The Deep End podcast

The task for the last Audio Note was for you to identify your Nature. As you know, there are dozens of assessments out there that attempt to help us clarify our Nature. I introduced you to Five Voices, but you’re probably familiar with many others that all seek to help you clarify your unique temperament.

The companies we work with invariably draw from a number of assessments. I recently spoke to a leader at a global technology company that said they use more than 80 different assessments. (He wasn’t bragging. It was actually a huge problem.)

When we start working with a company that’s used other assessments we always ask, “What did you do with the insights you gained?” A long pause usually follows because the value they gain from these assessments typically has a short half life. They might print out the findings and tape them to their office door or put some colored blocks on their desks, or something like that, but they rarely sustain the value they gained from these assessments, many of which cost hundreds or thousands of dollars.

Your Nature isn’t a novelty. I’m glad for the insights people gain through these assessments, but they shouldn’t have a shelf life. The value should grow and scale over time, not diminish. It’s you we’re talking about—50% of you. My hope for you as we begin to explore your Narrative is that you continue to clarify your Nature.

I won’t take the time to go into a lot more detail here because I don’t need to. It’s all on the GiANT Platform. Take a look at the Library and the resources related to Five Voices. If you want to go further, I would encourage you to get some friends together and go through Altitude Training. It’s a 51-session process that we use with small groups. We have experienced certified facilitators that can coach you through Altitude or any of the other resources if you’re interested.

One of the great joys of my work is that I get to see people come alive. It’s not that they don't know they have the unique gifts and tendencies that come with their Leadership Voice. They do, but they’ve usually dismissed or undervalued them. The process and resources on the Platform unlocks their ability to recognize these attributes and put them into practice.

If you were to ask the groups we work with the same question I ask new clients—“What did you do with the insights you gained through Five Voices”—there would be a pause, but only because they wouldn’t know where to start explaining how this process continues to transform them as individuals and teams, in both their personal and professional lives.

That’s my hope for you. Again, your Nature is not a novelty. There’s nothing trivial about it. But there are a couple things that may inhibit you from truly embracing your unique Voice: Shame and Same.

Shame: remember we talked about this with the 6-3-1? Shame is that tendency to ask,“What’s wrong with me?” As you deepen and clarify your understanding of your Nature an image emerges in the mirror that’s unlike anyone else. That’s because it’s you you’re looking at, and there’s no one like you. What’s strange is how quickly we dismiss that image. Instead of embracing the beauty and complexity of our Nature, we blur, blunt, and dismiss the image. How is it that we can feel so wrong about the things that are so right? That’s shame talking.

Of course we can also flip from shame to pride, in which case we don’t ask “what’s wrong we me.” We ask “What’s wrong with everyone else” instead. You’ll recall that they’re two sides of the same coin. Shame and pride both keep us from fully embracing our authentic Self.

Same contributes to our shame. Some people call it the “tall poppy syndrome.” If you rise above the rest of the poppies, others will cut you down. If you strive to own and express your authentic Nature, you can expect to encounter pushback. Why? Because your growth and courage threatens people. Your courage just highlights the vested interest they have in not doing the work that’s necessary to develop Selfship. Fortunately, there are others that have done the work that’s necessary. These people recognize and celebrate the growth in you. They’re not threatened by it. They’re encouraged and even challenged by it. Surround yourself with those people.

Are you ready to put this into practice? Write this down on a piece of paper: “I tend to be better than most people at…” Complete the sentence. Notice what this exercise brings up in you. Was it easy or difficult to complete the sentence, and why? Maybe you already have something in mind, or perhaps going through Five Voices helped you become more aware of your unconscious competence. Whatever it is, write it down.

Next, share it with someone that you trust.

I recently challenged a small group with this task. We filled a whiteboard with all kinds of their superpowers:

“I make people feel safe”

“I have this uncanny ability to synthesize complex ideas”

“I say difficult things to people in a way that people will hear”

“I process data, tasks, and details better than most”

Notice your reaction to this exercise. Most people don’t rush to this challenge. Some people don’t know their superpowers or think they have many. At least that’s what people will tell me. But when I dig deeper I discover that what they’re really afraid of isn’t that they don’t have them, it’s that they do. It’s amazing the lengths they’ll go to avoid seeing the authentic self they’ve be made to be. I’m the same way.

This reaction reflects a deep-seated allergy—an allergy to ourselves. My personal mission statement is to “Confront people with the Self God made them to be.” That’s all I’m doing here, but I know this confrontation will include an allergic response. We all share the same allergy. It’s our companion for life. This process helps you normalize and embrace the allergy.

I recently had someone compliment me in front of a group of people. He detailed competencies he sees in me and how they I’ve impacted him. I had an allergic reaction. Everything within me wanted to avoid and deflect this comments. Internally I looked like Neo dodging bullets in The Matrix. I could feel my allergy kicking in and chose instead to let the bullets hit me.

This is a critical thread that we’ll trace for the rest of our journey through Selfship. This allergy to the truth of ourselves will come up as we go through Narrative as well. Not only do we struggle to embrace our Nature, we have a natural inclination to disown our Narrative.

If you’re remotely unsure what I mean when I say we have an allergy, put this Audio Note’s exercise into practice: Identify what you’re extraordinarily good at and share it with someone else. Be specific. If you’re honest, you’ll feel your allergy kick in, hives and all. That’s all part of the process—your journey toward Selfship.

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(Click here to set up your account on the GiANT OS and complete the Five Voices Assessment)

We’re entering a new chapter in your journey toward Selfship. As I said in the previous Note, we’re going to expand your awareness of the two sources that inform and guide how you show up in the world: your Nature and Narrative, beginning with your Nature.

Your Nature includes everything that was woven into you before you were even born. These are your fixed features. Of these features, the one we’re going to focus on is your personality. Your personality, as I’m defining it, is the set of tendencies that inform your perception of the world and your response to it. Each of us has a unique means by which we take in information and formulate decisions. A distinct pattern of behaviors arises over time that we call our personality.

A good portion of my work focusses on helping people identify their authentic temperament. I consistently run into four challenges in this effort:

Learned behaviors—Every single one of us develops learned behaviors that enable us to do our jobs and live life. These behaviors don’t come easy to us. We may even despise them, but we do them anyway. Some of these behaviors become so integrated into our daily lives that we think they’re natural to our temperament, when in fact their quite unnatural. All you have to do is ask whether they energize or drain you. If it energizes you, it’s a natural gift. If it drains you, then it’s a learned behavior.

Your Narrative—Your Narrative can also inform what behaviors you learned to employ. These adaptations can arise from certain reward systems that were part of your family or culture. Trauma that we experience can generate behaviors and strategies that we employ just to survive. This presents a considerable challenge for leaders that want to deepen their understanding of their authentic personality: How do I peal away my adaptive behaviors and recognize my unique temperament?

Unconscious competence—There’s a inverse relationship between your unique giftedness and your awareness of them. You exercise the natural superpowers that were woven into your personality with such ease that you don’t recognize them as gifts at all. In fact, they’re so much a part of you that you assume everyone must be good at these things. It probably frustrates you when others aren’t good at these things. For this reason, it takes considerable effort to identify these unconscious competencies.

A variety of personality assessments attempt to transcend these challenges and get at our true personality. From the research I’ve seen, most of these tests have a surprising level of accuracy, about 80%-90%. While there are dozens of tests out there, I use the 5 Voices with my clients. Steve Cockram developed 5 Voices after years of using MBTI with companies around the world. While few instruments rival MBTI in its ability to clarify someone’s personality, Cockram noticed that leaders struggled to remember their Type or know what to do with it. He developed Voices as kind of an iPhone for MBTI. It’s easy to remember and leaders can easily apply it and operationalize it throughout their teams and organizations.

Voices is based on the assumption that we all have each voice, it’s just that some of them come more naturally to us. I’ve long been enormously skeptical, even cynical, of personality assessments, but it was this aspect of Voices that resonated because it ties in with my understanding of the complexity of our identities as human. (I’ll walk you through my Complex Identity Framework after we complete Nature and Narrative.)

Many of you are familiar with Five Voices, but for those that are new to it, I want to walk you through it. You can also take the online assessment. (I’ll include a link in the show notes.) Keep a few things in mind as I go through this:

We all have all Five Voices, but some of these come more naturally to you than others

Don’t assume you know what the voice means based on the title

Try to pick the Voice that resonates with you the least and the one that resonates the most

I’ll work through the Voices from the Voice with the lowest volume to the Voice with the highest volume. But when you think “volume” don’t think in terms of loudness. Think in terms of the force this voice brings. Remember, all you’re concerned with is the Voice that resonates the least and the one that resonates the most.

The quietest Voice is what’s called a Nurturer Voice. The superpower of the Nurturer is their ability to foster relational harmony. They’re the glue that holds people together and the lubricant that enables them to operate without friction. As a friend of mine says, “Nurturers are the glue-bricant.” For this reason, Nurturers struggle with conflict and confrontation. 43% of the population have Nurturer as their First/Foundational Voice.

The second quietest voice is the Creative. Their superpower is seeing the future better than anyone else. I always imagine them being a head or two above the other Voices. From this vantage point they see future possibilities and threats. Creatives are idealists, which means they’re tireless champions of organizational integrity. People often struggle to follow a Creative’s communication. Their brain is like a lotto ball machine. When they speak you never know what’s going to come out. 9% have Creative as their Foundational Voice.

The third quietest Voice is the Guardian. Their Superpower is getting to the truth. Guardians have both feet firmly grounded in the practical considerations of the present reality. Everyone on the team may be excited about a new concept and ready to move forward. The Guardian is unswayed and will tend to deflate the excitement by using their questions to bring everyone else back to reality. This tendency, as you might expect, can create friction with others. 30% of the population are have Guardian as their Foundational Voice.

If you’ve ever been part of a team where two or three people dominate meetings, this helps explains why. Add up 43, 9, and 30 and you get 82% of the population have the three least-forceful Voices as their Foundational Voice. That’s not to speak disparagingly about the remaining two Voices, but merely to point out why some voices get marginalized.

Think of the final two Voices as the Power Voices, though they operate in very different ways. Connectors are the fourth Voice in the order of volume. They’re gifted with the power of persuasion. As the name implies, Connectors have the superpower of bringing together large networks of people. They’re also profoundly gifted in pulling together not only people, but also budgets and other resources. Connectors bake themselves into their ideas, which is why one of their weaknesses is that if you criticize their idea, they take it personally because they feel like you’re criticizing them. First-Voice Connectors make up 11% of the population.

The most forceful of the Voices are the Pioneers. Winning is their primary driving motivation. They wrap together vision and resources into a powerful strategy that helps them and their teams win. They communicate this strategy with a compelling force of logic and vision that no other voice can rival. “This is what we’re going to do. This is why we’re going to do it. This is who’s doing it and when.” Problems arise when someone threatens that vision, or if the Pioneer doesn’t view someone as useful in helping them achieve that vision. 9% of the population have Pioneer as their Foundational Voice.

So much of the frustration we experience arises from a belief that other people should be more like us. You watch someone performing a task and you’re mystified: “Why on earth would you do it that way?” I was on a board when I was first learning about Voices, and one particular person drove me nuts, and I know I drove him nuts. Once I learned that we had the opposite Voice Order, I gained a deep appreciation for him. He has gifts and abilities I’ll never possess. Instead of being irritated, I saw viewed him as an enormous asset.

We’re not all the same. We have profound fundamental differences in personality. Whether you use Voices or another personality framework, my question is: How much have you integrated your knowledge of your personality into your life? For a lot of people, it seems like a novelty that quickly wears off. But if you truly own these unique sets of gifts and weaknesses, you show up as a different person. You know how to bring the greatest value contribution to your life and work. You also know then triggers that are unique to your personality, so that when you spike on the Reactivity Scale you can work toward regulation.

Your personality isn’t a novelty. It’s the fingerprint of God. A piece of art. You’re unlike any other person on the planet. Do you know that? How well do you know that? If you don’t act on this knowledge, I submit you don’t actually know your Nature very well. Your next step is to deepen that knowledge and awareness. We’re not talking about labeling you, so much as we’re trying to get at those underlying tendencies that differentiate you as a uniquely crafted human being.

We just scratched the surface with Five Voices. I’ll put a link in the show notes for those of you that aren’t familiar with Five Voices and want to explore more. The best thing you can do is sign up on the GiANT platform, complete the Voices assessment, and start watching the videos about your unique voice. It may take you months to gain 100% confidence in your voice order, or maybe the assessment will get your number right out of the gate.

That’s it for now. I’ll share a few other considerations about your Nature in the next Audio Note before we delve into your Narrative.

Where are you right now? Wherever it is, I’m glad you’re here.

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You now have two tools at your disposal that you can use to regulate yourself—the Reactivity Scale and the Triangle of Activation. Use these tools as we move ahead to monitor and reground yourself. We’re going to go into your Nature and your Narrative, and depending on what clarity you gain about yourself during this portion of the journey, you’ll want to make sure you have some comfort and familiarity with these tools.

The first batch of Audio Notes will help you understand your Nature. We’re going to look at those aspects of yourself that were given to you at birth, actually before birth if the research is accurate. These are the aspects of your makeup you couldn’t change if you wanted to. In particular, we’re going to focus on your temperament because of its powerful affect on how we live and lead.

Narrative comprises everything else: family of origin, life circumstances, relationships, events, choices, and so on. You have a story that’s worth telling. It includes plot, rising action, tension, and resolution. You’re the hero of the story, but it also includes a supporting cast, extras, and antagonists. Like Nature, your Narrative has an enormous influence over how you show up in the world. If the research is accurate, and I think it is, the Nature-Narrative makeup is a 50-50 split in terms of their influence on our lives.

These two elements don’t operate in isolation. They play off each other like two musicians. The way you show up in life today reveals this interplay between Nature and Narrative. As you gain awareness of your Nature and Narrative, you may find that you can ascribe certain tendencies and reactions to one or the other. More often you’ll find they share responsibility.

For example, I was working with a team of leaders within a company. One individual in particular struggled with self regulation. He dominated meetings, and didn’t seem to listen to the opinions of others on the team. I was monitoring my own response to him and noticed that most meetings I was hovering around a 7 or 8 on the Reactivity Scale, always along the hyper line of the Activation Triangle, which means I was operating out of my sympathetic nervous system.

While his behavior irritated everyone on the team, I could tell I was out of sync with the situation and started to observe other people around the table. Judging by their body language and response to him they seemed to be closer to a 4 or 5, which seemed about right to me. I was looking at a difference of about 3 to 4 points on the Scale. What could account for the difference?

As I began to filter the experience through my Nature and Narrative, explanations rose to the surface. One thing I know about my Nature is that time wasting can set me off—not all the time, but in a work setting I place a premium on maximizing the value my clients gain within finite amount of time we have together. This leader’s tendency to dominate the meeting chewed up valuable time, diminished the engagement of others, and reduced what we were able to accomplish.

When I ran the experience through my Narrative, I realized that this leader possesses a trait that is particularly difficult for me: a lack of self awareness. This leader seemed to have no awareness or concern about how his behavior effected others on the team. I realize there’s not a person alive will say they love being around people that lack self awareness, but my Narrative includes wounds that I received at the hands of a person in my life that lacked self awareness.

This helped explain why I was out of sync with the situation. This person’s behavior was accessing vulnerabilities I have at both the Nature and Narrative levels. His tendency to waste time and his lack of self awareness accessed existing predispositions that I possesses. It wasn’t the first time a person like this has activated me, and it won’t be the last.

Imagine if I had reacted out of that activate state. I would have been making a choice to focus on him as the problem so that I don’t have to look at the real source of my reaction. Remember, he merely accessed my vulnerabilities. My task is to be honest about what he accessed and process it. If I don’t, my reaction will come out on him, someone else, or myself.

It’s an act of unkindness not to engage in this process. Anytime we avoid reality it’s an act of unkindness. In this particular situation, not only would it have been an act of unkindness, I would have cratered my influence with the team.

I knew I needed to address this situation. As his behavior persisted, I recommended we do a 360 review with this leaders peers. They presented a scathing report that a group of senior leaders presented to him. Rather than defend himself or blame others, he owned the feedback. He truly had no idea what it’s like to be on the other side of himself. This set in motion a series of milestones in his personal and professional growth. His lack of Selfship would have capped his growth potential. Instead, he’s received two significant promotions within the company.

I relay this example to demonstrate the value of knowing your Nature and Narrative. Given the significant role they both play in how I show up every day, I want to know them as well as possible so that I can live intentionally and take responsibility for myself. The only other available option is to go through life blaming others for my choices and reactions. A special kind of nausea sets in when I imagine living my life that way.

My question to you as we move into this next series of Audio Notes is: What’s your level of curiosity about yourself? How willing are you to discover brilliance you’ve never recognized before? Are you willing to see the challenges of being on the other side of you? The only thing that’s worse than ignorance about yourself is indifference about yourself. A lack of curiosity is the kiss of death. It kills Selfship.

I’ve got a challenge for you that will test this question. Take out a sheet of paper and create two columns. In the first column list examples of your natural giftedness. These are the things that you’re not just good at, they give you energy when you do them. I know that’s a tough ask, so think about it this way: What do you hope people seek you out to help with? Do you love handling details or hate them? Do you love dreaming about future possibilities, or addressing practical considerations in the here and now? Whatever it is, write it down.

The other column is for those things that drain you. Some of these may be obvious because you avoid them at all costs. But be on the watch for things you may do exceptionally well every single day that actually drain you. You’ve gotten to your level of leadership by learning to do a lot of things that aren’t rooted in your Natural skillset. That’s makes you a good team player.We just need to learn how to balance them, and the first step toward balance is increasing your awareness about those things you’re uniquely gifted in—your superpowers—and those areas that drain you.

Test the edge of your curiosity. If you feel a bit uncomfortable, remember the One Truth: healthy discomfort precedes growth. So go and get uncomfortable.

Do this exercise and you’ll be primed for the tool I’m going to introduce in the next Audio Note.

Get full access to Andrew F. Robinson at andrewfrobinson.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to Andrew F. Robinson at andrewfrobinson.substack.com/subscribe

You now have two tools you can use for life. The Reactivity Scale helps you monitor your reactions to various situations, particularly those in which your reaction doesn’t sync with the requirements of the moment. The Activation Triangle helps you determine the nature of your reaction: have you escalated toward fight or flight, or have you moved toward a state demobilization.

Often the mere recognition of a reaction will suffice to bring equilibrium. You may have noticed already that when you use these tools to gain a deeper awareness of your reaction that your reaction dissipates under its own power. That’s great! Like I said in the last Audio Note, not all reactions hold a deeper meaning. For those that do, I’m eventually going to introduce you to a framework you can use to sharpen your understanding of what’s actually going on in those moments.

My assumption throughout the Selfship process is that humans operate at a less-than-conscious level. Our reactions emerge from us without premeditation. One minute we’re in Zone 1 and the next we’re at a 10 in Zone 4 when the situation required a 4. We didn’t plan to react. We didn’t put it in our calendar—“Have a massive over reaction at 1:30 today.” It just happened.

This assumption flies in the face of how most of us perceive ourselves most of the time. We go through the day upright and conscious. In that state we believe because we’re conscious and not asleep we go through the day assuming that a state of “eyes wide open” must mean we’re conscious. The reality is that even though we’re conscious, we’re not aware that what drives our perceptions, assumptions, beliefs, and behaviors takes place at a less than conscious level.

We take in about 11,000,000 pieces of information per second through our five senses. The majority of the information comes through the eyes—10,000,000 signals to our brain each second. How much of this information are we able to process at a conscious level? About 40 pieces of information. That’s like eating eating for a year but only converting that one piece of lettuce you ate at Thanksgiving into nutrients your body can use.

But just because we don’t process the information consciously doesn’t mean we flush the other 10,940 pieces of information. As it turns out, this information shapes what some call our “adaptive subconscious.” As we take in information, our adaptive subconscious hones its ability to recognize patterns in our environments. The fact that we’re not consciously aware of these patterns is no indication that we’re not tracking them. We are. All the time. And it’s from these patterns that we derive meaning about what we believe is actually going on in our environment. Take a look at Strangers Unto Ourselves, by Timothy Wilson, and Predictably Irrational, by ????? For future exploration.

Several Audio Notes ago I mentioned a leader that stood up and walked out of a small group when we started to talk about self awareness. As the 11,000,000 pieces of information came flooding in each second, his adaptive subconscious detected a pattern that he translated as a threat to his survival. He could see where the conversation was going and what that it would require him to reflect on himself. For reasons I’ll probably never know, the prospect of deepening his self awareness triggered an early warning radar system that took him into Zone 4. In a fully mobilized state, he fled the room. All of this took place at a less-than-conscious level.

So what can we do about the fact that we’re most mostly unconscious beings? To whatever degree the Reactivity Scale and Activation Triangle, you’re way ahead of the game. As I said in the last Audio Note, our subconscious expresses itself in our reactions. With the use of these tools, you can begin to take advantage of what your subconscious has to teach you about yourself.

As I said, we’re going to get into frameworks you can use to deepen your understanding of yourself in this way. For now we’re focussing on the tools you need to be the most self regulated person in the room. Focus on using the Reactivity Scale and Activation Triangle to monitor your reactions and regulate yourself.

Now that you have these tools in hand, here are a few practices you can employ to improve self regulation when you experience high levels of activation. The reason these practices work is that they reconnect you with your body. Anytime you enter the Zone 4 (Over activation) or Zone 5 (Under activation), you create psychological distance between your conscious self and your body. Psychologists refer to this as dissociation. The following activities reconnect you with your body.

These movements help you ground when you notice your reaction grows out of sync with a situation. Select the practice that matches the severity of your activation. These are going to sound weird at first, but once you try them and see the value you’ll recognize them as anything but odd.

1) Moderate Activation

Use subtle movements to refocus your attention on your body and pay attention to the sensations these movements produce. Curl your toes in your shoes, or rub your hands together. Just notice how the resulting feeling.

2) Medium to Severe Activation

The goal for these movements is to produce a sense of exertion and release in your larger muscle groups. Press your feet into the floor until your quadriceps tire then slowly release the energy. I’ve done this in a board room seated at a table without anyone ever noticing. If you’re in a space by yourself try slowly pushing into a wall until your arms are fully extended, then relax. Both activities will help ground you.

Notice that you’re proceeding with a high degree of control and gentleness. While you may feel like making more aggressive movements in a state of high activation, doing so often serves to further escalate your already-activated state. That’s why it’s paramount that you proceed with caution.

Books like Anchored, which I mentioned in the last Audio Note, contains additional practices you can use to reconnect with your body. Try these and notice how you respond. Pay attention particularly to your breath. A healthy discharge of energy will produce an involuntary deep breath. Then you know that you’ve drawn closer to the grounded state in Zone 1.

Life is the best teacher of all. We want to be open to what it brings out in us, but we need to develop the ability to regulate our reactions so that we can learn from them instead of being swept away by them. That’s the point of these exercises. Put them into practice and see how it goes.

In summary, the takeaways from this note include:

1) We operate throughout the day at a less-than-conscious level

2) Our reactions can teach us if we’re willing and have the tools to learn from them

3) We can use controlled movements to bring ourselves back to Zone 1

Now we’re ready to move into Nature and Nurture.

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Now you’ve had the opportunity to test the Reactivity Scale. I trust you’ve been able to not only identify reactions to particular situations, but that you’ve also been able to recognize when your reaction didn’t sync with the requirements of the situation.

As I said in the last segment, these moments of disparity present invaluable opportunities to learn about ourselves. We may not fully mine these moments immediately, but we can mark them for future reflection. As you explore these reactions you may find they don’t lead anywhere and conclude it was just a reaction. Maybe you were tired or hungry, or both. But you may find other reactions reveal nuanced aspects of your Nature and your Narrative. In this sense our reactions are a little like dreams. Sometimes they’re born of something in our subconscious, and sometimes they’re not deserving of further attention.

Now that you have the Reactivity Scale in one hand and have put it to use, I’m going to introduce you to another tool that will enable you to effectively self regulate. I call it the Regulation Triangle.

Picture an isosceles triangle. Now instead of picturing it pointed upward, rotate the triangle ninety degrees to counterclockwise. What was the tip of the triangle now points to your left as you’re looking at it.

The Regulation Triangle includes a zone at each point of the triangle and three other zones midway between the points for a total of five zones.

Ground Zone—This is Zone 1. This point of the triangle represents your most grounded and ready state. In this state you experience your lowest levels of volatility, which means you’re also the least reactive in this state. In this state your nervous system is at rest, but it’s also ready for action if a situation presents itself.

Mobilized Zone—This is Zone 2. Move along the line that leads up and to the right toward the upper-most point of the triangle. Midway along this line you enter the Mobilized Zone. This represents an increase in your Reactivity Scale. In this state you’re well within reach of your Grounded State, but now you’ve activated your nervous system for action. Depending on your individual preferences, giving a presentation, riding a roller coaster, watching a suspenseful movie, or playing a competitive sport may take you into Zone 2. Depending on the situation, you may go as high as a 10. If this matches the requirements of the situation, that indicates you’re able to remain grounded in Zone 1.

De-Mobilized Zone—This is Zone 3. As you move down and to the right from Zone 1 you will enter a zone in which you demobilize your nervous system. You’ve moved from a ready state to a relaxed state. This means you’re going into your negative numbers on the Reactivity Scale. Again, depending on the person, a massage, immersing yourself in water, meditation, or the experience you have after physically exerting yourself may usher you into Zone 3. As with Zone 2, you can go deep into Zone 3 so long as Zone 1 remains easily accessible.

Danger Zone—This is Zone 4. You enter Zone 4 as you move past Zone 2 toward the highest point of the triangle. In Zone 4 you’ve severed your connection to Zone 1. You’re now fully mobilized and unable to easily access Zone 1. In this sympathetic state you’re ready to fight or flee. Your perceived lack of safety mobilizes the need for either attacking the source of your threat or removing yourself from a situation as fast as possible. Any form of trauma, real or perceived, takes you into Zone 4. In order to ensure your sense of safety. Zone 4 includes a door and lock. Once you enter, it’s difficult regain access to Zone 1.

Dead Zone—This is Zone 5. I call it the Dead Zone, not because you literally die, but because it is a state of complete deactivation that’s located at the terminus of the line that extends down and to the right beyond Zone 3. Under threat, animals will play dead in hopes that their assailant will leave them alone. In Zone 3 humans employ the same defense. This state also includes a door that shuts and locks so that they individual gains some sense of safety. As with Zone 4, individuals that enter Zone 5 struggle to find their way back to roundedness in Zone 1.

The anatomy of the Activation Triangle corresponds to three discreet parts of our nervous system. According to Polyvagal Theory, Ground Zone, or Zone 1, corresponds to our ventral nervous system. Our Danger Zone, or Zone 3, corresponds to our sympathetic nervous system. And Zone 5, or what I call the Dead Zone, corresponds to our dorsal ventral system. Anchored, by Deb Dana, is the most accessible book on this subject that I’ve found. I highly recommend reading to deepen your understanding of Polyvagal Theory.

I’ve drawn enormous value from this model. It helps me identify and to come degree normalize my reactions to situations and various stimuli that I encounter throughout the day. The fact that there are five zones enables me to identify where I’m at in any particular moment of the day. All I have to do is look at my hand and indicate what zone I’m in by how many fingers I hold up. You can even use this with other people that understand this model.

This model gives the leaders I work with a common language we can use together. They can describe situations in which they were in Zone 2 but began to lose their grounding and enter Zone 3. What’s most rewarding for them and for me is to hear how they utilize some of the practices we cover to regain their grounding instead of being swept away into Zones 3 or 5.

I’ll go into some of those practices in the next Audio Note. For now, just notice where you’re at in the Activation Triangle at any given point of the day.

You now have two tools of self regulation. The Reactivity Scale in one hand and the Triangle of Activation in the other. And you see how they work together.

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Orientation

We’ve gone through the 6-3-1 and Leadership Audit. You now have a greater sense of your what it’s going to take to strengthen your Selfship, namely The One Truth: Discomfort. I began with this framework to help you identify your tendencies as they relate to the laws, myths, and One Truth. Think of them as paths that you wear through repeated choices and behavior. This level of self awareness enables you to recognize and even anticipate how you respond to various situations and relationships.

You may notice a pattern. I’m not introducing you to anything you don’t know. The tendencies that you identified in yourself during the 6-3-1 process have been going on for a long time. Maybe even your entire life. My hope is that you’re now more aware of these tendencies, their potential impact on you and others, and what you can do to work with these tendencies so that they don’t work with you.

I’ve designed this entire process as layers that stack upon one another. Use them as lenses through which you can examine yourself and increase your Selfship.

Over the next couple Audio Notes I’m going to introduce you to two tools you can use to monitor and reground yourself. The reason that I’m introducing them to you now so that you can use them when we begin to explore your Nature and Narrative. These portions of the Selfship content will likely challenge your capacity for self regulation. I want you to become familiar with these tools now so that you can utilize them in everyday situations that require that you regulate your self since self regulation is a core tenant of Selfship.

Reactivity

I’m not sure there’s a more important quality to Selfship than self regulation. It’s a virtue that requires we not only know ourselves, but that we’re able to translate this knowledge into appropriate actions. Those that lack self regulation also lack Selfship. Such a person falls victim to their lack of self awareness and inability to direct themselves.

The reactive leader struggles to build trust with others. Instead they build a reputation for being unpredictable, unreliable, and undependable. You can probably think of leaders you’ve known that were highly reactive, and you noticed how people responded to them. Perhaps your struggle with reactivity is what drew you to this process, or maybe you’ve already grown in this area.

Before we go any further, let me challenge your perspective on reactions by saying don’t ever waste a good reaction. Reactions can yield insights about yourself that you simply won’t encounter in any other circumstance. That’s because we react without thinking. Neuroscientists say that our eye is actually part of our brain that’s visible to the outside world. Think of reactions as part of your subconscious that’s visible to the outside world.

The problem is that we tend to not notice our reactions, or we try to eliminate reactions. Reactions aren’t just gateways that can help you better understand yourself, they're part of being human. We like when people seem happy to see us, or when they grieve with us, or when they celebrate with us. We like when people react to us. These kinds of normal reactions connect us as humans and add richness to life. In short, reactions reflect that we have a pulse.

Problems arise when our reactions are out of sync with the situation. We often notice only in retrospect when we overreact to a situation. In so doing we can go back and make amends with anyone that we may have hurt or frightened in the process. The degree of the reaction in these situations isn’t the problem. Certain conditions require extreme reactions. When we say that we overreacted because our reaction didn’t match the situation. It was out of sync. This is where we lose trust and potentially hurt people.

Remember that the goal isn’t to get rid of your reactions. That’s not an option, nor do we want to set it up as a goal that we strive for. The goal is to learn from our reactions, particularly those reactions that don’t sync with the situation. Why? Because these reactions extend an invitation for us to learn about ourselves in a powerful way.

Reactivity Scale

For now I just want you to observe your reactions, particularly your strong reactions. Keep in mind that strong reactions can go one of two directions. We’re most familiar with over reactions, but under reactions are no less impactful on us or the people around us. In some cases, they’re more destructive.

Use the Reactivity Scale to log your reactions this week. Here’s how it works. Zero is a state of inertia in which you’re neither over or under reacting in a situation. Certain experiences throughout the day may elevate that score to a 5 or even as high as a 7 if you’re under a high-pressure deadline. You may also dip below zero. Perhaps you watch a series at night before bed. Nothing is required of you so you’re able to drop to a minus 3 or more.

These examples presume that your response matches the situation. What I want you to look for are those examples in which your response doesn’t sync with the experience. In these cases you have two scores: one for what the situation requires and one for your actual example.

I recently presented my final all-company talk to a technology company I’ve worked with for nearly five years. As people started sifting into the room, I noticed I was feeling agitated and distant toward people as I greeted them. They may not have noticed anything was different, but I did, but I couldn’t figure out why I was having this reaction. It didn’t make sense. Shouldn’t I be feeling a fondness for these leaders I’d worked with instead feeling irritated?

Though I only had a few minutes, I used the Reactivity Scale to quickly gauge my reaction and its source so that I could bring my fullest self to the final presentation. It’s a tool that you can use throughout your journey toward Selfship. It’s played an instrumental role in my personal and professional life. I trust it will play a similar role in your life.

Application:

Here’s how you can apply the Reactivity Scale to your own life:

1) Observe your emotional and physical state

2) Score your reactivity on a scale of minus 10 to plus 10, where minus 10 is a strong under reaction and plus 10 is a strong overreaction

3) Estimate what the score the situation requires

4) Determine whether there’s a disparity between my reaction and what the situation requires

Put this into practice for a week and you’ll notice that you naturally start observing your relative level of reactivity.

Like I said, self regulation is among the most important elements of Selfship, and therefore among the most important components of leadership. That’s where these tools come into play. Imagine the Reactivity Scale as one a tool in your right hand. In the next installment I’ll add a tool to your left hand. Use them together like a fork and knife to regulate yourself in any situation in which you experience activation.

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The One Truth

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind

-Emily Dickinson

The leader got up and left the room. One moment he seemed fine. The next moment he gathered his things and walked out without saying a word. This incident took place a few minutes into my second meeting with a group of rising leaders. We had just begun talking about the relationship between self awareness and effective leadership. Apparently that was too much for him. I learned from others afterwards that the mere mention of self awareness triggered his response to flee the room. He could see where the group was heading and didn’t want any part of it.

Stay in the room. That’s all I ask of you. You’ll feel uncomfortable at times during your journey toward Selfship. When that happens, stay in the room. You’ll be glad if you do, and so will everyone else in your life.

Why stay in the room? Because the very thing that sent that leader heading for the door is the very thing that will make or break your growth as a person and as a leader—discomfort.

That's the One Truth.

I don’t make many guarantees, but this one I’ll stand by for the rest of my life: healthy discomfort leads to healthy growth. Always. Your capacity for growth depends on your willingness to work with your discomfort rather than letting your discomfort work with you. Let your discomfort rule you and you will leave the room and limit your capacity for growth. But if you learn to test your discomfort, you will grow. It’s up to you.

The Growth Paradox

I developed an autoimmune disease several years ago. According to my most recent blood work it’s in remission. One of the things my doctor believes helped me most was taking cold showers. I’d like to say that after taking cold showers for the past few years that I’ve grown used to them, or even like them. The truth is that I hate them. I negotiate with myself every day in an effort to avoid them. And every single time the cold water hits my skin I want to leap from the shower or turn up the water temperature. But I choose to step into the discomfort because I know it’s good for me.

I raise this example because discomfort in all of its forms triggers a reflex that makes us want to distance ourselves from it. This takes place in a fraction of a second at a neurological level. The instant we experience discomfort our autonomic nervous system employs fight, flight, or freeze as a form of protection.

In many cases our nervous system gets it right, like when we automatically swerve from the car entering our lane in order to avoid an accident. But in some cases, our nervous system misleads us. Even though I know the benefits of cold showers my nervous system labels them “bad” every single morning.

This is what I call The Growth Paradox: something that feels bad is actually good for us. Think about the soreness you experience the day after you exercise. Soreness takes place when you test your strength in a such a way that you create micro tears in the muscle fibers. The discomfort you experience in the form of soreness evidences the fact that you’re getting stronger.

Your journey toward Selfship will include discomfort. As with exercise, I’ll encourage you along the way to view your discomfort as a good thing. Please stay in the room.

Bottom of the U

I recently saw an interesting x-y-graph that illustrates the relationship between exercise and life expectancy. The horizontal x-axis represents activity level and while the y-axis represents morbidity. As you would expect, morbidity gradually decreases with increased activity. We all intuitively know that exercise plays an integral role in overall health. In fact, recent research indicates that a sedentary person that begins exercising three hours a week cuts their morbidity in half.

What surprised researchers was that at some point along the graph of activity morbidity starts to climb among people that exercise too much, and it skyrockets among endurance athletes. The resulting graph looks like a “U”. Those that exercise the least and the most share common life expectancies. It’s the Goldilocks Principle—too little and too much are both bad for you. Somewhere in the middle is “just right.”

You grow when you operate at the “Bottom of the U.” I want you to test your discomfort as we move forward. As the study illustrates, a sedentary lifestyle will erode your health. But I also don’t want you to overdo it. Soreness is a good thing, but pushing yourself too hard will impede your progress toward Selfship. I want you to test your discomfort and then I want you to rest. It’s what I call Test and Rest.

Test and Rest

You have three zones: comfort, discomfort, and recharge. You feel competent, confident, and anchored in your comfort zone. You will naturally default to this zone throughout the day. In contrast, you tested, limited, and maybe even disoriented in your discomfort zone. Your recharge zone offers you a place where you find rejuvenation. This is where you replenish your energy.

The process that awaits you will move you toward your discomfort zone. I want you to pause before your discomfort engulfs you and you feel the need to fight, flee, or freeze. Don’t run away from it and don’t plunge into it. I just want you to stay at the edge. Pay attention to your desire to fight, flee, or freeze but resist the temptation to give into it. When you feel like you’ve reached your limit, it’s time to rest.

There’s considerable evidence that running a series of sprints may be one of the healthiest things we can do, especially as we grow older. The explosive nature of a sprint helps strengthen muscle fibers that will otherwise atrophy—muscles we will need to retain balance and avoid injuries. Guess what you’re supposed to do between sets of sprints? You guessed it: rest. Lay on the grass, close your eyes, and pretend you’re getting ready to take a nap. For about two minutes. That seems to be the magic window. Then it’s time to do another sprint. In the same way, I don’t want you to over do it in your efforts to develop Selfship. Test yourself and then rest yourself.

Two Groups

When it comes to discomfort among the leaders I work with, I see two discrete groups. There are those that avoid discomfort at every turn, and there are those that can’t seem to get enough of it. Discomfort for them seems to serve as a form of discomfort. If you’re in the former group, I’m going to challenge you along the way to gradually increase your tolerance for discomfort. You need to test yourself in order to develop a healthy soreness. I’ll ask those in the latter group to resist their inclination to plunge into discomfort so that you avoid injury.

Untold growth awaits for those of you that develop the ability to Test and Rest. As you test and rest your way to Selfship, you’ll see evidence of incremental growth. It won’t show up overnight and it won’t show up on the scale in your bathroom. It will show up as an increased sense of wellbeing, presence, and effectiveness. In short, you’ll develop a greater sense of Selfship. But this growth requires that you engage in healthy discomfort along the way.

Let’s return to that group of rising leaders. The leader that left the group never came back. I helped the company work with him to get assistance for the deep wounds that our session appeared to have exposed in his life. The leaders that remained in the group experienced enormous growth in their personal and professional lives. Their growth was unmistakable to their families and their senior leaders, which is why every single one of them received promotion throughout the course of the year that we worked together. All because they stayed in the room. All because they learned to expand their capacity for healthy discomfort.

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Myth #3: Elevation

All three myths affect our relationship to reality. Each creates a reality distortion field that warps our perceptions. Influence distorts reality like a drug. Calculation persuades us that we can control reality. The third myth promises to insulate us from reality. I refer to it as elevation.

Elevation operates in two phases. First it increases your dissatisfaction with your current station in life. No matter how good life is, no matter how much you have to be grateful for, elevation draws your attention to your deficits. Now that it has you focussed on your dissatisfaction, the myth of elevation presents a bespoke solution along with a guarantee that will satisfy assuage your dissatisfaction. Elevation wants you to believe that possessing more power, fostering the right perceptions, or acquiring certain possessions will render you less vulnerable to life’s eventualities.

You know elevation’s voice because it begins with “If only…”:

“If only you had more money…”

“If only you had a better house…”

“If only you had a better job…”

“If only you were more attractive…”

“If only you were more like that person…”

Like the other two myths, elevation contains a kernel of truth. A healthy sense of elevation challenges you to test the edges of your comfort zone. Maybe you know you need to improve your diet, increase your income, or take some risks that might improve your station in life. Elevation creates a healthy agitation encourages you to move in a better direction. Elevation mutates into a myth when it promises to insulate you from painful realities.

A friend invited me to attend a Formula 1 race with a group of CEOs from a variety of companies. As we entered our VIP tent that sat adjacent to the finish line, one of the executives in the group introduced our group to the staff as, “A group of powerful executives.” My friend and l exchanged a look a look of bewilderment.

The executive wanted everyone to know that he and his buddies were not like everyone else, especially the wait staff. Throughout the afternoon I noticed this executive and a few of his friends studying people in the other VIP tents as if to measure their respective elevation. Elevation had them in its grip.

You may hear that story and write the executive off as a blowhard and a buffoon. I don’t blame you. I’m inclined to write him off as well. But if I’m honest I have to confess that I’ve heard myself say similar things. The fact that I don’t announce these thoughts like he did only proves that I have a more highly tuned filter.  When I’m swept away by the myth of elevation, I want exactly what that executive wanted when he made his cringeworthy proclamation—for people to see me as elevated, set apart, and better than them.

Do you know anyone that appears deaf to elevation’s seductive voice? I do. I don’t have to be around them very long before I pick up on their contentedness. The Greeks referred to this virtue as hesuchia, pronounced hay-soo-khee’-ah, which means "quiet, stillness". It’s an inner tranquillity that results from a person that’s content with their station in life, as opposed to scraping and striving for more. It doesn’t mean that such a person doesn’t hear elevation’s seductive voice. They may. They’ve just developed the ability to block it out.

How about you? Look for examples this week when you find yourself craving more power, wanting to shape how others perceive you, or acquiring more possessions. That’s elevation at work. Remember that you only hear its voice because you’ve entered the marketplace of myths. It’s time to leave.

There’s no need to get down on yourself. Just note that it happens and when it happens. The best antidote to elevation is to draw your attention away from what you lack to what you possess. Elevation hates that.

Now we’re ready to look at the One Truth that enable us to defy the 6 Gravitational Laws and dispel the 3 Myths. Embrace this truth and your life will never be the same. But first a warning: you may not like the answer.

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Myth #2: Calculation

We calculate all the time, and fail to do so to our own peril. Jesus said, “For which of you, wanting to build a tower, doesn't first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?” And Aristotle describes a praiseworthy person as someone that “abides by his calculation.”

As with inspiration, calculation brings value to virtually every area of your personal and professional lives. A lack of calculation increases your vulnerability to life’s eventualities. To whatever degree you haven’t thought ahead, planned, identified contingencies, and counted the cost, you open yourself to all kinds of unforeseen circumstances.

How then does it earns its spot as a myth?

As with all myths, calculation’s power to seduce begins with a promise. It usually sounds something like this:

“I can deliver you from the cares and concerns of the world. I’ll help you navigate the chaos and confusion that surrounds. Believe in me and I will protect you. You’ll be safe.”

The person that’s seduced by the myth of calculation believes their system, formula, or a recipe will mitigate uncertainty. Therein lay calculation's persuasive power. It promises deliverance from that which we can’t predict.

You can understand calculation’s appeal. A sense of predictability in an unpredictable world? What’s not to like?

I worked with a leader whom I’ll call Cathy that planned out every moment of every day. “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail,” was among the quotes she routinely. But her employees and family found it difficult to relate with her as a result of her obsessive industriousness. In retrospect she would say that she viewed others as a threat to her perfectly designed plans.

Then life made its entrance.

Cathy discovered that her teenage son had developed an addiction to drugs. As she came to the realization that no amount of calculation could fix the problem with her son, Cathy went into an emotional spiral that rendered her unable to work for days at a time.

Cathy and her husband found help for their son and he’s in recovery from his addictions. The family has healed a lot as well, and even came to recognize value in the tragedy. Cathy has even come to see appreciate those parts of her life that she can’t predict through plans and calculation.

You don’t have to live very long to recognize that you have very little control over what happens to you and the ones you love. Certainly you have a hub of control in which you’re able to shape certain situations and outcomes. Within the hub you see evidence that your choices matter and have an effect.

The person that falls under the spell of the myth of calculation comes to believe that they can expand this hub of control. In this delusion such a person comes to think that they can and even should try to control circumstances and people in their lives. But calculation isn’t the problem. It’s when I put my faith in calculation’s ability to fashion a predictable future that I’ve carried away by its deceptions.

Some people are predisposed by nature to need a high level of control. Others have had experiences in their narrative in which they felt out of control. Both contribute to an individual’s inclination for calculation as a means of feeling in control.

A significant part of taking responsibility for myself as a mature adult means making educated calculations about my relationships, finances, health, and other important areas of life. We just have to know how to recognize calculation’s That’s when we know we’re at risk of being seduced by its lies.

What is your level of vulnerability to the myth of calculation? Some of you don’t resonate as much with this myth, while others know exactly what it’s like to fall under its spell. You know what it’s like to crossover from healthy calculation to a need for calculation that’s fed by an appetite for control.

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