S01E20 We Build Inner Authority So Culture Can Regain Its Humanity

As mentioned in the episode, click here for the Applied Enchantment framework. 

This episode explores transmission, which is the third pillar of generational humanity. Transmission isn't about teaching or lecturing; it's how your inner life naturally shapes the atmosphere around you and influences others through who you are and how you show up.

A society full of internally fragile people cannot sustain freedom or humanity. We need people with inner authority, emotionally regulated, grounded, and clear on their values and can handle conflict without dehumanizing others. This isn't about perfection or hypervigilance; it's about living in alignment with what matters and creating a steady foundation. 

Transcript

0:08

Hello everyone. Welcome back to a life and color. Over the last two weeks, we've been talking about generational wealth, but not money, humanity, generational humanity we can call it. Pillar number one was orientation. We talked about how you can assess your situation and help yourself see clearly what is shaping you, what you're responding to, where you're starting from, and where you want to be. Pillar number two was about building all of the practices and the habits that you put in place to deliberately strengthen your inner life so that you're not just living by default, you're not just getting by. And then today is pillar number three, transmission. And this is where it gets bigger because once you build that inner authority, you don't just live differently. You start shaping the rooms that you walk into. What's inside of you eventually becomes the climate around you, and that is transmission. I was over at my parents' house earlier this week I had a long conversation with my dad. It was just the two of us I was asking him about his grandparents. I knew, for example, that he was very close to his mother's mother, but I didn't know many details about her. I know that he gets very happy when he talks about her and that they spent a lot of time together when he was growing up, but I didn't know any details and so I was asking him about, you know, who got along with whom and how the dynamics were in the house, and I learned a ton. What I learned was they used to live next door to his grandparents. He and his mother, his dad was deployed. in the military and he and his mother and his little brother used to live next door to his grandparents. And that on Sunday mornings, my dad would wake up early, he must have been, I don't know, six or seven years old, and he would wake up early and go next door to his grandmother and they would go to church together to the early mass, and then they would stop and get donuts and cinnamon buns on the way home. then they would have like hours before everybody else woke up just hanging out, just the two of them. And they would talk and they would cook and they would eat their treats that they got on the way back. And my dad, who's in his seventies, teared up talking about her because it meant so much to him. And she died 50 years ago he's so moved by how formative that experience was for him and the fact that his grandmother took the time and the focus and the presence to be with him when he was just a little boy and she made him feel like the center of attention and she valued his thoughts and ideas and his conversation, she just made him feel so valued and so loved. It's just such a beautiful thing, and that is exactly what I'm talking about when I say transmission. She made him feel seen and safe and important. So when I got home, I told my husband about the conversation because it was such a lovely conversation and he said, well, this explains so much about your dad because your dad loves everything related to going to church and supporting and participating in church activities, and he loves to cook. He cooks all the time. And this just created this whole map in my head of where that came from. he was right. That is transmission. It's not about lecturing. She didn't give him advice that he remembers, I don't think she created an atmosphere her steadiness became his steadiness. Her delight was passed down to him, and her way of being with him became the way that he is with us. That to me is generational wealth. That is how you pass down from one generation to the next and the next the wealth of what it's like to be human in your family. Transmission is not teaching. Right. I said it's not lecturing, it's not sitting your kids down or sitting with somebody and saying, these are our values. It's what people absorb from being around you, the way you handle stress, the way you respond to beauty, the way you react when you're scared, the way you treat power. It's about where you put your attention, and the way you are on the inside becomes the atmosphere that other people live in when they're around you. And look, this doesn't just happen at home. This is not just about passing things down to your kids. It literally happens everywhere. We tend to shrink this down to parenting because that's the easiest to define, clearest, most deliberate example of passing something down to somebody. We're all aware that that's happening. We are all making deliberate choices about what we want to give our children, but transmission is not just about children. It's about culture as a whole, because when we say culture, when we talk about what is our culture, we're not talking about the laws and the policies and the rules that are governing us, Nobody means that we're talking about the people. Let me give you an example. There was a meeting that I was in once where everything seemed like it was going wrong. It was sort of cascading failures. And we were up against a deadline it just became clear that we were gonna miss the deadline, everything was sort of falling apart. Everybody was super tense. You could feel the anticipation of the reaction from the client in that moment everything was sort of on the line. And I had this boss that I used to work for. She was tremendously calm, under pressure. And she had been pushing very hard. She was pushing this team and she had been, very, clear about the expectations. But in that moment, when it became clear, there was no longer a chance that we were gonna hit the deadline, Look, the reasons were out of our hands. But she could have escalated, She could have made the energy worse. She could have started with punishing words or, actions. She could have protected herself or deflected in that moment and started pointing fingers and placing blame wherever she could. And instead, I remember this so clearly, she paused and she said, let's slow down. What actually happened, walk me through this. And the whole tone of the room shifted because it was no longer everybody bracing for blame. Now we're gonna have a conversation and somebody who can help us is gonna listen and hear all of those details maybe everything doesn't have to be a disaster. And after that meeting and after that project, I promise you nobody in that room remembers the PowerPoint slides from the meeting. Nobody probably even remembers the details from the project, but they remember how it felt. I remember how it felt. The relief to see a leader demonstrating that sometimes when little things fall apart, there is a way or out of that that does not involve allowing your emotions to run the deal. She was able to create a moment that gave us confidence that she had that under control and that everything was gonna be okay. And I still remember how that felt to this day. That is transmission. You transmit how conflict works in your presence. You transmit whether fear escalates or steadies. You transmit whether the power in the room is gonna try to dominate everybody, or is it there to clarify things and help step everybody through? That is transmission in the wild. Transmission moves from your inner life, whatever you build on the inside of you, into the room, into the relationships that you have with the people around you, and then into the systems that you touch in your life. When I say the systems around you, what I mean is any role that you take on in your life, any group of people that you interact with, you are always leaving things with them, You are sending messages that are being received. So for example, at work, if you are a leader of any kind, are you the kind of leader that has a reputation of holding meetings that are really stressful or that go really long? Are you the kind of leader that your team knows it's okay to disagree with you, or is it really scary and unsafe to disagree with you? Think about the person. Who you've worked for that makes everybody feel really stressed out and tense all the time and then think about somebody else you've worked for or with that made every room feel safer when they were in there because they were there to support Also, in terms of the way that you relate to money that transmits, right? Is your view on money colored by fear or scarcity, or is it more about your convictions or your responsibilities? You are through your activities with money and your economic agency, your transmitting what security feels like to you or doesn't, and then within your community and the broader culture in friendships and communities you normalize depth or you normalize superficiality. We all have relationships that stay surface level in most conversations, Hopefully. We also have relationships that go deep and there are some people that can generate that depth no matter who they're talking to. You normalize cynicism or generosity. When you approach something new or a challenge, are you cynical about it? Are you assuming the worst is gonna happen? Are you constantly talking about how everything is stacked against you, or are you more generous in your interpretation of what's happening, generous with yourself and generous with the broader community around you? And you normalize consumption versus creation. Are you there to consume what people are providing or are you creating something on your own based on your values and your desires and what matters to you? The cultural norms that we are surrounded by all the time. don't just shift because the rules change or there's new legislation or whatever. It also shifts because somebody in the room is projecting steadiness, People who don't escalate unnecessarily when things get emotional or don't default to just numbing out on their screens or their phones or in a chocolate cake because they don't wanna face what's happening, or people who. Don't default to meanness and cruelty because they're afraid those people impact the cultural norms. So if we have a whole world of people like that, imagine, what could change in terms of how we run this place. The stakes are pretty high, This is the part that we don't always say out loud, but here it is a society full of internally fragile People cannot sustain freedom. If people don't know who they are. They look for someone else to turn to. If people don't know who they are, they look for someone else to tell them. If they can't tolerate discomfort, they silence it. If they can't regulate their own fear, they escalate it. Most cruelty doesn't begin with intention. It begins with powerlessness and fear. It begins with somebody feeling that their identity has been threatened. So if we want institutions that are humane and workplaces that are sane, communities that are resilient and can withstand challenges like we are seeing today, we need people with inner authority. We don't need louder arguments. We need stronger people. stronger doesn't mean aggressive, it means emotionally regulated, grounded, clear about who they are and their identity and what their values are. Able to disagree without dehumanizing the situation. We build inner authority so that our culture can regain its humanity. Those are the stakes here. That's the work that we're trying to do. I do wanna say something important because when I have been thinking about this topic, there were moments where I felt myself slipping into hyper vigilance or perfectionism. the whole message we have at this brand is step away from perfectionism. You're not performing a role, Authenticity. So, I wanna say that this is not about performance. You're not responsible for being perfect, and transmission is not about hypervigilance or constant surveillance of yourself. It's about living in alignment with what matters to you. You're not responsible for every raindrop in a rainstorm. But you are responsible for the overall climate that you normalize for everybody, the climate that you create and return to over and over again. That's what you're responsible for. Weather has storms, right? There are bad days, and those transmit to, and that's okay. How do you handle difficult things? How do you handle, sadness and grief and disappointment and conflict? That's all part of it. But when the foundation is steady, those storms don't become who you are. I remember when I was in therapy, at one point my therapist had me do this exercise. I may have said this before, had me do this exercise where I had to close my eyes and imagine that I was the sky, I was the big blue sky, and that my emotions were clouds. That were just floating through me, floating through the sky, and sometimes they're white, puffy, happy clouds. Sometimes they're dark, heavy storm clouds, but all of those clouds pass right through me. If I'm the sky, my foundation is strong. I'm not gonna deviate from being the sky. I can't grab onto those emotions. I'm just this guy. And that is inner authority, not suppressing your emotions. You're not trying to control them. Just inner stability. This work touches everything. But if you're wondering where to begin, begin where transmission is clearest, which is at home. Because when you create, an atmosphere there, when you have activities that you repeat over and over again, that compounds very quickly at home. Your tone becomes your children's memory. Your voice becomes the voice in their head, right? That memory becomes their identity over time, and then that identity later in their life becomes inheritance for other people, the people around them, their future children. I can't go back and sit in that apartment with my dad and his grandmother, but I can decide what kind of Sunday I want my children to experience, and that is the power that we still have. That is what I mean by building atmosphere and memories and structure within your home. this is where I wanna talk to you about our newest creation that I am so excited about. I know I mentioned it in the last episode, it's called Applied Enchantment. what I've done is created a whole framework around how to create atmosphere and depth and memory within your home, whether that's with your partner or your children, or your grandchildren, your nieces and nephews. I don't know. It does touch on ways that you can create things that will touch your community and your friendships, but it is mostly focused on what you can do at home to create a wealth of humanity and pass that forward. It has nothing to do with productivity, okay? This is not full of parenting hacks. It has nothing to do with, Pinterest perfect aesthetics or activities. What I created is a set of exercises and practices that help you mark time so that your days don't blur together. Ways to create a more memorable mood and atmosphere and sensory experience through music, through scent, through, the energy of the house, how to shift your tone when things feel flat. It's ways to make mundane life moments more magical because in doing so, you are transmitting and teaching your children how to go through life in delight and feeling enchanted by all of the simple, ordinary things that we do every single day. Because the home is where that transmission is most visible, and that repetition of traditions and rituals and things that you create that are yours, that are your family's identity. That repetition compounds so quickly, and you can see the results of this work immediately. You start to create magic in tiny moments, and you will immediately feel the difference in your home. once you learn how to do that there, then you can go and take it anywhere else- in meetings, in situations of conflict, in teams that you lead or community. Applied Enchantment is not the whole ecosystem. It is the first entry point that we have created, but this is where you train the muscle of creating atmosphere within yourself and in your life, you learn to normalize vitality and aliveness. So if that sounds appealing to you, if that stirred something within you, if you're feeling like I do wanna build something uniquely mine, uniquely ours within my home, and I want to pass on this kind of in internal structure and humanity within my children, I hope that you will start with Applied Enchantment. You can get to it on our website, a life in color.co. And I will put a link to it in the show notes as well so you can find it there. I would love it if you begin there and then if you would let me know how it's going and what you're creating and, how this turns out for you and your family. I would just be delighted to see that my email as always is Laura at a life in color.co. And I am so grateful for you spending this time with us, and I hope you'll join us next time here at a Life in Color. Have a great week, everyone. Thank you. Bye now.