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Connect with Erin
https://uppsolutions.net/
https://linktr.ee/coacheurban
https://www.linkedin.com/in/erinurban/

Connect with Russ
https://russjohns.com/
https://thepiratesyndicate.com/
https://nextstepnext.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nextstepnext/

Audio digitally transcribed by Descript

[00:00:00] Intro: Welcome to the #PirateBroadcast™, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. Where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let’s get this party started.

[00:00:10] Russ Johns: And it's a beautiful day for the #PirateBroadcast™. And hey, we got somebody in from Texas. We reached out, we threw out an all call bulletin and Erin showed up. So welcome to the party, Erin, how you doing?

[00:00:25] Erin Urban: Great to be here. Let's have fun. Let's get this party started.

[00:00:28] Russ Johns: Let's get this party started. So we were talking before the show and I want to, just for those that may not know you yet, all the pirate community meet Erin. She's an awesome individual that I think is going to light up the show today and share some nuggets of knowledge. She has recently published a book. And tell us about that. Tell us, yeah, hold it up and make sure we know what it is. Elevate your career. How do we go about doing that?

[00:00:57] Erin Urban: It's interesting because we think let's just polish up the resume. Let's throw out a bunch of job searches. Let's just go through that open door and that's normally what happens to be honest, we go to college, we get a degree. Hopefully it's something we want to do. We exit college, we need a job. So we go through the open door syndrome is what I call it. The open door process. One day we wake up, what am I doing?

[00:01:23] Russ Johns: This is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful life.

[00:01:26] Erin Urban: What am I doing here anyway? I don't like what I do or I'm unfulfilled, or I hate the people to work with or whatever. It's usually one of those three. I don't like what I do. I don't like the people I work with or I'm unfulfilled or all three of them. And during the last couple of years, people had an opportunity to sit back with a bit of time they're able to scrape, maybe it's, out of not having to commute or maybe they had a forced pause, which you have some of that there, they sit back and go, I don't really know. I know I don't like what I'm doing, but I really don't know what to do.

[00:02:00] Russ Johns: I think a lot of people will actually have, from work at home, they've actually had to take a pause and say for some reason I don't necessarily want to go back.

[00:02:10] Erin Urban: There's that. So now we have the great resignation and that will probably be something to do with my next book, which is around influence and specifically like how to, particularly in our quote, unquote, future of work, hashtag future of work, how do you get influenced? Because it's a very different world. We're not going to be in person all the time. So the American public has spoken out strongly, still speaking out strongly. I don't want to be forced to go back in the office when I don't have to. Now, some people are loving it, they want to be there and that's great. There's opportunities for that. However, we're seeing a vast majority of people going, no, I had a little bit of taste, a tiny bit of freedom here. Now you want to take that away from me and no, but I'm really, my book focuses around how to actually elevate your career because here is a thought bomb for you this morning. Wherever you are tuning in from around the world, you drive your credibility, but you do not determine it. Other people do.

[00:03:12] Russ Johns: That is powerful. And I just want to say globally, we have Elize in from South Africa. So thank you so much for being here. I hope your shoulders doing well. And another Texan, Ronald Earl Wilsher. Smiles. Super rock stars. Yes. Yes. Ronald he's in tech. He's in, over in Houston and then Michael Baker over from Florida. So Michael Baker, thank you so much for being here. Gabe, another Texan. Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much. I want to dive into that topic a little deeper is we can say what we do. We can share who we are, how we help, but it's not necessarily the people that we tell that to. So there's what you're saying is others have influence over what we end up being.

[00:04:06] Erin Urban: At the end of the day, what's interesting is... let me back up a little bit. What's interesting is how we perceive ourselves is not necessarily how the world perceives us and who we are. That's driven by our exhibited and demonstrated behavior. What we do versus how we think we are. So our internal narrative may not be aligned with what's going on, how we demonstrate ourselves, how we show up. And for executives, that's called an executive presence. I would argue to say everybody has presence. How are you showing up whether that's online, whether that's in-person, what does that look like for you? And are you showing up in a way that's aligned with and supporting where you want to go with your life in your career?

[00:04:50] Russ Johns: Is that a conscious or subconscious effort?

[00:04:54] Erin Urban: And my book talks about is making the unconscious conscious. And helping leverage your support network. You're leveraging real-time data as feedback to understand how do other people see me. How am I perceived by the world and how can I make tiny shifts that make a big difference? Because here's the other thing that's a big myth. I have to reinvent myself. No, you don't have to reinvent yourself. You don't have to be like the Phoenix rising is very sexy and cool. However, it's also not necessary. It's a lot of energy and you'd be amazed how small shifts and what you do make a really big difference because there's the other. Everybody has impact. Everybody. Even the most introverted person, social psychologists say will impact over 20,000 people in your lifetime. The person who doesn't want to leave the house thought, oh, isolation. Great. Yeah, that kind of thing. Yeah. So just imagine how much impact each one of you tonight. Yes, you all have so much more impact and influence and you give yourself grace for, and the first step to leveraging that is accepting that you do, because I'll share with you a true story. As a young professional, I thought I was leadership material. I wasn't a lot. I didn't understand. I had impact. I didn't know. I didn't understand how to influence. So I was irresponsible with it. How does showed up how I felt like showing up, which is, it's good to be authentic and we need to be authentic within the parameters of the culture we're going into. So you show up on grumpy every day. Then don't expect people to think you're a ball of sunshine because that's probably not going to happen. How are you showing up? And how's that affecting how other people perceive who you are? And I had a rude awakening. I was it was performance review, time, years ago, find spring morning, walked in specking, the usual pat on the back of no real salary increase. But I heard you're great, basically everything you do, you're wonderful, you get all the hard projects, you do a great job. However, we have some concerns and that was not what I wanted to hear.

[00:07:13] Russ Johns: Wait a second. That's not what I want.

[00:07:15] Erin Urban: What concerns? And I'm like, Ooh, in shock you with a heart beating thing, I'm like what's happening. And it turns out I was not so adept at building relationships inside the organization. I did a great job externally. I did a great job management projects. I was excellent. And all those things showed up, metrics driven, very focused individual raw. However, I was way too professional. Yeah. One of those people who believed professional life and personal life shall not mix. I shall leave my profession, my personal life at the door, which is a deadline, by the way, you all drag all that stuff in with you. Don't worry. You do every day because you're a human being.

[00:07:57] Russ Johns: We're not a different person.

[00:07:59] Erin Urban: No. It was a really important awakening for me. And I'd like to say that I saw the light of day immediately and changed instantly, but that does not help. It works. Partially through some intervention, through a great mentor. I was, I did have my eyes opened and I was like, wow. Oh, this is what leadership is. In fact, one of my mentors gave me my very first self-improvement book, like how to be assertive without being abrasive.

[00:08:28] Russ Johns: Critical conversations.

[00:08:29] Erin Urban: Yeah. Crucial conversation, and how to do that effectively. And I was like, why don't they teach this in high school? I could've had a much better beginning to my professional career of being a lot further down the road. Leadership, like I want it to be, but the story has a good ending. Nine months later after making small shifts. I remember Ryan, I mentioned those small shifts. There's tiny habits, just little things like taking a few minutes to say hi to people in the morning and get to know them as a person, outside of a position, small things. I was given the opportunity to move into leadership. So that's what kind of starts this book off. And it really talks about how. It's a process, a lot of people I processes. So I give them a fun story and a fun way to approach. Not only the process of developing your presence, that's authentic to you. And also what's going on up here.

[00:09:30] Russ Johns: So who did you write this book for specifically?

[00:09:34] Erin Urban: I wrote this book for people who have been in their professional career for awhile. So it's more, it resonates more with people who have been not necessarily straight out of college. They've been around a little bit, kinda know what's going on. What's not going on. They have a reputation of some sort and specifically it's for those people, who've done all the right things. You think you've done all the things you've worked really hard. You take on extra projects. Maybe you stay longer than you should. Maybe through box fever. Yeah. You're checking all the boxes. It's that? You might be, you might identify with being a perfectionist or an overachiever or have very high standards is another way of putting it. All right. You see you're very professional and you really think that your work should speak for itself. Guess what?

[00:10:23] Russ Johns: It doesn't.

[00:10:26] Erin Urban: No, you do. What you do speaks louder than how awesome you are, because you can be great at what you do. But if you're a jerk and nobody wants to work with you and you probably don't get elevated into management.

[00:10:41] Russ Johns: Yeah. It's difficult to motivate people when they don't like you.

[00:10:45] Erin Urban: Yeah, it is actually.

[00:10:49] Russ Johns: The word undermine comes into thought, it's okay.

[00:10:52] Erin Urban: Sabotage maybe?

[00:10:57] Russ Johns: Could you just appreciate somebody on your team once in a while? It would be really simple. I just want to say Karen is here. Good morning. Greetings for Florida. Hiett Ives in from Houston. Been too long since I've been here. Great topic. Great insight. Yeah. Erin is sharing a little bit about some journeys that she's had. She's written a book about it, just to catch everybody up, Tim. Thank you so much for being here, Wendy. Also good morning pirates. Welcome Erin. However, we have some concerns. Congratulations on actualizing the eye-opener and making strides to become the leader you want it to be. Absolutely positively. Gabe says Tim show and good morning. It's. It's great to hear to Elize a very good morning Tim. This community, Erin, I don't know if you're familiar with it, but it's a very active community and a lot of beautiful people here in the pirate community. #piratenation is here to support everyone. And so I want to go back a little bit. And so when you first started your corporate career, did you ever have like a roadmap in your head that you needed to do one ABC check those boxes off?

[00:12:12] Erin Urban: Oh sure.

[00:12:13] Russ Johns: Have you checked all those boxes off? And are you where you imagined you would be when you left high school?

[00:12:19] Erin Urban: No. If you had told me that it was going to be an executive coach and a public speaker, when I left high school, I would've told you, you were crazy. First of all public speaking wasn't necessarily in my bandwidth at the time, it was not believe it or not. I was shocked.

[00:12:33] Russ Johns: Leadership and shy don't necessarily always go hand in hand

[00:12:38] Erin Urban: I just wasn't comfortable. I didn't feel accepted right when I was in school and it would be accepted. I was a very tall, I know you can't tell, cause I'm sitting down, but six foot girl, at that time was. It stood out in small small town school in the middle of south central Virginia is where I grew up. So I was a little bit isolated for a long time. And then I performed my very first social experiment and little did I know at that time, really, my focus should have been social psychology when I went to college, but it wasn't, but that's fine. We grow into, we grow into where we need to be. Now, very fulfilled and happy. But before my very first social experiment, I decided to dress like all the other kids, because that was back in the heavy metal days, with big hair. And that was me, with a leather jacket and ripped up jeans. And I decided my junior year of high school looking like all the preppy kids. So I did. And all of a sudden, everybody was like, oh, here, would you like to go out to the party? We have this party this weekend. And also I was invited to all these things. Surely you can't be that shallow. Let's see how people are perceiving me.

[00:13:50] Russ Johns: Yeah. People can't be that shallow. You had the right clothes on.

[00:13:57] Erin Urban: I looked right.

[00:13:58] Russ Johns: No one changed on the inside. You just changed on the outside. The perception changed.

[00:14:02] Erin Urban: Perception start to change and they started to actually see beyond the previous big hair and ripped up jeans and leather jacket at that time in the late eighties. And it was really interesting and that should have been a wake up call, but oftentimes we don't, I also loved architecture and design, so that's what I went into for a long time. And then I pivoted into project management, then I pivoted and continuous improvement and lean six Sigma black belt. And I said, you know what? I really like. I really like helping the visuals. Finding money. The big bosses is crate. However, really loved the individual transformation happening in a lot of these projects. And that's why I am a coach today.

[00:14:43] Russ Johns: What's one transformation that surprised you?

[00:14:47] Erin Urban: The biggest transformation that surprised me individually or like for like a culture?

[00:14:51] Russ Johns: What comes to mind? What's immediately pops in your head?

[00:14:53] Erin Urban: I'm working with this gentleman, which you will remain anonymous because he didn't give permission for me to share his name, but working for this, but this one, gentlemen and he was very angry by the way, I scheduled the train to come through just for you all tuning in.

[00:15:10] Russ Johns: I love trains.

[00:15:16] Erin Urban: I did just for you.

[00:15:18] Russ Johns: I appreciate it.

[00:15:19] Erin Urban: These guys are so nice at the railroad. They said, sure, we'll show up during your show. But yeah, so this guy, he was angry when I first started this project and it was for a corporate, large corporate client and very mad. And he, and I understood why, because he had tried to give his innovative ideas to leadership and leaders were not listening. Sound familiar, anybody out there that's not familiar or anybody. I know you given your ideas to leadership and they're like deaf ears, they'd already been lip service. Oh sure. And then nothing happens no follow up. So I got it. And during the part of the project, because one of the things that a good continuous improvement and professional will do a leader who comes in and really started working with culture and developing processes to support effective outcome. And you work with the people who are on what we call the shop floor, the boots on the ground. You're out there with those people and you're working with them because they're the ones that live and breathe. This they're the ones that make this, these, everything happens, the shirt you wear and the chair you sit on. If it comes, they're the ones who do these things. So you start there and during the course of the project, He was a part of the project team and he realized his ideas were heard and seen. I saw him start to evolve from an angry disgruntled employee into a leader. And now he is a leader. I think he's a director of total productive maintenance for another company, but I gave him those tools and we had a lot of one-on-one offline conversations and that's, he's one of the people who I was like, yeah, I really love doing this. So someone transform and to somebody who's probably going to quit and just be disgruntled somewhere else and to a leader. So that was beautiful to see. And that was before I even decided to say, I'm going to be an executive coach.

[00:17:17] Russ Johns: Do you approach your executive coaching similar to your project management, where you're breaking things down into kind of a work break structure, work breakdown structure, and chunk it out? And in a way that allows you to see different pieces of the puzzle.

[00:17:35] Erin Urban: Yes, I do that for my clients, for sure, because it can be overwhelming, particularly if you want to make a big shift. Like one of my clients who I did share a, her story in the book, we'll call her Mary. When she first connected with me, she was in line for a promotion. They had told her she wasn't executive material. It was not looking good. And she's one of those get it done people. She's not really here to be your best friend. She's here to get it done. And our team loves her, but they also see that she's under a lot of stress and we had some opportunities and it's up to the client to choose their own adventure. Okay. I'm here as a guide, I'm here to open the door. I'm here to give you knowledge. I'm not here to tell you what to do. That's not what coaching is, right?

[00:18:19] Russ Johns: That's not the purpose of coaching.

[00:18:21] Erin Urban: That's not what that's consulting or training, but I do say I'm a coach Sultan because there are times where I'm like, hey, I have knowledge. So here's what I see. What do you want to do with this? And then it's up to them ultimately. After six months, she heard back that she got the promotion and she is executive material.

[00:18:48] Russ Johns: That's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. Everyone needs a coach. I think Tim is here. Shout out from the whole of Pennsylvania. Thank you so much for he's looking forward to the Dubb workshop, Erin, I don't know if you know this or not, but I'm a huge fan of a platform called Dubb and I teach it and I do workshops on it. And it's the process that I've used to. Hundreds of interactions and put clients and book people on the #PirateBroadcast™. And it's as simple process that I just love and using video, as I, do this show it's really impactful and it helps you position yourself and share your message in a quick, unique way that surprises people on occasion. So it's a tool in the toolbox that you can put in your arsenal of things that you can do. And. I'll be, in fact, I got a class this morning. I'm going to work a webinar this morning tomorrow and a couple of next week. But I'm super excited about it and love everybody to join in. If you'd like to I'd be more than happy to put the the link up there as well. Michael Baker says it's a great way to start the. Gabe says, I guess that's why the great Caesar and the Roman empire crumbled people didn't like working for Homan tire, probably love you gave right now. I'm trying to pivot into the field of recruitment. Interesting. Gabe, I asked her, are we going to have to talk about that one? Michael Baker says bringing awareness and insight to help others see things for themselves. As no one is going to change what they're not aware of or in denial of that's.

[00:20:32] Erin Urban: You can't grow what you don't know.

[00:20:34] Russ Johns: That's true. And it's, and you mentioned you, people may not understand how other people see them. I put, actually put out a poll. I reached out to a bunch of pirates and said, how do I use three words to describe me? It was an interesting thought experiment. And I got a lot of feedback and it wasn't out of alignment with what I imagined would be an answer, but it was encouraging to think that I'm showing up in a way that people appreciate.

[00:21:04] Erin Urban: So that's good. And that's so important, getting that feedback and touching base, particularly with the audience and the participants that we serve. And I I have podcasts or coffee chats. Shows live on Tuesdays 11 o'clock central standard time. Cool. And it's also on LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook.

[00:21:21] Russ Johns: So pirates go track her down.

[00:21:23] Erin Urban: Yeah. If you're interested in career, all kinds of, we have, I don't know about you Russ, but I think one of the best things about doing a live show and a podcast is the guests we meet. I love that. I love that. And I love giving back, giving back to the broader community, helping people thrive in their careers, in their lives, because here's the thing, like we mentioned earlier, it's not like you shut off your personal life when you go to work, you're a whole human and your career lives inside your life. Hopefully outside your life because we have a different conversation, right? I need to have that balance. But it's important that to know that a lot of the tools and techniques we use to evolve self it applies tremendously into our careers. So we're not focusing on our well-being our self-development as a human. Then it's likely somewhere in our career or self suffering. Yeah. Yeah. I just got reached out to, by an organization, new England to talk about the self care strategies for leaders. I wrote a Forbes article, Forbes contributor, and then I saw your article and we need this for our company because our leaders aren't taking care of themselves and they're working themselves into the ground. And then that's cascading down. It is a real thing. I'm seeing a lot of it, right?

[00:22:43] Russ Johns: Yeah. I'm not surprised. I'm not so certain that working from home has actually created more productivity in some arenas than not working from home.

[00:22:56] Erin Urban: So that's true. It's hard to shut it off. Yeah, for those people who identify with being high achievers, high performers, I tend to see, and particularly in my coaching clients and my broader network that they're working longer hours.

[00:23:13] Russ Johns: Yeah. You don't have to sit in traffic. So might as well just show up on your computer.

[00:23:18] Erin Urban: No, but that's what the difference is.

[00:23:20] Russ Johns: I'm saying that's what some people are doing though.

[00:23:22] Erin Urban: That's what they're doing. That's what true reality of it, because we thought we're like, oh, the commute. Now, can you do that exercise in the morning that I haven't been doing? Or read that book in the afternoon that I haven't got to, but guess what? We start working more and to be fair, they feel particularly during 2020, there was a feeling like you had to cause there's a little bit of guilt. If you had a job, a lot of people didn't there was that going on? Fear, survival, guilt. And there was fear. If I don't work myself into the ground, they might let me go.

[00:23:56] Russ Johns: If they don't see me in the office, they're not going to see me at all. And therefore, they're not going to realize that I'm doing anything. And so I probably gonna know they don't need me. Karen that link is crowdcast.io/ Russ Johns. You can pick a time that works for your schedule.

[00:24:16] Erin Urban: Send that to me, too.

[00:24:19] Russ Johns: I'll send it out. The reality is I've been in and out of corporate environments. I've actually, I grew up in commercial construction. Project management.

[00:24:27] Erin Urban: We have a very similar background.

[00:24:28] Russ Johns: Working in and out of technology, running big projects and engineers and teams, all of these things that you're talking about. I can picture some of these things that are taking place all the time. So I really appreciate someone like yourself stepping up and stepping into a coaching role that can help guide individuals to a new future. I think it's important. So thank you so much for doing this, Erin.

[00:24:55] Erin Urban: Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's been a lot of fun.

[00:24:59] Russ Johns: You bet. Gabe says the other thing I'm trying to pivot myself into is I dream of becoming a dictator of a small country. Can Erin coach me to become an effective leader as a dictator?

[00:25:10] Erin Urban: Yeah, we can do dictatorship. That's how I used to do my project management, so I know all about that.

[00:25:16] Russ Johns: Like I said, I love your Gabe. Your awesome. Erin, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you. And how do people connect? How do you appreciate people connecting with you.

[00:25:30] Erin Urban: Reach out to coachEUrban.com. So that's coach first initial, last name, coach E urban U R B A N as in urban cowboy.com. I have a free pathfinder that's right there on the home page. You can find out all about me. I've got tons of resources. Anything career mindset. You're looking for a career move, tons of resources on that blog. And on my website, I also have a podcast or a coffee chat show and that's live. And of course, on all the major channels that's available to you as well. And my book.

[00:26:03] Russ Johns: Fantastic.

[00:26:05] Erin Urban: Discounted for the fall for Kindle.

[00:26:07] Russ Johns: Are you on Amazon?

[00:26:08] Erin Urban: Yeah, it's on Amazon.

[00:26:10] Russ Johns: So I stream to Amazon too and I talk to authors about their books too. So just saying.

[00:26:15] Erin Urban: All right, we'll have to come back, talk all that.

[00:26:18] Russ Johns: And if you need a guest on your show, let me know.

[00:26:20] Erin Urban: I'd love to have you on, Russ. That'd be fun.

[00:26:23] Russ Johns: It'd be a great conversation.

[00:26:24] Erin Urban: Yeah, I think it will be.

[00:26:26] Russ Johns: So everyone, thank you so much for being here. Follow Erin tell her you're a pirate, you're coming from the pirate community. I suspect she's on LinkedIn as well.

[00:26:36] Erin Urban: Just every day.

[00:26:38] Russ Johns: Yeah. And so join up, follow up like comment and all the shenanigans that go on with social media. And thank you so much for being here because Erin, you know what? #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree, so you #enjoytheday.

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