Melody Wilding: Today on the show, I’m sharing a conversation with Dr. Lois Frankel, author of the bestseller Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office. When Nice Girls was first published in 2004, it gave language the first time to something so many women were experiencing, which is the many unconscious ways they had been socialized to be agreeable, accommodating, self-effacing, nice, and how those behaviors, while they often get rewarded when we are younger, start to hold us back in our careers.

In this conversation, she talks about what has changed for women at work in the last two decades, what has not, and how to take control of your career without contorting yourself to become someone you don’t want to be. Enjoy.

Dr. Frankel, thank you so much for joining me on the show. This is a pleasure and a treat to have you today, and you are actually celebrating a huge milestone, which is the fact that your book, nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office is now celebrating its 20th anniversary, so.

Dr. Lois Frankel: amazing, isn’t it? How much time went by and in the blink of an eye.

Melody Wilding: I can imagine. And also when the book first came out, it was, there was a revolution on its own. And it has spun off. How many other books have come out of the Nice Girls series.

series

Dr. Lois Frankel: There’s three other nice girls books with this. Uh, there’s Nice Girls Don’t Get Rich. Nice Girls Just Don’t Get It. Nice Girls Don’t Speak Up or Stand Out.

Melody Wilding: Love it. Amazing. And it is.

Dr. Lois Frankel: And thank you for having me by the way.

Melody Wilding: Yeah,

it is. It is so good to have you, and like I said, such a treat. ’cause this book has been formative for me and my career and my work for so many of the clients I have too, who will say this, this is the, it doesn’t matter how deep you are into your career, you will keep coming back to this.

So the first place I I wanna start though, is when you think about these last 20 years and when you look at today’s workplace, which is more remote, it’s so much more fast paced, it’s more ambiguous, it’s higher pressure. What do you think has changed about how those nice girl behaviors show up and what has not changed?

Dr. Lois Frankel: Well, me unpack that a little bit. When you talk about what’s changed, um, you know, I think women have come more into their own. They understand that they don’t have to be that nice little girl. They were taught to be in childhood and expect to achieve their adult goals. I think they understand that. So we have seen progress, and that’s the good and the bad. Right? the fact is, is that as we’ve seen the progress, we’ve say we’ve seen For predominantlywhite men start pushing back. So when you say what’s changed in the workplace is that we currently have an administration that is taking away the rights of women.

So now you have these women who are self-confident and we’re taking away their rights. So there’s this friction that’s going on right now, and as a result, I think more women, uh, are leaving the workforce than ever before to start their own enterprises. So that’s the good news and bad news.

Melody Wilding: Mm mm Absolutely. Yeah. And, and I know even just the environment that we’re operating in politically, but also economically, which of course trickles into our workplaces. What I find at least, and I’m curious if you see this in your work and people you talk to, is there is still some tiptoe. For us women where I want to speak up, but I don’t wanna be perceived as the B word or too pushy or too, still trying to walk these many fine lines we have to walk. Do you find that as well?

Dr. Lois Frankel: Yeah. It’s what you know, Kathleen Kelly Rearden described as the thin pink line, That it is this thin pink line that women walk, and I think more so now than even 20 years ago, because again, know, when you see the erosion of DEI and the other platforms that were designed to, um, help women, I think women have gotten the message that I need to bit careful. And so, you know, my message for women is, know, you may need to be a little bit careful, but it doesn’t mean you give up your agency entirely. That for women, it has always been a challenge. The challenge has always been for women to tell people to go to hell, so they look forward to the trip, right? And so women need to learn how to do that in a way that is not off putting and yet, uh, does enable them to keep their voices.

Melody Wilding: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let’s get into that because I, I think even, you know, a lot of the women who listen to the show are deep into their careers 10, 15, 25 years into their careers, and they still feel like they are trying to find that balance. So, you know, one thing I have loved about Nice Girls over the years is how, uh, actionable it is. And I think there’s over a hundred, right? How many different tips in the book?

Dr. Lois Frankel: hundreds of

Melody Wilding: Yeah.

Dr. Lois Frankel: uh, and in this book, I, I actually don’t remember. I think there’s 103 mistakes. It’s why we didn’t use it in the subtitle, but it’s an odd number, like 103.

Melody Wilding: And so when you think about all of those different mistakes that women make, what are some of the most common ones or the most common ways you find that successful women are unknowingly capping their own influence and performance even once their mid-career?

Dr. Lois Frankel: Yeah. You know, you mentioned a little bit earlier about remote work, and I think that’s one way that women are influence and success, that when were given the opportunity to work remotely, women saw this as, oh, this is great. I’ll have more balance. I never was for women working remotely, unnecessarily if they didn’t have to. And the reason is kind of obvious that for the same reason they wanted to do it, they shouldn’t have done it. Because women wind up working significant amounts of overtime. I mean, it’s always been that when women go home, left the office, they came home to another job, well now they’re just doing two jobs at once. And I think that’s really hard for women. So that’s number one. Number two in the workplace, if you’re not at the table, you’re not the game. in And so I think the people who are going in are the people who are able to manage their careers better. And so I tell women that even if you go in two days a week, go in. Something else I see women do, and I see women do this more than men, and I’m not sure why, but when there are remote calls, women will

often not turn on their camera. And I, I think maybe it’s because we’re a little bit more vain, like we care about what we look like and if we don’t look perfect, we don’t want people to see us. Again, if people can’t see your face, you are not in the meeting. so there’s, these are just a few ways I think that remotely and otherwise that, that women are kind of, um, shooting themselves in the foot. And I also think when they don’t, how should I put this, when they don’t assert themselves when people take away something from them, when they don’t call people on it in, in a very nice diplomatic way, they’re shooting themselves in the foot. Right? Uh, and an example would be just how hard a woman works. Women, women make miracles. I talk about this in the book, women make miracles and making a miracle is getting something done with less time, fewer resources, less money than should be humanly possible. Men don’t make miracles. They know when enough is enough and we need to learn more about that too. of times women will say to me, but how do I do it if I’m known as a miracle worker? How do I turn that around? And I say, it’s about setting boundaries. It’s about saying yes to everything saying, yes, I’d be happy to do that, and let me tell you what’s realistic the amount of time I have or the amount of money you’ve given me.

And so I, I think women need to do much more of that, uh, particularly mid-career, early career, you know, there’s that whole section on rookie mistakes, that was what wasn’t in the original book, but, you know, early career women have different challenges. Mid-career, women, again, especially in this environment, have different challenges.

Melody Wilding: Hmm. Yeah. And let’s get into the, the boundaries discussion. How do you advise someone straddle that line where, you know, relationships are important and it is important to manage perception that you are a team player. At the same time you can’t just indiscriminately be saying yes to everything that comes across your plate. Especially, you know, when we talk about the office housework and the things that you shouldn’t be doing. Mm.

So how do you push back? Especially a lot of the people listening will say, I have so many different bosses and leaders I have to keep happy. I have my main boss, I have a project lead, I have a client. How, how do I juggle all of these things? Because I feel like if I push back, everyone’s going to be angry at me. They will blame me for not being able to, to keep up enough. So what do you recommend about striking that balance with those boundaries?

Dr. Lois Frankel: Well, you’re absolutely right that relationships are important. There’s probably nothing more important to your career than building 360 building so when I say, you know, saying yes to everything, I mean saying yes to everything. Now there is a proviso there is that, because I’ll say yes to almost everything, unless it’s like really, it has to be really unreasonable. And I say, yes, I, you know, I’m happy to do that. Now let me tell you, with the amount of time you’ve given me to prepare for this, I can give you, um, half of what want. now, if you want something really robust, you’re gonna need to give me at least another day, or you’re gonna need to assign somebody to help me with this.

Now,

what would be?

Melody Wilding: Hmm.

Dr. Lois Frankel: this much? Or giving me more time, getting more of what you want. And I think particularly when you’re serving many masters, that’s exactly what you have to do. So you’ve got somebody throwing one thing at you and say, yeah, I’m really happy to do this. Let me tell you where it fits in the queue. And if that’s not acceptable to you, you may wanna talk to so,

Melody Wilding: hmm.

Dr. Lois Frankel: Who also has things in the queue. You may, you two may be able to out. Again, It’s, it’s, Um, yes, but it’s also setting the boundaries. And I think that’s something that women have a hard time doing for the exact reason that you said, want everybody to like us, you know, we have the disease to please. And, uh, and that’s why I think yes, and comes in yes, a I can do this and you,

Melody Wilding: Yeah, Yeah, it, it does. It does, and it, I think it also shows that you are, you are being conscious about the broader business. You’re not just thinking about your own workload, like, this is too much for me. I can’t handle this. It’s not what you’re saying. You’re saying there are these, I’m just giving you the reality of the business priorities and you’re making it more of a, a partnership conversation rather than you being a blocker to say, no, this can’t get done.

Which then someone may jump to conclusions about your readiness or your willingness, but you’re saying, how would you, like, here are the constraints. How would you like to handle this? Given those constraints, which is a, a much more solution oriented approach. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Lois Frankel: No,

Melody Wilding: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Lois Frankel: the whole thing. Nobody

wants to hearno, I can’t do it.

Melody Wilding: Yeah.

Dr. Lois Frankel: And I think, I think even when your first instincts, instinct is to say, what? Are you kidding? You want me to do that by when? and I think you can use some humor because, when I have men in groups where I’m doing keynotes, um, I’ll often say, what do you do when, when your boss asks you to make a miracle? they say one of three things. They use humor to say, yeah, you, you must be kidding. ’cause you know, I can’t do it in that amount of time, or whatever it is. Number two, they go back and negotiate, which, you know, is a, is a strong thing to do as well. Yeah, I’m happy to do this. what I’m gonna need to do it. That’s a negotiation. And you know what the is,

Melody Wilding: No.

Dr. Lois Frankel: I delegate it to a woman, because I know she’ll get it done.

Melody Wilding: Wow.

Wow.

Dr. Lois Frankel: So not all are we making the miracles that are given to us. We’re making the miracles that are given to, uh, men

as

Melody Wilding: That is, that is fascinating. And it, it actually brings me to, I wanna go back to, we were talking about some of those maybe subconscious ways that we get in our own way, even when we are successful, for the women who have been, who are seen as top performers, who are seen as high potential, are there any, special mistakes you find they fall into because they are seen as the hard worker, the good operator, the get it done person?

Dr. Lois Frankel: Uh, yeah, it’s that overworking thing. It, you know, you know, there’s always that same thing where the women who work the hardest, they’re given accolades for working hard and they get so far, but miracle workers get canonized. They promoted wants to promote you? you’re

getting all

Melody Wilding: Hmm.

Dr. Lois Frankel: So that is really a trap to think, and it’s that old message that we always got about women have to work twice as hard to be considered half as good. I say, forget that that is simply not true. And the harder you work, you are taking time away from managing your career, from being strategic, from creating a vision, from building relationships, building, uh, selling your brand.I think people need to under this.

that.

Melody Wilding: Hmm. Yeah, it’s always a question I come back to again and again is what is the highest and best use of my energy? Right. And yeah, many, many times you have to have a bit of a longer term perspective and investment in what that, in, what that may be, may not feel like the highest and best use in this moment because there’s, there’s a longer tail to see the results and that investment.

Dr. Lois Frankel: women, we also forget to ask for what we want. So that, you know, you can be seen as high, high performing and you can know that you’re high performing. But does somebody know that you want that next level job? Have you enlisted an advocate for you? And I’m not talking about a mentor, you know, and I’m sure you talk about the difference between advocates and and mentors, but have you enlisted an advocate for you, somebody who’s gonna stand up for you when you’re not in the room? I think that’s another mistake that high performers make. They don’t enlist the people that are going to be able to help them get what they want, and they don’t ask for what they want.

Melody Wilding: Why is that? What do you think is getting in the way?

Dr. Lois Frankel: Yeah, I think women are taught not to ask for what they want, right? They’re, they’re kind of taught from the time that you’re young, don’t make too much noise. Don’t be too loud, don’t expect too much. People won’t like you. They’ll see you as needy or greedy if you do all these things. Um, and so I, I think that that’s a holdover from

some of these we

Melody Wilding: Hmm.

Dr. Lois Frankel: and, and those messages are actually reinforced in the workplace. Because, you know, in the new book I talk about gaslighting, right? How women buy into gaslighting, how they believe when they’re being gas lit. Now, for people who don’t know what gaslighting is, if they’ve never seen the movie Gaslight, which I think, I

think it’s from the

it could

Melody Wilding: Hmm.

Dr. Lois Frankel: but it’s an outstanding, uh, movie about a man who is trying to make his wife think that she’s crazy. That’s where the term, the, Gaslight, so that’s where the term comes from. It’s when people cause you to doubt your own reality. Okay. so when you say, why do women do that? Why don’t they ask more for what they want? It’s because many times they’re gaslighted into believing they’re not ready for it.

They don’t deserve it. Right. Uh, you know, be as simple as you really think you could do that job, as opposed to Yeah. You know, I think you’re ready. I mean, that’s what we want people to say to us, but when we hear, do you really think you’re ready? That just makes us doubt everything, and we need to, we need to recognize gaslighting for what it is. It’s designed to make you doubt yourself. You know, Susan Uddi talked about it in her book Backlash, right? That the more powerful women become, the more backlash they get. So what I see happening now is, is exactly that. You know? You know, you asked me at the top of this interview, what’s changed? Well, we had made progress and we were gaining confidence and agency, and then all of a sudden we were pushed back on. Because that’s the way the system works and, and, and we take it as reality. no. That’s just the system pushing back on me. I’m still gonna be able to move forward if I

follow

Melody Wilding: Hmm, let’s, let’s drill into gaslighting for a minute because we haven’t talked too much about that on the show, actually, and I think it, unfortunately it happens pretty often. What? What do you do when you recognize that this person is trying to make me doubt my own reality? How do you handle that?

Dr. Lois Frankel: of handling it. One would be the indirect approach, which I don’t have a problem with

cage, Hmm. is to say, um, you know, I understand what your concerns are, right? I, I hear what your concerns are. Let me tell you how I see it. See, I, I think that’s a technique that I talk about called contrasting. You may see it that way, and I respect that, and I’m not going to say that you’re not entitled to that opinion. At the same time, I see it differently. Let me tell you why I believe I am ready. So that’s one way to do it, right? And, and I think that in most situations that’s the right way. But if you have somebody who consistently does this to you, like it’s not a one-off, it consistently happens that they make you doubt yourself, then I think you need to have a tough conversation with them. I think you need to sit down and say, you know, I’d like to talk to you about something that I’ve seen happen a few times now, and when I’ve suggested my ability to move forward, what I’ve gotten in response is doubt on your part. I’d like to talk about how we can shift that from doubt to if you think there’s something I need to do differently, tell me so that we both can move forward. I think women need to have those tough conversations if it’s ongoing. And then of course if you have a, um, passive aggressive boss who says, I don’t do that, that’s a form of

too, right? No.

don’t do that. No. You know, I think you’re mistaken about that. That’s Yeah.

it’s time for Yeah. Yeah. Or at the very least, to find other allies and people who can gut check your reality so you’re not in, I always say, uh, my last book is about managing up, and I always say, do not make your manager your single point of failure, because they can leave.

Melody Wilding: They can also only provide one myopic perspective.

And if your manager has this, has these habits, has this very fixated view of you, that’s going to become your reality because it’s the only thing you know. So you, you need those other, you need the surround sound and other, uh, guidance coming into counterbalance that, Yes. yeah.

Dr. Lois Frankel: And

Melody Wilding: Yeah. Okay. Let’s talk about meetings because I think some of these, uh, sometimes are nice girl behaviors, and the likability trap that we get into can really come out in meetings because our performance and the way we communicate is being evaluated, at scale, and we are on stage performing in many ways. So what are some of the biggest mistakes and fixes you would have, especially the more seasoned women who are listening who may be falling into some bad habits? What would you have them fix when they are in meetings, presenting, trying to articulate themselves?

Dr. Lois Frankel: Okay, you three things.

First would be you walk into a meeting, well, I’ve already said if it’s a virtual meeting, have your, have your on a given. ’cause if you’re not, if you don’t have it not In the on you’re meeting, In time meetings, if you walk into the room and you can see it’s gonna be a crowd there, and there’s chairs on the side and there’s chairs at the table. Never take a chair on the periphery. Women will tend to do this, to leave the chairs at the table for the more important people. Always sit at the table, even if it means you have to pull a chair in and squeeze in, you’re gonna do that. And while I’m talking about seating and where do you sit? Next to the most powerful person in the room. So wherever the head of the table is, sit either on the left or the right of that person. Because their power will flow over to you. So that’s number one. Number two, make sure that you speak early and often. Early speakers are, are seen as more self-confident than later speakers. So what I tell women is to make sure you’re among the first two or three people to speak in any meeting. speakers are seen as more self-confident than later speakers. Now, when people say, yeah, but you know, I don’t like to speak up just for the sake of speaking up, you don’t have, I didn’t say give your opinion, I said speak up So it could be Melody You say something and I say, um, you know, I’d like what Melody just said because I’ve had the same experience. Now, not only is my voice out there early, but now I’ve built an alliance with you by amplifying you. I think that’s just something

be amplifying each other more, period. And then the third thing that women need to do is not let themselves be manteruppted. meetings we know manterrupting, that’s when a man interrupts a woman, it, it happens to women much more than it happens to men.

You know, all the studies that have done show it show that men interrupt women more often than women interrupt men. and other women more often than

they men.

Melody Wilding: Hmm.

Dr. Lois Frankel: when you are interrupted, before you’ve had your whole, whole thought, I want you to practice saying something like, hang on, wasn’t quite finished. Okay. Now it may be the boss who interrupts you, and it’s a maybe a little bit hard to say to the boss, hold on, I wasn’t quite finished. It

depends on with the

Melody Wilding: Hmm.

Dr. Lois Frankel: but depending on who it is, if you don’t feel like you could say, hold on, I wasn’t quite finished, then let the person speak and then say, I’d like to take the floor back.

’cause I hadn’t quite finished that whole thought. not let your thoughts go unexpressed because you’ve been interrupted. And, uh, if

I could tip,

Melody Wilding: Of course.

Dr. Lois Frankel: like this

Melody Wilding: Yeah.

Dr. Lois Frankel: uh, in terms, in terms bropriating. You know, bropropriating is when a man takes your idea

Melody Wilding: Hmm.

Dr. Lois Frankel: put an idea on the table and all of a sudden nobody says anything.

All of a sudden it comes back around and it’s like, oh, you know, it’s the best idea he can, he’s come up with, I think you can, um, bring it back to you very subtly and you kind of have to practice this saying this. Saying something like, know, Joe, I really appreciate you amplifying my idea. As a matter of fact, it made me realize I’d like to add back to you in a, I mean, talk about telling people to go to hell, so they look forward to the trip. That’s an example.

Melody Wilding: That is fantastic. I know the folks listening always love a good script, and there are so many of those there. It’s just helpful to know in the moment, what do you reach for? What words do you reach for? How do you say these sorts of things. Even if you riff off of what you have shared, at least it gives you some direction.

And I love the idea, I love the statement of, let me, let me take the floor back for a second. Right. It, it shows so much confidence and you don’t have to say it in a mean way, like, Joe, I’m gonna take the floor back here, but you just say it in a calm level headed, okay, I’m, I’m gonna take the floor back and pick up where I left off and carry on.

Carry on. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Lois Frankel: And, I think what you said is really important that women can’t always, that’s what they say to me at least. I can’t think in the moment what

should use. I

Melody Wilding: Yeah.

Dr. Lois Frankel: I’m kind of a

deer in the

I say it doesn’t have to be right in that moment. You know?

Why don’t you collect

yourself,

Melody Wilding: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Lois Frankel: And then you collect yourself and think about, what do I wanna say? And then you could say, you know, before we go much further, I wanna comment on something that was just said by Joe that I had mentioned earlier. Right? So it’s like you can collect your thoughts and you

can go back

Melody Wilding: Hmm. That’s great. Let’s talk about another scenario that I think comes up very often, especially when we’re talking about women who are leading other people, which is claiming credit. And this can be a tricky one, right? Because you, you need to make sure people are aware of your impact, you, that you as an individual, that you’re, you’re not being, what was the phrase that you said?

appropriating. I think a lot of the people listening will say, I recognize everything as a team effort. But I also know, I have to make sure my results are out there, but I also don’t wanna cut other people out of the process.

So again, this is one of those middle grounds. How do you strike this to speak to successes without being overly self-promotional or being, undermining of yourself?

Dr. Lois Frankel: Yeah. Yeah. You know, there’s a great book that I wish I wrote. We probably both wish we wrote it, and it

was

Melody Wilding: Yes. Fantastic.

Dr. Lois Frankel: the Art of Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing It. So I really recommend that book. But, um, a couple of things that I suggest is number one, you know, just before maybe about, uh, a month before your performance review, send your boss a summary of your key accomplishments in the last

period.

Melody Wilding: Yep.

Dr. Lois Frankel: With a little note that says, I know you’re gonna be doing performance reviews. I don’t expect you to remember everything everybody does. I hope you find this helpful. period. Okay. And just some bullet points. Now that’s not over the top, it’s just say, I’m trying to help you with the performance review.

That’s, I mean, it’s kind of obvious what it is, but that’s okay. That’s not over the top. You know, something else in meetings is women need to erase, oh, it was nothing, from their vocabulary because we tend to play things down, right? Somebody likes your dress. Oh, this old thing, right? You know, uh, job on that.

Oh, you know, I’d done it before, so it was relatively easy for me. We need to stop those things and we need to learn to say, thank you. on it and I appreciate your acknowledgement, so make sure when you are acknowledged, you do accept it. That’s another way to do it. And then a third way is to be able to say when you’re giving a presentation in a meeting about your, your accomplishments.

’cause know, I don’t even know if they still do this anymore, but it was really annoying when I worked for Arco. You know, every week we’d have a meeting, everybody had to go around and say what they did that week. And it was like everybody was trying to embellish everything that they’re doing. And so I don’t know if they still do that anymore, but if they do, what you’re gonna say, a hunch they do. What you’re gonna do is say something like, you know, I’m really pleased to report three exciting things happened this week. You know, one was my team and I were able to do this. Number two, I was able to meet with Melody Wilding who did this interview with me and I was really excited about it.

And number three, whatever it is, if you say it with enthusiasm and you, and you are simply reporting, it does across bragging and, and even if it does, what?

Melody Wilding: Yeah. that, that’s the way I like to think of it, of we have an obligation to keep the people around us apprised of what we are doing and achieving, right? That is part of your job. And as you said, there’s a difference between informing and embellishment. And I think that’s a line a lot of us just over index on. If I share a win, I will be an embellisher when it’s not, you know, it’s not not true. So I think that’s a great reframe for everybody that’s listening.

Dr. Lois Frankel: Mm-hmm.

Melody Wilding: Dr. Frankel, two last questions for you. Number one is with this new edition of Nice Girls, you had mentioned there were some new ideas and tips added. What is your favorite out of those?

Dr. Lois Frankel: The new ones? Well, the gaslighting is definitely one, but the entire chapter that I added on, self-care, unself self-care. I think that’s one of my new things.

Melody Wilding: Hmm.

Dr. Lois Frankel: And you know, when people read the book, they’ll see when I was first, uh, taught about self-care from a friend wanted to write a book about it. Sherry Bets, I don’t know if you know Sherry, but she wrote a book called, uh, the ABCs of Self-Care.

Melody Wilding: Hmm.

Dr. Lois Frankel: And when she talked to me about it initially, I said, I’m not sure people are gonna buy this book. Because women look at self-care

Melody Wilding: Yeah.

Dr. Lois Frankel: And she said, but it’s not because it’s so critical to our long-term success. And the more she talked about it, and the more I read about it, I realized, you know, she’s absolutely right that I think that there was a time when we couldn’t talk about self-care. Like 20 years ago. Self-care could not go book

Melody Wilding: Mm hmm.

Dr. Lois Frankel: People would be saying, oh. You know, women need self-care. Sure. Right. You know, tell me something else. I think we’ve come to the place now where wom women understand that they are juggling so many things for so many people, and that self-care is not selfish and it’s not self-indulgent. It, it can be self-indulgent. You know, if I go to the spa and I spend, you know, $200 on whatever I spend it on. Um, that could be self-indulgent and that’s okay. But, um, setting boundaries with people, making sure I go to doctor’s appointments, making sure I say what’s on my mind because I don’t want it to fester. Those are all examples of self-care too, and they do impact how you work. They impact your relationships, they impact your family. And so that is not self-indulgent when you’re doing things that are going to enhance. Long-term relationships and, uh, especially or at work or at home.

Melody Wilding: Hmm.

What a great way to, to think about it. How that’s, it’s a broader view of self-care. ’cause as you were saying, I think 15, 20 years ago, we thought, oh, get your nails done. Buy yourself something nice. Get a little treat, a nice coffee, but it’s. These self-respecting behaviors, which I, I think another key here is it doesn’t always feel good.

It doesn’t always feel good in the moment, right. to get yourself over the hump of speaking up or to set that boundary. And sometimes, you know, I like to say self-care looks different by the day. Sometimes it may be, you know what, I am gonna go take a 20 minute walk around the block ’cause I need to clear my head.

I need to take a break. Some days it’s. I, I know the most self caring thing I can do is power through on this and prove to myself I am capable of more here. And so I, I think that that question of asking yourself like, what does self-care look like in this moment? It’s not always bubble baths and rainbows and sunshine. Sometimes it is that harder self-respecting choice.

Dr. Lois Frankel: It’s, and you know, and I talk about, um, Nita Jane was a woman who I’d the book,

Melody Wilding: Hmm.

Dr. Lois Frankel: and she talks about how we come to see the chaos in our lives as normal. And when you accept it as normal, then you’re not able to do anything about it. That chaos is not normal. Chaos is something that we tolerate way too much.

Melody Wilding: What would it look like to not tolerate chaos? What would you say? I.

Dr. Lois Frankel: Oh,

it’d be

Melody Wilding: Yeah.

Dr. Lois Frankel: about me, about want.

Melody Wilding: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Lois Frankel: about, and it’s about first want.

Melody Wilding: Yeah.

Dr. Lois Frankel: And what is the chaos that’s, that’s creating the problem in my life? Is it at work? Is it, you know, if at work it’s about, you know, things are always given to me too late. And so it creates this, kind of, fire drill that’s chaotic. Well,

Melody Wilding: Yeah.

Dr. Lois Frankel: Case, I need to say, I need to get these things earlier so that I can do a better job on them otherwise. You know, I, I, as quickly as I’m doing them, it leaves, it, it open to mistakes. And I don’t want that

Melody Wilding: Hmm.

Dr. Lois Frankel: Thing at home where there’s chaos going on saying, you know what? I, here’s what I need in order for this family or this relationship to, um, really flourish. And for me at the moment, I’m uncomfortable with it is.

Melody Wilding: Hmm.

Dr. Lois Frankel: expressing yourself and boundaries.

Melody Wilding: Yeah.

Dr. Frankel, where can people connect with you? What’s the best place to send them to get the book and learn more about you and your work?

Dr. Lois Frankel: Yeah, they can learn more about me at my website, which is drloisfrankel.com. And I ask people to connect with me on LinkedIn because I post, oh, articles that I read that I think are interesting or ideas that I have, or encouragement or whatever it is. I use it as my own little place to kind of. Give a train of thought sometimes, but connect with me on LinkedIn, Dr. Lois Frankel, and you can get my books

Melody Wilding: Yes, that’s right. That’s right. Thank you so much. It was such an honor having you here and just really appreciate you and all of your work.

Dr. Lois Frankel: Thank you. I appreciate the invitation to be with you and you keep up the good work.