Environmental Professionals Radio (EPR)

Managing Burn Out, Embracing Challenges, and What it Means to be a Role Model with Laura Thorne

December 16, 2022 Laura Thorne Episode 97
Environmental Professionals Radio (EPR)
Managing Burn Out, Embracing Challenges, and What it Means to be a Role Model with Laura Thorne
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Welcome back to Environmental Professionals Radio, Connecting the Environmental Professionals Community Through Conversation, with your hosts Laura Thorne and Nic Frederick!

On today’s episode, we talk with Laura Thorne, entrepreneur, environmental career coach, and co-host of EPR about Managing Burn Out, Embracing Challenges, and What it Means to be a Role Model.  Read her full bio below.

Help us continue to create great content! If you’d like to sponsor a future episode hit the support podcast button or visit www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com/sponsor-form 

Showtimes:
1:59   Nic & Laura discuss managing burnout

18:36  Embracing Challenges

26:14   What it means to be a role model

37:12   Field Notes


Please be sure to ✔️subscribe, ⭐rate and ✍review.

This podcast is produced by the National Association of Environmental Professions (NAEP). Check out all the NAEP has to offer at NAEP.org.

Connect with Laura Thorne at https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurajeanthorne/

Guest Bio:
Laura is an entrepreneur, she co-owns a media company, a publishing company, and environmental career coaching service, and conducts business strategy consoling.  She has over 25 years experience in management, executive board leadership, creating and managing programs, and helping others succeed. She has developed programs for international companies, managed and created programs, written awards for excellence, and helped companies of all sizes make a bigger impact. In 2020, she received a nomination for Economic Champion from CenterState CEO in Syracuse, NY.

Laura holds a BS in Biology from the University of South Florida, is a certified Project Management Professional, certified Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, is a certified career coach, and previously served on the board of the National Association of Environmental Professionals. For 10 years she was an environmental scientist working in habitat restoration, GIS, seagrass monitoring, and grants management. When she is not consulting or creating she is teaching photography, curating art shows, hosting visitors in her unique Airbnb, or traveling.


Music Credits
Intro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace Mesa
Outro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs Muller

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Transcripts are auto-transcribed

[Intro]

Nic 
Hello, Welcome to EPR, your favorite environmental enthusiast, Nick and Laura. On today's episode, we talked to our very own Laura Thorne, about managing burnout, embracing challenges and what it means to be a role model. And finally, in honor of Laura's Florida routes, let's do a little fun fact about manatees. The cow like creatures are thought to have inspired mermaid legends. That's right. The people thought that they were more people maybe not as beautiful as they ended up being but you know, you tell a personal story and then eventually they're like, oh, yeah, you know, becomes something else. Right. That's kind of the the idea behind what that happens though, is I think that's pretty cool. How about that? All right, that music.

[NAEP Event News]

Nic 
Registration is open for a special AEP webinar series which is going to handle our 2023 regulations and rulings. There's going to be several big ones that we are anticipating coming out in 2023. And you can access three webinars that will address these issues, including C EQ is proposed phase two NEPA regulations. The EPA Army Corps revised section 404 regulations and the Supreme Court ruling in the sakit waters the United States case. If you sign up for these now you automatically receive notice for each webinar once these issues are. So they're going to basically after about two weeks after they're announced we're going to have these webinars to address what those what the announcements are going to be what the changes are and what those mean, long term. We want to do this as quickly as we can to get advice out to professionals as soon as possible. So this is a really exciting adventure. And we hope you guys do bring it along. So yeah, I look forward to that you can register@www.nap.org they will be really, really good. So I'm excited about that.

[Nic & Laura discuss managing burnout]

Nic
So we will say we got a question from the audience. And the question is, you know, when I'm working when I'm, you know, trying to show strong work ethic and notice that I'm reading the question so that Laura has to start answering first. You know, I've got a strong work ethic. I want to be seen as someone who has a strong work ethic, but when I do that, I get assigned more things. I get more responsibility. And then I hang in it affects my work life balance. So I'm working too much not doing enough work. Life things. So how do we kind of balance those two things out? And I have thoughts but you know, I asked it so Laura has the Antichrist

Laura 
who's starting the lab? Yep. I mean, that's tough. You have to do a lot of things in the beginning of your career to show that you can do the work. I know I volunteered for everything and I did a lot of stuff. And I think back when I was starting my career, we didn't talk a lot about work life balance, so it wasn't really you know, I'm young. At this point in my life, my focus is on my career, not my family work life balance, you know, so it was okay to do that. I think there's less people who want to be okay with that now, so it's a personal choice, I think, and I think if you decide because balance doesn't mean equal, that doesn't mean I have 50% of my time at work and 50% at home. I have to decide what is balanced for me. So if you are career ambitious, and you would like to do 80% of your time, focused on career good for you. If you are young and starting a family early and you decide that you're going to be the 5050 vote, that is a personal choice, and you'll have to stick to it. It's also easy. Yeah, but it's fine. And I think so the point there is is that you have to really dig deep into what you want and not look at what everyone else is doing.

Nic 
100% and I would say to you know what is your goal? What are you trying to do? Do you want to be the person you want to be leading the program? Do you want to be leading your industry? If you want to do those things? It's gonna take a lot of work. There's no balance. There's almost no balance. If you really want to be a leader of industry. It can't just you know, well I did my 50% So now I'm going to do my own, but that's okay. You don't have to be that you know, there's there's a huge difference from being like the industry leader in the profession, while also really enjoying your job, and having good time having a good experience and then going home and leaving it at the door. It's okay to do that. Both of those are fine, but you have to be okay with it. It's really what you want to get out of it. And many people who work harder, get noticed more, and they will move up. But harder doesn't mean longer. It doesn't mean you're putting in 20 You know, add extra hours a week or whatever that's you know, there's a line for that. Like where it's too much you're taking on too many things and you end up making mistakes, that's also a problem. So you've got to, you've got to kind of decide what you want out of the job and what you're trying to accomplish with your own personal life like those. Those to me are really important questions that you have to answer and very importantly, there is not a right or wrong. It's what you want. Take the time to think that through. And you can always say no, I think that's very important can always say no, you don't have to say yes to everything. You shouldn't say no to everything either. That's not great. But you do really good work. And you know, you've been doing a lot and you've been put in longer hours and you're like I need a break. A good boss will be like, understood. Absolutely. I understand that. And we'll work on you know, and it may not be immediate, you know, sometimes you might need, you know, there's a week where you're going to be more have to put in more no matter what, than others, right? That's just kind of the nature of work. But a good boss will tell you Okay, yeah, I don't want you to burn out. I don't want you to be up at all hours at night working for me. So take the time that you need, you know, give some bounce on balance, you know, it shouldn't be 100 Zero. It should never be 100 Zero either way, right? But doesn't have to be 5050 It's a really good point. Well,

Laura 
okay, so I know a young woman who works in self development in a pharmaceutical company, and she pretty much got promoted several times at the company she worked for and then she got headhunted to go work at another company to help them fix their operations and because she was known for being very good at process, and so she's very young, three kids, husband, obviously, and the husband I think does not work. So she may be doing everything at this time. And so she's, you know, talking about work life balance and it's all over the place. But she knows that she's dedicated to advancing her career so she can retire early. And not a lot of people, young people, especially are willing, I talked to people in career coaching about this. It's in my workbook. What do you want your retirement to look at? And they're like, are you crazy? I'm not prepared to talk about that. But this is how you answer this question. How much time do I dedicate to my career right now? How early do you want to retire? So basically, she had no life 000 She worked 1215 hour days for six months to get this company. To a place that needed to be where people weren't throwing up their hands in the air and screaming running out the door. The clients were getting the products that they were promised on time, and then she was able to take a little breather, but yeah, she was going crazy in the meantime, but understood the realities of it and what that was going to do for a career and now she's been, I think, hired and moved into another company with a much better situation. So also, how long are you going to endure? What you're going through is another thing to consider

Nic 
Exactly and like I said, like, I think that's a very good point because we talked about work life balance, like it's a static thing, and it changes you know, over time, there might be like six months where it's really hard. And if you need to make a change, you make the change, which this person did to also and I was like, I did the thing I got this where I needed to be and now I'm ready to do you know, a little bit better balance, you know, and that's really hard for a family. It's always like, there's a big, big discussion point you have to make. And if you have the resources and means to do things, it makes it a little easier. If you have someone who's supporting the house, you're doing all the work that helps a lot. You might not be in that situation. So maybe that doesn't really come into play. So there's lots of different things, lots of different nuances to that question is a good question. It's a really good question.

Laura 
The last thing I would say about that is that you also have to consider the realities of the work that you're in. If the work that you're in doesn't fit what you need to have for your work life balance, like you know, hardcore global consulting company that's very fast paced and project based they might demand a view certain things you can't say no to and you have to understand that yeah, you have the right to say no but that may have consequences and you may be better off finding a different place to be you know, government they live they typically nine to five weekends off that might better fit your situation if you're looking for something more balanced.

Nic 
But if you're like a private equity lawyer, you're going to be doing 80 hours a week, at least. So, you know, buckle up, and that's different, is different. Alright, that's a good question. Yeah. Why don't we go ahead and wrap up and get to earn sounds good.

[Interview with Laura Thorne starts]

Nic
Welcome back to EPR. Today, we have a very special guests. Some of you may or may not know already. Our very own Laura Thoren. Laura, so glad to have you here.

Laura 
This feels a little bit odd, but I know right? Yeah. And thinking back to us interviewing you last year. I'm like, What are they gonna ask me?

Nic
 
I have the same exact feeling. So I'm glad we can return the favor a little and, and have a little fun with you today. So the show we've had a lot of people that do a lot of different things. And I think to say you embody that spirit is kind of underselling all this stuff you do. So I mean, so you're a biologist, you're a photographer and environmental scientist and career coach, a publisher, etc, etc. I'm forgetting some things, I'm sure. But do you think like one of your career decisions really led to the next do they kind of all intertwine? Did you ever interested in all of these things from a young age and you just decided, You know what, I'm gonna do everything.

Laura  
Yeah, before we jump in, I want to just say to everyone that Nick is interviewing me from a hotel room, so that's why you might sound a little bit different. He is dressed up to like, moderate a football game so I do actually play the game coach.

Nic 
What are your time adjustments here?

Laura 
So I gotta get used to this. Yeah, the career path I talked about the two people every once in a while, they do STEM one from the other and they aren't connected. It doesn't appear so on the outside people are like, What are you doing today? And I know I used I can't say I used to worry too much about what people thought or whatever. But you know, it runs across your mind occasionally. But yeah, I mean, I do you know, I'm an executive producer on a TV show. You know, I'm still working on getting it published, but it's in the works and it's happening and I've been a photographer since I was 14. So that is kind of like where that has led me. I've always been creative and a creator and an artists so I'm working in art space, try and promote arts with that show. So that's, it may seem like an odd thing to be doing but it really has been a natural progression of just you know, I'm a big fan of continuous improvement and always looking for the next thing to do and pushing boundaries and limits of yourself and so that's where that is lead, career coaching. I career coaching environmental career seekers. And that's just come from having my, my big 10 year career as an environmental scientist and then kind of leaving stepping out of that and then, you know, when I graduated from the University of South Florida with my biology degree, in 2005, by the time I was ready to retire, essentially for my government job. The world had changed, like climate change became real. The sustainability College had started in 2009 at USF so there were options that didn't even exist. So I felt like you know if I was going to start over or try to go somewhere else, I just kind of already felt I wasn't outdated, but I really just, I had been because of na P actually because I was president of TVA P had been mentoring and talking to other people about changing careers. And so for me, it felt like you know, I was a little burnt out as burnout, not only on working for someone else, but also just sort of the you know, we've talked about this before the stress of working in environmental fields can be very depressing to go to work every day and make a little bit of progress to see a lot of stuff go backwards. So I just felt like my place my calling at that point was to help other people get into those roles. You know, if I can help 1000 People get into a job that they love, my impact actually goes further. So that's what I've been doing and I love doing it. So that was a natural progression. And then that helps me to stay involved here and to stay involved with Na P you know, I since I've moved from Tampa now live in Syracuse. A couple of things

Nic 
My goodness was funny because like, you haven't seen the questions, but you know, we are going to touch on burnout a bit. But before we do, I love that you brought up you know that you do art and science and one of the reasons we started the show is because we genuinely believe that there are a lot of environmental professionals that are really dynamic folks that do a lot of different things. They have a lot of different interests. And no matter who you are, what you're doing, there's an environmental job for you somewhere in some way, shape or form. So how do you see the intersection of art and science where do you see them connect for you personally, and then just maybe in the in the field in general?

Laura 
Yeah, that's a great question. And you know, I was just before we started here today chatting with Sam about GIS, and that was one of the things I loved doing when I worked at EPC was just creating maps and telling a story. And I feel like GIS is a really artistic way to express what you're working on and to especially with story maps and different things that they have available now. But also I ran our pollution prevention grant program and you know, started a newsletter underneath that created posters for conferences on the project we're working on. So there's just a lot of opportunity to be creative. You have to do science and technical writing for things like NEPA, and reports to your clients. But at the same time, you know, the story has to be told about the Earth and why this is important. And that can be told in a number of ways. It doesn't have to just be words, but it can be presentations and art. And, you know, it's bleeding. Now, like I said, Now that sustainability is an actual programming thing and climate change is for most of us, it can become reality. You know, the ability to bring the art form into it, because that's how we're going to the only way we're going to reach people I think who haven't already bought in is to start speaking the different language and art is that is one of those things that can kind of bridge no matter who you are, what your background is, you know, because you can pull emotion into it and you can draw people's attention. So I think whether you do social media and marketing or if you're a classical painter, you know, there's people that are, I know several artists here in Syracuse who do things with recycled materials, and they're making costumes and cosplay and like really cool stuff. And even all of that is an opportunity to educate people. About the need to improve our planet.

Nic 
Yeah, I mean, yeah, absolutely. And I love it. I love you brought up story maps, you know, we're starting to use those more and more and in my job and you hear it's really cool. I mean, you know, but it's still like when you talk about I writing a technical report that's it said we say it's for people but it's really for lawyers, right? But you know, there's, I love seeing the change. I love seeing the shift and and it's really cool because people like you know, like Laura like you get to kind of be the forefront of that and see where we were and where we're going and it's really, really cool. But, you know, we we mentioned earlier you have all of these things going on, where you always have this determined like, you know, we want to know, Laura Thoren like wake up like as a baby and be like, You know what, let's go. Let's go. We're going we're doing it. Like we need to know this. How did this happen? Where did that come from that determination?

Laura 
Right? Was I always a pitbull? Yes. I have always created my Myers Brigg personality test as an architect. I'm always taking things apart. I remember my dad, someone had brought home a payphone. I think it was my dad, like the old kind that you see, that are like all metal and it's super thick and you have to put a coin in it. So not like a foreign like on the street. But like one you might I don't even know where they would come from but super, like the little cup for an ear holder. You know,

Nic 
oh, gosh, okay, yeah. But um,

Laura 
I remember like spending hours like trying to bust that thing open to see like, what did it look like on the inside? And, but I also had, my entire room was full of every kind of art. I did charcoals for a while I did watercolor i did i built dream catchers. So I had everything, all the different kinds of art. I would try everything. So I don't think I don't know if I was always like, I don't have a direction. So but I tried everything. And I think that's still embodied that were like, I want to try everything. And if I like it, I'm gonna keep doing it. You know? And that's where, you know people like, Oh, you do this and like, just pick a thing. Like I can't just pick a thing. I don't want to just pick a thing.

Nic 
So you're, you're more of a generalist and a specialist then is that what you'd say?

Laura 
I would say but I think you can specialize in learning and trying and you know what I mean? Like, I am an inherent problem solver. So, and I think that's where, you know, we strategize on the podcast. I have to LLCs right now, and my business partners don't have a business background, but I have brought them in and we strategize these sit down and we actually plan and for me, it's fun and I think I've made it fun for them. You know, they don't they come to our planning meetings with smiles so the whole process of it because we get stuff done. I think if you strategize and you don't get things done is when it becomes like you know life killing whatever. Yeah, killing yourself. But, um, but yeah, I think you know, you can specialize in being creative and coming up with new ideas.

[Embracing Challenges]

Nic 
Heck, yeah, I mean, that was exactly what I was hoping you'd say. That's awesome. Maybe we've been doing well enough, you know, but it's brilliant because I love it. We do this thing where we put things. We love putting stuff in boxes, and even sometimes that means you oversee things or overlook things or you miss the point, right? And so you try to make things fun. You try to have things that are enjoyable, you try to be engaging. So what are those tips for strategizing, for example, like to avoid that kind of thing? Because, you know, nobody wants to sit in a meeting that's, you know, three hours long and at the end, you're exactly where you were when you started. So how do you focus that because it's really challenging?

Laura 
Yeah, I think really some of the keys one is prioritizing, you know, if you spend two hours working on the thing that wasn't the thing that you should have spent the two hours working. Yes, did frustration, right. So really getting keen on listing all the things that you should be? doing and saying this is the one that needs to happen right now? I do it daily, you know, this. Yeah, let's do it on my planner right before this started. I had a whole bunch of things this morning that were written down and then halfway through the day I was like, Nope, I need to reassess this. And I think you also have to be flexible. So you know a lot of people have this mindset that because you have a strategy and you have the steps to do and you can't but it's rigid. You can't break away from that. But you have to be flexible. You've got to be able to say, alright, this worked yesterday, but today something's off and maybe maybe it means we just put it off till tomorrow or maybe it means we put it off for six months or longer. But flexibility has to be part of that. And that's really hard for some people to do because you've got to kind of walk the line between, okay, we have to get this done. And maybe this isn't right. But I think frequent check ins is the other thing. So a lot of people want to say okay, okay team, here's our six months plan, see her in eight months. You gotta say, here's our six months plan. I'll see you next week. And those meetings have to be prioritized and there has to be an agenda and you have to say, like, we have a to do list with dates and what's been we're working on and we check in with it and when someone goes I don't know what to do today. Check in with the do the list, like what's on the list. And so, you know, it's it's a lot of moving parts, but once you kind of get in those habits, it's all about creating habits, then you know, you can make the strategy more of a way I always say it's a way that you should operate another thing you should be doing.

Nic 
Yeah, yeah. And I think it's a great point to it even, even like on the meeting level, right? Where you like we have this meeting, we've had it forever. We'll keep having it. So okay, well, let's reevaluate why we ranked and need to have it, do we, you know, and sometimes the answer is yes. And sometimes the answer is you know why? We have a bunch of other meetings. Let's focus all of our efforts on that one. And if we need to touch base, we will. And so yeah, that's really, really cool. And it kind of segues into what you mentioned earlier, right? Because it's really easy to get burned out. If you're not paying attention. If you're just trying to you know, go go go go go. You know, heck I feel like today is wearing me out. You know, I've had I've had one of those days where it's thing to thing to thing to think so what advice would you give for avoiding burnout, you found a new way to do to give back and do the thing that you want to do without being the person who's doing the thing? Are there other ways to avoid burnout without maybe without leaving the industry or doing different things in the industry? Can you stay at your job and still do it? Yeah, and

Laura 
you know, to clarify, I didn't leave only for that reason. I live my best I have the best job in the world. Best co workers just wasn't the best for my future advancement. So I needed to go and really you know, the light bulb came on that like I don't want to boss. I want to create and be the ruler of my own world and really shaped things for myself. I have no one to answer to but me whether things fail or succeed. It all lands on me. And so regardless of circumstances, that's the epiphany that I came to so now because of that, I can only work on things that I want to work on. And that doesn't mean there are things that I have to do that are not fun. I do my budget every Friday, and I'm still doing administrative work. I delegate as much as I can, but there's only so much that you can do of that and you still have to do your own strategizing and coming up with all this. And you know, I manage other people and I do love that part because the mentoring is involved, but it's really you have to like what you're doing. You don't have to love it. You don't have to, you know, if you're in your first job and you're out there in the field with mosquitoes and heat and whatever, you know, you might hate that part of it. But you have to like that you're serving a mission that's doing a thing and you're part of it or something. If you come home and you just absolutely hate your boss hate the work that you're doing everything else do something else. Yeah. No, such this mindset of like, this is my job. This is my job forever. But I'm here to tell you no, it's not.

Nic 
And, you know, it's another thing that I like that you said, you know, I do what I love, but I don't love all of it. And I don't know if you could maybe expand on that a little bit because I think when people say that, you know, this is my dream job. This is the job I love that you almost had this expectation which is impossible to reach that you love every single day that you're doing every single thing with your new job like how can you complain about a dream job, you know?

Laura 
Yeah, I do try to be mindful of that. You know, there are times when I do want to complain, but I have to, you know, if you anyone who listened to this before, you know that role models is important to me. I try to be that role model for all of the young persons that are working with me and the people I mentor. I'm not going to show up and be complaining. I get really frustrated by this whole like everyone should be vulnerable bosses. Leaders need to be vulnerable to a point. I don't get to come in and complain and tell you about my problems. Those are my problems. I don't dump those on the people who work who are doing work for me or with me, you know, at a lower pay or for something that's not their mission and their passion. You know, that's not part of my job, but to mentor them on things they should avoid in their own path. Sure, but to just sit and complain or get therapy from the people I work with. That's backing up to the question.

Nic 
You know what you love, but not loving all of it. And what that really means

Laura 
three drop. Yeah, so you know, people also complain that like, oh, Facebook stinks because everyone's just fake and not real, but I'm sorry, what do you do follow people who do nothing but complain, following them. So this is we don't want to see that. Like, there's a lot of stuff on there about mental health and all that and that is important, but I'm not going to go on my Instagram and post and tell you when I'm having a bad day. I'm going to share with you the positive stuff and the encouragement the things I want you to see, to live your best life but the reality is that living your best life is still life. As the Buddha says life is struggle, it's going to still be hard. There are going to be days that just absolutely suck. There gonna be days where you were thought you were on having living your best life and your dream job and then you know, your dog will die or your mom will get sick or you'll get sick and you know, there are things that are out of your control. But you have to realize that that's just part of life and you're either going to be the kind of person who picks yourself up or not. And, you know, I mean I've had setbacks and then sometimes they take a while to pick yourself up but the key is just doing it regardless of how long it takes or what method you use to do it well, except for like, drugs and alcohol but other methods.

[What it means to be a role model]

Nic 
Yeah, because you know, you don't want things to be a crutch you have to be able to rely on yourself and your own self worth. Which is you know, not always easy. And you know, you talk about leaders need to be the term that I hear all time is empathetic, you know, that doesn't mean pulling us out of therapy session. It means a lot more than that. And I swear you didn't see these questions beforehand. But my next question is like, what does it mean to be a role model you're talking about? Role model way and you know, trying to live the way that you want other people to embody but what does that actually what does it mean to be a good role model?

Laura 
Yeah. So for me, and I am thinking about this a lot. I'm interviewing people and I'm writing a book around it. So there's a lot to unpack but just at its basics, you know, we haven't really as a society as people to find what a role model is. It's danced around in books, it's danced around, you'll see it in quotes. You see it in TV shows everywhere, every movie every TV sitcom ever ever made. Someone is the role model. Someone is the person doing the right thing, and the other person is the person who did the wrong thing. And then they describe how you why you should do the right thing. Every single one, but what we don't talk about is that everyone is a role. Model. Regardless, my parents were role models, but were they role model parents? No, I totally understand your great parents, but they weren't like role models for getting your kids into Dr. Chips. And you know, because they didn't do that. They couldn't they couldn't do that. Because they aren't that they didn't have that. So, you know, if you were raised by your uncle and your uncle is an alcoholic, that's a role model. But you have to learn and decide whether that's a role model you want to follow or not. So, for me, it's I want to be creating programs and getting people to think about how every hat that they wear, you're a different kind of role model in that day. I don't have to buy into, let's say Elon Musk, for example, because he's like all over people love them or they hate him or whatever. He can be a role model for like how to be a great businessman, but he doesn't have to be my role model for how to be a husband or father. He doesn't have to be the room. He doesn't have to be the end all be all. I can say this is my role model for this. Of course, it gets dicey when someone does something, you know, your role model is say there's we talked about that one football player, let's not call names, but right right. You know, you're like, Oh, I love this guy. And then you're like, Oh, he's like Michael Jackson, you know, huge, huge role model for millions and billions of people. And then that will happen. So I think we need to be teaching young people how to deal with that. How do you deal with parents and teachers who you thought were role models and then you see them you know, see a teacher the whole problem with whether what teachers post on social media is because at school, do your role model but then you see them in real life and they're, you know, partying or something that's confusing for young kid. Yeah. So anyway, I think we all need to just be more as especially as we progress in our careers and if we really were throwing the M word around, we're saying we're mentors. We need to be considering more that we don't pick and choose where influence lands, it lands where it wants to land.

Nic 
Yeah, it's a great point. And it's really, you know, I think you and I have talked a bunch about people being dynamic, right? No one's static. No. one's perfect. But we often put labels on stuff we say this, this is a great role model. This is a bad one and we we forget the context, you don't really know some of the people that that you are considering almost like you said, so. Yeah, you know, I think between you know, we really do see, we talk a lot about, you know, how people are dynamic, but we tend to put them in static boxes, we sit and say, This is who you are today, forever, always. But that's not the reality, right? We all do and act different ways in different situations. And if people just like you said, so how do we connect with younger younger people are trying to do who are just figuring this out, because it's, it can be quite shocking. When you have a role model who breaks your heart, that's really difficult, you know, and having a way to navigate that without coming across like you're, you know, telling somebody how to do something because that's not really what what people want. They don't want you to say, Hey, I know more than you. Here's the thing is that's not going to work either, right. But here's the deal. Like nobody wants that. So how do we avoid that and still connect with people?
__________
Nic 
Yeah, you know, I think between you know, we really do see, we talk a lot about, you know how people are dynamic but we tend to put them in static box as we said and say, This is who you are today forever always. But that's not the reality right? We all do an act different ways in different situations. And if people just like you said, so how do we connect with younger younger people are trying to do who are just figuring this out because it's, it can be quite shocking. When you have a role model who breaks your heart that's really difficult, you know, and having a way to navigate that without coming across like you're, you know, telling somebody how to do something because that's not really what what people want. They don't want you to say, Hey, I know more than you. Here's the thing is that's not going to work either, right? But here's the deal. Nobody wants that. So how do we avoid that and still connect with people?

Laura 
Yeah, and the whole entire thing is exposure. So, you know, I can turn that the other way around, was talking to a young person who was in the closet for lack of better term but, and his parents just couldn't. When he wanted to come out, his parents couldn't handle it. So then he found himself having all these conversations telling them why, why it's okay, why they should be accepting of it. Why, why, why, why and of course, they weren't having any of it. And then they were just arguing all the time. Yeah. And so the thing is that you're not trying to force or tell anybody how they should live. You're giving them just an insight and how they could live or how they could think. So. Again, going back to you or social media, the more we can, you know, some will say, Well, you're making this fake positivity. It's not fake positivity is real, the more that we can display good behaviors and what we think anyway are the right like, let's go back to environment, showcasing that we do what we do for sustainability in a public way, or just in a way that other people will maybe see it. And then like, I might go, Oh, I didn't know Nick had a composting pile. And I could call Nick and go, Hey, how do I do that? So the same thing for younger people, if they only have access to their teachers, and their parents and an uncle and a grandma and none of them have ever made it out of their situation or have even worse like, you know, a lot of kids here in Syracuse, their uncle's or drug dealers, and it's like, they need access and exposure to other people. So how can we get them in programs? How do we get them to watch different things on TV and let them know that those are options for them to you can have this you could be like that. So it's not only just seeing but then it's experiencing as well. So I think the more we can offer opportunities and experiences to people, you get them and they have to see it on their own, like having these like you should do this or you should be like that doesn't work. And I see that all the time with career coaching. People will say what kind of job should I get? And I'm like, I can't tell you every time I recommend a job they go. I don't think never and they go okay, well, I think this sounds like no that won't work. Or no, I volunteered with that. And it's like, okay, you figure this out on your own. But the problem is when people don't have exposure to things, so for myself, like I lived that, like I said, I didn't have any direction. I'm so talented, and so much energy and wanting to be involved and build and do things. But nowhere to go with it. It didn't you know, I've coded I built a program for a global company and moved to Ireland and then came back to school and went back to school for biology because I had no path to follow. You know, and looking back. I could have owned my own tech company or something but there were females in those roles back then. And there was no internet and social media for me to see it. So that's another spin for me on social media where I think this is a there's the good side of it. If we choose to use it this way, where people can actually see that there are different things that they can do. So I've hope for the next generation that they have access to more people that way

Nic  
that experiences. Great answer. It really is but all I can think of is what we would call your company and don't quote me, no, you know, it's really brilliant, like because one of my favorite things, talking with us. You know, we're both thinkers. We're both creatives. And a lot of different ways. But there's a lot of creativity here. Even in the conversation, like you talked about being a role model and it reminds me you know, you don't say leader, right, not everybody wants to be a leader, you can still be a role model without being a leader, which is just a brilliant thing that you're saying. So we talk a lot about leaders but what advice do you have for people who are not interested in taking that leadership role unnecessarily? And want more technical approach to their careers?

Laura  
Yeah. Oh, that's a great point. I'm glad you brought that up. And it is again, one of those things that lately there's because of social media, and there's all this in thought leader culture or whatever you might want to call it, there's been this surgence of people who are running around saying I'm a leader and just like vomiting their grant advice for all the rest of the world here. So again, when you talk about, you know, how do we tell people how to live better stuff, stop even train on just you live better? And just show people there's there's a way right, the people who want to follow you, they will follow you. But anyway, it is really kind of rubbing me the wrong way lately, but I have a friend for example, who works at like a big contracted engineering from Honeywell or one of those places I'm not sure that's the right Jacobs or something like that. And insanely smart, insanely smart, but he has zero interest in anything leadership doesn't want to read a leadership book doesn't want to have because he kind of, I think people think and there is when you start running around calling yourself a leader that there's responsibility with that. And a lot of people don't want it they don't want and it's not just the responsibility, but also you know, there comes a lot of troubleshooting and people relationship management stuff when you're, you know, acting the supervisory capacity or something and some people don't want it and that's fine. But you still have to understand that maybe in the workplace, you don't have a lot of influence, and you're just there to do your job, which can be fine. But you're still gonna go home and be somebody's brother or father or cousin and they're still, you know, one of my cousins was one of my greatest influencers when I was younger, and he's a, he's a total vagabond, now that really hasn't. I don't even I don't even know he's like a ghost. But when he was younger, he traveled and took off places and I was really inspired by that, you know. So I think for anyone who's like, I don't I don't want to be a leader. I'm not a leader. You still have to consider that anyone who can see you, especially someone who's younger than you or not even your parents can be influenced by, you know, anyone around you in your circle of friends, family, whatever. in your community, your neighbor, you can be the role model neighbor person, you know, like you can be the person who's nice to everyone who moves into your neighborhood. So it's not just about leadership, and who can I get to follow me and do my bidding, but how do I show up in my best way in all of the different ways that I live, so that I can encourage other people to do the same and then if we're all doing that, then we all can elevate? Yeah,

[Field Notes]

Nic  
yeah. It's all good. I'm like, like, Yeah, go on. Go on. Go on. I know. It's it's totally unfair because we really do we know we're running a little bit at a time here, but I could talk to you about this forever. And we do it's like, I don't know if you know this, Laura, but we do it on the show, called Field Notes, right, where we like to get stories from the field from people who have been there and I know you have another story. We've heard a few from you. But I know you've got another one there for us. So give us another fun example of you being out in the field.

Laura 
Oh gosh, field stories. Okay. Just think about what 111 Or a scary one or

Nic 
I mean, it's me if it's me, I always want a funny one. So.

Laura 
Okay, well, I could just talk about so when you go out in the field, you go out you're, especially when you're new to a job. You go in the field with other people typically and I just want to talk about one of my favorite past cast of characters for whatever its name was Glenn and Glenn was just like the nicest person, but he also was a little slow moving. And so I I just want to talk about Glenn because glide was awesome. He's the nicest person you ever met. And I used to go out with Glenn and that so you go on the field and you're not, you know, you have no authority. You're just hey, I'm the new kid here, right? You have to do what the other person is doing because again, role models influence. Okay, here. Yeah. The ability to identify who's a good role model and not is very important in your early careers. So, like Glenn, we used to, we would have to take the boats out on different runs to go collect from we're doing the ambient water monitoring, sampling and sometimes we would drive a bigger boat and sometimes right through downtown Tampa. Fortunately, I never had to do that with Glenn. But I remember taking our Skiff to one of the river access sites, and this was the multiple occasions but this one occasion? Well, every time we went out with him, he would do this thing where he would his reflection. His reaction time was kind of slow. So we would drive through an intersection towing a boat knowing we can't slam the brakes. And so we had a drive through red light, he just honked the horn Oh my gosh. You're just like holding on to for your life like oh my god. I hope we make it there. We're there in again, I don't even know anything about boats. At this point. I haven't learned all the stuff about how to like now I can navigate a boat for those years but at the beginning, we pull it through River and the current is Ripon. And so he gets out there I'm back to the boat. In and then he barely has held on to the rope and the boat is loaded going and you're like oh god I'm so far away. What am I gonna do you fall in?

Nic 
Yeah, I don't even know how to Oh, that's great.

Laura  
So yeah, so really, there's a lot of stories of just like the antics of going in the field with someone different than yourself. But that was Glenn was special.

Nic  
Oh, man. I don't know why it just reminded me like, I remember being in the field with somebody and she's in front of me navigating to a site. And then like I just hear this commotion, some sort of animal makes a sound. I'm not sure what it is. And like she is flying past me and I'm like, Well, it does happen. And like we found a turkey nest actually. And it's like 13 Eggs beautifully pristine with a turkey flute at her face. And I'm like, Well, it's good. To know that if a bear comes I'm toast. Like she was gone. I never saw it like I almost I'm pretty sure I never saw it again. So yeah, I love that. We love field stories too. And thanks for sharing another one with us. But

Laura 
yeah, let's let's talk about do we want people to start sharing those you want to read more fields? So yeah, field story on social media so we can read those.

Nic 
Yeah, we'll read any that we see. We'll put them up. We'll put them on the show because those are so fun.

Laura 
But we'll spin them and then we'll put them on the show. Yeah, yeah, come

Nic 
on. Yeah. It'd be really fun. We would love to have that. So, you know, before we let you go, I want to ask you know, we've been doing this job for two years. So we know a lot about you already. But you guys did this to me last year and so I'm doing it to you this year. Tell us something we don't know about you.

Laura 
Love when things come back around.

Nic 

Revenge.

Laura 
It's so hard two years of conversations. It's hard to know what people don't already know about me. You know, we hint at some of the things I do for fun and for money to pay my bills. But okay, so one of the things I think that we have not talked about that is pretty cool, I have to say is that I lived in a motorhome for three years. Three years. Yep. I lived in a 35 foot 2000 Fleetwood. It was gorgeous on the inside and a rust bucket underneath. To slideouts. Yeah, I lived on someone's property in the back and then I would take it somewhere like every week, every four weeks or every six weeks. I'd take it to the beach camp and I would go I went to North Carolina, and then after I quit EPC and before I started off on my own business journeys, I drove it from Tampa to Yosemite National Park and back by myself and my two cats podcamp cat went to California.

Nic  
Watch. Oh my gosh, what was that like?

Laura 
It was the most amazing out of body experience. And it literally because I was traveling west for some reason. It just and I also at the same time was audio booking Stephen King's book about JFK, which is a time travel novel. Yeah, it literally felt like I was traveling through time like every like the rest of the world was moving on and I was just taking a sidestep.

Nic 
Oh my gosh. So how did you plan that trip? What did you even like? Like I'm going out west to the end. Is that what you did? Or did you actually like, Okay, tomorrow, so I'll be here tomorrow. I'll be there. so on so forth.

Laura 
Yeah, it's sort of started that way. So I ended up at a point where I didn't have a job. And I didn't have any significant other at the same time and then I was like, I live in a house on wheels. I also I will say one of the things that is real thing is PTSD from a job. And I had some serious self doubts and self worth issues from my most recent relationship that ended and also the job. So for me, I needed something to like, like I talked about earlier. Sometimes you got to take drastic measures to pick your blob of jelly self up. Yeah, and instead of, you know, I wallowed in it for a little bit. And then I was like, I gotta do something. And so you know, the universe literally spoke to me and said, you live in a house on wheels.

Nic 
You can literally drive.

Laura  
So I said alright, I'm pulling up stakes and I'm going UCaaS ready. They've already done their weekend adventure. So they, they were used to that part, but I didn't like it. And then yeah, I started out planning I knew where I was going. I was safe about it. I knew that I was only going to drive a few hours in the day so if I broke down I was always broke down and daylight and stuff like that. And there's a whole nother hour of conversation we could have about the adventures I had on this trip. But, man, but oh,

Nic 
I made it what a tease. I know. I know.

Laura 

I know. That was my hobbit adventure. I made it there and back. And yeah, I'm much stronger, better person ready for the next phase of my life.

Nic 
Okay, well, yeah. What? I do want to ask you so much more about Yeah, I know. We're running out of time. So I don't want to. It's a good tease for some other time. Right. But we'll come back on this. I've got road trip stories. Heck, yeah. Well, we'll do some and maybe that's where our sense of adventure really took off on both of us. That's kind of fun. So like I say, before we let you go, you know, we always do these things. So is there anything else you want to talk about? Or anything we didn't ask you?

Laura 
That is a great question. Right. In this moment. I'm amazed that all of our guests do such a great job of answering that. Yeah, I guess you know, I would just like to say that I think there's a lot of doom and gloom in the world and a lot of opinion that we're sliding backwards and you know, things are not moving forward. And I know that it really feels that way. And that is a reality for a lot of people. But we all have to work together and then also do our own self work to move ourselves forward. No one's going to do it for us. There's no mission to Mars that's coming that's gonna save us all. Life is a struggle which has been determined for 1000s of years and it always will be. We have more modern conveniences and things right now than any of us know what to do with you know, I'm in the kitchen like, I need a gadget to cut my eggs. No, I don't. And that works just fine. We are spoiled. And people who were the people who listen to this podcast, we travel we're the travel brings perspective, and you get to see what happens in the rest of the world. But moving here to Syracuse, I'm surrounded by a lot of people who haven't traveled a lot. And they don't have the same understanding that life is struggle everywhere. We have to realize that we have to be part of the solution and not just sit back and complain about things that are happening. So I don't know if that's a great place to leave it but better yeah.

Nic
 
Yeah, just be curious. I love it. So of course, Laura, always a pleasure. We are a little biased, but thank you for taking the time with us today. Let people know where they can reach out to you.

Laura 
I have about 17 emails they all Laura Jean Thorne je A n th or an e@gmail.com and of course LinkedIn Laura J Thorne. Any other socials Twitter on there to Twitter is Laura underscore pura underscore Vita and yeah, reach out you know, I'm I'm an open book. If anybody who has questions or needs help with something or anything, I'm here to connect, and that's my mission in life is to help other people do what they want to do.

Nic 
Awesome. Really appreciate the time. Laura, thank you so much.

Laura 
Thanks for having me.

[Outro]

Nic 

That's our show. Thank you so much Laurie, for being here today. Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. See  you everybody.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai



Nic & Laura discuss managing burnout
Embracing Challenges
What it means to be a role model
Field Notes