Podcast

Cultivating Gratitude in Leadership: Insights from Star Dargin's Journey (Ep. #84)

Published on
September 19, 2023
Contributor
Contributors
No items found.
Share
Follow Our Podcast

Cultivating Gratitude in Leadership: Insights from Star Dargin's Journey (Ep. #84)

Welcome to another insightful episode of "Building Better Managers," the podcast hosted by Wendy Hanson. In today's engaging conversation, Wendy welcomes a special guest, Star Dargin, a seasoned coach and expert in the field of gratitude. Join Wendy and Star as they explore the remarkable impact of gratitude on workplace culture and leadership.

Star Dargin, a professional coach with extensive experience and a deep passion for gratitude, shares her remarkable journey. She explains how her personal gratitude practice transformed her life and business, highlighting the profound effects it had on her perspective during a challenging period. Star's journey ultimately led her to explore the intersection of gratitude and business, where she discovered its immense potential.

In this episode, you'll gain insights into the neuroscience of gratitude, understanding how it shifts our brain from survival mode to one of open engagement, curiosity, and positivity. Wendy and Star discuss the transformative power of gratitude in creating a culture of compassion, recognition, and appreciation at work.

Meet Star Dargin:

  • Star is an accomplished author, having written "Leading with Gratitude" and numerous articles for Forbes, and she's set to release her next book in 2024, addressing the challenges of gratitude in modern workplaces.
  • As the founder of Star Leadership LLC, Star is dedicated to promoting gratitude's profound impact on leadership and organizational success.
  • With a rich background in coaching, delivering engaging workshops, and conducting extensive research on gratitude, Star is passionate about helping leaders and companies create thriving workplaces through the power of appreciation. 
View the episode transcript

Intro  0:02  
Welcome to building better managers, the better manager podcast with Wendy Hanson, where we talk with top leadership professionals about strategies you can use today to create a happier, highly engaged and more productive workplace. Now, here's your host, better manager, co founder, Wendy Hanson.

Wendy  0:23  
Greetings everyone, I believe that you tuned in to building better managers, because you want to grow in your profession as a manager, or a leader. Or you're part of a learning and development team. And you want to be able to learn things to share with your managers. And you want to give them support because we share pragmatic information that everybody gets off these calls and are able to say, I learned something that I can do. I also hope that we have directors and VPs that are listening, maybe taking the evening walk so that they can build practices in the business around culture that are positive. And today, I'm just so excited about my guest, and I'll introduce her in a minute. But some of you may not know who I am. I'm Wendy Hanson, and I'm co founder and chief of culture and community for better manager. We help people grow by making people happy, because then they're productive in the workforce. And they know the processes on how to make things work. And being in that place of helping people grow has been my life's mission. So I am so proud to be part of this company. And to learn more about better Manager, please go to better manager.co. And it's one word better manager.co. And there's a little button there that says let's talk. Now my guest today star is also a coach. So she knows one of the fundamental things about being a coach is being curious. So I would like you to be curious and go to our website and hit Let's talk. And you can talk to somebody a better manager, they'll set up a meeting. So that's just a wonderful thing. And so let me tell you about estar Dargan. She's, she's PCC which is a professional coach, and we graduated from the same coaching school. So she's CPCC, the coaches training institute and VC. Let me tell you about her. As a conscientious practitioner of gratitude. Starr has done extensive research showing gratitudes considerable benefits beyond the good feelgood factor. And I love that, because we know that that exists. But there's so much more. This perspective deeply informs her passion coaching leaders and companies and ready to move to the next level of success. for over 20 years, she has coached over 10,000 hours, which only an engineer, which was her first career would keep track of that. And I think that was great. Yes. I'm not an engineer. So I can't tell you how many hours I've coached. But it's been for many, many years, never delivered. Yes, it never goes away. Yes, those things are ingrained in you. She's delivered hundreds of workshops on leadership, teams communication, and more to top organizations, including NASA, author of the book leading with gratitude. She also has written several articles for Forbes. Her next book coming out in 24 is about overcoming the challenges of gratitude. And I'm going to ask her about that because I am extremely curious. So let's get started star. It's so nice. We have this whole gratitude thing in common and we've known each other for years, but not totally connected. We've been on parallel paths. So I'm so glad that you're on the show today and that we get to be together talking about our favorite subjects.

Star Dargin  4:04  
Thank you, Wendy. I am so happy to be here and to have this conversation with you. It's one of my favorite conversations and things to talk about you and gratitude. What could be better? So dig in. Yes.

Wendy  4:15  
Yes. Okay. You're ready. So tell us about how did your professional journey begin, you know, that led you to gratitude to having this as such a staple? I think that's amazing. Tell us more.

Star Dargin  4:31  
It is Thank you. So please feel free to shorten this I could go on forever. But here's the gist. The summary is that over 20 years ago, I started my business and at the same time I had some personal stuff going on, you know all the normal stuff in your personal life divorce and blah, blah, blah. And I started a personal gratitude practice. right about the same time I started my business. So my went through doing my business and blah, blah, blah. And then about six years ago, I had a spectacular Lower fall where I broke my ankle. And in that fall, once I got back to the house, I sat down and as a little bit in shock, and my body was like this, and I'm in pain, I'm in pain. And I went to this G, whole body gratitude without even trying to it just was like this. So great poem a, like a car didn't hit me. I had someone to pick me up the road, at the hospital, and it went on and on and on. And so that incident made me realize you can have pain and gratitude existed the whole time. And then because I was sitting down for a long time, and I was working for a university at the time, as an adjunct professor, I started researching gratitude, I went into the research papers and read hundreds and hundreds. And when I saw the benefits of gratitude, I was like, How come nobody knows this? This is incredible. But the trick, the trick, so I'm going to tie it back to business is what these these studies were on nuns, Japanese teenagers, people in the hospital, you know, all sorts of things that wasn't necessarily business. So the trick was, which is how I got to a professionally is that I had been practicing gratitude all along. And it helped my business, I was convinced of it. It helped me survive and live in business. And it helped my ankle field heal faster. And there was research behind all of this that I was experiencing in my own life. So that's sort of how the first book came and how I got into it professionally, a broken ankle.

Wendy  6:36  
Yeah. Well, I've shared a story that I have that similar with, you know, with you before. And it was really about having been diagnosed with something, you know, very, very scary breast cancer for the third time. And I had to drive a half an hour in Boston to get to another hospital right away. And all I did, it was the same thing that you did. I said, I am so grateful. Those nurses were so wonderful to me. I'm so grateful they had this doctor. And I'm so grateful because I can't stand driving in Boston, that I'm on this nice road that actually has a park next to it. And I'm so grateful the sun is shining. Oh, gosh, it could be raining. So by the time I got there, I could have I could have gone all the way and cried all the way and been a mess. You know? It's Yes. Yeah. Instead, I went in there, like, Hi here, for my mammogram, you know, and it was just an amazing thing. So we both share those personal stories, and then we've been able to bring it into work.

Star Dargin  7:43  
That is the challenge. Yes, it's, yeah, even with the science, you know, you look at the study, it doesn't always correlate one to one. So there are it's so exciting that people are finally getting that that's the bottom line really of my first book that gratitude belongs in work. Carry.

Wendy  7:59  
Yeah. Yeah. And I have a question for you. What do you see as the difference between gratitude and gratefulness? What's your perspective?

Star Dargin  8:10  
Well, that's an interesting question. There's also gratitude, gratefulness, grateful. So there's sort of three words around that right, gratitude, grateful Gratefulness. And I don't really make too much of a distinction, because I'm not really a word person, I'm an idea person, they all essentially get to the same place. Some are nouns, some are verbs. And let me step back a bit and say, so as a researcher, the first thing you do is define a word, right? And when I interview people like und, the first question I ask is, what is how do you define gratitude? And so I literally have interviewed? Well, some are just casual, but some are more formal, hundreds of people. And the first question, I say, how do you define gratitude? And I literally have 20 answers. It's a noun, it's a verb, it's an action. It's a religion, it's a belief. It's a, what do you call a strength based character? So there are so many definitions. And it is the place I start with the definition really? So they both mean the same thing, in a sense, you know, depends how you use it.

Wendy  9:16  
Can I tweak that a little bit? Please? Yes, because I have been involved with an organization called grateful.org. And it was started by brother David Stein grass, which I'm killing his last name. I apologize, brother David, and gratefulness that the former CEO and and Christine Nelson wrote a book waking up grateful, and waking up grateful, is about the gratefulness of I woke up this morning. You know, I think we use gratitude to thank things that already happened, you know, and then they cause things to happen. Well, I'll say more about that. But okay, yeah, waking up grateful is Oh my goodness, I woke up this morning, you know, and this is written by Christie Nelson as a cancer survivor too. And it's like really paying attention to nature to everything. So that gratefulness has has kind of a bigger context. And I totally agree with you about the gratitude. I almost it's a noun and a verb, right?

Star Dargin  10:23  
Yeah, yeah. So, it so the definition I came to actually is that it is being and doing. It's being and doing. And for the work world, I'm going to say that gratitude is a skill, because once you label it as a skill, it's something you can start talking about in terms of performance and measuring and mastering. It's a skill of how you be and how you do. Yes, yes, yeah. And so to add on to the gratefulness is there's, this is another thing I've come up with from lots of different sources, I just put them together was P A D pad, there's passive aggressive, I'm so grateful nature, it just it is to active gratitude, I am grateful that I made that choice to be here with Monday today. I chose on a Friday afternoon to hang out with lenders, half the DEA the discovery of gratitude, it's like, it's sort of the curious part, I am, I am grateful for that little 20 leaf that looks like that out there. The more that you dig into gratitude, the more you understand yourself, and the more you discover what's going on and awareness of the world. So that's sort of the three levels of gratitude that I call

Wendy  11:41  
it. Oh, I love that. Yes. And I think at work, you know, we know these days, from all the research that culture and accompany is really make or break, you know, you need to have good strategy and a big company. But you also need to have a culture, that where people care that they're compassionate, and they show gratefulness towards each other. You know, that's one of those things, and they, they thank each other, they, they really, you know, when you get recognized at work, and you can talk a little bit more about the neuroscience behind all that. But it makes a huge difference. And we want to make sure that people it's, it's a it's a habit, it's a good habit.

Star Dargin  12:24  
Yes, it's a habit, it's a behavior, it's like eating your fruits and vegetables, brushing your teeth.

Wendy  12:31  
Right, right. I know. And it once you started, it becomes easy. You know, you can, you can be grateful to others, and people will what's a little bit of the neuroscience behind it from all your studies, you know, when you say thank you to people, and you're grateful, you know, to others and really acknowledge them for that what's happening in the brain at those times?

Star Dargin  12:54  
Well, it absolutely, you're right, it is all about the science is incredible. And we're just helping us, I think, and reading that at the cusp of the science. And scientists say this too, if you look at the neuroscience sites all over the world, which is not the cause. But I oversimplify it, I can use all the terms, but I'm not going to essentially, it's the fight flight freeze, that's one side of the brain were shut down, they walk in, and this is how you're going, as opposed to the other side of the brain, where it's open, engaging and curious and positive. In what gratitude does, it takes that called our negative bias. I've heard other guests talk about that the negative bias that we are naturally brought with so we survive as humans, right. And it flips the negative bias. Gratitude says, Oh, I'm grateful, it changes the chemicals in our body to not being in survival, right flight or flee. You let me sit here and work this out with you, and figure out how to collaborate and how we can solve something in very innovative way. I mean, that's the oversimplification.

Wendy  13:57  
Yeah, yeah. But that's good for people to know. And I also see that when when you express gratitude to somebody for what they've done, and we know there's recognition is for what you've done. And appreciation is for who you are. But when you say thank you, that really meant so much to me. You people say wow, you know, that really felt good in their mind. They're saying that really felt good. I think I'm going to do more of that because boy that made a difference. And so they're like, Yeah, and if you don't acknowledge people, and you're not grateful, or anything that they do, then they're gonna say, Well, I probably wasn't important or or I'm not good. Some people turned it on themselves. I must not be very good.

Star Dargin  14:44  
Right? That's right, that negative bias, let's start on is not being very good. That's why I'm not surviving. So I need to do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and if it's to the spiral, so gratitude is one way to flip it over to the other side. And you told me a great story about it. I don't know if you want to share that or if you want me to do over version of it or doing version of

Wendy  15:01  
it, because I can't remember which one it was.

Star Dargin  15:05  
So, so So I, you are a teacher of gratitude, whether you know it or not, in how you behave and act, and I can see it's ingrained. This is why I think we connect so well is you told me the story of it, it just happened that when we talked last time is that don't tell someone, it's a good spreadsheet, tell them that they are that you appreciate them as a person for being talented and getting things done on time. So it's who they are not what they did. Who versus dance. That was a story you shared with me. Yeah.

Wendy  15:35  
And that's I have to give a lot of credit to Mike Robbins, who, if people look it up, I've I've, I've interviewed him in the past. And he tells great stories about that about gratitude, recognition and appreciation. As a former baseball player, you know, when you mess up in baseball, you can't be recognized for being able to do the right thing. But when you go back to the dugout, you know, people should at least show some appreciation for your effort. And that's what he noticed in baseball, the very short summary that, you know, needs to happen more in life. So, I was intrigued with another thing that you said that I haven't really thought of like, practical solutions to overcome the challenges of gratitude is your next book. But if you don't mind, I want you to give a peek into that. Tell me more? What are the challenges of gratitude? Oh,

Star Dargin  16:29  
so So this was the frustration. So yeah, I came out with a book and it belongs in gratitude belongs in business. And there's a lot of people that agree, it belongs a business, and they don't know how to make it happen. So in the five years since the book came out, you know, talking lecturing taught, blah, blah, blah, blah, is that it's like, oh, yeah, that's great star, but that's great. But so I got a lot of that. So then I started capturing, sort of collecting the reasons why it wasn't working. Okay, like, Oh, it's so boring. Or I've got 12 employees and 12 months, I can't give everyone a prize, or a reward? Or why do we have to appreciate them for doing their job. It goes on and on and on and on. So what I like you're very practical, I want it to work I want so I'm collecting the challenges. And the solutions. At essentially, are the people that it's never going to work, why bother? Things like that. So So essentially, it's a little bit shorter, but it's a little bit more practical and concise of here's the problems, and here's the solutions, and here's something you can try to make it work at work, gratitude work at work work at work.

Wendy  17:45  
Yeah. And, and I, I don't think of it myself, just probably because of how I've dealt with this at better manager. And our culture is I don't think of it as rewards like people aren't getting, you know, Starbucks cards, or Amazon cards is the thing to be grateful for. Probably because we are a global company, we have people all over the world. And sometimes that's a little hard to do. And it's not like, let's get a closet and give somebody everybody gets a price. That that intrinsic feeling of being appreciated, is just so strong. You can't take that away from somebody.

Star Dargin  18:25  
Well, speaking of international, I agree that feeling of being appreciated, however, I'm sure you've experienced this being appreciated in different countries is different. So that that is one of the challenges is how you appreciate someone in Japan versus India versus Germany, very different.

Wendy  18:42  
Can you give an example of that for people that may not realize that different culture nuance or gratitude there? Sure, sure.

Star Dargin  18:50  
My German my German friend, the tribe in Africa, that's where I'm going first, because they're so dramatically different. My my German friends, who is a minister and a coach, executive coach says, she's a German American, she says, when I fly home to Germany, to see my family, I have to throw my gratitude filter out the window. Because if I keep saying thank you all the time, they are going to think I'm crazy. Because in my German, her German culture, you're not supposed to thank people for stuff they're supposed to do. That's one one example, for when I get on my semiconductor people. It's like, you know, when we go to Asia, we have to be careful not to express things too loud to the wrong people. We have to do it in the right hierarchy order. Or otherwise it's offensive, or it goes on and on are introverted. Extroverts is a great example, too, because they exist everywhere to the introvert doesn't always like being called out in a room of 500 people.

Wendy  19:49  
Yeah, yeah. And that I love that you bring that up because people need to check in if you're a manager and you have a team. You have to ask them when you on a one on one, what's the best way for me to show you gratitude and appreciation? You know, because, and somebody else would say, call me up on the stage at the town hall, you know, that would be great, like an award. But we need to be sensitive to that. And I love that you brought up the cultural piece, because it is very different, you know, and and now that we're really a global business nation, you know, we we deal all the time with that. You have to be sensitive to that, that we have. We do too many things the American way. Yeah. And I love your example of the German people. Yeah, it's very true.

Star Dargin  20:40  
That's a skill. It's a learnable skill. And I like what you added to that too. Yeah, that you check in with them? How can I appreciate you

Wendy  20:47  
do it now? And so you're not embarrassing them? Because that's really not your intention? And what, how can managers incorporate gratitude into their teams and their staff more? What are some of those things? We always talk you and I about being pragmatic? And the tools? What are some things that people listening can say, oh, yeah, I could do that at my next team meeting, or my next 101? Well, this

Star Dargin  21:14  
is why I call it there's so many simple, simple, simple things. And then there's, like you said, it is really a cultural thing. So it really is shifting the culture, leader by leader, person, by person to some of the very simplest things is starting in the meeting with grateful, you know, or start or end or book, whatever works for you. And as an extra, here's another quick science thing, if you because I did find three, three general areas that gratitude doesn't, their challenges, and okay, and so one of the challenges, it has to be authentic gratitude, if you fake gratitude, people know, it's a brain science, there are studies and research that if you fake it, people, even if they unconsciously, don't can't say, oh, yeah, they're faking it. But unconsciously, you'll know it, and it will lower trust and engagement. Okay, so so. So with that in mind, don't they get that in mind? Start and end with call it culturally team appropriate? Gratitude. So, hey, what's going? Well, you could start it that way, or at the end? What went well, on this meeting? You know, what do you appreciate what you're grateful for? So those are really simple things bookend gratitude, or to start or just then that is a culturally appropriate question statement, or something? Yeah, that's one simple, simple, simple way. Yeah.

Wendy  22:36  
Yeah. And that's one of those things that we do after coaching sessions, right? It's kind of what are you taking away from today? What's the thing that you most appreciate that you took from this? So that's kind of a little bit of self appreciation, because it gets people to say, you know, Oh, I did do this, or I did do that. And, as a coach, we want to be able to acknowledge people, when you know, a better manager, we have two weeks between sessions, so they can do some next actions. And they can, and amazing things happen when people know what they're going to be doing. And as a coach, you can support them in that, and even whether they've been able to do it or not, it's like, what kind of new way? How's this? So that has been very, very powerful. Yeah, very powerful.

Star Dargin  23:23  
So many little simple things that you can do when it's all cultural, appropriate, or leader appropriate or authentic. That's the big thing authentic, I

Wendy  23:31  
would say, Yeah, I know, you can't fake it till you make it. You have to really, you gotta get it working.

Star Dargin  23:38  
Correct? Correct. I have a quick little story I wanted to share that just came up right before we got on this call, that just kind of blew my mind. And I'm gonna explore it more. But I want to say this, because it is really individual behaviors, it's situational. And it is, it is a skill, that's what I'm going to call gratitude is a skill to build. And we do know, it starts at the top, and we do know what's cultural. And that's the harder thing to change. So in my work, I have to tell you the last five years, every time I find a company that I think is like on the leading edge of gratitude, or is heading that way, I talk to my family about and I say something, so one family member started investing in the companies that I said had high gratitude or positivity. Okay, versus the other tips from the other super technical person. And guess what, after five or six years all the company's high recommended based on high positivity, gratitude, the stocks are doing the best. It's a survey of one person me. That's interesting.

Wendy  24:44  
That's a pretty high correlation. Isn't it? Wow. Wonderful guy and family office who looks at all these things, technically, of what businesses to be able to help people invest stood. He's just brilliant. And I'll have to add this to his matrix. Yes. Difference.

Star Dargin  25:11  
It does, it doesn't in there is a company that does look at the positivity ratio of a company. But anyway, so anyway, that was just totally up the wall. But I did share that because it seemed to support from a personal point of view that most companies that are positive, run on gratitude, do better results and financially to there is a correlation there, there is a correlation. And it's not just me.

Wendy  25:34  
Yeah, yeah. Oh, I love that. I love that. Because that's the whole piece of how we need to look at culture today in a company as really something that's going to move the company forward, if you take advantage of having a good culture, and you spread it. And as you said to and we say this, almost on every podcast, it always stops, starts at the top. You know, I'm very fortunate, my CEO has been away on vacation for a couple of weeks, and has asked me to do some things. And he writes back and says, Thank you so much. Thank you to the team that brings it together. And it's really heartwarming, you know, because I hate to bother him when he's on vacation. But he's like, Thank you, you brought these people together, and you solve this. Thank you. And it means the world to people. Yeah. It means the world. So any, what are some other tools in a company that you've seen? You know, there are so many, but you know, to give people something else that they could do? Star as they go forward?

Star Dargin  26:37  
Sure. Sure. So I talked about the pad passive, active discovery, I talked about the the was in my mind right now the starting and ending, right? Yep. Yep. of meetings. Yeah, the meetings is, my background is the engineering. So I always come with it. A lot of people I coach or engineers are the technical type. And, and lots of times they think about so many stories I hear from my world is they're grateful, they're grateful, but they don't express it. So education is an important part, learn how to express gratitude, learn the right word, they're afraid to express it. And by the time they express it, the person has left the company. So learning how to express it. I have another simple tool about shifting to gratitude, I call it the GLAAD tool, first, start with gratitude, then look at your lessons learned. So find a way to bring your team you can actually almost feel it to a place of gratitude before you dig into that really tough analysis. And also what you have a tough problem and gotta solve this problem. So why are we grateful? Oh, we have clients, oh, we have a problem to solve. Oh, I mean, it can be really silly. But it can be really serious, who look how much information our client gave us. They really researched it. So it's getting them in that mindset to open them up and understand, you really shift them from the negative to the positive side of the brain. So glad it's a gratitude, lessons analysis and doing because when people do things from a place of gratitude, you get different results in different actions. So that's the GLAAD tool. That's another simple one. I can keep going.

Wendy  28:18  
I want to go back to the engineers, okay. Because I've noticed this I coached an engineer who had a problem, it's kind of the opposite and giving constructive feedback to someone because they didn't know how to get in the conversation. You know, and it's always the beginning in that I think you know that people need a little bit of a script, one or two sentences. And then once they get in that pool, they're able to do it. So you know, you're coaching me, and I'm an engineer, and I just don't quite get this, you know, so I want you to share with me, how could I lead into this when it's not something that I'm used to doing? And maybe it's a new member of my team? Yeah. So I get a chance to start fresh gratitude, I get a chance to start fresh with how I'm going to treat this team member and holding gratitude as being something very important. What might I do? How might I lead into that conversation?

Star Dargin  29:13  
Okay, so I'm assuming they're already at this sort of negative place about it. Is that right?

Wendy  29:18  
I think they're at a neutral place. But there's trying to start with, I need to, you know, I'm an engineer and I, you know, I heard I heard star and Wendy talking on this podcast, and I'm not quite sure how I get in to the gratitude. Like, what's the first thing I might say besides, I'm grateful to you, you know, what?

Star Dargin  29:36  
The person Yeah, the person? Yes, it's okay. It's okay. Because there's so many ways to take this conversation there really is as I was going to another story, she helped me to a client shift to gratitude and a coaching conversation to open up and what I'm hearing you say is helping them help someone else. Helping how does this matter Have your help a person who works for him who's kind of negative, maybe or not quite there, that's one of the big challenges is negative people for sure. First of all, you have to check yourself. You know, you know, you know all about triggers. I've heard you talk about triggers and glimmers and all that. So there's that whole set of things, helping them awareness and identifying. The reality is sometimes you can't change people, we know that, right? So it's, I always come back to this, I also have a project management background, what's the goal that you want out of this conversation with the other person? How might gratitude help? It really is important, you know, do you want to let them go? Do you want to have them understand something do you want to try to? Are they teach them, hire them? I don't know what you want. So it's important that you as the manager, if you're coaching that manager, start with what you want, as the result of this conversation. And gratitude might not be the path. But it

Wendy  30:55  
never, but sometimes it may, you know, I, I haven't told this person how much I really appreciate what their efforts have been, they've only been on the team for two weeks. And I just don't know, I just don't want to like, I'm grateful for you, because I'm an engineer, and I don't really quite know how to put these things. And I'm

Star Dargin  31:14  
Oh, okay, so that, yes. Alright, then I have a whole nother section of how do you teach people how to give gratitude. So when do your suggestion early on is one I've used with other people? How do you appreciate them? Here's another example of this isn't coming from a real example, for real engineers. The guy says I'm an incredibly grateful person. It's like, well walk me through what that means and how you do that. So I have to get curious. It's like, well, they did such a good job with this in this. Have you told them? No. Oh, how did you tell them? And then they'll tell me, Well, maybe you could try this. So it's a little bit of a diagnosis. To understand, are they really saying it? And how are they saying in? Did they get input from the other person?

Wendy  31:59  
Yeah. Oh, I love that. Because, yeah, I'm very grateful for them. Yeah. But I just have never told them, you know, but I see that away. They're doing good work. Yeah.

Star Dargin  32:08  
Yes. Or they tell them in a way that isn't. It gets too long. And too involved, whether or not specific enough? Like, thank you something else is not enough. It has to be thank you for delivering that module into the database on that time, and for double checking it. I appreciate a better the Wendy ad, I appreciate that you that quality is important to you. And that's who you are. So it combines the specifics of the task with the who they are as a person. So yeah, so there's it has to be a little bit of diagnosis before I get to that. It's not a general.

Wendy  32:47  
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I love that example. But that's true. And that's what you just got to think through it a little bit. You know, and I love your question, which is such a coaching question of what's the outcome that you're looking for? What do you want to do by saying this? You know,

Star Dargin  33:02  
right. Right, I would definitely start.

Wendy  33:07  
Start with that. What are you looking to do? Yes. Well, this is just you. And I could talk here for about 35 hours on this. I agree. Yes, I agree. Yes. And maybe we have to do it again, in the future sometime. Yes. So maybe we can create other opportunities, yes, to be able to talk about this. But what I love now star is tell people how they can learn more about you, you know, review what your books are. And everyone, we're gonna put this in the show notes. So you'll be able to look this up. But say a little more about you.

Star Dargin  33:43  
About me.

Wendy  33:44  
I'm grateful to kind of find you. Yeah, how to find. General, that was not a good question. How do they find you star so that they can they can ask you to speak in a workshop or do something? Yeah, yeah.

Star Dargin  33:58  
So first of all, I have to say Star is my real name. And I am the only star jargon in the entire Google sphere. So I am really easy to find.

Wendy  34:08  
And spell your last name for us. D A, RG i

Star Dargin  34:13  
en. Yes. Okay. Sorry. Yeah. So my website is star leadership.com. And then I have another website that's just about gratitude to but it's all connected there. So star leadership.com is the easiest way. I'm on LinkedIn. You can Google me, you can email info at Star leadership.com. I would love to hear about people and gratitude and how it works. It doesn't work, the tools that they use, and you have a list of tips, techniques and tools and fun things that people do. And I'm just lining them up. You know, I have a LinkedIn group on gratitude that I do I have a monthly gems where I talk about different books and how's it going?

Wendy  34:53  
Yeah, all right. So people, people contributing things to you would be awesome that they would share some of those things. And you will get them out in the world. Maybe in a book, they might be in your next book. Yeah, so

Star Dargin  35:06  
I am the next book is, is divided into, here's the education on gratitude, here's how people are stuck on gratitude. And here's the toxic part and gratitude. So it's sort of three challenges. And then under each of those challenges, and I put you in education, that when you and I talked earlier, you're about gratitude education. So it's either education, or toxic gratitude, and all the tips kind of fall into those three areas.

Wendy  35:31  
Well, I am honored to be part of your book, thank you. And I look forward that we can do more together and maybe even write some blogs together to get out in the world. So we'll think of some more things so that we can really this is, this is what we're passionate about. This is what we know makes a difference in companies, managers, teams and organizations. So you know, we have to spread the word and get a lot of people out there to, to understand this. Yeah, it is a mission. It is a mission for sure. Yeah. And it's a mission, that it's not just this one of the things we do. It's our mission. Yes, yes. So, I am so grateful to you, you know, for coming on today. And sharing your passion. You know, usually people can share their wisdom, but I love that you've shared your passion. And and it comes out so clearly. And I'm just honored. And and I look forward to two more opportunities to do that. And for our listeners, you know, I'm so proud of our company that our manager and and we have coach all of our coaches, and we've got coaches all around the world, we coach in 17 different languages. And they work with people on gratitude as one of the things in coaching, because people have realized that this is so important, and our programs, everything that we have. So I would love you to learn more about that. And as I said in the beginning, be curious, and you're talking to two of us who are coaches, and really feel that this mode of dealing with things to have a coach to be your thought partner makes a big difference. And we also have so many programs that get better manager to help people have challenging conversations, have one on one conversations, help people grow. So please go to better manager that SEO. And you'll see a little button up at the top that says let's talk and you're always welcome to just send me an email. I'm on LinkedIn, Wendy Hanson, and you'll find me on LinkedIn and we can have some correspondence, or send me an email Wendy at better manager.us. So today, it's been a privilege and a pleasure. Thank you so much star. And thank you, thank you to our audience for listening and we love to hear from you. Please go to the bottom of wherever you listen to this and see if you can give any ratings because we Your feedback is so important to us. Very important. So thank you all have a wonderful day and we're grateful for you listening, take care.

Intro  38:12  
For more information, show notes and any downloads for today's podcast. Please visit us at better manager.us/podcast Be sure to join us again and help us continue to build better managers with another insightful interview.

The future of work has arrived. It's time to thrive.