Arthi Rabikrisson 0:15
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Inspire your life podcast with me your host Arthi Rabikrisson.
I believe we find inspiration all around us, especially from the stories that we all have in us. My aim with the inspire your life podcast is to bring some of those real stories to light. Stories of my guests that resonate with you and it's by listening to the stories that we can be inspired and motivate ourselves to overcome, find a new path and rise even higher than we thought possible.
Joining me on the show today is Dr Tasha Eurich, the creator of the Tasha 10 paid forward project, which I was so generously welcomed into in 2022. Tasha and the family members, Tasha's Ten, well actually now number more than 10, have such compelling stories and backgrounds that as we start season three of the Inspire your life podcast, I will be spotlighting these incredible individuals in episodes to come. For now. However, I'm turning the spotlight quite fittingly to Tasha to open the Spotlight Series. So Tasha is an organizational psychologist and principal at the at the Eurich group, researcher and New York Times best selling author of the books, Bankable Leadership and Insight. Her life's work is to help people become the best of who they are and what they do. She is recognized as the world's top communication and organizational culture thinker, number one self-awareness coach, and most recently, being awarded the global guru award as number one communication thinker in the world. This is amazing. And Tasha, you are just simply amazing. You know, in the short time, everyone that I have gotten to know Tasha, I mean, believe you me, she has a heart of absolute gold. What I truly admire about Tasha is her reach, her business and her capacity as a coach, consultant, and speaker, she uses science to help successful executives achieve dramatic personal and organizational change. She's a contributor to Harvard Business Review, her expertise has been featured in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, all the big names everyone. And she has traveled to every continent, except Antarctica, and maybe that's going to change in the near future, Tasha.
I just want to quickly also mention that if you go to Tasha's website, you will find ( which I'll share in the show notes by the way), you will find the following purpose statement for the Tasha 10 Group, which says "it's a lifelong community of community builders, with global impact, working individually and collectively to model catalyze, and support human centered leadership to inspire Global Trust and build better businesses, institutions, and communities." Everyone, isn't that just so beautiful? I want to know now more about Tasha's journey, which is why our episode today is actually called owning your journey. So, enough from me, we're going to turn it over to Tasha. Tasha, it is my absolute honor to have you on the Inspire life podcast today. Thank you so much. And welcome,
Dr Tasha Eurich 3:59
Arthi, thank you so much. I can't tell you what a pleasure it's been to get to know you and to be here today.
Arthi Rabikrisson 4:05
Oh, man, as I said, The pleasure is mine and this journey that we're going through together through the Tasha 10, and even beyond that, it's just such a beautiful one, Tasha, I really, really want everyone to get to know more about the Tasha 10 and the work we're doing. But today, we want to know a bit more about you and about your journey. So tell us a little bit more things that I haven't mentioned things that are a little bit more personal that you willing to share, things about Tasha, what makes Tasha ,Tasha,
Dr Tasha Eurich 4:36
I love that. Well, I have to start as all psychologists would do, right with my childhood. I'm so lucky to actually be a fourth generation entrepreneur. And it goes all the way back to my great grandfather, who emigrated from Germany to the United States to Wisconsin, and, you know, worked and scraped by his whole life and was eventually able to get a loan on a dairy farm. And, you know, raised my, my grandpa and their, you know, his I think 11 Brothers and sisters, and really realize the American dream, obviously not without hardship, given the time, but really set the standard, I think in our family for hard work for Family Centered values for, you know, supporting each other. And then from there, you know, even to the most recent generation, before me was my mother, who started the first school in the United States in the 1980s, that trained and certified nannies to be put in the homes of dual income or single parent households. And it was very interesting, because it got her, you know, a variety of, you know, media coverage, she was placing home nannies in the homes of a list Hollywood celebrities. But to me, she was my mom, and I got to literally, you know, as, at that time, she was a single parent, I got to follow her around and watch her be a CEO, and really learn from her not just sort of what you do as a CEO, but what you need to embody and to embody a mindset of service, and of bringing out the best in other people. And so, you know, I sort of joke that that's hardwired, you know, not just into my DNA, but into my life experience. So it's no wonder flash forward to college, when I decided, hey, you know, I wonder if there's a thing that takes business and psychology and puts them together. And sure enough, you know, I was not the first person who thought of that. But I discovered the field of organizational psychology. And from there, it's funny, because the university that I went to was so small, it was, you know, on the east coast in the US. And I actually had to move to New York City, to even take a class in Organizational Psychology, I moved to there, the summer of 2001. And what I can remember is just the heavens sort of opened that, you know, the first 10 minutes of the class. So it was being taught by this kind of boring or not boring, bored, Italian TA, who, I'm sure she had many other things she wanted to do with her summer, besides teach this class, organizational psychology, but I fell in love. And I knew literally from that moment that that was what I was put on this earth to do. And so from there, you know, kind of talked about what my journey was, but I really feel like it's important to share, you know, for anybody who has been lucky enough to find something they love to do, how we got there. And I think a lot of it is, you know, being open to possibilities, a lot of it is really trying to take opportunities as they come. But I couldn't be more grateful for for this life that I've been able to have. And really, as you said, waking up every day and fulfilling my mission of helping other people.
Arthi Rabikrisson 8:02
Ah, so so beautiful. Tasha. And, you know, I love how you've had a role model. Yeah, well, many role models, throughout those these generations in your family and closer to home, your mom, watching her grow this phenomenal business, seeing her straddle career, family, being a CEO, and dealing with all of those things. And you know, as you went into into college and sort of a match made in heaven, in terms of organizational psychology, to have that all happen for you, and sitting where you are at this moment. I mean, you had and I know this from our chats as well previously, that this is such a sweet spot for you in terms of passion, in terms of love, in terms of everything that you want to do from an impact and purpose perspective. I think that's so so beautiful,
Dr Tasha Eurich 8:53
You sum that up perfectly. That's exactly right.
Arthi Rabikrisson 8:56
So you know, and it's making me think, again, about our topic for today about owning your journey, because that ownership in terms of your journey started well before, even like you even thought about it consciously. But I just want to maybe make it clear to our listeners today. What does it mean, because we talk about owning our journey, and people maybe throw it as a as a throwaway comment sometimes what does it actually mean as a concept to own one's journey?
Dr Tasha Eurich 9:19
I love that you pose this question and it led to a bit of reflection for me honestly, to be able to say something that is worthy of the question that you asked. And what I think it comes down to, in a really practical sense, is recognizing the pivot points that your journey is presenting to you and staring them in the face with unflinching honesty and commitment to what it is you're trying to, what journey it is you want to be on. So an example you know would be I've already shared that that I had to literally leave the university I was going to at the time to find a class on this. And I remember, you know, my dad who was was very kind to help me shoulder some of the financial burden for that. He said, Why are you doing this? Like, aren't there enough great classes where you're going to school? And I said, Well, yes, but I have a feeling that this is going to be this really is going to be a turning point in my life. And I'm either going to realize that I love this, and I want to do it, or I'm going to say, oh, gosh, I need to, you know, investigate something else. Because I was a theater and psychology major. And I knew that I didn't want to go into kind of traditional counseling, or clinical psychology, it just wasn't something that that made my heart sing in the same way. But being able to say, gosh, you know, I'm 20 years old, I'm going to move to a city, I've been to, you know, three or four times for the summer completely by myself. I had to, I took a train from Vermont, which is where I was going to school, and I had, like, all of my belongings with me and showed up at Penn Station and had to figure out, Where am I going. And you know, I had no money, I had nothing at the time. So that, to me was an example of owning my journey and by the way, not that I have any of this figured out. But as I sort of reflect on that, of just just going for it, and not necessarily knowing how it's going to turn out but trusting my intuition, that that was an important pivot point for me, where I was, again, either going to fling myself into this, or I was going to have to find a plan B.
Arthi Rabikrisson 11:32
You know, I'm so glad you mentioned the intuition part, because that was exactly what I was thinking is you were relating the story around that particular instinctual response, like, and then the answer I suppose, that you gave to your dad that I kind of have to try this something is telling me I need to go and check this out. And it's either gonna work or it's not. But if I don't do it, I'm not going to know, and how beautiful that you did actually go and do it. So that gut instinct is definitely a sign that, you know, there is something on the horizon. But for many of us, we don't necessarily listen to that, or, or we don't know, what is a clue that's potentially giving us a little bit of a sense that there's a bit of change, there's something different that we maybe need to explore. In your sort of experience, or, or even with, you know, with the work that you do, Tasha, what are potentially some of the signs that we and our listeners can actually kind of the we can use to help us identify that there is something they this potentially something we need to investigate and explore that pivot point or that inflection point that you're talking about.
Dr Tasha Eurich 12:36
So again, I'm going to go really practical with this because I think, you know, life is complicated, and it's not a crime to make things simple for ourselves. Yes, my belief is one of the easiest ways to find those, you know, instincts, especially if we haven't really been listening to them, is actually to look at who we feel jealous of. You know, we think jealousy, that's a very bad emotion. And, you know, certainly if we get caught up in it, it can eat us alive. But I remember for example, when I, you know, right around that age, I was very jealous of authors. When sex that was when Sex in the City was very big, right? The first iterationand I would watcht Carrie Bradshaw, I just feel like this aching pang of jealousy. And I didn't really know what to do with it. I didn't know why I felt that way. But I felt it. And you know, it actually took me quite a long time to circle back to that. And that was another pivot point, maybe we'll have some time to talk about. But I noticed that I was jealous of my TA, you know, in this class, and I thought, God every day, this lucky woman gets to wake up and focus on this discipline that is just to me that you know, the most interesting thing I could possibly have ever dreamed of. And that I think can help guide us it's obviously not the totality of leaning into our intuition. But I think especially if we're feeling like we don't have a line into our intuition, it can help us. And then from there, we can explore it further and say, Well, you know, what about like, what about their life is what I want my life to look like? And, you know, for me, in that case, with the TA, it was being able to study and to research and, you know, eventually as I learned to apply and to be a practitioner, but I think you know, that can set us off on the journey.
Arthi Rabikrisson 14:32
Oh, I like that. I really, really like that. And, you know, no one would would say to would even think to say that jealousy could be something that we could look into. I love that you've been so candid about that. How did that and you've given us a couple of instances here now, how did these actually help you to deepen your own self awareness? Which is something you are so incredibly passionate about terms of things you write personal transformation, tell us a little bit about it that journey for you?
Dr Tasha Eurich 15:01
Well, the preface to this is, when I first started my book, Insight, and I started, you know, working on the research for it, and maybe 2014. I had this delusion of you know who better than me to write a book about self awareness. Of course, I am so self aware, and I should be able to teach everyone how, wrong. And as I was working on the book, you know, obviously, I have all the research and the research, you know, some way gives you a false sense of confidence that you understand something. But I also, as part of the research for the book really tried to live, you know, these tools and these approaches that, that I was uncovering, both from the research, you know, that we did and from other people that I learned from, and I discovered that, you know, I'd spent quite a long period of my life feeling that I had myself almost completely figured out, but had a lot more room to improve than, you know, I had imagined. So the preface to anything I'm about to tell you is that this is a journey that we're all on and most of us have more improvement in our self awareness to do than we think we do. And I am in that exact same boat. But I do think to your original question. Myself awareness has been improved in those moments that I have defined as pivot points in my life. And this is actually something I'm exploring in the current book I'm writing about how to how to thrive in a world that is chaotic and constantly changing. I think we've all had experiences where we felt like, you know, something wasn't quite right in our lives, or, you know, the things that are happening to us are causing an outsized reaction in the stress that we feel, we're just thinking, like, why is this silly thing, so upsetting to me, or, you know, in my case, I'm gonna give you an example, you know, flashing forward probably about 10 years, where I was in a, you know, what, at the time was supposed to be my dream job. I had spent, you know, probably about five, and well, three or four years out of my doctoral program working in a big fortune 500 engineering company. And I had by a stroke of luck, or something, been hired by the CEO of a hospital, here in Denver, Colorado, where I live in the US, to basically start Organizational Psychology and leadership development in that organization from the ground up. And I had been in the role for about maybe a little bit more than a year, and we were doing amazing things, we built a corporate university, we were getting all of the senior leaders to teach in it. So it was this really sort of beautiful way to not just, you know, train our workforce, but to engage them and to make them more connected to the people that, you know, were the sort of leaders that they didn't use to see any more than in townhall meetings, for example, and we were doing a lot of other things. But something just didn't feel right. And I kept for a while I questioned that, and I said, this is everything you've ever wanted, you know, what, why are you coming home at night and just feeling so exhausted? Or why are you feeling so stressed by just minor obstacles or barriers in your way at work that, you know, frankly, are minor compared to the impact that you're making. And that was actually what sent me out on another pivot point, saying, maybe I'm not cut out to be in an internal role. And a corporation, you know, I, I had sort of that, and again, who was jealous of, I was jealous of a lot of people who were thought leaders and consultants who had their own companies and who were, you know, not just working with one organization, but many organizations and different organizations. And so that was a, you know, something that it took me a little while to get to, and maybe we can talk about sort of how that happened. But I think that was another big jump in my self awareness. You know, the first point, maybe, career wise, at least was, I want to do Organizational Psychology forever. The next one was, you know, the way I want to do the way I want to practice my careers, maybe not what I was originally anticipating. So that was kind of another another self awareness moment for me that that changed, you know, literally everything.
Arthi Rabikrisson 19:27
Right. And, you know, I'm actually connecting the dots to the fact that you come from a family of entrepreneurs, as you said, and perhaps that was always niggling in the back. And are you, you know, as you were saying, your story, it was resonating with me because I come from a family of entrepreneurs, and you know, like, it starts to grate you because you think back to, you know, like, I would think back to my dad and his business, my uncle and his business. Again. Sorry, I had I had male dominantly that's a whole other story around that, but it was obviously circumstances here in South Africa. But, but what I always used to remember in my corporate journey was man, my dad was making it on his own. And I think eventually I got to that point where a corporate didn't fit anymore. And either well, either the corporate didn't fit, or maybe I didn't fit. And I think that's kind of what you're saying as well. But then tell us the extension to the story now, Tasha, that additional bits post that what happens?
Dr Tasha Eurich 20:23
So so what happened was, I as a, as an incredibly, probably surprisingly risk averse person, I hatched a plan, because what I was not ready to do was wake up one day, go into the CEO, and put in my notice, with no clients, no business, no business plan. And so what I started to do was I thought about it like a hobby. And I said, I, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to read some books about starting a business, you know, how do I create an LLC? How do I, you know, set up sort of operationally an organization? How, how do I how can I start to do some networking with the people that I know to see what types of prospects there might be in terms of my, you know, assisting other other leaders in their work? Yes. And before I knew it, and literally in two or three months, I started to get work. And my, my employment at my, the organization I worked at, didn't prevent me from from doing something on the side. So I thought, Well, why don't I just kind of see where this goes, right. And so I would joke that five days a week, I was the director of organizational development at a major hospital. And then on the weekends. I was, you know, a consultant and my brand new firm, the Eurich group. And sure enough, that sort of started to take on steam, and I thought, okay, now I have a proof of concept. As a risk averse person, maybe this is something that I can do. So I went to my CEO, and I kind of I was very honest with him. And he said, you know, he was lovely, he was so supportive about it. He said, I knew I could tell, right, when you got here, that we weren't going to have you forever, and we're so we're so grateful, you know, that you've spent this time with us, and you've started all these programs, and, you know, many of them, as far as I hear are going on, you know, still to this day and you said, but you know, all right, what do we need to do? And I said, What if I work three 10 or 12 hour, days a week, and then I get two days a week to you know, see where this goes? And he said, Okay, we can do that. So we changed, you know, the terms of my employment. And I started to do that. And it just sort of naturally progressed, where, you know, I realized I literally woke up one day, this is what's funny about pivot points is we don't feel like we're going to have that level of confidence. But if we go towards it, I woke up one day, and I said, today's the day. Yeah, and I gave them I think I gave them like three months notice. And, you know, we were very careful about transferring everything and making sure that, you know, nothing was really affected in the work that we were doing at the hospital. But then there I was, and I had to kind of deal with a lot of my friends who didn't see it. It's very common, I think, in situations like that, and maybe you can share your experience. People don't understand. They don't under they have no idea why I would walk away from it, you know, and extremely by all accounts, cushy, well paying, you know, predictable job to be my own boss. And they didn't know that I had authority problems. You know, I kind of kept those under wraps. But for me, I felt for the first time like I was totally free. And even though you know, I spent several years being pretty concerned, even though it worked out great. And it kept working out. There was always that feeling of ,did I do the right thing, but then I would still wake up in the morning and feel excited. When before I was waking up in the morning and feeling burnt out. And I knew that you know, frankly, even if I failed, it was the right decision.
Arthi Rabikrisson 24:12
Tasha, I feel like you're narrating parts of my story.
Dr Tasha Eurich 24:15
Really? Tellme what resonated with you. I'm curious.
Arthi Rabikrisson 24:19
You know,it's so so the whole idea about that freedom, that ability to control a situation because you know how it is in corporates now. I mean, you get up and up and up levels, but eventually there's a ceiling. I mean, let's be clear. There is a ceiling in many instances, and eventually you're just butting heads, and it seems you butting heads at the wrong places. But at the same time, it's a case of as you were saying that something switches something triggers that you just wake up and you say that we're doing this, it we're going for it and I think that's exactly what happened for me as well. And you know, when I was when I was listening to your story to things that were standing out for me was one of the planning elements. So, you know, when you kind of got your mind into it, you started to look for information about how do I set up things so that planning is key when you taking a leap of faith into entrepreneurship. Absolutely. And then the second thing that stood out for me was that support from your ex boss to actually say, I actually knew that this could happen. And here it is standing in front of me, and I'm going to support you. And, you know, those are key things, I think, for any entrepreneur to have planning in place to have support in place. And that kind of then opens up all these other opportunities, potentially. But it's also making me think, Tasha, you when you look back now, and I mean, we're doing so much of this reflection, which is so beautiful. When you look back, are there any regrets? Would you have handled things differently?
Dr Tasha Eurich 25:50
This is an interesting question. I, for better or for worse, don't find myself spending a lot of energy regretting things. And actually, if I look at my life, the only real regret I have was not taking an opportunity to study abroad when I was at university, and I think like, that's another example of a pivot point that I wasn't listening to. Right. But from my perspective, you know, the details are there not irrelevant, but the details are always manageable. Yeah. And as long as I was ready to declare failure, at a reasonable point, if it got that way. And, you know, I was sort of looking at what I could do differently. I don't feel I don't feel regret for any of the choices I made, even though I still was learning my way into it. Because there isn't anything that happened that I say, gosh, wow, I just wish that had not happened that way. Because even if it was, for example, something that didn't go quite the way I wanted to, I learned something. And you know, I had I remember when I first started out, I had this notebook. And I would write, I would write these very blunt and candid lessons to myself that I had learned. And I'm actually not even going to share any of them because they're so blunt. But but it would be like Note to self for next time. And it would be you know, the first 10 or so pages of whatever notebook, I was taking notes at the time, and I would force myself to sit down and read that list every week. And you know, there were some times where I'd say, oops, I made that mistake again, better, better highlight that one. So that i see it next time. And that's not you know, I've never been accused of being a Pollyanna type of person, where I'm just, you know, everything is great. And, but I feel like, yeah, the regret isn't something that resonates with me. Because of that, because I was able to, to do my very best to learn as much as I could from it.
Arthi Rabikrisson 27:55
Ya and you know, the key thing there is this always learning and opportunity, even in the worst of times, even in those potential failures. And I think that's something for us as the listeners, key to remember, right, and that's part and parcel of walking and owning our journey, you know, there are going to be those setbacks. But it's not about berating yourself that, oh, why did I do this, but rather, looking a little bit in the periphery and figuring out? Well, what else could come from this? You know, and I think that's very important, from a mindset perspective. Right. Tasha? You mean, you've given us such a beautiful nuggets, you know, in terms of the process of walking the journey, sharing your own journey, which is, you know, so beautiful to hear, and so candid as well, maybe let's, let's cement it for our listeners today, in terms of what are those key elements? As we're all walking our journeys, today, at this moment? What are some of these key elements that we need to be mindful of as we continue to take power through our journey?
Dr Tasha Eurich 28:58
Wow, that's a great question. So I think what what sticks out to me from this conversation, is, first of all, listening to your intuition. But at the same time, not going blindly on intuition is, is finding a proof of concept and testing it and being really honest with yourself, and if you need help getting other people to be honest with you, about you know, sort of the viability of what you're intending to do. And I think if you sort of toggle between those things of you know, just waking up every day with with a passion to serve in whatever way you you feel you are put on this earth to do, but a practical mind. I think, you know, for me, that served me well and it's something that was really instilled in me from my mom. She was my I had like the best free career coach, I still do. My mom actually came up with my most recent Working Title of books that I'm working on right now. So like, she's, she's gold. And maybe that's the third thing, going back to what you said is just support and having people that will not just support you, but be honest with you when you need to. And that's what I call those people loving critics. There's, there's nothing more valuable, I think, a loving critic.
Arthi Rabikrisson 29:01
I absolutely agree. I love that term a loving critic. We all need that and i am sure we all do have that. We just sometimes dont recognise them.
Dr Tasha Eurich 30:22
Sometimes we dont want to ask them because we know we are going to get an honest response. Its much easier to ask if we get a terrible haircut, the friend that says no you look great no matter what but the truth sets us free
Arthi Rabikrisson
It might irritate us or make us upset in the moment but afterwards it really does give us some great food for thought and actions in better steps forward
Dr Tasha Eurich
And we have to love ourselves enough to hear that truth, because if, without it we are not empowered to own journey
Arthi Rabikrisson
I love that Tasha. We are coming to end of this conversation but I mean I could go on and on talking to you because there are such beautiful things that we are discussing today. We are all already into our 2023 journeys and I hope for our listeners out there, it is giving a really great sense of things like how do we listen to our intuition, how do we actually get the courage to move on those pivotal points, how do we seek out support from those around us and those who elevate us to the next level as well. Tasha, as you look forward into 2023 what else is in store for you? You mentioned the book, what else are you doing in terms of your journey?
Dr Tasha Eurich
You know I am just lucky to be able to keep doing what I am doing. Which is writing, researching, spending time with our Tasha 10 family and speaking, that is always a big part of what I am doing. I have the best job ever, I get to travel the world and meet fabulous people and share the work that I do and then I get to work with, my standard is for the CEO that I coach and the clients I work with is they have to be amazing enough that I would work for them free, if I had to. So I cant think of anything better than that.
Arthi Rabikrisson
Absolutely, you are, as I said earlier your sweet spot you passion space, its so beautiful to hear. As we end off our conversation Tasha, please I would love it if you share something that inspires you, it could be a quote, a song lyric, a poem even or something spiritual. What is something that keeps you growing personally and professionally?
Dr Tasha Eurich
I am going to share a quote by Gerta that is so fundamental to me that I actually have a tattoo of it. The quote is "whatever you do or dream you can, begin it! Boldness has genius, power and magic in it"
Arthi Rabikrisson
Amazing. Tasha thank you so much for your time today, thank you for sharing all these beautiful nuggets of wisdom and sharing about your journey to.
