00:00:00 Paula: Welcome everyone to “TesseTalks” with your host, Tesse Akpeki, and co host me, Paula Okonneh, where we share with you top leadership and management strategies. This continues to be a journey of discovery where we are learning and we continue to share that leadership is a personal and professional journey. So we hope that you will walk with us in this adventure. In this episode, “TesseTalks” meets “TesseReads”, which is a book club that Tesse hosts. Our theme for today’s conversation is the “Super Helper Syndrome”, a survival guide for compassionate people written by Jess Baker and Rod Vincent. We’ll be doing this with a very special guest of ours, Erin Randall. Now who is Erin Randall? I told you she’s a special guest of ours. She’s a 00:01:00 veteran, organizational, agile, and co active coach, serving organizations through sustainable agile change, leadership alignment, and supporting high performing teams. For over 10 years she has partnered with organizations, leaders, executive teams and boards, and other coaches from around the globe, including companies such as Roach, Texas A& M University, IBM, Charles Schwab and many more. And she’s all about happy people doing great work. Welcome again to “TesseTalks”.
00:01:37 Erin: Thank you, paula. It’s nice to be back. I’ve missed all of you.
00:01:42 Tesse: Hi, Erin. Erin, we miss you so much. And when you come back, it’s like welcoming a friend, a sister.
00:01:49 Erin: Well, we were just talking about that right as we came on, where you know Tesse and I do see a fair bit of one another right now. So it is like seeing your sister, which is also nice, because I’ve 00:02:00 only ever had a brother, so having a sister, that’s nice too. I do.
00:02:06 Tesse: It warms my heart. It really, really warms my heart, Erin. And you know, before we really get into the book, I, you know, we’ll be really, really interested in knowing, Erin, what you consider success.
00:02:19 Erin: What do I consider success? Number one, I would want to know more about what kind of success. What do you mean by that? Because, you know, if there are just certain metrics that we lay out beforehand, did whatever I do or was trying to do, did it achieve those benchmarks? Yes, that would be a success. There are days where I considered a success that I got through everything that I wanted on my to do list. But there are also days where I’m a success if I was a good friend, if I felt like I was a good person and 00:03:00 I told someone that I loved them. So I think it depends on the day and what I’m trying to do that will change my definition of success. How about you?
00:03:11 Tesse: Wow. Yeah. That, you know, that really touches my heart, because I’m going to segue into another part of success, which is help. And that part of success is being a healthy helper. What’s your take on that?
00:03:26 Erin: Being a healthy helper. Number one, I really love the alliteration of that right there. It just may kind of makes me want to dive a little bit more into that. But it also reminds me that help, you know, who is it for? What forms does it take? You know, and if we’re talking specifically about healthy helpers, well then what are unhealthy helpers as well? It’s kind of the polarity of those systems right there holding both sides of it. A healthy helper, I think, is one that is able to help in the way 00:04:00 that they desire and that they see fit, but they also have boundaries that they hold for themselves and that aren’t porous and that other people are not able to run over, but they’re also able to sustain themselves and the work that they’re trying to do. And there’s both the mental and the physical aspect of help. Does that make sense? Yeah, that’s what I was thinking of when I started, you know, working with this concept.
00:04:26 Tesse: That actually makes a lot of sense to me. I wonder Paula, what’s your take on this, you know, healthy helping?
00:04:32 Paula: You know, I really enjoyed this book, “Superhelper Syndrome”, because, you know, I’ve been able to see some aspects of myself in that. So having read the book, what jumped out at me in particular, talking about a healthy helper, was looking at the, you know, I think it was on page 100, where she talked about the good helper and some of the symptoms of a good helper, good in quotes. And one thing that really, really, really 00:05:00 touched me was that your self worth does not depend upon helping people. You know, because to me, a healthy helper is understanding their own selves. A healthy helper is knowing, as Erin just said, knowing what your boundaries are and making sure that you keep those boundaries or you have someone in place who can help you keep those boundaries. Because the thing is, there’s nothing bad in helping, but when you go to extremes, as we can see in this super helper syndrome, then it becomes unhealthy.
00:05:31 Erin: Yeah. Tesse, how about you?
00:05:33 Tesse: Wow. I, I was looking at this thing and I said, this is my book. I mean, it’s really, I do love helping. I’m not sure that I always do it in a healthy way. And when I looked down the list of unhealthy helping, I had more ticks than I cared to see. 00:06:00 And so this guide was really a guide for me. And for me, what stood out most was taking care of myself as I take care of others, and I’m not sure that I do that well. I’m learning, I’m learning, but in the past, I have been the person who has put off going to the dentist, going to the general practitioner, doing things to keep healthy in order to help someone else, and I didn’t realize that that wasn’t healthy.
00:06:35 Erin: In coaching, we often talk about, you know, put on your own oxygen mask first. And it’s easy to say, but always a little bit more difficult to do. So it sounds like you saw a bit of yourself. So for those, you know, reading the book at home, what the author does, it’s really helpful is that she has put quizzes or small checklists at the end of each 00:07:00 section or chapter. And it, you know, it’s illuminating because it allows us to see where we are in this and kind of do this, like check in with where things are. And it’s like, oh, seeing a little too much there. Wow. Might want to be backing off or at least ask ourselves questions about why we’re wanting to help so much. So, but Tesse, you said that, you know, the super helper syndrome, all right, you’re like, this is the book for me. What called out to you that you wanted to read this book from the very beginning? What was it for you?
00:07:35 Tesse: Oh, that’s a fantastic.
00:07:38 Paula: Good question. Very good question. Because that was something I said, I got to ask her too. Thank you, Erin.
00:07:45 Tesse: Well, the thing is, I didn’t know you were going to ask me this question, but actually what happened is, for the past, since COVID, I’ve been involved in a wellness week. It takes place every year, 00:08:00 usually in October. And during COVID, I was attending it online. And last year, for the first time, it actually opened in person, and I decided I was going to go in person to do the whole week event. In fact, I did almost everything every day for the whole week last year. And one session I went to was called the “Super Helper Syndrome Session”, and to show you how needed this was, it got fully booked. But because I was first in, I got a seat. And actually literally got a front seat there, but it was absolutely packed out. And I had the opportunity of having seen the interview between Jess Baker, who wrote the book, somebody who had read it and was using it in his practice and people who are questioning. And so I got that. I got that in person, and I 00:09:00 later had a long conversation with Jess. So heard about the book, heard about the question and actually thought I need to buy a copy, which I got signed by her.
00:09:10 Erin: Oh, how lovely. Yeah. But you know what my next question of course, is going to be, you’re at this in person event and it’s packed, but I’m wondering, was it mostly men that were in this session? Was it mostly women that attended this session? Was it an even mix?
00:09:29 Tesse: It was an even mix.
00:09:31 Erin: Really?
00:09:31 Tesse: Which is very surprising, but the men who came were mainly coaches. So these men were people who were already self aware and were asking questions, and so unsurprisingly, it was half and half, I would say.
00:09:48 Erin: I am curious if we were to take that conversation out of, you know, being targeted towards helping professions, would it skew differently or would there be, you 00:10:00 know, balance or imbalance? And that’s just curiosity on my part.
00:10:04 Tesse: Paula, what do you think? Say it’s skewed, but let’s take it out of the setting it was into another setting. What would you think the balance would be?
00:10:12 Paula: That’s a good question. I think it may depend on the generation you’re talking with.
00:10:18 Tesse: Yeah.
00:10:19 Erin: Oh, okay. Paula, what do you mean by that?
00:10:23 Paula: So, I find like the, I’m a baby boomer, let me just say that. So I find like the younger generation, and I live with them, millennials and Gen Zs, they’re more aware of their feelings. There’s a lot of into, you know, work life balance, how do I feel about this? And so, when I read this book, I assumed that the authors were not Gen Z’s and not millennials. And some of the interviewees were not. And so I saw people that I could relate to in my age group, you know, more than 00:11:00 I saw from the interviewees, people that were younger. And so that’s why I said it depends on the generation. I think if they do the research of the younger generation, It can be completely different.
00:11:13 Erin: It is. I love, you know, that there’s research now, but if you ask the same questions at a different point in time, how will the responses differ as well? Because there’s so much that plays into, you know, when do people need help? How, what else is going on in the world? You know, that’s going on there. Yeah,
00:11:34 Tesse: I love your question. And I tell you why, because I think that if it was not in the setting that we’re in, even with the kind of similar age group, I would think there would be more people who are women than there would be men. And yeah, and even from the questions that the men asked, even though a lot of them were coaches, some of them were psychotherapists, some of them are psychologists, because 00:12:00 both writers are psychotherapists and the question that they asked, you could see that they were very much in their heads. And I really mean they were hardly ever, all the questions from the men were hardly from their heart. They were from their head. I’m like, I’m trying to understand this, and I want to know how it links into that. And how does it square that? Those are the questions that they were asking. And the women were asking questions about how does this leave the person feeling?
00:12:23 Paula: That’s interesting.
00:12:24 Tesse: What do you think? So even in that audience, it was different questions.
00:12:30 Erin: So where does helping come from? Does it come from the head or does it come from the heart?
00:12:35 Tesse: This is a brilliant question.
00:12:37 Paula: Tesse kind of answered that. That’s a good question. But Tesse, you kind of answered that, I mean, based on your observation.
00:12:44 Erin: Yeah.
00:12:44 Paula: That in that setting, you noticed that the men were asking more head questions.
00:12:51 Tesse: Head questions, right. Women were asking more heart.
00:12:54 Erin: And the thing is, I don’t think help is relegated to either 00:13:00 head or heart. I think it could be either. And by the way, there’s so much alliteration in today’s conversation and round helping helpers, healthy head heart. It’s this rogue episode here of like a children’s show.
00:13:13 Tesse: But if you think about, you know, reading the book now and thinking through your question, I am actually perceiving the book differently.
00:13:25 Erin: Sure.
00:13:25 Tesse: Because as I read it, there was a lot of kind of academic framing and academic writers and referrals in this book, which would give the people who were looking at the cognitive pieces of helping, give them stuff to chew on.
00:13:39 Erin: Right.
00:13:40 Tesse: And to reflect on and do that. And then there was the heart stuff and the heart stuff came up for me in the spotlighting part, where you have the questions and that the kind of spotlighting piece and it did ask those things about how are you feeling about this. Or when you’re reading this question and you’re answering it, what is emerging for you? 00:14:00 How are you interacting with it? And then actually what the spiritual aspect of the helping, where the writer, the writers and through Jesse’s voice talked about her relationship with her mother, and the mother having this very spiritual awareness which linked into the helping, which was Jess, you’re on this life to serve me. So, actually there was in this book, which is one of the reasons why I think it’s one of the best written books that I’ve come across in recent times, of compassionate support for compassionate people. There was a head, there was a heart, there was a hand and there was a spirit. And it was weaving in and out of that. And so there was something in this book for everyone, I think.
00:14:45 Erin: Yeah, I love that you referenced that discussion about compassion, but it’s that compassion and empathy and what does that look like in both, and how do you play or how do you recognize what’s going on there? 00:15:00 One of the things that I most appreciated, it was earlier in the book, but it was asking, you know, it was kind of a triggering question in terms of what kind of help is needed here? Because there’s that pause in that deep reflection for a moment where you think about it, before you just wade in and whether or not that help is what should be there or not. But that kind of makes me think about, you know, how does, what kind of help is needed here? Is it compassionate help? Is it empathetic help? Should it come from the head? Should it come from the heart? Yeah, that was, I loved that question, though. What kind of help is needed here? And it’s one that I think I want to stay in a moment longer before I ever begin doing something. You know, it’s just this recognition of space.
00:15:49 Tesse: That was an Eureka moment for me when I came across that, because I’d never really asked myself that question. Paula, I’m really interested in your views on this, because 00:16:00 I actually looked at it and sat with that for five or ten minutes before I read on. But I’d never asked that question, even of myself. And I thought, you know what, if I take that minute out and ask myself what kind of help is needed, then that will even begin to enhance my health.
00:16:19 Erin: I Love that as you take it back to, and I will leave space for Paula as I stepped on her. Sorry about that.
00:16:25 Paula: No, you didn’t. That’s, you know, that I’m more, what should I say, like, for example, I’ll tell you some of the things that intrigue me. There were some formulas there and I sat down for a while to look at the formulas and what they stood for. Because I’m a mathematician, you know, and like, okay, what does ‘n’ stand for in these? And so that’s what kept me thinking for a minute or three about how they could actually take emotions and come up with a formula that looks mathematical, and it made sense you know. But coming back to compassion and 00:17:00 exhaustion, I live in a home with two nurses and you know, I see some of these things playing out in their lives. I know I talked about generation, but at the same time we talked about compassion and there’s a part here, I can’t remember, but I was looking for it about compassion, exhaustion. And I see that with my nieces. They come back from a 12 hour shift in which they are exhausted. They’ve been sometimes on their feet for 12 hours. And of course to work for 12 hours, that means you prepared probably got up an hour before, et cetera. And then you drove back. So that’s like 14 hours. But there’s also an understanding that, you know what, when you come home, even though you’re going to take a deep breath, you’ve got to be able to balance things at work. You can’t, not you can’t, you shouldn’t, or it’s not advisable that you come home and you bring from work, because as one of my niece said, “auntie, I 00:18:00 just see so much of life as I never imagined it, because I’m in the service industry now and serving where lives are you know sometimes can be at stake”. And just having to let her unwind and sometimes just let her know that, you know what, it’s a very fine line, but you probably need to be able to put time to switch off. And that may not sound very compassionate, but for her own health, she’s got to.
00:18:25 Erin: No, but that is compassionate for her.
00:18:29 Paula: Right. You know, because she’s thinking about the patients. And now, even though I’ve told her that now I’m thinking about the patients, she’s worried about patient A or patient B, but it’s not healthy, you know. So compassion fatigue is what jumped out at me in this book because I see it, and I see it every week on a weekly basis.
00:18:50 Erin: I see it happen too. And you know, nursing is probably one of the most. Like nursing or teaching or social work, 00:19:00 those professions, I think, are particularly susceptible to compassion, exhaustion, just because there’s a very front facing role to it, and it’s just onslaught, it’s always needed, always. Or people who do work with refugees, or people who were in some kind of medical field, often, you know, frontline facing and the like, you know, anything where it’s just, there’s no respite. There’s no, hey, I need to step back for a little bit here. But we all need that to step back. And, you know, I think, you know, recognizing what is it like when we feel our own compassion, you know, that well is exhausted. There’s no more to draw from, but you can feel it scrape down at the bottom. You know, I think, was it Evelyn Brown, you cannot serve from an empty cup. Yeah, that’s what comes to mind there. That’s what comes to mind there. Do either of you feel at times that you are exhausted 00:20:00 from compassion?
00:20:01 Tesse: Yeah, I think what this book did for me was actually strengthen the differentiation between empathy and compassion. And well, empathy, stepping in somebody’s shoes. I love shoes, by the way, and Paula would say I have lots, lots of shoes, very, very many different pairs of shoes. And sometimes these shoes are too small when my feet get swollen. Sometimes they’re too big. But when I’m on a shoe trying day, I exhaust my feet because I’m going in and out of different kind of shoes. So there’s something like empathy overdrive, whereby you’re stepping into different shoes and the feel is so different. And that can actually be unhelpful because you can get empathy burnout. That differs from compassion because compassion is about action, and so you or I or we can 00:21:00 see something, hear something, feel something and say, actually it’s an above, about, because of this or as a result of this. What action can we take or not take? How can we step in or not step in? Where can we help or not? How can we suffer with? And that means that compassion is different from empathy. And I think that when I read this book, I saw the importance of being compassionate and looking at health around compassion, but also knowing that if there are not boundaries around our empathy, we can easily, I can easily burn out. So for me, making that differentiation between being compassionate and where that would link into empathy, and where being compassionate, and it isn’t about empathy and that itself gave another lens to be a healthier helper for me.
00:21:55 Erin: So I want to type that in. They also asked, you know, Buckley asked the question around 00:22:00 what is the difference between helping and duty? And I think you’re tying into that there with, you know, compassion and empathy. But I also hear love in that question too. You know, if there’s love involved, is that helping? You know, if something has been removed, is that duty and how do we, how do we balance that? How do we walk that?
00:22:24 Tesse: Paula, this is so deep.
00:22:26 Paula: Don’t throw that to me. No, no, no.
00:22:33 Erin: Paula’s like, I like you both are like jockeying out of the way. No, I mean, it’s a difficult question. It’s not an easy question to answer. And I don’t think that there’s a right answer or a wrong answer.
00:22:44 Paula: But the duty almost sounds to me, like, you know, I talked about those service professions, like, you know, medicine and yeah, where you, you know, teachers and this 00:23:00 is like, you’re doing your job.
00:23:01 Erin: Yes.
00:23:03 Paula: The love comes in some that I see like now it becomes more personal where it’s like a parent or, you know, or a child and you are the caregiver either to your parent or your child and that differs. And I think the compassion sometimes, changes depending on, you know, whether it’s your job or it’s a personal thing. And even within the personal thing, sometimes it changes depending on whether it’s a younger person or an older person, you know, it, it can be complicated.
00:23:36 Erin: And I think this is sometimes why we kind of have to have our own stuff figured out a little bit before we begin wading in, you know. It goes back to that, what form of help is needed here? You know, how are we asking that before we go do something? Yeah, I wrote down that question, you know, what is the difference between helping and duty? And, you know, I’m thinking of the hippocratic oath that physicians take, you know, 00:24:00 do no harm. But I’m also then countering that with, you know, do all things with great love. You know, I met very few physicians, you know, they’re doing that work because at some level they love humanity and, you know, want the best for the people with whom they work.
00:24:17 Tesse: Absolutely. This is so incisive, these questions. I love them because, you know, for me, what stood out was self love, self compassion, and self worth.
00:24:31 Erin: These are questions that will keep you up at night too.
00:24:34 Paula: Yeah. Self worth.
00:24:36 Erin: Yes.
00:24:37 Paula: Yeah. Yeah. That jumped out at me.
00:24:41 Erin: Helping his ego, you know, and making certain, you know, why are you helping? You know, and really kind of taking a look at that. I wrote down something around help as form of rescue. You know, who is doing the helping But yeah, help is form of rescue. You know, I was thinking about Kaplan’s drama 00:25:00 triangle and the like, you know, you’ve got persecution, you’ve got rescue, and you’ve got victim in there. And what role is helping playing into that? And you can see it in different aspects in any position there. But it also reminded me that there needs to be reciprocity in helping, where people who are helped also need to have opportunities where they feel like they can be helpful to others as well. It’s that balance, you know, that balance is there. And how do we, how do we bring that out? How do we make that available? How do we show that that’s part of a healthy society too
00:25:40 Paula: I think she kind of answers it, you know, or not answers it, but gives one direction, you know, when she talks about the unconditional self worth. Stop labeling yourself. No, I love that part about, you know, stop, because we can label our own self, 00:26:00 especially with that inner voice. And I wrote something down there and I’m trying to find it now.
00:26:04 Erin: You know. I was ready to take notes in the book and you can’t find it until you don’t need it.
00:26:10 Paula: All right. I see it here because I started to notice page 79. It says we spend a quarter of our lives listening to our inner voice.
00:26:18 Erin: Only a quarter?
00:26:19 Paula: That’s what she said. Well, that’s what it was, that’s on page 79. I took note of it. Said only a quarter? She said, because, you know, most times we hear our outward voices more than our inner voices. But I’ve thought about that, really? I mean, I could have a conversation with myself for a long time. And now folks, this ends part one of “TesseTalks” meets “TesseReads”, where we, that is Erin Randall, Tesse Akepki, and myself were discussing the “Super Helper Syndrome, A Survival Guide For Compassionate 00:27:00 People” written by Jess Baker and Rod Vincent. I hope you enjoyed this episode and we are looking forward to continuing with this discussion in part two. Thank you again.