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The Awareness Gap · Fierce Encouragement

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, this is Mark, and this is Fierce Encouragement.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to do a quick podcast today and talk about some things that I've seen in my career and in my life.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: But before I get into it, I just wanted to say I created this podcast because I really struggled with, well, self-confidence and seeing myself in a positive way.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And even though I might have had some of those things externally that made me seem successful inside, I often struggled with sour self-talk and just feeling lost in life.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: I like to share tools and methods and stories here to help encourage you to fiercely encourage yourself so that you can feel more balanced in your mind and in your body.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for joining me.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think most leaders are ignorant.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're avoidant, and they're disengaged with what is really, really going on, especially from their teams and the people in their teams.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe even more profoundly, they're disconnected from themselves.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this challenge and this observation doesn't come from nowhere.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: It comes from hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of conversation with leaders, leading teams, checking in with people one-on-one, and running workshops and having the opportunity to connect with other coaches and coaches and therapists.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: We are avoidant.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: I should say I've been avoidant, and I've been ignorant about what is really challenging me so often.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: From a career and a work standpoint, well, things are different now.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: We have remote work, we have a return to office policies going on, we have tech people that are spread all over the globe.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: We have companies demanding people come back trying to reorganize and kind of fit that square peg back into that round hole.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And often I'll hear the things from companies and leaders and HR people I've had the opportunity to connect with that, well, in private, they'll say it outwardly, hey, we're building up culture.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And again, they talk about culture, maybe in front of the company or the leaders or the executives.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: They might even talk about teamwork activities and how can we get closer and how can we really enjoy each other's work and company encourage each other?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: They might even, you might have heard, hey, let's treat each other as family.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: This company is like one big family.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: They might even, you might even hear that, hey, we're changing hearts and minds here.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll be honest, I think it's mostly bullshit.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: What's the real dysfunction here?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: What's the what's really going on?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And again, when I meet with leaders one-on-one, they know that 90% of it is bullshit.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember from my last corporate position.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: When people say out loud that they're really struggling or they're disengaged, or they just aren't plugged in to what the team is doing or what the company's mission is.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, what happened the last time someone on your team said, I'm struggling, I'm not plugged in, I don't really care.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: What happens when they say that out loud?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Fact is, most people don't because it's not safe.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: There is no psychological safety in teams and places I've worked at and many of the managers and leaders I've gotten to talk to.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: We might say it, we might want to believe it.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: But saying I'm struggling out loud is really risky for your career.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Again, we might have those mission statements.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: They might be on the presentation, they might have those culture decks and the one-pagers for what we're driving towards and how we're impacting clients.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I've even been involved in some team building days virtually and doing, you know, gamifying how we can really feel connected with each other.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I talked to a senior leader today who said, you know what?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: All of that's bull crap.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: All of it's just kind of farting in the wind.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Those team building days are more often than not wasted.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And none of it really touches the deep actual dysfunction or misalignment that's happening on Teams.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And nobody wants to say it out loud.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you're listening this far into my podcast, well, you're either pissed off at what I'm sharing or you're nodding along.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: When we think that that vulnerability, that feeling psychological safety enough to share what we can can be learned in one workshop once a year, or even in just a team building online event.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: But we do that in one weekend, or we do that for an hour once or twice a year.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: But then we actually punish the people the other 51 weeks out of the year.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: We remove the people that are open, we remove the people that are brave and honest.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: We we get rid of the people that point and say, hey, the emperor has no clothes.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen it again and again.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: I've felt it myself.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now I want to be clear about this.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's one thing to be brave and honest and share with a sense of vulnerability in order to work and grow closer in that way.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's another to stay in a pessimistic mood and constantly criticize and degrade and hate.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think we probably, most of us, maybe I could ask people to raise their hands.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, most of us have probably occupied each of those areas.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, as somebody who's high on the virtue scale for bravery and honesty, I know I've fallen into a pessimism, pessimism and hopelessness, more often than not, when you get caught in the place where there feels like there is no progress and it feels like no one is listening.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: But I think there's something deeper at work here.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really pointed back at the leadership and at the way we lead ourselves and the way we talk to ourselves, because I think it's an awareness problem, not just the communication problem.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot be honest about something you haven't noticed in your own self first.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy to criticize and complain and point at others when we haven't first sat down and looked at ourselves.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: As the old saying goes, when you're pointing at somebody, there's three fingers pointing back.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: In so many ways, when leaders use uh performance reviews and anything like that to critique and see how employees are doing or how teams are doing, they're really avoiding their own inner state.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but those performance reviews, those write-ups, and again, it's not to say that some of them are not working, because I'm sure there are some out there that do, and some people do it correctly with attitude of growth.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: But nine times out of ten, those leaders are looking to shame and blame and push off the responsibility of their own.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: I believe more often than not, the leaders who struggle and shame and blame, they're avoiding their own inner lack of awareness.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then their teams pick up that habit and they start to avoid their inner awareness as well.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: But this all starts at the top.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Or you could say it all starts with the person with the microphone.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Awareness feeds honesty.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Honesty imbibes more trust in a team and in an organization.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And really, trust is the thing that every one of these cultures, every one of these uh mission statements want to claim is theirs.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Just because you put it on a poster, just because you send out a deck, just because you create a culture presentation that doesn't encourage and build trust.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Trust is the very thing that so many of these organ organizations need.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is a place for a personal reflection because I was one of those leaders.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: I was training people and getting in front of rooms and sharing ways to work with software and systems while at the same time I was hiding from myself and in a sense quietly falling apart from the inside.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: I thought once I had a certain role and a certain salary and I met my goal, that I was there.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: But the fact is, just because you have a role or a salary or a position, we can become even become even more nervous when that's at stake.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: We live with even less trust of ourselves.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: We don't see what's going on inside of us.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: And behind maybe some of the numbing out behavior is a really loud voice of panic and feeling lost, needing to keep up and keep up appearances, prove your value.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: And there really was no framework or method that fixed it for myself until I learned, well, until I learned to slow down and pause and find a group of people that could actually give me that space, and it actually helped me notice it in myself, what was going on.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, it's still a work in progress or whip, as they say.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I'll ask you, when is the last time you noticed your body tensing up before one of those hard meanings or one of those crucial conversations?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And did you say it out loud to anyone?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Did you share that with anyone?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Really, most haven't.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: You're not alone.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I would say 10 out of 10 people that I've talked to in the past few years don't share this with their leads, with their team.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is the real gap.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it's sad.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's also exciting because this gap is where we can build up an authentic culture, one of psychological safety and flourishing, and people feeling really committed and plugged into their work.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it isn't a skills gap, per se, not another certification or another book or another course.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's an awareness gap.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: I've built something to address just this.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it is for people who are leaders, especially those who are really sick and tired of pretending that the culture talk is working, that that is enough.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's something I only offer three or four times a year.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: But depending on when you're listening to this, I am doing the eight weeks, a small group, a real practice, authentic presence, and really helping leaders tune in to what awareness is and what it looks like in their founding for founders, in their business building, at home, and even with themselves at a deep level.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: So check out the link in the show notes if you're interested in checking out the awareness lab and joining us.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's only 10 seats in it, and I believe three have gotten taken up in the last week.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: So seven are left, but I'd love to talk to you about it.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're really motivated, check out the link, and I'd love to hear from you.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And before you go, I'd love just to share a quick tool that I call the pause that matters.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I got to present to an IT organization this past year.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: How when we find ourselves in those moments when there's too many tickets in our inbox, when we're being yelled at by leaders on delivery, and when we're waiting for deliverables from other teams or vendors.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: It is overwhelming.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: But in order to bring forth the best and what we can offer to those people, we cannot do it from a place of rushing and hyperproductivity.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: We want to get out of that limbic system or that fight or flight or freeze inner brain.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And we want to get into that higher part of our mind, that creative part of our mind that can adjust and move and think instead of get caught in a reflexive response.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: So we do that by slowing down and practicing the pause.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: We breathe in slowly, down deep into our belly, holding it for account.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: And as we let go of the breath, we slow that down and make it longer than our outbreath.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, than our in breath.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Practice one more of those with me.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: A long, slow in breath.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: That pause.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then making that out breath nice and quiet and slow.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is the pause that truly matters.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a gift you can give yourself.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd love to share more of this with you if you're interested in the awareness lab.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, I want to thank you for tuning in to Fierce Encouragement.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: This stuff really matters.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I know I talk to leaders, and sometimes they'll say they don't have time for this, they don't have the bandwidth for this right now.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: They're being pushed, push, push on product.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I challenge that and say, what if five minutes of pausing during the day made the other 99% of your day better?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Practice this.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Put it into play.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: If you get nothing else out of this podcast today, practice pausing a few times today.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's right before you walk in the house with the family or with your friends.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate you spending some time with me.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if I could ask you, share this podcast with somebody who might find it valuable and put that pause into their day, somebody who's struggling with anxiety, someone who's stuffing it down and just doing as best as they can, but behind the scenes or behind the curtain, they feel overwhelmed and the burnout is right on the edge.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for sharing.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you have a wonderful day, a wonderful night, wherever you're at.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll catch you next time on Fierce Encouragement.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Take care now.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Bye bye.