The Nervous System Nobody Told You About

Most leadership advice tells you what good looks like. Almost none of it tells you how to access it when your body is in survival mode.

In this Soul Sessions Live, I sit down with Ann De Passos and Kim, two leadership coaches who have spent over fifteen years working with leaders, teams, and organizations through change. We get into:

• Why frameworks like the Five Dysfunctions and psychological safety stop short
• What's actually happening in your body during a big transition (layoff, new baby, career pivot, move)
• The difference between a ventral state and a survival state, and how to tell which one you're in
• Three practices you can start in the next 45 minutes to make better decisions under uncertainty
• Why urgency feels like productivity, and what it's actually costing you

If you're in the middle of a transition right now, or you're leading people who are, this one is for you.

Their experience session is linked in the comments for anyone who wants to feel the difference, not just hear about it.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, good morning, good afternoon to everyone out there. Welcome to another Soul Sessions. I am excited about this chat. Um, as you all know, for the series that we've been doing, it's around changes. And this one, we're taking a slightly different angle to it, not just folks who have gone through change, themselves being business owners over the last you know 10 to 15 years, but they've they've been teaching this. And so I'm excited for my guests today. I'm gonna turn it over to them to introduce themselves. I don't know which one I want to go first. Um, maybe you want to share a little bit of the backstory because it sounds like you are the dynamic duo. So I'd love to hear that as we kick we kick off today.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Oh, there's so much thanks, Damon, for having us. Um, Kim and I have also been looking forward to this conversation. And even as we prepared the questions um or and the thoughts, it's been simulating a lot for us. So thank you very much. Um maybe I'll I'll kick us off. Um, my name is Anne. I am um somebody who uh feels a bit of a nomad because I've come from South Africa, I've pretty much moved around every two or so years and living in London at the moment. Um but I've one thing that's been consistent is that I've always found myself in leadership development. I was going to study medicine and I landed up doing an organizational psychology degree in business at university. Then I was gonna go into um finance and ended up finding myself in leadership, and then I was gonna go and travel the world and ended up finding myself doing leadership development again. I was gonna change and do um social, I started a social entrepreneurship, uh, and again I have come back and returned to leadership. So I would say that's the one thing that just feels like consistently uh growing in my life and wants to be there is this purpose of helping people with leadership and to be a thought leader myself. Um and then during COVID and all the lockdown madness, I had the wonderful fortune of moving into uh a complex where I met this beautiful woman, Kim, and the the rest becomes history, but uh I'll let Kim take a moment to introduce herself.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

Hi, yes, Darren. Lovely to be spending this time with you. Um uh it's quite different to Anne's background. My story started out working in very accidentally in the fundraising space, so working with high net worth individuals. Um, I went on to start coaching through those relationships. Um, I started working with social entrepreneurs, needing to pitch their businesses, create really powerful connections, um, start creating cultures in their businesses that they were proud of. And I was working on a um a program of designing your leadership style for uh for leaders, business leaders. And at the time, that's exactly when Anne moved into the building that we shared, and we started having these chats, which were so stimulating. And at some point, I remember her bouncing up into my apartment, and she just said, I think we should share these chats with everyone. Shall we just do a podcast? And that's how this sort of started. So um our conversations went from whilst changing nappies and looking after children and crawling around on the floor with them into something a bit more civilized in the podcast. And just over a year ago, we uh evolved that podcast into our business, which is called The View Looks Good.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

I love this. I love this. There is a piece, um, and I did know you mentioned the word nomad, and that jumps out to me. Um, it's a very quirk. My name spelled backward is nomad. And um, it's one of the things that I've thought about my life is you know, moving from place to place. Um, and then Kim, you mentioned this accidental, like those words sort of uh for both of you. I often think about now, it's like neither of you were fully saying this is the thing that I'm gonna do, but it's one that they call the happy accidents, and so I we might get back into that towards the end. Um lovely, lovely, lovely. Um, so both of you started these chats. I love that that's how it started, and I love the enthusiasm of wanting to share. But and then I'd imagine since there is this foundation of what you've been building in the practice, I would love for you to share um how you started like thinking about it from a theory point of view. Um what you know, after doing the reading and what's out there, just lay lay that land for me because I I know a lot of people don't know what's already out there before we even start to talk about what you've added on top of that.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Well, maybe I can start with some of the leadership frameworks and and um influences in my life. Um I I was very privileged to be introduced to a number of great names like Patrick Lencioni, uh Amy Edmondson with psychological safety, Ken Blanchard Situational Leadership. And there are um wonderful tools out there, whether you are wanting to develop your ability to think creatively, or whether you're wanting to uh become more adaptable in your leadership style, or whether you want to understand different preferences. And I am so grateful for all of that knowledge that I gained around leadership development and the frameworks that they brought forward. But what I started to notice is that even when leaders had gone through these programs and learning and understanding these different frameworks, they were still struggling with their teams. And that got me a bit curious of why is it that I can have or I can see people going on their leadership uh journey. One goes back to their team and their team just thrives, and they oh, you can just feel the energy in their team, and another person goes back to the team and it's still feeling quite flat. I'm like, but you you guys know it's like you get it, you get the framework. Uh, and that's that's been a bit of what Kim and I were talking about. We we started to speak more and more around like, or it feels like it's something to do with the energy, the presence, the state that an individual is in when they're leading, when they're applying a framework, when they're wanting to apply an approach that makes a significant difference. And of course, the knowledge is super helpful to be able to give perspective, to be able to shed light on something that I possibly didn't even understand uh in the first place. And because of that, I can find myself feeling a bit more confident in myself because I've got the knowledge. But what is my presence when I'm working my team through change management? What is my presence when I'm having to give difficult feedback? What am I offering to the other person in that moment? And that's where I start to notice the difference. And emotional intelligence has been a lovely thing that's also come into my life, just realizing oh, there's emotional intelligence that makes a difference in terms of um being able to read the other person. But there's even something more fundamental that that Kim and I have been talking about, and like, okay, great, you can notice that, but now how do we influence it?

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Yeah, yeah. The thing that's coming up, and I don't know if Kim, you want to tap on that, is you know, it's it's one of the things that it's under the surface, and hearing you say that I'm like, whoa, like that is so true. Um, one of the things I often say, I have a seven month old, um, and I can read all the books that's possible, but knowing how like often say it's like knowing how to raise a child doesn't mean I know how to raise a child. Like I, you know, the theory and and often joke. And the other version is like you can't teach someone to ride a bike by reading a book. And there's a version of that when there's all this knowledge that's out there. Um, do you feel like Kim? I'm curious in in the in the work, do you feel like people feel like they've that's the work? The work is learning the knowledge versus effecting change. I'm curious.

SPEAKER_02 8:33

Um, I think it really depends what state we're in. I think parenthood is such a good example, Damon, of when we are, you know, pretty freaked out and exhausted a lot of the time, you know, especially if it's your first. Um and those are the moments when I think we go desperately hunting for the structure and the system and the process. And if I can just follow this, it's gonna work. And increasingly, and and and in so many instances, that information is invaluable and it works a treat. But it's only, I think, ever guaranteed, well, it stands a chance of working when we understand what lies beneath it, which is our nervous system and the state we are in when we're reading it, when we're trying to apply it. Um, you can take the best sleep methods, but if you are a stressed-out, wired parent, that child feels all of that, and under no circumstances is it going to sleep because something here is not right. So I clearly must be up with mum and dad because that's where I need to be. So um it really for us has always been about a curiosity of why does it land in some instances and it doesn't land in other instances? What's the difference? And that deep, deep curiosity has kept us investigating um why does it work? Why did some of these frameworks so beautifully and why did others not? And nervous systems have offered such a beautiful, simple answer to that. Simple in concept, not necessarily always simple in practice, um, that has just become a delight to play with in our lives, um, both as leaders in sharing it with other leaders, but also as parents. It's it's sort of impacted all areas.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Yeah. I before we we we we start to I guess I'm excited to go deeper and learn about um this nervous system or the state, but I can't imagine this was well received in the beginning because if I'm a leader and I'm go, go, go, and you've taught me like, okay, here is you know, Maslow hierarchy of needs, and I'm like, okay, I've got it now. Like, why do I need to care about all these things? Like, I did the leadership training you're supposed that I'm supposed to do. I am curious, were there any initial pushback? What did that look like? As your curiosity led to this exploration, I'm curious if um how this was received from the broader um client base.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Well, it still isn't completely adopted, I'd say that. I I think um some of the resistance that people have is like you're saying, like I'm on go, go, go. And the the exercise and the practice to being able to access the state where we actually do exude a presence that has gravitas and that impacts the people around us positively asks of us to stop doing that go go go and to practice something else. And that can sometimes feel quite daunting and um I kind of want to, like this, this what I've been doing now has been working for us. Uh, I think the other thing we noticed uh with some of the conversations we had was um that the role or the world of leadership is has changed quite a lot over the last 10 years, but we're still catching up with it. So about 20 years ago, there would have been more emphasis on um factories manufacturing, uh, you know, just get in productivity, the work is pretty like stuck standard, you push yourself and you move forward, and carat or stick kind of um uh ways of moving. And and the likes of Dan Pink with drive and motivation started to make us realize like, oh, this this changes uh or this is changing, but we're still catching up because the mentors of people who were going into leadership 20 years ago were great leaders almost 20 years before them, and so what they were teaching and training us and what we understood and believed to be important were suitable for us 20, 40 years ago, and and we've moved on. So there's there's a natural resistance that comes with like, don't make me change. Like, I think I was just getting this right. Don't make me change. But that said, what we're noticing is when people connect with it, when that stops becoming this theorem theoretical concept of uh we'll use the word ventral a lot, like getting into your ventral state, activating your ventral nervous system, which hopefully we can explain a bit more. But when it stops becoming a theoretical question of doing that, actually experiencing that moment of being connected in with yourself and being tuned into this moment, they're like, oh, oh, this is powerful. Oh, okay, oh, actually, it's it's worth it. This you're not asking me to do a bunch of exercises and slow down just so that I can stop doing what I'm doing. You you're asking or inviting it because it's going to make me better at my job. And that's where we're starting to see people realize that this is worth doing.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

And maybe just to add a layer on that is to say that the analogy that's quite helpful is to think of your nervous system a little bit like a gearbox in a car. And currently a lot of people in that go, go, go are using those first, first gear, second gear, those high revs really effectively. But actually, what they are maybe less aware of is that there is a whole other range, fifth, sixth, seventh gear that they could also be using that they're not currently accessing. So instead of this being a uh you're doing it wrong, you need to do it differently. This is about actually offering an expansion to the various gears you can move into. And you should move into the Go Go Go when it's relevant and appropriate. But you know you'll kill your gearbox if you stay there. So you don't want to stay there. You want to enjoy the flow of those higher gears, the efficiency, the performance, the speed that you can get up there. Um, and that's I think a lovely way of framing it for people.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Yeah, it's it's so good. It's the hearing both of you talk about that as we get into like, because I'd love for you to set up what ventral is a nervous state, but hearing you talk, just setting that up, this idea of um I often say that the modern day work, like people were made for work because we do enjoy working towards a goal and becoming competent, but unfortunately, the modern day work wasn't made for us. Um, that we've become so much more aware than we were 50 years ago, much more in tune. Um, we've grown in empathy, but the workspace hasn't. And so we believe that we have to wear this mole um to show up, and there's so much more that we could do. And and I like that word of like expansive, and it's a similar that I think about like both things can be true because most people show up thinking that there's only one right way to grow a company, there's only one right way to be a manager, and so once unless they're exposed to a I call it a menu items of ways that things could go and have them try that in a safe space, then oftentimes they never are able to get that light bulb moment of wow, I don't have to be all this thing here, I don't have to be all this thing, like I can mix and merge and expand who I am. Um we've been throwing around nervous system, it's not a word we oftentimes hear at work. Um, you use ventral, set up that for I'm a layman person. I probably just read Dare to Lead, some Brene Brown, and I'm hearing the word nervous system. How are you describing that and and um for for this scenario? I'm curious.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Uh maybe Damon, can if I uh if I can just draw on what you were talking about there, like this modern-day world, which you've got all these different things that you can access, and now especially with AI, with internet, like there is just so much you can have access to at your fingertips, and the speed with which we're supposed to access that is is really fast. You know, there is that expectation on us, and so if I think about that, what the reason why the nervous system is really a crucial thing is we each have a nervous system, our nervous system works faster than AI, so it processes information. Before you know it, we have taken in information and it acts as a compass for us. So when there's just so much going on around us, our nervous system becomes that that resource that we have access to that's letting us know hang on, maybe you shouldn't be going down that path, or you need a little bit of this, or this is a wounding from your past that's showing up here, or this is the opportunity that your body wants to take on. So just as that as a bit of a as a setup, and like the nervous, we can get technical. Oh, we're gonna enjoy getting a little bit technical. But but if you think about your nervous system as just the thing you have access to, that if you're connected to, it's like traveling around the world with your GPS working, it's brilliant. And if you're not, it's like going around the world with a paper map and trying to work out how to turn the pages and know which which exit to take off the highway, and it's scary and it doesn't work as fast, and it's it's disconnected. So so that'll be a little bit of a framing, and then maybe Kim, I can hand over to you to do a bit of an introduction to nervous systems.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

Yeah, I mean, it's I think we just have to also say, Don, it is weird to talk about our bodies and nervous systems in a workplace environment. That's really fresh, it's very new, but it also makes me chuckle every time someone says, Oh, I don't think I could talk about my nervous systems or think about my nervous system at work. I'm like, okay, but just so you know it's going to be running the shop for you all day, every day. You know, it's sort of like it is going to become the thing that we pay attention to because it is showing up constantly and running the show. Um, if you think about it, your body is literally scanning around you constantly, surveying for threat. Um, is it safe here or is it not safe here? Um, this was a term that was called neurosception by Stephen Porges, who is very much the neuroscience godfather of understanding nervous systems and the body. And so you've got this little scanning system that's constantly looking. Am I safe, am I not? If it's finds that you're safe, if it's seeing things that it feels comfortable with, it feels like this is friendly, this feels like I'm in a space where I know what I'm doing, I've done this before, it just all feels lovely and comfortable. Then it will switch on and activate a nervous system called the ventral state, it's your safety state. And it's basically the one that says, I'm safe to be connected to everyone around me. I'm safe to be with the issues that are coming up, I can deal with them, I'm comfortable, I can be staying in connection, I can talk to these people, I can stay in connection with them. It doesn't matter what they're going through, I can be with it, I can be present. I'm not switching off or trying to get away from this in any way. So it's a space where you find lots of flow, lots of ease, lots of collaboration. Um, there's really effortless systems thinking in that state. So you find that you don't operate in silos because it's such a natural, I feel really safe connecting to that department and that other organization and that competitor is something I can, I'm very comfortable relating to. So you you do think very broadly, and you also have the ability to sit and process what the immediate needs are, but also the long-term needs. So you're never making decisions that cut you off from those long-term benefits because you've considered them. And it happens in a very effortless way. Um, so decision making when you're in that safety state is just beautiful. And really what's happened is that the body feels safe to switch on access to your full brain. That's really all that's happening. Um, it's okay, we're not under threat, we don't have to shut down function here to survive. We can let all the lights come on. And so you have access to your full capacity. If, however, that surveillance is detecting and it's going, oh, I really don't like the look of this day, I don't like the look of my diary, I don't like the look of my inbox, I don't like the look of the accounts right now, you know. And have you seen what's happening in the global political arena? You know, like if you're looking and scanning and you're seeing those things and the body is saying threat, threat. Threat, the first thing it will do is activate the sympathetic nervous system, which is really the one that pumps all the energy into your body. So that's the adrenaline coming up, the cortisol coming up, the go, go, go. And that's where we get that fight-flight, the place where we also we appease and we fawn over things and we just say things to keep the peace. That's also part of that same structure. So it's designed to get you in a combative space, to run away from it, or to people please. And that shuts down large functioning parts of the brain. So even though you feel like you've got a lot of movement, you'll get a lot of physical movement in things. Decisions get made, things happen, things get done. A lot of the time, what you'll find is that's done in quite a siloed way. You don't have very deep relationships with people. Decisions are made that are quite shallow rather than really thought through. Short-term decisions over long-term impact starts to happen. Lots of micromanaging, lots of treating people like they can't perform, all of that, those are just symptoms of that nervous system. So actually, it's busy, it's productive, but it isn't necessarily well thought through and inclusive in its approach. You'll move into that as your default state. If that one doesn't serve you, your body will switch you into the dorsal state, which is the one where it just begins to shut you down and make you small. And it takes the energy out. And it's those days you don't want to get out of bed, that you're procrastinating over making decisions, you're avoiding people that you know you need to have conversations with. It's that I just want to hide away and not interact with the world. And I think that's kind of obvious what that does for, you know, the states of our businesses, our relationships, when we are not in connection there. So those are the nervous system states, the three of them in their simplest form, but they have a really big impact because the body is switching them on automatically, like an autopilot. And you may not even want to show up in one of those states. You maybe you don't want to turn up in your reluctant, avoiding state that day, but your body has decided that is the best solution to this situation because it learned it from a previous experience, perhaps even when you were a toddler. And it brings that decision that you made when you were two into the boardroom now as a fully formed adult, and it will play out from that place. But we have the capacity to notice these states and to make a conscious choice about which ones activated, and that's the bit that Anne and I get so excited about playing with because there is an override button.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Yeah. The there's one thing you mentioned is that a lot of leaders think that they're they're it they don't understand or realize that there is this system that's operating on the need and all. And I go back to I think it's Antio Antonio DeMasi where he talks about emotions, and like none of our decisions are made without emotions. Like oftentimes people thinking that they're making decisions based on facts, and like, dude, come on, there's definitely emotions here. So you trying to remove the emotions from the decision is not gonna make you um like this very mathematical brain. Um, and then obviously I'm here in this and I want to be safe, I want to be expansive, I want to be in that place where I can show up on my best place every day. Obviously, it's not always because whether it's it's the circumstances, like you said, it might be something I oftentimes have a gut feeling where I'll have a conversation at 9 a.m. and it's still there's something I'm feeling it in my body at three o'clock. And I was like, why is this thing still bothering me? And I have no idea because I haven't um processed it. So it sounds like there is an override button. I'd love to hear how do we move through that? Um, with you know, number one, how do we build awareness to know what state we might be in? And then move to the state that we want, which I hope is a ventral state for most folks.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Yeah, and and I think that's a massive thing, is it's moving our approach instead of trying to dismiss things to actually realizing we can be safe with them. So if our emotions come are are coming up, I don't have to remove them, but I also don't have to feed them. And I think that's the thing we don't necessarily know. We just see them, we get freaked out by it, and then we get ourselves stuck into that emotion. So that that override button has a few different steps to it. Um, it's it isn't just a button that you can push, but it is a lot easier than we realize. And I think one of the first places to start is is actually that awareness that you that you've just mentioned, Damon. And like, how do I notice which um nervous system states I'm in without judgment? And that's crucial here. One of our biggest things of getting us stuck in a sympathetic or a dorsal state, getting us stuck in in survival, is that we look at ourselves and we're like, oh, you messed up in that presentation again! Like, oh I mean, can we like I already made the mistake? I messed up in the presentation. Now I'm beating myself up for messing up in the presentation. I am not helping masses in this moment. But if it could be that point of uh of observation of like, oh, I was I could not sit still in that presentation, I couldn't focus. I I I couldn't remember my words, and that's okay. I I'm I'm noticing that. What does that let me know? That let me know that I was probably in a bit of a that survival sympathetic state. I wanted to flee, I wanted to move, I was uncomfortable. Oh, that's that's interesting. Okay, why what was it that made me feel uncomfortable? Was it the audience? Was it the topic? Was it my amount of preparation? Was it my connection to the topic? What what what was it? I can then go and explore, but but I want to be able to observe without beating myself up. So that that would be the first thing, and then to know what is the difference. What are some of the cues? Like I know I've gone into sympathetic when my thoughts just jump from one thing to the next, one thing to the next, one thing to the next. Oh yes. Oh, and the other time I know I've got into sympathetic is when I can find problems with everybody around me. When I'm oh everyone's doing it wrong, especially my my poor husband. He's getting it wrong again. That's generally the sign. Even with Kim, someone up uh sometimes I'll have a conversation and I will have found all the reasons why Kim's doing it wrong. And I'm like, okay, I am not safe right now. This is not Kim doing it all wrong. I am in this moment, I am unsympathetic. What is it that has led me to feel unsafe? And so I'm looking for ways to attack either myself or somebody else in this moment or run away. And maybe just to share from my side, becoming aware that dorsal state. Uh, how do I know when I'm there? How do I feel it? Well, there I can I can just um I don't want to get out of bed in the morning, everything just feels slow, like I just can't seem to move forward. Uh somebody will ask a question, I can't even hear it. You ever have that? You just like I can't actually even hear what you said. Uh I I just it feels heavy. That's the other one. And the thing to say about ventrils, that when you're in ventral, you will know because it feels like magic. Like it is, you're just like, how did that thought come to me? Uh where did that? I've stood in um workshops, running workshops, and somebody's asked a question, and an answer has come out of me, and I go at the end, they're like, I don't know what that one didn't come from me. Now that was some wisdom I did not know I had, so that was not mine. Thank you. Thank you, Ventral.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

Yeah, it's it's almost like the flow state, and so I I think about it. Um, I'm curious as how do we is there an exercise? Um, like for me, I'm hearing this, and if I was a person who knowing who I am, wanted to do this, I'd you know, I have my mole skins that I walk around with, and you know, I'll I'll have a journal maybe every hour. I don't know if that's too much, but let's say for an eight-hour workday, every hour I'm checking with myself and saying, which state do I feel that I'm in and what thought am I having, like something like that. And after a week, I might have some data to prove or disprove. Like, wow, and like you mentioned, I was in that meeting and that, or the the the the word or the term that's coming up that you sort of hinted at was like non-judgmental awareness. And so this idea to just sit with it and saying, what is this state that I'm in, versus this is bad, this is good, just saying, what is this state and how might it be serving me right now? Are there anything else that you coach folks on of like either identifying and then potentially start to shift?

SPEAKER_02 31:25

Yeah, I mean, it's a little bit, and if you are curious about regulation and nervous system regulation, just a quick search, a bit of time on Instagram with it, like you will be inundated with techniques. Like there is no shortage of stuff. Um, one of the new pieces of research is coming out that um Ruth uh Lanius, who has done a lot of work into this space of um neuroplasticity, has shown that actually switching on the body's vestibular, so that's your sense of balance in the body, is really crucial for you moving out of the brainstem activity, which is where the survival states sit, and into accessing the neural pathways into the rest of the brain where we find we're in a much more ventral state. So, one of the nice plays you can have is to just switch on the body's sense of balance. It's a really lovely thing to do this. Um, you can do that, yes, by jumping on a trampoline or uh spinning around for a bit if you can afford yourself that kind of movement in meetings. It can be a gentle tilting of the head from one side to the other, which is very subtle and something you can do anywhere, but doing it quite consciously of like, I'm just gonna find, I'm gonna feel my sense of middle here, here's my point of balance. So just activating that in the body allows the connection to return. Um and then the crucial other thing with all these other areas out there that you can play with, with breath work, with movement, with um meditation, is that it's really important that you understand which state you're in and where you're trying to move, because the body has a bit of a process. So you start in ventral and then you'll move to sympathetic and then you'll move into dorsal. But dorsal and sympathetic want very different things. If you're in dorsal and you're shut down and you're tired, your body wants to very gently wake up and feel safe again. So you don't go and take that body to the gym and try and get it working out because it's got more reason to get back into bed. So you take that state and you let it very slowly move and stretch and look around for things that it loves, uh, go for gentle walks, spend time with a friend who's really easy. You're basically the goal is to wake the body back up and make it feel safe with movement again. Whereas if you're in sympathetic, you've got a whole lot of energy that's just got to finish burning off, basically. So that one you want to do the breath exercises that regulate the breath down. Um, you want to do the runs, the going to the gyms, the um, you know, pretending to punch the air, that kind of thing. You know, anything that again relates to the state that has been activated. Um but there is so much to play with. We we always say explore, practice, see what works for you, see what you enjoy. One of my favorites is to use tapping. Um I love the process. I'm I'm someone that Anne has got this amazing level of energy. So she spends, she's a more natural person with that sympathetic energy. I love a little bit of that dorsal stillness. Um, so using meditation works really well for me to wake my body back up. Um, using tapping works really well. Um, Anne, for you, I mean dance.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

Whenever I can, whether it's going to do a dance social or putting on some music to boogie with my five-year-old, it will be like body movements. I seem to need to let my body find a way to to release that energy. But I think it is like, I think actually, we'll find that a lot of people know already that they need to either something or wake something up. We we do know this, we just don't know we know it. So then we we second guess ourselves and we go into like, well, what does the book say I must do? So let me go and do what the book says I must do. But this is what we want to encourage is actually listen, your body knows, your body knows it's actually feeling very tender right now. You're not lazy, you're not you're not a drain on society, you're not doing it wrong because you want to have a little bit of a nap or a slow movement. So allow yourself to do that. And yeah, it's great that you want to go and get rid of this energy, like allow it, allow your body to do it. You'd rather do it that way than shouting at your colleague or your partner or whatever uh people that you actually care about. So let that energy come out, but finding what works for you, not because the book says it, I think is a really important thing.

SPEAKER_02 36:11

And perhaps the the one that comes closest to pushing the button and just getting you there is to spend time with someone who is in a ventral state. Because our our nervous systems are designed to be contagious. You know, if we go back to imagining ourselves hundreds of thousands of years ago on the savannah, I look over at you and you look completely frozen and freaked out. My body doesn't take less than a you know, it's less than that to go, right? We need to move into a survival state. But if I look over at you and you are in that ventral state and you are grounded and you're alive and you are full of appetite for what's going on, my system is also designed to feel that. Um, and that's why we've moved into doing a lot more of this work um through The View Looks Good, of letting people feel a deeply regulated system and how nice that feels when their system turns on in that way.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

Yeah, there's something about the experiential that I don't think there is enough off coaching or training that's experiential right now versus hey, read a book or hey, come to the class and I'll give you these frameworks. Um, and it's just funny. I just this happened maybe the last three to four months. I totally have a seven-month-old, and obviously what I do is you know, I'm like trying to put her to sleep. So I'm like, shh, and that has been so calming. Um, my hunch is that it's the exhale motion, and when you try to like it's a long exhale, um, that over a long period of time, like my nervous system just feels so calm. And like, obviously, I'm putting the baby to sleep, but it does calm me.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one thing I will say is having done about 15 years of leadership development before having a kid, a kid is probably the best uh leadership developer coach you will ever have, but that's it. As long as when you're doing the shh motion, you can allow yourself to shh, because sometimes I noticed when I was in a panic, I'd be like you aren't doing anything, the shh is done wrong. But but when it was, I used to listen to Enya a lot. I was like, you know, I don't think any does anything for my kid, but Enya does a lot for me, and because it does a lot for me, it does a lot for my kid.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

This has been um so good. Um I I would love for you to set up um is there a specific type? I think I I could say like a leader who finds this stuff really helpful. Um, I know we have a link coming up, but I'd love to hear um overall, like what type of people will find this work. I I for me, everyone should, like everyone should sign up for this. But I'd be curious, you know, the the executive who is thinking, what are they thinking right now? You know, I'd love to hear that.

SPEAKER_02 39:11

Yeah, I think that this is really right for someone who's in that point where they're curious about if there's something more. Um, a lot of the people that come to us will say, I've done some stunning trainings, I've got a lot of the frameworks, um, but I feel like there's more and I don't know how to access that. And that's where this comes in so powerfully. Um so it works with somebody who's curious. I also think it works for somebody who this isn't just um the leadership is not just a way to earn more money. Like they have a curiosity about how does my presence have an impact on those around me and and what could we achieve if we were in a much steadier state where we yeah, you know, we talk about leaders who want to be able to lend their steadiness to others, um who want to be able to feel a sense of clarity in vast amounts of uncertainty. Um, because these things are possible when you've got access to other gears. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:28

And uh to your point, Damon, this is relevant for anybody in any journey. Kim and I specifically work with leaders, and and we've worked on this idea of leadership presence. But as a parent, as a spouse, as a family member, as a dancer, as an athlete, I'm sure you you've even spoken about understanding your nervous system and learning to work with it and to influence it, makes a significant difference. So there is a little bit of a yeah, it's it's for everybody, but specifically for us, if you happen to be in some kind of leadership role where you are that curious leader who has been given the responsibility of looking after uncertainty, questioning, uh being asked loads of questions, um, navigating something new, you might enjoy working with Kim and I. And Damon I see you've put a link out there that is a link to doing a 90-minute experience session where you can explore what it is like to get to your ventral state and what insights you gain once you're in that state on the the problem, the challenge you're facing and aspect of your life.

SPEAKER_00 41:48

Yeah. Unless you've been living under a rock, the past, you know, just the start of the year has been very crazy and moving so fast. And I oftentimes think that this is a type of work that makes you grounded, this is a type of work that makes you stand out, that there's probably so many people that are in stage that they don't want to be, and they have no idea how to get back because they're being driven along. And oftentimes when you're being driven along by society, you need to be your own anchor. Um, this work is so amazing. Um, I've linked here, there's a website, and we've also tagged both Anne and Kim in the comments. Folks, any last comment before we log off? This has been so amazing.

SPEAKER_02 42:35

I think I would just say if this has sparked any curiosity in you, just reach out for a chat. We love connecting with people who are curious. Um, and we could, yeah, and yes, that's that's what I feel I have an appetite for is just connecting with more people.

SPEAKER_03 42:51

Yeah. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 42:53

Yeah. Thank you, Damon. This has been a wonderful privilege to be able to talk about what we love doing with a new audience and um and to have a conversation with you, which has been one of the things I've looked forward to since I first saw your your initial soul sessions. So thank you.