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Katharina

[00:00:00] Intro: [Un]churned is presented by UpdateAI.

[00:00:07] Intro: When we feel the stress is progressing us or doing stuff on our to-do list is progressing, then the stress is more healthy. If it’s ruminating, if it’s negative self-talk, the stress can be debilitating and it can be paralyzing, and it can be really tough for people can bring them down in their. Welcome to [Un]churned, A show about the leaders and innovators of companies who have forged incredible customer relationships and stories you can use to advance your own career.

[00:00:39] Intro: Here’s your host, Josh Schachter.

[00:00:43] Josh Schachter: Hey everybody. I’m Josh Schachter, founder and CEO of UpdateAI and host of [Un]churned. Joining me today is one of my favorite people, and I truly mean that. That’s Katharina Schmidt. She is an executive coach and a leadership team developer, mostly for startups and for scallops. She also, as an added bonus, is my executive coach.

[00:01:02] Josh Schachter: She’s helped me, uh, throughout my journey over the past few years. And today we are going to talk about stress, which we know affects all of us out there, um, before and after Covid, uh, at all times. So, Katharina, thank you so much for being on our show today.

[00:01:17] Katharina Schmidt: I’m very excited to be here with you. Wonderful.

[00:01:20] Josh Schachter: I, I’m really excited too because we’ve had a lot of good conversations.

[00:01:22] Josh Schachter: Obviously as my coach, you’ve helped me out with, with managing my stress and my uncertainties. Uh, and so to be able to, to now lasso this and share it with the public is something that I, I like, I, I feel really good about that. That feel like, to me, that feels like a service that I’m offering to the public is to take some of.

[00:01:38] Josh Schachter: Your knowledge and your, your soothing and give it to our listeners. Um, we wanna start out as we normally do by going unearned in, in, in homage to add the name of our podcast and of course, to the key metric for many SaaS companies of churn. And so what I’d like to ask you first off is where were you born and where do you live now?

[00:01:56] Josh Schachter: I

[00:01:57] Katharina Schmidt: was born in Daad in Germany, and I live in Newport Beach in Orange County.

[00:02:02] Josh Schachter: Now is is there, are there major differences between, what was it, do Daad, Germany? Yeah, Damesha and, and, and Orange County. That’s, that’s quite a, quite a difference there. Major differences.

[00:02:13] Katharina Schmidt: It’s, um, yeah, like it couldn’t be more different.

[00:02:17] Katharina Schmidt: Um, and, and I love, I love diversity. I believe diversity keeps us. And the, the processes that we encounter when we go through diverse experiences and the transitions keep us alive. Sometimes they make us suffer, and that as well keeps us alive. ,

[00:02:35] Josh Schachter: we’ll leave it at that. Uh, what, what’s something that that would surprise people to know about you?

[00:02:39] Josh Schachter: That I grew up

[00:02:40] Katharina Schmidt: in a commune where really every. And a responsibility, like one person was responsible for the laundry and someone did the dishes or the, the, the cleaning. My mother was responsible for the cooking. She was an, she is an amazing cook. I think my ba dad was responsible for the admin of the house and the, the rental, et cetera, was a group of 12 to 16 people.

[00:03:05] Katharina Schmidt: Very left

[00:03:06] Josh Schachter: wing. I had no idea. I had no idea. That was your background. That’s that’s really fascinating. Uh, and what’s something that, because we’re gonna, surely we will open up in this conversation as my conversations with you always. Have that impact? What’s something that makes you feel vulnerable?

[00:03:20] Josh Schachter: Personally? So

[00:03:21] Katharina Schmidt: I would say that’s my kids and it’s, um, the day they were born. I think that’s the, the biggest burden that comes with having the privilege and the gift of, of kids is there is an extra. Set of vulnerability and I call it like I call it there, it’s an extra layer of energy in your life that that goes along with having kids if something happens to them or even the thought of something happening to them and, and I don’t think I’m very scared or anxious at all, but the thought of.

[00:03:56] Katharina Schmidt: Something happening to them makes me very

[00:03:59] Josh Schachter: vulnerable. What I love in hearing you describe that as an extra layer of energy, so you’re an incredibly positive person, positive thinker. We’re talking about stress today, and you even just reframed the concept of vulnerability into an extra layer of energy.

[00:04:15] Josh Schachter: It sounds almost like a positive thing that that, that to me amazes me. So like, I mean, I don’t know if you want to elaborate where that came from. Um, but I love that perspective that you had. Nevermind.

[00:04:24] Katharina Schmidt: Let me elaborate a little bit. I think early on in our lives, we learned to hide our vulnerabilities and our weaknesses.

[00:04:31] Katharina Schmidt: Weaknesses. That’s where our vulnerabilities show up often. And the moment we start to embrace our vulnerabilities, our weaknesses, our failures, our mistakes, I believe they take up less energy. And so naming. That fear for my kid creates extra energy or makes me vulnerable, and that creates extra ener, extra energy need is a way of dealing with that extra energy.

[00:04:59] Katharina Schmidt: And it’s not an easy thing.

[00:05:00] Josh Schachter: No, it’s not an easy thing at all. Um, let’s move the conversation to the main topic about stress. I wanna ask you Katharina, and so we all have stressors. In your role, you’re talking to leaders, all different types of leaders in in business and at SaaS companies. What are the types of stressors that generally come up in the conversations that you have with them?

[00:05:18] Josh Schachter: Yeah,

[00:05:19] Katharina Schmidt: and there really are different stressors. One of the stressors that I just came across this morning is, The, the stress around feelings of imposter syndrome not being good enough, that stress, am I up for the job? Am I the right person? Can I really do this? Do I have the right qualifications? Do others find that I, that I comply or that I, that I’m enough that, no.

[00:05:45] Katharina Schmidt: Is this just,

[00:05:46] Josh Schachter: did you get this just from our prep call, ? Is that, are you reciting my stressors?

[00:05:52] Katharina Schmidt: It comes back, you know, imposter syndrome is highly prevalent and it’s even more prevalent. 70% of us have it, and it’s even more prevalent in, in, uh, communities of high achievers, people who go into corporate environments or wanna perform or, or like metrics.

[00:06:12] Katharina Schmidt: Um, and our competi. Have it even more so. It’s, it comes in all forms and sizes. We all have it sometimes, and the feeling of not being good enough or maybe being judged by others can be very stressful. And it’s really, it’s made in the head. It is a mental thing that we learn when we are children and it’s a soft conscious, it’s usually a subconscious dialogue that talks us down.

[00:06:37] Katharina Schmidt: So that’s one part of stress. The, the other stress is just having a lot of stuff on your to-do. And more things in a day and, and I think all of us recognize both more things to do than there is ours in a day to do. That’s a different type of stress. And when, when the stress leads to outcomes and you feel you’re progressing, I think the signs of pro.

[00:07:05] Katharina Schmidt: Progress is really important here. When we feel the stress is progressing us or doing stuff on our to-do list is progressing, then the stress is more healthy. If it’s ruminating, if it’s negative self-talk, the stress can be debilitating. And it can be paralyzing and it can be really tough for people can bring them down in their own

[00:07:27] Josh Schachter: head.

[00:07:28] Josh Schachter: Is is it actually healthy? Like, I mean, I, I get what you’re saying and I, I totally agree with you. This idea of progress is kind of the key to happiness. It’s, you know, no matter where you are in life, as long as you’re feeling a sense of progress. Um, same thing with checking off, you know, tasks on your task list.

[00:07:41] Josh Schachter: I, I, I recently read a book called 4,000 Weeks. It, it’s about the idea that we all have about 4,000 weeks. Which is not a very large amount of time when you, when you actually think about it, right? Most people, when they guess how many weeks you have to live, they say like 40,000, but it’s only 4,000, and it’s this idea.

[00:07:56] Josh Schachter: We often fill that time. We just, we end up filling the time with stuff, finding stuff for ourselves to do, and we should actually just, just chill out and, and not, and be present and not, not find tasks like the, the, the antithesis of, of, of, of having to do tasks is really what we should

[00:08:12] Katharina Schmidt: be after. Oh, I’m, I’m totally with you.

[00:08:15] Katharina Schmidt: Practicing our muscle muscle to not do is, is an amazing skill and we all are losing it. There is constant clinging, pinging, messaging, notifications around us. And if, if we do not learn to switch it off and overcome our fear of missing out, which again is a form of stress, we might end up pretty empty And, and I sometimes.

[00:08:40] Katharina Schmidt: Is maybe the early onset of Alzheimer and dementia, is that maybe like a result of us not being able to not do, to be, we’re human beings, not human doings.

[00:08:52] Josh Schachter: The early onset Alzheimer’s or dementia is a result of not being able to do Sorry, elaborate on that for me.

Hey,

[00:09:00] Katharina Schmidt: it, it’s hypothesis and it’s, it’s not based on, on a lot of science.

[00:09:04] Katharina Schmidt: I just, I. The, the time we live in is, is extremely information rich and it’s, it’s notification intense and it feels time scarce, which is not because you said we all have four, like four thou, or we have 1,440 minutes a day, everybody has. 1,440 minutes a day. And, and we can spend that time clicking into every notification or being distracted by, by every plane, or we can spend it intentional and purpose driven and, and at least part of the time, intentional and purpose driven.

[00:09:42] Josh Schachter: Yeah. What do you do personally, because you’re, you’re, you’re very present. H how do you impact this in

[00:09:47] Katharina Schmidt: your own life? Eh, and, and again, it’s like, it’s what, what we said. It’s not an easy task. It’s, it’s ongoing work. It’s not a quick fix. It’s not, there’s no silver bullets. So it, I would say it changes over time.

[00:10:01] Katharina Schmidt: I meditate. I have, and it took me, it takes me a long time to be present when I do the dishes or to be present when I cook, to remind myself of it. For me, the. The ritual of putting on music when I start to cook, and I find it important because that’s, I think we partly are what we eat. So I’ll cook a meal for my family every evening when I start to cook the, or start to, I don’t know, cut the onions I put on music, and there’s a little ritual in that.

[00:10:34] Katharina Schmidt: So I’m building rituals into my day. I start my day with the short moment of meditation. Not long, because then again, here comes the, I need to, 20 minutes, which enlarges the stakes. No, I can also just do five breath. I start all my coaching calls with like a minute or two, sometimes five of breathing, and I talk and I use my own voice to center myself.

[00:11:00] Katharina Schmidt: And, and by the, by that I center my clients.

[00:11:05] Josh Schachter: I have, I have this fun vision in my. Of, of your recommendation to folks listening here that to start your calls with customers, with just a group breathing exercise, for the first minute or two of your call, get everybody on the same page.

[00:11:16] Katharina Schmidt: I would be, I don’t, with 130 people, and I made them, I invited them to do the bumblebee breath with me, which is, and it’s, by the way, it’s, it’s, I think it’s.

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[00:12:10] Josh Schachter: Hey guys, it’s Josh. If you’re like me, you buy the doggy poop bags on amazon.com that have the most ratings and.

[00:12:18] Josh Schachter: So please give our podcast a rating or review. It’ll help others discover us. Go ahead right now. I’ll be here when you get back.

[00:12:26] Katharina Schmidt: Do the bumblebee breath with me, which is, and it’s, by the way, it’s, it’s, I think it’s great for our listeners. You, you breathe in and when you breathe out, you close your mouth and you make the sound of a bumblebee through your nose like this.

[00:12:41] Katharina Schmidt: Mm.

[00:12:48] Josh Schachter: Did

[00:12:48] Katharina Schmidt: I get it? You try it, Josh. When you go for a toilet, like a bathroom break or whatever it is, you try it, there is research that shows that the brain waves really change and shift into a different state. When we do that. It’s just one example, and I mean, what works for me doesn’t work for others. This really is, it’s a, an adaptive challenge.

[00:13:11] Katharina Schmidt: It’s ongoing work. You are never done as much as I would like for everybody to be done. Once you’re done, the world has become more complex and there is a new technology that wants to get your dopamine and your attention, and you need to adapt

[00:13:27] Josh Schachter: again. So if we’re bouncing back and forth between Zoom, call after Zoom, call after Zoom.

[00:13:33] Josh Schachter: We can do, try that. Bumble Bree Bumblebee technique or any other ritual. Bumblebee

[00:13:37] Katharina Schmidt: breath. Making a cup of tea for you. Getting enough water. What is it like jumping up and down 10 times between each call? I don’t know what it is for you and for me.

[00:13:48] Josh Schachter: You know, I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you actually what it is for me.

[00:13:50] Josh Schachter: You tell me if this is healthy or not for me. Uh, folks that, it’s funny that you’re doing that right now. Right now you’re drinking your analogy and water bottle. Um, as I’m about to talk about this for me, um, I almost find it comical what people must think about me. They must think that I’m, I don’t know that I, I go to the bathroom every five seconds, but I am constantly drinking tea, either caffeinated or decaffeinated, but just as a, like, that’s my just calmed down ritual, and that’s my little break that I reward myself with after every other call or something of that.

[00:14:17] Josh Schachter: Right. Just that’s my smoke. Excuse me. That’s my smoke break. My smoke break.

[00:14:20] Katharina Schmidt: Yeah. And it’s a pretty good one. I mean, even black tea, there is research that grows that it has like, um, it, it, it decreases the risk of cancer. So

[00:14:29] Josh Schachter: find your ritual. I, I think is, is the, the takeaway for me, for this idea that we all get overwhelmed and we have that as a stressor.

[00:14:36] Josh Schachter: You also mentioned the idea of imposter, or, I’m sorry. Did you, did you wanna elaborate on

[00:14:40] Katharina Schmidt: that? Yeah. Find your ritual and self-care comes in many, many, many, A small cup of tea, one breath thinking about one thing that you’re grateful for right now. One thing, even in the midst of a customer screaming at you and, and someone really saying nasty things to you.

[00:14:58] Katharina Schmidt: What am I

[00:14:59] Josh Schachter: grateful for? You know, that reminds me about a year ago, you and I were talking and I, it was very stressful for me at that time, and we, do you remember this? We had like the three Cs that we had come up with, I think you had come up with for me to focus on, and I think it was company, maybe it was company.

[00:15:13] Josh Schachter: I know one of ’em was customer. Looking to bring on board. And the third one was focus on compassion. It was compassion for myself as a

[00:15:20] Katharina Schmidt: priority. Yeah, I love that you remember them.

[00:15:22] Josh Schachter: So that idea that that actually can be something that we prioritize in our professional life as a way to keep us more, more sharp, more effective, is just the compassionate for ourself.

[00:15:32] Josh Schachter: The other piece that you mentioned is, Imposter syndrome. Mm-hmm. , and I’m sure a lot of people find comfort in knowing the stat that you quoted, that’s 70% of folks feel that, right? Or, or probably thereabouts. Um, what can we do? What do, what can, if we all feel imposter syndrome, we all imposters, how do we overcome this

[00:15:50] Katharina Schmidt: sensation?

[00:15:51] Katharina Schmidt: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. That it’s a, it’s a great question. It imposter syndrome is like if, if we say the self-talk of imposter syndrome is, I’m not good. I’m not good enough. And, and many of us have gotten that through our, the nurturing of our, our caretakers. And there is, there is usually little sentences in our head, often unconscious, that make us down and that make us feel like, Ooh, I don’t belong here.

[00:16:17] Katharina Schmidt: I’m not enough. I, ooh, others are better regardless what. . I believe we all have it at times. We all have it. Some people have it maybe more prevalent than others. We all have it. And the, the way to deal with that is, is to understand the cognitive processes in yourself. Reflect on what are those thoughts that come up that make me think that.

[00:16:42] Katharina Schmidt: To normalize it for yourself. We all are intrinsically insecure. We all are. And and, and then to find, I call it mantras, positive affirmations, new thoughts. So our brain apparently is trained to find these thoughts that bring us down. We are not good enough. Oh, others are better. I’ve never done this before.

[00:17:04] Katharina Schmidt: And then find new senses. I will do my. And I will give it my all or I’ve done this before. I’ve, I’ve, I went through different, through, through challenges before and to find new sentences. I am enough. I’m here. I just had a coachee who came up with this amazing, it was, it was a presenting exercise. And I said, what is one sentence that brings you in the here and now?

[00:17:27] Katharina Schmidt: And you know what he said, I am here. I am here. And I made him say it 20 times. Um, here, whatever. Again, what might work for him does not work for you. Does not work for her. So the, again, what is one sentence, what’s one mantra? One per like? Something that I’m gonna repeat and it might change over time, but for now, I got this, I belong at this table.

[00:17:54] Katharina Schmidt: I think it’s

[00:17:54] Josh Schachter: important, and especially now that we’re all sitting kind of at our, in front of our computers, uh, a tactic that I’ve used in the past is I’ve actually put a mantra. On a post-it and put it in the very bottom of my desktop monitor. And then it’s always there in your periphery just to go back to little things like that.

[00:18:11] Josh Schachter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stress can be transferred from individual to individual. I think that’s actually something else you’ve, you’ve taught me a couple years back and for our listeners that deal with customers who may be frustrated, may be angry, upset, stressed out on their own right. And you know, our listeners in that sense, they can’t control that other person.

[00:18:30] Josh Schachter: Feelings, or maybe they can, I don’t know, but how do you, how should they best manage that? How do you best operate with somebody at the other end of the line and a maybe tempering their stress, maybe helping them adjust it, but also just making sure that you don’t pick up on that stress and that doesn’t stress you out.

[00:18:46] Josh Schachter: Yeah.

[00:18:46] Katharina Schmidt: Wow. That it, I mean, I’m, I’m always. In awe with people in, in customer success teams or in customer service centers who do that? Well, it is such a challenging thing to do well because people, and I think in America it’s more intense. The, the emotional reactions of customers and expectations of customers are higher and emotional reaction reactions are more intense in America than in Europe, where, where I’m from.

[00:19:14] Katharina Schmidt: Um, it, it really is a challenge and I would say there’s a few. Your breath is your di most direct anchor into your body. So when someone goes at you and says profanities or, or is incredibly angry and, and gets at you personally, the stress is the most direct way. To not let that get into your body, not feel attacked, and not be attacked, and not let that the sympathetic nervous system go into a fight, flight, freeze, defend, attack, back mode.

[00:19:49] Katharina Schmidt: The breath can bring up the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the. Receive. It’s the rest and digest, but also receive, move with lean back, keep out, relax, which is incredibly difficult when someone stands in front of you with a knife. That’s how our, our nervous systems react. When someone is yelling at us, it’s like, I’m gonna, I’m gonna fight you back.

[00:20:14] Katharina Schmidt: So we really have to do something to calm the nervous system, to not fight back. That’s the breath. Is the most important, like I would say, the most important tool and the most direct anchor. If you take a deep breath right now and you breathe out longer than you normally do, you activate the the parasympathetic nervous system.

[00:20:33] Katharina Schmidt: So breath is one. You talked about reframing before. Reframing. This is not about me. This is not about me. This is a customer. He’s tried a lot of stuff. He’s maybe tired. He’s not slept because his kiddo or someone. You never know what happened in someone else’s life, why their nerves are out there and, and they’re working it out on you.

[00:20:57] Katharina Schmidt: Reframing. This is not a bad person. It’s not about me. I’m gonna leave this with the person at the same time. So breath reframe, compassion. Okay, I’m, I am here to help. Say what your intention is, what happened, how often where ask clarifying questions. So breathing, reframing. It’s not a bad person. This is not about me.

[00:21:21] Katharina Schmidt: Stay compassionate. I want to help you talk iMessages, ask, clarify question

[00:21:26] Josh Schachter: three. Golden nuggets there. Breathe, reframe. And show compassion for yourself and for the other person. Ka, thank you so much. I always generate so much energy from the vibes that you have often I’m sure our listeners did today as well.

[00:21:41] Josh Schachter: Really appreciate your being on

[00:21:42] Katharina Schmidt: the show. Thank you so much for having me, Josh.

[00:21:47] Josh Schachter: Hey guys, it’s Josh. Don’t hang up. If you enjoyed this episode, you know what? Even if you didn’t, I’d love for you to give us a rating in iTunes or Spotify. And after you do, email me Josh blog.update.ai with the name of your favorite charity, and my company UpdateAI will make a donation on your behalf.

[00:22:08] Josh Schachter: I’d love to connect with each of our listeners. Send me a LinkedIn request and I’ll accept it immediately. Just go to www.blog.update.ai/. And it’ll redirect my profile. Thanks.