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Episode Description:

This week, Beth and new friend and fellow Type A+ person Karen Lemke discuss the 'seesaw' of perfectionism, and the ways we rob ourselves of joy in the pursuit of 'success.'

Beth and Karen met on LinkedIn when Karen shared this personal message:

I recently turned 60 and, for the vast majority of my life (work and school), I have tried to be perfect at everything.  It was like living on a see-saw; either I was perfect or I was chopped liver.  Over time, I was quite successful in many endeavors, and I allowed myself very little time or space to celebrate/enjoy the successes, because I quickly moved onto the next thing to be perfect at.  It was exhausting and joyless.

Tune in to hear our candid conversation about celebrating success, perfectionism, and truly opening yourself up to joy (with a little lesson from the Spice Girls along the way!)

About Karen Lemke:

Karen Lemke is a popular and respected leadership coach, mental fitness coach, quantum success coach, instructor, consultant, speaker and writer. She specializes in leadership development and strategic cultural growth for individuals and organizations. She is co-author of the book, “101 Ways to Enrich Your Life,” which is published internationally. She is the creator of “STARS” programs and the “Show How You Shine” journal. And she speaks on a wide range of leadership topics.

Karen is President of Lemke Leadership, Inc., and a frequent coach/instructor/leader at the Center for Exceptional Leadership, at St. Norbert College. She has also served as Chairman of two Executive Agenda (EA) professional peer groups in Northeast Wisconsin. She brings over 30 years of executive-level experience in Human Resources leadership for manufacturing and service organizations, with additional expertise in Organizational Development and Marketing. Although she can be a tough-minded business executive at the C-Suite level, she also recognizes that culture and relationships rule, in all aspects of life.

Karen holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from UW-Oshkosh, and a Certificate in HR Management from UW-Green Bay. She is licensed to provide Positive Intelligence coaching; she is certified in “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and multiple assessment types (including Hogan, DISC, Hogan 360 and CEL 360). She integrates professional coaching practices with her custom-crafted approaches and tools.

Karen lives with her husband, Bob, in Appleton, Wisconsin. She is the mother of two adult daughters, the step-mother of three daughters, and the step-grandmother of seven grandchildren. She enjoys life-long learning, connecting with family and friends, shopping, fishing and motorcycle riding.

Links mentioned in the episode:

PODCAST:

The Type A Plus Podcast Instagram

HOST:

Beth Lawrence LinkedIn

Beth Lawrence & Company Instagram

Beth and other Type A+ Guests will be back each week, delivering bite-sized tips on how to optimize your work and life.

GUEST:

Karen Lemke: LinkedIn

Karen Lemke: Lemke Leadership

Book: 101 Ways to Enrich Your Life

Episode Transcript can be found below:

 Beth Lawrence: Hello, Beth Lawrence here, your host of the type a plus podcast. I'm excited today because we are making new friends. I want to introduce you to Karen Lemke. Karen and I met through LinkedIn and I really just want to dive into this because Karen's story is really interesting and I would love to share it with you.

When Karen reached out, she shared this with me and it resonated with me so much. She said, for the vast majority of my life, work and school, I have tried to be perfect at everything. It was like living on a seesaw.

Either I was perfect or I was chopped liver. Over time, I was quite successful in many endeavors and I allowed myself very little time or space to celebrate or enjoy the successes because I quickly moved on to the next thing to be perfect at. It was exhausting and joyless. Wow, Karen, there's a lot of layers there.

Welcome to the show. First of all, thank you so much for coming on today. 

Karen Lemke: Well, thanks for having me, Beth. This is a real treat and I find joy in this. So thanks. 

Beth Lawrence: I'm so glad. First of all, feel free to share anything about your story and your background and your career just to give the listeners a framework. And then from there, what was your catalyst for realizing that the cycle of perfectionism is both exhausting and joyless, as I think we can all agree. Was there a rock bottom moment or was there one moment that you can really remember? 

Karen Lemke: I describe myself as a recovering HR executive and a recovering perfectionist.

So, I turned 60 in January and I am now having the time of my life and it's taken me a long time to get here, but it's really joyful to be here. I worked mostly in senior level positions in human resources. I think I was reasonably good at that job, but I never really enjoyed much of it.

And there was one day when I went to work and drew a line down the middle of a piece of paper and on the left hand side I wrote, Do not enjoy. And on the right hand side I wrote, Do enjoy. And it was incredible how quickly I could fill up the stuff down that left hand column. And then I sat there pondering, is there anything on the right hand column, is there anything I could say I do enjoy about my job?

And finally, I realized there was one thing and it was development like training and organizational development and talent development and succession planning and that kind of stuff was really inspiring to me. And then I realized I spent maybe 5% of my time doing that. And the rest of my time I spent doing things I didn't enjoy.

The rock bottom moment I think maybe was then, and it was just realizing. Seeing that. I'm successful in the ways I had been defining success. I had enough money to retire. I had grown kids who were doing well in life and not living in my basement. I had happiness in a lot of relationships, but. As far as my work and my career went, it was just is this all there is?

There was this moment after moment of, is this really all there is? Is this as good as it's going to get? Because I'm putting so much of me into this. And then when I would achieve something, I didn't allow myself any time. to really celebrate. It was quickly moving on to the next thing. What's the next thing I have to tackle?

What's the next way I have to prove myself? What's the next thing I have to live up to and be the best at? And basically I got sick and tired of being sick and tired because that's all it really brought me. And then. I had an opportunity to start doing something in addition to my regular corporate job, and I started doing some coaching.

And my boss knew about it. He actually had helped me to get involved in this. I would do this coaching stuff in the morning, and it was like, Oh! This is so great. I would wake up earlier than ever and go, Oh, I get to do this today. I get to go meet with this person. I get to have this conversation.

And then when that was over, it would be like, Oh, now I got to go do my real job. And that, that feeling of. Where is my energy? Where is my inspiration? Where is my excitement? Was really a wake up call for me and really got me to realize that there could be a lot of joy. There could be a lot of fun, but it was somewhere else than where I was spending my time and my energy.

So not rock bottom. Actually, you could say it was at the pinnacle. I would say. I was in a good place in all the ways we typically measure success, and I had a lot to learn about being joyful and happy and doing the work that I feel I was born to do. So that's where I am today. 

Beth Lawrence: Wow. Karen, you said so many amazing things.

First of all, happy birthday. This is a pinnacle year for you. That's an incredible milestone. And to achieve the success that you've achieved, congratulations as well. You said some things that really resonated with me in your message. And also when you were just talking, you mentioned redefining success for yourself.

And I think that's something that a lot of type a and type a plus, as we say, people struggle with is. There are these milestones or these markers or these ways that we say this is when I reach this I'll be happy or when I reach this I will have achieved a level of success and then sometimes to your point We're on the top of the mountain.

We're looking around and we're saying this is everything that I've ever wanted Why don't I feel better about it? So that's a really incredible realization that you had. So how do you define? success for yourself now 

Karen Lemke: Well, there's a school of thought that says whatever you are getting, your systems are perfectly aligned to deliver that.

So from like a corporate standpoint, if we're not getting the profits we want, what's wrong with our systems, not our people, our systems. If you have an executive team that isn't getting along and they're pitted against each other. Well, where is there a system that's encouraging that usually it's some kind of compensation or bonus system or recognition of some kind.

So if I look at my life, what I realized was my systems were wrong. My ways of thinking about things. needed to be adjusted if I wanted to get the success I thought I wanted. So it was like, I used to believe, and you just alluded to this, Beth, I'll be happy when, when I have enough success, when I've accomplished enough, when I have a certain title or a certain amount of money or a certain something, then I'll be happy.

And that way of thinking, was actually backwards for me. And what I'm finding now as I do this research into how the brain works and what success really is, I'm finding that the joy has to come first. It's not, I will be joyful after that. It's, I will be joyful first and then I'll watch the success follow that.

And so I had to turn myself upside down and think about this completely differently. And then when you start thinking about, joy leads to success or joy is success. You start looking at things so differently and measuring things so differently and life changes and it gets a lot better. 

Beth Lawrence: Oh my goodness.

The road to success should be paved with joy. That is so, it's such a foreign concept. I know I shouldn't say it's a foreign country. That is such a concept that we don't even think about in the U S and especially, I don't know. Did you go to Catholic school by chance? I went to Catholic school, 

Karen Lemke: 12 years of Catholic school.

Yes. Yes. 

Beth Lawrence: Same. And if you think of any sort of like, big figure that we think of in business, right. We want to hear the struggle. We want to hear. Everything, all the pitfalls, everything that they went through.

But what if we just measured our success in how much joy we have along the way? Because that's another thing that I think is super important about what you're saying is that life is just made up of days. And if you spend every single day purposefully in a space. Devoid of joy, because you think that is what it takes to move forward, then you're by definition designing your life around the opposite of joy.

I absolutely love this. It's such a different framework and it's really helping me to reposition a lot of things in my own head. So thank you so much. And I also loved that you said, you wake up earlier than ever. And you said you get to do this today. That's also a very small thing that I think is super, has very big results.

Can you talk about that? Just that tiny 

Karen Lemke: reframing? So the vision that I have in my head it used to be the plow horse. So for most of my career, I was a single mom raising two girls. And it was like, There's a lot that has to happen every day, and I'm sure that any parent can relate to this.

There's a lot that has to happen to keep the kids where they need to be, and to get you where you need to be, and to keep all the balls in the air, right? And then, there's always these crazy things like, oh, they have to wear green socks today, and they have to have a red folder for tomorrow, and all of this stuff that was overwhelming to me and I just felt like a plow horse.

It was like, just put your head down and do the work. Just plow through it. And there was never anything about joy that was even entering my mind. It was just get through it. And then, be perfect at it. So boy, if my kids needed to wear green socks, they were going to have on green socks that day because there was no way I was going to be less than perfect for anybody.

And then I would look around and every once in a while you see this person who just is happy. And things just come easily for them. And I would actually be envious of people like that. It's like, yeah, well, it must be nice to have your life. Well, their life is really the same as my life, except for how they view it, how they think about it.

So the, I wanted to replace the plow horse with the songbird. I wanted to wake up feeling like a songbird. I wanted to be up before the sun, feeling happy and joyful and oh wow, I get to go do this stuff today. And if that's really what I was after, then what was that stuff? to change. And I went back to that piece of paper that I had made and started looking at, okay, what is it that makes my heart sing?

What are the things I can do that make my heart sing? And the Tibetan monks have this thing that they call Dharma, D H A R M A. And the Japanese have a very similar model that they call Ikigai. They have four aspects to their model. The monks have three. But basically it's what am I really good at?

Where are my knowledge and my skills and the things that I've learned where I truly excel? And then the second component is what is my passion? Like, what do I want to think about? What would I willingly invest my head in my heart into? Because it's important to me because I care about it. And then the third component is where is it needed?

How can I be useful? So using strengths I have and the passions I have, where can I put those to good use? And when you get the intersection of those three things, the monks would say that's living your dharma. And for me, that's what I would call songbird math. Right. So skill plus passion plus usefulness equals Dharma and I want to be a songbird.

I've done the plow horse thing. I was exhausted. There were a lot of holidays when I was sick. There were a lot of times when I was falling asleep at the big event. And I don't want that anymore. So the crazy thing is, obviously I'm older than I've ever been. And I feel younger than I have in a long time and I have more energy.

And the cool part is it's fun to do what I do. And honestly, I'm self employed now. I went out into my own business five years ago. I thought I was going to retire. That was the goal, right? Work hard, work hard, save, save, save, save, save. So I can quit all of this and retire. And when I got to that point, it was like, I still have something left to give.

There's more out there yet. And I just need to find what it is. And so now I don't work because I have to, I work because I love to, and it doesn't feel like work. It feels like. Doing what I was born to do and it took me a long time to get here And I am delighted to be here and my wish for any of your listeners Is that they get there a little faster than I did.

Beth Lawrence: Oh, I You are dropping so many amazing Things in this podcast and thank you for those well wishes because I started my business five years ago and I feel like I just got to a point where I'm, you know, it was hard during the pandemic. I had a few years where I had no idea what the events industry was going to look like.

And. Truth be told, there were times where it was really hard to find my joy in it. And I thought, you know what, I'm just gonna just throw in the towel, I'm done. And now I am happy to say I wake up every single day. I did have to reframe. I did have to go back and say, what do I like about this still? What don't I like about this?

Because events had changed so much. What actually goes into each component had changed too. And once I did that, I was able to design packages for both myself and my clients. That makes sense that we're both happy about what we're doing about the arrangement. We're both happy about the pricing and it really does make a huge difference because I do wake up with the sun every single day.

As my listeners know, I am a person that is excited now. Every single day to do what I'm doing instead of thinking, Oh goodness, how do I get out of all these meetings that I have today or whatever it might be? And I can see obviously just in talking to you the listeners can't see you, but I've been beaming the whole time you've been talking because you can really tell that you find true joy in helping people navigate what you've been through.

Do you still struggle with being type a plus? 

Karen Lemke: Absolutely. I do not have this conquered. The two things that haunt me the most are what I would call hyperachiever. That's that tendency to define myself in terms of achievement. And then perfectionism. What's changed for me is I can identify them faster and I can let go of them easier, but it wouldn't be fair to say that I've figured it all out or I've conquered it all because that's not true.

I still struggle with those guys. I just. I don't let them rule me anymore. I can figure out what's bothering me a little quicker and choose something different. So that's been the biggest thing for me is it's really a lot in your head and your heart. It's not so much the external stuff, it's how are you feeling about yourself?

And for me, one of the biggest things, you mentioned earlier the seesaw comment. So it, for me, it was always that, right? You're either perfect, or I always use the term chopped liver. But it was, there was no happy medium. And what I've realized recently is that if you're on the seesaw, that means somebody's on the other side of that.

And in order for me to feel good about me, was I making it that I had to feel I was better than somebody else or I was achieving more than somebody else? And then, boy, all you need is, 10 minutes on social media. to have exactly the opposite thing happen, right? You look around and it's like everybody else has it so much more together.

They've accomplished so much more. There's so much whatever. And then you're on the bottom of the seesaw and you've got everybody else up at the top. And for me in the playground of life, it has become a choice to get off the seesaw. And I go play in the sandbox now. So I'm talking with a lot of analogies.

So it's the plow horse and the songbird, and now it's the seesaw and the sandbox. But that's what I do when I feel like I'm on that seesaw, either with myself or with anybody else. I try to recognize that and get off and then go to the sandbox and build my own sandcastles and be so excited. About what the sand capsules are and the potential there that the seesaw doesn't matter anymore.

So that's when you're a kid and you're in school and you're looking out the window and you're kind of daydreaming and you get yelled at for that, right? And you're supposed to stop that and you're supposed to pay attention. Well, my new thing is I need to spend more time looking out the window.

I need to daydream more. I need to think more about what I want and what do my sandcastles look like and put my energy there. And if somebody wants to come along with me, I'd love that. You are totally welcome to build sandcastles with me. But I'm not going to jump on that seesaw as much as I can avoid it.

Beth Lawrence: Perfect. That is perfect metaphor. I saw something today that's, that reminded me of what you just said. It was a meme on Instagram and it said, imagine never playing basketball because you knew you wouldn't make the NBA, but people do that all the time with art. And it's funny because we do that.

Perfectionists do that to ourselves with everything. If we're not going to be, the teacher. Of a yoga class. Why even go to the class? Why even try to do it? If we're not going to be the best person in the class, why even try to go? But there's so much joy in just existing and in playing in the sandbox and in also naturally letting other people's leadership come through and that collaboration come through.

That's where you get inspired. I'm loving this conversation, Karen. I can totally see how you help all of your clients. You've given so many tips I was going to ask you. What tips do you have for the listeners to navigate through these things that might be right now exhausting and joyless so that they can identify ways that they can find balance in their life?

Like how in the chaos do you just sit down and say, okay, this is exhausting. This is joyless. 

Karen Lemke: What do I do from here? So thanks for asking that. I I'm writing two books right now and I just published a journal. And I do a lot of speaking on this kind of stuff and for me I like stuff to be really easily memorable.

So I usually have some kind of acronym or something that I build something around. So this one is ACTS. A C T S. And that is part of a bigger program that I do. But for me all day long, it's about A C T S. And A is Align Attitude. And that's the joy. That's the make it a goal to feel good. How often do we make it a goal to be the best at something, like you were just saying, or to excel?

What if it was just a goal to have fun? What if it was just a goal to feel good? What if it was a goal to be joyful? So that's my first thing is what is my attitude? And by the way, the attitude we keep will attract our peeps. So if you have any question about what your attitude is, look around at who you're hanging around with.

What's their attitude, because you're probably mirroring theirs. And is that what you want? Or do you want something different? So what club do you want to be in? Or what kind of peeps do you want to hang out with? That's all attitude stuff and then C in Acts is choose conclusion. So all day long we have decisions to make and for me choosing conclusions is about first of all, meaning.

What kind of meaning am I giving to something that somebody said? Am I assuming best intent? Am I granting grace? Am I granting grace to me? What kind of meaning do I give it if I haven't been perfect? Who am I now? What kind of meaning is there? So that's part of Chu's conclusion. Another one is the seesaw thing.

What destination do, are you looking at? Are you looking at riding the seesaw or are you looking at the sandcastles you want to build? What's the destination you're reaching for? And then outcome. This is my favorite example of outcome. When I was much younger, the movie Pretty Woman came out with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere.

It was like in the eighties. I think I've watched that movie a hundred times, and there's a scene where he's taking her to the opera. And they're both in these really expensive, beautiful clothes, and he has this beautiful necklace that he is presenting to her for her to wear that night to the opera.

And before she ever even looks at it, she looks at him and says, In case I forget to tell you later, I had a really good time tonight. And I'm like, there, there's the conclusion, there's the outcome. So what is it that makes it a really good day for you today? And can you start thinking about that first thing in the morning?

So I've had a tendency to wait to the end of the day and then go, well, was it a good day or not? And evaluate, how did I do? How did I show up? Well, what if I decide in the morning, this is going to be a great day. And I am going to meet awesome people and I'm going to do stuff I never did before, and I'm not going to be perfect.

And I'm going to have fun anyway. What if that was the outcome I was reaching for? So that's the C in X. And then T is all about think and feel. What do you want to think about? And how do you want to feel? And for that I always nod to the great philosophers of our time, the Spice Girls. Raising two girls in that time frame, we do every word to every song of the Spice Girls and you know that one.

So tell me what you want, what you really, really want. That is my mantra now. And I spent, as a coach, I ask that question more than anything else. Many, many times in a day, I will ask someone, what do you want? Because it reframes everything, not what do you think you should want or what do you think you should do, but what do you want if you just strip everything away, where's your joy?

What would make you happy? What inspires you? What do you want? How do you want to feel? And that is really powerful to keep your focus there and let that drive your actions. And then finally comes say and do. That's this, the S in acts is say and do. Say is words, right? Choose your words carefully.

My biggest one on that is do say do, don't say don't. How often, if I ask somebody what do you want, the response usually goes something like this. Well, I don't really know, but I'll tell you what I don't want. I don't want this. I don't want that. I don't want this. Okay. Awesome. Knowing what you don't want is a great way to start defining what you do want, but focus on what you do want because the brain doesn't get the word.

Don't. So if I tell you don't think about what color socks you have on right now, or don't think about where your car is parked right now, or don't think about the last meal you ate, you're automatically going there. So if we're thinking all day long about what we don't want, that's actually what we're calling into our lives.

That's what we're creating. So instead of saying don't text and drive, say drive safely. Instead of saying don't be late, Say beyond time, things like that. It's little things, but words matter. And the words we say to ourselves all day long matter way more than what we say to anybody else. Because especially we type a folks are incredibly hard on ourselves.

And so the words you say to yourself should be at least as kind as the words you would say to your best friend or someone you love. So there, and then Dharma. The do part is Dharma. Like, put your time and your energy into something that lifts you up and inspires you and gives you energy. And then it is incredible how the world responds to that.

So just like you, I was kind of new in my business when COVID hit. I remember walking out of my home office. I walked down the hallway to my husband and said, I think I'm retired. And I just don't know it yet because I don't know how I am going to succeed in this business at this time. And the craziness was My business took off during that time because people needed connection.

They needed to find meaning in life. They needed to find joy in life. They were rethinking everything. And so even those moments when you think I probably picked the worst time, it could actually be the best time. And I'm going to choose to believe it that way.

Beth Lawrence: Whatever is meant for you will never miss you. I absolutely believe that as well. And similar to you, I, during the pandemic, I gave myself two days to cry when I found out everything that was going on and realize how much it was going to affect me. And then I said, my clients don't need me to cry. My clients are probably crying.

I need them. I need to be their guiding light. I need to be their happiness and their support and have them realize everything's going to be okay. It's all going to be okay. We'll figure it out. And because of that attitude and because of my previous experience with virtual and hybrid events, I was able to keep myself afloat and to serve as many clients as I did during the pandemic, which was amazing.

And. Your mindset significant your mindset shifts are so significant and I am so grateful that you've been on this podcast today I know I've said it in every break, but you really are an incredible person to talk to So what is your most exciting thing that you're working on right now? You said you're mentioning, you mentioned you're writing two books that's pretty exciting.

Karen Lemke: Yeah. So I, that's probably what I'm most excited about right now. And they are the same kind of thing. One is an adult version and one is a children's version. And I would love if the message that I'm learning at this point in my life. I had learned when I was six instead of 60. So I'm hoping that there's an audience there of little cherubs that would appreciate this message and their parents reading it to them.

It would be awesome if that happened. So the adult version and the children's version and I, as I mentioned, I did just publish this journal that I'm incredibly excited about. I'll be speaking at the Women's Leadership Conference in Green Bay, Wisconsin on October 4th. I've got a couple other speaking engagements booked, and I do a lot of work at the Center for Exceptional Leadership at St.

Norbert College. We work with leaders in industry, not college students. We're housed at a beautiful college, but we work with Leaders and executives and aspiring leaders. And so I know I keep beating this drum, but I just feel incredibly grateful that I get to do these types of things. It's that development work that I used to spend 5% of my time on.

Beth Lawrence: I am so excited for you and I'm excited for the audiences that get to hear you and to experience what your message is in person and in real time. It's incredible. I'm so glad that you have so much going on. What if folks want to get your book, what is the name of the book that's out right now? And if you can say the name of your, the journal that's out right now if they want to grab it and then if you want to say the name of your upcoming books too.

Karen Lemke: Well, thank you. I actually also co wrote a book with the guy that I'm currently married to. We wrote it when we were not married. So we teased that we had our baby like 20 some years ago and we got married six years ago. So anyway, that book is called 101 Ways to Enrich Your Life. It's by Bob Lemke and Karen D.

The journal that I'm just publishing and hopefully will be on Amazon soon is called Show How You Shine. And that is my, my overarching message to everybody about everything. So that's available through me directly and it will be available at local coffee shops and things like that, Amazon.

And I am on. Lemkeleadership. com. That's my website. And I am available through email via Karen at Lemkeleadership. com and I'm on LinkedIn, which is how we first got connected, Beth. And I have to tell you, this is the first podcast I've ever done. And I am so grateful to you for making this available to me and for being interested in my story.

I am loving that we have podcasts and so much available to us now that we didn't a few years ago. And I hope that if I've served you and your audience in some way that would be very meaningful to me. And so thanks so much for this opportunity. It's really been fun to be with you. 

Beth Lawrence: Karen, I have a gigantic smile on my face and I have since we first started talking.

You really provided a lot of inspiration to me today when we're recording this. It's a Monday at four o'clock. I've never been so inspired on a Monday at four o'clock in my life. So thank you so much, Karen. I know that we will stay in touch. And please listeners, please find Karen and follow her and we will see you next time on the type a plus podcast.