#98 - Adair Cates shares about building deep, meaningful conversations.

Hello, everybody! Welcome to the Mutually Amazing Podcast, where we talk about building mutually amazing relationships through all aspects of your life. You are watching us right now. If you're watching us, you're watching us live on Facebook. If you're listening, you could be on podcast, could be a multitude of ways. We're just happy you're here with us today. And I want to get into our guest here. I want you to get to be able to have a conversation with her right away. That's Adair Cates with FirstLeadYou.com. Adair, I want people to get to know a little bit about you, and I always believe that's best from you because you know you. So, what's the best way you would describe yourself in like 3 to 4 sentences?

Awesome. So, I am a facilitator and a coach, and my area of genius and what I'm most obsessed with is supporting people with their internal conversations that are going to help them lead to their, you know, highest and best life. And also the external conversations that they're having with people. And in, you know, one-on-one conversations and also in, in groups. So I'm obsessed with helping people be their best selves and create the life that they love through the power of conversations.

Love that. And during the time right now, and just for anybody who's listening to this, could be listening to it a year after, 5 years after the podcast, but during the time of isolation, And where people are struggling to be with others. How do you build those deep, meaningful conversations?

Oh, beautiful way to start. I was hoping that we would talk specifically about this, because in this time of isolation, it, first of all, the first thing that will start to deteriorate is our internal conversation. And so taking the time every day to be really mindful of how we're talking to ourselves, and what is that internal dialogue that's happening? Is it Supportive? Is it generative? Is it life-giving? Or is it the opposite? Are we bashing ourselves? Are we blaming ourselves internally or blaming others externally? You know, in these times of high stress and uncertainty, it's really easy to fall into a negative mindset. So that's the first thing is what's happening on the inside. And then for the people that you are trapped and isolated with, what kinds of conversations are you having? Are you having life-giving, generative conversations by asking people questions that lift them up and bring them life? Or are you getting into conversations that lead people to a place of problems and deficit? Because if you turn on the news, and you focus on what's going on in the world, there's a lot of negative stuff out there. However, We get to choose our subjective reality through the internal and external conversations that we have. And so if you're, you know, stuck with a group of people, making sure that you're asking questions like, hey, what was a bright spot in your day today? Or what's something that you're really grateful for today? And shift that conversation. What's something you're looking forward to after we get out of this time of isolation? So that's 2 areas. And then a 3rd area—

Yeah.

is this whole world of Zoom and online communication that we're in. And over the last 8 weeks, I have been leading groups in virtual meetings, virtual retreats, in Zoom, and in small groups in the breakout rooms, and have been blown away by the level of connection and the level of conversation that's happening to connect people, to create cooperation, to crowdsource solutions like never before. In a virtual environment. And it really all comes down to asking the right types of questions and allowing people to have equal voices in the conversation. So that's important. Internally, obviously, you've got your own voice. But externally, like with your family and the people that you're with, is, is everybody bringing an equal voice to this conversation? Or is there somebody that's dominating this conversation? And then the same thing virtually, you know, whether you've got 5, 10, 20, 30, 500 people on Zoom, how can you bring in equal voices using the generative questions to bring out the collective generative conversations that are just really longing to be had these days?

All right, so you gave us 3 areas to discuss today. Let's back up to the first one, our own mental state with isolation. Let's start with that one. How do you catch yourself, I guess, is the biggest challenge I see people having, including myself at times.

Yeah.

Where you're snapping, you're, you're, you're around each other more than, you know, my, my poor wife is used to me being on the road. And so, you know, people who do what I do for a living, we are never home for this many weeks in a row. I mean, we're talking 2 months now. That's unheard of. So it is different for everybody else in the house too, not just yourself. So how do you catch yourself in those moments from not being a little sharper, not a little snappy? And maybe if someone's watching right now, you can write about your own struggles in that. Because I know, you know, I can fall into that myself.

100%! Oh, me too. And that's really actually the first thing that I would say is giving yourself permission and, to mess up, and grace when you do mess up. Because, you know, self-compassion for being in a time that none of us have ever lived through before. We are going to have emotions that are like sometimes really drastic and dramatic and big. And we're not used to that. And we don't know how to process that. In fact, most of the time what we do is we distract ourselves or we run like crazy when we have that type of stuff come up. And we are in a place where we're not able to run anymore. So we have to really sit with ourselves. So the first thing is feel all the feels and just allow them to move through you and do whatever you need to do to amplify and improve your relationship and your inner state through, you know, meditation, breathwork, journaling, whatever. Like I spend at least an hour and a half every single morning in my own practice because I know that the world's going to trigger me. I know that my 5-year-old twins are going to trigger me. I know that things are going to— happen that are going to pierce me. And it's easy for me to get to that place of just snapping, and I do sometimes. And then my job is to go back and clean that up and forgive myself and say, I'm sorry, and all of those things. So having the grace with yourself and the self-compassion is the first thing, to feel it all and have some practices that are going to help you move through those feelings in a productive way, so where you're not having to go back. And clean up messes.

And so what would be, you know, you had said, hey, I try to spend that hour, hour and a half. And I could, I already could envision some people listening to that going, what? Like, how in the world do you— I have kids, I have this, I have that. How in the world are you reasonably thinking I'm finding that kind of time to take a breath, to catch myself? So how do you answer that, Adair?

So I look at this in 2 different ways. I think that there is an aspect of self-compassion and self-grace and self-care that is necessary proactively, where we're like filling our bucket with whatever that might be. It could be, for you, it could be taking a run or a yoga class or just taking a walk with your dog in nature, whatever it might be. What are those regenerative things that you can do for yourself to fill yourself up? So that's proactive. Now in the moment, you also have—

Right.

the most abundant, beautiful thing that you've been given with life, which is your breath. And so if you can pause and take a deep breath, a lot of times literally that helps get oxygen to your brain so that it works better.

Um, yeah, I want to pause on that because I think when a lot of people hear that, it's so important not only to take that breath but to really Stretch the body out when you take it, because otherwise people do this, like, I got to take a breath, right? And they clench up and they're like, and they're like sucking all the air in versus let it all go and let those shoulders fall down, right? That's a big one for people. I know for me, that's a test. Where are my shoulders? Are they back? Are they relaxed? Because we tend to be here even when we're breathing. Are there other signals people can watch for?

Yeah, so I'm really big— we get so stuck in our heads. And I know that a signal for me that I'm probably about to blow and I'm gonna have to clean up a mess is if I'm spinning in my head with like so many thoughts that I literally feel like I'm not even in my body anymore. Like I feel like I'm just cut off, you know, at the neck. So I also move into what I'm feeling in my body in the moment. And there's wisdom inside of your body, and your body actually holds emotions. And so you can start to tune into like, ooh, you know what, I'm feeling some tension in my core right now. And just breathing into that and asking like, hmm, what might be going on right now? And I know people still think, oh, this is all like, you know, woo-woo or whatever. However, what I found is the small investments in things like getting in touch with my body and breathing And hitting the pause button just to respond versus react, it's actually an investment. It saves you time in the long run. Because think about it, if I blow my top and I yell at one of my 5-year-old twin girls, I then have to take the time to go back and clean that up with her and help her understand emotionally what I was going through, ask her what she was experiencing and processing that out, if I am doing, if I'm being the kind of mom that I choose to be, that's what I do, right? So I think of it as, yeah, this can seem like little things that are insignificant. However, these small investments of time into your inner state actually end up saving you time in the long run.

Love that. And so second part was now the others around us in this environment. So how do you foster that?

Yeah, well, for me personally, it goes back to that pre— proactive regenerative time that I set aside for myself every single day. And I have to tell you, I have been shifting my entire in-person facilitation business to online facilitation over the last 8 weeks. I have literally been working more hours than I've ever worked in my entire life. And so it's really easy for me to just hit snooze. And keep on sleeping versus get up and spend that time. But what I've found is, if I will invest in myself, just for that little bit of time during the day to do some journaling, some meditation, some breathwork, some centering, I end up showing up so much more powerfully for the other people in my life. And people need us right now. There are a lot of emotional and mental things happening inside of people.

Yeah.

that are very unproductive. And I really see what we're going through right now and what we're going to come out on the other side with is potentially the biggest mental and emotional health crisis that we've ever been into before. And so for me to be able to have my inner state in a place where I can handle those things, again, it really all goes back down to that. Then, when I'm in conversation and in interaction periods with the people that I've been in quarantine with— my kids, their dad, our nanny. We've been spending a lot of time together, and we've definitely all had some, you know, mental and emotional breakdowns over the last several weeks. And what I've realized is, it starts with my energy field and how I'm showing up for them. And then the next layer that I can be supportive with is what kinds of questions am I asking? What am I inviting in our conversations? So like when we have dinner together every night, Hey, what was, what was something great about your day? What's something you're grateful for? What's the best moment that you had? And sometimes I'll ask them to even talk about, what was the, what was the tough moment? And what lesson did you learn from that? And bringing in generative topics, having people talk about the things that lift them up, the silver linings, the good things. And it's not to ignore the problem. It's simply to get our brains and bodies into a state state that when we look at our problems, we have better thinking about them. Because if we're all doom and gloom, and we get sucked into the news, we are literally in our reptilian brain, which is where our worst thinking happens. It's our survival brain. And a lot of people are living there right now. But if I can lift myself and others with generative questions and emotions, then I get us to pre— we get to prefrontal cortex, which is the the seat of our insights and inspirations, and we're able to tap into the wisdom of our heart. I'm a big fan of heart breathing and the HeartMath Institute that's done over 30 years of research on the intelligence of our heart. And when you get your heart involved, your heart actually sends 5,000 times more signals to your brain than your brain to your heart. And it actually lifts your energy and your vibration to a place of—

Yeah.

Wholeness and natural abundant thinking.

I love that. I'm going to go back a moment because you're talking about, you know, when you make that time. So, I want everybody to understand everybody's time allotment could be different. So, I loved when I first read The Miracle Morning years ago, which is about taking time for the SAVERS: silence, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, scripting, which is journaling. And people would be like, geez, that's an hour. Well, but they said take 1 minute for each. If you have 6 minutes, take 1 minute for each. So, if you have 5 minutes, take a minute for breathing, take a minute for thought, take a minute for writing. You don't have to be the maximum number, the goal number every day. In fact, if you were, I'd be concerned you're not mindful because there are going to be days where you feel differently and you need to attend to different things different ways.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so, it's being compassionate to yourself also.

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. That's, that's super spot on. And I have to say, you know, you're right, like, kind of tweaking it and knowing what you need right now is, is really important. I mean, for me, my morning practice started out as a 10-minute practice of writing 10 things I was grateful for. And that was like 12 years ago. And so now it's just become like a part of who I am. Like, I don't feel really connected in myself unless I do something to fill my inner world before the day starts.

Yeah, that's beautiful. Now, Dare, you talked about the workplace. That was the third piece. So, let's go to the third piece. I want to, I want to start with something you brought up and you're like, you know, we're getting so much out of Zoom and I do a lot of work with Zoom. We're doing virtual trainings for Zoom and we are finding it to be very powerful where people are like, oh, you can't be effective. Totally not true.

Yeah.

There is the flip side though, because a lot of people are not having high-energy, engaging experiences on Zoom.

Most people are not. Let me just— Correct.

And there are even experts out there who are great on stages and on shows, but they're not so great on virtual because they don't know how to convey their energy. And so people are struggling with getting that, getting a lot of that fed to them. So let's start with how do you treat Zoom overload, and then let's go into how to use Zoom effectively.

Yeah, that's great. Well, with, with Zoom overload First and foremost, there is not a direct translation of, hey, if I was going to facilitate a group for 8 hours in person, that does not mean that I'm going to facilitate them for 8 hours on Zoom. It's just a different platform. So in that case, I might, you know, divide it up in 2 days and do 3 hours one day and do 3 hours another day. Because what I found is, you actually don't need as much time, because the work I do is all about getting people into small groups, in conversation to come up with a shared vision, shared values to create their future together. And that can be in learning communities; it can be inside of companies as well. And so there's a lot— it's very efficient in Zoom, because they, I can just, they can hit a button and go into a breakout room with 2, 3 or 4 people and have their conversation. I don't have to, like, herd them back from a break or make sure everybody has a partner. Like, it's automatic. So there's some efficiency. So You don't have to take an 8-hour meeting in person and turn it into an 8-hour Zoom meeting. You're gonna actually save time. So you may want to do like 2 half days. And then as a participant or a facilitator, you know, I'm standing right now. I have a standing arrangement. I have an on-a-stool arrangement. And then I have a sitting arrangement. So having the flexibility to have different height levels, different, you know, sitting, standing, that type of thing is huge. And then for me, It's about being out in nature as much as possible and drinking in fresh air as much as I can. Lots of water. You see I have on blue blocker glasses. I don't need these to correct my vision. I wear these to protect myself from the, from the light on the screen. So those are just a few things that will help with the Zoom fatigue.

Well, I love what you just said there, because those of us who are speakers and who are very active on Zoom know to have a standing, have a sitting, Like we're doing sitting right now, but I do like my, my hour-long shows, they're standing. 'Cause I wanna bring the energy. There's a different kind of energy you have in an interview than there is when you're having the conversation. But I think people need to think when they're absorbing, when they're consuming Zoom, have a stool, have a chair, have it where you can stand up. Like, and people go, I don't have this equipment for that. You can put a bunch of boxes.

Oh, you should see what I'm on. By the way, if you've seen some of these setups.

Yeah, if you've seen some of them, There are people on boxes. So you don't know behind the screen how they've got it that high. Who cares, right? So if you have a laptop where you can easily go from here to up here, just put some boxes there. When you're in the mood, move it up, stand up, uh, just move it before you are— if you're not properly like business dressed, uh, make sure you move before, right?

Please.

People have had those issues. So, but yeah, give yourself different setups. I love that.

For sure.

So now let's talk about what are ways that you are finding people to maximize the Zoom experience?

Yeah, so interestingly enough, what I used to do in person is not a whole lot different in a Zoom room. So whenever I would facilitate in person, I spend maybe 10% to 20% of the time talking, and the audience spends the rest of the time talking. Because, you know, if we kind of go back to what I've been talking about the whole time, it's Conversations. And really, my, my love in life is to bring out the collective wisdom in groups through facilitated conversations. So conversations are really the starting point of change. We can still have those conversations in Zoom. And we can do it in small groups to where everybody has a voice. So if you can just imagine, I'm sure most of the people that are listening to this or watching this have been in a Zoom room where there's, you know, 25, 50, 100, 200, 1,000 people.

Yeah.

on the Zoom, and you're just like this little box there. And there could be like a one-off conversation happening as you're all waiting for everybody to come into the room, and it feels a little exclusive and weird. And you're like, oh, look, Joe is talking to Jane, and they're having this whole one-off conversation. And everybody else is like, what the heck are they talking about? But they're feeling so connected, right? Well, what I do in my work is I, when, as soon as people come into the Zoom room, they get dropped into a smaller breakout. So I check their audio, I check their video, and I move them into breakouts just to have conversations with each other before we go into the facilitation for the day. Then we come back into the facilitation.

So before they're introduced, they're automatically, as soon as they come in, they're assigned. And so you're assigning them manually then, because you can't do that automatically then. And so you're just putting them in there immediately. Oh, I'm sitting here with 3 people. Do they know what they're being thrown in with 3 people? Or—

We explain that when they come to the main, you know, to the main room. And also, let me be clear, I usually have somebody that's helping me run all the buttons so that I'm not, you know, running the room and all the technology behind the room. But yeah, the idea is, people are going to feel most welcomed when they've been in a smaller group and everybody's been talk— you know, talking to each other. So what I usually do, if I have it my way, is I have, you know, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 facilitators in each of those rooms asking generative questions. Hey, what's a win that you've had this week? What's a silver lining that you've seen of this pandemic? What's a new habit that you've started?

OK.

that you want to continue once the pandemic is done? So that's how we start the meeting.

Yeah.

And then when we bring everybody back together, it's a really quick, hey, here's what's happening. Here's the focus of our meeting, which could be, you know, a range of things, depending on if I'm helping a company create shared vision or values, or if I'm helping a learning community with personal development with, you know, with its members. And so everybody comes back on, And then quickly, I'm presenting a question to them. And then I'm moving them again back into the breakout groups. And I'm very focused in my dynamics of, we start in the inner world. We start with the individual. We start in the heart. We ask a question around appreciation: Where have you seen humanity at its best in the last 8 weeks? Ask people to write those stories. I put on some music in the background while they journal for a minute or two. And then I pop them into a breakout group for, with, you know, 2, 3, 4 people to share the stories. And then as a group, if they have time, I invite them, hey, what are the lessons that you've learned from seeing humanity at its best? And then everybody comes back in. And then I invite, you know, 4, 5, 6 people to share back into the large group so we can like really open the curtain on what happened in, in these breakout groups. So the methodology I use is The same in person; it's the same online. It's very intentional. It's called Exchange. And it is a phenomenal way—

I know it! I just talked to one of the founders of the— yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, you are! What am I saying? It's you, right?

I think that's actually how we, how, how we got connected through—

Yes, yeah.

Through Dr. Hope. So it's very intentional on, on Zoom to get people connected, to get people talking into those breakout rooms so that you're creating heart-to-heart conversations around their inner world first. Then we can go into some, like, crowdsourcing, or some problem-solving, or creating guiding principles for a group or values. But every question we ask is generative. Every question we ask is based in some type of a story that they're mining the lessons from, they're mining the values from. Then we come together and say, hey, well, now we have all these ideas that everybody's come up with. Let's figure out which ones we want to go deeper with. And then we start imagining the future from that place.

This is awesome. So, I want to wrap up with a question of, you know, we're all about mutually amazing. So, what do you think, Adair, is a key to living a mutually amazing life? What's something people— what's a skill set people can use for helping live that?

Yeah, it's such a beautiful question. And I love that term mutually amazing because it's aspirational. And so when we, when we shoot for something that's aspirational, even if we don't reach that, we're always going to get to higher ground from where we are right now. And so I think asking generative, aspirational questions that bring people to life, that help people feel connected to their heart, that help people feel connected to each other. So asking questions that are life-giving, that are abundance-focused, and then also being an amazing listener. There's nothing more powerful in these Zoom breakout rooms than having someone listen deeply to what you're saying and actually feel the connection, which is easy to feel in person, maybe not as easy to feel virtually. However, it's still happening. People still feel that heart connection. So listening is a really big piece of that. And then the whole concept of equal voices, making sure that everyone's heard, everyone has an opportunity to share.

Love that. So what I'm doing right now is I'm making sure that everybody can find you. I'm putting out a comment below at firsttoleadyou.com so everybody can see that. Uh, we just put that both on all of our live streams. Is there any other places that are great for people to find you at, Adair?

Yeah, that would be exchangeapproach.com as well. And as exchange is spelled X-C-H-A-N-G-E and then approach.com. And there's actually periodic free webinars with the Exchange community if you go to their website. There's actually one coming up that you can join, you can sign up for. It's free. So you can better understand, you know, what is this methodology for facilitating conversations that create connection and that lead to exponential outcomes?

Love that. I want to thank you so much for joining us today. This has been fantastic. You gave such rich conversation. So thank you, Adair.

You're very welcome. Thank you for having me.

Absolutely. And for all of our listeners, viewers, subscribers, Uh, know that you can always find us at mutuallyamazingpodcast.com where we're constantly putting out new material. Of course, iTunes. We do the show live at Mutually Amazing Podcast, the Facebook page. So just go facebook.com/mutuallyamazingpodcast. That's new. So this is brand new that we did this way, but we want to bring a place where people can show up, ask questions, and participate. So we thank you all for joining us. Have a great week.