How Knowing Your WHY.os Affects Your Relationships

Hello and welcome to Y2Y for the month of August. I'm so excited that you guys are here. We have an amazing topic today. We're going to talk about how does knowing your why operating system affect your relationships? So let's start with some introductions. I'm Dan Dominguez, the Chief Growth Officer here at the WHY Institute. And my why is to contribute to the success of others. My how is to challenge the status quo and look at things differently. And my what is to make sense of the complex and challenging. So before we go on, I think, you know, I just gave you a mouthful of my why, how, and what. Let's go over the nine whys so we can ground ground ourselves. And so the show makes a lot more sense. So as you probably know, if you followed us or if you've listened to one of the shows before, there are nine whys. The first one is contribute to contribute to a greater cause, make a difference, add value, or have an impact. The second why is trust to create relationships based on trust. The third why is to make sense. To make sense out of things, especially if they are complex or. Or complicated. The fourth why, our CEOs why, is to find a better way and share it with others. The fifth is right way to do things the right way in order to get results. Number six is challenge to think differently and challenge the status quo. Number seven is mastery, to seek mastery and understanding. Number eight is clarify to make crystal clear and understandable. And the last one is simplify to decrease complexity. Everyone who's taken the Y assessment fits into one of these nine categories. So if you haven't discovered your why, head over to yinstitute.com and use the code Y2Y W H Y T O W H Y. And you'll get 50% off the Y discovery. So feel free to go over there as soon as we're done here. Or you can click pause if you're not listening live and go discover your why. And this show will make a lot more sense. So let's get to our guests. We have with us today Liz Ellis. She is a YOS certified professional, but she is also the Chief Heart Officer at Angel Studios, the founder and CEO of Liz Ellis Coaching. She is an ICF certified coach and a mother of six. So, Liz, your why is trust, your how is make sense, and your what is contribute. Welcome.

Thank you.

I always like to. Is there anything you want to add to that bio that I might have missed?

That was great, Dan. I'm glad to be here. Great.

Thank you. And you brought a couple of great guests. So we have with us today Michael Jenkins, who is the operations and support manager at Angel Studios, and he brought along his wife, Heather Jenkins, who is also at Angel Studios as a support tech. So let me tell you about Michael and Heather. And most importantly, they are parents of four kids themselves. So they're right behind Liz or two behind right now. Let's see. I don't know if you're going to add to that. We'll maybe get into that. But Michael's why is to contribute and make a difference. His how is to find better ways and share them and is what is to build trusting relationships. Heather, on the other hand, her why is trust. Her how is right way. And her what is clarify. So both of them have trust in their yoshi, but they're in different places. So we'll talk about how that might affect the way they communicate and they work with each other. And then there's an uninvited guest or not on camera guest, I shouldn't say uninvited on video guest. And that is their daughter Eliana, whose why is trust? Whose how is makes sense and hers what is right way. So the thing that connects all of them, they all have trust in their yos, which is very interesting. So we'll definitely have to talk about that. So here is the topic. We talked about the topic. How does knowing your why operating system affect your relationships? So let's start with you, Liz, because I want to talk about your journey. You know, you joined the Y Institute recently and you have been a prolific user of the Y discovery with your coaches and with the people you work with. So how has discovering your own Y operating system made made a difference in the coaching that you do?

Yeah, it's actually helped tremendously. Knowing that my why was trust gave me a whole new lens for how to interact better with team members, how to create a clearer relationship with new coaching clients.

It's also just given me the right language to set a foundation before we even got started. So my why is to trust. My how makes sense and so it folds. Fundamentally, in coaching, I help people unstack the problems to make sense of what's going on and get down to the root of like how we can actually solve it together. And then ultimately my, my what is contribution? And I am super dedicated to making sure we find a good solution and helping people move forward.

So fantastic. No, thank you for so how when we talk about how that has changed, how about your messaging, what is it that you put out differently now? That, you know, that your why is trust makes sense and contribute.

Yeah. It's given me the language to help people understand what they get when they work with me as a coach, I had always sort of subconsciously known I could see how to kind of make the pieces fit. Um, and now I have the words to kind of say that my really, my unique brilliance is to bring a trusted place that you can come with any topic that I, you know, I want to be a trusted source of information for you. And I, you know, I happen to know personally. I do a ton of research. I do. I'm always studying, I'm always learning new coaching techniques so that I can be that trusted resource. But being able to message the fact that I can help you make sense of what feels really complex and challenging when it's. It doesn't need to be because to me, it doesn't feel challenging. I'm like, okay, I see the tornado spinning around you, and I could also realize to say, hey, if you step like two feet to the left, you'd be totally out of that tornado.

Yes.

So I'm able to give people that kind of perspective and then ultimately step up in an option of contribution, bringing just a commitment of service that I'm going to stick with it until we solve it together.

I love what you said there, because when you have the why of makes sense in your top three for you, it is your how. It is how you do everything. You love helping people solve their problems, and it is a superpower. So what people don't realize is you make sense of things very easily because it comes naturally to you. And the reason coaching clients would want to come to you is because they. They can't. Right. So if a client comes to you and says, look, I just don't know what to do, that is an ideal client for Liz Ellis, because, hey, I can help you. And I love that perspective, the tornado, because you're going to see what they can't see. Right. A lot of times that can be seen. It is just a different perspective. And that is why coaching is so important. Because that perspective that a coach provides is so important because it is different. You are looking at it from a different lens and you are bringing your own strengths.

So.

So thank you so much. And I love how you're including it in your messaging because I think it's helping you get the right people on board. So you're working with probably if, since you've changed your messaging, more of your ideal clients. Right?

Absolutely.

Excellent. So a couple of your ideal Clients are with us today. Right, let's talk about Michael and Heather. So, you know, one, the point of the conversation today is how does your Y operating system affect your relationship? So how have your relationships, your relationship with each other and your understanding of each other changed since you went through the YOS process with Liz? And I'll let Michael go first. Oh, well, you're ready. Let's go, Heather.

OK, well, we've been together for 25 years and we've just always clicked. It's been kind of a magical relationship. We've never had a lot of struggles together. And so when we took this why.

We we were kind of shocked that we were compatible with each other. And even Michael's being contribution.

Contributor, one of his big biggest combinations is to be with a trusting why, which is my number one why. So we kind of looked at each other and got a big smile because it's like that explains why we've always had that connection connection and always been committed to working well together.

Just because my, my biggest is the. Is the trust and having a solid foundation and he just wants to contribute the best he can to building up that trusting relationship. So we've just always been compatible. So it was kind of magical.

Excellent, excellent. That's a great perspective of how your why of trust and how he contributes. He wants to contribute to building that trust and how it makes it really work for you guys. Let's get your perspective, Michael.

Well, she stole most of the things I was going to say. But yeah, it's definitely was an eye opener. Once I read that she was at home working and I instantly took a screenshot and sent it to her. I was like, look at this. I said, this explains so much of our life, why we haven't felt that struggle that you hear from other couples and everything and why we continue to. We've always said open communication and working together and being honest and those are all trust things. But always worked hard to make sure I contributed that part of what she needed. And I didn't even realize that was what she needed. So excellent.

And as a contributor, so I share your why as somebody with the why of contribute. We're always looking how can we help? How can we do things to make things better for others? Right. So for you. And it sounds like what Heather was saying is you've always found a way to build trust. You make it a goal for yourself to build trust with Heather. Now there's a third person that I mentioned in the introduction that's not here today and that's Your daughter, Eliana. And so you guys, how old is she?

She just turned 15.

Oh, those terrible teen years. So you have a 15 year old daughter who you had go through the process and we found out that her why is trust. So she matches Heather makes sense and right way. So how has understanding your yos and her yos affected your relationship with your teen daughter? I know there are parents listening that can't wait to hear this answer.

I was so anxious for her to take this so we could figure her out. She's a great girl, super, super smart. And we just want to be there for her in the best way possible. Especially since we've discovered the why. Because you can just understand people so, so much better. We just want to be able to help her. This will be her second year in high school and those are difficult times. So we want to make sure that we're approaching her, all of her issues or whatever, all her good times, the correct way. So with her why being trust.

That was huge. To discover that she needed trust as a foundation. But with her how being makes sense. That made a lot more sense to us. Why? Like, because my how is right way. And I'm not always demanding that my way is the right way. And I don't want to sound pushy with my how being the right way. But sometimes I'm like, how doesn't she understand what I'm saying to her? So with her how being I just have to make sense of what you're saying to me.

Right.

Helped open up our eyes a little bit that she's trying to make sense of what we're trying to say to her. And then she'll try to figure out her own right way, which is her what.

So we just got to keep trying.

Yeah. And one of the things we've been talking about lately is giving her the tools to make her own decisions and trust that she's going to make the correct decision by laying out the foundation on how to come to that decision properly without just jumping on instinct.

Giving her the.

Basically the power to come to her own conclusions. So she trusts what makes sense to her. And then hopefully that makes sense too. All of us as a parent.

Yeah. And those of us. So I have make sense as my what? Liz has make sense as her how so. And that's her how also. And so one of the things we often find makes sense people is things have to make sense to us or we don't want to move forward if it doesn't make sense. It might be right, Mom. But you have to explain it to me so that I understand it. And then if I understand it, then I can move forward. And so it's not so much that she's being rebellious or not being a team player. She just wants it to make sense to her. And if it doesn't, she's in conflict. You know, ultimately you're the parent and you can. You have the power to say that's how you're going to do it. Right. But she's not going to do it as willingly as if you take the time to help her make sense of it. You know, Liz, I just noticed something about our two guests. They have how a better way, Michael, better way and right way. So, as you know, Liz, those two whys tend to clash a little bit. So I'd love to hear your perspective because you helped them discover their yos. Did you guys find situations where her. Her need to do it the right way consistently probably clash with Michael's need to, hey, there's a better way to do that. Let me show you. And change things. Right? So, Liz, I'd love to hear your perspective. And then we'll hear from Heather and Michael, too.

An insight that we talked about was just Mike's decision. Like, he's always looking at building trust with Heather because he's contribute. Right. He's bringing that better way, which can be challenging if she thinks she's already doing it right. You could mistakenly think that he's somehow criticizing. But the beauty of understanding your yos is by understanding his ultimate goal is to contribute in the best possible way. You can see the benefit of how he is bringing his best gift to bring those better ways to make her life easier and maybe show her a different right way, you know, maybe show her a better right way. But yeah, that's definitely something that. That can create conflict. And you know, something else we talked about was, you know, with Heather having such a beautiful option of trust, really trying to develop trust, and then having that how of right way, you can see how it could conflict with Eliana, who also has trust and right way. And she's thinking that she's got the right way, and mom thinks she has the right way. But now that they both see that, it's like Mike was saying, they can give them a better. They can give Eliana a better way to see the path to make sense so that she can realize that her right way and mom's right way aren't necessarily in conflict. They just need to both be pointing the same direction.

Excellent. Excellent. So Michael and Heather do you guys have any examples? Probably. I'm going to say, Heather, you probably have examples of Michael messing with your right way, because you probably have ways of doing things, and Michael probably always looks at him and say, wait, we can make it a little bit better. So how about an example? I'd love to hear that because these are great examples to share with people.

Mm.

Yeah, it was definitely very humbling to learn that my how was right way, because when I read, like, the definition of that, I was like, gosh, that doesn't sound like me. I'm not always like, but no, this is the right way. But I kind of am. And I've started seeing it now that I've been aware of this. You know what I mean? But like I said, I'm not like a strict and pushy right way kind of person.

As Michael mentioned before, we've always had extremely well and open communication. So if his better way helps my understanding of a right way or a different right way, a perspective, you know, that there may be different perspectives of what the right way actually is, then we just discuss it before we apply it. We have a lot of pre talks together before we talk to our kids, just to kind of. I guess the point is to always be. Make sure you're on the same page. No matter what our right way is. We just have to be on the same page in that moment to help the situation.

Excellent. Michael, you have anything to add?

I've always come to her with better ways of doing things. Whether it's.

Suggestions on what we should do with the kids or no technology in the house or, hey, let's move across the country with our whole family and our whole life.

I always come with different ideas and things that sometimes I know probably frustrates her, but like she said, we sit down and we talk all of it through 100% and make sure we both completely understand what we are talking about. And.

You know, just make sure we're on the same page before we make any life choices.

Fantastic. So. So, Liz, as. As you work with. With Michael and Heather on At. At. At Angel Studios, how has it. How has it impacted. And I'll leave this to all of you. Your work, how you approach your work relationships. Now that you know this about yourself, do you lead with it so people understand? Tell me a little bit about that.

Yeah, I'll go first, guys. I have found it tremendously helpful. For me, our company's growing incredibly rapidly. We doubled in size in just the past six months. And part of that is hiring people to my Direct team, direct reports to myself. And knowing that that's my wise trust, I've been able to just pre frame the conversation to say, this is fundamentally important to me and this is how we can work together better so that I know I can trust you. And it's made a huge impact. We've been able to have better team meetings. We've been able to. We actually had a really fun situation. We had the whole team. We did the yos for everybody. We did the Y matrix. So everybody knew everyone else's.

And we had a why of contribute and a why of better way. You can see how those could conflict because better way is always like, but it could be better. But it could be better. And contribute is saying, wait, so my way wasn't good enough or my contribution wasn't good enough. And for someone who their heart is in contribution to be told it wasn't good enough would be really hard. And so being able to know that right off the bat, before we even got started, we were able to say, hey, this is where a conflict may arise. Please know they're not criticizing your contribution, but rather they're bringing their best gift so that you can give of your contribution in a way that impacts even more people. And just having that insight fundamentally changed the dynamic of our team as we started building new teams.

Excellent.

How about you, Michael? And then we'll go to Heather.

I'd like to build off of that because one of the support managers I work with on a daily basis is a better way. And I was a contribute. And once we both took it, we realized that. We sat down for a good half hour just talking about it and realized, okay, she's coming with ideas, but it's not criticizing all the work I'm doing. And since then, our relationship has just blossomed. It's gotten so much better. We're getting a lot more done. I honestly feel like.

A lot. I feel like everyone in the company should have this on file. So when we need to talk to different people, we know how to approach them. Because that is. It is a huge thing to know how to approach someone when you know they're wise that way. I know I'm not.

Disrespecting someone or not disrespecting, but you know, them taking it the wrong way when we're just trying to work together. But it's a. It's been huge for me, for people I work with on a daily basis.

That makes a lot of sense. How about you, Heather?

I think it's been humongous A great part of my life in general. But as far as work goes, it's forced me almost to take a step back in certain situations to just try to evaluate where the other person might be coming from their own personal perspective, seeing things from a different lens than I am seeing and just trying to work together the best we can.

Yeah, just like Bill.

Go ahead, Go ahead, Michael.

Sorry. Build off of that real quick. One of the things that she started doing that she was telling me about was since she works support, she talks to customers every day. She tries to understand where they're coming from before. She answers now. And the responses we're getting from customers are so much better that she actually has one of the better.

Feedbacks from our user. So she's definitely using it to her advantage.

Love that. And here's something I'm going to share with you, with you, Michael, because I work with the better way. Gary is his why is better way. And that exact. That's that conflict that you mentioned, Liz, where you think that the person doesn't like what you did. Especially from a contributor. Right. Wait, you don't like what I'm doing? What ends up happening. And Michael, what you have to remember is your better way. How is very noble because not only do you find better ways, you share them. And that is how better way people contribute because they find better ways and they share them with others. So I think, Liz, you brought up a great point that when that better way person was looking at that contributions and saying, here is a better way to do it, what they were trying to do was help. Right. It doesn't always come across as they are trying to help. It sounds like it feels like they are nitpicking, but if you know where they are coming from. And so I think the awareness is so important if you know that their. Their motives are good, they're trying to find a better way to help you move forward. Whatever it is that your contribution is, whether it's better way makes sense, whatever it is that your gift is, they're trying to help you make it better. And so when you look at it from that perspective, it makes a ton more sense. Thank you for bringing that to our attention, Liz. So let me, let me ask you, you know, this is more of a general question. And Liz, you're not only. We've got to ask this question. You guys heard me in the bio say that her title is the Chief Heart Officer at Angel Studios. What is a Chief Heart Officer? Tell us that first and then I'll go to my next Question.

All right. Well, it's interesting. I was the president of the company for some time, and I realized that my core focus, you know, and perhaps it comes back to my why of trust. Building those trusting relationships, you know, where I know that if we have that trust, kind of the sky's the limit. I decided to. To kind of step sideways a bit and change my role to the Chief Heart Officer. Because ultimately, our company's mission is to amplify light in the world. We're a media studio, and we want to be the home of stories that amplify light. And you just can't amplify light in the world unless we individually have light to give. So the Chief Heart Officer. My role is to be the guardian of the light. It's to make sure that my employees are empowered to grow their own light. They're learning, growing, developing, but also protecting the light that we're not letting them get burnt out, that we're not smothering it in bad communication or poor expectations.

My job is just the heartbeat of the company every single day. And so that's why my title is the Chief Heart Officer.

So I love that. Michael, I saw some reactions. Did you want to add anything to what Liz was saying?

Now she's right on cue for who she is. She's the one who's. Her whole focus is just having everyone grow and just if there's an issue, she wants to know.

I love the phrase helping amplify the light and helping everybody grow their light, because then you can share that light with the world. Fantastic. So, Liz, how has. The last question I have is.

How has. Now that you have the wide discovery in your arsenal, and you're using it not only with your clients, but you're using it with the people you work with as the chief Heart Officer, how has it changed the way you communicate at Angel Studios?

Yeah, I've had. About 50% of our company has already taken it.

And we've had a lot of fun with it. We've done it in different classes so that we were able to talk one to another. Um, it's helped in. I'm. I've actually seen it between our executives and our VPs. Um, you know, one of our executives was the Y of Simplify. Well, One of the VPs is a make sense. So she would bring a huge idea and say, okay, here's the scope. And he would go, nope, it's just this big simplify. And she would be like, no, but, but. But it's this. And she was asking a million Questions to make it make sense. Sense so that she could get to the simplified baby step he wanted to take. But in the process of trying to make it make sense, it was creating so much contention between the two until they really were able to distill it down and go, oh, we are speaking the same language. Okay, let me help you make sense. Then I can simplify and help with what the next steps are. But without that, I mean, they could have just butted heads for weeks or months. And so being able to put that into perspective and language, they were able to just fundamentally shift and say, oh, I get it. You're searching for make sense and clarify. I'm searching for just simplify, simplify, simplify, simplify. And they were able to come to a great solution together. But they wouldn't have been able to do it as quickly without understanding that perspective of one another. And that just changed the relationship greatly.

I love that you brought that up because one of the concepts we talk about is being able to talk to each other. Why to y We call it the platinum rule. The golden rule is treat others as you'd like to be treated. The platinum rule is talk to people the way they like to be talked to. It's really like another language. Right. I speak Spanish, but I wouldn't show up at this interview and assume that all of you speak Spanish and just start speaking Spanish without knowing first that you, you would understand me. It's the same thing. You don't talk to a simplify if you know that they're simplified. There's a language you can use with them so that they get you so that you can communicate with them better. You talk to a contributor in a way that with words that he or she that they're going to resonate with. Same thing with, with make sense. Same thing with right way. They all have words that they're looking for and when we use those words, guess what those people listen. What I have found, especially with my role as the chief growth officer, I am always looking to expand the number of coaches that use our product and that are using the why discovery in their coaching practice. So I won't even meet with anyone unless I know their why because I don't want to guess what resonates with them. Do you see yourself doing that same thing, Liz?

Oh, totally. It is so, so fundamental. You know, we've, we've had people take their why. We've also had them take their strengths finder so we know what strengths are powering those whys. And just the more you can understand the better you can relate and the better that you can, like, figure out how to communicate, how to empower them, how to motivate them. It makes a huge difference. Huge difference.

So this is the most important question, and I'll ask this of all of you guys, what question have I not asked? Is there something that you said, you know what, when we talk why, I want to make sure we mention this. Is there a question I haven't asked that I should ask so we can give some value to our viewers?

I think the question would be, if you're listening to this recording right now, why have you not taken your why discovery yet? Because trust me, it will take totally fundamentally change your perspective and taking it as one thing, reading about it is one thing, but then working with a coach so you see how it actually shows up in real life and what it actually looks like. I mean, guys, don't you agree reading it, you were like, oh, that was interesting. But when we debriefed it together and really talked about what it looked like in real life, it was fundamentally different, right?

Absolutely.

Yeah. So the question is, if you haven't taken it, why not?

I love that. Thank you, Liz. Michael, you were going to add something to that?

No, no, I was just agreeing with them. You just learn a lot, especially when you step back and you. Somebody who already was an expert and certified, who knows more about it, can actually give you details. That's very, very powerful.

And that brings us back to, you know, to our goal. Our mission as a company is to help a billion people discover why. You guys know the power of understanding your why and your how and your what, your why operating system. Liz, you know the power that it has for the people you work with and for the clients you work with. And we realize that I cannot. Dan Dominguez is not going to be able to help a billion people discover their why by himself, one on one. We need coaches, as Liz mentioned, who are interested in helping their clients discover their why. So that is a great message you just gave us, Liz. We're going to make sure and share that with people because if you haven't discovered your why, this is the part of the show where we give you a chance. I said it at the beginning of the show. You can go to why institute.com and use the code Y2Y and get your why for 50% off, number one. And if you want to work with a coach, contact us at the Y Institute. We have coaches all over the world now. We used to have coaches and in just the US but we have coaches in Germany. We have coaches in Switzerland. We have coaches all over the world that are joining the Y Network. And so if you are looking to work with someone to help you debrief and understand your results, contact us and we will put you in touch with one of those coaches so that you can understand yourself at the level that Michael and Heather understand each other and themselves and their daughter and how Liz uses this incredible tool with everyone that she works with as the chief heart officer at Angel Studios. So with that I believe that is the last thing that I have to say. So we are going to say thank you to Michael, Heather and Liz and we are looking forward to seeing how many of you go to our website, discover your why and send us your questions. Feel free to comment and we will look forward to getting back to all of you when you connect with us@yinstitute.com have a great day.