Combating Burnout and Compassion Fatigue - Eleanor Wells and Ashley Cauley

8:08PM Aug 7, 2023

Speakers:

Becky Endicott

Eleanor Wells

Keywords:

people

burnout

compassion fatigue

feel

organizations

eleanor

work

nonprofit

good

ashley

step

listening

story

compassion

grip

psychological safety

love

foster

caring professions

care

Welcome back to the summer of evolution, it is just such a great joy to create some space and some room to really focus on mental health. And I hope that as you're listening to the episodes this week, you're feeling truly held and seen as an individual and as a human being. We're really overjoyed to lift episode 177. It's combating burnout and compassion fatigue with the incredible Eleanor and wells and Ashley, Callie, Eleanor brings this nursing experience Ashley brings in this psychology and therapy and science to this conversation. And we just want you to understand what it means to have psychological safety. We talk about burnout prevention, how to avoid breakdowns how to lift your needs, to your organization to your boss, and to feel seen and cared for. So please check out this incredible episode and then go follow up with Eleanor and Ashley on LinkedIn. They've got a great presence there. Hope this feels like a little warm hug from me to you.

Hey, I'm John.

And I'm Becky.

And this is the We Are For Good podcast.

Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.

We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an Impact Uprising.

So welcome to the good community, where Nonprofit Professionals, philanthropist world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world. So let's get started. Hey, Becky, welcome back to this incredible week discussing mental health. I am very excited about this conversation today. Selfishly

we need this conversation for us. We are going to

just be sitting here listening, taking notes bring out how we can implement these incredible strategies that we're going to hear today we're going to be talking about combating burnout, and compassion fatigue, and I cannot think of m&r history John, where all of us feel like we're in the same boat and nonprofit and we're all incredibly tired. We're all trying to pivot all the time at the new nuances that are coming to us. And this is a first for us because Eleanor is a registered nurse. So we have a nurse and Ashley is an industrial and organizational psychologist and educator. So we have got the experts in here. Ashley l&r Welcome to the We Are For Good podcast.

Oh, thank you. We're so delighted to be here. And we really are wrestling about the topic. So we're excited to get to share with y'all today.

Well, we'd like for you to start maybe just give us a little bit of background about your journey and led you to where you are today. And Eleanor, I think I'll start with you. Well, as

you said, I am a nurse, but I have not practiced nursing for many, many years. But I'm in a medical family. My husband is a physician. And that's part of the reason I didn't practice nursing for so long. He had such a crazy life that we felt like somebody needed to be a little dependable at home and I was the likely choice. So I did a lot of volunteering and work with nonprofits really my whole life and have had such a wonderful opportunity to be on the frontline, whether it's a volunteer or a board member or even as an employee with lots of ministry and nonprofit non ministry organizations and really tapped in to what this burnout and compassion fatigue was. And it really generated some interest in me, also, in the last four or five years, went back to school and got my coaching certificate and started my own coaching practice. And again, just felt so compelled and wanted to help people that were on the frontlines in caregiving organizations. Hence, that's kind of how Ashley and I met and how cohort for peer was birthed out of a idea of wanting to meet those needs. And Ashley and I just have a great time working together. And I'll let Ashley tell a little bit about herself. Thanks, Eleanor.

Yeah, we have a great time together. When we first started talking about doing cohort for care and discussing the need for a coach and consulting group that could work with organizations with compassion, fatigue and burnout. It was really coming from a place of experience where we had either experienced this firsthand or witnessed this our entire lives. This is not something new. We want to emphasize that it's gotten a lot of press lately. This has been going on for a very, very long time. So we're glad it's actually coming to the forefront and people are learning how to speak about it, how to deal with it. As a teacher I also experienced a lot of burnout compassionately my husband's first career was in ministry so you name it I mean every every Oh yeah, profession that is this We've pretty much hit, we've ticked all the boxes. So we've all experienced this firsthand, we've witnessed this firsthand, we understand the pain, from compassion, fatigue and burnout. So this organization, this company was really birthed from that experience.

Well, I just love that y'all put your flag in the ground around this because I part of my story was I was with my wife for a year overseas. So we got full baptism into all of the compassion fatigue in that year, and then came back and had been in the nonprofit side since then. So I feel it and I, you know, have watched people that have stepped through it gracefully, and people that haven't to just how detrimental that can be. Would you kind of give us some context on the bigger scale to if somebody doesn't understand compassion, fatigue? How would you define that? And then let's talk through some of the stats, what does it look like on a national scale right now,

it is true, what's being talked about. So the burnout numbers that we're seeing are that in the numeric force, we are seeing numbers that pre co were already really up there somewhere in the 40 percentile, you know, people are feeling burnout. But since COVID, we see the highest numbers and millennials. But we've seen the biggest jump in numbers from Baby Boomers, pre and post COVID have that feel of burnout, and you're in your home, and you're not only trying to do your job, you're trying to learn all this computer stuff. And it's so funny, I always relate myself a little bit. I'm not a baby boomer, but I feel like it hard I am because I just want to take my computer and chuck it through a wall. And I am not friends with technology. Let's just put it that way. There's that whole extra level of burnout and frustration and aggravation. And then we have compassion fatigue. And Eleanor is going to speak to this in a moment about the difference. We have a harder time nailing down numbers for compassion fatigue, because it's something that people don't stand very well. We do see, when people are able to track it and get numbers, we see that compassion fatigue, much greater effect on those that are in what we call caring professions, caregiving professions, helping professions. And that's going to be people in the nonprofit sector, educators, people in ministry, social workers, people in the medical field. These are the people that we call helping professions or caring professions. And they're the ones that saw much higher level from compassion fatigue, right?

Well, for me to explain the difference between compassion fatigue and burnout, I just want to tell you a story because I think it'll paint a picture of kind of what the two are, and maybe will help us differentiate between the two. So I met a young woman several years ago, who in her early 20s, had a real passion for helping others and found herself went to Africa, partnered with another young woman in a community where they found that when children that were born with disabilities were not cared for, and families didn't know what to do with the children. They these children were often even left at the city dump. It was just so these two women took it upon themselves to start a nonprofit, an organization to help with these children. And so for eight years, they poured their lives into these children. And you can imagine the work was hard. The need was, was great. There was fun raising there was trying to find places to place the children and educate parents. And so it was just an unending amount of work that needed to be done. When I came across this young woman and met her. I found a woman who had lost her passion. She was tired. She was cynical. She was angry. Her co workers really didn't even like to be around her anymore. She she had lost her sense of humor. She She even was suffering was some physical ailments and had developed an autoimmune disease, burnout, the symptoms of burnout and compassion, fatigue are very similar. So you really can't parse out is this burnout or it's compassion fatigue. The difference comes in what caused it? Burnout comes from work conditions, things like overworked, underpaid, understaffed, don't feel qualified to do the job. A lot of what we're seeing right now, right? I mean, people are just up against a wall the demand is so high, and they don't have the ability to meet what they need. Passion comes from really it's a it's a PTSD type of syndrome, and it often comes when you hear true Matic stories, or are in trauma all day long. You may not personally be experienced in the trauma, you're seeing it and you're witnessing it. But your body doesn't know that. It doesn't know, this isn't my trauma, I'm just hearing these stories or I'm watching what's going on, I think about the nurses that are at the bedside of COVID patients that are dying, they're paying their families can't be there, they're having to step in to be a family. It's not their family member, but their body doesn't know that. So their body is responding in a post traumatic stress kind of way. That is what compassion fatigue is. So it doesn't really us to get hung up on if it's burnout, or if it's compassion fatigue, because like I said, the symptoms are very similar. But it is important to know what we're dealing with. Is it a work condition? Or is it really trauma that we're that we're dealing with? Does that make sense? Is that clear?

It makes total sense. And now I'm starting to rewind my brain. And I'm like, Well, clearly, I've had burnout a lot in my life. But then I'm thinking of certain life events, and how they have triggered me in certain ways and how that has manifested whether it was personally or professionally into my work into my home life. And yeah, I think this conversation is really just illuminating. And God bless you for having an example about someone actually working in nonprofit that suffered through this

well, and we just see it over and over and over again. Because when you really think about it, who works in nonprofits, it's people who care, who want to be involved, who see a problem, who want to fix it, who want to treat it, who want to be a part of it. So it's so easy for those type of individuals to take on the stories of what they're hearing. It's that's what makes them good at what they do. Because they're so interrelated, so interlocked with that with that story.

I just I love that y'all are stepping into this because we need resources. I mean, I think more people are experiencing are talking about it. And everybody's wondering, what do I do you know, if you are experiencing these symptoms, who do you turn to? Who do you who do we need to listen to for advice? Would you kind of walk us through that triage process? What do you what do you personally need to do? What are some steps to take? And when do you seek professional help?

Well, I think one of the most important things that anyone who's listening to this and anyone who's suffering from compassion, fatigue and burnout need to understand the one lie that this that burnout and compassion fatigue, really drive home in our mind is you are alone, you are alone. And you have to do this all by yourself. That's the big lie that we believe it gets us into a place of tunnel vision where that's all we can see. So the first step when you realize you're suffering from this is you must reach out, it's hard, but you need to speak up, you need to speak out. Fortunately, because there is so much discussion around this right now, I truly do feel that organizations are making an effort to have a place to have opportunity for people I've been hearing of organizations that are offering free counseling someone to listen. And unfortunately, a lot of people aren't actually taking advantage. Because it feels like handing a glass of water to a drowning person. It just feels like I'm already dealing with all this. Now you want me to go do something else. It just feels like too much. But people need to understand that you can't come back from this on your own. You do need help. So anyone suffering from this needs to look around there are those that are willing to help. Even something as simple as just discussing this with a friend and saying this is where I'm at. Because it's it's that first step. So that's the first thing that we encourage people to do is be open, be honest find somewhere, find someone, somewhere where you can share this. A cohort for care we have developed a proprietary model that we use when we work with organizations. And it's something that I would love to share with you of how the steps that we take as we go through and work with organizations with teams and with individuals of how to help them assess treat, prevent compassion, fatigue and burnout. And we call this process that we have developed Get a grip and we spell grip GRI p p because it's an acronym for the steps that leak and the first step and grip that letter G stands for grieve. And it seems harsh to start with that people will say you're going to start people that are in pain by talking about their pain. Well guess what? They're already in pain, not talking you About it will not help them. And yes, you have to strike right at the heart of the matter. At the beginning, people have to be able to express what they're experiencing what they're going through, because that helps turn that hidden, dark, ugly, dirty pain, into open, shared, communicated pain, that's the only kind of pain that can get healed. We can't heal hidden pain, we can only heal open pain. So yes, we start with a grieving process. And right now, we hear all kinds of stories about grieving with COVID. But grieving is something that we all do. When we bring ourselves to work, all of us have an expectation of how we're going to do good work. And when we get into it, and we often find things aren't the way we thought they were going to be their circumstances working against us, we don't have the resources, maybe we don't have the training that we need, maybe we don't have the support that we need, and there's hurt, there's hurt when we have an ideal of what we want to see happen. And that doesn't happen. And we have to give people space to be able to discuss that and say I was hurt. Because of that I'm grieving the way I wanted my work to go and the way that it's actually going, or the way I wanted my life to go and the way it's actually going. So we have to give Pete bass to grieve that. And then we move on to our in the in the grip acronym, and RS four. And here's where we can begin to take that open pain, and we can begin to heal it by story and remembrance. Everyone loves a good origin story. Me and my family are obsessed with all the superhero model movies same and everyone loves the great backstory, right? You want to see where they came from. And you want to hear that the origin story. So when I one of my favorite things to do with people that are in a caring profession is say, How did you start? Where did where did this begin? Where did this passion begin? And I love that moment where you see them begin to smile and say, Well, for me it all started when I was and they're often running, they're talking about a childhood experience. They're talking about a family member, they're talking about something formative that made them realize this is what I want to do. So by helping people get back to that, you know, Eleanor discussing her story of the lady that she was working with was there was a lost passion for a forgotten fire that originally drove her to do what she was doing. So we help people go back and learn how do I share my story? What can I how can I share this with people? How could I remember it myself. So once we have grieved what we have lost, once we have remembered why we are doing what we're doing in the first place, then we move on to AI which is to investigate, we base investigate off of the cognitive behavior theory, which is pretty simple. We all kind of know it, what we believe to be true, the thoughts that we have fact, our feelings, and those feelings affect what we do. So it's thoughts, feelings, actions, and we have to take people through a process of really assessing what they believe to be true. I had said earlier that the trap of compassion fatigue and burnout is that people believe I am alone. And when they repeat that truth to themselves so many times, it becomes solidified in their brains that they believe that is the truth. So think about what that impact is going to have on them believing I am alone, how will that affect their feelings? And what actions will they take because of that they're going to quit calling their friend, they're going to quit in social interaction, they're going to disengage. Worst case scenario, these are the kinds of thought processes that lead to suicide. I am alone, no one cares. So we help individuals go through and investigate, what do you believe to be true? And they are able to list these things out and say, Wait a minute, is that the truth? Because if it's not, I need to reinvent the narrative. I need to change what I believe to be true, so that I can move forward. We then move on to p which is plan. And this is where we really start taking people through the action steps of coming up with a personal self care plan. Now people say oh, here we are. We're starting this again. You want me to help myself and pull myself up by my bootstraps when I am drowning. But remember, we don't jump in there. Please remember that, that we start at the heart of the matter. We help them to express their grief. We help them remember what their passion is. We talk about their thoughts and what is true and what is not true. So we are not jumping in on the action step. We've already we've already covered the heart and the head. And now it's time to take a look at action. So we've covered those other things. First, we're helping heal before we start asking them. And when we say an action plan, this may be a baby step, you've worked with clients, where your entire action plan is called my sister once a week. That's, that's what they've got. That's what they can give you. And you say, fantastic. Call your sister once a week, it helps them get out of that tunnel vision of I'm all alone, life is pointless, I cannot go on. And if they can begin to build on that and say, well, that action step really helped me maybe I can add another. So that's where we have the plan. Last P in grip is partner, we have to learn what nature already knows their safety in numbers. That's true by ourselves. Yeah, we see it, you know, we see it all around us. And we know their safety and numbers, and you can't do things by yourself. But we dunk on it, we still try really hard to do it all alone, and we can't. So we have to help people to understand we're not saying it's good. If you find someone to partner with, we're saying it is essential that you find someone to partner with. Because that helps reinforce that idea that you are not alone. You have people around you that care about you. So that's the process that we help people go through, that not only helps people come out of that fog of compassion, fatigue and burnout. But we've seen people that when they go through an assessment, they really don't score high in being burned out. They don't score high and having compassion fatigue. But this to me, not only is it treatment, it's vitamins. You do this to help you isn't that what we want, we want preventative, we want to help people learn how to not get in that place in in the first place.

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Oh my gosh,

I know I just want to sit and I actually we could go back through each of these because let me just react as a guy because our audience is a guy, right? Probably. And I don't want to stereotype guys, because I don't like being stereotyped. But I love to skip everything that is internally reflective and jump to doing and I I should bring my wife, I wish she was at the house right now. And I bring her in here because that's just like how I'm wired to want to solve and I want to fix things. And you breaking this down is just showing me why it doesn't work, you know, and why it is short lived. So thank you. I think this is such an incredible framework. And I'm just emoting and want other people to jump into the fence with me.

I mean, the thing that is striking me and I don't know if Julie or John, you're thinking this, but these five steps dovetails so closely with many, if not all of our values that we have outlined in our company. And I'm just noticing we're using different terminology as we talk about them. I mean, we're talking about be human and telling stories. How do you simplify? How are you vulnerable? How are you going into your pain points? How are you talking about failures and coming out of them? And when you say there is safety in numbers, that to me is our last value which is community is everything. And what you're saying is that we will all thrive more vibrantly when we can do this together. And I keep seeing Robin Williams and Goodwill Hunting like grabbing that Damon's like arms while you're talking and saying this is not your fault. And I want to say that to people who are listening because I will tell you that as I first went into therapy and got my psychologist and the These kinds of things, I kept feeling like I did this to myself, I took on too much. I didn't create boundaries, and I and yeah, I just need you to come into my house and my world and figure out what my plan is going to be ladies, because you are so smart about this.

Well, we, we've seen it work, and it works. I mean, that's just kind of the bottom one. You know, that's, that's why we're so passionate about it. And, and I love what you said about you're not alone. And you know, it's not your fault. And I feel like so many times what we're seeing and reading about and compassion fatigue and burnout is just get a self care plan and do so you know, go get a massage, and you'll be fine. You know, get a manicure once a week, you'll be okay. And that's just not the truth. I mean, it's that's part of it. But that's, that's not all of it. And the other thing, we feel so important, I feel like so important. It's it yes, it's it's something that people need to do for themselves. But organizations need to take some responsibility for the well, they we need to create cultures where people have the ability to have good well being, in fact, we've developed what we call our, our synergy of well being, and we have five spokes that we see as a part of that grit being one of them. And another one, I think you're gonna like after listening to a couple of your podcasts, we got to do some we love that people find their strengths, what what makes them and that helps them to have a better understanding of themselves. And then we also talk about psychological safety in in organizations and Ashley's our expert on that and she is so well schooled in teaches psychological safety at the university level. So she certainly knows that. And then we do have a step of self care. And we have a small, very brief workshop that we do that's called fatigue to flourishing. That's really it's, it's kind of the, it's the intro to grip if someone's not ready to jump in to the deep end with grip. And then we also look at the stance of the organization. Are they optimistic? Are they showing gratitude? What's their compassion for their employees. So we feel like if all five of those spokes can be utilized in an organization, it'll create a place of well being. So that, you know, it's great to trace actually just said this, it's great to treat, but we rather prevent. So you know, and if you look at my profile, March of 2020, I mean, COVID had been around a week, and I started writing, what who's going to take care of the caregivers, because I knew what was coming, it was so apparent that we were going to enter into a place where people that were on the frontlines, were going to get in trouble. And unfortunately, there was just not the energy or the ability to die, that at that point, we're all surviving. And now we're coming out on the other end, and there's a lot of casualties. And I feel like we've got a lot of people that didn't need a lot of help. I really

think these steps are outstanding. And I kind of want to piggyback off something that you said, Eleanor, and I would love for you to take this, Ashley, about this psychological safety. You know, for our listeners who serve as leaders within organizations, what sort of advice would you give to them about creating an environment of psychological safety? And could you define it for us what that is?

Sure, absolutely. So psychological safety has become a buzzword in the last couple of years. You know, we think of TED Talks and articles and things that have come out and people are talking about it. And some people take that they just hear the term psychological safety. And I one of my favorite things to do in organizations, when I first go in and start talking about it is put up a big slide of this is not psychological safety. It'll be like somebody will. One of the things I have on that slide is a person saying, I really can't stand the way you speak in meetings. You're just so nasally I'm sorry, I'm just being honest, I should be psychologically safe to be able to tell that to you. This is not psychological,

to be a jerk. That was the perfect voice to deliver that by the way. Yeah.

So basically, we have to back up and realize that the definition of psychological safety is really being able to bring who you are to your workplace without fear of backlash without fear of suffering any negative consequences because you brought who you were, you spoke up you asked questions. You were innovative, If you took a risk, you don't feel as though you were unsafe to do those things. So then I go into an explanation of what is what is it? It's hard to explain because it's a theory. So usually I go by benchmarks, if I sat in, if I went to an organization for the day, what would I see that could help me understand where they were on 10? You are. And remember that it is a continuum, I call it a culture of psychological safety, because it's not like we have it or we don't have it, right? It's a continuum. And that might, you might have higher levels of psychologic D, in the sales department than you do in the marketing department than you do in the HR department. So it can differ even within an organization. But what I would be looking for is, do I see people asking questions, or just saying yes, and no, you know, is it safe to raise your hand and say, Wait a minute, I'm not quite sure about that. Can I ask some questions, avoid move forward with that process. It looks like people being innovative and taking risks and knowing that win or lose with that risk, the organization is going to support them. And that the organization, if it does not work out, will say, Hey, what did we learn from this? How can we move move forward from this, instead of just blaming and saying, Oh, you did something wrong, you're out. So those are the kinds of things I would be looking for to be able to assess the level of psychological safety within an organization. When it comes to compassion, fatigue, and burnout, which is what we're really focusing on today. I really, there's one thing it's been on my mind, I'm going to give you my my one doable action takeaway of what not only organizations should be doing, but what individuals should be doing for one another when they see someone who is suffering from compassion, fatigue, and burnout. And it is what I call and it's really based off of that first step in grip, which is grave. Because until we get past that I loved what you said about wanting to just take the action step and just do it. And all I could see as my mind is that commercial of the guide where the boats leaking, and he slaps that tape on it. That's in my mind, I'm like, Just duct tape it duct tape and move on. And that's the whole, but we've got to get to the heart of the matter first, even though it is difficult and painful. So this, this actionable step really strikes the heart of that grief. And it is what I call learning how to sit quietly with pain, which is very difficult for us to do, especially those in the caring professions. What are some characteristics of the person who's going to go into nonprofit, to the medical field, to ministry to social work? What are they what is innate about their personality, you see a problem, you fix it, you see an issue, you address it, you assess, diagnose, and treat, right? That's the order that you do things in, you are ready to jump into action and get it done. But when people are suffering from compassion, fatigue and burnout, the first step, the first thing they need, they need to know they are psychologically safe, to share their grief and to share their pain. I just want to set the scene, think about this. Imagine that a co worker comes to you and says, I am struggling. I keep thinking I'm going to get past it. And I just can't. Maybe they even start crying a minute you have a breakdown. And you're thinking what do I do? Maybe you've experienced this I know that I have personally Yeah. And we have a tendency to do one of three things. Like I said, those of us who were in a caring profession, one of our first tendencies is to fix it. Right? But we have to understand is that that changes the way that we listen. Suddenly, we're not listening for compassion. We're just waiting for them to stop talking. So we can give our sage advice and tell them what they should do next. I don't know about anybody else, but married couples can relate to,

oh my gosh, I'm dying. I do this. I do this. I'm sorry, everyone in my life, I'm gonna get better.

You're not listening for compassion. You're listening for basically how you're going to solve that

with your listening for how you're going to fix it, and set the scene if you if you haven't been, you know, we've been talking about COVID. You imagine a colleague coming to you, a physician who comes and just burst into tears and said, I lost three more today. How are you going to fix that? What do you think you're going to say that's going to make that go away? You can't you can't make that go away. So we must Learn to listen for compassion, not to fix it. The second tendency people can have is to think that they are being sympathetic by joining in. And they want, oh, you're going to share your story of how bad things are. Okay, as soon as you're done, I'll share my story of how bad things are. And what that turns into as a competition, who's had a more difficult time, or just turns into a great fest, and you just both circle the drain and go down, that's not really going to help anybody, anybody. So again, you're learning to listen for compassion, you're not going to fix it, you're not going to say, oh, I can one up one with that you haven't slept in three nights, I haven't slept in Five Nights. So again, we're taking a step back, we're not going to fix it, we're not going to add our own story to it. The one thing that people in organizations, especially leadership, and I want people to hear this, because people that are leaders, people that are managers, they want to know, what can I do for my people? What if one of your team members, what if one of your employees comes into your office, and this happens, and they begin to cry, and they begin to share, and what I see leaders, managers supervisors do, is they want to explain it away, they want to explain, here's what I'm doing. It's kind of like fixing it, here's what I'm doing to try to fix it. Oh, I know, the schedule is horrific, you haven't had a day off in weeks, well, here's, here's my plan for the day ended up. And again, it's not giving safe space, the person didn't come in there for that kind of conversation. So as difficult as it is, as hard of a step as this is, I think the most loving, caring thing that you can do for someone who is currently hurting, is to sit quietly with them in their pain.

Okay, I don't know where you two have been. But you need to be in the nonprofit sector for life. Because I am seeing so many parallels as you're talking with past lived experience in different sectors, different jobs. And, and I think that, if you're someone like me, who's listening to you talk, and I'm pretty sure I've done all three of these many, many times as both a friend and as maybe a leader. It's like, I want to say sorry, to everyone I've ever done this to and I'm gonna work on being a better leader. But I think that it's so smart. And you don't know what you don't know, because people are, I think hardwired to be compassionate to others when others are suffering. And so I can understand the need to want to fix it to take away the pain. But understanding that we can't take it away, we're going to have to sit in discomfort a little, could possibly be a very empowering thing, if you could figure that out. And so my question to everyone who's listening right now is, what are you doing to create a safe place? At your organization? You could be remote? What are you doing to foster a culture of safety? John, and I just talked about this. On a podcast recently about John said, Are you building a culture where somebody feel safe enough to raise their hand and say, I don't know, I need training on this? Can you help me put something into the budget, so I can be familiar with this. I don't know that I had the bravery or I don't know if I wasn't in a culture that made me feel that way. But there are so many opportunities. And if you take nothing from this conversation, and I truly hope you've taken three notes, three pages of notes like I have, but figure out and do a deep internal dive into how you're creating a safe culture where people feel like there is open communication, that people care about you as a human being and not as a worker bee, that you're having constant conversations about mental health. Take care, listen in. And I think the listening quality is so profound, because fundraisers and especially people in nonprofit are hardwired to listen, we listen to donors, we listen to nuance, we're always trying to figure out what is the one thing they've said that could connect to our mission or that could connect to this project? Are we listening to ourselves? That can be something, John, that I think we're really missing?

No, I think like activating this particular sector. I mean, it could be revolutionary, because we talk a lot about retaining donors, but we don't talk enough about how are we retaining this staff that's on the front lines, that's seeking that and I think creating this type of workplace that safe is going to lead to the business results that you want. And that's not why you were doing it. That's what this conversation is about. But I think it all points to that you know, of like, creating a safe place that people want to invest their careers and their lives and all All those things,

I think there's so many wonderful nuggets here, and I just so appreciate it. We love story here. And I can tell that you guys do too. I would love to hear a story from both of you about a moment of philanthropy that really touched your life. Eleanor, I think we'll start with you.

You know, I've been thinking about that. And my dad was who I thought of immediately, my dad had the real gift of giving, and, and I watched him my whole life. Be the one that would, if someone had a need, he was gonna be the one that met it. And he did it very quietly. Most people didn't know what he was doing. But he was that's just who he was. And the ripple effect of that in our family has just been powerful. I think I'm one of four kids, and I'm now seeing how we have all kind of taken and embrace that kind of life. And it's trickling down to kids and grandkids. And that's a beautiful thing to see. And I think that's what blame three does. It has a ripple effect. It doesn't just affect the one who's receiving a gift or receiving something. It affects those who are also a part of that giving. And that's that was what came to mind.

What about you, Ashley?

You know, I'm really gonna have to echo Eleanor here. I love how, you know, we talked about asking somebody in the caring profession, what made you want to go into this field in the first place. And like I said, a lot of times, just like Eleanor, it harkening back to stories and memories of her dad. The same thing is true of me with my mom, my mom was a nurse her whole life, just retired shortly, just a little while ago, a couple years. And when I was growing up, we lived in Monterey, Tennessee, which was like Mayberry, I mean, like a wide spot in the road, one stoplight, and she was a home health care nurse. And she would go from home to home and help these people. They're in Monterey, Tennessee. And I remember, just so many times with this one night stands out in my mind, I remember that it was snowing, it was winter. And she got a call at two in the morning that she needed to come to someone's home. And I remember seeing her on the I woke up, I heard the phone ring. And I heard her on the phone. And she was giving instructions to this family telling them what to do and that she was going to be right there. And the instruction sounded very weird, like getting a cardboard box and putting a blanket in it and putting it by the stove. And I thought, What is she telling these people to do? What is the emergency? I was very concerned. When she got home later that night, about four in the morning. She looks so tired. And she explained to me I said WHAT DID YOU ARE YOU WERE YOU EVEN on call? And she said no. But they needed me. I said for what their cat was having kittens and they weren't quite sure what to do. And they just needed me to come help. And that was her that was just how she's always been. I just story after story of that. And again, just like Eleanor said, that trickle down effect of being shown from a very early age of what it looks like to have compassion, what it looks like to care what it looks like to go above and beyond to give back and to take care of one another to live in community to know that we are all in this together and not to stop and say that's not on my job description. But just to give and I will never forget either that night or many other things that my mother did that just holdfast in my memory and heart and have made me who I am.

I just love hanging with y'all.

I know good human awards right here seriously. Well, this

conversation has grown my heart I can't wait to go back and process through everything you've talked us through. We try to you know, pull it into a moment at the end and ask what's your one good thing if you could sum it What's something you want to leave with us in our community today? What's your one good thing Eleanor?

Well, we've combined Eros we've got one for you. I love this really talked about it. And what we really want people to realize and to remember is self care is not selfish, but it's also it does not happen by yourself. So I think we are in a world that is so self I mean, we're just it's all about us, right? And then we've got the world telling us if you're burning out or if you feeling then just take care of yourself. And while that's important, you just cannot do it in a silo. You cannot do it in front of a computer screen. You can't you got to have community and that's that's our biggest thing. It's we just feel like it's not selfish. And you cannot do it all by yourself.

Okay? People are going to want to know how to take your classes, how to get your resources, how to find you on socials, connect us with all the places you are, and certainly your website.

Well, you know, what we are not very social network should be because we both don't know how to do it very well. But we do have a website, it's cohort, the number four care cohort for care.com. And you can totally get us through that website. And we would love to have that interaction. We both have LinkedIn pages. So if you want to message us cohort for care has a LinkedIn page, you can also get us that way. We've also developed a digital workbook that's available on Amazon. And it's called Get a grip, G R I P P, and it's by Ashley, Anna, but it walks you through these steps of grip. We felt like we needed to have something out there. If people couldn't, we much prefer to do it in a group setting, or one on one. This at least is a resource that people can go to. If they're really are needing some help. And they can. It's $10. It's on Amazon, it'll walk them through the stats. And hopefully we'll just leave them on a path of health for dollars,

just the heart of service. And I've already found it on Amazon already deep Googled Amazon, we will link that up in the show notes for the direct checkout. Great, thank you. I just can't understate just how meaningful and how appreciative we are of this conversation. Thank you for showing up and loving on us in this community. With your words and wisdom today. It's been a complete blast. Honestly,

this is massively important work that you're undertaking and I have enjoyed every moment as well as enjoying your incredible Tennessee accents. So thank you for that. And yeah, we're just here rooting you on.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

We appreciate it.

Thanks so much for being here. We hope you're loving the summer of Evolution Series. And to learn more you can head over to we are for good.com/evolution All the playlists resources and other ways to help you get inspired and activated this summer. We'd also love for you to join the conversation. Share what you're learning on social media, or join us at our free community at We Are For Good community.com Bonus points for snapping a picture and showing us where you're listening from. Can't wait for the next conversation. See you soon friends