177- Courage to Leap & Lead with Jenny Lincoln, part 2

You've got courage to leap, courage to lead. Be brave and be bold. Whoa, let it roar. Welcome to the Courage to Leap and Lead podcast, where each of our guests share the stories of courage that helped them become powerful leaders. Before we start today's show, please remember to visit courage-consulting.com. Where you can find all the episodes and other excellent resources, all at courage-consulting.com. Now, here's your host, Leadership Courage Coach CB Bowman.

Hi, this is CB Bowman. Of course, you know it's Tuesday. I have the privilege of airing part 2 of my interview with Jennie Lincoln, who talks to us about life at the bottom and life at the top. Listen in. Okay, so you saw this post that you passed by 7 times.

Yes.

Can you remember why you decided this was important?

Because I didn't want to hate anyone in my life, particularly my mother, you know.

But you had— let me push back a little bit. You had— and it's not a negative pushback, it's inquiry— you had mentioned that there were other things that You tried to get out of the depression. Was it that you were just tired of being depressed? Was it wording that it was on that poster? Was it timing? What was it that said, this is it? I either had enough, or here's an opportunity. 2 different sides.

Yeah, it was my intuition. My intuition physically wouldn't let me go past. And, you know, that's— I live by my intuition now. It keeps me safe when I'm traveling in all sorts of different countries, you know.

But you didn't have that intuition then, right?

I didn't have the connection that I have with it now. We always have it, but I wasn't connected to it. But it made sure it was giving me a major course correction. This was one of the biggest pivots in my life, to the point that the physical energy— honestly, it was like a salmon wanting to go home, or a butter— one of the monarch butterflies coming to Mexico, which is, you know, where I am at the moment. You know, that, that, that just that, that invisible, compelling force of nature was what drew me into that room. I knew there was something, and my intuition was telling me I had to be in there. I was going to be exposed to something that was going to shift the whole trajectory of my life. And the, that shifting of the whole trajectory of my life was to equip myself with the tools and the understanding That so that I didn't have to be— I wasn't what I call in effect by anyone. That was the beginning of me taking full responsibility for everything that I thought and felt and all my wounds and hurts and all that sort of stuff, you know. That's— it started that whole process.

Uh, I'm just making a note because I want to come back and I'm not sure if it's challenge or build on it. So let me tell you what's on my mind.

Mm-hmm.

So there are people that are in depression.

Mm-hmm.

That you've used the word intuition. Yep. That made you do it. And so intuition, as I see it, is being able to see things that other people may not be able to see, something that's in you that allows you to put the jigsaw puzzle together.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, you go.

No, no, this— feel free. I'm just recalling myself because people have told me I'm scary intuitive.

Hmm. Yeah, I— it's— to me it feels like it's our inner GPS.

Yeah, yeah, I like that definition.

So, so I kind of, uh, In, in what I call HumNav, the Human Navigation Practice, I say that the— I, you know, I talk about there being 3 intelligence centers. The mind is the command center. You know, it's, it's got all the, you know, bells and whistles. And it's, it's like when you used to go into the movies like The Matrix and the, the, all those CPU units, just corridor, corridor, corridor, corridor. brain, brain, brain. You know, it's all processing and putting things in boxes and all that sort of stuff. So it's the command center, very sophisticated one. We have all this amazing, sophisticated human tech. And then the heart is, you know, the source of our— it's our primary energy center. It keeps us alive, for starters, but it's actually our harmonizing. It's the heart of harmonization. And so you can't— the mind can't rebalance the mind. If you look at any piece of technology, it can't actually really recalibrate itself within. It's usually recalibrated from outside of itself. So the heart plays a very important harmonizing recalibration process. So that's what mindfulness does. It takes us out of our head and usually through breathing places us into our heart space and we reharmonize and we recalibrate. So mindfulness should be heartfulness. That's my opinion. Um, and then we have, uh, our, um, uh, intuition, which is our inner GPS. That's the one we want to be dialing into and turning up, not the voices that are up here in the mind, because they can be lots of different angles. But our intuition is our inner GPS that gives us— that's wired to our truth. You know, and so I think everything, you know, when someone says something and you get activated or triggered, to me, that's all this wonderful feedback system telling us that maybe we have a false sense of self or a false belief or in the valley of false sense. I can't speak. Valley of false self-belief, you know, and it's trying to nudge us to see something different so that we can actually see an aspect of our truth, you know. Um, and for me, you know, back in my corporate days, I had a very closed heart. And, you know, now it doesn't close for anyone. It's open 24/7, you know.

Um, so, so here's what I want to get to. People— there are people who are in a state of depression that don't have this GPS.

Yep.

What can they do?

Yeah.

To walk away from this depression. Okay.

So how do we navigate depression? Well, I can only speak from my own experiences. Okay. And this is not going to work for everyone, but I believe it is. We have 3 intelligence centers and we need to use all those 3. to help us navigate this. And so it's understanding from a mind aspect. I think it's first of all going, having a slightly different perspective switch and going, maybe this is a process, maybe this is happening for me, not to me. So there's a very subtle, different way of looking at it.

Mm-hmm.

And so I always love You know, the, the, the saying that curiosity trumps judgment. So instead of judging yourself and the space of depression, get curious. How could this shift be shifting me to a different way of being?

Wait, go back a second. Curiosity jumps what?

Trumps, you know, trumps judgment. So I feel there's several things. So I— for me, it was, okay, let's look at this whole situation differently because we can choose how we want to experience something. And I want to give a powerful analogy of painters, artistry, and photographers. They use shadow or silhouette on a painting or a picture to draw our eye to a particular point on the painting. And I believe that life, the universe, God, Buddha, Allah, whoever is your faith-based or whatever is your faith-based, the shadow side, which depression is a form of the shadow side, is doing exactly that. It is drawing our eye and trying to get our attention to something that needs to be seen and illuminated.

Whoa, interesting. Whoa. Yeah.

So I, I feel if we can look at it that way, you know, through an analogy or as a process, depending on how you're wired— some people wired for processes, some people are wired for visuals. Um, and then the other mind thing that I do is that I would write, CB, when I was in that space, I would write between 10 and 1,000 reasons why I loved being me a day. I have volumes of manuscripts that have all been copied now because I don't own a physical thing anymore. Of, of, I would do that every day to reset. And if I had to do it 100 times a day, I did it 100 times a day, you know. And it could be I got a free coffee on my coffee card.

Yay!

I heard birdsong this morning. I actually heard it rather than just seeing the bleakness, you know. I saw, you know, I found a penny on the ground and it made me think of being a kid. You know, I just wrote those sorts of things to manually, consciously try and reset my mind and try and open my heart.

Wait.

Yep, yep. Pause.

What's the difference between reset and manic?

Reset and manic?

Manic behavior. Manic.

Well, the first thing comes to me is manic feels like it doesn't have a choice. It's run by something.

Okay.

Reset to me feels like I am going to make a conscious choice that every time I register I'm in this irky space, I acknowledge it. But then I go, I'm working on the aspect of where thought goes, energy flows. I want to manually create some gratitude because when you're in depression, you don't feel gratitude. A lot of the times you don't. I mean, you might have a moment, but it depends on how deep and where you are in the process of it. So, yeah. Does that answer your question?

That's a fabulous, fabulous answer. Yeah. Choice versus non-choice.

And I feel that's one of the things that we judge so harshly around depression is that we do feel it's happening to us, not for us. So we don't feel like it's a support mechanism. We feel it's an affliction or that there's something wrong with us and that it's— oh, sorry, mine's just flipped out again.

No, I wanted to— I looked up because I wanted to make a note where in the conversation this was. So I was looking at the timestamp because it's fabulous.

We're going deep.

Yeah. I did. I did warn, I try to warn all of my guests, don't be nervous. We're gonna riff off of what you say, but my mind will go like a disco ball.

So, I, I'm loving where you're going. I'm loving your inquiry and, uh, curiosity. It's great. And I'm kind of chuckling cuz I did say at the beginning, I don't know whether it was on the recording or not, buckle up.

No, you didn't, but that's usually my line.

Uh, yeah, okay, so now that I've revealed all the, all the different, you know, I've taken everyone to the basement of my life.

And back up to the attic.

So yeah, exactly, exactly. But I think, uh, you know what's really, um, What really helped me as well. So I think, you know, addressing the mental intelligence center by doing those sorts of things and being absolutely dedicated to that, but without making it— without giving yourself cause to beat yourself up. The second thing is your heart space. I've coined the phrase You know, when we're in these mush moments, we get invited to the cocoon room, right? And you know what happens is most of the time, like, you imagine if there was a caterpillar with a human head on it, it'd have all its legs like at the leaf going, no effing way, I'm not going in there. I know what's gonna happen.

Yeah, yeah, right. Screech halt.

Yeah, exactly. And I think we, uh, we, we, we refuse to go. We refuse the invitations into the cocoon room. We refuse opportunities to evolve and grow or to have major reinvention or inflection or repivot points in our lives because we get very attached to how things are, you know. And, uh, oh yes.

Yeah.

And unfortunately, that runs contrary to the fundamental universal law of impermanence. Things come together and then they fall apart.

Yes.

That's how we evolve. And so when we resist this, I sometimes think that we're dragged through the hedge backwards into the cocoon room, like our asses get kicked in there. Right? Circumstances push us in there, um, particularly if you've got a calling and the universe, God, Buddha, Allah wants you to fulfill that calling. You know, you'll get, you know, you'll get marched along in there. So I think it's really important to enter the cocoon room. And to me, that feels kind of soft and cozy. And so adopt what I call soft eyes for you. Which is, you know, come from a space of heart, from your heart center, and cut yourself some slack. You know, um, love yourself. Find reasons to be compassionate towards yourself. Step away from judgment, you know, and, and adopt soft eyes for you, you know, which is really, again, be bloody minded about dropping the judgment of where you are in the space. you know, um, and into the—

Forgiving yourself. Forgiving yourself.

Yeah, forgiving yourself and thinking to yourself, okay, well, what do I need to nurture myself? You know, um, it's— there's no mistakes. So you look at how much depression is experienced by people that are elitist athletes, um, you know, highly successful business people, because they're so defined by what they do and what they have. And so I do firmly believe that depression is a breaking down of the old definition to give birth to a new you. Now, I don't believe— maybe it's not the case for everyone, but I do believe there is a big— I think that to me, that seems a logical process. And it certainly was the case for me.

There's another side to that I'd like to bring up. which is, especially when you talk about the CEO suite, you know, there is, there's a high rate, I believe, of suicide.

Yes.

For those in the C-suite. And society has the most to do with it, I believe. Because we put these people in an area where You cannot make a mistake in life. And we know that that doesn't exist.

Yeah.

And then they start to believe it. And they own it. And when they find out there's no such thing, they can't cope. And society says, we don't want to hear about that. Because in our eyes, once you've reached that level, you're God.

Yeah.

And so it's so hard for these folks to do what you've done, which is to say— and maybe not to the extent that you've done it, but to the extent of saying, it's okay.

Yeah.

I can, I can exist. I can be what I want. I could change. I can accept. I can deny. It's all My opportunity.

Yeah.

To make a decision.

Totally.

But it's society that's just doing so much damage.

I agree. And, and I think one of the reasons why is that we're addicted to the polished end result. It comes back to that beautiful lifelong saying, it's not about the destination, it's the journey. In business, it's not about the end polished moments. Well, I mean, it is, but it's not— that's not the That's not the end-all be-all. It's about the process by which we get there. And the process by which we get there is embracing our human messiness. That is the perfection. It took me when I first stepped in. So I turned 60 last year and it's what I create. I fought that. You know, tooth and nail. 59 was great. 60 just seemed to be, oh no, I'm not going there. I was like, I was like the caterpillar. Whoa, baby. No, I'm not turning the clock. Yep. Hard break turn. Yep. Uh, but that's, you know, when a friend of mine said, Jenny, it's a gift. Not everyone gets to live to 60. And that just hit me in the heart and I went, whoa, yeah, get— be grateful. And so then I thought, well, you know what, I reckon I got another definitely 40 years on this earth. This is the dawning of the Sage Age, and that's, you know, why I've titled myself The Sage from the Stage, you know. And I kind of— I love the herb sage. It brings clarity and cleansing and It's calm and cool, you know. Um, not that I'm saying I'm cool, but you know.

Yeah, you are cool. Okay. Yeah, go. Let's go. So sorry, allergies.

Uh-huh. Yeah. So I'm thinking it's, it's important to, to start sharing our wisdom, giving back, and doing all this sort of stuff. And for me, So many of these life lessons have just been really powerful for me. And I just, I see them as a source of a lot of struggle, a lot of stress, and a lot of strain. And so, you know, these execs that are up there and they are having to perform and it's all about those polished moments. It's all about, you know, the stock exchange doesn't help as well because you can make you know, an obscene profit. And if you don't make that obscene profit plus 10 to 15% growth the next year, your stock price is downgraded. So, you know, there's a whole bunch of market forces as well as society's view on, we don't like to see the messiness, but people are screaming for the messiness, you know.

And Well, tell me more. Oh, I think I got what you're saying, but tell me more.

So, so here's the thing. When I first started doing, you know, stepping into, um, getting back onto big stages and, and speaking and all that sort of stuff, I got selected to do a virtual summit, and it was, uh, to an audience of, I don't know, 150 people or something like that. And I I've always done speaking, but it's always been free flow. So, you know, I learned my beginning, I'd anchor my end, and I know my bullets, but I free flowed. This was all doing, you know, to do TED Talks, it's all memorized. So it's a whole new ballgame and it scares the pants off me, you know, being scripted kind of thing, you know.

Yeah.

And so I'm, I'm up there. I start, and I had two. I had several false starts because of technology in Mexico and power outages, and you know, and the housekeeper coming through with the vacuum cleaner even after I was saying "Silencia, por favor." It was just crazy town. So anyway, I the intention I set all week leading up to the virtual summit was. I want to provide the most impactful talk that I can. I should have actually specified to the universe because I don't get attached to form. I should have actually said, but in the most divine and supportive way for me. Because I'm on the stage, I was saying my talk, my mind goes blank. I'm in ego the first time it happens. And so I sit there going, oh, I'm embarrassed. You know, I'm sorry, I'm embarrassed, whatever. I go within, I recompose myself, I find the thread, I start again. Sure enough, the mind goes boom, you know, shuts down again, right? This time, instead of being in my mind and—

I'm not laughing at you. It's because I refuse to do a TED Talk because it's— no, I'm not memorizing any damn thing. I—

yeah, you're wise.

Yeah, my life is not a memory, can't be memorized.

No. Yeah, don't go there. So second time happens, I'm in my heart space, and what I— whenever I'm feeling challenged or whenever I want to equilibrate myself, I go into my heart space. You know, I drop my shoulders and put my head up. Uh, I tell my nervous system, like, that I'm safe and secure by exposing all my vital organs. And then I say, I am love, I am love, I am love, I am love, I am love, however many times to calm myself. And this all happens in nanoseconds, of course. And, uh, and then I open my eyes and I look at everyone on the screen and I went, wow, isn't that wonderful? I'm giving you an actual real live example of what I'm talking about because I was talking about getting triggered and doing, running the software upgrades of our mind. And so as soon as I kind of, right, you know, just dropped all sense of self and ego and embarrassment and whatever, then just absolutely landed the end part of it, right? There's a couple of morals to that story too. The first one is like, be in your heart space, not in your ego, because you get a totally different outcome. Um, but more importantly is that I, uh, you know, um, faltering, falling over, failing, and then finding my feet was the most powerful experience and impactful experience I could give the audience. Everyone was writing grace under pressure. Do you know what my word for last year was? Grace. Like, and all these people were writing grace under pressure, grace under pressure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Holy hell. Like, wow. Um, so, you know, I, I promote that video because I think it's really important that people see the human messiness and what's required, because that was all courage staying in that. Do you know what I wanted to do, CB? I wanted to pull the plug and pretend that I'd had a Wi-Fi outage.

I got hysterical.

I just wanted to kick that plug.

That is absolutely hysterical. I love it. Absolutely love it. You know, I did last year, I did, um, it was called Drop the Mic, and I invited— wait, wait, have we been talking for an hour? Yes.

Yes. Oh, okay.

My tech person is going to kill me. I won't have an area where we broke and then resumed, but what the heck, let's just continue then. And so speakers were invited to get up and we recorded it, and then they could send it off to be massaged and use it as a speaker's reel. Right. And one guy was trying to do a TED Talk. and had not been trained to do a TED Talk.

Hmm.

And he kept faltering and faltering and faltering. And finally he got it. And he was so embarrassed. And I said, when I spoke about courage, I said, that was courage. That was probably the best presentation we had all day. Because what— I mean, he was speaking before his peers. And one had been trained to do TED Talk. I've been a professional speaker, and it was just— he was so heartbroken. So he said, you just, you shamed us by your courage.

Yeah.

And you made us so proud.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, and so people This notion of having to be perfect. Go and watch Oprah. My goodness, she makes mistakes when she talks. You know, people said to me, well, you know, you made a spelling mistake. Yeah, and so did Harvard Business Review. Did you read that article? So I'm in great company. Thank you very much. Hallelujah. Raise the roof.

I agree. You know, embrace the perfection of the imperfection.

Yes. Oh, you have such wonderful sayings. I love them.

Yeah, I do love playing with words.

So now tell us, you came out of this depression. How long did it take you?

Oh, look, it was pretty gnarly. Uh, it lasted somewhere between 3 and 4 years, you know. I think, you know, it's hard because as we were talking about at the beginning, you don't kind of realize that you're in it.

Mm-hmm.

Until you're in it, and then you realize that everything is just bleak and futility and all of that. But so, yeah, 3 to 4 years. And, um, I, you know, I did so— I, I gave myself the space. I, I was fortunate that I had the space to be able to do it. I had a loving partner that supported me. You know, I wouldn't be on this planet if it wasn't for her love. and understanding of me. Because, you know, there were times where I, you know, I reviewed the whole purpose of me being on this planet. And, you know, there were stages and times where I felt there was no point. But, you know, in those moments, you know, one particular moment I was laying on the floor and I just, I made my peace and, you know, I was contemplating what it would be like. And And, and then this shaft of light just fell on my heart space and said, just breathe.

You're not done yet. You're not done.

Just breathe. That's all you have to do is just breathe. That is enough. You are enough. They were the words that my intuition or whatever came to me. And in that moment, I felt my pilot light relit. It was just Wow. You know, it, it was, yeah, that, and, and with the pilot light came the hope. And instead of the light at the end of the tunnel being the train, it was actually the light at the end of the tunnel, you know. It's still, you know, it was a, it was a long journey then learning to be fully in my heart and to be fully open. And then it was a different journey to then start tuning into my intuition. Um, and luckily, you know, on that whole aspect, I was actually looking after a herd of 30 horses at a horse ranch. And so I actually got— the universe put me there to be able to get equine therapy. And yes, you know, all of that. So that all kind of helped. But, you know, there is a process, there is a progression, and I think my offer to anyone is, first of all, adopt soft eyes for you. Step away from the judgment. If anything, get curious and put yourself into the cocoon room. What do you need to nurture yourself? And then maybe just look at it as how could this be working for you, not to you? What is it trying to support in terms of dismantling or a an opportunity for you to find a different you. You know what I mean? And I think that gives you just a whole different lens to look at it. And I think with that shift in lens, it just takes so much of the judgment of yourself. It softens a lot, I feel.

Now, let me ask you, are you still with the same partner?

No, no, we ended up, so 3, 4 years into, no, 3 years into being nomads, we realized that we weren't, you know, we, after 21 years, we realized that we'd kind of come full circle. And because we were wanting everyone to, each other to be something different. And we just realized, you know, we had a deep love for each other, but, you know, we're not meant to be partners going forward. So that was a very courageous decision.

Yeah, I'm gonna go there.

Yeah.

Is that— let's see how I'll phrase this. Should people who are wanting to come out of depression, should they be concerned that their partners will no longer fit the bill, so to speak? I mean, should they prepare themselves? for a whole new life, including relationships?

I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all, CB. I think when you come out of depression, you're a different person, I feel. But I mean, we're different people every day. We're evolving and growing every single day. And I think that's one of the challenges that we have when we connect and reconnect and communicate with people that are in our lives all the time, is that we tend to meet them at the version that we believe they're at rather than who they are this day today. Do you know? Do you understand what I'm trying to say?

Yes.

Um, and that's what gets us onto a slippery slope. And that's where, you know, because we, we show up and we're with someone, we have all these old energetic patterns of what happened, you know, in that. It's all the history. It's the backstory gets in the way. That's what I'm trying to say. It's a better way of saying it. Um, And if we can meet people without the backstory, uh, we, you know, which is that open-hearted, intuitive beatnik— I'm going to call it the beatnik approach. Um, you know, it's just so much easier. And so I think if you can aim to do that with your partner, then you will— it, it will be clear as to whether you can recalibrate within relationship or whether you have to recalibrate outside of relationship. And I think the most important thing there is not to take it as a rejection and to honor what you had and the love that you had, rather than maybe the sticky, messy ending defines all of your life together. That's always so sad when I see that happen.

Yeah, I think that's very well put. Very well put. Any last minute— I hate to say minute because I would like to continue this conversation, and you were right, I was being a pain in the ass before we started.

Um, I didn't say that.

No, you, you were very nice about saying it, but yes, that's what you said. Um, but like, what's your best advice to get started in stepping out of depression?

Oh, soft eyes, definitely. soft eyes for you. Cut yourself some slack, um, and, and definitely see it as a process, and, and rather than it defining you. It's hard not to define you, but it's not the truth of who you be. It's the mush moment you're going through that's trying to deliver you to the truth of who you be. So it's a dark corridor, you know. It might be— it's like You know, when you're a kid and the night is so black and you hear all these creepy noises and you put the sheet up over and you're so scared and you just can't move, you know, you feel powerless and all of this sort of stuff. And it's just maybe look at the darkness as, um, you know, a cocooning space. So I'm, I'm offering the, the reframing because we are so judgmental. We are in the mind. And the second thing I would suggest is how— what gets you out of your mind. For some people it's music, for some people it's movement. You know, the gym was for me. I actually started kickboxing and boxing during depression, depression. And someone said to me, why in God's name are you doing kickboxing? And I went, because it makes me a nice person. Because I left all this shit Pardon me. Um, and also on the bag, you know. And so expression is really important, right? We have the tendency to, to want to fade into the background and not be seen, but the light— you need the light. So—

I love that. I love that. And, you know, I will support that because recently, you know, with the release of my book, I just got so stressed out. And fortunately, I have a functional doctor that sees what I can't see. And she said to me, CB, the happiest I've ever seen you was when you were playing pickleball and you didn't know the sport, but you were learning it. Go back and play pickleball at least 3 times a week.

Yes.

But I don't have the time, she said. You have the time.

Find it.

Do it.

Yeah. Yeah.

And she— as soon as the book came out, I was back there. Yeah. And she's right.

Exactly. You know, and it is hard when you're in that space to find out what brings you joy because there is no joy. But you can feel the different shades between light and dark. And so that's what I would suggest to you is you feel into what makes you feel darker, what makes you feel a little lighter, and keep moving towards that light.

Well, I will tell you, when I miss that ball, I feel darker, but because I'm so darn competitive. But to your point, I did notice the other day I am missing less balls on the serve. I'm like keeping my eye on that ball, which is what my coach said to do. And I said, you know, perhaps I'm getting better at this. Yes.

Always, always getting better. Getting better with age. Like a fine wine.

I can't thank you enough for letting us see you.

Oh, thank you.

Audience, this is CB Bowman, and please come back again. To my incredible guests that allow us to see them so that we don't feel we're in this world alone. This is CB. See you next Tuesday on Courage to Leap and Lead.

Thank you.