Episode #18 - High-Energy, Exciting Fun: An Interview With Ivana Miranda

Intro: 00:00:00

Welcome to the podcast where relationships, confidence, and

Intro: 00:00:03

determination, all converge into an amazing, heartfelt experience.

Intro: 00:00:08

This is Speaking From The Heart.

Joshua: 00:00:11

Welcome to episode number 18 of Speaking From the Heart.

Joshua: 00:00:15

Today, we are going to be interviewing Ivana Miranda.

Joshua: 00:00:20

Now, I have to be honest with you, this was one of those interviews that was

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eye-opening for me, because I got to learn so much about this talented lady

Joshua: 00:00:29

who's been able to work on herself for numerous years and how she's been able

Joshua: 00:00:34

to take her career to the next level.

Joshua: 00:00:37

She has been the National Communications Chair for the Federally Employed Women,

Joshua: 00:00:43

or FEW, and she's currently serving that term through the 2024 year.

Joshua: 00:00:48

She has her Master's in Business Administration, and she establishes

Joshua: 00:00:53

and maintains standards and plans relating to that communication

Joshua: 00:00:56

strategy as part of that role.

Joshua: 00:00:58

She engages with internal external stakeholders.

Joshua: 00:01:01

She is by trade a project management training specialist, working in

Joshua: 00:01:06

instructional designing, which she's certified in, and she has worked

Joshua: 00:01:10

specifically with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, which

Joshua: 00:01:15

deals with not just the normal things that you think of, which we talk about

Joshua: 00:01:18

in this interview, but we also discuss the human resources, the finance, the

Joshua: 00:01:22

sports marketing, the communications, the sales, and the entertainment.

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"Mission critical does not equal boring", and I'm going to tell you

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straight up, get ready to buckle in, because she is the most energized

Joshua: 00:01:36

guest that I think I will ever have.

Joshua: 00:01:38

With that, let's go to the episode.

Joshua: 00:01:41

All right, I'm with Ivana Miranda.

Joshua: 00:01:44

Ivana, thanks for speaking from the heart with us today.

Ivana: 00:01:48

Absolutely.

Ivana: 00:01:49

Thank you for letting me be here, Josh.

Joshua: 00:01:51

Absolutely, and for full disclosure for the audience, this

Joshua: 00:01:54

is another Toastmaster that's been on our show and I'm really proud;

Joshua: 00:01:58

yes, I know, you should be excited because I love having a wide variety

Joshua: 00:02:02

of people that I've met through my Toastmasters experience be on the show.

Joshua: 00:02:06

For those that are interested, again checking out communication

Joshua: 00:02:09

and leadership development, this is how I've been able to interview

Joshua: 00:02:13

so many different types of people.

Joshua: 00:02:15

Check it out; I'll have a link in the show notes as to how you can get started, but

Joshua: 00:02:19

Ivana, I want to ask you this to start out our interview, I have seen you have

Joshua: 00:02:25

this high level of energy, which you've already demonstrated even before we hit

Joshua: 00:02:30

the record button and doing our interview.

Joshua: 00:02:33

I'm curious; what makes you so passionate and so energetic?

Joshua: 00:02:37

What keeps you going each day?

Ivana: 00:02:40

Joshua, what a question.

Ivana: 00:02:43

Just ask me some life changing, life altering question right off the bat.

Ivana: 00:02:46

Thank you.

Joshua: 00:02:47

Absolutely.

Ivana: 00:02:48

First of all, yes, you have seen me high energy over the top, wild and crazy.

Ivana: 00:02:53

Woo woo woo.

Ivana: 00:02:54

Yeah.

Ivana: 00:02:54

Thrilled to be a part of whatever it is that's happening.

Ivana: 00:02:57

People generally invigorate me until they don't; right?

Ivana: 00:03:02

I am probably right in the middle of being an extrovert and an introvert, so

Ivana: 00:03:07

there are times where people energize me, and I'm thrilled to be in a space

Ivana: 00:03:12

where I'm getting to know others.

Ivana: 00:03:13

I'm vibing Toastmasters, especially, the ultimate networking machine,

Ivana: 00:03:18

because we can get to know people of lots of different personalities,

Ivana: 00:03:22

backgrounds, et cetera.

Ivana: 00:03:23

It is very easy to feed off of that energy.

Ivana: 00:03:27

It's very easy to vibe with other people and to empathize with different speeches,

Ivana: 00:03:32

different experiences, whatever people are sharing, it is very easy to put

Ivana: 00:03:37

yourselves in their shoes and to feel what they're feeling in the moment, so that

Ivana: 00:03:41

comes very easily, very naturally to me.

Ivana: 00:03:44

Now, full disclosure, I am not always this high energy, right?

Ivana: 00:03:48

I actually suffer from a thyroid condition, and so there are times

Ivana: 00:03:53

where I am completely the opposite.

Joshua: 00:03:57

Wow.

Joshua: 00:03:57

Would you consider yourself an ambidextrous personality type then,

Joshua: 00:04:01

because you saying that you're both introverted and extroverted, I wonder

Joshua: 00:04:05

how that plays together then as you have those different things happening,

Joshua: 00:04:09

because like you said, you're not always like this, but you have your days.

Ivana: 00:04:13

I have my days, I have my moments, and honestly the same day

Ivana: 00:04:18

I could be feeling very different things within a 24 hour period, right?

Ivana: 00:04:22

There are times where maybe I'm doing a training and I'm putting out a lot

Ivana: 00:04:28

of energy, or I just have something that's going on where I am using a lot

Ivana: 00:04:34

of my energy, and then maybe halfway through that day, it's almost like I've

Ivana: 00:04:39

had a cup of coffee, or several cups of coffee, and then when that wears off,

Ivana: 00:04:43

it is gone, and sometimes I feel myself coming, crashing, crashing down, and that

Ivana: 00:04:50

is when the introvert comes out and I need to step away, refuel myself, chill

Ivana: 00:04:56

out, relax, step away from people, and figure out what it is that I need to do

Ivana: 00:05:02

to refuel myself, and that is something that I've had to learn over time for sure.

Joshua: 00:05:08

For my listeners, I know that they have all these different things

Joshua: 00:05:12

happening in their lives too with having a balance and you're sort of touching on

Joshua: 00:05:17

that a little bit, and the audience has also heard that you've worked for the

Joshua: 00:05:21

United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Joshua: 00:05:24

Do you bring that as part of your job experience?

Joshua: 00:05:27

Do your fellow employees or your coworkers, I should say, have this

Joshua: 00:05:33

experience with you and what do you do when they see you in this sort of

Joshua: 00:05:39

different space if you, if you were like to call it, and do they help you?

Ivana: 00:05:43

This is a very good question and a little bit tricky, right, because a

Ivana: 00:05:48

lot of times the introvert and us will pull away from people at that point,

Ivana: 00:05:52

right, and so they're not necessarily seeing everything that I'm describing.

Ivana: 00:05:57

They may see the fact that I'm not there, or they may see the fact that I am not

Ivana: 00:06:04

on camera for a particular meeting, when normally I am full face in the camera,

Ivana: 00:06:10

hey, high energy, blah, blah, blah, whatever, but there are times where

Ivana: 00:06:14

I'm thinking, "Okay, this is a meeting where I don't need to show my face.

Ivana: 00:06:19

I don't need to be high energy.

Ivana: 00:06:21

I don't want to be high energy, and so let me conserve my energy right now.

Ivana: 00:06:27

Let me take care of myself", and that is something that I've had to learn as

Ivana: 00:06:31

well, because there was a season where I would've forced myself to perform

Ivana: 00:06:37

just to please other people, right, and to kind of be that out facing

Ivana: 00:06:43

happy-go-lucky person that everyone expects to see all the time, and so

Ivana: 00:06:48

I've had to learn, "Don't do that Ivana.

Ivana: 00:06:50

You're going to wear yourself out."

Ivana: 00:06:53

I have worn myself out trying to do that.

Ivana: 00:06:55

I've learned from my experiences and so I've tried to be better.

Ivana: 00:06:59

You said boundaries and balance, and I'm still learning that.

Ivana: 00:07:03

I can't say that I have arrived when it comes to learning how to

Ivana: 00:07:07

balance myself a hundred percent, but I am a work in progress for sure.

Joshua: 00:07:13

That's important for everybody to recognize too.

Joshua: 00:07:15

I love the fact that you call out the boundaries and the balance

Joshua: 00:07:19

aspects of it, because a lot of us don't know how to set that.

Joshua: 00:07:22

I know personally myself, I've struggled for a number of years, and it wasn't

Joshua: 00:07:26

until the last few years that I've been able to understand that a bit more.

Joshua: 00:07:31

Being that you're an instructional designer for the United States

Joshua: 00:07:35

Patent and Trademark Office, do you encounter these different types of

Joshua: 00:07:39

personalities with people, especially as you are designing courses and

Joshua: 00:07:44

helping even trainers for that matter?

Joshua: 00:07:46

Can you tell us a little bit about how you effectively address those sort of

Joshua: 00:07:51

challenges, especially with the type of work you do, because I'm scratching my

Joshua: 00:07:55

head over here right now thinking, "how do you do that especially with something

Joshua: 00:07:59

that you think is straightforward," but that's just the misconception.

Joshua: 00:08:03

Please dispel it for me and the listeners.

Ivana: 00:08:05

Sure.

Ivana: 00:08:06

Are you saying that you thought training was straightforward?

Ivana: 00:08:09

What are you saying?

Ivana: 00:08:09

What was straightforward?

Joshua: 00:08:10

Yeah.

Joshua: 00:08:10

Yeah.

Joshua: 00:08:11

I'm saying that for many of us, we often think, "Wow.

Joshua: 00:08:14

Patent Trademark Office.

Joshua: 00:08:16

It's pretty straightforward.

Joshua: 00:08:17

What do they need to be trained on", and how do you make it, how do

Joshua: 00:08:21

you make training exciting, because to me, it sounds like it's a bunch

Joshua: 00:08:24

of boring and meticulous reviews.

Joshua: 00:08:28

Oh, Johnny Appleseed is putting in his apple press.

Joshua: 00:08:32

How do you make that exciting for people that want to come and work?

Joshua: 00:08:35

How do you get them started once they're on board?

Ivana: 00:08:37

I love it.

Ivana: 00:08:38

I love it.

Ivana: 00:08:39

Okay, well first of all, let me just say I am not here officially on any official

Ivana: 00:08:43

capacity speaking on behalf of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, so

Ivana: 00:08:47

I need to put that out there so that my communications officer doesn't come

Ivana: 00:08:50

chasing after me, "hey, what's going on?"

Joshua: 00:08:53

I'll vouch for you on that too.

Ivana: 00:08:55

Right, and let me also say that I have had lots of different lives and

Ivana: 00:09:00

lots of different jobs, so yes, I'm a certified instructional designer, and I

Ivana: 00:09:05

have moved away from that into project management currently, but hailing back

Ivana: 00:09:12

to my days of designing courses and really looking at how I can tailor a

Ivana: 00:09:18

program specifically for the people I'm serving, I'm not necessarily trying to

Ivana: 00:09:24

do that for certain personalities per se, but I am aware that there are lots of

Ivana: 00:09:29

different kinds of personalities and that we all process information differently.

Ivana: 00:09:34

I have to make sure that when I'm designing a course, I'm looking at,

Ivana: 00:09:38

"okay, who could benefit from this kind of activity, and am I missing a

Ivana: 00:09:44

certain kind of person in the activities that I'm designing and in the learning

Ivana: 00:09:49

that I'm designing; am I hitting every kind of person possible, and,

Ivana: 00:09:53

every kind of personality possible?", and a lot of what I've done was

Ivana: 00:09:57

in the virtual environment, right?

Ivana: 00:09:58

We have heightened all of our meetings, trainings, virtual sessions have

Ivana: 00:10:05

become really standard for a lot of us.

Ivana: 00:10:08

I don't do very many in-person sessions anymore, right, and so as I was designing

Ivana: 00:10:15

courses in the virtual environment, I had to make sure that, number one, Ivana's

trademark is: 00:10:21

make it interactive, make it high energy, make it fun.

trademark is: 00:10:26

Ivana's trademark is high energy, high learning, make it

trademark is: 00:10:30

exciting, make it fun, right?

trademark is: 00:10:33

Just because it is learning doesn't mean it has to be boring;

trademark is: 00:10:37

just because it is work related doesn't mean it has to be boring.

trademark is: 00:10:42

I love the fact that you can make anything fun, anything engaging, anything

trademark is: 00:10:48

exciting, you just have to find the right activity, the right conversation, the

trademark is: 00:10:54

right dialogue, get people talking, get people to relate it to themselves so that

trademark is: 00:11:00

they can put themselves in the situation, as opposed to just throwing spaghetti

trademark is: 00:11:06

at the wall and hoping that it sticks.

Joshua: 00:11:10

I work with clients all the time, that it's all about throwing the

Joshua: 00:11:14

spaghetti on the wall sometimes and seeing what fits and what sticks and

Joshua: 00:11:18

what does all those different activities, because sometimes it's really tough

Joshua: 00:11:23

to hone down on what particularly that person might be going through.

Joshua: 00:11:27

They have a hard time articulating what those needs are.

Joshua: 00:11:31

They might be struggling with what that professional objective is

Joshua: 00:11:35

that they're trying to achieve.

Joshua: 00:11:37

When you are going through and you're designing these sort of trainings and

Joshua: 00:11:41

even when you're thinking about the people that are going to be taking it, obviously

Joshua: 00:11:46

there are a lot of elements and you've already expressed a lot of those things.

Joshua: 00:11:49

What would you say is the most important thing that you try to

Joshua: 00:11:52

take the most attention to, to make sure that people, when they're going

Joshua: 00:11:57

through something, especially with that capacity, you're helping them to see

Joshua: 00:12:01

what is ahead and what they can learn from that training or that program

Joshua: 00:12:06

that you're designing; what do you do?

Ivana: 00:12:08

This is very interesting because, in addition to teaching adults, I also

Ivana: 00:12:13

have seasons of teaching children in different other nonprofit capacities,

Ivana: 00:12:18

and it's a very similar thing.

Ivana: 00:12:19

You have to figure out what is it that I want the people to walk away with.

Ivana: 00:12:25

What do I want them to be able to know, or do after they leave that session, right,

Ivana: 00:12:32

and it is very, very important as you're going through it to take a pulse check to

Ivana: 00:12:40

make sure that they're really getting it.

Ivana: 00:12:42

The worst thing that you can do is to go through 30 minutes, 45 minutes,

Ivana: 00:12:49

an hour, two hours, just talking at people and never getting a pulse

Ivana: 00:12:54

or a read as to whether anybody is actually getting what you're saying.

Ivana: 00:12:59

I am very big on, or very much against, lecture style, right?

Ivana: 00:13:05

Where you're just talking, talking, talking, and that's it.

Ivana: 00:13:09

No, no, no, no.

Ivana: 00:13:10

Let's make it interactive.

Ivana: 00:13:11

Let's ask questions.

Ivana: 00:13:12

We're going to throw some things in the chat.

Ivana: 00:13:14

If it's a virtual session, we're going to ask people to process and

Ivana: 00:13:18

give me back something so that I know that they're understanding it.

Ivana: 00:13:22

It's not just a matter of I'm talking and maybe people are listening and maybe

Ivana: 00:13:27

they're not; oh, no, no, we're going to make sure that people are listening,

Ivana: 00:13:30

and if they're not, then I need to switch gears, or if they're listening

Ivana: 00:13:34

and not fully comprehending, then I need to switch gears, so maybe there's

Ivana: 00:13:40

something in the way that I'm expressing it that should be expressed differently.

Ivana: 00:13:45

We have to come in with lots of different tools in our bag, lots of different

Ivana: 00:13:48

hats that we can take off and put on.

Ivana: 00:13:51

It's like a magician, you know, whatever; we have all these different

Ivana: 00:13:55

tricks and tools in our bags that we have to pull out depending on who it is

Ivana: 00:13:59

that we're talking to, who it is that we're dealing with, so it's honestly

Ivana: 00:14:02

the same for adults and children.

Ivana: 00:14:04

That part is the same.

Joshua: 00:14:06

In one of my early episodes, I actually did a monologue in which

Joshua: 00:14:09

I talked about the importance of having the identification of all those

Joshua: 00:14:13

different tools and how we can use each of those tools to our advantage,

Joshua: 00:14:17

but I have to pivot because you are talking about tools that you have

Joshua: 00:14:23

used, not only where you've been an instructural designer, but at the FEW.

Joshua: 00:14:29

I really want to ask you, because I've had the privilege now as of this

Joshua: 00:14:32

recording to present at the Annual Conference in Columbus, Ohio, and got

Joshua: 00:14:37

to meet a lot of incredible women that are transforming and changing the ways

Joshua: 00:14:42

that government works and how they're advancing themselves, particularly.

Joshua: 00:14:47

First off, How'd you find out about this organization?

Joshua: 00:14:49

Secondly, how'd you raise to the ranks of being where you're at now, which

Joshua: 00:14:53

is the National Communications Chair?

Joshua: 00:14:56

I, I really, I'm really curious about this story, and I've

Joshua: 00:15:00

been really itching to ask you.

Ivana: 00:15:02

Oh, Joshua, Joshua, Joshua, if only it was one of those situations where Ivana

Ivana: 00:15:08

aspired, Ivana was ready and climbing the ranks and all of that kind of stuff.

Ivana: 00:15:13

No, no, no.

Ivana: 00:15:14

That is so not what happened at all, so let me just say,

Ivana: 00:15:17

let me just take you back.

Ivana: 00:15:20

Yes.

Ivana: 00:15:21

I am a co-founder for the chapter of Federally Employed Women, FEW, at the

Ivana: 00:15:28

United States Patent and Trademark Office, and so before that happened, before

Ivana: 00:15:32

we had a chapter there, the current national president back in 2014 came to

Ivana: 00:15:38

speak at our agency, and I was amazed.

Ivana: 00:15:44

I had never heard of FEW or Federally Employed Women before.

Ivana: 00:15:48

She gave this really amazing talk about advancing women in the workplace, and I

Ivana: 00:15:54

remember thinking, "well, why do we not have that here at our agency?", and so

Ivana: 00:16:00

at that point, I decided we really need to have a chapter here at our agency, and

Ivana: 00:16:06

through a whole series of things that I won't get into because we don't have time

Ivana: 00:16:10

to get into all of that, but I was able to pair up with another person that worked in

Ivana: 00:16:15

the same agency as I did, and we basically busted our butts, doing whatever we had

Ivana: 00:16:23

to do to spread the word, invite people to different meetings, back then we called

Ivana: 00:16:27

it a planting session because we wanted to make it exciting and fun; be a part of

Ivana: 00:16:32

something groundbreaking that's happening.

Ivana: 00:16:35

We're going to start this new thing and grow it.

Ivana: 00:16:37

Right now we're just planting seeds, but then we're going to water it and

Ivana: 00:16:40

we're all going to grow it together.

Ivana: 00:16:42

We have this massive think tank brainstorming session where we

Ivana: 00:16:47

came up with the name, which was the Bright Knights Chapter

Ivana: 00:16:50

of Federally Employed Women.

Ivana: 00:16:52

We started out with 22 amazing women that joined the organization at that

Ivana: 00:16:56

time, and so we chartered back in October of 2015, so it was an exciting time.

Ivana: 00:17:01

It was very high energy.

Ivana: 00:17:03

Basically, the two of us had rolled up our sleeves and just

Ivana: 00:17:06

said, "This needs to happen.

Ivana: 00:17:07

We want to make it happen."

Ivana: 00:17:09

She started out as the first president; I was the first vice president, and

Ivana: 00:17:13

we just took off from there, and of course, we both wore ourselves out,

Ivana: 00:17:18

because you know how it is when you're a part of a nonprofit and you're

Ivana: 00:17:23

excited and passionate and you throw yourself wholeheartedly into it, and

Ivana: 00:17:27

not necessarily everyone on your team has that same level of commitment, the

Ivana: 00:17:32

same level of energy, and so you are the one kind of woo running around doing

Ivana: 00:17:39

whatever it is that you need to do, and before long, I really got tired.

Ivana: 00:17:43

I got very tired.

Ivana: 00:17:44

I had become the President at that point.

Ivana: 00:17:46

She had done her two years and then moved up to the national level, and I was now

Ivana: 00:17:52

the chapter president and I was just burnt out, but I had to sort of keep it going.

Ivana: 00:17:59

That was a struggle for a little bit, and so there came a point where

Ivana: 00:18:02

I really just thought, "yeah, well, once my presidency is over, I'm good.

Ivana: 00:18:07

I'm done.

Ivana: 00:18:09

I'm ready to stop."

Joshua: 00:18:11

I want to ask you about that struggle when you were going through

Joshua: 00:18:16

that, what brought you onto the other side to be able to continue to be a big

Joshua: 00:18:21

part of the FEW, because to me hearing it, and I, obviously, full disclosure,

Joshua: 00:18:27

I'm sure everybody knows this, I'm a male, but I have worked for state government

Joshua: 00:18:32

in Pennsylvania for over 13 years and continue to do so, and what I've learned

Joshua: 00:18:38

from that experience is that we can all have empowerment by just giving each other

Joshua: 00:18:44

the energy and the confidence to continue doing the things that we're doing for the

Joshua: 00:18:50

public good, but for this organization, this nonprofit, you are doing things for

Joshua: 00:18:55

the good of women and advancement and helping them to see the vast opportunities

Joshua: 00:19:01

that are there in federal government.

Joshua: 00:19:03

How do you crawl yourself back from that struggle and just continue to

Joshua: 00:19:07

keep yourself motivated, because it is surprising to hear you say this, and I'm

Joshua: 00:19:11

quite shocked that you were kind of burned out as I guess the expression to use.

Ivana: 00:19:16

Oh, I was.

Ivana: 00:19:17

I definitely was, and sometimes you can't pull yourself back, right?

Ivana: 00:19:21

I was still moving the organization forward as best I could, but I was

Ivana: 00:19:27

personally removed from it for a season.

Joshua: 00:19:29

Hmm.

Ivana: 00:19:29

You know, I kind of did what I needed to do, but at the end of the day,

Ivana: 00:19:33

I was less personally invested than I had been in the past, and that did last

Ivana: 00:19:38

for a good season, and honestly, what pulled me out of it was, at the time our

Ivana: 00:19:44

regional manager, she took note of me and how I was doing, and she knew that I was

Ivana: 00:19:52

a high performer, and she knew that I was loyal and committed, and she could sense

Ivana: 00:19:57

that something was a little off, and it really helped me tremendously that she

Ivana: 00:20:01

cared enough to enter into my space where I probably wouldn't have volunteered as

Ivana: 00:20:09

much information, but she thought enough, noted enough, and cared enough to ask

Ivana: 00:20:17

some questions and to really take the time to learn a little bit more about who I

Ivana: 00:20:23

was and what I was going through at the time, and that made all the difference

Ivana: 00:20:27

in the world, and that, fast forward brings me to how in the world I ended

Ivana: 00:20:32

up in leadership at the national level.

Ivana: 00:20:35

It is only, only because of that person, that person who was the regional manager,

Ivana: 00:20:43

who is now our national president.

Ivana: 00:20:47

She asked me many times and I said no to her many times, but at the end

Ivana: 00:20:54

of the day, I wanted to see her be successful, and I wanted the organization

Ivana: 00:21:00

to be successful, and so I said, "okay, there are things I cannot do.

Ivana: 00:21:05

There are things that I'm not going to do because I can't kill myself, but tell

Ivana: 00:21:11

me within these constraints what I can do", and we worked together to find out a

Ivana: 00:21:16

plan that worked for both of us, and that allowed me to serve on the national level.

Joshua: 00:21:23

I want to give you a scenario to think about and talk it through with

Joshua: 00:21:27

us as we're listening to your incredible story essentially of coming back and

Joshua: 00:21:33

being really strong because someone believed in you, the national president.

Joshua: 00:21:38

Is it okay to say no, and, if you would've said no, would you

Joshua: 00:21:43

have been happy with that, Ivana?

Joshua: 00:21:45

For people like us, sometimes when we say no, we feel like we're letting

Joshua: 00:21:49

someone down, and I know that for me, I've done that so many times and I

Joshua: 00:21:54

have that guilty conscience afterwards that can linger maybe a few days, a few

Joshua: 00:21:59

months, a few years, 30 years, which I have some of that carry around with me.

Ivana: 00:22:05

Oh, I get it.

Ivana: 00:22:05

I understand.

Joshua: 00:22:07

Yeah.

Joshua: 00:22:08

What would it have happened if you said no?

Joshua: 00:22:10

Can you tell us or walk us through that?

Joshua: 00:22:12

If you could predict what have happened.

Ivana: 00:22:15

Whew.

Ivana: 00:22:16

Good, good, good question.

Ivana: 00:22:18

Here's the deal.

Ivana: 00:22:19

Let me say first, I am a recovering classic codependent, which means that for

Ivana: 00:22:26

a long time I didn't know how to say no.

Ivana: 00:22:30

I didn't even know that that was a thing that I should do ever.

Ivana: 00:22:36

Saying no was not even a thing for me; it just wasn't.

Ivana: 00:22:42

I'm learning that a no is very crucial to my wellbeing, to my

Ivana: 00:22:48

happiness, to my self-satisfaction, to my engagement, to everything.

Ivana: 00:22:54

The reason I said no to her wasn't an empowering, "no"; it was a, "I don't want

Ivana: 00:23:06

to be bothered", because, it was probably a bad attitude kind of no that just didn't

Ivana: 00:23:14

want to deal with any possible negativity that came with dealing with other people.

Ivana: 00:23:21

I think we all go through seasons where that other side of me,

Ivana: 00:23:26

the introvert that is tired now.

Ivana: 00:23:27

My cup has been filled and overflowing with my people energy

Ivana: 00:23:32

and I'm tired now, and so, at that point, my no, wasn't a real no.

Ivana: 00:23:38

It was just me kind of sticking my head in the sand and not wanting to

Ivana: 00:23:46

be part of the world I'm living in.

Joshua: 00:23:49

Yeah.

Ivana: 00:23:49

And that probably wasn't a good thing, and she said to me, " Ivana,

Ivana: 00:23:56

you have so many skills and abilities that people could be benefiting from,

Ivana: 00:24:01

and you could really help a lot of people, and I hope you will reconsider,

Ivana: 00:24:07

because I could use you on my team."

Ivana: 00:24:09

It wasn't a guilt trip.

Ivana: 00:24:11

It wasn't a guilt trip at all.

Ivana: 00:24:13

That's the beautiful thing about her leadership, right?

Ivana: 00:24:15

She's inclusive, she's empowering and encouraging, but it's

Ivana: 00:24:20

not invasive or overbearing.

Ivana: 00:24:23

It's not coercive in any way, it was still my decision one way or the other,

Ivana: 00:24:29

but you ask what would've happened.

Ivana: 00:24:31

Oh my goodness.

Ivana: 00:24:32

I would've heard things that were going on at the national level, and some of them

Ivana: 00:24:37

might have been things that I thought, "oh, well, they could have done this.

Ivana: 00:24:40

Well, why didn't they do this?

Ivana: 00:24:42

Or, wait, well, what about this?", and I would've been coming up with

Ivana: 00:24:45

all sorts of ideas about what could happen, what should happen, yet I

Ivana: 00:24:50

would not have been in a position.

Ivana: 00:24:52

I might have sent her a text message or an email saying, "Hey,

Ivana: 00:24:57

have you thought about this?

Ivana: 00:24:58

Have you considered this?", and then what would she have said to me?

Ivana: 00:25:02

"Hey, well that's why I needed you on my team."

Joshua: 00:25:07

She would've, she would've definitely pointed it out.

Joshua: 00:25:10

Yes.

Joshua: 00:25:10

She-

Ivana: 00:25:12

It would've been really hard.

Ivana: 00:25:14

I'm thrilled, thrilled, thrilled.

Ivana: 00:25:15

Once I stepped into the role and I thought, "I can create this.

Ivana: 00:25:19

I can make it whatever I want it to be", and once I had that autonomy

Ivana: 00:25:24

and the ability to create and I saw that for myself, that was exciting.

Ivana: 00:25:30

That was a chance for me to yet recreate this other part of me

Ivana: 00:25:34

to just make something new.

Ivana: 00:25:36

I love the idea of creating things.

Ivana: 00:25:38

I'm an artist at heart, but I've never been able to paint.

Ivana: 00:25:42

I've never been able to draw, right, and so this for me is the ability to create

Ivana: 00:25:47

something new and fresh and different, and so that's why I love doing it.

Joshua: 00:25:53

I can see why you would love doing that, especially with the reactions

Joshua: 00:25:57

and the intensity and the people that can capture that energy, that ball of

Joshua: 00:26:03

energy that you have, that you carry around and helping others, and it's

Joshua: 00:26:08

good to see that you take that time to be cognizant of it because some people

Joshua: 00:26:13

don't have that ability to do so.

Joshua: 00:26:15

Which leads me into why you got involved with Toastmasters, because I think all of

Joshua: 00:26:21

us are looking to become better versions of ourselves, which is the main premise

Joshua: 00:26:26

of why I even started Your Speaking Voice, the coaching business that I

Joshua: 00:26:30

have, because I want people to be able to recognize that they have some inherent

Joshua: 00:26:35

qualities that are lying dormant, and I want them to be able to capture that.

Joshua: 00:26:40

When you decided to join Toastmasters, when you were thinking about even the

Joshua: 00:26:47

things that you had to do as part of the process with that, did you ever get the

Joshua: 00:26:52

sense of, "wow, this is going to help me so much with what I'm going to be doing

Joshua: 00:26:57

the rest of my life", let alone even meeting people that would help you to

Joshua: 00:27:04

be ambidextrous with your personality, being internally and externally just

Joshua: 00:27:10

grateful for all the things that you do?

Joshua: 00:27:12

Do you value that?

Joshua: 00:27:13

Do you value that for others?

Joshua: 00:27:15

How do you, in other words, process all those things that Toastmasters gives

Joshua: 00:27:21

us and you use that in your daily life?

Ivana: 00:27:25

Well, let me just say first that I had heard about Toastmasters maybe

Ivana: 00:27:30

in college, but it wasn't something that I was really focused on, because

Ivana: 00:27:35

I was a theater major, okay, and so for me, I was doing lots of speaking,

Ivana: 00:27:44

but it was on stage with a script someone gave me what to say, and so I

Ivana: 00:27:49

didn't have to come up with anything.

Ivana: 00:27:51

It was given to me, so that was a very different focus.

Ivana: 00:27:56

I joined Toastmasters years and years and years later, only after

Ivana: 00:28:04

I had been a stay-at-home mom, I felt like I had lost my confidence.

Ivana: 00:28:10

I felt like when I was reentering the workspace, I didn't

Ivana: 00:28:15

know how to talk to people.

Ivana: 00:28:17

I was very, very insecure and very timid and I didn't really have a good

Ivana: 00:28:26

handle on my own sense of self, my own emotions, how to express my own thoughts.

Ivana: 00:28:33

At the time I was going through a lot.

Ivana: 00:28:35

That's, you know, that's just the short version of it, and my joining Toastmasters

Ivana: 00:28:42

was an attempt for me to regain some of what I had when I was younger and

Ivana: 00:28:49

able to perform on stage and speak in front of people and be comfortable with

Ivana: 00:28:55

that, so that was my initial thought.

Ivana: 00:28:58

In the corporate sector and also in federal work, I needed a way

Ivana: 00:29:03

to gain credibility, if you will.

Ivana: 00:29:08

Toastmasters is well respected in a lot of professional arenas, whereas

Ivana: 00:29:14

a theater degree is not, and so I needed a way to transition and

Ivana: 00:29:19

transfer some of those skills that I originally had as a theater person.

Ivana: 00:29:24

Okay, now I need to make them acceptable for the work environment,

Ivana: 00:29:28

and that was honestly the only reason I joined Toastmasters.

Ivana: 00:29:32

Now, since then, a whole lot of new worlds have opened up to me, right?

Ivana: 00:29:42

People told me in the very beginning, "oh, I joined Toastmasters for one reason,

Ivana: 00:29:47

but I stayed in it for the relationships, for the friendships," and I used to look

Ivana: 00:29:52

at them like, "whatever man, whatever.

Ivana: 00:29:55

I'm not here for that," but I have met some amazing people and some

Ivana: 00:30:03

of those people through the years have become some very, very good

Ivana: 00:30:08

friends, and these are people that I would've never met any other way.

Ivana: 00:30:12

They have backgrounds that I would've never connected with, and I think that's

Ivana: 00:30:17

a cool thing about Toastmasters as well.

Ivana: 00:30:19

You find people from every corner of the world with every sort of

Ivana: 00:30:25

personality, with every background.

Ivana: 00:30:27

It is the only organization I know where you can get, let me just say,

Ivana: 00:30:34

People of every different political bent that you can find, and we

Ivana: 00:30:39

will still find common ground.

Ivana: 00:30:41

Wow; and not hate each other.

Ivana: 00:30:44

You know, there might be times where we look at each other like, "Hmm, really?

Ivana: 00:30:47

Did they just say that?"

Ivana: 00:30:48

But, but we can still call them a friend, and in today's climate,

Ivana: 00:30:53

that is unheard of anywhere.

Joshua: 00:30:57

That leads me to my final question as we're wrapping up our time here.

Joshua: 00:31:02

What would you say to people, now, let me caveat this.

Joshua: 00:31:06

It isn't just about people in general.

Joshua: 00:31:09

You can address this any way you want, whether it's toward the people that

Joshua: 00:31:12

you have been serving for the longest time, which are females, especially

Joshua: 00:31:17

women that are advancing themselves, whatever way you want to handle this.

Joshua: 00:31:20

What would you say in all the things that you've done, and I want you

Joshua: 00:31:25

to really speak from the heart with us, because I think that you got a

Joshua: 00:31:27

very passionate response to this.

Joshua: 00:31:30

What would you say is the most important thing that you have learned in your

Joshua: 00:31:34

entire journey that if you could, you could tell others that were that age when

Joshua: 00:31:40

you first learned it, what you learned?

Joshua: 00:31:44

What is it that you would pass along to them?

Ivana: 00:31:47

Are we going back in time to like my younger self?

Ivana: 00:31:50

Is that what we're doing?

Joshua: 00:31:51

Any, any time in which you remember.

Joshua: 00:31:54

Yeah, anytime in which you remember where that was like a "aha moment" and you wish

Joshua: 00:32:00

that other people that are going through similar things are now recognizing that

Joshua: 00:32:06

and you were able to tell them that.

Joshua: 00:32:07

What was that one piece of advice essentially?

Ivana: 00:32:09

Hmm.

Ivana: 00:32:11

No pressure, Josh.

Ivana: 00:32:11

No pressure at all.

Ivana: 00:32:15

One piece of advice, I don't know if I have one, but let me just say this.

Ivana: 00:32:21

Someone told me years ago that they thought I would make a good coach,

Ivana: 00:32:25

and I thought that was really strange because I don't see myself that way.

Ivana: 00:32:29

Yeah.

Ivana: 00:32:30

I mean, I can be a cheerleader, I like to give people pep talks, et cetera,

Ivana: 00:32:33

whatever, but I remember back in high school there was a younger girl who,

Ivana: 00:32:39

she was a few years younger than me, so I was a senior, she was a sophomore,

Ivana: 00:32:44

and she needed some encouragement.

Ivana: 00:32:47

She was a very shy person and honestly, the funny thing is I was

Ivana: 00:32:50

like this recovering shy person, and she asked me for some help

Ivana: 00:32:57

and I just gave her a few tips.

Ivana: 00:32:59

Let me just share this.

Ivana: 00:33:00

I'm trying to figure out a way to tell the story without telling the story, but

Ivana: 00:33:03

that's not gonna work, so let me just say, I used to compete in these pageants, this

Ivana: 00:33:08

is like many lives ago, many moons ago.

Ivana: 00:33:11

People found out that, " oh, she, Ivana was in this pageant and she

Ivana: 00:33:15

was in the top 10", and it was like this whole big thing, and so this

Ivana: 00:33:20

girl wanted to compete in pageants as well, and I remember thinking, "Wow,

Ivana: 00:33:24

she's really shy, but she could do it.

Ivana: 00:33:26

She could totally do it.", so I kind of just gave her a little bit of a pep talk.

Ivana: 00:33:30

I gave her a few pointers.

Ivana: 00:33:32

I gave her an outfit to wear, I guess I did more than I thought I did, but can

Ivana: 00:33:38

I just say, she came back to school the next week and I said, "Hey, how did it go?

Ivana: 00:33:46

She's like, "oh, I won.

Ivana: 00:33:48

I won.", like, wow, she won the whole thing.

Ivana: 00:33:52

She thanked me profusely for believing in her, for helping her, for giving

Ivana: 00:33:57

her the confidence to move forward but clearly she had that confidence herself,

Ivana: 00:34:03

right, and so I think part of what I'm learning is that I was not able to

Ivana: 00:34:09

instill the confidence in her; she already had it there because she wouldn't have

Ivana: 00:34:13

entered the pageant if she didn't have something in her that wanted to win,

Ivana: 00:34:17

that wanted to be seen, that wanted to be heard, but what I was able to do is

Ivana: 00:34:22

to create a space where she felt safe to flourish, and I could cheer her on.

Ivana: 00:34:29

I could just be that positive voice that she needed to push her forward,

Ivana: 00:34:36

and I think over the years I have needed that from other people, like

Ivana: 00:34:41

I mentioned, our national president did that for me on many occasions.

Ivana: 00:34:45

She has been that positive voice in my ear to say, "Hey, move forward.

Ivana: 00:34:50

You can do this.

Ivana: 00:34:51

I see amazing things in you.", and so in between that time,

Ivana: 00:34:56

lots of Toastmasters have as well come alongside of me; same thing.

Ivana: 00:35:03

There was a point where, one of my friends from the USPTO Toastmasters and

Ivana: 00:35:07

Federally Employed Women, asked me to be the District Administrative Manager

Ivana: 00:35:15

when she was the District Manager for Toastmasters, and same thing, I was like,

Ivana: 00:35:19

"oh, I don't want to do this, I don't want to do this", but it was more or

Ivana: 00:35:23

less like, "Ugh, what if it goes wrong?

Ivana: 00:35:25

What if I fail?

Ivana: 00:35:26

What if I'm not this?

Ivana: 00:35:26

What if I'm not that?"

Ivana: 00:35:27

She's like, "Ivana, you take copious notes, you are very detailed about

Ivana: 00:35:34

things, and you can help bring people together in a way that is just different,

Ivana: 00:35:40

and I've seen you do it, and I would love for you to be able to serve in

Ivana: 00:35:45

this capacity.", and so I said yes.

Ivana: 00:35:47

I said yes, and it turned out to be a really great year.

Ivana: 00:35:50

I learned so many things and the need for each other, the need to accept that

Ivana: 00:35:58

positive reinforcement from other people to understand that I need it, and to

Ivana: 00:36:03

be able to give it to other people.

Ivana: 00:36:05

We can vibe off of each other.

Ivana: 00:36:07

We can be that positive voice, that positive energy, and I

Ivana: 00:36:12

think that's it, honestly.

Joshua: 00:36:15

Ivana, you have made me rethink what it means to be positive in this

Joshua: 00:36:20

world just because of that answer, and it makes me start to think about

Joshua: 00:36:24

what I could even do today as a result of that, but nevertheless, you've

Joshua: 00:36:29

been doing this consistently, even sometimes we all fall down and you

Joshua: 00:36:35

even admitted that, but it's about those people that pick you up around.

Joshua: 00:36:40

I want to say, you picked me up tonight by being able to share these words and

Joshua: 00:36:46

speaking from the heart as you have.

Joshua: 00:36:48

Thank you so much for being on this show.

Joshua: 00:36:51

Thank you for sharing your insights, and for those that are interested and you are

Joshua: 00:36:56

working for the federal government and you want to check out Federally Employed

Joshua: 00:36:59

Women, I will leave a link in the episode notes so you can go check them out.

Joshua: 00:37:03

Ivana, thank you so much.

Ivana: 00:37:05

Thanks for letting me be here, josh, thanks for the invitation.

Ivana: 00:37:07

It has been a pleasure sharing with you.

Joshua: 00:37:10

Ivana is one of those individuals that I got to witness firsthand at a

Joshua: 00:37:16

Toastmasters meeting, and being that I was a really experienced Toastmaster, I

Joshua: 00:37:21

thought that I have met all the different types of people in my life that would

Joshua: 00:37:26

be able to create excitement and value for me, and then I was proven wrong, and

Joshua: 00:37:32

that's what makes this interview really special to me, and I want to thank Ivana.

Joshua: 00:37:38

I want to thank her work with the FEW: Federally Employed Women, for being able

Joshua: 00:37:43

to provide so many opportunities for women in federal government to learn

Joshua: 00:37:48

professional development and network, so that there can be a greater purpose for

Joshua: 00:37:55

not only these ladies that are going to fundamentally change the world, which

Joshua: 00:38:00

they already have, but they're going to be able to provide the high energy, exciting

Joshua: 00:38:06

fun that Ivana did during her interview.

Joshua: 00:38:10

There are a lot of things in this that I could digest into a long episode in

Joshua: 00:38:15

itself, and I might do that down the road in another episode, because of some of

Joshua: 00:38:20

the topics that we talked about here, but there are a couple things that we often

Joshua: 00:38:26

forget about when it comes to even our personal and professional development

Joshua: 00:38:30

that I want to share here, and it's about the word or the phrase, self-care.

Joshua: 00:38:38

Ivana could have easily said no to the opportunity that she has now, knowing

Joshua: 00:38:44

that she would've been able to lead a content life, and I know that I challenged

Joshua: 00:38:49

her in one of my questions about that and she handled it so well, and I really

Joshua: 00:38:55

wanted to get to the bottom of it.

Joshua: 00:38:56

That's why I wanted to ask her specifically, "would you

Joshua: 00:39:00

have been okay with that?"

Joshua: 00:39:02

Sometimes being okay with something is not easy to do, especially when we are

Joshua: 00:39:06

saying no to somebody, but it isn't a mean no, meaning that it's not something that

Joshua: 00:39:11

we are having some negative connotation.

Joshua: 00:39:14

It's respecting the fact that we need self-care personally for ourselves

Joshua: 00:39:18

in order to create opportunities down the road for others, because if we

Joshua: 00:39:23

don't rest, if we don't take care of ourselves by rejuvenating either

Joshua: 00:39:28

through sleep, through alternate activities, or doing something else

Joshua: 00:39:33

that will help us lift us to the next level, it will always end in disaster.

Joshua: 00:39:40

My own story consists of that working hard long nights within state government,

Joshua: 00:39:47

working hard for myself to make ends meet financially, really put a barrier

Joshua: 00:39:55

between the people that I could have met, the relationships I could have formed,

Joshua: 00:40:00

both friendship wise and romantically, and being able to have success and

Joshua: 00:40:06

some of the things that often others think that is really important to do.

Joshua: 00:40:11

Notice that the last part of what I just said is about what other people

Joshua: 00:40:15

think that we can do, because it isn't just about what those definitions

Joshua: 00:40:20

are, it's about our own definition.

Joshua: 00:40:23

It's about the definition of boundaries, of balance, whether

Joshua: 00:40:27

we are some sort of zodiac sign.

Joshua: 00:40:30

Even if you are a Gemini, if you're a Pisces, if you are a Taurus, regardless

Joshua: 00:40:35

of what your sign is, we all know that sometimes that high energy,

Joshua: 00:40:41

exciting fun cannot last forever.

Joshua: 00:40:44

Learning to say no when it's the most important is really a godsend.

Joshua: 00:40:51

It's something that we can learn how to express ourselves in a more developed way.

Joshua: 00:40:56

I work with clients that help to fundamentally see when that happens

Joshua: 00:41:02

and when they can start to make decisions that are helping them to

Joshua: 00:41:05

see what that bigger picture could be.

Joshua: 00:41:09

It isn't just about lying dormant.

Joshua: 00:41:12

It isn't just about the things that were hidden inside ourselves

Joshua: 00:41:15

that we're trying to unlock.

Joshua: 00:41:17

It's about the things that we're trying to express to ourselves

Joshua: 00:41:20

and others that is key to that big picture of what we're doing.

Joshua: 00:41:26

It might be about solving problems.

Joshua: 00:41:28

It might be about having some fun along the way, but noting when someone is

Joshua: 00:41:34

not feeling off and checking in with them, it's something that I wish that

Joshua: 00:41:38

I had for the longest time in my life.

Joshua: 00:41:41

I didn't know how to articulate that, and I would often contain

Joshua: 00:41:45

it inside myself thinking that I would be able to do it all.

Joshua: 00:41:49

"I am superior.

Joshua: 00:41:51

I know what I need to do.

Joshua: 00:41:53

I can do this all by myself.

Joshua: 00:41:55

I don't need anybody's help.

Joshua: 00:41:57

Why are you not talking to me?"

Joshua: 00:42:02

That attitude is what got me in trouble in the first place, and I'm still paying

Joshua: 00:42:07

the price to this day, but I'm willing to be vulnerable about that because

Joshua: 00:42:12

some people don't know when that might become something that holds us back from

Joshua: 00:42:17

our true potential that we can unlock.

Joshua: 00:42:21

I'm reminded of so many people my own life that have walked away knowing that they

Joshua: 00:42:26

maybe have not been able to do just that.

Joshua: 00:42:31

I wish that there would be other associations and groups of people that

Joshua: 00:42:34

would be able to form together to create that bond, but just like I've said in

Joshua: 00:42:40

other episodes, especially when we think that technology is going to create and

Joshua: 00:42:44

help us and create that value, it's been pulling us apart more than ever before.

Joshua: 00:42:51

Our human-centric approach is being lost.

Joshua: 00:42:56

Ivana reminded me during this interview the importance of having that human

Joshua: 00:42:59

centeredness, and as a matter of fact, she was one of those people that even

Joshua: 00:43:04

throughout this journey that I've been on, has totally understood the importance

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of me to have that self-care and has always checked in every once in a while.

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Ivana, thank you for taking care of me in my greatest need.

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It doesn't always have to look this way.

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It always means though, that we have to be able to understand

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where we're currently at and always looking introspectively and outward.

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We have to be always tilting our head in a 360 degree angle, which is

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very tough to do physically, but if you move your body to the direction

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of where those opportunities are, it makes that pivoting much easier to do.

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It's not about saying everything that we need to do is important.

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It's about understanding, in context, what our limitations are, and being

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able to focus on the things that are really important for all of us, and I

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think Ivana has identified that through her instructional design background and

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certification, along with all the women that she's been able to support because

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of her great mentors that she has as well.

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You can learn so much from other people that I can't stress enough that it can be

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a starting point for all of us to learn and grow from one person to another.

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If you haven't started to form those relationships, or you have

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lost touch with those relationships as a whole, here's your chance.

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You can create that value.

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You can provide that boundary tear down.

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You can notice when someone is feeling off by simply asking them, "Are you okay?

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What can I do for you?"

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You can do it in a personal or a professional manner, and there

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are always ways to approach it.

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I work with groups specifically to do that because I realize that those

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are the barriers that often stop us from being able to learn how to become

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more expressive, but don't ever lose that fire that's inside of you, that

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high energy, exciting, make it fun attitude, because just maybe, you could

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be influencing someone from a distance and you would've never realized it.

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Ivana certainly represents that importance for all of us to not only create that

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opportunity, but even if you feel that you can't, just know this: you have

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what it takes through all the energy that's inside of you, you can start

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to move in the direction that you are destined to be in, and even along

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the way, it's okay to take a rest.

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Thanks for listening to episode number 18 of Speaking From the

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Heart, and I look forward to hearing from your heart very soon.

Outro: 00:46:02

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