#MILLSUMMIT 2022 Speaker Profile: Anna Greenwald
Anna Greenwald is the founder and CEO of On the Goga, an Philadelphia-based organizational wellbeing company with a simple, guiding principle: Happy People Do Great Things. Through her work, she and her team help organizations and leaders translate the latest research in positive and organizational psychology into practical behaviors and policies to create happier, healthier, and more successful teams. She has had the privilege of working with organizations across the globe, including DELL, Lyft, Johnson & Johnson, PwC, L’Oreal, and Jet.com.
Greenwald is a mindfulness and emotional wellbeing speaker and facilitator. She sits on the board of Philadelphia Startup Leaders and serves as the Director of Recruitment & Professional Development for Philadelphia's Mayoral Millennial Advisory Committee.
Session Name and Description:
The Leadership Mindset: Developing Key Traits for Transformational, Human-Centered Leaders
Leadership is a mindset. This workshop will talk about how the brain interprets stress, challenge, and change, and few surprisingly simple ways that we can shift our mindsets.
What You Hope People Will Take from Your Session:
1. Broadening our definition of leadership to understand it as a dynamic skillset
2. The role of uncertainty in leadership and the Leadership EQ Toolkit: Mindfulness, Resilience, and Growth Mindset
3. Practices and activities to improve the Leadership EQ Toolkit, with optional breakout room mini-sessions
What do you think is the biggest challenge facing millennials? I think one challenge facing millennials – that every generation is plagued with – is that we are grouped into a single category. Millennials make up a huge portion of the population, holding many different identities with different needs and values. Trying to group "all millennials" together, especially in the workplace, creates a generalized approach to policy that doesn't effectively center the nuance of the human experience.
What’s the question you wish more people would ask themselves? "What do I need right now?" This is a question that seems so simple, but we often train our brains to hit override on the signals our body and mind are trying to give us that tell us what we actually need. Sometimes the answer might be as simple as "I need to get up and get some water." Sometimes, it's the realization that something in our life isn't working, and we need to listen to that.
What’s the last book that blew you away (and why)? Is Harry Potter an acceptable answer? But seriously, I recently read “They Ask You Answer” by Marcus Sheridan, which was an incredible read on how to shift the way we think about meeting our customers.
When was the first time you realized you had the power of change or the power to do something meaningful? On some level, I have felt this my whole life. I am very lucky to say that I was raised in a family where I felt that my perspective was valued from a very young age. This gave me a lot of confidence and helped me to see how open communication, building mutual relationships, and learning to understand people's needs are important gateways into creating impact and change. My mother always taught me that if you don't like how a system works, find a way to make it work for you. Understand the people within it, find how you can support them, and change the way things work from the inside out. I've definitely taken that perspective with me my whole life - looking for ways to create change and impact through human connection.
What advice would you give your younger self? Where were you at that time? A motto that has always been very helpful to me is to remember that "the difference between people who do cool sh*t and the people that don't is that the people who do cool sh*t do it." So often, we are convinced that we are missing some key piece of information or some crucial skill set, and without it, we can't reach our goal. And so we wait. We look at others who are "doing it" and think "well, they must know something I don't." What I have learned through my life so far is that the big joke is that that no one has that information. No one has it figured out. Leaders just end up being the people who were willing to go ahead without it and, with humility, figure it out along the way.
When you feel overwhelmed, distracted, or lose your focus, what do you do? I try not to label being overwhelmed or distracted as "bad" or "good." We live in a hustle-culture that often rewards people for being busy or stressed. We also live in a culture that glamourizes self-care and can make us feel guilty if we're feeling stressed or burnt out. The reality is that we live in a world that demands a LOT from us physically, mentally, emotionally, financially so I try to remember that when my mind runs away with anxiety, and I don’t feel grounded, this is a natural reaction to trying to balance a lot of different things mentally. It's like an athlete – just Google "sprinter face" to see how natural it is for our bodies to be strained during exertion. If I notice that I've started shaming myself, I remind myself that it's normal and use the feeling as a reminder that I'm working hard, and my body is telling me I need to rest or approach things in a more sustainable way.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten? I saw Shonda Rhimes give a keynote at the Pennsylvania Conference for Women, and she said, "If you've been invited into the room, you belong in the room."
What are the open tabs in your browser right now? Oh no, that list would be too long to list!
What’s your go-to mantra for difficult times? Do your best and forget the rest.