Michelle Fox brings exceptional talent in the areas of leadership coaching, emotional health, conflict resolution, and cultural dynamics. Michelle has devoted her career to understanding people and helping them to understand themselves as they adapt and navigate their own environment and life circumstances.
She is best known for her trainings on “Becoming Emotionally and Relationally Fit”, “The Healthy Hurried Human” as well as “Developing The Whole Minded Leader”. She brings to the table almost 25 years of experience, having worked as a Consultant with the U.S. Military, running her own counseling practice and now also works as the Founder and CEO of Foxygen Consulting.
Connect with Michelle on LinkedIn and Facebook.
This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: [00:00:08] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for workplace wisdom sharing, insight, perspective and best practices for creating the planet’s best workplaces. Now here’s your host.
Stone Payton: [00:00:30] Welcome to another exciting and informative edition of Workplace Wisdom Stone Payton here with you this morning. You guys are in for a real treat. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Foxygen Consulting founder and CEO Miss Michelle Fox. How are you?
Michelle Fox: [00:00:49] I’m good. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Stone Payton: [00:00:51] Oh, I have really been looking forward to this. There’s so many topics that I’d like to touch on and we’re going to go there. But before we do, maybe a little primer, overview, mission purpose, what are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks?
Michelle Fox: [00:01:06] Oh, that’s a good question, because we are trying to do. Sometimes it feels like a hundred things, but it really comes down to like three things that we’re trying to do. Our biggest focus of our business with oxygen is we really want to work with companies and organizations where they have more than two people because I like to remind our our our group that where there’s two people, you have a culture and because everyone is using that word, we talked before the show that there’s tag, you know, tag words like culture and culture is one of those things where people are hearing it ad nauseum, you know, it’s like, we’re hearing it too much. What does that even mean? So we’re trying to get more involved in the dynamics of work life because it’s changed over the last two years dramatically. Yeah. You know, so we are trying to come in and help create energy synergy, understanding who owns the culture. That is such a good question that’s coming up lately, who owns the culture, leaderships in business and organizations think they do or their people do. But then the people think, Well, it’s the leadership. Nobody really knows who owns the culture, who’s creating that work environment and where’s the satisfaction coming from
Stone Payton: [00:02:26] That must be incredibly well. I don’t mean to suggest for one minute your work doesn’t have its own set of challenges. I’m sure it does. Yeah, but it must be incredibly rewarding work.
Michelle Fox: [00:02:37] It is. It very much is. When you’re able to go in and you think about stone, people spend a lot of time at work, whether they’re working from home or going into an office. A lot of your your day or night, but your time is taken up by work. Why not when you leave, even though you’re tired, it’s like that same tired you get from when you’ve run your 5K or other enjoyable activities that you’ve just given all the energy. But afterwards you’re like, Yes, you’re tired, right? Yes. So why not help everyone who comes to work feel that way about what they’re spending so much time on because when they go home or when they’re in relationships? They yes, they’re tired they have spent, but it’s not this dryness that’s like, oh, I have nothing else left for you children or spouse or parents that are aging or whoever else we’re trying to give time to. We’re not completely spent. We’re able to say, OK, that that I gave it all at work. But now I have a different energy to pull from to do these relationships. And when we have satisfaction in those two areas, boy, I think life just tends to be much sweeter.
Stone Payton: [00:03:51] Well, you lit up the room when you walked in before we even came on the show. So I know how passionate you are about the work, and I’m glad I asked that question. But I got to know. So what’s the back story? How do you find yourself in this career doing this for a living?
Michelle Fox: [00:04:06] That’s OK. So I love to tell this story because people are like, Wow, you’ve done like all of these things. And I was getting discouraged because I thought, nobody understands that all of the things that I’ve done had the same common theme, and my husband helped me kind of narrate that. But after I graduated from graduate school with psychology and counseling and education, I I’ve I’ve worked with military as a consultant and then went into. I had some law enforcement work and then eventually opened my own practice in Philadelphia and did counseling and marriage and family life counseling. But the biggest thing for me was when we moved back to Philadelphia, back to Atlanta from Philadelphia, and I’ve always had a heart. I worked in a little bit in work workforce development in Philadelphia, and the seed started there for the blue collar worker. Seeing that, you know, big companies do a lot of things for your white collar workers. You know, we have employee assistance programs, right? They do a lot of, you know, the help. You know, this is my big thing is you go into any big company and they have a workout room because in the nineties it was really important. Let’s care about their physical health. So we’re going to clean out the janitor’s closet and create a workout room, right? And nobody’s going to take that away because then that looks terrible.
Michelle Fox: [00:05:32] But nobody’s really paying attention to the blue collar worker. The factory floor. And no one’s really paying attention when there’s mergers and acquisitions to what’s happening to that culture when they get taken over and we move everything and we combine two different cultures of people from St. Louis and Kentucky to or that’s the same place St. Louis and Kentucky with, I don’t know, Miami, right? What happens there? So we what I found is in organizations, they kind of forget the lower down the totem pole of how to care for those workers. However, those workers are what drive that drive the profitability, the environment. It’s those workers. And so that’s where the seed was planted to kind of start bringing in some, Hey, how can I help you kind of care for the whole minded worker and see the leadership in every worker because there’s leadership potential and everybody who goes to work. But we don’t always leadership doesn’t always know how to tap into that. So that that started kind of years ago in my workforce development. And then when we moved here, I knew I didn’t want to do private practice. I wanted to do something different. And the oxygen started five years ago.
Stone Payton: [00:06:43] So where do where does one start if they want to impact change, shift, reform, whatever the word is, whatever the verb is, the culture, it just seems like this. This this mushy, nebulous thing that as as a as a small business owner, where do I even start?
Michelle Fox: [00:06:59] That’s that’s really important because you have to be willing. It starts with asking the question you have. You have so many business owners and C-suite people who don’t even ask the question where they don’t even want to look at it. They do analytics on every other aspect of their business. But the one they don’t do, and it’s the one that has the most drive is their human capital. They’re not asking the questions to their human capital, to the people who are working and driving the ship of their business. So you have to be willing to just say, Hey, I should probably look at this. Let’s ask how are you happy? But I mean, you’re not going to ask that question, are you happy? But there’s ways to to do assessments of the people who work for you. And the crazy thing is is you’ll hear leadership push back and they’re like, Well, they’re not going to they’re going to be afraid to answer. They don’t. They don’t trust HR or they don’t trust these things. And actually, studies show us that when you ask, all of a sudden they’re like, Oh, you, I’m important enough that you want. You want my opinion and they do share.
Stone Payton: [00:08:06] Oh, so they’re just that’s novel, right? Because they don’t get they’re not accustomed to being asked.
Michelle Fox: [00:08:12] Yeah, I mean, if somebody ask you your opinion about something, it instantly in your brain, we actually see it on brain scans. Your brain will light up because you’re like, what? Yeah, yeah. Every human wants to be valued, and so when we ask for an opinion, even if it’s not used, even if we don’t have a great strong opinion, we feel like we’re valued. So yeah.
Stone Payton: [00:08:35] So when you initially walk into the boardroom or in a corporate environment, do you find most execs kind of embracing the idea of putting some attention and some rigor and some discipline to to these topics? Or do you meet with a little resistance, typically early on?
Michelle Fox: [00:08:51] Well, that that is our challenge at oxygen. So if I’m already if, if, if I’m in, there’s no resistance because in order for oxygen to work, we have to have the buy in of the leadership. It can’t be. It’s the decision makers who bring oxygen in. It’s not air can open the door, but we really have to sit down with the owners, the CEOs, the leadership and when I can get with them and help them understand, Hey, look, here’s what we’re going to do diagnostically. But you can’t have just data and no one to help you do something with the data data. Reigns supreme, but it’s not worthwhile if you can’t have somebody help you do something about the data. You know, so if somebody goes to the E.R. with possible heart attack, they’re going to do an EKG on them, sure, you can run all the tests you want and it’s like, Hey, yeah, there’s a heart attack, come in. All right, there you go. Go home. You got to. Have you got to have like the professional come in and be like, OK, here’s what we’re going to do about it. So if I’m in or if oxygens in, then then we’ve got the buy in. But we it’s really hard getting the buy in for leadership that’s resistant to because I find that especially smaller businesses that are male run, they’re not real interested in a female coming in and saying, Hey, look, you’re it’s emotional. You know, they think it’s emotion driven or we get that people think we’re like doing crystals and woo woo stuff. And we’re like, No, there’s there’s data here. This is real science based stuff that we’re doing.
Stone Payton: [00:10:28] So, yeah, so you touched on fitness a little while ago when you were describing a kind of a fad in the nineties or what is there, though such a thing as some emotional and relational fitness? And if so, you know, what kind of part does that play in this culture we’re talking about?
Michelle Fox: [00:10:49] So we created I think we coined the term emotional and relational fitness because it
Stone Payton: [00:10:55] Almost starts slinging around everywhere I go. I say, Well, folks will say,
Michelle Fox: [00:11:01] Yeah, I made. The funny thing is is I made these badges for us to go to like trade shows and different things, networking events, and we couldn’t fit emotional and relational fitness on the nail. Yeah. Well, they they give you like 20 characters. We far exceeded it. So I put thinking, Oh, this is fantastic because you want people to ask you questions. So I put E and R fitness under our name and found and those are going in the trash because people are all they saw was fitness. And so they think we’re fitness growers and it’s it’s kind of embarrassing to be like, Nope, nope. Nope, nope, nope. If I’m running, something’s chasing me. So no, we are not into physical fitness, but emotional and relational fitness where we do have kind of a mission to explain that to people. My belief in this business, I’ve been doing an element of helping people better understand themselves and how other people understand them for a long time. And what I have found when I did private practice, I could have 40 clients in a month and there were roughly the same issues among those really.
Stone Payton: [00:12:15] You see these patterns?
Michelle Fox: [00:12:16] Yeah, it looks different. You know, it’s like cake is cake, but you have chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, you know, you have all the things. So I found that, gosh, if we can really hone this down to two areas of people’s lives, their emotional state and how they are relating to their spouse, to their children, their aging parents, their best friend, their colleagues. When we find that we have satisfaction in those areas, then in that so that’s a relational fitness, then we find that we have an emotional satisfaction. And so the two play off of each other. And so then it’s like, Well, when people go to work, we’re way past my parents’ generation that when they went to work, they were expected to leave it all at the door. Yeah, when you run that badge through at AT&T or wherever they worked, you don’t bring in the fact that your teenage son is being. Difficult, right? You don’t talk about the fact that you’re having to deal with your aging parents. You don’t do not even think about bringing the baggage of maybe you and your spouse or fighting or on the edge of divorce. Don’t bring that to work. You come to work, you work and then you go deal. We’re way past that. Yeah. And also it didn’t work because people don’t do that. We’re not robots. So what it does is when we come to work, if the leadership, if the work environment says, Hey, look, we care about what’s going on with you, we have resources, we have this program, we’re doing these things that are there for you. Boy, that person says, Gosh, I want to make sure I’m giving the best of me to my work when I’m here. I mean, the studies and statistics just prove it over and over again that it’s vital to an organization’s health if they’re paying attention to what a person is, their emotional and relational fitness.
Stone Payton: [00:14:10] Now is this related to the I think the label for this is IQ or emotional quotient. I’ve read a few books on it. I’ve had a few guests over the years come in and talk about it. Is what you’re talking about now related to that?
Michelle Fox: [00:14:26] It’s one aspect, one aspect of it. It’s one aspect of so you’re talking about emotional, emotional intelligence, emotional intelligence.
Stone Payton: [00:14:36] So there’s an echo of something.
Michelle Fox: [00:14:37] Q Is emotional intelligence OK? And so yes, that is one aspect of it. There’s trainings on it, I think, to the point that people are like they role, do the AI role like, really, we’re going to do another IQ thing and we do find that it’s incredibly important and valuable. But what we’re seeing so now the new term you and I were talking about this beforehand is executive skills. Oh yeah, right? They want to, you know, we have to change it. When we overuse a label, we have to have to re label it so that people will pay attention for a little bit. And so that is one aspect of emotional fitness is, you know, you want to build that. What we’re finding more the trend is, though, is the younger workforce. So. I don’t know if I should use company names, but you take a factory. There’s one here in Woodstock and they are pulling right out of high school. They’re pulling high schoolers out that want to just go right to work. But they’re saying, Hey, Michelle, can you come do some executive skills training for these guys because they don’t know that they’re supposed to not look at their phone all day. They don’t know that they’re supposed to make eye contact when they’re, you know, basic things. So we’re finding executive skills more on the younger labor force. Not that when we do it for your really your C-suite and your management, it would be probably executive leadership. Five point two. You know, they’ve been through a lot of the things that, you know, self-awareness, motivation, self-regulation, empathy, social skills. That’s all.
Stone Payton: [00:16:11] Are you rattled off a lot right there?
Michelle Fox: [00:16:13] Those are all. That’s a lot. Sorry. Those are the aspects of what makeup executive skills or emotional intelligence. So they’ve been through a lot of that. So then we take them through. This is what we’re doing on their retreats or their conferences where we would do a deep dove. So it’s it’s an aspect of emotional fitness at work.
Stone Payton: [00:16:32] Well, I got to tell you one of the reasons I ask. I have two daughters, and of course, they’re both practically perfect in every way. It’s amazing to me, though, how you can raise two people in the same household and and the differences. But my youngest in particular, I, she has this executive skills IQ, whatever she’s born.
Michelle Fox: [00:16:52] It’s always the second born
Stone Payton: [00:16:54] Well beyond her years. Yeah, I definitely beyond me. She has a level of emotional maturity or empathy or that is just fascinates me, and I’d love to be able to bottle that. Yeah, and let all of our studio partners have it, you know, and share it with our clients. And so some of us, as my dad would say, born in you,
Michelle Fox: [00:17:16] It’s born in. Yet you’re right. Second, born children, birth order is really important. I find it very fascinating, but I love for people to understand about emotional intelligence is, you know, stone. Unfortunately, when it comes to our IQ, what we get is what we get. You cannot. You can’t make it bigger. You can’t. Fortunately, even though as a mom, sometimes I feel like it does somehow go lower, but you get what you get with emotional intelligence. We actually can grow it and we can change it. So even with first borns? No, I’m just kidding. I’m a second born.
Stone Payton: [00:17:54] I’m a firstborn.
Michelle Fox: [00:17:56] Yeah. So even with no matter what, we can actually build the emotional intelligence skills into people. If if they’re willing to learn just like any other thing, we can build it.
Stone Payton: [00:18:07] Well, that leads me to my my next question. I guess it’s a broader version of the same question can people organizations culture? I mean, can they really change? And this question is coming from someone, by the way, who used to work in the change management consulting arena. And I’m still genuinely asking the question Can they really change?
Michelle Fox: [00:18:31] Well, can I? I’ll answer that. Can I turn that I really love to hear what you think? Can’t do you think they can?
Stone Payton: [00:18:39] I have seen them change the way they go to market. I have seen them change the way they communicate and interact. They with the way the executive team communicates and interacts with the with the rank and file and back to your Miami, Kentucky example. One of the things that I saw that continues to fascinate me to this day because there was a lot in the name merger and acquisition work. And of course, there’s in our experience, I don’t care what the paperwork says. It was never a merger. It was always an acquisition. It was always a cultural acquisition, right? One usually ate the other. But one of the things that we did find is the change went so much smoother, such a much lower burn rate and was much more effective on the other side of things, if it. And this is a silly example, this isn’t real. If it was a health care company and a surfboard company like two completely different kinds of companies, if they came together, they seem to sort of get the benefit of both man. When you put two health care companies together or two surfboard crazy, it was like, you know, the clash of the Titans. That was now I wasn’t. I did a little design and delivery were mostly I was on the sales and marketing side of that world, but I was on the periphery of watching some of that work get executed. And they didn’t change as much in as fast as I had hoped for them. Right?
Michelle Fox: [00:20:07] Yeah, yeah. Change is slow. I mean, we’re I like to tell people that it’s turning the we’re we’re trying to turn the Titanic now. Also, I want to be really careful. I don’t just work with companies who feel like they’re struggling. I don’t. You know, it’s kind of the dentist the dentist would love for there to be people who most of their docket, to be people who are coming in for the two times a year checkup. Right, right, right. Not all the people who are like, Hey, I have a toothache. Oh, root canal. I don’t. We don’t work with just the root canal companies who there’s pain points. We really want to work with people. I was sharing this recently. There’s a lot of CEOs who are wishing they had brought fox digit end this time last year because they didn’t see the resignation coming. So it’s like pay attention before you get to the iceberg, let’s turn it around. So turning around, you know, it depends on the size of the company, but turning it around doesn’t happen on a dime. Yeah. But oftentimes you you can. We can initiate some changes and some different way of doing things pretty quickly. And it’s amazing. It has a ripple effect.
Stone Payton: [00:21:19] So there are some some key levers that you can pull and maybe different levers for different clients, right? Absolutely. Although I’m sure you see some patterns. Ok, let’s talk about this great resignation, this this challenge of retention, which has been with us forever. But oh my gosh, is it magnified now for most, right?
Michelle Fox: [00:21:35] Mm hmm. It really has that a little bit. Yes. So what I find fascinating is that most people buy into the myth that it’s all about pay. And that’s all we’re hearing when it comes to the news or your, you know, your when you pull up your phone and reading articles, it’s about pay and who’s paying what. And my kids are my kids are 15, 13, nine and they’re talking about it. Who’s paying this? And it really is kind of hard not to keep repeating myself, but it’s a myth that it’s about pay. It really isn’t. When the studies are coming out now, the statistics are coming out now that pay is actually the lowest reason for people to resign. Yes, the reason that people are really leaving their jobs is because of value. They don’t see their value in a company. And also the pandemic. What the pandemic did is it created a stress bubble for everybody, everybody across any industry. And not only when I say stress bubble, I mean, it’s not usually we’re we. Up until this point, we’ve been pretty used to stress being one to two areas at a time. You know, so what I mean by that is now with the pandemic in the way things happened, we have stress about our job. We have stress with our relationships because I’m working at home with my husband or, you know, my husband’s now working at home. My children are home from school.
Michelle Fox: [00:23:10] There’s finances because am I going to have my job? We aren’t going on vacation. So do we save that? You know, there’s these there stress from almost every aspect of our parents, our aging parents. That’s a big one. Are they going to be OK or are they going to be? Well, we can’t leave. We can’t travel. We can’t run away. So there’s we’ve created it’s created a stress bubble where it’s coming from so many different areas of our life, all at one time. And so what that has caused is for people to really examine the one thing they can really change. I mean, you can change spouses, but we wouldn’t recommend that you can’t change your children. You can’t get up and just go anywhere. The one area where people could change is their job and how they were treated. Was I valued in this job? Do they value the fact that I’m trying to teach my child I’m having to be kind of a teacher at home this year while the you know where this is coming from? Are they listening to me or are they listening to our team? If not, I can probably go somewhere else and find something new or different, or I just need a change. So what it’s done is it’s brought the stress level to the top. And that’s what we have found based on statistics why people are resigning, not feeling valued in their job.
Stone Payton: [00:24:33] So and going about a genuinely establishing value and maybe as important communicating value in the job and how much we value you. That’s a that’s a that’s a different, new and different conversation that a lot of execs, even small business owners like me. I mean, we’re not good at that yet, right?
Michelle Fox: [00:24:53] No, I don’t think we are. I think we’re seeing it among some of the younger, I’d say, 40, 45 and below. There are more. They lean more into that. The older it’s a little harder to lean into. Oh, we’re supposed to ask people about their feelings, you know, or how they’re stressing that doesn’t come natural one. It doesn’t come natural to one gender.
Stone Payton: [00:25:18] Right, right. No. No, it doesn’t come natural to me. No. As a coach consultant, if I were your client and you told me, go do that, then I would make every effort to do that, but it would not occur to me.
Michelle Fox: [00:25:29] Naturally, it doesn’t come natural
Stone Payton: [00:25:31] And I might do it for a little while. And then you’d have to kind of help me stay accountable because I would not. I would always go toward, Hey, Karen, out in Phenix, here’s a new type of client and how we were able to build that relationship and bring that client. It’s a very kind of black and white, and I feel like I’m really helping Karen, and I guess I am. But maybe I should also ask her about Ivan and how’s Ivan doing, you know? That’s right. That’s her son.
Michelle Fox: [00:25:56] Yeah. So, you know, I have I had a client of mine that I work one on one. So that’s another thing that Foxconn does is we do one on one executive coaching and do something. Yes. So I had a business owner and very much like you, he’s an engineer and engineers are some of our favorite because they’re like, Wow, we really don’t know how to do this. And that’s that’s new for them. Engineers feel like they know how to do a lot of things, sure, but emotions and feelings and getting in there, that’s not one. And he said to me, Hey, I’ve got this guy who I might need you to talk to. He had enough wherewithal to say there’s something going on, and he’s really a good
Stone Payton: [00:26:37] Worker, doesn’t want to lose him, don’t
Michelle Fox: [00:26:38] Want to lose him. But if something doesn’t change, I’m going to have to let him go because there’s some choices and decisions happening. Sure. So he set me up with that guy and I started seeing him one on one, and the turnaround in him was phenomenal. In fact, I’ve asked him, I’m like, Can I make you a poster child? Because it was really phenomenal what happened in this guy’s life? But more to the point was that his boss, he didn’t have what it. He didn’t have it, but he he knew enough to reach out to to me to say, Can you do it? And I feel like, you know, that’s we need more leadership like that.
Stone Payton: [00:27:14] Ok, so let’s talk about process a little bit and I’ll just use the business. I know Business RadioX. We have a network of community studios like this. They try to support and celebrate business and and we have a business model up under all of this. So we so we so we bring you on and we and maybe Lee and I, that’s my business partner. Maybe we’re self-aware enough to know that we’re probably the problem. But but we we feel like we definitely want to get better at this and we want to make it available to our studio partners to to. What would that process do you? Do you sit down and talk with us together individually? I’m kind of trying to get a feel for at least. Early, early stages of your of like an engagement process.
Michelle Fox: [00:27:58] Yeah, we sit down and we talk or we Skype or, you know, because we serve people all over the country or not. Skype does e-mail Skype anymore.
Stone Payton: [00:28:06] Sorry, Skype, we zoom.
Michelle Fox: [00:28:08] Yeah, I was going to say we zoom. We do the Google. Do you know we’ll sit down and we will try to do face to face. I really value face to face and have been doing face to face even before the pandemic, the remotely. So we we will sit down and just talk just like, you know, I hate to say this because it might scare people away, but it’s basically a really big version of counseling or therapy. You know, when you go sit down and you know, it’s a good one, they’re just going to find out where’s the pain point? Where’s the challenge or are you just here? Because you’re you’re good. You go to the dentist twice a year. You want to do maintenance, you want to make sure you’re staying where you want to. Hey, things are actually going really good. I feel like my workers really love it here. But again, a lot of CEOs thought that last year. So, you know, people who are preemptive, we start the conversation and then what we do is we find out where we need to be looking. You know what closets? What rugs do we need to look under and in kind of in your life or not, really your personal life, but what’s going on in the business, right? So we start that conversation and then that’s where we start, and then we pull in some diagnostic tools to get some data right and then we start making, you know, assessments and and from there we put in some programs or we tweak some things or
Stone Payton: [00:29:31] That’s where it goes. So let’s talk a little bit. And I recognize, or at least I suspect, that these are tools available to you, and you may not probably don’t use them all in every situation you sort of and choose the situation dictates what resources you bring to bear. But just to kind of get would it be OK if we get like an overview of some of the tools and resources like there? Might there be a training? Might there be some sort of workshop? Might there be some self-paced stuff that we do? Might there be some regular that kind of just to kind of give us a bit of a picture?
Michelle Fox: [00:30:05] Yeah, sure. So you kind of used several of the ones that we do, but yeah, we will do leadership development. We love to help people design. Some companies are getting back into it. It was real big before the pandemic, where they did retreats corporate retreats for their leadership. Ok. We really do enjoy working, starting from the top because I’m a big believer that change starts from the top and trickles down. And so I really, if leadership is willing, I really like to kind of dove in with them. And then there’s buy in. Going back to my 1990s, you know, weight room and exercise room, the reason those started is because CEOs were being told, You got to get healthy, you got to put some time on the treadmill. They were the ones that brought that in. It wasn’t a worker who came in. It was like, Hey, can we have a weight room? That’s not how that happened. It trickled down from CEOs buying into the health fitness thing that we have. So we like to do leadership development. We do training courses, I do seminars a lot of public speaking and that kind of stuff. I will do lunch and learns I have a couple of people on my staff that we’ll do a lunch and learn where we just kind of get started with whoever’s interested in this. We also, with just through oxygen, we have training courses where they can do some self-guided stuff. We do groups. So there’s a lot of different tools that we use. I would say those are more things we offer versus tools. The tools are so varied, and that’s one of the things I’m probably most proud of in what we do at Fox. Again in the work is, you know, I just heard this example recently. You’re not going to just come take a risk assessment and us figure out what your risk personality is and how that works at work, how that fits in. It’s way more than that. We got to figure out, you know, if you go to the E.R. and they all have the same three tools, you’re going to probably be worried.
Stone Payton: [00:32:06] Right, exactly.
Michelle Fox: [00:32:07] So you want you want to know that whoever you’re working with, they’ve got several things in their bag and they’ve got the experience to apply those tools.
Stone Payton: [00:32:16] I mean, I think everything you’re saying makes perfect sense to me, particularly the idea that you have to have the the sponsorship, you have to have the commitment from those senior level execs for this thing, too. I had a mentor for many years. His name was Steve Brown, and he would talk about getting the senior level execs in the mid-level managers involved in the training process. And he said, if you don’t, they’ll untrained them quicker and you can train them. That’s exactly right.
Michelle Fox: [00:32:43] It is absolutely true that that that’s spot on.
Stone Payton: [00:32:47] So it makes perfect sense to me. And as a small business person out there marketing our services, I I can envision it being a little bit of a challenge, just getting to have this kind of conversation with those execs that you can help. So my question is, and I ask this of almost all of my guests, how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a person like you do? Are you at a point now where you get the where could you do the good work? And I mean, nothing sells like doing good work, right? Right. That’s right. Is it? Is it? I just get the sense. It must be a very relationship oriented kind of exchange, not the kind of thing where you send them a postcard or pick up the phone and say, Hey, can I come? I don’t know how to. How do you market this kind of thing and get it? Get those conversations?
Michelle Fox: [00:33:35] Well, I can tell you, we’ve tried it all we have tried, but you are right, and I’ve probably learned more in the last year and a half how relationally driven this work that we’re doing has to be right. Because, I mean, I’m probably the face of oxygen and you know, you kind of you’re going to do business with people you like. That’s right. And you believe. And so my business partner who is behind you well, is laughing because she knows I’m not a sales person. I’m not going to try to sell people and stuff. But I do get pretty passionate about this because I know that it impacts people’s lives for the better, not just their work life, their home life. Things get turned around when you apply this kind of work. And so I get pretty passionate about that. And so in order to do that, I’ve got to be pretty relational, you know, one to one having those lunches, doing coffees, talking with them the hard. Part is just getting, you know, the guy who owns the manufacturing plant to go have lunch with me because I think whoever he’s heard about me from, he thinks I’m selling crystals. And, you know, funny water and I want to come in and do yoga classes. And that’s not.
Stone Payton: [00:34:50] Well, I’ll tell you what, if you will have lunch with her, I’m telling you it is worth your while. I have thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. I love your energy. I love your enthusiasm. You have these executive skills, whatever you want to call it, off the chart, which makes for great programing for us, but just a delightful way to spend a Friday morning for me. But even someone with your passion, even someone with your energy running a business, you’ve got to run out of steam once in a while, you’ve got to run out of gas and need to recharge. And so I’m curious. And here again, I asked most of my guests this question. When that begins to happen and where do you go for inspiration to try to recharge? And I don’t know if it’s a place or if it’s books or but how do you kind of. Recharge, get and get inspired.
Michelle Fox: [00:35:43] For me, it’s weekends, it’s called the weekend.
Stone Payton: [00:35:46] Ok, so you can’t book Michelle on Saturday. Forget about that. She’s got to say
Michelle Fox: [00:35:50] That
Stone Payton: [00:35:52] You pay me enough money. I’ll come in the Saturday.
Michelle Fox: [00:35:55] I’ll make Wednesday, Saturday. Yeah, for me, it’s weekends and for my husband. We have four kids and we’re involved in what they do. That’s a whole different bag of energy there. Yeah. And so for us, we put people, I do a whole thing on inner circle. And so for me, having a healthy inner circle, the people that I spend time with the most time with because I’m an extrovert and in energy comes from being with people and being able to just be who I am. My husband will tell you because he it’s the way we started dating. You need to think I’m funny. Like, funny is my thing. So I use all my friends to be stand up and I’m like, They give me energy because they pretend to laugh at me. And so being with people, you know, our inner circle, people doing baseball with our kids, spending time with my husband. And frankly, I like to do a little bit of Netflix and Hulu.
Stone Payton: [00:36:56] Me too.
Michelle Fox: [00:36:57] So that would be how I recharge.
Stone Payton: [00:37:00] So before we wrap it in a moment, I want to make sure that we let our listeners know how they can get in touch with you, have a conversation with you or that coffee or somebody on your team. But before we, we do that. The other thing I wanted to ask you about is. What can Stone do? What can his business partner really do? What if someone’s listening to this today or six months from now? First of all, my advice is reach out and have a conversation with Michelle. But between then and when they have that cup of coffee, are there? Are there just a couple little things that we can look out for or begin to ask ourselves about, or some little action we can take to just get a just move the needle a little bit, get a little bit better in this area,
Michelle Fox: [00:37:46] In the area of
Stone Payton: [00:37:48] Of of helping our culture and helping helping our people be more better at relating and being better with this emotional intelligence and and just something that helps them, that will help me. In my case, I keep using Karen as an example because I just think the world of her. But I mean, I wish I was doing more for Karen out in Phenix, right? Right. Like this? Is it as simple as, you know, pick up the phone and tell her how much I appreciate her and asking her how her life is going?
Michelle Fox: [00:38:24] I mean, yeah, I think if we want to move the needle a little bit and we want to become more aware of what’s around us, we have to be willing to ask the questions. So one of the. So I like to say clarity. We need clarity at various times in our life because we lose it, we lose. We think we’re doing it. But then when we we sit down, we’re like, Oh, wait, that’s not what I’m about. And when I say that, there’s two questions you can ask for clarity How do I see myself and how do I think other people see me?
Stone Payton: [00:38:58] Mm-hmm. And I don’t know if I want that, I don’t know if I want to answer that last one. Well, well, it’s important.
Michelle Fox: [00:39:04] It is important and it’s not going around. You’re not going to go ask somebody that you wouldn’t ask advice from. You’re going to ask your inner circle. Somebody who’s important your spouse. Yeah, or one of your favorite people. You’re going to say, Hey, this is how I see myself. Here’s here’s three strong things I think that I bring to the table in any given circumstance or situation. Here’s where maybe I think I have challenges, right? You know, how do you think person? My favorite person? How do you think people see me? Am I on there and be willing to ask? That is is like it’s vulnerable. It’s hard. Yeah.
Stone Payton: [00:39:44] And and then maybe not be trying not to be defensive if you get the answer.
Michelle Fox: [00:39:48] Don’t ask a question. And if you’re not ready for answers. So if you’re not ready, don’t go ask. And so that’s my first part. But the second part is I run this through everybody. And no matter where you are, if you’re at work, you’re at home, you’re in marriage crisis, you’re in kid crisis. Whatever it is, we’re in two states of being always one or the other. And one is we are feeling captive or we’re we’re free. And when I say captive is it’s any thought, feeling or action that is is binding you down. So you’re frustrated, you’re angry. That’s a captive thing. And so when we’re we’re saying, where am I right now, when I’m in a state of freedom, I think I’ve got satisfaction. I’m not a big fan of workplace balance balance.
Stone Payton: [00:40:41] Well, the balance in my experience is a little bit of a myth. Maybe it is
Michelle Fox: [00:40:45] A myth, because if you’ve ever tried to balance on anything, how long can you actually do it? Not very long. Right. Even the gymnasts they still fall off balance is a myth. I love that you just said that we’ll start using that. Can you write that down? Hey, that’s
Stone Payton: [00:40:58] Free of charge. Yeah, there you go.
Michelle Fox: [00:41:00] But I love satisfaction. We can always find satisfaction. So, you know, the Work-Life Balance thing is, is a myth because you really can’t balance that. Sometimes work is going to be two weeks of utter nonsense. But then we can sometimes come back and say, OK, but then I get four weeks of really getting to be at baseball or I get to go on vacation that we can bring satisfaction because sometimes we understand we’re not going to always be able to balance it. But we know that we can satisfy ourselves with what it is that we need and the people around us. So satisfaction is a real good indicator. If I’m not feeling satisfied in something right, it’s January. What are most people not feeling satisfied in right now? Their waistband? Right? So that’s an easy one for everybody to go to and change because it’s it’s outside, it’s physical. We put our clothes on every day. And so if you’re not feeling satisfied, everybody gets this concept. They’re like, Well, what do I need to do? I don’t really like what I need to do, like eat less and I don’t really want to go run and I don’t want to do go to the gym, but I know what I need to do. And so just starting to work on what it is is going to then bring satisfaction, right? Not not just the end results. Just starting the process starts to bring satisfaction, and I don’t feel captive anymore. I’m in freedom even though my waistband hasn’t shrunk, even though I’m not, I’m doing it. So now I’m in a state of freedom. But before I get started, I’m held captive by it because I’m thinking about it. When I fall asleep at night, I’m thinking about it when I’m sitting in front of the TV.
Stone Payton: [00:42:39] Yes, right. It bleeds into other places where you can’t be your best and give it your attention
Michelle Fox: [00:42:43] Or you’re held captive by it. So feelings, so thoughts, feelings and actions that are negative and that are holding us in place. That’s a place of being captive versus a place of freedom. And so you said, what’s one thing? Where can people start, right? You got to start there? Am I feeling more captive most of the time? Or do I feel like I’m in a state of freedom, which is therefore I’m pretty satisfied with all the different areas of my, of my life and my being?
Stone Payton: [00:43:10] I’m so glad I asked. It took me a minute to try to get that question out, and you help me ask the right question, but I am really glad that I asked because I think that’s good, solid, practical, actionable counsel that our listeners can move on immediately. Yeah, and that I can move on. I’m so glad. Glad I asked. It has been an absolute delight having you in the studio today. And let’s do before we wrap, let’s make sure we leave our listeners with some points of contact, whatever you feel like is appropriate. Linkedin email website. Whatever is the best way for them to connect with with you, OK?
Michelle Fox: [00:43:46] The best way to contact us is through our website.
Stone Payton: [00:43:52] I’m sorry. Just so you know, those of you are in the studio. She’s looking at her business partner getting like the nut. Yes, that would be the best one.
Michelle Fox: [00:43:59] Ok, where we want to send them to is we want to send them to fox and consulting. Ok. That’s just the easy part. Oxygen comes for everybody asks that where does that come from? Well, my last name is Fox and we want to breathe fresh air into people in their relationships. I love oxygen, so it’s spelled just like that. Oxygen consultant oxygen with an F. OK consulting. They can reach out to us. There is probably the best, quickest way to get us. I’m not
Stone Payton: [00:44:26] Sure
Michelle Fox: [00:44:28] My email. I’m like, Do I get my phone number? No, we’re not going to give. This is nationwide. My my phone number will be on bathroom stalls for fresh air call.
Stone Payton: [00:44:44] Call this number.
Michelle Fox: [00:44:46] We will give you more info at. They can email info at Michelle Ralphs or USC Foxconn as well.
Stone Payton: [00:44:56] Fantastic. Well, thanks again for coming in the.
Michelle Fox: [00:44:59] It’s been so fun. Thank you for having me.
Stone Payton: [00:45:01] You are absolutely welcome. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. All right. Michelle Fox, founder and CEO with Foxton Consulting. Go back. Listen to this. This conversation more than once, there’s just some real pearls and gems in there. Reach out and have a conversation with them. I guarantee you it will be an absolute delight. All right, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, Michelle Fox with Fox Consulting and everyone here at the Business RadioX family say we’ll see you next time on workplace wisdom.
