In this incendiary episode, Zovig Garboushian, Founder and CEO of Boldness Ablaze Coaching®, shares how, through her keynotes, training workshops, and 1:1 coaching, she has supported hundreds of leaders, from C-suite executives to business owners to expand their definitions of success and lead their teams well.
You will discover:
– The massive difference between people-pleasing and generosity
– How being nice is actually quite mean
– Why there is no such thing as perfection
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello Hello and welcome welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach and you guessed it, I’m here with yet another high demand coach that is the one the only Zovig Garboushian. Now, she is the fiery force behind boldness ablaze a boutique professional services firm that delivers speaking, leadership development and executive coaching. With over 25 years of experience in marketing management, consulting and organizational change and leadership development was so big our mission is simple to help leaders reconnect with themselves as their primary source of truth, to lead with less stress and more ease. Now Zovig founded boldness ablaze to advise leaders on moving out of tradition and fears and stories that limit them to cultivating deep self trust and confidence. Well, I’m so excited to have you on the show. Welcome, Zovig. I’m glad you’re here. Before we get into this, because there’s all kinds of stuff I want to unpack with you. But before we get there, I’d love to hear what’s the story that led you to this? How did you ultimately decide to make the leap into coaching and consulting and speaking?
Zovig Garboushian
Yeah, thank you. I’m happy to be here. Thank you for having me, Scott. So the first 15 years of my career were had nothing to do with coaching. I was in magazines, when the back when they were cool. I started in 2000. And I was in marketing. But it was a interesting situation where I was really good at my job, but did not connect with my job. It did not like it. And I don’t think it brought out the best in who I was. And so through a series of incremental pivots, I was laid off, I switched industries, I moved into professional development, started teaching courses, courses, training, people, hosting webinars, and panels all about professional and personal development, and then sort of another pivot into organizational development. And through all of that work, I noticed that I was just kind of showing up as a coach, and that that was how people were relating to me. And then I figured, you know, I think this is a real thing. And let’s go ahead and make it legit. And so I decided to go get some training. And that is exactly what happened, I made it legit. And realize this is what I’m supposed to be doing. Working with people, one on one, training them helping them find their way to feel most at ease in their own skin so that they can do the best work that they’re capable of doing. So it took a little time, I think two distinctly different careers. But I am multi passionate person. So I’m not surprised that it took me sort of several hops to get to where I am. And I’m sure five years from now, what I do now will look completely different. But it took me some some time to figure out what was important to me what my values were. And that was a big factor in me moving from marketing and media, into learning and professional development and organizational development. I had to understand some core values for myself around my career. And I worked with, you guessed it a coach to figure that out. And once I did, everything just started clicking into place.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic. Fantastic. What are you hearing now? So fast forward to today? What would you say some of the most important work you’re doing with your clients?
Zovig Garboushian
Oh, I mean, just is what I what I just said, which is helping them feel more comfortable in their own skin. Because when we are our most authentic and by authentic I mean when our inside feeling thoughts, emotions match our outer actions. That’s how I define authenticity, when we are most authentic, then we can be the most at ease, which means then our brains are open and able to be creative and problem solving, and vulnerable and connection and our own version of what powerful looks like. And so any tool, any question, any nudge I can give to my clients to help them find their version of whatever that is feeling most at home in their own skin. I will do it. And I’ve been trained in a lot of different disciplines, many certifications I’ve been on my own personal journey for the last 25 years and different coaches and training and studying with experts at therapy and all of the things. So I kind of bring all that together. Because what works for you might not work for someone else. But if we can find a way to unlock something where then who you naturally are can show up. And I feel like I’ve done a good job.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic. So I noticed that you tackle some pretty big pretty personal issues as a coach things like people pleasing and perfectionism things that run deep, right? So one of the points that I made and I wonder if you could just share it with us again is is this this difference between being a people pleaser and being generous? So kind of define people pleasing for us a little bit and how does that differ from generosity?
Zovig Garboushian
Yeah, so people pleasing is when we are consistently putting other others needs ahead of our own. When we are saying yes to things we don’t want to participate in when we are when we have zero to know or you know little to no boundaries. When we are consistent really putting others needs others requests other’s desires in front of our own, usually to try and keep the waters calm, to not upset, to not disappoint, to make sure that people still like us, and that we feel validated and valuable. And there’s no crime in wanting to feel validated and valuable. There’s no crime in that. I think that that’s part of the human, just part of human nature. But when we are making those choices to put others needs in front of our own, it’s not a conscious choice, it’s being done for a different motivation. It’s it’s not something that’s actually serving us because I think that there is there are opportunities for us to make choices and do things for others when it can also serve us who it has to work with us in our lives, right. But when we sort of put our needs to the side, or people pleasing, when we’re being generous, it means I’m consciously thinking and say, let’s say you asked me for something, Scott, and I gave it conscious thought, meaning, okay, I’m weighing my options. If I help Scott with this, then that means that I have to say no to this for myself. But you know what, in this situation, I think it means more to Scott, for me to help him, then for me to say no to what I need to say no to this time, that’s a conscious choice for me to say, I think that it’s important for me to be to be there for him in this moment. So I’m going to do that. But that doesn’t mean I do it every time. And there’s a clear reason and distinction why I’ve chosen to say yes, in this moment to be in support of somebody versus just always saying yes. And being that person that well, we go to zoic, because we know she’s going to say yes, and and then what happens is we start training people how to treat us. And they start to take that for granted. Yeah. And then they expect, I want to be generous, but I don’t want to be expected to be given all to be giving all the time because I can’t I can’t give all the time. If I did I would be running on empty, I’d have nothing to draw from for myself. Yes. So people pleasing is when we are just in this sort of automatic way of saying yes. Putting ourselves last but being generous as making conscious choice to be generous. I choose to be generous because of these reasons.
Scott Ritzheimer
And do you find that, that people please just hide behind the idea of generosity? Is that a common?
Zovig Garboushian
I don’t know if it’s intentional hiding, but I do know that, you know, I’ve listened by the way I’ve people pleaser, like I’m not you know, rising above the people pleasing, like this stuff happens because we’re human, and because we’re good and we and we love. But I do think that people who who are habitually in the pleasing place, and I’ve worked with people that define them. So I’m a people pleaser, that’s what I do. And so I think that sometimes to, to a person, it might feel like I’m trying this is how I relate to people by pleasing them. This is how I build relationships. This is how I, this is the right way to do that. And I think we can convince ourselves of that, because we know deep down inside actually, this doesn’t feel good. But sometimes it’s so hard to face the things that don’t feel good. The choices that we’re making that don’t feel good. We rationalize it to ourselves. Yeah, I know. I’ve done that. I’ve rationalized things that crossed a boundary for me that didn’t feel right for me that just sort of grinded me on the inside. But I rationalized it because it was easier for me to rationalize than it was for me to face it.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Yeah. That’s so true. You had a quote that I saw somewhere and you if you really go right to the heart of this, you say you can please or you can lead. He can’t do both. Yeah. So what happens when we when we we step into people pleasing as a leader, and how does that undermine our ability to lead?
Zovig Garboushian
Well, when you are people pleasing as a leader, you might be doing things like trying to decide by committee, right? Getting everybody’s opinions, or you are never giving feedback, because you don’t want to upset somebody. And I think that those things, one, they undermine your authority as a leader, because at the end of the day, if you’re leading a lot of people that’s an untagged when I say leaders happen at all levels, right but let’s just say for this conversation that you’re a leader, you have many people underneath you maybe several teams or so you know, several people are a whole organization. You can’t decide everything by committee, you can’t please everybody and solve everybody’s problem with every decision. It’s impossible. So too, what happens is when you when you do that when you try and take everybody’s opinions into account or your your not your you’re afraid to disappoint people it undermines your authority. It also erodes trust, because if you’re if you’re my boss, Scott And you’re never giving me feedback. I don’t believe that that’s possible that I’m never making mistakes. And so I don’t actually trust that what you say, Oh, you’re so great. So I have a good job like really am I? Because I’ve never gotten a piece of critical feedback from you. So that starts to make me question. How true is this person’s? How true is this person’s message to me because I only ever hear the good. And while I would love to believe that I never make a mistake. That’s flippin impossible. We all know it. And so. So I think the biggest things are it, it erodes trust, and it undermines your authority as a leader. Sometimes at the end of the day, you have to say, Listen, I understand that this isn’t going to be the most ideal situation for everybody. But this is the decision that I have to make and be willing to let people be disappointed or upset with you for a time. But hopefully you’ve built enough equity and trust over time that they trust that the decision that you made was the best one, even if they didn’t like it. Yeah, that takes time. Yeah, that takes time. And that takes courage. So if we’re leading, and we’re hoping that everybody buys into everything that we do, I think that that’s a really high expectation, and it’s going to leave you feeling like you’re sort of pulled in many directions, and then you can’t lead. You can’t lead if you’re pleasing.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. One of the things that I find folks doing, and I agree with you, I think everyone struggles with this to some extent, or they struggle with something else that’s equally as challenging. So there’s nothing kind of worse about people pleasers than any other group. But one of the things that I’ve found folks who struggle with this, they have a tendency to with their team tried to make their team’s job easier, instead of helping them get better. Would you agree with that?
Zovig Garboushian
If that can happen? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Because to help people get better, sometimes you have to deliver the message of what’s not working. And for some people, that kind of feedback is really tough. It’s tough to hear. And it’s tough to give, because nobody wakes up in the morning going, I’m just going to obliterate my team’s world by telling them where they messed up and what didn’t work. No one wants to do that. But there are ways to deliver critical feedback that is constructive, and authentic and also kind. So there I use the distinction a lot in coaching kind versus Nice. Nice as a social convention, nice is what’s expected. Nice is polite. It’s what we’re taught to be as children, right? It’s, you know, don’t upset, don’t say, Don’t, can’t tell someone that baby’s not cute. Like, that’s not nice. But in some situations required nice. But when we’re at work, and there’s business and there’s, there’s money to be made, but there’s also people involved and people’s growth, and their livelihoods and their motivation. That requires that requires delivering critical feedback in a kind way. Kindness has respect built in kindness, if I’m kind to you, then I respect you enough to give you the truth, in a way that honors who you are, I’m not here to break you down. I’m not here to you know, destroy anything. I’m here to give you something that I think would help build you up, see something in a different way start to think differently, and get you to maximize who you are. And I can do that because I’ve been through what you’ve been through. Yes. You know, as your as your boss, as your leader. I’ve seen what you what you’re seeing. I’ve seen it many times. So I think I can help you to get through this in a different way. That That’s kindness. That’s critical feedback delivered with respect. Very different than being nice. Nice is hoping to not upset anybody.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. And I think when you look at it, kindness is about the person you’re being kind to were nice. This is about saving our own pain.
Zovig Garboushian
On the nose. 100% you make such a good point because the people pleasing I do think is often more about us and saving us from the discomfort of upsetting or disappointing people or making somebody mad, or or us not looking good. Right. It’s a self interested behavior that can be disguised as generosity.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, it’s so tricky. It’s so tricky. Now there’s another one and I want to hit this so people pleasers you can take a deep breath. We’ve given you some action steps. We’ve given you some things that you can work on it. Some things to think about. The other one that I know you’ve hit on before is perfectionism. Right? And I would say of the two this is a much bigger challenge for me. So we’ll step into the ring here a little bit. How does perfectionism undermine our ability to lead as well?
Zovig Garboushian
You have no ability to make a mistake with perfectionism. You have no grace you give yourself no grace when you’re trying to be perfect source of all perfection does not exist. There’s no such thing. There’s there’s no such thing because If there was, then we wouldn’t be growing anymore, we would have already hit our mark, we and we, then we’re done. And then what? Right? And then then where do we go? So the perfectionism is it is a is also a coping mechanism. And I think it’s a defense move, it’s a preventative measure, I’m going to do all of the things, check all the boxes, do it 100% Every single time, so that I can make sure that nobody tells me I did it wrong, or potentially rejects me, or doesn’t validate what I do, or I feel or doesn’t allow me to be included. Right? Those are just some of the reasons not all of the reasons everybody has their nuanced version of why they might try to be to be perfect. But that that the expectation that I can do something perfect every time, I will set myself up for disappointment and failure, it is almost punitive. I mean, at least it has been for me if I didn’t do something, the way I thought it was supposed to be. I could punish myself emotionally, you know, and like that could last for days. And then what happens then I’m taken out of the game, I can’t, I can’t be my best self while I’m punishing myself. So now I’m like out for however many days I decide to be upset with myself in it. It doesn’t, it’s not, it’s not natural, to be perfect. Nothing in nature is perfect. Nothing. And then there are whole philosophies around cracks in the surface that create more beauty. And you know, there’s, there’s a pottery technique in Japanese pottery, I don’t remember what it’s called. But it’s when things are cracked. They fill them with gold at the end, then it makes the piece more beautiful. And I just think that’s a beautiful metaphor for human beings, when when we are when we have cracks. We fill it in with more learning with more understanding with more experience, and we get better from it. So to think that there’s some like, when I get there, I’m going to be there and I’m going to know it all like no, because then where do you go? You have nowhere left to go after that.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s kintsugi is that right?
Zovig Garboushian
All right, thank you for that.
Scott Ritzheimer
So where where General, whereas if we’re struggling with people pleasing to protect ourselves, and we want to move to generosity to taking care of others, what is it that as a perfectionist we can we can set our sights on and move toward to combat the perfectionism that might that might hold us back.
Zovig Garboushian
I think some of it is just shifting in a willingness to shift in mindset, a willingness to shift from I must be all things to everyone at all times to I’m doing my best right now. Right, I did my best back then with the information I had, I had more information now I’m doing my best. Now if I mess up, I can fix it. I think the core piece of this is self trust, learning to trust in ourselves that we can sell, we can sell a course correct? We can make changes, we will always learn more and we are allowed to not know. Yeah, I think that for me, permission to not know is so relieving. No one’s gonna give me permission, that’s my job. My job is to give myself permission to be myself, not be perfect, you know, whatever it is. And so I have to make a conscious choice to say I’m not going to be perfect in this situation. If I tried to be perfect in every coaching, conversation, Scott, I would be a terrible coach. Because most of what I do as a coach is experimentation, I have hunches. I throw them out. I see if they land and if they work, and if they don’t, and you’re like no zoic that’s not it. What ends up happening is you go but you know what it is? So you find the answer anyway, I don’t need to be perfect or right. In my coaching. I don’t need to be perfect or write in anything. Because no matter what I’m still learning and if I can trust myself, that when I get to wherever I’m going, I will know what to do. It sort of relieves the pressure of needing to be perfect.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. So you’ve delivered so many huge points already. But there’s one question I want to ask ask all my guests and is this? What is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s the one thing that you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Zovig Garboushian
That the more self aware we are, the more access we have to change the things that are not working and create the things that do period. Our power comes from understanding ourselves, knowing ourselves, knowing who we are and who we’re not. And being with that in our lives. And the more deeply I understand myself, the more deeply I can connect with the value that I bring to the world and then things like criticism and perfectionism don’t have as big a hold on me because I know who I am.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Yeah, that is so good. So there’s some folks listening, who just every word is hitting them right in the center of their chest, right? And they’re just, this is what I’ve needed for so long. How can they find more out about you in the work that you do?
Zovig Garboushian
Sure. So you can find me on my website boldnessablazecoaching.com. You could even email me directly at [email protected]. Or you can come find me on LinkedIn. And I just launched my own podcast called When Does It Get Good? It’s on Apple and Spotify and all the platforms so you can come and hang out with me there. But I look forward to connecting with anybody who’s more interested to learn about what I do, and you know, we’d be open to conversations and and I respond, I reply to every email.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s awesome. I would highly recommend it had a chance to check out a couple of episodes of the podcast. Go check it out. I’m a big apple podcast fan. So that’s where it was, but it’s across platforms. When does it get god is Fantastic. You did you do an awesome job with that brand new show, but it is worth every every minute of it. So check it out. Go visit Zovig’s site, chat with her on LinkedIn, you will not regret it. Well Zovig thank you so much for being on the show today. It’s just an honor and privilege having you and for those of you watching, listening you know your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Zovig Garboushian
Zovig Garboushian is the fiery force behind Boldness Ablaze, a boutique professional services firm that delivers speaking, leadership development, and executive coaching. With over 25 years of experience in marketing, management consulting, organizational change, and leadership development, Zovig’s mission is simple: Help leaders reconnect with themselves as their primary source of truth to lead with less stress and more ease. Zovig founded Boldness Ablaze to advise leaders on moving out of tradition, fears, and stories that limit them to cultivating deep self-trust and confidence.
Want to learn more about Zovig Garboushian’s work at Boldness Ablaze Coaching®? Check out her website at https://www.boldnessablazecoaching.com/
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