Where am I? | Diana Chapman | The Culture Conference

I'm going to actually introduce our first speaker. Speaker, who I love dearly. This is. Her name is Diana Chapman and she's the co founder of the Conscious Leadership Group. She's the advisor to many leaders, over a thousand. She's worked with over a thousand leaders at different organizations, many companies that you know, like Genentech or Asana and Young Presidents Organization. And I asked. Diana was a presenter last year and I asked her to come back this year and I asked her to be on the main stage and I asked her to open this session because I really believe in what they're doing at Conscious Leadership Group. She's going to be talking to you about how to live above the line as the leader and what the difference is between above the line, below the line. And I thought this would be a really great vocabulary and framework for us to be playing with throughout the weekend together. So with no further ado, I welcome Diana Chapman to the stage.

Hey, everybody.

Hello.

Where are you? It's my favorite question, where are you? My passion is to help individuals and organizations eliminate drama. And the thing I think that is one of the number one keys. Anybody got any drama in their organization? Good, then we got a good topic here. I think the first key to starting to eliminate drama in the workplace is to ask the question, where am I? And it doesn't mean I'm here in San Jose at a conference. It's where am I? In my consciousness? So I brought a video to watch. It's a few minutes and give you an introduction and then we'll keep talking.

One question that conscious leaders ask themselves over and over is where am I? To support leaders in locating themselves as they ask the question, where am I? We offer this a line, a simple black line. At any moment, all leaders and all people are either above the line or below the line. Our location describes how we're being with what is occurring in our life right now. If we are above the line, we are open, curious and committed to learning. If we are below the line, we are closed, defensive and committed to being right. Stop right now and simply ask yourself, where am I in this now moment? Am I above the line or below the line? Typically, when people are below the line, they believe certain things about the world. For example, they believe there is not enough. It could be that there is not enough money or time or space or energy or love. People below the line also believe that their story about the situation is right. People below the line also believe that there is a threat out there. Something or someone is threatening their desire for approval, control or security. And people below the line see the situation as serious. The deeper below the line they are, the more serious things look. People below the line tend to behave certain ways as well. They tend to cling to an opinion, find fault and blame, gossip, explain, rationalize and justify, get overwhelmed and avoid conflict or pursue conflict for the sake of winning. When people are above the line, they believe that learning and growing are more important than being right. They believe that all people and circumstances are their allies, here for their growth. They believe that from a distance, almost everything is funny. People above the line live in curiosity, listen deeply, speak unarguably, question all their beliefs and live a life of play. Now, knowing what you know about being above or below the line, where are you? One thing to know as you consider this question. We are hardwired to go below the line. Literally. Our brain is programmed to perceive threat. And when it does, a chemical cocktail courses through our veins and we go below the line. This reaction was designed to help us survive in the presence of a real threat to our physical survival. An issue for modern day leaders is that often our brains can't tell the difference between a threat to our physical survival and a threat to our ego or identity. We react and get defensive when we experience a threat to our ego. So in many ways, being below the line is natural and normal. But when we are below the line, we're not in a state, literally brain state, of high creativity, collaboration, innovation and relational connection. We're simply trying to survive. Leaders today can't thrive if they're in survival mode. So the first activity of conscious leadership is location, location, location. In this now moment, where am I telling ourselves and others the truth about our current location? Begins the great conversation.

Okay, so let's check it out right now, in this moment, as you check into yourself right now, how many of you experience yourself below the line? Yeah, if you're like me, I go below the line all day long, right? I'm wearing this outfit in front of my husband this morning. I go, honey, what do you think? Is this the outfit I should be wearing today? He goes, honey, where are you? I'm scared. I want them to like me. When we go below the line, it's just because we get scared. We're just human beings. My thought is we're just a bunch of little kids inside. We just want to get loved and approved of and be part of a community. So we get scared and we get triggered and get reactive and we go below the line. So somebody shout out, who raised your hand? How do you know you're below the line? Say it again. How you're feeling. And what are you feeling?

Constricted.

Constricted, Great. You can feel it in the body. Somebody else. How? I'm thinking. How you're thinking? Uh huh. Am I wanting to be right about something or I'm somewhere else. I'm not here. Great, good. How many of you experience yourself above a line right now? Okay, good. And how do you know? Open. Feel open. Open in the mind, Open in the heart, open in the body.

Curious.

Curious. Great. So the practice in my mind that all of us, if we really want to become masterful at learning how to create a great culture and be part of the great culture, is first ask this question. Where am I? Underneath your chairs. You have a handout. If you haven't pulled it out already, grab. I want to help you grow a little bit in self awareness. You're going to look at the handout that says above and below the line. There's two sides to this handout. So look at the handout that's got the line. We're going to focus just on the lower half of this handout. I'll say that again. Just the lower half. So imagine that I got to follow you around the last couple of months and I got to follow you around the last couple of months and I want to know what statements would I have heard you say when you get a little closed? Now maybe you didn't say them out loud, maybe you said them in your head, but I want you to circle the two statements that you often are more likely to say when you get a little triggered or reactive below the line. And once you circle two statements, then you're going to move over to the behaviors column and you're going to say, hey, you know what? When I get triggered and reactive, here's a couple of behaviors that I most often do when I'm in that reactivity. Give me two behaviors. Circle, and then you're going to look for two beliefs. When you get reactive, what two beliefs do you lock down on? So it's great to know. If I showed this list to my colleagues, what would they say? Only two. If I took this list home, what would they say? Okay, so we'll stop here. And you've got as many as you've circled. I want you to turn to somebody nearby and it would be great if you could go find another person again that you haven't worked with a new partner and you're going to share back and forth, hey, if you know Me, Diana, here are the things that I do most likely I'm going to do when I go below the line. And you're going to share that and go back and forth. Okay. We're going to take a couple of minutes, share what you wrote down or what you circled with your partner. So this is a culture, and we're going to practice as a culture for the next two days. We're going to practice being aware of where am I? With each other. So one of the things that you can do is throughout the next two days, you can reveal to others, hey, I notice I'm getting reactive. I notice I'm going below the line. And somebody can go, fantastic, thanks for being aware of that. I would start with just staying with yourself rather than going, hello, where are you? Almost always, if I'm doing that, I'm already below the line. Right. So the practice just is, where am I? So, you know, if you don't want to reveal that to others. I put posters around in the space. You've got your hand out. So you can just start practicing where am I? And let it be fine that you are. Wherever you are. It doesn't mean anything. What's Today's Saturday, right? So just say out loud, today's Saturday, and I go below the line. It's just what happens, right? Right. Yeah. So it doesn't mean anything. Now the ego or the identity is going to want to make it mean something. And usually you're going to start wanting to see a comparison here. And above the line is good and below the line is bad. That's what we do. Minds like to put things into categories. But what I want to say is there's a lot of value to being below the line. We go below the line because we are longing for connection, because it's entertaining, because we don't have to feel some of those emotions that feel really threatening to feel, especially in a workplace setting that feels like you're going to make up stories about my lack of professionalism. It might be that I go below the line because if I came up above the line, I might say some authentic things. I'm afraid I'm going to lose my job. There's good reasons why people go below the line. It's not a bad thing. And there are so many wonderful payoffs. It's just great to be able to know as long as I'm below the line in a little bit of closed and triggered. The challenge with that is I'm likely not going to innovate myself out of recurring Patterns. And so one of the things that happens is we see when I go into organizations, they go, yeah, we have this issue with silos. You know, this is us and them thing. I don't know if any of you have any of that going on, right? And I. And they're talking about it and talking about it and talking about it, but the conversation is happening from below the line, right? So as long as we're talking about it from below the line, we're not going to resolve the issue permanently. And so one of the things that I'm supporting organizations and teams with is, first of all, can we locate ourselves? Secondly, can we let it be okay that we're scared? You know, we all want us to be successful here. We get scared, we get triggered. So what? We love that about ourselves. And compassion's a big one. And luckily, we've got a talk on compassion coming up here. And so then the next question is, would I be willing to shift? So if you turn your hand out over, there are willingness questions. These are all questions that would help you see, would I be willing in the moment when I'm in that closed and restricted place, I go through these questions to find out if I'm willing to open, if I'm willing to come back into curiosity, if I'm willing to reveal versus conceal, if I'm willing to move into appreciation versus resentment. All of these different questions can help you bring some awareness to whether you're willing or not. And if you're not, you can just let yourself say, in this moment, I'm not. I'm still triggered, or I'm still reactive, I still feel scared. And then there's ways we can work with that. But to be able to be honest and know where you're at is the first option. So in our groups, we will be asking the question throughout the next couple of days. And all I really ask is just to see if for a little while you can start to on your own, go, oh, wait a minute, here I am. I can see myself. That in of itself, if that is all you get, that will be a huge step in the right direction, in my opinion. So I want to open up for questions. I've got about three minutes left. It's just a basic introduction here today, but does anybody have questions, comments, anything you want to say? Yeah.

Why is it hard?

Oh, because it's hard. I mean, isn't it hard? Right? Because as long as it's hard and I want to be, the key thing is I'm right that it's Hard, Right. You could say it's hard from above the line. You know, there's some difficulties here. There's some hard things about this, but it's hard says I'm right, that it has to be hard and it can't be easy. Right. Which is a very common one. Yeah. What's one question do you ask leaders that are extremely successful have taken companies into the global atmosphere of success? Yes. And they have done it below the line their entire 30 years. Right. What is one powerful question you ask them to start bringing in above the line. Okay. So the question is, hey, there are leaders out there who are creating huge success in their businesses. Right. And personal success, and they've got all kinds of goodies, and they did it from below the line. And by the way, I would say a big majority of my leaders that I work with in the beginning go, I don't know if I've ever been above the line in my life. Right. It's not uncommon to hear that. So the key thing I usually want to ask is, is there a cost? Can you find a cost? Right. And they can almost always find a cost like, yeah, I got heartburn. Right. And I don't have a very good marriage. Or they can usually go find something that's a cost. And if it's not a cost to you, is it a cost in any way to the people around you? How about the children of your employees? Would they say there's a cost to them? So usually looking for there's often a cost. Another question. Yeah. What if there isn't enough money, time, resources, whatever? Yeah, that's a great question. We ask people to come back to this now moment. That's the only place that I know I can find enough. If the moment I go out into the future, I don't have enough. If I go back into the past, sometimes I don't have enough. But sitting here right now, do I have enough money? Do I have enough time if it's just about me right here right now? But most people aren't here right now enough to know what enough feels like. So most people are running around, I don't have enough time. I don't have enough time. It's because you're actually not in this now moment to experience time.

Yes.

Yes. This is woo woo. This is all that. Woohoo. Yeah. My experience is when you show people this handout, which by the way will be electronically available on our website, you can download anytime. You can show the people his handout. Anybody who looks at that handout gets it. I've never seen anybody not get that and go, yeah, of course. So it's a start of a conversation. And then the key is, in order to have low drama, we have to have shared commitments and clear agreements. Shared commitments, clear agreements. If we don't have that, then all this stuff just goes out the window. That is my time. I'm going to be available for those of you who have more questions. I'll be available later and at lunchtime and happy to have conversations with all of you about it. Thank you so much.