#41 The Elegant Pivot Series: Master Your Stories

Intro: 0:02

Welcome to Creative Spirits Unleashed where we talk about the dilemmas of balancing work and life. And now, here's your host, Lynn Carnes.

Lynn: 0:19

Welcome to the creative spirits unleashed Podcast. I'm Lynn Carnes, your host. In this podcast episode I again welcome my daughter and colleague, Jim Maneely. We are continuing our series on the elegant pivot. In this episode, we talked about the chapter titled master your stories, this is the fifth of the principles that we are talking about, from the book. And in this one, we had so many stories about making up stories. All too often we think we know someone else's thinking, why they said something, why they're doing something. But more often than not, we are missing the full picture. In fact, I would dare say we never have the full picture. Because we can't really get in some, we can't get inside somebody else's head. But the problem with making up stories is we act on them as if they are true. I've done this myself, way too many times to count, sometimes with hilarious results. Sometimes not. We tell a couple of the funny stories. And we also talk about those situations where our stories have caused us some grief. And it was really fun to do this with my daughter, because we shared some of the stories. And we also learned about each other with stories that we didn't know about. But you know, making up stories about why something's happening, or why someone's doing something, it's so natural. It's getting invested in those stories as if they're true. Rather than sort of treating them like the theories that they are. That's at the root of, you know, so many of our breakdowns. Assuming positive intent, which is what the elegant pivot is about is the best move I know to interrupt that cycle. It's a simple move. But as my book explains, it is certainly not easy. In this episode, Jen and I get very real about the challenges of going from believing our stories, to testing our stories as theories. I would love as always, to hear what you like about this conversation, you can go to the podcast page on my website at Lund currents.com and click the Send to voicemail button on the right hand side there is a little button, you can click on it and it will send me your voice. Super easy to do. And it does help me know what to bring you in future episodes. Also, of course, I always hope that you'll share this with your colleagues and your friends. And I do hope you'll enjoy this episode on mastering your stories. Jan, welcome back to the podcast.

Jen: 2:50

Here we go again.

Lynn: 2:51

Here we go. Again, we are moving through our series of the elegant pivot. And we're working through the principles that are in the second half of the book. We are this time talking about mastering your stories, which is so incredibly timely, because it seems like I've had this last week. So many either conversations with other people or myself about stories, and the stories we tell ourselves.

Jen: 3:19

I mean, all the time. All the time, all the stories that we tell.

Lynn: 3:25

Yes, we are not talking about storytime, or telling a short story that you would write. But this is more of the stories we tell ourselves about what's happening, why something's happening, why somebody's doing something? You know, I would say it's one of those things that I do a lot with my coaching clients. I not not long ago had I had a client who was absolutely certain that his boss was disrespecting him. And he was he was so certain of it that he couldn't see that it was his story. Right. And he had enough history with the boss to think that he was absolutely right. Yeah. So in this particular case, as often, and I've got stories in the book like this, I just gave him some things to do. That didn't involve, like challenging his boss against those stories, but to just test those stories. Yeah, I think it was sort of like stress testing your assumptions. And it changed the whole thing. Because what he thought was disrespectful, was never disrespectful. It's like,

Jen: 4:33

oh, well, and I get I get caught into this as well, where it's like, you know, I'll start with, quote, unquote, a story. And I'll know that it's maybe like, I'll know in the in the back of my mind that it's a story. But then I tell the story so often to myself, that it just becomes fact. Like see, yeah, this is fact this is fact when it really It was like, it's it was never fact. It was the story that I just ran with.

Lynn: 5:05

Right. Interesting how that works, isn't

Jen: 5:09

it? Right? Yeah. So it's been very, very challenging to take a step back, and unconfirmed the stories that I'm telling,

Lynn: 5:20

exactly. And here's the thing I was thinking about this weekend, we were in Nashville at the CMA fest, and it's the first big crowd I've been involved in. I'm so crossing my fingers, that it wasn't a super spreader event. You know, but there were so many unknowns, because the whole point of CMA fest is to let us you know, see artists that we wouldn't know. And what I started catching myself doing was quickly telling a story about what was going on, either with just you know, somebody in the crowd or somebody on the stage. And it all of a sudden hit me, okay, we're always going to tell a story. But it's the key is not to get invested in that story. Right? And yeah, that that investment means that you can't change your mind.

Jen: 6:07

Right? I was thinking about that. Well, right. Before we actually got on this thing. I was like, man, because I was rereading your chapter and stuff. And I was like, I think it just comes down to we're always going to make up stories. And the question is, is how to, like you just said, how do we not stick to a story and confirm it to be true? How do we stay in that, oh, this is just a story that I'm making up? That could or could not be true? And how not to get into the emotions of that story?

Lynn: 6:43

Yeah. Because we do we get it when we get invested in the story. And then we have an emotion about it. Like, if you feel like you're being disrespected, you might have an emotion. Or if you've, like, I found there were people, you know, in this case, you know, the bands that I would either start loving, and then not love or vice versa, you know, and the fact that you sometimes have to stick with something through a song or two, and then it's like, wow, that is great. Yeah, I could have left. You know, there's so many, just different ways to recognize that it's happening. And I don't remember the research. But I remember saying something years ago that said, one of the reasons it's so easy for politicians to lie to us, and have people believe them is that our brain will grab the first thing. And it's very hard to get it to remember the second thing. So if you say to a crowd of people, something anything that, you know, I don't know that 500 people were running through the streets in Indianapolis yesterday. And then you come back and say, actually, that was false. Well, the people will actually, most of the people who heard that will never quit believing that 500 people were running through the streets in Indianapolis yesterday. Even when they hear that was false. Yeah. And I've actually experienced it with myself, it's often bring, there's a new story that is breaking. And I'll take that to 911. And I still have this picture in my mind. Because the first thing I heard about it was somebody flew a plane into the World Trade Center. Okay, that immediately created a picture in my mind. And the picture in my mind was the kind of plane I used to fly, which was a Cessna 152. Right. So I pictured a little single engine baby plane, plowing in and hurting a couple of floors of the World Trade Center. Now, obviously, that story. I was corrected over the next few hours in the next few days and the next few weeks, right. But I can still as if it was yesterday, in vision, the picture that I first told myself, it was right. And you know, I think about the times when we don't get that verification, we make a decision about somebody and we never get a chance to come back and check it out. Right? Because we're, we're invested in that beginning story.

Jen: 9:20

Well, and it's, you know, this is so it's interesting that you said this because right before we hit the record button, we were both commenting on how context matters. And your context, right. So like, what I'm here so like your context for when someone said a plane flew in because of your background in fly you your immediate assumption was that it was a little plane, because

Lynn: 9:51

a big jet would never do that, like an American airline pilot isn't gonna go fly into an airplane. Right? I mean, so you know, I That's exactly right. But by I had a history that said, okay, and honestly, I thought it was like, you know, some dumb student pilot like I used to be

Jen: 10:08

right? context matters in the creation of the first story that we tell ourselves.

Lynn: 10:15

Well, and here's the key, here's the key. And I see breakdowns in the in the world of my clients, and I had them in my own corporate world all the time. You just talked about context that was not visible to everybody, because part of my personal context was my personal history. Right? So I had a thing called meaning around planes, that other people don't necessarily make that same assumption, because they have a different context, right? And we're sitting around and tape around the table and meetings, not understanding why somebody doesn't agree with our idea, or why they're being so difficult, and, you know, trying to get something done, or they say something that we think is completely off the wall. And then we find out, Oh, I have a different context. Yeah. I remember, one of the most unsettling meetings I ever went to, it was not incorporated was here in the towns. It was over. It was, well, I say over 20 years prior, it's probably over 20 years ago, we've been here for over 20 years. So early on when we got here. And we got interested in how the light was being managed, and particularly about the silk coming in the like the dredging. And so we figured out that there was this thing called the lake management committee or something like that. So we showed up at the town hall expecting to see a normal business meeting and like the big room. And it turned out, they were having the meeting and a little tiny conference center, in the back of the building. So right there, first of all, our story was it's gonna be a big meeting, it was a small meeting. We get in, and we are the only people who are not members of the meeting, you know, the board. But we were we, you know, they it's an open meeting. So it was fine. They didn't kick us out or anything, right. But when the guy started the meeting, he literally started with, I know, y'all, and he's not talking to us, because he doesn't know us, at least I think not. I know y'all are upset about something, and I can't remember what it was. But it was like he started in the middle. Right. And we knew we were there at the beginning of the meeting. But he didn't ever start by setting context so that everybody could kind of tell the same story about why they were there. He started the meeting in the middle without anything to provide a story shaping framework or credit entertainer.

Jen: 12:42

And like at where I'm where are we at?

Lynn: 12:43

I was like, Can you start over? Can you come back to the beginning? Can you please tell us what you're up to what you're talking about? Yeah. So for the rest of the meeting, I found myself. Let me call it developing theories, because that's, that's really what we're doing. We're saying, mastering our stories, or my you know, making up stories. We're developing theories about what you're talking about. And it was like my brain was careening. Oh, no, they're not talking about dredging. Now they're talking about maybe having a marine commission, why? What are they talking about here? Oh, wait, that's completely wrong, you know, and he just started by saying, we're here to do this. Today, we're going to talk about these three things. You know, we're going to catch everybody up on the progress that we've made, somebody was concerned about the test for the water quality, I'll get to that, but it'll be at the end of the meeting. Right? You know, whatever that was, it would have combed the waters of my brain. But the thing was, the guy didn't really give a crap about my brain.

Jen: 13:44

Right? Well, he didn't. And you are also, you know, back to the context, right. So you are also in a room full of people that seem to have what could be referred to as like a different background of like obviousness, right, they have all been in a very different place where, like, you're to know people coming in into an already formed group where they know each other and what they want to talk. So they have a different shared background than you do. And he just, it sounds like he just forgot that there was like, no context there for you guys. I

Lynn: 14:25

certainly didn't for us. But you know, this is something I've experienced with a lot of people where we have even though we have a shared background, setting, giving people some context can still help. Because, you know, you just said, this is perhaps one of the most powerful things in any world you're in whether it's nonprofit boards or corporate life or whatever, is if you're in regular meetings, there's an assumption of shared obviousness that prevents people from being willing to ask questions that might make them look dumb. Yeah, absolutely. And so they have to kind of, and it's it's literally a skill, I think it was a skill I had in corporate America myself, which is, I am going to connect these dots without having to ask so nobody thinks I'm dumb. Right? The problem I find with that is, and I found that many times is, nobody's going to be perfect at connecting the dots. You and I might, you know, think about those ODOT pictures, we actually had his kids, you know, there's no numbers in these dots, our job is to connect them. Well, a lot of clever stories, you could get a mouse, a rabbit and an elephant out of the same set of dots. I mean, everybody wonders why there's breakdowns because nobody wants to look down. Nobody wants to question their stories.

Jen: 15:45

Right? And when someone sets when someone says something, with such a conviction that the assumption is that you know what they're talking about? That's right. It's so hard to ask the question of, I feel like you're saying this as if it should be just assumed that I know what you're talking about. But I actually have no idea. It's really hard. It is for for to come in and say, What are you referring to? Like, especially Okay, so think about it, like with all of the new abbreviations that are out there, all of a sudden, everyone will start using this like abbreviation in their everyday language, their copy, like when they're writing something, and, like, I look at that, and I'm like, I'm trying to gain all the context clues I can from the uses of, of this abbreviation. And so I don't have to ask, because it seems like everyone in the world knows I was whining, except for me.

Lynn: 16:56

Exactly. But you know, the, the other side of that is, you know, and we were, there was a joke that we were acronym land, when we had new people coming in, you know, you're gonna have to just give us an acronym dictionary. And, for example, the form that we use to approve a loan was called a car credit approval report. Well, you bring a brand new college person in and say, we're going to teach you how to ride a car, and they're like, I have to ride a car, I thought I was here to be a loan approval officer, you know, right. Right. You, you know, those, those, those times when we have the opportunity, giving people the understanding of what you're doing, setting that context, assuming that people are busy, that they have a lot of things going on. You know, most of the time when we're coming into meetings, we're coming out of another meeting. It may be our fifth meeting of the day, we've got a jillion things coming at us. And, you know, we just, it's one of those under that principle of go slow to go fast. Take a moment to help create the stories you want to create. But that's just one segment. I mean, the other stories that we have, are just all the things. I'm thinking of something, all those things that we make up that seem logical, but are absurd. Like under the heading of context. I was just thinking about this one this weekend. Because I had another I had another story like, you know, similar type contexts they happen. But I don't know if you remember this, but years ago, you were still in high school. And I had gotten my first car. There was a Nissan Maxima, and it had the electronic key fob. It's my first one, right? And I asked her us, Mr. Technology, hey, this is great. But it seems to me like there's only so many key codes or little frequencies that these things could have. Is it possible that somebody else might have a key fob that would open my car? And he said, possible, but not probable? Because there are enough that you know, the chances of you being you know, your car being where somebody else, because at that time of my personal growth, my paranoia, you know, was pretty high. I didn't Well,

Jen: 19:14

it was kind of it was kind of, I mean, not a new technology, but newer, it was It wasn't really, it wasn't really like perfectly clear.

Lynn: 19:25

Well, I just, you know, I just and we didn't have Google to ask back then. Right. It didn't even have a cell phone. Well, I guess I had a cell phone by then but it was like definitely those big budget flip phones.

Jen: 19:38

That took up your face.

Lynn: 19:41

So one day I was in the Cotswolds shopping center in Charlotte. I parked in front of our Navy, I was shopping through several other stores in there. I don't know if I actually went in the Old Navy or not. But as I bought whatever I bought in the other stores, I took my bags back to To the place that was parked, kind of one row away from Old Navy, pop up in my trunk. And inside my trunk is a stack of clothes and an Old Navy receipt. And I felt like I had been kicked in the gut. Because I had asked the question, Could this happen. And now I'm sitting in front of Old Navy. And clearly, somebody just bought something, put it in the trunk, and they're somewhere in the shopping center shopping. And they need to get there, they need to get their clothes back. Now, I felt like there was only one right thing to do, after my heart quit pounding, and I quit being freaked out. And this was, and I didn't look around, by the way for another car that looked like mine. Right? Would have been a good move. However, I went back into the store and I said, hey, somebody just put these things in my car. They're not mine, there'll be back. And they didn't want to take them. And I said, Well, I'm not going to sit in the parking lot waiting for somebody to show up to my car, to find out that they put him in the wrong car. So you'll have to take because they're going to be back. And it was a bit of an argument. But finally I got them to take them. And then I go out to my car and leave. And then I find out it would have been a very long way if I had decided to, to wait, because a few days later, I got a call from our neighbor. And I don't remember if you were with me when this happened, but she had called me and said, Hey, her daughter, somebody you wrote to school with, I think, had had a little fender bender the night before, you know, you know, a few nights before. And she asked me to go get her daughter. And so we went over, picked them up and took them back home while the car got towed away. Well, she called me and said, You know, when the other night when you picked up, you know, sim so forth. I move some clothes that we were returning to Old Navy back from her car into your truck. And I'm just wondering if I could get those from you.

Jen: 22:15

So was it.

Lynn: 22:17

I said, I, I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am. But I don't have them. On here, here's what happened. I did return them to Old Navy, but I don't know how you're gonna get credit. So what was interesting is I felt like that was such a strong, defensible conclusion. Sure, but I didn't never look at the date.

Jen: 22:43

On the receipt, you just confirmed that this was this was what happened.

Lynn: 22:52

And had she never called me because she completely forgot or whatever, we never would know this part of the story. Right? And it makes me wonder how many times have I been so damn, sure that I knew what was going on. And I was so damn wrong.

Jen: 23:12

Right. Well, and I think I think what you're, you know, looking at is where the mastering your story starts coming in? How do we override because I think when I look at just our very, very nature, our brains like to have confirmation around things that are unclear, right. I think it's a safety thing.

Lynn: 23:43

I think, yeah, we hate uncertainty.

Jen: 23:45

We don't like uncertainty. And we don't like we almost need, you know, to understand what what's happening by nature. Right. And so I think it's mastering your stories is almost just it sounds to me, like the best way to look at it is just being aware. And going, Oh, that's a story. Yeah, instead of evenly confirming.

Lynn: 24:18

Yeah, even though in that case, for example, I would say it's a fact I am holding these clothes.

Jen: 24:24

Right? I'm holding these clothes from I'm saving. I am hanging out at right there's no other story it could possibly

Lynn: 24:34

be as they think about the infinite decimal odds that the first time I open my trunk right after I get the car and ask the question, could somebody else open my trunk accidentally? What are the odds that I'm sitting in front of that store and not somewhere else?

Jen: 24:53

Yeah, because if you had been in front of the grocery store,

Lynn: 24:58

I would have looked at the date on the receipt Have you would have made an entirely

Jen: 25:01

different story? Exactly,

Lynn: 25:03

I probably actually would have connected the dots that it belonged to. Right? You know who else has been in my car?

Jen: 25:10

So could we say in this situation that context matters,

Lynn: 25:14

how we say context really matters, which is, you know, both power empowering and disempowering. It's very empowering, if you recognize your role in helping establish context with people. Right? Like, don't assume when you start a meeting, that everybody's on the same page with you take 30 seconds. Yeah, and state what you're hoping to get out of the meeting right here right now.

Jen: 25:40

I, I actually found myself in this very situation this week, when I was I had to kind of teach this idea of, you know, requests and offers and the elements of requests and offers, with my, what's called, I've gone through this program, and we call it a learning group, right. And that's part of our, our journey is to teach certain elements. And so I was teaching these elements now, when I first started, I had gained a lot of insights into what it meant to share the elements of like requests and offers. And my immediate assumption would be that was that these people already know what I'm talking about. So I don't need to go into context, because they we already have a shared background of obviousness. So I don't have to go over what like the setup is, I'm just gonna launch right into it. And we're just going to go march through these elements. And that's going to be my thing. Well, let me tell you how confused they were. From the very beginning, they're like, way, way, way, way, way, way. Wait, I need you to back up, because I'm really confused, Jen. So what does this mean? And what are you talking about? It has this language and like they had, and it's, I'm appreciative of the questions. And then finally, after all the confusion and talking through things, you know, we kind of got on the same page again. And they're like, Okay, I'm with you now. Right. So but But it all was an assumption and a story that I made up that said, One, they may not find this as interesting as I do. So that was one story. And then I don't want to

Lynn: 27:36

write and I don't want to bore them, right.

Jen: 27:39

Yeah. And so I want to get to the interesting stuff first, so, but the interesting stuff wasn't very interesting, it was only confusing, because I'd never set up the context. But action, I was just gonna say the assumption was also that I didn't need the context, because they would already know what I was

Lynn: 28:01

talking and that was your story, the story you made up was that they will be bored and not want to hear this, and won't listen to me unless I get to the good stuff. Correct. That was your story. That was my story. And you know that that reminds me again, context is in this one. But something happened with us when we were running credit training at the bank, many, many years ago. And I am I'm an accountant by trade. One of the early things is I started doing credit training, which is where we were teaching the bankers how to assess loans. And the most important document we had for assessing loans was the income statement and the balance sheet, you know, the financial statements and the cash flow statement. What my guys were telling me as we were training, and we had had to take this program, I didn't decide to do this, the people that made the decision said, This year long training program, you'll have to do it in 10 weeks now. So 1/5 of the time we had previously had, so you've got to do it fast. So I literally started looking into accelerated learning. And I found an accelerated learning program that was called the accounting game. And you basically run a lemonade stand in the accounting game. And even as an accountant that had been doing it for a long time, I found that I understood the basics, this sort of the core principles of financial statements better than I had, even though I had already passed the CPA exam and been to college and learned it. Right. And so we all agreed it was a worthy program to include at the beginning of the program. So we would have over you know, the course of the year, you know, I would call it I don't know, three or 400 people go through the program, but in batches of like 60 right or so. So the first batch but first group of 60 people we had come in that we offered that for. We did it early in the program, and then we actually hired an accounting professor Come in, and then teach them the nuances and the depths and so forth. So they can really understand what we were getting from our clients in assessing in loans. But, you know, we were very matter of fact, and we said, hey, you know, the guy who did, who's who was our amazing leader of this, told everybody you know, okay, on Friday, you're gonna do the accounting game. We'll see you back here on Monday, it should be a fun day, be sure you're at the convention center, where they're doing it at such and such time. Well, on Monday, they all came back, and they were thoroughly pissed off and insulted. I mean, furious, and it kind of blindsided all of us. Because we were like, Why did you not enjoy that game? It's so fun and blah, blah, blah. Well, I, we did some discovery, I said, Alright, let's, we don't we're making up stories, let's go find out what was really going on. Right. So they started asking people, and the reason they felt insulted was they had come out of major programs, they all had some sort of either accounting or finance degree, because that's what most of the time, that's what bankers have. And they were insulted because they thought that we did not understand what they already knew that we were not giving them credit. Right. And we had to dig ourselves out of that hole for the an hour story was what we actually did the next time, our story was, accounting is going to be everything in your job. If you can't read a financial statement and learn how to really analyze it, you will not do well, right. But we also know that they do it very quickly in college, and that it's really useful to dust off those skills. Because at this by this stage, you know, these guys hadn't been in college for a while. But we wanted to give them sort of a clean step one refresher before they got into the deep waters, right. And so we basically said something to that effect and said, Look, we this is the this is your the next time we did it, we said this is your career on the line, this is going to be everything you need to do. We know you have the skills, we also know it's useful to dust him off. This is a one day program, that's just fun, like, kind of almost think of it as a break. But trust us, you're gonna learn something, and it will help you when we get into the deep, deep waters of accounting. Well, the next group loved it. And every group after they thought it was the best thing ever. And all we had to do to change their story was to say, we know that you have this, right. And we're offering it to you for this purpose. Not we don't think you have it. We think you're dumb. You don't have to you know, it's just amazing what a difference it made. In terms of the stories they made up about it.

Jen: 32:47

Well, and let's look at and this is part of the master your story, right? What is the story you're telling yourself? So what you guys did, because here's what could have happened. This was a new game to you guys as well, if this was the first time you ever put it in front of people right now. And they got pissed. There was a story in there that you could have made up that said, Oh, this won't work for this kind of people and throw

Lynn: 33:20

it away. Very good call. Very good call. Exactly. God, we in fact, there were people on my team that that thought that.

Jen: 33:28

Yeah, so the story you guys could have made up in that was, this won't work. Let's throw it away. Right? We made a mistake. Let's not insult people's intelligence.

Lynn: 33:42

And let's not double down on the mistake. Okay, so

Jen: 33:45

what did you do instead, though, you came and said, Hmm, instead of making up that story, why don't we go find out? Why don't we ask questions first, and decide, like, where is the problem? And what can we do about it? Great point. Right? So it created a whole different outcome, when you are able to kind of go in which Funny Funny thing though, is it's like and we'll go into this deeper into, you know, the next our next thing, our last one, which is developing a spirit of inquiry. Yeah, we're asking questions, which very much ties in though into mastering your story? Because it was like I I'm not gonna buy into this particular story at the moment. I'm gonna go ask them more questions. I'm not just gonna buy into their story either.

Lynn: 34:46

Right? Wait, no, we the fact that we went to ask questions, I think was was the key thing and the outcome was so different because the accounting professor from the second time on came back to us and said they So the most prepared hires that I've ever worked with, and he'd been doing it for many, many years. So we, even as they shrink the program, we didn't really shrink the accounting part. And so he was still coming and had been coming for years. And all of a sudden, he felt like the quality of the hire new hires was better. Well, it's because they had this core understanding. Right, right. And then what we what we did then was from, from our training, they went out all over the country to their different banking centers, to offer their kind of like apprentice bankers, right. And I had so many people come back after that 10 week program is say, these are the best trainees we've ever had. And if you said to me, what was the most important thing you did, I would say, the accelerating accelerated learning principles that we followed. And it started with that program. So had we gone down the mistake path, I think our our success would have been dramatically different.

Jen: 36:04

So it's, it's more of like, what's really the problem? And how can we solve it? Because we know we have something here? Yes. So what's the problem? And how can we solve it,

Lynn: 36:17

and that keeping that openness to not to be not be invested in the first story, and frankly, I think a lot of our stories come from fear. And I have to go back and think about that team that I worked with, and how, how very effective they were at not letting their fears drive them. We had all we all have fears we have, we need fear. That's a whole nother topic. But they didn't let their fears drive them. And sometimes they were having to talk me off the ledge because I was the one who's right, you know, the face of the organization and the one who had to go, you know, talk to the higher ups about what was going on. And it you know, fear could have easily made me say, I'm gonna play small and safe instead of solving the actual problem, right? I'm just gonna cover my butt. Right?

Jen: 37:08

And what a different outcome, it can be when you override. And so then it's like, and this is this is part of the journey. So I'm gonna say this and say this is this is not the easiest part of the journey. But I'm saying, when we're talking about mastering the stories, it's almost like we're overriding some of our initial human instincts. And we're, we're almost overcoming some of our survival mechanisms here. Where it's like, let's break this down. Am I? Am I actually safe? Yes. Do I really fully understand what the problem is? No. Can I go ask questions to maybe answer or solve the problem? Is sometimes yes. And sometimes no. And then it's like, what are the other stories that I could create that don't send me down? A fear path?

Lynn: 38:17

That is, you know, and that's where I always say, assuming positive intent has to be your first yes, that assume that this is happening for you, and that you are going to write the next line in the story, but not from your old beliefs. Now, here's the here's the tricky thing. I've learned about making up stories. And this is a tough one, because, as you pointed out, when I was in that other meeting, or we were talking about, sorry, the airplane, the invisible context that I carried about having flown airplanes, right isn't visible, but it came from me. And really, almost 100% of the time when I'm working with a client who, for example, is making up stories, that they're being disrespected or they've been insulted, or they're been they've been offended or whatever. What I think it's a principle that what you accused people of is what you do. And that what you called the disrespect back to you was actually you disrespecting or that you do disrespect your boss or whatever. And and

Jen: 39:28

that is,

Lynn: 39:30

this is a swallow. This is the self awareness principle that is so difficult, you know, because when I was teaching the self awareness program with with, with Sue Robertson, who's been on this podcast, it stopped at nothing. One of the first questions that people would have is, okay, how do I gain self awareness? What are the ways then because, like, I'm living in my own water like the fish and water. How do I I have I see things. And there was a whole plethora of things we could do to help people get in. But this conversation, I would say, probably came up in 100% of the programs I taught, which is one of the best ways to find out what you think about yourself, is to notice what you accuse other people of.

Jen: 40:20

I know. And I know it's true. And I think about I hate how hard

Lynn: 40:25

I hate it. I hate it, because I feel like my story is right. And then if I will actually, you know, recognize that it's coming from my own belief system. It's, it's sort of like, oh, there it is. Yeah. You know, we had a, we had a saying in the same team that that did the, I was just telling you about with the, with the accounting program, we had this thing that said, it's all about me. And we said, you know, if you've got a finger pointing at somebody else, remember the other three fingers are pointing back at yourself.

Jen: 40:56

That's good. You couldn't really see because you were on audio. I can see you and I say yes. But yeah, so that's important. So I just want you to go out and point fingers, like, actually take your hand and boiling, and notice the three and where they're located. The three

Lynn: 41:17

coming back at yourself exactly. Then if you can kind of realize that that's almost axiomatic. It's a principle, it's just as true. Yeah. Then what's cool is that you can change the outcomes. Because I have, if not every day, at least every week, I have a moment where I realized if I had not assume positive intent, and told a better story, I would have sent things down a very bad path. Mm hmm. Because my first, sometimes only a split second, but my first reaction is often that one that's going to theoretically create safety for me, but actually, is it? Yeah.

Jen: 42:00

Oh, well, we were just talking about a situation just yesterday, where I'm like, I am so glad that it was you in that room? doing like, you know, pivoting and not making up the story and going down that path? Oh, yeah. If it was me in that room, it would have probably been a very different outcome.

Lynn: 42:19

Yes. Yes.

Jen: 42:21

would not have been so assuming positive intent in that moment.

Lynn: 42:25

Yeah. And this, you know, we didn't we haven't told that story here. Nor will we, but it was a, it was a it was a situation where I could have not asked him to positive intent. And, you know, one of the one of the questions that I have found, and this is going to happen, this is going to be more in my dancing the tight rope book, then in the elegant pivot. The question that is really useful is what will this lead to? And in the case like this, this happened, it just, you know, for those of you who are listening, put yourself in a setting where somebody says something that feels like it has to be reacted to. And then that you, you know, in a fist pounding way, right? And then imagine that if you do found pound your fist, what does that lead to?

Jen: 43:21

Yeah, versus

Lynn: 43:25

the person that said something that was wrong. You know, Edward Emoto, wrote a book called, I'm right, you're wrong. And he also wrote a book called Water logic. And I got this sort of idea from the two of them. And where I was reading it at the same time that we were starting to get a rental house next to us here at like, lower. And for anybody who's ever rented an Airbnb or VRBO. You know, when you're going into somebody else's neighborhood, you're not a neighbor. Okay. You're a hotel? Guest. Yeah. And we had a lot of egregious behavior happen. When people first started coming in, we've, we've it's gotten a little bit more under control. We haven't had anybody try to walk in our house lately. We haven't had anybody let their dog go poop in our yard lately. Yeah, we still have regular parties next door. I live on a lake so some of that is just inevitable. But there were when we first started experience it having come from rural, you know, not rural, but neighborhood suburban cities like Dallas and Charlotte, having like hotel guests that were there to party next door. We thought of all kinds of fist pounding things to do. I'm sure. And, you know, and in regular neighborhoods, sometimes the same stories are the things like what do I do about the barking dog? What do I do about the spotlight in my living room or my bedroom, you know, the neighbor that won't turn the light off or You know, the like, neighbor that's always using my garbage cans, you know, the things that our neighbors do, right, you know, the that annoy us. And so I, I thought about some pretty crazy things we could do, and then recognize it would be a really bad idea to do any of those. Because it would not lead to a good thing it

Jen: 45:19

wouldn't lead. Well, you know, I think a lot of people, this is something I'm really focused in on a lot is, a lot of people don't realize how much like language and stuff can be very generative. So like, when we think about handling certain situations, the biggest question that we can ask ourselves is, when I think about handling the situation, in the conversation that I want to have, what am I generating here? So I'm like, when you think about pounding your fist, there's usually also in your head conversations that's going along with pounding your fists, right? And it's usually not great, like, wording. It's, it's, it's pounding your fist kind of language. And so isn't that what, ultimately we're generating with the other person? So then it's like, how can I actually get the favorable outcome that I desire, through language that is generating a pounding of the fist?

Lynn: 46:31

That is a very, very good point. And the reason why it's so important to take a moment to as you're making up your story to say, What will this lead to? And right sometimes I have found that speaking of language, the most powerful language you can use is the story I'm making up is and then say it, and then let the other person

Jen: 46:57

respond to it. Right.

Lynn: 46:59

And, you know, Bruce Anderson, who has been on this podcast, and who works brilliantly with horses and with humans, and I mean, his work is a big part of my book, dancing the tightrope, his choice of language, and I really love it is let me read you my book. And when he says, Let me read you my book, he's basically saying, my book has a story in it. And I'm reading for you what's going on inside of me? Right? And another another interesting choice of language he has is, may I talk to myself through you for a moment? Right? Hmm, that's interesting. And it's a really interesting way of, of it's a different kind of generative language, right? Because he basically was acknowledging, I have to say some things out loud, that involve you. But I'm not accusing you of anything. Right? Because the other thing that happens that I think is a huge source of breakdowns is when we found our fists, I might have done at a time or two in my life. I mean, we do that and that and whether we use the word wrong or not, we we tell somebody else, I've done something wrong. They're making a mistake. They're bad. Generally, people don't go, Oh, thank God, you told me, I'm now going to hand over a new leaf. I'm the best thing ever. They knows

Jen: 48:26

how wrong you think that I am.

Lynn: 48:29

No, you're gonna you have basically hit the button that, you know, it's gonna put up the wall or, you know, bring out the, you know, virtual guns or whatever, like their defenses, and even their offense is going to go on full attack. And then what is it going to lead to? Right? Well, war it leads to war with because

Jen: 48:54

where else are they going to go?

Lynn: 48:57

Because they aren't going to go Oh, god, thank you for telling me I'm so bad and so wrong. No, you you know. And I've learned this even as a coach for I'm in a structural relationship that says I'm here for you to help me get better. Yeah. I don't tell people that they're doing things wrong.

Jen: 49:19

Yeah, I ask a lot of like, you know, like, my, my clients is this like it? So I'll say something like. So when you think about what you're saying there, what do you hope the outcome is? And in is the way that you're saying it? Is that going to be the outcome that you're going to get by telling someone that

Lynn: 49:45

So Jen, what is she What is your theory about why we do it in a way that's going to get us not the outcome we want? Like why is it so satisfying to pound the fist? You know,

Jen: 49:59

I Yeah, so I have a theory. And the story that I am making up. Is, is and I don't know that this is true is this and I want to say this very clearly, this is a theory it is not based, in fact, but I know for me what it is for me when I go into this place, because I can go into this place just as easily as anybody else. It is all about my my own self esteem, confidence, insecurity or lack thereof. Okay. So when I go into that place, and that moment, whether it's right or wrong, I'm like, Thank God, they're the ones that made the mistake of not me, and I don't want to be. Well, I mean, it's not always that situation, but it has, it almost always has something to do with the way that I am feeling about myself.

Lynn: 51:09

That's, you know, as you said, that I think that's probably true for me as well. Because I was thinking about just the last couple of times for I have, yes, not always pounding my fist, but where I've kind of wanted to double down on I didn't do anything wrong, right? Yeah, I did the right thing. And I'm gonna, I'm just going to convince you that I did the right thing. And it is, it is generally coming down to I don't want it's like, that's my mistake. I don't want to make a mistake. I, you know, I and in my new book, I have a whole flywheel called the mistake cycle versus the what's next cycle? Because, you know, the book is actually about me getting back on a horse. But, you know, what I discovered is I was getting over that, that fear and having the uncertainty of is this even going to work? Right? You know, and having learned that, you know, it's not horses are definitely not machines, they have a brain, and then they can do whatever they can do, and, you know, so forth, that kind of thing. As I was doing that, I began to realize that, you know, we project all kinds of stuff on horses that isn't true. And assuming positive intent is the most smart thing to do, because none of the stories we're projecting on them are true. You know, you go into a barn and somebody's like, that's an eye horse. He's being sassy. Oh, he this he that. All he's doing is being a horse with a survival brain. This like ours. Yeah. And we put all this stuff on him because it's coming from us. Yeah. You know, salutely. And I have a quote in my book from a practicals. That is very similar to that, which is saying, the thing that happened is the thing that happened, the the thing that's making you miserable is the addition from you. That's that's a paraphrase at the quote, right? The addition coming from you is the story. Well, I

Jen: 52:55

mean, it's like, you know, when I go into that mode of pounding fist, and if it's about me, it's like, in that moment, I'm treating someone else. Kinda like how I treat myself when I make a mistake. And so what is though, you know, how, what does that look like? So when I get so angry with someone else for making mistake, really, if I flip it back on me, these are the things that I'm doing to myself has nothing to do with the other person, and it has everything to do with me. And so, you know, our place to be.

Lynn: 53:33

I mean, that's, I remember reading a book open. Andre Agassi wrote it. And what I learned in that book was that he had a very critical father and that he hated tennis, but he played tennis, basically, to please his father. And there's a passage in there that I highlighted and circled and cut out and everything because he, he made a mistake on the court and was beating himself up. And he said, something to the effect of with all the years of my dad's beating me up, I no longer needed him to be there. To do it for me, I now could do it all by myself. I could be the one that beat myself up something to that effect. And I like oh, you know, and I think we add something to it when it's ourselves that we beat up. Oh, and I think sometimes we make our stories up, just so we don't have to beat ourselves up. And yet we ended up beating ourselves up in a way

Jen: 54:37

even worse, right? Yeah. Go ahead. I was gonna just ask, it's like the question is, is looking at his dad, Andre Agassi's dad. How? I mean, how critical must he have been to himself?

Lynn: 54:54

Such a good point. Can you imagine his inner world

Jen: 54:59

a man Imagine his inner world for a second. And this is where because I think, you know, sometimes our inner worlds do just collide with each other. And, and I have to be in such a good place. And when I'm in a good place, I'm in a good place, and I can look at someone who is, maybe their inner world is coming out on me, right? But if I can just be calm and not allow their inner world to collide with my inner world in that moment, hmm, I can come back with them with all the love and compassion in the world. And say, I mean, I don't say this out loud, but it's like, looking at them going, you're not going to grab a hold of me in this moment. Because there's nothing to grab a hold of. Right, I feel for you, in terms of what you must be doing to yourself in this moment. You know, as I say, in my head, not out loud. You know, I

Lynn: 56:01

actually Okay, so you've been able to do that for a very long time, because I remember a story about you. When you were probably 16. And we were at an office party. And in these office parties, where we all bring our spouses and kids, this was the first time a lot of us had met some of the spouses and parents, you know, my co parents of the kids and so forth. And there was one particular husband that I made up the story that he was hard on his kids. Like, I'm picturing, you know, in fact, I think when I read the Andre Agassi book, I might have even pictured this guy is. Right, yeah, just a very quick meeting. And I remember having the urge to take it, I had like a three year old, it was a whole it was a kid that was mobile, but big enough for you know, it could be picked up still smaller, it picked up but big enough to walk on their own. So whatever age that is somewhere in that range. Because what happened with you as you the kid was acting up on some stairs, and I remember I was maybe we were sitting on their stairs talking or something. And I think y'all were lower on the stairs, and you, the kid was kind of coming towards me. And I think if he'd made it all the way to me, I was going to pick him up and run away into the hills with him.

Jen: 57:31

Right, we're just gonna save you.

Lynn: 57:34

I didn't know what I was gonna do. But I was just gonna get that kid away from that Beto, daddy. And here's what you did. I remember this. I don't know if you remember this. But you picked up the kid, the dad had this like, eye right look on his face. And you very sweetly handed the kid to his dad. And he the dad melted. And it was like you saw through that guy's enter whatever that you're just talking about. The inner hologram that we carry around. It's like you saw through it to his true heart. And something about the way you handed that kid back to his dad and the way he melted. It made me realize I've been making up a story because the that obviously did love his child. And who knows, I saw a sliver of this guy I saw, you know, I made all of this stuff up in the experience of five minutes of spending time with him. Right. And I had him as the most abusive father on the planet. He had not hit his kid in front of a did nothing. So work. And your when you did that a sort of obliterated the story?

Jen: 58:46

Yeah. Well, and I think a lot of people, I mean, I've I guess I have always kind of been good at kind of seeing the underlying stuff, when it doesn't trigger my stuff. So to sit here and say that sometimes that my stuff doesn't get triggered by someone else's stuff would be just a lie. But for the most part. Like for instance, if I see someone that gives me the mom face, Oh, yeah. I'm much better at it now. But for a very long time, if I saw someone that that gave me the mom face, right? That collided with my inner world, and I was no longer at the capacity to see past. You know what my own story was?

Lynn: 59:32

Right? I get that. That's that's the whole idea of like, why we take things personally like, right, we think taking things personally is empowering, but it's really just hitting our buttons. Right?

Jen: 59:44

And I think the mastery starts coming in when we're talking about Master stories is when I started working on Okay, that is something that's colliding with my own inner world. How do I override it? When I Do that, and it's triggering me how do I override and make a different story in that moment? And that's, that's part of it. That's part of coming up with how do we master our stories and rewrite the story that we want to make up? And it's not easy. It's not been it's

Lynn: 1:00:18

not easy. But that is it. That is, that is the work. And, you know, when I did the, when I got back on the horse, you know, like, one of the stories I had about getting back on a horse was you just get back on? Yeah. And yet for me, you know, because I'm such a Speedy Gonzalez, actually, I usually am. But it took me over a year, to even get on another horse. Right, me six months to even call Bruce, when I was told, you know, I should go work with him to help me get back on the horse. But I had a lot of stories. And the new insight that I had never really considered and working with him was the role pressure plays in all of this. And how much we have at stake when the pressure is higher. Yeah. And, you know, we'll, we'll get to that as I move into doing the podcast series on the book, dancing, the tight rope, dancing, the tight rope, and there's a lot of people a lot of stories in that book, and we're going to be doing a series where I have everybody that will and wants to be a part of it, to tell the different stories in live real time, you know, dancing the tightrope, how their contribution to my journey, if you will, yeah, so this is gonna be quite a long podcast series, because there's a lot of people that played a lot of important roles. But the the next sort of idea is the way out, because the question people often ask, and I know, they've got to be asking this as they're listening to this podcast is, well, how do I how do I do that? And the first thing is, I call it develop a spirit of inquiry, which is, you got to get really good at learning to ask questions, and assume that you are making up the story and make it your business to go ask the questions to get there. That'll be the next podcast that you and I do together,

Jen: 1:02:05

which developing that spirit of inquiry has changed my life in so many ways. And it's not that I'm great at it all the time. But I just want to say, you know, when I started learning how to ask better questions to myself, as well as to others, very different things came about. So I'm very excited about the next part of this series.

Lynn: 1:02:32

Well, dang. So am I now? We're not going because this is separate podcast. But dang, I can't wait to hear that one.

Jen: 1:02:40

I know, I know. But it's it's, it's it's definitely helped shaped a lot of who I am and who I'm becoming and in, you know, moving forward. So I'm very excited about the the last part of this, though.

Lynn: 1:02:57

Well, that's, that's awesome. I'm, so for those of you listening. If you enjoy this podcast, and have somebody maybe in your life that is making up stories, maybe you want to share this with

Jen: 1:03:11

Oh, yeah, click that share button, hit

Lynn: 1:03:13

that like button, you can even go to my website on the right, you can actually leave us a voicemail. There's a little button on the right click it and it will actually send me your voice through email. And I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to hear from everybody. And as I said, hope to see you next time. Like it, share it and enjoy your practice of not making up stories and assuming positive intent. We'll see you next time. Thank you for listening to the creative spirits unleashed podcast. I started this podcast because I was having these great conversations and I wanted to share them with others. I'm always learning in these conversations, and I wanted to share that kind of learning with you. Now what I need to hear from you is what you want more of and what you want less of. I really want these podcasts to be a value for the listeners. Also, if you happen to know someone who you think might love them, please share the podcast and of course subscribe and rate it on the different apps that you're using, because that's how others will find it. Now, I hope you go and do something very fun today.