S2E61: Toggling Our Teams Up

This is the No Ego Podcast, where we ditch the drama, end entitlement, and transform your world place. I'm Sy Wakeman. Welcome, drama diffusers, to another episode of the No Ego Podcast. I'm excited about this episode. I'm doing something a little different. I am taking questions from fans. This is a A little bit of a preview about what I have coming up in season 3 that is going to start at the end of November, in which I am going to start taking fan questions. And not just questions, but actual letters from fans. So we are going to be asking for you to elaborate a bit on your current situation so that I and some of my guests can help you. Ditch the drama and restore sanity to your workplace. So I'm really excited about season three, but a bit of a teaser: I am going to answer a few questions on this particular podcast. And so I picked a couple of fun questions, but questions that are pretty common. I taped a question or my response to a question I should say about the difference between venting and sharing a feeling. It's a common question. So many people just have a hard time truly giving up venting. That ego wants to believe there's at least sometimes we need to vent, or, you know, that we can vent and then get to the healthy stuff. And in all actuality, venting is just not a healthy behavior. And so I think you're gonna love my answer to that question. And then I also have another question I chose about how to help employees stay in their lane. Some of you that listen to me regularly know I talk often about about 3 lanes in life. Lane 1, your business. Lane 2, other people's business. Lane 3, reality's business. And if you want stress, you just need to get out of your lane. And unfortunately, a lot of people have a problem staying in their own lane, and we as leaders often need to teach that lesson. So I hope you enjoy my answers to these 2 questions and get fired up, because in season 3, we're gonna go deep into your questions. And your letters, and you'll start to see where we are requesting those. So keep an eye out and enjoy the podcast. I want to answer a question that came in from Tampa, Florida, and I think it is a topic that we all get a little confused on, and I want to go deeper, and it's The topic about what's the difference between sharing feelings and venting. So this person writes in, during some of your shows, you mentioned that reflection isn't choking down feelings and telling yourself to think positively. Could you elaborate on how you see the philosophy being different? And this question is so important to me. It's near and dear to my heart because what I'm out teaching is not just to think positively. It's not just to ignore reality and put some cheery vibe on it. It's deeper than that. It's realizing that so much of what you're upset about never even happened. If you look at the reality, it's the story you add on to it, the judgment, assignment of motive, the attribution, the malice, the— all the adjectives you build into the story that causes you pain, not the reality. So I'm so glad to differentiate on the difference between feeling your feelings and venting. Let's unpack this a little bit. Let's say that someone comes into my office and is frustrated and wants some support and empathy and wants to express their feelings so they could move through and move through life more skillfully. Awesome. What are you frustrated about? They may say, I'm frustrated with Alex because he didn't give me the information I needed. In order to get my report done on time, I ended up staying late in order to be accountable to my own deadlines. I'm there later. Empathy. My gosh, you sound frustrated. I hear you. Those are frustrating times when we don't have what we need and we have to make up the difference. Now, sharing a feeling usually can be done in about one sentence. What comes after that is venting. So if you want to just share the feeling, I'm frustrated with Alex, as your leader, I would say, is frustration a feeling you want more of in your life that you want to experience often? And your answer is probably going to be no. Then I move into responsiveness. Empathy plus responsiveness, calling you to greatness. So is this something that could be impacted? Could this be fixed? Probably. What strategy would you like to take on to fix it? What can you think of? Well, I could go talk to Alex. Sounds wonderful. Do you want to role-play that? I would love for you to be able to talk to Alex directly about this. Yeah, but he won't do anything and I don't want to and it's just going to cause a big rift. Okay, so you're not considering that strategy. What other strategy are you considering? Well, I could put a reminder on his calendar every month. Oh my gosh, that sounds like another great strategy. What would great look like? Well, I'll just put a reminder on his calendar. Perfect. Go do that. Yeah, but I shouldn't have to. Oh my gosh, you were almost great. So we're talking about you have a feeling of being frustrated. Do you want to move through that? You've expressed it. Do you want to move through it? What are some strategies you could do to fix it? What the person shared with me is it's not very fixable in their mind. They're not willing to do what it would take. So the other strategy I'm just gonna not worry about it. I'm just gonna let it go. Grace, tolerance, mercy. It just happened this once. Perfect. That's another great way to move through feelings. Why don't you let it go? Yeah, but he shouldn't get away with it. So we're not letting it go. And this is what often happens where we come in to share a feeling and we move into venting, because where venting comes from is this third option of I want to stay stuck And complain. Now, the Dalai Lama says, if you're suffering and it's fixable, fix it. If it's not fixable, accept it. Why suffer? Suffering is completely optional. If you can fix it, fix it. If not, let it go. But many of us share a feeling, and then our ego wants to hold on to this third option where we can keep ourselves stuck and we can keep ourselves in suffering, and we can use it as fodder to stay toggled down And feed the ego. What you want if you're expressing feelings is to express it, breathe through it, share it, be heard, then let it go, and then grow in the very way you need to grow so that you can move through the world more skillfully and with less of the same types of feelings so you can have impact. But if you're venting, it's not about what to do— express, breathe, be heard, grow, move through the world differently. It's what you want to have. And when you're venting, you want to express it and feel it, but you want to build a case and you want to lock down and you want to build armies. And ultimately, you want people to agree with you and you want to be right. And here's the problem: once you get right, you become righteous, you stop learning, and you stop growing. So feelings, one sentence or less. I'm frustrated with Alex Anything that comes after that is probably venting. He does this crap on purpose. He is intentionally trying to stall my career. He's trying to make me look bad. He— see, all of that you can't know for sure. You've made up. And the suffering comes from having a colleague who's targeting you, not someone who didn't remember to give you the information. See, life means that sometimes people won't remember to give you the information. What can you do to be more skillful? Get better at project managing what you need. But misery venting is all about arguing with how life is and being mad about it and throwing tantrums. So let's take this one step further. What I mean by venting is oftentimes feelings that are really about things that never happened. I want you to make sure that what you're feeling is about something that really happened, because I guarantee you a lot of your feelings are about the story you've created about what happened. So I worked with a gentleman and I was coaching him, and he was angry often, and he saw insults where there wasn't any, and he was miserable. He was toggled down a lot, and he would have these moments he would toggle up and get it and feel happy instantaneously. The world didn't change, but everything would change without him changing anything by editing his story. So let me tell you, one day I met him After work, and he was so grumpy. And I'm like, what is going on? He goes, I've just had the worst day ever. And I said, okay, what happened? He goes, oh my gosh, Sy, first of all, I show up and everyone knows that I park in the 4th parking space to the right. I've worked here for 24 years. That's where I park. I show up, somebody's in that spot. Somebody took my parking spot. I had to park out in the tundra, walk up a mountain in subzero temperatures before I even got to work. And I get to work and the first call I get is Al. Al and I worked together at another company and we were arch enemies. And Al calls me up and asks me to lunch. And he's like, oh, now I work with this company and I think we'll be great friends. And he asked me to lunch like nothing ever happened, like there's no history between us. And then the day just got worse, he said. He goes, every time I picked up the phone, people had all these questions like I was their wiki, like they couldn't look anything up for themselves. And then finally it ended with a horrendous meeting. I went to a meeting And I— they had no agenda, and so my only option was to disengage and play Angry Birds, and now I have to meet with you. Okay. He was furious, frustrated, scared. It was every feeling you can imagine, except his feelings were about his story, not his reality. Because once we worked through and removed any judgment, assignment of motive, any story, here's what his day truly was. I went to work and parked in a different place. The phone rang. It was a guy named Al who I've worked with in the past inviting me for lunch, and so I let him know I wasn't available. And then the phone rang again, and I answered it and answered the question the person had. And then the phone rang again, and I answered that and answered the question the person had. And then I went to a meeting. They didn't have an agenda. And I chose to disengage and play Angry Birds. Now that's all that happened, and you heard the story. Where'd the feelings come from? The story. How do I know? Try and vent about the reality. Oh, the phone rang, and so I answered it. There's nothing to be upset about here. That's your job. And what I hope you'll start to realize is that the feelings you have that have to do with your story deserve inquiry. They deserve you to stop believing everything you think and to question your story and to edit it down because most of what you're upset about, that takes care of it. Now, if there are really things that you're suffering from or having feelings about, your goal is to express the feeling so you can be heard and you can grow and get more skillful and move through the life differently. You can impact your reality. Or your goal is to let it go after you've been heard. And if you have any other goal than that, That you want to hold on to it and build a case and build armies and be righteous and be agreed with, you're into ego. So feelings can usually be expressed in one sentence or less: mad, glad, sad, or scared. Anything that comes after that usually is venting or story. You want happiness? It's not going to come through venting. A lot of people go, I feel better when I vent. Venting isn't going to lead to happiness. What's going to lead to happiness is self-reflection. And you finding a way to impact your own environment, or you getting incredibly skilled at having mercy, tolerance, and compassion for the humanity in the world. That will bring you happiness. Venting never does, and it certainly doesn't do it long-term. So please feel your feelings. And unfortunately, sometimes feelings are visceral because they're about big loss or trauma or things that you did not deserve, and you've lost a parent or a pet. Feel those feelings, but notice again your goal is to feel them so you can move through them. When you're venting, your goal is to feel them and express them so that you can hold on to them. I'm getting great questions from viewers and fans, and I'm noticing a trend in some of the questions, and the trend is To ask a question that really indicates that you might be ignoring or just arguing with reality, like just have a preference that's not being met, and looking for a way for me to change your reality. And hopefully you know me by now, I'm going to work for a way to grow you. I have a great question from someone who wants to be anonymous in Illinois, and it just simply asks, do you have any tips on helping keep employees In their own lane. Now, for those of you that aren't familiar with my concept of stay in your own lane, I want to just fill you in first, and then I'll get to some great tips on helping our employees stay in their own lane. So most of my work in leadership and working with employees in this world is twofold. I help people understand how their mind works and and do a lot of work with them to help them understand when their ego is playing them and how to eliminate emotional waste by using good mental processes. I think that's the role of leadership. I also help people understand how the world works, because if you can understand how the world works and stop arguing with reality, you'll conserve all that energy. And if you understand how your mind works, you'll understand how your view gets distorted, and you can move through the life Skillfully and happily. So I have a concept that I call the 3 lanes. And if you imagine there's 3 lanes in life, lane number 1 is your lane. That's where you can have the most impact. That is where most of us don't step into the power we already have. We play small. We get under-responsible for our lane and over-responsible for lanes that we really don't have control over. They're usually unmanageable. in our life. So lane 1, my business. Lane 2, other people's business. For stepparents, this could be not your children. This could be how your spouse chooses to move through life. This could be like anything you're mad about. There's an explanation for it because it's not your business. So there's lane 1, my business. Lane 2, other people's business. And lane 3 is really reality, or if you're a spiritual person, whatever your view of God's business is. So 3 lanes: my business, your business, reality's business. Now, quick way to get stressed— if you want stress in your life, get out of your lane. It's absolutely a sure way to get unhappy. Whenever you're feeling unhappy, my best advice to you is check yourself and get back in your lane. Now, that doesn't mean you can't ever leave and make a difference in the world or help people. But if you're gonna leave your lane, you gotta go out helping, not judging. I can't leave my lane and judge you and tell you what I think you should do in your job unless I have informed consent, unless I'm your manager who is needing to do your review of performance. But most of the time, we're not that. So if I'm in my lane, my job is to— anytime I'm suffering and I'm in my lane, check myself. skill set. Have I modernized my skill set lately? Am I trying to do a new reality in the old skill set? That's my lane. Update your skills. My lane— am I suffering? Check my approach. Am I using a less than modern approach in a new reality? Modernize my approach. And if I'm suffering in my own lane, I'm not in anybody else's lane, check my willingness. Am I willing to do what it takes to get the results I need? So lane 1 Amazing things that can be done in lane one. This is where you can make your impact. This is where you can succeed in spite of challenges. This is where, in spite of a perfect reality, you can do great things. You can engage. You can have impact. And if you're truly in your lane and suffering, skill set approach or willingness, all is fixable. Now, if you get into lane two, other people's business, you can't go out there judging. You got to go out there helping or by invitation or informed consent. So it's permission-based. Hey, I've noticed you're struggling with this. How open are you for me to giving you some ideas that I have that helped me do the work differently? The tentativeness, but the main boundary is it's not your business. Lane 3, reality, right? Do you want to impact that? The best way to impact that is to get super responsible for your lane. and then role model the change you wanna see in the world and come up with open, inclusive dialogue that can build solutions far beyond who you are and your ego preferences. So when you're moving out in the world, you're moving as one good data point in the big crowdsource back to your skill set. So a lot of times, these 3 lanes, if you're a leader practicing my work and you have an employee suffering, you can see immediately the source of their suffering. But great leaders don't tell people, they get people thinking. The power of a leader isn't what you tell them, it's what you get them thinking about. Telling them what they need to do will just punch that ego in the face. Self-reflection bypasses this. So my tips for getting employees to be back in their lane is a lot about self-reflection. One, your job as a leader, explain the lanes. It might be a good mental process that people have never heard of and they don't realize. That in itself might just eliminate some of the waste where you build common language and you go, whose lane are you in? And are you there by permission? And are you there non-judgmentally? And are you trying to be inclusive or just impose your will? Do you have any business being out in your— out of your lane? And if you're out of your lane, are you doing it in ways that build collaboration rather than kill collaboration? Here's some assignments for self-reflection after I help people understands if they're out of their lane. I just ask them, are you, are you in your lane, or what lane are you in? And if so, are you doing this with permission and good intent? Secondly, I do a lot of getting people back in their lane through self-reflection by saying, well, I hear what you're judging about this situation. Let's get self-reflective and accountable because that leads to happiness. What's your part in In this situation? What is something you could do to have impact? How could you help? All those questions I ask you, whether you know for sure, they teach you about self-reflection, they work here. Couple more assignments and tips. If someone really is out of their lane, I say, you know what, what advice do you have for other people? And write it down, get very specific, make pages of what you would rather they did instead. Very specific how you want them to think, how you want them to act, how you want them to feel. And after that assignment, I have them go away and do that work on it a couple of weeks. They come back to me and I say, so the first step now that you've identified what is most helpful in the world is for you to go first. If you think it's so easy, you go first. Take every bit of this advice, and I want you to work on living it for the next six months and see if we still need to work on the rest of the world. And I guarantee you. When you're living the advice you have for others, you will find that others need a lot less advice. So I love that assignment. And another thing I work with people on is when they believe that other people are being wasteful, I try and help them quantify the waste they're bringing to the table. Most of what we're judging people on, right, is diversion, projection. We judge people for doing the same thing we're doing. Our crime's often bigger because we're the ones that can control our own behavior. I had a situation once where I had a very talented employee come to me to let me know that she had been observing a new employee who, in her opinion, was stealing from the organization. And she came in, her name was Tammy, and she said, you know what, the new person is stealing from the organization. And I said, you know, tell me more. And she said, well, she comes in at different times in the morning. But she always writes down on the timesheet that she was here at 8. It's back in the olden days, we actually wrote our time in. And I said, oh my gosh, so we have a new employee who is late. I'm just wondering what you did to help them. Have you talked to them about construction, parking, how to be more efficient in getting their area set up? Have you offered to reach out to them? What have you done to help? And her face kind of went blank. She'd been too busy judging. She had done no helping. However, we still have an issue. And so I wanted this to go a different direction. I wanted her to get some insight on maybe what her part in this was. And so I asked her what her part in this was, and she didn't identify that. So we had a couple dead ends. Now, in the back of my head, I'm still thinking I need to talk to somebody about their dishonesty. But the point is, you coach the person in front of you and tend to the details later. So I said, well, let's do something different. Can you just explain I said, well, can you explore for me the time you've given this? How do you know when she comes in every day and when she— and what she writes down? And she said, well, I watch for her to come in and I keep a list of that. And then once a week when I do the time cards, I look at before I turn into you what she wrote down. And I said, well, you have time written down for every day. You were at a conference last week. She goes, oh, well, when I'm gone, I have other people watching her. For when she comes in. And I said, well, how much time do you think you spend on this? And we added it up, and sure enough, it was hours of hers and other people watching this person for when they came in and what they put on their timesheet. Now, if it was true that she— the person, the employee, was stealing from the organization, it was like 15 minutes a day, 10 minutes a day, 5 minutes a day. Still something to be addressed. Don't let your mind go there. My best employee, hour a day, 2 hours a day. If you added everybody in, sometimes 3 hours a day. Whose crime is bigger? Somebody maybe was stealing potentially $100 from the organization, and somebody else was commissioning hundreds of dollars for the organization. But they felt so right and so justified because what the employee was doing perhaps was a crime, that it never dawned on her what her price of drama was. And so as we just built in, what's the new employee's time that she's taking from the organization? What's your time that you're taking from the organization? Whose crime is bigger? It dawned on my wonderful, great performing employee, toggle switch working. She just happened to be toggled down. She toggled right back up and she goes, oh my gosh. She may take 5 minutes, which is not okay for the organization, but I, in effect, am taking sometimes hours from the organization. My crime's bigger. Let me get back to fixing my stuff. Because if what I say is that I value integrity and not stealing from the organization, I'm gonna live that first. Self-reflection is how you help people stay in their lane. Introduce the concepts, help them understand the language, And then through questions for self-reflection and assignments for self-reflection, help them continue to center in on whether they're in their lane or not and what they could do next that would be most helpful and lead to their happiness at work and home. I hope that helps. Great question. This is the No Ego Podcast, where we ditch the drama, end entitlement, and transform your role play. I'm Sy Wakeman.