Cynthia: [00:00:00] Well, hi, everyone. I am so glad that you are joining us today.
And I wanted to talk about the topic where when we want to try new things, our brains like to go into overdrive and start really messing with us and telling us how things aren't going to work out. And you shouldn't try that anyway. And people aren't going to like you. And I know almost every year when school's going to start, kids get excited about it.
They get excited about telling that special person that they like them. They get excited about all the new clubs and all the stuff that they can do, even like this new semester that we just started. But then our brain comes in kind of ruins it for us and tells us that it's never going to work out and we shouldn't do things.
So I have a guest with us today, Emily Drake, and I'm going to let her do most of the, introducing of herself, but she is going to be able to help us with this problem where our brains like to put negativity in the way of all the fun things that we want to do. So Emily, thank you for being [00:01:00] with us
Emily Drake: today.
Oh, Cynthia. I'm so happy to be here. I listened to a couple episodes of your podcast and I learned a lot. So yes, for teens, absolutely. If you're listening, we love you. We're glad you're here. But for the other Emily Drake's in the world, this is worth a listen to I'm really, really happy to be here. I I'm, and I'm delighted to do my own introduction.
I am a mental health clinician and I am also someone who went to college to be a veterinarian. So there you go. If you're considering what's next for you, the short answer is, I don't know. So this whole part about trying new things, like, let's get good at it because it's at least in my life experience.
It's a good scale to build. But yeah, I, I switched careers in my 30s. To be a mental health clinician, my clinical work was with youth in the foster care system, as well [00:02:00] as 17 to 24 year olds who were graduating high school and looking for career opportunities, mostly from backgrounds that have many levels of oppression to them.
And so, you know, I am since then and this was in the early, well, mid 2000s. I love teens. And so now I work in the C suite. So there you go. And I run a company called the Collective Academy. We've been in business for 10 years. I am very proud to be veteran founded and women owned. I'm very proud to understand financial statements and PNLs and take care of myself.
I'm also partnered, but there, that was. Pretty audacious at the time as was this idea that the collective academy does is have conversations about career, what's working, [00:03:00] what isn't, how's our identity doing as it relates to work. And are you feeling whole, are you feeling like yourself or have you started to become a version of yourself that you're not really connected to?
And so there's a lot of mental health components to that. And then also Cynthia, I host a podcast called who's missing. Like you, I love podcasting. We are starting our fourth season shortly. And the whole premise is to introduce people to individuals that are missing from their friend group, their dining room table, their boardroom table, people that have true lessons on life and leadership that don't often get the mic, or if they get the mic.
It's to talk about what they're really good at and smart at, and not necessarily maybe the issues that connect us all the human issues. And so, yeah, I'm really excited to be here. That's my jam. I love that.
Cynthia: That's wonderful. Well, you probably been, especially talking about [00:04:00] career development and career change.
You're probably seeing a lot of anxiety with people because anytime we're doing something new, like I said, at the beginning, our brain is telling us, Oh, don't do that. That's That's going to be a disaster or you don't know how to do that. So, you know, who are you to try that new thing or whatever? So how do you help your clients or the people that you work with, with that anxiety piece?
Emily Drake: Yeah, the first step is always self leadership. I call it. So understanding and I'm sure Cynthia, this is something you work with with your clients and patients as well. Understanding who you are. Which frankly, depending on any environment doesn't necessarily change what you're great at. I had a, just for for an example sake, I was working with a prospective client last week, a kind of initial conversation.
And she lives with ADHD and [00:05:00] OCD. She currently works at a huge financial institution. She's young, I'd say she's in her mid twenties. And the first 20 minutes of our conversation, she spent saying what a challenging person she is, how difficult she can be, and all the things that make those diagnoses I just mentioned a real pain in the ass for other people is what she said.
And it was about 10 minutes of listening to that. And then I said, can you tell me a little bit about your capabilities? So I bring that up to say, you know, we, we are so wired and we have report cards to thank for this. Yes. To look at where we're not great. Right. And that we need to get better in those things.
And that's how we know. And so the way that I approach it is to really look at it from a self leadership strengths based. Approach. That may be true that you got a D in [00:06:00] geometry. It is also true that you are empathic and collaborative and are always leading team projects. What the hell is with that? You know, can you handle both?
So when I'm first working with people, I work on the things that are steadfast no matter where you are, whether you're, you know, president of the chess club or your captain of the soccer team or whatever. What do you bring? Agnostic of the setting, right? Because as I just said about my own story, stuff can change all the time.
So what's the steadfast stuff, right? And values is usually the conversation I center that around.
Cynthia: I love that. You know, in part of my program, I give the Youmap® assessment and I don't know.
Emily Drake: Okay. I don't know it. I'm going to write it down though. I should know it. And
Cynthia: it, we do the CliftonStrengths. So they did the top five.
Emily Drake: That one I know. Okay. And
Cynthia: then there's a values assessment as part of, so Youmap® is four assessments. [00:07:00] So it's the CliftonStrengths and then there's a values assessment in it. Then we use the Holland code for the interests or the personality. And then we also, there's also a preferred skills versus burnout skills assessment.
And so then we don't spend a ton of time talking about career cause we're talking about anxiety, but if they know what their strengths are. Then they can see what, how can I use my strengths to overcome anxiety? They can look at their values and the values is usually our why to get out of anxiety. You know, if I have a value of adventure, but I'm staying in my room all the time cause I'm too afraid to go to that next thing, then I can start looking at, well, I have a value of adventure.
How can I use that value to get out of my room and get out of my door? Go into these things that I want to do. And and then we, so we just look at all those pieces. So I love that you're saying that you're, you know, self awareness is like the number one [00:08:00] thing. I've had several guests on different times saying self awareness.
You gotta, you know, we're talking to teens. You know, as adults, we realized we needed to be self aware, but we didn't do it when we were a teen. And so many times I think about what could I have done differently or how could I have made my life even more amazing by knowing this when I was 15 years old.
And so I love that. Now, do you work with You know, just all ages. Do you have a lot of young people coming in? How I
Emily Drake: wish I wish I'm a little too expensive. I think. Oh, okay. Yeah. You know I'll say this when I practice clinically. I did. I miss it deeply. I think in my future as part of my company's vision.
We're merging with another business this year and really want to have an arm of our business that works with teenagers in particular in middle school cause I think that's. Gosh. I mean, why not about all of these things? [00:09:00] So that is on my vision, in my vision, but right now I wish I had more interaction with teenagers than I do.
I will say I work with all other parents and I think a lot of the work that I do with their parents I like to think trickles down, but I will say You know, my generation, so I identify as Gen X you just have a lot of preconceived notions about work. Yep. And what work means and how long you should stay there.
And so again, I, my, my expertise is in career in the area of work. Like, you know, how does that prevent your kids or support your kids in exploring who they are, you know? Right. And we had lunch with a friend the other day who has a 16 year old and she said, you know, I'm pretty, I myself, I'm pretty new to parenting.
I'm a step mom 2 years in to a 9 year old and my friend's teenager, she said, one of the skills I've really learned is just saying, mm hmm. Mm hmm. [00:10:00] Yes. Mm hmm. And not having, right, too much more to say about it unless you want to talk about it. Right. But God, that must be really hard. So anyway, to answer your, that was a long answer to your question.
I wish. And someday. Yeah. More teens. Yeah. Well, that sounds great. Thanks. So
Cynthia: how do you, how do you help your clients get over some of that negativity that their brain tells them? Because. Like we said, changing the career can be really difficult and you know, you may be excited about doing it, but then you just have all these doubts about it.
So how do you help her besides the self
Emily Drake: awareness? Yeah. So self awareness, number one, I mean, I think you you sort of alluded to this, but you know, small steps, I call them micro movements. I do this too, because I too am a human being, and I like change if it benefits me, but the other change is a little scary, so at least if it doesn't have an immediate benefit.
So [00:11:00] learning to kind of develop the skill of novelty. We routines are very important. Disciplines important and consistency is important for all sorts of stuff. But I don't know about you. My mental health was at its darkest when I was subscribing to a way of living that I hadn't ever taken a look at.
From a place of like, who I am, it was like me adopting Cynthia's way of living because Cynthia's got it together. So I'm going to go do what Cynthia does. And then lo and behold, 2 years into it. I'm in treatment for anxiety and depression because I just was so overcome with anxiety. Yeah so the way out of that is the way out of anything the way toward who you really are is small steps.
So I like to think about, like. Just today, I had a meeting with a friend and I was like, what do you, well, you and I talked about Netflix, but we said, what are you watching on Netflix? I'm in the market. So I'm going to watch the show she recommended. And it's like, [00:12:00] I've never seen it. It's definitely not something I would have chosen on my own or found on my own.
Never heard of it. But even just taking in content that isn't something you would normally take in or walking to school a different way or trying a new food. I mean, these are low stakes ways to build the skill of like, I'll get through it. You know, when it's a bigger stake thing. And I know you talk a lot on this podcast about, you know, practicing when things are kind of manageable for when things get really unmanageable.
Right. But that novelty introduced so self awareness and then introducing novelty, I think is great. And then I'll pause after this just to see what you have to say. But I think, you know, taking those small steps. I think as I, as I reflect on this now, you know, the Netflix example is good, but it's a, it's a sedentary experience.
I'd love to [00:13:00] invite listeners to do something that moves you a bit, not even like exercise per se, but like, you actually have to stretch to interact. Stretch to ask a question stretch to usually there'll be another person involved. That's when we get really clamped up. But take a little have a little movement in it too.
So your body gets the experience of like, Ooh, this is novel and maybe it is working out. I don't know. But those are some thoughts on what I would do after, you know, okay. Know thyself. Now what? Cause it's not a, you can't know yourself by yourself in your room.
Cynthia: Right. Right. And I think that sort of just the nature of being a teenager for one, they like to be by themselves because that means they're not with their parents.
And so, you know, they're like, that's kind of like where they live and they can socialize on their phone. Where in the Gen X generation, which I also identify as Gen X We, if we were going [00:14:00] to socialize with people, we had to go somewhere. We had to call someone on the phone. We had to You know, and the calling on the phone was not what we wanted to do.
We wanted to physically be with the people cause that's what you did. And so you had to drive somewhere or walk somewhere or, you know, whatever to be with people. I had never thought about this before, but towards the end of my school counseling career. We had a lot of kids who did not want to get their driver's license.
And I was like, what are you talking about? I could not wait to get my driver's license because it meant I could get with my friends and I, they explained it to us and it made so much sense. They don't have to drive to see their friends. They can see their friend on their phone and they can stay in their room and they don't have to drive anywhere.
And I was like, Oh, that totally makes sense. Because in my mind, I'm looking at it from a 1986 perspective of I want my driver's license. So I can go drive to be with my friend, you know, like, so [00:15:00] I can go hang out with the people and they don't need that. And so that's, you know, what was the difference to me?
So they still need the social interaction, but they don't have to drive to do it. So they don't need the driver's license anymore. So you know, I just find that to be fascinating, but that's, that's something that as a parent. Because we are always going to be a generation away from where our kids are coming from.
We do have to think about, okay, well, this meant this for me, but what does it mean for them? And, you know, why, why might they be acting in a certain way or doing a certain thing that doesn't make sense to me. And a lot of that is just having open conversations with your kids and doing that kind of stuff, you know, like listening.
Because sometimes some of the stuff they're telling us. I remember thinking, Oh, that doesn't make any sense. Or I don't agree with that. Or that isn't what I think or whatever, but you, you don't want to put the judgment into it because that will for sure shut them down. So you're [00:16:00] able to listen to how it's different, why it's different.
And if you've always kind of nurtured open conversation. Then when they become a teenager, it will be much easier to have those conversations. I mean, there's still going to be more closed off. They're still going to want to be in the room more than they were before. They're still gonna, you know, fight against you because they have to become an individual person away from you.
And when they're babies and toddlers and little ones, they are pretty enmeshed in who you are because that's the way it has to be. I mean, like you're, you have to. Their survival is on you, but when they become a teenager, they could be, they, I mean, they probably wouldn't do a very good job of it, but they could take care of themselves and they have to have their own ideas and their own opinions.
And I, I feel like a lot of times kids end up coming back to what you would want them to. [00:17:00] Possibly, but you have to let them explore. What if I'm not like my mom or what if I'm not like my dad and what does that mean for me? And they have to explore that and get kind of that in their mind so that they can make those decisions about career and about.
All their life partners and all the things that they're going to make decisions about. And if as adults, we're pushing them in different directions, it gets really confusing for them. I had many students in my counseling office at school. Tell me either. My parent says I have to go into medicine or, you know, my parent says I have to.
Be a lawyer or, or I have to go to a certain school or one boy he was really good in wrestling in high school, but he didn't want to do it in college. And his dad was saying, you will wrestle in college. Now, I suppose that probably had something to do with scholarship money and things like that.
And I totally get why parents want that because [00:18:00] You know, college is expensive, but making your child go into a sport they don't want to go into is not helpful to them. And, you know, maybe even school isn't what that child needs, but they need some other kind of training to do the things that they want to do.
Do you also this is kind of off the topic of what we were going to talk about, you know, since you do career stuff Are you seeing that, you know, in the past we used to just think college, college, college, but there's so many ways to be trained to do things that will make you happy and make you money.
Are you seeing kind of people changing that thought a little bit and not just thinking about a college degree, but thinking about other kinds of apprenticeships and trainings that they could do to get the jobs they want to do? I
Emily Drake: am going to pause and kind of reflect. I had a couple of responses to the question.
I have a lot of reflections on what you said before. [00:19:00] My response initially to the question was like, college isn't going anywhere right? So that for better for worse. That's like the system. Yeah. And. And the, the democracy of like options with schools, pathways to schools, gap years before school volunteering in some capacity, working for a
Cynthia: while.
Emily Drake: I'm seeing okay, so I can't I think, you know, I don't I'm not as well versed in sort of like the data with workplace trends and advanced degrees, but I know that there's a wariness, at least in the people that I work with who are paying for college if they can. Of like, what is all this going for, you know, or going toward so I, I think, you know, and I like to think about systems when I think about, you know, the impact on young people's lives.
It's [00:20:00] like, you know. It depends. So much depends. And I think that's really cool. Because if you had asked me 10 years ago, like, what's the pathway? It would have been like, well, it's obvious what the pathway is right now. If a kid comes to you a teen and says, what's the pathway? You can be like, you got options.
It depends, you know and I think, I think in that there's more tolerance. For the variance of options I do think college is great. Yeah. I'm glad I went. It's not the only option. Like, thank goodness there's more choices. Yeah. So, you know, I, I have limited expertise beyond that, but that's what I'm seeing in my world.
Yeah. Yeah.
Cynthia: That's great. You said you had thoughts on the other parts you were talking about. Tell me about that. I
Emily Drake: did. I was thinking I just wanted to sort of, I, I said, and depending on how you edit this, maybe people won't hear it, but I did say you have to get out of your room which felt now that I'm hearing myself back, it's like, that feels like a real [00:21:00] Gen X thing to say.
I think what I mean to just kind of like. You know, practice a couple of things 1 self awareness of how that might have sounded, but to what to sort of get the opportunity to to add more flavor to it. It's this idea of stretching, right? So beyond there's, there's not two types of people in the world, but for the sake of the next five seconds, I'm going to say there are, there's people who lead with no, and people who lead with yes.
No, not. As an absolute, but just as like, Ooh, I don't know. And then there's people who kind of lean toward it. And you know, the UMAP I'm sure has many different things you can pull on to suss that out. But I think if you're leading with no on like, for example, you're on FaceTime with your friend you know, what would it mean to meet up in person with your friend?
Right? Like, it's just an ask to say, if you're living in four walls, what would it look like to open a window? [00:22:00] In one, you know, what would it look like to crack the door open? Maybe not that. What would it look like to turn down the volume? Like just to kind of, it's not so much, right. Especially with being in lockdown, it does depend on place, but so much of what we've learned is that we can, and frankly, zoomers are teaching us like how to connect virtually.
I also want to invite teenagers, because I would say this to anyone, to look at, you know, what adults in your life do you spend time with? Are you willing to say, like, who's missing from my life? Like, a really great adult that I can have conversations with about the future of what I want to do, or, you know, maybe even someone who identifies as, like the greatest generation, like, learning from everyone.
Mm hmm. So I really would say to teens, as I would to adults, like, who's in your circle? And who can help you stretch a little bit outside of that to introduce some [00:23:00] novelty and to find, like, what's really compelling you, not what's compulsory. You mentioned this too. Mm hmm. I'm doing it, I'm wrestling because I have to.
Mm hmm. Right. And that's a very different energy than I feel compelled to. So in the corporate space, we talk a lot about it may be great that your employees follow the rules, but how much are you going to get from them if they don't feel compelled, like really to move towards something? So yeah, that also came up for me as I was listening to you.
Some really good observations you made.
Well,
Cynthia: and I was thinking about when you're talking about doing something novel, that's like a whole, there's like a whole section of the anxiety program that I do where we talk about, listen to music you wouldn't normally listen to and, you know, watch I tell them, watch a news channel that is the opposite of your view.
Yes. Love it. Yeah. Just to like, cause it will kind of [00:24:00] bring your vibration up into some of that anxiety. But like you said, low stake, like, so you feel the feelings and you can but you're at home. You know, sitting by yourself or whatever. So it's not like, and then you can work on bringing that feeling back down and regulating it before you ever go out and have a real experience where you're getting dysregulated.
And then what do you do about it? Because you're practicing it. And I asked them to practice daily. And I said, what, one of them can be like, you can also practice regulating yourself if you're in a boring. Class, you know, like you're like, this is the most boring thing. And instead of continuing to think about how boring it is, you think about other things or start noticing the room, start noticing what a certain person is doing with, or, you know, tapping or, you know.
Hey, attention to when the teacher says a certain word, a bunch of times, or, you know, like what you'd like, just bringing your attention to different things besides this is [00:25:00] boring and I don't want to be here or you know, waiting in a long line, you know, that's. You know, you can get super annoyed by that, but like, what can you do during that time?
And so I just give them like ideas of ways that they can practice regulating in low stakes situations and I love that, you know, that novel thing. Like one of the things was order food that you wouldn't normally eat. Now, the tricky part about that, cause when I think about that, I'm like, oh. You know, I don't want to spend a lot of money if I'm not going to like it.
And so I don't know that one is a little tricky. Maybe they could eat part of someone's food that they like, you know, like everyone orders what they want, but maybe try different foods of other people so that nothing really gets wasted or it's not too expensive, but that they're trying something different because that is something that sounds so weird.
But I was so afraid to try new things like that, like just new food. Forever. I just said I didn't like anything because I didn't want to try any of this stuff. [00:26:00] And now at my age, I'm just now starting to learn to try things that I always said I hated. I like, well, I want to see, do I really not like it or did I just not like the way it looked or, you know, what somebody told me about it or whatever.
So I think that's so fun. And I've been thinking about doing things like that more or just doing something like learning a new instrument or trying to learn a different language or just all those things where you're. You're just kind of making your brain think differently and you know, and I'm going to think more too about who's missing from my table or who's missing from my circle.
I feel like I do, I am very open with teenagers, but I don't have a lot of teenagers in my life. Like my kids are adults and I'm a grandma, but they're babies. So, you know, like I am kind of missing, but other than my clients, you know, [00:27:00] missing that teen element of people that I just hang out with or like that I'm, you know, physically around.
So I'm going to have to find some teenagers in my neighborhood to hang out with or go to the local coffee shop or something, but that would be fun. Cause I love teenagers are my favorite age to work with. It always was in all the years that I was in education and the little ones are cute, but. I don't, I don't get as much out of the relationship there with teenagers.
And so I, I think that's great even for myself to cultivate some in person real live teen relationships because I do think I live with my mother in law, so I have the greatest generation in my home. It's so funny. My husband is a baby boomer because he's right at the very end of baby boomer and I'm at the very beginning of Gen X.
So, you know, and then we have millennials in our family [00:28:00] and I probably Gen Z too. Because those can be early twenties and yeah, so, and then we have these babies, which I'm thinking they're alpha. I think if I'm right, like the ones that
Emily Drake: yes. I'm just being
Cynthia: born. So we have all sorts of people in our family, but I just don't have that, that teenage element.
So I'm going to really look into that. But Emily, do you have anything that you want else you want to share with my audience before you go?
Emily Drake: Yeah. If you, if you're listening and you like what Cynthia and I have to say, and you don't know who's missing, you can certainly listen to our podcast. I mean, I feel like that's.
Part of what I hope people do is listen and then reach out to the person who's being interviewed and like have a conversation. I realized for some people that's like nails on a chalkboard, like cannot imagine reaching out. I do want to say one more thing with trying new things, especially as it relates to talking to new people.
Because I think that's where I see with adults [00:29:00] and with teens, the greatest anxiety. Is rejection, you know, if I ask for help or ask for something that people won't be there for me. And I say this to my corporate clients and I say this to myself, nine times out of 10 people really do want to connect with you.
Yes. And help you. And I had a number of calls today in my life. There was one. Where the person was like, why are we doing this? I don't have time for this. Which is very rare and told me a lot about what I took it as like, okay, you needed an agenda. I don't need an agenda, but okay, that's good to know.
We should have that just in case for this type of meeting. And otherwise it was just like, take the pressure off, you know, and people want to connect and want. So that's just how we're wired, you know, as much as we're wired for negativity and the negativity bias, [00:30:00] we're also wired to connect. So we got to somehow.
Yeah. Make these two work together, you know,
Cynthia: I used to tell kids that about teachers at school. Yeah. Yeah. Teacher, most people, and I realized there are a few exceptions to this, but most people become educators because they care about kids and they want you to have a successful time at school. And if you're not doing well, they want to help you.
Even if you happen to come across that one or two that are not in it for the right reasons, there are many adults in the building you can go to and you're going to find somebody who does want to help you. And so, you know, don't stop at that one that maybe isn't in it for the right reason or is rude or, you know, whatever, or you just don't click with, there is someone else.
Yeah. And I hope that they, I hope all the kids I told this to, I hope they're still out there trying to find the person if they need to, but there's always going to be a person that you can connect to, and that's going to be [00:31:00] able to help you and you just, you just have to look for them. But there's way more of the good people wanting to help you than there's any of the other.
And so you just have to be willing to. Have someone who's a little bit like, what are, why are you talking to me about it or, you know, why, how can I help? But somebody will be able to,
Emily Drake: I just, I know we're almost at time. I just want to say this 1 last thing I hear a lot. People are like, well, you're too.
I just assumed you're too busy. Right? You don't have enough time. You're already helping so many people. What's like one more is too many. Let me make that decision. Right? So this is a lot of teenagers are talking. Thank God are talking about boundaries now. We're all talking about boundaries. Oh, I'm so glad.
If you. Cross a boundary of mine. I'll let you know, but you don't have to take care of me. Right? Right. I'll let you know if I don't have time or if I can't, but assume people want to help and [00:32:00] assume people if they can't, we'll, we'll tell you and we'll help you find another way. Yeah. Right. So I think that takes some of the pressure off too.
That's my responsibility to let you know. Not yours. Yeah. Yeah. I love that too.
Cynthia: Because of the mindsets that cause anxiety for me over responsibility is the most anxiety for me because I do believe that if someone doesn't like something or someone is upset, somehow it's my fault. Somehow I've lost it somehow, you know, I should have done something different.
And. Yeah. I love all the boundary talk and all that. Oh my gosh, I needed that so bad. I needed someone to tell me it's not my responsibility to make people happy. And that was really hard for me to learn way late in life. And I probably had some abusive relationships because Just thought I needed to be the perfect, whatever, and just do whatever somebody said so they [00:33:00] would be happy.
And that is, that was, I'm glad I'm not doing that anymore. It took a long time to get to that point. So I'm glad that you are helping with that message as well. Well, I'm so glad that you joined us today. It has been so fun. And I want everyone to just. Check out, I'll have all of your social media stuff and they can go and see your podcast and all the work that you're doing and connect with you and maybe ask you some questions or whatever.
Please do. I know. I love that. Some more people
Emily Drake: in your world. I love it. Thank you so much for having me. This is wonderful.
Cynthia: Yeah. It was great. Thank you too.