Naturally High

In this thought-provoking episode of Naturally High, Jeanne welcomes leadership coach, HR consultant, and Overflow founder Kimberly Snider for an honest conversation about the intersection of leadership, mental health, addiction, and emotional well-being in the workplace.

Together, they unpack the difference between self-care and self-soothing, why high-achieving leaders often feel responsible for rescuing everyone around them, and how psychological safety creates the conditions for healing, accountability, and authentic leadership.

Drawing from Kimberly’s years of experience supporting executives and organizations, as well as Jeanne’s expertise in addiction, trauma, and recovery, this conversation explores what compassionate leadership really looks like—and why leaders don't need perfect answers to make a meaningful difference.

Rather than fixing people, this episode invites us to become curious, create safe spaces, and empower others to access the support they truly need.

In this episode, you'll learn:
  • The difference between self-care and self-soothing, and why the distinction matters
  • How stress, burnout, and addiction can quietly show up in high-performing professionals
  • Why leaders often feel pressure to rescue others—and why that isn't sustainable
  • How asking better questions is more powerful than having perfect answers
  • What psychological safety actually looks like in the workplace
  • Why emotional struggles deserve the same compassion as physical injuries
  • How confidentiality, dignity, and agency support meaningful recovery
  • The importance of listening, presence, and curiosity when someone is struggling
  • Why leaders should connect people with resources rather than become the resource themselves
  • How workplaces can better support employees navigating mental health, addiction, grief, or life crises

About Kimberly Snider
Kimberly Snider is a leadership coach, HR consultant, motivational speaker, and founder of Overflow. She helps ambitious professionals and organizations lead with confidence, navigate difficult conversations, prioritize well-being, and create sustainable success without sacrificing themselves in the process.

Through executive coaching, consulting, and the Overflow Podcast, Kimberly empowers leaders to move beyond burnout by integrating wisdom, authenticity, and practical leadership strategies into both their work and personal lives.


Resources discussed in this episode:
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Contact Jeanne Foot | The Recovery Concierge: 
Contact Kimberly Snider | Overflow

Creators and Guests

Host
Jeanne Foot
KS
Guest
Kimberly Snider
Kimberly Snider is a leadership coach, HR consultant, motivational speaker, and founder of Overflow.

What is Naturally High?

On Naturally High you’ll receive transformational tools and hear inspirational stories that will guide you into holistically healing trauma in every corner of your life. You deserve to invoke your inner healer. I'm so glad you're here!

219 - Overdrive to Overflow.mp3

Jeanne: [00:00:06] Hello and welcome back to another episode of Naturally High. And today I have a special guest, Kimberly Snyder, a leadership coach, HR consultant, and dynamic confidence builder. Kimberly is dedicated to helping smart, high achieving professionals and leaders navigate conversations and probably difficult ones. I would say design their future and prioritize self-care without burning out. As a founder of Overflow, host of the Overflow Podcast, she empowers ambitious professionals to lead with confidence, integrate wisdom with authenticity and aligned strategy with their dreams, intuition, and big goals. Kimberly has coached professionals from engineers to executives, hosted high end strategic thinkers beyond the boardroom, and inspired thousands through her Overflow podcast, a space designed to refuel your mind, heart and soul. She is a sought after motivational speaker and strategist, known for her bold yet compassionate approach to leadership and career growth. So welcome, Kimberly.

Kimberly: [00:01:10] I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you very much.

Jeanne: [00:01:13] I'm thrilled to have you because we've had some meaty conversations on your podcast, Overflow around how trauma and all of our humanness reaches into our professional life, and you deal with that in a very senior role. And so how does self-care versus self-soothing look in leadership?

Kimberly: [00:01:39] I do have this philosophy called Overflow, which is meant to inspire us to fill ourselves up. And when we take care of ourselves, then we are able to lead, make decisions, you know, work under pressure when we have taken care of ourselves first. I think we do it much better. And I would say, really? Jeanne, when our podcast was first started in the pandemic, it was really for one person and one person that I worked with in the pandemic, who was a leader, who had a team, a business. She had parents and she had kids, and she was right there in the pandemic trying to solve it all. And she said, you know what? I'm really embarrassed because when I put out my recycling, all the wine bottles are overflowing in the recycling bin. And so she was self-soothing. And so I think that's where I thought, you know what, we need a podcast, something on the airwaves to help people consider their self-soothing. And then there's self care. And self-soothing is not helping you or your team or your business make decisions, all the things if you are self-soothing. And so that's sort of where Overflow and my philosophy, that's where it comes from my heart is how do we take care of you and find ways for you to take care of yourself? And that's where I think you and I dovetail in the self-soothing.

Jeanne: [00:03:12] Absolutely. And it's not the first time I've heard that, that people say, I'm burying bottles in my blue box, or I'm taking them out and driving them to a dump or something because they're so embarrassed. Yes. And I think that's a very concrete signal of alarm bells going off for an individual like, yeah, I don't want anybody else to see this. It's bad enough. I know I have to deal with it, but let alone really admitting it. And bringing light to it. So in your people and culture in the HR world, which is where and senior leadership roles, what are the most common leadership 911 problems that you could really help identify for some people because they may be so obvious to you, but maybe not to some of our listeners.

Kimberly: [00:03:58] Yeah, such a great question. So I really do think about my role as leadership 911. And so certainly, yeah, we talk about the strategic decisions and the vision and where we're headed and all the things. But I always say, you know what? Just like you would pull the fire alarm, the call, the fire department up here where I am, it would be 911. I was just talking to Ireland. Apparently it's oh gosh. 888 I think. Anyways, if you have a leadership 911 that's where they're picking up the phone and they're saying, I'm not sure what to do. They've really gotten themselves into a position or somebody's on edge or something critical is happening. And I would say sort of two key things, Jeanne. One is leaders thinking they have to have it perfectly, sort of like sorted out. They have to have the perfect words. And two, they have to rescue people.

Jeanne: [00:04:57] Right? And they think they have to be an expert in everything when they don't.

Kimberly: [00:05:01] Well, and they and probably the achiever in them, the high achiever probably they are quite smart, quite capable. They probably have solved a lot of problems to get to where they are. And if either it's a lot of times someone on their team is struggling, someone on their team needs help. And so they are. What are the perfect words? What is the thing I'm going to say to help them turn around to help solve their problem or their self-soothing.

Jeanne: [00:05:29] Or their emergency?

Kimberly: [00:05:30] Yeah. Or their addictive or their addictive qualities. So what's the perfect message? What are the perfect words? And to how do I rescue them? And that's the trouble I think leaders get into. Um, and I would say, you know, we don't need to be, we need to be living our own life and taking care of our own selves. And we need to be curious and helping the other person be resourceful, but rescuing them or telling them what you would do, how you have done it. Um, you know what your advice is. I believe that's not the role of the leader. When someone is struggling with addiction or self-soothing or whatever it is, the role of the leader is to not have the perfect words. I would even say, be quiet, listen, ask questions. And then in terms of rescuing them, could we think of how can we help them become resourceful? So in my experiences with leaders, you know, when they say, oh, they should just, you know, make a doctor's appointment, it's possible that making a doctor's appointment, raising your hand, picking up the phone is difficult for that person. So what can we offer them? What community or what resources might they have around them? And so it's asking them questions. It's not picking up the phone and calling 911, or calling the ambulance or making the doctor's appointment for them. Which leaders generally, if they see someone not able to do something in their role, a lot of times they just jump in and they rescue and they do the thing. But when it comes to your work and the work you do with people, I don't think that's the role of the leader. Would you agree? You would agree, right?

Jeanne: [00:07:12] Absolutely. I think there's probably a sudden expectation upon a leader that this is like their if they're in a leadership role, they must do all the things. And that's not realistic. Number one, it's not healthy. Number two. And also misinformation can be dangerous, right? So what happens is in this kind of role, I think when we're looking and enlisting help of any kind, whether it's substance abuse issues or we're in a crisis of something, a leader's role is to support them by providing psychological safety for them and letting them know that this looks a little messy right now, but we're going to figure this out. Letting them know there's some humility in that. I don't have the answers. I'm not supposed to have all the answers, but I'm going to fellow journey with you through this messy part. Okay. I think that's one part. I think we also have to by doing that, we give agency to the person who's suffering to say, okay, you've got some resources here. You know, it's not a top-down approach that I always say that we it's a do with process, not a do to process. It's like doctors and, you know, we have this hierarchy in medicine where we outsource our, our health to another professional. Yes. A doctor is practical, knows more than we do in a sudden moment of a medical crisis. However, we have should have some agency to ask the right questions. Is this a fit for me? How does this work for me? What do I need? So we do this by helping people find agency within themselves so that they can ask the right questions to whoever they need for the support that they need. Right?

Kimberly: [00:08:49] Right. And I mean, I love the psychological safety. So we do talk about health and safety in a workplace. Safety guidelines in a workplace. And psychological safety is important. We don't want to be so closed and not compassionate to people have lives and they have things going on. So we want to have the safety that someone can come in a workplace and say, I'm having a hard time, or there's something going on that I don't know how to deal with, or I wish I knew, or I'm going to cry, or I need the day off or whatever it is. So we want to create the psychological safety that they can come. But it's the overextension of the leader taking their responsibility of a leader way... it's like the pendulum has swung too far. That doesn't mean you need to drive them to. I mean, if we're in an emergency situation, we need to be calling 911. But if it's not an emergency situation, driving them to an appointment, you know, setting up appointments, telling them they need to do this and do this. That is not our realm. So thank you for coming to me. And how can we help? So does the company have benefits, you know, employee assistance program where we could say, I'm going to step out of the room. You can call the employee benefits where they get access to a professional. And that's EAP Employee Assistance Program. So could we do that? Do I need to give you the afternoon off? If I gave you the afternoon off, would that be helpful? Could someone come and get you and drive you to a professional, a doctor, whatever you know, you might need? And so it's just not overextending on our sense of responsibility over that person because it, it is messy. And as we talked about on our Overflow podcast episode, I mean, there's so many other things that could be going on in people's lives that they, they've not walked my life and my experiences and me overlaying my life, my experiences, my advice on what I think I would tell you to do. I. I don't think I don't think it's helpful.

Jeanne: [00:10:51] Well, we bring in our own set of biases into an equation, and I think that is absolutely detrimental to someone when we come with biases, rather than if we have a loved one who suffered with addiction, or we have a loved one who's lost somebody or being diagnosed with cancer or whatever it may be in the workplace. We can't always assume that just because we have a an experience of it, that it's the same for that individual. And we have to remain neutral in that and help them. But you bring up a really important part. Like it's very much like trauma, like in trauma in medicine, we know that we know what to do with physical trauma, emergency accident, somebody in a motor vehicle accident, they know exactly what to do. You end up at Sunnybrook in Toronto and they know how to deal with it. Medicine has been very late to catch up with emotional trauma, and it's the same with psychological safety. We know you say you have a healthy safety. You probably have a handbook on what to do in medical crisis or whatever. You know, health and safety, how to keep people safe. But we don't really know so much how to do that with emotional safety or psychological safety in the workplace. So what would you say are some of the tenets that you would like to see, or you think are absolutely the most important ones that are often overlooked in the workplace for safety, emotional safety?

Kimberly: [00:12:15] So good. I love the analogy of the physical ailment and sort of mental health. And so in terms of when I think about, you know, you don't have to have the perfect words, the leader is thinking, they have to say the right thing. And so, you know, for example, if they had a broken leg and we had stairs in the workplace and they returned to work, we would be trying to find workarounds. Can they take the elevator? Do we need to move their work desk to the main floor? And probably we have someone in our life that has broken an arm or a leg, and we would see, oh, they don't have a cast on anymore. Now they have a brace. Now they've got a cane, you know, to help them walk. But in terms of mental health, we can't see that, oh, they're healing or that they're broken today or they're in more pain today. We can't see the mental health. And so in terms of perfect words, this is where, you know, maybe it's not about speaking the words. Maybe it's about asking the question, what do you need? How can we help? What is in your way? What has been, you know, a trigger in the past.

Kimberly: [00:13:22] And so it's about asking the questions. And we don't need to get into the details of the mental health we don't need. When we think of a doctor's note, we don't need the X-rays and the details of all the things. And so for mental health, an invisible ailment. If we think about it in terms of the health and safety, maybe it's just asking. Maybe it's not having the perfect words. So they could be phoning me saying, okay, 911 Kimberly, what do I say? How do we help them? I don't know, but we could have a conversation with that person to say, how can we help? If they are returning to work, what might help? What might have been a trigger? And then it's a decision between what can the business do to accommodate and where can we say we don't know what to do about that? And so we're going to need some professional support.

Jeanne: [00:14:14] And I think also we need to assure whoever is asking or whoever we're helping that obviously, confidentiality goes without saying, because I think that is the biggest barrier because there's a stigma typically attached to someone who's feeling that they need some support of any kind. And I think we also have to normalize it. We have to normalize that everybody goes through seasons. We all have chapters in our life which really are darker than others. It's not just if, it's when we're all going to get it at some point in our life. So it may happen in a workplace, but the peak of your career.

Kimberly: [00:14:51] So good. Not if, when. Oh, well done, well done.

Jeanne: [00:14:53] Thank you. But I think that's part of it. Like our humanity is messy, as I always speak about that. And I think we just have to know, like this is not because you did something. It's not your fault. It's just you landed here. So now what are we going to do about it? How can we move this person forward in the most dignified and safest way possible, so that they feel like they have a chance to get better and get well?

Kimberly: [00:15:18] Yeah. That's it. I love the dignified comment. Like the dignified, authentic, like, let's be humans. We don't have to be rescuing people or carrying someone like carrying their weight. I'm sure we all have a lot going on. So yeah, we don't need to carry their weight. I think people are kind, so they want to help and they don't want to intrude. Like when I think about the team. So there is something about confidentiality. But there again, like you don't have to have the perfect words would be my counsel to a leader, but it would be offering, recommending to the leader that you have a conversation with that person returning to work. If they've been off for mental health, how can we help you? How can we support you? What are some things that you think we might do? And so they might be saying, yeah, there's something that I want to say to the team and I want to share this, but I don't want to share that or I, I want to talk about it or I don't want to talk about it. And so it's not about the leader having the answers. It's really about the leader having questions. And like you said, dignified, um, you know, authentic. Hey, I'm having a human experience. You're having a human experience and how can we help you?

Jeanne: [00:16:30] There by the grace of God go I. Right? And it happens to all of us. And I think one of the things I would add to anybody who's in a leadership position, who is asking, and this is a part of a therapeutic approach, is obviously you're building rapport. You probably have a rapport because you have a working relationship. So that's already established. We talked about safety, so that's already established, but rapport was one of it. And the other part was really presence, unbridled presence. So if you're trying to be in a helping role and you're sort of scrolling your phone or you're feeling very distracted or you're feeling impatient, it is not going to be helpful. You really need to be zoned in to that individual who's in the room at that moment, because that will have far more impact than your distraction, which can also have a detrimental impact.

Kimberly: [00:17:18] Yeah. Yeah. I would say this is where I think the often and I think out of kindness, the leaders want to give answers. They okay, I will help. I'm a smart person. I've built a business. I have, you know, they've achieved so much that they want to. And so the compassion, having that conversation, looking at them eye to eye, being present, it could actually show up as just questions listening. Gosh, that sounds hard and not necessarily saying, yeah, I'm going to carry your load for you. That sounds hard. The things we can do at work are what can I do to help you at work? Um, do you need the afternoon off? Do we need to change the environment? What are the things we can do to support you? I agree with you, Jeanne. We often say our seasons of life and it's true. There are different seasons of life. And I love the if and when if it happens to us. And it's likely when it happens to us. And so showing some, you know, beautiful humanity on how can I help and what are some of the possible solutions? But it's up to the other person, as you said, around agency to decide. I need time off. I need to go part time. I need a different job. But that is on them to decide and it's on their agency. And so it's us listening, asking questions and hoping that we can point out resources, that they can be resourceful and that they have a community around them.

Jeanne: [00:18:47] Well, you talk about something I think very important is that if we want to embrace more of our human side in these difficult moments, because there could be life changing moments for the individuals when, you know, whether it's a tragic illness or we're talking, you know, alcohol abuse or whatever dependance, these could be life changing moments for people. And I think that we need to recognize that in these moments, we have to flatten the hierarchy. There's no top down approach in these moments. I'm not a boss. I'm not. I'm a human to human. It doesn't mean what happens outside of the room is different. It can be different. But in these human moments, we need to flatten that right out because there's so much stigma in coming forward for people. So to keep it in that hierarchy of boss employee makes it even much more difficult to move forward, for sure. Yeah. So talk to me a little bit about... on Naturally High we talk a lot about nervous system regulation, as you know, and emotional sobriety. So emotional sobriety is not just about being sober. It's really having some emotional acumen of like, you know, how do we navigate these difficult moments? Right? So when you look at leaders stuck in constant 911, your leadership, 911, like they're triaging all the time mental health. How do you see nervous system dysregulation showing up in their behavior and their decision making?

Kimberly: [00:20:14] So I, so I would call it emotional intelligence. So in the workplace, I'm often helping leaders think about their emotional intelligence. And as we know in neuroscience, When they explain what emotional intelligence is, we often start with the amygdala hijack. And so the amygdala hijack is when something has gone wrong, there's an alert. Maybe actually the fire alarm bell has been pulled. It could be maybe you're in the car and you know, someone has cut you off, or someone on the team has done something wrong. Alarm bells go off. And so when that alarm goes off, it goes into your brain and it hits the amygdala, and the amygdala gets hijacked. And it's so hijacked that the access to the prefrontal cortex, the logical part of your brain is denied. And so I often talk about emotional intelligence. So in that moment of hijack, something's gone wrong. You're gonna swear you're going to say something wrong. Maybe you even notice physically, like your hands are sweat. Um, you're sometimes like, for me, it's my eyes start pulsing. Like I'm actually getting the, my heartbeat in my eyeballs. And so that is in that moment, being aware of your emotions and equally, being aware of the other person's emotions is trying to what you would call emotional regulation, where you're trying to gain access to the thinking.

Kimberly: [00:21:44] What's the logical next best step? Not just fight or freeze. And so a lot of times I'm talking about emotional intelligence and that people have different strategies. It can be something as simple as noticing. So maybe something's happening and they're just noticing. Their hands are all gripped. So you have tight fists and all of a sudden you realize, okay, and so that's just your signal to take a deep breath to maybe say to the person, um, this is a lot to take in. I need to think about it. So actually saying the words, having them pause and letting them know I'm not making a decision, I'm not going to respond at this moment. And that's just giving yourself access to your logical brain. And I would say, don't you think the emotional intelligence, getting access to your logic and calming your emotions, being aware of what's happening, wouldn't you say that is emotional regulation? Is that?

Jeanne: [00:22:37] Absolutely.

Kimberly: [00:22:38] Yeah.

Jeanne: [00:22:38] It's about really flipping the switch. If you think about it, like you want to change states as quickly as you can. Yes. And not as in an urgent way. But that's the, the goal, the ultimate goal. And so that may require slowing down to go fast. As you said, it may take a few moments of a breath. It may mean I need a moment to get back to you on that. It's okay to not know. Yes, it just may be what is required in that moment, right? And so we need to create space for that so that they can, you know, like we're asking a lot of people, I feel it's the same with corrections today. I feel it's the same with education today. I think it's the same with leadership. We live in a very complex world compared to even ten years ago. And so we're asking these people in these roles to be so much more than what they've had to be. So, you know, you say, well, why are we worried about nervous system regulation in the workplace? Because everyone is totally dysregulated. It's like children today. They're totally dysregulated as well. We live in a very fast paced world. Parents are scattered for time and attention. And so it's no different than the people who are dropping their kids off at daycare and running into work and in leadership positions, and then they're trying to deal with another set of children at a different stage of life. Do you know what I'm saying? So it's like, what is a realistic version of self-care for them? What does it look like?

Kimberly: [00:23:55] Part of, I would say Overflows philosophy. The reason it's called Overflow and sort of fill up your cup is because I think everybody Re-energizes refuels takes good self-care for different versions. I am desperate to find a guest, so let me know if you know anyone who will come on the podcast and say A bubble bath is my. I keep saying who has a bubble bath to re-energize? And most people aren't doing that. They aren't.

Jeanne: [00:24:25] Without feeling guilty.

Kimberly: [00:24:26] Right, right. They're walking in nature. They're taking a moment. So the one thing I would strongly recommend is booking what I call strategic thinking time in your calendar every week. And ideally, I would like there to be at least one hour of strategic thinking time. And I think especially for smart high achievers leaders, the more they have access to their thinking, the more they are continually practicing, having access to their brain and their thinking. You don't always need to react, respond, make a decision. There should be an hour's worth of thinking. Thinking about your thinking. Thinking about the ten year vision. Thinking about possibilities. Thinking innovatively. And so my one recommendation to leaders is book strategic thinking time. And then two is reflecting on what is it where you find joy? Where you find peace, where you find what I'm calling overflow rather than overdrive and overwhelm. And so I think that again, in terms of seasons, changes by season. So right now we're entering summer, Jeanne. Like it's beautiful weather. And so maybe your sense of self-care is making time to go for a walk, to walk in nature, to hug a tree. But I would say, you know, self-care is individual. And so whether it's I know introverts might be I'm looking forward to just having a quiet evening. I'm an extrovert. So usually my quiet evening is I've just invited over four other couples and I've picked up some beverages and some charcuterie boards. And that's my sense of refuel is by bringing the people in, which is different than other family members.

Jeanne: [00:26:16] That's beautiful.

Kimberly: [00:26:16] Yeah. Other family members are introverts, and they're wondering why a Friday night is filled with people when they've been peopling all week. And so, I mean, definitely, if you're in my leaders, I would say book strategic thinking in your calendar. And then second is really reflect in the next 90 days over this next season, what do you need? What would fill you up? What would re-energize you, refuel you?

Jeanne: [00:26:40] I think you brought up a really important part, taking time to think. You know, there's a book called Essentialism. I'm not sure if you know of it, and it's one of my favorites. And it's really about slowing down to go fast. And it's about thinking that we bought into this illusion that we can have it all. I always thought I could have it all, but at what cost? And I think we're in a society where we think, you know, everything is disposable, more accessible. We can have it all, but you can't understand where your ship is going or navigate your life unless you have a sense of your compass of where you're off to, and you can't measure what you don't manage either. So I think in part of the book, one of the, one of the most, um, they were given a reference to an international public company that was took every Monday morning, not Friday afternoon, Monday mornings. They took the first half of the day, no cell phones to just think. And they found that their productivity went up like a gazillion percent because it was counterintuitive, right? Like Monday, we got to hit the books. We got to start doing. We got to get back to these, generate the reports. Everything went on hold. Everything went on hold. And so they found by giving their employees time to think, they actually gained much more access to everything. So it's a really important concept, but I think it's a very much an overlooked concept because it feels counterintuitive. We're in a like a grind mode, right? Like gear down and grind out As opposed to flow, which I understand flow now, because you got to slow down and go fast. And it takes courage to step off and actually do that. What do you think of that when you?

Kimberly: [00:28:25] I mean, I would just double click on Monday versus Friday. You are so right. I would agree that a lot of leaders show up on Monday, generate the reports, have the huddles, do the meetings, do all the things. And then I think you're right. Yeah, probably on Friday they're looking around like, oh, what do I need to think about? And I met a woman, she was a CEO and she always had a Monday morning calendar entry called meeting with the CEO. And it was her. She had time for her 90 minutes and she would, she would sit there and she would do her thinking I, we actually were talking about, so what do you do in those 90 minutes? And it was everything from reviewing her calendar. I mean, she reviewed her where she was in her menstrual cycle. She checked her horoscope, she checked her meetings, she checked the kids schedules, and she had time to think. And imagine if you took all the things that are going on in your life. Everything. Not just what you're doing in that job, but take your life in 90 minutes. Or if they could do it in 30.

Kimberly: [00:29:33] I'm not sure. But if they could do it in 90 minutes and just pause. Okay, I'm going into my week. What meetings do I need to show up for? What do I need to prepare? What do I need? So she even thought about, if I go into this meeting, I want to think about what are going to be not only my intentional key messages, Jeanne, but she actually thought she's going to foreshadow what decisions are they going to need her to make and what might be some of her responses. So if she knew they're going to be pressuring her to make a decision in that meeting on Monday morning, she was thinking about it that if she didn't get this information, these were the things she was already preparing her script for. What she was going to say that she was not prepared to make a decision today. She was preparing for that on Monday. So I love the distinction or the double click on can we put this in our calendars on Mondays? Not not Friday afternoons at the end of the day.

Jeanne: [00:30:29] And nobody's really present at that time. They're not they're worn out. They already have decision fatigue.

Kimberly: [00:30:36] That's right.

Jeanne: [00:30:36] Because they've made 100 million decisions in the course of the week, and they're not at their best.

Kimberly: [00:30:42] Precisely. Oh my God. Decision fatigue. Exactly. I love it.

Jeanne: [00:30:47] Absolutely. So let's just switch gears for a little bit. I just want to talk to you a little bit about HR leaders. And they're the first to usually hear someone come forward and say, I'm not coping. I feel like I need some time off. I'm drinking more than I used to. Where does their responsibility begin and end? How do we teach or lead leaders to stay in their scope of practice while still being supportive.

Kimberly: [00:31:16] Gosh. Right. I mean, we want to be compassionate. And as we were saying with dignity, be good humans. But there is a line where, and even if we think more specifically in human resources leadership, when we were in the pandemic, I was part of a group where there was a number of us HR leaders where we were on the line supporting one another, because there were so many questions in the pandemic about what to do and how to do it, and rules and guidelines were evolving and changing. And so we had a support group for ourselves to check in on ourselves. And so there's a beautiful sense of compassion. I love that, and I think it's a beautiful thing. But I also think we could caution leaders, leaders and HR professionals that they are so compassionate that then now they can't sleep at night. And this is where I think we're carrying the other person. And I think that's where I want to, you know, we all have responsibility for our own choices, the sense of agency. And we are also, I mean, whether I have teenagers. And so whether it's the teenagers or the people at work, we all pay the consequences or reap the rewards of the decisions we make. And so the caution for HR professionals and leaders is to not be carrying or rescuing someone else, like we have our own lives. And so this is where I think about, you know, we don't need the perfect words. Maybe you just need some interesting questions.

Jeanne: [00:32:59] Yeah, it's really important. What do you think is missing in leadership today?

Kimberly: [00:33:05] Listening.

Jeanne: [00:33:07] Rather than advice giving, right?

Kimberly: [00:33:10] It's just everything is happening so quickly. If you use AI gosh, before you even hit enter, AI is already providing you quite a lengthy. And so, you know, there's time to think, time to listen. And maybe you don't have to have the answer in the, you know, you press enter and this three page document pops out like, what if we just listened? And maybe we pull a tissue box out and we say, that is so hard and I'm sorry that's happening to you. And then believing that we are all, as you said, we're all our own sailboat. We're all on a journey. We are all deciding and making decisions. And I think sometimes Jeanne, like the leader, will say, I can see the cycle. I can see that they're in this cycle. If they do that, that's going to happen again. I can see it. But Jeanne, that is their life and that is their lesson to learn. And so listening, empowering them to get the resources or giving them the afternoon off or saying, that's not cool. You cannot do that at work. And having them face the consequence. Sometimes they want to be so compassionate that this time we'll let it slide. No, we're not going to let anything slide at work if they are offside, if something is disrespectful or they are high at work, it's not appropriate. It's not acceptable. You send them home. That is a consequence that they must face. And so my advice would be listen, pause.

Jeanne: [00:34:45] Ask any questions. Yeah, yeah. Get curious for sure. Curious is good because all behaviour has purpose. I believe it does, even if it's not obvious to the person who's exhibiting the behaviour. There's a reason why they're doing something. And that means whether it's not obvious to us in this moment. There's something underneath that. Right. And that's why we have to remain curious. We want to kind of get to those root drivers. What is driving substance abuse at work, right? Maybe there's tremendous financial pressure. Maybe there's, you know, somebody who's very ill in the family. There could be a marriage or a marriage breaking down. Could be a sick child. We don't know. So we have to be more curious and we have to find out why.

Kimberly: [00:35:25] And the the time out. I would just place, you know, my hands on, you know, time out. So it's being curious. And if we're finding out they're struggling with self-soothing or addiction or they're someone in their family is ill or whatever the situation, the time out would be you, the leader. You don't need all the information. They need to be empowered and resourceful to get the professional help. Because if you start to be so curious that they've gone all the way down, now the leader is carrying that person on their back. Like now the leader can't function because she can't sleep at night because she's worried about that person's whole situation, that person's whole life. So I think there's like being curious to a point where you're saying, okay, so how can I help you in the role that I'm doing? And I'm not a counsellor. I'm not a, I'm not meant to be giving advice, as you said earlier about it could be dangerous, the advice that she or he gives. And so there is sort of a time out button.

Jeanne: [00:36:22] I was going to say, we just get a small window to help somebody. Really? Yeah. And we want to try to optimize it. Right? Because we may lose them by our judgments of what we're saying to a person if it's not the right thing. I was just thinking that you said something earlier that I think is really important, and that is leaders need their own leadership community, just like we all need community. We really all need community. And that's one thing AI cannot replace. AI can replace a lot of different things, but AI cannot replace true connection, true human connection. And I think that's why it's so vital that we we create that in places where we can where we can just be more human. And, you know, in these difficult moments, that's when it's time for us to rise up. But carrying that can be like, it's like there's an old saying, you're as happy as as you're unhappiest as a child. It can be the same with employees. It's not necessarily that we take them on as our own, but there is a kinship that comes with relationships in the workplace. And sometimes they're like our family because we do spend more time with them. So I do think that leaders need their own community to support one another and a place where they can process and go, oh my God, you don't know what kind of week I've had this week. It's too much. I feel like I need to do something and someone can reflect back and say, you know what, I get it. It's okay. I would love for you to be able to just step out and take a day off or do what you need for you.

Kimberly: [00:37:56] That's right. This is it. This is the taking care of yourself. If we can't book time in our calendar. And ages ago, when I was in corporate Jeanne, I remember going to the doctor and saying that I wasn't feeling well and he was trying to help me. And so she was asking a few questions and she said, you know, what do you do for self-care? And I remember showing her my manicure. Oh, don't worry. I, I got a, you know, I go for a manicure. And to me, that was yeah, there's a lot going on. I had little kids. Uh, you have to feed them and then you have to tuck them in. And then we got to do it all again the next day. Oh. So don't worry. Yep. Self-care. I got a manicure, and I would wedge my appointment and, you know, try and multitask on my appointment. And so I counted that as self-care. And I have come to learn that that is not, I mean, maybe getting a manicure is self-care, but the way I was quickly jumping from appointment to appointment, getting it in my calendar, that was not self-care. I wasn't taking a breath. When you talk about.

Jeanne: [00:38:57] I know it's stressful. It's one more thing to do. It's on a to do list and.

Kimberly: [00:39:01] Not emotionally dysregulating I was, uh, yeah.

Jeanne: [00:39:05] And I think, you know, things like going to the dentist, getting your hair cut, you know, having your nails done, all of these things that are just part of grooming are not self-care. We can view it. And I think we bought into that for so long that that is what self-care looks like. Self-care is actually taking a minute out of your day or more, and really just not feeling guilty about it because you know that you're exhausted and you truly need it, or having that nap, which I've always been guilty of. I have to say, I'm learning now, or just removing yourself and saying, you know what? I don't have anything more to offer today. So, or for the next hour, I'm going to do this. And just, you know, it may be picking up a book, it may be just closing your eyes, it may be some breathwork, whatever it is, or taking that walk without feeling guilty.

Kimberly: [00:39:50] Yeah. It's the no guilt. It's the no guilt. And I mean that or.

Jeanne: [00:39:55] Making that call even with a girlfriend and saying, you know what, I'm taking five minutes and then going back to it, right?

Kimberly: [00:40:01] Yeah, that's what I mean about the, you know, the introvert, I often think about introvert and extrovert. So the extrovert in me would give someone a call and can we talk for a few minutes, even if it's not about what's going on? How was your weekend? Tell me about you. And it's just, you know, reaching out and connecting. But for others, it could be just in the stillness. And I would say stillness, like, here's a challenge away from your desk, walk away from the screens, walk away from the office, like, really, and.

Jeanne: [00:40:30] Don't take your phone with you. Yeah.

Kimberly: [00:40:32] Don't like, could you go and be still and allow access to, I'm going to say your brain and your heart, like, how is your body doing? Um, and then all of a sudden you realize, oh, I haven't actually taken a good, proper deep breath. Like sometimes.

Jeanne: [00:40:48] Yeah, I'm holding my breath because everything feels very fast and tight.

Kimberly: [00:40:52] I think, I think that's how I operated many times in corporate where I was surface breathing. Um, and I remember the doctor saying, do you do self-care? Oh yeah. I responded to her as quickly as I was breathing, like, yep, check. It's okay about that, doc. Move on. What else could it be?

Jeanne: [00:41:08] Hydroplaning over your own life? Oh my.

Kimberly: [00:41:11] Gosh. Yes, that's a great analogy.

Jeanne: [00:41:14] Yes, I always use it because people just are not in their lives. They're kind of like, it's like driving that car, right? And not, you know, in it being you're, on your task list of a million things that you've got to take care of and you're really not there.

Kimberly: [00:41:29] Well, you mentioned you mentioned flow, Jeanne, and so that would be like in terms of overflow, you know, when you're flow, when you're in the zone. And so that that could also be a temperature check for someone. So if you are racing and, you know, breathing and you're not taking a deep breath, can you go to the place where you are in the zone where you are so focused you really can't tell what's going on around you. I think about the times I've been in the zone and then my husband says, like, we had dinner, like you missed it. Like we called you. You were in the zone. You were right. And the life and time has stopped because I was in the zone, thrilled with what I was working on, but so focused, so juicy. And so sometimes that helps us find our Overflow or what's going to fill us or refuel us, maybe even just going into that zone, not into alert mode and make a decision and do all the things, the checklist, maybe it is going into that zone.

Jeanne: [00:42:31] You speak about an important point, and this is something I've learned to introduce over the last, I would say, a couple of years, still trying. It's still a process than getting better at it all the time. But learning to recognize that there's times for work and times that it's not going to work. And I think now with digital and being virtually online for a lot of different people. It allows us that flexibility. So for me, working in flow means you're right, you have no concept of time. It just like flies by. You're doing something so easily compared to trying to reengineer it in a moment when you feel like you don't have the mindset or the creative aspect of flow for it, and it's just the actual product or the end result of what you're doing is so different when you work from a flow place. Yeah. And again, it comes back to that slowing down to go fast. It feels very counterintuitive because we've been hardwired to believe that we've got to be productive to be valuable and that, you know, we got to hustle and grind all the time and we don't need to hustle and grind anymore. We need to flow. And when we do, everything just comes together easily.

Kimberly: [00:43:45] Yeah, it almost makes me think of left brain. Right brain. You know, when you said it's something that we do that we are focused in terms of our mind. But then you also said, and we're also doing something creative. And so often they say left brain is, I think the logical and the right brain is the creative. And so you're really engaging your brain. But I think also your heart that you are so centered. Yeah. So into it. And yeah, maybe we have been programmed into the hustle and grind. And I promise you, if we could let go of the sense of being perfect or communicating like, I wish I was an extrovert, how do I communicate better like you? How about you lead authentically? Like you can use AI all you want, but if you read what AI told you to the person, they're going to sniff it out that you're reading AI. And so you can use AI. But we need this genuine connection and you don't need to be perfect. You may need to listen more, and you also don't need to solve it for them, because this is their life and their consequences and or rewards. That's something I believe in strongly, that we need to let everybody live their life and face consequences and reap the rewards of their own choices.

Jeanne: [00:45:08] So it's the fastest way to learn natural consequences. It's not that we're going to hang everybody out to dry, but we can't keep rescuing them at the expense of their learning. Right? And I think that's an important part of it. So, Kimberly, a beautiful conversation. And I hope for anybody who's out there in some sort of role in leadership, and I know all of you work with other humans so that there's some juicy takeaways from our conversation today. And it's really just to be more heart centered and more human in these challenging moments for people and to remain curious and not bring your biases into the conversation with you. Because if we bring those in, then it really doesn't move the conversation forward. So I ask everybody who's on this show, what keeps you naturally high?

Kimberly: [00:46:00] I've been celebrating my teenagers birthdays this past little bit. One turned 17 and one turned 20, and I celebrate, like what keeps me naturally high in terms of them is not that I am all in their life, but they are living their best life in those ages. And so 17 is is learning and trying to get a driver's license. And 20 has their ups and downs as well. The other thing that is my natural high is I really do love podcasting. I love it. I just feel like if we could have a conversation and or listen into a conversation that might spark something where from this conversation, there's one thing that I could do different, or I could do better, or one thing that I could learn. I love podcasting that the airwaves have are going to, you know, reach all ends of the globe. And they're reaching you today listening. And my hope is that there's something here that you might say, you know what? I could do that better. I could listen, I could be more curious. I could take a walk and pass it on, pass this episode on to somebody who you think could also learn something or create a shift in them. So I would say beautiful.

Jeanne: [00:47:21] Yeah. Thank you. So I really task everybody who is out there listening to either number one, as Kimberly said, pass this episode on to someone it could be beneficial for. But I think more importantly, what is the one small micro moment change that you're going to make for yourself in how you show up this week for yourself and the people around you. Because we're all leaders, we're all embodying some sort of leadership, whether it's in a family role, in a professional role, or even in a recreational role on kid's teams and whatever.

Kimberly: [00:47:57] Yes.

Jeanne: [00:47:58] So thank you, Kimberly, I can't thank you enough. I enjoyed talking with you. Every time we get together, it gets better and better.

Kimberly: [00:48:05] Ditto. Likewise.

Jeanne: [00:48:07] So where can people find you?

Kimberly: [00:48:09] Yeah. So listen, look me up. I'm Overflow with Kimberly Snyder. I'm on all the podcast players, and I'll have to populate your and my episode on that one at the same time as this. And you can also find me on Instagram Overflow underscore podcast. And I'd love to connect.

Jeanne: [00:48:28] Thank you so much for joining us today. And we'll make sure you have the links for Kimberly as well. So you don't have to remember everything. Yeah. And until next time, stay naturally high.

Kimberly: [00:48:41] Thank you for joining me for this episode of Naturally High. If this conversation resonated with you, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or reach out to me through the links in the show notes. Together, we're changing the way the world approaches mental health, addiction, and trauma. Remember to like, subscribe, and leave a rating for Naturally High on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen so you never miss an episode. For more inspiration and resources, follow me on Instagram at the recovery underscore concierge or visit the Recoveryconcierge.com. Stay empowered, keep rising, and I'll see you in the next episode.