Mindset Monday - Thermostat Responsibility

This is episode 180 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Hey there. Are you looking to grow as a leader or grow leaders on your team? If so, then our leadership series is for you. It's running all year long. It's free webinars to teach you about various topics in leadership that can really expand your growth, elevate your leadership, and be able to really serve those around you. If that's something for you, then opt in to our Leadership series, our free webinars that will be going on all this year. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast, where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now, your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider. Hello, hello and welcome to Mindset Monday. Today we're going to talk about something that I think will make a big difference in your life, and it's called thermostat responsibility. We're not talking about the thermostat in your house. We are actually talking about the thermostat that we walk around affecting others with. I'll explain in just a second. So sometimes we're running hot, right? Sometimes we're running cool. But I like to think of this intensity or emotional state, kind of like a thermometer fluctuating overall. We also sense that in others. You've probably noticed that when you're interacting with someone and they're maybe slower or calmer, their body language is showing something different than maybe the level that you are. Consider a family member or how they're moving or looking at you before they even say anything. You can tell because you know them so well. You can sense that their energy, where it is hot, cold, calm, whatever it is, before you even interact. So what do we do about this? How can we. What are our effects on other people? So how about when you feel that your energy is great and high or you come home from work to someone in your household that is low and grumpy or upset, what happens? Does your energy lower or does it go up? Does it stay the same? Do you become down or upset, too? Just like they are? For most group environments, whether it's family or work or community environments, there are one or more people who are setting that standard, that energy, that emotional environment. It's what I would call the thermostat. So consider that feeling when you walk into a library and it's really quiet, yet focused, and there's this calmness. And if you were to go in speaking loudly and banging around and doing all the things, you'd likely know that it Was unacceptable Before any librarian went, shh, be quiet. You already know, you sense it, you feel it. In any given situation, there are usually some who show up as the thermostat, some who show up as the thermometer. So some are setting the energy level, that emotional tone, while others are raising or lowering their levels to meet the one who set the energy level. That's the difference between someone who's the thermostat and another who might be the thermometer. And it's highly likely that you have been both in various situations in your life, or you might have some that you're consistently the thermostat and others you're consistently the thermometer. Nothing is right or wrong or good or bad in these scenarios. It's just the awareness of how you show up in certain scenarios. So I want to give you a story. If I think back years and years ago, this is like 25 years ago I was certifying as an athletic therapist, and it meant 1600 hours in clinical work and field work. And I was taught very specifically how to engage with, with other people, other patients, athletes in those environments, so that they were very, very comfortable. Because there was often a scenario of chronic injury, acute injury, and they're in a very, very vulnerable scenario. So I was taught how to engage with them or interact with them in a way that would help them stay calm and be confident, especially for emergency scenarios. Because if we're going and taking a football player off of the field and they've got a concussion and they're in and out of consciousness, how we show up in that emergency scenario is so, so important. So I was a first responder and all of these things. So in that scenario, I knew what I was supposed to do in that environment, flash forward. When I was working more one on one with clients or eventually in groups, I decided that I wanted to show up really positively and set that tone for the whole time I was with them. And I would do that consistently. Whether I was in a gym environment, a presentation environment, a one on one coaching environment, Whatever it was, I would show up positively, making sure that they could rely on that consistency from me every single time they were with me, or if it was a one time only, that's what they got from me, no matter what. And I made sure that that happened all the time. That would be an example of setting that thermostat. That is the standard that I expected of myself and others learned to expect from me in those environments. So it was quite the shock for me when flash Forward a decade and a half later or I don't know. Yes, probably a decade and a half or two decades later when I have a blended family of five and I'm running my own business and there's all the older four kids are in sports, and we've got a young baby, and we've got this business that's a baby because it's been reopened in a new city. And there's so much going on, so much on my plate, that I'm showing up as that person in that environment, with groups and with clients and individuals, whatever scenario I was in or presenting. And then I'd be so exhausted that I'd come home and I would just deflate. I would be so tired, almost grumpy, sometimes snappy with my family, even cold and withdrawn. And then I'd notice that I'd get in these arguments with my husband and I'd end up complaining. I'd say, how come when I'm down, you just become down, too, and you don't help lift me up? I didn't realize I wasn't aware enough. I was so in what I was experiencing, struggling, that I wasn't aware that I was the thermostat in that situation and I was causing him to come down or I was influencing him to come down. Now, it doesn't mean that he couldn't set the thermostat tone as well, but it does mean that I wasn't aware of how I was showing up in the environment and that I had a responsibility to be able to manage myself or manage the situation in a way that wasn't so impactful on other people. So thermostat responsibility is like the program that you can put on your thermostat in your house when you want your home to be, to ensure that it's not freezing cold first thing in the morning or ensure it's not really hot when you go to bed at night. We want to ensure we recognize our impact on others and take responsibility. Responsibility for how we show up for other people. That's what thermostat responsibility is. It is showing up with responsibility for how we impact others. So at any given time, there has been a scenario where you have been the thermostat or the thermometer. So now I invite you just in order to really take responsibility, to explore these questions. To explore, number one, where have you been? What areas of life have you been? The thermostat, or are you the thermostat right now or the thermometer? Simply become aware by taking a look at, are you doing the adjusting for someone else, or are you setting the tone where others are adjusting to you? That's what you want to become aware of in your family, in your work environments, in your community environments, or friendship groups. What does that look like for you? Does it shift? Is it consistent? How do you want to show up in those particular areas? Do you want to show up consistently in a specific way in your work environment or your family environment? What do you want that to look like? And you can write these questions down and actually answer them because they can be very, very powerful for setting intention for, for how you are going to be in different scenarios and environments. How are you typically showing up in that area? Now, if you think of your work environment or you think of coming home to your family, or you even think of when there's been times of struggle, do you consistently show up in a certain way or does it fluctuate a lot? Visualize yourself in different scenarios or what typically happens? How are you showing up in those areas now? How do you want to show up going forward? What do you want that to look like going forward in your family life, work life, or wherever it is? What can you visualize that's powerfully impactful for others and yourself? How do you want that to look in another 2 months, 3 months, year, or down the road long term? And lastly, what small shifts, and these are subtle, these are tiny things. What small shifts can be made to create the consistent thermostat setting that you want, the way you really want to show up? What are the small shifts you can do? One of the things that were very, very powerful for me back when I realized I was bringing all I was just dumping on my family after I had no energy. One thing that I did that was small but huge in the impact was I started to have lunch alone by myself for at least 30 minutes. And that alone time allowed me to recharge. It allowed me to face the second half of my day with a lot of energy and still have energy at the end of the day. After that, I also started to add meditation in. I also started to show more affection. Those things had massive impact on my impact on those around me and my family connection overall. So I hope that is impactful for you so you can take a look at your own responsibility and how you're showing up. So take a look at your thermostat responsibility with those questions and then decide. Decide how you want to show up. Use this as a powerful tool to keep showing up in your life as your best. So keep going. You've got this. 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