MasterStroke with Monica Enand & Sejal Pietrzak

Amy Jen Su - Mastering Leadership Evolution and Personal Growth

• Amy Jen Su • Season 1 • Episode 25

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Ever wonder how emotions can either boost or derail your leadership? Monica and Sejal  sit down with their colleague and friend Amy Jen Su, co-founder and managing partner of Paravis Partners and author of the Harvard Business Review classics The Leader You Want to Be and Own the Room. Amy brings timeless wisdom from her books, sharing how leaders can embrace authenticity and emotional control to thrive in today’s fast-changing world.

We also dive into the big question: How do emotions either hold you back or take your leadership to new heights? Amy shares game-changing strategies for emotional mastery, teaching you how to recognize your personal triggers and pivot away from common traps. She’ll explain how tools like personal markers can help you use your emotions as valuable data rather than as an excuse for negative reactions.

In this episode, we also talk about balancing leadership value and passion—something that’s never been more important. Amy walks us through practical prioritization strategies like Stephen Covey’s urgent vs. important matrix, plus her own take: the high-contribution, high-passion matrix. You’ll hear tips on how to delegate tasks that don’t fuel your fire, so you can stay focused on what truly drives you.

We wrap up with some real talk on leadership development and career transitions, including how to find your voice and establish your presence as a leader. Don’t miss this episode packed with actionable tips, inspiring stories and timeless wisdom that will take your leadership to the next level. 



Georgianna Moreland - Executive Producer | Managing Editor;
Matt Stoker - Editor


Amy Jen Su:

Like many of the listeners out there right, I was working in a consulting firm. I was working 100 hours a week. I assumed I was going to get the next big management position I thought I was up for and I had that infamous performance review where my manager said thanks for working hard. You've contributed a lot this year, but we're not ready to promote you. Welcome to.

Georgianna Moreland:

Masterstroke with Monica Enid and Sejal Petrzak. Conversations with founders, ceos and visionary leaders in tech and beyond.

Sejal Pietrzak:

I am so excited to have Amy Jen Sue here today with us. We are so thrilled to have you, Amy. Thanks for joining us.

Amy Jen Su:

Thanks for having me, Sejal and Monica. It's so great to be here with you both and huge congratulations on your podcast. I've been following along, listening to episodes and I just love the valuable insights that you are bringing to the world, so I'm super delighted to be here.

Sejal Pietrzak:

Well, thank you. Well, let me introduce Amy to our listeners. One of the reasons Monica and I wanted to do a podcast is to bring concepts and ideas that have really helped both of us to a wider group of people, and today I'm confident we're going to deliver that because we have a very important guest, amy Amy Jensu. So she is the co-founder and managing partner of Paravis Partners, a boutique executive coaching and leadership development firm. For almost two decades, amy has partnered with investment professionals, ceos including me and executives to sustain and increase their leadership effectiveness as they drive organizational change and transformation. Amy also serves on boards of four companies and she brings perspective to those boards towards leadership scaling, culture and capabilities, succession planning, organizational architecture and aligning strategy with execution. She was most recently appointed as an advisory director for Berkshire Partners.

Sejal Pietrzak:

Amy's also written two books. They're amazing books. You've got to read them. One is called the Leader you Want to Be Five Essential Principles to Bringing Out your Best Self Every Day, and that was published in 2019. And then a Washington Post bestseller Own the Room, discover your Signature Voice to Master your Leadership Presence. And that was about a decade ago and it's still flying off the shelves. I loved both of those books, amy. Amy's a frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review Online and has been featured in a variety of media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, fast Company, forbes MarketWatch. I'm so excited to have you, amy, and we are looking forward to a great show. Thanks again, guys.

Sejal Pietrzak:

I'm so excited too, Amy, tell us how you work with people in trying to grow, as they're trying to grow and become better leaders. What do you do in the coaching and leadership practice?

Amy Jen Su:

I, you know, when I look back on these 20 years as an executive advisor and coach, I feel so fortunate to have met leaders like both of you who understand that they are trying to transform their companies, transform whole industries, grow those companies and industries. And in the work that I do, I'm just so lucky I've worked with leaders who recognize that, as you're growing and scaling a company, you have to grow and scale yourself, and so practically what that means is, you know, again, when I work with folks, we do two things. One is we take honest stock of where we are today. Right, who are you? What are your values, what do you stand for? What's your own leadership vision for yourself? What are the skills you bring to bear, what are all the contributions and impact you've made Because the truth is the clock's never at zero and impact you've made because the truth is the clock's never at zero. We are standing on a huge platform and foundation.

Amy Jen Su:

So step one in working with leaders is always let's really understand the base and let's celebrate who you are authentically and who your best self is. And then let's look at the outer game around you. How's the game changing? Are there tailwinds? Are there headwinds? What's going on in the economy, what's going on changing? Are there tailwinds, are there headwinds? What's going on in the economy? What's going on in the competitive landscape you play in, and so, therefore, what are the new knowledge areas you need For all everyone listening, think about the businesses you're in and what new skills could you gain to be more effective and contribute even more? I feel like the folks I work with really see themselves almost as like star athletes who went from D1 to playing National League, to playing World Cup, and understand that in each of those stages, I've got to grow, I've got to get better, while still celebrating and not beating myself up at the same time.

Sejal Pietrzak:

Absolutely. I love that analogy in terms of moving from D1 to professional.

Monica Enand:

Yeah, I find that to be a really helpful analogy, amy, because I have to tell you that you know, sejal and I are both fortunate enough to have gone to workshops where you were working with a group of leaders, and the first one I went to was before the book the Leader you Want to Be. You were actually working on the materials for the book and I have to say that the first thing that occurred to me while I was there was wow, there is a ton of work that goes into writing a book like this. I always thought, like, oh, you just have all these ideas and then write them down. But I realized how much work you were putting in and how much testing you were doing with your ideas, with real life executives, real life business situations, and iterating and honing those materials. So that was the first thing that occurred to me.

Monica Enand:

But then the second thing that was critical to me was what you said about sort of not beating yourself up. So I'll tell you about my reaction, because I walked into this room of amazingly accomplished CEOs, thinking I was the only person who, you know, really hadn't achieved my best self and really kind of thought about those times that I didn't feel like I was at my best as really a personal failing, frankly, and really did used to beat myself up quite a bit and it was really quite a remarkable transition for me to hear you talk about Leader A and Leader B. So can you introduce Leader A and Leader B to our audience?

Amy Jen Su:

Happy to Monica and, truthfully, as I share with the audience this idea of Leader A and Leader B, I think I'm always my own first test case where a lot of this is autobiographical, where, you know, I started to notice within myself and, as Monica, as you said, and Sejal, when I was with groups of executives like yourself or out coaching with folks, I kept hearing about two different parts of every human being. You interact with that. All of us have a leader A part of ourselves where you know you wake up in the morning you feel like your best self. It doesn't matter what challenge is thrown your way. Somehow you're holding a broader perspective, you're meeting the moment, you're discerning the moment, the audience, and you're bringing the appropriate tool or voice or skill set you need to to meet the challenge. And we've all had those magic moments where you feel like you're your best self, you're in flow and I call that kind of leader a moments. And then we all frankly have a ton of leader B moments where you know you kind of wake up on the wrong side of the bed. Maybe you didn't get a great night's sleep, maybe it's a particularly stressful week and, for whatever reason, our perspective is just a little more myopic, we might be taking things a little more personally. It's a little harder to even find the energy to be your best self, and so next thing you know you're wildly reactive and then you're not meeting the moment as constructively, authentically or effectively as you can. And the truth is, the good news is I don't know if you both remember from the workshop we were in I think the most popular ratio was like 60-40, a to B, and I also felt so much relief that no one is superhuman. 100 to 0 is actually a surefire way to end up in leader B.

Amy Jen Su:

And so the real question is how much self-awareness can we hold moment to moment in the natural wax and wane of both? I'm in a job of high privilege and I'm in a job of extreme challenge where at any moment I could feel exhilaration and then walk into the next meeting and feel pain, right. And so the real question is do I have awareness that that's happening? What's my center of gravity? Because as a leader, I have big impact on other people, and when those moments come, do I have enough self-compassion and kindness for myself to call ball, hit the pause button and sort of say I need to start this moment over, right?

Amy Jen Su:

So really, leader A and leader B was meant to just describe the human condition. So, sejal, to your opening question. When I work with leaders, it's almost a twofold coaching program. One, I wanna get to know your leader A self and all the conditions, practices, rituals, everything you know about yourself that makes you feel great and brings your best. And I also want to know all the triggers, all the conditions, all the situations where your Achilles heel, or where you're most vulnerable to showing up, is not your best self. And if we just know those two things, like you're invincible.

Monica Enand:

The second part of the title of the book is, as Sejal was reading the title, I guess there's always a first part and a second part, but second part is five essential principles to bringing out your best self every day. And it really caught me like every day, because you know Sejal and I have talked about how you know Sejal and I have a lot in common, but what we've learned through getting to know each other is that we are completely different in many, many ways, and one of the ways is that she is a much more even-keeled, I think just naturally she was born or is just a more even-keeled human. I am more excitable, I am. I mean, what comes with those excitable moments, which sometimes work to my advantage, is, you know, the lows are there as well and I'm not quite as even keeled and I've been trying hard to like.

Monica Enand:

Okay, I want to be authentic, I want to be as part of my leadership practice. I don't want to suppress my feelings or shove them down, which I know is a habit for a lot of people, and it's a really. It's not a habit that's sustainable. It's toxic over the long run. So what do I do with those leader B days and how do I balance like being authentically myself and how I should handle those situations?

Amy Jen Su:

Great question, monica. First and foremost, I'm a huge fan of authenticity, as you both know, right? So, to address the first part of your question, in the world where we all index differently on the world of emotion and emotiveness, right, monica, you'll always sort of be on the higher end of the dial of that and there'll be situations where you have to play with that dial and bring yourself to more composure. And, sejal, my guess is, you probably naturally have high composure, can be calm in the storm, but there's times, on the big stage, we need you to dial it up and be more passionate, right? So always start with your own baseline authenticity and dial up and down as you need. And then I think the second part of your question is I'm with you, monica, I am not a fan of suppressing, repressing, denying feelings, because guess what, we telegraph them and they leak out all over people anyway, and then we're not clean, clear and professional. So I'm with you, authenticity is actually what is the feeling I'm feeling? What is that really about? And then the question I have is then what are you going to do about it, right? So if I'm in leader A mode, I have a day where I'm feeling feelings, let's say I'm feeling anxious. Let's say I'm feeling feelings. Let's say I'm feeling anxious. Let's say I'm getting impatient. Let's say I'm starting to feel overwhelmed. There's nothing wrong with those feelings. In fact, I'd rather you know that's what's happening.

Amy Jen Su:

But then the question is do you use those emotions as information or do you use them for persecution and justification? So, do your emotions have you or do you have it Right? So let's take that same example. I'm having a week where I'm back to back, I have deliverables, the market headwinds are working against me, I'm behind plan and behind budget. I've got to go to the board and say that I'm just not having a great day, right. If I'm leader A, I recognize that. I can name it, I'm conscious of it and in fact, before I go blow up on my team or someone gets on the wrong side of me, I get up, I go outside, I go for a walk around the block and then I come back and realize okay, here's what I'm actually bothered about. Let me go handle A, b and C.

Amy Jen Su:

If I'm in leader B mode, I have those same emotions, but now they justify how I feel. Right Now I'm angry, I'm justified, I feel persecuted. I can't believe my board is always breathing down my neck. Why don't they understand that operational reality and what I need to achieve? You know, ambition and capability aren't matching. And my EA walks in and at that moment I unleash my fury on an innocent team member that wasn't expecting to kind of get their head bitten off, but they did. And now, because I'm a leader, the coefficient of my, my ripple effect, is quite high. So I have negatively impacted somebody else. So I don't have an issue with the emotion and I love the authenticity of it. It's then, what do we as leaders do with that emotion? I say let's use it as information, really valuable information. Feelings, intuition, spidey sense, discomfort, man loaded with data versus my emotions are now persecuting me or justifying a set of ineffective behavior.

Sejal Pietrzak:

So Amy, how does one actually do that? You know, if you've, you have to be very self aware to be able to know okay, I need to go for a walk outside, I need to step away, I need to gain some perspective. But how do you learn that? How do you actually do that? Because if you are feeling that way, it's not like you can leave the office that day. What would you recommend?

Amy Jen Su:

I think one awareness is everything, right, sejal. So I think one know your own cues and markers, and that's different for every leader, right? Some leaders will tell you wow, the minute I start procrastinating, something's up Like I don't know what's going on, what I'm feeling, but so normally we have a marker cue. For others, it's like coming to feel into your body. Wow, when I feel tense, anxious, wow, when I feel tense, anxious, I feel heat rising, like my energy's rising, I feel cortisol spiking. Right, part of the work is knowing what is my usual pattern. And now I'm going to have a different set of moves. And so when I'm working with a leader, the first thing I want to know is look, we're all going to have that day. I want to know that day. I want to dissect that moment. I want to know that day. I want to dissect that moment. I want to know exactly what it feels like in your head, in your heart, in your body.

Amy Jen Su:

And then I want to know what your default move tends to be right, because we all have a first move. It's been going on forever, right? Either we fight, flight, fight, whatever it is. What's your first move? And then my whole goal as a coach is to give you a second, third, fourth move that helps you feel a sense of control and stability back. For some people that's the walk, for others is like I need to rewrite my to-do list for a moment. I need to clean my desk. I need to renegotiate a deadline. That's the hardest part is to recognize the cue or marker so that then we can build an action plan to help you pick a different set of things than the default move that's not really working for you.

Monica Enand:

I think mine is the speed of my speech. I think mine is the speed of my speech, like, if I start talking really, really fast, I'm having a, I'm getting like impatient, and sometimes it's just excited, but also sometimes it can be a really kind of impatience or something that you know, whereas I know other people talk really slowly when they get in that mode. But it is different for each person, right.

Amy Jen Su:

Yeah, it's really different. But that's a great example, monica, right, as you're starting to clip faster and faster, where does passion hit its edge? And, in fact, you're starting to feel anxiety around. Why is the team not moving at pace quicker? I want this to happen faster. What's going on?

Sejal Pietrzak:

That's really good to know, monica. So if I ever see you starting to talk really fast in one of our business meetings, I'll know what's going on and I'll say okay take a beat.

Sejal Pietrzak:

Well, you know, I mean that can result in pitfalls that you talk about as well, amy, right, and I think you know meaning. You know not knowing what your triggers are and then not knowing how to address them and maybe mitigate them. And I found that really helpful in terms of your book. And talking about the pitfalls, you know, one that I think I've fallen for and often look at and think about all the time is the I'll just do more. Right, I'll just handle it all, I'll just do it, you know.

Sejal Pietrzak:

And Monica's favorite is the pitfall of well, I'll just do it now. You know, maybe she's finding that it's not happening fast enough, so then she's starting to talk faster, but then she'll just do it now. I'm like, forget it, I'll just do it Right. Right, so you can just do more, you can just do it now, or, for both of us, I'll just do it myself instead of being the leader and delegating it effectively, because you just want it done you know, these are also great, great things to thought, not only at work, but also with families and things like that.

Sejal Pietrzak:

And then the last is you talked about procrastination for a second right, amy. I'll just do it later. That's another pitfall. Can you talk a little bit about those pitfalls?

Amy Jen Su:

I mean it's so funny as you were saying them, because I could feel myself nodding inside, and especially when you said, just do it myself. I know one of my cues and markers is when I start taking batons back from my team Like same thing, I'm just getting impatient, I want it done, I'll do it faster, let me start grabbing batons back. And as I start to grab each baton, you start realizing I'm getting deeper and deeper into a pitfall, into a pitfall. And so again, similar to the conversation we just had, which is which one are you most susceptible to? Because they're part of everyone's coping strategies, really, right, it's whenever I start to feel a little out of control. Each of these four give us a sense of control back. So it's a way of coping again, which is just a human function.

Amy Jen Su:

But the real risk is the slippery slope, or the real risk for some leaders is when it becomes your operating norm, right.

Amy Jen Su:

So in the moment of pause or realizing, oh, I just took a week's worth of work back from my team because I'm getting impatient, or whatever it is, then it's a chance to reframe.

Amy Jen Su:

Okay, if I'm just doing more, how do I pause and think about how do I do more value add and what are the value add items on my to-do list? Right, if I feel like I have to do it now, how do I pause, look at my to-do list and say what actually has time sensitivity, like within quarter? What are the win today's versus what are actually the win tomorrow's? Am I spending a judicious amount of time on both win today and win tomorrow? If I'm just doing it myself, yeah, maybe you could go faster, but are you actually going to travel more distance? Is the farther now compromised in service of faster, right? And if you're just doing it later, how do I either get into a 15-minute flow on something I don't want to work on and I'm putting off, or how do I re-look at my to-do list with the classic you know, stephen Covey important versus urgent, and make a different call.

Sejal Pietrzak:

Yeah, I love that. Important versus urgent, so important to know the difference.

Monica Enand:

I love that you talk about these pitfalls. And the other thing you have, which maybe all Harvard Business Review published authors have to have, is a quadrant matrix, a two by two matrix. I don't know if that's required or they teach you that, but tell us about your. This was a helpful, this was a very helpful quadrant for me and I still think about it and refer to it. So maybe you could tell us about the quadrants of passion and contribution to help think about, like you said, the value add. Where am I adding value?

Amy Jen Su:

Monica, that's funny about the HBR comment. I think it does help to have a two by two and I think a little bit of DNA. You know, I was a consultant for many years so I think my brain thinks in two by two. So, just as an aside, that that's like really funny. But in terms of the two by two right and value add, what's the value add we want? We want to be in the upper right hand box of a two by two, which is high contribution and high passion. So high, high means.

Amy Jen Su:

Hey, if I were to go interview your boss, your customers, your team and I said where do you hope Monica and Sejal are spending their time? You know what's your highest and best use and where do you hope she's spending time? You know high contribution would be that list of projects, initiatives, activities, interactions that would constitute high contribution. The great news about the upper right hand quadrant is that it's also a high passion. So if you looked at that same list that you and your boss agreed to as like your top five for the year, man, you've got a great role. You're probably in the right job. If 80% of that list is like where you get juice right, so it's kind of the high juice, high use box, if you will, and so it's a great way to keep our eyes on the ball, eyes on the prize, and then, of course, the high contribution, then low passion bucket, which is part of every job, right, where there's things your boss or your mandate says is a high use of your time, but you're like you know, I don't get so much juice from that, I'm not passionate about that. That would be quadrant two, kind of lower right hand quadrant, if you will, and that's a great box to explore because one, if that 20% grows to 80%, it's probably usually when you see people ready to make a job change or a role change because they're just outgrown the role. It's also a great quadrant to potentially empower and delegate to your team, right, because if somebody else really enjoys it and you don't, but it's important to the mandate, why not build a team around you to capitalize on other people's strengths and interests, so that you still fulfill your mission and vision together as a team, but each has a different role? And then the third quadrant would be kind of low use but high juice, right, so your boss or the company wouldn't say gosh, I kind of hope Monica and Sejal aren't spending time there, but for whatever reason, we all have these pet things that we love to do. Maybe we did them in a former job. We're just really good at it. We get a dopamine hit every time we do it.

Amy Jen Su:

And so these are the places where you start to explore is the leader not empowering or delegating? And they're kind of holding on to something too long. Are they kind of touching Middle Earth unnecessarily or staying there too long? Right? So that's a good quadrant to look at. And then the one we all want to just be careful about is low, low. It's low use, low contribution doesn't actually give you juice over the long time. But I call it kind of the anxiety relief box. It's like, oh my god, I could sit and email all day long and the whole day's gone by and I'm crossing little things off my to-do list, but I haven't really moved anything meaningfully forward. How do you?

Sejal Pietrzak:

avoid that low low, because getting the emails done is really important, because you want to be responsive as a leader and it can take so much time.

Amy Jen Su:

Yeah, that's a great question I was thinking about. I hope an episode everyone listens to from your podcast is one the two of you did on time boxing, right. So I think email is one of those things that, yes, needs to get handled, but I would make sure I time backs that. I'd probably pick a window of time that wasn't like my highest productivity thinking time. I'd pick a different time where I'm just triaging, but I'm gonna box that and bound that so it doesn't get carried away.

Sejal Pietrzak:

Yeah, no, absolutely. That's actually a great reminder to be thinking about it that way.

Monica Enand:

I also.

Monica Enand:

I mean, I think that that's definitely helpful and I think Sejal's more disciplined about that.

Monica Enand:

But I also found that like for me, when we would step out of my day-to-day, like if I had these opportunities to some things I was just doing, because I was always doing them, I'm like, and I never really thought like I did them before. I continued to do them. I didn't really give it much thought. But what was helpful to me, like with the workshop we did with you, is when you step out of your day-to-day routine, maybe once a year, maybe once every six months, and you really start to like kind of get some perspective on what you're doing and how you're. You know just those kind of intentional moments of like, evaluation and self-reflection and saying like, do I need to continue be doing these? How do you, when you work with people, do you help them build that in Like? For me that was just kind of it happened once a year because there was this you know great summit to go to and we went to it. But but I don't know if, if someone wasn't planning that for me, I'm not sure if I would do it regularly.

Amy Jen Su:

Monica, I think it's such a great question, right, because we get into our life and we get into the business. So I think what you're talking about is how, how do I, in a disciplined way, find on the business, on me time, which is really hard because we're in a flow, we're executing, we're getting stuff done. So I do think you have to pick those time markers, whether it's bi-annually, whether it's, I like, kind of start of the year, midpoint of the year, to just pause and say, hey, wait a minute, is this all directionally correct? Is the business, is my life heading in the right direction, first and foremost? And then, if it is directionally correct, then what are the priorities and then each of the rocks I need to keep walking to, to make pace and to make progress. And what is that progress through line? So I think that discipline is huge and I would say, at the start of every new role, it's a great time to pause and look at it.

Amy Jen Su:

I think every like 25 million in scale for a business, you know, I will have the CEOs I work with say, hey, you started this when it was let's take a founder. If it's a founder, ceo, right, I will definitely, at the start of coaching, say pretend that you've decided you don't want to do this. But this is your baby, this is the legacy you want to leave. Write for me the job spec of the person you're going to hire now, based on the size of the business and where you want to see it go. And then we take that new job spec that the founder's written and look at it up against themselves and say are you leading like this, or where are the departures and how are we going to fill them so that you can keep leading your business to next?

Amy Jen Su:

But the discipline of that, especially when we're either the founder or we were an internal promote, is the risk of I'm just going to keep operating the way I've always been operating. So if I see an internal promote or a founder situation, I always say nope. First thing we're going to do is we're going to write the pretend job spec because something's happened and you can't lead this anymore. But you know the business better than anyone else. So write me your wish list for who and what you would want to carry this forward. That's such a good idea it is.

Monica Enand:

And I heard you say that and you know I'm a founder CEO and I heard you say that before. And I actually came back and I took a journal and I started to. When I was faced with really hard challenges, I would actually write that challenge, put it away and then the next day I would tell myself in the morning I'm going to open that journal and I'm going to say what would a hired CEO do? Like, if someone was in my position and 90% of the time it was obvious what a hired CEO would do. And then once you, once I figured that out, then I'd go why am I not doing that Like? Then it was like, oh, I feel loyalty to this person. We've been through so much together. Well, how will I? You know, that was my idea.

Monica Enand:

And now I have to go tell everyone that it was a bad idea. Like there was all this like baggage. It was like, do I want to tell everyone that I actually steered them all wrong? And then now I'm telling them, like you know, could I hang on a little bit longer? So there was all this like stuff, but actually the discipline of just saying, like what would someone who came in from the outside looking at this business problem? Do that's what they would do? Then how do I get myself from here to there and what are the like the problems? And I got that from your idea of like write the jobs back, and I don't know, maybe you actually told us to do that. I don't remember, but I do remember coming back and doing that that's a great thing, Monica.

Sejal Pietrzak:

It's not just for founders. I mean, I think about my role. You know, what would someone in any of my roles do differently if they came in to take over the job? And then you say, okay, well, maybe I'm too close to it, Maybe I need to take a step back and get some perspective and you can.

Sejal Pietrzak:

Also, this is where you know coaching does really help, because that's someone who's on the outside and you know I think I've said this before and I think about it all the time you know, our kids have coaches in soccer and basketball and baseball and track and whatever else they might do. You know we have coaches. If we go, I mean, call a yoga instructor in front of a class, a coach or a one-on-one. If you do, you know you have a trainer, a coach or a one-on-one. If you do, you know you have a trainer, all these coaches. And yet I don't think enough leaders invest in, or companies invest in, executive coaching to give leaders that perspective, and it's not just founders, it's not just CEOs. I think it's so helpful at every stage of leadership, Absolutely agree, and it's really I mean pick your exercise right.

Amy Jen Su:

That was just an example. But the discipline, Monica, I think of what you're saying, which is how do I step back for myself and actually observe myself in action, how do I be a witness of my own experience, of my own experience, and that requires a certain detachment and a stepping back or stepping up to the balcony you know, I can't remember which book. I think it's Adaptive Leadership sort of. Are you on the balcony or on the dance floor? Again, pick your analogy. But I think these moments of being on yourself on the business is super critical and it can be helpful, I know, for me as a coach, I always think of every session. As this leader's time is so precious. I want this to be their on themselves moment in time where they get to hear themselves reflect and talk out loud, Because most of us have the answers inside, or we have enough reps or we have enough pattern recognition or intuition or experience. It's just that when we're crunched and we're in it, it's hard to see clearly.

Sejal Pietrzak:

Amy, I'm going to take us a little bit back in time. If you don't mind to Own the Room. What led to it's such a powerful book? Can you talk a little bit about?

Amy Jen Su:

it and what led you to writing that as your first book and it's been a bestseller on many lists. Can you talk a little bit about that one? In fact, they track to my own development. So my own development, if you rewind the clock 20 years ago, really was around voice and presence. And I personally had had a moment where, like many of the listeners out there right, I was working in a consulting firm. I was working 100 hours a week. I assumed I was going to get the next big management position I thought I was up for, and I had that infamous performance review where my manager said thanks for working hard, you've contributed a lot this year, but we're not ready to promote you.

Amy Jen Su:

And it wasn't for my functional ability, my technical ability, it was 100% because they said I needed to find my voice and have more presence. And you know, to be honest with both of you, I don't even know if it's legal today, but when I said to my manager what does that even mean? She said you know you should realize that with senior level clients you look kind of young for your age. And I thought, well, that's not very actionable, right, because I can't really change that. And so it kind of put me when I became a coach, on a quest to say there must be a way to be who I am, be authentic, but make the impact I'm meant to make right.

Amy Jen Su:

And so for me it was realizing that in the face of authority I did tend to be a little more deferential.

Amy Jen Su:

It came from my culture, the way my, my parents raised me.

Amy Jen Su:

So while I had strong voice for others, I had to learn a voice for myself and to recognize that I could be respectful and direct at the same time than being subservient. And I realized as I was coaching leaders, there was the opposite person who had really strong voice for self, always had an opinion, always could get to a point of view quickly, but maybe needed to work on the skill set to give others voice, like listening and asking questions, and really the game of leadership is being able to do both. How do I have an integrated toolbox so that when I need to listen, I'm listening, when I ask the right listen, I'm listening. When I ask the right question, I know when to pull that out, but I'm not shy to be articulate and give a point of view and bring a business judgment. It's just now. If I bring a judgment. I'm going to remember to make an invitation to hear what you think of it, or sometimes, as a leader, I might invite you first and then help synthesize on the other side of it, it's timeless.

Sejal Pietrzak:

leader, I might invite you first and then help synthesize. On the other side of it, it's timeless, you know, even though that was written more than 10 years ago. It's exactly what you know. So many listeners have sent us notes about, even today, you know, so really valuable.

Amy Jen Su:

Thank you.

Sejal Pietrzak:

You know you have lots of tips and tricks. You were, I mean, I don't want to call them tricks, but lots of advice around what we can do as leaders to be able to improve ourselves. You know Monica was just talking about you know, listening to some of your advice and guidance and going back home and after that summit and doing a work on, you know, knowing what would someone else do if they came into her role at the time. That's a really it's hard to do, like you said, but it's a really good tip. What other tips that are not easy to do but quick or something you can do on your own would you recommend for leaders who might be listening?

Amy Jen Su:

I think hopefully everyone listening today can tell I'm passionate about like own your time and energy, right, that's our greatest thing we have and if we don't prioritize it, somebody else will, right? So a quick tip is I know we just went through the two by two quadrants a little earlier in the episode you know color code your calendar against that, pick your favorite color and every time you get out of a meeting or you did an activity, mark it. Mark it. If it was quadrant one, it was high, high, and you can do a really quick visual snapshot at the end of the week, at the end of a month, at the end of a quarter to say what percentage am I getting of high contribution and high passion, right? So that's a quick hack to do instead of deep time analysis. It's just a quick visual color code.

Amy Jen Su:

The second is we talked a little bit about know your power hours. When are, when are the hours where your mind and brain are highest producing and protect them with all your might, right? Know your time zone. So if you're on vacation, be clear with your team. Hey, I'm away with my family, but I know we have X project on the other side of this. I'm gonna be checking my email every morning from seven to eight and then I'm offline, right, so be clear on when you're available and when you're not.

Amy Jen Su:

And even home zones, like there are times we need to say to our families hey, gang, after brunch mom is going to be in her home office and when the door shut, for those two hours I'm present to work and then I'll be back out to head out for the family outing or whatever it is, because we let work and life blur and bleed and leak so we never feel like we're on or off.

Amy Jen Su:

And then the last thing is I hope everyone still works on gracious boundaries, because when the rubber hits the road like work doesn't happen in a vacuum. And so how do we still graciously be able to greet somebody and say hey, sejal, I got your note, I got your request. It's so great to hear from you. I hear the urgency, but really Joe on my team now is handling that set of things, and so I'm going to redirect you to him and he'll be able to help answer your question quickly. Because if we're going to raise our game, we have to raise the game of others, and that means we need to find more and more ways not only to delegate and empower, but to graciously reset our rules of engagement with other people.

Sejal Pietrzak:

That's really smart.

Monica Enand:

That's a really good one, a really good, powerful one. In fact, I wrote some little cheat sheet for myself of like things I would say when people would ask me and how I would respond in a gracious way, because sometimes it's so hard to say no at that moment, and so if you have that kind of prepared, I had like a little and then I would just cut and paste and then I would edit because it was like okay, I want to remind myself that I want to. It makes it easier to say you know, I can't do that, or here's someone else, or here's when I can do that. If you have those little gracious entries to to the conversation.

Amy Jen Su:

That's a great idea, right? Just sometimes people can't find the words or the phrases. So having that cheat sheet is so vital, and it's the paradox of success. Everyone probably listening to your show is a high performer, right? So the more successful you are, the more in demand you are, and suddenly everyone's coming to find you from all over the place, which is why it's an important area to continue to build skill in, because the requests are only going to keep coming in, absolutely.

Monica Enand:

So, Amy, you talked about you were a consultant in a prior life and then you had this conversation and you got into the own the room. Can you talk about changing careers? A lot of people come to me and say I'm really scared. I feel like maybe I need a career change, but I'm really scared and I don't know whether I should or not. How did you manage through that, those changes, those big transitions?

Amy Jen Su:

Monica, that's a great question. That was a hard period of life, right when we are in a role or in a job, like for me, I knew that I was a square peg in a round hole, or whatever the term is. It just absolutely was, you know, not authentic to me. I could do the job, I got competent at it, but I really felt very little juice, and so there was a point where, honestly, sometimes it takes something to happen in life. I'd had a snowboarding accident that put me into physical therapy and I had to take a little bit of a leave of absence. So you have a lot of time to think about. Okay, life is short. I'm really not happy in this role, and it is fear and I'll never forget.

Amy Jen Su:

A very dear friend sent me the book Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway, and that book so anyway in terms of great resources is one I still come back to every time. Somewhere deep inside I know it's time to make a change, but I'm scared, right. So part of our work developmentally, I just think, as humans, is how do I get comfortable with the feeling of fear, how do I grow my ability to sit in the discomfort zone and rather than saying I have to make some big leap. Then what are the baby steps I need to get there? And every day, let me just take one next action that gets me a little closer to my new North Star. And so at the time right, I had an accident. I knew I was really unhappy. I knew I wanted to make a change. And the other thing I knew was I always loved human psychology. My parents always said that since I was a young child, I always had a phone attached to my ear listening to all my friends' problems. And it was right.

Amy Jen Su:

At the time, the field of coaching was just beginning to emerge, and so somewhere there was a voice inside that was like you really need to go for this right. And then, when you play out your BATNA, what's your absolute worst case scenario? Okay, I hang a shingle for a year. I can't make enough money to pay the bills. Then I go back and find another job. So I literally gave myself a year to live off savings. I literally told everyone in the world I knew I'm happy to coach practice. Your brother, uncle, cousin, sister, doesn't matter. I just want to see if I like coaching, if I'm any good at it, and what will happen, and literally, year over year, just the next goal, the next goal, the next rock, the next rock. And here I am, 20 years later, truly in the work I was meant to do and sort of a belief. We were all gifted or crafted in a way to do what you're made for, and I'd rather do this imperfectly than live somebody else's life.

Monica Enand:

Oh, I think that's a very powerful statement. I'd rather do this imperfectly than live somebody else's life Well. Thank you so much, amy. It was great to have you on the podcast today. I know you have benefited. I know you've made immeasurable changes to my life and Sejal's life and have benefited our careers tremendously and many people that we know, and so I'm confident that our listeners will get some of the benefits of your wisdom and your deep practice that you've been working on for so long. Thank you so much for again being on the show.

Sejal Pietrzak:

Thanks, Monica and thanks Georgiana, our executive. Long Thank you so much for again being on the show. Thanks, monica and thanks Georgiana, our executive producer.

Amy Jen Su:

Thank you both. It was great to see you both and thank you for what you're doing here For all your listeners and all the episodes that you've put out there. I've been listening and they're all great, so I hope everyone like goes to check out the different episodes and which one speaks to them. Thanks so much, amy.

Georgianna Moreland:

That's a wrap. Thank you for listening today. We would love for you to follow and subscribe. Monica and Sejo would love to hear from you. You can text us directly from the link in the show notes of this episode. You can also find us on the LinkedIn page at Masterstroke Podcast with Monica Enid and Sejo Petrzak. Until next time.