Welcome to the inspirer people impact lives podcast. This podcast is for people who are looking to get more out of life by making an impact on those around them. Each week we bring you local influential business and community leaders delivering powerful messages to help you live a more inspiring and impactful life. Coming to you live from Northwestern Mutual Middleton here's your host Josh Kosnick.
Welcome to another episode of inspire people impact lives. Our topic today focuses on the importance of intentional behavior and being thoughtfully fit. The only things we can control in life are our thoughts feelings and behaviors. If we can manage those we can achieve our goals and gain success in life. To have this level of control we need to learn about the science based patterns behind our emotions and thoughts and then how to manage them.
If we know how our minds work we can be intentional about influencing our thinking and feeling patterns. We can evaluate reality more clearly make better decisions in the moment and improve our ability to achieve our goals. So think about the characteristics people often attribute to great leaders.
Being a visionary intelligent empathetic passionate but it is intentionality that I believe is key the intentional leader acts rather than reacts the intentiona leader knows how he or she produces value.
The intentional leader uses purposeful decisions language and actions to advance the organization in his or her individual shapes. So today I have Darcy Luoma CEO of Darcy Luoma coaching and consulting and creator of thoughtfully fit Darcy. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Josh great to be here. Glad to have you. So let's hop right in. Tell us about your leadership style early on in your career. And then we'll go on to how you see it now.
Well I can tell you that the style I had early on, I was the Director Senator Herb Kohl's office. I was very proud of. And now I look back and I cringe. So if that gives you any indication I'm working hard to walk the talk and what I mean by that is I was I had an open door policy. I prided myself that I was available 24/7 that I was very connected to my employees and that I solved problems. I was there for them.
I gave advice I fixed things and what I realized in my journey of leadership development and really creating my own awareness around how I wanted to be an intentional leader. What I realized is one that was not a good style for the employees in terms of giving empowering them and lifting them up and getting the best results. And two it was exhausting for me because I constantly had people knocking going hey you got a minute I got this e-mail and I'm not sure what to do.
And I would take that on and give advice or or or take it on literally and now the monkey's on my back and all day long. And putting out fires and giving advice and fixing problems having this open door policy 5:00 would come and I'd finally begin getting to my work.
And I was exhausted and I realized that was not sustainable and it wasn't fun and it wasn't effective.
So in my journey through getting certified as in coaching and get my masters degree and doing a lot around emotional intelligence I completely shifted how I showed up as a leader.
So out of curiosity is your chief of staff for Wisconsin the Wisconsin team right.
Yes I'm in Senator Kohl's Madison office.
So did you feel like you had to have that open door policy at that time. Because I could see some or think about some listeners in certain positions feeling like they have to have an open door policy for whatever reason they may make up under the sun.
Absolutely. Not only do I feel like I had to. I thought that was the best way to lead and manage.
OK so then how did you come about. Full Face now then to say OK that that was actually awful for them and me.
Yes it was. I didn't realize at the time as it was creating dependence and it was limiting their potential. So one of the things that I did when I had this realization that it was a process that was over time. But I sat down with the team and I said Guys I want to redesign how we how we go about business it's it's what happened to me when I was pregnant with my first daughter. So I can't leave at 10 o'clock at night every night though some of his has to change.
And so what we did is we designed together our alliance around how we wanted to recreate our relationships. And I was very intentional in saying what I'd like to do is set up a regular meeting with each of you. I want to co-design it in partnership how often that is. And most people said I want to do once a week. The person who was at the at the front desk she said once a day because she has lots of things coming in.
And so once a week I said here's what I'd like to do is you bring all your questions and your problems and when you come in you have three solutions that you've thought about. For every question you have and what you think the best solution is. Now of course giving them ownership yes and empowering them. And of course if there's a true emergency you come in you knock you right.
It's not that we can only meet once a week but I'll tell you what was fascinating is how many true emergencies did not exist.
Yeah right. Yep yep that's it that's amazing to think about. And you're empowering now and really having them come up with a solution and some of them creating that dependence like you said before they don't have to come to you for the answers. The monkey is not on your back. They're coming up with the solutions and often they know best because they were the first to uncover the problem.
Yes and they have all the history in the details in the context. I have the three minute summary they gave me right. Which probably isn't going to be giving. I'm not going to be giving them the best advice given the limited context.
It's great. That's really good. And I think that I've learned some of that over my career as well. I having intentional meetings especially with those that are your are your direct reports.
I mean those are the key ones and not micromanaging. Experts say the you are the average of the five people you hang out with and the books that you read we'd like to suggest the podcast that you listen to as well. So hit that subscribe button and add Madison's top leaders to your circle. We'd also encourage you to share this podcast with as many friends as possible. Our mission is simple to inspire people and impact lives.
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Now back to our guest. How.
Have You seen micromanaging play a role either in your leadership or others leadership where its been either debilitating or potentially even ruined relationships.
I coach a lot of executives and leaders and managers and one of the things when we talked in your opening about intentional leadership one of the things that I see over and over again is that most of us will say us myself included have a default style.
We have an auto response and it's on one of two ends of the spectrum. One it's the micromanager who wants to be really have high quality and they think that's good. Yeah that's where i was and the other end of the extreme is the laissez faire you know you know what you're doing. I don't need to bother you. Well and both extremes it creates it can create a lack of productivity a lack of effectiveness challenges in the relationship because in order to be an intentional leader.
What I find is the best way is to have a conversation with the person asking what support do you need. How do we want to design accountability. How often do we want to connect on this and the person may say you know what if you just tell me what the end result is I really get shut down when I get micromanaged. I I really just want to go with it. Okay great. So you can go with it.
But the end result is isnt due for three months let's design while you don't need check ins as your manager as your leader. I actually would like to know so that I can report back to the leadership team or the senator or whoever.
So how would it work if every other week we had a meeting to check in and you had developed a partnership around that accountability system and what kind of support they need someone else when you're designing it might say you know I don't even know where to start how to tackle this. I'm excited about this challenge but I need some more support.
How about could we meet every Monday to it's for me to give you an update on where I'm at and get some coaching on how to get unstuck or what to do next.
That's really cool. I think one of the phrases that my business coach always talked to me about is inspect what you expect. So what you're creating or at that accountability is at the end of the day you're the leader the buck stops with you. So whether you're doing it or you're delegating them to do it at the end of the day the senator or whoever it's you you're at fault for getting it wrong or your praise for getting it right.
But that inspecting what you are expect when you're delegating and empowering such a crucial key it's not just saying here's the key and I'm never going to check in with you. That's I want you to own this and I'm trusting you to really get this right. But let's just check in have a dialogue to make sure things are going well. You can ask me questions.
Absolutely. Josh you're so right. And one of the other big issues that I see that is frustrating for managers for people who lead people is when expectations aren't met and they say oh I can't believe they missed the deadline or they didn't do it in the right way. And that's an opportunity always to go back to look at yourself how did you set up their expectations. Did you clarify what success looks like what the end product is what the results are that you want.
And I love when you said inspect what you expect. Well no but they knew that was a deadline. So really being articulate in it and I keep saying partnership because it's not it's not either extreme the micromanager or the laissez faire. It's designing together what both of you need in order for this project this relationship to flourish mutual expectations.
Yes great. That's for marriage.
That's for business for everything.
That's exactly right. so friendship. I mean that's that's key. So let's.
And I know I will say it's making the invisible visible because in your head you know what you expect but it's not visible to somebody else until you articulate are you saying we're not mind readers.
Exactly. Yes.
Let's talk about it so you don't just assume something right. Right. Very good. The old quote "assumption makes an ass out of you and me.". Yes. All right.
So all right so let's talk a little bit more about thoughtfully fit because that's your branded thing and I've had you in our office to impact our leaders. Talking through that. So impactful.
Well let's start with who do you think thoughtfully fit is for anybody who wants to lead their life more intentionally.
And it is a metaphor from being physically fit. And if you want to be physically fit you wouldn't wake up tomorrow and just decide I'm going to hit a home run. I'm going to run a marathon in afternoon whatever it might be. It would be nice but you wouldn't do it unless you had put in a lot of time and effort and practice to be physically fit.
Same way if you want to be thoughtfully fit if you want to be thoughtful in every action reaction and interaction it requires effort and time and practice for many of us our auto response reaction is not always thoughtful.
And so I started to notice as I've been coaching for almost two decades now that there were some themes that came up over and over and over again and what gets in the way of living a thoughtful and leading your life in a way that has the best results. And I found there are six themes or three that are internal and three that are external. That's what this model was designed around those obstacles those themes that I kept seeing coming up over and over again.
That's really good. So it was important for her. I just think it's for everyone but what do you think it's so important to be intentional and thoughtful before you act.
Well a couple of reasons internally if you look up the word thoughtful and in the dictionary there's two definitions there's an internal and external definition internally. Is that interesting.
Yes. That's why when this model we kept looking for a different name for it and we kept coming back to thoughtfully fit because there is the internal definition is being intentional being mindful and so you get an email saying Hey Josh we really want you to be on this new board of directors we want you to chair the fundraising committee the first meetings Thursday night. If you aren't thoughtful intentional mindful what many of us would do is check the calendar Thursday night. Oh yeah.
Gosh I'm free that night you hit reply. Happy to. Happy to do this Thursday comes you're just exhausted ready to go home and all of a sudden pops up on your screen. Why did I say yes to that. Well probably because in the moment you are on autopilot you're good at producing you act instead of slowing it down to be really thoughtful.
Does this align with the work life balance I want to have right now. And if it's doesn't. Having a thoughtful no compassionate No. Or you know what I've got someone else who I think would love this opportunity or let me write a check. I love your mission as opposed to an auto pilot. I'm in production mode. I want to pound through stuff. This request comes in. So that's the internal being thoughtful and mindful of the external definition as being considerate of others.
Oh how thoughtful of you to think of me after I missed that meeting and to send forward me the report or whatever it might be.
And so it's being able to slow down to be thoughtful in every interaction with other people as well when many times are auto reaction isn't always helpful.
Especially under stress especially under stress because you got to those default habits or default emotions or whatever may be sometimes maybe they're not they're autopilot.
I'm mad so I yell.
How does yelling serve that. How thoughtful is that. What's the impact on the other person. Am I getting the result I want by leading with my emotions.
And you go back to that. I go back to that example you just thought or talked about what did I just commit to that would be my. Because I feel like I've been there before.
Think of the exact example I'm sure that something has come up on my calendar I'm like wait what
What did I commit to and why. Yes well probably because I wasn't thinking about it and I'm a problem solver and they may have touted me a little bit to say yeah I'm good at that. Yep I should probably do that. No I shouldn't have taken time away from my family. That's not aligning with what I'm currently trying to get done and now I have guilt and shame about saying no to that after I said yes to it.
Yeah it's the cycle.
It's a cycle. So now thinking about leadership and thoughtfully fit what does it mean to be a thoughtfully fit leader.
So in the same way that it is about being intentional in your how you think about things how you respond to things.
It's also about being intentional in relationship with others. So when we talk about my leadership style in the senator's office I was not a very thoughtful leader. Someone will come in. They had a problem I just assume they wanted me to fix it.
Being a thoughtful leader means pausing to think about what is needed in this moment in this relationship in this problem and then acting from an intentional place instead of acting first and then going back later and regretting and saying why did I do that or why did I. And so it may be when someone knocks on the door and says hey you got a minute.
I'm having this problem or this person's really angry instead of taking it saying oh yeah you know either let me handle it or here's what you should do. ABC&D. And then when they go do it and hit a snag at sea they come back and say what didn't they get to be a victim. Didn't work. Now what do I do instead.
Slowing down to pause and think in this moment and ask some thoughtful questions. As a leader. Yeah I'm happy to help. What would be most valuable for you from this conversation.
What have you already tried. Where are you stuck. What do you think the best outcome is. How could you achieve that outcome. So it's about using questions to be able to influence a situation in a relationship in a positive way.
That's when when you're at when you are leading other people. I use leadership from the standpoint also of most of us are leading our lives are or not or you should be more bright. Yeah. So it's all it comes back to that core pause think act.
That's great. I even thing about her early on in my career where I failed as a leader because I think we get as a leader you get those do you gotta minutes all the time all the time. And so the first thing is to you know set up some boundaries so that you limit those and have some dedicated. Actually I don't but how urgent is this. I have 15 minutes or whatever time you need at certain times either today tomorrow or the next day because again is it urgent.
A lot of times things aren't urgent like you mentioned before but I think readers really go wrong is not given the same respect to your team members.
So for example an associate that is working hard to complete their priorities for the day and let's say you're in a one on one type relationship where you don't have a ton of employees but maybe a couple and their go to person interrupting them with your thoughts and especially where I was getting it wrong is being ADD I'm like you know thing pops in my head if I don't tell her I'm going to lose it out of my head.
So so I got to go tell her now which interrupts her workflow. Interesting. And all of a sudden she's off for seven minutes 21 minute whatever it is from what she was doing whereas then we had come to the realization that again most of the stuff I was dealing with wasn't emergency either but my emergency was if I didn't get it on my head I was going to forget it because of sort of.
So if I could write it down or compile an e-mail that I just to her at the end of the day this is a list of things or we came up with the system to shoot the thought via e-mail and then she can deal with it on her time instead of hey it started off not urgent need to get the thought out of my head then she can deal with it or bring it back to me in her time.
And you've designed that with her. That there's an expectation because I'm your boss. You're going to respond. Yes. Actually there's an expectation that you're going to stay focused and deal with this when you have a moment because as the boss already told her what are your top three priorities were.
Right. So she knows what she knows when she's focused on those priorities. If this doesn't fit into those priorities then there's no. Then I'm going against my own priorities. This is dumb and I was guilty of that sometimes when I was just not cognizant of it.
So it's a great example of of being thoughtful in your leadership. Whereas before early and you were just acting this is my mind. I've got to interrupt. I have to tell her because I don't want to lose it. You're pausing to think OK what's needed here to honor the fact that I want to make sure that this doesn't get lost. And I want to honor her style the fact that my interrupting her is not going to work.
You know and I think and I see it a lot of times because the advisers we hire they didn't go to school to get their MBAs because most of them I think there might be a couple of MBAs here but they don't go to school to learn how to be a boss. So they're thrust into the fire.
Being a boss for the first time in their careers and it's not easy it's not easy and the Peter Principle says you keep getting promoted to the level of incompetence.
And that's where you stay. Yeah that's really good.
I haven't heard that so thoughtfully fit at its core.
You talked about it already is built around pause think act and there's six underlying practices of that. What are those.
Yes so there's three that are internal. That's right. Stillness strength and endurance and then there are three that are external so internal in other words in relationship with yourself how you're showing up and then external in relationship with others and those are flexibility balance and agility.
Great great. So I'd like to dig into those first three the internal reasoning this is the part where you can control the external better when you can control the internal. So I really encourage the audience to check out your workshop on YouTube YouTube channel. Learn more about the actual tools as well. Tell everybody the
YouTube channel. It's just Darcy Luoma.
So DARCY LUOMA perfect stillness is the first practice.
Explain to us about still stillness and what the impact is of that.
We talked about this model was designed around the themes that I saw over and over again that came up in coaching and working with teams and organizations like yours. One of the number one obstacles I hear from leaders is I just don't have time to think. Just don't have time to be creative and innovative and strategic I'm constantly going and in reactive mode it's just so full that day.
And so stillness is about creating the space to quiet the mind and recognizing that my fear was that when I if I were quite the mind and create space for stillness that I wouldn't be as productive. The exact opposite happened. I became more thoughtful more intentional more productive because I wasn't in this rat race going going going going nonstop.
That's good. That is so good. We have this propensity were tallking about micromanaging earlier and I think micromanaging the number one thing it kills is creativity and so being thoughtful mindful still is the hardest thing to do especially for business owners. There are so many demands on our plate. I had heard once that most business owners could spend about 12 plates thinking about spinning plates.
If if if one more thing gets on we got to drop something else and then if one falls off and we're down to 11 we pick something else up or pick a fight with our wife or spouse to balance everything out. So interesting about that but one of the number one things that I instituted early on in my career because it was exactly what you're talking about it was a problem was taking just starting with an hour per week out of the office.
Not at my house coffee shop or some library someplace or or park where it's just a peaceful spot to think. Yes. John Maxwell talks about reflective thinking Yes and something else that's really interesting because unless you reflectively think upon something how do you how do you know your passive thought that you have today is right or wrong or how you really truly feel about a situation if you haven't given yourself the time to properly digest it.
Absolutely. And creating the stillness to allow the space to have that reflective thinking is as critical so would you say to become sure your coach and business owners all the time on this.
Then there's like Darcy here. I just don't have time.
Absolutely. I didn't think I had time either. And the time for stillness is when you think you don't have time for it.
What is it. I should look this up and maybe one of your listeners will comment but I think it was that the Dalai Lama that said if you know if you don't have time to meditate then double it double the amount. Right. So when I one of the ways I created stillness and from a very practical standpoint that was hard for me as I used to go back to back to back in meetings. I had a meeting from 9 to 10 o'clock and somebody emailed and said Can you make that 10. Yup I made at 10.
There was no stillness in my day. And so at the end of the day at 5 o'clock I would then have to go back and think OK now what happened to that 9:00. What did I tell them I would do Did I do the action items. I have to I and it was part of the reason that I was there until 9:00 10:00 at night is because I had no reflection time no stillness in between meetings so I started to create a buffer.
And right now ideally every meeting has a 30 minute buffer on the front end and the back end at a minimum 15 minutes. And everybody mony team who does scheduling and my calendar knows that and we put it so if I've got a meeting from nine to 10 on my calendar is blocked from eight thirty to 10 30.
That gives me the stillness to be able to pause and think about OK what's this meeting going to be what are the intentions that I want to get out of it to be fully present when it starts and then when it's done to be able to quick send out those e-mails to identify what are the action items the next steps and then to move on in an intentional way to that next meeting. So when you say I don't have time for that.
My fear was that I'd become that much less productive and exactly the opposite happened. I became much more intentional on what I said yes to and I said No to and became much more effective and productive in how my days were so you think you'd have time for it challenge that challenge that notion redefine and figure out how you can create some stillness.
So we're all here because we're all in the same 24 hours. So it's when you make time not find the time. Yes. And as you're saying this remember neuroscientists are finding out or have found out or maybe I'm just finding out that our brains are wired like sprinters not marathoners. And so for that business sort if you're trying to operate at full capacity if you're trying to maximum efficiency throughout the day if you just go back to back to back like you were just saying it doesn't work.
You're not giving someone or something your best efforts without creating that stillness or some break somewhere.
Yeah and I'm glad you said that Josh. It also sparked for me that for stillness it doesn't need to be just sitting still for me one of the ways I find stillness is I go for a run. And oh it just quiets my mind and I come back and I have so many problems figured out. For some people it's chopping vegetables so it doesn't mean that you have to just sit still.
But it's about creating that space for your mind to be quiet to reflect to think instead of always going from NPR to you know get out of the car to calling somebody filling it and never having that space.
Then step one when you can. I mean this is your system correct me if I'm wrong but I think step one is like actually plotting it out and actually giving yourself the space to do it. Step two if you want to be intentional about it is what I used to do is just write a note. This is something I want to reflectively think about later. And so I would write that question down or write that thought down for my reflective thinking time.
Absolutely. And so you're beautiful. And to put it in the terminology of this model what you just gave was the pause think act the pauses where you have to pause may just be taking a breath. Oh my gosh I'm getting up and going from meeting to meeting to meeting pause take a breath to think and the think is always asking a thought provoking question how is this serving me. Having meeting after meeting after meeting what do I want what am I craving.
And then you act based on the awareness you're having from pausing and thinking and asking questions instead of just acting.
I was I was working with a client last week and she said you know I do it backwards I act and then I go back and pause and think oh that wasn't good.
US the majority of people. Yes. Right. I mean I would. I mean that's the epitome of putting your foot in your mouth. Yes.
Which are done a lot more alive than I've learned from. But look whether its a response for a via e-mail. Whether it's something harsh that I said to her friend or spouse or whatever like I can't take that back.
Yes. Putting your foot in the mouth or having a regret like now it's Thursday night and I've got this fund raising committee I'm chairing that I didn't even want to in the first place because I just acted I looked at my calendar it was free I responded.
And just like if you are physically fit and you have a strong core every movement is easier and you're less likely to get injured in the same way if you can strengthen your thoughtfully fit core if you can slow it down and take that pause to think before you act. You will have fewer regrets. You'll have less conflict you'll have stronger relationships you will be more intentional as a leader.
Wow that's really good. I was just reminded of your quote I think you right. I don't have time to 20 minutes out of my day, well then you need to take 40.
Yeah that's right. Yeah that's that's really really good stuff.
So next section strength and choosing consciously when you're spending this practice to your audience.
If you look at mental strength it so it's different than physical strength mental strength is about having the ability to choose how you want to show up in any situation. Instead of being an auto pilot and it takes strength to stop what your auto response would be your reaction would be to pause to slow it down to show up consciously.
Whether that is when you've had a crazy day and you're driving home beltline traffic and you're angry and you pull in the garage and all that negative energy you bring in when you recognize your spouse doesn't have dinner made yet and the kids aren't ready for soccer.
It may be pausing in the car and taking a deep breath and thinking What's the energy.
How do I want to show up.
When I walk through that door and then acting from that place of strength thank you so much for being home with these crazy kids all day and giving a hug and instead of what we have to leave in 20 minutes and dinners and then research shows how you start how you enter our conversation determines how it will end. So if you start harshly it's going to end harshly.
So when you have the strength to consciously choose how you're showing up it may be that you choose to show up with a soft start up so that hopefully then you can get a better reaction a better outcome from that interaction.
So good. I mean the only way you can have control over how you started is if you're intentional how you started. Yes. So that's so key as you were talking there
Yesterday I was coming home from Milwaukee and from a conference and my wife texted said hey what time you coming home. And I was like undetermined yet why. You know just curious. I'm not like a sharp why just curious if we have plans as soon as I got home or whatever it might be.
And it was just simply that a couple of appointments that run over for her. She knew she didnt have time to shower yet today and the house wasn't clean and she wanted to let me know. I was like Honey I don't even care. I like like it's it's all good. Like I'm not going to be pissed if I walked in the door. And the house isn't clean as I was coming back. You're busy. I know.
And she was very thoughtful in giving you that heads up so that you had the right mindset when you did walk through the door instead of because it can be our unconscious reaction like oh gosh the house was clean when I left this morning. And where is you now come in because she used a soft start up hey just heads up you're going to have a different energy as you walk through.
So. So the string side anything.
So be really passionate we just got out of mental health awareness month or something of that nature. Anything on the street side would really help with people on this in terms of resources. Resources or just I think there's so much and not necessarily whether they're struggling with mental illness or not. I think there's so much out there about mentally strong and giving yourself time where people don't understand being thoughtfully fit can really help with just just daily struggles.
Yes so for each of these and I'll be sounding like a broken record. If you visually look at the model there's the six practices and then at the core in the center is the pause think act. So giving yourself that moment to pause so if you're in a meeting and somebody comes in late and your reaction may be like Joe and you publicly shame him because you're angry you might pause in that moment and think about how you're going to best respond.
Hey you know Joe can what can we chat after the meeting for a minute and then you act from that place instead of shaming him so that pause think act is critical. I don't know if this is way off base of what you were just saying but the other thing is I'm a huge fan of increasing your self awareness and sometimes the best way to do that is to work with a therapist or work with a coach or work with a professional.
It it. No I think you're absolutely right and I think that's why you do what you do for a living like you help people.
And as interesting as financial advisers I found myself in a situation oftentimes where I feel more of a life as a life coach than I did as a financial advisor. There's often times where we're dealing with divorce dealing with traumatic stuff with death of family members or spouse or or disability of the nature where you're dealing with highly emotional stuff. You bet.
And so life coach therapist having these resources people that I could refer to you people like to refer to therapists or otherwise or they can just seek guidance and help or they may feel totally and utterly lost in these situations I think it's so crucial and there's no shame in working with a life coach. There's no shame in working with a therapist like some of the most successful people on this planet. Do both of those things.
Yes. And there are times when you don't know what you don't know. And so a therapist a coach a professional can help point out your blindspots in a very safe place where you can be vulnerable and not feel exposed. better to do that there and then show up intentionally then and to realize oh my gosh I get triggered when somebody is late. I feel like they're disrespecting me because when I was young this happened.
I learned this lesson from that's how I was raised him. Yes yes. So now recognizing. Oh that's a trigger for me and when I'm in default mode response and I yell at somebody who's late and now they feel embarrassed and ashamed and they can't even be present for the meeting.
What's the impact versus being thoughtful to recognize you know this may have nothing to do with me I'm going to connect with them afterwards saying hey you just realize you came in late on a check and everything ok.
Yeah that's very good. So no I would encourage everyone if you have any shame guilt around that Reach out. This is something I've done. Counseling always had a coach. I've seen therapists like I'll be vulnerable enough to say that this is then I would say even as your self life coach or your own coach.
Oh absolutely right. And I have my own therapist.
So if you get like this you get better I mean half the time it could be just the thought that you have am i crazy like for this thought. No you're not. This is just something you got to work through. Absolutely. So that's great.
So that actually kind of leads us into because I mean mental strength mental wellness. All this is about the long distance games that was talked about in terms last practice of the internal side endurance and overcoming obstacles. Tell us more about that.
endurance is all about being able to embrace a growth mindset. So Carol Dweck done some research. It's fascinating. And when you have endurance you can overcome obstacles there's constantly adversity that comes our way. There's disappointments. Life happens but instead of shutting down you when you have endurance you have the ability to consciously choose how you want to show up and embrace a growth mindset which the opposite is a fixed mindset.
So fixed mindset is I'm not good at public speaking. I'm not good at math. I'm not a runner. I don't have patience.
Growth mindset is saying who you are can be changed if you want to. If you put in the time and energy that it's not fixed. If I want to get better at public speaking.
Okay maybe I'm a horrible public speaker but if I want to get better at public speaking I can I can hire a coach I can get practice I can go to Toastmasters there's all sorts of things I can do and so whatever those obstacles that come at you when you have the endurance you're able to address them and keep moving forward despite the adversity and know that when I want to I I can handle this instead of shutting down and being a victim.
That's. That's good. So anything else on the enduring side of things I think that's the big key earlier I want to make sure people don't get confused because I talked about the mind neuroscientist talking about that there were not set up to be marathoners our minds are not they're sprinter's need that recovery period. I don't want people to confused on that. What else does endurance mean to us.
It also means looking at the long game and being able to see that whatever it is that the challenge the obstacle in this moment that you might feel shut down is only one step of a much bigger process a much bigger goal relationship. And it is indeed through adversity that we get stronger. And so when you have the endurance you can and if you put it through that the marathon lens you can indeed make it through to the finish line when you feel like you can't go another step. You have to have.
And this is why this is internal because it is drawing from your own mental strength to be able to say how do I overcome these obstacles how do I embrace a growth mindset. What support do I need to be able to get through this instead of shutting down and any good leader any any good leader. You interviewed them they will have overcome obstacles and adversity.
Yeah absolutely. Yeah that's so key iron sharpens iron. That's something. Oh the other thing I was thinking about as you got there Stephen Coveys 7 habits begin with the end of mind. Yes that was the present tense. Doesn't mean that's going to stay like forever and being able to think about that and being able to recognize if you can get yourself out of it or if you need help to get out of it. so key Absolutely. There are resources there.
So one thing I I didn't prep you for but I wanted to ask you because I think there's a direct correlation you briefly mentioned right at the beginning. What is because you've gotten yourself in tremendous shape and you've talked a little bit about that on your blog and you're a big fan of where you go to work out but how does physical fitness and thoughtful fitness play in tandem together for you.
There's a lot of overlap and part of the reason that I've created this thoughtfully fit metaphor is I've been an athlete my whole life. I'm not a professional athlete. I'm not winning any races but I love the ability to challenge my body. I love the energy of being around healthy fit people.
I love it and it takes effort and practice in the same way when you want to be thoughtfully fit.
It takes effort and practice and in order to win when you're physically fit you have more energy physically you can walk up the stairs instead of taking the elevator you can put your own suitcase up in the overhead bin. When you're thoughtfully fit you have more mental energy. You don't have those regrets. Oh why did I say that.
Now you're spiraling and spinning and thinking about oh what I should have said and now how do I make up for all this energy because you weren't thoughtful in the first place.
So when you're thoughtfully fit you have more mental energy when you're physically fit and you have that strong core you have greater stability physical stability mentally when you're thoughtfully fit and you have that strong core you pause think act you have more stability in your life in your relationships with others and talking about emotional intelligence. That
EQ When you better understand your own emotions you can better understand what others are going through and how they're reacting to you. Yes that's key.
Absolutely. And then once you have an understanding of your own emotions emotions and an understanding of their emotions you can consciously choose to self manage and be thoughtful in how you show up instead of it doesn't matter what they're thinking or feeling or what their emotions are this is who I am. When you're emotionally intelligent you can choose how you want to show up in a relationship for greatest impact.
And by the way if you show up like that right now it's OK we accept you as you are just know that it's not right. That way of working just doesn't work anymore.
I mean if you want to be the domineering boss that probably doesn't keep their employees very long sure but if you want to keep long term that longevity with your team's longevity and your relationships that domineering This is how I who I am doesn't matter how I make you feel. Its a recipe for disaster nowadays.
Absolutely and Stephen Covey brought him up earlier talked about you can you can make anybody do what you want in the short term and put a gun to their head. But over the long term it's not going to be sustainable and it's not going to produce the results you want.
That's right. That's absolutely right. So we just talked a little bit about this I want to give you a plug too because you wrote the curriculum life coaching program for UW-Madison right. Yes that's awesome. So so we just awesome resume there. I want to talk about some of the other programs outside of thoughtfully fit that you're working with people on and one is on emotional intelligence and we briefly touched on this but what is your definition of emotional intelligence.
In the simplest form it's about being able to have self-awareness and self-management to be self aware. Oh I'm triggered I'm angry I'm sad I'm whatever in this moment. And then to be able to. Sorry about that. My goodness.
So in this moment I want to be thoughtful and apologize and get back on my train of thought that happens being able to self manage how you show up in that relationship based on the awareness that you have right self-awareness self management and that's that's simplifying it but I think simple is sometimes better to be able to remember.
Absolutely. And nowadays they're so talking about the EQ being so much more important than IQ particularly as it becomes more intertwined with leadership. Yes. And I couldn't agree more.
Well absolutely and pretty much now the research shows that psychologists agree that a child's emotional intelligence is a greater predictor of their success later in life than their IQ. So how well they share on the playground their level of empathy their level of connection and making other people feel good will determine their success more than are they getting all A's.
Are they really smart and that intuitively feels like it you know you probably all have had that situation where you're assigned to a new committee and you think oh gosh I hope Sue isn't on it. I mean she's really smart but she's hard to work with or flip a flip side. I really hope Sharon is she's new. She doesn't know a lot about the business background but dang she is really present she has grit. She shows up she's pleasant to work with.
That's EQ Yeah I know that's it. But we sit here in schools and measure IQ entirely nowadays it's just it's just one of those things it's frustrating. I think as a parent. But that's that's the biggest job we have as a parent is making sure that our kids show up the way that you just described that they're sharing that they're caring that they actually care about the other people that they're around their students that they're talking about their friends and being thoughtful.
My daughters have drawn pictures for their friends and said hey we gotta make sure to bring this to school tomorrow for so and so and I'm like that's really cool.
I definitely don't remember drawing pictures for my friends. Maybe that's a boy/girl thing.
I have no idea on that piece but it's just interesting thats our because your parents and the other thing I see as a problem nowadays are parents leaving it to the teachers to do the teaching of the emotional intelligence as well as the IQ teachers have a big enough job.
They have a . Totally.
That's our job right. So make sure we're on top of that. All right. So what are some ways our audience can deal with negative thoughts because we all have them. So is it as simple as that pause think that or is there anything else that you would add to that.
Well yes it can be that simple and sometimes if we if we make something too complex it's too hard to remember we feel flooded like what was I supposed to do. So I think that's a place where you pause you think how is this negative thought serving me is what's the value what's true what is this negative thought trying to to teach me to bring to me. And what's the cost if I listen to this negative thought. What's the cost. And then act from the place of having that awareness.
Because a lot of times our negative thoughts are gremlins are saboteurs in their most extreme form they're going to hold us back but there's something there that's that's a nugget that's going to help you. They're designed to help you.
So for instance I talk about when I was going to launch my business full time leaving the senator's office and I hired a coach and there was an assumption that I would stay in politics or that I'd stay in government nonprofit sector as I was and my coach asked me different questions and helped me to see that what I really wanted to do was to create my own business doing coaching and speaking and consulting. Well almost immediately I left that coaching session on fire so excited.
Almost immediately my negative thoughts started chiming in. You can't do that. You're not a business person. You've never owned a company you don't even know how to create a PNL you don't and that negative chatter. What I now know her well enough I've named her it's a little miss perfect pants.
She was trying to protect me from failing from from looking bad. So the benefit there is I made sure that I learned those deficit those skills that I didn't have so I could become a business owner.
The negative the cost was if I listened to her and those negative thoughts completely I would have never launched my business so it's all about pausing to think about what's the value of this thought. What is it trying to help me improve and what's the cost of honoring it in its full form as is and then choosing to act thoughtfully from that new awareness.
What's the so you touch on some briefly there what is the power in naming that internal voice the power in name.
Great question Josh the power in naming it is it's not you. So for me when I named Little Miss Perfect pant's is one of many of my negative. I've got I've got others I've got the superintendent I've got others I've named.
I know it speeds up my self-awareness and the moment when I know I've named her so another is for them to give you a concrete example a couple of years ago and Masters Swimming I learned to swim as an adult so I could do the iron man and a couple of years in my swim coach said hey I think you should sign up for the masters swim meet. Well immediately in my mind my thoughts went to I don't know how to do a flip turn I don't know how to dive in. I'm going to look like a fool.
I'm going to swim against olympic swimmers.
So my negative thoughts immediately chimed in but because I was aware of Little Miss Perfect pants I recognized in that moment Wait wait wait wait wait this isn't. No no no. Oh there you are little miss perfect pants. Oh OK.
So this isn't me and my fear of this is you. What are you trying to protect me from from looking like a fool. That's the advantage. That's what you're trying to do. The cost. If I listen to you I'm never gonna do anything that's going to be hard or challenging. So I was able to say in that moment to her you know it's OK. I don't I don't need to win this race. But thank you for that.
I'm going to actually ask my coach if he'll do some extra practices with me to help me dive in and learn how to do a flip turn which I did. And so the benefit of naming it is it gave me. It gives me power to be able to address that in a concrete way instead of just assuming that those thoughts are me. Does that make sense. I
know that makes a ton of sense I've heard other people call it the lizard brain. Yes I've heard other people call it Thor. So for the men in the audience if you can identify with little miss perfect pants maybe you can identify with Thor T-Rex or something of that nature. That's your brain. That's that fight or flight part of your brain. And that's the thing that's trying to hold you back and that sometimes serves a purpose serves purposes like hey look both ways before you cross the street.
Some of those like Saving Your Life type things but most of them our days are resided in women to do this to save our life. That's those negative thoughts that are holding us back. But that's how her brain is hardwired and so are you labeling and power taking that power away from the very very powerful part of your brain I think that amygdala magnifies negativity about 200 percent. So that's extra small part of your brain but extremely powerful then being able to label it like that. That's huge.
Yes. So. So what are two key tips.
We're going back to being thoughtful here that our audience can be helped with on facing a tough conversation. So Darcy you and I there's no from the room where I've been avoiding that or we've been avoiding it for a week. It's got to get handled. What are a couple of tips that we can go into that with us and so that would fall on the external.
Just so people want to go in and watch videos afterwards. That would be balance. And it's one of the external practices of being thoughtfully fit. So it's all about achieving alignment in your relationships by balancing what you want need with what I want need. So one tip is to get really clear on what you want and need. And the second tip is to identify what are some questions that you can ask the other person to help identify what they want and need.
That's the way you're going to get to a win win resolution instead of what oftentimes people default to a win lose. I'm going to I'm going to say what I need I'm aggressive I'm I'm hardcore I don't care what you want or need they might not be thinking that but to that leader you were talking about before where they're really aggressive and then the other is the lose win. Well I don't want to I don't want to upset Josh it's ok. I don't agree with that but I'm just going to let it be.
I lose you win because is that the passive aggressive person. Yes. And so in the short term that might keep the peace. But in the long term it builds resentment and that relationship is out of balance.
I think that's the hardest one for me to deal with personally. This passive aggressive people because of my experiences at some point in the future there's going to be a grenade that goes off and that person blows up in a really ugly way. And usually it's out of left field and you're like Where the hell did that come from. But it was this little thing. Or these many little things that happened way back here and all of a suddent their passiveness led to the.
You bet that's that's really hard for me so I've actually almost gone the flipside whereas like I get anxiety about not talking about the elephant in the room where so then I got to be thoughtful enough to slow myself down. Otherwise I could say something's wrong on the aggressive or assertive side because I'm trying to get the elephant out the room right addressed and dealt with.
Yes. Yeah and so maybe one more quick tip is going back to what were talking about that soft startup. So you can have a tough conversation instead of saying you know coming in guns blazing say hey can we have a conversation. I'm feeling a little frustrated. That's that's just that little bit could get someone to a place emotionally where they can hear what you have to say instead of just coming and saying it.
It's kind of leading into the next one as we've talked about social intelligence. EQ All that stuff. What about a relational relationship intelligence what are some tips for improvement there.
Can we have three more hours.
Maybe we'll have to come back on.
Yeah yeah I mean it is a great great question. As a matter of fact I did a full training and certification in organizational relationship systems coaching and it's so much harder because relationships are complex. They are. Anytime you have more than one person you're going to have different styles different personalities you're going to have toxins and conflict that show up.
So it takes that what we talked about with emotional intelligence self-awareness and self-management and it adds in social awareness and social management. So what's happening in this relationship and this team and this system and them being able to to consciously choose how you're going to show up based on what's happening in the system instead of just what's happening in yourself.
A lot there so I could dig in a lot further but say in good time we will just have to do this again and I would love to do it again and we can go deeper. All right so let's talk about what are a few keys for our leaders to create high performing teams because it's another topic that you come in on and think we've had you on this one because I'm always looking at leadership topics to get. We have a great team and I'm always looking to get them better.
So creating high performing teams touch a little bit on that.
Oh there's so much great research about what helps create hype from teams and I'll give just maybe a nugget knowing that it's like a sliver of touching on one of the things that people are surprised about is that the highest performing teams.
You know I talk about do they have conflict or not highest performing teams have a lot of conflict there's always conflict there's always conflict but it's how the strongest teams that's how they are able to have positive conflict and create a safe space to talk through it instead of having those toxins that show up where there's blaming and defensiveness and stonewalling contempt.
So it's being able to say what needs to be said with compassion and courage at the table instead of afterwards having the post meeting meeting or triangulating their conversations.
Yes you've heard us talk about that before. Yes no no in my office. No no traingular conversations right.
But that's that's so good and we could talk further on that as well. But in the sake of time I want to wrap up today this has been a fun question I've been asking people what's your favorite book you're reading right now.
I just started reading yesterday a book called On Fire by John O'Leary something 9 year old who was burnt 100 percent of his body. And he he's writing as an adult. His father has beautiful children about that adversity and how.
If he had to do it all over again he would do it exactly the same way. And how that made him who he is today really powerful John O'Leary O'Leary.
That's it. Thank you. So I've heard him speak twice. You're kidding. So I'm not kidding. Here's a Northwestern Mutual Client No he's spoken to us a couple different times.
What's interesting is I think the first time I heard him speak was like 10 years ago. We were his first talk like professionally. And then he came back and had this huge epiphany but this was tremendous story. I'll give a little context to it for everyone to pick this book up or search out some of his youtube stuff as well. Ninety percent of his body right here is I think eight or 10 year old child.
He was playing with gasoline in the garage out of curiosity and ended up almost burning the house down. But really he almost died. I think it was at the time the largest skin graft transplant all this different stuff but the other cool part of that is the story has. I'm sure he talks about it in his book because he talks about it from mainstage is his relationship with the famous St. Louis Cardinals announcer. I mean Vin Scully is an L.A.
Dodgers whoever their Cardinals one is I can't remember off the top of my head would sign a baseball and send him a word of encouragement basically to make it another week make it another week then he would come visit him at the hospital and then now he's done a lot of things with St. Louis Cardinals organization and stuff of that nature as an adult. He has a family of his own. You're right.
So I won't give any more away as you're reading that story but I think for the listeners that is a tremendous story for and he does spin again if you want to have people come in and speak. I'd get him now probably before that book catches hold of me.
No pun intended fire and he takes off and his speaking fee goes way up. Yeah but tremendous very inspiring. so how can the audience learn more about you.
Find you. I know you're all over social media. What's the best way they can get a hold of you.
Yeah. Easiest way is just going to my Web site www.darcyluoma.com Dot and that has my Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and e-mail all of that is on there. So D-A-R-C-Y L-U-O-MA.com
Well it's a privilege to have you on. You're always welcome in my office. It had such an impact on my team. Really enjoy our time in our conversations I apologize today for my having a cold. Everyone has to listen to my nasally voice. But I wanted to do this again.
Well I would love that Josh and not only do I appreciate the invitation to be here on this podcast and to work with your team and doing in workshops. I also am a very happy client.
Appreciate that Darcy. All right. Thanks everybody.
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