Does having enough material success mean you cannot feel disconnected, empty and alone? How can you successfully lead a transformation and feel fulfilled at work?About Thomas BourlonThomas Bourlon works for a big European company, he moved out of a senior management position to lead the human aspect of Change Transformation Programs.Thomas Bourlon’s Key Insights to Engage on a journey of Cultural Transformation“If you want to change your outside world you have to Change your inner world.”[0:57]  Thomas starts by sharing his own story. How he was feeling disconnected, frustrated and alone with all the success and how he changed that to be more alive at work and feel more fulfilled.If you want to inspire people around you need to feel greater than the environment.If you want to feel more JOY, then one must also feel the pain, its the other side of the coin.3 Key elements to engage on a Cultural Transformation: Feel your emotions:He says,The way we feel influences the way we thinkThe way we think influences the results we achieve.Create Physiological Safety:He says, When Managers share their failure, people feel permitted to do the same.Challenge the rules Some rules were good at one point of time, look into the processes and tools. Because when you change the rules, the behaviour will change.What gets in the way of Cultural Transformation:Becoming too attachement to the process, tools and people you work with.“What was right yesterday may not be right for today and tomorrow.”Using Fear and Frustration to make change is a short term approach and not a best practice in the medium and long term.[14:28] Criticism and Judgement, does not help us. Its just mirroring who we are. People who criticise us have a gift for us. Look into the greatness of others. Remember:[15:38] If you want to change your outside world you have to Change your inner world. So slow down, take time for yourself to feel more creative and feel more alive. Listen to your feeling to accelerate things happening around you.

 When we are anxious, the last thing we want is for others to point that out to us. Sophie Riegel, 18 years old has written a book: Dont tell me to relax. The stigma to be perceived as imperfect keeps us away from talking about our mental health issues. Listen to this young women’s journey on how she turned her weakness into a strength. About Sophie RiegelSophie Riegel, 18, a senior in high school, author of the book “Dont tell me to relax“, One Teen’s Journey to Survive Anxiety and How You Can Too!Sophie Riegal speaks all over the country. She lives in New York with her parents, twin brother, and rescue dog, and she plans on writing a second book in the near future. She is going to Duke University in Fall. Sophie is a passionate mental health advocate and strives to make a difference in the lives of those around her. Sophie has 4 different anxiety disorders. She has suffered a lot in the past and because of that she is now a strong mental health advocate.Sophie shares….In her younger days she was bullied a lot, so she decided to educate others about her anxiety disorders, first by giving a talk in her class, then talking to more people and finally wrote a book. Educating others stopped the bullying at school and people became much more understanding. She says, We all can have different mental health issues in different stages of our life, her advice: Take the first step to talk to someone. There is a lot of stigma of being perceived as imperfect or having problems or of being unstable. That fear leads people to curl up in their ball and be isolated from everyone else, which is a huge problem. And thats why its important to talk about mental health. So people know its okay to struggle. No one’s perfect. The more you share with others, more others will open up to you. In the podcast, she talks about how she has inspired many people reach out to her. Mental illness is not something to to be ashamed of. Everyone has something going on and its time we start turning our weakness into strength. She turned her weakness into a strength. i.e. she turned her mental illness into a book. That’s healing others and that process has healed her too. To know more about Sophie: http://donttellmetorelaxbook.com

 What is our Inside team? What are the different conversations in our head? How do we listen to the different parts of us? How can I be in charge and be my adult self that makes conscious choices?About Cynthia Loy DarstCynthia Loy Darst has been a Professional Co-Active Coach for the past 22 years and is a faculty member of both The Coaches Training Institute and CRR Global. She is the author of the book: Meet your inside team. In this episode she explains what your inside team is, how to harness its power, and challenges people face in doing so.Cynthia Loy Darst’s Key Insights to understanding the different parts of usDuring the conversation Cynthia shares:The different conversations we have inside our head and how we chose or not chose and listen to only some of them.Driven people have a high value of accomplishment. And sometimes that drives us so much that we dont allow other parts of us.What are the different aspects of our personality and tips on how to honour our values.What are our sub-personalities, how can we get to know them.How to overcome the challenges of feeling an imbalance in the way we live.   Remember:“Every part of you is trying to contribute to you. Every single player of your inside team has at least 2% of positive intent if not more. So, slow down and get curious about whats going on inside your head. ”Slow down and listen to the different conversations inside your head. Coz every voice represents a different player, a different value. Dont dismiss them, because they allow you to be whole.To know more about Cynthia: https://teamdarst.com  

  What is loneliness in systems? How does it get created? What are the challenges of relationships in systems? How can we overcome them? How can we talk about failure together in a team? What is needed to be able to hold that conversation? About Marita FridjhonMarita Fridjhon, is the co-owner and CEO of CRR Global. She is a consultant to several large organizations and mentors a large number of practitioners in the field of Relationship Systems Intelligence. In addition, she designs curriculum and operates training programs for coaches, executives, and teams. She came to this work from an extensive background of Clinical Social Work, Community Development, and Process Work. Key learning’s from the podcast: Loneliness in systems occurs when we focus our attention too much on return on investments and too little on return on relationship.The mental model where people on top of the organisations feel I need to have all answers, leads to disconnections.Relationships become difficult when there is conflict and comparison. Team agreements need to be setup for teams to be efficient.Team agreements are a living thing, that needs to be updated and talked about every now and then. As, humans are infinitely complex. Our relationships evolve and change over time. We are always work in progress.Teams that harness the collective intelligence are the ones that go back to go back to the team agreements when things get difficult.In relationships, it may seem at times that we are going slow if we go together but in the end we go faster.One way for organizations to get innovative is to have a day to talk about “Failures”. Failures allow us to learn, grow and prototype differently.Before you talk about your failures with others, it’s important to take time yourself to journal / log your failure and your learnings from it. And it’s your right to share what you want with others in the organization. So, STOP and talk about what didn’t work and what are we learning from it. It’s from these discoveries that innovation happens. Safety is important in such conversations; this information should not be used for evaluations. These are prototyping conversations.Have a “Gratitude journal”, write down what are you grateful for; share that with a colleague or co-worker. Gratitude journal helps build a healthy self-esteem. It then easier to look at the difficult things, like failure and learning that come along.Remember “If you want to go fast go alone, but if you want to go far go together.”Togetherness is built through relationships and is the currency that runs organizations.To know more about CRR Global: https://www.crrglobal.comMore about Marita: https://www.crrglobal.com/our-founders.html

  Zach Reynolds has been a property lawyer for the last 20 years. He is a partner in a central London Law firm. Zach leads a team of 20 property lawyers. A strong and successful lawyer with deep insights.What is – Not being yourself? [0:53] Zach says that happens when we are paying too much attention to…..what we think ought to be done…..the rules we have to abide byAnd not enough attention to your intuition and what we feel and that takes us away from being ourself. “Understand what the rule is and be prepared to explore close to the boundary.” We can lose our sense of ourselves and it can be restricting when we dont bring our feelings, our emotions, our opinions and we get driven from outside expectations of how we ought to be perfect.So, stepping outside the usual framework that lawyers are supposed to operate in and giving a bit of yourself brings added value to your clients.  Where does the need to be perfect come from? [6:43] Zach says lawyers are instructed to get everything right by their clients and that becomes a benchmark for them. However, this can happen in so many other businesses, and we become attached to this idea of getting it right and we get attached to winning.We are not going to get it right all the time, we don't do it in other areas of our life. This expectation to be perfect from clients puts a lot of pressure. And I'd like to take that pressure off in the law domain as it stifles away creativity and it causes procrastination and things take more time.  What is it to be yourself? [10:15] Start with understanding what you stand for and what makes you tick. You can use this as a guiding principle and keep it as your light. “I do a lot of interviews, and sometimes people tell me what I want to hear, and I feel like I’m not getting the real person.” Understand what you are all about and understand what you fundementaly stand for“BE YOU, and don’t do something that feels fundamentality out of style with who you are and what you’re about; because the world will then organise itself around you. Because the world that organises around you is the one that is sustainable”Have Faith that:Being who you are is enoughBeing who you are will be enough What was the worst moment for you when you weren’t being yourself? [17:03] At the start of his career Zach had big dreams and ambitions about who he was going to be as a lawyer and then he got to a point in this career where what he was putting in became unsustainable and he came off the path of his dream.Paying too much attention to numbers, paying too much attention on profits and not focusing on the purpose squeezes the dream out of the picture. From the result of these two, Zach felt disconnected from himself and the people that were closest to him also felt disconnect from him.“Once you’re there, you get feedback from people that tell you that you are off the track.”  At this point Zach had lost sight of his path and the worst part to him is that you don’t realize it. The impact of not being yourself is:[20:10]Not being yourself is not sustainable in the long run.You fall off the path of your own dream.You get disconnected from yourself and others. This impacts your family and business.So, when you hear someone say:“I see you, I don’t feel you”“You are just not the same as you used to be.”Those statements are critical signs that you are not being your true self in your essence.What is one final message you’d like to say? [22:30] Pay attention to what is going on inside you and honor that. It’s the key to connection, and as humans, we are driven by connection.

In this episode I share with youMy experience as a recovering perfectionistHow does perfectionism limit us4 Tips to get on the path of ExcellenceThe number one thing that got in the way of me creating my podcasts was a need to create a perfect one. So, I kept postponing this incredible journey I wanted to get on. My inner critique was loud: I had dialogues like - How can I say all the things in just 15 min. What if I forget to say something important? What if its not well done?The way perfectionism works is that it judges and points us out to our mistakes. It tells us we now have a change to go do it better. I include myself in that equation when I say us/we.Our perfectionism points us out to our mistakes and when that happens we go make corrections and then we are pointed out again, and we correct until there is something outstanding in our belief. I remember times when I isolated myself when others pointed out my mistakes. I'd go into this rabbit hole of feeling miserable and disappointed with myself. And then I would criticise those who made me feel terrible. And my body would feel tired and sapped of energy. Because I felt that I was the mistake and not that I made a mistake.The moment I realised that I'm human and not a perfectly constructed thing, it took away the power.In perfectionism there is a feeling of having arrived in a static place. In that static place we accept ourselves when we meet high standards. We have a false belief that others need us to be perfect.Our perfectionism has a tendency to:1. Procrastinate and postpone2. Over delivery high standards all the time3. Judge our self and others.4. Become proud of our perfectionism5. Soothe our ego - Oh I did that well, there is a high ego in the world of perfectionism.6. Look back into what we did wrongI know what it feels like to constantly life up to high standards. When I realised that my perfectionism is my #1 Joy killer! I decided to live differently.I want to share with you what I'm learning in my journey as a recovering perfectionist.I want you to experience more EASE of being. Because....Perfectionism takes away the REAL YOU !Perfectionism takes away the SPARKLES in you!So I want to introduce you to Excellence!Excellence is an ongoing state of being. It’s the hallmark of your qualities. It’s a hallmark of all the magnificent things you are.In excellence there is1. AppreciationAn ongoing appreciation for what you are attempting. Where failure indicates that you are growing. I want you to say:"Wow. I'm so glad I tried something new, I did something different. Look, I have an opportunity to learn something." Every failure yields more appreciation because it gives you information to go towards excellence.2. FlowYou are not attachment to results. You don’t cling on to a thing in the past where you are miserable about not having done or gotten something. Your setbacks and mistakes are no more the lens through which you see the world. You flow with the river of life.3. InfluenceNot control. In influence we give it our best shot without the need to get on top of things and use our power and force to make change. Its about how can I help? How I can make the difference? How can I support and serve? How can I play in my circle of influence.4. MagnificenceRemember there is magnificence in you. You see the light and the dark sides of you. As a first step on this journey, I want you to recognise all the magnificent things about you. If I tell you to write down 10 magnificent things about you, I know you won't do it. You have bought into the story that your perfectionism is here to protect you and make you achieve your targets. So, let that be an old story now.Remember you are magnificent just as you are and you are becoming even more magnificent.I want you to learn that all of life is perfect as it is and I want you to avoid being a perfectionist.Thanks for reading and I'd love to hear your comments, and about your perfectionist side. Write to me: deepa@meetmypotential.comFeeling disappointed by people around you when you are making change ?Get your Guide (PDF) forYour First Step To Make CHANGE Happen And Be In PEACEWhen you download the PDF guide, you will:Learn about the common Challenges High Achievers face to implement Change. Get insights on 6 Typical Traits of High Achievers and how those strengths help you to make change happen. Become aware of the Dark Sides of these 6 traits of a High Achievers and how they get in the way to achieve your goals with ease. 1 Simple Mindset Shift that can make a difference to bring more EASE of being and PEACE of mind. Click on the image to get your guide

 Are you trapped by Politics? Are you yearning to show your potential at work? Learn 3 key tips to survive politics in an organisation?Michael Jarrett, Professor of Management Practice in Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD says that“Organisational politics refers to a variety of activities associated with the use of influence tactics to improve personal or organisational interests.” What I found from interviewing people in organisations is that the ones who succeed on organisational goals and personal goals are the ones who follow these 3 principles: Principle 1: Accept that politics is normalThat’s right accept that Politics will exist – no matter the size of the organisation. Yes its hard to get rid of politics and to do that requires everyone in the organization to get on a development path. Work on their on their gaps in a systemic way exposing oneself in a vulnerable way. What I noticed consistently is that when we don’t work on our insecurities and worry about playing safe and looking good, Politics finds it breeding ground.Politics can be positive if used to get past complexity of structure and roles to meet organizational goals. At the end of the day an organization is present with people to produce results. How people are structured and how people co-ordinate in an organization to meet those goals are sometimes not simple. So politics can help cut past complexity when used with a good intension.Pitfall: Fighting hard to isolate oneself from Politics takes away career growth.When there is politics at the top, and we try to fight hard to isolate ourselves from it; it impacts our career. This impact varies from choosing a technical path, deciding to play a small management role or come to terms with perineal work frustration. This isolation leads to a lack of confidence as high performers have insights and feel completely undervalued at work! It’s a paradoxical deadlock of feeling competent and yet under-valued!Principle 2: Have a bit of Political skillsThat is understand the landscape of players. There are many articles on the internet on identifying different political players and tactics to deal with them. I’m not going into those tactics in this article for the sake of playing a bigger game. A bigger game for me would be an ideal organization that Dr Robert Kegan Professor of Adult Learning and Professional Development at the Harvard University describes in his book Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization (DDO). In a DDO people are not paid to do a double job.Kegan says most people are doing a second job no one is paying them for. Most people are spending time and energy covering up their weaknesses, managing other people’s impressions of them, showing themselves to their best advantage, playing politics, hiding their inadequacies, hiding their uncertainties and hiding their limitations. When we are not in a DDO and political game are present we need to know how to wade through the storm of politics while remaining in INTEGRITY with ourselves.The amount of energy is spent on – looking good, hiding mistakes means that we are not developing ourselves. Employers pay full time for a part time job. Kegan says it’s a ridiculous bargain.When we are focused on covering up actual weakness we lose opportunities to grow and learn.So, having political skills to survive means, knowing when to step back on the fight for power and position because the storm of politics is too strong. This might mean going away on a job that is not sought after by people who search for power, budget and money. Come back with a success story in 2 years. I.e. Go create a small viral change in new place.Or standing strong with courage in the face of strong politics and calling forth people. Knowing that you are at a complete risk of getting a blame badge that might lead to you even getting fired! Pitfall: Stepping into dirty games against our INTEGRITY takes away our mental and physical wellbeing.Political stress is another form of stress. Stress impact of this varies from waking up at 3am running scenarios in our head, getting irritated at home to having stunts in the heart!Speculating which television channel in our brain is understanding the political scenarios is loss of mental energy!Step 3: Accept that you don’t master everything The ability to give your best shot and let go of mastering the game is what allows successful individuals to better manage stress and the complexity of business. Learning to let go, learning that we can’t control the outcomes no matter how much we plan and how much we do is key to holding the goals lightly in pursuit of excellent. Goals and targets will happen automatically when we focus on playing our bigger purpose. Pitfall:Our attachment to results leads us to act with more CONTROL and takes us away from our journey of excellence.When we believe strongly that winning is important we become attached to results. When we have a hard focus on results, the impact of a small finger pointing can hurt our ego and lead us to raise the volume of our internal critique, blaming others, defending oneself and sometimes get into a rabbit hole! In a organization which is not on the path of a deliberately development organization (DDO) my findings leads me to believe that the following 3 elements are key to finding peace in a political workplace! Accept that politics is normalHave a bit of Political skillsAccept that you don’t master everything Politics, pressure and winning at all costs can lead us to become reactive and lead us to act from our insecurities and fear. My 2 recommendations: Connecting with our higher purpose and asking oneself constantly: What is my real purpose ? Allows us to dig deeper into our pursuit, our deep motivations and brings meaning into our actions.Staying with our fear holds a magnificent gift for us. In the darkness of fear there is sadness, disappointment and in that darkness we can see the stars and find the key to get on the pursuit of our higher purpose. So, holding the question: Where am I wrong? Allows us to find the key to scale our leadership!I’d love to hear your comments, your experiences and support you to go past turbulent political times.

 Rick Tamlyn inspires people to be their best. He is the author of Play Your Bigger Game, a coach, and a motivational speaker. Rick discusses his book, exercises he utilises at his workshops, and how we can overcome our avoidance of judgment.What inspired you to write the book – The Bigger Game?[1:01] Laura Whitworth, one of the co-founders of The Coaches Training Institute, was working on a philosophical context of helping people bring more to the world. She then asked Rick if he wanted to be a part of it.“It came out of our own hunger to activates other peoples’ hunger.”Can you give an example of what caused you to create and become who you are today?[3:49] Rick was elected president of the youth group in his church when he was sixteen. He met with the minister at the beginning of the year and told him that he was not interested in doing the same old stuff in the youth group. The group took on a large project and dedicated their whole year to it, illustrating a clear example of a bigger game. Later, Rick was requested to give a sermon, during which he really learned what leadership is.Can you say a little bit more about the Bigger Game model?[6:53] It has nine elements and is laid out similar to a tic-tac-toe board. Some of them include compelling purpose, comfort zones, and bold action.“The words on it are not new. The conversation it creates is new.”It’s called bigger game, not bigger goal. Rick insists that he is not a goals coach and that he actually hates the word “goal.” When you focus on bigger game, your goals will happen organically. Speaking from your heart is key.[9:41] People have a fear of failure, or even a fear of success. With Rick’s gameboard, people talk to each other in his workshops about comfort zones. A comfort zone can be helped by having a compelling purpose that is bigger. The organizations that Rick sees talk blatantly about failure are the most successful.What is the biggest challenge you see when working with people in organizations?[15:58] Avoidance of judgment, which Rick admits he is also guilty of. Rick says that it’s very likely for the world to think we’re crazy if we have a bigger game. The paradox is that most of us wish that the world wasn’t judgmental. Knowing that you won’t be perfect at your bigger game can help. Rick believes we should dare to know things for our clients; don’t worry about being right. Be curious about the judgment that is coming at you.What is a tip you can give to someone who fears being judged?[22:00] Curiosity is the antidote to judgment. And again, dare to show up.What is one final message you’d like to say?[25:21] Don’t overthink it. Over-create it. Create something faster instead of trying to think about the creation.Rick’s website: https://www.ricktamlyn.com/

In this episode, Deepa shares the key learnings she received from Dr. Paul Lawrence.He previously appeared on the podcast and shared lots of insights which Deepa later noticed in herworkshops. Deepa talks about the significance of dialogue before we listen in on her interviewwith Dr. Paul Lawrence. What is this critical element?[0:59] Dialogue. It’s essential when you want to embark people on a new vision.However, when managers want to do this, they often think about how to get people aligned. Thisapproach actually takes away creativity, and Deepa explains that what we should be aiming foris coherence that allows us to make the change happen together.Dialogue is critical because the time when the decision is made and the time when the organization starts the action is usually very short. The number one reason why change initiatives do not happen on time is because of the lack of dialogue and shared understanding of where the everyone is going and how they will get there. The two main reasons that dialogue doesn’t happen are:1. We don’t take time for dialogue.2. We don’t know how to dialogue.Three key messages that Deepa took away from her interview with Dr. Lawrence.1.[4:01]”] We really need to prepare for dialogue. It’s not about convincing people; that’s a good way to fail. Create time in your agenda because dialogue can take a lot of it. Also, identify which people are critical influences to ensure they are included in the dialogue.2. [6:49]Make sure the dialogue session is very different from a traditional question-and-answer session. People want to engage in dialogue and not just ask questions which get answered by the manager. The responsibility of the manager in a dialogue is tounderstand the frame of mind of the person asking the question.3. [11:17] Allow people to enrich you. Allow people to point to you and explain why the new vision or change is hard to achieve. Have a conversation about exactly why it is so hard. We need to take two steps backward if we want people to take eight stepsforward.“Unless you deeply listen, unless you actually see the negative sides along with the people and acknowledge that, they are not going to see the benefits of change.’’

  Paige Sellers is talks about the promise of Agile Leadership. She has worked in the industry for about twenty years and is an Agile and Leadership coach. Paige explains what agile means, barriers that get in the way of becoming agile, and how we can be more agile in our organizations. There is a lot of promise of what agile brings to us, What your view on this? [0:49] Paige says – What people want when they bring agile into an organisation is faster and cheaper. This means they want everyone to work faster and cheaper, along with their products and services being this way. They look at it as a way of being more efficient. One of the promises of Agile is that you will eliminate waste. Organizations also believe that everyone will be happier doing it the agile way. That can happen, but what Paige sees happening is that they bring it in and focus so much on the process that they lose touch of the original intention. “The leadership in an organization wants all of the people below them to change; they don’t want to do it themselves and they don’t think they need to.” What gets in the way of transforming into agile? [2:32] Paige sees leaders that fail to have a compelling vision. She sees leaders who get where they are because they’re really good at what they do. Either super delegate and don’t want to know what’s going on or they want to keep control of everything because of their attitude that they can do it better than anyone else. These leaders don’t let go and don’t allow people below them to make decisions.So, decisions are not pushed down, and this is a primary concept of Agile that the people who do the work make decisions.They fear that they will no longer be a leader if they don’t make decisions, but it actually frees up these leaders to be a visionary. That can be a scary proposition because it means changing what worked for you and what kept you safe as a leader.  Can you link transparency with a principle of Agile? [5:21] Part of what’s happening in agile is instead of asking the customer what they want and going away to build it, they constantly are given small pieces and asked if it looks good. There’s an iterative effect. Big changes happen in incremental shifts, and this process also exposes errors across different levels and departments. People who don’t normally talk to each other now do, and that requires growth from everyone. A classic example is engineers who are traditionally given a written document to go away and work on, then deliver code.The beauty of agile is that the engineer can now go talk to the customer and understand why they’re doing what they’re doing.   “The person who’s doing the work is closer to who’s asking for the work, and therefore there will be a better understanding of what’s needed. The longer the engineers communicate to their customers, they will find a way to communicate with each other, even if they don’t speak the same language.  Agile exposes problems and pushes you to be more transparent. Aren’t these scary things? [10:48]As we avoid holding these direct links between developers and customers, we bring in a multi-layered hierarchical organisation as opposed to something flatter. It allows you to see the patterns of behavior in your organization. We can see where there’s a lack of communication and which people take too much or too little responsibility. It helps us identify how to grow people in a way that they know they won’t be chastised for taking a risk and failing. “I see a lot of talk about ‘Yes, we embrace failure,’ but then the actions don’t match.” We need to create a more experimental environment to make it safe for people to fail. So, we can all learn and when there is learning there is gold!  That’s why Agile coaching needs to be done all the way up and down in an organisation, so we can help all levels see failure differently and create an organisation that is having a specific learning track. What is the mindset shift that’s needed for agile? [14:03] Look at what behaviour and patterns you want to change in your organisation and then ask yourself, “What am I doing to change how I engage to model that behaviour?” Be honest about it. When you work with teams as an agile coach, what are main blockers you have seen? [15:06] Paige thinks that it is key to accept a shared sense of responsibility in organizations. The reason she thinks it’s challenging is because we are so compensated as individuals. There is a fear of being judged, and that can come out in behaviors such as not saying exactly how complex a task is. With the way things are set up in agile, everyone knows what’s going on.It’s not a negative that problems are exposed through agile, because this way they can be corrected. It also reveals positive things that can be capitalized on. Full transparency is very scary to people. Does worrying about how you look as an individual get in the way of becoming agile? [19:46] It can get in the way and at the same time, individual creativity and people excelling definitely should not be squashed. Everyone shouldn’t become the same. If the top of the organisation is not behaving in a growth mindset, the rest of the organization will mimic their managers. “People need to give themselves permission to push up against their own barriers.”