Dave Kashen explains the difference between operating 'below the line' (threat-driven and reactive) and 'above the line' (a creator stance where you're present and creative). He argues that evolutionary threat wiring makes us reactive in modern leadership, and learning to shift between these states is the most powerful tool he's seen.
I'm about to introduce you to the most powerful leadership development tool I've ever seen. Get excited. Here it is. It's a line. The reason I love this tool is it represents a distinction that most people are unaware of. When we're below the line, we're in a state of threat, right? We believe that life happens to me, and the issue is it triggers all of our default automatic conditioned survival reactivity. They're really just symptoms of this distinction. They're below the line, reacting from threat, and they don't realize it. Above the line, by contrast, your stance is life happens by me. You see yourself as the creator of your experience, so there's no threat. You're present. And this is what happens because human beings were wired for threat, right? Our ancestors were conditioned for threat. That's why I think we're here, because they lived in a world of lions and tigers and bears. We no longer live in that world, But our mind perceives threats to our ego as if they're threats to our physical survival. So it triggers us below the line. And so much of the time we're operating from the state that is actually not even connected to reality and not allowing us to bring our full creativity and energy to whatever we're trying to accomplish.
