heard a, um, a quote a long time ago. It's not what's wrong with us, it's what's happened to us. if there's been situations in our past that have been really positive or really negative, that really does taint who we are as adults anybody tells you that that's. Not okay. Or, oh, you shouldn't go see a counselor. Those are the people sadly, that probably need it the most. You bring in play to work and or playfulness, It gives everybody a voice. It allows people to interact with each other on a level that maybe they haven't before.

Hello listeners and welcome back to Social Skills Coaching, where you become more likable, more charismatic, and more productive. And today we're gonna take a branch off that more productive part, because our guest, Jolyn Ledgerwood is a consultant, coach, therapist, counselor. Probably a wide variety of things, podcaster, I'm sure. as well as, uh, other social media sites. Jolyn, please introduce yourself to our listeners and we'll take the conversation from there.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. as you said, my name is Jolyn Ledgerwood. I started my business Elevate Your Talent a year and a half ago. previously I'd worked in corporate America in various different types. Of businesses, startups, cybersecurity, law, all different types of areas where I was director of training and development. And absolutely loved training individuals on how to be better at their work and happier find their innate talents so that they could check those boxes while they were at work or while they were at home, to make them feel like they're living a more fulfilled life. and doing that in the corporate setting. They normally want you to write manuals and boring stuff like that. And so I went out on my own and started to elevate your talent where I coach teams and individuals on how to work better in the workplace. I use several different methodologies. The more the most popular is Lego series play, and I also use Clifton Strengths Primal Question, Bob Goff's, dream Big. and just try to use those a more well-rounded approach to coaching people and teams.

Fantastic. Thank you very much. you know what I, I, I'm gonna do something a little different today for the podcast. Uh, I, I notice when I go back and edit the video, I pay much more attention to the. Uh, surroundings of the people. And there are oftentimes questions that I like to ask about what's in the background. And I, I see, some yellow containers on the other side of you. Can you lean the other way for a second? Yeah. and the other things that are on your bookshelf back there indicates that, uh, while you're a serious professional, uh, you definitely don't take a too serious approach to life. And of course, that's reflected in one of your main platforms, the Lego. Serious play workshops. So those things combined. Tell us something about that. And then I want to get to the, the picture on the top of your bookshelf.

Yeah, sure. Absolutely. so years ago I was having lunch with a friend that I hadn't spoken to in a really long time, and he brought with him a small kit of six Lego pieces. There's four yellow and two red, and he said, build a duck. And I thought, what are whatcha talking about? And of course, it's a very abstract duck because there's not even number pieces. And so I put it together and he was like, tell me about your duck. And I was like. Okay, here's the feet, here's the, you know, the explained it. And he had also built a deck and his was completely different than mine. And he said, this is a work that I've gotten into. It's called Lego Serious Play. It's allowing people to use their hands to think through questions and problems and whatnot. And he said, and it's really cool. And I thought, oh my God. Yeah, that's really cool. So I looked into it. There's over 15,000 certified facilitators overseas. There's maybe a hundred here in the United States. And I thought, this is insane. Like why? Like we're Americans, we like to play. And the more I think Right, exactly. The more I thought about it, and the more people I've spoken to, it's because. Americans, and again, please nobody take this personally. We have this little box of what work is supposed to look like, and if it doesn't fit in that little bitty box, then it can't help us. We don't want any part of it. Forget it. Like we have work to do. We have real work to do. When you bring in play to work and or playfulness, it doesn't matter what that looks like. It really does allow people to let their guard down. It gives everybody a voice. It allows people to interact with each other on a level that maybe they haven't before. imagine the old days when we used to walk into a conference room or the fishbowl, as some people call it, and you'd just have this like anxiety and this angst just kind of creep up on you 'cause you don't know what's gonna happen. You don't know what's gonna be said. Versus walking into that same conference room or fishbowl and every place setting has a set of Legos sitting next to it and you go, a second, what? What's this about? We're gonna have a strategic session, but we're gonna have fun while we do it. And we use the Legos and the methodology to really open people's minds and how. What is their subconscious telling them that they don't think to say lot of highly, energetic people. A-D-H-D-A-D-D, people with just high anxiety in general don't like to sit and do nothing. They need something to play with, something to use their hands on. And Lego Series play was a great way to do that. And by doing that in my business, it kind of helps. Propel and financially support my Lego habit. when I was a young adult, when I had a stressful day or when I was tired, I would find a Lego set that I really liked and would buy it and build it, and that

Okay.

my stress. That just allowed me to just kind of zen and chill and as. Lego continues to grow. Their sets are just becoming phenomenal.

right.

and over sets are, I mean, some of them are just beautiful. The Starry Night is my absolute favorite. the Great Wave was fun to do, but it wasn't as colorful, you know, so it's just, it's exciting to have something else to do with one of my passions.

So much in there. Yeah. so we both have a international, corporate IT background, sounds like. So, Yeah, I remember walking into the, the boardroom was our, our big meeting room or the teleconference room at that. Of course, this was before Zoom and everything was so common, so teleconference was more rare, and a little more nerve wracking and a little pickier hardly ever worked, seemed like. but when you walk in and, I mean, honestly, we usually look for cookies or, something on the table, but to have a manipulative there. rather than just an agenda. Yeah. Just changes the mindset of everybody walking into the room. I imagine conversations are completely different of people beginning the meeting and so forth. That sounds like a great, a great approach. I was reminded of a Rorschach test almost with your first, uh, with your first duck, uh, and how that was put together. So that's, uh. I wouldn't be able to draw much conclusion from it, but it's an interesting premise to base a conversation and a, and a development, developing a relationship on. It's great. yeah. Legos are, European. I, I'm gonna name a country, but I'm gonna get it wrong. Are they, are they finished

So Dutch? Mm-hmm.

Dutch? Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I imagine, maybe that's why a little more. Accepted in the business world, overseas, then in the States. But really,

Yeah.

Lego is pretty big in the us Like I say, there's so many kits. I never did a, I never was a Lego guy myself, but you have a long history of Lego use, so it makes you an expert coming into the,

Ooh, I don't know about an expert. I like to follow the rules when I get my books. a lot of people say that they take the rule book and toss it and just build whatever they wanna build. I don't have a creative brain like that, so

okay.

walking into a room. those Lego bricks, I'd probably be one of 'em that's like, I'm not creative, I don't know what I'm doing. just starting with something small facilitators have, you know, a regimen to kind of just get people comfortable with the bricks and get them touching and you know, moving 'em around and clicking pieces together and not, and it really just kind of takes that edge off. if you're in the room, you're building. that's the leaders, the CEO, the operating officer. If they're in the room all the way down to, I don't know, your administrative assistant might be in the room or the new person that just started might be in the room. Everybody builds. Everybody has a place at the table and everybody gets the same time and energy in explaining their builds, what's in it, what's not, all types of different things. But you'd really be amazed if you. Could hear and see, and I working really hard to get somebody to allow recording, to see some of the output that you get. I mean, when, when I was first learning how to do this, I'm gonna scramble in my kit that we always use, we were told Build your ideal CEO. And I thought, okay,

Your ideal? What? Say that again.

CEO,

CEO. Okay.

Yeah. C, chief executive officer.

Okay.

And it, a lot of it's metaphor usage, so. this green brick can mean a green brick. It can mean future, growth. It can mean a turtle, it could mean ecolo, you know? yeah. the word just escape me again. environmental awareness, it could mean anything like that. So whatever you say the bricks mean is what they mean.

Okay.

so I built this, and I'm gonna put it on a little pedestal so you can see I built my ideal CEO. And this is obviously just a very small part of it, but it was, it was really cool because the facilitator was able to ask me a question, there's, that was my ideal. CEO. It's just a little Lego mini figure with one foot up. I do not recall intentionally putting the foot up. I don't recall my brain telling me, oh, don't forget, you need to, he needs to have a, he or she needs to have a foot up. And so when the facilitator looked at my model. And asked, you know, what does that leg mean? His leg is up, does that mean anything to you? And I thought, yeah, I think it means that I want him to be forward motion and always moving forward, not stagnant. And this is where we are and this is what we're doing, but how can we make this even better? Or how can we be even better together? ever since all of my Lego figures now have one leg up because that's for me, that's taking me back to when I first learned how to do this and what it was about, and it just, asking the questions and hearing some of the responses. Even the members themselves are surprised. you build with your hands, you open up 80% more of your brain power. And I tell people, don't overthink it. Just build whatever your hands are doing. Just build, keep doing something to, don't overthink it. Just build. the models that they come up with are just fascinating. It's even at, it works for business corporate groups, it works for individuals, it works for small groups. one of the groups I was coaching. A woman had to bring her kids in 'cause school was out in the daycare, wasn't open for some reason, their builds were just as good, if not a different, completely different aspect. But the adult build, so everybody has a seat at the table. It doesn't matter how old you are, where you've been, what you're doing, I'm actually thinking of creating a. Like a, not a subscription box, but like a parenting play with purpose. So helping parents with these kids, having more conversations with their kids instead of phone and digital all the time. We sit around the table and we talk about, know, we're building and we're asking questions, and we're understanding a little bit more about what's going on in our kids' minds that they can't articulate as well, verbally as they can when they're building.

A lot in there as well. Just the, the process of your hands doing something allows your mind to work in a different way. So different things come to mind or don't come to mind, but are present in the work there. kind of similar sounds like to maybe stream of consciousness writing or, uh, what are they, there's a phrase for the certain type of journaling. Whereas just you just basically, it's stream of consciousness, but they don't call it that, but it's just, just put it out. Just let the pen go. You're not overthinking it, you're just, you're just doing, have you done this with a, you mentioned some, a mother and children. Have you done it in a family type, I don't wanna call it therapy or counseling, but in a family session. Have you tried that or is it mostly a smaller group just professionally related or socially related?

It's a great question and I. My husband lives in Nashville with his two boys, and so I, and I live in Dallas, Texas with my girls. And so I sent him sets for he and the boys to do together, with prompts and questions and all the details. I wasn't there, I was here, but he videotaped it and sent me the video of what they talked about and what it was like, and, So for that aspect, yes, I have, I enjoy doing it with individuals as well. There's a standard kit that I send my, coachee and they're, it's a mix match of bricks, but they're all the same. So each bag is the same that I, that I send out and I'll send, you know, I'll ask, give them prompts over the Zoom or whatever we're using of, you know, build your ideal job, build something that makes you happy, build something that. You see as an impediment in your business? And we talk about the builds as they build and we reflect and we look at the question, you know, we look at aspects of the builds to kind of bring awareness to them. You know, I see that the, you know, the bottom base is like black and brown bricks. Is there a reason? Yeah, I just, I feel like I'm kind of stuck and I'm like, okay, let's talk about that. How do we get around that and how do we or work through that and how do we get to a better place? but yeah, the bricks, are you one-on-one? They can be small groups. The largest group that I like doing is probably 12 to 15, just because you want everybody to have time to share and. So, yeah, individuals are so fun because they're like, my kids are gonna be jealous when I get a bag of Legos. Like, right, but they're yours. They're not for them just yet. And I encourage people to leave them on their desk. I know you don't want stuff on your desk, but find a small little container that you can store your Legos in. And if you have a brain block, or if you're having a bad day, or if you're looking for, you know, bring the bricks out and start building again and see what happens. You'd be amazed at some of the things that your brain's gonna put through your hands that's not actively percolating up there.

That's great. you know, so many times we, I'm reminded of like the Executive Zen Garden. Right, that you, you'll see every, and I have one, actually, I don't have it on the table here, but I do have one.

Yeah.

if nothing else, a stress ball or what used to be the wave, you know, the, the blue and clear liquid thing that rocked back and forth,

Mm-hmm.

those types of things.

shook it and then it

Exactly.

everything.

That's right. The bubbles in and then started leaking and all the, yeah. oops, I dropped it. Is that a bad thing?

And that's the, you know, I understand. I don't like clutter on my desk either, but there's plenty of days where I break out my Legos and try to work through, you know, what does this look like to me and what do I want it to look like and what's stopping me and why. And, it's, it's really fascinating.

Have you ever had somebody just flat refuse? I'm not gonna play with those. Uh, I'm too mature for that.

Yes. in a group setting, and

I.

I'm not the one, I'm not trying to force

Right.

This is an activity we would like for you to participate, if you'll just try. a couple things we do at the beginning that are really innocuous. It's like, no, right, or, I mean, just putting bricks together is all you're doing. We, you just will you try, give it a chance and just see what you think. And normally by the third or fourth exercise, they're

Yeah.

that are jumping to the other

Yeah.

get more bricks or ask, you know. Like I said, I'm not cre, I'm not a creative person. Like that's just not how my, I'm very black and white. I'm, I'm that box normally kind of person. So to put Legos in front of people, it kind of lets their guard down. It just kind of says, we're just like, this is just play. We're just putting pieces together and you know, I'm, I'm not trying to be manipulative at all. It's just a different way to open your brain to what's going on inside of there without. Struggling to find the right words. 'cause somebody might misinterpret or struggling to say the right thing because maybe that's not a good idea. When we're building, we can say, this is what I think is a potential, know, way for us to have more sales. And we talk about it and there's other people that'll say, oh, I didn't even think about that, or I didn't know you thought that. That's amazing. Like it really opens us up to understanding more of each other and understanding more of ourselves too.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Now I could give someone a stack of Legos and ask them to build something and, you know, coach them through something and, and come up with a product. But you're basing that entire process on something, a, a much deeper understanding of things that are going on in the background. So while we, the foreground is, is looking at the Legos, the background, you must have a, um, a lot of training, a lot of experience in. At least counseling, if not therapy. Can you tell us about your, your background on that side of things? Uh, schooling experience that,

Absolutely.

maybe what school I, I know I saw some, did I see neurolinguistic and I was thought, I was reminded of NLP, but I didn't know, I seen neuroscience based is the phrase that was in my mind. if there's a school that you come from or that the work is based off of, can you just share some of the professional

Yeah,

aspects there?

You'll be surprised. I'm not a counselor, I'm not a therapist, I'm a

Okay.

And if in my work I find that maybe that's a direction that I wanna encourage my clients to go to, I absolutely will. I'm a huge advocate for mental health. I see a counselor regularly, my kids. so really my background's a little bit different. I, I don't have a college education. I went to college for three and a half years, studied nursing at Texas Tech University. my third year, my dean was aware and noticed. You use all the tutors that are available, you're here at class every day, like what is going on with you? So she sent me to see an educational psychologist. This is back in 95, 96, when learning disabilities weren't a thing. It was, well, you're not studying hard enough, or you're not trying hard enough, or you're not. Listening in class or whatever. she, the educational psychologist, diagnosed me with a pretty severe learning disability. and it was kind of a wake up call like, okay, so now it makes sense why I've struggled so much in school and I was an AB student, I had to bring home all my books every night to study all the things every night. It was just, it wasn't fun for me. work at the time was going great. I was being rewarded for being, I was in the restaurant business. Being an awesome employee. I was traveling over the summer to train new employees at new restaurants, and so I thought, you know what? This is, this feels really good and this really does it. So I went the path in the learn the rest in the restaurant business, and. to work up to the corporate office where I could then help managers train their employees on how to be good employees, how to train others. I really wanted to focus on the different adult learning principles. Everybody learns so completely differently. I could hand you a paper and say, study this, and you'd probably knock it out in an hour, hour and a half. For me to sit down and read an article like that, I would have to have like. A completely silent room. No other distractions, like I just don't learn that way. And so I really focused my career on helping others learn in different ways, helping understand that not everybody learns the same. and like I said, I worked from the restaurant business up to, I did a small stint in retail and then I went to IT cybersecurity. Here I am today. So I don't have any professional education at a, at a university, but I have a ton of life experience. I've been certified in several different methodologies, and I continue to want to learn new methodologies. I know there's so much out there that resonate differently with different people, and so I try to use that experience to help them through whatever it is that they might be going through.

I hope my question didn't

No,

as,

not at all. No. I'm an open book.

As an academic at which I am not. I mean, a, I did, I taught high school for quite a while. so some of the things you, you talk about there, not so much from an experience of myself, but in dealing with chil, with children, with, high schoolers,

deserve like all the, I. I, yes. They're amazing people. Mm-hmm.

um, I taught in a, a, a private Christian school, so it was quite a different situation than a lot of public school teachers. Yeah. In um. The, the orders of magnitudes of difference between my situation and theirs. But you mentioned learning disabilities and we did a, a podcast episode a week or two ago with Rick Coton and it was, uh, talked about his A DHD and the struggles, but also, and then on the other side and, and really learning disabilities become a, a regular piece of conversation on the podcast because once the it and I, I'm gonna say this. Hoping you'll correct me or, or confirm it? either way. so, and there's a little history to the question because, uh, and I've, I've gone through this before as a young teacher starting in the mid eighties. I'll date myself again. Uh, learning disability wasn't a thing. You, you knew you had problem kids, you knew he had smart kids. So, and maybe the dumb kids too, depending on how you wanted to. The kids that didn't care. We'll see, we'll put it that way.

Exactly.

know,

yeah.

a wide range of things. So we didn't know there wasn't really a diagnosis. And the first time I came across it, it was very uncomfortable for me because I didn't know how to work with this, with this one student, you know, and the parents were asking questions that I couldn't answer. I, I was not prepared for it in any way. But it seems like as things have changed in education and in in society itself. Well, learning disability still has some stigma, but not the stigma maybe that it used to have, and just the fact that you can name it, you can, if not point to a cause, at least you can point to a, a commonality, you know, this is something, this is not, you're not just, you're not weird, you're not different. You're a smaller representation in the population and then learning to harness that or work around it. I think is really, it's just one struggle that a lot of very successful people have gone through on top of number, no, nobody gets to be, you know, real successful without the struggles. but identifying that, harnessing it if possible. You mentioned to overcoming it, finding a way around it to, to surmount that challenge. Does any of that theory hold water?

Well, you touched on a lot there, Russell, and I'm

Yes.

with, and that's good that, that's all good. It's great conversation. I'm gonna start with you didn't know back then and we didn't know back then we did. You know, and so it wasn't you individually, you didn't know how to, nobody did. We

Right.

a society. think that may not be right with the kid. It's just they're not trying hard enough. Like try harder. Okay. You, you can't do that necessarily. I can try as hard as I want, but if there's a squirrel, then I'm out. Like, see you later, alligator. so. I, I interviewed with somebody once and he said his A DHD is his superpower. I was like, okay, well that's a, that's a good way of, I mean, that's

Yeah.

of embracing it. I recognized when I was doing, when there would be like sales kickoff meetings that were in conference rooms that you take high energy people, salesmen, saleswomen, you put them in a conference room or a. with tables, you know, eight pieces, eight, eight people per table. And then you force them to listen to a sales leader for two days. They're outta their minds like they are gone. after the, and I noticed the first day they would stand up, they'd kind of pace back and forth. They'd go to the, you know, they were always like moving

Even that. Pardon the interruption. Even that is very school-like. Right? It goes back to fifties education. Sit at your assigned seat, listen to what's going on and learn. Yeah.

No, you're exactly right. It's, this is how we're gonna teach you. I have to stand up here. You have to sit down there and listen and this is important stuff. So you have to listen.

Listen well.

You are right. Right. And they're not, because they're not active, they're not engaged. They, it's, care how great. Of a speaker you have, if he's not a or she's not a comedian, or not somebody that can bring a lot of humor into it, it's gonna be really dry, boring information. And yes, it's important that they learn, but process isn't about well I give it to you. It's how well are they accepting that information and if they're not accepting that information. Then it's a complete loss. So the second day I brought in Play-Doh and I put a piece of a little small conter, not a big one, just a small container and every seat. And they came in, they're like, what's up with the Play-Doh? And I'm like, you, it's yours. Whatever you wanna do with it, do with it. Well, is it for like an activity later? No. Just use it. And I'm telling you what Russell, I did not, there was no scientific method. There was just like a hunch. That day, they sat at the tables, they were listening to the conversation while they were playing, building the most intricate designs with Play-Doh I have ever seen in my life. But it allowed me to see that, that they need something to do. Like just throwing people in a conference room and saying, let's brainstorm isn't gonna work. Like a lot of people don't, their brains just don't work like that. One of the methodologies I teach is strengths, Clifton strengths finders, which if, if. is not, and there's different, 34 different themes and talents. It rates your one through 34 that everybody has the same. It just depends on how they're rated. If the four or five strategic are not in your top five, if I put you in a conference room, you just shut down. Your brain

Yeah.

that way. You don't wanna inc. You don't wanna participate because that. When it comes to a new hire, I am all about that new hire. I'm gonna make sure that person feels wanted seen. I'm gonna help teach 'em whatever they need to learn. But it's different ways that our brains work. And when we force people to do things that are against the way that their brain works, they shut down. They don't wanna be a part of it, they can almost become negative and have like a really, tarnished interpretation of what's happening. but yeah, the A DHD, it manifests in so many different ways. And it manifests different in everybody. I heard a, a quote a long time ago. It's not what's wrong with us, it's what's happened to us. So

Wow.

I know I was like, oh, that hits, if there's been trauma in our past, if there's been situations in our past that have been really positive or really negative, that really does taint who we are as adults and it really does show that. It's not that I'm not trying, it's that I'm not motivated. I'm not. I don't feel safe, I don't feel important. There's other aspects to that of people shutting down. And when coaches or leaders in different positions can see that and can recognize and acknowledge that, I think that really allows the learner A DHD or not to just kind of go, okay, I feel seen. I feel like I'm safe here. and that's really, really important.

When you say learner, of course you replace that with person because that applies in whatever the situation is. Business, family, social,

Yep.

whatever.

Yeah,

say that quote again for me, please.

it's

It

what's wrong with you, it's what's what happened to you.

that, that's really strong.

Yeah,

yeah, we should have that plastered in a, in a lot of classrooms and, a lot of, business offices around the country.

yeah. And I I may not have it with me, but, there was a book written. I will, yeah. Hold on. It's on my bookshelf. Dr. Bruce Perry wrote the book originally and then Oprah Winfrey came back and did a whole series with, with him on it. and just the, and I'll be happy to send this to you if you wanna show your, share, your listeners. It's, it's not something that I said by any stretch, but the methodology behind it is fascinating and just how deep. Some of those wounds may be

Right.

themselves don't even recognize it. They don't even see or understand why they're having that triggered response. But when you dig a little bit deeper, you're like, okay, that makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, well, that, that's really strong. We talked in a, again, in a previous episode, not, I don't think the episode's even been released yet

Okay.

trauma, identifying trauma and, you know, we hear trauma and we think er, PTSD, significant abuse as a child, but that's, trauma can be shallower than that. It can be deeper than that. And you alluded, uh, I asked you to tie these two concepts together maybe, because in your personal coaching, you certainly come across people as you alluded to, that you would recommend, to some, to someone with a different approach. Someone with a, uh, maybe a medical background, a psychiatrist or a psychologist. What would you say to a listener who, Is on the borderline. Maybe. You know, they, they, obviously they're listening to the podcast. They may be reading materials and, you know, making some progress, trying some things. But there seems to be a roadblock or something they don't understand, something they can't get past. Maybe they're hesitant about the, again, stigma of having counseling.

Like I said earlier, I am a huge advocate for mental health. I also recognize that a particular counselor is not gonna provide the same result to different people.

Exactly.

recommendation is to always talk to somebody, like if you find a counselor that you really enjoy. Talk to them. If you find a coach that you feel like can really tap into what you need and is driving you and pushing you forward to be better and to. Sometimes we can't heal those wounds and we can't heal that trauma, but we can learn how to deal with it. and that's been huge in my personal journey. but people that are struggling, like find somebody that you feel comfortable talking to, it doesn't have to be a licensed professional. Sometimes that's helpful depending on how deep and. How much it's affecting your life. Maybe that's important, but if you have a pastor minister that's important to you, or a dear family friend, maybe a friend of your parents that was part of you growing up that may understand some of those things about what you went through, now more than ever, mental health is being accepted.

Right.

anybody tells you that that's. Not okay. Or, oh, you shouldn't go see a counselor. Those are the people sadly, that probably need it the most. So

Fine.

what you need and get the help that you need depending on wherever you're sitting, and know that you're worthy and of being better. You are more than enough to bring to the table, in your space, wherever that space looks like for you. But you are loved and you are. Important to the people that are around you. So talk to somebody and find somebody that can really listen to you and can help you and kind of see where you are and where you wanna go, and can give you some really practical tips on how to get there.

We use the phrase on the podcast, occasionally talk therapy, which most people have the concept of, okay, that's the formal setting I'm on the couch. Or you know, if it's an NLP or A-A-C-B-T type of session where it's a, um, I'm having, you know, a conversation. But really studies show, talk therapy is not a, a formal therapeutic relationship that's required, as you say, anybody, a, a pastor, a friend, a an old teacher, a. A younger person in your life,

Yeah.

uh, really can create a lot of openings and a lot of possibility for understanding and progress within your own head.

Absolutely. Yep.

Yeah.

And, not every counselor's gonna fit you. If you go

that's important too.

is awful. Like, that's okay. That's not the same as everybody else. And it's okay to ask for what you want when you set those appointments. You know, I wanna be able to just spill all of my stuff and not be judged, and the counselors should quickly. Absolutely. Would you like for me to help you with any of those things or, I just wanted to make that differentiation that not all counselors are gonna be great for everybody. Find the one that works for you. And there may even come a point if you've been seeing them for two or three years that it doesn't work anymore. And so it's okay to find a new counselor. My husband's been seeing the same guy for 12 years, I think, which I think is phenomenal. I'm glad that they've got that connection. I've never been so lucky. So I find different counselors every once in a while.

Those are all great points. If you have someone that's discouraging you from. Counseling or coaching or mentoring or therapy, whatever level it is, that's the person, as you say, that might need it the most and

Mm-hmm.

why they would discourage someone. There must be some selfish reason there.

insecurity. There's

some. Exactly. Exactly.

up everywhere. Yeah.

But if you're in a relationship, in a professional relationship with a mentor or someone and they discourage you from expanding into something else, that's the same red flag.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I was surprised I took some graduate courses, when I was still teaching in counsel in school counseling, so I have a little bit of familiarity with it, and I was surprised. At one point they talked about, you know, how you, how people should find a counselor, and this was in counseling education process. They said the first thing a person should do is call multiple counselors and do an intake interview. Because as you say, you, you may not, you probably not find it on the first, you know, do people find it? Did you find your dentist on your first visit? You know the I did because it was in second grade and that's where I had to go. Right. That was the only option there was, but.

and you just brought up a good point. It's not just about you liking and feeling comfortable with a counselor. The counselor needs to be comfortable with you too. And if there's something that, and again, we all have our baggage, we all have our trauma. If there's something that's in your world that maybe isn't comfortable for them, then it's okay for them to say, Hey, I'd love to help you, but I really think maybe you could try this person instead. Great. If you don't know where to start, talk to people in your community or, know, talk to people that you know and just you guys know of any counselors I can start talking to or call a counselor, like you said, just do intake interviews and talk to people and see if it's gonna be a good fit for you. They should not charge side note for

Exactly.

just to make

Good point.

But yeah, I mean, health is really,

I.

and the hierarchy, depending on your faith, you and then your spouse, and then your kids, and then everything else. And on the top of mostly all of those is you. 'cause if you're not a healthy you, you can't be healthy for anybody else. You can't be present and, aware of all the things if you're struggling in your own space.

I think we've, anybody, even the casual listener at this point, certainly understands that. As we said at the top, while your business model deals mostly with work related things, the things that work to fix problems at work, work to fix problems at home, and everywhere else, if there is someone, and, and here's my segue for you to, to make things available as much as you'd like, if there's a listener. That is interested in learning more. I know your primary website is elevate your talent.co. so listeners, you can check that out and see a little bit about, some of the things involved there, but there's also a tab there or a button there for one-to-one coaching.

Yes, absolutely. yeah, elevate your talent.co or you can find me on LinkedIn, Jolyn Ledgerwood. I also have a personal coaching website called Jolyn Ledge. Coach, you're more than welcome to reach out there, and individual time. I, you know, I wanna talk about what's going on in your world. I'm gonna ask challenging questions. I'll send you some Legos that we can play with and kind of work through some things. There's different methodologies I use. Clifton strengths, I think is phenomenally successful in the personal and the professional world. So when you explain your work to me, it's called Clifton Strengths. It's the Clifton strengths finder. Yeah. it's a, yeah, it's a, an, it's an assessment you take. It's not a test, it's just an assessment. And the questions are really random. It's gonna be like, do you like to walk your dog or do you like to make lasagna? And you're like, these have nothing to do with each other. There's a purpose through it. and when we get the results of that is when I'm really able to talk about what drives you, what motivates you to do the work that you do, and what, what are hindrances that you have? And I don't wanna say the opposite of strength is weak. And I don't call these weaknesses. I call these lesser strengths because we all have them. And sometimes you go. and if I have a quick second to give an example, my number 34, which is the bottom of the bottom is empathy. I was like, I'm a mom of of my own kids and two, right. It's because I have another. Strength that's higher called individualization and high responsibility. So when my little girls were young and they would trip and fall on the sidewalk, my first response was not the empathetic, oh, I'm sorry. Are you okay? She up your toe. What happened? My first response was. Well, why did you trip? Were you not looking where you're going? Is your shoe not tied? You know, yes, I can engage my empathy, but I know that that is an intentional, I'm really sorry you're struggling. That's gotta be so hard. I look at what causes us to be where we are. Yeah, solve the problem first, right? So it's different, but we all have the same strengths. It just depends. Depends on. What order they pop up in. just a little stat. One in 277,000 people will have your same top five. One in 33 million will have them in that order. that really resonates with how different we really are. So my top five strengths, there's only 33 million people. No, there's one in 33 million people that have those same strengths. It's really rare. And they're probably not here in the United States, so we'll say that. but yeah, I just, I take an individual approach, like, what are you looking for? How can I help you? How often do you wanna meet? There's all types of, ways, and I, you know, you mentioned it earlier, it's not just you as a person and who you are, it's who you are as a father and who you are as a employee or who you are as a leader or who you are as a dad. And how does that show up in. The, the things that you do every single day and how do you want to be better or different and how can I help support that? So it's, it's a different approach. Yeah. Myers Briggs. Yeah, that's okay. Disc, they're all the same. Yeah. I don't, I'm not one, no, I'm sorry. Yeah. And not all are gonna resonate with you versus the other. Like there's a lot of people that like live and die by Myers Briggs and it just, it doesn't speak to me. Disc is normally like on projects at work, not holistic person. I, yeah. Oh, please. Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Well, and that's the, and what you said is ride their masks. So when I do an assessment at work, I'm thinking, who am I supposed to be here and how am I supposed to be that way? when I ask people to do strengths in a. Mutual environment. Don't think about work, don't think about home. Just think about you as a person. What makes you happy? What drives you, what makes you feel good? You know, all those things. And the thing about strengths is once I get those results, I can go, okay, now how can we apply these to work? How can we apply these to home and how can we apply these to being a dad or being a whatever, and what do they really mean to you individually? Because I find that if someone's reports high strategic and they're in a leadership role, I'm like, great, what a perfect fit. That's amazing. if I have somebody that's not very strategic in a leadership role. They are, they feel challenged by that, and I'm like, that's when you know your team and you know what your team's strengths are, and you cater to their, their higher strengths if they're lesser for you. For example, I was director of training at a cybersecurity company. I am not strategic at all. I'm the woo hoo everybody love, just have fun. Let's you know I'm the positivity, whatever. So I went to my instructional designer and I said, Hey, we have to write a plan for next year. What do you think? He's like, I'm on it. Two days later, he brings this plan. It was, we made a few tweaks here and there, but all in all, it was spot on with what we were talking about doing and what we wanted to accomplish and this and that. So two things happened there. One, I didn't stress for three days having to write this thing that I hate and don't wanna be a part of and just blah. Two, I empowered one of my employees to do something that makes him feel really good and special and wanted and important and all those things. What a win. Like why are we forcing now? Because I'm not strategic. Doesn't mean I can't write reports on the work that we're doing and assessment. You know? No, I still have to do my job, but are there other people that are around me in my job that I can work with for us all to accomplish something better and for us all to enjoy our work more? Absolutely. Why not? Like there's no reason why we shouldn't be doing those things, so yeah. It is. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And I crazy. My first thought was like, high school group projects. I'm like, they just throw it at 'em and they don't give any help. And like you said, the, the, the teacher leader doesn't coach into who should do what pieces. So it's normally almost always a complete mess that somebody, one or two people in the group feel like they did all the work. The other people feel like they didn't have a chance to contribute, or just like. And I think a lot of that too is when you say, well, what part do you wanna do? I think people are scared. To be themselves and say, well, I, I'm not really good at posters, but I really wanna do this research because doing research looks like totally nerdy. Why would anybody wanna do that? We need to be able to be ourselves to say, this is what I wanna do, and to be able to speak up and not be criticized for that. These are the parts that I would really like to do. I think you would be great at these parts. Oh, I'm glad that you said that, but I really don't wanna do that. So, coming to a consensus together on what does that look like and how do we, you know, how do we all work together to accomplish. This when we each wanna do these different pieces. So yeah, you named it right there. Yeah. Absolutely. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yeah. Sure. Absolutely. I think that's how Scrum was probably in invented, was to, to deal with that I, that that was just on a whim. But I'm like, that's maybe why Scrum came along, because nobody knows what they're, they're doing and nobody wants to tell the other people that they're struggling or that they need help. And like, it kind of goes back to the whole society views. is not cool, but it's okay to say, Hey, you know what? I really need your help here and I really wanna accomplish this thing, and I really could use your help. So to humble ourselves to say that we're human. We don't have all the answers, we can't do all the things. It's okay to ask people, ask other people for help. Yeah. I do. Absolutely. Now. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. This is great. Mm-hmm. So many questions. I love it. my podcast is called Play for Performance. It's where I interview other play practitioners in the workplace. and it's people that bring fun. It's people that bring rest. It's people that bring all different types of playfulness into the workplace. And I, it's really fun to do. I hope you enjoy it as well. and I am on YouTube, Spotify, all the different places. of right now, we have a limited number released. I had a. Unfortunate clog in my schedule over the last couple of months. So we are working to get those released a little bit, a little bit quicker. And, on a more steady basis, I do have a newsletter on LinkedIn. I have not written a book. I've been told by several people that I should, so I'm thinking about that. and articles really, again, that's really probably more of my LinkedIn newsletter than anything else. yeah, absolutely reach out if I can help. If you need recommendations, if you need. to other people, just let me know. And I mean, I, I just, I love helping people. If I could just do my coaching work and not charge people, I'd be okay with that. But I, I have bills and I have kids and all those things. So, yeah, it's, I love what I do and I'd love to help anybody that, has been struggling to make that decision one way or the other. I don't, I don't, I don't have 10, but I can give you two or three. Miller has been a really great writer for me. and obviously, I mean, I listen to Brene Brown, on, I do most of her books audible when I'm driving places to place. Bob Goff has been a huge inspiration for me. He is an author, lawyer. Political, I can't think of his, he's a, ambassador to a country. I think it's Uganda, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. he's, he's just phenomenal. He brings play, he wrote a book called Catching Whimsy, like he's all about playfulness and some he'll weave some, faith into his stories. But he is a great storyteller. He just brings it on a level where let's just have fun and do what we love to do and let's. You know, he's just been, he is, he's a great writer. but yeah, I really am kind of across the board. I'm not stuck to one person's way or another person's methodology. I kind of just learn a little bit from all of them and kind of pull 'em together. So, yeah, I, you know, I, I, I don't, I love. It's a physical book, but I don't have time to sit and read books. And so I do a lot of them on Audible. And, that, allows me the time to think and to process. And where I'm so into the book, I'm like, wow, I should have exited like three times ago. Like, I should probably get back on my route. But, yeah, I love learning more. I'm, I am a high learner, so, and that's, that's Clifton strengths talk. I do love to learn, if I could go be. Trained in all of the different methodologies, I would absolutely do it. I just, I don't have the time, so, yeah. Yes, yes. Yeah, and I'm sorry I didn't mention Patrick. That should have been my first one. I just kind of felt like that was assumed. I'm so sorry. The, yeah. Which one is it? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's, yeah, that's Vincent Van Gogh. Star Night, that's Lego. And then so is the group. Those are all Lego pieces. Yes. And that was my favorite, my favorite build of all. this is the, yes, sir. That's the great wave. And then I've got the Milky Way. My camera won't go all the way over, but the Milky Way is also all Lego pieces. But yeah, that's, other than the books, that's all I have on my bookshelf or Legos. 'cause I mean, building is so, it's fun, it's relaxing, it's, can be very strategic at the same time. Who knew? Thank you. just recently I went on a retreat to a mountaintop 9,700 feet, and really got in touch with my inner. Self, like it was an eye-opening experience. I, we would go up on this ridge and we would do yoga every morning at 7:00 AM and watch the sunrise. And it was just, it's, it was a reminder that we are not here on the earth, but we are of the earth. And so every morning I wake up and I do yoga. Just kind of a grounding. Putting my feet on the ground, just recognizing that I'm here and I'm present. I work on my breathing if I'm having struggles during the day, just kind of recentering. And then at night, I wish I could say it's every night, but it's, most nights I journal about my day. And that's just like the free writing that we talked about earlier. Just what works. You know, it's not prompts, it's just. Writing down the things and how I feel about the things, and that's helped me tremendously, through my adult years, both parenting and career wise to just refocus on, the little things are gonna happen, but if we can be a. I don't wanna say bigger, but if we can work around and rise above, then we're doing better. And I see my counselor every week, so it depends on what day of the week that happens. But, like I said, I'm a big advocate for mental health and, and you know, if it's not play to get th you through what you're working through, yeah, find somebody that can help you 'cause life's too short to live miserable. if we can find, just a piece of happiness and how to grow that within your space, I think that's very healthy. And it's been a pleasure being on your show. Thank you so much. I'm, I'm, I really do appreciate it. It's been awesome. ​Thank you. Bye everybody.