The case for the ‘good enough’ job
Episode 498 | Host: Emilie Aries | Guest: Elizabeth Lotardo
Reclaim your power while in a job that’s just “good enough”.
The Perfect Job—the one that fuels your passion, sets up your catalytic career rise, and pays handsomely—isn’t nearly as common as LinkedIn and aspirational Instagram accounts might have us believe. Most people spend their working hours somewhere in the messy middle, in a job that’s okay but not great, pays fine but not spectacularly, and provides some but not unlimited opportunity.
But here’s the good news: That’s the very spot where you can thrive if you embrace the art of “leading yourself.” This is where Elizabeth Lotardo, a consultant, instructor, and the author of the new book Leading Yourself, argues you can absolutely excel if you stop pursuing perfection and begin embracing “good enough” as a goal.
In this episode, Elizabeth breaks down the concept, and we explore its empowering and inspiring possibilities. She’s been sharing her approach through workshops for a number of years, and the book couldn’t come at a better time. There’s still a lot of expectation to find your dream job, but now it’s up against some more realistic perspectives—ones myself and others share—accepting that most people don’t ever find the needle in that particular haystack, and maybe you shouldn’t get all your self worth and passion from your job, anyway.
What does it mean to “lead yourself”?
Elizabeth is all about banishing the idea we’ve been sold for so long that if we are content in a job that isn’t fueling our deepest purpose and passion, we’re selling out. What if, she dares to ask, we shift the lens through which we see the job we have?
Leading yourself means owning your work experience, regardless of your position in the company or the level of control you have. It means you’re committed to making where you’re at work for you, and Elizabeth outlines a few approachable strategies from her book for doing exactly that.
Transform your performance reviews
Performance reviews, as many of us know them, surfaced around WWII, and they often affect employees in exactly the opposite way that they were intended. The anxiety-inducing sit-down with your boss was supposed to improve productivity, but it turns out that being talked at for an hour about the things you could do better and the metrics you failed to meet actually leaves people feeling less productive and more disengaged. Go figure.
In her book, Elizabeth explains how to transform performance reviews into an opportunity to set your own goals, define what’s in your control, and create more realistic parameters. And it doesn’t require asking your boss to drastically adjust the whole process.
Rather, Elizabeth encourages coming to the table armed with key metrics you actually control, focused around whatever preordained target you’re given. If you have a specific sales goal, for example, track your total number of outreaches and how quickly you respond to customers, as well as review client calls to identify what’s working and what isn’t. In keeping tabs on these metrics—in addition to the ultimate end goal—you’re showing initiative and remaining focused on that which you control. At the next review, whether you meet the sales goal or not, you can confidently point to targets you did achieve—the ones that should leave you feeling capable and proud.
Bring the energy you want
Elizabeth believes you have to create the energy you want to find, not just expect those around you to provide it. Maybe you can’t light the office with ambient lamps in lieu of fluorescents or replace the fabric cubicles with classy wood dividers, but Leading Yourself encourages you to identify the environmental aspects of your job that you can change.
Usually, you have control over the music you listen to while you work, the conversations you have with your co-workers, the nutritional value of the lunches you bring, and the amount of sleep you get at night. Stop focusing on the things that drain your energy—that just gives them more power. Instead, shift the lens to what you can modify.
Should you stay or should you go?
Some people take great pride in “sticking it out” at a job they hate because they don’t identify as a quitter. Others clean out their desks at the first boring assignment or rude comment from a coworker. While you’re welcome to do this, these are exactly the kinds of situations Elizabeth encourages us to reframe rather than reject outright.
All the talk about “purpose” and jobs that fuel your passion surged in the Great Resignation of 2020 and 2021. People left their mediocre gigs in droves when the transition to remote work made it crystal clear that stripping away the social engagements and the office perks left work that felt meaningless and transactional.
Not surprisingly, organizations quickly responded in kind, changing their job search marketing to sell themselves as world-changing and people-driven. Unfortunately, data from this huge shift showed that, by and large, workers felt they were better off at their old jobs. The incredible opportunities they were promised tended not to manifest.
As Elizabeth points out, we are often led to believe that purpose is something our employer should be providing for us instead of something we need to create for ourselves. Far too often, quitting results not in landing your dream job but in scoring another mediocre nine to five.
When to phone it in
I know that so many of my listeners and readers are like me—high-achievers who care a lot about their work. So when I got to Elizabeth’s chapter about learning to embrace doing a little less, I felt seen.
While she acknowledges that work matters a lot and we really care about it, Elizabeth points to a phrase that resonates deeply with her: unless you’re a literal life-saver, “no one is going to bleed out on the table” if you need to push a deadline or leave some planning til next week. Take a step back from perfection. Sometimes, we need to be okay with “good enough” in our own performance, too.
Elizabeth reminds those of us with six hundred things on our plate at any given moment that if you don’t pick something to phone in sometimes, the universe will pick it for you, and it’ll be your health or dropping the ball on something really important. Reset your expectations of yourself (and temper others’ expectations of you) by accepting that you won’t always be able to give 110%.
Elizabeth hopes everyone who reads her book and listens to this episode comes away recognizing that while so much feels out of our control these days—economically, politically, globally—you can continue to empower yourself by identifying these small shifts and embracing “good enough.”
How do you navigate between pursuing your “dream job” and making the best of your current work? Let’s talk about it over in the Courage Community on Facebook or in our group on LinkedIn.
Related links from today’s episode:
Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less by Tiffany Dufu
LEVEL UP: a Leadership Accelerator for Women on the Rise
Advance your impact and
accelerate your career with LEVEL UP:
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[INTRO MUSIC IN]
EMILIE: Hey, and welcome to the Bossed Up podcast, episode 498. I'm your host, Emilie Aries, the Founder and CEO of Bossed Up. And today I want to talk about the “good enough job”.
[INTRO MUSIC ENDS]
So many of us, and millennials in particular, were sold this idea of the dream job that we had to hold out for a position that fueled our purpose and passion and yielded a paycheck. And for most of us, that's not been possible. Maybe that's what's leading to so many of us having a little midlife crisis or a career crisis every couple of years here. I want to break down why it's okay to normalize having a “good enough job” and how we can stay still be in the driver's seat and be the boss of our careers when it comes to making that work for you.
Helping me to break all of this down in today's episode is Elizabeth Lotardo, a consultant, writer, and online instructor who helps organizations drive emotional engagement. Her new book, Leading Yourself, has been called, a refreshingly candid playbook that helps you create a work experience worth loving right now. Now with an undergraduate degree in advertising from Boston University and a master's in industrial and organizational psychology, Elizabeth works with senior leaders, frontline managers, and entry level teammates to create more purpose driven work experiences. She's also a popular LinkedIn learning instructor who designs workshops on topics like leading without formal authority, finding your purpose at work, and leading yourself. Elizabeth also writes for Harvard Business Review and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and on NPR. Elizabeth, welcome to the Bossed Up podcast.
ELIZABETH: Thanks for having me.
EMILIE: I'm so delighted to have you as a fellow LinkedIn Learning instructor and one who kind of was around LinkedIn Learning, I think as an OG, it sounds like, right?
ELIZABETH: We are both OGs. And that from 2018, how much has changed?
EMILIE: So much. So if anyone's listening is sleeping on LinkedIn Learning, still, you got to get on it because they're doing some amazing work with amazing instructors like ourselves. First of all, congrats on the release of your book, Leading Yourself. What a feat. How does it feel?
ELIZABETH: Thanks. I'm so excited about it. I mean, Leading Yourself is something that I started yapping about on LinkedIn learning back in 2018, and to see it in a hardcover book is surreal.
EMILIE: So surreal. Well, congrats. It's a beautiful read. You're an amazing writer, so congratulations.
ELIZABETH: Thank you.
EMILIE: And I wanted to ask you all about the concept because Leading Yourself, getting Bossed Up, these are almost synonymous. We are definitely a good match here today. But when you were thinking about leading yourself, it sounds like it started with frustration around finding yourself spinning your wheels early on in your career. So many of us have felt, especially millennials, like we were supposed to go find a dream job that like, filled our passion, yielded a paycheck, like, felt purposeful all in one. And then a lot of us became jaded or disengaged or frustrated by that pursuit. Help me understand like the origin behind this Leading Yourself concept and how it relates to the whole dream job myth.
ELIZABETH: Well, that pipeline from wide eyed person who wants to change the world to disgruntled entry level employee is one that I experienced and one that so many of my friends experience and I wrote about in the book how, you know, I graduated college, I was so excited. I got this job that was going to be great and amazing and then in 6-12 months I felt terrible. And that is not a unique experience. And the mistake that I made in that job was one, I had unrealistic expectations back to your notion of a dream job. And two, I didn't see myself in the power position. I didn't see how many things I could control or that I could influence and how much was in my sphere of maneuverability. And instead I focused on all the things I didn't like, all the decisions that I thought were wrong and all of the things I wished were different at my kind of, you know, meh entry level job. And I cost myself a lot in that.
And what I wrote about my own experience and what prompted me into this research on self leadership is, no job is perfect. I did not pick a bad job, I did not have a bad boss. But I was still sad and bummed out and I cost myself so much. So what I wanted to do is provide a really actionable playbook for if you're not in your dream job, how are you going to make this work for now? And how are you going to make it good enough and not kill your spirit and be a launching pad into something that you want to do next?
EMILIE: Yeah, I think this is such a timely topic too because maybe uh, it has to do with the fact that we millennials are arriving at mid age.
ELIZABETH: We are all in crisis.
EMILIE: Yeah, we're all having an identity crisis or two that like, it does feel like Gen Z has a different approach and it does feel like there's some decentering happening, maybe an unnecessary correction from an over centering of our careers and our identities and our, our entire sense of purpose and fulfillment like that has been connected to our work for far too long, for far too many people. And it's just not a realistic standard to expect, right?
ELIZABETH: I see that too, you're setting yourself up for hurt feelings and disappointment. I'm sure you've seen that graphic that goes around on LinkedIn every. Like the Ikiyagi or however you…
EMILIE: The Ikiguy! Yeah.
ELIZABETH: …yeah, okay that one where what you're passionate about connects to what you do, connects to what the world needs, connects to what you get paid for. And it all looks so straightforward in these stupid circles, but no one has that experience, right? Your perfect confluence isn't data analyst or, you know, entry level accountant. So we feel really empty when it doesn't align, but the reality is it's never aligning. That said, you can still have a good work experience even if you are not in your perfect circle center.
EMILIE: Yes. And so your whole concept of leading yourself is sort of making the best of a job that doesn't come prepackaged as a perfect dream job, right? What is, what do you even mean by leading yourself, really? And how did you come across that? Or really coin that term? What did you mean when you, when you talk about leading yourself?
ELIZABETH: So leading yourself, simply put, is owning your work experience. From whatever seat you're in with whatever level of control you have, you are committed to making this work for you. That doesn't mean you disagree with your boss and you tell them to f off. That doesn't mean you're alone on an island and you don't have colleagues to support you. But it means the buck stops with you. You're in charge of you, your life, your career. And when you shift that lens, instead of waiting for the perfect job, you unlock a huge wide net of possibility.
EMILIE: Yeah. What would you say to people who say, well, that's just settling, Elizabeth. That's just giving up on the dream.
ELIZABETH: Yeah, kind of. It is, in a way. And I think that is an empowering thing to do. To release the expectation that you will find this perfect job that so deeply fills your cup is freeing. And to empower yourself to create a work experience that might not change the world, but is meaningful to you in some important way, that might not be perfect and super high paid, but does enough to support your family and gives you that sense of stability. That's empowering. It's not giving up.
EMILIE: Yeah. It's almost like releasing this pressure that we've been taught that it has to be somewhat perfect in all of those ways, right?
ELIZABETH: Taught and continuously reinforced. You and I both post a lot on LinkedIn. It's like the ultimate hype platform and I think going too deep into it is challenging because we think that everyone else has it all figured out and that they experience this mass level of purpose and meaning and opportunity that we don't.
EMILIE: Yeah, I mean, even you and I, as entrepreneurs, like, we're pretty candid about the challenges and drawbacks that come with that. I've been very transparent with my audience over the past few years about what I call my like, feminist existential crisis that I've been having for a few years now around, Bossed Up and last year around this time I transitioned into being a full time employee again with an in-house leadership development position.
And those are just narratives that don't get talked about often enough. It's like making those choices, as you like to say, controlling what's controllable and stepping up as someone who is the agent of change in your own career to say, I don't care what this should look like for other people. What I care about is what I'm getting from the different aspects of my career, right?
ELIZABETH: A hundred percent. And there's no shortage of people who are going to give you direction, right? There's a million gurus on LinkedIn telling you what to do. Your boss is telling you what to do, the CEO is telling you what to do. I guess the two of us are kind of telling you what to do. [LAUGHTER]
EMILIE: Yeah.
ELIZABETH: Like there's no shortage of inputs on how you should live your life. And it's so easy to remove yourself from the driver's seat and wait to be led by someone else. Be that your boss, your parent, some, you know, person you follow on LinkedIn. But when we decide to lead ourselves and say, you know what, all y'all can have some opinions, but I'm in charge of me and I'm gonna make this work, that's when we start to get traction.
EMILIE: Yes, I love that. I'm such a big fan of that element of agency in our lives. And it's so important for so many reasons. So one of the aspects of your book that I found really awesome and surprising was performance reviews. You basically say that since the modern invention of performance reviews circa World War II, that they have the opposite of their intended effect. Help me understand that.
ELIZABETH: So performance reviews didn't come about because everyone was doing awesome. [LAUGHTER] Unsurprisingly, they came about because people weren't doing that well and organizations needed a formal structure to get more productivity. And what they've descended down into, unfortunately for most people, is your manager tells you all the things you should have done better. They hold you accountable to metrics that aren't entirely within your control, depend on a ton of factors that you can't even influence, and you leave feeling generally not great. Unless you are in the small category of exceeds expectations and you get a 2% raise, you're left feeling a little empty after that experience.
And we know that feeling of emptiness translates into less productivity, the very thing we design performance reviews to not happen. And an amount of disengagement, feeling stuck, whatever term you want to put on it, bad work experience. So we often feel powerless in a performance review situation because we're sitting on the side of the table with someone who has deemed themselves more in control than us, telling us, you know, what's up. But when we flip the script and we view performance reviews as a chance to set our own goals, to define in conversation with our manager, what is in our control to put some realistic parameters on this thing, everything changes. But we're sold this narrative that we gotta kind of take it on the chin for this like, yearly lashing.
EMILIE: Well, it's interesting because, like, there's so much judgment wrapped up in performance reviews, right?
ELIZABETH: It's in the name.
EMILIE: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And so judgment always leaves humans feeling social anxiety and shame and stress and all, all those feelings that kind of spiral our productivity. Whereas if we treat this as a collaborative goal setting process, which smart organizations do, right, as you say in your book, the antidote to disengagement is actually adding to our plate sometimes. Which sounds a little counterintuitive to the burnt out, disengaged listener, right? So why is that the case? Why is it if you're feeling disengaged at work, that actually actively adding to your own goals can help?
ELIZABETH: So a lot of people feel disengaged at work and disempowered because they're lobbed this number and told hit it, right? Whether it's a sales target, whether it's a turnaround time, whether it's a marketing, you know, cost per click, whatever your number is, it was lobbed over to you. Some extrapolation of this giant organizational target. And you in most cases don't actually control whether you hit that number or not, right? You depend on other departments, you depend on the economy, the industry. It depends on your competitors. And that leaves us feeling really empty. In the best case scenario, we're hopeful that the stars align. In the worst case scenario, we're like, awesome. Okay, this impossible number to hit, T minus 11 months and three weeks until I tell them I didn't hit it right?
But when you extrapolate what is in your control, you move from that, here's my number from above into, okay, here is something that I'm pointed to. So an example I use in the book that's really common is a sales target. You have to sell this much per year. You can’t control that. You have some behavior that increases the likelihood. But holding yourself accountable to that number is bananas, even if your manager is doing that.
But let's extrapolate out what's behind that number, right? You can control how many outreaches you make per day. You can control how quickly you respond to customers. You can control your own learning and development, how much you're learning and how much you're reviewing previous calls that went well and went poorly. Those things, all the things that you do actually own, are more empowering because instead of crossing your fingers on this giant target, you're pointed that energy somewhere and you know what to do instead of just hoping. So it feels like adding more to your plate. And in a way it is, but it's adding something that's obtainable and something that you'll feel successful with when you do in fact do it, instead of trying your very best and falling short.
EMILIE: Totally, and again, you're putting yourself in the driver's seat. You're taking responsibility of the things you can control. You're being the boss of your own development and of your own performance. But you're also kind of detaching yourself from the end target.
ELIZABETH: Kind of, and if you're listening to this, you may be thinking, like, okay, awesome. I'm sure my manager loves to hear that I'm detaching myself. Promise and target and you may not want to share that with them, but what I think both of us support in our work is that collaborative conversation. We're saying, okay, I got this number. Perfect. Love it, great. I'm excited to try and hit it. Let's talk about what I need to do to get there and agree on some leading indicators that would drastically increase the likelihood that I do hit this number that you've given me.
And that is an empowering conversation to have with your manager, because a good manager is going to see, hey, you're not just taking this on the chin like you're breaking it down, down. You're taking initiative. And two, in the event you don't hit that number, you have something to go back on beyond. Well, it was an unfair target, right? You did all of the inputs you talked about with your manager. You did those calls you, you know, emailed so and so, you set this many new ideas to the table. Whatever it is, you did that. So the next performance review conversation, even if you didn't meet the target, looks really different.
EMILIE: Yeah. And it feels really different.
ELIZABETH: Yeah.
EMILIE: You're thinking, did I give it my all, Did I work my own plan? Did I live up to my own inner expectations for myself? Yeah. Even if they didn't, you know, yield the outcomes I wanted, I know that I left it all in the field. And that can just feel so much more empowering, can't it?
ELIZABETH: We've all been let down by organizations and people and we face performance reviews that feel terrible oftentimes is no fault of our own. And moving from what is this big giant target that is so dependent on all of these other factors to, what are the behaviors and actions in my control? And I'm gonna hang my hat on that. That puts you in the power position.
EMILIE: You mentioned a key word earlier when you said what gives you energy might be focusing on what you can control. And I wanna talk about energy management. Because when you're making the case for the good enough job, for a job that doesn't light you up, but it serves its purpose. One of the kind of tropes around that is a soul sucking job environment, right? Just like going in every day to an office that, uh, just grinds you down or makes you feel a certain type of way. I'm thinking of sort of cinematic exaggerations of this. Like office space, the movie.
ELIZABETH: Yes. The fluorescent lights.
EMILIE: Yeah. Which is very real for a lot of people. Or my favorite show, The Office, right. This idea that you're walking into an environment that is inane and dull and just soul crushing. You have a real clear argument in the book that it's our responsibility to make the energy, not to just look, to take the energy that we're picking up from around us. What do you mean by that?
ELIZABETH: So let's differentiate first between like truly soul sucking and just kind of lame. If an environment is truly soul sucking, you can only do so much. But most environments aren't. Most environments are just kind of blah. But if you're leading yourself, you take it upon you to create the energy you are hoping to find. And oftentimes how you do that is by modifying the periphery of the experience so not changing the element at the center, right? This gray cubicle, fluorescent light, boss who also, what you got cooking?
Like, you're not going to change that thing at the center, what you can change is the periphery, which is what are you listening to during your workday? What are you talking about in conversations with your co workers? Who are you inviting to your meetings? What are you eating during the workday? Are you sleeping enough? Ah, prior to that workday, right? When we focus on all the things that are draining our energy, we give them power. When we shift our lens to what elements of the periphery can I modify? So this thing at the center doesn't take so much from me. That's when we start to empower ourselves and it's really challenging to do when we're sold this narrative in shows like The Office and Office Space space in Dilbert and you know, a narrative as old as time that work is just going to suck us dry.
EMILIE: Yeah, absolutely. I like the idea of small steps taking you far too because it's just on the periphery. Like we might not be able to fundamentally change the core components of our role. And even a dream job, if it does exist, entails some day to day drudgery, right? That is just part of work. So what can we do to make our work experience more fun? And like, I think a lot about fitness when I think about energy management.
Like, the difference in my day when I force myself to get up and move my body. Midday is life giving. You know, like, especially as a mom of littles, like we are my mornings and my evenings are not me time. I wish they were, right? They're just not an option. And so if I can sneak out for a midday workout, if I can get in just a power walk, if I can take a call while moving, like to me that physiological change again on the periphery has a massive psychological impact in not only how I feel about work, but how I feel physically in my body and in my brain.
ELIZABETH: Absolutely. And what I love about your example is the day to day didn't really change, right? It's 30 minutes of the periphery that was altered. I feel like if someone gripes about their morning routine on LinkedIn like, I cold plunge and then I meditate and then I have three eggs and grass fed steak like you should. One, if you're a man, have to disclose what your wife is doing in that time, especially if you have children, that gives you this like, gigantic three hour window of self reflection.
And two, it's just not realistic for the vast majority of people. But it I guess in kind of a meta moment like detaching yourself from this notion that there is going to be this perfect thing and you can't be happy until you have this three hour block of time. You could make the argument it's throwing your hands up, but from my seat, it's empowering. Like, okay, this is what it is. What can I do in the middle of it to make it not so bad?
EMILIE: Totally. I think about how I might look back on this chapter in my life as a, uh, working mom with two littles. And the thing I don't want to feel is like at every moment I was trying to be somewhere else.
ELIZABETH: Yeah, it's so hard.
EMILIE: It is so hard because there's a lot of things I want to be doing. I want to do all the things, I love a lot of things, including being a mom. But I don't want to be feeling like I'm trying to escape the realities of my situation. And I think just calling it my baby making era has helped. Just like giving it a name as like, a temporary period I think has made a difference.
ELIZABETH: It's a season. It always is. Whether you're in motherhood, whether you're in a crappy job, whether your industry is under pressure. It's a season. And that's really challenging to remember when you're in the thick of these fight or flight responses, which all often happen, you know, in motherhood, with shrieking or inside of corporate America with these fake fire drills and false urgency.
But when you can ground yourself in that truth and say, you know what I am the only constant in my life. How I show up for me is the only thing I can control. And me, myself, and I, like, we're the common denominator in all of this. So if I'm continuously frustrated at work, if I'm continuously frustrated at home, if I'm continuously feeling sad and empty, that's on me.
EMILIE: Yeah. Yeah. That can feel really hard to hear for someone who's like, depressed. And you make some really good disclaimers throughout the book about the difference between, you know, a good enough job that's sort of grading and grinding you out a little bit versus a truly toxic or abusive situation. I think this is a good moment to call out that difference. Like when you say that's on you. When you say take responsibility to lead yourself, who are we really speaking to?
ELIZABETH: We are speaking into imperfection. So the subtitle of my book is Leading Yourself despite imperfect bosses, lethargic co workers, too many deliverables, weird economies, like all these things that we know are ever present inside of imperfect corporate experiences. It is not leading yourself in the face of a toxic boss an abusive work environment, a terrible, you know, food insecurity. Like that is in a different category, right?
EMILIE: Sub living wage wages, right?
ELIZABETH: Yes. And there's this big chart in the book that I go through examples of normal imperfection, just kind of general annoyances, garbage situations that you really don't want to be in for too long, at least in mass. And abusive situations. Truly toxic workplaces. And the call out I make is if you are in a truly toxic workplace, do not read this book. Do not, pick a different book. Pick how to find your next job. Like, skip to the end. Because there are certain environments that aren't workable. I think the challenge is we call it quits too early. And the spectrum is something that the nuance gets lost in of like, oh, my boss is kind of rude as other toxic jerk, you know?
EMILIE: Yeah, absolutely. We kind of jump to extremes very easily. Some people are like, I'm not going to quit because I'm not a quitter. I'm going to find a way to make this work. And you're like, no, girl, get the f*** out of there. Like, that person is a narcissist and you should not be working for them. You will lose your mind.
And then some of us are like waiting for the knight in shining armor equivalent of a dream job. Like it's just going to arrive on your plate and that if there's a moment of dissatisfaction, then you're on the job search again, right? So you're saying, okay, hold up. There's some major shades of gray here we have to really sink our teeth into.
ELIZABETH: The messy middle is where most people are. A job that's not like this huge cup filling, amazing experience that we're so excited to wake up on Monday morning. But most of the time it's not that bad. You know, there's some elements of meaning. We have some good relationships and generally things are pretty okay. That's the spot that I play in is how do you make that pretty okay job pretty good. So we're not taking, you know, horribly toxic and making it knight in shining armor. Those are two extremes. But operating in the messy middle, that's where the magic is.
EMILIE: I love it. You talk a lot on both your LinkedIn courses and in the book about the role of meaning and purpose when it comes to our careers. How does that play into all of this?
ELIZABETH: So there was a lot of data during the great resignation in 2020 and 2021 where people, you know, in mass quit their job searching for meaning and purpose. And I think the purpose movement really came to a head in that moment, because the absence of it became really obvious. We were all sitting at home. These peripheries of nice office lunches and fun time, you know, chat with our co-workers. That's all gone. And all that was left was the work.
And when all that was left was the work, the work felt really meaningless and transactional, and it didn't sit right for a lot of people. And it's unsurprising that in response to this mass exodus, you know, we're all going to go find our purpose somewhere else that's not here. Two things happened. One, people found new jobs, and they weren't any happier, right? The data tells us that the majority of people who left during the Great Resignation said they were better off with their old job, which is a frightening statistic.
EMILIE: Wow.
ELIZABETH: Number two, companies were quick to capitalize on this, like, we want purpose, you know, narrative. They said, you know, our organization, we have this great noble purpose, and come join us, and we're changing the world. And in the recruiting, marketing, and the employer branding and all sounded so good. And then when you get to work, you have too much to do and your boss is kind of frazzled, and, you know, it just didn't feel like it was promised. And it made for a really interesting predicament of people who expressed this deep desire to have work that was meaningful, left their jobs in search of it, and were ultimately let down in the absence of it for a second time in their career, at least.
And the challenge to me is that, that entire situation was propelled by this belief that purpose is something that you find, and purpose is something that your employer should be giving to you. Instead of purpose being something that you create for yourself, because you're the only common denominator in all of this. So the suggestion is not, you know, quit your job and join the Peace Core.
Instead, look for ways your work is making an impact. Are your colleagues able to go home at night? Are your customers feeling supported? Is your industry changing and you're excited to be a part of it? Like these small, seemingly less consequential moments of impact are how we actually feel purpose, not these big recruiting promises or abandoning corporate for the nonprofit sector, though that is noble. So if you're doing that, go on.
EMILIE: Go on, girl. If you're doing it. Yeah. What I'm hearing you say is that we have to really take the time to account for the impact we are already having, whether or not we appreciate it, right? To create some mindful awareness around it.
ELIZABETH: Yeah. I was going to say, it's easy for it to get lost. Especially if you're working remotely. We're busy. Inboxes are crowded, your work goes to another department, then passed around and you don't see where it ends up. But when you trace the ripple effect, your work experience changes.
EMILIE: Yeah. And I love that. And I always find dividing or sort of separating out purpose from the paycheck a little bit. Like, if you want more purpose in your life, you can go make that happen. You just might not get paid for that work. You know what I mean? Like, there are other ways to be civically engaged and involved and to be part of the social impact that you want to be a part of. Just don't expect someone to pay you to do it 40 hours a week, right. Like the whole ikigai chart is such a fallacy because sometimes the world doesn't need what you want to be doing to fuel your purpose.
ELIZABETH: Absolutely. And purpose is such a scary word. That's why I lead more towards meaning these days. It feels less like, check the box of purpose and more like, you know, that counted for something and that's enough.
EMILIE: Yeah, I found that meaningful. Yeah. That's so interesting. I mean, capitalism is really what we're talking about here, because maybe the world does need that help, but doesn't mean there's a profit margin in there. It doesn't mean there's a business enterprise in that and doesn't mean that someone will pay you to do that, right?
ELIZABETH: Yeah. I think the circles were created before the last couple of elections in terms of what you should be hoping for in a work experience. But again, it doesn't have to feel like you're changing the world every day. You can be making other people's work experiences a little bit more fun. You can be providing a good living for your family. And that is meaningful in itself.
EMILIE: Absolutely. Well said. I would be remiss if we didn't talk about what is arguably my favorite chapter in your book, which is all about knowing when to phone it in. And you write this sentence that just absolutely spoke to me and I think will speak to a lot of my listeners when you wrote, look, I'm still not particularly good at being chill in lower stakes situations, which I'm like, yes, me, it's me. I'm not chill about anything. I care so much about everything. And yet you're telling us, especially if you're a chronically high achieving, regularly burning out person, like myself, to just take it down a notch. Tell me how you came to that conclusion and what that's all about.
ELIZABETH: So I, I preface the book with saying I only execute 80% of this, even though I wrote it. Like, it is my own struggle of trying to relax and accept, accept imperfection in the face of things that really aren't that serious. So I'll tell you two experiences that led me to this notion that you should just phone it in sometimes. One is when I was waitressing at Applebee's and I was in college, you know, just trying to pay my bills, get some cash on the weekend. And I took it so seriously. And if I could look back at Elizabeth waitressing tables at Applebee’s, I would tell her to just relax. It's not, it's ranch dressing and $1 long islands. Like, take a deep breath.
And I think we all have those experiences where we look back at our early career self who was so angsty and so tense. We would tell them, it's not that serious. Just relax. So part of that was just age, but another part was seeing that a lot of my clients in consulting are in tense situations. And one client in particular, banking client, was on the brink of a major banking failure. And everybody was mad, everybody was yelling at each other. It's really, really tense.
And the CHRO said something at the time that stuck with me forever, which is, no one's going to bleed out on the table. And that grounding perspective changed everything. Yes, work matters a lot. It can be a profoundly meaningful experience and it can be something you care a lot about, but no one is going to bleed out on the table. And you should never cry over $1 Long Islands. [LAUGHTER] And like, just trying to ground in that truth has been a struggle in my own life and a struggle that I've heard so many people who read the book relate to, which is, sometimes you gotta phone it in. I mean, we're both working mothers. You, you gotta pick something to phone it in on before the universe picks for you.
EMILIE: Totally. We were just commiserating offline before we hit record here about. I'm in the midst of the four month sleep regression, which coincided beautifully with my return to work full time.
ELIZABETH: Yeah, it's awesome how that happens.
EMILIE: Yeah. So my little baby Jojo has been waking up every one to three hours a night for four and a half weeks now. And in reading your book, you were like, when I went back to work after maternity leave, I felt like my brain was broken. And that was the season in which I just needed to phone it in. And there's some truth to that, right? Which is like, we have to pick our battles. We have to make sure our basic needs are being met and we have to just like, reset our own expectations of ourselves and maybe work to reset others expectations of ourselves in certain seasons. That's not everyone's experience with motherhood, but in different parts of our life and different aspects of our career, there's a time in which phoning it in is just fine, right?
ELIZABETH: It is just fine. And the suggestion is that, if you don't pick an element to phone it in, the universe is going to pick for you and it's going to be on something that sucks. It's going to be like your health takes a big turn for the worst. It's going to be you let down someone on something really important because you were up late planning the office pizza party, right? This non-promotable work that, that women tend to take on.
And I think the suggestion of phoning it in, to me and so many other like Bossed Up, to use your phraseology, women, is met with such great resistance. But back to, is it defeated or is it empowering to say, you know what, on this element, whether you're phoning it in on your entire job because you're in a season of new motherhood, whether you're phoning it in on the least strategic elements of your job because you want this promotion, you know that stuff doesn't count for it. You are at choice and you have to decide before someone else does for you.
EMILIE: So well said. You're reminding me of Tiffany Dufu's book Drop the Ball, which really said, look, balls will drop. As you are juggling too much, you have to be the one to decide which balls to drop and just say like, these are not important to me. This is not promotable work. And be strategic about that. I love that, Elizabeth.
Well, I want to thank you first of all for just the approach to your book, the approach to leading yourself and for normalizing the good enough job. I think that is something that I'm. That's my new pedestal. Like, as a recovering perfectionist, good enough is great. What do you hope folks take away from this and from your work, if nothing else.
ELIZABETH: So the dedication in my book was to my son. And what I said was, you're never powerless. And I think in this environment where the economy is super weird, the political landscape is like, nauseating to say the least. We're under more pressure than we've ever been at work. The metrics are more granular than they've ever been. It's tempting to think that we're not in the driver's seat. And the suggestion of leading yourself is that even though all of these things are swirling, even though there's a bunch out of your control, you are in the driver's seat. And it's through these small shifts at work and in life, we help ourselves feel empowered. And it was there all along, we just missed it.
EMILIE: I love it. Elizabeth, thank you so much. Where can our listeners find out more about you and your excellent resources?
ELIZABETH: My book is everywhere. Books are sold. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target, wherever you buy your books, you check me out on ElizabethLotardo.com or follow me on LinkedIn.
EMILIE: Thanks, Elizabeth. And I will drop all those links in today's show notes. I so appreciate you.
ELIZABETH: Thanks for having me.
EMILIE: And now I want to hear from you. What did you make of my conversation with Elizabeth? How do you find navigating that pursuit of the dream job versus the realities of making work work?
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Let's keep the conversation going as always in the Bossed Up Courage Community on Facebook or in the Bossed Up Group on LinkedIn. And until next time, let's keep bossin’ in pursuit of our purpose and together, let's lift as we climb.
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