Analiza: Hi, I'm Analiza Quiroz Wolf, proud Asian American mama of two kiddos. I went from being a Burned Out Mama to being a Boss Mama, being a boss at work, home, and play. I'm on a mission to help more women be Boss Mamas. If you want to thrive at work without sacrificing family or self care, you are in the right place.

For detailed show notes go to analizawolf.com/podcast and be sure to subscribe because I send out the best secrets I learned from my guests to my email subscribers. Now let's get into today's show.

How can a woman leader go from comfortable to brave conversations, ones that are scary and risky and put your authentic self first. Today we're going to talk to Lizzie Choi about her journey to being a boss mama and having those brave conversations. After graduating from Stanford. Lizzie started her career as a teacher and eventually became the chief program officer at the nationally acclaimed summit public schools. Summit is known across the country for being innovative. They built the summit learning program which helps students with not just academics, but mental health and success skills so that students can have a fulfilled life. And guess who spearheaded and led that? That's Lizzie. Lizzie is now a senior vice president at the Heart Institute, a leadership development program for American education leaders. She is also Korean American, got married and started a new job both last year. One of the boss mama's strategies is about trusting and accepting yourself. Lizzie shares how she chooses courage over comfort to be true to herself. Let's learn more from this boss, Mama. So Lizzie, you have had this very accomplished career. And I'm curious, where did it start? Did you always know you were going to be this amazing education leader.

Lizzie: Well, almost also, thank you for having me. And thank you for all of your kind, generous words. And it's really interesting to me that you talk to me about accomplishments because I think every time I see an accomplishment that I've done, it doesn't feel like an accomplishment. It feels like a step to the next thing I need to do. And so when you ask, Where did I start to view myself that way? And what did accomplishment mean to me? I mean, it goes back way back, it goes back to kindergarten. I remember in kindergarten, I didn't go to preschool. So it was my first experience of an education system where you're going to be evaluated. I remember that my kindergarten teacher took my mom aside when she picked me up for school one day and said, Hey, you know, like, Lizzie seems to really have a lot of leadership potential earlier today, you know, she decided to just get up and start teaching the class and you know, that's really special and you should really cultivate that in her. And that is the first moment where I realized Huh, the actions we have create impressions from other people, which then can lead to connection and can lead to people being in your corner.

Analiza: I imagine with the race by Asian American parents and yours are Korean American, I'm curious when did you get the Asian pressure because I got that from my dad. How about you?

Lizzie: I really didn't feel that I got that pressure from my parents for whatever reason it was I felt so determined always to do push the envelope like a you know if I did something with one project I mean I'm talking in third grade fourth grade, I wanted the next project to be like the thing that no one else had done before and I always wanted to like add this like unique angle and in fact, I noticed that my parents saw that drive in me and would talk to me about like, you need to say no to more things you need to take on fewer things and please rest more so I specifically actually remember getting a bit of the other pressure which was to not be so so goal focused specifically I remember one time in seventh grade you know, it was a we were doing some sort of plant posters and the teacher showed us different plant posters and so I like had this idea of like this needs to be the best plant poster ever created so that I can be one of those examples she shows in the future years and I stayed up like all night like coloring my plant. And my parents they would like come out multiple times and be like, please go to bed that looks good enough, but I didn't listen

Analiza: Lizzie, wow ,that's hardcore, and you're in middle school working on a plan poster. So I mean, advanced now. So you're in some ways that was, it's incredible that your parents didn't put that pressure on you, that also that it was coming from yourself. And I imagine that helped me win in many ways to get to Stanford and then do a Master's there. So when did you realize this isn't? This is not what you wanted? Like, what was the breaking point?

Lizzie: I think I had this idea that at some point, I will arrive, I think that's the thing. It's like, at some point, I'm going to put in all this work, put in all this work, and then I will have made enough contributions and I will have arrived, and then I'm just like, I'm tired. I'm getting really tired. And I'm in college. I haven't even started working yet, right? Like, I didn't even stop being a student. And I'm tired. And it doesn't matter. I will still get back on that hamster wheel. And I remember also thinking, though, that like, no, I probably don't care that much. Like, no, no, like other people are not going to make me this is just because like, it's really good to push yourself. Like every new season, you have something you do. But the truth was, I was so motivated at that point, by the way, other people were evaluating me that I could sense that I would feel crushed, if I didn't get a good grade in college. And everyone like, who've gotten good grades in their K through 12. Education, I think, has this experience where you've gotten good grades, and you go to college, and you realize you're a small fish in a big pond, you know, and then you sort of have to reevaluate, but I could not accept that about myself. And I would just push myself and push myself and then get so disappointed to the point that my junior year, I decided not to look at my grades, because I just felt like they were that one letter would change the way I felt for a week about myself. And so I went to all of my professors. And I asked them, hey, like, this is an experiment that I'm doing. I would really like you just to not put the grade but to give me feedback, give me feedback on my papers, give me feedback on my, you know, problems. That's a please just don't share that grade with me.

Analiza: What happened? Did they do that?

Lizzie: They did that. And it was very interesting to sort of be in relationship with feedback without a grade. It was fun to learn. It was fun to focus on mastery. But I also knew at the end of the day, like I would really, really love to have seen the grade.

Analiza: So after that, you went back to getting a grade?

Lizzie: Yeah, I did go back to getting the grade eventually. And, you know, I was like, hey, yeah, it's just school, like, at some point, like, the grades go away, let's just finish strong. But you know, that's not how it works. There's lots of grades that you get when you start working.

Analiza: I mean, I think it's ironic, right, Lizzie, because you became a teacher. And then you develop this, like, innovative system that so many schools across the country replicated about how to help students have internal drive beyond grades. So it's, it's ironic that you're like, Listen, let me build that, because I'm not about grades, even though I am secretly about it.

Lizzie: Exactly. I think I just know, so deeply, how powerful you know, those like letters, and those evaluations can be and like how important it is to sort of find that internal drive, and how hard it can be.

Analiza: So now we're going to fast forward you're now at Summit. And I mean, you're we went from teacher to to developing this innovative thing. And then you got promoted and promoted and you became the top person besides the CEO at Summit. So I'm curious how you, how is that now see, you're achieving you're obviously doing really well, it's at work. And when is the moment comp when you're like, shoot? I need to like what happens there?

Lizzie: Okay, so my team used to have a joke. I mean, everyone did like where's Lizzie's bag, because, like, we never knew where her bag was. Also, like, constantly having some sort of like plane or something, like, I would lose my luggage. And I would leave the airport without my luggage, because like, my brain was just so full. Like, there wasn't any margin, there was a running joke that maybe I should tie my shoes to my luggage so that I wouldn't forget it on the plane anymore. I mean, this was like a well known fact that maybe Lizzie needs a little more margin in her brain. So like, obviously that was a clue that something wasn't working, you know, when you are constantly losing everything. I think the other thing was I just realized at one point, I felt so moved by the work that we're doing and all of the students that are being impacted. And yeah, when I looked at myself, I felt sadness. I was going to be 30. I think it was my 30th birthday. And I remember thinking like I was going to be so excited and like, yeah, this is like going to be my best decade yet, you know, like, yes. And I just felt sadness of like, I'm not sure where I am and all of this, and I'm not sure if I'm taking care of myself, because I'm not once you see that, once you feel that it's like pretty hard to unsee it, which meant like I need to make some hard choices, I need to step away probably from something that felt very meaningful, that is meaningful that I believed in deeply in people that I loved very dearly, to figure out a little bit more how to be grounded and to find my compass. And to be firm in who I am.

Analiza: Pretty brave, Lizzie, I mean, you're at the top of your game, and you decide I'm going to step back and come back, come back to Basecamp, the thing you built, was he built Basecamp. And now she's coming back to her own Basecamp. So now you take time off? I'm willing to actually you're not really because you're a consultant. So what did you do? Like, how did you find your compass?

Lizzie: Yeah. So I did take a couple months off, I also started therapy, I got a coach, I had been working with a coach actually for a bit. And I was sort of working on designing my life. And I also met my now partner, my lifelong partner, my husband and I decided that I wanted to spend time sort of experimenting. I built like three or four different sort of like 10 to 15 year visions of what life could be that were really different. And I started just deciding, like, all of my consulting work, there were going to be little experiments of what those lights could look like. So I let myself sort of be in that space of ambiguity for a couple years before I decided to join full time.

Analiza: Okay, I have to ask this question, what was one super funky like, you wouldn't believe at least I've built out this possibility for myself. Can you share one of those?

Lizzie: Funky , Let me see,

Analiza: Are they very practical? Easy.

Lizzie: They were more practical.

Analiza: You're a university professor, or manager of an educational tech company, writer of a children's series?

Lizzie: Yeah, there were two things. I mean, one thing I realized is before that I had never really claimed or thought like, I might want to, like really run something. Because like, Who am I to run something is like a bit how I felt. And I realized that that came up. And some of my visions for myself is that I would love to run some sort of your business. So that was very interesting, a new but other theme was like, I want a lot of space in my life, to invest in my family, both in the family that raised me and with my siblings, all of that, and hopefully in the future children if I'm ever to have them. And so that thread was very clear. And I'm like, Well, I probably shouldn't be losing my luggage on a plane if I also want to make sure to not lose like kids on a plane, you know, like in the future. And so like that theme, like definitely came through,

Analiza: You could have your own home alone, like Asian version. So now you're at, you're going through this realization, you're living your life. And you mentioned that external validation was still there, right? Because it matters. And so how this moves you into now that you have you're living the life, like how do you now really like yourself? Like, what is that journey? Like?

Lizzie: It's hard. I think it comes with self acceptance. And that's the journey that I'm on is realizing that I am someone who cares about what other people think even saying that out loud is tough. Like, I want to be someone who doesn't. So one, it's like, noticing, being really honest about what I care about that maybe doesn't feel great to say, and then it's naming it and then it's like having the courage to own it, and speak that into spaces. Those are the shadow sides of me, and it's okay that I have shadow sides. So I think that's like one part of the process. I think the other part is also practicing, practicing speaking my truth, practicing saying things that are me, you know, that are going to be unformed in perfect, not well thought out. They might be contradictory to what I said yesterday, they might be different from what I'm going to believe a week from now. But they're authentic to where I am today. And that is the best gift that I can give the world and to be comfortable with the fact that that's the gift that I'm going to bring.

Analiza: I'm sitting with this embracing of you and that you are not perfect, although we want to appear as if we are and that's okay, then that's okay to be contradictory. Like you said to what you said just now it's okay because there's so much like one seeing it, and then accepting it. And then three speaking it. Those are three hard things to do. And when you accept and speak Get to trust that that's actually the most badass boss mama version of you. Great. I wonder if you put this in your summit Basecamp experience because it's like what I never learned before. I don't know if you had Lizzie in our journeys, it's like not what we learned at school. So imagine if our kids get to learn that. But first, we have to learn it ourselves and model it. So I love that you're doing this work. So Lizzie, tell me about the time when you wanted to do something different, but you actually brought out this Boss Mama.

Lizzie: No, would say in a prior season of my life, if I were starting to speak my truth, and I could tell it was either creating agitation, or sadness, or some sort of negative emotion or even discomfort for the other person, it would definitely shift the way that I started to like frame or hedge or even like apologize, because I could see that I was like entering into someone's space. I am trying to be okay with that, actually, that comfortable spaces are not the goal. Brave spaces is what I'm aiming for. And that means that we're not always going to agree, when it seems so basic. But that is exactly what I'm trying to work on right now. And so the other day, I was having a conversation with someone and I decided to ground myself before I went into the conversation, expecting that I might have a different point of view, and reminding myself what value that point of view was connected to. and feeling affirmed that that was still what I wanted to advocate for. And so when I entered into a conversation, you know, I shared my perspective, and I could feel that my perspective, you know, it struck a chord for the other person, and I could experience that there perhaps was disappointment with me, or anger or some sort of reaction. But instead of apologizing, or stepping back, I did just like clearly state my peace, I tried to not escalate, but I just tried to stay true to who I am. And just let it be.

Analiza: Sitting with that. The idea that you made a different decision that was more true to you. And regardless of their reaction, you are still okay with you. There's so much strength there.

Lizzie: Admittedly not right away, maybe like five hours later. But that was me, you know, like, I need to not be trained myself.

Analiza: I love that, Lizzie. And I want to highlight a few things. You said, it's about being brave, brave for you. And second, he said something about grounding. So can you talk more about that? Because it seems like maybe a practice that you use? What does that look like?

Lizzie: Yeah, I think what Boss Mamas taught me is that it can be simple. For me sometimes it's just a couple deep breaths. It's saying a phrase to myself, that it is reminding myself of my boundaries. And what do I believe? Why do I believe it? I am worthy, and then enjoying it.

Analiza: I'm just with that. It's so beautiful as a thank you so much for sharing. And for those in the audience, Lizzie, and they're listening to this, and they're on the journey. We're all on this journey. I'm curious, what would you say to someone who said, I wish that I could speak my truth and be that brave, and pause and take this boss mama moment and speak from there? What would you say to them?

Lizzie: When you speak truth, others will speak there as well. And that creates a completely different world than the one that we have today. And so it's not just for you. But it's for others as well. To be able to live into that space. And all it takes are little conversations here and there. Whether it's speaking your truth about your dinner choice, or you know your activity, desire, just like start wherever you can and know that you are creating a free world exactly where you are today.

Analiza: Maybe we all hear that. May all our kids hear that. Love it. Thank you so much for that. So we're going to close with some fun lightning round questions. Are you ready? All right, chocolate or vanilla?

Lizzie: Chocolate

Analiza: Cooking or takeout?

Lizzie: Take out.

Analiza: Climb a mountain or jump from a plane

Lizzie: Climb a mountain.

Analiza: Have you ever worn socks with sandals?

Lizzie: Yes.

Analiza: How would you rate your karaoke skills on a scale of one to 10, 10 being Mariah Carey?

Lizzie: Five.

Analiza: Recent book you read?

Lizzie: Reading the body keeps the score.

Analiza: What is your favorite way to practice self care?

Lizzie: An uninterrupted long meal with a friend

Analiza: And since you did Boss Mama's and we did that together, what did you get out of that?

Lizzie: There are so many things like one very practical actionable steps that I could put into place the next day, that would let me lean into my self worth. And then to a bigger reminder of the way I viewed myself. Mirror to be able to see what I am doing with my life and how that aligns with my values. And once you see it, you can’t not see it.

Analiza: And with that, what is your definition of a Boss Bama?

Lizzie: Someone who takes the time to get to know who they are, loves themselves and loves themselves to be authentic and free.

Analiza: And where can we find you like LinkedIn or Tiktok.

Lizzie: Sure. LinkedIn.

Analiza: Great. Well, Lizzie, thank you so much for our time, you know, I adore you and I really appreciate your vulnerability. Thank you for sharing.

Lizzie: I appreciate you. Thank you.

Analiza: Thank you so much for carving out time today to hear today's podcast. Three things before you go. First, if you found it helpful, please leave a five star review. Second, please share with someone else you can share the link and posts on Facebook and say check it out. Lastly, I want to thank you for being a listener and you didn't go to get a free self care bonus called Juice your Joy at an analiza.wolf/freebonus. Thank you so much.