Self-Leadership And The Human Side Of Work With Laurie Ruettimann

Self-leadership is more than a buzzword—it’s a radical act of reclaiming your voice, values, and well-being in a system that often asks you to check them at the door. In this episode, Tony Martignetti sits down with Laurie Ruettimann—acclaimed author, speaker, and host of the Punk Rock HR podcast—to talk about her evolution from burned-out HR executive to bold advocate for personal agency and workplace change. Laurie unpacks the myths of fixing ourselves, explores why vulnerability is a strength (not a liability), and digs into the power of storytelling, therapy, and showing up fully human at work. Laurie reminds us that the path to fixing work begins with honoring who we already are.

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Listen to the podcast here

Self-Leadership And The Human Side Of Work With Laurie Ruettimann

It is my honor to introduce you to my guest, Laurie Ruettimann. Laurie is a distinguished Consultant and Author with over two decades in leadership in HR. She began as an HR leader before evolving into an influential writer and speaker. She's recognized by CNN in 2009 as a Top US Career Advisor. Her insights have appeared on platforms like NPR, The New Yorker, and The Wall Street Journal.

Globally renowned for her keynote addresses on leadership and technology in the workplace, her bestselling up her bestselling book, Betting On You delves into modern HR dynamics. She also shapes future leaders through LinkedIn learning and sparks discussions on her podcast Punk Rock HR. Come on, how cool is that? She's a steadfast advocate for enhanced workplace experiences. Her forthcoming book is Corporate Drinker based on stories and a podcast of the same name. She lives with her husband and cats in Raleigh, North Carolina. I'm truly honored to welcome you to the Virtual Campfire.

I'm so happy to be here. I have my s'mores and my hot chocolate. I'm nice and toasty and ready to go.

It's wonderful. It's always a good time to be by a fire and I love the evocative nature of a campfire.

Me too. I'm really pleased to be here. Thank you for asking.

From Over-Talkative Kid To HR Listener: The Genesis Of Communication Passion

Of course. I’ve just been so thrilled to watch the journey that you've been on and see all the impact that you've made. Now we get a chance to really get the inside story of how did you get to what you're doing in the world. I'm looking forward to just uncovering some of that journey. We're going to do that and then we're also going to talk about some of the things that you're starting to put out in the world, the new book, some of the things you're not thinking about these days.

We're going to start with the story and we're going to do that through what's called flashpoint. These are the points in your journey that have ignited your gifts into the world. I'm going to turn it over to you and you'll pause along the way and share what's on your mind and we'll look at the themes that are showing up. Laurie, take it away.

If I think about some of the most important moments in my life, they're really not linear. They're more like buckshots and scattershots. You have childhood, but I'm 50 now. I don't really remember my childhood with accuracy, but there were these moments that were scattershot where through my life, through my young life, I always had this message of, “You talk too much.”

I was constantly told that. I did. I was very hyper vocal and I read early. I think the message was really is that, “You communicate. Whatever you think, whatever you feel, whatever you witness, you want to share.” I have always been someone who has shared and then paused and waited for people to share back, which is why that I knew whatever career I had, I was not angling for a job because working looked hard.

I knew whatever I did in the world, it would be me communicating, but also listening. It makes sense that I fell into an early career in human resources because what is that? You communicate a job, you communicate an opportunity, you communicate benefits and compensation, but you also listen a lot if you do HR right. I think in a lot of ways I was built for a career of communicating both good information and bad, but also listening. Listening to the feedback, listening to what people say. I don't know, it's a weird way to encapsulate early career. What do you think about that?

I absolutely love it. There's something about that which is to say you're passionate communicator and you know that passion was evoked early on and now you've got this opportunity to continue to keep it going and the fact that it's not just the talking, it's the listening. We all know that that's the balancing act that we often overlook the listening part. I'm glad that you bring that in. Did you study that in school? Did you study HR? What was your major?

I majored English Literature and Language and minored in Comparative Theology. In a weird way, I'm rooted in story. I was trained to deconstruct text and trained to ask questions and naturally curious. When I fell into the world of HR, because I had student loans to pay and couldn't afford to go to law school right away, I was actually more interested in the human condition. Yeah, okay, it's cool to give people an offer, but it's more interesting to hear how they got there.

It's cool to give people an offer, but it's more interesting to hear how they got there.

When they worked, I was all for hearing gossip, I loved it, or just people sharing their life stories. That really cemented a bond between me and the workforce in a way that a lot of HR professionals couldn't do or didn't take the time to do. I heard stories from people immigrating from Bosnia and Serbia and stories about overcoming really severe childhood trauma and being successful in marketing or sales.

I just was fascinated by people who all bet on themselves and believed in themselves. Even if they were working in a factory. They may be first generation Americans. I wanted to hear like how did you end up from war torn Yugoslavia to where I went to school and started my early career in St. Louis, Missouri? I was fascinated by the human condition and maybe to a detriment, because I liked that more than I liked actually doing the job of working in human resources.

The Human Element: Prioritizing People Over Purely HR Tasks

That insight is so spot on. This is why you and I are simpatico about this. It's like, I love the story. Everyone's got something powerful to share and we need to lean in and understand where are they coming from and how are they bringing this to life in the work that they do. Spending some time to really understand people slowing down and listening is what really makes a good HR professional. I think oftentimes, even just people in general in the workplace don't spend enough time getting to know each other on that human level and think that's why we need to put more of that human element back into the workplace. Would you agree?

 I really made it clear that I truly do not care about the world of work, even though I'm immersed in it. Cool, you got a job, it's good that you're good at it, or if you want to get better at it, I can help, but I'm more interested in you as a person, as an individual. I think that gave me a lot of runway when I got things wrong and I got things wrong all the time. What do I know? I'm like mucking my way through HR, but I could ask for forgiveness. I had earned it because I was patient and people knew they could come to me, they could trust me. More importantly, they also asked questions about me in a way that my own coworkers in HR didn't.

They wanted to know my early childhood story. They wanted to know why I didn't go to law school. I just was able to be seen as more than an HR lady because I trusted putting my story into the world. I was able to be seen as a fellow human being. That really benefited me throughout my entire career. It still benefits me now. People feel like they know me and it's not like they really know me. They just know 10% more of me than they know of the average person. That proximity to who I am, even if it's only 10%, feels really important and really authentic.

Personal Struggles And Corporate Pressures: A Rocky Path In HR

It's beautiful. Tell me more. What happens? Let's get to know 10% more of you now. You get into HR, but what happens next as you move through your journey?

My heart was broken often. I went into this job in HR really just a couple of years away from growing up in a really raucous environment. I did not have a traditional childhood. My mother is a retired Chicago police officer. My father worked at the phone company as an engineer, but neither of them had a college education. My mom only had a GED.

Along the way, there was a lot of addiction, abuse, all of that happening in my life. The only way I knew how to escape it was to go to school and to get an education, to be that first person in my family to really set the tone for how the next generation should be. I did that, but I had not fully recognized or reconciled my own personal story. You bring that into a corporate environment built on productivity and scarcity and really getting more out of people and no work-life balance.

And I fell into this trap of constantly trying to prove myself. The corporate machine doesn't care if you prove yourself because it's going to ask you to prove yourself tomorrow. I got beat up thinking that work was my identity, wondering why I was the one who was broken, why I couldn't meet the demands of a corporate workforce. The more I tried, the more I failed myself. I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't taking care of myself. The way that we can even fuel ourselves properly like I never drank water.

The corporate machine doesn't care if you prove yourself because it's going to ask you to prove yourself tomorrow.

I still don't know how I fueled myself on coffee, but no water. I found myself in an airport at the age of 29 and a couple of things happened. The first thing is that I sneezed and threw out my back. At 29, I’ve got back pain because I'm traveling all over the world for a company that always seems to have money and time and interest for itself and is asking me to prove that I'm worthy. The second thing that happened is I got stuck on a layover. I missed my flight and I was like in Kansas City or somewhere. I don't know where I was. Who knows at this point?

It was that memorable, right?

Yeah. I do remember I was eating Starburst and drinking a Pepsi. It was like 7:00 at night. What am I doing? How am I living? I'm just trying to eat snacks with sugar and caffeine. I was reading an US Weekly magazine because why would I read anything that's helpful to me? I was just killing time before social media was really what it is now.

I'm reading this US Weekly magazine and there's an article in there about a celebrity who truly has it all but couldn't lose weight and went to Mexico and allegedly had gastric bypass surgery. I wasn't super heavy. I didn't really qualify here in America, I knew that. I thought, “Money solves problems.” You have a budget. If you have personal wealth, if you have access to things in this world, you can really tackle things.

I got this hair-brained idea to go down to Mexico and have bariatric surgery. Maybe a terrible idea in retrospect, maybe the best thing I ever did. The jury is like still out, but I am five feet tall, I maybe weighed 159 pounds at my max. I thought the way to fix this is to reconfigure my body, not to opt out of the system, but to reconfigure my body. It was terrible. Yet, I did it.

This is over twenty years ago now. I have mixed feelings about it. In a lot of ways, it reconnected me to my body. In other ways, it pushed off the inevitable conversation about body dysmorphia and eating disorders. I didn't have to talk about that right away because I thought if only I got thin, I wouldn't throw out my back. I wouldn't feel so tired, I wouldn't be exhausted.

It turns out some of that is true, but nothing exhausts you like laying people off all over the world. That didn't go away. I’ll just stop right there because I think I was having an early conversation about what it means to be healthy at any size, take good care of yourself. I was immersed in a well-being conversation that didn't have the resources that I would've had now. I don't know, what do you feel about all of that?

Laurie, I'm feeling it. This is something that I think so many of us experience at some point, but we don't quite have the language to capture it. I think that's what you were experiencing in the sense of like you knew that something was completely off. I wrote an article about this a while back, about how like if you're feeling tension in your body, it's probably a sign for something bigger needs to happen and it's your body telling you something.

Still, we need to figure out what's the path to getting to what you need. I think you started with like, “I’ll just do this and I’ll do the this,” but I think the true course is really slowing down and figuring out what does my body need? What does my mind need? What does my life need to get on the right course? I think oftentimes we just start with what we readily have available to us.

Realizing It’s Time To Leave: The Injustices And Toxicities Of The System

I should have been in therapy. I should and I'd been taking antidepressants the whole time I'm working in human resources because, again, I'm not quite reconciled with my childhood. I'm trying to have adult relationships with people in my family who are not healthy. I'm dealing with this world of HR, which is toxic and chaotic. I'm seeing the underbelly of an organization and trying to really care for people who are vulnerable and who need it, who may not always appreciate my good intentions.

It was just a very challenging time. I'm so rooted in this idea of self-leadership that I think that individual accountability is the differentiator, but you don't know what you haven't learned. I was really doing my best and I think operating from a good place and seeing a vision of myself really where I am now, which is healthy and functioning and taking care of myself, but I didn't know how to get there.

I went to Mexico and I came back and I thought for a while like, “Yeah, okay, I could fix my career and I could have a plan and this could all be great and I might actually enjoy HR again.” It turns out, in talking to more people, I discovered I needed to get out. I needed to leave HR. While I love the problems of work and I actually love people solving big problems., I don't like the performance management we do. I don't like the racial inequities, the injustices. I don't like racism, sexism, homophobia. I don't like any of that.

Corporations are built on some of these old systems and what am I going to do, fix it in a job in HR? No. Coming back from Mexico, really doing a lot of soul searching, finally getting into therapy, I'm like, “I’ve got to leave.” I asked for and received a severance package and that was like my seed money for the entrepreneurial journey that I'm still on now, many years later.

I just want to interrupt for a second to say I think of the hero's journey and what you went on, this idea of leaving the world that you are in and going on the soul searching that you did and then also realizing that sometimes, we think we've arrived and you don't really arrive and you realize you're still on it. I’ve been on that path myself of thinking like, “Have I figured it out?” No, I haven't. There's still more to be figured out. The fact that you went on the quest is what's most important. I think that's so beautiful, especially from the perspective of HR, which carries a lot of emotional baggage to day in, day out, show up and people come to you. We had this conversation earlier how people come to HR with a lot of emotional baggage and then we carry the load.

That is so well said. I'm sorry to laugh, but it's absolutely true. It probably isn't just true of HR. It's probably true of every function. Humans are tasked at extraordinary lengths right now. The world is chaotic and volatile and all the buzzwords. Every job requires us to solve big problems or get out of the way. Unfortunately, in HR, our job is to solve human problems that may not be solved.

Conflict is as old as humanity. How am I going to fix the fact that two people hate one another at work? They have to fix that. I can be a broker, I can be a mediator, but that's not my job as an adult. In that way, there may be unrealistic expectations of HR. It may be an unfair situation we put ourselves in. One thing I talk about a lot is that the fact that HR professionals are employees too. At the end of the day, we’ve got to fund our retirement.

Conflict is as old as humanity. How can I fix that two people hate each other at work? They have to fix that themselves.

Do we ever truly operate as an honest broker, even when our hearts are in the right place? I felt that way later on as an HR consultant. I'm hired by a company, not by the people. At the end of the day, I have to deliver results for the company. Here I am again, back in Corporate America. You're right that it's a journey. I don't know that it's a hero's journey, it's just this ongoing journey to be comfortable and to be accountable and in alignment with my values.

The further I get away from my values, the more I don't eat right, the more I don't nap and sleep and do all the things I need to do, the more I'm cranky, the more I'm just inhospitable. It's this constant journey to continually audit my values and also audit my life and ask, “Am I being charitable? Am I being humble?” That is really important. Do I have humility? Do I have patience. This ongoing quest to get a little bit closer to just being a person I truly can be.

I love that you took this back to yourself because it's really not to say like it's selfish, but it's like we need to take care of ourselves. We need to be aligned with our values so that we can be of service to others because there's no way that we're going to be able to do that without it. I know that's been said before, but I think it's so critically important.

It's a good reminder all the time. I really feel that had I done some of the early work and I didn't know, I didn't know I can go to therapy, but once I knew, had I been more aggressive about it and actually talked to more people within HR about some of what I was feeling, instead of having a lot of horizontal competition within HR, had I just been a little bit more honest. What I did now, I go first. I talk about my feelings, I talk about going to Mexico. I don't really feel a lot of shame anymore. Back then when I worked in HR, I felt a little bit shame about being human, like of other people's stories. It was very hard for me to tell my own. Had I done all of that, I might still be working in HR.

It sucks how many people we lose because of burnout, exhaustion, compassion, fatigue. I can't tell you how many men and women come up to me and say, “I want to do what you do.” I'm like, “You do not.”  Yes, it looks amazing, but I have to go out there. I have to market myself. I have to sell myself. Until you get in the right frame of mind where you can take all of that seriously, but not too seriously where you don't get easily wounded, it's tough to be your own person out there. For as fun and interesting as it looks, it is, but I hear from people on a daily basis who tell me they hate me. The internet is terrible and I didn't have a stable of loving people around me. I don't know what I would do. I have a therapist, by the way, still, to this day.

Social Media Regrets: Unfiltered Honesty And Digital Expectations

I love that you share that because that's a reality that we have to bring out is this sense of like, everyone thinks that everyone else is knocking it out of the park and everyone's having the most fantastic time in the world, but everyone's having a hard time with whatever they have. Whether you're inside an organization or out on your own, trying to build something on your own, it's hard to make a living these days.

It's hard to make a life for yourself. I think we need to slow ourselves down and start to think what can I do with what I have? Also, make sure I don't compare too much of what my journey looks like to other people because it's not going to be the same. I can focus and control on what I have, not on what other people have.

Digital media makes that harder. I regret being early to all of the social media stuff because I really thought it was going to change the world. I don’t know why I thought that. I'm pretty cynical otherwise like I feel like capitalism plus anything equals it sucks. I felt like Twitter, Facebook, it was going to democratize communication.

Eventually, with Instagram and video sharing, we could all tell our stories. It has not gone that way, as you know. All along the way, I was complicit. I'm like, “Look at me, look at this.” I thought it would inspire and teach and instead, it sometimes made me crave it. It made me chase data and numbers and engagement and other times made me feel lonely even though I have like this really abundant life with people who love me.

I know that now about my life. I have people who let me express love and who let me be weird. I'm so weird, but they go, “All right, in for a penny, in for a pound.” I have this beautiful life and there are times where I'm like, “How come I didn't get enough likes on this Instagram post?” What kind of stupid thinking is that? Except it's human thinking. It's human behavior.

I'm just like anybody else caught up in this cycle that didn't go the way I thought it would. Do I regret teaching HR leaders how to get on Twitter? Kind of, but I can't do anything with that regret. All I can do is now talk about it honestly, that if I had to do it all over again and was given a little bit of foreknowledge about what this would become, I would say no.

You can only look at things backwards. You can only go back and look at it and you can't know what you know now. I think that's a humble way to look at it. You can't judge yourself for that. At the end of the day, we're realizing now how we want to show up and learn from those things that we did experience. I think that's what we can do going forward. Still show up and share stories and be ourselves and be vulnerable. I think that's what's going to connect us with other people, but don't chase the things we used to chase because we know that that's not really going to serve us or other people.

 Good luck with that.

I know it's not easy. It's a journey, like I said.

If I really felt that way, I might cancel my Instagram account. I know I'm still like, “Look at me.” Hopefully, I am using some of the attention that I garner for good things, which is why I love to talk about like volunteering, being of service, art that I’ve seen. Once a month I take a crafting class because I'm a dork. I like to do that. I’ll post something about that.

I think all learning is worthwhile. It's our responsibility to learn horizontally and then take that good stuff into our lives and even take it to work. If I can inspire someone to take a break from their crazy life and go take a painting class, I hope to do that, or at least show them that it's possible. I'm incredibly busy and I can still take one night a month and go do an acrylic Dutch pour class or stuff like that. Plus, it's fun. It's fun to be a dork and learn.

What you're embracing is such a cool thing because instead of chasing everyone else and doing exactly like everyone else, embrace the weird. I think that I’ve been hearing that refrain lately a lot. I got back from this big retreat. “Let's get weird,” was the refrain. I think we all need to be a little more weird in our own way. Instead of trying to be like everyone else and chasing the herd, we just got to be ourselves and allow other people to be themselves and the world will be much better for it. I love that you're saying that. If people don't like it, that's on them.

I guess, unless it's someone we really respect and admire and then we just have to suffer that little defeat, that little indignity but our life will go on. There are a million people in this world I would love to be truly friends with. Maybe not a million, but quite a few. Sometimes they're like, “No thanks, Laurie.” I'm just like, “That stings,” but I'm human. I’ll get over it. I like what you're saying, though, that weird is the differentiator. That is so beautiful, Tony. That's really great.

"Betting On You": Behind The Scenes Of Writing A Meaningful Book

I think we're embracing it in our own way, so that's awesome. I have to hear the story behind writing your first book because it's not easy writing a book. That experience can be really challenging. Tell me what went into that first one and what got you to think like, “It's time for me to do this?”

People kept asking me, “Where's your book?” That helps. I'd written eBooks and I wrote a lot. I wrote a blog that was very popular for a long period of time. I wrote at the conference board, I’ve written in major magazines and it's like, “All right, okay, I can do this, but if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it right.” I bet on me once again and invested in a writing coach and really tried to understand what do I need to do to get a legit agent and to get a legit book deal because I'm not doing this in a minor way. If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it and I'm only going to do it once

Is that now a lie?

Yeah. I hired this book coach and he helped me with it and introduced me to like ten agents and I only liked one of them. Thank God, that guy liked me and his name was Esmond Harmsworth. Esmond was a champ of a human being. He was my advocate. Sold my book at auction, which is a very big deal. I got a huge advance for a first-time writer and was really a great reader, a great advocate. I'm sorry to say, he passed away.

He was a phenomenal human being. My agent changed my life and was so kind and taught me so much beyond the world of publishing. It's funny because I’ve known him for 6 or 7 years and the outpouring of love from people who knew him deeply and it just immensely has been huge. I thought, “How lucky am I to have just crossed paths with him?”

When you had a moment with Esmond, and I had many moments with him, you felt like you were the only one in the room. The book writing process was tough. Going back and excavating through my career history to teach lessons going forward, it's intertwined with my own story. That's tough. Esmond was like a pillow around me. He was there to help me focus on the work on the writing.

I turned my manuscript in like two weeks before the world shut down with COVID and he fought for me to get this book out. He really fought for it. We picked a publishing date and it came out six days after the Insurrection on January 6th, 2021. It got lost in the media, but it has sold well and people to this day, even you, Tony, were kind enough to say that my book is great. Thank you for that. I'm so pleased when I hear not just that it's great, but that it's made a difference or someone learns something new. That just gets me.

Honestly, as you said earlier, there's an element of we need to hear just how we're making a difference. The little notes from people, the little sense of encouragement because it is a lot of work to put our hearts on the page and to share what's going on in the world from our perspective. I'm glad you did and I love the story you shared behind this because it is not a going with somebody who is really made an impact through the book and the process you've done. It's wonderful to hear Esmond’s story.

So many people have nightmare stories about publishing a book. It was tough and it was challenging, but it was also just so much easier because I had an advocate, I had an ally. It's an example for me on how I should live. Being there for people who ask me questions. I try to do that, being available, being a positive force. When you give someone feedback, you do it with the gravity, knowing that feedback, if done well, changes not only what they're doing right now, but changes their life. Esmond was an example of that. I miss him terribly already, but he'll live on in the memories of his family, his friends, his children, and hopefully in the books that I write in the future.

Corporate Drinker: Exploring Coping Mechanisms And Workplace Realities

Let's talk about the next book because I know you mentioned briefly in our intro you have another book, which sounds very interesting title-wise. I know it's based on your new podcast. Tell us a little bit about the new book.

I’ve been dreaming about writing Corporate Drinker for several years because intersected in all of these crazy stories about work that I have is my own, I wouldn't even call it functional alcoholism because it's not that it's just like a dependence in the moment to drink to get me through social encounters. Noticing that is true for a whole huge population.

You don't have to be part of the 10% that actually has addiction issues, like documented addiction issues. Many of us just drink too much drink casually, but get ahead of our skis. I wanted to talk about what that means for work, for diversity, for inclusion. Esmond was such a champion for that book. I'm not sure, we had just talked about this not too long ago, the environment for it to come out because the way the world of work is swinging is not towards compassion and vulnerability and inclusion.

It's swinging more towards productivity results. Do this or you're going to be outsourced by AI. In that way, I'm not sure Corporate Drinker is the right modality to get some of those messages out. We were toying with, does it become a chapter in a different book about the future of work? I'm not quite sure it's uncharted and I'm going to miss his wise counsel, but I think there is a really important conversation to have around how people cope when work is just toxic.

Even when it isn't, it just gets stressful. We have a loneliness epidemic. We have an epidemic of people being disconnected and not participating in community events. What do we need to do? How do we need to be self-leaders to get that joy back in our lives? That's what I want to write about. Corporate Drinker or not, it's going to happen.

Yeah, I mean I just love it because first of all, it is such a out there type of topic and I'm like, “That's interesting.” Now that I hear you talk about it more, it's like there's a lot of people walking around and trying to mask themselves the inner self of who they are. I think there's an element of we need to bring that comfort into the room where we're able to say like, “I don't have to put on a mask to be in this room with other people. I'm okay. I can get comfortable with this place.” I think we need to make the environment safer for people to show up in that way.

Unfortunately, right now, it's just not that way. It's not feeling safe. It's still very toxic. People do feel like they need to hide elements of who they are. You remind me and not to be plugging my TED Talk, my TED Talk is don't check yourself with the door and how to bring your true self in the workplace. I think it touched the nerve with a lot of people. I feel like a lot of people feel this sense of holding back because of the fact that they just don't feel comfortable in many rooms.

I love that. I love this as an evergreen message. Tony, thank you for doing this work because I just really appreciate someone in the trenches really talking about the things that matter most. The more we can be not just our authentic selves, but our truest selves, when we walk in truth, we are the best version of ourselves. It's a journey I'm still on. I have a lovely therapist who charges me $200 a week to do it. We can do it without the help of a therapist. We could do it through TED Talks, through learning, through watching videos, through shows like this. Anything that can help us be a little bit more confident, a little braver and a little bit more comfortable in our skin is worth pursuing. Thank you for doing that.

When we walk in truth, we are the best version of ourselves.

Of course. I think that's what your next book is feeling to me, a sense of like giving people that little bit of micro bravery to say, “I don't need that crutch.” Even if there's a lot of toxicity in the room, I can find my little sense of comfort in who I am or my people to be with the people who will support me in the room to go with.

I love it. Ever want to be a self-help author. I just want to be a help author. I want to be helpful. I don't want people to follow a cult of Laurie. I don't need them like all bought in on my ecosystem and my mastermind. I just want to be known as someone who was helpful. I'm not an entertainer, I'm a teacher. I heard that from a speaker many years ago and it just so resonated with me. I hate to mimic it, but it's just true. I'm not famous, I'm helpful. If I'm known for being helpful, what an honor.

I want to emblazon that on a coffee mug because I think that's the mantra we need to be attaching to. A lot of people are coming into the world of thought leadership with this idea of wanting to be famous. I think the idea of being famous is that's not the goal here. We want to help to teach people the tools to be successful in whatever it is that they want to be successful in, if that's getting better at whatever X, Y and Z. At the end of the day, if that ends up having an effect on how we show up, great, but that's not the goal. The goal needs to be about making an impact on people's lives.

That's right. If you do that, there's plenty of money to go around.

Exactly. We've covered a lot of ground and I have to go back into cheering if, first of all, any more flashpoints you want to share?

No, I mean, how about being vulnerable? What a flashpoint for me. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. Amazing.

Rethinking "Fixing" Ourselves: Questioning Systemic Issues And Self-Perception

I also want to ask if there's any other things you've learned about yourself on this journey that you have not shared? We've shared a lot of lessons that you've learned about yourself through these stories. Is there anything else that you haven't shared that you want to share that will be of service?

I always say we fix work. We improve the world of work. We fix it by fixing ourselves first. I’ve backed off of saying that because what if we don't need fixing? What if we're okay, what if we're weird and complicated, but what if it's the system that needs to be thrown out? In having this dialogue with myself, I think I'm evolving. Yeah, we are individually accountable for how we show up and treat people. If we work on our own issues in this world, we're going to be too busy to worry about Sally in procurement, our arch nemesis.

I think that part is true. If we work on things that bother us and we improve them, we have a positive downstream effect on the organization. What if we also just said, “Maybe I'm not so broken.” That's where I am now. Maybe I'm fine. Maybe it's the world, well maybe it's capitalism, maybe it's the stupid company I'm working with. Maybe it's the client that is aggressive and has unrealistic expectations that I’ll never meet. What if I don't need fixing? I think that is driving part of my rethinking around Corporate Drinker and really what I offer into the world.

I just think that's such a great sentiment because there's inside-outside work that we need to do. Sure, we want to make sure we go in and think, “What do I need to work on for myself? Will it make me feel better about my situation?” There's a sense of exploration inside, but there's also a, what's in the environment that's not serving me? What is in the environment that's actually affecting me? That's the outside work.

Also, knowing that maybe it's not about fixing, it's just understanding and awareness that really, at the core of all of this is understanding what's happening so that I can be able to be more in coherence with that, if that's the right word. In being able to have that sense of connection to the inside and the outside.

I love it. I'm learning so much on this show. Thank you for sharing your insights. I'm like, “Yeah, you're my new therapist. This is amazing.”

Anytime. You call me up, we'll have these conversations. This is wonderful, Laurie. In the interest of time and I could talk to you all day, but I have to ask my last question. That is 1 or 2 books that have had an impact on you and why?

I’ll give you one because we're moving quickly. I like this book called Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski. I love the book because it's hilarious. It's crazy. It's an instruction also on how to write shorter sentences with clarity and purpose. This is very Hemingway-esque Raymond Chandler. More importantly, it shows that people have been struggling with work, even in the good old days when we had manufacturing jobs. There has always been an epidemic of male loneliness. The standards that we put on masculinity have always been broken.

This is not a new phenomenon. This is something that Bakowski wrote about over 50 years ago. This idea that if we just got some good old manufacturing jobs back in America, everything would be fine. I live in North Carolina. I would love for more people to work if they want to work and do work with dignity and meaning, but a lot of those old jobs did not have dignity and meaning. I don't want to romance the past. I want to move forward in a way that's right for humanity. Ham on Rye, it's a really interesting insight into the world of work and men from a really great and funny and complicated writer.

It just blew my mind because I mean, first of all, that book has never been mentioned. This is almost 300th episode of the show and I hear a lot of repeats, but that was a pure gold moment, a book that have not read. Now I'm going to go out and grab that book. I'm totally reading that. I am so inspired.

I'm happy to offer it. I love a good book, so if anybody wants to reach out to me through the show and let me know what they're reading, I always take recommendations. Find me on LinkedIn, send me what you're reading right now or what has inspired you. I would love that.

Amazing. Laurie, I just want to start by saying I'm so blessed that you came on here. This has been a wonderful conversation, the stories, the insights. I just can't wait to watch what happens next in your world and what you're going to bring out to the world in terms of your next book. This is going to be fun. Thank you for coming on the show.

Thank you very much. It was an honor. I cannot wait to hear from people with their book recommendations. I think it's going to be fun. Let's keep the conversation going.

Before I let you go, I also want to make sure people know where to find you. What's the best place to find out more about you?

I used to tell people you could just Google I hate HR and I come up but that's not so healthy because do I really hate HR? No. If you just go to PunkRockHR.com, the name of my podcast, it ports over because nobody can spell my last name and they'll find the entire “ecosystem” there. No mastermind classes. I don't do that.

Awesome. Obviously, they need to pick up your book that you've already written so that's readily available and definitely the podcast is fantastic. Definitely worth listening to. Thank you so much for coming on the show and thanks to readers for coming on this journey. I know you're leaving so inspired and ready to immerse yourself in this world. Do take on this challenge that Laurie has dropped. We want to hear what books are inspiring you.

Important Links

• Laurie Ruettimann

• Betting On You

• Punk Rock HR

• Laurie Ruettimann on LinkedIn

• Ham on Rye

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