Get ready for a heart-to-heart with our guest, Mary Liflin, as she explores her journey toward healthy leadership and the powerful role that coaching played in her transformation. Uncover the raw emotions and revelations from an executive retreat that was a turning point for Mary, thanks to the unyielding support of her CEO.
Our conversation takes a deep dive into the world of coaching sessions, where Mary discovered her strengths and opportunities that led her to become a stronger leader.
Join us as we:
Don’t miss this enlightening episode packed with relatable stories, empowering lessons, and the transformative power of coaching. You'll not only learn about Mary's inspiring journey but also about the strength in asking for help, which can potentially make you a better leader.
You can connect with Mary:
LinkedIn: Mary Lifland
Website: CAN Community Health
Thank you for listening.
Connect with Chart to Heart:
Website: https://www.charttoheart.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/73198543/admin/
Instagram: @chart2heart
Connect with John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrjohnhenryscott/
Connect with Portia on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/portia-r-scott-7753923a/
Get ready for a heart-to-heart with our guest, Mary Liflin, as she explores her journey toward healthy leadership and the powerful role that coaching played in her transformation. Uncover the raw emotions and revelations from an executive retreat that was a turning point for Mary, thanks to the unyielding support of her CEO.
Our conversation takes a deep dive into the world of coaching sessions, where Mary discovered her strengths and opportunities that led her to become a stronger leader.
Join us as we:
Don’t miss this enlightening episode packed with relatable stories, empowering lessons, and the transformative power of coaching. You'll not only learn about Mary's inspiring journey but also about the strength in asking for help, which can potentially make you a better leader.
You can connect with Mary:
LinkedIn: Mary Lifland
Website: CAN Community Health
Thank you for listening.
Connect with Chart to Heart:
Website: https://www.charttoheart.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/73198543/admin/
Instagram: @chart2heart
Connect with John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrjohnhenryscott/
Connect with Portia on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/portia-r-scott-7753923a/
It felt so good to be moving towards a healthy place and just to go back to healthy leaders. I'm a CFO of the organization. If I'm not healthy, that's not good, you know, and I take that responsibility very seriously. So when I identified it and when I knew I had to do something about it, I felt very empowered to go to Rishi, my current CEO, and say this is what I need to be healthy, and felt even better when he said absolutely.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to the Chart to Heart podcast with your host, john Henry, and Portia Scott.
Speaker 3:Through the lenses of stories, interviews, principles and best practices, we will discover the glue that connects the dots between business and people.
Speaker 2:Hello, darling, and welcome back to the Chart to Heart podcast. This week I am joined by my co-host, john Henry Scott. Finally, after traveling for weeks on in months on in, he is back. He's been serving our clients around the US from east to west, north to south. I'm glad to have him back sitting in the chair next to me on this podcast. So, john Henry how do you feel about being back?
Speaker 3:I feel great to be back for all of the remaining three days that I am. I'm back before I'm back on the road, but it feels super good. I'm great for the see you hey.
Speaker 2:Hey. So I'm super excited about our next guest. Listen, she is just an amazing woman. I got to meet her Was it February, march in person of this year, but she was recognized as the 2023 business woman of the year as well as the 2023 CFO of the year for the Tampa Bay Business Journal. She was raised in Bradenton, florida, and a university of South Florida graduate. She is the mother to her beautiful and amazing daughter, riley. Mary is currently the executive vice president and chief financial officer at Can Community Health, where they are doing incredible, incredible work. When she isn't executing or winning awards or doing all the great business stuff, she is winning mom of the year to that beautiful girl and daughter, riley.
Speaker 2:So, will you all just help me welcome Mary Liflin to the podcast. Mary, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me. What an amazing introduction. Thank you, I'm so happy to be here, so excited to be here with you, portia, and John Henry, just very excited yeah.
Speaker 2:So I will let John Henry kind of take over a little bit, because he and Mary have developed this amazing relationship, amazing coaching, but also this friendship, and so I will let him kind of introduce her in his way and then let him go in and take on the podcast, this episode. So, john Henry, you're up.
Speaker 3:Awesome, everybody. Mary, so good to see you. It's good. You know, it's funny because we hadn't spoken. We touched base yesterday but before I mean, it's been like two months You've been doing stuff, I've been doing stuff, and so yesterday when I chatted with you and obviously we get our text going back and forth but it made me think about our relationship Right. Initially started out just through a coaching relationship. It's my belief that very soon thereafter, after a couple of weeks, there's this affinity that happened and we just begin to connect right, and so when I think about my friends, you're right there, and so it's a joy just to have you on the podcast and it's a joy just to see you.
Speaker 1:Back at you, back at you these last two months. I've missed you, I know.
Speaker 3:Too much for a long time, I'm like.
Speaker 1:John Henry time, I know. But, yeah, definitely more than a coaching relationship. We developed a pretty solid friendship as well. So, absolutely, I'm happy to be here with you guys.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's great. Let's chat about how we initially connected and so I started working with can back in 2021. It was the summer of 2021. And I came in and facilitated the two day executive retreat and we were in Orlando and it was in a full and powerful and purposeful and it's my belief that I don't think anyone of the members of the executive team expected to have the experience that we had in that event. What you talk about, that, what wouldn't you, what stood out to you and what, what resonated with you from that initial experience that we had.
Speaker 1:So that specific retreat was following a very traumatic, tumultuous event in our organization and we just transitioned from one CEO and we had an interim CEO, and the retreat was really more less of strategy and planning but more of like a healing.
Speaker 1:There was a lot that had happened with the former CEO that included some things that fell really hard and deep with me in my position and my history at Kean. And so that retreat was so impactful, I think, for me because I don't think a lot of the other executive team members really knew or understood what had transpired over the last few years, and so it was so important to have someone there that could lead us through it, because it wasn't your typical business executive retreat. There was a lot of emotion, it was very powerful, and so when John Henry came in, I didn't know who John Henry was, I had no idea. He stood up there and really read the room and I don't think you even really realized what you were walking into in that moment. But it was so impactful, I think, to our team just that weekend, but even more so for me because it started some wheels turning that I didn't know needed to be turned. So that was an amazing weekend.
Speaker 1:That was my first experience with you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks very much for sharing that, and you know, there's one of the things that I try to do is I try to meet our clients where they are and those people that we are so fortunate and so blessed to serve where they are. We can plan and we had an agenda and we had a plan, but when we got there to your point, it was important to understand the post of the room and to be able to be gentle and careful and empathetic, but then also extremely intentional and leading the team on a journey, and I think that that's really what that was. That was on a journey and obviously it's two years later this month. It's two years later this month and we can look back and I mean, what a journey. I look back at that and I was so grateful and so fortunate to have been invited back several times since then. Right, I came back and did two events in 2022, came back again at the beginning of the year and bought the better Scott with me, portia Scott and even serving the teams over just those different experiences.
Speaker 3:We were in Ebor. Is it Ebor? It was Ebor, ebor. We were in Ebor and I remember we were having a meal and just some social time on the rooftop place and I may have mentioned something. I don't really recall. I mentioned something and all I know is the next week I got an email from you about one on one coaching. Can you bring our listeners yourself to speak? Bring us back into that moment.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, Ebor was what our second retreat with you, yeah yeah. So you had walked us through, like I said, the tumultuous time that we had with the transition of the CEO and you knew what my experiences were. And so in that second retreat we spent the first day kind of touching back on some of what we had discussed in the first retreat. And I think, because you hit on some things and just bringing it up in discussion, that I realized that I had some work to do professionally and personally to get past what had happened. And so I think for me I felt comfortable with you because I didn't have to repeat the story over again and when we were on that rooftop, you just very casually said you know, if you want some help, you know working past this, I think I could help you with that. And I immediately said I had already been thinking it in my head too. I had already said to myself this is someone that I think really understands what I went through and can help me get to where I know I need to go.
Speaker 1:I kept going backwards and I needed to move forward, and so when you mentioned that and I had already been thinking it, I went to, you know my current CEO at the time and I said I really want to do this. I think can. My company needs to invest in this for me, because I need to be a healthy leader, I need to move forward from all of this and I think John Henry is the person to help me do that. And I had made that decision and it was very clear to me. So when I reached out to you, I was hoping you were going to have the time, because I know that schedule of yours is so packed. So I was very happy when the answer was yes, and I think we started on that Friday and I'll never forget that first session one-on-one with you. Man, that was something that was special.
Speaker 3:So very special. Yeah, I remember that first session April 18, 2022. That was the first session April 18, 2022. It's a facet.
Speaker 3:You mentioned something that really points to one of our beliefs, and one of our beliefs is that when the leaders are not healthy, then the organization is at risk, because it's extremely difficult to keep the condition of our soul and what's going on in our life segmented from our work.
Speaker 3:Over time, we can, perhaps for a project, or we can do it perhaps for a short period of time, but at some point it's going to begin to impact how we show up at work. And so I want to just take a moment before we move on and just acknowledge the leaders that can really acknowledge you for demonstrating the courage and demonstrating being self awareness and demonstrating the vulnerability to realize that I'm not as healthy as I need to be at this time, to reach out and to do the work and to do the work, I sit back afterwards in and I look in and I feel like so proud and so excited and humbled to have been along this journey with you. And so, when we start thinking about the journey, let's spend some time kind of going down memory lane, right? Let's look at some of our sessions. If you could give a high level 30,000 foot of the experience of just sitting in a coaching one of our coaching sessions, how would you describe them? What is that experience? What did that look like and feel like?
Speaker 1:I felt like just having a conversation with a friend and but, but being vulnerable enough to know that you're also not just my friend or somebody that's helping me through something, and so to make sure that that conversation was what I needed it to be to and not just a conversation with a friend, right?
Speaker 1:So to open up about what I'm actually thinking and what I'm actually feeling in that moment and to know where I wanted the conversation to go and you would help guide me there too. Like, there was definitely moments where I was like, hey, he listened to what I just said and in and he's guiding it in a way to get me to the answer that I already know. I already know, but I needed help getting there too. It was like having somebody help me unpack a huge suitcase of a lot of different elements professional elements, personal elements that all wrapped together helping me unpack it. So it was meaningful, so that I could apply it where I needed to, and but it really did just feel like a conversation with a friend. Like you know it, fridays became Friday. At Friday, that 10 became my favorite, favorite time of the week, because I was like I'm going to get to talk to John.
Speaker 1:Henry and and we're going to. We're going to, you know, add to what we talked about last week, and it was. It just felt so, it felt so good to be moving towards a healthy place and just to go back to healthy leaders on the CFO of the organization. If I'm not healthy, that's not good, you know, and I take that responsibility very seriously. So when, when I identified it and when I knew I had to do something about it, I felt very empowered to go to Rishi, my C, my current CEO, and say this is what I need to be healthy, and felt even better when he said absolutely and no questions asked, right, so yeah, but the conversations with you, just, they just flowed to. It just felt so natural. And you know, people sometimes, I think, are a little freed of coaching, and maybe I was too. Originally, in the very beginning, I didn't know what it was going to look like, but it was just a very natural. Just a cut an hour conversation with a friend every Friday.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that. I love that because that's my approach and my style. Right, it's the exact same approach that I took in that room on the very first retreat. The first time I was gifted the opportunity to serve the can executive team was to find out where they are, treat, empathy and vulnerability, and to be there with them and to help facilitate on that journey. It's me that you said that when you said not really sure what to expect, and then there are sometimes that there are folks who may not know what to expect in coaching. All coaching styles are not the same and so, as you think about my styles and early will, probably for most of that year, right, there was something that I ended with. I ended something with. It was Taylor. Can you talk a little bit about what that was, if you remember any of them, and the impact it had on you personally and professionally?
Speaker 1:So we would end every session with a mantra, and it was similar to an affirmation, but it wasn't quite an affirmation In my mind. It was a mantra for me to kind of give me that boost throughout the week on a topic that we had discussed that week. That was something I either needed to work on or needed to be clear in my mind as I'm dealing with the new current situation. The one was I can be clear and kind. That one that one's. I still use that one. I use that one all the time. I use that one when I'm parenting my daughter. I use that one when I'm, you know, having a disagreement with a friend. I have that. I use that one so frequently in my life. You're going to have to help me remember the first one, because I know I should remember it. That one that one might be a little.
Speaker 3:The first one. Let me see if I remember that very first one I am a gift, I am enough. That was the very first one is I am a gift and I am enough. Then we had I am both clear and kind and it's just great and really the cool thing about it it's not just something that we just pulled out of thin air, to your point it. It was tailored specifically based upon the experience that we had that week in the conversation and it's it's. It's just the power of continually saying to ourselves speak to ourselves, right.
Speaker 1:It's reinforcing. It was taking the tool you gave me and reinforcing it throughout the week. So then it became it's not going to become natural in a short period of time, but it helped it become more natural. And for it to trigger something in my mind when maybe I am going back to my old, old self, tendencies that I had like oh no, wait a minute. I can be clear about this and still be kind about it, or you know, one thing we talked about was what we had to develop and learn about me, was my help me identify what my superpowers are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and one of them was was funny because it was like I'm confident and that's my superpower, but I needed help reminding myself that my confidence is my superpower. You spent time going back and looking at, like, what I had been able to accomplish. To say, look at what you've done. This is why being confident is your superpower, but you're forgetting that that's your superpower.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Let's give you a mantra that helps remind you that you are a confident, capable person.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They were. They were so empowering throughout, throughout the time that we spent and, again, I still use them. I use them.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 3:All the time and it's interesting, there was something that we discovered early on and it's just back to the power of those mantras and the experiences that we were able to create together. I saw you really going back into trusting yourself, trusting your gut, your instincts right, and how your instincts have really just been a catalyst throughout your life, not just your career but your life. Can you talk a little bit about how we discovered that and really how you're showing up your life present day, right now, as a result of really going back and revisiting that piece?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think trusting my instincts and my gut was something that got me to to where I was at the start of my career. And really, you know, as I grew up, as I worked my way through college, I always trust my instincts. And when I started at CAN, there were some experiences that diminished that for me and made me question my instincts. And we were together. We were able because I didn't even I didn't even recognize that I wasn't trusting my instincts anymore. And so, talking through that with you and I was like well, why, why didn't I say something about this particular situation sooner, personal or professional? And it was because I had learned to not trust my instincts anymore. And so by identifying it now, now I see my instinct, I feel my instinct and I don't necessarily trust it or distrust it right away, but I've identified okay, there's my instinct, let's think through it.
Speaker 1:And I was. I've been able to do that because I've been able to identify the fact that I had learned to not trust my instincts. Through those experiences. That's been super powerful for me across the board. I mean professionally, I think I am 1000% way stronger leader than I was a year ago, two years ago, because I feel comfortable now and I can evaluate my own instinct on my own before I go and present it to Rishi, to Deborah, to whoever I need to be talking to about whatever the situation is, and in just knowing that I can evaluate it that way, is has been super empowering as well.
Speaker 3:I love this. I want to. I'm going to throw out some of those mantras and at the end I just want you to respond. This one says I have the truth behind me. I have the truth behind me. Another one is I can care about people and care about truth. Another one is I am a heard, respected, confident leader. Another one is it's not about how other people see me, it's about how I see me. Another one was I am a passionate protector. Another one was I invite others into my space of us and we had learn, teach, repeat, learn, teach, repeat. I'm compassionate and courageous.
Speaker 3:Had another one that says I can do it because I am doing it. Remember that day. I remember that day, actually. And so those are some, and obviously we have we have so many of them. This one it's okay to care about me and not feel guilty about it, and so it's fascinating because we hear these mantras and it pulls us back into the experiences that we had. We have one that said I was right and I did the right thing, and so, thinking about these mantras, they are just words to other people, but for you, what do those mean to you when you hear those mantras?
Speaker 1:It reminds me of the massive journey that I've been on over the last two years. It kind of makes me tear up a little bit. Same, same, I know. I know hearing them like how much work I needed to do to get where. I am now. I just I'm so proud because a lot of people don't take the time to work through it, and then you're not a healthy leader. And then what happens to the organization? And we're doing big things that can. It's just so super important. But wow, hearing all of those that's.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we've got a lot of them, and it's just really a testament to your courage, to your commitment to just take care of you, to take care of you. And I'll stop that because if I keep going and I want to get emotional, but I will take a moment and I want to acknowledge you on this podcast. I don't think that I've spent more time with anyone that wasn't a direct report to me, as I did with you. I don't think that I've gone deeper with anyone as I did with you, and at the time that we spent coaching and I said to myself I don't want to do coaching anymore unless I'm doing it like I did it with you. And so I want to thank you for creating space to trust me with your vulnerabilities.
Speaker 3:I want to thank you for doing the work. I want to thank you for making Ken better because you are better. I want to thank you for being the mom that you are, the friend that you are, the sister that you are, the daughter that you are. So when I say that, I know the stories behind that that our listeners may not know, but you're showing up, not differently only, but you're showing up as you have all wailed up, and you should be very, very, very proud, and so, when we first started working together to right now, it's just this reemergence of a better version of who you have always been, and so thank you for giving me the privilege to serve you and walk with you on this journey.
Speaker 1:Well, I have to thank you too, because I don't think I would have made it through the way that I did, and I don't think I'd be where I am right now without you helping me and coaching me through it. So just thank you so much, john.
Speaker 3:Henry, mary. So before we wrap up, I've got two things that I want to mention. I'm getting teary eyed. What is happening?
Speaker 2:She's like, yeah, yeah, you know, as I was listening to the podcast and when Mary was kind of talking through it right, it's so funny because it felt like, because she was saying she wouldn't know the answers, but she just wouldn't know how to get there and it's almost like, you know, you were leading her to the answers that were already inside of her. And I think that's the thing is that at some point in our lives and these different journeys and these different periods of our lives, it's like this tug of I know there's something in here, like I know there's something here. It's that instinctive thing, right, there's something that I'm supposed to do or be or say, and but I just haven't pulled it out yet. And so the coaching helped you do that, like you knew inside, like I have the answer. What is the answer? Right, like I've created with everything that I need to be authentically me to show up in my absolute amazingness and superness and all of that stuff. But how do I? Where do I pull that out?
Speaker 2:from right, and I think and time to, and so I think when you were talking about that, that just would. That's what made me think about it is like, wow, that's so powerful, right, because if we knew that, like coaching could help us to get there and sometime, to even realize that the answers right he didn't necessarily give you the answers, but he led you to the answers right that were already there. So that was just so powerful. And I use your clear and kind. I kind of stole it because he told me he used it and I was like, oh, I need that one. So I use the clear and kind thing as well. It is a good one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's my approach really entering into this experience and this journey was just help turn down the noise, not so that you could hear me, but so that you could hear you, and I think that's what coaching does. It's good coaching creates a safe environment for you to hear you, and that's what you get, and I was just blessed to be able to help turn down the volume right. Yeah, there are people who will listen to this podcast. There will be others who are probably on the fence, curious about coaching. There are others who might be in a similar position. There are folks out there who may be listening, who feel stuck, who know that they've got much more in them, but they may just need a roadmap to get there. They may need more clarity around purpose in their career, in their life. What would you shit them? Or what advice, mary, would you give to those who find themselves in a position that you were in when you said, hey, I'm gonna demonstrate the courage, I need to jump into some coaching? What would you say to them?
Speaker 1:I would say to them that to ask for coaching and to ask for help and to say, hey, something I need to work on something doesn't make you weak. It makes you strong because you're striving to be a stronger leader, you're striving to be better. And then I also say that coaching is gonna look different for everyone, right? I mean, there's different types of personalities, different things. You're working through different strengths, different weaknesses, and so spend the time to find the right coach too, because that will make such a huge difference in the outcome of all the work you're gonna put in.
Speaker 1:But I would say that almost every single leader that I know should have had some type of coaching or should go through it, because it doesn't only help you be a better leader. It helps you to look at leaders around you differently and identify what type of leader they are, what type of leader you are, and to be able to if you can recognize and identify that, then that makes everybody a stronger leader together. So I really I think coaching has been so invaluable to me, so valuable that I sometimes miss it so much. But I know we talked about it. We're like no, you know. So it's something that I think I'm gonna continue to do in the future at some point, because it makes me a stronger leader.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Thank you for sharing that, and so here's my next question for today. Let's fast forward the clock about 20 years from now, and you've accomplished everything you've desired, some of the things that you and I have spoken about, and you're sitting back. You're back, it's Christmas holiday in Hawaii, right? And you and Riley are sitting there. Riley's down getting ready to finish college and you all are just talking about life. You're laughing and you are thinking about what you've built personally, professionally and also purposefully. And what are you most proud of? Fast forward 20 years, looking back on everything, what are you most proud of?
Speaker 1:I think I'm most proud of the fact that I've been able to hold true to my beliefs and my ethics and my purpose and not waver from that and not allow the circumstances or the influences direct me in a way that wasn't right for me. And I think that I'm proud of that because I think that's an example for people who report into me. I think I'm an example for my daughter. I think I'm an example for people that I report to.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I think the thing that I'm proud of is that I can be impactful in every direction of my life.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 1:I think that's important.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I love it. I agree, sitting back in the, and I don't doubt for one minute that you'll look back 20 years from now and say I did that. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast, thank you for taking the time, thank you for just your vulnerability, thanks for you know, partnering with me and us, allowing people just a peak, a small peak, into the experiences that you've had and the experiences that we had on this changing, transformative, impactful, purposeful journey. I appreciate you. You matter. You are my sister, friend and all things, all things good and lovely and wonderful. Thanks so much. Real quick for our listeners, our listeners. How can they get in touch with you? Are you on LinkedIn?
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm on LinkedIn, I sure am. Or you can look us up at the Can Community Health website.
Speaker 3:Beautiful.
Speaker 1:My connection is on there too as well. Please reach out.
Speaker 3:Awesome. Thank you, mary. Thank you so much for being part of the Chart to Heart podcast and you know we'll talk and have our texting going on.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3:Of course, of course. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you again for listening to the Chart to Heart podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Make sure to subscribe and share. Leave us a five star rating and review. You can also connect with us on all of our social media channels at Chart, the Number Two Heart. Until next time, we'll see you later. Adios, zai Zhan Quahere.
Speaker 3:Cheers folks.