Annie Croner is the founder and CEO of Whole Assistant, an online platform & community, formed to provide a positive place where assistants can go to transform their lives and level up their careers.
In this spotlight episode of Annie’s show, The Whole Assistant Podcast, she talks about how to stop taking things personally.
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ABOUT ANNIE
Annie Croner is an executive assistant coach, trainer, and strategic thinker. She loves to help her clients unlock their badassery, and revolutionize their careers.
Over her 20 year career as an executive assistant, Annie worked for boutique companies across multiple industries including accounting, marketing, nonprofit, and private wealth management. Working in a variety of settings has led to a diverse understanding of the assistant role and the many challenges that often come with it.
Annie is passionate about helping those in support roles show up more strategically and garner the respect of their executives, colleagues, and key stakeholders without sacrificing their mental health and well-being.
Annie lives in Denver, Colorado where she enjoys green smoothies, her family, and an occasional evening of Latin dancing. To learn more about Annie, please visit WholeAssistant.com.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Annie Croner [0:47 – 15:15]: Hello. So today we are talking about how to stop taking things so personally. And I know that a lot of us struggle with this because I’m talking with executive assistants nearly every day. And look, I get it. Like, a lot of us are really empathetic, which means that we tend to ingest other people’s states of being. If our executive is going around the office and he’s frustrated or stressed, we can tend to ingest that. And we can tend to onboard things that we don’t necessarily know that we’re onboarding. And we can tend to take things personally that are not intended for us. And look, even if they are intended for us, there’s always the lens of the beholder, meaning that even if somebody does have something negative to say about you and your performance or say about you and something that a mistake that you made or something that went wrong, that it is always seen through their lens. Okay, so the first point I want to make in this podcast episode is that we really need to get really good at separating the facts from what is happening in our heads and our layered judgment on the other person and their layered judgment on us. Like what are the facts of the situation? And by facts, I mean what is provable in a court of law? What just is. And the facts come without any type of judgment. They just are. And then what ends up happening is that people tend to layer the judgment on those facts, and then we interpret their interpretation of us is what ends up happening. So it’s kind of a fascinating thing because they may be judging us or they may have their interpretation of us, and then we have our interpretation of their interpretation of us. So our interpretation is constructed through our lens. An interesting story that I can share with regards to this dynamic was that several years ago I worked in this private wealth management, family office space. And I was working for this gal who was from Boston. And I had lived in Boston. I live in Denver now, but I lived in Boston for a few years. So I knew when I was going to interview with her, I’m like, I’ve got to come in. I’ve got to be polite and kind, but I got to be direct and to the point. I cannot waste her time. I just knew her working style because I know what it’s like to work with people. People on the east coast, more than likely, they aren’t going to be very chatty. More than likely, they’re going to be very down to business and very direct. And this person’s, my executive’s former executive assistant would literally rock in her chair in her office because she was not used to that working style. She wasn’t used to my former executive’s way of being. And she ended up ingesting a lot of that energy when it was completely unnecessary. Right. Like, this is just who this person was. It had nothing to do with the executive assistant and how she was performing, had nothing to do with the executive assistant and how she was perceiving the situation. It was really fascinating to hear stories of my predecessor in this role. And we actually had a couple of very direct conflicts, but it wasn’t like a conflict. It was just like she was telling me how she felt about a situation. I was, like, telling her the reason why I made the choice that I made and holding my ground because I had this understanding of her working style, because I had this background of working in Boston prior to living in Denver. So it’s just kind of fascinating to see even there, the interpretation of my executive and my executive’s interpretation of her former executive assistant. And also, like the backgrounds that were involved that informed those judgments and those interpretations. Right. So that’s the first kind of thing I want to, like, lay the groundwork for in this episode, is that every judgment is made through the beholder’s lens. So we can tend to ingest things that won’t serve us long term, that aren’t helpful to us, that other people may put out there, or they may not even be putting it out there, we just may interpret them as putting it out there. So it’s kind of fascinating. When you think about taking things so personally and you think about how to not take things so personally, what is the lens in which this person is judging you through? And then also what are the judgments that you have about yourself based on the other person’s judgment of you? So it’s fascinating to kind of look at those interpersonal dynamics, just always know that every person’s opinion of you is informed by their past experience, is informed by who they are as a human as well. So even if you did make a mistake, even if you did miss a mark on something, even if someone is making a judgment of you that is based in fact, it is still based on their interpretation and their history and their past knowledge of a situation that’s similar is informing them of the situation now. So that’s the first kind of thing that I just wanted to lay down as a groundwork for this specific podcast episode. And then also, how do we stop taking things personally then? Well, first of all, we need to recognize that another’s interpretation of you is just that, their interpretation. So if you can get that level of disconnection from their interpretation, it can be super duper helpful. I also like to sit with all the emotions that come up. I think in today’s society, we are not taught how to process through emotion. We are taught to push down the emotion, to push it aside. And then some of us can indulge in that emotion and we can, like, wallow. I am not a wallower. So for me to pause and to actually soak in that emotion and to process through it and allow those feelings to pulse through my body and get curious where they are in my body so that I can get really curious about them and what they’re sent to teach me. Because I tend to think of emotions as signals about something. And so often, if I can get quiet with myself, if I can get really still and in a prayerful place, I can actually converse with that emotion and ask it why it’s there and what it’s there to teach me. And it’s really interesting some of the insight that I’ve gotten from doing that. So that’s the first kind of thing that I would say too. Like, it’s okay to experience that emotion. Life is always going to be 50% awesome and 50% challenging. So if you can actually allow for that 50%, that’s going to be challenging and not push it down or not push it away and actually, like, sit with that for a minute. And then once that emotion is in the back seat, not in the driver’s seat, then you can decide on purpose how you want to show up for the situation. Situation and how you want to perhaps not take what was said so personally. Okay. And then also recognize that what others think about you is likely more and more an interpretation about them than it is about you. This is especially true if it’s just one person’s interpretation of you. Okay? Just one person’s interpretation of a mistake that you made. Just one person’s interpretation of a situation. It likely says more about them than it does about you. And so what they think about you is really none of your business. Unless they’re bringing it to you and they want to have a discussion, or you’ve had a conflict with the person and they want to actually discuss that with you. It’s really none of your business until they bring it to the forefront, until they actually bring it up to you. With the exception of a few people in my life, my husband being one, a couple of close family members, a couple of close friends, I really do put other people’s point of view on me and their other people’s interpretation as that. And I. I don’t take it personally because the other person doesn’t have an intimate knowledge of me. Now, there are certain people in my life that I really do care about their opinion of me. I really do. But even then, when they give me their honest opinion, I can still assess, is this true of me? And sometimes it is, but sometimes it’s not. It’s really not. So really taking it all in and deciding on purpose how you want to show up for yourself in that moment. And then also the accepting, maybe the less than flattering things that other people have to say as a point of growth for you. So really, it’s kind of parsing out, what is the data from the drama here? What can I carry forward and improve on? And also, what if this is not mine to own? What if this is through this person’s interpretation of me that I can just let go of? And I think we often onboard things without even recognizing that we’ve onboarded them. And so that’s a fascinating thing to pay attention to. Are you onboarding something that you’re doing by default, and you’re just thinking that’s the way it is because that’s how you’re feeling currently. But I would challenge that, and I would say you may not even need to onboard that belief about yourself or that thing. Even though you may have made a mistake or you may have done something that you’re less than proud of, or you may have done something that missed the mark in some way, you still get to decide how you show up for yourself, and you still get to decide whether or not you’re gonna let that thing define you or whether or not you’re gonna let that go And I will say also that when it comes to caring about what other people think about you, I need those around me who can call me out when I miss the mark. I really, really do. So I do have a couple close friends that will call me out if I miss the mark. I bring things to people, I bring things to coaches, I bring things to mentors that will help me reframe a situation that I am so close to and help me either stop taking things personally or figure out what I need to adjust or change in my life moving forward. But even in those situations, you get to decide what you make that mean about you. You also get to decide what you onboard and what you reject. So creating guideposts for yourself is super important. You can ask yourself, is this true? Is this helpful to think or believe? And those two guideposts have been very helpful for me in determining what I want to want to onboard and what I don’t want to onboard and how to not take things personally. And then when I talk about not taking things personally, I am not at all saying that other people’s terrible behavior is your fault or that you shouldn’t draw boundaries for yourself. That’s not at all what I’m saying. I’m not like saying, oh, just go ahead and accept your executive’s terrible behavior. Just go ahead and accept people like verbally vomiting over you as a consistent thing that is happening again and again. Just go ahead and accept another person’s toxicity in your life. That’s not what I’m saying at all. What I’m saying is you get to decide how you show up for every situation. And you also get to decide what is acceptable for you and what isn’t. So for example, if I’m yelled at, I will do an about face and leave. And also recognize that the behavior has nothing to do with me because that person’s actions are as a result of their thoughts, not yours. So what’s theirs to own is their thoughts and their feelings and their actions. And what’s yours to own is your thoughts and your feelings and your actions, how you’re showing up for the situation. And oftentimes we can either stay in a situation too long and be somebody’s whipping post in the name of not taking it personally. But then we are ingesting that. Or we can get really conflated about the situation and we can spin out on a situation and the situation may be decent, the person may just have had a bad day, and we can totally onboard that as something about us. So really figuring out. First of all, how are you giving away your power? Is what this other person is saying about you true? Is there some, like, semblance of truth in there? Is it helpful to think or believe about yourself? And then from there deciding how you want to show up for the situation and what you want to set as those parameters around your time and energy and personhood? And then also when you just decide that you’re just not going to take something personally. I really have been trying hard lately to just not be offended. It’s really a challenge for me sometimes because I do get offended, right? And I love this idea of, like, never being offended by someone else’s point of view or what they say or where they’re coming from, because it’s going to help me show up more clearly and it’s going to help me show up more in my power and it’s going to help me decide on purpose, like, what I actually think about a situation and what I actually want to believe about a person or a situation. It is also helpful to think about, like, what? Why do I feel so charged about this? Is there a shred of truth in this that that is making me feel so charged that I need to kind of unpack or look into a little bit? And also, I know I say this a lot on this podcast, but it’s also going to be super helpful to separate the data from the drama. Is what they are saying of you absolutely true? Is it true now and forever or did you make a mistake? And also if it is true, what of that can you own? And what if it has nothing to do with you? So those are my key strategies for how to stop taking things so personally. I hope you found this episode helpful. Be intentional. Be whole. That is all for now.
