Why the Crone Was Erased & Why She’s Rising at Work

lexandra Norris [: 00:00:00

And if the person that I am trying to be in relationship with can't be with me at that standard or meet that standard or honor my standard, then that relationship is going to move to a different category in my mind. Right. And the reason I like that is because boundary is still, for me, coming from my mindset, boundary is still implying that I may have any control over another person's behavior. That if I express a boundary and you violate it, I am still giving them the power there. But if I think of it in my own mind as standard, it gives me a lot more power.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:00:39

Hey, it's Amy. Welcome to Create Magic at Work, where we cast visions for a future of work where business decisions ripple outward to our teams, our communities, the planet, and humanity as a whole. If you're ready to edge walk instead of sleepwalk through your leadership, you're in the right place. So let's start making magic at work. Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Create Magic at Work. Today I have a special guest for all of you. We are going to talk about some super spicy concepts that I am excited to get into.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:01:15

But before we do, let me introduce you to Alexandra Norris and let me tell you a little bit about her. Alexandra Norris spent 30 years building a successful HR leadership as a strategic culture consultant, and everything crashed around her. Now she shares her expertise and lessons to help executives reach 10 million, 40 million and a hundred million dollars milestones. And she also helps gen zers define and navigate their careers in corporate. And this is the big one I can't wait to talk about, too. She helps women transition from mother to. To crone. What does that even mean? We will talk about that today.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:02:01

Alexandra, welcome to Create Magic at Work. Thank you for being here.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:02:05

Oh, thank you for having me. Excited, anxious, and ready.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:02:10

The anxious is the excitement, right?

Alexandra Norris [: 00:02:13

That's right. Yeah.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:02:15

That's what I always tell myself when I feel anxious. I'm like, no, I'm excited. Let me just trick myself.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:02:20

Yes, exactly. If I tell myself I got seven hours of sleep, then I did get seven hours of sleep.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:02:26

Right? Let's just. Just gaslight ourselves. So funny. Okay, so I know we're starting off in a humorous way, and all of a sudden I'm like, no, I want to go deep.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:02:37

Yes.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:02:37

My edgewalkerness. I want to hear what actually happened when you talk about how you had 30 years of this successful career and then everything crashed. The Create Magic at Work community and listeners are really interested in the real and the raw. And I think a lot of the listeners are in the Similar space that you and I are. Gen X. Tell us a little bit about that crash that you're referring to.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:03:07

Yeah, I'll try to be as organized as possible. I'm still kind of in recovery or reckoning or evolution, whatever word you want to use through it, but I will try to be as organized and kind of concise and also personal and authentic as possible. So, yes, Gen X, which has a whole lot of things that people will attribute just using that label. Right. 2017, I conducted a lay, the second layoff at the company that I was with as the head of hr. And something kind of broke in me at that point. That was kind of the first big fracture that was like, this is not at all what I want to be doing. This doesn't feel good.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:03:52

It's hurting me deep inside of me. Like, part of what I knew my purpose was, although it came from trauma, was I never want anyone to feel left out, left behind, diminished, marginalized, because that's how I felt. And so I would move heaven and earth so that people would never have to feel that way. And so when I had to do that second layoff, it was kind of coming face to face with, here's exactly what I do not want to be doing with my life. And I was taking some time off. This was. I'm 25 years into my career at this point, I'm thinking about, where is my exit gonna be? And I was taking a break. And a guy that I had met 20 years prior, who I had organ rejection when I met this guy, he was like everything that when a woman looks at a man, in my opinion, goes, ew.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:04:47

Tight black T shirt, all Persona, all charisma. And I had interacted with him in and out over those 20 years professionally. This was all professional, by the way. And for some reason in kind of financial desperation for what's my exit going to be? I agreed to help him out. Now, he was a two times New York Times bestselling author. He knew how to sell the stuff that he did. And the stuff that he did was brilliant stuff. It was about company culture.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:05:22

It would turn executive teams 180 degrees. And he had failed to be able to scale his business in all this time. And I was good at scaling. And so I said, sure, I will join you. And he promised an exit. He promised that while I was doing all this work, he was going to be working on what the exit would be. And it was going to be our, quote, fuck you, money, and everything would be great. And so for seven years, I what I didn't know I was doing, but what I was doing was I was engaging in, like, the full codependent nature that I had grown completely into, which is a very entangling and imprisoning way to live.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:06:03

And how it manifested in this business partnership was that when I grew up, whoever has the most knowledge wins. And I thought I had amassed a ton of knowledge, right? Over 20 years of working, I had. I had amassed a ton of knowledge. And I thought that a. With that knowledge, I could get him to change. I thought that for some magical reason, because I was so good at managing to outcomes at this point, and I had proven that to myself with executive team after executive team, with company after company, like, I can manage to an outcome, that I would be able to manage this situation to an outcome. And if there ever was not a perfect partnership of me believing I could do it, to him being the person that it would never work with, it was us two. And it was like me at the slot machine, right? Like, I would give and give and give.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:06:57

He would say, it's unacceptable to me that you have to live this way. Oh, my God. It goes against my personal values. And that. That was like paying me a quarter in the slot machine. And so I'd go, okay, I'll stay in. Because you say this, after about four years, it started to ring hollow. But then it got intertwined with the commitment I had made to my family, which is me as the sole breadwinner.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:07:20

And that comes with a whole bunch of weird things that we engage in as behaviors. You know, everything's fine. Don't worry. Sure, we can take this vacation. I'll just get another credit card. I'll just take another mortgage on the house, whatever it is. So after seven years working with him, which in one good point of it was, I got to do some of the most brilliant work of my life and some of the most impactful work of my life. And I grew a lot professionally through that experience.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:07:48

But he was failing at selling and growing the business, and we did have to make it through Covid, which was really, really hard in his line of work, because a lot of it is face to face, you know, to have this kind of emotional turn on an executive team, it is more difficult to achieve on Zoom, right? But not impossible. But I had full access to the financials of the company, and I said, okay, we signed this $2 million contract. We're now down to the last, like, $140,000. You already owe me money. And why did he owe me money? He owed me money because I wanted to believe that he was getting us to our exit. And so I went past my retainer with him time after time after time, and he owed me money for work that I had said, I believe in you so much, it's okay if you don't pay me because eventually this is going to pay off. And the codependent interpretation of that is, I will show you how much I believe in you. Which means, of course, doesn't it, that you're going to believe in me.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:08:46

Of course, you can't predict that outcome. That's a huge risk for any human to take to put that out there to another human being, that they're going to reciprocate something that you're giving. So In December of 23, I said, I know there's no more money. I said, my family took out an SBA loan to bridge us for the last three years while you were working us towards our exit. We're out of money now. We're fully extended. We're overextended. I cannot work for you anymore.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:09:18

And it wasn't until we came to that precipice where, just financially, we were out, that I had to say, I can't work with you anymore. Otherwise, my codependent nature, I probably would have stayed with him for another 15 years believing that I could somehow turn this man who hadn't been turned in 25 previous years, that somehow I could do this. So co dependence is a really interesting thing that's full of hubris, I've discovered. It's also full of a lot of defiance and rebellion and expectation and a sense of deserving. So that all came to a head. And then I had to tell my husband that, A, all of the savings is gone, B, the partnership has now officially blown up. C, he owes us $134,000. And my husband rightfully said, that really sucks, and held back on saying, I told you that was going to happen.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:10:14

But I know he really wanted to. Our second child had just moved out to go to college about a year prior. So we were new empty nesters, trying to figure out, what are we going to do? And it was at this point that he said, I'm not sure that I want to be married anymore. And in my full codependent nature, here was the gigantic fracture that happened, which was, after everything I've done, after everything we've been through, what you have to say to me is, you're not sure you want to be married. And that sent me to, in biblical terms, desolation. I was just, I was at the end, I didn't know what to do. And that was the crash one.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:10:58

I just want to honor your vulnerability for sharing your story with all of us. It's super powerful and it just really illustrates that we all have a story. And there's a lot of performative storytelling in the corporate organization space. A lot of masks that people wear and then a lot of self blame and self doubt and lack of self belief is bred from that because people aren't sharing the real and what's really going on. I just want to honor that and, and thank you for, for sharing your story with all of us. A few things that stood out to me that I'm curious about or curious to hear your thoughts on. I see this a lot with women in leadership and I feel like it comes from an innate gift that we have. Maybe not necessarily codependency from the beginning piece, but because we have this innate gift to believe in others and we also have this amazing gift to support others.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:12:12

I can completely advertise market, tell everybody about someone else that I think is amazing. So easy. So easy for me.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:12:24

Yeah.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:12:25

But holding boundaries for myself, making sure I'm okay promoting myself, not as easy. Right. And I feel like a lot of it is, oh, I see in you what actually is in with me is within me. I see in you what is actually within me. And we're not recognizing that. And so we're putting all of our hope or effort or projections. And that's like the positive shadow projection is like with your business partner that you were describing, you saw all of these things within him. And to me, that's the positive shadow projection you were seeing actually what's within you.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:13:09

So kind of an incredible insight that I'm getting from your story. How can, how can we take that and learn from that moving forward? Like, where do we set the boundaries? Where do we notice when we're going from this beautiful gift that we have of being able to see the amazing light within others to all of a sudden we've slipped into the shadow of connecting, which is overly promoting someone else over ourselves.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:13:40

Yeah, I mean, it's a huge complicated question that has, it has unclear edges also. But the things that came to mind as you were asking that is the first thing is through this process that I have been going through to figure out. I think I told you the other day when we were getting ready that somebody asked me in a very healthy coaching, stewarding kind of way, they said, so what is it that you want? And when I was first asked that question. What I wanted was completely coming out of a wounded, defiant place. And it was all about, I want recognition for the effort that I put in. I want somebody basically to fall on their knees and be grateful for what I did. Because I bled to make this life happen, right? I cried, I bled, I didn't sleep. I have put all of who I was.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:14:43

It's gonna make me cry. I have put all of who I was entirely on hold, and nobody seems to be noticing. And that, honestly, is. That's the wrong answer. Yes, I did that. But that's the wrong answer to what do you want? Right? And what do you want? Needs to come from a place of the standard of who I want to be. And so one of the other things that I've done through this process. Boundaries is a real popular phrase.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:15:10

I choose to use the word standard. I am going to commit myself to living at a certain standard for myself. I'm going to expect a certain standard in relationship. And if the person that I am trying to be in relationship with can't be with me at that standard or meet that standard, or honor my standard, then that relationship is going to move to a different category in my mind, right? And the reason I like that is because boundary is still, for me, coming from my mindset, boundary is still implying that I may have any control over another person's behavior. That if I express a boundary and you violate it, I am still giving them the power there. But if I think of it in my own mind as standard, it gives me a lot more power. And so I call it strategic culture. And, you know, culture is a word that people recognize, although they're not quite sure what it is.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:16:09

And strategic is obviously something that people appreciate and think, okay, is that possible? Is there such a thing as strategic culture? And the answer is yes. The work that I do pulls on the knowledge that I've gained a through education, social psychology. Also just through 25 years of being in my first job, I was an administrative assistant, and over 25 years, worked my way up through multiple companies, multiple industries. And mostly I was a student of the human condition in organizations. And so what I know is that there are belief systems that exist inside the organization, and they are kind of capped at different levels. Employees have a belief system. There's part of that that they share with managers. But then managers have their own belief system, and then leaders have their own belief system, which is wholly separate from anything that anybody else has.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:16:59

And the belief systems can never be shared upward. Because if I Tell you what I really thought, I'm in an organization, I might get fired, I might get ostracized, I might never get the ability to develop any further. So there's big power dynamics that are happening there. So what I do is I help through employee survey and focus group diagnostic conversations, I help executives see the belief systems that their managers and that their employees and that they themselves are carrying that are creating risk exposure to their execution. And once we know where those belief systems are, how long they've been in place, we know the antagonist that we're dealing with and that we have to kind of stamp out. And so I work with them in their business context anytime something comes up so that they are working to dismantle the old belief systems and build the new belief system. So, for example, working with a company where a new government regime came in and the government decided, we're removing the fuel subsidy that we've been providing to companies. And this was a desperately needed fuel subsidy for employees who often commuted four to five hours one way to get to work.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:18:12

And they're not getting paid very much to begin with. So this client of mine decided we're going to do our best. We can't fully replace the government subsidy, but we can put some of it back so that this burden does not hit you so much. And the way that they announced it was like in the regular weekly announcement that came out from the CEO, bullet point number 10, by the way, we're going to help you with the subsidy. And they had drafted it, and I looked at them every week before they went out, and I said, okay, this thing right here, you need to connect that to a why. And that's, you need to make this a much bigger deal or else what you're going to hear is, my friend works at X company over there and they got more. Why don't we get more? You're going to get complaints about it, and it's going to be perceived as actually something bad instead of something good. And so we just reframed it in terms of this is a bad thing that's happened.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:19:05

It matters to us that this is going to put a financial strain on your families. We are doing this this quarter. It's the best that we can do. And it will be looked at every single quarter with every quarterly results, and we will keep raising it as often as we can. And that messaging was hugely different than just this, you know, one bullet point.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:19:27

Yeah, that's a really good illustration of using your crone wisdom to pinpoint something that is Going to connect the three different levels of leadership that you identified where they're going to understand the communication and highlight it.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:19:46

I said another word in there which was stewardship. And I think when you were talking about the positive shadow, and we have to be blunt about it, like we have an estrogen fueled thing that programs us to care for other people. It's not all within our cognitive and emotional control. It is our physiology that drives us to do that. And so it is very confusing. Perimenopause hits and you're like, why don't I care? You know? And I think of new moms and how cool is this, right? No, it is. You know, I think of new moms who look at their newborn baby and worry that they don't care about this, this creature as much as they thought that they would. And then all of a sudden their estrogen levels out and they're like, oh, okay, I'm okay now.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:20:35

But I don't know why that happened. I wish people would explain that so that they don't feel like bad human beings. But the positive shadow piece of it is to me, taking, balancing or injecting or shifting what we mean when we say we care about somebody. You see, you know, you heard the terms of helicopter parenting, snowplow parenting, and those were all falling under this role of because we care, right? So care is this again, amorphous. I hate the English language word. I like the word stewardship because stewardship allows me to see my positive shadow in another person, but it also allows me to see when they're not doing the thing that they should be doing. And if I have that mindset of how do I steward this person from point A to point B, seeing from my positive shadow point of view, then I can pause and I can pause the process. I can pause my disappointment in the expectation that I had or whatever it was.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:21:34

I can take a more objective approach to it by saying that was just my positive shadow. That's not actually who they are. When I can kind of combine it with a thing of stewardship. Another thing that came to mind, I spoke with a Christian based marriage therapist and so many of us want certainty. We want the answer right? What should I do? Somebody tell me that this is the right thing to do and that if I do this, everything will turn out fine. And as I was talking to him about our marriage and our marriage, we went through a lot of things. A lot of marriages go through lots of things, but they were things that happened to my husband that even further drove me into that caring role. And that amplified the thing inside me that was, be quiet, make things comfortable for other people, manage the situation for other people.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:22:34

These things that happened to him were over multiple decades. And so it really cemented that dynamic in our relationship. And as I was speaking with him, and there was another person on the call who kind of tried to call me out on, are you reacting to something that he has just done, or are you responding? Because we want to respond, not react. Right. And this gentleman who's in his 80s and he's Jamaican, which I don't know what that has to do with anything, but it's just like he has the Zen attitude about everything he said. He said to the other person. He said, they have been married for 27 years. She is not reacting anymore.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:23:16

This is full response. She has been surviving in this relationship, and everything she does is completely calculated. It is not a reaction. And his point was this, that when I want to know, is it the right thing for me to do to leave a marriage, to leave a relationship, to leave a job, because I think it's toxic or whatever that is. Right. He says there's an issue of justice. Sure. Is it just.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:23:42

Are the things that are happening to you in this relationship just, are they right or are they wrong? There is that. However, there is also an issue of fairness. A relationship should be. It should equal out. It doesn't have to be equal in every moment. I have done the dishes X number of times, and you have done the dishes X number of times. Doesn't have to be that. But over a period of time, there has to be a.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:24:07

A sense of fair, that we are both carrying the wellness of this relationship in our mind. And as I think about what your initial question was about my relationship with this business partner and the irony of the two relationships being very similar does not escape me. Were some of the things that he did unjust? Sure. You know, when he would fall back on these lines of poor me and I feel this responsibility and I'm not living up to it, and my integrity is getting violated, and that would make us feel bad. Sure. Repeating that for the 27th time, that feels unjust to me. But then also there was just a thing of fairness, which was in the course of that working relationship, I was doing the heavy lifting with the clients. I was doing the heavy lifting with the production.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:24:55

I was doing the heavy lifting with everything, keeping everything on track and all of that stuff. And so when you think about, do I sever or not a relationship thinking about the justness, it's toxic, they're bad, they're horrible. And the fairness sometimes can help to get a more balanced lens on that. So those were three things that came up in my mind as you were talking.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:25:19

I love the reframe of boundaries to standards because it does feel like, at least when I'm trying to set boundaries, if. If they feel violated, it does put in this victimy.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:25:34

Yeah.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:25:35

Keeps it like, oh, my God, you violated my boundaries. And then, like. And then I'm kind of like, well, what do I do with this now? Reframing it to standards, it feels so much more. There's a lot of grace in that, I think, for everyone. The other thing, when you were talking about that need within us to want to know what's next, to want to, you know, when you were talking about going to different experts seeking advice at Create Magic at Work, we. One of the main threads that runs through our coaching practice is spiritual intelligence. And one of the practices is seeking guidance from higher self. Seeking guidance from a higher power, if we believe in that.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:26:19

And one of the ego traps, I guess I'll call it, is when we are constantly running to experts seeking advice and just completely listening to them and taking that next step rather than checking in with our higher self. Does this feel right for me? Is this the right step? And what happens in that process is we're giving away responsibility for our life and the decisions that we make for our lives to someone else. I want to take the conversation to this next point. I think is a really nice place to go, which is women in the workplace. Moving from that. I can't even believe I'm talking about this right now. I'm like, how am I in this space talking about the crone in a positive way, transitioning to that crone energy, the wisdom that we bring in that space of our life. And a big passion that you have is supporting women transitioning to that crone phase of our lives, a phase truly that I think society barely acknowledges.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:27:28

Tell us one thing that you think dies in this transition, and then one thing that you think emerges in the transition to this phase.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:27:38

One thing that dies. And one thing that emerges, I think, can I do 2 emerges instead of one that dies?

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:27:46

I mean, you can do whatever you want. Yeah, give us five. Give us five of the emerges, please. No, no.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:27:56

I think that a. Agree. It's an underutilized, undervalued, under recognized part of society. I think that too many of us go very unconsciously through the stages of our life. We haven't been. And like, we've been desperately lacking. Crohn's Gen X. We grew up on our own.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:28:20

Lashke saw our mom and dad for five minutes a day, you know, whatever. They were never. Maybe we're lucky enough to have aunties or a grandparent or somebody who kind of was giving us the wisdom of life. And here's what you can expect. But I think so many of us as mothers or new parents, and I can only speak from my. She. Her perspective is we go into it with just blinders on of how hard it is going to be to try to honor the physiological reaction you have for the being that you created inside your body. And we get reinforced by other mothers around us, unfortunately, who tell us how hard it is and what a pain it is, and they complain about it.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:29:05

And I view that all as. It's just protecting me from the hurt that I don't want to feel that I'm leaving my baby. That's just. It's not natural, in my opinion. So I think we go through however many years of parenting we go through, depending on however many kids we have, we go through that very unconsciously, and then we don't even notice when we are transitioning from mother to crone in the way that we could notice it. I think what we notice is, oh, finally, no eyes looking at me. Oh, finally, nobody needs me anymore. Oh, finally, whatever.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:29:39

Instead of, what can I move into here? What can my value be here? How should I think about what I have to offer? And if you look at the animal kingdom, you have elephants, you have orcas. They both go through menopause. Not many other species do this. And they actually transition into a specific role in their herds and pods. They then become the fonts of wisdom. Which way do I go? How do I behave? And they help. Then that herd or that pod survive longer. That becomes their role.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:30:17

And we don't have that. And we should have that. And we did have it for centuries. You know, when we were living in huts and all of that stuff, we had the old women that would take the young women and tell them what it's all about. You know, here's what's happening when you get your period. Here's what's happening when your husband wants to have sex with you. Here's what's happening when you're gonna have a baby. Here's what's happening when, when, when, when, when.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:30:39

And they give you framing and context. Maybe it's through a story or whatever. So what I think dies, though. I'll go back to your original Question. What I think dies when you're a crone is this undistorted sense of care. What I, what I mean by that, I should say this distorted sense of care. Like when you're a mother, the care is just like it's emanating. I care about everything.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:31:02

I care about the schedule, I care about having Cheerios. I care about getting the bills paid. I care. And I'm going to make all these things happen so that our life is comfortable and it just mayonnaise of care. And then I think that dies because physiologically you lose your estrogen. So physiologically that need to care dies. And then I think what emerges if you can do this? What emerges is this person that we've been saying we're not for so many of us, which is this person who doesn't need to know how this is going to turn out for this person who can stand and say it is because it is. I am.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:31:42

Because I am. I don't need anything from anybody to tell me this is what it is. Because I have reflected on my life. I have reflected on my lessons, I have reflected on all these things. I have lived this. And so I can look at somebody with just the kindest, most sympathetic and most stewarding eyes ever, a younger version of myself that's happening everywhere on the planet, and say, we're here for you. We're here to help guide you through this. Because it is fucking hard to be a working mother and a spouse.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:32:13

Yeah, it is hard. We're not designed. I don't think we're designed for that.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:32:17

And I just want to name for listeners, everyone's path into caregiving and work looks different. But what I'm hearing you speak to is the biological and systemic tension many women carry. Not a judgment on individual choices. I think of when I was in my 20s.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:32:38

Yeah.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:32:38

And I do think, and I played a part in this. Women in leadership. I, I think of some of the older women in the workplace and there was this energy and sense of being discarded. Like, okay, like 100. You know, even the phrase like they need to put up, be put out to pasture was kicked around.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:32:59

Yes.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:32:59

I mean, I worked in retail in the 90s and throughout the 2000s. And I'm just wondering what would leadership look like if the Krohn wisdom was honored instead of hidden? And I personally don't think now that all of us from Gen X are sort of moving into this space. I don't think we're going to put up with it because we're talking about it out Loud already.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:33:29

Yeah.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:33:30

And we don't care and we won't be silenced or dismissed. What are your thoughts on what that could look like? If the crone wisdom was honored instead of hidden in the workplace? What kind of workplace could we have?

Alexandra Norris [: 00:33:45

Yeah, I think for Gen X, one of the great things about us is that walking our talk while it has taken sort of a. I don't know, my first thought when you said that was like, okay, if I'm in a place who's not going to honor me, then bye, I'm out. And I'm just going to withdraw what I have to offer. Like, I am not going to bleed anymore. Even though I know that you could gain from what I have. I'm done with it. Like if you're not going to listen, I'm not going to talk, I'm going to leave, I'm going to go do something else. So that's the first kind of danger of it.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:34:16

But if it could be harnessed. I think that the work that I do with executives primarily has to do with. I'm going to presume, Mr. Ms. Executive, that you're awesome at creating the strategy in your industry for your business and you know all the technical stuff that has to go into it. What I'm also going to assume is that, and what I know is that just because you tell somebody here's the strategy, it has nothing to do with whether or not they're going to go execute that and help your company perform. People trust people, right? And over time we get a belief system about the people that we are working for, working with. There's power dynamics, there's perception.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:34:53

Being at work is incredibly complicated. And if a leader, it is so tremendously simple. What I have leaders do that transforms their organizations and they don't believe it and they don't want to do it. I have given executives a literal script to follow multiple times, the same exact script, multiple times. Town hall over town hall and they have sworn they're going to deliver it and they have gotten right up to the microphone and then they've run away and they've said, I can't do it. I can't say I cannot get this personal in front of my whole company. And the minute that they get that personal in front of their company, everything starts to shift and it's all the feedback has always been. We were totally skeptical about what you were saying.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:35:36

We can't believe it was so simple. If we were left to ourselves, we would have over engineered some ridiculous solution. Da da da. Point of all that being that. What I think is special about Gen X is that we don't have trouble expressing ourselves from a real place. And if the crone energy was taken up by executives, even other Gen X executives who have gotten themselves enmeshed into what corporate reality says, they should be like, you know, what they should be saying to the board, what they should be saying to their companies, we can help extract them from that. Back to a very human exchange. And we can help them do that because we, as now Crohn's, in our position as Gen X, we know the value of actually looking somebody in the eyes and telling them the truth of what something means to us.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:36:34

We don't care if they listen or not. Do it. Do with it what you will. If you're gonna honor me back, awesome. I'm gonna engage with you. But if you're basically gonna dismiss what I said, if it scares you too much, if you're gonna shit on what I said, then I don't need you in my life. Like. And I think that's kind of the beauty of what we could offer.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:36:55

Because if we had a bunch of leaders standing up and saying, when I started this company, I really wanted to create a place where people could be who they were. I. Like, I truly. But I truly wanted that 15 years ago, and I allowed myself to slip down the slippery slope into EBITDA and all the things I have to say to the board, and I allowed that to overtake me. And what I said to you, and I broke all the promises to myself and to you. If you had a leader stand up and say that, oh, my gosh, I.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:37:23

Mean, jaws would drop in my chest while you were like, that would be incredible. Yeah, Right?

Alexandra Norris [: 00:37:29

Gen X women now could bring. That could help coach those executives to do that or be those executives.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:37:36

Yeah. And owning the crone, owning that word, not being. Having that. That negative stigma to it, I think is empowering as well.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:37:47

Yeah.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:37:48

We're going to put the links to connect with you in the show notes as well. So if anybody wants to connect with Alexandra, check her out. And you're on LinkedIn as well, right, Alexandra?

Alexandra Norris [: 00:37:58

Yeah, of course.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:37:59

Yeah, yeah. And we're Gonna put your LinkedIn link in the notes. So for everybody listening, Alexandra and I, we're gonna pull a card. I'm gonna pull it from the new EdgeWalker card deck. It's one of the archetypes of change, and it's a framework that we utilize here at Create magic at work that has five skills and five qualities to look towards the future with creative, positive visualization. So I'm going to pull a card. I have my eyes closed here. Shuffling the deck.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:38:32

Oh my gosh. We got risk taking. So that's one of the five qualities. Five skills. We got risk taking. So risk taking is the ability to try what hasn't been tried before, to trust your instincts and to break new ground. We certainly talked about that quite a bit today. Themes like this beautiful art here on the card, person doing the leap of faith, off the edge.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:38:59

Of course, these are the EdgeWalker cards. So the affirmation for everybody. Inspiration for you. Anytime you're listening to this episode, I am comfortable stepping onto the groundless ground. Authored by Dr. Judy Neal. I am comfortable stepping onto the groundless ground. Oh my gosh.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:39:22

The artwork in this is incredible. So if anybody, the EdgeWalker deck is on create magicatwork.net and the shop if you want to get yourself a deck. But I am comfortable stepping onto the groundless ground. And the theme that you are meant to hear is risk taking. The ability to try what hasn't been tried before, to trust your instincts and to break new ground. Alexandra, I think we have really trusted our instincts today in this conversation and hopefully broke some new ground with some of the things we've discussed. So thank you so much for being a guest on Create Magic at Work and for sending some magic to everyone today.

Alexandra Norris [: 00:40:02

100%. Thank you for having me. It's been a thrill.

Amy Lynn Durham [: 00:40:09

I want to thank each and every one of you for being here as we explore what it really means to create magic at work. If this conversation resonated with you or if someone came to mind while you were listening, share the episode with them. Help others who are looking for these types of conversations find us and don't forget to follow. Subscribe, rate and review so you're notified when the next episode airs. Until next time, keep edge walking, keep challenging the way things have always been done, and keep making magic at work.