Erin Coupe:
I got to this point where I was like, it's just not working, right? Like, it just doesn't feel satisfying, and it also doesn't feel like this is what life is supposed to be. It's not supposed to be this way. So if it's not, what is it supposed to be?
Kristiana Corona:
Ever feel like everyone else has leadership figured out and you're just making it up as you go?
I've been there. I spent two decades leading design and technology teams at Fortune 500 companies, and for years, I looked like I had everything pulled together on the outside. But on the inside, I felt burned out, overwhelmed, and unworthy of the title leader. Then, a surprise encounter with executive coaching changed my life and dramatically improved my leadership style and my results.
Now, I help others make that same shift in their leadership. This podcast is where we do the work, building the mindset, the coaching skills, and the confidence to lead with clarity and authenticity, and to finally feel worthy to lead from the inside out
Hello, and welcome back to the Worthy to Lead podcast. I'm your host, Kristiana Corona. Today's conversation starts with a phrase that many of us say without thinking I can fit that in. One more meeting, one more deliverable ahead of that deadline, one more responsibility added to our plate. It creates success that looks right on paper, but feels unsustainable on the inside.
And my guest today, Erin Koop, knows this pattern all too well. She spent over 17 years working inside high-performance corporate environments like Goldman Sachs and CBRE, and she now works with leaders and organizations to rethink how they operate, not just in terms of time, but in terms of energy and personal alignment and intention.
An international keynote speaker and bestselling author featured in Fast Company, Business Insider, Success Magazine, and more. Her book, I Can Fit That In, was named a 2026 NextList selection by JP Morgan, and it challenges the way we think about productivity and success, and offers us a different approach, one that allows you to achieve at a high level without constantly burning yourself out in the process.
In this conversation, we talk about how leaders fall into the trap of over-functioning, why doing more is not the answer, and what it actually takes to build a life and a leadership style that is sustainable over time. If you've ever felt like you're carrying too much or quietly wondering how long you can keep operating at the current pace, this conversation is for you. So let's dive into my conversation with Erin Coupe.
All right. Welcome back to the Worthy to Lead podcast. Erin Koop, I'm so glad to have you with us today. Thanks for joining us.
Erin Coupe:
Thank you. I am happy to be here.
Kristiana Corona:
So, um, my listeners may not have seen your new book, so I just wanna give them a glimpse of this beautiful cover.
We're gonna be diving a little bit deeper today into the book itself and some of the key concepts that you really talk about that are super relevant for my audience. I think as leaders, these are things that we battle on a daily basis, and so, so thankful for your time and just being able to, you know, dive into some of these concepts that people may not be able to really understand why things are happening for them, but they definitely feel them in their body and in their brain.
So excited to dive into this. So your book is called I Can Fit That In, which is such an interesting phrase, and I'm sure many of us have said that phrase before. So what does that phrase actually represent for you, and why did you choose it as the foundation of your work?
Erin Coupe:
Yeah, great question. I mean, so what it doesn't mean is what people might think it means, and that's intentional, right?
Because it's not about cramming more in. We've all been there, done that, and we know that it doesn't work. We might think that we can do it all, be it all, have it all, but that's a complete myth because somewhere along the way, we end up losing touch with ourselves or somehow our life, you know, falls apart in certain areas 'cause you just can't balance everything equally all the time So in my own life and in my own experience as a top senior executive at a Fortune 140, a mom of young children at the time, someone who was commuting 10 to 12 hours a week, working 60-plus hours a week, you know, I lived that very high-powered, high-stakes, high-pressure life.
And I got to this point where I was like, "It's just, it's just not working," right? Like it just doesn't feel satisfying, and it also doesn't feel like this is what life is supposed to me or supposed to be. It's not supposed to be this way. So if it's not, what is it supposed to be? And I really went on this journey of sort of unwinding a lot of the things that I had believed over time, and I say that in air quotes because what I realized is a lot of the beliefs I had were actually put in my mind.
It wasn't actually stuff that I had purposely put there. And I started to use this phrase, "I can fit that in," for things that I actually wanted to start to put in my life. Whereas before starting to use this phrase, I was someone who thought, "There's no time for that. I have no time. I'm too busy. I'm too important.
Everyone needs me. Everyone relies on me. I have all these responsibilities, all these obligations. There's just no space for anything else." And it made me always feel kind of icky, honestly, and a little bit like a martyr and resentful, and no one likes to feel that way, right? But it wasn't anyone else's fault.
I needed to take initiative with something in myself to make changes, and I can fit that in became the phrase that I told myself all the time, all day, every day, honestly. Like, I used it a lot. I can fit that in because it matters to me.
Kristiana Corona:
I love the reframing on that because I think people who don't take a second and actually look at what the book's about might think it's about productivity hacks or tips about scheduling your calendar.
But actually, you talk about basically the opposite of that. Like, you talk about how we're obsessed with measuring time, when really we're measuring the wrong thing. So can you talk a little bit about the concept of why it's important to measure your energy versus your time?
Erin Coupe:
Yeah. I think, you know, we've been sold this bill of goods that productivity is about measuring time, and we're never gonna get more than 24 hours a day.
And so if that's all we're doing, of course, we're gonna get to this point in our lives where we're either looking back and going, "Gosh, I wasted so much time," or we're looking at the rest of what we have left at some point, especially, I mean, at 45 years old, at some point you start going, "How much do I have left," right?
And you're gonna wish you could spend your time differently. So rather than making life in general, not just work, but life in general about time, why don't we make it about energy? Where are we choosing to give our energy? Where are we choosing to protect it? And how are we directing that with intention so that we are getting the most out of not just our days, but just the most out of our life as a whole?
And every day is gonna feel different. Every day is gonna look different. You don't change situations around you, per se, but what you change is how you interact with life and how you respond to it, and that's really where this concept of energy stewardship, of which I talk a lot about in the book, that's where this comes in.
Like, gone are the days are these hacks and habit stacking and protocols and procedures to just try to squeeze more out of ourselves every day. And, you know, where we are now, so gone are those days, and here are the days now where we're like, "Okay, what's relevant is being able to fit in what matters most to me."
In whatever hours I am allocating to whatever it may be, whether it's allocating the hours of 5:00 to 8:00 to my children, and I'm allocating the hours of 9:00 to 5:00 to my job, or 12:00 to 1:00 to myself within that. You know, like, whatever hours we are allocating, fitting in what matters most in those hours.
And we can all do that. We just haven't realized that we have more at our fingertips than we've been told.
Kristiana Corona:
And I think some people think about it as a luxury, right? Like, there's this, "I have to sacrifice myself to succeed. I really have to do all of these things. If I was lucky and fortunate, then I could have this luxury of doing that."
But I think you even quote in the book a Stanford study that shows that workplace stress leads to 120,000 deaths a year. And, you know, when you think about the cost of all of that, I mean, it does- it's not a luxury. It isn't a luxury to figure out where you fit yourself into that equation. So I'm curious, for you, when was that moment you noticed the cost of that? Like, the cost of fitting it in, and what made you decide to change?
Erin Coupe:
Yeah, I mean, I had a couple of different situations if I, like, kinda look back at them, and I do talk about these in the book. You know, one, the very first one happened when I was in my upper 20s, and I was a Wall Streeter. I worked at Goldman.
And I worked long, grueling hours, you know, and this is before technology to work remotely and all of that kind of stuff. So it was just a different world. But my body started to show me signs and symptoms of the stress and the anxiousness that I was dealing with every day. Now, that was things like fainting in elevators all the time.
Kristiana Corona:
I can't even imagine that scenario, first of all, how..
Erin Coupe:
Oh, it was crazy. Like, doors would open- ... scary ... and I'd, like, fall forward into someone's arms. Like-
Kristiana Corona:
Oh ...
Erin Coupe:
Yeah. It, I mean, sometimes I'd fall backwards into someone's arms. So luckily there were people there a lot because it was a very busy office.
Kristiana Corona:
Oh, my goodness.
Erin Coupe: But yeah, I mean, that, it happened m- more of the times than I can count on two hands, put it that way. And I had rashes that were unexplainable, that had to be treated with steroids because nothing else would help. So, you know, the body keeps the score, right? These things were happening for a reason, and that was one of the first early signs that I received that something was just not working for me. Now, I did change my career, so I resigned from Goldman at almost 30, and that's when I found meditation and mindfulness, and it was, you know, I was moving into my next stage of my career, still in corporate, but just in a different field. I, I entered commercial real estate. And yes, I had more autonomy about how to build my days and where to allocate my time. I was not focused yet on energy, but where to allocate my time. And I didn't have any of those physical symptoms anymore.
I had recovered from those. But what I did start to do is have this mental awareness. Really, I built self-awareness, which is the whole first section of the book. And with self-awareness came understanding that I have to be more intentional about where I'm showing up and how I'm showing up. Now, I'm very vulnerable in saying that, like, it's a journey, right?
I think we're always all on the journey. There's no arriving at perfection. You know, every day is a new day. And my journey with meditational mind- and mindfulness kind of went up, like up and down, you know, over time. And I got really serious about it in my mid-30s after becoming a mother and realizing, okay, I've got these two kids.
They're, like, barely, like, six months and a year and a half, and I don't like how I am showing up as a mom. 'Cause I felt like every evening was... First of all, every day was Groundhog's Day. Every evening, I was just, like, waiting for bedtime. And I'm like, "Why am I doing that?" Like, I'd get home at 5:00, the nanny would leave At 5:30, I'd pour a glass of wine out of habit, just sheer habit.
It's just what I did to take the edge off the day. And so then all of a sudden, from 5:30 to 7:30, I'm, like, still checking emails on my phone here and there, but then engaging with my kids. But then mentally I'm somewhere else wondering, "Oh, I wonder if I got a response to that." And then, you know, "I'm gonna make dinner, but I'm gonna check it real quick." And it's two hours.
Like, why couldn't I just, like, embrace that time, you know? Yeah. And I knew one day- Mm ... I'm gonna wish I had that time back. Like, I knew that. So that was a big wake-up call for me as well. It was a big, I guess, another sign or symptom, kind of like my body was showing me in other years.
This was a sign where my, my mind and my heart were showing me, "Hey," like, "this isn't you. You don't have to be this way." And then I started to, as you'll- you're probably gonna allude to in the next few questions I'm sure, but I started to really question the way I was living my life.
Kristiana Corona:
Yeah. I think there are those moments, right, where you just sort of have that aha or that awakening, where you're like, "What am I doing?"
You know? Is this habit sustainable? Is this the thing that I really wanna be doing with the precious, limited time that I have? And I love how you also describe yourself in the book, and you talk about a lot of people feeling like people pleasers and perfectionists and over-committers, and how, you know, you're doing all of these things, but it's kind of at the expense of yourself and, you know, that at the core of everything you needed to learn how to trust yourself.
So I'm curious, like, what did that actually look like for you to start trusting yourself, and what were the results when you did?
Erin Coupe:
Oh, I mean, so- There's no linear path, right? Like, this is very much a personal process, and it's why I write the book in the intentional ways that I do. First of all, being very vulnerable and very open, but secondly, helping people understand that it just takes effort, like anything in life.
If you wanna create change, it doesn't matter if it's in the external world or the internal world, it takes repetition, it takes effort, and discipline. And I started to get quite disciplined and intentional around fitting in, first of all, meditation time. Because I knew that with meditation, that is my time to truly connect with me, like the real me that is the spirit or the core of who I am.
And that is a part of us that we otherwise neglect throughout each and every day, and we don't realize it. But most days, we live in this level of, like, almost disconnect with ourselves until we know what it's like to actually have that connection. And what I mean by that, living in disconnect with that part of ourselves, is we're living for the external world.
We're living for everything around us and everyone around us, and that's where eventually it becomes this really empty feeling or that, like, there's something missing when you've only externalized yourself, right? When it's all become just about what's outside of you. So building that connection inward with my own spirit, with my own heart, was something that first was painful, right?
Because you realize you don't have it anymore, and where did you lose it, right? Like, where did I disconnect from that, and why? And, you know, for me, I think a lot of it was... Some of it was based on just childhood, growing into adulthood, and kinda dealing with some of the issues in my own, like, family environment, and then putting myself through school, and then moving to a city where I didn't know anybody, and just always feeling like I needed to be somebody else, like be someone different.
Um, and that's not anyone's fault. That's just kinda life does tha to us, you know? It just kinda puts us in this box and says, "Go do these things, and then you'll be this person." Um, which is a fallacy, right? It's just not real. Um, but, you know, building that inner connection does lead to self-trust. But it first leads to awareness, and it leads to understanding yourself in ways that I don't think anything else but spending that time in stillness with yourself will ever do.
So that time in stillness is everything when it comes to Knowing in your heart what it is that moves you, knowing in your heart who you are, knowing in your heart how you want to live your life and lead your life, and then being able to choose to show up from that place, not just from what's in your head, right?
So there's nothing more important than that connection inward. And for me, the self-trust that I've built with that has meant a lot of trial and error, right? Like listening to that voice that's in my heart and then going and acting on it. And sometimes you get it right, and sometimes you don't, but then you realize when you don't, "Did I really listen to it or did I listen to my head?"
Right? To the voice in my head. And you kind of realize, geez, if I would've just listened to that voice, like that's my intuition, you know? And if I would've just trusted that, it would've led me in a different direction and I could have trusted even further
Kristiana Corona:
I don't think we realize quite how noisy life is and how many other voices are in our heads all the time, uh, until you do sit down and you remove all the inputs, all the podcasts, all the news channels, all of the feedback that you're getting from various people in your life, whether it's your leader, your peers, your stakeholders, um, a- anyone, even friends and family.
Like, it's hard, and most people don't actually get to a point where they hear themselves clearly, right? And one of the things I love in your book is how you challenge people to say, like, "Pause before you go into this big excavation process of your calendar and your time, and you try and squeeze things in, and if I was just more efficient."
And you talk about how it's really important to sort of override or rewire our brain and be able to rewrite our inner story, which I thought was really interesting. So you kind of have some exercises in the book about what it looks like to do that. So I'm curious if you could talk about what does it look like to actually rewrite your inner story, and why is it important to do that before you start thinking about how to use your time?
Erin Coupe:
Yeah, I mean, the, there's a reason that the whole first part of the book is around self-awareness, and then I move a lot into practices, you know, real-life action around some of the things that are framing up your beliefs and the narrative that you, honestly, that you see play out every day in your life.
Because that inner story, that narrative in your mind, it believes it's who you are, right? And unfortunately, you believe it's who you are until you don't. So getting clear on what is that story is very... is, like, the first step, but then secondly, getting clear on the fact that you have the ability, only you have the ability to rewrite that.
And rewriting that, again, it's a process, but it's first just writing down what are you hearing, and how is that shaping your actions or your inactions every day? How is it shaping your behaviors? 'Cause it is. Like, you act on whatever that is that you hear most in your mind every single day. And I always say, like, a lot of times it leads people to inaction or procrastination more so than it does to action, right?
I believe it's the voice of the heart or the spirit that really moves us into action and towards, you know, true desires and things that we want to create versus the one in our head that's like, "Hey, protect and defend," and, you know, "Let's keep us from our own growth." That one's there because it's reptilian.
It's biological nature. It's just, it's a part of you, but it's not who you are. So, rewriting the narrative or the script that you hear playing out every day, first become aware of it, and secondly, start to write what you actually want to hear. Start to write what you actually want to believe. And when you do this, and this is proven in neuroscience with...
You know, I took a lot of courses in neuroscience. But when you actually rewire your brain with real information that you want to put into it, what you're actually doing is creating new neural pathways for your brain to get behind that and to start to show you the confirmation bias that now what you've put in is real, and it's a belief, and it's gonna come into fruition.
So just like those old stories or those old beliefs that are there take up space, and you have started to really, like, think that they're you, you can start to think the new ones are you, too. But without doing that actual work, it- the new stuff isn't gonna enter on its own.
Kristiana Corona:
I love the distinction there because I think it can be really easy to think that those things are permanent, right?
Like, the state that I'm in, where I came from, the way I was raised, the beliefs I have, the mindset that I have, it is just who I am. I have to accept it's who I am. It doesn't change. But I think throughout the book, you talk about neuroscience and how important it is to know you have control over certain things, and in fact, you don't have to believe your own thoughts.
Like, you can think different thoughts, and you can have different beliefs, and that by figuring out what those things are that are essentially holding you back, that... And then developing these rituals that go with constantly reminding yourself the person you wanna be and who you are becoming, that all of those things are really malleable, much more than we think.
Erin Coupe:
Which I love.
Kristiana Corona:
And I think one interesting thing about you that people may not know is that all of this was not instilled in you as a child necessarily. Like, the, you, you didn't go, uh, to mindset school as a kid. Like, you had a very different upbringing. So I'm kind of curious if you could share just a glimpse of where you actually did come from and how important it was to kinda override those beliefs and then, and mindset to get to where you are.
Erin Coupe:
Yeah. It's really crucial that anyone who reads the book read the introduction because any good introduction to a book in this genre of business leadership and personal growth, it's going to help the reader understand why you are the right person to write that book and why they should want to learn from you, right?
So in the introduction of my book, I tell Very briefly, but I tell a story of my upbringing that really paints the picture for people to understand that this is the furthest thing from what I was raised in, like the furthest thing. And the beauty of it is that so many readers, I mean, hundreds and hundreds, I get messages all the time of people saying, "It was so relatable, and I can see myself in your story."
Not necessarily the details, but like they can see themselves in their own growth through their own stories, their own traumas, their own tribulations. They can see themselves throughout the rest of the book because I shared so vulnerably in the beginning. So the gist of my upbringing is that I was raised in poverty.
A very, very poor family with a father who was terminally ill since I was five. He was 45, and he didn't live a very long life, and unfortunately, his life as a father, as far as what I knew him as a father, was he couldn't really parent, right? Like, either he wasn't around 'cause he was in hospitals because he was so sick all the time, or when he was home, he was just trying to survive.
I mean, literally taking dozens and dozens of pills a day just to, you know, maintain some sort of, um, inequality of life because there was no quality, right? But just to sustain, and get by and survive. And my mom wasn't around a lot because of decisions she made, of which I talk about in the introduction of the book, where she was not available as a mom a lot.
And, you know, there was just so much financial stress and emotional turmoil. Emotions were not something that were allowed because there was, there was no time for that. Like, there was no space for anyone's feelings. It was just literal survival mode. You know- Obviously, growing up in something like that, I became a caretaker from a young age.
I had to literally grow up. Like, I, I just ... There was no real adolescence per se because, I mean, I had to start working when I was nine. I just, I had to start earning. I had to find ways to make money, and I had to find ways to build my own path and forge my own future without any, you know, footsteps to follow or guidance.
And like I said at the beginning, I put myself through school, moved to New York City, you know, got the big job that I was actually asked to do, 'cause Goldman was my client, and really thought that was my meal ticket. And I was still living in a scarcity mindset throughout that. And, you know, really understanding eventually, like, where that mindset was shaped, but the fact that I don't have to live in that.
You know? I can have a wonderful relationship with money, and I don't have to have this lack or scarce mindset around having things in life or life being good to me, right? Like, I can heal that, and that's a lot of what meditation's also done for me, and living a mindful life has helped to heal so much of that, the scars and the pain of childhood.
Kristiana Corona:
I think it's just incredible, like the vulnerability it takes. So first of all, kudos to you for being willing to share your full story. You know, there are things you probably wish you would've or wanted to hold back, but yet they're so important, and they have been the connecting points with many, many people.
And I think one of the things that I think about is no one would blame you for being in hustle culture for the rest of your life. Like, knowing where you came from, it would be like, "Well, of course. That is what she has to do. That's how she survived. That makes sense. That is the behavior moving forward."
So I'm curious, like, what was the biggest belief that you had to shift moving from that sort of survival mindset to operate in this new place that you discovered of putting yourself as a priority and saying, "I can fit in what is important to me"?
Erin Coupe:
Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing to shift is that it's not about other people, right?
You can't blame anything outside of you. And any time you point the finger at someone or something, all you're doing is giving away your own power and your own energy source. And that was the biggest thing that I shifted, is to point the finger inward and to say, "It's about how I feel in this human experience I'm having.
It's about how I navigate this human experience." And if all I do is say, "Oh, I can't take care of myself because of this person or of this client or because of my husband or because of my kids," like, it's because of all these things that I can't do for me or care for me, like, that ... I mean, I'm sorry, but there's absolutely nothing inspiring whatsoever about that.
There's absolutely no way that makes the planet a better place. There's absolutely no way that adds value to humanity. And we have this messed-up false sense of I don't know, just life or value that we actually think by putting everyone else first and putting ourselves last, that that is what actually moves life forward, that that's actually how we improve our relationships, and that's how, you know, we're better mothers or pa- or parents because of that.
When in reality, people end up getting the worst version of you. They get the depleted you, and when they get the depleted you because you've gone and put yourself last and not prioritized your own health or sanity or whatever it is, your own peace, that is not a win-win situation. It's a lose-lose situation, right?
And so, you know, and my husband was early on, 'cause I started this meditation mindfulness journey in 2010, and I started really seriously in about 2016 with it. And, you know, he was one of the first benefactors, 'cause he was all of a sudden going, "You know what? Like, you're so much more patient, and you communicate so much different than you used to."
'Cause I- instead of being like, "Ugh, I, I, like, can't stand how you put the dishes in the dishwasher," I was like, "Thank you for putting the dishes in the dishwasher." 'Cause I could now just appreciate something, the fact that I didn't have to ask for help and he went and did it, versus me yelling at him or getting annoyed with him 'cause he didn't do it correctly, which is, like, how I used to be, 'cause I always felt that resentment before.
But all of a sudden, when I'm fitting in things that matter to me and I'm understanding how to prioritize myself, and I'm understanding how to communicate, "Hey, I'm going to yoga at 7:00 AM on Thursday, just so you know, 'cause you're gonna have the kids until, you know," or whatever time, you know, 8:00 or whatever it is.
Like, being very forthright, but also very, um... Like, my line is in the sand, like, this is something I'm doing for me. It wasn't a hard conversation, whereas before, when I was wishy-washy about it and I'd be like, "I've- I haven't done yoga in a week, so I'm going," that's a totally different level of communication.
It's a totally different, like, energy to it, right? And so the benefits of fitting in the things that mattered to me, and the benefits of understanding that at whatever point in my day, I'm not gonna ask for permission. I'm just going to do what I need to do, and only I know what I need to do. Only I know my needs.
I can't expect someone else to understand those or meet those, right? Like, that's each of our own responsibility.
Kristiana Corona:
And the benefit of that is that they get a more positive, more present, more connected, better communicating person on the other side of it.
Erin Coupe:
Right. They get more everything. I mean-
Kristiana Corona:
Wins all around.
Erin Coupe:
Yes, yes. When you feel better in your own life, like, everyone, it's a ripple effect. Everyone benefits.
Kristiana Corona:
So one of the things that you talk about, and I'm picking up on this word rituals, because you talk a lot about the difference between routines and rituals. Can you just go into that a little bit more in depth, and what are the rituals that really help make leadership sustainable?
Erin Coupe: Yeah. Well, I mean, the rituals that help leadership be sustainable is gonna be specific to person, team, company, et cetera, right? Now, what I do in the book is give a lot of ideas- And a lot of examples of rituals. And I give you a framework to create your own, right? Because they are quite personal. There's rituals that are familial, there are rituals that are personal to you, uh, they're about you with you.
There are rituals that are about you and a friend or a friend group or community. Um, and there are rituals with your partner, right? And things that you may do with a significant other. But they're really up to you to create. The difference between a ritual and a routine is that typically, the way I describe a routine is it's something that we do to check the box, right?
It's just, like, something that doesn't require much thought. A lot of times it's just kind of a habit or a way of moving through the day where we go through the motions, just get it done. And a lot of times, especially if the routine is fairly new, it might be something that in the beginning gives us energy, but then it becomes something draining or we become kind of numb to it as it becomes autopilot. I don't really know a routine yet that doesn't eventually become autopilot.
And so my whole point is when you take, you could take the same routine, like let's just say it's like, you know, the way you get up in the morning, or the way that you have your coffee, or the way that you go to yoga every Saturday, or like whatever it is, right? When you take that routine that is something that you just give no thought or intention to, and you turn it into a ritual, what you do is infuse meaning into it.
And you do that by telling yourself, "I choose to do this because it gives me something back," right? Like, it brings value to my life. It brings me energy. It makes me feel more whole, more connected, or more in touch with another person. Like, whatever that is, that's the meaning behind it. And when you connect with that, that is what it means to ritualize a routine or to create a new ritual.
A ritual is just something that, that is chosen and is done within an intention behind it, right? Whereas routine is ... It's not intentional. A lot of times you're just, you're just checking the box.
Kristiana Corona:
You know, it's so funny. Um, I worked with a bookkeeper who was teaching us how to become better CFOs of our business, and one of the best things that she shared with us was the difference between a routine of bookkeeping, which is mind-numbing and really boring, and making a ritual out of bookkeeping, which is you have a scented infuser.
You have the music you like. You create the mood in which you're going to enjoy bookkeeping, and you're thinking about the future you're building, and you're imagining what you're going to do when your money is going where you want it to go, and like all of these sort of very intentional practices.
And I will tell you, I adopted that, and I have very successfully kept my weekly bookkeeping date with myself and showed up for it in, I think, ways that I never would have before without that tiny spark of joy and that meaning behind it. It's very easy to say like, "Ugh, this is really tedious. I don't wanna do it."
Um, but it really does shift everything, doesn't it?
Erin Coupe:
It does. Yeah, and I mean, that's, you know, something I talk about in the book is being able to look at what are those things that are quite draining, but they are obligations, and scheduling them, right? And just telling yourself like, "I am intentionally choosing to do this on this day at this time.
And even though I know it's a draining activity, like accounting," right? Like by the way, that's not like draining for everybody.
Kristiana Corona: No.
Erin Coupe:
It is for me. It's not one of my joy givers, right? What I do is I schedule that in my calendar, and I typically do it on a day where I know I either have, like, a lunch planned with a client or a friend, or I have, like, a dinner planned, or I've got a workout planned.
Like, I've got something else that I know that I'm looking forward to after that.
Kristiana Corona:
So, um, I know you do a lot of work with corporations, with leadership teams now. So in your own business, you kind of take the philosophies that you have in the book, and you help them start to adopt these things as cultures, like shifting the culture.
And I know every one of us has probably worked at a job at some point where we've said, "Ugh, if only the culture here was better, and I felt empowered, and I was working at a company that really cared," and you know, all of those things. However, your point of view on this is that, you know, we are much more in charge of that culture, right?
You are the culture you crave. So, can you talk a little bit about just the work you do now, and how do you help leaders create a culture that they crave to be part of?
Erin Coupe:
Yeah. So I do this as an executive advisor, and I work with teams, not one-to-one. When you work with a team around... My main themes are expanding capacity- Improving or increasing energy and increasing sustainable performance, right?
Or building that if it's not already there. And a lot of it has to do with looking at a culture and saying, okay, the culture in most places has been one that is quite draining, right? Because the leaders themselves are the ones that are setting microcultures, and they don't realize that until all of a sudden they take a look at it and go, "Wait, how I'm showing up each and every day is how my team is experiencing my energy."
That's what culture is. How does the team experience the energy, and then how does that show up in behaviors, outcomes, results, et cetera? But then you add all of those leaders' energy up essentially, and that's the overall culture of the organization. And you can have pretty words on a website, right? Like, this is our mission, and this is our values, but how much is it really being lived?
So one of the things that I love to do is when I'm talking about something like capacity and expanding capacity, this isn't about how are we gonna get more into our days and be more efficient. This is about how are you each showing up, first of all, for yourself? How are you showing up at home? How are you showing up for your teams?
And then how does that overall paint the picture in the organization for what your goals are or what you're working towards, right? And when people actually take a step back and look at it, they're like, "Oh, I'm kind of that person that's always like, yeah, I put myself last." Or they're like, "Oh, I'm always that person that's like, kind of resentful because I don't make decisions that I wish I would have."
Or, "I'm that person who doesn't speak up and doesn't really use my voice as much as I want to, and that makes me feel resentful or feel like an imposter." So we start to look at these things that are actually quite specific to each person in the team first, 'cause first we're going inward, right? And as we're looking at those things, then we're going to apply it to the whole team and the common language that we form.
So when you think about capacity, when you think about performance, when you think about energy, where's our energy going? Where is it being siphoned, right? Where are we working towards things that we are just doing because we've always done them versus there's a better way to do them, and we're actually gonna voice that, and we're gonna figure it out, right?
Like, there's so much of that. Like, I see this constantly. People are ... They're drained, and they are worn out, and they're, I'm not gonna say burned out, but, you know, I think a lot of people are burned out these days, but that phrase is kind of overused. But people are just showing up, like physically or online, but they're not fully present.
They're not really in it. They're just checking the boxes, going through the motions, and most people can do their jobs in their sleep. So how do we get them to re-engage, re-energize, right? A lot of what I, I do is re-energize the team, the leadership team, and then when they're gonna bring more of that energy to their team and increase the energy of their team, right?
Because if they're showing up more energized, they give permission to their team to show up more energized.
Kristiana Corona:
I think that's what a lot of leadership development misses is that there is that introspection at the beginning that has to happen. Like, having to look inward and say, "Truthfully, am I showing up?
Am I engaged? Or am I modeling what it looks like to over-function, be exhausted, put myself last, and show everyone the leadership role that nobody wants to have?" Um,
Erin Coupe:
Yeah. I think that- Like, that, that is not a badge of honor. Like, it- No ... like, no one wants to be like you if that's how you're showing up, and it, it just sets the wrong tone, and it paints the wrong picture
Kristiana Corona:
It really does. I used to talk about that a lot to other leaders. It was sort of like, how, how are you modeling the leader that you want other people to wanna be? Because you need to inspire the next generation of leaders to be moving upward, and right now they're like, "I don't wanna have anything to do with this leadership role. That looks horrible."
Erin Coupe:
Exactly, and also, you know, I like that you pointed that out, that like it's something that leadership development misses, and it's why I don't call my work leadership development. There was a time I did because I couldn't find anything else that like made sense. I'm like, no, it's, it's executive advisory, right?
Like I'm not there fixing things or mediating. I'm not looking at your org chart or, you know, telling you you've got the wrong butts in the wrong seats. Like that's not what I'm there to do. What I am there to do... Well, and I would also say I'm not there to do like technical or tactical leadership training either.
I expect that the people that I'm partnering with already have all of that figured out. But what I am there to do is to really help you increase the energy and the capacity in your organization by first looking at the self, right? Like that's step one, that self-awareness, and it grows into a cultural awareness, which then grows into performance and, you know, overall results of the organization.
Kristiana Corona:
I love that framing. Um, and I think that's a really nice niche because it is underserved, for sure. So let's imagine that the leaders who are listening to this podcast right now are in a place where they are working in an unsustainable way. What would just be one piece of closing advice that you would give them to get started moving in the right direction?
Erin Coupe:
The first thing I'd say is look at your morning. Like, are you the person that wakes up and goes, "Ugh, it's another day," right? And like do you enter your day from that place and then you pick this thing up, and you just start, you know, you just start giving away your energy to whatever it is that wants to demand it?
Because that will never stop, right? The world's demands will never stop. It's the same for all of us. It's all there. It's all demanding. It's commanding, right? And it can be relentless. So knowing that, how do you wanna set yourself up for success each day? For me, something as simple as setting an intention for how I wanna feel that day is so powerful.
So if I tell myself in the morning as I make my coffee, I stand there and actually watch it brew. I don't need to, like, start scrolling on my phone for three minutes. It's three minutes, like literally, yes. And hold on. It can be... We, we- Yeah ... it can, yeah, it can wait. And so- Yeah ... I'll let my coffee brew, and as it is brewing, I will just consider to myself, how do I wanna feel today?
And, you know, that changes depending on what I have going on in the day. But, like, let's say I have, like, an important kind of pitch meeting with a prospective client. Like, I feel abundant today. I want to feel abundant. I am abundant, right? Like, I wanna feel like I'm entering that meeting, like it's already mine.
I've already got this, right? If I have something going on that might be a difficult conversation that I'm gonna have, whether it's, like, a family member or a friend or, you know, some sort of conversation that I know may have some sort of conflict in it, I'm always gonna be transparent, so I'm big on that.
But I might just say, you know, "I feel calm, and I feel intentional in the conversation I'm having today." That's what I want to feel. That's what I will feel. That's what I do feel. And I just, I set that intention from a place of, like, wanting to really understand myself and know that I can move through the day from that place that I just set out to.
And we can all do this. Like, I have people, and I've done it myself, you can say, "I am excited," and you will find more things in your day to feel excited about. Trust me. Your brain will help you find them. So it's incredible. Most of us don't do this. We just wake up and just start moving, and then we wonder at the end of the day why we're so drained.
And it's like, well, there was zero intention throughout your entire day. So that's a great place to start.
Kristiana Corona:
I love that tip because it is not adding more time to your day. It is not adding this complex process. It is literally sitting down for, what, a minute, three minutes while the coffee is brewing or whatever you're doing that is a mindless activity, and saying, "What is the intention that I wanna put behind this day?"
That's beautiful. We can all do that. We can all fit that in, right? Speaking of fit that in, um, I would encourage everyone to go pick up a copy of this book. Um, I've got a lot of earmarks in here now. Um, this book has just been a really lovely companion guide to kinda go back and reflect. Like, every chapter has reflections in it and questions and activities, so it's packed with amazing things.
Um, so first of all, go pick up that book, and then second of all, uh, where would people go to find you or to learn more about you?
Erin Coupe:
Yeah, so my website is erincoupe.com, E-R-I-N-C-O-U-P-E.com, and I am on LinkedIn. I'm very active there, so you can just look up my name, or it's Erin-coupe if you're gonna just type it in. And then I'm on Instagram under authenticallyec.
Kristiana Corona:
Beautiful. Thank you so much for being here today. It was such a pleasure to talk to you.
Erin Coupe:
Oh, thanks for having me.
Kristiana Corona:
I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Erin Coupe as much as I did. There are so many amazing takeaways and many, many more in her book, so I highly recommend picking up a copy for yourself.
You can find I Can Fit That In at all major book retailers. If you enjoyed this podcast today, subscribe so you never miss an episode. You can subscribe at worthytolead.co/subscribe. Please leave us a review and let us know how we're doing. We love to hear from you. Until next time, keep showing up, keep doing the work that matters, and keep leading like you're worthy to lead, because you are. Bye for now.
