Career Club Live with Bob Goodwin
Career Club Live with Bob Goodwin now available as a podcast! Please subscribe to get career and job search advice, as we interview experts in the field. If you're looking for great content to have a career that matters to you, you've come to the right place.
Career Club Live with Bob Goodwin
Career Club Live - Ellen Taaffe
Step into the world of leadership and personal development with Ellen Taaffe, celebrated author and clinical professor at the Kellogg School of Management. Ellen pulls back the curtain on her journey from sales at Quaker Oats to her influential roles at PepsiCo and Whirlpool, sharing the wisdom she’s gathered along the way. Her latest book, "The Mirrored Door," serves as a guide for women seeking to shatter career barriers and embrace their full potential. Ellen's insights into brand strategy and leadership development are anchored in her rich experiences, making for a compelling conversation that is as enlightening as it is inspiring.
Ellen takes us on a candid exploration of the internal roadblocks that often hinder career progression. From battling negative self-talk to confronting imposter syndrome and perfectionism, she shares strategies to overcome these challenges. Her personal anecdotes shine a light on the impact of early life messages and the common pitfalls of self-doubt. By fostering a protagonist mindset, Ellen encourages us to take risks and seize new opportunities, reminding us that the road to success is paved with courage and confidence.
Listeners will gain valuable insights into navigating the complexities of career success and avoiding its hidden perils. Ellen discusses the importance of setting boundaries, embracing personal growth, and leveraging one's strengths without succumbing to their downsides. Through her experiences, we learn about the delicate balance between being a supportive team member and ensuring personal development. Ellen’s message of empowerment and readiness resonates throughout the episode, urging listeners to trust in their capabilities and take bold steps toward their career aspirations. Tune in to discover how conviction, curiosity, and courage can transform your professional journey.
I know you're gonna find it. You gotta keep on at it. Hey everybody, this is Bob Goodwin, President of Career Club, and welcome to another episode of Career Club Live. We're so glad to have our guests with us today. Before we go there, I just wanted to share a little bit about some new services that we're offering around resilience training. If you're an HR leader or other executive and your workforce is really starting to feel burned out, stressed out, freaked out by everything that's going on in their lives, we would love to talk with you. We have great case studies now where we're helping companies drive higher engagement, higher productivity, lower attrition, lower absenteeism and, importantly, lower healthcare costs. So if you'd like to learn more about resilience and what we're doing with True North Radical Resilience, you can look us up at careerclub.
Bob Goodwin:So with that infomercial out of the way, let me go ahead and read a little bit about our guest today. Very impressive credentials. Our guest today is Ellen Tafe, who's a distinguished author, speaker and clinical professor of leadership at the Kellogg School of Management, which, of course, is at Northwestern in Chicago, where she also leads the Women's Leadership Program. With over 25 years of corporate experience, Ellen has held leadership roles at Fortune 500 companies, including PepsiCo and Whirlpool, where she honed her expertise in brand strategy and leadership development. Her latest book, which we're going to talk a lot about, is the Mirrored Door Breakthrough the Hidden Barrier that Locks Successful Women in Place, and offers insightful strategies to overcome the internal and external barriers women face in their careers and with that Ellen welcome.
Ellen Taaffe:Hi Bob, so glad to be here. That's so good to see you. Where are you calling in from today? I'm in Chicago. I'm actually in my daughter's bedroom in a condo in Chicago.
Bob Goodwin:There you go.
Ellen Taaffe:There's some work going on in my office.
Bob Goodwin:Well, as we record this, it's almost 100 degrees in Cincinnati. I'm not sure if the heat dome is still over Chicago or not.
Ellen Taaffe:It's passed. Fortunately, we're back to normal summer weather.
Bob Goodwin:There you go. Well, we have tons to talk about, but, as is our want to do, we'd love to help folks just get to know you as a person a little bit first, and then we'll get into your great book. So, just beginning, where were you born and raised?
Ellen Taaffe:Where are you from originally? I'm originally from Philadelphia and I grew up in Fort Lauderdale.
Bob Goodwin:Oh, my goodness.
Ellen Taaffe:Six kids yeah.
Bob Goodwin:Big change Very good.
Ellen Taaffe:And then, where did you?
Bob Goodwin:go to university.
Ellen Taaffe:I went to University of Florida in Gainesville.
Bob Goodwin:Oh no this interview may be over already. I didn't know you were a gator. I went to Tennessee. I went to Tennessee and Florida has been the bane of Tennessee's football instance for a long time. And then just you mentioned your daughter. Just a little bit about your family.
Ellen Taaffe:Yeah, so I'm married and have two young adult daughters who are 22 and 25.
Bob Goodwin:Excellent, very good.
Ellen Taaffe:One lives with us and one lives in California.
Bob Goodwin:Ooh, fun, awesome. So I mentioned a little bit about your career with Pepsi and with Whirlpool, but do you mind just painting just a little bit of an arc of your career coming out of Florida?
Ellen Taaffe:Sure. So originally I started in sales for Quaker Oats, moved around the Southeast and moved up to Chicago where we were headquartered and PepsiCo bought us. Prior to that, I moved from sales to brand management, which I really found was really the career I loved. And then, once we were part of PepsiCo, I was leading the snacks division for Quaker, which reported up through Frito-Lay, and then I joined the PepsiCo strategy group, working in Indra Nooyi's group, which was a fantastic experience and was there for a total of two decades in total. And then, as the world of marketing was changing, I moved across industries. I moved into travel and hospitality, heading up brands at Royal Caribbean, and then moved to Whirlpool, coming back to the Midwest, and was head of the mass brands Whirlpool and Maytag as well.
Ellen Taaffe:Then moved into a small business that I ran that was consulting for product and brand strategy, did that for five years and thought I wanted to sit on boards and retire somewhat. And I joined my first two boards and then felt like I need to do something else and I joined Kellogg, where I got my MBA and as part of the Women's Leadership Initiative, and then I started teaching a class there called Personal Leadership Insights. So now I've been at Kellogg since 2016 and serve on three boards, have written a book and speak and do a little bit of coaching. I do coaching as part of my class and do a little bit on the outside, so I'm living that portfolio career life now you took the words out of my mouth.
Bob Goodwin:You are like we should just do a completely different episode on how to have a portfolio career. That's very, very cool and very satisfying, I suspect, and you continue to learn, and then very quickly, when you're not doing all these amazing things, what do you do?
Ellen Taaffe:just for fun, to relax, or passions, hobbies, Well, right now we have a six month old golden retriever. Now we have a six month old golden retriever and so I'm doing a lot of dog walking and, with the help of a trainer, some dog training and building my muscles as she pulls me. I just came back from a little while ago, so that's pretty dominant for us, and my husband and I moved from the suburbs into the city and so we're really re-aging with the city too. So you know theater and restaurants and he volunteers at the Field Museum. So we kind of had this wonderful, you know later in life portfolio career. But back to the city which I lived in before we got married almost 30 years ago.
Bob Goodwin:I love downtown Chicago. There's so much to do, it's so walkable, beautiful, with the river and everything, so very fun. Well, congratulations on your grand dog. That's awesome and it sounds like fun, so let's jump into our topic. So you've written the book and again it's called the Mirrored Door, and then the subtitle Breakthrough the Hidden Barrier that Locks Successful Women in Place. What was the impetus, what happened and why this book? Why now?
Ellen Taaffe:You know, I was new at Kellogg in this leadership group and I was at the orientation and there was a really amazing female CEO shared her story. She opened it up for questions and all the hands that shot up were men and I just didn't get it. And I got to know all the women and realize how amazing they were. But I realized they're holding back and that sort of started me on this journey of like I did that I thought it would be different generations later. Maybe there's something gendered going on.
Ellen Taaffe:And as I looked into the research you know we all know of that study I think that you know men go for a job with six of the 10 criteria and we women hold ourselves to these sky high expectations that like no, I'm not ready for that. So I knew of that research. But I found there was all this other research that also said like even when we know we have the right answer, we hold back. And that sort of led me to this idea of we're reflecting this mirror door concept which I coined. It was sort of like the. You know, we're reflecting in a distorted way many times, thinking that we're not ready or worthy to move forward into action when all of the growth is on the other side, and we think it's like a door that's locked and blocked. And so you know, we may be held back by systemic or organizational issues, but we also might be holding ourselves back too. We might be locking ourselves in place by holding ourselves to these sky high expectations.
Bob Goodwin:Yeah, so. So it's a really powerful word picture of the door that leads to another place. But when I approach that door, what I see is me, and if I'm following you correctly, then there's this perception of like I shouldn't be going through that door. I'm not qualified to go through that door.
Ellen Taaffe:Yeah, yeah, it's this. So often we feel like, oh, there's more I have to do, I need to get another degree or I need to spend more hours preparing versus moving forward into action. And that's where we're going to grow, that's where we're going to learn, and we'll figure it out and, more than likely, we are ready If we haven't already figured it out.
Bob Goodwin:Yeah, so we can maybe dive into this, because for sure I know we need to get into the five pillars. But we're already kind of on the concept that you talk a lot about of imposter syndrome and there's self-talk, essentially of an internal antagonist who's telling us these negative messages. Can you talk about that a little bit and then what the antidote to that is?
Ellen Taaffe:is yeah. So so often you are right Our mindset or the voice in our head that holds us back can really influence, and you know how much, how likely we are to move forward. So you know, what I think about is having the self-awareness to understand what's that message about, is having the self-awareness to understand what's that message that's in our mind, or messages, and what are, you know, the greatest hits keep coming back and they're somehow like I'm not worthy or I'm not ready, or those kinds of things. You know, one of mine during the process of this book was who am I to write a book? And you know my. You know, if I had someone who said that to me, you know, as a coach, I would, I would suggest to them to do a counter to that, you know.
Ellen Taaffe:So if that's sort of the antagonist, what if you were the protagonist, the lead of your story, what's the opposite? And really channel that voice, channel being I own my story. So, from you know, who am I to write a book to? I have something to say that could help people. And if I suspended all that judgment, that might be like I don't know, I don't know what would I do if I believed I have something to say that could help people, or why not me? Or whatever that sort of antidote would be. What action would I take next? And in my case, when I was writing the book, it was wake up at five or six and sit in the chair and write. Or later on, once the book came out, it would be create a LinkedIn newsletter or whatever those things are, so that I could move into that. So it's not that negative or that challenging voice doesn't hit us again, but it's the discipline of how do I counter it. What's the opposite of that that would enable me to take action?
Bob Goodwin:Yeah, and like you, I do a lot of executive and career coaching and it is amazing, and to some extent it's probably more pronounced with women, but it's certainly not limited to women, to women, and we're we're somewhere in our nature, is it? Maybe it's all kind of gets way reptilian, just in fear and self protection and things like that and not being vulnerable. So we do things to protect ourselves and protect our egos, but but it is so self-limiting and when we can stop listening and start talking to ourselves in more positive ways and I like how you phrase it, ellen but what could happen? What would you say? And start to go down that positive road, that protagonist road?
Bob Goodwin:You know, I'm a huge believer in autonomy and agency and we have the freedom to choose our attitudes. We have the freedom to choose our actions. We can give those to other people, but they can't take them from us, and so what I love about your message is how do we take control back of something that was always ours to have to begin with? Do you think, ellen, any of this, you know, is grounded in childhood at all, or these things that we learn as adults?
Ellen Taaffe:I think it's both, but I think it's rooted in childhood, and a lot of times we get some really well-intentioned messages about what success looks like, or advice, you know. So things like for me, don't be a braggart, but at the same time getting a message you've got to toot your own horn. But so if I have a, you know, a message of don't be a braggart, and and so when I have an opportunity that I face, I might be holding back and thinking like, oh, I don't want to be pushy, I don't want to be too big, you know I I'm holding back and making myself small, and it's why I like your comment about agency is so important that why not play a bigger game? And how do we coach ourselves to do that too? As well, as you know, have that support from people around us, whether it's a coach or a colleague or friends as well.
Ellen Taaffe:But we get a lot of messages and I think that you are right that men and women, you know, regardless of gender, we can feel imposter syndrome. I think what happens frequently for girls really latch on to school and you know there's a rubric to understand exactly what do you do, hard work and focus on this and I can get the gold star, I can get the grade, you know the AP classes. So you have 70% of high school valedictorians right now are young women and then I think they get in the workplace and so frequently there's a lot of you know it's gray, there's no rubric and it's hard to navigate and know what to do. But we are, you know, have this message of be perfect, get it all right, be certain and all these things that I think are more frequently messages that girls are given but also pick up on and it helps make them successful, it helps make us successful, but we have to be flexible to trying some new things and trying to figure out how do we navigate the workplace.
Bob Goodwin:How much of what we're talking about right now and these sort of what I'll call self-imposed barriers, have you observed, and how much of this is coming from your own experience.
Ellen Taaffe:It's a bit of both. I think that in my experience I learned that I would go into new situations, I would move forward into action, but I wouldn't always be the best of myself. I would too frequently go into a new situation, a new job or even, late in my career, join a new board and think I shouldn't speak up enough until I really know what I'm doing, until I really know this industry and for too long played the observer and I need to recognize, you know, for me personally, I need to recognize that they hired me for what I can contribute and my fresh eyes, even though I don't know this industry yet or this company, can really add value. So there's some of that. That certainly is me. But I see it in the research, I see it in the students that I teach and women that I have coached as well.
Ellen Taaffe:So often there's early success and then getting to a place in our careers where it's like what happened? I was sort of the golden girl, I was the superstar and I'm suddenly plateaued. What happened around me of taking more risks, of making decisions, of confronting conflicts, some of these things? They're part of leadership and sometimes we can be playing it safe or busying ourselves with these things that worked in the past instead of moving into action, into uncharted territories, which is hard, but that's where all the growth is. But that's where all the growth is, exactly exactly.
Bob Goodwin:So, as we kind of double click on some key themes here, your book outlines what you call five perils of success. It probably has two questions at once and then you can go with it. It's an interesting phrase, perils of success. And then do you mind kind of unpacking what those five are real quick.
Ellen Taaffe:Sure. So they're preparing for perfection, eagerly pleasing, fitting the mold, pushing pedal to the metal and patiently performing which is awaiting to be noticed, awaiting to be noticed, and in each one of them they're incredibly powerful. But there is a double-edged sword to them, in particular, as expectations rise, and it's both personal it can be stress or some sort of internal concern, but it's also perception. So I can, maybe I'll walk through one of them for you.
Bob Goodwin:Yeah, I want to do it just super quick. Perils of success Is that like fear of success, or do you mean something different by that?
Ellen Taaffe:I do mean something different. Great question, though. I think these are tendencies that make us successful, but they have this unintended peril to them that we don't always see, and that's what makes them, you know, and it's somehow we hold back on doing something in each one of them. Thus the mirrored door, as we continue to do what's worked before.
Bob Goodwin:Okay, so that makes total sense. So go ahead. I would love to hear you unpack one.
Ellen Taaffe:Yeah, yeah. So, for example, preparing to perfection I mean, who doesn't want that on their team? Someone who delivers excellence, who's like a go-to person. They get it done and it's kind of bulletproof. You know you can count on this person. They get it done and it's kind of bulletproof, you know you can count on this person. And it becomes, you know, for the person who has this tendency, it becomes our identity. It feels pretty good. It's sort of the gold stars in the workplace early on.
Ellen Taaffe:But what happens is, as expectations rise and our jobs expand, there's not the time for all the preparation that we once did, and we are called to make decisions with incomplete information. We're looking for leaders to take calculated but more risks than someone who's a perfectionist, who had the crutch of all that preparation, is not able to deliver, and so what happens personally is a lot of stress. You know my students say FOMO fear of missing out. This is one that's like FOMO fear of messing up. You're used to like always being right, accurate, on time, everything's perfect, and that identity is so big, and so this can also lead to that person who you always wanted on your team and, as there's a move into leadership, this person is the person who's the worker bee, but not the leader of the team. So it's really important to sort of know where you are and know that through all that work that was already done, you are likely more ready to make decisions and take risks than you realize.
Ellen Taaffe:This one is also classically not always the best delegator. It can sometimes be a micro, lead to micromanagement, and so we really need to get the help and advice of our stakeholders or our boss to understand. You know, I put this in grade terms because this is like the straight A student that like, where do I deliver my A's, my B's and my C's? When can I come in with a draft and when do I deliver my A's, my B's and my C's? When can I come in with a draft and when do I really need to have like everything perfect on this deck or whatever that is. So getting that help both from learning how to delegate and delegate with here's the outcome, with some leeway around how people get it done, depending on their own development, but also getting help from others too. And so this is this thing that someone had huge success early on and then frequently is like I don't get what happened to me. I'm no longer the star.
Bob Goodwin:I can see this, too, in the scenarios where I'm really good at doing the work. I may not be as good, at least today leading the team that does the work, right, yeah, that's turning the best salesperson into the sales manager, I think is a typical example. Right, you know, bob's an amazing salesperson. Let's put him in charge of all the salespeople so he can spread his expertise to everybody, and it's like that. I'm not good at that, at least today, because I haven't been given the skills, because that's a different job that you're asking me to do, even though I understand their role. This is a new role for me. Is some of that part of what's going on too?
Ellen Taaffe:It could be. It could be, I think, it's more around moving into when we don't have as much as we once did as far as preparation and in our relationship with risk and my risk is gone because I know hard work and the direction or the rubric helps me to get the thing done but that's just not the reality of the workplace. We have uncertainty around the decisions that we make, and so it's really understanding with the risk we're willing to take. Here's my recommendation those kinds of things, and that's where, when we resist doing that, we become the worker bee, which is great if that's what you want to do, but often that achievement in academics and then early in our career. We want to do more of that, and I also think this is, you know, in all of these there is the like I would say in my own example.
Ellen Taaffe:Maybe I'm more of a selective perfectionist where when I go in new like I don't want to raise my hand or the point in the meeting unless I know it's going to be a good one, and I need to get over that. You know some of the things about like go early when other people can build on your ideas, or recognizing that you could figure it out. You might've said something, maybe it fell flat or no one jumped on it, but that's okay, you survived, you know so. So the the risks appear larger than they truly are in this tendency.
Bob Goodwin:I empathize with that one, actually, because my bias would be to listen first and kind of get the temperature the room, the personalities and how everybody interacts.
Bob Goodwin:But I have been guilty and been told very directly in a previous life like we need you to be contributing more, like you know that there's a reason you're at this meeting and we need you to step up a little bit. And then, too, it's also weird I don't want to go off on a crazy tangent there's a reason you're at this meeting and we need you to step up a little bit. And then, too, it's also weird. I don't want to go off on a crazy tangent, but in a hybrid work world where there's some people who are physically in a room and some people who are dialed in, those dynamics make it hard to contribute because you can't see everything that's going on. And is this an appropriate time for me to jump in or not? Versus if you were in the room, you could read the room literally and and know, you know when's a good time to jump in.
Ellen Taaffe:Yeah, that's a great point and that's most of the workplaces now. But I like the feedback you got. That was, you know, pretty much telling you you deserve to be here. We want to hear what you have to say of, like, how do you help someone when they're going through this, and it's through prioritization, but it's also helping them to see you're going to have to move forward without all the perfection, all the preparation, and what's your best, you know, calculated guess for what we should do or what's your recommendation. So it's really important to coach people who have this, because they certainly deliver excellence but they are probably more ready than they think to make a recommendation.
Bob Goodwin:So let's review these perils one more time, and I'm going to probably paraphrase here just a little bit on some. But we've been talking about striving for perfection, being eager to please, trying to fit the mold, pushing too hard and waiting patiently. Do people tend to be one of those kinds of personas, or can we have multiple of those things going on, or is it you can be any of those at a point in time?
Ellen Taaffe:You can have multiple of those and sometimes people talk about oh I was that like I was patiently performing earlier in my career I learned I had to speak up and advocate for myself and share what I wanted and what I've done. So I hear that a lot. But sometimes, and when I go out to speak in organizations, I always ask by a show of hands what do you resonate most with? And it's always interesting, I would say perfection and pleasing is always pretty high, and then some of the other ones sort of pop up as well, but you can feel multiple ones for sure.
Bob Goodwin:Yeah, because we have limited time, I'd like to just do one more of these that you see being fairly common, particularly for women.
Ellen Taaffe:Yeah, I would probably say eagerly pleasing. And you know, this is the person who's the glue that holds the team together. They read the room, meaning reading the group, and are always sort of putting it on even keel. They have great, strong relationships, all these wonderful things. The catch with this one, or the peril, is when they're so other-oriented that they've neglected their own needs, and that results in the workplace of not addressing conflicts or not raising opinions, not setting boundaries.
Ellen Taaffe:And this is one where the flip, from a mindset standpoint, the switch, I should say, is to recognize how strong the relationships are.
Ellen Taaffe:The person who feels this has such strong relationships that can withstand some conflict, can withstand you raising issues or setting boundaries.
Ellen Taaffe:So I have a whole section of like how to set boundaries quickly and easily and firmly, because sometimes we think we're doing that and we're being so nice about it that it's missed by other people. Or sometimes the feedback is too nice and the person thinks like, oh, that's not a big deal, even when it is. So this is one where trust in your relationships take the smallest step. Tapping into the care you have of other people'm concerned about is in, you know, finding your language for how you can raise something that needs to be said that is really valuable, and so this is where you know the person can go from feeling like wow, they're you know. Feeling like wow, they're, you know, the beloved person on the team, to feeling like they're assumed to always pick up the slack or those kinds of things and not being seen as the person who could lead the team to have to confront conflict, to get after the real issues that are going on and to give strong, fair feedback to others, which is such a part of leading others as well.
Bob Goodwin:Well, I might be marrying and hopefully not conflating, but marrying a few ideas here together. So before we started pressing record, we were talking about our mutual friend Dori Clark, we were talking about our mutual friend Dory Clark and Dory and I were having a conversation about human resources. Professionals often are very giving kinds of people and they really devote a lot of themselves and get great satisfaction from helping other people with their careers comma often to the expense of their own right and that they're so busy giving and serving and helping other people that they're not kind of tending to their own career which is problematic by itself, but it also kind of makes me think about what you were sharing earlier with the antagonist and protagonist, kind of thing.
Bob Goodwin:Well, that's kind of selfish to worry about me and, like you know, I just need to kind of do what I need to do, and the protagonist, I would hope, would say that gosh, ellen, don't you want to have more impact? Don't you want to help more people? If you could develop some of these other things in your own career and get some of these experiences, you would actually be able to multiply the impact and have a positive impact on even more careers. Isn't that more attractive than swimming in a smaller pond? How do you react to that?
Ellen Taaffe:Oh, I like that a lot. I mean, I think that you know I would even take it a further step into our conversation of what messages you know did you get as a kid, like don't rock the boat, you know, don't be pushy, or whatever those things that were well intended but stay with us and form, you know are sort of rooted in that antagonist. And to your earlier point about like having your own agency, you know, don't be the supporting player, be the protagonist and the center of your story, and what you just said about you could have so much of a bigger influence if you stepped into that. So I'm tying it all together, but I love that tying it all together.
Bob Goodwin:But I love that. Well, it just. I mean, that's what I love about your book because it really addresses people and like how we actually operate and sometimes it's a very good version of ourselves. And StrengthsFinder has, I guess, in their vocabulary. Things have balconies and basements and you're sort of identifying there's, those are balconies, for sure, but there are some basements. And how do we kind of, you know, have a watch out for those you talked about? Um, you know that these things are risky and like I'm not sure what's on the other side of that door and it might hurt, um, or they said it's my is. It might hurt or somehow not be good for me, and I know we're going to end up here anyway. But how do we kind of combat that fear and get the courage to step through that door?
Ellen Taaffe:I mean, I think that we need to do a realistic assessment of where are we and, you know, are we ready to do that or ready enough to do that? We don't have to be perfect, you know, we don't have to have 10 of 10 of the skills on the you know, it's truly a company's wish list and so that we can just, you know, call on ourselves but also get some other feedback on that too. But I think it takes courage. I mean, I am in the role that I'm at. I of course get a lot of people asking me how do I build my confidence? And in my view, what we need is courage to move into uncertainty, to uncharted territories that feel a little scary, but we're more equipped and more ready than we realize. And if we move forward and, you know, even in the smallest way, tapping our courage to do that, we will build our confidence.
Ellen Taaffe:Confidence is the outcome, but the real prerequisite for opening that door is courage, and I think we have so much more of that, like when I do workshops or I say talk to the person next to you and share some way that you were courageous. And it might've just been showing up today, not knowing anyone at this conference, but it might've been. You've done some pretty big things, so we have more courage and that's what we got to remind ourselves to move into action, and we usually have learned. Whether we've won or you know, something didn't work out, we learned a lot from it and we're stronger the next time. So it's really a positive cycle when you move into action as well.
Bob Goodwin:If I could build on just a couple of things that you're saying because they really resonate. One is, you know, building to confidence. And for a lot of people, confidence is not the same as cocky, it's not the same as arrogant right. Confidence is a reasoned self-belief right, a substantiated self-belief. And when we're working with our clients and people who listen to this podcast regularly know that we work a lot with people in job transition they're lacking in courage, you know, because something's happened or whatever, and so it's kind of I won't say robbed them, but it's certainly pulled away from their courage. And, to build on your point, what we try and help people is getting them rooted all the way back down to what are their convictions, what are their self-beliefs about themselves.
Bob Goodwin:I believe this is absolutely true, whether it's my personality and the traits that I've been given, or my experience and things that I've got a demonstrated track record of being good at stuff like that.
Bob Goodwin:I mean it's documented right Things that maybe I'm passionate about and sometimes I hesitate to use the word passion because for some people that's too high of a bar but I'm interested in it, I'm curious, I'm motivated by these kinds of things, and this is all true.
Bob Goodwin:Sometimes it's very helpful to get feedback from other people, like when you see me at my best, what do you see Right? So getting sort of your assets collected right of who I am and what I am, and then that starts to build a narrative in your mind that enables that courage and and which which leads to confidence in the model that we teach. And then we take it one step further in the beautiful thing this is a leadership thing when we're confident and again, not cocky, not arrogant, but when we're appropriately confident, confidence is contagious. When you believe you make me believe and think about like the very best speakers, like when, when you really believe they're speaking authentically, they're speaking from their heart, about something like that's inspiring, like you want to follow that person, confidence is contagious in a very good way. I'd love to hear your take on that.
Ellen Taaffe:Yeah, I really love that. And the convictions. I think that's getting back to sort of where what your values are, who you are I you know in in my class that I teach it's about who you are, who you want to be and how are you going to get there, and it feels very similar to the idea of your convictions, your values, I'm guessing the strengths as well. And how do you, how do you? You know sort of recall? I feel like there's a little bit that maybe you're, when you're in transition, your confidence or your courage is shot, perhaps A hundred percent.
Ellen Taaffe:You're sort of recalling, through way of convictions, that you know what I really can do this and I'm interested in this and I particularly love curiosity, because I think that's, you know, getting curious about like well, they think I can do this, but I'm feeling afraid, like what's that about? And you know, when we get into curiosity, I feel like that's sort of an antidote to judgment.
Bob Goodwin:I've never heard that. Tell me that's cool. Tell me what you mean.
Ellen Taaffe:I always I tell my students that getting curious especially if you're going into a conversation where you've got a lot of negative feelings or you're worried about it, go in with curiosity because I think that it takes you out of judgment, judgment and it, you know, and I think it we can put that curiosity on, like whatever we are feeling, or you know, I'm feeling scared about this thing, or I feel knocked down by I got laid off or whatever those things are, or I'm about to have this difficult conversation, and it's also it takes us out of judging other people too, like, oh, they said that I wonder what that's that's about. Tell me more. It helps you also move into powerful questions, which I also think is like curiosity. Powerful questions are also like superpowers.
Bob Goodwin:I think too. What that reminds me of is is the little model of you know, slow to speak, quick to listen and modify it to your well-made point.
Bob Goodwin:slow to judge, so be slow to speak, quick to listen and slow to judge, and that is like emotional intelligence, I think, on a very, very high level, and then the ability to ask great questions. You know, really it's just engendering the listening part. I want to know more. I want to know more. Tell me more. That's very cool, so thinking about, because you get to work with a lot of young women or you can kind of go back and talk to 25, 28-year-old Ellen. But what are some of the some of the key lessons, as people are very early on in their careers that you share with people that play into what we're talking about?
Ellen Taaffe:I think my biggest one is you're more ready than you think. You're ready to move into action and to learn from it too.
Ellen Taaffe:You know I always say also choose wisely in your partner, in your company, in. You know, go after different jobs, even within a company. You know I spent time in corporations, even within a. You know I spent time in corporations and I think going into choosing roles where you can learn more than the oh, everyone wants that job, I think is so, so important. When I look back to the roles that really mattered, they were a major expansion of my own learning. I also think relationships are where it's at. You know, building trusting relationships and that enable you to be. You know more of yourself. You know we could get into a whole authenticity conversation, but, but you know, working for people, working with people who see you at your best and who help you to get better, I think is really powerful too.
Bob Goodwin:So, yeah, really really good stuff and you know part of what we share with people. Building on all of that is. And it gets really back to your courage. Like don't be afraid, try things. Like you haven't eaten at the career buffet before, like you don't even know what all is available and you started in sales, which is great and I'm sure you did really well. But you're like I want to try something else. I want to try brand management. Marketing sounds like fun. Let me go see what that's all about.
Bob Goodwin:So you know, for me, as for a young person, it's almost a test for negatives. At least don't go start doing things you know you don't enjoy or isn't in your gifting, like I'd make a terrible accountant, so that would just hurt. So I married an accountant, but you know to not be afraid. And then I think it gets back to, like you said, just being curious and being courageous. So maybe that teases up for the last thing. What is your kind of parting bit of advice for somebody who's listening to this? And honestly, I know this is directed towards women, but so much of what you're talking about resonates with me personally and as I think about my client base, which has a lot of men in it too. I think a lot of these are universal truths. What would you want to end on?
Ellen Taaffe:My hope is that people would tap into their care and their courage to move forward into action, because I think that, more likely than not, you're more ready than you think.
Bob Goodwin:Amazing. I'm so glad that we got introduced by one of the Band of Sisters, which is another phenomenal book. You should smile more and there's definitely some Venn Dyke stuff going on between your book and I think that you all complement each other extremely well.
Ellen Taaffe:And I'm so glad that we had the opportunity to meet.
Bob Goodwin:Thank you for writing your book. You know, as the father of a daughter, and even our three boys, but for a daughter to be courageous, that you're more ready than you think that you are to just go, act, just go. And it's going to be courageous that you're more ready than you think that you are to just go, act, just go and it's going to be okay. You're more ready than you think that you are. It's such an encouraging, positive, action-oriented kind of message that I'm really glad you took the time to write the book. So thank you.
Ellen Taaffe:Thank you so much. I really enjoyed our conversation. Write the book.
Bob Goodwin:So, thank you, thank you so much. I really enjoyed our conversation and if people want to do your LinkedIn newsletter, get the book. Are there other resources, ellen, that you want to point people to?
Ellen Taaffe:if they want to reach out to you directly. Yeah, so LinkedIn is probably the best way. I also have a website, ellentafecom, so you can see you know past articles and podcasts and all that, and the books available on amazon and where books are sold the mirrored door, awesome, okay well.
Bob Goodwin:Thank you so much and everybody, thank you for taking a few minutes out of your day to listen again. I'm just feel very blessed. I've had the opportunity to get to know ellen here and learn more from her. I hope you did too, and hope you'll tune in next time for the next episode of Career Club Live. Thank you,
