Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Before we dive in today's episode, I want to take a moment to share something that's been on my heart, something I've been working on behind the scenes for a while now. I'm officially writing a book. This book is called let's Be A Practical Guide to Leading Through Change. And it's deeply personal to me. It's built from real experiences. The uncertainty, the challenges, the moments where I didn't have the answers but had to lead. This isn't just a leadership book filled with theory. It's about navigating uncertainty when there's no clear direction, building internal clarity when everything around us feels unclear, having courageous conversations, even when they're uncomfortable, and leading with value, especially when it's the hardest to do so. I'm also going into topics that don't get talked about enough, like what it feels like to be challenged, overlooked, and even bullied as an adult in a workplace. And how those moments shape the kind of leader you become. This book is for anyone who's ever thought, how do I lead when I don't feel ready? How do I show up when I don't have all the answers? And how do I stay true to myself in environments that challenge me? If this is you, this book is for you. I'll be sharing more about the journey behind the scenes moments, and opportunities for you to be part of it as we go. So stay tuned, because this is more than just a book. It's a movement around how we lead through change together. All right, let's get to today's episode.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: Good day, wonderful people, and welcome to another edition of let's Be Diverse. I am your host, Andrew Stout. This episode is dedicated to all my loved ones who supported me through this journey. Those who have left us will always be in our hearts and will never be forgotten. Today our topic is the rebuild Leadership after the Breakdown. Our guest today is one remarkable human, one that I have quickly become to admire, and her name is Jen Farr. Jen, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us today.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: Thank you for having me, Andrew.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: You're very welcome. How are things with you on your end? What's going on? Give me the tea, the deets. Give me it all. What's happening?
[00:02:12] Speaker B: Well, I just came back full time into my business as I completed my second book in November. So lots of things are starting to happen on that end. And it's. It's pretty exciting, actually.
And yeah, so the book I wrote was released in November. I had self published that and it's called the Treehouse Principle and the subtitle is Cracking Crisis Codes and Activating Creative Modes. So, yes, it's been a very powerful journey to see that come to fruition.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: Wow. Lots of exciting things happening on your end. Congratulations on the book. That is something that I think when you do is at the, the work that entails or goes into it. It's a reward once it comes out and everybody is able to read all the work that you've put into it. So that's very exciting.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: Very exciting. Yes. And it's been wonderful to hear some feedback and people getting into the book and actually interacting with it, creating their own sort of inner tree house. So that's been really exciting to, to receive that type of feedback. It's really, really cool when a book has its own life.
[00:03:13] Speaker A: No kidding. No kidding. Well, that's wonderful. And again, congratulations. And now I know another author. That's pretty cool.
[00:03:21] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: So before we begin, I always have a fun, thought provoking question that I asked my guests to get things going. Are you ready for yours today?
[00:03:34] Speaker B: Yep. Fire away, Fire away.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: So my question to you is, if a tomato is a fruit, does that make ketchup a smoothie?
[00:03:43] Speaker B: So personally, from a taste profile, I'd say heck no, because I can't imagine drinking a full vat of tomato or ketchup, I should say, as a smoothie base.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: So, yeah, I love the answer. So much fun. I agree with you 100%. I, I don't think that it would be considered a smoothie. And I know some people say that tomato is a fruit and I know I've read some places that it is, but I'm not too, I'm still not convinced. I would still call it a vegetable to me, but that's just, that's just me.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: I can't see myself putting my fries in and poking them into an apple or something. So, you know, it's sort of goes along with that kind of concept.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree with you 100%.
So, Jen, to get us started here, can you share a bit about who you are and what really drives you, drives the work that you do?
[00:04:34] Speaker B: Yes. Well, so for basically my entire career I was in corporate high tech as a technical writer or documentation or technical implementation consultant. So essentially a techie.
And it was around the fall of 2012 that things really changed for me. So that was my crisis moment. I was diagnosed with breast cancer and it shocked me to the core. And it really Sort of gave me an opportunity to sort of reassess my life. Now, that didn't really happen until about a year after going through the surgeries and recovering from that, that I started to have what I would call the mental breakdown piece. So trauma lives in the body. I have learned that in my mindset work over the last few years. And when I.
I didn't even realize that that was happening at the time until the second cancer journey came along in 2016, around this time actually of the year. And it was at that moment that I was able to look back and when I had taken the time, a leave of absence from work around 2014, 2015, that I realized that I had finally, you know, cracked that crisis code to start the reveal process in within my own body and my own mind about what I had just been through. And so, yeah, so that took me on a journey of sort of discovering who I wanted to be and how I wanted to show up differently in the world. And it wasn't until 2023 that I began looking at cancer coaching initially, and I wrote my first book, which was about my cancer journeys. Then in 2023, ourselves, we did have a family crisis. We lost one of our family members very tragically, and we had to move a couple of times as well due to other circumstances. And so it literally was a year of Crisis. And then 2024 kind of became that year of healing and grieving and processing again. And then in 2025, around this time, actually in 2025, I began to tap into the ideas and the concepts around the Treehouse Principle book. And I realized what I wanted to do was more about, was more about helping people understand that, how they could tap into their imagination and creative energy the same as we had as when we were kids. And how that through neuroscience, I had discovered that we do have the power to heal our brains and therefore our bodies as well, when we tap into these modalities. So I wrote that book based on a lot of that research that I had done in the neuroscience field and tapping into the mindset concepts as well. Yes. So that was a very, very big, pivotal moment for me, and I rebranded as a crisis to creation coach last year. So, yes. So lots spots going on.
[00:07:31] Speaker A: No kidding. Well, thank you so much for, for sharing your story. It's very interesting story, you know, when I use the word congratulations, but I'll say I appreciate your resilience for getting through your diagnosis twice in your life. So that for me just shows your. Your strength, and that is very admirable. Because there's a lot of people that just don't have that strength to. To do that and to do it, and maybe not even the first time, but to do it a second time. So I admire your ability to. To get through that and see that you can. So I appreciate all the work that you have done to. To show that. And then you're talking about power to heal our brains and our bodies. And we're going to talk about it a little bit or quite a bit, I'm sure, in this episode. In this episode. But it is super important. And if I'm going to put it into the realm of a. Of a leader, we do have to learn to heal our brains as well. Depending on the situations and depending on the things that we're dealing with, we definitely have to learn how to do that. Because I think if we don't, then I think things are gonna go downhill, I think.
[00:08:35] Speaker B: Oh, definitely. Yes.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: Yep.
So when you hear the word breakdown, Jen, what comes to mind in your own leadership journey?
[00:08:45] Speaker B: So I can speak to that from a corporate perspective and then from a coaching perspective.
[00:08:50] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: From a corporate perspective, I would say that there is a level of compassion that is required and communication that is required when people are in any. Any type of trauma or crisis in their situations. And life will always life. Right. So I think as a leader, it's a really important piece of your leadership quality to have the ability to sit down with your employees and your team members to talk about the real life stuff if we need to do that.
Because I think what can happen in what I've seen a lot, and maybe this is a little bit of a generational thing as well, is we sweep things under the carpet, and that's the way we've always done it. So I. I actually joke about it in my first book where it sort of said everything got piled into the middle of the living room underneath that old 70s orange shag carpet, you know, so it's just a big hump under your carpet of stuff that you have not talked about, you have not addressed. So as a corporate leader, I think it's extremely important to be willing to have the compassion, have the training to have the compassion and the communication. It's extremely important.
As a coach, my first response is about authenticity and speaking to the real and the raw circumstances that individuals are going through, but also to, you know, on this one side of meeting them, where they're at, helping them to navigate beyond the fear, beyond the stories, beyond the narratives. Because it's one thing to reveal your story and your crisis. But it's another to decide that you are not willing to move forward. You just want to sit in the muck. I call it the swamps of sadness. Any Gen Xers out there, never ending story, that's my favorite reference is getting stuck in the swamps of sadness. And we don't want that.
You know, we want to, we want to emerge again when the time is right and it starts with compassion and healing and communication. So yeah, that's, that's definitely what I would say from both perspectives.
[00:10:50] Speaker A: What I, what I love about what you're saying there is that you, you separated it into two. But for me, the communication factor is probably key in both factors here as far as breaking down because I think if we, I think leaders are afraid to communicate what they could be going through or what they could be dealing with. And we don't need to go into any in depth analysis or go into any personal stuff, but if we just kind of just came, became a little bit more vulnerable and talked about saying, listen, I'm having a little bit of a rough day today or I had a little bit of a rough morning. Yeah, you know, give me about half hour just to kind of settle and compartmentalize myself and then I can receive any messages or anybody can come talk to me or what have you. But I just need a little bit of a moment and I think people will respect that rather than just going in and just. I don't. Slamming your office door, you know, picking on somebody and, or snapping at somebody that's asking you a question type thing rather than, you know, and because you can't take that stuff back. Right, so exactly. You have to. I think we have to learn to communicate a little bit better.
[00:11:58] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And how are we showing up, you know, how are we showing up for, for our clients, our employees, our customers, whatever. And any space really can be related to that when we're having a tough time in our own journey, in our own leadership guidance type role. I think you're right. It's important to, to without going into deep details, it is important to say what'.
And that is truly, I'm going through a bit of a time right now, so I apologize if my approach is maybe a little bit less sensitive or compassionate. It does. I think it opens the dialogue as well. So it offers that depending on how safe you feel in that space. But you're right, I think with leadership there, there comes this Persona of I have to always be strong all the time. And in reality that is not the case. We can't be strong all the time. And so I think when we show up more vulnerable and more authentic, it truly does open the dialogue and essentially promote a better relationship and communication between yourself and the individuals that you're working with.
[00:13:05] Speaker A: So what typically causes leaders to break down rather than to slow down 100%?
[00:13:11] Speaker B: I would say hustle culture. And in fact, I'm just releasing a brand new YouTube video on my channel, getting back into my YouTube channel this year about a quiet rebellion against hustle culture. We're sort of conditioned to believe that we have to become something new and something better and something faster and more progressive and more.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: More performance.
[00:13:31] Speaker B: And in fact, you know, especially in our climates, obviously, right. We have winter. We're. We're in a season of hibernation, to be quite real and honest. And, you know, we. We tend to wonder why are we exhausted all the time? So I think the breakdown can happen when, you know, leaders are not willing to take the risk that they need, and they think they need to push through and force the outcome and go against the grain, burn the candles at both ends. It is almost, yes. And I wrote about this, actually, my first book is that there was almost this martyrship mentality that can come in. And I saw it with co workers, but I also saw it with, you know, business leaders where, oh, yes, I worked until midnight last night, and oh my gosh, I'm so tired today. And it was almost as if it was like a showmanship.
And it really got to a point where it's like, well, if you can't show up in full capacity that next day because of that, that can be very detrimental to not only the company, but your relationship with your employees or your clients or what have you. So it's very important to not push
[00:14:37] Speaker A: through, in my opinion, and I've learned through my own journey, Jen, that you're absolutely right when you talk about the new year and people, I don't know, either they start a New Year's resolution or, yeah, do that. I don't do resolutions. I usually just pick a. What I usually do or what I've been doing for the last five years is I pick a word for the year, and I just find that that's a lot easier than rather trying to do all these different new things. But also, too, what I've learned as I've gotten older is that it is great that we want to work on ourselves and we want to change things. We want to change our mindset, and we want to learn things, and we want to learn about intent and what's intentional to us. But I believe that when you're deciding that this is what I want to do, I think it needs. We have to understand that it takes time to work on ourselves. Just because you're starting a new year and you are saying, I want to be more present for my team or I want to be a little bit. I want to be a better communicator, and I want to be a better listener. That takes time to learn on that. You can't just snap your fingers and decide, okay, if you haven't been a good listener or a good communicator, it's not gonna automatically start like that. It takes time to learn and to build. Reading, training, all that, in order to learn how to do that stuff.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: And not just that. And actually, I love this. This is where I am absolutely so excited to see where 2026 evolves in. In the teaching aspect of this. These concepts through my coaching and business, but the. The aspect of our old identities. So how we showed up in 2025 is not going to be how we show up in 2026, because we've evolved. You know, whatever we've been through or whatever we've navigated should hopefully level us up in a lot of ways, because we have, like you said, we've learned, We've. We've taken the classes, we've read the books, we've gone to the coaches, we've gone to therapists, counselors, what have you. Right. Whatever we needed to support our journey, to help us to move through those narratives and. And become a different version of ourselves. Yeah, you're right. It does take time to reprogram the old identity and release that old identity to show up differently.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: Yeah. And I'm not going to tell anybody that they should grow or they should have growth or they should have a different. I have a growth mindset. I'm never going to tell that to anybody. That's on you to make that decision of whether you want to do that or what have you. But I think if you are not looking at those things, then I think everything is going to become stagnant for you. So if you're like, for example, a leader that's in, you know, from. You began being a leader in, like, the 80s or the 90s. I'm aging myself here. But if you're. If you're doing that, then you're going to be the same, and you're saying, well, I've learned everything. Well, then everything is growing. Like you said, you're going to be a different person in 2025 than 2026. There's a lot of things that happen in 2025 that are may or may not happen in 2026, and there's things that are going to happen in 2026 that didn't happen in 2025. So we need to be able to adapt to those things as well.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Definitely we need to update those old 80s HR harassment videos with the puffy sleeves and, you know, that definitely needs to happen.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: We definitely do. For sure. So how do leaders know they're rebuilding, not just recovering?
[00:17:52] Speaker B: That's a good question. I honestly think it's how you see your employees, your clients, all that kind of stuff, to cover all bases, how they interact with you and how they may approach you. If you are more approachable this year, you'll find that people are going to want to speak with you more. You're going to be approachable, you're going to be more compassionate and listen perhaps a little bit more.
[00:18:18] Speaker A: So.
[00:18:19] Speaker B: So that I think would be a fairly big evident, you know. Yeah. Thing to, to see first and foremost. And your relationships will change.
Yeah, I think that should be kind of first and foremost, sort of an evidence for, for the individual to, to see that they have made changes in their approach.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: Yeah. And you're gonna definitely, if someone's coming up to you, maybe they're coming up to you, like you said, more. But also maybe I think the topics or the type of things that they're bringing up or are coming to, coming to you with that. Maybe there's that confident or that comfort nature that they have with you that they maybe didn't have before and they're just seeing something differently. Sometimes people are going to say you seem a little bit different or you're. I'm not sure what you're doing, but your mindset is different, your outlook on things is totally different. So that's when you'll notice, I think too, definitely.
[00:19:11] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: So what role does diversity and inclusion play when leaders are re examining systems after breakdown?
[00:19:19] Speaker B: Well, it's actually a bit of a tie into what you're saying about, you know, sort of the 80s 90s culture. We can't keep doing the things that we used to do even six months ago, because we're always evolving, we're always changing. And if we're willing to change and willing to learn and grow, that gives us the opportunity to change our approach and our mindset when it comes to diversity and inclusion. You know, things we're not obviously used to a lot of Culture change has changed over several decades that it's wonderful to see so many diverse workplaces now and so much acceptance. I do remember a case where, and this would have only been in sort of early 2000s, where an individual was transitioning in our workplace, and it wasn't handled perhaps the best, because there wasn't the education system in place. And so I think that, again, the most important thing would be educate yourself, get. Get aware, create opportunities for understanding more and having the communication more with these individuals or at least finding out more information so that you can empower yourself to become better with the. The aspect of inclusion and diversity.
[00:20:31] Speaker A: For sure. I think it's okay to ask questions. I've read a lot of places, too, that you're like, people are, like, fearing to ask questions because they don't want to look like they don't know something. But I'm gonna be vulnerable here today. I'm gonna say it's okay to ask questions, people, because there's no silly question. And people are gonna respect you for asking a question because they're gonna, you know, showing that you don't know it all or don't know everything. So by asking it, showing a little bit of compassion, a little bit of care, you were. And they're seeing that you were interested in that because you wouldn't ask it if you weren't interested.
[00:21:07] Speaker B: Agreed. Yep. Yep. And it creates a different relationship as well. Right. Which is wonderful. It opens the door for a different relationship.
[00:21:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Rapport building is huge. That's for sure. I. I am a firm believer. It's one of my core values, and I'm a firm believer of it. And I think if we do it, then so many things open up for sure.
[00:21:26] Speaker B: Agreed.
[00:21:27] Speaker A: So, Jen, before we wrap up today, what is one key takeaway that you'd like our listeners to get from this episode?
[00:21:33] Speaker B: Well, when it comes to, you know, any breakdown or crisis or trauma, definitely seek out the appropriate care and support that you need. Especially where, when you feel you're maybe in an environment that's not fostering that type of support, I think it's really important to feel that you can look for those. Those other support systems and networks and people that you can trust and you can be vulnerable with and, you know, to not be afraid to make changes, if that is something that you feel you could be stuck in, is this fear of change. And I think the most important thing is to how do I feel today? And how do I want to show up for myself in this new year? It's time that you put yourself first when it comes to these kinds of situations because we're only, you know, we're sort of only walking this earth, at least that I'm aware of anyway, once. And so when we can learn to recognize the importance of hearing and feeling when there's something wrong that we do reach out. It's extremely important.
[00:22:36] Speaker A: When you say that you can't be afraid to make changes, I think that's pretty poignant of this conversation that some people are afraid to do it, make a change because they don't want to be. Because if they make that change, then people may not like them for the change. But I think if you're doing it in a way that is positive, I think people will see, see that positivity. So I, I believe that that's okay. If you're doing it to be, to change, to be in a negative or abusive nature, well, then that's something that I think that could be talked about with somebody close to you for sure. Change is never, I agree with you, 100 changes. There's nothing wrong with change. Change is good. Changing your mindset, changing your outlook, changing the way you do things. There's nothing wrong with it at all.
[00:23:23] Speaker B: Exactly. As I've definitely said this before, written about this is that crisis can be a catalyst for change. Oftentimes it cracks us open so it reveals the pieces of us that maybe we didn't see before or know about and it allows us the ability to get curious and so we can start showing up differently and ask those questions of ourselves. How can I show up differently here? Or how can I be more supportive? How can I be more supportive of myself and more supportive of the people that I'm leading?
[00:23:51] Speaker A: I'd like all the listeners today to like share, share and follow this episode. I also want to take the time to thank you for coming on today, Jen. I admire your, I admire your strength. I admire your fear driven mentality, your creativity and imagination, your vulnerability and how you bring a light to every room that you're in. And these are things that I noticed right from our first conversation and I'm noticing it again today and I'm going to notice it even further as we have further conversations. So it's such an absolute pleasure to have you on as a guest today. So thank you so much.
[00:24:27] Speaker B: Oh, it's been my absolute pleasure. It's awesome. Thank you again. Appreciate it.
[00:24:31] Speaker A: You're very, very welcome. On behalf of myself and my guest Jen, I'd like to thank you all for listening today and until next time. Be safe and remember everyone that if we all work together, we can accomplish anything.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: You have been listening to let's Be Diverse with Andrew Stout. To stay up to date with future content, hit subscrib.
