Behind the Scenes at Certification - Part 3

Hey, No Ego Podcast listeners. This is Alex Dorr with the Reality Based Dream Team filling in for Cy here to frame up this episode. We were actually able to get some exclusive behind-the-scenes content of Cy at our latest Reality Based Leadership certification program, and we're really looking forward to sharing this with you because we think it's super incredible. Now, for those of you that don't know that we have a certification program or don't know what Reality Based certification is, It's our Train the Trainer program for individuals that have been interested in our philosophy, maybe using it informally in their organization. It's a way to formalize all of that approach and take it back and deliver this as your core curriculum for leaders and for staff to be able to start officially ditching the drama for good at your organization. And so it's a 3-day course offered twice a year. And what we do is we just have an absolute blast in those 3 days teaching people how to deliver the content, what's the magic behind it, how to deliver this in person to your leaders and staff in a way that's sustainable. And then we talk through all of the tools that you can use in meetings or one-on-ones to take the energy away from why we can't and put it all into how we could. And to really move away from chaos into clarity in the workplace. And to sustain that for a long time to come. One of our favorite parts of that 3-day course is usually day 2, which is what this podcast episode is all about. It's where Cy comes in and she just basically does a freestyle on anything that's on her mind, that is trends out there, what she's excited about, what are some secret coaching techniques or secret ideas that she hasn't passed on. She gives those to our facilitators. facilitators, and it just turns into a free-flowing conversation about how to take the philosophy to the next level and gets into some contextual tough examples that people have been trying to break through for a while. And we thought, in saying all of that, because it was such good content, that we would offer that to you guys so you could get a feel of what happens at certification. So again, hope you guys enjoy this. Thanks for being amazing avid fans that are out there doing great work. And And let's keep ditching the drama.

This is the No Ego Podcast, where we ditch the drama, end entitlement, and transform your world place. I'm Sy Wakeman. The reason tools work, and this was kind of my success, is I didn't— if we're verbally dialoguing, it's all going to be ambiguity, and the ego loves ambiguity. You say something, I turn it, make it into an insult. I make you into an idiot. I say something, you project on me. You— I project on you, you project on me, and we make no progress in the meetings. So we gotta break projection. Projection is when I am taking my view of the world from an ego perspective. I'm not paying attention to what's truly going on. I'm putting this cloak over you where I'm just projecting on you, right? So when you're in therapy with me, one of the things we do is we try and get stuff out on paper visually to break projections. Let me give you a simple example. A guy came in to me and he was there because his wife had said that he had 90 days to make a decision between his girlfriends and her. And she gave him 90 days. Okay? And so, you know, stuff happens, right? In a therapy office, no one ever comes in and says, I've lived a good clean life, I just wanted to talk. Said no one ever, right? So I'm like, oh, okay. And so I'm like trying to get at some self-reflection on his relationship with women. I thought it might give him some good information. Just what he's familiar with, we tend to reenact what we're familiar with. And so every time I would bring up, like, tell me about, like, the relationship with your mom, instant projection. He would just get mad at me, and he would be, like, flirty with me, and he would just get all weird. And verbal dialogue rarely works in cases like this. So I said, okay. I said, we're gonna tackle the tough topic. Tell me about your mom. And I got a piece of paper out, And we sat down together like this, and it was on the board. I'm like, tell me about your mom. And it wasn't him against me, and it wasn't verbal dialogue. I said, because I want to draw your family up here, I'm going to do a family sculpt. Tell me about your mom. My mom? Beautiful. Amazing. PhD. While she had— she was a single mom. She had me. She got her PhD. She's well-written. We traveled the world together. I've been to Africa with her. I've been to the Maldives with her. So let's draw your mom on this piece of paper. I would say right here, right? Doesn't it sound like his mom's the center of his life? And so you could just see as I drew that, he got uncomfortable. And I go, so she pretty much was the center existence of you growing up and single mom and you had all this fun stuff. He goes, well, she didn't actually raise me. I go, oh, so would you put her here? No, actually, that'd probably be my grandma. I go, oh, where would you put your mom? She was here. She came in and out, and she'd take me on these trips. And when she was getting her PhD, she was at, you know, whatever college. I go, oh, interesting. So what was your grandma like? I would just say vanilla, completely dependable, there every day. Of my life. Every day after school, 4 o'clock, I came home, there was my grandma. You know, just salt of the earth. Hmm. Tell me about your girlfriend. Beautiful, travels the world, we meet up in foreign places. You guys are like, this is so damn obvious. He's like not getting it. And so I'm like, well, tell me about your wife. He actually used the words, Vanilla. And that's when it hit him. It hit him. He goes, vanilla. He goes, oh. I go, yeah, you might have recreated something in your life. Sounds like— I'll just send this paper home with you. You have a choice to make. And he was just dumbfounded. That's breaking projection. We've been through 6 sessions of him mad at me and mad at his wife. Because she would like monogamy. That's what he had agreed to. I don't care if you're monogamous, but that's what he agreed to when he took the wedding vows. They had a bunch of kids together. Like, so by putting this on paper, it dissolves the ego's grip on your view of the world. And that's why I love tools. It changes the energy. If I'm up here leading a meeting and you're like coming at me, then I represent the organization to you. I represent the bad guy. But if I use a tool in shared governance and I just join you, I'm like, well, let's think about that together. What do you see there? It's completely different. And that's why we talk about that thinking inside the box. When you come in and people are like— a lot of times you guys do thinking outside the box. You guys, we have a cleanliness problem in our area. What can we do? And people come up with ideas for what other people should do, or money. They're like, we could hire Sam's uncle who does steam cleaning and he can come in at night and clean this area. And then I asked you for ideas. I say, you know, we can't, we have a budget freeze. And then you come, I go, what else you got? Well, we could have environmental services, the janitorial staff come 4 times a day instead of 3 times a day. And then I Say, no, we can't. They're 2 staff down. We're trying to work with them to— you come up with every idea, and then I say no. They go, well, we can paint. The paint's chipped. We could get the whole unit repainted. And I go, well, no, that's on the capital plan for 2020. We can't do that now. And then you go, well, before we were part of corporate, we could do what we wanted. And so I'm representing corporate telling you no, no, no. You're awesome, you come up with all these great ideas, and we end where you feel like this is some sort of sick game. But instead I go, let's increase cleanliness, and here's the deal. Whoops, that's not how you spell it. Cleanliness. Got no money, and we cannot require things of other entities. This has to be totally self-contained, what are your ideas? That's why thinking inside of the box is so powerful, because people go, well, when I bring supplies up, I hate making too many trips, so I bring up an entire cart. I just set them in the hallway. I could bring supplies up like just per day. Awesome. I could rebound for myself when I just strip off gown and I throw it in the direction of the garbage can and it falls on the floor and I don't want to glove back up to pick it up and put it in the garbage can. And I just leave it there. You know, the patient sees that when they get up to use the restroom. It's like, I could actually rebound for myself. I could, if I missed the basket, I could actually put gloves back on, or I could walk closer to the trash can before shooting. Like, I'm like, yeah, and now we have a whole list of things you can do, and I just say, can you commit to these? I start leaving meetings where my only responsibility is to resource or support you. I facilitate you to come up with how you are going to change your world because you're a talented licensed professional. And that's why I don't reinforce this whole thing like, give me the list. Now, if you said to me, I'll rebound, but have you seen our trash cans? They're this big. And somebody stole all of our big trash cans. I don't know where they go, but we don't have them. I'm a leader. I'm like, thank you. That is actually something I can impact. And I actually went down to environmental services and stole all of our trash cans back, right? So, but the thing with the focus is what I could do. Do you get the feel how this changes things? Now it's not you helping me as a leader do better by you, it's you and I fixing our unit or fixing our, you know, division or whatever it is. Does that help a little bit with speaking towards that? Other questions?

Yeah. When someone comes into your office with their BMW, how long do you let them vent if you see that the story is going to continue?

Okay, so this is a big question. How do you— how long do you let them vent? And this is where you use discernment. If somebody's emotionally activated, like they just I mean, big stuff, like they were just traumatized in some way, like maybe they got yelled at or— you tend to the person first. I care about— but you tend to them. You don't— most of us go silent. I care about you. Take a breath. Slow down. You're safe. I care about you. Take a breath. Slow down. Feel safe, right? And then very quickly I go, this isn't an effective way to deal with this. I just need to vent. Why? I want to feel better. Oh, I have an evidence-based way to feel better. Self-reflection leads to accountability. Accountability accounts for 40% of your happiness according to Achor and a bunch of other people studying this. So we're good. I'll show you how to self-reflect. I'll show you how to drive your own engagement. I care about you. You're fine. So a lot of times I tend to the person first, but I'm pretty skilled, so I'm pretty quick, but the longer you let somebody vent, the harder it is to unwind that thing. Now, when they're not activated, right, is the best time to teach them. I've noticed— hear my tentative language— a trend that I'm one of the first people you come to if you're activated. I don't say angry or upset, and I would like our work together to be more beneficial to you and your growth. So in the future, when you come to me, I will quickly move us into an SBAR. And if you're not coming with one, we will both turn towards our sheet of paper, and I will draw out S-B-A-R, and we will put your story into those categories. And I wanted to tell you this when you weren't activated so that you didn't mistake what I'm doing for lack of caring or lack of support. And so a lot of times, if I have somebody who tends to do that, I have to give them a time they're not upset, because when you're upset, you're not able to bring in a lot of information, and tell them my expectations. And I don't lower the standard. This time you don't need an S-part. I just have to support. We'll do it together. Does that help? Other times, I have people come in and they're like venting. a tradition of having printer paper, even though I love all electronic, people need to see it visually. So I have printer paper on my desk and I write in big Sharpies so you could read from there what I'm writing about you. I learned that in HR, people are like, what are you writing about me? I'm like, I just make it very open. And here's how I prime the pump. So you're telling me, oh my gosh, it was absolutely ridiculous. I trained these folks and I asked them for feedback and they shredded me on the evaluation and they even went through my PowerPoint and they aren't even trainers and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and she's sobbing. And I listened to her vent. I couldn't get her to stop venting. She's very upset. So what I did was some work for her while I'm listening. And then when she took a breath, I go, so pretty much I heard your story and I think I have the facts. Let me see if this resonates with you. From what you're telling me, it's like 15 minutes, you asked for feedback. Yeah. And then the next fact I picked up is you got feedback. Yeah. And then you— now you cry. So pretty much what happened, from what I could pull together, is you asked for feedback, you got feedback, and now you cry. And she did. She went from tears to laughing because that visual thing is so soothing. And I'm not accusing of anything. And she's like, oh yes. And I go, but it was a traumatic experience. So can we look at it this way? And can I help you sort through the feedback? What was most upsetting? And why might that have been upsetting? What was it about that? She's like, well, I just, I'm so passionate about the topic. I tried really hard. And I go, I love that you're passionate about the topic and the engineers are telling you that that story didn't work for them. So if you're passionate, change the story, but only when working with engineers. I'm always, my ratings are always super high. Yeah, bankers love you. It's all you've trained, but we're training engineers now. They're different. And so do you see how I regulate my tone? I just get neutral. I agree with what you say. Well, I've always been rated high. I don't go, well, there's that one time. Okay, that's probably not true. You've always been rated high. I trust you. I let go of my end of the tug-of-war rope. I trust you. You've had high ratings. It doesn't seem to be the case this time. Let's neutrally dig down into that. She's like, I don't like training engineers. I go, and that could be a choice you want to make in your life, that you don't train engineers. Well, I want them to like me. So you do want to train engineers. Yeah, but I want to train them my way. Well, they said they don't really like that. Well, I don't want to train people who don't like me. Then I wouldn't train engineers. Well, I want to train engineers. Let's train engineers. But it sounds like you'll have to tell a different story. And part of going around that bend Is I just go, okay, let me get this straight. Let me put it on paper. You want to train engineers. They like this type of story. You don't want to tell that type of story, but you want to train engineers. I just show them the circular on paper and I go, I want you to take this paper with you and let me know how you worked your way out of that one. There's only a way out. You don't train engineers or you change your story. I don't want to do either. Well, it sounds like you'll suffer. Sounds like you'll train engineers poorly for a long time, but I'm not gonna interfere with your reality. If you wanna train engineers poorly for a long time, awesome, start your own company, you won't do it on mine. Well, I don't wanna leave. Well then, I would train engineers differently. But most of us enable by bending reality. Well, maybe there's a way that I could prescreen all the engineers to see if they like stories about banana bread or whatever, and then we could like bring that in. And people are like, they start bending reality. Let me cherry-pick all my training and give up revenue because you want to just tell your same story. And that's how we enable. We do it all the time. We do it all the time in how we assign work. I'm not going to protect you from your reality. You're training engineers tomorrow. They're going to shred me. Yeah, especially if you don't tell a different story. Well, I don't want that. Tell a different story. And that's where we just won't show people how the world works. We keep it from them. I cannot tell you the number of family practice docs, sigh, it's not fair what the surgeons make. I go, well, no, actually we checked between all the surgeons, it's pretty fair. All of them make half a million dollars, every single one of them. Well, it's not fair because primary care docs don't make that. I go, well, I don't know if I asked you with fairness, but let me help you. Do you want to make $500,000 a year? Yes! Awesome. Go to surgery. Become a surgeon. Well, I want to do the extra 7 years of training. Then make $150,000. Well, that's not fair. It sounds like you're not fair to yourself because you want to make $500,000, but you won't go on and do your fellowship. Program. So they want me to do something about it, but they're like, sigh, I want to make more money. And I'm like, then make more money. You can be more productive, you can go to surgery school, you can start your own company. But I don't know how I got to be the person who needs to work harder at your money than— I'm fine with the money I make. And if I want more money, I go make more money. And if I want more vacation, I make less money. That's how the world works. But most people come to you wanting you to bend how the world works. I want to be a primary care doc who makes what surgeons make, and I want to work no-call and PA hours. Wow, that might be a different planet, but last I checked the world, if you're— I'm not saying people can't get creative and change their reality. I'm not saying that. They can get creative and change their reality, but most people want to delegate the change of reality to me. And it is a way to keep totally separate. People come to you with all their complaints. They're like, so what are you gonna do about it? I'm like, well, first I'm gonna check my life. How's that going for me? Yeah, I'm happy. So I guess I don't need to do anything about it. It sounds like your life you're struggling with. And people accuse you all the time. So if I don't cover my tattoos, you're gonna take my medical career away from me and by firing me? I'm like, you're thinking of giving up your medical career? Pushing it to the point where we have to fire you because you won't cover your tattoos? That sounds insane. Well, you're gonna make me— you're telling me that you're gonna— I said, yeah, I will follow policy. So you're taking this away from me. I'm like, you're thinking of giving up your entire medical career? So there are all these ways that because we're not clear about how the mind works, we fall for it every time. That person's sleeping, you're awake at night working on their life. That's a problem. It's called codependency. Leadership is built on it. Believe it or not, 2020 is quickly approaching. It is time to jump in to be part of Our amazing Ditch the Drama tour for 2020. I'm telling you what, you guys, you have got to move quickly to get in on this opportunity for a full day with yours truly. I haven't done this in the past. I am basically doing a tour on a mission to ditch the drama in 2020. I'm coming to 4 cities. There's 4 places you can join me: Houston, Denver, Indianapolis and Raleigh, North Carolina. And I'm telling you what, this starts in February with Houston, the Ditch the Drama tour that you're not going to want to miss. It is where I'm going deep in the philosophy. This isn't just training. I'm going to present the core philosophy in some really new ways, some really mind-blowing ways to see our philosophy. But then we are going to go deep into not only your questions— this will be your time to give me questions that I will answer. I'm also going to directly coach some of you, and we'll pick them that day. I'm going to coach some of you to come up on stage with me, and we will work you through a typical dilemma that you find in your workplace. This is it, folks. Tickets are only $399 right now. We want to fill the auditorium up. $399 tickets right now can be yours, but you got to jump on realitybasedleadership.com. That's DTD, like ditch the drama. So realitybasedleadership.com/dtd2020. And at that price, folks, bring your whole team. This is your chance to get everybody on board with living a drama-free lifestyle at work and at home. This is the No Ego Podcast. Where we ditch the drama, end entitlement, and transform your world place. I'm Sy Wakeman.