Circle Up & Get REAL Podcast

I'm thinking today about an autographed book that's been on my shelf for years: "The Soft Edge: Where Great Companies Find Lasting Success" by North Dakota's own Rich Karlgaard, Forbes publisher, entrepreneur, investor, and board director. What is it that makes our skills "Soft" or "Hard"? What is most needed in our world today? How might we be able to BE the change we want to see in the rest of the world as we move toward the end of this Fourth Turning Crisis and into the next First Turning High? Masculine and Feminine energy aren't necessarily demonstrated only by men or by women. It's not a gender issue, it's an energetic one, and over time, businesses have been forged by a lot of masculine energy: control, certainty, pressure, decisiveness, winning, etc. When this energy is dominant, there is no room for feminine energy like intuition, connection, awareness, collaboration, etc. What if we could access those traits in a collaborative or integrative way instead of an either-or? What would happen for our organizations if we could move from proving to understanding? From fixing to listening first? From reacting to noticing? I briefly mention Neil Howe's book "The Fourth Turning is Here," as well as Rich Karlgaard's book "The Soft Edge."

One of my favorite coaching questions is this one: "What is missing the presence of which would make a positive difference?" Today I ask myself this question. Given all I'm observing - about myself and others - might it be something like Personal Accountability? In this episode I share some observations from politics and sports, including this clip from the Maryland women's basketball game in the NCAA tournament: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SJhqv_2lFhg I also refer to a new (to me) term: Collective Narcissism, and this white paper by Agnieszka Golec de Zavala and Dorottya Lantos: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0963721420917703 Here is more information about the Enlightened Leadership Lab, Mondays at 4 central: https://www.emergentculturelabs.com/leadershiplab

It's Episode 300! Today I reflect on some of the great interviews I've had over the six seasons of this podcast.

What can history tell us about the seasons of our live? A lot, according to Neil Howe, author of The Fourth Turning is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us About How and When This Crisis Will End. This is my current morning reading, and, while it's certainly not easy (nor is it short at 578 pages), it's become essential for my understanding of how Americans have gotten where we are, and gives some hope for where we are going. In this episode I share some of what I'm learning about the concept of "turnings," "saecula," "generations" and much more. If history can teach us anything, so far it's that "this too shall pass," whether we are talking about yearly seasonal cycles or times and places in history. Neil Howe has other interesting takes on investments and other historical information. You can find more about this book and his insights at www.fourthturning.com.

The way you perceive the world has everything to do with your perspective. Today I'm exploring sports—something I've lived and loved most of my life—and how microcosms can become macrocosms when we stop and really look at them. I'm exploring the locker room moment with the men's Olympic hockey team. The celebration. The speakerphone call. The off-hand comment about the women's team. What happens when humor and hierarchy collide, not just in locker rooms, but also in board rooms?

I've been noticing something for the past few years. As a speaker and author, I used to work really hard to make sure the message was "right." But lately I've been experimenting with what happens when I let the message find me. I might say or write something and think "oh, that's good." Not in an ego-based way, but in an aligned way. Like I'm learning from myself in real time. If you've listened to any of these Facebook Lives over the 5+ years I've been doing them, you may have noticed. Something really cool happens when I stop editing myself. Maybe there's real intelligence that only shows up when it's invited, not forced.

I've been watching the conversation about the Super Bowl halftime show unfold online and what struck me isn't the show(s) themselves but how quickly narratives and opinions formed. Some people are saying Bad Bunny's show included vulgar lyrics. There was an alternative halftime show. There are rumors about where it was filmed - if it was lip synced. And I found myself thinking: wait ... what do we actually KNOW? And how do we DECIDE? Today's episode isn't necessarily about the halftime show options. It's about what and how we decide. Is it possible to watch something or listen to someone else without judging? The commenters on today's live recording added so much to the dialogue. One person added actual lyrics to a Bad Bunny song (which were too vulgar for me to repeat). But are those the lyrics he sang at the halftime show? The jury's still out on that. How do we discern? Who do we listen to? Welcome to today's episode.

We humans have a lot to process these days. The two topics we are never supposed to talk about in public are religion and politics, and both seem to be taking up a lot of space in heads and hearts without any way to process, if we are following that advice. What is a human to do with only our own thoughts if we don't have a safe space to process? I took on an experiment over the weekend, which I wouldn't recommend anyone else doing unless you're very prepared. Hint: If you want to connect, there are ways other than social media. In this episode I mention Michael Singer, the author of "The Untethered Soul" and "The Surrender Experiment," among others. I also refer to the CNN story Anderson Cooper did about the Resistance Singers. You can see that here: https://youtu.be/tp3ABvXXEsE?si=VUR9HOzZb5I93_2l Check out the Enlightened Leadership Labs Mondays at 4 central if you're looking for a safe space to practice all aspects of leadership, listening, and real communication. (www.emergentculturelabs.com/leadershiplab).

I've been sitting with something this week and I want to name it out loud, and see if there is dialogue to be created around it. When people go all-in on any single viewpoint - political or otherwise - it seems to me that nuance disappears. And when we lose nuance, we lose curiosity. So I wonder where curiosity lives in the world of this or that. Does it? What happens when curiosity dies? Is there space for Both/And instead of only Either/Or?

What happens to us humans when we feel like we are the only ones thinking or feeling something? If we don't have a place to process what we are seeing, it's easy to second guess our own perception. I've been thinking about this in a leadership context, and I'm reminded of two books I've studied, both by The Arbinger Institute: Leadership and Self Deception and The Anatomy of Peace. The premise is that when we are under stress, humans tend to see others not as humans but as objects. This can easily happen when we fall below the line into unconsciousness: being closed, defensive, and committed to being right. Is there another way to see things? I'd like to believe so.

In this episode of Circle Up & Get REAL, I'm exploring some thoughts about leadership (no surprise) and what pressure might do to the humans who are in those leadership roles. What role might AI have, not just in our corporate efficiencies, but in creating a culture of awareness and acceptance instead of fear? In other words, if we stay in curiosity instead of falling into certainty, what could the rise of AI mean to our corporate cultures?

In today's episode, I chat with my friend Sue Paulson, a 2-time cancer survivor and a survivor of a near-death experience, all of which have awakened her to her own magnificence, which she now mentors others to understand for themselves. Sue is the author of several books, including her memoir, Magnificent Misery, about her health journey. In our conversation, Sue shared her personal journey with cancer, which she experienced in 2011 and 2012. She realized that her body is a communication device that alerts her to issues, and she learned to pay more attention to these signals. Sue acknowledged that she had deep-seated beliefs about her worth, which she had to challenge during her cancer treatment. Since 2012, she has been cancer-free and has focused on self-care and personal growth, including psychotherapy sessions to understand the underlying causes of her illness. Sue's cancer journey opened her to the concept of each person's inherent magnificence and the dream of experiencing heaven right here on earth. To that end, she co-created The Magnificence Lab in 2023 and is currently conducting workshops and mentoring others about those two concepts. You can learn more about Sue by visiting her website, www.suepaulson.com.

In today's episode I share some ideas from books I'm reading right now, and I apply what I'm learning about leadership to current day affairs. Against advice from many, I talk today about politics, but not from a political lens, rather from a leadership one. I refer specifically to passages from Richard Rohr's "Falling Upward," and Bob Chapman's "Everybody Matters." Leadership is not management, although both are needed to run successful organizations, from business to religion to education to government. If we all understood that leading is a sacred assignment, and we truly treated humans as humans, no matter their political or religious or educational or business affilitations, wouldn't the world be a better place?

Today I'm exploring a thought I first heard about from Steve Jobs: You can only connect the dots of your life looking backward. What have each of us learned about our lives from that perspective? And how might it shape the choices we make from today forward? We'd love to have you join us at the Enlightened Leadership Lab on Mondays from 4-5 central. You can get more information at www.emergentculturelabs.com/leadershiplab