, you know, it's one of those things, like if someone came up to me, like, you, you embarrassed me. You caught me off guard and I wasn't, what? Like, I just asked you what you think. It's your thoughts. Not like what, like how do we? Because it would be frustrating as a leader to ask someone, what do you think about the thing? And they come back at me later, emotionally driven. I caught them off guard, I embarrassed them. I did all these, I didn't do anything. I asked you to have thought and verbalize your thought.

[C]

Right. And so from there on that would be an expectation. Correct is, you know, Justin, look, we're having conversation pre meeting. It's not to put you on the spot, but I really want to help you develop these real time conversation skills. We have to know how to have spontaneous dialogue with each other. And so it's up to me to develop you into that. If you're not comfortable, come and tell me after. But I want to see you have confidence in these skills when we're in a meeting and these are things then that you would bring up in your fast and frequent one on one. Like, how was it last time, Justin? Was that question okay, maybe next week, you know, you can ask the question. And when you look at it as like, I got to develop them, I want them to be at their best, then that's being supportive and then that's how you're going to get these native digitals a little more comfortable with spot.

[B]

How often, how often do you advise the fast, infrequent one on ones?

[C]

Oh, it's foundational. It's one of our foundational skills.

[B]

So in time, time wise. So if I'm supposed to have it with Jen Mar, how often would I be saying, hey, Jen, we're going to be meeting every other day. We want to just get, you know, I want to. How often does that pattern go?

[C]

Well, at least once a week. Sometimes if you're in a real bottleneck, it can be every other day. Sure, it really is. It's up to the situation. But on an ongoing cadence, when things are normal, you would want to have one every week. When things get really bottlenecked, you might need them more frequently. They might take longer than 10 minutes. But what we want to try to tell leaders is, look, this is not a huge time block. But if you do it right, that time block is going to save you so many. And you'll find that your cadence of getting things done is better because so many times with overwhelm, the team is just not aligned and everyone is off in their own direction and the leader is not fully aware of what people think their priorities are. And you might have like this really critical thing on the bottom of somebody's list and it's gonna take you just two minutes. To uncover, like, hey, you know what, let's move that to the top. And this thing you're working on, let's save that till next week. And it's just juggling. It's just the same as a coach would do.

[B]

Are there any pivotal questions that you would suggest leaders have in these conversations? You've given us two. Right. How can I most help you today? Or what can I most help you with?

[C]

Well, it's more a process. And when we train it, there is a process. But you wanna absolutely have a visibility, visibility of everything on someone's plate. And you want to ask them what's most important to you this week? What do you think is most important? What's keeping you up at night? Is anything getting in the way of these things not getting done? Those are just the basic kind of conversations and those are just super supportive questions that show that person that, okay, they've got my back, they're going to help me through this. And then permissioning is a big thing too. Not that I'm a loving that word, but it's a good word for it. But, like, you only need to focus on this thing today. Like, just focus on that. And let's touch base tomorrow on everything else. If it's really in a severe overwhelm bottleneck, it gets down to that simple. Because when somebody's overwhelmed, they just, like I was saying, their stress is clouding their brain. They can't see it themselves.

[B]

And give them permission to only focus on the one thing, not the 12 things.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So when people want to reach out to you, where can they find you? Where can they go if they want to start working with you, with their leadership groups, Let them know where to go find you.

[C]

Yeah, Well, I have my own speaking website which is learning more about me, which is jennmar.com, J-E-N-M-A-R r.com also links to my organization site. My organization is called Showing up and that website is showing dash up. And so all of our work, all our workshops, we certify trainers to take this workout. We do workshops and really it's all skills around getting people through disruption, uncertainty and change and getting through that awkward zone. So lots of ways to tackle it. Two books, programs and yeah, love to chat. To reach out.

[B]

Yeah, please do. Two books. You have Lifting up, which we saw. Do you have another copy of your other book?

[C]

Oh, yes. Showing up is the first one.

[B]

It's more Showing up and Lifting up, both on Amazon and they are both on Amazon. I Love that. What would be a great place so someone to directly connect with you. Whether it be LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, me on LinkedIn.

[C]

Jenmar My Facebook was hacked. I'm rebuilding it. So really frustrating. Um, but yeah, I've really focused mostly on LinkedIn. So find me there. Jen Mar and you can email me jen showing-up.com that's amazing.

[B]

That is Jen Maher. The book is Lifting up and Showing Up. This has been the entrepreneur DNA. I am Justin Colby. If you think someone should hear what Jen is talking about, make sure you share it with at least two of your friends. We'll see you on the next episode.

[C]

Thanks Justin.

[A]

You know what I realized the hardest part about building a website isn't making it look good. It's getting what's in my head onto the page. But I've been playing with the new WIX Harmony editor and I'm impressed. You can literally just tell it what you want or if you're picky like me, jump in and move things around yourself. The nice part is you can hop between AI and hands on editing so you end up with a site that actually looks the way you pictured it. Try it out for [e-mail] Harmony out on the road, it's nice to have a partner who can help you make the most of your journey. A partner like the Love's Rewards app. With Love's Rewards along for the ride, you can earn points and get great deals like a free coffee or fountain drink. Just buy any four, any size and get the fifth one free. How refreshing is that? Download the app today and let the points roll in mile after mile. Love's Rewards Save and earn at every turn. Terms apply. See website for details.