#70: Enoughness

You're listening to the Proteus Leader Show with Erika Andersen, where you'll get practical tools and insights for leading, managing, and staying ready for the future. Erika is the founding partner of Proteus, a firm that focuses uniquely on leader readiness. A nationally known executive coach and bestselling author, you may already know her as one of the most popular leadership bloggers on Forbes.com. Ready for something you can use today? Here's Erika.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Proteus Leader Show. My guest today is JC Lippold, my friend and colleague at Proteus, where he brings all his experience in the classroom and the boardroom, the sports field and the stage to his client relationships. He works with them on team dynamics, organizational development, cultural evolution, and communication planning. In addition to his corporate work, JC is a frequent on-air wellness and personal development correspondent and a nationally acclaimed fitness coach and theatrical director. So welcome to the show, JC.

Oh, thanks, Erika. It's a pleasure to be here.

Oh, I'm so glad to have you. You know, you, you and I have been talking a lot lately about how almost all of us are dealing with all kinds of stressors coming out of past couple of years of living through the pandemic. And I know that you're deeply focused on helping people get and use the psychological and emotional tools they need to operate well in these mad times, in these crazy times. So I thought our listeners would find your thinking valuable and would be able to apply it to their own lives. So—

Oh, absolutely. I think, you know, as you just raised, these last couple of years presented a lot of the realities right on the surface. You know, everything that we do has, has this athletic component to it. You know, it's something that we have the ability to learn from doing and then making shifts and then doing again in a way that is more optimized, more, more efficient, more potent. So I'm excited to kind of talk in those psychological realms today.

I love it. That's a great point. And it is, it is funny how we usually apply what you just said to athletic pursuits and not psychological and emotional pursuits. But I thought I loved that model of just like, try it, see how it works, get better, try it again. That's great. I love that.

Absolutely.

All right. So you, you, you've been using the word enoughness as a frame for a lot of your thinking. I love that word, you know, cuz we've talked about it. So can you explain more about what that means to you?

Yeah, absolutely. So whenever I talk about the concept of enoughness, I speak about it as if it's a practice. And I define it as the practice of affirming that you are already indeed enough. So, if we think about this grind culture that we exist in, it's led us to believe that we need to do more and more. We need to get better and better. You know, this whole idea of being 1% better every single day, it's an incredibly irrational thought. You know, I'm 40 years old, so I should be 14,000% better than the day I was born. And sadly, or maybe gratefully, that is not a true statement. So what has this grind culture led us to believe? That we need to work really hard to simply arrive at a state where we are enough, when I propose we already are.

Yes, already are enough. Yeah, I think that's right. I think all this, you know, we'll talk about improvement versus complacency in a minute, but I think all this thing like you have to get better better and better, it definitely implies that you're not okay the way you are.

It absolutely— and we see this show up in some elements of our being. So when I talk about enoughness, I look at 4 factors that we continuously need to work on calibrating to, you know, become more and more aware of our enoughness. And those 4 factors are our honesty, So, speaking our truth quickly without any minimizing language. Number 2, our intuition. There's a part of us that says, hey, do that. That sounds good. That sounds right. And we're very good at ignoring that voice.

Yeah.

So, number 2 is really tapping into our intuitive self. And then number 3, our curiosity. You know, that element that says, hey, I wonder what would happen if.

Yeah.

There's a lot of courage that, that is needed to think that our curiosity is enough. And then lastly, our current state. You know, literally in this moment, how do we say, I can do this?

Yeah.

It's something we greatly minimize. So our honesty, our intuition, our curiosity, and our current state. Those are the factors I use to help people calibrate their enoughness.

I really love that, JC. I love how you've— the concept is simple and straightforward. You are— you're fine. You're okay. You're enough the way you are. And having those 4 practical things of honesty and intuition and curiosity and current state, those are really great. And I especially like, because I'm such a fan of curiosity, I especially like the connection with curiosity because I think that I think you're right. I think people— one of the reasons we get socialized out of and then don't use our curiosity is because we think it's not cool. We think it's not cool to be curious as adults. It, it means that we're silly or dumb, or we don't know things. And to have that, hey, it's, it's fine that I'm wondering why this is happening. It's fine that I don't know how it works, and I want to find out. That's powerful.

Well, and Erika, consider this. Not only is it fine, but consider the boardroom where you have 12 people sitting with wonderful ideas on the inside, but because they don't think they're enough, they do not risk to say them.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, yeah.

That's—

you said it much better than I'm saying. They do not risk to say them. That's right. That is what gets in the way of our curiosity. We have it. It's churning inside your head. Wow, I wonder how would that work? Why did that happen? But we don't say it outside because we're, you know, ooh, maybe I'm not cool.

The worst thing, the worst thing that could ever happen to someone is being wrong in front of other people. So they shy away from going, hey, I'm going to risk to be heard right now.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so I can almost hear our listeners' minds churning. Won't this make me too complacent if I feel like I'm enough? Who I am is enough. Won't it make me feel unmotivated or be just complacent and not want to get better if I don't have to improve all the time? So talk to that. Help us understand how feeling enough doesn't immediately lead to being complacent or feeling unmotivated.

Absolutely. So we're often set up in this checks and balance, profit loss mentality. So as you just said, If we embrace enoughness, what are we letting go of? And I like to think of it rather than either an or, I like thinking of it as a yes and. Once you tap into your enoughness today, then you start realizing the potential within your improvement, your adjustment, and your planning for tomorrow. And in reality, we see a lot of, evidence of this, that people who really practice enoughness, those are the ones who accelerate their learning curve. They strengthen their strengths. They have the ideas that are evolutionary because they continuously exist in that current state of, hey, you know what? I already know who I am. I'm confident in that. So I'm going to risk to be present with other people. And what do those other people often do? They go, wow, the way that that person thinks, the way that that person responds is so out of left field. It's so fresh. And I think that comes from this, this concept of enoughness.

Yeah. Yeah. That's lovely. I think that's right. I think the, the, the constant negative white noise of, I'm not good enough, it's not happening, I need to improve 1% a day, I gotta get better and better. It really gets in the way of productivity and creativity and And I feel like our natural, you know, all the work that Dan Pink and others long before him did about how much most of us want mastery. We want to get really good at things, not because that, you know, we have to, and if we don't improve, we'll be bad, but just, it feels good. We like getting better and better at things. So if you feel like you're good, you're enough, then that probably more and more unleashes that sense of, ooh, what more could I do? This is awesome.

On the idea of mastery.

Yeah.

I'm grateful that I stumbled on this because it truly has brought me consistent, fresh joy. I am a masterful student, and that is what I aspire for, as opposed to being a masterful knower or a masterful teacher. Being a masterful student who is continuously curious, who's always right where they are, who is unafraid to speak their honesty, Yeah. And more so than other people go, you know what I'm feeling right now? Like that, like that tuning in to that enoughness state. It's a blast. I mean, it's like a blast of cool air when all of a sudden you just go, oh my gosh, I can't be complacent. Because once you feel that current state, it makes you keep going. This is, this is what the fullness of life looks like.

Yes. There's so much I could do. I really, really agree with and like what you just said about master-student. I, and You know this, but in the, in the book I wrote, Be Bad First, about learning, I talk a lot about being a master learner rather than falling into what I coined a word for it. I don't know if you remember this— expertism.

Yes.

Yep. Somebody who just like, they, they rely on— they get their sense of enoughness from feeling like, oh, I'm an expert in this and I know so much and I can't— versus a master learner, a master student who's always like, oh, I could learn so much more. I could find out new things. I could challenge myself in new ways. I love that. I completely agree with that. Yeah.

I always love making up words, and expertism and enoughness are 2 of my top ones.

So yeah, that's awesome. Well, so we always tell our listeners, as you know, that we're going to be practical here. So what can leaders do right now to benefit from themselves, from incorporating the practice of enoughness into their own lives and on their work with their teams?

Yeah, absolutely. I don't think we need to give people a lot of time to consider this. Consider your workforce, consider the people you co-create with, the people you report to, or the people who report to you. There's a lot of, there's a lot of paralysis right now.

Yeah.

And that paralysis, I think, comes from this reality of we get very good at unpacking the past to prepare for better tomorrows. And then we look at that sunshiny tomorrow and we go, okay, now we know where we're going. But in reality, we're scared because where we are is where we spend the least amount of time flexing. So 4 little ideas that I think are highly practical for today's leader, and I'll tie them to those, those elements that we calibrated earlier on. So first, honesty. Encourage your followers. And again, this also applies to yourself to refrain from using these 2 words, just and only. You're gonna start hearing this, right? Uh, someone's sitting around the table, hi, I just have a question, or hey, I'm only saying this because— yeah, what we're really doing is we are saying what I'm about to say is not as valuable as it could be.

Yeah, it's not enough.

It's not enough, right? And it comes back to this mentality of, I have an idea, I'm risking to say something that may be incorrect, but because we're speaking the truth quickly, yeah, all of a sudden people start buying into their words more. So in terms of honesty, remove the minimizing language.

That's great.

For intuition, frequently solicit the feelings and perspectives on big ideas that people are passionate about. Back to that idea of expertise, there's things that people don't really think have a lot of value that they really, really care about. Figure out what people care about and ask them to share their perspectives and feelings on it, because most of the time that is the driving force forward.

Oh, that's great. So, so if I'm understanding you, that might sound like So-and-so, I know in the past you, you, you've gotten excited when we've talked about X. I'd love to hear more about that, why that's important to you, and how you think we might incorporate that. Yeah, I love that. That's great.

And you know you're onto something when that person goes, oh, um, yeah, sure. By rote, that's what you'll hear. And what that is, is them going, wow, this thing I really care about is Enough.

Yeah. Yeah.

I love the way you phrase that, Erika. So then on, on curiosity, demonstrate and then celebrate. I love things that kind of have that, that rhythm. Demonstrate curiosity for your team and then celebrate it when they do the same. Sometimes meetings will end up going 4 or 5 minutes longer than they would normally, but that 4 or 5 minutes of people being curious with each other Yeah, over time will accelerate the good ideas, will get through the protecting and open up into those gems that we really need to find nowadays.

Oh wow, I mean, I love, I love that. I love how you said it. And I've seen so many times in meetings, I mean, that's one of the things that I think we bring, we Proteus, as that because we can, we have permission to be curious. And I've often, you know, I'm sure you've done it too, kept meetings from kind of going off track by asking that curious question. Why are we— we don't seem to be able to nail this down, this thing we're talking about. Why is that? And then it just opens up fully and you come to a resolution that is 2 miles beyond where you would have been otherwise.

So then the last one is current state. I like performing this exercise in teams. And here's what I do. I give people a short amount of time to free write on every single thing their brain can produce from the past. That's as much parameter as I give them. So they could write down what they had for lunch yesterday. They could write down their mother's favorite song or their favorite holiday tradition from decades ago. And then I swing the pendulum to the other side and I go, okay, now write down everything that you can in your mind that has not happened yet. So we just went from the past into the future. And all of a sudden, people, you know, they turn the spigot on and they just start writing down every potential thing that could exist in the future. And then I give them one more segment of time to write down everything that they know to be true right now.

Hmm.

Here's what happens. They fill a page worth in the past, a page worth in the future, and then they get to the present. And they can't write anything down.

Wow.

And the reason why we spend, I always like to say, 49% of our time unpacking the past, 49% of our time prepping for the future. JC math says that leaves us 2% of time in the present.

Yeah.

How do we invite people to stretch that 2% time spent in the present? By exercises like that.

Yeah.

There's— in reality, if we think about it, where's the only moment that we have any actual power? Like, I could, I could pick up this pen right now. I can't pick it up yesterday. I can't pick it up tomorrow. Now, you may say, okay, so what, picking up a pen? No, but the things that we have the potential to do right now, that helps us prepare for those future moments that become the now moment. So that exercise for the current state.

Yeah.

Spend time right now. Ask people those questions of literally, how are you doing? What are you doing right now? What's in your mind right now?

That's wonderful. That's a good stopping place. I know I'm literally— we could keep talking for another couple of hours, and I always promise that we're going to keep this pretty short. So thank you so much. I really hope that you listeners have a chance to reflect on what you've heard about shifting your thinking and your leadership in these ways. Um, I think this is powerful stuff and it's in our control. So, uh, listeners, if you'd like to find out more about how Proteus supports leaders to manage their thoughts and beliefs about themselves and their lives and their businesses, uh, you're welcome also to go to proteusleader.com and click on topics and choose self-talk. So thank you, JC.

Thanks, Erika. This has been great.

So good. Thank you all for listening. And until next time, here's to creating the life you truly want.

We hope you're feeling better equipped to create the career, the business, and the life you want. For more insights and tools for leadership and management, join us at theproteusleader.com. Have an excellent day, and thanks for listening.