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SPEAKER_02Well, welcome back to the Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast. I'm Kristen Frym, one of the consultants at our company. And today I actually get to talk with a friend, Sarah Bragg, who recently just dropped her third book, which is wonderful. I have read it. But the reason why I'm so excited about this conversation is because Sarah and I have actually been friends for a number of years. Our paths have crossed in different types of ministry settings. So it's been really fun to see the different milestones that have happened in her life over the past years and be able to celebrate that with her. But before we get into the content of today's conversation, I would love for you, Sarah, just to share a little bit about who you are, what makes you tick, where you're at in life, and anything else that feels important.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I'm super excited to hang out. Well, I'm really excited to meet your audience, but I'm just so excited to get to hang out. Anytime I can hang out with a friend, I am like sign me up for it. So I'm happy to be here. Um, so yeah, I am in my mid 40s and I am a writer and a podcaster. Have spent many, many years working in church world or in nonprofit world, um, creating curriculum, um, working with leaders and small group leaders and just helping develop people. Um, in fact, Kristen, you and I, our paths should have crossed when we were like 21 years old back in California. We both worked at churches back then. Right. Yeah. And we had all these connections, yet somehow we didn't meet until we were both in Atlanta. So um I do feel like we have such a good connection. Um, but yeah, so I I have a podcast called Surviving Sarah. And um basically I just am like surviving myself all the time, learning how to be better, um, to grow, to develop, to change. And so I love having conversations with people who are smart and can help me do that. So I'm always kind of going into a conversation, going, so I'm just asking for a friend, but how do I, you know? So that's really the nature of that show. Um, and then writer, I my most recent book is Is Everyone Happier Than Me? And I feel like it really speaks to where we are in life right now, not only if you're in midlife, but really at any phase. I feel like the happiness charts, if we were to chart happiness in America, especially, I think we're all tracking a little low and trying to find that. So I really wanted to lean into that and ask a lot of questions and see why we're feeling this way and and how we can how we can feel better and feel more connected. So, and and my family, we live in Tennessee now, no longer in Atlanta with you, but I have two teenage girls and my husband and I live here in Tennessee.
SPEAKER_02I love that. I when you first told me, I don't know how many months ago it was, the title of your book, is everyone happier than me? I just thought that was such an appropriate title, which maybe that feels like interesting, you know, even talking about a topic like that on a leadership podcast. But I think we would all be fooling ourselves if we have not at least once, twice, or three times asked, is everyone happier than me? And I feel like, I don't know, I feel like you could speak to this and I could be so off base. But when we get into leadership roles, we, you know, there's this persona or this, you know, people assume that you've now somehow arrived or you've somehow made it, or you've somehow achieved. So of course you're happy, and of course, but I think even in those roles, we still are asking ourselves, but is everyone happier than me? Because now I've gotten here, but now, but now what? Like, is there something else? But before we go kind of down that road, like, where did this book like come from? How, how, why this title, why this topic, why is this important?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I I feel like I the the idea came to me um after coming out of the pandemic. So after spending, you know, a year in shutdown and homeschooling my kids because they weren't allowed to go back to school. And um, and I had to write my my second book during that shutdown. And so, and then at the end of all of that, we decided to move from Atlanta, which had just felt like home for so many years. I'd spent my whole really adult life there. Um, we moved to Tennessee to where I grew up and uprooted my girls who were middle school at the time and moved them. And so I feel like when the dust sort of settled in 2021, about the fall of 2021, I just really felt so unhappy. And people would see me. It's kind of what you were just alluding. Oh my gosh, are you just you have to be so happy? Like, don't you just feel so happy? You, you, your book came out and it was a bestseller and you moved to this gorgeous property, all these things. And I was like, Yeah, I'm so happy. And but inside, I was like, I am not happy, like not one to right. And I I felt very burnt out, which I think a lot of us are feeling that way. Um, especially if you've been, you know, in these leadership roles that that your audience is in, you're probably feeling very tapped out after surviving those 2020, 2021. Um, and so much is changing and emotions are so high, and so much is being pulled uh or put on us and pulled in different directions. And I was feeling very much that way. And so I just really started um, I don't know, saying no to certain things that I didn't have to do because I was like, something has to change in me. And so what I began to see over the next year was just sort of searching for what I was looking for and started to really recognize a lot of the questions that were keeping me up at night. I don't know if that's just a like, hey, welcome to your 40s. You're not gonna wake up every night at 3 a.m. But that is just sort of where I am. And so every night it was sort of like taking a Rolodex of fears and thinking, okay, what do I really want to ruminate on tonight? Let's do some mental aerobics and think about all the things. And so I started paying attention to those questions that were keeping me up at night and really looking at how that was affecting my happiness and my sense of peace and my sense of connection. Um, and so that's really where this book came from was I think I'm not the only one. And I really want to write a book that is honest and really vulnerable and kind of really talks about what I think a lot of us are feeling right now and how we don't have to stay that way. And how it's not a three-step formula, like if you just do these three things, you'll always be happy. It's not that, but it is some things that you can try to build happiness into your life and to build that sense of connection. Because really what I learned through it all is that happiness comes down to connection. The more connect connected I am to myself and to others, I feel like your level, my level of happiness would go up, would go up. And so that's really what the book is all about.
SPEAKER_02Ooh, that's really good. There's a few, um, I really like that. There's a few landmines that you talked about in the early chapters, and I was sort of taking notes to myself as I was reading it. And you gave this example pretty early on about, I think, which we all can relate to this, but I think you were maybe elementary school where you talked about gold stars. Remember when we were all in, maybe you could have been older than that, but when we were all in school, and you know, there's our there's our name with the line next to it, and every time we achieve something, you get a gold star. You achieve one more thing, you get a gold star. Do the dishes, gold star. A in your math class, gold star. Feed the dog, gold star. And on and on and on and on. And I think for especially anybody in a leadership position, we are natural achievers, we are natural born leaders, we naturally want as many gold stars as possible. So we all can understand and relate to that on various levels. But then you sort of turned the corner in the story and got to the point where it's like, but then I you these are my words, not yours, but it was, but then I achieved all of the gold stars. And then what? I had no more gold stars left to achieve. Like now, where do I get those gold stars? And I feel like that's just a sentiment that I know I can relate to that. Like now what? I like what else can I achieve? And when you feel like, wait, I have nothing left to achieve, or I don't see anything immediately around me where I can achieve. So now I'm gold star at less. Like, what does that? I mean, we all understand what that's like. So what does that do to us when we get it to that? Like, how does that affect us?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. The the word that kept coming or the feeling and word that kept coming to mind for me was feeling stuck. Like when I hit that point, I'm like, oh, I like achieved all I got all the gold stars, I was doing all the right things and I made it. And then you're kind of looking around, well, well, now what? And now I don't know where to go. I don't know how to go forward because there's no other gold stars to get on this. Like I don't know how to go any further with this. And so for me, I felt really stuck and feeling like I don't, well, I just don't know how to take a step forward because I don't really even know what direction to take. Um, and so it, and I think and we can all attest, it really does affect your sense of happiness. Cause if you have gotten a lot of sense of happiness from what you achieve and you're no longer achieving things, then that really can inform your worth and your sense of identity and your sense of well-being. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. And so I I think for me, it was really starting to highlight my need for gold stars. Like that was paid me number one. Like, okay, I need to kind of tackle why I need gold stars and doing some introspective work around that. Um, and then starting to, I don't like to enjoy the process, right? I want to get to that, I want to get to that end. I want to get to that star. I want to get to the shining thing. And so I really had to start looking at the process as that's part of the purpose. Like, oh, okay, this what you're doing that's leading to those gold stars. There's some some merit in that and starting to highlight the progress and taking note of the progress and maybe even like putting some gold stars on the progress versus the end result. Um, I think was very helpful for me in that way. Um, and so yeah, I definitely think we are what I think our our country is a is wired for productivity and achievement. And so it's it's no wonder that all of us in leadership roles can get really burnt out when we go, I've been achieving for so long, and it's not giving me what I wanted. And so I think when you get to that place, you have to go, okay, well, I need to really shift what it is that I want. Like, what is it that I really want? I mean, I think it's gold stars, but let's start pulling back the layers and seeing what is underneath that and how I can tap into that instead of just achieving the gold stars. It's a lot, and again, that's why it's like there's not a three-step process here. This is just some introspective work that it takes that curiosity really can be your best friend through this process.
SPEAKER_02Right, right, absolutely. You said something that was um so insightful in the book, and I thought, oh my gosh, I have never ever thought of it like this before. But when we are in this achieving mindset, and then um I think for so many of us, that leads to this idea of needing to be perfect and this perfectionist mindset, and you were sort of unpacking that a little bit, and you talked about perfectionism being a defense mechanism, and I have honestly I have never ever thought of perfectionism in that way. So I would love for you just to put some kind of context around that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, I really feel like so much of so if we get to this point and we've been achieving, sometimes our motivation to achieve so much, again, is is because it informs who I think I am and it informs the value that I think that I have to offer. And so if we get to a point where we are not achieving, the first thing that many of us feel is shame. And it feels, you know, it's not, you know, it's shame is me, is when you ever you're saying, I am this, like I am a failure. Well, I didn't, you know, I didn't achieve that thing. I didn't reach that goal. So I am a failure. That is a shame statement. And so when it comes to perfectionism, the way that it is this defensive mechanism is I imagine it as I'm putting on armor to protect myself. I want to be defensive. I'm gonna protect myself from feeling that sense of shame. So if I if I'm perfect and I perform just right or just perfectly and do all the right things in all the right ways, then I won't feel shame because I'm going to succeed exactly the right way every time. And so it's really trying to arm yourself from feeling worthless, from feeling that sense of shame. And so I and that that shows up in my life in so many areas. Not only can it show up in my work, but it can show up in just my self-image and how I present myself to the world, all of that. I can so easily begin to wear perfectionism as armor so that I can protect myself from feeling worthless or from feeling that sense of shame.
SPEAKER_02That's really good. So, how do you I feel like so many people can relate to that, whether we've put language around that or not? But what I guess, what advice would you have? Or how do you begin to, I guess, take the armor off or maybe even undo some of your thinking, some of our thinking around just that idea.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I think that awareness is the first thing. So becoming more aware of those tendencies. So I can start to feel you can feel it in yourself. First of all, you can feel you know, shame, you can actually feel physical things with shame. Maybe your face gets red, maybe you start to sweat, maybe you feel hot. Um, there's different things like that. So I've learned to feel that when I start to feel like, oh, I gotta start like being perfect, I gotta start doing this. And then go, oh, wait, hold on. I'm aware, I see it. And then I have to go. There's a couple of things. The next step for me is what is the story I'm telling myself about that? So if you do this thing perfectly, then everyone will think you're a really great leader. Like, what is that story you're telling? Or if I if I don't do this just right, if I don't achieve this thing or get promoted in this way, people are gonna think that I'm really not good at my job. Like it's usually tied around um perception, other people's perception. So if I can get to what story I'm telling myself about other people's perception as related to this, that's the next step. And then I have to fact check it. I really have to go, like, um, like for for for me, like I can go, has anyone not been my friend because I didn't reach that goal? Like, has that ever actually happened? Right. I have to like really fact check that in that way. Um, and that's really the sort of the process for me is that awareness, and then what is the story you're telling yourself and fact check. And then I've I've just recently, this is a I love phrases. My my second book, every single chapter was a different phrase. I love telling myself phrases. It's the best way for me to start really remembering. And I I was talking to a friend um from my podcast, and and she brought she said this phrase, and I I have it on a post-it right here on my windowsill, and it says, I choose to show up bravely, flawed, and full of hope. And for me as a perfectionist tendencies, showing up flawed is really scary. So that's where I want to put on the armor. Right. But the truth is we got to show up as we are and and risk being flawed and risk not achieving what I want to achieve, or risk failing at something or not reaching the goal, because that's where it's at, that's where it's at. Like you, I I want to be able to show myself fully to you as my friend and you like me for all of me. If I otherwise it's just an inauthentic or fake relationship, or you know, and so I think if we can get to that point where we are choosing to show up bravely, flawed and full of hope, that is taking the armor off.
SPEAKER_02That's so good. And it is so interesting. I mean, gosh, how many times am I so guilty of walking into a room, especially a room full of new people, trying to project someone that that maybe I'm actually not really that person, but I think that's what the room, room wants me to be. So, and it's so based on whatever fear I have, whatever imaginary storyline I've told myself about the people in this room and what they do or don't like. And so, but you're so right, but that is so incredibly exhausting. I mean, do you know how tired I am when I walk into a room to try to be someone I am not? That is very exhausting. How much more freeing and how much more um just gosh, easier it is just to be myself. And then everyone gets to make a decision whether they like the actual version of me or not. Right.
SPEAKER_01And that's scary. It is scary, which it makes sense why we would put the armor on, right? Because we don't want to, we don't want to feel the rejection from that. But right, but it is a better place to live when you can show up just as you are and go, okay, like, or I, you know, here I am in this job, in this role, and I'm not I'm not hitting the marks where I'm supposed to be hitting the marks. And that's scary because there's so many things tied to that. But gosh, we have to start taking the armor off and learning to just show up bravely, flawed, and full of hope.
SPEAKER_02Right, right. Gosh, I love that phrase. It makes me want to put it on a post-it in my house. Put it on your wall. Put it on your wall in front of your desk. Put it on my wall. Um, the other phrase that you use, which is making me think about um this conversation, is you use this phrase, we need to learn to become emotionally literate. And which I think is such an important point to make because there's probably a misconception that if you are someone who leads with your emotions, you you kind of get written off. Oh, you're just emotional. Or, and if you or you know, that's just you have bigger feelings, or if you're someone who leads with your thinking, then you get a free pass to ignore all of those emotions. Yeah. But the reality is that regardless of how you naturally lead as a thinker or a feeler, we all have a responsibility to be emotionally literate in these processes. So unpack just that that term and where that came from.
SPEAKER_01Well, I feel like for me, growing up in growing up in the South, growing up in a, you know, a Baptist church, like there was a lot of emphasis in the 80s and the 90s of just that feelings are you're not supposed to feel those things. If you can feel happy or joy or peace, like these like nice feelings, but you cannot feel the negative feelings. And if you're too emotional, that's not good. If you're showing your emotions, that's not good. Again, except if you're happy, like you can be, you know, and so there was just so much of this that that these feelings are not good feelings. So we don't want to feel those feelings. Like if you really like have Jesus in your heart, then you won't feel sad. Like it really sort of, and you're going, okay, but these are just these are just normal feelings that if you are human and you are breathing, you're gonna have all these feelings. The feelings, there's there's not that you shouldn't ever feel these feelings. That's just you're just gonna feel a feeling. Um, no feeling is final. There's gonna be joy and there's gonna be grief. There's gonna be happy, there's gonna be sadness. Like you're gonna, they're but they're gonna ebb and flow because that's what feelings do. And so I feel like as I raised my girls um when they were little, I was so afraid of them being sad or upset and just kept trying. And then so my response to them really started to highlight my need to be emotionally literate and to know to like I I can remember sitting in a therapist's office and she's like, Well, what are you feeling? I'm like, I don't know. And like she pulled out a feeling chart, and I was like, Oh my gosh, there's like 700 feelings. I didn't know, I was like, I just know like two, like yeah. And so I just there's so much to us that we have to like learn when it comes to emotions and and really reshaping our thoughts towards it. And do you know it like kind of what you said like just because you feel does not make you less than, or just because you're a thinker doesn't make you greater than, like, we need both. Things. And that what you know, if you can lead in a way that honors those things, I think you're going to lead people in a much better way because you're going to allow people to be who they are and to show up as they are. And when you are more emotionally literate, you'll be able to understand where someone's coming from more. That just all that does is build your empathy and build your compassion, which makes you a better leader. We all want to be led by people who are empathetic and compassionate, that can also think logically and reasonably, but that can feel what we feel and identify that in us. I think it, I think it makes a really great leader who can do both of those things.
SPEAKER_02Right. I mean, and on the flip side, we all know what that's like to encounter somebody who's emotionally illiterate because it constantly leaves us with this feeling of, well, they don't understand, or gosh, I feel so misunderstood, or why even bother having this conversation? They're never gonna get it, or they're so emotionally callous. So that's the flip side of it, which we all know what it's like when we encounter someone like that. So I feel like when we put in the work and really understand how to be emotionally literate, that's when it creates exactly what you were saying. Those me, I always call them those me too moments. It's like oh you too, and when you can create a me too moment, oh you feel that way, me too. Oh, you experience that? Okay, good, me too. I mean, the trust that's established, the connectedness that's established when all of that happens. I mean, why wouldn't we want to fight for those things? So I just feel like there's so much good that comes out of just put in the work. It's okay if you're a thinker. I'm a thinker. That is how I make all of my decisions. I think first, feel second. That does not give me a path to be illiterate with emotions and feelings.
SPEAKER_01Right. Yes. Well, and the thing about feelings, I mean, again, I learned so much of this when my girls were little, but you know, it's that it's like the IQ versus the EQ, the emotional intelligence. And that you're you are born with your IQ, but your EQ is to you develop it. Like it is not something that you're like, gosh, well, I've I guess I'm just never gonna be empathetic. Like I'm just never gonna know how to be compassionate. No, like these are all things that muscles that you can flex and you can build. It doesn't matter if you didn't grow up in a in a home that fostered that or in a you know, play like a church or a school that fostered that. You you have opportunities to build that. Um, even now in your mid-40s as an adult, like we can build those whenever we are, wherever we are.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's such a good point. Yes. Oh my gosh, that's such a good point. Um, before we wrap up, I want to backtrack to something that we were talking about sort of near the beginning of this conversation, because I think it's really important and will be really helpful. We were when we were talking about the idea of feeling, or you were talking about the idea of feeling stuck once we get to the spot where we can no longer achieve. And so one of the things that you put into place for you, which I think is so incredibly helpful, or just a tip that you shared was celebrating progress and celebrating, you know, the so practically, I don't know if you have any examples, and maybe this isn't even a fair question, but what like what does that look like celebrating? Like, how how do we celebrate the the progress? Because I'm pretty confident there are plenty of people listening to this conversation who are probably sitting in this space right now, going, What the heck kind of progress am I supposed to even be celebrating right now? So put some put some legs on that.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Well, I mean, like for instance, I don't, I feel like I'm terrible at celebrating achievement. As much as I want to achieve all the things, the moment I hit it, I'm like, okay, what's next? Like, what's next? Like, because again, it's like this sense of like you can't ever stop and just celebrate it and go, oh, look at that. Look what you did. Like, you gotta always be thinking about what's next. So for like this book, it just came out in the world yesterday. And I really made myself go, you're gonna sit and you're gonna like just enjoy today. Like you're not gonna think about the next book you're gonna write. You're not gonna think about, you're just going to sit with this and soak in the celebration. Um, and so I feel like I've kind of learned, you know, I there's we see this played out in other ways. Like if you have an Apple Watch, your watch is gonna celebrate your progress. It's going to like every hour and you stood, it's gonna be like, hey, look at you. You stood this hour. Great job. Like that, like you still have to get to 12 hours for the day, but every hour it's celebrating. That is like such a visual image to me of celebrating the progress. So it's like, let's build in certain points that we can get to along the way and that we can celebrate. Um, and maybe it looks like every month you take a minute and you look back on that month at what you were working on. Um, so if you're working towards a certain goal or you're working on a certain big project, like look at that month and go, look at what I did. Let's look at this thing. Let's look and see where we're going versus month after month, and you're like, I'm still not there. I'm still not there. Well, like, let's look at what we did achieve in this little section of what we're working on and and celebrate that. Let's let's do it that way. Um, I talk about in the book when it comes to goal setting. I I read a book, I ironically, it was called Finish by John A. Cuff. And I didn't actually finish the book, ironically, but I did take one thing away from it. Um, he talked about cutting your goals in half because sometimes we set these like really extreme goals. We want to do this big thing by this time, and then it's it's a little bit like biting off more than we can chew. And so I feel like part of that is taking that goal and going, okay, I'm gonna cut it in half. And then when you reach that, you're gonna probably reach that goal and you can celebrate that, and then you can kick that out a little bit further. If you always, you know, I'll say I, you know, everybody has different goals. Like this is a hobby goal for me. I wanted to, I want to read like 50 books, you know. I'm okay, I'm gonna cut that in half. We're gonna read 25. Well, you know, I'm probably gonna exceed 25, but I'm gonna celebrate when I hit 25, and then I'm gonna keep going. So I feel like that's a way to, you know, whatever that goal is, break it down into smaller places, smaller milestones to celebrate so that you can just be able to acknowledge the work you've done along the way.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's such a good idea. I know we love achieving, we love writing down these basically impossible goals. And then we wonder why we've never we've never achieved them. So that's fun.
SPEAKER_01And then you get discouraged and you're like, well, I guess I shouldn't do that. Right.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Well, it's your fault. Your goal was too big. Um, okay. Very, very, very, very last question. What advice would you give to your 20-something year old self, knowing what you know now?
SPEAKER_01Oh man, go to therapy. Is that like that's I feel like that is like a big one. Um, I think that when it comes to even this topic, I think I thought I would have it all figured out by 40 and going, that was felt like such a deadline. Speaking of goals, like it was like, oh, you've got to like, you know, achieve all this by 40. You've got to do all that and kind of going, uh, newsflash life keeps going. As long as you're still living, like you still have years and years and years ahead of you. So let's just like dial it back and not stress so much about feeling like there was this major deadline of what you have to achieve or how you have to look or all these things about 40, and sort of dial it back and start building in these little pieces that build happiness, like really focusing in on that connection piece, connecting with myself, connecting with others, and how that builds happiness versus oh, you've got to like achieve these things by this point, and then you're going to have all the happiness in the world. Like I kind of feel like I lived that way. Um, that if I could just get, you know, I was published my first time by the time I was 25, that's a pretty great achievement. Um, but you know what? It didn't last. The happiness didn't last, you know, from that. And so really figuring out how I can make sure I'm connecting with myself and connecting with others. And I think that's gonna go a long way in that sense of happiness and in your life.
SPEAKER_02That's so good. You can buy Sarah's latest book, Is Everyone Happier Than Me? You can find Sarah on her podcast, Surviving Sarah. We will link to all of this so you can connect with her. But Sarah, thank you so much for having this conversation. I just think it's just wildly helpful for regardless of where you're at in life. There's something that we can all learn from, honestly, to help us be better humans. So thank you.
SPEAKER_01Uh, thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for listening to the Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast. At Theater Bloomen, we help organizations build their best teams through hiring, succession, culture, compensation, and diversity solutions. Visit our website, theaderblumen.com to learn more and subscribe to our Vaterblumen Leadership podcast.