Episode 22: Diana Chapman
Creating Conscious Leadership with Diana Chapman
Episode 20: Show Notes
To what extent are our inner lives shaped by the stories we tell ourselves? And how can we learn to see the world as it truly is? Today on the podcast we have Diana Chapman, Co-Founder of The Conscious Leadership Group, an organization that helps leaders and their teams build trust and create conscious cultures through coaching, training, and more. She is also a facilitator, CEO coach, speaker, and co-author of The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, a book that distills decades of accumulated knowledge from working with CEOs and other leaders. In today’s conversation with Diana, we delve into the complexities of what it means to accept our inner emotions, how we can learn to understand our reactivity to other people, and how these skills can help us foster environments that preserve psychological safety without sacrificing candor. Tuning you’ll learn about the profound lessons Diana learned at The Hendricks Institute, the impact they had on her life, and how she and her team help organizations foster conscious leadership and collaboration. We also delve into the importance of play, why the enneagram is such a useful tool for leaders, and what it means to operate in your Zone of Genius. Tune in to hear all of Diana’s insights on life, leadership, and learning how to see the world as it truly is!
Key Points From This Episode:
• Get to know today’s guest, Diana Chapman, and how she discovered the Hendricks Institute.
• The tools Diana acquired there and how they changed her life.
• Understanding the radical concept that ‘I am the creator of my own suffering’.
• Reactivity, acceptance, and how to change your behavior (and the outcomes).
• Unpacking the concept of radical responsibility.
• Learning to get comfortable with all the emotions and sensations in your body.
• The intelligence underlying our emotions and what they can teach us.
• How to preserve psychological safety without sacrificing candor.
• Diana’s approach to creating an environment where candor can propel innovation.
• The practices she and her team give organizations to foster these environments.
• Diana’s insights on the importance of play.
• How to assess whether there is enough play in your life.
• Advice on bringing more play into your life.
• Why the enneagram is such a meaningful tool for leaders.
• Learning to embrace the gifts and shadow side of your enneagram type.
• How you can use the enneagram as a parent to deepen your connection with your kids.
• The Zone of Genius: what it is, why it’s important, and how can discover it.
Quotes:
“The lights came on to the recognition that I am the creator of my suffering, that there's nothing really out there that causes me suffering – which is a radical concept.” — @DianaChapman [0:05:43]
“What I'm really interested in is helping people get comfortable being with these sensations, – because if I'm trying to manage and control these sensations, I'm trying to manage and control life all the time.” — @DianaChapman [0:23:02]
“Radical responsibility, curiosity, and emotional intelligence come first, then candor.” — @DianaChapman [0:33:51]
“Enneagram is a tool of self-awareness to help you understand what causes you to get reactive, and what are some of the strategies you use to protect yourself.” — @DianaChapman [0:44:26]
“Give yourself a lot of compassion for being human. Just let it be okay, that we are as human as we are, and make lots of space for that.” — @DianaChapman [0:56:58]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
The Conscious Leadership Group
The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership
15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: A New Paradigm for Sustainable Success
EPISODE 20 [TRANSCRIPT]
"DC: I can take a look at, 'Oh, I was out of integrity with myself, I didn't keep my time agreement with you, and I really want to take responsibility for making agreements with people for what I keep.' One thing I could do is to say, 'Oh, I need to have somebody because my mind works a certain way that I'll just keep hooking it to the top of the hour.' So I could ask my assistant, 'Hey, I want to remind you, this is not a top-of-the-hour meeting.' That would be helpful, actually, to me. Or I need to get up earlier and really study my calendar to see because it can trip me up when I go out of my rhythms.”
[0:01:04] JU: All right. Welcome, folks. Good morning. Nice to see you all. Welcome to another episode of The Paint & Pipette podcast. It's great to be back in the new year. I am joined today by an incredible thought leader, and coach, and mentor to many actual mutual friends of ours, and actually, co-instructor at Stanford University, Diana Chapman. Welcome.
[0:01:27] DC: Hello. So happy to be here with you.
[0:01:29] JU: I'm so happy to have this conversation. Thank you so much for joining me today. I know you are home. Where is home for you? Define home for our humble listenership.
[0:01:41] DC: Well, my physical home is in Aptos, California, just outside of Santa Cruz. I'm out here on a horse ranch that I'm renovating into a retreat center. So it's a dream come true for me in this last year to create this.
[0:01:55] JU: Okay. You told me something yesterday, though, that you are home yourself wherever you are. So tell us about that worldview or that philosophy as well.
[0:02:04] DC: When I'm at peace in here, when I'm really comfortable being me, there's just this sense of, "Ahh." So wherever I go, and I've traveled a lot in my life all around the world that I can just create home wherever I'm at. This is home for now until wherever I go next. It's an experience of well-being inside, like a deep sense of safety inside, control inside, approval inside. It helps me feel I'm at home.
[0:02:31] JU: The older days, wherever you go, there you are. I think a lot of times, that's meant, I don't want to say it's a threat, but it's a warning. You can't escape your problems, but then, the flip side of it is, if you are home, wherever you go, there you are.
[0:02:46] DC: There you are.
[0:02:47] JU: It's beautiful. So I wanted to, for folks who don't know your work, I thought it might be kind of cool to start with a little bit of your lineage, so to speak. I understand that you're a student of Gay Hendricks.
[0:02:59] DC: Yes.
[0:03:00] JU: I thought it might be cool for folks who don't know his work. Tell us a little bit about the big leap, and some of the ideas that first drew you to this way of being in the world.
[0:03:13] DC: Yes. Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks started the Hendricks Institute many, many years ago. I had a sister-in-law who gifted me a training there. She and her husband thought it'd be a good idea for my husband and I to go and maybe help our marriage a bit. So we trotted off to California to take a training, and it was like somebody turned the lights on. This was back, gosh, early, to 30 years ago, maybe. I had the thought, why am I only now getting these tools. These tools should have been taught to me when I was a child, all of these very practical, embodied ways to not get reactive, and to create really beautiful relationships with other people and myself. I remember I vowed then and there. I'm going to spend the rest of my life figuring out how to get these tools out to as many people as I can. That was the beginning of a new era for me.
[0:04:04] JU: That's incredible. You say the lights came on. Can you describe first before – I want to hear about the lights coming on and what does that mean, what was dark? But where were you in your life? What were you doing when you encountered the Hendricks Institute and their teaching?
[0:04:20] DC: I was a stay-at-home mom, very, very much in love with that role. I was heading up the parent-teacher group at school. I was very involved in fundraising in my community. I also was part of a group that had started an interfaith center in Ann Arbor, Michigan where I was living at the time. I guess, I would say, I was a community leader and a stay-at-home mom. I was just also a seeker, I really was interested in, what are the things that allow us to be more present, have better relationships, be more creative, et cetera.
I've done a lot of things, but when I got to the Hendricks, they really point about this idea of how people get caught in victimhood, how people can get codependent, and be at the effect of one another, and at the effect of the world as a whole. That was new to me. Those tools were really game-changing. I got to see how my husband and I were codependent, and how that was costing both of us, and our children, and to my other relationships with parents, my parents, my siblings, my friends. I just dove in deep, like changed my whole life to be able to start to practice these things right away.
[0:05:31] JU: The way you described yourself in the beginning, head of the PTA, et cetera. It sounds like you're kind of the model citizen. If the lights came on, so to speak, what part of life was dark and what changed? Or what does it mean when you say the lights came on?
[0:05:42] DC: I would say, the lights came on to the recognition that I am the creator of my suffering. That there's nothing really out there that causes me suffering, which is a radical concept. But that I interpret what's going on out there, and I argue with it. When I do that, I create upset for myself. And that I actually have agency to change that, and I have tools to know how to do that now, so that I don't have to be in reactivity. I don't have to be in stress if I don't want to.
[0:06:14] JU: Take us back if you're willing into kind of the mindset that you held then. Can you give us an example of some suffering that you're creating that you realized that the light dawned upon you, you go, "This is actually me doing this"?
[0:06:25] DC: Yes. There are little things like, "Ugh, how come my husband always tells me he's going to be home at a certain time, and he's always late?" Then, I don't feel cared for and then we have a fight, and then I'm tired, because I feel like I do too much to support the kids. Or, "How come I can't get everybody at school to get involved? How come there's just a few of us doing all the work? This is tiring, and I feel the effect of it. Gosh, I'm putting money out to help create this next part of the school. Can other people do that? Why is it so hard? This isn't any fun? How come my mom still gets reactive with me? I can't stand being around her for more than three days." Then, that affects whether we want to spend time with her.
[0:07:12] JU: I like the "How come?" How come kind of phrase, I think is – because it's something, how come, fill in the blank. I bet, anybody listening right now can – they've got their whole list of how comes. What you're saying is, you are – I don't want to put words in your mouth, you are the cause of those outcomes.
[0:07:31] DC: I am the creator of the reactivity. Because “How come?” has this mindset like, "It should be different than it is?" Well, the moment I start saying, "Life should be different than it is," I'm going to start suffering. Instead of, "Well, this is the way life is right now. Would you first be willing to allow it to be as it is without making it bad or wrong? Would you just welcome, accept it?" Then, maybe you might want to be part of changing it. but only after you've allowed it to be as it is been.
[0:08:06] JU: I mean, take your husband coming home late. What is the shift there? What's the paradigm shift from, "How come he's always late" to "He is late. How do I respond?" Does the emphasis shift to your response?
[0:08:19] DC: Yes. First of all, it's, "Hey, he comes home late. Can you just accept he's a man who comes home late?" Then, let's get curious. How do I co-create with him, him coming home later than he says he's going to come home? What's my heart in that? If this is my movie, what am I doing that sets that up over and over again? One of the things I work with clients on is, "Teach me a class. If you too want to have your partner come home late the way I do, here's what you'd need to do." I start to take a look at, well, I don't actually make really clear agreements with him. And I do criticize him when he does call to say he wants to renegotiate, so I set it up, but he just won't call then, because he doesn't want to get criticized. I am intolerant of some of his own needs. So I can see, "Oh, I set it up. This isn't happening to me. This is happening by me." But I can only really take responsibility once I've accepted that, "Yes. This is what I've set up."
[0:09:24] JU: I liked that phrase, "Teach me a class." It reminded me as I was doing some research to prepare for this conversation. I loved this phrase, you said, the thing you're complaining about is the thing you're committed to creating. Can you tell us more about that? I mean, that phrase was so powerful to me. The thing you're complaining about is the thing you're committed to creating. I think a lot of people go, "What are you talking about?"
[0:09:44] DC: Yes. That's what I mean by the lights went on. It was like, "What? What? I'm creating this?" Let me give you an example, I had a VP of a company who called me to say, "The CEO is my manager, and I get no good feedback from him, and I'm really frustrated. I'm thinking about leaving." So I said, "Okay. Teach me the class, how have you created not getting feedback?" He was like that at first like, "Wait. What?"
[0:10:09] JU: Not on me.
[0:10:10] DC: "I got a feedback. I tell everybody." I go, "I know you tell everybody you want feedback, but survey says it's not true. How do we know? You're not getting feedback." So he starts to go in and go, "Hmm. Well, he cancels meetings a lot, and I don't say anything, so I don't have as much time with him." I go, "Okay. Great. That starts it out." I said, "How come you don't say anything?" "Well, I have a belief his time is more valuable than mine." "Oh. So I'd have to believe that too. Okay. What else?" "Well, I don't actually ask for feedback. When we're in our meetings, I let him drive the agenda." On and on he went, and it was like –
[0:10:46] JU: This is his class on how you create the conditions where you're not getting feedback.
[0:10:50] DC: Yes. Then he was like, "Ah. Okay, I get it now. I can just go do the opposite of all these things, and I'd be getting the feedback I want."
[0:10:57] JU: I could start requesting a reschedule. I could start valuing my time. I could start being direct about it. Now, instead of complaining that I'm not getting feedback, I recognize, I'm committed to creating not getting feedback.
[0:11:10] DC: Yes. He actually went and said, "Hey, I want to let you know. I've been committed to not getting good feedback from you." And he owned it. "I want to tell you, here's how I've been doing it, and here's what I'd like to do instead." And they completely changed the pattern.
[0:11:24] JU: Wow. How does someone get to that point? You used a phrase, I don't know if it makes sense to come into play here. But I've heard you say probably three times just right now, "At the effect of."
[0:11:35] DC: Yes.
[0:11:35] JU: I assume that phrase means something. What does that mean to you? How is that different from reality, perhaps?
[0:11:41] DC: Yes. At the effect of means, I'm letting life affect me. For example, right now, it's a little foggy outside. Some people go, "Ugh. I'm not in a good mood, because the fog. It's dreary out, so now I'm dreary." Well, the fog hasn't created my dreariness necessarily, although we might have a little bit of information about how sun does affect wellbeing. But I have a lot to do with whether I'm going to be dreary with a fog or not. A lot of that will have to do with, “Am I willing to appreciate the fog, value the fog, welcome the fog? Or am I going to argue that a sunny day is better than a foggy day, and then I'm going to be at the effect of it?”
So we can have the effect of, an email coming in, we see somebody's name, and we're like, "Oh, no. So and so's emailing me." I'm already feeling frustration, and I make up a story. It's because the email and that person are a problem.
[0:12:36] JU: One thing – I think I told you this when we were chatting the other day. I've taught for years with Bernie Roth, who's – or was, until very recently, the Academic Director of the d. school. He is on a vendetta against reasons, because he sees that reasons are – they're just justifications. They're basically a glorified excuse, that is a projection of what you want. So I felt that this morning. I was meeting a CEO for breakfast, who's a client of mine. Granted, it should take me 35 minutes to get over the hill, to be there on time. But of course, I wake up, and it's raining. I'm 30 minutes away, and I'm running the script on why the rain is making me late, right?
Then, I have like this metacognition, it's like, I don't want to give any reason, but I don't want to be unreasonable, and I don't want to be late without an excuse. The truth is, I should have just left earlier. But now, I'm in a situation where I haven't left earlier, it's actually going to take me longer, and I don't want to be the kind of person who gives reasons to justify behavior. What do you do at that level of being in the world?
It's one thing to act at the state of leaving earlier. It's another thing to act at the state of representing my behavior and my implicit values. How do you think about that? I realize there's a lot in that question. But I think, I'm wondering, how'd you get your former clients as you were describing to the point where he could express, he was not getting the feedback he needed. Ad that I was just playing through a real example of something that I'm going, but how do you get somebody to the point where they're able to actually intersect with where their reality distortion field is causing problems?
[0:14:13] DC: Well, first of all, I have my commit, and commit from the Latin origin committere, which means to gather your energy and move it in a chosen direction. He was committed to being revealed versus concealed. He was committed to feeling his feelings, and letting his others around him feel theirs. He was committed to taking radical responsibility. He was committed to getting curious. So those commitments then help anchor a sense of well-being that then help you navigate around.
For example, you might commit candor, which means, "Hey, I want to let you know, I'm late to this meeting. And I can feel the part of me that scared that you might think I'm irresponsible or don't care about you. I want to just let you know that, that part of me is here. And also, there's some sadness that I didn't anticipate the weather income earlier, and I feel some loss about that. I just want to share with you that I feel that regret, and I want to know how does it impact you that I've shown up late here today?" So it's just a no problem. There's no problem that I've shown up late. I've shown up late, it's just what happens sometimes. What do I get to learn? What do you get to learn? How does showing up late can create more connection, be more authentic? There's so many things I get to experience showing up late that I might not have if I showed up on time.
[0:15:36] JU: Again, it's just this radical orientation to what is, is what stands out to me. I feel there's more, and perhaps, we can go into the victim triangle, or the drama triangle rather. But there's almost this, "I wish it wasn't." I'm starting from the position of, "I wish it wasn't. What do I do? Given that it is, but I wish it wasn't." What you're saying is, forget what you wish, here's what is. That's kind of what I'm feeling pulling out –
[0:16:01] DC: One of the things that I like to do is help people separate out facts from stories. Because actually, what's true is – what was it, like 9am or what time did you agree to meet?
[0:16:12] JU: Seventy-thirty.
[0:16:13] DC: Seven-thirty. Man says to another client, "Meet you at 7.30." Man shows up at what time?
[0:16:21] JU: Seven-thirty-four.
[0:16:22] DC: Seven-thirty-four. If we're just like watching a black and white movie of man says, "Be there at 7.30. Man walks in door at 7.34. If we can't add any stories to that, we just see the facts. Is there any problem if you just watch the movie and just look at the facts?
[0:16:42] JU: Well, I see a misalignment there or –
[0:16:45] DC: That's a story. It's the story that causes you to get reactive. I'm right, it was misaligned. I'm right, I shouldn't be misaligned. Now, I'm going to create stress. Instead of, man said he'd be there, and then, man wasn't there. Okay. No, there's no problem there until you interpret, and your interpretation is all arguable.
[0:17:07] JU: Hmm. There's actually a great example, just because it's real. I actually feel it in my body right now [inaudible 0:17:13]. Going back to the black and white film, maybe, how do you think about changing that narrative, or stripping that narrative. Then, more broadly, relieving the burden to impose a narrative. It's like, I almost can't see that black and white film without imposing an interpretation.
[0:17:31] DC: Sure. But then, then your practice is to go, "Oh, I'm making up stories." It's just a story, and part of me thinks it's true. Would I be willing to argue the other side? Because even late is a story. My experience is, sometimes people show up past when they said, and they were right on time, because I had something else going on. I don't know if you were late. You showed up when you showed up. For many, that's just when it is.
[0:17:59] JU: I had the experience yesterday. It's funny you say that, where I had a call at 9am, whatever it was. I'm scrambling to make it there, and I arrive at 9.03 or something. The line is blank. It's a gentleman in New York, who he got on at 9.04, going, "I'm so sorry" and I go, "To be honest, if you had arrived 30 minutes earlier, I'd be the one saying I'm sorry. Let's call it even."
DC: Right. It's just like, well, that's what time life wanted to gather. There's just so many should, should, should that culture imposes on us. Then when we think it's right, we're, "Ah."
[0:18:36] JU: Can I ask you this, though? How does that mesh with or harmonize with your belief in radical responsibility? Because to me, the way that I interpret, again, the story I impose upon this idea of responsibility. Maybe we can start by telling folks what the commitment or responsibility, or taking responsibility is. But then, how does that jive with not having shoulds?
[0:18:58] DC: Yes. That doesn't mean, I'm still committed. I'm committed to keeping 90% of my agreements, knowing 10% of the time, life's going to happen in a way I don't have control over, that's likely going to take me offline. I do my best to do that. I won't always be perfect in every time I'm not, I learn. Huh. How did I create not keeping that agreement?
For example, you and I made an agreement that I would show up here at, I think it was 9.45. I didn't look at my calendar closely enough, because I usually don't have appointments at the 45, so I just assumed it was 10. So I'm not there when I made an agreement to, so I can take a look at, "Oh, I was out of integrity with myself. I didn't keep my time agreement with you, and I really want to take responsibility for making agreements with people for what I keep." One thing I could do is to say, "Oh, I need to have somebody because my mind works a certain way that I'll just keep hooking it to the top of the hour." So I could ask my assistant, "Hey, I want to remind you, this is not a top of the hour meeting." And that would be helpful actually to me, or I need to get up earlier and really study my calendar to see because it can trip me up when I go out of my rhythms.
There's ways I can learn to do it differently, and I do, it matters to me. I want to be somebody who you can count on to keep my word as best I can. It's okay when I don't, I'm human. I think that's the thing is, it's a yes and. I want to be somebody who is an integrity with their agreements, and I'm human, and I'm learning.
[0:20:38] JU: The should part of the equation is, to me, what I'm just processing is, it fails to account for one, the human element, and two, the gift of learning that comes when they should is not, so to speak.
[0:20:54] DC: Yes. Yes.
[0:20:56] JU: Yes. You said something about feeling your feelings. That was a phrase that you just mentioned. That reminds me, Jane Chen, who I know is a mutual friend of ours. She and I went to business school together, she went on to start an amazing company that saved half a million babies' lives around the world. She's an incredible entrepreneur. I had texted her saying, "Hey, I'm interviewing Diana. Do you have any questions?" Because I know that she's a real student of your work.
This is what she said, I wanted to read it to you, because it's related to this idea of feeling your feelings. She said, "One thing you could ask Diana about is the commitment to feel all your feelings, which I find is so difficult, even if it seems easy. One of the things she teaches that is that you can feel all of your feelings from above the line or below the line. You could ask her how to feel difficult emotions, like anger, or grief from above the line." Tell us about this idea of feeling all your feelings. Why is it so difficult, even though it sounds easy? And then maybe, we can get into the difficult emotions later.
[0:21:54] DC: Okay. Emotions, when we experienced them, they live in the body as sensations. For many of us, it seems uncomfortable to be with those sensations. So then, we don't want to be with the emotions. For example, sadness usually shows up here in the chest, a tightening of the chest, or a narrowing of the throat. If we don't want to be with those, we'll – you'll see people that stuff it, try to stuff it down, and they'll push back on it. Anger usually shows up in the back, the neck, the shoulders, the jaw. We call it the hackle zone. You don't want to be with that. You're going to, "I'm fine. I'm doing everything I can to suppress how pissed off I am right now."
Fear usually shows up in the belly, flip flopping, nausea, those things. If I don't want to be with that uncomfortable belly, then I'm going to do everything I can to try to distract myself from fear. These are the three biggies; sadness, fear, anger, and they combined create lots of other emotions. What I'm really interested in is, helping people get comfortable being with these sensations.
[0:23:08] JU: Why is that important, first of all?
[0:23:10] DC: Because if I'm trying to manage and control these sensations, I'm trying to manage and control life all the time, and I can't relax. I can't just be home with moment to moment. So helping people – and also, these emotions are profoundly intelligent. Anger says, "Stop, something does not serve me or my people." Sadness says, "Let go. There's something that's been let go of so you can be with what's new here." Fear says, "Hey, there's something that needs to get learned, pay attention." These are intelligent emotions that have a lot of guidance, especially when we're making difficult decisions. So if people aren't accessing those, they're missing so much clarity, which is another reason why we want to feel them.
[0:23:53] JU: I love that. What I'm hearing you say is, in a sense, your emotions are a part of your intelligence. They're part of your way of knowing. If you are cutting yourself off from feeling, you're actually cutting yourself off from part of your knowing, and part of your intelligence.
[0:24:07] DC: Yes. I was with a pharmaceutical company once that was making a $50 million deal to buy another biotech company. They were just about ready to sign on the dotted line. I've been working with this team for a while, and practicing emotional intelligence. One guy says, "All right. Before we do, I don't know what's going on, but I just got to say, I'm scared." And somebody else goes, "Oh, I'm so glad you said so, I was scared too." And then they all go, "We are all scared." So then, I go, "Okay, great." There's an intelligence. Something needs to get learned.
And somebody goes, "Before we buy them, I just want to find out about this one part of the science. I just have this little sense I'm not clear about." So they went, found out, turns out when they learned more, the value of the company was not at all what they thought. They ended up choosing not to buy the company and saved their own company $50 million. Had they not spoken up, and somebody not just said, "My stomach is whirling, I don't know why." But they listened and it paid off. So, I see that happening all the time with individuals and teams that if they don't access that, they miss out on so much wisdom.
[0:25:13] JU: One tactic I've actually – As you know, I'm a father of four daughters, one of the things that I've learned rightly or wrongly, you might just shoot a hole in it now, which is fine, probably better for my life. I've learned that the body processes fear and excitement in similar ways. One kind of way you can trick yourself so to speak is like, "We're going skiing next week. I already know with a nine-year-old, she's going to, at some point say, "I'm so afraid." I'm going to say, "Tell yourself you're excited. We're going to like do it together." And that's, "It worked last year, I'm assuming it would work this year." If I go back to your pharma example, actually, probably the last thing you want to do is tell that executive who said I'm scared, "Just think you're excited." Right?
[0:25:55] DC: Right.
[0:25:56] JU: Because sometimes you can almost like judo your emotions. And other times, how do you parse out when to tell yourself, "You're not afraid, you're excited" versus "This is actually legitimate fear that should be honored"? Is that whole judo move just baloney, and I should just stop doing it?
[0:26:12] DC: Well, I remember Gay and Katie Hendricks told me fear is just excitement without breath, a certain kind of fear. What I usually would do is when somebody says I'm scared, I would just say, "Just breathe for a minute, and breathe and just see, is that fear or is that excitement." Breath can help you. If it's still fear, then, you want to say, "Oh, let's welcome the fear." Of course, you're scared. You don't know what it's like to be on that particular hill, going with that particular snow. That's so intelligent for you to be scared. And could we be scared? Breathe with it, welcome it, and then enjoy the ride of the skiing down the hill. It could be a yes/and.
[0:26:53] JU: Yes. Yes. I love that. There's so much there, because even just pausing to ask the question, I immediately go for the trick versus honoring the feeling. As you say, feel all the feelings and say, "What might it be?" And let's take a moment to assess, and then we can make a decision what we want to do. I think, too often, maybe this just in parenting, probably in other parts of life. I just want to bulldoze through. It's not about fear, it's, let's go.
What you're suggesting is, and I think actually, it gets back perhaps to the point, feel all the feelings. It's not about turning it into something else. It's about being present with it. In a way, it goes back to our earlier part of the conversation too, Diana of, it is. These feelings are, I don't need to wish for what is not, or what some other thing. This is what is right now, this feeling.
[0:27:44] DC: Well, I also, I think, we're in the midst of so much collective change, individual and collective change. Systems are – old systems are dying, old ways of doing things are dying. There's an intelligence in, okay. Fear is here saying, "Whoa, how do you navigate when the old ways don't work anymore?" It's so wise. It's like, "Yes, fear is intelligent, saying, learn something. Pay attention. It's not the old way. How do you navigate now?"
I'm a huge advocate of, let's all welcome being scared. I'm working with a lot of VCs right now, and they're like, "Wow, it's not the same game anymore. How are we going to play this game now? And what is the game? We're not even really sure." The ones that I see who are embracing their fear are letting themselves sit back, relax, and be in the eye, and learning, and they're getting more curious, and open, and navigating with a lot less stress in an industry that is in rapid change.
[0:28:55] JU: Truly. Yes. The other word that you mentioned a moment ago that I had in the back of my mind, I was hoping we would talk about is candor. What I would love to learn from you, I had the privilege of having Amy Edmondson on recently, who talks, and has written quite eloquently on psychological safety. One of the things that comes up and I've seen in our community, this question emerge of the value of candor can often be set aside when we emphasize psychological safety. It's not safe to speak the truth, therefore, the truth doesn't get spoken. That's kind of like a straw man, I realize. But can you talk about how you preserve psychological safety without sacrificing candor?
[0:29:41] DC: Oh, I love this topic so much. Okay. One of the ways that I think groups don't create psychological safety is they don't articulate what is the game we're going to play together. How are we going to do relationship? They don't name that, and it's kind of like, "If we were on the soccer field right now," and I said, "Okay, everybody. We're going to play soccer, but I don't really tell you the rules." People are going to be like, "Is it okay to kick the ball this way? Can I use my hands? I'm anxious."
I think, psychological safety is, "I don't know how to play the game." I think, what I do is, we come in and work with organizations to say, "Let's name the game very specifically. What is candor? How are we going to – are we all going to co-commit to reveal versus conceal? If we are, what agreements are we going to make, is a yes to everybody on how we do that, that feels friendly?" Once we named the game, and everybody knows the rules, and we all agree, then there's no, "What am I supposed to do?" Because I get it. Then, we can just reveal ourselves. Because in my experience above the line is, I can trust you to be whoever you are. Even if in the moment, you show up really reactive, I can trust that. I can relax, because ideally, we have agreements in place that I can bring those up to you. Then, you can help shift yourself, and then, we can come back to a centered place.
Then, if we can't, we can also – we have agreements about what we do if you can't get centered, and how do we go and do relationship from that place. There's a whole set of agreements there. So we are all able to navigate with a lot of clarity, because we've set up the rules of the game on the front end.
[MESSAGE]
[0:31:27] JU: Research is clear that our first idea probably isn't our best idea. That's true for you, me, as well as your organization. But that first idea is an essential step to better ideas. How do you improve your idea flow? That's my passion and the work I do with organizations. If you'd like to explore how I can help your organization implement better ideas, let's talk. Check out my website, jeremyutley.design, or drop me a line at jutley@jeremyutley.design. Let's make ideas flow better.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]
[0:32:03] JU: How do you think about advising a team that's looking to create these agreements, say, around candor, for example. As I observe creative, my kind of area of interest is innovation and creativity. I look at somebody like Ed Catmull, and what he did at Pixar with the brain trust, and the dailies practice. Where candor, there's a constant environment of critique that propels the work forward, and refines it, it makes it magnificent. What are the agreements that precede that environment?
[0:32:36] DC: That's great. Sometimes teams will say, "Can you come in and teach candor?" I'm like, "No. We got to first come in and teach what is radical responsibility so that my candor does not have blame in it.” So candor with blame is just criticism, and that's not that helpful. What's it like to really first go, "Oh, how am I co-creating with you something that's not as ideal as we would like it to be?" So I have a part to play, you have a part to play. I first own that first.
Secondly, let me get out of being righteous. Anywhere I have a should, shouldn't, have, have to, I'm going to be in a narrow state of curiosity. How do I stay curious when I give you my thoughts and feelings? Maybe I'm not right, I don't know. These are stories I make up. I just want to reveal myself, and I'm willing to hold them lightly. Then, three, am I willing to have emotional intelligence? Meaning, am I willing to feel my feelings but in particular with candor? Would I let it be okay that you might have feelings when I give you this feedback, and I don't need to manage or control you, and believe a story like you shouldn't be scared, or you shouldn't be angry? Because if I have those stories, then I'm likely not going to be as candid. So I go teach those three things first. Radical responsibility, curiosity, and emotional intelligence come first, then candor. Then candor can be a lot cleaner.
[0:34:00] JU: At what point do you know, okay, now, we can layer on candor. What are you looking for as evidence that those first three kinds of foundational principles have not just been established intellectually, but they're operational?
[0:34:13] DC: Yes. Whenever we come into organizations, we give them practices, because we think, come teach a concept, and spend a few hours together. It doesn't really take anybody anyplace new. So we give everybody individual practices in which they're using their devices to remind them to practice multiple times throughout the day. They have a learning partner practice, where we give them a script, and they sit together for half hour each week in pairs, practicing, and then we give them group practices. Whenever we gather for any meeting, we start the meeting with a group practice that helps us practice this. So we get it embodied. Embodiment is so key.
We do that for a month. We introduce a concept, and then we give them 30 days of individual pair and group practices. By the end of that month, they're like, "Okay, we're getting this, and we're seeing the payoffs. We like the results. Then, great. Now, we'll go to the next one." We give you another month of practice. Usually, it's four months before we even go into candor.
[0:35:14] JU: Wow. You mentioned your device. I'm a big believer in kind of daily practices, and introducing what I've heard referred to as an interrupt, that there's these kinds of ways. There's these fixed patterns of thinking. What you have to do is you have to have an interrupt. A calendar notification can be a great interrupt. That's what I imagined when you said that, but what does that look like? What is someone's device doing when you're establishing a daily practice?
[0:35:40] DC: Yes. It might be seven times a day, my phone will pop on, and say, if I'm practicing emotional intelligence, for example, it'll say, "Diana, pause for a moment. What feeling is here right now?" I make a deal with myself. Whenever my device pops up the question, I have to pause and look. I go, "Ha. I wasn't even aware of feelings. Let me look. Oh, I notice I'm feeling a little sad. Okay. I just take a breath of welcoming my sadness. Okay. On to whatever's next." Then, I'm just letting that be a practice that comes in.
[0:36:14] JU: Seven times a day?
[0:36:17] DC: Seven times a day. Another one I'm using right now is, it pops up and asks, "Diana, is there any way this moment could be even more exquisite?" And I pause and go, "Well, let me see." I always can find something like, oh, something could be a – and it helps me get aware of what is exquisite.
[0:36:35] JU: One thing I'd be curious about is overload. I find there's only so many things one can truly attend to. Before you just go, I just got to silence notifications. I imagined, seven times seven, if I'm getting 49 notifications a day, I'm just like, put my phone on airplane mode. You gave me the impression of almost a rotation. There's 10 things I want to be aware of, I can't attend to all of them in any one day. But over the course of a season, maybe I'll continue to revisit them. Is that the case?
[0:37:01] DC: Yes. One at a time, typically. I'm just getting only seven notifications. It really is doubling down on one particular skill to really anchor it. Then, ideally, it becomes a way of life. I don't need to have something reminding me. I can say, as a regular practice, like, "Oh, yes. It just becomes habit."
[0:37:22] JU: Okay. I want to shift gears a little bit, because I know, certainly, one of the commitments. But I think, one of your areas of mastery is in the area of play. I want to shift to play, because it seems – I mean, we've been talking about candor, we've been talking about radical responsibility, right? These are all – we offer our brows and go, "Hmm, yes. Right. Right." Then, we say play, and people go, "Wait, hang on. Is this the same podcast?" Talk to me for a moment, if you will, about why is play so important. I have my own thoughts, I'm happy to riff with you. But give me your take on why is play so important.
[0:37:59] DC: Okay. Drama is so damn entertaining. The biggest heroes, and villains, and victims in these blockbuster films, everybody wants to come. We have lots of drama shows on TV, in the news, and it's addicting. One of the things that we know is, what trumps drama for entertainment is play. Ask kids, what's your favorite part of school? What do they say? Recess. All mammals, and human beings learn best through play. We are learning children. Some of the newest research is showing that children might learn 40 times faster through play.
Play is fun, it's entertaining, it helps us learn. I'm just a huge fan of play. How do we play with everything? How do we have fun, keep it light, not get so serious? Because the moment things aren't funny, you're going to suffer. There are some really big serious issues going on in the world. But if we get to, "This shouldn't be this way." If we get too heavy, we're not going to find solutions. We're just going to repeat it all.
Play is a really helpful way to help us learn. I'll give you an example of candor and play. I had one of my colleagues, we'd had a conversation, and apparently, she had felt hurt about something I said, and it was a little vulnerable for her to tell me. She playfully calls me and goes, "This is Carolann. Now, Grace, probably wouldn't want to call you and tell you this, because she's a little shy about it. But she got a little hurt with that last conversation. I just thought maybe you'd want to know. I'm just giving you the lowdown here, is an ally for you." And I said, "Oh, thank you, Carolann, that's so great." Then, we hang up. It was a playful way to get vulnerable.
So then, I call Grace back and say, "Hey, Grace. I hear that maybe you've got hurt and I want to check in with you." She's like, "Yes, I was hurt" and we had a candid conversation. I might be frustrated with something, and so I'll turn it into a country song. I'll tell him the words, but it'll sing it as a song. You're not doing those dishes again. It was is like funny and fun. Then, we bring some light to it. Then from there, take responsibility for, "Hey, how are we cocreating this again? Because it's not really exquisite for me to keep hassling you about the dishes, and what do we need to do about it?" But play helps, because otherwise, it's like, "Seriously? The dishes again?" That's not going to take us anyplace new.
[0:40:20] JU: To me, it just strikes me that exquisite, and like – how might this be more exquisite? I think play is probably 90% of the time, the answer is, could we bring some fun in? I had Brendan Boyle on the podcast a few years ago. He created the play lab at IDEO. One of the things he said, I'll ask you the question, first that you can think about it is, how do you know if there's sufficient play in a team environment? I'd love to hear what your thoughts are. What Brendan said is, "If I walked by a brainstorm, and people aren't laughing, I know there's a problem." Laughter, he said, it's just kind of like the simple thing that he's measuring. Are there ways that you assess whether there's sufficiency or a deficiency of play in a team, in your life, in a situation?
[0:41:06] DC: It's a feeling state. There's a little bit of a lightness of being that you can feel? Yes, I think laughter, joy are great indications that we're playing. And that if there's not a lot of laughter, that probably, there's some way we're holding things too tightly or too seriously. I think that's a great indicator.
Also, people all have parts of themselves that they don't either own. I am so not like them. Or they own it, and they don't like it about themselves. One of the signature events I hold in my trainings is called a persona party. I might say, "Okay, Jeremy, what's a part of yourself that you don't like?" Already, I've heard, "I don't like being the late guy. I don't want to be seen as irresponsible." So I might go, "Okay. Tonight, you're going to play Mr. Irresponsible, and you're going to dress up." I have like this elaborate costume collection that helps everybody out in the world know. I take a group of people out publicly to dinner in their costumes and play out the part.
I would have you be as irresponsible as you possibly could all night with the staff of the restaurant and whatever. They're in on the joke. You get to have an experience of letting this part out of you that you usually have shame, or guilt about, and free yourself up, and actually see there's a high side to that part that you actually incorporate.
[0:42:31] JU: That there's a strength there, perhaps.
[0:42:32] DC: There's a strength there.
[0:42:34] JU: Wow, that's cool.
[0:42:35] DC: You can't see it if you don't play with it. I do a lot of playing with parts, and so, I do play also like, there's a CEO who gets feedback that he gets too aggressive, and he gets too bullish. His team has a game with him where they say, "Hey, the boss is coming online." So he picks up this construction hat that he has in the meeting room, puts it on, and goes, "That's right. I'm the boss." He makes it bigger for a minute, so he can see how I didn't intend to do this, but I can see I got a little into this unconsciously. He makes it bigger for a moment, plays with it. Everybody relaxes, he didn't take off the hat, and move on with the business.
[0:43:11] JU: Yes. One thing you reminded me of Becky Margiotta, who's the head of The Billions Institute. She led the 100,000 Homes Campaign to address homelessness. She's an incredible leader. You know Becky, she's remarkable. One of the things she told me was that she has developed a tactic, because she said, she was getting shots in the public domain by Bush's head of – his homelessness kind of tried to take down the 100,000 Homes Campaign. She said that one thing she has learned to do is just magnify it too, because then, you kind of bring absurdity to it. It's like, "I can't believe this guy's here." Then she said, "My whole team will just amplify it to a 11." That's kind of what you're doing with your dinner party.
[0:43:51] DC: Exactly. Exaggeration is a fantastic form of play.
[0:43:56] JU: Yes. That's beautiful. Okay. One thing I'm just mindful of, there's so many things I'm going to ask you about. A topic that I've been really, probably the topic I've been most excited to selfishly to dive into is Enneagram. Because as you know, I'm new to the Enneagram game. Maybe for folks who don't know, and I know you're something of an expert. What is the Enneagram? Why is it valuable? Then, I have a couple of specific follow-up questions. But why is this a meaningful tool in our leaders, or even just a contributor's toolkit?
[0:44:26] DC: Okay. Enneagram is a tool of self-awareness to help you understand what causes you to get reactive, and what are some of the strategies you use to protect yourself. So we know it's about 3,000 years old, we're still learning about its history. There's not a lot of science yet on it, so some people can poopoo it. We, at The Conscious Leadership Group have decided, we have so much evidence to its value, that we're going to stand for it regardless of the science, and we acknowledge that. But it is a model not like others, like Myers Briggs, or DISC. Those are personality tests in which they're looking at what is your personality, which honestly doesn't change very much. You can't change that.
Enneagram is looking at your reactivity, which you have a lot of ability to change. So there are nine types. We're all a little bit of all of them. But one of them is our core type that showed up earlier in our lives. That is our type for the rest of our lives. It has both gifts and shadows. As you work through the shadow, that shadow becomes a great gift as well. You become more present, experience more wellbeing, and relax more into life as you use the model.
[0:45:43] JU: So maybe, we could start with, if you're willing to share, what is your type and what have you learned as you have kind of leaned into the gift in the shadow that becomes a gift itself?
[0:45:52] DC: Great. Okay. I'm a type eight, it's called the challenger. Me, Donald Trump, and Martin Luther King, Jr. are all type eights.
[0:46:02] JU: What a crew?
[0:46:03] DC: You can see, we all have very different personalities. So it's not about our personality. But in the background, we all had a voice that said, "The world is a dangerous place, you've got to be strong, powerful, in charge, and take care of those who can't take care of themselves, and protect them." We all have ways that we're working with that voice. If you really believe it, the world's a dangerous place. They're going to take our jobs, and they're drug dealers, and they're going to hurt us. Well then, you're going to create a reactive pattern of fear, that's going to want to dominate, and control, and not be very collaborative. That makes sense to me.
I can understand why Donald Trump would have that reaction. He makes so much sense to me. Whereas, if I can work with that, and learn, that's actually not true. The world is a friendly place. You can learn how to experience it being a friendly place by being friendly yourself, helps a lot. I used to be somebody for whom people would say, "You're kind of scary." The world looked a little aggressive toward me. I learned like, "Oh, I'm part of the creation of that by my mindset."
When I started to experience the world's a friendly place, suddenly, everybody's so wonderful, and I get so much support, and I'm relaxed, and people aren't scared of me anymore. I still get to keep the gifts of the type, which is, I do have a lot of confidence, and power. I can assert myself well. Those are all gifts of it. I don't have that fear response nearly as much anymore. The reactivity settles down quite a bit.
[0:47:46] JU: You're reminding me of a quote. We see the world not as it is, but as we are.
[0:47:51] DC: Yes.
[0:47:52] JU: Yes. Well, one thing that you said to me when we were chatting before we went live was that enneagram types can actually even be useful in how you think about parenting your children. Parenting is a topic, a very near and dear relevance to my life right now. I had Jennifer Breheny Wallace on the show recently talking about the toxic achievement culture, and especially in college admissions, and things like that. She just wrote a book called Never Enough, which is a fabulous kind of book that is really more about parents than students, actually, and what we do to contribute to that.
I've kind of dipped my toes in some of this, but I'd love to hear what are your – and feel free, you can use me as a laboratory if you want. But how have you found it useful to leverage Enneagram in parenting? What are some tips that you might recommend somebody like me who, I want to be as wonderful of a father as I can be, and I recognize each of my children have unique gifts and shadows, if you will? How do I think about bringing Enneagram to bear on the custom interactions that I have with each of them?
[0:48:54] DC: Yes, such a great question. What I find is a lot of us parent the way we'd like to be parented based on our own type. For example, I'm an eight. I like to be challenged. That actually helps me grow when people are direct and challenging. I was being direct and challenging with my children, and it was not so helpful for them. They were different types. That style actually was – kept them more reactive rather than less.
I got a sense of what my daughter's type was at the age of 10, and went to somebody who was that type, and asked them to coach me. I, verbatim, went into a room one day, and did exactly what the coach told me. My daughter stops, she paused, she looks at me, and she goes, "Okay Whoever you talk to, it's totally working, keep going."
One of the things I learned is my daughter is highly emotional, and she really needs her emotions validated, and I'm not wired that way. I'm a little like, "Whoa, that's a lot." But when I didn't make it a problem, that's how she works things through, and welcomed it. Then, she felt supported and nurtured. I also learned that each type has messages that they're giving themselves negative messages. It's really helpful as a parent when you counter the message with the opposite. If you can know what that message is they're often dealing with, then, you give a counter that helps them relax, and not believe that story so much inside of themselves.
[0:50:15] JU: Wow. I have a hunch for this, but I want to test my own assumptions here. Knowing that we're all limited by time and attention, all that stuff, let's say, I can't think about all four right now. Do you have any thoughts of which of my children should I start with taking an enneagram-oriented approach? What are heuristics I could use to go, "This is the relationship in need of special attention"?
[0:50:40] DC: I would say, pick the one where you feel the most reactive.
[0:50:43] JU: Define reactive. My reactivity? Their reactivity?
[0:50:47] DC: Yours.
[0:50:48] JU: Okay.
[0:50:48] DC: Start with yours. Like, who do you feel the most like, "Argh." Where do you have your aversions, whose behavior bugs you the most? Because the children can pick up on your aversions, and they can take that in deeply. The more you can start to understand what am I so averse to over there, what's that about my type? How am I not understanding their type that's creating these aversions? Then, if I can relax that, then there's a connection that can start to happen, where that child gets to feel more accepted, which is so, so key for them.
[0:51:23] JU: This is something that I need to dig into. Are there resources for someone who says, "I want to try"? I mean, my go to you right now is to ask ChatGPT to be my Enneagram coach. Is that my best bet or what do you recommend for a dad who see a relationship where there's an aversion, where there's a reactivity, on my part, not hers? Where do I go to learn more?
[0:51:43] DC: Great. Well, first of all, I think it would be valuable for you to get typed. The challenge with Enneagram is there's not a good typing system out there in any written form. So usually, you need to take one of these tests, and they kind of give you pointers. But it's really helpful if you can talk to somebody for whom their gift is to help you discover your own type, by asking you lots of questions, and making sure that you're responding to the questions from the right mindset. Getting yourself typed will be helpful, and then learning all about your own type first. What causes you? Where do you get threatened? What's going on over there? Because that in and of itself will help you start changing your parenting right away? What are your own superpowers? Because each type does have superpowers, and how do you lean into those.
Because there's a certain gift you have as a father in your own type that you want to keep bringing forward more. Then, as your children get to a certain age where you might be able to assess what their type is, or they assess what they think their type is, then you can start to learn there's books out on parenting in Enneagram. The Wisdom of the Enneagram is a really good classic book that's been out for a long time by Russ Hudson and Riso. Then, also, another book I really like is called The Complete Enneagram by Beatrice Chestnut, who's here in the Bay Area. I think those are really good, solid overviews of each of the types that people can go to.
There is so much good content online now. Enneagram is one of the fastest personal growth tools rising all across the world all at the same time. There's lots and lots of resources. I actually encourage people to go to watch Enneagram Panels, and it's where you watch a group of four or five people who are all the same type be interviewed and talk so you get the sense of, "Oh, I get to see the type." It's shows up consistently, even though the personalities are quite different.
[0:53:40] JU: Right. The different personalities. Okay. All right. Last question, it's a subject change. I want to talk zone of genius for one second. Because I know this is kind of a core to your worldview and life view. Can you tell us what is zone of genius, why is it important, and how do we discover it?
[0:53:58] DC: Great questions. I love this topic too. Zone of genius is that thing you've done since you were young. If I interviewed your family of origin, they'd say, "Oh, Diana was doing that when she was young" or "Jeremy's doing that." We saw that early on, it's a natural gift. When you do it, it feels like time and space go away, and you love to do it. The challenge with identifying it is, it seems so natural. Doesn't everybody have this? Because this is not something I worked on. A joke like, it's like telling a fish what a good swimmer it is, and the fish is like, "What are you talking about? I'm just being me."
So zones of excellence is the next stage down and those are things that I'm really good at, but I had to work at it. I had to really build. It's hard. Time and space don't necessarily go away. I do zone of excellence because I get paid well, or people are really grateful. But on my own free time, if it were just me and myself, I'd go back to zone of genius. And why it matters is, it is where your greatest gifts are to give to the world. It's where you're going to experience the most joy, because it's rejuvenating.
When you do zone of genius, energy comes back at you. Whereas, zones of excellence or competence, you have to give more than you get back, and it's not sustainable. People love being able to start to design their lives, where at least, 50% of your day is in your zone of genius. My team and I, we do a lot of that, people come to us, we help them figure out what is that. And you need a community around you usually, to understand what your zone of genius is because you need reflection. Because like I said before, it's kind of a blind spot.
[0:55:32] JU: Right. I mean, you mentioned family being a good mirror. Are there any other kind of shorthand mirrors that if you want to lean on a handful, what are the go-to questions for someone to discover?
[0:55:44] DC: We have it in our book, under the zone of genius chapter. We have the questions that we use with our clients. If I were coaching you, I'd say, "Okay. I want you to send this out to at least 30 people who know you from all walks of life, and that's key." Get some like college friends, or get somebody who knew you in high school, get maybe a neighbor you spend a mountain time with, get your siblings, your cousins, your colleagues, new, and old. Get a wide variety of people, because it'll help you understand. They all see it even though they know you from different times in your life, and different aspects of your life, and that's helpful.
You ask them all the same questions, and takes about 10 minutes to respond. Most of them are really curious like, "Oh, I want to learn more about this." It's usually something that they enjoy talking about, and then you get this real like, "Oh, wow. They're all pointing most of them, 80% of them pointing to the same thing."
[0:56:37] JU: Okay. The book that you're referring to, obviously, 15 commitments of conscious leadership. For those who don't know, it's an excellent book. I've had this recommended by so many people to me. I've enjoyed diving into it. Diana, thank you so much for making time today. It's such a pleasure to get to spend the last hour with you. Is there anything that you want to say in closing to folks?
[0:56:58] DC: Just give yourself a lot of compassion for being human. Just let it be okay that we are as human as we are and make lots of space for that and not make it wrong.
[0:57:10] JU: My interpretation of that for myself is, withhold putting a narrative on the black and white footage of some part of your day today.
[0:57:19] DC: Yes. I love that.
[0:57:20] JU: Thank you, Diana. Thank you, everyone for joining us. Until next time, we'll see you soon.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:57:25] JU: By day, I'm a professor, but I absolutely love moonlighting as a front-row student next to you during these interviews. One of my favorite things is taking the gems from these episodes, and turning them into practical tips and lessons for you and your team. If you want to share the lessons you picked up from this episode with your organization, feel free to reach out. I'd be thrilled to do a keynote on the secrets that I've gleaned from creative masters, or put together a hands-on workshop to supercharge your next off-site adventure. Hit me up at jutley@jeremyutley.design for more information.
[END]
One of the defining contributions the d.school is helping teams ask themselves, “What kind of thinking is appropriate, when?” We call such clarity being “Mindful of Process.” And it can seem like semantics until you realize we need to show up in different ways.