Jess Ekstrom

But my life will go on if someone doesn't laugh at my joke.

Like my life will go on if Bill didn't think my talk was valuable.

You know, like, whereas before that would have broken me.

And so I almost feel like I have become...

a better speaker in a lower energy given by just caring a little bit less.

And I don't mean caring less about the people.

I don't mean caring less about the purpose, but I mean caring less about how I'm perceived while doing it.

And I think that that has helped me protect my energy in meetings and on stage.

It's just like, I'm going to figure out what they need.

I'm going to see how I can help, but I'm not going to try to make them love me because that is just draining and uncontrollable.

Or at least I thought they were terrible edits.

It was probably just edits.

And I was talking to, I have a business coach, Erin Foley, who's awesome.

And I was talking to her about it.

And she was like, what kind of problems do you think a New York Times bestselling author has?

And I was like, probably, you know, I don't know, like social media, getting edits, doing this.

And she's like, exactly.

Don't try to achieve things to have zero problems.

Do things that have problems you're excited to solve.

And so I was kind of putting this like making it label on things that I thought would solve problems.