When was the last time you said, “Why bother?”
When overwhelm, exhaustion, burnout, and the weight of responsibility set in, it’s easy to become cynical and ask, “What’s the point?”
Cynicism can be a defense mechanism, shielding us from difficult emotions or experiences, but it also traps us in survival mode, limiting our ability to see new possibilities or paths forward.
Constantly being in fight-or-flight mode makes it difficult to think long-term and to rest and reset as needed.
Today, we’re exploring what, “Why bother?” really indicates for leaders. It serves as a sign of exhaustion, an overactive nervous system, or even reactivated trauma. Our guest encourages us to transform “Why bother?” from a stuck and cynical question into a productive inquiry that directs us towards what truly matters.
Jennifer Louden invites us to flip the script on “Why bother?” from cynical and stuck to a generative question to lead you toward what really matters to you.
Jennifer has been involved in the self-care movement for years. She authored the bestseller, The Woman’s Comfort Book in 1992 and has since written numerous books on well-being and creative living, including The Woman’s Retreat Book and Why Bother? She enjoys coaching writers and is currently working on a fantasy novel where older women use their power to buy humanity time from the climate crisis.
Listen to the full episode to hear:
- Why the “why bother” stage is a normal part of life, and how it presents an opportunity to reset
- How holding too tightly to an identity can keep us from seeing possibilities for change
- How exiling and not claiming what we want leads to “why bother”
- How taking action on the things that matter to us cultivates hope
- How accepting that some things in life are not fixable can liberate us to step into new possibilities
- How to begin cultivating a relationship with your desires
Learn more about Jennifer Louden:
Learn more about Rebecca:
Resources:
Transcript:
[Inspirational Intro Music]
Jennifer Louden: Life is hard. Life is challenging. And so, again, I think your neutral stance is so important, like how do we take the judgment out of these moments of wanting to just not keep working so hard at it so that, then, when we take the judgment out, I think we can turn it into that generative thing of what do I want to bother about next. But I think so much life energy gets lost when we’re not honest with ourselves about what we want and who we are, and that leads to “why bother.”
Rebecca Ching: When was the last time you recall saying to yourself or someone else, “Why bother?” or “It’s too late, so what’s the point?” When I look at what’s behind that statement when I say or think it, I see how often it comes up in moments of burnout, despair, when I feel weighed down by the heaviness of responsibilities or all that’s happening in the world, and maybe it’s not just the question of why bother but the deeper sense of feeling hopeless and losing a sense of wonder and imagination, which is understandable given all that we’re navigating right now.
Today on this episode, we’re diving deep into what happens when we, as leaders, as humans, hit that wall. When the overwhelm creeps in, when it feels like we’re carrying the burdens of others and the world on our shoulders, “why bother” can be the telltale sign that something much deeper is happening beneath the surface that signals exhaustion, nervous system overdrive, and maybe even trauma reactivated by the pressures of these chaotic times.
I’m Rebecca Ching, and you’re listening to The Unburdened Leader, the show that goes deep with humans who navigate life’s challenges and lead in their own ways. Our goal is to learn how they address the burdens they carry, how they learn from them and become better and more impactful leaders of themselves and others.
2:04
At the beginning of the summer, I found myself saying things I did not recognize. I work hard to keep cynicism at bay, but cynicism snuck into my psyche, and I discovered its presence when I heard myself saying things like, “What’s the point? Why bother?” and it startled me and my husband. I don’t recognize that kind of talk in me, and my personality tends to be glass is half full. So when talking with my husband about the many things happening in our world, I said, “Why bother?” Now, my husband, who tends to be a little bit more glass is half empty, typically says these types of things, but not me.
So when I thought about what was going on within me and used those statements of “why bother” as a trailhead, it led me to some deeper self-awareness. I didn’t realize how much my overwhelm and exhaustion was impacting me and, ugh, I had just wrapped up the kids’ school year. So if you’re a parent, caregiver, or educator, the end of the school year is like Olympic feat, championship games every year, right? And I also just was feeling, on repeat, the deep concern for the state of affairs in our country and the world. It takes a lot to care about these things right now, to care about our world, care about our families, care about the work we do. And whether you fall into the glass-half-empty or glass-half-full camp, everyone I interact with these days tells me how weighed down they feel right now.
And my training in trauma-informed care informs my work as a leadership coach, and I regularly see leaders feeling overwhelmed or cynical, and that tells me their nervous systems are usually in a state of activation or even dysregulation, which means they’re pretty protected. And the impact of cynicism keeps us stuck in survival mode, that fight, flight, freeze, numb out, making it hard to imagine a way forward, and that happened to me at the beginning of the summer, and so many continue to feel the same way.
4:11
Now, it makes sense to me how cynicism can creep into our way of seeing and responding to the world, and when we see and experience repeated disappointments, failed efforts, disillusionment, cynicism loves that space and can hijack how we lead ourselves and others.
Now, cynicism is tricky too, understanding its purpose, because on the surface it’s a protective strategy and serves as a powerful protector from feeling or remembering difficult emotions or experiences. It shields us from the pain of carrying too much or at least connecting with that care when we feel out of control, and when things go wrong cynicism says, “See? I told you it wouldn’t work.” And this gives us a sense of this kind of weird false sense of, you know, clarity and/or certainty, but it gradually narrows our capacity to imagine new possibilities or solutions. And instead of facing problems head on or seeking creative alternatives, cynicism encourages withdrawal and shut down. Ugh, it’s also important to remember that chronic stress or unmanageable pressure can activate our old traumas, putting our nervous system into overdrive, which can result in decision paralysis and emotional exhaustion, ergo, “Why bother?”
When our nervous system continues in a state of activation, this leads to burnout and we toggle between these fight or flight or freeze states, making it impossible to think long term. When we stay in this state, it’s a call to do something that feels impossible for many of us these days: regulate, rest, and reset. Finding support that understands the stakes of your work and nervous system and inner life is timely for all leading right now.
6:08
I know when I realized I fell into my own “why bother” spiral, I reached out to today’s guest who wrote a book called Why Bother: Discover The Desire For What’s Next, and also happens to be my new writing coach.
Jennifer Louden wanted to be Harriet The Spy when she was 8, an enlightened master when she was 12, and a brilliant comedy writer when she was 22. She penned her bestseller The Women’s Comfort Book in 1992 and helped start the self-care movement. Since then, she’s written eight additional books on wellbeing and creative living, including The Women’s Retreat Book and as mentioned, Why Bother. She loves coaching writers and is working on a fantasy novel where older women use their power to buy humanity time from the climate crisis.
Listen for how Jen flips the script on the cynicism of “why bother” into a generative question. Pay attention to when Jen addresses the loss of our energy when we do not have clarity on who we are and what we want. And notice when Jen discovers that not everything is fixable and how we approach this truth can be liberating. All right, y’all, now please welcome Jen Louden to The Unburdened Leader podcast.
Jen, welcome to The Unburdened Leader podcast. I am so thrilled to have you on the show!
Jennifer Louden: I love the title of your podcast so much. I think Unburdened Leader — I mean, what? It just goes right to the heart of why leadership — I mean, leadership is so hard, and when we approach it as a burden — I mean, when I think about it being unburdened, I just sit up straighter. [Laughs]
Rebecca Ching: Oh, that means the world. That means the world, especially coming from you. You know, and just full disclosure, I’ve had the privilege of actually working with you, of learning from you in the whole world of book writing as I engage my own book-writing project.
8:07
And I’ve known about your work and dabbled in and out of it for a while, but as I was gearing up to prepare to write my own book, I started circling around your orbit and finally joined one of your communities, and it just became really apparent quickly I needed to have you on the show, particularly, because I signed up for your newsletter, and you have this newsletter kind of focusing on “it’s not too late.”
Jennifer Louden: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Ching: And then your last book was Why Bother. And I’ve just been thinking about the intersection of those topics, and so, I wanted to kind of share that. I want you to talk me through the expansive way that you conceptualize “why bother” when it shows up in your life, and I’m curious how the way that you look at “why bother” is different from what you’ve been taught.
Jennifer Louden: Well, I think we’re all taught maybe without thinking about it, like it’s one of those unconscious mindsets, which so many of them are, which is that “why bother” means that it is too late, that we are stuck, that we’ve done something wrong, or from a leadership perspective, maybe that our team has done something wrong. And what I realized, really, from spending four years writing a memoir that failed as a book, but it changed me as a person, dramatically, probably more than anything I’ve ever done because I had to examine my life over and over again. And one of the things it showed me that became the underpinning for the book, Why Bother, was that there’s this pattern that I think a lot of us get into, which is we do get into a ground-down, burned-out, despair, low grade, it has a huge-range place. We can call it the “why bother” place. But it’s a place without a lot of options or hope, and it’s a place without internal energy.
10:05
We don’t have the energy to change things. Now, whether that’s our marriage or our job or our leadership position, I mean, there are lots of different stories in the book. And what I started to see from looking at that big picture of studying my life and that failed book was, “Oh, that’s actually the gateway to rediscovering what you do want to bother about.” It’s actually the most normal thing in the world as a human. Again, it doesn’t have to be global about your whole life. It could be about one aspect of your life to go, “Why bother? Who cares? Nothing can change.” And that’s actually the invitation to go, “Oh, wait. What do I really want, and what do I really care about?”
I think we haven’t — I mean, I think maybe the younger generation knows this. I’ll have to ask my kid, but life is so cyclical, right?
Rebecca Ching: Oh, gosh.
Jennifer Louden: And why wouldn’t we burn out on things? Why wouldn’t we run out of runway? Why wouldn’t we get tired of doing the same thing? And of course, it’s not only internal. A lot of my “why bother” that I wrote about, it happened from a divorce I didn’t want, it happened from my dad dying, it happened from having some crappy things happen in my career. I mean, “why bother” happens to us too, right?
Rebecca Ching: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Louden: So I wanted to conceive it as this is a really normal human stage and take the shame out of it and the feeling of ending or being trapped and try to conceptualize it as an invitation to reset.
Rebecca Ching: So I feel like just given the time that you and I are having this conversation, that’s another reason why I felt like this conversation felt important because “why bother,” the way that you conceptualize it is it takes us from this place of losing our agency, feeling like we have no options, “What’s the point?” —
Jennifer Louden: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Ching: — “Why try,” to exploring that that actually can help us reconnect to our agency and our personal power because right now, with so much going on in our country and the world, a lot of people feel like they’ve lost their personal power, they’ve lost their agency, they’ve lost their imagination like, “What’s the point of trying to dream?”
12:18
This is interesting as just to stay in that tension, the invitation of staying in your “why bother” will actually help you move to what’s next. And with that said, what are the stakes then for us to explore all sides of our “why bother”? Especially before writing your book — [Laughs]
Jennifer Louden: Oh.
Rebecca Ching: — you know, what were the stakes for you to move through that?
Jennifer Louden: Well, first of all, I really agree with you. I think we’re in a global “why bother” time. I think climate change is behind now. There’s a great sense of existential despair, and it’s interesting. I don’t want to tell you this because you have those fast questions at the end, and I have to keep this answer for one of those fast questions at the end. But I’m reading a book that I’ll tell you about later, and that book is really teaching me over and over again how much denial and not wanting to face things is the human condition, and I think the pandemic on top of everything else that’s happening to our planet has really sent us into a great existential “why bother” as a whole, you know, huge swaths of population. I certainly see it in myself, you know?
So what are the stakes? The stakes are, I think if I’m really talking about the stakes, I think the stakes are humanity’s continuation on the planet. But I think shorter term and more personal, our stakes are are we gonna enjoy this life while we’re here, are we gonna love life, and are we gonna love the people that are around us, and are we gonna feel like more of our days are spent in a way that is satisfying? I mean, I think the stakes are pretty darn high because we all know — and maybe people listening have been there or are there right now.
Rebecca Ching: Yes.
Jennifer Louden: And if you’re there right now, I just want to tell you it does not have to be permanent. It does not, does not, does not have to be permanent. But when we’re in it, especially if it has depression along with it, it feels like we’ll never get out of it, and that’s what makes it so tricky.
14:15
And ideally, we wouldn’t get that far. But, you know, that’s life. It often pushes us to a place of going, “Shit, things are so blah. But now I don’t have the energy to do anything about it.” So that’s what I was trying to answer with the book.
Rebecca Ching: And what I love about this is, one thing I often work with my clients on is how to use these different feelings as data not as our identity. And so, I’m adding now the “why bother.” Where’s your “why bother” “what’s the point” and what’s the data? Let’s get under the hood. Instead of swim in the deep end of “why bother,” let’s understand why it’s here, and that feels more generative. So this is, I mean this, but thanks to you.
And so, I’m curious for you what do you think would have happened if you ignored your “why bother” trailheads that came up?
Jennifer Louden: Oh, but I did. I did [Laughs] ignore them over and over again.
Rebecca Ching: Say more about that.
Jennifer Louden: Yeah, so, for me, the pattern — and I want to just stress that this is my way of looking at it and take whatever is useful for you, y’all, is I would have a feeling that something had run its course or wasn’t satisfying anymore, usually around my creativity and my writing life but not exclusively, and then I would start to say, “I want to explore what I desire, what might be next.” And then I would get so freaked out because loss of identity, loss of income, “How dare I, what a privileged, stupid thing. You’re gonna end up homeless.” That’s my story. Everyone has their own story. Then I would go back and re-entrench myself in whatever I had been doing.
And so, I think that’s a pretty common pattern. We see that something’s not working, and we start to dream or imagine or get some support, and then we either do one of two things. This is what I see, and I’d love to hear what you see. We either go back and re-entrench. We take the same job but with more responsibility, so we don’t have to think or feel because we’re gonna be so busy. Or, in my case, you know, “Write another self-help book. Rebuild your business even bigger.” Or we jump ahead into the new, what’s new, but we make a really complicated, iron-clad plan before we’re really invested and sure. Yeah, I’ve done that too.
16:36
Rebecca Ching: I’m pointing to myself. [Laughs]
Jennifer Louden: She’s pointing at herself. [Laughs] So yeah, we can do both, right? [Laughs] So that’s what I did for most of my — until I would say I was in my fifties.
Rebecca Ching: Mm. There’s something magical about the fifties.
Jennifer Louden: Yeah, there really is!
Rebecca Ching: I have a birthday coming up in a matter of days, and I’m very reflective. So I also feel like, with all those examples, if we don’t feel through what we’re feeling and just try to think it through, plan it through, go to what’s known, our brains, our nervous systems you teach this — I think I resonate with you so much as someone’s who’s a trained trauma therapist too. I’m like, “My gosh, you’re such a trauma-informed book coach. You’re awesome!”
Jennifer Louden: But I’m not though. That’s just what —
Rebecca Ching: You are. I mean, it is, trust me.
Jennifer Louden: Yeah. I know.
Rebecca Ching: I feel like I have the expertise to say. [Laughs]
Jennifer Louden: Thank you. Thank you.
Rebecca Ching: Everything you teach is very grounded, it’s very grounded wisdom. But I think all those things, the known, we just try and do something more. We try to do more of the same thing. We try to plan our way out of it. We all try to think through it and organize certainty.
Jennifer Louden: Absolutely.
Rebecca Ching: And you touch on this a lot. And so but feeling brings up that uncertainty but if we can teach our inner system that we’re gonna be okay with the unknown, that’s also where the magic happens, and that’s kind of where you come on the other side of “why bother” is finding our “bother” that you write about.
Jennifer Louden: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Ching: But before we move onto that, before we get too far, you mentioned your book was a failure (this is what you just said in your words), but it was a personal success.
Jennifer Louden: Mm-hmm.
18:06
Rebecca Ching: I know this is a little on the side, but I feel like I don’t want to get this go too far and have you just unpack that a little bit more.
Jennifer Louden: Yeah, so what I mean by failure is it didn’t work as a narrative arc. It was a series of stories. It didn’t hold together where you wanted to keep reading it. If you read it, you’d be like, “And then this happened and then this happened and this happened,” so it didn’t work as a narrative memoir, like a Wild or an Educated, which is what I was going for. But the process of writing that for four years transformed me because I had to see my patterns over and over again. And I think this can happen with journaling, but there’s something about writing for an audience, what I call stretching to connect generously, [Laughs] which means you have to actually get on the page what, in this case, was going on for me in these “why bother” moments and these places that I didn’t go for and I didn’t change and trying to understand them but trying to understand them to get you to understand them. And there’s something about the alchemy of that that transformed me.
I remember when I realized that the book wasn’t gonna work. I definitely shed some tears. But I also was — I think I was on a plane, and I actually started singing to myself, not out loud I promise, “Ding Dong The Wicked Witch is Dead,” and I’m not really sure why but I think it was sort of like that story is done. It’s served its purpose. And then it became this framework that I could see something that I could turn into something else. But it didn’t matter that the book wasn’t gonna go out in the world and be read and make me money, and what mattered was I felt like I really figured out that stuck place.
Rebecca Ching: Thank you for unpacking that because failure can be so myopic. I always say failure is just data, but it still hurts.
Jennifer Louden: Oh, that’s beautiful.
20:00
Rebecca Ching: And to say the agenda for the book didn’t work, right? It was a failure – when you use that word it feels a little stronger. It didn’t work. But my gosh, the data you collected. It didn’t generate the income, the audience, the expectations you had, but my gosh, what it generated in your life, it sounds huge.
Jennifer Louden: It was huge, and all of this happened not too long before we moved from where we lived near Seattle to where we live now in Colorado.
Rebecca Ching: Oh, wow.
Jennifer Louden: We moved for my husband’s new job. And it allowed me to reset and say, “Here are the things that I’ve been doing that haven’t served me in my present life and community,” and set new intentions and really create a much more satisfying life in the last eight years here in Colorado, and I didn’t have to move to do it. I could have totally stayed and done it where I was, just to be clear.
Rebecca Ching: Totally, and the power of shaking up our environment on a small scale or a big scale, you teach about that a lot too with writing and how we get our space together, but I think just perspective taking, if we’re feeling like we’re looping. So I think there’s something noteworthy there too. But you still had to work through the disappointments and the hurts that the book wasn’t what you wanted it to be, but you also had this personal kind of transformation too, right?
Jennifer Louden: Yeah, and I think where it comes in when we think about leadership and “why bother” is leaders are taught and trained to have really strong identities and to believe, at least unconsciously, that that strong identity is part of their success, you know, “act like a leader,” all that stuff.
And so, part of what I was able to let go of with that memoir not going out into the world the way I wanted it to was an identity that I had to be a certain way as a writer, have certain success as a writer.
Rebecca Ching: Wow.
Jennifer Louden: And that’s really scary, and I think identity can really get in the way of figuring out our “why bother.”
22:03
Learning to hold it with some lightness and curiosity and realize that it, like a thought, is passing through. It’s not real. We don’t really have identities. They’re formed by our brain. They’re not real. I don’t have an actual identity somewhere that says “successful writer” [Laughs] that exists like gravity. [Laughs]
Rebecca Ching: Right, but sometimes we have these ideal identities that serve the purpose of projecting the image we think we want to put out there to stay safe, to keep shame at bay and to feel enough.
Jennifer Louden: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Ching: And they are sometimes quite slippery and insidious. We don’t realize how much those are working.
Jennifer Louden: Oh, God. They’re so strong. They’ve been so strong for me. Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: Me too. Oh, my gosh, and as you were saying that I’m just thinking through a couple times where I released the shoulds around an identity, around something professionally and the good stuff that happened after I just took the leap. And it really wasn’t even a leap. Sometimes I’m like, “I think I’m going off the cliff,” and it’s just a little bump.
Jennifer Louden: Right?
Rebecca Ching: But it looks like it’s a free for all. [Laughs]
Jennifer Louden: And I think that’s true with these “why bother” thoughts too. There are so many ways that we can look at it, and one way is it is a thought pattern — and again, you may not use “why bother,” y’all. You may use, “What’s the point?” or “Who cares?” We all have different language around this. It’s interesting to listen for how often people say “why bother” though. It’s really fascinating. You’ll start to hear it a lot if you listen for those different versions of it. It is a way to keep ourselves safe, right? It is a way to keep from looking at those little leaps and bumps and speaking up, and a lot of times what I find is it’s not the giant change that you’re wanting. It’s being able to, let’s say, speak up about something in your partnership that’s really bugging you or something with your team at work or something about your boss that you’re reporting to.
Rebecca Ching: What I love about that is just the “why bother” in kind of the “what’s the point sense” is very protective. And wanting to stay safe is a very human thing. I look at it very neutrally too, even when the ways we do that end up doing harm. I just kind of understand the intrinsic motivation that way. At least that’s how I conceptualize it. And then you flip it and you’re like, you know, “Let’s get your bother on. What do you want to bother about?” And there’s a generative on this “why bother.”
24:23
But I’d love for you to take me back to a point where you lost connection to your “bother,” the things that you cared about, the things that drove you. When you kind of felt shut down, how were you feeling in that moment? What was going on?
Jennifer Louden: Yeah, I remember clearly. I used to live on an island, and I was never in any way suicidal. I was not depressed. I was in therapy. I was in love. I had gotten a divorce, fallen in love for the second time with my now husband, a wonderful man, but I would get so overtaken with this feeling of “it’s pointless, and I can’t really have what I want.” Meanwhile, I wasn’t really willing to name what I want, which is part of why we get into “why bother.” Then I would imagine being on that ferry and just slipping over the side.
Rebecca Ching: Mm.
Jennifer Louden: Now, I wouldn’t ever have done it in a million years. But it was my way of trying to make myself feel safe, like, “Oh, I don’t have to deal with life if I just disappear.” And it reminds me of — I mean, I’ve had conversations with lots of people about this kind of fantasy, right, where it’s just like, “Yeah, I just disappear somehow, and I don’t have to be bothered anymore.”
Because let’s face it, making a meaningful life is a shit ton of work. [Laughs] You know, I had a new blended family. I had two teenage kids, you know. Life is hard. Life is challenging. And so, again, I think your neutral stance is so important, like how do we take the judgment out of these moments of wanting to just not keep working so hard at it. So then, when we take the judgment out, I think we can turn it into that generative thing of what do I want to bother about next.
26:11
So for me, it felt like, yeah, just wanting to disappear.
Rebecca Ching: And a lot of people have a hard time naming those — it’s like they don’t have a plan, but their system is just so, “We’ve got to get you out of feeling trapped.” Those parts, those fantasies come in to help give us relief even though we judge and shame them, and that’s such a good data point because I know when those parts come in everything works to keep them at bay because they get so much judgment. But if they’re showing up, things are getting real. It’s a 911. What does your system need? What do you need?
You said something, you said there was a resistance in you naming what you wanted. Can you say a little bit more about that?
Jennifer Louden: Yeah, I think this might — I don’t — I will say I’ve worked almost exclusively with women for 30+ years. So guys, you’re gonna have to tell me your data on this. But what I’ve seen, and again, I think younger women are having less of an issue with this, but still some. My kid just got two job offers, and she was so new that she didn’t want to take one, but she was like, “Oh, I feel so bad telling them that I don’t want the job.” And I’m like, “Interesting.”
Rebecca Ching: Hmm.
Jennifer Louden: [Laughs] But I think, in general, women have a hard time claiming what they want.
Rebecca Ching: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Louden: And again, I think for men, I see men struggling with it just in different ways. So really struggling with, “This is what I want. I may not be able to have it. I may not be able to make it happen. I may start towards it and find I don’t want it. I may have a push/pull around it.” But I’m not even willing to say, “What I really want to do is….” Like little things. “What I really want to do is have this for lunch.” “What I really want to do is I don’t want to go to the mountains on vacation. I want to go to the ocean on vacation,” or “What I really want to do is completely change how we report to each other on this team. But oh, my God, I’m not willing to take that on.” That’s okay. It’s all right if we’re not willing to do it. But I think so much life energy gets lost when we’re not honest with ourselves about what we want and who we are. And that leads to “why bother.”
Rebecca Ching: And that really lands with what you wrote about too because it’s, in many ways, by not naming what we want we’re exiling our desires, and you really talk about our desires are kind of the gateway to getting our bother on and getting out of the — yes.
28:30
Jennifer Louden: I mean, when you think about it, your life, so much of your life, if you have a certain level of privilege and choice —
Rebecca Ching: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Louden: — so obviously huge swaths of the population cannot say this — is formed by what you want. But we also get so many messages that wanting is selfish and bad, and these things are okay, but these things aren’t.
Rebecca Ching: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Louden: And I’m not saying that we’re gonna walk around just being like, “Well, I want this! I’m gonna –.”
Rebecca Ching: No. Yeah.
Jennifer Louden: That’s very immature.
Rebecca Ching: Entitled.
Jennifer Louden: I’m talking about — yeah, entitled and destructive. And, no, but it’s, “Huh, I’m really noticing I’m wanting us not to be watching TV at night in two separate rooms. I’m really noticing that I’m lonely for you and I want to spend time with you, but I’m also scared of spending time with you, and I don’t quite know how to reconnect with you,” or “I’m really noticing that I spend too much time on social media, and it makes me feel like poop. But do I have the energy to really do something more interesting with my Saturday afternoon or whatever.”
Rebecca Ching: And there’s a permission of, “What am I noticing? What am I longing for, desiring, feeling?” And sometimes we’ve got to name it. It doesn’t mean it has to be fixed. It just needs to be witnessed. And sometimes even naming it and witnessing it, sometimes even things shift in that process of, “I thought I really wanted this. But really I want this.” But it’s just that process of acknowledging I’m noticing. I think that’s just so powerful.
30:00
Jennifer Louden: It’s so, so beautifully said, Rebecca, and the thesis of the book is when we give ourselves permission to notice that and feel it, even if we don’t act on it, even if we can’t have it, energy starts to flow that starts to lead us to take steps towards what we care about, not magically, not effortlessly, but there is the kind of energy that picks us up that when we’re tamping down — again, it may start really small. “I’m gonna drive over to that restaurant and get that takeout that I really want and get that soup I really want, even though everybody else in the family doesn’t like it.” [Laughs]
Rebecca Ching: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Louden: You know, I’m gonna read that book even though, wow, I’m not sure. I got a quarter into it. I hate Moby-Dick. Now I’m not gonna read that book.
[Inspirational Music]
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32:18
To start your Unburdened Leader Coaching process with me go to www.rebeccaching.com and book a free connection call. I can’t wait to hear from you!
[Inspirational Music]
Rebecca Ching: So what’s interesting about the “why bother” because, you know, just kind of intersecting the “why bother” with what you write about It’s Not Too Late, you know, I have an agenda with this too, but I’m wanting to know what you would say to those who say, “Why bother? It’s too late.” There’s the personal individual stuff but I can’t help but think collectively, and I don’t know if you know about my background. I used to work in politics and have just been very civically active since I could walk, and voting is something that I hold very — it’s a sacred practice for me.
Jennifer Louden: Me too. Me too.
Rebecca Ching: I’ve done it imperfectly but it’s very sacred and there are a lot of people that even say, “Why bother? It’s too late,” or recycling, “Why bother? What’s this me recycling this or buying something different?” There’s an individual piece that we’ve talked about, but I think there’s this people also missing out that there are some pretty dark forces out there, people spending an immense amount of money and energy to have us say the negative, “Why bother? It’s too late,” so we tap out.
Jennifer Louden: What the oil and gas industry is spending billions of dollars on this year, my friends, is a climate doom campaign — this year, last year, the year before, a climate doom campaign to get you to believe that there is nothing you can do about the climate. The same thing is happening with, I’m sorry, mainstream legacy media. They are doing it, not because someone’s paying them, but to make money off of your despair. The most astonishing thing you can do is to cultivate hope through action and to fight that feeling.
34:15
If you can’t fight back with other people in conversations — right now I can’t when my friends start their, “It’s too late. What’s the point?” I actually have to walk away right now because I don’t have it in me. That’s fine. You don’t have to talk about it. But to cultivate it in yourself through action, and if you can do action in community even if it’s digital community. In-person community is more uplifting for our little —
Rebecca Ching: It sure is.
Jennifer Louden: But Climate Citizens’ Lobby is a fantastic organization. They’ll send you a monthly action to take. If — yeah, you’re right. A lot of recycling is getting sent to third-world countries, to less-advantaged countries and being burned. And yeah, absolutely. What would you like to do about that? What would you like to change? Would you like to change how you buy things? Would you like to change how it’s packaged? And do that, and instead know that “it’s too late, there’s no point” is a lie that humans have always told themselves to save themselves energy because your brain is not interested in hope. Your brain is interested in crunchy snacks.
Rebecca Ching: [Laughs] Or sweet ones, on my end. But yes.
Jennifer Louden: Or sweet ones, yeah! Or sweet crunchy is the best! [Laughs]
Rebecca Ching: True story. True story!
Jennifer Louden: Kettle corn, my friends.
Rebecca Ching: So I appreciate that, and even if it’s not about having to do something that — it’s not at a place of guilt or shame but it is very — for me, it’s so protective to tap out, and so many people can’t tap out. So if we have the choice to tap out, what can we rumble with within? What do we need to pay attention within internally so that we can feel like — it’s not about changing minds or, you know, trying to be perfect at being super green. But it’s just this being able to stay curious.
36:10
When we lose our curiosity about what we’re feeling, when I go to despair — and honestly the research shows that hope and despair are two sides to the same coin, so there’s just some interesting dance there. So it isn’t about checking the box. But it’s so much connected to, “Okay, where’s your joy?” And I go to my clients, if you’re listening, it’s like, “What are the basics? Feed well, move well, rest well, hydrate well, talk to yourself well.” [Laughs] It’s like, “Let’s go to the basics. What’s going on with you? It’s not your job to save the world, but where are you out of alignment?” And…
Jennifer Louden: It’s not only not your job to save the world. You can’t. Nobody can. The head of the UN can’t. The head of this country can’t. Nobody can save the world. And by the way, the whole, “You need to be a perfect green,” is also a product of big oil. They created the idea of a carbon footprint. They made it up so that you would start thinking about your private, personal footprint more than collective action.
Rebecca Ching: And cynicism is a sneaky mofo.
Jennifer Louden: Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: And that keeps us from our collective action, and it keeps us —
Jennifer Louden: It does. Cynicism is so protective, and it makes you feel smart, you know, like you know better than everybody else.
Rebecca Ching: It does.
Jennifer Louden: And hope is so vulnerable, and it’s so puppy like, and it’s so like — I mean, again, we have a large group of friends, and I’m known as the hopeful puppy.
Rebecca Ching: Yes, and when I see people step back, when I’m in my cheerleader mode — I am a perpetual lifelong recovering literal Midwestern eighties cheerleader, like for real.
Jennifer Louden: [Laughs]
Rebecca Ching: It’s quite the image.
Jennifer Louden: [Laughs]
Rebecca Ching: I notice that some systems I have to regulate. But it’s dangerous to hope because even one of my kids said to me recently, she was like, “I’m just sometimes so afraid to hope because I don’t want to feel the disappointment.” And I’m like, “And there it is, girlfriend.”
Jennifer Louden: Mm-hmm. Yep.
38:09
Rebecca Ching: There it is.
Jennifer Louden: Yep.
Rebecca Ching: So thank you for “why bother, it’s too late,” using those words when we’re saying that as a trailhead to what’s going on within and not to fall prey to how, maybe, people are trying to get us to be in that place, so we don’t use our agency and tap into our personal power.
Jennifer Louden: So we just have to really recognize with a lot of compassion that “why bother” and “it is too late” — my newsletter is It’s Not Too Late. [Laughs] Sometimes I mess that out and leave out the “not” when I’m writing. It’s very funny. But our negativity bias is gonna send us towards that. So if we can recognize that with compassion as just sort of the bars on our cage.
Rebecca Ching: Yeah.
Jennifer Louden: But we’re never gonna get rid of it. So we’re gonna find ourselves back in this place of, “It’s too vulnerable to hope. There’s no point.” And that’s why the last chapter in the book is called “Always Begin Again,” not begin again but always begin again.
Rebecca Ching: I think that is really important. “It’s not too late.” It is about taking good care of ourselves right now too, and as leaders in whatever space we’re in, because I think everyone is a leader because the Systems person in me is whenever you walk into a room your body, your presence impacts that room, how do you want to impact it. And then there are folks that do have responsibility for those in their charge, whether in their home or their workplace. How do we cultivate space for the vulnerability of hoping? Because hope is uncool. And I’m not talking about the bypassy, cheesy — like, no, I’m talking about cheesy because I am the queen of cheese. But the bypassy, “It’ll be fine. Everything works out,” you know, that lights me up.
Jennifer Louden: Yeah. No, no, no, yeah.
Rebecca Ching: But this, “Okay.” I’m a big Peloton person, and one of the coaches is always like, “Squad, up!” You know, and that means whenever she says that she’s like, “We’re all standing up! Let’s go!” You know, and I’m like, “Squad, up, people, let’s go!” [Laughs]
40:08
And it brings up some interesting protection in folks. But I think it’s also a beautiful contagion to keep trying and not get discouraged if folks aren’t ready for that, to still be true to yourself in that. I don’t know if you have anything to add to that.
Jennifer Louden: Yeah, no, I love that, and I love the fact that — so what the research shows in climate change, for example, is having those conversions. And the same thing is true about what’s going on with democracy in our country right now. it’s having the conversations. And, you know, people will come and say, “Well, what do I say?” And I’ll be like, “I’ll text you a cheat sheet of what to say. I’ll give you some talking –.” They’re like, “I’m gonna be with Uncle Blah-Blah over Thanksgiving.” I’m like, “Okay, here are a couple of things to say. You’re not trying to change his mind. You’re just being that informed, hopeful, I’m not giving up.”
Rebecca Ching: Ask questions!
Jennifer Louden: Mm-hmm, that’s right, and find common ground.
Rebecca Ching: That’s it, and, “Tell me more.”
Jennifer Louden: Yeah. Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: You know what, parts of me see it really differently and feel a little agitated about it but, “I care about you. You’re my family. You’re in my orbit,” whatever, if that’s true. “Tell me more. How’d you get here?” Because if we’re going in trying to change a mind we don’t care about the person, we’re not truly curious, right?
Jennifer Louden: It also doesn’t work.
Rebecca Ching: And it doesn’t work. It has quite the opposite effect. So I want to shift a little bit just to I found some quotes and concepts of yours, and I want to read them and just have you expand on them, some things that kind of when I read I was like, “Oh, dang!” and I kept doing that, so I’m like, all right, I want to just read some to you.
And one thing I read is: “When we try to force the why and figure it out, we limit the solution.” Can you say more about that?
Jennifer Louden: Yeah, I think it’s wanting that certainty we were talking about earlier. So we want to jump to something we can conceive of already, that we can make a plan about or an identity, what we were talking about. It’s like, “If I do this, then I’ll be safe.” But that “this,” if it comes too soon, is probably gonna be too small and is gonna send you back to “why bother” sooner than later, right?
42:08
Because you haven’t given yourself some time to really desire and explore. It takes time to get out of whatever has felt too small or has had its lifespan, or it takes time to grieve and heal because remember, a lot of times we get into a “why bother” place because of outside conditions, things have happened to us. We lost our partner, we lost our job that we didn’t want to, we lost our funding for our start-up, you know? Our kid is struggling with chronic illness, right? It’s not always just because we’re tired of doing something. A lot of times it’s not. So we need time to expand and heal and trust and experiment. But we don’t want to take that time!
Rebecca Ching: No, because we live in a culture of urgency and efficiency and having all the answers. So thank you for saying more.
One other thing that you said, I felt a little bit of an exhale in this, and you said or wrote, “Everything is not fixable.” Say more about that.
Jennifer Louden: Well, I think one of the things that when I was younger, this could be the shadow side of the hopeful personality, is, “Okay, we’ll figure it out! We’ll fix it! We’ll figure it out!” And then everything will be okay and safe, and then I can dream and desire and change things. But first I have to fix it. And a lot of things in life aren’t fixable, and I think it’s making that peace with that, feeling all of the feelings around that, that actually liberates us to then walk into that unknown. But if we keep in that fix-it energy, and not all of us have the fix-it energy, but I really believe that if I could just be talented enough, organized enough, healthy enough, spiritual enough, a good enough parent, a good enough business owner, then everything would be great, and then I would be able to really feel that excitement about life again.
44:09
I couldn’t fix my dad having pancreatic cancer and dying. I couldn’t fix my husband wanting to leave our marriage after he had cancer at the same time.
Rebecca Ching: Oh, my gosh.
Jennifer Louden: I couldn’t fix my daughter struggling with depression in high school because she had MRSA on her face and was embarrassed, and there are lots of things in life that are way bigger than they are. I can’t fix climate change.
Rebecca Ching: And sometimes understanding limits, our limits are the impact of our reach, actually can free us up to have that generative energy of getting our bother on.
Jennifer Louden: One hundred percent. One hundred percent.
Rebecca Ching: Okay, I gotcha. Yeah, finding our own constraints, yeah, this is a good one. So you also talk and write a lot about this interesting tension between desire versus deciding. Can you say more about that?
Jennifer Louden: I think it’s that same idea that at least this is true for me, that desire can feel like such big energy. And it’s interesting. In some spiritual traditions, the practice is to go into the desire itself and just feel it as purely and alive as possible, and it’s the idea that that is the God hand or the life force. And so, I think when we’re feeling a lot of desire, we can’t immediately understand it or get it or quantify it or turn it into something. Again, your personality and your life will determine this in its own way. We run away from it.
And so, for example, I am pursuing a life-long desire, which I’ve made many attempts at over the years, and I’m making a regular practice of working on a novel. And the desire that arises in me around that sometimes is so strong that if you were here with me in my little office, you would see my squirming, you would see me often getting up and doing something because I can’t handle it.
Rebecca Ching: Mm.
Jennifer Louden: So there is a physical component of being with, breathing with, and relaxing with that feeling that is still a challenge to me after all these years.
46:11
Rebecca Ching: Beautiful. And we touched on this already. But I think it’s worth a little bit of repeating and further discussion that, “Cynicism and despair in the world impact our ability to lead with curiosity and access our creativity.” I loved that. That’s something I pulled from something you wrote or said. Can you say anything more to that or add to that?
Jennifer Louden: Well, cynicism is protective, like we said earlier, it’s cool, it’s intellectual. To be, again, not in blind hope but to be in pragmatic hope (the opposite) sometimes requires us to expose ourselves and to care, and we’re gonna be ridiculed for that or shot down for that or questioned at the very least.
Rebecca Ching: That’s interesting that when we tap out, when we don’t protect with cynicism and we’re not in the woes and we’re just being authentic, we are setting ourselves up for the critics, right?
Jennifer Louden: And we’re also setting ourselves up to have to do something.
Rebecca Ching: Say more.
Jennifer Louden: Well, if I’m just like, “Well, it’s –.” I remember friends saying this to me. “Well, it’s too late. The plant’s gonna die, and I don’t care. I didn’t have kids. So, yeah, it’ll be fine for the rest of my life. I’ll be fine. I have enough money.” And something that’s stuck with me, it’s probably been a decade ago, and if that person really said, “Wow, it’s actually not too late and I can have an impact,” they would have to choose to do something different with their resources, their time. They’d have to take some action, and that I think for a lot of us is, at the very least, inconvenient.
Rebecca Ching: Inconvenient, and in our modern world, oh, yeah, there’s something actually — I’m sitting with this. I have to think it through, but there’s something actually really important I think to the creative process and inconvenience. As much as you coach us in book writing to get things set up so that we can follow through, if things are too comfortable, it limits me taking action, that constraint. So I would just sit with that a little bit longer. I love that. I love that.
48:16
Jennifer Louden: Yeah, also we’re just lazy. Let’s just face it.
Rebecca Ching: Well, I don’t like that word. You think we’re lazy?
Jennifer Louden: I think our brains are not interested.
Rebecca Ching: I think we’re burnt out. I think we’re overcommitted.
Jennifer Louden: Well, I also think sort of the way we’re wired is we’re gonna take the easy path. I mean…
Rebecca Ching: Okay, that — easy and lazy are different to me. [Laughs]
Jennifer Louden: Okay. We’re gonna take the easy path.
Rebecca Ching: Okay. [Laughs] Yeah, at least no one that I know and work with would ever be in that area of lazy. But choosing comfort? Sure. Choosing ease or easy? Yeah, yeah, I gotcha.
Jennifer Louden: Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: Anything else that you want to say on this because you had also written and said, “We need to discover what’s on the other side of asking ourselves ‘why bother.’” Anything else you want to say about that?
Jennifer Louden: Yeah, to me, it’s the main section of the book, which is how do we open to desire, how do we make more space for it, how do we experiment with it? One of the ideas is what I call a desire retreat, where you maybe set two or three hours on a Saturday, let’s say, or a Sunday afternoon, and you give it a clean start and stop, so you’re not overwhelmed, and during that time all you do is ask yourself what do you want, and then you try something. And if you don’t like it, you stop. And it is unbelievably recharging.
Rebecca Ching: Wow.
Jennifer Louden: And one time I did it, and this was back in my old house, and I had floor-to-ceiling — I had a whole wall of bookcases, and I said, “I want to take all my books down and rearrange them.” And I started, and then I’m like, “I don’t want to do this anymore.” And those books stayed on the floor of my office for probably three or four weeks because I didn’t have time, and I’m like, “Oh, who cares,” you know? So maybe start out — you get halfway through the yoga class you’ve always been wanting to go to, and you’re like, “I hate this yoga class!” You’re allowed to get up and leave, you know?
50:04
Maybe you decide to go take yourself out for sushi, and you’re like, “I actually am gonna take the rest of it home. I don’t want to do this. I want to go home and take a nap, or I want to read that book, or I want to go to that movie.” So you’re not trying to get anywhere or learn anything. You’re just trying to have a relationship with your desires.
Rebecca Ching: Which I love this. I’m even thinking of this from a leadership perspective because so often there’s, “Follow through, push through, execute,” and there truly is a need for that, especially with high-stake decisions but there’s something about having space for that experiment, that desire retreat, and whatever that looks like that’s gonna help fuel us and not — help protect from burnout. Having a little bit of that flexibility and meandering versus, “Oh, you didn’t follow through on your task? You suck,” versus permission.
Jennifer Louden: So I lead writing retreats a few times a year, and people get a lot of writing done. It’s very productive. But the secret agenda is to get them to follow their desires.
Rebecca Ching: No way.
Jennifer Louden: So I’m constantly asking them, “What do you want? What do you want?” Many people report that’s the most powerful part, but it also freaks them out in the beginning. They’re like, “But I need to do everything on offer. I need to go to everything that you’re offering, or I need to try everything on the buffet.” You know, there’s this I think greed — not greediness but fomo that we get —
Rebecca Ching: Yeah.
Jennifer Louden: — that can also make it difficult. Also just the drivenness you just so beautifully described. It’s a big transition to just ask myself, “What do I want?”
Rebecca Ching: Yeah, I mean, the permission to explore that while simultaneously looking at the responsibilities that we have and those that we’re carrying forward and leading. Holding those tensions instead of overriding our desires to do the shoulds is a fast track to burnout too. So there’s so much richness here.
So I’m curious, what does Jen ten years ago think about you today?
52:01
Jennifer Louden: Oh, I would say that she thinks she’s much more self-accepting. She’s much more accepting of her husband. She’s got a much better relationship with her kid. We always had a good relationship but it’s better, and she is really understanding the beauty of being alive.
Rebecca Ching: And what did ten year —
Jennifer Louden: Most days.
Rebecca Ching: Right.
Jennifer Louden: [Laughs]
Rebecca Ching: I mean, sometimes we have to look at the existential threats and it’s like — and then we can go, “Okay, what are we gonna do?” [Laughs]
What did you bother about ten years ago, and what’s your bother now?
Jennifer Louden: Hmm, what I bothered about ten years ago what I would say is I really felt like — well, partly I had to bother about my mom had Alzheimer’s. So taking care of her. She didn’t live with us. She lived in care, I think by then.
Rebecca Ching: It’s still a lot.
Jennifer Louden: Yeah. Yeah, but, you know, so that was going on. We were bothering about this move. It was a big move from Bainbridge Island to Boulder, Colorado. And I was bothering about what do I want the next phase of my work to look like, what do I really want to be a stand for, what do I have to say that is still of value and still earning a living, you know, definitely had to do that, still earn a living.
Rebecca Ching: And what’s your bother now?
Jennifer Louden: Oh, my bother now. Yeah, I would say my bother now is how to be a climate activist in a way that feels nourishing, how to stay in the room with my novel when I want to run screaming. I bother very much about both those things. And then I would say my bother is about being a good person to the people in my life.
54:04
Rebecca Ching: How do you stay bothered without burning out?
Jennifer Louden: You know, I have a pretty cushy life, Rebecca. My kids are grown. I’ve got enough money. My health is pretty good. I just had COVID, so except for that. My parents are gone. So I don’t feel like burnout is really the issue anymore. I feel like it’s about making sure I’m using my talents wisely.
Rebecca Ching: So how do you make sure you use your talents wisely right now?
Jennifer Louden: I would say that that lazy remark was probably —
Rebecca Ching: [Laughs]
Jennifer Louden: — really –. [Laughs] It’s like, okay, you know, it’s so easy for me. I think that the transition I’m in is from really pushing hard at my work to letting my work — I’m shrinking my business. I shrank it last year. I’m shrinking it more this year and freeing up that time and not just putting my head down and just writing but also making sure I’m making time for activism.
Rebecca Ching: What would you say to folks who are at a different stage, then, who — I’ve got two teenagers right now. We’re in the throes of a career.
Jennifer Louden: Mm-hmm. You’re in the throes, girl.
Rebecca Ching: I’ve got two businesses. A lot of people have their job, other interests, kids, you know, sandwich generation. Anything you’d say to them on how to keep their bother on without burning out?
Jennifer Louden: You know, when I look back at those years, I think part of what made it hard was always raising the bar of what it looked like to do well.
Rebecca Ching: Wow, you nailed it. Dang.
Jennifer Louden: Yeah, instead of asking myself, “What is enough? What would satisfy me?” and being in conversation with my people around that. So I think it was my own being haunted by not doing enough or doing an exceptional job. I didn’t have actual conditions of satisfaction often enough.
Rebecca Ching: Gosh, that’s a conversation I’ve talked a lot about, and I often even push back on a lot of the abundance conversations because abundance gets exploited and it’s never enough then, versus, “What is your enough?” And if you’re so crystal clear, whether it’s enough time, enough energy, enough sleep, enough money, whatever it is, your enough. But man, we often can be our own worst enemies on — I am that too. I’m always like, “What’s the next thing? What’s the next thing?” I’ve got to push. I’ve always got to be, “What’s my stretch goal?” you know?
Jennifer Louden: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
56:27
Rebecca Ching: It’s almost reflexive, and I’m like, all right, I’ve got to — and there is something about age that I’m like, okay, that’s starting to mellow a little bit and it’s freaking other parts of me out, like, “You’ve got to keep going!”
Jennifer Louden: Definitely! It is an age thing, but I think if I look back at me in my forties, and if I could have said something I would have said, “You know, just ease up a little bit. It’s okay. Ease up a little bit.”
Rebecca Ching: There’s such a fear. But when scarcity’s running the show, fomo’s running the show, it doesn’t feel okay to ease up, so that’s a good flag. I love it. That’s a really good word.
So on that note, how has your understanding of success changed since you were younger, and what does success mean to you today?
Jennifer Louden: Oh, God. It’s changed dramatically. I mean, success for me was definitely about how much outside attention could I get in the form of being on a Best Seller list or being on big TV shows or getting big speaking engagements. And really, it’s not that that stuff isn’t fun. But when I look at it now, those are like soap bubbles, you know, those really cool bubbles you blow. They’re really beautiful and they might catch the light and you’re like, “Ooh, this is so cool!” But then they break. They’re gone, and you’re left with who you are and the relationships you have.
So for me, success now is a day in which I really joyfully use my attention and my resources the way that I want, and that I regularly check the attitude of my mind and notice whether it’s making me feel imprisoned and rushed and not enough, or can I relax and bring some presence?
58:01
Rebecca Ching: I really am loving this, this metaphor of these cool moments. So much in my preparation for this conversation, the interviewers or people who were writing or talking — like, “You sat on Oprah’s couch!” But I’m like, “But she’s Jen Louden,” you know? And I first really heard about you as someone who’s part of Brené Brown’s community so of course she quoted your work in her facilitation work, and that probably brought a lot of focus your way. I love this, “I had these moments, and they were like shiny bubbles, and then they pop and you’re still there.” And if we hang onto those things with our worthiness, our safety, and we keep chasing more of those to prove, that’s a horrible vice grip.
Because I remember just, “Jen’s so much more!” So all these really cool people, but that’s not even the juiciness of who you are. Those are just a reflection of other folks benefiting from you. Yeah.
Jennifer Louden: Yeah, the moments, yeah. And if you try to hang onto a soap bubble, you got nothin’! [Laughs]
Rebecca Ching: Ooh. I, over the years, have known several people that cling to them even after they’ve popped, and it’s sad.
Jennifer Louden: Oh, I did.
Rebecca Ching: Likewise.
Jennifer Louden: I used to all the time. Yeah, yeah. “Oh, if I could just get this. If I could just get that.” And partly that has been age. Partly that has been losing people close to me, friends, family. Partly that is having had some bubble moments and went, “Well, okay.”
Rebecca Ching: Yeah.
Jennifer Louden: You know?
Rebecca Ching: The soap bubble ones are really transformative. They’re these small, little moments that most of the world doesn’t see.
Jennifer Louden: Yeah! You know, I think when you think about the things you’re gonna remember when you’re dying if you’re lucky enough to get to reflect, I don’t think they’re gonna be those moments I’m gonna think about. If I can sit here and really be with my novel and not pop off to, “Oh, I forgot to do that thing,” or “I’ve got to order those supplements,” [Laughs] you know, whatever it is. “Oh, Jesus, you know, I’ve got to write that thing down before I forget it!” Now that I’m writing that thing down before I forget it, then I come to the end of the day and I’m like, “Well, that was a satisfying day,” you know? I was present with my client, or I was present with my book, or I was present with my friend, or I got the heck out of this office. [Laughs]
1:00:15
Rebecca Ching: Jen, that’s really what’s been hitting me this year too. You know, I’m starting up learning guitar for wanting to learn for over 20 years, starting writing this book, and then I’m like I want present moments with people because I’m not going — it’s the soap-bubble moments that I am not going to remember or regret. I’m gonna have regrets around, “Oh, I wanted more time with…” and that’s what the research talks about. So maybe there is something about aging I’m like, “What, on my deathbed, will I regret not doing?” And I was like, all right, I went and bought a guitar. [Laughs]
Jennifer Louden: It’s also always what you regret not doing versus what you regret doing.
Rebecca Ching: Oh. Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. Jen, I’m sure we could talk so much more but I’ve loved this conversation, and I have a feeling a lot of those listening will be incredibly appreciative. But before we go, and you already alluded to this, I’ve got some traditional quickfire questions that I love to ask people. So drumroll please, what are you reading right now?
Jennifer Louden: War and Peace. Slow read one chapter a day with a group. It is so much fun!
Rebecca Ching: No way!
Jennifer Louden: And I’ve bugged everybody that I know, and this is the conversation with my friends these days. “Did I tell you?” “Shh, you told us.” [Laughs]
Rebecca Ching: [Laughs]
Jennifer Louden: Third time — the third time I’ve read it. My favorite book. War and Peace.
Rebecca Ching: What song are you playing on repeat?
Jennifer Louden: Nothing. I have even stopped running to music.
Rebecca Ching: No way.
Jennifer Louden: Everything has been silent lately. I don’t know. It just naturally happened. I’m sure it’ll change again, but right now I’ve got no music.
Rebecca Ching: Ooh, you’re in the zone. What is the best TV show or movie that you’ve seen recently?
Jennifer Louden: Okay the TV show we’ve been watching, it’s very flawed but we love it, is called All For Mankind.
Rebecca Ching: Love.
Jennifer Louden: It’s on Apple TV+.
Rebecca Ching: Love. My husband and I love it.
Jennifer Louden: Love that show! It’s so flawed. There are so many plot holes that are completely unlikely, but I am riveted by it.
1:02:07
Rebecca Ching: My husband’s a historian, and so, it’s been really fun.
Jennifer Louden: Oh, he loves the alternative history!
Rebecca Ching: Exactly, and the political stuff I’m always — and it’s so well done. Yeah, particularly the first two seasons. So I love that you love that.
Jennifer Louden: Yeah, we’re in season three right now. It’s getting a little wonky.
Rebecca Ching: Yeah.
Jennifer Louden: And then there’s a British film we just watched. I think it’s called Wicked Little Letters.
Rebecca Ching: Ooh!
Jennifer Louden: I’m not sure. It’s got Olivia Coleman in it, and it was really good.
Rebecca Ching: Okay, I’ll check that one out. What is your favorite eighties piece of pop culture?
Jennifer Louden: I could not remember anything.
Rebecca Ching: How about seventies then, or any decade that you really identify with.
Jennifer Louden: Okay, well, seventies it would have been The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
Rebecca Ching: Gosh! So I’m from Minneapolis, so the hat moment where she throws the hat, that’s downtown Minneapolis! I love it. Love it! What is your mantra right now?
Jennifer Louden: Eyes on your own paper.
Rebecca Ching: Ooh, that’s a good one on so many levels, literally and figuratively. What’s an unpopular opinion that you hold?
Jennifer Louden: That Joe Biden should stay in the race.
Rebecca Ching: Who or what inspires you to be a better leader and human?
Jennifer Louden: You know, I think really I’d have to say almost everybody does. I just find people so astonishing. But I’m really impressed these days with my husband and my daughter. My husband works in large-scale conservation.
Rebecca Ching: Oh, wow!
Jennifer Louden: And he’s just doing some really cool work that is having a real impact, and it’s incredible to watch. And my kid is a pediatric social worker.
Rebecca Ching: Oh, wow. Incredible.
Jennifer Louden: Yeah, so she’s about to take this new job, and this is the text I got from her today: “Do you think it won’t be challenging enough?” Because she’s been in the emergency room. And we’re like, “Could it be all right if it wasn’t challenging enough for a year or two? [Laughs] Like maybe you could date?” [Laughs]
Rebecca Ching: Oh, gosh, yeah. I’m working with my kids on boredom right now. I’m like, “Boredom isn’t all bad. We’ve got to find a little healthy dose of it. It’s not all bad. We don’t have to fill up everything.”
1:04:04
Jennifer Louden: Yes. Yeah, a lot of times when I’m driving and I get that boredom feeling and I want to turn on a podcast, I’m like, “No, let’s drive without anything on.”
Rebecca Ching: Yeah.
Jennifer Louden: Yeah. Silence.
Rebecca Ching: Jen, where can people connect with you, your work, your writing?
Jennifer Louden: You can connect with sort of the world of Jennifer at www.jenniferlouden.com, and then if you want to connect with It’s Not Too Late, it’s over on Substack. And I think if you search “Jen Louden Substack” it’ll come right up.
Rebecca Ching: Awesome, and we’re gonna make sure to link to all of that too, including where to buy your book. So thank you!
Jennifer Louden: Yeah, Why Bother’s available widely!
Rebecca Ching: Jen, thank you so much for coming on the show. It’s a real honor. I just feel like this conversation was medicine for me, and I have a feeling it’s gonna be medicine for a lot of people. So thank you so much for your time and for who you are. I really appreciate you!
Jennifer Louden: I appreciate you too, Rebecca. Thank you!
Rebecca Ching: Before you go, I want to make sure you have some takeaways and key learnings from this wonderful Unburdened Leader conversation with Jen Louden. Jen talked about how we own facedown moments inspired her book Why Bother and how writing it led her to flip the script on “why bother” from cynicism to generative curiosity, and I love how Jen walks us through an approach to hard falls, fear, and failure that does not emotionally or spiritually bypass but instead encourages us to work through our pain with radical honesty.
Jen reminded us that feelings of despair can take us out but how we move through our “why bother”s can help us chart the usually very windy path forward. I’m curious for you, when “why bother” crosses your mind, how does your system process? How do you discover what your limits are, and how can you turn this question from despair to a generative curiosity?
1:06:05
And how can you respond differently when you feel like saying “why bother”? And how can you hold space for yourself and others to move from stuck, like a stuck “why bother” or “it’s too late,” to a more sustainable action? And what will support your curiosity over reactivity instead of feeling dread and overwhelm?
Yeah, cynicism, especially in times of stress and uncertainty, can feel like a wall between us and hope, but acknowledging its roots, regulating our nervous system, reconnecting with purpose and taking small, intentional steps forward we can move through the mindset of the negative despair “why bother” and re-engage with imagination, creativity, and possibility. Now, being in leadership doesn’t mean we never face cynicism. It just means we have to learn to navigate it with curiosity, connection, and a healthy resilience, and this is the ongoing work of an Unburdened Leader.
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Thank you so much for joining this episode of The Unburdened Leader. You can find this episode, show notes, free Unburdened Leader resources, and ways to sign up for the Unburdened Leader email, along with ways to work with me at www.rebeccaching.com.
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