April 25, 2025
# 88: Dancing the Tightrope: Chapter 10 & 11; The Mistake Cycle: The What’s Next Cycle
In this episode, I’m reading Chapters 10 and 11 of Dancing the Tightrope. If there is a theme in these two chapters of my journey, I have to call it “stuff happens.” I’m going along, expecting things to go as planned, and instead, something unexpected turns everything on its head. Of course something unexpected happened. That’s how the world works. Why would I think it should go any other way? As I say earlier in the book, this journey showed me that many of my assumptions about pressure, balance and how to develop mental fitness were upside or backwards. These chapters not only capture some of the stories that helped me see things differently, they also capture exactly what I was seeing in my mental process and how I changed it for the better.
WEBVTT
00:00:02.879 --> 00:00:14.400
Lynn, Welcome to Creative spirits Unleashed, where we talk about the dilemmas of balancing work and life. And now here's your host. Lynn Carnes,
00:00:20.039 --> 00:00:31.321
welcome to the Creative Spirits Unleashed Podcast. I'm Lynn Carnes, your host. In this episode, I'm reading chapters 10 and 11 of dancing the tightrope.
00:00:27.397 --> 00:04:11.953
If there's a theme in these two chapters of my journey, I have to call it stuff happens. I'm going along, expecting things to go as planned, and instead, something unexpected turns everything on its head. Of course, something unexpected happened. That's how the world works. Why would I think it would go any other way? As I say earlier in the book, this journey showed me that many of my assumptions about pressure balance and how to develop mental fitness were upside down or backwards. These chapters not only capture some of the stories that help me see things differently, they also capture exactly what I was seeing in my mental process, the step by step of what I was doing and how I changed it for the better. I hope you enjoy this episode of dancing the tightrope. Chapter 10, the mistake cycle, getting myself out of a pickle on the water soon after, my magical moment with Phoenix, a test came in my personal life that involved a rowing shell blowing winds some friends and my husband, Russ, after he bought me a rowing shell the previous year for my birthday, my husband was excited that I would finally get to go out and row with our friends, John and Krista from across the lake. The three of them had been going out together for years now. I would make the fourth there was a reason. It had taken the better part of a year for this day to arrive. We had been down similar roads before and had not gone well. My fear almost always got the better of me and my husband's teaching methods, whether in scuba diving, rock climbing or boating, only magnified the pressure he came from a family that literally threw him in the water to learn how to swim. Over the past 25 years, I was still helping him understand that throwing me in the deep end was not the way I learned. In fact, it was a good way for him to get his eyes scratched out. I needed baby steps walking down to the boathouse That morning, I mentioned that I would need his patience as I figured out how to get the boat in the water without tipping over and then manage the very long, clumsy oars. I had only been in it once before and appreciated just how difficult a sculling boat is to maneuver. I never got more than 50 feet from the safety of the shoreline. He promised to be very supportive and help me get the boat all set up. Then he said, go ahead and start rolling across the lake to our friend's house. He might as well have asked me to start flapping my wings to fly there. As I pushed off the launch, I discovered just how many tiny corrections it took to stabilize a boat only as wide as my hips tipping and rocking. I found the simple act of reaching for the oars sent me into awkward maneuvers and the distinct awareness that I could fall into the very cold lake any second. Then, as if I didn't already have enough pressure, the wind started blowing. By now, managed to move away from the safety of the launch platform at the boathouse, but I was still near the huge structure with 10 feet of ore sticking out from either side of the boat. Sculling boats are designed to move in reverse. A normal stroke of the oars will catapult the boat several feet through the water, leaving the area to reach open water, required me to do the opposite of the natural stroke. I had to somehow push the oars rather than pull them, to get clearance from the structure. Given that I had been in this boat only once and did not come close to effectively moving the oars either direction, the pressure was rising. Did I mention that the wind had started blowing by now it was howling as I wrestled with my asking hands to do the opposite of what felt natural.
00:04:12.014 --> 00:04:22.745
The wind pushed me towards our pontoon boat, hanging on a boat lift the sharp propeller and I were about to have an unfortunate meeting in what I can only call a split screen.
00:04:22.805 --> 00:04:30.348
Moment I saw two lens. One was the land I had always been in moments like this. For much of my life, I had gone into panic.
00:04:30.410 --> 00:05:04.074
It happened during a dive trip in the Cayman Islands, where I freaked out during one of my first attempts to scuba dive off a boat. It happened rock climbing, when I got about 10 feet off the ground and then screamed like a banshee to get down. It happened when I was thrown from the horse that landed me in the hospital. Panic had been my go to for most of my life. I knew this Len well on the second screen was the land who had grown from the pressure of the round pan and had learned to reach for my invisible tools.
00:05:00.273 --> 00:05:26.334
This land had options. Yes, I could scream and flail and end up swimming in the 50 degree water to avoid the propeller, or I could solve the problem. I decided to stay with it and solve the problem. I would have to re decide many more times before I reached safety. I took a deep breath and calmly looked around for a way to avoid being pushed into the hanging boat.
00:05:22.961 --> 00:05:52.824
The oars that had been so awkward before suddenly became my friends. I shortened one and used it to push myself off the side of the boat slip just a split second before I would have made contact. Now I was free of the structure. At that moment, my husband saw the weird oar setup and yelled over the wind, you never shorten your oars. The Land of the first screen would have been defensive and pissed that he was trying to help me without really helping me.
00:05:52.886 --> 00:05:56.749
Moments like these have been the beginning of many epic fights.
00:05:56.810 --> 00:06:19.499
This time I just said, you do when it keeps you from getting sliced up by a propeller. I was not out of the woods yet, with the wind starting to look like it might white cap the tiny boat and I continued to be blown down the lake. By now, John and Krista had arrived at our side of the lake. John was a veteran of the rowing shell, and he quickly assessed the situation.
00:06:19.560 --> 00:06:38.324
The pressure was much higher than any rowing skills I had amassed in my one time trying the new boat while the others in our group would be able to go out for a fun and exciting morning, challenging themselves in the wind. The best thing for me was to wait for another day.
00:06:34.399 --> 00:06:53.163
We needed to somehow get me back to the boathouse. By now, the wind had carried me several 100 feet down the lake. I would have to row against the wind to return to the launch platform on our boat house. Lynn, on screen one, wanted to be rescued.
00:06:49.851 --> 00:07:11.620
Perhaps someone could get a motor boat out and come drive me home. Lynn on screen two, realized that getting home was on me. The only way it would happen was if I were able to listen while feeling the intense pressure. This was no time to beat myself up over my lack of skills, or to wish I were at home having a hot cup of tea.
00:07:11.682 --> 00:07:15.238
Nope, the situation was my opportunity to rewrite my past.
00:07:15.300 --> 00:07:22.596
I simply needed to use my invisible tools. Doing so was simple, but certainly not easy.
00:07:18.733 --> 00:07:34.247
John started coaching me on how to hold the oars, how to lean forward as I drew the oars back, turn them in slightly to make contact with the water, and then lean back to create the stroke.
00:07:30.384 --> 00:08:37.346
All of this had to happen while keeping the boat balanced. All of this going against a stiff wind. Every move was filled with the tiny corrections towards balance as I listened to his coaching, I began to get a feel for the stroke. Once he saw that I had a rhythm, he quit talking and allowed me to focus, stroke by stroke, frame by frame, I stayed present with the boat, the oars, the wind and the water. Before I knew it, I was at the boathouse now I just had to back my boat into its platform without a rear view mirror or eyes in the back of my head. By breaking it down, step by step, moment by moment, I was able to park the boat on the first try, even though the wind was howling, the feeling of success was one of the most satisfying things I've ever experienced. Rather than berate myself over not being able to hang on the water with the big kids, I acknowledged that I had overcome incredible fear and panic to get myself out of quite a pickle, much like the moment when I finally relaxed with Phoenix. I allowed the endorphins to be my true reward.
00:08:37.408 --> 00:08:45.072
The sensation was like my inner energy had gone from jumpy and miserable to silky and smooth.
00:08:41.270 --> 00:10:00.436
It was almost impossible to put into words. It was at this moment that I knew something had truly changed in me. It would be one of many moments when my husband noted that his formerly fearful wife was able to show up even when the pressure was high, pressure can act as a barrier to being good at the skills we can do with ease when there's no pressure. That's the essence of the pressure gap. Pressure can come from anywhere. It could be from having an audience hoping to impress or at least not embarrass, or from being alone, wishing for support and feeling at loose ends. Pressure can come from danger and pressure can come from fear. The gap occurs when we feel pressure from any source to the extent that our skills suffer. Here's how Bruce described the gap to me, many times the pressure was greater than your mental tools to deal with the pressure, what I discovered on the lake that day was that I could actually learn a skill while under extreme pressure. Bruce's methods of applying pressure when the stakes were high with horses translated from one domain to the other. In this case, I was able to access my tools to stay dry on my journey back to the boathouse. This method worked in real life. I still wasn't sure how or why, and I didn't know.
00:10:00.496 --> 00:10:14.519
Just how critical the next opportunity would be. But first I reflected on my dual screen experience with the sculling boat, reflecting on the mistake cycle.
00:10:09.779 --> 00:11:40.720
When I reflected on my sculling boat adventure, it was becoming clear that the rules of my internal operating system were being rewritten. Had the same played out with Lynn on screen one the day would have ended with Russ and me in a huge fight. It's almost impossible for someone who lives to face danger to understand how deeply fear can run in another, even in moderately challenging conditions, the rules of Russ operating system came from succeeding after being thrown in the pool. The rules of Lynn on screen one were written by hearing her mother scream, don't go near the edge. For most of my life, my rules had built giant fences around anything remotely dangerous. This gulf between our approaches to life had been a source of conflict from day one, early in our marriage, I got certified to scuba dive. The first dive Russ and I attempted to do without the oversight of an instructor. Was a two on a scale of one to 10 for him and a 10 of 10 for me. Russ was an advanced diver, and simply could not see why. I found diving off a boat in the middle of the ocean with big waves a challenge. He knew the conditions would be better once we got below the water. I was sure I would die once I got below the water, our wildly divergent operating systems were invisible to us, yet they were running the show to stay married. We had reached they taught I quit scuba diving, quit rock climbing, quit mount mountain bike riding and more. I found water skiing through girlfriends who allowed for my baby step approach to learning.
00:11:41.919 --> 00:11:59.200
When Russ bought the rowing shell for my birthday, it had been parked for a year and a half waiting for a day when I could learn to row in a perfect world I would not have started the way we did. However, I had no one else to teach me. It was a risk I was willing to take.
00:11:55.480 --> 00:12:53.379
Through my work with Bruce and Lynn, I had slowly been raising my pressure threshold. As a result, I had been more welcoming of pressure and the opportunity to relax in the face of making mistakes going out on the sculling boat offered exactly what I needed. The unexpected wind was just the bonus. What was missing that day was just as important as what was present, rather than the self judgment that stuck to my mistakes like a tick on a dog, I coached myself through each mistake. The idea was to allow whatever did not work to roll off me like water off a duck's back when the wind blew me toward the hanging pontoon boat, I focused on solving the problem, not agonizing over my predicament when I found myself blown way out of my comfort zone relative to the boathouse, I asked for help to get home, rather than second guessing the decision to be there. What was missing was running on my rules.
00:12:49.360 --> 00:14:23.840
Instead, when the rules offered the quick answer, I mostly reached for my tools. By the way, the rules almost always offer the first answer. The change happens by shortening the time span between running on rules or choosing to reach for the tools. My rules involve getting after myself like I had a sports mom living in my head, constantly yelling at me to choke up on the bath while she presented herself as a helper, her interference and mid pressure only reinforced my mistake cycle, rather than help me shed mistakes and have access to my skills, Bruce's methods of repetition in our leadership work with the horses showed me that my perfectionistic tendencies were part of the mistake cycle. Once I experienced his way of listening to the feeling the screaming sports, Mom was no longer screaming in my head. The repetition showed me that I can operate under pressure if I break it down frame by frame and allow the situation to tell me what to do. The sports mom is not providing help her screams instead interfere spelled with the E and move the focus to my mistake instead of my ability to solve the problem at hand, rather than something to be lauded, perfectionism was interfering with my ability to do anything under pressure. The same basic cycle showed up for many of the clients I took to work with Bruce. Yes, we each had our own specific nuances.
00:14:19.500 --> 00:14:49.059
However, the basic pattern was the same. At the onset of something feeling off, the cycle gets activated. My personal version of the mistake cycle involved a set of steps that looked like this. Number one, physical sensation, something feels off. Number two, conscious story, I've made a mistake.
00:14:43.779 --> 00:15:03.120
Number three, unconscious story, something is wrong with me. I'm a mistake. Number four, emotion, anger, frustration, shame, fear.
00:14:56.259 --> 00:15:17.159
Number. Five, wish I must stop the sensation so that I feel okay about myself. And number six, action, erase the mistake, cover up the mistake. Panic when it doesn't work, have a fight.
00:15:12.539 --> 00:16:11.519
The whole cycle happens in a nanosecond outside of my conscious without the frame by frame breakdown, it looks like this, number one mistake. Number two, a moment of ah. Number three, more mistakes while trying to fix the first mistake this screen. One method had its benefits. There was something cleansing about the pain of self criticism. Once I had taken the punishment, it felt like I had a fresh start. Interestingly, true learning almost always involves discomfort, even pain. My theory about why we beat ourselves up is that it covers the pain of the learning process. It's a pain we know well, and since we are the ones doing it to ourselves. It feels controllable, and to some degree it works. Occasionally, I would get better at a given skill. The self judgment gave me the comfort that I was trying.
00:16:12.240 --> 00:16:20.340
However, the cycle is also self limiting. I would leave the cycle committed to never again having to feel that yucky.
00:16:20.460 --> 00:17:24.920
Something is off sensation, so I would take less risk, and when the sensation showed up, I just repeated the cycle. Then I wondered, why was fear running my life, treating mistakes as a signal that we're that something is wrong with me perpetuates what doctor and author Brene Brown calls the shame spiral, the little electrical charge that tells me something is off triggers a cascade of emotions, stories and actions that take me away from solving the problem at hand. Suddenly, I become the problem, hacking away at the outside noise in a fear based attempt to feel okay about myself. On the other side of fear are my tools after the finding the middle exercise had been repeated ad nauseam, I was finally seeing the benefits. The physical sensation is just a sensation. What I do with it determines my outcome. Instead of thinking of it as a problem, something I don't like to feel.
00:17:19.440 --> 00:18:11.579
I thought of it as a signal. The sensation became my friend. I could either use the sensation to help me solve the problem, screen two, or I could try to make it go away screen one by choosing to solve the problem, to listen to John in the school to stay with it. Not only did I survive, I raised my pressure threshold, good thing, because I would need my tools the following week in a situation that made my accident look like a walk in the park, controlled chaos after many successful rides on Phoenix, riding instructor Lynn graduated me to shalik, a gray Arabian. She said, Only people who ride like me can ride him.
00:18:07.980 --> 00:19:21.140
He has a dominant mind, and it takes a really confident rider for him to trust the rider as a leader. I knew enough about horses by this point to recognize that Arabians are known to be a more spirited breed. Between Len's caution and what I knew about him, I had never expected to ride shalik or Shaw, as he was known around the barn. He was certainly a much more spirited horse than Mocha, the horse from my accident. Yet here I was under Len's tutelage, learning to ride Shaw. After a few lessons in the arena, Lynn and I headed out for the second of our quote, unquote, control chaos rides. Lynn was on her horse martini, and I followed on Shaw. By this stage of my training, I had spent a lot of time in different settings with horses. I had spent time in a variety of barns involving every discipline, from dressage to fox hunting to herding cattle to trail riding specialists. In all my visits, I came to learn that there were two basic schools of thought around working with and around horses. One involved controlling the conditions to keep the horses calm and the riders safe. The other involved preparing the horse and rider to handle anything that came up.
00:19:17.579 --> 00:19:31.819
They were an almost perfect parallel to the shorthand I was developing in the first, controlling the setting involved a lot of rules. In the second, preparing the horse and rider involved developing tools.
00:19:32.539 --> 00:20:02.160
Lynn's teaching fell into the tools way of thinking. Week by week, Lynn had worked with me on building my confidence through building my tools, we did not avoid danger. Instead, we embraced the situations that were difficult, and she trained me how to help the horse, to help himself in each scary situation, given my accident just two and a half years before, simply grooming a horse was a scary situation for me, getting on was a scary.
00:19:58.839 --> 00:21:28.339
Situation. Trotting was a scary situation, yet with patience, she continued to add pressure and I continued to build my tools. Eventually, she had to manufacture scary stuff for me and the horse to handle the controlled chaos. Rides raised the pressure even higher. She would set the conditions for the horse and me to face a situation she would be nearby to offer support. She set up a circumstance where the horse might be resistant, refused to move a certain way, or have to deal with the unexpected. Our intention was for me to keep a strong connection as the horse's leader, even when things didn't go according to plan. We did this type of practice first in the arena where the fence offered a stopping place in case things got out of hand, Lynn brought in all kinds of distractions, like flapping tarps, swim noodles, buckets of water and scary things we had to step over. Shaw and I learned to face danger together. I did not accept control chaos as a great idea at first. In fact, it seemed positively insane that Lynn insisted on creating fearful scenarios. After all, did she not remember that I got to spend three days in the hospital thanks to fearful things? Her reasoning challenged one of my beliefs. I believed that you could never show fear to a horse because they would pick up on it. Not to worry. I had earned my stripes in corporate America. I was an expert in how not to show fear.
00:21:29.299 --> 00:21:49.299
My well worn strategy was to put on my I've got this face and make everyone believe that my confidence was real. Remember my experience with the bucking training in the round pen? The more I doubled down on proving I had things under control, the more upset she became over time.
00:21:44.380 --> 00:23:34.640
My lessons with Lynn, Bruce and the horses taught me that seeing things for what they are mattered far more than the cover up. Truth be told, the horse sensed my fear, and no amount of covering it up would cover it up, in fact, incongruity telegraphed the message that I could not be trusted. If I were to get back on the horse, I would have to learn to face this level of pressure by reaching for my tools rather than reaching for my habits of stuffing, covering up or panicking. Moving outside the arena was a huge step. The stakes were higher when there were no fences to somewhat control the environment. When we headed out that day, it was clear from the beginning that things had changed since my lesson the week before, with a new driveway being built on the adjacent farm, dump trucks were now going up and down the usually quiet road. Both horses vibrated with alertness. Lynn reminded me to relax as predictable as the sunrise. Here came my first thought, you've got to be kidding me, I'm sitting on 1000 pounds of speed and agility, and you want me to relax, followed by my second thought, Here was an opportunity to welcome pressure. I thought, remember my tools, take deep breaths, get deep in my seat. We were both profoundly aware that should we mentally project bad stuff the horses would pick up on that we had the potential to make matters worse. A part of me remembered that somehow I had managed to live without horses most of my life. Why in the world would I risk another injury or lose another ski season? It was April, and summer was just around the corner, yet here I was riding in a much higher pressure pack situation.
00:23:35.059 --> 00:24:25.640
Two and a half years after the accident, my pressure threshold had been raised significantly, and here was my chance to raise it even higher. Needless to say, I was in the froth. I had learned to reinterpret the sensations that led to panic and instead to balance my negative positive pole. The question was, how much pressure would take me out of the froth and into the paralysis zone. Once we hit the paralysis zone. Learning is almost impossible. We are over our pressure threshold. At this stage. We are so flooded with emotion we cannot learn. We can only survive. I've heard trainers refer to horses who are above threshold. To refer to this in the horse's mind, paralysis doesn't mean we can't move. It means we are in the full fledged fight, flight or freeze stage of survival mode.
00:24:25.940 --> 00:26:39.140
We react with tunnel vision and without choice. Ideally, on this ride, I would stay in the froth, slightly uncomfortable, but still able to make choices. We walked along the driveway and Lynn reminded me to relax my ankles. Oh yeah. I said, heels down. One of the cardinal rules in Horseback riding is heels down. The attending nurse in the ER, after my accident, asked me what had brought me there, fell off a horse. I said, gotta keep those heels down. He replied, news to me at that point. That's how ignorant I was about riding at the time. I made a mental note to always remember heels down. Yet when I said heels down to Lynn, she said, Imagine you have an egg on the ball of your foot. Feel your seat and let your legs drape like loose towels. When I followed her guidance, I suddenly relaxed, became more anchored to the horse, that is, if by magic, my heels went down by forcing my heels down, I was adding tension to the situation. It turns out, heels down is the result of a relaxed rider forcing it doesn't set the conditions we want to create. As we were making our way along the open space that ran between the busy road and the creek, I mentioned to Lynn that I had been learning to row a sewing boat, I started to describe the success I had reaching for my tools in the big wind incident just a few days before my point was going to be how my training with horses, especially the Mitchell training, had helped me deal with pressure. As we talked, one of the huge construction trucks appeared around a bend and started coming down the hill towards us. Lynn asked how rowing could have anything to do with horseback riding. When something happens out there, I began. I reached for my tools instead of and before I could finish the sentence, a big turkey exploded from the tall grass beneath us. It was right under Shaw's nose and behind Lynn's horse martini, Shaw's head came up, turned left, and I saw the whites of his eyes. The energy underneath me felt like a rocket ship. Shaw launched into a run to the left as Lynn's horse, Martini took off the other way. Well, Lynn, you wanted to learn to stop a horse.
00:26:39.200 --> 00:26:52.000
Here's your chance. I thought I felt the panic rising in me for a split second. All my training went out the window again, the unhelpful first thought arose.
00:26:48.160 --> 00:28:26.960
My immediate reaction was to do exactly what I had done on the horse that threw me two and a half years before. I wanted to pull back on the reins as hard as possible. After all, we were now heading straight for the oncoming truck and sure disaster in the whirlwind, a part of me waited for Lynn to yell out instructions, as she had done so often before our in our training, just the week before we had been near this exact location, practicing emergency stops, I heard nothing but the truck, and immediately sensed she was dealing with her own spook tours. Whatever happened next was on me. I could either reach for my tools or react from my panic. Immediately I turned my mind from panic to focusing on what's next. I had a problem to solve. Freaking out would only add fuel to the fire, beating myself up, second guessing our decision to be there, or feeling like a victim of the circumstances, would use precious time and energy that I needed to face the pressure, plus focusing on any of that would take me outside of myself, coalescing My mind around solving the problem kept me within myself. Things happened fast. I shortened the reins against his mane, took the right rein and brought his head around, while bending his right hip around in the blink of an eye, we were stopped facing the creek. The truck was gone. Lynn was standing there with her horse, and we were alive. We had only gone about two horse links away from the spot the bird launched. Shaw was calm and quiet. I was calm and quiet.
00:28:27.319 --> 00:30:29.539
Lynn said, well done. In moments like these, it's tempting to stop, go back to the barn and wait to ride another day. Any horse trainer worth his or her salt will tell you that succumbing to that temptation will lead to unintended and unfortunate consequences. Horses make connections between what happened before what happens next. If running off at such a provocation sends us back to the barn, then perhaps he could test the next time on a dove or maybe a cricket. In other words, getting out of work by spooking can be trained into a horse is what by a well meaning rider. So we continued our ride. However, it was not only for Shaw's training. Going back to the barn would have also told me that I could not handle it, even though I had just handled it. If I were to use this event to raise my pressure threshold, I had to stay with the pressure rather than do what I had done for the past 61 years of my life, cut my tail between my legs and go home. Given how spooked I had been by my accident now two and a half years behind me, I was curious as to whether the fear would come flooding back as we continued riding in the field alongside the road, would I be able to bring myself back down in the past, the adrenaline hits my brain delivered would render my muscles useless and activate my monkey mind to run a mile a minute. No amount of deep breathing or calming practices would bring me back. Only time would help, as I silently committed to never let it happen again without realizing it. Such events had incrementally shrunk my world for so many years. This time I carried on. I was able to keep my wits about me. As the adrenaline drained from my system, I allowed myself to relish my new found skills as we encouraged the horses to explore the very area that had created the chaos. As their confidence and curiosity rose, so did my own. Later, as we were walking back to the barn, Lynn and I talked about the strategy we had used to build our confidence.
00:30:30.019 --> 00:31:01.319
She said you would not believe how many experienced horse owners would have gone back to the barn. Eventually they quit riding out when there's any chance of something happening, including on windy days. I would rather give my horse the tools to handle the scary stuff, and to do that, they need a confident leader. I had been around enough Barnes by this point to see exactly what she described. By the time we put the horses away that day, I realized I was feeling very much like I had the day when I finally relaxed with Phoenix, and the day I got the sculling boat home in the windstorm.
00:31:02.339 --> 00:31:06.059
Bruce had often referred to this feeling as natural endorphins.
00:31:06.539 --> 00:31:57.700
However, Bruce is a horse trainer, not a scientist. Plus Bruce had not read the myriad books I had on developing calm under pressure and on dealing with uncertainty. In fact, he had developed his methods completely based on trial and error, based on what was happening with me, it was clear he was on to something. My shorthand language of reaching for my tools versus reaching for my rules was working as a method for keeping me within myself in times of pressure and uncertainty. But I didn't know why. Nothing in all my prior reading and years and years of meditation and other practices had moved the dial as much as it had been moved in the last two and a half years, there had to be something to the biology of it, endorphins or a new car. It turns out that endorphins play a specific role in our biology.
00:31:53.079 --> 00:32:01.619
They help us cope with stress and pain. Sounds about right.
00:31:57.759 --> 00:32:35.299
Every time I went into the round pen, I felt the stress. But there was something good about this type of stress, just like the intensity of water skiing, which also gives me an endorphin kick. The first time I felt relaxed on Phoenix after I thought I would die, the sensations lasted all day, the good feeling streaming through my body acted as a natural reward for a job well done. In fact, dopamine also played a role. Dopamine is known as the reward hormone because it gets released after we reach a goal, and it creates that afterglow.
00:32:31.160 --> 00:33:00.480
In this quote, Andrew Huberman said, the process of learning and remembering things often feels hard, and indeed, can invoke agitation. Most people don't realize it, but that agitation is the entry point to learning. Literally, the adrenaline that causes agitation signals the nervous system that it should be ready to change without it, the nervous system is not as prime for change the process we call neuroplasticity.
00:32:56.259 --> 00:33:04.200
Once you understand this, you will be more likely to embrace, as opposed to avoid, agitation.
00:33:05.160 --> 00:33:53.799
Also, after a period of challenging focus and learning, there is a associated increase in feel good molecules such as dopamine and to a lesser extent, serotonin. The takeaway learning is a process that starts with focus, alertness and agitation, and the process is consolidated during sleep and non sleep, deep rest. We all have the capacity for neuroplasticity. Don't hesitate to lean into it as a process. Recognize the agitation as part of that process, the feel good part arrives at the end or days later, when, as if suddenly you have acquired new abilities, new abilities. Much of our feel good. Neuro chemistry is wired for release only after a mental struggle to arrive at some answer or insight. Learning and applying knowledge is the ultimate drug.
00:33:50.019 --> 00:34:08.579
Again. Andrew Huberman on Instagram, May of 2022, back to Lynn, learning is the ultimate drug, if we embrace it. Early on, I wondered why Bruce thought beating myself up was so bad.
00:34:04.980 --> 00:34:20.599
After all, I'm trying to be better, but wait, am I? Does it work or not? I've come to believe that it does not work.
00:34:16.559 --> 00:34:32.119
In fact, not only does it not work? It's like giving back the treasure right after we have found it. In a way, pressure unearths the brilliance we have buried underneath our rules.
00:34:28.159 --> 00:34:52.000
However, it may not look like treasure when we've just been through so much discomfort. It's not yet as shiny and beautiful as we pictured. Beating ourselves up is like walking away from that exquisite, rare peace instead of carefully brushing off the dust and dirt to reveal the beauty underneath.
00:34:48.219 --> 00:34:55.300
When I was about eight years old, my sister and I went to see our grandparents in Oklahoma.
00:34:55.780 --> 00:35:31.159
They loved having us come visit and offered many fun things for us to do. My granddad mentioned going to the zoo about an hour away. I asked, do they have elephants? No one asked me, Why, but at that time, I was obsessed with elephants. It might have been because I had seen a TV show with elephants, but all I wanted was to see the huge gray beasts in real life. He said he was pretty sure they did. And soon we were in the car heading for the zoo. The whole time we were in the car while we paid our entrance fee, and as we made our way into the zoo, I asked, When will we see the elephants?
00:35:28.579 --> 00:35:31.159
When will we see the elephants?
00:35:32.179 --> 00:35:58.119
My vision of gray elephants danced in my head. My grandparents kept telling me to be patient, and we would eventually get to the part of the zoo where they were kept I don't remember being interested in anything else until the moment when I became the worst spoiled brat ever. Finally we got to the elephant enclosure.
00:35:52.239 --> 00:36:01.800
My heart sank. These were not the elephants I had imagined.
00:35:58.119 --> 00:36:11.219
These elephants were reddish brown. Looking back on it, my heart sinks again as I remember how horribly I behaved. These are not real elephants. I cried.
00:36:11.820 --> 00:36:22.760
I turned and tried to walk away as my grandparents, thoroughly horrified at my public display, tried to explain to me that the elephants were really great.
00:36:19.320 --> 00:36:22.760
They were just covered in mud.
00:36:23.539 --> 00:37:20.420
Not good enough for me. I wailed. That whole trip was wasted. I'm pretty sure I ruined the day for everyone over my childish refusal to see the real elephant standing right in front of me as an adult looking back on it, I cannot imagine how heartbroken my grandparents were with my behavior. They had given me exactly what I asked for, and I rejected it. I beat them up over the elephants being covered in dust. The learning process, by definition, is covered in dust. We are unearthing our true abilities, and the process can be messy and make us wonder if there's anything worth having for all our effort we have to take the time to see the treasure for what it is, beating ourselves up clouds our vision makes us walk away from the treasure. Bruce was keenly aware that our consumer based society takes advantage of this process.
00:37:16.139 --> 00:37:32.539
He often said, we can either take something that is less and use it to enrich ourselves. Here I will sew you my hat, or we can lift it up. We can use the pressure to help us grow with all the inputs coming at us.
00:37:32.840 --> 00:38:03.780
Agitation is everywhere, and if we don't realize that much of the agitation is an artifact of the modern world, we seek respite in other ways. We buy a new car, get some new clothes, go buy something we don't need on Amazon. We may get a little hit of endorphins, of dopamine, but it doesn't last, and it doesn't raise our pressure threshold. Next time we have to go back for more chapter 11, the what's next?
00:37:58.420 --> 00:38:49.239
Cycle the roots of perfectionism. My next lesson with Bruce started as it always did, with a porch session. By this time, I had been riding with Lynn for several months. I would get down to Camden occasionally, every time I put on my boots and got out my helmet. But still, I had not written either Marley or Mac I guess working on my patience was starting to pay off. On this day, I told him both stories, rolling in the wind and avoiding the truck with Shaw, we debriefed the situation through the lens of his method. As I told one story and then another, he asked questions such as, what was your number? How did you let the situation tell you what to do, when to do, how to do. What did you do with your mistakes?
00:38:45.940 --> 00:38:59.440
Where did your muscle memory take over? How did you break it down to the smallest frames? How did you feel when it was over?
00:38:54.280 --> 00:39:35.360
The part of me aching for a gold star. Or is it a goal? G, O, A, l, star still wanted him to declare me finished. It's a pattern I know well, the inner child shows up when I'm under pressure, craving the voice that says, Lynn, I approve of you. My mistake cycle, fueled by the education and socialization process, will always be there. I was one of those kids who loved to get A's because my dad drilled me on my multiplication tables in fourth grade. I gained a ton of confidence in math of all kinds. It carried me all the way through college and into my accounting and banking career.
00:39:35.900 --> 00:39:39.559
My parents got used to seeing all A's on my report cards.
00:39:40.340 --> 00:40:30.739
Anything less led to an interrogation about what happened. Perfectionism became my goal, not because I had high standards. Perfectionism fulfilled my attachment needs, that balancing act between attachment and self expression or authenticity always skewed towards approval. Perfectionism runs. Rampant in the corporate world, even in cultures that have the mantra Done is better than perfect. Individuals within that culture often struggle when they make mistakes or see others make mistakes. For many people, being asked to let good enough be good enough is like hearing fingernails on a chalkboard. It goes against the grain, even without external pressure, they feel internal pressure to get it perfect. The perfection game isn't essentially a way of life.
00:40:26.300 --> 00:41:11.940
It's rooted in a similar cycle to my own. We are conditioned to go for the goal. The language we used in banking was flawless execution. It was a great idea for delivering accurate bank statements. However, it did not set the conditions for stretching into something new and different. Perfectionism carries two ironies. The first is this, those who are trying to be perfect are getting in their own way while they are trying to do really good work for the organization, the striving itself diverts time, energy and attention from solving the problem in the face of complexity and uncertainty.
00:41:08.519 --> 00:41:19.739
Mistakes pave the way to figuring out what does work a project with no mistakes, by definition, must be small and risk free. Anyone can copy it.
00:41:20.460 --> 00:42:04.739
I've learned this in every domain, from art to water skiing to business. Even if perfection were achievable, the cost far outweighs the benefits. The second irony of perfectionism is that it represents the end. When something is perfect, it cannot be approved, improved upon. It is finished. It is over. A better way to say it is this, perfection is death. For someone caught in the perfection game, not being perfect feels like death. Every mistake signals that something is very wrong. We can accomplish 1000 great things, and it's that one mistake that will eat us alive.
00:42:01.559 --> 00:42:14.940
At the end of one of my corporate programs, a participant pulled me aside and confessed that his biggest fear was a failure. He spoke in a Hush Tone, making sure none of his colleagues were in earshot.
00:42:15.719 --> 00:42:22.699
He said his normal pattern is to cover up his mistakes if they get discovered. He goes on the attack to deflect criticism.
00:42:23.599 --> 00:42:56.260
When we dug a little deeper, it was clear that he's a competent person who is making his normal share of mistakes. The mistakes are not the problem. How he sees them is causing him all kinds of grief. I so wanted to have a quick answer for him to turn all of this around, but I've been there. It's not that straightforward. Fear of mistakes inhabits our very bones. Mistakes are not the end of the world. They are our leverage points to proficiency.
00:42:52.300 --> 00:43:08.099
As an adult, I went back to taking piano lessons. This was not some long haul dream or bucket list item? No, this was more of an accidental way to deal with my lack of patience.
00:43:04.139 --> 00:43:25.699
We had an old player piano that was way out of tune. It was something my new husband brought into the marriage against my wishes. When he unloaded it from the truck, I stood at the front door hoping to provide a blockade in a failed attempt to prevent him from bringing this dirty old thing into the house.
00:43:20.780 --> 00:43:29.119
It was really old and dusty and out of tune. We got it cleaned.
00:43:25.699 --> 00:43:43.059
And every now and then, I would sit down and play, mostly as an exercise in patience. See, Russ was always late. He would keep me waiting well past my patients threshold. Early on, I tried nagging to get him to hurry up.
00:43:43.420 --> 00:44:26.239
That just led to blow ups, so I started playing the piano to keep my hands occupied and distracted from wrapping around his throat. As a child, my parents forced me to take piano lessons. I could still play a few things from them, but they sounded terrible on this old thing. What surprised me as an adult was how much I enjoyed playing. Believe me, as a kid, I didn't like to play, especially when my mom nagged me and nagged and nagged and nagged to practice, she had visit visions of her daughter becoming a concert pianist. My practice was her obligation. Yet here I was as an adult, choosing to sit down and play. One day, I decided to call a piano tuner.
00:44:26.780 --> 00:44:41.559
After he finished getting that all piano as tuned as it could be, he played, oh, and how he played. It was nothing like the classical music that had been forced on me as a child. This was the blues, and I was in awe.
00:44:37.699 --> 00:44:56.679
We started talking, and I learned that piano tuning was a side gig for him. In his other life, he was a professional musician. He and he had played with many well known people. He also gave piano lessons he could teach me to play the blues.
00:44:53.139 --> 00:46:04.019
Right then and there, I signed up for lessons what I dreaded as a child, I chose. As an adult, he gave me assignments, and I practiced and practiced and practiced. My younger self never played anything perfectly. I didn't care, or, truth be told, I didn't want to give my mom the satisfaction. As an adult, now fully formed and steeped in the value of perfection, I went for it. When practice was mine to own. I found a joy in hearing the music coming through my fingertips. I set my sights on playing pieces without making a single mistake. I sought perfection and beat myself up when I didn't get it. Every day, I sat down with high hopes that this would be the day when I would make a mistake. It interfered with my rhythm and took me out of myself, I would have to start over, more aggravated, but also more determined. I was so proud of myself for trying so hard, my inner world teetered between pride for my effort and shame for my lack of worthiness. These two forces created an equilibrium of sustained misery.
00:45:58.480 --> 00:46:07.260
None of it was useful, yet I had no idea what was really going on inside of me until years later.
00:46:08.280 --> 00:46:49.719
To start with what I was calling pride in myself was really me trying to please my piano teacher from childhood. As I was playing along, I would miss a note. Instead of continuing to play, I would freeze for a second. It was as if I felt the need to explain why I made the mistake to the ghost sitting off my right shoulder. Then I would get mad at myself and the absence of my teacher there to weigh in scolding myself felt like the right thing to do. Then I would start over from the beginning. So some of my desire to be perfect was an exercise improving myself to a teacher who had been dead for 20 years, difficult passages in the music created an even bigger dilemma.
00:46:50.320 --> 00:47:45.099
I didn't have the patience to break it down and really learn the notes I longed to play perfectly. Breaking it down into pieces felt like a series of many failures. Instead, I kept starting over from the beginning, hoping I could somehow magically get through the piece of course, that's not how magic happens. After being stymied over and over again, I could barely stand the feeling of failure. Because of my perfectionism and lack of patience, I limited myself to the easy pieces of music rather than learning and improving. I lowered my sights to a domain where I felt like I could feel better about myself and perhaps prove myself worthy. During a lesson one day, I noticed that my new teacher was really pleased with something that wasn't perfect. I told him it wasn't good enough. Huh? Me the student. I had higher standards than the teacher.
00:47:46.539 --> 00:48:11.519
I even mentioned that as a professional, he was so much better than me, my assumption he was perfect when he played. Then he said something that stuck with me. I've never played a perfect piece in my life, and never will. What we professionals have learned how to do is play through the mistakes. Every performance has mistakes. We just don't let our mistakes knock us off our flow.
00:48:06.719 --> 00:48:44.679
He went on to say, I want you to learn to be a better musician, not to be perfect. Music is not by about playing all the notes in the right place and at the right time. It's as much about the space between the notes. You can only improve your skills when you are willing to feel your way through the mistakes and keep playing. I embraced the idea in theory. In my head, I could see the value of mistakes, and I talked a good game. Truly believing mistakes were okay was another thing, especially when the pressure was high. My education had worked too well.
00:48:41.019 --> 00:49:09.900
Learning was never really my objective in school, the allure of the perfect report card really drove the show. Contrast my attitude and that of the education system to that of Buckminster Fuller, who said, If I ran a school, I'd give the average grade to the ones who gave me all the right answers for being good parents, I'd give the top grades to those who made a lot of mistakes and tell me about them, and to then tell me what they learned from them.
00:49:10.920 --> 00:49:43.900
That quote first came across this parrots radio radar screen when I ran credit training at the mega bank. My first reaction to it was horror. I thought, of course, I want these students to give me the right answers. My job is on the line. They need to get it right every time. We can't afford for them to make mistakes. Yet when we applied adult learning principles, we saw that the give and take of problem solving, discovery and an open learning environment developed better bankers and a more satisfying, even joyful.
00:49:39.800 --> 00:50:53.500
Learning experience solving difficult problems has its own reward if we allow it. When I found myself back on Bruce's port sharing my successes, I thought I was a mistakes or good convert, however, the roots of perfectionism run deep. They wind around every. Part of the psyche, like old growth, finds those roots wrap themselves around the very core of our being, promising protection from a world fighting in its own perfection game. On this day, we would finally saddle Marley, and I would come to realize that this mistake convert was just beginning to convert, finding the middle again several times during our porch session, Bruce would say something, and my retort would be, got it, getting it. He corrected me. This phrase hit me right in the solar plexus of my mistake button sending my negative pole way up. My conditioning still reflexively treated that electric jolt as a sign I was making a mistake. The automatic thoughts showed up, even though I was now more aware when, oh, when is he going to tell me I've got it? I thought I was still trying to be perfect.
00:50:53.980 --> 00:52:16.380
It wasn't really a conscious thought, yet he explained that he was simply bringing me back to the awareness that I had chosen to play an infinite game, one where there was no perfection. Growing my proficiency meant constantly getting it. Never got it. It was a gentle rewiring of my brain, which presents the choice of going into my mistake cycle or the what's next cycle. It still didn't take much to set off the mistake cycle, but I was getting it even though my impatience flared when he had me start with finding the middle long ago, one of my coaches had said impatience is just your anger at not being able to control the situation. The words Be patient always graded on my nerves. My goal this time, as it had been many days before, was quote, unquote, writing lessons. My goal would be achieved once I got on Marley. Everything in between was interference. Not only is patience rare in our in our hurried world, but it gives us something we've been missing, the space to learn without the guilt and shame. I wasn't labeling the steps as interference, nor was I consciously driven by a need to have someone check the box that I was good enough. We can't label something we don't see. My brain heedlessly focused in on the goal and galloped toward it.
00:52:17.159 --> 00:53:50.619
The ride wasn't fun. My anger, need for control and patience had been exhausting, exacting a high cost for a long time, and I was oblivious to it. Bruce's picture differed from mine in very important ways. He wanted to help me, help myself, to unleash the part of me he called value, not some version of me that had a bunch of notches on my belt. Me writing was the least of his worries, in the same way the Japanese tea making ceremony is about the care in the steps, rather than the end goal of the cup of tea, Bruce was slowing me down and widening my mental lens, just as the Zen saying goes before enlightenment, chop wood carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood carry water, finding the middle calibrated my mind, body and spirit to slow down to create the picture I was here to create modern day cameras can record at an astronomical rate of frames per second, allowing us to see rich pictures and distinctions previously invisible to the naked eye, the clarity is astonishing. The clarity of Bruce's picture for me was equally astonishing when my life could be broken down into the multiplicity of frames per second, my picture of being a rider would be realized. It would be many more moons before I had my first true taste of being one with the horse.
00:53:51.400 --> 00:57:03.840
Eckhart Tolle said, doing is never enough if you neglect being, the ego knows nothing of being, but believes you will eventually be saved by doing. If you are in the grip of the ego, you believe that by doing more and more, you will eventually accumulate enough doings to make yourself feel complete at some point in the future, you won't you will only lose yourself in the doing. The entire civilization is losing itself in doing that is not rooted in being with a capital B, and thus becomes futile. Bruce was helping me work on being with a capital B. This time, I really felt a shift within me as we went through the finding the middle exercise. My negative positive pole consolidated into a salient laser like signal, the electricity shooting through my body felt less like death and more like the bubble on the spirit level. My job was simply to read the sensation and adjust accordingly. When I stepped from one side to the other, my pole told me when I had split the round pen in half. When I moved into the center, my pole told me when I was getting warmer or colder, when I finally planted my flag, I was not the one in control. I had allowed the round pen and the process to tell me where the middle was. I was simply the conduit. Then Bruce used a stern tone and said, What in the hell makes you think that's the middle? I felt a huge surge of electricity. The past offered to interfere with protective solutions. For a moment, I questioned myself, doubted myself, wanted to defend myself. I was in the froth. Then I remembered. I said, I'm comfortable with this. And Bruce replied, Well done. His question was designed to flush the doubt and tune me into the voice of the me, the one behind the protective fear wall, the one I could trust when the chips were down. Suddenly, the committee in my head that loved to send out messages from the cheap seats no longer had the power the cacophony of sports mom messages didn't disappear, but they faded into the background. The voices would be back. But every time I had a moment in the froth where I chose to let the situation tell me what to do, when to do, how to do, my pressure threshold ratcheted up another level. I would need every bit of that space when I got on Marley, a more productive approach. After we went through the finding the middle exercise, we went over to saddle Marley. We had been on the porch for a while, and even though I had enjoyed finding the middle I was anxious to get moving. The clock ticking in my head seemed to scream at me to move faster. My hands revealed my impatience with each jerky movement. Quietly, Bruce said, slow down. Take your time. Go step by step. He couldn't miss my hands, fumbling, rushing to get to the end goal. Neither could Marley. Marley felt the rushy energy and stepped away.
00:56:59.739 --> 00:57:12.719
The saddle placement was off and had to be reset. Bruce said it takes what it takes complete this step before you move to this next step and breathe.
00:57:14.699 --> 00:57:24.739
Some part of me was realizing that I was hearing sports mom in the cheap seats coming out of Bruce's head. Of course, that was just my wild imagination.
00:57:20.958 --> 00:57:27.318
When he spoke, it sounded like a needle scratching across the vinyl of an old record player.
00:57:27.978 --> 00:58:07.498
The screech snapped me out of the feeling of false pressure, and once again, the sports mom faded into the background. We started over, and with a deep breath, I shut the clock off in my head and focused step by step, moment by moment, quiet and deliberate, Bruce seemed to have a highly tuned radar to my inner dialog when my subconscious thoughts and energy fed me self doubt, he caught it early and encouraged me to focus only on the next step later, I came to realize that he had a finely developed sense of my negative positive pole. The analogy of the car battery is more literal than metaphorical.
00:58:07.739 --> 00:59:05.759
The pole is energy. When my negative pole goes up, the horse feels it because the energy is how horses communicate. Bruce could feel it too when he could clearly see that I was in no danger, but my negative pole was rising and my past was interfering. He interrupted the cycle by guiding me to focus on what mattered now. Before I knew it, the saddle was on. Marley was quiet and relaxed while we didn't have a stopwatch, my sense was that it took less time doing it the patient way I had a flash of many moments in my life where I had rushed, only to end up having it take longer going back to redo poorly done steps, each time like a piranha, thanks to our methodical go, slow to go fast approach, Marley was calm and ready to ride. I was calm and ready to ride. Just a small dose of patience had kept our energies at a simmer. It was a much better place to start.
00:59:07.018 --> 00:59:22.398
Interestingly, to me and obviously to Bruce, the finding the middle exercise made my shift from mistake cycle to what's next cycle happen more quickly. The next step would challenge my what's next cycle.
00:59:18.418 --> 01:00:39.199
Bruce knew that I would be feeling the something feels off, sensation of my negative positive pole throughout this ride. He wanted me to have many opportunities to send the cycle down this path. Number one, physical sensation, something feels off. Number two, conscious story. What's next? What is the horse or situation telling me I need to do? Number three, unconscious story. I don't have to listen to the voices from the past because I'm not the one in control here. Number four, emotion, curiosity, interest, acceptance. Number five. Wish use the sensation so I can solve this problem, and number six, action, keep recalibrating and playing warm or colder as the solution draws near. My first challenge how to get on the horse. Bruce didn't have a mounting block nearby. He suggested I work out how to mount from the bumper of the pickup truck. Len on screen, one threatened to take over seriously. What kind of operation is this a truck? I thought. Then the second thought, Wait, Lynn, come back.
01:00:32.719 --> 01:01:43.898
Maybe you can do this. This moment of coming back would become the most essential lesson of all. Lynn, on screen too, looked at the situation as a problem to be solved. Did I mention that, once again, the saddle was no saddle at all, but a bare back pad with no stirrups, or that we were out in the open near the road, no fences to contain a runaway horse anywhere, or that we were about to ride through the woods with this poor excuse of a saddle on the horse. None of that mattered quite yet. First, I had to get Marley to move his feet in the sequence that would put him in a place where I could throw a leg over. I had to work out how to do that while standing on the bumper, feet lined up front to back, as if I were on a slalom ski. At least that part felt familiar. So did the current shooting through my body indicating something was off. The froth bubbled up. I'm thinking this is not how you get on a horse. What if he runs off after you get on? What makes you think you can balance well enough to get your leg over.
01:01:39.378 --> 01:02:10.259
What if you fall? My hands shook and my thoughts spiraled into my past, programming, yet somehow I stayed in the froth. Bruce asked me to first stand on the bumper Marley's reins in hand. Can you do that? Yes, it seems slightly uncomfortable, but I could do it, breaking it down into frames. Okay. Now, where would Marley need to be for you to get on another framing the picture?
01:02:04.619 --> 01:02:43.778
Okay? Now he said, Where would he need to move his feet first in order for him to be in that position another frame? Now he said, Okay. What's next? Frame by frame, I applied the amount of pressure that encouraged Marley to move into position. No more, no less. Marley told me how much pressure to apply through his actions. Slowly, my breath returned, my thoughts reconnected to the now and my hands steadied. Marley stood quietly right where I needed him to be. However, it was a bit of a leap to throw my leg over.
01:02:43.898 --> 01:04:19.199
Bruce continued, whenever you are ready, I summoned just enough freedom to release my leg from the bumper and swing it over his back. I was on. He took a step or two, and I asked him to Whoa, silently, I thanked Lynn for all the lessons on keeping a balanced seat and how to sit so the horse understood Whoa. My muscle memory also understood Whoa. My old fear based reaction would have set my energy soaring, made my legs clamp his sides and my hands gripped the reins. In other words, my fear would have created the very thing it was trying to avoid, we would have been running for the nearby road in this moment, I savored a moment of satisfaction at this level of pressure. I had learned to stop a horse. More importantly, I had done the what's next cycle. I had many more moments to come as I toggled back and forth between the mistake cycle and the what's next cycle. The flywheels both the mistake and what's next cycles act much like the flywheel made popular by Jim Collins in his book Good to Great, and in the follow up, turning the flywheel, a monograph to accompany Good to Great. In these two works, he used the flywheel analogy to drive home the point that great companies became great and stayed great because they kept applying energy into a well designed flywheel that netted excellent business results.
01:04:15.179 --> 01:05:02.579
Flywheels are essentially energy to storage devices, whether in my car or on my potter's wheel, a flywheel keeps the momentum going smoothly in the physical world, at first, it takes a lot of energy to get a flywheel going. After a few full turns, it gets easier and easier to turn the wheel. Collins broke down business flywheels into a distinct set of actions that led to consistent replication, if a business were disciplined enough to keep applying energy into a well designed flywheel. Once the flywheel gets moving, the stored energy keeps it moving with much less effort than at the beginning, as long as the business leaders did not get caught in what he called the do.
01:04:58.659 --> 01:05:23.298
Loop. In the doom loop, business leaders start grasping for something big and new. They over and under correct. They careen between trying this initiative and that project, hoping something will enter up the downward spiral. With their lack of discipline, they end up fueling the same bad results over and over again. While he never called it a flywheel.
01:05:19.798 --> 01:05:58.599
Bruce was helping me see my own doom loop in my mistake cycle and a more effective way to use pressure in my what's next cycle. In Colin's work, both the flywheel and doom loop are self perpetuating cycles. The difference comes down to knowing the steps and discipline to stick with the well designed flywheel, the mistake cycle and the what's next cycle self perpetuate as well. In my case, the mistake cycle had established its own momentum from the energy I unwittingly applied each time I experienced the something was off feeling the perpetuity aspect of the flywheel is its hallmark.
01:05:55.418 --> 01:06:22.278
Collins explains, in the business flywheel that each step, which represents a loop leads to the next. The energy of the flywheel keeps the momentum going almost without effort, as one loop builds on another, as each moment of truth piles on the next. Here's how I put together the steps of my own mistake cycle, or in call Jim Collins work the doom loop.
01:06:18.059 --> 01:06:35.179
First physical sensation, something feels off the negative, positive pole. Second, the unconscious story, something is wrong with me, I'm not enough. Third, start beating myself up or explaining myself, trying to look good, compensating for what I lack.
01:06:35.719 --> 01:06:56.679
Fourth, emotions, fear result, resentment, frustration, despair, helplessness, anger or doubt. Five, reach for the rules, which is protective, focus on trying to get to the end goal as quickly as possible and as painlessly. Six, grasp your solutions over and under correct I've tried everything.
01:06:57.159 --> 01:07:06.358
Finally kick myself for not being better at the thing I'm trying to do, which leads right back to the physical sensation that something feels off negative, positive pole.
01:07:07.980 --> 01:07:50.980
Note to the listener, there is a chart for this and the what's next cycle. Reach out to lynn@lencarnes.com I'll send you these charts if you ask for them. Back to the book. Now here I was with a fully energized flywheel from a lifetime of practicing my very own personal mistake cycle, this thing spun at max speed with little effort, the slightest sensation of something being off set my mind and my actions into these steps, the little scientists of my childhood had established that this was the way to survive in the world. My compensations came in the form of straight A's being a good little girl striving for perfection of proving myself in every venue, I mostly hid the emotions and just got after it to achieve a goal.
01:07:52.119 --> 01:08:28.640
So many times, Bruce had pointed out that I had either over or under corrected. He witnessed me grasp at straws with the unconscious expectation that stopping the sensation would somehow solve the problem. He saw me stuck in my past, focusing more on trying to be good enough, rather than staying with what was happening in the here and now and seeing a different solution. The what's next cycle would need a lot of energy applied to replace the mistake cycle. I would need to understand each step and apply it diligently. Now the what's next cycle? First step is the same physical sensation.
01:08:28.640 --> 01:09:33.020
Something feels off, negative, positive. Pull the unconscious story. Remember that I'm not the one in control here. Assume positive intent. Next the deliberate story. Ask what is the impeccable picture I want to create next? The emotion tap into my curiosity, interest, acceptance. After that, reach for my tools, a transformation to break the picture into small frames. What is this situation telling me to do next? Keep recalibrating and playing warmer colder as the solution draws near. Finally, reward myself for a job well done, which feels like a good endorphin kick, and that leads back to the physical sensation, which now is something feels on. Never while I was in the process of mounting Marley did the physical sensation stop? However, with Bruce's guidance, I harnessed the something is off sensations to break down the process into small steps that I could handle.
01:09:28.819 --> 01:09:57.399
But first I had to have that moment when I went to screen land on screen one, asking, what kind of operation is this? The most important moment of all is this interruption where I pivoted from the old but highly energized mistake cycle to the what's next cycle. The magic of the interruption comes from not seeing the need to pivot as a mistake, but as a gateway to raising my pressure threshold.
01:09:58.000 --> 01:11:32.840
The moment on screen one used to be the. Thing I most wanted to avoid, because I would have to acknowledge that I was not perfect. The next step was to naturally beat myself up, thus giving back the treasure of the momentary opportunity to create something new. Now the moment was my signal to interrupt the OA and chart a new neural pathway once I was on, Marley was still in quiet. Bruce said, well done. More importantly, I allowed myself to feel the sensation of well done before we moved on. After months and months of wanting to ride, I was finally on, and Marley was not just any horse. The little girl who in fourth grade read the Black Stallion books was sitting on a bareback pad on the great grandson of Casa ole, the very horse that played the Black Stallion in the movie holding space, we would cycle through what's next Many times over the next hour. At each questionable juncture, the mistake cycle offered its highly energized support. Bruce interrupted my inner ventures into the land of self doubt with a question, bringing me back to the moment where I could reach for skills I already had using my woe was just one of the many lessons I had learned that would be applied on this ride. Some of those lessons came many years before in my facilitator training, but is often the case, I didn't really get it until more pressure was on the line.
01:11:28.460 --> 01:11:40.539
Holding space would be the next lesson. Back in my banking days, I brought in consultants to provide extensive facilitator training for my team and for me.
01:11:41.319 --> 01:12:11.279
And one particularly difficult session, the teacher said, one of your jobs as a facilitator is to hold the space for the participants to come to their own conclusions. My initial thought was to stick my finger in my throat with a mock gag reflex. Obviously, this guy had never worked in a bank or any kind of dog eat dog world in which I was operating. Of course, I didn't literally put my finger in my throat, but I did offer to educate him. We just don't do things like that around here. We tell them what to do, and they have to do it.
01:12:12.300 --> 01:13:55.840
And that face in my career, I had yet to learn that leading by fear, intimidation and force doesn't lead to real change, commitment or buy in. Instead, it creates a form of compliance that has the appearance of success, except it's merely an illusion tested under pressure, and it collapses like a pile of cotton candy in a rainstorm. The teacher was unfazed by my resistance, and lo and behold, in a few months, I was facilitating incredibly difficult Strategic Projects full of recalcitrant bankers doing everything in their power to keep the status quo while pretending to buy into the changes we were making. Holding the space for me had allowed me to learn to hold the space for others. Over the years, holding space became second nature in many of my facilitation projects, both inside the bank and after I started my own company, it was these lessons with the horses that showed me that my ability to hold space had a clear pressure threshold beyond it. I went back to my force and fear methods. Force and fear were not the way Bruce was teaching me to ride, learning to listen, hear and allow the horse to tell me what to do, when to do, and how to do, was how he was setting the conditions for me to learn to ride in partnership, not domination. When I stopped Marley after two steps, Bruce said, Well done. Now let's go take the trail to the pasture next door. Yay. We were finally out of the round pen and walking on trails around Bruce's property. I was on Marley. Bruce walked alongside me as he asked me questions, what's your number? Left ring, left leg, move the energy to the side.
01:13:56.380 --> 01:13:59.859
Pick a point and ride to it.
01:13:56.380 --> 01:14:29.180
Keep the picture of each point clearly in your mind, Marley's energy was high, sending mine through the treetops, yet just checking in with it allowed it to drop back to a simmer, giving it a number gave me the power to change it simply through awareness. When I settled so did Marley, after a short walk through the woods and over a small bridge, we arrived next door at the pasture where several other horses resided, including Marley's dam. Bruce alerted me that the other horses would run along the fence line.
01:14:29.359 --> 01:16:15.899
When one horse runs, they all want to run. Bruce said he's either going to look to you or to them for leadership. Make sure he looks to you, the little girl. Part of me envisioned the scene in the Black Stallion movie galloping on the beach with my hands in the air, the grown up version of me thought better of it. I kept a clear picture of walk as we made our way alongside the pasture with the horses who did indeed take off, looking so graceful as they ran across the pasture, we reached the end of the fence line where Bruce kept the horse feed. Me, My job was to find a comfortable place to stand with Marley while Bruce filled the food and water troughs. The idea was for Marley to stand patiently and my patients would deeply inform his patients all this why. Marley watched food get doled out to his fellow horses without much space to stand out in the South Carolina, July sun, we ended up close enough to the horses on the other side of the fence that Marley wanted to pull his head towards them. I had seen enough horseplay to be aware that nuzzling could lead to biting, could lead to kicking, could lead to more running. It was in the best interest of my safety for Marley to keep his head away from the biting power of the other horses. I could feel the bubble of my spirit level moving off center. The electrical charge running through me risk sending messages to Marley that he should be concerned. The pressure was high enough that I was becoming quite concerned. At first, every time Marley turned his head toward the other horses, I yanked him back to center. After repeating this a few times, I realized that the horse was much stronger than me and more committed to his game than he was to changing his course of action based on my corrections. Bruce wasn't saying a word about what I should do or not to do to solve this problem.
01:16:16.140 --> 01:16:35.060
He just went about his business, filling water drops. It was time to use my tools. I took a deep breath and relaxed. The horse was showing me how much pressure he needed to stop the unwanted behavior. The problem was that my strength could not match his.
01:16:35.779 --> 01:16:54.460
I would run out of strength to force the matter long before Marley would the typical patterns of Lynn on screen. One at a moment like this would be to go either helpless the child like victim, or beat myself up standing in for the overbearing parent. Sometimes I did both.
01:16:49.899 --> 01:17:30.260
This time, I just kept looking at the problem. Admittedly, I first had a moment where I felt helpless and looked to Bruce to rescue me. Focusing on the problem kept me distracted from feeling out of control. Screen two offered solutions, if I could just find them. Finally, I held the reins firmly, rather than allowing him to pull them out of my hand and then trying and failing to bring his head back. He could turn his head, but it would be uncomfortable pretty quickly he returned his head to center. He would stand like that for a few seconds, and then the temptation would be too much for him. He turned his head again. I held my position again.
01:17:30.260 --> 01:17:38.720
No yanking, no correcting. My action. Spoke this message. Here is where I'm holding the reins.
01:17:35.720 --> 01:20:04.800
You can figure out where you want to hold your head up to you. Within a minute, he was able to stand still, centered and relaxed. When I held the space, he made the choice to be comfortable. The rest of the ride offered more moments. We walked through the woods where there was no trail and where Marley stepped on a rain we walked alongside a different pasture where the horses were tempting Marley to run. We walked along the boundary between the deep woods and pasture where scary things come out at night. I could feel Marley checking in with me at each moment, asking the question, Are we okay? I checked in with myself. Negative. Poll goes up, pivot from freak out to breathe, pause and solve the problem, reset myself back to center, reassure my horse. Walk on. As we neared the area where I would dismount, Bruce validated my sense that Marley was checking in with me with an added twist I had just said out loud, it seems Marley is checking in with me. No sooner had the words left my mouth, the other horses started creating quite a ruckus. Suddenly, one of them kicked the gate. It sounded like a gunshot. If I had been a horse, I would have taken off running for the hills. My job was to keep the horse under me from doing the same. The chaos was over in a flash, and we were still walking calmly. Bruce said, Marley did check in with you. He's asking if you are worthy. I came back with worthy of what Bruce's reply, worthy of being his leader. As we debrief the many moments, Bruce pointed out that I had survived every one of them, I wondered out loud why he had kept filling the water buckets when I struggled keeping Marley away from the other horses. The question itself pointed out that small child part of me who still wanted him to teach me and tell me what to do. He answered, You were the one feeling what was happening with him. I was not in your position. How could I know what to do when I'm not the one up there. While I was holding space for Marley, Bruce was holding space for me. In other words, Bruce chose to take a power with approach as I solved the problem. He did not choose to do power over by having answers, and his approach gave me that. Chance to step out of power, under into my own ability to work through the situation.
01:20:05.520 --> 01:21:21.260
It's the same approach he uses when working with a horse. He allows the horse to work out the answer to the question, which leads both horse and human to a feeling of trusting themselves to handle whatever comes with each opportunity to solve a problem by letting the situation tell me what to do without beating myself up. I ran the flywheel of what's next and reset my pressure threshold up a few tiny ratchets. The path is never straight. Before long, I had an opportunity to test myself on Scotty. You may remember that Scotty, the finely tuned Ferrari of a horse belongs to Darryl. She was thrilled that I was choosing to really learn to ride. We both had visions of riding on her trails together, me on Scotty and she on one of her other three highly trained dressage horses. By now, I had learned enough about horses and my reactions when horses did unexpected things to realize that the horse mocha was a much simpler horse to ride than Scotty. If Scottie is a race car, Mocha is your average mom mobile. With my success riding Marley also more like a race car than not, I decided to try riding Scotty again. By this time, I had come to recognize that the first ride on Scottie a couple of years ago before, had been a warning signal.
01:21:18.060 --> 01:21:33.800
Everything I was learning had been packed into that one experience, my lack of awareness about writing, my overconfidence in my skills, my inability to read the horse, my proving mindset, my pressure threshold.
01:21:35.000 --> 01:22:01.800
We started in the arena, doing a lot of groundwork. We focused on the relationship and helping me learn to connect with him and read when he was not connected to me. The last thing Darryl wanted was for my lack of training to interfere with the impeccable training she had done with Scotty. After many sessions on the ground, we did a short ride out with just the two of us. Several times during the ride, Daryl had to remind me to relax, sit back and breathe.
01:21:57.880 --> 01:22:11.819
While riding, I felt scotty's energy coming up quickly. My mind would call up visions of the accident, envisioning Scotty suddenly running off while my butt was landing on the ground.
01:22:07.859 --> 01:22:46.479
With this fear in the forefront, I tightened up, leaned forward and got all clutchy with the reins. But now, thanks to all the work with Bruce and Lynn with darrell's reminders, I was able to regain my seat and breathe. The second time on the trail was Scotty darryl's husband David joined us. So we had three horses given our success on the first ride, my confidence was high, perhaps a little too high, as we headed out, everything felt the same as the first time, except not quite at the very beginning, I noticed that he didn't really stop when I asked him to a couple of times, wanting to stay with the pack and not be a bother. I let it go.
01:22:47.979 --> 01:23:33.198
We had crept over my pressure threshold, but I didn't know it yet. We weaved in and out of the lower trails, and things were mostly Okay. When we started going up the Big Trail to go over the mountain, I noticed him aggressively getting up on the other horses, even pinning his ears and nipping butts. Not good. After a few 100 feet, I asked him to slow down and then to stop. He kept going. We did several full 360 turns. I settled down, and he settled down. He would be okay for a while. And then he started with the tailgating and nipping again. Now my negative poll was going up, and my adrenaline was going with it. My inner guidance system was telling me something was off, and my adrenaline was telling Scotty that he should be worried. He got worried. Scotty is a super sensitive horse.
01:23:33.198 --> 01:24:01.378
There is not a lot of room for error. As we were going up an especially steep hill, I leaned forward to help keep us in balance, probably way too far forward, while my intention was to help him balance my body, physician told him, let's go fast. He broke into a gate and then a canter. I did not want to go fast. This was my moment of truth. Would the pressure be too great for me to use my tools, or would I be able be able to bring him around and settle back down?
01:23:57.639 --> 01:26:52.838
With some coaching from Daryl, we were able to get him back to a walk and move nicely across the top of the ridge. As we stood there looking at the beautiful views in the distance, we started talking about the plan for the walk down the mountain. Just the thought of it raised my adrenaline. Of course, Scotty picked up on that right away. He started moving forward before I asked suddenly, something that seemed well within my abilities brought a much higher level of pressure than before. We were now way over my pressure threshold. I was no longer in the froth. My ability to learn was compromised. It was time to shift from raising my mental tools to taking steps to lower the pressure. I dismounted Scotty and we walked together for a few minutes. Given all the groundwork we had done together, we both immediately relaxed. He and I walked down the hill, and at every natural remounting spot, I listened. I gave myself the gift of patience. I breathed. Eventually we walked into the barn. Me still on the ground, a part of me felt like a failure, but another part saw the wisdom in walking Scotty down the hill instead of riding him. When we debriefed this incident, Bruce pointed out the wisdom side of the dilemma. Did you not read your negative poll accurately? Did you not read his negative poll accurately, did you not take corrective action to balance your polls? What would have happened if you had decided to let the past interfere, making you choose to prove yourself rather than listen and hear and use your tools? In this case, the pressure was greater than your mental tools, and you responded appropriately. Give yourself credit for that. There I was at another moment of truth, another opportunity to dance the tightrope. Scotty and I might have made it down the hill safely. We might have had an accident. How I chose to see it would matter much more than what actually happened. Was it a failure, or was it invaluable learning, choosing to lower the pressure is sometimes the only way through a situation. We cannot always raise our tools, especially if we are outside the froth. I'm not going to say I didn't beat myself up a little bit over this. I really wanted to be ready to ride Scotty on the trail, but wanting and becoming are two different things. It would be another year before I was ready to be out on the trail with Scotty. Thank you for listening to the creative spirits unleash 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 of value for the listeners.
01:26:53.498 --> 01:27:06.298
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.
01:27:02.939 --> 01:27:07.918
Now I hope you go and do something very fun today. Do.
00:00:02.879 --> 00:00:14.400
00:00:20.039 --> 00:00:31.321
00:00:27.397 --> 00:04:11.953
00:04:12.014 --> 00:04:22.745
00:04:22.805 --> 00:04:30.348
00:04:30.410 --> 00:05:04.074
00:05:00.273 --> 00:05:26.334
00:05:22.961 --> 00:05:52.824
00:05:52.886 --> 00:05:56.749
00:05:56.810 --> 00:06:19.499
00:06:19.560 --> 00:06:38.324
00:06:34.399 --> 00:06:53.163
00:06:49.851 --> 00:07:11.620
00:07:11.682 --> 00:07:15.238
00:07:15.300 --> 00:07:22.596
00:07:18.733 --> 00:07:34.247
00:07:30.384 --> 00:08:37.346
00:08:37.408 --> 00:08:45.072
00:08:41.270 --> 00:10:00.436
00:10:00.496 --> 00:10:14.519
00:10:09.779 --> 00:11:40.720
00:11:41.919 --> 00:11:59.200
00:11:55.480 --> 00:12:53.379
00:12:49.360 --> 00:14:23.840
00:14:19.500 --> 00:14:49.059
00:14:43.779 --> 00:15:03.120
00:14:56.259 --> 00:15:17.159
00:15:12.539 --> 00:16:11.519
00:16:12.240 --> 00:16:20.340
00:16:20.460 --> 00:17:24.920
00:17:19.440 --> 00:18:11.579
00:18:07.980 --> 00:19:21.140
00:19:17.579 --> 00:19:31.819
00:19:32.539 --> 00:20:02.160
00:19:58.839 --> 00:21:28.339
00:21:29.299 --> 00:21:49.299
00:21:44.380 --> 00:23:34.640
00:23:35.059 --> 00:24:25.640
00:24:25.940 --> 00:26:39.140
00:26:39.200 --> 00:26:52.000
00:26:48.160 --> 00:28:26.960
00:28:27.319 --> 00:30:29.539
00:30:30.019 --> 00:31:01.319
00:31:02.339 --> 00:31:06.059
00:31:06.539 --> 00:31:57.700
00:31:53.079 --> 00:32:01.619
00:31:57.759 --> 00:32:35.299
00:32:31.160 --> 00:33:00.480
00:32:56.259 --> 00:33:04.200
00:33:05.160 --> 00:33:53.799
00:33:50.019 --> 00:34:08.579
00:34:04.980 --> 00:34:20.599
00:34:16.559 --> 00:34:32.119
00:34:28.159 --> 00:34:52.000
00:34:48.219 --> 00:34:55.300
00:34:55.780 --> 00:35:31.159
00:35:28.579 --> 00:35:31.159
00:35:32.179 --> 00:35:58.119
00:35:52.239 --> 00:36:01.800
00:35:58.119 --> 00:36:11.219
00:36:11.820 --> 00:36:22.760
00:36:19.320 --> 00:36:22.760
00:36:23.539 --> 00:37:20.420
00:37:16.139 --> 00:37:32.539
00:37:32.840 --> 00:38:03.780
00:37:58.420 --> 00:38:49.239
00:38:45.940 --> 00:38:59.440
00:38:54.280 --> 00:39:35.360
00:39:35.900 --> 00:39:39.559
00:39:40.340 --> 00:40:30.739
00:40:26.300 --> 00:41:11.940
00:41:08.519 --> 00:41:19.739
00:41:20.460 --> 00:42:04.739
00:42:01.559 --> 00:42:14.940
00:42:15.719 --> 00:42:22.699
00:42:23.599 --> 00:42:56.260
00:42:52.300 --> 00:43:08.099
00:43:04.139 --> 00:43:25.699
00:43:20.780 --> 00:43:29.119
00:43:25.699 --> 00:43:43.059
00:43:43.420 --> 00:44:26.239
00:44:26.780 --> 00:44:41.559
00:44:37.699 --> 00:44:56.679
00:44:53.139 --> 00:46:04.019
00:45:58.480 --> 00:46:07.260
00:46:08.280 --> 00:46:49.719
00:46:50.320 --> 00:47:45.099
00:47:46.539 --> 00:48:11.519
00:48:06.719 --> 00:48:44.679
00:48:41.019 --> 00:49:09.900
00:49:10.920 --> 00:49:43.900
00:49:39.800 --> 00:50:53.500
00:50:53.980 --> 00:52:16.380
00:52:17.159 --> 00:53:50.619
00:53:51.400 --> 00:57:03.840
00:56:59.739 --> 00:57:12.719
00:57:14.699 --> 00:57:24.739
00:57:20.958 --> 00:57:27.318
00:57:27.978 --> 00:58:07.498
00:58:07.739 --> 00:59:05.759
00:59:07.018 --> 00:59:22.398
00:59:18.418 --> 01:00:39.199
01:00:32.719 --> 01:01:43.898
01:01:39.378 --> 01:02:10.259
01:02:04.619 --> 01:02:43.778
01:02:43.898 --> 01:04:19.199
01:04:15.179 --> 01:05:02.579
01:04:58.659 --> 01:05:23.298
01:05:19.798 --> 01:05:58.599
01:05:55.418 --> 01:06:22.278
01:06:18.059 --> 01:06:35.179
01:06:35.719 --> 01:06:56.679
01:06:57.159 --> 01:07:06.358
01:07:07.980 --> 01:07:50.980
01:07:52.119 --> 01:08:28.640
01:08:28.640 --> 01:09:33.020
01:09:28.819 --> 01:09:57.399
01:09:58.000 --> 01:11:32.840
01:11:28.460 --> 01:11:40.539
01:11:41.319 --> 01:12:11.279
01:12:12.300 --> 01:13:55.840
01:13:56.380 --> 01:13:59.859
01:13:56.380 --> 01:14:29.180
01:14:29.359 --> 01:16:15.899
01:16:16.140 --> 01:16:35.060
01:16:35.779 --> 01:16:54.460
01:16:49.899 --> 01:17:30.260
01:17:30.260 --> 01:17:38.720
01:17:35.720 --> 01:20:04.800
01:20:05.520 --> 01:21:21.260
01:21:18.060 --> 01:21:33.800
01:21:35.000 --> 01:22:01.800
01:21:57.880 --> 01:22:11.819
01:22:07.859 --> 01:22:46.479
01:22:47.979 --> 01:23:33.198
01:23:33.198 --> 01:24:01.378
01:23:57.639 --> 01:26:52.838
01:26:53.498 --> 01:27:06.298
01:27:02.939 --> 01:27:07.918
