The Leadership Vision Podcast
The Leadership Vision Podcast is about helping people better understand who they are as a leader. Our consulting firm has spent 25 years investing in teams so that people are mentally engaged and emotionally healthy. Our podcast provides information to help you develop as a leader, build a positive team culture, and grow your organization to match the demands of today’s business landscape. We leverage client experience, research-based leadership models, and reflective conversations to explore personal growth and leadership topics. With over 350,000 downloads from 180+ countries, our podcast shares our expertise in discovering, practicing, and implementing a Strengths-based approach to people, teams, and culture.
The Leadership Vision Podcast
A Year in the Making: Reflecting on the Journey to Unfolded
In this special episode of The Leadership Vision Podcast, Dr. Linda and Brian Schubring reflect on the year-long journey to writing and launching their new book, Unfolded: Lessons in Transformation from an Origami Crane. Recorded during a return to the lakeside cabin where they finished their manuscript one year ago, this conversation is a deeply personal and emotional look at collaboration, creativity, and what it means to bring a dream to life.
What You’ll Hear:
- How Unfolded came to be during one intense week in Minnesota
- The emotional moments of sharing the book with family
- Lessons learned about writing, leadership, and transformation
- Why endings and beginnings are both worth honoring
Links & Resources:
- Order Unfolded: https://amzn.to/43Fpvwn
- Follow Leadership Vision: https://www.schubrings.com/
- Learn more at: https://www.schubrings.com/
🎉 Unfolded is a National Bestseller!
#1 in Business & #5 Overall on USA Today
#17 on Publisher’s Weekly Nonfiction
📘 Grab your copy + get the FREE Reflection Guide!
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Read the full blog post here!
CONTACT US
- email: connect@leadershipvisionconsulting.com
- Leadership Vision Online
ABOUT
The Leadership Vision Podcast is a weekly show sharing our expertise in discovering, practicing, and implementing a Strengths-based approach to people, teams, and culture. Contact us to talk to us about helping your team understand the power of Strengths.
Get excited it's book launch week you are listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. Hello everyone, my name is Nathan Friberg and today we're doing something a little bit different on the podcast. Here You're about to hear a candid and heartfelt conversation between Dr Linda and Brian Schubring that they recorded as they were coming home from a week away. They're in the car so the audio quality is not the best, but they're reflecting on all the things that have happened in this past year as they have been working on their book Unfolded Lessons in Transformation from an Origami Crane, which launches this week, june 4th. Go grab your copy if you haven't gotten one already. They just reflect on the emotional journey of writing together, the people who have shaped their story and the moments that brought it all to life. If you haven't picked up your copy yet, now is the time. You can order it by clicking the link in the show notes or, honestly, anywhere good books are sold.
Speaker 2:Unfolded Lessons in Transformation from an Origami Crane is an allegory about an origami crane's dream of becoming a paper plane. It imparts a philosophy and strategy that will help you really any leaders in any capacity meet their full potential, cultivate better relationships and grow their leadership capacity. This is a great book. It is not your traditional business book, but it's really applicable to anyone who just has a dream, wants to transform, wants to do something different and maybe doesn't quite know how to get there. So pick up your copy today and then we would love it if you could take a picture of yourself holding it. Maybe share a reflection online. Tag us as we take part in this unfolding journey together. Enjoy.
Speaker 1:We have just spent the last week in a place that we love, that is connected to family, by a lake, and by a lake that my grandparents used to live on, and it's been a year. What happened last year?
Speaker 3:Last year we rented a lakeside home, and a year ago, it was during this same week, linda and I finished the manuscript and that's a manuscript that was ready to be submitted to a publisher, finished the manuscript and that's a manuscript that was ready to be submitted to a publisher. And a year ago this week was when we also figured out how our writing relationship was going to take place, and that writing relationship reflects the relationship between elton john and bernie topple, where bernie will write amazing lyrics and hand those lyrics to Elton and Elton will add the music, add the feel, all the music stuff, the emotion, the glitter, the
Speaker 3:dynamic, the glasses, the showmanship, all that. And so a year ago I had taken the manuscript as far as I was going to take it and then handed it to Linda, and basically each day, linda rewrote and worked with the chapters that I had written and by the time the day was over, we had a finished chapter. And we did that for five days in a row and finished all five chapters and had a manuscript ready for submission.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's your version.
Speaker 2:That's your version.
Speaker 1:Well, I would say that you're the bigger diva in the relationship, however, so there's plenty of Elton John in you.
Speaker 3:Oh, for sure.
Speaker 1:But when it comes to collaboration, I think I agree with you. I remember you were writing this book on your own and I realized that I could no longer edit in your voice that it had to be somebody else helping you, or we figure out a way to do it together, and I'm so glad we did, because I think Unfolded is a reflection of how we work with clients, how we inspire leaders, how do we interact with our family, don't you think?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's all that and part of the catalyst for this week happening a year ago. Part of the influence that we were receiving was from people who were getting a first glimpse at what we were actually working on, and they were asking us questions about the characters, the dynamic between the characters, how the characters got along, and people were just asking for something maybe more deeper or more anime than what we were going for. So that was part of what was inspiring us to make a real strong investment a year ago.
Speaker 1:I think it was part inspiration, part instigation, Because without that sharpening I don't know if the book would be where it is right now?
Speaker 3:No, it wouldn't be.
Speaker 1:So we spent that week on the way home from the lake in Minnesota. We agreed to work with a book agency as well.
Speaker 3:That's an example of how much that week meant to us, because when we arrived in Alexandria we didn't have a finished manuscript, we didn't have a publishing agency, we didn't have a book deal.
Speaker 3:We didn't have any of that Right. And so to think of what happened in the six days that we're up here, we finished a manuscript. And so to think of what happened in the six days that we're up here, we finished a manuscript and as we were driving through those little, tiny, beautiful town of Alexandria, minnesota, we were on a call with Book Highlight was going to be the publishing agency that was working with us. That also happened during this week last year. So for us it's a real significant timing because a year later we have a published book in our hands, we are still working with Book Highlight, finishing up all the pre-launch details, and we have a book deal with Wiley Publishing. So to think about this year as a full circle, I just wouldn't have thought a year ago, as we're leaving Alexandria, that all of this would have happened by now. I thought it would push off into like the fall of this year or later.
Speaker 1:A lot can happen in a year and I would say that we have lived the story and approach and strategy of Unfolded in our own lives. We have learned so much about writing a book. If there's anyone that wants to hear more or wants to hear our lessons learned, which means things that we didn't know or we wish we would have known or the things we didn't know.
Speaker 3:We didn't know anything I don't know.
Speaker 1:So shout out to book highlight. They are a phenomenal agency and I can't be more thankful for their impact as well as the opportunity to meet them and film some of those videos together. They're just a class act. So here we are. It's a year later and we had scheduled this time away, knowing that the book launch is approaching, which is this week, and as we began to plan this week, which was we planned things kind of on the fly it coincided with my mother's birthday. How old is your mom? She's an octogenarian, I'm not going to say her exact age, you don't ask that birthday and to be able to give my mother a hard copy of, unfolded in person, on a lake that my father loves. I just felt his presence there and I felt her enormous support and care for us. She was the first one to buy books, she was the first one to. She's often the first one to like, share and subscribe to our podcasts or posts. So, mom, shout out to you, but then, but wait, there's more, because we got to share more over the weekend.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for this birthday party for G-Mom. My parents also came up to Alexandria and so, too, did our daughter. So we were there as a family, and one of the highlights of this week is going to be the time that we spent on the deck overlooking the lake as a family, and we had the chance to individually hand a book to our family members and say a few words to them of appreciation for how much they've influenced our lives, how much they've demonstrated love and given us direction, how they've even inspired some of the characters. This was a really, really meaningful moment to share with our family, how much they mean to us around this celebration of having our book published.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there were some words and then there were just some sentiments. I think I couldn't get any words out giving the book to my own Diane. I think it was just tears and I love yous.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a lot of that.
Speaker 1:Once again I felt many family members that are no longer with us close to us. The memories of all the family moments that we have spent by that little lake just kind of came flooding back. So I'm thankful for that. And now we are getting ready to celebrate the birth of Unfolded. Right before this weekend we received a package in the mail from Wiley and Sons. So I told Brian there is a package from John, wiley and Sons.
Speaker 3:I asked who John is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know what, john.
Speaker 3:Who's John?
Speaker 1:I didn't tell him to Google it, but that's kind of what I was thinking, anyway. So we received a package. It was sitting on our doorstep after we had returned from a client engagement in South Dakota. So we are back home, we have driven the whole way, it's already dark, we're tired and I see this box. And so that box just stayed, stayed boxed overnight, and in the morning, after all of our coaching, clients and calls that we had, we took a few moments and unboxed, unboxed, unfolded. That was emotional. What do you remember from that? Right now?
Speaker 3:What I remember is About the unboxing. Well, as far as I was concerned, I was holding my own dream come true. I've always thought that I was going to write a book. I mean ever since I was in college. I had no idea what I was ever going to write on, and there were a few moments in my life where I thought, well, now's the time to write a book.
Speaker 3:So for me, that was probably the first thing that I was thinking as we opened the book, or as we opened the box and saw the book, my first thought was this is another one of my dreams come true. And what I mistakenly thought in some of my early dreamings of being an author is how much it would have been completely reliant on me, or basically like I'm doing all the work. And that is definitely not the case of this in this process, Because when I was opening up the box, I realized just all the people that could have had their hands in that box reaching for the books too, Because they had just as significant of a role to play in this idea coming to life as I did to play in this idea coming to life as I did.
Speaker 1:So true, and I think we wrote those people into the story not just the story, but we definitely kept the people that have influenced us, inspired us, meaning our clients, our loved ones have really shaped the product. That is Unsold it. Now, what I would add as well is one of the first names that I, the first names I saw, were our, who we dedicated the book to, and that is our parents, as well as camilla and our nephews. And then, to turn the page and see the foreword by deb dixon, I felt like I was on another planet. Deb represents a leader who wanted to make a specific investment in her people, who is obsessed with excellence, who truly believes that revealing the identity of people and shining light of the brilliance of people will make the world a better place. In her partnership, I mean, she has been that grandmother that's in the room when her grandbabies were birthed.
Speaker 3:Literally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what better? Midwife?
Speaker 3:She wasn't really a midwife, I know.
Speaker 1:Okay, no, she was making this happen. At one point the metaphor kind of breaks down. But shout out to Deb Dixon for helping us write this book. We're excited to celebrate with her.
Speaker 3:Here's something else I'm grateful for Yep, the book came in the mail, we have the books in our hand. And then we left town for Memorial Day weekend, the birthday celebration and our work week away. What I think I'm grateful for now, as I'm looking back at the last nine days, is because we left home, got out of the city, got out of our context. I was able to be with the book and savor the book and just really be grateful for what actually happened. Because I think if we were at home still doing the same crazy hours that we do every week, I wouldn't have had a chance to be with the book, to savor the book in the place where a lot of it was was birthed. I wouldn't have had that. And I just think that in my reflecting this week, I committed to reflect what we did last year. Last year we wrote one chapter a day and this year I want to read one chapter a day and limit myself to just that.
Speaker 3:So just before we left the lake, linda and I spent a few moments just sitting on the dock our book in hand and just looking at the beauty of nature, just taking it all in. And Linda asked me what I was feeling. I didn't answer as a feeling. I answered what I was thinking.
Speaker 3:So what am I feeling about? What I said was I really feel a sense of completion, that one circle has gone all the way around it and connected and one era of our lives has ended. I was also feeling a sense of fear and uncertainty because I know all too well that, as we're sitting on that dock, a new circle is starting, and every time I face a new beginning, I face that new beginning with well, anticipation and excitement, but I'm also sharing the feeling of true fear and self-doubt. I question if I have the ability for whatever's next. I question whether we have the talent or the skills to face whatever challenges are coming. And I also wonder what are we going to say a year from now, as we're sitting on a dock and looking at the last year and thinking, wow, we had no idea how far we'd go.
Speaker 1:And I see it as opportunity. We sat on the dock holding our book. I was looking left and left is this magical playground that was donated by, maybe, the Lions Club of Alexandria. Anyway, it's an epic playground. All different kinds of ways to play, slides, to suites, to a zip line, and I was there early enough that there were no children out at this morning. And so to sit on the dock holding our book, looking over at the playground across the lake and beginning to wonder where will the playgrounds be that we'll be in this year? What will we learn? How do we say thank? Where will the playgrounds be that we'll be in this year? What will we learn? How do we say thank you to the playgrounds we have been in and be welcomed into a new space? I think we have opportunity. I think we are thrilled to share on Folded the world. We anticipate your feedback, your insights, the ways that you will take this allegory and apply it to your life, and let your life and your lived wisdom speak to you.
Speaker 3:Maybe one of the things that I'm afraid of, or not even sure what the feeling word is, or I'm not even sure what the feeling word is. What I know is that, as this new circle is beginning, I'm going to be saying goodbye to working relationships that I've drawn really close to in the last year. I'm going to be saying goodbye to certain work patterns that I've had to adopt and learn Over the past year. I'm going to be saying goodbye to certain types of pressures, goals and objectives that have been driving me and inspiring me and frustrating me for the last year. So there's a lot of, maybe, feeling of loss and letting go, and I don't know if I do that all too well, because each one of the things I've mentioned is a breaking of a connection or putting a pause on something mentioned is a breaking of a connection or putting a pause on something.
Speaker 3:And even though I've done my fair share of complaining about the learning cycle that I've had to go through in the last nine months specifically, I've learned a ton that I'll be able to apply going forward, but the playground or the place that I've done all that learning is with relationships that are going to be changed. So, when the relationships are not going to be going forward, other relationships are going to rely on even more, with relationships that are going to be changed. So when the relationships are not going to come forward, other relationships are going to rely on even more and new people are going to be stepping in to help us in this next phase. So part of maybe the pain or the loss that I'm feeling is knowing that there are changes coming that I haven't quite processed yet.
Speaker 1:Well, I think you get attached that there are changes coming that I haven't quite processed yet. Well, I think you get attached and I think it has felt that the stakes have been high and we can be very proud of what we've all done together.
Speaker 3:But that's the part that I loved, because the stakes were crazy high and I loved any type of clear expectation. I love the high bar. Yeah, I love that type of clear expectation. I love the high bar. I love that type of competition. I love being around players that are excellent at what they do, and I feel that's what this season has provided me is. It's provided me an arena within which I can practice and play and compete with people that are putting chips in just like I am. I have felt that I have really felt that pressure. There's a lot of that that I excel at. I also know that I've learned some of my weaknesses in that process, because I've also learned about my own capacities of not being able to go as hard as I want for as long as I eat, and that's been a learning.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, I would offer you, Brian, the wisdom that you shared with one of our clients recently, as you looked at the CEO and said both can be true. Oh, that's right. And what are the boths? Both can be true.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's right. And what are the boths?
Speaker 1:Both can be true, that you love the high bar, the pressure, the intensity, and at the same time it was exhausting and frustrating at times, and a lot of times like being in the dark, and we can hold the tensions of both. Both can be true, both can be true, and we often don't think that while we're in it tensions up Both, both can be true.
Speaker 3:Both can be true, and we often don't think that while we're in it.
Speaker 1:That's true. So please get a copy of Unfold it Lessons in Transformation from an Origami Cray by Brian Schubring and Linda Schubring, and the spine of the book says Schubring and shoobring, which is really kind of fun. Pick up your book, let us know. Take a photo of you holding your book. I would love to see that. And continue with us on this unfolded journey.
Speaker 2:Now, as Linda and Brian shared, transformation doesn't just happen. It takes presence, reflection and often a letting go of what was. So, whether you're starting something new or closing a meaningful chapter, may this conversation and this book remind you that both can be true Growth and gratitude, grief and joy, completion and beginning. My name is Nathan Freeberg and, on behalf of our entire team, thanks for listening. Thank you for getting a copy of Unfolded. You can click the link in the show notes or go to leadershipvisionconsultingcom or shoobringscom and pick up your copy today.