Leading with Intuition and Positivity with Andreea Niculescu and Laura Swapp

Join us - Seasons Leadership Co-Founder Susan Ireland and Communications and Marketing Leader for Seasons Leadership Lauren Penning - for this inspiring discussion with Andreea Niculescu and Laura Swapp of one and three (and our 50th episode!).
 
Show notes:
Get ready to challenge the status quo and bring a dose of joy to your world as the dynamic duo behind one and three talk about the last 18 months since they were featured on Season 3 of the Seasons Leadership Podcast. Our conversation traverses through the seasons of life, embracing the cyclical nature and inherent changes that come with leadership and parenthood. We explore the potential of simple, profound actions that can create ripples of positivity, and the transformative impact of practices like meditation on our lives and leadership styles.

Have you ever contemplated the power of your intuition and personal values while making critical decisions in your leadership journey? We address this compelling aspect with Laura and Andreea, discussing the often undervalued power of intuition, its historical gender association, and how to harness it to your advantage. We then navigate towards understanding the magical blend of data and intuition in decision making, offering invaluable insights to help you develop your intuition and uphold your personal values.

We further delve into the process of building trust and transparency, emphasizing the importance of cultivating values and intuition from an early age. But it's not all theory and no action; we examine the idea of taking on challenges for 90 days to catalyze personal development. Finally, we underscore the strength of being present in every moment to bring a spark of joy to others. We end the discussion sharing what we are going to let go of this fall (unfortunately Andreea exists the conversation early due to technology difficulties)!

About Laura and Andreea: Together, Laura and Andreea are one and three. They believe there is one unassailable truth: we are interconnected–with each other and with the planet.
 
Resources:
Season 3, episode 14: Live Your Values with One and Three Co-Founders Andreea Niculescu + Laura Swapp - Seasons Leadership Podcast

The Live Your Values Deck

one and three | Seattle, USA | Brand and Social Impact Strategy Consulting
 
 

Join Debbie Collard and Susan Ireland, certified coaches and co-founders of Seasons Leadership, in making positive leadership the norm rather than the exception on Wednesdays on the Seasons Leadership Podcast. (Selected by Feedspot as one of the Top 15 Positive Leadership Podcasts on the web!)

And now you can join our community of values-based leaders on Seasons Leadership Patreon at Patreon.com/seasonsleadership. At our gold-level, unlock our exclusive Lessons in Leadership Column from our Resident Seasoned Leader David Spong, a lifetime member of the Board of the Malcom Baldrige Foundation and our Leadership Elements Series.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hello and welcome to fall with the Seasons Leadership podcast, where we recognize the time in your leadership journey to integrate new insights and knowledge and to let go of what no longer serves you. Throughout the season, we will bring you actionable advice to improve your leadership and your life today. Thank you for joining me, debbie Collard and my co-host, susan Ireland. As certified leadership coaches and co-founders of Seasons Leadership, we share a vision to make excellent leadership the world-wide standard. Learn more at SeasonsLeadershipcom. Join us in making positive leadership the norm rather than the exception. By listening and engaging in the discussions that are featured on this podcast, you help us bring leadership excellence to the world.

Speaker 2: 0:45

We're excited to welcome back Laura Swap and Andrea Nikolescu, co-founders of One and Three. They were with us last year, on July 13th 2022, and we'll put a link in the show notes for this episode and it's worth listening to if you haven't heard it, or even to re-listen to I just didn't. It was really great. One and Three is an advisory practice that blurs the lines of brand strategy, creative strategy, social impact strategy and values identification and alignment.

Speaker 2: 1:21

Together, laura and Andrea are One and Three and they believe there is one unassailable truth we are all interconnected with each other and the planet and, in service to this interconnectedness, they aim to address the three most urgent needs of our time, using business as a force for good. The three most urgent needs are recouple economic progress with gains and living standards, decouple economic progress from environmental degradation and end marginalization, so absolutely no one gets left behind. In today's conversation, we dive deeper into what leadership means in today's complicated and often lonely world and, like last time, laura and Andrea provide insightful and actionable advice and tips for us all to practice on our journey to be better leaders and humans. Well, welcome back, laura and Andrea. So good to see you. We said we were going to see each other in three months. It's been a year in three months, so we have a lot to catch up on.

Speaker 3: 2:36

You know trying to slip away, but here we are.

Speaker 2: 2:39

It totally is. So what's been happening with you guys in the last year and three months?

Speaker 3: 2:48

Well, I mean the big news, andrea. You share what the big news is. In the last year and three months, Well, I will.

Speaker 4: 2:56

Thank you, Laura, and so nice to see you again, susan, and talk with you Really. One year and three months ago, my wife Leah and I welcomed our tiny little baby, mercer, into the world. She was born on July 1st. We cannot believe that she's a little over 15 months. I have so much to say about the intersections of parenthood and life and work and leadership and excellence. There's lots of interesting parallels and corollaries, but, yes, that is the biggest thing in my world. And also you know how to, in this new world order of parenthood, how to mash up, intersect, align whatever you know verb you want to use parenthood with, let's call it, contribution. You know, as it relates to work and other dimensions, but this intersection of parenthood and contribution to a better world has been my reality the last 15 months.

Speaker 2: 4:06

Wow, congratulations Thank you.

Speaker 3: 4:11

Thank you so much On the other end so my kids are old, so it's so nice to have a little baby. You know, kind of adjacently, but we were talking about how we love that we're having this conversation in the season of fall and really appreciated your conversation for the podcast about fall and just it got Andrea and I talking about, you know, change and transformation and all the things that happened, because, of course, becoming a new parent is one of those things and, incredibly, between and overlapping with the birth of Mercer, we've just been really busy with clients and things just got quiet for us in the last month or so in terms of of workload, which is giving us time to talk about other things that we are passionate and excited about and want to dip into. So it's just feel so appropriate that fall is here for our conversation.

Speaker 2: 5:13

That is so great. Thank you for acknowledging the fall, because you know we're all about the seasons.

Speaker 3: 5:19

Yes, and I love that. You know, what I love about that is it's so cyclical. You know, it's just not. We treat things like leadership and life as if it's linear, and it's just not, you know so it's and it's, it's cyclical and we can't we can't control that.

Speaker 4: 5:40

You know we're going to go in, just to keep turning over.

Speaker 4: 5:46

Yes, it just keeps turning over and over. Well, it's funny, susan, because, laura, this is an incredible lesson that I've learned from Laura. She has talked forever, even before we met you, about like the seasons of life, you know, and how, how there are seasons of relationships, there are seasons of jobs, there are seasons of states of being, and so it's just so apropos that this notion of seasons really doesn't have so much applicability in a lot of different, on a lot of different dimensions.

Speaker 2: 6:20

It does.

Speaker 5: 6:21

Yeah, absolutely. I'm just going to jump in real quick because I wasn't on the call with both of you the podcast last time. So it's great to see both Laura and Andrea and I'm happy to be part of the discussion. I am kind of in a in the middle of parenthood. You were talking about being toward the end, lauren.

Speaker 5: 6:38

You, andrea, in the beginning, you know the of my ages, of kids. So I've got all of the kids who are in school right now and fall. It's always that change where they're going back to school and how that kind of disrupts the flow of everything. But I really liked how you said, andrea, you were talking about trying to kind of mash up in the line you know parenthood, with this idea of contribution to a better world, and it just really got me thinking about how you know, in leadership, to have kind of those those different cycles and just being somebody who I just most recently kind of entered back into the working world and sort of more into a leadership role. So it's just that ebb and flow of kind of how how it all works. So I was just curious to know a little bit more about how that's been going for you, andrea, and if it's changed kind of your approach to leadership, being a new parent or yeah, it's.

Speaker 4: 7:36

Thank you, lauren, and that's nice, very nice to see you and put a face to a name. I think what it has, what? What? This new phase of life or season of life, if you will, for me, what's happened is the notion of how I'm spending my time and the clarity and the. It's just very acute or like it's like kind of front of mind that I really want to be.

Speaker 4: 8:05

I mean, I've always, laura and I are huge I don't want to use the word disciples because that sounds kind of weird but we're huge fans of, let's say, the book essentialism and the concept of essentialism, which is to say, what are we putting our energy toward? And in like, what are the few things to which you're putting your energy towards such that you can actually make impact? That notion, which was very much top of mind for us, you know, before 15 months ago, I feel like it's like totally like the you know, rocket, like it's gotten an adult of rocket fuel underneath that. Because it's like you know, my most important job, of course, is my child and and so around that. Because you know, of course, I very much value beating a whole sort of person and for me, work is a component of that.

Speaker 4: 9:06

You know, how can I what to what, toward what and to what end Am I putting my energy? And how am I, how am I asking the right questions, how am I paying the right attention to how, how Laura and I also talk about, like sleuthing into, you know, various problems and various topics. How am I doing that so that I can really have the most impact in the limited you know? I mean, there's only so many hours in a day and in a week and a month. How am I doing that even more crisply than I was you know before, laura, what about for you?

Speaker 3: 9:47

I'm not that you're not an apparent here, I know I have also learned, apparently, is that it doesn't not to say that I'm at the end of my parenting journey.

Speaker 3: 9:57

My children who are in their 20s would would probably be very distressed to hear that, just meaning to say they're not little babies anymore. When Andrea and I were talking about this this morning, she was saying something. We were talking about the importance of like presence and slowing down as both a leadership quality and a life quality, like being where you are, who you're with. So for Andrea, if she's, if we're with a client, you know being completely present or you know if you're with the baby, really being there and in a world which is trying to pull you or a phone which is telling you can do all the things at one time, and so the quality of like presence and awareness and and being where you are to maximize, that feels like a really important lesson in leadership in an era where everything is mediated by you know. It's like you've got your zoom going and your phone going, and then there's like the AI companion now and it's it's like how do you just give presence to people you know as a human and and as a leader by extension.

Speaker 5: 11:09

Is there any tips or advice you have on how that's worked for you to get better at it? I feel like that's something I struggle with, you know, and it's like maybe sometimes I just leave my phone in a different room but it's just I don't know. Do you meditate or is there like a practice you have that helps, kind of center? I mean yeah.

Speaker 3: 11:29

I do, I meditate every day. I start my day meditating. Andrea walks like that's her meditation, like that's the look it's a tattoo.

Speaker 1: 11:43

Yeah, I was sorry, Laura, you should I'll tell you, I'll show you.

Speaker 4: 11:47

I'll tell you about a second. Laura, sorry to interrupt you, but I I wanted to show them my tat.

Speaker 3: 11:53

When I, when I, you know, when I started, it was like I started with guided meditation, like the call map, like 10 minutes and that was all I could do. And, you know, it's just a little bit at a time and it's a decision. It feels like it would have been impossible when my kids were younger and running around and you're trying to get them out of the house, but it's. I'm in a different place now. For Andrea, it's walking, and walking is like something she can do with Mercer, you know, which is incredible to clear your head, but whatever the small way is of creating space.

Speaker 3: 12:30

And you know, for us it relates to this thing that we're spending some time on right now, which is the loneliness epidemic, which the surgeon general has declared a public health crisis.

Speaker 3: 12:44

He's written a book about it, he's there's an incredible report about it and the the other side of loneliness is connection and human connection. And just last week there was a conference at Harvard, like all the thinking people and even some legislators talking about the problem of this, and and there is a big area which is about the importance of human to human time, which is not mediated by technology, and so it is like we're fighting a cultural current to put down our phones. But even simple things like not having the phone at the dinner table or when you're out to the friend you know they were saying actually has demonstrated health benefits, and so to the idea of being here now, and that looks different for everybody depending upon what you're doing, but for us that's something that we try very hard to do is to just be present with who. Whoever we're with, when we're doing that, I have the time.

Speaker 4: 13:54

Yeah, I have the tiniest tidbits to share and I hope that you will not think it's cheesy, but it's just such like if I could ask every leader of humans to pay attention to this little tidbit, and it has to do with Mercer. So you know, they say that, like when you have a child that, like you know, you're their teacher and, on that stuff, their guide. Actually it's the other way around, like like she is being my most incredible teacher. And a thing that has been happening, happening recently, and it really literally just happened last night and I was like, oh my God, this is so simple and yet it's so powerful.

Speaker 4: 14:34

We went to Costco and we put her in, her in the cart, but we turn the cart around, so she's like driving the cart you know what I mean and she literally waves at every single person.

Speaker 4: 14:48

She just waves and the impact that a child, like a little baby, waving at the most hard, like you know, you see, because because people are coming at you and so you see them before they see her and before she does her thing, and so it'll just be leaves like stressed out faces you know people are hurry kind of you know, sort of a hard, kind of armor maybe, and literally this disarming, like, this little wave, they will smile, they will wave back and I think to myself, and I think to myself, what she is doing is giving that person a little moment of joy, and and so when I think about like, like that person then maybe goes on and has a little bit of a good feeling into, like the next interaction that they're having and the next interaction they're having, and so it's like I mean not to be like dramatic, but it's like you can kind of change the tilt of the earth a little bit through your actions, and and your action can actually be so simple.

Speaker 4: 15:51

You know, when you make eye contact with some, I mean I think I talked about this last, last time, about the you know advice that that I would give like big L leaders. It's such a powerful thing to like, you know, smile at your people genuinely, to like learn their name, to like just be a human, like like this, this notion of humanity which babies just do organically, like I hope that we have on the side of it and I hope that we can like make a conscious effort to like bring it back. It's so powerful.

Speaker 2: 16:29

Yeah, what you're bringing up for me is, you know, being a person, a human, but especially a leader, it's a choice to make to be present, and so you have to. You have to make that choice that I'm going to be here and be present and then know your behavior is like it's a shadow or a light to everybody that you touch, that's right, yeah, and, and it's however.

Speaker 2: 17:07

you get there, like if you meditate, if you walk, if you put your phones down, whatever it is is that that is a choice? That is a choice to be there, and it's so much like is bombarding us not to be there, but it's still. We have that choice.

Speaker 4: 17:24

Yeah, it's so true. It's so true. And maybe one other thing that I would add, and it is it is why I have this tattoo, which is it's in Laura's handwriting, because I want to have Laura with me forever. But the tattoo is so. It's in Latin. The phrase is solvitur ambulando, which means it is solved by walking.

Speaker 4: 17:44

And and the reason why when I saw that phrase a couple years ago, I was like, oh my God, like I have to have that on my body forever it's the idea that nothing good, no good ideas, no solutions, no problem solving comes from just continuing to inundate ourselves with all the stuff. And so, Laura, Nina, you asked like you know how, how? How do we? How do we kind of step away, or how do like, how do we, what methods do we use to kind of do what we do? For me, it is about like filling my brain with stuff, and then I have to step away from the thing, and that is when the idea comes, the nugget, the insight, that and so and so that's maybe something that I would say to a leader is I'm sure you can spend 24, seven, 365 just like being inundated with all the stuff, but actually the power of doing some of that and then walking away from it. That is when the magic happens.

Speaker 5: 18:51

I found yeah that's really insightful yeah.

Speaker 3: 18:55

Well, it's going to say something warm, but I don't want to interrupt you.

Speaker 5: 18:57

No, go ahead, I do Well with the.

Speaker 3: 19:01

I've been thinking, and Andrea and I've been talking about the role of intuition in leadership. And you know, the thing about intuition is it's largely informed by experience, like the more experience you have, the more your intuition is informed about that. And today there's lots have been studied about intuition on leadership and on management and we've come to a place where we prioritize data to an extent that, to this inundation, it can be hard to hear or recognize your own intuition. And so just think about that, those practices which could be cooking, taking a shower, walking, meditating, right, like whatever little way you find to synthesize all that also can put you back in touch with your intuition. And there are kinds of work and for us to do work. That's like in the brand strategy space, social impact space.

Speaker 3: 20:02

We take in lots of data, but there has to be another kind of knowing how your experience gets translated and how to understand, like, if your gut is telling you something, can you?

Speaker 3: 20:18

Can you hear it? Do you know what it's saying, how to pay attention to it? Are you aware of what your biases are, so that your intuition just isn't being led by bias? So so also just this idea of like that kind of presence and practices can give leaders a very good reconnection to their intuition, which is pretty important, and especially when you're with people and people leadership as part of what you do, there's all kinds of information which isn't going to get handed to you in a PowerPoint, and so we're very interested and Andrea and I will forever be debriefing client conversations about what else we felt was like going on energetically and not. I mean, I don't even want to apologize for being too woo woo, but I mean you pick up on that like body language or tone, or how are we feeling about like the direction this is going, and trusting that our experience informs our tuition in a way which is useful as leaders of you know, thought leaders in in the certain kind of work.

Speaker 5: 21:26

Right, yeah, I mean go ahead, Susan.

Speaker 2: 21:29

Coming up for me about this is that and I think you guys would be really great to speak to this so sometimes when I talk to some of our clients about this kind of thing, it's like it's it is woo, woo and kind of way out there and they're really great to show this part of themselves at work. But in reality, I think that the real thought leaders and the people who are really making huge contributions are really tuned into this Right.

Speaker 3: 22:04

Yes, that's right. And they're really out there kinds of characters, like all the business leaders we admire who do all these incredible things, are not in the box making decisions on PowerPoints. Like they have a lot of confidence in their internal compass and voice Right, I sure minimize it.

Speaker 4: 22:23

Yeah you go, andrea. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I just was going to say that I'm thinking, as you're talking, susan, about some of the people that I most admire and, in this regard, like the people that are really having impact, and I'm thinking about, you know, brian Chesky of Airbnb, or Fawn Weaver, of Uncle Narest, I don't know. If you know, if you know Uncle Narest. It's a whiskey distillery and now about to be a cognac distillery, the biggest black owned liquor brand. That's.

Speaker 4: 22:53

It's like very difficult to break through in the in the liquor category, but it's like the Fawn Weaver and her crew has. Anyway, they absolutely will rely on data. But there's something about exactly what Laura is talking about like there's a gut there's, and the gut and intuition is made up of a whole tapestry. You know, you know like a flip, a light, a switch, and like all of a sudden, you know, but it's such, it's such a blend and I use this word magic Again, which is to say, when data and gut blends, that is where the magic happens. It's, it's such a powerful thing.

Speaker 2: 23:33

That's right. Do you have any advice for people to trust their gut more?

Speaker 3: 23:43

You know, sometimes when I'm just practicing this, I'll write down what I think is happening and kind of track it along the way, like if you don't trust yourself enough to act on it immediately, the first step is just that you are, you try to be aware of it and note it. So, like we take you know people take notes on meetings and then they send the email recap, like there is always an opportunity to say, like I felt, and everyone walks away saying things, like I felt, like that meeting was great or something didn't go right, and so recognizing that as an invitation to go one click deeper, like was it that someone's energy was off, was the response. You know, like what were you feeling? And I think in part it's about asking a different kind of question and cultivating that. That curiosity which, as a person working in the world or being a human, or being lead, a leader, serves you well, is curiosity.

Speaker 3: 24:39

So I think for intuition and there are things that are written about this like you have to, you have to be aware of it, you have to actually be willing to feel it and kind of try and put name or language to it and then try and discern like is it? Is it information that's coming to me, based on my experience in my subject matter expert? Is it a feeling based on, like interpersonal skills? Is it a creative kind of intuition? You know, and like anything, the more you pay attention to it, the more you will be tuned into it?

Speaker 3: 25:13

I think people feel this naturally, like it is a condition of being human, but mostly we have discounted it I think in large part in the work world, as being a characteristic of women in like some binary of masculine and feminine, where we innately just undervalue, like we undervalue things which have historically been associated to women, which would include things like intuition. And yet when men exhibit those things often, particularly in workforces I've witnessed this a lot Men will be like praise for, like my God, he's what an incredible vulnerability he showed, like you know, and it's true, but it's women have played. You know, we're not saying that you have to exhibit all that in every circumstance, but it's information for you in leading.

Speaker 4: 26:06

Well and it's so funny, Laura, that you say this because I'm reflecting back on this talk that I was going to give to like the biggest audience that I've ever given a talk to, which was like I don't know 400, 500 people at one of the leadership conferences of one of our ex-employees and employers, and I happened to catch our CEO like as I was practicing my speech. He was going to the room and I, you know, he's like how are you doing? And I'm like, oh, you know, I feel nervous. And he gave me this little tidbit that I will always remember, which is to say only you know what you're going to say.

Speaker 4: 26:42

Do you know what I mean? Like if so, but my point being that you don't act like you don't actually have to say I'm tapping my intuition right now, and my intuition is telling me that we should do XYZ. You, of course, can, but what I'm saying is like you can know that you're tapping your intuition, but what you're saying can be framed in a way that you know that doesn't everyone can hear comfortable that everyone can hear as you're, as you're making your way to owning your intuition a little bit more, which is which is totally a journey, I find so.

Speaker 4: 27:20

so that's like a way to tap your intuition but not have to tell everyone that you're doing so.

Speaker 5: 27:26

Yeah, that's really great. It's like a way of you were talking about tilting the world, you know, with your daughter waving at people. It's like you can do that for yourself and just tip 100.

Speaker 3: 27:37

Yeah, yeah, I wait, I wait for everyone. Now I'm just kidding.

Speaker 1: 27:42

Yeah, yeah, I mean usually early waves at everyone.

Speaker 3: 27:44

These are no, these are.

Speaker 4: 27:46

Yes, these are seeds, and what Laura and I always, always say, forever and always, is take what's useful and leave the rest behind, meaning like take a little nugget of what you're hearing today, or any other you know, and make it your own. Or, like you know, like put your little, your little tiny touch on it so that you know, you can really feel it genuinely and it's of you, not of you know, laura, or me, or the two of you. It's fantastic.

Speaker 2: 28:14

Well, I, where are my? Where's my value?

Speaker 3: 28:17

They're right behind you. Oh, I put it right there.

Speaker 4: 28:20

Oh there they are.

Speaker 2: 28:22

Yeah, I can't tell you I think Debbie and I and Lauren are probably like boosted your sales like 100%, because I know everybody I talk to I say do the value cards. And you know, to your, to your point earlier, is this is an ongoing process. So my values that I did last year, like they don't change but based on where I am in my life and the things that are happening, the context of the world it's, I may pre prioritize so 100, 100%.

Speaker 4: 29:04

And Susan, I'm glad you brought that up, because one of the other things that has been happening in the last 15 months or so since we last talked is that Laura and I have realized the power of taking groups of folks through the values conversation on their way to basically the insight that we've had is that individuals make up companies and companies spend untold amounts of resources and energy talking about the company's values and what the company stands for, but very often because culturally, in the US at least, we don't speak of values in our own values journey.

Speaker 4: 29:49

Culturally it's not like. It's not like typical yet, and so it's very difficult for an employee who is a team member, who is someone who is being led right, who, it's very difficult for those folks, for individuals, to make sense of their company's values and where intersections and alignments are until you've had your own conversation with yourself about it. So so that is the thing that we've been very much observing and paying attention to in the last 15 months is how our individuals and companies and leaders facilitating conversations where individuals can go through their values, values conversation with themselves and then make sense of their company's values.

Speaker 3: 30:38

It's really powerful it's very hopeful that there are companies out there wanting to have this conversation there are it feels like it's there are more yeah, yeah yes, we've had the chance to be with some big name brands doing this work. My favorite was with a big international team people from all over the world and talking about you.

Speaker 3: 31:01

Know the role of family and culture in different countries and and what values mean there and and where you find how and what, what you need to do to find your place within an organization, to understand how you can connect your values, because they're never gonna be a perfect map right right and and it's, it's definitely a family favorite the clients who to really enjoy the work you know, I also have a friend who's in a very serious health crisis and is using the values deck on her journey with her top values about how, how they will guide her to get through.

Speaker 4: 31:47

So that's, it's just another point, wow turns out, they're useful in companies, they're useful in a crisis, and on third date, and on third day yes, I'm just so empowering to have that tool to be able to.

Speaker 5: 32:04

You know we were talking about how you develop that intuition. I think that's big piece of it is if you know what your values are that, yeah.

Speaker 4: 32:11

What are you made of? Yeah?

Speaker 5: 32:13

you can lean on that language to give yourself right to trust. Yeah, to trust yourself, yeah yeah, 100%.

Speaker 4: 32:22

I mean, that really is. You know, some gonna be some of my upcoming well, actually our upcoming work in the next few years is helping younger, younger and younger people find that what you're made of, what matters to you, how do you develop that intuition and begin sort of nurture and feed it? Like a sourdough starter you know from a young age so that, so that you know when you're in your 30s and 40s and 50s you can be the kind of leader that you know that has nurtured this, this topic, for a long, long time in the year.

Speaker 5: 33:04

Well, it's just. But this is bringing up for me is when I think earlier on in my career I was trying so hard to fit into, you know, a culture and a value structure, and it's it is. It's so refreshing to hear that companies now want to encourage their employees to explore that piece about themselves, because I think kind of a common path I don't I'm hoping this isn't true for newer people entering the workforce, but for maybe people in their, you know, middle age is that you maybe have these different feelings but you're kind of pushed into behaviors that the company wants to see and then bring that on into your leadership and it reinforces those same structures.

Speaker 5: 33:44

And now that we're hopefully in a place where people are trying to break out of that, encouraging people to do the work that you guys are doing is so powerful because I can see then people are built and ready to stand up for their own, their own values. So powerful.

Speaker 3: 34:02

There's definitely a battle of wills.

Speaker 3: 34:03

I mean, we're seeing that too.

Speaker 3: 34:05

You know there's been a backlash to a lot of the momentum that was created in 2020 and there was like all this employee activism and and employees like resting, you know, power and control and now there's employers trying to take it back and it is interesting to witness the unfolding of these battles and this, you know, kind of Gen Z, which would be where my kids fall into. The idea of like being yourself and your own person and like knowing how to identify and lead yourself and not just turn over your power hierarchically to someone else, is happening and you know forces that that hold power aren't. I was excited about that. You know, leading non-hierarchically is a much bigger challenge, like if someone hands you a hierarchical mantle and you can just go from there. That's very different than if you have to build trust and transparency and goodwill and let people around you know that you care about them as a human. It's a much different proposition than the dawn of industrialization and like leaders, you know, with the manual, we actually have to be a human.

Speaker 3: 35:23

You have to be a human, it turns out yeah Turns out, turns out it's scary and beautiful and beautiful.

Speaker 2: 35:34

Yeah, it is. I just I know we're probably getting to the end, but I also wanted to show you what else I did with your information.

Speaker 4: 35:42

Yay.

Speaker 2: 35:43

I know your brand shit. The place was I've been, yeah, I made it and I've been working on it. So not only just it's like a continual thing, so I did it in the 90s and I keep doing it, and then things have changed. So I'm doing, it's a good, it's an extension, and I think this is how you intended it already. But when I actually practice it, I kind of like, oh, I'm getting it Is that you start with your values, you get those clear and then you do your brand strategy what do I love, what do I hate, you know all of that stuff. It really clarifies in, you know, very like it's like so pointed, like, oh, I like that, I don't like that.

Speaker 3: 36:34

And, to say it like, you're allowed to not like things in the privacy of your own exploration.

Speaker 2: 36:40

Yes, yeah, no, it's been really fun. It's been fun, I want to say.

Speaker 3: 36:45

Lauren, when you were asking about, you know, like tips or something. Andrea taught me the value of like 90 days on anything Like it's hard to say, like I'm going to change. I'm going to start meditating as an example. But if you're like I can, just I'm going to do it for 90 days for five minutes, like it feels so much more manageable or like the placemat is another place. You know, like, for 90 days, I'm going to put it out Like and if you have to shrink that more to make it appetizing. But there's something I don't know, there's something magical about that 90 days. I don't know if it's a quarter, it's the way my time is cyclical around the season. You're like, okay, for 90 days, I'm going to try this thing and it's like you haven't declared.

Speaker 3: 37:35

that's not such a big declaration, you know. Right, it feels manageable, it feels manageable.

Speaker 4: 37:41

Yeah, I'm so glad it's resonating with you, with you both, because it came out of such a hard thing for me, which is that I, in my past, have been both super impatient and super impulsive, and I need it. You know, to the point, lauren, of like you know what's, what's a thing you do. I finally realized like it didn't work, like it didn't serve me, so to speak, to be either impatient or impulsive, and so I was like, okay, you know some period of time 90 days to just allow thoughts to come and to reflect and to put them away for a bit and not act on it. It just it's turned out to be a really magical kind of keep using this magical word. It's turned out to be like a really really it's a sunshine. Good thing, yeah, it is a sunshine, it's really is magical. I'm really glad, susan, that that that placemat, as I lovingly call it, is a thing that you are, that you were using.

Speaker 2: 38:39

Yes, it is. So I love you Good.

Speaker 4: 38:43

Good, love it, love it.

Speaker 2: 38:46

Well, I know, I think we're over our half hour, but it's always so good and maybe we can do it again, and maybe sooner than a year and three months, but 90 days, but in another season.

Speaker 4: 39:01

we love all the I love the I love.

Speaker 3: 39:04

Yeah, I love the seasons as as the metaphor and it feels right. Yeah, well, maybe so much.

Speaker 2: 39:14

Maybe we could end this with because it's fall in our seasons leadership we call it really it's the integration time or the time to let go. So maybe we all just go around the zoom and say what we're letting go of or what we're integrating.

Speaker 4: 39:32

Laura, you go first.

Speaker 2: 39:37

Or a while before. Yeah, yeah, we're all doing it.

Speaker 4: 39:40

If we're all for doing it, that's a little. I need a minute to reflect.

Speaker 3: 39:43

Yeah, I mean, I think I'm trying to integrate Other, I'm trying to integrate Different ways of knowing. So it's like I read a lot. So it's like how can I take these incredible fictions that I'm reading with like a tip, not you know, con reading? With a piece of news I'm reading and with the values deck Like, where, where do the different ways of knowing integrate into a point of view in the world, so that I'm not walking around like 25 people but with a point of view? So I have been. That's why I really appreciated the piece that you and Debbie did on the fall, you know, and the integration. It just feels right. So that's what I'm doing. I'm I'm trying to bring all lots of points of view from different places in my life together.

Speaker 2: 40:44

That's fantastic. We and we lost, and Ray, yeah, but so we'll come back. For me, I think what I'm trying to think about is letting go of my identity that I've had for so long and and basically a single independent woman, and now I am part of a couple, which is fantastic and wonderful, but it is different, yeah, and so there's things that I hold on to, that it's unconscious, you know now I have to be a choice to think like okay, when do I really want?

Speaker 3: 41:30

So that's, that's what I love that. I love the. I love the loss of identity that happens at a certain time in life, which, if you're open to it, yes, allows for something else to happen.

Speaker 2: 41:46

Exactly, that's exactly right.

Speaker 3: 41:49

Yeah, okay, lauren, besides loss of sleep as a parent of cool children, just cool children.

Speaker 5: 41:56

Well, I will bring this, I think, back to parenthood because for me and this is a continual thing, but it's sort of letting go of those expectations for how things should go. And we were talking about the value discussion. It was really bringing up for me that reminder you know my kids, I have my values and I'm raising them in my house, but they have their own values and they're learning them and growing them, and so I think there's, you know, in a lot of cases parents have expectations. Their kids are going to follow a certain path or behave a certain way and they have their own uniqueness. And so that's always been something this fall especially kind of working on backing off from those expectations, letting them be the amazing people that they are and respecting their values in that moment. And I think that's the piece I'm trying to integrate in my work. Leadership self is, you know, respecting other people's values in space, and that's kind of the continual learning.

Speaker 3: 42:58

I know. I just can't believe how naive I was, that I thought I'll have kids, I'll do these certain things, I'll try and body these certain values and therefore they will do these certain things and be the certain way, like nothing, like that happens. Spoiler alert.

Speaker 5: 43:15

No, nothing.

Speaker 3: 43:16

I was like wait a minute, this is so. I've literally said to my kids this is so off brand for our family, like what are you doing? You know, so I love that, like acknowledging them as their own people, on their own journeys.

Speaker 2: 43:32

What an awesome mom you are, Lauren. Well, it remains to be seen, Okay well, I guess we're not going to get her back, but yeah, yeah, Andrew is like.

Speaker 3: 43:47

I can't answer it, I'm leaving. No, no, I don't think so.

Speaker 4: 43:50

It didn't go that way.

Speaker 3: 43:51

Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for having us back and thank you and for creating a space where conversations about so many different parts of our lives can come together in a way that can make sense. I think it's really important.

Speaker 2: 44:11

Thank you, we really enjoy the conversation and we'll just continue it.

Speaker 3: 44:17

Yeah, I like that. It's good to see you both. Okay, talk to you in another season.

Speaker 2: 44:24

Thank you, listeners, for joining us for the Seasons Leadership Podcast. We hope you take these words of excellence with you to help you strengthen the organizations and communities in which you live and work and join us in making excellent leadership the worldwide standard. We have many ways for you to read, listen and watch as we explore what it means to lead with excellence. You can subscribe to our free newsletters, podcasts and YouTube channel. We also offer exclusive leadership resources through our Patreon Leadership Community. Visit Patreon P-A-T-R-E-O-Ncom. Slash Seasons Leadership to become a member and begin working toward your full leadership potential and support our mission of making excellent leadership the worldwide standard. Remember, no matter what level or role, you can become more than you are today. We would love to connect with you as we build our community of excellent leaders. Until next time, we're sending you positive vibes for integrating these new leadership insights into your leadership and life.