"The firing that made me build better leadership...”

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Hi everyone, welcome to the Nonprofit Diaries, where we share the stories that don't make the newsletter. I'm your host, Kimberly Bottom, and mission-driven work, um, obviously can become very deeply personal, which makes an unexpected separation from an organization especially painful in a lot of instances. So today's guest experienced a difficult ending like this, and it forced her to reconsider her career, her leadership, and really the relationship between dedication and burnout. So today, Elizabeth is the chief operating officer of TCK Training and creator of the Rise Capacity Model, which helps leaders build healthier teams that can manage stress without lowering those expectations. I'm really excited to tell her story today, so please welcome Elizabeth Vahismith to our podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Thank you so much. I really appreciate being here, and I'm so excited to have this conversation with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

So am I. It was when we had a prep call for this, it was a very candid, kind of, you know, not an easy conversation to have. There's there's some pain here, right? But there's a lot of lessons, and I love most of the people who come on this podcast say, I took that lesson and I applied it and I'm better for it. And I feel like a lot of people who are in the moment now that you were in previously probably need that reminder that one day it will be okay, and everything sort of happens for a reason. So um, to kind of dive into what happened to you, you said a few years ago you did have a tough separation from a nonprofit. Tell us um about that experience.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Yeah, so I was working for a nonprofit. We were living in Papua New Guinea at the time, so stationed out of country, and I love this organization. I still love this organization. Yeah, and it was my life plan to retire with this organization. So the change, the the series of events that led to me getting fired was was awful. It was just traumatic. This was not my life plan at all. And when you get when you're living abroad and you get fired, you lose everything. And so it wasn't they had brought us home, our stateside, as a part of this whole process, and then fired us while we were in this random state. And so it was we were completely alone, we had no income, we had none of our stuff, our home was gone, our friends were gone, our community was gone, like we were entirely ostracized. We were exiled, it felt like. A really long and beautiful relationship.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

That's such a shame to like you said, you still root for the cause. Like it's something that's very near and dear to your heart, but organizations are comprised of people, and not every person is going to do it right. And and from there, again, you went through a very painful period, not like you said, not just feeling ostracized and separated from like your community and your family, but literally being in a place with, like you said, no no formal job history within the new country that you were located in. Like it was very logistically challenging. How did you move through that? And then the process to kind of get where you're like, I don't want other people to go through this. How can I change that? Tell me a bit about that experience. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Well, the part where I didn't want other people to go through that happened even before termination happened.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Really?

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Okay. Yes, yes. It was getting off of calls with this person and sobbing. I would get off of a Zoom call. This was during 2020, so like COVID was happening, like it was a whole mess. Yeah. And the the notion that COVID might be like adding to his stress level was not an appreciated consideration that I tried to raise at all. Um, but we would get off of a Zoom call and I would just fall over sobbing because I was holding it together on this call, but feeling completely unheard. And it was in those moments where I thought, you know, I know he's doing the best that he can. I know he's a good person, he's trying, but also there has got to be a way to do leadership better than this. Because I shouldn't be coming off of a call feeling so incredibly unhurt. And so it was in that moment that I did feel this shift in priorities from this road that I had been going down, thinking I'm going to retire in this line of work that I'm in, and feeling like, no, no, no, I actually need this guy's job. Like, this is my now, this is my new long-term game, is I want his job because I want to be in a position where I can make sure this doesn't happen again. And show up to those calls in ways that actually help people feel heard, actually de-escalate the situation, and actually result in the changes that we need to see within the organization, within our company for the mission. Yep, right.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

So I feel like there's probably quite a few people who have felt that sensation, the sobbing, the burning, the like, you know, something's wrong here. How did you take that from how it felt inside into building something? Because that's really hard to do.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Yes. Well, first there was a lot of crying.

unknown 7:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Good. Honestly, I'm glad you said that because a lot of people feel like that they shouldn't make time for that. And you have to process these things.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Yes. Oh my goodness. I would, I was a wreck, I would have been a wreck. I the the processing was an essential part of that journey. Yes. And I can see the journey now from this like aerial view, looking back at how I was so, so very raw when it first happened. And I remember having a conversation with somebody, what, two years ago, and she said, Wow, it sounds like that was one of the most the best experiences that ever happened to you. Because she saw all of the good that came out of it. And I immediately started crying. And she said, Oh, I see you're not there yet. I see you're not there yet in your journey. And and I loved that because I felt like she cast a path for me, like a trajectory of this is where we could get to, and also did not rush me in that process where she is like, this is where you are now, and that's okay. And also, this is what the road ahead holds for you. It actually holds a place where you could look back and say, That was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Exactly. Uh, you know, and it's almost like you do know in that moment this is building something that is meant for me. It's hard to tell yourself that when you're in pain, right? Yeah. But everything is a stepping stone to where you're meant to be. So now that you clearly are in a place where you are more fulfilled and more empowered to help stop what happens to you from happening to other people, what do you think the reframe is that we need for nonprofit professionals to hear this kind of change, right? That this ongoing clash between mission-driven work and burnout is just this conundrum that we can't get over. How can we reframe either the problem or the solution to start to get through this?

SPEAKER_00 10:02

When I think about burnout, what I want to look at is what factors do people have in place? And I've conducted research and developed this model I call the rise capacity model. What I have found is that when all four of these factors are in place, and they're small things, but when all four of them are in place, people are supported in such a way where when challenges come up, they rise to meet those challenges. Versus when challenges come up, that potentially being a traumatic stressor for them. And so these these rise factors make a really huge difference. And the there are four of them rise as the acronym. So the first one is reset tactics. And so this is the skill that even with all the chaos going on in the world around me, I have within myself the ability to reset and feel stable again. And this comes from our mindsets, this comes from our ability to emotionally and somatically regulate ourselves, and a part of that mindset is our sense of identity and how we understand who I am and what I do in conjunction with the work that we do. And one of the things that I help nonprofits think through is when these kind of when challenges appear in your workplace, how is it that you want your staff to think about those challenges? And how do you want them to think about that I tug of identity and mission-driven work? And that mindset that you would like your staff to have, you should actually proactively teach them that mindset because we learn our mindsets based off of the cultures and the environments that we are nurtured in. And our workplace is going to be a huge source of influence for that. And so it's it's a company strategy to train people on how to respond to the unique stressors that exist in our workplace. And I would love for companies to start doing these, I call them company tactics. These are our tactics, these are how we respond to stress as a part of onboarding to say, here are the normal stressors that come up in our workplace, here's how we want for you to think about those. Welcome to the company. And letting that be a shared approach, a shared language, a shared ethos that happens within these organizations can make sure that that first letter of the rise capacity model is in place for their teams.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

That's amazing. Well, for everybody that's listening and is going, I need that, um, I'm gonna drop a link for more information in the description for the podcast. So, and I'll I'll drop your LinkedIn in as well, Elizabeth, so people can connect with you and have conversations with you. Um, but I think this is something that really people just need to keep hearing um over and over again in our industry, which is like tough stuff is always going to happen. Whether you work in nonprofits or for for-profits, it doesn't matter. And and preparing for that inevitability in the most thoughtful way possible is going to help you care for your people and retain them, quite frankly, which is what we are facing in our nonprofit sector right now, which is this high turnover rate and this absolute burnout that's going on. And it's, I think it might be that lack of proactivity is a contributing factor for that because it's just like, well, we're just gonna put out fires all day, every day until I'm so tired I can't do it anymore. So I appreciate how you turned a really tough situation into something that will stop similar tough situations from happening, hopefully, to other good humans in the future. And I should I appreciate you coming on the podcast to share it with us today.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

Yes, thank you so much, Kimberly.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

I've really enjoyed this conversation with you. I did too. I did too. Thank you for coming. And for everybody out there listening, again, this just seems more and more apt every time we record an episode. This is your weekly reminder to hydrate and practice self care. You are important and you are loved. And I hope that this conversation brought you a little bit of comfort and a little bit of break in your day. So until the next episode, have a wonderful rest of your week. Bye, everyone.

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