188. Change Is Great (When It Happens To Others) with Suzanne Hopson

What if… one of your core values that should be empowering turned out to be something that held you back?

It’s meant to build confidence to try things. But it becomes a sort of low-key vicious cycle that subconsciously holds you back and curbs your ability to change.

That silent boomerang would be ironic for a professional change agent, but that same boomerang has been both catalyst and inhibitor of Suzanne Hopson’s story.

Growing up, Suzanne was taught, to quote her exact words as she said them in the conversation you’re about to hear, to “never think that there wasn't something I couldn't do”. I listened to the recording three times to make sure I heard her right. Did she mean it just like that? Was it a Freudian slip?

Well, she goes on to say that would have been a limiting belief IF she had it, but that life taught her – sometimes rudely – that she couldn’t do what she set out to do. It was a double-edged sword. So was the other core value, that you can’t do anything by yourself. While we can achieve more as a collective than the sum of our individual efforts, it can also mean that you can’t do anything on your own. I’ll let you sit with that one and hear from Suzanne on that.

So where did all of this leave Suzanne?

After three decades working in the multifamily industry, she came to an inflection point where she began to ask whether she should remain in her executive role or strike out on her own as an entrepreneur. Having to go through the experience of laying off employees, due to no fault of their own or her own, was a catalyst.

As you’re about to discover when you tune in for my chat with Suzanne, she did quit her executive job and start Here2Elevate™, which works with companies and their leadership to see the world as they want it to be and learn how to make it that way. Two factors played a big role. One is the power of mentorship, both positive and negative. The other is coming to terms with the visceral power of change management – the “grit” of it.

Whatever you’ve come to believe about change management and change in general, you may find yourself seeing a new point of view.

Suzanne’s hype song is “Fight Song” by Rachel Platten.

Resources:

Suzanne Hopson’s website: https://here2elevate.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzannehopson/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/here2elevate Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/here2elevate/X: https://x.com/suzanne_hopson

Take Suzanne Hopson's Business Performance Assessment Quiz to discover how your team measures up in key areas like profitability and strategic thinking. Start now: https://elevated-business-performance.scoreapp.com

Invitation from Lori:

This episode is sponsored by Zen Rabbit.

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