UNTRAINED

This is the final episode of Season 1 of Untrained. Iris and Whitney dive into a topic we each care greatly about; embodiment. We share how we practice embodiment in our own lives and what patterns of ours keep pulling us of course. We explore the idea of listening to the body as an indicator light that can give us valuable information about how we are doing and what is going on for us.

Here are some quotes from our final season 1 episode:

👉 “If I don’t listen to the signals my body is sending me, the signals get louder and turn into something else (usually something worse).
👉 “It is easier to be uncomfortable in the ways that I am used to being uncomfortable.”
👉 “There is not a lot of external safety for slowing down. We have to create safety for it within our own bodies.”
👉 “UNTRAINING TAKES A LONG TIME”
👉 “For some people oriented to should’s, getting curious about our wants IS an embodiment practice.”

A great resource to better understanding the integration of brain and body: Your Body is Your Brain by Dr. Amanda Blake https://www.amazon.com/Your-Body-Brain-Intelligence-Relationships/dp/0999368117

We were thrilled to speak with Dina Bell La Roche, who among many other things is a grief and loss literacy expert. Dina has held several senior leadership positions through her three decades in Canada’s high performance sport sector including the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport, the Canadian Olympic Committee and since 2010, as a Partner with Sport Law, a company devoted to elevating sport.

Dina’s life changed dramatically in 2001 after the death of her youngest sister Tracy. Since then, her journey through grief has inspired her to advocate for greater grief and loss literacy. As a death educator, integral mastery level coachTM, keynote speaker, and published author, Dina’s commitment to help the bereaved re-imagine a new relationship with loss is unwavering.

Join us as we explore many facets of Dina’s expertise as to how cultures of sport have historically discouraged grief literacy, and how we can change that, and the powerful implications of being able to create more compassionate containers for grief and loss.

Here are some facts shared in this episode:

👉Grief comes in many forms: the loss of a dream or goal, identity, relationship, job, pet, human, etc.
👉Loss is an unavoidable part of sport.
👉Billions of children and young adults play sports each day, where they have the opportunity to learn valuable life lessons.
👉The majority of coaches, athletes, and leaders have no training, permission or models, for holding space for grief.

🔗www.griefunleashed.ca
🔗Instagram: GriefUnleashed;
🔗LinkedIN: linkedin.com/in/dblaroche
🔗Twitter @griefunleashed

In this episode we interview Henna Pryor, PCC, a colleague of Iris’s through Limitless Minds and of Whitney’s through Chief. Henna is a highly sought after Workplace Performance Expert, an award-winning 2x TEDx, global keynote speaker and coach.

She shares the research behind the value of our awkward and unsure moments. It is such good news that the moments we often try to avoid are actually of great value! How do we as people, leaders, and teams embrace and actually “condition” our awkwardness to get closer to confidence and move the dial on our goals and dreams? Henna tells us how.

Hennapryor.com

The Good Awkward book is available for pre-order and out on September 26th.

For more information go to www.goodawkward.com
https://hbr.org/2023/05/an-antidote-to-microaggressions-microvalidations

Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen
https://michelleicard.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/ICARD_FourteenTalksbyAgeFourteen_HC_BookClubKit_a_r1.pdf

This story is so compelling we cleared the decks on our scheduled podcast to record it. In this episode we interview Kelly Owens on her last day of a 5-month intentional break she took from corporate leadership and hustle. In our last episode with Caryn Davies, we talked about how uncomfortable it can be to feel untethered from a clear goal or a busy life. This conversation can serve as a beautiful blueprint for how to untether yourself and be OK in the liminal space of in between.

In this conversation we discuss:

❔What it looks like to prioritize and normalize rest vs only use it when the tank is empty or we have a crisis.
✔️ You can get off the treadmill and it can be more than ok.
✔️ The role of a Panic spreadsheet
❔ How to get away from the hook of the accomplishment thing after baking 1,000 Christmas cookies?
❔Face the question, what is my value as a human if I am not working?
❔What does it mean to work “joyfully hard?”
❔How to prepare for a new phase of life and take the time to stop and put down the old one.

🔗 Links: Tim Butler - The Four Elements, FInding Right Livelihood in the 21st Century

🔗 https://www.amazon.com/Four-Elements-Finding-Livelihood-Century/dp/057893258X 4,000 weeks, The Burnout Fix, the upside of stress, mindset

Kelly Owens bio:

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellycarsonowens/ Kelly is an experienced leader in the technology and digital marketing space. Most recently, she was the Senior Director of Client Partnerships for Oracle Advertising, where she led a 50+ person sales and account management team focused on increasing adoption of Oracle’s audience, context and measurement solutions with the largest global brands. In this role, Kelly also built and led a Women’s Leadership Development program that impacted more than 500 Oracle employees.

Kelly is passionate about building inclusive, empowered teams, in coaching and mentorship practices, and in taking a “whole person” approach to leadership and the world of work. She has served as a speaker at numerous live and digital conferences and webinars and has published blogs and articles on topics ranging from first party data strategy to effective leadership and self-management practices during the pandemic.

Prior to her role at Oracle, Kelly held marketing leadership positions in the Automotive and Real Estate industries. She earned her MBA from Harvard Business School and is a proud undergraduate alumna (and basketball fan!) of the University of Kansas. Kelly lives in Denver, Colorado.

Kelly’s areas of expertise include:

• Empathetic Leadership
• Data-Driven Storytelling
• Effective Communication and Presentation Skills
• Digital Marketing
• Leading High-Performing Teams

Discussion points of Part 2 with Caryn Davies:
How do you untrain from the “this achievement will bring me peace and happiness” mindset. How to manage anxiety, not enoughness, desire for belonging, when you feel untethered? For many of us the thought, “right now is enough,” is disarming and can leave us feeling lost at times. It feels like grief to let go of the old mindsets that kept you company for years or even decades. It can feel unsafe to make room for something other than productivity and achievement. How can we prepare for times when we will likely feel untethered? How do you deal with your bad days without it affecting your self-confidence. Diversify your identity by tethering yourself to things other than your one big audacious goal. You may think this detracts from what you bring to the goal, but it actually strengthens it. How belonging was Caryn’s greatest success in her last Olympic bid. Both episodes show Whitney’s uniquely bad hair day!

Caryn's short bio:
*Caryn Davies has an undergraduate degree from Harvard, a law degree from Columbia, and a business degree from Oxford. She is a lawyer, leader within the rowing community, and an experienced public speaker with special focus on teamwork, goal setting, leadership, motivation, and managing change. When Caryn Davies retired from elite competition in 2012, after having won her second Olympic gold medal, this 3-time Olympian had won more Olympic medals than any other American oarswoman. Caryn came out of retirement and trained for the 2020 Olympics, an experience that has deeply informed her definition of success. Hear her powerful stories and how she defines and measures success for herself.

Relevant Links:
Link to Victory’s Visit Poem that we reference: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CqW2jZVtLnC/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= Link to Caryn Davies' Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caryn_Davies Not mentioned in the episode, but connected: Hidden Brain Episode on Cultivating your Purpose https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/happiness-2-0-cultivating-your-purpose/id1028908750?i=1000600685109

Follow Caryn on LinkedIn or use LinkedIn to contact her for speaking engagements. https://www.linkedin.com/in/carynpdavies/ Great article and interview with Caryn about effective teams https://www.forbes.com/sites/roncarucci/2017/11/27/how-to-build-amazing-teams-insights-from-a-3x-olympic-medalist/

Caryn is a former colleague of ours, friend (of Whitney’s for the past 25 years) and the most successful athlete we know. At one point ranked the 4th most successful female rower in the world, Caryn knows a thing or two about success. But what she has to say might surprise you. Our conversation was so rich that it lasted an hour. We divided it into two parts. Here is a glimpse of what we discussed in Part 1: Reframing silver medals from failure to success. What is the internal work to find and feel successful? Setting yourself free from resentment and goals that are shoulds vs wants. That the pursuit of the goal is very often what is the most valuable, all the hope and familiarity of the effort. And often the achievement of the goal doesn’t change our happiness over the long term. Why movement towards a goal feels safer and more comfortable than rest. What someone who has achieved immense success has learned about what success does and doesn’t give you. How long does the feeling of relief lasts after winning an Olympic Gold medal? Caryn's short bio: *Caryn Davies has an undergraduate degree from Harvard, a law degree from Columbia, and a business degree from Oxford. She is a lawyer, leader within the rowing community, and an experienced public speaker with special focus on teamwork, goal setting, leadership, motivation, and managing change. When Caryn Davies retired from elite competition in 2012, after having won her second Olympic gold medal, this 3-time Olympian had won more Olympic medals than any other American oarswoman. Caryn came out of retirement and trained for the 2020 Olympics, an experience that has deeply informed her definition of success. Hear her powerful stories and how she defines and measures success for herself. Relevant Links: Link to Victory’s Visit Poem that we reference: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CqW2jZVtLnC/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= Link to Caryn Davies' Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caryn_Davies Follow Caryn on LinkedIn or use LinkedIn to contact her for speaking engagements. https://www.linkedin.com/in/carynpdavies/ Great article and interview with Caryn about effective teams https://www.forbes.com/sites/roncarucci/2017/11/27/how-to-build-amazing-teams-insights-from-a-3x-olympic-medalist/

Video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/6wXIhIJlUf4