Building Your Resilience During Uncertainty

This is the No Ego Podcast, where we ditch the drama, end entitlement, and transform your world place. I'm Sy Wakeman. Hello everybody, Sy Wakeman here, coming to create some space for all of us. One of the things that, um, I want to, um, talk about today is resilience. And so a question you can answer for yourself and start a discussion in the chat is, what have you learned about your own resilience? Like, did you enter this and realize that you're more resilient than you thought? Were you surprised that perhaps you were less resilient, that you were thrown for, you know, into a loop by some of this? We're going to talk about resiliency today. I have to say, as I'm here in Mexico looking at national news and what's really taken over some of my Instagram feed is the thing that's being revealed for us is the true extent of the racism and divide in our nation. And although I don't use this format for politics, what I want all of us to do is really Take time each day for us to learn, because it's not whether or not we're racist. We are racist. And finding out for each one of us what that means and how we can learn. And just knowing there's no such thing as neutral. I'm hearing a lot of folks going, you know, I'm not racist, I'm not anti, I'm not— I'm just going to be neutral. There is no neutral. There's just no neutral. Prayers don't help. I mean, prayers always help, but praying's not enough. We need to have some action. There's those of us that have within our grasp some way— we just need to get involved in this. We need to make sure that everyone in our world has a secure place in that world. The biggest concern is how to engage with racist denial. I go back to my advice always. Love wins. Tend to the person first. We all can have compassion for— none of us, like, gets it and now we're the A students to judge others. The minute you get it, you will have another blind side. The minute you get it, you'll have another blind side. I say move forward with compassion, and instead of trying to convince people, we need to focus on not enabling people through either silence or— Agree. our behavior. I don't know that we need to go out and radically, you know, take on and confront. I really think that a better thing is to work with the easy converts, get a critical mass, and follow. At this time, I'm following, not leading, because just by definition of how I was raised, I have horrendous blind spots. So I am like, I will sit and learn. And by the way, it's not someone else's responsibility to teach me. But as long as they're preaching, I'm going to be listening because it also is a burden to put the responsibility on somebody. You know, somebody comes up and kicks you in the shins and then says, well, can you teach me manners? It's like, well, no, it's not my responsibility to teach you manners. So it's a topic that I'm— I'm undereducated on and certainly will get more connected and just will do some highlighting on. I just didn't want it to go unsaid because it's so heavy on my heart. And for those of you saying, oh my God, I'm so surprised that we still have this, that too is not so sensitive to people who have been living with it. And it's like we're late to the party. We're like, I'm surprised this exists. It's not surprise. We've been in some active denial. So we need to get up to speed on that. I say that for myself. So anyway, how do you keep anxiety from the people you advise at bay? You do well with this. I see this happen in the workplace and within families. Some of the time is when the advice isn't taken. Okay. So we're going to start with that one, Natalie. We're going to just add to some of these topics. So I'm switching gears. More will come back on diversity, inclusivity. It's such an activated topic right now. To come out with solutions is premature in my book on the diversity side. I think we need to just grow this pool of shared meaning and dialogue. We're still in the, for many of us, the let's get people aware. So when I talk about business readiness and change management, the first step is awareness. Action planning or, you know, really coming up with what we're going to do to go forward is based on people being aware and willing and then willing to advocate. And then we get into action. So I don't really have anything to come out with with here's how it should be, because I think we all just need to really up our own awareness. So I'm gonna switch topics. Natalie, thank you for this. How do you keep the anxiety from the people— I just lost that, okay— from the people you advise at bay? Okay. While you can do things that don't add to the anxiety, you can stop adding to it, you can work to offer some relief from it, some ideas. What you can't do is control the level of anxiety that they feel. Some of it's a choice by their reactions, some of it's not. And so this is so important for leaders. Leadership, I'm coming to realize, is like a spiritual practice. So I can't teach you your own answers or your own spirituality. Like, that's within you. That is your unlearning and revealing. What I can do is adopt a different mindset. Instead of me having to put something into you, or you are broken and we need to fix it, or I need to develop you and operate from a place of lack. Lack in you. I prefer the philosophy that you are all you need, you have all you need, that the real work is in the revealing, the unlearning, the working to facilitate self-reflection in you so that you can, you know, discover, reveal, and it doesn't operate from a person that a position that you're already of lacking. So one, as a leader, as someone who's doing the advising, we have to really get clear on what our philosophy about human beings are. Are they broken and thank God for us, we will teach them and help them be better and fix them? And is there something lacking? Or are they dang near perfect and Once the drama is gone, their natural state is innovation, collaboration, open-mindedness, open-heartedness. And this makes a difference. Because one is, I am the leader and I need to have impact on you and how you turn out has something to do with me. Okay, that's taking a lot of responsibility and setting people up as victim and fixer. Or are we equals and there are times that I have decision-making power, but for the most part, if leadership is a spiritual pursuit, is my role like that of a spiritual leader that doesn't tell you the truth but facilitates a process for you to discover your truth? Is it that I don't enable you to move away from what could be known to you. And I don't protect you. And I don't try and serve things up in orchestrated manners. But perhaps I stand beside you while you have a direct experience with reality. And I facilitate your self-reflection. And beyond self-reflection, I insist on contemplation. So resilience in the moment is when I get hooked, I can self-reflect and unhook my ego. And move into high self and come at this moment with more of my intelligence. That's what self-reflection does for us. And then sometimes self-reflection lets us see a pattern by which we could intentionally, with that knowledge, engage in some growth and development for ourselves. There's also this whole other place of contemplation that moves beyond self-reflection And so when we look at resilience, resilience in the moment gets fueled by self-reflection. But resilience as a long-term competency or skill set, moving through the world in some resilient ways, has more to do with contemplation, which is kind of a spiritual practice of not just questioning your thoughts or questioning your story. That's the short term, all good. But it's more about questioning Your wisdom and your interaction with the world and questioning some of the bigger things that probably will never be answered, but in the act of contemplation and questioning, some key discoveries are made. And so I bring this up, you know, as we look at this question. So how do you keep people— back to the question— from the anxiety? You can't keep them from the anxiety. You can do a couple of things. I can refrain from adding insult or energy to the anxiety. So you're like, oh my gosh, nobody's figured out a plan. And I as a leader come in and collude with you and go, I know. And if you think that's bad, it's this. And you go, I know. So one, don't escalate the anxiety. Be very clear that when you come in that you are By role model, by energy level, a calming force just by showing up. Don't escalate it. And then the other piece of this is don't enable it. Oh my gosh, you are so anxious, so given that, let me start lowering the standards and giving you bonus points and accommodating your fear. Don't enable it. The reality is I'm here. I won't escalate it. I understand you're very anxious. Are you in a place that you would like to learn some techniques or have some help with how to move through the world less anxiously? And if the answer is yes, I can self-disclose one technique I have found or something you might try. Or one thing I'm left wondering is, do we really know that for sure? Or we had a staff meeting, how might this tool— and learned a tool, how might that apply? So I'm there as a facilitator, present to you, tending to you, maybe anchoring you into tools we already know, asking if you're willing to, you know, learn some ways that might be resilient coping methods, right? And if you move away from that, if that's not where you're at right now in that anxiety, I can't control your anxiety. I cannot enable it. I cannot build it. I can then just not enable it by saying, I think right now you're anxious. I'm going to stay present. And sometimes we just need to move forward with anxiety. So my short answer to this is you can't keep anxiety away from your folks. You can just not add to it and not enable it. And you cannot save people from it. When it happens at work and within families, you know, and you might give some advice, and I would stay away from advice. I would say, here's what helps me. Role model, reflect, offer help. One thing that might be helpful I learned is this. And when they are arguing, they're like, no, that's not right. That's not right. I ask them, what's one thing I could do right now that would be supportive? I don't even say would take your anxiety away. What's one thing right now that I could do to reinforce my care for you or that would be supportive? And then I get to choose. They go, well, just let me off early today. It's like, while I can't do that, I am open to some other suggestions. What else would be supportive? And put it back on that person to— You know, work through that and offer suggestions. It's okay to say, we don't have to know right now. Can I check back with you in like an hour? Take breaks. We need to stop fearing feelings. People are fully capable of them. We need to, as leaders, unlearn what has been put on us that we are to be responsible even for the feelings of our people. We are not. We are responsible for not adding insult. We're responsible for calling people up to greatness, whether or not they accept the invitation. We're responsible for not enabling. We're responsible for not abandoning people because they don't do what we want. Be present with your people. Offer what you can. Don't enable. Sometimes they're going to choose not to take your advice and stay anxious. Keep your standards high. Continue to revisit. Offer support. When you're out of options or even before, ask them what would be most supportive. If they say take it away, just say, well, I can't do that. What other ideas do you have? And I think that's a good model. Hopefully, Natalie, that was helpful. So bring a calming energy. I love that, Ms. Julie Roberts Saunders. A lot of times it's not what to do in these times. It's, as Annie pointed out, it's not enabling. It's the being yourself calm enough to be present without doing anything and just being open to all the many things that might be helpful and some that aren't helpful. We take on so much more responsibility. It's one thing we have to unlearn as leaders. We take on so much responsibility that isn't ours. People are asking me, Cy, how do I get my people to be personally accountable? It's like, it's called personal accountability. Like Why are you working hard to figure out how to get somebody else to be personally accountable? That's something they have to develop. Resiliency— people are like, Cy, can you come teach me how to get my people resilient? I'm like, resiliency is all about self-reflection, self-contemplation, self-regulation, self-knowledge, self, self, self. Resiliency is an individual endeavor. It is what we are responsible for developing to show up at work with. Readiness is what the organization's responsible for maintaining and requiring of individuals. But resiliency is the competency. I'm like, how can I develop better eyesight in Sai? It's like, you can't. If Sai wants to get LASIK, Sai can do that to improve her eyesight. But you can't really improve my eyesight. And that's where leadership has gotten way off track. We talk about emotional safety. And I'm like, you guys, I totally agree that everyone does better in an environment that is emotionally safe. Emotional safety isn't me protecting you from reality, from our circumstances. But I am, as a leader, responsible to give you an environment that's free from added insult If I have somebody who is, you know, adding trauma, it's like I need to give you an environment where those insults and that trauma are just not allowed. Yes, I need to do that. Um, I can help you get the skill sets and to grow in ways that help you be more skillful in moving through the reality. That increases your safety. Mm-hmm. But I can't keep an environment safe for you. And this is where organizations have become over-responsible and individuals under-responsible. Engagement. Sending some of our people home who weren't essential workers has shown that people are like, yeah, but, you know, they're home. How do I engage them when they're home? And I'm like, when does engagement become a personal responsibility? And we've revealed like a lot of lazy engagers. It's like when they're at work, if you're engaged because we have multiple flavors of coffee and I am overserving you, then engagement that of yours isn't portable. It is dependent on your circumstances. And, um, psychological safety is no longer portable. It's dependent on us perfecting your circumstances. We've gotten so confused between what is the organization's responsibility and what is our own responsibility. Not just individually, every person for themselves, but as individuals who come together collectively. And so love wins. And it's like, evolve yourself. But for me, it has to come down to I have some responsibility in increasing my skill set. So what's the role of a modern leader? Is calling people to greatness and facilitating good mental processes, not enabling when people are using poor mental processes. And really not telling you what to do— that's old management— but managing energy away from why we can't to how we could, and helping you manage your energy where I want to facilitate skillfulness. I want to facilitate you getting full learning experientially from your environment. How do I do that? I keep a direct relationship between you and your environment. I'm not buffering or enabling. And instead, I'm standing beside, helping you make sense of what's happening, not telling. But through fostering self-reflection, I'm helping you get more skillful so that you can move through your environment as it presents more freely and more safely. It's a very counterintuitive position that I'll be doing a lot more writing on. So other questions and comments? Love that part about emotional safety isn't freeing someone from reality but creating the space to move people to action. Absolutely. We've really got to get clean about our role as a leader. We've gotten either helicopter-ish in our parenting or snowplow-ish. We, we have some of the same dysfunction going on in the workplace as we do, which then sets us up for emotional blackmail, people not developing resiliency. We are out to impact the world, but part of our growth is the world impacts us. And many of us are skipping half of our cycle. We want the winning part, but not the losing part. We want the, we'll go impact, but not the, let's be impacted by. Like, if you look at the phases of the moon or the natural world, there's waxing and waning. And what we're trying to carve out for the shallow feel-goods, the ego stuff, is the feel-good stuff. And we're really discounting, um, the not-so-feel-good stuff and the effects that it could have, like, on our behavior. And so we can't orchestrate just the upside of something. And that's what this pandemic is about for me, is helping people nurture the downside, the skill sets they haven't allowed themselves to evolve and develop because of the avoidance of the downside. And I'm talking about what's our relationship to uncertainty, what's our relationship to stillness, what's our ability to sit with multiple things being true at once, what's our ability to sit with unsolicited or unwanted feedback. Like, it's those tough times that what happens is when somebody's moving into that downside where a lot of learning could take place, we as leaders tend to get in and shelter and coddle and rob people from being impacted by their circumstances. And so it becomes kind of a unilateral relationship with reality rather than kind of this give and take. And Sherri-Ann, you got it. She said the shadow work. The shadow work, girlfriend. Thanks for the words. Absolutely. Um, fostering that self-reflection. And this is big stuff. I feel like I'm not going to do it justice on one little Facebook Live, but it's the type of stuff we're going to be going into the inner circle with, the Zoom calls, the 8 set of Zoom calls. So be looking for those. I want to answer a couple of other questions. So what measures are you taking to stay— what a great question. Lori's asking, what measures are you taking to stay connected with your employees while you're social distancing? And there's a lot of wisdom out there. Throw them up there. for Lori some of these ideas. And one of the things I would tell you is I think as a leader, you need to have anchoring connection points where they aren't really optional and participation in them aren't optional. And it is come to these, whether it's Zoom meetings or whatever, and here's what we're going to be talking about. And here's the level of engagement I expect from you. And here's how I'm going to facilitate to really bring out great stuff in you. So let's say I have some junior folks not speaking up. It's like, well, here's what— I want you to give us an update on this particular project. Or I know this is a topic that's easy for senior folks to talk about, but some real expertise lies in this person. Or I'm going to put you in breakout rooms, ask you a question, Come back with kind of your final take on these things. So leaders, to stay connected, we've got to get really good at the disciplines of one-on-ones and team meetings, really good at office hours where you have an open Zoom meeting that people can come in for the random stuff. And it's not all about Zoom. Ways in which you are finding kind of those anchors. Right? The extra is what you can cater to, whether somebody needs more or less, is extroverted or introverted, struggles with technology, doesn't, has different home situations than others. That's your flex time. But the basics need to be— to stay the same. And by the way, instead of all the leaders figuring out how do we stay connected, that's a perfect self-reflection to people Identifying their level of loneliness. Loneliness, or lack of connection, is individual to the person, so you can't define it, but it's the gap between how much social interaction you would like and how much you're getting. So if somebody prefers a couple deep relationships that connect once in a while, and they have that, they have no loneliness and no— Kind of need for further connection. So be very careful that you require team connection as people giving, even if they don't feel like they need to receive. It's a responsibility to the team. Some of this other piece, you need to work towards people's gaps. And then the solution to this problem could be, team, go out and research. And what we're going to do at our next— team meeting on Monday is you come back to me, each of you come back to 10 ideas on how we can connect in times of social distancing that are innovative and don't involve a Zoom meeting. Go. Right? And so it's— be very careful when you are taking responsibility for how do I keep my team connected rather than how do I facilitate the discussion on team Show your resiliency. What are your innovative ideas for being connected in times like this? See, it hurts people's resilience when you do the research and do it for them. And here's what you put them in the position of. What's left for them to do? Critique it, not engage in it, not agree with it. Instead, put them in the position of designing, curating, and creating it. So when people come back and say, we aren't really connected, it's like, well, what's your part in that? What is your piece in this? Samantha's asking the name of my new book. It's not out yet, but it's going to be called Life's Messy, Live Happy. But other things I have seen people do as far as staying connected is finding things to work on together, finding ways to not just get on and talk on Zoom, but finding ways that we can join the same spin class or we can put a question out there that everybody works on in their own time and iterative on Slack or whatever that is jointly kind of solves this puzzle that it doesn't involve Zoom fatigue. Connections could be disclosure of something more vulnerable to them. And the best way to connect people is to get them involved in meaningful creating and meaningful work that isn't just a Zoom meeting, but if you want to connect Connect people, say, the 3 of you who are kind of strangers at work to one another, here's some meaningful work for you to work on, a project. And here is, you know, kind of the milestones I need. Go do meaningful work together. Solve this problem together. Create this new process together. The main way people connect is not attendance and spending time with one another. That's not it. Connection comes from ways we get vulnerable, ways we show appreciation, which is vulnerability, ways in which we involve people in adding to our own solutions that we're needing, our calls to greatness, our kind of feedforward, our giving suggestions for how we could move through the world differently, and participating in meaningful work where we feel like together we made the world a better place. And while we were doing that, we became better people. So whatever is out there, don't look at the connecting of just the Zoom social hour. Connection comes from vulnerability, me becoming a better person, evolving, me being loved while I evolve, and us together making the world a better place or making our work a better place. So it comes back to those basic things about Connection comes when I can show you grace, mercy, tolerance, give you space to move through the world a little messily, and when I can, um, be vulnerable with how I'm evolving and you can be vulnerable with your evolving, and where we can come together as gracious, merciful, loving people who are focused on their own evolution and now are going to imperfectly come together and create something new. That's the thing you're trying to facilitate together. And it's messy, and it's not gonna go as described, and you're not gonna come out with the, you know, top 10 ways to connect your people. You're gonna need to invite your people to lean into the messiness and to get vulnerable and to be known to others and to do hard things and to screw up and make apologies. And if you want people connected, get them real and honest with the messiness while having to achieve an audacious goal. So hey, you humans, bring all your messiness, bring all your evolution. I want you to try and impact the world together while being impacted by your world And, uh, just being in the open book about that. Now talk about connection, right? And, um, and it's not connecting with sharing tips of the trade, it's connecting with sharing, I was anxious, did it anyway, and was revealed that my anxiety is something I hide out in, but I'm going to push through right now. Let's go forward. So another way to connect people when you are together in like a Zoom meeting Is to not just take the report out, but to have some really great questions that you lean in and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Thanks for the update. What was that like for you? Was there anything disappointing to date in this process? What's one way you might have found that you, you know, could have stayed curious one moment longer and it would have been helpful? I don't know what those questions are. But if you want connection, leaders need to create the space and really call people to greatness and give people audacious goals. And then really make sure that you ask people to show up with some vulnerability and drop in the armor and see if we can't do some big work together regardless of our circumstances. So, Lori, you might have been looking for tips, but the tips are out there under Google. I think it's more important that we think about meaningful work and meaningful experiences. And I love it, folks, that you can put some techniques out there. Book clubs, Sherry-Ann, I love this. I've heard that's a great way to connect because it's like you're reading something that isn't about you and it's not about me, but together instead of— I love that. us dialoguing, we can center around a book, which gets all of our projection onto the book, and just share kind of what that brings up for us. It's a great way to do that. I listened to a podcast yesterday that talked about 2 brothers had stumbled on this technique that if they sit down in a conflict eye to eye, it's too intense. And so they tend to hike, and they're walking side by side or right behind the other. And that helps create space for better interaction. Or if you have a parenting conversation to have, it just goes better when you're side by side in the car rather than like looking somebody directly in the eye. And I think that's just important to create these spaces where we can drop a bit of the armor, focus outside of ourselves, and share in less threatening ways, but be willing to take risks And to share that. Let's see. So Tina is asking how I best call one of my direct reports up to greatness when it comes to her providing announcements or changes to her direct reports. She's asked me to provide announcements that I can tell she is feeling uneasy about. I'm wondering what approach is best when explaining the value in her providing the education announcement support so she's fully in the reality of her role. What a great question. It really fits into how we're delegating things we're just not comfortable with. Um, so when we're finding that someone's just shying away from, um, that uncomfortableness, meet them with some vulnerability. You know what? I get this. Self-disclose. I don't even like— Cy Wakeman doesn't even like Confrontation or uncomfortable things. It seems easier in the moment for me to do that for you, but I guarantee you it makes it harder long-term. So part of your role, one of the things I want you to work on next is stepping up fully into doing a good job with bringing your team the news of the day. And so One, that's the standard that you set, and you do it with compassion and understanding and self-disclosure, if that fits for you. And then you say, you know what, this is what we're going to put on project status. This is what I want you fluent in in the next few months. And so help me understand what seems to be the toughest part of that for you. What's the scariest part? Where do you get— Um, You know, tripped up? What is anxiety causing? And just seek to understand, like, from her perspective or his perspective, what keeps you moving fully into this role? And then as best you can, clarify and kind of discuss what the meaning of that might be. I get really hot, you guys, because to keep all the ocean noise out, I have to close all the windows. So if I'm messing with my hair, I'm sorry about that. So set that standard. And, um, get curious and then say, part of this we can improve your skill set on with some things I've learned and some suggestions I can offer. And part of this you're gonna need to just learn through being scared and going through the experience of it. So we've gotten curious, we've understood what it is. Here's what needs to be taken to your team this week. And it seems like, you know, you want some wording around that. I'll give you some speaking notes. Why don't you practice with me making that announcement so you feel comfortable in it? I can maybe give you some feedback. It could be that we're going to, you know, you're on Zoom, record it. And let's look at that and see if there's any way you could do it better. So that you set the intention that we're going to get you fluent in this. Now let's move forward and figure out the how of that. And that's really where you partner and work together. But the non-negotiable is in your role as a supervisor, you need to get really fluent at this core competency of this role. And then really help. I ask questions. I'm like, so you made that announcement. Who came to you afterwards to test that? What conversations happened after the meeting? What ways did you give mixed messages and negate? What ways did you collude? It's natural human phenomena when you're new at this to try and soft pedal or collude or— how did that happen? It didn't happen. Awesome. I'm surprised because what I want to process now is when you do something brave, How did you give it all back during the week? Why don't you take an assignment for self-reflection? Come back to me with an example of how you may have diminished your strong message later in the week. You'd be hardly human if you didn't. And that's what we're going to play with for 2 months. And then look at this over a 2-month period, and then look back and praise the heck out of how far they've come. What did you learn? What do you need to remember? What did you need to capture? Anything that somebody's doing that's frustrating you, unless it's a true performance issue that needs fixed immediately, it's better to put it into what Marshall Goldsmith calls feedforward. Identify the issue. Go out. Who do you see is good at this? Go out and ask them their 3 best tips on being good at this. Put it on project status and just talk about, since it's an expectation to be fluent in this ability, Let's focus on all the ways that we can help get you there. And so it's the assumed close. It's feedforward. It's as partnership and that critical eye. It's acknowledging that we screw this up, but only daily. It's looking for progress, not perfection. And there's a timeline. Within 2 months, I need you pretty fluent in this. And now here's what we want to work on next. And I think that gives you kind of a good format for that. A couple of questions I've gotten in, and I won't do it exactly, so I'm paraphrasing these questions, but I want to make sure I acknowledge it. One leader asked me, like, what do you do? How do you address someone who comes to work, is asked to wear a mask, and they don't believe in the pandemic? They believe it's a conspiracy. They don't believe masks are required. They believe it's their individual legal right to not wear a mask. And how do you handle that? And here's what I would tell you is when someone hands you the end of a tug-of-war rope and they want to engage in that, don't accept the end of the rope. If you're on the end of the rope, gently drop the end of the rope and do what some orators are really good at doing. The question comes in, and instead of directly answering the question, which is a very activating one, move to clarifying what will move us forward. So it's this nice pivot work. So somebody came to me and just said, you know, I don't believe in that, I don't do this. So you know what, here's the good thing is we don't have to agree on political opinion or, you know, whether or not the pandemic is real or not. That really is about personal belief and individual Um, opinions. Since we're in a work situation, we don't have to find agreement on those personal items. We do need to, um, have compliance with the policies of the organization. So the policy is to wear a mask at work. It is the organizational policy. It is what we're being asked to comply with for a myriad of reasons. Are you able to guarantee me that you can comply with that? Well, I don't believe in it. I'm really okay with whatever you believe. My question is more about compliance and fulfilling the expectations of your role. Here's one of the requirements of the job. Well, I have civil liberties. I don't need to— You know, I can certainly give you some of the grievance processes if you feel that somehow I violated some rights that you have. In the meantime, I need to know if you can comply with this. No, I'm going to take a stand. I'm not complying with it. Okay, so what's your plan to get on board and comply fully with what we've been asked to do right now by our organization? I'm not gonna. So you have no plan to get on board with what's being asked of us? Nope. My opinion, it's unnecessary. I'm not going to do it. Then I need to ask what your plan is to transition off our team. So you're firing me because I won't wear a mask? You're resigning over a mask? Wait, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. I don't even go, I'm not firing you. I just go, you're, you're leaving your job because your belief, your stance on masks? Well, no, I'm not wearing a mask and you're telling me I'm fired. I'm asking you that if you aren't willing to comply, what's your plan then to transition off? And it seems like a mask and not wearing it is very important to you, and it seems like you're willing to give up your role with our organization based on that stance. And you know what my opinion about that is? What's your opinion? Is— has nothing to do with it. So my hope is you either show up in dress code. Um, if you don't, I will just need to move forward. Whatever choice you make, this is all your choice. I will simply respond with, um, the, the appropriate reaction to that. And then when it goes on and on and on, I have to say, I care so much about our relationship, I'm not willing to talk about— I'm not willing to talk about Yeah, but if you just understood this, all I need to understand is the policy, and I care about you, and my opinion makes no difference. My role here is to ensure that we're in compliance with the policy, and I— whatever you do on your own time is really yours. Yeah, but this is, this is exactly like your political affiliation, what football team you— if you are going to put into your colleagues' relationships things that are bringing controversy and not peaceful teamwork, I will address that as a leader. This is work. I need you to show up, leave that stuff aside, work for the betterment of the team. Is that something you're able to do? And take any harshness you might have heard in my Just wanting to answer that in a hurried way. Open-hearted, open-minded, clarity. So you're going to tell me how to think? Gosh, no. I am really only letting you know what I'm able to tolerate at work, right? I can't control, honest to God, whether you're a racist. I can only control that you don't disadvantage people at work. Now, I'll try and Only hire people that are evolving and looking at their own biases. But all of that stuff just clogs up the workplace, and people really feel like— they're like, I have a right to bring my whole self to work. And I'm like, absolutely not. You have a right to bring your most evolved self, your most professional self to work, and I will continue to call you to that. And so coming to work And wanting your rights to supersede somebody else's just isn't going to work. This isn't the platform. And so I'm giving you a lot of comebacks, but I don't want you to stay in this conversation that long. Set your boundary and don't try and change the other person. Let them know that they can make whatever choice they want and you'll respond to their choices. And let them know, I'm going to take my energy and move onto leading workplace activities. And if they don't wear a mask, address it. If they only wear like a mask half on, address it. If they put something offensive written on their mask, address it. But don't escalate it and don't buy into it. It's just matter of fact. It would be the same as whether they were working in a customer service role. out of uniform. So hopefully that helps. Okay, Jennifer says, I have a hard time remembering the words in the moment. All you gotta remember is timeout. And I swear to you, people are like, you're so good at this. No, I'm not. On the Myers-Briggs, I'm a feeler, you guys. It is a curse because on the Enneagram, I'm a 9. That's the peacemaker. I am the person who hates conflict, hates it. So what I've had to do a lot of times is write down just like 3 key sentences and be a broken record and just say, please don't take offense, but I'm trying to not add anything into this conversation that is my own personal stuff. I just am going to— I wrote this for myself. I just want to almost read from this to you. Right? And that's so important. It's so important that we don't add anything to that discussion. And don't apologize. Just go, I'll even show you my paper. This is— these are my notes. Admit that you're vulnerable and that you don't want to get off script on this. I just think there's no harm in— don't put yourself on the spot that you've got to think about this in the moment. And it's okay to be a broken record because that— one of the things I had to memorize to work with my own kids is, I love you too much to argue about this. It's a hard no. I'll be in the other room if you want to engage on a different topic. I would love to spend a nice evening with you, right? So Jennifer says she does have a cheat sheet. Good. Don't apologize for it. I wish more people would stay on script. Right? It's when we get off script that, just like we asked about that supervisor giving the hard message, we can do the script. It's what happens after the script where we pedal back and we confuse people and we give mixed messages. So here's what I want you looking for. We will continue once a week to do some Facebook Live and answer your questions. It's a good way for me while I'm remote, at least for next week to also serve up a podcast. You will be seeing in the next couple of weeks, we will be advertising public sessions. All of the core work of reality-based leadership. So if somebody has— you have one-off leaders or you've got friends or colleagues that want the actual, like, training, we'll be doing these short webinars, like hour and a half on each of these topics that you can just buy Into. We also have those for your companies. There's some companies saying we don't want just people doing the public, we want really customized Cy. It's rare to get access to you at a discounted rate, but since it's virtually, I'll come on and do things virtually for you, right for your company. But what I'm most excited about is I'm setting up— and I don't know what we're going to call it, but it's going to be a pack of 8 Zoom calls weekly where we all get together and it is deeper work. And that's a lot about some of the new stuff I'm putting in the book and coaching and answering your questions directly. So look for those things and really make sure you get super curious about what's going on in our world, in our nation right now. I don't know the answer. I don't know the recommendation. I know that what we're doing is not creating a place for everybody to live up to their best self. And I want to figure out how to be part of the solution. And I don't know what that looks like. I'm just sitting back and absorbing right now. And so stay curious, stay kind, stay open-minded. Thank you. Stay open-hearted. Take care of the person next to you. And the way to connect is through meaningful work together, either me working on my evolution or me witnessing and supporting you working on your evolution, or us solving something for the world together. This is the No Ego Podcast, where we ditch the drama End entitlement and transform your world place. I'm Cy Wakeman.