In a world of intensity, chaos, and conflict, how we show up matters; set it up right.
I’ve been in a lot of rooms (and airports) lately. With a lot of humans.
All types of industries and levels of leadership. All types of opinions, values, and stands.
Right now I’m at the airport and the latest headline has a group of people gathered around the TV agreeing and disagreeing. The tension is palpable.
And I’m heading in to keynote a leadership conference in an industry essential to our future and well-being. The topic? Change, opportunities, culture… and basically, WTF. How do we navigate through this all gracefully, effectively, and powerfully?
In all these places, with all these humans, and in my own life, I find we’re all considering questions in the form of one (or all of these): How do we create a healthier, more collaborative, more accountable, more ____ culture? How do we optimize our own leadership? Create better results and impact? Address – or even better – eliminate burnout? Reinvigorate purpose? Show up better together (and, btw, what does “Showing Up” actually mean?) How do we navigate through all that is happening in today’s political and people environment? How do we not get sucked into the negativity, the chaos, the heartbreak – but instead be in service to it, and to eachother, in whatever way we best can? How do we be IN the conversation with those we may not agree with? Oh… and how do we do all of this while still having enough left for ourselves and our families at the end of the day?
Here are a few I find that, in the busy-ness of life, get asked less frequently. But they are powerful. Even more powerful when asked with intention and breath:
How am I? Really.
And how do I feel about X, Y, Z?
And what’s the biggest or littlest thing I can do (and BE) about it to help things go better?
Awesome questions.
Big ones. Important ones.
There’s a lot to address. A lot to do and be.
I should add here that it doesn’t matter age, industry, gender, race, position, profession, preference, geography – what matters most is… human.
These questions are human questions.
Culture, leadership, burnout, purpose, impact, showing up, navigation, service and contribution, impact, survival, and a desire for some kind of “balance” are human things.
Culture is the energy of the container we create individually and together.
Culture is an experience. We create our own experience. From the inside out.
So we have some big influence here.
We can’t control other humans or anything outside ourselves.
But… We can control ourselves.
We can’t do something about everything.
But… We can do what we can do.
We can control our thinking, how we show up, how we regard others, how we take care of ourselves, and if we choose “high vibe” and “staying in the light and helping things go better” (even if it’s the littlest thing), or “low vibe” and “going to the dark and contributing to things going worse” (even if it’s the littlest thing).
And we can control how we act and what we do.
Whether we’re talking about our organizational culture, team culture, marriage culture, family culture, the culture that lives in our own head, or culture in general… we have influence with the experience we create from the inside out through what we can control.
So since we can control NOTHING outside of ourselves...
"Me" is a powerful place to start. And I’m contagious. Because as much as I’m contagious for good, I’m also contagious for bad. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but when we choose high-vibe, we tend to create and attract more high-vibe. And open up access to more wisdom. When we choose low-vibe we tend to attract and create more low-vibe. And narrow, or completely shutdown, wisdom. It’s a superpower to expand or contract, to open up or shut down, to choose high vibe or low.
Here’s a little exercise: Try this on, go for one day (or a week! Do it! Do it!) without complaining (replace complaints with requests, suggestions, or even appreciations), and see how much happier and more spacious you feel. Notice how much easier it becomes to not complain as you go on. And also, how much easier it becomes to access productive and even more pleasurable solutions.
And then reverse it (if you can bear it now), complain a lot. (Even a day of complaining, or ten minutes will do.) You’ll become a master. Why? Because you’re training your brain and your energetic field how to see and hold the world. Wherever we put our attention, we build.
So why not build well?
Choosing the higher vibration thought and self-care is a form of what I call “energetic hygiene.”
Our internal energetic hygiene is key to healthy leadership.
It starts with us.
I know some of you will still say – “Okay, Anese, that’s all good, got it. I’ll ‘show up,’ but what about ‘them’ and how do we actually create culture?”
I get it. After all, we can’t do it alone, right?
So… I’m giving you, YOU here. Because really, truly, after working with thousands of humans and organizations, I find addressing you – contagious you – first, is your best bet at creating the change you want to see in the world. In fact, I don’t know how you create a better culture and do more good in the world and help things go right – and sustain yourself at the same time – without tending to these things before, during, and after… everything.
So start here, and then if you want more about navigating “them” and “culture” – go check out my Inc. Column too. (But, I promise, you first will set you up more powerfully for anything you DO over there or anywhere when it comes to the “them.”)
Ready?
Here are nine things. Nine! Choose one or choose all. Bonus, within this list is something that is coming soon to support you more in these nine and showing up at even a higher level of leadership (as and if you so choose):
Yes. Like that.
Here’s to showing up. We must show up first. Because yes – we are contagious.
Go get ‘em.
XO/AXC