[INTRO]

Diana: [00:00:00] What I mean by conscious is, first of all, can you just be here now? Can you just be here? And so that you can be with what's actually happening and be aware of it. And then also, can you be here now in a non triggered, non reactive state so that you really are fully available to be present to what's happening in you and around you.

And so be here now, non triggered, non reactive state is my definition for conscious.

Jenny: That's Diana Chapman. She's a coauthor of the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, a New Paradigm for Sustainable Success. She's also a co founder of the Conscious Leadership Group, where she has advised thousands of leaders over the years. This is the Denizen Podcast. I'm your host and curator, Jenny Stefanadi.

In this episode, we're discussing conscious leadership. That is what it looks like to lead an organization from higher levels of consciousness than is [00:01:00] the default in the world today. Her book outlines 15 commitments of conscious leadership, and we explore most of them in this rich conversation, rife with insights that will shift how you think about your role as a leader in the world.

As always, you can find show notes in the transcript for this episode on our website, becomingdenizen. com. As well as our newly launched sub stack on our website, you can sign up for our newsletter. I bring our latest content to your inbox alongside information about virtual denizen events, including community discussions with our podcast guests.

So if you'd like to join us and meet Diana, sign up for our newsletter or contact me directly from the website. Again, that's becoming denizen. com. All right. I think this one could be a game changer for many of you. So without further ado, here's Diana Chapman.

[INTERVIEW]

What I am particularly excited about. with this conversation is one to introduce everyone to you and the incredible work that you do, but also because of the way that this conversation builds on a lot of the work that we've been talking about at the personal [00:02:00] level and brings it into the organizational level, which really helps to illustrate how we can have these kind of ripple effects at the systemic level from taking agency in our own work and our own lives.

So thank you for being here. It's really an honor. So

Diana: happy to be with you.

Jenny: I tend to start my conversations with just clarity around the words that we're using because there's often ambiguity around what exactly does that mean. So when you say conscious, we talk about conscious leadership. What do you mean by conscious?

Diana: Okay, so what I mean by conscious is first of all, can you just be here now? You just be here and so that you can be with what's actually happening and be aware of it

Jenny: Hmm,

Diana: and then also can you be here now in a non triggered non reactive state? So that you really are fully available to be present to what's happening in you and around you.

And so be here now, non triggered, [00:03:00] non reactive state is my definition for conscious.

Jenny: We have a whole conversation on optimal zone resilience, being in the optimal zone versus being in a reactive space. You often start a session with executives with a line. On the board, tell us about the line.

Diana: Yeah. So we say there's a line in this line is going to distinguish between reactive and responsive between fear and trust between life is happening to me versus life is happening by me.

When I am below the line, it's not funny. I'm reactive, I'm triggered. My identity perceives a threat and there's some part of me that's contracting, whether that's in my mind or my heart or my body or all of them at the same time. And in that place, there's a problem with a capital P. And when I'm above the line, [00:04:00] I recognize that.

I'm okay. I'm present here. And while there may be some really meaningful challenges going on fundamentally, I'm in a state of trust

Jenny: and

Diana: I recognize that I am the creator of my reactivity and that I can be responsive. And be curious and learn and recognize that it's all about learning more than anything else.

It's all here for me to learn from.

Jenny: I love that frame. I find it incredibly potent and we're going to talk more about it. I also think it's important to note that being conscious does not mean that you're always above the line.

Diana: No, my goodness.

Jenny: It means that you're aware when you go below the line and you know how to get yourself back above the line.

Diana: I might say to myself in my own head today, Oh, gosh, look at you, Diana. You're getting reactive. And I see your breath is shortening and your heart's raising a little more. There's a threat you're perceiving. [00:05:00] And I can be guiding myself through a witnessing of myself and be aware of what's happening in the system itself and then help it get back into presence.

Jenny: And you can see how a meditation practice would help just to have the awareness, you know, this, this distancing, I'm witnessing my frustration. I'm not being my frustration.

Diana: Meditation is just my gym too.

Jenny: Quick question. What fraction of leaders do you think are above the line versus below the line most of the time?

Diana: I would say it is not uncommon for me to have a conversation and introduce the concept of above and below the line. And many leaders will say, Diana, I'm not sure I've ever been above the line in my life.

Jenny: Yeah,

Diana: that's probably true.

Jenny: Yeah. Because

Diana: I think for most of us being above the line is not familiar.

And most of us can only handle about zero to four seconds of being above the line before we go back.

Jenny: That's humbling.

Diana: We're wired to go below the line because we're wired for looking out for survival. So it's not a good or [00:06:00] bad or right or wrong thing, but the exciting thing is we actually have the consciousness to be aware and to shift ourselves with practice.

Jenny: I find very potent the four ways of leading. that you describe at the top of the book, which kind of show essentially four states of consciousness with respect to you and your experience that then have implications for how you lead. So can you tell us about the four ways of leading?

Diana: Sure. So one of them is life is happening to me in this state.

I am in some form of victimhood and it feels like it's happening to me. You hurt me. That email I just read pissed me off. The bank account I see in the number in it is scaring me. And so I'm in a state of victimhood and I feel disempowered in some way. And then I might try to temporarily fix it. Maybe I'll be critical.

But the whole state is wired for I am [00:07:00] not in the creator here. It's happening to me. Then the next shift, if I'm willing to really take responsibility, I can go to buy me and buy me says, Hey, I am the creator of my experience here. You didn't hurt me. I hurt myself. That email didn't piss me off. I pissed myself off.

I'm the creator of the experience. If you aren't giving me the feedback I want as my manager. I'm the creator of not getting that feedback. And I can take a look at how I keep setting it up that I don't get the feedback I want. Then if I'm willing to let go of all of my attachments, I move over into life is happening through me.

And then life is happening through me. I recognize. That I'm part of something greater than myself, whatever you want to call that. Awareness, awake awareness, presence, the force, God, spirit, I don't care whatever you want to call it. But I'm [00:08:00] aware that there's a collaboration that I can be in. I move into more of a listening.

Where I really want to allow, what is life's greatest expression that wants to move in and through me? I love that question. And then if I really want to have a direct experience of oneness, I go and have an as me state. This is an extremely rare state for most people, but maybe all of us have had it somewhere where I recognize there's one thing and I'm a part of that one thing.

And it's not just an intellectual understanding, it's a direct experience.

Jenny: And I find it so potent that most of your work also focuses on moving people from to me to by me.

Diana: Yes.

Jenny: Just moving from the victim orientation into an empowered relationship with life.

Diana: Yes. But that is the first step. Can everybody do that?

And then I like, now most of my work is helping people. [00:09:00] Really move from by me to through me.

Jenny: Mm hmm. Yeah, it's interesting We one of the conversations we had on the podcast called embodied leadership and Donnie McClurkin our guest and his team They actually spend sometimes a half of their meetings in silence Just connecting to their bodies connecting to that through me voice to help inform Decision making within the organization.

Diana: Yeah Yeah. And there's listening to sensation, listening to emotion, listening to thoughts, listening to just this kind of intuitive, so many different places to listen from.

Jenny: And your book delineates 15 commitments that entail conscious leadership. And I wish we had time to go into detail into all of them because they're all.

really amazing. It's like picking a child, you know, it's hard. It's hard to pick your favorites. And so I think we're going to talk about actually the majority of them, maybe not as robustly as I would like, but there's just really [00:10:00] big insights and gems from almost every single one of them. So let's start with The first and most important one, which is responsibility, which is actually the critical thing that moves us from that to me quadrant to the by me quadrant.

And I will add that I read the book conscious loving, which is a book that helps you become more conscious in your romantic and intimate relationships. And the single biggest takeaway, the single most transformational thing from that book for me was this notion that I am a hundred percent responsible for my reality.

So let's talk about that one.

Diana: Yeah. So that's gay and Katie Hendricks and they were my key mentors to them for 10 years. And that's where much of my work comes from. And so, yeah, the first commitment, we say it's the master commitment and gay and Katie wrote it. It was, I commit to take radical responsibility for the circumstances of my life and my favorite way.

To practice that is when somebody says, can you believe this is happening in my life? I [00:11:00] say, teach me the course. Let's pretend you're a professor at a university, and we all have come to the course because we want to create the exact same thing you're complaining about. Could you tell us exactly how to do it?

So, you know, how to have an incompetent CFO, how to have a mediocre sex life, how to have a kid that won't do their homework, how to have a, you know, Like, whatever it is, teach me the class. How do you create this thing if it's not happening to you? And that's just one of my most favorite exercises.

Jenny: I have a sticker on my computer and it says reasons are bullshit.

And this sticker came from actually the founding faculty director of the D school at Stanford. Bernie Roth, but his point was you can find the narrative to justify what you want to believe. The reason that you're coming up with is bullshit because there's infinite stories that you could [00:12:00] come up with to explain this moment and this experience.

So, so the point around responsibility, one version of it is like, I'm going to blame the traffic for being late, or I'm going to take responsibility for the fact that I don't manage my time particularly well, right? And I think really critically is that this responsibility commitment, it's in an empowering frame on life versus a disempowering victim orientation.

Diana: Yes. Ideally, people get really energized like, Oh wow, I feel like I do have power. And now that I recognize, I now know if I can teach you the class on how to create not getting the feedback you want from your manager. Well, now I can go get the feedback I want from my manager because I go do the opposite of everything I just taught you

Jenny: totally

Diana: and start to realize, Oh yeah, it's not so hard after all.

Jenny: Yeah. And Hendricks talks about in that book, it's not 50 percent responsible and 50 percent responsible or some allocation of it. Both of you are a hundred percent responsible.

Diana: Right. [00:13:00] Right. One of my favorite things is we haven't made our numbers three quarters in a row. I go, everybody teach the course.

Your part in how you have created the company, not making numbers three quarters. I have them go off in corners and write it all up and, and then I have them do it even as a team, like, how did product team do that? How did sales team do that? How did I love this? You start to go, Whoa, and so much comes in.

And like you said, we got to go learn from the past. We were talking about that earlier, right? No, last, but then let's then design a future based on recognizing how we created the past.

Jenny: Yeah, I love that so much. And again, it's just an agency oriented perspective of like, okay, What could I have done differently and critically because this is all about learning, right?

That tells me what I can learn to do things differently moving forward.

Diana: Yeah, and it gives people hope. That's Responsibility gives people so much hope.

Jenny: Yeah, you talked about the locus of control moving from taking responsibility versus [00:14:00] placing blame Which I think is really powerful, too. Yes. So the next one is curiosity Curiosity is actually one of Denison's six values.

It was the first value that we came together with because like curiosity brought us together this conversation that we're having. Let's talk about curiosity in the context of conscious leadership.

Diana: Yeah. So curiosity is just, can you question all your stories? And a lot of us start to decide that our stories are facts and we start doubling down on them.

And so curiosity is just, come on, let's separate out the better the facts and what are the stories and start questioning the stories.

Jenny: So

Diana: that we're free to recognize that as we choose the choices that we make, we're not righteous about it.

Jenny: Well, I love that you talked about three categories of information.

I found that to be powerful. Can you tell us about that?

Diana: Tell me what you're pointing to.

Jenny: What I know. What I don't know. What

Diana: I don't know that I don't know.

Jenny: Yeah. Oh, so it's what I know, what I don't know, and what I don't know [00:15:00] that I don't know. And it's that third piece.

Diana: Yes. Yes. There's so much that we don't know that we don't know so much.

And so curiosity, when I get into deep states of curiosity, I start to go, Oh my goodness, I'm seeing things so differently. I had no idea. And I couldn't have until I broadened my View through curiosity.

Jenny: You also said in the book all drama in leadership in life is caused by the need to be right.

Diana: Yes God, it's so fun to be right So fine, I'm so right you're so wrong or I'm wrong We also would love to do that to ourselves But yeah, right and wrong is just a very you get a good hit usually of some kind of chemical I'm

Jenny: good to

Diana: be right.

And so most of our political discourse is just nananana. I'm right. You're wrong And so that's how all drama recirculates.

Jenny: Well, I think it's interestingly also right and wrong is inherently adversarial. Yeah. Right. So we talk about like the nervous system [00:16:00] response. If you're coming at each other with that, then you're going into, I feel attacked and I want to be defensive and that pits us against each other.

Diana: I love one of my favorite exercise for groups is, um, Put a piece of tape down on the floor. And then this is usually because we're debating something and everybody go to the side that you feel you're standing for and debate. Like your life depends on it. Like you're trying to defend, like you're defending to a jury and with all the passion you have.

And then I literally make them physically walk across the tape and go to the other side and say, now you have to come to this side and you have to defend it as much as you just did the other side. And what happens is, is that everybody gets into this place of, huh. I actually saw something now

Jenny: that

Diana: I didn't see before and now I'm not so righteous.

I might still have a preference, but my preference is much more curious now. And actually, maybe I'm even considering. That we ought to include more of this other part too, or maybe I put it all together because who knows. And so I like the, especially getting a physical [00:17:00] body to step over into new commitment to curiosity.

Jenny: That actually is a nice bridge to later commitment, but let's get to it now because it's so related is the opposite of my story.

Diana: Yeah, they're very related, right?

Jenny: This is actually the one that I, I think I plucked away most potently from reading this book personally. So I was like, Oh, this, particularly if I think about limiting beliefs that I have about myself.

Diana: Yeah. I got this one from Byron Katie, who I'm just a big fan of. And I remember I went to my first training with her and I had a story that my dad doesn't get me. And it was a story I was really sure about and I had really created a lot of angst and sadness for myself for up, I think I was 37 when I went to that first course.

So that's a long time. And she was like, what if the opposite is at least as true that your dad does get you, can we find some evidence?

Jenny: I was

Diana: like, huh, and I found some evidence and she goes, let's turn it around another way. Let's see the other opposite. You don't get your dad. [00:18:00] I was like, Oh shit, I can see how that's true.

And then she said, let's turn it around again. You don't get you. And I was like, Oh, boom. You just like, I really could see I don't get me. And so I was in defense of some of the things my dad would say, cause I believed him too. And that was like that whole process. changed my entire life. My dad and I had this new relationship.

Oh,

Jenny: wow. That's amazing.

Diana: And I hadn't even talked to him yet, you know, but like, I'm already like, Oh my God, my dad. Wow. That was a great gift. And that was the beginning of a deep practice I got into with that work.

Jenny: I love that and I really appreciate the example that you gave in the book of the startup CEO's like it's irresponsible of me to leave this position and explore the opposite, which is actually it's irresponsible of me to stay because my heart is not in it anymore.

I thought that was really potent and I also just I would be remiss to not surface this quote relating to the opposite of my story because it's not just [00:19:00] relevant for organizational practice, but just life and human. Flourishing, which is something that's part of our vision. Whenever you don't accept the suchness of life, suffering occurs.

It's actually not the issue that causes the pain, but your interpretation of it. Life doesn't come with labels, it just comes. We give life the labels, and the label that we give life determines how we experience it.

Diana: Yep, so beautiful. Just to see, could you just let life be itself? Love arguing with it and let it be and learn in my work right now, I think probably the thing I'm most attracting are founders or mostly founders who really need to leave their companies, who just are terrified, heartbroken, don't want to be with the pain of letting go, you know, with the belief I should stay.

And so that's a common thing I attract to me.

Jenny: Well, that's a great bridge to [00:20:00] feelings. And I think this one's really interesting just looking at basic emotional competence and its relevance in an organizational setting. So let's talk about feelings. What's the commitment?

Diana: Yeah, the commitment is I'm willing to feel these feelings.

These are energetic patterns that move through the body I'm willing to feel them and breathe and move with them and let them go all the way through to completion and then listen to The intelligence that they offer and I'm also willing That for other people and really welcome people having their feelings instead of trying to shut them down or manage and control them

Jenny: Mm hmm.

Diana: And so that's a big part of my work is Pretty much everybody resists reality because they don't want to feel what they're going to have to feel if they be with it. So we do a lot, particularly with fear, sadness and anger at first and really helping them find those. And also people actually have a hard time with joy.

As happy as you are and also sexual feelings. Can you have all that [00:21:00] sexual energy? A lot of people are really afraid of all that sexual energy and I think sexual energy is incredibly important for creativity and so. So let it be okay to be your sexy selves is something a lot of people need to work with.

Jenny: Well, I really appreciate the points that you make also about just the wisdom. What is anger telling you honoring the messages that are coming from your emotional experience?

Diana: Most people think anger is like, you fucked up. I'm critical of you. But anger at its high point above the line just says, Hey, stop.

Something here is not serving you or your people.

Jenny: Totally. We tend to feel it and project it. Right. And that comes from also being in that to me quadrant. Yes.

Diana: Yeah. And then sadness. Can you recognize that something wants to get let go of?

Jenny: And

Diana: then fear. There's something that wants to get learned.

Something that we don't know right now. We need that learning. So something wants to get created with sexual energy, something wants to be [00:22:00] celebrated with joy. If people don't feel these things, they have to hold their breath a little bit, contract their bodies a little bit. And that's exhausting. It takes so much energy to hold feelings back.

And so one of the things I notice is people will say at the end of the day, like, I'm so tired. And my thought is a lot of that has to do with a lot of thoughts and feelings that got suppressed. And now people are managing all of that energetically in their bodies and they're tired because of it.

Jenny: Yeah. I think it's really interesting too, if you don't address those patterns, all the meditation and exercise and practices in the world are just kind of, you're pouring it into a leaky bucket.

Diana: Right. Those are just band aids on top of, you got to grieve. And so I have one client right now. She, this is the I found her and she said, I'm so burnt out and I don't know if I can keep going. And there's just so much emotion that's been backed up that she's been stuffing. Can we just help her liberate all that so she can have her life force back?

Jenny: Can [00:23:00] you talk about the implications of the workplace in particular? So this is just feels like essential life skills, but this is in the context of a conscious leadership conversation. So how does it show up in the workforce if you're not feeling your feelings?

Diana: Yeah. So it's going to show up usually as I'm going to start to stuff it.

I withhold it. When I start to withhold, I'm going to start to withdraw, even if subtly, you know, and then I start to withdraw, then start to project. And then I'm going to start having cognitive bias and really start only paying attention to everything that I think about you and ignore anything that's contrary to my story about you.

Brains can do that. It's fascinating. People can do that as a group and scapegoat somebody right out of a company. And so it's really important to stay in connection by revealing versus concealing.

Jenny: Well, this is a really critical. This is obviously a bridge to the next one, which is candor and not withholding and sharing.

And this is also one of the commitments to conscious loving was around sharing the microscopic truth. Yes. Right. And I just want to underscore what you just said, because [00:24:00] it's so important, which is that if you withhold, you start to. Concoct a story and then you start to experience reality through confirmation bias around that story and that is very pernicious to Relating whether that's in an organizational context or in a your husband context.

It's so critical to share those things

Diana: Yes. So I was a couples coach for years and I still do a lot of couples coaching with my clients because it's all the same thing working home. And one of the things I say is a practice, especially if they're feeling not as attracted to one another or close. I say at the end of the night, before you go to bed, you just make an agreement that you're going to look through the day and see, was there anything I did not say?

The deal is you're not going to process it. You're just going to say, Hey, I want to let you know that when I saw the dishes on the counter this morning, I felt angry and I didn't tell you. And the other person goes, thank you for telling me that. [00:25:00] The person goes, Hey, when you said you'd be home at six and you came home at seven, I felt sad.

And it's just, let's just including, it could be like when I saw you in that outfit, I thought you were so sexy and I was really attracted to you and I didn't tell you. And then what happens is, is that just that sharing all of that and getting that out brings connection back online. And people would say like, Oh my God, our sex lives improved, our connection improved just with the act of revealing these things.

Just to say it, nothing else.

Jenny: Well, that's intimacy. That's emotional intimacy. And that received positively is. Emotional safety and safety is so essential, right? This is what our nervous systems are responding to when we get activated and we go below the line.

Diana: Yeah. And then if people start arguing like, well, why are you sad about that?

Or you shouldn't have been angry about that. Then you're going to, we're over in crazy town. Because if you start telling people they shouldn't feel what they feel, that's really not going to go well.

Jenny: Totally. That dismissing. And just even fascinating, [00:26:00] what is the impetus for you to dismiss their experience?

What about hearing about their experiences making you so uncomfortable that you need to deflect and dismiss? And we had a very potent conversation with David Cooley about transforming relational conflict that looks into the ways that we internalize this adversarial orientation. Somebody's right and somebody's wrong and somebody's punished.

And so that's how I think about conflict in my interpersonal relationships and really subtle, really subtle the beliefs that we have even around. Hey, that wasn't my intention. Let me tell you my intention. Versus I understand that that upset you and you didn't have a complete story, but you still had that experience.

Diana: Yeah, and very few of us go, Oh, I hear you were sad. Is the sadness here now? Great. I just want to be a space for you to breathe and move and be with that. Most of those feelings will last anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds. That's usually the average. So I just wanted to help you out with that. So my husband, the other day I was saying, I feel [00:27:00] like I'm in a hole.

He's like, all right, I'm going to just come join you in the hole.

Jenny: I just

Diana: want to be here with you and let you feel. And then, you know, 10 Kleenexes later, I was like, wow, I

Jenny: didn't

Diana: know all that was in there, but just willingness to just like, I'm right here. I'm going to open up a lot of space to welcome whatever that is that's going in there and through you.

Jenny: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Being held a lot of people also just go towards fixing instead of just saying like I'm witnessing you're not alone in this moment

Diana: Exactly. My husband's so tuned in sometimes So go get over here and I go why and he goes you got to put your head on my shoulder and I say why? What are you talking about?

And I literally have no idea what he's talking about He's like you're sad and you need to feel something Really? I'm not because just come over and put your head on my shoulder I do and then all of a sudden this cry comes. I'm like, how did you know?

Jenny: It's amazing attunement. That's amazing

Diana: That's just the practice of if we can really tune in, we can really feel into other people.

Jenny: [00:28:00] Yeah. Well, I also think it's really important around wisdom and what these emotions are telling us and the importance for candor, you know, in an organizational setting, understanding that we all have our own subjective reality, there is not one right reality. But when we put all of our subjective realities on the table, we have a better Sense of what's there to assess the right action.

So for an organization to operate optimally strategically, this culture of candor is really important.

Diana: Yeah, and there was a company I was teaching them the difference between fact and story. And the idea that we want to start talking like I have a story that. And they took it, they were a science company, they took it.

a step further. And they decided they would say, I have a hypothesis. All of their language in the culture now is I have this hypothesis. I thought that was so even more spacious of just like, I don't know for sure, but this is where I'm coming from at the moment.

Jenny: Well, I actually really love Terrence Real.

Are [00:29:00] you familiar with his work?

Diana: Sure.

Jenny: Terrence Real says what I made up about that was.

Diana: Yeah. Yeah.

Jenny: So it's even more transparent that like, this is my Shit, right? But telling you what I made up about that helps you understand why I had this emotional experience. Helps you be more empathetic and understanding to me.

But I love that your clearing adds something else that's really important in addition to that because you have your version of that which is also Here's my role. It's a clearing in the candor one or is that in a different one

Diana: model is in the gossip commitment.

Jenny: Okay, great. We're bridging to gossip.

Anyway,

Diana: why do we talk about gossip because isn't gossip just like candor, but we felt like it was important to recognize that anytime I'm critical of somebody, it's because whatever that quality is that they are being. It represents something that's either unowned, meaning I don't have that. I'm not like that, [00:30:00] or I know I'm like that, but I don't like that about me.

So there's an aversion that starts to happen between me and the other person, because you're kicking up the fact that something isn't fully accepted and owned over here.

Jenny: And.

Diana: I wanted to go into that and help people recognize that every aversion you've ever had is because the person over there is holding up a mirror to some aspect of you you don't want to love.

Every single time. I would bet my life on that.

Jenny: Well, yeah. I mean, this is our shadow. This is where we judge other people and it's showing us our shadow. How do you define gossip just for clarity for our listeners?

Diana: I'm going to talk about you in a way that I would not talk about you if you were in the room.

And so for example, somebody might go, I mean, can you believe Jenny did that? Like, I just think that was rude. And then I go, Oh, would you say that to Jenny? If she were in the room, they go, Oh yeah, I'd say, Jenny, I thought maybe that was a little bit rude. So it was like, you know, there's an attitude and a tone that can come in with [00:31:00] gossip.

And that attitude and tone has a one up, one down mindset. I'm talking about you in a way I wouldn't talk about you if you were in the room, and I'm talking about you critically with a one up, one down mindset. So it's different than, hey, I'm having a challenge with Juan and I really want to get some feedback so I can take a look at how I'm creating this with him and go and clear this up with him.

And can you help me with that? I'm not interested in making Juan bad or wrong. I just want to learn.

Jenny: And I also thought it was insightful where you delineated why people gossip.

Diana: All of our identities, usually the way an identity secures itself is, I am this, I am not that. You know, I am strong, I am not weak, I am nice, I am not mean, I am thoughtful, I am not rude.

That's how identities secure themselves instead of, well, I'm all those things.

Jenny: Yeah.

Diana: And I may not be exactly like it, like you are. I have my own version of it. So I look forward to [00:32:00] judging people. It's one of my favorite practices now because whenever I judge somebody, I go, Oh, I found something I haven't loved yet about me.

Jenny: Hmm. Yeah.

Diana: And so. So then

Jenny: what do you do?

Diana: So then I go in and I go, let me see how I can find that in me and can I really welcome that? Can I love that about me? Love? I use that word love, like, except I like, like Snow White might accept all the, all the dwarves, you know, or just, they're all equally valuable in some way.

And there's an essence quality to rude. There's an essence quality that might serve you. There's above the line might be like direct and clear. So I'm just learning how to. Welcome that I have shadows and I am duality in here and I don't want to make that bad or wrong. And I do want to work with it so that I can be the best self forward.

Jenny: Yeah. And I think one of the things that was insightful for me when I did the Hoffman process was like looking at shadow is sort of understanding it shadow because if it wasn't, you would [00:33:00] be empathetic instead of judgmental.

Diana: Right. I think that that

Jenny: frame is useful, but. Yeah, and we've talked about nonviolent communication on the podcast, and some of us have done nonviolent communication course together.

I really appreciated the way that Terrence Real added the, what I made up about that was. So in NBC, you say, here's the facts that could be observed. I felt this. It talks about a human need that was kind of the genesis of that feeling, and then making a request. And then Terrence Real adds this, what I made up about that was.

So the story, which. If you don't preface it with what I made up about that was carries your bias, which is inevitably going to cause defensiveness because of that distortion, right?

Diana: But yes, we're going to add the, so we add all of those into the clearing model. And then we also add the aversion piece because we think at the core of it is the aversion piece.

Jenny: Say more about the aversion piece.

Diana: We were just talking about that. Yeah, yeah,

Jenny: yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

Diana: That really what this is all about. [00:34:00] If I'm in reactivity against you and critical of you, is that there's,

Jenny: yeah, yeah, sure. But there's another thing that you add, which I think is really, really important, which is my part in this is, so this goes back to commitment number one responsibility.

So let's talk about that.

Diana: Yes. So how did I co create this with you? I have my part to play. I didn't say no last week when you asked for XYZ. So I see how this isn't just something that happened to me.

Jenny: Hmm. I love that. It's so valuable. It's so valuable to it's also disarming to say not just what I made up about that was, but hey, it's not your fault, right?

I'm taking accountability for my role. And it's also really importantly, a potent moment for self awareness and introspection and not simply kind of assigning responsibility to other.

Diana: Right. I had a COO I was coaching, this was a while back and he, in his session, I said, what's going on? He goes, [00:35:00] I'm really frustrated.

I don't get the feedback I want from the CEO. I want to be a CEO someday. I feel like I'm not learning and growing enough to get to there. And I'm really angry about it and it's his fault. And so I said, okay, well teach me the class. How did you create it? Yeah. What? What are you talking about? I said, I want to make sure my boss doesn't give me feedback like yours doesn't.

So what do you do? So you thought about it for a minute and he goes, well, he keeps canceling the one on meetings and I don't say anything about it.

Jenny: And

Diana: I said, okay, well, if I want to follow in your footsteps, how come I don't say anything about like, what would I need to think or believe? He goes, oh, you have to believe that his time is more valuable than you, than your time and your needs.

And so you prioritize him over you. And that's how you'll make sure that these meetings keep happening. Like, what else do I do? It's like, don't ask directly for feedback. They kept going about it and he realized like, Oh, I actually have been setting it up to make sure this guy does not give me feedback.

Jenny: Right. And [00:36:00] this also speaks to the candor, right? I would held and then the story started and then the story got confirmed. And now I can point the finger at you.

Diana: Yeah. And then he admitted, I haven't been thrilled with the feedback he gave me in the past. So I've been critical of his feedback and thinking it's not really that helpful.

So I'm like, Oh my gosh, the story keeps going on and on. And so then I had him own, I'm committed to not getting the feedback I want.

Jenny: The opposite. Now we're to the opposite is true. Yeah. He had to own

Diana: it. I had him walk around in the room stomping, I am committed. I make sure I get up in the morning and make sure I don't get feedback.

And so the more he did, it started to giggle and he started to go, Oh my goodness, this is what's really true.

Jenny: Amazing. It's so amazing that you can just kind of, and I love the way that you do that. We'll talk about play, but just the like exaggerated ridiculousness of it. And again, it's those things that also, it snaps you out of that defensive triggered state when you start laughing, when you disarm.

When I got married, I asked [00:37:00] my guests to give us keys to a happy marriage. I bought these skeleton keys and everyone wrote a little piece of advice. And I think my single favorite piece of advice was when you get in an argument. He said, me and my husband do this. We tickle each other under the chin and we say, woo gee, right?

It's so ridiculous, but it's disarming.

Diana: Yes, it is. In my house, we say you are the biggest dumb head of all the dumb heads. And we see how many times can we say dumb in one sentence to each other in this kind of like two year old bratty sort of. That's so ridiculous that we both start giggling right away.

So that's our version of a tickle.

Jenny: Totally. Totally. I just want to also say I just appreciate how deeply interrelated all of this is and how this conversation is just allowing us to do the dance between the commitments and demonstrate that integrity. Integrity is also one of Denison's six values and actually for us, I think the cornerstone of our theory of change around being [00:38:00] integrity with what we talk about, we want to see in the world.

And when we do that, that's how we change the world. I'd love to hear the actual articulation of this commitment and dig into a little bit more because there's a lot here.

Diana: Yeah, this is one of my favorite commitments. So integrity, there is a definition for integrity that is energetic wholeness. And that's our definition of integrity, energetic wholeness.

I like to use the metaphor of a Christmas tree light strand back in the day, what they are like now, but back in the day when one bulb would go out, the whole thing would go out. And so the idea is that if you have a leak somewhere, the whole system goes offline in a way. So there are four ways that people lose energetic wholeness.

One is through blaming instead of claiming. Another one is wanting to withhold feelings. Another one is withholding thoughts and another one is not making really clear agreements of who will do what by when. So those [00:39:00] four things are the four pillars of integrity. We got those from Gay and Katie Hendricks.

And so if those are all aligned, you're going to literally experience an energetic wholeness. It's like an aliveness. It's a, it's this sense of, okay, but then those little leaks start creating these drains of. energetic wholeness and you're out of integrity and then it has impact everywhere.

Jenny: Can't

Diana: stay as present if you're out of integrity.

Jenny: I appreciate also the way that this connects to feeling your feelings, right? If you're suppressing your feelings, you're not feeling your feelings, you're out of the integrity with oneself. Yes. That is pervasive because we're all, you know, so many of us are just disembodied from our feelings and our intuition, et cetera.

Diana: Exactly. I see also just probably I would say the majority of the drama I see in workplaces. As people do not make clear agreements, it's so bad. I can sit in the meeting, you know, an executive team meeting and I listen and I'm like, there were no agreements being made [00:40:00] anywhere about any of these things.

What goes on after this? Well, then we have the meeting after the meeting and then we complain that somebody didn't do it and we didn't, it's just like, Oh my goodness, this is a, so much of a waste of your creative energy.

Jenny: Well, let's get clear about what we mean by clear agreements.

Diana: Clear agreement is who will do what and that will do what must be measurable.

So we can say whether you did or didn't do it and by when and by when I recommend be by the day and the hour. I'd say I'll get it to you by Friday and like somebody's Friday morning going, I don't have it yet. And you're like, it's not five o'clock yet. I have all day. And just even the assumptions about that.

So there's something so powerful. And what I notice is when I say to people, hold on a minute, give me a clear agreement here. What are you actually going to do? And by when? And then I say, in what time? And then all of a sudden they go, actually, I can't do it by then. Like when

Jenny: I

Diana: really asked them to get an integrity, they realized like I'm over promising.

Jenny: Yeah.

Diana: Delivering is one of the big causes of so much drama.

Jenny: Totally. I really appreciate [00:41:00] that. And I also appreciate, so one is just knowing that you need that clarity so that there's not ambiguity in what the agreement is that comes from that, but also this pause before making the agreement. To just check in with yourself.

Diana: Yeah. I play a lot with, do you have a whole body? Yes. To this agreement or are you shooting on yourself? Yeah. Like I shouldn't shooting. I'm shooting on myself. I should say yes to this. You're asking me to do this. And it's like, I don't really want to. And so I'm going to make an agreement, but then I don't.

So, but how I'll manage this is I just won't keep the agreement. And that's how I'll deal with the fact that I'm doing something I don't want.

Jenny: Well, it also speaks to integrity because you can't be integrity. With an agreement and out of integrity with yourself. It's actually one of the things that I'm working on right now is my relationship to commitments.

And I think the most critical part of that is not making commitments that I don't think I can keep. And you speak to this in the book. You say when we make clear agreements with whole body yeses, we keep them 90 percent of the time.

Diana: Whole Body [00:42:00] Yes is, I think, one of the great skills that we all ought to be playing with.

I made a page, wholebodyyes. com, that you can go to, to learn all about this idea, and I highly rec I would just say, like, this is one of, like, key skills people ought to be developing that most people don't have.

Jenny: A hundred percent. I mean, we're just not embodied. We have a whole thread in our conversation about the age of reason and the over reliance on reason and intellect and the disembodiment of popular culture.

Embodiment is actually my intention for myself for this year. So I hear that. With respect to agreements, though, it's okay. So 90 percent of the time we may make their agreements and we have a whole body. Yes, we keep them, but the 10 percent of the time, how do we deal with that is important to

Diana: the time.

So, hey, my child broke their arm and I'm not going to be able to attend that meeting. And so I want to renegotiate. Ideally, I don't wait until after the meeting's over and go, sorry, I couldn't be there. My kid, I'm going to, the [00:43:00] moment I know I can't keep the agreement

Jenny: and

Diana: the renegotiation is a conversation in which I don't just say, Hey, sorry, I can't do that, but Hey, I want to let you know you and I had an agreement and I want to change it and I want to understand how that's going to impact you and what do you need and here's what I need.

And so that we're in a conversation for a renegotiation.

Jenny: And if it happens ex post instead of ex ante from the due date, you own it. You don't make excuses. You don't explain it. You're just like, I didn't do it. It doesn't matter why I didn't do it. I didn't do it.

Diana: You said you were going to do it and you didn't.

If you could just come back and look, how did you set that up? And most people will say something like, yeah, I was an obligation or I had to withhold from that person. And I wasn't really, there's some. Maybe some revenge going on. Or there's all kinds of different reasons why people do it. But I like people, instead of just saying, Oh, I didn't do it.

I want to go, can you learn, can you learn more about how you set that up? [00:44:00]

Jenny: Let's bridge from here to, I think it's a really powerful one. Life is an ally. Yeah. Right. But all of life is an opportunity for us to learn,

Diana: right? So this one can sometimes, well, they all can get weaponized by the way, all these commitments, but the way that this one gets weaponized is to declare that everything is here for me, which I don't actually know if that's true.

I know that everything is here. It's happening. I know that. And I know that I have a choice if I want to create a mindset. That says, what if this was for me? Not that it is because people can get into this. Like it's all good. It's all happening for us. Kind of a thing, which I think is like a bypass into Lala land that is away from something that's not working, but there is this idea of.

So, if I looked at you are an ally, you're not here to be in the way, you're here to help me [00:45:00] learn. And if I get curious, I can start to see what is that I get to learn if I stopped looking at you as an adversary.

Jenny: Or this experience as an obstacle or this thing that happened as an obstacle to something.

Exactly.

Diana: Exactly. So even like, Oh my gosh, this traffic is an obstacle. Well, this traffic could also be an ally. And what might happen here, if I get curious, that wouldn't happen if the traffic weren't the way it was.

Jenny: And this also ties to the quote that I mentioned earlier about not accepting the suchness of life and the label that you attached to it, right?

Makes me think of Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning.

Diana: Yeah.

Jenny: And you and I bonded over dual experiences of grief and loss, which is like, I can choose to suffer and resist this reality, or I can choose to accept it and find lessons and meaning in it. Yeah. Which I feel like is just a profound way [00:46:00] to navigate the human experience, which is absolutely filled with very, very difficult, painful, Experiences.

Yes.

Diana: Yes. And part of maybe being an ally is you're helping me feel some pain that I've not been willing to feel. And in that way, this is an ally.

Jenny: Yeah. Yeah. I really appreciate that one. That's very, very potent. I think that this is a nice bridge to enough. I commit to experiences that I have enough of everything.

I mean, one of the things that we talk about on the podcast and we think about in terms of shifting from the current system to your regenerative, just caring future is this paradigm shift from scarcity to abundance. So I think it's very bullseye on this enoughness. Can you articulate the commitment for this one?

Diana: Yeah. I commit to experience that I have enough of everything. Versus I commit to a scarcity mindset and this one the way I get people to really get to the heart of what we're trying to help [00:47:00] people. Experience is I have most people close their eyes and I say just for a minute Let's put a wall up from the past and you can't find it right now.

It's gone Mmm, I'm gonna put a wall up from the future There is no future that exists except what's happening right now And I just say can you let yourself sit here without a past without a future and just breathe? And start to get an embodied experience of enoughness right now. Do you have enough time?

There is no past and there is no future and you're just here and it's not an intellectual experience. It is a whole being experience of right now. I have enough time. There's something that starts to happen in the system. The whole system opens and relaxes. It's like an unfurling happens. Breath opens.

There's like a, Oh gosh, okay, [00:48:00] that is nice. And then we come to, like, do you have enough connection right now? Do you have enough money? Do you have enough? And we just go through the things, and it's just about right now. So the nervous system starts to have

Jenny: the

Diana: experience of enough, and to say, now, from this place, you might want more money, okay?

See what it's like to feel this experience of, right, now I have enough money, and I'd like more. And it's a completely different place in which you would organize yourself. To go create more than, oh, fuck.

Jenny: Hmm. Hmm. And this makes me think of the first thing that you said in the conversation about what does it mean to be conscious, not in the past and not in the future and in the now.

And this reframe of everything is fine the way it is, and it could be better, but it's not lacking.

Diana: Right. If you want to go look, all scarcity is [00:49:00] somehow connected back to past and or future.

Jenny: And also this again speaks to where are we in our nervous system. That frame fundamentally puts us in, I need to protect myself from.

Yes. Yes. Well that bridges into win for all.

Diana: Uh huh.

Jenny: I actually have a podcast coming out with Robert Gilman, founder of Context Institute, where he talks about win win win collaboration, or Daniel Smoktenberger talks about omni win.

Diana: Right. So, win for all is, let's just say you and I are in a relationship and we have, it could even be, there's something going on and we have to figure something out.

And I say, what is a win for you? And you say, Win for me is, and you tell me what it is, and I go, okay, here's the deal. I'm gonna stand for that. I am in total devotion to you getting that win. Mm. And I'm in as much devotion to you getting that as I am into me getting it. Because the idea is, if you don't [00:50:00] win, I don't win.

Really?

Jenny: Mm-hmm. Well, that's grounded in interconnection,

Diana: right? And so I want you to win, and then I'm gonna tell you, here's my win. And then you're gonna say, oh, I stand for that.

Jenny: Mm.

Diana: And at first we might go, gosh, we have no idea how is that going to be possible that you're going to win and I'm going to win, but there's got to be a way.

And this one's tricky because it requires us to get profoundly curious most of the time, because most of the time, what you need and what I need often seem opposing. But like, what could it look like?

Jenny: Hmm.

Diana: One of my favorite moments of this was I was leading an event and I think it was our last night and maybe there were 12 people in the group.

And I said, okay, we're going to co create a win for all dinner tonight. And everybody, I want you to tune in for a moment of what is it that matters most to you about dinner. So somebody says, you know, I really want to be out at the beach. We're here in Santa Cruz. I want to be out at the [00:51:00] beach. Somebody else says, I want sushi.

Somebody else says, I want to create some more intimate conversations. Somebody else says, I'd love to smoke some weed. Somebody else says, I want movement in dinner. I want to do some movement. So I go, okay. So my job was to figure out what were we going to do? For dinner. And so I created an experience in which everybody won.

It all came together and we had this fantastic night. And so even like, let's go out to dinner tonight. Well, I want Italian. Oh God, I hate Italian last night. I don't want Italian. Well, how are we going to create a win for all then? Cause I really wanted Italian and there's gotta be a way. And so it's just, and oftentimes it just needs like, can we just take a few more minutes to get curious?

Jenny: What I find very potent about this, so there was something that came from NVC that points back to when I was at the design school at Stanford. So nonviolent communication, they distinguish between the need and the solution to the need. I want to go to the beach. Well, like maybe you want to be outside.

[00:52:00] Maybe it's being in nature. Maybe it's right. And so when we can, we can recede from a particular solution to the need and identify the need, the solution set opens up. And that's how we can create more Omniwin opportunities. At the d. school, I used to teach at the design school, we would do this exercise and I would show a picture of a girl on a chair reaching for a book on a bookshelf and say, what does she need?

Almost every time he would say she needs a ladder. Okay. What does she get when she gets a ladder? She gets the book. Ah, well, what does she get when she gets the book? She gets knowledge, okay? Like what does she get, you know? And we kind of keep asking that and asking that and each time opening up broader and broader solutions to it Until you kind of get to a verb She needs to understand and that verb or that need versus the solution that the noun that's the solution the thing vastly opens up the solution space.

I think that curiosity lends us down the path to opening up the opportunities from a process perspective.

Diana: That's [00:53:00] a great exercise. I love that. Thanks for telling me.

Jenny: I thought you'd like that one. But I think also really interestingly, win for all is not just for the purposes of this conversation. It's not just who's at the table.

Win for all, you have to consider stakeholders that are implicated, right? So it's just not like me winning at your expense doesn't work, but us winning at nature's expense also doesn't work. Yeah.

Diana: Oh, absolutely. I'm really more and more saying, I want everybody to say when for all is for us and all of the beans that we share this planet with.

And in that we have to be more stewards, be responsible for the gift we have to care for everything. And so that really matters to me a lot.

Jenny: I think this actually presents a really nice bridge to, like, an inspiring close around our own practice and our own, the way that we walk in the world. I want to talk to the commitment of genius.

Diana: Okay. Genius. So genius [00:54:00] is difficult for anyone to see in themselves. It's like telling a fish what a great swimmer it is. And the fish goes, what are you talking about? This is always the way I've been. I don't really see it in the same way. I can see my zones of excellence. I have built those up over time.

I know those things. I'm proud of those things, but genius, like, I don't know. It's no big deal. I didn't do anything really. And that's how, you know, that's what it is. And when you're in your zone of genius. It's like time and space go away. Oh my gosh. Really? God, I've been having so much fun. Flow states here.

I'm just having a blast and it could be challenging work I'm doing, but it's enlivening and I feel as enlivened by the experience and so it doesn't create burnout to be in my zone of

Jenny: genius. Would you say that when you're in your zone of genius, you're in the through me state of consciousness? Yeah.

Yeah.

Diana: Yes, I would say it's more. It can be by me, but it's just I'm in that thing that's effortless in a way it's like. [00:55:00] I just, I don't know. It's always how I've been. As parents, we all can see Zone of Geniuses in our children. They came really early. Like my kid was doing that when they were two. Right. And effortlessly compared to all the other kids.

And now it's his job, you know, so you ideally want, if you really want to. I feel like you're living in an exquisite movie. You want to be able to see, can I design my life so that at least 50, if not 70 percent of my day is in my zone of genius. There's a lot of reasons why people don't want to be in their zones of genius at a deep psychological level.

Jenny: Like

Diana: can't be that good. I don't deserve it. Maybe it's going to create a distance between me and others. There's a whole bunch I work with clients on is like, what's in the way of you living in your zone of genius. And it does feel like when you're in it, you feel like you're robbing the bank. It's like, what?

Hmm. I get to do this, and I get paid, and people like it, and I have fun, and it's a sweet spot.

Jenny: Mm. I love that so much. I also appreciated that exercise that you have in the book around [00:56:00] looking at your week and saying, did my energy go up, was it sideways, or did it go down, to help identify what's draining you, what is in your zone of genius, and do that, and interestingly, right now with Denizen, I'm also having a moment of saying, actually, I'm spread too thin.

My scope's too broad. Where am I most lit up and excited, and where do I feel like? Not that natural draw to do it. What doesn't get me out of bed in the morning? So, yeah, I have

Diana: all my clients do the three exercises in that chapter, which is I want everybody to do their eight memories. That's called the best stuff.

I can learn so much from somebody with that. They also do the email genius campaign. Cause you need feedback.

Jenny: Yeah.

Diana: Because it's, it's not in your, you can't see it obviously. And then the energy audit, which you were describing, but those three things are just gems to helping people really dial this in.

Jenny: Yeah. I love that. There's so many amazing things and exercises in the book, which, which I appreciate. Okay. So we're going to close with play and rest.

Diana: Okay. Yay. I would say this is my signature is play.

Jenny: We're not going to close with it yet [00:57:00] though. We're going to, first we're going to talk about being the resolution and then we're going to talk about how you orient to being the resolution with play and rest.

But I want to talk about that because I think it's a really important, inspiring way to orient in the world.

Diana: Yes, being the resolution. I'm in a room and my judgment is that you all over there are not listening and I'm critical that there's not enough listening here. So rather than getting in your business, trying to make you listen more, I'm going to become the experience of listening that I think is missing right now.

So now I will be the quality of listening, I will be that resolution, and in my devotion to that, I start to open up space for a deeper experience of listening all around. So I become the thing that I think isn't here. Then in that, it opens up for others to join [00:58:00] me. That's a simple explanation of what is being the resolution.

Jenny: Now I really love that. I was at an event in December and a woman made a comment, Hey, if there's something you feel that it's missing, maybe it's yours to bring. I also think it's really valuable what you speak to in this chapter around when you see the thing that's missing, it's an invitation, not an obligation, because that nuance is really critical.

Diana: Yeah. It is an invitation. I want to be an invitation. I want to role model. I want to become the thing and then I have it. I have the thing. I'm experiencing it right now.

Jenny: Well, it's an invitation for us to be that person, right? And then when we are, it's an invitation for others, but it is that acknowledgement of like checking in with my body and saying, do I want to take this on?

Diana: Yes. Yes.

Jenny: Which I appreciate it.

Diana: Nothing has to be missing because I can be that resolution right now.

Jenny: Right. And I deeply appreciate the being and becoming [00:59:00] versus doing. Okay. So now we know. We want to be in our zone of genius and we want to be the resolution, but play and rest is so important. Just thinking about how we go about our work in the world.

Diana: Yes. So I went on safari. One of the things that I was most struck by was how much rest all the animals were having. A built in part of day to day, there was just lots of sustainability happening through rest and how many cultures have built that in siesta time or tea time, but there's just this like anti rest culture of go, go, go, go.

And when NASA was trying to figure out how are we going to get the most out of the astronauts in this small amount of time, we have them up there and it was okay. 30 minute nap every day gave us 35%. Increase in their overall production just to take a rest. It's not a lot, but just the, that's a [01:00:00] good one.

But play is my jam play. The state of play is I like to gamify everything and I like to be in a state of play and just That's it. Have some lightness about this whole thing, this whole earth reality we're in, and this meat suit I took on called Diana, and can I play with it? And one of the ways, you know, you're really going below the line is you say the words, it's not funny.

And the more not funny it is, the more you are moving away from a state of play. And so much learning can't happen because of that. And so I just. Like, I want to be with pain, of course, I don't want to go away from the pain, but I want to be able to be with that pain and then play and be able to particularly play with all of my parts, all of other people's parts, find the humor, it's all ridiculously hilarious at one level, and we find, [01:01:00] we see it from that vantage point, because if we can for a moment, There's an expanded state we can be occupying.

Jenny: Oh, wow. Are you familiar with the work of Donella Meadows? I'm not. She's a pioneer in the sustainability space. She was a lead author on limits to growth, which was the first study to show that infinite economic growth on a finite planet made no sense. She has this book called Thinking and Systems. And if I were to recommend one book to everyone listening to this podcast, it would be this, because it really helps you think about complex systems.

If you care about systems change, how can we think about the way that complex systems work? So she has this chapter in the book where she talks about leverage points, places that you can interact in a system to change it. The most leveraged point of all was called Transcending paradigms. And she says, there's one leverage point that is even higher than the changing of a paradigm.

And that is to keep oneself unattached in the arena of paradigms, to stay flexible, to realize that no paradigm is true and that everyone, [01:02:00] including the one that sweetly shapes your own worldview is a tremendously limited understanding of an immense and amazing universe that is far beyond human comprehension.

It is to get at a gut level. the paradigm that there are paradigms, and to see that itself as a paradigm, and to regard the whole realization as devastatingly funny.

Diana: That's brilliant. I want to know her. She's amazing.

Jenny: She's not with us anymore, but she's incredible. I just wanted to bring that quote into the conversation because you talk about Funny and the importance of funny and play and here she is at like the the most significant leverage point is to laugh about How limited we are as humans in actually making sense of the complex reality that we exist in

Diana: Yes years ago.

I created a shift deck. It was like

Jenny: a

Diana: fight. You have to pull a shift deck card So i'm just going to read you a few of these cards just as yes, please You get to complain about your issue, keep going, but you have to finish each sentence with, and I'm sexy. [01:03:00]

Jenny: This reminds me of one time my husband, he told my kids they could fight, but they had to do it in Italian accent.

Diana: Yes, exactly. Here's that's this one. Sing everything you want to say for the next minute. Pick one of these styles, opera, rock country or rap.

Jenny: Oh, amazing.

Diana: While whining about your issue, move your arms in a way you've never moved before, because we know that there's a whole bunch of things about, you can't hold attitudes when you let your body move in different ways.

So this deck was created and it was a state of play that I want to, like, if we can get back into play, the whole thing starts to shift. And so, so that's one of my, that's my jam is how do we have fun with it all? And I have one of my favorite exercises. I would get a group of founders together over here, and I have a huge costume collection.

And I would say, what is a part in you or a part in somebody else that you really don't like? And something you have shame about or something that you don't ever want to consider being. And they have to pick a part, and then we put it into a costume. [01:04:00] And I'd have them go out publicly for dinner in that costume as that part.

And they have to play it out with the staff. We usually do it for a half hour, 45 minutes, and they get to liberate that part

Jenny: about

Diana: what was valuable about being that way. It's the exaggeration of it and the play that really helped people see something that they never seen before about themselves.

Jenny: That reminds me of this book I just read.

You probably are familiar with it, Existential Kink.

Diana: Oh, I am. I have not read it, but I've heard all about it lately.

Jenny: Yeah. We have this shadow and that we're actually getting off on the things that we feel like we're suffering because of, but we have some, I mean, that makes me think of something really potent actually in the book where you speak to our outcomes are what we're committed to.

Diana: Yes. Yes. How do you know what you're committed to? Look at your results. Some of the results in your life. You say, yeah, I wanted to work there. I wanted to have that child. I wanted that relationship. And then some of the things [01:05:00] that are happening in your life. You say, I didn't want that. I don't want that difficult friendship.

That's happening. I didn't want my bank account to look that way. I didn't want. And so we would say, Hey, The things that are happening that you said you wanted are your conscious commitments and the things that are happening that you said you didn't want are your unconscious commitments and the practice is to make those unconscious commitments conscious to start to, Oh, I'm committed to not being able to have a loving connection with my mom.

Oh, I'm committed to. having a boss that doesn't appreciate me. Oh, I'm committed to, and they start to own it and, and teach the course and then start to recognize you have a choice. You can keep it going or you can change it, but it's yours to choose.

Jenny: Yeah. That's essentially what that book actually gets into too.

I just think that's so potent. This gets it back to commitment number one, which is the most critical linchpin is responsibility.

Diana: You're listening to this thing about one thing you've been complaining about like more often than not in the last couple of weeks [01:06:00] and what I want you to do is to start and say I'm committed to and then fill in the blank of whatever you've been complaining about and just walk around say that a few times.

And see, how is that true? Because commitment from its Latin origin, commiteri, means to gather your energy and move it in a chosen direction. So how do you gather your energy and move it in the direction that you and your mom aren't having a close connection? How do you gather your energy

Jenny: and

Diana: move in a certain direction that's such that you're not appreciated at work?

That's a really, really powerful exercise.

Jenny: Well, that's a great provocation to leave everyone with. Diana, such a pleasure. There's so much. I have a feeling this is one of those conversations that people will listen to multiple times. There's so much here. Your work is so important. It's such an honor to have you on the podcast.

And I love how, again, this builds on so many things that we have spoken to. Just a real delight. Thank you so much.

Diana: You're so [01:07:00] welcome. I'm really happy to have been here with you.

Jenny: Thank you so much for listening. And thanks to Scott Hanson, also known as Tyco for our musical signature. In addition to this podcast, you can find resources for each episode on our website, www.

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