Here in the Pacific Northwest, as fall approaches, we typically welcome back the fog and rain.  This year, it is hard to separate the moisture in the air, the fog, and the smoke that has blanketed our world.  We are surrounded by devastating fires in California, Oregon, and Eastern Washington, and weather patterns out of the ordinary have created a unique situation that has kept the smoke from these other places trapped in the Puget Sound area.  Leave it to 2020 to hand us another challenge.  As I drove across Lake Washington yesterday, the smoke was so thick, I couldn’t even see the water I knew was next to and beneath me on the bridge. I couldn’t see the city, the familiar Space Needle, but rather I was enveloped, only able to see the necessary amount ahead to safely proceed. 

Over the course of the last few weeks, I have been wrestling with the lessons of 2020 – Coronavirus, racial tensions, political mess, and now natural disaster.  In some ways, I feel isolated, and yet in other ways I feel more connected on a human level as we are seemingly being brought to our knees, rocked to the core of our humanity.  I have felt humbled by the complete lack of control. With no end in sight and no guarantees that 2021 will miraculously bring with it and end to our problems, I keep thinking about the lessons.  I keep thinking about humility and asking what it is we need to learn; what it is I can learn.  I keep thinking about the smoke and the way it has further obscured my view of the future and necessitated my trust and faith in knowing what exists beyond my sight yet, knowing like yesterday I can see only what I need to see, only the road in front of me.

I’ve been reminded of something important and valuable I learned from both a course on emotional intelligence and through the evidence-based coaching program I completed – this idea of getting humble and allowing humility to inspire sincere curiosity.  I have been inspired to strive to meet people where they are and to see through their lens. I have been challenged to build bridges without seeing the other side first and to trust in the core of our humanity to connect us.

As we are being stripped of our past ways of being, what does it mean to let go and be humbled?  How do we make the most of the life we are living right now?  How do we accept our limited view and stop trying to plan too far into the future? What do we already know that will guide us in this time of uncertainty?  This year, 2020, seems intent on slowing us down, on humbling us and reminding us of our past missteps.  The bridge is there, just as it was yesterday when I made my way blindly into Seattle. We simply need to take one careful, deliberate step at a time.  How might we allow humility to help us proceed with care and to create wiser, more intentional bridges and paths forward?  How do we embrace the destruction and slow breaking, and thoughtfully, carefully grow something new, nourished by the ashes of the past?

Poem I am sitting with, pondering, and finding inspiration in:

Fragile
By Nic Askew

We are fragile. You and me.

Though we act strong,
our lives are
held together with
thoughts of where
we might be tomorrow.
And of disappointed
yesterdays.

At any moment we might shatter.
We might fall to our knees
weighed down by the terror
of being so far from
our own control.

Dare we look up, we’d not know
where to go or what to do.

We are fragile. You and me.

If we turn to each other,
we might see the whole world
on their knees.
Hurting, and seemingly
alone.

But none of us are.

We are fragile together.

Podcast I’m Listening to:

Coaching for Leaders with Dave Stachowiak

Dave Stachowiak founded Coaching for Leaders in 2011. He was named in Forbes as one of the 25 Professional Networking Experts to Watch in 2015 and has also been featured in U.S. News & World Report. He notes that he found himself at the intersection of business and education throughout his career.

Previously he served as Senior Vice President with Dale Carnegie of Southern Los Angeles and led training programs for top organizations like the Northrop Grumman Corporation, The United States Air Force, the Boeing Company, and the University of California system.

During his tenure at Dale Carnegie, he was recognized multiple times with international business awards. His credentials include a doctoral degree in organizational leadership from Pepperdine University, certification as a facilitator with Dale Carnegie, and a certification as Coach U graduate. He has taught years of graduate courses in leadership and education at Vanguard University and serves on the board of the Global Center for Women & Justice. Additionally, he also co-hosts the Ending Human Trafficking podcast with friend, Sandie Morgan.

Dave has also been passed up for promotions, failed at launching his first business, and still fights through an occasional fear of speaking to people.  He lives in Southern California with his wife and two children.

Episode #488: Leadership Means You Go First, with Keith Ferrazzi

Don’t be deterred by the title as it seems to go against the idea promoted by Simon Sinek that leaders should “eat last”, at least that was my husband’s first reaction when I shared the title of the podcast I’d found inspiring.  Keith Ferrazzi offers insight into creating an environment of authenticity and psychological safety by walking the talk as a leader, by meeting others where they are rather than expecting them to meet you halfway.  By having the humility to take the first step, going first, and choosing to be a leader who is authentic and transparent, you set the tone and create the container for those around you to show up the same way.  Another insight that struck me and is still sitting with me is that “fear and scarcity breed perfectionism.” This helped me to think more deeply about my own penchant for perfectionism and the drivers behind my efforts.  In order to change, one must first see what lies beneath.  I have been inspired by the new lens, and hope you find some inspiration and new awareness through this podcast, too.

Keith Ferrazzi is the founder and CEO of Ferrazzi Greenlight, a management consulting and team coaching company that works with many of the world’s biggest corporations. A graduate of Harvard Business School, Keith rose to become the youngest CMO of a Fortune 500 company during his career at Deloitte, and later became CMO if Starwood Hotels.

Keith is a frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Fortune, and the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Who’s Got Your Back, and Never Eat Alone. He’s the author of the new book, Leading without Authority: How the New Power of Co-Elevation Can Break Down Silos, Transform Teams, and Reinvent Collaboration.

In this conversation, Keith and Dave discuss the importance of co-elevation in leadership. They also explore the six deadly sins that leaders should avoid and discuss why it’s not all on you, especially at the start.

Book I am Reading and Reflecting Upon:

What caught my attention about this book was the idea humility and trust are key to adaptability and successfully navigating change – key to our success in this current environment of global change.  Also, these themes of creating psychological safety, embracing diverse workforces, and collaborative problem solving all seem essential in our world as we know it.

Humble Leadership: The Power of Relationships, Openness and Trust by Edgar H. Schein and Peter A. Schein

Bestselling author and father of organizational culture studies, Edgar Schein and Peter Schein trail-blaze with a creative perspective on leadership that encourages vulnerability and empathy as a form of strength.

The more traditional forms of leadership that are based on static hierarchies and professional distance between leaders and followers are growing increasingly outdated and ineffective. As organizations face more complex interdependent tasks, leadership must become more personal in order to ensure open trusting communication that will make more collaborative problem solving and innovation possible. Without open and trusting communications throughout organizations, they will continue to face the productivity and quality problems that result from reward systems that emphasize individual competition and “climbing the corporate ladder”. Authors Edgar Schein and Peter Schein recognize this reality and call for a reimagined form of leadership that coincides with emerging trends of relationship building, complex group work, diverse workforces, and cultures in which everyone feels psychologically safe. Humble Leadership calls for “here and now” humility based on a deeper understanding of the constantly evolving complexities of interpersonal, group and intergroup relationships that require shifting our focus towards the process of group dynamics and collaboration. Humble Leadership at all levels and in all working groups will be the key to achieving the creativity, adaptiveness, and agility that organizations will need to survive and grow.

Please check out my latest blog posts on Lessons from the Run, Part 1: Mile 18 – Endurance, and Lessons from the Run, Part 2: Resilience, and stay tuned for the next addition Lessons of the Run, Part 3: Rest, as well as my upcoming blog post on My Vision: The Power of EQ to Create Change!  If you missed my August edition of Three Thoughts for Thursday, you can find it here, on my blog as well. As always, thank you for your continued support and readership! Stay strong, stay brave, stay true to you!

Photo by Nils Rasmusson on Unsplash

This month, I’ve been challenged to find ways of creating mental freedom.  I have thought often of Viktor Frankl and his book, Man’s Search for Meaning over the last few weeks.  He writes about living in horrible, unspeakable conditions of captivity during the Holocaust and how he found this sense of internal freedom from his captors. According to the wisdom of Frankl, “[e]verything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”[1]  Viktor Frankl also offers that “[b]etween stimulus and response there is a space.  In that space is our power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”[2] This especially hits home for me as my work in emotional intelligence leverages neuroscience to promote rewiring the brain, pausing to make new choices, empowering myself and others to create space to choose new actions and reactions.

The word that has been coming to mind on these days on which I feel stuck, these moments when I feel stripped of my freedoms and I mourn the loss of some of the activities and freedoms I often took for granted, is claustrophobic.  From what I hear from others and see in the news, I know I’m not the only one feeling this way. Rather than breaking the rules I know are best for everyone, I challenge myself to think of Viktor Frankl.  I challenge myself to be creative, to think about how I might find mental freedom in this time of loss of control, and rules, regulations and mandates. Rather than feel guilty for my own perceived losses of freedom in comparison to the loss of freedom Frankl suffered, I feel inspired and grateful.  If he was able to find peace and freedom in such dire circumstances, certainly I can rise and find ways to throw off these feelings of claustrophobia and redefine freedom, too!

What freedoms have you lost recently?  How have you mourned these losses?  How are you creating space for yourself to reflect and find mental freedom?  What are new ways you might experience freedom?  What are new freedoms that have come in our current situation?  How might you challenge yourself to find new opportunities for mental freedom?

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[1] Frankl, V. (1959, 1962, 1984, 1992). Man’s Search for Meaning. New York: Buccaneer Books, Inc.

[2] Viktor E. Frankl Quotes. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved August 19, 2020, from BrainyQuote.com Web site: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/viktor_e_frankl_160380

Quote(s) I am sitting with, pondering and finding inspiration:

“Sometimes you have to let go of the picture of what you thought life would be like and learn to find joy in the story you are actually living.”

~ Rachel Marie Martin

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

Podcast I’m Listening to:

Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris

Dan Harris is a fidgety, skeptical ABC News anchor who had a panic attack live on “Good Morning America,” which led him to try something he always thought was ridiculous: meditation. He went on to write the bestselling book, “10% Happier.” In this podcast, Dan explores happiness (whatever that means) from all angles. Guests include legendary meditation teachers — from the Dalai Lama to Western masters — as well as scientists, and even the odd celebrity. But the show also ventures beyond meditation, bringing on leading researchers in areas such as social anxiety, bias, creativity, productivity, and relationships. The animating insight of this show is that the mind is trainable. This is what science is showing us. Mental traits such as happiness, calm, generosity, compassion, and connection are not hardwired, unalterable factory settings; they are, in fact, skills that can be trained. On this show, you’ll learn how.

Episode #239: How to Go Easy on Yourself During a Pandemic with Dr. Kristin Neff

It’s easy to add insult to injury in this pandemic by beating ourselves up. Why are we not exercising more? Eating less? Or boosting our productivity? Kristin Neff, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin, says we need to give ourselves a break. To be clear, that does not mean relinquishing our high standards. Neff is one of – if not the – world’s leading experts on self-compassion. That’s a squishy-sounding term, but there is a lot of hard-nosed evidence behind it. Per Neff, not beating yourself up does not equate to being lazy. It’s about knowing the difference between healthy perfectionism and maladaptive perfectionism.  It’s about going easy without going soft. The smart, sparing use of the inner cattle prod. This was exactly the conversation I needed to have right now.

Where to find Kristin Neff online: https://self-compassion.

Photo by garrett parker on Unsplash

Passage I am Re-Reading and Reflecting Upon:

Lab Girl by Hope JahrenAcclaimed scientist Hope Jahren has built three laboratories in which she’s studied trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. Her first book is a revelatory treatise on plant life—but it is also so much more.

Lab Girl is a book about work, love, and the mountains that can be moved when those two things come together. It is told through Jahren’s remarkable stories: about her childhood in rural Minnesota with an uncompromising mother and a father who encouraged hours of play in his classroom’s labs; about how she found a sanctuary in science, and learned to perform lab work done “with both the heart and the hands”; and about the inevitable disappointments, but also the triumphs and exhilarating discoveries, of scientific work.

Yet at the core of this book is the story of a relationship Jahren forged with a brilliant, wounded man named Bill, who becomes her lab partner and best friend. Their sometimes rogue adventures in science take them from the Midwest across the United States and back again, over the Atlantic to the ever-light skies of the North Pole and to tropical Hawaii, where she and her lab currently make their home.

Jahren’s probing look at plants, her astonishing tenacity of spirit, and her acute insights on nature enliven every page of this extraordinary book. Lab Girl opens your eyes to the beautiful, sophisticated mechanisms within every leaf, blade of grass, and flower petal. Here is an eloquent demonstration of what can happen when you find the stamina, passion, and sense of sacrifice needed to make a life out of what you truly love, as you discover along the way the person you were meant to be.

Several years ago, I read this book and loved how the author brought together what we can learn from nature and the lessons from nature we can reflect upon and apply to life.  I loved how she intertwined the writing, moving between a chapter of telling her story to a chapter about nature and what nature can teach us in relation to her life story, and life in general.  I kept thinking about a moment in the book that I could remember vaguely where she writes about seeds and how some seeds take a great deal of time to germinate.  In this current time of waiting we all find ourselves in, I felt compelled to pull out the book, find this passage and reflect, and in turn, I was inspired to share:

Chapter 3

A seed knows how to wait. Most seeds wait for at least a year before starting to grow; a cherry seed can wait for a hundred years with no problem. What exactly each seed is waiting for is known only to that seed. Some unique trigger-combination of temperature-moisture-light and many other things is required to convince a seed to jump off the deep end and take its chance – to take its one and only chance to grow.

A seed is alive while it waits. Every acorn on the ground is just as alive as the three-hundred-year-old oak tree that towers over it.  Neither the seed nor the oak is growing; they are both just waiting.  Their waiting differs, however, in that the seed is waiting to flourish while the tree is only waiting to die. When you go into the forest you probably tend to look up at the plants that have grown so much taller than you ever could.  You probably don’t look down, where just beneath your single footprint sit hundreds of seeds, each one alive and waiting.

…..

Each beginning is the end of a waiting. We are each given exactly one chance to be. Each of us is both impossible and inevitable. Every replete tree was first a seed that waited. 

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Photos by Kentaro Toma on Unsplash

Please check out my latest blog posts on Lessons from the Run, Part 1: Mile 18 – Endurance, and Lessons from the Run, Part 2: Resilience, and stay tuned for the next addition Lessons of the Run, Part 3: Rest, as well as my upcoming blog post on My Vision: The Power of EQ to Create Change!  If you missed my July edition of Three Thoughts for Thursday, you can find it here, on my blog as well. As always, thank you for your continued support and readership! Stay strong, stay brave, stay true to you!

My thoughts lately have continued to be focused around finding the lessons, leaning into this opportunity we have to learn, reflect, and move forward with purpose – to prepare, to transition, to reinvent ourselves, to scrap old, broken ways of being that are holding us back from being our best selves. I will admit, in March and April, I spent some time in denial, particularly on the professional front. I was just beginning to gain momentum with my coaching and consulting business I had worked so hard to build up the courage to start and launch, and I had a tough time admitting to myself, my work would need to pause and I would need to pivot.  Thankfully, my sense of resilience and hope set in, both built from life experiences and hardships overcome.

I began to look at this time of uncertainty and chaos as a time to get quiet and listen, to reflect and learn. I decided to focus on my academic endeavors, my personal growth, and my kids, and to prepare for the unknown future.  I started to feel hopeful that in this time of treading water – of suffering, disappointment, fear, sadness, anger, conflict, confusion, and unrest – this forced slow down and slow breaking – that we might find new answers, new ways of being, new ways of connecting with our humanity and our fellow humans.  I have begun to hope that we may have the courage to reinvent, to scrap broken systems of injustice, to not simply renovate or patch, but to simply begin afresh, to build new ways forward.

I have been inspired by the resilience of others, by the creativity and connectivity that has come forth, by the encouraging words of a neighbor and the kindness of a stranger.  I have been inspired by the opportunities for expansion and by the people taking opportunities to progress, develop, and shift.  I have been reinvigorated by the extra time we’ve spent in nature and living more simply with fewer things to distract us like the hustle and bustle of filling our kids’ time with summer camps and activities.

When people mention “getting back to normal” I cringe. I sincerely hope we do not simply return to life as it was, that returning to our old ways is not our goal. Rather, I hope that we fully lean into our human capacity to learn, expand, adapt, and rise to the challenge with the courage to create something different and better than what we knew before. I hope we take this time to sit in the mess and learn from the past.  Of course, sorting through the messes of life involves facing hard truths, limiting beliefs, painful triggers, and doing the work to process them and prevent them from continuing to hold us back – this is all hard and often painful work. I hope we choose to rise, to do the hard work, and to look for the treasures in the mess in order to thoughtfully and carefully build something more beautiful, equitable, and true.

 

Quote(s) I am sitting with, pondering and finding inspiration:

“The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.”
~ Eden Phillpotts

“Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything.  Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.”
~ Paulo Coelho

As I watch my own children grow, and I reflect on my own work to return to the essence of my being, to unbecome in order to be who I was always meant to be, I think often of how I can help them simply become.  I think about how I can help them hold onto their inner light and self-knowledge, their truth, confidence, and wonder.  Or at least I think about how their journey may be different if they aren’t striving to become who others think they should be, but simply working towards becoming the best versions of their true and authentic selves.

Podcast I’m Listening to:

Coaching for Leaders Episode #479: Leadership Lies We Tell Ourselves, with Emily Leathers

Emily is an executive coach and software engineering manager. She has led teams and advised other managers for years. She’s seen the difference a truly passionate leader and manager can make for their team and the world around them. Like a lot of managers and coaches, she’s had a front-row seat to the patterns that cause a lot of leaders to overwork and overstress. She is the author of the guide The 7 Leadership Lies and she’s the host of the Emotional Leadership podcast. She’s also a member of the Coaching for Leaders Academy.

In this conversation, we discuss some of the common lies that leaders tend to tell themselves that lead to frustration and impostor syndrome. Then, we explore better ways to frame these beliefs, to lead with more confidence and effectiveness.

Key Points:
Lie #1: I’m supposed to do everything I, my manager, or my team can think of.
Truth: A leader’s job is about prioritization – and that means prioritizing how we spend our own time as well.
Lie #2: There’s a timeline.
Truth: There is no rush. Work gets much easier when we turn off the unneeded sense of emergency. Prioritization is the aim.
Lie #3: Emotions don’t belong at work.
Truth: Every action we take is driven by an emotion. You are going to experience emotions at work – that or you’ll be staring at a wall all day without a single thought in your mind. Turning them off isn’t an option. Learning to allow your emotions and use them to your advantage is critical for your success as a leader.
Lie #4: I’m supposed to have an answer for any problem or question a team member asks.
Truth: A manager’s role is to help your team solve problems, not to solve problems for your team.

Resources Mentioned:

• The 7 Leadership Lies
• Anger + Allowing Strong Emotions with Vivien Yang (Emotional Leadership podcast)

Related Episodes:

• How to Build Psychological Safety, with Amy Edmondson (episode 404)
• What to Do With Your Feelings, with Lori Gottlieb (episode 438)

The Way to Be More Coach-Like, with Michael Bungay Stanier (episode 458)

Book I am Reading:

The Emotionally Intelligent Manager: How to Develop and Use the Four Key Emotional Skills of Leadership by David R. Caruso and Peter Salovey

We have long been taught that emotions should be felt and expressed in carefully controlled ways, and then only in certain environments and at certain times. This is especially true when at work, particularly when managing others. It is considered terribly unprofessional to express emotion while on the job, and many of us believe that our biggest mistakes and regrets are due to our reactions at those times when our emotions get the better of us.

David R. Caruso and Peter Salovey believe that this view of emotion is not correct. The emotion centers of the brain, they argue, are not relegated to a secondary place in our thinking and reasoning, but instead are an integral part of what it means to think, reason, and to be intelligent. In The Emotionally Intelligent Manager, they show that emotion is not just important, but absolutely necessary for us to make good decisions, take action to solve problems, cope with change, and succeed. The authors detail a practical four-part hierarchy of emotional skills: identifying emotions, using emotions to facilitate thinking, understanding emotions, and managing emotions―and show how we can measure, learn, and develop each skill and employ them in an integrated way to solve our most difficult work-related problems.

Please check out my latest blog posts on Lessons from the Run, Part 1: Mile 18 – Endurance, and Lessons from the Run, Part 2: Resilience, and stay tuned for the next addition Lessons of the Run, Part 3: Rest, as well as my upcoming blog post on My Vision: The Power of EQ to Create Change!  If you missed my June edition of Three Thoughts for Thursday, you can find it here, on my blog as well. As always, thank you for your continued support and readership! Stay strong, stay brave, stay true to you!