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Showing Up as Your Authentic Self in the Roaring 2020s

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Authors Kimberly Layne, Twiana Armstrong and I share our journeys and provide tips about how we show up as our authentic selves.

Find more about Kimberly and Twiana here:

Kimberly Layne: https://www.kimberly-layne.com/

Twiana Armstrong: https://linkedin.com/in/twianaarmstrong

#AuthenticSelf #Authenticity #TrueSelf #Roaring2020s

[Video Transcript]

[Twiana Armstrong]

Showing up as your authentic self requires building a mental muscle that draws upon journeying from self-awareness to self-actualization. When we show up as your authentic self you are more confident, more creative and forge a life that we design. Showing  up authentically focuses on recognizing and acknowledging our identities. Identities such as age, gender, sexual orientation, religion/spirituality – some identities that are easily seen and some that are internalized, not as easily to see, maybe education status or socioeconomic status. All of which affect our feeling of being accepted and belonging. My identity of living and practicing DEI&B, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging is forged by a racial incident my daughter experienced as a high school student.  The incident left her shattered.  It was then that I understood my assignment to educate, illuminate and facilitate a thriving community built on acceptance and belonging.  My leadership practice is built on a foundation of being self-aware ensuring leaders show up authentically. Leaders, are you showing up authentically?  Are you creating a culture that promotes authentic engagements? Do team members feel accepted in all of their identities?  Acceptance opens the door encouraging feelings of belonging. Team members who know they can show authentically are much more productive.

[Kimberly Layne]

Twiana, thank you for sharing your thoughts and personal story around authenticity.

What does it take to be it and live in authenticity?
Authenticity to me means three things (1) self-awareness, (2) transparency, (3) and vulnerability.

In an effort for me to be more authentic, I realized that  I need those around me to be more authentic. When a peer made a comment about my last speaking engagement, it upset me, made me sick to my stomach, and made me want to run to a safer place.  However, choosing not to tell them how I felt, would be in authentic and would go against my recent Positive Intelligence training.

. Instead, I shared with them that their comment made me feel judged, and that I felt like an imposter.  ,  I had recognized that my Queen Judge, and my Queen High Achiever (names I had given my saboteurs from my PQ training) were in the room . My steps to being self-aware, in sharing how it made me feel —was me being transparent and vulnerable in sharing that with  my peer.

They stated their question was more of intrigue and curiosity, as they had never considered my way of solving the problem. (They were sharing their transparency and authenticity)

In us both being authentic, the conversation took an entirely different path than a path of hurt and defensiveness.  And a more positive one.

[Matt Schlegel]

To understand what it means to show up as your authentic self, I encourage people to think about a Venn diagram where there are four circles, encompassing the four elements of purpose, values, gifts, and passions.

To show up as your authentic self, you want to live at the intersection of these four circles.

Let me give you an example.

Early in my career,  I felt like my main purpose was to take care of my young family and help them  thrive. My gifts included a talent for math, science and engineering.  My values instructed me where to focus my career: I steered away from the defense industry and toward the telecom industry.  And, my passion was to make radios. I love making radios, so much so that it doesn’t even feel like “work” to me.

Remember: your purpose, values, gifts and passions will change over time, so it’s good to periodically check in with yourself to make sure you are living at that intersection of your Venn diagram.  For instance, mid-career I realized the importance of teamwork and became passionate about creating effective teams. That led me to study the Enneagram which furthered my understanding of my own personal gifts.  My values instructed me to share everything I learned about teamwork with the world, and that inspired my passion to write my book Teamwork 9.0.

If you live at the intersection of your Purpose, Values, Gifts and Passions then I believe you are showing up as your authentic self.

Anti-Shame and Anti-Guilt – How the Enneagram Explains these Powerful Emotions

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Matt Schlegel presents a framework to explain guilt, shame, anxiety and their opposites using the Enneagrams main triads and the temperament (Hornevian) triads.  Also, this talk explores how these powerful feelings contribute to teamwork and problem solving.

[Video Transcript]

Matt Schlegel:

I’ve been playing around with how the Enneagram might help us better understand guilt and shame. When I asked myself when I was thinking about this, “Well, what’s the opposite of guilt?” What’s the opposite of shame? Because maybe those will also give us some ideas about how this framework might work. I also realized as I was working through this, and my personal… I think was Emily who said that there’s a few instances in her life where she said she felt some shame, but they’re kind of few and far between. And that’s me too.

I also feel the same way about guilt, but I know there’s another thing that does drive me, and that’s anxiety. So really I’m putting in anxiety into the mix of these strong underlying motivators for our feelings and behaviors. And so we’ll talk about each one of those three plus what they look like in the opposite, and then also explore how they play in problem solving. As you know, that’s one of the things I love playing around with is how the Enneagram can be used as a problem solving methodology.

So let’s just explore how guilt and shame and anxiety come into problem solving as well. So let’s look at some definitions. So for guilt, just the dictionary definition of that is a feeling of having done wrong or failed in an obligation. I think a few of you actually mentioned those exact same words.

I thought about, “Well, what would be the opposite of that?” Where I landed on was pride would be the opposite of guilt which is a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from something you’ve done. So in that same vein, I also looked at shame. So shame is a painful feeling of a humiliation or distressed caused by consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.

So it’s a little bit different than guilt. Guilt seems to be mostly from an inner sense of having done something wrong where shame, and I don’t know that they’ve captured this very well in this definition, but it seems to be more around how the world perceives what you’ve done. Maybe that’s caught in that word humiliation, because humiliation is, you need to be humiliated by the outside world. You don’t necessarily just feel humiliated by doing something and nobody else saw you.

So I think that that word humiliation in there catches that sense of being essentially assessed by the world for having done something wrong or foolish. In that term, in those terms, I thought about, “Well, what would be the opposite of that?” And to me, the opposite would be being valued or appreciated by the world. So being recognized for one’s full worth. Again, it’s still in relationship to how others are perceiving you. So that seemed to be the better definition of anti shame.

And then I added one more, which is anxiety and that was a feeling of worry, nervousness or unease typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. As a type six, this is definitely me. It doesn’t even have to be an imminent event. It could be about anything.

It could be about something far in the future and I’ll still worry about it. So what is the word for anti-anxiety? There is a word for it. It’s a word I’d never heard of, but it’s ataraxia is anti-anxiety. And this is a Greek term, and some ancient Greek philosopher thought that this was the state to pursue, which is a state of serene calmness. So that seems like a pretty good definition of anti-anxiety. So any thoughts or comments on this so far before we go on?

Scot:

Sure. I’ve got a couple.

Matt Schlegel:

Sure.

Scot:

If you don’t mind me starting. In terms of shame from my perspective, the definition you presented here was a very external focused. It was public humiliation. It was external value. In my case, it’s a very internal thing. It’s me judging myself. It’s me valuing myself. Now, it can manifest itself as the latter, but I think the deep-seated part feels more an internal part. And then in just now anti-anxiety, or I like this new word, I’m also wondering if confidence would be another sort of anti-anxiety. That’s confidence that things are going to work out, that everything is great, that things are okay. That’s one step beyond calmness. It is, “I’m excited. Things will work out.” I don’t know if that could fit in as well.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah. Good thoughts. I’ll have to think about confidence. Confidence can be used in a lot of different ways and you can be anxious and confident at the same time. Look at me, I can be confident, but I’ll still be anxious.

Fred:

Part of the anxiety, there’s like six defined types of anxiety that’s under the DSM code of psychology, so it’s a wide variety of anxiety.

Matt Schlegel:

Right. Yeah. Even anxiety, there’s a lot of different modes of it. Then I asked myself, who feels guilt, shame, and anxiety most acutely? This is something where… Based on what I’m hearing, I hear the ones that was a very common theme for them. Unfortunately, we don’t have any twos here tonight, but I’ve had conversations with twos and they tend to tell me that they really don’t feel shame, which is curious, but they’re so focused on helping other people.

So where’s the shame in that? Where is the shame? If I am totally focused on helping you, why should I feel shame? That’s the feeling I was getting from them. But why is it that they’re so focused on helping other people all the time? Is it because of that? It’s almost like that is anti-shame in that it’s driving them to avoid that feeling of shame. For anxiety, I would definitely put the six in the category of the three head types, the five, six, and seven, the one that probably feels anxiety the most.

And assuming that it is these three, the interesting thing about these three is that they’re the members of the same temperament triad that it’s kind of the pessimist triad, the one, two, and six. So that was kind of the thought. In that same vein, I was thinking that the anti-shame people might be the optimists, the three, the seven, and the eight who are most pursuing pride, recognition, and happiness.

So I’ll stop here. I wanted to ask the eights about whether they felt that pride. Roger, you mentioned that it was never doing enough. You felt like you needed to do more. And the underlying thing was guilt, but would you also associate that with, when you do it, a sense of pride?

Roger:

So one thing I would do, I would construct it a little bit different in terms of the… I would look at it within each triad, let’s say the seven… I mean, eight, nine and one triad, which is the instinctual triad. The externalized element is the ones that it’s like you said with the two. The twos don’t necessarily feel the shame unless they really have to think about it. They have to come to this process. I think the eights are the same way around guilt. We don’t really think about guilt. Our first reaction is, “I don’t feel guilty.”

But we have to think about it. What is really driving us? And I think the ones that feel the most shame would be the fours. The fours would really… I would line out the triads differently because I do think the guilt triad, the ones that wrestle with the issue of guilt would be the instinctual triads eight, nine, and one. The shame would be the two threes and fours and the anxiety would be the five, six and sevens. The sevens, yeah. That’s how I would probably play it out.

Matt Schlegel:

I agree with that. I think that the eight, nine, and one would be mostly centered on the guilt. The two threes and fours would be centered on the shame. And then the five, six, and sevens would be centered on the anxiety. And then it comes down to is there a role for both anxiety and anti-anxiety for shame and anti-shame, for guilt and anti-guilt? And the optimists tend to see the glass half full and pursue without necessarily focusing, say, on the guilt, you are more focused on that thing that makes you not even think about guilt, which would be pride.

That’s what I was getting at there. Is it really that anti-guilt that’s driving you? Is it that pursuing that sense of pride that is driving the eight rather than just avoiding the guilt?

Roger:

Well, I think when you’re younger, you wouldn’t use this language or these words, but you’re probably more driven by or… It’s about a sense of pride than it is driving away from the guilt. But the two are linked.

Matt Schlegel:

Absolutely. I think they are linked. I just think that like you’re saying, I think the optimists will be more motivated for the anti-guilt.

Roger:

Right. The twos would be, to me the optimist on that second line.

Matt Schlegel:

Oh really?

Roger:

Yeah. And the threes would be ambiguated and the fours would be the pessimists. And then on the next line, I would flip the five and six.

Matt Schlegel:

Interesting.

Roger:

I would put the core numbers at the ambiguated parts and the fives I think have… They’re more pessimistic, I think than the sixes are. The sixes feel it, but they feel… I don’t know. It would be for me as the straight triad dynamics. But I think the twos, they’re going out there in a sense, sometimes the twos could have no shame by going forward and just going ahead and helping. That’s what allows them to do that because in a sense, they don’t have this sense of they’re not tracking this sense of shame.

Whereas most fours, I know they’re tracking definitely their actions with other people to high degree because of this underlying sense of shame. I mean, that’s just how I would line out that chart. I would agree with the top line. And then the next two I would tweak.

Matt Schlegel:

And so I was almost going to put an… I would put, just based on what I’m hearing, especially from the threes, I would almost put the shame, the word shame next to the three as them being driven by that sense. And then putting appreciation as the anti-shame. Just for instance.

Roger:

Yeah.

Matt Schlegel:

And that’s how I started it, but then I’m like I wasn’t sure because I hadn’t talked to any threes until tonight about this, but then since they were very adamant about feeling shame, so I think that’s probably where I’ll end up putting it. But let’s ask the threes for a second here. When you feel that sense of shame, is it something that you’re actually feeling and trying to avoid? Or how is that influencing you and how are you processing and feeling that?

Scot:

Oh, so let me think about that for a second. What I was going to jump in and say first was I can see threes on both ends of this. When I first met Matt, which was many decades ago, I felt no shame. Well, I wasn’t aware of no shame. I would not have said I felt any shame. I would not have said that shame had any role in my life whatsoever. What I strived to do was to be valued and recognized for all the great things that I could do and do.

So very much where you show here, that was who I was. As I’ve gotten older and realized that there were flaws in the system, I’ve realized that, “No, there is this lot of this internal shame and that’s motivating me to seek external value was to compensate for this internal shame.” Once I address the internal shame, I can release that desire to earn external value because I’m no longer looking to justify my shame and to prove that I’m a good person because I can do that internally.

So in that sense, I’m very much on seeing where the two is. I’m very driven by shame. So it really depends on what level you’re talking about on what stage in one’s life for me at least where I sit. That may have addressed your question as well. Does that help?

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah, it does. Sachiyo, do you have any thoughts you want to add to that?

Sachiyo:

Yes. See, you put the three on the optimist, and it’s not for me. So rather than more the pessimist side.

Matt Schlegel:

Interesting. So the optimist and pessimist, and ambiguated, these are Enneagram triads and they’re the temperament triads. So the eight and the seven tend to be on the optimistic side, and the one, the two and the three and the six tend to be on the pessimistic side. And the four five, and the nine are balanced. So these are prefrontal cortex, and this is Peter’s work where you have a dominance on one side of your prefrontal cortex or the other.

And so the interesting thing about the ambiguated people is that they can balance both and they can feel both, but we’ll come back to that in a second. It’s really interesting how I think when we’re young, we look at things one way and then as we get older we do a little self-examination and figure out what’s really underlying that. So I think, Scot, you brought that up, and Roger, you brought that up. But I’m really interested in going back to Sekai at this point and asking you whether you feel like you fit in with the guilt group more, or the shame group, or the anxiety group, or do you feel at all because you’re ambiguated?

Sekai:

I’d say more shame and guilt, but not so much anxiety. Shame is a little bit more… Yeah, I guess it’s situation specific as well, but when I think of shame, I think of it as not over something I’ve done, but just who I am, how I think of myself as a person. So ashamed of myself versus something I did. Yeah, I don’t know if that answers your question. So I feel a little bit of shame and guilt, but I think what motivates me more is probably shame.

Matt Schlegel:

So this is one of the things I want to understand is that does your shame make you feel humiliated because… See, that’s why I’m trying to distinguish between guilt and shame. That sense of, “I should have done it because it’s the right thing to do and I’m mad at myself for not doing it.” I’m calling that guilt versus I did something and now I feel humiliated for doing it.

Sekai:

For me, it’s not quite humiliation because I feel like it’s personal like nobody else would really know, but it does feel like flawed. Maybe there’s some inherent flaw that I have to overcome something within me that’s so deep that I have to fix. Whereas guilt is more like, “Oh, I made a mistake, or oh, this is an easy quick fix, but shame feels a little bit more inherent, less of an embarrassed. It is definitely social. There’s definitely a play social aspect to it more so, but it doesn’t quite feel like humiliation because I don’t think anybody would know that’s what I was experiencing.

Matt Schlegel:

Is it something that you think that you could fix if you worked on it?

Sekai:

Yeah. With focus and attention, yeah, for sure.

Matt Schlegel:

Could that actually be guilt because it’s something you can fix and you’re just not fixing it because that that’s almost how we defined guilt is, it’s that second part failed in an obligation. You feel this thing that’s wrong. You feel obligated. You feel an obligation to work on it, you just haven’t done it.

Sekai:

Yeah. I think I see shame less of an action and more of… It has more to do with less about what I do and more about who I am. So the actions can shift it, but it still feels different. But these are good questions. I haven’t thought of it in this way. These are really good questions.

Matt Schlegel:

I think we conflate guilt and shame, just like we had a conversation about sympathy and empathy and we tried to really distinguish those two things. I think this is another guilt and shame is another area where it’s sometimes they’re conflated and they’re used interchangeably even. And so I’m asking these questions to just see if we can untangle that little bit.

Sekai:

Yeah. I don’t know if this helps, and I’m not even remembering where I heard it might be. Is it Renee Brown? Her definition I think is guilt is about what you’ve done and shame is for who you are. That’s the definition that I’m working from. I’m not sure if it’s Brene Brown, but it is. That’s something I’d have to look into and see.

Matt Schlegel:

Okay. And it would be for the guilt. It’s what you’ve done or haven’t done. You could also be guilty when you know that you should have done something and you didn’t do it, right?

Sekai:

Right. Yeah.

Roger:

Matt, I wanted to comment before we leave this slide, I don’t know if you’re planning to leave it anytime soon, but whether or not where are we lying out the 8, 9, or one, three, fours, and twos or whatever. I think what is kind of helpful just on the chart for myself is when we feel guilty sometimes or we feel shameful or we have anxiety, we don’t know where to turn to move out of that space. And to me, what the chart does is you create a arrow from the right to the left when you’re stuck in this place of guilt.

Pride is usually a term that when I hear it, I think, “Oh, you don’t want to be prideful or you don’t… But I could see how, in a way, this at least gives us a general direction out of that space, out of that space of guilt is to look towards whatever our number is driving towards the pride.” If you want to move out of your guilt or you want to move out of your shame, how do you feel valued? Or you could move towards trying to feel valued rather than how do I move out of my shame?

How do I move towards feeling valued and recognized? It gives us a direction. And when you’re really stuck in anxiety, how do you move out of that? You move towards what makes you happy. So this chart alone, if we just put arrows from the right to the left, that’d be like, “Oh, okay, that’s helpful.” Now, certain numbers, certain Enneagram types are probably more inclined to be in that far left space than others, but at least on this particular topic of guilt, shame and anxiety, it provides at least a directional pathfinder or something to that effect.

Matt Schlegel:

Yes. I think that might be a great topic for a follow-up session is how to move out of these spaces. I think moving out of these spaces for the six to move to seven is not necessarily an easy thing to do. I think there’s easier ways for sixes to get out of anxiety than to try to be a seven. So I don’t know. At least for six to seven, that might be a tough thing.

Roger:

Well, rather than seeing it as six, moving towards a seven. For the six to ask the question of what makes them happy, just so maybe that wasn’t as helpful to say that there’s certain numbers that are closer to those places. It’s not so much trying to be like those numbers as much as just what makes the six happy.

Matt Schlegel:

Right. And so I think if you’re feeling guilty, then you can always ask, “Well, what have you been proud of? What have you done that’s made you proud of yourself?” And then when you’re feeling shame, you can always ask, “Well, what have you done where people around you have really appreciated what you did?” So yeah, I think those are great questions to ask people if they, or we can ask ourselves when we’re starting to feel that way and then get our minds to focus not necessarily on that source of guilt or shame or anxiety, but on things that have put us in a space that’s the opposite of those things. That’s a really good point. Before I move on, any other thoughts or comments on this?

Emily:

This is Emily. I actually think instead of focusing entirely on moving in one direction and that summer naturally in the direction that everyone else wants to move to, I really was struck with Scot’s comments about having started in one place and really done more self-reflection to recognize where there is shame. And so I think that looking at it in terms of having the fluidity to move in both directions, I think would be helpful for all the Enneagram types to say, “If you’re too focused on pride, how can you pay attention to where there might actually be some guilt,” where if you’re too focused on guilt, where can you focus more on? I think there can be value in paying attention to all sides of each of these spectra, I would say.

Matt Schlegel:

Right. I think, if you know asked a seven also that especially a younger seven, they probably wouldn’t necessarily associate with anxiety until they got older and realized, “Oh, that is the underlying thing here.” For the ones, when did you start to associate some of that feeling of that inner critical voice with a sense of guilt? I mean, you all really emphasized that and brought it up. When do you think you made that connection? Very early?

Emily:

Boy, I really don’t know when I would’ve started naming it as guilt. I don’t have a good sense of that.

Matt Schlegel:

How about you, Morgan?

Morgan:

I was pretty young in middle school. If I said something mean to someone, I’d feel really horrible about it or I’d feel like my stomach hurt and I was like, “Oh, I feel so bad. I’m a bad person.” But then it was like, “Oh, so I shouldn’t do those things, so I don’t feel that way.”

Matt Schlegel:

Right. They’re very strong socializing forces, guilt, shame, and anxiety.

Scot:

I like Emily’s point that it’s not necessarily… I don’t want to use the word good, but I will ’cause I can’t think of a better word to use, to be in any one particular corner edge of this diagram because there’s value and benefit all around it. So it isn’t like if you’re on the right, you’re trying to get to the left. I like the thought of if you’re always focusing on the left, it’s good to get in touch with the energy you have that’s on the right. And maybe even up and down. I haven’t thought about that, but clearly left and right I think there’s value in it.

Matt Schlegel:

I was thinking about this in terms of problem solving and for those of you who aren’t familiar with using the Enneagram as a problem solving tool, one of the reasons why the Enneagram types our numbers is because that’s the order in which those dynamics show up in problem solving. So for instance, what’s the first step in problem solving? “Hey, that’s not right. It shouldn’t be like that. It should be like this.” And that’s the dynamic of the type one who is highly aware when things aren’t right and is alert to that and then wanting to go in and correct it.

So it was really interesting to me to see that the first two steps in problem solving, both the one and the two are in the pessimist triad and the glass half full or half empty triad, so to speak. And that one, that strong sense of guilt it with the one is driving that first step and how that drive to help, which I think is shame avoidance is that second step and how it’s predominantly those two that show up first.

For the last about year and a half, I’ve been working on the climate crisis. So I’ve jumped in with both feet and immersed myself in groups that are working on the climate crisis. Now, the climate crisis to me is one of the biggest problems that humanity faces. So it’s a great lab to see how people are responding to solving this problem. What I’ve noticed in working in this area for the last 18 months or so, the people who consistently show up are ones, twos and sixes.

They’ve form the base of the people who are showing up. Okay, well I get it. Ones, they’re kind of the first ones. They’re going to be alert to the problem and show up and twos are going to want to help. So they’re going to show up. But why the six? And it occurred to me that when the six gets stressed out, they move towards the direction of the three dynamic. And so they’re kind of showing up in that anxious state as exuding that three dynamic of wanting to get stuff done and wanting to solve the problem.

So it made sense to me how you had those three types that consistently show up and how each one of those types… I’m getting the sense that guilt probably really drives the ones, and shame really drives the twos and anxiety really drives the sixes. And so you have these really three strong drivers, these three aspects of feelings that are compelling this group to show up.

The other interesting thing about it is you get an internal dynamic, which is the one, the suppressed anger type, and then you get the external dynamic of the two… Or excuse me, if it’s internal for the one, external for the two, and then suppressed for the six. So you also get those three dynamics showing up with this particular set of three. So I put a picture of a very old Prius because I imagine that the first Prius drivers were probably type ones. So then who shows up later? And the types that tend to not show up as much are the threes, the sevens and the eights.

They’ll show up, maybe not in a Prius, but maybe now that it’s cool to drive a Tesla. You’ll see the threes, the sevens, and the eights show up in a Tesla, but in terms of just engaging consistently and working on the problem, I don’t see as many threes and sevens and eights interested in working on that problem. I’m guessing it’s because the three needs to see a path to success and recognition and the seven needs to see a path to fun and happiness, and eight needs to see a path to a prideful accomplishment.

Maybe they’re just not seeing it yet, which is why they tend not to show up. But there is a group that does show up and that’s the ambiguated folks, and they come in and out. They’re less consistent and they will tend to gauge the community. And the fours are oscillating back and forth between engaging and not engaging with the community. And the fives seem to be oscillating back and forth between, “Can I do something fun like a seven or is it I just feel anxious like the six and I want to do something?”

And then the nines, I really haven’t had much experience with nines showing up, but I guess that it would be somewhere around processing guilt and pride that would encourage them to show up as well. What do you think, Scot?

Scot:

I was wondering if that was coming. This makes sense that’s why I don’t have any comments to add. I like the idea and I can sort of identify as a three. Yeah, I want to know that I can either make a difference or that there’s some chance of success that there’s a path to having a successful outcome. And if I don’t see that I’m less likely to jump into the problem. I love a problem where I can see, “Oh, here’s a problem I can fix. I don’t know how to do it, I just got to do it. Boom, I’m on it.” These complex things sometimes can be challenging because they’re complex, but even then they’re usually I can see an endpoint, right?

Matt Schlegel:

Right.

Scot:

For me, that makes sense and the rest of this as well.

Roger:

Matt, when I look at this, the first two slides make makes sense. But the third one I feel like it is the context in which it is applied. It’s the context of people showing up to a group setting to solve this problem. Whereas I almost feel like for the fours and fives and the nines, the fact that it’s a group setting creates a different dynamic at play than trying to solve the problem at hand. Whereas if you were just to talk about climate change, I think a five would deal with it maybe much more individually than showing up as part of a group process to tackle the issue of climate change.

Whereas in the four, I think maybe that might be true too, or the way the type of events that they go to might be different than… And then again, for the nine, it’s a question of what type of group is it? I mean, is there a lot of cohesiveness or is there a lot of contention in that process? So I don’t know if I would lay out the four, five and nine. I think there’s as much, much question about the nature of the group and the fact that it is a group that comes into play with those particular Enneagram types.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah. Well, I do notice that you will get… I’ll have fours. So I have a climate group and I get fours to show up occasionally. I get fives to show up occasionally. I attend other climate groups and I notice that fours and fives show up there. I know one climate group that’s led by a five and it’s a book club. So that’s the perfect thing for the… That’s like my symbol for the five is a book. Right? So of course the five is going to be doing the book club.

To me, the interesting thing about the fours, the fives and the nines, and I think this is just the pattern with humanity in general is our brain wants to minimize energy. And so for instance, I am right-handed so I do not have to expend any energy at all. When I go to write something, I just pick up the pen with my right hand and I start writing.

It was a very minimal energy decision for me to do that. Left-handed people are the same, but ambidextrous people, it’s not quite as easy for them. They actually have to expend some energy and figure out… Well, my wife Helen, right? When she was learning to play hockey, she needed to figure out do I hold the stick this way or do I hold it this way? And she had to practice both ways to figure out what was the right way for her.

For me, it would have been, I wouldn’t have had to think at all because I’m right-handed. It’s just done. When she was learning to play golf, she had to get some left-handed clubs, she had to get some right-handed clubs. She had to take swings and practice with both. And then she’d talked to a coach and he looked at her swinging and he said, “You know what, you should probably swing left-handed.”

So it took energy for her to get there because her motor cortex is ambiguous. It’s not right dominant or left dominant. Well, it’s the same thing with our prefrontal cortex. So my prefrontal cortex is I am going to be highly sensitive to danger and I am just going to be on the alert for that. That’s just kind of what my brain is wired to do. Whereas the seven is the opposite. They are wired to look for fun and they’re going to be pursuing that. And that’s kind of hardwired into their brain.

But the five is ambiguated. So they have to make a decision. They’ll have to look at like, “Do I want to do what the sevens doing or do I want to do what the six is doing?” Right? And I think oftentimes it’s a lot funner to do what the seven is doing than what the six is doing. So they may end up going and doing what the seven is doing if the six is stressed over some problem.

I think it’s the same way with all the ambiguated types because they have to make a decision of, am I trying to focus on not feeling guilty or am I focus focusing on working on my game so I can have pride of what I’ve done? And then we also see this in politics too. There’s the group on the left and there’s the group on the right. They’re pretty much locked in. And then you have this ambiguated middle that is persuadable and it’s just really comes down to which of those narratives, the right or the left are going to be more compelling for these persuadables in the middle to follow. I think that’s all I have for my slides. Thank you so much.

AI Creativity in the Roaring 2020s

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Authors Kimberly Layne, Twiana Armstrong and I discuss the implications of  AI creativity tools and how we have started to used them.

Here are the links that Twiana mentions in the talk:

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/3905672-chatgpt-sends-shockwaves-across-college-campuses/

https://fortune.com/2023/03/18/openai-ceo-sam-altman-warns-that-other-ai-developers-working-on-chatgpt-like-tools-wont-put-on-safety-limits-and-clock-is-ticking/

https://www.history.com/news/most-famous-historic-radio-broadcasts#:~:text=Radio%20fostered%20a%20real%2Dtime,%2C%20entertainment%2C%20news%20and%20advertising.

 

Find Kimberly and Twiana here:

Kimberly Layne: https://www.kimberly-layne.com/

Twiana Armstrong: https://linkedin.com/in/twianaarmstrong

 

[Video Transcript]

[Twiana Armstrong]

Leaders, in the Roaring ‘20s, the radio totally changed the world’s communication infrastructure. In our Roaring 2020’s, OpenAI is the newest provocateur that commands the world’s s attention.  Many sectors are embarking into new territory as OpenAI technology takes on the world. Artificial Intelligence allows you to create content within seconds. Write that best seller in minutes, debut your artistic talents, build that strategic operating plan in a matter of hours just before presenting to stakeholders, or stayed up all night partying, no problem, knock out that thesis just in time to meet the deadline. ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, YouChat, JasperChat and other platforms allow you to produce these and more for free. Yes, we can produce content that achieves all of the above – at what cost?  Sarah Eaton, an Associate Professor of Education at the University of Calgary who studies AI states “I think this is the greatest creative disruptor to education and instruction in a generation.” Implications and challenges to academic honesty, artistic proprietary rights and business integrity are conversations taking place around the proverbial conference room table. What does this mean to your ability to lead? What guardrails and safety nets are in place that effectively curtail those in your industry who will abuse the platforms for nefarious gains? Per Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever at The Verge, “Society, I think, has a limited amount of time to figure out how to react to that, how to regulate that, how to handle it.”  Leaders, please share your thoughts, how are you addressing OpenAI platforms?  Click on the links below as you join the conversation. Kimberly, what is your point of view about this new territory?

[Kimberly Layne]

I feel you Twiana.  I question if Ai and Chat GBT and the likes are replacing our ability to think on our own and come up with creative ideas and content?

Our 14-year-old presented his homework at the dinner table last week.  He had to come up with a question that included diversity and had a causal relationship to the culture within Africa.  WHAT??

After several discussions around education, income, nationality, language, we were stumped.  Then my fiance mentioned, let’s ask ChatGBT.  So we collectively came up with the question does the number of spoken languages within a country affect the education rates.

Chat GBT spit out volumes and percentages for African countries in rapid succession giving us what we were looking for and validating our hypothesis.

What could have taken hours of research took us 5 minutes and prevented us from sitting at the dinner table for another 2 hours. Whew!  the information we gained was valuable for our son to begin his assignment.  Not write it all together.

I think that is where we miss the mark on AI.  We may assume it is the end all be all, replacing the human component.  When in reality, we need to embrace it as a tool by asking it good questions, give it good tasks, validate the information , and most importantly make it our own.

Just as we were all stumped on where to begin with our son’s  homework assignment, CHAT GBT gave us a head start on putting something down on paper,  very often the hardest part of starting anything.  Now we have a tool that helps us perform the first draft of our content we are trying to create, just make sure that you put your own thumb print on it to ensure its credibility and relatability.

Matt how are you embracing this tool or not?

[Matt Schlegel]

It’s going to be fascinating to see where AI takes the creative process. I’ve already started using it in a number of different ways, mostly just playing around with it at this point. For instance, I was with some friends, and we were talking about an interesting situation. So I just asked ChatGPT to write a song about that situation. And it wrote a song. And then we asked it for chords, it gave us some chords.

And then we asked it, “Well, are there other options for chord progressions?” And then it listed many other options and said, “Well, if you want it to feel more like this or feel more like that.” And then it gave us all these different chord progressions based on the mood of the song we were trying to create. It was fascinating how much we were able to create in just a very short amount of time.

Another way that I used AI the other day was I was creating a PowerPoint presentation, and I wanted a specific image to illustrate a certain point.

After searching and not finding an image that worked,  I used an AI tool and had it create an image. It just took a couple of minutes, and I had the picture that I needed for my presentation.

I think we’re just at the beginning of learning how AI can enhance the creative process. I’m only just beginning to understand how I can use it and how it can help me. And yes, I am even thinking about having it generate a first draft of some marketing material I need.

Leaders, how are you and your teams using these new AI tools to better communicate your messages in our Roaring 2020s. If you haven’t already, check out the links in the comments to start familiarizing yourself with these new tools.

 

#leadership #AI #creativity #ChatGPT #Roaring20s #Roaring2020s

How to Use the Enneagram to Create Marketing Narratives

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Matt Schlegel presents to an SBA T.H.R.I.V.E group of emerging leaders on how to use the Enneagram to create marketing narratives.  Matt shares how to create a narrative for each Enneagram type, and then works with two leaders in the group to create specific narratives, one to market to Enneagram Type 4 clientele and the other to market to Enneagram Type 6 customers.

#leadership #Enneagram #marketing

[Video Transcript]

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Let me welcome Matt to the SBA Thrive group for entrepreneurship and all the CEOs of the group. Matt is going to talk to us about the nine market narratives for using the Enneagram to market your business. Is that correct? Right. Yeah, I’m pretty sure.

So anyway, I’m just going to introduce Matt Schlegel. I’ve known him for quite a while. I’m learning a lot through him through the Enneagram. He’s teaching me a lot, but anyway. So Matt, why don’t you just go ahead and get started. As the other people want to come in, I’ll just add them.

Matt Schlegel:

Sounds great. Thank you, Mari-Lyn for having me speak today. I’m delighted to be here. I appreciate the interest in your group for this powerful tool that I use called the Enneagram. This is a follow-up session to a previous session where we just talked about an overview of what the Enneagram is and how it can be used as a personality dynamic system to better understand yourself, better understand others on your team, better understand the interpersonal dynamics that occur. The Enneagram is a wonderful tool for that.

But, it can be used for so much more. One of the things that we’ll talk about today is how to construct a marketing narrative that will tune to specific Enneagram types. If you are knowledgeable about the type of person that you are marketing to, then you can craft a message that is specifically tuned for their Enneagram type that will really resonate with them, so it really becomes a very powerful communication tool as well. Each Enneagram type has specific things that they’re listening for and specific things that they’re motivated to do. In as much as we can craft a narrative designed to that, then it really makes a difference.

I will just jump ahead. Just a little bit about me. I have been using the Enneagram now for over 20 years. I started using it in the way that most people do with friends and family, found that it was very powerful. I introduced it to my team at work, and it proved to be a very effective communication tool there. Then, I asked this question, “Why are the Enneagram types numbers? Why not colors or letters or…” It turns out there is a reason why they are numbers. It’s because it describes the order of a process, and it turns out it’s the exact order… Those Enneagram dynamics are exactly in the order that they appear in human problem-solving, so I started using the Enneagram as a problem-solving system, and it works amazingly well as that as well.

It’s not a well known aspect of the Enneagram, which is why I ended up writing a book about that particular aspect, how to use the Enneagram as a problem-solving tool with your teams. This is my book, Is Teamwork 9.0. It’s available on Amazon. I encourage people who want to explore that side of the Enneagram to check it out.

Today we’re going to look at yet another aspect of the Enneagram as we dive into these lines that we see inside of the Enneagram. When we look about problem-solving in general, you can see it’s one through nine. But if you start with any specific point, say… Let’s start with seven. You can see that there’s these blue lines inside of the Enneagram that trace from seven to five to eight to two to four to one, and then back to seven. At an individual level, not necessarily as a team level, but as an individual level, that tends to be a trajectory that we will take as we work through individual problem-solving and as we construct narratives from our specific point of view.

That’s really what we’re going to talk about today, is how to construct a narrative out of these lines in the center. This is very good if you, say, understand that I’m going to be speaking to a group of sevens or I’m going to be speaking to a group of threes. In the broadest sense, if you don’t know what your target demographic looks like, then you probably want to stick with the one through nine narrative around the circle. But if you’re going to be marketing to a seven, then there is a better way to do it that will really resonate with the seven.

As you become familiar with the Enneagram, you will start to see that certain Enneagram types are drawn to certain roles. For instance, I find that at companies oftentimes a chief financial officer tends… There tend to be a lot of type ones in that role. Or if you’re a financial controller at a company, there tends to be a lot of type sixes and on, and on, and on. There’s specific types that are drawn to certain roles. If you know, “Hey, I’m marketing to CFOs at companies. I want to craft a narrative around that type one path of those lines in the middle,” so that’s kind of what the main idea is that we’re trying to do here.

Let’s start with the seven. If you look at those lines, it will start with the seven, then it will go to the five, then the eight, the two, the four, one, and back to seven. Now, we’ve talked about that seven personality dynamic. One of the main things that the seven wants is to keep things fun, and positive, and light. They tend to be friendly, talkative, charming. That’s the starting point. In crafting your narrative, you want to start with something that is fun and positive because that will catch their attention.

Then, the next step in that will be to go to the five. Sevens love information. They love to have their brains tickled, so you want to provide them with information. That’s in that Enneagram type five dynamic. Then, going from there, you want to show them how you can use this information to take action. That’s the type eight. Then, you want to show how that action that you’re taking is going to be very helpful, and that’s the type two dynamic. Then, you want to know from there how that helpfulness will let them stand out as being special or unique. That’s that type four dynamic. Then, it goes back to the type one where sevens really resonate with principles. So you can bring it back to the principle of why you did all of that, so you ground it in principles. That’s the type one dynamic. Then you bring it back to, “Wasn’t that fun? And we had so much fun doing it.”

You can see how just following those lines around you can create and craft a story that will really resonate with that type seven personality. Does that make sense, Mari-Lyn, when I describe it that way?

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Mm-hmm.

Daniel:

Yes. Thank you.

Matt Schlegel:

Awesome. Awesome. In this slide here, we deconstruct each one of those elements from that type seven point of view, so you’ll be able to refer back to this slide, but it’s essentially what I just described.

Then, as you move around, each one of these types has a different starting point. Now, the order when you’re looking at the blue lines connecting the seven, the five, the eight, the one, the four, two, it follows in the order of the direction of the arrows. It’s just the starting point is different for each type. When you start with the five, you want to lead with, “I’m going to provide you with lots of information.” Fives love that information. Then, you start there and then you follow it around through the eight, the two, the four, the one, the seven, and then back to the five. That is the way you craft a story with the fives.

Now, fives, engineers. They tend to be researchers. Anybody in academia will kind of fall into this five category. Whether they’re a type five or not, it’s kind of the world that they live in, researchers, that type of area. If you’re marketing to folks in that area, you want to use a five strategy.

Then, let’s go to the next, so eight. The eight strategy is starting with action. When you’re marketing to a type eight… And a lot of CEOs are type eights, very action oriented. You want to lead with, “We’re going to get stuff done here. We’re going to take action,” and then you go through the remaining steps of, “It will be very helpful. It will make you stand out. It’s really based in principles. It will be fun. It will be informative. And we’re going to get a lot done.” That’s how you build the narrative with the eight. But just remember to start with action with them.

With the two, this is starting with caring about other people and that being helpful. That’s how you resonate with the two, is you start off with appreciation, and kindness, and giving, and caring. Now, Mari-Lyn, I know you’re a type two, and so I know that this really would resonate with you. What do you think of this approach for the type two?

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Yeah, pretty close. Pretty close. But as you’re talking, too, I see myself in other roles, in other numbers, too, so [inaudible 00:15:18]. But, that’s true.

Matt Schlegel:

That’s exactly what this speaks to. This is one of the reasons why I love the Enneagram, is because we do move through all these dynamics in our… As we move through our lives and we move through our personal problem-solving, we are all cycling through these. That’s why crafting a narrative in this way will just really speak to each Enneagram type, and knowing that starting point is really helpful.

For twos, we know if you’re marketing to caregivers, lot of twos in caregiving. Actually, lots of different service roles, fire firefighters, police, the military, a lot of twos are drawn to those types of service roles. So when you’re marketing to an organization that is really based in providing services to their customers or their community, you can use this two narrative because it will really speak to them.

All right. So, same thing. I think you get the idea with the four. You want to start off with the uniqueness and the emotional impact that you’ll have. Then with the one, I mentioned before, a lot of CFOs in the one category, so you want to start off with precision, and accuracy, and competency, and principles. These are things that resonate with type ones, like it will resonate with CFOs because that’s kind of their world.

That kind of gives you a way of crafting messages for all of the Enneagram types that are connected by these blue lines, because you can see they’re all interconnected. But now let’s go over to the red lines. This is the triangle, the three, the six, and the nine. The same idea will happen here. When you’re going to start with the three, you want to start off with a success narrative. Threes are drawn to success. They want success, so they want to see how whatever you’re presenting is going to be successful. So you lead there, and then you move to the six dynamic, which is predictable. You want to have something that’s essentially a system for continuous success.

Then, after that, you move to the nine dynamic and show how this success will end up creating harmony within the community that the three is working with so that success will reflect well on them. You don’t want conflict or discord where… The three would be very sensitive to things not going well, so you want to show how whatever you’re presenting is going to be very harmonious. Then you come back to that success. You can see how if you are a three, these are the points that are going to be really important to the three, which is why it makes it such a powerful narrative when you’re marketing to threes. All right?

Now you get to the six. Again, we’re just now sticking to that triangle in the middle, and we’re… Sixes are looking for consistency, for low risk. They want it well thought out, all these things, so with an eye towards predictability. You lead with that, and then you show how the community will embrace that system, that predictableness, and allow things to continue on in a predictable, non-chaotic way. Then you show how all of this leads to successful outcomes. Then, you finally draw back to that predictableness. This is the narrative that would work really well with the six.

Then, the nine is leading with the harmoniousness. You remember nines, they want to minimize conflict in the community, and they want to make sure that everybody’s perspectives are taken into account. You lead with that part of your narrative of how everybody is going to feel really good about this solution, and then you go to the success. It will lead to success, it will be predictable, and it’s very harmonious. Everybody will love it. That’s the narrative that you want to construct for the type nine.

That gives you a brief overview of how to think about narratives for each one of the Enneagram types. Then again, if you don’t know, or it’s early on, or you’re working with somebody new that you haven’t met and you don’t know their Enneagram type, then you can fall back on the generalized form of the narrative, which is to simply follow the numbers from one to nine. You can use essentially a problem-solving narrative, a generalized problem-solving narrative when you’re constructing that because everybody will resonate with that. You start off with the problem and the goal. You show what stakeholders are impacted and who will care about that problem and that goal. You’ll want to show all the great ideas for success, so that’s step three. You want to show how you’ve taken into account any emotional feedback from those ideas and how you’ve vetted the most positive ideas with the community.

Now you move over to five, which is where you analyze the ideas, so you want to show how the idea that you’re presenting has been validated and will be effective. You move then to six, and you want to show how you have a plan in place to implement the idea. Then, essentially, in a marketing narrative, you’re working on steps one through six, and then your action is the seven. You’re promoting this plan to get something done, and you want to get your buy-off from your clients or customers, and then you want to act on the plan, and that’s step eight. Then, you want to make sure that the solution was effective for your customer or clients, and that’s nine. You could see how you can essentially follow this generic marketing narrative one through nine just around the circle. Those are the different ways to construct a marketing narrative using the Enneagram just really, really briefly. I hope you enjoyed that, and love to hear your thoughts on it.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Thank you. Actually, I think after your presentation, I actually learned a little bit more about the other numbers. It was like, “Oh, okay.” That was very good. Thank you.

Matt Schlegel:

You’re very welcome.

Daniel:

When you’re engaging in this process, what’s the timeline between one through nine? How much time are you putting into it?

Matt Schlegel:

It really depends on the situation. In the case where you are presenting to a customer or a client or a prospective client, you can construct this narrative and lay it out in 30 minutes. That means you’ll have had to do all of that work beforehand to validate the ideas and all that. But when you’re laying it out, you can just lay it out very sequentially. If you’re actually working with teams to solve a problem, that’s a different thing. Does that answer your question? Do you want to talk about team problem-solving or just using it as a marketing narrative?

Daniel:

No, the marketing narrative, I mean, that’s really what I’m keying off of, and that makes sense. I appreciate the clarity. Thank you.

Katie:

Thank you so much for that information. I own a dance studio, and this week I wanted to roll out a couple key things for… Not necessarily Black Friday special, but it is a special. I wanted to target people who had taken first lessons but never really continued, maybe because of price, because we are pretty pricey, or those people who had taken four lessons, which is the first layer, and never really continued. When you talked about doing a marketing narrative that covers all across, that was super helpful.

In a sense of timeline, most of the marketing tactics are either email. Some of them are even texts. This is the first time I’m going to go through texts. I have to really shorten that into, I don’t know, four sentences with a visual. Anyways, that was super helpful to me. If you have any other tidbits on specials that’s happening, especially for the holidays, to just incentivize people to continue or purchase, that would be great.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah. Well, I love that because I think that you probably have a sense of the type. How old? Are these junior high school level students or high school students, adults?

Katie:

Oh, these are adults.

Matt Schlegel:

They’re adults.

Katie:

Yeah, these are adults.

Matt Schlegel:

You might have a sense for the types of people who are coming to your class, are they mostly sevens or are they… I mean, that would probably be one group that you could construct the marketing narrative to. I would imagine that there might be some fours in there as well, just people who are very artistic and expressive and want to use different forms of emotional communication. You might have some fours in there as well. Do you have any sense of the types of Enneagram types that are your clients?

Katie:

Absolutely fours, people who appreciate music and connecting in a different sense, people who are… As of right now, I think most of the people who didn’t purchase maybe are a little bit more money… or budget focus. That’s why the incentives are there, like sweeter deal to start dancing, just so that they can try. Because sometimes it’s, unfortunately, you have to try it for at least… Not just four lessons just to get it in and really fall in love with it because you can only feel a progress over a little bit longer period of time. You do get a little bit of progress in a sense of one month, but imagine if they were there for three months or six months. They would feel a lot more progress, and they could see fuller the investment if they’re very short term like that thinking.

They want things quick and easy, right away. But if they could see just a little bit longer to be part of the community, to improve a little bit longer, longer sense of time, I think they would have a better idea and maybe be more lifelong students. That’s really my goal. I don’t want 100%. Maybe 80% lifelong students. No matter what, that dancing… Ballroom dancing is what I do.

Matt Schlegel:

Oh, okay.

Katie:

Ballroom dancing and partner dancing is going to be a part of their lives in a positive way. It just takes a little bit of time, like learning a language. You learn a language for, I don’t know, four lessons, and it doesn’t really impact you as much as you would in a consistent basis. It just takes a little bit of investment, and time, and money.

Matt Schlegel:

Let’s imagine that we’re marketing to a four or a group of fours. Some things about the fours that you’ll want to know are that they really want to be able to express themselves in emotionally impactful ways. That would be where you’d want to lead, is, “We’re going to give you the tools and the platform to be able to fully express this very beautiful and emotionally impactful dance.”

Then you might want to say, “We don’t want…” Now we move to one with the principles. “We don’t want cost to be a barrier to you having fun with this amazing form of dance, and so we want to give you…” Now I’m moving to five. “We want you to be able to have access to all the resources that we have that will help you achieve this,” and then you’re moving to eight, “and then be able to dance and fully express yourself.” That’s the action. “Then imagine as you grow how helpful that will be to your partner, and you’ll be helping each other.” That’s the two. Then you get back to four. “Then you and your partner will be able to create something beautiful and unique together.”

Katie:

I love that. Thank you.

Matt Schlegel:

Does that make sense?

Katie:

Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Schlegel:

When you construct it that way that, you’re just following the way the four naturally thinks, and that story will like, “Oh, yeah. I want to do that.”

Katie:

That’s great. Super helpful. Thank you.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Hey, Kate. I don’t know about Matt, the promoter, would they be a customer too or not?

Matt Schlegel:

I think you’re talking about the seven.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Yeah.

Matt Schlegel:

I think you find sevens in any social community. Sevens are very social. They like being in community. The nice thing about the four narrative is that it does overlap with the seven narrative. It’s just the sevens will be leading with the fun as opposed to that uniqueness of their personal creative emotional expression. The fun is more important than the emotional expression. For the four, the emotional expression is more important. But you can see the narratives overlap, so the sevens can be drawn into that as well.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Cool. Daniel, did you have any questions far as marketing or…

Daniel:

No. Matt was able to answer the questions I had. I’m going to be working with this in our marketing department and see where we go from there. But if I have something else, I’ll reach out directly. Thank you.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Great.

Matt Schlegel:

Perfect. What kind of folks do you tend to market to, Daniel?

Daniel:

We run private security consulting firm, so we’re working with larger industries, production, and manufacturing. We do colleges and universities. We work with hoteliers, car dealerships, work with municipalities, and small government.

Matt Schlegel:

Nice. For that type of business, you are likely to be marketing to the type sixes for the most part. Because you can see one of the things that the six likes is to minimize risk. Essentially, that’s what you’re doing, You’re a risk minimization firm.

Daniel:

Absolutely.

Matt Schlegel:

You want to build, I would say, a narrative around you’re going to provide predictability, you’re going to create a harmonious environment for everybody that is conflict-free because you’re there to make sure there’s not conflict. You’re going to allow your customers to maximize their success, and you are going to just be that predictable service in the background that is making sure that they can achieve their success.

Daniel:

Matt, and I think you’re spot on, especially with the predictability part. What our clients love is knowing we’re there and not needing to talk to us. They don’t want to be bothered. If they know we’re there and we’re on the job, I mean, that’s a huge selling point for us. No, I think you’re spot on, man. This is good stuff.

Matt Schlegel:

Awesome. Awesome. I mean, it’s pretty remarkable once you know what you’re targeting how you can distill down that message that will really hit all of the main points.

Daniel:

I love it.

Matt Schlegel:

Well, great. I’m glad that I was able to share this and hopefully offer some tidbits of advice that will help you achieve your successes.

Daniel:

Matt, we can get ahold of you on LinkedIn?

Matt Schlegel:

Absolutely. I’m on LinkedIn. I’ll have my contact information on these slides. I’m happy to share those as well.

Daniel:

That’d be great.

Katie:

Thank you.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Hey, you’re welcome, guys. Well, thank you so much, Matt, for coming back on and going through your presentation. I certainly really enjoyed it. I learned a lot, too, but anyway.

Matt Schlegel:

I really appreciate the opportunity, Mari-Lyn. It’s always a pleasure.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Hey, you’re welcome.

Daniel:

Happy holidays, sir.

Matt Schlegel:

Yep. Happy holidays.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Happy holidays, everybody. In that ending, we’ll just maybe end the call, unless you have something else you’d like to say, Matt.

Matt Schlegel:

No. Again, it’s just been a real pleasure. I think we all can learn so much from the Enneagram and the different aspects of how you use it. It’s one of those tools that the deeper you go, the more you learn.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Yes.

Matt Schlegel:

I encourage people to explore it, and play with it, and learn, and grow with it.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Are you still doing your community Enneagram groups or-

Matt Schlegel:

I do. I have a monthly group that meets. We discuss different topics related to the Enneagram. Well, it’s not just beginning Enneagram. Most of the people who come to the program are very familiar with the Enneagram. We come up with these different applications, just like the one we went over today, how to apply the Enneagram to marketing. The one that we did this last month after the election was how does the Enneagram relate to politics. That was a very lively discussion.

We’re going to take a break in December, but we’re going to come back in January, and we’re going to talk about empathy and sympathy. Each Enneagram type has a different take on empathy and sympathy. I’ve come up with a model that goes over the different empathy and sympathy levels of each Enneagram type and put that into a framework that’s easy to understand. That, I think, will be really helpful.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Especially for a lot of workplaces or people that need the extra boost or how to cope.

Matt Schlegel:

Yes, yes. Type twos, I’ll say right now, Mari-Lyn, type twos are the most empathetic and the most sympathetic.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Yes. Yeah.

Matt Schlegel:

You’re firing on all cylinders there.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Yeah, yeah. Well, certainly for the type of work I’m doing right now, certainly need it.

Matt Schlegel:

Exactly. That’s why you’re drawn to the work that you do.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Great. Thank you, everybody, for showing up today. You will be able to get a recording of this call, because I did record it. I’ll send you out the links. Okay, everybody. Have a great day. I guess we’ll see you soon. Happy [inaudible 00:40:54].

Matt Schlegel:

See you guys soon. Thank you.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Have a great-

Katie:

Thanks so much.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

… happy Thanksgiving.

Matt Schlegel:

Thank you.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Bye-bye.

 

 

 

Charged with Feelings, Climate Leader David Ligouy on his Solar-Powered Bike Trek from Argentina to California

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Author and climate leader David Ligouy focuses on developing green energy solutions for developing countries. His book – Able to Be Human – is currently being translated into English. His organization is an NGO called Peace Movement based on the Resistance Movement in France.  His current project, #BankOnTheClimate, is devoted to producing very economical, light electric vehicles for people in developing countries, like solar powered electric bikes!   To raise awareness and funding for this effort, David has ridden a solar powered bike from Argentina to California, and he’s currently on his way up the west coast to Canada.

Subscribe and follow #BankOnTheClimate on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeruw6lJCHyCjyvSHUzZzcg

Website:  https://www.bankontheclimate.com/

#Leadership, #Commitment, #EmotionalIntelligence, #EQ, #climatechange

[Video Transcript]

 

Matt Schlegel:

Thanks for joining me in conversations with leaders who are using their feelings as a leadership tool for both inspiration and motivation.

Matt Schlegel:

Today, I’m speaking with author and climate leader David Ligouy. David works to bring solutions to people in developing countries that will help meet the internationally recognized sustainable development goals. And now for the conversation.

Matt Schlegel:

Today, I’m speaking with a remarkable climate leader and author David Ligouy, who focuses on developing green energy solutions for developing countries. His book, Able To Be Human, is currently being translated into English. His organization is an NGO called Peace Movement and his current project, Bank on the Climate, is devoted to producing very economical light electric vehicles, for instance, solar-powered electric bikes. To raise awareness of this effort, David has ridden a prototype solar-powered bike from Argentina to California, and he’s currently on his way up the West coast to Canada. I am so eager to hear about what is inspiring him and motivating him on his journey. David, thank you so much for joining me today. Welcome.

David Ligouy:

Thank you very much, Matt. So, my inspiration come from science. I met a world scientist about EPCC, is a panel of climate change, is from Vietnam, and is an expert of integrate risk. So he did studies on integrate risk. So when you isolate a problem, you don’t see, okay, this maybe 20, 30 years. But he say, “Okay.” He said to me, “If we want to have a chance to save a lot of people, we are by 2020.” And I met him in 2015. So he says.

David Ligouy:

So I start to be conscious that we don’t have a lot of time. I prepare myself to the improbable. So in case it happens, maybe we all get together. We have, it’s for me an enormous hope that we can fix climate change, but also other solution my NGO Peace Movement, French Peace Movement is originally from the resistance, the resistance movement.

David Ligouy:

And in the resistance movement in 1941, Germany was as a Nazi was all over Europe for maybe four decades for… So, and the German army was the best in army in the world. So the Nazi was the best army in the world. So it was almost impossible to defeat them, improbable. But in two days, the Japanese decide to bomb Pearl Harbor and the USA enter in the war with us. So, and then USA has enormous potential. Okay. And the second one is the Nazi were defeated in studying God by the Russian. So in two days it changed completely the perspective of French resistance, that maybe there is a chance.

David Ligouy:

So, my NGO is focusing on social solution, economical solution, and also on environmental.

Matt Schlegel:

You said that your inspiration came out of science, but how did that make you feel? What are you feeling now?

David Ligouy:

I first feel overwhelmed by the situation. And also when I’m getting older, I have a lot of frustration because I think I didn’t do much. I did a lot, actually. We do. We Matt too. You did a lot. But we didn’t manage to, for the moment, we still didn’t manage to fix the situation. So it’s very frustrating sometime I have a lot of anger and I am overwhelmed by my anger. So, and also it’s a new field. That mean I was diagnosed with eco-anxiety one year ago and I’ve been suffering for 20 years. So, and…

Matt Schlegel:

So you were actually diagnosed with eco-anxiety, but you realize you’ve been feeling it for 20 years?

David Ligouy:

Yes, I didn’t… And then, so now I know what is my problem before. So, and I really like the book of this professor of Stanford.

Matt Schlegel:

Yes. Dr. Britt Wray Generation Dread. Yes.

David Ligouy:

Wow. So she’s very courageous because she’s attacking this main problem.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah.

David Ligouy:

That I didn’t even know last year I was sick of it. I have all the feeling.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah.

David Ligouy:

All the bad feelings. You name it, I have it. All of them in a short time and a big amount of them. So it’s very hard to cope, but it’s preferable that I, and you Matt, are dealing with it than teenagers or children because they are not ready to face it. They don’t have the structure. If I have big problem to face it, I imagine the children. And so one of them is also denial. Me, I should be the guy who should know most the problem because I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it, but sometimes I don’t want to see it because it’s too much.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah.

David Ligouy:

So I have, my brain should do some denial to protect myself.

Matt Schlegel:

Many people are starting to have very strong feelings. But the easiest thing to do is to just be in denial. It’s a self-defense mechanism. And once you get past denial, it essentially uncorks all these other feelings that will come out, frustration, anger, grief, anxiety, all of these things are being bottled up now. And once you get past denial, they’re going to come out. And I think more and more people as they come to grips with climate reality, they will be starting to feel these feelings, which… So I guess what I want to ask you next is now that you are feeling all these feelings, how do you channel them into constructive positive action?

David Ligouy:

I have to know what is my… What’s called resilience. You have to look for resilience. Resilience, it’s a mechanical term. That’s if you hit somebody, if you hit a metal, it becomes stronger.

Matt Schlegel:

Mm.

David Ligouy:

So it’s a natural property of steel. If you hit it with hammer, it make it become every time stronger. So, but there’s a limit. So me, I have to find my resilience factors and everybody’s different.

Matt Schlegel:

Right?

David Ligouy:

So my… And then I do, because when you are overwhelmed by all these feelings, it’s not possible.

Matt Schlegel:

Right?

David Ligouy:

So you have to prepare it a little bit before that to get ready. So what I do first for me is swimming. So when I travel with my bike, I try to go to near the coast to be always near the Pacific coast or Atlantic coast. That’s what I do. Caribbean. So I know if I am too much overwhelmed by situation, I go to the sea. The sea calm me down.

David Ligouy:

And second one is, I do, what I do is biking. Because biking is generating sport. It’s generating also like swimming on the veins or calm my body and calm down my brain. And then, and biking, it’s helping me also with nature because I have to look the nature. I have to, not to look to my problem like this. I have to open to look left and right. It’s very basic. But to do that, look left and right, nature. “Oh, there’s a bird here. Oh, there’s a car here.” It just calm me down because I stop concentrating on my problems, on my fears. I look around. So that’s the second one. And the third one is dancing.

David Ligouy:

So in Latinos, they have been suffering for 500 years. So they are very resilient. They are not from a consuming society where they can have everything, because they don’t have money. So they found some ways to be resilient. So it’s dancing and singing. So they are poor, but they are allowed to dance. Don’t need too much to dance. So the third for me is dancing. I’m looking, I take some time to dance. And maybe a fourth, it’s maybe also very important is my bike, because bike will provide curiosity, provide…

David Ligouy:

So that’s one that was part of the project. That mean if you stress people, they’re already very stressed. Two third of the young people on the planet are stressed by the problem. And they are not in denial, because they don’t have this mechanism so elaborate. Adult are more in denial because they are too busy or obviously, cause they have way to be in denial. Young, especially young children, are not in denial. They are quite straightforward. They see the reality and they speak the reality and they are afraid. They are really afraid. They’re in panic.

David Ligouy:

So what I do with my bike, I bring curiosity, creativity, and joy. So, “Wow. What is this?” And then, and I provoke the meeting and I have a lower bike that also provoked humility, because I’m lower than people. That was part of the plan. So what I’m promoting is women is emancipation through transportation, who is the biggest… So also I’m tackling the problem. Action, so this, if I do action, if I’m just worry about my feeling, it doesn’t help. I have to act.

Matt Schlegel:

What advice would you give to them?

David Ligouy:

It’s everything is interactive. So I have to work on myself and I have to work with others. I have to also believe that it’s possible to do it on the world level. I have to work with the institution. Has to be a complete change.

David Ligouy:

So, and we have to do it fast. So it’s like a disruptive change in everything. So my advice is really based on the SDG. People should know first, what is SDG? And SDG, they have 169 target. So young people, especially, they should know that because it is going to help them to have an overview of the solution. This whole thing is interconnected. And after they have to feel in their heart, what is the most important for them? Because like in your book, everybody’s different. So you can work on one target, on of the 169 target and say… And maybe sometime you can even change in time, but you can constantly say, now I am more concerned about this target for could be gender equity could be integrated in education. It can be write a book or it can be okay… Or maybe sometime maybe you just too overwhelmed, just take care of yourself first. You can be taking care of others and this will take care of yourself.

Matt Schlegel:

Whenever you are going to start to have feelings about something it’s about a problem. That’s usually what is the starting point of having feelings is whether it’s your head or your heart or your gut is telling you that something isn’t right. There’s a problem. And…

David Ligouy:

It’s never face problem of humanity. Nobody have faced such a problem before.

Matt Schlegel:

Right. And you bring up the very good point of study the problem, really take the time to understand what the problem is. Don’t just assume, you know it, don’t just assume that your gut is right or your heart is right or your head is right. Actually take the time to understand the problem and then let that really good understanding of the problem inform your head or your heart or your gut, what to do next. I think that’s what I heard you say. And everybody is different. Everybody will bring a different strength or a different focus and we need it all. We need everything.

David Ligouy:

That’s biodiversity.

Matt Schlegel:

That’s right. Exactly. And if we’re all on the same page in terms of what the problem is, as we all contribute, we will all be working towards solving the same problem.

David Ligouy:

Yeah. It’s a patchwork of solution.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah.

David Ligouy:

It’s like a puzzle of solution and it will all come together.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah.

David Ligouy:

And it’s already planned by the SDG. So, okay. Okay. It’s going to work. You’re going to work on mental health of people because that’s your knowledge.

Matt Schlegel:

Well, David, thank you so much for all of your insights and sharing your feelings and for all of the work that you are doing and your focus, it’s really truly an inspiration for me. And I just appreciate you so much and what you’re doing, and I wish you the very best on your continued journey. And you know, much success to you as we solve our collective problem. Bank on the climate

David Ligouy:

Hashtag bank on the climate.

Matt Schlegel:

Yes. And I will put a link to bank on the climate in the notes here. And you said that you have a YouTube explanation. So I’ll also put that in the notes for people so that they have a way to follow you and stay in touch with you.

David Ligouy:

Thanks so much, Matt.

Matt Schlegel:

Okay. Thank you.

Matt Schlegel:

Thanks for watching. David shared so many fantastic insights for leaders who are facing a big problem and are starting to have strong feelings about that problem. He highlights the importance of taking care of yourself so that you don’t become overwhelmed. He emphasized the role that community plays in problem solving. And he says that you never know from when or where a tipping point will occur. So you have to prepare and be ready to take advantage of it when it does.

Matt Schlegel:

If you found this conversation helpful, please click on the thumbs up button and subscribe to the channel to get notifications of future episodes. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comment section and I’ll respond as soon as I can. Thanks again.

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