The Difficulty: Creativity, Meaning & the Hard Work of a Life

“People change all the time,” write Peter Bregman and Howie Jacobson in their new book, You CAN Change Other People. “They make big changes like starting businesses, getting married, moving, or getting a new job. And they make smaller changes like eating healthier, waking up earlier, or listening better. But people change when they choose to change. If they feel like you’re trying to make them change? Forget it.”

How do we help others make changes they actually want and need to make? Well, drawing on decades of experience helping leaders, employees, and others to change, Bregman and Jacobson offers a straightforward, proven, and repeatable four-step process for helping people make meaningful changes, and we get a taste of that in our conversation today. 

We are always on the lookout for those books that offer us depth, give us specific takeaways and challenges, and also inspire us. Oh, and do all this without shaming us to do better or else we suck. And today’s guests have executed on a book full of ideas that does just that.

Be sure and stay tuned to the end for our Big Self Takeaway!

Time Stamps:

2:10--So how did you all come to think of this and research this for the book?

7:00--Ally is the first step to shift from critic to ally

9:05--The first step in the process actually does begin with yourself when you step in as a supporter

15:30--What to do if you've asked for permission give feedback and they (on rare occasions) say, "No."

21:48--How do you handle working with shame with individuals

27:58--The people I most want to be in conversation with

33:27--Is there anything good in a person's "bad" behavior?

41:15--Develop a plan for people to track themselves

49:25--The Big Self Takeaway

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It’s that time of year! Time for reflection. Time for slowing down and chilling out after all the social functions. And time to recharge those batteries. We are taking inventory to pat ourselves on the back for our accomplishments, to get real about the small and possibly big ways we can improve our coming year.

We break it down into five pragmatic and powerful ways to move forward in self-awareness, in confidence, in optimism, and to make those annual goals using the SMARTER method, and breaking them down into small, manageable steps.

Time Stamps:

2:47--This is more like a life audit and not like some kind of PIP

3:49--The guiding question

10:27--As much as what you stop doing as by what you do do

15:00--As yourself what you're avoiding and why

19:32--Looking at those moments where you came alive

21:06--Annual goals should be SMARTER

26:49--Start thinking in micro steps toward the big goals

32:05--Our final word for the year

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Sebastian Matthews experienced a life-changing event that was almost life-ending. Besides the broken bones, part of his growth process for him and his family was dealing with the trauma. 

He tells us that sometimes PTSD doesn’t even set in until a couple of years after the event. He also tells us that we don’t all have to go through such an intense trauma to experience things like burnout, anxiety, and disconnection from yourself and others. 

He believes in the creative life, in soft boundaries between work and play, but definitely adheres to some clear and consistent routines. 

He also believes in connection. He began that process first by writing about the experience with his book, Beginner’s Guide to a Head-On Collision. More recently, his award-winning Beyond Repair: Living in a Fractured State documents his experience in reconnecting with the culture, community, and country he found himself immersed in. 

He reminds us that we need to start with ourselves, but after the healing begins, there comes a time to quit the navel-gazing and get out there and re-connect with the world.

While getting out of the house and meeting up with old friends in different places is one way, the deeper connection is to connect with your community. Sebastian reminds us of ways to do so in reasonable, realistic ways. One lesson he’s learned through the past decade of struggle is that “the only way out is through.” But the second, no less important one, is that when you give back to others, you reap unexpected rewards. This is the way to growth, healing, and beating the sense of disconnection so many of us find ourselves in here at the end of 2021.

Time Stamps:

2:43--Shelley says she sees burnout as a continuum

3:36--Sebastian describes his struggle with stress and how it may relate to burnout

7:09--Sebastian sees a definitive turning point in his life from his car accident

10:35--What was the impetus behind Sebastian's decision to move forward?

14:34--You don't have to go through a massive traumatic event to learn to cope and move forward

24:58--How can you serve and give back without necessarily being a frontline activist?

27:29--Multitasking gets a bad rap

31:32--Sebastian reads a section from his book called "Invisible"

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The idea behind the name Big Self is a paradox. We encourage people to do the inner work before they take big leaps, so they know their ladder is leaning on the right wall in the first place, and that they're motivated for the right reasons. Or if they come to us in burnout or crisis, we still begin with inner work, which usually begins with self-awareness training, and personality "hacking." 

When it comes to the self we want to diffuse the ego so that when we lean into our ambitions and aspirations we do so with authenticity, healthy boundaries, integration, and sustainable purpose.

We work with businesses to help them improve their communication and culture. That is why we do have an audience that talks about personality types in order to shortcut the inner growth. We've indexed hard on that this past year. 

More recently we're hitting on topics like burnout, healthy work culture, shorter workweeks, boundaries, and topics related to the outward manifestation of real change. 

What we’re talking about today:

• How the idea for the name came about. The Buddhist idea of the Big Self. 
• How it came to mean aim high but also manage your ego and how you engage with the world.
• How we focused on burnout at first.
• How we have come into the Enneagram as a tool for personal growth and development
• How we are for leaders in the professional world, but we also are getting ready to make offerings for parents and couples

Time Stamps:

2:49--Shelley quotes Thomas Merton's "ladder leaning on the wrong wall" verbatim without reading

4:50--Who we are is how we lead

7:45--We have discussed burnout from the beginning and have several experts in forthcoming episodes

9:34--The idea of Big Self as a name

13:27--The different ways you can use the Enneagram

17:05--Parts of ourselves that we own and disown

23:05--Three stages of reactivity

27:27--The brilliance of the Enneagram

30:00--You can use it for spiritual purposes, but if you're uncomfortable with that, you don't have to use it that way

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On this week’s episode we speak with Joe Sanok. In 2012 Joe launched Practice of the Practice to blog about what he was learning about business, marketing, and private practice. Since then, his income has gone up over 2,000%. In the beginning, he was making around $1000 per month. In 2015, he grossed over $200k. By 2019, he had sold his private practice. 

Joe is a keynote and TEDx speaker, business consultant, and podcaster. He has the #1 podcast for counselors, The Practice of the Practice Podcast, which btw is a great podcast for entrepreneurs and solopreneurs as well. 

Joe is also the author of five books and has been named a top Therapist Resource for his podcast, blogging, and consultant services.

His approach incorporates story, humor, research, and practical application.

The pandemic has forced conversations about meaningful change at work, and shown us that we can live differently. A remarkable positive consequence of this worldwide lockdown is the experiment it inherently created by everyone abruptly and continuously working from home and making our own schedules. 

The last year has proven to even the skeptics, that work can be done differently. Will the change be permanent? Or will we, as usual, return to what we know? We’ve been asking this question on several recent episodes. Will we allow the Industrialist mindset to continue to define our week or will we reinvent ourselves and our time? 

Joe has just released a new book on this very subject, THURSDAY IS THE NEW FRIDAY is essential reading for anyone in search of both peace and fulfillment. In 2021, that’s very nearly all of us. This book is inspiring and instructive and we are thrilled to have Joe join us for today’s episode.

Learn more about Joe here:

https://joesanok.com/media/

https://www.practiceofthepractice.com

Time Stamps:

3:42--The big shift that we're moving away from self-help type of books

7:04--In looking back Joe always got the most done during 4 days and the most important stuff always naturally rises to the surface

9:15--The difference between hard and soft boundaries

11:39--Boundaries are the actions we take to protect our values

15:32--What the Sprint Type is and how it's a helpful measurement for determining how we might work best with our values and boundaries

24:40--Setting expectations and boundaries at home is essential

27:40--The Industrialist mindset and how things have remained the same since 1926

33:36--We're an Enneagram 3 culture

41:00--How teams can work together to establish boundaries together while also maintaining their revenue and productivity

44:50--There are always going to be people who are against this thinking, but let's aim for the middle

48:59--The Big Self Takeaway

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Personality Hacker is an organization designed to help people leverage their own mental processes to optimize whatever can be optimized: productivity, communication, job satisfaction, and most importantly – your overall happiness. When we get these needs met we stop being so myopic through the lens of our own experience, and start seeing a bigger picture.

Today’s episode gives you some high-level overview of the Myers-Briggs as a system from Antonia Dodge and Joel Mark Witt. We also nerd out a little. In the end, we think you’ll learn something about how this all works and the powerful potential value it holds when you use it as a tool for growth. The entry point isn’t the important thing, it’s how you apply it to become the best version of you.

Listen to the end when we give you the Big Self Takeaway.

Time Stamps:

5:30--The way we approach Myers-Briggs is not your mom's Myers-Briggs

6:57--The point of origin of Myers-Briggs is actually Carl Jung (from Psychological Types)

8:40--It has something that can applied

12:24--There's a lot of one-sidedness to our personalities

15:48--This system works well to identify a problem in our personalities, especially when things aren't working well

19:40--We have a tendency to over-attach to our type, especially at first

20:20--Most people aren't coming to the system with so much depth, they want practical applications

31:40--The people sitting in the car when it comes to the functions of your personality

36:00--Personality systems create a map for us to leverage

36:34--Is the goal integration?

40:41--Trust and working with businesses

43:10--The challenge in talking about the difference between Sensing and Intuition

55:05--The Big Self Takeaway

Find Joel Mark Witt and Antonia Dodge at:

https://personalityhacker.com

https://personalityhacker.com/ph-podcast/

And check out their book here: Personality Hacker: Harness the Power of Your Personality Type to Transform Your Work, Relationships, and Life

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Today we speak with a boots-on-the-ground guy. Remmington Curtis is a fan of the podcast and reached out to see if he could join us on the show. We love to hear from our listeners, and we love hearing from not only thought leaders, influencers, and authors, but also the coaches doing the work themselves.

A person some might say had the dream job. He spent the first 10 years of his career on Wall Street, researching companies as an equity analyst initially, and later a client relationship manager and ultimately a wealth advisor. But the summer of 2012, he pivoted. He left Wall Street to go and run a small healthcare company, as their CIO for about six years before pivoting, again, to advocate on behalf of the private sector, as the business liaison director at the US Department of Commerce. You could say it’s been quite a journey, as now, some 9 years since he left his Wall Street job, he’s settled into a role helping leaders be better, more effective versions of themselves, and helping them be the leader they wish they had had when they were coming up in their career.

Also, introducing our new segment, The Big Self Takeaway, at the end of each guest episode.

Time Stamps:

1:56--Remmington had the dream job

3:50--How he was unhappy and unsettled in his Wall Street job

5:34--What it was like shifting to an operations role

8:00--Specific techniques he uses with clients and their current challenges

11:28--Managing your energy

15:09--Leaders who believe expressing your emotions is a sign of weakness

21:43--Permissibility versus possibility

32:02--The Big Self Takeaway

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This week we speak with Barbara Dalle Pezze. Barbara is a speaker, author and seminar leader with two decades of experience living and working in Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Canada, and the U.S. Barbara works to inspire others, especially entrepreneurs and leaders, to reconnect with their purpose. She does through helping them make mindset shifts and breakthroughs, which in turn helps their teams and organizations effectively create large scale changes. Barbara is a member of the Leadership Development Faculty for the Aisa Pacific Region at a top global financial institution, and visiting professor at FSU, Beedie School of Business (Vancouver, Canada), where she teaches Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at the MBA program. She has also recently published an inspirational memoir, The Unexpected Gift. 

Today she speaks with us about her journey through a sudden and traumatic divorce. It's about how she picked up the pieces and turned her life around in a foreign country, piece by piece.

Time Stamps:

3:39--Always something exceeding our reality

7:40--The seven steps begins with owning your story

10:30--Radical friends

13:13--Clarity of mind

15:00--Barbara is a doctor of Philosophy in Ontology

16:40--The idea of "reality testing"

17:37--Listening to the body

21:40--Partnering with mentors

25:20--The idea of finding mentors in books

27:00--Forwarding the future

35:40--Leadership begins with being a leader to yourself

39:00--How do you work with leaders who are hesitant to admit to their blind spots

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What is the Great Resignation? What's causing it? What are companies doing about it? And what's our final takeaway?

The Great Resignation is a term first used by Anthony Klotz, a psychologist and associate professor of management at Texas A&M University, during an interview with Business Insider. It describes a profound shift in the way Americans are viewing their relationship to work over the past four months. 

For four months in a row, a record number of Americans are quitting their jobs. In July, the last month for which the Bureau of Labor Statistics published data, 3.98 million workers quit; that's slightly lower than the record-smashing 3.99 million quits in April.

So what about it from an individual and collective level?

Time Stamps:

2:23--The Great Resignation is a thing

5:29--Burnout a contributing factor

6:45--Still "missing quits" in the system

9:08--A high-level tech employee who is disgruntled

13:28--Are we seeing companies do anything to address the situation?

18:12--People are the most complex and least understood asset

23:49--People are adults

25:29--Will we just go back?

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Today we speak with Justin Sainton, Elle Worsham, and Erin Maslowski.

Enneagram 7s don't like constraints. They tend to want it all, and they have a lot of the tools for getting it. They're head types with the ability to solve a lot of problems through their own structures and spreadsheets. At the same time, they're upbeat and positive. They have loads of interests and plenty of energy.

What could go wrong?

Sometimes that can be a little complicated. One of the answers our panelists discuss is that trying to blind yourself to pain doesn't always work because life doesn't accommodate your avoidance. It still keeps coming. Also, sometimes being a Seven can be like a "river without banks." You need constraints and boundaries to stay contained and focused.

As we conclude our first series of Enneagram panelists spanning the spectrum, Sevens discuss the joys and sorrows of being a Seven. Each of them is doing a lot of growth with their wings and arrows, passions and virtues. Each has their own way of engaging with the world. Today they give us a glimpse of that inner reality, and in vulnerability and discernment, show us a way forward.

Time Stamps:

1:38--Justin introduces himself

3:23--Elle introduces herself

6:30--Erin introduces herself

9:38--Elle discusses the differences between how she communicates as a head type and her heart type partner

12:24--Justin discusses how surprised he sometimes is by his analytical side because he is also constantly wanting to have fun, especially in the eyes of others

14:28--Erin agrees with the other panelists but as a counter type (social 7), she also discusses the fear side of being in the thinking side of her own center of intelligence

34:14--Elle talks about getting real through the virtue of Sobriety

35:58--Justin says that as a 7 he can be like a river without banks

37:06--The ego of the 7 is so blinded from pain

40:00--How the panelists lean into their six and eight wings consciously and unconsciously

45:47--How the arrow work helps in growth

53:54--Coming back to mindful practices

The Big Self Leadership Accelerator is open! We launch October 4, and we've saved a space for you. For details go to: bigselfschool.com/bsla

Ready to unlock your potential? Check out our Enneagram Guide at bigselfschool.com/enneagram.

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