Shake it Off
Why should we sometimes learn to shake it off? In this episode of Incorporating Superpowers, host Justin Recla and guest Betsy Cerulo talk about the perspective from a new angle. Betsy, an author, wrote the book Shake It Off Leadership-Achieving Success Through the Eyes of our Labels. She advocates for workplace excellence and equality, and serving the community makes her soul alive. After years of being a business coach and executive, she considers herself a voice for people who need proper compensation and workplace recognition. Tune in to know more about workplace diversity and equity and what it means to shake it off!
Justin Recla:
Walking back to Incorporating Superpowers. Today, we’re gonna take a look through the looking glass, and some things that we all deal with, some things that we all face, and that’s labels. How do we get through life with all the labels that are constantly being put upon us, people we don’t even know? By people who don’t even know us. What does that look like in organizations nowadays with so much divisiveness to what life looks like and what we think it should look like, that we’ve got into the place of labeling others in such a manner that makes us feel better about ourselves with no consideration as to what it does to other tribes? My guest today just happens to be an expert in this. He’s written a book called Shake It Off Leadership, and we’re gonna talk about this in-depth day. Please help me welcome my guest, Betsy Cerulo, who is the CEO, an accountant, and is moving in a Shake it Off with her book, her message, and helping others shake off the lines so they can show up fully in life and in business, but she wants me to show in there.
Betsy Cerulo:
Thank you. And it’s really wonderful to be here and thank you for having me.
Justin Recla:
This is gonna be a fun conversation. So let’s talk about the book for a second, and can look at the concept of labels nowadays, it is so amazing. And prior to the show, we were talking a lot, and I’m just gonna be just in true authenticity and transparency here, is that just recently as a father, this concept of labels is something that can be very difficult to deal with and manage when you’re raising a young person. To see it for what it is and what it does and how the label just is designed to tear down relationships in tear apart humanity is troubling, or 12-year-olds come out as queer, we love her, we support her, we see her, we know her when we’ve known this about her forever in a day. It’s not even a thing. It is what it is, we get it, and we understand it. There’s no label there because it just is, right? It’s Neva, right? It’s just a, and she’s got her own podcast, so call it Leave it to Neva, I’m certain she could love to have a conversation with you. What about this? Because she’s passionate about it, and when we were talking about the show, I was like, Okay, where am I tapping in this? Where am I finding this in this?
So thank you for that gift and allow me to find myself in your work because it’s important, so talk to me about your experience with Shake It Off and labels and let’s just dive down the rabbit hole, finalize, and then we’ll continue from there.
Betsy Cerulo:
Sounds good. Well, I’m certainly having a long career, I’ve had to shake off a lot of things, a lot of labels in my life, and some of those labels help me back when I was younger because I think where the world was at in the 1980s, when I came out as a lesbian and just in general, not conforming to the way my family wanted me to be. You just didn’t grow up in this largely Roman Catholic Italian family that had a middle brother who was a priest, and I loved him, he was one of my best friends, you just don’t have, you don’t rock the… Why don’t I rock the boat? You just don’t… And so I had to learn how to shake off a lot of disappointment, and sometimes my wife and I talk and I say, Well, I wish I have the wisdom 40 years ago, 30-some years ago, to say to my mother, “Hey, this is the way it is and if you don’t like it, then you’re gonna have to figure it out”. But I acquiesced a lot, I coward a lot, and I certainly think, Oh, not the same person I was then, but it was difficult, and I do, and I so applaud you and how you are with Neva because there’s no concrete for her to get through. It’s a smooth path of discovery and my life might have turned out a little different, it might not have if I have that constant support from the beginning, but this is what I have and I’m stronger for it today.
Justin Recla:
You can walk in your path, you’ve been on that, and I think ultimately, from childhood on, that’s open, our goal as parents is to allow our children to walk our path and not get lost in it. We’ve gotten caught up in thinking that what our kids say, what they mean about us, or what people label. We think they assist us, when if we just teach our kids not to take on the labels in the first place, and recognize that they’re loved. It’s for who they are, right? It’s only in the devices that we go to labels to defend our way of being because we’re scared and we’re not confident in our own thoughts, so I wanna dive into this further because this you are. You have so much information to share in this space, and I wanna get it to the listeners before we go on break, where can people go find more information about you?
Betsy Cerulo:
So two places, if you wanna know more about the book, my website is BetsyCerulo.com, and there is a free downloadable workbook that you can take a look at, it’s got some good exercise in it. As an introduction to the book, you can also purchase my books there, if you wanna know about the company that I found, and I run at that accountant, you can go to AdNetP3.com.
Justin Recla:
Fantastic folks, stick around because we’re gonna dive down this rabbit hole away and just peel back layers as to what this means, how it’s showing up in the world today, and if you’re seeing it in your reality, what you can do. So the steps that you can take to manage through the process of Shake it Off Leadership. Stay tuned, we’ll be right back.
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