#130 Diana Chapman: Trusting Your Instincts
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I get that ego and identities need to feel right in order to secure themselves. And if I were to let go of being right from that righteous point of view, which is like a right that defends itself, what's underneath that is a lot more vulnerability.

And if you're not comfortable with that, then the identity is going to secure itself all back up again. And you're going to get back into, I'm right that this is the right way and that's the wrong way. And I'm right to be more like this and not like this. And it's just, we all get secured up again in these defense mechanisms to protect this deep, deep vulnerability that comes under, what if I don't know? People don't like to sit in, I don't know.

Welcome to the Knowledge Project Podcast. I'm your host, Shane Parrish. The goal of this show is to master the best of what other people have already figured out so you can unlock your potential. To that end, I sit down with people at the top of their game to uncover what they've learned along the way. Every episode is packed with timeless ideas that you can put to work in life or business.

If you're listening to this, you're missing out. If you'd like special member-only episodes, access before anyone else, transcripts, and other member-only content, you can join at fs.blog.com. Check out the show notes for a link. Diana Chapman is here today, and man, am I excited to share this conversation with you. Diana is the co-founder of the Conscious Leadership Group and co-author of the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. We got connected through one of our most popular podcast guests, Jim Dethmer.

Diana is an incredible signal in a world full of noise.

In this episode, we explore the three flavors of the drama triangle, victim, villain, and hero, and how they all come from our desire to be right. Making the invisible visible is a key step toward learning and improving your situation, the relationship between intensity and consistency, making decisions in teams, developing self-awareness, raising the standards for ourselves and others, the whole body yes, and how we can challenge the stories we tell ourselves.

It's time to listen and learn.

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What are you obsessed with right now?

I'm obsessed with wanting people to be more comfortable being uncomfortable. I'm watching people trying very hard not to feel heartbroken, not to feel scared, not to upset others around them so that they don't have to feel any discomfort. And so one of the things I'm spending a lot of time with, with those I support and hang out with, is can we let it be okay to be uncomfortable?

And I think that if we don't choose that consciously, we're going to create a world that provides a lot of discomfort to force us to start to be more uncomfortable. Talk to me about that. Like, are there tools that we can use to acclimatize ourself almost to being uncomfortable or to make that okay?

Yeah, like I, you know, I noticed it just getting ready for our time together. I could start to feel my belly swirl and I felt my throat narrowing and I could feel fear moving through the body, right? Which is an intelligence that says, hey, you're going into something unknown, right?

You don't know what this is like. You don't really know Shane. You don't know how you're going to dance together. Pay attention. That's the intelligence of my fear, but it's uncomfortable. I could feel the part of me that's like, wants to stop my swirling belly, wants it to go away, doesn't want the body to do what it's doing. And so, you know, if I'm,

not thoughtful, I'll go distract myself and try to numb it out, which is what I see a lot of us do, different ways to numb out things so we don't have to be with the intelligence that's trying to move through us. So aside from sort of like not running away from it, which I think is incredibly important, and then when you feel it, what do you do? Like walk me through your example of this show. I

I'm sorry, you're nervous to talk to me. But like, what are you walking through in your body in that moment in terms of like giving yourself permission or confidence to be okay with that?

Yeah. So first and foremost, I just first notice it. What's actually happening? And I like to think of my whole body like a bag of bits. And there's all these little bits in there doing different things. So first of all, I just go, what's happening? What are these bits doing? Oh, there's a swirling. There's a little bit of a clenching. There's a narrowing. So I'm paying attention to that. And then the second thing I say is, can I just welcome all of that?

Can I let that be here as much as it is and not make that a problem? Welcome it like you'd welcome your best friend into your house. Like, hey man, come on in. So just welcome it. And then just the welcoming of it helps it move all the way through so it can go wherever it needs to go. And then I can be available for the moment and not have to leave or check out or contract myself in some way. Yeah.

And sometimes we get this when we're about to have a difficult conversation with somebody too, right? We have this pit in our stomach. How do you think about that? Yeah. So I was just working with a team the other day and they called me because they're really struggling with having candid conversations with one another. And they're not giving each other the feedback and they're all going to HR and everybody's complaining. And so I came in there and said, okay, I'm

Let's practice. And what I noticed was so many people were like, I'm not, I can't even say it because I can't be with myself in the physical experiences that are happening if I speak out loud. And I was shocked by multiple people in the circle who just didn't have the

willingness to be that uncomfortable. And so what they do is they rob themselves and everybody else around them from feedback that could actually help us all learn and grow, which is what I started to point out to them. What I'm helping people do is can you just not label what's happening in the body as good or bad or pleasurable or uncomfortable? Could we just

name it as just what's actually occurring as a sensation. So it's when our, I think our minds start to interpret and put a label on these, on these experiences that we're having, that then causes us to start to contract around those experiences and try to shut them down. Is there a pro you mentioned feedback? Is there a process by which we can give feedback to other people that is better than others? Yeah.

Yeah, I have lots of thoughts about this. Feedback, first of all, I tell everybody, feedback, first of all, is always telling us about the giver more than the receiver of the feedback. Some woman on that same team, she said to one of her colleagues, I have this thought that you have a big head and that it keeps you from being more effective.

Well, what she told me, first of all, is likely that she doesn't either acknowledge her own big head and or she doesn't make that valuable about her, which turned out somebody else in the room said, I actually would trust you more if you had more of a big head. So so a lot of the things we need to first pay attention to is feedback is always about me first.

Can I be aware of that? Secondly, am I willing to see that the opposite of my feedback could be at least as true? You shouldn't have a big head. Maybe you should have a big head. Maybe I should have a big head. So I'm looking at, can I own it over here? Can I see how the opposite could be true? And then could I hold it because...

because I can see it as the opposite could be true, could I hold the feedback lightly? Meaning, you know, like if I had it as a, this is my feedback, like I think this might be a thing instead of I'm going to righteously defend I'm right about my feedback.

which then isn't going to often be something that the receiver is going to want to fully take in. Workplaces are inherently messy. And one of the things that came up in my research is you value that messiness in the workplace. Can you talk to me a little bit about that? I do. You know, I feel like ultimately I think human beings, we're just here to learn and grow. You know, we're just here to learn and grow. And we're all a bunch of scared kids trying to figure it out. And so, yeah,

So many of us get caught in like, let's be appropriate. Let's do it right. Let's not offend anybody. And what I see is the neater we try to get, the less growth we actually get to experience most of the time. Now, that doesn't mean we can certainly create environments that are too edgy, where people are so anxious that they can't learn and grow. And that's not the kind of mess I'm talking about.

But I'm talking about, can it be okay to have some tension sometimes, honor polarities that are happening in the room, use that as an intelligence that's allowing us all to evolve and

I think that the trying to suppress messiness is a ripoff to everybody. It seems like we're actually going more in that direction, right? Where the need to be politically correct, the need to value everybody's opinion equally, even though they're not equally well thought out. The need to say things in just the right way so that we don't offend anybody. The need to cater to the crowd or the minority, if you will.

Yeah, I'm very concerned about that. I feel like we're not giving each other enough space to toddle. I really like this word toddle, you know, like, like, I'm a new, I'm a little toddler crawling around, you know, and I want to learn how to walk. And that looks so wild to be able to reorient my body like all these adults are.

And you just see the toddler is trying, you know, and the adults are saying like, great job. You know, you fell down. But and that you don't see the toddler saying bad toddler. You know, what's wrong with me? You see this toddler staying so curious and you see everybody else around them supporting that curiosity. I just want more of that with each other.

You know, so like, hey, yeah, you fell down. You know, you're learning. Can we just grant each other more patience to support that while at the same time honoring, hey, everybody's got to do their work. Everybody's got to pay attention. So it's a yes and in my world. As you were saying that one thing that came to mind is sort of like we're, you know, in a way more fearful of putting ideas out there.

because they could be proven wrong in the future, or we could look like an idiot in the future. And so we just don't put those ideas out there. And then we end up, you know, the world ends up in a worse place. Because of that, we don't, what struck me about what you said is the tolerance for other people, like, it's like, we forget that other people are human, and they do make mistakes, and they can be wrong. And instead of looking at it at an

issue basis. We look at it as a person basis. Well, Diana, Diana said something, you know, that was incredibly silly. Therefore, Diana, we're not going to value her opinion anymore. Yeah. And I can feel that, you know, I, I was making up a story like, okay, Shane's more of an intellectual and likely his crowds more of intellectual, you know, and I'm not an intellectual and I don't think of myself, you know, I,

But I'm very experiential and I can feel that part of me that gets scared of, am I going to come on and people are going to dismiss what I have to say because it doesn't have scientific data to back it up or whatever. And, you know, for a long time, I think myself and others, we hide out because don't come speak out about just your own experience or what you know, because if it's invalidated, you know, it feels dismissive and people don't.

feelings can get hurt or, you know, and no one wants to be sounding stupid. You know, there can be this like backup. And what I'm trying to do is find my own courage to come out and speak and say,

okay, I don't know. I mean, do any of us, we're just learning. So I'm just going to put stuff out there and I'll learn from your feedback. I'll learn from my own experience and that's the best I can do. And that's courageous for all of us. And it does, it takes courage to speak out these days. Totally. I think the ultimate question is not whether this is my truth versus your truth or how I see the situation versus how you see the situation. It's more like,

Does it work? Right, right. I have a bunch of stuff that works for me. And when I share it with a certain group of people, it really works for them. And so that's all I know is I know it works for some population of the planet. And so perhaps it might work for you. Maybe not. Take what works and ignore the rest. That's the advice of the podcast, right? Exactly. Talk to me about the difference between the to me and the by me leader. Okay.

We got this model from Gay and Katie Hendricks, and I don't know where they got it from, but it's this idea that there is a line and you're either in this above the line mindset or this below the line mindset. And when you're above the line mindset,

you're recognizing life is happening by me. And in particular, my own experience is happening by me. So my emotional states, my physical states, my mental states are happening by me. The circumstances out there are not ultimately the cause of my direct experience here.

So it recognizes that I have a lot of creativity here. I am the creator of the experience. Whereas when I'm in leadership from to me, it's more of those things out there are affecting me. It's happening to me. So I don't get to have ultimate creatorship here. I'm now a victim to some of the circumstances around me. And so therefore I could, you know, from that mindset, I might say, Shane, you hurt my feelings. Right.

You know, you are the cause of my hurt feelings, which I hear, you know, a lot in the workplace. Or instead of, hey, Shane, I want to let you know I hurt my own feelings. When you said these words, I took them in and I hurt myself with them. It was happening by me. It didn't happen to me.

But most of us grew up like, you know, Diana, go apologize to your sister. You hurt her feelings. And so we got trained like we are responsible for each other. And now that doesn't mean, again, that I don't make amends for like, hey, I do want to acknowledge that I did this thing and likely that didn't feel right.

you know, likely didn't land very well over there. And so I can still take responsibility for my impact in the world. But ultimately, everybody gets to have their 100% responsibility in their own well-being when we're in this by me leadership model. We're responsible for our own feelings.

It's something that you say to somebody else may, may impact them in a way that you didn't intend, but you're not causing them any sort of injury. Is that what I hear you saying? Yeah. What I'm saying is, you know, if I say to you, God, Shane, I think you had an orange Mohawk on your head. You know, I don't know why you're not wearing an orange one, but it would look way better.

you know, likely that's not really going to impact you because there's no belief in your own head that thinks you ought to have an orange Mohawk. But if I said something like, you know, you could be a more effective father. And I think maybe you should, you know, if I said something, something that you believed into, you might hurt yourself with it because there's a little Velcro. And so some part of you is believing or agreeing with what I'm saying. And then you use that to upset yourself.

So the idea here is I get ultimate decision rights on whether I'm going to upset myself or not. And you should, you know, you might create conditions that make it a little more challenging. So if somebody starts yelling at me, I might need to take a little more, get a little more present to not upset myself. And that's where tools like meditation and other skills help people be able to build that awareness so they can stay present in those scenes.

I think that's sort of like a good segue into the drama triangle and the role of being a victim and how we see ourselves. Can you talk to me a little bit about the drama triangle, how you came across it, what it is, and how it limits us? Okay, I just want you to know I'm like a huge fan of the drama triangle. It's the tool I use every single day with myself and with my clients.

So I learned this from Gay and Kathleen Hendricks, and it was originally created by a guy named Stephen Cartman, a psychologist. And basically the theory is that we all have learned to do relationship most in this role of victimhood and that there are three unique flavors of victimhood.

And so the first one is the pure victim. And, you know, Shane, it's so hard and the hours and my emails and oh, my gosh, and the kids and COVID and now now the masks and oh, my gosh, you know, there's just all this I'm at the effect of. And and so victim has this sense of disempowerment. It's got this it's taking less than 100 percent responsibility. It often has a little bit of a whine to it.

So then there's another role in the drama triangle, and that's the villain. And the villain's job is to blame. Whose fault is it? So a lot of us have an inner critic that blames ourselves. So gosh, I should have more health. I should be a more effective partner or parent. I should be more successful. Or I shouldn't be, you know, blah, blah, blah. Or you, Shane, it's because of you that we're not having a good time. And I was fine until you showed up.

So you should or shouldn't be a certain way or them. I mean, we all know who they are, who are screwing it up for the rest of us. And so this villain is constantly looking for who's to blame. And then finally is the role of the hero.

And the hero's job is to seek temporary relief. And that really is the key word is temporary. So I'm at the end of the day, I'm so burned out. Where's the Netflix? Where's my Pinot Noir? Where's even going for a run or something that gives me a little relief? And it works.

Day after day it works, but I never go address the core issue of like, wait a minute, what's going on that I'm living my life such that I come home at the end of the day so burnt out? You know, how am I, how is that happening? Can I address that so I don't have to keep temporarily fixing it over and over again?

We see this in friendships and in organizations where people listen to each other's gossip. That's a great way, actually, to hero. Let me give you some temporary relief by letting you vent. So I'm going to hero you by listening. I'm going to call it being a good friend. But we don't really solve your issue. We just make, you know, you hang up and you go, oh, I feel better. That was great. Thanks a lot. But now you've got to go back and we've got to do it all over again.

That's a way we can hero each other or we can hero them. Let's put a philanthropy together and throw a bunch of money at a population and not really ask them to take their 100 percent responsibility so that we'll take more. And then next year they come back and they go, you know, we've got all the same issues. Can you toss some more money at us?

So heroing is the most challenging, I think, in the drama triangle because the culture can really applaud heroes. And so our identities go, well, hey, look, you know, people think I'm good for doing these things. It takes a lot of awareness because in order to hero, you need victims. And then that means you are requiring people to be disempowered so you can hero.

And that's not such a, you know, that's how we're just going to create more battles amongst us. Why is it called the drama triangle? My sense is because in those three roles, what you get is drama. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, you get recycling patterns where people are reactive. And so that's, that's a definition for drama is, you know, repeating patterns of reactivity.

I think that word reactive is really important because when we react, what we're not doing often is reasoning. Right. We're not reasoning. We're not responding. We're in this kind of compulsive, I got to, I have to. And a lot of it, again, I think is because

We get to avoid the discomfort that comes if we actually pause and become more aware and get present to what's happening and to be honest about what's happening with each other. It's like, oh, I don't want to do that. So let me just temporarily relieve everything over and over again.

And what's interesting to me also about each sort of point in this triangle is that from that perspective, we're just always right. Whether we're the victim or the villain or the hero, like the story that's going on in our head is that we're, we're right. Yes. And exactly. We can create these biases that actually can, we can avoid all the evidence to the contrary of our righteous perspectives. And the more I'm in my own deep practice of,

I get that ego and identities need to feel right in order to secure themselves. And if I were to let go of being right from that righteous point of view, which is like a right that defends itself, what's underneath that is a lot more vulnerability, a lot more of, I don't know, a lot more fear.

And if you're not comfortable with that, then the identity is going to secure itself all back up again. And you're going to get back into I'm right that this is the right way and that's the wrong way. And I'm right to be more like this and not like this. And just we all get secured up again in these defense mechanisms to protect this deep, deep vulnerability that comes under. What if I don't know? What if? Yeah.

People don't like to sit in, I don't know. And they definitely don't like the fear of vulnerability, like even just opening yourself up to somebody else and telling them you care about them or whatever it is, because you're worried about this rejection. You're worried about all these things. Yeah, that threat to our approval, because gosh, we all want to be approved of. It's so important. And we want to

We all want to feel secure, you know, that I'm going to be part of something. And I want it. We all want to have that control, but that all has to learn to be sourced inside of ourselves.

because if I can't source all the approval I've ever wanted, I'm going to then be out in the world trying to control my approval. And that's going to cause a decent amount of suffering for me and maybe for others too. One of the things that strikes me with the drama triangle is that it's all happening at the subconscious level. It's all invisible to our sort of

conscious mind, how do we go about making the invisible visible? So I'm a huge fan of saying, Hey, look, I'm on the drama triangle and let me show you, let me show me. And so if you knew me, when I first learned these things, my husband and I, we were practicing together and we got sets of the drama triangle. We, we make cards and,

said the hero, villain, and victim. We laminated them and we put them in our kitchen. We put them in our living room and we put them in our master bedroom. And so whenever we'd start to have any kind of a discussion that had any sense of reactivity to it, we would literally get on the drama triangle. We would step on it and we would move our physical bodies around on the basis as we could feel ourselves, you know, like...

I can't believe you didn't get the kids to school on time. Now I'm on villain. And then I always have to do it and I can never count on you. And so I would just run around on those bases so I could see, oh, as long as I'm going to have the conversation from here,

I'm not really going to be able to learn and grow and really understand how am I co-creating these scenes that I tell myself in the world I don't want, but yet unconsciously I'm creating them. And so if I'm on the drama triangle, those will never, those will never become aware. So I'll never be able to permanently shift those issues. So I think having drama triangle, um,

physically on the ground to step on and talk about and make big. You know, I say like, let's soap opera this baby up. And so let's, you know, make it the biggest tragedy. So it's kind of funny because, you know, when you're in the drama triangle, everything starts to get serious. And my experience is the more serious we are, the less we learn. And if you look at all mammals, mammals learn best through play.

And there's research suggesting that children also are much more able to learn when they're in a state of play.

So if I'm serious about something and it's not funny, and the more not funny it is, the more likely I am to shut down all the awareness and all the learning that could actually really take me to a new place. So I like when I go into a team, I'll say, all right, what's one of the issues that you guys have going on? And they might say, we haven't made numbers the last two quarters. And

And I say, okay, let's make this the best drama you've ever seen. Like everybody, you know, imagine we've all been at the bar. We've had a several drinks. We're a little sloppy. Get on the drama triangle and really bitch and moan about this issue. And first of all, that's sort of relieving to a lot of people because it's like, really, I get to do that now?

And so I let them get on the bases and bitch, moan and complain and who's to blame and how do you fix it and how are you at the effect of it? And just letting that out. We all get to go, OK, all those parts get to bitch, moan and complain. Now what? Now are we willing to get off this drama triangle so that we can actually really learn how to co-create a different option?

And so I'm all for exaggeration and play around when we're in the triangle. Walk me through what's next. Like you do that, you have that session, you bitch moan, you complain, you get it out, you over exaggerate, you feel really good. And then you feel open and a little bit safe, I would imagine. What's next? What's next is, can you just recognize you're in this drama time with you guys because you're scared?

You're at threat. It feels like a threat to your security or control or approval. Most people will go, "Yeah, I am threatened. I do feel threatened." A few people will say, "I don't think I'm threatened," but then if you help them see a little more clearly, everybody eventually gets to see, "Okay, you're right. I'm in a state of threat." So the first thing I know is if you can't accept the fact that you're in a state of threat, you'll never shift anything.

You know, I could feel it today, like the one who felt a little threatened about coming on today, you know, like, how old is she? She's nine or 10. And she got kind of bullied on the playground when she went to a new school and the kids didn't know her. And so that part of me is here, worried that this might happen again. And so I just go, oh, sweetheart, you're just scared. Yeah, come sit on my lap. So if you know me, I do that to myself.

Like, oh, you're just come on, have a seat. And I'm not trying to stop it or numb it. I'm well, like you are welcome to be scared. Let's move that all the way through to completion. Take a breath with that. Welcome all those sensations and then check and see, is there something that you need? And can we get that source from within so that then you can be able to respond? So first and foremost, after you recognize you're in this reactive place in the drama triangle, except you're scared.

And then after that, you just check and see, would I be willing to move from threat to trust? So I ask questions of myself and others, like, would I be willing to stop blaming anybody? If we all stopped blaming and we all recognize we each have a part to play.

So I could start to look at how am I co-creating this rather than throwing blame over someplace else? And would I be willing to stop being righteous about this so that there can be something I can learn? Because right now, obviously, there's something I don't know. If I did, I'd solve this already. And would I be willing to feel my feelings about this? And would I be willing to let other people feel theirs? And would I be willing to really listen to the other side?

Most of us don't listen. And would I be willing to be honest, like really, truly candid? If I've had to thought three or more times, would I say it out loud instead of withholding it? Would I be willing to recognize likely there's been some broken agreements here that have caused some of this? And how am I, how have I been a part of that?

So I ask people these questions, we call them willingness questions, to see would you be willing to shift out of threat to trust? And then if people are willing, then now they're in a more open state. They're open in their minds, they're open in their emotional states, they're open in their bodies.

And I say then their three centers are turned on IQ, EQ, BQ, which is a metaphor I like to use. And then from that place, from that state of presence, they're a lot more available for learning and a lot more available for a new solution. I want to explore the IQ, EQ, BQ in just one second. But before we get to that, this triangle has three points on it, sort of victim, hero and villain.

Talk to me. Are they all equally weighted? Like is one a better position to be in the other or are they all the same? They're all the same. They all are taking either more or less than 100% responsibility in their own ways. So they're all not really taking full ownership. And they all have, they're all really brilliant. Honestly. I mean, I really appreciate our,

psyches that created these structures to protect ourselves. Because that's what the drama triangle is. It's a reactive defense mechanism that we've all set up. And they, each of those bases is equally valuable in its defense mechanism. So, and my experience is that when people are dealing with any issue, they're going to be on all three bases. They're going to have some of each. Now, some of us tend to, we learn to do relationship being more of a hero or more of a villain or more of a victim or some combination. And,

And that often comes because maybe those bases were already taken by the people we grew up with. And so that's kind of a natural default that we go to. So we have typical patterns that we do, but they're all equally weighted. One of the things that you mentioned and not necessarily related to the drama triangle, but as a way to get out of it was taking a breath. And I find that really interesting because this summer I took my youngest child cliff jumping and

And his first cliff that we jumped off was like 30 feet, right? So not, you know, he's 11 years old. This is not a small feat for him. And the way that we sort of overcame this was through like breathing. And we talked about confidence and doing difficult things and doing things we've never done before. And we have a history of this. And the easier, my theory on this is like, the easier we can recall things that we've done that are difficult,

And the more we can just take a deep breath, we can talk to ourself in a positive light. We've done difficult things before, and that makes it easier to go forward. But the question is, what role does breathing play in that? Because I've always noticed that breathing is a part of it. Like when I was talking to him, I'm like, just take a deep breath, slow it down.

And then you mentioned that and I thought of that instantly. First of all, I'm just touched by your fatherhood that takes him and helps guide him to go to those edges. It's a great gift. And that you could remind him, you know, we've done difficult things before. So bringing some rationality in. But then also that breath helps relax the body.

It helps open up the contractions. It helps us get more present here. It helps us recognize, oh, breathing doesn't just happen to me. I can be the breather. And so I get choice about that too. And so it helps me come back to my own empowerment that

It's one of the only functions I think in the body in which it happens automatically and I get to control it. That's fascinating. I had never thought of it that way before. Right. I think that's the, I think that's the case. It's really interesting. I mean, one thing I didn't tell him is that we can't get down other than by jumping. So going up. Yeah. So breathing helps me come back to my own sense of power, helps my body relax, relax,

Helps me notice what's happening around me so that I can feel that empowerment to then go through and push the edge of something that feels vulnerable. Let's explore the IQ, EQ, BQ. What's the relationship to sort of each other and relationship to peak performance?

This is my theory. It's just a theory. I have no idea if I'm right. But I believe that we have these three centers of intelligence. So this intellectual intelligence, this emotional intelligence, and this instinctual or body intelligence. And my belief is, is that

Different people lead with a different intelligence. I think we all have all three, but some of us lead with intellect. Some of us lead with emotional intelligence. Some of us lead with BQ. And so,

What I'm interested in is helping people honor their one they lead with. So I lead with BQ. That's my, I feel things. I don't have to, I don't intellectually know a lot of the things that I can go toward. I feel them. It's like a mammal maybe who goes back to a watering hole hundreds of miles away. I just kind of know my way.

And that's challenging when you say to a group of people, like, I think we should go this way. And people say, well, where's your data? And for those of us who have more BQ intelligence that leads, it's difficult because it's like, well, I don't necessarily have that data. I just have this sense about things. And my sense is pretty on a lot of the time. I got a nose. I got a good nose. And so, yeah.

We didn't get trained, most of us, in schools to honor body intelligence. Most of us didn't get trained for emotional intelligence either. We mostly have been valuing IQ so much, which is great. IQ is fantastic. But I find that leaders who are able to access all three centers equally are

knowing they have a lead in one are more able to make effective decisions. And, you know, I think emotions are also like, they have so much intelligence and,

And, you know, anger says, hey, something isn't serving me, my people, the situation. It's so intelligent. So when we're angry, it's like, stop, change. I like to think of angers like when the director goes cut, like we need better lighting or say that a little louder or like the anger helps make everything more exquisite if we can see it that way. And that

Fear says, well, we got to learn something here. And then sadness says, maybe there's something we got to let go of, something we need to grieve so that we can be present to what's here. I help teams a lot grieve because, you know, I work a lot with Silicon Valley startups. And, you know, a lot of them are grieving that they had ideas that they would have a certain number of users by, you know, XYZ or they'd have so much money in the bank or they'd have investors coming in and they have to let go.

And they have to feel the wisdom of you've got to let go so you can actually be with what's here now and deal with that. Because if you can't let go of that beautiful picture you had, you can't really see the beautiful picture that's now here, but just in a different way. I was with a team in which they had to cut, it was right before COVID, and they had to cut, right as COVID was happening, 20% of the team.

And so I asked the leader of the organization, would you please give space to the whole team to grieve? So he did. He said, it's just presence for a minute. I imagine we're all really grieving the fact that our colleagues are leaving and that this isn't going to be the same place. And I want to make space for that and let us talk about it for a minute. And so what I think happens is when people are able to talk about those things, they get it through the system.

You know, it doesn't take that long, but they get to really presence it, feel it in the body. You know, maybe it's tears. Maybe it's just some aches in the chest. Maybe it's just some darn, but can we let that come all the way through? And then, okay. All right. Well, that has happened. Now what? And if we don't give space for that, it ends up happening through gossip and man and man and people talking. And like, then we waste a bunch of energy, right?

doing all kinds of things to try to get that grief through that we don't know how to get it through because talking alone isn't going to make that happen. There's just a lot of whole body intelligence that still we're just getting started in helping people understand and value that. There's so many ways that I want to follow up on this. One of them is avoiding the feeling

actually makes the feeling come up later and in more unpredictable ways. Like I see this with my kids, right? When they try to suppress their anger, it comes out later in very different and difficult ways. And it seems to last longer. Whereas if you just embrace it and you feel it. Right.

And, you know, it sucks and you learn how to deal with it, but then it passes. Yes, it passes. And if it doesn't pass, then it does become suppressed. And then what can happen is a story can start to be created. And then that story, the mind starts to want to be right about the story and it can create what we call a cognitive emotive loop.

in which then it now is not just an emotion that's moving through the body. It's now a story I hold, but then I activate with a feeling that then activates the story and it loops and it can go on and on and on. So I could do it with, you know, if I said like, can you believe she said that about me? I just can't believe she did that. And I'm right that she shouldn't have said it. And then I upset myself with my righteous story. And then that saddens me and I'll just loop and loop and loop. And then I could be sad forever about it.

that. How do we break out of that loop? Then you got to just drop back down to underneath your story. Just what is the sensations? And I like to get back to sensations because maybe I don't even know what the feeling is. Just can I come back to what's happening in the body and let that process itself all the way through in the body knows, you know, the body knows how to move itself, sound itself, uh, you know, express itself to let it go all the way through.

And it's great to have, I think, opportunities for kids to be able to, and we're all kids at heart, but to be able to have an environment in which kids can go, yeah, buddy, you're angry. I welcome your anger. How angry are you? Like if your anger could make a sound, what's it sound like? Instead of like, well, if you're going to be angry, honey, you have to go to your room, which only just validates the child's belief that anger is not welcome here and I got to suppress it.

Talk to me, you mentioned being at this crossroads, right? Your body's telling you, you lead with your BQ and your body's telling you to go one way. And then you're trying to communicate to somebody who might lead with more emotion or intelligence. How do we learn to have conversations between these different leads? Yeah, it's a great question. So what we have to do is honor that. That's one of the reasons why we like the diversity amongst us is maybe you have some data that

that will suggest why my idea is or is not a good idea. Or maybe you have some emotional intelligence that says, you know, as I'm hearing you speak, I notice I feel really scared.

And the fear is very strong in me. And I'm not sure that we know enough yet to make that decision. So we count on each other and each other's intelligences to bond together to see what do we, you know, do we all have our own unique intelligences and agreed upon next step.

Um, and maybe we do say, Hey, in this case, like there are times when I say, Hey, look, you have brilliant intellectual understanding of this topic. I'm going to, I'm going to bow to you in this case. Cause I think you're probably, you know, you, you demonstrate, uh, uh,

a better track record in these areas. So I'm going to listen to yours. And whereas you might say, hey, Diana, in this area, you tend to always have good instincts. I'm going to go your way. And then all we can do is learn, you know, but it's just our job to keep listening over and over again to what do we notice? What do we notice here as we decide next steps?

One of the most interesting quotes I've probably come across in the last year has to do with this. And it was, I think it's Jeff Bezos, but I'm going to butcher the quote a little bit. But it was basically to the effect of when my body disagrees with the data, it's usually my body that's right and the data that's wrong. Yeah.

That's my experience. I had a son and when he was in high school, he was using a lot of marijuana. Not not well. And he was such a smart kid. You know, already been moved up a grade. They wanted to move him up again. I mean, brilliant intellect. And he was poorly performing in high school, could care less about school. And I don't think the marijuana in that case was particularly helping him.

And when he turned 18, he'd already graduated from high school. He said, I want to grow marijuana. I can do it legally. My head, the data in my head said, heck no, no way. What would every other parent on the planet think if I let my kid who's already probably using too much start growing large amounts of marijuana? But my body, my body was so clear. It just said, let him grow.

let him grow. And it was just kind of like inside of my own self. It was like, what? Like, are you kidding? But I said, okay, if you can prove that you can make it legal, live in California at the time you could do that. And so I, first of all, I thought the kid will, he has, we'll never grow a plant because you know, he's never done anything like this in his life, but his passion for marijuana, he, he,

learned everything he could about it. He wasn't a particularly social guy. All of a sudden he's social. All the other young adults around want to come learn from him. He grows the most glorious marijuana plants. He's, he makes a business out of it. He gets people to come in and work for him. He sells it all to the legal places and he comes to life. It's like his passion for something. Cause he just didn't have his passion at school.

And he ends up going off to the community college, then off to UCLA, graduates with a computational math major while, you know, thriving now. And I really do think my body knew when my head was so looking at the data that suggests this wasn't a good idea. You got to just trust this knowing you have.

I like that example a lot. One of the things you mentioned in that I find myself dealing with all the time, which is what will other parents think of me? And, you know, when I'm conscious about it, I'm like, I really don't care.

But there's this unconsciousness to it where, oh my God, like if my kid has a temper tantrum, like what are other parents going to, I'm a bad parent all of a sudden, right? And then you think about it and you're like, well, wait, that doesn't actually mean I'm a bad parent. But that initial feeling is such that I'm being judged by other parents.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm afraid. What are they going to think? And then I'm also afraid of like, what's my kid going to think when they grow up? Are they going to be like, are they going to be as my son going to come back and go, you should never have let me grow marijuana. Like, what were you thinking? So it's like this double whammy, you know, for most of us of it's, what are the parents going to think? But what's my kid as an adult going to think about my choices. And so it does take a lot of presence to listen, to tune in and to decide ultimately what,

I am going to do the best I know how. That's all I can do. And for me, I keep using this mantra in my head, which is I'd rather learn than be right.

I'd rather learn. I'd rather learn. Like we're going to learn about what happens here because if I try to be right, I'm just going to miss out on something else. And so, and I, and I keep, when I say this about be right, I mean righteous, you know, because it was righteous in my mind when I said, no, he shouldn't grow. I was being righteous. I wanted to prove that it wasn't a good idea.

Now I just would rather learn. I just know I'll learn something. And learning, when you're in a by me leadership stance, learning is the most important thing. And it's like, it's being in a state of awe. Like it's a wild world out there. Let's find out.

What's it going to be like? That whole state of being righteous, I never heard it in that term before, but I'm just seeing myself through this lens. When I used to work for a large organization, I was a knowledge worker. And then you have this vested interest in being right, because if I'm not right, then what am I doing here? What am I contributing? And then when you need to be right, you spend all of your time and effort

not only probably unconsciously undermining other people, but trying to prove that you're right to other people. And you're closed to new data. You're closed to different perspectives. I get this question a lot from people of, well, how, like if you're not trying to be, if you're not righteous, like how will you know how to go any particular direction? My answer is, well, you are going to use data

your own background, your own experience, your own knowledge. You're going to use those things. You're going to use all of your intelligences and you're going to make the best choice that you believe you can make based on what you know. And in that way, you'll be quote, right.

You'll say, I believe I'm right, but you'll hold it loosely so that you would be available. So somebody could penetrate through and support your curiosity and like, hey, maybe you don't know something or I'm younger and I've learned some new things and you haven't, you know, you've been holding on to some old models. And so if I'm righteous, you can't penetrate me.

And so that's where it's a, I call it like walking the line of holding two sides of a polarity equally, which is, I believe this is the best way to go. And I'm completely available to learn that it might not be. And how do I be in a big enough state of awareness to hold both of those two things equally?

Because most of us can't do that. It's difficult because it threatens the identity to hold those both equally. I think for me, I try to think of it as outcome over ego, right? And if I'm trying to prove myself right or I need to be right,

What I need to be right about is just getting the best outcome. Yes. And that, you know, shifts when you have more skin in the game, you tend to think that way naturally, right? Like it doesn't matter whose idea it is, as long as we're all getting a better outcome.

But when you work in an organization, you have a different sort of self-image, I guess, of your contribution. Yes. And, you know, like you're an investor. And so we know you're making decisions that affect lots of people's money and maybe their businesses and that you're investing in. And so we're looking at, you know, of course, you want to be as thoughtful as possible. So you want to really do this well and think.

You only can know so much. I mean, no one ever can say, I can a hundred percent say without a doubt, this is the way to go. I mean, it's rare that that happens. And so being willing to stay in that curious place while being very definitive on your choices. One of the things I love about it is it just, it's way more relaxing on the body and we don't get to sleep nights and you know, you're just, all you can do is the best you know how and just give yourself a break.

Talk to me about the whole body. Yes. Whole body. Yes. This is one of my favorite topics. So whole body. Yes. Is this idea that when I'm given options of how I want to move forward in the world, I consider the option with my full body. And this comes back to IQ, EQ, BQ. So I'm listening to this intelligence that's moving through me that says yes or no.

Somebody says, Hey, Diana, I've got this friend of mine who I think would be another great client for you. So I'll have a conversation with them and I'll learn and I'm going to listen to my whole body. Yes. To know, is this somebody I want to be working with or not?

My head might say, yeah, but they have a lot of impact in the world, which matters to you. You should work with them. But my gut might go, yeah, but something's off. I don't know what it is, but I don't think this is the way to go. And my heart might go, yeah, I notice my heart's not in it. It just doesn't feel. And so in this case, it's not a whole body yes. There's not a check, check, check effect.

And so now it's a no. And so I say anything other than a whole body yes is a no. And I think it's a great skill to have. And it takes a little time. I think it's a muscle everybody has, but very few of us ever got trained. It's like a flaccid muscle, but you can build it up over time. And I find that most people have a signature inside of themselves for what a yes versus a no feels like.

And I often walk people through that so they can get a sense of that and then use that. And I say, start with small stuff like, oh, I have a menu choice tonight at dinner. What's my body have a whole body yes to for what I'm going to eat? And then practice on little stuff. And how am I going to get home from here to there? There's several routes. Which one do I want to take?

What time do I want to meet a group of people in the evening? Try different things out. So you start to learn like, hey, it's got a lot of clarity. And then you can build that strength up to start to answer much bigger questions that have more impact on you. So I'm a huge fan of it. And my experience is people do know a lot more than they are willing to let themselves be aware of.

Talk to me about when we use it and when we don't, because one thing that was interesting there, like when should we overrule ourself? Like with your son, you didn't have a whole body. Yes. And yet the, the outcome in that case was a great outcome. And in some cases where you're taking a client or you're getting yourself into an investment or a situation, you want a whole body. Yes. When do we use these? When do we overrule ourselves? So that's a great thing to come back to the issue with my son, because he's,

I actually did come to a whole body. Yes. The first response was no. Yes. Yes. But I really, I was in reactivity. So I really wasn't in a state of trust. So I had to come back to, you know, would you be willing to let go of what people think of you? Would you be willing to let go of being right that he should, you know, this is going to harm him. I had to be in my own curiosity first. So then once I relaxed, then I asked, do I have a whole body? Yes. And in that case I did.

We have to check and see, am I checking for whole body? Yes. From reactivity. Because if I am, then I need to shift it over. If it's a no, I need to shift over and see, am I in a state of trust such that I can get a much more accurate read on whether this really is a whole body? Yes or not. One thing I like about it is it raises the bar, right? Like it raises the standard for what you agree to and you commit to. Well, I love the word exquisite trust.

And it's something that I'm putting a lot of attention on is how could I have it be exquisite? And what I find for myself and others is I can make a lot of things good. I'm, you know, I give me some lemons, I'll make you lemonade. It's good, but I may never taste champagne if I'm just tolerating good. And so I'm really learning how to be discerning to say, but what if it's, what if you could have exquisite? I'm learning to, um,

say no to a lot of things. And it's very heartbreaking, honestly, because those things are good and they're wonderful. And it doesn't mean I let go of all of them, but I've been letting go of a lot lately. That's been wonderful. But I think there's even something

more aligned, more on purpose, more, you know, that gets me humming because it's like uses me in the ways that give my gifts the most, you know, impact in the world. And I'm really in devotion to Whole Body Yes for that reason. I want to explore that just a little bit more in terms of like, was there a recent event that changed this? Because I find with myself, like if I'm saying yes to average opportunities,

There's so many of those opportunities that I never, ever have time for the extraordinary ones. So I have to learn to say no to the average opportunities to create the time and space to work on extraordinary ones. But I'm curious if there was an event that sort of made that happen for you, was it? Or if it just sort of like was a realization that you came to slowly?

I think if you knew me, you would know that I grew up in a really, I think, you know, as families go, it was a very sweet family environment.

dynamic. And of course there were challenges in there, like all families, but overall I grew up in a beautiful family. All of my sisters, we all went to the same college. We were all in the same sorority. We're all really close. I mean, it's very kind of rare in that way. And we all lived in the Midwest and we all were having children around the same time. The children were all close. It was really good, but I just had this sense like,

There's something else. And there was this day where it's kind of the first and last day I ever heard such a very direct call, but it just said, you got to move to California.

It's so good here, though. I just built my dream house with my husband. I mean, it was so good. But there was just this sense of there's something calling you that's going to be even more exquisite than this. And so I didn't have a job. My husband didn't have a job. We just said, like, we're going to take the leap to California. We didn't know where we're going to live. It was just this really radical surrender. And we came out here and sure enough, as beautiful and as my

Life had been up until that point. It became a whole nother level of exquisite coming out here, living outdoors in this land community and creating community that I was so aligned with. And then having this work, um,

be so fulfilling out here in a community that was much more open to it at the time. This was 20 years ago where nobody where I was living in the Midwest had a clue what I was up to. And so that was the beginning of me listening to a call and risking a lot and then discovering, wow, it could be even better. And so that's a regular practice for me now is

Whenever I feel it, and it's pretty clear to me, I just had another round of it, like make space. I grow a lot of fruits and vegetables, if you knew me. And so, you know, I love cutting. It's about ready to cut the fruit trees here, cut off all the dead wood. And these trees are gorgeous the way they are. They're like, why can't we just keep them? But it's like, cut them back, get rid of the dead wood, because you're going to have something that flourishes even more, something stronger, you know, more blossoms if you cut back. And so that's a regular practice in my life.

And, you know, Gay Hendricks is one of my, he and Katie Hendricks, my mentors, and Gay taught me about this concept called the upper limits problem and the idea that a lot of us

limit how good we can feel in our bodies, how good our relationships could be, how good our work can be, because we put this limit of how good it could be, which often is determined by the families that we came into and the stories that we all hold about how much touch, laughter, fun, creativity, community can we have, abundance. And so I've really been playing around with addressing my own upper limit in myself and

that keeps me from having it even more exquisite than I had known before. And, um, and so I think, and I work a lot with clients on upper limit. I think it's one of their favorite topics to explore is could you imagine life going even better? How do we go about identifying that, that ceiling for us, that high limit? You'll say things like, um,

gosh, you know, I can't even remember a day as good as this, or can you believe this is happening? Or, um, wow, honey, I feel so close to you. All of those things are all indicators that I'm right on the edge of how good I can handle things. So for example, we, we see these patterns show up in couple hoods, you know, um, because of upper limits, which I think makes a lot of sense. More couples will fight on Friday night than any night of the week.

And I think that's an upper limits pattern because it's like, oh, honey, we have the whole weekend now to, you know, have more connection. And so that'll be a threat somehow to well, you know, to how good we can have it. So we'll fight. And then maybe we spend the weekend unwinding our fight. The second most popular night of the week to fight is on Sunday nights. And that I think is also an upper limits like, oh, we've had so much connection. I feel really bonded. So let's have a fight to bring ourselves to a more familiar place.

So, you'll just pay attention to when you start to feel like, wow, this is pretty great. You know you're on your edge. And in those moments, what I've learned is those are the times to integrate, to go sweep the floors and just remind yourself, wow, I could have life this good.

watch a silly movie or take a bath or just, just integrate, let the nervous system recognize you could be this happy. You could be this connected. And then once the system is settled in, then it's available to even go up a little more. And then you settle in and a little more and you settle in. So you start to grow over time, the nervous system. And so when I first met gang Katie, 23 years ago, they were describing to me, you know, their exploration of this upper limit.

And Gay said something like, "Yeah, I live in a mild state of orgasm most of the time."

And I was like, oh, I want that. Whatever that is, give me that. And I can feel that now. Like it's, I get what he was talking about. And I have built that over time by learning that it's okay to be happy because a lot of us are told, you know, if you're too happy, people are going to cut you down or people won't want to be with you or you won't want to be with them or maybe you don't deserve it. There's all these deep unconscious patterns in us, psychological patterns that keep us from

from opening to life going really well. Go deeper on where we are scared almost to be happy. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, who do you think you are? You think you're so much? A lot of us got told that, like, don't have a big head. Don't be too happy. Don't be too sure of yourself. Don't be too full of yourself. And of course, I get the message underneath there about be humble. But it's like, can we be humble and be just having a blast? I mean,

If you knew me, you would know I have a fantastic marriage. I don't see anything better. I've seen maybe some equal ones, but I have a great marriage. I've worked a lot of time on that marriage. I have fantastic relationships with my children. I have...

an amazing community of friends. I mean, I love them. I mean, I actually created a business in which I brought a lot of my friends in. So like most of the time when I hang up a business call, it's, I love you. Like it's crazy. I live in a beautiful place. I get to be outside hiking all the time. It's so good.

And I'm just learning to let it be okay to be that good and not apologize or not feel bad about that or not worry when the shoe is going to drop to just recognize, yeah, it's really wonderful. And so my whole life is in devotion to how good could it be?

Including, most importantly, how can I most give my gifts to serve those around me in ways that are really meaningful to me and really supportive to them? Because that's one of the things that really is creating one of the most beautiful parts of my life.

I love that. While we're on the topic of relationships, what's the hamburger versus steak life or steak sex life thing all about? Yeah. So I've been with my husband since I was 16. So you have to know that, that we were very young when we got together. And no one really told us much about sex and I didn't have very much experience, but everything seemed to be going pretty well. But I started to realize like,

I was getting it starting to come a little ho-hum like it's good. I mean, it's good. But it's, it's just, it felt like eating a great hamburger. And I realized like,

what would steak taste like? You know, what would it be like to have steak more often? And so like all things, I'm always curious about, you know, how good could it be? And so I started to learn everything I could about human sexuality and couple polarity and all these different things and started to discover, oh, there's a lot more possible.

Now, I really like to stand for like, hey, hamburger's great. And I'm not opposed to having a hamburger once in a while, but I really like steak. And so how do we create the conditions in which we get to eat steak? I used to be a couples coach before I worked with leaders and organizational leaders. And so now I do work with a lot of their couple hoods because I

it's part of them being an effective leader. And my definition of leadership is anyone who wants to take responsibility for their influence in the world. And so in that way, everybody's a leader in my mind who wants to take responsibility. And so there's responsibilities at home and at work and in your marriage. And so I work with them and I'm really blown away by how many people are not having happy sex lives and who got stuck. And because I,

they were too busy or because they didn't know how good it could be. You know, there was nothing that captivated them to stay engaged in that. And so it just fell to the wayside. And, you know, a lot of people really grieving that and wishing it were different. And so I'm asking people to learn and understand more about how could it be so delicious and intimate and enlivening that,

you know, you couldn't help but want to make sure you create time in your life to create, curate those experiences. And it's not for everybody. I want to honor everybody has their own different preferences and needs. But I think there's a lot more people who would be interested in cultivating a really hot, juicy sex life if they had more tools and understanding of what does steak look like. And again, we have to get uncomfortable with,

to have these conversations. And again, it's very vulnerable to start having open and honest conversations with your partner about what good sex is like. And again, if we're not willing to get uncomfortable, then we're not going to have great sex. So you have to be willing to start telling each other, you know, what's true and, Hey, I don't like that. And I'm afraid you're going to go away if I say that. And I'm really scared to tell you that, like, can we just

get really raw and real about what's happening. So that's, so I am proud of the fact that I've

with very little experience figured out how to, you know, really cultivate that. One of the things that I liked that you said is how do we create the conditions under which we eat steak? What are the things that get in the way? What are, when you're dealing with couples and maybe just to take it out of your personal life, like what are the things that constantly get in the way, not only of that, that of sex, but like also like in couples and relationships that are consistent across the board?

I really like this book called Come As You Are. Oh, yeah. Emily Nagoski. Yeah, yeah. She's amazing. Yeah. I work because I think she nailed it. I think, first of all, there needs to be a physical environment in which the conditions are set up that, especially the person who tends to play more of the role of receiver, which often is a woman, but not always in a heterosexual couple environment.

The one who's playing the receiver often needs to have a psychological environment around them in which they really feel like they can surrender, which means I need to know that the kids are fine. I need to know I'm not going to be bugged. I need to have like, I need to know I have enough time. There needs to be this psychological setup for me to relax.

And then I'm much more available to a depth of intimacy and availability that would create something that's more like steak rather than like, hey, I got 10 minutes. Let's quick do it. I got to get out of here because they're going to scream in a second. People have to talk really honestly and they have to have a co-commitment to give and receive feedback.

and be in so that they both say, yes, I'm committed to hearing and learning from you. I also think in some ways you have to come back to like,

healing any old trauma. I mean, there's a lot of us have sexual trauma. So can we start back at the beginning? Can we come back to our innocence and our vulnerabilities and our shyness and our, and make sure all that's healed. And, you know, and some of us have much more, you know, bigger sexual traumas in those cases, they, if they're not dealt with, uh, within therapy or other places, they're going to, uh, ongoingly affect the relationship.

And then, you know, I had this, I was working with a group of women. I think it was like a YPO spouses forum. And one of the women was complaining about having bad sex. And so I said, I want you to teach us the course. I want you to imagine that we're all here and we have come to learn how to have bad sex and we want to have bad sex just like you have. So could you put together a list of everything that we would need to do or be in order to have bad sex?

So she thought about it for a little bit. She said, well, first of all, believe that if you tell him that you don't like something, that he'll go away and won't take care of you. So you've got to believe that right off the beginning. Secondly, keep all of your preferences to yourself and just hope that he'll figure it out.

Third, do whatever he wants and don't really ask at all. Don't believe that his needs are going to be more important than yours. And so she went on and on. She gave us like 12 steps to how she creates this mediocre sex. And that was a big aha for her because she's been sitting around waiting for 20 years for this to change and being at the effect of it in the drama triangle.

And now recognizing just as she was able to teach the course, oh, I'm the creator of bad sex.

I tell the world I wish my sex life would improve, but survey says it's not true because it's not improving and it's mine to change if I would choose to do so. But there's a threat to her to change the pattern. So she doesn't. And one of the things I'm good at is helping people be with their discomfort because that's the catalyst for most human beings to change is to finally face and feel the cost of the patterns that they're in.

I love that. For those of you curious listening, we did a podcast with Emily. I think it's episode 66. Nice. And where we explore sex. And it was one of the most amazing conversations, although slightly awkward for me to talk about sex to hundreds of thousands of people. Right. Which is why we don't talk about it because it's like, yikes.

Exactly. It's like, oh, all the more reason why. I mean, there were so many things I didn't know. And I was mad. I remember in my early 30s being mad, like, how come I didn't know this stuff about sex? Why aren't we teaching this? I think it got really awkward for me when my mom listened to it and was like, we need to talk. And then my neighbors just started looking at me a little differently after that episode. Uh-huh.

I'm curious, switching gears a little bit. How do you think about the relationship between intensity and consistency? I don't think intensity, I don't think anyone can be consistently intense consistently.

And I think that that's a great setup for burnout, which is what I see all over the place. When you say intensity, it's a state. It's got a lot of, at least for me in there, it's drive, it's passion. To me, it's like a weather pattern. There are times when it's a great weather pattern to have and it meets the moment. And then there are times when it needs to be this quiet, still, like,

And it's our job to be aware of when, you know, what weather patterns, some of them, they just come through us. We don't really get to have much control over that. Intensity comes when it comes or grief comes when it comes. And there can be intensity in my grief or there can be a stillness in my grief. And so it's about paying attention to what serves the moment, I think, over and over again.

Intensity, I think, can be a real addiction. And I think one of the things we have to pay attention to, I see a lot of addiction to intensity these days.

And I think people think that intensity is what aliveness is. And there are so many other kinds of aliveness, like the aliveness of just sitting in stillness and watching the leaves quietly blow in a breeze. I work with a lot of people to actually try to settle down their intensity.

You work with a lot of teams. What have you learned about making good decisions that most people miss? I just think people don't practice nearly enough candor. I think people are withholding so many opinions and stories about one another. And so we're not getting the feedback we need to be able to be more present in the moment in which we can make those decisions. I

Can we just tell each other our stories that we make up in our heads about each other? Because it's about you. And it's good to know what stories people make up about us, because my experience is there's almost always a gem in every story that somebody has about me. And from presence, I always ask the question,

Not is it true what you're saying about me, but how is it true? How is it true that I'm not as effective as I could be? Or how is it true that I'm not listening enough? Or how is it true? So I'm asking teams to tell each other their stories more often so that they can see how is it true and then learn from that to be able to grow and be more effective in their decision making.

Is there sort of like tips and tricks that we can learn as a group? Because often groups are the body making decisions, whether it's preferably a person, but the group has to work together. And in order to get the best information, you need to be able to be honest about things. How do you form that in a group? How do you encourage it? I like this practice I use with teams a lot called fact and story.

I'll say, let's say Shane, you and I are on a team and I say, Shane, the facts are that you led a podcast between the two of us earlier today. And then I would say, here's a story I make up about that. And my, hopefully I'm holding the story with curiosity. And so I, you know, I'll say, I'm, you know, I make up a story that, and then I tell the story, but I can, as a team member, I,

If I can put a fact and story, it kind of helps the person relax a little bit to go. It's just a story and it gives them a little freedom to speak more candidly to one another. And so I've done this before where I just come into a team and I say, we're just going to go around the circle. You have to pick a different person each time and, you know, fact and story.

And we'd maybe do three rounds of that. And each time you pick somebody new on the team. And reliably, I get feedback that that may have been one of the best practices they've done in a long time, that they learned things that had not been learned. Elephants came out, people got valuable feedback.

And they realized like we don't give any time and attention to being able to reveal these stories in a way that lets us all evolve. And so they all said like the decisions they were making, they had a big decision to make about whether they were going to sell the company or not.

And that's one of the reasons why I was in there. There was a lot of debate going on. And so I just said, let's do fact and story around. And it wasn't even necessarily around whether we sell or not. It was just around each other. And some of it was around that topic. But at the end, they had such clarity about whether knowing whether to sell or not once they did that. And I think they felt more comfortable with the decision because they had challenged each other.

A story I make up is you are more concerned with money than you are with the well-being of the company. Like that was one of the stories that came out because the one somebody who wanted to sell, you know, they were saying, I think you're. And so to be able to recognize, oh, that's a perception you all are having. Well, let me clarify why I do think this isn't the best interest. And it's not just because I want more money.

So we wouldn't have known it. We wouldn't have been able to even have that conversation if those voices hadn't come out. So fact and story is one of my favorite tips to teach teams. I love that, Nick. It comes back to something we talked about right at the start. And it seems to actually be cropping up throughout the entire conversation, which is making the invisible visible. Yeah. Because the story I'm telling myself is completely invisible to you.

And the way out of this story to a better outcome is to start making what's invisible visible so I can course correct so you can understand me more. I do think that's what I'm that's since I was a kid, I would be nervous because I would say like, doesn't everybody see this stuff? But we're all they all look like the parents are trying to make this invisible and it's not invisible to me.

And so I think that's been my whole life actually. And just getting that aha hearing you talk, like my whole life has been, I relax more when we make the visible or the invisible visible. I, it feels like a friendlier world. It feels like we can do something with that. We can't, we can't grow with the invisible. So that is, I think my whole, much of my work is about that in my inner work as well as my outer work. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, let's explore a little bit about self-awareness, which is something that I know a lot of us, including myself, want to cultivate. And then we're not really sure how to go about it. How would you advise us to go about developing a deeper sense of self-awareness? If you know me, you would know that I really like this body of work called persona work. Some people call it parts work.

And it's the idea that inside of us is a make is a makeup like inside of us is like a village of all these different characters. And they all have different agendas and they all have different strategies for how they move around in the world. And they're brilliant. They all showed up somewhere along the way to protect us. And they all have superpowers, but they also all have shadows and they,

A lot of the work that I have done with myself and with others is to start to name these different parts and to start to play with them. And to play with them, meaning can I have some fun with them? Can I allow them to sit at the table inside of my own beingness?

Because most of us start to say like, these parts are okay, but these parts aren't. And we start to relegate those down to like a dungeon inside of ourselves. So a lot of my job has been to go open the cellar door and see who's down there and pull them back up and liberate them and bring them out and play with them. So they don't play me. So, you know,

everyone, you know, I would say everybody has a bitch inside of them, you know, and a lot of us could say like, don't be bitchy. But I say, we got to let the bitch be at the table because the bitch has a gift and the bitch, you know, there are moments in life in which we would want the bitch leading the show. She could be really protective here. So,

How do we just though make space except the bitch so that the bitch doesn't run me. And so I can learn to play her. I can make her bigger. I can have some fun with her so that I'm not at the effect of the power of her. And I'm also not at the effect of her reactivity, which wouldn't be ideal for myself and those around me. If she were to come out in a reactive state, like if you came to the conscious leadership group where we hold these events, and if you came to one of our events,

Shane, one of the things I would do is I would say, what's a part, Shane, that you know you have that you don't like about yourself? So is it can you think of one like something about you that you go like, oh, I don't I really wouldn't want people to see this part.

Yeah, but I'm not going to say it out loud. We would just edit that out. Or I'd say, maybe you don't even know the part. And I would say, Shane, what kind of people bug you the most out in the world?

people who aren't aware, uh, who just aren't conscious of other people, like who don't hold the door or just have no context of like that they're impacting other people. And I feel horrible even saying that out loud. So, right. So then what you tell me is you don't live, you haven't allowed that part of you to be at the table. And we might call him like, is he kind of selfish or like, I know he, he doesn't care about other people. What, like, what's,

You said he's unaware, but like, well, just be like being late, not holding the door when somebody is walking right behind you like that sort of awareness. Okay, good. Yeah. So he's kind of like he's insensitive. Is that it? He's insensitive. He doesn't open the doors. He doesn't care about time. He did. He's insensitive to keeping his time agreements, things like that. And we're all like that. Like I'm like that sometimes too, right? When we get into our own head and we get, you know, one thing that I always ask myself is when I see somebody behaving a certain way,

And I don't like that behavior. I always say, what would have to be true for me to behave that way? What would the world have to look like

For me to do those same behaviors, right? Like, and then you make up stories, which comes back to sort of like, you know, facts versus stories. And the stories are, you know, and then whether they're compelling or not, and you come up with reasons that you would behave that way, right? Like, what would cause you to cut somebody off? Well, you're driving your kid to a hospital, like, of course, I'm going to cut you off, right? Like, and you can, you can always come up with these sort of like reasons that would cause you to behave in the very way that it is.

Okay. You know, antagonizing you in a way. That's right. So here's what I would want to, if I were working with you, I would say, okay, Shane, what you're telling me is you haven't fully liberated this insensitive part of you. We would, we actually take everybody in the retreat out to dinner publicly and we have you all dressed up as characters. And so I would say-

I would say, Shane, all night long, you just have to be super insensitive. Oh, boy. And the waiters are going to tell the waiter, like, get over here. I have an order. You're going to play out your rude, insensitive one and exaggerate it and just see what it's like to be that way and give yourself some freedom. And so the restaurants know we're here playing with all these, we call them these X'd out parts of ourselves. And so you would play that all night long. And what you would likely learn is,

That there's certainly, of course, a shadow to it, but there's also a part that maybe even needs to come out more in your life in different ways than you have fully appreciated. And that this part has a like, let's take care of me first mindset.

That might actually be of service and especially particularly in places where you might be stuck right now or at challenging issues that part might actually help liberate something. But as long as there's like a no, you can't be that then you're not really free to fully respond to the moment.

because I like to think about like these parts are like keys on a keyboard, you know, and we have ting, ting, ting, and we have boom, boom, boom. We have everything in between. And when you're really present, you're going to ask all those keys are equal.

The ones that sweeten, the ones are, they're all equal. And so I'm just looking to see what's the scene asking for. And sometime the scene might ask for your insensitive, you know, rude guy, because he actually may be just the right voice to address the moment that could help shift everything in a different way.

But most people I see have decided like these things are good and this is me. I'm this and I'm not that. And then when the moment comes, I can't actually respond to it because I don't have access to my full self. And so I'm,

all about find every part out there because it also lives in here. And can I find its value? Can I see its gift? And can I appreciate that it has a place? And how do I make room for all of that at the table? That's been my deepest work. And that's where I help a lot of other clients is bringing those parts back online so everybody's whole.

And they've everybody, because then what you get is I get self-acceptance because now I don't make any part wrong. Now I can, now I don't have to worry so much about

what everybody thinks of me. I don't have to control myself anymore by saying, I can't be this. I can't be that. So now I'm free inside. I'm liberated in there. And I don't have to be scared anymore that I'm going to like, you know, make a mess because I'm not going to have these patterns now come out unconsciously. Cause that's what happens. If you don't be present to them, they'll, they'll play out unconsciously and you'll make a mess. And then you'll think, Oh no. And that makes me even more clear. I can't bring it out. And so the, the value of recognizing, uh,

honoring all the parts, all the personas and seeing their great value. You know, like to your point, it's a great value to go get out of the way. I got a person who needs to get to an emergency and I'm willing to cut people off. I'm willing to do whatever I have to do to save a life. Like we want that part of you.

And we want him here all the time available whenever he needs to be here. And we find ways to play with it. You know, like how do we have fun? So it's funny. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Cause, cause if it's funny, then when you, when you see it out there and you watch somebody being rude and not closing the door, then you go, Oh, that's kind of funny. Instead of how rude, like what a jerk, because now I recognize, Oh, everybody's just doing themselves. And, and,

It's not, no one's bad or wrong. No one's a problem with a capital P. Everybody's just reacting, you know? And so, and they've got their own agendas in there. And so I just get to use it all as a mirror to love and value my own self. It's interesting that, you know, when you're talking about that, I'm thinking, you know, my initial response is like one thing. And then my conscious mind takes over and I create a different story around it.

I think that initial response to your point is highlighting parts of us that maybe we suppress and don't let out. And that's why it's aggravating us.

Like the woman who said, you have a big head, you know, to the guy. And then, you know, somebody goes, you actually could, you know, you don't have a big enough head. So, of course, she gets reactive and then she starts to pull away and she gets disconnected from the guy with the big head because he represents something that she has X'd out in herself. And that's what I see going on is we're all projecting onto each other. I'm not like that. I'm not like that. Well, yeah, we are.

We are like all of it. And it's naive to think I'm not like that, but that's where all the war comes from. That's where the battle is lived is in this belief that I'm separate and not like you instead of I'm just like you in my own way. And can I love that part of me so that I can love that part of you? And then I'm going to be able to be more curious and open to how do we make better decisions together because I'm not against you anymore.

And I think that's going to be one of the number one keys to all of us getting out of our own way here is this deep interpersonal work around loving these parts. What's the most important thing for you to remember when you're under a lot of stress? I'm just scared. I'm just perceiving a threat to my security, my control or my approval because I've left presence. So if I can come back to right now, no past, no future,

Right now, how am I? I'm a woman sitting in a chair. I'm okay. And would I be willing to come source that approval, control and security back inside of myself and take a breath? And if I'm not, that's okay. Then I'm just reactive and I'm just going to go, it's okay to be scared. And then I'm just going to do my practice over and over again. I love that. How do we raise the standards for others and ourselves when it comes to performance? The more I can be in the present moment,

Rather than in an imagined future that I'm scaring myself with and trying to respond to or caught up in a bunch of wounds from my past, the more I can be right here, right now in a non-triggered, non-reactive state, the more effective I'm going to be. And so it's all about cultivating a set of tools that I like.

And everybody has their own set of tools that they like. But what are the tools that we're going to use that bring us back to presence over and over and over again? And will we devote to that like, you know, a lot of us care about our physical well-being and we go to the gym or whatever the equivalent of that is on a regular basis? Like, would you go to the gym in your own consciousness regularly?

on a regular basis. And so, you know, I use my phone. It's telling me all day long, Diana, where are you? Or Diana, could this be more exquisite? Or Diana, what are you feeling right now? I have ways in which I'm going to the gym, you know,

throughout my day so that I just keep staying aware and building those muscles because they are just, in my mind, it's just like physical muscles where they can atrophy quickly if they're not used and you can easily go back to old patterns. And so it's reliably tending to those. And of course, meditation is helpful and emotional and coming back down into the body and being willing to be with that discomfort and

All of those things will allow me to be more present and then therefore far more effective. I mean, and I think this is going to be, I think we're going to see this more and more, you know, for a long time, you can have a really unconscious culture and a lot of drama and be wildly successful as a business. I don't think that's going to be the future. I think the teams that are the most present are going to win the games. And I think we're just, we're moving into a much more chaotic era.

you know, world and things are not going to be as predictable and we're going to need all of our wits about us and presence will be the gift that gives us that. So, and I think people are starting to get that in the millennials, certainly, you know,

one of the gifts they're giving us is, you know, they don't want anything other than that. They really want to be in cultures where people are relaxed and open and curious and not defending and righteous and na-na-na. I want to come back to the stories that we tell ourselves and the stories that other people have. And those stories are our beliefs. We have facts about a situation and we create stories which

you know, sort of weave together our beliefs about the situation. How do we go about lovingly challenging those stories, not only for ourselves, but for other people? Great. So it's easy for myself because for myself, I like, I have this little, I call it a sacred law. I have these sacred laws inside of myself and,

They're sacred just because I'm in devotion to presence. And so a sacred law for me is anytime I catch myself wanting to be right, I immediately pause and just look to see how could it be opposite be true or how could the other perspective be at least as true. And yeah,

Even when I really want to bite down and like, no, I'm right, which I do a lot. I just go, uh-uh, it's a sacred law here, Diana. You're going to have to get curious here. And I force myself to stretch and open in those moments. And so that's my practice. And then when I'm around other people who I have a co-commitment to do this with.

And this is important because I think that it's not friendly for me to point out when people are being righteous or closed minded. If I don't have an agreement that we can, that we're going to commit to calling that out, then me calling that out to people isn't necessarily friendly. So when I'm co-committed with somebody else to giving and receiving feedback, when we think we're getting righteous, um,

Then I might say something like, hey, I really hear you. I hear you have that perspective. I'm just wondering on my own right now how that might not also might be true the other direction. So I demonstrate my own curiosity. And that's one gentle, simple way to do that. So I become the presence that I see missing over there in them that then often might get them to open up as well.

Another more direct way would be, I hear that. Could you argue, like, let's say your life depends on it. Could you argue the other side for a minute and see how, what we can learn over on that side of things? I really like to play, like, imagine there's a jury and you have to argue the other side. Sometimes with teams, there'll be, well, it's pretty, it's pretty common that when there's a big choice to be made, teams often divide almost right down the middle.

which is, I think, a law of nature that polarity forms. And half the team says this way and half the team says this. And so one of my favorite exercises is put a piece of tape down in the middle of the room. And I say, first, argue for your side first, the side that you really and really go at it. Let's debate. And then I have them move and physically move their bodies to the other side. And I say, now you have to argue from the side that you're on.

And that works so well. And so, you know, that's a gift we can give each other is, okay, go argue from the other side. One of my favorite quotes from Charlie Munger is that he says, I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don't know the other side's argument better than they do. It's beautiful. And I think of that often because to me, it's the work required to have an opinion. Yeah. Yeah.

Like we all have opinions, but have you done the work? Have you done the homework? Have you done, have you earned it? And,

And that's where we get into this sort of notion that we talked about earlier, whereas everybody wants a voice, but not all those voices need to be equal because not everybody's given equal consideration and brought equal judgment to those opinions. Yeah. Especially these days, because we're getting more and more polarized in our opinions. And so it's like, you've got to, if you're going to, and I work with a lot of activists and I say, if you have an opinion that you think you're right about, and you're going to go in and try to,

And from that righteous opinion, make any change. Good luck. It's a setup. It's a setup. You're just part of the issue now. You're going to keep it going. And even when we were able, you know, I think that the days of us like browbeating people over the head with the newspaper to get them to do stuff is sort of like long gone. But even when that worked, it didn't really work like it worked in the moment. But what you really did was you made invisible.

Right. This resentment that I have that becomes like this negatively coiled spring that is going to come out one day in it. You know, it might be three months from now. It might be six months from now, but it will come out because the story that I've told myself of it.

about that is one where I'm the victim and I need to extract some sort of vengeance, if you will. Yeah, I say all we did was just move the deck chairs around on the Titanic. And so we make ourselves believe we've done something different, but we're still sinking here.

And not going to any place new. And I guess I think that's the thing I most want to like scream from the rooftops is from my vantage point, it's like we're not doing anything new most of the time here. We think we are, but there's it's just still the same. It's just now we switch roles and nobody seems to see that. You know, can we just wake up to that?

Uh, so, you know, it just requires us to drop down much deeper into something else. That's, that's more interesting. That's, that's more vulnerable, which usually comes down to something like I'm scared. Me too. I don't know how to do this. Me neither. Okay. That's a good starting point. I like that. A final question. I'm conscious of time here. Uh, how do you define success?

I think for me, it's that one, what I'm doing has meaning to me such that when I'm on my deathbed, I will say I'm really grateful that that's how I use my time. You know, that I was, that I was a contribution to others and that, and that I enjoyed myself, that it was fun, that I felt that like time and space went away when I did it because I was so in the moment, you know,

giving my gifts. That to me is success. It's like this hum, the hum that I, I feel inside and a, and a, like a looking around and seeing that was valuable. That was helpful to others.

I love that. And I love the fact that you tied that to how you feel in your body. Thank you so much for an amazing conversation. You are so welcome. I'm glad to be with you. And thank you for this opportunity. I'm really grateful. Thank you so much. The Knowledge Project is produced by the team at Farnham Street. I'd love to get your advice on how to make this the most valuable podcast you listen to. Email me at shane at fs.blog.

You can learn more about the show and find past episodes at fs.blog slash podcast. Can you do me a small favor? Go online right now and share this episode with one friend who you think would love it. Thanks for listening and learning with us. Till next time.