In this episode I have a riveting conversation with Susan A. Miele; author of the recently released 'PAUSED.', scholar, and former HR C-suite executive. Drawing from her own experience and her PhD in Human and Organizational Systems, her passion is at the intersection of personal transformation, theory, and leadership.

Susan is one of the 12% of women who went through menopause before 45, and hers went undiagnosed for years. Her performance declined, doctors told her it was stress and anxiety, and she resigned from the job she'd built her whole life around. In the process of trying to "get back" to where she was, she downsized her house and just when she was about to start a new role, her house literally went up in flames. Susan describes standing there thinking everything was gone, and realizing somewhere in the process of rebuilding the house that she also had to rebuild herself. There was no going back. That person was gone.

What she found on the other side was returning to the C-suite seven years later as a completely different leader. Her purpose shifted from ambition to enabling other people. Her values softened from success and drive to compassion, curiosity, honesty, and bravery. She became in her words 'much more human'.

This conversation covers so much ground; from how identity forms young, to why so many high performers blur the line between who they are and what they do, and what liminality actually asks of you. As the title of her book reveals, we also talk about why the pause is not permanent but is sometimes essential.

Episode Highlights:

• Why 25-30% of women step out of the workforce because of menopause symptoms, and what that costs the leadership pipeline.
• How Susan conflated ambition with purpose, and why that made rest impossible.
• The identity framework: who am I, how did I get here, and where am I going.
• Losing the job, the health, and the house, and what rebuilding actually required.
• How her leadership shifted from performative to human in her second C-suite chapter.
• How do you coach someone who is living outside their own values?
• Liminality: the space between two knowns, and how to get unstuck.

Quotables:

"They don't know themselves without their job. What they do is who they are. And there's no daylight in between them." — Susan A. Miele

"My ambition became my purpose. I conflated ambition and purpose like they were one and the same." — Susan A. Miele

"I wasn't going back. That person was gone. There was no going back to that. That narrative ended." — Susan A. Miele

"You have the pen in this situation and you can rewrite your story." — Tosca DiMatteo

"It is the discomfort where the biggest growth comes from." — Susan A. Miele

About the Guest:

Susan A. Miele, PhD is an author, speaker, and organizational consultant whose work sits at the intersection of identity theory and life transition, professional and personal. A writer, scholar, and former C-suite executive, she explores how identity is dismantled and redefined through life's transitions. Drawing from her own experience and her PhD in Human and Organizational Systems, she writes at the intersection of personal transformation, theory, and leadership, examining how we think about belonging, success, and change.

A lifelong learner and dedicated yogi, Susan infuses her writing and speaking with mindfulness and compassion. Her work invites readers and organizations alike to see disruption not as loss, but as a profound opportunity for growth.

She lives in Portland, Maine with her husband, Ken.

Connect with Susan A. Miele, PhD:

• Website: susanmiele.com
• LinkedIn: Susan A. Miele, PhD
• Substack: substack.com/@susanmiele

Tosca's Links and Resources:

• Sign up for Tosca's Newsletter: toscadimatteo.com/newsletter
• Tosca's Website: toscadimatteo.com
• Get in Touch with Tosca: toscadimatteo.com/contact
• LinkedIn: Tosca DiMatteo
• Instagram: @toscadimatteo

Production:

• Audio theme music by Adrian DiMatteo adriandimatteo.com
• Editing by: Starlin Media

Most communication advice tells you to say X words in Y tone and get Z outcome, but influence has never worked that way.

In this episode I sit down with Casey Erin Clark and Julie Fogh, co-founders of Vital Voice Training (VVT) and co-authors of The Authenticity Code. These are the women behind the support around my own keynote work, so I have been blessed to be on the receiving end of their magic. They founded VVT in 2014, in the middle of what they call the great moral panic over vocal fry, when every article was explaining what women needed to fix about their voices to be taken seriously. Their answer then is still their answer now: that advice sucks, and it does not actually help you show up. This episode is not just for women though, so hang in here.

Our conversation covers lots of ground including why "bringing your whole self to work" is shitty advice and how to better prepare for walking into your meetings. Julie explains why rehearsing your exact words is like writing a play that nobody else has lines for, and reframes intimidation as something that can come from holding your own power, not from making anyone else smaller.

We get honest about what AI is doing to the way we sound and how it's messing with the beautiful rough edges of our ideas. Casey talks about how this shows up on LinkedIn and Julie makes the case that the edges we're sanding off were the whole reason anyone was listening.

Tune in if you've ever been told to speak up more, or been called 'too much' of fill-in-the-blank and made yourself smaller to fix it.

Quotables:

Julie Fogh: "The goal is actually not to bring your whole self to work. I think that expectation has gotten a lot of people really messed up in their heads, because they think they're supposed to be just as open and relaxed at work as they are with their dearest friends. And I don't think our nervous systems are set up that way."

Julie Fogh: "Well, I want to have power, but I don't want to be intimidating. And my answer is: are you sure? Because intimidation doesn't have to be grotesque. It doesn't have to be something that makes someone else shrink, or makes them small. It can be about your own power."

Casey Erin Clark: "What is the standard that I want for myself that honors my core values, that honors the mark I want to make in the world, and that allows me to imagine a better future?"

Stop letting self-doubt dictate your decisions. Take back the power from your inner critic and take the Inner Critic Compass today to see which one is running your show. As a gift, I'll send you a toolkit to help you on your path to be your own best friend.

Connect with Casey and Julie:

• Vital Voice Training
• Casey Erin Clark on LinkedIn
• Julie Fogh on LinkedIn
• Book: The Authenticity Code. Podcast: VOICE(IS)
• Free monthly Zoom office hours, sign up here

Tosca's Links and Resources:

• Sign up for Tosca's Newsletter
• toscadimatteo.com
• LinkedIn and Instagram

If you enjoy The Unlock Lab, please rate, follow, and review wherever you listen. It helps more people find us.

Music: Adrian DiMatteo. Editing: Starlin Media.

When was the last time you completely shut down? No email, no chores, no doing anything at all. If that question makes you squirm, your vacation inner critic is louder than you think.

In this episode, I'm calling out the voices that keep you from taking real time off. The ones that say 'you'll fall behind', 'you'll lose momentum', 'now is a terrible time.' Those voices are lies. We've been conditioned by a system that treats two weeks a year like it's enough, and your body and mind pay the price.

Let's talk about how to figure out what kind of break you actually need, because it may not be what you think it ought to be. Maybe it's adventure. Maybe it's family time. Maybe it's staring at the sky and thinking of nothing but the color of that blue. I share the small steps that get you to the bigger swaths of time where you truly decompress.

Because here's the truth: rest is not the opposite of productivity. Rest is what fills you back up so you can be in flow and productive again.

In this episode:

• The messages we received about taking breaks, and how to decondition from them (01:35)
• What your vacation inner critic sounds like (02:31)
• Why infrequent vacations take longer to sink into, and what your nervous system has to do with it (08:21)
• Vacation is a choice: where there's a will, there's a way (09:39)
• Three days, four days, 15 days: the length of a hair in the timeline of your life (11:29)
• Detoxing from stimulation, doing, and constant contact (16:26)
• The expansive questions to counter your inner critic (17:13)

Quotables:

• "Whatever excuse you're putting in front of you is a damn lie. Inner critics tell us lies about what will happen, and what they don't do is tell us what's possible." (07:22)
• "It might be hard for some folks to give themselves permission to shut off because who are you if you're not in fight or flight mode?" (09:12)
• "You take three days, four days, hell, 15 days. When you really think about that in the whole timeline of your life, it's the length of a hair. It's nothing." (11:29)
• "We are conditioned to think that productivity is everything, and in fact, the most productive thing you can do is rest when you need rest." (18:14)

Not sure which inner critic is running the show? Take the Inner Critic Compass quiz and find out in under 3 minutes: toscadimatteo.com

Mentioned in this episode:
Ep. 7 Inner Critics 101 (earlier episode of the podcast)

Tosca's Links and Resources:

• Sign up for Tosca's Newsletter: http://toscadimatteo.com/newsletter
• Tosca's Website: https://www.toscadimatteo.com
• Get in Touch with Tosca: https://www.toscadimatteo.com/contact
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toscadimatteo/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/toscadimatteo/

Props for:
Theme music by Adrian DiMatteo: https://adriandimatteo.com
Podcast Editing: Starlin Media

Note: This episode was recorded in June, 2024