Mastering Self-Awareness – What Elite Coaches Want You to Know

Mastering Self-Awareness – What Elite Coaches Want You to Know

Eric: [00:00:00] You got to get clear on the path you want to actually be on because if you’re not then it’s hard to be self aware because you don’t know if you’re on path or not.

Steve: If you’re not asking any questions about who am I, how did I get this way, it’s quite unlikely that you are self aware.

Trefor: The people who are looking for the house, and the cottage, and the kids, and the life, and the whatever.

There’s a feeling they’re trying to get, and this is the best they know how on how to meet that, the needs of that feeling. Getting really clear on, how do I want to feel? But

Rob: when you live into what you’ve created for yourself, now the awareness comes because you’re able to show up authentically and fully in every situation because you know who you are.

And

Eric: welcome back to the Living Richly podcast. We’re so glad that you’ve joined us again this week. We started a great conversation last time. I’m here with. Rob Dale, Steve Osmond, Trevor [00:01:00] Munvin all Rhapsody coaches on topics that we experience regularly with our clients in terms of their own growth and transformation.

And you get to listen in as we continue that conversation. And we know that whether you’re a leader, business leader, professional, or just an everyday person wanting to live your best life, these concepts are really going to be a benefit to you. And I thought we’d kick off the conversation today, guys.

We’re With the topic of self awareness the importance, I thought we’d start with a light one.

A small little topic that I don’t think we probably have much to say about, but then when it comes to there’s the old adage, if you can’t see it, you can’t change it. And so self awareness is like fundamental to a personal change transformation and becoming the best version of yourself. What are your experiences with it?

You guys are all chuckling around the table, so I know there’s some good things to say.

Trefor: I guess the thought going through my head is I don’t think I’ve met anybody who didn’t think they were self aware.

Eric: Isn’t that true?

Trefor: Yeah. And that’s the problem, right? Yeah. And that [00:02:00] awareness of self.

It’s we think we know us, but usually what we know is what we believe about us. And so getting to actually know true self, like what’s behind all the beliefs, all the fears, all the worries, all the habits, all the autopilots, all of that stuff, there’s so much going on to actually. Find ourselves and know ourselves is such a well, a courageous act, I think, because we have to let go of a bunch of things or be willing to let go of some things.

But it’s also so core because you can’t change what you don’t. What you’re not aware of, what

Eric: you can’t see. Yeah, we call them blind spots, right? And in a lot of our work, part of it when we’re working with leaders is to help them see the blind spot, right? That area of their lives that they’re just, they’re not seeing it.

And we, we all have them, let’s face it, right? We all have areas in our lives where we’re not seeing it. present or aware of how the way that we’re showing up, the way [00:03:00] that we speak, the way that we interact with others is perhaps having a very negative impact or a limiting impact on the folks around us.

So blind spots, like how do you get out of the blind spot and to, and look at that stuff?

Steve: Yeah, it’s the water we swim in and so we don’t even, we don’t even know it. So I would say I have a black belt in not being self aware.

Rhapsody: You bastarded!

Steve: I am really good. Hey, coach. Heal

Rhapsody: thyself!

Steve: Up until 10 or 12 years ago when I’m glad you added that part.

And I still I still choose to, Man, we all know it’s a long time the, I was a part of something and lost myself in the thing I was a part of. So I was not a self determining, self authoring I was just following the path. Laid out for me. And I think so many of us can relate to that, whether it’s what our parents want us to do or what our friends want us to do or what [00:04:00] culture says to do marketing.

I buy this thing, I don’t even like it, but I buy it because I’m supposed to buy it. It’s trending on TikTok. It’s trending. It’s trending. Yeah. The journey out of that is really intense. And even though we call it. Self awareness. It rarely happens just by yourself, right?

I become self aware as I hear from my community. So I want to have the right community. I remember early on in the Living Richly podcast when we were, you were wrestling with which comes first, is it the community, the belonging first, or is it my individuality first? And it’s some mix of that is really powerful.

If I’m getting mixed messages, if I’m getting feedback, that’s not necessarily helpful, then I might just stay in my lack of self awareness. But all of a sudden someone comes into. My life into your life who gives us a different perspective about the reality of life, the nature of life, and all of a sudden, [00:05:00] Oh, I’m not even thinking my own thoughts, right?

I’m not even thinking my own friggin thoughts. I am just thinking the thoughts I’ve been told to think and that moment of awakening is pretty powerful, but it usually comes when you’re getting in.

Eric: External. Feedback. Feedback. And there’s the old cowboy adage, right? If one person calls you a horse’s ass, you can probably ignore them.

If two people call you a horse’s ass, you might want to start paying attention. If three people call you a horse’s ass, buy a saddle, you’re an ass.

Rob: So language matters, and I’m curious, I know you’re hosting the show, but I’m gonna hijack it and host for a second. You do that all the time. Yeah because I’m better at it.

And just, maybe some need for self awareness here. Self awareness required. But let’s define self awareness because one of the things we often hear somebody will say, Oh yeah I’m going to go on this journey to find myself, or I’m taking a year off to find myself. And we, there’s almost some memes and stuff where people mock that idea or, so it’s misunderstood what we mean when [00:06:00] we talk about self awareness.

If you hadn’t defined self awareness in a sentence or two, how would you guys define that? Great question.

Trefor: I think seeing being aware of seeing your thoughts and beliefs. I think that’s good because I think that’s the screen between self and our understanding of self. I think that’s what gets in the way.

And so we, to be able to be self aware, we need to see what we’re presenting and why. And so that’s a lot of different kinds of work that we need to get through. That would be maybe a starting line. I like that. And

Rob: it’s almost what came to my mind, as you said, that is bringing the subconscious into the conscious.

Yeah.

Trefor: And I think that’s what we get to do as coaches is we all have these automatic responses to things and you get to work with a client to go, okay, let’s put, let’s pull one of these out. Let’s take a look at it. Is that serving you? Is that serving the business? Is that how you want it to be?

And if you’re good, let’s put it [00:07:00] back. Yeah. But by looking at it, you just changed it, right? It’s no longer an autopilot. It’s now a deliberate choice to say, this is how I choose to do things. And then it’s really easy to pull it back out again if you want to tweak it or adjust it. Or you look and go.

This is not how I want to be doing things. This is not how I want to show up. This is not how I want to lead or act or practice or live my life. This needs some work. Now we can start to work on it.

Steve: I would say the self aware person is a questioning person. If you’re not asking any questions about, Who am I?

How did I get this way? Why am I like that? Why do I act the way I act? Why do I talk? If you’re not questioning it’s quite unlikely that you are self aware. You’re just accepting. So my personality is to accommodate and accept. If there’s, if I say I want to go to this restaurant, and Eric says another one, I’m like, yep.

Let’s go to that one, just by default. So I don’t, that’s why I have a black belt in this is that I accommodate [00:08:00] and instead of question. So I think for me what is self awareness? It’s the questioning of self. How did I get this way?

Eric: Yeah. I come back to it’s bringing what’s in the subconscious into the conscious.

It’s really bringing the Forces that are really dictating that automatic program of our lives that lives in the shadows. It’s never been named. It’s never been identified, but often we’re puppets right on strings of our own making because the program. Yes, we inherited some of that, but we chose to believe certain things, right?

We chose all along way. So we made up beliefs or stories about what those events meant and those circumstances meant. But we don’t, we’re not always making those beliefs consciously or aware of them and they build up over time. And the self aware person is trying to look in the shadows and say, right to your point, bringing that forward and saying, do I want to show up this way?

I’m more aware of what’s motivating me, what’s triggering me, what where I’m strong, [00:09:00] where are my tendencies because again, if I want to begin to shift any of those, I have to be able to look at it and decide whether or not I want this to continue to be part of my life. And if so, how do I want it to show up in my life versus how it’s just been showing up

Steve: automatically.

So a client that I’m working with, wonderful people. They sell. Set these goals and it a very common goal. They wanted to be a million dollar company, which is, it’s a great goal. Yeah. Yeah. And so I’m their coach, so I’m helping them build towards that. And one year they hit 900 and something thousand

Eric: and they got a 90%.

Steve: Yeah. And they were so disappointed.

So disappointed. And they should not, it was a very successful year. Wonderfully, like best year ever. Like best year ever. Yeah. But somehow they had this. arbitrary number imposed on them of one million, which is a cool number, but it had meaning to it. Like you said, it had, this number has more meaning that it needs to have.

And so [00:10:00] we, we talked that through that disappointment. You had a great year and we started to dive into what really is your primary aim? Is your primary aim making a million or is your, and as we ask those questions, we found out the primary aim was not a million. It was freedom, right? They wanted to be free.

They wanted the business to provide a life for them that where they could be free, where they own the business and the business didn’t own them, right? But they weren’t aware of that,

Trefor: right?

Steve: They were aware of some imposed thought. And of course, out of that, then they created it. Yeah. All of their systems based on this lack of awareness, all of their people they hired based on a lack of awareness and built a whole thing, which is still really cool.

Yeah. So now it’s step back to the drawing board. Okay, how do we build a business that actually gets me to freedom? And if it’s a million dollars, great, or two million, or that’s not really the point. The point is freedom.

Eric: Yeah. And they had, so in some ways they had conceded the [00:11:00] storytelling or the authoring of their story to some outside force and expectation.

Let’s face it in business, you’re, you first get your first 10, 000, your first hundred thousand, your first million, your first 10 million. These are milestones that are celebrated and should be celebrated. Those are those are important milestones. If that’s important to you, if it’s it right.

Probably making 10, 000, 100, 000 ought to be important to you if you’re in a business, live and stay in business. But but not everyone needs to have a million dollar business. Now we have clients that have multimillion dollar businesses and I’ve got some clients, I’m sure you do as well, have multiple million dollar businesses, but it all comes down to again, getting clear on what it is that you want and not being influenced unduly by things outside of your control.

Or other people’s stories where all of a sudden they’ve grabbed the pen.

Rob: It’s interesting because even the wise coach can fall into that trap. We fell into that trap early in the day in Rhapsody’s days, right? We’re celebrating, we’re gathered together, celebrate 10 years. Way back at the beginning, when Rhapsody first [00:12:00] formed, one of the goals that we had was to impact 1 million epic stories, to the point that we were counting them.

And we were trying to keep track of them. And then we realized how foolish it was to try to keep track. Track that number. I remember in those early days, we’re going to have a some kind of a measure, like some kind of a metric that shows these, one of those thermometer.

Eric: Yeah, we’re going to, we’re going to try to show fundraising stories, right?

Rob: What was going to happen once we hit a million epic stories, whether we all just retired, but it was freeing when we changed that to actually what we mean by that is a hell of a lot.

Eric: Yeah. It’s building the most sophisticated leaders who change the face of business. It became. Not this arbitrary number.

It became about how we wanted to show up in the lives of the leaders that we serve and the organizations that we serve.

Rob: Deeper, not wider.

Eric: Exactly. Helping them, and we continue this work to this day. It’s so important to us. I was just talking to a couple of business owners reached out to me for coaching [00:13:00] this week, and they asked me why they should use Rhapsody.

And I said our philosophy, our focus is not just about helping you build a better business. It’s fundamentally about helping you become a better leader because the goal is if we’re helping you do both and you’re going to fire on all cylinders. But again, how important it is to have on the business side, we would say, know your numbers, right?

Know your metrics. What are your what are your performance indicators that you’re tracking that help you know that you’re on track and that the business is performing in a healthy fashion and growing. Again, what are the performance indicators internally that we are measuring or tracking to say, to help increase our self awareness and make sure that I’m on point.

But

Rob: I do love the notion of, this really is about pulling out those scripts that have been driving and guiding and controlling our behavior. That we’re not even aware of bringing them out in the open so that we can then look and say, is this serving me well or not? And if not, how do I rewrite this and how do I create this?

It was I was with a client yesterday and I started [00:14:00] working with i’ve been working with this team And i’ve been working with the owner. I they had me start working with The manager of the team because he, there was a challenge where he would when somebody questioned or pushed on something, he would almost bully them into whatever he wanted to have happen.

And so I’ve been working with him for a couple of months. Haven’t seen, he’s a real nice guy. And I’ve been okay, I guess this behavior is there. People say it’s there. I’m in a team meeting yesterday. And one of the questions I said to the rest of the team, I said, what’s one thing you need right now?

And one of the guys brought up something that he needed. And this guy, all of a sudden was sitting beside him, started to lean into and go that’s already there. And he literally started to rise up and he was standing like this over the, and I went, Oh, and you taught him

Trefor: that?

Rob: I thought, there it is.

Eric: The art of influencing people, right? Making friends.

Rob: And there it is. So soon as the meeting was over, I said to the owner and this guy said, Hey, stop. Stick around for a few minutes before, let’s just unpack this meeting. As soon as I left, I brought up [00:15:00] what I saw happen. And I said, I don’t know if anybody else noticed it.

Sure enough, I got an email later that day. Everyone else on the team went to the owner and said, I was going to bring something up, but after he did that, I decided not work. Wow. That, and I saw it in action. This guy was, when I said to him, did you realize this is what you did and how you raised yourself and you stood over and basically said, this is how I didn’t do any of that.

Eric: Yeah. Again, the self awareness. He

Rob: didn’t even know that it was

Trefor: happening. Self awareness. So we’ve got these bundles of beliefs, and he has one about what does a leader or a boss look like? What do they act like? What do they sound like? How do they do things? And we have beliefs about everything, whether we know we have them or not, right?

And so they’re playing out. They’re playing out. And that’s why it’s so important to bring it out and look and say, Hey, What is it for me? Yeah, how do I want to do this? What? How do I want to exercise influence or choice or help people or respond to things? What do I do when I realize someone’s asking for something that already exists?[00:16:00]

Do I want to do it? Get aggressive or attack or accuse them, or do I want to help them realize that there’s something that they’re missing and we can connect the dots in this organization will be better as a result of that, right? But we’re all carrying those around. And trying to get to what those are, but also where, to

Eric: your point, Eric, where they came from, where they came from, how do they get shaped?

One of the exercises I’m doing more and more with my leaders is helping them develop a simple vision statement around the kind of leader they want to be. Yeah, that’s right. Because again we talked about on the previous episode, we just recorded not long ago. And we talked about like organizations that.

There’s so many visionless organizations out there that don’t really have a sense of where they’re going. So anything will do if you don’t know where you’re going, anything will do. And yet there’s been so much emphasis in the last 20 years or so on developing a mission, vision, values for your business.

And we believe in that. We think that’s really important. Although nine times out of 10, when the exercise is completed and they’ve hired the consultant or even, when we do the work, it’s different. Cause we [00:17:00] want to make sure that gets. Integrated into everything that they do. Cause I don’t care how fancy your vision statement or how not a marketing, it’s not a marketing message.

I don’t care how emotionally compelling your values may be. If you’re not actually, if you can’t tell me what they are when I ask you and you’re not using them to make business decisions, then they’re not really. Worth the paper they’re printed on, right? But we believe that when they are used properly, when they’re defined properly, we have a sense of where we’re going.

But how many leaders do you know? So what kind of leader do you envision becoming? Most people can’t answer that question. So when they don’t have a desired path, figured out or determined or identified, then again, what path are they going to follow? They’re going to follow the path that they’ve been shown.

How many leaders do we know? When I ask this question I’m always stunned. How many here have ever had, formal leadership training? And the vast majority, I’d say over 90%, have never had any leadership training. So they’re doing the best they can with what they have. But the leadership that they’re exhibiting is often a mishmash of their own a store, a form, first formation story, their [00:18:00] story of origin, right?

Their family beliefs that they inherited as children, early work experiences that they had and then the leaders that they were most. Influenced by both the good leaders and the Darth Vaders, right? That’s what it was like holding the flashlight for their dad.

Trefor: And that’s probably the

Eric: first boss they had.

And it

Trefor: usually didn’t go well, right? Shine it over here.

Eric: But so it’s, again, I think that self awareness is one, you got to get clear on the path you want to actually be on. Because if you’re not, then it’s hard to be self aware, because you don’t know if you’re on path or not. You’re just doing what you’ve always done, repeating the behavior you’ve always repeated that has probably been handed down from influences throughout your life.

But it’s not a self defined life.

Steve: Yeah, and the outcome is usually the evidence. Like broken relationships, losing your temper shutting down, procrastination hiring people, firing people just through some churn of turnover. So the outcome is usually evidence of procrastination. [00:19:00] Oh, something’s not right here.

Yeah, I would add shaming and pouting to your list. Shaming and pouting. You’ve seen that in me personally, is that what you’re saying?

Trefor: Yes, your

Steve: list. Yeah,

Trefor: yeah,

Steve: your

Trefor: list. That’s

Steve: shaming. We believe in you. We believe in you.

Trefor: We

Rob: believe in you,

Trefor: Steve. Yes, change takes

Steve: time. We can think that we’re great, And we can say, Oh, I’m fine.

There’s nothing wrong with me. But when we look at the outcome, that’s the evidence that points to I do stupid things or we do stupid things regularly enough. We should go back. I will go back, not should, but I will go back to the drawing board and reflect on, okay, how am I leading? Who am I and what new outcomes do I want?

And then what characteristics will. Deliver those outcomes. So if it needs to be, if I need to be more patient, then that’s then I’m going to work. That becomes my professional development journey is to be a more patient person so that the outcomes reflect that

Trefor: it’s so good because the that version where we can look around and look at what’s the observable evidence of what happened [00:20:00] here is really helpful, but there’s a challenge with it as well because a lot of our behaviors work just well enough that we don’t evolve the behavior.

And there are no big blowouts, there are no anger episodes, there’s no dramatic failures, there’s just enough ness that we’re working our way through, and so we look and go it’s working, I’ve got this far, I have these indicators of progress and development, and yet, they’re leaving on the table.

That, that full rich expression of what’s possible of what they’re truly capable of what the organization could actually become and what they could actually do, but they’re playing safe with

Steve: it as well. I heard just a fantastic illustration of that using numbers from one to 10, 10 being a great person or a great outcome.

And of course, one being the worst. And this person in particular was talking about. People on your team and said this [00:21:00] great statement that sevens sink companies. Six and under you fire them. Oh, that’s good. Seven stick around. They’re not bad enough to fire. There’s no major blowouts.

But what we really want is eights and nines and tens in our company. But as you were saying, what you just said, Trevor, that’s so good. I don’t, I also don’t want to just be a seven in my life, or in an area of your life or in an area. Yeah. It’s it’s good enough. Meh, good enough, meritocraties he said, uh, meh.

To quote meritocraties meh. Is it meritocraties or mediocrity? Mediocrity. Mediocrity.

Trefor: The opposite. Yeah.

Steve: So I, again, some, I’m, in some areas of my life I might be a six. And I’m not going to beat myself up about it, but I do want to get myself in gear and let’s move to seven and beyond.

Eric: And this is where your story, though, really matters. Like the path that you have predetermined. And again, so many people don’t have that. I don’t need to be a 10 in every area, right? If this skill set. Or ability or whatever isn’t relevant to my path and it’s not relevant to my [00:22:00] team. Why would I pursue a 10?

Why would I put energy and time into that? Why? So I can compare myself to Joe Blow and say he’s a 10. So now I’m a 10. I feel better. No, I want to develop and be a 10. 10, nine, 10 in areas of my life that actually fucking matter, like that are relevant to who I want to be, to what I stand for that are relevant to the business that I’m involved in and the mission that I’m trying to accomplish.

That’s where I want to reserve my best energy. But I think a lot of us waste a lot of energy becoming stronger in areas that don’t really matter, but we’re keeping up with the Joneses. We

Steve: could probably. We could probably circle that word comparison. Oh. And in some ways say that’s the opposite of self-awareness.

Ah, sense. Maybe not a complete perfect definition, but it’s the

Eric: thief of joy. It’s the thief of joy. It’s the thief of joy and fulfillment.

Steve: So instead of being self-aware, I will compare myself to what? So and so made it rhyme. I made it rhyme. The former

Eric: preacher, you, I made it wrong. I’m expecting you to end with a hymn now and an offering.

The offering will come later for sure. So instead of [00:23:00] self aware, we compare and what again, we limit ourselves. And again, we’re living and running on a path that’s not our own. And we wonder why we’re unhappy. We’re wonder that even. Think of the successful leaders that we work with, that by all standards are successful as successful can be.

They’ve got the big houses, they’ve got the the big cars, they’ve got the cottage and the 2. 7 kids and they’re living like by all standards They are experiencing a lot of material, but they’re unhappy because they’re miserable.

Rob: They’re miserable because they’re defining their success by someone else’s standard.

And the comparison part, again, it goes back to other people are writing the story for them. Other people are creating the narrative. Other people are the. The shoulds, the coulds, right? All of the stuff that we talk about often here at Living Richly when you’re driven by, that’s why it goes, it’s so critical and I, I can’t emphasize enough the value of something like the 15 day challenge and why that’s it’s such a powerful [00:24:00] tool to help people with the language that I, is probably my favorite language in that entire program is the creating your life manifesto.

None. That document that has got your values and it’s got your vision. It’s got all that. When you start to truly lean into what is Matt, what you’ve created for you, not what someone else has told you, not what somebody else has said you should, but when you live into what you’ve created for yourself, now the awareness comes because you’re able to show up authentically and fully in every situation, because you know who you are and what you want to show up as.

Eric: I was recently preparing for a future show. And the question part. of it is what does success mean to you? And I remember sitting there and wrestling one morning just reflecting and I’m like, what does success mean to me? And it was interesting. At first I was stumped and sometimes these questions are hard.

We avoid them because they’re big questions, right? And we talked about being distracted and living in a the non attention economy, right? Where there’s we have so little [00:25:00] focus and time and attention that we, these big questions come along and we Oh, I should probably answer that.

But my Tik Tok feed and my dog needs to be fed and we’re off doing a million things, but it didn’t take me long. I was like, Oh no, I know what success means to me. It means loving well, being in good relationship with the people closest to me means living well, creating moments and experiences again with the people that I love the most being well, continuing to learn and evolve and become the best version of myself and serving well, making a difference and making an impact in people’s lives.

How do I know that? Cause I. I defined it for myself. So when I’m doing those things, I’m being successful.

Rob: And you didn’t define it for yourself when you’re answering that question. No, you had already done all that work. I’d done that work before. That, you I could have quoted what you were about to say there because you’ve shared it with me, right?

We shared it on the show. Maybe I should stop sharing it so much. This is something, no, I think you should share more. You should, I should, but I can’t. I can’t share it more. Yeah.

I always share too much, but never enough, but that was already there, [00:26:00] right? And so now when the question comes up, yeah, maybe it takes a second for it to land, but then all of a Oh my God, I’ve already done all this work. Yeah. Now I can lean into this and that’s what self awareness, you come into any situation, you come into any environment of whatever’s going on.

When you’ve done some of this work already, now you can come in and you’re like, I know that’s okay for me. That’s not acceptable. That’s I’m sorry. You can’t speak to me that way. You can’t do that. You, I will not allow that space in my environment. You, all of those things are self awareness things.

statements that come out of the work that you’ve done. Decision

Trefor: making is so much easier and so much faster, right? The amount of time and energy we’re putting into making decisions when we’re making lots of decisions, but not actually making real choices, right? And so it’s to find the tools that we need to make those choices.

We’re always chasing a feeling, right? The people who are looking for the house and the [00:27:00] cottage and the kids and the life and the whatever, there’s a feeling they’re trying to get, and this is the best they know how on how to meet that, the needs of that feeling. Getting really clear on how do I want to feel in my own skin, in my heart, in my depth, like how do I want to feel?

And then to say, how else could I get there? I may have tried these things already and that’s not delivering, but to be aware of what’s the feeling you’re actually trying to get, is it connection? Yeah. Is it peace? Yeah. Is it? Clarity. Is it confidence? Is it there’s right. You can pick whatever you want.

I don’t have a view on what it should be for people, but to be able to get clear on what’s that, what are those, that bundle of predominant feelings that I want in my life? And sometimes it’s growth. Sometimes it’s excitement. Sometimes it’s adventure. Sometimes it’s calm, right? Whatever that is.

And to then say, what do you, how do I get there? What are the things that do it? It’s I don’t know that I need a big house to get that. I don’t know that I need an [00:28:00] RV to get that. I don’t know that I need things to get that. But again, it clears away the reflexive approaches, the beliefs we think we need in order to get those things and gets to the heart of it.

And I think that’s when we start to see ourselves

Eric: more clearly. Think of a unique value proposition in business, right? We work with our clients to help identify what is the unique value proposition you’re bringing to the market. And by unique, we don’t necessarily. really mean blue ocean unique where you’re bringing something that’s never been done before.

We know that kind of innovation in the world of business and in life is really exciting, but it’s actually quite rare, right? Like it happens, but most innovation happens in products and services that people are already familiar with. It’s Red Ocean innovation where they’re just offering it differently, in a way that people aren’t used to think of Uber is a classic example of that, right?

Airbnb is a classic example of that. Every restaurant. Every restaurant.

Trefor: Here’s what we’re

Eric: good at. Here’s our signature dish or our [00:29:00] approach. If you don’t know what your UVP is in business, how can you possibly position yourself or market yourself in a way that makes any sense? Because you’re just like everybody else.

How many people understand their unique value proposition as an individual? And by that, I don’t mean your worth because I’ve said it on the show before. You’re as valuable now as you will ever be. But then I’ll add, but I’m still becoming the best version of me. So it’s not about earning my value, earning my worth, but getting clear on again, who I am, what do I bring to this world, like what is important to me?

How do I want to show up? When that is clear or. Becoming clearer, because I’m still figuring it out as I go. Stuff that I thought was clear, all of a sudden it’s like layers, it’s like onions. And Donkey would say like a parfait, because parfait has layers. My badge struck him. There’s a

Trefor: quote I’ve never heard anyone else use before.

That’s whatever. Parfait has layers. Except for an ass. Except for an ass. The only other person who’s ever done it is an ass. That was an ass of a quote. Let’s go back to the onion. You peel layers. [00:30:00] And every layer makes you cry more. Parfait has

Eric: layers. You have to dig through the layers. And you have to say it like that, by the way.

But this whole notion of when you’re not clear, how can you possibly think of how you’re flying blind? How can you literally check in with yourself and say, I’m showing up the way more and more. Again. Parfait. Perfection is never the goal, but progress is, am I showing up more and more the way that I choose to, or am I living on autopilot most of the time?

How do I know? It’s like, how does a pilot know they’re on course? They have a flight plan. They know exactly where they’re leaving from. They know where they’re going. They’re even anticipating the weather that they’re going to be experiencing to be able to do this successfully. Most of us don’t have a map and leaders will, might have it for their business, but they lack it for themselves.

Steve: I think autonomy is another powerful word that. that I get to decide who I’m going to be and no one else gets to decide it. They’ll influence, they will have some not just how I [00:31:00] determine how I’m going to live my life, but ultimately we are sovereign beings and living our lives as sovereign beings is I think is the goal and that we become who we were meant to become, whatever that means from God or the universe or what, like we were born.

And before anybody. with be like this or be like that. There were some, there was some reason we’re born into the world and to discover who that is and to live that to its fullest is maybe the great journey of the human is to discover that. I love that. Another great word for

Eric: that. It was, is agency.

We have agency, right? The sense of we get to choose. We don’t have to just. Be like the Joneses or build our business. Doesn’t I know one client of ours. I was speaking to him. It was so great. So refreshing in a space where you’re expected to look a certain way and show up a certain ways of business. And he and his wife decided to build a business that’s successful.

I’m going to give them what they want out of life, but that is also going to be more [00:32:00] enjoyable, more life giving. And you know what? It’s not going to look like. What society or the world of business would say it needs to look like, but they have chosen autonomy over slavery agency, over mimicking somebody else’s model.

Why? Cause they’ve said, this is who we are. This is what we want. And at least for this next season of our lives. This is what we’re going to build. And I celebrate that all day long.

Trefor: I hear people surrender agency all day long. I can’t because my team, I can’t because my boss, I can’t because the board, I can’t because the market, I can’t because the technology and I’m like, okay, those are all factors.

Absolutely. But a lot of cancer, a lot of cans, the but they’re not the limits, right? I think. Part of the excitement of leading is to get to navigate with creativity and innovation, boundaries, constraints, obstacles, issues, problems, whatever we want to call them that start to emerge. So a team may be may struggle with a direction that you got, but that’s not a [00:33:00] can’t.

And in the moment we do that, those five words, those core five words are always a surrender of agency and power and choice and autonomy and sovereignty. And I think we need to reclaim them.

Eric: One bit at a time. I love that. I love that. And we talked so much about on the last show, when we talked about potential, how it takes discomfort.

It takes pushing yourself beyond the normal boundaries of what you’ve experienced. Anybody who wants to carve their own path is going to experience resistance because you are literally going against 70 percent of the world’s population that according to the research by Keegan and Leahy, which they call the socialized mind.

That’s the, it’s the lowest level of adult brain development and most like 70 percent of the population never evolved beyond it. Most human beings on the planet, leaders alike are living to fit in. They’re living to belong. They’re looking for belonging. What all they’re really doing is fitting in because true belonging, as Brené Brown puts it, is you show up, As you are, and people accept you [00:34:00] as you are fitting in, you have to look a certain way, act a certain way in order to be part of the group.

Steve: And the work that we do as coaches is incredible because we get to sit across the table or more often through the screen and ask questions. Powerful questions. Yeah. Remember the first time you said what we do Steve, is we are question ologists. . That’s right. What a cool world master question.

Master question. Yeah. Because question powerful questions unlock self-awareness. Yeah. And, the work that we do is I don’t want to overstate it, but it’s sacred because we get to give that leader and where does the leader go where there’s somebody is not trying to get something from them or behave a certain way and with their coach, none of that’s there.

They, we asked the question and they get to explore what could be, whether that’s. Deeply personal or what kind of business do I want to build? What kind of culture do I want to have inside of the organization that I’m leading?

Rob: I, you said, I don’t want to overstate [00:35:00] it. I don’t know if you can overstate it because I, it is sacred.

And the opportunity to do this, it is very difficult. I want to say impossible, but perhaps not impossible, but it’s very difficult to understand and become self aware. On your own without that person the objective person who is there, but just cheering you on wanting the best of you without any of the other, the garbage or the, their own, what they need from you or anything like this.

And we see this in leaders all the time. I can’t talk to my spouse because I don’t want to put worry, worry them about business. I can’t talk to my kids. Staff. I can’t, they don’t have that person who it’s, I, I had a client recently just said, the amount of money I’m spending with you these days, he said, I should just hire you into onto my team.

And I said, it would be the worst decision you’d ever make. Now I’d be wondering because now I would be, if I was dependent on you for my paycheck, now, all of a sudden the advice and the guidance I’m going to give you is going to have a bias to it,

Steve: right?

Rob: The [00:36:00] beauty of what you have right now is by having a coach who is outside your organization.

I can come in and speak the truth, point out at the worst thing that can happen is you say, I don’t want you as a coach anymore. Okay. I’ve got lots of other clients that I can work with. Like I’m not dependent on livelihood. It’s

Eric: not dependent on anyone. And

Rob: so now I can come in and I can help you uncover truth.

The truth that is in you that you’re not seeing for yourself.

Eric: Yeah. And I love you that you raised that because that’s now getting into like, how do we increase self awareness? And one of them is by working with a coach or working with a mentor, which we we believe in it so much that every coach at our coaching company has their own coach.

Like we, we practice what we preach because we understand the value of it. But let’s face it. I’ve heard it over and over again. And all the latest brain research confirms it. The confirmation bias that we have. Wow. The ability of the human being’s capacity for self deception is we talk about potential, [00:37:00] like it’s massive, our ability to tell ourselves stories and ignore truths that are staring us right in the face and to just make that mean something else. And right, like our capacity for that is so strong. What are the ingredients necessary or maybe ingredients is the wrong word, but what are some of the best strategies, of that you’ve employed for yourself or with clients to help break that confirmation bias and help a person see beyond what they’re currently seeing?

Yeah, that is a great question. So

Steve: We, that’s question. That’s a great question. Next question. We usually, as a company, we usually start with. An entry point of some assessments, which is essentially are well systematized questions really put together. So the disc assessment, like that’s a great a great way for people to understand, Oh, why do I do the way I, things I do, why do I act so weird?

Why am I so weird? And why am I so weird around other P certain people, right around some people [00:38:00] I’m so comfortable and around other people I shut down. So that disc assessment is one. Great tool. We also have a great Rhapsody business assessment that’s right that we’ve created that takes a different slant, but it does essentially the same thing.

It gives the business leader or owner or executive the opportunity to step back and reflect, but not with chaotic questions with proven. Tools with proven methodologies so that we really can help that person have that sort of awakening or awareness of who they are. That’s my thoughts on that.

I love that.

Trefor: You need feedback. Yeah. You need some kind of feedback something to say, here are the effects of your actions and your behaviors. Here’s what’s playing out as a result of it. Do you see you? And so it’s external things you can trust versus external things that have an agenda.

And I think you described that really nicely in terms of that, why it works as an act, why [00:39:00] coaches work so well externally and can struggle internally. Not always, but like it’s, but the agenda goes away. The agenda goes away. And so it’s, we do want external feedback. We want to gauge ourselves and actually see what’s the level of alignment between how I see me and how this thing, which has been baselined, methodologically tested and applied in a consistent manner.

How does it see me? And then look at the gaps between those, start to go, Ooh, and then to have somebody with, so you can do that. In some ways, you can do that on your own. You can do an assessment on your own. Go and see what I see. Very often when people want to do an assessment on their own, the results don’t become all that important later, unless they are actually really highly aligned with how you see yourself, which is why having someone else there as well to, without the agenda, with.

Experience with insight, with integrity, with accountability, to walk through those conversations, to celebrate where that alignment is great. And it’s serving you real well [00:40:00] to be there with real compassion, but directness and honesty about what’s working and what’s not to say that these seem like they’re far apart.

Let’s talk about that. Yeah. What’s in between those two things? Why is that? Yeah. And to be able to journey together around that. Because without that feedback, it is almost impossible to get to any change. You’re flying

Eric: blind. I often use the analogy, and it’s a little hard for most folks to understand now, this, because triangulating your position using external points of reference, unless you’re lost and there’s no cell and you have no cell service, Google will just find where the hell you are and tell you where you need to go.

But long before we had that kind of technology at our fingertips you had to triangulate, which meant you had to find at least one major point of reference and a second one. And from there you could usually figure out on a map where you were. So I often use that to say when it comes to feedback, yes, self assessment is critical.

It starts there. It starts with a leader learning to use tools. I call them a lens. It’s like you’re putting a set of [00:41:00] glasses on that help you see something that you’ve been looking at a long time, but you’re seeing it in a new way, in a different way. So self assessment is definitely part of that. But I believe you have to have at least two other sources of feedback.

outside of yourself because self awareness again, we have to be very conscious of the fact that we have a strong confirmation bias. And unless we’re in significant pain or in a moment of genuine awakening, we may see a little bit, but most of it escapes our notice. That

Trefor: triangulation, that’s smart.

That’s really smart. And cause there’s one other dimension goes with it. They need to be fixed points that you can trust. Not just any two points. They can’t be fixed. They can’t be moving. Don’t triangulate on a running gear. Exactly. Real hard. Fixed and trusted. And that’s where your choice of who you work with, who’s going to give you feedback, what tools you’re going to use, you need to think about that.

I love

Steve: the word proven. When I was in liminal space trying to figure out my pastor world and then move ahead [00:42:00] professionally without all of that dogmatic. stuff. I felt unmoored. I felt I’m just twisting in the wind. And so I needed to find things that were proven points, fixed points, things that were trustworthy.

And right. And so I know when we focus on the work that we do with our clients, we don’t chase after what’s Trendy or some Tik Tok thing that I

Rob: love how much you guys are using Tik Tok. Like I said a number of times in the Tik Tok

thing. I got to talk

Trefor: on my mind space page. One of my minds, babe,

Steve: We were even chatting before the podcast about some of the tools that we use are. are not just decades old or hundreds of years old but thousands of years based

Eric: on like again philosophy and wisdom that is thousands of years old and yes open to new and innovative you might you have to stay open of course but i think there’s a there’s an old jewish [00:43:00] proverb that says the wise steward knows how to bring out of the storehouse both old and new treasures so i think the person only chases the new is missing out on Time established proven strategies for becoming a great leader and leading a great organization.

I think folks that are only focused on the old miss out on all the new wisdom that’s emerging. I think it’s a balancing

Rob: act. But I think we’re still in the challenge here when it comes to the, your biases, because even trusted. If you’re biased, you’re going to say I can trust the, we see it today with news, right?

This news station, I can trust that one. I can’t. So in their mind, I’m going to continue in my bias because I’m only taking in sources. That I think are trustworthy sources. One of my favorite, probably my favorite Ted talk is Margaret Efferman, Dare to Disagree. And it’s one we’ve all seen before. And the notion that here’s, and it’s a great Ted talk if you listen to it, but she shares the story of this [00:44:00] person who this lady who brings on as her, Right hand person in her research, someone whose entire job is to challenge and disagree with her

Eric: results, like to expand on that, like a person who actually had a completely different point of view on the research and so would be motivated intrinsically to challenge her because he didn’t believe what she was doing.

Rob: And I think, I’ve said to people at times, when was the last time you read a book or read an article or watched a documentary on the opposite view of what you hold to? I got somebody who, was quoting a book, this is going to be the best book ever. And it was a book that aligned completely with their opinion on certain things about COVID.

And I responded to them and said, What was the last time you read a book that actually was completely opposite viewpoint? I don’t have time for that trash. I don’t have time for any of that. Then no wonder you’re going to be caught up in an echo chamber,

Eric: right? Echo chamber. That’s what I was.

Yeah. I was about you, you went right there and I was going to go [00:45:00] echo, but think about it. Most leaders would say, no, I think I’m good. I think I’m like

Rob: Hey, am I good?

Eric: Am I good? They’re turning to their leaders. I remember having a very frank, facilitating a very frank discussion.

You be frank. I’ll be earnest. Okay. Womp. Let’s go

Trefor: back to Shrek. Steve needs to put into this right now. An alarm that says dad joke. He will too. He will watch for it in the final. Sad joke.

Eric: But I remember facilitating this discussion with this team and it was actually around the disc material.

So we were learning about, they were learning about each other’s personality differences and behavioral preferences. And I’d been working with the leader for some time and he thought he was pretty self aware and had a moment where he had a flash into how. unselfaware he had been not self aware.

He had been on a certain front when he got frustrated because we were talking about on his team. He was very frustrated that people weren’t speaking up enough or weren’t giving their ideas that they weren’t contributing more. And so he, in a moment, [00:46:00] he kinda, he didn’t lose his cool, but he crossed the line.

He was pretty strong in voicing this to his whole team. And you could tell it was coming from a place of frustration. That’s okay. Emotions. Okay. In business. But he says, you I never hear from you guys. Like you never give me feedback at which point this, the newest member of their team, who is a very soft spoken wallflower type, like just the least likely person to speak up says we don’t say anything because you never.

And she found her courage. She found her voice in that moment and that began a conversation. But again, I think a lot of teams, you want to talk about, I rely on my team to let me know if I’m doing okay or not. You want to talk about confirmation bias. You want to talk about echo chamber. You want to talk about if I say something to the boss, I might lose my job.

People don’t understand that in most organizations, when you start to ask questions of that nature, you’re asking for trouble, right? You need. Something outside of your organization, whether it be a coach, whether it be a peer group, whether it be [00:47:00] a group of trusted business leaders that you meet with, whatever the case may be, you need something outside of your everyday domain to help you see clearly.

Steve: I’ve also made. A personal decision to never be fully immersed in any ideology. Now, I don’t know if that’s 100% wise, but that’s where I’m at right now. So I have a little saying that I am one degree separated from any ideology. So whether it’s political, that’s a good dogma. Yeah. Yeah. Whether it’s political, re religious,

Rhapsody: that’s

Steve: not.

And I am one degree separated from that. So now I’m two degrees separated, so I’m pretty safe now. I think the degrees of

Eric: separation between you and Trev just increased. Six degrees.

Steve: Because I, I think in that the ideologies or the echo chamber or Fox news, CNN news whatever it’s going to be, if I start getting drawn into that.

So I, again, I want to maintain my agency my autonomy, but I also am willing to say I’m not going to do that perfectly. [00:48:00] Okay. Do I ever get sucked in sometimes? Of course, because who does this, who navigates this perfectly, but I want to move out. And so I have a little daily prompt for me to remind me that I’m not going to get sucked into any ideology.

I love

Eric: that. I love it. Gentlemen, I feel we could keep. Talking about this subject all day long.

Steve: I’m

Eric: trying hard, but we’re going to try to wrap this up. I’d like to close again, like a lightning round, a word of advice to our listeners that are tuning into this episode. We’ve focused our entire conversation around the importance of increasing your self awareness. We’ve talked about feedback and other ways to do that.

But if you were to leave our listeners with a final thought, thought for them to consider from this conversation, what would it be?

Trefor: I would suggest try this look for where you’re most frustrated. Where do you get frustrated? Most often there’s gold in there. There’s something you’re not fully aware of.

That’s [00:49:00] frustrating you. That would be my advice.

Steve: Yeah. I think Trevor, you said the word autopilot early in this. Podcasts. And I think if someone, if you were to just write down that word on a piece of paper, autopilot and ask, what are my autopilots? When I’m no, when I’m no longer driving the car, but something else, whether it’s anger or fear or.

Pride. What are my autopilots? And do reflection and journaling on that. And I think some beautiful things will be discovered. I love that. I would say be

Eric: curious ever more curious about yourself and your journey. And where you find yourself convinced, challenge your convinced state because the more convinced we are, the more closed we are, the more curious we are, the more open we

Rob: are.

Yeah. And I would add, just go back to community and the notion that you can’t do this Kind of work on your own. It’s difficult to do this work on your own. And write down on a piece of paper, the names of people that you would count as your trusted sources, [00:50:00] your connections. I did this exercise with a team that I was doing some training with recently, and it was powerful because it became real.

Real to them when they actually put a name down and said, these are the people that I’m going to reach out to and say, I want you to hold me accountable. I want you to help me figure this out. And so I would say, identify some people in your life that you can have as that inner community to help you become more self aware.

Eric: Wow. Wow. Wow. Gentlemen, this has been such an enriching conversation. Thank you for participating in it. And thanks for tuning in. We hope you’ve enjoyed this conversation. And as always, we encourage you to like share and subscribe to the show to get the word out. If you’re a business leader who’s listening to this episode and you’ve really resonated with some of the things that we have said, and you’re looking to take your business, your team, your leadership to the next level, do reach out.

That’s what we do day in, and day out. We’d be happy to serve you and help you go to that. Next level that you’re envisioning. We also encourage you to go to our website, living richly. me, where you can find great [00:51:00] information on two things. One is the 15 day life vision challenge, which actually the subject of which we keep coming back to, which is getting clear on who you are and what you stand for this is a free online experience that’s designed to help you begin that journey or accelerate that journey greatly.

And you can also find out about our exclusive free private Facebook group called the living richly nation. Again, we’ve talked about the importance of community. You get to hang out online with other like minded people that are on this journey of discovery and growth and reaching their full potential folks.

Thanks again for tuning in. We’re so grateful for your ongoing support. And until we see you next time, get out there and live your best life.

 

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