#130 Diana Chapman: Trusting Your Instincts

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/4eedc9e25069d2c4

I get that ego and identities
Need to feel right in order to secure themselves.
And if I were to let go of being right from that righteous point of view, which is like a right that defends itself.
What's underneath that is a lot more vulnerability.
And
If you're not comfortable with that.
then the identity's gonna secure itself all back up again and you're gonna
get back into I'm right that this is the right way and that's the wrong way and I'm right to be more like this and not like this. And it's just we all get
secured up again in these defense mechanisms to protect this deep, deep vulnerability.
that comes under what if I don't know?
People don't like to sit in I don't know.
Welcome to the Knowledge Project Podcast. I'm your host, Shane Parrish.
The goal of this show is to master the best of what other people have already figured out, so you can unlock your potential. To that end, I sit down with people at the top of their game.
to uncover what they've learned along the way.
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Check out the show notes for a link.
Diana Chapman is here today, and man am I excited to share this conversation with you. Diana is the co-founder of the Conscious Leadership Group and co-author of The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership.
We got connected through one of our most popular podcast guests, Jim Detmer.
Diana is an incredible signal in a world full of noise.
In this episode we explore the three flavors of the drama triangle, victim, villain, and hero.
and how they all come from our desire to be right.
Making the invisible visible is a key step toward learning and improving your situation
The relationship between intensity and consistency
Making decisions in teams, developing self-awareness, raising the standards for ourselves and others, the whole body S, and how we can challenge the stories we tell ourselves.
It's time to listen.
And learn.
What are you obsessed with right now?
I'm obsessed with wanting people to be more comfortable being uncomfortable.
I'm watching people trying very hard not to feel heartbroken, not to feel scared, uh, not to upset others around them so that they don't have to feel any discomfort. And so
One of the things I'm
Spending a lot of time with
With those I
uh support and uh and hang out with is can we let it be okay to be uncomfortable.
And uh
I think that if we don't choose that consciously.
We're gonna create a world that provides a lot of discomfort to force us.
To start to be more uncomfortable.
Oh, talk to me about that. Like are there tools that we can use to
acclimatize ourselves almost to being uncomfortable or
Um to make that okay.
Yeah, like I you know, I noticed it just getting ready for our time together. I could start to feel my belly swirl and I felt my throat narrowing and I could feel sphere moving through the body.
Right, which is an intelligence that says, Hey, you're going into something unknown.
You don't know what this is like. You don't really know Shane. You don't know how you're gonna dance together. Pay attention. That's the intelligence of my fear. But it's uncomfortable. I could feel the part of me that's like wants to stop my swirling belly, wants it to go away.
doesn't want the body to do what it's doing.
And so, you know, if I'm
Not thoughtful, I'll go distract myself and try to numb it out.
uh, which is what I see a lot of us do different ways to numb out things, uh, so we don't have to be with the intelligence that's trying to move through us.
So aside from um sort of like not running away from it, which I think is incredibly important, and then when you feel it, what do you do? Like walk me through uh, you know, your example of of this show. I I
I'm sorry you're nervous to talk to me, but like what what are you walking through in your body in that moment in terms of like giving yourself permission or confidence to be okay with that?
Yeah, so first and foremost, I just first notice it. What's actually happening? And I like to think of my whole body like a bag of bits. And there's all these little bits in there doing different things.
So first of all I just go, what's happening? What are these bits doing? Oh, there's a swirling, there's a little bit of a
clenching, there's a narrowing. So I'm paying attention to that. And then the second thing I say is
Can I just welcome all of that?
Can I let that be here as much as it is and not make that a problem?
welcome it like you'd welcome your best friend into your house. Like, hey man, come on in. So just welcome it. And then just the welcoming of it helps it move all the way through. So it can go wherever it needs to go.
And then I can be available for the moment and not not have to leave or check out or contract myself in some way.
And and sometimes we we get this when we, you know, when we're about to have a difficult conversation with somebody too, right? We have this pit.
In our stomach.
How do you think about that?
Yeah, so I was just working with a team the other day and they called me because they're really struggling with having candid conversations with one another.
And they're not giving each other the feedback and they're all going to HR and everybody's complaining. And so I came in there and said, okay.
Let's practice and
What I noticed was so many people are like, I'm not I can't even say it because I can't be with myself in the physical experiences that are happening if I speak out loud.
And I was shocked by
multiple people in the circle.
Who just
Didn't have the
Willingness to be that uncomfortable.
And so what they do is they rob themselves and everybody else around them from feedback that could actually help us all learn and grow, which is what I started to point out to them.
But I'm helping people
do is can you just not label what's happening in the body as
good or bad or pleasurable or uncomfortable, could we just
Name it as just what's actually occurring as a sensation.
So it's when our I think our minds start to interpret.
And put up
label on these on these experiences that we're having
That then causes us to start to contract around those experiences and try to shut them down.
Is there a pro you mentioned feedback. Is there a process by which we can give feedback to other people that
Um is better than others.
Yeah, I have lots of thoughts about this.
Feedback first of all, I tell everybody, feedback first of all, is always telling us about the giver more than the receiver.
of the feedback.
Some uh woman on that same team, she said to one of her colleagues
I um have this thought that you have a big head.
And that it keeps you from being more effective.
Well, what she told me first of all
is likely that she doesn't either acknowledge her own big head and or she doesn't make that valuable about her.
Uh which turned out
Somebody else in the room said, I actually would trust you more if you had more of a big head.
So uh
So a lot of the things we need to first pay attention to is feedback is always about me first.
Can I be aware of that? Secondly.
Am I willing to see that the opposite of my feedback could be at least as true?
You shouldn't have a big head.
Maybe you should have a big head.
Maybe I should have a big head.
So I'm looking at
Can I
Own it over here.
Can I see how the opposite could be true, and then could I hold it?
Because I can see it, it's the opposite could be true. Could I hold the
feedback lightly, meaning
You know, like if I
had it as a this is my feedback, like I think this might be a thing. Instead of I'm gonna righteously defend I'm right about my feedback.
Which then isn't gonna
Often
be something that the receiver is gonna wanna fulfin.
Workplaces are inherently messy, and one of the things that came up in my research is you value that messiness in the workplace. Can you talk to me a little bit about that? I do. You know, I feel like
Ultimately, I think human beings were just here to learn and grow.
You know, we're just here to learn and grow, and we're all bunch of scared kids trying to figure it out. And so
So many of us get caught in like let's be
you know, appropriate. Let's do it right. Let's not offend anybody. Let's
And I what I see is is the the needer we try to get
the less growth we actually get to experience most of the time. Now that doesn't mean we can certainly create environments that are
you know, too edgy where people are
so anxious that they can't learn and grow. And that's not the kind of mess I'm talking about.
But I'm talking about
Can it be okay to have some tension sometimes, honor polarities that are happening in the room, use that as an intelligence that's allowing us all to evolve.
Um, I think that
The trying to suppress messiness is a rip off to everybody.
It it seems like we're actually going more in that direction, right? Where the need to be politically correct, the need to
uh value everybody's opinion equally even though they're not equally well thought out.
the need to say things in just the right way so that we don't offend anybody the need to be
cater to the crowd or the minority, if you will.
Yeah, I'm very concerned about that. I feel like we're not giving each other enough space to toddle. I really like this word toddle, you know, like um
Like I'm a new I'm a little toddler crawling around, you know, and I wanna learn how to walk. And that looks so wild to be able to reorient my body like all these adults are.
And you just see the toddler is trying, you know, and the adults are saying, like, great job, you know, you fell down, but
And that you don't see the toddler saying, Bad toddler, you know, what's wrong with me? You see this toddler staying so curious, and you see everybody else around them supporting that curiosity. I just want more of that with each other.
You know, so like hey yeah, you fell down.
You know, it you're learning can we just grant each other more?
More um patience.
to support that while at the same time honoring hey, everybody's gotta do their work.
Everybody's gotta pay attention.
So it's a yes and in my world.
As you were saying that one thing that came to mind is sort of like we're we're
you know, in a way more fearful of putting ideas out there.
Um because they could be proven wrong.
in the future, or we could look like an idiot in the future. And so we just don't put those out ideas out there. And then we end up
You know, the world ends up in a worse place.
Um, because of that we don't w what struck me about what you said is the tolerance for other people. Like we it's like we forget that other people are human and they do make mistakes and they can be wrong.
And instead of looking that at an
issue basis. We look at it as a person basis. Well Diana Diana said something, you know, that was incredibly silly. Therefore Diana, we're we're not gonna value her opinion anymore. Yeah, and I can feel that, you know, I
I was h making up a story like, Okay, Shane's more of an intellectual and likely his crowd's more of an intellectual, you know, and I'm not an intellectual and I don't think of myself, you know, I
I'm very experiential and I can feel that part of me that gets scared of am I gonna come on and people are gonna dismiss what I have to say because it doesn't have scientific data to back it up or whatever.
And
Інофалон.
I think uh myself and others
We hide out because don't come speak out about just your own experience or what you know because if it's invalidated.
You know, it feels um dismissive in people.
feelings can get hurt or um, you know, and no one wants to be sounding stupid. You know, there can be this like back up. And what I'm trying to do is find my own courage to come out and speak and say,
Okay, I don't know. I mean
Do any of us we're just learning, so I'm just gonna
Put stuff out there and I'll learn from your feedback.
Um, I'll learn from my own experience and that's the best I can do, and that's courageous for all of us. And
It does. It takes courage to speak out these days. Totally. I think the ultimate question is not whether
This is my truth versus your truth, or how I see the situation versus how you see the situation. It's more like
Does it work? Right. Right. I have a bunch of stuff that works for me. And when I share it with a certain group of people, it really works for them.
And so that's all I know is I know it works for some population of the planet. And so perhaps it might work for you, maybe not.
Take what works and ignore the rest. That's the the advice of the podcast, right? Exactly. Talk to me about the difference between the to me and the buy me leader.
Okay.
We got this model from Gay and Katie Hendricks and I don't know where they got it from, but it's this idea that there is a line and you're either in this above the line mindset or this below the line mindset.
And when you're above a line
You're recognizing life is happening by me.
And in particular, my own experience is happening by me. So my emotional states, my physical states, my mental states.
Are happening by me.
the circumstances out there
Are not ultimately the cause of my direct experience here.
So it recognizes that I have a lot of um creativity here. I am the creator of the experience.
Whereas when I'm in leadership from to me
It's more of
Those things out there are affecting me. It's happening to me. So I don't get to have ultimate.
creatorship here. I'm now a victim to some of the circumstances around me.
And so therefore I could, you know, from that mindset, I might say, Shane, you hurt my feelings.
You know, you are the cause of my hurt feelings.
Which I hear, you know, a lot in the workplace.
Uh or instead of
Hey Shane, I want to let you know I hurt my own feelings when you said these words.
I took them in and I hurt myself with them.
It was happening by me. It didn't happen to me.
No, but most of us grew up like, you know
Diana go apologize to your sister. You hurt her feelings. And so we got trained like we are responsible for each other. And
Um now that doesn't mean, again, that I don't make amends for like, hey, I do want to acknowledge that I did this thing and likely that didn't feel
uh, you know, likely didn't land very well over there. And so I can still take responsibility for my impact.
in the world.
But ultimately everybody gets to have their hundred percent responsibility.
In their own well being.
Um when we're in this buy me leadership model.
W we're responsible for our own feelings.
Something that you say to somebody else may may impact them in a way that you didn't intend.
But you're not causing them any sort of injury. Is that what I hear you saying? Yeah, what I'm saying is, you know, if I say to you, God Shane, I think you had an orange mohawk on your head.
You know, I don't know why.
You're not wearing an orange mumbox. It would look way better.
you know, likely that's not really gonna impact you because there's no belief in your own head that thinks you ought to have an orange.
Mohawk.
But if I said something like you know
You could be a more effective father, and I think maybe you should you know, if I I said something I'm
something that you believed in too, you might hurt yourself with it'cause there's a little Velcro.
And so some part of you is believing or agreeing with what I'm saying, and then you use that.
To upset yourself.
So
The idea here is
I get ultimate decision rights on whether I'm gonna upset myself or not.
And you should, you know, you might create conditions that make it a little more challenging. So if somebody starts yelling at me, I might need to take a little more, get a little more present to not upset myself.
And that's where tools like meditation and other skills help people be able to build that.
Awareness so they can stay present in those scenes.
I th I think that's sort of like a good segue into the drama triangle and the the role of being a victim and how we see ourselves. Can you talk to me a little bit about the drama triangle, how you came across it, what it is.
And how it limits us.
Okay. I'm I just want you to know I'm like a huge fan of the drama triangle. It's it's the tool I use every single day with myself and with my clients.
So I learned this from Gay and Kathleen Hendricks, and uh it was originally created by a guy named Stephen Cartman, a psychologist.
And basically the theory is
That we all have learned to do relationship.
Most in this role of victimhood, and that there are three unique flavors of victimhood.
And so um the first one is the pure victim and you know, Shane, it's so hard and the hours and my emails and oh my gosh, and the kids and Covid and now now the masks and oh my gosh, you know, there's just all this
I'm at the effect of.
And uh and so victim has this sense of disempowerment.
It's got this it's taking less than a hundred percent responsibility. It it often has a little bit of a wine to it.
So then there's another role in the drama triangle, and that's the villain, and the villain's job is to blame.
Whose fault is it?
So a lot of us have an inner critic that blames ourselves. So gosh, I should have
uh more health, I should be a more effective partner or parent, I should be more successful.
Or I shouldn't be.
You know, blah blah blah.
Or you, Shane, it's because of you that we're not having a good time, and I was fine until you showed up.
So you should or shouldn't be a certain way, or them. I mean, we all know who they are who are screwing it up for the rest of us, and so
This uh villain is constantly looking for who's to blame.
And then finally is the role of the hero.
And the hero's job is to seek temporary
relief. And that really is the key word is temporary.
So
I'm at the end of the day, I'm so burnt out. Where's the Netflix? Where's my Pinot Noir? Where's even going for a run or something that gives me a little relief.
And it works.
Day after day it works, but I never go
address the core issue of like
Wait a minute.
What's going on that I'm living my life such that I come home at the end of the day so burnt out?
You know, how am I how is that happening? Can I address that so I don't have to keep temporarily fixing it over and over again.
Uh we see this in friends and in organizations where
People listen to each other's gossip. That's a great way, actually, to hero. Let me give you some temporary belief by letting you vent.
So I'm gonna hero you by listening. I'm gonna call it being a good friend.
But
We don't really solve your issue.
We just make you know, you hang up and you go, Oh, I feel better. That was great. Thanks a lot.
But now you've got to go back and we gotta do it all over again.
That's a way we can hero each other.
Or we can hero them. Let's put a philanthropy together and throw a bunch of money at a population and not really ask them to take their hundred percent responsibility so that we'll take more.
And then next year they come back and they go, you know, we got all the same issues. Can you toss some more money at us?
So
Heroing is the most challenging, I think, in the drama triangle, because the culture can really applaud heroes. And so
our identities go, Well, hey, look, you know, people think I'm good for doing these things.
it takes a lot of awareness because
In order to hero, you need victims.
And then that means you are requiring people to be disempowered so you can hear out.
And
That's not such a you know, that's how we're just gonna create more
Battles amongst us.
Why is it called the drama triangle?
My sense is because in those three roles what you get is drama.
Nia na yeah.
You know, you get recycling patterns.
Where people are reactive.
And so that's that's a definition for drama is
No repeating patterns of reactivity.
I I think that word reactive is is really important because when we react, what we're not doing often is reasoning.
Right, we're not reasoning, we're we're not responding. We're in this kind of compulsive
I gotta, I have to.
And so and
A lot of it again, I think is because
we get to avoid the discomfort that comes if we actually pause and become more aware and get
And get present to what's happening and to be honest about what's happening with each other.
It's like oh I don't wanna do that. So let me just temporarily relieve everything over and over again.
And what's interesting to me also about e each sort of point in this triangle is that
From that perspective, we're just always right, whether we're the victim, we're the villain, we're the hero.
Like the story that's going on in our head is that we're we're right.
Yes, and exactly. We can create these biases that actually can we can avoid all the evidence to the contrary of our righteous perspectives. And
The more I'm
Pe in my own deep practice.
I get that ego and identities
Need to feel right in order to secure themselves.
And if I were to let go of being right from that righteous point of view, which is like a right that defends itself.
What's underneath that is a lot more vulnerability.
A lot more of I don't know.
A lot more
Fear.
And
If you're not comfortable with that
then the identity's gonna secure itself all back up again and you're gonna
Get back into I'm right that this is the right way and that's the wrong way, and I'm right to be more like this and not like this and everybody it's just we all get
secured up again in these defense mechanisms to protect this deep, deep vulnerability.
that comes under what if I don't know?
Mm.
What if?
People don't like to sit in I don't know.
And they definitely don't like the fear of vulnerability, like even just opening yourself up to somebody else and, you know, telling them you care about them or whatever it is because you're worried about this rejection. You're worried about all these things. Yeah, that that threat to our approval, because gosh, we all want to be approved of. It's so important and we wanna
We all wanna feel secure, you know, that I'm gonna be
part of something and I want it we all want to have that control, but that all has to learn to be sourced inside of ourselves.
Because if I can't source all the approval I've ever wanted
I'm gonna then be out in the world.
Trying to control my approval.
And
That's gonna cause a decent amount of suffering for me.
And maybe for others too.
One of the things that uh strikes me about the drama triangle is that it's all happening at the subconscious level. It's all invisible.

um conscious mind, how do we go about making
the invisible visible.
So I'm a huge fan of
Saying he look, I'm on the drama triangle, and let me show you.
Let me show me.
And so
If you knew me, when I first learned these things, um, my husband and I, we were practicing together and we got sets of the drama triangle. We we make cards, said the hero, villain, and victim. We laminated them and we put them in our kitchen, we put them in our living room and we put them in our master bedroom.
And so whenever we'd start to have any kind of a discussion
that had any sense of reactivity to it, we would literally get on the drama triangle. We would step on it.
And we would move our
our physical bodies around on the basis as we could feel ourselves.
You know, like
You know, I can't believe you didn't get the kids to school on time. You know, I'm now I'm on villain, you know, and then I always have to do it and I can never count on you. And and so I would just run around on those bases so I could see, oh, as long as I'm gonna have the conversation from here.
I'm not really gonna be able to learn and grow.
And really understand how am I co creating these scenes.
That I tell myself in the world I don't want, but yet
Unconsciously
I'm creating them. And so if I'm on the drama triangle, those will never those will never become aware. So I'll never be able to permanently ship those issues. So I think.
Having drama triangle
uh physically on the ground to step on and talk about
And make big, you know. I say like let's soap opera this baby up.
And so let's
You know
make it the biggest tragedy. So it's kinda funny because
You know, when you're in the drama triangle, everything starts to get serious.
And
My experience is the more serious we are, the less we learn.
And
If you look at all mammals, mammals learn
Best through play.
And there's research suggesting that children also are much more
um be able to learn when they're in a states of play.
So
If I'm serious about something and it's not funny, and the more not funny it is,
The more likely I am to shut down.
My
the all the awareness and all the learning that could actually really take me to a new place.
So
I like when I go into a team, I'll say, All right.
What's one of the issues that you guys have going on? And they might say, um, you know, we haven't made numbers the last two quarters.
And I say, Okay, let's make this the best drama you've ever seen. I like everybody
You know, imagine we've all been at the bar, we've had a several drinks, we're a little sloppy. Get on the drama triangle and really bitch and moan about this issue.
And
First of all, that's sort of relieving to a lot of people because it's like really I get to do that?
And so I let them get on the basis and and bitch won't and complain and who's to blame and who how do you fix it and how are you at the effect of it, and just letting that out.
We all get to go.
Ah okay.
All those parts get to bitch one and complain, now what? Now are we willing to get off this drama triangle so that we can actually really learn.
How to co create a different option.
And so I'm all for exaggeration and play.
around when we're when we're in the triangle.
Walk me through what's next. Like you do that, you have that session, you bitch moan, you complain, you get it out, you you over exaggerate, you feel really good, and then you feel
open and a little bit safe, I would imagine.
What's next?
What's next is all what's next is can you just recognize
You're in this drama time build, you guys, because you're scared.
There's you're at threat.
feels like a threat to your security or control or approval and
People most people will go, Yeah, I am threatened. I do feel threatened.
A few people will say, I don't think I'm threatened, but then if you help them see a little more clearly, everybody eventually gets to see, Okay, you're right.
I'm in a state of threat.
So
The first thing I know is if you can't accept the fact that you're in a state of threat, you'll never shift anything.
You know, I could feel it today, like the one who felt a little threatened about coming on today, you know, like how old is she?
She's nine or ten and she got kind of bullied on the playground when she went to a new school and the kids didn't know her.
And so that part of me is here.
Worried that this might happen again.
And so
I just go, Oh, sweetheart, you're just scared. Yeah, come sit on my lap. So if you know me, I do that to myself.
Like oh you're just
Come on, have a seat.
And I'm not trying to stop it or numb it. I'm well like you are welcome to be scared.
Let's move that all the way through to completion. Take a breath with that, welcome all those sensations, and then check and see if there's something that you need.
And can we get that source from within so that then you can be able to respond.
So first and foremost, after you recognize you're in this reactive place in the drama triangle, except you're scared.
And then after that
Just check and see would I be willing to move from threat to trust?
So
I ask questions of myself and others.
Like would I be willing to stop blaming anybody?
If we all stopped blaming, and we all recognize we each have a part to play.
So I could start to look at how am I co creating this rather than throwing blame over someplace else.
And
Would I be willing to stop?
Being righteous about this, so that there can be something I can learn. Cause right now, obviously, there's something I don't know. If I did, I'd solve this already.
And would I be willing to feel my feelings about this?
And when I be willing to let other people feel theirs and when I be willing to really listen to the other side.
Most of us don't listen and would I be willing to be honest, like
really truly can it if I've had the thought three or more times would I say it out loud.
Instead of withholding it.
Would I be willing to recognize likely there's been some broken agreements here that have caused some of this? And how am I
How have I been a part of that?
So I ask people these questions, we call them willingness questions, to see would you be willing to shift out of threat?
to trust and then if people are willing
Then now they're in a more open state. They're open in their minds, they're open in their emotional states, they're open in their bodies.
And I say then their three centers are turned on, IQ, EQ, BQ.
Which is
A metaphor I like to use.
And then
from that place, from that state of presence.
They're a lot more available for learning and a lot more available for a new solution.
I I wanna explore the IQ, EQ, BQ in just one second, but before we get to that, that this triangle has three points on it.
um sort of victim, hero, and villain.
Talk to me. Are they all equally weighted?
Like is one a better position to be in the other, or are they all the same? They're all the same. They all are taking either more.
Or less than
One hundred percent responsibility.
in their own ways.
So they're all not really taking full ownership.
Um and they all have
They're all
Really brilliant, honestly. I mean
I really appreciate our
psyche that created these structures to protect ourselves because that's what the drama triangle is. It's a reactive
defense mechanism that we've all set up.
And they each of those bases is equally valuable in its defense mechanism. So
Um and my experience is that when people are
dealing with any issue, they're gonna be on all three bases.
they're gonna have some of each. Now some of us tend to, we we learn to do relationship being more of a hero or more of a villain or more of a victim or some combination.
And that often comes because
maybe those bases were already taken by the people we grew up with. And so that's kind of a natural default that we go to. So we have typical patterns that we do.
But they're all equally weighted.
One of the things that you mentioned, and not necessarily related to the drama triangle, but as a way to get out of it was taking a breath. And I find that really interesting because this summer I took my my youngest child cliff jumping.
And his first cliff that we jumped off was like thirty feet.
So not
You know, he's eleven years old. This is not a not a small feat for him.
And the way that we sort of overcame this was through like breathing and
We talked about confidence and doing difficult things and doing things we've never done before. And we have a history of this. And the easier uh uh my feet my theory on this is like the easier we can recall things that we've done that are difficult.
Uh and the more we can just
Take a deep breath.
We can talk to ourselves in a positive light. We've done difficult things before and that makes it easier.
um to go forward. But the question is, what role does breathing play in that? Because I've always noticed that breathing's a part of it. Like when I was talking to him, I'm like just take a deep breath, slow it down.
And then you mentioned that and I I thought of that instantly.
Oh, first of all, I'm just touched by your fatherhood.
That
That takes him and helps
Guide him to go to those edges. It's a great gift. And that
You could remind him, you know, we've done difficult things before, and so bringing some rationality in.
But then also that breath helps relax the body.
It helps.
Open up the contractions.
helps us get more present here. It helps us recognize, oh
Breathing doesn't just happen to me.
I can be the breather. And so I get choice about that too. And so it helps me come back to my own empowerment that
It's one of the only functions I think in the body in which it happens automatically and I get to control it. That's fascinating. I had never thought of it that way before.
Right. I think that's the I think that's the case. It's really interesting. I mean, one thing I didn't tell him is that we can't get down other than by jumping. So it's a one way door going up.

Yeah, so breathing helps me come back to my own sense of power, helps my body relax.
helps me notice what's happening around me so that I can feel that
empowerment to then go through and push the edge of something that feels vulnerable.
Let's explore the IQ, EQ, BQ. Uh w what's the relationship to sort of
um each other and relationship to peak performance.
This is my theory.
Um just a theory.
I have no idea if I'm right.
Um but
I believe that
We have these three centers of intelligence.
So this intellectual
Intelligence, this emotional intelligence, and this instinctual or body intelligence.
And my belief is is that
Different
people lead with a different intelligence.
I think we all have all three.
But some of us lead with intellect, some of us lead with emotional intelligence, some of us lead with BQ. And so
What I'm interested in is helping people
honor their the one they lead with.
So I lead with BQ. That's my
I I feel things. I don't have to I don't intellectually know a lot a lot of the things that I
That I um
can go toward I feel them. It's like a mammal maybe who goes back to a watering hole hundreds of miles away. I just kind of know my way.
And that's challenging when you say to a a group of people like
I think we should go this way.
And people say, Well where's your data?
And
For those of us who have more BQ intelligence that leads, it's it's difficult because it's like, well, I don't necessarily have that data.
Um, I just have this sense about things and
My sense is pretty on a lot of the time. I got a nose, I got a good nose.
And so um
We didn't get trained most of us in schools to honor body intelligence, you know.
we off most of us didn't get trained for emotional intelligence either. We mostly are been valuing IQ so much, which is great. IQ's fantastic, but
I find that leaders
Who are able to access all three centers equally.
Uh
Knowing they have a lead in one.
Are more able to make effective decisions.
And you know, I think
Emotions
Are also
Like they have so much intelligence.
And um
You anger says hey something isn't serving.
Me, the my people, the situation. It's so intelligent. So when we're angry, it's like stop, change.
I like to think of anger as like
When the director goes cut, like
We need better lighting or say that a little louder or like it the anger helps make everything
More exquisite.
If we can see it that way, and that
Fear says we gotta learn something here.
And then
Sadness says maybe there's something we gotta let go of.
Something we need to grieve so that we can be present to what's here. I I help teams a lot.
grieve because you know, I'm work I work a lot with uh Silicon Valley startups and um
Yeah, a lot of them are grieving that they had ideas that they would have a certain number of users by
you know, XYZ or they'd have so much money in the bank or they'd have investors coming in.
And they have to let go.
And
They have to
Feel the wisdom of you gotta let go so you can actually be with what's here now.
And deal with that because if you can't
If you can't let go of that beautiful picture you had.
You you can't really see the beautiful picture that's now here, but just in a different way.
I was with a team in which
Uh they had to cut. Was during right before Covid and they had to cut.
uh or when I scope it was happening, twenty percent of the team.
And so I asked the leader of the organization, would you please give space to the whole team to grieve?
So he did, he said, just presence for a minute. I imagine we're all really grieving the fact that our colleagues are leaving.
And that this isn't gonna be the same place and I wanna make space for that and let us talk about it for a minute.
And so
What I think happens is when people are able to talk about those things.
They get it through the system.
You know, it doesn't take that long, but they get to really presence it, feel it in the body.
Tears, maybe it's just some aches in the chest, maybe it's just some darn. But can we let that come all the way through and then
Okay.
All right, well that has happened. Now what?
And if we don't give space for that, it ends up happening through gossip and na and people talking and like then we waste a bunch of energy.
doing all kinds of things to try to get that grief through that we didn't you know that we don't know how to get it through because talking alone isn't gonna make that happen.
There's just a lot we call a you know, a lot of
whole body intelligence that still we're we're s we're just getting started and helping
People understand and value that.
There's so many ways that I wanna follow up on this. One of the one of them is sort of like avoiding the feeling
actually makes the feeling come up later and in more unpredictable ways. Like I see this with my kids, right?
when when they try to suppress their anger, it comes out later in in very different and difficult ways. And it seems to last longer. Whereas if you just embrace it and you feel it.
Right.
And you know, it sucks and you learn how to deal with it, but then it passes. Yes, it passes. And if it doesn't pass, then it it does become suppressed. And then what can happen is
A story can start to be created.
And then that story
the the mind starts to want to be right about the story and it can create what we call a cognitive emotive loop.
in which then it now is not just an emotion that's moving through the body, it's now a story I hold, but then I
activate with a feeling that then activates the story and it loops.
And it can go on and on and on. So I could do it with um, you know, if I said like, can you believe she said that about me? I just can't believe she did that. And I'm right that she shouldn't have said it. And then I upset myself with my righteous story, and then that saddens me. And I'll just loop and loop and loop, and then I could be sad forever about that.
How do we break out of that loop?
Then you gotta just drop back down to underneath your story.
Just what is the sensations and I like to get back to sensations'cause
Maybe I don't even know what the feeling is. Just can I come back to what's happening in the body.
And let that process itself all the way through, and the body knows.
No, the body knows how to
Move itself, sound itself.
uh ex you know express itself to let it go all the way through.
And it's great to have
I think
Opportunities for
You know.
kids to be able to and we're all kids at heart, but
To be able to have
You know
an environment in which kids can go, Yeah, buddy, you're you're angry. I welcome your anger. How angry are you?
Like if the if your anger could make a sound, what's it sound like?
You know, instead of like, Well, if you're gonna be angry, honey, you have to go to your room, which only just validates the you know, the b child's belief that anger's not welcome here and I gotta suppress it.
Talk to me. You you mentioned being at this crossroads, right? And you your body's telling you you're your you lead with your BQ and your body's telling you to go one way.
And then you're trying to communicate to somebody who might lead with more uh emotion or intelligence. How do we learn to have conversations between these different
Leads.
Yeah, it's a great question. So what we have to do is honor that that's one of the reasons why we like
The diversity amongst us is
Maybe you have some data.
that will suggest why my idea is or is not a good idea.
Um or maybe you have some emotional intelligence.
That says
You know, as I'm hearing you speak.
I notice I feel really scared.
And uh
Yeah.
The fear is very strong in me.
And I'm not sure.
That
Um we know enough yet to make that decision.
So we count on each other.
And each other's intelligences to
bond together to see
What do we all you know, do we all have for our own
Unique intelligence is an agreed upon next step.
Um and
Maybe
We do say hey in this case.
Like
There are times when I say, Hey look
You have
brilliant intellectual understanding of this topic. I'm gonna
I'm going to
bow to you in this case,'cause I think you're probably
You know, you sh you demonstrate.
Uh uh
a better track record in these areas. So I'm gonna listen.
To yours and
Whereas you might say
Hey, Diana, in this area, you tend to always have good instincts. I'm gonna go your way.
And then all we can do is learn.
You know, but
It's just our job to keep listening over and over again to what do we notice? What do we notice here as we
decide next steps.
One of the most interesting quotes I've probably s come across in the last year has to do with this, and it was uh I think it's Jeff Bezos, but I'm gonna butcher the quote a little bit, but it was basically to the effect of when my body disagrees with the data, it's usually my body that's right and the data that's wrong. Yeah.
That's my experience.
I had a son and when he was in high school, he was using a lot of marijuana.
Not not well. And
He was such a smart kid, re you know, already been moved up a grade, they wanted him to move him up again. I mean
Brilliant intellect.
And he was
poorly performing in high school.
uh could care less about school and I don't think the marijuana in that case was particularly helping.
And when he turned eighteen, he'd already graduated from high school.
He said, um, I want to grow marijuana, I can do it legally.
My head, the data in my head said heck.
No.
No way.
Wha what would every other parent on the planet think if I let my kid is already probably using too much?
Start.
growing large amounts of marijuana.
Mm-hmm.
My body was so clear, it just said let him grow.
Let them grow. I and it was just kind of like inside of my own self, it was like, What? Like, are you kidding?
Uh but
I said okay.
And if you can prove that you can make it legal, we live in California at the time you could do that, and so
Uh, first of all, I thought the kid will has
We'll never t grow a plant'cause you know, he's never done anything like this in his life.
But his passion for marijuana.
He
learned everything he could about it.
He wasn't a particularly social guy. All of a sudden he's social. All the other young adults around want to come learn from him. He grows the most glorious marijuana plants. He's he makes a business out of it. He gets people to come in and work for him. He sells it all to the legal places and
S
comes to life.
It's like the his passion.
for something'cause he just didn't have his passion at school.
And he ends up going off to the community college.
Then off to UCLA.
graduates with a computational math major.
While you know thriving now.
And
I really do think.
My body knew when my head was so looking at the data that suggests this wasn't a good idea.
You gotta just trust the snowing you have.
I like that example a lot. One of the things you mentioned uh in that
I find myself
uh dealing with all the time, which is
How what will other parents think of me? And that you know, when I'm conscious about it, I'm like, I really don't care.
Uh, but there's this this unconsciousness to it where
Oh my God, like if my kid has a temper tantrum, like what are other parents gonna that I'm a bad parent all of a sudden, right? And then you think about it and you're like, Well, wait, that doesn't actually mean I'm a bad parent. And uh, but you've that initial feeling is is such that I'm being judged by other parents.
Yeah, yeah, I'm afraid.
What are they gonna think?
And then I'm also afraid of like what's my kid gonna think when they grow up?
Are they gonna be like are they gonna be is my son gonna come back and go, You should never have let me grow marijuana? Like what were you thinking? So it's like this double whammy, you know, for most of us of it's what are the parents gonna think, but what's my kid as an adult gonna think about my choices? And so it does take a lot of um
presence to listen, to tune in, and to decide ultimately
I am gonna do the best I know how. That's all I can do.
And
For me, I kip using
This m mantra in my head, which is I'd rather learn than be right.
I'd rather learn. I'd rather learn like we're gonna learn about what happens here because if I
Try to be right. I'm just gonna miss out on
Something else. And so
And I and I keep when I say this about be right, I mean righteous, you know, because it was righteous in my mind.
When I said no, he shouldn't grow. I was being righteous.
I wanted to
Prove.
That it wasn't a good idea.
I now I just would rather learn. I just rather I just know I'll learn something and learning.
When you're in a buy me leadership stance, learning is the most important thing.
And it's like it's being in a state of awe. Like
It's a wild world out there. Let's find out.
What's it gonna be like, you know?
That whole state of being righteous
I've never heard it in that term before, but
I I'm just seeing myself through this lens, right? When I was uh when I used to work for a large organization, it was a knowledge worker.
And then you have this vested interest in being right because if I'm not right
Then what am I doing here? What am I contributing? And then when you need to be right, you spend all of your time and effort.
Not only
You know, probably unconsciously undermining other people.
Um, but trying to prove that you're right to other people and you're close to new data, you're close to different uh perspectives.
I get this question a lot from
People of Well how
Like if you're not trying to be if you're not righteous, like how will you know?
How to go any particular direction.
My answer is
Well, you are gonna use
Your own background
Your own experience, your own knowledge.
You're gonna use those things, you're gonna use
um all of your intelligences and you're gonna make the best choice that you believe you can make
based on what you know. And in that way you'll be quote right.
You'll say, I believe I'm right.
But
You'll hold it loosely.
So that
you would be available so somebody could penetrate through and support your curiosity in like, hey, maybe you don't know something, or I'm younger and I've learned some new things and you haven't, you know, you've been holding on to some old models and
Um, and so if I'm righteous, you can't penetrate me.
And so
That's where it's a I call it like walking the line of holding two sides of a polarity equally, which is
I believe this is the best way to go and I'm completely available.
To learn that it might not be.
And how do I be in a big enough state of awareness to hold both of those two things equally?
Because most of us
can't do that. It's it's difficult because it's it threatens the identity to hold those both equally.
I think for me, I try to think of it as outcome over ego, right? And if I'm trying to prove myself right or I need to be right.
What I need to be right about is just getting the best outcome. Yes.
And that
you know, shifts when you when you have more skin in the game, you tend to think that way naturally, right? Like it doesn't matter whose idea it is, as long as we're all getting a better
Um but when you work in an organization, you have a different sort of self image, I guess, of your contribution. Yes. And
You know, like you're an investor and so we know you're making decisions that affect lots of people's
Money. And
maybe their businesses and that you're investing in. And so
We're looking at
You know, of course you want to be as thought as possible.
So you want to really do this well and
You only can know so much. I mean, no one ever can say, I can a hundred percent say without a doubt this is the way to go.
I mean it's rare that that happens.
And so
being willing to stay in that curious place while being very definitive on your choices.
One of the things I love about it is it just
It's way more
uh relaxing on the body.
And we don't you know you get to sleep nights and you know, you're just all you can do is the best you know how and just give yourself a break.
Talk to me about the whole body, yes.
whole bunny yes, this is one of my
Favorite topics.
So
Whole body S is this idea that
When I'm given
options of how I want to move forward in the world.
I consider the option with my full body.
And this comes back to IQ EQ BQ.
So I'm listening.
to
This intelligence that's moving through me that says yes.
Or no.
Somebody says
Hey Diana, um
I've got uh this friend of mine who I think would be another great client for you.
So I'll have a conversation with them and I'll learn and I'm gonna listen to my whole body yes to know is this somebody I wanna be working with or not?
You know, my head might say, Yeah, but they're
They have a lot of impact in the world, which matters to you. You should work with them, you know? But my gut might go, Yeah, but something's off.
I don't know what it is.
But I don't think this is the way to go.
And my heart might go
Yeah, I noticed
My ha I heart my heart's not in it.
It just doesn't feel and so in this case
It's not a whole body yes, there's not a check, check, check.
Um, and so now it's a no. And so I say anything other than a whole body yes is a no.
And I think it's a great skill to have. And it takes a little time. I think it's a muscle everybody has, but very few of us ever got trained. It's like a flaccid muscle.
But you can build it up over time.
En I find that most people have a signature.
inside of themselves for what a yes versus a no feels like.
And I often walk people through that so they can get a sense of that and then use that. And I say start with small stuff like
Oh, I'm have a menu choice tonight at dinner. What
What's my body have a whole body yes to?
uh for for what I'm gonna eat and then practice on little stuff.
Uh and how am I gonna get home from, you know, here to there? There's several routes, which one do I wanna take?
Uh what time do I want to
Meet a group of people in the evening.
try different things out so you start to learn like hey it's got a lot of clarity and then
you can build that strength up to start to answer
much bigger questions.
um that have more impact on you.
So I'm a I'm a huge fan of it and my experience is
People do know a lot more than they are willing to let themselves.
um be aware of.
Talk to me about when we use it and when we don't, because one thing that was interesting there, like when should we overrule ourselves, like with your son?
You didn't have a whole body, yes, and yet the the outcome in that case was
a great outcome and
In some cases when you're taking a client
uh or you're getting yourself into an investment or situation, you want a whole body yes. When when do we use these? When do we overrule ourselves?
So that's a great thing to come back to the issue with my son because
I actually did come to a whole body yes. The first response was no, yes, yes. But I really I was in reactivity.
So I really wasn't in a state of trust.
So I had to come back to
you know, would you be willing to let go of what people think of you? Would you be willing to let go of being right that
he sh you know, this is gonna harm him. I had to be in my own curiosity first.
So then once I relaxed, then I asked, do I have a whole body? Yes. And in that case, I did.
We have to check and see, am I checking for whole body yes?
From reactivity.
Um, because if I am, then I need to shift it over. If it's a no, I need to shift over and see am I in a state of
Trust.
Such that
I can get a m much more accurate read on whether this really is a whole body yes or not.
One thing I like about it is it raises the bar.
Right. Like it raises the standard for what you agree to and you commit to.
Well
I love the word exquisite.
And it's something that I'm putting a lot of attention on is how could I
Have it be exquisite.
And
What I find for myself and others is
I can make a lot of things good.
I'm you know, I give me some lemons, I'll make you lemonade. It's good.
But I might never taste champagne if I'm just tolerating good.
And so I'm
really learning how to be discerning to say
But what if it's ex what if you could have exquisite?
I'm learning.
to
Say no to a lot of things, and it's very heartbreaking, honestly.
Um, because those things are good and they're wonderful and
Doesn't mean I let go of all of them, but I've been letting go of a lot lately.
That's been wonderful, but I think there's even something
More aligned, more on purpose, more.
You know, that gets me humming because it's like uses me.
in the ways that give my gifts the most you know impact in the world and
I'm really in devotion to whole body yes for that reason.
I w I wanna explore that just a little bit more in terms of uh like was there a recent event that changed this?
Um, because I I find with myself, like if if I'm saying yes to
Average opportunities.
There's so many of those opportunities that I never
ever have time for the extraordinary ones. So I have to learn to say no.
the average opportunities to create the time and space to work on.
Extraordinary ones. Yeah.
But I'm curious if there was an event that sort of made that happen for you. Was it
Mm.
Or if it just sort of like was a realization that you came too slowly.
I think um if you knew me, you would know that I grew up in a really I think, you know, as families go, it was a very sweet family.
uh dynamic and of course there were challenges in there like all families, but overall
I grew up in a beautiful family. All of my sisters, we all went to the same college. We were all in the same sorority. We're all really close. I mean, it's very kind of rare in that way.
And we all lived in the Midwest, and we all
We're having children around the same time, the children were all close.
It was really good, but I just had this sense like
There's something else. And
There was this day
Where
It's kinda the first and last day I ever heard such a very direct call, but it just said you gotta move to California.
It's so good here, though. I just built my dream house with my husband. I mean, it was so good. But there was just this sense of
There's something calling you that's gonna be even more exquisite than this.
And so
I didn't have a job, my husband didn't have a job. We just said like we're gonna take the leave to California.
We didn't know where we're gonna live. It was just this
really radical
Surrender.
And we came out here, and sure enough.
As beautiful.
And as my
Life had been up until that point, it became a whole nother level.
of exquisite coming out here.
living outdoors in this land, community creating community that I was so aligned with, and then having this work.
be so fulfilling out here in a community that was much more open to it at the time.
This is twenty years ago where
you know, nobody in the m where I was living in the Midwest had a clue what I was up to. And so
And so that was the beginning of me listening to a call and risking a lot.
And then discovering wow it could be even better. And so
That's a regular practice for me now is
Whenever I feel it, and it's pretty clear to me, I just had another round of it like make space.
I grow a lot of fruits and vegetables, if you knew me. And so, you know, I love um cutting it's about ready to cut the fruit trees here.
Cut off all the dead wood.
And these trees are gorgeous the way they are. They're like, why can't we just keep'em? But it's like cut'em back.
Get get rid of the dead wood because you're gonna have something that flourishes even more, something stronger, m you know, more blossoms if you cut back. And so that's a
regular practice in my life.
And
You know, Gay Hendricks is one of my he and Katie Hendricks my mentors, and Gay taught me about this concept called the upper limits.
Problem.
And the idea that
A lot of us
limit how good
We can feel in our bodies how good our relationships could be, how good our work can be, because we put this limit of
of how good it could be, which often is determined by the family's
That we came into
And the stories that we all hold about
You know, how much touch, laughter, fun, creativity, community can we have, abundance.
And uh and so I've really been playing around with
addressing my own upper limit in myself.
That keeps me from
Having it even more exquisite than I had.
known before.
And um and so I think and I work a lot with clients on upper limit. I it's one of their
favorite topics to explore is
Could you imagine
Life going even better.
How do we go about identifying that that ceiling for us, that high limit?
You'll say things like um
Gosh, you know, I can't even remember a a day as good as this. Or can you believe this is happening? Or um, wow, honey, I feel so close to you. All of those things are all indicators that I'm right on the edge of how good I can handle things.
So for example, we we see these patterns show up in couplehoods, you know, um because of upper limits, which I think makes a lot of sense, more couples will fight on Friday night than any night of the week.
And I think that's an upper limits pattern because it's like, Oh, honey, we have the whole weekend now to, you know, have more connection. And so that'll be a threat somehow to well, you know, to how good we can have it. So we'll fight and then maybe we spend the weekend unwinding our fight.
The second most popular night of the week to fight is on Sunday nights.
And that I think is also an upper limit. It's like, oh, we've had so much connection. I feel really bonded. So let's have a fight to bring ourselves to a more familiar place.
So
You'll you'll just pay attention to when you start to feel like, wow, this is pretty great. You know you're on your edge. And in those moments, what I've learned is
Those are the times to integrate.
to go sweep the floors and just remind yourself, wow, I could have life this good.
Watch a silly movie or
Take a bath, or just
Just integrate, let the nervous system recognize.
You could be this happy.
You could be this connected.
And then
Once the system is settled in, then it's available to even go up a little more. And then you settle in and a little more and you settle in. So you start to
grow over time.
The nervous system, and so when I first met Gang Katie twenty three years ago.
They were describing to me
you know, their exploration of this upper limit.
And gay I gay said something like uh
Yeah, I was in a mild I live in a mild state of orgasm most of the time.
And I was like, Oh, I want that. Whatever that is, I give me that. And I can feel that now. Like it's I get what he was talking about. And I have built that over time by learning that it's okay.
to be happy because a lot of us are told, you know.
if you're too happy people are gonna cut you down or people won't wanna be with you or
You won't want to be with them, or maybe you don't deserve it. There's all these deep unconscious patterns in us.
psychological patterns that keep us from
From opening to life going really well.
Go deeper on where we
are scared almost to be happy. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, um, who do you think you are? You know, you think you're so you think you're so much, you know, a lot of us got told that like don't have a big head, don't be too happy, don't be too sure of yourself.
Don't be too full of yourself. And of course there's the
I get the message underneath there about be humble and but it's like could we be humble and be just having a blast? I mean
If you knew me, you would know I have a fantastic marriage.
I don't seen anything better.
I've seen maybe some equal wines, but
I have a great marriage. I've worked a lot of time on that marriage. I have fantastic relationships with my children. I have
An amazing community of friends.
I mean I
love them. I mean I
actually created a business in which I brought a lot of my fans in so
Like most of the time when I hang on a business call, it's I love you.
Like
It's кразі.
I I live in a beautiful place. I get to be outside hiking all the time. It's so good.
And I'm just learning to let it be okay to be that good.
And not
apologize or not feel bad about that or not worry when the shoe's gonna drop, to just recognize
Yeah.
It's really wonderful.
And so my whole life is in devotion.
To how good could it be?
Including
More most importantly, how can I most give my gifts to serve
those around me in ways that are really meaningful to me and really supportive to them because that
That's one of the things that really i is creating
One of the most beautiful parts of my life.
I love that. Um while we're on the topic of relationships, what's the hamburger versus steak life or steak sex life thing all about?
Yeah. So I've been with my husband since I was sixteen. So you have to know that that we were very young when we got together.
And no one really told us much about sex and I didn't have very much experience. But you know, everything seemed to be going pretty well.
But I started to realize like
I was getting it starting to come a little ho hum. Like it's good. I mean it's good. Every
But it's it's just
It felt like eating a great hamburger.
And I realize
Like
What would steak taste like?
Yeah, what would it be like to have steak more often? And so
Like all things, I'm always curious about
you know, how good could it be? And so I started to
learn everything I could about human sexuality and couple polarity and all these different things started to discover
Oh, there's a lot more possible.
Now I you know I really like to stand for like hey hamburger's great.
And I'm not opposed to having a hamburger once in a while, but I really like steak. And so what does you know, how do we create the conditions in which we get to eat steak?
I used to be a couple's coach before I
Worked with leaders and or organizational leaders.
And so now I do work with a lot of their couplehoods because
It's part of them being an effective leader and
My definition of leadership is
Anyone who wants to take responsibility for their influence in the world. And so in that way, everybody is a leader in my mind who wants to take responsibility. And so there's responsibilities at home and at work and in your marriage.
And so I work with them and I'm
Really
Uh, blown away by how many people are
not having happy sex lives.
And
who got stuck and r because
They were too busy or
because they didn't know how good it could be. You know, there was nothing that captivated them to stay engaged in that. And so it just fell to the wayside. And
you know, a lot of people really grieving that and w wishing it were different. And so
I'm asking people to learn and understand more about
How could it be so delicious and intimate and
enlivening that
Um
you know, you couldn't help but want to make sure you create time in your life too.
create curate those experiences.
And it's not for everybody. I wanna honor everybody has their own different preferences and needs. Um, but I think
There's a lot more people.
Who would be interested in
cultivating a really hot, juicy sex life if they had more tools and understanding of
What does stake look like?
And again
We have to get uncomfortable.
to have these conversations and again
It's very
Vulnerable.
To start having open and honest conversations with your partner about what good sex is like. And again, if we're not willing to get uncomfortable, then we're not gonna have great sex.
So
You have to be willing to start telling each other.
You know, what's true and
Hey, I don't
Like that and I'm afraid you're gonna
go away if I say that and I'm really scared to tell you that. Like can we just
Get
really raw and real about
What's happening. So
That's um
So I
I'm proud of the fact that I've
with very little experience figured out um how to, you know, really cultivate that.
One of the things that I like that you said is how do we create the conditions under which we stake? What are the things that get in the way?
What are when when you're dealing with couples, and maybe just to to take it out of your personal life, like what are the things that constantly get in the way, not only of that that of
sacks but like also like
in couples and relationships that are consistent across the board.
I really like this book called Come As You Are Oh.
Emily Nagoski. Yeah, yeah, she's amazing.
Yeah.
I I work because I think she nailed it. I think
First of all there needs to be a
and physical environment.
In which the conditions are set up that
Especially the person who tends to play more the role of receiver, um, which often is a woman, but not always in a heterosexual couple.
The one who's playing the receiver
often needs to have
a psychological environment around them in which they really feel like they can surrender, which means I need to know that the kids are fine. I need to know I'm not gonna be bugged. I need to have like
I need to know I have enough time. There needs to be this psychological setup.
For me to relax.
And then I'm much more available to a depth of intimacy.
And availability that would
you know, create something that's more like stake rather than like
Hey, I got ten minutes, let's quick do it. I gotta get out of here.
'cause you know, they're gonna scream in second.
People
Have to talk.
really honestly, and they have to have
А комитмент.
to give and receive feedback.
And be in so that they both say yes, I'm committed to hearing and learning from you.
I also think
Um
In some ways you have to come back to like
Healing any old trauma. I mean, there's a lot of us have sexual trauma.
So can we start back at the beginning? Can we come back to our innocence and our vulnerabilities and our shyness and our
And make sure all that's
healed and
You know, and some of us have much more, you know, bigger sexual traumas and those cases they if they're not dealt with
Uh
with in therapy or other places, they're gonna uh
ongoingly affect the relationship.
And then
You know, I had this I was
working with a group of women, I think it was like a a YPO
uh spouses uh forum and one of the women was complaining about having bad sex.
And so I said, I want you to teach us the course. I want you to imagine.
That we're all here, and we have come to learn how to have bad sex.
And we wanna have bad sex just like you have.
So could you put together a list of everything that we would need to do?
or B in order to have bad sex.
So she thought about it for a little bit and she said well first of all
Believe that if you tell him
that you don't like something that'll go away.
And won't
won't take care of you.
So you gotta believe that right off the beginning.
Secondly
Keep all of your preferences to yourself and just hope that he'll figure it out.
Third.
Do whatever he wants and don't really ask at all. Don't believe believe that his needs are going to be more important than yours.
And so she went on and on. Like she gave us like twelve steps.
to how she creates.
This mediocre sex.
And that was a big aha for her because
She's been sitting around waiting for twenty years for this to change.
and being at the effect of it in the drama triangle.
And now recognizing just as she was able to teach the course, oh
I'm the creator.
of bad sex
I tell the world I wish my sex life would improve.
But survey says it's not true.
'Cause it's not improving and it's mine to change if I would choose to do so.
But there's a threat to her to change the pattern, so she doesn't.
And one of the things I'm good at is helping people
B with their discomfort.
because that's the catalyst for most human beings to change is to finally face and
feel the cost of the patterns that they're in.
I love that. For those of you curious listening, we did a podcast with Emily. I think it's episode sixty six.
And where we explore sex and and it was one of the most amazing conversations, although uh slightly awkward for me to talk about sex to hundreds of thousands of people. Right. Um which is why we don't talk about it,'cause it's like yep.
Right? It's like oh all the more reason why. I mean I there were so many things I didn't know and I was mad. I remember
Like in my early thirties being mad, like how come I didn't know this stuff about sex? Why aren't we teaching this?
I I I I think it got really awkward for me when, you know, my mom uh listened to it and was like, We need to talk. And then, you know, my neighbors just started like looking at me a little differently after that episode. Uh-huh.
I'm curious, switching gears a little bit, how do you think about the relationship between intensity and consistency?
I don't think intensity I don't think anyone can be consistently intense.
Uh
And uh I think that that's a great
set up for burnout, which is what I see all
over the place.
When you say intensity, it's a state. It's got a lot of at least for me in there. It's drive, it's passion, it's
To me it's like a weather pattern.
You know, there are times when it's great it's a great weather pattern to have and it meets the moment.
And then there are times when it needs to be this like quiet, still lake.
And
It's our job to be aware of when, you know, what weather patterns. Some of them, they just come through us. We don't really get to have much control over that. Intensity comes when it comes or grief comes when it comes.
And there can be uh intensity in my grief, or there can be a a stillness in my grief. And so it's about paying attention to what serves the moment, I think, over and over again.
Intensity I think can be a real addiction. And I think one of the things we have to pay attention to, I see a lot of addiction.
to intensity these days.
And I think people
Think that intensity is what aliveness is.
And there are so many other kinds of aliveness, like
The aliveness of just sitting in stillness and
Watching the
Leaves quietly blow in a breeze.
I work with a lot of people to actually try to settle down their intensity.
You work with a lot of teams. What have you learned about making good decisions that most people miss?
I just think
People don't practice nearly enough candor.
I think people are withholding so many
opinions and stories about one another.
And
So we're not getting the feedback we need to be able to be more present in the moment.
in which we can make those decisions.
Can we just tell each other our stories that we make up in our heads about each other? Because
It's about you.
And it's good to know what stories people make up about us because
My experience is there's almost always a gem in every story.
that somebody has about me. And from presence I always ask the question.
Not is it true what you're s what you're saying about me, but how is it true?
How is it true?
Um that I'm
you know, not as effective as I could be. Or how is it true that I'm
Yeah.
listening now for how is it true? So I'm
Asking teams to tell each other their stories more often.
So that they can see how is it true and then learn from that.
to be able to grow and be more effective in their decision making.
I is is there sort of like tips and tricks that we can learn to
as a group. Um because often groups are the the the body making decisions, whether it's a
preferably a person, but the group has to work together. And in order to get the best information,
You need to be able to be honest about um
about things or there how do you form that in a group? How do you encourage it? I like this practice I I use with teams a lot called fact and story.
I'll say let's say Shane and I are on a team and I say um
Shane, the facts are that um you led a podcast between the two of us.
um earlier today. And then I would say, here's a story I make up about that.
And my hopefully I'm holding the story with curiosity.
Um and so I you know, I'll say I m you know, I make up a story that and then I tell the story, but I can s I as a team member
If I can put a fact in story, it kind of helps the person relax a little bit to go, I it's just a story and it gives them a little
freedom to speak more candidly to one another.
And so I've done this before where I just come into a team and I say, We're just gonna go around the circle. You have to pick a different person each time.
And you're gonna have a fact and story.
And we'd maybe do three rounds of that.
And each time you pick somebody new on the team.
And reliably I get
feedback that that may have been one of the best practices they've done in a long time, that they learned things that had not been learned. Elephants came out, people got valuable feedback.
And they realize like we don't
Give any time and attention.
to being able to reveal these stories in a way that lets us all
evolve. And so they all said like
the decisions they were making about we they had a big decision to make about whether they were gonna
Um sell the company or not.
And that's one of the reasons why I was in there. There was a lot of debate going on. And so I just said, let's do fact and story around. And it wasn't even necessarily around whether we sell or not. It was just around each other.
And some of it was around that topic, but at the end, they had such clarity about whether knowing whether to sell or not once they did that. And I think
They felt more comfortable with the decision because they had challenged each other.
Story I make up is you are more concerned with money than you are with the well being of the company. Like that was one of the stories that came out.
Um, because the one somebody who wanted to sell.
W you know, they were saying I think you're and so to be able to recognize oh
That's a perception you all are having. Well, let me clarify why I do think this is in the best interest, and it's not just because I want more money.
So we wouldn't have known it. We wouldn't have been able to even have that conversation if those voices hadn't come out. So fact and story is one of my favorite tips to teach teach teams.
I love that. And it comes back to something we talked about right at the start. And and it seems to actually be cropping up throughout the entire conversation, which is making
the invisible visible. Yeah. Cause the story I'm telling is completely invisible to you.
And the way out of this story to a better outcome is to start making what's invisible visible so I can
course correct. So you can understand me more.
I do think that's what I'm that's
Since I was a kid, I would
be nervous because I would say, like, doesn't everybody see this stuff? But we're all try all look like the parents are all trying to make this invisible. And it's not invisible to me.
And so I think that's been my whole life, actually. And just getting that aha hearing you talk, like my whole life has been.
I relax more when we make the visible.
or the invisible visible. I I it feels like
A friendlier world.
Um, it feels like we can do something with that. We can't
We can't
grow with the invisible.
So that is I think my whole
Much of my work is about that.
Inner my inner work as well as my outer work.
Yeah.
Well let's explore a little bit about self-awareness, which is something that I know a lot of us, including myself, want to cultivate, uh, and then we're not really sure.
How to go about it? How how would you advise us to go about
developing a deeper sense of self awareness.
If you know me, you would know that
I really like
This body of work called persona work.
Um some people call it parts work.
And it's the idea that inside of us is a make is a makeup like
Inside of us is like a village of all these different characters.
And they all have different agendas and they all have different strategies for how they move around in the world.
And
They're brilliant. They all showed up somewhere along
the way to protect us, and they all have superpowers.
But they also all have shadows.
And
A lot of the work that I have done with myself and with others is to start to name
These different parts.
And to start to play with them.
And to play with them meaning
Can I have some fun with them?
Can I
Allow them to sit at the table.
inside of my own being this.
Because most of us start to say like these parts are okay, but these parts aren't. And we start to relegate those down to like the dungeon inside of ourselves. So a lot of my job has been to go open the cellar door and see who's down there and pull them back up and liberate them and bring them out and play with them so they don't play me.
So
Yeah.
Everyone, you know, I would say everybody has a bitch inside of them, you know? And a lot of us could say, like, don't be bitchy, but
I say I we gotta we gotta let the bitch be at the table because
The bitch has a gift, and the bitch
You know, there are moments in life in which we would want the bitch leading the show.
Um she could be really protective here. So
How do we just though make space accept the bitch so that the bitch doesn't run me?
And so I can learn to play her, I can make her bigger, I can have some fun with her, so that I'm not at the effect of the power of her, and I'm also not at the effect of her reactivity.
Which wouldn't be ideal for myself and those around me.
Um if she were to come out in a reactive state.
Like if you came to um the conscious leadership group where uh we held these events and if you came to one of our events
Shane, one of the things I would do is I would say, what's a part, Shane, that you know you have?
That you don't like about yourself.
So is it can you think of one like something about you that you go like, Oh, I don't I really wouldn't want people to see this part.
Yeah, but I'm not gonna say it out loud.
Yeah.
So if if you were near we would just edit that out.
Or I'd say
Maybe you don't even know the part and I would say, Shane, what kind of people bug you the most out in the world? And people who aren't aware.
uh who just aren't conscious of other people, like who don't hold the door or just have no context of like that they're impacting other people. And I feel horrible even saying that out loud. So Right. So then what you tell me is
You don't live you haven't allowed that part of you to be at the table.
And we might call him like is he kind of selfish or
Like I know he j he doesn't care about
other people what like what's
You said he's unaware.
But
Like it Well just being like being late, not holding the door when somebody's walking right behind you, like that sort of awareness. Okay, good. Yeah. So he's kind of like he's insensitive.
Is that it?
He's insensitive, he doesn't open the doors, he doesn't care about time, he do he's insensitive to keeping his time agreements, things like that.
And we're all like that. Like I'm like that sometimes too, right? When we get into our own head and we get you know, one thing that I always ask myself is when I see somebody behaving a certain way.
And I don't like that behavior. I always say, like what would have to be true.
for me to behave that way. Like what would the world have to look like?
For me to do those same behaviors, right? Like, and then you make up stories, which comes back to sort of like, you know, facts versus stories, and the stories are, you know.
Um and then whether they're compelling or not, and you come up with reasons that you would behave that way, right? Like what would cause you to cut somebody off? Well, you're driving your kid to a hospital, like the person gonna cut you off, right? Like and you can you can always come up with these sort of like reasons that would cause you to behave in the very way that it is.
You know, antagonizing you in a way. That's right. So here's what I would want to if I were working with you, I would say, Okay, Shane, what you're telling me is you haven't fully liberated.
This insensitive part of you.
We w we actually take everybody in the retreat out to dinner publicly and we have you all dress up as characters.
And so I would say I would say Shane all night long, you just have to be super insensitive. Oh boy. So and the waiters are gonna and you're gonna like tell the waiter like get over here, I have an order. You're like you're gonna play out your rude insensitive one to it and and exact exaggerate it and just see what it's like to be that way.
And give yourself some freedom and so we, you know, the restaurants know we're here playing with all these and
We call them these exed out parts of ourselves. And so you would play that all night long, and what you would likely learn is.
But there's
Certainly, of course, a shadow to it, but there's also a part that maybe even needs to come out more in your life.
in in different ways than you have fully appreciated.
And that this part has a
Haz like let's take care of me first mindset.
That might actually be of service, and especially particularly in places where you might be stuck right now or at challenging issues, that part might.
Hm. Actually.
Liberate something.
But as long as there's like a no you can't be that.
Then you're not really free to fully respond to the moment.
Because I like to think about like these parts are like keys on a keyboard, you know, and we have ting ting and we have boom boom boom. And we have everything in between. And when you're really present, you're gonna ask.
All those keys are equal.
The ones that sweeten the ones are they're all equal. And so I'm just looking to see what's the scene asking for.
And sometime the scene might ask for your insensitive
You know, rude guy.
Because he actually may
B just the right voice to address the moment.
that could help shift everything in a in a
different way.
But most people I see have decided like these things are good and this is me. I'm this and I'm not that. And then when the moment comes, I can't actually respond to it because I don't have access to my full self.
And so
I'm all about
Find every part out there.
Is it all'cause it also lives in here. And can I find its value? Can I see its gift and can I appreciate
that it has a place and how do I make room for all of that at the table. That's been
That's been my deepest work.
And that's where
I help a lot of other
Clients is
bringing those parts back online so everybody's whole.
And they everybody'cause then what you get is I get self acceptance'cause now
I don't make any part wrong.
Now I can now I don't have to worry so much about
what everybody thinks of me. I don't have to control myself anymore by saying I can't be this, I can't be that. So now I'm free inside. I'm liberated in there. And I don't have to be scared anymore that I'm gonna like, you know, make a mess because I'm not gonna have these patterns now come out unconsciously.
'Cause that's what happens if you don't be present to them, they'll
they'll play out unconsciously and you'll make a mess, and then you'll think, Oh no, and that makes me even more clear, I can't bring it out. And so
the the value of recognizing honoring all the parts all the personas and seeing their great value.
You know, like to your point.
It's a great value to go get out of the way. I got a I got a person who needs to get to an emergency and I'm willing to cut people off. I'm willing to do whatever I have to do to save a life.
Like we want that part of you.
And we want him here all the time, available whenever he needs to be here.
And we find ways to play with it, you know, like
How do we have fun so it's
Money.
'Cause if it's funny then when you
When you see it out there and you watch somebody being rude and not closing the door, then you go, Oh, that's kind of funny. Instead of
How rude. Like what a jerk. Because
Now I recognize oh everybody's just doing themselves and
It's not
No one's bad or wrong. No one's a problem with a capital P.
Yeah. Everybody's just reacting, you know, and so and they've got their own agendas in there. And so
I just get to use it all as a mirror.
to love and value my own self.
It's interesting that, you know, when you you're talking about that, I'm thinking, you know, my initial response is like
one thing and then my conscious mind takes over and I create a different
story around it.
I think that initial response to your point is highlighting parts of us that maybe we suppress and don't let out.
And that's why it's aggravating us.
Like the woman who said, You have a big head, you know, to the guy and then you know, somebody goes, You actually could I you know, you don't have a big enough head. Right. So of course she gets reactive and then she starts to pull away and she gets
disconnected from the guy with the big head. Yeah because
He represents something that she has X'out in herself. And that's what I see going on is
We're all projecting onto each other. I'm not like that. I'm not like that. Well, yeah, we are. We are like all of it.
Yeah. And it's it's naive to think I'm not like that, but that's where all the war comes from. That's where the battle is lived, is in this belief that I'm separate and not like you.
Instead of I'm just like you in my own way, and can I love that part of me?
So that I can love that part of you and then I'm gonna be able to be more curious and open to how do we make better decisions together?
Because I'm not against you anymore.
Mm-hmm. And I think that's gonna be one of the number one keys to
All of us.
getting out of our own way here is this deep inner personal work around loving these parts.
What's the most important thing for you to remember when you're under a lot of stress?
I'm just scared.
Mm.
I'm just perceiving a threat to my security, my control, or my approval because I've left
I've left presents.
So
I just come if I can come back to right now, no past, no future.
Right now, how am I?
I'm a woman sitting in a chair. I'm okay.
And would I be willing to come source that approval, control, and security back inside of myself.
And take a breath. And if I'm not, that's okay. Then I'm just reactive and I'm just gonna go, it's okay to be scared. And then I'm just gonna do my practice over and over again.
I love that.
How do we raise the standards for others and ourselves when it comes to performance?
The more I can be in the present moment.
rather than in an imagined future that I'm scaring myself with and trying to respond to or
you know, caught up in a bunch of wounds from my past.
The more I can be right here, right now, in a non-triggered, non-reactive state.
The more effective I'm gonna be.
And so it's all about
cultivating a set of tools that I like.
And everybody has their own set of tools that they like, but what are the tools that we're gonna use that bring us back to presence over and over and over again? And and will we
Devote to that like
you know, a lot of us care about our physical well being and we go to the gym or whatever the equivalent of that is on a regular basis. Like would you go to the gym in your own consciousness?
on a regular basis and so
You know, I use my phone.
uh it's telling me all day long, Diana, where are you? Or Diana, could this be more exquisite? Or Diana, what are you feeling right now? I ha I I have ways in which I'm going to the gym, you know
Throughout my day, so that I just keep staying aware and building those muscles because they're just in my mind, it's just like physical muscles where
they can atrophy quickly if they're not used and you can easily go back to old patterns. And so it it's reliably
Um tending to those.
Um and of course meditation is helpful.
Um and
emotional and you know coming back down into the body and being willing to be with that discomfort.
All of those things.
Will allow me to be more present and then therefore far more effective. I mean and I think this is gonna be I think we're gonna see this.
more and more you know for a long time you can have a really unc unconscious culture
And a lot of drama and
Be wildly successful as a business.
I don't think that's gonna be the future.
I think the teams that are the most present
um are gonna win the games.
And I think we're just we're moving into a much more chaotic.
uh culture, you know, world and things are not gonna be as predictable and
We're gonna need all of our wits about us, and presence will be the gift that gives us that. So
And I think people are starting to get that in the millennials certainly.
One of the gifts they're giving us is
you know, they don't want anything other than that. They really want to
To be in cultures where
People are relaxed and open and curious.
and um not defending and righteous and na na na.
I wanna come back to the stories that we tell ourselves and the stories that other people have, and those are those stories are our beliefs. We have facts about a situation and we create stories which
You know, sort of
uh weave together our beliefs about the situation.
How do we go about lovingly challenging those stories, not only for ourselves, but for other people?
Right. So it's easy for myself because for myself I
Like I have this little I call it a sacred law. I have these sacred laws inside of myself and
They're sacred just because the I'm in devotion to presence and so
Um, a sacred law for me is any time I catch myself wanting to be right, I immediately pause and just look to see.
How
Could it
the opposite be true. Or how could
the other perspective be at least is true.
And
even when I really want to bite down and like no I'm right, which I do a lot.
I just
go, uh uh it's a l it's a sacred law here, Diana. You're gonna have to get curious here. And I
force myself to stretch and open in those moments.
And um
And so
That's my practice. And then when I'm around other people.
who I have a co commitment to do this with.
And this is important because
I think that it's not friendly for me to point out when people are being
Uh righteous.
Or closed minded.
Um
If I don't have an agreement that we can that we're gonna commit to calling that out, then me calling that out to people isn't necessarily friendly.
So when I'm co committed with somebody else to
giving and receiving feedback when we think we're
Getting righteous.
Um, then I might say something like, Hey, I really hear you. I hear you have that perspective.
I'm just wondering on my own right now how that that
might not also might be true the other direction.
So I demonstrate my own curiosity.
And that's one gentle, simple way to do that.
So
I become the presence that I see missing over there in them.
That then often might
Get them to open up as well.
Um, another more direct way would be I hear that.
Could you argue, like let's say your life depends on it, could you argue the other side for a minute?
Um and see how w what we can learn over on that side of things.
I really like to play like um imagine there's a jury and you have to argue the other side. Mm sometimes with teams
There'll be well, it's pretty o it's pretty common that
When there's a big choice to be made, teams often divide almost right down the middle.
Which is I think an a law of nature that polarity forms.
And half the team says this way and half the team says this. And so one of my favorite exercises is put a piece of tape down in the middle of the room and I say first, argue for your side first, the side that you really and really go at. Let's debate. And then I have them move and physically move their bodies to the other side. And I say, now you have to argue from the side that you're on.
And that works so well. And so, you know, that's a gift we can give each other is okay, go argue from the other side.
One of my favorite quotes from Charlie Munger is that I n he he says I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don't know the other side's argument better than they do.
It's beautiful. And I
I think of that.
often because to me it's the work required to have an opinion. Yeah.
Like we all have opinions, but have you done the work? Have you done the homework? Have you done do have you earned it? And and that that's where we get into this.
sort of notion that we talked about earlier, whereas everybody wants a voice, but not all those voices need to be equal because not everybody's given equal consideration and brought equal judgment to those opinions. Yeah, especially these days because we're getting more and more polarized in our opinions. And so it's like you've got to be if you're gonna and
I work with a lot of activists and I say
If you have an opinion that you think you're right about and you're gonna go in and try to
Yeah.
From that righteous opinion, make any change, good luck.
Yeah. It's a setup.
It's a setup. You're just part of the issue now.
You're gonna keep it going.
And even when we were able, you know, I think that the days of us like brow beating people over the head with a newspaper to get them to do stuff is sort of like long gone. But even when that worked, it didn't really work.
Like it worked in the moment, but what you really did was you you made invisible
Right, this resentment that I have that becomes like this negatively coiled spring.
That is gonna come out one day in it, you know, it might be three months from now, it might be six months from now, but it will come out.
Because the story that I've told myself about that is one where I'm the victim and I need to extract some sort of
uh vengeance, if you will.
Yeah, I say all we did was just move the deck chairs around on the Titanic.
And so we make ourselves believe we've done something different, but we're still sinking here.
And not going to any place new. And
I guess
I think that's the thing I most want to like screen from the rooftops is from my vantage point, it's like we're not doing anything new most of the time here. We think we are, but there's
It's just still the same na na na. It's just now we switch roles.
And nobody seems to see that, you know. Can we just wake up to that?
Uh
So
You know, it just requires us to drop down much deeper into something else that's
That's more interesting. That's
That's more vulnerable.
Which usually comes down to something like I'm scared. Me too.
I don't know how to do this. Me neither.
Okay, that's a good starting point.
I like that.
A final question, I'm conscious of time here. Uh how do you define success?
I think for me it's that um
One
What I'm doing has
meaning to me such that
When I'm on my deathbed, I will say I'm really
Grateful.
That that's how I use my time.
You know, that I was a that I was a contribution to others.
And then it and then I enjoyed myself, that it was fun, that I felt
But my time and space went away when I did it.
Yeah, um, because I was so in the moment, um
Giving my gifts.
That to me is success.
It's like this hum.
It's a hum that I I feel inside in a in a like a
Uh looking around and seeing that was valuable.
That was helpful to others.

I love that and I love the fact that you tie that to how you feel in your body.
Thank you so much for an amazing conversation. You are so welcome. I'm glad to be with you and um
Thank you for this opportunity. I'm really grateful.
Thank you so much.
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