#24 Susan Robertson on Getting Over Mind Created Fear
For this episode, I’m speaking with Susan Robertson, founder and managing partner of Linceis Conscious Business. She is also the author of two books: REAL Leadership: Waken to Wisdom and her upcoming book, REAL Culture: The Catalyst for Conscious Business.
Su and I have a long history together that covers a lot of different domains. Before Linceis Conscious Business, she was a founder along with her husband Barry of Stop at Nothing, who ran one of the deepest, most effective leadership programs I’ve ever seen or experienced. Well over 50% of the people who attended that program had positive changes to their lives afterwards, including me. After attending many of the Stop at Nothing programs, I eventually taught the program for about 10 years.
With Linceis Conscious Business, she is taking her expertise in human development to a whole new level. When she works with teams, she helps them bring a whole new level of psychological safety and trust to bear – which then brings a new level of effectiveness to the team and to the whole culture.
We covered so much in this conversation – starting with fear. You will hear the story of when I was sure Su was sending me out to be attacked by the Texas Chainsaw guy when the biggest risk was really mosquitoes. That would be mind created fear – and Su dives deep into what we can do to keep those fears from robbing our joy.
She also shares some deep coaching wisdom with several stories with clients – names changed to protect the innocent of course.
Here’s Su’s bio:
Susan Robertson is the Co-Founder and CEO of Linceis Conscious Business Group, LLC (LCB). For over 31-years, Susan has worked with businesses worldwide focusing on executive leadership and cultural transformation. Susan is the author of REAL Leadership: Waken to Wisdom and her upcoming book, REAL Culture: The Catalyst for Conscious Business. Her passion is to support leaders, teams, and organizations helping them find their direction and purpose by becoming REAL. Simply put, the REAL methodology increases bottom-line performance. Susan believes companies can be both profitable and compassionate. Susan is a long-time meditator, she enjoys hiking in the Blue Ridge, and skiing in Vail with her stepchildren and grandchildren.
There’s so much in here. You will want to listen to this one several times.
I would love to hear what you like about this conversation. All you have to do is go to the podcast page on my website www.lynncarnes.com and click the “send a voicemail button” on the right-hand side of the page. Super easy to do and it helps me know what to bring you in future episodes.
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Intro:
Welcome to creative spirits unleashed where we talk about the dilemmas of balancing work and life. And now, here's your host, Lynn Carnes.
Lynn:
Welcome to the creative spirits unleash podcast. I'm Lynn Carnes, your host. For this episode I'm speaking with Susan Robertson Founder and Managing Partner of Linceis conscious business. She's also actually the author of two books, real leadership likened to wisdom, and our upcoming book, real culture, the catalyst for conscious business. Now that should get your attention because you're starting to understand already a little bit about Sue and her passion for creating conscious leaders. She and I have a long history together that covers a lot of different domains. Before Linceis conscious business, she was a founder along with her husband Barry, of stop at nothing. And they ran one of the deepest, most effective leadership programs I've ever seen or experienced. in my estimation, well over 50% of the people who went through the hills program, which is called high impact leadership, had positive changes to their lives afterwards, including me. And after attending many of their programs, I eventually taught that hills program for about 10 years, with Linceis Sue is now taking her expertise in human development to a whole new level, when she works with teams, what she brings is a level of psychological safety and trust that is really unparalleled. And then they get a whole new level of effectiveness as a team, and it moves out into the entire culture. So this is another domain actually where we get a chance to work together. And it is really powerful to see the work she is doing in companies in bringing that kind of culture improvement to bear. So in this conversation, we covered so much starting with fear, you will hear the story of when I was sure Sue was sending me out to be attacked by the Texas Chainsaw guy, when the biggest risk was really mosquitos, and she calls that mind created fear. And she dives deep into what we can do to keep those kind of fears and all kinds of fear from robbing us from our joy. She also shares some really deep coaching wisdom around several stories with clients, which of course, we keep the names change to protect the innocent. So there is just so much in here. And you'll want to listen to this one several times. So I would love to hear what you think about this conversation what you like what you don't and all you have to do is go to the podcast page on my website and click that send a voicemail button on the right hand side. It's super easy to do. I love getting those messages, and it helps me know what to bring you in future episodes. And of course, if you like this episode, if you feel like there's something there that somebody that you know, one of your colleagues would appreciate, be sure to share it with them. So I hope you enjoy this episode with Susan Robertson. Sue, welcome to the podcast.
Sue:
Hi Lynn. So good to be here. Finally,
Lynn:
I know we've been trying to do this for a while and when I was getting ready for the conversation. I was trying to remember when I first met you in person because I knew you by reputation. Elizabeth Brook who just who I've stayed in touch with all these years introduced me to you guys. She's actually one of the people that I reached out to when I read The Elegant Pivot and Elizabeth told me about Barry and Sue Robertson stop at nothing. This is when I was at Bank of America. Yeah, and fast forward. It was I met Barry before I met you I met Barry when I did my first hills program, high impact leadership seminar. This was 2001 in fact, it was April of 2001 20 years ago, wow, this month,
Sue:
because I was gonna say it was like 2000, early 2000s 2000
Lynn:
was 2002 to something it was actually 2003 and this is how I know because every year I started coming back to do stop at nothing programs. I always say I was the remedial student that had to keep coming back. And since I had to keep coming back y'all were inventing new programs for Linux to not not be able to say I'm done so I'm gonna keep doing it. But um, so the program was the one at marywood it was at that time called hills three hills three and and there were there I have two major memories. One was when I first I didn't I hadn't met you yet so I it wasn't the days of the internet so I didn't even for sure know what you look like. But I remember walking into the meeting room and you stood out because you had like a glow. an unexplainable glow like from the inside out. And I was like I don't know what she got, but I want it but they And I hated you. Because not because I was jealous. Because so I want to hear about this exercise into the week, maybe we'd been there three or four days we'd been outside, like, we'd go out and meditate next to the river, or walk in the woods. But like it 10 o'clock at night, which is past my bedtime Anyway, you said, Here's your assignment, you're going to get a flashlight and a chair. And you're going to go to this trail, and you're going to meditate for at least an hour. And that's the short version. Now what I was hearing is you're going to go outside, and put yourself in a position to be killed by the slasher that lives in the woods. So, tell me about that. And if I was the only one that ever did that, but tell me a little bit about that program and that experience for your students. And why y'all did that?
Sue:
Well, so as you know, Barry, and I created the high impact Leadership Program, as a way of helping people to really improve their emotional intelligence, and that this was, you know, the early days of emotional intelligence, you know, Daniel Goldman's book had been out. But you know, we've been teaching it for a long time without a name. And so by the time it got to level three, the or these were folks that said, You know, I want more of whatever this is, they wanted more of the personal discovery, they wanted more of the breaking down of inner barriers that prevented them from having richer relationships be becoming better leaders, that sort of thing. So in heels three, one of the things that we learned, and we learned this from other teachers is that a lot of executives are scared of the outside and scared or voids in scared of bugs. And as we know a little bit about that, that we you know, if you live in a buggy area, we we've all heard of these things called pheromones, and certain bugs will be attracted to you, the more fear pheromones you put out there, and so which was
Lynn:
crazy to me at the time,
Sue:
and even back then it was common, mostly common knowledge, it's even more common knowledge now. And so you can either like kill yourself inhaling DEET, or you learn how not to be afraid of a beat up, but you know, like a fly buzzing near your ear when you're in the middle of meditation, or the next sound. So that particular meditation was really all about fear, and learning how to become centered because what fear does is it causes you to, you know, I always think about is like, you have darting eyes. Like you're always paying attention, you're always on alert.
Lynn:
And of course,
Sue:
when people go out there, now you remember, I remember you saying that the slasher in the woods, we said make sure you could, you know, be within like 1015 feet of another person. So, people were fairly close that you could have flashed them, you know, if you needed help, and it was at a Catholic retreat center, so we were, but I get it, you know, people either a Blair Witch or witch in their head, or what was the other one from the 70s? Oh,
Lynn:
the Freddy Krueger ones. No, Chinese sorry. Never. Oh, well, I was on the Chainsaw Massacre. Yeah.
Sue:
Oh, you were on the Chainsaw Massacre. The Tennessee was did it ding ding ding ding ding ding ding.
Lynn:
Oh, that's here where I deliver deliverance.
Sue:
So usually people will get those kinds of things going through their head. So you have Freddy Krueger. And it depends on age if they get deliverance, Freddy Krueger or Blair Witch
Lynn:
whatever our programming from the movies and the TV shows,
Sue:
TV shows were at that time in our lives. And so that beer in we have have a friend of mine His name is rocky skis, a Native American elder, he calls that mind created fear. You know, it's it's fear that we make up in our heads and then our bodies and then we behave as if it's real. And yet we made it all up to begin with now. Yes, we're not going to put our our clients or participants in danger of Friday that Chainsaw Massacre, you know, as far as we know, you know, no, right. And so but that's what we wanted people to face. We wanted people to face what was going on inside their head that would cause such a big stress reaction because if you could control it there you know workshop is just a microcosm of what you do out there at work and in your family. So if you can learn how to and that's a big fear sitting outside alone in the dark, not on your front porch.
Lynn:
Oh my gosh, yeah, I thought I actually thought that it was cruel and unusual punishment. I was furious. Because that was my way at that time of meeting any kind of challenge was anger. And, you know, I think I even like, said something to Barry, like, he, you know, he tried to make me feel better about the danger. He said something like, you know, this is inside a Catholic, you know, retreat center itself with it, you know, but y'all do this every so often. And everybody knows that Thursday night at 10 o'clock, you send the people out to be massacred. So how could they not be ready? Like Barry? Can't you see? You know, what? Rachel, I was,
Sue:
we always felt that was good business not to have our participants killed if we want to have a long longevity in our business.
Lynn:
No, I really get that. But it was, it was just it was just such a reflection to me, looking back on it now of how my mind could produce semi like, it is possible people have been killed being out in the world that has happened, that's fine. But we magnify the danger, rather than assess the danger. And then we let our fear run away with us. Exactly. And so it was a you know, those were the two big memories I had from that program. But then I started realizing, you know, then you started introducing us to the next program, which was when you had your place in Tennessee.
Sue:
Yes.
Lynn:
And my first time up there, I had done something to my shoulder. So So I had a good excuse to get some help, because I showed up and you said, so your camping place is near our house here in Tennessee, but you're going to be camping in the woods by yourself. We're not that far away. And I'm starting to get mad again. Course. And you had to come help me put my tent out because I couldn't use my right shoulder that time. Right. And it's funny, because I remember again, I was mad and scared. I was really scared. So I use anger to make me feel more powerful. But I remember you helping me get that tent up. And then the first night I spent in the tent. Trying, I think I didn't sleep at any between my shoulder hurting because I couldn't find a comfortable place to lay and, and more importantly, just what must be in your Woods because now I'm in a place where not only was it like once, like at 10 o'clock at night it was everywhere. Like we're there for the whole week. So yeah, so what? So you've done this with so many executives. And that's my story about it. But and without giving anything away? What have you seen, you know, different? How have you seen different people react? How have you seen them work through it? I know for myself, then the program, you had to keep doing that program so I could keep coming back. Eventually, I was the one that stayed the furthest away and walked in the dark with no flashlight. And you know, you really helped me get through fear to the point of being incredibly comfortable. I do it all the time now in the dark in the woods, by myself. And I'm not even scared. I like bears or anything like that. Like I'm just okay with it. What? So what did you do to help me and what have you done to help other executives?
Sue:
Well, what's interesting about that is it you know, you related it to the ability to be able to walk alone in the woods. However, when you take it to out there, you know, what are we afraid of when we are camping out and alone in the middle of Tennessee on 150 acres. And there's like five other people out there with you. We're afraid of the lions and the Tigers and the bears whatever those are, metaphorically speaking what we have lions and tigers and bears around us all the time when we're living in our home when we're working. And you know, when you're in an unusual place, of course, that's the fight or flight responsibly we go into a heightened state of awareness so we can assess what's wrong. But then what begins to happen and what happened for you in a way is is an happens for other people is that they start to go You know what, I don't have to be afraid of that. And I don't have to be afraid of that.
Lynn:
That lions and tigers and bears which we started with the 30s with, you know, the Wizard of Oz I want people to hear what you were saying so
Sue:
is it Yeah, we have going I have lions, tigers and lions, tigers and bears are hit. Oh my we have them around us all the time. Except Wait, we named them as Joe or my boss or this person or that person. And it might and and we make up the same stories. Okay, people have been murdered in the woods so therefore I'm going to get murdered. Well, Joe is is a bully and he bullies everybody. And so therefore I should be afraid and then people stop standing up for themselves out when the world Because you have this bear or this lion called Joe, right? And so if you can learn how to recognize that fear, and then harness that energy, it's not that you stop being afraid is that you transform it, you recognize it, you recognize, okay, this is this person's intimidating this situation is this, you know, as you said, before you recognize it. But then you go into what am I going, what do I choose to do about it, rather than just going out of a fear reaction of defense, you know, then you said that you the normal reaction is to gain power, which is anger. And I have a friend of mine who always like to say that anger is a secondary defense, anger always covers something. And a lot of people would get angry when they are in pain, and a lot of people will get angry when they are afraid. Why because it is a powerful feeling, it makes them feel like they can do something about it. But if you really want to no longer be afraid, if you really want to address that fear, you actually have to go into the fear and face it. So all of those programs that we did, where people would camp, and we would work outside was to get to the root cause of the of that fear or whatever it is. And generally, it's going to come down to fear of failure, not doing it right, making a gun embarrassment, loss of control. That's all in fear of failure. Power. That's the opposite side of control, fear of rejection, they might not accept me, I'm going to, we're going to get in conflict. And then the third failure, those are the two main ones, and sometimes some of us fear success. So then we hold ourselves back, because we were programmed, you know, don't get big headed, don't stand out too much. And that really is, in my opinion, a form of fear of rejection.
Lynn:
Yes, I
Sue:
was just thinking that, because oh, you can't stand out otherwise, what people won't accept you. You can't, you know, be self centered. And I don't mean people need to be self centered. But sometimes you do need to market yourself, if you want to be recognized as an NBC out there. So you had to be you know, one of the things that we do when we debrief people, when they're facing their fears are what are the underlying beliefs that create a lot of those fears, our mind created fears. And so we got to go to the root cause, right, the feeling, as well as the actual programming code called a belief,
Lynn:
right? Which, which is just programming code that we have developed over time.
Sue:
Exactly. Doesn't mean it's true. Does it mean it's true. And some things can be true, but not 100% all the time.
Lynn:
So when we do, we do tend to apply a strategy that we would use in one domain to all domains. Exactly. That's what
Sue:
happens. And then we're not at choice. And that's why I, you know, as you know, I have what I call my my real model of leadership, because it's about being real and making choices. But if we get if we allow ourselves to be to have that fear, mind, creative fear, run us and we and we end up in that reactionary mode. Based on programs from a long time ago, we are actually not at choice in our own behaviors.
Lynn:
Even though it feels like we are,
Sue:
even though it feels like we are,
Lynn:
because I felt like I was making a very smart choice when I got mad at Barry, and dragged my ass with the chair and no flashlight out into the wilderness. And yet over time began to see that I, you know, that was that was all I had. Right? Was anger. So, so when you say when you say programs, describe what that means. And the way you think about it.
Sue:
The way that I think about it, I like to call these kinds of programs, my I will always or I will never believe systems. So we go through a difficult time and it doesn't even have to be hugely traumatic. You didn't get invited to the party when you were 13 and all the who's who was there? Because maybe you shared something in class. And everybody laughed at you. Yeah, and you
Lynn:
and then and then you weren't invited to the party. So generally Valentine's remember the Valentine? The one who didn't get the Valentine's and the you know, every, every year we did that, and sometimes somebody didn't get any of them.
Sue:
Exactly, yeah. And so the that's highly traumatic at a time at, you know, that's fear of failure. That's how I mean rejection. That's how it gets created, being left out being laughed at. And so what happens, then whatever that emotion was that we felt we exhibited, or whatever behaviors that we did that extended ourselves, or pushed ourselves out of our own comfort zone, we will associate that and we will create a belief system that sounds like I will always or I will never do that again. So I will never share my heart again, I will never speak up, I will never tell people what I really think I will never step outside of and you just name your comfort zone.
Lynn:
Yeah. And even what I've noticed is, I even though I have those and and have worked through some of them, they almost never run through the forebrain that uses that kind of language, it's more I think of it in the background part of my brain, yes, that just sees it as a repellent thing to do and is a logical thing to do exists without, but without the necessarily the words, the feeling is still there,
Sue:
the feeling is still there. And then, before you know it, this is what they call an unconscious driver, before you know it, you're defending yourself. However, that is based on that old structure in and a lot of people that people think that defense is a bad thing. But really what is when you are defending yourself, you're usually defending yourself from getting hurt from having something bad happen to you, you're defending yourself from avoiding a situation. The problem is, is that sometimes your defense structure isn't always the best defense structure. It's good to stay protected. But if you apply the same defense structure in many different situations, which is what people do, instead of making choice, then you actually cut yourself out of a richer, more fuller experience in life.
Lynn:
You know, it's funny, because I think one time we You and I were teaching hills together, and we were talking about this, this is when I was in training with you, which was the longest apprenticeship I've ever been through. Took me a year. But I think we were talking about how the defense structures that don't apply are a little bit like playing the game of rock, paper, scissors. You know, our defense structure might be rock, mine certainly was rock. Well, rock is great if I'm breaking scissors, but paper covers rock. So a lot of times my rock strategy being angry, didn't apply. Right? And so it's like being at choice is actually knowing I might need to defend myself in a certain case. But mostly just knowing what tool Do I need to pull out under these circumstances, it and having the ability to see it without that mind created for you?
Sue:
Exactly. And I can share an example. You know, one of my clients, I used to say about him, and his people would say that, that he had two sides of himself. He had a grizzly bear, and he had a rarely seen teddy bear side. So most of the time, the grizzly bear side would come out and you know, he would just sucker punch you straight on. And that's, that's highly intimidating. And then you know, and he would challenge each person and challenge you until you were brought to your knees. And yeah, he hired me to help his people stand up. And I'm thinking I remember thinking to myself, buddy, I think you need to stand down a little bit. Actually, Baba, you need to stand out and stand back. But he but that was what he was taught. And he was the owner. And, and not that I'm making excuses. But what I wanted to do is I wanted to teach people that they had a choice to not be afraid of that. And that he had a strategy. So anytime that he felt something wasn't going right in his business, the first thing he did was throw a sucker punch. And you know, then these people would walk out of his office bloodied.
Lynn:
And I'm what does that sucker punch look like? Because I mean, for people who are literal, I think they're walking, nobody's actually walking. like nobody's. What's an example of a sucker punch in that context,
Sue:
in that kind of being, he would belittle them. Let them know how stupid they were, what a horrible decision they made. And he would do it in a very aggressive manner. He didn't yell, but he really let you know how dumb you were. Oh, terrible. Yeah, you feel really good coming out of that. And because he, he would use phrases like it's so and he would swear using the F word obvious. You know? Couldn't you see that? So then not only are we have you been belittled, you've now been called stupid. Right? Now, the interesting thing was, is that several people have worked for five years, and they were always afraid of being fired. I'm like you've been here five years.
Lynn:
Yeah, exactly. Well, I always call that the homeless sequence. Because I think what happens when we get hit, and it comes in our body reads it as we've made a mistake, even when we have it. But even if we have any way you look at it, it's this, this is what I found myself doing. And I found a lot of other people, when I've talked to him doing it, the same thing is like, Oh, I made a mistake, I might get fired, if I get fired, I won't have a job, if I don't have a job, I won't be able to feed my family. If I can't be my family, I'm going to end up on the street. I'm homeless. Exactly. And I'll die out there. And that homeless sequence happens in a nanosecond that didn't even take half a second before you go all the way there. Yeah. And then we do whatever we have to, I call it picking an overpass to live under, you know, we do whatever we have to not to, to have to face up to the consequences of a mistake that wouldn't have gotten us fired in the first place.
Sue:
Exactly. And what was really interesting about these folks is that they they had their version of that, but it was an unconscious program that would run them. So then they would turn into trying to be pleasing. And then they would go into explain, which just I mean, that was like, you know, trying to steal the honey from the bear at that point. Because boy, would he get prickly when they would do that. Yeah. And so, on one hand, you know, what do you do if you if you have a situation where somebody's volatile, and I'm making this guy sound like he's completely horrible, and they were times where he was? Remember, I also said he had rarely seen teddy bear side. And when you saw that, you know, that's why he didn't fire people. Because in his mind, being tough, made them tough to handle whatever was going to happen to them out there when and if they ever left his organization, so he felt like he was doing them a service.
Lynn:
And that's probably how his dad raised him when his parents raised him, wouldn't you guess? I mean, you might know that,
Sue:
yes, both of his parents, his mother more than his father was the strong, criticizing belittling person. And you know, he, he had a $25 million firm, he was not as not a dumb man. And so as I began, because he would Sucker Punch me too, as the is coming in, yeah. And I would just, you know, I learned that, you know, first couple of times, I went into the pleasing, that's my normal side of things. And then I then I watched him, like, just like his hair head come off of his head, and be like, okay, that that strategy, my pleasing strategy doesn't work. And but you don't sucker punch somebody back that's like that, particularly if it's not your strategy, because you're not good at it.
Lynn:
That's part of it. Right? Because if you do decide to go to blows, then it's just a question of who's got the best punches?
Sue:
Exactly. And I don't punch that well.
Lynn:
Yeah,
Sue:
every so often, I can get one in, but I'm not. I'm not a good fighter. And so, you know, I would, I started to watch this. And I would watch it in his meetings, and I recognized what would defuse him is a simple thing. And I'll just call him Bob. So I always call these people Bob. Sorry,
Lynn:
Bob. And Joe. I have I have a lot of Bob and Joe isn't in the books. I write to him because I have to give people an alias.
Sue:
Exactly. Bob Joe Jane. So as I began to watch him, I noticed what would accuse him more than anything would be saying, Bob, I can see you're really pissed. And then you get the D word. D right. You're pissed. Because all right, so
Lynn:
is the D word dam. By the way, I had the dam in my family dam wasn't even cussing. My mother, my mother would have these things. We call them just a damn minute moment. so damn in hell, we're okay. pretty much nothing else was okay. Okay, so And now my podcast all of it's okay, just because sometimes you actually have to use the words.
Sue:
But he would just he would be, You're damn right. I'm effing mad. Like, okay, you know, I mean, that's how he would that's when the voice would raise. And he wasn't very tall, but he would stand up in that moment. So he he would make himself bigger, which is a common strategy for angers. Make yourself bigger, physically. And so I would watch him do that. And I would say, and so what do you what do you what do you want to have done? Because clearly, you weren't happy with this. And it was interesting by asking that question. He would normally say, Well, I want you to figure it out. All right? And then he would start to immediately come down. It was like he needed a place to punch when something didn't go right. Even though he might not have been mad at you, the person you might have he was a shoot the messenger. Yeah. So I gave everyone on his team a strategy of being a Matador. Because that bow was gonna run, that barrier was gonna come no matter what. And he and so I be like, Alright, so let's find the question. So when you have the Matador, they've got the red flag, and they're basically saying, Come on. Or, you know, Keanu Reeves and matrix, come on. Yeah, break, bring it on. But then I have a move. Okay. So
Lynn:
you're not bringing it on to run me over? I actually have a move for you to bring it on.
Sue:
I haven't let you discharge the energy. Exactly. So you want them running through the red cape? In that for you? You're good. And Abby does a brilliant metaphor. Yeah. Thank you. And so then, as is, I would have them practice. Okay, what is it? What is a Matador strategy? Okay? So a Matador strategy? You know, Bob, I can see you're really angry about this. And I mean, they could actually map out the whole conversation here. Damn, FM, right. I'm stressed. I'm mad about this. All right. Okay, what, what else do we need to do? What did we miss? What else is there? And sometimes he would say, I don't have to know. Okay, well, let's talk it out. And what he was looking for is not so sorry. Out here, I'll be sure to get back next time he wanted somebody to engage with him at their level of intensity of this is effin important. And even if I don't have the answer, what's our
Lynn:
next move? What's our next move?
Sue:
And so I even
Lynn:
told him, You know what,
Sue:
that's we saw him as a bull. And we were going to we were going to defuse him. And he laughed at me. And I'm like, you watch.
Lynn:
And he probably really appreciated it, because it gave him what he was trying to do was solve a problem. Yeah, that didn't feel solvable under the circumstances, which would make him feel helpless and angry. And like, nobody else can help him solve it. And ironically, going after people as a grizzly bear only made them freeze up, less likely to solve the problem. They needed a path to think differently, and better than they were so you gave him a path to do that. Yeah, exactly. I love that.
Sue:
And then he felt better about it, because, well, he liked this grizzly bear. But he also liked people to see the teddy bear. I mean, his toughest he was he still wanting to be liked to?
Lynn:
You know, at some level, I think, even when people say they don't they do. And I, I was listening to and I've followed him a lot since Dr. Gabor Ma Tei. who describes that we have two basic human needs attachment, and self expression or authenticity. Oh, I like that. And when you actually like start looking at the world through those two needs, it was as if the minute I heard him describe it. This is what he said. And it was I think it was in an interview with Tim Ferriss on his podcast, he said, and he's talking in context of addiction, but in a way we can get to that in a minute we are to, even though it's not addiction to illegal drugs, in my case, addiction to anger, right. So he said, you know, attachment is where our survival needs live. And so if you are not given what you need in that attachment domain, if you are not given the love the care, and almost none of us are given actually what we really need. Then attachments always going to win over self expression. Yes, and that's where our addictions come from. And it may be work and it may be food and it may be or buisiness, or it may be shopping, or it could end up being alcohol or other illegal drugs. But if those are the two needs, and I think about that is Maslow's hierarchy of needs on its side, in a way, because at the very base of Maslow's hierarchy, we have, you know, our food our survival needs, and it works up to the pinnacle, which is self expression. Yes, self actualization. But interestingly enough, and met and Muslim. I understand never did actually do a pyramid but I think it's a very descriptive way to do it because so few people reach that sort of Pinnacle and so much has to be at the base of the pyramid to reach it. But I just think about even our grizzly bears if we could see them as operating from the need to be accepted to be connected to be in relationship, which were all those things that are literally hardwired in us. Wouldn't it make a difference in how we could deploy things like a Matador strategy?
Sue:
Exactly. Yeah. And they couldn't see that need within him because they were too busy being intimidated by him? Yes.
Lynn:
Yes. And this is, isn't this kind of what happens with bullies? You know, I had somebody call me the other day, and they were concerned about some workplace bullying, and it doesn't look like playground bullying on the surface. But you know what I said to her when she was concerned about it, as I said, well, let's look at first what is the weakness, or the fear that the bully has, and it just turned her? I mean, I could tell it just turned her mind upside down. And she was like, What do you mean? Because in her mind, we had to overpower the bullet. When I said he, the bullet, you know, this person, it was a he actually, I said, he needs something. And he's acting this way, because he's not having a need map. What is the need? Exactly? And how can we help that weakness becomes strength? So it seems to me like the Matador strategy is something people could actually make a note of let let let the bull run through the red flag and help understand what the bull really is looking for. And boy, it's funny, I just realized we have almost the same word.
Sue:
Yeah. And yeah, and you, you, you bring it out, because in a moment of anger, very few of us are thinking clearly. And so if you can get into that Matador, what else are you mad about? And what else? And what are your concerns? And I never, I never asked the fear word because people always say many people say, Well, I'm not afraid.
Lynn:
Okay. Oh, that's right.
Sue:
No, that's what worries you. What keeps you up at night? What concerns you?
Lynn:
Can we get on the balcony? Yes. You know, and actually, I've been listening. Dr. Andrew Huberman has a great podcast on neuroscience. And he studies especially the field of vision, and especially as it relates to our, our hormone and what he calls neurotransmitter systems. So, you know, not only the hormones of things like adrenaline is up with dopamine and cortisol and acetylcholine, serotonin, and so forth. And he talks about panoramic versus portrait vision. So in anger, we go into like a very focused portrait vision. It's almost like our eyes go to a laser. Yes. And then if we can switch to panoramic, we can see a bigger picture. And it's like getting on the balcony. All of a sudden, we can see, what else do we need to consider? What haven't we considered? What else is at play here? What's in the context, as opposed to just this bad thing? That seems to be happening to me? Right, right. And I thought how cool that the scientist has developed or talks about a physical thing you can do to bring yourself out of that fight flight or freeze mode, just by going into panoramic vision, and in a way that again, back to your Matador strategy. That's what you gave them. I call that also a pocket question. Which is, when I'm, like, under pressure, and I can't do it, isn't it great to have a pocket question? Like I used to argue when I was a facilitator, and I had a facilitator coach years ago, teach me this, we relating change in the corporate world, and people would be having some sort of version of that won't work. You know, here's our new plan. Here's the change. Here's where the rollout is, here's what's going to happen. I'd be standing up there leading all that and they'd go, that won't work. And don't they know and bubble and I bet Yes, it will. And you should do this, because I told you to my facilitator coaches, like you can get into that argument, you can play the right rotten, wrong game all you want, you're never going to win. Right? And I was like, Well, what do I do? And they said, instead of that won't work, come back. Or that? Yes, it will come back with a question like, what would work? What else should we consider? What haven't we thought of? And all of a sudden, it would check what I would do that it changed the whole room?
Sue:
Yes, exactly. So I like the pocket question because mine was, and I've taught this to other facilitators, mine has always been so tell me more about that.
Lynn:
Yes.
Sue:
Yeah. If nothing else, like, my brain is locked in on that when, particularly if the challenge comes strong, because, you know, my style is, oh, I want to please them. I, I don't want them to be mad at me. And so I'm going to probably go into some sort of placating strategy that I'll then beat myself up for night. So I'd rather not do that. Right. Yeah. So my pocket is what Tell me more.
Lynn:
That's a good that's a good one.
Sue:
But it's like it's Exactly, it's exactly the same as yours. Right? So what are What's missing? Can you share more about? You know why you think it may not work? Because they're seeing a gap. I sense you're seeing a gap in this. And so it's same thing as the Matador or Keanu Reeves in the matrix is that you're inviting them in, or you're inviting them out of themselves to express themselves more. And oftentimes at that point is, you know, Lin, the the emotion then begins to go down, because what are they wanting, they're wanting to be heard,
Lynn:
of course, and it gives them a chance to express that emotion. Which is a lot of where the energy that we don't like is because it hits our own emotions, yes. And sometimes not comfortable places in our emotions. So It's interesting, because I, I also like pocket questions, because they give me a minute to gather myself, because it is hitting my emotions, then it gives me a chance to not only hear them, but it gives me just buys me a minute to remember to get on the balcony, to remember that it's not personal, it's never personal. No matter how much we want to make, the only way that something can be personalized, if we decide to let the water I call it letting the water in our boat will float. But if we have a hole in the boat and let the water in it can it can get to us. But I'm the one who creates that whole thing.
Sue:
Exactly. Yeah.
Lynn:
In the boat that is so. So Sue, how did you come? To understand these things? We've talked a little bit about, like what you've done with other clients and how you've obviously helped me through my life, but you had to learn this at some point. Because you know, you've had choice points in your own life of Am I going to go into growth? Or am I just going to go into self protection? Yeah, what kind of things have you done to help you not be stuck in the self protection, beating yourself up at night or whatever, but to actually be able to be there for people at the level you were for? Bob the grizzly?
Sue:
Well, as you know, I had a somewhat traumatic upbringing. And, you know, being there is physical and sexual abuse in my family as well as emotional abuse. And I could remember being a teenager, the one of the biggest turning points for me, I was I think I was 14, I read a book called my mother myself. And that that created a whole inflection for my for me, because after reading that book, there were lots of things you talk about, and I will always or I will never moment, there are lots of things that I saw in the mirror that I was like, I do not want to repeat this. And so that put me on a journey of self discovery. I also made a decision when I was quite young, that I would never be poor. Again, we lived without gas and electricity and water at times. And so how was I going to create for myself freedom. And somehow I figured out that if that I needed to stare fear down if I wanted to leave the neighborhood. And so it was almost like it wasn't a choice. I could either the either or choice for me was I stay here, which that was not a choice, or no matter how scared I am, by jump in it, so that became, if you will, a way of being but I had to learn a lot because sometimes I jumped so many times I've gotten so many skin knees because I didn't know what I was doing. It's that's still my preferred way.
Lynn:
Okay, you have to tell us at least one story of a skin name. Tell them about a time you jumped. And like you're still here to tell the story. So the good news is when you jumped in, you weren't jumping. You know, to your death. You were jumping to learning moment. But what's an example of what does it look like on a journey of self discovery to job and skin, your knee? And then how does that become part of your next level? Well, a
Sue:
lot of it has to do with speaking up and owning my own voice in and sharing things. And I can remember the very first time I ever did a speech that for me facilitation I scared still scared to death to do you know facilitating workshops in the beginning, but speaking was much was much bigger because for whatever reason, I've just thrown so much more pressure on myself. And I can remember the very first speech that Did I know I just so failed miserably bond. And, and I never, that never word I will always ever, I will never, I will never forget that. Because it took me a long time to get back up again. And yet I knew that I had to become much more comfortable with putting myself out there, even if people didn't like my ideas or my thoughts, or it was different than his and that that, to me was the replication of the neighborhood is that I felt like there are times when I was a teenager, like I was the only one who is dying to get out. And so that made me an anomaly or weirdo. And, you know, and lack of acceptance from like, the toolkits. I wasn't because we were so poor, I wasn't into going out and smoking and drinking and doing pot and all of those stuff, because I was too busy in survival mode. And yet, I felt the experience of all of that rejection of lack of inclusion around people I grew up with in my own neighborhood. And, and so, but I, I knew that it was important enough for me that I could, I guess, handle the rejection, provided I got out. And, you know, so I just, I just kept going, Okay, what is it I'm afraid of? And then what Don't I know? What is it that I'm afraid of? and What don't I know? And I sought out teachers and so then speaking, as, as you know, Lynn, I still have some of that, like, even doing this podcast. I like, okay, I don't even know what she's gonna ask me.
Lynn:
No, you know?
Sue:
And I'm sure there's gonna be things that I'm saying. And then I've already counted how many arms I've done.
Lynn:
Nobody's counting. This is not Toastmasters. There's no
Sue:
Yeah, but I know my little bit. Yeah, I'm ticker in the back. So I go, I go. I go out and I do it more knowing. I'm going to skin my knees a great book. I remember reading a long time ago. And I couldn't even tell you what's in the book anymore. Because this title says at all. And the book is called fear the feet, feel the fear and do it anyway. Oh, yeah. And I think it was Susan, Dr. Susan Jeffers that wrote that if
Lynn:
I don't, I don't remember. I'll put it in the show notes calculator and want to be able to find it.
Sue:
But I can remember reading that and rereading them rereading that. And then, you know, I tell people now sometimes you got to jump with your knees shaking. And, and and then you'll learn from it. But yeah, public speaking. And I just had a recent one too, but completely bombed. It took me a little while to get over that one. Because I tried too hard. Yeah. And I put too much pressure on instead of being just real and speaking what I know. And because I wanted that I wanted, I wanted to make sure they got something so important. And I was gonna say just the right words. And I don't seem to have that as a problem when I'm doing a facilitation, facilitating a workshop, but for some reason, I'm still working on the rewiring the speech program.
Lynn:
Isn't that interesting? Because I have been beside you co facilitated with you. I have, you know, been taught by you. I don't know. I mean, we're, we've got to be north of 30 or 40 or more times we have worked together somehow been in the room together. It's not a big one, man, because it's been almost 20 years. Yeah. And, and I've been I've never seen you give a speech. So I'm sitting over here going, Wow, I never really saw that. Because you're You really are a master in a facilitation mode from my scene. So isn't that interesting that even that slight hitch in the domain
Sue:
can make a difference in how much pressure we put on ourselves. Exactly. And you talk a lot about how the pressure goes up. And, and so that and that's why I like personal development and leadership development. I think all really good leaders need to have personal development, because you stretch your boundaries and your comfort zone is that's what I think is so cool about it. So there's a new domain that I want to get good at, and I haven't been good at right and so right, I've got to go out there and I will skin my knees. And it's going to hurt for a while, but it's not going to kill me. And well,
Lynn:
I think that's the way up is it you know, we call those our little failures, but I I think it's, you know, I, I'm actually in the middle of writing my next book dancing the tightrope, and I was actually wrestling with this today. And it's the difference between knowing how to do something and actually being able to do it under pressure. Yeah. You probably learned to talk well, before you were three years old. And yet here we are in a speech and all of a sudden talking is hard. You do it every day. Yeah. What's the difference? It's the pressure threshold of the consequences, right? Yes. Just simple things like walking or talking can become impossible if you raise the bar high enough, literally, you know, trying to walk over a high beam or something like that. Remember, what, in Arizona when I needed to walk across the log? Oh, yes. Everybody else could do it. Yeah, I just
Sue:
didn't have that through my head. Because now you're a water skier. Right? And no fear there. And I was walking. I was holding your hand. And I was walking in the water. Yeah. And I remember thinking, How can she be afraid to walk over this log? When the waters less than a foot deep, but it's like you, right? It's like, you speak for a living and yet one aspect of it. If you freeze, I freeze up. And, and I just remembered, you know, going, Okay, well, there's something here. And I'll hold her hand. And yeah, walk across the log. Yeah.
Lynn:
And I had to I had to have help walking across lug. Yeah. And, and there was actually, you know, I've, I've been working on on this on my pressure threshold a lot more since I had the accident with the horse three and a half years ago. It's coming up on four years, where I didn't even think about getting back on a horse till 60. I counted it up two days, 16 months in Wow. Because being up there, just a few feet and landing on the ground in the woods. You know, I had a helmet on but with rocks ending up in the hospital for you guys. It was sort of like, Whoa, okay, this is more dangerous than I thought it was. And I wasn't on a bucking bronco. Although I helped create through my fear, I actually created a more fearful situation than was needed. And I think that's often what ends up happening when we're under pressure is our actions in that fight or flight flight or freeze actually tend to make things worse? Yes. So I was in the park the other day, and it was maybe the best illustration I've seen of this. Somebody, you know, there was several like picnic gatherings going on. This is the outdoor gatherings of the day, right? And somebody had a dog, I'm pretty sure it was a pitbull seemed like a very friendly dog. But we all know about their reputation. So let's start with strike one against the dog just because of his breed. And he was running around talking to different people being very friendly. I had pet him and so forth. But this little girl walked up and he did what he done with everybody, which was just stand in front of her and wag his tail and say hi, well, this little girl, she's probably six scared to death of dogs. She was over at the picnic area, we were near and there was another picnic area, maybe 150 feet away. And she started running to get back to daddy because she was scared of the dog who had done nothing other than friendly, be friendly and greeting her. Now the dog started running and jumping alongside her her thinking he could play but it looked to me like especially with her screaming and squealing, that she could actually provoke an attack just because of her fear. And as she ran I actually I think I even said it out loud stop running. And yet I thought how can you tell somebody who's scared to death not to run?
Sue:
Right?
Lynn:
She was she was so over her pressure threshold. There was no way for her to stop. And yet her running might have caused the bad thing to happen. And I thought is that not the formula for our survival mode? It is the very thing that we're trying to protect ourselves from is what we create when we go into our
Sue:
fear. But yeah, it's like a bear. They bear you know, you live in the woods.
Lynn:
I had a bear at
Sue:
my house last night. Yeah. And they and they tell you, you know, I mean, if it's a life and death situation like that you don't confront the bear knew, you're not going to be bigger and you're not going out run them. So you can't let your fear get to you. And you make yourself small,
Lynn:
right? And you get your energy down so it doesn't rise up.
Sue:
Exactly.
Lynn:
And you know that and see here's what's interesting is learning how to do that under pressure under pressure, right? Because as I've been learning and and getting back on the horse and doing a lot of groundwork, I never knew quite how much horses could read energy until I actually got on the ground in a what's called a round pen but it's like a round corral where they can run in circles. And what I actually learned how to do is through nothing but raising and lowering my energy, get the horse to stop to walk to trot to run back to trot back to walk back to stop with nothing more than just changing how much energy I was putting out of my body with almost no physical action. Wow. Now that's a really interesting thing to realize. Because, you know, you've known this, I've known this for a long time, you're more sensitive to energy, probably than most people I know. I come in with a lot of energy wherever I go. And sometimes the quality of it's good, and sometimes it's not, but any way you look at it, it's going to be high. It's something I've always had to recognize and learning how to dial it up and down in that setting where the where the results? It was, it's almost like getting to watch a thermometer, you know, like, it's almost like biofeedback, right? has been really, really profound to say, okay, so if I was in a bear attack, would I be able to dial my energy into the way that would keep the bear from attacking me. Because with that, by the way, learning to do that the lessons I've learned is, don't think I know what to do. Let the horse tell me what to do. So if I'm listening to the horse, and so I've done this with many different horses, and not long ago, I got in the, in the round pen with a horse I've never been with before. And that's when I really learned how much I could fine tune it. Because he would move on almost no energy change, like, it would be a half a degree compared to three degrees of another horse. How did I know that by watching him by saying what he did when I doubt when I doubted up to three and I got a running horse? Oh, dial it back down to a half. Okay, there he is, he's walking. Mm hmm. And then what zero had to be to get him to stop was even bigger in terms of the change than the normal horse like I had to get that much quieter because he was that much more sensitive. So it's interesting, because as we talk about these things, when we face our real Grizzlies, like I had a bear at my house, or Bob, the grizzly at work, how do we learn to dial ourselves up and down and let them tell us what's needed? to help them out?
Sue:
Yes, that's a good way to put it, because that's really, in my Matador. I was saying, watch what the bull is going to do.
Lynn:
Yes.
Sue:
And then yes, don't step in front of it, manage it, let them run through, let him run out their energy.
Lynn:
Right, because they have to they have to, and this matters to them. Like in a way I've had to learn when somebody's responding that strongly. It's because it matters that much to them. Yes. Like it was his business. He built it, I'm sure and wanted to make it good. And what he's really trying to do, I think when people are doing that, like you said, He's trying to give them the strength to build the kind of company he wants. Yes. And, you know, when when I look at what you've been doing, so you've recently started, and I say recently, it's been a couple of years, I guess now Lindsay's conscious business. And you made a huge change from helping leaders, as you did before, sort of I would call it more on an individual or team basis, to going into full, like bringing real leadership to leaders at scale. So what does being a real leader mean to you? Both in terms of the acronym because I know you've got an acronym, but really, in terms of the energy of what does it mean to be real so that we can build a culture and the kind of company we want?
Sue:
Well, one of the things I noticed, when you and I've had this conversation in the past is that when you take a look at the super good leaders, there's, they have a set some things in common. And one of the things that I noticed is that they had discernment over decision making everyone can make decisions, but knowing which decisions to make. You use that phrase. How do you say it's not whether I can? It's whether I should? Or Oh, because just because you can doesn't mean you should just because you can doesn't mean you should? And recently, one of our joint clients, the CEO said, I don't want to know if we can do it. I want to know if we should do it. Right. I want people to think, and to me, when I looked at what truly makes a good leader is when they're training their folks for that is this discernment piece. And that's not an you can't even really find anything written about discernment on leadership unless you go into spiritual texts. That's where you see.
Lynn:
No, that's exactly right. It's often used as a word in spiritual or religious practices.
Sue:
Yes. And yet, it's so critical. It's so crucial. call in and how do you get discernment? Well, that takes resiliency. Because if I don't have discernment about which way to go, and that's choice, that usually means I don't have a lot of internal fortitude or strength or stamina, to deal with my fears. So resilience, you know, the the, it's real means resilient, knows how to drive engagement can be agile and leads with wisdom. And leadership. Wisdom is that ability to be accepting. I see you are a bull, I'm not, I'm not stupid. So I am discerning, I'm not gonna step in front of the bowl. And I also know the bull weighs five times as much as me, but I still have to manage this bull. So that means I need to have internal fortitude called resilience to manage in emotional intelligence and self regulation and self awareness to be able to go right. Oh, boy, here we go.
Lynn:
Right. And that's where we have to build up our personal capacity. Exactly. And, and actually keep our energy intact, because I know for myself, my resilience goes way down when I'm tired. Yes. When I'm emotional, when I've had a lot of hits already.
Sue:
Mm hmm. Exactly. And so that's where things like, meditation comes in important. Getting the right amount of sleep eating the right foods, it Oh, yeah, it might feel better to eat chocolate, and I am a chocoholic. But that's probably not the best thing to do when I'm stressed. You know, when you're stressed, which is, you know, it's it's fear, anger, pain, sadness, it's emotions are energy in motion, they want to be moved. So the best thing you can do is move it now, most of us move our tongue
Lynn:
and move our tongue instead of our body, our body and we start talking, we start
Sue:
talking, and then we go, oh, oopsie. Yeah. Or we go, Well, they deserved it. And then we get all righteous, well, no, that that's our lack of resilience. And so our ability to, as you said, Before, we have to recognize it, we've got to acknowledge it, we don't have to act out of it. But that doesn't mean you're suppressing it either. Because you want to move that energy, you want to move it out of you so that you can be at choice. So then therefore, you can figure out how do you engage with this person?
Lynn:
Okay, so I actually have a live story about where this helps me. You had taught me that we were teaching a Hill's program together, I think, um, it may have been even before that, I can't remember exact timeframe. But you showed me how to like really shake it off and do like, I can't think of it as an energy movement meditation. Yeah, put on some good moving music. And it's almost like a dance, but moving your body in whichever way it feels like moving. Mm hmm. So I had that in my repertoire. The day I blew up my boat. And this boat was supposed to be used for my family that was coming for a trip, it was my ski boat, it was the only one I had, it was my most important in my world was this boat. And, and I was at skiing with Jennifer and the water was broke. And we tried to get it home. And we didn't understand that the water has it broke, we thought we, we thought all the water in the boat was actually because of a leak in the boat. So we were trying to get it on the lift before it sank. Instead of realizing that the water was gonna burn up, the lack of water was gonna burn out the engine. So when I finally figured that out was about three boat houses before my own, and the engine went kaboom, and stopped. And so then it was a matter of getting a neighbor and my husband to tow us and to have to own up to the fact that I've just blown up the engine light before my family is coming. Hey, it was not a pretty thing. So I my husband was understandably mad because he's the one who has to solve these problems. And he left the house in a huff. And I am just feeling horrible. So what I ended up doing was I remembered this and I was like, I got a lot of emotions happening here. And I remember putting on music and dancing it off. I literally danced it off. And by the time he got home, I was able to go into problem solving mode as opposed to beating myself up mode. And because I let the energy go and we went through a series of steps to solve the problem, be ready for my family to come and so forth. We eventually we still have that boat and it's got the best engine in it now because we got it redone, and okay much to get it redone. But that was so useful to be able to just say, Okay, I got a lot of emotions that need to move. I'm not going to use my tongue because what I want to do is yell at my husband for being mad at me. I don't want to yell at him for yelling at me. Right right. What I do And, well, not, yes. I mean, who doesn't want to do that? How many fights happened because of that exam, but that's a really powerful thing. So I would just say to anybody listening, you know, put on some music and move if you need to, and then it'll clear it'll clear your head a little bit to actually go into problem solving mode, instead of, you know, defensive mode.
Sue:
Exactly. You got to move it out. It's
Lynn:
a good one.
Sue:
I, you know, I would get sometimes go to the gym, and I actually bought them a little girly this way, I bought a pink boxing gloves. And I bought pink on purpose, because I'm like, you know what, I like this color. But I need to get out some anger stress, and, and not feel like I'm losing my femininity. But boy, there are some people I just needed to punch the lights out of. Yeah, metaphorically speaking. But it really wasn't about punching. That motto is about moving the energy out of me that I had in a given situation with a particular person. And then once we move energy, you don't particularly like what you were talking about anger emotion. Many times, once we move it, we gain clarity.
Lynn:
We do. And actually one of the things I do I have a heavy bag and a speed bag in my gym. And so I've used that as well and learn to really send it out into the bag. But once you've let it out what's really important I've and you taught me this as well, when you're once you're sort of clear of the anger is to be very intentional about what you want to be there instead. Because anger has a way of backwashing. Yes, exactly. I'm an expert on anger. So there's a little teaching nugget for anybody else out there that's trying to figure out what to do with their anger. I'm a recovering alcoholic anger Holic. So, but no choosing to have that clarity to have intention about what I want. And it's not necessarily happiness as much for me a lot of times, when I get the anger out, what I'm just looking for is contentment.
Sue:
Yes. Yeah. And that's where, you know, it's for the real model, if we continue that when you get into that place that's actually being agile, adaptable, flexible. Yeah. Because that's where the choice comes in. I now, you know, Russ got home, you were able to engage with him differently. Instead of starting up where he lived. He left the house and a half because he was clearly frustrated. We got to fix this thing was in in my plan, whatever it was, right. It was completely justified,
Lynn:
I believe. Do you believe
Sue:
you messed up his day.
Lynn:
We did not have replacing about in our plan.
Sue:
And so then if you were still in the I need to defend myself from him, rather than Okay, I've moved up the energy. Yeah, maybe he said something he shouldn't have said just like, you know, Bob, the grizzly bear. Maybe the strategy isn't there. Maybe your strategy wasn't there. But if you can get to that place where you go, okay. Yeah, this sucks. And if not, we're going to do what are we going to do? Then you're able you're at choice, you engage differently. You You, you adjust, and then that's when you go into the leading with wisdom, acceptance, compassion, humanity. discernment, authenticity. And yeah, no, and also apology. Like, I didn't, yeah, double
Lynn:
the boat. But I didn't I I based on the problem, as Isaiah says that it belonged in the boathouse. But But I have a question about this adaptability and leadership wisdom. So one of the things I have noticed with a lot of with myself, as well as a lot of my clients, is something about being that we're kind of all playing over our heads, meaning that we get the job. But the job moves, the complexity of the world keeps changing, you know, modern life, which looks so convenient. This computer, we're talking on the cars, we can drive around. Yes, they make some things easier, but they make us also pack more and or we have bigger change forces coming at us, like regulations change, community expectations change. Even the question of what capitalism could be changing, right? So we're kind of always having to reinvent our jobs. Where does that fit and real leadership? Is it adaptability? Is that wisdom? Is it some of all?
Sue:
Well, personally, I think it's some of all because, you know, as you said, there's there's no such thing as something being static. There never was. But yeah, but I can remember now giving away my age, when I first got into business, organizations reorganized or re engineered. Maybe every five to seven years now, two to three times a year, where you are, where organizations are reinventing processes, they're changing reporting structures to meet the demands of what they see going on. Now you can get become too reactive. And that's where getting in the balcony and not reacting is helpful. And so into in today's environment, the ability to I don't know, step back, is actually an agile move it because we, we get into responding so much that sometimes we forget to go to the balcony, where and that's the discernment. It's not whether we can it's should we,
Lynn:
because we keep pressing otherwise we keep. We don't give ourselves that moment.
Sue:
We don't give ourselves that moment. Exactly. So really strong leaders have learned how to take that step back. We have another friend and comment that will say something like broccoli sgei, he will say fast on the outside, slow on the inside. Right? Yeah. And yeah, that, to me is where agility and leadership wisdom comes in, is that the world is moving quickly. But we don't have to be running at 50,000 miles per hour on the inside of ourselves. Because if we are, then we are reactionary, if we can stay in that calm centered place, and that comes from doing practices that help build resilience that help you under manage is, you know, you you like to use of words, your pressure threshold, or your stress threshold, right? Yeah. And we're because we all have stress, we all go in into negative stress. And we all have positive stress in our lives, that stress nonetheless. And so how do you respond? Well, part of that comes from if I can develop a solid foundation of resilience, and be able to, to to face that more in the moment, I engage differently, I become more agile than I use my discernment to be more at choice with who I am and how to approach this. And so when people are facing this, I like to say just take a moment.
Lynn:
Yeah, and then break it down, break it, and also break it down into tiny steps. Because this has maybe been my biggest learning, and it keeps getting repeated. So that's why I know it's a big learning because obviously, I'm often going for the goal and the chunk, as opposed to the tiny steps on the way to the goal. Right. So just yesterday, my assignment with my horseback riding instructor was and I love being a cowgirl. So this was a cowgirl take your horse over and and open the gate on top while you're on the horse. And every time I'd get him what I thought was in position, he'd swing his hind end around, and I couldn't do it. So I kept circling around and she goes, how many times are you going to nag him but I was like, as many times as it takes and she goes, don't nag him, break it down, she goes, all you're caring about is opening the gate. All I care about is the one step that will get him closer to putting you in position to open the gate. Oh, and then she showed me that this move that you see cowboys do that looks like one move is actually about 50 moves. Okay. And so all of a sudden when we started breaking it down. And you know, take a slow step forward, one more step forward. Now when he starts to swing, put your leg on a little bit of rain to the right, a little bit of rain to the left, like here's your like, that's a recipe. But it's the tiny little pieces. And when my brain wants to chunk off the goal, just so I can be comfortable. Can I get the gate open or not? She goes, I don't care if you open the gate, I can open the gate. But now your challenge is can you get your horse to do that? And what I realized is that's always the solution. When you're under a lot of pressures, what's the next best move? things? What's the one thing I need to do? And at every level of pressure, and yesterday, there was a lot of pressure because the wind was blowing and there was a workman around and horses get nervous and he was dancing and prancy as they tend to do and it's kind of fun and makes me feel really good. But then how do I just bring him down to once all I need you to do is take one step to the left.
Sue:
One step. Mm hmm.
Lynn:
So it's that go slow to go fast.
Sue:
Go slow. Yes, exactly. And
Lynn:
and actually in line of the horses as I witnessed something a couple of weeks ago, there's a show or there's a thing every year where they start horses, and these are horses that have never been written and what I noticed is I watched all the people do it, the ones who would give the horse a little break. And let them they literally use the language soak. And if sometimes only 30 seconds, and they're on a time clock, so it's a time to competition. So there's a lot coming at them in a short amount of time sound like anybody's job that we have coming at you short amount of time, I don't have time to take a break. The people who pressed on did much worse than the people who would let the horse soak, take a breath, and then ask him to do it again. Hmm. Because in that moment, the horse could like get his brain to reset. He was like, Oh, I'm doing good. You know, they were helping the horse get his confidence back, as opposed to the horse always feeling like, well, I just can't do it. Right. I just can't do it. Right. And that builds. And I feel like we do that to ourselves. We we think we just, it just keeps building, rather than taking a moment and saying, hey, look what I just did. Okay, now I got to go do something else. But that was good.
Sue:
Right.
Lynn:
So I like the term soak, if you're going to be hearing me use that a lot more.
Sue:
Okay. Very good. Yeah.
Lynn:
It's like, it's like a recovery. It's like a learning moment of recovery, like not sleeping, because you're still away. But so I'm just gonna let this soak for a minute. So and then take so take a step. So one of that, you know, you told a little bit about Bob and his Grizzly, one of the things that just keeps coming up for me as we're talking is, and you've got probably literally 1000s of these, but in the companies you've worked with, what would you describe as a cool before and after story? You know, like, I always like to watch the shows with the remodelers where you go in and you see a mess, and then they fix it. And a lot of times our work, we don't go in and necessarily see a mess. But we do see places where things can get cleaned up where leaders can be more effective. You know, there's a good before and after story. You know, without giving away we have a practice of not getting away who our clients are. It's so it's their it's their prerogative to talk about us, but not the other way around. Right. But what is what would you what would be like a before and after sort of case study that you would like illustrate all of these things, the real leadership principles sort of coming together.
Sue:
I'd have to say probably is one that happened last year, as as the pandemic hit. It was something I did pro bono, my company, Lindsay's did pro bono. And because we wanted to test we wanted to test out a theory. And we were supposed to go in and do a team session and work with the team doing helping them to discover what was preventing their teamwork, they had had some low, low engagement scores, there were several leaders that got very bad cultural scores. And so a new leader was brought in and he was not given the role officially, he was not given the title. And he was appear that had been promoted up. And then he got this role. Here you go. And something like March 19, or something last year,
Lynn:
great. Yeah, three weeks
Sue:
into the panda three weeks into the pandemic. And you know, they just cut out all of the the travel that they were allowed to do in his organization as a sales organization. Getting in front of clients is a very important aspect of that. So nothing like getting a challenge where your hands are tied. You can't You can't travel anymore. And at that moment, they weren't reassessing the goals. You know, they were pretending this company was pretending like, this is just a momentary Blip. And so keep on going. Three weeks is what we were told, yeah,
Lynn:
exactly. It's a year and a half later. And so,
Sue:
and even Of course, he wanted to be liked he,he, he also had a reputation of sometimes being a little bit arrogant or better than the rest amongst What were his peers. And so he had, he had a huge challenge of now that everyone immediately went to remote. There was no travel. Some were not appreciative of his promotion that he really didn't quite get. And so we decided, let's push forward and do the team session anyway. But we were going to do it virtually. And we focused on two key things with that group, psychological safety and vulnerability. And we brought the group together and they were kicking and screaming, we've got all this stuff to do. You know, people are still trying to figure out I'm working at home My kids are at home of God of You know, my, I've got to get my kids doing their school work. And I've got to be in this meeting. And it's hard to be in two places at once. So what we did was we created the ability for people for everyone to become a bowl, if you will. But we started out with this Bob number,
Lynn:
you're gonna have to explain that, by the way, is that just kind of like, what does it mean? You want everybody to become a bull?
Sue:
Is that you know, if you think of a bull is, is is needing is raging, in terms of expression. Right? People had a lot of, there was a lot of fear, fear was raging. Okay, am I going to have a job? If this stays around too long? How am I going to pay my mortgage? If we don't, how am I going to reach this goal, because now I can't even go out and visit the clients to even make my goal. And everyone, of course, suddenly stopped spending, there's no travel, there's no this and they they are, you know, in the financial services business, they also have traveled as part of their business. So a lot of a lot of fear. And so the very first thing we did is that we say, well, let's talk about all of the frustration that people have right now. And we actually laid it out on the table in coach Bob, number two, into sharing his biggest fear with them, which was fear of rejection, they weren't going to accept him, he wasn't going to do a good job. So therefore, he definitely would be fired. Because he didn't help meet the goal, because he didn't bring the team together. And they knew enough about him, he has two young children at home and you know, 35 years old, that kind of thing. And because he did it in such a real way, that everybody walked into that. And they all started saying, This is what I'm afraid of, this is what I'm afraid of, this is what I'm afraid of. And he did something really quite simple. And he said, you know, we all know, we know the drill, as soon as they start cutting, travel. And as soon as they start cutting, training, you know, the next thing they're gonna start doing is cutting people. They've all been through those. We've all been through that. And, and so he was being vulnerable and honest, at the same time. And he came up with something simple, and this is so important in culture change in leadership, is he said, let's focus on making our group necessary and critical. And that became their mission, how can we make ourselves necessary and critical to the business? And he said, and he basically gave them something they could control. Because in that moment, the fear was, I can't control anything. So that just that little thing, and was just through a conversation like this. He said, if we can figure this out, and he used the word we if we can figure out how we can, as a group become critical and necessary to the business. Maybe I can't promise but maybe we will survive this. And interestingly enough, it was exactly what people needed. They needed those two words, not something fancy, no fancy mission statement, the purpose of our team is this. All right, let's figure out what we need to be to be critical and necessary. And that was the problem they started to solve. And then that's what brought the team work together. And that created a space of even more psychological safety. And I talked with them about a month ago, and we worked with this team, as I said, we did it pro bono, because we were experimenting with how can we measure whether things like psychological safety, vulnerability, and openness and trust really made a difference on the bottom line. And so we did periodic measurements along the way, we didn't measure specific leadership behaviors. We did measure his but we didn't measure everybody they are we were measuring the effect of leadership behavior, in the impact on culture. And so we were taking that and every two months, we would just get back together and have conversation. All right, our goal is critical and necessary. We have our processes over here. But let's talk about the human side. That is either helping us move toward it or what's preventing us and then they would get vulnerable again, with each other. And 100% Fast Forward 100% of the team is still intact. today. He Did officially get the job. And they were plus 35 over the original results that were expected for the year, that whole team. Wow. And that was because he got vulnerable enough to share his fears. No, man, I know you guys are afraid if I don't do well, one, I'm definitely going to be out of a job because I really, you know, EFF it up. Right when a new role, and and so they were trying to be pleasing to Him, everybody was in survival mode. And he just, I don't want to say got lucky. But he did, he got lucky by saying two very key words. And now they are being held as the best practices. This is a global organization, and how to drive this type of business. Because they were plus 35 over the results. And to me, that's that's a good example of somebody individually being real. Sorry about that, individually being real, and as well as inviting the team to participate in the creation of the outcome that they that they wanted to achieve. And if you notice, they had no number around critical, unnecessary, they already knew the number. Critical and necessary was an emotional driver and a rallying cry. That's right, that got created.
Lynn:
We know what I love is that you just said I think maybe one of the most important things is the team owned it. They didn't depend on him to own it. And because of the work you did around psychological safety and vulnerability, it gave everybody permission to lean in. Yes. And get the work done and get the work done. That's I hadn't heard this story before. Say so this is actually really, this is really the work you do. And you know, that you measure you measured, you mentioned measuring culture, describe how you know culture is I always felt like, Okay, I'm sorry to make this comparison. But I feel like it is apropos. And that, to me culture has been a little bit like pornography, you know what, when you see it, but it's really hard to define.
Sue:
Okay.
Lynn:
So, I know that sounds like but but I'm not saying in a bad way. What I mean is, it's hard to put your hands around culture, it's, it's the invisible world. And and then we can tell what the culture is by the visible and like, right now I'm sitting here, it's a very windy day where I live, the trees are moving, but I can't see the wind, I can see the trees moving. Right. And in culture, a lot of times we can't see the culture, but we can see the impact of the culture. So we can see when teams are shut down, we can see when people are feeling unsafe, we can see when people aren't giving their best. But we can't really put our finger on it, we can just see the impact. But you, you and I've worked together and done, you know some of this work where we actually can begin to say okay, but let's see how far the trees are moving. In other words, where in these different aspects are things going? So can you describe how you sort of see culture and how you measure it?
Sue:
Well, with culture, another way we say a definition we give it is cultures behavior, or acquiescence to whomever is in charge. So if you have somebody who's going to be a grizzly bear and highly controlling, you're going to get people responding and acting in a certain way. And if you have somebody that like this, this young man, Bob, number two, who is like, you know what, I want to get the goal, I don't want to be fired. And yeah, he's being real. And, and yet, it was a, it was a rallying cry that they could all join in that, you know, they responded differently. So for me, culture, is really how people are behaving to in terms of how they come together to reach a goal. Or, you know, I like to say that what culture is it's the behavioral component of strategy. You can, you can have strategy, but we've got to behavior behave our way toward strategy and we can either be aligned or we can be disconnected inside of organizations. And, and so there's plenty of studies that show that if you can have collaboration and alignment, and now the bigger words are right psychological safety, belonging and inclusion, that that's what's really going to create the behavioral alignment that you want and need. And if you do that, you really don't have to worry about the result itself, making that number. That number will be as a result of that behavior. And that's what they found. You know this with BB number two aim is that they created an aligned community. Maslow's hierarchy is, you know, they were fully in community sense of belonging level three, if you will, of that triangle mass hierarchy of needs. And then they were all helping each other out in terms of the next two levels. They were learning together. And then they were each individually fulfilling their personal aspiration don't get fired. But But the other personal aspiration that they didn't quite say, but you know, they're thinking about now is because they were plus 35. Do you think some of those people have had you know, they didn't get the job that Bob, number two guy, but do you think some of Bob's direct reports are now being tapped? Oh, heck, yeah. Yes, exactly. So they jumped in, they didn't know where it was gonna go. And because they created it, and this is, they created such a great community, and yet, they, and they had community inclusion and belonging and safety. And yet, you can still see, somebody said this recently that, you know, a constellation is beautiful, but you really love how each individual star twinkles. And that's what this team did is that they had a great constellation. And yet, you could see the twinkle of every star on that team. And now that, you know,
Lynn:
that's such an interesting thing, because I've had a lot of podcasts lately, where team was a part of the conversation. And it's this walking a tightrope between being part of the greater whole and allowing your own self to shine. And I love the way you just described it is sort of a constellation. And, you know, we all want to be part of something bigger. And yet we also all want to be part of who we are. Yes. And to me, that's the tightrope of life. It's the tightrope we're all walking.
Sue:
Yes,
Lynn:
to have to be a little bit of both and to be allowed in our constellation to shine. Yes, you know, and maybe not necessarily to outshine, but to truly shine would be, you know, the ideal.
Sue:
Yeah. And no, nobody thought about I want to shine. You know, again, remember, it's like, we got to survive this year, once they knew they were in the long haul. Yeah, critical and necessary. And it was through that process that everybody sparkled.
Lynn:
You know, that funny? It's funny, because I really heard that they focused on being critical, unnecessary, which you realize most companies, most people are critical, unnecessary, or if they're not, they really do need to be rethinking whether they even belong there, right. But if everybody would actually own that, their critical, unnecessary and then step into that, then it's really hard to get fired. So you don't you know, because if you focus on don't getting fired, I always say, I've used you know, the story of the elephant, like, Don't think of an elephant. Well, the first thing you have to do before you don't think of an elephant, so you got to think of the elephant,
Sue:
yes, to put the x over it. And put the x over it. Okay, about you.
Lynn:
Right, so when we're creating pictures, and I've really learned this with horseback riding, because horses actually pick up the pictures in our mind, Temple Grandin, you know, has really shown this in her autism research, because she thinks more like that in terms of pictures, and can really read each other, like the pictures that are coming out of people's minds. And I've done a lot of experiments with horses, where I'm, like, picturing going a place and doing my best just make nothing else happened, but my picture in my head. And I'm really convinced that they completely read our minds. And I interviewed Warwick Schiller, a few months ago, who is a professional horse trainer, and he 100% agreed. He said, they absolutely do. And so that's pretty cool. Except for if they read their mouth, our minds, we probably have the ability to kind of read what people are thinking. So if you got a whole team thinking, don't screw up, don't get fired, then all they're doing is thinking of the elephant. They're actually not thinking of being critical. Unnecessary,
Sue:
right.
Lynn:
So I really love that your team focused, you know, on what they what they could do, and got that kind of result. Yeah, but I mostly love that constellation analogy. That's really beautiful.
Sue:
Thank you.
Lynn:
So well, so Sue, how you know you're out there in the world. It's probably not hard to find you but tell me how can people find you either through LinkedIn or what are your your website and so forth? And be sure and spell the name of your business? Because not everybody everybody's gonna think Lindsey says LYNN s e. s, because that's my name. Right?
Sue:
Well, because Lynn, you do have good insight. So you do see Linda? In actuality, linseeds actually means in Latin, keen insights. Gathering Wow. But because As you said, nobody would know how to spell that, or our website is very easy. l c, b group.com.
Lynn:
When CCB group cost
Sue:
conscious business group.com LCB group.com. And that's the easiest way info at LCB group comm you could always go to our website and there's the area where you could you could actually get a free copy of my miniature size book, I have a book real leadership waken to wisdom, but then I have a, a cliff notes version that is available. If you, you know, just say yes, I want this fill in your name, give us your email address, you can get a copy of that there. But mostly people you know, it's very easy to reach me Susan at LCB group Comm. And okay, that for me, I'm, if that's one thing that I do every day and have are addicted to way too much is, is my emails, and more than more than checking LinkedIn or Facebook or slack or you know, the 15,000 other ways that people can reach you. The email is is the way to go for if people really want to reach me.
Lynn:
Yeah, as well. And I highly recommend, by the way, even though you will give away the small version of your book, it's worth getting the full version, because it's got much more of a nuance and being an author right now I'm in the middle of, you know, my book, the elegant pivot going out. And I had such an interesting call on on Saturday with someone who is deeply steeped in the book. And yet after an hour and a half, she realized I had just coached her on the principles of the book that she knew so well. She said, Lynne, it's so interesting that I can know this, but I still can't do this. And I said, you know, that's why we have to help each other and, but the more you kind of get steeped into it, then you've got an opportunity to then reach out and have a better level. Because, you know, in an hour and a half, I was able to get her to a place that sometimes somebody isn't steeped in it might take several months.
Sue:
Exactly.
Lynn:
You know, so, so see, reading the full book, reading the story, seeing the application, I think makes a difference. So I'm a huge fan of the book and of the material and of you. And so I'm so glad we finally were able to do this so people could hear a lot of your wisdom. And guys, I'll just tell you right now, Sue, and I will have to do a part two, because we've barely tapped into her, her depth of wisdom, there's so much there. So thank you again. And for those of you who are listening, you can share this podcast easily on your apps and so forth. If you liked it, please share it. And also, my favorite thing is on my website at Lynn Carnes calm on the podcast page. There's a little voicemail button on the right. And I'm like Sue with the emails. I like to get a voicemail. And so click that button and you can tell me what you like and what you want more of. And if anybody's been hearing in the background, that moaning sound, that's how windy it is here. I'm in a house that actually moans when it winds Oh, yeah, there's
Sue:
a lot of wind going on here too. That's why we're having a little bit of struggle with my internet now.
Lynn:
Yeah, but remember, the in the the invisible world is what brings that makes the trees move. So make your energy strong, folks and look forward to seeing you on the next pie. Or hey, I guess it's not seeing you, but hearing you on the next podcast.
Sue:
Sounds great. Thank you, Lynn.
Lynn:
Thank you, Sue. Thank you for listening to the creative spirits unleashed podcast. I started this podcast because I was having these great conversations and I wanted to share them with others. I'm always learning in these conversations, and I wanted to share that kind of learning with you. Now what I need to hear from you is what you want more of and what you want less of. I really want these podcasts to be a value for the listeners. Also, if you happen to know someone who you think might love them, please share the podcast and of course subscribe and rate it on the different apps that you're using, because that's how others will find it. Now, I hope you go and do something very fun today.
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