In this episode of Out of the Clouds, host Anne Muhlethaler is joined by Dr Andrea Wojnicki, founder and chief talker of 'Talk About Talk', an online platform as well as a podcast.
From early experiences in brand marketing at Kraft Foods, Andrea, a self-confessed life-long learner talks about how she got into academia and earned herself a Doctorate of Business Administration (Marketing) from Harvard Business School, where she focused her research on consumer psychology and the fascinating subject of 'word of mouth'. Since then, she has been keenly exploring why people talk.
Over the course of the conversation, Andrea shares a lot of practical advice on interpersonal communications, and touches on how she supports business professionals and executives in becoming more skillful with their communication, which in turns supports their personal growth and career. We explore some of her favorite subjects, including personal branding, archetypes, and the three superpowers we all want to develop in our communication skills.
Andrea is also a talented painter, so we veer off to discussing the importance of creative outlets and how she gets into a state of flow, sometimes even on Zoom. It was a joy to record this episode, so we hope you will find as much enjoyment in listening to it.
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Show notes:
You can find Andrea at TalkAboutTalk.com
Follow her on Linkedin
On Instagram @talkingabouttalk and on Twitter @dr_woj
Sign up to the Talk About Talk newsletter to get the FREE course '5 email hacks'
The Pokemon Go HBS business case
Coach Tara Mohr and her book 'Playing Big'
Amy Cuddy's Ted Talk on how languages shapes who we are
The Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation technique
Andrea's teacher, Susan Fournier
1000 True Fans, an essay by Kevin Kelly
A Promised Land, by Barack Obama
'Personal History, by Kathrine Graham - Pulitzer Prize winner 1998 (autobiography)
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Anne Muhlethaler:
Hi, hello, bonjour, namasté. This is Out of the Clouds, a podcast at the crossroads between business and mindfulness. And I am your host, Anne Muhlethaler. I am super excited about this episode with my guest, Dr. Andrea Wojnicki. Andrea is an accomplished academic and teacher. She's also a brand marketer and the host of a podcast called Talk About Talk. Andrea's passion is communication, which is a subject very close to my heart, whether interpersonal or consumer marketing.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So in this episode, we discuss communication skills, consumer motivation, archetypes, what is a personal brand, and why we should all consider looking after ours very carefully. And of course we do talk about why people talk. I had a really fantastic time chatting to Andrea so I am delighted to bring you this super special interview with Dr. Andrea Wojnicki. Enjoy. Andrea, welcome to Out of the Clouds. Thank you so much for making the time.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Thank you so much for the invitation. It's really a privilege to be here and I'm looking forward to the conversation.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Same here. I have to say since discovering you and your podcast, I was lucky enough to find some time over the weekend particularly in the last couple of days to dig into a lot of the last, let's say, 10, 15 episodes that you did and I'm absolutely loving it. You're very generous with the resources by the way that you offer and the show notes that you have on your website. So to get us started, I would love for you to tell me about you, about your life journey. I'm incredibly curious.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Well, I'm not going to bore you and start at the beginning, except to say that I am Canadian. I'm in Toronto right now, but when I was growing up we moved around a lot within Canada. I did an undergraduate, an MBA and a doctoral degree all in business focusing a lot on marketing and on strategy. I also worked at Kraft Foods in brand marketing. So I really feel like that was kind of the foundation for my career and I absolutely loved working there. But then I had the opportunity after I earned my MBA to go to Harvard Business School and I worked for a phenomenal brand marketing professor.
Andrea Wojnicki:
She and I were writing cases. We wrote tons of cases. We wrote the case about Martha Stewart. We wrote the case about Pokemon when Pokemon was on the front cover of Time Magazine. I remember talking to the CEO, and we wrote I think seven cases and teaching notes. But after I'd been working with her for about two months, I confessed to her that I wanted her job, and then she wrote me a reference letter and I got into the doctoral program at Harvard Business School.
Andrea Wojnicki:
I focused on my real passion, which is understanding why people talk. So my focus in marketing is not about needlessly convincing people of products that they otherwise didn't know they need, which is kind of I guess the negative slant on marketing. I'm really, really passionately interested in understanding what makes people tick generally, but specifically what makes them talk and why they talk, and why they don't talk. So we can get into that a little bit later.
Andrea Wojnicki:
But after I graduated, I worked at the University of Toronto as a marketing professor there, and I taught MBA and undergraduate students. I love that as well and I've done some board work and some consulting work. And then a couple years ago, I started Talk About Talk which is a learning platform focused on helping people specifically ambitious managers and executives improve their communication skills, and I'm really in my happy place because I'm doing research, I'm interviewing people, I'm meeting fascinating people like you and I'm also teaching executives who are ambitious. They're looking for some insight and expertise, and to develop their skills, and I get so much satisfaction out of helping people do that. So that's my journey.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That sounds wonderful. If we had more time, I'd love to know more about your research, but let's talk about coaching around communication in particular. This is one of my favorite subjects and I have been writing a lot recently around mindful communication. So this is a topic that feels very present for me. So tell me what kind of clients do you service or what are the needs that you're able to meet for them? And I'd love for you to explain to my listeners, why do you think people need to consider taking a coach and what they could bring to them?
Andrea Wojnicki:
Okay. First of all, I share your insight and your passion about how communication skills are significant, and we need to really pay attention to them. In other words, we need to be mindful of what we're saying and how we're saying things and then also how we're interpreting other people's communication, right? You ask me why is it important? Well, communication is a skill. We don't come out of the womb really understanding how to communicate except for crying to get what we need and then slowly over time we learn.
Andrea Wojnicki:
I think many adults kind of stop learning their communication skills unless they are mindful or aware of that skill as something that can help elevate their performance in so many ways, right? We are communicating all the time. Sometimes purposely, but mostly not. I'm here hopefully to help people as a resource to make it more purposeful and then therefore more effective. And in a business context, so my target market is young and mid-career business people, executives, professionals who are probably done their formal education, but they realize that if they continue to really explicitly work on their skills, they'll have a competitive advantage.
Andrea Wojnicki:
So I've talked to some people about like this can be your secret weapon, for example the experience of being in a meeting room with people that they know and don't know. And there's someone who stands out as being really exemplary in terms of their skill and their sort of acumen and then if you really think about it, very often you can attribute that to their communication skills.
Andrea Wojnicki:
So what I'm offering right now during the pandemic, one thing that's really taken off is online corporate workshops. So I've been doing Zoom meetings between, I would say nine up to over 50 people at a time and taking them through some general and specific skills. So for example, one of the general skills that I really like to help people work on, in fact I call it one of the three superpowers of leaders is communication. So I run them through lots of stories in the background. I tell them an absolutely true story of when I was a young brand manager at Kraft and I had the honor to be asked to speak at the national sales meeting.
Andrea Wojnicki:
So I was thrilled but also horrified. Long story short, it was a complete disaster, and when I got off the stage my boss who didn't mince words said to me, "Are you okay? I almost had to go out there and rescue you. Your face is redder than your hair." And I was like, "No, I'm not okay." I promised myself in that moment that is never ever going to happen to me again. But instead of saying, "I'm going to avoid that," I said, "I'm going to... I guess this is a bit of an overused term, but I'm going to lean into it."
Andrea Wojnicki:
So I was like anytime I have an opportunity and I said this to her, anytime there's an opportunity, I'm going to raise my hand and I hope you'll support me in this that I want to keep doing this until I perfect it." And the truth is there's no such thing as perfection, right? But I keep honing my communication skills and my confidence and I'm also actively collecting insights and tips to help other people do the same.
Andrea Wojnicki:
So that's what I share in that general corporate workshop. And then lately, there's also been a lot of interest in specific skills. For example, leading online meetings and getting people engaged and participating in online meetings. So that's really fun too because there's certain tips of things that meeting facilitators and managers can and should do to make people want to sit up and pay attention and then participate and engage in the meeting.
Andrea Wojnicki:
I always say if you didn't need to be there, it shouldn't be a meeting. It could just be an email, like an FYI and we are meeting participants not attendees for that reason. Beyond the workshops, I'm coaching many hundreds and thousands of people I guess through my newsletter and the podcast, which is all free content, but I'm also doing one-on-one coaching. And that's different with each client.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Listening to you, there's a question that's emerging for me and the first one would be do you see a major difference in communication gaps between men and women?
Andrea Wojnicki:
Oh, yes. The interesting thing at least for me is that people talk about this all the time. I need to do more research on this to really understand it. I mean, I have a perspective of someone who has basic psychology background and a woman who is focused on communication, but I haven't specifically examined the literature and the research on this topic, but anecdotally even just in talking to female colleagues who I'm collaborating with and they'll say, "Well, we..." And by we, they mean us females, right? They'll be like, "Oh, well, we seem to suffer, for example, from the impostor syndrome, and we always undersell ourselves. And if we demonstrate emotion, people perceive it as an angry, outrageous emotional female as opposed to a powerful male, right?" My personal anecdotal experience is absolutely different, but that's something that in fact is on my list of topics that I'm really excited to pursue.
Anne Muhlethaler:
The reason it came up for me is I've been studying with a coach called Tara Mohr. I don't know if you're familiar with her.
Andrea Wojnicki:
No.
Anne Muhlethaler:
She's written a great book called Playing Big which is essentially really targeted towards women. She talks quite at length, and I'm right in the middle of that chapter actually in the workshop, at the ways that women are, I would say groomed since our school days to do good work, but we're not told to put ourselves out there. So for example, I know that for me, I struggle really badly to make my work visible, because it's not that I have impostor syndrome because I know what I know.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I mean, not in everything, but I have a relative amounts of self-confidence when it comes to working consulting. But putting my work out there, it's a real struggle. I remember, I did a course online back four years ago and I noticed a major difference between nationalities in the way that we interact in maybe not so much in person because that was obviously an online course, and it was hosted on Zoom, but it was fascinating because Americans... So I'd put Canadians as North Americans in the louder ones, the ones that would immediately speak up and raise their hands and threw themselves into the conversation. Australians, very much so as well, but Europeans were incredibly reticent to participate and so were Asians as far as I could tell. So it was really fascinating.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Related to that point, of course there's differences between men and women if nothing else because of how we've been socialized which relates to another factor that obviously impacts our communication, which is what culture we were brought up in and there's societies that are more collectivistic versus individualistic. I heard a quote recently that the tall poppy syndrome is sort of almost becoming a cliché, but it's when someone starts to really excel and they pop up within the field like they grow taller, they're going to get chopped down by everybody else.
Andrea Wojnicki:
This person that I heard talking about it said, every country that he's worked in, describes their own culture that way and they all think they're the only one that's like that. Except for maybe Americans. Americans are like they're proud of their tall poppies and they propped them up maybe even. Of course, that's a generalization. But the point is if there's male female differences, there's cultural differences, there's all sorts of factors, right?
Andrea Wojnicki:
So that goes back to communication skills and then listening skills, which I said earlier that there were three communication superpowers and right now I would say that the three communication superpowers are listening, confidence, and storytelling. But originally, just over a year ago, I was thinking really listening is the thing and listening includes being empathetic to the person's context. So that would include their gender or their sex and where they're from and who and what they're representing and all of their experiences and then what they're saying explicitly and also what they're saying implicitly, and what they're not saying. So this is back to the point, it is a lifelong journey learning communication skills, right? There's so much to learn.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Oh, so much. And I feel like all of this is fascinating. So you focus mostly on talk. Let's say that's really the area that I feel like you've been working from. I find when I work with clients as well that I also need to make them pay attention to their body language because there's so much communication that comes through our eyes the way that we hold ourselves, where we put our hands in a meeting.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Yeah. So one of the first podcast episodes that I did was with a friend of mine, Cynthia Barlow who is actually an executive coach and a body language expert. Since then, I've been doing a lot of thinking and writing about body skills. I would narrow it down because otherwise it can feel overwhelming like body language. Oh my god. And then suddenly you're so self-conscious of everything, right? Like absolutely everything. So I just say focus on three things, your hands, your eyes and your posture. And I have advice about all three of those things that if you're sitting there and you're feeling nervous and you want to feel more confident and be perceived as more confident running through the basics in terms of what are you doing with your hands, your eyes, where are you looking and your posture.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That sounds fantastic. I would also recommend to people or give them the homework of watching, if they haven't seen it yet, the TED Talk by Amy Cuddy. And it's about body language and how it shapes who we are.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Yeah, and it comes up a lot when I talk about posture. If you Google it, there are a lot of detractors from her research and her presentation. But to me, it's really common sense, right?
Anne Muhlethaler:
It is.
Andrea Wojnicki:
That if someone is expansive and taking up a lot of space then they will appear all else equal to be confident. So she talks about standing up like a superhero like puffing up your chest and doing like-
Anne Muhlethaler:
Oh, yeah. I love that.
Andrea Wojnicki:
... the Wonder Woman pose. But I say just think about man spreading, right? Probably unconsciously or non-consciously trying to demonstrate that he's confident. There is research that shows if you smile, your body believes that you are happy and happy endorphins affects your blood chemistry, right? So endorphins will be released and you'll then feel happier. And I think the analogy there is if you act confident, if you take up space, if you stand up tall and take a deep breath, you will feel more confident. And also, the people around you will perceive you that way so then there's that self-reinforcing. So to me it's a no-brainer.
Anne Muhlethaler:
To me it's a no-brainer as well. Since then, I've always paid a lot of attention to it where people in meetings for example when they become insecure, uncomfortable in any way, oftentimes will raise one or both hands around their neck and not realize that they're almost clutching themselves. It's interesting or it can be a bit disconcerting when you're aware of it and you are the lead in the meeting and you kind of start to wonder what's going wrong.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Right.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Why is he or she is so uncomfortable. But that's obviously to be unpacked one-on-one, I suggest.
Andrea Wojnicki:
So this goes back to the point though of mindful communication, right? So we start to internalize these insights and we start to develop some of these skills and then you're at a point where you're leading an online meeting and you look at your screen, and you see a couple of squares that people are grabbing their neck or they're touching their hair and you actually will develop the skill to be able to say, "Okay, these people are feeling uncomfortable, so maybe I'm pushing too hard on this one thing and maybe we need to shift back or maybe I need to address it specifically. So that's a beautiful example or illustration of how really focusing on your communication skills can help your career."
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. I really agree with you there. So Talk About Talk, great name by the way.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Oh, thank you.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Is first and foremost a podcast, and you've done almost 70 episodes, I want to say, which is substantial. And you also call it a learning platform. Do you want to talk to us a bit about it?
Andrea Wojnicki:
So I actually came up with the name when I was writing my application to participate in Seth Godin's podcasting fellowship. So I applied to be in his first fellowship, which was two and a half years ago. He did say in the email that he was hoping that it would be a cohort full of young students, and at the time I was thinking well, I'm kind of a lifelong student. I'm not a student though. I was a consultant and working on boards and stuff. Anyway, I wrote the application and one of the questions was, "You don't have to have your idea nailed down, but if you have any ideas please share them."
Andrea Wojnicki:
So I started describing what I said kind of at the beginning of this interview about how I'm really obsessed with understanding how and why people talk or don't talk and I'm really interested also in helping them become better talkers. So I said essentially this podcast would be talk about talk and literally the second that I typed it in, I went and checked whether the trademark was available.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's fantastic.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Yeah, and it was and it's now secured. But one thing that is probably not necessarily important for everybody else, but it is really important for me is that Talk About Talk, I don't think of it as a podcast. I think of Talk About Talk as a learning platform as you just said where there are many resources available. So people can consume whatever media is most effective and efficient for them in their journey, in improving their communication skills.
Andrea Wojnicki:
So for many people it's a podcast, but for others it's the free weekly newsletter and for others, it's these online corporate workshops. And for others, it's one-on-one training or whatever it is, online courses. I have one on my website right now and it's free. It's a course on five hacks to conquer your email, because I did a podcast on basically that very topic, and so many people were emailing me saying, "Thank you that really helped and I thought I should create an online course for this." I'm working on one right now on my work on confidence. So sharing that with people and then personal branding. Lots of stuff coming down the pipeline.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That sounds awesome. Actually, I have to say I'm sure that a lot of other people are not like that but I do view actually all the podcasts I listen to as learning platforms too, when I think about it, whether it's Seth Godin or Debbie Millman or Brene Brown or even obviously, the TED Radio Hour, which is fantastic.
Andrea Wojnicki:
So I just want to clarify. I think of the podcast as one element on the platform. This might be getting into semantics, but maybe not. I don't know.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Well, we're talking about communication, so semantics is important.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Yeah. So I think that this really was cemented in my mind when I was in the fellowship and Seth and Alex de Palma were asking us to articulate why we're doing this and he said it could be a hobby and that's perfectly fine. It could be because you're just interested in exploring a certain topic and you want to learn more and then you're sharing that with others or it might be part of your business. For me, it was two things. It was I want to teach and I want this to be like a free material that people can access that bring them into this world called Talk About Talk where they can learn more communication skills. So that's my thinking there.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I think that's very helpful because for anybody who's listening to us who's considering a podcast for their company or for themselves, it's one of the explorations that I think that they need to consider doing first.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Yeah. I've heard people say, "Oh, so it's like your business card." I'm like, "Well, it's a highly interactive business card I guess." I feel like that may be an overused term. People say that also about your LinkedIn profile. It's an interactive business card and maybe a podcast is your auditory business card. But basically these are all media resources, right?
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's funny. You're making me think about that now. I'm thinking about my podcast being like the meeting room in my office where we can lounge and have a conversation. So I can bring anybody around and we're there. So we are going to entertain a conversation.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Yeah, I like that. I really like that.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Thanks. You helped me get there. So I read a little bit about your doctoral thesis at Harvard Business School and the main subject was word of mouth as self-enhancement. I found that absolutely fascinating. Now, I didn't have so much time to dig into it, but obviously I do come from a business and communication and PR background. So could you tell me more about this.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Sure. I'll give you the cold notes version. Before I even moved down to Boston and I was working for this branding guru, Professor Susan Fournier. Before that all happened, and when I was still working at Kraft, I started to be really enamored or I would say obsessed with this phenomenon of word of mouth or buzz marketing that was going around. How do you get consumers to think about your brand so much that they're talking about it with their friends and then how that has a more significant impact than branding messages, right? Because they're credible to put simply.
Andrea Wojnicki:
And then as I started digging into the research, there was some academic research, but not a lot, lists of motivations and anecdotal things. Some of it was looking at positive versus negative word of mouth and people, I guess again, anecdotally were referencing this fact that negative word of mouth. So people basically warning you about products that they consumed was so much more prevalent.
Andrea Wojnicki:
I did a ton of research and I found that there was research conducted. I can't remember if it was in the '50s or the '60s by Coca-Cola where they concluded that it wasn't that there was more negative word of mouth, it was just that it was recalled more. So people would say, "Do you remember hearing people talk about brands?" Yes. What was the message? And then it was, "Well, they warned me against buying this car or they warned me against going to this restaurant, or whatever." And that really fascinated me.
Andrea Wojnicki:
So I decided that this was going to be the area where I was going to focus on for my dissertation, and I remember sitting in my apartment as a student and doing some reading for a psychology seminar that I had to go to and I was reading these articles about self and identity. I read this article about self-verification. And it was the idea that people act not to improve their reputation, but to validate what they believe their identity is.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Wow.
Andrea Wojnicki:
This light bulb went off in my head and I was like, "I wonder if word of mouth is about people validating their identity or maybe it's about them enhancing their identity. Maybe they're just trying to kind of show off and they talk about things that they're critical of and they talk about things that they've experienced that are positive."
Andrea Wojnicki:
Long story short, my research in labs using real life data. We used online data from Amazon all the ratings and reviews and also from doing controlled experiments with scenarios where we were manipulating factors. We found that in a two by two matrix where you have either a positive or a negative experience so you're either satisfied or dissatisfied, whether you consider yourself to be an expert in that area or not, it's the experts who had a positive experience where the word of mouth is off the charts.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Multiple times what the word of mouth would be in the other boxes. And then we started reverse engineering it and we pulled out certain factors and we demonstrated that when people believe that they have a positive identity or expertise in a certain area. So for example one that was kind of easy for us to imagine was restaurants. So you know you have a friend in your friend group who is really good at choosing restaurants and he or she always knows the hottest new restaurant to go to in your town or city and they know what restaurant to stay away from and they know how to order and they know what to ask in terms of where to sit and all that stuff, right?
Andrea Wojnicki:
So those people when they have a positive restaurant experience, they talk so much. They talk so much and they also mention, "Well, yeah, I chose the restaurant and whatever." So the long story short is that I called my dissertation talking about brands, talking about me. I want you to know that I'm an expert in this area is really what's going on. So based on that, now I have this thing... I did this with my book club because somebody was saying, "Oh, I need to get a new car. Does anybody know what car I should get?" And then people were like, "Oh, you should get the car I have. Oh, you should get the car I have."
Andrea Wojnicki:
I was like, "Wow, that's people self-enhancing." They are talking about themselves. So I said, "No, new question. If the brand of car that you drive was not available, what car would you buy?" I mean there's all sorts of implications of it, but that's one that I see over and over and over again. People validating their own experiences actually as a mean of implicitly validating their own decisions.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Absolutely, fascinating. I'm not sure what year it was, because some of the research I found online dates between 2004 to 2015 or around then. How do you imagine it evolve with the rise of social media? And when I listen to you it sounds like you're describing influences.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Oh, yeah, absolutely. When I was doing my dissertation research and I was trying to design these experiments, oh my goodness, there was no such thing as an influencer. It wasn't that long ago, but the world is changing so quickly, right?
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah.
Andrea Wojnicki:
We thought we were so avant-garde by pulling this Amazon data, which was publicly available and using it and running a quantifiable assessment on this huge data set that validated what we were saying in our controlled experiments. I think it absolutely relates. I was interested in understanding, so do people act differently when they're online and there's tons of research showing that when people for example consciously create an avatar, and they go online and they kind of act like trolls, over the longer term, they almost always revert back to their true selves, their offline or in real life selves.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Wow. I was trying to understand why this sticks so much, right? Also, how do they become so powerful. And I'm thinking that one of the reasons I think that they get to touch others so much, it's probably through the emotion that they feel towards the brand of the experience, and how they tell that story. So I'm guessing that word of mouth is also potentially so powerful because of the storytelling behind it.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Yeah. And I believe he said the word relationship there. So for example, these influencers who are flooded, let's be honest with products and these influencers are choosing which products to "personally promote". So it's almost like a hybrid right between true word of mouth where it's unadulterated recommendations and warnings with your friends. Because it is a commercial platform and people know that they have been offered these products for free or they've maybe even been paid, but they need to stay true to their brand to some extent.
Andrea Wojnicki:
You can imagine that their brand could be that they are authentic and they are whatever they like, natural products versus someone who's more out there, more risk prone as opposed to risk averse, talking about and recommending products in a different way. But they're actually using the precise phenomenon that I was studying where they are demonstrating their expertise by recommending things to their audiences.
Andrea Wojnicki:
And back to the relationship thing that Professor Susan Fournier who I was working with who I really can't say enough positive things about. She really established all of the academic research on her dissertation on it. In fact, on consumers relationships with their brands and how people often personify the product and then also they personify the relationship that they have with the product and they feel like emotional attachments, they feel loyalty. These are all things that we experience with other humans, right? We feel disappointment, we feel anger sometimes. We break up with brands just like we break up with people.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Oh, absolutely. That's so funny. You know what, you're making me remember the power and the problem that comes when the brand is embodied by a designer or by a figure at the helm, because this obviously is something that people then connect to or disconnect from so much more easily. It really supports what your professor, Susan Fournier was referring to.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Yeah. So at the time when I was working with her, we were focusing a lot on Martha Stewart because Martha Stewart had this omnimedia brand, which was talk about my learning platform. Her Omnimedia platform was very impressive, but she was definitely at the middle of that circle diagram where you had the magazine, you have the online website. You have the cookbooks. You have the TV shows and it was like at the core of it was Martha Stewart. And to what extent can she not be there, and can someone else host a show and all those kinds of questions were absolutely fascinating.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Then what happens when she gets charged with insider trading and goes to jail? What happens with all the Martha Stewart towels that are on the shelf in Walmart. It's a really interesting case and there are other brands that I guess are not online influencers. I'm thinking of Lance Armstrong who owned the color yellow and he was such a hero because he lived the hero's journey, he conquered cancer and then he was a world champion many, many times over. And then people found out that he was in fact a complete fraud. So what do you do with that?
Anne Muhlethaler:
Actually, this is the perfect segue into another question I wanted to bring up because one of my favorite episodes of yours is one of my favorite subjects which is archetypes, which draws a lot obviously, into psychology and Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell and you just mentioned the hero's journey. I was going to ask you because I am fascinated at my core by mythology since I was a kid, in psychology. Could you maybe touch on why is the study of archetypes one of the ways that we get to understand the brands and the stories they tell around us?
Andrea Wojnicki:
Sure, and the people around us, right?
Anne Muhlethaler:
Oh, yeah. So in my personal life, I am the lover archetype and my business is the magician.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Ah, okay. So my, I guess, passion for archetype developed from one of my dissertation committee members Professor Jerry Zaltman who's a emeritus professor at Harvard Business School now. He has some personal and intellectual passions. I think his main one is metaphors and he developed the Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique where it's a qualitative research technique where you get really insightful information about how and why consumers are thinking about whatever the phenomenon is.
Andrea Wojnicki:
So I actually did that. I did some ZMET interviews for the topic of word of mouth when I was doing my dissertation very much related to metaphors is this idea of archetypes. So Jerry talks about how our brains are hardwired to think in terms of certain patterns or sort of ways of thinking. And archetypes are just that. Some people go, "Oh, archetypes. That's fancy. It's old. It's like millennias old." and they feel overwhelmed or intimidated by the topic.
Andrea Wojnicki:
But if you just think of archetypes simply as universal patterns. So they are understood by all of us. Research shows that across... We're talking about cross-cultural differences, but across cultures, of course people may adopt certain archetypes more frequently or more readily than others but they all exist in all of these cultures and they are common patterns that tell stories about everything it could be from a trivial anecdote that someone's sharing with you to a life story to understanding what their personality is or even what a brand is.
Andrea Wojnicki:
And that kind of low-hanging fruit is find when you're watching a movie or a drama series, whatever you're streaming and to say, "Oh, I thought this was going to be the hero's journey, but actually this is about how the jester and the lover work together." It's a fascinating way of I guess categorizing or classifying stories and people in a way. And the power also I think in terms of personal brands and business brands is leveraging the archetype that works for you.
Andrea Wojnicki:
So you were saying that you're the lover so that would mean that you're focused on relationships. You're passionate, you're devoted, maybe nostalgic. You're focused on memories and sensual. And I don't mean sensual in this sexual way necessarily, but more like focusing on your senses.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Absolutely.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Does that all resonate with you?
Anne Muhlethaler:
Every single term resonates 100%.
Andrea Wojnicki:
So isn't that magical?
Anne Muhlethaler:
It is.
Andrea Wojnicki:
It's like doing the Myers-Briggs and then understanding with the Myers-Briggs, there's 16 combinations of those four factors and just understanding that no one is better or worse than the other, but understanding which one you are can just leverage so many opportunities because then you understand where your strengths are and you can pursue them. And maybe where your weaknesses are, and where you can, I guess not avoid them, but you can make up for them.
Andrea Wojnicki:
You can hire someone to do that other thing or you can make sure the team around you is covering those bases. And the analogy would be similar for archetypes. So if you understand that about you then you can leverage them and strengthen them, and make that a real meaningful part of your identity. So for me, when I think about the 12 most common archetypes. The one that I really resonate with is the sage which is a learner, a teacher, more analytical.
Andrea Wojnicki:
I realized that I really fell into this label when someone in a meeting that I was in a couple years ago, such a bad memory really offended me, like really, really offended me. And then I was stewing, and stewing, and stewing on this and I thought this is not productive. What is the issue here? And then I realized this guy thinks I'm an idiot.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Oh, okay.
Andrea Wojnicki:
And he was talking implicitly like he was dismissing me and then I realized this sage part of my identity is so significant that if someone violates it or threatens it, I am beyond upset. I was like, "Okay. Well, obviously, that's the archetype that works for me."
Anne Muhlethaler:
It's amazing.
Andrea Wojnicki:
And you said that for your brand, Out of the Clouds?
Anne Muhlethaler:
Not so much for Out of the Clouds, but it generally wrapped around my identity in business is the magician. And I think that I was nicknamed years ago the fixer because I'm really good at making things happen. I find making connections really easy. So I have a very fast mind. So it's interesting because what's really funny is when I did the altMBA with Seth Godin four years ago, one of the prompts was to write a very short little mini biography for ourselves. And we were allowed to ask cohort member to help us because it's really tough to write about yourself.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So first it was a paragraph for my friend Jack who's going to be a guest on the show soon, helped me with writing it. And it was nice. It felt right. I still have it somewhere. And it took me maybe a year to then reduce it down to just a few words. And the tagline really is, "I like to make magic happen." It's really funny because if you'd asked me before how to get to the essence, I wouldn't have ever thought it was so easy.
Andrea Wojnicki:
It's amazing when you have that epiphany. It feels like an epiphany, right? It's like, "Oh, yeah."
Anne Muhlethaler:
Completely.
Andrea Wojnicki:
That's how I felt when I realized the way this guy was dismissing what I thought was intellectual contribution to this meeting and he dismissed me and I was so upset. Then I was like, "Oh, because I'm the stage, of course." So that would be like violating my whole identity. And wow. I have to share another anecdote with you. Recently, when I was doing an online corporate workshop, a woman who I knew from previously in my career introduced me and she introduced me in such a funny... Talk about being prepared for an interview. She introduced me and she didn't read my bio.
Andrea Wojnicki:
She said, "Well, let me tell you about Andrea." She went in and obviously, she had some notes in front of her, but I was impressed. And she, I would say, personified me as the explorer. She said, "Whenever, I think of Andrea, I think of her really being a pioneer in word of mouth and men. She was the first person who brought up the word podcast." I was like, "Huh, that's true. Huh, that's true." and then I was like... It's really, really nice introduction. I thanked her profusely and it was very insightful, but I was like that's not really my anchor.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So it's very nice, but you didn't get it.
Andrea Wojnicki:
But I was like I can see how she maybe thought of that and maybe if I want to be the sage, maybe I need to work on encouraging, and advancing, and communicating that. So that's some of what I do in my workshops on personal branding. I have five different exercises that I take people through to help them identify, to create and articulate what their personal brand is. And it's fun one of them is focused on archetypes. So what do you do with it? And it's not that if you're a sage or a lover that you can't also be an explorer, but it's secondary and it's not your core identity.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Oh, absolutely. I feel like I have a lot of the sage in me as well, but it definitely is taking a back seat.
Andrea Wojnicki:
When I think about the common archetypes for storytelling and for people and for brands, I feel like maybe there's at least three ways that you can kind of categorize. You can say yes, this is my number one focus in terms of my identity or whatever the story is being told. And then there's some secondary ones that are consistent with your identity, but they're not the main part of your identity. And then there's others that are almost irrelevant.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Oh, yeah.
Andrea Wojnicki:
So one of them is every person, which is the hard-working guy next door, girl next door, down to earth. So I would say that's probably almost irrelevant for me and it's not that I'm crazy, not the girl next door, but it's just irrelevant to my identity. Then other archetypes like the creator because I'm an artist and I'm creating content every week for Talk About Talk. I would say that's a strong secondary one for me, and it probably is for you too.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting actually to think about how these interplay and where I think you would be someone to lean on to get support. I find that something that I'm learning to navigate and I definitely don't have it right yet is which piece of my renaissance life can I share with people in order not to confuse them either, right? Because depending on what you share and how you blend these elements of your own story, it's almost impossible to communicate this for me seamlessly because it's almost like this is too much information for some people.
Andrea Wojnicki:
It is different for different people, but for you to have such a varied background finding, the theme... Some people have a transformation story that becomes that's really what their personal brand is about. It's about I had this brutal upbringing and I learned all these lessons and look at me now, and I worked hard to overcome them and I had all these obstacles. But for other people, there's a constant theme and kind of identifying what that theme is, which I think is when this woman was introducing me and she was calling me a real pioneer, so that was like a theme that she had observed over time about me, which goes back to branding. The brand can't be successful if it tries to be everything to everyone. You hear that all the time.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's actually something that I wish more people understood. I was writing about this the other day in my newsletter. I love the Kevin Kelly essay, 1,000 True Fans which resonates-
Andrea Wojnicki:
Yeah. You know what that's the second time in two days I heard someone mention him. He has such an impact, right?
Anne Muhlethaler:
Absolutely. So you mentioned in passing personal branding, and this is a terminology that I find a little bit hard and I was listening to Debbie Millman, I think. She was interviewed on the TED Radio Hour about a month ago or so. And because obviously, she's such a famous branding expert obviously from a visual standpoint and I'm sure she's very close to a lot of the brands you must have studied and be surrounded with. And obviously, I really enjoyed your podcast.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So for me in particular who doesn't align with the notion of personal brand, maybe you can help me understand or help my listeners understand who haven't heard as much as I have on the subject. For me, I am a person and I have a business and the business itself can become a brand. What do you mean by personal brand and how can people work on this?
Andrea Wojnicki:
Okay. I love this question and I love the topic, so thank you for bringing it up. Here's the thing about personal brands, and I understand there's a lot of discourse out there about dismissing brand strategy frameworks when we're talking about human beings and our careers and personal versus professional brands and all of that. But I just go back to basics and to me this is just a framework that really makes sense, and more importantly it can help us.
Andrea Wojnicki:
So the thing is we all have a reputation or an identity. Whether we choose to purposefully, strategically manage that identity or that reputation is almost irrelevant. And when I was doing some thinking about this, I was thinking about our credit scores. We all have a credit score. We have a credit score whether we check it or not and whether we actively manage it or not, we have a credit score just like we have a personal brand. And the definition, the specific definition of a personal brand beyond just saying reputation or identity that I really love is your personal brand is what people think and say about you when you're not in the room.
Andrea Wojnicki:
So imagine a boardroom with people, some of whom you've met in person and some of whom you haven't, but they all somehow know you or know of you. And then someone said, "Oh, maybe we should bring Anne in on this conversation because I feel like blah, blah, blah, whatever. What springs to mind when they hear your name? What is it that they're thinking and saying about you when you're not in the room? And the idea here in advancing our careers and basically helping us to achieve our goals is that if we work to very strategically... And by strategically, I don't mean manipulating, I mean just being very conscious and proactive.
Andrea Wojnicki:
If we strategically manage our personal brands in terms of two things. So one is creating it. So articulating, and this is back to all the whole conversation we just had about archetypes that can be very helpful, but there's all sorts of exercises you can run through. So first articulating what it is and then secondly communicating it. So whether it's offline or online, making sure that everything that you can control is said by you and by other people and implicitly and explicitly.
Andrea Wojnicki:
So explicitly would be things like you go to a conference and there's a bio written about you. What is the story there? And are people going to understand the main themes and understand your identity and your reputation? Is your head shot? Is it consistent with the photograph of you? Does it make sense? Does it further confirm and establish that or is it confusing? If someone is introducing you to someone, do they know the part of your identity that you're hoping they're going to mention, right?
Andrea Wojnicki:
And then implicitly are you dressing consistently with what you are hoping your identity and your reputation will be? Body language, we were just talking about that. Are your hands, your eyes, and your posture consistent with whatever that identity is? The things that you talk about, the people that you hang out with, the brands that you consume and display, are they consistent?
Andrea Wojnicki:
So that's the second part of it, so there's a creating it or articulating it and then secondly there's the communicating it. I feel like this is really my sweet spot because of my background working as a brand manager at Kraft Foods where we were basically taken through branding school and we learned to be strategic brand managers. Then my work at Harvard Business School and the research that I did with Susan Fournier and the research that I did on my dissertation. So understanding a lot of social psychology and then now my work with Talk About Talk and interpersonal communication skills.
Andrea Wojnicki:
I feel like if you intersect those three things, you get to personal branding. So I'm on a mission now to help people explore what their personal brand is and then how to manifest that basically.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That makes so much sense and that renders the entire concept absolutely appealing to me. Now, the one thing I have to say is I can see why you are going to have a lot of work on your hands, aka, a lot of clients because as I mentioned before, I think a lot of us find it very hard to talk about themselves, to really get to the root of their why, to write about themselves eloquently and succinctly.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I am assuming that this is something that you're going to be developing and supporting groups of people to do right courses, et cetera because I know that I rely on other people to help me. I can't do this on my own
Andrea Wojnicki:
Of course, yeah. So I'm actually just developing a program for some senior executives all around the world that I'm so excited. So I've been thinking is this personal branding topic. I mean, I'd love to hear your take on this. Is it more or less relevant for people who are starting out their career or finishing their career? Is it always relevant? I know as a strategic brand manager, I know that brands evolve. So you're never "done" with your personal brand or done working on it, right?
Andrea Wojnicki:
It'll change as the environment changes as your audience changes, as you have different experiences. But I have this contract now to work with some senior executives around the world on this, and some one-on-one coaching. I'm really excited to do that too because we can go in deep and eventually there will be an online course and also online workshops I'm working on.
Andrea Wojnicki:
I'm also exploring different sort of subtopics within personal branding with the podcast and the newsletter. There's one right now that just came out on communicating your personal brand online. And I say well it might seem like to some a strange or they might question, "Why would you start there?" I said, "Well, it's all there for you." So think of it as doing an audit like google yourself. I know I've heard googling yourself is something that narcissists do. Well, here's the thing. Other people are googling you. I know you googled me and I googled you. Don't you think we should also know what happens when we google ourselves?
Anne Muhlethaler:
For sure. I have google alerts for all of my clients. I mean, I need to know what's being said about them. So it sounds logical.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Yeah. So that's actually one of the pointers that I bring up in that podcast episode and I said, "Oh, and while you're at it, set up alerts so when someone posts your name online or searches you, you'll get an alert." And the other thing about that is that's totally separate from your personal brand. That's just smart from avoiding online fraud.
Anne Muhlethaler:
You're completely right. I'm so excited that you're going to be doing that course. I was thinking one of the pieces that I would imagine is really important regardless of how young or experienced you are in business as you consider this.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Yeah, what do you think about that?
Anne Muhlethaler:
It's two things. First, like you said consistency. I think as we spread ourselves across various platforms as they pop up, I know that I had to look after listen to your podcast, and mine was not particularly inconsistent but it wasn't highly consistent either.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Right.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Now, these are light platforms, right? But at the same time we evolve and the platforms evolve and we forget to go and check in.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Yeah.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I think is really interesting. But it's also that notion of self-awareness. What are you aware of yourself? What do you want to put out into the world? I think this is an important piece and I recognize that probably the reason why a lot of people don't put in the work is because they have to look inwards before they put stuff out in the world. And that's kind of hard.
Andrea Wojnicki:
It sure is. You bring up a lot of good points there. It's scary for us podcasters. It's going back and listening to episode number two, when you're on episode number 70. It's so scary to go back there, but you can learn a lot about your whatever your transformation, but then back to the personal branding, I was thinking as you were saying that, the exercise of articulating and then communicating your personal brand when you're starting out your career versus when you're a seasoned executive.
Andrea Wojnicki:
It would serve slightly different purposes, right? So I think earlier in your career, it might just help you be a little bit more aware that every company you work for, every course you take, every relationship that you develop is input into this personal brand, right? And then later in your career, I think it's more about being able to really communicate that brand knowing that it is best suited to meet your own career objectives, so that it'll resonate with whoever the audience is. It's a little bit different in terms of the kind of ultimate object or I guess the short term objectives depending on what stage you're in, in your career.
Anne Muhlethaler:
You know what that's making me think? It brings me back to Seth Godin in that little bio example, because I think the semantics, the words that we use regardless how short or long the output of content about ourselves, the words are so important because they can open up opportunities of pigeon holders and that's true about businesses and brands as well. I can't remember what the example was that he'd leaned on, but imagine that we talk about a luxury car brand.
Anne Muhlethaler:
If you describe the brand as we make luxury cars, then you understand it to be as such. But if you say, we take you to your destination or we bring you on a journey, it suddenly completely opens up the evolution of the company. You could open up and start making airplanes or suitcases or anything else. So I think that there's an interesting play about how much do you want to focus or reduce yourself in the way that you describe yourself as a personal brand or what you want to remain open to.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Yeah. So one of the business school cases that I co-wrote with Susan Fournier back to Susan at Harvard was the case on how to choose a brand name. And we came up with this process which I actually ended up using it a lot with clients that I subsequently had after I graduated who were looking for developing a brand name. But we were talking about the fact that you want ideally your brand probably should be descriptive. It just makes it a little bit easier. But that's a decision that you need to make, right? Apple is not exactly descriptive of what they're doing. But maybe in some higher level context, you could make some kind of analogy there.
Andrea Wojnicki:
But if it's too descriptive, then it can backfire because it limits you. So the example that we use in the case is the Harlem Savings Bank of New York can never do anything else or go anywhere else, right?
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's so true.
Andrea Wojnicki:
But back to the personal branding thing. The culminating exercise for the communicating or articulating your brand segment of that workshop is actually what you just said. It's actually identifying the keywords. So what are the keywords that you always want to write or say when you're introducing yourself.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I'm in. That sounds brilliant.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Yeah. Well that's the same for brands, right?
Anne Muhlethaler:
Very interesting. Now, let's switch to a completely different topic because I know that you are also a different kind of artist and you're a painter. You have a beautiful website. First, I need to tell you when I was a teenager, and I still am. I'm mesmerized by seascape and water in general. And so I love that. You had two other paintings, Barry's Desert and the milky way, which were absolutely stunning. So tell me about this. First of all, how did you discover this and how do you keep this alive? Because you sound like you're busy and you have a family as well.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Yeah. I haven't been painting as much as I have to say as I wish to, but I've made a conscious decision not to source. Be careful with my words. I haven't been painting as much as I have in the past, but I'm exercising my creativity in other ways, so that's kind of how I reconcile that in my mind. When I was in high school art and math were my two favorite subjects and I really thought I was going to be a fashion designer actually. When I was in grade 12, I won a scholarship and I said to my parents that I wanted to go to Paris and go to fashion design school.
Andrea Wojnicki:
And my dad said, "Why don't you get a university degree first in North America. And then if you want to do that, I will definitely foot the bill." I said, "Okay." Then I got sucked into marketing and I love it, but I always had this creative side and I love color. I love color. If you can see behind me, my bookshelves are color coded. I have a yellow shelf, a red shelf, a blue shelf. Anyway, I love color and I also love water. I had a friend who unfortunately died of brain cancer and when he was really sick the last conversations that I had with him was about life regrets.
Andrea Wojnicki:
He actually said to me, "Don't be the person who ends up with regrets and things that you can't fulfill when you can't." I went home and I was like, "Okay. So I have a great family, a loving husband, amazing kids. I've traveled like all these things that people typically regret. I've got all those things. I have such an abundant life. And in the back of my head, there was this voice saying, "Paint, paint, paint." I signed up for painting lessons at a studio that's near my house and I went in, started with once a week and then I loved it so much, I started going twice a week and then I started doing art shows and selling the paintings.
Andrea Wojnicki:
The painting that you pointed out Barry's Desert Stars was actually commissioned. So this woman emailed me a photograph of some photos that her husband had taken in Arizona of the sky with the milky way above the desert and she said, "If this inspires you, I want to hire you to paint it as a surprise Christmas gift for my husband." And I was like, "Oh my gosh. That is amazing." So I started experimenting on different canvases. And when I started to see stuff that I liked, I painted two or three and then I said, "Here's my output. And if you like, whatever... Always, when I do commissions, I say there's absolutely no requirement to purchase anything at the end because I'm not going to paint anything that I don't love. I'm really not painting to sell, I'm painting because I love the process. Anyway, so she ended up buying the one that we ended up calling Barry's Desert Stars. And the milky way one, I actually gave to my sister. She has it in her bedroom.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's such a nice story. First of all, I relate to it because as I told you before I pursued a career as a singer for a long time and one of the conscious decisions I made when I became a consultant was that I would have to make room for music in my life. And it was really hard at the beginning because I was used to doing crazy hours at the office and working weekends. So it took me a while to actually really force myself and fit it in. So even if it's 15 minutes or 20 minutes of just playing piano or doing vocal warm-ups, I try to fit in every day. Or six out of seven days. And it makes a really big difference in my life, I think.
Andrea Wojnicki:
As you were saying that, I was thinking so what is it about these creative pursuits. Is it just that we are creating... I think there's something to that, right?
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Humans have a need, we have an innate need to create something and then maybe there's like the artistry. So putting our personal stamp on it somehow like your voice, my color, my brush stroke whatever. So there's that, but there's also... When I'm really into painting, I wake up thinking about it really, and I find myself getting into flow when I paint, I'll be in my living room. So this was pre-COVID. when my kids were at school, my husband was at work, and I was working at home. Then one afternoon a week like Thursday afternoon, between one and four, I would paint and I would more often than not find myself experiencing flow.
Andrea Wojnicki:
I'm sure you can appreciate this as a mindfulness coach who teaches meditation, it's just you have this... I don't know how to describe it. This moment, it's so visceral and it's like, "Oh my gosh." It's like the definition of flow. You lose track of time and space, and everything, and it's just like you're in your brain, you're in your body. I'm one with the canvas and the paint. I don't know what the word is. A heavenly experience? I don't know.
Andrea Wojnicki:
It is spiritual in some way. When I feel that often enough, I sometimes start to wake up and think about painting like, "Oh, I got an idea for a painting." Right now with this week or this month, this quarter, I guess, I'm waking up thinking about things related to personal branding and communication skills coaching honestly, in a very similar way.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's amazing because you mentioned it before, and I appreciated it because I knew I was going to get to this question, but you are right. There is an artist and a creator in you as you create the program and think of the contribution that you're going to make to the people who are going to participate in it.
Andrea Wojnicki:
I think so. I believe that and I think some people may use that as an excuse to not explore something creative in their life, but I think as a artist and a painter who's who's been in art shows, I've sold paintings, I've had commission paintings, so I know what that feels like. I actually think it's very similar for me when I'm creating content for Talk About Talk in a really good way.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's awesome.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Yeah, it is awesome. I'm lucky. I'm really lucky.
Anne Muhlethaler:
You've given me a lot of your time so I'm going to ask you just a couple of more questions and then we'll have some short quick fire as you call them as well. I want to know you've earned a black belt in what?
Andrea Wojnicki:
Taekwondo.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Wow.
Andrea Wojnicki:
I know.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's crazy. You're very accomplished, I just want to say.
Andrea Wojnicki:
I did that with my son. I just have to give you the quick backstory on that. I did it with my son. My kids were all signed up for taekwondo and then my eldest was going through the belts pretty fast and I was like, "Instead of sitting and watching him, I'm going to do it with him." And I started doing it. So he and I at the very end, we almost didn't get it because it's a lot of work at the end, but we really motivated each other, so we did it together.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That is fantastic. I'd love to ask you more questions about that, but let's not get distracted.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Yeah, keep moving.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So turning to mindfulness, obviously, because the podcast for me is at the crossroads between business and mindfulness and meditation, I was curious to ask you what are the practices that ground you in your daily life and have you found anything specific that really has worked for you during the difficult period that we've been going through?
Andrea Wojnicki:
Yeah. So I anticipated this question and I was thinking I have never ever taken a meditation class or really even explored it. I haven't really searched it online or anything and I am curious. So I haven't done that, but I would love to. You're probably a good person for me to learn from in that regard. One thing that has helped me over the last year with the pandemic... I live in Toronto, Canada and we're in lockdown right now.
Andrea Wojnicki:
So the numbers are pretty bad and we don't leave to do anything really other than getting groceries. And even that, I order it and I open the trunk, drive to the store, they drop them in the back and I drive away. That's it. So one thing that, and this is not mindfulness and this is not meditation, but just a strategy or tactic that's really worked for me, and I'm trying to help my family with this too is keeping checklists. So I have written on cardboard in the kitchen, the five members of my family and then all the days across.
Andrea Wojnicki:
It's like a matrix and you check off two things every day. One is did you get outside and two is did you exercise? There's so many other things that could go on the checklist. And for me, personally, I have a checklist that I use before I go to bed where I check off all these wellness things and nutrition and exercise, and mental health, because I know that that really worked for me, but I don't want to drive my family crazy and becoming the checklist lady.
Andrea Wojnicki:
So I was like, "Okay, if there were two things what would it be?" You need to get outside and you need to work out. You can decide what working out looks like. It can be a yoga practice. It can be running around the block. It can be going for a walk with a friend, but you have to raise your heartbeat do something. I think that kind of really prioritizing the fundamentals has helped us to some extent and I personally find it motivating. Then the other thing is celebrating things that otherwise may not have been so conscious of.
Andrea Wojnicki:
So not hesitating to get out the china. I think I've gotten our fine china and our silverware more frequently over the last year than I have in the last 10 years because I'm like, "Well, if ever there was a time that I was going to set the table with the fine china, it should be now because we need to be celebrating each other and having fun things." So that's just another thing that I think is helping us a little bit. It's tough though. What I say to people is when they say, "How are you really?" I say, "We're surviving, but not thriving?"
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. I hear you across all points that you've just made.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Yeah. You and I may be simpatico, Anne.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. I have a checklist for myself every morning.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Do you? Oh, you know what, I want to see yours?
Anne Muhlethaler:
Oh, I handwrite it after my morning pages. So yeah, sure. I can share it with you. It started by being one and a half lines. So it's meditation Pranayama affirmations intention and that's like I have to do that every day like the given. And then there's workout, and there's a separate one with yoga because yoga and working out for me are not exactly the same, because I can do restorative yoga or yin and that's not the same as elevating the heartbeat. And there are days where draping myself over a big bolster and putting a blanket over my shoulders is just the thing I need.
Andrea Wojnicki:
I get it, I get it.
Anne Muhlethaler:
But then I continue to add to it like did I write every day, did I study every day? And I don't need to do all of it, but I keep track. And I know that these things make me happy and make me feel alive, accomplished, connected to myself or to a purpose. It became a ritual without wanting to make it one.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Two things there. One is having a ritual or like a schedule is really important right now because otherwise people working at home other than getting up for meetings or maybe doing podcast interviews that are at a specified time, a lot of people are just like, they've totally lost track of time and it's really not healthy. It's not good for them physically or mentally. Right?
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. I hear you. I mean, listen, I didn't stay in sweatpants during the pandemic, but that's because I've already been working from home for a while. So I think that I already have had the conversation with myself as to what I wanted my life to be. And I realized that in that way, I'm way advanced compared to most people. But I find that cleaning the house and wearing nice clothes, if comfortable because if I'm just going to sit at home, it really does help my mood as well. A big deal.
Anne Muhlethaler:
And actually smiling. As you were saying, it changes the temperature in your state. So when I'm on a long Zoom call, sometimes one of the things I try to pull at is actually move up the corners of your mouth and smile at the people in front of you. When you actually raise your own energy levels, it tends to raise the room even when it's virtual.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Oh, for sure. I don't know if you've experienced this, but sometimes I forget it's a Zoom call.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Oh, yeah. I get in flow state.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Yeah. I think I do too, yeah.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Some people might think I'm really weird because they all hate it. I'm not saying it's true about every call.
Andrea Wojnicki:
It happens for me in interviews and also when I'm conducting workshops, for sure.
Anne Muhlethaler:
A couple of quick questions to finish, if that's okay.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Okay.
Anne Muhlethaler:
And this is even more interesting because you are so versed in communication. What is your favorite word?
Andrea Wojnicki:
My favorite word lately is indeed.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Okay.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Yeah. So I know this might sound strange. So I moderate a Facebook group called Talk About Talk Communication Skills. So we have a theme every month and actually for January it was words and that was one of the questions that I asked people, "What's your favorite word? What is the word that when you hear other people say it, you say to yourself, "Gosh, I wish I said that more often." Because it sounds, I don't know, smart, good, whatever. And for me it's indeed. I never say it. Whenever I hear it, I always think, "Gosh, that person sounds cool." If I, for example, say something like give advice, whatever, offer suggestion and someone says, "Indeed," I go, "Oh, gosh. I wish I said that."
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's awesome. I love it in writing as well. Don't you think it's also lovely when it's written?
Andrea Wojnicki:
Absolutely, yeah. To me, I think the reason I like it is because it sounds like the person is... Whether they say it verbally or write it, it sounds like they're open-minded and they're being positive. They're building on the other person's idea like indeed. I love it.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's brilliant. I think you really answered this question, what did you want to be when you grew up? You wanted to be a fashion designer, if I'm correct.
Andrea Wojnicki:
I wanted to be a fashion designer and on and off, I also seriously considered being an architect. In fact, I applied to university for both business school and architecture. So I had to make a decision. Anyway, architecture was the other one.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. What would you say to your younger self if you could send yourself a message?
Andrea Wojnicki:
I kind of look back at my young, innocent, naive self and I think she did pretty good, and she did quite well. She was incredibly naïve. I don't know. Maybe I would have taken a personal branding course. No, I'm kidding. One thing that I told my mom I regretted was I wish I had played a team sport. I was a competitive figure skater all the way through high school and I know for sure, it taught me independence and initiative and discipline, especially discipline, but I always... Especially, since I've had kids and I'm seeing the pros and cons of signing them up for various activities, I really admire the core learnings that people acquire from participating in team sports, and I wish I had that experience. So I would have said go for the basketball team maybe not to figure skating.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's awesome. What book is next to your bed or on your desk?
Andrea Wojnicki:
Oh, this changes frequently. The one that's on my night table, beside my bed that I do read even if it's just a paragraph, if I'm exhausted or many chapters if I'm not is Obama's book, Promised Land, and I'm really enjoying it. I'm not surprised because I admire him and I absolutely love biographies and autobiographies. It's an easy book to read in the sense that not necessarily his vocabulary or his writing style, but he's just a good storyteller and I'm giving myself permission to skip chapters when he gets into nuance of US politics that I'm maybe less familiar with or less interested in, but I'm really enjoying it.
Andrea Wojnicki:
I feel like it's a very generously written book where he says in the preface that his goal was to provide an accessible story of his experience, so people understand what it's really like to run for president and then to be president. And I think he does a great job of that in this book.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I admire him a lot That's one that's on my list. Who is one person that you think we should all know about a politician, a writer. It could be a musician, a journalist or an activist?
Andrea Wojnicki:
I love this question. I think this is a really good question because I think it's revealing and then when a person can answers it, it shows something about them maybe. And there's one person who I wouldn't say I'm obsessed with her, but I think she's absolutely fascinating and I think we can all learn something from her, and that's Katharine Graham. So she's the Washington Post publisher back in the late 1900s. I guess she died in 2001, but I read her biography twice. I read her biography right around when she passed away, and it's called Personal History and it's huge.
Andrea Wojnicki:
It's a big book, but I devoured it and it was like, "I was so sad when it was over and I learned so much." She's got so much breadth and depth to her. She was obviously the publisher of the Washington Post, but this came to her. Her father owned it and published it and then he passed it on to her husband who had mental health and addiction issues, and when he died, she took it over de facto and then she formally took it over and then she ran it with such presence and power, and thoughtfulness. She changed journalism. She was there for the Watergate scandal.
Andrea Wojnicki:
And this was a woman in the 1960s and '70s. Can you even imagine? She was dealing with politics, right? To what extent should journalists and the media be involved in politics? And all that stuff that is relevant today, and of course women's lib and she had, I think three, maybe four, but at least three kids, while all this was happening. I mean, she's just a force and incredible. She's very, very, very pragmatic. If you've ever seen her or read her, she's very pragmatic, but incredibly inspiring and so impressive, and yet humble. So everyone should know about Katharine Graham.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That sounds fantastic. I've heard about her. Has there been a TV series or a movie done recently about her?
Andrea Wojnicki:
Yeah. Meryl Streep starred in... It's called Post actually. Is it what it's called, the movie?
Anne Muhlethaler:
Ah, okay. Of course. I haven't seen it, but I assume that would be why I've heard her I think interviewed on one of the US chat shows like Stephen Colbert or one of those. I am so glad you said that because you're so eloquent about it. I am absolutely putting that one in the basket.
Andrea Wojnicki:
I convinced my book club maybe three or four years ago to read it because we had this thing okay. So the next books we're going to read, let's go around the table, and everyone choose your favorite book of all time that you're probably so familiar with and we're going to all read it and talk about it. I was like, "Guys, you're going to hate me for this because I don't know how many pages." It's like 700 pages or something. But I read it a second time and I was like because it was 15 years later. I got a totally different perspective on reading it, but I still loved it and I still had such admiration for her. Oh my goodness.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Oh, that's amazing. That brings us to the last question, which is one of my favorites. What brings you happiness?
Andrea Wojnicki:
I think two things if I'm allowed to say two things.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Of course.
Andrea Wojnicki:
If I had to choose one, it would be hugs from my kids. It would be when my son who's 17 taps me on the shoulder and says, "Hey, mom," and hugs me, "Oh, gosh," or whatever. I have three kids. Whenever one of them... I'm just saying that because he did that this morning and surprised me and I was like, "Oh, this is so nice. Maybe during COVID, it's even more nice." But being hugged by my kids and like when they don't let go, that's just amazing. In my professional life, it's definitely teaching. I get a high from teaching especially when I can see the wheels turning and I can see people nodding their head. And then when I get feedback saying this is really making a difference for me, that is incredibly satisfying. It makes me very happy.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Thank you so much. You gave me so much of your time. I had so much pleasure. It was a wonderful conversation.
Andrea Wojnicki:
It was. I enjoyed it so much and I thank you for your time and for listening to me.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Brilliant. Have a fantastic rest of your day. And for people to find you online, I think that it's talkabouttalk.com. Am I correct?
Andrea Wojnicki:
Yup. That's the easiest way. Everything's there. And I'm on LinkedIn.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Perfect.
Andrea Wojnicki:
Thank you, Anne.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Thanks, again, to Andrea for being my guest on the show today. You can find her online at talkabouttalk.com and on Instagram @talkingabouttalk. All of the other links are of course included in the show notes as well as the one to discover, Andrea's online course to help you manage your emails. So that's it for today's episode. Thank you so much for listening. I do hope that you will join us again next time.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Our theme music is by Connor Heffernan, artwork by Brian Ponto, and I want to extend special thanks to Pete and Joel for editing and sound. You can soon find all of my episodes and find out more about my projects at annevmuhlethaler.com. If you don't know how to spell it, that's okay, it's also in the show notes. Or you can also look up outoftheclouds.com. Sign up to receive updates on all the fun things I'm doing. The site will be live very soon.
Anne Muhlethaler:
You can also follow the show on Instagram @_outoftheclouds. If you can, I would love it, if you would rate and review the show on iTunes. It really does help people find it and I would appreciate it very, very much. Until next time, be well, be safe. Please remember the hand washing, please wear the mask, and look after each other, all of that good stuff. Thank you so much.