EPISODE 214 WITH VICKI NOETHLING: LEADERSHIP, COMMUNICATION, AND WELLNESS

Ready Yet?! Podcast Episode 214 with guest Vicki Noethling: Leadership, Communication and Wellness

Transcribed with Descript

Erin Marcus: All right. Hello. Hello. And welcome to this episode of the ready yet podcast. I’m excited. I always say that, but I’m excited. And there’s always for a different reason. My guest today, Vicki Noethling, we were talking about communication. And for those of you who know my background before it was called conquer your business, I worked on a version of my business called Conquer the Conversation, which is all about communication styles, communication skills.

Erin Marcus: So I’m excited to have this conversation with you about that and all the other things. Before we get into that, why don’t you tell everyone who you are and what you do?

Vicki Noethling: Well, I am A speaker and trainer and coach on leadership and public speaking, I think they go hand in hand. I think you cannot be a great leader unless you can be a great communicator.

Vicki Noethling: So those are 2 things. I do have a side business to on anti aging and wellness because you have to stay. You have to stay healthy as a speaker. It’s a can be very taxing on you and it. Also, I’m 65 years old and I want to have it that I don’t make noises when I bend over and, and I wouldn’t chase after my two grand boys and all those good things.

Vicki Noethling: And so I joined this company of 50 when I was 59 years old or 58. And all of a sudden people are like, How old are you? And I was like, okay, this stuff,

Erin Marcus: there’s something to this. And I think there’s a lot of truth in this whole healthy health and wellness. And I, I wondered when I first got into entrepreneur world, why health and wellness was so heavy in the entrepreneur world.

Erin Marcus: And then as I got further into it, and especially as a speaker. You can’t do this. Like, two things. One, and then we’ll get into our communication conversation, but one, you can’t do this and be on stage and give away that much energy if you don’t have it. Right? And then the second piece is the one thing that will derail your plans faster than anything else is some kind of health problem for either you or a loved one.

Erin Marcus: Yeah. It’s over, right? You’re, you’re completely distracted. You’re completely. Derailed. So I absolutely see how those all go together.

Vicki Noethling: Yeah, I mean I really talk a lot. You know, the gift I give away at the end of this is my five essential on camera essentials, and it’s to talk about, you know, being on camera.

Vicki Noethling: You take advantage of this virtual world, it takes away the borders and it makes you really accessible. But if you’re afraid to be on camera or you don’t like how you look because of wrinkles or such and whatnot you know, I can help you there.

Erin Marcus: Well, and it really does, you know, that’s a really good point because and I say that about messaging.

Erin Marcus: Magnetic messaging makes you brave. That was something that I put together as a program because when you’re excited about what you have to say, you’re much more willing to go scream it from the rooftops, which is what it takes these days. It takes a lot of volume, both quantity and not screaming, but a lot of volume to break through the noise.

Erin Marcus: And the same thing, if you’re, if you’re that uncomfortable with how you look, and by the way, that has nothing to do with how you actually look, it’s how you feel about how you look. Yeah,

Vicki Noethling: that’s exactly right. That’s a really important point. You know, it’s how you feel about you. I think that’s where the authenticity comes in.

Vicki Noethling: It’s like the best thing about being 65 is I don’t really care anymore to impress anyone except for me, but I do things to impress me. And I think that’s where it should be. And everybody that’s young out there that’s listening, you know, I know that social media and everybody is telling you how you should look and feel and whatnot, but it all comes down to you.

Vicki Noethling: If every day you’re thankful for you and how you feel and how you look, it will be reflected in everything that you do.

Erin Marcus: You’re right. The energy, your come from energy is just going to be, well, not only will it be cleaner and easier, it will stop being a barrier. Yeah, yeah. Love it. So true. So true. Speaking of barriers, we were talking about communication before we hit record here and about different levels of communication, the need to listen and the fact that people don’t listen.

Erin Marcus: I don’t know, where do you want to start with that? I loved what you said about missed opportunities. You know, you commented before we got started that not listening and instead being in your own head thinking about what are you going to say creates a situation where you actually miss opportunities.

Vicki Noethling: Yeah. And I think part of what we do poorly, oftentimes as communicators, is we might Ask an open end question, and then we don’t take a breath or anything, and we go answer the dang question for them without giving them the opportunity to maybe say something that would enhance the conversation or or really change the direction even of it.

Vicki Noethling: So, that’s 1 of the things. But really, we don’t listen often to understand. We listen to make our, we want to impress, or we want to show our brilliance and be the smartest person in the room. It really doesn’t build a relationship with someone if they don’t feel understood or heard, or that you care more about them.

Vicki Noethling: And what they have to say than what you have to say. And I’ve seen that year after year after year with managers and other acquaintances, where they want to be the center of attention. They want to be the superstar. And you just sit there as that silent person. And they may make a comment. Oh, well, Vicky doesn’t really have much to say, or, you know, she’s really not going to be up for that position.

Vicki Noethling: Because she really doesn’t have anything to contribute. In the meantime, it’s because there was not a moment for you to contribute.

Erin Marcus: Well, so when you said that, and we, we, when you said that, I was thinking number one. You’re kind of up against neuroscience, right? We’re all up against neuroscience in a way because our brains really are wired to think about ourselves.

Erin Marcus: So I get that. And I was trying to think about, has this gotten worse? You know, I’m over 50, had a corporate career, like, so I’ve been around a little long enough to see a few generations go through this, and one of the things I’ve seen that to me has made this worse Is the normalizing of screaming from, you know, like, being mean, Screaming to get your point across, um, Whether you call that cancel culture or righteous indignation as a default.

Erin Marcus: All of those things to me prevent Exactly what you’re talking about, which is relationships are built on witnessing and hearing and listening.

Vicki Noethling: I’m probably going to go in a little direction, but I just wanted to. Make a comment about that and, and it’s really in those times of stress, I think a lot of times that everything we know we should do gets thrown out the window, me included, and, and it’s really something that you have to really use that take a breath, count to 10, whatever it is, count to five to sink in before you say anything.

Vicki Noethling: And what happens is. We think that we have to yell louder or speak louder than the person who we’re arguing with or discussing something with to make us feel strong or make us be the, the alpha, if you will, in that conversation. But really, it’s for me, it’s always been more effective when I would speak softer that they had to lean in to hear what I had to say.

Vicki Noethling: That it was, it was me not giving into their escalation. I didn’t choose to escalate it. Am I great at this? Always? No. I recently was working with some of the youth groups that I had and I had a situation where it was one of those things that through the class, it kept on building and building and building some of the things that they were doing that were disrespectful to the class.

Vicki Noethling: And it just got to the point where I went into the mom mode. And this is for the moms out there to remember. So this is where I’m taking the side trip. A woman that taught the group after that, probably a week or so after that, did an example of things that we say and the impact of it. So she just said, you know, her mom was, she was from Puerto Rico and lived in Brooklyn.

Vicki Noethling: And so her mom just always in the morning would say how she was. You know, not good enough, and she just was lazy and all these things. So those are the things in her brain. And then she gets to school and her teacher saying, Why are you trying to do this? You can never be that. You can never get there. And so that’s in her brain.

Vicki Noethling: And her dad, when she’s talking about wanting to go to school and college, Well, how, how can you? We’re just from Puerto Rico and you know, we can’t do that. So that’s in her brain. And then now her brain. is telling her that she’s not good enough. She can’t do anything. And so all those things are being said.

Vicki Noethling: The interesting thing, all while all this is going on, she had another person in the audience just with a tube of toothpaste and a paper plate. And she instructed him every time a negative comment was made by the mother, the father, the sister, brother, whatever. To squeeze out a little teeny dab of toothpaste.

Vicki Noethling: And so, you know, those five different things, the comments that they made, there were probably ten little dabs. So she said to him, put it back in.

Vicki Noethling: You can’t. You can’t. The thought was, when you have that moment where you think you want to escalate it, You can’t take back what you said, it cannot be unforgotten, even though we do say for, you know, forgive and forget, still, those are the things that hold back people from being great speakers and, and, and presenters is that they hear that teacher from third grade, they hear that mom, that’s, you know, something happened when you were five, or 15, and that keeps you at 30 and 40 and 50 from being who you should be, Because of something that was said, well, and I

Erin Marcus: think people forgive, but I don’t think people

Vicki Noethling: forget,

Erin Marcus: forgive, but I don’t know that we do so good on the forget side to your point and look at the effect that it can have.

Erin Marcus: My whole thing with communication, and it ties into what you’re talking about is the idea of communicate with intent. And. Which means you have to be in control of your emotions, in control of what you’re trying to achieve, because As much as I agree, you gotta watch yourself around children, and you know, there’s a lot of different situations where you can do more harm than good, but I also know, never underestimate the power of someone who’s loud and high energy like I am, of getting quiet.

Erin Marcus: And conversely, never underestimate the power for the quiet person to suddenly get higher energy. But with intention, not with lack of control,

Vicki Noethling: right? And that’s really important. And it’s, and it’s hard to do. It’s something that you need to really be thoughtful about as you’re responding to things. And that’s where it’s, that’s where we go back to the listening for understanding.

Vicki Noethling: Whenever someone’s saying something to them, don’t just think of words because sometimes the words have nothing to do with really what is the cause of the feeling, the anxiety, the, the emotion. So listen for understanding of what’s going on here. And that’s where now the few times that you do speak, speak with intent, with questions that will peel that onion away, that will dig deeper will cause them to maybe.

Vicki Noethling: Self discover what’s causing the issue that they didn’t even realize what it was. Well, and

Erin Marcus: I think one of, I think On the surface, people think that they do this, and people want to be able to do this, but if you haven’t done the hard work on yourself, this type of listening and this type of communication really is virtually impossible, not because you’re a bad person or not smart enough, but again, you’re up against neuroscience, you’re up against your own subconscious programming, and so if you can’t do truly effective leadership listening, If you can’t, if you’re not coming from a place of security and self esteem, if you’re still fighting your own demons in that world,

Vicki Noethling: then it’s brutal.

Vicki Noethling: Yeah. And, and that’s where, you know, you have to be courageous enough to realize, okay. You know, there’s something more going on. You know, I’m in my 60s and, and women or especially, but anyone in that are in their 40s, the 60s or whatever, mostly in their 50s or 60s. If, if you went to a psychologist, a psychiatrist or anything like that, it was like, Oh, you know, you’re crazy.

Vicki Noethling: You’re goofy. And, and so. We lived with issues and really having someone to just talk it out. That’s why I love being a coach. Even though I’m not a doctor or anything like that. Sometimes you just need a person that will just shut up and listen to you. Not judge.

Erin Marcus: I was part of a mastermind for three years, all women.

Erin Marcus: And one of the things we used to say was in addition of like the great teachings and how amazing the, the program was the opportunity to truly be witnessed without being judged is just so rare and yet so amazingly powerful.

Vicki Noethling: Yeah. Because it does allow you to be vulnerable. And that allows you to open the doors to be authentic.

Vicki Noethling: And that is the stepping stone that gets you to where you know, I was like, I don’t care, you know, I mean, it’s okay. I, I know that I’m not perfect and I no longer I’m trying to be. And I think that’s

Erin Marcus: huge. And there’s a big difference between. I don’t care so I’m able to be freer, as opposed to the chip on the shoulder, I don’t care so now I’m going to be a jerk, because that’s not true in those cases that you don’t care.

Erin Marcus: Yeah, yeah. The whole, I know my truth. And going back to this. Well, I don’t care. Righteous indignation. And it goes back to what’s your intent, right? What’s your true intent? Not what do you say do you want, but what’s underlying everything. Yeah.

Vicki Noethling: And, and then it kind of ties back to trust to, you know, so, and even though I may be listening to you to understand if you don’t trust me.

Vicki Noethling: You’re still not going to open up to what I need to hear to be able to understand and there’s a lot of relationships issue. Yeah, well, you see that in a lot of everything out there. It’s and I, I think again, that comes back for a lot of us and some of the things that we bring from our childhood, but the trust piece, but it’s amazing how.

Vicki Noethling: That really can inhibit your life from being joyous and happy because you just don’t trust anybody. It’s brutal.

Erin Marcus: So a little bit about your, your origin story, like how did you come to be doing the work that you’re doing? Because a lot of times when I’m working with clients, when they have two things that they focus on that at some level don’t look like they go together, you know, that can create a marketing challenge.

Erin Marcus: But. You know, at the base, when you say, well, I work on leadership and I work on speaking, people might not think those go together. I think you put them together exactly how they go together. But how did you come to this point where this is what you wanted

Vicki Noethling: to focus on? For me, where I excelled as a leader only came after I became a better communicator, because again, you have to learn how to listen, to understand.

Vicki Noethling: You have to be able to tell stories. And I, in the corporate world, I was in the corporate world for over 40 years and there were people that were okay managers and there were people that were great managers and those people that were great managers. Taught us a lesson or communicated with us through stories.

Vicki Noethling: And I think a lot of times in the corporate world, we think everything has to be fact based points on a PowerPoint slide, and, and that’s going to make you a great leader because you know so much, but you can’t build a strong team, a high performing team, unless they feel empowered, unless they feel that they’re part of the solution, that there are, Vital to the team, and you can’t do that unless you are vulnerable enough to tell stories about yourself that shows that you are that person that they can trust that has been there, done that, and is willing to share everything you learned so that they can be better.

Vicki Noethling: You know, the other piece we talk about is, you know, helping others. That needed and that’s whole, the whole reason I got into this is I had been for years now coaching mentoring people for free because it was the right thing to do. But at a certain point, your time is so stretched. And so, you know, to be more pinpointed, you have to think about going into the business for it.

Vicki Noethling: It’s those stories that really make me see. Myself in your story and and how much of that story has you and we in it and not I and so many people that are in the leadership position forget that and their whole talk presentation, even what they think maybe is fireside chat has I threw out it and they aren’t connecting with you and that that’s

Erin Marcus: a skill and I.

Erin Marcus: I tell people your business is not about you. So your marketing shouldn’t be about you. And yet, to your point, I 100 percent agree, it needs to use you in order to connect. And so you Use yourself as an example. You tell your stories, but always in a way, just like you said, where your audience, whether it’s a team you’re leading or prospects you’re looking to acquire as clients, you see themselves in what you’re talking about.

Vicki Noethling: Yeah. They have to, they have to have that. A moment where they think, Oh my God, she feels my pain. She knows what my problem is. And now I’m going to lean in to see how did she get through that, that maybe I can. And I think that’s the important thing that everything that you say needs to be able to connect with them.

Vicki Noethling: That they think. I could do that. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Erin Marcus: So one of the things I love to do is say, okay, let’s, let’s shorten people’s learning curves. Just don’t do what I did and you’ll be better off. Share the dirty undergolly of all the things that didn’t work to help people. What’s something that you’ve done as you’ve grown your business that you’re like, Oh my God, you know, that just didn’t work.

Erin Marcus: Don’t do that. That

Vicki Noethling: just didn’t work. I think one of the things that I did that didn’t work was, you know, I, In the very beginning, I was doing everything and, you know, there are certain things that we do as entrepreneurs, as small business owners that really aren’t revenue generating and, and don’t necessarily have to have your stamp, your personality in it.

Vicki Noethling: And so having a virtual assistant made a huge difference in my being able to communicate more efficiently. Again, with things that. We’re not my personal touch on it so that I could be able to take the time to put my personal touch on the areas that needed to have it. And, and I think so often we think, well, you know, I’m just starting.

Vicki Noethling: I mean, I’ve only started my business. In 2021. So it’s not like I’ve been doing this forever and ever, but I still recognize, okay, I need somebody to work to do edit my podcast and I need somebody to help with the emails and things like that. And, you know, as I’m going on, I see other areas that I can expand on it that again, don’t need me personally to do the work, but do need to get done.

Vicki Noethling: And so that’s where, you know, having a virtual assistant would be very helpful. Well,

Erin Marcus: and what’s interesting to hear you say this is I think one of the things that saved me from going too far down that rabbit hole was my corporate background. Because one of the things I, that was just so clear when you have a job in a big company with other people who had jobs in the company was you do your job, they do their job, and when you all come together the thing moves and right.

Erin Marcus: And I think It’s so interesting that you, yourself, myself, we come out of corporate where we saw that and so many people don’t replicate how a business works when they start to be the business.

Vicki Noethling: Yeah, I think part of it is my project management backgrounds, you know, with the project as a project manager, I had lots of people that had did all different things.

Vicki Noethling: And I was just the quarterback. And so as I’m navigating in this business environment, that’s what I keep on thinking. Okay, what would I do as a quarterback? Yes. And what would I delegate out? And that helps to make more sense and, and grant it, you know, we think, Oh, well, I can’t afford it. I’m just starting.

Vicki Noethling: The VAs are underpaid as it is, but you know, you, you can get one for to just do a little bit of the work. And then as your business grows, then you can have them grow with you in terms of their salary and such. But yeah. Oftentimes you see that and my leadership style is one that I am more collaborative and I like to do delegation.

Vicki Noethling: I’m not authoritative. So it’s not a big deal for me to share the work. It’s like, I know that I’m not the smartest person in the room. I’m sure someone else can do it just as well as I can. And I also use AI. I use chat GPT. To help me save time to not spend hours and hours trying to find that perfect way to say something, you know, I put in the information.

Vicki Noethling: I put all my transcripts in there and everything. So it’s really learning me so that I put stuff out. It’s just. Yeah, just the cleanup stuff to stick it out and, and not spending hours, just minutes, sometimes seconds to get to that springboard. It’s like, Oh God, that’s exactly how I should say that. And then clean it up.

Vicki Noethling: Nice.

Erin Marcus: So let’s flip it over. What are you most proud of?

Vicki Noethling: I think I’m most proud of. My podcast, because it was something that I had not even in any of my plans of life strategies. I, I’m a toastmaster. And I had a project where you had to do a podcast, a simulation of a podcast. And I, it was just around COVID time.

Vicki Noethling: And I had was part of the church parish council, and I had people that were all alone in their homes. But had computers or phones. And so I started as my project having these little chats with these folks that were alone so they wouldn’t feel so alone. And it was so much fun hearing their stories and how I could get them to tell me these things about their lives that I said, Oh, I need to do this.

Vicki Noethling: And so now I’m almost to 300 episodes. And I’ve been doing podcasts at a year and a half, so I’m so, it’s so very proud of it and I just got notified again by pod match that I’m in the top 10 again. So it’s nice,

Erin Marcus: nice, nice, nice, nice, very exciting. I’ve been loving I mean my podcast as well. I love who I’ve gotten to meet because it what I’ve gotten to learn because of it.

Erin Marcus: That wouldn’t have come about

Vicki Noethling: in any other way. And it’s like a mastermind class every day or five times a day, because you get 30 minutes or more of quality time with these individuals where they open their hearts and their minds to you. And so my audience is learning, but so am I. Oh, absolutely. And I love that.

Vicki Noethling: Absolutely. Totally

Erin Marcus: agree with you. So if people want to continue this conversation with you, learn more about any of the things you can help them with, whether it’s anti aging and health, yay. Speaking, communication, and leadership, also yay. There’s a reason we get along, right? What’s the best way for them to

Vicki Noethling: find you?

Vicki Noethling: So the best way to find me and really to kind of see more about what I do is to go to my website, which is find your leadership confidence. com find your leadership confidence. com is where my podcast are on different ways to connect with me. You can also subscribe to Vicki Noethling on the YouTube channel.

Vicki Noethling: See this podcast there. And you can also email me at vicki. nethling at gmail. So all those ways work. But if you just want to have a few minutes with me, you know, I love to do a, 30 minute chat to check up your, your setup for your, your video on screen. That’s my goal is to have people always appear their best on screen.

Vicki Noethling: And so you can do that through the website as well as get my five on camera essentials through that. If you want to email me at Vicki, nothing I can actually give you there’s. I printed these nice. So you can print it out yourself if you just do the link, but I have these that you, if you give me your address, I’d be happy to drop it off to you.

Vicki Noethling: Maybe even throw up anti aging sample for

Erin Marcus: no other reason. That’s awesome. So thank you for spending some time with me today, your energy, your effort, all of your ideas. I absolutely love it. So thank you again

Vicki Noethling: for joining me. You know, I love chatting with you. We could do it every day.