Ditch The Frameworks. Ask: Who Am I Talking To? with Jennifer Houle

[0:00] from a shelved HR manuscript to a Substack practice

Dan Korus: So that includes the Substack, the podcast, kinda all of it and what we've been doing is basically corporate emotional intelligence training for leaders in the greater the Pacific Southwest and Pacific Northwest

Jennifer Houle: That's amazing. This

Dan Korus: Yeah. It's been so fun.

Jennifer Houle: I love I love hearing about it because at some point I would also like to go and do my own thing. But I know I've spoken to so many amazing people who have kind of tried that without like just kind of cold cold stopped it. And I think it is better to do it if you can manage on the side and then you might feel a lot more ready to then go into it full time. So

Dan Korus: Yeah, it takes the pressure off of performance. Yeah. You know, like I I do have friends who are also doing the the full time trying to make it work right now. And I think in some aspects that pushes them to deliver more faster er, but I like I don't you know, if I didn't get a client for the next six months and I just had fun screwing around on Substack and, you know, making friends and recording awesome podcasts and learning, that would be a win. Yeah. So

Jennifer Houle: So absolutely. It's fun. It's it's it's fun. Substack is has been very interesting for sure. Yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah. What's been interesting about it?

Jennifer Houle: I think like I am very social media verse. Like I d have not had Facebook or Instagram or anything like that for I like I can't even tell you. Facebook probably like a decade or more or longer. And so coming onto Substack, I was like, what what is this gonna be like? Am I gonna get like sucked into this black hole? And yes, but It's just it's just better. People are friendly. I don't know if maybe I'm more emotionally ready to engage with people in that way. But it it's it's been really interesting. And I just noticed that you get back what you put in. And so at some like lower periods where I just didn't have it in me, I didn't give it anything. And then you see that result and then you give it more, and then your numbers go up and engagement and you meet cool people. So it is it's a it's a lot of work though, depending on what your goals are. What your goals are with it, it is a lot of work.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Do you have goals with it or is this just for fun?

Jennifer Houle: So I feel like we've just started, haven't we? I joined Substat because I had written a manuscript about HR. It was like this HR burn it all down mass manifesto type thing. And then I was like, I know, knowing nothing about how to go about this type of thing, I was like, I know, I'm just gonna send it out to a whole bunch of literary agents and see what happens. There's nothing to lose. And I've never done that before. And I really like fiction. That's what I'm passionate about with my writing. and then I heard From one person who was like, Hey, I'm interested. This isn't enough to be a book. but let's talk and I'll give you some tips. So we met every month for about a year and he just kind of coached me and he was saying, like, for nonfiction you have to have even for fiction now these days, you have to have a platform. So he's like, What are what are your like follower, count, subscribe? I was like

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: You're gonna be really disappointed to hear that I do not I don't have that. And so he was like, Well, what about and we talked about why? And it's just the uncomfortableness of I it it's performative. It's just very performative social media. And he was like, Well, have you tried like your audience would be on LinkedIn and would be on Substack? And so that was kind of the reason why. And then my mind changed about what I wanted that to be anyway. Like, right, if today I would never attempt to publish that first manuscript that I wrote because it was like Painous and embarrassing and awful. And so Substack then has become a practice of kind of fine-tuning my nonfiction writing and I'm not in a rush anymore. I felt like I was in a rush then when he said that. I'm like, I need to hold his attention and do all these things. He's he's like, get this many subscribers and do this. And and now I'm like, I don't know if that's as important to me as what I'm doing on Substack. Like it's it's happening in real time and it's really nice. And so Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Korus: It's kind of replaced the goal in a way, the interaction of it all.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. And then I look at someone like Sam from Slow AI, Dr. Sam, publishing his book and his journey in doing that. And I don't know, I I talked to a lot of people in this research stage and a lot of people were like, you if if you get to the point where you have like, say, thirty thousand substack sub subscribers, there's more benefit for you just to self publish than there would to go would be to go through an agent and like a publishing company and stuff. Like Really, you that means you've got the platform, you've got the audience, and so why not just control it all? So it's been yeah, it's it's been a learning for sure. Yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah. And so what is Substack giving you that, you know, you didn't think it would initially? 'Cause it's not okay, you got on there for like an audience and you're like, Okay, this is gonna be my platform where I'm gonna grow an audience and that'll help me translate into book sales and book awareness later on. So like what is it giving you now? You know? Like aside from like all the cool people and and the fun and

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. Real time feedback, I think, on what people are actually interested in, and I think that's really important. it's giving me validation that something that I thought maybe I do well at or well enough at, is true. Like that's a hard one. I have I I'm not a very confident person. And so the type of validation that you get from people there is it's super helpful. It feels good. It feels really good. And then Community. And I know like strategic linguist was doing a live the other day on Substack talking about n not liking the word community. and I totally understand. And like I will take the her word for it because she's the expert on on language and all of those types of things. but it is it is a sense of community and people kind of cheering you on and wanting to see you succeed. So that feels that feels good. I'm not a very social person either. I have my like tight group and then I don't like to venture beyond that. And there is something nice about having that broader community and support on Substack. But I also like, except for things like this, don't have to actually go and hang out with people. It sounds awful. It it sounds terrible, but that's just

Dan Korus: get it. Yeah. No, I a hundred percent get it. Yeah. I've got the core group of friends and then everyone else outside of that doesn't they don't have to matter if I don't want them to. And that sounds shitty, right? But it's really not. It's just kind of choosing your your group and where you want to put your energy.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah, it's capacity, it's bandwidth, it's all of those. It's easy for me to to like someone's note and like restack or comment. It's not easy for me to like go out and hang out with someone for a few hours. That's like really hard to do. It's it's exhausting and I find it scary and all of those things. So I do like this kind of the safety of of that kind of situation more.

Dan Korus: Okay, good. well thank you for going outside of your comfort zone and doing a podcast with me. I appreciate it. Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. Of course. I'm so excited. I'm I've been looking forward to this. This is great.

Dan Korus: Awesome. What are you looking forward to most?

Jennifer Houle: Getting to know you, chatting. I think that you're really funny. Jay Hong and I were just talking about about that. And there there are certain again, this is the weird thing about subset, there are certain people that you just end up being more drawn to. And it's something about something clicks, there's a funny joke, there's there's something easy about it

[7:29] why Substack lets people drop the mask

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Houle: where there's a lit there's always a mask, it's always performative, but there's a little bit less with certain people. And I'm like, I feel like you're one of those people. I think that you're you're fun and funny and smart. And I also like that your podcast features a lot of women. Mm-hmm. Like that's not unnoticed by me and I think others. And so those are all really like legit and good things in my opinion.

Dan Korus: Thanks. What a nice compliment. I really appreciate that. I think that having a mask for me is hard because it just makes it uninteresting. And I I like having fun. I like un unfiltered banter. I think it's just way more exciting and more fun. And more people should do that. And so yeah, I think I I like it for that reason that I feel like there's a lot of incredibly successful people that take their masks off on Substack.

Jennifer Houle: Yes, yeah.

Dan Korus: And you know, I think in any other setting, like if I got an email for them or if it was like a LinkedIn post or even on Instagram, I'd be like, okay, this would be a different person. But you just get like a little bit more them, you know, the dials turned up. And for whatever reason, Substack is just a safe space there. Maybe because it's smaller, maybe because other people are doing it and leading the way. Maybe it's because there's so much content on there that it feels like less permanent and less findable. Yeah. Somehow. Yeah. But yeah, it it's so much easier to be yourself there. So I yeah, it's cool. And I think that yeah, I'm glad that people are noticing that because that's something I care deeply about. I don't think that we need more voices of what I would call and I think, you know, what we've been led to believe is like typical leadership backgrounds, you know? And we just don't need more of that. So I agree. You know, and and so I've been trying to be really intentional about who I have on and make sure that everyone, you know, that that we're that we're creating a space for voices of, you know, atypical leaders.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. It has to happen. It has to happen. And I think the safe the safer choice is not to. and I I think that there's so much benefit in having a mix. Like it doesn't all it had doesn't have to be one extreme or the other, but for so long it has been one extreme. And yeah, it it is safer to i it's kind of like what you said too about the substack, like being able to be yourself. I feel like the more I lean into who I really am. Like who my partner and my son know me to be, the more success I'm finding on the platform. And if there are people who don't like it, because there are certainly are, that's what the mute button is for, right? It's just it's just so easy. I'm like, I don't I don't like what you said. And it might not even be anything necessarily like pointedly,

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: you know, like they're not tr looking for a fight or anything, but I'm just like, no, I don't like that.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Fuck Yeah. Yeah,

Jennifer Houle: Exactly, exactly. So yeah.

Dan Korus: we don't need to spend our time thinking about that. No So you said the more you are the person that you are with your you know, your partner and your son, the more the the better Substack seems to go.

Jennifer Houle: I mean like the more I am like the person I am with them. Like you know what I mean? I can be a hundred percent me around them, and everything that comes with it. And the more I translate that into Substack, then the more success I've found there for sure.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Can I ask who is that person?

Jennifer Houle: The the me that I am with my family. I keep they're not even home. I'm like, they're over there, but they're not. Who is that person? Ugh, I don't know. Com complicated.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Houle: I don't know. I don't if I knew, if I knew, then I feel like I would reach some point of enlightenment. So I don't know. Yeah.

Dan Korus: Here's a better question. what elements seem to drop away once you get online?

Jennifer Houle: online like work online or

Dan Korus: Sure. Or Substack, either. Both.

Jennifer Houle: That's a yeah. I don't know, Dan. I don't know. A lot. Like the every body language. I feel like I have to be better, like sit up straighter, speak more eloquently. I don't know. And and I think a lot of that comes from, and we talked about this in the interview, my lack of a formal education, post-secondary education. And with that comes a lot of overcompensating, proving Proving yourself. And so I think that, you know, I I'm really lucky I work at an organization, a phenomenal organization, where I can be super, super honest and can be myself. And I think with age I'm starting to embrace that a little bit more too. There's that like not like giving as many fucks as before.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. But I don't know. I don't know. What part of me drops when I'm it's hard to say. It depends. It's con in contextual, maybe.

Dan Korus: Mm. Yeah. I think I think for me it's hard to bring like grumpiness online. Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah, yeah.

Dan Korus: You know, and so when I'm grumpy, like I just give like a fake nice note. And I don't like people I don't know if people can like read into that. Yeah. But, you know, or or my emails get shorter or you know, there's just less emojis or something. You know, there's just less effort into trying to be nice. You know, and so I think like that, I can't take I can't take the bad days with me too. Yeah. You know, or like the low energy days where I'm like, my gosh, I don't have energy for, you know, a lot of things. And so I think it just ends up coming off as like more flat. And just because, you know, my face reads as intense, you know, like this is this is my normal face. People are like, Dan, you have resting bitch face. Yeah. What are you talking about? You know? But that's just that's just who I am. And so I have to try really hard to when I am happy or when I am happy to see people, like I actually have to try really hard to like make them know that I am happy to see them. Like it takes people years to really like understand my humor and know when I'm happy versus not.

Jennifer Houle: You are a hundred percent naming it. So it it's it's kind of that, right? Like I am a I'm a pretty dark person. Yeah. Dark humor, dark thoughts. Always in my head, overthinking, overanalyzing. Yeah. So it is that. Like if I could just show up in the world when when COVID happened and we had to wear masks everywhere, I was like, fuck, thank God I don't have to pretend to smile at everyone. Because I don't want I don't want to. Right? Like I I just wanna I just want to exist. So yeah, it is a lot of that. It's it's a lot of and sometimes I feel like I wanna break the fourth wall so badly, but I feel like everyone else would be like, What is happening to this individual? I just wanna be like like when we're in a board meeting at work, I wanna be like, This is so fucking stupid, you guys. This is so weird. Like we're all grown ups, are we grow like what is happening? And also My partner and I have talked about if if you could hear what was in my head, like it it would be a very interesting show because it would be all sorts of the weirdest shit ever when it should be like a really serious moment. And so that is like dropping point because I think you can't behave like that in public. It w you would get like institutionalized.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah, totally tough. It's yeah, and I think there's a select few of people who can and I think they do it at risk of their career because people are either gonna latch onto it and think that they're you know amazing and people who are super authentic and honest and out there, and then you'll have other people, you know, where okay, if we did say that in the board meeting, like I wouldn't get invited back. You know, and like people don't want that kind of friction. People don't want that kind of honesty. Like they want to live in like the comfort of the illusion. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Like within the play. Yes.

[14:58] work is a play and the stakes are lower than they look

Jennifer Houle: And it is a play. Like it's not it it's it's not real. Like it's and for a lot of work, the stakes are so fucking low. Like we're talking low stakes shit. One day, one day off the record, I would love to have a conversation with you and tell you all about a company that I worked at. yeah. And how low stakes and how not real anything was. 'cause it was I feel like you would be really interested in this. It was A bizarre experience. but yeah, absolutely. And like I said, the company I work at now, I I can bring more of that to the table and and say things, but again, you still have to be you still have to be at a certain level and you still have to be taken seriously and you still have to add value and all of those things. You can't just like flop around saying the alphabet backwards and like

Dan Korus: No, having like a fun time, you know, or yeah, saying saying what you think about situations and as they're not giving yeah, not giving credence to things that are just blown out of proportion because they don't matter. Yeah. You know, and and I think that like one of the frustrating parts is that for a lot of people who are trying to survive in corporate or are trying to, you know, level up or get the next promotion, like if they do find a spot that's stable. Bringing that honesty and lowering the veil definitely like negatively impacts your ability to climb. You know, so while you may have like profound benefits not only in your work health, your ability to get work done, like, you know, your your impacts on the organization might be better due to, you know, like your authenticity, like no one's gonna appreciate it. Like it's not you know, like they're not gonna like that. they want someone who wears the mask, you know, and they'd rather have some I think it in a lot of cases, in what I've seen at least, you know, they'd rather have someone who wears the mask and doesn't doesn't cause waves and is just more neutral overall as a person is just able to play both sides all the time. So

Jennifer Houle: It's risky, right? And it's that executive presence thing. Like when we were just talking about it yesterday at work and our managing partner was talking about the executive presence. and I I do find that to be super problematic. He's he's the best, the best guy. but yeah, like what does that mean? And when we're talking about fundraising and looking for LPs, I it's a real it's the real deal that it matters a lot. So yeah. Yeah. It is it's very risky for the individual to take off the mask at work and then it's risky for the organization as well. So this is why we want to go off and do our own things, right? Because maybe we can do it in a way that changes changes everything.

Dan Korus: Yeah, absolutely. Do you think so you've got a lot of philosophies floating around over there? Do you do you wanna you know, aside from the manuscript and aside from, you know, if that ever goes if you wanna ever well, I guess Substack is kind of the primary angle for you, right? But and I guess shit. All right. I lost it.

Jennifer Houle: Doing our own thing, being

Dan Korus: Well, like my question is you have a lot of thoughts around organizational systems in the workplace. Do you ever wanna like go do consulting and try and bring that to other people? Do you ever wanna build your own company and institute it yourself as like a a a principle of proof?

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. Really much do. Yes. I do, but but here here's the problem. In in my head I keep thinking as I go towards as I think more about retirement, because I word on the street is that you were very young. That's what I heard. So maybe you're not thinking about that, but like I'm

Dan Korus: I don't know where you're at.

Jennifer Houle: Well, yeah. But I'm like up there. And so I'm thinking about things like that. And I think to myself, do I s do I want to continue being like an embedded HR person in an organization or do I wanna start doing my own thing and start preparing for that kind of, you know, I don't know, d different formula. So I do, but then I was out at this networking thing and this person was saying that they went and they started doing their own consulting thing and it was something about AI, blah, blah, blah. And I was saying, yeah, I've been thinking about that. I'm a little bit hesitant. but you know, here's some of here's some of the things that I'm passionate about.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Houle: And then she said, she asked a really good question that kind of shut it all down for me, which was, what is like the pain point that you would be trying to solve for organizations hiring you? And

Dan Korus: Uh-huh.

Jennifer Houle: I was like, no fucking idea. Like I I genuinely have no idea what I would be Helping them with because I haven't really given it much thought. Like I think what I like to do is prompt people to think on their own and start asking different kinds of questions and seeing things differently. But would I go into an organization and I don't know, offer anything that has immediate tangible results, which is what I think that organizations like to see. But yeah, I would like to I would like to turn what I'm doing into something that I can keep paying my mortgage with. But I don't I don't really know what that is.

Dan Korus: Yeah. I don't I don't know that I have any advice, but I'm I really like your philosophies around system first design and designing systems in which people can perform their best. And so I do think that the workplace would be better if we had more of that.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah, yeah. Well so so interestingly, what I've been playing around with is the idea of coaching. I've been asked a lot by people to coach them. And I'm like I don't know if I'm the person to do that.

Dan Korus: Yeah, why not?

Jennifer Houle: R yeah, I so many reasons why not. but I th like I I I think because I don't have formal coaching certification or anything like that. I'm a commitment phob and so if somebody gives me money and then I have to meet with them regularly, I

Dan Korus: Uh-huh.

Jennifer Houle: feel like then I can't I can't cancel on them 'cause I've said yes to their money, so that's hard.

Dan Korus: Okay. Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: But then I started thinking about so going back to this the systems thing, then I was like, Yeah, it would be really cool to coach people from that with that lens of like systems thinking and all like all the different frameworks. How do you how do you apply that when you're coaching someone and have them start to see things from that perspective as well? And so I actually have it's probably like 63 page format of how you would go about coaching someone like that. So now when we talk about like pain point and going into organizations, I think that the most powerful thing would be to actually coach the individuals to start thinking differently. And then those individuals are already embedded into their organization and they can start bringing that up to their company as leaders or however, whatever level they're at at the organization. So that is actually the only thing I think that would make sense for me in applying how I how I approach work and doing it from a coaching perspective.

Dan Korus: Yeah. So you'd you'd equip some change champions within an organization and would it be like self elected or would the organization be like, yo, Jennifer, we've got three people who everybody listens to, ta take them, you know, or Ha ha ha.

Jennifer Houle: So first, this is what happens when I get like, you're giving me some really good ideas. So first my first would be the the former of like people self like finding, discovering it, being like, I would like to be coached by this person. but I think that that's a really good point is people who are maybe familiar with the work or whatever, who are like, yeah, let's get some change agents in the organization and this is how we're gonna do it. But then the other model was okay, at some point maybe it's training people to also coach in this way. So

[22:28] coaching middle managers as embedded change agents

Dan Korus: Hundred percent. And like one would kind of beget the other, right? Because you're it sounds like people already know you and respect you enough to ask to ask for that. And then, you know, I think it's a super easy move for companies, you know, to send someone who has the time but also has some lateral agency within the company to to make decisions and just be like, Here, you know, go go take this training. But it could be super impactful depending on the person and, you know, their ability to it instill things and and that's usually a better way anyways, because top down is kind of slow. But like medium down and then medium back up is a little bit faster, even though it's a little bit more clunky. yeah, that would be really cool. Yeah. What do you think like sorry, go for it?

Jennifer Houle: Well, 'cause you when you interviewed me for the Crosswinds and you asked that question about middle managers and I was saying that like systemically they're set up to fail. This might be the way to make sure that that it not to make sure, like but to to give them some different ways of seeing things and some perspective and

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. That would be really cool.

Jennifer Houle: What were you gonna ask?

Dan Korus: Well, I was gonna ask thank you for asking me that. Great question. Thanks for the question. I was gonna ask, okay, so let's say let's say you coached me and I go back to my organization. What kind of things do you would do you hope that I would be asking and doing once I'm back? like what would you be like really stoked to hear? Like I I message you like one month after and I'm like Jennifer, you won't believe it. I did this at my organization. Like what would what would that you know, what would be in the email?

Jennifer Houle: be like you need to get a better desk because this is gonna really like create some long term damage for you. So like evil. Yeah. Okay. So you were, what would I want to hear from you? my gosh. I think it would be amazing to hear that. Especially one month out. Like if it's one month out, it would to me would be like, okay, I started seeing something I've never seen before at our organization. Like I've started to identify patterns and whatever whatever that is. And And I can see more clearly now. Like that would be what I would like to hear from someone a month out. Is just that they're seeing things that have always been there that they've never seen before. That would be super exciting for me. And then it would be like, okay, now what are we gonna do with that? And and is what you're seeing great? Is it harmful? Is it, you know? Yeah. So so that would be that would be the main thing is that they're see they're seeing things.

Dan Korus: Cool. And like what c what kind of things do you think you'd expect me to see? Or like, you know?

Jennifer Houle: I thought it was a two parter. I was waiting for the second

Dan Korus: Sorry, I'm trying not to ramble on my questions. What sort of things if I like if I gave you a field report of what I saw, like what would you what would you expect me to be seeing if I was now, you know, enlightened in the Jennifer in the Jennifer

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. So maybe something like it's hard. So now I get I get really stuck in the we said a month out, so I'm gonna try to like expand a a little bit.

Dan Korus: It's okay. Yeah, any time.

Jennifer Houle: So it would be that I started noticing that every time we talk, like at the leadership level or whatever, we have an all hands, and every time we talk about this, I started to see that there's a certain kind of after effect, right? Like so so every time we have an all hands, the manager or the CEO uses this word or like this pattern language that we're starting to see. And then the effect afterwards is that maybe there's like decrease in morale or I and I can draw from an example of that company that I was telling you about before. Every time we have this certain team building or event thing, I have started to notice that the morale goes up and everyone's like super, super pumped about it. And then, you know, a few months later or whatever, this starts to happen. Or we tend to lose people after this. Even though the morale went up, there's the cycle that people are leaving. So what is happening in between that event and when we're starting to see this attrition and then start to connect the dots of maybe it's some of the language that we're using. Maybe it's because these promises have been made and they're not coming to fruition, like that I think is a very real thing that I've seen play out a lot. You get people pumped about things and then what happens afterwards and why do we lose that momentum and yeah, yeah. Something like that.

Dan Korus: Yeah. No, that'd be awesome. I think just digging deeper into the timelines of different events and asking how we can serve our people better.

Jennifer Houle: And it's different for different companies too, right? Like that's a hard one to to speak to because I don't know. It depends on the organization. It depends on what like their norms are. And like I said, pattern language is a huge one. People like to use their own internal language and what does that mean? And sometimes it's like a veiled threat. And sometimes it's it's not so but yeah, things around performance, things around projects that maybe don't Do as well as we initially thought. And so a lot of work is cyclical. Like a lot of events that happen in organizations is cyclical, but it might have different names. Like we called it project whatever, but if you look back far enough, if you do your forensics, there's this just kind of keeps happening over and over again. And so when we talk about like what would I start to see, I think it's also important to think about what has happened before. So I there's like this moment of change where you're starting to realize things, but it's forward and it's backward. And so in order to get the full picture, you really have to to start paying attention, asking questions.

Dan Korus: Now I'm like, you've got me lost thinking about past leadership experiences, you know, and whether or not like, you know, I can draw conclusions to things that are happening now.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah.

Dan Korus: I d I I got like halfway through like a diet coke 'cause I was gonna burp with you in solidarity. And like now like now I think I'm the only one who's burping.

Jennifer Houle: I haven't had enough of my apple to to burp yet.

Dan Korus: Dude, catch up. What do you do, my friend? I know. Leave me out here gassy, high and dry.

Jennifer Houle: The other thing that happens is that like my mouth gets really dry from my meds and so podcasts I always drink so much water and then I have to pee and I'm burping and it's just like disastrous. Yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah, yeah. Good. Stay medicated, me too. It might make my my mouth very dry as well. Favorite road trip snack?

Jennifer Houle: Favorite road trip snack? We we're a road trip family, so that's a really good question. But I don't know snack wise.

Dan Korus: Like you go to a standard gas station and you're a little bit hungry, you know, not hungry enough for a meal, but like a little peckish.

Jennifer Houle: Do you have in the United States of America hickory sticks?

Dan Korus: No, I don't think so. No. Like sticks made of hickory wood, like

Jennifer Houle: One road trip. I like to just chew on a stick. No, no, these are like potato chips. They're potato chips. And they're smoky and they're in little like strips. I would say those.

[29:57] road trip snacks and twiglets

Dan Korus: Yeah. Damn. Alright, cool. I gotta keep my okay, we need to do like a little snack exchange or something

Jennifer Houle: Saying this to someone. Maybe it was you that we need No, it was Rebecca from Strategic Linguist. I I don't know why it I feel like it's gonna sound like I'm embarrassed with this woman, but I feel like I talk about Rebecca on every single podcast. I don't know

Dan Korus: That's good. Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: why, but she was talking about twiglets or something like that. It's a s it's marmite or vegemite flavored snack.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: I'm writing this down too. Exchange. What is that like does that mean something else?

Dan Korus: No, I just I I d I don't think I've ever said that word in my life before. So this is like Twiglet. Yeah, this is like the first time I get to say twiglet. Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: Twigglet. I didn't know either. I had to look it up. But let's let's organize a snack exchange. I

Dan Korus: I think that'd be good.

Jennifer Houle: think it would be good too. Hickory sticks are good but it's easy to overdo them and that's that's what I would eat. And then I would get really thirsty. Yeah, yeah.

Dan Korus: Okay. And what beverage are you gonna wash those down with?

Jennifer Houle: Water. Straight up water. I don't

Dan Korus: Straight water.

Jennifer Houle: I don't like pop. I don't like bubbly beverages because they they make me feel full and I would rather use that space for more hickory sticks and twiglets, even though I've never had them. So it would

Dan Korus: System optimization thing.

Jennifer Houle: Water, absolutely. But what about you? Road trip snack for you. Like what do you

Dan Korus: Hell yeah. Salty salty vinegar chips. Salt and vinegar chips. Yeah. Yeah. So we're going Tim's, especially if it's hot. I think summer salt and vinegar chips always hit. I think in the winter, you know, one time me and Kara, my partner, devoured I think like a two pound bag of Werther's originals on a road trip over the course of like fourteen hours. So like I think when it's cold, like You know, just having like I think drinking the calories, you know, like hot chocolate and stuff and then like worthers just for

Jennifer Houle: The back of your car is like filled with Worders rappers lying out the windows.

Dan Korus: Well we got there and we had this double bag with

Jennifer Houle: Nature.

Dan Korus: snacks and like candy and stuff and my aunt was like, All right, I'm making you eat a salad every for every meal you're here yeah, it was a yeah, yeah it was good. So I think

Jennifer Houle: This is what happens road trips. Like the food is is just absolutely horrific. So are you two big road trip people?

Dan Korus: I I like road trips because sometimes I'll plan like a camp in the middle, like we'll road trip, camp, road trip, you know, and that can be really fun and that way we can bring the dogs. 'Cause like when you fly you can't have the dogs. And so like I feel like we're like leaving half the family behind.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. Absolutely feel the same way. It finds sucks. It does. And you feel guilty. And it's also expensive too if you have to go to watch them. yeah, I love a road trip because my partner will do all the driving. Nice. And I you just like look at it out there. It's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. Yeah. I love

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah. I kinda like being locked in a small space with my partner, just like having them right there. You know, like we're always so busy, but just like I can just like okay. You know, like they're right there. It's just like really good bonding time, I think.

Jennifer Houle: I this is so funny because my partner and I, like I work from home and he did as well. Like we both have since COVID and then he changed jobs and they have an office and it's totally optional. But he feels as though he can get more work done when he's there because there's that whole like eyes on you accountability. So he's been going to the office and it's just like Yeah, I just I hate it so much. He's not here because every time I'm on the top floor of our house He's on the very bottom and then the middle floor is like the kitchen and like shared shared space. It's all shared space. But anyway.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Houle: And so the commons. The common air. Yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: And every time I would hear him go to like make himself a copy, I would run downstairs and he would just be like, my God. Like I could see him kind of hiding in the pantry, like, here she comes.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: Now that he's not here anymore, it's very lonely. It's just So yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that. I think Yeah, Kara is one year away from finishing her teaching degree. nice. And the school she's going to is about an hour and forty minutes away from where we live. And she was having to drive like three days a week there. And so it was like three hour three to almost like three and a half hours of driving every day. And then for this semester, she would have had to be there five days a week. So she's like, dude, that's like way too much road time. And like the highways in New Mexico are actually pretty dangerous. You know, a lot of I think like one of the most dangerous stretches of highway, she would be driving every single day, you know, like early in the morning and late at night. So we were just like, Okay, she's getting an apartment. But that means Monday through Friday, I'm home alone. and then she's back on the weekends. So yeah, I totally get it. Like the empty house. Yeah,

Jennifer Houle: She sleeps?

Dan Korus: she sleeps over she sleeps over there. She got an apartment for all. And I think her quality of life is a lot better. You know, like she's able to work out during the day and actually like have a normal meal, you know, and like get to study and like take school seriously, which is important. Absolutely. You know? Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. New Mexico

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Houle: is really cool. I've been there for work.

Dan Korus: Really? Okay.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. So I think I've mentioned before, but the company the VC firm I work for is Indigenous owned and led, but we also invest all over North America. And so we got a lot of money from the New Mexico something something authority. And so we did a team retreat and what we call our well, our AGM for our LPAC and our LPs, but then our impact feast, which is really cool. And so we spent some time in New Mexico and it was beautiful. I absolutely loved it. It was the my I was so dry because so west coast and this is like a rainforest on Vancouver Island, going to New Mexico, everything I touched I got a s like static shock from And my hair was like out to here and my skin was just like bleeding. It's so dry there. But then the colleague I had I used to have who lived there, she said that whenever she came to the West Coast, she would be it would be so like damp that she felt like she couldn't breathe, like she was being strangled by the damp. So it's interesting how much it impacts you. But the thing that I ate there in New Mexico that I loved was and it was something that I guess is a common snack on the reservation. Kool-Aid pickles. Have you heard of that? It's fucking good. I

Dan Korus: yeah. Yeah, it's awesome.

Jennifer Houle: that was a over a year ago and I still think about them and then my mouth starts to water. I've like, why don't we have Kool-Aid pickles here?

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah. New Mexico's got awesome food. Absolutely. Mexico's got awesome food. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. It's it's enchanting, you know. And the you if you've if you've come from the rainforest area, you know, I used to live in the Pacific Northwest too. I think where you're at is a little bit more green and a little bit more rainforesty. But, you know, you first get to the desert and you're like, What the fuck is going on? You know, like where is all the water? Yeah and then like I would go on these like hiking missions every weekend to like go and try and find like some rivers or something and they're on the map and they're blue on the map and then you go and it's just like brown bone dry. Like there isn't anything. It dried up ten years ago. And yeah. So you know it's like a sandy camp. And but it really starts to grow on you. I love it. I yeah. I just couldn't yeah. Every time I come back it just feels like okay, I'm home. There's

[37:26] raising a kid who gets what is happening in the world

Jennifer Houle: Yeah, absolutely.

Dan Korus: there's magic here for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: I'm sorry, we have gotten so far off the

Dan Korus: No. This is good. This is really good.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah, yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah, this is good. We can we can find we can find our way back to the trail. There is no one proper way to do a gastro ledge podcast from what I've what I from what I've seen.

Jennifer Houle: What is happening to your hands? What is yeah.

Dan Korus: this one? Yeah. I like to write with fountain pens sometimes and they just get messy and I've been working with like this purple ink which looks really nice in my notebook. So I just yeah, no. Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: Halfway through asking you that, I went into full panic mode because I was what if it's some kind of, you know, I I don't know. I didn't I I the words were coming out, I was like, Stop asking him that. What if he has a disease and it's like the a fingery purple thing? I don't know.

Dan Korus: How dare you bring up my blueberry itis?

Jennifer Houle: I know, I know. I felt this is the HR in me. It's like, no, I asked something that's gonna open up a can of worms that I wish I didn't ask. So yeah.

Dan Korus: I totally do you have to wonder about that all the time? Wow.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. Yeah. Because like I may maybe other people don't, but I'm like I want people who work with me to feel comfortable with me and to trust me. And so I don't want to I yeah, I don't want to make them uncomfortable or whatever. And so I do think a lot about I mean in general I think a a lot about what I'm saying, but it's like usually too late. I'm already saying it. But At work for sure, for sure. And even more so now. Like this is gonna make me sound like that grumpy old like get off my lawn guy, but people are it it's hard to keep up with what is okay to talk about and what's not. So

Dan Korus: Yeah, and there's not really like one registered canon, you know, like one registered like informational space where you can go get a lot of that.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. Absolutely. And that's where like that whole emotional intelligence and being able to like re read things and just be just be more aware comes into play. Yeah.

Dan Korus: We brought it back.

Jennifer Houle: I know. I know. That was a good that was a good sound.

Dan Korus: That was really good. Yeah, that was really good.

Jennifer Houle: Except that we just ruined it by talking about it.

Dan Korus: Nah nah fourth wall is permanently smashed. Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah.

Dan Korus: As it should be. As it should be. So okay, I actually do have a good question.

Jennifer Houle: Okay.

Dan Korus: You said you started working at fourteen.

Jennifer Houle: Yes.

Dan Korus: What was your first job?

Jennifer Houle: My first job was well, so so I wrote a substack about this a while back and it w like the random ones babysitting, selling popcorn at like a boat show.

Dan Korus: Sounds lucrative.

Jennifer Houle: It was not. Mm-hmm. But the first job where I'm like clocking in and getting a paycheck was working at Wendy's when I was fourteen years old.

Dan Korus: Okay.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. You have Wendy's You have Wendy's in the States, right? I sound like I've s I've never been anywhere else in my life.

Dan Korus: Like

Jennifer Houle: Dave Thomas.

Dan Korus: Wore a flannel I wore a flannel for you. Yeah. I went to I've been well, so we used to go scrimmage and rowing across up in up in Canada at the and we would like all the guys were wearing flannels. Like all like I see all of them. Like literally all of them. And I was like, I was like, we were just all like wearing like sweatshirts and hoodies and stuff. And we're like, dude, we are so out of place. So next year we all brought flannels. And then we fit in.

Jennifer Houle: My question was are flannel because of like the nineties or because of Canada, West Coast, like all of it. All of it, okay.

Dan Korus: Both actually. Yeah. Both. I can't take credit for both. I j I was that Canada.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah, no, no. Okay, cool. I was thinking about flannels and like I I subject my son to a lot of my partner and I both do, a lot of music, and we actually make him like sit there and we talk about these songs and we talk about the impact they had on us and our lives and this poor child. And then I was reminiscing about flannels and just dressing up. Like I was listening to whole and thinking about the whole combat boots and dresses and all that stuff. And I'm like, you know, fuck it. I'm just gonna do it. I'm just gonna dress the way I did in the nineties and people have to deal with it. So

Dan Korus: Good. And they are, right?

Jennifer Houle: I haven't done it yet. In my head in my head, the things that I have done are just like holy shit. And then in real life I'm like, But then I'm just gonna sit here and not do that. So

Dan Korus: Yeah. So I I have one quick question about your son, then I'll c I'll bring it back to Wendy's. that's okay. So do you like p do you have a schedule of like what music you're gonna introduce to him at each age? Or is this like kinda impromptu like, Hey, Led Zeppelin came on, like you gotta sit down and listen to that, you know?

Jennifer Houle: Yeah, it's it's totally impromptu. He

Dan Korus: Okay, cool.

Jennifer Houle: yeah, it'll be it'll be whatever strikes us in the moment. We have like a record player and so we'll put on the the music for him. But I can't do it without giving him a history lesson. And so he will have interests in music that are nowhere near aligned with my musical interests or my partners.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: and so some of the music I'm like, ugh, this isn't something that I would normally listen to, but we want to embrace his taste as well. but no it's it's whatever. Like he's big into rap right now. Like really into rap. And we also have I feel like the meds are kicking in and it's like full peak dryness right now.

Dan Korus: Good. Cool. Yeah. Stay hydrated. We're good. Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: So he's really into rap and I I have this philosophy and it took my partner a long time to come around to this, but like when you're swearing, it's just an expression and it's just another word, and it only has power if you give it power, just like middle finger. Like s my son was talking about at school, someone was giving the middle finger, and I'm like, Well, it's just a finger. It only means anything if you give it the power to mean anything. And so Since he's been little, I've been very open and accepting with swearing and swearing in as an expression in literature and in music, nudity in art, and so all of those things I just don't have an issue with. And so sometimes it bites us in the ass when his other friends or, you know, friends' parents are like, Sub, who taught my son the lyrics to like Slim Shady? You know, the real Slum Shady. Yeah. And I'm like You're welcome. but it doesn't usually

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: exactly. It doesn't usually go that way. So yeah, I mean it is what it is. But we only have the one child and he like I w we want to do right by him and I want to raise a man who will think about bringing women on his podcast if he has one in leadership interviews, right? Like that kind of thing. So Yeah. You have to you have to work hard with that because Everything in society is trying to do the opposite. And so you're constantly fighting against that when you're raising a boy in the world. And then girls have their other issues, but

[44:55] first job at Wendy's with no concept of work ethic

Dan Korus: Yeah. And it all starts with, you know, the geopolitical environment with the Pink Floyd album Dark Side of the Moon.

Jennifer Houle: Absolutely.

Dan Korus: You know, and in memorizing Slim Shady and teaching it to your friends. Like that's he's on sounds like my kid's on the right track. Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: He's on the right track. Yeah. Absolutely. So cool. He's like the best. Yeah.

Dan Korus: That's awesome. That's really cool. Yeah. When you think your kid's cool, like I think you're doing I think you're I think it's happening right. You know what I mean? Like that's probably Yeah, that's probably cool. When can can we take it back to like your professional career, your professional history? Okay, cool. Yeah. I wanna ask you time about being fourteen and working at Wendy's.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Do you remember what that job was like? What

Jennifer Houle: Yes. I do.

Dan Korus: was it like?

Jennifer Houle: So it was it was an interesting time in my life as well. But I had no concept of work ethic. Like I my parents never explained to me. We never talked about the things that I want to talk to my kid about, right? Like here's work ethic. It means like it's a contract between you and the employer. And here's what is expected of you, and here's what you can expect of them, right? So I went there and did my training and everything. I remember sitting and watching like the I think it was a video. This is this is putting a video into a VCR. Yeah. And watching like the training video with the songs and everything. And then that was it. Like I I I'm a very much late bloomer and it takes me a long time to process and learn things. And so I will always realize things after the fact. But I didn't quite understand how any of it applied to like Okay, so now what do I do? So I would just go in the fridge, like the big cooler, and I would eat the chunks of like grilled chicken and shredded cheese. And just kind of like try to pass the time by. and

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: something a big, a very much big life event occurred during that time and I just stopped going. Like I didn't quit. I didn't anything. I just stopped going. And I don't even think I picked up my last paycheck. I just stopped going. But that was my first job. And so it was

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: It was interesting because it I I wasn't ready to do it. Fourteen is young. I think there are there are different jurisdictions and and laws about age, but fourteen is really young and I just didn't understand what it meant to work. But that was my first job.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah.

Dan Korus: And then, you know, later on in your career you became a yoga teacher. Can we talk about that? Is that cool?

Jennifer Houle: Yeah, of course. it's so it's so hard to go in that straight line of like, Yes, and then I did this because there's so much context

Dan Korus: Yeah. I think I think like, okay, so first of all, not everybody starts working young. And I think a lot of the professionals these days are privileged in that, you know, because of advanced labor laws, some of us have had maybe like a bullshit job here here and there, you know, but like no not a lot of people not a lot of people in high school or right out of middle school had a job where they were actually responsible for like handling money and like the food safety of other people. You know, like when you think about it. That's a pretty like high responsibility job, you know, versus like somet anything like mowing a lawn or something. And so, you know, I think that not a lot of people had that experience. And then looking at you where you are now, like I what the question that comes to my mind is like, what did you learn from like Wendy's and teaching yoga that's carried over to like the corporate life? Yeah, that like other people who haven't taught yoga and You know, are like rolling their eyes right now. 'Cause okay, they haven't, first of all, been in a hard yoga class. I'll tell them that, if they are rolling their eyes. Second of all, I would love I would love to put my mat next to them and and be there for that. Not

Jennifer Houle: Yeah, right.

Dan Korus: the yoga's about that. You know, it's not a competition, but it totally is if you're next to me.

Jennifer Houle: It fucking is, yeah. I like it.

Dan Korus: You know what I mean? Like I I'm not trying to like I'm I'm not trying to like linearize your past. I just really want to know like what what parts of those stuck with who you are today? Like what do you know? Yeah. That's what I wanna know.

Jennifer Houle: So and it is like it's a very interesting like we mentioned. I didn't go to college or univers. I mean, I I I did attempt to. Uh-huh. But so it is a weird path to get to where I am. And when I look at other people my age, they're holding similar roles in other organizations. So they are like VP level or whatever. And so I got there. I got there, but it j I just didn't take the traditional route. I wanted to say something about the Wendy's thing. So my mom's family is from Mexico. And when and I started working at Wendy's because like I did everything my older sister did and she star she was working at Dairy Queen and I was like, basically I want to be her. So I just did whatever she did. But when my mom's family in Mexico found out that I was working and I had a job at fourteen, keep in mind my parents would send them money like every month because they had nothing. My grandpa was a taxi driver in Mexico. They were like, my God. Is everything okay? Can we send you some money? Right? 'Cause you don't. Like that's it is weird to work that young and in Mexico it's like, Well, no, you're gonna stay your family's gonna take care of you until, you know, it it's time and that doesn't happen at fourteen. So it was it was really interesting that they were freaked out about it. But different cultures, so

Dan Korus: And you know, following in your f sister's footsteps, I think we can both agree that like Wendy's is a step up from D Q, right? So it's kinda more of like I don't know if you like exactly in her footsteps.

Jennifer Houle: It's just more sophisticated and you know, they've got the square patties, which is yeah, innovative.

Dan Korus: Yeah, it's kinda evolved.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. It's it's funny 'cause it's like thinking outside the box, but it's like a square shape. Yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: Absolutely. So so yeah, then yoga was a moment of me saying, I've had a few of these moments in my life and I think a lot of people have. If I could do anything, if I could do anything, what would it be? And at that time it was like I would teach yoga. I would teach yoga and maybe travel the world teaching yoga and that would be a really cool, chill life. And at the time I was working at Starbucks, I was like an assistant manager or something like that. And married and young and just kind of like I could do anything. I could do anything. And so then I saw this is back in the day when job ads were in newspapers. And I saw a classical. I know. It's an artifact where yeah. So

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: ye I saw an ad and it said receptionist wanted at a yoga studio. So I was like, cool. So I applied for this receptionist job, interviewed, I thought it went well, didn't get it, didn't get the job. Because for me, I'm like, this is how I get in. If I get a job at receptionist, I can learn all about a yoga studio. And then I will eventually start Like then I'll start taking because I wasn't even taking yoga at the time. I just wanted to like be a yoga teacher. So to me, it started with this opportunity and then I didn't get the job. So then I called them or I didn't call them. When they called to tell me I didn't get the job, I said, if anything changes, if there's another opportunity, if the person you chose wasn't the right person, keep me in mind. And a a week later, they fired the person they hired and they called me. I know. So

[52:25] running a yoga studio was my MBA

Dan Korus: That's great. Dude, what a cool move. It's a cool move. What a badass move.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah, I know. I recommend it for anyone. Like even like today, you can just tell them, you know, if anything changes, because things change all the time. Things change all the time. Just keep me in mind, or if there's whatever, different opportunity. And so then that's how I started and I was a receptionist. And then I got free yoga. And then I went to the yoga training. And then I taught yoga. And then I opened up my own yoga studio that I ran for three years. And then I sold that. And so it was a what stuck with me was just like I I can say I don't have a formal education. I don't have a degree, but that was like my MBA. Like that was so inform I learned so much from that experience. It was it was interesting. And then that got my foot in the door in a lot of other organizations. The people who were able to see that experience and say, this person knows about, you know, what's what's really important, like the bottom line, but also you have to do all these other things. And so that was a really good It was a good investment. It probably cost as much as a fucking degree to do my own yoga studio and all of that. Way more fun.

Dan Korus: Way more fun though. Yeah. Yeah. And you probably learned a lot more too. I mean, like how many MBAs have actually successfully ran business, you know, and like know that how to actually translate the things they've learned into, you know, real business practices? Like I don't I not many. I probably I don't know, maybe there are. Sorry, MBAs. But like

Jennifer Houle: Well, business plan, right? Like putting together a business plan and then successfully selling the organization or the organization, the the yoga studio too. Like that's a yeah. It's a lot. So a lot came out of that. Yeah.

Dan Korus: That's cool. Okay. Yeah. So just like standard business knowledge. Well, not a lot of business knowledge. That's really impressive.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah.

Dan Korus: Thank you. I've never done that. I've gotten my butt kicked in some yoga classes, so I'll tell you that.

Jennifer Houle: yeah. Do you like hot yoga? That

Dan Korus: I how yoga.

Jennifer Houle: was that was the yoga that I had taught in my studio was hot yoga. Yeah.

Dan Korus: Nice dude. Yeah, just crank it just crank that MFR up and nice dude.

Jennifer Houle: So good. It's so it's just amazing. And I like routine. And so the yoga that I taught, bikram yoga. I think we had a there was some kind of discussion about bikram and everything, but that's a that's a standard set and you do it over and over and over again. There are no like you don't deviate from that recipe. And I like it because you can see progress and I like it because it's predictable. and so for someone like me, that's really, really helpful.

Dan Korus: it's nice. And like when you're learning something new, it's hard to actually see if you're improving or not because it's all new, you know, and like it's hard to shut your brain off. I'm like looking around and I'm like, Okay, like what the what am I doing? You know? but when you know the flow Yeah, you can't be in the zone.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah, absolutely agree. Yeah. But then like Bikrim, though, that's problematic and whatever. That's a whole other thing, but mm.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah, yeah, really unfortunate. yeah, that's not good.

Jennifer Houle: No, but actually, so my approach to the training. Mm-hmm. I had I had known that the Bikram Yoga Teacher Training was intense. Like I had known that it was going to be you do two classes a day every day for like nine weeks. You it Bikram would keep you up all night. Like he would just sit at the front of the yoga class and it would be three o'clock in the morning and he would just be telling a fucking story, right? So you're exhausted. Physically, mentally, emotionally, you're drained, you're depleted. There's no way you can do and the classes weren't like the 90-minute Bickram class. These classes were like three hours long, even longer, sometimes twice a day. And so it's the classic cult type of like break you down, build you up. And so when I approach things, like I knew that going into it. I knew it was going to be this. And so eyes wide open, right? Like I research, I think overkill for certain things. So I'm like, I know what this is gonna be like. I know what I'm up against. And I know that if I let it, it can really like it'll really negatively impact me. And so going into it, I took everything with a grain of salt. I took everything as like an observation opportunity and never allowed myself to get put in a situation that I think some people and I'm not saying it was their fault, but some some people found themselves in certain situations. And so eyes wide open, get through it because the end was I'm certified. And once I'm certified, then I'm a teacher. And once I'm a teacher, then I can open my studio. Right. So it was all it was when they talk about yeah, like Yeah,

Dan Korus: You were on a mission. Yep.

Jennifer Houle: on a mission. So like going backwards, going forward and then just kind of getting yourself sorted to make sure that you can get through that and get what you want at the end of the day.

Dan Korus: Yeah. D have you read a book called The Culting of America? No, you're good. No, you're good. I'm gonna I'm gonna Google the name really quick and

Jennifer Houle: It was the worst time to take a body.

Dan Korus: No, no, no. It was the perfect book. It was the perfect time. okay, this is Daniel, Danielle Young, and Amy Reed. And it was published in January 20th, 2026. So it's a it's a new book. So I I got the Audible version because I'm I'm a big audiobook guy. And man, this book was awesome. And I didn't know that like pretty much everything around us is cults. And I think that I've probably got Couple substack articles in me or maybe one hell of an interview on you know cult like tendencies and organizations. In particular startups. You know, like she she even has some chapters in there about startup mentality and how it's all cultish, you know, like you have this enigmatic visionary CEO who is like you know, this godlike figure and can do no wrong, you know, and just like has this vision that they're trying to do and then everybody else is like buying into it, you know, and like a dream. And as soon as Yeah, and as soon as you leave, everybody's like, No, shame, shame the lever. You know, like they weren't good for us anyways. You know what I mean?

Jennifer Houle: Daniel, this is what I when I said I wanted to talk to you about this company I worked at and then I just like I have a tab open for a substack piece that I'm working on and it's basically like the person you become in a bad system. That's the name I have so far. And it is all about being complicit in this type of of scenario. so I'm I'm just like yes, I'm so I'm so excited about that because I absolutely Agree. And I also want to just give you don't need me to validate this for you, but I want to anyway because I'm also an audiobook person and some people are like, Mm, that's not reading and like

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: You know, I'm I'm not watching like I don't know, like an unboxing video. I am I am absorbing information and so I think that audiobooks are absolutely legit. Absolutely.

Dan Korus: But yeah. Me too. And and if it if I it's like okay, do you want me to not like partake in any literature? The

Jennifer Houle: Right?

Dan Korus: artists get supported, everybody's like everybody's winning. Like we're all winning.

[59:54] startups as cults and the books on the shelf

Jennifer Houle: I know. It's so funny and and I also because of the non stop voices for lack of better term in my head, I have my headphones on I mean, they're like oops, that's just toilet paper, but not for what you think. I just

Dan Korus: No, it's good.

Jennifer Houle: On all the time, unloading the dishwasher, walking the dog, like headphones on all the time. And so yeah, you're absorbing things. Like would you rather I just not? I can't do that and hold a book at the same time. So anyway.

Dan Korus: Yeah, fuck it. I wear tell me if you do this. I do I've got like pr your earring protection earmuffs for that I originally bought because I was doing a lot of like chainsawing for wood collection 'cause you can you can get like five cords of wood for twenty bucks a year, which is like a total steal if you're willing to self harvest, which is like so much fun.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah.

Dan Korus: Totally fun mantivity. You know, I well yeah, anyways. I mean anyone can do it. So

Jennifer Houle: knew you were gonna say that too 'cause I was like they I know you don't mean that. I know you don't mean that

Dan Korus: Well, I it's a joke. It's like a total joke with me and Kara because like I was reading this book on on chainsawing and Norwegian wood stacking. Okay. And it's like all about like the history of wood stacking and like how you do it right and like how you do a little pile and you're supposed to leave room for Olaf, which is the name of like a Norwegian mouse character, and so you gotta like leave room for him to go around so that way there's like airflow in the woods if you dry properly and like season.

Jennifer Houle: Like rot. Yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah. And like one of the quotes in the book is like, No man no no wood pile, no man, you know, and so like if there's no wood pile like you like you're supposed to like go, like donate your time to your neighbors to like help them build up their wood pile so that they're ready for the winner. And so like it's just like my joke, you know, me and Kara just joke about it all the time 'cause it's stupid, you know, and it looks we love making fun of toxic masculinity. so it's just really I don't know, Tuss, it's really funny.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Korus: Shoot, so I think that, you know where were we right before this?

Jennifer Houle: We were talking about Yeah.

Dan Korus: Audio books? Audio books. So okay, I bought earring protection and I wear those when I'm working. I don't even listen to music. I just put those on and I even put like ear muffs, I even put earplugs under my earring muffs so that way I just get total silence. I

Jennifer Houle: Absolutely. No, I

Dan Korus: best work worked on like that. So do you listen to something? Did like or do you like is it just about the the noise control?

Jennifer Houle: It I I it depends. So pre medication I would have to have like a podcast playing or like a YouTube video while I'm working, music in the background. Like I needed so much noise. But for but now that I'm on ADHD medication, I yeah, I need quiet. So I have my headphones and then I put noise cancelling on. But like I get easily triggered by noises. And if I'm already in a like state, then even like the turning signal on the car is overwhelming for me. And I feel like I could like rip my skin off if I hear it. So noise sensitive for sure. Yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I totally get that. And yeah. Okay. Noise protection. How do we bring it back to leadership? Well really

Jennifer Houle: Yeah, yeah, you do it, you do it. Noise protection is how I ran my successful startup and it was really no, but Exac exactly. I feel like this is gonna be the worst episode for you. Like you're gonna have to try to

Dan Korus: No, this is great. No, this is awesome. I really love this episode. I love leaving early, especially at weddings. I'm like such a big early leaver. Me too. Yeah, and it's self compassion, by the way, you know, leaving early, which is really comes back to leadership. But I Irish goodbye all the time. Me too. Like eight o'clock, you know, I'll just I'll be watching my phone. We'll be at board games with the friends or whatever, and I'll be like, Hey guys, I'm I'm leaving now. Yeah. Same. and I fucking I f I've never not enjoyed leaving early and I've never not felt awesome just like being the first to leave. Like first to shove, first to leave.

Jennifer Houle: Absolutely. Absolutely. I never want to outstay my welcome. I was at a party once and this woman stood up, kid you not, and I didn't know a lot of people. This woman stood up and out loud to everyone said, I'm leaving because I don't want to be here anymore. And she just walked out the door and I was just like, I you were my hero. Absolutely like this what's the point in lying? Right?

Dan Korus: yeah.

Jennifer Houle: Like we're trying to be polite. I guess.

Dan Korus: We all know where she's at now. You know, like none of us are guessing, you know.

Jennifer Houle: And I was like, You can do that. Like you can you can say that do that in keep talking.

Dan Korus: Yeah, it's not amazing. Yeah. What a skill. Yeah. You know the like the like the Midwest thing where you like you like you clasp both hands and you're like, Well you know, it's like okay, like everybody knows that's like okay, like that's it's time to go. Yeah. You know? So I have company over on us like, Well, thanks for coming over, guys. And then they leave and it ha it works every time. And it works.

Jennifer Houle: works. Yeah. Just turn the lights on and off and be like, we're done. My partner is more social than I am and he likes to host people.

Dan Korus: God. Okay.

Jennifer Houle: And I just don't. But we ha we did a thing for a long time called Spaghetti Friday at our house where every Friday we would make spaghetti and meatballs and everyone we knew was invited. And you could come or not, didn't matter what time, stay for five minutes, like get your meal, take your kid to baseball practice, whatever. And that was that was really fun because it wasn't it was like open house style. And there didn't it didn't feel like there was a lot of pressure. but I will tell you that every Friday by the end of it I'd be like dripping in sweat and exhausted. It's social. It's a lot

Dan Korus: huh. Yeah. Yeah. And then you get like the hot water boiling and like multiple rounds of pasta probably and Yeah. I know.

Jennifer Houle: Talking, small talk. Which is what we've been doing for an hour and a half.

Dan Korus: I know. This is good though.

Jennifer Houle: Okay, leadership. Do you wanna talk about leadership? If you

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: could what?

Dan Korus: Have one superpower, what would it be?

Jennifer Houle: One superpower. that I get so anxious. Like so brain is always going. It doesn't stop. Someone asks me a question like that and it's like I don't even I can't even

Dan Korus: My answer? Yes. Okay. I would want to be able to touch a book and have read it and understand it instantly. Any book. Written text. Has to be written text. Can't be digital. That's the limitation. It would be a super stealth power. This is back where like before I was medicated and I couldn't read. And so I like, Man, fuck this out. Books are for dorks. You know, like I just want to be able to like, you know, touch it and know the stuff because I like knowing things. But I don't want to have to like go through the effort to read it. so I would just No one would know. I wouldn't tell anyone. I'd just like know a lot of stuff and then because I could go across fields. Yeah. Retain it. Go across field. And I think like that's where 'cause that's always where innovation happens, right? When like two fields like come and mesh and you take some wisdom from somewhere else that someone already knows, and you take another thing that someone else already knows and you put together. So that would be I don't know. And that would be really fun. And it wouldn't like a lot of pressure. Like there's no like pressure to save lives or anything. It would just kind of be like, Okay, I fixed this, go give it to someone, let take credit for it, and then just move on to the next thing.

[67:23] do people actually like your leadership?

Jennifer Houle: And you're not harming anyone, you can do good with it.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Be easy. Low pressure. No limelight. Like none of the drawbacks. Yeah. You know, so that's a good pick.

Jennifer Houle: That's a good one. I don't know. I I still don't know what it would be. I feel like maybe something with music, maybe I could like play any instrument.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Houle: Something like that. I really like music, so maybe something like that. Maybe I could communicate with crows and my murder of crows could just like follow me everywhere and stuff.

Dan Korus: That would be sick. You could use them to like gather intelligence. Yeah. Fun. That would be so fun.

Jennifer Houle: Yes. I feed I feed the crows in our neighborhood. And so when now they know and when I leave the house, I kid you not, it's like this black cloud of crows. And then I just feed them and my son has like named them all and we can like tell them apart. It's really fun.

Dan Korus: Isn't that so much fun?

Jennifer Houle: Yeah.

Dan Korus: They're smart.

Jennifer Houle: They're so smart. They know when our car is coming down the street. Like they're when I walk my dog, they follow and like they get mad at me and they're like, Excuse me, lady, you know, give us more food. But no, it's it's really cool. But the superpower, yeah, I don't I don't know. Maybe maybe some Okay.

Dan Korus: The Crow one was good. sorry, what were you gonna say?

Jennifer Houle: I just those are I find those really challenging.

Dan Korus: They're kinda hard questions, right? They are. Yeah, because everybody's always like, I can be visible, you know.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. I don't know. It's

Dan Korus: Generic dark. Yeah. Like think of something cool, you know? Yeah. You know what I mean? Do you do you think you're you know, when you're a leader, like people like your leadership?

Jennifer Houle: I don't know, this is I c I come back to that interview that you did where the whole leadership thing is is weird. I I let's say yes. Yes, I think they do. I think people are interested in what I have to say. And like I mentioned, people have asked me about coaching. So what was your original question? Do I think people like my leadership?

Dan Korus: Yeah. I mean it seems like they did. Like people are seeking you out about it. I'm just wondering like if you think they like it, you know?

Jennifer Houle: I don't know, there's a lot of that whole imposter syndrome type thing out there. So i if we go by like data then yes.

Dan Korus: Yeah. We trust the numbers.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. But then I find it hard to say anything about like I'm I'm Gen X. Like we hate ourselves and absolutely. And it's embarrassing to like try or whatever. And so I don't I find it really hard to to assume that anyone likes anything about me. Do you know what I mean? It's it's a real true thing. It is a real true thing.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: And so yeah, if we if we go by the data, the data says yes. People are interested in what I have to say when it comes to leadership and how I approach things.

Dan Korus: Yeah. I think so many people have that imposter syndrome. And my thought with why peop why some leaders aren't emotionally intelligent is because they're scared that people won't. And so they don't even want to ask the question or ponder that to begin with.

Jennifer Houle: To to ponder emotional intelligence or whether or not they're

Dan Korus: Well, like I mean, in my mind, like the thing I've been thinking about for like the past two months is how do I go reach the people that don't believe in that emotional intelligence is something that they need in the workplace? Yeah. You know, and it just so happens to be like also the people that I care about working with and the people I want to work with because I think those are the people that are also changing the world and have a a you know, there's a there's a delta there. You know, and they're doing something cool, and if they if they learned more about the skill that they don't have, like they would just be like that much better. So, you know, I keep wondering about like how you can crack those people, you know, and this is kind of like a weird analogy, but one of my heroes is a black man who listens to stories from people in the KKK and he used to like collect their uniforms. You know, and his whole thing he he got interviewed by NPR one time and it was like a really good hour long interview. And his whole thing was like, well, you know, if you just listen to them and be their friend and show them like even when they have hateful ideas, like you'll still show up, they'll, you know, eventually ask question they'll basically like get themselves out of it, you know, just by being there and being consistent and being present. And you know, that it's really hard to even get there in the first place with some people. And so, you know, bringing it back to the original question I asked, like, okay, do you think that people like your leadership? I think Many leaders are scared that the answer's no. And so because of that, they just block that question out of their head to begin with and it's not even a consideration for them because you know, the answer the answer might be no, so why even care about that? You know, it's like it's such like a Machiavellian mindset of like, well, if you can't be liked, then you better be feared, you know. Like you know, if I have to pick between the two.

Jennifer Houle: Absolutely. This is this is such a good question because you had said something about like how would you teach emotional intelligence or or something on like we were talking.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Still answer that if you want to.

Jennifer Houle: Well and it and it's interesting because I think that it's it's kind of like what you explained with that that man. It's it's so dependent on the individual and whether or not like what trauma they're bringing into how they show up in the world. And so if you're gonna go about and say, I'm gonna teach emotional intelligence, the first thing in my opinion is setting your own expectations of like what that what you would be like satisfied with knowing that you taught them something, some aspect of it. because people are fucked up. And there are so many people who have not done any work on themselves.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Houle: Ignorance is bliss, like you said. They were maybe raised a certain way. They were conditioned to believe certain things to be true and that like being feared is more important than being liked or whatever. And so you're starting with all different levels of complexity with people. And if you're trying to teach emotional intel intelligence to someone who isn't ready for that or is working from like a really traumatic background or a big deficit. Then your expectations need to be realistic about what the outcome might be for them. So it's it's hard. And I still in my head, I'm a very visual person. So in my head, when I think about that, I picture the same thing. It's that timeline of like, I'm teaching this person emotional intelligence. Everything that's come before this moment is going to come into play and be need to be considered. And then what comes out of this emotional intelligence kind of like. bubble is on this side of things. and it's not, it's not linear. It's gonna go all over the place. but everything that happened before to that individual is gonna play a role in what they're willing to hear, how they hear it, what they need to hear, what might be triggering for them. Yeah, we a company I worked for who famously has abandonment issues. And biggest thing is loyalty. Like if you leave the company, and you touched on this with the cult thing. You are dead to this person. And so how do you get someone to look beyond that thing that loyalty is the most important thing when they have abandonment issues that they've never dealt with? Like how? That's like the biggest block. So how do you totally you know that song, you can't go under it, you can't go over it, like you're going on a lion hunt.

[74:52] you can't teach EI around someone who won't go through it

Dan Korus: We're going on a lion hunt. Yeah, we gotta go through it.

Jennifer Houle: You've gotta go through. The only way out is through. The only way out is through. So you can try, like you can teach people this or that or whatever. And there's some like we're all we're all good at performing and masking. So people can like sit there and listen and nod and go through the mechanisms of whatever you're teaching them. But if you didn't figure out a way to go through it, at least like a tiny little bit, like a tiny little gap, then I think it's all for naught. Like I I really do. So so I can't answer like the how would you teach emotional intelligence because I get so stuck here. I get so stuck there. And I think that it's okay to get stuck there because that's that's the breakthrough. That's the hard part, for a lot of people. But yeah.

Dan Korus: I think that no, this is a really good answer because you're totally right that whatever whatever happened before and whatever we're bring whatever baggage we're bringing into, you know, a workshop in my case is exactly what, you know, people are gonna be confronting whether or not they know it when we think about it. So we do exercises like we'll pass out a you know, an emotion wheel. Have you seen the emotion wheel? Yeah. So we'll pass out the emotion wheel and we just have and we pass out journals. Everybody gets a journal. Yeah. And they get a little Kestrel Edge pen. Yeah. And we give them the emotion wheel and we're like, okay, we're gonna we're gonna write down everything we're feeling using the emotion wheel and we're gonna take it to the outside and we're gonna write, I am feeling this because this. And then we're gonna get into pairs and we're gonna we're just gonna tell each other how we're feeling based off the emotion wheel. And the number one thing that people told me after that was like they just feel better doing that exercise. Like they feel like the sense of relief, they feel better. I was doing it because we had an odd odd number. So I paired up with the CEO and got some here with because Don wanted to pair up with her, which is like which is like I think it's just kind of adorable. Because I was she's super like extremely sweet, so intelligent lady. She could have taught this class with us, you know, and she's like doing this because like she cares about her, you know, team and like, you know, she's just like the odd one out because they like no one sat next to her. You know, it's like, you know, like that was like lonely. Anyways, so I don't know if she felt that way, but I would. So you know It just like you could I don't know, you could tell that there's like a little mass there where she's just like carrying this enormous amount of weight. Yeah. You know?

Jennifer Houle: I know that like good workshops and stuff, like there is that emotional work that's embedded into it.

Dan Korus: Totally.

Jennifer Houle: An example for me though of why I think sometimes that doesn't work is because I am someone who has been to a workshop where it's like, okay, everyone bring their one kind of like artifact relic thing that means a lot to you. I don't know. I'm I'm thinking of a workshop.

Dan Korus: Okay. Sure. Yeah, a mento or something.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. And then we're gonna we're gonna talk about it. And it's like meant to break down walls and things like that. And I am the bitch who will bring something that has no meaning to me whatsoever and make up a story because I don't wanna go there with these people. Like I have done that, right? Do you know what I do what I'm saying?

Dan Korus: Totally, totally. It's work. Like why the fuck would you open up like

Jennifer Houle: Why would I do this? And so so there are people like that. And I have my own reasons for doing that. And it sounds it sounds terrible, but some people it

Dan Korus: No, I get it, yeah. Right.

Jennifer Houle: some people go into these things. It's it's the same thing with the Bhikkham Yoga teacher training. I went into it with a wall up for my own my own protection, my own reasons and everything. And I think part of it is because I'm a kooky human being. And if I actually let my guard down and I actually went there with these people, first of all, I could I could I just couldn't. It's not in my nature to do that. But if I did, I don't think they're ready for this jelly. Like I don't think that it would go well for anyone.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: So so yeah, I do like the the emotion wheel and things like that because I think that's that's part of the formula, right? Like you have to get people to let their guards down. But I guess what I'm saying is not everyone will.

Dan Korus: Totally agree with you.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah. And like I don't think that like five minutes of looking at how you're feeling one day with the emotion wheel is gonna like solve the trauma of your past of like why you are someone who went through abandonment. Right. Or has an abandonment issue with your team and now you project that onto literally everybody who leaves the company ever. You don't have like this cult like tendency. And nor do I think that am I under the impression that like people are always gonna show up to the workshop and like want To participate in a way that like is themselves and is real. You know, like actually real. Everyone is always most people, and I guess I have the privilege of like not giving a shit about the repercussions of like what happens after, you know? Yeah. Well, I do. I can, you know, for the most part, I'm not in the organization, so I get to be a fly on the wall, and that comes with privilege on freedom of expression. And so I think that You know, of course everyone else in the room, like they've probab maybe what if they've got like a performance review in two weeks? Yeah, and like they're trying to be on like their best behavior. But like the like they themselves, like it is in their nature to like cuss and swear. And like I love swearing. And research shows that if you swear, people trust you more because they realize that you're more authentic.

Jennifer Houle: Somewhere.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I've got that I got that in my in my research bank. Yeah, like I you know, so the the people who are super filtered and you know, they can say a whole lot of words without actually s really saying anything or like committing to anything or staking you know, putting a a line in the sand, like I fucking miss me with that shit. You know, and so I don't know exactly how to fix all that. And I think like my gut says, just

Jennifer Houle: 100%. People bond through things like that. People bond through, you know, tra traumatic experiences as well. Like my closest some of my closest friends are people that I've had traumatic workplace experiences with trauma bonded. but I agree. Like there's something to be said about letting your guard down. Have you heard of MG Taylor? They are Matt and Gail Taylor are facilitators who came who have these different like methodologies and stuff. I think I think you would deep dive and be really into that. And they're all about the right conditions to facilitate. And they talk about things like people aren't on equal grounds when you go into workplace workshops. They're just not. And I've been behind the curtains of those things because I'm HR. And people leadership teams are talking about little did you see how many times Susie cried like the those conversations do happen. And workplaces are super toxic. And so Yeah, MG Taylor talks about like requisite variety and you need to have a certain representation of people to get to like solutions and and things like that. But but people aren't starting on equal footing. And you just touched on it, like so and so is like, yeah, I have my performance review and how if how I show up to this is part of it. And then you have the Keeners who are like just so like over participating because they want to look good because

[82:22] people don't walk into workshops on equal footing

Dan Korus: They're stifling everyone else, yeah.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah, we all have our own motivations and agenda when we go into these types of things. And then maybe I'm just cynical because I'm human resources and like I can't even go to a work party and like let loose because yeah,

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Houle: I just I leave early 'cause I want people to go and have fun and they're not gonna have fun if I'm there. So

Dan Korus: You think? For sure Does that make you kinda sad inside? Like or do you like getting to leave early, like having a reason to leave early?

Jennifer Houle: I like getting to leave early.

Dan Korus: Okay, cool.

Jennifer Houle: One hundred percent. Like if if you want an excuse to get out of things, have a kid, because that is the best way to get out of get out of things. But yeah, no, I want people to have fun at those types of events and I don't want people to be self conscious and think that I'm going to be like just sitting there taking notes. I do that anyway. To

Dan Korus: Ha ha.

Jennifer Houle: observe people mentally. But it not in a judgmental way, but in a this would make a great story way. the other day I was Jae Hong has introduced me to like voice voice texting where you say the words and it records it. I've never done that. So I had to like figure out how to do it. 'Cause I kept doing it, but it was only translating what I was saying instead of recording what I was saying.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah, voice to text and versus the voice note. Which do you like better, by the way?

Jennifer Houle: I like voice to text. I'm doing it for her. Like this is just what she does and I guess it's faster. But I was doing it and it made me think that 'cause I went to the bathroom that I was like starting to voice record mess. I don't know what the term is to her. and I was like just about to pee and then I like, no, I need to stop. Like like are are we there yet? So I I told her about it and yeah, it was it was funny 'cause you just kind of get comfortable and used to it. So yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah. So if you were me and you were gonna go teach emotional intelligence, where would you start?

Jennifer Houle: like this is a really, really good question. Where would I start? Are you trying to get me to do your job? I I know. So I guess my question my my my where I would start would be like, what are you hoping when you say teach emotional intelligence, what is that outcome for you? What does that look like? That's I think where I'd start.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Okay. Good question. So I think that one of the reasons why the workplace is so shitty right now for so many different people. And similarly why it's not easy for us to let our guard down is because of a lack of emotional intelligence skills. It's an EQ skill to be able to make people safe and to be able to allow people the room, you know, to break the fourth wall and say what they're really thinking. On, you know, it it's a skill to be in a room with leadership and to have you know, someone at the top who's in the meeting and be comfortable enough around them and where we just say, Hey, like, we're going on three hours of this bullshit, like can we do something else? You know, and so I think that I think that all of that I think a lot of the problems and a lot of the things we're seeing lead back to emotional intelligence. And so, you know, someone challenged me recently on the disengagement stats. do you know the disengagement stats that have kind of been gone around they're kind of the zeitgeist right now? people

Jennifer Houle: Yeah.

Dan Korus: are saying, Yeah

Jennifer Houle: Yeah, the gallop thing and like, yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah, the Gallup study, like only twenty percent of the people are engaged. And I had a podcast guest, Mark Putrus, he's really sharp. I really like him a lot. And he said so he's like, Well, who paid for those studies? Yeah. You know, d and so I was like you're right, Mark. And and I do think that people are disengaged and maybe we're just not dis like the amount is hard. And also like how do you even quantify disengagement? Like are they just saying they're disengaged or like how are we actually quantifying it? So I have a lot of problems with those numbers, but I do think it's fair to say that a lot of people are going through tough times right now. The times are a little bit tougher. There's a lot of things that are screwed up in the world and we have a lot of visibility into it, so it's kind of hard to get away. Anyways, I was looking at a study and I I'll put the I'll put the source in the notes because I we were talking about it at the workshop last night. That after a manager does something kind of toxic or does something that's kind of irresponsible, I think a majority of people, it's like forty eight percent or something, just disengage. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Like after that moment. And initially we were talking about it as an argument for why you should sleep, you know, because when you don't sleep, like you're liable to just be a total shithole. Yeah. At least I know I am. And so it's like, okay, well, do you want do you want these slip ups? Right? We were talking about, okay, like, is it worth sleeping and or going to work not, you know, like you wouldn't go to work shit face, like why would you go to work in a state of, you know, mental depletion if you didn't sleep the day before? So, anyways, I think that What I'm after and what I want is just more education and awareness around the subject material. And I don't think many people have journaled at all. And so I love that we're bringing journaling to people and giving them a journal. Like I had two guys in one of our first workshops who were like, I haven't written this much since high school. And I was like Yeah. And I was like, I love that actually, you know, that we got to reignite that today, you know, and we've had, you know, people break down into tears and we've had people like email back and say all these nice things. And so like, I don't know if I give a shit if I'm like not necessarily solving everyone's trauma, you know, i if if we can just make the workplace like a little bit better. And so I think like a lot of the second order consequences of emotional intelligence are really important, you know, from a risk management perspective of Well, what unsaid shit is gonna bite the entire company in the ass because you don't have enough trust that people are actually willing to come to you and say something honest and make you aware of some situation. You know, like we can handle mistakes, we can't handle surprises. Yeah. You know, so s there's speak up culture, there's safety. So from like an ES and H standpoint, EHS standpoint, like no brainer, I think, in my mind. I think you just say the word emotional intelligence that people get scared. Whoa. Well we're not Yeah. You know, but you say like risk management and speak up culture and they're like I I love how that sounds like

Jennifer Houle: That's it. So so I think that you kind of named it right there as like making sure that you were s you were speaking their language. There was a live between Dennis Collins and Andrea Tirelli on Substack as well, two great people to subscribe to. And they were talking about that. Like it's it's kind of one one, right? If you want to get influence or if you want to influence something, you need to speak the language of that person. So if you're talking to someone you're trying to make a case for something and you're speaking to the CFO, then you gotta talk numbers. Blah blah blah blah. So I think there's that for emotional intelligence as well. Because like you said, if if the if the connotation is negative or like, whoa, this isn't this work, not therapy. Yeah. So like how can you reframe it? I think that's kind of how I would start. psychological safety gets the same thing.

[89:51] why some leaders refuse to humanize their people

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Houle: I get I get a lot of pushback on some of my ideas that I write about because of exactly that. Like I had a note and it was super Like the notes that I write on Substack are very much just trying to you're trying to get a reaction. You're trying to see if somebody if it if it resonates with someone. And I'd written something and some person was like, if like work is work. If you don't like it, then start your own company. And I'm like, Are you what in the white male privilege kind of comment is Are you kidding me? And so that was a block. That was an easy block. But people get triggered by language. People get triggered by what they think is like the whole snowflake thing.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: I did a LinkedIn post where I talked about reference checks and how they are when you're doing background checks or reference checks, people, especially background checks from over police communities are more likely to have something flagged for something super innocuous on on their on their record versus someone else, right? Because of what we can get away with by how we show up in the world.

Dan Korus: Uh-huh.

Jennifer Houle: And so somebody was like, I know you're full of bullshit because you use the word like marginalized. And I'm like, okay, go fuck yourself, first of all.

Dan Korus: Hundred percent.

Jennifer Houle: Triggering. That triggered that per that was like something very upsetting for that person. And it's the same thing with when you talk about emotional intelligence or psychological safety in the workplace. And I have never ever pretended to or even like it's not even a thought for me that an organization would be responsible for healing someone's trauma. It's just like better

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: do better by them. Don't re-traumatize them. And I think that some people don't want to apply emotional intelligence to the workplace because they are going to have to make very difficult decisions. And they don't want to see their colleagues in that light because it makes it so much harder to say, you're fired. Or you didn't get the f that promotion. Or do you know what I mean? And so

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: you're opening their heart and their mind. And some people are like, I'm shutting that out because I have to make really hard decisions. And as soon as I start humanizing these people, as soon as I know this about them or that, then it's gonna be that much harder to do. So there's that. But to that I say it actually makes those things so much easier. And I think that's the selling point for people. That was a really long way to answer the question.

Dan Korus: No no no no no no no no and Jae Hong's gonna hate me for this, but like say more there. Like what Wait Yeah

Jennifer Houle: Who's gonna J Hong is gonna hit you for

Dan Korus: she's gonna hate me. So say more say more about Say more about

Jennifer Houle: Making it easier. Making it easier.

Dan Korus: I I liked that and the idea that you had right before it. my god, I'm so sorry. That's like the most like

Jennifer Houle: I'm the one who said it and I don't even know what I said.

Dan Korus: Like I mean we're talking we're talking about emotional intelligence in the workplace and like people are scared that if they do have to be emotionally intelligent that it'll make the workplace more difficult. You know, that it'll make these interactions more hard. It's almost like like dating someone, but just kinda like for fun, you know, but you're like, Okay, I'm gonna try and not actually catch feels. Yeah. It's just gonna be like a physical fun thing, you know, and like we're thinking about that with like work and even it's like so hard to separate the two, you know.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah, I got see that's right.

Dan Korus: Dude. Nice. I think that was good.

Jennifer Houle: I'm just gonna close my door 'cause I feel like my son and partner are gonna come home soon. So one second.

Dan Korus: Good.

Jennifer Houle: My my son has dark hair and he wants to bleach it and go blonde, so he's at his appointment.

Dan Korus: Good for him.

Jennifer Houle: So cute.

Dan Korus: Yeah, good for him. We've done we've all been done bleach before. Yeah, that's great.

Jennifer Houle: So yeah, I'm

Dan Korus: So the CEO. Okay, the CEO we were talking about earlier, and we can think of something different if you want me to we can cut this part and think about something different. But with the emotional intelligence, you know how some people think that maybe we just shouldn't have it in the workplace or that they're gonna actually have to change something and that kind of abdicates some amount of responsibility if leadership doesn't want to go do go do that sort of work? Like what do we say about that guy? Like what's you know, what's what's our consideration there? And does that mean that we don't try or are we hope like what's our hope? Like do we try and fix them? Do we try and educate the people around them so that way they can try and stay safe and like leave at an appropriate time or have like some better boundaries if they believe in the mission and don't mind it? Like what you know, what do we do?

Jennifer Houle: And like I kind of I kind of want your help with this one that I was talking about that I'm writing because because what do you do and how do you protect yourself from becoming complicit? Like I and I'm talking about CEOs with major unresolved trauma and issues. Are you drinking a Capri Sun?

Dan Korus: Hell yeah. strawberry kiwi flavor. Yeah. I'm not sponsored or anything. I just that's just what I got.

Jennifer Houle: I haven't seen one of those since like nineteen ninety seven or something, so that's hilarious.

Dan Korus: I got a little snack fridge in my in my office and I just like like to buy like, you know, little snack foods and organize it. Snacks? Go over there and have a snack. Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. So so that that is the question, right? Like do you try? And and and what is within your control and what's not? And what happens when you have a whole bunch of emotionally intelligent people all in service to one very unstable and unwell. So I think that I don't know the answer. I feel like we could work something out, but it's the the processing that's that's really hard for me. Yeah, because who like there there are ways you do it. Do you you have some some leadership teams who are kind of working behind the scenes and manipulating the situation to get the outcomes that they want. And so that means saying yes to the CEO or whatever it is, right? Like that's not that's not helpful for anyone either. But and then you see these CEOs be really successful too. So I don't know. I don't know what you do in that situation, but maybe it is speaking their language. Maybe it's going back to what we said before. It's like if you're if you're worried that you're gonna see these people as more human and it's gonna make those difficult decisions more challenging

Dan Korus: Okay.

Jennifer Houle: and you struggle with them to begin with, then let me explain to you how this is actually going to make those things a whole lot easier.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Houle: But again, I don't know if it's true though, because I'm I I have a persona in my head that I'm thinking about and like I don't know what would

Dan Korus: Yeah.

[97:20] when the CEO reads radical candor and becomes a dick

Jennifer Houle: Right. And so when I left this organization that I worked at, it was kind of there was a final straw moment where I just absolutely had it and I was done. And it was this like visionary and I'm over here and I'm just waiting for you all to catch up to me and like nobody nobody gets it and nobody can nobody is as smart as me is visionary, whatever.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think most people it just the easy way out is to quit and then they make some excuse, you know, and they say, Well, I'm actually moving, you know, or it's best for my family. And they, you know, I I just gotta do something else for a little bit, or like I had this other opportunity come up. And they let the CEO believe that they aren't the problem because confronting it is so much harder. And you know, like there's usually I'm maybe like a one to two percent chance, I think, with that person if you know, depending on the degree that you actually are gonna get through to them and have them listen, because All they want to think is like, this other person wasn't a fit. You know, and you hear it in the language once the person's left. Like, well, they weren't a good fit, you know, or they didn't really see it coming, like they didn't have it in You know, it's like always their fault, like they just couldn't meet the bar, they weren't good enough.

Jennifer Houle: This is what this would do. Like he got really into the idea of radical candor. And so he just walked around being a dick. And this was when I this was when I left. And I said, this isn't radical candor. This is just mean. You were being a mean person. And so I wanted to say though, I wanted to caveat that by saying I had already secured my exit. And so I had the courage to do it. Yeah. I don't advise people to do that because it's not safe. It's not safe for people to do that, right? Like it's really hard. But he would also read books and he'd have like the book of the week or whatever. And then he would just be saying all these like pieces from it, but it's like you never actually read it. Like, I don't know if you've actually read this book. So Yeah, same. I mean, I could go so deep on that. So that's where we go back to the cult like thing. It is very much toxic organizations and certain leaders are very mu it's a very much cult like I really want to read that book. I have the tab open. it's

Dan Korus: It's good. It's a good book. And she's got another one too that's a little bit more like her biography. And that one's also really good about her exiting a cult. I just really like this one 'cause it's chapters about all the different things that she finds in cults. She studies them, it's like her PhD or whatever. And or whatever. And it just you know, and she's got she's got worksheets in the back. For so you can like, is this a cult? Yeah, you know? Absolutely. Yeah, it's really fun.

Jennifer Houle: twice if you're cult. Yeah, yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: But I was also thinking about that emotional intelligence thing about like cause it because it is going to be, you know, performative. It might not be the right time for the person.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Houle: so it is what it is. Like you do what you can and you give people the tools. It's also like those personality or behavioral type, like anagram type things that some companies do. I don't I don't like them. and then you're like, you're I'm a whatever the combination is. I don't buy it.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: I just don't because companies spend a lot of money doing it and then they don't use anything they learned from it because it's not quick. You can't just quickly remember someone else's in those moments that happen where you have to make like an immediate judgment call or you're like your instinct comes out. You're not going to go back and be like, God, Ronald was what he was like a Green, which means that I need to that's not what's gonna happen. And if and if they worked, we wouldn't have pips, right? Like because we the you're giving them the tools to communicate and and it's a crutch sometimes. Like I am just this way. It's like my my mom. Like this is just who I am. Take it or leave it, you know? And so I I think that there's some people this guy who, like I said, will do everything they can to make it not be as like to to kind of like fudge it up a little bit because I don't like it and I don't want that and so it's not who I am for real.

Dan Korus: I don't I don't like those tests either. And I think that have you ever heard of like situational leadership two by Blanchard?

Jennifer Houle: May maybe.

Dan Korus: It was a leadership style that came out in the nineteen eighties and or maybe a little earlier and it got turned into corporate training. And it it basically says that there's four different types of learners and that each four different stages of of people for d a skill. There's like the eager newcomer, someone who knows enough to know that like this is gonna be harder than they thought, someone who's starting to get good but doesn't have all the confidence yet. And then someone who's really good and just needs like some space. And it's like it breaks it down super cleanly. So for someone who doesn't have like any prior managerial experience or any sort of like wisdom around that, it gives them a a script and an idea that they can follow. And I think like disk and Enneagram types and strength finders or whatever is all basically the same thing. It's just like, okay, what is interesting about you and what style of compliments do you want to hear about yourself today. And it's just like I'm like, okay, but the the the hard part is it first of all, you can't put anyone into four boxes or twelve or sixteen. Like there aren't enough boxes. There's as many boxes as there are human beings. So like the if you're gonna do a test to tell me I'm Daniel, like the okay, dumb fucking test, just ask me. Yep.

Jennifer Houle: Yes.

Dan Korus: And the second thing is like the hard part is actually being able to listen to someone. Like instead of being like, maybe I should approach them from a standpoint of like they like data and numbers and they want to know that like research is really important to them. I'm like, you could just go you could just go fucking ask them. Like you could just go be like, hey Brian, what's important to you? What's important to you while you're making this decision? Brian will tell you. You know, he'll tell you. Maybe it's not fucking data and research and like numbers. You know, but we put him in this fucking box and we gave him a little A colored little main badge, you know, that said nerd on it and we thought like, okay, like Brian cares about this stuff. Maybe Brian doesn't give a fuck about this project 'cause it's a shitty fucking project.

Jennifer Houle: And maybe it's just a job. Like maybe it's just a job, right? Yeah. He's like everyone just

Dan Korus: Don't give a fuck. He's trying to finish. Yeah. Brian wants to go home. He just

Jennifer Houle: my

Dan Korus: Brian's mad that no one asked him if we should even be doing this fucking project. And you know, now he just has to go fucking do it because he's the how. Yeah. You know, and so like, anyways, I hate all of it. I don't think it's good. I really just want to teach people skills that they need that they can all use. And my help with it isn't necessarily to change the CEO, but one thing that I will say. is that I didn't have those skills when I was in those situations. So I had like very low self confidence in my ability to actually deliver that feedback. And had I been better, you know, telling the story now in this body, you know, with like with this like facial expression and whatnot, I'm a lot better at setting boundaries. I think I was a lot more meek back then. And so I don't think that I really had, you know, kind of the gusto or gumption in order to be actually be able to take it seriously and someone actually think like, shit, he actually will quit. You know, this is actually a big fucking deal. You know, and so like I think there's a lot of practice that happens there. And so the skills aren't necessarily to fix the CEO, but to give or the toxic leader or team member or whatever, but to give everyone else around them strategies that they can use to just make their life better. And like, God, that would be so fucking nice if like I could just arm everyone with the skills they need to survive that situation. You know, 'cause

[104:50] skills to survive a toxic leader and the five-finger reframe

Jennifer Houle: Absolutely.

Dan Korus: if they don't, they'll they'll be sucked into the cult. You're right. Like they like the the other person they'll get defensive. They start to mirror that behavior. They think that because they were treated that way, they can treat others that way. Yes. They can they can treat everyone else that way. Then they go get their new job and it's not like that and then they're overly competitive and shitty and they've learned all these bad behaviors that carry with them. And so like

Jennifer Houle: Yes, you're saying you're saying everything.

Dan Korus: You need the boundaries established in order to even have the energy in order to even be able to get out in the first place.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. You have to de program when you leave environments like that too. Yeah. Because you will bring your coping mechanisms with you and you might come in like hard and fast somewhere and it just does not translate. Like you you do. You have to deprogram and I was gonna say something, but you what did you say? And I was like, Yes, don't remember.

Dan Korus: Yeah, rewind, rewind. you need to have enough energy to even leave in the first place, like boundaries, you need the skills to be able to deal that person.

Jennifer Houle: The skills to be able to deal with that person, maybe it's that. and and I and I guess that's it for the teaching people emotional intelligence. It's really who is it serving? It's not for the CEO because those CEOs, they're never gonna do the work on themselves that they need to. And it it they

Dan Korus: I hope.

Jennifer Houle: do. I hope they do too. But Yeah.

Dan Korus: They're

Jennifer Houle: That's a very that's a generalization.

Dan Korus: I'm coming for you.

Jennifer Houle: But right? With that purple finger. But it is like there's this one kind of method that I think is a really helpful about a lot of people will will personalize and they'll be like, What did I do? Like a CEO will go a leader will come and like say something nasty or behave in a certain way. And do you know it's like the five finger technique thing? It's like a cognitive behavioral therapy thing.

Dan Korus: no, no tell us. this sounds good.

Jennifer Houle: I do this with my partner a lot because he is very he person personalizes and he overthinks social situations a lot. Like a a lot. We both do. But we try to help each other out. And so say for example, I can you maybe give me something that might happen to someone at work that somebody does something and then right away you're like, Holy shit, what like you blame yourself. So like a leader comes up to you and does or says what?

Dan Korus: Dude, this report sucks.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. Exactly. So that's great. So then right away you have to be like your instinct would be like, I fucked up, right? So that's that's one situation. Now your responsibility is to think of four other possibilities as to why they said that to you. So if your first one is like, I fucked up, the second one could be like, Well, I don't know, this person has had a bad day. Okay.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Houle: And so like what would three other things be that could have cause them to say that to you.

Dan Korus: They have poor taste in PowerPoint slides?

Jennifer Houle: Yeah.

Dan Korus: They're wrong and they're bad at giving feedback. Yes.

Jennifer Houle: Yes. So it's exactly that, right? It's like you have your instinctual and that comes from whatever trauma, however you were raised, whatever it is,

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Houle: or whatever maybe something recently just happened to you.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: So that's the instinct. And then your responsibilities come up with four other reasons why that that may have happened or they may have said that to you. and then that starts to get you into like more lateral thinking of not just like it's not binary, it's not black and white. There are so many different things that are happening. to people that cause them to behave and show up in a certain way. And we are we really have no control over that. And so what can we control? Right.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, not gonna change my fonts for that leader. Tawi. Yeah. I'm sticking with Monsterant semibold, bro. Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: And it's not to take away your own accountability because one of those things could be that this report really does suck, right?

Dan Korus: Could be. Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: But it's not just a a lot of what happens to us is based on things that have happened to other people. Okay, it's like pick the dog.

Dan Korus: Tot yeah, totally. and kicking the dog is for people who need to go to prison. Yeah. I think so one bad habit that I carried with me after a a toxic job was I showed up at the new workplace and I was like super on edge about getting feedback from anyone. Yeah because one of my jobs people used to be like, this sucks. You know, like this this is actually shitty. You know, they would say that about the work product and You know, we say that all the time, but when you work like really hard on it and you're burnt out and you're like, my god, like do you know like how many nights I stayed late and like how many eighty hours of w like, you know, work weeks went into like making this thing, you know, that like I know it's not great, but the least you could do is like call like acknowledge us and y they use the word shitty after like what we did, like, you know, I want to flip a table and like shit on your desk. And you know, we don't get to do that 'cause we have to put pizza in the fridge, feed our families. So I think like someone had come to me at a new role and they had said, I just don't really like it. You know, like they they said like I had I had some like document that was doing well and they wanted to see it 'cause it was like they wanted to use it as a template and they were just, I don't really like it. And I think like I I turned around at my desk and I looked at them and I was like, So you just don't like it, or do you have anything constructive you want to say, or is this meeting over? You know, and they were like they left and then like my office mate was like Dude, Dan, like what was that? I've never heard that from anyone before. And I don't know.

Jennifer Houle: They're going back to officer, like, okay, one, Dan is dehydrated. Two, like, alright. And they've taken that on and they're like,

Dan Korus: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know. I just I I totally love this style. I think it's good. I think like giving people grace is good. And then it also I think like the latter three, the deeper you go, probably gives you boundaries in order to be able to say, Okay, like hey, like that's not constructive feedback. What do you what do you want me to change? You know, and like how urgent is this fix? You know, and like give me something that I can learn from because I thought they were pretty good.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. Get curious. Just get curious. Absolutely. Yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Or maybe tell me what you want up front instead of making me guess and read your mind.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. And and then like how do you how do you say that and like we're also we're also fragile too, right? Like

Dan Korus: Like Yeah, they're fragile. They're probably more fragile.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah, absolutely. But I do I do love that you're you're doing that work and teaching people about emotional intelligence. And I think that it's it's so necessary and we just need to make a i I just go back to it's just work. We're just working. And it's yeah, it's just work and everyone comes into it very yeah, with their own baggage and their own issues and then let alone Like that's like going way back, let alone what may have happened to them that morning or whatever it is that they're going through. And so how can we give people more grace and be more compassionate with ourselves and with others and still get the job done? And I go back to the more you know about people and the more like you learn to lead with love and and be human, those conversations are a lot easier. I have I have terminated

[112:19] how to run a termination with aftercare

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: and by that I mean like not murder, but let people go.

Dan Korus: I'd believe either, by the way, for the record.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. And that's just because we're talking about this specifically in this podcast. But if this were a different podcast, we would talk about the murders. And but

Dan Korus: Back to leadership.

Jennifer Houle: back to leadership. So many people. I've terminated so many people. And I am still friends with them. And they still reach out to me for references to bounce ideas off of. And so that's that is kind of my point of you can do things in a human way. And do the hard things and it actually makes it better for everyone. instead of staying really clinical and really cold throughout all of that, I think it's better results.

Dan Korus: Sorry, do you think it's how you treated them before you terminated them or do you think it's how you terminated them?

Jennifer Houle: I think it's it's both. And and there's one more and I think it's how you show up for them after they're terminated.

Dan Korus: Walk us through it.

Jennifer Houle: walk us through

Dan Korus: Yeah, like term like term like okay, so Are you

Jennifer Houle: You couldn't make me through a fryer you?

Dan Korus: The thought crossed my mind and you can if you'd like to, but you don't have to. I think that I'm just really curious because I think a lot of people are like, Okay, the termination is the end, right? And what you're saying is like, Okay, there's a lot of there's a lot of things that happen before, during and after that are really important. And I love that because I always think we always don't think about what happens after the fact. You know, we're always willing to like, well, I want a you know, a more you know, self sufficient team. It's like, okay, are you gonna give them like are you gonna leverage them the resources that they need in order to be self sufficient? Or are you just gonna say fucking go for it and like hope that like money, time and like top cover just lands in their lap, you know, like magically? Like who who's gonna go do that for Anyways, so, you know, I think that I think this is novel. So what does it look like leading up to a termination, into a termination, and then like after that you think you might do differently or that people

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. And and this is the same thing. I didn't know that I had this mental model until we started talking about it where I said, like, there's the event. There's the precursor. There's the event. So this is a new thing for me that I've learned about myself through this conversation. I think I think that leading up to it beforehand is as as much clarity and transparency as you can have. Okay. It's as human resources, you do have to be careful. Like I'd I'd written a piece about pips on Substack and

Dan Korus: I love that piece.

Jennifer Houle: Thank you. I it's done really well. I got a lot of time.

Dan Korus: Love that piece. Yeah. I have it saved. Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: I my favorite part of the whole piece is performer? I barely know her. That

Dan Korus: Ha ha ha.

Jennifer Houle: was so fucking funny.

Dan Korus: Yeah, that's a good one.

Jennifer Houle: So a lot of people will say, Well, it's it's because it's a legal requirement. Like, yeah, no shit, Sherlock. I've been doing this for like twenty fucking years. I know it's a legal document and a legal requirement. Like, what do you it's so weird when people offer that as like, well, pips are there because like I I know that. I I find it so insulting to to whatever, but that's my own personal thing.

Dan Korus: Bringing nuance to the state of the art, jackass.

Jennifer Houle: Right? Like just get out of here. We're talking we're going beyond that. Like, okay, then should I just fucking stop writing? Like what do you want? Okay, like I'll just go

Dan Korus: Write my next fucking essay, jerk audio.

Jennifer Houle: Exactly. Like get out of here. It's that non actionable feedback thing. So yes, I I am aware of that. But

Dan Korus: really try and man explain fifth to you in the comment section. my god, that is so cringe.

Jennifer Houle: Actually this is illegal, like you do need you d you do? What? Why God, I've been doing it wrong.

Dan Korus: look, get the fucking We need to talk, yeah. Damn.

Jennifer Houle: How have I never been like lost my job? I have just so you know, knock on.

Dan Korus: I think we need a I I need to consult a man before I publish my next essay.

Jennifer Houle: Can can I tell you this is another sidetrack I was

Dan Korus: If only I had a if only I had someone with a penis here to proofread this for me.

Jennifer Houle: I was in an HR networking like round table thing and we were talking about something, and one woman literally said, well, sometimes like sometimes I think it's really helpful to ask a man for his perspective. And we were like What in the handmaid's tale is happening right now? So anyway

Dan Korus: That's so fucking funny.

Jennifer Houle: Like she literally she anyway. Okay, so in that piece

Dan Korus: Not now I

Jennifer Houle: You each you have to be careful with what you say. You have to be careful. Right. In the United States, maybe more so because people are more litigious. I understand that. But we have gone way overboard about just like not sharing any information. And so for me, when I talk about yes, you have to be careful, but you can be transparent. Like you can say to someone that things are happening in the company. Like be re be, you know, for all hands, give them the information. there I've worked at companies where they give the actual like we have this much runway time. And if we don't get another round of funding, or if we don't close this deal or whatever, we're gonna have to start looking. And then people make can make informed decisions. Am I okay with taking that risk? Or am I gonna start looking now? And I know people get worried that they're gonna lose their like high performers or whatever as a result, but like you will lose them anyway if you have to make these really hard decisions down the road. So it it's just there are trade-offs, right? So I err on the side of transparency without breaking laws. I take risks on people. Maybe I share information that other HR people wouldn't, but because I can read people and there's that emotional intelligence and there's that ability to to know that I can take a chance on this person. So that's it's a lot of transparency. A lot of transparency in the beginning. And if I don't have that ability to be transparent ahead of time. Then that's where I put the most care into the moment it's happening and then the aftercare. It's like it's like sex, right? Aftercare

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: is this new kind of concept of how do you take care of each other after you've had this intimate moment. And terminations are truly no different. It is the most intimate moment you can have with someone. And so there is a certain level of aftercare that's required. And so during that the termination, it's giving them Time to process and not shoe them out of there right away. it's also knowing that some people don't want time to process. So you have to know people that you work with. You have to actually get to know them. And that's where the emotional intelligence comes in. What do I know about this person? I'm gonna I'm gonna have to fire this person. What do I know about them? I know that they just went through like this or that or the other. And so then I can bring that knowledge into the conversation and do like I don't know, like. Bis bespoke artisanal terminations. Like I'm not gonna customize this,

[119:48] bespoke terminations and learning HR by passing the exam

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: right? Because it's not one size fits all, but when we when we fire people one size fits all because we know nothing about them, then you actually open yourself up to more risk, in my opinion. And so and then the aftercare can look like checking in on them. It can look like being a reference for them. It can look like saying, I saw this role and you would be perfect. I felt like you'd be perfect for it. Do want me to make an intro or let me, you know, I'm happy to review your resume before you start interviewing. Like all sorts of things. But at the end of the day, it's like, How are you doing? I know that was hard for you and are you okay?

Dan Korus: So Yeah. Damn. Do you think how d how does people learn how to do HR and like where would this fit in their like their tutelage? You know, or like are are we just hoping that they're all gonna all future HR folks are gonna listen to this podcast? You know? Yeah. Wonder

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. I don't know.

Dan Korus: about that? There's no like leader school. There's no like leadership school or anything. Or at least I think. Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: There's HR school. And like, right, it's how do you how do you become a good leader? How do you become it's it's by experience, it's by the desire, by getting curious. I did, I have my professional HR designation. I challenged the exam by this is I think you'll appreciate this, Dan. I think this is a very ADHD way of doing it. I studied more about how to pass the exam than I did about what like the studying the exam itself. So I deep I w did a deep dive into how how the exams are written, how they grade them, what kind of content, what has worked for other people, that you're gonna be tested on like twenty percent of the material and what is that twenty that's how I did it. And then I fucked the rest.

Dan Korus: Did it work? Did it work?

Jennifer Houle: I passed on the first go.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Know the system. Look at the fucking system. If you know the game they're playing, you don't you know what I mean? Yeah, for sure.

Jennifer Houle: This is how I think for someone like myself I've gotten as far as I have in in my life and in my career is by

Dan Korus: In the nontraditional career path? Yeah. Okay, cool. So this is the advice. 'Cause I was gonna ask you that question. So hit hit it, hit it. Sorry I

Jennifer Houle: It's it's knowing the system. It's knowing what you're working with. Like, that's it. I didn't have the time. I my son was like two or something like that. It was COVID. I didn't have the time to sit there and study every that's so overwhelming to me. I can't go do you have winners in the States? Winners.

Dan Korus: Winters?

Jennifer Houle: Winners.

Dan Korus: Well, I I win sometimes, occasionally.

Jennifer Houle: W winner like Char Charlie Sheen No, like you notice the stores where it's like liquidation outlet stores. So it anything that didn't sell at the store, they take it to this like outlet place.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah, like Sierra Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sierra Trading Post or yeah, Ross or somewhere.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah, I go into the a store like that and I feel like I need to set up a charity in my name for how overwhelmed I am and I won't be able to like make it past walking through the doors. Like it's so overwhelming to be in places that it's too much like I can't even cope with it. And so

Dan Korus: Like big department d big department type stores with lots of variety.

Jennifer Houle: I don't know where to look.

Dan Korus: Sorry, I wasn't trying to make fun of your Canadian accent with the winter versus winter. Winter

Jennifer Houle: Winners.

Dan Korus: Yes, sorry. where so where are we going with

Jennifer Houle: Yeah.

Dan Korus: So department stores, where are you going with this?

Jennifer Houle: So where I'm going with that is when you're studying for something, there's too much. There are too many possibilities. Am I studying all of this?

Dan Korus: Okay. Yes.

Jennifer Houle: So I have to bring it in to what's manageable for me. And that is learning how they how the exams are conducted and how they mark them and blah blah blah. And so that's what I did. I just studied a select part of it and then passed on the first go. So all of my energy went into that. And so

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: I I have my HR certification. But like where do you learn that stuff? It's just yeah, it it's just on the job. It's on the job. It's how making the most of like maybe bad experiences, learning from failures and listening to people, being curious, emotional intelligence, blah blah blah. Yeah. It's

Dan Korus: It's such a good fucking life tip though. Like you know, don't memorize every single cult rack. Memorize how they determined where things go and know their game so that way you don't have to know everything. You know, like if you understand what the person is looking for and how they're gonna grade it, you don't need to be good at make like that just like what great life advice. Such good yeah, that's such good advice.

Jennifer Houle: You have Yeah. Learn the system that you're in and then understand self because then I will say, okay, I'm in the system of whatever. And I'm a woman and like biracial woman and of a certain age or whatever. So now I'm in working in the system. How do I do how do I work it to my advantage? Like everything is about understanding how to navigate the system that you're in as yourself. Whatever like pluses or minuses come with that. And then Anything is achievable in to me in in that sense. So yeah, that's also like the learning the HR exam. I'm not answering questions the way I would answer them. That that I would have failed. Yeah. Right? I know what I would do in that situation, but I'm gonna answer it the way I think you want me to. And then I know that I'm gonna pass because I understand that the people writing this are a governing body of blah blah blah and they are going to be and so it's it's that for everything.

Dan Korus: It's a game. It's all a game, yeah. It's all games, so you gotta use game theory and game theory would dictate no the rules before engaging. Which would also be like one of Sun Jun's art of war, so

Jennifer Houle: Yes. Yeah. And if you're if you can see patterns and systems and things like that and like when like neurodiversity it's hard because those sometimes take over. But then you then you devise your own systems and your own ways of navigating those those kinds of things.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're not different. We're military strategists using our game theory intellects in the modern day.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. But but the problem though is that sometimes you develop those skills way later in life, right? Like Yeah.

Dan Korus: you feel like you develop them way later? Well, why?

Jennifer Houle: I don't know, because I think I I allowed myself to like struggle a lot when if I would have just kind of stopped and taken inventory, then it maybe would have been just easier. Okay. Like I find I I have found a lot of life to be very, very hard and very, very challenging. And I think that I yeah, need needed to maybe look at what I could control more so and just understand my own power. Like when we talk about the imposter syndrome and things like that too, it's like, but you wouldn't have gotten this opportunity if somebody didn't believe in you. And so why didn't you just believe in yourself more? So I said that I think in your Crossman's interview that I feel like I'm at a point in my life where I could do anything. If I decide I want to do something, I can do it. And I think that comes with like age and life experience and all s all sorts of things. And I'm a late bloomer. Yeah.

[127:17] late bloomers and knowing the system you are in

Dan Korus: Do you I mean I just hate classifying yourself like a late bloomer, you know? Like what if you're just always bloomed but in different ways? You know, like maybe now you feel really capable, but like you wouldn't have done that unless you did what you did a while ago. Also, like you there's no guarantee that if you did go back in time and do like a skill set inventory that it would have even worked and you would have found the same things that you're finding now. Yeah. Right? And so like and I mean like what by what measure of success are you even measuring yourself to on like whether or not you were bloomed back then versus now. You know, and also in addition to that, like we have so much life left.

Jennifer Houle: I don't, yeah.

Dan Korus: You know, like there's so much life left and like I've seen some, you know, very wise consultants, you know, out there trying to say like all, you know. But like I've seen some very seasons. Yeah. Yeah. Properly aged. Like wine. You know, I don't know. Anyways, like I don't know. Hoku Hokusai's best paintings were at like the end. You know what I mean? And so

Jennifer Houle: No, I know. You're thank you for that. I I appreciate that pushback. I it's things like I didn't get my

Dan Korus: Say that shit about yourself.

Jennifer Houle: I know. And I like I got my driver's license when I was like twenty five, not sixteen. I'm like, because I wasn't ready at that time. I just wasn't ready at that time. This

Dan Korus: Well thank God you might have died.

Jennifer Houle: is it. This is it exactly. No, I think I feel like I'm coming into I'm coming into my own a little bit. Uh-huh. More so with age, but it

Dan Korus: Mm.

Jennifer Houle: It's hard. And then it's all there's something really exhausting about constantly be like examining yourself and thinking about you're like fucking so over

Dan Korus: Me.

Jennifer Houle: It it takes a lot of work to do all that self reflection and things and then sometimes I'm like, This is really like gratuitous. I'm like, get over yourself. Like just go forth and be and stop being so reflective. But I think that's also part of ADHD and how it presents for some people. So

Dan Korus: Yeah, yeah. If a if our if all the rooms in our house had like perfect fluorescent lighting, we would go crazy because we could see all the dark corners and like it's good that you have dark corners 'cause it makes rooms feel special. And so like the same is true for ourselves and our own self examination. But with ADHD we always just want to grab the flashlight of the You know what's over there. You know what I mean? Yeah. I totally get it. Hey, so if I sent you a leader and they wanted to learn emotional intelligence from Jennifer herself. Yeah. And you gotta teach this person. And by the way, I have like three or four more questions after this. If you have time. We don't have to go through all

Jennifer Houle: I do, I do. My my partner just texted me and said, Can our son go to someone's house for a play date? And I was like, Yeah, sure. I'm just gonna yeah, so you go

Dan Korus: Yeah, for cent record with you.

Jennifer Houle: You could I'm just gonna text I had to change my lighting too. It was like really bright. you're all fuzzy.

Dan Korus: Whoops. Can you see? I

Jennifer Houle: Can you see it? Can you see it?

Dan Korus: can see I can see you and hear you just fine. Yeah, sorry about that. Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: Could you see that you were fuzzy?

Dan Korus: I could.

Jennifer Houle: I Yeah. You said so okay, my son is gonna go to a friend's house. She's a soul friend, he's my god, they're so fucking cute. Really? Yeah, it's like

Dan Korus: Really?

Jennifer Houle: nine.

Dan Korus: And he knows all the lyrics to slum shady. Good

Jennifer Houle: Telling this fucking kid I don't want to get like

Dan Korus: What are you feeding him?

Jennifer Houle: I know. I don't wanna get political or any well, I mean, I I I just said that because people say I don't want to get political. I don't really fucking care. But my a friend of my kid's at school, the mom came up to me at pickup once and said, my kid was telling a classmate that apparently Donald Trump only wants to become president so that he can avoid going to prison.

Dan Korus: And you were like and

Jennifer Houle: And I was like, yeah, like totally hanging out. I'm like, okay. And she's like, well, you know, like they're kids. And I'm like, I again, I'm not raising a kid who doesn't know what's happening in this world. I'm not raising a kid who like navigates this world like a broken Roomba vacuum cleaner bumping into walls. Like we're gonna talk about this stuff. So yeah. Anyway. Yeah, he's he you would you would like my kid. He is just

Dan Korus: Absolutely, I'm sure.

Jennifer Houle: He's so fucking funny and he's so yeah.

Dan Korus: I used to be a cam counselor. I really love kids.

Jennifer Houle: I remember I listened to that in an episode of your podcast about camp canceling. Yeah, kids are

Dan Korus: I love kids, yeah.

Jennifer Houle: I was take or leave. I would never plan on having kids. but then I became a a mother. I got bringing with said when I was thirty seven. Yeah.

Dan Korus: Happens sometimes.

Jennifer Houle: And I'm so glad. I'm so fucking glad he's just the best. Okay. So what were your questions? What snack are you opening now?

Dan Korus: I was just playing I was stimming with my Capri son. Anyways, so I think like you know, and I'm a polit I try and be apolitical online. I think like it's hard because I don't want people to think that my material is just for one side of anything. And like I would really love it if and I know that if I put emotional and I kept I kept it I don't know if like I I tell everybody this, but I le I left empathy off our home page and off most of the pages on our website. Like you won't find the word empathy. And I might take emotional intelligence off too in a bit here. Cause I just don't think that like those are the people I you know, and I I want to get to both extreme sides of all aisles and I want to walk the middle and I want everybody like, okay, like if we listen to each other, like it'll help everything. And so like I don't think that we'll get out of the political divide without emotional intelligence skills. And so it would be really shitty if like people branded them or made the which I I know they already are, but like made them, you know, more like a If you listen to people, then you're a liberal or idiot. You know, or you know, I don't and I don't I don't buy that. I don't believe that at all. Some of the nicest, most good listeners I know who actually think about me are like deeply conservative, do anything for me, take the shirt off their back, my oven broke and he brought me an old one. You know, that was just like in his garage and j you know, things like that. And just like anyway, so it's tough. It's tough. And so I really want to try and avoid it if I can, 'cause like I and also it like depresses me so much the situations that we're in in the world. So I like don't want to focus on it, but it's so privileged not to be able to that I'm like I feel bad for not leveraging my privilege against the situation.

Jennifer Houle: But I think you do though. Like I think that you don't have to say like you're you're showing up in your values, right? And you're showing up by doing, like I said, by yeah, by having not only women on your podcast, but women of color. Like you're you're doing it. And so if somebody wants to guess what your values are, you're showing them. They don't have to guess. It's it's hard because same, like I I know who I am. I know what I believe in and my biblical stances and everything.

[134:47] when standing up for yourself isn't safe

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Houle: But it's it feels unsafe sometimes. Like somebody somebody on Substack said, made a comment. This is way in the earlier days, about how I like something about my a note, and they were like, I haven't clicked on your profile, but let me guess you're writing about love and blow and all these like feminine type things. And so I screenshotted it, posted it as a note, and was like, it's good to see like misogyny is alive and well. And and the I got attacked within like seconds. People were like, What? Like, who the fuck do you think you are? And la la, and just so attacky. And I was like, but this is very black and white to me. This is not, you can't interpret that person's comment any other way.

Dan Korus: They said out loud they stereotyped you. Exactly. And then they gave you stereotypical labels.

Jennifer Houle: Which is hilarious because I don't write about any of that stuff. Right. Not that there's anything wrong with writing about that stuff, but they Yeah, exactly. And and so then I just delete and that's that's when I discovered the block button and the power that that had. And I was like, okay. This is not it's not safe for me to push back on that. And and like you said, you're like, okay, well then maybe we should be pushing back and maybe we should show up a little bit more. But it's like That's not what I'm there for. I I am confident in my values and the fact that my values can change any time and someone else totally can change my mind and I'm open to that. But I that's not where I'm gonna do that. It's just not where I'm gonna do that. because I don't have it's hard enough to be going through like perimenopause and everything else. I don't need to deal with that too. That's not my I fight that battle in other ways by raising a good son and, you know, associating with good parents.

Dan Korus: people so I can't believe you did the right move which was to call this person out publicly for being stereotypical. Did you anonymize them at all or did you get believe their name up?

Jennifer Houle: I anonymized them completely.

Dan Korus: Yeah. That's so kind. That's so kind of you. What the fuck? You didn't owe them that.

Jennifer Houle: I know, and then I didn't with that person who said like I love you darling or something in my DMs. I like, here you go, here's this person's name and profile and everything.

Dan Korus: I saw some dude who messaged like a an Alaskan photographer and she lives in the Alaskan Moab and she does photography and she's got like some amazing glacial photography and someone DM'd her like some serious fucking bullshit like, Hey, you're very pretty. You would look great knocked up, you know? And I I th I was just like, my fucking god, you know, like how could like your name's on there, you know, like your name your name is fucking on this dude. Like like how do you w why where is that okay?

Jennifer Houle: It is wild out there. It's wild out there. People people be doing some crazy shit. And yeah, and so when you do want to f like stand up for yourself or push back a little bit, it's sometimes it doesn't feel safe. So then it's just like whatever, this is not this is nothing. This is nobody. And did you ever watch Mad Men?

Dan Korus: I think I watched like the first season or two. That was on like HBO, right? And it was about like the advertising booms. Yeah. and like the the secret they like had all these like gender dynamics and it was very like nineteen nineteen seventies first place. Nineteen fifties.

Jennifer Houle: The sixties There's this one there's this one guy 'cause like the main guy is is toxic, whatever, toxic mas masculinity, terrible person. But he's in an elevator with someone who like just left the company and the guy was like saying to the employee was like, I feel sorry for you. And then the Don Draper character was like, I don't even think I d I don't think about you at all. Right? And it's so fucking like Ooh, my son would have been like just like roasted, you know, like whatever the youth I can't remember youth slang right now. Yeah. But it's but it's that, right? It's like this this person you can you can fight someone online or whatever or try to like stand up for yourself. But it's like, you know what, meh, whatever. I don't I'm not gonna think about you ever again. And then I'm proving the opposite 'cause I'm talking about it right now because it's also very upsetting, but whatever.

Dan Korus: It's a good thing to talk about. I mean, it's emotional intelligence. There's haters everywhere, you know, and part of dealing with that and like having to stand up for a personal brand that's like worth something is that there will be people who are against that. As I like, I have encountered like three or four people who have commented on my stuff, like calling out my studies and like and it's different because they attack that like people attack men intellectually. You know, if they don't like my idea, they'll attack my idea, not me. If they don't like your stuff, they'll attack you, not your idea. Yes. Which is shitty. But you know, they'll they'll like be like, well that's that's not even what that research meant and I hate that this is like such an oversighted study and I'm just like you know, I'm saying that like emotional intelligence is like, you know, the most important thing for a manager, you know, which I'll stand by and I don't think like anyone can beat me on that 'cause I I it's such a such broad fucking statement. It's like it's basically like the astrology description, you know, of like it applies anyways. So like it's so defense.

Jennifer Houle: But

Dan Korus: I'm like, dude, this is like my target client. Like I found I found him. You know, like this is this is

Jennifer Houle: How do you how do you get that guy, right?

Dan Korus: I told him I told him, Hey man, I subscribed. You should too. I'd love it if you read my articles and we can learn from each other. Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: But there's also people who challenge you in ways that are positive too. Like one of my earlier pieces on Substack is something about like living systems organizations as living systems and

Dan Korus: Mm, mm-hmm.

Jennifer Houle: like the way we behave. Like if there was the organization, then there's like that you know, like the the roots of the trees and can communicate with each other underground and stuff. And that's kind of what happens in organizations. And so cool. Somebody had commented something and I got my back up because I was like, they think I'm stupid. They don't think I know what I'm talking about or whatever. And then I read the comment like over and over again. I was like, mm they're they're pushing back, but in a good way. And then I learned something from that person and still like substack like connection there and he's phenomenal. And he will often nudge or push back on things or push me to continue something. And he'll he'll be like, I feel like maybe this is incomplete. And or like you can do this. Like take this one step further. And I'm like, if he would have gotten my back up and been like, he's like, it's that five thing, right? It's the five different ways to respond to it or think about something. And it's been great. Like he's phenomenal and I've this has like really pushed me out of yeah, pushed me beyond my boundaries.

Dan Korus: What a gentleman too, like to take the time to like slow down and think critically about someone's work and be like, Hey, I think like I think you should do a little bit more here or I feel like you're holding back or think about this. Like that's such a w like that's how we learn and grow and then

Jennifer Houle: No, I got chills. That's Andrew Do you know Andrew Barbon on Substack?

[142:16] credential snobbery and finally being heard in the room

Dan Korus: No, but maybe I should introduce myself.

Jennifer Houle: Andrew Barbon, he is he's the person who who did that and yeah. And I and that goes shout out Andrew, that goes back to the trauma of being like I get my backup when a man kind of comes comes at me in that way. I just do. And so that's my own that's my own like self protection, preservation and stuff like that. And he's like so not coming at it like that because he's a coach and he's a leader and so he will always see something and and try to get people to grow. So anyway, yeah. It's not all bad out there.

Dan Korus: No, yeah, no, I'll raise my hackles at like a lot of people when when they come at me, you know, for stuff, especially like some someone with credentials who like starts with the like the beginning of the sentence with their credentials. You know, like a PhD and blah blah blah blah blah and I'm like, You want me to like not listen to you faster? As someone who listens, as someone who's a good listener, but I'm just like the it's not how we start sentences. You know, 'cause there's such like a a a a privilege economy there, you know, and like such like a like a gross overestimation of like what we learned when we go through graduate school and like how much that like we overestimate how much that should apply to every other facet of our life. And like I've how many PhDs have I met where they're like, Well, I'm a PhD, like I should be starting in leadership. Yeah. Fuck the fuck you should. Like yeah. Get the fuck out. No. You know, and so I had I had a a an And it's the worst when it's the leaders because then they treat the people who are similarly credentialed different than other people. Yeah. You know, and so fuck, there was like a leader's retreat going on and we'd just hired some new PhD and it was like his second day. You know, like so totally, total Bambi, right? Total Bambi PhD like doesn't have his legs under him at all, you know, doesn't even know where like the good bathrooms are in the building yet. Like does like doesn't know shit about the org at all. Can't even they're not hooked up to the printers. And the c the the the leadership goes on a retreat and they're like, While we're out, this guy's charged you know, so listen to them.

Jennifer Houle: This happened to you, like you were there?

Dan Korus: yeah, this happened. This was an email that I have. Yeah, I got lots of stories like that. But anyways. So just like yeah, credential anyways. Th

Jennifer Houle: Yeah, well

Dan Korus: this my hackles go up too for s people and they and they shouldn't. But they do and I'd work on that.

Jennifer Houle: Well, yeah, I my heckles go up when it's if I'm in a room with people who are educated formally and I'm not, I I shrink myself down. Like I don't share my ideas, I don't talk a lot. And when I joined this organization, there was some kind of like discussion on the executive leadership team we were talking about, some kind of situation. And everyone had these opinions and this one guy just like and he's like me. Like he did not go to school. He is an entrepreneur who exited successfully exited his business for like over twenty million dollars. And he is like a Metis, like First Nations person. And so he stops everyone, he's like, So this is an HR discussion we're having. We hired this HR professional. And so let's listen to what Jen has to say and then do what she tells us to do. And I was like, my God. Like Yeah. It was amazing. It was amazing. And that was it, 'cause that was the baggage I brought with me to this organization, was never feeling heard. And I was everyone at the company had like PhDs or masters or whatever. And everyone was like super fucking smart, super nice, super smart. And so I just felt like and and because of the way I think about things and I have to go backwards, by the time I was ready to make my contribution, we'd move past it. And I'm like, please, can we talk about what we're talking about? You know, three hours ago because I'm finally understanding it. So then yeah, so that opened the door for me to be like, yeah, they hired me for a reason. I do have an expertise. So like just go for it. Give her. You know? Yeah. Just

Dan Korus: Let her

Jennifer Houle: let her rip. Balls to the wall. HR. There you go. Yeah. Near all.

Dan Korus: Yeah. It's good. So remember that person I sent you and we were supposed to teach him emotional intelligence? Like how would you do that?

Jennifer Houle: Yes, but it got f do I need to like no.

Dan Korus: there we go.

Jennifer Houle: Okay, who you're sending me someone and you're like, Jen, teach them emotional intelligence. Yeah. Do I know anything about them or just like blank?

Dan Korus: I'm trying like think of like a creative persona, but I think it's most useful to the audience if we just keep it generic. they're they're a Libra. I don't know I don't know. Yeah, I don't I have no idea. okay, so you have that in common. Yeah, maybe they have a little bit in you have a little bit in common with them.

Jennifer Houle: Like do I know that they've been like behaving badly? Just nothing. They're just like you're just like, Jen, here's a client for you.

Dan Korus: Here's this total bad boy Libra who needs some emotional intelligence training.

Jennifer Houle: I would like I would be so mad at you if you did that to me. I would be so mad at you.

Dan Korus: No dude, I'm saying. I'm seeing this normal ass person. They have normal dreams. They're very stereotypical. They just like they don't know what emotional intelligence is and they cannot describe the difference between sympathy, empathy, and compassion. You

Jennifer Houle: Okay, yeah, yeah.

Dan Korus: know what I mean? They're just blank slate. They have lots of ambitions. They're an eager learner.

Jennifer Houle: So I think I think I can I can never directly answer your question, but I think that you said something that I want make sure that we go back to, which is that maybe the the words like emotional intelligence are not part of this. Just something I don't want us to forget about that, because I think that we could probably like get there at some point.

Dan Korus: Okay, sure. this

Jennifer Houle: So I think

Dan Korus: is good.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah, no, no, sure.

Jennifer Houle: We're we're reaching the part of

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: what I call my niece t calls it when you start getting a little hysterical, it's the historicos. And so the

Dan Korus: Historicas.

Jennifer Houle: early onset historicos and then there was like full blown historicos, and I think that we're getting we're getting to that. We're peeking. We're peeking.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: So I think I mentioned that before, but it would be about setting my own expectations.

Dan Korus: Okay.

Jennifer Houle: Like where are we starting from and what do I think is realistically achievable with this person, knowing that they've got a history, they've got trauma, learned behaviors, they've been conditioned in some way, shape, or form. And so it wouldn't be like a a prescribed set of behaviors or anything about controlling their emotions. Because I also think that. People who tend to lack emotional intelligence are like control freaks. And so if you're saying, like, I need to teach you how to control your emotions, then they're gonna be like, Fuck, go fuck yourself, get fucked. And so I think that

Dan Korus: If I give you a more specific case, would it help? Sorry, I totally interrupted your thought. No damn that's bad of me.

Jennifer Houle: No, I think I just don't know how I would do it. Like I I I really don't. I think it would be like helping them identify like the five things, like what belongs to you, what might be might belong to other people and that understanding that every situation you find yourself in is output of the conditions and the people involved. And so I think my approach would be teaching them that, like how to how to understand that this isn't just Linda dropping the ball, but it's all of these other things that happened. and so it's about it's about seeing all of the other things that maybe have come into play, what's what is within your control, maybe what's not. It's not about it's also it's about getting curious and dis and being discerning.

[149:45] perspective taking as the actual EI exercise

Dan Korus: So you'd really go into the perspective taking angle of all of it.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah.

Dan Korus: Okay, so here, let me I've got I've got an answer and maybe you could reflect on it and tell me whether or not you think it's shit. Does it sound good? Okay, cool. So I was interviewing this guy, Matt Hein. His podcast is gonna go live this Monday or next. And I really like his style. He teaches he's he's a marketer on the internet, but his day job, he's a manager of a chaplain, a chaplaincy.

Jennifer Houle: Okay.

Dan Korus: You know you know chaplains, right? I didn't know what chaplains were. So I was like

Jennifer Houle: I know Charlie and I no I'm just kidding, I do know what

Dan Korus: What happened?

Jennifer Houle: Hold on. I think I did something once

Dan Korus: no, that's okay. Did we got cursed if you say chaplain three times, like

Jennifer Houle: Like did did my camera just

Dan Korus: I think your camera front camera went out.

Jennifer Houle: Well it has been like Has it been on the fritz?

Dan Korus: does it have a battery?

Jennifer Houle: No no no, it's plugged in, but I'm just wondering if full setup.

Dan Korus: Okay. All right.

Jennifer Houle: I am also worried that yeah, okay. Let me just bring you over here. It says new recording track though.

Dan Korus: It's okay. We'll still have all the old stuff.

Jennifer Houle: I know, but this happened to me before I think with Paul and the only way to get back to my other camera was by leaving and coming back.

Dan Korus: Leave and come back.

Jennifer Houle: But when we lose everything

Dan Korus: No, I'm pretty sure we'll be fine.

Jennifer Houle: Okay, hold on. Give me one second.

Dan Korus: Fuck it, we'll find out.

Jennifer Houle: I think that my microphone isn't working, my camera isn't working.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Houle: I know, but that's okay. Hold on, this is just a different angle. I'm gonna

Dan Korus: This angle looks pretty good. It's like, you know.

Jennifer Houle: Will this do?

Dan Korus: In the corner. Yeah, of course it will. Fuck it. This is f

Jennifer Houle: You can see my t my toilet paper. Let me move that. Why do I have it? Well I don't know. I don't know. Okay. So do I do I know chapl yes, chaplains.

Dan Korus: Okay. And so for those who are listening who don't know what a chaplain is, it's someone who's a a spiritual person who goes and supports people who are on like end of life care in hospitals and whatnot. And so they obviously have to have a very high degree of empathy, because they're coming in with like a very high state of privilege. They're walking into you know, a a hospital room or they can leave and they're fit and they're able and they're meeting with someone who's like maybe gonna die soon. They're not doing well. And it's like the worst like time of their life probably so far, usually. And it takes a lot of emotional intelligence to be able to do that. So I think that one thing that he he said they'd do is this thing called what did he call it? I think he called it like paraphrasals or literals or it's in my notes somewhere. He called it something. But it's this practice where they write down verbatim. They write down everything that they the person that they said to the person, everything that the person said to them, the patient, and and by memory, you know, just as much of the script as they can, and then they annotate it with how they were feeling when during the conversation at different points. So they have to like recall the feelings that they were having and the different thoughts that they were having during this this, you know, conversation with someone. And then at the end of the week, their their teacher, you know, their they're like Mr. Miyagi, you know, their their tutor will go through the verbatims that they've had and will pick out a particularly interesting or difficult one and they will have to role play the patient back to their teacher role playing them in that moment. And so I think this I think your answer earlier where it's all about perspective taking and getting them to see other sides. And like you would just teach them like, okay, like, all right, tell me about it, you know, how your day was at work. And then we just go into it more and thinking about, you know, okay, here's the five things. I think it really fits. And I had no idea that chaplains got trained that way because I think it's really interesting, you know, and like, okay, let's let's do do that with like a tough conversation in the office. You know, and really you have to role play the person that you were talking to. And does that change how you think about the conversation? Because my guess would be absolutely Lulia does.

Jennifer Houle: Abs absolutely it does. It's kind of like if you've had enough therapy at some point they will tell you, like, imagine that you were saying this to like the young version of yourself, like little Jenny. Like, and would you say that to her? Like, absolutely not. I I did a similar exercise once where we're it was like a writer's conference and we were saying like all the reasons why you think that you will fail at this, but then you had to go up to someone and say it to their face and be Because you're not smart enough because blah blah blah and all this stuff and like people are crying and shit because it's hard, right? Like it is. I think perspective is huge. And I think humanizing people is like at I think understanding the system that you're in and that it like it produces certain types of behaviors and then humanizing people. But again, that goes back to whether or not people want to humanize each other. Like I watched a video about how Chickens are treated, or like, you know, the livestock that we consume. And it's very upsetting. And I was telling my sister, like, you need to watch this. And she's like, no, because then I'm gonna stop eating that. I'm gonna stop eating chicken. And I like eating chicken. But it's like not, it's not about not eating chicken anymore. It's it's understanding what it is that, you know, what what it is that's happening and then making informed decisions based on that information. Yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: Like it's just about being informed and then knowing that you have choices. that you can make. and you can eat chicken that's raised more humanely, or you can stop eating chicken altogether or whatever, right? But it's it's it's about knowing what is happening and being eyes wide open. And I think a lot of people and that's also asking a lot of people when we always say too, like this is work. This just work. You just go to work and do your job. but yeah, I it's it's it's about perspective and and being human for sure. Yeah.

Dan Korus: Okay, you ready for the last three questions?

Jennifer Houle: my god. Yeah. I'm really struggling the the lighting from this angle though.

Dan Korus: Really? Are you struggling? Do you like stare at yourself on Zoom calls and stuff? No,

Jennifer Houle: I'm trying to look at you. I'm trying to but sometimes when I wander then I'm like, there she is

Dan Korus: You look great. You sound great.

Jennifer Houle: There you go.

Dan Korus: I'm glad we have a change of scenery. I was hoping that that camera would go out so that way we could see a different angle of your office, honestly.

Jennifer Houle: You can't ask for much more than that. So yeah, I'm ready for

Dan Korus: I know. Good thing it happened.

Jennifer Houle: I'm ready for the last three questions.

[157:14] advice for someone's first day on the job

Dan Korus: Okay, cool. Great. All right. Someone's starting their first day of work tomorrow.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah.

Dan Korus: They've never been work to work before. What's your advice for them?

Jennifer Houle: I'm so annoyed with you because you had asked something like that in the Crossman's interview. And then you know, Ashley Gibson was kind of talking about that somewhere else. And I was like, This this needs to be a full piece. So I actually have another tab open, which is a draft of learning to read organization. So you inspired me for a post because I had said something originally, I'd said something like there's the org chart, then there's how things are really run and like sooner you can figure that out. But like how do you figure that out? And yeah. So I guess my advice would be just like it is for anything else, is like pay attention to everything. It's your first day of work, you got the job. So so often we want to try to prove that we have value and that they made the right decision by hiring you. But I think that if you're good at what you do, that will show up really quickly. Anyway, but if this is someone who it's like their first job ever or is that what you mean?

Dan Korus: First day at work ever, period. This is the first time they're working entering the workforce. They could be fourteen years old and seeking refuge, you know, in the the the cold seclusion of the walk in at Wendy's. You know, they could be

Jennifer Houle: Yeah.

Dan Korus: Were you stoned?

Jennifer Houle: I mean it was n I was fourteen, that was like nineteen ninety four, so likely, yeah.

Dan Korus: Got it. Okay. Very badass. You know, and or you could be like a twenty two year old, you know, who just got their bachelor's or or an eighteen year old who just graduated high school. You know, I don't know. It could be I think it's a range of ages. I tend to think that the first job is usually younger.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah, yeah. So I would say it's important to I I think it's the same answer no matter what. And even if you're like a seasoned, you know, executive going into an organization is that whatever whatever you thought this w was when you joined isn't going to be that. And so now start to figure out what it really is. And that is paying attention if there are meetings happening, if there are certain people who speak more than others, blah, blah, blah. Who gets to have an opinion, who doesn't? How are how are people treated? And just pay attention. And then you can you can use that information again to make an informed decision. It's all about making informed decisions. And so so now that you kind of have an idea of how things are actually run, what does that mean for you? Gamifying too, right? Like, now you you're you got your job at Starbucks and You're a barista, but you want to be a supervisor. Okay, well, but pay pay attention to what constitutes a a supervisor. What are some of the problems you've seen them have to deal with? Do you want those problems? Do you do you think you can do that? Do you have the disposition within you to be able to handle those situations and start playing the game? I mean, and this is someone who's saying like fight the system and change it and everything, but it depends what you want to do, right? Like if you want to advance in your career or if you want to. start changing the way things evolve was the none so that other people have opportunities or other people get heard and stuff. Yeah, so it it would be that. Pay attention. Be careful. Build relationships. And never ever bring your whole self to work.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: You tell some this is a question that you ask people, but I wonder, like and it must be any question you ask must be because you've given it thought yourself, right?

Dan Korus: I also have asked well, I can't tell anyone about my secret projects, but I do think that I think it's an important question and I think that leadership happens at all levels. And I think that you can start your first job at a first day and be a leader. Yeah. I don't think that leader leadership in and of itself requires some duration or an age. And so I think that I do th I want my podcast to be for everybody. Yeah. You know, and so the reason I want this is because at the end I want I want a piece of advice that's for everybody. So I want someone I and I think that one thing that I really wish is that like we had good resources and good education for leaders who are like entering the workforce for the first time. Yeah you know, and so like I want some body of advice for those people 'cause like those poor fuckers, you know, are gonna get robbed blind, you know, by the world that's out there and and how it is, you know, or they're gonna be you know, it's just it's just so different. Like you said, like It's it's not what you think it is, and that's okay. Some t in some cases it can be better than you thought it was. It depends on the job, and just because it's not good now doesn't mean it won't be good later, and vice versa. So, you know, I think with that in mind, that's why I like asking these questions. And I think that I think my answer is take notes. Have a notebook or some sort of a note taking system because there's always like And I think that goes back to the practice of observing. You know, but also when you're writing, you're not talking. And if you're not talking, you're not letting people know what you do and don't know. But if you're writing notes, then you're figuring out what they know and you're learning the system. And having good notes is fucking superpowers. Like if you've got a well organized notebook or you've got like a good obsidian repository with like all your thoughts and all your meetings and like everything that happened and like you figure out how to organize your thoughts. And like you can crack that. There's not a lot in the workplace that like you won't be able to crack very easily. So I just think be someone who is willing to write shit down and find a notebook and a color you like and some fun pens that that like are exciting and just like get used to writing shit down and memorizing like not memorizing, but just like learning things. And also there's a lot of peace that comes from writing things down. And if you're in you know, if you if you find that you don't like your job or the day's kind of dragging on, you can just like have fun with yourself in your notebook and that can be really entertaining. You know, and so like, you know, shit, write a grocery list. At least you'll get something out of the meeting. You know, you'll come away with knowing what you're gonna do at the store later. You know, like plan a little route, make a treasure map, I don't know, write a note to a friend, do something fun. but have a notebook, I think is my advice.

Jennifer Houle: It's it's it's exactly the same, right? It's like pay attention, observe,

Dan Korus: Mm, huh.

Jennifer Houle: retain. Yeah, I I think if you're really young and you're entering the workforce, it might be the first time besides school, but it's very different where you're meeting such a diverse group of people. Like you were working with people who are in their fifties and you could be in your like twenties and you know, like just all sorts of different people. And so To be open to that too and to appreciate the different perspectives that comes with the diversity like that. I

Dan Korus: Yeah, absolutely.

Jennifer Houle: think it's really, really important. you don't have to be friends with everyone either. Kind of have an idea of what your boundaries are gonna be with people and and yes, see what kind of behaviors get rewarded, what kind of behaviors get punished, decide if that's kind of the way that you want to to be in that organization. and yeah, I think I think all of that's super, super important. Yeah.

Dan Korus: People in the middle. Team leads, high level solo contributors, middle managers. What's your advice?

[164:43] middle managers are systemically set up to fail

Jennifer Houle: I think that I mentioned this before in the crosswinds thing, but it's I I I believe that the people in the middle systemically are set up to fail. They are scapegoats. They have to translate messages from like high up leadership down to their employees and then they have to take that information from their employees back up to the leadership and they don't have that much authority. Maybe they don't have that economy. Like it's really, it's really hard to be in that middle, middle ground. So I think the my piece of advice to them is to understand that the way that work is currently designed is to set you up for failure. And so what can you do to what can you do to once you know that, how can you start changing that? How can you start thriving within that? How can you make things better? Somebody I read so I wish I could give them the credit for this. I feel so bad, but somebody had a post. No, no, it was you. It was it was Tanu, is that her name?

Dan Korus: Tony Tawari.

Jennifer Houle: Should embrella funnel?

Dan Korus: Yeah. Uhhuh. Are you a shit funnel or a shit umbrella?

Jennifer Houle: Yeah, exactly. And so I think I kind of touched on that in that CrossFund's interview too is like figure out how to give how to take the leadership's message to your employees in a good way and then vice versa. Right. I think you do have a responsibility to your team to make sure that their concerns and everything are heard. And then I think the other thing I would I would implement that I didn't mention is like to introduce those skip level meetings and say, hey I am your manager, but I also have a manager and I want you to be able to speak to that person on some kind of cadence, maybe it's quarterly or whatever, so that you know that your the messages that you're giving to me aren't being yeah recorded or filtered or whatever. Like Yeah. So that that kind of thing too. Yeah.

Dan Korus: I love that. And for those who are listening who don't know what Crosswood's in, Crosswinds is a written leadership interview that has twenty questions. Jennifer was actually the first Crosswinds interview that we ever did. and it was a smashing success. So we're continuing the series. And if you wanna find those, you can find those on my sub stack. If you prefer a written interview, there's lots of good leadership nuggets in there and it it's broad and it covers a lot of broad scope. And it's a great introduction to Jennifer's leadership style. But honestly you should just go read her stuff on subset 'cause it's really good. but we'll get there and we'll plug it all. Okay. There too. But yeah.

Jennifer Houle: If it's a smashing success, it's because I probably went back and read it like fifteen hundred times and maybe that's why they're

Dan Korus: yeah. You went back and read it? Why'd you go back and read it? You wrote it.

Jennifer Houle: Because I well, I wanted to pull pieces from it so I could use that for like notes or whatever in the

Dan Korus: Well okay, yeah.

Jennifer Houle: And because I am just like a that kind of that kind of person. Or I started to read it and then I stopped and then I closed the tab and then I like it probably took me like two weeks to read it from start to finish. I know it's it's

Dan Korus: that's cool. Yeah. I get it. Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: Do weird shit.

Dan Korus: Yeah, it's good. I like to like print people's articles out if I'm like really gonna read it. Like there's like the skim, you know, and then there's like reading it and then there's like I'm gonna print this shit out and like actually read it.

Jennifer Houle: hard to give that much time like I have so many safe

Dan Korus: Hard, it's tough.

Jennifer Houle: it's really difficult to do. Yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah, it is like so hard. Like I think like I think I could probably keep up with like two to three writers and like read all of their stuff. Yeah. And it sucks that like we have to pretend that we read everybody's everything.

Jennifer Houle: It's it's really, really hard. I want to cheer people on 'cause I feel like I have a lot a lot of people have my back on the platform and then you just get so overwhelmed by by content. So

Dan Korus: Creating's a job in and of itself. Absolutely. Anyways, people at the top. People at the top.

Jennifer Houle: What advice do I have for them?

Dan Korus: What advice do we have for them?

Jennifer Houle: I think that it you really, really lose perspective at the top. You absolutely lose perspective. All of your mandates are different. The people that you rub elbows with and spend most of your time with are different. And you need to get back, like I said, like go from the balcony to the dance floor every once in a while and really understand what's happening because you are The privilege that comes with being in a leadership position and the difference between that privilege and someone being like an entry level, it it's it's huge. That gap is so huge. And you just you lose it's like if you if you get a bunch of money, you get raises and stuff, and then you've got that lifestyle creep that comes in and it's like, maybe I need a new car or maybe this and that. That happens at work too. And so Yeah, you will you will never truly understand what's happening at the organization that you were trying to make huge decisions about if you don't go back to see what is happening. And that you have to care about human beings too, right? Like you can't just be this like fat cat at the top who's like, you know, looking their finger and counting their bills. Like you really have to understand that for any organization, what costs you like the the highest cost is your people. And so if you don't know anything about what life is like for them there, then you're just making really terrible shitty decisions. So yeah, it would be it would be that. Like don't forget where you come from. Don't let the and and and this is not just me si pulling this out my ass. When you start to get into those executive and leadership positions, it's very homogenous. Like you're going to see a lot of like cis hetero white men of a certain age. That's just what it's gonna be like. And so it's an echo chamber. And so you want to If you're not going to be able to make changes like bringing more diversity into the leadership team, then at least go back to where there is likely more diversity and make sure that that's that's being brought back up to the top. I've like s I have so much more to say about it, but like, yeah, it really goes down to yeah, don't forget what you're don't forget what you're trying to do.

Dan Korus: We can do a live sometime. I wrote down the title, Thriving in a Toxic Environment.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah. You think you can thrive in a toxic environment?

Dan Korus: I think you could probably give some good advice on how we could. I don't know if I can. I think I actually can. Well, okay. I think you can. I was about to say, like, I love toxicity. Like stay toxic kings. But like you know what I mean? Like I just

Jennifer Houle: Smoking.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Hashtag stay toxic. I think like I wanna point out before something I want to leave people with and I wanna leave you with is that every single time I asked you how would you do something related to emotional intelligence, you answered with Who am I talking to? And what do I know about them? And God, I think that's just it. Yeah, like almost every single time you did. And so and I really love that because I think that that is an answer. And I don't think I think and I'm gonna ask the same questions everybody else and they're gonna give me boilerplate answers of whatever they think. But I do think that that's a really beautiful and unique way to answer that question because everyone's different and the frameworks that you use for one person are gonna be different for another. And it is different for everybody because you can't put everyone in in you know the same four boxes. Everybody gets their own box. And so I just want to, you know, thank you for your beautiful insights on this podcast because I really think you add a lot of depth to the conversation around leadership and emotional intelligence from everyone I've interviewed so far, because you've refused to give one clean answer for you know, one sp a general population, and you're asking the question of Who is this person and what do they mean? And I think that more leaders should be asking that question. So I think I think that that is the answer.

[172:13] senior leaders: don't forget what you came back for

Jennifer Houle: Thank you. I I really appreciate that. And then but I'm going to this place now of like, well, sometimes you don't get to know that. Sometimes it is like seat of your pants type stuff. But then but then I'm arguing myself in my head saying, but no, because it never has to be. It's it's like that being

Dan Korus: We change the system. Then we change the system so we can go do that. Which

Jennifer Houle: It's like that

Dan Korus: would be the Jennifer method anyways, which would be to change the system so that we can be more successful.

Jennifer Houle: Exactly. And I and I think that we all we want things to scale. Like we want to be able to be like, Okay, this yeah this is the framework that we use and then we scale and we just copy and paste it.

Dan Korus: Hyper we're hyperscaling EQ.

Jennifer Houle: Exactly. And you just can't like that's that's that's it. You you cannot. You cannot. And and when you talk about like the leaders and who how they buy into it or whatever, it's because that's what they want. Like they're gonna turn around and be like, Okay, well, how do we like hyperscale EQ or whatever? And so it's like going back to and I don't think it's as simple as saying, you get CEOs buy in by speaking their language and saying, well, because of the ebda or whatever it's called, like the bottom line, la la la I think it's beyond that. I think it's absolutely beyond just that. And I don't know what that is, but it's worth a brainstorm at some point.

Dan Korus: It starts with asking who are they and what do I know about them? I'll tell you that.

Jennifer Houle: Yeah, right.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: And and and whatever else. And then you do that by by connecting with people. And you connect with people if you are like us by like mirroring, by personality matching, by almost like mas it's perfor sometimes it's perform like do I care about people? Absolutely I do. But do I bring in a certain like way of doing it to make sure that I can like get my hooks into them?

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well there. Yeah.

Jennifer Houle: Do you know what I mean?

Dan Korus: I know I totally. I totally do. Yeah, absolutely. It's so true. yeah, it's so true. Yeah. Yeah. And how much better does all that go if you can just tell, you know, be real with someone and learn a little

Jennifer Houle: And I know that there's a sales technique for that too, right? It's like, find a common ground and then you're gonna sell them or whatever and things like that. It's like that, but emotionally.

Dan Korus: Yeah, it's like but caring, you know, and not wanting something. You know.

Jennifer Houle: It's non extractive. It's doing that in a non extractive way, right? And yeah. It's it's relational and the spirit and intent is a little bit different, so

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good job. We did it.

Jennifer Houle: We did it. Can I are we done? Is

Dan Korus: Yeah, we're done.

Jennifer Houle: this the longest that you've done?

Dan Korus: yeah. Absolutely.

Jennifer Houle: I'm sorry. We went off on tangent.

Dan Korus: Did you? I thought it was great.

Jennifer Houle: you write a okay, so two things. I you probably want to get the fuck out of here. Two things. When we talked about like the firing, I I thought a lot about that because you were saying, I asked so and so to fire me. And my thing about firing you would have been like, hey Dan, today's the day we're gonna have that conversation that we've been talking about for months now that could happen and that, you know, the company is gonna try to do a a whole bunch of things to make sure that it doesn't. But unfortunately, here we are. And I know it's been on your mind. And I am going to tell you right now that, you know, that we are going to go ahead and terminate the rel your relationship with the organization, blah, blah, blah. So in because of that, it's like the idea that again, what happened before that termination. So we were in preparation of it. So it's not a surprise. And you're not just hearing about this for the first time today. You knew that it was a possibility for a while. So that was the firing thing.

Dan Korus: Damn, nice. That was kind of fun. Can we do it again?

Jennifer Houle: I didn't I don't know if you're serious or not, but then the the other question I had for you

Dan Korus: But dead series, yeah.

Jennifer Houle: did you do your LinkedIn your cheesy LinkedIn post about

Dan Korus: Did you? What do you mean? Which one? You're gonna

Jennifer Houle: Remember

Dan Korus: Reddit cheesy LinkedIn post? No, dude, I didn't. I'm so sorry. I didn't put it in? No, I didn't. Dude, I know. Sorry. I'm sorry.

Jennifer Houle: I I did. I did. but yeah.

Dan Korus: Do you wanna read it for me? I'll clip it. Do you want I w do you want me to read it or do you are you gonna read it?

Jennifer Houle: I'm gonna that's so smart. I'm gonna send it to you and you can't read it any of it ahead of time. You just have to read it out loud, okay? It'll it'll just be can I put it in the chat? I need

Dan Korus: Yeah, you can.

Jennifer Houle: to look up terms because I was like, I need a word for this that like a bro would say and then so there was there was a lot of thought that went into this.

Dan Korus: Do we have a chat in Riverside?

Jennifer Houle: Yeah, I'm sending it to you right now.

Dan Korus: Fuck. Fuck me, man. Damn.

Jennifer Houle: Okay, do you see it?

Dan Korus: I saw the notification. I'm gonna get ready to read this.

Jennifer Houle: Uh-oh.

Dan Korus: Good.

Jennifer Houle: Okay, do your best like acting. This is again because this is who you're going to be. You are a tech bro type, super privileged, and you know everything. So there's it's all you. It's all your gut. It's your instinct. And yeah. Go for it.

Dan Korus: Instinct Tech Bro Trust Fund.

Jennifer Houle: Yes.

Dan Korus: Bad bitches. Yeah. Let's ride. Four years ago, I got my ass kicked by seventeen bus passengers, and it saved my company. It was close to the end of Q4, 2023. My startup was struggling. Not gonna lie, everyone was telling me we needed to listen to the market. I disagreed. Great entrepreneurs don't listen to markets. They create them. I was riding the bus because I forgot to charge my cyber truck. A huge pregnant lady boarded, looking for an empty seat, but they were all occupied by old people and me. She asked if she could have my seat, and I said no, because I believe comfort is the enemy of growth. She stared at me. Other passengers stared at me. One guy said, Seriously, man? I looked that pregnant lady straight in the eye and said you can optimize for comfort or you can optimize for growth. She started crying. I don't remember what happened after that, but when I came to, I was on the sidewalk covered in blood. I got up and looked at myself in a store window reflection and saw my two front teeth hanging from my gums by bloody strands. You probably would have panicked. I saw an unlock. People on the street tried to help me, but I told them that this is what building in public looks like. By 11 AM, Synergy Flow had become Tether. Same product, same code. We changed absolutely nothing except for the name and logo. Two white squares connected by a single red thread. Our head of marketing called it an incredibly expensive trauma response. So I fired her. Within six months, Tether had four hundred thousand users. Today we're valued at one point seven billion. Sometimes you just need to get beaten unconscious by an angry mob to unlock your next growth vector. I bet that pregnant lady's baby works for me someday. You're welcome, kid.

Jennifer Houle: My favorite line was so I fired her. So fucking funny, my god.

Dan Korus: Okay, okay, okay. I've got it. Okay. We're gonna schedule a live. We're gonna do a snack exchange and I'm gonna write you the best damn LinkedIn coffee you've ever had. And you gotta read it live for me. Cool?

Jennifer Houle: Yes.

Dan Korus: All right, cool. Let's do it. Okay.

Jennifer Houle: Awesome. And then I'm gonna yeah, MG Taylor stuff. I don't want you to forget that 'cause I think that you would I think you would like that. So awesome thing and then sleep cycles. You mentioned sleep. They talk about the importance of sleep cycles to properly process information. Yeah. That's why I I forgot that. I wrote down sleep cycles and then I just looked at my notebook now. Because you basically you talk about that and it's It's so important, it it gives you the opportunity to change perspective as well. Like something you felt one day, maybe it's one sleep cycle, maybe it's two, you have a different perspective. But sleep cycle plays into into that.

Dan Korus: If I know that I've got a big meeting coming with my manager and I see bags under their eyes, I will intentionally reschedule it until they're better rust.

Jennifer Houle: But