Melody Wilding: How do you become fully confident and in control of your emotions and experience at work? It’s by mastering your own psychology and that of others. On this show, we decode the science of success, exploring how to get out of your own way and advance your career to new levels without becoming someone you’re not.

I’m Melody Wilding, bestselling author, human behavior professor and award winning executive coach. Get ready and let’s put psychology to work for you.

What if you could finally stop the emotional rollercoaster at work? You know it. One day you are riding high on a successful project, and then a single piece of feedback sends you spiraling for days. What would you be able to do with all of that mental energy you currently spend? Second guessing yourself.

If you relate to being a Sensitive Striver, a deep thinking and feeling high achiever, it can sometimes feel like everyone else got some secret manual for moving through work without internalizing everything, while you are still trying to figure out how in the world do they do that.

Well today I’m excited to bring you a very special interview with Rebecca Gebeshuber, a recent graduate of our Resilient program, which is now currently open for enrollment only through May 15th. Our next cohort begins on May 22nd.

Rebecca is the marketing and new product development manager at Van Bell Finished Plants, a leading grower of ornamental plants for major Canadian mass market retailers. It’s pretty cool, right? 

Rebecca brings over 20 years of experience in the industry, and she’s here to talk with us today about her journey from feeling constantly overwhelmed and in the weeds from overthinking and second guessing her boundaries and her contributions to feeling more confident and in control of her everyday experience and what she has to offer her organization.

Resilient is the only program of its kind that shows you exactly how to turn your sensitivity into a leadership edge and double your confidence at work in just 90 days. Clients take our proprietary Strive Diagnostic before coaching begins, and again, at the end of 90 days, and here’s what they report. A 75% increase in their ability to be assertive and say no. A 73% increase in their ability to stay composed under pressure. A 63% increase in their ability to be in control of their emotions.

So just think about what that could mean for you. Making decisions about a project in 20 minutes instead of agonizing for three days, closing your laptop at 6:00 PM and not feeling compelled to reopen it at 11:00 PM just to check one more thing. Cutting your email response time in half because you’re not rewriting everything five times. Processing a conflict with a colleague in just a few hours instead of losing an entire weekend to anxiety about it.

 Now when you add all of this up, we’re talking about potentially reclaiming hundreds of hours of your life each year while dramatically increasing your impact, your satisfaction, your visibility at work. Imagine just what becomes possible with all of that mental energy that you’re currently spending on doubt, overthinking, when that is redirected toward your actual talents and ambitions.

Head to melody wilding.com/resilient to get all the details and claim your spot. On that page you can learn everything about what the program offers. We have best in class weekly realtime coaching. We have a highly action oriented lesson and curriculum. We have our coaching tools library, our private community, and lots, more.

We hope to see you inside. And with that, let’s get into our interview with Rebecca.

 Rebecca, thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Psychology at Work. I’m so excited to get to chat with you and just happy you made the time. Thank you.

Rebecca Gebeshuber: Thanks, Melody. It’s really good to be here.

Melody Wilding: Yes. And we’re talking today about your experience in resilient. So just before we dive into all of that, just introduce yourself briefly, a little bit more about who you are, what you do, and we’ll go from there.

Rebecca Gebeshuber: Okay. Yeah. Sounds good. So yeah, my name’s Rebecca. I work in a wholesale nursery in British Columbia, Canada. I’m a product marketing, actually a product development manager. And, I also work in marketing, so it’s kind of a, two hat situation, but primarily product development now, and. I’ve worked here for, this is my 22nd spring.

We, we measure things in springs here. We don’t actually talk much about years. It’s just every season that we manage to make it, And, yeah, I have done everything from, I like to say from soup to nuts. So I was originally hired as the president’s assistant, and then I’ve worked my way up through marketing and supporting sales team.

And now I’m actually in a, more senior level where I’m, I have a small team in the, our print shop where we do our own custom tags and I do a lot of the design and, yeah. And then I work on up with new ideas all year round. 

Melody Wilding: Yes, we were just chatting before I hit record about how you’re, I was asking are you already preparing for the holidays and as we’re filming or as we’re recording this, rather, it’s the end of April and you were saying, I never stop preparing for the holidays, so Yes. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: Christmas is year round here, so 

Melody Wilding: Yeah. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: something going on. 

Melody Wilding: Wow. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: get rid of the glitter in my office, 

Melody Wilding: That’s right. It just sticks to everything.

Yes. And I mean, just what a cool, that’s, one thing I love about Resilient is just hearing all of the diverse roles and industries that people come from. But it’s also really fun to have someone like yourself who has, it’s rare to have someone who has been in their organization for five, 10, let alone 15, 20 years.

And so that’s incredible to have been there so long. I’m sure you’ve gone through many evolutions in your role and just your, feeling in the organization. So with that, take me back because you joined Resilient in, towards the end of 2024. So take me back to what was happening for you, like mid to early 2024.

What was going on for you at that time. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: Yeah.

There was a lot of change happening in our company and I think just personally too, I’ve been through kind of, a few years of, I mean, I think everyone has, since 2020, we all kind of went through a bit of a,an assessment of who we are and how are in the world. And I really saw opportunity here, and that’s been the nice thing about being at this company. We’re a quite a progressive company. We do open book management, which is very rare in our industry and I think in most industries. So there’s a lot of openness and a lot of willingness to take on just new opportunities, whether that’s for business or whether that’s personally and, I think, I’ve been able to develop my role through the years, which has been great, this was a bigger jump for me.

So we had some people who left the company, left some gaps. I personally was working with a team member over the previous year and she had decided to leave as well. And so that left a very big gap. And I was, you know, I was kind of filling in as I often do. 

And I remember one of my favorite, I think one of my favorite phrases, I can’t remember if it was from you or so, just someone in our cohort, to be the spray foam, and I tend to be the spray foam where I’m just trying to like, fill in the gaps everywhere. But I was seeing how that wasn’t really helping me accomplish what I wanted to accomplish.

it was about getting clarity. Trying to figure out where my strengths were at and where my weaknesses were because I was really ready to sort of attack that 

and, make those changes because I was seeing how much opportunity was ahead of me. Now I’m not, you know, everyone says I look so young. I am in my fifties now and I don’t have forever in the workplace anymore.

I really wanted my like, last part of my working life to be really meaningful to me. I knew that it wouldn’t be if I kept being that spray foam for everybody. 

So I needed to be able to figure out how do I get to the best work I can do. how do I home every day having some energy left for my husband and my dogs?

How do I develop into the person I wanted to develop into? Even at this stage, or maybe even more so at this stage of my life. 

Melody Wilding: Yeah. Yeah,

yeah,

And it’s, so interesting. a lot of people ask me, you know, what? Who’s the typical type of person that comes into Resilient? And I would say it’s usually someone like yourself who is mid-level, mid-career and is starting to realize that, wow, what got me here is not going to get me there.

And my habits, my patterns are no longer sustainable for me. So just, what was it you were saying, I didn’t wanna be the spray foam, which is great, like filling in all the cracks. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: Yeah.

Melody Wilding: What was your biggest struggle? Trying to get out of that. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: Yeah, I mean, I think. We run a really lean team here. We don’t have a lot of overlap between positions and especially not mine. A funny anecdote maybe is my husband worked for the postal service, so as a letter carrier for 20 years, but you know, if he took three weeks off, there was another person who was willing to put on a bag, go out and walk to deliver the mail, do all that stuff.

It was a very similar job, you know, he did it with his certain, you know, abilities. He’s probably faster than most people. What I do is a little bit different, and I think I’ve had to really wrap my head around the fact that there are portions of what I do that are not just about me. And Resilient helped me see that not how does this have to be done, but who can do this? That was one of the other things that I came away with a lot of times that was like, oh, this again, okay, I need to realize that other people have talent and ability and they can stretch and they need the opportunity to stretch. It’s not just all on me all the time, and I’m not even the person that wants to be at the center of attention.

I just feel like I am a, I’m a person who is very responsible, who wants to be relied upon. There’s a lot wrapped up in that. but I also had to realize I can’t be that go-to person all the time. ’cause otherwise I have no, I have nothing left to give beyond that, so, 

Melody Wilding: That’s right. yeah. Okay. Let’s dig into that a little bit more because I’m sure that piece, there were a lot of people like nodding their heads. Yes, ’cause it sounds like for you, maybe it was a struggle around what, in the program we call over-functioning, Where our, strive quality of responsibility, is unbalanced where, okay, if our responsibility is balanced, we’re able to be committed to ourselves and committed to others without burning ourselves out. But if it’s unbalanced, we’re trying to balance all the plates, they’re crashing around us and we’re also crashing. And so I mentioned that term Sensitive Striver, and I, know you relate to that.

So tell me how, did you, how are you seeing maybe being a sensitive striver working against you before you join the program? Well, of course we’ll get to what changed for you, but I think even helping people identify oh yeah, I see this happening for me and I never put language, or I never pinpointed it that way. Yeah.

Rebecca Gebeshuber: Yeah, for sure. I think around the, I mean, I always, I also wrap it up in like perfectionism because I have very high standards and you know, I kind of say that, but then I also know it’s perfectionism. But part of that is just the fear of failure and of being judged. And so, so much of what I was doing was really just this endless cycle of don’t let them see that maybe you can’t do this.

Because you just, you know, I didn’t wanna deal with the feelings of not living up to the expectation. Now those expectations were ridiculous, and they were all part of my mind of times because if I just ask more often or just, you know, probing questions, asking about what is, really necessary here, it, was always like, I was always going too far with it.

And it was really around that fear of I just don’t wanna be judged, I wanna be liked. I don’t want, you know, to have conflict. That was definitely something, and I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. I don’t think we need to live in a state of conflict all the time, no matter if you’re in, you know, a business or at home or whatever.

I didn’t wanna live in fear of that. I wanted to be able to have the confidence that I could have my own opinions, or if I saw something that needed to be changed or that I felt very strongly about, that I would feel okay speaking my mind, and that they would, you know, whoever I was speaking to would know that I came from a place of just knowledge and of experience, and that it would land properly.

I wasn’t really taking account of the social capital I had built with people. And it was almost like every single day I was making up brand new rules for how I was gonna react with people. And it was like all of the, you know, 20 years before matter. It was like today because I couldn’t accomplish this one thing on time, everything was gonna fall apart.

Melody Wilding: Yeah. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: that was really around the over-responsibility. I. I really had to work hard on that part.

Melody Wilding: Yeah, Oh my gosh. yeah. I, it resonate with that so much. That’s sort of like immediacy and discounting, and this is something we work on a lot in resilient, right? Like changing your identity, internalizing not just your strengths, but also your, like social capital is such a great word. Not downplaying that.

‘Cause being a sensitive striver, that’s something you’ve excelled at building in the organization. But we act consistently with our beliefs. So if we believe, if I speak up, people are gonna be upset with me, they’re gonna, they’re going to reject me. We’re, going to just stay. I love what you said about, I feel like I’m reinventing the rules of how I engage with people every day.

huge. So. So then talk to me about how, did you stumble across Resilient and in particular, what made you say I’m gonna do this. I’m gonna take a leap and join this program on the internet? Because it is, it’s a leap of faith. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: It is, well, I came across you on LinkedIn, so that is, you know, I had been fairly heavily involved in social media for the company and, you know, a little bit for myself. But again, as you get older, you kind of start to the, Facebooks and the Instagrams of the world kind of fade away a little bit.

And, but when you’re professional, you do wanna stay on LinkedIn. But I tend to look at it more for, you know. I, like to, I’m an information grazer. I like to bring in a lot of 

Melody Wilding: Yeah. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: I’m very interested in psychology. I’m very interested in how, just around organizational psychology, I mean, I could, I consider myself to be a neurodivergent and I have a lot of special interests around things, and that is one of them.

So I’m always looking for great voices in the, you know, how do people react to other people. You know, angle. So I love Adam Grant. I stumbled upon you and I’ve been sort of following you and your work for about a year. Think I got your book on Audible. Trust Yourself. before I started the program, I believe, I think I, I listened to that probably a couple months before taking leap.

yeah, it was just, I had so much swirling here and I didn’t know where sort of, go. And it kind of lined up with, we had, I’m working in agriculture strangely enough. It seems like it’s not agriculture, but it is. 

Melody Wilding: Yeah. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: And we had a representative from our agriculture, provincial group here come and speak to us about mental health and agriculture and kind of all lined up.

So it was a good meeting. It kind of was like, okay. We live in a really, we work in a very seasonal, up and down stressful situation. Harvest time in spring. It’s, you don’t see your family very much. There’s a lot of imbalance. And so I was definitely feeling that in my mental health and in just feeling tired and a lot of things.

And I was like, but I must have some control here. 

of looked at it on a two, two-way thing where I was like, well, I’ve been seeing your ads for Resilient. I thought, I’m just gonna, I’m gonna try this. And, you know, I appreciated that it was a smaller group. it was online. I didn’t quite know how I was gonna feel about it.

I think I remember writing down in the, intake form that my biggest fear was that I wouldn’t finish. 

And because so many things, like I say, I get special interests, I get curious about something and then I get enough information and then I kind of drop off. 

But I didn’t wanna do that this time. I wanted to see it all the way through because I kind of felt like. I wasn’t going to get the benefit of this unless I made that promise to myself. 

So that was really important. So that was the start of that. And it was tough. I mean, there were some weeks where it gets very busy here and you know, the timing was right over lunchtime, which wasn’t bad for here.

But, 

yeah, some days, you know, especially on those. Little bit of a harder days, and maybe it was a more of an emotional, reaction to some of the stuff that we’re working through. It’s kind of hard to be in here and, you know, having people texting you and messaging you and stuff, and you’re just like, wait, I’m just working through some major stuff here. 

Melody Wilding: yeah, 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: give me a minute. But it was so valuable for that.

Melody Wilding: Yeah. What did you find, what in particular felt so valuable to you? 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: I think. I think the connection with other people who were like me. that was huge, just seeing that there were other people from all different careers, like emergency doctor, you know, people working in nonprofits, even yourself and Wendy. the. Broad range of experience. I mean, is, I work in a fairly large company.

We have about 80 people full-time at this place, plus a lot of seasonal workers. I know a lot of them very well, but I always felt, and this is part of being this neuro type being a sensitive, striver, highly sensitive person, you always feel like you’re by yourself no matter what. Even if there are other people very close by who seem very similar, but you just never think that they’re the same.

But then when you start talking to people in a group setting and you start sharing experiences and sharing, you know, just strategies on how to get through each day and how to better approach certain things, you don’t feel alone anymore. And that was a huge part of this. 

Melody Wilding: Absolutely. Yeah.

And so I was going back through your, your assessment and you had some gigantic gains. And so just for context, in the program, we have this tool, it’s called the Strive Diagnostic. And this is what we use to gauge your results throughout the program and to also help you as a member of the program benchmark, where am I now, where do I wanna be?

And actually see. Literally see your progress over the 13 weeks of the program. And so I was looking back at your results and we were just talking about earlier about not wanting to disappoint others and there was a line in one of your, one of your assessments you said, you mentioned that disappointing others is your Achilles heel and Yeah. real hard relate to that as well.

But what was interesting to me is that your assertiveness score. Jumped from a two. At the beginning of the program, you rated yourself a two. By the end, you rated yourself a six. So talk to me about that. What do you, I mean, that’s more than double in terms of an increase. What do you think led to that?

What? What did you change or work on that led to such a huge increase?

Rebecca Gebeshuber: Yeah. I think lot of it was around communication 

Melody Wilding: Yeah. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: and just being honest with people about where I was at and you know, I think one of the, One of the moments that really stood out to me during the whole process, I was having a conversation with, and I can’t even remember if it was by chat or by video.

I think it was just by 

chat with a colleague and she works off site and she texted me and she’s you can say no if you need to. And I was like, you’re giving me permission to say no, I can’t believe this, but it hit me so hard and I was like, thank you for that because I need to say no. 

I can’t fit this in right now, but I can do this.

So being able to sort of frame where I’m at with people and be honest, instead of just trying to cover up for my overwhelm, I. Which is often what I feel like I’m doing even today, I kind of felt like, oh boy, you know, I’m trying to get back on track with, I’m doing bullet journaling to keep track of what I’m doing, and it’s been working really well.

But I kind of had a, you know, had a few weeks of bit of struggle just to get back with myself and keeping in touch with myself through that and through, you know, and all of this stuff. I need to not be so hard on myself. 

Giving myself that permission to say, okay, yeah, okay if I don’t have it all together.

Melody Wilding: Yeah. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: I don’t every day. I’m just like everyone else. and then they start to feel better about opening up to me too. They’ll come to me and say, I’m drowning a bit here and I don’t know what to do. can you help me with this? And I’ll say, I can try this. And how about we try that? So a lot of it is around communication, but, that whole concept of I know these people, most of them quite well, and I need to trust that they know me too, 

that they will like me no matter what transpires today. It’s not gonna ruin our relationship if I can’t, you know, hit a deadline that I didn’t really think through. And so that is part of what I’m working on is around time, and around management of all of that, and about just being honest about the expectation.

Melody Wilding: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it sounds. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: lot of these things have really, like a lot of the tools we worked on helped me verbalize that better. So a lot of the scripts have been so helpful. 

Melody Wilding: Do you have any that you go back to again and again? 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: I think my main one, well, number one is I usually take a breath. Because I can get a little bit like, oh, I’m just gonna jump right on that. I have a fast brain, so I just jump right into it. I take a breath. I try to pause a minute and really think it through.

Some of the other ones that have been just really helpful are literally just, I’m gonna get back to you on that. it’s so simple, but I never use it and it’s okay. I. To say, like I even had today, my manager emailed me actually on Saturday and it was a, a pretty significant, email that he wanted me to sort of respond to and to work through some things because I have a new direct report and we’re trying to work out some delegation and different areas he wanted to make sure that I was aware of all the areas that he’s expecting to see from me and I sort took it all in and I could have replied on Saturday ’cause we were working, but I didn’t. And I thought, I need to let this sit. 

And I didn’t even reply back first thing this morning. I let it sit still some more. ’cause I really wanted to look at ahead and then the following week, how much time can I actually put together for this task that he’s asking me to, because it required attention.

So I think. Just being, like I say, honest with people about what my capacity is 

Melody Wilding: Yeah. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: has been a huge step forward me. 

Melody Wilding: Yeah. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: I’m definitely not perfect there yet. I struggle all the time I, it’s very easy to fall back into I need people to like me and to also not notice me. It’s a really weird, wanna be noticed, but I wanna be liked.

So don’t understand that. Probably never will, but we were all in the same boat together on that one. So I think, just yeah, being more open around that.

Melody Wilding: Yeah. Well, so many of us as sensitive strivers, right? we really value that harmony around us. And for many reasons, a lot of us have been put in roles where we’re the peacekeeper in our family, in our friend group, in our workplace. And so that’s, exactly what you were saying. There’s this drive to keep everything copacetic, but also don’t be too much that people notice you, and you’re making demands of them. And what I hear is that you’ve really built the skill of not letting your guilt drive reactivity. Not letting that, I don’t wanna say mismanagement, but in, in Resilient, we talk about distress tolerance, right?

Being able to tolerate like this doesn’t. There’s, there are things arising in me as I’m letting this email from my boss sit in my inbox and self-managing through that to say, I don’t need to jump on that in the medium to long term. It’s going to be better if I look at my calendar first and I get back to them with a more measured response.

But that takes so much emotional maturity on your part to be able to do that, which is remarkable. So I just, you know, it’s. I, the sensitive strivers will get this because it’s very easy to say, well, just respond to your boss later. Who cares? But we know the mental gymnastics that you have to go through to get to that point.

So I think that’s such a huge example of you being able to manage yourself more effectively. And then that. influences how you show up with others being more grounded, more clear, being able to be more present with them. Like you were talking about, you know, coaching and mentoring the people around you, you’re able to do that because some of the inner dialogue has been quieted a little bit.

Is all of that sound right? 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: Yes. a 100%. 

Melody Wilding: Yeah,

yeah,

And so talk to me about, because you also had, overall, I was just doing the math a second ago. Overall, you increased, 83% in terms of that was your gain in across all of your strive qualities from the beginning of the program to an end the end, which is remarkable.

And another one of those big gains was groundedness, your ability to say calm under pressure. it was a three at the beginning, went to an eight, and also your energy management went from a four to a seven. So tho those two, how do you see those changes, those gains show up for you day to day now what?

What’s different for you now that you are able to be more grounded? You are able to manage your energy more  effectively. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: It’s interesting because I think if people were to have asked me about that three, they would’ve disagreed with me because I always look to be calm under pressure. That’s one of the things that people notice about me. 

Melody Wilding: Yeah. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: Is that I’m very, even, I. What they don’t see is what’s going on inside, right?

So there’s always a lot going on. but I think what happened there is that I started to trust my own intuition more. Just from, like I say, conversation, feeling included, feeling like I wasn’t alone in how I thought or believed, and that’s such a, I don’t think people really always know how powerful that is to just even have two or three other people who have a similar brain to you or a similar way of thinking it doesn’t feel like you’re the weirdo, right?

Like you just, you’re just another person and then you start to open up to oh, what’s the deal with that person? What makes them tick a little bit more? You know, it just, it opens up a lot of doors that way. I think yeah, so around groundedness that was, and calmness. It just started to, I started to believe more. 

Melody Wilding: Mm. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: and also.

There’s not really much in this world that’s worth getting too riled up about, even internally. and especially not like in a workplace like this. I work with plants all day and ideas and people that pretty much, I’ve known them for a long time and I like them and we know each other well. There’s not a lot of risk There is some, you know, there’s some new stuff. There’s some new responsibilities. There’s. You know, new people come in all the time and stuff. We have some, external challenges just around, you know, shipping cross Canada into the US. There’s lots of stuff that’s always going on, but I’m a good problem solver.

So I think getting that confidence of knowing that, yeah, I am calm on the outside. I need to be calm on the inside. It doesn’t help me to be anxious. bring out the best in me to be anxious. Yeah, so I think that was one area.

And I think the other thing that was really interesting around energy management is, and I know Wendy and I worked on this quite a bit, we had a one-on-one as well.

I’m really bad about my energy management as far as like time that spend. I had to recognize though that I am. I am someone who needs to work a little bit every day. I’m not a typical person where I take, you know, two weeks off and it’s relaxing for me. I really like my work I’m better as a human being if I’m doing a little bit every day and of my work is I actually get to look after my own plants and stuff in my office. And so I spend time doing that every day. So I had to sort of break down what I do every day, why it takes me that amount of time. Is my husband, for example, okay with me spending that amount of time or would you prefer to see me home a little bit earlier?

And yes, he would. it doesn’t need to be like two hours earlier. It can just be an hour. So I’ve worked on setting timers, working on those kind of things, just being more accountable to the people around me to myself. the things that I did do, which was a little bit, it was interesting ’cause I didn’t know that I wanted to do it until I actually had the words coming outta my mouth.

I kind of thought about it, but not really. I didn’t really think that it would work. And I actually started working at home on Mondays. I’m working, but I’m at home, so I’m in my environment. So I’m home on Sunday. It’s my proper day off. I do work on Saturdays a lot because it’s a creative day for me.

There’s some people here, but, but I was working six days a week without really getting that proper break. So I wanted to have a Sunday and a Monday so that I’d have two days at home. But still recognize that for myself, I need to work a little bit every day. So I started doing that. We did a little trial for about five weeks.

this is just recently, sort of just before Spring started for us. It’s been fantastic. So I get to spend time, you know, my husband does this thing. My dogs are so happy to see me, on Mondays, they’ve sort of seen me on, sat on Sundays. They know that’s what’s going on, but I’m doing chores and stuff, laundry.

Monday I’m in my office. I’m getting deep work done because I’m having no interruptions and I get to see my adorable dogs and have lunch at home and enjoy my life 

in a way that feels meaningful. And so as soon as spring is done, I’m gonna go back to that schedule. But I didn’t think that I would ever ask for that. And it wasn’t a big ask. It was actually pretty easy.So that gave me more confidence to just, you know, keep looking for those areas where I can just improve a little bit more. 

You know, maybe by the, end of the year I’ll be able to get home by five 30. We’ll see.

Melody Wilding: So many great threads there around realizing as a Sensitive Striver, you need to find what works for you because you know, I like to say that our sensitivity is a tool. it can be a superpower or it can get in our way. It’s all about how we use it and we don’t wanna use being a Sensitive Striver against ourselves.

I never wanna hear somebody say, I can’t do this because I’m sensitive. It’s as you were saying, now I have this knowledge and I can experiment and I can manage myself differently. It’s just a fact of my life that I take into account and I find what works for me.

So that was the first thing I wanted to flag, is that this, that self knowledge is invaluable to then set up your life to create a positive flywheel for everything else because it sounds like that new schedule then gives you more energy and more satisfaction and positive cycle.

But there was also a phrase, I, know in your notes for this conversation that you wanted to talk about this idea of teaching people how to treat you. So tell me about how that has shown up for you. ’cause it sounds like this, asking for that sort of work from home or that flexible schedule has been one area.

But what does that concept mean to you, and how have you put that into action? 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: Yeah.

I think, even, yeah, I’ve had a couple of weeks of just some challenging family stuff at home as well, I really. I put a bit of a protection around me, but I was very clear about it. So I asked my, my manager and then a colleague that I work very closely with, who’s also at a manager level.

I asked them to come see me last Monday right away ’cause I just wanted to talk to them and I’m sure I freaked him out a little bit, but it was just, I need time this week. I, can’t be in meetings. I’m going through some things. We have a daily huddle with our group, so even that was feeling like I couldn’t even think about doing that even though these are people that I trust and I like, I just knew personally that this would be too much for me.

And I think six months ago I wouldn’t have done that. I think I would’ve just kind of soldiered on because that was how I grew up. You kind of just, you know, pull up your, you know, pull up your socks and get on with it. And, I didn’t wanna live with the discomfort of even just being around people for a 

Melody Wilding: Yeah. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: I needed to just, I could still do my work. I felt fine about doing my work and I felt actually happy to do my work 

cause it was a bit of a happy distraction, but I just couldn’t be with people. And they were okay with that, but I was very clear about it. I was just like, this is what I need. I’ll be back at the huddles next week.

and if I need anything, I’ll let you guys know. And then I was able do not disturb on my door for most of the day, I was able to manage interactions with my colleagues on my own terms, which was really important because I could, you know, like I say, six months ago, I would’ve allowed it to just drain me.

And then I would’ve been overwhelmed and gone home and I wouldn’t have been my best self. the rest of, you know, for my family or for myself. And I think that’s just kind of, that’s kind of where I’ve ended up, but I 

I’m trying to do that all the time more, where it’s, you know, if I’m getting too much on my plate, I’m talking about it more.

And I’m just saying, Hey, I’m getting a lot of requests from here and there, and I know that I’m, you know, I’m working on making things more visible so that people can understand what my capacity is. 

I think, you know, I’m, many times I think I can do way more than I actually can. just very, I’m very optimistic.

just trying to explain like, hey, this is now becoming too much and what can we do to sort of like even this out? And sometimes it’ll be like, well, who can help you with that? I’m like, yeah, I need to think about that too. 

So those are all areas where I think I’ve really improved sort of the understanding of like, how I say yes or no 

Melody Wilding: Yeah. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: really impacts my energy management.

Melody Wilding: And impacts how people respond to you because that situation with, you know, that, that request around your, bandwidth and, you know, needing to step out of those meetings for a little while, you could have said, can I do this? Is this okay with you if I do that right, which has a very, a permission seeking energy.

Versus you say, this is my decision. I will not be attending these meetings. I’ll be back next week. That is. Decided, and people respond differently to that when we are wishy-washy or we’re permission seeking, it makes other people uncomfortable. It makes other people question us or try to poke holes in our reasoning.

But you were just clear and people respected that it sounds like. So that’s such a perfect example of, you teach people how to treat you by like you, you were solid in that decision, which is why you were able to approach it with more conviction that way. Not in a jerky sort of way, but in just a very collaborative, this is how it is, and supportive of them and yourself, which is a beautiful thing. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: Yep. 

Melody Wilding: So one, I have a few final questions for you. One of them is, you were mentioning that one of the reasons you joined the program was because you were stepping up to take on more responsibility, which is wonderful. The organization’s been growing, you’ve been growing, and we were also talking about how you’ve moved from kind of just doing general marketing to taking on now new product development as well.

And so. How, what has allowed you to do. that? How are you being more strategic or protective of your time? What’s had to change for you that you feel you’ve taken away from resilient that’s helped you step into this next phase for yourself? 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: yeah, Well, I think a lot of it was around just what do I want? 

Like I say, how do I wanna spend this, these last 15 

in this career? I was fortunate about a year ago to work through, and I’ve, got a newer manager. been with the company for three years, but he’s been an excellent coach.

So that was also part of the reason to join Resilient too, because I was enjoying the coaching. But he’s got other direct reports as well. It’s not like I can just rely on him for everything. And there are things that obviously I don’t wanna talk to him about. So I’m gonna, you know, try and figure out, in different ways.

But lot of his, coaching and questioning just kinda led me think if I can just work on these areas, which are not defects, they’re just how I am. is how I am and my experience. It’s not a defect, but things need to be managed. Because they’re not always, they don’t always work well with others.

So, understanding my strengths, understanding the areas that maybe are a little bit harder for me to, sort of get working with other people to try and figure those areas out was really important to me. And then I think. One of the things that was really interesting too, so along the same time when I asked for the, Monday at home, also asked to, have our print shop, which was something that I worked on for about 10 years. I asked for that to be moved back or actually to be moved entirely, not to be moved back. It was never really in marketing. I asked for it to become part of marketing and for the print shop lead, who I work very well with and I work with all the time, to be the person that I manage. So I actually asked for a direct report, and this was something that had been talked about if I wanted to move up, especially as far as wages go and that kind of thing, that I would need to have people reporting to me.

So I was like, Hey. seems like the right time, and I went in with the reasons why and even with the that like, yes, I have a lot on my plate, but this is how I’m gonna handle it. And, I knew that the person that he was reporting to before also has a lot on his plate, and I wanted to frame it like, this is a win, in many ways, mostly because we already work very closely, directly together. It just removes sort of one little barrier and it gives me the opportunity to grow this team. Because this is not where we’re gonna stop. We need another person probably within the next year. We’re already talking about that as soon as the summer.

So, I need to learn how to manage people, which is interesting ’cause I have, in the past it’s just not really been sort of formalized. But now it’s becoming more formalized and it’s just stretching me. It’s stretching me to learn new skills. It’s bringing sort of together all of these things around this special interest of people’s psychology.

It’s actually making me very excited because I can start to actually use some of these things that I’ve been sort of absorbing for years. 

Melody Wilding: Yeah. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: I can, and I’m pretty good at it. So I’m excited about that side of things too. 

Melody Wilding: Yes. So 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: that’s been pretty fun. 

Melody Wilding: So fun. Yeah.

and I can remember during Resilient, that’s something, something we worked on a bit, and I can remember nudging you on a few times was this idea of focusing on who not how. And this was before you had this direct report and it was, and what I mean by that is who can do this? That is not me. Instead of, how can I make time for this or how can I get this done? And at that time, maybe it was asking someone on the sales team to step in and work on something instead of you shouldering all of the burden. And so.

That sort of gets back to this saying no, but it sounds like the combination of these things, being able to be more assertive and kind of put responsibility back where it needed to be.

Also being able to speak up more for what you wanted and put that forward, that combination of things has allowed you to kind of craft your role in a way that feels more meaningful and fulfilling for you. yeah, 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: yeah. 

Melody Wilding: That’s fantastic. Okay, so talk to me, what was your favorite part of the program or the thing that you found most valuable? 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: Oh Well, I, absolutely think it was the people. So I think having, you know, just how people were growing changing and you know, we had our office hours, which was great because we put together real life examples of, what’s going on with people. And I know we worked through a lot of of challenging problems that people were having and myself included, like just 

Melody Wilding: Yeah. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: it was, you know, what kind of, how do you deal with certain situations at work and how do you do it without coming across like an emotional mess, even though you feel like it? how do you go in from a, you know, a more of a strength position, because the sensitivity is a strength.

We see everything we, can, see patterns and see things that other people can’t see. And it’s really important, especially in a very fast-paced environment, because people will miss things and they could be critical. And so people like yourself and myself, we can see those things and we can see the nuances even with how people are reacting to one another.

Those are really important things to be able to have conversations with. You know, whether it’s with your manager or whoever, just to say, Hey, did you have you noticed this? Or those kind of things. So building that confidence is really good and we built that confidence in that small group. So we were able to test it out.

Let’s test the waters. How would this sound? What do you think? How should I say this? When you overthink everything, that’s the perfect place to have a little playground. it was definitely, those were, and I think just the people were fantastic. Like I say, it was finding other people who are like you is pretty rare.

It’s not easy to go out and, make friends outside of, you know, your family and your, workplace and stuff. And so it was just really awesome to, to get to know the people there.

Melody Wilding: Yeah. it’s really, I think there’s a selection bias in a positive way that everyone in the program is a sensitive driver, so everybody’s very caring. Enthusiastic, supportive, thoughtful. And Wendy and I always say, we’re always in awe of how quickly you all build trust with one another and are willing to support and step up for one another.

And I also love what you said, that Yes, we’re very intentional about making sure resilient can be a microcosm for the exact skills you wanna practice. That it is a place where you can practice, raising your hand, asking a question, sharing a thought before it’s fully formed, and no one’s gonna cut you down or make fun of you.

It’s a place where you can speak up and ask for what you need or to workshop specific language without overthinking it for a week. So I appreciate all of that.

one thing I wanted to ask you though, ’cause because you said you had a lot of other experiences where you didn’t finish, the program or the course.

So what made this different? ’cause you were very involved up until graduation, 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: Well, I think, yeah, I think where I was at was very 

And I don’t wanna say I kind of hit rock 

Melody Wilding: Yeah. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: really, but I had I just had a lot of different things sort of swirling all at the same time. I recognized that if I didn’t see this through for myself, that I wasn’t gonna be really happy with who I was that I had an opportunity to make some lasting change.

Just kind of, you know, you just get this gut feel like it’s now or never. and that maybe is a little bit like extreme, but for this particular point in my life, this, junction I felt ready. 

And, but I knew that the way that I operate, like I say, I’m very interest based. So if I’m very interested in something, I will stick with it.

And for a long time. so I was really hopeful and just going into it, I was like, I don’t know what I’m getting myself into. This is twice a week. I’m gonna see people twice a week. I don’t always like that. you know, just depending. And then there’s homework. Am I gonna do the homework? And thankfully it wasn’t onerous, it was actually interesting.

So that was good. Just, you know, the program, the structure of the program made it easier for me to stay engaged and focused. Not every week was, great, but I think I also learned to give myself a bit of slack 

because I don’t have to be, and we’ve talked about that I think very early 

Mm-hmm. black and white thinking.

I allowed myself to enter into some gray areas, which was good. And. I’m, definitely that kind of person who is, if I’m trying something and I’m trying to stick with it, and if I go off of it for a day or two, I’ll either forget that I ever started 

Melody Wilding: Yes. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: and it doesn’t exist anymore, or I will feel guilty about it and then I’ll just feel bad and I won’t go back to it either.

So this was, this really helped me get over that reactionary behavior. 

Melody Wilding: Yes.

Yes. And also I’m hearing like one of the elements of responsibility is self integrity, right? That we can, have a lot of integrity in our actions to others, but you really had to shore up that self integrity that if I’m ready for this. The readiness was there and there was also.

Like you saw it as this is the skill of me making promises and keeping them to myself. And that’s huge, that’s how confidence is built. That’s how you build self-trust, is you say, I’m gonna do this thing, and then you do it. And then guess what? You believe. You believe that in the future. So Rebecca, thank you so much for all of this.

Is there anything I didn’t ask you that you wanna make sure to share? 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: No, I think, think we covered a lot, which was great and it 

Melody Wilding: Yeah. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: awesome to catch up with you too, 

Melody Wilding: Yes, 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: been a little while and, I know that I’ve got, your book on Audible that I have to still listen to, which I’m very excited about. I hope my manager will be excited about it too, because.

he’ll reap the rewards of managing up. 

Melody Wilding: that’s. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: he has been sort of, it’s funny, he hasn’t, I don’t know that he’s read any of your stuff, but he’s, he’s pretty involved in that stuff, but he has given me indication that he would appreciate that kind of behavior back from me. So just around 

Melody Wilding: Oh, alright. well.

just leave the book out on your desk for him to see as you walk past. Amazing. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: we can work together on that. But yeah, 

Melody Wilding: That’s right. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: good. And I think, yeah, I highly recommend the program for anyone who considers themself to be more on the sensitive or highly sensitive people. And, we’re really needed in the workplace and we need to thrive in the workplace.

Melody Wilding: Very true. Thank you so much. 

Rebecca Gebeshuber: Thank you. 

Melody Wilding: Thanks for tuning in to today’s episode of psychology at work. If you enjoyed the show, I’d be so grateful if you could take just a minute to rate and review wherever you are listening. It’s how we reach more professionals just like you. And if you’d like to see even more content on how to feel more self assured, grounded, and in control of your emotions and reactions at work, follow me on LinkedIn or head to the links in the show notes.