What We Can ALL Learn from Elmo....

I thank Elmo (Elmo Sesame Street) for my return to writing these posts/articles (after a necessary personal period of what I call “deep scuba mode”).

Elmo, a kind, open, friendly muppet from Sesame Street, tweeted on Monday a question on X. A question so simple on the surface. A question that sparked a veritable tidal wave of response. (As of this morning, if I’m interpreting it right, it’s close to 200 million views.)

So seemingly outsized was that response that The New York Times ran a follow-up article observing the phenomena, entitled: “Elmo Asked an Innocuous Question” with a subtitle of “Elmo was not expecting it to open a yawning chasm of despair” (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/30/style/elmo-x-question.html). This is what caught my eye, and I was intrigued.

The NYT article quotes Samantha Maltin, chief marketing and brand officer of Sesame Workshop in sharing her perspective of the phenomena: she “thinks the overwhelming engagement with Elmo’s post points to a dire need for free, easy-to-access mental health resources.”

I don’t disagree with that as a need.

Or that she points to the multitude of societal, economic, and geopolitical forces today as sources affecting the mental health – and inter-connected physical well-being – of many, if not all, of us to one degree or another.

Yes, and… I see something deeper at the root.

We are in what I hold as a “Disconnection Epidemic”.

Disconnected from each other – I’d argue in all aspects of life – and even more, disconnected from ourselves.

We have the illusion of connection with others that social media has been carefully cultivating for us for some time, through apps that track likes and followers and views. (Pick your app du jour.) The global pandemic accelerated and deepened this trend, with its required physical social distancing.

What happens in this illusion of connection?

When we really feel something, we get a sense that there is no one to turn to. No one to feel with. To be fully vulnerable to, in all the rawness and the messiness. To simply express things to out loud. To work through whatever we may be wrestling with.

When life inevitably gets hard, messy, painful, dark – we need that connection.

When life is joyful, and we want someone to celebrate with us -- we need that connection.

A connection with someone who shows up for us, and keeps showing up, because what I call their “come from place” is a deep care for us as a human – it’s not about them.

We are inherently – biochemically and psychologically - relational creatures. Neuroscience research has underscored this many times over. We seek others to feed a core need of what I see as witnessing – to be seen, to be heard, to be valued for being simply who you are and all you are, right now. These are the yearnings of the human heart – to be witnessed in this way by others.

Someone who posted a response to Elmo said it with such emotional poignancy, I immediately felt the pang deep within my own heart:

“Somehow this actually legit makes me feel better. Thank you Elmo, for caring.”

Witnessing is a powerful act of kindness, of caring, or love.

What happens when we feel unseen? Unheard? Unappreciated? Not witnessed for the truth and realness of who we fully are in a given moment?

The heart freezes, numbs. It can do so slowly, so we don’t even fully notice it happening. It is an ultimate protective move when parts of us feel or perceive the loss of access to caring connection, to love. We’re kidding ourselves by telling a very tall tale if we say this is not true.

And witnessing benefits the one who is witnessing as well – it is an act of giving, helping another person. Again, scientific research points to the “good feeling" chemicals such as endorphins (a sense of euphoria) and oxytocin (promotes tranquility and inner peace) that are released biochemically when we are involved in acts of giving to others. (As an aside, I don’t see witnessing as a passive role; it is an active one. And the act of witnessing gets diminished, I think, because witnessing is a state of being, not doing. And today’s society and cultures wire us to look for, prioritize, and value acts of doing over acts of being.)

The “Disconnection Epidemic” has even deeper roots. For not only are we increasingly disconnected from others, but we are also disconnected from ourselves: our bodies, our minds, our hearts, our spirits. Some might say they are connected by the self-care they take with their physical bodies – yoga, movement, diet, sleep, etc. That is all very important. But the connection to our minds, hearts, and spirits is equally so.

So, what does that look like? Well, how often do you pause, and in the inner quiet ask yourself the questions: What I am feeling in this moment? Can I simply be with that? What do I need? What are my heart’s core wishes, my spirit’s deepest desires, in this moment?

To what extent do we ask ourselves these questions and pause, holding space for the responses to come forward? If we deny our feelings, and our core wishes, we deny ourselves. For in naming our feelings and the thoughts that go with them, seeking to have our needs met - by ourselves first and foremost, and others as they can, and pursuing our core wishes are all acts of self-love. In ignoring, avoiding, dismissing, or resisting those, we create disconnection from our core essence as human beings. We become un-moored.  And in so doing, we prevent ourselves from being able to access the full range of inner resources and capacities that are within all of us as part of our birthright as humans.

Asking these questions is not a ‘one and done’. It is a continuous inquiry we need to ask ourselves – I’d advocate daily - for we are ever-changing and evolving, as the context around us ever changes and evolves.

So now what? What can you do in this Disconnection Epidemic?

Connect to yourself. In the morning, before you get out of bed. Or in the evening, after you’ve climbed back into bed. Or when you’ve got a few minutes of solitary time in your day, maybe on your commute. Or when you’re getting ready in the morning, and you look in the mirror. Pause. Ask yourself these questions with as much kindness as you would show to the person you love most in this world:

·       What am I feeling in this moment?

·       Can I take a few minutes to simply be with that feeling? To just experience it?

·       What do I need?

·       How can I give that to myself?

·       Is there a request I can make of someone else to help me with that need?

·       What does my heart desire in this moment? How can I give that to myself?

Connect – truly connect - to someone else. As Elmo did, a simple check in with an open-ended question that comes from a place of kindness, with a charge of curiosity (I genuinely want to know) and compassion (I see YOU, I hear YOU) can mean far more to that person than you will ever imagine. It’s most powerful if it’s voice to voice, or face to face.

A question I always start every client session with is: “How are you in this moment?”

I’m not interested in a generic “Good” or “Fine” or “Busy” which is often a default answer to what can feel like a superficial ‘how are you’ question, because a part or parts within us may challenge in our inner speak: Do you really care how I am? Do you really want to listen?

“In this moment” is a key phrase for me because it anchors a person in the now, in what is the present. The question always draws forward a range of different emotions and thoughts than many times my clients are surprised to hear themselves expressing out loud. At the close of a recent session with a client where he named and allowed himself to just experience and be with each of the emotions that were activated for him from a series of recent events, he said, “I feel 10 pounds lighter right now.”

Who is one person you can reach out to today and simply say: I’m thinking about you. How are you in this moment?

Imagine the possibility of what happens if every person who reads this asks this question of both themselves and one other human.

What opening is possible? What release is possible? What sense of kindness, care, and love is sparked in the atmosphere around each of us? Let’s experiment and find out…..

The theme of connection – to ourselves, to others (in all aspects of our lives) – is something that I have ever deepening passion around. It is a key to everything. If this resonates with you, or you have even a spark of curiosity, stay tuned. I’ll be writing about this more, and I have a podcast in the works for a launch soon.

Whoever arrives at these final words, know that I appreciate you for following the impulse to click and read.

Leonard Cohen, a Lyft Driver, and me

By Karin Stawarky

When you tune into the quiet voice deep within or notice a gentle but clear impulse or ‘pull’ towards something, remarkable things can happen. I have opened myself and surrendered to those intuitive callings, as I believe there is a greater wisdom giving ‘lift’ to them.

Last week on the West Coast, I ordered a Lyft back to my hotel. I requested a “quiet ride” in the app because I was tired – it had been a 3:30 am wakeup for a flight, on the heels of a remembrance service the day before for someone deeply beloved to me. That experience of honoring his life had left me emotionally drained and I was not up for engaging in conversation with a potentially chatty driver.

The car pulled up, and as I got in, the driver – I’ll call him Allen – said graciously, “hello, Miss Karin.” Now, very few people I encounter in my travels in life engage in that polite, genuinely respectful way. I didn’t expect it from a young man whom I thought to be in his twenties.

But there was something different I sensed about his presence. A brightness.

He asked where I was coming from, and I replied that I had just had a meeting with someone whose work I admired. And through that meeting, an unexpected gift – an emergent friendship.

I thought that would be that in terms of our interaction – I could turn my head towards the window, or close my eyes, and communicate that silence was desired.

Then deep within me, the soft voice urged – talk to him.

I sighed. Really? Okay, I’ll talk to him.

So, I asked Allen what he liked about being a Lyft driver.

And with that question unlocked one of the most amazing exchanges I’ve had in a long time.

Allen described – in a very upbeat way – how he works 3 jobs. He is very focused on goals that he has for himself, and he works hard to achieve them.

As a former college athlete whose injury prevented him from joining the pros, he is a personal trainer for adults… but he also elects to go back to his high school as a volunteer to coach and mentor kids on the team.  As he talked about the high school team, it was clear that he was not only training bodies, he was training minds – inspiring these teenagers to not only finish school and go to college but also see the possibility and opportunity they could make for themselves as humans.

One of his personal training clients then recruited him to a job in case management – he works with clients who are experiencing housing insecurity and helps place them in a more stable living situation. (This is an urban area that is experiencing a particularly acute issue with homelessness and a shortage of viable housing options.)

His description of the clients he serves in case management was striking. “When I get on the phone with them, sometimes they’ll get mad and start yelling at me. But I know it’s not me that they are mad at. They are angry with something that’s happening in their life or something that happened before the call. I just stay calm, and I tell them: I’m sorry that you’re mad. But I’m not going anywhere. I’m here to help you, so we can help get you into a better situation.” And he said that most of the time, that seems to calm the client down so that they can actually talk. He and I then discussed how the anger does not define that client as a person. It is a part of them that is activated by something that happened to them or is happening to them. This angry part is trying to protect them in some way.

If you are on the receiving end of the anger, we talked about how you can ask your own mind: ‘can I look through the anger to imagine what’s behind the anger?’ What we can see from that place is that behind the anger is always a fear. Fear that is grounded in belief and story about what a part of them predicts is going to happen, often based on something that did happen at a point in time – something that threatened an aspect of their safety, their belonging or acceptance, their ability to be respected and valued.

“All three jobs are about customer service,” he said. “How you treat people influences how successful you are.”

The way that Allen engaged with the teenagers, the housing clients, and me as Lyft customer illuminated for me how he is living and leading with an open heart. He is able to engage with the other person from a place of calm, connection, compassion, and courage.

He didn’t learn any of this in school. He didn’t learn it in any kind of training. No one directly taught him this or told him to do this or be this way. (I asked him.) His poise, perspective, and wisdom are remarkable. Allen expresses an authenticity that comes from his heart – he is guided by his own inner ‘yardstick’ for success instead of looking outside himself to what I call ‘the invisible they’ for validation.

Allen is a human who is highly observant, deeply reflective, clear about his values, and seeks to live in integrity with them. He also truly believes he can make a difference. That he matters in and to this world.

As we were getting closer to the hotel, he reflected: “I enjoy all three jobs. But I think there is a bigger stage for me… I just don’t know what that is.”

It was clear to me what a powerful force for good Allen is, bringing light to every interaction he has in a given day, including me as a random passenger.

Suddenly a song flashed into my mind (that gentle impulse again). I knew I had to speak it. “Allen, have you heard of Leonard Cohen’s song Anthem?”

Allen didn’t know of the song or Leonard Cohen.

“There’s a line in that song where Leonard sings ‘ring the bells that still can ring.’ Ring that bell, Allen,” I urged. “All we tend to hear about in the world is the hate, the violence, the division. But there is so much light. There is so much goodness. If we look for it, we find it. There are examples of human spirit in everyday life, of one person genuinely connecting with another person and trying to help them. Not because there is anything in it for them as a helper. Because it’s simply the right thing to do. That drive comes from the wisdom of the heart.”

Allen immediately looked up the song and hit play just as we stopped at a red light. As Leonard spoke the first few words, Allen said softly, “Oh wow. I love his voice.”

Leonard’s unique vocals filled the car like we were in a grand cathedral, in reverence. Allen and I were motionless and almost breathless.

After Leonard uttered lines, “Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in”, Allen exclaimed, “I’ve got chills all over my body. There is no perfect offering! Yes! Yes! There’s a crack in everything! That’s how the light gets in!”

As we pulled up to the hotel, I said, “we’re all perfectly imperfect as humans, Allen. And we all can be such bright lights in the world, just as we are. Ring the bell that you can ring – keep doing what you are doing. And I know without question a bigger stage for you will present itself for you to shine that light even brighter.”

Allen stopped the car and turned to me, saying, “You wait right there.”

He ran around the car and opened the door for me, a lovely and gentlemanly act. As I got out of the car, I looked up at him (I’m tall, and he’s quite a bit taller than me) and again the impulse came from deep within. “Allen, this is a very odd thing for me to ask a total stranger, but would it be OK if I gave you a hug?”

“Absolutely!” he beamed and folded me into a big bear hug.

He then stood back and looking at me said, “I appreciate you, Miss Karin.”

What did I do? I just asked a question with genuine interest and listened deeply, witnessing him. That is the simple gift I gave to him – seeing him for who he is and how he is in the world, hearing him, honoring him.

The whole exchange was maybe 10, 15 minutes. And the content and energy of the conversation still stay with me.

And Allen gave me a gift, one that I don’t know he does not appreciate the depth of.

He reminded me to ring the bell that still can ring.

The bell that amplifies goodness and love and joy and hope in this world.

Bells can appear when you least expect them.

The bell doesn’t have to be large to matter.  It can be a small bell, but its sound can travel from person to person to person in ways one can’t anticipate or will never know.

Isn’t every interaction we have with another human an opportunity to ring a bell?

What would that look like? How would we choose to show up differently, even in difficult, charged conversations like Allen does with his housing clients?

He reinforced for me yet again that our real gift to the world and to each other is that simple yet that powerful: how we are being, not in what we are doing.

Possibly Your Most Important Week One As A Leader

Ensuring Calm Cohesion triumphs instead of Fear-based Fragmentation

By Karin Stawarky

What’s the “week one” that I am referring to? When all those across the world have returned to their physical places of work from this extended period of working from home or quarantining.

Why is it your most important week? Because at a time likely unparalleled in your career, the stakes now have never been higher because of collective threats to one of our most fundamental needs as humans: our need for safety – physical safety, financial safety, emotional safety.  

And less obviously, this period has magnified another essential human need – for belonging. As work consumes the majority of the waking hours, it is for many a large component of self-identity. Work also provides us with membership in a community, and these connections feed us in different ways. When we are prevented from going to the familiar physical structures of the workplace and engaging in routines, rituals, and interactions that explicitly reinforce belonging in the context of work, we can feel un-moored.

As we are sequestered to home over an extended period, our needs of safety and belonging can be satisfied on one level. For many we have benefited from being cushioned in our most familiar and intimate space, our nest. We may have family members or people we love together with us. We connect virtually with friends and family through video or voice. The experience is like being wrapped in a cocoon which muffles the emotions of anxiety, frustration, despair, overwhelm, and fear.

Proactively shape the climate

The atmosphere shifts when we come back to the office. And that atmosphere at work does not just happen; it is generated when people come together and interact.  The most powerful influence over the nature of that atmosphere is you as a leader. As a leader in an organization, you shape what the qualities of the atmosphere are through your presence, your words, and your actions. The nature of the atmosphere you create will make it easier or harder for the organization to rebound from the current crisis, a world turned upside down. It can be a powerful force that boosts or holds back an organization.

At the most basic level, there are two different kinds of atmospheres that can be created: Calm Cohesion or Fear-based Fragmentation.

When an atmosphere of Calm Cohesion prevails, people share the mindset that we are truly in this together. We look at the world through the lenses of WE and US.  We are aware of and speak about the reality we face. While being clear-eyed about the implications, we experience calm because of the confidence in our individual and collective ability to see through to the other side of this. When we act as a collective, we multiple our energy and effort, generating significant force and momentum.  We focus on what we can control and what we can influence. We don’t let concerns over which we have no agency consume our thought and action. What we see is the organization acting as one whole, one unit, where inter-connections are reinforced. This activates the organization’s ability to tap into the full extent of the energy, experience, and expertise that is present and available, producing innovative ideas, insightful learning and knowledge, considered decisions, and aligned action.

When an atmosphere of Fear-based Fragmentation dominates, the prevailing mindset is one characterized by the belief that I am alone. In this case, the lens is focused on ME. One feels disconnected from others and without support. In this state, our minds tend to anchor on what is out of our ability to control and we live in the world of worst-case scenarios. We see all that is not present, instead of all that is. The risk of being in a state of overwhelm is high. A feeling of fear escalates as a downward spiraling train of thoughts of “and then… and then…” takes hold. The consequence? An organization fragments into individual parts. We experience separation from others instead of connection. Forward movement stalls. In a state of paralysis, the best ideas are blocked from coming to the surface, decisions (if made) are made reactively and isolation, learning is neglected, and knowledge remains unexploited.

What can you do as a leader to foster Calm Cohesion instead of Fear-based Fragmentation in your organization?

Put on your oxygen mask first

Mirror neurons in our brains sense not only the actions but also the emotions and intentions of other humans we encounter. A high degree of interpersonal sensitivity exists below the surface of our awareness. We often think we can “fake it” to others, presenting an external face (e.g. of calm, of confidence) at odds with the emotions wreaking havoc within. At a subconscious level, other people can quickly and effectively read your inner state more accurately than you think. It affects how they resonate with you and influences whether they decide to engage with you or follow your lead.

Managing your inner self is then job #1. How do you not let anxiety get the best of you? Consider what you need to maintain your personal center of calm; this inner calm is a state of being that is present within all of us and available to us when we need it. You may already have personal practices that help to re-ground and re-center you. Such practices may include meditating, being out in nature (walking under trees or gardening), creating or building something, organizing, or spending quality time with those near and dear to you. If you have not identified what those are for you, this is a great time to start experimenting. Clues that will help you discern if that the practice serves you is noticing if your breath slows and quiets, or sensing if your body relaxes, with an absence of sensations of tightness, constriction, or rigidity.

Create an atmosphere of safety

A key differentiator between Calm Cohesion and Fear-based Fragmentation lies in the effectiveness of our collective adaptive response to the crisis we find ourselves in. Neuroscience research highlighted by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk outlines two factors which influence the effectiveness of this response to threat: (1) the ability we have to take an active role and demonstrate agency (become an agent of our own rescue, so to speak) and (2) the arrival at a place of safety within which we are able to tap our imagination and inner creativity to generate alternative solutions to address the situation.

Some things you can do to create a space which engenders feelings of safety include:

• Make yourself accessible to others. Let people know when and how they can talk with you.

• Listen deeply, listening to understand and not to respond. Play back what has been expressed to you (“what I heard you say is….”) to affirm you heard them.

• Establish a regular communication tempo. In your communications, follow a consistent pattern of sharing where you are at now, where you are going, what you know and what you don’t know, and when you will get back to them with more information and updates.

• Highlight accomplishments of what has been achieved and unexpected discoveries.

Engage others in co-creating solutions

By involving your organization or team in the “now what” strategizing and operationalizing, you provide them with a degree of agency in shaping the future as well as the now. You benefit from the diversity of perspectives, experiences, and expertise to get a better-informed grasp on the situation and innovative approaches to address them.

• With your team, create a list of issues, challenges, or problems.  

• Go through one by one and screen them by their nature:

  • What ones do we have control over and can directly affect the what and the how?

  • What ones do we have ability to influence?

  • What ones do we have concerns about but that we have no ability to influence (it is out of our hands completely)?

• Focus on the subset that you have control or influence over and prioritize these in terms of urgency and importance. Brainstorms options for how to best tackle the top priorities.

Reaffirm community

Stories inspire us and connect us to one another. Identify and share stories from your organization’s history that exemplify attributes which will help you now to successfully weather this current situation.

Look for and reinforce examples of the kind of organizational community you most aspire to be. Seeds of who you are at your collective best are present all around you. Shine a spotlight on those to the organization as a whole.

Mind your mind

As you navigate the days ahead, you may well feel the tendrils of anxiety, frustration, or overwhelm within. This is entirely normal. Interrupt those thoughts and feelings in your mind by seeing these as an opportunity for you to reground yourself. Simple affirmations, said aloud daily, are powerful tools for engaging your mind as a partner instead of an adversary. An affirmation that I often offer to my executive coaching clients is:

“I am doing the best I can in this moment with all the knowledge, experience, and tools that I have.”

This is indeed an extraordinary time in our history. And the time can be extra-ordinary for you and your organization. See and seize the possibility that lies within your grasp.

Are You Steady or Nimble? Watch-outs When the Unexpected Happens

By Karin Stawarky

When life throws you a curveball, are you steady? Or, are you nimble?

We each tend to have a default propensity towards one of two responses when unexpected things happen that disrupt the world around us. If we tend to be steady, we may deliberately not change our course at all, staying true to both the plan and the destination despite the changing context. If there are any shifts, they would be minor. On the other hand, if we tend to be nimble, we respond very quickly to the stimulus by rapidly adjusting in response to it. This may be creating a different plan to get to where we want to go or potentially defining a whole new direction all together. 

Neither one is good or bad, right or wrong. Either can be just exactly the right response in the circumstance given the context and other factors. (It’s worth noting that we have the capacity for either response, but just like a dominant muscle, when our mind is in autopilot we show a preference for one.)

The challenge comes in high stakes situations where there is a significant amount of uncertainty. Both of those propensities can go from helpful where that propensity is working for you to the shadow side where the propensity is harmful to you, where that response pattern no longer serves you and can work against you. Are you steady, or are you stuck? Are you nimble, or are you reactive?

When you’re in the stuck shadow, it causes you to hold back. Often it is because you’re in resistance to something. There is a resistance to movement, and what underlies this resistance is a belief or assumption about what you think will or will not happen. For those in the reactive shadow, it often indicates that you’re running away from something. At its root, there is a belief or assumption which triggers fear that then prompts the movement.

For leaders in organizations, the ripple effects of these default propensities can be significant, particularly when the behavior shifts from helpful into harmful. When a leader who has a propensity to be steady becomes ‘stuck’, it can freeze a team or organization from moving forward, effectively staying super-glued to a course that may have become obsolete. Similarly, when a leader who has a propensity to be nimble becomes reactive, they can make what look like erratic or irrational adjustments. This at best causes confusion in an organizational system and at worst can produce material waste in work and time.  At the extremes of either scenario, you risk employee disengagement and an eroding trust in leadership. Further, when there are two dominant leaders who firmly anchored in ‘opposing camps’, a polarizing tug-of-war is created which can wreak havoc in an organization, let alone on the quality of the leaders’ relationship to each other.

So, what can you do?

• Recognize your default propensity.  Reflect over the recent past, let’s say the past year or two. Think about times in your professional and personal life when you suddenly faced unexpected events or ‘curveballs’. Visualize yourself back in that moment. How did you react?

  • Did you think carefully through the situation and generally keep true to your original course of action, thinking about why the approach should not change?

  • Or, did you flex into a new course of action quickly, fueled by the reasons why the original plan should change?

  • Make a note of how many times you were in the steady versus the nimble camp.  What pattern do you notice?

• Appreciate how it has served you. Now think back on those situations. In what ways did a propensity serve you? What benefits did it produce? What did you learn from those experiences?

• Sharpen your pattern recognition. Reflect on those times when your default propensity worked against you. What common themes or characteristics do you notice about those situations?

• Dig a little deeper. Unearth insights on what cause you to shift into the shadow side during trigger situations.

  • As you reflect on those moments of stuck-ness, ask yourself: what am I resistant to in this moment? Trust the first thing that comes to the surface of your mind. What is the belief or assumption that jumps out as to what you believe would have happened if you did the opposite?

  • As you reflect on those moments of reactivity, ask yourself: what am I running away from in this moment? What is the belief or assumption that jumps out as to what you believe would have happened if you did the opposite?

In completing this reflection thoughtfully, you amp up your capability to respond more effectively in situations moving forward. Awareness of your propensity enables you to intentionally act in ways that best serve you and your organization in the future.

What’s required to activate this awareness you have developed? It’s the power of the pause between the trigger event and your behavioral response. Pausing creates space for you to assess how your propensity works for you or against you in the situation. I think about this as “Take 3” when you sense the warning lights flashing given your heightened awareness of trigger situations:

1. Am I operating from my shadow? What is really motivating me in the moment?

2. What would the opposite course of action from my default (steady or nimble) look like? What are the benefits of that?

3. Who can I check in with to test my thinking on the best course of action?

By pausing, you enable your propensity – be it steady or nimble – to be the asset it can be to you and your organization.

Discover Your Magnet: Two Simple Words To Get What You Want

By Karin Stawarky

Be intentional. Sounds simple. But how consistently are we in that, really?

Some of us practice intentionality in terms of what we do – the actions we take. For instance, being intentional in everything from proactively planning your time during a week, to creating space for reflection, to ensuring you get 8 hours of sleep. 

I argue that we do not equally focus on the how – our mindset and presence in our doing. Why is this important? Most of the time, achieving what we want is in some way dependent upon others. We realize our goals and dreams with, supported by, and because of others we are in relationship with. These relationships can be long-lasting or brief.

Relationships reflect a series of interactions over time. In those interactions, we are seen, heard, and experienced by others in ways that may help us or hold us back from realizing what we hope for.

So let’s think about a typical interaction on a given work day. How many of us are truly intentional about that? We tend to operate on autopilot: we make assumptions and leap into the conversation, focusing more on what’s being said (and often, what we say) than anything else. Sometimes the interaction just flows, sometimes it is rocky, sometimes it is just unsettling – we can’t quite put our finger on it. And we wonder why the interaction unfolded as it did.

Here’s the catch: we’re often so focused on the content of a conversation that we completely miss the experience of a conversation – for ourselves and for others. It is the experience of the conversation more often than not which influences how people see us and hear us -- and thereby, what they do or don’t do. Do they effectively tune us in or tune us out? What we think is happening may not be how others perceive us. 

The secret to realizing what we want is very much tied to how we show up. Yet how often do we think about that? We are so heads down in the “doing” that we don’t remember or give attention to the “being”. What about how we show up is going to help us or hold us back from achieving what we want?

In a recent coaching conversation with Kate, a senior executive, we talked about her frustration in the lack of recognition for significant contributions she has made to the growth of the business. As we talked about these examples, she shared how these priority projects involved her recruiting others from different parts of the business to work through a problem and create a solution together. In replaying those interactions, Kate described how she stepped into the role as the facilitator to move the discussion forward. She acknowledged that she effectively “sat back” and left the space for others’ voices to carry the recommendation. Kate realized that in doing so, she faded into the background. She was not front and center putting her own voice into the mix and advocating explicitly for what she thought.  “I think I was waiting for someone to give me permission to lead it”, she reflected. As a result, the CEO and others did not identify her with the success of the initiatives.

Who did she want to be? The words came quickly:  highly respected leader, insightful strategist, an innovator who gets it done. Kate wanted to feel more powerful, more significant. She wanted to be seen as a material player in the organization – for the CEO to say: “we would not have been able to do this without Kate.”  She wanted to be in demand for her abilities, expertise, and knowledge. To make this real, we identified an important mindset shift about her role: from enabler to owner.

To put this into action, we came up with an experiment: Every meeting she walks into, she thinks: “I own this” – I own the process, I own the quality of the conversation, I own the outcome.

To help reinforce this way of thinking in her mind, each time she walks out of her office, she said to herself: “I own it”. The phrase “I own it” provides a clear intention for her mindset, her actions, and her presence in how she approaches interactions. And over time, Kate found the outcomes changing in ways she desired, with more recognition for her contributions. She was treated differently by her colleagues, who frequently reached out to her as a thought partner in solving thorny issues. Kate recently was asked by the CEO to present to the Board a major new strategic initiative she developed.

How do you open up this up for yourself? Here’s how to get started:

Break it down. Experiment with a single interaction. Pick one interaction you know you’ll have in the course of the day, an interaction with someone else that matters to you. You might choose a lower stakes interaction to get started (where the consequences are not too high, versus one that involves a big decision).

Pause. Create the mental space for yourself. It may be as you’re having your first cup of coffee, as you’re in the shower, or as you’re driving your car to work. Our minds can be an endless train of thoughts; you need to consciously put these on temporary hold.

Ask yourself 3 simple questions.

• WHAT do you want: What do you want to have happen? What do you want to be true?

• WHO do you want to be: Who you need to be to make that outcome possible? (Tip: Think about the three words you’d like someone to say about you when you leave the room – the impression you make with others.)

• ·HOW do you want to be: What do you want to feel during and after that interaction? How do you want others to experience you? (Tip: Think about an adjective you would want the other person to use to describe what it is like to interact with you.)

Write it down.  The response to these questions can be a few simple words. Capture these as a note in your phone or write it on a Post-It note and stick it somewhere where it will catch you eye. Refer back to this throughout the day to consciously remind yourself.

Reflect. After the conversation or meeting, or at the end of the day, take a few minutes to consider how close you were to realizing your what, who, and how. In particular, think about:

• What helped you achieve that? What are the enablers to help you realize your intentions?

• What got in your way? What were the blockers? What took you off course from realizing your intention?

• How can you make sure you have more of the enablers in place? And how can you get rid of (or reduce the strength of) the blockers?

Repeat. Stick with your WHAT-WHO-HOW for a week (ideally a month). What do you notice?

Be intentional. Simple words with the potential for big impact. Go ahead – try it on in your next interaction. See the difference that you can create in getting closer to what you want.

Take Charge of Your Mind: The Sneaky Power of Labels

We give meaning to things we experience by the words we use - out loud or in our own heads - in how we describe them. Those words can have a lasting impact on our choices and actions in ways that work against us.

By Karin Stawarky

Good. Bad. Positive. Negative. Best. Worst. Success. Failure.

Simple words. Each weighty in the effect on our thoughts and actions.  Yet it is we who give them power. And I’m ready to take that power back.

I have been reflecting on how quick people are to label events or experiences that happen to us. How often have you described something to another person as “that was a total bust” or “it really sucked” or “I completely screwed that up”?

An experience that happened to me a while ago that was just that. It was an unexpected event that stirred up a lot of emotion within me. At the time – and for some time after – I heaped labels on the event: Really, really bad…. Awful…. Traumatizing…. Unfair…. Worst. Thing. Ever.

It created a new ‘tape’ in my head about me – as a leader and as a person. It made me doubt things I thought to be true about myself and about my effectiveness and strength as an executive. It changed the trajectory of my path. Importantly, it made me feel bad about myself. It churned up emotions about what I imagined that I wasn’t. I lost sight of who and what I am.

Finally, the dark, heavy storm clouds lifted. I looked back at this same experience through a different set of lenses. I actually breathed a sigh of relief. The old labels were peeled off, and new ones stuck on: Blessing…. Dodged a bullet…. Best. Thing. Ever.  If that experience had not happened, I would not be where I am today, flourishing. I am now in my zone, a place where things are increasingly effortless, my creativity is buzzing, and time flows with ease.

But wait. How can the same experience have two diametrically opposed descriptions in my mind?

You might argue the old adage of ‘time heals old wounds’. Sure, to some extent. Time gives us perspective that in the moment – when physiological reactions in our brain activate the ‘flight or fight’ response – we lose sight of. But, consider the opportunity cost of the time required for that to take place. And think about how it influences your actions – what you do and don’t do – and your attitude in the meantime. And the energy you put out into the world. And how that energy can pull different kinds of people towards you, and push others away from you. For me, it was a good year and a half before the lens shift happened. What was lost in the interim? Holding those ‘negative’ labels cast a mental frame that how I saw things. It became a filter that influenced what I went after, my confidence, and my belief in what was possible. I wore mental shackles for a year and half. And I did that to myself.

With the passage of time, and reflecting back on this, I realized how frequently I categorized events in this way. You name it, I labelled it.

Then the proverbial brilliant flash of light occurred. As with some of the most powerful insights for me, it came from an unexpected source, at an unexpected time, in an unexpected setting. What if something is neither good or bad? It just is?

Experiences or events do not have meaning in and of themselves. We give meaning to them by the words we choose to describe them – either in our heads or out loud to others. (Taking this further, we have a general propensity to label fellow humans in a similar way: in simplistic terms, that is a “bad person” or a “good person”.)

Our brains are enormously powerful. The extent of that power is something I have more fully come to appreciate over the past few years. Its impact extends beyond dimensions that are obvious, to ones that are subtler yet very significant. Our mental frame influences what we think, what we believe is possible (or not) and what we do. Importantly, it does not just influence our immediate course of action, but it can groove our behaviors far into the future, holding us back instead of propelling us forward. Labels like these can take root in our minds. They encourage devious limiting beliefs for us – about what we are capable of (or not). It has the effect of shutting down possibility, instead of opening it up. Does “I can’t do that….” or “that’s not going to happen…” ever run through your thoughts?

This holds true for teams and organizations. Take notice of language used in a team debrief or in small talk with co-workers at the coffee machine. Think about how often this type of pattern emerges. How does it affect how the team shows up in a meeting? How employees approach their work? Language starts to influence attitude, which shifts behavior, which then effects the shape of a culture – the culture in a team, an office, or an organization.

While you can sense how limiting negative labels can be, the same is true of extreme positive ones. Why? It can prevent you from seeing potential insights or lessons. It may also ascribe agency to the event, instead of what you did (or did not do) in the situation. This can prevent you from replicating something that has positive benefit or value.

Operating below our level of consciousness, our brains are constantly on the lookout for patterns, scanning past experiences to find similar situations. Once a pattern is recognized – a label “found” – the associated emotions and thoughts are once again brought to the surface to respond to what is going on. We have been unconsciously training our brains for years. Think of it as deliberately building up a powerful super-highway system of situation-response. This labeling can at times work for us – but it also can work against us. The good news is that we have the ability to build new superhighways in our brain, no matter what age we are. Overcoming the deeply grooved “mindways” of thinking and acting means consciously laying down new tracks. And peeling off those sticky labels.

Shifting your experience and your response starts by changing the lens you use to view the circumstances. As you find yourself in a challenging situation, consider the following approach:

• Pause. Breathe deeply. Slowly exhale.

• Notice the adjectives/descriptors that come to mind about the situation (or the person). Write them down.

• Notice what gets triggered when you look at those words. What thoughts come to mind? What feelings do you experience?

• Now, look at the situation like a drama unfolding on stage that you are watching as an observer. In objective terms, what is happening? what is not?

• How would you describe the role are you playing?

• Instead of making a judgement about the situation, get curious. What is causing that action? What possibilities emerge? What insights present themselves? What options do you see?

Over time, you will find you have the ability to recognize how you are labelling a situation, and be able to“frame shift” in the moment as a situation is unfolding.

Resist the urge to label a situation. Remember, a situation just is. Leave the labels for mailing envelopes and file folders.