Latest / Hope + Possibilities: Trust, Leadership + Strategic Foresight / Self-Trust and Inner Practices

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Self-Trust and Inner Practices · Hope + Possibilities: Trust, Leadership + Strategic Foresight

• 0:17
  Find yourself in.
• 0:25
  I am the host of the Hope and Possibilities podcast.
• 0:28
  I'm Nola Simon, and thank you for joining me today.
• 0:31
  This topic is self-trust, so there's a lot of talk about how trust
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  itself is declining worldwide and people are in trust governments.
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  They're not trusting organizations, they're not trusting other
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  countries, politicians.
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  Religious leaders all that kinda stuff.
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  So there's a lot of ink being spilled about the fact that employers are
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  really the only people that, a lot of people trust, and even that's declining.
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  So the interesting thing about this is the company that actually issues
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  a lot of the trust reports that are referenced in these articles that
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  are written about trust is Edelman.
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  And one year I asked Edelman, who self-employed people trust, and they
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  blew me off because self-employed people are not their core audience.
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  So they sell to.
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  Organizations.
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  They sell to governments, they sell to business
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  and self-employed people, honestly, unless they really become successful and grow and
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  become organizations themselves that are well funded are the Edelman core business.
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  So they blew me off and told me that people who are
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  self-employed trust themselves, which you know that's true, but.
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  They also trust other people as well too, but who do they trust
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  and how does that work for them when they don't have an employer?
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  And their interactions with organizations look different than people who are
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  employed full-time and their income streams are different and their
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  version of stability is different.
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  So one of the things I wanted to talk about is actually self-trust.
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  So who do you trust?
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  And honestly, a lot of times that comes with self-trust.
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  Now that may sound easy, but honestly, self-trust can be challenging as well too.
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  Especially when you're self-employed and you don't actually have a lot of.
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  Role models who are working the same way that you do, who are
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  living the same way you do that are
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  maybe living out their values the same way you do.
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  And so it becomes challenging to have that self-trust and to continue that way
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  when you're getting a lot of noise from.
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  Every direction.
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  I don't know a single person who's being self-employed who hasn't had people say
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  to them, why don't you just go get a job?
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  It happens all the time.
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  Actually, one of the reasons I decided to pivot away from hybrid, remote and
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  look at leadership more closely as this core of my business is one day
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  my husband said to me, you could get a job and it would be work from home.
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  And that's the only thing that matters to you.
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  No.
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  Honestly, that's not the only thing that matters to me.
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  Having impact makes matters to me, having
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  my words, my point of view, respected, and action.
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  And working in a way where I'm actually.
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  Helping people create a future of work that's going to set
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  themselves up for success.
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  Set the people that they work up with, success, their families
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  and industries and society.
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  If you are really looking whole picture, that's really what I'm looking at.
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  The impact of what my work could be.
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  That's what's important to me, how I do that.
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  Will change.
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  So yeah, a lot of times I work from home, but it's not that I'm
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  opposed to working in person.
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  I've always actually preferred some version of hybrid where you're
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  meeting people in person because quite honestly, the skillset of people.
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  At all different levels of business and whatever you actually do for work differs
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  whether you can actually communicate effectively in person or remotely.
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  That really is a challenge.
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  And so a lot of times it's easier for me to meet in person with
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  people that I know they're.
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  Best method of communication is actually not remote, right?
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  And that's an example of self-trust.
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  Do I trust myself to understand the skillset that's involved both for me
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  and the person that I'm working with, and whether that's actually going to be
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  productive.
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  In a remote setting or an in-person setting or somewhere in between, right?
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  So that's a version of self-trust, but it's also how do you make an impact?
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  How do you support your family?
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  How do you do work that you feel is meaningful, that is fulfilling, that
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  is again, setting you up for success, both from a professional point of view,
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  but also from a personal point of view.
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  How do you trust yourself?
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  And a lot of times it comes down to what practices do you have in
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  place to help yourself do that?
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  So when the pandemic first started and I was feeling
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  uncertain, I started meditating.
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  And that was a gradual thing because quite honestly, I wasn't going anywhere anyway.
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  And my coach happened to be certified in meditation, and so she was sharing
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  a lot of her practices and it's why don't I try this and see what it is?
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  And from my approach for it, a lot of it is really just noticing how do you
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  notice what's going on in your body?
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  How do you notice what's going on in your environment?
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  What's going on in nature, in your neighborhood with your people.
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  There are lots of different ways to actually notice, right?
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  And a lot of it is internal.
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  How are you feeling?
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  Where do you feel fear?
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  Where do you feel excitement?
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  Where do you feel
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  uncertainty?
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  Where do you feel boredom?
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  What happens when you're bored?
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  What do you do?
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  What never changes?
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  What are you always interested in?
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  What captures your attention?
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  I am, historically, have always been.
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  Anything that glitters draws my eye I love sparkles on water.
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  I have a countertop that has sparkles on it.
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  And little glimmers like that just make me happy.
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  So the ankle of the sun, golden, things like that.
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  The way sun bounces off snow, the sparkles on snow, reflections, all
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  of that kind of stuff make me happy.
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  And it's always been like that.
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  When I walk into a library or a bookstore, I go to the mystery
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  section, I go to the thriller section, I go to the romance section.
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  Those are the areas that never really change in my life.
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  This is what I enjoy.
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  When I get up in the morning, I make coffee.
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  These are my habits, these are my rituals.
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  I take my dog for a walk.
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  What are the habits, the rituals that fuel you, that keep you feeling
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  grounded in your life, that help you feel that you trust yourself?
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  And even when you have.
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  A different event to go to.
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  What do you keep going?
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  So for example, when I travel, I know for a fact I can't really keep late hours.
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  I know for a fact I need to have access to water because water is really good
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  for me and I need to be able to swim.
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  I. Drink tea on the road.
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  I don't drink coffee.
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  I really need to pay attention to eating healthy and, fruit and vegetables and
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  not drinking alcohol, not doing things that are going to run me down and I
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  need to make sure that I'm feeling
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  safe and secure and supported.
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  So how do I change those for the days where I'm not actually gonna be at home?
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  And what does that look like?
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  All of those things help me trust myself.
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  And again, it can be extreme noticing as well too.
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  During the summer, I like to float in my pool.
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  I swim a lot.
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  I run a lot.
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  It's a small pool.
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  It's just 18 foot round and it's, I run around in circle a lot, but
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  sometimes I really just float.
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  And I remember one day I was really just watching when daylight became twilight.
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  And the change in the angle of the light and what changed and
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  how it felt when you could feel the light creeping away and more
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  dark and shadow was more apparent, and how that changed the water and
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  how that changed how my body felt.
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  A lot of it's really just extreme noticing, and so when you are.
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  Aware of your own reactions, you're aware of your own body, you're aware of
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  where things live in your body, what's normal, what's abnormal then you actually
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  start to pay attention to how other people make you feel as well too, right?
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  You can start to notice the stories that people tell themselves about
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  their work, about what's important to them, what their curiosities are.
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  What's true and what they wish would be true.
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  And you start paying attention in a different way, right?
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  And you can do this with people that you meet in person, but you can just
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  do it with friends and neighbors that you don't necessarily see all the time.
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  Family members, extended family, coworkers and then people that you
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  actually don't know online, right?
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  What are they showing you?
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  But what are they?
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  Careful never to show you, right?
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  And this becomes this focus of attention.
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  What are you noticing and what do you pay attention to on a regular basis?
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  And what are your blind spots?
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  And if you're starting to pay attention to all of that.
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  You are really forming a point of view.
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  You're forming a mindset.
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  You are developing your worldview, and it helps you
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  make decisions and move forward.
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  When there's uncertainty, there's instability, there's an
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  instability, and no one really has an understanding of what's going on.
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  So you can look at
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  what's changing, what's not changing, what has potential, what has possibilities,
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  and how it makes you feel both intellectually, but also in your body too.
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  And that connection between mind and body is really important.
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  So we think when we're talking about trust.
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  We really have to talk about self-trust.
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  So again, how does that show up in your life?
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  Yes, I meditate, I walk a lot.
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  I swim a lot.
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  I spend time with my family.
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  I like reading.
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  I like reading nonfiction books, but I also like reading fiction books.
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  Romance books I generally love, but I do not like romantic and I
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  actually don't like the way romance books are being written right now
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  because there's a lot of tropes and there's a lot of rules surrounding
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  what actually qualifies as romance.
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  And so you start to look at something that you've always loved
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  and what's changed about it and.
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  Why that's triggering you and you start to understand
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  what's fueling that.
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  And that also feeds into other areas as well too.
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  And you can.
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  Move towards what you feel are the opportunities for you and what aren't the
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  opportunities for you right at the moment.
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  So what other habits do you have that are integral to
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  how you show up in the world?
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  And for me, it's walking in the forest.
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  It's the swimming, like I said, the walking the extreme noticing
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  really paying close attention
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  and valuing my own opinion.
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  And that can be hard for a lot of people.
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  Some people do it through journaling.
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  I know a couple of different authors that you know, their, they're really
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  famous authors in their own fields.
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  But their practices start with journals and they do deep research.
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  But where their research really starts is with their own noticing.
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  And that I think is fascinating to me because those are the people
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  that I really value their insights because they're starting with
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  themselves, not with what they notice in the rest of the world, right?
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  So they're forming their own opinions and then.
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  Sue me outwards from there, and that's my version of leadership
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  and that's how I feel comfortable moving forward in a future where
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  everything feels uncertain right now.
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  I know my own reactions and so that's my throw out to you is.
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  How do you trust yourself and what practices do you have in place to help
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  yourself feel more certain of your choices, your opinions, what you value
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  and how that's gonna set you up for the kind of future that you wanna have?
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  Both, in work and personally, I think that's a valuable exercise too.
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  Start with, and I'll put the the voicemail in the show notes.
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  You can maybe call in and tell me your stories about how you actually
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  trust yourself and what rituals and practices you create for yourself.
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  That other people could maybe learn from, and that would be very helpful.
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  And if I get, a few, I can share those in the next episode and we
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  can talk about how to deepen those practices and how to extend it.
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  And I,
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  if we're trusting ourselves more, then does that help us
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  trust other people as well?
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  How do, what does that look like?
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  What does that change?
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  And that's a fascinating exercise to explore.
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  Anyways, thanks for listening.
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  Talk to
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  Find yourself in.
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  you next time.