Let's Talk, People: Episode 27

YOU CAN'T LEAD WELL IF YOU'RE NOT WELL

WHY WELLNESS IS THE WORK

[00:00:00] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Hi, I'm Emily Frieze-Kemeny, host of Let's Talk, People Where Leaders come to bridge humanity and Profitability, informed by a couple of decades of work. As a head of talent and leadership development, I'm here to amplify leaders so they can exalt everyone and everything they touch. Are you ready? Because it's about to get real. Let's Talk, People.

[00:00:33] I am really looking forward on this episode to introducing you to Rosemary Manino. She's currently the President of Meridian Brands, which is a women's apparel company that owns a portfolio of brands that you can find in major retailers from Neiman Marcus to Saks and various online channels. Rosemary's career has been built in retail at brands that you know, from Liz Claiborne to Tommy Hilfiger, DKNY, Jones New York, Spider, Juicy Couture, and more, spanning the full apparel landscape.

[00:01:10] She is also the founder of the Wisdom Collective, which is a platform that brings women together across generations to connect, expand, and evolve both personally and professionally. The reason I thought to bring Rosemary on, when I had heard from you, our listeners, about the importance of talking about wellbeing at work, is not only does she care about the human side of leadership so deeply as a community builder and coach, she has had a personal journey around wellbeing that will really allow us to kind of dig deep into how we bring wellbeing to the forefront of how we lead and work. I'm excited to get into this episode and explore wellbeing with you. Rosemary, it is so great to have you on. Let's Talk, People.

[00:02:03] Rosemary Mancino: It's a pleasure. I'm excited to be here.

[00:02:06] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: We are going to go places that people like to reference; however, how that actually plays out for us in our wellness journeys, our personal lives, and work, we sometimes are short on the details in the context of work, and we're really grateful that you're here to help us to really get into what does wellness really mean. I think a lot of our wellness journeys are very personal to us. And it's one of the reasons I think it doesn't get talked about enough at work, and we're all feeling our way through it.

[00:02:33] Rosemary Mancino: Yeah, very well said. For sure.

[00:02:35] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Let's talk a little bit about kind of how you would describe what your wellness journey has really been like for you from a leadership perspective.

[00:02:42] Rosemary Mancino: It's funny what you said because wellness is personal, but it's also a word that I feel gets used, and said, and read, and printed a lot, but I'm not really sure that people know what it means, and it is rather personal. It's the wellness of the mind, body, spirit. And I just realized along the way that you have lessons in life, and you have journeys in life, and you have angels in life, and teachers in life, and whatever you want to call them, they all come along, and things that happen in your life, and when you start to step back and see the journey and the pattern, what I began to notice is if I don't feel good about myself, I am of no use to anyone.

[00:03:21] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Right

[00:03:22] Rosemary Mancino: At all. So my journey was, it wasn't like I woke up one day and said, I'm going on a wellness journey. It doesn't happen that way. It wasn't like I went away on a retreat and I had this Aha moment. “Oh, I'm going to leave here and I'm on a wellness journey now”. It really progressed step by step. I mean, it started with how I eat. That was a lot of big awakening for me. Certain foods, you know, I'm gluten intolerant. I don't do dairy. Listen, I'm Italian, you don't have food issues. You eat, right?

[00:03:54] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: and especially gluten and cheese.

[00:03:57] Rosemary Mancino: Exactly. No pasta, no cheese, no parmesan, come on. But never really understanding that connection and the mind-body connection. And when I got COVID, I got really, really sick. I wound up randomly doing this blood test and I learned, and this is late in life, I learned all these things about myself. When you start to connect it, it's just, it's a journey of connection.

[00:04:20] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah.

[00:04:20] Rosemary Mancino: Which is really what wellness is. Connection. Right?

[00:04:23] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Right. I love that. As I was listening to you, I was thinking about my own. Mine started much more from a mental health perspective, and I was in a very tough relationship and I needed emotional support because it was causing me a lot of anxiety. And then I started running, and I had never been like a big fitness person. And I found when I ran, it was when my head cleared. Yeah. And that concept that we talk about in meditation, where you can quiet your thoughts, which is really difficult to do as a human. That would happen when I was running, and then I was like, ooh, you can start to piece the puzzle together. It's a gradual process of growth, and I think for many of us as leaders, I think it starts with self-work.

[00:05:02] Rosemary Mancino: For sure. I mean, I can go all the way back to my twenties and things that happened then, and so many different things, and we won't get into, that'll be another podcast. But I think what's important to realize is the journey doesn't end. You don't get it, and all of a sudden, you know, you just wake up every day like that. The journey doesn't end. It requires a commitment. It requires an awareness. And it requires being open to, like for a period, I was doing things, but they became things. They became another thing I had to check off my list every morning. I'm going to meditate. I'm going to do this… and that's what it became, another busy morning. Right? Like a chore. Yes. You know, there's a difference between a ritual and a thing.

[00:05:51] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah.

[00:05:52] Rosemary Mancino: But that's what wellness is. It's being really aware and awake enough to notice, “Oh, wait a minute, this doesn't feel right anymore”. And you shift. I mean, life is shifting. We know that. Stuff happens, you shift, you pivot, you take on new practices, or somebody new comes along. It's so many things that bring it in. It was like when I broke my feet, I had double foot surgery, I was off my feet for a year and a half, and I thought that being well was, you know, I was still doing my daily meditations, but I didn't even realize I was in this dark place.

[00:06:32] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah,

[00:06:32] Rosemary Mancino: My body, not working in the way I was used to, forced me to. Do my inner work and my head work very differently. How to approach it and think differently. That's what I mean, it just goes on it. It's never ending.

[00:06:49] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: How did you show up and keep working and leading when you were going through that? That's a pretty extreme confrontation that you had around your wellbeing.

[00:07:00] Rosemary Mancino: This is very important and as much work as I've done around this, I would say one of the biggest lessons I learned in this is we grow up and we think being a leader is doing it all. We think being a leader is burning out, being a leader is exhaustion. We think wellness is getting a massage once a month.

[00:07:21] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Right. Totally

[00:07:22] Rosemary Mancino: Right. Yeah. Wellness is going to the gym. That's something you do. That's not wellness. I would find that I was doing those things to recover from the exhaustion, which just never ended. Listen, double foot surgery.

[00:07:40] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I can't,

[00:07:40] Rosemary Mancino: Yeah, I had to do it twice because I clearly I didn't learn the lesson the first time.

[00:07:45] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Ugh. It's so brutal

[00:07:45] Rosemary Mancino: For me, I was plowing through. I created the book, you know about. I kept myself busy leading, getting on those zoom calls, talking to people, having my husband drive me to work, going onto my little scooter. And I kept pushing myself, but I was, “well” because I was doing all the right things in the morning.

[00:08:06] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Right.

[00:08:07] Rosemary Mancino: And um, I don't know. I think I just realized at some point where I hit this wall, I had to succumb, and I had to empower. I remember saying to one of my coaches in my life, it's like I had to empower people to be their power. And to me, that is part of being a leader. It's not doing it all. It's not working to exhaustion. I had to let go and let people do it for me. I had to be carried up and down the steps. I had to be fed dinner, food in bed. I had to give in, and when I could give in, I could lead and operate in a different way by empowering people or taking care of myself, which also empowers people.

[00:08:53] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah

[00:08:54] Rosemary Mancino: I don’t know, does that make sense?

[00:08:55] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: It does. It really does. I'm just going to play back what land did with me. I think one is the ability to get really honest with ourselves about our limits. I was even debating as close as a few hours ago, if I could even do this podcast with you because I'm getting over a cold and my voice isn't perfect. Why am I getting over a cold? I mean, yes, we are mere mortals, stuff's going to happen, but I have a tendency to run myself ragged, hence all the wellness in my life. I have an incredible drive, many of us do. And it eventually, your body starts knocking on the door. And I think the question is, how early do we hear our body trying to give us a message?

[00:09:33] And I think we've been taught that success is to override it because it's “I am the strongest”, “I have the resilience”, “I can do the impossible”. That's why a lot of A-types, who are also athletes, who are leaders, right? We are able to push our bodies beyond the natural limits at times, and then every so often, it gives you a nice shove back.

[00:09:54] This idea that we as leaders need to be all being, all capable, all knowing, has created a really unrealistic expectation of what success looks like, that we're all suffering from. And then, as you said, Rosemary, if you are not well, you can't be the leader your team needs you to be. And nobody talks about that.

[00:10:14] I mean, we know that. We feel that, and I think we can also feel the same way my kids, who are young, they can feel probably when I'm off or my husband's off, we can feel when our leaders are off at work. Then the other part of what you said, which is so important, is that this idea of delegating, it's not like we're taking our wellbeing woes and shoving them onto our team. Like, okay, now I'm going be fine and I can leave at five o'clock and get a full night's sleep and eat dinner before the sunset, but screw them, right? It's not like we're doing that. When you give people work that makes them feel like they matter to you, to the team, or lets them work on something that's going to build them up, that gives you energy. We've had this weird relationship, even if we're the compassionate type leaders of guilt with delegation.

[00:10:58] Rosemary Mancino: Oh yeah, I noticed that too. It's like, oh, they're really busy, I shouldn't give them more to do. They have all this going on in their life, I'll just do it myself. Yeah. Or the best is, you know what, there's no time to teach them, I'll just do it myself. That's a huge disservice to people. A major disservice to people. And listen, let me tell you something, I'm not perfect. Nobody is. I mean, when the pressure hits, and I think that's when I can notice it the most, when I go, when I get in bed at night, and I don't feel good about the way I was being about something, or I was reacting and not responding, very big differences. If I'm reacting, I am run down, not present, not well. If I'm responding, I'm present. I'm being in the moment, I'm listening. I don't need to prove. I don't need to fix. That's another thing. We like to fix things. We think we have to have all the answers. Solve all the problems, fix everything.

[00:12:01] I think when I finally realized there's not one human being who possibly can do that. And you can let go and empower the team and empower the people. That's taking care of yourself and your people. Is the expression your children will do what you do, not what you say. It's the same thing. People will do what you do. They're watching you. More so than they're listening to you.

[00:12:25] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Right. And more so than we like to believe. We almost forget how much we impact people psychologically. I completely agree on that. Abby, I think we'll turn it to you. I know we have a bunch of questions. This is a really important topic for a lot of people.

[00:12:41] Abigail Charlu: Yeah. And a hot topic at that. So the first question we have, the leader said, I'm managing through a lot of change right now and I can feel myself running on fumes. I know I need to take care of myself, but I don't know where to start. What's one practice that actually helps?

[00:12:59] Rosemary Mancino: That's a great question, because that is the hardest for people, because you don't need this whole massive routine or all these things to do. Sometimes it could be as simple as 3 things. One I would call “the pause”. That moment, between when something happens and you respond, in that teeny tiny millimeter of a second will determine everything. And if you could notice that little tiny space, it's okay to extend that space. A practice could be, count to three. A practice could be, for me, breathing. Are you breathing? Breathe, breath work. It's in those moments where I can capture myself and get present to what am I committed to. Because how you're going to be is either committed to a bigger picture, or you're committed to being right about something and making somebody wrong, or you're committed to proving yourself because you need to be proved? Proved. Is that a word? But is that truly as a leader, what you're committed to?

[00:14:11] So you know, this tariff thing that has happened, still happening, I don't even know what happened today. I can't decipher it, okay. I mean, people went into panic. Panic. Rightfully so. All the way down. Admittedly, I did too. You could see, of course, because it's uncharted territory. No one gave you the handbook. Nobody told you what to do. No one's saying, here's the answer, here's where it's going to end, da da, da, da, da.

[00:14:37] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And no preparation, I mean to prepare your business.

[00:14:40] Rosemary Mancino: And it was the ping pong game. Boom, boom, boom. But in the moment of getting quiet. I could remember what I was committed to on the bigger picture, and then refocus the team. If I could refocus myself, boom, then I could focus the team. So breathe, pause, and maybe say no somewhere.

[00:15:01] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah.

[00:15:02] Rosemary Mancino: It's okay to say no. We don't know that. It's okay to say no. We can't do that. No, we're not going to do that. No. It's a word you don't like to hear or do. I don't like to hear.

[00:15:12] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah. People experience it at work as negative versus, are you really in it? So I think there's something really important there. Everything you said resonates with me so much. The only thing I'd add, Rosemary, is about language. There's always a way. There's always a way to regain my wellbeing. There's always a way that I can fit in five minutes to take a break, or take a walk, or end a little bit earlier tonight just to regain my energy, or there's always a way through it.

[00:15:40] So I think there's something about how we do positive talk when we're ready, we're allowed to have our feelings, we're all going through it. But I think when you're ready to say, okay, I'm now exhausted by the exhaustion. Something about very simple language, and like it's going be okay. Having that same compassion for not just ourselves but for others is something that I've found really helpful. And just one other technique that comes up for me is back to this idea of not being too reactive, is sometimes just the writing it down. What is it? Because sometimes you feel you're running on fumes, but you're not quite sure, is it you're working on stuff you don't like? Is it a dynamic you're in with somebody else?

[00:16:21] Is it you've just been pushing for too long and you need to kind of hit the reset button and figure out a more efficient and effective way to do it? But I think sometimes it's the understanding, why do I feel like I'm running on fumes? Because we don't always feel that way.

[00:16:33] Rosemary Mancino: Yeah. Very good. Because that's, that's, that's a sign, that's a, that's a, a moment and it's a sign to ask yourself what's off.

[00:16:42] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah.

[00:16:43] Rosemary Mancino: What is it? Is it fear? Is it you've outgrown something, you don't like something, an unfulfilled expectation. You haven't made a request that should have been made. Something, something, something. There's usually something underneath it, and in that knowledge is the ability to move forward to what your truth is.

[00:17:04] Abigail Charlu: So good. The next question, I've always thought of myself as a high performer, but lately I'm feeling burned out. I'm worried that if I slowed down, I'll fall behind. How do I reconcile the pressure to perform with my need for wellness?

[00:17:20] Rosemary Mancino: There's a lot I can unpack on that question. It depends on the pressure to perform. Is that a self-induced pressure to perform? Okay. Is it your standard of what perform looks like? Are there legitimately deadlines or things that need to be hit? I have four boxes I put things in. It's either things I need to manage, I need to manage, that means they're important and they're urgent. They need to get done. They're critical. The other box is called focus. They're important, but they're not urgent in this moment. Could be strategy, it could be macro-ish, it could be whatever. There are things, this is my favorite, this is where people get caught, that I just avoid it. They appear to be urgent, but they're not important. They're usually not my problem. They're somebody else's. They're interruptions. They're busy work. There's somebody else's fire drill. But it's not going to make a difference for me. And then the last one is just limited. It's like neither important nor urgent. It's just noise.

[00:18:19] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah,

[00:18:20] Rosemary Mancino: Noise. A lot of email is noise. So when you are feeling that way, take a moment and think, which box does this really need to go in? Because sometimes there are deadlines and sometimes there are times you have to push yourself, and sometimes you are going to feel that way. But I do truly know when I step away and I shut that computer, I don't look at my phone. I know I come back stronger because I'm not just going through the motions anymore. I come back stronger, more clear, I can think, and I can work through it better. Otherwise, I'm just sometimes doing sloppy work just to get it done.

[00:18:59] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Like with me, I'll just start going through my email frantically because it's something you can just get off your plate to feel some sense of accomplishment. But to your point, Rosemary, that's probably not actually what's going to make you feel better because it's not probably the most urgent.

[00:19:15] Rosemary Mancino: Yeah.

[00:19:16] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: It just becomes a way to have an activity to get out the angst.

[00:19:19] Rosemary Mancino: Yes. Somebody told me this once and I'll never forget it. There's a reason why you put your oxygen mask on first.

[00:19:27] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Right.

[00:19:28] Rosemary Mancino: You can't take care of everything else. You can't take care of other people. You just can't. If you are not breathing and you're not getting your life force, whatever that is, go for a walk. I went out the other day. I just went for a walk.

[00:19:41] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I've worked in cultures where sometimes it's hard to understand whether it's my perception and my own wanting to prove myself versus the culture. There are cultures where it's very difficult to take care of yourself. And or moments in time, as you said, where there just is an intense deliverable and there's time sensitivity around it. I also think, though, that people who are the highest performers, if they did those micro moments of, as you said, going for a walk or meditating or really, or napping, whatever, right.

[00:20:10] Don't tell anybody, just do it. Don't just do it. Just take care of yourself because no one's going to give you permission. They're going to get as much productivity out of you as they can. That's what this whole machine of the business world and profitability was built on, all the way back to the industrial era. Just do it. Don't ask, just do it. And then also, there's a piece here that I think is really important, which is I'm going to fall behind. If anything is good that's going to come out of this moment of time we're in with AI, and just so much disruption of all systems, it's you can't do it the same way anymore.

[00:20:46] So if you're already feeling you’re at capacity, stop doing it the same way. Figure out where you can get some efficiencies using AI. And even if you're uncomfortable and you're not familiar with it, just start playing. Ask for help. I know I do. And realize that there's always another way to do it.

[00:21:03] Abigail Charlu: Our next question, I try to model self-care for my team, but I worry my leadership will see me as too soft and see it as a weakness. How do I talk about my and my team's boundaries or needs without losing credibility?

[00:21:17] Rosemary Mancino: That's interesting. You don't, you don't need to talk about it. It's not going to go back to being a parent again.You could tell somebody till you’re blue in the face about something. If it doesn't mean anything, it doesn't mean anything. What means more is being a living example of it. When someone says to you, “why are you so calm through this” or something, or “How did you handle that?” For me, I swim in the morning.

[00:21:40] Swimming is my solitude time. That's something I recently started when I broke my feet. That gives me the time. So you don't need to talk about it. You don't need to put a plaque up on your door and say, “Hey, I'm meditating”, or I'm, whatever it is. It's just, model it. Just do it. And the other thing I want to say, this is really hard for people.

[00:22:01] It's more about retraining people in boundaries. We train people how to interact with us, how to respond, or give, or whatever it is. The more you say yes or I'll do it, or I'll take care of it - I have a young person who works for me, she's amazing, and she always says yes, and she always gets it done.

[00:22:23] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah.

[00:22:24] Rosemary Mancino: So, guess who the person is that I'm always going to go to?

[00:22:27] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah.

[00:22:28] Rosemary Mancino: One time she came to me and she said, I can't do, I said, well then just tell me no. You know, train people where you're at, communicate with people where you're at, you know what, I'm taking five minutes right now. People come in my office and I say, you know what? I just need five minutes.

[00:22:46] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I think that implied in this question is if you're worried about telling, let's assume it's your boss, about your team's boundaries, there's a problem there, that you're sensing that they don't value that. And I agree with you, so don't worry about it. But the way that we can take care of each other within a team system, I think can be very powerful. Because there are times where you can't push back. There is something that has to get done, and there's an expectation that's coming from your leadership. And let's say you've tried to push back, you can't. You tag team, you know, it's like, I got this, you got that. You had that thing tonight. Go for it. I'll cover.

[00:23:21] That's a healthy team dynamic. And then if you wonder and you sit down and you're listening to this and you're thinking, am I the boss that people can't share boundaries with? That would feel really bad. What's coming to me is I used to be almost too cautious about not sharing what was going on for myself because I didn't want to burden my team. But then I had to learn that if I didn't do some examples of sharing, I'm really tired today, or I really needed to take that off. Or, I went to the gym at 10:00 AM this morning because that’s when I could fit it in. You are not showing them that it's okay. It's okay to not always be on, on both physically and emotionally.

[00:23:58] And so I remember I had to learn that in my journey as a leader. What are the ways that you can let your team in a little bit without burdening them, but being a real normal human That is a better role model than, “I'm always calm”, “I'm always composed”, “I'm always fine”.

[00:24:12] Rosemary Mancino: Well, we've created these conventional standards on the way it's supposed to be. And I'm learning more and more, especially through my children, who said so. You know, and granted there are some organizations that still exist like that, but it really is reshaping what those alleged rules are and what they mean. COVID changed that dynamic by virtue of, I mean, you had no choice.

[00:24:33] People still want some time, they still want some flexibility. It doesn't make them a bad worker. If they're getting the job done, they're getting the job done. Now, that's a hot topic. Different points of view on that, and I'm not going to answer that one right now. But I think the bottom line is we have grown up in these conventional standards of the way it's supposed to be.

[00:24:54] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Right. And we were putting on an act. Or pretending we're okay. And I think the one thing that is scientifically proven that nobody can argue with is that, well, in all the ways, as you said, emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, if you are well, you're going to be a better performer to your organization. And the challenge is self-defined because what you need and what I need and what you need, Abby, we all have a little bit of a different calibration. And yes, what happens, and it's the same reason we used to lock down all sorts of information in organizations, is one person takes it too far. I'm not feeling well today and I need a mental health day. It starts to create a cynicism for leadership, and then they want to revert back. But we need to stop designing. For, as you said, people who take advantage. because why would we be designing for that? We should be designing for the fact that people want to make a meaningful contribution. They want to bring their best selves to work. And if you don't have a culture where you believe that, you need to look at yourself as a leader and say, well, why haven't I created a culture where I can trust people to be performers?

[00:26:01] Rosemary Mancino: Yes, exactly. It was going to hold people to account for sure. Yep. I love the way you said that. Yes. Alright, Abby, what else you got?

[00:26:10] Abigail Charlu: Our last question, a little similar to the way we responded to the first. The manager said, I've gotten feedback that I can come across as intense or reactive under pressure. I know it's true, but I don't always catch it in the moment. How can wellness practices help me become more grounded in the moment?

[00:26:31] Rosemary Mancino: Yeah, that's a great question because, and I noticed it about myself, I've gotten to the point that I can notice it, and sometimes I still do it, but that's where that pause comes in place. That pause is so important. Listen, and intensity, it depends. It’s not always something wrong with intensity. If how you're treating the other person or how it's landing over there, if it becomes personal, the intensity, it's being responsible for it. So one, taking the pause. Number two, when you are in that moment, sometimes going back and saying, listen, I don't mean to apologize for yourself. Okay? You gotta be really careful. We're not apologizing for being a leader. We're not apologizing for the lack of responsibility we have. We're not apologizing for being intense or all those things. I mean, that's a whole other culture. We, we think, oh. The apology culture, right? Yeah. But if I really don't feel good about how I was with someone, I will clean it up.

[00:27:31] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah.

[00:27:31] Rosemary Mancino: I will clean it up so I am complete and they're complete and I can move on, so it's not hanging in there. If I'm truly feeling that I didn't honor them in some way.

[00:27:43] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I agree. Again, we're not going to ever do leading or relationships perfect. No matter how much self-work we do, we have a whole variety pack of emotions. I completely agree with you. The things that are coming to mind for me, is to the best of our ability, if we can look at the other person or people we're working with, with kindness, I think that fixes a lot of wrongs. So. If somebody doesn't do something so well, or they miss a deadline or they piss you off, that doesn't mean they're a bad human. Can we find our way back to just being kind to one another?

[00:28:16] Rosemary Mancino: And if they're doing something right, acknowledge them.

[00:28:18] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Fill the bucket, right? So when you're upset, it's like you're not always upset. You're more kind and more acknowledging than you are. I think that's really important. Other thing that I do, which is a wellness practice, is if I can speak about what I'm feeling, then I'm not in the reactivity. So I'll even say this person or this situation, this is really triggering me right now. Or I'm really frustrated, or I'm really pissed. I'll even say I'm really pissed. I'm really angry because I do get angry. I even had a situation today I was pretty fired up about, and it's okay, but there's a big difference of me being able to say that and use those words, then just acting on it because then people get confused. Wait, is she mad at me? They don't know why. You're in a moment.

[00:28:59] Rosemary Mancino: I'll say that many times. I'm not upset with you. I'm upset with this situation. Or I'm frustrated because I can't help you, or whatever it is. Again, when the tariff law went down, it got really intense and somebody who I really trust and really honor, who's been with me a long time, said to me, she called me, she said, Can you do me a favor? Can you go back to the factory and get yourself reset? I was upset for two reasons. I was upset, can't they see who I am?

[00:29:28] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah.

[00:29:29] Rosemary Mancino: And the other thing you got to check in about? And the other was, don't you understand what I'm dealing with? Nobody gives a hoot, right? No. Don't be martyr. You are there because you are holding the space for many people.

[00:29:46] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: That's right.

[00:29:46] Rosemary Mancino: And in order to hold the space for many people, you got to start with yourself.

[00:29:50] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Right? That goes right back to the oxygen mask example. As a leader, we're not just dealing with our own stuff, we're dealing with creating that container for everybody to be able to perform to their best. A lot of things come up for people that we're then holding space for. It's a really important point. All of us are going to be imperfect. We're going to have lots of imperfect moments together. We believe we all play a role in our leadership journeys in driving change. So, when you think about you and who you are as a leader, Rosemary, what do you believe is the pattern that you are here to break?

[00:30:27] Rosemary Mancino: It's probably that the price of leadership is not self-sacrifice. If you could lead from wholeness, you don't need to wear a sign saying what you're doing, but if you can lead from wholeness and really stay grounded to who you are, what's important to you, and what you're committed to, then that's power.

[00:30:48] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I love it. Thank you for helping us to talk about this topic of wellness in a real rounded way.

[00:30:55] Rosemary Mancino: I hope it helped. It's a big deal. It's a really big deal. So I really hope somewhere somebody got something out of it. It's not a weakness, it's a strategy

[00:31:05] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And it makes it really helpful for people to hear that we're all doing this work. Doing our best and how important it is. So thank you for sharing.

[00:31:17] Emily Frieze-Kemeny:  As I reflect on this conversation, there's a quote that's really standing out to me, which is this thing that Rosemary said about how self-sacrifice is not the definition of leadership. I was like, woowee does that hit home on a personal level, and I can imagine for many of us, that this idea of leading is about being whole and being able to remain connected to our values and needs and having appropriate boundaries, and that from that place we find our true leadership power in the most authentic and compassionate way. This idea that how do we integrate wellness into work because we're busy people and we're driven. It's this idea of the pause. It can be the length of a breath. It could be counting to three. It could be getting quieter and really checking in with ourselves at a deeper level. There's a version of it we can always fit in. And then this idea, too, that we're going to have a lot going on. So how do we really think about prioritization in a pragmatic way?

[00:32:20] And I know we know this, but we don't do it. So I don't know if you need to put a post-it on your desk or on your mirror or in your notebook, but this idea that there is the things to manage, the things to focus on, the things to avoid, which are the urgent and not important, or where can we limit because we have to be more intentional versus reactive and I think the way that, social media has been shaping our brains is to be very kind of urgently reactive, even when it's not the important. And then this idea of self-inquiry, right? So what is it that I'm really feeling? What am I committed to? How do I prioritize and notice my needs? And then also how do we build in micro wellness practices, whether it's a short walk, taking five minutes of a break, getting in touch and being able to relate to our emotions and name them. Journaling, reframing with positive self-talk. All of these like techniques that are right there, that we always have access to is so important. And I'm so grateful for Rosemarie reminding us and helping us to get re-grounded in what we can do to take care of ourselves, teams, and how we operate more well at work.

[00:33:30] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: If you feel inspired to refocus on your wellbeing. Sometimes the hardest part is the first step, which is why we've prepared a free resource for you called Get Your Wellbeing Off the Backburner, which is a practical guide to help you to pause, reset, and create sustainable micro wellbeing practices that will actually fit into your busy workday and beyond.

[00:33:55] Whether you're leading a team or just trying to get through your own to-do list with more clarity and care, this guide is going to help you to stop putting your wellbeing on the back burner. You can find it at AROSE group A-R-O-S-E-G-R-O-U-P.com/resources.

[00:34:17] Thanks for joining today's episode of Let's Talk, People. For more info and insights, visit a AROSEgroup.com and find me Emily Frieze-Kemeny on LinkedIn and Instagram. If you're enjoying the show, please follow, share on social, and leave a rating or review in your podcast app. It helps other listeners to discover us.

[00:34:48] Well, that's a wrap, friends. Until next time when we come together to talk, people.