Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to youo Odyssey podcast where your guides, Tara and Karen invite you on a transformative journey toward wholeness and personal growth.
Each week we'll discuss topics related to the human experience and offer insights to help you along the way.
Please note this podcast should not replace medical care or advice.
We are not licensed health care professionals or mental health therapists.
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So, explorers, let's dive into today's episode.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Welcome explorers. Thanks for joining us today. We are excited to welcome back Mary Graham from London, the uk.
Mary is doing some amazing work and helping to educate, inform, guide people in their own wholeness, becoming great visionary leaders. We're so excited to welcome you back today, Mary.
Thank you for being here.
[00:01:23] Speaker C: Yeah, good. Interested to what we're going to explore in our conversations today.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: So last time we did talk about the history of visionary leadership and the education model and we talked a little bit about where we've come from.
And now we'll talk today about what's going on. Now, where are we now?
So where would you like to start? Or Tara, if you have any questions lined up.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: Yes, we are exploring the present. And the biggest question, the first question that came to mind for me is what are the pressures that visionary leaders are navigating today? Like, I'm coming out the gate. Heavy.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: No? Yeah, let's just land right in there.
[00:02:09] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And I think I'll just summarize from what the visionary leaders did up until 2026 in communicating an inspiring vision.
That's the purpose of the visionaries and the pioneers is to say, hey, can you imagine what it'd be like if you learned at school about your wholeness, if you already knew when you left school how to look after yourself, how to navigate good, equal, interdependent relationships that you were already skilled at, hosting a group to solve a problem without blame and shame and with connection and expansion. And we are all in this together. Imagine if you had been taught at school to host a new way of doing something and that everybody in that problem solving process would say, my part in this, that I'm ready to do differently and I'm ready to bring to the table. You know, that's not in our current culture.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: Every one of those questions that you said made me just get fuller and fuller of hope and excitement. I was like, imagine that.
[00:03:23] Speaker C: Yes, yes, there are organizations out there who are doing that.
And in order to bring us to the present, on reflection, my one part in this communicating the vision and communicating that the whole person model is also about prevention. The purpose of the vision is to take us somewhere amazing. I can easily reflect on that. And therefore, if the prevention wasn't communicated clearly and in a way that people could access, there's a huge amount of work being done, there's a huge amount of gateways open, but it's not joined up, it's not strong enough, it's not clear. And the prevention part has led us to where we are today.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: I was just thinking, so let's just to sort of dial it back for our listeners.
What prevention are you speaking of?
[00:04:19] Speaker C: So if I don't know how to look after my emotional intelligence and I don't know how to self regulate and I don't know how to tune into my emotions, I and use them with my thinking to create an effective way forward. If I just have my emotions and let them be in the driving seat, then I'm really likely to do the things that we were in now, which is to take a drug, drink too much, work too much. If I'm not whole, I'm only one dimension of who I am.
So then I might be, well, I might not have an addiction, but I'm only looking at things one dime dimensionally. Yeah, yeah. So that my life is going to have some rigid and narrow elements to it. I've worked in the health service, I've worked in prisons, I've worked at the House of Lords, I've worked with leaders. So I've worked every single from a family of alcoholics with no money to the wealthiest CEOs on the planet. There is no difference between the opportunity, the stress, the struggle, it's all the same. And every single person will say to me, I have no idea how to handle this part of myself. I have no idea what to do when the other person's doing that. And I have no idea how to intervene in a group culture where the messages of what is prized are clearly out of balance and unhealthy.
That's where we are in the present is we've got so some one dimensional messages from leaders saying the only way to be successful is to do it this way and that way is based on those leaders not having emotional intelligence.
If I'm then in the team and I haven't got my emotional intelligence, I'm going, oh my goodness. If they say that's how it's going to be and that's the new norm, I've got to join in.
So one dimensional actions from not understanding my emotional and Spiritual intelligence leads me absolutely to join in with the fear, to join in with somebody else's message of this is the prize. You'd better behave and look and act and earn to fit this prize. Otherwise you will be excluded. And therefore if I'm feeling vulnerable and I join in with that, not only have I abandoned myself by joining in with something that is unhealthy, it magnifies. So I'm really stuck. And that's where we are currently. We're stuck. We're in what Eckhart Tolle called and predicted the transition from the caterpillar to the butterfly. We've missed some opportunities to already be in the butterfly.
We're stuck half caterpillar, half butterfly right now. He uses that description beautifully. So I can't move into my transformation because I'm stuck. I can't go to the butterfly which is the symbol of transformation. I've got one foot in the past and I can't get into the future. And he predicted it 20 years ago.
The wonderful US psychologists from Chicago that came over and taught me in 1990 predicted this series of human made crisis happening with our attachments and dependencies to one dimensional prizes. The business is only okay if the profit looks like this.
People's health, the drug companies will take care of that. There'll be something invented. If people get stressed at work, they can take a tablet. We have bought into that.
So now we're stuck very attached to one dimensional imbalanced ways of being accepted.
[00:08:03] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: What's required of all human beings is to discover and be responsible for their agency. To be a full spectrum individual, all of the sides and not being too one sided or stuck in their ways. And I think you really hit on something so important.
Emotional mastery, right? Mastering your ability to emotionally regulate and to understand that what someone else is saying or bringing first of all is not your story, it's not your identity and it's about them and where they are. And so that alone helps defenses to calm down. Right when we're in a group situation or in a boardroom. So even being like oh this isn't about me and having that clarity and that foundation in whole self is so important for everyone. Every being has to own that responsibility for themselves to help heal some of this to help get us unstuck.
[00:09:01] Speaker C: And I'm talking about education. What I've been working with is the missing education that then allows us to say I've got one thing a little deeper that I can explore with a therapist and I don't need to Keep bringing it to work or to our conversations, because I'm working on it.
And our conversations are going to be whole and wise with clear boundaries about what's okay and not the way we speak to each other. For that creates growth and safety.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:09:34] Speaker C: I can think of thousands of people in lots of organizations who are fully doing this. So they go into work meeting. And there is a clear cultural norm about the way we speak to each other and the way that we problem solve and we speak to each other wisely. Not only do we make it safe, but we expand the opportunities. And that's the bit I don't think my part that I communicated clearly enough. I noticed I was hesitant to sometimes say, if we don't do this, things are going to look bleak.
Yeah. And things are going to become tough. And so that prevention was like a vaccine.
Do this education and you will be protected from lying awake at night thinking, I don't know who the hell I am, I don't know what I'm doing and I've lost the plot.
And then I certainly don't know how to set boundaries with other people who are feeling unregulated and all over the place. And I certainly don't know how to deal with that when it gets magnified in a group norm culture. And we can learn that at school. These people I've worked with and all the other visionaries out there as well, they've learned it and they're using it. So the good news in the present is there are pockets.
Professor Rob Carlton that I worked with in 2016. He's in charge of the association of Biologists, Biologists and Chemists. And he asked me to do a little piece of work. And he said, tell me what you do. And I said, teach people how to be whole, how to use their emotional intelligence. And then I gave him the sort of exam criteria because it is just like passing a history exam. And he said, that's great. He said, I can breathe a bit. He said, because I know that if there are people doing that when the crisis hits. He said, and I think about my two kids, I know there are pockets of people out there who are going to behave with wisdom and take us somewhere safely. And he was talking about water crisis. He was talking about the things that the scientists are all over, that there'll be a nation that runs out of water and that nation will have to go somewhere. And if I'm not feeling great and they end up on my doorstep, well, we know what's going to happen and we're pretty close to that. That's one area. The way we've treated the water resources, let alone what we've done to the planet. But most importantly, the thing we've got completely neglected is how we grow and develop ourselves. So we're not currently in a fit state. So the good news is we're not in a fit state. The good news is there is really clear measurable criteria. One of the things you do out there is you educate and you do a course because one of the things that the visionaries learned that it's not about turning up for one seminar, it's about learning the curriculum and passing the exam and coming out with the skills certificate.
So that's the really big thing.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: I love how you've talked about the past and the present, what's really working well in the present and how we can use the gifts, the information, if you will, incorporate that into our education system. But there was something that you said in our pre work that really stuck out to me about how we are surrounded by information. A lot of that is coming from the research from over the past 30 years. But we lack wisdom. So. So I'm curious if an explorer was listening, what does that wisdom look like in leadership today?
[00:12:55] Speaker C: Exactly the same here as citizens.
What does my wisdom look like that I would learn at school and then if I chose to take on the responsibility of the role of leader, that I've also learned about wisdom as well. Yeah, yeah. So it's every single one of us learning at school. And then if I choose the responsibility of the role of leader, I'm setting the cultural norms within the community.
We've got a garden community here, which is wonderful. The person that runs, that sets the norms.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: So the wisdom is in the application.
[00:13:31] Speaker C: The wisdom is in the application. Yes, absolutely. Speaking to a new leader recently and I said something about taking part in healing and educating the future. And he said, sorry, you said, I can't buy into that because we can't even sit and talk to each other right now. So he said, I feel so overwhelmed. In March 2026, he said, I'm looking out there and people are just shouting and screaming at each other. And there's the blame and shame. And he said we can't even sit and talk to each other. So how the hell are we going to Invent something amazing? Dr. Eric Byrne was really curious about that in the 40s and 50s. So he did his research and what he brought to the table for us, which is at root of all consensus and mediation. And Marshall Rosenberg's nonviolent communication nlp, which is again about how I find my inner power and bring it out there and find my authentic self and make my mark in the world. That we have a number of voices inside of ourselves, but there are three primary voices and one of those is the voice of wisdom and the other two are. And therefore when we learn that and we become aware of it then which the Buddhists have been teaching us for centuries, I'm awake and aware and I'm thinking, what am I about to say next?
Am I going to put some wisdom out there or am I going to put some fear and control out there? Or am I going to put some. Oh yeah, that's amazing. We can do it. Don't worry about the detail, it'll be fine.
And those are the three. So there's the fear voice which is if you don't do that, you're right or wrong. Putting people in boxes with labels on it, right, wrong, good or bad, which were brilliant at so good at it. And the other voice is the half skilled, what he called the little scientist. I've got an idea, let's just go out there and chuck it out there. It'll be fine. It'll work itself through. Half skilled child voice of us. So we've got that within us. I was working with somebody yesterday, we did the questionnaire. They're in their 20s, they're in the beginning of a leadership role. And beautifully the questionnaire showed that this person had their half skilled child in the driving seat. So the questionnaire is super accurate and it shows the primary place this person acts and thinks and makes decisions from is the half skilled child. Then they go to wisdom and then they have the parent control, fear voice. It only looks like that. It's got to be blue and pink with spots on it. And if you're not doing that, you're wrong and you'll fail and you won't fit in. When I did questionnaire myself 36 years ago, my generation, the way I was raised, my critical parent was in the driver's.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: Oh, right up top. Right up top, yeah, yeah, me too.
[00:16:28] Speaker C: I was in a hurry up, be perfect, be strong.
In the 1960s, which is the critical parent voice, you know, gotta do it super quick, you've gotta be perfect and you've gotta be super strong. I sat next to a lovely chap from South Carolina at soccer on Tuesday night and he's similar age to me and he absolutely concurred that he was also brought up with the hurry up, be perfect, be Strong, he joined the military, he raised his kids that way and he was sharing how he's done some unlearning. In my typical way, I like to say, put the critical parent in the back seat with a cup of tea and they are available for a genuine life and death emergency.
And obviously some of that is happening in the world, in our communities, in our workplace, there is no genuine life and death emergency. But we keep bringing this voice to the front and this is for us to change.
And also then if the half skilled child is in the driving seat, there will be consequences. Things will not work, the implementation will not work. In the 36 years that I have been learning and unlearning and learning and teaching, the three voices are super simple. People grasp it. I was teaching yesterday on screen, Japan, Jakarta, India, some US folks, some Europeans there.
People get it in three minutes and they go, oh, oh. And they want to start using it. So that's where I start from. Which voice are you putting in the driving seat? In the way that you manage yourself and then in the way that you communicate with others and then in the way that you lead a culture.
[00:18:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's super simple, the three voices and super accessible and it's a superhighway to awareness.
When you teach that and you're in a room with people and you can see in their faces, they're like, oh my God, my half skilled child or my critical parent has absolutely been. Maybe the other two weren't even hanging on the fender. When that sort of lights up for somebody and they, that's that moment right, where they have that opportunity, there's a crossroads and they can be like, yeah, I want to learn more about this because I do want to contribute my best and my highest skill set, self and purpose to the world.
And I think that having those three voices being a simple concept to get people started I think is just brilliant.
[00:19:06] Speaker C: And that's what Dr. Eric Byrne did that work for. And then there were a few people, Kaplan and a few other people who built on that.
And probably you can imagine a book written in the 1950s, in the 1960s was certainly I didn't enjoy reading it.
I'm a bit of a scan reader and a highlighter. And then I want to get into action.
Really dense, amazing material. And luckily, because I was in the profession where I was going to be examined and assessed on it, I persistent in reading the book. And now of course we've got technology, we've got 16 different ways of learning because of the way our brain Is wired great. So then we've got information available in different formats. Yeah.
[00:19:58] Speaker B: What was that book? What was that hard to read book that you were referring to?
[00:20:01] Speaker C: Yes, I'm okay. You're okay. The other thing is, when I teach it to people over the age of 40, the first thing that happens is they have a little grieving process and you see the sadness and they usually go, I wish I'd learned this earlier.
And they are immediately in touch of the wasted energy and the wasted time and the pain and the disappointments. I'm all about prevention. That's why I've been so passionate about taking my one part in getting it into all education systems. Workplaces have a recruitment and an induction process.
So the good news is all of the organisations I've worked with, you get asked this question at recruitment, what do you know about when you join? We will be using this in our meetings.
So this is part of the contract that you will learn this, you will get it taught on the induction and then we use it every day in every meeting and every piece of communication.
[00:20:57] Speaker B: It's embedded in the culture. It's beautiful.
[00:20:59] Speaker C: Embedded thoroughly in the culture. And I can also give you an example of where a middle layer of leaders, 9,000, the board didn't.
They were asked, suggested, they chose not to. So the middle layer got on and did it. They didn't go, oh, well, if the board are not doing it, we're not going to. What's the point? There were three amazing human beings in that 9,000 who said, that's an excuse. I'm not getting caught up in that. We do it, we're doing it. I can remember one lovely guy from France at the beginning of the journey, there is temporary discomfort. You know, let me be clear, there is temporary discomfort. And he sort of sat there saying, can I get another coffee?
And he went, I totally get why the board don't want to do this.
He said, you're asking me to be vulnerable in front of my work colleagues. And normally we're really defended and really competitive with each other. Then the temporary discomfort moves into, oh, okay, this is working a little bit. And then it works a lot. And then it's, how did we ever live without it? Yeah. So this isn't a lovely sound bite with a gorgeous beginning. It's a tough self. And then there's temporary discomfort at the beginning. So it asks us to dig deep and do a level of having some faith. We learn spiritually first in our values. So the first thing is, do I value this? Does this Meet with my beliefs. It's not my beliefs because my beliefs are limiting. Right, but do I value this? But my beliefs will come up. Do a little bit, pace yourself and at any point, if it doesn't feel good, stop. I said you've got to just go through that a little bit and then see if you're going to trust yourself.
We spoke about this last time. Do you trust yourself to navigate this and then come and say no to me if you think I'm taking you somewhere? Because here's the other skill for current, present crisis.
Finding our voice to say no. Going back to school, doing some unlearning, finding a course, a group, a person who will help us get our head clear, learn the curriculum and then say some nos. Because in the transition there's going to be patients that really need to be said no to. I can only say no in a lovely way, but a really firm way from my wisdom.
[00:23:26] Speaker B: Right?
[00:23:27] Speaker C: Yeah. If I say no from my critical parent, then I'm going to make you bad and wrong and how dare you.
And if I say no from my child, it's going to be so fuzzy that you can't hear the no.
Yeah. Or I'm not even say no at all because I'm like, right, too scared to say no. Yeah.
[00:23:44] Speaker B: It's learning the skills, practicing the skills and being able to stand up and say no where it doesn't feel life affirming, it doesn't feel aligned to values, it doesn't feel like good open communication.
Saying that there's a better way standing up and being an example, being an example of how it can be.
[00:24:07] Speaker C: I read a lovely thing from Jonathan Kaner and he said this era of us really accepting that we have this emotional and spiritual intelligence to learn and learning it well, getting 10 out of 10 and being assessed so that we can show that we have the skills requires us to decide what we're standing for from our wisdom, decide what we're ready to let go of. Because in this transition there are going to be things that it's essential for me to let go of, to move forward.
What am I going to protect and preserve? There's a load of good stuff from our history that we've thrown out and then what am I going do to invent? So when we do the episode about the future, what are we going to invent and build from our wholeness that is taking us to integrated success results, well being and collaboration. And this first bit of this crisis is going to reveal what we're going to be asked to let go of and then how we're going to use our voices to stand for something really important in the real build. And that's where your work is going to be so powerful in supporting people to find that voice. Because at the moment the voice of standing for is in the hands of the critical parent.
[00:25:21] Speaker B: Right. And very fear based.
[00:25:23] Speaker C: It's fear based, one dimensional. I was at a talk last night, I'll say this bit and then maybe we'll do a little exercise. Yeah, perfect for a homeless project that one of my colleagues is involved in. And it was a fantastic film that they'd made about homelessness. And at the end the boss said, is this what a healthy society wants to have? Is 800 people in 12 mile radius in London acceptable? Is that a society that we want to be part of? And everybody would say no. And then what you going to do about it? And that's where 799 people say, sorry, busy.
[00:26:01] Speaker B: Yeah, the follow through.
[00:26:02] Speaker C: Thanks. Right, thanks for Miguel. Miguel is the one that said, I'm going to do something about it. And what he said beautifully was we need the leaders in health, social care and housing to really do it differently because the old way of designing systems for health, social care and housing are not working clearly. And again, I listen to that and he's absolutely right. So that's in the rebuild, all of us citizens, because it's going to be collective leadership. We're not going to have this, I'll leave it to the government anymore because the government hasn't got any money. So we're all going to have to sit together and bring out a couple of dollars and say, right, I'm going to make this happen in the rebuild of doing it differently. And when I heard him say health, social care, housing. The bit that I work on is all of those things have happened, systems that are not working, our lack of education systems. So the root is always we've got an education system in many parts of the world that produces leaders with fantastic iq but not great problem solving, produces US citizens without great problem solving. And that's in our EQ and SQ and fix that everything else. Then we show up to redesign the housing policy, then we show up to redesign the health system. But the root, that's my part and my passion is the root getting right to the root. And I'm so glad that Miguel is out there doing this work.
Absolutely. And I came back and said to my husband that during COVID the homeless people suddenly had nobody walking by giving them water or food and all the shelters were closed because of COVID so they had nowhere to shower, nowhere to use the toilet. I wasn't aware of that because it wasn't a newsworthy story.
Luckily, Miguel marshalled 800 people to go out for that whole 15 months delivering food. And one amazing guy whose restaurant was closed opened it and provided 175,000 dinners over that 15 months. There are amazing people out there doing amazing things. I want to do more, I want to do it better and I want to be clearer about. Let's do this thoroughly and properly this time. Yeah. In the crisis. Because the crisis has an adrenaline to it which sometimes can be something good to use the adrenaline system to then go. Right. I didn't learn it as thoroughly. So now pressure's on. Let me take that pressure and go into. Okay, where's the course? How am I going to learn it and how am I going to practice it and ask people, are you seeing me doing this? And what more do you want me to do?
[00:28:49] Speaker B: Right. Getting feedback and.
But learning the skills. Committing to learning the skills and putting them into practice.
[00:28:56] Speaker C: It's love skill. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So I can send out my heart stuff then I require the skills. Miguel said he moved to change things we don't like. Right.
So being moved, it's my heart to change things I don't like then what skills am I going to require to move where we are now to something amazing to take action.
[00:29:23] Speaker B: What skill do I need?
[00:29:25] Speaker C: Yeah. And that's going to be all sorts of things. Conflict, pushback, misunderstandings. One of the guys said as a volunteer he thought he could change the world overnight. He burnt out. He had to stop volunteering for a while. You know that's the child in the driving seat trying to give too much without doing good self care. We've all been there. So there's a whole bunch of skills to follow my passion and follow my commitment. And that's back to eqsq. Do you want to do a little exercise? Any questions? Br.
[00:29:57] Speaker A: No. Yes, let's. Let's do an exercise.
[00:29:59] Speaker B: Yeah, let's do.
[00:30:00] Speaker C: Okay, so let's use this. Dr. Eric Burns. Parent, adult child voices.
Anybody listening that wants an up to date version. It's Professor Steve Peters 2012 mind management.
So he called the parent, the computer. Just all those negative messages about who's wrong, who's right, who's bad stored in the computer that just churn out with lack of consciousness. The adult, the human and the half skilled child he called the chimp.
Dancing around full of energy, not Focused, not understanding, not skilled enough for good implementation. There's a great lady out there called Rebecca Campbell who is really good at asking spiritually intelligent questions. So I'm going to use one to start us into this exercise. So it's the usual pen and paper moving. The pen connects us to our heart and our values.
So the first question just to write down is, right now, what is my soul yearning for?
[00:31:13] Speaker B: I've been on the verge of tears this whole episode.
[00:31:17] Speaker C: There's a lot of grief in where we've brought ourselves to.
And last week, somebody else was asking, one of the guys I coach who works for government said in a beautifully intellectual way, so how does one get in touch with one's grief? Which I've been walking the planet for 40 years, but how does one get in touch with one's grief? There you go.
[00:31:42] Speaker B: Yeah, great example.
[00:31:44] Speaker C: Wonderful, wonderful human being. And so I told him this funny story about when I was in training as a psychologist working in the health service, I signed up for a weekend that was about. I think the title was Joy. Yeah, I mean, they're selling, oh, I'm signing up for that. What? And I even get accreditation.
[00:32:04] Speaker B: Give me. Give me some of that.
[00:32:05] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And lo and behold, when I got there on the first day, the whole of the first day, in order to get to my joy, was expressing my grief. Oh, my goodness, was I cheesed off when I realized I was gonna spend the first day digging into my grief.
And the more that we acknowledge our grief and set it free, then we have the energy to create something that is amazing, an expression of grief. Absolutely. There's a lot to make us grieve at the moment. What's my good way of doing a bit of grieving and holding myself and releasing it in order to free up some energy to go, okay, right. What am I going to do now? What's my part in the next bit?
So I'm not surprised that you're connected to that. So what's your soul yearning for? And that's a great question to ask yourself on a regular basis to keep your head clear, but also to check in the wholeness.
Am I yearning for some alone time? Am I yearning to be playful? Am I yearning for some spiritual development time? Am I yearning, yearning to have some connection with my friends?
What are you yearning for? So let's look at turning what you're yearning for right now into a goal.
So whatever it is that you're yearning for, what's that? What's the goal?
So it's something Missing in your wholeness. It might just be temporary or it might be that you've neglected a part of your wholeness for a while and you've connected with it and you're ready to turn it into a goal.
So I'd like to be able to. I'm ready to put this into practice. I want to learn how to.
All of those are good introductions to setting a really clear goal. And now what I'd like you to ask yourself and write down is if you put your Be strong, be perfect, hurry up critical parent in the driving seat to make this goal happen, what is going to be the impact on yourself?
And you may want to refer back to another goal that you put your critical parent right. Wrong.
[00:34:30] Speaker A: Bad.
[00:34:31] Speaker C: Failure in the driving seat. What happened to you as you were pursuing that goal with your it's gotta look like this and I've gotta do it and people better be on my side or else.
What was the impact when you did that to yourself?
[00:34:50] Speaker B: Wow. The power of that critical parent.
[00:34:53] Speaker C: Whew. Yeah.
[00:34:55] Speaker B: And you know, gonna mobilize you in a just a one sentence.
[00:35:01] Speaker C: Oh man.
So now think about what's going to happen when you put your goal in the hands of your half skilled child. Yeah, I really want this. And oh, does that mean I've got to learn something and oh, somebody else will come in and fill in that gap, I'm sure. And if I bring my try hard child, I'll go and get loads of resources and I'll check lots of things out and then I'll become scattered and overwhelmed.
So again, it's really good to go back to where before did you put your goal in the hands of your half skilled child? It'll be fine. I just need to set off. I'm sure the detail will take care of itself. And then what was the impact?
And then what did you start telling yourself as things were not working out as smoothly as you had hoped? Now let's check in with our wise adult who is looking at all times for safety and skill to get the goal done really well, healthily, with joy, with preparation for the things where there will be challenges and surprises. Your wise adult is looking at the goal and is already saying, okay Mary, there's quite clear that on this journey there are going to be two skills.
One for you to get better at and another one to learn right from 0 and get it to 7 out of 10 in a healthy manner.
The adult is looking realistically great.
You're going to do this and you will and it's going to require two skills for you to really, really ramp up. Yeah. How are you going to do that in the best possible way for your learning style? Motivate yourself along the way, support yourself along the way and make the journey as safe and enjoyable as the vision of the goal.
So the same question, what did you take out of doing that exercise externally?
[00:37:12] Speaker A: First I noticed why in certain conversations, it's more challenging to connect with people or move things forward by recognizing where they are operating from. And the question that popped up for me to call the wise adult forward is like, how do you speak to that? Like, how do you speak to the whispers so that the half skilled child or the critical parent moves in the backseat or just get out of the car at this point? Because this is not going to move us towards our goal. And it's a reminder for me in those moments when I am doubting myself or oh, someone else more skilled, more qualified, more whatever can do it. It's like, no, this is in align with what you value. This is what your soul is calling forward for you to do. So yeah, that was like, hey, hey guys. No children are critical adults allowed in moving us toward this goal? It was like an external internal at the same time.
[00:38:07] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's what you were doing. You were working with both. Yeah, right. That's what you authentically brought to doing the exercise. You moved between those two places. Karen, what about you? What did you get out of the exercise?
[00:38:22] Speaker B: I'm laughing because, wow, it's not like I haven't done this type of thing with you before. I'm like, oh, that is so interesting. I found it interesting how first of all, how both the critical parent and the half skilled child are so unprepared and so deficient in the way that they bring either idealism or motivation. Like striving.
Critical parent immobilizes with that pressure of well, might not be good enough. He might want to wait. Are you ready? Are you really ready? You know, I was noticing and of course my half skilled child is sort of my, my hippie sense, which is I'm just gonna go out, I'm trying to going to spread love and everybody's going to love it and we're just going to all sing Kumbaya together into what skills I really need. And for me, patient perseverance came up as the. You haven't really learned that. I mean you're learning it, but you haven't really mastered how to persevere when things get tough or frustrating. And really what I'm learning In my other program is that that is when the myelin is really starting to get built. When we get to the point of frustration, we are just about to have a breakthrough. And historically I've just been like, well, I think I'll just stop that. So patient perseverance. Huge, huge, huge. For me to reach the goal that I want to reach, which is the longing of my soul.
And the other one was consistently showing up, just finding places to show up and just start.
Because it's never going to be perfect, but it's never going to happen if I keep waiting.
[00:40:10] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:40:11] Speaker B: That's all what happened for me those few minutes.
[00:40:13] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, imagine we'd been taught to do this at school.
[00:40:22] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:40:22] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Because what we're building here is what this knowledge and skills is in the hands of all the elite athletes.
This is what they get taught. That Professor Steve Peters put his book on parent, adult, child together for the elite athletes. And then for the rest of us, they already have that. So this information is already out there with the psychologists. If you get burnt out and you need some healing and it's the adult is creating, you are building through your wise adult. What is your success process to achieving some goals that will have moments of deep discomfort?
And how you said the word self mastery, how I face that. Oh, wow. I wasn't expecting this to look like this.
Right. So what am I going to do? What's my success process of dealing with this? What's the skill? What's then the fun, the self care so that I can then come back to it with more patience and perseverance.
And then imagine putting this into the culture of a team so that everybody shares where they are on the journey to the goal. People go, whoa, I'm not going to share that.
What's going to happen to my bonus system? So at the beginning, there's a lot of resistance, tentative sharing, and thousands of people have done it and seen the reward for it.
[00:41:50] Speaker B: And that's what we want. We want to get through the discomfort. Life will always. As you're growing, it's a growth centric experience. As you're growing, I don't think it's really comfortable for a little sprout to come out of an acorn. I'm pretty sure there's some breaking happening here, but it's temporary. And when you see what you can create and become in the process, that is the prize. The journey is the prize.
[00:42:16] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Whereas what we would have had last century is the be strongs in the Driving seat, this discussion. Just do it and don't whinge about it. Yeah, yeah. That message is still around in a lot of areas.
And this is not about whinging about it. It's about having a deeper understanding so that I can take more responsibility about myself. And then we are rebuilding the way we communicate with each other. I don't think anybody would say, wow, I'm super motivated to rebuild how we speak with each other when we open the newspaper.
And that is going to be on all of our plates.
Finding our success process of growing those emotionally intelligent skills.
[00:43:02] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:43:03] Speaker C: To then get the reward from it.
[00:43:06] Speaker B: And the reward is for everyone. The reward, of course, we will also enjoy the fruits, the benefits, the reaping of that reward. But the reward is really for everyone. It's for all of us to get to that place of humanity and deep communication with each other to solve these
[00:43:24] Speaker C: issues that are critical and being able to say my part in this feeling stuck today.
And I know how to move from a space of an opening place.
If we'd learned this at school, that would be the language we would be able to say is, I can't hear you right now. And I know I can get myself to a. A place where I can hear where we have got some common ground and where we can build something amazing that requires some extra effort for it to be an amazing invention, but also really healthy for the world to receive rather than have a quick chat about something. We could get out there into the marketplace pretty quickly and upscale pretty quickly.
[00:44:05] Speaker B: Right, right. Yeah.
[00:44:07] Speaker C: Take a little bit of extra time and think about product plus health for people's well being. We can do that. We're human beings. Yeah, yeah.
[00:44:17] Speaker B: So capable.
[00:44:18] Speaker C: Yeah, we're so capable.
[00:44:20] Speaker B: Yeah. So capable.
[00:44:22] Speaker C: So.
[00:44:22] Speaker B: And the picture, you know, the whole picture shifts when that's, when that's the education, when that's where you come from.
Yeah. Oh, my goodness.
[00:44:31] Speaker A: Mary, this was also great.
[00:44:33] Speaker B: Thank you for sharing your wisdom and your skills and your experiences. Is. And the way that you speak to people about this and for guiding us through that amazing exercise. I think that was very useful. And yeah, short term discomfort for a long term gain and happiness and love and big picture. Absolutely worth it.
[00:44:54] Speaker A: All right, you want to dance?
[00:44:56] Speaker C: You want to do a quote?
[00:44:58] Speaker A: You want to wrap this up, boy?
[00:45:00] Speaker B: Do you have a song in mind?
[00:45:02] Speaker C: You do.
[00:45:03] Speaker B: Of course you do. Yeah. I want to move. I want to move for a minute. Yeah, let's. Let's do our normal sort of outro kind of a thing.
[00:45:11] Speaker A: Go ahead. And what Mary shared with us is really impactful as we think about the present and how leadership can shift in times where it's a little bit unstable. But how important it is for us to stay steadfast in what we know to be true for visionary leaders and whole person leadership. And sometimes the most powerful whole person leadership that we can offer is the willingness to stay grounded when everything else around us is chaotic. And I have a song from Alabama Shakes.
Hold on.
[00:45:49] Speaker B: Oh,
[00:45:52] Speaker A: check out this week's song on the YO Podcast playlist on Spotify.
[00:46:01] Speaker B: Lord have mercy. Who is that? What? Look. Oh, my God. What?
[00:46:08] Speaker A: Alabama Shakes. But, like, oh, my goodness.
[00:46:18] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:46:19] Speaker B: I mean, especially before, never.
[00:46:22] Speaker A: Oh. Oh, my goodness.
[00:46:24] Speaker B: No, no, I. I don't. I don't know who that is. I'm just like, I. Her soul is eternal. And, like, I'm like, is she. She said she's 22. She actually 22, because. Holy cow.
Wow. That was really powerful. And I think it's so apropos for this episode because this is. We're in a long game. And the perseverance, the holding on, and I don't want to wait sort of coexisting is, like, so, so true of this. Of this shift in consciousness and human nature, humans moving towards compassionate communication and wholeness. It's like, I want it now, I want today.
And also, it's a process.
[00:47:08] Speaker A: Yes. But that song, when we think about the past, like, everything that we've gone through. What did she say in the beginning? Like, I didn't think I would make it this far. But, like, holding on is part of what gets you there. So we're using the wisdom, the learning, the knowledge, and applying it to our present so we are prepared for the future. Like, the only way we're gonna get to where we know that we can be as beautifully, wonderfully created human beings is if we hold on. Like, it's going to take, like Mary said, the communication of everyone, the passion, the heart, and the values of everyone getting a line and getting on the same page. I think about her talking about Miguel, like, the one person that's gonna stand up, like, maybe you're Miguel. You are the person that is going to say, stand up and make a difference, not just in your community, but in your city, in your state, and eventually in the world. If enough of us hold on to what we know to be true, y', all, nothing, nothing is going to stop us. All right, so I have a quote from someone who knows a little bit what you said, Karen, about that patience and perseverance this quote is from writer, essayist and civil rights activist James Baldwin.
[00:48:18] Speaker B: Oh, I thought it was going to be Nelson Mandela.
[00:48:20] Speaker C: I don't know why, but I thought it was okay.
[00:48:23] Speaker A: James Baldwin said, not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
[00:48:38] Speaker B: Preach that.
[00:48:40] Speaker A: Like.
[00:48:41] Speaker B: Yeah, seems obvious, but like had to be said, right? Like had to be said.
We can't bury our heads and pretend and think that it's going to work itself out. We've got to develop skills, we've got to show up. We've got to be in that. That place of wisdom. Right. And. And that highest. Holding those values and moving towards that.
[00:49:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
Visionary leadership, like, calls us to face the truth of where we've been and where we are to get to where we're going without losing our humanity in the process. Yes.
Yeah, this has been great. I've learned a lot about not just who I am as a leader, but who I want to be as a leader and the types of leaders that I would love to work with continuously. And this type of leadership, learning how to regulate ourselves before we try to regulate anyone else.
[00:49:40] Speaker C: Right?
[00:49:40] Speaker B: There is you. There's only yourself. Only, only worry about yourself. You. So you take just mind your business, mind your wholeness.
Mind your wholeness, like, and it's. And then just that alone is gonna, you know, become that come at us from that place of wholeness. Right. And I say that for myself and you.
[00:49:59] Speaker A: It's a beautiful reminder.
[00:50:00] Speaker B: It's a beautiful reminder. And honestly, who. I think I have such hope. I have such hope.
[00:50:08] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, so explore this week. Notice the emotional climate around you and the environments that you were in and ask yourself what kind of presence you are bringing into that space.
Next week we're going to move a bit more closer to practice. So from theory to practice and what it actually takes to build this culture around these principles that we've been discussing over the past few weeks. So, explorer, until next time, stay curious about the role you play in the cultures around you.
[00:50:42] Speaker B: I want to add explorers that we, no matter how you view it, we really are all leaders in some way. In our own lives, in our families, in our communities and beyond, we are all leaders. And holding this idea, this beautiful picture of visionary leadership and wholeness is important. Whether you're a CEO or ahead of something, or you are you in your life making it happen.
So hang in there. Be compassionate with yourself. We love you so much. We'll see you next time. Take good care.
Thank you. To queenies in Downtown Durham for the use of their community podcast studio and for welcoming us so warmly each week.
We'd like to give a shout out to Coco Cinnamon, the birthplace of 1023 Media and the yo podcast. Please support your local women owned minority owned coffee shop in Downtown Durham, Brought to you by Durham based 1023 Media, a heart centered woman owned multimedia company.
[00:51:55] Speaker C: Sam.
