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No one has it all figured out. And anyone who says they do? Well, they’re lying.
This is for the women who are trying. Trying to juggle all the things. Trying to make sense of what they actually want. Trying to keep their heads above water without losing themselves in the process.
Career. Money. Relationships. The pressure to do it all. The pressure to want it all. And the moments you secretly wonder, is it just me?
Here we speak openly, laugh through chaos, and ask questions instead of pretending to have all the answers.
Because we’re all a work in progress.
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (00:00):
Don't underestimate the power of just saying, I'm not even sure what to say right now, but I care about you. What people want more than anything is to feel acknowledged and seen. Even just that declaration of like that sounds crappy, that whatever word seems congruent shows that you're willing to be in it with them.
Gayle Kalvert (00:20):
This is Work in Progress. I'm your host, Gayle Kalvert, and yes, I'm a work in progress. Liesel Mertes is an acclaimed workplace empathy expert after experiencing her own loss. Liesel emerged with a deep understanding of what employees need to feel supported at work after a disruptive life event. As the founder of Handle with Care Consulting, Lisa works with groups who want to boost employee satisfaction as well as attract and retain better talent. I've learned so much from you in our short conversation, so I'm really looking forward to going a little deeper because while I feel that I am a highly empathetic person, I do feel that I don't often know what to say when other people might be going through tough times and you learn through your own experiences, but sometimes you don't have the experiences that others do and I love what you've shared with me so far, so let's dive in. Maybe you can talk a little bit about how you explain that empathy is actually a skill, not a personality trait.
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (01:24):
Yeah, I'd love to. I think that that framing and phrasing is really important because it allows people who have kind of self-selected out, oh, I'm just not empathetic. I never have been, which also leads in a sideways way to really communicating like, don't expect that of me. I don't feel competent, so that's not something that I should be able to do because often in public consciousness and how people have integrated concepts of empathy, it tends to land almost as a personality trait. Some people are great at it, some people are not so good. When we shift to thinking about empathy also as being comprised of skills-based competencies that we all can and should be getting better at, it really provides a pathway to skill acquisition and leaning into learning, which allows people to approach it with a little bit more buy-in. Now, I would add the caveat that some people are naturally more gifted based on their household of origin, their personality, their life practices, so we don't want to negate that, but it levels the playing field to say we all can be improving and should be.
Gayle Kalvert (02:32):
Can you share how you came to this when you realized that empathy was something that really needed to be developed and practiced?
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (02:40):
Yeah. I would say kind of the keystone moment for me occurred when I was in the midst of my MBA program. I had two small children at home and actually I had just said yes to the program when I found out that I was unexpectedly pregnant with our third child, a little girl named Mercy Joan, and I thought, that's okay. I am really good at multitasking. I've got a lot of bandwidth, I've got a good partner, but we got the news in about 20 weeks that our daughter, Mercy Joan, she had a neural tube defect and they weren't sure actually if she would have this condition that needed surgeries and a path of being able to just have a lot of medical intervention or if it would actually be terminal. There was a wide range of outcomes. So Mercy was actually born and died just eight days later.
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (03:32):
This was back in 2011, and I knew that I wasn't just okay or ready to quickly bounce back. I'm someone who actually has a pretty high drive for efficiency and a big bandwidth, and I was like, oh, I'm not okay, and experientially I both had people who were really good at giving support and then people who they had no idea how much they missed me when they missed me, and it really had me thinking in the midst of this expensive two year time intensive program that was all about you emerging on the other side with all the skills you would need to lead and manage people well, how was it that we weren't talking at all in the midst of a two year span of all the competencies that we covered, how to support people in the midst of their disruptive life events or in the midst of your own, which also populate just the life of anybody who's been in the world of work. So that was the seed. When I was launching Handle with Care, that also involved a lot of both gathering. I was having dessert and wine nights for anybody I knew who had gone through a disruptive life event like Come tell me what was good, what was bad, what was helpful, as well as meeting with just a ton of HR practitioners and saying, what support systems do you have? What do you resource? How are you trained in this? And I realized there's just a deep opportunity to skill people up in this really important competency.
Gayle Kalvert (05:02):
And a lot of people, and I'll admit myself included, freezes up when something comes up in conversation. I mean, we can focus on the workplace for a bit, right? Many people freeze or say something wrong. In those moments when they're hit with either grief or a crisis, how do you advise people to overcome that? Especially when we're thinking about the workplace where it's not the natural setting for that kind of conversation?
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (05:29):
One way that I find is helpful in helping people just appreciate their particular response patterns because there's not a one size fits all, is really by conceptualizing of it as we all have an empathy toolkit that we respond to this situation, someone's going through a disruptive life event. You come with your particular toolkit and you just reach for whatever is already preloaded into it. Again, this is shaped by your personality, by what somebody said to you the first time someone died and you think that's just what you say, and we're super grief adverse in the west. So really what we do is we just unthinkingly reach for whatever is already preloaded in there and we don't really give ourselves the chance to do an assessment. Is this helping me? Is this really helping the other person? People get caught up in thinking, I don't want to mess it up.
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (06:22):
I don't want to say the wrong thing, so I'm just not going to say anything that's the Silent Sam or Samantha or they really get caught up in thinking I have to find the right thing, the perfect thing to say to make it better and just turning down the volume. There is no magic thing to say if somebody is going through a divorce, if somebody's mother has just died, there's nothing you're going to say that suddenly they're going to be like, I feel great. Thank you so much that you said that. If we can put both those polarities to the side. One of the ways that I help people see what's in their empathy toolkit is through the lens of these empathy avatars. They are nine memorable types that really help people approach their behavior patterns. Fix It Frank or Francine, they're just focused on, let me solve whatever you're going through, and they leave the other person feeling like a project or Commiserating Candace who's like, oh my gosh, I know exactly what that's like. My mother just went through breast cancer at Mayo, and you'll never believe, and you center yourself in the story, and so by seeing some of those memorable types, people can see their specific path towards growth.
Gayle Kalvert (07:31):
I love that. That helps me. First of all, I can relate to every single one of those avatars. I've been every one of them. I think that really helps a lot in keeping with the workplace a bit. I think there is some friction between wanting to have boundaries, right? We're seeing a lot, which I think is terrific, that people are creating boundaries for themselves and the workplace ensure that their wellness is a priority. Then when there are situations that come up, they really want more of like a mother or a fixer and they want help, and I can say as a colleague, as a team manager client, it's hard sometimes to know how helpful should I be? How deep should we go in this personal situation and where is that boundary? Is that something you can share any experience or advice on?
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (08:19):
In my experience in doing sessions with lots of companies and at all levels of people in the workplace, I would say there are roughly two types of people. One is a subset of people that they really have never consistently practiced empathy in the workplace. They tend to be from an older school mentality. They're uncomfortable with it like we are just delivering on tasks, so for them the idea of incorporating more of these human-centric skills, they need to lean into that and do more. Then on the other side of the spectrum as it relates to boundaries, there are people, and you can almost see it at the audience. They're like, I am the person in the workplace who has to do this all the time. I am so exhausted by it and there's some overlap, but people tend to plot in one group or the other.
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (09:10):
I have some actual practices for the people who are feeling exhausted by too much empathy, but also again with that framing of we arrive with a toolkit on the scene. I talk often in sessions about being workplace first responders in the social and emotional realm, and that's a helpful differentiator when it comes to boundaries because in the realm of physical care, a first responder is someone who stabilizes someone to whatever next level of care they need. They are not physicians or ambulance drivers or rehabilitative specialists. They have a discreet role in the workplace. As we think about boundaries in the social and emotional realm, you want to do something that is congruent to that. Your role is not to be the counselor or the AA leader or the prescriber. You want to have some basic skills to stabilize someone. So while this is also a full length session that I do on boundaries, just a couple of tips for people who oftentimes find themselves being like, this has been way too much.
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (10:15):
One is just to ask the question. You said, how do I know maybe clients or coworkers? It feels like they do a bait and switch that they're talking about deliverables and then they're wanting a counseling session. Just asking is a first step, Hey, is it helpful for me to listen right now or do you want to troubleshoot? That helps clarify what they're looking for. There is also an aspect of a time bound pivot that you can do that's really helpful. Say there is someone and maybe their hair is always on fire, they're going to be on a zoom call with you or in your office for 40 minutes. You know that you don't have 40 minutes. You're feeling depleted anyway when they come to you to be able to say, I really want to give attention to what you're saying, I can't right now. Can we talk about this later today at four?
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (11:07):
Oftentimes with that person later on, some of the emotional ballast has shifted. Maybe they're not as intense. It also buys you some time to be able to come and be prepared in the moment. Another way that you can do this is with a proactive sort of a communication around time. Hey, Samantha, I wanted to check in with you. I know you've put your mom in memory care. I have 10 minutes before I need to jump on a call. What is your update? Then you've set at the beginning, this is the amount of time that I have, and then finally just being able to say something like, I appreciate that you're sharing with me. I feel like this is outside of my realm of being helpful. We have some other great resources or places I can point you like some of those suggestions also can communicate like this is out of my depth, so a few tips.
Gayle Kalvert (12:00):
I like those tips. I have one more question. I'll put you on the spot. What about when you're hit with something that you have never had any experience and you don't? I mean, this happens to me where I think, what do I say? How do you be empathetic? What do you do when you're just caught and you don't know what to say?
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (12:18):
Well, let's take it from the realm of abstraction to something you've actually experienced. It sounds like there's something that comes to mind. What is a situation where you have felt that?
Gayle Kalvert (12:29):
I had a colleague whose wife gave birth to a stillborn baby. That was prior to me becoming a mother. I had never heard or experienced anything, and in full disclosure was what was the avatar. Doesn't say anything. I was silent, Samantha, which I was mortified about and yeah, what to do when you have no idea? Can't relate.
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (12:55):
Yeah, I hear the confusion of that younger version of yourself and just the desire to have wanted to do more. Two things. One is I think a really useful definition of empathy here from Dr. Brene Brown is helpful. She talks about empathy is not about connecting with the experience, it's about connecting with the emotions that are underneath the experience. So take your situation, and I have certainly been there too. When we are thinking about something we have experienced or not, it's really easy to step back like, wow, they've gone through something that I can't imagine and that paralysis can set in. If instead we focus on connecting with the emotion that might be underneath the experience, it gets us a lot closer. So going back to that situation and you have more perspective now, but if you're asking what emotions might this colleague be feeling? What are some things that come to mind?
Gayle Kalvert (13:56):
Devastated grief.
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (13:59):
Yep.
Gayle Kalvert (14:00):
Loss.
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (14:01):
They might be feeling devastation or grief or loss or anger, which in some measure, you even at that point had experienced those emotions before. Maybe not to the same degree, but you can think, okay, this person might be so sad. I know what's helpful to me and to other people when they're so sad. I'm going to do that. I'm going to bring them a muffin because maybe they're feeling totally isolated and that helps me when somebody gives me a little gift and that knows. That helps me know that I'm seen. It's a much more empowering mindset instead of focusing on sharing the experience in the moment though that's more like meta framework and how you deal with it in the moment when you're getting the news, when you're feeling that sense, don't underestimate the power of just saying, I'm not even sure what to say right now, but I care about you. I'm so glad you told me. That sounds hard. Many times we get wrapped up in the right words or the wrong words or what do I, oh my gosh, I don't even know. My feelings are so big. What people want more than anything is to feel acknowledged and seen. Even just that declaration of that sounds crappy, that whatever word seems congruent shows that you're willing to be in it with them.
Gayle Kalvert (15:19):
Yeah, I mean I come up with a bunch of other scenarios very similarly that we haven't experienced yet and people do, and so I like that sort of saying, am so sorry and I don't know the right thing to say, but I want you to know that I care or because it feels disingenuous to me, Lisa, honestly to say, but I'm here for you and also we're talking about coworkers and colleagues and you don't necessarily want to, I'm sorry, but be there for them.
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (15:44):
That gets to another thing that I sometimes talk with people about, okay, how do you show up with support? Sometimes people will say something like, let me know what I can do to help, which is so well intentioned and so ubiquitous as to become useless. It comes from a good place, but people rarely ever follow up, and what if they ask you to do something that you don't really like doing and then you've painted yourself into a corner? It is much more helpful and in sessions I'll give people what is called an empathy inventory or menu. Look at it. Think about ways that you like to be helpful, that you can do easily and clearly. Maybe you're someone who you are really good at taking tasks. Let me finish that email for you. Maybe it's low hanging fruit. Give them a DoorDash gift certificate. It is easier than ever. People don't want to cook when they're going back and forth to the hospital to be able to offer something specific. Hey, you're going back and forth to the hospital a bunch. I got you a gas card, but being able to do that work in calm moments of this is easy for me to do. I showing care. This way I can give it freely and then just offer that specifically really helps cut through the noise too.
Gayle Kalvert (16:56):
I've learned too over time, it's like you don't have to respond exactly In the moment, it's okay to take a beat and think about what would be the most helpful thing and then do that. Just speaking for myself, sometimes I think, well, the moment's passed. Well, the moment's not really ever passed. It's okay if it's days later or whatever that is for you. It's still appreciated.
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (17:18):
There's a way, I don't want to say more or less impactful, but I'll give a real life example. Right now when we are recording this, it's still May we're a couple of weeks past Mother's Day. There's someone that I didn't reach out to right before or around Mother's Day, but I know her. I care about her. I know that last year she had a miscarriage. That's maybe a complicated day for her. Now I can think to myself like, ah, the window's passed. It would sound stupid to follow up, but I'm going to write a text and just be like, you know what, Jess? I'm still thinking of you. I realize earlier this month we had Mother's Day come and go. That might be a really raw time for you. I just want to let you know I haven't forgotten you in that it might actually be more impactful because people aren't checking in with her early June the way that they might have around that day, so there's not a bad time to move in the right direction.
Gayle Kalvert (18:08):
100%. I appreciate that completely. One thing we talked about, which I had not heard before, Lisa, is you were mentioning to me Fortitude, why don't you tell us about fortitude and the difference really between fortitude and resilience?
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (18:23):
Yeah, they're both important concepts. Resilience is not like we've knocked it out of the park and we all know about resilience now, but it's gotten a little bit more play in the public consciousness. Resilience is what you do in the aftermath of something hard, kind of picking up the pieces and moving forward. Fortitude is what you access in the moment of the hard thing like, oh my gosh, I'm facing it right now. What am I going to resource to get through this? Fortitude is not a one size fits all thing, especially in the workplace. There are some people that their movement towards fortitude is when I'm going through something hard, I want people to check in with me a lot or I keep my head down and I have a playlist that I love and work is my refuge and please don't take work away from me.
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (19:13):
There are all kinds of different ways and different personalities. The key for a Fortitude Forward community, which is the other piece of it, the research shows, and I am blanking out on his name. It is a great author from the UK and his book on Fortitude, which was just called Fortitude. It was like a top book by the Economist in 2023 and 2024. It's really, really good. What he writes about is all too often, especially in the west, we think of fortitude as a personally conditioned trait. You've got it or you don't. You know what you resource or you can't, but that really it's a community unleashed capacity. We can think about it in the negative. This is why if you are like an addict, they tell you you got to get out of your friend group. That keeps you there. In the same way in the positive sense, we can really unleash that for other people or get in the way.
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (20:07):
So what does it mean to be a fortitude forward community at work and specifically as a team member or as a manager? One big part of that is talking about before you're in crisis, what is most helpful for you when you go through hard things and that can begin sometimes in sessions. What we'll talk about is if you are alive right now, it means that you have probably overcome some stuff to get here. This is not the first hard thing that you faced when you have someone on your team who's going through a challenge. Perhaps that's with a client, perhaps that is personally if you're a teammate or a leader, a great question to unlock where they resource fortitude is to say, when have you gone through something like this before? What was helpful to you? What was not helpful to you? How does that inform what would be helpful to you right now? And to be able to know those things about your teammates in advance will really help you come alongside them Well as a leader, as they're going through the hard thing in real time. It's also good self-knowledge to have personally to be like, you know what? I know I'm going through it right now. I need to do this and this and this. I know that always helps me.
Gayle Kalvert (21:23):
Can you share any stories sort of real life? I'm thinking we're in a remote workplace. We don't have opportunities to really be together often maybe some examples of what fortitude forward workplaces look like. I'm imagining like everybody works in the same office and they're together all the time. I mean, can this be done in a remote scenario also?
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (21:48):
Humans from the beginning of time we learn and integrate by stories and so many times we are so forward thinking and onto the next challenge. We forget to celebrate what we've come through in the past and draw learnings from it. That's another key part of fortitude Forward communities. They think about the challenge, not in a way that has them backward looking and stuck, but the stories that shape us, Hey, this isn't the first time we've gone through something hard. Remember what we went through with COVID and we lost a third of our people and we all rallied together and we had those really great virtual happy hours and that buoyed our spirits. What does that mean?
Gayle Kalvert (22:25):
What have you seen or how do we help people who maybe aren't so open to being collaborative and sort of emotionally available in the workplace?
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (22:36):
I'll answer it first with a phrase that I say in any training that I do. Your participation is invited but never demanded. I want to let you know that there might be prompts for small group activities or from the front that you don't feel like you want to answer. In a group setting like this, you are always free to take a hard pass. I extend that to you as a facilitator. Let's extend that also to one another in our circles because that is getting at the reality in a training session environment, but also in an informal one that you can never demand that people be vulnerable and that actually there's a lot of deeply held reasons why some people might not feel safe sharing at work, but what you can do is consistently provide the space where people could share. One of my favorite ways, and this is the number one stickiest tool or tactic.
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (23:37):
Again and again as clients are reporting in post session data that they take forward from any work they do with my company and it's really straightforward. It is the check-in at the beginning of any team meeting, you just begin with a quick check-in through the lens of a stoplight rate, the energy that you're bringing to today's session. Red, yellow, green, red is I'm here, but it's hard. Yellow is like, I'm here. There's some stuff humming in the background green. I'm good to go. Why is that helpful? Especially in terms of vulnerability. One, it gets you better information in a really straightforward way. If someone says they're yellow or red, that's a great prompt After the meeting to check in, is there anything else you'd like to talk about? Is there anything we need to shift so it gets you better information and cues up that meaningful follow up.
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (24:23):
Also, for teams that are like, I might like this, but that's not really where we vibrate as a group. We don't talk that way. It is a really low barrier to entry, especially if you're leading this and you're on the top of power dynamic to introduce more of your outside of work self in an easy to understand way. It's not leaky sharing. You don't want to process your marriage that's falling apart, but right now somebody asked me rate your energy. I might say I am yellow. We are in the last two weeks of school. There's so many sports things, we're hosting tons of end the season gatherings. It's just taking up a little bit of my attention and what that does is it creates space of like we could talk about these things. We can acknowledge that we're not always showing up 100% at work, so I think that that is great. Again, low barrier way of creating space where people could share and the more consistently you do it, the more people will believe that they actually can't step into that space.
Gayle Kalvert (25:29):
What about the whole mentality of you're here to work and I get that we all have stuff that we're dealing with, but if I open a conference call, if I open meetings with Are you red, yellow or green? I would fear that we would get totally derailed and where do we go from there?
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (25:44):
That's an interesting fear, Gayle. What I hear in that is maybe there wasn't someone in charge who was purposefully stewarding that space with care, your company, your call, you are actually at the top of that power dynamic to be able to say, I appreciate you sharing about that. I want to follow up with you offline and hear more or talk more. Let's go on to Lacey. What is your stoplight check-in because there is an element of stewardship when you are the leader. Another follow-up question is especially for organizations, what are you missing if you're not regularly doing something like this? What's the cost of not regularly checking in from where people are? Because I also hear all kinds of stories of why people quit or why they leave, which is like I was just a number or a functionary we're remote. They only checked in with me on my to-dos and when people don't have a regular structured way of hearing more about really people are, there's also a risk to not doing something like this, so, for one's consideration.
Gayle Kalvert (26:49):
I tend to do one-on-ones, so this is an interesting concept for me because it is a way to check in with people without doing with one-on-ones per se, so it can be a better and maybe the group setting is there are benefits to that as well because you're building that team camaraderie as well.
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (27:10):
Yeah. It can also help make group work more effective. I mean the people in your organization probably don't work only with you. They're working with each other and whether or not they are having that sort of intention or checking in with one another, it can be scattershot. I wouldn't say that you have to do that. One should do the stoplight check at the negation of one-on-ones. They're both part of the same skillset.
Gayle Kalvert (27:37):
One more question before we have to go. When you want to proactively build empathy in the workplace, I'm thinking about that for my own organization and I'm sure our listeners are too. What is sort of ideal? Where do you see clients that you've worked with that are doing a good job? What does that look like?
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (27:55):
I think there are two parts more regularly checking in with people on their lives outside of work, whether that is happening in one-on-ones or through something like the stoplight check-in that does get you better information. I do think that there is a practice of getting curious and interrogating some of the stories and hangups that we have. Of course, I love doing sessions and equipping people with shared language, whether it's through our online course or in person, to be able to see what gets in the way of their practices because it's not as simple as just, well, come on Gayle, practice more empathy. Can't you see? It's a skillset. You need to know the particular stories and beliefs that drive you in showing up the way that you are. Ask better questions and then get curious. What do I believe about showing up for people in the workplace?
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (28:46):
How has that served me? How has that gotten in my way? And when it comes to just basic practices, leaning in knowing that something is better than nothing offers something specific. It's really, really helpful. Be equipped with something like I'm not even sure I know what to say but I care. And one more just for anybody in a leadership position. Don't say take all the time you need because that's a lie nobody can take all the time they need. They can take whatever amount of time you have in your mind. They don't know what that amount of time is. Propose a specific amount of time, take the next 48 hours. Don't answer your phone. Don't answer your email. We'll check in. Then one more final just practical tip. Plan for big milestones and empathy in your calendar. Somebody puts their parent into memory care. Check in with them the first day, week, and month. Plan for it in your calendar. Drop a note in. Check in with Lacey a week later. Check in with Lacey a month later. It just keeps you honest. You will forget. Planning for empathy in your calendar doesn't actually cheapen it. It elevates it. Do it around major holidays too. Somebody's mom dies in September, drop a running note for the following mother's day.
Gayle Kalvert (29:59):
Like such a good tip because when you said it doesn't cheapen it, that's the little inside voice for me that pipes up is like if I have to put it in my calendar, that means I don't really care and that is not true. We are all doing a lot of things and reminding yourself and scheduling it doesn't cheapen it. That is really, really important advice, so thank you.
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (30:22):
If you're going to pick your child up from baseball practice doesn't mean that you love your child less. It means your mental space is crowded and you just might forget if you don't count.
Gayle Kalvert (30:32):
Yeah. You're going to remember to pick them up at baseball practice.
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (30:34):
Yeah.
Gayle Kalvert (30:35):
No, that's awesome. Okay, I have a couple of quick fun questions for you before we go. Coffee or tea?
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (30:42):
Coffee, although I do like tea, but coffee.
Gayle Kalvert (30:45):
Okay. Iced or hot?
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (30:47):
Hot.
Gayle Kalvert (30:49):
Always?
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (30:51):
Always. I would never have iced coffee. Give it to me. Piping hot even when it's 80 to breathe outside.
Gayle Kalvert (30:57):
Okay. I like it. What's your guilty pleasure, Lisa? You have a bunch of kids, you got a lot going on. You want to do your own thing and you're not telling what is it?
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (31:08):
Oh, I'm going to sneak off paddle boarding somewhere or I'm going to drive down to southern Indiana. I'm going to go hiking on my favorite loop trail, either the three mile or six mile and I'm going to treat myself to some really good ethnic food in Bloomington and you guys manage yourselves.
Gayle Kalvert (31:25):
Okay. I like that, but I don't really know if that's a guilty pleasure though. Lisa, do you have anything that is actually, I mean going for a hike.
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (31:32):
Yeah, because to be able to radically claim that time when everybody else wants a piece of your time and to know that my refreshment comes from being outside.
Gayle Kalvert (31:41):
That's great. Okay. Well I'm going to try to give you a tip right now. You should not feel guilty about claiming your own time because you are more than just a mom. You go hike and that's not a guilty pleasure.
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (31:54):
What's your guilty pleasure?
Gayle Kalvert (31:56):
I hide candy in my nightstand so that I can.
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (31:59):
I do.
Gayle Kalvert (32:02):
I have so many.
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (32:02):
I currently have the Ben & Jerry's dairy-free peanut butter and cookies ice cream, which I buy my children. Lots of high quality ice cream that is not dairy free, but they will eat it. So it's under frozen vegetables in my freezer.
Gayle Kalvert (32:18):
Okay. Last question is what's your favorite app right now? I'm big on this. What's the app that's bringing you joy, making your life easier? Anything?
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (32:28):
I resubscribed to the New Yorker because I feel like in our, I like the story-based reporting, so I really enjoyed reading about the New Yorker. The most interesting one recently has been called Your Priest is on drugs and it was about a study of cyclo side mushrooms and the religious experience. So they're long articles, but I'm enjoying that and progressing through.
Gayle Kalvert (32:53):
I also, I really miss magazines. I find the app isn't as good. I do really miss 'em. Amazing. Thank you so much Liesel. This conversation, as you can tell, was really a personal training for myself, so thank you and I know so many others will benefit. So if you're listening out there and you want to hear more and learn more about Liesl and your practices, where can we find you?
Liesel Mindrebo Mertes (33:19):
You can go to my website, which is lieselmertes.com. It has all kinds of information. We actually have, I think we will link it in the show notes. We have a great intake quiz where if you are more interested in your empathy avatar, it's free. It takes about five minutes, but you can get a sense of where you plot some really great, just high level tips for you. That should have been, that's a low hanging fruit. Do that with your team if you want to start our online course. All kinds of great stuff.
Gayle Kalvert (33:48):
Amazing, so thank you. So for all of you listeners out there, please leave us reviews, comment. If you're looking to go deeper on another topic, just let us know and we'll see you all soon. I hope that was helpful. If you know someone that you go to for this topic, send them my way. After all, we're just figuring this out together. See you next time.