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The Owner's Room: When You Trust Yourself Enough to Be Quiet · Integrity at Scale™

• Alright, y'all, we are going to talk quiet today, which probably seems absurd because I'm not one known to be quiet, but we're still gonna talk about it. So there is, you know, there's moments in leadership, I think there's moments in ownership where the noise inside of you just gets quiet and this isn't because you are checked out and it's not necessarily because you're over it all, or you are disengaged or you've given up. It's really because you feel grounded, like there's no need to argue with yourself. The decisions that you've made internally feel aligned, they feel accurate, and you're left with a sense of clarity, and you just don't feel the same pull to explain or justify or qualify or narrate your choices to your team. That's what we're getting into. I am Dr. Tara Vossenkemper, and you were listening to the Culture Focused Practice podcast. Hooray. Thank you for being here with me. This is an owner's room episode, one of my favorite styles of episodes. Actually, I don't know if that's true anymore because I really love doing the VI segments with Taylor. So, one of my favorite styles, but not necessarily my absolute favorite at this point. The owner's room is all about exploration. It's just about asking a series of questions related to the topic at hand and then answering them in real time. So I don't prep these questions in advance, and by that I mean to say I don't look at them and script out my answers. I don't know where this is going to go. So I'm going to just get it going. Let's do it. Question number one. How do you know when you've actually trusted yourself? Not just told yourself you should. I mean, I don't know about you, but I know because it feels different in my body. Like my whole entire physical system is on board. It's not me in my brain telling myself like, this is probably the thing I should do, or this is probably dot, dot dot. And then my gut's like, I don't know, bitch. Like, you need to, you need to just chill. Like, I don't actually, uh, you know, making all those like hesitation sounds, it's not any of that. It's just clarity. It feels like looking through a fucking crystal clear window. I mean, it's just, it, it's just true in every aspect of my being. So my brain is clear. There's not a bunch of residual questions. There's not loud player parts at my table. There's not loud parts of me that are historical. Like I will say, I have a little butters part, like butters from South Park, you know, a little butters part who like, ah, yeah, but baby, you know, with those little hands that are always like touching each other. I have a butters part when that part is not loud, when I'm not screaming into a void. When the part of me that screams into a void, when that's not loud, um, there's a sense of like, everybody at the table is they're content. Like everyone's good. So my brain is on board and maybe there's clarity about whatever the thing is. It's values aligned, which it's hard to make a decision that isn't values aligned because they're my values. So of course I'm gonna do things in alignment with them, you know? I have maybe argued with other people about it, and by argue, that's not the right language debated, you know, I've debated about something, I have checked in with my gut. I've checked in with, am I gonna be resentful about this? Is this gonna push a boundary for myself later down the road? I'm gonna be mad that I did it. Is the, you know, so there's like an internal, um, assessment, you know, where I am trying to stay tuned in with myself. And if all of those markers are indicating you're good, then I'm good. And that's the trust piece, for me that's the trust piece. So let's flip and say, you know, how do you know when you've actually trusted yourself, not just told yourself you should? I know that when I talk myself into something. I always feel resistance. I think most of us, like we talk about gut instincts I think there's something to be said for like pattern recognition in life and let's say intuition, but I think intuition is really like pattern recognition, you know, and, uh, subtly at times. I think that that then connects, for me, that connects to my gut. Like there's something about a. I trust my gut. If it, if it feels off, if I'm like excited where I'm like, oh my God, that like, that seems like an awesome idea. And my gut gives me pause where my gut's sort of like, mm, you know, just like side-eye me a little bit and sort of like questions like, ah, know, like I don't feel settled. That's like how I know that I'm off is my gut actually is not okay and my brain is trying to talk my gut into being okay, but they're not in alignment. I think that that is answering the question. Let me just one more time. How do you know when you've actually trusted yourself? Not just told yourself you should. Yeah, it's gonna be, I mean, I guess the very, you know, succinct answer, the, the most parsimonious answer would be my gut and my brain are in alignment. Boom. Like, that would actually be it. You know, I'm not one for parsimony though, so you got a longer answer. But that would be the short version. But hang on actually now I'm interested. I, I'm, I'm curious what this is like for other people. Like if you don't trust your gut and your brain together, what do you primarily rely on? And it actually makes me wonder if what you rely on is tied in with things like temperament, with things like attachment style, with things like trauma, with things like current level of life stressors. Like what also influences the thing that you rely on in terms of like trusting yourself. So I don't have an answer, I'm just, I'm realizing I'm curious about that. Okay, now I will move on. Question two, who are you most likely to explain yourself to and why them? Ooh, that's a super good question. Um, okay. Well, I will say this has changed over the years and who am I most likely to explain myself to and why them. I think early on I was most likely to try to explain myself to all of my clinicians because it was just me and then it was them, you know? And also probably as I think back on it, I was a less healthy version of myself at that point. And so I think I also fell into the habit of explaining myself to people who were probably activating in some kind of like key ways, you know? So that would've been a long time ago. And let's say like a year and a half ago, who, two years ago maybe, who was I most likely to explain myself to at that point? Probably leadership. And doing it in a way where I am not seeking approval. I don't think that's the right language, but where I'm like anxious about sharing things with them. I will and I do because I can't keep some things like, you know, I just, transparency is a value, but it's also just a need that I have. Like, not quite compulsion, but like, I, I need you to know this thing if we're doing this together, you know? So I think that, let's say two years ago, just on average, you know that Mark, maybe before, maybe a little bit after. I think that I also felt a need to like explain why I wanted to do things and I wanted to make sure to answer any questions they had and I wanted them to be really on board and there was something in it that was not me coming from a place of groundedness and let's just say confidence and power, but I don't mean in like a power dominant sort of way. I mean from like an internal, like a source, you know, internal source having power coming from within sort of way. I will say what's really interesting is that my integrator, Taylor is one who pushes back on this, where she has said, I can hear her say stuff like, you don't need to like justify this, or it's, it's your business, like, you don't, you're not, you don't need to justify, you don't need to explain yourself to me. And so I think there's something about needing to make sure that leadership knows things. At that point in time it was more justification, but like at this point it's more, I need people to, by people, I mean leadership specifically, I need them to know what I have in mind or what I'm planning and I want them to know why. But it feels less like I, it feels less like it's coming from a, like I need to, I need to explain, you know, it feels less like it's coming from this anxious place and more like it's coming from this, here's the future for Tara. And what does that mean for Tara as visionary at the practice? And what does that mean for you both now? And so it feels more like a, my behavior trickles down to leadership and thus to the rest of the team. But like primarily it trickles down to leadership. So you all need to know what's happening. But it doesn't feel as anxious anymore. That is like the main probably distinction. So I think initially I felt a need to explain myself to justify my moves and behaviors and decisions to everybody. And then it shifted to like doing that with just leadership. And then it has shifted to, man, it's, it's, if it happens, it's rare. At this point, I don't, I don't really feel that need anymore, which is relieving honestly. I mean, it's nice to not feel this sort of like need to qualify the moves that I'm making or the decisions I'm making. I will also say I think that it's because of having Taylor as my integrator and then having Molly come on as the director of clinical ops. Having the right people in those seats has been a huge, maybe like pivotal piece to me, not feeling the need to justify things. And then probably within the past year, again, there's been some really big sort of internal changes on my end. A lot of, um, just big shifts. A lot of, for me, I don't know what it looks like externally, but internally they feel like kind of significant evolutions. I think those were, let's say, my own to own, but also the eventual outcome of getting pushback about needing to qualify things from my leadership team. So it's like they're pushing back on this. I'm realizing like, oh, okay. And then somehow, you know, within the past year, again, I've had some major internal shifts that have just furthered me down this path. Taylor pushing back and saying like, you don't need to justify things to me, Tara. And maybe not directly that, but again, I'm something along those lines. I can hear her voice saying something like that. That was like the start of this. I didn't know that this was even a path and like shifting and starting to say like, oh my God, what? Like, that's a whole ass avenue over there I could take. Of course it entailed like some like emotional, um, development, some like internal development, but also the fact that the path became available was a function of having the right people there. So, Ooh, that's a very long-winded answer. I'm gonna move on. Question three, what becomes possible. This is an interesting question. What becomes possible when you let your decisions stand without commentary? Mm. I don't know how I feel about this question, actually. So I think I have a few thoughts about this. What are my thoughts? What are my thoughts, Tara? First, my thought is that what, like to give context and rationale to what I have decided to do, whether I am doing it from an anxious place or not. Even now, if we do something I want to explain, I wanna explain and let, it feels important to say like, not from an anxiety fueled place, but from a, let me just, we're gonna be transparent about how we do decisions and why this decision has come to pass. That explanation, it feels more grounded rather than, um, gravelly or like beseeching, you know? So to let my decision stand without commentary to me is not letting the decision stand without explaining the rationale for that decision to the people who are affected by it. Second, I think that, um, it's funny to say what becomes possible because it, I, I guess ultimately it just seems like it frees up more space like, um, emotional, energetic, cognitive space. If I'm spending less time worried about what everybody else is going to think or say, or how they might respond, or what they might feel or what the fuck ever, you know, the less time I spend doing that, the more time I have just to make other decisions, process other things, grapple with projects, grapple with concepts. I just have more space and time readily available that's not then sort of like muddied or, um, tainted by this background, anxiety ridden noise regarding what does my team think? How are they feeling? What about this decision? Like when that's quiet, it just allows me to focus more on what really feels important to the role that I'm in, the things that feel important to the role that I'm in. And I think maybe the third piece, so what becomes possible when you let your decision stand without commentary? I think some like byproducts of this are that you have a higher trust and higher ownership based environment. So if I say to people, like, Hey, this is what we're doing. This is why we're doing it. Just as an FYI, maybe I say give your, send your questions to Taylor. Or maybe I say, Hey, just reply to me directly. If you have anything, let me know what's up. Or if it's at a meeting, you know, I'm gonna open the floor for questions. Something like that. When I'm doing that and I'm not spending a much of time like justifying or explaining or, you know, coming at this from an anxiety, again, like this anxiety fueled place of like, well, we did it because of this and we hope it's okay. And, you know, all of that I love, I love myself, but like that is shit I would do. So let's say like that's set to the side, again, I am basically saying, here's what we've done, here's why we did it. Boom. Like this is it. If you have questions, let me know. If you have feedback, you know, let us know. That to me is the trust piece. Like this is now out here. If you have feedback or questions, I trust that you're gonna speak up about them. So there's ownership on your part about whatever might be going on in response to the thing that was decided. And then there's trust kind of being thrown out there. I'm casting this net and saying, I trust you to speak up. Like I, I want to hear from you. Trust me when I say that. And I, I really love, I do love hearing from my team. And also I am saying that I'm trusting you to actually speak up when you have questions or need more clarity. Or maybe just say like, fuck, I don't like this. Like I, I need to like, talk out loud about, uh, this decision a little bit. I think that's it for this question. Honestly, I don't, I don't know if I have much more to add there. It's, it's relieving that's maybe the last piece is like, it's relieving not to have all the noise. Um, yeah. That's like a big hmm outcome side effect something, I don't know what the right word is, but that's a big something that has happened as a result, and it's one of those things that it, it's hard to, you know, like I talked about brain and body being in sync or like my brain and my gut being in sync. That's one of those, like cognitively I could have understood it before it happened, but I would not have had an embodied sense, like my, my gut sort of didn't know what it felt like and it's relieving, it's like quiet space is really what it is. It's quiet relief, peaceful, grounded, et cetera. So. Moving on question four. Oh, speaking of emotional energy, what does it cost you energetically or emotionally to keep translating yourself for others? Look, I'm gonna be real fucking honest with you. This is my whole life is how this feels like. Um, gosh. I kind of perpetually feel like I have to contain myself when I engage with other people. For any number of reasons, honestly, whether or not, like my brain works kind of fast, um, I feel, I say I, I feel like I kind of bob and weave when I talk. Like I might start here, but then I'm like sidestepping here and then I'm going back here, but then I'm like leaping back over here. And then, so I like the way that I talk, I think is, um, cannot be contained except where I try to contain it. But the way that I talk is, is it feels, uh, I'm not sure how it feels to others. I think it can feel overwhelming to others, but for me it's like I'm, I'm sort of dancing around this entire thing and then I'm coming back to whatever the point might be, and that's how I get my full view of something, you know? Um, emotionally I feel big. I feel things big. I love feelings. I feel them big. I'm comfortable in them. So I think also that I like to not only like cognitively, um, like dance around and grapple with things. But as I do that, there's like an equal emotional grappling that's happening and I, I have found that most people, like one or the other, I don't, I don't like, I don't meet a lot of people who really like both. And so I'm saying this to say my whole life kind of feels like containment, self containment and like translating or like, you know, if I'm, I have like five, five valves open, I can only like let something come through one or two and what does it cost me? I don't even know. It's just kind of constant, like there's a constant sort of, um hmm attempting to be aware of my impact on others and then modifying what I'm doing based on how they are responding. That is sort of embedded in how I exist. So you all, I, I think if you've listened to me talk at all, you know, I talk about feedback being really valuable. This is a huge factor in why feedback is valuable because I am immediately using feedback in real time, but also like kind of bigger picture to inform how I'm showing up because I, I don't wanna show up in a way that is so like overwhelming or, you know, I can be a fucking bulldog, I can be a steamroller, like all of those things. Emotionally, I can be too much cognitively, I can be too much. Like, I don't wanna be too much to the extent that somebody either feels thrust off a cliff with no parachute or they feel steamrolled. And so the feedback piece is a, it's a constant source of echolocation. That's really how it feels. What does it cost me to keep translating myself for others? I don't know. Like I said, I feel like it's kind of ingrained in me at this point. To me, the alternative is worse, not being able to translate myself and then people shut down or they feel steamrolled. That is way worse than me having to figure out in what ways I need to contain myself within a conversation that I might be having with somebody. Ooh. So there's that. What I also will say, if I'm taking this like in an entirely separate direction, and it's, I was just talking to my integrator about this. We just recorded an episode two, and this was one of the things from the episode was, um, kind of talking about this, gosh, grappling with the concept and then having to translate that concept into, uh, written form. Fucking exhausting. That is super hard to do. Maybe it's hard for everybody. It's, I'm in that same camp. It's, that's really, really difficult for me to do. And I don't especially enjoy doing it. It's like a slow process. It's, I have it in my head, like, I just wanna plucked out, like matrix style, just, you know, download this from my head, upload it there. Thanks. Done. So that, like, that sort of specific translation from concept to like written form. Geez, man, that is, um, I say a high cost, it's also high reward in terms of once I can do that, then I can appropriately, you know, um, pass ownership. I can give it to somebody else and they can run with it. So it's like a way of seeing things brought to life that removes me from it. But that initial translation. It's costly. Internally. It's really costly. Again, high reward, which is why it takes place. If there was no reward for it, no fucking way would I spend my time doing that ever at all. Okay, I'm gonna keep going 'cause I think I answered question four enough. Question five. How do you sit with the discomfort of letting others have their own interpretations? Oh, I hate this question. I hate this question. I don't do this well, I don't do this well at all. Um, gosh. How do you sit with the discomfort of letting others have their own interpretations? Sometimes I do it with anger, sometimes I do it with, hmm, feeling slightly triggered. Sometimes I do it with support, like social support, maybe in the way of leadership or in the way of, even if I like talk with my husband about it, sort of process this with him or sometimes with other practice owners, group practice owners. Sometimes I do this via attempting to understand other people. So I might like pull up Hexaco scores and look and see, okay, well if I'm coming across this way based on just kind of temperament stuff, how might this have landed? Why might their interpretation have been this instead of that? What I actively try not to do is attack somebody's character or, um, I am not gonna say something like, they're just lazy. They just don't care. They just, they just don't wanna understand. They just, you know, that to me is a cop out. That's a cop out answer. Um, that's not fair. And it, it removes any other, like, possibilities to be true. It just writes off a person. And if I do that, then I'm not assessing anything else. Sometimes I also like sitting with that discomfort piece of letting others have their own interpretations. Um, sometimes I'll do it via assessing how I delivered information. And so what did I say? What did I emphasize? How did it land? What was clear, what was unclear? I'm basically trying to figure out how did that happen? Like how did it happen that their interpretation was z and my presentation was supposed to be A, B, C? Like, what the fuck? You know, especially when there's really big differences. Sometimes I try to understand the other person, not just from a temperament based perspective, but also like what's going on in their own, in their life, in, in their own life. You know, is there something heavy that they're sitting with? It's hard for them to be fully present. My attempt, again, is not to dismiss the person. It's not to, it's not to do that. It's just to seek to understand like what could have created this difference in, uh, intention and interpretation. What I will also say sometimes, especially if this happens consistently, it might be that it's not the right person for your group. So if I'm consistently presenting information in myriad ways, as many ways as possible, and slash or with as much clarity, I've checked with others, I've processed, I've done this. Nobody else seems to have misunderstanding, you know, about what I'm saying. And like, their interpretation of it is relatively accurate. It might be a people related issue and like a right person for the group related to culture, maybe related to the role. But I'm not gonna jump there immediately. Like that's not gonna be my first stop, uh, along the way. So I think that, how do I sit with the discomfort? Um, again, I say not well. Like I don't, I don't like that feeling. I don't like that experience. And I think anytime I probably, most times where I feel uncomfortable, I'm trying to like, uh, gosh, I don't wanna say solve the problem, but I am trying to figure out, well, what could have gone wrong here or what could have gone better? Because I don't like that discomfort and I can't control every aspect of, of how anybody interprets anything. But have I done my due diligence with regard to how I present information, what I'm saying, how I'm coming across? Have I done everything on my end that I can to be super clear? And that's honestly like the, the, uh, act of asking all of these questions and like turning over the stones. You know, like, okay, well is it this gonna be, this could be this. That's how, that's actually how I sit with the discomfort is I turn it into a, um, I don't wanna say problem to solve, but like I turn it into almost like a fact finding mission. Like, okay, what went wrong? Like, what went wrong? What could have gone differently? What did I miss? Maybe? And sometimes if it is temperament based, here's what I will say. The more that I learn about the people around me when something happens like this, and I have a sense for who they are, it kind of helps me understand how things might come across in the future. And so I think it's like not only informative for helping me alleviate some discomfort at the moment, but also I feel like I have an added layer of understanding about in the future when I go to do something, this might be the outcome. And if that is the case, this is probably why. And so it's like I'm creating a little bit of, um, sort of shorthand understanding of the people around me. Again, without attempting to be dismissive and without attempting to character assault or be contemptuous of them. Like I'm building up like a file system for this person in a way to seek to understand them better. So yeah, it's funny thinking about discomfort, I say I don't do it. Well, I don't, I hate when this happens. And I don't think I realized that until right now like talking out loud, my sitting with discomfort is actually me seeking to understand how I got to this place in the first place trying to solve it so that probably it, it doesn't happen as much in the future. You know. Okay. Final question. What shifts in your leadership when you stop managing reactions in advance? Oh gosh. Um, what shifts in your leadership when you stop managing reactions in advance? Okay. One point of clarity and then maybe a thought. I think there is being tuned in with the people around you to such an extent that you're trying to be mindful of how they might feel when you go to implement something or change something or make a decision or you know what have you. And then I think when that's left unchecked, and it's more in the camp of emotional caretaking, which is my own historical tendency, thank you very much, that is where we get into trying to manage reactions in advance of them actually happening. I have done that. I did have done a lot of emotional caretaking. It's very old song and dance, know it very well, feel it very acutely. And I still feel a sense of responsibility to be relatively tuned in with the emotional state, broadly speaking, of the people at the group. And when we go to implement something, I am going to speak to some probable feeling responses in advance. That to me is different. This feels like nuance and so it might come across like, well, that's emotional caretaking. Cool. I understand why you might think that, but it doesn't feel like it on the inside, it feels like y'all might have some feelings. I'm aware of this and I'm gonna quickly like process that or quickly address that. If it was more emotional caretaking, it would feel like an attempt to squelch the feelings and trying really hard to ensure that they didn't have them in advance of it happening. From this like, um, addressing things in advance, it's not attempting to manage their reaction. It's an attempt to let them know that I, like I see you, I see where you might be coming from. I understand if you feel this way, and then letting them have the reaction. It's fine if you feel this way, I'm just noting that it might happen, and if it does, it's okay. Conversely, again, like the managing reaction piece or the emotional care taking is what I would also say, is trying to make sure everybody feels better. That's different. To me, that is historically stuff that I would do. It is important to me how people feel at my practice, and I also know it's not entirely my responsibility how they feel. Like I'm gonna do everything I fucking can to ensure that the systems are good, are solid, are streamlined, are healthy, are robust, that we have internal tracks, that we have support in place that we. Try to work really hard to ensure that the culture is healthy and thriving. I'm doing all that I can. We're doing everything that we can in this regard. How people feel about things is kind of their own prerogative. Like, I don't mean that in a shitty way or like, fucking deal with it if you feel that way. I don't mean it like that. I mean it in the sense that, you know, you know as well as I do, you know, your feelings are your own and it's okay to have them. When people have feelings, we use it as data, but I don't see my role and, and I don't see my leadership team's roles as trying to stop the feelings from happening or making sure that everybody's like, really, really okay all the time. We don't do that. And if I used to, I don't do that anymore. And so the shifts in leadership when you stop managing reactions, which is not the same as, um, addressing something in advance of it happening, but stopping the emotional caretaking or trying to manage them entirely. I think there's a couple shifts. I think there's an internal shift where, um, initially it's uncomfortable to do that, to make that turn from managing reaction slash emotional caretaking to just voicing like, oh, you might feel this way. Okay, thank you for letting me know, or this might happen and it's okay. There's definitely a, like, for me, like a processing that had to take place and that it just had to take place. Like I had to go from one, you know, to the other. So there is an emotional shift that takes place. I think also once that settling occurs, like for me, um, emotions preface almost everything else. You know, they're basically core central and then things, um, are offshoot from there, so to speak. Once I feel settled emotionally about something, then the cognitive space happens, and so. It could have been that I changed my behavior and I stopped trying to manage emotions or manage reactions, and I stopped trying to emotionally caretake via behavioral changes. But that's like, yeah. I always think about like a dog that's really hyperfocused. You're like, lay down. You know, lay down. You need to relax, lay down, and it lays down. But it's like laying down. It's forcing its like chin on its paws, but its eyes are like hella alert and wide and sort of looking in every direction and any sound that it hears, it perks its head up real quick and looks around and turns quick and you see the whale eyes and you see the stressed face. Behaviorally, sure, that dog is laying down emotionally. That dog's fucking tense. That's the same for me. Like behaviorally, I could have stopped my emails, I could have stopped managing reactions, but the emotional tone would've been the exact same inside my body. Instead, it was the emotional tone shifted and settled. And then behaviorally, what shifted after is I stopped doing the thing. Like I'm not managing reactions anymore. I'm not qualifying shit the same way. I'm not emotionally caretaking like how I was. It gives me a clearer view of things. I feel like with that distance, some of the emotional distance, I'm gonna say healthy, emotional distance, not disengagement, 'cause that's not, gosh, not disengagement like indifference, but like a little bit of a, just more of a healthy emotional distance. I don't know how else to say this and I'm not gonna keep talking about the right way to say it. All of that helps me to be more present in a larger view sort of way. And to see things more clearly and also, quite frankly to make better decisions. Like it helps me make better, like more sustainable decisions that are not only people focused but also practice focused. I can't just make decisions for people. I'm also making decisions for the sustainability of the full group. So those are shifts in leadership when you stop, well, when I stop managing reactions in advance. And that is the final question. Alright, we're gonna shift now entirely to the scenario. A practice owner notices that she is speaking less in meetings, not because she's disengaged, but because the internal debate has already settled. She still cares deeply, still tracks the nuances, still carries the responsibility, but she no longer feels compelled to explain every decision or preempt every reaction. Some people on our team seem comfortable with this shift. Others fill the silence with questions or assumptions. She wonders whether she owes them more context, more reassurance, more narrative. At the same time, she feels a steadiness she hasn't felt before, like something inside her has finally stopped negotiating. She's not withholding, she's not testing anyone. She's simply leading from a place that no longer requires constant translation, and she's sitting with the discomfort of letting that be enough. Hmm. So I'll share just some random thoughts like as I'm reading through this, and then I'll also maybe talk through this as if I was working with this person. One is it almost doesn't seem like this is a problem, like that's my first reaction, which is like, this doesn't sound like anything. You know, obviously there's not anything wrong. Um, and that the practice owner seems fine with everything. She's leading from a place that no longer requires constant translation. It seems like she's comfy sitting with the discomfort of letting that be enough. So maybe here is actually the, the thing she wonders whether she owes them more context, more reassurance, more narrative. And at the same time, she feels a steady, feels a steadiness that she hasn't felt before. Mm. I don't necessarily think that she owes anybody more context, reassurance, or narrative, but, or maybe, and I do think there's something about clarifying what has changed within her. That feels important to me. So her shifting and not really sharing like what has changed internally or how she's feeling differently, or how she's leading differently. Not that she necessarily owes it to the people around her, but this for me is where it's like, I, I, my tendency is to just be transparent about something like this. Like if there's something changing within me. The people around me are going to notice, and instead of them feeling like unclear, unsure, like they, they see something, but they can't really tell, I know that I'm changing. I know that something's happening. Why would I not just voice this to the people around me? I think there's something about modeling that transparency that's healthy. I also think that that could be one of the things that people perceive as vulnerable. Like if you can talk about the state that you're currently in without necessarily collapsing internally or like, oh God, please help me regulate. You know, like putting it all on the people around you or, um, maybe like then distancing right after and being really aloof. I think that people perceive it as vulnerable. Whether or not it feels vulnerable internally is kind of tit per tit, you know, to, to be Dwight. It's, it's like, it's up to you. Like, I don't know if it feels vulnerable for you or not. There are things that I do that people will say are vulnerable, but they don't feel vulnerable for me, it just feels like I'm fucking talking. You know? It's like, it's a bunch of nothing. Like, oh, uh, I, I guess like I'm, this is comfortable to share, like I don't feel a sense of vulnerability. There are some things I feel vulnerable about and I might share, like I feel weirdly vulnerable about this. Um, that doesn't always translate to people's perception, which I think is so interesting. And so I think it's less about, um, you need to make sure you feel vulnerable doing this, you know, and more about why would you not just say, Hey. I'm here. I'm, I'm with y'all. I'm tracking the nuance. I care very deeply about you and the state of the practice, and I feel significantly more settled and grounded internally to such an extent that when I make a decision or when we're talking about something, I'm not waffling and I don't feel compelled to provide reassurance in advance of you maybe voicing discomfort. I don't feel compelled to qualify what it is that I'm thinking or how it is that I'm feeling. I don't feel compelled to provide a fuck ton of context unless you ask for it. So if you're needing something more, ask for what you need directly. And I can speak to it, but I will not be showing up in the way that I have been. Maybe it's just that, like, maybe just saying something to that effect, and even that potentially, like you're listening and you're like, Tara, that's like reassurance, you know, you're, you're offering reassurance. I maybe like, um, I, I guess I, I guess I could be. My thought is I, I think I just have a core assumption as a leader that I should be transparent to a certain extent with my team. That feels fair to me. It feels like if I'm doing something that's impacting all of the people around me, I do owe them some explanation about what is happening. I don't owe them justification. I don't need to explain all of the context unless I want to. I don't need to reassure them constantly that everything's okay. It's okay. We're good. I'm okay. I don't need to do any of that. But they're in this, like, if they're bought into this with me, fuck yeah. I owe them, I owe them a, an explanation. I do feel like that, and again, I'm not saying explanation that needs to be a, a bunch of qualifying statements or you groveling or being anxiety filled or any of those things, but I, I just, I think, I feel very strongly that people are in this with you and it only feels maybe right. Or like just, or something like, it feels fair to me. And I think I'm really sensitive to fairness. I don't, I don't know if that's, my son is the same way and I see it in him and I'm like, oh, I get that. I get it. My husband's like, I don't, I don't really get it. And I'm like, uh, yeah, duh. It's fair. You know? So I think that I might be sensitive to, like, to fairness across the board. I want to do right by my people. And if they are like unsure and questioning and they're, you know, um, maybe again, some people on the team seem comfortable with the shift and others feel the silence with questions or assumptions. I'm just gonna fucking voice what's happening. I'm just gonna say, yep, things have changed within me. Things are not the same. Every fucking time I say something has changed within me, that's the next line that comes into my head. And then I might like explain a little bit. Not to justify, not to qualify, just to share with them what's happening. And then that could be it. If they continue to have questions at some point, I'm gonna say, I really, really value you. I really can understand that you're feeling unsure about this. I have answered all of the questions that I feel comfortable answering, and I don't really have anything more to add. So I think what needs to happen is that you're going to have to be in this with me to get a feel for if it's safe and comfortable and trustworthy for you. And then that's it. Like at some point you can also back out and say, oh yeah, no, I'm not gonna keep answering questions. I'm good. And then put it back on the person to say, looks like we're gonna have to live this out together for you to be able to get a sense for if you wanna do it or not anymore. And not as a, not as a threat, you know, not, I don't mean that as a threat at all. I mean, sincerely, like to have a lived experience and feel like, uh, you know, get a feel for if this is the right place still with the leadership in the way that I am showing up as a leader. The only other thought that I have is this feels like the, um, alignment versus like, habit habitual behaviors. What I will say is, I have felt a leveling up in my own leadership and like evolution as a person. And I'm, we don't need to talk about why, but let's just say within the past year, I've really noticed, you know, and I've let go of a lot of shit over the past few months in particular. And something that has happened and not loudly, but something that will happen sometimes is I will feel totally fine with something like, oh yeah, no, this thing is done. Or, oh yeah, we need to do that thing. And it just is really clear. My gut and my brain are on the same page. Everybody's fucking honky dory, you know? And then. I have this little tiny voice and she's like, Hey Tara. And I'm like, yeah, I hear you back there. She basically says, you used to always give context. Maybe you should give more. Maybe you should give more reassurance. Are you sure that's enough narrative? She basically starts to like ask, Hey, is that enough? Are you sure? Do you really wanna stop there? But it almost feels like force of habit than it does from my own grounded state. And so that is something that of course, it's like a fucking duh that's gonna happen, you know? But that's something that I've realized like, oh, I'm kind of contending with this lately. I hear this voice and it's almost like this, almost like she's, she's coming from this sense of a state of like obligation or should you, and maybe a little bit of anxiety, but it mostly feels like like obligations and shoulds, you know, and not, like, not anything, you know, related to me feeling grounded. I probably sound like I'm nuts sometimes where I'm like, my body and my brain and they're all talking and there's this part and there's an internal table. It's just the way my brain works y'all. Gonna have to deal with it or don't, you don't have to fucking listen. If you don't deal with it, you have to. No, you don't. You can do what you want. That's funny. Um, I think that's it. I think that really is it for the day. I hope that this is, I always hope that this is helpful. I really value time. And so it means a lot that you spend some with me. So I wanna say thank you for being here with me. I wanna say, make sure you subscribe to the podcast so that you get new episode notifications, and also it just makes it easier to find and listen to old episodes. And share this episode with someone who you think needs it. That's always my biggest ask. Give this to somebody else who you think might benefit from the message. Second thing. Everything I'm doing now is through my email list. you have to get on the list because that's the only place you're gonna hear about anything. So that link is gonna be in the show notes, if you wanna join. Boom, baby. That's it. Thank you again for being here with me and I will see you on the next episode. Okay, bye