# 35 Jennifer Maneely: Discern Signal from Noise

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Intro: 0:02

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: 0:19

Welcome to the creative spirits unleash Podcast. I'm Lynn Carnes, your host. This week, my podcast series on the book, The elegant pivot continues. This latest episode is titled discern signal from noise. And that is the topic of the conversation I have with my daughter, Jen Maneely. She joins me to go over our struggles, our victories, our stories about learning to use this principle in a way that really turns it into clarity for us. You'll learn more when you hear the episode. But what I would say the big takeaway of this episode is this, you can learn to recalibrate your internal guidance system to work for you instead of against you. And that's priceless. I hope you enjoy this episode. Jan, welcome to the podcast.

Jen: 1:09

Thanks, it's good. It's always good to be back.

Lynn: 1:12

I love it. We're today after our last elegant pivot podcast. And that's what the subject is today. We ended talking about discerning signal from noise.

Jen: 1:27

Such a challenging thing to try to just figure out, you know, what's, what's coming up? What's the chattiness? And what's like real, like, what are the real red things and what to pay attention to? I know, I'd be making some, like some crazy stories up in my head, right.

Lynn: 1:44

And for anybody that has read the book, you probably know what we're talking about. If you haven't read the elegant pivot, we are talking about one of the the first of the five principles in the book, which is discern signal from noise. And, you know, assuming positive intent is really easy when you're sure that the other person has positive intent. Right. But then we wouldn't be assuming, right? Yeah,

Jen: 2:11

we wouldn't, we wouldn't. We would just know that they had a positive intent. We wouldn't have to assume that. Right? Right.

Lynn: 2:18

And the problem is, we're assuming all the time, and our signal versus noise is what causes us to sometimes all too often assume the wrong thing. Yes, we act on the wrong thing. And then we wonder why we're having so much trouble in our lives.

Jen: 2:34

Yeah, because I mean, this is like, even when I was like, like, even when I went back and reread the chapter, right? Even for me, I had, I still had a lot of questions coming up for myself of like, okay, there's excerpt it's just so hard to know, in the moment, conceptually, I get the difference between signal and noise, right. But then when you're we're in heats of moments. It's like, what am I reading? And how am I supposed to behave this?

Lynn: 3:06

Well, one of the concepts that we talked about in the book was called the negative positive pole. Yeah, tool concept is the wrong word for it. It's a tool, and I learned the language negative positive pole from Bruce Anderson, who I work with, with the horses. So for you, Jan, what does your negative positive pole feel like? Like when you get he calls that the charge of electricity? Yeah, like, between two two poles of a car battery?

Jen: 3:37

Right? Well, so the way that I like if I had to put a word on it, right, so there's negative and positive and pull, and you know, me, like, I'm fairly good at reading people, right? I can kind of know, like, when something is off, or something is, is going on, right? If someone's lying to me, I don't always know what they're lying about. But generally speaking, I can pick up and this is my negative positive pole, right? And the way that I have learned to label it for myself for an understanding is I just say, either I'm in in alignment or out of alignment, right. So like, there's like when someone and maybe they're lying to themselves, or maybe they're lying to, like, they know they're lying, I don't know. But I know all the sudden inside there's something feels unaligned

Lynn: 4:33

like so is it is there a place that it's physically like that because I have a definite physical sensations?

Jen: 4:40

It's kind of Yeah, I guess there is a I can tell you exactly where the places and it's kind of it's, it's more like my sternum chest area. So like my ribs, you know,

Lynn: 4:51

like Plexus kind of areas. Yeah. So

Jen: 4:55

I know you can't see me pointing to you can see me but I can podcast I'll try to point to it. But it's like right above the stomach, but below the like chest area, right? That kind of place. And this and it kind of like kind of goes in between almost like, there is almost like a little rod for me. And that little rod will just get a little kinked I guess. So that's how that's what that's what it feels like to me in the best term that I have. For myself. That's not negative and positive pole. But like if I'm trying to explain it to someone else who's who doesn't understand. negative positive pole, I really just say it's alignment or alignment.

Lynn: 5:40

Sure, in me and, and you know, I use the word congruent or incongruent. Yeah. And in the book, I tell the story about being in this, like, crazy funhouse, sometimes at work, where people would be saying one thing and meeting another. Mm hmm. Yeah. And the lack of transparency in a lot of companies is mind boggling. And, you know, with the work I've been doing with the horses, one of the things I've really come to understand is the incongruence, between what we're showing them and what we're really feeling, it will make them feel least less safe than anything. Yeah. And in fact, we had a whole podcast about that, right? Getting that, you know, the thing that happened in the barn, and yeah, we'll put the link to that podcast in the show notes so people can find out which one it was because the big insight was the old saying that says, Never show fear to a horse. Well, as you were trying to cover up your fear, it made the horse extremely worried. Yes. And the minute you owned your fear the horse just let down and completely relaxed. It was like, oh, okay, which they'll let your your fear go down as well. Yes. And I often look to horses, to show me our human survival brain because our brains, you know, our survival gets covered up by trying to suck it up, or try to cover it up, or, you know, we do all this stuff that horses don't do. And it shows it to me a little easier. And this incongruence thing, I think, when I'm working with people, I have so many coaching clients in the corporate world, that this is what we're working on is the lack of transparency.

Jen: 7:26

Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's so challenging, because like, and I even not so much in the corporate world, but it happens in like, our relationships as well. So like, we know when something's going on with our partners, right? And when our partners aren't communicating with us, they'll say, Everything's fine. They'll try to convince us and maybe it doesn't even have anything to do with us. Maybe it's something is going on. Maybe they can't verbalize it. Maybe they don't know how to put it into words yet. But when we know something is going on, how challenging can it be? When they're not being transparent with us? It's like, no, no, you're not allowed to say that. That it may not be about me. Yes. But if you're telling me everything is okay, and nothing is going on, that sends up red flags for me. Right?

Lynn: 8:14

That's a completely perfect example. Because there's, it's funny, we, we probably should just take fine out of the vocabulary because very few people ever really fine. Like, you know, it's like, Hey, how you doing? I'm fine. How are you? Yeah. What we really mean when we say I'm fine is I don't have any problems that I'm willing to share with you. Yeah, or I'm not gonna let you in on it. Or we're not we don't have time to talk about it right now. Yeah. Or I'm just not willing to rock rock the apple cart. Whatever, Rocky, I guess I guess it's upset the applecart or rock the boat? I got my metaphors messed up there. But anyway, you look at it, you know, fine is really not the right answer.

Jen: 8:54

Right? Well, they haven't. Yeah, they have a neat little acronym for what fine really stands for which you know, I won't I won't curse on here, but it's that F to insecure, neurotic, emotional. That's good. So fine, really me. So anytime someone says, fine, I'm fine. I'm fine.

Lynn: 9:16

Well, that's what the thing about the signal versus noise I think is so important and why I put a dedicated entire chapter in the book to it is when something is off, and we need to we think we should assume positive intent. But the signal is telling us for example, they've just said to me, we had this happen. We will give away the company. But you know, the other day we were doing a team session on the elegant pivot and helping people work through it. And the team later had just been promoted. And something in the way the communications went out. It it didn't align With what she expected it to be. And she found herself within 24 hours of being promoted and told how great she was to being upset and having that something all feeling because of the way the communication went out. And it's not the feeling that's so bad. It's the stories that follow the feeling, which is going to be another chapter we get to, but you can't really talk about one without the other. Right? If we could just go wow, that's my body feeling wonky? Oh, well, yeah. But we don't we feel that that thing, and then she was hearing that, you know, the, the self talk was the self doubt talk is really what it is. Was, wait a minute, did they just give me that to placate me? And is that really a promotion and, you know, not a gin, she did not respond to the feeling by going, oh, you know what, that's exactly why they said this, because later she realized what it was going on. And remember enough of the details to describe it. But she said, when she looked at it one way, it made her upset. But when she could take a breath and look at it a different way. She realized it was in complete alignment with what they'd already agreed to

Jen: 11:14

write, write it, all of that was, and so that, and therein lies the thing. So, um, you know, if we can go back, you were talking about, like the lack of transparency in corporations, right? And how they'll come. Now, there's a lot of things that happened behind closed doors. And when things start going on behind closed doors, that's the signal for people, right? The noise starts, that noise starts coming in, when people start freaking out about their jobs, or they think it's about them when it may not have anything to do about them. I mean, there's so much going on. So like, when you take it back into the lack of transparency, sometimes that happens in organizations, when they're not able to discuss all of the things how, how do corporations? Or how can corporations kind of balance that part out of delivering what they need to deliver to put people's minds at ease? Because they have to know that these things are happening in people's worlds? everyone's freaking out about their job. Right? How productive can someone be when they're worried if they're going to be here tomorrow? Exactly. You know, so,

Lynn: 12:31

there's so much upheaval right now, whether it's mergers, or you know, we've been through COVID. And people are like, are we working from home? Are we coming in? Are you laying off? Are you trying to add? Did we lose half our people? Do I have to make up work for somebody else? Right, all the questions and all the uncertainty and the human brain naturally. And uncertainty and in the unknown fills in the blanks automatically with something that's not good. Right? Like we were just the way our brains work,

Jen: 13:02

it's the way it has to work, right for our safety. And so then it's like, balancing out. Like, okay, what are the signals? versus what's the noise? How do we separate those two?

Lynn: 13:18

Yes. And I think the first thing we have to do is, is actually hone it, where we can learn to trust it. Yeah, I think that's a lot of it. And I think we actually have to learn to sometimes play the warmer colder game of pushing it up and moving it and moving to and from, like, let's see how bad it is. And then take yourself through a scenario or, or push one way or the other by warmer colder. I mean, instead of like trying to shut it down, you try to make it a little hotter, or you try to make it a little colder, you move to see what happens. And that begins to start telling you when you do that it'll just disappear if it's not anything real. Right. Right. And, you know, in the, in the book, you know, which we tell that story, talk about, you know, transparency, and so forth. There's the story of me doing the team meeting that went really, really well. It was a first time with this team, this team and some sometimes I've worked with teams, you know, gosh, there's been times has been 10 or 15 times, maybe 20 times with different teams over the years. This This was the first time with this team,

Jen: 14:29

which is always nerve racking, right?

Lynn: 14:34

It really is, especially because I had actually never before the meeting, I only met one of the people. And that was the person who had asked me to do the meeting for them and it was a really high stakes meeting for her. So it went really really well like they do and I use you know anybody that's ever worked with Me has seen I do a lot of stickies on the wall. You know, we It's a very engaged and interactive day. And at the end of the session, kind of in a warmer colder way, I said, What do you want more of what you want less up. And my, the woman that had hired me to do the meeting wrote, I wanted more of tactics and action plans. And I just felt my heart sank, because we had not done that. Right. We had made some big decisions, we had done a lot of good work. And then the question was, was that a signal? Or was that noise?

Jen: 15:39

Right? Well, yeah.

Lynn: 15:41

And my, in my, in my simplistic way of assuming positive intent, it would have been to just say, Okay, well, I'm just going to assume she liked the meeting. Because she hasn't said she didn't like it. Right. But there was a part of me that wouldn't accept except that I knew we had an issue. Right. And the reason this story is so important is because even though I had a signal that something was off, and that she didn't like the meeting, every move I made, had to be at what I would call an assume positive intent move. For the sake of her getting her goal and for us to sort of not part ways, politely, but disappointedly, which I think has happened to me before, because I acted on the signal as if that I had made a mistake, right?

Jen: 16:39

Well, right in the book, um, you were talking about how you had to really kind of sit with that for a little while, what, five days is a long time?

Lynn: 16:51

Well, and with a little bit of interaction, so there were texts, and I go into great detail on the book on this and won't dive into that deeply here. But, but if you really read between the lines on the book, and if you could, could have transported yourself to me into my head and heard the kind of noise that wanted to come up, right? To feel defensive about the fact that we hadn't done something that she wanted, that, frankly, she had explicitly asked for at the beginning. But that by the end of the day, I did not get to write. And the other the other really important thing is we ended the meeting with about 15 minutes to spare on the quote, unquote, a lot of time. Right. And I feel like that's the piece, which I think is often there where I didn't want to own that I could have kept the meeting going. Although it had reached its its end, I think everybody knows, when a meeting has come to an end.

Jen: 18:01

Yeah, it kind of it had that organic ending where it's like anything beyond this would have felt like a little bit of a stretch.

Lynn: 18:10

Exactly. And yet, that was the kind of thing that little seed and these are all through the elegant pivot, where I talk about what was going on inside of me, that that, that the negative thoughts were able to grab on to, right and get some traction and say, but you could have if you hadn't been so tired and ready to get on the road. And if you hadn't, like, whatever, whatever, you know, cut that thing off for taking that little bit of extra time to do this other thing that maybe wasn't as important. Right. And so the reason we're diving in on the signal versus noise is to recognize that the feeling of something being off is just something being off. Right. But that stuff going on in your head. That's noise.

Jen: 18:57

Right? So So let's so let's go. Um, so this is the interesting part of this, right? Something was definitely off. Yeah, there was this, there was a signal there. Now, we get to know the completion of the whole story. Right? So like, it was a chat, in this case we do right? So there was the chatter and the five days of kind of going back and forth. And then y'all did get to sit down and talk about things. Yeah. And then so it's like hindsight being 2020. What was the signal that something was off and like, what did you guys talk about? That kind of what was the end result? I guess, is

Lynn: 19:46

a great question. So when we finally did talk, the things I could have done versus what I did do or what's important, right? I did not act apologetic or polite. cating or defensive? When we started our call when we finally had that call after five days, right? I kind of went back to nab, but you've had a few days to absorb it. How's it going for you? I had sent her the report, I said does this which is comprehensive? How does this support where you want to go? What else does it need? So that you guys can take your next steps. And those kind of questions that kept focused on the goal we had together for the meeting. Not the goal about Lin looking good, right? Not about the goal about her telling me I hadn't made a mistake. Who knows if I had made a mistake or not, that was actually not the problem. Mistakes are just mistakes. Right? Right. But me trying to cover up the mistake, make it go away placate her, so she wouldn't think I was a bad person, any of those things. That's the noise as well. Right? And so what happened is, after we got through it, and I'm basically in that conversation, we had a series of next steps. She She literally said, This is freaking awesome. I feel so incredibly prepared now for where we have to go next. Excellent. Right. Now, at that point, I said, my sense was, and I'm not sure I put this directly in the book, but my sense was that you did leave the meeting somewhat disappointed. And am I was I miss reading that? And she said, No, I was. And she then I do say in the book we had, she had had an her same five days of going, how do I tell when, you know, I'm not happy. I worked with her. I love her. But this one perfect. And all of that. And then when she when we finally worked through it, we did the meta learning of right. She had her own assume positive intent problem. Right? Because it's like, just assume positive intent means I can't tell him that she should have done this thing, or I wish she'd done this thing. Right. And I asked her later, you know, I actually wanted to complete it to say, what do you think would have happened? And what can we do about it now? And she said, Actually, we couldn't have done, the thing I wanted to do. You have you have showed me couldn't be done, because what you're talking about isn't done in those kinds of meetings. She said, I basically just wanted a project plan to make a project. Right need to make a project plan with all those people in the room.

Jen: 22:41

Right? Well, and here's listen, you know, we can even take this a little bit deeper. So you had your signals and noises in all of this. Right? So there was some signal. So you got the signal at some point? That's right. There was a disappointment. Right? What that was we were very unclear about. So obviously, the noise was as you filled it in, you filled in the gaps. Here's the other side of things. It sounds like from what you were telling me, this was a high stakes meeting for her to Oh, yes. So she had something kind of going in, she set this whole thing up. She said it all to prove. So she probably had a little bit of noise. for herself. That was like, was this the right answer for this? For this? Right? So it's like now y'all have noises. Y'all are both double voices. Noisy, right?

Lynn: 23:43

And I will I would actually say that for in a lot of ways her her. The stakes for her were much higher than for me, right? This is a career that she's had. But she still has, you know, to this day, but that she very much needed this meeting to go well. Right. And interestingly enough, the other people in the room had told her the meeting went really really well. Right? And yeah, really pleased. And yet there was this thing there. And I won't dive into this because it would be Yeah, a little bit hard to explain. But there was another subtle undercurrent of something she wanted me to do. That is impossible to do, which is right. It was something along the lines of she wanted me to change a person or control a person or get a person to do something. As if I had some kind of magic powers, which right, that I don't have as well. And that was a good insight for her as well to learn. Oh, okay. I can't ask when or anybody to do that. That's their way to do, which I feel like this whole thing about needing to change other people. And you spend a lot of time in your world on this

Jen: 25:00

Yeah, this is work.

Lynn: 25:03

Unbreakable boundaries podcast touches this a lot. And yeah, it's it's the idea that we can't change another person. Right?

Jen: 25:13

Yeah, anything that's external, unfortunately, is out of our control. Damn it, damn it damn it damn it. I know, I know, I this is this is something because and I think this is where it's like what you're what you're trying to talking about is goes a little bit into this because you know, we just talked about boundaries a little bit. But I have to I have to remind myself all the time. And I also have to remind other people that, you know, the success of our boundaries can't be determined based on someone else's decisions and outcomes. Right? Yeah, I have to I like that cannot, what someone else does can't be my deciding factor, if the if the boundary was six success or not. Right. So that's, and that's so challenging, because it's like, well, how do I just make that person do X, Y, and Z? And this happens all the time in, in, in corporate, right? Or it's like, because, okay, so your your, there's a lot of leaders that listen, so you're a leader, you have a very challenging co worker, right? Or someone that you're in charge of? Well, unfortunately, so many times they're like, Well, how do I just make this person do this? How do I get this person to show up in this way? Or how do I you know, all of those things, and it's like, that may not be the best line of questioning ever. We got to we got to figure something else out on how to frame that. So

Lynn: 26:56

I always frame it is our job as leaders is to set the conditions. Mm hmm. Yes, some people say make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard. Right? You know, and I do believe that leaders are weather makers, so set the conditions for people to feel like they can go out in the sunshine, as opposed to have to put on the rain coats in the in the all weather gear. Right? You know, I actually had a client who made a ginormous transformation by stopping being a thunderstorm when he came to work. Because he was he was just he would come to work. And he was working, actually running a call center. And he would literally storm through the hallways, trying to get everybody to like, show up. And can you imagine how their negative and positive polls were feeling then, like there that would have been sending everybody's negative poll up. And then you're asking everybody to do the best work? Right? Friendly on the calls after you've just left making them feel like they don't know what they're doing.

Jen: 28:01

Right, right. Yeah.

Lynn: 28:02

So. So sort of back to the sort of conclusion of the story, we actually debriefed that we were both because I had been working with her on assuming positive intent. She was doing her darndest to assume positive intent in this story. And we both debriefed about what we went through to get there. And what I feel like it did was give her a way to do it in a whole different way, in her office environment and her work environment and me as well. And, you know, I'm getting these opportunities every single day, like we are I do? Yeah. And it's just when that thing, when that little charge happens, you know, can we look out and get curious and say, Alright, what do I need to do next? Or do we go into beating ourselves up our self doubt, our self questioning, and so forth? Because even if we did something that we would call a mistake, there's still an action to be taken to correct it. Right? And if we, if we try to do the other things, we're trying to cover it up, or make it go away?

Jen: 29:07

Right? Well, in it, let's go back. Because so like, with your, with your, you know, the person that you got to debrief all of this stuff with? These were the types of conversations so like, assuming positive intent, and this whole idea, and going through all of this was pretty ingrained. And I think it's always really interesting when we're trying to talk about this stuff. Because I think we need to talk about this stuff to really have a good clear understanding and practice and being able to hear and see where maybe we are assuming positive intent. And it's like, I mean, how many times have we had conversations where it's like, so this is like, these are my signals, and this is what's coming up for me and, and because it's not always very clear. And this is not always very easy stuff to see, without having these deep these, this ability to have these types of conversations

Lynn: 30:09

with people, right? This is also like give a for instance of something that like what you're talking about.

Jen: 30:15

Um, okay, so Well, this just happened recently, right? Where we had someone I was showing someone around on the property going through some of the buildings, and I had some signals coming up for me. And I didn't really exactly know what they were or where and I'm like, Am I going crazy? A little bit like, something was off, right? There's some signals, something was off. And so what we normally would have had done, I did not have him, I had not had this person do everything, just because it was like, I'm not entirely sure what's going on here. But here's the thing is I don't get to, I don't get to debrief with this person, and figure out, you know, am I going crazy? What signals what's noise? Like? am I misreading the situation? I just have to live in the ambiguity of, of, is it signal or noise? And I don't know.

Lynn: 31:19

Well, here's the So here's what's interesting about that. So just to make it clear, you know, you're a woman, he was a man by yourself going into different buildings, kind of pretty large acreage where nobody else was around. Right? And what comes to mind for me is safety, safety, safety. Right? Right. First thing is safety. So as I watch, you know, when I'm working with the horses, for example, there's a series of safety practices, I do no matter what, even if they're not giving me a signal that they're about to run. Right. So when I put on a halter, I always first draped the lead rope over their neck, right? To give them the sensation of being caught. And even if I'm in a stall, or out in the open, or whenever I'm doing that. safety, safety, safety, right, let's not let the horse run away. safety, safety safety, I tie up on the trailer with a quick release knot where the horse could, you know, end up like yanking the trailer or hurting himself really bad if something caused him to startle. Right. So to me, what you did, by for example, making sure you were I think you made sure you were not alone in the house with the door closed,

Jen: 32:37

right? Yeah. So this is, this was interesting. So it was like, he, this person and because it's winter, right, so I can always I can always go back into this is where it's like I questioned myself on whether I'm like being a little too cautious or safety or whatever. But obviously, we were in that in in the cabins, and he would close the door behind us, which means January or February, he should it's cold outside, that's a nice thing to do to keep the cold air out of the cabins, right? But it made me nervous.

Lynn: 33:17

Right. And again, let's just start with the setting was, yeah, you know, and there's enough stuff out there that you just want to operate safety, safety, safety. And again, you didn't call the company and say, This guy's done anything wrong. You haven't made any accusations. He

Jen: 33:36

didn't, he was nice. There was a note.

Lynn: 33:40

Yeah, he just made a note that I'm going to limit what he sees where he goes, and I'm just going to, like, allow myself to trust my gut. And to me, that's a balancing act. And that's what, you know, a lot of resistance I get from people about assuming positive intent is what do I do when somebody has negative intent? Right? And this the old fighting Francis thing, right? And this is why I wrote five methods for you know, dealing with a fight navigating a fighting Francis, and it's why I wrote the workbook is you continue to assume positive intent all the way up to the point where the person looks at you and says, I mean, you harm Right. Or they actually turn out to be fine. Yeah, but nothing has happened. And you know, we've got we we have some very good friends who started from the negative intent place this was years and years and years ago. And and I'm going to hand it to Russ, my husband who Who's the one who really had to deal with him at first this friend of ours and and he assume positive intent and the way he did it, it won the guy over to become our one of our best friends. Mm hmm. And then the guy later said, I was coming after your testimony. I was, you know, that's why I called it provocative. Peter, I was provoking you, I wanted to see what you would do. And I feel like that's a good thing. You know, two are good outcome. Right? I have, I have almost never seen anybody on the fighting Francis side come out to actually say, I mean, you negative intent, but I have seen it happen. And and then the final move that so critical is, if you continue to offer them the highroad, it doesn't mean let them run over you. It means offer them an explanation, that that keeps them from having to attack you. The people who are around will take care of the person doing the attacking. But if you let the attack get to you, you're the one who's going to go down. Right? And that's Oh, yeah, what if so many of the stories I talked about in the fighting Francis chapter. So what would your guidance for somebody let's say somebody who's listening to this, and they're saying, all right, I want to learn how to discern the signal from the noise. I know I'm having both. How do I learn how to true up my signal?

Jen: 36:12

Oh, man, I feel like I should have asked you that question. Well, let's suppose that right, yeah. So I think I think, okay, so for me, this is this is how, I guess I can use this example of what I was just talking about. Something was off, I felt nothing that this person did the other day. He did not do anything wrong. He was a nice guy. He did not do anything wrong. And yet something was off in me. I didn't know why. I don't even have to assume it was about him. Right? Like, I can just assume that. Maybe, you know, it was just I don't know what it was right. But I've learned for me, I don't have to label it. And I don't have to judge the off thing. I also have to pay attention to where am I going inside of myself. So if this just comes down to a safety, something's off, I don't it's like when you're going down the highway, and you have a choice on whether to get off the exit or don't get off the exit and something's pulling you off the exit and you don't know why. Right? I've learned to trust that part. Where it's like, okay, I don't know why I'm doing this, but I'm going to do it. And then later on, you find out? Or maybe you don't find out, I don't know. But I don't go into questioning myself, I guess so as to pay attention to how I'm talking about it to myself, am I is this part of my self doubt or insecurities. And that often comes with the chatter of the noise of, I'm wrong, because I could have just as easily been going, Jen, don't be silly, you know, with this guy, and going into the self doubt and secure place with this person, this guy of and trying to talk myself out of paying attention to myself and just going oh, you're just, you know, making stuff up in your head. So I don't even know if that was a very clear answer. But this is why I think these conversations are really important is the ability just to kind of have not very clear answers. And sometimes some clarity comes out of it in terms of being able to distinguish between what is it signal or noise? So like, for me, I got to talk to you later about the situation. And I was like, I don't know if I was crazy or not. I don't know if if I was just being whatever. But I do know that something was off. And I don't know what that something was. And it may not have been anything about him. And you may never know. And I may never know and that's the thing is I'm not judging him though. It was just something was off. That's it. Huh. So, anyway, so what is your you probably have a much clearer, better answer about this than I just gave but

Lynn: 39:26

well, it's it's interesting because I do I do think when something's off, I think our our automatic reaction is to go into some form of a mistake. I've made a mistake, they've made a mistake. And then I think we have a personal subroutine about what a mistake is.

Jen: 39:47

Right.

Lynn: 39:47

That's what I was talking about with the story of the client, you know, with a sticky note that didn't like the one sticky note out of 1000s right is there's my mistake and then the You know, I was pretty transparent in the book about the things I do when I think I've made that kind of mistake or what I was tempted to do. Right. The pivot to me is that's the thought that makes the situation worse, the signal tells you to get curious to listen to decide what is the right next move. And so when you get the signal you want to get curious about, okay, what's up, which I feel like it's what you did with that guy. You didn't go into any kind of mistake? You actually got curious going, huh? I wonder why he's doing that. I wonder why I'm feeling this. I wonder. And you started noticing if I recall whether he closed the door when you were in there, or you were not in there. And he did not close the door when you didn't go in? Because it was several buildings. Yeah. You just ran a little experiment to close the door. You know, and it could have been because he felt like he needed to stay in contact with you and let you know he wasn't stealing. That's exactly right. Yeah. But but it still was like, Okay, well, there you go. He only closes the door when I'm in here with it. Right. And so, but you were being curious, and you were checking things out. And the other thing I think is really useful with signal and noise is to play that game warmer colder, and let yourself push it a little bit to see if the thing feels worse or better. Mm hmm. Yeah. You know, as you and sometimes it's a thought experiment. And sometimes it's just the way you ask a question to somebody. Right? I don't know if that is any clearer than yours. But it's something that I've really spent a lot of time with, because I don't think this happens overnight. And I don't think this ever gets finished. I think we're constantly working on some people call this intuition. But I'm really talking about that little tiny part of intuition. There's so much more intuition and just signal.

Jen: 41:58

Yeah, I think and I think you I think you hit on something very important that people can do to distinguish between the two in a situation where it's unclear, right? So by pushing it up or down. So if I do this, how do I feel about that? If I do that? Well, you know, what comes up for me? Is it okay, let's

Lynn: 42:21

let's do a story about car. Yeah, yeah, it's a good way to close out this conversation, because that is a case study in this. So I recently saw a new car similar to the one I have, but I love the interior on the pictures. And I love the interior to the point where I was like, I'm going to go look at this car, I might actually get a new car. Because I love the interior that much. I mean, it was I was kind of do I was thinking, you know, it's time to get a new car. But this is not a great time because there aren't new cars. And yet, here's the car that looks like the perfect car on the lot. Right? So I'm gonna go look at it. And I was like, I am the worst negotiator ever to be showing up this excited about a car. I mean, there has never been a sale. That was easier ever. You're like,

Unknown: 43:10

I already know what I want. I mean, he

Lynn: 43:13

got the car out. He opened the doors. He said, Come on out. And I was like, you know, I'll go in. But you know, we're going to be signing papers here in a minute. I sat down in that car and my negative pole went through the roof. I cannot I to this day do not know why. Now, I kind of I did a lot of noise of trying to figure out why. Right? Because and I'll give some of those things that could be signals. It could have been noise. I think they were noise. But as I sat down in the car, the first thing I noticed was a cord hanging out of it for iPhone and change in the little cup.

Jen: 43:54

Interesting. This was a new this was a new one.

Lynn: 43:56

Okay, so this is what I said, this is a new car. He goes, Oh yeah. I said, Well, what's this? And he said, Oh, our service manager drove it home last night. And so that could be why because it felt like I wasn't in a new car. The other thing was that this was darker interior and I'm always big on white cars light interior because I don't like it to be too hot. I'm from Texas. I like my gray. cooler than normal. And this was a darker interior. And I would literally sat in the car saying to him you know what? I thought I was going to love it but I don't I don't want this car. So then he was like we can find you a lighter one and all that I ended up buying a lighter car. Now here's where it got really interesting is when I saw the lighter car I was like well, this isn't that much lighter than the darker car. Right? Didn't I just love that? Why didn't I just love that other color? Right to the point where I almost second guessed myself. In fact, I did second guess myself to say maybe I should have gotten the other car.

Jen: 44:57

I was sure I know. I was sure so I was part of all this So I was sure. On the drive home. We talked about it. I could tell you were slightly like, I don't know. I mean, the series

Lynn: 45:10

door. Yeah, the car side and

Jen: 45:13

so sight unseen and you got in you're like, but this is the same part of the problem was the same problem that I was having with the other car. So why didn't I just get the other car? I love the other car. But wait, no, I don't. But here's.

Lynn: 45:26

So this is the whole reason I'm telling the story. This is what I mean by pushing your pole up. What I did was I came home and I did a thought exercise, which basically said, I'm going to get that other car, it's not too late. I can write up on this exact same car. Same cost, though, they'll do it because it's not that much of a mileage difference. I knew I could if I mean, it would be a pain in the butt. But But I, I literally put myself back in the car. And I said, that's now my car. Can you live with it? And it was like my negative pole went off the chart again. Right? And then I was like, No, that's a signal I to this day. Don't know exactly why. But it shut down all the noise. So

Jen: 46:12

you were me see if I can hear it. Let me see if I can say this. Right. What I just heard you say was you had a signal that you were assuming positive intent around. But it was like the noise comes from assuming the negative intent. Right? But if we want to know if it's a signal or noise, put positive intent around it. Don't assume the worst, but put positive intent around it. And then how do you still feel?

Lynn: 46:43

Good? Yes. And here's how I mean, the positive intent was, let's say I got what I wanted. Yes. I'm going to now run a thought exercise that says I'm going to get exactly what I wanted. How do I feel about it? Right. And so I gave myself the gift of getting not going through it again. Right. And, and, and that was a great test for me, because it completely calm things down. I've had no more second guessing whatsoever. I love my new car. Right? Yeah. And so if we can genuinely trust ourselves to go through those kinds of signals, and I often say this, I'll say, Well, if you don't know what to do play out two or three scenarios in your head, let yourself think them all the way through. Yeah, see what you would choose. Don't make it about the inertia, for example, like in the case of it would be really hard to go get the car, you know, to call the dealership, right? It's like, I want to swap the car back. And you know, all that, don't let that be the impediment or don't let the impediment so say you feel like you need to move. Well, that's hard. Well, don't let that impediment stop you from it. Right? Just go envision moving and making everything go as smoothly as it could? And then how do you feel about it? Right? And that, that helps you true up the signal? Because if you're listening you'll and you got to learn how to listen to yourself. Not not to the chatter in your head, but to the physical sensations in your body. Yes,

Jen: 48:07

yes. Yeah. And I have

Lynn: 48:10

them and I think we shut them down because they tell us where we're making mistakes.

Jen: 48:14

Well, and I think too, like culturally, like, we are so accustomed to having that chatter in our head. Or people are telling us we are making, like, we're over analyzing or being over. A guess. You know, we're, what's, what's the words I'm looking for, but maybe too emotional, or, too extremist? Or, like, we have those kinds of voices also in our head? And then so sometimes it's like, like, even with this with, you know, my situation, where it was like, am I just being, like, way too opinionated, or judgmental? Or whatever? Right. Like, I could just be too judgmental right now. Yeah. And so there's that noise that comes up to where it's like, I don't have any reason to have this signal going on. So I'm going to override

Lynn: 49:21

out of the signal,

Jen: 49:22

right. And that is that is kind of, you know, a lot more of that chatter, where it's like, well, we're talking ourselves out of it. But you know, there's something going on, and that's the point is we are still discerning signal from noise. So we have something

Lynn: 49:41

right, and we're not talking about pushing it up and down. I'm talking about warmer colder. I am not talking about see what your head says. I see what your body says, right? Yeah, yeah. And does it go higher or lower? I know. We won't go. You know, we could talk about this all day. I am I'm talking About this also, this subject couldn't help but come up with my next book. So dancing the tightrope, which I'm in the process of second round of edits, which doesn't mean it's imminent coming out, because this is a pretty big round of edits. But I'm in the process of dancing the tightrope right now, we're gonna, I'm going to tell quite a few stories about how to do this in that book. In fact, that's awesome.

Jen: 50:21

That's very Yeah, no, that's, and that's going to be very, very helpful. And, you know, this is the, I feel like this is going to be such a powerful series, we're only in, we have a few more to do. I think the next the next thing is, focus on what you want. That's an interesting

Lynn: 50:43

Well, exactly, because that's what happened with the car. Right?

Jen: 50:47

Right. Focus on what you want. Right? So and then that's part of, you know, just being really mindful of paying attention to what's coming up for us. And then focus more on the things that we, you know, we really want like with, with even your client, when you're sitting here, you have all the noise, and you have all the chatter with, you know, this person over the sticky note, right? What you did in that moment, of when you actually had the conversation, and you were asking her questions, like you said, you did not go into the place of being apologetic or defending anything. What you did in that moment, was you focused on what you really wanted to have happen in that situation?

Lynn: 51:38

Yeah. And so that's going to be a great next conversation is, you know, I call it touching the positive wire. And, once again, it's easier said than done, because sometimes we want two things at the same time, and sometimes we don't know what we want. Yeah. So we can talk about that in the next podcast. So now Well, Jim, thank you so much for joining me for this conversation, it's really useful for me to talk these things out. And I'm so happy to have somebody to debrief these things with and to say, you know, sort of use our language with and test premises outwards. So I really appreciate you being here to help me with that.

Jen: 52:15

Well, thank you. Thank you for having me.

Lynn: 52:17

You are very welcome. I'm really glad to have you and for everybody listening, be sure to rate write us on the podcast platform of your choice and share this with your friends. And we look forward to seeing you in the next podcast. 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.