Episode 14: Busy Isn’t a Badge: Rethinking Work with Kishshana Palmer

Jun 19

A powerful conversation on shedding toxic productivity and building humane workplaces.

From middle management survival to Golden Girls wisdom—this one’s got heart, humor, and hard truths.

Summary

Busy is a badge we never asked for—and it’s time to put it down.
In this episode of Hard at Work, Ellen Whitlock Baker sits down with speaker, strategist, and author Kishshana Palmer to talk about what it really means to lead without burning out—and why “busy” has become the badge no one actually wants to wear.

Kishshana shares stories from building her own boutique firm and managing 40-person teams across time zones, showing us how you can create humane, high-performing work cultures—even inside giant bureaucracies. They talk about the power of micro-cultures, why middle managers carry the heaviest loads, and how to build trust on a team without losing yourself in the process.

From pop culture references to practical delegation tips to a love letter to The Golden Girls, this episode is full of perspective-shifting ideas that challenge what leadership is supposed to look like—and what’s possible when we center people, not performance optics.

🎧 You’ll hear about:

Why “collegial” is more powerful than “corporate”

How to build a culture of care in rigid systems

What middle managers really need to thrive (hint: it’s not a productivity tool)

What The Golden Girls can teach us about leadership, loss, and starting over

The courage it takes to begin again after failure—and why we need to talk about it more

📥 Plus: Why every team should do a quarterly step-back, how to let go of busywork, and why showing up with empathy is a strategy, not a soft skill.

Episode Links:

Kishshana’s website
Buy Kishshana’s book, Busy is a Four-Letter Word
Get Ellen’s free guide: Boundaries at Work Toolkit

Takeaways

Your body always tells the truth—you can only ignore the signs of burnout for so long before it shuts things down for you.
Time blocking isn’t rigid—it’s a love letter to your future self. It gives you more freedom, not less, when done right.
Leaders must model rest and humanity. If you want a healthy team, start by showing what that looks like yourself.
The five-star wellness plan works because it’s based on real-life stress, not fantasy routines. Focus on the area screaming loudest and start there.
Start with the personal calendar before the project calendar. Human-centered planning leads to better work and way less chaos.

Notable Quotes

“If the last time you had chicken nuggets, they were cold and off your kid’s plate, you might be doing too much.” – Kishshana Palmer

“Time blocking is a love letter. Not a prison.” – Kishshana Palmer

“We are burning people out to get to outcomes that don’t even serve us.” – Ellen Whitlock Baker

“Wellness doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be honest.” – Kishshana Palmer

“Rest isn’t a reward for burning out. It’s the bare minimum you deserve.” – Ellen Whitlock Baker

Chapters

00:00 – Intro & Welcoming Kishshana
01:02 – Kishshana’s “Gold Star” Origin Story
03:10 – From C-Suite to Burnout (and Back Again)
05:53 – Why Crisis Work Can’t Ignore People’s Wellness
08:55 – Hitting Rock Bottom on the Floor
13:00 – The Wake-Up Call: From Collapse to Clarity
17:00 – Cold Nuggets & The Signs You’re Doing Too Much
20:00 – Kishshana’s Five-Star Wellness Framework
26:40 – Sleep, Grounding, and Reclaiming Rest
32:00 – How Leaders Can Actually Model Healthy Work
34:00 – The Power of Time Studies & Delegating $5 Tasks
36:30 – Time Blocking as a Tool for Freedom
40:15 – Personal Calendars Before Project Deadlines
44:00 – Microcultures, Middle Management, and Trust
46:10 – Golden Girls, Pop Culture, and Accessible Wisdom
49:10 – TED Talk Dreams: Starting Over After Failure
51:00 – Where to Find Kishshana & Her Book

Keywords: burnout, boundaries at work, toxic workplace, women at work, leadership coaching, busy culture, rest and recovery, emotional labor, resilience myth, wellness plan for professionals, time blocking, Gen X leadership, self-care at work, team retention strategies, work-life balance

Transcript

Ellen Whitlock Baker

Hello, everyone. This is the Hard at Work podcast and I am here joined by Kishanna Palmer today. Hello.

Kishshana Palmer (00:26.104)

Hello, hello.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (00:27.864)

Thank you so much for being here. I am really excited to talk to you. Your book, Busy is a Four-Letter Word, is amazing. And I was like screaming, yes, yes, the whole time I read it. I'm really, yeah. So I'm really excited to talk to you about it because it has like, it's very practical and has great takeaways and it's super real. And I really like that because that's definitely what we try to do on the podcast too. So I'm excited to get into it a little bit.

Kishshana Palmer (00:41.104)

Good!

Ellen Whitlock Baker (00:56.174)

But first, can you give us the like, what's a 60 second Wikipedia of Kishshana Palmer?

Kishshana Palmer (01:02.788)

gosh, a first gen Queens girl makes good in the world, goes to business school thinking she's gonna work in investment banking, slips and slide into professional fundraising and marketing, finds herself in the C-suite before 25 where she fumbles through it for the next 15 years. A high achiever chasing my stale pretzel. You know, the one that you...

Ellen Whitlock Baker (01:13.187)

Hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (01:30.83)

got at the end of the school day when you're a or maybe you got a gold star in New York City you got a yeah you got a tall pretzel stick which to this day I still love isn't that crazy? Am I still in my 60s I guess? Yikes! So I have been trying to help high achievers like myself you know stop chasing that gold star ever since I still haven't talked to myself about it by the way but that is me in a nutshell I have a super cool almost 20 year old daughter

Ellen Whitlock Baker (01:34.959)

like if you did well, you got your pretzel.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (01:43.831)

No, keep going, keep going. I love it.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (01:54.828)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (02:00.272)

who is a rising junior in college, cannot believe I have somebody who's about to have a number that starts with a two. And I am finally leaning into being a single empty nester. And so here I am.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (02:14.49)

my gosh, welcome. I love all of that. I didn't know all of that. my gosh. So you did the whole corporate thing for a while and it just burned you to a crisp or you liked it? Okay.

Kishshana Palmer (02:18.841)

Thank

Kishshana Palmer (02:22.871)

I did.

No, it didn't. It just wasn't for me. I was like, who's going to see these really nice suits? And I'm sitting in this office all day. mean, I definitely was like, I need to be where the people are. And when they were recruiting at my business school for like sales and farmer sales and stuff, I didn't.

understand it and coming from a family where like you need to have a paycheck. This idea that I was going to work on commission and do that kind of stuff like was really far into me. So I didn't actually go traditional sales route. And so when I decided that investment banking wasn't really for me and went back and got my MBA, finished that, I had always done work in the community and even had gotten a scholarship to college for public service. And so I knew I want to work on the program side of the house, but I love money.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (03:05.917)

nice.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (03:09.326)

You

Kishshana Palmer (03:10.544)

And so I was like, there has to be a way I can combine these things. Enter going from making ze money to asking for ze money.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (03:16.076)

Yeah, huh, uh-huh.

Kishshana Palmer (03:17.232)

And so because I had an MBA in IT and marketing, it ended up being like a nice blend between marketing, communications, fundraising. And after I got my first chief development officer role at a national nonprofit, I was probably like 25, 26, then I was pretty much in the C-suite ever since. So I have a little bit of unique experience in that generationally. So I'm a GenXer. I kind of like fast-tracked to the C-suite pretty early. I think that was very common for young professionals to

Ellen Whitlock Baker (03:32.792)

Wow.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (03:43.096)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (03:47.198)

get to those type of positions a little bit earlier, but then it was not. And I had to learn fast, like how to be both an individual contributor and learn middle management and learn how to be an executive and think about strategy and bringing revenue. And there was no real guide to do so. And so there was a lot of high functioning going on, a lot. I'm busy.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (04:02.616)

Yeah. Yeah.

That's what we talk about a lot. There's no training. Everyone's like, you're so good as a fundraiser. You can lead the department. Everyone's like,

Kishshana Palmer (04:14.906)

And I'm like, no, I spend a lot of my time in organizations now working with folks who are either making the jump from individual contributor to a management or who've made that jump and they're stuck in middle management and trying to get to that C-suite level. And they're really like, Shana, like, I feel like I'm learning all over again. And so there's this like paddle fast underwater. And I'm like, actually, maybe don't start from there. Let's start from a different place. And so the work that I do now with management,

And my team is really focusing on ensuring that we are well in our personal lives so that we are clear to know what we're focusing on at work, as opposed to what many of us have been taught, which is the reverse, right? You go hard in the paint for work and in whatever little dregs you got left, that's what you give to your house, your family and hell, yourself maybe, question mark? Question mark?

Ellen Whitlock Baker (04:48.119)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (05:06.796)

yourself. I love that. And are you finding like, so companies are starting to hear that message. They're, cool with that. Knowing that you do that and you prioritize wellness, they get it. They get the ROI.

Kishshana Palmer (05:10.606)

So, yeah.

Kishshana Palmer (05:25.316)

We don't always get the gig, let's be clear. Because we do mostly crisis management, right, and change management. So when you're thinking about an organization, whether you're talking about a social sector nonprofit organization, or you're talking about higher ed, or you're talking about our corporation, when folks are in crisis, they want action. And what I'm saying about action, I would like to check in on the health team that's gonna action this work before we start.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (05:27.534)

Well, no one ever does.

Ha.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (05:49.198)

You

Yup. Yeah.

Kishshana Palmer (05:53.936)

I'm of the belief that if I can understand where folks actually are in their life, are they burnt down all the way to the bottom of that candle quit? Do they have some energy, but they've been using it in the wrong place? Are there things happening episodically in their personal lives that will impact the way they deliver on work with excellence? Are they the right people to be there? All of the things. Do we have the right resources that can wrap around this massive change that we have to make?

Folks don't want to slow down for that, even if I'm like, but the slowdown is two weeks. You know, like it's not even like, it's like literally it's a couple of lunch hours. And so we're not for everyone, right? Because I do not believe in burning out people to get to the outcome.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (06:22.446)

Mm-mm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (06:35.63)

Me too. I hope more people get there.

Kishshana Palmer (06:37.338)

So for companies that, right. So only know for the companies that are like, we need to make sure we keep our people working with my company is about retention really, because if I can help co-design policies, procedures and practices and provide advisory or coaching that allows folks to be able to say, I'm incented to stay. And it's not just because of cash compensation. Here are the things that my company

Ellen Whitlock Baker (06:47.758)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (07:05.454)

values and demonstrates in action that I am valuable, then I'm able to demonstrate how much money they'll save over time by making these smaller investments. And that for me is a win for the employee who we really want to ensure they are actually whole and healthy at work and for the employer who wants to make sure that their bottom line is being met. Let's be honest.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (07:19.406)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (07:28.222)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, but it's so expensive to hire a bunch of new people and have so much turnover and it takes a lot of work. think even, mean, you're a Gen Xer. kind of a, mostly Gen X, a little millennial from when I was born. I'm a Z-Lenial, not a Z-Lenial, but a Z-Lenial. But you know, like we grew up without that kind of a model of health in the workplace.

Kishshana Palmer (07:41.488)

Getting over it. Yeah.

Kishshana Palmer (07:46.616)

As a Nazi.

Kishshana Palmer (07:53.954)

Yes.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (07:57.196)

So now that Gen X is often a lot of the leaders and the boomers still, guess, but I've found when I talk to leaders that it's really hard for them to get to a point of understanding that this sort of health, this wellness, this behavioral health has a place in the workplace. And we're scared of it. And we're also used to doing things on our own because we're latchkey kids from Gen X. But yeah.

Kishshana Palmer (08:15.184)

Yeah.

Kishshana Palmer (08:23.492)

There you go.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (08:25.568)

I was. So out of that, how did you get yourself to a place where you were able to see? Because I think you said you did, or I imagine you hit burnout at some point, probably more than once. And I know you wrote this book, which seems like it's just like a love letter to people who want themselves to succeed, but don't know how not to be busy and prioritize everybody else. if you don't mind explaining, OK, what made you get to that place where you're like, we're doing this wrong?

Kishshana Palmer (08:36.151)

or many times.

Kishshana Palmer (08:42.005)

Kishshana Palmer (08:46.628)

Yeah. Yeah.

Kishshana Palmer (08:55.226)

Correct. So a couple things. So one, know, fellow last key kid in the house, I was find a way or make one. And pretty much all of my writing now is speaking to our like Gen X, not the Xenia, but you know, that older millennial, some younger boomers, folks who are in that sort of like hybrid of you just got to thug it out, right? And figure it out. But the figuring out, you know, the beautiful flowery word is resilience.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (09:07.914)

Mm-mm. Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (09:23.844)

But that is not what that is. Okay. We are in the trenches. Woo. I'm like, don't talk to me about resilience. so I was ignoring my body for a long time.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (09:23.956)

So, we talk about that all the time. Yeah.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (09:34.414)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (09:36.304)

I headaches since I was a little kid. So when you have like little ailments and when you're an air quotes good kid, you know, like you're not in the classroom cutting up and particularly for folks who who identify as women, right? When you're not a problem child, people just ignore you. Okay. Like you think that they're like, Oh, she'll be fine. They literally ignoring you. So my parents were working. They were like, we got the, we got the child glasses. She'll be fine. Right. The migraines persisted. We didn't know that there was a stress related or what it was. And so as I went into adulthood,

Ellen Whitlock Baker (09:49.038)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (09:54.167)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (10:06.256)

these little groans and moans, I brushed them off because I'm used to operating with some level of discomfort. Right? That's just part for the course, I thought. And so I ignored the first backache and I ignored the first time that I got a cramp that I couldn't walk. And I ignore, I just kept ignoring, I ignored the fatigue. I ignored my daughter being like, mom, you've been sitting at your computer for hours. You're hunched over. Like I ignored everything. And when I got divorced, my daughter was four.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (10:14.36)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (10:36.624)

And so I went from thinking I was going to have this particular, you know, Americana type life, right? To all of a sudden I'm like, oh my God, I'm a statistic. And now I'm like, because you know, that's what's beating to our head. If you were a GenXer, people know, don't you be a statistic. If you're from Appalachia, don't you be a statistic. Are you from an urban neighborhood? Don't be a statistic. You know, so that was like literally in my brain. So what do you think happened? Overdrive. I want to provide everything I can for her. I want to make sure that I'm doing my own. And so I was suffering at work.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (10:48.558)

Mm-hmm. Mm-mm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (10:59.501)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (11:04.42)

trying to be a chief, fill in the blank for everybody at work, trying to be class mom and super mom at home. And my body kept coming to me in a careless whisper, Kish, slow down. Don't take the laptop on vacation. It's not a vacation. You know, don't have it at the swimming pool when your child is practicing. Maybe look up. Not me.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (11:04.515)

Yeah.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (11:20.842)

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Kishshana Palmer (11:29.84)

So when it finally came to a head, Ellen, was the time when I finally had decided, okay, I'm gonna take a break. This is right, right before the pandemic. Yes, math is right. And I was reaching over to put something in my suitcase, careless reach over, no, nothing big. Just a little bag in the bag. And my whole back went out and I teetered sideways and hit the ground.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (11:39.758)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (11:52.943)

Kishshana Palmer (11:55.824)

You know, they say, can you hear a tree falling in the forest? there's no, listen, nobody heard me fall. My friends were on the phone and they were like, that's about 10 minutes. Kajana, Kajana you're there. And I'm on the phone.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (12:00.854)

Ellen Whitlock Baker (12:07.022)

no.

Kishshana Palmer (12:10.224)

on the floor. So thankfully my parents had lived close by and my mom happened to be at my grandma's house which was about three blocks away. So one of my girlfriends called my mom like hey are you close by because Koshana is not responding to us. So of course my mom is you know gets in the house I'm on the ground and I couldn't use the bathroom by myself for a week and I didn't go on that trip. And so in that moment I thought a couple things. One this is ridiculous you know how much money I wasted you see where my mind went. Not

Ellen Whitlock Baker (12:30.122)

Ellen Whitlock Baker (12:39.554)

Yep. Yep. Yeah.

Kishshana Palmer (12:40.43)

You're going too far. You need to take it easy. You're not listening. No, I was thinking about the money I wasted, right? Wasted. Missing out on big fun with the wretched. Okay. Anybody know that reference? And so then the second thing I thought was, my God, my daughter is going to think that all I have to give is work. And I cannot allow her to think that this is all her life is worth.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (12:45.858)

and you're missing out.

Kishshana Palmer (13:09.434)

I just can't do it. And I wasn't happy anyway. And so was like, well, what am I doing any of this for? So that week in that bed allowed me to think about some things differently. And I looked at some journal, I've been journaling for a long time, mostly work journaling, believe it or not. And I was reading all of these journal entries about my anxiety and how...

angry I was at work and how I felt like I was being taken advantage of and between sexism and racism and this and that and that I'm journaling about. I said, no, we got to turn this all the way around. So I kind of went cold turkey. And I just started to do things differently. Yeah.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (13:47.352)

You just quit.

nice. You just made that switch.

Kishshana Palmer (13:54.37)

Yes-ish.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (13:55.586)

Yeah, I mean, you can't immediately, what, like, how'd you do it? What did you start with?

Kishshana Palmer (13:59.6)

So I started with talking to my team about some of the behaviors and habits and things that I was working on just to get an assessment from them of how I was showing up in the world. Started with my, then I went to my friends, then I ended with my family, because my family's hard, okay? If I'd started with them, I would have just quit the whole game. And just really got feedback on how I was showing up and what people were worried about for me. I had always like...

been in therapy and I think that every professional should be in therapy. If you have health insurance, be in therapy. You don't have health insurance, slide and scale therapy. You don't wanna do the slide and scale, there are apps for that. Like I just feel like we have to resource ourselves with support outside of our partners and outside of our friend chat groups. And so that combination of therapy, of getting that feedback.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (14:31.086)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (14:43.362)

Yep. Yep.

Kishshana Palmer (14:52.046)

right, from those sort of three circles, and of thinking about like, who do I want to be in the world? People look up to me. I didn't realize that at the time. People are watching me to think that this is the way you should operate your business and your life. And I was like, and none of this makes any sense. So it was enough to slow me down, but it wasn't enough for me to stop.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (15:08.824)

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (15:12.644)

So stopping really was not of my own doing. I moved south from New York where I live when my daughter went to college. I was supposed to go into this big job. The job fell through. It was really ugly. I had not set myself up well to continue my business because I thought I was going to be transitioning out. There was like a massive financial squeeze at the time my daughter started in college. So I literally had to stop.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (15:35.79)

Mm.

Kishshana Palmer (15:40.048)

Notice again, even though I knew what to do and I had done some of it, it was an outside thing that I didn't see coming that sat me down. And for many of us, that is what it is. I just want it to not be strokes and heart attacks and heart disease and cancer and autoimmune diseases that are the thing. Cause you can get money, right? You money. We can come back into money. We can figure that out, but you want to get the one vessel.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (15:40.526)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (15:57.016)

Yep. Yep.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (16:10.7)

Yeah.

Kishshana Palmer (16:12.196)

So I sat there and wrote about it.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (16:13.528)

Oof. I love it. I love it. It's so important because we put money as the number one. Like I couldn't possibly quit because especially like you were a single mom, I'm the sole breadwinner for the family. Like it just, you feel trapped. There's no way you can do anything other than the hustle that you're doing because everybody's depending on you. And then you burn yourself up into ashes and there's

I think you were lucky, I'm lucky that we, I think I've had some physical ailments as well, but nothing, it's not cancer, it's not strokes, it's not a heart attack. And I really want more people to be able to realize that they're at that place sooner, as do you. So what do you think we can do to help ourselves really be realistic with ourselves, I guess?

Kishshana Palmer (17:00.752)

See you.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (17:12.526)

I don't know if I said that in the right tense, but you know what I mean? Like sit yourself down and have a talk with yourself.

Kishshana Palmer (17:12.568)

Yeah, of course. You know, I know what mean. You gotta sit, listen, you gotta sit. Here's how you'll know if you are doing the most friends. If in the last seven days you have stood up at the counter eating your food from something that was plastic, perhaps you are doing too much. If you are a parent, a caregiver,

And the last time you had chicken nuggets, they were cold and it was yesterday because it was the end of your kids meal. And that is what you finished up. Friend, you are doing the most. If your tops and your bottoms don't match and they never do, I want you to know that friend, you are not paying attention to yourself. And don't say I don't care about clothes. I'm not talking about the clothes. I'm talking about

the care and attention that you give to yourself so that you feel good about yourself. I you don't feel like you're just making the motions, right? That's what it, that's what it, it, whether we like it or not, that's one of the things that's an indicator of. So I want folks to pull up and go, what are the ways that I have been ignoring myself for real, for real.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (18:32.718)

And you know that feeling, like I can absolutely viscerally feel what it felt like to have my daughter's leftover dinner for dinner, which I did on many occasions. you know, like cold mac and cheese, not as good as straight out of the box, you know? Like I love some Kraft, like, and this chicken nuggets for real, like not good, but.

Kishshana Palmer (18:43.13)

Correct.

Same Zs. Yep.

Kishshana Palmer (18:50.222)

That's it. No.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (18:59.054)

There's a feeling that it's hard to name, but like, guess, you know, cause again, if you're like me and Kishana, sounds like, you're not gonna notice it necessarily. That feeling is this sort of like, sort of like a choking, like racing, like you're moving forward and there's nothing you can do to stop. Kind of like a car without brakes, I guess is the best way to describe it. Ooh. Yeah.

Kishshana Palmer (19:19.952)

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. It's like a hum, but it's not a hum from creativity. It's a hum from not being able to slow yourself down, not knowing what to do with yourself. If you ever sat down in front of your computer and you had 19 tabs up and you were like, uh-huh, which tab do I click? That hum. So it's a site between the hum. It's like an anvil on your shoulders or on your chest.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (19:28.579)

Ooh, I like that.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (19:46.569)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (19:47.792)

It's erasing at the same time. That's way too many feelings happening to your body and there are no psychedelics in sight. Okay. That's too much. So I think being able to pause and recognize where you are in your moment and then being able to name what season you're in, right? Because you can't.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (19:53.612)

Yeah. Yeah.

Kishshana Palmer (20:09.23)

Some of us can't kick cold turkey like that. Some of us will just, some of us will backslide. Let's be clear. Okay. Okay. Your comeback will be great, but then, the disappearance. So what I folks to do is really recognize where am I in my life right now? So I can say the transition from being a solo parent, actively focused on my kid to being an empty nester. I ain't know what to do with myself. And it took me a year and a half to figure out that I had refocused on all the wrong things in people.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (20:14.569)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (20:39.086)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (20:39.61)

I just took my mothering and transferred it to my relationship. took my mothering and transferred it to mine and my mama's business. I took my mothering, you know what mean? Like I did not focus on myself because I didn't know how. So I had to pause and go, wait a minute, what things do I need to recenter around? And one of the ways that I did that was really using, I named it my five star wellness plan, but it was something I had been doing for a long time. I just didn't realize I just, I didn't have a name. I just did this thing.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (20:43.214)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (20:46.766)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (21:02.691)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (21:08.972)

And so for me, is simplifying the way you look at your life in this season. I'm not future forecasting and I'm not looking about what happened behind me other than to understand what were some of the indicators that I may have missed. And for somebody like me who is highly independent, I am a little bit of a, well, not a little bit, I'm recovering people, please. Okay. I have to talk to myself daily. I am in the middle of everything. I'm a leader. I'm the person who's like, I'll do it.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (21:23.79)

Hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (21:30.562)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (21:39.118)

to actively recalibrate because that is my actual coping mechanism for many of us. The reason that we are so busy is because we do not want to slow down to deal with the stuff that we've got going on in our life.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (21:48.526)

Yep. Yes. Yes. And I talked about this a little bit with one of my earlier guests, but it gives us purpose. when you don't necessarily know your purpose, and a lot of us who are in that hustle and grind have a kid, have aging parents, whatever relationships you have in your life where you're giving, giving, giving, I couldn't have told you three years ago what my purpose was other than to work and earn money. No, not at all. And it's taken...

Kishshana Palmer (21:57.764)

yes.

Kishshana Palmer (22:15.225)

At all.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (22:18.528)

a lot of work and a lot, I mean, going through my coaching program plus therapy is really what got me there. But not everybody gets to do that or can do that. So I love your 5-step, your 5-point Wellness Plan. Can you talk us through what those steps are?

Kishshana Palmer (22:26.201)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (22:33.776)

Oh, absolutely. So first of all, I want everybody to relax because the way that I did my five star wellness plan was thinking about when I am at my most stressed, what are the terrible habits that I fall back on and how do I cope? Right. So I don't design anything, Ellen, from the perspective of peace. I just don't. Because when we are stressed out, we fall back on what we know. So I'm like, mm-mm, I'm going start at the end. I'm stressed out. What do I need to do? Here's the thing.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (22:43.8)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (23:02.01)

There are five things that professionally and personally need to be true in order for you to feel engaged at working in your life. So Gallup had this employee engagement survey that he did for the first time in 2013. It talked about what does employees need to be engaged at work? And I'm a CliftonStrength coach. So I love that survey. And it basically said,

Ellen Whitlock Baker (23:17.251)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (23:22.152)

Folks have got to be engaged physically. Folks have got to have community. Folks have had got to be compensated financially. Folks have got to be seen heard valued, right? Essentially, that's what it was. So I was like, all right, how does that look when it comes to your personal life? And can I flip-flop between that and work? Okay. Thing one, your physical wellness and wellbeing. So this is point one of your five points. That is your house and your vessel. So hello.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (23:31.758)

Hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (23:48.044)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (23:50.348)

If you looking around and it is a tornado, that means your brain is a tornado. And I know I'm not the only one who is a self-proclaimed meat freak, but then has moments where it looks like a episode of Hoarders. Okay. So what in your environment needs to bring you peace and wellness? And it could be things like for me, I have to have sunlight. I have to have plants. Things have to smell good in my environment.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (23:54.99)

That's so true.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (24:05.398)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (24:19.664)

I'm actually love bright colors. Some people like me peaceful colors in it. I have a red, I have a candy cane stripe ceiling, right? Because yeah, I just, cause I love, I love the, I'm a maximalist. I love the excitement. I like that's energizing for me. I love my books. like to, I like to look at those things. So I create an environment where I spend my most time, which is in my office of peace. And peace for me is color and liveliness and sound and sensory stimulation. Others may be like, what the heck when they come in here, right?

Ellen Whitlock Baker (24:19.832)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (24:27.286)

love that.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (24:32.952)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (24:49.988)

So your environment, what brings you wellness and well-being there? And then in your vessel, what are you putting in your body? How are you moving your body? What are you doing to your body? You only get the one. So I'm not a proponent of any one particular type of physical movement. I just want us to move, stretch, eat, sit down. I saw something the other day that said if you even spend one meal a day sitting down to eat with China, that's slow. just China, listen y'all.

They don't have to match. Okay. I'm not talking about bone, it could be just the regular stuff you get from Walmart or Target, but it is like just being able to sit down and enjoy the meal with the actual company. Um, then it is your, um, emotional wellness and wellbeing. So you mentioned this earlier and that is getting the therapist, making sure your mind is right.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (25:36.056)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (25:39.832)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (25:41.584)

If you have a mindfulness practice, if you are a walker and talker, you have a journal, you're a voice journaler. We have to get the stuff inside out. So, Maddix, movement. You gotta, you gotta move with it. You have to move with it. Your mind and your body gotta go together. Then there is your spiritual wellness and wellbeing. Now, whether you are into some sort of organized religion, you're a spiritualist, you are a universalist, it don't matter to me if you like the bees, the trees, the animals or the leaves, okay?

Ellen Whitlock Baker (25:50.779)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (26:10.06)

You

Kishshana Palmer (26:10.884)

But you and the outside environment and something outside of yourself have got to be in commune. It's got to be in commune. Have to. Because when stuff gets really low, there got to be a re-centering point for you. What is that? And then for many of us, particularly in the social sector, there is this thing about the reticence about talking about money, right? No, no, no, no. Get your coins right. I'm speaking to myself. OK?

Ellen Whitlock Baker (26:26.03)

Hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (26:34.744)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (26:39.62)

get your investments right. It does not have to be big. We do not have to say we're not rich therefore, but being able to have control, particularly for women of our money is so critical to our wellness and wellbeing. And then lastly, your community wellness and wellbeing. And that for me is who are your people that's in your personal life, your family life, your professional life, your civic life. Who is in the crew? Who's in your inner circle?

How are things moving for you? Now, with those five things, we don't have the attention span to do all five things at once. And every season of your life does not require you to really be double clicking on all five. But you have to decide in this season where you are now, with the external inputs that you are having, where do you need to spend your time the most? What needs the most care?

Ellen Whitlock Baker (27:29.482)

Mm-hmm. So which one of those is screaming the loudest at you? Yeah.

Kishshana Palmer (27:33.008)

There you go. And sometimes it's two, but we ain't doing more than two y'all. Okay, if you like all of them, start with the number.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (27:37.294)

Oh, I love that. Yeah, because everyone, there's so many people, I think I might've told the story in here before, but I had a client I was coaching and she was so burned out, she fainted and it was really awful. And I was like, okay, what are you gonna do, you know, to just rest or, you know, take that time? And she's like, I'm gonna get up at 5 a.m. every day and work out. And it's like, yes, yes, working out is good for you, moving your body is good, but is that what you need right now or is that the extra hour of sleep? And we have this,

Like we try to be perfectionists about our wellness journey. And it's just really hard to untangle all of that.

Kishshana Palmer (28:11.096)

Exactly. And it's a hot mess. It's really hard on tangles. So for me, one of things I learned was that actually between working out and sleeping, that actually the thing that was best for my health was sleep. I lost weight. I lost inches. I lost laugh lines. All the things. So when I'm stressed out, it's hard for me to sleep. So the thing I need the most is sleep. And so...

Ellen Whitlock Baker (28:23.0)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (28:32.044)

Wow. Yeah.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (28:37.998)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (28:39.982)

I have my soothing tools. The Golden Girls is one. Sex and the City is another. know, Grace and Frankie is another. I have my little shows that I can put on the background of all the words too, that I know that when I'm having a hard time sleeping, I won't deeply sleep. So having on shows like that in the background for me pulls me low enough and deep enough into sleep, where at least I'm resting.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (28:43.47)

Ellen Whitlock Baker (28:46.901)

Nice.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (28:59.128)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (29:02.832)

So just kind of knowing where your body's at, but getting sleep and staying asleep for me was so critical. So I had really had to focus on as part of my physical health and mental health, they kind of went together. I had to work on getting a sleep routine and I was like, what am I five? No, I needed it. So if you ever came over my house, most of our bedrooms don't have any clocks in them. All the bedrooms in all my every room has blackout curtains.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (29:15.288)

Yeah. Yeah.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (29:23.064)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (29:27.245)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (29:27.6)

So if you heard my dad's video last month and he never sleeps past five o'clock my man slept till 830 every day and he makes a start like And I was like, here's your coffee He's like, why don't you wake me up for what? What are you gonna do at 5 a.m? Here's the blackout curtain. So each of us have a thing Some of us need to sweat What is the thing that's gonna get your mind clear?

Ellen Whitlock Baker (29:35.658)

What?

Ellen Whitlock Baker (29:42.03)

You

Yeah.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (29:54.891)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (29:56.904)

enough to be able to pause to start saying, okay, what do need to do right now?

Ellen Whitlock Baker (30:03.692)

I love that. If you walk away with one thing today, I hope it's that you can hear those five points and pick the one, pick the one. Do take one little step in the direction of prioritizing that because I love, love, love that you're not saying you have to do all five of these because people just won't. And it's too hard, but the sleep.

Kishshana Palmer (30:12.12)

Yeah. It's fun.

Kishshana Palmer (30:19.087)

Yeah.

Kishshana Palmer (30:26.072)

No, no, soon.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (30:28.02)

What we were talking about sleep was so funny because I know, I mean, I'm in perimenopause. I know a lot of people who might be listening might be in that world and sleep is real hard. it's so much. It's so important, but it's. Yeah.

Kishshana Palmer (30:32.367)

Same.

Kishshana Palmer (30:36.56)

It's so hard. It went from like, childhood and infant, right? No sleep. To starting the business, no sleep. So when the kid first goes to school and moves to the new city, no sleep. I was like, when does the sleep actually come? So, that's basically what it comes down to. So yeah, so I would think folks, one thing, of all the things I said,

Ellen Whitlock Baker (30:46.722)

Yeah, yeah.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (30:54.936)

Turns out you gotta make it come. Yeah.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (31:02.978)

Yeah.

Kishshana Palmer (31:05.134)

To me, the most important thing is pause. If your heart is racing when you pause, get your butt outside your house, take your shoes off, go ground, whether it's on the concrete, it's in the dirt. Get your feet to that ground, grab onto something tangible, hold your heart and breathe deeply. Bring yourself to present. Then do the next thing.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (31:15.608)

Mm-hmm.

I love that. That grounding is so important. And we forget that we just need to go be in the earth sometimes.

Kishshana Palmer (31:36.325)

Mm-hmm.

forget.

Kishshana Palmer (31:42.424)

And I'm listening, I'm a city girl, don't dump the earth, dirt. I was like, ugh. But I absolutely have done it. I've gone right outside the door and I'm like, all right, I'm stressed. And I've taken off my slippers to right in the grass, just had my hands out, did my ground for a second, and I breathed deeply until my brain could calm down and I could hear the birds and I could hear the rustling and the leaves. And then I said, all right, I'm paying attention now. What do need to do?

Ellen Whitlock Baker (31:45.837)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (32:09.196)

Yeah, oof, I love that. I wanna switch to the leader perspective because this is so helpful for an individual. But what we talk about as well a lot on the podcast is if you're a leader, you can start making changes in the workplace. In fact, you should, it's your responsibility to start giving everyone the healthy workplace they need or like.

moving towards getting rid of things that don't give them a healthy workplace that they need. Not to put more pressure on your leaders, just again, do one thing. But when you are talking to leaders, what are some things they can do to help their team get to this place or just encourage a team that is going to not feel like they have to be busy all the time? Yeah.

Kishshana Palmer (32:39.397)

Right.

Kishshana Palmer (33:04.964)

person in life, we think that we're supposed to separate work and home and depending on what generation you came into the workforce that was drilled into our brains. I want you to know that we have paid attention to all your business anyway. We know when you have a fight with your partner because you come into work bitchy. We know when the kid is not acting right because you're short. We know when you didn't eat right because you're down in coffee. We know everything. And so the best thing a leader can do is model the behavior

Ellen Whitlock Baker (33:19.989)

Hahaha

Ellen Whitlock Baker (33:31.8)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (33:34.532)

that they know will put their team at their best, right? So what I'm talking about is how do you help your team show up powerfully? You've got to show up powerfully. You've got to name what season you're in. If your kids are going from middle school to high school, or if they're going from elementary school to middle school, if they're from elementary school to middle school, they are going to become aliens in 12 months or less. You tell your team. You might be running out to the principal's office a couple of times.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (33:43.139)

Hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (33:55.264)

You

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (33:59.704)

And so what are people doing to take care of themselves and their time? So modeling simple things like, I'm a big, big, big proponent of time studies. because I started out grant writing, so we had to track our time when we were doing government grants back in the day. But what I learned is that every time we did a time study as a team, we could see where time was leaking. And it was never punitive. I don't believe in that.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (34:13.257)

yeah.

Kishshana Palmer (34:23.672)

So, we need more help? Great, let's do a time study. Cause I want to understand where we're actually spending our time. And what I found was sometimes leaders at the top are doing $5 tasks. When their team members who should be doing the $5 tasks are twiddling their fingers because you holding them up with the $5 tasks as you want to be involved. Mind your business.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (34:24.302)

you

Ellen Whitlock Baker (34:35.288)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (34:41.602)

Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.

Kishshana Palmer (34:46.028)

creating that structure, taking the time. is our responsibility as leaders, one, to take care of yourself. Two, that gives you the space, the mental space to create that vision and to be crystal clear on what that is. What does success look like? What would need to be true? What needs to be in place? Who needs to be at the table? What gaps do we have? And then allow your team to answer the questions. Cause they know the stuff.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (35:06.964)

Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm.

Yes, they do. Better than you in some cases, which is great. That's what you want. Yeah. I love that. No, I was just saying that resonates a lot with them. I did an episode on boundaries because, and that's a huge theme with all of this, but basically how to tell you're having too many meetings at work and then how to say no to a meeting. And I have these scripts of like,

Kishshana Palmer (35:17.006)

Here we are. That's what you want. That's what you want. yes. Yeah, go ahead.

Kishshana Palmer (35:30.027)

Ellen Whitlock Baker (35:38.742)

Okay, just copy and paste this because it's so hard for us to say no. And when I was in the nine to five, I would have days with eight hours of meetings back to back, which are completely useless. I was useless by meeting three. And what you're saying is that time study, which I love the concept of that, even though it's a pain and they asked to do it, it's worth it because you can see, my God, seven people were in that meeting and we did not need that.

Kishshana Palmer (36:06.795)

What, right, what $2,000 problem did we solve in that 60 minutes? I just would like to know. And the probability is high that there was no problem solved. So y'all just wasted money is what you said.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (36:08.334)

Exactly. Yeah, because that.

Yeah. Or the meetings are about having more meetings, not about getting work done. so there's this, I think you talk, do you talk about time blocking in your book? Yeah. So talk a little bit about that because that is an awesome practice.

Kishshana Palmer (36:21.924)

Yeah.

Kishshana Palmer (36:28.154)

I do, I do.

Kishshana Palmer (36:32.676)

So I've helped organizations do this. I can't even tell you how many times now. So essentially a calendar is a love letter in my opinion. Okay. And for those of us who are creatives who don't like the idea of your time being like, you know, marked, it actually gives you so much freedom when you are the person who wants to be free. I'm a flower. I am a daisy. You need the kind of time blocking. So for me, it is looking at one, where do I get most of my energy during the day?

Ellen Whitlock Baker (36:45.89)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

You

Kishshana Palmer (36:58.288)

Two, do I actually have control of my calendar for real? Some of us think we don't have control, but we do, right? Some of us actually don't. Three, what's happening in these meetings? And four, can I block out time to be able to get certain things done? So for example, we shortened all meetings from an hour to 50 minutes. We have a 45 minute marker because sometimes all you need is 10 minutes to get the notes in that you need for the next thing. Or you need to pee. You're a wreck. Yeah. He said hello.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (36:58.563)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (37:14.753)

amazing.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (37:19.83)

Or to use the bathroom, yeah, or maybe eat sitting down.

Kishshana Palmer (37:25.336)

And so that was thing one that we did. Thing two is depending on the season that we're in, we have no meeting filling the blank day. So I already know that clients are going to be slower to respond on Fridays. And so from the 1st of June until October, we have no meetings on Fridays. And most of time, we don't work on Fridays. If you want to, can. If you don't, you don't. Right?

because I trusted my team to get their stuff done. But we realized that even just the pressure of having that off the table for the week, folks had the ability to say no. we should meet on Friday to do so and so, not unless y'all mutually agree. Don't you call four people together. We're not doing that. And I did that in-house. It's not just because I'm a consultant now and run my own firm. It's literally, I've done this my entire career.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (38:12.728)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (38:12.974)

Time blocking for me was useful since grad school because I am a super early bird. And so I realized when I started working in leadership roles that my most effective time to work is actually between 4 a.m. and 8 30. Guess what? When you're a single mom, you're up at six o'clock to get the kid out by seven. You do a drop off and run into the office. So I've lost two to three hours of productive time where my brain is sharpest going, you want waffles? In the car, right? We're running to the train station.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (38:24.782)

Mm.

Kishshana Palmer (38:42.512)

trying to half read a book. That's where I spent my most productive time. The rain cells just burnt. So time blocking became a way for me to recapture my time. So if you look at my calendar right now, it'll say CEO work block colon and what I'm working on. If somebody stops by and you know, we're all digital, we're all remote. So somebody does a little knock in Slack and it's more than a two minute, three minute conversation. If he gets to 10, 15 minutes, I go back into my calendar and put it as a meeting.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (38:57.934)

So nice.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (39:11.938)

Beautiful. Yeah. How you're doing it. Yeah.

Kishshana Palmer (39:12.016)

Remember, no time blocking. I want to see where I'm spending my time. Right. If we know that we have a project due, the first thing we do is everybody has to pull up calendars. I want to know whose children have birthdays. I want to know if anybody has doctor's appointments. I want to know people were planning to leave early before they knew this was happening. So we start to shrink the amount of time that we have actually available. Then we go, now what else is on deck and does this actually take priority?

Ellen Whitlock Baker (39:36.482)

Wow.

Kishshana Palmer (39:37.422)

That simple shift, notice how I shifted from what is happening in your personal life that will affect our ability to deliver with excellence. I care about delivering with excellence. But if I can say, I'm not gonna have you tell your family to kick rocks, but we have these deliverables we gotta get done. We have these proposals that have to go out. We have donor stuff we have to do.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (39:47.843)

Yeah.

Kishshana Palmer (40:03.15)

Then how much time do we have? Great. Then what do we actually have on deck? If that is that important. All of a sudden, folks start to make decisions. Boom, boom, yeah, that's it. Actually, we do that.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (40:08.654)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (40:15.342)

It's amazing. Again, I keep being blown away in these conversations because it's so simple. It's so simple. How happy would I have been if somebody was like, let's start with our personal calendars? And not even like, sure, we've all been like, well, I'm gonna be on vacation for two weeks. So it might be hard for me to answer email during that project, which is so terrible. But you're not like, my kid's birthday is that week.

Kishshana Palmer (40:22.352)

This is so... It's not rocket science.

Kishshana Palmer (40:31.056)

That's what we do.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (40:43.65)

I really don't wanna be focusing on this massive thing. It's just like, we're almost afraid to even be like, I have vacation booked. And yeah, that's genius.

Kishshana Palmer (40:46.522)

Correct.

Kishshana Palmer (40:50.8)

No, I start with the end. I want to know like so am I you know my team now And I've done this since I was in house So this is not new behavior, but we start with what's important to you. Some people is their birthday Some people is their anniversary. Some people is their family reunion Those are holidays for us and Then for us federal holidays were work days because for most of us we didn't care about one holiday or the other and we knew that people would not be calling us

Ellen Whitlock Baker (41:06.752)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (41:18.222)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, Yeah, yeah.

Kishshana Palmer (41:18.896)

So those were happy work from home days, unless you had kids and then you had to be, know, then we, then we all still, sat there. Then we sat this time, because Sean is taking some out to the aquarium next time. So I was doing that with their kids. You get to negotiate, you get to talk about it. And that is what I call being collegial. Notice how the work is still getting done, Ellen, but we are not as busy.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (41:36.046)

How beautiful.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (41:40.874)

No, and that's the thing is we create the busy. And I know we're almost done, but I have one more question before the last question. Okay, so that works amazingly well in your team, which is not huge. If someone's listening to this and works at like Microsoft, what's your advice to them to just take a little bit of that into maybe systems or even like a state agency where you really have some...

Kishshana Palmer (41:45.124)

There you go.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (42:09.422)

stipulations on what you can and can't do. How can you bring some of this in?

Kishshana Palmer (42:11.696)

Absolutely. So I've worked in bigger organizations, right? Like I've led teams of 40 people across several time zones internationally. So this is not stuff that I just did because I have a boutique firm. So when I'm in a bigger organizational structure where there's more red tape, we start with what we have. So.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (42:18.381)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (42:31.832)

In a bigger organization, can't be like, psych for the federal holidays. No, because organizations are closed, right? So we start working back from the number of hours we have. And we start working back from, OK, well, what's PTO? OK, we start working back from, OK, well, who needs to swap what day? Then you get a comp day, right? So you start working back. Do that annually. And then every quarter, before the end of the quarter is up, about two and a half weeks before the end of quarter is up, we do what I call a step back. How did it work this quarter?

Ellen Whitlock Baker (42:35.214)

Ellen Whitlock Baker (42:47.064)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (42:57.518)

Ooh.

Kishshana Palmer (42:59.376)

What projects are going to bleed into next quarter? Who's going to be out of the office as the project lead? Can we restructure so that that project doesn't kick off then? Who can be their backup? Can we do shadowing for 24 hours? Like, know, two business days or whatever. Like I try when you are the manager, that's why being a manager is so damn hard, right? You're in strategy mode all the time. If you have not properly delegated the work that you need to deliver on,

Ellen Whitlock Baker (43:09.069)

Wow.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (43:19.491)

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Kishshana Palmer (43:29.392)

so that you can be released to do the work you need to deliver on. If you get what I'm saying, let go of that busy work and be clear about who picks it up and why. What are they learning from it? Is a stretch project? What's on the table? What's at stake? If it does or doesn't get done, you've got to be clear headed to do that. So you're the one who is moving the chess pieces on the board.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (43:47.522)

Yeah.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (43:51.598)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (43:51.936)

And middle managers are the ones who have to both be independent, individual contributors and managers, right? So they have it the worst. They are translating big strategy. These at the top are mostly setting strategy. Hey, I'm always doing the work. Let's be clear. So when you're in a big organization, you're in a big business unit, you're in a big vertical, then it's a matter of taking what already exists. And then there is a thing about creating micro-cultures within your team. And that's okay. That is your discretion as a manager.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (44:01.133)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (44:18.274)

You bet. You bet.

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (44:22.232)

And so if you start with the premise, do not burn the people to get to the outcome. And then as a manager, I am responsible to make sure I have a collegial relationship with my team, which means they see, they believe that I see them, I hear them, have their back. Then my job is to model what it is to show up powerfully. What would need to be true to do so.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (44:39.662)

Hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (44:47.674)

Then you have a conversation. Then you have some space for innovation. Then you have creative ideas that come to the table from your team because they see that there's actual possibility.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (44:51.672)

Hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (44:57.952)

Notice in all of this how Kishan is centering the human, the people and not, you we talk about human centric work and we've definitely talked about that with other guests, but it's always felt like the product is the center. And whether it's the customer or the client or the person you're serving in a mission driven organization or the donor, there's, you know, those are the people that matter and

Kishshana Palmer (45:03.404)

and

Ellen Whitlock Baker (45:25.786)

you do whatever you can to please them or get more of their money or however you want to put it. And it's so powerful to hear you say that because everything you're modeling is take care of you and I'm going to take care of you as a person.

Kishshana Palmer (45:41.232)

That's it. That's it. That's all I got. That's all I got.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (45:43.906)

Yeah, which is mind blowing and shouldn't be. Do you have a hard stop at five? Okay, good. Okay, great. So I wanna ask you before we get to your last question, I love the Golden Girls as well. And for you young ones, the Golden Girls was an amazing sitcom that I hope you all watch from the 80s and early 90s.

Kishshana Palmer (45:50.392)

No, I'm good. Yeah, I'll have about five more minutes. I'm good.

Kishshana Palmer (46:01.229)

He he.

Kishshana Palmer (46:06.662)

Ellen Whitlock Baker (46:10.124)

and they feature prominently in your book. So tell me a little bit about like why and like what did they mean to you?

Kishshana Palmer (46:12.559)

Yes.

Kishshana Palmer (46:17.764)

They mean everything so I cannot watch TV on Fridays and Saturdays grown up because I grew up seven day dentist So Sabbath was our Friday evening and so they were a part of my reruns that I got to watch and you my recording on Saturday night at the sundown and There was something about these all the ladies that just made me happy They were spicy and funky and they dealt with all of these like grown-up issues and at the time I was like ooh, this is spicy stuff that my parents weren't really talking to me about yet and

Ellen Whitlock Baker (46:23.509)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (46:29.079)

Nice.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (46:35.512)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (46:45.072)

There is an air of just like pragmatic lessons, being able to tackle hard stuff with humor that stylistically for me, I didn't know at the time, that would really sit with me. And there were so many good lessons between Sophia and Dorothy and Rose that you could just get, right? And Blanche, Blanche is my girl. And so, I mean, she is, she is my girl, okay? And she was just, it was just difficult, okay? She just loved her, different.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (46:56.195)

Hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (47:04.27)

I love her.

Dubois. Oh, Devereaux. I don't know why I said Dubois. Somebody Dubois. There's another Blanche Dubois.

Kishshana Palmer (47:14.102)

Different rooms, and it was all, you know? Yeah. So basically, I wanted to bring something that for many of my audience is nostalgic and relatable and funny, and they tackled really hard stuff, right? And was very much like many of us are starting to get into that like Perryman, all seasonal. And so we get it. It's timeless.

And I wanted, and there aren't a lot of leadership books that tackle both personal development and leadership that use pop culture narrative. And that's how I teach. And so that's what I wrote about.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (47:44.75)

Mm-mm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (47:49.038)

I loved it so much because not only did I resonate with that and I watched all the sex in the cities too, so I can definitely resonate with that. But you're so right. that's, I've always kind of hated those books, not hated, but those management books that are mostly written by white dudes who, and all of the examples are like, well then he went onto the factory floor and talked to the, and I'm like, that has, I have no, that doesn't help me at all because that is nothing I will ever see or do.

Kishshana Palmer (48:10.138)

Wait.

Nope, nope.

Nope.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (48:18.658)

just because that's not the nature of my work, right? And so I really, the more pop culture I'm seeing, the more I like it. I interviewed Crystal Hall a while ago and she has a book out called Anti-Racist by Design and it's a, you know, she's a behavioral scientist and, but they have all sorts of pop culture references in there and it just made me love it more because I could really resonate with it. It's a meaty book full of meaty stuff, but that stuff really helps. And so I love that we're not like,

pretending that we have to be so fancy and it's more just like, no, I want to resonate with you. It makes me want to go back and watch all the golden girls again. Okay, I'm going to do that. I like a comfort show. All right, last question. And I'm so sad we're done. I could talk to you forever, but if you were going to give a TED talk on something other than your work, what would it be on and why?

Kishshana Palmer (48:48.388)

No.

Kishshana Palmer (48:54.33)

do all the time. It's my comfort. My mac and cheese.

Kishshana Palmer (49:10.798)

be on starting over. It would be on starting over. think there's not starting to be a lot of conversation about menopause and about perimenopause that women are starting to feel comfortable talking about. thing that we never really talk about is what happens after failure. And failure in our personal lives either comes out like

Ellen Whitlock Baker (49:12.641)

Ooh!

Ellen Whitlock Baker (49:27.81)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (49:31.556)

word vomit, right? Like some confessional that we have, or it's such a highly curated version of it. Now here's the lesson wrapped up in a neat bow. And I would love to talk about heartbreak as an adult, whether it's heartbreak in friendship, whether it's heartbreak in your family, whether it's amor in terms of heartbreak or professional heartbreak. And I think that being able to talk about starting over from that perspective, I would love to give a TED talk on that. my gosh, it'd be great.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (49:40.163)

Yeah.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (49:44.46)

Oof. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (49:59.31)

Oh my gosh, I'd sign right on up because that heartbreak is, you just, you feel it more after 40, I think. And I mean, I guess it's a different way, but yeah, I love that. Well, please do that, Ted Talk. I would absolutely come and see it. Do all the Ted Talks. You're amazing.

Kishshana Palmer (50:05.488)

Mm-hmm.

Kishshana Palmer (50:14.635)

I love that. Come on, friends. And I was like, I've only done the one Tedx women. Like they got to call me back. Yeah. Yeah. I did it during COVID. Tedx women and come on. It was very fascinating.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (50:20.576)

nice, so we can put a link to that, yeah? Okay, sweet. Nice. Ooh, fancy. So where can people find your book? I'll put a link in the show notes. I think I have one. And yep, what's your website? Nice, yep.

Kishshana Palmer (50:31.45)

Sure, absolutely. My website, of course, kashonapommer.com forward slash book. You can also find me at your favorite independent bookseller. I am in 46 bookstores in 21 airports across the country and also in the big box.

digital space, so your Amazons and so forth, Barnes & and all the good stuff. So anywhere you actually are reading, I'm probably there too. And also on Audible because I am the voice for my own book. Yeah.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (50:55.107)

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (51:00.193)

Awesome.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (51:04.846)

Oh, I love that. I'm so sad when it's not the person who's not the voice. I'm like, no, this isn't right. Oh my gosh, that's exciting. That's hard work too. It's a whole other conversation. Well, that is awesome. Everyone check out this book. I swear to God, there are so many takeaways that we didn't even have time to get to. Like we got to one of the 47 that are in that book, but I highly recommend it. Have your team read it. Have new managers read it who come into your company.

Kishshana Palmer (51:08.72)

I know, me too, I'm always so sad. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was hard. That was the hardest week of my life, Lord.

Ellen Whitlock Baker (51:33.966)

Read it yourself. Highly, highly recommend. So, Kishanna, thank you so, so much for being here. I really appreciate it. Awesome. All right. I'll see you soon. Thanks.

Kishshana Palmer (51:38.336)

Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Talk soon.