The Entrepreneur DNA - How to Lead Through Disruption: The Human Connection Strategy Nobody Talks About | Jen Marr

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

Get Jen's book 'Lifting Up' and 'Showing Up' on Amazon today! --- In this episode, I sit down with Jen Marr — Human Disruption Specialist, author of Lifting Up and Showing Up, and founder of the organization Showing Up — who brings one of the most extraordinary and hard-earned perspectives on leadership I've ever encountered. Jen shares how being just 700 yards from the finish line during the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, combined with her frontline support work after the Sandy Hook school shooting, gave her a transformational understanding of how humans navigate disruption, trauma, and change — and how those exact same principles apply to every entrepreneur and leader running a company today. We dig into why most organizations get communication wrong, why AI will never replace human-to-human connection, and why the cortisol flooding your team's bodies every day can only be overpowered by oxytocin — the bonding hormone that's triggered when a leader genuinely says, "I've got your back." Jen walks us through her "fast and frequent one-on-one" framework, how to handle the emotional overwhelm of employees without becoming their therapist, the growing crisis of "fear of taking part" in Gen Z workers, and how native analogs and native digitals can bridge the workplace communication gap. If you lead a team of any size, this conversation will fundamentally change how you show up for the people around you. Connect with Jen Marr Website: jenmarr.com Organization: showing-up.com Email: [e-mail] LinkedIn: Jen Marr About Justin: Justin Colby is the host of The Entrepreneur DNA and The Science of Flipping podcasts and a best-selling author. He is a serial entrepreneur with over and a seasoned real estate investor with over 20 years of experience. Driven by a passion to help entrepreneurs thrive, Justin created the Entrepreneur DNA community to support business owners in building wealth, systems, and long-term freedom. Through his podcasts, books, education platforms, and hands-on mentorship, he continues to help entrepreneurs scale with clarity and confidence. Connect with Justin: Instagram: @thejustincolby YouTube: Justin Colby TikTok: @justincolbytsof LinkedIn: Justin Colby Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What is up? The entrepreneur DNA family. This is a good one. I have a special, special guest here. This is one who is, she's a true gem to all human beings and you're going to want to stay on. We have a human disruption specialist who not only was 700 yards, I believe, from finishing the Boston Marathon before the bombing hits. She was in the bombing, literally running the marathon. And then also leaned on that experience to help adults. you know, companies, children through the Sandy Hook shooting. And she is now focusing on very high-level leadership with the adult world, the entrepreneurial world, to help us through disruption. Jen Mars here.

How are you? Hey, thank you, Justin. I'm so excited to be here. I can't wait for this conversation. Yeah, me too. This is something you have a very unique lens on this. You started with your need and then your awareness of the need you were needing. during the Boston bombing during the marathon.

And then you took that and you became aware of what you were looking for and what you needed to get through it. And you said, okay, I can actually go out there and be a light in this space and tragedies and just such disruptions as the Sandy Hook shooting. You can lead the charge and help adults, help family members, help parents,

help companies, understand how to get through this. So let's start there. When tragedy strikes, what's the first thing that you think of? what's the first concept that goes through your head? Well, I think what you're talking about, these two events were so intertwined. And actually, I was in Sandy Hook right as I was prepping for the Boston Marathon. So I was running to get over what I was dealing with every week in the Sandy Hook School.

And so, you know, when you are there as a support and imagine that Sandy Hook here was, you know, 21st graders lost their lives and six staff members. The school was just, it had to move locations. So what's on your mind every day is just what now? What's next? What do we do today? And literally, that's all we could do is house today. And that simple line works in any case still to this day is one foot in front of the other one day and just literally making sure someone feels seen and valued and acknowledged. And a simple line like, How's Today? Opens the door if someone wants to say, live in the dream or sometimes not a high percentage, but there are those days that they need it that they'll say, you know, it's not such a great day. Do you have a second? But each of those little moments builds up the trust that's needed in order to take that next step forward. How's today? You know, it sounds so simple. So simple. How's today? How's the day? Is that

something you actively go around saying in your every day to day because I feel like it would be very meaningful for someone. You know, I just saw, I want to say it was Gary Vee just made a post about there's all these people walking a normal city street, right? And I think it was in New York and they have all these little problems and you have no idea what they're going through. They're just walking. Maybe a smile on their face, maybe not. How meaningful is that question? Do you go about your day kind of saying, how's your day? Well, it's what I train. And I mean, I'm sure we'll get into the story. But, you know, I think the better question now, especially for leadership, is how can I best support you today? What do you need? And it's, it's the recognition that everybody's in the thick of it at some point. And the two main issues we have in any organization is number one, communication's bad. And number two, nobody has time for anything. And so when you break down communication being bad and there's no time for anything, what's happening with human disruption is. is it gets more disrupted because people tend to look to their screens and I'll just send

another email, I'll just send a text. And when that human to human element, when there's no space for that, those human problems grow and grow and grow. And whereas if you can just tackle them a little conversation at a time, not only do they not grow, but you end up saving time because you're, you get ahead of the game. What would be one thing that the entrepreneurs these days need to focus on whether they're in leadership or even just they're running a business. How do they navigate when things go wrong specifically with other people? Well, first of all, to recognize, you know, when we work with organizations, we start by a discovery process of what are your key pain points? And honestly, time and communication are always way up there. And so you have to

understand that once you get to an organizational pain point, the only way through it is by conversation. It's never going to, and in our technologically driven world right now, so much communication has been taken over by screens. And screens is really informing. It's never communicating. You know, you only really communicate with someone when you can see them eye to eye and understand that they understand that you are getting through. Otherwise, like, who really reads emails anymore? It's, they're written by AI and read by AI and reply to by AI. so there's no human and part of it anymore. So it is coming up with these micro moments that leaders can find and take one of the key things,

key foundational skills is what we would say, the fast and frequent one-on-one. So get rid of those old one-hour agenda-driven one-on-ones and have the cadence and a framework and a structure as to how you are constantly checking in with people and making sure that priorities are set and things are in line and not falling through the cracks and you're supporting people through their bottlenecks and overwhelm. So there's two questions I'm going to pose to here. With AI being so prevalent and to your point, everyone leaning into it, like, I'll get it answered through AI, right?

Like, I won't have to really deal with AI. I will deal with it. What is your, what's your biggest suggestion for companies? to overcome the ease of just using AI. Like everyone's just going to lean into it. We're all aware of it. It's everyone in the world is talking about AI this. And you can replace human intelligence, human workers, human everything.

But where is that going to leave businesses? Well, it's such a good point. And I mean, AI is going to have a great role somehow. But I ask people to consider, you know, let's start back at 1900. There's been one revolution after the next, whether we talk about transportation, whether we talk about industrial revolution, whether we talk about healthcare, whether we talk about technology. And in every revolution, it's meant to make our lives easier and save time. And in every single revolution, it is making us more stressed with less time because all of the change ends up falling on the human. And at the end of the day, when you talk about disruption, uncertainty, you know, you might be thinking you're talking about AI, but really what you're solving for is what is the effect. What is the fallout on the human? And so until AI rules the whole world, maybe that's going to happen, but probably not in our lifetime, but at some point, humans are still running the AI machines. Humans still are in front of customers. Humans still have to make food and deliver services.

do things. And so as AI takes over all of those other tasks, it's all going to boil down to how are humans treating humans and growing humans and developing humans in order to make all of these other AI-driven efficiencies work. Where's the fine line that I think leaders and organizations, based around what you just said, coming in having conversations, how can I help you today? Where is this fine line with leaders that some people are going to literally give them all their work and say thanks for asking, here's the things I need help with versus I'm here to help you, but I'm not here to do it for you.

Where's that line drawn? It's such a great question. And I love to, I don't know, are you a football fan? I am. Okay. Well, I am a huge Indiana Hoosiers football fan. My daughter graduated there in sports media. I interviewed Kurt Signetti.

Okay, so I am going to use Kurt Signetti as the example. A true leader holds his team accountable. A true leader like Kurt Signetti, if you go back to any interview he has, he wants to win. But what does he look at his job to do? I got to develop him. I got to develop him. I got to get him ready. I got to help him get to where they are.

I got to know if I've got someone on the injured reserve and who's going to take their place. So I think so often we've got this mentality that if I, you know, if I look to support someone, they're going to take advantage of that, whereas it's the role of the leader to develop them. And a good leader would never allow that. A good leader would just say, what do you need to support? And you know what? Focus on that today. And you want to know something if a good leader has someone overwhelmed that has five,

tasks that need to be done and that person only is capable of doing one, then shame on that leader in the first place. Absolutely. And so it's, it has, it is not about a fear of that. It's about a leader having control of the game. Like, Cartagnetty would never allow that to happen. So I love to be very, and Kurtzignetti is not a warm and fuzzy person, but he is the most, the best example of a supportive leader you could ever find because he developed Fernando

Mendoza in one season. Here was a kid that couldn't even walk on the team they played in the national championship. And he developed him in one year, two, and Heisman Trophy winner. And so that is a supportive leader. I'm going to build you up to your potential. And if at any point, it's my fault that you're overwhelmed, it's on me because I want to create you to be the best version of yourself as I can't. That's ultimately what a leader is. And I think so many people lose sight of that today. geez you know I love football analogy so business in sports to me have so many analogacies I think is the right way of saying that and I think that was a brilliant one

the leader who goes in and says you know how can I support you to do your job I'm not going to do it for you but how can I support you to do what you are expected to do in the role that you have that's a true leader right absolutely now I do believe there's another fine line where's the fine line for leaders in organizations where it becomes an emotional venting session and they become psychologists or psychiatrists versus just a leader? Because as someone who has run organizations and I will have comments and say things and sit down and then next you know I'm like, I don't know if I needed to hear about your marriage and this right, but it's emotionally affecting this individual, which is affecting their ability to perform, right?

So where is this fine line drawn in leadership and organizations? So it doesn't become just you become a psychologist or a psychiatrist. Well, see, this is the whole reason I wrote the book because all of a sudden now these things are happening, right? There's much greater need to talk about mental health. The leader has to know what are the boundaries between being a leader, sending someone to get mental health support or sending them to HR. The simple answer your question is we have complete. supportive conversation guidelines for that. And what we do is train people, well, first of all, train people how to ask for support in the right way. That's a whole other training lane.

But secondly, when someone does come to you for support, your initial conversation, you want to keep it short so it doesn't go into that long drawn-out thing. So you set a time frame ahead of time. And your first session is strictly listening. You are doing nothing but listening. There's exactly the questions you have to ask. You're trying to get the right information out. You're connecting the dots. You're affirming what they said. Is this what you said? You ask them, is there anything that you think you need? And then you say, give me a day. Give me an hour. Give me a week if it's an emotional thing. And I'll come back to you. And then we train that leader how to map out support and go back and have these little quick cadence conversations until that issue is resolved. So you pull the emotion out of it, but you're kind of acting as, you're kind of like acting as an investigator. Like, what do I need to do here? Like, it's not on you to take on the emotion, but it is on you to know, maybe there's, we break it into three areas. One is, who do I know that they should know? Maybe it's someone that's really lonely. And maybe there's an organization I want to introduce them to. That's the first bucket. Who do I want to connect? Or who can I mention? Who do I know that that could help this? individual. Right. The second one would be what internally do we have? You know, most leaders have no idea what's all in the EAP. And EAPs are fully underutilized. And so if a leader can say, hey,

you know, we actually have this great program, people with financial difficulties, hey, do you know, you get a 30-minute free financial coaching session. Here's the number, give them a call. So what do you have internally that you can lean on? And then third, what's your role as a leader? And when you map out that kind of support, it takes the emotion out, just as Kurt Signetti would have to take the emotion out if one of his players sprained his ankle. I don't know if that man has too much emotion. He does. Now, but by the way, it kind of plays into what you're talking about. Right. I do believe today, especially with everything going on in social media, is the emotion gets heightened. And most of the time, at least I believe, it's not reasonable, right? There's no rationale behind. The emotion is pure

emotion for emotion's sake, right? Is I want to fight for something and yell about something for some, for no good reason, except for I want to do it, right? Then you have you who has been in literally like catastrophic scenarios and been through them and then helped with them. And I believe just like the analogy to coach, right, is if you can just remove, there's a great book, you know, um, this is one of my favorite books. I'm blanking.

The obstacle is the way. Sorry, by Ryan Holiday. One of my favorite. Because one of the biggest points, there's a lot of great points there, is this. What you're discussing is remove your emotion. Remove that first and put yourself 30,000 feet above and look at the actual scenario. And if you do that, you'll usually come up with a better answer than when you're in the trenches, emotionally driven. taking grenades, fighting your way out of the firefight. It is an emotional reactive response, right?

I believe that there's this blend of you can't be emotionless, but you can't be driven by emotion. So basically I'm just supporting your point completely is when you go into these conversations with organizations and people, do your best to remove it. Let me ask you directly. What is a human disruption specialist? Well, so I've studied this since those 13 years ago, both at Sandy Hook and Boston. And I started noticing how in the aftermath of a tragedy, people would avoid each other.

Or they would do things like, you know, teachers or parents who lost a child would go into the supermarket and people would walk down the next aisle because they wouldn't know what to say. So you had the avoiders. You know, the other people that are overconfident. And like this town had like 70,000 teddy bears sent to a town of 20,000 people. Like just like, I'm going to send something. Check it off the list. I did something I feel better about myself. And so I learned very quickly that in the face of really upheaval, distress, disruption, we get our human behaviors wrong. And here it kind of the relational dilemma kind of goes in what I would say, 580. And we always survey organizations when we work with them. And so every organization we've ever worked with on all sectors always fall within these 580s, give or take 15%. First is I'm a compassionate and empathetic person and I can tell when someone's going through a hard time.

People rate themselves very highly, which is why when you say, hey, we need to teach empathy or compassion as a leadership skill. People are going to be like, I don't need that. I'm good. you know. But just to stick that point, I believe people aren't. I mean, the person probably the loudest in our space is Gary Vee talking about empathy. He literally branded a wine company, empathy, right?

Wine. Like I don't believe people, like I actually believe women because they actually genuinely, in my opinion, relative to men, have much more empathy naturally. I believe they serve that much more. But I think when talking to men in the business space, I believe, most men will say they have high empathy. And that is, my gut is telling me it is not accurate. They are just saying they're high empathy, but I don't think they are. Right.

But see, so here's the thing. They probably do. They probably go home and have really great friends and family. The issue is they don't, it's not, it's not for the workplace, right? So how you apply it at work is another thing. So these are the relational dilemmas I'm talking about. So people rate themselves very high. But then they'll also say, but no one has any idea what it's like to be me, right?

Like no one has a clue what I'm all dealing with. So that's the second 80%. So, hey, I can see you. No one's seeing me. And then the third one, and we asked, well, do you tell people? No, I'm going to push through this myself. And then we ask, well, do you wish you could? Do you wish you could share more about this in the workplace?

And that's the fourth 80. people want to be able to talk about it. It's not like, you know, the old rules of work or work is work and home is home and I don't bring that stuff in the office. Well, people want to bring it in the office now, which is why leaders are so stressed. Like, what is this? Because then that last 80% is what do I do with that? It's so nuanced. Like, do I talk about it? Do I not? And so how we address that then is since that time at Sandy Hook, as we go back to what we've termed the awkward. And it's a space where we can assess human habits, mindsets, and behaviors that are our blind spots that when we are faced with disruption, we're getting wrong. And so we do things like deflect like that. Not my job, not my place. You know, or we doubt like, oh, I don't, I don't think it's the right time. I don't want to make them more upset. Or we just try to fix it. Or if we're face to face with them, we avoid it. So we have two of the buckets are just in our heads. We talk ourselves out. of doing anything. The other two are when we're face to face and we're getting the behaviors

wrong. And we can help people kind of have a common language of like, that's what I'm doing here. And now I need to do this instead. So it's kind of awareness building with skills that attach to those blind spots. How do people, well, your book probably goes into, first of all, can everyone get your book in Amazon? Yeah, lifting up by Jen Marr. Lifting up. By Jen Marr, two R's, everybody, lifting up. Here it is. Lifting up with the blue arrow by Jen Mar. Amazon lifting up by Jen Mar.

So I want to take two frames here. The woman who is 700 yards from the finish line of the Boston Marathon, what was your need? You were in the middle of it, right? You were the quote unquote victim in this scenario. Yeah, but here's the thing, too, that what I realized was how we get our stress response. wrong because here I was, okay, so not only was I 700 yards, but I was 0.2 miles away, like really close to this 26-mile marker, which is what I had just dedicated to Sandy Hook, right? Because they lost 26 lives in the school. So I didn't even get there. But I was so close to a

spot where so many were injured that I walked away from that. And it was only two hours to find my family. It was very traumatic. Like police saying get out of here. We didn't know if there were more bombs. So it was a very traumatic time. And I did finally find my family two hours later. But see, I thought I was fine. And I think, and what I didn't recognize was what this stress response was doing to my body. And so, you know, I think stress does so much for us. And it clouds our thinking. It, I mean, I just, my thinking was clouded. And I was walking around saying, I'm fine. I was, you know, pushing through like, I'm not injured. I'm okay.

And so of all the things I take away from that, that's what I take away. Because at the time, I didn't think I needed anything because I wasn't hurt. So you were in defensive mode, right? Where you're like, I'm fine, everything's good. I'm fine. I'm fine. Because physically, you're fine. Right.

Where were you not fine? Yeah. I had a friend that came and she said, Jen, I'm going to come stay with you for a couple days. I'm like, why are you doing that? I'm fine. And all of a sudden she's like, you know, the next day she's like, hey, Jen, we got to, I'm going to drive Erica to gymnastics. I'm like, oh, oh, gosh, I didn't think of that. Like, your brain just doesn't work.

So your physical, where you were not fine was mentally. You just had a foggy brain is almost like you wanted to black it out. Was it just like, I want to get rid of this thought. but it just kind of covered over everything? What were you actually physiology? What was your physiology going through? No, it's and I mean, Justin, this is what's happening every day in our organizations because our stress hormone is cortisol.

So cortisol gets flooded into your system. If you hear like, you know, people in the military that have PTSD, it's because they have so much cortisol flooding in their system that it creates these things like foggy brain. It creates, you know, you use. over-eat or under-eat, you sleep or you don't sleep, you know, like all these changes. But foggy brain is a big one. And but that's what's happening with burnout too. And so here's the thing and the science behind why I am so passionate about this. Because the hormone that overpowers cortisol, which is our stress hormone, is oxytocin, which is our human bonding hormone. And what's happening

too often today is people are looking for the quick dopamine hit because dopamine also you want to like you want to see if you've got a new notification or you want to play a game or you want to see if somebody commented on your your post you just want to self-soothe yourself through the stress but dopamine is a quick hit like oh I'll feel good for a second but it doesn't overpower the stress whereas it's the human. It's when a human will say, I got your back. You're not in this alone. What do you need today?

I'm here to walk you through it. That is what will overpower the cortisol, which is why I am so passionate about this work, because it also is baked into our wiring. And too many people are self-soothing, and our screens allow us to go into our very favorite new self-intertained thing. What we need is to sit down with someone and just bent it and have someone say, hey, I got you back.

When you are going through Sandy Hook and you take the principles that are in your book, lift up, right? Lift up, Jen Marr. And someone has the response that you had to your friend, right? No, I'm okay. And you're sitting here on the outside saying, no, I know, I know you are. not. Right. How can you, as the person on the outside, saying, how can I help you today? How are you patient with the person who's going to be defensive, not in a bad way, but defensive holding up this like,

no, I'm okay. I got this. All good. Like, how do you be patient with that? How do you soothe? How do you be there for someone who says you don't need to be here for me? Yeah. Well, I think it, first of all, it depends upon how well you know that person and what your relationship with them is, right? that was a dear friend of mine and a very dear friend of our family. She knew my girls. She's a nurse practitioner. She knew what I was going to be going through. And she knew my family well enough that she could step in and drive my daughter to gymnastics. That's a very special relationship. When I was at Sandy Hook, that's what I faced every day. Right. And so my goal in that is just to build that trust. Just say, hey, I'm here if you need anything. You know,

Is it a teacher that just needed a break from the classroom and I could come in and step in? Is it a teacher that needed help with a student? Whatever it was, you know, I think as a leader, you do have a certain responsibility for someone that's in the thick of it. Because you can make or break their health at that point. And so if you see their work slipping or you know they're going through something, it is your job to sit down and say, hey, share them with me what's on your plate. what do you got? What can you do today? What do you know? What do you need? Like, that is a leader's role. It's not prying. You're not asking what's all going on in their life, but you're asking, look, what do you need? What's all on your plate? And I guarantee you there's 10 things they're

stressing about not getting done that you could say, hey, just put those on hold for a second. Let's focus on this one thing. And giving them permission not to worry about all the things they're worried about makes a very big difference in someone's ability to sleep at night. I'm literally taking notes because this is so good. I just think about my organization. And you know, you at this point are working with who are you working? I mean, you're working from the smaller organizations, but you're also working with very large companies that have really probably much bigger issues. But who are you working with right now? Well, I'm working with some organizations that I can't say I'm working with. Like as a man, I was hoping. I was hoping.

I was open. We baseball team because there are just rules with that. But, you know, look, I've worked with leaders from Microsoft. I've worked with nursing leaders for the HCA health care. I've worked with law firms. I've worked with college campuses. And the things are all the same. The problems are all the same because human disruption is all the same right now.

And I'll tell you one of the biggest hot button issues, is the generational differences. And it is those that, I mean, I talk about this a lot in my book because I saw it with, I talk, do a thread through of my daughter, Audrey, who just graduated college. And Audrey was the first generation with the smartphone. Her two older sisters still had phone phones. So the two older sisters still had, they had to make friends voice to voice face to face. And it wasn't until like they were in high school going into college that, you know, Facebook and, you know, Instagram became a thing. And so the difference between those two generations or those two years is massive. And I don't think organizations even understand yet. I call,

so recent college graduates like last year down, like that's the guinea pig generation. These people are terrified of face-to-face conversations. They want to do everything on screens. And leaders in the workplace are so unsure, number one, what to make of that. Number two, how do I talk to them? Number three, I have to recognize that these guys don't know how to network. They're not going to want to speak up in a meeting. I have to pull that out of them. I have to develop them into that. It's my job to develop that. And I think if our generation, grew up, we call them Native analogs. We're the Native analogs. They're the Native Digitals. If Native analogs can say, okay, we got to develop these guys. We put screens in

their hand. It's not their fault. But you know what? They can teach us a lot too. And so it becomes supportive on both sides. That's how we're going to get through this phase. But too many Gen X and Baby Boomer leaders are like, hey, suck it up. Come on. I had to deal with that when I was your age. And they just have no idea how different it is. And they're not taking into account what it was like for the Audries of the world to grow up with a smartphone when us parents were clueless of what it was doing, just like we can text each other. This is cool. I can talk to you all day, you know, clueless. So talk to the baby boomer right now. You own a company, you're running a company, you're a C-suite individual and you're frustrated all the time. What is a piece of

advice you're going to talk to that individual about? You have no, I what it's like to be them. You just don't. They look at the world different. They look at how they communicate different. And they are they, I love this generation. I think Gen Z and Gen. F is too early yet, but I think Gen Z is the most compassionate, innovative generation ever. And I think if we can get them networked and if we can see, you know, here's the thing about this younger generation. I'll tell you a few things. Number one, they want. They don't want guidance. They don't want direction. They don't just want a task-driven leader, like do these five things today. They want to know why am I doing these things and who should I be doing them with and who are these people doing these jobs? And what's my role in that? That's number one. Number two, they don't want to really be leaders themselves. So we're leaning towards moving to a very difficult situation. They've seen their parents go through all the crises of the world and they're like, I don't want to lead people. They don't even like talking to people. Why would they want to lead them? Which leads to the third thing that every baby boomer parents should know is that we used to think of FOMO, right?

Fear of missing out. You know what it is now? What? Fear of taking part. Which is why you hear of so many people that don't want to stop remote working, they're afraid to come into corporate events because the social anxiety is so high. Like, I don't know what to say. I don't know them. 75% of kids on college campuses right now, we found are lonely.

And so if they're lonely and if they're lonely and they're on their screens all their time, what motivation do they have to want to come in and do a corporate networking event where they don't know anybody? Imagine how much harder it is for them than us and we find that awkward. Yeah. So that's what we have to take in mind. We have to look at this generation totally different and we have to nurture and support them, which is why we have to lift them up. That's why I'm so passionate about it.

And I say it's the transformative power of supportive leadership. We have to support them. We got to develop them. And also pull out all of their amazing skills that they can teach us. And so it's a different world. It is definitely a different world. You said something that I wrote down, fear of taking part. I see it, like as you say, I can see it in my own organizations, right?

everything COVID started this whole world of you know Zoom calls everything and you know when you ask someone to meet and whatever it becomes like they're like uh-huh and I'm like what what happened to just going back to like hey let's have a meeting in an office and doing X Y and Z it is I find it to be very I'm a I'm a older parent and while we're talking to entrepreneurs I think there's a lot of this that goes into parenting as well right because even my younger children who don't have cell phones, they're young, right, two and five years old, making sure that they're a part of the family in the same way that I was, right? The dinners, the engagements, it's not always screen time. You can't hide behind things. Talk to me about your thought, philosophy, ideology

around fear of judgment. I think everybody has a fear of judgment to a certain extent. And I think the only way around that is, you know, I kind of think of everyone that I made is an empty piggy bank. And what I need to be able to do is put relational deposits into that piggy bank. And the more that piggy bank is full, we won't have judgment anymore because we'll know each other. And so I have to just start just putting deposits in there. Hey, how's today? What can I do? What's going on? You want to grab a cup of coffee? You want to go for a walk? Just little, simple relational exchanges, whether it's a text, whether it's whatever. And I think when we lean into just knowing that everyone around us is in the thick of it and we want to be supportive to each other, that's what's going to develop our relationships the most.

And that's when judgment goes away. Because at the end of the day, that's what I learned at Sandy Hook. I didn't care if they were for gun control or not for gun control. I didn't care if they wanted to start a butterfly garden in response to losing a child or whether they wanted to storm Washington and fight for new gun laws. I didn't care. I cared that I was there to help them get through that day. And so if we can just have that focus,

then all of a sudden you don't you don't judge people because you just want to help them get through the day. And granted, everybody's different. Some people really great on you. It's a lot easier for some people than others. It's a lot easier in some organizations than others. But there are some very basic human foundational rules that if we follow, we can make work a lot more comfortable and fulfilling than it is right now. Yeah, I think, you know, people's fear of being judge also, to me, outwardly, I see them not actually living up to their potential.

And, you know, again, what did you call us? The analog, we're the analog group or, like, I just look at that as borderline silly. I'm like, you have all this potential, but you're limiting your own self. Not because of me, because you don't want to, you know, maybe do it right, maybe do it wrong, have some. some level of judgment. So it's easier to hide behind the computer, lean into AI doing the thing versus you grabbing the bulls by the horns, right, and doing it and living to that full potential because I think there's a lot of people who want or would be potentially deserving of raises, of being promoted. But they hide. They hide behind it. Yeah, exactly. You got to learn how to seek

that support. Yeah. You know, there's no distinct phenomenon that I find, and I know you'll relate to this as well. But, you know, so us native analogs, we grew up in silence. Like, if you think about it,

we had to walk around with nothing. Like, and so we would break that silence with stupid small talk, right? Like if we're walking out of college campus, like what dorm you in, where are you going next? Who's your professor? Like, silly small talk.

that has all gone away. Oh, yeah. And so us native analogs, we just want to talk. Like we're like, hey, you know, what's going on, this and that? Native digitals are not like that. And so what I see in the workplace sometimes, and I guess which is what I would, my last comment to native or to baby boomers in Gen X is sometimes what we view as just wanting to have a conversation, native.

Digitals will view it as a confrontation. Like, why are you asking me that? Like, you didn't prepare me for that. Like, or like in a team meeting like, hey, Justin, what do you think? And you weren't expecting me to ask you something after the meeting. A lot of times those native digitals will come back and say, you completely caught me off guard. Why didn't you tell me you were going to call on me in the meeting? You're like, I was just having conversation.

Yeah. And so it's that. It's all. How do we overcome that? Because again, this to me, when you say that, I think so silly. I go, what? Like, you know, it's one of those things. Like, if someone came up to me, like, you embarrassed me, you caught me off guard.

And I wasn't, what? Like, I just asked you what you think. It's your thought. Not like, what? Like, how do we, because it would be frustrating as a leader to ask someone. What do you think about the thing? And they come back at me later, emotionally driven. I caught them off guard.

I embarrassed them. I did all these. I didn't do anything. I asked you to have thought and verbalize your thought. Right. And so from there on that would be an expectation. Correct. Is, you know, Justin, look, we're having conversation pre-meeting.

It's not to put you on the spot. But I really want to help you develop these real-time conversation skills. We have to know how to have spontaneous dialogue with each other. And so it's up to me to develop you into that. If you're not comfortable, come and tell me after. but I want to see you have confidence in these skills when we're in a meeting. And these are things then that you would bring up in your fast and frequent one-on-one. Like how was it last time, Justin?

Was that question, okay, maybe next week, you know, you can ask the question. And when you look at it as like, I got to develop them. I want them to be at their best. Then that's being supportive. And then that's how you're going to get these native digital. a little more comfortable with Spont. How often do you advise the fast and frequent one-on-ones? Oh, it's foundational.

It's one of our foundational skills. So time-wise. So if I'm supposed to have it with Jen Marr, how often would I be saying, hey, Jen, we're going to be meeting every other day. We want to just get, you know, how often does that pattern go? Well, at least once a week. Sometimes if you're in a real bottleneck, it can be every other day. Sure. It really is it's up to the situation. But on an ongoing cadence, when things are normal, you would want to have one every week. When things get really bottlenecked, you might need them more frequently. They might take longer than 10 minutes. But what we want to try to tell leaders is, look, this is not a huge time block. But if you do it right, that time block is going to save you so many. And you'll find that your cadence of getting the time block. And you'll find that your cadence of getting.

things done is better because so many times with overwhelm, the team is just not aligned and everyone is off in their own direction. And the leader is not fully aware of what people think their priorities are. And you might have like this really critical thing on the bottom of somebody's list. And it's going to take you just two minutes to uncover like, hey, you know what, let's move that to the top. And this thing you're working on, let's save that till next week. And it's just juggling. It's just the same as a coach would do. Are there any pivotal questions that you would suggest leaders have in these conversations? You've given us too, right?

How can I most help you today? Or what can I most help you with? Well, it's more a process. And when we train it, there is a process. But you want to absolutely have a visibility of everything on someone's plate. And you want to ask them what's most important to you this week? What do you think is most important? What's keeping you up at night?

Is anything getting the way of these things not getting done? Those are just the basic kind of conversations. And those are just super supportive questions that show that person that, okay, they've got my back. They're going to help me through this. And then permissioning is a big thing too, not that I'm loving that word, but it's a good word for it. But like, you only need to focus on this thing today. Like, just focus on that. And let's touch base tomorrow on everything else.

If it's really in a severe overwhelmed bottleneck, it gets down to that simple. because when somebody's overwhelmed, they, just like I was saying, their stress is clouding their brain, they can't see it themselves. And give them permission to only focus on the one thing, not the 12 things. Yeah. So when people want to reach out to you, where can they find you? Where can they go? If they want to start working with you with their leadership groups, let them know where to go find you. Yeah.

Well, I have my own speaking website, which is learning more about me, which is genmar.com, J-E-N-M-R-R.com. Also links to my organization site. My organization is called Showing Up. And that website is showing dash up.com. And so all of our work, all our workshops, we certified trainers to take this workout. We do workshops. And really, it's all skills around getting people through disruption, uncertainty, and change. And getting through that awkward zone.

So lots of ways to tackle it. Two books, programs. And yeah, love to chat too. Reach out. Yeah, please do. Two books. You have lifting up, which we saw. Do you have another copy of your other book?

Oh, yes. Showing up is the first one. It's more than. Showing up and lifting up. Both on Amazon. And they are both on Amazon. I love that. War would be a great place.

Someone to directly connect with you, whether it be LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook. I mean on LinkedIn, Jen Mar. My Facebook was hacked. I'm rebuilding it. So really frustrating. But yeah, I've really focused mostly on LinkedIn. So find me there, Jen Mar. And you can email me, Jen at showing dash up.com. That's amazing. That is Jen Mar. The book is lifting up and showing up. This has been the entrepreneur DNA. I am Justin Colby. If you think someone should hear what Jen is talking about, make sure you share it with at least two of your friends. We'll see you on the next episode. Thanks, Justin.