Season 4 Episode 26: Jill Nowacki - Video

Despite Impossible is preparing for its fifth season, by introducing video recordings of our interviews! 

Join us for powerful conversations with people chasing bold dreams, creating impact, and proving that impossible is only the beginning. This week, Tansley seats down with Jill Nowacki to talk her impossible.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

You're listening to Despite Impossible with your host, Anthony Stearns.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Today's guest is Jill Nowaki. Jill is thoughtful, contemplative, an adventurer, and someone who thinks about the many possibilities in front of her. She's also a dear friend. She is the co-founder and president and CEO of Zealist, an organization dedicated to catalyzing what's possible through executive search, leadership development, and organizational performance solutions, helping leaders and teams show up at their highest level. This is Jill's story. People who know you best will describe you as thoughtful.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Not in the way of like knowing exactly what to gift to give someone or even remembering people's birthdays, although I do try to do those things, um, but just being really contemplative and processing through outcomes and possibilities.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

What's something you always wish you could do for just a little longer?

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Reading, as long as it's the right book.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

I don't.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

I have made it through a lot that I that I shouldn't have made it through.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Describe a moment when you really felt the most like the leader you always dreamt you would be.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

This moment is now, and I am still uh kind of waking myself up with uh surprise and delight that you know I've had this beautiful gift this this past couple of weeks of having six people say we're with you and and choosing to be part of of standing up uh a new a new adventure and a new dream with me.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

When was the last time you danced so hard your feet were sore?

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Probably you're in the cellar event last year. So it's good that that's coming up again because I'm like, I'm only dancing like that once a year, that's a problem. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

This is why I asked the question because almost every time someone's like, yeah, it's been too long and we should be more. It's definitely been too long. So what's an important insight you come back to repeatedly across situations in both your work and personal life that guides your approach to change?

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Don't forget your stakeholders. So we do uh change management mapping, and that's this box on the map is is stakeholder impact, stakeholder input. And I think both in your personal life and your professional life, you can uh you can run forward with change really fast and then realize you uh overlooked somebody who's deeply impacted by that change and didn't get considered in just quite the right way.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

If you've had a bad day, which one song or artist on your playlist lightens you up immediately?

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Lizzo is my girl for that. Exactly what you thought I was gonna say, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

What's something you wish you knew about growth over time in the early days of your journey?

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Maybe I wish that I had known or had the confidence to know that the growth would come inevitably. But now when I think about that, I also think, you know, maybe I would have been more relaxed about my growth instead of so persistent and insistent. And I mean I was really impatient about growth, but I like where it's brought me. I like where it's taken me. So it might be it might be a good thing that I didn't know that when I was younger.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Which one thing people wrongly assume about you?

SPEAKER_00 4:09

This is a really hard one for me because I'm trying to think about, you know, even one thing people assume about me, right or wrong. I think um people would probably assume that I have better taste in TV than I actually do. Like I am notorious in my family for having horrible taste in in TV shows. So do you really like the shows or you pick bad shows? I really do. I um I really do. And like over, I mean, this is like a 25-year history where it's like I love these shows and then they last about one and a half seasons because I'm the only person who loves these shows. True calling was an incredible one. I absolutely love that show. That was from forever ago, and even the premise doesn't make a lot of sense, but I'd I'd go back and look that one up.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

What do you enjoy doing that you don't get to do often?

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Hiking. And that could be because I'm a little snobbish about it's a whole lot flatter in Connecticut than it was in Montana. So but that's my thing.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Who haven't you seen perform live in concert that you've been planning to see and haven't yet?

SPEAKER_00 5:30

I'm worried this will end our friendship, Tansley. I am not a big concert goer. I don't think I've been to a concert for over 20 years. Really? That said, I would absolutely love to see Taylor Swift. I think um she's you know, I I do happen to like her music, but more than that, I think she's just a brilliant businesswoman and I would find it intriguing, I think, to see it.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

What's one thing that inspires hope in you?

SPEAKER_00 5:57

People's kindness. And I know that right now there's a lot of spotlight on less kind uh acts in the world. But I think that if you really watch people, you see that there's just this deep human desire to want to support, to want to uplift, to want to help. And um I think when you when you see that, it makes you more confident about how kind people really are on the individual level and gives some hope in what's possible on the the more global level from there too.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

If you could share advice with students graduating from university, what might it be?

SPEAKER_00 6:39

This is an easy one. Do the thing. So whatever that is, I think there's so many young people will discern too much or think they have to put it off and wait. And I they just shouldn't. They should do the thing, do it now.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

What's something that still makes you nervous, even though you've done it many times? And why does that thing have a hold on you?

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Okay. So I had to think through this, and um this is a little bit quirky probably, but I think it's calling someone out of the blue. And it always makes me have these like nervous feelings, even if it's not cold calling, not me trying to call and sell something, but just calling someone out of the blue. And um, I don't, I can't think of why, but it evokes all those feelings of being like in my bedroom in middle school with my friends, thinking about calling a boy or something. And I don't, I don't remember a lot of traumatic rejection in those moments, but something has has stuck with me, I guess, that just always makes me nervous about calling someone out of the blue. Tell us about your impossible. So I absolutely love that you talk about doing impossible things because to me it's always struck me as a little like tongue-in-cheek, like there's a little implied sarcasm there, right? That you're making this point that impossible really just lives in our heads. And so we get told all the time, though, that you know, the the thing that we can't do or that can't be done. And so, right in this moment, Zealist is my impossible for two reasons. One is I feel like I was getting a lot of messaging of you can't go do this, you can't, you can't step out in this way and move this forward. But then the second part, that mission it embraces, and I know, I know Tansley, you believe in this idea too, that like employee experience, we can have fun at work, we can love our jobs, we can love the purpose of what we do. And um, that's really the the mission behind this is this idea that we can help people find joy at work again. And um I always think about that joke, like, oh, you asked me my dream job. In my in my dreams, I don't have a job. And I'm like, how sad is that? So like I really think that that this is something that uh people may be a little skeptical about, but I think that it's absolutely possible to to help organizations and and the people in them find their joy.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

What do you look forward to most in the next 12 months?

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Uh I am looking forward to seeing where this goes. So I feel like I'm right at the the beginning of a major change, and I feel like um we're moving into the the summertime where my high schooler is still delightful to be around right now. So the time with him over the next uh year as well, and watching that move forward. Um so I'm just looking forward to the the regular daily progress that's gonna come in this really exciting time.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

What do you secretly worry might stay unfinished if your impossible is not addressed?

SPEAKER_00 9:55

I think that we really are at a place where employers who don't get the workplace culture right are going to find that the people were everything and they don't have what it takes to succeed. And in the case of credit unions, I worry that that credit unions may get swept up into some of that uh that collateral damage with that.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Who's someone else we should be talking with on the pod?

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Well, I love that you bring guests from across different industries too, and not just in credit unions. And um that makes me think about some um some really incredible leaders from outside, but inside the movement, someone who I think we all love to hear from and we see him often, but I haven't heard him on a lot of podcasts in the credit union space, is Creighton Blackwell. And I think it'd be interesting to have him on as a guest. I love that. What's your next impossible, my friend? I think that's a great question. I think my next impossible is making Z-List the workplace that we say we can create for others too. So not just about the clients we serve, but really about living authentically those values that we state as an organization, as a team.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

We are so passionate about the next generation of talent. One of my impossible dreams is ensuring that credit unions are the place that the next generation is eager and so thrilled to work for. And I love Jill's advice about doing the thing. Don't stop. You know, I think we all, I certainly overthink a lot. And I think, especially early on in our journeys, we may not know what lies ahead, and we may be very, very concerned about implications and is this the right choice? And I love being thoughtful and jumping off and doing a thing matters because action is an antidote to anxiety. Oh my goodness, bad TV shows are my jam. I was laughing so hard when Joel said this. And I just love really, in my opinion, good bad TV shows. I have a hard time turning off my brain, and so I find it to be very, very helpful to be able to watch television that I can get lost in. I am proud to say that I am now more than four years into not watching television in my bedroom because that was a very bad habit of mine. And I think my all-time favorite, in fact, I know my all-time favorite bad TV show is Beverly Hills 90210. And in fact, I'm going back and re-watching old episodes, and it doesn't get old for me. It does not get old. It was interesting to hear Jill talk about calling someone out of the blue, and that being something that caused her a bit of anxiety. And I love calling people. I often text first and don't always call. And I have a host of folks that I just love to catch up with. And Leo Ardeen is one of those. He's been a dear friend for years and years, and he's always so thoughtful in our conversations and not only really caring about my life, he always, always, always is inquiring about my daughter Mackenzie, which I appreciate as well. In terms of Jill and me and our interactions over the years, I have always been so inspired about Jill's career and her path and her journey. And we have been in parallel in a lot of different ways. Our kiddos are almost exactly the same age, and we've shared that for some time now. One of my favorite stories related to Jill is such a personal story professionally for me because Jill was the recruiter when I was hired at Orsa Credit Union, and I really found her approach to recruitment to be really important because that journey can be very isolating. I was so excited about the possibility of becoming president and CEO. And so every bit of that process feels precious. She also was willing to give me a lot of important feedback about things that were going well in the process and where I could improve, which I appreciated. My favorite part of the story is I got a call when I got to the airport after my last interview. I had just gotten off the rental car bus at Detroit Metro. And she was in the background, and the board was there offering me the job. And then she came to Metro. I was by myself, of course, because I was in the midst of this interview, and she and I were able to have a toast and celebrate. And I will never ever forget her journeying with me during that important moment. And I also just want to say that I think that Jill's vision for talent and the commitment to organizations really making work a place where people can thrive is something that we share. So huge huzzah, Jill.