Shine

What kinds of leadership qualities and new behaviors do you want to activate and/or upskill, this year? Welcome to the first episode of season six of the SHINE podcast. This season is going to focus on topics related to optimizing how we live, work, and play with science, tips, and also ideas on how we can start to design a workplace culture and world that is being mindful of our consumption, our energy leaks, and optimizing for well being of ourselves, our co workers, our communities, and the planet. To start the season off, I will be speaking about the important topic of How to most effectively upskill in 2022. This podcast interview is full of great science and action steps that you can take around four areas. 1) What is the science of habits? 2) How can we actually make new patterns and habits more effectively, and let go of the ones that are self destructive? 3) A program that you can apply in your life to help you to shift habits and create new healthy ones. 4) I will share with you the new habits program that I'm currently doing, how I'm shifting, and what I'm learning. Finally I will also give you an opportunity to identify how you want to optimize in 2022. This one will bring you back to the essential foundations of optimizing our well being so we can bring our best selves to work and life. Thank you for joining me as we explore the skills that will support trust, empathy, and collaboration as we move into this new year.

SHINE Links:

Book Carley for Speaking — https://carleyhauck.com/speaking

Leading from Wholeness Learning & Development — https://carleyhauck.com/learning-and-development

Executive Coaching with Carley — https://carleyhauck.com/executive-coaching

Contact Carley — https://carleyhauck.com/contact

Mindful Magazine Top Books to Read in 2022 — https://www.mindful.org/14-books-and-podcasts-to-embrace-the-new-year/

Well Being Resources:

Carley’s Book — https://carleyhauck.com/shinebook

Inner Game Meditations — https://carleyhauck.com/meditations

Doterra — https://www.doterra.com/US/en/site/carleyhauck

4 Sigmatic — 15% Discount code Shine — https://us.foursigmatic.com/?rfsn=4405553.d15cc7&discount=SHINE

Social:

LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/carley-hauck/

IG — https://www.instagram.com/carley.hauck/

Website — https://www.carleyhauck.com

Newsletter — https://www.leadfromlight.com

Website Page — https://carleyhauck.com/podcast

Carley’s Patreon Page — https://www.patreon.com/carleyhauck

The Imperfect Shownotes

0:01 Carley Hauck

Hi, welcome to the SHINE podcast. My name is Carley Hauck and I am your host. This is season six of the podcast. We are at the very beginning of 2022. And I can feel this is going to be a year full of complexity, but the shifts, and the changes are happening and they're moving in the right direction. And I feel optimistic and inspired at what we can build together.

And that's really why this podcast came about over two years ago. It is on the intersection of the application of conscious inclusive leadership, the recipe for high performing teams and awareness practices that you can cultivate to be the kind of leader our world needs now. And when I say the word leader, that doesn't mean that you have to be given a leadership title. We all, in my opinion, need to be leaders. Now, the way that we lead ourselves, the way that we lead our families, our communities, or workplaces. It's time to create a world that works for everyone, and is living in greater harmony with the planet.

And so those of you that are joining for the first time, welcome. Each season has a different focus. And this season is going to focus on topics and interviews related to optimizing how we live, work and play. As always, I'll bring in a lot of science because I'm a nerd, there will be really applicable tips. And you're going to get a chance to listen to some incredible thought leaders, game changers, business leaders, spiritual teachers, on how we can design a workplace culture and world that is being mindful of our consumption, our energy leaks, and optimizing for the well being of ourselves, our co-workers, our communities, and the planet. Because guess what, y'all, it's all connected.

So to start the season off, I am going to be the interview for our first topic. I would like to share about how to effectively upskill in 2022. One of the things that I was saying a lot in 2021, near the end of the year to colleagues, friends, family, to my coach was, ‘I am upskilling this’ or ‘I'm upskilling that’. And I've learned that by saying things aloud or repeating them silently in my mind, over and over, I actually start to create a neural pattern and habit, new circuits in my mind that are going to activate me actually doing that behavior.

So based on my research background in neuroscience, and being a longtime meditator, I've been meditating since I was 19 years old, I understand, personally and professionally, how much control our thought processes and our narratives have on our behaviors, and thus our habits. So I'm going to break down what a habit what upskilling is. But before I get there, I want to just share one more piece.

The truth is that I was getting ready to upskill. But I wasn't quite there yet. And there is a well researched and documented framework about the continuum of change. It's called the transtheoretical stages of change model and it was developed by Dr. James Prochaska, a professor of psychology, who specialized in the study of the dynamics of change, and he found five stages of successful behavior. Number one, pre contemplation. So what that means is like it's really not even your conscious awareness. It's way back in the unconscious of your wanting to make a change or shift a pattern of some sort.

Number two contemplation, okay, now it's conscious, you're starting to think about it, oh, maybe I should, you know, eat more vegetables, or maybe I should not get so triggered around my mother in law, whatever it is.

Number three, you're in preparation. So that's actually where I was. I was in the preparation mode. I was talking about it. I was researching the behaviors, the patterns I wanted to change, but I was about a month away. Maybe a little more from actually going into stage four which is action. You're doing it, you're doing it, you know, daily, regularly got a groove going.

And ultimately, if you keep doing that action again and again and again, and I'm going to talk about how long it actually takes to create a habit, then you eventually come into maintenance where it's automatic, you don't really even have to think about it. It's part of what you do, right.

Carley Hauck 5:30

So I was in preparation mode. And the reason that I know this is because now I'm in action mode. I wasn't ready to carve out the time to make the changes necessary. And so preparation mode can last a month, two months. And it's often a time when you're talking about what you want to change, you’re may be getting research, you're taking in the perspectives of other people.

And so in my personal and professional experience, you need to not only have the right mindset, the motivation intrinsically, but also to create enough space internally. And what I mean by internally is, like, you know, do I actually have enough space to take something else on? Or is my mind, is my attention, you know, too distracted? And then externally, have I made enough space in my life to support the new pattern, the new habits that I want to actually have last?

So at the beginning of a new year, like we are right now, there's often more motivation. One, there's queues and their signs everywhere, right? Happy New Year. What are you doing for the new year? What new habits are you going to be engaging in. And it's not like it's a whole new year. I mean, it is with numbers. But it's more that it's giving us a chance to start over to begin again, to start fresh.

And there is a sense of inspiration in that, you know, anything's possible in a new year. But I'd also love to encourage us that we can actually start over in any moment, any moment that we were impatient, or that we ate the wrong food. And then we recognize we have awareness that we did that. We don't have to be really hard on ourselves. But we can say, oops, alright, starting over right now. And I feel like that's a more gentle way of approaching new behaviors and patterns.

In this solo podcast, I will share some best practices, and tips on habits and upskilling for 2022.

This is coming from my years of research on the subject, from supporting individuals, teams and organizations in my role as a leadership and organizational development consultant, as an executive coach, and from my many years of teaching on behavior change at Stanford, and with UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, this podcast interview is full of great science and actions that you can take around four areas. What is the science of habits? How can we actually make new patterns and habits more effectively, and let go of the ones that are self destructive? I'm going to share a program that you can apply in your life to help you to shift habits, create new ones, I'm going to share with you the program that I'm currently doing and how I'm shifting and what I'm learning. And then I'm also going to give you an opportunity to identify how you want to optimize? What kinds of leadership qualities and new behaviors do you want to really ignite this year?

And when I think about the essential leadership qualities for this new world that we're designing, we're creating, what comes to me is trust, empathy, and collaboration. Those are really important ones. And I'm going to share with you how you can develop those too.

Alright, you ready? Here we go.

Carley Hauck 9:45

So number one, the science. So what is a habit?

A habit is a repeated thought, behavior or pattern. We may be conscious of or we may be unconscious of neuroplasticity is the brain's amazing capacity to change and adapt. In other words, our brain is malleable. It underlies forming new pathways under which some new habits are likely to occur and others are less likely to occur. It refers to the physiological changes in the brain that happen as a result of our interactions with our environment.

So, there may be a habit that you're pretty unconscious of that you keep doing over and over again, which is triggered by some situation in your environment. And what's so interesting is that from the time the brain begins to develop in utero, until the day that we die, the connections among the cells in our brains reorganize in response to our changing needs. We're constantly adapting, as we've seen, in this very interesting, almost two years since we've been in this worldwide kerfuffle, I'd like to call it, pandemic, we are adapting quickly. This is a result of neuroplasticity in the brain. This is a dynamic process that allows us to learn from and adapt to different experiences.

So how long does it take to create a habit? Well, a lot of literature and programs out there say 21 days, but that's actually not exactly true. There's a lot of variability. It might take one person 18 days, and it might take another person 200 days, and it really depends on the resistance, that you may have the situation that's happening, your proclivity to certain weaknesses, strengths, you know, some things are easier for us to create habits around other things are more challenging.

Do you remember when I shared I was in preparation mode for upskilling? Yeah, I wasn't ready to really create the time. Because 2021 was a huge year in my life. It was launching my very first book. And in a pandemic, which brings a whole other set of challenges, fatigue and complexities to an already arduous task of launching a book. So at the beginning of 2021, it was all hands on deck around my book. And after eight months, of launching, of speaking, of podcast, interviews, of social media, of so many things, I felt emotionally and physically exhausted.

And I was undergoing too much limbic friction, which is the energy needed to engage in a new habit to actually really start something new. Limbic friction is also a part of the emotional brain, the emotional brain tends to be in the limbic system that senses the resistance, anxiety, lack of motivation, or fatigue related to building any habit. There requires a varying degree of activation energy to overcome limbic friction and build a habit. And I just didn't have it, understandably so. So now that I have recovered some, I am more able and ready for upskilling. And we all have varying levels of limbic friction about certain tasks, and not around others.

So for example, I've been practicing yoga and meditation for over 20 years. It is one of the very first things I do when I wake up in the morning. I look forward to it. And I don't have any limbic friction. It's automatic. But upskilling a new technical skill, for example, that has some limbic friction.

So as you're listening to me, what behaviors do you notice in your life? Maybe just pick one or two that has more limbic friction, or less. So I've been using the word upskilling. A lot. It's become pretty trendy in the last several months. But what it means is that we're constantly learning more things inside our industry, or even outside of it. It can pertain to engaging and learning and development courses at work, listening to wonderful podcasts like this one, reading a new book, taking a course that offers a certification, or could even be conducting informational interviews.

So, number two, let's talk about a program that you can engage in that will support you to be more effective at upskilling and habit formation in 2022. In order to be successful with any new patterns or behaviors, you want to make sure that you're working and learning within the natural rhythms of your brain and body hormones, that will make it more likely that you will be able to engage and thus sustain these new patterns and habits.

So what do I mean by that? Science has found that in the first zero to eight hours after waking your brain and body are more action and focus oriented, that means that you can more easily overcome things with high limbic friction. So since most of us are going to bed, usually around 10, maybe plus or minus an hour or two, and waking up around 7am plus or minus an hour or two, you can imagine that the first eight hours are going to be the morning till late afternoon, when you're going to be most effective at new behaviors, tasks, anything that's going to take more energy concentration in the nine to 15 hours after waking. Later afternoons, maybe it's four or five, your serotonin becomes higher. And it's important for you to keep stress levels lower. And to engage in habits that don't require a lot of limbic overrides, because you're just not going to have as much energy.

In other words, you want to have more behaviors that require more energy attention focus earlier and the first eight hours of your day. And then less of those as the day progresses.

Carley Hauck 17:26

A test of whether you've truly formed a habit is when you can perform that habit or behavior at any point in the day without thinking about it too much. So you know, maybe your goal is to exercise in the morning. But if it's really a habit, then you find a way to exercise wherever you can put it in, right, you're waiting for your daughter, your partner, your friend, and you find you have 30 minutes and you keep an extra pair of shoes in your car and you go for a walk.

The goal of any habit is automaticity circuits perform automatically without you thinking about it.

So another thing that's been helpful, and has been found in the scientific literature around habits is that visualization helps to develop habits. If you can hold in your mind a sequence of things that need to happen for an outcome to occur, like following a recipe. This will help you to engage in that new behavior or habit, you want to visualize the series of steps needed. And really think about each step it takes.

A really wonderful tip is to visualize the series of steps needed to adopt a specific habit, or maybe even to push through something where you have some limbic resistance. So for example, this morning, I engaged in my spiritual practice, like I do in the morning. And you'll hear more about what that entails as I talk to you about some of the habits that I'm forming later in this interview. But then I knew that I had some work that I needed to get done. And one of them being finishing the outline so that I could record this podcast. So I visualized the steps from okay, this is what I'm going to do, this is what I'm going to do next, and then this and then this and then this and then I was able to just move right into performing the task.

The science showcases that a part of the brain called the basal ganglia, which is involved in the action or the doing and inaction is the not doing of certain things that actually gets activated when we put tasks with other tasks. It's also kind of called a task bracketing. So it actually sets a neural imprint in your brain that a certain thing has to take place. And then another thing takes place. Circuits in our brain are devoted to framing events just before and just after the habit.

Another way to support effective habit formation is to reward yourself after you have completed that habit. You may identify the reward of ‘I will do this after the task is completed’, right? This is commonly referred to in the scientific literature as a reward prediction error. For example, if you expect a reward and that reward comes, a particular behavior associated with generating that reward is more likely to occur again.

So, if I tell myself that I'm going to eat a nourishing delicious lunch and 30 more minutes, once I've completed the podcast outline, and I think the reward is coming, then dopamine release starts in anticipation of this reward. And that's going to increase the likelihood that I'm going to finish this task.

What's also been really interesting to find in the science is that the dopamine in our brains has been found to be even higher, if we don't actually know that the reward is coming. But to initially reinforce these new behaviors to these tasks where there might be more limbic friction, it's really important that you tell yourself the rewards you're going to get once you finish it.

So let's try this on. Identify a new habit or skill associated with some learning that you want to prioritize in 2022. And I'm gonna break it down into three categories. It could be well-being, so this would pertain to your health, you know, I want to get more sleep, I want to exercise more I want to try on this new form of exercise, I want to prioritize meditation, I would like to be eating, more fruits and vegetables, less meat, I want to engage in more play. I just feel like I'm just going through the motions every day, there's no play, there's no joy, right? So that that could be the well-being bracket.

You could also be wanting to fine tune and optimize for relationships. And this could pertain to work or home and they tend to overlap. So what qualities or skills do you want to learn and develop, that might support you and your relationships at work or home? Greater self awareness, self regulation, emotional intelligence, empathy, compassion, forgiveness, right?

And work. The third bracket. What habits or qualities do you want to learn, develop pertaining to the context of work. Is it technical skills, people skills or both? Less is more.

Carley Hauck 22:59

So for this exercise, just pick one category one, pattern, one habit. And the truth is, is that we bring our whole selves to everything that we do. So if you increase one part of your well-being, guess what? That's going to improve your relationships and how you show up, lead and perform at work. And it's also going to support you and your home life. So close your eyes. Don't do this while you're driving. And bring your awareness in sight. Pick one habit that you would like to commit to for the next month.

Again, a new habit/new pattern can take anywhere from 18 to 200 days depending on the person, the situation, how much limbic friction. So just pick one. Pick one thing that you know is going to really support you to bring and be your best this year.

And then, allow yourself to notice how much time will it take for you to perform this habit?

When will you do it?

What will you do before you do this habit?

What do you need to reward yourself to make sure that you can keep up this habit?

Even if there's resistance, even if there are obstacles in the way, what's your reward?

What are maybe a few rewards just take your time Imagine yourself being successful at this new behavior for the next 30 days.

Imagine how it's going to make your life better.

Yes.

Now open your eyes, and take a minute, write it down, put it on your tablet. Just kind of writing down what I just prompted you with? What's the new pattern in the habit? When are you going to do it? How long is it going to take? What we do before, what will you do after, visualizing the series of steps? And then how will you reward yourself?

And then after the podcast is over, go back to this habit that you're writing down right now and flesh it out more and start to really carve it out on your calendar. Share this with others, because we are social emotional beings. And it helps to say things out loud for accountability.

Identify when you will start this new behavior and maybe even recognize where are you in the stages of change? Well, we just brought it into contemplation. So are you in preparation mode? Still got a month or two? Before you're going to start it? Are you ready to go? Are you motivated, I've got space, I've got time I'm ready to do this, been putting this off, here we go.

So I shared with you that there are some new behaviors and a process that I'm using right now. And I would never ask you to take on something that I'm not doing myself. So this is what I'm doing. I started my new behaviors this week. So it's been about six days at this point. And I actually decided to do six tiny habits. Now you don't have to follow my lead. But I have a colleague at Stanford, who really focuses a lot on neurobiology, and he inspired me to try on this six tiny habits.

So far, it's going well, I'll share more with you about how it's going. So I am practicing these in the first eight hours after I wake up so that I have a better likelihood of sticking with them, and having the motivation throughout the day. And many of these habits are related to my well-being bracket, but that is going to support me in all other areas of my life. So the first one is to wake up earlier. And my wakeup time is between 6:30 and 7:30. I notoriously have taught classes late at night and have worked a lot as an entrepreneur and have burned the midnight oil when I was working full time and writing the book at the same time. So I am really prioritizing more balance, healthy boundaries around how I work and play. And so getting up earlier is going to support me to do that.

I have my spiritual practice that I do write after I wake up and what this looks like. It's a little bit of a process, but it feels really good. I'm loving it. And I've added a few more pieces to it in the last six days. So I get up, I usually try to put my head outside to get a little bit of natural light on my face. Even if I'm just standing outside for about a minute. That helps me wake up. And then I make tea, or a little bit of coffee. And I also make this cleansing drink that consists of lemon juice, ginger and tumeric and a little bit of pepper. And if I don't have the tumeric it's always lemon and ginger. And I just make it because I'm going to drink it later.

And then I will usually go outside to do my spiritual practice. And now that I'm back in California, where it's not freezing cold, and the sunshine is out now all I have to do is bundle up, it's wonderful because now I get the benefits of having light on my face, which is really important actually, if we can get natural daylight within the first 30 minutes of waking up. I mean if you can and it's too cold or you live in Alaska. It's fine if you have artificial light, but you do want to have bright lights on, because it will help you wake up and really greet the day with a lot more energy.

One other thing that I have on my six tiny habits is to do some vigorous cardio before 10am.

And the next is that I want to focus on breaking my working segments into 15 minutes, where I do something, you know, wholeheartedly with all my focus and attention for 15 minutes, and then I take a small break, and then I go back to it. And I know that this is the most effective way to work. And I actually even write about it in my chapter one of my book, but I have to be honest with y'all, I wasn't practicing it very well. Again, Book Launch Mode is a whole other beast. I was doing okay, but I think I developed some scatterbrained habits where I was not being as efficient in my focus.

And then the last is that I am finishing my last morsel of food before 8pm. And that is so that I can digest more easily, wind down and go to bed earlier. So those are what I have. And so how are my habits going, these six tiny habits?

Carley Hauck 31:32

Well, I notice that there is really no limbic friction towards my spiritual practice. And the sequence of events for my spiritual practice normally takes about an hour and a half. And it, you know, again, those into making myself some tea or coffee. And then I go outside, I usually walk for 15 minutes outside in the sun and I am chanting the Gayatri Mantra. So, mantras help to really stabilize the mind, they help to balance out the chakras, they bring in really positive vibration and energy. And I've had lots of different mantras that I practiced for 40 days, 60 days at various times in my life. And right now I'm really loving the Gayatri Mantra. Ah, it's amazing.

And then I'll spend about five to 10 minutes doing yoga. And then I meditate for 15 minutes. So if I have more time than I often will try to get in five to 10 minutes of more intense physical exercise. And that just helps me wake up. This could be like jogging, you know, high knees. Sometimes I'm jumping on my trampoline, jumping jacks. And again, this is all easier to do outside because it's not snowing, and it's warmer outside and the sun rises earlier in the West Coast than the East Coast.

So the other thing that I'm noticing is that my eating hasn't always finished before 8pm. And that really depends on different social activities are just not planned well. But it has been earlier overall. So I am really pleased with this. So I have three more weeks, and I am optimistic, it's gonna result in some great new patterns for 2022.

So again, this is focusing more on the well being bracket. And for those of you that know about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, he says, and his framework is really that the physical needs have to be met first before we can kind of move into our needs for belonging, and self actualization and all those things.

So I know that if I optimize my wellbeing patterns, at the beginning of the day, and throughout the day, it's going to support me to really stay focused, responsive, and balanced for any curveballs or reactivity that I may encounter throughout the day.

And the last tip that I want to share with you about habits is how do we break a negative habit?

Well, to break a negative habit, first, you want to become conscious of the fact that you just participated in that negative habit, whatever it is, and if the moment that you have awareness that you just did that thing, said that thing, whatever it is slept through your alarm, you want to engage in a positive replacement behavior immediately after.

So you know, if I ate the chocolate at 10pm, for example, and I wanted to stop eating at eight, then I do something else, you know, healthy for myself, right? It could actually just be self compassion, right? Oh, I want to be so hard on myself. It's probably ate the chocolate because I was tired or something. Or I was trying to stay awake to do work, when I should have been going to sleep. So that's sometimes what can happen. So you want to again, have awareness, have compassion, and then put in some positive replacement behavior immediately after.

Carley Hauck 35:20

Before we go, I wanted to share a little bit more on the important leadership competencies that I feel are really necessary in our world right now, and I spoke to those at the beginning of the interview. And those are comprised of trust, empathy, and collaboration. I speak a lot about how to grow these inner game qualities in my new book Shine: Ignite Your Inner Game to Lead Consciously at Work and in the World.

So the inner game rules the outer game, which means that whatever qualities or skills we are cultivating on the inside, will support us on the outside. And the inner game qualities of self awareness, emotional intelligence, growth mindset pertains to resilience, well being, love, authenticity, I have seen over and over and over again, and leaders and 1000s of folks that I have trained in this methodology that it does enhance trust, empathy, and collaboration.

So if you want to learn more about how you can grow those qualities in your leadership in 2022, I would love to share Shine, my new book with you. And Shine was also recommended by Mindful Magazine as one of the top books to read in 2022. I am delighted, and so honored by this acknowledgement, and I'll send you the article in the show notes, you can read all about it. Shine: Ignite Your Inner Game to Lead Consciously at Work and in the World is available in audio and hard copy. And I'll leave a link in the show notes where you can find it at your local bookstore or Amazon.

If you're wanting a deeper dive into how to build more trust, empathy and collaboration, your workforce, I give keynote presentations, I bring larger scale trainings to teams. And also always excited to support companies so that there's this continuous culture of learning and conscious inclusive leadership, you can feel free to reach out to me to book a free call. And we can assess where your current needs are and how we get you to the future vision that you're wanting to see. I would love to work with you. And a link of how to get in contact with me will be in the show notes.

Because it's always important to optimize and prioritize our well-being, I'd like to leave you with some fabulous well being resources that I myself use and I have recommended to many, this is going to help start off your year, you can go to the Resources page on my website link will be in the show notes. And you'll see that there are 15 free meditations based on these inner game skills. Actually, I was just playing the forgiveness track to one of my guy friends here in San Diego, and he loved it. So it sounds like he's gonna start really creating more self forgiveness time in his life.

You can also see some other products for example, doTERRA is a wonderful company based in Utah that focuses on essential oils and there is a product called OnGuard that I've been using for years and I share it with everybody because it is one of the things that has really supported me to keep my immune system strong. And I never leave home without it. If you go to the doTERRA part of my website, you'll get 15% off of any of their products.

You can also check out Four Sigmatic, a company that I love. And they have incredible plant based products from functional mushrooms that support energy immunity, focus and rest. And I drink their adaptogen coffee, I love their Rishi and quadriceps hot cocoa and they have all these fabulous products that have really supported my well being and I think they'll support yours. You'll also get a discount if you put in the code SHINE and you'll see that on the resources page.

Carley Hauck 39:49

So to sum up this episode, I addressed four important areas regarding effective habit formation upskilling the science on habits, how you can really make maximize for effective and sustaining habits, a program you can implement to shift your habits, I shared with you some of what I'm doing and the habits that I am creating time shifting. And then I also talked about some skills you might want to build in this new year as part of your new leadership competencies to support trust, empathy, and collaboration.

And again, if you want to be successful with new habits, it's really important that you visualize it, you write out the sequence of events, and that you make sure that you assign a reward to support and reinforce that new behavior. The Shine podcast has been self sponsored since May 2019. It is freely offered from my heartfelt desire to offer tips, tools, science, in service of a workplace in a world that works for everyone and is living in greater harmony with the Earth from conscious inclusive leadership and socially responsible business practices.

I would love and appreciate your support so that I can continue to offer this with the gusto and heart that I have. You can donate and support me by going to my Patreon page www.patreon.com/carleyhauck, the link is in the show notes. Your generosity helps so much.

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends, family or colleagues. We're all in this together and sharing is caring. If you have questions, comments or topics you would like me to address on the podcast in the future please email me at [email protected].

Thank you for tuning in and being part of this wonderful community. Until we meet again, be the light and shine the light.

I have such great guests for season six. I cannot wait to share them with you.

Thanks again and we will talk very soon.

Welcome to the final episode of the SHINE podcast for 2021. This podcast always focuses on the science, spiritual perspective and application of conscious, inclusive leadership, the recipe for high performing teams, and awareness practices that you can cultivate to be the kind of leader our world needs now. In this last episode of 2021 we are going out with fireworks. Our topic for today is purposeful leadership with my friend and colleague Leticia Van Splunteren. In this interview Leticia speaks vulnerably about how she navigated 2020 & 2021 as a CEO and mother, how she took on the priority of motherhood and well being first so that she could bring a strong, passionate and purpose to her leadership and life. She also shares some of the important mindsets and inner game tools she relies on to be a conscious inclusive leader at work and in the world. Lastly, there is a very special invitation that Leticia has for you. This interview has many valuable tips for you to bring your best and whole self to your life. Thank you for listening.

Guest Links:

• BACK2BASICS Experience — https://www.leticialatino.com/back2basics-experience

• Leticia Latino — https://www.leticialatino.com/ceo

• Leticia on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/leticia-latino-vansplunteren-795309/

SHINE Links:

Book Carley for Speaking — https://carleyhauck.com/speaking

Leading from Wholeness Learning & Development — https://carleyhauck.com/learning-and-development

Executive Coaching with Carley — https://carleyhauck.com/executive-coaching

Contact Carley — https://carleyhauck.com/contact

Well Being Resources:

Carley’s Book — https://carleyhauck.com/shinebook

Inner Game Meditations — https://carleyhauck.com/meditations

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The Imperfect Shownotes

0:01 Carley Hauck

Hi, welcome to the SHINE podcast. My name is Carley Hauck and I am your host. This podcast focuses on the science, spiritual perspective and application of conscious, inclusive leadership, the recipe for high performing teams, and awareness practices that you can cultivate to be the kind of leader our world needs now. I facilitate two to three episodes a month.

And before I tell you about our topic today, please go over to Apple podcasts, hit the subscribe button so you don't miss any future episodes as we move into 2022 and if you love this episode, or any of our previous SHINE episodes, please write a positive review and share with folks. It helps so much. Thank you.

This is the last episode of the season, season five, the last episode of 2021 and we are going out with a big light fireworks. Our topic for today is purposeful leadership, with my friend and colleague Leticia Van Splunteren. In this interview Leticia speaks vulnerably with me about how she navigated 2020 as a CEO and mother, how she took on the priority of motherhood and well being first so that she could bring a strong, passionate and purpose to her leadership and life.

She also shares some of the important mindsets and inner game tools she relies on to be a conscious inclusive leader at work and in the world. Lastly, there is a very special invitation that Leticia has for you. So you want to definitely listen to the end of the episode.

Leticia is the CEO of Neptuno, USA. Neptuno is a worldwide telecommunications infrastructure with several patented tower designs of applied three dimensional technology to site surveys and tower mapping. This is a family owned business. And in the midst of the pandemic, so many small businesses had to close their doors, but this particular business was able to stay afloat and you're gonna want to learn how they did that. The company has created telecom assets, virtual libraries, has helped develop telecom management software and is taking an active role in the Smart Cities movement. Leticia is an author, a mom, a sister, a wife, a CEO, a podcaster.

I have been so grateful to meet this amazing human, and I can't wait to share her story of conscious inclusive leadership with you.

3:13 Carley Hauck

Hello, Leticia. I am so excited to have you on the SHINE podcast today. Thank you for joining.

3:21 Leticia Van Splunteren

Thank you, Carley . Thanks so much for having me.

3:23 Carley Hauck

You're so welcome. Well, I wanted to start off with the question. What does conscious and inclusive leadership and business mean to you?

3:38 Leticia Van Splunteren

That's a rich question. There's so much there. But you know, the first thing that comes to mind is, of course, conscious business. For me, being conscious means being present, being in the moment of what I do, but also doing what's best for the greater good and doing things and engaging in things and in business that, you know, has a positive impact in the world. And, you know, being given everybody the same opportunities, not even noticing who is doing what, that to me is being inclusive.

4:16 Carley Hauck

Mm hmm. Wonderful answer and why is that important to you as a leader as a CEO yourself?

4:24 Leticia Van Splunteren

Well, you know, I currently work for the family business. I worked in it for 20 years now. So I think that when you work in the family business, it gives you a consciousness level that maybe harder to achieve when you work for a big corporation because the soul of the company, it's almost like the soul of your family. And that's how I see our company. So, you know, treating everybody with humanity, being compassionate, being generous in your work and in your company. That's, you know, to me, it's part of what we call consciousness because this creates ripple effects. And that's why it's important to me.

5:07 Carley Hauck

Right back care, the soul of the family. Yeah, I like some of the terms that you just used. And being that we've been in this pandemic, you know, world where so many of us are still working from home. Worldwide, it's been over a year and a half now, what have been some of the bigger challenges for you, as a leader, as the CEO of this company? Love to hear.

5:40 Leticia Van Splunteren

Yeah, well, it definitely has been challenging. I joked around with my friends. And they know, I'm not someone that overwhelms easily. But I remember at the very beginning of the pandemic, I was very, very overwhelmed. And mostly, I have still young kids, 11, and seven. And so to have to manage, you know, the company and the impact you will have in the company, and we're in the telecommunications industry. So that's something that I think by now, we can all agree if we hadn't had the infrastructure and the networks, and I'm not going to get very technical, but everybody can relate. If we couldn't have that Zoom session open for our kids and for work, we would have lived through a very different pandemic. So the telecommunications workforce was deemed essential for the very first time in March last year, which I consider we've always been an essential workforce.

But this really made the point. And that means also that in terms of our companies, companies providing telecommunications in general, you know, we were under a lot of stress to deliver, you know, the services and infrastructure that can keep the world connected. And so that poses a lot of challenges. And then, of course, making sure that your employees understood, at least our employees understood that to us safety was first and we weren't going to get anybody in harm's way. And so we have a lot of international traveling for our crews that do work abroad. So of course, we had projects that stopped people not being able to travel. So it was hard. But I think just going, as I say back to basics, and making sure that everybody knew that the basics to us was being healthy, keeping everybody safe, and doing whatever we could do with the resources and situation we were given. So I was trying to do that both at work, and in my personal life. And but yeah, it was very challenging.

7:48 Carley Hauck

And so, you know, it sounds like what was most difficult was just the feelings of overwhelm, and not potentially knowing how to navigate this very uncertain, complex, ambiguous time. And was there anything more specifically that like, maybe you could even point to that has been more challenging for you to navigate in 2021.

8:17 Leticia Van Splunteren

During this year, well, in 2020, just in case I wasn't specific enough, mostly was put in also the kids in front, everything else, because you understood that once they couldn't go back to school, they were at the biggest, you know, we had the biggest uncertainty there and they had to adapt. I had a six year old at the time that had to learn to use the Zoom, and the computer and they had sessions, and you had to be on top of that. Otherwise, you couldn't get them through the school day. Although that was very challenging. And as a CEO, of course, I was staying late and doing everything I could for the company as well. But I had to consciously say, the most important role right now that I have is as a mom. I really felt that and I felt of course communicating with the teams and the company, you know, but the human aspect definitely was the biggest one in 2021. Because we transitioned, you know, the school, the kids slowly returned to school, we got into different patterns and rhythm and pace. I could focus more on the company again, and then started moving because we have as you know, you know, a few months there that compared to our normal pace, it was extremely slow. So you could really kind of pick and choose where you were going to put the attention because we were on emergency mode and this year has been more about okay, now you have different components of how your business did and of course not many businesses achieved their goals or executed their business plans as designed. So it's been a lot of pivoting and just being creative into how to tackle post pandemic world scenario.

10:04 Carley Hauck

Thank you. So what I heard was that in 2020, you know, being a mom was the first priority for you. And as a woman leader, you probably know that in 2020, we had such a huge number, almost 3 million women that had to leave the workforce. Many that were in leadership positions like yourself, because they couldn't navigate work at home, because of the experience, you were just sharing of really needing to make the family and the children that priority. And we need to have women at the top to really create more equity and to make sure that all voices are being heard, and very important decisions for our workplace in our world. And so what allowed you to really be able to straddle both of those in the midst of 2020, that you were able to continue to lead in the way that you were, but you were also able to prioritize motherhood and your children?

11:14 Leticia Van Splunteren

Well, that's an excellent question. And it's kind of a sad answer that I'm going to give. But the truth is, that's where owning your own business makes a difference, you're not going to get fired by doing what you feel is right, the company's gonna take a hit for sure, because you are not, you know, going at the same pace. But at the same time, I think leaders and managers, sometimes they hold very unrealistic expectations. So I think last year, a lot of leaders that thought the business was going to grow substantially unless you sold, you know, hand sanitizer, or anything that is related to COVID is extremely hard.

So there's two options, you can either keep working extremely hard and almost inefficiently, because expecting a certain type of result is almost very unrealistic. Or you say, Yes, we're going to take a hit. This is what I can expect out of this situation, but I'm going to put my attention into, you know, what I think deserves it more. So when you own your own company, you get the benefit to make those decisions. If you work for the same corporate American, you have a boss or a type of leadership that doesn't understand that. That's very difficult to do. And that's unfortunately, why we lost so much ground. And I say we because I'm a big diversity and inclusion advocate. That, you know, it is very sad to see that when it boils down and you have to choose between family and work, I think it is just, you know, human nature, especially for the mother that eats you know, the nurturer eats. You know, this is no secret when one of the two in a couple has to take and make a sacrifice on behalf of the kids. I would say there's extraordinary men out there, but it's usually the woman that's gonna make the sacrifice.

13:08 Carley Hauck

Nope, Agreed. Agreed. Thank you. So, in 2021, I heard you say that it's, it's been a little easier to navigate, because you're not in emergency mode. And yet, I know that there are likely qualities and skills that you possess on the inside what we often refer to as the inner game skills on this podcast, since that's been a big part of the book that I wrote and came out this year SHINE and also is a larger part of the body of work that I've been bringing to leaders and companies. But the inner game really directs our outer game.

And so what were some of the internal resources, quality skills that supported you to be the kind of leader mom and person you want to be in these times?

14:05 Leticia Van Splunteren

That's a great question. And I'll take a moment to say I've read your book. And I think it's fantastic. You did a great, great job there. There's so many important points that I enjoyed and resonated with me in your book.

14:25 Carley Hauck

Thank you.

14:27 Leticia Van Splunteren

Yeah. And so one of the things and I know you're a meditator, I have to say in terms of inner game, I think the ingredients have been there in me, I've been on a personal growth path for quite so many years now. And I'm an avid reader, I'm always reading a book and it's usually about self development. But meditation is something I had been, you know, romancing with for a long time. And I have to say, I owe it to the pandemic that provided me with a more, let's say, a predictable schedule because I travel a lot for work.

And so by being home all the time I could really fit it in, and it was my lifeline to find a, you know, 15 minutes to meditate. And it really helped me put my mind at peace, trust in the situation because as, as we say, it's very, very scary to go through what we went through all of us went through last year not knowing, you know, what's gonna happen and what the, you know, the well being of our families, etc. So I guess I use meditation a lot to kind of channel all the things that were important to me and get to that realization of, you know, we're gonna be okay, we have food, we are at home, we are lucky to be together. And so just keeping the focus into what's important was very key to me. And everything else, you know, the company, the projects that are not happening, the money you're not making, you know, that's the outer game, as you say, in your book, that sold things you can, you know, live without, but the most basic needs were being covered. So I tried to focus on those. And we were in a lucky position that both my husband and I were, you know, able to work from home.

And, you know, I have a lot of sympathy for those people whose job depends on being out and about. And, you know, we paid our nanny for the entire time that the pandemic happened without her having to come because they say, you know, we still have a job, it's not like we lost our jobs. So to take away that income from her because she's not coming to work. And she's not guilty that she cannot come to work, I just didn't feel good with that. And so it was hard, because no one likes to pay money, when you're not receiving the service, I was cooking, cleaning, I was having all the extra work, but just, you know, doing with what makes you feel good in your heart that I think is the key to the to my own inner game, if there's something that, you know, if I do it, and it creates those bad butterflies, what I call in my heart in my stomach, then I know I'm not aligned with my inner game.

17:08 Carley Hauck

Hmm, wonderful answer, I loved hearing that. So really cultivating more self awareness and presence through your meditation practice, that sounds like there was a deeper motivation to do during this time, but also, because you didn't have to get on a plane and travel as much. So there was more regularity in your schedule, to be able to really say this is important. And that enabled you to stay in the moment to stay in gratitude. And to be able to pivot and shift as things always are changing, but in this time, maybe changing more quickly than what we're accustomed to.

And then I also heard that what also came through was the inner game of love. So really cultivating, you know, being loving and caring towards yourself, which then extends outward to everyone that you engage with, and unique and Leticia you and I've only known each other for a little while, but your care and your warmth, and your heart really comes through. And I felt that immediately when we connected. And I said she's got an inner game of love going on here.

18:28 Leticia Van Splunteren

Thank you Carley, I'm happy to hear that. Because you know, it's that and I and I cannot take credit because it's not something I purposely do. But I think yes, that if you nurture yourself it is very hard to do, because you almost feel a little bit selfish, and a little bit guilty of should I be doing something else, something more productive, you know, productive in the way that the world measures it. And when you work in your inner game, it's almost like you don't measure it until you hear a nice comment, like the one you just gave me that if that if that, you know, shines through, then I say okay, then I invested in something that now it's been measured somehow she feels a lot. I feel good about it. But you know, in most cases, you don't get measured on that. And that's the hard part.

19:17 Carley Hauck

Well, and I think that's what's also shifting in corporate culture, and we can talk you know more about this, but the real skills, which in some terms have been called the soft skills, but are really the ways that we lead and collaborate and find, you know, effective communication to innovate to find resolution. Those are not technical skills, you can't necessarily measure them, you know, and, and they do directly lead to business outcomes and organizational goals. And because business is all about relationships, if you don't have that strong inner game, you're not smart.

fording a more human centered workforce that is going to be able to really navigate difficult times, like what we're going through.

And so, I mean, I am personally and professionally, maybe a little biased, but I've just seen it again. And again, those are the skills that really matter at the end of the day. And but I hear you that, historically, it's been about what we're doing versus how we're being.

20:31 Leticia Van Splunteren

Yeah, absolutely, couldn't agree more.

20:35 Carley Hauck

Mm hmm. Well, talking about another inner game skill that is often spoken to in the podcast and with many leaders, is the inner game of authenticity. So when we are really cultivating what matters to us, what's really true, and then we're able to bring that out into our actions into our words, I know that authenticity is a big value of yours. And it's something also that I've noticed about you right from our first conversation. So how do you step in the arena first, so to speak, you know, get vulnerable, be more authentic? And how does that support you to lead your team and especially in the midst of healthy or healthy conflict, but some people might just say, conflict, but, but I believe that conflict can be healthy. So that was kind of a big question. But how would you answer that?

21:35 Leticia Van Splunteren

Well, I think that, for whatever reason, being authentic is always a little bit misunderstood. You know, especially if you're a woman, it's especially felt like weakness, but also for men, I think when they're authentic, they're perceived as a little bit soft. So I think that's something that needs to change. And that's a shift that I'm hoping that it's also starting to happen.

But my approach has always been, you know, being authentic, I don't know if it's 17 years of all girls Catholic school there, add something to the women, but, but just, you know, I was also raised with that, you know, just be upfront, and show who you are. And what I've learned is when you are authentic, and also vulnerable. So when you say how it is, people get surprised, because they are not expecting you to say listen, you know, business is not good. I need help. And then you get a very different response that when you put, you know, a strong, you know, facade, saying, oh, everything's good, we're doing this, and we're doing that. And yeah, you can, you can have that and do it. But then you don't realize you're doing yourself a disservice. Because if you're having challenges, no one's gonna connect with your challenges and offer help.

So I lead like that. So I show that vulnerability, I show my team that, you know, I also get issues, I also get problems. I don't expect others to do something that I don't do. For example, for example, you know, I know a lot of leaders and bosses, you know, a very particular kind of boss micromanager. He doesn't like it or she doesn't like it when she isn’t here, so he has a doctor's appointment, or he has these and they had to leave the office. And I say, don't you have a doctor's appointment from time to time, and they give you a time in a day that it's in the middle of the day.

And I think we don't put on each other's shoes often enough. And so I tried to lead from that perspective and be authentic also to myself, like, really, if that was me in that situation? Why would I expect, you know, from it. And so that has taken me down a good path, because I find that people are more authentic with me in return. And they open up about things and sometimes, you know, I say I get to hear things and stories that I know that are not shared, you know, with many people, and sometimes man, those around me are surprised by how they tell you that? Or why did they share that with you? And I say because I also share, you know what I'm going through and I was also open.

And so I think that being authentic is really a great quality and, and you practice Be generous with your authenticity first, and you'll see that it's gonna return back somehow to you.

24:26 Carley Hauck

I completely agree. And, you know, one of the other things that I've been learning about authenticity and speaking our truth is there's actually a couple distinctions. So authenticity is really just knowing the truth of who you are, what really matters and conveying that. And then there's transparency and transparency is just allowing people to really hear and see all the details. It's not leaving anything out. And then vulnerability is that personal quality that you're

bringing in of- I need support right now, or, you know, just allowing your feelings to come through in the authenticity.

And so for me having those three distinctions supports me to understand, is this a time to be vulnerable? Is this a time to be transparent? Is this a time to be authentic? Or is it time for all three?

25:23 Leticia Van Splunteren

That's why you're the expert. I love that, you know, that this? That distinction is very powerful. Absolutely. And yeah, you know, those of us who are not like you have Masters on the subject. You know, you do it intuitively, you know, that, you know, in business, also, there's a time to be vulnerable, but there's also time to bluff a little bit. And learning to deal with that, I think it's important.

And, you know, if we go back to healthy conflict, and in the team environment, I would have, to my answer that, you know, when I put when I've been transparent, I think that's where this distinction becomes important. When you let the person know, what you're going through in the decision, your decision making, trail of thought, and I something I've done many, many times is say, you know, if I have to say with someone, and I've had great relationships with all my team members throughout my career, and I say, Listen, on the personal level, I consider you a friend, if that has evolved into a friendship with with a colleague, I consider you a friend, and nothing will, I will say in this conversation will affect that, you know, will affect the fact that I consider you a dear friend, and we have a relationship outside the office, and I love to keep that intact.

Now on the you know, professionally, there are certain expectations from the work we are doing. And you know, and then I will go into what maybe I'm not happy about or anything that will create that conflict that we're discussing, but I usually try to create a positive ground where the person feels safe, that the different interactions that we have are not going to be affected by this one conversation.

27:06 Carley Hauck

Well, that's a really helpful example. And then there might even be a piece of vulnerability that you add in there, too, depending on the circumstance, depending on the situation.

All right, well, let's talk about boundaries. You know, being that, again, you're navigating a lot, you're holding a lot from the role of mother to CEO, to wife, and then you also have this podcast. And you're also going to be offering up this incredible experience in Italy in April that we'll share a little bit more about. How are you able to put all of those in buckets, and have time for yourself? And for the things that matter?

27:57 Leticia Van Splunteren

You know, Carley, I think that's a question I get asked the most all the time, but not only in podcasts, like by my friends is like how on earth? Are you doing all this? And it's funny, because, you know, I, I think I’m very realistic, one of the things is, in terms of what boundaries I set families first. And you know, I been a mother, I think it's the biggest job that anybody, I parent, any job that anybody can have, because you realize that you are raising someone else that that is going to be, you know, the is going to model basically, who you are and who you and your spouse or your partner are in terms of bringing this world to this child to the world, and how they show up in the world. So I consider that my biggest responsibility.

And but, you know, I had a great example at home because my father and the company he founded 50 years ago. So I was always, you know, in an intrapreneurship environment, and my dad is a great father, and he's 87. And he still works every single day of his life. So he's still my boss. And, but he gave us the best example in terms of boundaries. And when he would come home from the office, you know, work talk was forbidden. And it was very little, you know, almost no workout. And he say, well, in those times it was easier because it was only me, but now, me, my two siblings, my sister in law, and my dad all work in the same company. So imagine our Christmas events or holidays are usually interesting. But you know, we are all very respectful of that. We all know that we work together and it's very easy to, you know, at a family event to talk about work. And we make a conscious effort and that's where the whole mindfulness and being present and, and you know, you know, be 100% where you are, if I'm in the office, I'm 100% here, if I'm at home, I'm 100% here.

And, you know, I was always very good with my email, even over the weekend since I became a mom, people that interact with me, they know, you know, I'm trying not to check email on the weekend, because otherwise my mind cannot be with my family 100%. And so, you know, you establish the boundaries that you think are important to you. And so for me, families, number one, of course, the business is important, but I always tried to put those first and then I don't take on things I know I cannot fulfill. I'm super realistic with that, like, there's initiatives that I love. And I know I will get to at some point, my book was one of those that you know, I always wanted to write a book but I knew I didn't have the time and then the right opportunity came and it got done.

And then I feel sometimes people are not realistic with their own time. And what they can tackle and setting up having a structure where you say, Okay, I'm going to delegate this delegate that and then you could really come fit so much more by delegating, but also by being honest with what you can tackle and what you cannot tackle.

31:25 Carley Hauck

Fabulous. And so wonderful to hear about the family run business and the components of that, and the people involved, because so many small businesses had to, you know, close their doors in the midst of the pandemic. And then we have these big monopolies like Walmart, and Costco and Amazon, and, you know, that have just really taken on so much more power, because the small business just couldn't compete. And so I'm feeling really happy to hear that Neptuno has continued to really thrive.

And I would also imagine that there's maybe a little bit more camaraderie in working with the family, you know, of saying, hey, this just came up personally, can you take this right? Where I wonder if that's a little bit easier in the context of a family business, versus a non-family business?

32:25 Leticia Van Splunteren

Absolutely. And I think that's how we should all run our business because it goes back to my point to the doctor's appointment, right? If it's your brother or your sister that has an important appointment, you want them to be good, you want to give them peace of mind to go to that appointment and not having to think about work. And the you know, I work for corporate America, my share of the years and thank God that I work for a very good company, Canadian, Nortel and I also work at Merrill Lynch, but you see how we dehumanize work, and it shouldn't be separate.

Work is a huge part of who we are. We spend most of our days in our offices, and it's not separate from our lives. And so I think COVID has allowed us to see that, that we can still be very efficient, we can still run our businesses and do our jobs, you know, sometimes by not being in an office just by being home. I think that's part of what the great resignation is, is that people realize that they can have a different life and that they were going through the motions in having traditional jobs, but they were not happy at the end of the day.

33:34 Carley Hauck

Definitely, yes, we bring our whole selves to work and to home no matter what and I think it's become definitely something that we can't pretend isn't happening and hasn't always happened.

33:50 Leticia Van Splunteren

It’s been so challenging, you know, to your point that you know that we are thriving we are thank God and we you know, by we have had to do so many pivots and even my father says he pains me to see what you guys are going through because in his time integrity, your worth, not lying to a customer to get business those were were qualities that were appreciated by the customers. And now we are living unfortunately in a time that the customer wants you to tell them what they want to hear. And there's people out there that will tell them anything just to get a purchase order even knowing it's a lie but you know when you work for the family business, I cannot lie. I always tell people I have 50 years of my father's legacy on our shoulders.

34:40 Carley Hauck

Yeah, the brand reputation, yeah, wonderful.

34:45 Leticia Van Splunteren

I will destroy you much more than you're just a project or a bad deal if I did that. But then you know, to the point of something my husband always tells me he's a very philosophical guy. He says How is good gonna win when evil plays by different rules? And we've been in that position so many times where you, you know, you know that the customer is being lied to is not being treated fairly, it's because you lose the deal, because the others don't play fair. So you have to make a commitment, who do you want to be as a company and as a person?

35:25 Carley Hauck

Definitely, I really appreciate that example. So Neptuno is this family business that you are the CEO of? It's in the telecommunications industry. And tell me why this is so important right now, as we have 5G, and what are the obstacles around having this worldwide network where we're just able to really connect with one another? And then what are also the possibilities?

35:57 Leticia Van Splunteren

I thank you for that question. Currently, because you know, I've done many podcasts, initially, it's all technology driven, or all, you know, self development, kind of this kind of conversation. And it's so important to intersect our worlds and to share with each other what we all do, because it's all definitely intertwined.

So our company started building the telecom towers that you see by the road, so be the big tower towers that really enable the first cell phone calls. So I'm very proud that, you know, throughout the 50 years, we've installed over 10,000, in the Americas, many, many of them are in the islands, where they were the first, you know, tower and means of communication for small towns, so to see, you know, someone being able to call home because now they have a tower, and they have the infrastructure available to make that phone call has always been something I've been very proud of.

And I think that unfortunately, we have lost respect for what's behind our cell phones. There's so many people and so much technology that goes behind being able to make that phone call, or to stay connected or to do WhatsApp. So that's just to say, you know, that I'm very passionate about raising awareness about what the telecom industry does, because he has become a commodity in a way.

And is there something everybody has these days is a cell phone is a smartphone. And so the 5G, what is this? Why is it important? You know, when when the first technology that enable that cellular phone call came about was very revolutionary, right, we get the opportunity to do a phone call from the car for the very first time, 5G, you know, all the technologies in between one G while the what is called Zero G, or one G. And then 5G, you know, has brought us a step closer, where you couldn't text, you know, that 2G technology gave you that, and then you couldn't stream 4G technology gave you that. So there's a lot of, you know, progress that we made.

5G, what it’s gonna give us is almost like that real time ability to do things like robotics. We couldn't do robotics, you know, for the longest time, and now, this is the technology that is gonna enable that. And it's always basically always connected. Streaming. You know, it's very exciting. And I will take three hours to explain it, but I'm very, very lucky to be in this industry and be enabling that communication.

38:45 Carley Hauck

Well, thank you, because it just taught me a lot about that industry, because it's not one that I have supported, and the companies and leaders, so thank you for sharing that. And thank you for being in service.

39:02 Leticia Van Splunteren

Thank you. And we are in a workforce shortage. So if anybody you know is interested, this is the perfect time. It's a very exciting industry to join in.

39:10 Carley Hauck

Hmm. Well, we will leave links to how folks can get in touch with you after the podcast. So awesome. People that are interested, reach out to Leticia.

So I want to move us into this incredible new venture and experience that you clearly have been thinking about visioning for a while, where you're bringing leaders together for an incredible, transformational time, at the beginning of April, in Sicily, Italy. And I feel grateful and delighted that you have invited me to come and support the facilitation in co-creation of this event, and what inspired you to want to bring folks together in this way at this time.

39:57 Leticia Van Splunteren

Thank you, Carley . And we're so excited that you're joining us. That's really one of the best things of the whole Back to Basics experience. But what inspired me is, three years ago, I started a podcast called Back to Basics, Reconnecting to the Essence of You, moved by the intuition that, you know, while I enabled telecommunications and coming in connections in what I do, I also realized we are losing human connection, we are not talking to each other, we're not having enough inspiring conversations such as this one.

And so I started the podcast as a side gig. And, you know, you've been on it. So I'm very honored as well. But you know, it just has spun off into all these opportunities and interesting people. And so my husband and I had the idea- what if we do something in a place that will be so beautiful, but also will create like a cohort of, you know, people that are open to just go through a transformational experience.

And so we decide the the whole week, which will happen April 2 to the eighth in Sicily, where my parents are from, and it's, you know, in the town, my dad's down, we're going to have a beautiful castle, all to ourselves, which is our boutique hotel owned by very good friends. And we will have, you know, daily sessions facilitated by you. And by professor, Paul McGee, who's going to be a special speaker for two days.

And we'll talk about you know, all things that we're talking here, you know, your book is going to be, you know, base basis will serve as a great basis of conversations. And also, we realize that people want to have fun, people want to explore other places. And so we're gonna have some beautiful, beautiful day tours to the city of Armenian, Siracusa and Noto. We have three world UNESCO World Heritage towns that will will visit but we are embedding you know, the program, the program that you will facilitate, into these experiences so that it's not like we're going to be, you know, in a classroom all day we're going to be experiencing and that's why, you know, being embodied, yes, yes. That's why it's called the Back to Basics experience, because life doesn't happen. In a classroom. In a conference room, life happens while you're talking while you're having a great meal. Why not have a great Prosecco, you know, I want it to be, you know, more real to what we go through in our daily lives.

42:41 Carley Hauck

Wonderful. Well, for those of you that are listening, and you’re thinking Sicily in April, and being with other leaders and learning and growing and connecting, and learning how to bring our best to work in the world. We would love to have you and there will be links in the show notes on how you can come and join us.

43:08 Leticia Van Splunteren

I love it. Yeah, the whole purpose is to have inspired connections, just as what I feel I'm having with you right now and inspired connection. That's really what we are envisioning in this one week to be inspired connections in the most beautiful place you can imagine.

43:22 Carley Hauck

Can't wait

43:23 Leticia Van Splunteren

Me either. So I hope that your audience gets excited to look it up. And we still have a few rooms left. So I encourage everybody to just check it out.

43:37 Carley Hauck

Yeah. Well, Leticia, I'm loving this conversation. And I could talk to you all day. And I'll get an opportunity to do that when we're in Italy. But for now, as we wrap up, I have two last questions for you. Because you are the last interview and guest of 2021. And because we are at the end of the year, I always love the ritual of letting go and bringing in and in my experience, when we let something go, we really give room for the new.

And the letting go could be a person that's not serving you. Right. It could be a client, it could be a pattern or a narrative that you have that's keeping you stuck. It could be an unhealthy habit, you know, anything that you're thinking, you know, I don't want to bring this with me into 2022 because it's keeping me stuck in some way. And then what is it that you're calling in that you're bringing in it's going to replace that? I feel so curious to hear.

44:46 Leticia Van Splunteren

Okay, well, that's a yeah, it's a good question. So what I want to leave out it's something I've been working for since the beginning of the year. It's, you know, I realized somehow human beings we got wired in to having to create a story to everything that happens to us. And I'm very good at that. So let's say a customer doesn't respond to an email, and I'm already thinking they're not gonna buy from me, they're talking to my competitor. And I just create this narrative. And the story in my head that I realize, you know, is fantasy is science fiction, because it's my head, saying something that he may or may not be. But he creates so much suffering for me when I create these stories that are just things that I'm imagining. And so what I'm leaving out is that need to attach a story to something that happened. And just to accept the fact of what happened for what it is, is just the customer didn't respond to the email, and just let it be.

48:47 Carley Hauck

I love that just yeah, just just staying with what is. Oh, so this just happened? Got it. Okay, letting go until more information comes in.

48:50 Leticia Van Splunteren

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And so then with that, what I bring into it is just hope and a deep trust that whatever just happened happened for the greater good.

And just to sit in that deep trust that, you know, and I don't have to know the explanation, I don't have to know why. You know, I think that's why the biggest way of saying it is I don't have to know the why of things and why this happened. And what's the purpose of these and really creates a lot of suffering. And I've been practicing it as we enter the new year. And it’s really liberating to just let it be.

46:35 Carley Hauck

And I also want to acknowledge that that's not always so easy.

46:39 Leticia Van Splunteren

No it's not that's why I said I've been working on it for a long time. It's not something that I've just taken because it takes practice.

46:47 Carley Hauck

It does. It does. I think that I'm going to join you in that. Let's be accountability buddies. I love it.

46:54 Leticia Van Splunteren

Let's do it.

46:56 Carley Hauck

Okay, well, we have had such an incredible conversation. You've left me and everyone with so many wonderful, real tips from your own experience. And I'm just really thankful for you taking time today with me and the SHINE podcast. Is there anything you'd like to leave before we end?

47:15 Leticia Van Splunteren

Just, you know, gratitude, Carley, for giving me the space to share my thoughts with you. I know, I mean, I'm a follower. I am a subscriber of your podcast. And I know you have very, very high caliber individuals in this podcast. So I'm very humbled that you asked me to join and I'm humbled that you are co creating Back to Basics with with us. So I'm just very grateful to have met you this year.

47:40 Carley Hauck

Ah, likewise, I'm very excited to continue this journey with you. And you're such a beautiful embodiment of so many of the other leaders. So you're, you're, you know, totally in line with everyone else that I've interviewed. So thank you again.

48:00 Leticia Van Splunteren

Well, thank you for that. And you know, best of luck to anybody listening since I'm the last episode, let's make 2022 a great year and you know, there's going to be ups and there's going to be down, that's a certainty to expect that everything is only up, it's unrealistic. So let's just make the best of what comes our way.

48:19 Carley Hauck

Definitely. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Leticia for your time and for your commitment to being a conscious inclusive leader.

If you have questions or want to connect with Leticia her LinkedIn handle and other links will be available for you in the show notes. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends, family or colleagues. We're all in this together. And the more that you share, the more that we can support one another.

And as we spoke about this incredible experience in Sicily, Italy, April 2 through eighth, we would love to have you join us. And you can go to the link in the show notes. Or you can also go to leticialatino.com/backtobasics-experience. You can reach out to Leticia or I to learn more information about this incredible week of transformation connection purpose.

If you have any questions, comments or topics that you would like me to address on the podcast, email me at [email protected]. As always, I love hearing from you. Thank you so much for tuning in and being part of this community. What a year and I have incredible speakers and interviews lined up starting at the beginning of 2022. You do not want to miss out so if you have not, hit the subscribe button, go and subscribe to the shine podcast. Be safe, be healthy. Take time to nurture your well being, reflect and let go.

And until we meet again in 2020 to be the light and shine the light my friend.

Our topic for today is how to cultivate a high trust culture. This seems like one of the most important aspects as we really embrace the hybrid virtual world of work. In this interview, I speak with the author, speaker and therapist Dr. Susan Campbell. Susan and I talk about how we cultivate a high trust culture. We speak about what a trigger is, what causes it, and some common workplace triggers. When we have the skills to navigate our triggers with confidence and skill, we can create greater psychological safety, inclusion, and trust. This is what our workplace and our world needs more of. Susan and I cover the topic of the inner game of authenticity, how to cultivate it, and why that is one of the most important things we can create to clear and repair in our one on ones and in our teams.

We also discuss and highlight key conversations and practices from Susan’s newest book, From Triggered to Tranquil. There are so many inspiring practices for you in this episode. Thank you for tuning into this empowering episode.

Guest Links:

• Susan Campbell — https://susancampbell.com/

• From Triggered to Tranquil: How Self-Compassion and Mindful Presence Can Transform Relationship Conflicts and Heal Childhood Wounds by Susan Campbell — https://www.amazon.com/Triggered-Tranquil-Self-Compassion-Transform-Relationship/dp/1608687406

• Meditation Practice Resources from Carley — https://carleyhauck.com/meditations

• SHINE Podcast Episode #48- How to Calm Emotional Triggers at Work and in Life with Carley Hauck — https://carleyhauck.com/podcast/48-how-to-calm-emotional-triggers-at-work-and-in-life-with-carley-hauck

SHINE Links:

Book Carley for Speaking — https://carleyhauck.com/speaking

Leading from Wholeness Learning & Development — https://carleyhauck.com/learning-and-development

Executive Coaching with Carley — https://carleyhauck.com/executive-coaching

Contact Carley — https://carleyhauck.com/contact

Well Being Resources:

Carley’s Book — https://carleyhauck.com/shinebook

Inner Game Meditations — https://carleyhauck.com/meditations

Doterra — https://www.doterra.com/US/en/site/carleyhauck

4 Sigmatic — 15% Discount code Shine — https://us.foursigmatic.com/?rfsn=4405553.d15cc7&discount=SHINE

Social:

LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/carley-hauck/

IG — https://www.instagram.com/carley.hauck/

Website — https://www.carleyhauck.com

Newsletter — https://www.leadfromlight.com

Website Page — https://carleyhauck.com/podcast

Carley’s Patreon Page — https://www.patreon.com/carleyhauck

The Imperfect Shownotes

Carley Hauck 0:01

Hi, and welcome to the SHINE podcast. I am your host Carley Hauck. This podcast focuses on the science, spiritual perspective and application of conscious, inclusive leadership. The recipe for high performing teams and awareness practices that you can cultivate to be the kind of leader our world needs now.

I will be facilitating two to three episodes a month. Before I tell you about the inspiring topic today, can you go over to Apple podcasts and hit the subscribe button. And if you love this episode, please write a positive review. It helps so much.

In season five of the SHINE podcast, we are speaking to thought leaders, business leaders and Game Changers about how we can cultivate the inner game qualities to thrive in the midst of these ongoing complexities and challenges we have at work and at home. Our topic for today is how to cultivate a high trust culture. This seems like one of the most important aspects as we really embrace the hybrid virtual world of work. In this interview, I speak with one of my mentors and dear friends Dr. Susan Campbell. Susan and I will speak about how do we cultivate high trust culture. And one of those ways is by transforming our reactivity, our trigger patterns individually, and then we're able to transform them collectively, so that we can create human centered workplaces that lead from empathy. We will speak about what is a trigger, what causes it, and even common workplace triggers. We also go into the topic of the inner game of authenticity, how to cultivate it, and why that is one of the most important things we can create to clear and repair in our one on ones and in our teams.

When we have the skills to navigate our triggers with confidence and skill, we can create greater psychological safety, inclusion, and trust. This is what our workplace and our world needs more of.

My guest for today is Dr. Susan Campbell. Susan received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Massachusetts in 1967. Since then, she has been a couples therapist, relationship coach, speaker, workshop leader, and trainer of professional coaches. She has written 11 previous books on relationships. And she started the couple and family therapy graduate training program at UMass and has been a frequent guest faculty at Harvard, Stanford and UCLA. She trains coaches and therapists to integrate the tools in this book into their professional practices.

And this book, her newest book that we'll be talking about today, From Triggered to Tranquil, is a gem. There are so many inspiring practices for you in this episode. Thanks for being here.

Hello, Susan, thank you for being here with the SHINE podcast. I am delighted to have you.

Susan Campbell 3:53

Thank you so much for inviting me thoroughly.

Carley Hauck 3:56

So Susan, I know you have listened to the SHINE podcast, which I feel very honored by. And one of the first questions that I often ask my guests is, why does conscious, inclusive leadership matter to you?

Susan Campbell 4:14

Well, a leader has to be able to see the big picture. So right away being able to see from a whole system's perspective, that's inclusive and that's part of what consciousness is, the more conscious people are, the more different angles they can see reality from. So why all that's important is because you're trying to work for the good of the whole and your organization has many different personality types, diverse backgrounds, even different levels of consciousness and levels of self awareness and you as a leader or I as a leader have to be able to operate with that big of a view that big of a heart that cannot be judgmental, or excluding people who are not like me, I have, if I'm going to be an effective leader, I have to be able to relate to so much diversity. And that's a tall order for leaders today.

But you remember, when you're the leader, you are, yes, you partly the visionary, and you have a point of view. But you also, you're going to be working with a lot of diversity. So you really have to understand that people are going to be pulling in different directions. And you have to have a way of at least being able to hear and empathize with and relate to a lot of different personal realities.

Carley Hauck 5:58

Right, and, yeah, and different worldviews and different perspectives. Right. And I really liked what you said that everyone is coming in with a different level of consciousness. And so again, to really have that be part of how you're viewing each person that you're interacting with. And that gives us more of an invitation to be compassionate, when that person, you know, based on their own life experiences, is showing up like this right now.

Susan Campbell 6:31

Yeah, different levels of so many things, what occurs to me now is different levels of feeling safe in the world. And safety is a big deal for all of your people you may not realize. And I when I'm when I'm the leader, and I'm in charge, I honestly just naturally feel safe, because

I'm kind of the big cheese. But I don't realize sometimes that some of the other people do not feel that safe.

Carley Hauck 7:04

So I'm going to move us into the next question. You have written so many incredible books, I have a few of them in my house right now. And you have really honed in on communication and supporting people to be effective in their communication, you know, at home and at work. And I feel curious, why have you focused on that subject?

Susan Campbell 7:32

Well, in any system, a mark of a healthy system is good communication between all the sub parts. So that means information flow, that doesn't get blocked by defensiveness in the system such as well, that's, that's their fault, or that's their, that's their domain, that's not my domain. And so I don't have to listen to your complaint, you know, all that buck passing that goes on in big companies. I know some of our listeners have smaller, more manageable systems that they're working with.

But that's the lifeblood of your organization is good information flow. And there's a lot of, I'm gonna say, bad information. And when I say bad, I mean, not true. People covering up like not willing to ask for help, not willing to admit mistakes, not willing to admit they don't know something. And so all of these things are blocks in good communication. But by being a good conscious, inclusive leader, who understands all these things, and understands that people need to feel safe in order to communicate effectively, at least that's one thing, they knew they needed a few other things too, like self awareness, and some company norms that don't punish honesty.

So now those are a few things that a system needs in order to promote good information flow. But if you understand what gets in the way of information flow, like those things that I mentioned, you can create systems that make sure that there's good communication within your company.

Carley Hauck 9:23

And what you're really speaking to is psychological safety. Is there psychological safety? Or is there the absence of psychological safety, which allows people to feel like they can share their experiences and their worldviews? Their feedback without punishment, criticism, rejection?

Susan Campbell 9:41

Yeah, yeah.

Carley Hauck 9:45

And authenticity is something that I know that you have really specialized in your own personal life, but also in the books and in your various offerings. And I believe you've also been trained in radical honesty. Tell me how you practice authenticity in your personal and professional life, like what are some tips that just allow you to lead from that place. And then on the receiving end, you're inviting more authenticity from others?

Susan Campbell 10:18

Well, let's, let's define authenticity. One way to define that is there's a match between what's inside you, like what you know, to be true for yourself, and what comes out of your mouth. So it's congruent. So you're congruent with what you say and what you feel and believe.

Another aspect of authenticity, however, that's a little less common is, the more self aware you are, the more honest you can be. And when I mean, when I say self aware, are you aware of your own cognitive biases? Like only Oh, always wanting people who are more your worldview? You can hear those people. I can hear people who are my worldview, but if somebody has a different worldview, I just have no time for that. Are you? Are you aware of how your childhood conditioning affects what you pay attention to, and what you're willing to speak?

There's so many filters that humans look through right now. Even you're placing an organization in a big organization, if you're in sales, they've got one set of norms, as opposed to

the production, manufacturing, or research and development, who have a whole other set of norms, because the research is all about being very careful and slow and methodical. Sales is just about get er, done, you know?

So understanding that there's, there's a subculture within the corporate culture based on what your what your job description is. So all of these things are part of your self awareness. Are you aware of all the factors that you filter through in trying to solve a problem and trying to communicate with somebody who may be from a different subgroup than you, like, for example, sales, talking to r&d, that sort of thing.

Carley Hauck 12:30

And I'm, I'm going to push a little bit more towards you, how have you developed your self awareness so that you can be authentic?

Susan Campbell 12:41

Well, I went to a lot of groups, like the groups I lead, where people give you feedback. And there's a lot of this going on, in, in various companies now big and small, where people either go to a stranger group, or they have somebody come in like a team building consultant, and facilitate feedback sessions. So this is how I experienced you.

And so it just helps people to learn that somebody not liking everything about you, won't kill you, you know, you do, you do have to develop some, you do develop some emotional resilience, I think by being in groups where people give each other honest feedback. So that's one of the best technologies for learning to be more authentic, and also learning to see yourself more objectively there's others but that's, that's one that a lot of people already understand, I think,

Carley Hauck 13:45

Well, I've been in groups with you and I would consider you to be a mentor of mine. And I've always appreciated how you put yourself in the ring, you know, you've you've shared about your childhood, your, your relationships, Peter, your beloved is often in group setting. So that I think brings a whole nother level of authenticity as well. Now, obviously, we're not gathering in physical groups like we used to, but I think that there's a way in which you show up just as you are, which really supports other people to feel like they can show up as they are.

Susan Campbell 14:30

So yeah, take some inner work, to get over needing to hide the things about oneself. Or myself, let's say that I'm not super proud of you know, it takes some inner work but you and it takes some of that group work woman, but you have a value of those of us who value authenticity, also have a value on learning is more important than looking good. And if I think that's always been my passion, learning is more important than anything else. So even if somebody doesn't like something, or somebody criticizes you or I criticize myself, there's always some learning in it. And I basically go, Okay, if I had that to do over, I would have done it this way. Because in the moment, I didn't see it as clearly as I see it now. So I use that practice a lot for my own authenticity. I call it revising, or going out and coming in again, it's like, well, I said the wrong thing in that meeting, but next time we meet, I'm gonna correct that. And I'm gonna say, Hey, I'd like to have a do over here.

Carley Hauck 15:43

Right? It's, it's refining. And I've definitely seen you do that. And I think that's part of also being a conscious, inclusive leader, that growth mindset, and always being willing to learn, to take responsibility to repair if possible. And I know that's, that's part of what we're going to be talking about in just a little bit in our session. So I want to give some light to your most recent book, From Triggered to Tranquil: How Self Compassion and Mindful Presence Can Transform Relationship Conflicts and Heal Childhood Wounds.

Susan, this is a phenomenal book. I remember when the pandemic hit and you said, I'm writing a new book. So why this book? Why that? Tell me more?

Susan Campbell 16:34

Well, we live in a traumatized culture right now. And so this really is illuminating. I said the word safety earlier, it's illuminating how many people walk through life feeling unsafe, and how we really don't know what's behind the face of another human.

But so often, when they behave in a way that we think is inappropriate. There’s some level of triggered and trigger triggers is just the word for reacting in the present to some perceived threat. Like I'm not safe, because that person is speaking to me. And they've got this flat tone of voice and this look on their face that I read as disapproval. So there's no there's a lot of that in common, you know, common business, relationships, misreading each other's cues and filtering them through these old fears that come from attachment traumas.

I mostly deal in the book with the kind of traumas that are happened in childhood, when your childhood needs are not met, like the need for safety, the need for reassurance, you can go to somebody when you're scared, and they'll calm you down and help you learn that you can actually self regulate and down regulate the nervous system when you're all all fearful and, and excited. So the word trauma can refer to just not getting your basic needs met as a child.

But I said a minute ago, we live in a traumatized society right now. And so much of what's going on love just the lack of coherent leadership in the sense that our country is polarized between the red states and blue states, let's just call them and okay, are our presidents doing pretty good. But there's a lot there's a lot of chaos in like, Who's in charge here? And where's it going? And that is traumatic for a lot of people, particularly, any of us who grew up in families where

we call them in my business, we call them disorganized, families, families, where you really didn't feel like there was a totally competent adult there, who you could always depend on. And we all need that. And so many of us, maybe just because our parents were busy, but a lot of times, it's more like our parents are so wrapped up in their own needs, that they don't really have the bandwidth to fully be present to the child the way the child needs.

And no, I don't want to blame anybody for that. Partly it's this system that keeps parents so busy, and so darn stressed about money. So you know, I see all of this systemically. But

when we're in a time of such uncertainty and quite a bit of chaos, that is very destabilizing, ie traumatizing to people's nervous systems, and that has a lot of people coming from the more primitive part of the brain that focuses on survival and almost feels like gee, you know, there's so much uncertainty. Am I gonna have my job tomorrow, what's going to happen to the economy, a whole bunch of things like that some of us can relate. And that has going on.

Yeah, they're going around from the reptile part of their brain not making very good decisions, instead of the prefrontal cortex. So that's why I wrote the book, I want people to be able to calm that scared part of yourself, and regulate yourself. And know that this is kind of a group a group effort here, we've got to help each other to realize that a lot of people are traumatized, but work with our own nervous systems, so that we can stay in our intelligent zone rather than our primitive zone, and make better decisions for our future.

Carley Hauck 20:56

I love it. So to really be in service, in the midst of seeing even more trauma, even more reactivity, based on the pandemic, and really this, this collective transformation that we're going through, but the way that we move through it together, as you've already just shared, is we have to find a way to heal individually, like whatever those wounds are, so that we're not looking at the other as enemy.

Susan Campbell 21:32

Right. And leaders, we need more conscious, inclusive leaders, leaders have the opportunity to promote calming ourselves and pausing and realizing the psychological dimension of humans, because we didn't used to bring, we didn't used to be able to, like bring our emotions to the workplace. I mean, we thought we didn't, you know, but now it's much more accepted. And that's a good development.

Carley Hauck 22:03

So in the book, you refer to triggers, you define it as? Well, I'll let you define it.

Susan Campbell 22:16

Sure. Well, it's basically what we're talking about is trigger reactions. I mean, a trigger can trigger can be like a sharp tone of voice. But the trigger reaction is what we're more curious and interested in a trigger reaction, when I hear a sharp tone of voice is a thought, that person is criticizing me. And then underneath that another thought, I'm not good enough, or I'm going to be controlled, or some, you know, some fear thought like that. So then there's body sensations like tightness in the chest or wanting to run out of the room.

So becoming more aware of our own reactions to various kinds of cues that we take as threatening in our environment. And being able to instantly go, Oh, I'm in a trigger reaction, I'm coming from that reptile part of the brain, that fight flight freeze, yell, scream, run away, shut down part of the brain, instead of the part of the brain that can see options that can problem solve, that can collaborate, empathize. And so it's super important that we learn how to get our higher brain back online, instead of staying in that triggered place. Because no good can come of trying to make a decision when you're triggered, like, don't push send on that email rant when you're triggered.

Carley Hauck 23:43

Definitely, and, and as you shared before, the trigger is often coming from this unresolved past trauma from childhood. You know, that coworker, or that supervisor is restimulating, and it's like, Wait, that's not my mother. That's not my brother. But you know, there's this projection that's happening, because we haven't actually maybe even been conscious that that is a pattern that we've been replaying over and over again, so when you talked about self awareness, it's coming back to really getting curious about this particular pattern that I play out when I'm triggered.

And you have so many wonderful examples in the book, on, you know, triggers at home or you're triggered with a friend, but because we're talking more about the context of the workplace, how do we calm ourselves down? If we're triggered in a group or a meeting, and you actually give some specific scenarios of you might be triggered here or here or here, different categories. So we probably don't have time to go through all of them. But I can list a couple and you could share more information for our listeners. How does that sound?

Susan Campbell 25:00

Great.

Carley Hauck 25:02

So, let's say that I get triggered, because I'm feeling criticized in a group meeting. Tell me more about that one.

Susan Campbell 25:10

Well, okay, so leaders need to be aware that there are a lot of different incidents that could happen, that could trigger somebody, and you as a leader wouldn't be wouldn't be aware of it. But if somebody criticizes somebody else in a group, I want to help the leader see, from the leader's view why this is important, it's important to realize that if one member criticizes another member, that other members who got the criticism might be triggered, and you ought to watch for things like them withdrawing, shutting down, not contributing any more. And if you're the leader, you might want to say, you know, when, so and so said that to you, I felt I felt a little ouch, I felt a little out of my heart. And so I just, I just want you to know that I'm here to support you if you need anything.

In other words, empathize, reach out to the person that you think might have taken something a little, a little so hard, that they're not that they're now in their primitive brain, and they're not able to function as a good team member.

Carley Hauck 26:34

So that could even look like, for example, a microaggression. That's happening in the middle of the meeting. And in that regard, I think it's very important that the leader or other team members of the group actually call that in the presence it. But I also think just like what you're saying, it can be very supportive to go up to that person one on one, and share something along the lines of what you just said, to show that you care to show that you noticed that you acknowledged and to invite a conversation around it, because there could even be, what would you like for me to do if that ever happens again? Is there a way I could support you?

Susan Campbell 27:12

Yeah, you might, you know, some of this, you might pick up a conversation with the person who seemed triggered after the meeting, but sometimes it depends on the context, sometimes it fits to do it in the meeting. And as far as confronting a person who, who was aggressive, you mentioned micro aggression. That's a delicate, that's a delicate area, because the person who's doing the micro aggression is already triggered.

You know, and so I mean, you can, you can say, well, we don't do that in here, or, you know, it's time to read, you know, remind ourselves of what our ground rules for safety are, and stuff like that. I mean, you can do all those managerial speeches, but the person who was aggressing

will, that that will not touch their lack of safety. And if you confront them outright in the group, that'll make them feel even less safe. So I recommend dealing with that. Depending on the degree of things, sometimes you can remind people of our, you know, our safety ground rules in a neutral way, but you might also need to speak to the person outside and just personal direct communication, though, not top down, not you know, or, you know, boy, ah, you need to know, you know, use statements versus I statements, you know, use you statements just create disconnection, but I statements, this is a classic communication 101.

You know, when I heard you do that, I said to myself, is there some way that your needs are not being met here in this team? Maybe start with an inquiry like that, but making an I statement, my ground rules in the getting read practices are, talk about your feelings. Name your thoughts as thoughts, name, your feelings, as feelings. And a good tool is to be able to narrate yourself talk like when I heard that I said to myself, because that's a kind of very personal way to be able to actually make an opinion known, make your opinion nominal, that you were somewhat unhappy, but you're not judging the person. You're relating it from your own place, a personal place.

Carley Hauck 29:51

Great. That's really helpful. The other thing I want to just share as far as context and I'd love to go into a few more, I think what makes it so hard in this remote distributed virtual world of work is that so many of the leaders and teams that I'm talking to, including even just our coordination today, so many of us are going from one thing to the next, without a lot of transition without a lot of break. And the way that our nervous systems are wired is that we need pauses, we need time to slow down to be able to integrate the last conversation.

So this type of criticism, microaggression, active exclusion, whatever you want to call could have happened in a meeting. And then I have another meeting to go to, and then another one and another one. And I know that that just happened. I know, I want to have a follow up conversation. But what I'm really trying to encourage as we redesign the workplace, because this is the fabulous opportunity that we get right now is, how do we create more transition time? Why are we pushing so fast all the time, because it's not going to lead to effective communication, and we're gonna keep getting triggered. It's like, the perfect setup for triggers.

Susan Campbell 31:16

Well, starting meetings with a personal check in noticing what are you feeling? What are you thinking? How present? Are you? What are you doing? What are you carrying over from your last meeting, okay? If you're carrying over something, and you need to have a conversation, you know, jot down when you're going to have that conversation, that clearing the air conversation or finishing the conversation that got interrupted, because you had to go to the next meeting. Just jot down something little so you can like park that somewhere else besides right in front of you, because we want to be as present as possible for this meeting and this agenda. But we've all been 50 different places in order to get here. Exactly things like that.

Carley Hauck 32:05

Yeah, I really liked that invitation. Let's talk about the plop. Tell me what the plop is.

Susan Campbell 32:14

That name plop comes from group dynamics. So this is in my chapter in From Triggered to Tranquil about frequent events that trigger people that a leader ought to be watching for. One of them is criticism, like we talked about before somebody criticizing somebody else publicly. Another one is somebody makes an offering, has an idea, a good idea. You know, people are brainstorming, and all of a sudden somebody says something, and then nobody says anything. It's like you've asked, you've given your gift. And nobody said thank you, nobody acknowledged it. That's called the Plop, it just sort of plops in the middle of the floor, let's say no, and nobody picks it up. And that can be very hard for some members. So once again, the leader slash facilitator can be the one that picks it up. No, no. Or notice, gee, I No, I noticed that as soon as Grace said that, there was silence.

And I know Grace if I was you and that happened I might really be wondering, you know, what did I say, Oh, are you wondering anything like that? And I don't know, kind of just move things to a human level.

Plops aren't the worst thing in the world, but people, some people do have triggers about being ignored, or my voice doesn't matter. And so you want to be able to sooth that person's nervous system and get back to work.

Carley Hauck 34:00

Great. I also think it's important that team members can notice that they don't necessarily have to have the formal role of leader that they can also chime in and say, Hi, I, I just heard Cassandra speak to this. And I'm interested, tell me more, right? When no else responds.

Susan Campbell 34:19

Perfect. I love that.

Carley Hauck 34:22

And scarcity, in the sense that we're all rushing so much, but that one seems intuitive. But let's talk to that one because it's real.

Susan Campbell 34:29

Okay, so just leaving a group an hour ago, Carley, and one of the men said, Gee, this group is too short. I mean, he just comes right out with it. Most people in groups, they might not say this, this group is too short. And I'm not getting enough time to say all the things that I needed to say. So just know that if this person was able to say it, there may be quite a few others in the group that are also feeling something like that.

These are the people who have triggers around being attended to versus being ignored no time for me. See, so much of this adult sensitivities in meetings connect to early childhood, lack of some sort. So this man has confessed before in groups, because my groups are more personal growth oriented. He's confessed before that he has issues about getting enough attention and getting enough air time. So just know that it's, it's if whoever the facilitator is, and this is often different than a leader, because it's a group facilitation role, where you're supposed to manage the time and make sure everybody gets a chance to say something.

So there's a lot of devices for making sure everybody gets a chance to say something, but the main one is called rounds. Like, okay, we've got this question on the floor, can we go round the circle and each person weigh in on this in one minute, on the thing I time, people, but it's very important to make sure everybody has a chance, at least to speak.

Carley Hauck 26:21

Wonderful. So I've been facilitating a lot of these team building sessions. And some of the feedback that I've been getting recently is that I'll come in and I'll give a 90 minute talk. And I was told a couple weeks ago that they wanted more time. So now the next workshop is going to be two hours because like what you're saying, especially in the midst of the pandemic, when we've had more social distance, more social isolation, we are all craving connection, we're craving intimacy.

And I think we're all wanting to feel attended to and to feel seen in different ways. And now that home and work are not separate anymore, and they never really were, there's, there's again, such an opportunity to find new ways for acknowledgement for that deeper connection. And I feel curious, like, what are you wanting and needing for this new workplace, knowing that that is a real desire.

Susan Campbell 37:36

The workplace is where most people spend more of their time than they spend with their families. And let's face it, we get a lot of our social needs met at the workplace, and we still want everybody to be working, too. So it's, it's, it's a little, it's a little tricky to keep people on the job. And still also realize that they need time to say, you know, how's your daughter doing here, she had an operation, simple things like that.

Um, I know that a lot of them, a lot of the meetings that I facilitate in, in companies, large and small people will do a kind of a check in something new and good in your life, a personal check in now something new and good in your life? That has nothing to do with work? No, that's a little check in question. Or you can dream up other personal checking questions. Because there's just really is a hunger for feeling connected if people feel connected, like just little devices that are designed in to the workday. Right, they'll do less of the sneaking around to get connected, you know, going to go into the coffee. I know, when I worked for the government. I spent half my time in the coffee line, you know, because they serve coffee right in right in the building. You know, you're chit chatting, the coffee line. So that's not good. You know, it's not it doesn't serve the overall efficiency mission. But we are more than just efficiency machines. And I think leaders and entrepreneurs are realizing that and probably realize that a long time ago, but let's legitimize it. People need human connection. And let's make it fun to come to work.

Carley Hauck 39:40

Definitely. Thank you. So, as we've been talking about some of these different scenarios where we may feel triggered, you've been giving, you know, subtle tips on how you might create a pause, you know, which could be a calling in in the group and acknowledging what was heard what was seen or also going up individually to another person, and then sharing more. Are there other strategies on how to create a pause and a group when you notice that the group, the group, I mean, I guess this is the other thing is that if one person in the group is triggered, than likely the whole group is probably triggered in some way, because we are emotional social beings, and there is emotional contagion. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

Susan Campbell 40:32

That's right. So some people, the triggers, I mean, for some groups, I should say the triggers are going to be obvious, like there's conflict between two members. And you can kind of feel Whoa, the vibe just changed in the room, and everybody feels it. So if it's an obvious trigger situation like that, that's when we say when we say trigger situation, likely to have triggering ripples in almost every group member, except somebody who's maybe checked out, then it's good to actually say, and I encourage leaders and facilitators to do this, at the very beginning, say something like, sometimes things get going a little fast, or sometimes there's, there's conflict in the group, and it has these ripples, like you and I were saying.

So if I noticed that, I'm going to say the word pause, and I'm going to invite us all to share three slow conscious breaths. That'll help us learn to regulate our nervous system, reassure ourselves that we are at least physically safe. And that now Okay, we're ready to move on with our agenda. I'm going to do that. But if anybody else either feels triggered, or notices that there's triggering in the space, would you do that too, you just say the word pause. And even if maybe there's no actual triggering, but things are going so fast and, and you're getting overwhelmed, or somebody you think the group mainly is kind of having too much flooding of data coming in, say the word pause, it'll help us all. So something like that.

Carley Hauck 42:26

Or it could even be that we take a five minute body break. Yeah. I love that. Just saying pause.

You also shared some really helpful questions in the back of this particular chapter that we're talking about regarding, you know, triggers in a group, and it's on group debriefing, revising and repairing. And I thought that these were also really great invitations. You know, one was, how many are feeling the need to debrief today's meeting for a little while. So again, it just brings in more authenticity, or how many I triggered during the group today? Wow, that's just bringing it right home. Over those people, how many are still carrying some sense of agitation or anxiety?

It's great.

Susan Campbell 43:20

It's really lovely if you can not just have a business meeting, but you have a little personal learning about meetings. See, when you ask how many people were and how many people were as a leader, or facilitator, you're, you're educating people too, oh, if I pay attention to that, and move the energy and feel it and admit it, it changes, it goes away. Some like fear, feeling or anger, feeling that I was kind of, I was gonna walk out of the room with that. If the facilitator gives me a chance to express it even in some small way, and I see I'm not the only one in the room. I can let it go and be more present in my next meeting.

Carley Hauck 44:06

You have to name it to tame it. So yes, if we speak to it, we can, we can acknowledge it, and then release it. Yeah. Susan, I could talk to you all day. Thank you so much for this beautiful offering for this book. I know it's helping lots and lots of people. It's getting such great acknowledgement. And thank you again for your time and your service.

Susan Campbell 44:35

Thank you for doing these podcasts and all the good work you do.

Carley Hauck 44:37

And we will share all the links in the show notes of how people can find you and find your wonderful books and offerings.

So you just heard Susan and I spoke about common instances where we might feel triggered in a group or a meeting at work. And I would like to leave you with an important framework that you can use to support clearing the air and encouraging repair.

It is normal to feel triggered for a variety of reasons. And our nervous systems are likely wound a little bit more tightly, then they may have been before the pandemic, there is a high level of burnout, we are navigating a lot of complexities and challenges. And on top of that more social distancing. And as human beings, we actually need co-regulation to support our nervous systems to calm down.

So I share all of that because it's an important time to practice transforming our reactivity to triggers. What can also exacerbate triggers is we may not feel safe within the team with our supervisor. In one sense, depending on what has happened in the past, or what is currently happening in the moment, there may be a lack of psychological safety or unconscious group dynamics that lead to undercutting covert agendas, competitiveness, domination, and a myriad of triggering events.

We often know when a group is operating in a healthy way. And we also know when a group is operating in an unregulated and unhealthy way. If you are in a group, or on a team that is acting in an unhealthy way, I would like to encourage and empower you to use this framework. Regardless if you have formal or informal leadership power, we all need to be leaders right now. And we can lead without authority to support greater collaboration and harmony for the whole.

Try on these four steps for clearing and repairing.

The first step. Be aware of your own triggers.

Why am I feeling triggered?

Pause.

Breathe into the moment.

Notice sensations feelings. offer yourself compassion for being triggered. And then find your way back into balance.

What I just shared was broad strokes on how to navigate your own trigger. But I have a practice in my book Shine: Ignite Your Inner Game to Lead Consciously at Work and in the World. It's in chapter two, and it's called the nest practice. There is also a free audio of this practice. In the Resources section of my website under meditations. This will be in the show notes.

To go more deeper into how to self regulate. In the midst of triggers, there is a past solo podcast episode on how to navigate triggers with skill that I recorded a few months ago and this will also be a link in the show notes for you.

Okay, so first step, you're aware of your triggers, you've transformed them. You're moving from reactivity to calm and responsive. But how do you care and repair the conversation?

Step two, invite the conversation for care and repair. This type of conversation requires a willingness and openness from both parties to connect, communicate and find resolution.

If you feel ready to engage in repair, and share your perspective feelings and needs simply set up a time to talk to this other person. And it can be as simple as, hey, I have a question or reflection for you. Can you make 15 to 30 minutes for a quick connection call.

My invitation is to set this up in person so that you can see each other because a lot gets lost without the nonverbal behavior.

Number three. This is a frame for clearing conversations that has been influenced by Marshall Rosenberg, the father of nonviolent communication and Susan Campbell, our esteemed guest.

When I saw, heard, did, said, blank, I was or got triggered.

If I could do it over, I would tell you that my fear of blank being ignored and talked over blank was triggered. And I withdrew.

What I need is your support.

So another way that you could do this- I’ll insert the blanks.

When I heard you talking over me, in the group meeting yesterday, I became triggered. If I could do it over again, I would tell you that my fear of being ignored and surpassed, was triggered. And I withdrew and felt resentful. What I would like is your support, to bring my ideas forward in a way that serves the team. And I am given acknowledgement, for my ideas for my contribution

with appreciation. What do you feel, think, hearing this?

So that last question, you're really asking for impact. Because it's a bilateral conversation, you're sharing your experience, and then you're wanting to hear how did that land?

I would encourage you to write this frame out. So that it's practice before you say it.

And then number four, wait to hear what that person says. Even if it feels uncomfortable, pause, be quiet.

You're taking responsibility for your response. And then asking for the other person's feedback so that new agreements and resolution can be made.

In addition to this four step framework, which is really just focusing on your internal process, you can also be the leader in repairing and clearing in the context of a group.

Any person in a room who feels triggered and is noticing that the group is also triggered, which could be signs of, you know, silence could be signs of reactivity or aggression. You can be that person to pause, and to even presence aloud what is happening in the room.

If you've listened to other podcasts, you've heard me say that, when we name it, we tame it. This is called affect labeling in more neuroscience circles. And when we actually name what is happening in the moment, it allows our limbic system to calm down, and we can better regulate our nervous system. And therefore it better regulates everyone's nervous system, because we are social emotional beings, and there is emotional contagion.

So if you're triggered in a group or meeting, you can pretty much assure that other people are also going to be triggered.

Carley Hauck 53:55

So one way to clear and repair in a group is to simply say, Hey, folks, I noticed there's some tension in the room. I'm feeling curious, do people feel safe to share here?

Are some of you not feeling heard or valued?

How can we work together to solve this problem?

And what does each person need to hear from the group to find resolution?

Now, that's a courageous step. That's why having this inner game of authenticity is really supportive, to speak up to have the brave exchanges.

I hope that was helpful for you. And if you're interested in learning more about triggers, you can definitely find more information about Susan and her new book. The link will be in the show notes.

And I do trainings on this all the time. It's one of my favorite topics. So feel free to reach out to me- support@carleyhauck.com. And we can talk more about how to create a high trust culture in your team or at work. I often use the psychological safety scan as my first measurement to really understand what's happening within the leadership within group dynamics within the culture. And then I'm able to design and develop a very specialized training or even larger program to support you and your culture to thrive.

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends, family or colleagues. We're all in this together and sharing is caring. And if you have any questions, comments or topics that you would like me to address on the podcast, email me at support@carleyhauck.com. I would love to hear from you.

Thank you for tuning in. We have a few more fabulous interviews through the end of the year.

And again, Susan, thank you so much for sharing your light.

Until we meet again, my friend. Be the light and shine the light.

In today’s podcast interview you will learn how to make any job your dream job. With a reported 4.3 million people having left the US workforce in August of 2021, this is a very timely topic. The questions I have been asking leaders and teams include the following: Why do you want to stay working with your current team and company? What makes you want to leave? Are there parts of your current job or role that you feel frustrated with? Do you have the mindset to stay and make it work because it's not going to be any better anywhere else? If any of these thoughts have crossed your mind, this podcast is for you. Learn how to advocate for yourself and make your current role work for you with my friend and guest Carson Tate.

Carson is the founder and managing partner of Working Simply, a productivity consulting and training firm and author of 2 books, her latest- Own it, Love It, Make it Work: Make Any Job Your Dream Job. Together we explore many tips and conversations you can have to invite optimal conditions for thriving and performance at work. We speak about the importance of building trust, so that we have the psychological safety for contracts and agreements that support work that we love, while having the brave exchanges to talk about healthy boundaries and other conditions that would make us love to stay and bring our best gifts to our teams and workplace. Tune into this encouraging episode today.

Guest Links:

• Carson Tate — https://carsontate.com/

• Carson Tate on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/carsontate/

• Working Simply — https://www.workingsimply.com/

• SHINE Podcast Episode #40- Psychological Safety in the Workplace — https://carleyhauck.com/podcast/40-psychological-safety-in-the-workplace

• Assessment: What’s Your Personal Productivity Style? — https://hbr.org/2015/01/assessment-whats-your-personal-productivity-style

• Amazon Upskilling 2025 Programs — https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/workplace/our-upskilling-2025-programs

SHINE Links:

Book Carley for Speaking — https://carleyhauck.com/speaking

Leading from Wholeness Learning & Development — https://carleyhauck.com/learning-and-development

Executive Coaching with Carley — https://carleyhauck.com/executive-coaching

Contact Carley — https://carleyhauck.com/contact

Well Being Resources:

Carley’s Book — https://carleyhauck.com/shinebook

Inner Game Meditations — https://carleyhauck.com/meditations

Doterra — https://www.doterra.com/US/en/site/carleyhauck

4 Sigmatic — 15% Discount code Shine — https://us.foursigmatic.com/?rfsn=4405553.d15cc7&discount=SHINE

Social:

LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/carley-hauck/

IG — https://www.instagram.com/carley.hauck/

Website — https://www.carleyhauck.com

Newsletter — https://www.leadfromlight.com

Website Page — https://carleyhauck.com/podcast

Carley’s Patreon Page — https://www.patreon.com/carleyhauck

The Imperfect Shownotes

Carley Hauck 0:01

Hi, my name is Carley Hauck. I am the host of the SHINE podcast. Welcome to another wonderful episode. I am the founder of Leading From Wholeness, a Leadership and Organizational Development Training firm that has served companies including Intuit, Bank of the West, Capital One, Pixar, Clif Bar, LinkedIn, and many high growth startups since 2010. I am also the author of Shine: Ignite Your Inner Game to Lead Consciously at Work and in the World.

And this podcast is all about the intersection of three things: conscious, inclusive leadership; the recipe for high performing teams; and awareness practices. This season, season five is all about speaking to friends, colleagues, thought leaders, around some of the biggest challenges we are navigating at work and in the world.

And in the midst of the reshuffle with reported 4.3 million people having left the US workforce in August of 2021. I speak about a very timely topic: how to make any job your dream job with my good friend, Carson Tate. This is a topic I've been talking to a lot of leaders and teams about. Why do they want to stay working with their current team and company? And what makes them want to leave? Are there parts of your current job or role that you feel frustrated with? Or maybe you're even looking for other possibilities within your company? Or maybe outside of your company? Or are you have the mindset that it's not going to be any better anywhere else? And instead, how do you advocate for yourself and make your current role work for you?

If you resonate with either one of these options, this is the podcast for you. In this interview, Carson, I talked about the strong inner game she uses to lead consciously at work and in the world. We explore many tips and conversations you can have to invite optimal conditions for thriving and performance at work. We speak about the importance of building trust, so that we have the psychological safety for contracts and agreements that support work that we love, while having the brave exchanges to talk about healthy boundaries, and other conditions that would make us love to stay.

Carson Tate is the Founder and Managing Partner of Working Simply, a productivity consulting and training firm that has served companies including Delta Airlines to Lloyd FedEx, Wells Fargo, and Chick fil A. She's the author of Work Simply: Embracing the Power of Your Personal Productivity Style and her new book, which we're going to talk quite a bit about in this podcast, Own It, Love It, Make It Work: How to Make Any Job Your Dream Job.

Carson, so lovely to have you here on the SHINE podcast. Thank you.

Carson Tate 03:25

Thank you. I've been looking forward to it all week in our conversation. So thanks for the opportunity.

Carley Hauck 03:43

Ah, you're You're welcome. I'm delighted to go into all these juicy places. So let's start from the top. What motivated you to want to become a business coach, support businesses, leaders, and all the wonderful ways that you do it?

Carson Tate 03:58

Hey, we spend almost a third of our waking life at work. And I believe that work can be a place of meaning, purpose and great significance. And in our organizations, our leaders have a significant impact on the well being of their team and the performance of their organization. And I really wanted to help leaders really enable team members to shine- your word- and all facets of that, and not in any way have a focus on developing their folks and connecting to purpose and meaning in any way detract from their driving revenue. I believe both can coexist.

Carley Hauck 04:39

Thank you. And what would you define conscious inclusive leadership because I know that's important to you.

Carson Tate 04:49

So I would take the two words and pull them apart first. So conscious to me, means awake and aware. And it's grounded and radical self awareness, because I believe that we need to be very clear on how we're showing up, what's influencing us, our values, and that level of self awareness isn't going to impede, it's going to permeate our leadership. So, for me, I focus on the self part of consciousness.

And then the inclusion, that it's not just about honoring differences, it's about inviting folks to show up as their authentic selves, and that they feel a sense of belonging, and a connection to the organization, their team members, and the overarching purpose of the work.

Carley Hauck 05:46

Hmm. I love how you just broke those apart into the inner and the outer because you know, for my book, I really focused on that the conscious being the inner the inclusive being the outer game, love it. Yeah. Wonderful.

Well, I know that in your work, you focus on productivity, you focus on teams, you focus on leadership. And your first book, Working Simply, had a lot to do with productivity. And I know you created this really well regarded productivity skill assessment. And we'll leave a link for the show notes.

And then you have a new book, which I have right next to me. Own It, Love It, Make It Work: How to Make Any Job Your Dream Job and super wonderful offering and very timely for right now. And I know this came out about a year ago, correct?

Carson Tate 06:44

Correct. Yeah.

Carley Hauck 06:46

So I, I wanted to talk to you a bit about this book. Because, as we know, and you obviously didn't know this as you're writing this book, because writing a book takes a long time. But somewhere in the unconscious or spirit or however this was channeled to you, there has been this big upset in the workplace. As of August 2021, we had 4.3 million people leave the workplace. This has been called the Great resignation, the great reshuffle. But in the United States, that's about 2.9% of the workforce. That's huge.

And people have been leaving because they want more flexibility, they want more meaning and purpose. They want more empathy and care and psychological safety and inclusion, they want to feel like they belong and don't have to cover parts of themselves and can speak their truth and bring their authenticity like you shared in your definition. They want higher pay. They want the work life balance that maybe they never had. And so this book, again, in so many ways, addresses, how do we make you know, our work, work for us and really own what's important. And so before I go into different aspects of your book, is there anything that you want to say in response to that?

Carson Tate 08:14

Well, first, I don't think I had a premonition. But you're right, it is very timely now. And I think also, I'm excited by these statistics, in the sense of it is a very strong catalyst for action. So when 2.9% of the workforce resigns, that is a message that is, I think, a resounding call for change. And everything that you said that we've seen in the research that employees want, sounds wonderful, psychological safety, being seen and valued authentically for who you are compensation that allows you to live your life, care for your family care for our community, meaning and purpose at work, excellent leaders who are able to lead organizations that succeed financially. That's a pretty wonderful description of work. And so when you have these forcing agents, which this type of resignation is, change, isn't oh, maybe nice to do, change now becomes a necessity, which is great.

Carley Hauck 09:32

Totally. I know that you have a meditation practice and we'll get into this and yes, in a really big part of the Dharma, so to speak, that I have brought into making the workplace better, and that's the world better. But when there is a lot of suffering, is often when we go to meditation, you know, we don't often sit on our cushion when life is fabulous and great, but I do think that suffering is a huge catalyst for change. And there's a lot to let go of in our world from the way we take care of the planet, to the way that we're working to the way that we're taking care of those we care about. And we love. So there's, there's a lot of opportunity for inner and collective transformation right now. Yeah.

So you've, you've really compartmentalized your book in kind of these three sections. Can you tell me what those three sections are?

Carson Tate 10:37

Yes. So the first section is Own It. And Own It is all about you getting clear on what your engagement and fulfillment needs are. There is not a one size fits all, Carley, and Carson's might have some similarities, but you have your needs, I have my needs.

The second piece around Loving It is how do we create that happiness and that joy at work through relationships? Human beings are social animals, we are primed. It's a primal need. So how do we build those connections that are so important? And how do we continue to advance in our career?

And then the third component of the book is Make It Work. So how do you use a technique? It's called job crafting. But how do you start to shape and craft your job and career to meet those fulfillment and engagement needs that you have identified?

Carley Hauck 11:30

Wonderful. Well, I'm gonna go into a couple different exercises and aspects of those three parts. I think that'll be really helpful for our listeners here. So, you know, as, as we're talking about, how do we redesign the workplace, for greater empathy, for well being for psychological safety, for fulfillment, I know that some of the ways that you are able to be the strong leader that you are, and your well being practices are around three pillars. And so I thought we could start there.

And you called it when we talked a few weeks ago, the three legged stool, I loved that meditation, movement and resting. And when I heard you say that, it really corresponds a lot to the framework for my book. And, you know, how do we cultivate this strong inner game? Well, if we're not taking that time for reflection, you know, the meditation, which is the, you know, building the self awareness. If we don't have self-awareness, we can't change what we don't see, you know, whether that's our own habits and our patterns of responding or reacting, how we're doing it in the workplace, but also then how it corresponds to the greater world. And so tell me a little bit about how you take time, every day for this three legged stool.

Carson Tate 16:06

Yes, and I described it as a three legged stool and make a point on the why of that, because I think it's important. I know, in my own life, when one of these legs, let's say, for example, the one I most frequently give up is rest. When that leg isn't secure, the whole entire stool topples over, right, every all of it falls apart.

But the way I make time is I start my day with meditation, prayer, reflection, and movement. And I'm a morning person. So I like to protect the early hours of my day for that, it centers me, It grounds me, and it energizes me for the day ahead.

Now, rest, for me, is also a part of movement. And we chatted about this as well. So it could be an active rest of my workday, you talked about going outside feet in the ground. And for me, it is outside and just maybe a five or 10 minute stroll around my neighborhood between meetings, just to let my brain rest. And then there's obviously the physical rest of sleep.

Carley Hauck 14:13

Thank you. Well, and I brought that in at the beginning because I feel like that's owning the parts of you that are necessary to cultivate first so that you can bring your best to be able to give whatever you're wanting to give at work or in your relationships.

Carson Tate 14:39

Yeah. It's that foundational piece. That is so important.

Carley Hauck 14:46

Mm hmm. Wonderful. Well, thank you for sharing how you're making that a priority in your life.

The part of the Own It section of your book that I really loved was on cultivating a growth mindset. And so when we think about again, meditation as a form of cultivating self awareness supporting the growth mindset, and for folks that are in a work play scenario right now, and I was actually just talking to one of my clients earlier today, and I know you talked to a lot of people as well, and she is focusing on, I can't change this, this isn't working for me, I'm thinking about leaving this current leadership role. And then I encouraged her to focus on Well, what is working? And where actually, can you take some responsibility to maybe ask for what you want in a different way. And so I would love it if you could talk us through this part of your book, but more specifically, you have this fabulous framework called the C framework, could you tell us more about that, and how that supports us to own it.

Carson Tate 15:56

Mm hmm. And so the Own It is about the clarity around what you need. And one way that we can get clarity is through personal self reflections. And meditation is great. But another way to get insights and clarity about developmental opportunities and growth theory is through feedback. And most of the time, if we mentioned the word feedback, I don't know about you, but most of us sweat, like, our brains immediately go to the worst case scenario.

And so the C framework is a feedback framework that we use with our clients to help them get feedback that is specific, where they can get where they share with their leader or their colleagues, they give an example of the type of feedback and they explain part of the feedback process that third, he is explained what I did or did not do. So it's specific, share an example of the type of feedback that I want. And then my ask of you is to explain the behavior that did or did not occur. So we can be very fact based, very specifically and narrowly defined in one area.

So let's say for example, I want to be promoted to a VP of our organization. And I know that succinct, clear communication is one of the competencies of the VPs in our organization. So you're my manager Carley. And so, using this framework to develop and advance in my career to VP, I would come and say, Carley, I want to advance to being a VP, I'm really focused on developing and refining my communication. When we're in meetings together, can you please let me know, if you hear the bottom line, or the central point or my opinion, within the first five minutes of that presentation? Then what you would do, is after the presentation is that, Carson, I heard your central point, I was like, 12 minutes in? Great. So you didn't do it in the first five. And it's very clear, and it's also very narrowly defined. And so it allows me to focus on developing one skill set at a time, without good or bad or great, because that's not feedback. I can't replicate it. And I know that it's going to be behavior that is observed.

Carley Hauck 18:19

Wonderful. Well, and for a lot of people, you know, even though we want feedback, it's hard for us not to take it personally sometimes. And what I love about this framework is that it keeps it focused on the actions, you know, it's you didn't do anything wrong. It's just that you still have refinement to do on this particular action. Right. So it pulls the shame right out of there.

Carson Tate 18:48

Absolutely. Yes. And when you focus on asking your manager for feedback, some of our clients don't want to feel this way and struggle to ask for feedback. But when we connect it to performance, and we connect it to career advancement, I'll also think it takes a little bit less of the anxiety out of it. And then when you are this specific, it is about behavior and actions. I didn't do it or not. And then you're giving me the feedback of what did or did not occur. So I can adjust in my next presentation.

Carley Hauck 19:23

Let's take a body break. Notice your feet connected to the floor. Notice your body standing or sitting. So just take a few minutes, I'd like to lead you through an awareness practice around trust. Take a deep breath in. Deep breath out to any movement and the shaking and the sounding to release tension. Just bringing your awareness into the present moment.

When I am invited to work with teams or senior level leaders and companies, one of the first things that I'm assessing for is the level of trust and psychological safety. Trust is the essential ingredient and foundation for all relationships, but also for all businesses to thrive. Because business is all about relationships. And without trust, you can't build anything that will succeed for the long term. And any kind of organizational change will be seriously challenged if you don't have a foundation of psychological safety and trust.

So what is trust? Well, organizational scholars define trust as our willingness to be vulnerable to the actions of others, because we believe that they have good intentions and will behave well towards us. In other words, we let others have power over us because we don't think they'll hurt us, we think they'll help us and have our backs. And when trust levels high within coworker relationships, it corresponds to trusting the company that employs us. And we feel confident and want to save us or abuse its relationship with us. It has our backs.

But then why are so many people leaving the US workforce? It all comes down to trust. But how do we trust? And in order to trust someone, especially someone who was unfamiliar to us, or someone that has deceived us? There's a lot going on under the surface, there's likely thoughts on both sides such as should I trust you? How much do you trust me? Why should I trust you?

Some of us are innately trusting, naturally seeking positive intent and putting the we before the me.

But in my experience, trust is earned. It is not wise to trust someone blindly until you have vetted that they are in fact trustworthy. And just like everything else in life, it starts with the inner game. So I'd love to invite you to just reflect on a couple of these questions. This is about building trust with yourself. And the more that you trust yourself, the more you'll be able to trust others, and develop social contracts and agreements for trust.

What assignment can you follow through on today that will support you in increasing your trust in yourself?

Next, identify someone in your life at work or at home who has violated your trust. After expressing your fears and concerns to this person, negotiate a task or request that he, she or they can do to rebuild trust with you.

Next, invite an open conversation with someone in your life at work or at home, whose trust you have violated. What happened? Did you break an agreement or break a boundary of theirs? After sharing your feelings of remorse and desire to repair, invite a new agreement that begins to restore the original broken agreement.

So these three invitations as you can see, start from the shallow end to the deep end. And it starts on the inside.

If you're interested in growing your inner game, upskilling your soft skills for conscious, inclusive leadership, my book and hardcopy or audiobook has lots of wonderful ways that you can do this. And in fact, the exercise I just shared with you is coming from chapter six, the Inner Game of Authenticity.

If you're interested in learning how to create a foundation of psychological safety, building more trust through authenticity, so that you have the optimal performance for thriving, I would love to speak with you. You can book a free concert floatation. And we can talk about how we can develop training, or a large scale program to support greater psychological safety and supporting this virtual distributed, trusting team in these times.

Now, going back to the second part of the interview, Carson and I will speak more to how to make any job, your dream job.

Before we move into the Love It part, is there anything else you want folks to know about Own It? I mean, you have a lot of pieces in there. And I know we're doing broad strokes, because we don't have all day together. Although I wish.

Carson Tate 25:56

The only thing I would say is that the thesis of the Own It section in the book is that you have an equal and powerful voice in the relationship with your employer. And part of this means you are co-creating a workplace and a job that's mutually beneficial for you and for them.

Which means you need to know what you need. And then also to have the courage as you were coaching your leader, what can we find here that is working well for you? And the question, I'm sure she said, is how do we do more of it? And that puts some Own It on her. And then having the conversation with her manager of how do we create a job where I'm doing more of this work that is additive, allowing us to achieve our strategic goals driving revenue, that is also creating a more fulfilling workplace for myself?

Carley Hauck 26:48

Well, and I think that's what's so interesting about this time right now, you know, I feel like in many ways, workers leaders were just, they were stuffing, what they really wanted, you know, what would really work for them? What would really allow them to bring their best what would allow them to shine, and now in this, I've had it done, I'm leaving, but that feedback was likely not shared before they left, or maybe it was in small ways, or maybe they just didn't feel like it was going to be heard.

And so now as they're looking for the next role, the next company, I feel so curious about what's happening in these negotiations, right? You look at a job and it says 30% travel, or it says, you know, this, this, this and this. And now I think people are feeling empowered to say this is a negotiation, like if I'm going to put in a majority of my waking hours, my love, my innovation, my effort into this job into this team? How do I really make it work for me?

Carson Tate 28:02

Yes, and I believe employers are recognizing that, to get all the richness that you and other folks always bring, it is a negotiation to create optimal conditions for people to thrive and for us to achieve goals 100%. And it's being willing to challenge some of the status quo and norms that are really not in alignment with performance that have been around since the Industrial Revolution. And you know, we have built knowledge base work off of industrial base manufacturing principles. We're not robots, we're human beings, not human doings.

Carley Hauck 28:45

Totally. I say that all the time. Well, wonderful. Let's move it into Love It. And I also use love a lot in my world. And in my book, and so not a lot of us business folks use the word love but hey, if we're not loving our work, if we're not bringing love, then why would we want to work for that team? Or that leader? That company? Right?

Carson Tate 29:10

That's my belief. Yes. Yes!

Carley Hauck 29:17

So, in the Love It focus of the book, you start off in the very beginning of that section on strengths and weaknesses and skill development. And I love again, that you're focusing on upskilling because that is such a huge topic right now as we are trying to figure out what is going to support people to want to stay within their current organization, and what's attracting people to want to go to a different organization.

And especially these younger workers, you know, Gen Z millennials. They're really craving mentorship, coaching. They want on-the-job skills training, they want to know that they're going to be able to be promoted, you know, and have greater opportunities.

And so I'm gonna just focus on one behemoth, an amazing company called Amazon, because they're putting a ton of money towards upskilling. And I was, I was really fascinated to see that. So by 2025, they're committing $1.2 billion to provide free education, skills, training opportunities, to 300,000 of their employees in the US to help them secure new high growth jobs. And they're also investing hundreds of millions of dollars to provide free cloud computing skills training to 29 million people around the world with programs for the public.

And you can actually find this on the regular Amazon site. I was looking at it last night, and I was pretty impressed with it. So they're just one company that says upskilling is important to us, we're gonna make sure that, you know, folks that are working for us have the skills to really develop and stay here and grow their careers.

And so in your chapter, you talk about assessing your current skills. And you focus on three different distinctions of soft skills, hard skills, and then hybrid skills. And first, I'd love to hear your thoughts on what I shared about upskilling. But I'd also love it if you could break down why you focused on those three parts of skills.

Carson Tate 31:38

Well, I first did not know that about Amazon. And I'm so excited to hear their commitment, and their leadership around their commitment to their team members and upskilling. And it is absolutely necessary. I mean, I think we've seen during the pandemic, that there has been such a radical shift in how we work, that that requires a reimagination of our skills. So, AI, computing, we knew, and these have always been really needed skills, but I think that's been accelerated.

And we also have jobs that are going away. But we have talented people in these roles who we need to help, I believe, adjust, learn and grow in new ways. I think that is part of the conscious community of us being of supporting our team members, it's so important.

The reason I focused on soft, hard and hybrid skills, was to break it down for my readers and for our clients. So that they could take incremental steps is I think, when you think about upskilling, that word just what does that mean? Where do I start? I wanted to take the overwhelm out of professional development and growth and break it down into different steps. And depending on where you want to go in your career, there's more of an emphasis sometimes on different sets of these skills.

So soft skills would be communication, it would be empathy, it would be emotional intelligence, it would be persuasion, these are skills that I believe are essential for all folks, versus hard skills, which I define as technical skills. So for example, can you put together an Excel model on a complex financial transaction, that's a technical skill, a technical skill could also be using your company CRM. So if you're a customer service representative, there's a customer there is a CRM tool, or there's some type of software that you are expected to use, that is a technical skill, and a hybrid is a combination of assault and a technical skill. And I think about an example here would be email communication. So do you have the soft skill of communication, written communication skills that are clear? And can you appropriately use the technology to make sure that that communication is received? That you're doing it seamlessly and not wasting a lot of time and energy in that platform?

Carley Hauck 34:12

I feel really curious because I know, as a leader, I'm a learner. And I really value learning all the time and upskilling and my own growth and development. What have you chosen to upskill and learn and grow in the last year and a half? I mean, I would imagine you're always choosing things to grow. But I, I feel curious in just the navigating of so many things like all of us.

Carson Tate 34:45

So where I'm really focused, my learning right now is on change. Because we're in the midst of massive change. Why people change, how you lead change, how you lead broad scale. It'll change, how you shorten the change curve, how you connect head and heart, how we really get into intrinsic motivators that are really driving this change.

And the other piece that I'm really fascinated about is trust. Trust on teams, you're talking about psychological safety, which is an element of it. And how do we cultivate that in a hybrid workplace. Because the interactions on a screen are different than if you and I were sitting at a beautiful coffee shop in Asheville, North Carolina, it's very, very different.

And I don't believe that the future of work is going to be that we're all in an office together all the time, moments, potentially, there are certain segments of the workforce where they will be working together. Our physicians, our teachers, manufacturing fulfillment centers, however, we're still gonna have to build trust, and how do we do that?

Carley Hauck 36:02

Oh, I could totally go down this rabbit hole for a little bit. So I'm going to and then we'll and then we'll break through the book, which is the make it work. But I mean, that's fascinating to me as well, the trust component. And that's something that I take a lot of time, when I'm working with teams. And I think a part of it is vulnerability. But we have to have the psychological safety to feel like we can be vulnerable. What do you think about that?

Carson Tate 36:36

I agree with you, 100%. Yeah, I mean, it is vulnerability. It is, you know, vulnerability’s close cousin of authenticity. And there is an empathy component in here as well. But if I'm on a team, where I don't feel safe, sharing, maybe a personal experience that has informed how I think about this decision or this project, and I'm not willing to share, be vulnerable about this piece of who I am. I don't trust the trust isn't there.

And so if you look at you know, the foundations of highly effective teams, trust me as the base of that pyramid, we can build that model. And so how do we do that? I'm, I'm intrigued. I do think it's vulnerability, psychological safety, how do you create those conditions? And quite frankly, how do we get out of our ego selves, where we're protecting, we're fearful, we're contracted, there's not enough that I can open, be open. It's safe, you're safe, I'm saying?

Carley Hauck 37:50

Well, I would say not to plug my own book here.

Carson Tate 38:00

But I think you should plug your own book!

Carley Hauck 38:01

But, you know, I am brought in to teach a lot on building trust or authenticity. And I did a training for Capital One just a few weeks ago, and I was talking to Intel this morning about something they're needing as well.

I mean, and I agree with you, because in this hybrid work environment, there are a lot of people that are going silent, or they're zoomed out, or they're, they're not actually bringing their voice into the space and their cameras, frankly, not even on for some of these meetings, or trainings. And we don't really know what's going on with them. And they might be slowly deciding to leave the workplace or work to, you know, leave the team.

And so I feel like when we're cultivating this strong inner game of self awareness, emotional intelligence, resilience, which that growth mindset, well being love and authenticity, we're able to bring a more self regulated, aware response of loving, true person into the space, you know, where I can honor what's true for me, but also be aware of what might be happening for the other. So I think it's a lot of cultivation of the inner but then having agreements and social contracts that support us to be learning and growing together.

Carson Tate 39:28

Absolutely. I mean, I think you can use really tactical things around agendas, working agreements, you can create clarity and certainty norms. You can have conversations about how we support each other's social and emotional needs, what are yours we're, what are mine and how do we do this collectively as a group.

So there are some very tactical things that you can start to do to kind of scaffold within your team to create more and more psychological safety, more opportunities to cultivate trust and more opportunities for us to be vulnerable.

Carley Hauck 39:58

Well, I'm that's actually where I wanted to go next is in the, you know, Make It Work section, you have this team audit process that I thought was so fabulous. Could you walk us through a little bit of that, because I think that supports greater trust.

Carson Tate 40:15

So the golden rule is, we all know it, most of us know is to treat others the way that you want to be treated. And the platinum rule is a rule that I think works even better for us in our personal and professional relationships, because it invites us to treat others the way they want to be treated. So we're seeing others for who they are. So that's the first paradigm shift, can you start to get to know your team members around how they want to be communicated with and worked with?

And so the way that we use our productivity style assessment tool is a way to audit the team and figure out their different work styles. So are you analytical or logical? Are you more organized and detailed or sequential? Are you more emotional, relational, kinesthetic, or intuitive, big picture and ideation. Each of these four work styles is a different way that they want to work with and interact with you.

So for example, let's say team meeting. And as a leader, you aren't aware yet that your team is predominantly analytical and logical. And you have been starting all of your team zooms with chatting about personal things, and sharing Netflix recommendations, which connection is important. But for these analytical, logical, folks, the way they read that from you, as a leader, is not valuing their time, not getting to the point, not being focused on the outcome that you're disrespecting them and their time.

You as a leader, maybe you're more relational motional kinesthetic, or looking at it is connection before content. I want to connect with my team, I'm building this trust and building this team. Very different experiences.

Carley Hauck 42:06

And so if you are coaching one of these more analytical leaders, what would you encourage them to say, if they're getting really frustrated with the way that this agenda is happening for all these meetings that they're having to attend.

Carson Tate 42:25

So I would invite them to have a one on one, ask their team leader for a quick connect afterward, and share with them that their work day, what works best for them is to be very focused and to know what the goal or the objective is for a meeting and to immediately start the meeting there. So that they can accomplish the meeting objectives in the most efficient way possible, and that they are very thoughtful and intentional about their time. And for them, their experience of what they would maybe say as chit chat is not efficient and feels like wasted time. And so detracts from their engagement in that meeting and their overall productivity for the day.

Carley Hauck 43:08

That's fabulous. Thank you for that tip. Well, and then, if that leader who is actually hosting the meeting was really listening, I would encourage if I was that leader's coach to then actually get a maybe anonymous report, so to speak from everyone or even just have an open discussion of what's working for people about these meetings and what's not? And how do we audit it so that it works for everyone? Would that be something you might suggest?

Carson Tate 43:46

Absolutely. And I think we have a very natural opportunity now to audit all of our team members, all our team meetings, know who we're working with, I think we have an opportunity to audit all of our collaboration systems and processes. So we're in the midst of another massive change. What better opportunity to say, Carley, you know, we haven't been in person for 18 months, we've been working in this remote way. We're now going hybrid. Would you be open to exploring what might really work for us in this new workplace? Tell me what worked for you, what didn't work for you, or now I know that there may be some changes in your personal life. And we need more of this and less of that. It’s a natural opportunity for conversation. And I believe everything a leader should be on the table.

Carley Hauck 44:33

Right? I agree. I would really love to be able to help facilitate conversations with teams that are speaking to this is what would have me stay and I'd be so excited to stay and contribute and bring this and bring that and this is what has me want to leave. I mean, if we could be that authentic.

Carson Tate 45:01

Now we know. I mean So all change starts with awareness. I can't change when I'm not aware of. That is a foundational principle, we use it as coaches all the time. So how do we dial up that awareness, but if the leader knows that what is making me want to leave is a lack of what I perceive is career advancement and development. We now can work on that together.

So maybe there isn't the next level position available. But maybe there's an opportunity for me to support you in getting on a company wide committee, maybe we can look at sponsorship and mentorship in a new and different way for you. But once I know as a leader and I've expressed it and owning it as a team member, we can start to affect positive change.

Carley Hauck 45:49

And what would you say to a client that is sharing what they want, and there's no room for change. There's no budging of the senior leadership or that person's direct supervisor.

Carson Tate 46:08

So the first thing I'm going to ask is, do you know this for sure? So do we have, do you have data? Have you or can you tell me about the conversations that you've had? What has been said, what has not been done?

So first, I want to make sure that we are not telling ourselves a story that we actively have taken steps to ask for a mentor, or ask to be nominated for a committee or asked to do more of this type of work, where I shine. And when you're met with resistance, then you can go around. So is there another leader in the organization who might afford you an opportunity to leverage his strength, serve as a mentor, introduce you to a person to cultivate a relationship with so we can go around?

Is there an opportunity within the organization to develop some skills and some relationships that are not being met, if with your manager and your team? Or is this just completely intractable, nothing is going to change, you don't see any other avenues around, then it might be the time to think about leaving this team, this division for a new division in your organization, or time to leave the organization.

But I would challenge anyone to make sure you're very clear on what your engagement and fulfillment needs are, what your boundaries are, what your values are, how you define meaning and purpose and work before you go to look for that new job. Because wherever you go, there you are, if you haven't done the work on yourself, and you aren't clear on how you contributed to that situation, because as much as we don't want to say it sometimes, in that situation, you have been a participant, you have a piece of the action. So let's get really clear on what it was. So that we can create a different experience and a different future in that new workplace.

Carley Hauck 48:11

I love that. Yeah, the radical responsibility, but then also getting really clear on what it is that you need and want. I appreciated you sharing boundaries, because I think that, at least in my own experience, and in my own work, and I'm sure you've struggled navigating it as well, we don't have the same boundary between work and home anymore. They, I mean, they've always been integrated. But now more so than ever, we're not leaving our homes. And as you said, you know, we might be going back into the office a couple of days a week, and we may not some, you know, some companies, it's indefinite. They're not going back today.

And so how do we really create those boundaries between work and home, especially if our company and our team are not showcasing healthy boundaries between work and home? Do you have any thoughts around that? Because I, it's definitely something I've been exploring. I've been talking to teams and clients with.

Carson Tate 49:15

The first place when we are working with teams because it is coming up more now than it ever has, is to invite a conversation. So as a team, and again, use this time, our company has just announced that we will be staying. Our team is going to be a fully remote team. That's a change.

So this again, is this natural opening for us collectively as a team to talk about what does that mean, and what are the working agreements. So I challenge teams to talk about what is your standard email response time? I don't want the assumption. I want the stated implicit expectation of email response time. What is the last hour of the day that we will have a meeting? What is the earliest hour that we will have a meeting, taking into account if we have global colleagues. Some of us are caring for elderly parents, some of us are doing childcare responsibilities in the morning in the afternoon. How do we want to conduct our team meetings? Are we going to record them? So asynchronous work is possible? What are we going to do in terms of preparation? How are we going to honor if there is an emergency and I need Carley to respond right away? What constitutes an emergency? And what communication channels will we use for that, so that the 9:30 pm email or text is not that the unspoken rule is that you have to respond. That it could be that a team member was doing some work in the evening, because they needed the time during the day to care for something else. And for them, this is just their time. But there are no expectations that you respond, because these are no response times. And this is our workday.

Carley Hauck 51:02

Those are wonderful suggestions. So for those of you that are listening, Carson has this fabulous book Own It, Love It, Make It Work: How to Make Any Job Your Dream Job. She also has a workbook. And so a lot of these tips and practices we're talking about are in the book, and you can work through them to really own what's going to work for you.

Carson, what else would you like to leave folks as far as how they can get in touch.

Carson Tate 51:30

So that book is available Own It, Love It, Make It Work on Amazon, all of your outlets where you'd like to buy your book, if you'd like to listen if you love to listen, all of it's available on all the audiobook channels as well. Website workingsimply.com, we do have lots of additional tools and resources and tips and strategies free there on the website for you. And if you're on social media, The Carson Tate on LinkedIn and again, lots of articles and free content there as well.

Carley Hauck 52:01

Wonderful. Again, thank you so much. This was really delightful, and always a pleasure.

Carson Tate 52:10

Likewise, thank you so much.

Carley Hauck 52:12

Thank you Carson for your time, and your light, and friendship. I appreciate the leadership that you're bringing in this pivotal time to folks and companies. If you want to connect more with Carson and tap into some of her amazing offerings, the links are in the show notes. If you enjoy this episode or other SHINE podcast episodes, this is number 50, can’t believe we hit 50, I would love for you to share it with friends, family, colleagues or on your favorite social media channel. The more light we can spread amidst the murky waters we're all navigating the better.

If you have any questions, comments for topics you would like me to address on the podcast. Please email me at [email protected] I would love to hear from you. Thank you for being part of this community for tuning in. And I have several wonderful episodes throughout the end of the year. So keep coming back. And until we meet again. Be the light and shine the light my friend.

Today's interview is on emotional awareness at work. Do you identify with and accept the entire range of emotions that you experience? Do you feel that you can bring your whole self to work because it is an environment that supports and honors all emotions, or do you feel that you have to hide your emotions? I’m privileged to be joined by Karla McLaren, an award winning author, social science researcher, and pioneering educator whose empathic approach to emotions revalues, even the most negative emotions and opens startling new pathways into self awareness, effective communication and healthy empathy.

In this podcast, we will explore different ways to name our emotions with the vocabulary of an embodied experience so that we can grow our self awareness, develop greater self regulation, navigate triggers with skill and have more relationship mastery. We also discuss how to design for empathy and emotional intelligence at work with different questions, strategies and tips. Together Karla and I speak to the powerful practice of developing social contracts that empower trust, psychological safety so that people can really speak the truth even if it destabilizes processes or structures that frankly, should just be let go. There's so much good stuff in this interview. Thank you for joining us!

Guest Links:

• Karla McLaren — https://karlamclaren.com/

• Karla on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/karla-mclaren-m-ed-17b947a2/

• Emotional Vocabulary List — https://karlamclaren.com/emotional-vocabulary-page/

• Empathy Quiz — https://karlamclaren.com/are-you-an-empath/

SHINE Links:

Book Carley for Speaking — https://carleyhauck.com/speaking

Leading from Wholeness Learning & Development — https://carleyhauck.com/learning-and-development

Executive Coaching with Carley — https://carleyhauck.com/executive-coaching

Contact Carley — https://carleyhauck.com/contact

Well Being Resources:

Carley’s Book — https://carleyhauck.com/shinebook

Inner Game Meditations — https://carleyhauck.com/meditations

Doterra — https://www.doterra.com/US/en/site/carleyhauck

4 Sigmatic — 15% Discount code Shine — https://us.foursigmatic.com/?rfsn=4405553.d15cc7&discount=SHINE

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The Imperfect Shownotes

Carley Hauck 0:01

Hi, thank you for joining the SHINE podcast. I'm your host Carley Hauck. This podcast is the beginning of season five. And it is all about the intersection of three things: conscious, inclusive leadership, the recipe for high performing teams and awareness practices. If you are just joining the SHINE podcast, please go to your favorite podcast application and hit the subscribe button so you don't miss any fantastic episodes.

I would also love to encourage you to write a positive review. If you enjoy this podcast or any of the other SHINE podcasts, it helps so much and spreads the light and brings wonderful people to this community.

Today's interview is on emotional awareness at work. And I have the privilege to have this incredible conversation with a mentor and a teacher that has been in my life for over 10 years, Karla McLaren.

And before I go into a little bit about Karla, I wanted to introduce the interview. And in this podcast today, we are going to be talking about different ways to name our emotions with vocabulary with embodied experience so that we can grow our self awareness, develop greater self regulation, navigate triggers with skill and have more relationship mastery. We're also going to talk about how do we design for empathy and emotional intelligence at work with different questions and strategies and tips will also speak to powerful practice of developing social contracts that empower trust, psychological safety so that people can really speak the truth even if it destabilizes processes or structures that frankly, should just be let go. There's so much good stuff in this interview.

Karla McLaren is an award winning author, social science researcher, and pioneering educator whose empathic approach to emotions revalues, even the most negative emotions and open startling new pathways into self awareness, effective communication and healthy empathy. She is the author of four books, and I believe a workbook and I'm not going to read all of the books aloud but you can definitely go to her website and check them all out. She is an amazing resource that I'm so excited to introduce you to. The Art of Empathy, A Complete Guide to Life's Most Essential Skill that came out in 2013, The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings Are Trying to Tell You came out in 2010. That was my first introduction to Karla and her latest book, The Power of Emotions at Work: Accessing the Vital Intelligence in Your Workplace. Karla has also developed the groundbreaking six essential aspects of empathy model that highlights all the processes in healthy empathy, and makes them easily understandable, accessible and attainable.

Karla is so wonderful to have you on the SHINE podcast, I discovered your work and the book the language of emotions. About 10-12 years ago, I was attending these community Enneagram panels in Marin County. And I was often one of the youngest people in the room.

And in those days, I tend to be attracted to wisdom. And so I've always found myself among elders. And someone talked about this book. And I think it had only come out maybe a year or two before and I knew that I was a very emotional being and didn't quite know how to navigate those emotions and didn't really have language for it. So I went and got your book.

And it had a huge positive impact on me. Because I started to really turn towards my emotions, really notice what was happening in my physical body and began to ask myself questions and my emotions questions. And it really enabled me to develop better boundaries, to understand my own empathy skills and emotional sensitivities. And that has really evolved in my work and in my personal life. And I bring a lot of that exploration into my own book, Shine.

And that is a big part of chapter two of my book, which is the inner game of emotional intelligence. And so your new book, The Power of Emotions at Work, has come out a couple months ago, and we have the same publisher, Sounds True. And you have I believe, published four books with Sounds True. And I listened to your recent interview with Tammy Simon, the founder of Sounds True on your new book, on the popular podcast Insights From the Edge where Tammy is typically interviewing Sounds True authors and their new books. And I loved this interview of yours. And I was so excited to support you in this next book, and to have you on the podcast. So thank you, for your deep contribution, your genius really around the realms of emotion and empathy, for shining your light in the way that you are. I am grateful and delighted to have you here.

Karla McLaren 6:30

Thank you. Thanks.

Carley Hauck 6:33

So this podcast is on the intersection of three things: conscious, inclusive leadership, the recipe for high performing teams and awareness practices. And so one of the questions that I love asking my guests is What does conscious inclusive leadership mean to you?

Karla McLaren 6:51

In my own work as a leader, for me, it is make maintaining an emotionally well regulated social structure around me because as leaders find out, leadership will challenge every part of you, every terrible way that your family taught you how to do emotions, every ridiculous idea you have about your own success, every every piece of you, that is not right on track, leadership will kick you right in that thing.

If you do not have an emotionally well regulated social structure around you, then it is very easy to become kind of a rigid and concrete excuse for all of your personal failures. And if you have an emotionally well regulated social structure, then there is going to be the room for you to say, oh my gosh, I suck. I suck so hard right now. So let me dial this back and figure out what I'm doing. And I apologize and Lord, that was bad. Right?

To for me, leadership means leading with people, never never been over people. So I'm very, very anti capitalist, very anti hierarchy. Because both of those things tend to treat people as things and as puzzle pieces or as tools, rather than as living breathing souls. So for me, there is no, you know, work life schism. My work is my life, and my life is my work. And so I don't want to be in any situation where there is a danger of me becoming less of a whole being and more of a leader. And I'm going to put finger quotes around leader.

Carley Hauck 8:52

Wonderful, thank you. Well, I loved some of the things that you said, you know, leading with not leaving over and what you were talking about is bringing, bringing your whole self you know, to your life and there's no compartmentalizing that at work, or in your regular life. And I also feel very aligned with that, and, and we can't, you know, not bring our whole selves with us, it comes up no matter what. And so, thank you for that.

One of the perspectives that I really loved when I was listening to the interview that you did with Tammy on the Insights From the Edge podcast, where she's, you know, promoting her new authors and books or old authors, and in this case, not that you're old, but you've you've had a couple books with Sounds True. A lot with them. Yeah. You, you. I just felt like that interview was so fiery and you went into places that I feel most people don't have the courage to speak to and so because I know but you're comfortable on the deep waters, I thought I might just go there, are you with that?

Karla McLaren 10:05

Let’s do it.

Carley Hauck 10:06

Okay! So you shared in that interview that you've been thinking a lot about the so-called negative emotions and positive emotions. And you've shared that the so-called negative emotions are typically dismissed or we push them away, because they shake up the status quo. And the so called positive emotions go along, and then you went into the deep waters a bit and said, and a capitalist, sexist, racist, ableist, transphobic, homophobic world, these negative emotions would stand up and say, this is some shit, and we need to change it. And we need to change it every day. It's not okay. It's not okay. It's not okay.

And when I heard you say that, Karla, I got goosebumps. And I was just so standing up in my seat saying hallelujah! Yeah, 100%. So I'm gonna let you take it from there.

Karla McLaren 11:10

There's so many, there's so many avenues to go down. But I think one of the most important ways to begin to access your emotions in a functional way, is to understand that there is no such thing as a negative emotion. And there is no such thing as a positive emotion. Because if you believe that, you're going to avoid the so-called negative ones, and you're going to overuse and even abuse the so-called positive ones.

In the workplace. This is really important, because almost every workplace book that talks about, you know, how to work with emotions in the workplace, is basically how do we make everybody feel happy, happy, happy, happy. And happiness is being used as a kind of a drug.

And, oh, I'm remembering what book was it? What book was it Brave New World, Soma, there's a drug called Soma that makes everybody happy. And it's a way for a pretty evil cabal to take over because everyone is asleep in their happiness, right? So they can't feel their anger, which would tell them that their boundaries have been crossed, they can't feel their fear, which is their instincts and intuition. You can't feel their jealousy, which tells them about love and loyalty, they can't feel their envy, and on and on and on.

If people want us just to feel the happiness emotions, I have now realized that we are looking at social control. And so now I've like, okay, social control is definitely occurring here. Now, what is the purpose of this social control? Right? So it means that I pretty much can't go anywhere, with any. Like, Carly, you can't come to this party, this party is about happiness.

Carley Hauck 13:00

Right? Well, and, and what's been so interesting, in my own experience, being someone that feels deeply and always has there been times in my life, when I definitely suppress that and push that away, because, for example, my mother and father expressed so much emotion in our house, that there really wasn't room for me or my sister to express ours. And so I would just kind of put it to the side or hide it. And then eventually, I couldn't do that anymore when I became a teenager, and my hormones really, you know, kicked in, and I felt my rage, and I felt my sadness and, and I expressed it, but I've noticed in my own life, that if people don't feel comfortable, and we'll, we'll go here in this conversation, really turning towards all their emotions, all of them, you know, not compartmentalizing them into negative or positive that it's very challenging for them to be with the emotions of others, and maybe some of the more we call them, or label them as society does more difficult emotions. What do you think about that?

Karla McLaren 14:15

Yes, I agree. And also because empathy is first and foremost, an emotional skill, if people don't develop a full range of emotional skills and awareness, then their empathy will always be sort of a half assed empathy, if that.

There are three positive emotions. There are 14 so-called negative ones. So you end up working with about 17.6% of emotions and if you remember being graded in school, 50% is an F. So if we believe in positive and negative emotions, for getting an F, in emotions and an empathy.

Carley Hauck 15:00

Can you share what those three positive ones are for the audience?

Karla McLaren 15:05

The poor, beleaguered, abused so-called positive emotions, are happiness, which looks to the future and tells you when something is fun or hopeful. The second is contentment, which is an emotion that turns toward you, when you've done something that meets with your own approval, and joy, which is an emotion that opens you up and sort of drops your boundaries, and helps you kind of, I guess, upload an experience of bliss.

And there's a lot of danger in joy, but people don't really talk about it. They think joy is the only emotion to feel. And so these three emotions are very specific jobs, they come up for very specific reasons. And they should never be trapped or laid over the top of other emotions, but they almost always are in our, in our positive and negative emotion culture.

Carley Hauck 16:10

And it was so interesting to watch, you know, last year with the murders of George Floyd and so many other black and brown brothers and sisters of ours, and the uprising of rage that came through and the protests. And again, I was in celebration of that, because I feel like if we were more in touch with our rage, our grief, or fear, we would be making the changes to the structures and systems that are causing hurt and harm in our workplaces, in our worlds.

Karla McLaren 16:50

Yeah, and notice the backlash that happened against those expressions of honest emotion, honest and necessary emotion. Right? It was sort of, you know, you shouldn't be so angry, you shouldn't be full of rage, you should, you know, wait until the system changes. Like that's not how systems change.

Carley Hauck 17:16

Your very suffering then causes the systems to break or be hospiced.

Well, and before the call in the recording started, you and I were talking about climate change, because you were saying, I'm grateful that there's rain today, and that we don't have a big fire. And I lived in Northern California for a very long time, too. And, you know, I feel like that's the next wave that's coming of people really understanding the gravity of our survival. And, and what the science is clearly saying, and we don't have a leader in the office anymore, who's denying this science. And there is some action and there is some change in structure.

But I don't think that most people have really felt the grief and the rage and the fear around this. I know I have. I know I'm still feeling it. I know, there's layers of it. But I'm hopeful and inspired that the more we can turn towards those feelings, we will create the systems and changes to support this hot future that we are inheriting and that we have caused. What are your thoughts on that?

Karla McLaren 18:40

I don't know. I don't know. I'm in a pretty philosophical place about the human race right now.

The last four years made me go hmm, is this a species that deserves to survive? It's a question I've had for quite a while. I'm not exactly a misanthrope. But I'm just feeling that without access to our emotional functioning, we are sort of like toddlers with a handgun, in many cases, in terms of our capacity to understand and respond to the troubles that we cause.

Carley Hauck 19:25

Thank you. Yeah. Well, one of the things I'm gonna move it a little bit. I could totally stay in this part of our conversation for a while, but I want to bring it into how we can encourage and inspire folks to access more of their emotions and their emotional intelligence and empathy at work. And I've been conducting trainings and bringing, you know, skills for empathy and emotional intelligence into all the work that I've been doing in the workplace for the last decade, and when I ask folks, What emotions do you not show at work and why? Most often I hear that they're grouped around what's acceptable for our gender norms, and what's not acceptable.

And so for example, men, historically and our culture, and in many world cultures do not feel permission to feel fear, or, or sadness, they're, they're being, you know, labeled more as the weaker emotions, the more feminine emotions.

And for, for women, it's anger. And we can see that when we push those emotions away, that that erupts into other actions. And so I believe that the Me Too movement, the huge domestic violence against women, against non binary folks, against other minorities from them, is coming, because they, they've had to suppress those parts of them. And it's coming out in actions, and women are hiding anger, and it's turning more into sadness. And that's because they don't want the backlash of being coined, a witch or a bitch or aggressive, and I feel curious, what do you hear about what emotions people hide? And why?

And also open to any perspective, or, you know, via those gender measures?

Karla McLaren 21:43

Yeah, the gender emotions are really interesting, because they cause so much trouble between the genders. And of course, I think agender people, they are not outside of this binary, that they are not outside of this binary, if they want to present as one gender or the other or neither.

They are still sort of, sort of, well, I don't want to say trapped. But, but, you know, there's ways that by forbidding men to feel sadness and grief and forbidding them to show fear, we turn them into sort of, we turn them into rigid bodies, and by refusing to let women show or feel anger, we turn them into unnaturally softened bodies.

So with men, we have unnaturally rigid bodies, and when we have unnaturally softened ones, and when these two bodies come together, there is usually conflict, because the unnaturally softened, one might look at the rigidity and say, you know, that is the wrong way to be, that is the wrong way, you can't be that way and then you know, the opposite would happen. So I think this, this gendering of emotion is one of the things that helps the the gender divide, maintain itself, so strongly so if a woman or you know, a female presenting person learns how to work with anger, she or they are, are, they are breaking their breaking through the violence of gender.

And if a male presenting person learns to work with sadness, and fear and grief, then they're also in their own body, challenging the gender binary and the gender violence that occurs. And I think this is, you know, that's something you can do, you cannot fix, you know, however many centuries of, of the gender binary and the violence that goes with it, but you can fix it in your own emotional life. And in so doing free yourself and free anybody who is around you, right? It can free the people around you by going into the shadow of what, you know, a person with your gender expression is supposed to feel or not feel. And I like that because that's where my freedom is. You can tell me anything about emotions about what I'm not supposed to be doing.

And on the outside, I can go Sure, sure, I wouldn't do that emotion on the inside I have all freedom in the world. Right? I feel what I feel regardless of what other people want me to feel.

Carley Hauck 24:42

Thank you for that, in in the research that I was doing with my book, I really felt that a large role of consciousness inclusive leadership was enrolling men men identifying to be allies, to women to to marginalized communities to people of color, and I had lots and lots of conversations with men, and was really able to hear how hard it is to be a man at times in our culture. And you know, what they've been reinforced and the end the man box, so to speak, of what is acceptable to be a man and what is not. And it was really beautiful to hear their vulnerability and their fear and their sadness. And I am a really big proponent of people in general, again, just embracing all parts of themselves expressing and I, I feel hopeful, the transformation that's happening, and especially that's happening in the workplace, there are a lot more programs being developed and initiated for male allyship, Intel has a very large program, and I've developed a closer relationship with one of the champions and ambassadors of that program. Intel has 100,000 team members, you know, it's massive. So I, I share this because I feel inspired at the microcosm of change that can happen in the workplace that can then transcend into our greater world.

Going into some of the wisdom that you have really developed and understood around emotions, could you share what the deeper wisdom behind rage, fear and grief are and I'm, I'm honing in on those three, because I feel that in this time of the pandemic, most people that maybe never had access those probably have, and I'd love to just normalize them a bit with your support.

Karla McLaren 27:00

Each of these emotions is really necessary at all times. But also in times of trouble, I would like to see these three emotions out playing in times of trouble.

Rage is an intensified form of anger. And probably there's a bit of panic in it. Panic is the emotion that helps us fight, flee, freeze or flock to safety. And so when you see anger that has fight in it, there's usually panic there and panic comes forward when we are endangered. So there's danger, please panic come and help us right. So rage is anger with a kind of a panic chaser. And it comes forward when, certainly when your boundaries have been crossed.

Anger is about setting boundaries and identifying what you value. And protecting and restoring what you value. The power that comes with anger is very, very misunderstood. It comes forward to help you be vulnerable. Like to be vulnerable is a very empowering thing. But people don't sort of see it that way. They see it as a weakness. So anger comes to bring you the power and the strength you need to be vulnerable.

When there's rage. Often, people are raging, not just on behalf of themselves, but on behalf of systemic inequalities and injustice. So there's that need to sort of step it up a bit. It is very difficult though, when panic is there for people to be able to be vulnerable within their rage. This is kind of next level, emotional skill, to feel that intensity of emotion, and to be able to speak clearly, without doing undue harm to others.

We've mostly learned to use our anger as a weapon, which is what it never should have been and never should be. There are some times when you need to weaponize yourself, you need to tear into somebody you need to fight, but not as often as we do. So I'm not I'm not throwing violence into the shadows. There are times when you need to fight. But there are more times when you need to be vulnerable. And that's what anger brings to you.

So welcome anger. Let me see if I can be strong enough to be vulnerable right now. That's kind of the work without emotion. Fear is our instincts and intuition. A lot of people mistake fear with anxiety and panic. But there are three different but connected emotions. Fear is about the present moment. It's your instincts and your intuition. It's your focus and your clarity. It's your ability to key into what's going on right now and it helps you identify change and novelty.

If there's any danger, then panic needs to come because that's the life saving emotion. That's panic’s job. But a lot of people when they say no fear, or the only thing to fear is fear itself. There's a lot of really nasty messaging around fear. But what people are talking about is panic. And they shouldn't say that about panic either. But they do.

So the work for fear is to simply become aware of it. That's what it comes to help you do. So you just become aware of the present moment check in. Is there any change? Is there any novelty? Is there anything I need to pay attention to? And that's it. That's the work of fear. If you're good with fear, if you're, if you're very fear-resourced, you will be instinctual and intuitive. And you will be aware of your surroundings. That is a sign of being good with fear.

Carley Hauck 31:00

And one of the questions I often ask fear, and I encourage other people to ask, and I don't know if I was influenced by you in this questions, I'm just going to own that. But it's super helpful for me to ask what's the worst thing that could happen? Because if I look at that squarely in the face, because sometimes the worst thing does happen. But most of the time, it doesn't. If I can face that, if I can turn towards everything that arises in the worst thing that can happen, then I can move into the next step, which is inspired action, which is like, what do I have control of right now? How do I respond?

Karla McLaren 31:43

That would be more of an anxiety question, because it looks to the future. That fears about the present moment, if there's anything feeling like it's coming at you, or there's any kind of dread or danger out in the future panic will be there, but anxiety will too because its job is to prepare you for the future. So that's like a really good anxiety. question is what's the worst that could happen? And then you prepare for the possible worst, right?

Carley Hauck 32:14

Yeah, yeah. So then for fear, would you ask, What are you scared of right now?

Karla McLaren 32:18

No, because scared implies danger. And that would be panic. So fear is you simply pay attention in the present moment, the question that I have for fears, what action should be taken? And sometimes the answer is nothing. Everything's fine.

Carley Hauck 32:41

Thank you. I'd like to take a moment to give you a practice around emotional awareness.

We're gonna take just a few minutes, and then we'll come back to the second part of this fantastic interview. So bring your attention inside.

By closing your eyes by shifting your gaze downward. Don't do this while you're driving.

And slow down. Feel your feet, your hands simply by wiggling your fingers, your toes.

start to notice the rhythm of your breath as you breathe in and out.

Breathing in through the belly. Noticing the rise and fall on the inhale on the exhale. Take some deep breaths, make some sounds as you breathe in. As you breathe out. Do any movement that would help you come more fully into this experience into this moment into your body.

See if you can imagine that the energy from your head is starting to move down into your belly into your pelvis are moving more and more into our bodies and out of the thinking, doing and rather being aspect of ourselves.

Doing a scan from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet. Simply notice where your body is feeling the most energy. is it in the head? Is it in the hands? Is it in the chest? Is it in the belly? For me there's a lot of energy in my head. Been very much in work and thinking mode today. And I've had a little bit too much caffeine to power through.

That's what I'm noticing right now. What are you noticing in the body? Where is your body holding the most energy? And what does that energy? Feel like? What are the qualities? Is it restless? Is it heavy? Is it soft? Is it agitated, everything is welcome.

The more that we can turn towards our bodies in our experience, our bodies can settle and have a different experience. Because all of our emotions are held in our physical body.

Now notice, if there are any feelings present. It could be one of a dominant feelings. There could be many feelings. What are you noticing in this one part of the body that we're focusing on because it has more sensation, more dominance than maybe other parts of your physical body?

We're just being curious what's here?

For me, I noticed there's some sadness. What is present for you?

And just staying with the body, staying with the feelings, not needing to create a story or change it or fix it. Just being here. And then asking this part of the body? How can I support you best right now? How can I support you best. And really listening to that wisdom.

Maybe it's a kind word, an action that you can give towards yourself, maybe it's a placing of a loving touch on that part of the body. So for myself right now I'm placing my right hand on my forehead and just offering some care.

Now moving into my heart and noticing that self care that self love. Seeing what would feel most comforting and supportive to you.

And then bringing your awareness back to your breath back to your body. Just noticing how you feel right now. This is a very small exercise that we can do to grow our inner game of emotional intelligence. You're becoming self aware of emotions, physical sensations, you're regulating your nervous system by slowing down your heart rate, your blood pressure, your breathing.

You're investigating your needs because every feeling has a need. Just imagining what it would be like if you gave yourself more time throughout the day to do this practice, how might it benefit you?

So, if you're interested in growing this inner game of emotional awareness, empathy and intelligence, which I would highly recommend, it will support you to be a conscious inclusive leader at work. It will allow you to excel in your personal relationships with deeper intimacy and connection, I have a few resources to support you in this. There are 15 free meditations on my resources page of my website. The link will be in the show notes that you can listen to.

similar to this meditation but tailored to different emotions and different experiences.

You can also get my new book Shine: Ignite Your Inner Game to Lead Consciously at Work and in the World. It's available in hardcopy or audiobook. And I would love to speak with you on this topic or others, and see how I could develop a specific training for your organization, team or leadership. I am currently working with Capital One, which I love. And I'm doing a lot around this particular topic with their leadership team and their organization. The links for booking time with me will be in the show notes. And Karla also has many incredible resources. So back to the show.

Carley Hauck 40:58

And then grief, tell me more about the wisdom of grief.

Karla McLaren 41:04

Grief is a beautiful emotion that arises at a death, either of a person or an idea or relationship, the death of your previous lifestyle, the death of health, right if you move into an illness, and grief is the emotion that helps you make those profound transitions.

We are a grief impaired culture here in white, Northern America, white European, Northern America, I would say that there is a good grief tradition in Judaism. And many people of color, especially African Americans, and people from Mexico have beautiful grief transitions. But for

most Europeans, the grief traditions are gone. And so we don't know how to make those profound transitions. And we also confuse grief with the other members of the sadness, family sadness, and depression. So we don't kind of know grief, but our bodies do.

And that's something that's always made me feel really, really happy, that even though culturally, we've been separated from the traditions of grieving, our bodies know how to grieve, they do and I give grief rituals, and people are like, I don't know what I'm doing. But as soon as we move into the ritual, they totally know what they're doing. They totally know. So bodies know grief and, and connecting with your body is one of the key ways to support your grief. And the question for grief is what must be mourned, and what must be released to completely.

Carley Hauck 42:54

love that what must be mourned and what must be released completely. And there's so much to grieve, right now, in our world, there's so much to let go, and release and more. So that we can create the new build the new.

So I want to move into the increased awareness of mental health, I feel like mental health was always present in the workplace. It's always been there. But it's becoming talked about more and more and more, which is fabulous, because then hopefully we can create some changes and give people the support that they need. And part of that has arisen more in the midst of the pandemic because of the social isolation, the increased complexity and challenge and, you know, layoffs mean so many things being quarantined. And it was very easy to find research on this.

But I basically looked into two articles earlier today. And this was an article that was looking at the impact of COVID on suicidal ideation. And it said that COVID-19 crisis, increased suicide rates during and likely will after the pandemic. And it was something that I thought was really interesting, because I know that you have spoken about suicidal urges. And I don't think that's something that is talked about very often and the wisdom behind suicidal urges, would you be willing to speak to that?

Karla McLaren 44:38

Yeah, and I was thinking in my book, I talk about the mental health effects of the workplace, and they're pretty grim. The workplace is a pretty emotionally and empathically abusive place because specifically because emotions were kicked out of the workplace at the turn of the Industrial Revolution, and you can't kick emotions out, you can only suppress them and make an emotionally unhealthy environment.

And I think there was a very large research study on like 17,000 workers in the US. And

the numbers that came out of it were just sort of horrifying in that eight out of 10 workers said that they were struggling at home because of the social and emotional trouble at work. So we spend most of our lives in an emotionally troubling or even abusive environment.

And when the pandemic came along, and maybe people then realized, oh, their home lives aren't that healthy either. And there was all the fear that people don't know how to work with the anxiety, they don't know how to work with the sadness, grief and depression, they don't know how to work with the panic. So for a lot of people, a lot of emotions came up and it just became overwhelming. And the emotion that arises when things are, you know, when the shit has hit the fan, and everything is just not workable. The suicidal urge will arise and say, This can't go on.

I call it the darkness before dawn. Because it is a time to look around yourself with you know, this very clear eyed, realistic view, to say, the difference between who I am in my heart of hearts, and what I have become in this world of expediency and meaninglessness is so extreme that it's already like a death.

And the suicidal urge arises to sort of mark that moment. And the question for the suicidal urge is what behavior or situation must end now, and what can no longer be tolerated in my soul? In dynamic emotional integration, which is my work, the rule for the suicidal urge is that the human body that I'm living in is off the table. It's off the table, we can always die, but right now let's look and see what it is the suicidal urges pointing to. And as you've seen, if people don't have that framework, then they simply think that it is their body that needs to die, that they need to die.

But it can be one of the most powerful moments of evolution that a person could ever experience when their own emotions say, No, this is no I refuse to live this way. Give me liberty or give me death. And you know, the way that we work with suicidal urges like take liberty death will come anyway. Like, it's like death and taxes are going to happen. So let's live this life. And you know, take the power of this emotion and let's go. Let's go kill something that needs to get killed. Like, you know, this situation or this ridiculous job or this unhappy life that I'm living in. How the hell did I get here?

Carley Hauck 48:17

Or the fossil fuel industry.

Karla McLaren 48:18

Yeah, let's go kill that real good. Let's blow it up. Yeah, yeah. And there really isn't any....

What I'm noticing is and I'm gonna swear but I've been having this thing in my mind a book called a form of violence that's not fucked up. Because the violence that we see over and over again is fucked up violence that is meant to hurt or kill others but we don't see that kind of sacred violence of killing that which needs to be killed and ending that which needs to be ended and being in you know, intense conflict over something and not having everybody go let's just agree to disagree.

No, let's have conflict, let's go right. So it's something that is just in the back of my mind, how do we create healthy violence?

Carley Hauck 49:12

I believe conflict is essential in relationship. It's just part of relationship and with healthy boundaries with self awareness, with empathy, with emotional intelligence, with care, it can be very healthy, it can bring us closer, it can create more innovation and intimacy.

Karla McLaren 49:33

Yeah, yeah. But you know, you have to go through the shit, like you have to be willing to. And sometimes my husband and I are, you know, I'm like, let's do it dude, bro. Let's go, let's go outside. Let's do it.

Carley Hauck 49:45

You yourself have faced suicidal ideation based on your own childhood and really being you know, with those parts of yourself and being able to really understand and navigate it from that place. Is there anything else you want to add to that?

Karla McLaren 50:08

I, you know, sometimes people ask me, Well, how did you go from being a person who survived? You know, pretty extreme dissociative childhood trauma and homelessness and abuse and, you know, tremendous mental illness and poverty and all that kind of stuff. How did you get from there to here? And I was like, suicidal urge, man. That's what that's what brought me out. Because it continually was my, my North Star, it would continually tell me this is not it. This is Oh, hell, no, this is not it. This is not your life. This is not it.

And I was so fortunate that I learned to listen to it, and work with it. And yeah, yeah. To say you're right. This is not it.

Carley Hauck 51:08

Thank you for sharing that. And, you know, just to step in this ring with you. On Monday of this week, I had a really hard day, Karla, I was really, really hard. I cried most of the day. And I noticed in myself, that I really wanted to stop crying, like there were parts of myself that I kind of wanted to just push away, I wanted to abandon. And so I noticed for myself, when I've had suicidal ideation and urges in my life, it's because I'm, I'm abandoning parts of myself in that moment. And I'm not allowing myself to feel them.

But when I can turn towards and then get to the deeper wisdom of this has to die, this has to stop, this is not working. And that's where I got to, by the end of the day, I have some bigger changes I'm going to be making very soon. So freeing, there's so much clarity and ease, and then, you know, action that I can gather around that decision and that wisdom. So anyway, just speak to listeners, that I myself have gone through that and continue to go through it. And that's been my experience of what I notice. In that.

Karla McLaren 52:35

Yeah, like no, I also want to say that once you get once you befriend your emotions, and you become, you know, pals with them, and you communicate with each other, they don't have to come up in a full scale, like you don't have to go to rage. You can go to slight tiny peevishness, and you'll be like, Oh, no, you know, you could become more sensitive and empathic with your own emotions.

But there is a soft, suicidal urge that I have now identified as what I call the dead flat no. Which is when someone says, Hey, Karla, can you do a whole bunch of work for me? Because I have a party later? For free? No, actually, no, I cannot do that at all. And this no is very different from the relational no of anger.

Anger always has relational pieces in it, you can't be angry about something that's not important to you. So whenever there's anger, it means there's importance here, there's value here. And the no of anger would be. No, I can't do that today. But I can help you blah, blah, tomorrow, right? Or whatever if this person is worth keeping, but the person that I set up in that earlier story wasn't worth keeping. That person's like, Nope, I'm not in a relationship with you, pal. No.

Carley Hauck 54:01

Okay, so I'm going to take this back into the workplace. One of the things that I have been feeling really inspired by now that we have this virtual world of work, it is worldwide. And we have an opportunity to kill the structures and systems that in the workplace that are not supporting as you share in your book, emotionally well regulated structures that actually support empathy and all emotions and us to bring our whole selves.

And so when we think about designing for empathy and emotional intelligence, what do you think are some of the questions we can be asking leaders and teams? You have some really, you know, wonderful questions in your book such as, what environments do you experience as most nourishing? Emotional work? And what environments do you experience the most draining emotional work? And what are the differences between nourishing and draining environments? Those are definitely a start what? What other thoughts do you have about designing for empathy and all of our emotions to be welcomed at work?

Karla McLaren 55:33

I think that I'm sort of starting from the ground up in helping everybody develop an emotional vocabularies, not only so they'll have better language with each other, but also because developing a better emotional vocabulary just all by itself gives you better emotion regulation skills. That is cool. That's a two for one. And I've got a free emotional vocabulary list on my website that we've gathered, so that people can know, you know, are they in soft anger, medium anger or intense anger? And then that can tell them? What does anger mean? And why did that emotion come up right now, another one is making sure that there is a process for mistakes and conflict, that there is that that mistakes are seen as normal and necessary ways to learn. And that, you know, it's not it's not a terror inducing thing to make a mistake in your, in your world.

Because generally, people will be blamed or shunned, which will shut everybody down. Absolutely, everyone will see that happen. And it will shut down the entire community. And I think there was data saying that 85% of workers have not communicated really serious workplace issues upward because of this culture of we don't make mistakes, and we don't want anything negative to happen here.

Another one is that there is an environment of trust, that it has to come from if it's a traditional kind of a hierarchy, which we would hope those go the way of the dodo. Because it's such a bad, hierarchies are so damaging to everybody from the top down. They're just awful situations, but that people must feel safe enough and supported enough to speak the truth, even if it might destabilize relationships or processes. So everybody should be able to have the red, you know, stop button that says we cannot go forward with this process, because I noticed this problem, and you see in most workplaces is if anybody had asked, at least two or three people would have been able to tell them about the problem that they found out six months later after they spent $40 million.

Carley Hauck 58:04

Well, and that's the lack of psychological safety. Yeah, yeah. Right. And that's, that's been a big part of what I bring in as a foundation. Because if we don't have psychological safety, for the folks that are listening, and don't know what that actually means, it's the ability to share our feelings or needs or experiences or worldviews without the fear of reprimand, punishment, or, or judgment. And when that's not present, we actually can't feel comfortable sharing our emotions or our emotional sensitivities.

Karla McLaren 58:48

Yeah. Yeah. And everybody knows that. Yeah, everybody, like they can just see someone get blamed for something. And it will just cast a pall, there will be a cold wind going through the social structure. And these things, these things have so much power. Doing doing things wrong, and making bad transitions is one of the things I see pretty much every workplace do, because transitions require emotions, sadness, grief, fear, anger, and if people don't know how to work with those emotions, their transitions are not going to be strong, they will be lumpy and cause a lot of backlash.

Carley Hauck 59:29

And we're going through such a reorg in our workplace, but in our world. There are so many emotions that are coming up with all the changes in the transitions that you're sharing. And one of the things that I imagine you'll agree with, but I'm open to you disagreeing is social contracts are things that I bring in to support psychological safety, but I was really inspired in reading your book where you call it the nine aspects of emotionally well-regulated social structures and it's, it's actually social contracts that are that are similar and I'm, I actually would love to just read them if that's okay the nine because I find I think they're really helpful when we think about the designing of empathy and emotional intelligence and emotions at work.

So, number one was emotions are spoken of openly and people have workable emotional vocabularies. Number two, mistakes and conflicts are addressed without avoidance, hostility or blaming. Number three, you can be honest about mistakes and conflicts without being blamed or Shun. That goes back to psychological safety. Number four, your emotions and sensitivities are noticed and respected. Wow, to live in a world where these were present and agreed upon I love it. Number five, you notice and respect the emotions and sensitivities of others. Yes. Number six, your emotional awareness skills are openly requested and respected. Number seven, you openly request and respect the emotional awareness and skills of others. Number eight, you and others feel safe enough and supported enough to speak the truth. Even if it might destabilize relationships or processes. Yes. And number nine, the social structure welcomes you, nourishes you and revitalizes you.

I want that. I believe in that those are beautiful. Thank you.

Karla McLaren 1:01:38

Thank you people like where does that happen? I'm like Emotional Dynamics, LLC, pal. We have so many fascinating people working here. I call us the Island of Misfit Toys. Because we have you know, we've hated work, we've hated work. And then we come here, and it's what work should have always been. Yeah.

Carley Hauck 1:02:06

So just briefly, what are what are you offering through this particular you know, community of people to really structure revision? The workplace?

Karla McLaren 1:02:19

What am I offering to my colleagues? Or what are we offering in the marketplace?

Carley Hauck 1:02:26

What are you offering in the marketplace? Oh, support this new design of greater empathy and emotional intelligence and sensitivities at work?

Karla McLaren 1:02:36

Yeah, the book. Well, the books, and we have dynamic emotional integration, we run a licensing program so that people can learn to do this work. And we also run Empathy Academy, which is a place where people can take online courses, it became very popular during the pandemic, because people are like, I'm trapped at home with my emotions, please give me a class.

Yeah, and, and then we're also developing an online community where people can come and talk about emotions and develop their emotional skills and their vocabulary and have a place to laugh uproariously and and say things that are inappropriate. And I will laugh and laugh.

Carley Hauck 1:03:27

Mm hmm. Wonderful. So, so needed. And so what I'd like to leave with all of these resources will be available in the show notes, folks, for those that want to learn how to take advantage of all the wisdom and these offerings that Karla has. But many of us listening know that in the midst of the pandemic, and I found this latest number that about 4 million folks have left the workplace since April 2020. And that is as a result of people seeking more meaning, purpose, better wages, flexibility, more caring teams, and leadership, and likely because they hadn't shared what they didn't enjoy or wasn't working for them.

Like as, as you said earlier, Karla, most people are not sharing these complaints upward for this person. It's not safe, right? It's not safe. Exactly. So instead, they're leaving and trying to find something that's probably more humane, more caring. But if you're listening in you're a leader, or you're not a leader. I feel really curious about what would make you want to stay and what makes you want to leave? And I'd love to hear and Karla, do you have any other thoughts on that?

Karla McLaren 1:04:50

It's a little bit off topic, but it sort of isn't. People talk a lot about workplace culture. And one of the experts of workplace culture, Edgar Schein, he's like the grandfather of workplace culture studies. And he says that, you know, people come in and want to change the culture, but the culture is a living, breathing thing. And any culture change should if it's done in a helpful way, take between five and 10 years, write the whole book, much people come in, like, we're gonna do culture change in six months, I'm like, No, you're not that, usually they say people don't quit their jobs, they quit their manager. But that puts a lot of pressure on managers, many of whom don't have the power, that they have a lot of responsibility, but no power, it's not a good position.

And what people are really leaving is the culture. They're leaving a sick social structure. That is a lot like a sick family. And what I love about the great resignation, which is what they're calling it, as people are seeing it, and they're saying, I can choose otherwise, there's a little bit of a suicidal urge there. Right, I'm going to kill this relationship here. And I'm going to go on, and I believe in the future. You know, and maybe they'll find a slightly less sick culture in the next place, or call the Great reshuffle. I think they're interchangeable. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. And, and to begin to understand culture, to understand the way the social structures work, and that's what you know, the power of emotions at work does is help you understand the social structure and as, as you would term it, the psychological safety. But it's not just psychological, it’s sociological, that there's, you know, an interrelated human structure happening here that is functional. And in most workplaces, sadly, that is not true. That is not true. It is a dysfunctional, emotionally unsupportive culture. So it'd be wonderful to see that change. And people are saying, I'd rather have no job than this one.

Carley Hauck 1:07:04

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that is happening right now. Well, we are at the beginning stages of this change. And I so appreciate your wisdom, the work that you're doing, your offerings, we are in this together. And I look forward to just seeing how it all begins to evolve. And thank you again for your time today.

Karla McLaren 1:07:38

Thank you.

Carley Hauck 1:07:40

Wow, that was the highlight of my week. Karla, thank you so much for everything that you have learned and are sharing around these important topics with the world. We as a society and humanity need this more than ever right now. If you want to learn more about how you can access Karla's knowledge on these topics, the link for her website and her books is in the show notes. And as always, it is such a wonderful privilege to have you listening and in this community. There are lots of other fabulous podcast interviews, some definitely related to this topic that you can preview from past episodes. And if you're enjoying the podcast, please share it wildly with others. And as always, until we meet again, be the light and shine the light.

Welcome to season five of The Shine Podcast. This season is going to be focused on leaders and topics related to how we continue to move through the challenges and the complexity that we are all navigating in our workplaces, our home life and the greater world. In today’s episode, I will share what I know about the science on triggers, why they are caused, and where they are coming from. I am going to offer you a few helpful practices on how to calm emotional triggers at work and in life that you can use in your life and share with others. I have been teaching and leading a certain practice to calm emotional triggers at work and in life. I have shared it with thousands of folks and leaders in reputable companies. It's also listed in chapter two of my book, Shine: Ignite Your Inner Game to Lead Consciously at Work and in the World.

My goal is to help you learn how to cultivate a strong inner game that will enable you to navigate triggers skillfully. The inner game rules the outer game, and the six qualities of the inner game that I've identified and highlighted in my new book really support one to navigate triggers skillfully, create healthy boundaries, and then have the brave exchanges so that the patterns that cause the trigger are minimized, and/or maybe are even uprooted.

SHINE Links:

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Inner Game Meditations — https://carleyhauck.com/meditations

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The Imperfect Shownotes

Carley Hauck 0:01

Hi, my name is Carley Hauck. Welcome to another episode of the SHINE podcast. This is the first interview of season five, which will total out 2021. And for those of you that are just joining, I'd love to give you a little backstory on the SHINE podcast and how it came to be.

It started in May 2019, where I was finally sharing lots of interviews that I had previously conducted with incredible leaders as part of the research for my new book, which I spent almost five years writing and debuted this year, February 23, 2021, Shine: Ignite Your Inner Game to Lead Consciously at Work and in the World, my publisher is Sounds True.

And I have been really delighted by the response of people to the book, but the podcast continues to go strong. And the podcast is really about the intersection of three things: conscious, inclusive leadership, the recipe for high-performing teams and awareness practices. And I go into the science, the spiritual perspective, and then the actual application of this into your life. I will be facilitating two to three episodes a month. And before I tell you about our topic today, I'd love if you could go over to Apple podcasts, hit the subscribe button. And if you love this episode, or any previous episodes that you might want to tune into, if you could write a positive review, it helps so much. And it supports people to find this podcast. Thank you.

This particular season is going to be focused on leaders and topics related to how we continue to move through the challenges and the complexity that we are all navigating in our workplaces, our home life and the greater world. We are in a spiritual and collective awakening, I am sure. And I hope that this podcast will be the light that will support you to shine your light. Our topic for today is how to calm emotional triggers at work and in life. And this is going to be by yours truly.

Carley Hauck 3:10

Has this ever happened to you? Listen to some possibilities. You're at work. You had an experience where most of the day was off, maybe you woke up late. meetings were suddenly canceled, rescheduled but you were prepared. Other folks were expressing impatience, frustration, and communication processes were not easy. And you felt triggered.

This might have happened at home. You could be navigating challenging children, you're working from home. They're at home too. Maybe you have a sick parent in your life, you're feeling under the weather yourself. Or perhaps you're navigating flash flooding, or smoking fires due to climate change. And it's throwing your inner calm and balance off. You feel triggered.

What I'm speaking to is pretty normal. And especially in a highly complex and always changing workplace and world. We are all navigating so much right now. We have been and it's been highlighted in the last 18 or so months since the beginning of the pandemic. Many of our so-called freedoms have been taken away. We're still wearing masks in most public places. We've been more socially isolated than any other time. And as a result are being forced to be on technology more than ever to meet our social needs and to be high performing leaders at work or just folks at work. Being connected to screens and technology is not something that we should be on this many hours a day.

Why? Because when we look at our hunter gatherer ancestors, they were living in community, living in deeper harmony with the land with their food systems. They were engaging in regular exercise, dance song, and expressive arts. Now we are a far cry from living like that. But our nervous systems aren't used to this much arousal. And what I mean by arousal is, when we are on our technology, our devices, these EMF that we're pretty much bombarded with all day long. Guess what it does to the body? It raises our blood pressure or heart rate, and therefore, our arousal, our nervous system response, and we may be perceiving things to be stressful when they actually are not. It is easier under the conditions we are living in to become more triggered, versus calm and responsive.

Carley Hauck 6:21

And so in this episode, I will share what I know about the science on triggers, why they are caused, where they're coming from, and a few helpful practices that you can use in your life, and also share with others. I have been teaching and leading a certain practice around triggers for the last few years, and I have shared it with thousands of folks and leaders in reputable companies. It's also listed in chapter two of my book. And in fact, just about a week or so ago, I shared this particular practice on a training that I facilitated with leaders on increasing empathy and emotional intelligence with some amazing folks at Capital One.

To tell you why I know a lot about triggers and why I developed this practice, I needed help with triggers. I needed help with my own triggers. And so this is where it began. I was dating a man, this was in 2017. We were in a relationship for a few months, and we were deepening into intimacy. And guess what, when intimacy happens, and the veils start to come down, you're going to trigger each other, there's going to be conflict, conflict is part of relationship, it's part of life. And if you're not having conflict in your relationships, then there's probably not a deeper connection. And conflict doesn't have to end the relationship.

In fact, by having the relational skills to navigate it with care and wisdom, it can create more trust, more psychological safety, more intimacy, more connection, more collaboration, even more innovation.

So back to this relationship experience, my partner was triggered. And he did and said some things that then created triggers in me. I am always up for staying in the midst of difficulty and staying in relationship and repairing. And, you know, trying to heal, that's just my orientation. I am a person that really values harmony. And it was a real struggle to do that in our relating. Because he would get triggered, he would go into avoidance, I would get triggered, and I would freeze. And then I wasn't able to do or say the things that would hopefully calm him down, calm myself down. And it was horrible to watch myself.

And the relationship ended. And it was meant to end, we wouldn't have been good partners or people for each other. And I knew that shortly into the relationship but you know, it was only a few months you're figuring it out. Again, conflict is normal and it's normal at work, and it's definitely normal in dating. Conflicts and triggers will arise but it can actually be something that helps you to grow closer, if you have the skills like I'm going to share with you in this episode.

Carley Hauck 10:09

So I developed this practice that I'm going to share with you in a couple minutes. Because I can only choose how I respond, I don't have control of the other. But in the moment that I feel scared, I feel triggered, I can choose how I want to respond if I have awareness and if I have the tools. And so shortly after I developed this practice, I wrote an article on this process. And the article is called “How to Deal With Anger at Work”.

And it was with the digital magazine conscious company, which is now part of socap. In 2018, this was one of the top 20 articles read that year. I felt very proud of that and thought, wow, lots of people need help with triggers, so it felt really lovely to be able to be in service in that way.

So what is a trigger? I've been saying this word a lot, a trigger is in current time, or a cue, or an event that re-stimulates sensations of the past trauma, it can be a word, it can be a verb. For example, a loud voice can be a trigger, a person's fear of being controlled or overpowered. That may have come from early childhood experiences. Additionally, another trigger could be a lack of response, you know, you reach out to someone, or you're trying to have a communication and there's no response. And that could actually create a trigger of abandonment or neglect, so to speak.

And so in the midst of the pandemic, we are becoming more comfortable speaking about trauma, and you heard the definition that I spoke to it could be something that's happening in current time, a cue or an event that really stimulates sensations of the past trauma. So we are becoming more comfortable talking about trauma, talking about mental illness in the workplace, it has always been here. But due to the increased pressure, the social isolation I was talking about before, and the large challenges we were navigating at work and in the world. The symptoms that maybe we were suppressing, maybe we were covering with unhealthy coping mechanisms like alcohol or shopping, or who knows, that can only be pushed down so long before it starts to fester and come to the surface.

Carley Hauck 13:02

And so I want to just preface that if you notice that you've been more triggered recently, in your life, this might be an important time to do some deeper inner work to go into, why is this happening more and more. Most of us have emotional healing to do. And that often affects what we are triggered by. And if we don't acknowledge what is causing the trigger, then those patterns continue and we won't be able to heal or navigate them with more skill. And I speak from experience here one I noticed myself, I've been more triggered recently, in the midst of the pandemic, I have been navigating some very uncertain and complex challenges, more so than normal. And I won't get into all of that. But just to just a preface. I am there with you if you're feeling this too.

And prior to my work and leadership and organizational development consulting, I was going through a very rigorous training, thinking that I might want to be a full time therapist but I actually decided that I wanted to do coaching and consulting more and was already starting to do that. But along the way I I went through lots and lots of supervised hours.

As a marriage and family therapist intern in the Bay Area of California I actually conducted over 3,000 supervised hours as I was learning how to be a therapist, but I was also working as a coach and getting supervision as a coach. I worked specifically for an entire year with men who had deep levels of PTSD and trauma who had been living in San Francisco's in the 80s, and had contracted HIV and AIDS. And so I bring that up because I have worked deeply with folks that are suffering from trauma. And I also worked with families and couples, and was watching the attachment trauma.

Now I bring up attachment trauma, because it actually is related to triggers. So trauma can also have lasting effects in our nervous system in our bodies, if the traumatized person doesn't have an opportunity to process the event, to talk about the event, or be comforted by someone else, right after the event. So we can imagine if this is stemming from childhood, and we didn't have the words and we didn't feel safe to talk about it, and we didn't feel soothed by that experience, then we're probably still holding it. So these are all things to think about when we are thinking about triggers.

And one of the things I also just wanted to preface here and I don't have any answer, before I move into this process is I have worked with a lot of companies and leaders in the last decades around reworks. And reworks, for the most part, are not done very skillfully. The communication I find very harsh, it's not caring, people will have been working at a company for 20 years, maybe 10 years, maybe eight years. And suddenly, they're laid off, they didn't see it coming. And the family at work that they've been a part of that they've been putting their life force, their energy, their love their service, and is no longer there. And there were many layoffs in 2020. That can be traumatic for folks.

And I'd really love to invite workplaces and leaders that are listening, that let's create a different way of treating our people and caring for our people. When we tell them that it's time to go. No, there's this process that happens where when someone is getting laid off, they immediately don't have access to their computer or their files. And some people don't even get a chance to like, gather emails or documents. And I just don't think it's the most effective practice or process. So I don't have the solution.

But my question is, can we design a more compassionate and caring communication process for those that are being asked to leave their current role or their workplace that is honoring and respectful. And I imagine I will have a podcast interview on that topic another day.

Carley Hauck 18:10

But now I'd like to go into the next part of this interview, which is on how cultivating a strong inner game is going to enable you to navigate triggers skillfully. So the inner game is the body of work that I've been developing and teaching for over a decade with 1000s of folks, leadership positions, individual contributors, and students at Stanford University and UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

The inner game rules the outer game. And there are six qualities of the inner game that I've identified and that I highlight in my new book that I believe really support one to navigate triggers skillfully, create healthy boundaries, and then have the brave exchanges so that the patterns that cause the trigger are minimized, and maybe even extinguished.

So I value leading with authenticity. So I'm going to share with you all, how I got triggered the other day, and then how I used the six inner game skills to help me come back into balance and have the brave exchange. So I had scheduled two interviews for Friday of last week, and I was prepared for them, and they were on my schedule, and I was looking forward to them. The first interview was canceled due to a really challenging scenario with this particular leader that I was going to be speaking to. This client leader actually shared with me that she needed to reschedule our interview because there was a threat at her child's school and she recognized that she needed some space before having a call she she wasn't actually in the right headspace and so she asked to reschedule and so I really appreciated her cell phone In his her communication, her, her ability to notice she was triggered, she was not in a good place to talk.

And so I honored her. I said, of course, please take care of yourself. And yeah, just reschedule when it's good for you. So that was the first cancellation of the day, it was totally fine. And then next, I had a podcast interview that I had scheduled about a month ago with a friend and colleague of mine, and I was very excited to have the conversation. And I had sent the, you know, Google Calendar and the zoom link, and we had corresponded about it. And the time arrived, I was on zoom, I was waiting.

And there was five minutes that had passed, and I didn't see the guests. So I, so I texted this person. And then I emailed, then there was no response. I waited another few minutes. And because I know this guest, personally, I called them, there was no response. I texted, I sent these Zoom links again. And now it's getting to be around 15 minutes. And I was like, Okay, I guess this isn't happening today. I don't know what happened.

But in the moment, I felt confused. I noticed I felt frustrated, there was some impatience, there was disappointment. After about 25 minutes, there was still no response, there was no acknowledgement. And I wasn't too triggered. But I definitely noticed I was triggered.

And I'm going to share with you a process very soon to help you understand how triggered you are. I accepted that there was some fluke, and I decided, you know what I'm triggered, I'm going to go take a break, I'm going to come back into balance, and I need a break. Anyway, I've been on my computer a lot today. So I noticed that in all these feelings that came up, that there was a need to be acknowledged, there was a need for greater respect, there was a need for efficiency so that my time had been honored.

Carley Hauck 22:19

And I also noticed that there was a request from myself that if we were to reschedule, to do this podcast interview, again, that I would want to make sure that this person was available and capable of responding. You know, maybe 30 minutes before the interview, or even afterwards, just in case there was a technology glitch, or scheduling glitch, so that this didn't happen again. But the no acknowledgement after text after emails after, you know, a call, I thought that was really odd. And I would want to make sure that they were available, their phone was on, they knew, you know that they needed to be available, just in case anything happened so that we were in communication.

So I'm going to break down the process that I went through, that corresponds to the inner game. So self awareness is the first of the six inner game skills. So again, I was aware that I felt triggered. How did I know this, I was aware of the sensations in my body. My heart rate was higher, my blood pressure, I noticed I felt irritation, I was aware of some of the feelings that I already named.

Emotional intelligence is a second inner game skill. And that comprises four dimensions- self awareness, which I already spoke to self regulation, which is this ability to regulate one's nervous system. So I noticed I was feeling triggered, I needed to take some deep breaths, I needed to take a break and shake it off, so to speak. Social awareness is another component of emotional intelligence, and then relationship mastery to our parts of the inner game, and to our parts of the outer game, which you'll see show up when I go into the conversation that I want to have.

And so again, in my self regulation, I was breathing deeply. I actually went and sat outside in the sun, and I was really enjoying the sun because where I live right now in North Carolina, there has just been so much rain and so much gray weather, and I'm not used to it. So having this break in the middle of the day to get a little bit of sun poking through the clouds was actually a really beautiful gift.

And then the third inner game practice is resilience and we can think of that as growth mindset. So the thought that I had while this was happening is I wonder what happened. Why? Why is this happening? Right? Which is coming from more curiosity versus why are they doing this to me? Why did this happen? So I had this sense that there's a reason why this is happening. And you know why? Because I was supposed to do a solo podcast on this topic. That's why it allowed me to use my experience as a teachable moment. For triggers for this first episode of Season Five.

The fourth inner game practice is well being. So again, I took time to pause, I even sang a song in the car as I was driving to get out into the sun and singing helps me to calm down. I walked barefoot in the grass, I unplugged from technology, so I could really lower my arousal state. And I calm down.

Love, that's number five. I was able to turn towards myself with compassion, Carley, you've had like, two people cancel on you today, and your schedule has gotten a little rocked, right? It's a little unpleasant. I offered myself care. And then I offered compassion to this other person, I hope they're okay, hope everything's fine. And so if I'm not able to bring that inner game of love, and compassion, and even forgiveness towards myself, first, it's really hard to put that out into the world and into my relationships.

And the number six, the inner game of authenticity. When I moved into owning what was true for me, what were my feelings? What were my needs, and even going a layer deeper, I actually acknowledged that the trigger stirred some old emotional triggers for me that I've had due to childhood experiences, where I often felt like I was, you know, having to be super responsible, holding everything down, taking care of others, and there wasn't a lot of mutuality, there was sometimes not even communication. And that often then has me feeling a bit triggered, you know, like, I'm not being respected, I'm being neglected. And why do I have to work so hard, you know, to be able to get someone to meet me in this place. So that was coming up for me too.

And I was also really recognizing my request, if we were to reschedule again. So that is coming from the inner game of authenticity. And if this person wasn't able to, you know, agree to some of my requests, in order to schedule another podcast interview, then it's not the right fit, and nothing personal, it's just, this is a process, it's not going to work for me again, and I don't want to have a repeat performance.

So about an hour later, I actually did hear from this person, and they apologize, my name that they thought they were on, you know, Pacific Standard Time, even though all my communication and our Google calendar invite was on Eastern Standard Time, I brought attention to what I did to coordinate the interview to create efficiency. And then I actually had the brave exchange and I named my parameters and the agreement in order to reschedule this interview, and support this person with their new book. So this was honoring myself, my time, my boundaries. And by doing that I can be much more compassionate and forgiving with this person's process.

Carley Hauck 29:15

So that is the way that when we cultivate these six inner game qualities of self awareness, emotional intelligence, resilience, well being love and authenticity, it supports us to have the brave exchange to navigate our triggers more easily because we've developed the skills to relate even in the midst of conflict, even in the midst of trigger. So I told you that I was going to give you a process to try and here it is: are you ready?

This is the first step because we have to understand that we're triggered before we can actually relate skillfully to triggers. This is coming from chapter two in my book, and I'd love for you to just bring your attention inward.

Just bring your awareness to your body to your breath. Kind of digesting everything I've shared, but letting it all go. Maybe move your fingers, your toes, your neck, shoulder circles back, whenever it feels good to just come into the body. This is only going to take a few minutes. So don't do this while you're driving. If you're walking, see if you can, you know, just pause

to be still. And now just recall a time that happened recently where you felt triggered at work at home. And bring to mind the situation and go through this process with me.

On a scale of one to 10, see if you can identify the number of trigger one being I feel calm. 10 being I am about to lose it. Can you recall? What was your number? Next, identify your emotions, there might be many: fear, anger, patience, disappointment. All feelings are welcome.

Now turn towards your body. What bodily sensations are you aware of is there a tightness constriction, an irritation. And just notice where it's taking up space in your body, your hands, your belly, your head, is it a lot of space is in a little bit of space. And trying to stay in the body, don't go into story.

And next, try to identify what the narrative is about this situation this person did or said or this happened. And we can have lots of narratives and they can either bring us up or they can bring us down. And if you recall, the experience that I shared, I was able to stay in curiosity. I wondered what happened. But I welcome you to really acknowledge whatever narrative is true. Well, what is your narrative about the situation right now.

And notice that you probably have a need from this person from this situation. What need do you have right now that would support you to come into greater balance, maybe you have a need for a break. First, maybe you have a need for connection for respect for whatever it is love for you to just acknowledge what that need is, honor it.

And then bring your awareness back to your body back to your breath. Maybe do a little movement, a little shaking. So that process can take a couple minutes. And it's really helpful for you to go through so that you can start to understand your patterns and be able to have choice over your response in the moment that you're triggered.

Carley Hauck 34:45

And I wanted to share just another piece that when you're first identifying the number on a scale of one to 10. If you're at a five or higher, I would invite you to really pause at that moment. This is not the time to have the conversation. Because in that range of trigger, you've usually left your heart and you're pretty much in your head, which means you're in a more fear based place. If you're in your heart, you're still coming from love, you might still be coming from care, compassion, forgiveness, you're able to really hold space for your experience and the other. But when we're too triggered, we're in attack mode, because that's how our nervous system is wired, we are going to be in fight flight, or freeze versus the, you know, more relaxed care and befriend space.

And so you're human, it's okay, if you're above a five, go take good care of yourself, do what you need to do to shake it off, and then identify what your need is. And so one of the ways that we can communicate that we're triggered, so that we're actually able to salvage and have care for the other, especially if this is in the midst of another person, is we just acknowledge it, I feel triggered, or I'm not in a good place to talk right now.

The other thing that can happen is that we're in dialogue or relationship with someone else who's triggered, and they may not actually even be able to say that they're triggered. So that's also a really wonderful time. If you're aware that this person's triggered, and they're coming from fight flight, or freeze, which means they're withdrawn, they're attacking, or they're just kind of frozen, that you might also interject and say, What do you think about us taking a pause, taking a break, and revisiting this in 15 minutes, or Let's reschedule to another day, right. And you don't necessarily have to say, Hey, I think you're triggered, because that could create more of a trigger for the other person, but you just offer a pause. And if that person isn't able to hear it, you can still take it, because that's you honoring you, and that's you holding healthy boundaries.

So I hope that all this information was helpful to you. And you can grow your inner game, so that you can be a conscious leader at work life in the world. And that inner game will support you to navigate triggers more skillfully. And there are a couple ways for you to cultivate a strong inner game, and to also continue these types of practices.

One is the podcast. I believe this is Episode 48. So all of the podcasts interviews that I have done, I'm sharing practices, I've interviewed leaders, and they're talking about the challenges they've had and what they've utilized to really grow their inner game and navigate their own complexities at work and at home because we bring our whole selves wherever we go, you know, it's not compartmentalised. As I was sharing earlier, our childhood experiences impact, what triggers us at work, and at home.

You can also get my book in hardcopy or an audiobook is available. And I would love to support you with the wonderful stories of leaders in the book and incredible science and the practices that you can apply to your life.

You could also book a free consultation with me and we can develop a specific training for your organization, team, or leadership. I also love creating large scale learning and leadership development programs with these foundational skills embedded. And the links for the book. And booking time with me will all be in the show notes.

Carley Hauck 39:20

Before I say farewell for now, I'd like to invite one more invitation. It's so important that we start to understand the patterns of what triggers us. And so as you go about your day, you might start to explore what are the patterns of things that are causing me to feel triggered at home, at work?

Here are some examples at work. Do I get triggered in group meetings? If so, why? And my one-on-ones with my supervisor. Do I get triggered when they do or say certain things? Why is this potentially related to old experiences in my childhood or my family of origin are another experience that reminds me of this? Do I feel triggered when I am ignored, or when I feel a lack of belonging or trust? Where's that coming from? So, just really being curious.

There's no judgment here, because we all have it. But if we can start to understand the root of it, and we bring caring, and loving awareness, we can start to shift our response and create new healthy patterns on the inside, and less on how we show up on the outside.

Before we part, I am going to share my heart's desire. This feels a bit vulnerable. And I've never used the platform for this purpose, but it feels timely, and we live in a virtual connected world. I am in a wonderful place in my life, where I am seeking a conscious inclusive human being who has a deep commitment to learning growth and using relationship as spiritual practice. This person, like me, has devoted time and energy for many years with teachers, programs, healers, therapists, coaches, to develop and cultivate the inner game skills I've been speaking of: self awareness, emotional intelligence, empathy, growth mindset, leading from love, forgiveness, authenticity. And they are excited and ready to engage in skillful relating and navigating conflict with health, and patients, and responsiveness.

And as I had shared earlier, how I came to develop this practice for myself on navigating triggers was due to the ending of a relationship. But throughout my entire existence of this life, I have yet to find a person that can stay. That has the skills for this type of relating. And I'm at a place where I will not date anyone that does not have the skills, I do not want to go through the pain that has occurred by not being met in these basic capabilities of relating, they feel basic to me. I'm aware, they're not for everyone.

So if you are listening to this, you feel a sense of resonance with me with this image of relating.

And you're excited to explore beautiful partnership, and supporting one another to be the best versions of ourselves in service of a more just inclusive and regenerative world, I would love to hear from you. Please reach out. conversations are always a great way to start. And I'm always in the mindset that we are always learning and growing from each other. And I'm always willing to see how we can support each other even if it's not, you know, moving towards what I'm calling in this particular message.

If you are also listening to us and you know, an eligible, single cisgendered heterosexual male who fits this description, and you would like to reach out and introduce us, I would be delighted to hear from you. It's all about introductions and supporting one another, to grow into our best selves with the right community opportunities. So thank you for hearing my heart's desire. And as always, I so appreciate you being part of the podcast community for listening in. And until we meet again, be the light and shine your light.

Are you a CEO, a founder or a leader in the C suite? Did you have to let go of half your employees in 2020 or some of your senior leadership team? Or are you going through a huge reorganization of your business and trying to figure out how to be skillful, navigate racial inequities at work? And lets throw another piece into the mix, it's the middle of a pandemic! It sounds like a movie, but its not. You are not alone my friend.

Our topic for today is conscious entrepreneurship with Suzi Sosa. Suzi is CEO and co-founder of Verb, a learning development platform, a loving mom, a friend, a sister, and a social entrepreneur. In this interview, we are going deep into three timely topics, each of which will provide you with applicable action steps to lead more consciously at work and in your life. We explore the fear mindset that Suzi grew up with and how she chooses to shift that story by staying awake, trusting, and surrendering. We also examine the inner game skills that Suzi relied on in the last year to be the conscious inclusive leader that she is. Lastly, how she responded skillfully in the midst of a difficult conversation and conflict around anti-racism with her team members. Suzi articulates how she did it and how she is continuing to learn and grow. Tune in to this insightful episode today!

SHINE Links:

Leading from Wholeness Executive Coaching

Leading from Wholeness Learning and Development Resources

Shine: Ignite Your Inner Game to Lead Consciously at Work and in the World by Carley Hauck

Contact Carley Hauck

Sign up for the Podcast!

Carley on LinkedIn

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Suzi Sosa on LinkedIn

Verb, Inc.

The Surrender Experiment: My Journey Into Life’s Perfection by Michael A. Singer

The Healing Organization: Awakening the Conscious of Business to Help Heal the World by Rajendra Sisodia and Michael J. Gelb

The Imperfect Shownotes

Carley Hauck 0:01

Hi, this is Carley Hauck and welcome to season four of the SHINE podcast. This is the last interview of the season. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things: conscious, inclusive leadership, the recipe for high performing teams, and awareness practices.

Before I tell you about our topic today, can you go over to Apple podcasts, hit the subscribe button so you don't miss any of our incredible interviews. I have many wonderful folks lined up for season five, which will end out 2021. And it would help so much if you could write a positive review, it helps folks find us and supports sharing the light. Thank you so much.

Our topic for today is conscious entrepreneurship with Suzi Sosa. Are you a CEO, a founder or a leader in the C suite? Did you have to let go of half your employees and 2020 or some of your senior leadership team? Or are you going through a huge reorganization of your business and trying to figure out how to be skillful, navigate racial inequities at work. And it's the middle of a pandemic? Sounds like a movie. You are not alone my friend.

Meet one of my favorite humans and conscious inclusive leaders Suzi Sosa. Suzi is CEO and co-founder of Verb, a learning development platform, a loving mom, a friend, a sister, a social entrepreneur. In this interview, we are going deep into three things. And you will be able to really take away some applicable action steps to lead more consciously at work and in your life.

Number one, how Suzi grew up with this narrative that if you aren't vigilant, on it all the time, your life is gonna fall apart, you'll be destitute. That's a lot of fear mindset. Learn how she chooses to shift that story by staying awake, taking one step at a time, trusting and surrendering the path.

Number two, what inner game skills has Suzi relied on in the last year to be the conscious inclusive leader that she is? Number three- how do you respond skillfully in the midst of a difficult conversation and conflict around anti racism with your team members? Suzi will articulate how she did it. And it's continuing to learn and grow. It's always a choice in practice. These are just some of the nuggets I loved out of this interview. I'm excited to share it with you. Thanks for being here.

Carley Hauck 03:37

Suzi, I feel so delighted to have you on the SHINE podcast. Thank you for being here.

Suzi Sosa 03:42

Oh, thank you for having me. It's great to be with you.

Carley Hauck 03:45

So everyone, this is my friend Suzi Sosa who is the co-founder and CEO of Verb. And I can't wait for you to hear her story and let her shine her beautiful light. So Suzi, one of the first questions that I often ask folks to come on to the podcast is what does conscious inclusive leadership and business mean to you?

Suzi Sosa 04:16

Hmm. Why I think the word conscious is the first one that means the most to me, which is really about waking up. And that's actually something that I found in my inner work is actually my life's purpose is to wake people up. And to be conscious of what's happening. I think that, you know, a lot of us go around life in a kind of non state, we do things by default. There's a sort of obvious way to do things. And to me, to be a conscious leader means you're not just walking around running your company in the obvious default way, you're actually fully present in, you know, mind body spirit.

And asking yourself, you know, is this the way that I want to do things? Is this what is best for me? Is this what's best for my people? Is this what's best for the customers? Is this what's best for the planet? So that's what conscious leadership is, to me, it's awake, right? It's fully present.

And I think inclusive leadership is a very natural derivative of that, that when you wake up, and you look around at what you're doing, as a business leader, you become aware that not everybody is experiencing the same level of inclusion. And that's hurting your business. So you, I believe, then start to think about, okay, what does it take for me to create the kind of company that you know, is holistic, is healing and welcomes all. So conscious and inclusive business as one that's being very intentional about how it shows up, what it wants to do, how it interacts with all of its stakeholders, it's serving something higher than financial motive. And, you know, it's really driven by that kind of stakeholder model, where it's not just providing benefit to one singular group of shareholders, but it's really thinking about the inclusivity of all different kinds of stakeholders that it impacts.

Carley Hauck 06:40

Wonderful, thank you. So I hear part of it is waking up. It's really taking into account all the people that the business is impacting, and really looking to see how it can bring an inclusive, maybe lens, to all the stakeholders, just kind of summarizing some of those key points. And I heard, more importantly, that your purpose is to wake people up. So I want to go into that a little bit. How are you waking people up? Right now?

Suzi Sosa 07:13

In this conversation with you, hopefully, someone will listen to this. And oh, I've never thought of that before. Right now, my fulfillment of my life's purpose is as the CEO of a company called Verb. And we provide leadership training through an online platform. And we focus specifically on the conscious skills that you write about, in SHINE, that we call, at Verb, we call them human centered leadership skills. And they include things like self awareness, empathy, authenticity, self care.

And, so my, my vision, and my goal for Verb is that we offer this training through companies to their employees, and that people get exposed to the possibility of a different way of being through what we teach them on Verb, much like you do with your book. And that they kind of wake up to the possibility of showing up differently at work, but and in other aspects of their life, that maybe that self awareness, or that newfound mindfulness or newfound connection to compassion might also wake them up to how they are being with their children or with their partner with their neighbor, or whoever it might be.

So that's my goal right now is to help people wake up to a life of greater fulfillment, joy, connection, by getting access to these personal power skills that maybe they didn't really know about before.

Carley Hauck 8:58

And what I imagine is also inherent, even though you didn't say it is maybe waking up to greater meaning, right? And even even like the purpose that you feel very connected to, you know, we are in such an important time, and you and I've had a lot of side conversations about this, but just the the opportunity and the responsibility that we have, as a humanity right now as a collective to really make the right decisions for the long term for the future generations.

And I think that right now, as we're seeing in the workplace, this great resignation happening where 40% of folks are leaving their current roles in their jobs, mostly because either it wasn't the right fit or it's not the right team, or it's void of real meaning and purpose. And when we have things hovering above us, like, you know, systemic racism and impending climate change and you know, climate catastrophe like it brings it home that what I am actually choosing right now has more impact than maybe any other time.

Suzi Sosa 10:15

Yeah. For sure, I think that, you know, everybody's waking up to this a little bit. And in the last year and a half, when many people have felt, you know, that death was closer than ever before. Suddenly, you ask yourself, oh, gosh, well, if my time here is short, what do I want to do with my life? Who do I want to spend time with? How do I want my days to be? Who do I want to put myself in service to? If that's what work is? Right? Do I want to be in service of selling a product that causes harm? Or do I want to be in service of a business that is doing good?

Carley Hauck 11:02

Wonderful? Well, I know that you started off, you know, in social entrepreneurship, and in many ways Verb is continuing that just, you know, it kind of in a different way and a different model. And for those folks that don't know what social entrepreneurship is, and I know that you were, you know, part of co-creating the social entrepreneurship program at UT Austin, you were also recognized in 2014, as Ernst and Young was a social entrepreneur of the year. Could you tell folks what that is, and why that's important to you?

Suzi Sosa 11:43

Yeah, I'd be happy to. And I'll just tell a little bit of a story of how I got to it. Because I didn't really know what it was in the beginning. I went to grad school to become a civil servant. I thought that was how I could support and help the most people, I was always clear that I wanted to be an agent of social change. And my second day of work was 9/11. I was working. I was working in the US Department of Commerce, giving grants to low income communities in the southwest and in the southwest region, based in Austin. And our budget was frozen, as the government kind of recalibrated how they wanted to respond to 9/11.

And I was young and idealistic and impatient. So I quit. I said, Well, you guys aren't doing anything. And there's a lot that needs to get done. And I ended up meeting an entrepreneur here in Austin, Texas, who had started one of the very first prepaid debit card companies called Netspend. And they were selling these prepaid cards to the working poor, mostly African American and Hispanic women who didn't want to use traditional bank accounts because they were living paycheck to paycheck. And those overdraft fees might be what they would spend monthly on their utilities or on groceries. And so they couldn't afford $40 of overdraft fees once or twice a month.

And I was captivated by this business, because it was actually serving a very needy population with a product that actually the federal government had been trying to figure out. They had been creating federal banking programs to help the unbanked, but they hadn't been very successful in distribution. And so then this was in the early 2000s. And I started wandering around asking, why can't we take the best of the nonprofit world and the best of the business world and bring them together, and I didn't have a term for it at the time. But eventually, I stumbled on this, quote, social entrepreneurship community. And they were using terms like double bottom line and triple bottom line businesses, which meant that you would build a business that was held accountable not just to financial performance, but also to some kind of social impact goals. Or if it was triple bottom line, it would have financial goals, social impact goals, and environmental goals.

And so that was like my people. And I kind of dedicated myself to social entrepreneurship, both in terms of working with entrepreneurs in the for profit world, and also in the nonprofit world, looking at things like earned income models and helping nonprofits to become more scalable and more financially healthy and not always relying on donations. And it was very much a stepping stone to conscious capitalism and conscious leadership where I am now.

The piece that was missing for me in social entrepreneurship is actually the individual and personal piece. It was always focused on the structure of the business. So if you had a double bottom line business, you were a social entrepreneur. And it didn't matter whether you were living a life of integrity, practicing responsibility, being authentic, creating trust, because no one was talking about the personal dimension. And it wasn't until I arrived in the conscious capitalism community that they brought that layer in too. So there was accountability for how the business was organized, and accountability for how you as a leader show up and how you interact with your team.

Carley Hauck 15:28

Well, and they're so integrated, right, like, you can't have one without the other.

Suzi Sosa 15:36

Yeah, I mean, I've seen a lot of social enterprises that I don't think are run consciously, where, you know, people are not given time for self care, or where there isn’t honesty and integrity. So there's a bit of hypocrisy there, right. And so I think it's really fantastic to, like, level up the game, it's not just enough to have a social impact, or maybe, you know, have a positive environmental impact. There's also the kind of how you show up as a human being that matters to?

Carley Hauck 16:08

Well, that's a really great pivot, thank you for that answer, into, you know, how you are choosing to show up right now, at work as a leader of Verb, for your family, for your community. And in the last year and a half, we've all been going through quite a lot of volatility, of uncertainty of ambiguity of complexity. And I know that consciousness is something that's a value to you, and you've already had various practices.

But I wonder, what are the practices that have really helped you stay strong? And we could say, awake and courageous at this time? And maybe even is there one that you are even growing more into leaning more into? So they're kind of two separate questions like, what's the base, now that you've had, because like, I even think about myself, you know, I wrote for four years on this inner game, which was really written for this time, you know, for this complex, uncertain time. And so I'm aware that thank goodness, I already had this foundation of practice for 20 plus years. And I'd been teaching it and facilitating it. And it never goes away. Like, it's never like, Oh, I'm done. We just had this conversation, there are layers and layers and going into even deeper aspects of these capabilities of the skills.

Suzi Sosa 17:48

For sure. You know, the time when my conscious leadership was forged, was really, in 2013, I had decided to get divorced. And I had, at the time, a one year old and a three year old. And I started Verb, the same year. And unfortunately, you know, in the wake of my divorce, I was not in a very financially healthy position, I had quite a bit of debt, I think I had about $5,000 of savings, and a brand new company. And so there was a lot of resilience needed to navigate the trials and tribulations of the startup. And also just this whole new identity.

You know, I remember I used to think about myself as a divorcee, I can't know what it all of that means. And it was in those early years as Verb floundered and as I really didn't have any kind of safety net, that I had to build those skills of self awareness, like Who am I? And I'm no longer this wife, I'm no longer this, you know, partner, I have a whole new identity being created. And I'm having to manage very young kids, a brand new company and all of this uncertainty.

So like you, I feel grateful that I've had, you know, a decade of intense practice, and the last year called upon a lot of those skills. And when I, you know, first went through that period in 2012-2013, I think that, uh, at the time, I was learning how to toggle a lot between a couple of different energy states and one was kind of a self care. So for me, that's been a mixture of meditation, exercise, healthy eating and rest. And when I go through periods of intense stress, I actually do tend to lean into that more and I get more regular with exercise more regular with cooking and, and then what that toggles between is actually kind of a warrior energy, which is about focus, prioritization, really figuring out what's important making difficult decisions confronting things.

And so last year and 2020, I really relied back on those kind of two natures at times of, you know, really focusing more on caregiving, whether myself or with my team, and at other times really focusing on warrior energy and decisive leadership. Where I'm moving to now is I really was taken by Mickey Singer’s book, The Surrender Experiment, and this concept of really just surrendering to whatever's happening, because I think that the inner game skills that I learned in the 2012-2013 period, and even that I relied on last year, are still trying to kind of muscle things a little bit, like, Okay, I'm gonna, I'm really gonna go intense into self care, you know, and there's a bit of like, look at me how much I'm self caring. And now it's like, I'm really gonna go into leadership and, and what I love about where you're on exactly, and what I love about the practice of surrender is not muscling in anymore. And for me, that is really leaning into faith, abundance, the sense of trust that things are going to work out. And that's like a higher order, way of being a conscious leader.

So it's, it's challenging, you know, I was raised in a family culture where the, you know, we were taught, if you're not vigilant, your life will fall apart, you know, that the, that the universe tends toward chaos, isolation, disease, death, poverty, you know, basically, if you are not on it at all times, you'll be, you know, destitute, dying, and under a bridge. And so it's a choice I have to make to believe that the universe has got my back. And all I need to do is just like, stay awake, stay open, and keep walking in the path that is, you know, being revealed in front of me. So that's, that's my current focus and what I'm working on.

Carley Hauck 22:28

Hmm, thank you so much. That was a beautiful answer. And I just can really feel the depth of how you have experimented and your awareness of watching it. of, you know, we could say the masculine, the feminine, right, that Yin Yang, and then this surrendering, which I just kind of think of is like that middle point, where you're just oh, this is this is what's happening. Okay. This is how I'm choosing to show up right now.

Suzi Sosa 23:00

Yeah, and just stay in that place of curiosity, like, I've really been practicing, saying to myself, Oh, I can't wait to see how this is gonna work out. You know, when I'm in a moment of uncertainty, and instead of worrying about it and ruminating on scenarios, Oh, I'm so curious to see how this is gonna work out.

Carley Hauck 23:20

I have some questions that I asked myself too, which just kind of turns it. It's more that growth mindset of the possibility, which is like, Oh, I wonder what amazing opportunities are gonna come in my door, or I wonder what incredible team I'm going to join. Or I wonder how I'm going to be in service today? Or like, Where's the magic interview today? You know, just all of those, I think, keeps it in a state of Unknowing but positive outlook. Yeah. Yeah. Great.

Well, I have so many more questions for you. So the next one I'd love to ask is, you know, I, I know that a few months ago, we were going to have a conversation just just to chat and talk informally and catch up and you emailed me and basically shared with me, from a very skillful way. Hey, Carley, um, you didn't use these words, but essentially, like you weren't in a good space to talk.

And that was because of a conflict that was happening within your team at Verb around the subject of anti racism. And you wanted to take time to reflect, to figure out how you wanted to show up and I wanted to ask you, how you were able to be authentic, about your views on that. To engage in more healthy conflict with your team around a topic that clearly you felt very passionate about, and we're having a lot of feelings about depending on, you know, the conversations and maybe the different worldview and lived experiences that other folks were having, and then how you were able to maybe bring in some compassionate accountability and agreements, would you be willing to share more?

Suzi Sosa 25:22

Yes, you know, the conversation about race equity inclusion was another one of the very hard things that showed up for me in 2020. You know, my business last year was, you know, in a state of survival. And I was very focused on, you know, making it through what, at the time, you know, we didn't have any visibility into how long this pandemic was going to last and what was going to happen to the economy afterward. So in June of 2020, we had started to expand our own DEI offerings inside of our product for our customers, because as a leadership development platform, it was obviously a topic that we needed to be supporting companies with.

And my team leadership team came to me as a group, and said, Hey, we don't feel comfortable selling this when we're not doing this work actively in the company. And, and my very first reaction was like, I don't have time for this, you know, I felt like we were in survival mode. And I also was just confronted that you know, what, you know, you think, you know, our company is not not being run well. And it was very challenging, I had so much resistance to even wanting to take on learning about something new, and exploring my own blind spots, you know, coming up with a point of view, one of the things they wanted me to do was to write a statement about Verbs a point of view on racism after the murders last year, and I felt like overwhelmed.

Like, I didn't know what my point of view was, I hadn't really been reading about it, I hadn't been thinking about it. And so that sparked a journey that we are on now to become an anti-racist company and support other companies and becoming anti-racist. And on the day, when you and I were supposed to have a call, we had our anti-racism working group had just met. And we, some of the group members had facilitated a conversation with the rest of us about how white supremacy, culture shows up at Verb.

And they we broke into small groups and so we broke into small groups, and then everybody reported out and I'm sitting there listening to my team members, speaking plainly about their experience of how the culture of white supremacy shows up at Verb- a company that I that I think of as being run as a conscious company, and we specialize in conscious leadership. And it was very intense. And confronting, and, and that's why I couldn't talk to you because I was like, I have to process this. Yeah, hold on a moment.

Carley Hauck 28:32

Yeah, be reflective, self manage, I felt very in support of you taking that time taking care of yourself. Yes.

We're at the midway point of this wonderful interview. And I wanted to take just a few minutes to pause to take a little body break, breath, notice the tension in your body, maybe do some shoulder circles back, take some deep breaths, a little wiggle, a little sigh.

And I'd like to share an insight that I've been gathering in the last 1920 months since the pandemic started. I've been talking to lots of CEOs, founders, chro, Senior talent, folks, these are the people that I partner with when I'm brought in to support learning, leadership development, culture work. And what I knew when the pandemic hit was that these more extrinsic rewards of, you know, free cafeteria food and Amazon gift cards and shuttle buses that would bring all the commuters in Silicon Valley where I lived and served many industries and high growth startups for many years. That's not available anymore. So because I've always known the need for learning leadership development, I knew that that was going to become the new priority. And that would be what would actually keep teams and companies thriving, engaged, connected, high performing and innovative.

And in the past, learning, leadership development and culture work was typically the first thing that was cut by the budget. But now, I see this recognition of companies in all industries that this is the thing that we need to invest in, and we need to invest in our people. And because I've supported so many different companies in the last decade, LinkedIn, Intuit, Pixar, Bank of the West, high growth startups, I've often been brought in for the reorg to implement new structure systems. And it is imperative that when we're going through the reorg, which is what we're all doing right now, all businesses all over the world, that there's an assessment to see where is the psychological safety and trust in the teams and the leadership and the overall culture because if that's not there, then any new systems, any new structures are not going to succeed.

And upskilling is really what we're seeing is going to create this flourishing, hybrid distributed future of work. And the upskilling that I've really supported in many industries and companies, I call this the inner game or the power skills. These have everything to do with being a human centered leader and workplace. And they're what I talk about in my new book SHINE. And they support the company to get ready for the new next. And by investing internally in your people, and upskilling in these capabilities for self awareness, emotional intelligence, empathy, agility, decision making, critical thinking, resilience, you're creating an environment to nurture the best possible potential.

And you're also giving your employees what they really want, which is learning and leadership and mentoring and coaching, and they're not going to want to go anywhere else, they're gonna want to stay. I would love to support you in the challenges that you and your business are facing right now. And I have a proven track record of success and a wealth of experience, and strategic know-how to do this. You can book a free consultation with me to learn more on how I and my team can support you in a more full time capacity. The link is in the show notes. Now back to the interview.

Suzi Sosa 33:13

But I think that, you know, how leaders respond to those moments is everything. And so when you, you know, ask me, you know, how do I help support, productive conflict, that Verb, it's in the way that I respond in moments like that, right? And at the time, I intently listened, and I had my inner game skills, like, on on all cylinders, because there were so many moments in that conversation where the little voice in my head wanted to argue, rebut, you know, whatever respond or even sometimes just shut down in shame, you know, and it was like, stay open, stay open, listen, be present, hear what they're saying. You know, and, and so it's moments like those that create the like, kind of organizational history and culture that allow for other conflict for other voices to come up.

Carley Hauck 34:23

Well, and for transformation and healing, right? Like if we're not willing to stay, and we go into that fight or flight response, right, the fight or the shutting down in the freezer, or just the freeze, right? And then there is that break, and it takes courage to be willing to stay to be with that level of discomfort. And, you know, stay open to it, stay in curiosity, you would use that word before. So where are you now?

Suzi Sosa 34:55

We, actually personally, what a transformation just for myself, like, I remember it starting out that I was appalled by the idea that I would ever call myself a racist, like, I am not a racist, you know, I was so sure of that. And now I know I was just, I am a racist, and I was racist, just unknowingly. You know, I was kind of oblivious. I don't know if there's a term, but I was kind of oblivious, racist, because I was not at all thinking about the experience of non-white people, in my company, in our in my neighborhood, in our country.

And so there was a great awakening for me. And also, I did, I joined some courses. So I kind of got deep into the learning part of the work, which gave me a level of enough confidence about the topic that I could start to form my own point of view, which is where things you know, for me to get exciting, because I'm not in a reaction mode, I'm actually in a creator mode. And now I can say, oh, who do I want to be in this conversation? Who do I want my company to be in this conversation? Like, what are we going to do? What are we going to stand for? How are we going to help?

And we have so far to go, you know, our anti-racism working group is now and just finished it's eight months of working together, which, you know, in a 400, and then a 400 year history of what we're trying to change. It's, it's like, nothing, it's a blink. So we're very, very early, but we're developing some skill around it. And, and my goal, you know, you know, I want to change how people experience work at Verb on the day to day, and I want us to just build this practice of looking, looking, talking, asking ourselves, are we operating in a way that's aligned with who we want to be and then you know, it's an endless loop of, of looking and asking and changing and looking and asking and changing, I don't think that we're ever going to be done with the work. It's just a practice that we're building as a conscious company.

Carley Hauck 37:24

What I hear underneath that is that there has to be enough psychological safety and you being the leader, one of the core leaders, that is that is setting that that is modeling, hey, I'm open, I might be like, in discomfort, but I'm open to hearing what you have to say, and I'm gonna stay curious. And I want to hear, and then I'm actually gonna shift like, I'm gonna take it into consideration seriously, and I'm committed to this. And that is what I think, you know, creates that overall commitment by the company and the different experience totally for everyone. Wonderful.

Suzi Sosa 38:07

Yeah, it's, it's a, it's something that you can't create in a moment you create through lots and lots of interaction. So I have one of the leaders on my team, who was the person who pushed me the most in the conversation about race, and she really had to go into an edge, you know, just to say the things to me, like, Hey, boss, you know, that like, this does not work or what you said here, or, you know, and so she made herself vulnerable to do that. And then the way I responded to that, you know, okay, she realized, okay, I can do this. So she could do it a little more. And, you know, that's how it works, you know, at the individual level, not at the team level, and at the company level.

And one of the things that I've learned in this last year, that I found was the most effective if you want to give a steroids shot of psychological safety into your company, is to apologize. And think that real vulnerable, authentic apologies, have like such a ripple effect, right? They show what you're, what you stand for, and what you're committed to. They show as a leader that you're willing to be vulnerable and admit that you made a mistake. And we all know that an environment where people can fail is very important for innovation and transformation. And it really shows that commitment to kind of doing something differently.

And so, you know, there have been a couple of moments in the past couple of years when there was a reason I needed to apologize and I do that now openly, you know, in front of the appropriate audience, depending on what happened. And it really creates like an extra boost, like others feel like oh, okay, you know she did that, then maybe I can take a risk and say this thing or I know that I can clean up something I did that didn't go the way I planned.

Carley Hauck 40:17

Wonderful. Well, and what I hear you exercising in the apology is, you know self awareness, emotional intelligence, the growth mindset of resilience. But then also, you know, that authenticity where you're taking personal responsibility, and you're being humble. Hey, messy human here, how you doing?

Suzi Sosa 40:48

Yeah, totally. Yeah, it's really uncomfortable. It's, it's, but it's something that the more you do it, the better you get at it. And I think there's a lot of freedom in recognizing that your actions don't define you, you know, and that's, it's something again, that just takes practice to believe and to feel like, my actions don't define me. And so when you do mess up, you can go and apologize and not have that mean that you are a lesser person, or should be relegated to shame or something like that.

Carley Hauck 41:21

Yeah, and I want to just mirror back what I just saw in your body, because not everybody will, nobody can see you, but I can. I'm the lucky one, I get to see Suzi. But when you just said that my actions don't define me, your shoulders came back, your chest opened up, you've and kind of tilted your head up. Like there was sunshine beaming, you know, there is just a full expansion. And then you just kind of just shake off that shame, right? Like, I mean, that that's what's so powerful about mindfulness, right? Like, every moment is a unique moment, it will never be the same. And we can change at any moment.

So well, I could talk to you all day. One day, I'm sure we'll have that opportunity. But time that we have right now I have two juicy questions for you left. So I'm speaking on this whole topic of, you know, diversity, inclusion, equity belonging, I know that you just did a powerful panel on creating a culture of belonging yesterday at the virtual conscious capitalism. And what were some broad strokes or takeaways that you could share? I mean, creating a culture of belonging in a remote distributed hybrid workforce. Whoo!

Suzi Sosa 42:47

Yeah. I think I call that the Black Diamond level challenge. So, you know, it's one more worthy of taking on. I was actually just facilitating a conversation with my dear friend Kim Mans, who's the founder and CEO of H3Diversity, and she has a really fantastic framework of head, heart and hands for approaching DEI. Yes, and Carley shaking her hands. And, and, and yesterday, what we really went deep into was the heart. And that belonging is really much more accessible when you connect to it from a heart center, you know, even before you get to the head. So what we did is we asked all the participants to go into pairs and think about a time when they were part of an organization where they felt they belonged. And what was that like? And what did that make available to you?

And it was things like, trust and expression and freedom and comfort and safety. And then a little bit later, we said, Now think about a time when you were somewhere where you felt you didn't belong? And it could be in a foreign country or in another organization? And how did that impact what you brought, right? And in the people in their sharing, it was so real. And what I found interesting was the few of the people that shared. You know, one was a Jewish man who grew up in the military at a time when it was not common to have Jewish people in the military. And he was in a part of the US where he also didn't feel very culturally welcome.

Another woman shared about being one of the first female CFOs in her generation and that she was often coached by mentors not to bring certain aspects of her womanhood to the job as a CFO. And so what became available to everyone is that this topic of belonging is not a conversation about race. It's a conversation about our whole selves and what is it like to be able to bring If not your whole self, but Gosh, a whole heck of a lot of yourself. Right? A lot of your parts. Yes, exactly.

And, and I think one of the key takeaways was for all of us to just be, you know, a little more aware, and maybe even asking our people like, you know, do you feel that you get to bring your whole self to work and what would be needed for you to feel that you could bring more of yourself to work, because, like, in those two examples of, you know, her gender and his religion, there might be aspects of someone's being that you're not even aware that they don't feel they can bring, right.

And so I think what my big takeaways from what Kim was sharing with everyone is one to start with the heart, and to really connect to our own personal experiences of feeling when we belong, and when we don't. And then to get real curious about the people who are around you and what their experience is of belonging in your organization.

Carley Hauck 46:02

Beautiful, thank you, start with the heart, get really curious, share your own experience. And also, I think, be willing to be maybe a little bit more vulnerable, right, so that people do get to see you. And then you get to see like, can they meet you where you are, right.

Suzi Sosa 46:25

And I think there's a bit of creativity that is going to be required too, because we're all used to again, just going back to that unconscious leadership of doing things and kind of default way and maybe not even realizing that that may, those activities might undermine belonging. So for example, in my company, we used to celebrate a lot by going out drinking. And that was just a common thing, you know, you could have a great day or a great week, or close a deal, everyone goes to the bar. And in the conversation about inclusion, some of our team members shared that they always felt a bit excluded, because they, you know, had small kids at home, they couldn't go to a bar, they didn't feel comfortable at a bar they didn't like drinking. And that caused us to have to get creative and say, Okay, well, are there other ways we can celebrate that are more inclusive?

And, you know, that's a simple example. But I think there are a lot of other things that we were just doing as a kind of default mode as a company, because it's the way I've always done it.

Carley Hauck 37:28

It’s the dominant culture, right? Like, like, let's get unconscious. You know? I don't, I don't drink personally, either. So that's, that's where that comes from.

Suzi Sosa 47:43

Exactly. So I think that it's gonna take for the grizzled gray leaders like me, it's gonna take some curiosity and some open heartedness to explore doing things really differently than we've always done before.

Carley Hauck 47:58

Yeah, and I, for anybody that loves drinking, and it's not a conscious or an unconscious thing that that remark was a little unskillful. So I'm just acknowledging that I hope that didn't brush anybody the wrong way.

Okay, one more quick question. And the question that I have for you is, I know that part of the waking up and verb and, you know, the leadership that you put out into the world is motivated by social impact by this passion for diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging. But I feel really curious, in this great awakening, unraveling of systems, of structures that we're in to create a workplace in a world that works for everyone, and is really in harmony with the planet, so that we have a flourishing future. What do you think is really important in the next one to two years for leaders and companies to take action on now? Big question.

Suzi Sosa 49:07

Yeah, I know that it's about expanding our view, and confronting some of these old norms. So for example, one of the questions we were all confronted with last year was whether as a company you should take a political stand for whether we should take a stand on racism and other social justice questions. And I think most companies in the past have said that we're just business, we are not going to pine on politics or social questions, but that isn't really a viable option anymore. We have to expand our view of the responsibility of business. We can't just say, oh, all we do is make money. You know, no, don't worry about us over here, because obviously the way we're making money is deeply impacting our social structures, our environment and, and more.

So I would say the headline is, business has to expand its view of itself of its responsibility. You know that, to me means, you know, every company has to serve some higher purpose than profit. Like it, profit is not a goal. John Mackey, the founder of Whole Foods, who’s been an incredible mentor of mine who says, the purpose of a business is no more about making money than the purpose of a human body is to make red blood cells. You need those red blood cells to fulfill your life's purpose. Business needs money to fulfill its life's purpose. But making money can't be the purpose.

And I believe that's going to be every company, not just the social entrepreneurs or the conscious, conscious companies. And I think that business has to expand its view of its responsibility to employees, community and the planet. So a couple of years ago, years ago, a book came out called The Healing Organization, from a couple of authors in the conscious capitalism community. And they argued that it's not enough to do no harm, that businesses actually have to step up and heal the harm of the past.

And so, you know, your employees are suffering from mental health issues, right now they are. And as a business leader, it is your responsibility to help them deal with that. Your business is present in a community that has wounds of systemic racism and poverty in it. And it is your responsibility to heal those, even though you may not have been around when the wounds were first created, and so forth. So I think there's really, at the, you know, again, at the headline, it's this expanded view of what business is, is meant to do, of what business is responsible for. And I hope that will buy us a shot at keeping capitalism because I really do believe that capitalism has the potential to to support our planet in terms of prosperity, and meeting human needs, but the way it's been showing up, isn't working. And it has to evolve.

Carley Hauck 52:24

Yeah. Yeah. If we could be more altruistically motivated, like an altruistic new economy, I did a podcast episode with a colleague and friend of mine several months back, and we talked all about, you know, the new incentives for a more just economy. Wow, I love that answer. And, you know, I love that you referenced The Healing Organization, because often, and I even write about this in my book, because I also really studied systems, you know, the organizational system of a company, but also the system of a human body. I think of myself as a healer, for business and for organizations. And I'm always brought in, when there is a massive imbalance, there is a dis-ease within the company that I'm being asked to intervene and solve for and create the pathway for healing.

So and I feel like, you know, in the remote hybrid, distributed workforce that we are evolving into Learning and Leadership Development, are going to be so important for how we communicate, how we innovate, how we collaborate, how we stay engaged, and I'm just so excited to see how Verb you know, is able to be part of that new future of learning. Suzi, it's been so delightful to have you. I will leave you know, links to you in our show notes. How do people get in touch with you and stay connected?

Suzi Sosa 54:12

Yeah, I'll share with you my email address and then certainly on LinkedIn, and you can follow us at Verb, but I would be happy to connect with anyone who's listening and wants to chat. Thank you so much for having me. It's such a treat to be able to talk about these things with you.

Carley Hauck 54:29

Oh, likewise, thank you for your authenticity.

Thank you Suzi. As always, our conversations are so nourishing and love your bold humility and deep authenticity. If you have questions or want to connect with Suzi, please use the link in the show notes to reach out. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends, families or colleagues, we are all in this together and sharing is caring.

If you have questions, comments or topics you would like me to address on the podcast, please email me at [email protected]. I would love to hear from you. And if you enjoy this episode, again, please write a positive review on your favorite podcast listening platform. Thank you for being part of this community. And until we meet again, for season five, be the light and shine the light.

In this interview, I am joined by Bryan Breckenridge, the head of social impact at Snyk and proven social intrapreneur, a builder that thrives at the intersection of corporate and nonprofit mission fulfillment, maximizing social, environmental, and economic returns for all.

We talk about his passion for contemplative practices such as meditation, and how he cultivates his inner game of resilience and well-being by spending time in his body, and the beautiful hills of Marin County. Bryan speaks to his early beginnings at salesforce.org and why social impact is important to him. We also speak about his feelings regarding the recent sixth UN IPCC Climate report and he talks about the intersectionality of social impact commercial scale and climate strategy to reduce carbon so that business operations can be more responsible. Bryan gives recommendations to leaders in businesses who want to align with the ESGs now, the short term, and the long view to create incentive structures and systems that align with more social and environmental responsibility. Tune in to this inspiring episode today!

SHINE Links:

Leading from Wholeness Executive Coaching

Leading from Wholeness Learning and Development Resources

Shine: Ignite Your Inner Game to Lead Consciously at Work and in the World by Carley Hauck

Contact Carley Hauck

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Bryan Breckenridge

Watershed Climate

Nine Tips For Being a Male Ally

Bryan’s Four Journaling Buckets

Bryan Breckenridge at LinkedIn

The Imperfect Shownotes

Carley Hauck 00:01

Hi, this is Carley Hauck, your host of the SHINE podcast. We are in season four. And I have been loving all the interviews in the last several weeks and we have two more to this season. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things: conscious and inclusive leadership, the recipe for high-performing teams and awareness practices.

I am facilitating three episodes a month. And before I tell you about our topic today, I would love it if you could go over to Apple podcasts and hit the subscribe button. This way you don't miss any of our incredible interviews. And if you love this episode, which I hope you will please write a positive review or share it on your favorite social media channel. It helps so much. Thank you.

Our topic for today is how to create a social impact strategy for purposeful organizations in business with Bryan Breckinridge. Bryan Breckinridge is the head of social impact at Snyk, and we talk about his passion for conscious and contemplative practices such as meditation and spending time in his body, and the beautiful hills of Marin County. These practices support a strong and resilient inner game so that he can lead himself, his family and his team well. Bryan has spent over 20 years at iconic Silicon Valley companies like Salesforce.org, LinkedIn, Box and Zillow. He has helped them weave positive social and environmental impact and nonprofit networks into their core company operating models. He is a proven social intrapreneur, a builder that thrives at the intersection of corporate and nonprofit mission fulfillment, maximizing social, environmental, and economic returns for all.

In this interview, Bryan speaks to his early beginnings salesforce.org, and why social impact is important to him. We also speak about his feelings regarding the recent six UN Climate report. And he talks about the intersectionality of social impact commercial scale and climate strategy to reduce carbon so that business operations can be more responsible. Even with small and private companies like Snyk, who really care. Bryan gives recommendations to leaders in businesses who want to align with the ESGs now, what they should be thinking about in the short term and the long view so that they can make significant changes and incentive structures and systems that align with more social and environmental responsibility. Bryan is a person that embodies conscious and inclusive leadership. And he has been an important ally in my life in this past year. I am so excited to hear how this interview impacts you, and your leadership, business and life. Thanks for tuning in.

Carley Hauck 03:41

Hello, Bryan. Thanks for joining the SHINE podcast.

Bryan Breckenridge 03:45

It is my pleasure. Great to see you.

Carley Hauck 04:00

So one of the first questions that I asked folks that join the podcast is what does conscious and inclusive leadership mean to you? Why is that important?

Bryan Breckenridge 04:05

I think that it's important because if you're doing the work that is authentically destined to you or if you know that you're leaning your full being into what you do, then you certainly grow the most from it. And you're most impacted personally and then you impact others the most. And then the other things like flexibility and autonomy and impact and an earnings and recognition and the other things that come along with doing the work you know you're meant to do, do come along as the result of being conscious or being mindful in the way that you kind of aim your career and the way that you work with people within that career and the way that you lead in that career.

Again, you’re authentic or you're kind of remaining rooted in what you know is true for you is the vital first building block of that. Then, in the interrelationship pieces, or the emotional or psychological or relationship or pieces of leadership or collaborating, if you're showing up as your fullest true self, then those around you feel permission to do the same, and you get the furthest in what you're collaborating on. So I think consciousness brings you back to receptivity to your truth. And then if you're if your action agenda or what you're actually doing is based from that space, then not only do you show up, able to do what you're meant to do more, and be more successful with it, but also welcome other people into that space, in that same way, then you get further with them as well.

So that's just my thought about the conscious part is that you do what you know you're meant to do. And you can feel that you can't fake that, you have to feel that. And that's what happens for me in this. And then when I lead, it's like, give others the benefit of bringing their authentic truth and self to things and then collaborating from that space, and then your truth and their truth mingle instead of these other, you don't have to do the rest of the math. It's just you know, your people are showing up and being truthful about what they're, what they're doing. And then, of course, you can add the skill sets and, and the parameters and the frameworks on top of that, but you have to start there.

Carley Hauck 06:18

Wonderful, thank you. Yeah, I refer to that part in my book, the inner game of authenticity, which I know you've read. And so yeah, I hear you saying it's really aligning with my truth. And then having my actions correspond with that, and then inviting that from others. No doubt about that. We're able to bring our whole sometimes messy, sometimes best selves, right?

Bryan Breckenridge 06:45

Permitting it, allowing it, inspiring it like that's absolutely right. And those bumpy days, those hard days are maybe the best days sometimes because then you start with wanting to be rooted in the truth of what you're doing together or individually and then you can bring each other back to that line and bring on another back to that concept. My team always sees the messy sides of me as well as the polished sides. And the organized sides and the formulaic sides and also the messy, creative side. So like both hemispheres of the brain and all different sides of my personality, but I think that always helps in the end.

Carley Hauck 07:25

Wonderful. Yeah, well, tell me a little bit about your trajectory, and why social impact matters to you.

Bryan Breckenridge 07:33

You know, I grew up in a tiny town in the Midwest in Kansas, and I would do service projects as a kid and jump out of the back of pickup trucks to recycle paper around the town with my friends in the scouting organization I was a part of and it always just felt amazing. Even though it was hard, sometimes on a weekend morning to be out doing that I just for some reason, I just knew that the feeling of doing it was so exciting. And riding in the truck with no, you know, seatbelt or anything, as I'm sure exciting to do in an open in an open truck. I mean, it was a crazy time for sure, back then in the 70s and 80s. But I just felt good about it.

And when I went to college, I was among other members of a Greek organization. And I was the philanthropy chairman of the House that I was in. And so it gave me this chance to like be the person that was creating social impact among, you know, like parties and sporting events and all the things that we were doing during college. So it was an interesting thing that I think was a kind of a precursor to what I ended up doing in my career, which was starting a business and volunteering in companies that appreciated that way of leading, but then it was like, wait, I can actually do the work that I really enjoy. Not only at the company I'm at but I can actually lead those aspects of a business plan and the business strategy as well, which are social and environmental programs.

So it all just kind of comes from, again, that original feeling that just felt right. And it's just like the world keeps moving me toward that. So kind of creating these unlikely marriages are these unlikely bedfellows per se, of, of you know, like philanthropy and an environmental programming with corporate business plans is again it's back in the day. It wasn't quite unique. They were in two very different parts of the school campus. But now they're merging, thankfully, after all this time.

Carley Hauck 09:22

Wonderful. And you had a start with Salesforce correct in their foundation?

Bryan Breckenridge 09:32

Yeah, I started out on the business side of the field sales territory. Just when I came back from a trip in India, I was in India for two months, all volunteering internationally and further exploring some of the Buddhist traditions and Eastern philosophies that my brother had introduced me to. He studied those at Princeton when we were both in our undergrad so when I graduated, I came out of it with a meditation practice and an awareness of what was happening in the eastern part of the world and then went to visit there and volunteer out in the martial Pradesh. In the rural parts of Northeast India, just below the foothills of the Himalayas, and went to Dharamsala and a number of other places.

But that really made a big impression on me when I came back, I started at Salesforce and was able to really talk a lot about that because the culture at Salesforce really championed and supported volunteerism, and, and service and so on. So it's just really nice to come back and get to celebrate it and not have to hide that I had just spent two months doing that. And it felt like those early days on these boy scouting trips, like picking up those papers, I was like, wait, this feels good. And I don't speak Hindi. But I was embraced by these small villages and communities and worked in the schools and community centers of those talents for a couple of months. I knew I had to keep doing that.

So then when I started at Salesforce in sales, I immediately set on a beanbag my very first day and became a steering committee member of the Salesforce Foundation and helped shape what it would become that those kinds of those two trajectories emerged together the Salesforce Foundation, contribution and strategy help and my day job was selling. But then I did a lot of volunteering, they all started to come together. And I joined the foundation part after about seven years there and different local and global jobs, and brought that business side structure and network to the foundation and helped them with their plans. After seven years, yeah, and just stayed in that kind of area since then.

Carley Hauck 11:20

What were you able to see in those seven years? Salesforce happens to be one of the companies and Marc Benioff is one of the leaders that I highlight in the book as one of the conscious and inclusive leaders that are really aligned with being a force for good in the world.

Bryan Breckenridge 11:38

Yeah, just to see us from the very beginning, holding Mark accountable to a lot of what we knew, came very naturally to him growing up and in his life. It also, I mean, this was when the company was, you know, enough people to sit in a small conference room. That was all of us all the employees as I was probably there less than 100 or somewhere thereabouts employees. And so it was always me in the back of the room, among others. There were a few employees for the Salesforce foundation already that were kind of growing up alongside the company.

But I would always before I could even get my hand in the air Mark would say like, okay, Bryan, I know you're gonna ask me a question about the Salesforce Foundation. And in fact, we are making some grants this quarter or we are going to hire two more people. Okay, enough questions about that? What other questions do people have? I was a squeaky wheel for the Salesforce foundation back when it was almost more of a dinner party than a company at the very beginning. So that was pretty cool.

And we were able to do, you know, a lot of yoga with Mark just in conference rooms on a weekly basis. And then he and I had always kind of broken out and talked about different breathing exercises and, and different things that were keeping us grounded personally and all this interesting stuff. So it was a very intimate time in the beginning, but it certainly has become a huge huge conglomerate now. But yeah, it keeps a lot of that purity in its guts as well.

Carley Hauck 12:53

Lovely. I love just hearing that that was your kind of origin.

Bryan Breckenridge 12:58

Yeah. Yeah, it was really neat to be texting with with Marc Benioff back before he was kind of Marc Benioff, if you will, about about, you know, our meditation tendencies and and what we wanted to see business turn into together and, but it was kind of neat too, because when he wrote his first book, Compassionate Capitalism, I'm quoted all through that and Karen Southwick wrote it rest in peace poor gal died of cancer honest, but in the middle of her next work, which was about the healthcare system, and how hard it is to navigate the head for that for people that are sick, and she was keeping from us that she actually had cancer and she was terminal. But when we lost her it was it was kind of sad, but just the fact that I was a part of projects like that was really, really, I think some part of my career's legacy is just to have kind of made some of these dreams possible for for some of the, I guess the early concepts of what a company could start to do, like the salesforce.org, Salesforce foundation work is, is something I'll never forget. And it's definitely neat that I got to weigh in on some of the early you know, ideation and some of the early proof points that it was going to be something special.

Carley Hauck 14:00

And definitely I can see has impacted you in the roles and the way that you show up with companies, even your even your current role.

Bryan Breckenridge 14:09

It just helps me kind of write my own job description when I've seen the possible and I've helped initiate the possible so then you go to a new group who's eager to learn about the possible but they haven't felt it yet. They haven't seen it work yet. And then you, you get in there and for me, now, I've just done this enough at enough companies that within 90 days, they can see like 20 ways that this stuff is really powerful, and it becomes exciting.

They can't say no, and it starts getting written into the business plan and the reporting and the marketing and culture and everything else. So kind of fun, but again, it's just that awareness of having been there. Like once you've really seen it right? Once you've really felt the sunset. It's just like, you know, you love what, you just you've been there, you've tasted it, you've seen it. And that's the way I am with corporate social impact. I'm very bullishly optimistic that it can be a big force for change. You just have to be in the rhythms of the business and not just in the rhythms of the philanthropy. You know, aspects of the entity To you, and if you can do that you can create some scalable change in the world.

Carley Hauck 15:04

So tell me more. Tell me, tell me more about that aspect that you just brought in, where it's very much integrated in with the C suite. You know, it's a high priority, how are you able to lead the vision and strategy for that in your current role as head of social impact at Snyk?

Bryan Breckenridge 15:24

Yeah, it's, it's, it's ever interesting, because I would say that in the day, like five years ago, eight years ago, 10 years ago, we would people would do work, that is intersectional, like me between impact and, and commercial scale, would would quickly hire people to mobilize the employees to volunteer, and that would be the proof point that it's like, oh, okay, this, the culture does appreciate this. And it's great that this is organized and trackable and, and can then create some real goodwill for us and some good leadership momentum for people.

But I find now that if, if you're in a business that's eager to do some of this work, and you're in there for a few months, instead of the first area of emphasis being, you know, really employee volunteering is that proof point, you're wondering whether or not you can get impact into the OKRs? You know, where the two moms are the strategic plan of the company quickly, and the planning cycles, right?

So you really want to find out quickly if there's a receptivity to including the work you do, and the monthly and quarterly reporting for the business, like out of the gate, and that's, it's tougher, it's a bigger lift. But I think it's early. A lot of us that do the work that I do would again, think Oh, great, can we solidify, you know, $50,000 in budget and set up a volunteering program and really hope that that then catches on from here, it's less about that now. And it's more about now being an operating model, instead of a project or an operating model, instead of a department or an operating model, even instead of a program. That's, that's across the company, it's actually an operating model, it actually needs to be really baked in.

And of course, that means one of the top five or six or seven objectives of the company needs to have impact at its core. And then every activity and process and product and strategy can link up to that. I could go on but it's neat that we're past proof points now. And now we're in this quid pro quo for people like me who enter business and say, Okay, listen, like, is this something that can be a part of the core operating model? And have every bit of, you know, the company's intellectual, technical and financial and cultural sort of heft behind?

And if the answer is yes, then you keep doing it and you make magic. If not, then you, you create a really great program that's good for those that get involved in the occasional blog post. But you don't, you don't change the world, you don't make the impact that you need to, for, for, for the social and environmental things that you're solving for, but also for the business, because there's a lot of proof that's that shows companies that are traded on the on the exchanges outperform those if they're aligned with ESG, over those that don't between 15 and 20%.

So you do see the financial return, you know, the business or fiscal return is right there. It's just as the other stakeholders when they're included at the table and how you do it is strategic, scalable, and differentiated. A bunch of recent Harvard Business School stuff about it, too, it has to be differentiated, you can't just check the box and, and hang a volunteering program out there. If it's not even in your cultural nature to do it, it doesn't help at all, it actually hurts.

But if the company authentically wants to go make a difference as part of its business, and it has things that do themselves bring material value to the environment, or to communities then or nonprofits or whatever you decide to focus on with your theory of change, but but it can make a difference in business to make no mistake every time Snyk impact gets exposed to parts of this neat company people get energized, make no mistake.

Carley Hauck 18:45

Well, I want to take it in a little bit of a different place that relates to your role. So before we restarted the recording of the call, we were talking about the present state that currently where you're living in Marin County, you have smoke in the air.

Bryan Breckenridge 19:07

And a red sun sitting in the sky. Sticks in ashes on the trunk of or on the hood and trunk of my car. I'm looking at it now, the smell of a campsite, a faint campsite smell in the air. Sacramento had 50,000 acres burning yesterday. There's a small fire right at the 101 highway four miles from our house on Forest Hill yesterday that they had to fly over and put out, it stopped traffic on the one on one. I mean, this is a tinderbox in Red County, even just two miles from the coast. Right?

Carley Hauck 19:32

Yeah. Right. And it's one of my favorite places in the world. It's incredibly beautiful, all the open space, but it is also as you said, like a fire hazard because of all of the incredible nature there and I lived in the Bay Area for a very long time and you know, saw it getting worse and worse and worse. And this seems to be from my recollection. It's like the sixth Here, where there have just been major fires for prolonged periods of time, and they keep getting earlier.

I remember the first one really starting in October, then it's like September, August. Now, you know, it just keeps coming a little earlier, these mega fires are lasting longer. And this relates to the UN sixth climate report that came out the week of august 9. You know, speaking very loudly, we have some big problems here. Our world is on fire, houses on fire, and systems and structures have to shift now.

Yeah, and so I, I know, I have had a lot of thoughts and feelings about that. And it was one of the real motivations for me and spending four years to write my book, to try to be a light for what is possible, we can't see it, you know, kind of like what you were saying, but how is that weighing on you? What's the impact of that report being that you're a father, you've got kiddos, you clearly care about this space?

Bryan Breckenridge 21:04

Yeah, it's, it's significant. And I didn't, I didn't know I took some meteorology classes and a little bit of science and undergrad, I didn't specialize in the areas that had me reading the scientific journals about, about expansion of carbon and, and sea temperature rise and so on, like, I wasn't steeped in the in the verbiage or the the School of that. But in in adopting, in my role at Zillow leading impact, we we did lean in to some of the early climate decisions or whether or not to go out audit and other other aspects of that, and that that had me interacting with the consulting community that serves the corporate structure on audit and remove and, and, and more and more on offset or, or invest in reduce or extract carbon cycles, and then certainly the marketing and other things that that need to be disclosed in, in kind of the current environment.

So so this is to say that I started to take on the responsibility of the climate aspect of the corporate entity more in my in my previous role here at Snyk, where we're a carbon neutral company from our business behaviors and in 2019, meaning we invested in some offsets in an audit last year that covered the year before as business getting us carbon neutral. Now, looking back on a year where there wasn't as much travel, we still know that we've got some offsetting to do.

But now we're looking at how do we systematize the notion of audit within the strategy to bend and reduce what might just be spin, but also how's SPM a more responsible company, even as a small six or seven or 800% company that we are around the world? Already progressively thinking about it? How do we automate the audit? How do we get the data in a good place even as a privately held company that's not yet required? This is very voluntary, per se. Because we have 20 or 30 employees passionate about it, even some of our investors and board members are passionate about it. You can even hear as I'm conscious of my voice speeding up in my excitement level increasing it's, it's, it's it's an urgency that I've not yet felt. But it's also a hope, because I think for the first time, I'm seeing even the climate discussion, not just living in this small little closet of one of the rooms of the company, metaphorically speaking.

You know, maybe the facilities team who's looking after the energy bills has been asked to keep better track of those. Now I'm seeing the CEO and the founder speak to this and care about it. I'm seeing it woven into the foundation of the home, the floorboards of each of the rooms, meaning the departments, the processes, even the auditors and the compliance teams.

So I'm, I'm really going on and on here and being verbose. But Zillow showed me this was something we had to care about. And mind you, they had 300 million people coming to their websites that have homes or are trying to find homes. So I knew Zillow needed to step up their game in this space, because they could educate owners of the built environment per se, but a could do to keep us from burning up within a couple of decades.

But now though, I'm just in a small sort of tech company, that's fast growth. We do affect 28 million developers, if we get this business plan right, already have hundreds of millions, or excuse me, hundreds of 1000s of developers using our technology.

Carley Hauck 24:20

And so I think to even bring the edge of education out and show the modeling of what you can do so you can influence so many other companies change.

Bryan Breckenridge 24:24

We can't just sit around and be scared. We have to take action. And I do think that the corporate structure is a good way to do that. And I am feeling momentum in my own role. So I know that's true of hundreds of my peers that do this work and other companies.

Carley Hauck 24:39

Thank you for listening. We are at the Midway mark of this powerful interview and I'd like to take a minute or two with you just to bring our attention inward towards our body. Breathing in, breathing out, bringing our shoulders up and down. Maybe doing a little shake, a wiggle standing up.

And I'd love to share with you. My passion for learning and leadership development, and why hiring for skills versus training internally is going to be paramount to the future of business. Learning and Development is going to continue to play a pivotal role in building a future fit workforce ready to respond to what's next. And as we've learned in this last year and a half, we don't really know what's coming, the uncertainty and complexity and ambiguity is going to continue.

And it feels like the future of work will require digital skills, soft skills and transferable skills. And instead of hiring for those skills outside of the company, it feels important that we train and build internally so that we don't have this lack of engagement. And team members and leaders looking to go elsewhere. They want to stay because they know that coaching and mentorship and Learning and Leadership Development will be available right where they are.

I have served mission driven leaders and businesses in the last 10 years including LinkedIn, Pixar, Clifbar and company, Intuit, Bank of the West, high growth startups, and many more companies in their learning, leadership development, and culture. The trainings and the skills that I have focused on emphasize the whole person. And they focus more concretely on the inner game, or otherwise known as some of these power skills, or what some may say, the soft skills.

But these skills have had everything to do with being a human centered leader and workplace. And this is really, what we're seeing is needed. Now. These are leadership competencies, including self awareness, growth, mindset, effective communication, empathy, resilience, change management, agility, strategic thinking, and emotional intelligence. Organizations that prioritize having a workforce with finely tuned power skills.

And what I talk about in my latest book, Shine: Ignite Your Inner Game to Lead Consciously at Work and in the World we’ll be in a much better position to survive and thrive in the next normal. If you're interested in learning more about how to upskill your workforce and leaders for the remote hybrid model of work, and that unconscious and inclusive ways of leading and learning, I would love to support you. And you can set up a free consultation with me, the links are in the show notes. Okay, back to the interview with Bryan.

Carley Hauck 28:22

This is taking it to a more spiritual piece. But one of the things that I think was so interesting about the fires, and of course, they're affecting the entire world. But there was such an intensity that they've happened in the Bay Area and in the North Bay, where Silicon Valley is where there is so much influence on so many of the industries of the world to make change.

And I almost feel like there was a real reason for that to keep putting pressure to keep waking people up. But we cannot be asleep to this. Yeah, and, you know, sharing with you before the call, but um, I've been an adjunct faculty at Stanford for eight years. And within my first semester, there was this one day event called Connect the Dots. And it brought in some of the most well known climate scientists together and they were sharing with us the science at that time. That said, we had 10 years. And so you know, we're right on track.

But it's such a big thing to digest to take into account that I think a lot of people numb out, or they go back to their consumption patterns, which is why we're in the problem that we're in. And so I, I feel the gravity of the next couple years, like, yeah, we have to get emissions down by 50% in the next decade. But we have to make those changes right now. Because patterns take a while to change. Yeah.

So, you know, being that you're a lot more knowledgeable about esds and how to make these shifts and structures. What would you advise companies that want to make a commitment to social impact to social and environmental responsibility to do now? Maybe there's a couple steps. And then I'd even love to hear like, what do you think is most important one to two years from now knowing that we need to make really important decisions now, but we also need to look at the long view. And I know I'm asking you some because a lot.

Bryank Breckenridge 30:27

It's a lot and I certainly didn't, like build a bunch of preparation for the answer I wish that I could, but just from the heart, I think that entrepreneurs, meaning, you know, the the leaders of millions of companies and and other types of organizations, need to look at the the main incentive structures that they're following the operating structures, meaning their business models and plans. And then also the funders, the regulators, and the operators, like if you really think about these, these big tools of incentive and behavior, somebody helps you fund a business, somebody does a business, right, and then somebody regulates it and creates laws.

So I think the biggest picture issue is kind of like reinventing a lot of these incentive structures. I know, it's really heavy to talk like that. But you know, more and more investors are starting to get carbon audits of their portfolios. So they know of all the companies they own, or that they have money in, which of them are the biggest polluters, which ones are responsible, and which ones aren't. And they're able to, to move some serious influence into those entities.

So if the flow of capital influences changes the regulatory environment, like the SEC, the chairman of the SEC, just announced in the last few weeks that even private companies may have to disclose their carbon portfolio by the end of the year. And that you can go.

Carley Hauck 31:57

I love that you can go quickly.

Bryan Breckenridge 32:00

So it's gonna become regulatory before we know it is attractive, your interior optional, the transparency of it exactly. And, I mean, I think it only cost us $6,000 last year to look at the year before from a carbon audit perspective, and look at the scope, maybe one, or maybe one, two, and three, but lightly at minimum scope, one, and a little bit of two emissions. So not the entire value chain, we weren't out doing customer interviews to find out how many hours they're on their phone using Snyk technology, and like mapping it all the way down to the last.

But nonetheless, you for a very small amount can audit what your current footprint is based on revenue, employee size, number of buildings, how much travel you spend, and whatever, like you can get there fast. And as that's required, you're going to see that get easier. There's lots of startups- Watershed Climate comes to mind. They're they're offering, the tech tooling, the consulting, and the sort of practices that you'd need to measure, to reduce, to offset and to kind of disclose and communicate what you're doing. If you wanted to implement a climate program your companies small, medium, or large.

Carley Hauck 33:03

I’m familiar with them, we'll drop a link in the show notes.

Bryan Breckenridge 33:05

Great, I love what Taylor is working on. I'm a big fan of their work. But that's all to say, if the SEC says you have to, we need people to help us get there quicker. And they're kind of one of a lot of organizations that are making it easier for people to not have an excuse. So again, regulators and the funders, but then the operators that have the business plans have to include responsibility, or whatever you choose to call it, impact whatever outcomes for financial stakeholders and the earth and people and communities into the core of the business plan. It can't be a hobby, it has to be the main the main, it has to be at the table, the main table, it can be at the kids table in the other room.

Carley Hauck 33:45

Great, thank you for sharing that. I also feel that you know, as we're navigating this new strain of the Delta variant and it's, you know, pushing back offices opening, I see that as a blessing because as climate change continues to be here, it's not going away until we can really shift things to stabilize. We're going to have to be more remote.

Bryan Breckenridge 34:13

And there have absolutely been days when the skies were dark orange here last year, and I know you knew it, because we met about that time or somewhere abouts. There's no way I was going to get my car and go to the office that day. I mean, the skies were dark, dark, like jack o' lantern orange at 11am. I mean, it was a complete horror film outside because of all the fires that were there. It was like a smoke dome over the top of the entire western part of Central Northern California.

And that was a work from home moment like that that was affecting, I would imagine that affected millions of commuters that day alone, just in the same way that COVID is affected people's patterns and where they work. The climate environment. Same thing, there's no way you're going to go into a city if you're in the AQI, whatever it is, the air quality index is so so dangerous that you can't even take an inhale on your way into your office.

Carley Hauck 35:00

I was in Bend Oregon. As you know, for several weeks on Alastair, yeah. And just a few days ago, they were 400 AQI but the smoke has shifted, but with the Dixie fire, it's gonna be back.

Bryan Breckenridge 35:20

There's my brother's getting ashes rain on his cars in Denver from the west coast as the as the as the plume travels into the jet stream and drops down like this signal this, this is no longer just a just a passing thing. This is every year recently, right?

Carley Hauck 35:34

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, what I think is really interesting, as we look at the impact that climate change will have on all of us worldwide, it's so much bigger than COVID. So my desire is that climate change will take the news versus COVID, you know, because that I think, has to be more front and center.

Bryan Breckenridge 35:57

And so this was the hottest July in the history of recorded science, 142 years, or whatever the number is. And you can bet everybody in those European floods, or everybody in these fires we're experiencing here knows this stuff is real. And so you know, beyond that, it's, again, how do you then take action, and I'm not trying to be overly resilient, I feel the fear, I feel the pain I'm not, I'm not just blocking it out. But I know that if you just sat and got worried and didn't take action, then we will get rolled over by it. So at least, at least there's lots of great minds that are now converting the last naysayers or the last deniers. And now it's really time to get our homes and houses in order and are our incentives in order.

And every company that I know that has recently gone public, or is about to or will be has been public five or eight years now it does at least have an office that's advancing these programs. But that still means there's many millions of companies with their own level of influence and power that need to get their act in gear and get moving. Right.

But at least again, it's better than it's better than the built environment in the corporate world, especially the refining and extractive industries and so on. Like that is the biggest culprit. I think we all know that. And so those are the areas where you just kind of look at the landscape of what can you change, quickest? And what will have the biggest impact. And I just hope that we as a civilization prioritize correctly. I mean, I'm trying to be a symbol of that at one company, but there's millions of companies. So it's, it's hard.

Carley Hauck 37:28

There are. And you had mentioned in references before that when companies are more aligned with social and environmental responsibility, they perform better, right, they, they have more profit. And that's been shown by the research again, and again, again, but also the younger population, the Gen Z-ers, the millennials, and I posted this on LinkedIn a few weeks ago, but it's also research that was tied in my book, climate is like the number one concern that they have. And they will take a pay cut, to work for a mission driven company that's really trying to make a positive impact in the world, because they know this is the future that they're inheriting. And they want to create a sustainable, flourishing future just just like we all do.

Bryan Breckenridge 38:17

So it's truly amazing. Snyk as has its share of younger or earlier, tenured folks, and they are incredibly passionate about the work that I've begun in this room's most recent opportunity professionally. I did a survey of about 600 of our employees. And this was a 12 minute to take survey, it had 30 questions with 90 total responses required with nested questions. I left and I know this is audio only as you can see how the gun is filing right now. But I literally asked 600 people to take a 12 minute survey, which is unheard of in tech, by the way. I mean, if it's two questions, it's too long. And 325 of my colleagues at Snyk answered that survey.

Carley Hauck 38:54

Amazing. Like I'm a researcher.

Bryan Breckenridge 39:04

So I have the results. I'd like to share with you the methodology because a survey is terrible. But the executive team wrote it with me, it wasn't just my own thing. And we put it out there and got 325 answers, and it will guide our decisions and our budgets and how we build this program, you know, for years to come.

Carley Hauck 39:16

Amazing. You know, Bryan, I also know that you feel really passionate about allyship and you know, diversity, inclusion and belonging. And I know that's a core commitment at Snyk as well. But when I think again about the climate crisis, and DEI, like they're so interrelated, right? The more we can show up and invite all perspectives, all voices, all worldviews and experiences. We're going to be able to collaborate and talk openly about these challenges and these complexities that we actually all have to solve together. Right?

Bryan Breckenridge 39:51

Yeah, it's really true, I think the mechanics of inclusion and inclusivity and equity and belonging and creating diversity faces where it doesn't exist where you see a lot of homogeneity is hard. But the same way that the climate discussion though it shouldn't be so hard. And not everybody has ash on their hoods. So it's not as real to everyone.

But for people that have been othered, and people who've been shut out, and people who haven't been able to unfold their full self and their professional or social environment, the pain is real, and the pain is acute, and the pain is visible, and there's no, there's no, there's no choice for you know, for those folks, but to have a dialogue, even if it's uncomfortable to try to make progress through that, or then or, or you just have to give up. And the same thing applies to climate.

Not everybody feels that not everybody's in northern Cal, or the pathway of the recent flooding or fire-nados, or all the other things that are hitting the earth, tsunamis, earthquakes, whatever. And so it's, it's helping the people that aren't super well versed or maybe don't feel it everyday, that still have to have that, you know, that intense sort of allyship perspective, or that felt empathy or that that even like learning through awkwardness and humbleness, that will will make this change, especially those where it's voluntary, or those that carry privilege and could just stay behind the wall and not, not walk among the people that that are that are, you know, underrepresented or disadvantaged, which is it's a shame.

But fortunately, people are reaching across the aisle and all these things. But we have to be the drumbeat of giving permission and inspiring people to do it.

I mean, that's definitely tied in very closely to Snyk impact. On the social side, we've talked about the environment. The social is make our organization more diverse, equitable, inclusive, and fostering belonging, but also do that with the software development industry, and the app security industry. And that's a bullishly, large, audacious aspiration revision, but that is where we're headed with Snyk impact. We want the developer community to be inclusive and diverse and are already proving that we can start to make steps there that I think other companies will start to follow.

Carley Hauck 41:57

Yeah, I mean, you know, as we've seen, historically, tech companies have a much higher, you know, dominance of male to female and other, you know, races and whatnot. And I do believe that that's starting to change, but it requires a lot of, you know, invitations, and advocacy and sponsorship.

Bryan Breckenridge 42:20

So another area that won't be voluntary for either forever either, not to say that there'll be a required commitment for gender and racial mix among standard jobs, tech jobs, senior jobs, Junior jobs, I mean, all of those kind of vectors that, that SAS, B and GSI, and G, RI and gd. All the others are out there, right, the UNDP SDG impact framework. I mean, there's a bunch of frameworks, right, but a lot of acronyms, yeah, a lot of acronyms.

But most of those are saying like, hey, it'd be great if you did this, because it's going to be good for your business and good for your culture and good for your people. But it's still voluntary, you know, so it'll be interesting as you start to see the carrot and the stick up here. They're in with the climate and see what behavior change comes from that. I don't know, I'm still optimistic.

Carley Hauck 43:08

Great. Well, I can talk to you all day. talk again, soon. We're just recording this one. So this is fun. But I want to actually leave you with two more questions as we wrap up. And, you know, we're talking a lot about how to deal with uncertainty, ambiguity, volatility. And I know that you have a practice and various practices that keep you resilient, and, you know, leaving from your authentic truth and caring deeply. And I'm wondering what those are that you could share with people and maybe like, what has even been the rocks during this very turbulent time of the pandemic?

Bryan Breckenridge 43:55

Love to love to it, it helps to marry an executive life coach that's successful and knows her stuff, because you just sit and listen to what she does all day. And then you, you heal. And that's, that's my wife, Amanda Breckenridge, next door here. And so that, that I say in jest, but I also mean, it's like, it's great to be in a partnership where you can be your full self and you can be safe.

That's all good. Yeah, that aside, it is not that aside that that end, I do think there are practices that help you, you make it through these turbulent times. For me, I typically put a little black dot on my left thumbnail, as weird as that may sound but but when I was traveling in India back in 2001, my thumbnails were painted black on that trip to India, and anytime I really want to come back to like the purity of my intent. You know, I just see that thumbnail and I'm like, Oh, yeah, that was 2001. I was in India, in complete uncertainty and complete ambiguity and no language overlap. And we're surviving in a village For my first time outside of North America ever, and so, it was a reminder that as long as you really do bring, like honesty and truth into the universe, the universe can take care of you. And so that little that little mark on my thumbnail reminds me to come back to my authentic self.

But I also think that journaling has been my true superpower. And I journal every day, almost without fail. And I journal in the areas of my, my soul, or my practice, or my, my kind of the, the intangible pieces, right, like the mind, like almost the values of how I'm living when I'm checking in, and then I and then I, secondly, check in on my, my social relationships. And then third, I check in on my capacity, meaning my, my mental, physical and spiritual health and capacity to be in my life. And then last, I think about impact and action and my plan to execute on that. So rooted in values, supported by family and my social, spiritual friends life, my tribe, per se, capacity to be my best self each day healthy and so on and balanced and centered, that then absolutely in in action, and in an intense way, also.

So those are the areas I check in, in my journal I did. I posted about that on my LinkedIn profile A while back and tended, if you want to see that, that journaling, kind of built an exercise in there that I do every day.

Carley Hauck 46:28

So lovely. Well, I know you have a real love of the outdoors in nature, which is part of the reason that you live in Mount Vernon County. And I would imagine that when the weather's like this right now, that's challenging because that's, that's a part of your practice.

Bryan Breckenridge 46:44

I'll get out there and fight AQI until it's way up. Even if it slows me down for a few days after a big trail runner a big hike. But yeah, nature is is absolutely healing their their bill Plotkin books, you know, soulcraft, and so on sitting all around this house, and they, and we're glad they're here, because I do think nature informs us anytime we get off track, you just tune into nature, and you'll come back.

Carley Hauck 47:06

Yeah, I agree. It can be a real refuge. Well, thank you. That's really lovely to hear. And it's been fun. I guess, I guess the last question that I would ask you is what is giving you hope right now, we've talked about some, some difficult things, but what I hear in you is you're not bypassing it, you're feeling it, you're journaling about it, you're trying to figure out how can I be part of the change? How can I act with inspiration, with heart? So what is giving you hope?

Bryan Breckenridge 47:37

I think that that anytime I get super worried about the future, or get worried about what we're doing, you know, as an economy as capitalism as as a civilization on a planet that's heating up, I do, I do think about the concerns I have for my kiddos, which are four and 15. But I also see in them, just like so much hope, and so much, so much sort of like of all things action my daughter does work with with Surfrider my, my end is really taking to science and her high school life. alongside her sports my little boy is is just like, so eager to be in his garden in the backyard and, and just like learning about flavors and and learning about like by nature and and, and, and just feeling all of that.

So I have so much hope that they're going to sort of remain hopeful and remain sort of active and not not let this thing steamroll them. Same for my generation, of course, but for the kids. Like, as much as I want to make change for them. I just see a lot of hope in them. And I think they're like you said earlier, they're super committed, you know, to being better about all of this than we are in Gen X or whatever we are.

Carley Hauck 48:56

Yeah, I I see resiliency and a lot of kids. These days, I don't have kiddos, I actually really chose to write the book instead of having kids, because my nephew when he was four looked at me and said, Auntie Carley, will you help me save the oceans? There it is. And I thought how am I gonna do that? I think I'm back and see if I can help people wake up. But yes, but you took it on? Yeah. And I see so much care and empathy in him and even in my niece too. You know, it's like a girly girl but totally gets gritty and is okay to like, fall down and get back up. And it's, I see that too.

Bryan Breckenridge 49:40

Yeah, I get inspired by the generation and I get inspired by all these entrepreneurs that I meet now that are mobilizing like their brains and their networks for solutions instead of just like, personal gain solutions for the greater good. Yeah, it's amazing to be in rooms with entrepreneurs with massive influence that are really really making material change in areas that you'd hoped they would.

And they're not just doing it for, you know, for the press pop, they're doing it because they know that their power can in fact affect the machine and not just the accessories that hang on the ends of the machine. And that's when you can change the wiring you can really change the trajectory of Oh, right now is pretty dire.

Carley Hauck 50:23

And going back to what we started with that authenticity piece, that inner game of authenticity, it's so important that we listen to that and we say yes, and I think that's one of the things that the younger generations do. They speak up when they don't like something and that is so needed because silence is complicity.

Bryan Breckenridge 50:45

So it is and even my little tiny crazy four year old I we since he was a little bitty kid have when he's just like really worked up just said, Hey, baby, what about Ah, and that became his, like, he hears that sound now and you can just see a shoulder drop, you know, you can just see, you can see him drop in, you know, even just like in the middle of like throwing sand and like going crazy is like baby. Ah, it's just like, I've kind of trained him now where you know, no matter how crazy he's been, he'll just be like, oh, Dad, you're right. Ah, ah, we're doing all the right things to kind of give it some resources.

Carley Hauck 51:15

I love it. Self awareness equals self management.

Bryan Breckenridge 51:24

Resources at four, can't beat that.

Carley Hauck 51:26

Yeah. Wonderful. Bryan, this was so wonderful to speak with you and hear your thoughts on this. And for folks that aren't seeing Bryan, Bryan has a light, a light that he emits. And I noticed that the first time we met and Ah, oh. So thank you for being the light.

Bryan Breckenridge 51:50

Yeah, my pleasure.

Carley Hauck 51:52

Is there anything that you'd like to leave our listeners with how they might get in touch with you or anything? I took six months off before Snyk and I built this personal website for the first time ever. And it's just Bryanbreckenridge.com and and all the people I'm supposed to help in my life are, are sort of, put there and if you're one of them, let me know. And you can get in touch with me through that website

Carley Hauck 52:20

Lovely. Thanks, Bryan. Thanks for your time. Thank you, Bryan, for your time for your commitment to conscious, inclusive leadership. I loved hearing about the social impact efforts that you and Snyk are dedicated to. If you have questions or want to connect with Bryan, on any of the topics that we spoke about today. Please use the link in the show notes to reach out to him.

If you enjoy this episode, please share it with friends, family or colleagues. We are all in this together. And sharing is caring. If you have questions, comments or topics you would like me to address on the podcast, please email me at support@carleyhauck.com. I would love to hear from you. Thanks as always for tuning in and being part of this community. It means a lot to me. Until we meet again, be the light and shine the light.

How we take care of water is a necessity. Water is a finite resource- we only have the amount that we have. Water is life. We are 70% water. Water is spiritual, it's healing, it's cooling. It's beautiful. And in this interview, I speak with my friend and colleague, and water protector and sustainability expert Greg Koch, about the nexus between food, water energy, and our consumption habits and limits on our resources.

For example, how many greenhouse gases can we put in the atmosphere? How much debt can we tax our economy? How many limits can our planet take regarding tin, aluminum, Tesla batteries before it's too much? We speak to our current environmental crisis of climate change. We bring attention to the topic of water stewardship and how we can all be more environmentally responsible as individuals and businesses. In this episode, you will learn that all water problems are knowable, solvable and affordable. We actually have enough technology and data to be able to solve for the water problems, but it requires that we set up a conscious and inclusive environment for water. Greg Koch is a globally recognized leader and technical director at Environmental resource management (ERM? with over 100 countries in water resource management, community and stakeholder engagement in conflict resolution. Greg also excels in sustainability strategy, sustainable development, adaptation and resilience and related policy and finance.

SHINE Links:

Leading from Wholeness Executive Coaching

Leading from Wholeness Learning and Development Resources

Shine: Ignite Your Inner Game to Lead Consciously at Work and in the World by Carley Hauck

Contact Carley Hauck

Resources mentioned in this episode:

NY Times Article - “A Hotter future is certain: How hot is up to us”

NY Times Article - “How much hotter is your hometown than when you were born?”

Creating 21st Century Abundance through Public Policy Innovation: Moving Beyond Business as Usual by Greg Koch and William Sarni

Greg Koch on LinkedIn

The Imperfect Shownotes

Carley Hauck 00:01

Hi, this is Carley Hauck. Welcome to another episode of the SHINE podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things, conscious, inclusive leadership, the recipe for high performing teams and awareness practices. I am offering three episodes a month. Before I tell you about our topic today, can you go over to Apple podcasts and hit the subscribe button. That way you don't miss any of our incredible interviews. And if you love this episode, which I imagine you will, please write a positive review, or share it with friends and colleagues on your favorite social media channel. It really helps. Thank you.

Our topic for today is water stewardship: create necessary alliances with leaders and business with Greg Koch.

One of the reasons I began this podcast in May of 2019 was due to all the research I was conducting for my new book, Shine: Ignite Your Inner Game to Lead Consciously at Work and in the World. The podcast came about due to my desire to bring education, awareness, and then to inspire calls of action to be the change as individuals and business so that we together could solve some of our greatest challenges. The biggest challenge that has been a large motivator for me personally and the reason why I wrote my book was climate change.

I had been following the science for many years, and as a result began teaching on the intersection of leadership and spirituality, and consciousness so that we could be more mindful of our consumption. And I brought that into so many of the work that I've been doing with different leaders and businesses.

So this episode is about water stewardship. As our world becomes warmer, July was the hottest month in recorded history. Glaciers are melting, our oceans are becoming hotter. And all the marine life is struggling to flourish.

How we take care of water is a necessity. Water is a finite resource we have the amount that we have. Water is life. We are 70% water. Water, spiritual, it's healing, it's cooling. It's beautiful. And in this interview, I speak with my friend and colleague, also water protector. I'll call him Greg Koch, about the nexus between food, water energy, and our consumption habits and limits on our resources. For example, how many greenhouse gases can we put in the atmosphere?

How much debt can we tax our economy? How many limits can our planet take regarding tin, aluminum, Tesla batteries before it's too much? We speak to our current environmental crisis of climate change. And the most recent IPCC climate report, which is the sixth report. We bring attention to the topic of water stewardship, and how we can all be more responsible and how we consume how to take responsibility as individuals and businesses. In this episode, you will learn that all water problems are knowable, solvable and affordable.

We actually have enough technology and data to be able to solve for the water problems, but it requires that we set up a conscious and inclusive environment for water. Greg Koch is a globally recognized leader with over 100 countries in water resource management, community and stakeholder engagement in conflict resolution. Greg also excels in sustainability strategy, sustainable development, adaptation and resilience and related policy and finance. He is a lead consultant at ERM. We all have the responsibility and opportunity to be the change. Listen to one of my favorite SHINE podcast episodes ever.

Carley Hauck 05:10

Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining the SHINE podcast. I feel delighted to be here today with my new friend and colleague, Greg Koch, thank you so much for joining.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Well, I know that we have a lot of really wonderful things to speak about. And one of the first questions I'd like to ask you is, how would you define conscious and inclusive leadership?

Greg Koch 05:39

I first say that it has become paramount to my work. And I feel a hallmark of the success that I've had, and that success has always been collective with communities and inclusivity. But first a bit of history. I'm originally from Germany, an educated and trained engineer. And so for the first 10 years of my professional life, things were very direct, very quantitative, very objective,

I had the opportunity to leverage those skills, and to begin to have a better understanding of water issues around the world, and water being so local, and so emotional, and I don't mean emotional in a pejorative sense, emotional baggage, not that there's anything wrong with even that. But what I mean is we people are tied across all cultures to water in ways that are fundamentally different from lots of other sustainability issues.

We’re tied to it spiritually, even religiously. Everyone needs it, everyone has a stake in it. And you could see where I'm leading is that when you step into a watershed, a community, for whatever reason, you're motivated to work on water solutions. You realize, at some point, hopefully, early on, that all that water is being shared by everyone, and that everyone needs to be a part of understanding the challenges and being a part of the solution. And so inclusive, is a fundamental prerequisite, of trying to address serious water challenges. And so I have grown.

That was a beautiful answer.

Thank you. So where does consciousness come in? And I'd say obvious, well, not perhaps not obviously. But they go hand in hand, in that, when water is stressed, we could say this for a lot of stressful or challenging situations. In addition to including everyone, because you need to solve the problem, and this was the hardest thing for me to do. And that is to be conscious of their perspective. And their perspective, their demands, and have to be accepted. Because no one's using water for the sake of using water, you use water because of how fundamental it is to your life. So whether you're a mother, or a corporation, or the environment, you have to put your mind in, in a way that appreciates the perspective everyone has. And accepted at face, you don't have to agree with it. But if you're not consciously trying to understand those different perspectives, and help people understand yours, then you don't have the first step towards inclusion.

Inclusion isn't just bringing everyone together in the same room or the same field, particularly around a challenging topic, and then maybe more so for water. You have to understand the different perspectives and accept every one of them at face value before you can take that inclusive environment and try to work towards a solution.

Carley Hauck 09:40

Thank you. Well, and Greg, one of the reasons that I was so excited to have you on the podcast to share your experience and your passion and your expertise around water is because as you're saying, you know we all need it, to survive. It's fundamental. I mean, we're 70% water, right. And it is a way that we are all gathering, so to speak, to use the same resource. And when we're looking at the greater picture, which is people and planet, and that's our motivation for how we're leading for how businesses, hopefully solving for some of these larger problems that are impacting people and planet in a more negative way.

That's, that's really leading with more consciousness. And I know that you're based in Atlanta. And just to kind of bring this to some of the things you were speaking to in 2019, I went through Al Gore's Climate Reality leadership training, which happened to be in Atlanta. And what was so wonderful about that training, and the trainings that he does is that he really focuses on the region or the area of where that training is.

So at the time, I was living in the Bay Area of California, but I came to Atlanta, and there were 1200 of us from all over the world from all over, you know, different parts of the country. But the speakers, and the focus was on that area of Georgia, of Florida, a little bit of North Carolina, and what was going to be impacted in those areas by climate change, because it's different all around the country. Like right now, I have relocated to North Carolina, where there's a lot of water right now, you know, we've had different storms come through.

And I'm actually temporarily in Oregon, in Bend, Oregon. And it has been so incredibly dry. And it was in the high 90s to 100 degrees for the first few weeks that I was out here. And just recognizing how people are adapting and struggling with the difficulty of that.

And so that kind of brings us, you know, back to sustainability and your passion for this topic and why you've actually chosen to hone in on water. And so I feel curious, where did that start? How did that begin?

Greg Koch 12:27

Well, it started with my engineering background. And at the time, I had moved from engineering, consulting to work for the Coca Cola company. And initially, my work was, you know, inside the four walls of the business. So water efficiency, water use, storm water, wastewater management. But over time, myself and Coca Cola began to have a greater appreciation of the challenges that the business was facing, but also the communities that they were a part of were facing. And that led to 15 years of maturity on my part where I transformed myself into someone who not not just focused on water, but focused on solutions. And what drew me to that is two things.

You led the Global Water stewardship program? Correct?

I did, while I was there, for a period of time until I left their great company and they still have a wonderful water stewardship program and many other things. I am really proud of what I did there, and happy to work with other clients now in my consulting role. But back to why water. two fundamental reasons.

The first is water, there's a danger in thinking of water in the binary litany of sustainability topics. So you take major sustainability crises around the world, including the United States, you have safety issues, you have disease, you have poor education, you have social inequity, you have air pollution, you have excess carbon emissions, you have waste and litter. Right. And so you're marching down this litany of big challenges. And what they all share in common is that the desired outcome is less or none of those things. Right. So they're all bad disease, child labor, forced labor, pollution, and the desired place is well, we need to reduce or eliminate that.

And the danger when you get to water is to keep that binary thinking that's not true with water, water. Yes, there are places it's being wasted. And we can talk about that. But in a sense, you really can't waste water, not at least at the global scale, water is a finite resource. It's infinitely renewable, we have the amount we have.

And the other thing is that, beyond that non binary nature of it, it's largely, most people look at water, and they have a positive opinion and a positive experience. You bathe your child, you, you bathe yourself, you go swimming, you go sailing, you know, most people have this daily visceral connection with water, that's a positive one, most people's first memory of water, learning how to swim, you know, at Grandma's lake house, or whatever the case may be.

And so at its heart, water is a positive, right. And you could extend that thinking at a higher level to say, well, Water is life. Alright, we're 70% water, you don't want to reduce your water footprint, you'll get thirsty, then you’ll dehydrate, and then bad things will happen. And when we look for life, there's a lot of things that life can use. But we always look for water, whether we're in Mars, around the moon, or wherever, because we know how fundamental it is. And that's a positive thing. So that's one reason that makes me so passionate about water.

16:45

The other is that while there are lots of different forms of water stress around the world,

all of those are solvable. First of all, they're knowable, they're solvable, and they're affordable. And you cannot say that for any other sustainability challenge that you have enough data and enough technology today that is affordable, and can be implemented.

Carley Hauck 17:18

I love that. They're knowable, they're solvable, and they're affordable, affordable. Well, I'm gonna ask you some more difficult questions. Yeah, sure. Yeah, go ahead.

Greg Koch 17:30

No, I mean, that, that that says at all, so when, so but so what's the crux? What's the crux that the Kruk is the crux is first, to set up that inclusive conscious environment that respects everyone's need for water that's inalienable and understands their perspective on why they need or want the water they want? And what condition and at what time to then be able to introduce solutions, whether they're technological based or process and policy based.

If you have that enabling environment from the beginning, then you're never going to lack for Well, let's pull this technology and let's make this regulatory change. Right. There's still challenges around getting agreement and getting agreement on the timing. But one thing I like to say about water solutions is the soft stuff is the heart stuff. Right? So hard stuff, meaning infrastructure, pumps, pipes, technologies, hard stuff, meaning reservoirs and collection systems and even data, right?

That stuff's easy. I mean, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, I mean, humankind has been capturing water, storing it, moving it and even treating it for 1000s of years. And yes, we have better ways of doing that today. And there's still room for innovation. But there's enough technology and data out there. So that's not the hard stuff.

The soft stuff is the hard stuff, the soft stuff being How do you build an inclusive, conscious, enabling environment that respects everyone's need for water, and seeks an equitable outcome, and then allocates the funding, which is completely affordable, compared to a lot of the other challenges that the world faces, whether you call them sustainability or not.

Carley Hauck 19:40

Great, great. Well, I'm gonna bring it back to water. But I want to bring it to another conversation that you and I had talked about a few weeks ago where we were talking about climate change. And I was naming it as probably one of the largest complexities that we as humanity face and you challenged me and said, You believed that climate, one of the biggest problems related to climate change was population growth, economic development. And we could even think of resource scarcity as part of that. And I'd love just to hear a little bit more from you on that topic.

Greg Koch 20:23

Yeah. Well, I'll go a step further and say that while climate change is real, is serious and needs attention at a much accelerated pace than the world has done today. It is not the biggest issue facing the world. Let me explain.

First of all, in summary, there are many challenges that exist today that have existed throughout most of human history are getting worse, and will continue to get worse in the future, independent of a changing climate. Climate change is a force multiplier.

And you can say, yes, it's the biggest issue facing us today because of the urgency in solving it. But it doesn't make it the biggest issue short of existential, existentially meaning, if we all went extinct because of climate change. Well, then, of course, but when you look back, and really take climate change out of the equation and say, What is the challenge the world is facing? Yes, it's being driven by population growth and economic development, more people with better lifestyles, less poverty, less infant mortality, those are actually all good things.

But what has happened today, and what I think the biggest challenge is, it's called the Nexus, the nexus between food, water and energy. And it all is underpinned by this concept of limitations, right? So the world is bumping up against a lot of limits. One of those limits is how much greenhouse gases we can put into the environment and not cause global warming. Okay, so that's climate change. That is certainly one of the limits that we're facing. But we're facing limits in terms of how much air pollution beyond greenhouse gases, how much water pollution, how much arable farmable land there is, how much government debt and personal debt, those are also limits. Right?

There's limits on other resources, such as phosphate, tin, lithium for all of our cell phones and Tesla batteries and things like that. Those limits are being approached or even exceeded, and they have been getting there independent of climate change, they're getting worse, even as climate change is happening. And solving for climate change isn't going to solve those limitations. You can design it such but why is that such a big challenge?

You could say, well, I have solutions to water pollution or food security or what have you. But because we're approaching those limits, the solution for one of those can cause problems for the other two. Right? I'll give you an example.

If you're in the United States, and you have a car that uses gasoline, you can see it right on the pump up to 10% ethanol. That's a government mandated and government subsidized program. And it all centers around corn production to make industrial grade ethanol. 15 years ago, there was hardly any corn for ethanol in the fuel supply in the United States. Now it's close to 60% of corn that's grown, goes into ethanol production. Okay, that's a renewable fuel, decreases our dependence on foreign oil is cleaner. So you say, Oh, that's a good thing. Well, you've solved a single variant. you've provided as a single variant solution in a multivariate problem, meaning let's grow more corn and make ethanol for all the good reasons that that that can be considered. But what has led to it's led to a historic rise in the price of corn. You don't see it and I don't see it because I can't if I ever bought a bushel of corn, you know, you buy a couple years of corn or things with corn.

Corn derivatives in it. But that price is really high. And, and then you've also created water stress in places that you would think are water abundant, like Canada, a lot more acreage now being put under the plow to grow corn to meet this ethanol demand. And now you partly solved an energy problem, while causing previously non existent food and water problems. And so that nexus of those three, in a world where we're facing those limits, to me is the biggest challenge.

Carley Hauck 25:41

Thank you. I wanted to actually ask you about another problem as well, I was recently reading about how Lake Mead is drying up, and it's over allocated. And Lake Mead and the Colorado River apparently, well, they're created for melted snows that pour and flow from the Lipitor pass in the Rocky Mountains. And then seven western states really utilize that water for their,

you know, for their water needs. And so those states are California, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada and Arizona. And then there's also 29 tribes and Mexico that are also depending on that water. And apparently there have been some successive treaties that have been signed on how much they're going to receive an S us from the river and the dams. But those agreements are expiring in 2025. And when we have such low water, like, how are they going to renegotiate that? Who's going to get what, and then we know that California is in a huge drought as well. And so it's just it's such a complexity, how we're going to solve for that.

Greg Koch 27:03

It is. And there's two things to recognize, from a historical standpoint, and from a reality standpoint, that make a solution on how to allocate what little water there may be even more difficult. The first is the allocation scheme, both international treaties and individual and multi state agreements about how much water each person can get, or each state can get from the Colorado River were negotiated, let me check my dates 1930s 1940, somewhere around the time where the Hoover Dam was built that created Lake Mead. I'm not getting the dates exactly right. But that was based on historical snowpack measurements that assumed that that would be status quo going forward. Well, the droughts we're seeing today, again, let's Park climate change over here, but I will bring it back in.

There's a lot of scientific research. But early indications are that what we're seeing today, what we saw in California, back in 2014, what we're seeing today throughout the West, that that's actually normal conditions. And what we based all of our planning on was a period of time that we had records for, that just happened to be abnormally wet, and snowy and colder. The reality is, if you take all that away, and you think northern Mexico, Arizona, Southern Utah, Southern California and Nevada, those are deserts. Those are extremely arid areas, yet we have millions of people living, we've got tons of agriculture, we have Las Vegas, right? We have all these things that only can be there, because we've captured and allocated over allocated and are diverting all that water. If it wasn't for that manmade intervention, those places would remain scarcely populated, not being farmed, and they would be very dry.

So it's artificially enabled because of what we did, in terms of moving water around and allocating it. And now we're seeing that that allocation and those beliefs were probably based on a historically wet period, and what we're seeing today might be the norm. And so where does that lead you?

Carley Hauck 29:51

I wanted to make just one extra comment because I think it's interesting. I read this other article in the LA Times that was speaking to the drought of California and apparently because there's been such little rainfall, normally Northern California would have I think enough water coming from the Sierras. But right now Southern California actually is doing better with the allocation of water, because it's coming from a different source as you were talking about the storing of it. But historically, you know, Southern California has less water, because as you said, it's more of a desert climate.

Greg Koch 30:31

And so it's interesting that California, of all those states, you've mentioned, actually has priority rights, you know, when the government has to start, and they already have, and they will continue to limit the allocation for the other states. California's agreement doesn't expire, I think, until the late 2030s. So other places will not get enough water, maybe no water, and California will get water. So those communities will see that water flowing by knowing that it's headed to California, only because of the way the contracts and agreements were repent years ago.

Carley Hauck 31:08

And I also just feel curious, not that you should be the end all know all of water, but I'm in Oregon right now. And what's interesting is that it is incredibly dry here. I mean, I went to the Oregon coast, just for the weekend, because I just needed moisture. And the Deschutes river is this incredible river and there's lakes all around, bend where I am, but it is so dry. It feels like such an interesting juxtaposition. And I know that it's lower, the water is lower here than it has been in a very long time. But it feels so interesting that they can both be like the climate can be so dry. And yet there's a lot of water here visibly, because it's coming from glaciers. And I feel curious, you know, half the state is very wet, or again, and then where I am right now it's a desert. And so I guess I feel curious, like what do you think about Oregon as far as how they're going to fare with water?

Greg Koch 32:14

Well, I think Oregon and the states below it, and above it, that whole western United States corridor, the conditions you're seeing today might be what over a long period of time are normal and everything that we've experienced in the couple 100 years that we've basically been the United States before native peoples was that was abnormal. Right? And so where does that lead you?

I started going down that line earlier. If you were in the middle of the Sahara Desert, you would never say, hey, there's a drought. Now, it's just always like that. So you could see, I could see a point where you have to stop calling the conditions that you're facing in Oregon and California and all those a drought. Maybe that's just the way it is. That's the climate that you have, and you're not in a drought. You just happen to live in a very arid part of the world that used to have this brief period of a few 100 years where it was wet.

How does climate change come in? in a major way, okay. You're wet in Oregon and a lot of that to glacier melt. They can only melt to a point where they don't exist. And that's happened around the world. But when you look at the models, particularly for those Western Rockies, right the Cascades, the Uinta mountains down into Utah, this year, Nevada's climate change models all call for there to be more precipitation.

Now I use the word precipitation, which you know means snow, ice or rain. But that precipitation because of warmer temperatures is going to come in the form of rain versus snow. Right? So glaciers, the Sierra Nevada snowpack, think of those as Lake Mead. Those are huge reservoirs that build up through the winter and then slowly melt and release that water over the spring and summer and into the fall. But if even more precipitation falls in the winter, but it comes in the form of rain, there's no storage for it, it's just going to run off and ultimately end up in the Pacific.

So that's a big problem. That's a big problem. You could have wetter winters, but still have greater water scarcity because you don't have that natural reservoir of the snowpack, the snow and ice pack. slowly melting

Carley Hauck 35:00

So we're talking a little bit about water scarcity on the West. But then what do you see happening on the East? With the, you know, with more hurricanes and tropical storms where there's a lot more water, but then how do we store it? Right?

Greg Koch 35:17

Yeah, I'd say the biggest problem in the East and and it also exists out West. So it just compounds the problems that you have is infrastructure, water infrastructure. So think of water pipes, bringing your drinking water, sewage pipes, stormwater drains, 99% of that is out of sight, to underground and out of sight means out of mind. It's not sexy, it's not, you don't want to see it. Right? You just assume 3am. I can walk into my bathroom, turn the tap and get clean drinking water. I'll flush the toilet and it's all taken care of?

Well, the average age of infrastructure in the US is about 75 years old. It's underfunded, it's under maintained. It's underpriced in terms of the tariffs that are collected. And there's a lot of reasons why it's under priced that way. But that is leading to a problem. Can we maintain the level of service that we've experienced and been able to grow our economies and populations with this crumbling infrastructure?

Carley Hauck 36:34

And I'm wondering if you know, part of what you talk about in your your book that you authored, creating 21st century abundance through public policy innovation, moving beyond business as usual, does that pipe some of the responsibility on changing the system and structures so that we are able to actually innovate around how we're storing water and how we're implementing all of this?

Greg Koch 37:06

It does. And it provides some real examples of how you can even improve, not just maintain, but improve the level of water, infrastructure and service and be able to afford it. There's several different approaches that me and my coauthor William Sarni detail in the book, but staying on the theme of infrastructure, let me give you an example that I think shows you the type of thinking. So you recall earlier I mentioned waters underpriced in most places in the United States, you pay a very small amount for water. And there's a lot of pushback if water rates come into being or go up.

So why is that? Well, back to the beginning of this discussion, you know, water is emotional, it's spiritual, it's, it's to human right? It's inalienable. And when you bring that thinking into a municipal water system, and there's parallels in water in nature, water and agriculture, but let's stick in urban areas. You run into danger. It's like if water is a human right, how can you charge me anything for it, let alone more for it, it falls from the sky. You can't lease the rain, you can you know, it's, Hey, come on. It's water, human rights should be free?

Well, I'd say it's up to governments to decide how much they want to charge customers, particularly the underprivileged, that, and I think they should solve for that. And there's a great example of how that's done in South Africa that we can talk about, but here's the problem that they're facing, they're confusing. And therefore people are confused. Government is confusing water, the substance from water services.

So when you buy electricity, when you buy your gigabytes for your Wi Fi in your smartphone, when you buy gasoline for your car or diesel, right, you are buying a substance. You're buying electrons, you're buying radio waves, you're buying gallons of gas. You can't see them, you don't think about them. You don't want to see them in terms of gas might be a safety issue. You never think about, I'm buying a substance yet look at your bill, you are being paid for an amount of electrons called kilowatt hours, gigabytes of data, those are radio waves effectively electrons, you are paying for a substance. And of course you're paying for however many gallons or liters of gas that you buy.

But you don't think of them in that way. You think of those as services. I'm buying more lighting, security, convenience, I'm buying entertainment. I'm buying connectivity. I'm buying mobility, right? That's how you think of those substances you buy, you think of the services that they enable.

And one of the things that we talk about in the book is that mind shift needs to happen for water. Water- the substance- at your tap is free. But who's going to collect it, move it, treat it, pipe it chlorinated, chlorinated, and get it to your tap, and then do the opposite with your stormwater and wastewater. All that infrastructure, costs, money, takes labor, chemicals, energy, those are all services. And if you add up the true cost of all those services, your water bill should be about what your electricity bill is, yet it's a 10th a 20th. of that. And that's led to these infrastructure issues being underfunded, because of the confusion of the substance versus the service.

So the latest UN, IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report came out, and it's dire. Some people are calling it the final warning to humans. It shows that a lot of the early predictions are being manifest. And that time is running out if it hasn't already, on some drastic level of climate change, global warming and the implications that that has.

42:12

I experienced what they're forecasting firsthand a few weeks ago at a family reunion. And most of us live in the southeast United States, I'm in Atlanta, it's hot and humid. Others are in Sarasota, or Charlotte. And so we purposely chose a place in the mountains out west, east of Seattle, thinking we'll be on a river, it'll be nice and cool. Maybe sleep with the windows open at night. The lowest daytime temperature in the eight days we were there was 94. The highest was 105. And everyone says Oh, but it's a dry heat, which it was. But that didn't make 105 degrees any less comfortable.

Add to that for about three days, during the middle of that vacation. There was smoke in the valley that we were in from wildfires that were nearby. And that made it almost impossible to go outside. You know, we had, we'd started saying, okay, when it's really hot, we'll just try to do everything before noon and then just relax or float in the river or what have you. But then when you add wildfires and the smoke around that, then the air quality is such that you really you're just inside and it's no big bummer. Right?

And so you know if that's climate change, and that's going to happen more often. And for longer durations in places you wouldn't expect. And we did not expect that they're certainly the 105 degree heat, then that's a cause for alarm.

So what to do. And and it's a segue into how I help clients in this regard. So when you look at the UN report, it's based on a lot of complicated models, and it takes a global view. And yes, that view can be disaggregated at the local level. But that's still just a zoom in on a global model. What's more useful to people, to communities, to companies in the different places that they operate, is saying, Okay, alright, I get global warming, but I don't live all over the globe. I live and work or manufacture in a certain place. What do the models say is going to happen in that place?

And that's a level of analysis that you can start with the global models, but you have to do a lot of sophisticated calculations and modeling to try to determine what the boundary of the local area that you're looking at is, how it's being influenced by these global changes, to try to come up with a forecast of what is this valley? or What is this community? or What is this region, at a local level going to face? That's much more useful to people, you know, if you were planning for water supplies, or droughts or increased heat, then knowing that, you know, the world might warm 1.5 to 4.5, or greater degrees centigrade, really doesn't help you particularly if you think in Fahrenheit most Americans do.

But so that's the global average, what does it mean for me, in Asheville, or Atlanta, or Seattle. And so that's part of what we do that we find is very helpful to clients because it gives them that local view. And then they can share that information with others, which we encourage, to say, look, we're all going to face this situation, what can we do collectively?

Carley Hauck 46:19

Now, I also appreciate you sharing that I don't recall if I shared this with you. But it might have been one of our previous conversations in March of 2019. I went through Al Gore's Climate Reality leadership training, and he does a few of them a year all over the world. And he picks regional, you know, in geographic areas, and my training happened to be in Atlanta. So he was very much focused on bringing in speakers that could speak to what was happening in this, you know, southeast area, and how flooding is going to happen here. And this is going to happen here based on all of the science and even though at the time, I lived in California, I was still part of that cohort of 1200 folks, and because I grew up in Florida and have family in Florida, it was helpful. And it was helpful regardless.

But I think, to your point, you know, how does this affect me, right? Because most people are very self motivated, versus some of us that are more altruistically motivated, but at the same time, you can hold both. And so I feel curious, in your work, how are you supporting clients? And what's a typical client that you might serve? Because I know your area is water stewardship?

Greg Koch 47:47

Well, it's water and climate. Yeah. And so one of the ways we help clients is translating those global models and projected impacts of climate change to the local level. My clients are typically larger, multinational companies, a lot of them are in the consumer goods, business, or industry. So Procter and Gamble, Unilever, companies like that, but I also have clients in the oil and gas sector in the renewable energy sector. You know, really wide pharmaceuticals, really a wide area.

And so when it comes to climate change, the first place we can help them is having a granular understanding of what's going to happen, where they're located. And that's usually multiple locations in terms of their manufacturing plants. So okay, here's global climate change what's happening in these 20 or 30 places that leads to more meaningful responses on their part,

to prepare themselves for the coming change.

Now, you say, Well, what are they doing to prevent the change? And there are a lot of clients, a lot of companies in general around the world are setting targets to reduce their emissions. That fuel they directly burn on site or in their vehicles for their say distribution fleet. They're trying to reduce emissions in the electricity and energy they purchase, trying to buy from renewable sources of energy versus fossil fuels-

Or to do carbon offsets or to really know how effective that is in the long term would be better if we weren't emitting emissions anyway, right?

Yeah, my feeling on carbon offsets if they are, quote unquote, gold standard, then yeah, carbon. The carbon footprint of the world is being reduced but that reduction might happen on the other side of the planet.

And I heard a quote, an analogy that I like, it's like buying a carbon offset credit is like, going for a run in Atlanta and having somebody in Iowa take a shower for you. Right? I think it can help, but it kind of excuses what you're doing.and puts it on somewhere else. At some point there aren’t going to be any more carbon credits, and people are going to need to actually reduce their own emissions.

Carley Hauck 50:36

I love that. You just said that. Thank you.

Greg Koch 50:46

Yeah. Now, company setting goals is expected, is welcome. I help clients do that. But I first asked them, 'What are they doing to advocate for government change?' Because, you know, the UN report for climate change, rightly belongs there, this is global warming, global climate change, and the scale of the globe's climate isn't going to be solved by any number of corporations making reductions in their emissions. That's good. That's welcome. That'll help. But you're going to need government, governments, global governments, the UN and individual governments at the state, federal, local, you name it level, to make some tough decisions about changing the way we produce and use energy.

And they can incentivize that which they have with subsidies for solar and wind power, they could tax it in terms of a carbon tax and a trading scheme, which exists in many parts of the world. Fossil fuels, and that's gonna be extinguished. But the point is, you know, be while you set, you know, I tell clients, while you set goals for your own business, how are you using your voice? Right, you know, that that's your footprint? What about your blueprint? Right, what are you doing, to advocate for the right policies?

And I find a lot of clients actually welcome that right now, there's a lot of uncertainty. You know, let's take the United States, for instance, is the Biden administration going to come up with a carbon tax? Or are they not? And if they do, which industries would be subject to it? And how much would that tax be? Is it enough to mitigate climate change, so on and so on, that's a lot of uncertainty, that you can sit around and wait to resolve itself.

You can advocate for that change, right? In fact, a lot of businesses say, look, I wish you just to remove the uncertainty and say we're going to tax carbon at $25 a ton, starting in 2025. And it'll be a level playing field, people can incorporate the change that's necessary and embedded into their business model. And yes, costs get passed on. But it removes the uncertainty because what you're left with now, is largely a altruistic fear, or investor driven push for companies to set these targets, you know, for a company to say, Look, I'm gonna get off the grid and produce all my energy by solar wind, some renewable form, fine, it can be done, and some have done it.

But it's almost impossible to ever recover those costs.

So they're doing it because of fear of climate change, of reputation of investor pressure, maybe other stakeholder pressure. That's great. But that's right off their bottom line. And so, you know, I always ask them to have my clients and we thought about advocating, you know, whether you do it yourself or you do it through a trade association for your industry, or at some level to say, this is a problem, climate change, we want a solution. And us setting our own little goals will only get the world so far. So that's really how I advise clients on climate change.

Carley Hauck 54:42

Thank you. I don't know if you can speak you know, to this specifically, because I'm sure there's a confidentiality clause but you mentioned that one of your companies that you've supported as you knew every multinational company, and they're known as a company that really is more aligned with ESGs, you know, environmental, social governance and and creating more of those commitments and I'm seeing, and I'm grateful to see this shift is that companies that are making, you know, millions, billions of dollars like Salesforce, Amazon, they're giving a certain amount of their profits towards, for example, climate change I believe in.

I wrote this in my book, January 2020. Bezos at that time, this was right before the pandemic awarded $10 billion towards climate change now, how that is being distributed, how it's being regulated? Who knows, where's it going? You know, since then Amazon has done incredibly well, in the last year and a half. And so I haven't seen the targets, but I know that there are more checks being written. And so you said to advocate for government, but if government, you know, isn't cutting that money, or isn't making those changes, I do think that there is a responsibility and an opportunity for business to be a force for good, and to utilize their voice, their influence, because a lot of government officials, you know, tend to be elected through money that might, you know, lobbying that might be coming from businesses. And so I think it's kind of all combined. What do you think about that? Your perspective?

Greg Koch 56:38

You have to appreciate the scale of government versus the scale of business. Right? So

a lot of people might say, well, businesses should just bite the bullet and donate half of their profits or 100% of their profits to some cause. Let's say that's climate change, since that's the most pressing crisis we're facing.

Now, when you look at the scale of business versus government, it is not apples and oranges. It's apples and hammers, the scale of government is in the trillions and 10s of trillions of dollars, the scale of business is in the billions of dollars. And there's a big difference between a billion and those three more zeros to get to a trillion. In the book I co authored, I took the top 1000 corporations in the world and their annual profits for the year that I analyzed, and said, Okay, how much is that profits? That was about $800 billion. So almost a trillion dollars. And so if the top 1000 corporations gave away all of their profits, 100% for 10 years, what do you have, and I equated it to the problem in the world around safe drinking water access.

And that amount of money. You know, there's a lot of people in the world who don't have affordable, reliable access to safe drinking water in their homes, all over the world, including in Georgia, and North Carolina, and, of course, many parts of the developing world. So that's a goal within the Sustainable Development Goals. There's a goal number six, which is all things related to water, and a sub goal within SDG. Six is safe drinking water, that amount of money over 10 years is enough to solve just that sub goal. Right. So that calls for the top 1000 corporations in the world to take 100% of their profits for 10 years, which is kind of unrealistic. But even if they did that, that only solves part of one of 17 SDG goals. So to say that companies ought to donate more.

You can say that, but if they donated everything, it wouldn't be nearly enough because the scale of government is so much bigger.

I mean, just take the United States, for instance, Congress now is debating and probably will soon pass a five and a half trillion dollar budget, excess budget, to do all the things they want to do, including parts of the New Clean deal and things like that. That would be all of corporations for five years and all their profits just to come up with that but governments have that scale. And so it doesn't excuse philanthropy and direct corporate action. But it's sort of a red herring to say, well, business should do more.

There's only so much they can do. And if they gave away all their profits, and they all became charities, it's nowhere near enough money to solve the problem. So that's why I say, do what you can give what you can as a corporation, but also use your voice to advocate government to make the tough decisions that are needed.

Carley Hauck 1:00:30

That's really wonderful. It's a three fold action sequence, just to summarize what you said. So it's advising businesses to bring climate change into their operations? How can they lower their carbon emissions? How can they really reduce them, not just have offsets? How then do we also take some of our profits, and really align with social and environmental responsibility in giving to maybe help with some of the sub goals of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, because I think, again, more is better than none. But then to really advocate for the government, and to, you know, put some pressure on some to hold some accountability for the government to do the wise and good thing for all.

And not to get into politics very much at all. But you know, our last president denied climate change. So we are behind the mark on a bigger level. And, you know, we we have some, I think, very important shifts and changes that we need to make right now, you know, in the next couple years, there is urgency, because if we are to reduce our emissions by 50%, in 10 years, which is what they're forecasting, so that we have a chance for humanity to not have this horrible suffering, like you were experiencing just a small bit on the west coast.

When we had our first conversation, several weeks ago, I was in Bend, Oregon, I was there for six weeks. And the entire time that I was there, it was 93 to 108. And I have, I felt like I was baking from the inside out. Bend is a beautiful place. But I really couldn't enjoy it because I was so tired. And so exhausted every day. So it's, yeah, it's real.

And, and then I'm back here and, you know, and outside of Asheville, which is kind of a temperate rainforest, and it feels like a jungle. And they're just such different climates. And this is a bubble. Like I'm very aware most of our country does not look like where I am. But that's why I landed here. From the fires of the Bay Area 10 months ago. Yeah. So anyway, long, longer tangent there.

But let's talk a little bit more about water, if you're open to that. And also thank you for the book that you wrote. It sounds like a really wonderful contribution. I have not read it yet. But we will be sure to leave a link in the show notes for people that want to learn more about that. It sounds like such a huge undertaking to be able to analyze and understand what's really happening.

Greg Koch 1:03:38

Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, so water. As we've chatted already, water is under a lot of stress, and that stress is growing independent of climate change. Right? So you can argue about climate change all you want. Flint, Michigan, and those problems with lead and drinking water had nothing to do with climate change. Right? The lack of safe drinking water to almost 4 billion people around the world has nothing to do with climate change, right?

So there are water quality problems, lack of infrastructure, water scarcity, droughts, floods, storms, all of these things exist today. And climate change is making them more unpredictable, more intense, and and have greater duration. And so water, right you know, climate change is a shark has been often said than water is its teeth. So there's a lot of reasons for business. And therefore my work with my clients to look at water, in conjunction with or even independent of climate change, which is more of a sort of a future type planning but even today, there are problems.

Now, what I find is that most businesses in the clients I work with, but even in general, they do a really good job of managing water in the four walls of, say the factory, right. So they bring it in, they pay for that. They use it efficiently, they look for ways to reuse it. They treat their wastewater before they discharge it, and they manage stormwater that falls on their property, right? And that's table stakes, they should do that. And they need to always do that. independent of regulations. And by and large business does a good job with that.

Where I come in, is where we see that clients are exposed to more water stress in the watershed, and communities that they're a part of, we help them analyze that water stress and determine what impacts that could have on them. And that's a big aha, for a lot of clients, because it puts them in two mindsets, and that's always my goal. And when I achieve it with a client, I feel really good because I know some really good things are gonna happen in that community and watershed.

One, you have to get them to truly appreciate that water is a shared resource. They are sharing that water, with their neighbors, with nature, with other industries, even their competitors, of course, with people all around them wherever they're located. Right, it's not their water. It's not someone else's water independent habit, our government may or may not sort of manage it, but water is shared. And so when you recognize that water is shared, that means if it's under stress, you're going to have to work with those with whom you share that water, in partnership to address issues, right. So one leads to the other.

The other big aha, I aim for clients to achieve is to understand that water is transient, right? It's you know, get some water and put it in a bucket and put it in your room and say I own that five gallons of water. Well, good luck. If you do nothing, and you never tip it over and a dog doesn't come in and drink it, it'll eventually all evaporate, right?

Water is heavy, water likes to move, water is in a continuous cycle. And you know, that's a, that's a very easy but illustrative example to say, you don't really own water, it's transient, right? It's going to come into your home, your body, your factory, your ecosystem and move on somewhere else. And so what that leads to, along with this shared concept is the concept of stewardship.

Alright, so stewardship is defined as taking care of something for a period of time. So a shepherd stewards the flock of sheep, for instance, right? Shepherd may own the sheep or not, but they'll move on eventually into something wool or die of old age or, you know, other things. So it's a good analogy, because it says, Okay, I have to take care of this water. And it's water that I share. So you get these two concepts. I'm sharing this, and I have to steward it while it's in my control at some level.

And when you achieve those two mindset changes, I find that it's very powerful for companies to then say, Okay, well, I know what water stress issues I'm facing. And I know how to solve them at the end of the pipe and my four walls, but that's not going to solve the problem. I'll have to continue throwing money at it. The problem is still getting worse. It's impacting my employees and where they live in that community. It's impacting maybe my customers, maybe my suppliers. It's impacting my neighbors, people that share this water with me. So, yes, I ought to do things in my own control. But since I'm a steward who shares that water, I seek partnerships, the local government and local community, NGOs, peers, even competitors And that's the big aha. And it leads to some really exciting types of projects and partnerships.

Carley Hauck 1:10:09

Great. Let's bring it to the consumer and the individual. Because a lot of folks, you know, might be really looking at water like what's happening with the water in my community, how is it being treated? Are the rivers or the lakes if I have those nearby? Are they even safe to swim in? I don't know if you do any advising around that, but I'll just give a personal example.

So when I was living in Bend, there is a river called the Deschutes that goes through the river, or sorry, goes through the town. And everybody's in it. They're kayaking and stand up paddleboarding. It's a huge part of the culture there, even though it's very hot and dry people are in the water, especially in the summer, and the waters are clean. You know, it's coming from glaciers, it's cold. But then where I live now, outside of Asheville, the French Broad River is another river that goes through the town of Asheville, and everybody tells me don't swim in that river. You can fall in it, but then get out, don't swim in it, I think. Why is this river so polluted? Why is there not a responsibility to clean it up? And so me being a person that wants to be a good steward of the water for however long I'm here, I've been thinking, Okay, so how can I use my voice? How can I speak up about things that matter to me that will benefit the whole? And why is this not being cared for? I am wondering if you could just support me as an individual, and how that might translate to others because this is my, you know, geographic area, right, going back to the beginning of our conversation.

Greg Koch 1:12:00

So you've touched on one of the biggest problems not with water, not just in the United States, but around the world. But the United States is a great example. Because when you look at water quality, right, there's three things that are impacting it. And two of them have been largely solved. And the big challenge is that third one. Okay.

So starting with the Clean Water Act in 1972, created by the EPA. Before that, businesses weren't required to treat their wastewater and municipalities weren't required to treat their wastewater and you had things like Love Canal, your listeners can Google that. You had rivers catching on? Love Canal, yeah, Google Love Canal, okay. Google, Pittsburg Rivers on fire. I mean, basically, you had raw industrial effluent being discharged into the environment and raw sewage being discharged by cities.

The Clean Water Act came along, and over a period of a few decades. Now, there are strict regulations in place with very strict enforcement. Nothing's perfect. But businesses have to have an industrial wastewater discharge permit that is heavily regulated, they have to treat their water to a certain level before they discharge it to the sewer. And if they go directly into the environment, it's a whole different ball of wax with a lot more control.

So by and large, industrial, chemical, wastewater, is being treated. Similarly. Communities, from Chicago to Asheville to tiny communities around the world, now all have to fully treat their wastewater before it's discharged into the environment. So why do we still have polluted rivers? One is, neither of those are perfect. But it should still be swimmable if that's all that was going in there.

So it comes to the third. And the concept is called non Point Source runoff. A good example of non Point Source meaning a point would be here's the municipal sewage treatment, that's a point or here's a factory and there's their discharge. pipe. That's a point, a non point. A good example is a parking lot. Right, you got a parking lot in front of a grocery store and a lot of people's cars drip a little bit of oil or whatever it is, and then the rain comes and that rain picks up those contaminants and contaminates the water. So that is a source of contamination.

But the biggest one, which is also non-point, is farming. Farms do not need to treat water that leaves their site, whether it leaves a storm water, or it infiltrates into groundwater. Now, farming, agriculture uses 70-75% of the world's water. And they're applying fertilizers, they're applying pesticides and fungicides. And to the extent those aren't fully incorporated into the biomass of the plant, which most cases they're not, then you're going to have run off with those agro chemicals. And that causes a lot of problems in water quality.

Carley Hauck 1:15:58

And so that's one of the horrible parts of the animal agriculture system, which you and I were talking about before we hit record, but you know, that's a huge, Oh, what's the word I want to use? I mean, it's definitely adding to the warming of the planet just based on all of the practices and the carbon that's coming from the animals. And that would be a whole nother conversation.

Greg Koch 1:16:28

It would, but it's not just animals. I mean, it's it's row crops. It's corn, its wheat, its peas, its carrots, it's Yeah, you exacerbate that? Particularly when it gets concentrated? You know, you're part of mono cropping? Yeah, mono cropping. But in North Carolina, you know, there's a lot of concentrated livestock. So chicken farms, hog farms, right, that are, you know, I could argue their point sources right here, the 10 acre plot of land that has 5000 pigs on it, and it discharges its wastewater I mean, if that's not a point source, then then what is? The same with, you know, chicken, you know, chicken farms in the long rows of chicken houses, and, you know, they have waste coming out of those. And so, so yeah, you, you, you exacerbate the water pollution. And you have climate issues when you talk about livestock and meat in general. But agriculture at large is a huge source of water quality problems, and it's almost completely unregulated.

Carley Hauck 1:17:45

Wow. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. So I want to pull it back to the climate report, and I'm tracking all of our conversations. So I'm gonna summarize it kind of in as skillful of a bundle as I can, so that listeners can actually really understand how they might want to take action with all this wonderful information you're giving.

When we look at this massive climate report, the sixth one, you know, as you said, it's really talking about what's happening globally. But there are maps that are being shown of how it's going to impact you know, the West Coast versus the East Coast. And most of my listeners of the podcast are in the United States, but they're also in other countries. But just for the purposes of the dominant listeners, what could you forecast regarding drought and water from the west coast to the east coast. In our last conversation, we were talking about how California is actually getting their water from other states. But we know that California is really running out of water, but they have such a massive population. So based on the geography of the climate maps right now. What do you think is going to be happening in the next few years from the west coast to the east coast? I mean, the East Coast is getting more water from these hurricanes and storms and the West Coast, at least from what I can tell, is having more drought and fires but I would love if you can break it down even more and where is a safe place? You know? Or maybe maybe not safe, climate resilient, right? Where is more climate resilient? And how do we support more climate resiliency, in the places that we are?

Greg Koch 1:19:52

Well, let me say that, that second part, how do we support climate resilience, where we are is what we should all be focused on. I don't think the time now is. Where's that place in northern Canada? We can all go running because you're right that that's a bit alarmist and I'm not going to advocate for that.

But so yeah, call your congressperson, call your senator and say, I want action on climate change, I want it for myself, I want it for my grandchildren, etc, etc. Reduce your own carbon footprint in in ways that are meaningful. Encourage your friends and families to do that. But use your voice and use your vote. Some of the more powerful dollars, no shop with your products, right? Yep. right about that a lot on the podcast. So let's look, West Coast, East Coast, and what is forecasted? I'll just give one example from each coast, right?

Yes, you see droughts, you see wildfires, which have always happened and will continue to happen but are anticipated to to be more frequent and last longer and be more intense. But the big, forecasted change in the West Coast. That doesn't get a lot of press but it is. To me, one of the biggest problems is precipitation. Much of the west coast from the Rockies West, regardless of what state you're in, get their water from snow and ice that falls on the Sierra Nevada or the Cascades or the Rockies. It's all part of the Rockies, the Wasatch Mountains in Utah. What have you.

And so snow and ice fall and you've got a nice snowpack that's actually measured, and then it melts slowly over spring and summer. And feeds downstream communities from San Diego to Seattle. Okay. Large generalization but pretty accurate. So that snow and ice pack is a reservoir. Think of it as a lake, right? And the temperature is the dam. Right? Because it's still frozen. And then it slowly melts and on it comes like Deschutes river and bend oregon. That's snow and ice melt.

Right? It's snow melt.

So what if and this is what's forecasted? You actually get more precipitation in the winter. But because it's warmer, that precipitation comes as rain and not snow. Right?

Right. So what's gonna happen to the rain, it's not going to wait till summer, it's going to go downhill. And there's nowhere to store it. There's not enough places to store it. So it just ultimately will run off eventually, somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. And that's a huge problem. And in fact, if you read the UN Climate report that we talked about earlier, and this got picked up in the press, it rained for the first time in recorded history at the highest glacier in Greenland. Right? So Greenland's got this huge snow ice pack. Right. And so more and more snow. It rained up there.

Yeah,

Right versus snow. And so think about that in the Sierra Nevada. I mean, forget about skiing and stuff. We're talking about as you're losing that reservoir, and all that water goes off. Now, even if you don't have a drought, there's just no water coming from the mountainside. And so even if the temperatures were cooler, it does, where's the water? It was supposed to be fed to us over the spring and summer. Right.

On the east coast. I think one of the biggest near term sort of 10 year problems is storms and storm surges. And probably the best place to see that in action today, as we speak, is Miami Beach. Right. But you could extend that to Galveston, Texas to New Orleans to Biloxi you know, really the whole Gulf Coast and up the eastern seaboard. So there's been a small sort of millimeter year sea level rise, but that coupled with increased intensity of storms, and yes, their frequency. And, you know, coastlines that have been denuded of, of natural defenses, dunes, mangroves, things like that. So there's nothing to buffer that storm surge. So what you're seeing, particularly when there's a high tide is that you get all this flooding coming in. And Miami Beach has invested billions and pipes and pumps to try to manage storms and high tide so that the whole place doesn't get flooded. But there's only so much they can do. Well, not a place I would be investing to go live.

Carley Hauck 1:25:25

Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that. You know, one of the things that I was paying attention to when I was out West was just how climate and the environment is being impacted by all the changes. I was just really watching because it's something that I'm always paying attention to and care about. And I was in San Diego for about two weeks really to escape the heat of Bend. I just needed a place to rejuvenate. And I was noticing how close the water line was to the cliffs and we're all these million dollar homes and Encinitas and Solana beach, and they're Cardiff beach, which is just below Encinitas is a beautiful area, I'd never spend any time there.

But the tide and the, you know, the sand beach was just such a small piece of land, there were restaurants, that I mean, honestly, Greg, were maybe only 50 feet away from the tide coming in. And I thought, these restaurants aren't going to be able to be here for maybe even another year. I think they're just gonna, I mean, they literally had rocks right in front of the restaurant windows. And, you know, years ago, that was a beautiful location. But now, the ocean is right where people are eating, and there's no, you know, there's no high rise to. So it's just interesting to watch how it's going to impact all those properties and those homes. Yeah, we can't stop the oceans, especially as you're sharing, you know, the water continues to rise because glaciers are melting. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that.

So you had said at the beginning, it's knowable, it's solvable, and it's Did you say approachable, Was that it? Affordable? Yeah. So when we think about, we have all these dire needs, right? Like, what, like we're seeing the drought, we're seeing that we can't really keep putting our head in the sand. And when we look at the bigger context of, you know, climate change, why is getting agreement on climate change, in your perspective, so challenging? Or we can even take a fraction of that? Why is getting agreement on how we're going to allocate water? I mean, not being a water, you know, specialist in the sense that you are, I mean, it makes sense to me that if we're getting an overabundance of water from storms, how do we store it? How do we allocate it and then send it to the states that don't have enough water? Right, where, and I know that if Carley had a magic wand, poof, you know, I know that that's easier said than done. But why is it hard to get that agreement to do the right thing?

Carley Hauck 1:28:22

Yeah, well, probably the best lesson for that, because water gets complicated, because it's so local. And it's there's so many different factors. But let's look at climate change, it shows an example of why it's so hard. And then recognize that if that's that hard, water being spiritual, emotional, all these things visceral positive, make it even harder.

So why hasn't the world with all the treaties and promises and pledges actually, even slowed climate change? Even with COVID carbon emissions went up, greenhouse gas emissions went up? You think, Well, everyone was staying home and quarantined it still might not. And with all the pledges and things the great things have been done, we're nowhere near reining in greenhouse gas emissions and the impacts of climate change. So why is that?

Well, ultimately, it's because we haven't invested enough. Right, we’re being humankind. So governments haven't enacted policies and or made investments anywhere near the scale and the speed at what's needed. So why not?

Well, well, politically hard to do, it's going to cost a lot of money, it could change how we how society functions, in some ways in terms of mobility, you know, so, okay, well, well, why? I mean, the models are telling us, climate change is dire. You know, you're you Got heat and fires, you got floods and Katrina is and and all that's supposed to get worse. So yeah, it's gonna be hard. And now it's going to cost a lot of money. But why haven't we done that then if you believe all that science And to me, that's exactly it.

I think that the climate change community left a lot of things on the table, and we could talk about what they left on the table, but what is presented to you as climate change is, here is all this very complex data and modeling. Okay. And you got consensus, you've got reviews, you've got governments, but at the end of the day, this is data, and models. And if you believe it, then you ought to act and do all these things. Otherwise, all these dire consequences are going to happen. If you doubt it, even in the slightest. And what I mean is not to doubt it fundamentally, the climate is still changing. But if you doubt, how fast I need to act, who needs to go first, what part of what industry sector needs to go first? If you doubt any of that, then it's human nature to say, I'm going to wait. Right? So think about it. This data, which nobody understands, except, you know, a few 1000 people can really understand it.

Carley Hauck 1:31:35

And I might also add that for the last four years before we currently had who we have, you know, in, in the White House, there was a lot of denial around what was happening. So that just created a lot of stickiness around how are we going to move forward to solve this.

Greg Koch 1:31:53

But you know, politics aside, doubt, doubt is a much milder form of denial. Right? It's like, I'm agnostic, versus I'm atheist, right? It's like, I don't believe in God verses I'm not quite sure I've got a lot of questions, right? So let's take the doubters versus the deniers and try to unpack why that doubt may exist. Because if there is no doubt, then everyone's ready to change their lifestyle, pay the money, pay the carbon tax, and we could solve this.

Yeah. Well, the world humankind, we don't have a history with carbon, or greenhouse gases, and climate change and IPCC models, right? All of this has come into being really since the mid 80s, late 80s, forward, right, we've got a long history and understanding of disease, of water challenges of capitalism versus communism of religion, you know, all the other topics that stress us education, healthcare systems, have been around and been debated, and are understood throughout society, at varying levels. And I'm not saying we've solved all those problems. But there's a long human history of those.

So now, all of a sudden, all of a sudden, in terms of human civilization, in the last 40 years, this very complex data field comes out with all these very complex models that, by their own admission, have a large margin of error, and there's uncertainty in them. But we don't have a history of that. Now, that'll look different for our children and grandchildren and beyond. But right now we don't. And so you either accept all of that at face value, and you're running out the door, and you're making changes. Today, you're calling your senator, you're calling your Congresswoman every day because I believe this wholeheartedly, and I want the planet to survive. Well, that's not happening.

So why don't we say we want humanity to survive? Because I think the plan is going to keep going, No, the planet, it's going to keep going.

Yeah, the planet as we use it, right? Because if there's any doubt, and to me, it is not surprising, because what do you have to believe you have to believe something you cannot understand? It's so complex, those models would, you know, take terabytes of information to run they're super super complex, they have uncertainty in them, and you're told to look at it, there's nothing to look at, except to report and then completely change your lifestyle. Right. And, and or,

And there is discomfort in the change. No one likes that.

Right. So. So what did they leave on the table? I was gonna ask you. Yeah, and I think there's still room to bring some of these topics into the discussion that can support the positive change that's needed around climate change. And maybe even for some people, a much stronger motivator to act than the doom and gloom of climate change, right. And they're not hard to think of but no one's ever brought them to the table in a cohesive way, and built a political slash human slash business case around them. And I think if you looked at all of those, you would find believers, non deniers, non doubters on all of those.

So one is air pollution. Fossil fuels create air pollution, which causes or contributes to land pollution causes, health issues, aesthetic issues, right? So smog, and air pollution, which can also contribute to water pollution. I want cleaner air to breathe, it's gonna be hard to find someone say, I don't believe in clean air. I don't want clean air, you can argue about how much but clean air is one for some you could put in the dependence on foreign oil and all the conflict that that that causes and foreign means different things depending on where you are in the world. But I think we can all agree that there's been a lot of wars, there's been a lot of strife in the battle for the paying in the moving in the defence of fossil fuel reserves around the world. Right? So Well, I can reduce that. Because if I'm going to create something renewable, it's going to have to be local job creation. Right.

And I know people have talked about these things like green jobs, but no one's ever put them together in a package to say, Here is why you should look at all these actions and the reasons for doing them. One of them just happened to be climate change.

Carley Hauck 1:37:12

clean air, fossil fuels, and clean jobs. And when we look at, when we look at you know, Biden's plan for the American jobs bill, he doesn't necessarily use the words climate change. But there's a mass focus on electrification, electric charging stations, you know, solar wind, a massive effort trying to put the infrastructure in for that more clean energy, and that will ultimately create more jobs.

Greg Koch 1:37:48

Yeah, you would hope it all comes together like that, but But what I'm saying is you have to give people more than very complex science and modeling, to get them to change,

right to create right now. That that's all you've got. It's, it's almost akin to, I'm not trying to be controversial here, but almost akin to, say, a religion, it's like, you know, here's my Bible, my Torah, my Quran, my what have you, and it's all just words, right? And you need to read this and believe it, and then you will do all these things. Right?

That's hard to do. It's hard to create and maintain and grow a religion. Okay, we've got four or five that are really big, and they've been around a long time. Well, here comes climate change, you know, really 30-40 years ago, and it's very complicated information, lots of data, lots of science, and it's like, believe it, you're not gonna be able to read it. Even if you could read it, you can't understand it, talking about Joe public including me. And so just trust me, this computer is telling me, you need to do all these different things that are going to cost money, change the way that you live your life, what you eat, how you move around, what have you. It's a big ask. It's a really big ask.

And I think it proves my observation which is that we've really done hardly anything to combat climate change. A lot of people give China a lot of credit, they just opened the world's largest carbon trading market. It's been a lot of news, right? Like, wow, that they're leading the way they're going to trade carbon credits all over China and open the world up to that. Well, everyone sort of forgets the fact that over the last 25 years, they built 5000 coal fired power plants. Right. So now that they've got all this coal fired infrastructure in place now they can start talking about carbon trading, well, they're gonna have plenty of carbon to trade because they were building effectively one carbon or coal fired power plant a day for decades.

Carley Hauck 1:40:00

Well, and even if we look at offshore wind, we hardly have any, you know, in the United States, but there's a lot in Europe because they were creating that infrastructure for a long period of time, and there's gonna be more banned offshore than onshore. So, but we have to start creating, you know, those systems.

And one thing that I focus on, as in my book is, you know, my book, I was really motivated to write it because of climate change, and really highlighting leaders and businesses that we're trying to solve for a portion of some of these larger social and environmental problems. And I highlighted three different leaders and businesses that have been part of changing the food supply, and creating more plant-based, more clean, neat technologies. Because we know if we're eating a more plant based diet, then we're not depleting forests, we're not adding to more livestock farms, which are adding more carbon in the atmosphere. And it's mitigating climate change. And so I think what's exciting to see just, this is another portion that we are seeing major shifts in the food, you know, system and supply industry. And that's just creating a whole new product line of, you know, fake beef and seafood and you know, things that taste really good that people, I hope we're gonna start using and buying and eating more and more and more so that we can have these old systems of eating animals for food. Yeah, where it's hospice out.

Greg Koch 1:41:50

Yeah. I love that phrase hospice out. My daughter is a vegan, and I fell into the same trap. A lot of people do when they learn someone's a vegetarian, or, in her case, a vegan. And I said, Well, how are you going to get enough protein? Right? That's what you hear all the time? It's like, oh, you're a vegetarian? How do you get enough protein? And, boy, my eyes are open, all protein starts in plants, right? The only way a cow has any protein is because it ate plants that have protein in it. Right, so all protein is plant based. And it happens to be in meat, because that meat, fish, whatever cow chicken ate a plant with protein. And so it's this false narrative around, well, I can't get enough protein. And it's like, well, that's the only place you can get it as plants, you just happen to be using a hamburger from a cow that ate some protein did didn't make any protein. So education is a big part of that.

But you hit the nail on the head and that agriculture. And I use it with a capital A to mean agriculture, horticulture, aquaculture, fisheries, and of course, livestock. There are more people in the world employed by agriculture, most of the land by far in the world that's developed is developed for agriculture, which requires a lot of water. 70% of the freshwater used in the world by humans is used by agriculture.

And I don't have the numbers in front of me. But when you look at the cumulative carbon footprint of the food supply, some of which is unavoidable, you're gonna have a carbon footprint of a head of lettuce. But when you look at the fertilizer production, and then you look at how much of that fertilizer is used to grow animal feed. And then of course, the animals that we eat, I mean, agriculture has the biggest impact on the planet. You know, in a holistic sense, right? More people, more land, more water, and a bunch of carbon, I'd say the majority of the water pollution in the world is from agricultural runoff.

So getting agriculture right is a great step forward in addressing climate change, but also water quality, water quantity and personal health issues. And it's a great circle back to my point, which I know is controversial, that climate change isn't the biggest problem. But let's say we solve climate change and a climate change solution could come in this innovative technology that captures carbon from the air and stores it in some way, right? It's called carbon secrets.

Carley Hauck 1:44:52

It's also multifaceted, right? There's, I think there's so many solutions that are all integrated to solving that as you've already spoken about the Nexus so to speak.

Greg Koch 1:45:03

Yeah, but let's say you solve climate change with this fancy technology that you can put in space, and it just sucks the carbon out or whatever, you're still gonna have all these problems with water quality and agriculture and human health and resource scarcity. It doesn't solve any of those problems, which existed before we crashed, that we live in a changing climate that we're causing, are getting worse, even independent of climate change. And we'll continue to do so even if we solve climate change.

And so, you know, a climate change discussion sucks the air out of the room, right? And everyone's like, how do we solve climate change? And I welcome that, and that's needed. But we better be thinking about solutions that address some of these other issues at the same time.

Carley Hauck 1:45:53

Well, I feel like I could do, like 10 different conversations with you. I have learned so much, I really care about this topic. And in our last few minutes together, I feel really curious about what would be a call to action that you could share with listeners on what they might be able to do locally around water scarcity, if that's something that they are concerned about and care about.

Greg Koch 1:46:24

Right. So at the household level, you should try to be as efficient with your water use as possible. Even if you're not facing water scarcity, you might have abundant water supplies, such as you have in North Carolina, and it may be cheap. But water delivered to your house takes energy. And so when you use water, you're using energy. And therefore, you're having carbon emissions and greenhouse gas emissions. Right. So in addition to helping protect the supplies you have, you're saving money on your water bill, you're also lowering your carbon footprint.

So the EPA, and there's plenty of websites that talk about the simple things that you can do at home to become more water efficient. I mean, it's the obvious things of don't run the tap while you're brushing your teeth, you know, run only a full dishwasher load and a full clothes washer load instead of partial loads. There's more advanced things that you could do, like capturing rainwater in a bucket and using that to water your outdoor plants or a small garden that you might have. There's a lot of things that you can do in your home.

I'd say the next thing to do is think about how you're polluting water. And I'm not talking about the bathroom. I'm talking about the chemicals that you put in your yard, the things you do in your driveway.

Carley Hauck 1:48:03

Or even the products you're choosing to buy that are not actually environmentally friendly. Like from your shampoo to your dishwashing liquid, like really look at the labels.

Greg Koch 1:48:12

Yeah, look at the labels. And that's, all of those are easy things you can do to start small. To save some money, to feel better about yourself. And then I guarantee you, if you just Google, watershed conservation, or waterkeepers, river keepers, you'll find an NGO community based organization, somewhere near your home that you can engage in support, and maybe it's a voice of support, maybe it's some of your time. Maybe it's maybe it's a small donation that you can make, but I haven't found a place where there isn't some community based organization that's active.

And then of course, on any topic, but particularly water. You know, call your representative, at whatever level you feel comfortable. And shout out for water. Hmm.

Carley Hauck 1:49:07

Greg, thank you so much. Thank you for doing the work that you're doing in the world. And I imagine I'm gonna want to have you back. Okay. Yeah. Lots of knowledge. Thank you for your service. And if there's anything that you'd like to leave our listeners with, or a way that they can contact you or get in touch, what would you like to leave them with?

Greg Koch 1:49:28

Oh, yeah, I'd be happy to connect with anyone. I am very open to meeting new people. Probably the easiest way to connect with me is through LinkedIn. And under contact information, you'll see my email address, I don't hide it and shoot me an email and I'm happy to connect. Thank you.

Carley Hauck 1:49:56

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Greg, for your leadership and your passion for water. stewardship. For those of you that want to learn more and be connected with Greg, his LinkedIn handle is in the show notes.

And as a way to take individual and business responsibility around being a water steward. These are some things that you can do. Get to know the issues affecting water in your area, utilities, quality flooding, endangered species, invasive species. Understand what your government is doing locally and let them know your thoughts. Personally, I am going to see how I can be a water steward in my local community by volunteering or even joining the board. As I shared earlier, one of the rivers that runs through the town of Asheville, which is close to where I live, is quite polluted. And I'm sure that there are river keepers. But there are probably other ways to move the needle towards more clean water for all.

Additionally, while there is maybe more water on the east coast and less water on the west coast, Greg was advising that we need to solve water supply issues where they are and with the water that is present in those demographic areas. He was mentioning to me and a side conversation that Israel is a great example, it's a desert, yet they have made smart decisions on what to use with the little water they have, for example, they aren’t afraid to reuse water. And they also invented drip irrigation. And interestingly, there's also no golf courses or green lawns in front of every house in Israel. So there's a way of being mindful with our consumption.

If we all make huge, concerted efforts now, I believe, and the science shows that we can start to shift the trajectory of the suffering we will experience in our lifetimes due to the warming of climate and more importantly, what we're leaving behind for future generations. We have a choice, but we have to act now.

And one of the ways that leaders in business can really align with social and environmental responsibility is to commit to learning and growth and restructuring the way that they do business so that it's aligning with ESG environmental social governance. If you are interested in learning more about how to upskill your workforce and leaders for this remote hybrid model of work, while embedding conscious inclusive ways of being that support business to be a force for good. This is what I feel most passionate about. I would love to support you. I have successfully served mission driven leaders and companies in the last decade including LinkedIn, Pixar into it, Intel high growth startups like Asana, and I would be happy to set up a free consultation with you and the link is in the show notes.

If you have any questions, comments, or even topics you would like me to address on the podcast please email me at [email protected]. Finally, thank you for tuning in and being part of this community. And like always until we meet again, be the light and shine the light.

If we've learned anything, in this almost year and a half since the pandemic, it’s that having more skills for relating, for coming together, for getting along, and for collaboration is key to the complex issues we're all navigating at work and in the world. I have found that the inner game of emotional intelligence leads to empathy and leadership. You simply can't have one without the other. These two qualities are some of the most important skills leaders, managers, and individual contributors need to learn in this poignant time.

As the world continues to transition toward the future age of work- a hybrid remote environment in which human connection is more important than it has ever been before, it will require emotionally intelligent workers. It is essential that we gain more self awareness and self management so that we're able to really pay attention to how we're showing up, at work and in the world.

On this solo episode, I want to define emotional intelligence and define how it's linked not only to empathy and leadership, but to successful, thriving teams. I also want to give you some simple and powerful ways that you can begin to practice more empathy at work and in your life.

The Importance of Empathy in Leadership SEO Description:

On this solo episode, I want to define emotional intelligence and define how it's linked not only to empathy and leadership, but to successful, thriving teams. I also want to give you some simple and powerful ways that you can begin to practice more empathy at work and in your life.

The inner game of emotional intelligence leads to greater empathy and greater leadership. These two qualities are some of the most important skills leaders, managers, and individual contributors need to learn in this poignant time. It is essential that we gain more self awareness and self management so that we're able to really pay attention to how we're showing up, at work and in the world.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

The Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report, Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis

The Center for Generational Kinetics Study on Gen Z

Google’s Aristotle Project

Center for Creative Leadership Empathy Study

Conscious & Inclusive Leadership Retreat

Leading from Wholeness Executive Coaching

Leading from Wholeness Learning and Development Resources

Shine: Ignite Your Inner Game to Lead Consciously at Work and in the World by Carley Hauck

Contact Carley Hauck

The Imperfect Shownotes

Carley Hauck 00:01

Hi, this is Carley Hauck. Welcome to another episode of the amazing and inspiring SHINE podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things- conscious and inclusive leadership, the recipe for high performing teams and awareness practices. I will be offering three episodes a month. And before I tell you about our topic today, I would love if you could go over to Apple podcasts and hit the subscribe button so you don't miss any amazing episodes.

After listening to this episode, or other episodes that you enjoy and find value in, I would be so grateful if you would write a positive review, and or share it with friends, colleagues, your favorite social media channel, it helps so much. Thank you.

Our topic for today is the importance of empathy and leadership.

If we've learned anything, in this almost year and a half since the pandemic, we've learned that having more skills for relating, for coming together, for getting along, for collaboration is key to the complex issues we're all navigating at work and in the world. And the inner game rules the outer game. And I've been writing a lot on this topic in my recent book Shine: Ignite Your Inner Game to Lead Consciously at Work and in the World , also the name of this podcast, and a lot of the work that I've been facilitating and learning organizational development, executive and team coaching in the last decade.

And what I have found, and my experience is that the inner game of emotional intelligence, which I'm going to unpack leads to empathy and leadership, you can't have one without the other. And I feel that these two qualities are some of the most important skills leaders, managers, and individual contributors need to learn in this poignant time.

The reason? We are facing some of the largest challenges in history of any time before us.

We have literally our survival at stake with climate change. This is one of the reasons that I wrote my book, I spent four years writing it, because I wanted to help the human species develop more consciousness so that we could solve these problems together.

And the UN Climate report, the most recent the sixth version of it, they've been saying this for quite a long time, but this is the most updated version was released the week of August 9.

And we need more than ever, to be able to communicate, to share empathy to understand the other person's perspective and views, even if it's not our own, so that we can solve these complex problems together of racial inequities and social and environmental responsibility and aligning with greater sustainable development for our entire worlds because, as we've learned, in the last year and a half, we are all in this together.

3:51

So I want to define emotional intelligence and how it's linked to empathy and leadership.

I also want to give you some ways to practice more empathy at work in your life. Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and manage one's personal emotions and the emotions of others.

So having self management, and then social awareness. Knowing how you'd feel in a certain situation helps you to gauge how others will feel in a similar environment, thus enabling favorable social interactions and evoking positive reactions from others. emotionally intelligent people gain social aptitudes, such as the ability to resolve conflict, teach others or manage teams.

In my book, Chapter Two is devoted to the inner game of emotional intelligence. And I break down the four dimensions of emotional intelligence. So the first two are self awareness, self management. And the last two are social awareness and relationship mastery. I really think of these four dimensions as being the inner and the outer game. So being that self awareness, self management, it's an inner quality, we're developing it first on the inside. Self management is referred to as self control and self regulation. It's the ability to regulate our emotions or thoughts or behaviors effectively in different situations. It includes managing our stress, delaying gratification, motivating ourselves, setting and working toward personal and academic goals. It's learning how to navigate our triggers and how to express our feelings skillfully. And if we don't have self awareness, the ability to watch and observe our thoughts or feelings or sensations, we're not able to self manage, so they are intrinsically linked.

And if you don't develop those first two qualities of emotional intelligence, then you can't show up with the last two, the social awareness and the relationship mastery. So when we gain more self awareness and self management, we're able to really pay attention to how we're showing up, then we're able to apply those same skills to others. Oh, I wonder what's happening for them. Oh, I'm watching their nonverbal behavior. Hmm, this is not the right time to probably have a conversation- they're triggered. That is going to help with relationship mastery.

Many of us in the year of the pandemic and ongoing have brought more of ourselves to the workplace than ever before. We've been living and working from our living rooms or bedrooms or basements. And we've all been navigating different levels of uncertainty, grief, anger, volatility, ambiguity.

We are human beings, not human doings.

We feel discomfort. When there is uncertainty when there is change, even if it's a good change, we think, oh, how am I going to navigate this. And we have been navigating some big feelings, big emotions. And it requires more empathy, more compassion in our leadership and how we relate to one another.

7:41

So let's talk a little bit about the business case for emotional intelligence and empathy in defining it for you. But let's talk about why this really matters at work. And then at the world, because the workplace is a microcosm for the world. In the midst of the pandemic, researchers found that we as a world have rising rates of loneliness and depression makes sense, we've been socially isolated. We've been going through big challenges, and it was already high, but it's gone up higher.

This means that mental health concerns represent an opportunity for companies and leaders to embrace emotional intelligence in order to re-engage people at work and life.

Additionally, Gen Z, which will be one of the largest populations of the workforce, has been found to be the loneliest generation. With 73% reporting, sometimes or always feeling alone. According to the Center for Generational Kinetics, which was a 2020 study, solving the remote work challenge across generations, it was found that more than any other generation Gen Z wants their managers to be empathetic.

If the youth is the future, which it is, they are the leaders that our world needs now. And they're lonely and psychologically stressed than the future of work, must have emotional intelligence and empathy. And again, if we don't cultivate those inner game skills of emotional intelligence and empathy, then we're not able to create psychological safety in our teams or one on ones and in the greater culture. And that's really important for high performance, innovation for creativity, for collaboration.

I talk a lot about the concept of psychological safety, and I write a lot about it in my book. I was trained in the psychological safety scan by Dr. Amy and Dr. Amy and Edmondson and her 25 years of research on this important topic at Harvard, and in worksites. Psychological safety is one of the first things that I measure when I'm brought in for any team development, when I'm looking to design and implement a large scale learning or leadership development program, or really focusing on supporting the culture to flourish.

For those that are not familiar with the concept, or the definition of psychological safety, here's a summary. According to Google's famous project, Aristotle initiative, a high performing team needs three things: strong awareness of the importance of social connections, or social sensitivity, an environment where each person speaks equally. And lastly, psychological safety, where everyone feels safe to show and employ themselves without fear of negative consequences.

To harness these three elements of a successful team, it takes an emotionally intelligent and empathetic leader. People feel cared for when these three items are present among a team or an organization. And guess what? People who feel cared for are more loyal, engaged, committed, productive. In fact, employees who feel cared for by their organization are 10 times more likely to recommend their company as a great place to work. Whoo, nine times more likely to stay at their company for three or more years, we want that. Seven times more likely to feel included at work. We want people to feel like they have belonging, they can bring their whole and best selves to work. They're four times less likely to suffer from stress and burnout. And they're two times as likely to be more engaged at work.

12:15

Well, that feels like a no brainer for developing a culture of greater emotional intelligence and empathy. The three core human needs of work and life are to survive, belong and become. Much like Maslov’s hierarchy of needs, once humans fulfill the need for food, water, shelter, they then seek to be accepted for who they are belonging, and then finally learn to grow to become their best selves. That's the self actualization at the top of the pyramid.

As the world advances more and more, our survival needs are being consistently met. But for some, they're still in survival mode. Many of us are, since the pandemic. And so that's another reason why it's important to have emotionally intelligent leaders that are capable of showing empathy, and extending belonging to their teams.

I believe that humane technology has the possibility to advance humanity. The Industrial Revolution requires strong workers, the Information Age required knowledgeable workers, but this future age of work that we're in- hybrid remote, it will require emotionally intelligent workers. Because as we become more sophisticated, technologically with AI and 5g, the human skills, the soft skills, some people call them, the inner game skills, I called them, they’re the real skills, like compassion and empathy. This is going to define the competitive edge of workers and entire organizations.

As the world becomes more high tech, we will need more high touch. As technology advances, it will take on some of the skills that humans aren't good at, or we don't like or too dangerous, but then it gives us the opportunity to have more capacity to relate to one another and be empathetic towards one another.

So, let's talk about building empathy. A study by the Center for Creative Leadership found that managers who show higher levels of empathy towards their team are viewed more positively overall on their performance of decision making coaching, engaging meant planning and organizing. Developing greater capacity for empathy becomes even more important. With all of these distributed teams around the world, working remotely, phone and zoom are the normal. But we can often miss emotional cues nonverbal cues. If we're not being mindful of how this other person might be feeling, thinking, perceiving.

Daniel Goleman and Paul Ekman have identified three different types of empathy. Now, I'd like to read more about them for you. So we have cognitive empathy. And this by the way, is taken from my book in chapter three. Cognitive empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else's place and understand their perspective. This quality enables leaders to assess what others are feeling is also a natural outgrowth of self awareness. The executive circuits in the brain that allow you to notice your thoughts and monitor your feelings give you the ability to transfer these skills from yourself to another. One way to grow your cognitive empathy is to ask what would happen if I put myself in this person's shoes? Or what might I have done? If I had this experience?

Emotional empathy. This is the second kind of empathy. This is the ability to feel what someone else feels. Another name for this is emotional contagion. This is what happens when you are interacting with a distraught colleague and begin to feel down and distraught too. It is important that you connect with what people are feeling, but you don't want to be rocked by their feeling state. One way to grow your emotional empathy is to allow your positive or negative feelings to surface while listening to a co-worker's emotional experience.

So this really comes down to having a self awareness practice really noticing what's happening in my body. What am I really noticing and the other? And some questions you might ask yourself to grow your emotional empathy is, when have I experienced a similar story? How did I feel when this happened to me? Here's an important distinction. Cognitive empathy is empathy by thought. And emotional empathy is empathy by feelings.

And the third type of empathy is compassionate empathy. This is the ability to move into action with empathic concern. This is what many co-workers typically react to in the workplace. For example, when a team member reports that he or she doesn't have the complete information to finish the deliverable. A leader might jump in, or assign someone to help with one of the related tasks. A question that can help you build compassion. Empathy is, what supportive action would I want or need, if I were in this person's shoes?

We all want to be seen, felt and heard. and developing empathy supports appropriate boundaries, while allowing you to be with and to acknowledge another's range of experiences. Empathy says, I am here with you, and I know the struggle and have lived this experience.

18:48

So as you're listening, I'd love to guide you through a practice to develop your empathy. Take a moment and find a place where you can actually drop in close your eyes. So don't do this if you're driving. But really give yourself a chance to pause. Notice your feet connected to the floor. Notice your body posture. sitting up nice and tall. Bring your shoulders up and back. Open your jaw. Maybe move your head from side to side. Relax. Bring your attention into your body. And start to notice the rhythm of your breath. Breathing in, feel the stomach rise, breathing out, feel the stomach fall. Breathing in, breathing out and out. Breathing in and as you exhale out, breathe out.

Let's do that two more times. In and out, getting all the attention from the day. I mean negative experiences just release from the body. And one more time breathing in, out.

Now, I invite you to bring to mind a colleague at work. Maybe it's even someone at home, this person is experiencing some difficulty. Ask yourself the following questions to help develop your empathy. What would I do? How would I feel in a similar situation? What would I want? or expect from my manager? What would I not want? If you like, you can journal about this.

This exercise comes directly from my book. And there's a journaling opportunity, but I'll say the questions one more time. So that you can really build your inner game of empathy. What would I do? How would I feel in a similar situation? What would I want or expect from my manager? What would I not want?

21:45

If this was a little difficult for you, this exercise or a little challenging, you might be naturally low on the empathy scale. So this is an opportunity for you to grow it. You can learn to check yourself and do what doesn't always come naturally.

So here's some tips. Before you act, you can pause when you're relating with another and ask how am I what I'm about to do or say, impact others. We can't always, you know, be the people pleaser. And we don't really know how our thoughts and behaviors are going to impact another because everyone has their own lens that they view it from and their own worldview and lived experiences. But if your intention and motivation is coming from care, and truth, then that's the best that you can do.

But it is I think important to pause and really be skillful in how we're relating to everyone right now, more than ever, because we're all navigating so much complexity and uncertainty. You can also develop your inner game of self awareness, self management, by really noticing your thoughts, your feelings, your body sensations. A meditation practice is one of the best ways you can grow your self awareness and you can start to develop greater self management, because you're able to pause and refrain from speaking, when maybe you're triggered or the other person's triggered. You can take care of yourself and the relationship when you have these two skills.

And then the other two dimensions of emotional intelligence is that you show up with greater social awareness and relationship mastery. Another way to grow into a more emotionally intelligent and empathetic leader is to have a trusted advisor or coach that can help you see your blind spots and support you to develop greater skill and your emotional intelligence, empathy and communication. I have been working as an executive coach now for 15 years, serving all types of leaders, emerging. middle managers, CEOs, founders, HR business partners. And I have often supported these folks, and up leveling the skills because we can't change what we don't see, which is always great to have a coach to reflect back to us, love and truth and challenge us to be our best selves.

I will always challenge my clients to grow with compassion and truth. If I see a mindset or action that is hindering them to show up in the best of ways I name it, I investigate it, I mirror it back to them. So that there's the ability for them to shift and change, and be in service of their greatest possibility and potential for their teams, their life, their organization.

25:25

So that's what I have for you on this important topic. If you would like support around creating a culture with more emotional intelligence, empathy, and our psychological safety in your organization and your leadership team, I would love to help you. Please reach out to me and book a free consultation, and the link will be in the show notes.

As I shared before, I also do a lot of coaching with folks on these important skills. And I would love to support you. I have a whole page on executive coaching on my website, and there is a coaching application you can fill out and be happy to book a free consultation to talk with you more. I also am often asked to conduct trainings and workshops and keynotes on this topic for lots of different organizations. And I would be delighted to serve you in this capacity.

Additionally, if you are seeking someone to support you to build this more human centered leadership and organization on a more full time capacity, please feel free to contact me. Again, I'd be happy to book some time with you. And if I'm not the right person to help you, I'd love to put you in touch with someone who might be a better fit, because I have a big network. And I like to help people.

A couple other resources on how you can grow this and yourself. I write a lot about this topic in my book Shine: Ignite Your Inner Game to Lead Consciously at Work and in the World. I also have many free articles on my website on emotional intelligence, empathy. I encourage you to check all of that out. If you have any questions, comments or topics that you feel you'd really love to learn more about and have me address on the podcast, please email me at [email protected]. And as always, thank you so much for tuning in and being part of this wonderful community and until we meet again, be the light and shine the light.