IDL128 Season 3: Inner Switch with Susan Freeman
What is the most valuable leadership gift that you can offer your team? Why should you take the time to slow down once in a while? How can you practice meeting your edge to develop yourself in fitness, business, and life itself?
Today, my guest is Susan Freeman, and we’re talking about resilience. It’s a key attribute for overcoming any of life’s challenges. And so, how can we do our best to harness resilience and mindfulness to reach our goals? How can we develop a system which incorporates mindfulness into our daily schedule? Susan Freeman shares her lessons about creating a functional routine for mindfulness and resilience with us.
Meet Susan Freeman
Susan Freeman, MBA, PCC, NCC, is an executive coach, team coach, author, speaker, and leadership consultant who brings more than three decades of corporate, entrepreneurial, and nonprofit experience to clients. Her groundbreaking approach to coaching creates leadership transformation through the integration of Eastern wisdom derived from more than 25 years of studying yoga and yogic philosophy.
Her new book, "Inner Switch: 7 Timeless Principles to Transform Modern Leadership ," was released in May 2023. She becomes the first author to teach individuals how to become “Inner Switch Leaders” by drawing their attention inward, becoming more attuned to themselves and those around them, and growing conscious of their thoughts and energy.
Susan is an accredited Professional Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation, the largest coaching body in the world. Susan received her M.B.A. with a focus on marketing from Columbia University Graduate School of Business and a B.A. degree in psychology from Wellesley College.
Visit Susan Freeman’s website and connect on LinkedIn.
IN THIS EPISODE WE DISCUSS:
Slow down to go faster - 05:42
Using Yoga to find the edge - 10:35
Your presence is the most vital gift you can give - 17:50
Be intentional with yourself - 35:50
The 7 key principles - 47:16
Slow down to go faster
“Take time for [yourself] so [that] you can actually be more when you are with everyone else.”
It can be very tough for people that are high-performing achievers or who are goal-driven to take a moment to slow down because they are busy chasing their dreams without rest, especially when a lot is expected or required of them.
But remember this: rest can help you. When you take time to rest, recuperate, and recenter yourself, it becomes easier for you to achieve those dreams without burning yourself out fully or burning the bridges around you.
“I often tell my clients that very thing, that sometimes we’re going to need to slow down in order to go fast, and it’s very counter-intuitive – particularly for people at the senior-most levels – [because] they are used to running at 150 miles per hour all the time. ”
This type of pace is not sustainable, and real success is sustainable.
Using Yoga to find the edge
“The idea of going to one’s edge, the yoga mat is a practice field for becoming aware of the tension that we carry in our physical bodies which is what the postures are about. The postures are about entering physical practices that will push our bodies into areas where we may experience strong sensation, discomfort, [and] that’s called, “Going to the edge”. ”
Practices like yoga offer secure and safe environments for you to push your body, with the instruction of a teacher or practitioners, into uncomfortable areas to release tension and stretch what needs to be stretched.
Find the balance between feeling a strong sensation without pushing it too far into pain.
This lesson applies to life off of the yoga mat as well.
“The idea is that you experience that sensation and you separate the sensation you experience from the story you make up about the experience, now that’s what the key [is]. ”
Use this key in other areas of your life to truly develop and grow yourself into realms you had never even considered before.
Your presence is the most vital gift you can give
“Executive coaching is the pinnacle of being able to sustain and develop trust, connection, and presence so that the other person [feels] completely heard, understood, and invited to shatter their belief structures about whatever it is that they have gotten stuck with. ”
The only way that you can positively influence a person and create genuine change and a positive shift in the conversation is to be fully present with them.
When you show up fully as yourself, speak honestly, and be open to creating a space of love, awareness, and accountability, that space invites change and repels dishonestly. That space supports genuine connection and repels insecurity.
“It’s not about you. It’s about other people joining in and being invited to put in their best collaborative selves which they can only do if they feel invited, if they feel trust, if they feel safe … all of those components have to be part of this conversation. ”
Be intentional with yourself
Set your intention, be clear on what you want to achieve, and start small. Continuous small change can build up momentum which takes you to achieving your big goals and experiencing bigger change.
“Big changes come from intentionality to create the shift.”
Sustainable change does not happen overnight. Each day, each time you are presented with a choice, you make the intentional choice to choose the direction that will take you one step closer to your future self.
The 7 key principles
1 – Be open
2 – Learn and reorient your focus
3 – Explore and let go of your edges
4 – Drop in and shift from doing to non-doing
5 – Integrate and live with intention
6 – Connect and create real communication
7 – Illuminate and become an inner switch leader
Resources, books, and links mentioned in this episode:
BOOK | Susan Freeman – Inner Switch: 7 Timeless Principles to Transform Modern Leadership
Visit Susan Freeman’s website and connect on LinkedIn.
Attend the next Ideas on Stage web class
Level Up Your Leadership with the free 4 Days To Maximum Impact Course!
Sign up for the roundtable at: hello@theimpactdrivenleader.com
Check out the Practice Of the Practice
About the Impact Driven Leader Podcast
The Impact Driven Leader Podcast, hosted by Tyler Dickerhoof, is for Xillennial leaders who have felt alone and ill-equipped to lead in today's world. Through inspiring interviews with authors from around the world, Tyler uncovers how unique leadership strengths can empower others to achieve so much more, with real impact.
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Big changes come from intentionality to create the shift.Big changes come from intentionality to create the shift.
Susan Freeman
Podcast Transcription
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:00:08) - Welcome back to the Impact Driven Leader podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Dickerhoof. So glad that you're tuning in and thankful to spend a little bit of time with you today, wherever you chose to listen to this or watch on YouTube. I'm grateful and I'm excited to share this conversation with Susan Freeman. Let me first share a little bit about this resilience. It's a key attribute to embracing change and developing an inner strength to overcome any of life's challenges. But are we doing our best to harness the inner strength of resilience and work to enhance mindfulness in our everyday lives? For many leaders that answer no, it often gets put on the list of yeah, that's important to do, but without a functional system, it starts and stops worse than a brand new driver trying to drive a manual transmission car. You know, the one with the gearshift in the clutch and all. It's just a hot mess. My guest this week, Susan Freeman, was forced to address those very challenges the functional routine of mindfulness as a mother, as a support, as a now coach, transformational coach, leadership coach, she had to deal with her own challenges.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:01:26) - For her, that was the chronic pain. After healing from a fractured foot, a foot that was fractured when she was at the grocery store and at the store dropped a scale on her foot. So that's a dynamic explanation, description of something that really regards mindfulness. Where did she go? She went to yoga, amazingly enough, and my personal experience with yoga. I have practiced yoga at times. And my yoga? Nope. No way. I'm not. But yet it is absolutely an impact in my life. The most flexible it fit the fastest I've ever been in my life was in my 30s when I was doing yoga once a week for now, and at times what I've done it. My local studio, Power Clips, helps me and yet I don't do it enough. Why? It's not a part of my routine now. Why do I share that? Because that is the barrier for so many leaders to develop and build mindfulness, to deal with everything that's coming their way, the stresses of leading, just having that functional play well, I'm excited to share this conversation with Susan.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:02:40) - She shares her functional system that she wrote about in the book in her switch. We talk about this thankful for this book seven Timeless Principles to Transform Modern Leadership. I surely hope that you enjoy this conversation. I'll catch you at the end. We'll wrap it up, and go from there.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:03:09) - Susan, thank you so much for joining me. I just want to say this, one of the great joys of having this platform doing this is, is people like yourself that I get to know interact with. I am so excited to have this conversation, one because I see so much alignment. But as well, it's also it's fun for me to find a different voice that I didn't know you before this. And yet the ability to create a friendship, a relationship, and support each other I'm most excited for. So Susan, thank you for joining me.
Susan Freeman (00:03:42) - Thank you so much for having me. I'm very appreciative of the opportunity to co-create and collaborate with you. I love the work you're doing. So you.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:03:51) - Yeah. So you've been a a leadership. You've been in leadership. You've been in helping other leaders now for many years. You were a you're a leader as a as a mother, as a wife, really kind of the first step that I want to jump in here to as a, as a new author writing your book and the inner switch and as well discussing that, I want to just kind of I want you to go back to a time where life wasn't as clear as what it is now. And if you were to look back to your younger self and say, man, if I could give this to you to help you so much. What conversation would you have with her?
Susan Freeman (00:04:31) - What a great question. That is a fabulous question. Okay. I think I would say. Learn to create space for what really matters, which is to be quiet. To become present with oneself, so that I could become more present with everyone with whom I was in a relationship with. Versus the more reactive me that was going from thing to thing to thing to thing to thing, and just kind of doing the list and checking the boxes and hoping for the best.
Susan Freeman (00:05:14) - Yeah, I think that the experience of life now is, is entirely different because of that shift in perspective, that switch. And I try my very best to stay in that zone as much as I possibly am able to.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:05:33) - You know, there's a piece there that it seems very counterintuitive. I think back my my kids are younger than yours. They're teenagers now. But the movie that came out, cars, it's been, you know, several years ago now. And there was a point in there where the animated character of the car was racing, and the guide for him as a racer was like, you have to slow down to go faster. And that's really, again, what I gathered there. It's so often it's hard, especially for people that are achievement driven or leaders or people that a lot is expected and required of them. Parents that are still professionals and everything else is take time for you, so you can actually be more when you're with everyone else. And it doesn't. Our brain tells us sometimes something different unless we focus and say, no, you're lying to me.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:06:26) - I can't keep doing more and expecting to get more. I have to, you know, really just kind of slow down to get the most. Yeah.
Susan Freeman (00:06:34) - Beautifully said. I often tell my clients that very thing, sometimes we're going to need to slow down in order to go fast. And it's very counterintuitive, particularly for people at the senior most levels. They are used to running at 150 miles an hour all the time and crushing it, putting in exhaustively long workweeks. Many of them are already developing health problems or already have developed them. And then there's a lot of other habits that we have to work on relinquishing because of what is required in order to cope with that type of punishment of oneself. So I think that is just such wise information. And I think we're seeing actually a real generational shift. I mean, I think I know you said your kids are younger, but with the generations that are coming after us, the millennials, Gen Z, they are. Yeah, they are saying no to that.
Susan Freeman (00:07:26) - And they're basically voting with their feet and saying, we're not going to live like that. We're not going to show up like that. We're going to do it differently. We're going to do it our way, and we're going to be okay with whatever that that ax falls, because nothing is worth destroying our energy for in terms of achievement or financial success or anything else. Whereas I think the people of our generation, we were willing to do that to ourselves. We were primed and reinforced and promoted based on the degree to which we could show up like that in the world. And I think we're in a sea change shift, Tyler, right now, where we're going from this old world order to a completely different order, and everyone's kind of disoriented, going, what's happening here? No.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:08:15) - Entirely. I mean, you're now probably the fourth or fifth podcast where that's been brought up and not by direction, but just that's the reality in the world that I see that you're working in, that I think if we're willing to recognize what through the pandemic ushered in a new generation of workers to, it also gave a lot of people time to pause and say, whoa, what really is important now in this season that I see, that I see when I talk to other leaders when having these conversations, is we're actually in that massive sea change because we have the generation that are Gen-X and older, you know, that are saying, no, it has to go back to this because that's what we had to be.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:08:59) - You know, that's what made us successful. And yet the younger generations, the the workers that are maybe more frontline aren't leading or they're bringing up, creating, you know, are more of the workforce are saying, no, that doesn't matter to me. So I'm going to go to the companies that meet that. And if you want to lead in that way, well, that's fine. But you're not going to have people that work for you because we have a choice.
Susan Freeman (00:09:22) - Yeah, that's exactly it. And there's so much dissension right now over that conversation because the, the default from the the boomer leaders is get yourself back into the office so we can go back to the way it was in 2019. And everybody has had this taste of a completely different life and saying wait a minute. That was actually pretty interesting parts of it. And I learned a lot about myself, and I learned about what makes me happy. And I learned how I do my best work, and I learned about how I can take better care of my family while I'm working.
Susan Freeman (00:09:56) - And I learned how I can take better care of my body. And so all of this is being now dealt with, and I think that my book is really an invitation to look at. So if you wanted a roadmap of how to engage differently. Where would you start?
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:10:17) - Well, I think what's awesome here is, you know, I'm a person that my wife is, she's gone, does yoga, is yoga certified and holy yoga. I've enjoyed yoga, I enjoy yoga, but I've never thought about it in the context that you laid out in the book, which I think is great. I love to think in abstracts and then bring it into reality. Like I look at sports, I look at other industries to bring it into my world because you see it in a different frame. And so for you laying it out in your book, interswitch how you've used yoga and then looking at your experience and dealing through your life, you know, just ups and downs and the roller coaster is life to say, oh, I can actually enjoy this ride instead of holding on with the death grip and just, am I going to get off this thing and be in all one piece? I think that that lesson and the roadmap, as you say, is so powerful that I don't think people would necessarily think of, but it's still very, very clear.
Susan Freeman (00:11:23) - What is it about that that that struck you?
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:11:28) - Well, I think I mentioned this as we were just getting started as we, you know, introducing each other, the idea of presents, my word for the year is B. And I think, you know, as I shared, another friend has that same word and we are kind of engaging, interacting. It's like trying to figure out what this word means, understand it's very, very important. But what does being mean? And that's where, you know, taking the idea of yoga and you're going to go sit in a room probably with the lights turned down, maybe the heat turned up. And you have to just focus on your phone somewhere else. You're not getting notifications, you're just there in that space and then learning to, as I've learned to in yoga, breathe. And, you know, how do you deal with tightness? I can be tight, right? I can have moments where I get to my edge and what did I learn? Oh, I just have to breathe through and just relax and understand I'm not going to break.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:12:25) - And if I need to, you know, relax for a second to go back into that position, I can do that. And the other piece that I've realized, and this is just me, my my human nature the most, I would say the most fit, not necessarily the the most well conditioned I've been, but the ability to do things well has happened when I was doing yoga because I ended up just I release some of the tension. I was a little bit more flexible. And again, as I think about those and I experience those things in is you layer it your experience with yoga. And I didn't take anything from your book as far as like, okay. And you kind of isolate it. It's not the religion, it's not the whatever of yoga, but say, hey, here's the practice, here's the ancient history of what yoga is. And if we actually apply that to our life, man, it can be extremely beneficial as well.
Susan Freeman (00:13:19) - Very well said. The idea of going to one's edge yoga mat is a practice field for becoming aware of the tension that we carry in our physical bodies, which is what the postures are about.
Susan Freeman (00:13:37) - The postures are about entering physical. Practices that will push our body into areas where we may experience strong sensation discomfort. That's called going to the edge. And what you so beautifully talked about is being able to utilize that experience to tune in to what is happening. Right now. I'm noticing that I'm having strong sensation, otherwise it's hurting, right? There may be a point where you'll go beyond your edge, and you will hurt so much that you could become injured, which is why a good yoga teacher will always say, don't go beyond where you just feel strong sensation, but not pain. The idea is that you experience that sensation and you separate the sensation you experience from the story you make up about the experience. So that's what's the key. The key is you're going to experience the sensation. And can you become an observer of the sensations without the story? Because when you can do that, guess what? Now you've become present. Now you're able to take that experience of discomfort and put it into any situation in life, and then your work and your life become your yoga mat.
Susan Freeman (00:14:54) - Yeah.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:14:55) - Well, and I think that's the you know, we talk about the, the physical presence of your body. But when you translate that into the emotional and the relational situations of your life, it's not misaligned. It's not different. It's it's not from a different stratosphere. It's all connected. And I think about, you know, interactions with people and you're like, okay, why is this making me feel weird? One of the the pieces that I talk about in the community that is affected me, you bring up at numerous times our fears and insecurities. And as I've seen that that those edges are where our fears and insecurities are telling us things. You know, I have it described as barriers in our leadership that those fears and insecurities are barriers. It's really you aligned kind of describe it much the same way. And it's like, how can we see that? I described it as I've told other people is I start looking at how do I take bricks out of that wall? It's probably going to be there.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:15:58) - But at the same point, how can I take bricks out of that wall so I can either move through it, pass through it, see through it where it doesn't hold me back. I understand it's there, but it doesn't hold me back. And I think that's what I gather from the framework that you've put together and becoming present, saying, understand, where's the discomfort? How can I recognize it? How can I see the situation for what it is? I'm not going to put a story on it. I'm just going to understand it. And then how can I move forward from that? And I think as a perspective, as leadership, what I picked up in your book as well is when you can do that finally. Is the only time you'll be able to actually connect with people in lead. And if not, it's all a fallacy. It's all just, well, we're trying to get through it, but I don't really know. And we hear so much about the imposter syndrome. Right.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:16:52) - And I think that's that's kind of what you're identifying for so many people.
Susan Freeman (00:16:57) - Yeah. If you can't experience your own presence within and be connected within yourself, how are you going to connect with others? And if you can't connect with others, how can you influence them and lead them? And if you can't influence them, lead them. How are we going to solve the pressing problems of our society and our world and our planet? We can't. So I believe that this is so fundamental to our being able to be to have impact that is sustainable, and that can take people from where they are to an entirely different level of experience. Because so few people right now actually are able to be present and to be in conversation with others in a present way. And we know it when we have it. So the work that I do in the world as an executive coach is literally all about presence. Executive coaching is the pinnacle of being able to sustain and develop trust, connection and presence so that the other person is feeling completely heard, understood and invited to shatter their belief structures about whatever it is that they have gotten stuck with.
Susan Freeman (00:18:19) - Yeah, right. You can't influence a person in any other way, otherwise you're telling them what to do. You're giving them advice, none of which are going to last or be appreciated because they're not going to come from inside of them. Not going to come from inside of them.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:18:37) - I think what kind of the other piece of that? And like you said, I mean, you can manipulate you can, you know, persuade people to do something. But what I think that the great difference there and we've seen that happen in the past in our society, and we talked about this, this changing of tides where the, you know, the sea is churning now. And for older generations it was very much that it was the authoritarian. It was the I'm going to tell you what to do. You're going to do it. And now we as a society realize that, you know, so many people, it's like, I have more options. I don't have to. I'm entitled to more, not from an entitlement point of view, but I have agency over my life.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:19:16) - I don't have to put myself in such a negative relationship. I can actually have some free will. I can engage in it or not. And I think now that forces what you just brought up as a requirement in your relationship, working with people that should not be viewed differently from myself as a leader, working with anyone else, it's I have to have that presence. I have to understand who they are as a person, what they're going through, what their pain points are, what discomfort they're trying to navigate and feel through. And if we can have that conversation, then we can go somewhere together and their opportunity to go beyond that then happened because of that. Yes.
Susan Freeman (00:20:02) - Yes. Very well said. Absolutely.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:20:05) - So. For those that obviously haven't maybe read the book yet, which just came out. Um, where did this start for you? I'd love for you, you know, to to say, all right, where did this aha moment come for you? Yeah.
Susan Freeman (00:20:19) - So, I mean, I talk about this in the preface of the book, but it came about as an organic response to a really powerful discovery in the journey of healing my own body.
Susan Freeman (00:20:30) - I have been thinking deeply about yogic concepts for over a decade and how this all came about. But like many things that happen, you said it kind of struck you. It was quite serendipitous. You know, I had 23 years ago, a scale in a grocery store fell on my foot and I broke one of my I broke one of my. Not a toe, but a bone in my foot and bone in my foot. And I developed severe burning pain. And as a result of this, I had developed what's called complex regional pain syndrome. And it was sort of a malfunctioning of the nervous system. What makes this important is that I did not understand at the time that our bodies are governed by two parts, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. And what happened is with the pain syndrome that I developed is when my when my foot healed physically, my sympathetic nervous system continued to misfire. So it sent these signals to my foot as if I still had just had the injury. So I had this horrific burning pain in my foot that was.
Susan Freeman (00:21:40) - Horrible and excruciating. And I went to many, many, many physicians and healers and people to get relief. And they did everything they could. But the Western medical model basically had not much to offer me, and I knew I had to figure it out on my own. But at this point, I was working as an executive coach, and I was helping people grow and succeed as senior level leaders. And I had had a yoga practice. And so I knew that one of the most important parts about yoga was learning to use the body to get into the poses. But what we don't always appreciate is that yoga is also a system of using the poses to get into the body. And we just talked about that when things become uncomfortable on the mat, no matter how intense they are, we can become an observer. So what I started thinking about is, hm, I wonder if I could learn what I used on the yoga mat and become an observer of my pain. And so I wanted to learn how to detach from the experience of the pain.
Susan Freeman (00:22:40) - The story I made about the pain. ET cetera. So that I could better cope with it. And I had learned to become really the witness of my pain over a period of years. And I used this experience to discover that I was not the discomfort. I was the witness of the discomfort, and I was separate from the discomfort. And that was the game changer. So the pain didn't disappear. But over a period of time, I began studying yogic philosophy and I continued my practice. And what I learned is that when I could activate my parasympathetic nervous system in yoga, I could mediate the impact that the pain was having on my body. And after seven years, I was able to return to walking, hiking, even ballroom dancing things I could have never imagined after my initial injury. And I was surprised and of course, relieved. And I realized I had discovered a true miracle. So at that time, I'd been working as an executive coach, and and I didn't anticipate that those two paths would actually begin to merge.
Susan Freeman (00:23:50) - So what I started doing is listening to my clients, because in my traditional coach training, of course, none of this had ever applied or had been systematized. But I began hearing people differently, and I became curious about what they were suffering with. And I started learning how the discomfort that my clients were experience experiencing could parallel some of the things that I had been learning on the yoga mat. So early on, I started being able to ask them questions because I had trust, and I got permission to try these experiments in some of my early sessions. And so they would routinely express things to me like, I'm having a difficult business decision. I have this challenging conversation, I have a conflicted relationship, I have overwhelm, I have chronic stress, everything. So I started to summon up my own courage and say, can we try something? And what I discovered was that little by little, the clients were not only enjoying what they were learning from these experiments, they were actually calling me and requesting them from all over.
Susan Freeman (00:24:57) - So I began to refine my hypothesis on my understanding into the realm of business. And the book really offers this practical, linear, sequential Western model that is understandable to people who've never been on a yoga mat. And it was written for people who may never go on a yoga mat. It's not a requirement now. What I want to say is that those who do go on yoga mats will experience a much, much deeper and quicker journey than those who don't. And I've written the book with lots of practices and exercises for folks to try to get a lot of value without going on the mat themselves.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:25:40) - All right. In the middle of this conversation, I just want to take a moment to invite you. If you're not a subscriber to the Impact Driven Leader newsletter, to go to the impact Driven leader backslash free course, you're going to get the four days to Maximum Impact video series as well. Submit you into my email smear where you can learn more about the impact Driven leader community. So now back to the rest of the episode.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:26:10) - I think really the, the great impetus of that is if it's yoga, phenomenal. If it is something where you meditate, you know, something to force yourself to slow down and slow down and then use all of the the tools of going through yoga to deal with the discomfort, to be in this situation, to understand and and make that mind body connection. And again, when we look at that from any type of leadership or executive role, life role, when you're serving others in some capacity, you're going to be faced with it. And it's how do you deal with it? Do you manifest it to the point where yourself and again, that pain was a manifestation of, you know, your your nervous system telling you, hey, there's pain here. But obviously the difficulty was there like, well, we can't pinpoint anything, right? And so it's like you had to get over that figure it out on your own. And I think that's what's so damaging in relationships. Relationships just between, you know, spouses, relationships between parents and children.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:27:22) - Relationships in the workplace is. I don't think we take the time to separate past from current. And you describe this in the book. It's, you know, let go of those stories and just read the situation for what it is. And that's part of presence and being there and maybe the past could, you know, have some reference here, but likely not. And so instead of saying, well, it's going to be, you say, all right, well, let me just observe the entire situation. Let me ask some questions here. And one of the things that I've learned, and I imagine you see this with your clients, the leaders who do the best at asking questions. Are probably the most present. Absolutely most relieved. Yeah, they're relieved and they also come to better solutions. Instead of thinking I need to be the rainmaker that makes everything happen.
Susan Freeman (00:28:23) - Yes, it's not about you. It's about other people joining in and being invited to put in their best collaborative selves, which they can only do if they feel invited, if they feel trust, if they feel safe.
Susan Freeman (00:28:41) - There has to be psychological safety. So all of those components have to be have to be part of this conversation. And I wanted to just reference something that you said earlier about sort of being present this idea in the third chapter of the book, Letting Go, which is really sort of the pivotal chapter where things start to sort of take off for many people is really about the reactive part of us and how our brains and bodies are have accumulated these blocks over our life history and these blockages are completely subconscious. We have no awareness of them. They're stored in our brains and bodies as memories. And when something that's happening in the present moment actually reminds us of something that happened in a previous instance, what happens is we start to have a sensation in our body. We that usually the bodily sensations will come first, or possibly at the same time as the emotions. And then we're off into what we often call amygdala hijack, which means we have actually left, because now we have been hijacked by the amygdala and we're in a reactive mode.
Susan Freeman (00:29:53) - We cannot consciously respond and we are not present. So letting go refers to any process that helps us release the binds that keep us tied to these reactive patterns from the past. So from a yogic perspective, when we are on the mat, we are experiencing that discomfort and we're in this moment, not in all the other moments in our lives when we experienced pain and discomfort. We are just in this moment. So the more times we can have this experience of being in our bodies and experiencing the discomfort now and not making up a story about it hurt last week. It hurt. Yesterday, 15 years ago, I got really hurt doing something right. That is going to provoke more reactive thinking. Now, from a leadership perspective, what often happens is you're in a meeting and. You're in a meeting with a lot of other people, things are going really well. There's a terrific conversation going on, and then someone says something and another person reacts. And everybody sitting around the table going, what just happened? We were just doing great.
Susan Freeman (00:30:59) - And now there's tension. There's voices are raised. There are people are starting to get physically tense. Right. What's happened? Someone has just become triggered. So someone said something that pushed a button of another person in that room, not having any knowledge that that person had a button. And now here we are in a conflict. So how are we going to get out of that? We're not going to want to stay in a conflicted conversation because no good is going to come of it. So what we have to do is we have to back up, and we have to center ourselves first, because the only person we can control is us. Never, ever, ever can we control another person? So what I often share with clients is when you back it up and you ground yourself and you become physically and emotionally and mentally aware of where you are right now and become curious, oh, isn't this interesting? I notice something is happening right now and we are having a reaction. That. Just that and letting out a deep exhale can start to clear it and allow your brain and body and emotional state to begin to recalibrate.
Susan Freeman (00:32:15) - And make a different choice. And without doing that, things will deteriorate quite rapidly.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:32:22) - You think the the peace there that I've also think about is when you do that for yourself. And then you go through that process and you start looking around and observing others, and you can quickly say, okay, how do I diffuse this? You know, there's a leadership adage that I've heard that you either bring a bucket of gasoline or a bucket of water. In that moment, I am, you know, presently to kind of play this out. I'm present, all right. I know in my left I have a bucket of water, am I right? I have a bucket of gasoline. Now am I going? I have those buckets. I have that control of myself. Am I going to just throw a bucket because I'm not sure? Or am I going to say no, I'm going to put water on this. I'm going to do things that, you know, just kind of like help bring everyone else because I'm there and I can help encourage and influence that.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:33:13) - And the more that I create that state of awareness or comfort within the discomfort, you know, to be that that lighthouse in the storm per se. I think what I've heard from you and I've seen myself, man, it's pretty impactful because then everyone else can, like, almost does that themselves if they're not trained that way. And you can start moving towards that resolution, that that lack of conflict place where you can almost have start having that discussion when second ago it seemed like it was going to be an all out war.
Susan Freeman (00:33:50) - Yeah, very well said. It's really this idea of be the change that you wish to see. Yeah. Don't wait for someone else to do it. Clear your own energy first before you speak. And note that you always have a choice. You always have a choice. What you do with that moment, you know your first reaction is free. What you do with the moment after the reaction is what's interesting. Yeah.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:34:19) - Yeah. One thing that, you know, we've talked about here now is, is really taking the time to integrate the either the principles themselves of yoga or actual yoga itself into your life.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:34:33) - So those that you work with and so many people that come to you, it's like, oh, that's great, Susan, I don't have time for that. Right. What do you say to them? How do you encourage them?
Susan Freeman (00:34:43) - I never tell anybody what to do. So it is it is has to come from inside of them. So what I do is I will introduce some of the types of exercises and practices in the book to just give them a taste and allow them to have an experience in their office chair and experience in their home chairs experience before they go to bed at night, giving them lots of different ways to access information. And if they become curious and some of them do, some of them do, they will say, you know, I think I would really like to try yoga. Then I will suggest that, know here's what I would invite you to look for and consider when choosing a type of studio and a type of teacher. Right. These are the things that I would consider to be important.
Susan Freeman (00:35:31) - But as I said, many of my clients will not actually get on mats and I wouldn't ask them to do so. I have been able to teach these principles and all of the case histories in the book, with people, most of whom have never been on a mat.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:35:45) - The lesson there is, I think. Start small. Start small. Just start.
Susan Freeman (00:35:50) - Big changes come from intentionality to create a shift. And the inner switch is not something that will happen after reading this book, I can assure you of that. I have been working on this path for over 25 years, so you're not going to create an inner switch just by reading? An inner switch is requiring a an embodied, consistent practice. And it will happen if you intend for it to happen. If you decide that it's important enough for you and you take the small baby steps day and day in and day out with consistency and self compassion. The inner switch will take place. There's no. No other way.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:36:39) - Yeah. And I think, you know, going back to, um, not that it needs to be the way of the future and not to, you know, confuse that, but the idea that as a society, we're because of so much confusion and distraction.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:36:58) - And you talk about detachment within the book, we're all asking for more people to be present. And the only way to be present is to find a way to take all those other things that don't really matter in this moment and shut them off. And, you know, you make a comment, which I fully agree that, you know, presence is what's demanded of leaders. You write it as presence is the most valuable leadership gift we have to offer. I believe that entirely true. And then you go on to say and share that, you know, it's the integration of all this. It's the integration of our presence with others, that connectedness that actually helps us lead. And I think that's what a generation is asking for, is instead of being in, you know, the corner office where I just am told something I want to know, it comes back to that trust piece that you shared. And, you know, I've been this you go into a yoga studio, you go into any environment and you're like, I'm not really sure.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:37:59) - I'm not really comfortable. The first time may be awkward, but if you're willing to go back into it and if there is that trust that was developed, say, hey, just come as you are. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to be a master at this. I think if you can apply those leadership, those philosophies and leadership, man, people are going to achieve way more.
Susan Freeman (00:38:21) - Yeah. Beautifully said. Really, I completely concur with you. And I think we're aligned. I mean, the world is. Begging for us to find new ways. And so I believe that the system that I'm sharing is a way to help people learn that all the stuff that you say and do and offer them is not going to land. If you haven't developed the capacity to hold space for presence and for real listening, for asking great questions, and for sharing what is really important in the conversation, which is that the connection be maintained no matter what. We don't want to leave a conversation with a disconnect, right? Even if we don't get what we wanted, even if the other person doesn't get what they wanted, that's okay.
Susan Freeman (00:39:14) - We can disagree. But what's really important is that we maintain that human connection which comes from I see you, I hear you, and we may not in this moment find a way to agree or come together. And that's okay. We're going to keep talking.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:39:31) - Yeah. And I think from that then then actual beneficial decisions can be made to say, oh, do we further walk together or do we decide that, hey, we need to walk apart, but it's made in a manner that is healthy and productive for each instead of at a tension point. Well, I'm going, they're not with me, so I have to walk away. You talk about that in in regards to balance. And I think almost layering into that, that polarity say, hey, I have to appreciate, you know, magnet it has two poles. They're complete opposites. You put them together. But a magnet in self as whole. And I kind of view that that polarity concept is you can have that as long as you're not opposing each other, as long as you're not trying to, you know, really attack each other.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:40:18) - Man, it's very beneficial to have some of that polarity because I think through this presence, it's only when you're aware of that. You know, can you have true awareness? Meaning, if I'm so fixated, it has to be this way. I can't see any other way. Well, then that's not awareness. Well, but if you understand, hey.
Susan Freeman (00:40:41) - You're not open to what is happening and unfolding in front of you. You've already made the decision that you have the cards, that you're right and you're the one that needs to be followed. So there's no space. And we started our conversation talking about this. There's no space for other people to walk into that circle. It's about me, I want this, I'm going to get this.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:41:06) - Not yeah, and I'll do whatever.
Susan Freeman (00:41:08) - I'll do whatever to get it. Not that I have this vision. What is your vision? What's important to you? Where do you want to go? How can we work together to make this possible? What can you do? What can I do? What can we do? Right now you're moving forward collaboratively and creatively.
Susan Freeman (00:41:26) - The other way is. Comes from reactivity. And so that isn't going to get the results. And I think that's what so many people in the world today of work are saying. We're just done with this reactivity stuff. We're done with this directive style. We're done with being told this is how it's going to be, and this is how we're going to be because it doesn't resonate with us. And by the way, it's making us sick anyway. So we're just done. And I think that this, you know, the times that we are living in, I think the pandemic really accelerated. I think we were headed there. But the pandemic just gave us a chance to have a clean moment, to say, we're going to all hit the pause button for a period of years, and we're going to get to experience a completely different way of working. And we'll see. And there are many of us who made such permanent, lasting shifts during that time period. Not only do we not want to go back, I mean, not only do we not want to repeat it, we don't want to go back and we never want to go back and then we look with curiosity at the people who say, well, let's just get back to the way it was.
Susan Freeman (00:42:33) - And we're like, huh, why would we want to do that? That was so broken. What have you missed that was so broken?
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:42:39) - Well, and I think, you know, the one word that you you shared there that I hung on is directive ness with connection and collaboration is absolutely required. Directive. This is. This is my way. There is no other way. There's no collective ness. You come to my path will not work. But the directive ness to say, hey, okay, can we both align to this? Yes, we're both aligned. Great. That's where we're going to go. And I think that is such a clarity of vision that is required. Because if you don't have that clarity of vision and that directness, people are still lost. Well, and so I think just.
Susan Freeman (00:43:22) - No, no, I just wanted to say that one of the biggest challenges that I see in people, even people who lead at the very highest levels, is they're very clear within their own minds of where they're headed.
Susan Freeman (00:43:31) - There's usually never a concern. What I do see, however, is that they have difficulty ensuring that everyone else has the clarity that they have. So I often will say to them, when we start working together, we need to begin at the very beginning, which is building the blocks of getting alignment. And alignment means you got to get everything out of your head onto the template. The piece of paper that I'm going to give you today to dump it. And what I've seen is that many, many people really struggle with being clear when they have to articulate in writing, what is the vision? What is it that we stand for? What are our key values? What are the most important three things we have to accomplish in the next six months? And because they can't articulate it and they haven't communicated it and had it embraced, everyone below them and around them is scrambling, trying to figure out what is it that they really do want. And so from a strategic perspective, we have to match what it is that we're doing with our inner work, with what needs to happen organizationally and from a team alignment perspective.
Susan Freeman (00:44:42) - And those conversations cannot take place in an environment where there is not this level of collaborative co-creative communication, integration and presence.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:44:55) - Yeah. And that that all comes through clarity. And that clarity has to be in a community that that embraces that. And the only way to embrace that is to be curious and want it. And that's going to bring clarity. But if we were afraid and we choose ambiguity, then it's going to be continued. Confusion and clarity is is healthy. And especially when you allow people to say, hey, that doesn't fit for me. Okay, no problem. Great. That's okay. I'd rather that than me. Try to just be ambiguous and hope you stay, but then you're really not sure why you're here. I think that comes back to a lot of the you can be in a on a yoga mat, and you could be kind of doing the movements, but if you're not really spending time in it, then you're not getting the benefit.
Susan Freeman (00:45:47) - Yeah, know. Very well said.
Susan Freeman (00:45:48) - I mean, one of the things that we do organizationally is we get everybody around a table and we actually have the conversation, like we'll share what the draft of the vision is, we'll share what the draft of the organization are. But then we break everybody into groups and we let them hash it out because it's in the hashing it out and the questioning and the curiosity and the conversations where people say, is it really this? Or it's this, but not that. And that's when they're building their consensus of what they want to embrace and what they want to sign on to and what they want to run with and why they want to get out of bed in the morning. So it's really important that these two worlds really combine, I think blend.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:46:31) - Yeah. Well, Susan, thank you so much. Such a fun book to read. And and again, get it. Think about all of this in a different perspective. I appreciate that. Again thank you so much for joining me and sharing that.
Susan Freeman (00:46:47) - It's been great speaking with you today Tyler. Thank you. Thank you.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:47:03) - Again to repeat as I shared in the open. So many challenges that we deal with leaders is worse because of the functional system that we have to deal with it. Well, Susan put together and she shares in her book The Seven Key Principles. I'm going to go through it right now. Be open. Go beyond your habit. Number two, learn. Reorient your focus. Number three, let go. Explore your edges. Get beyond it. Drop in. It's obviously a a yoga term. It means just shift from doing to non doing. Just settle, then integrate. Live with intention, be in the moment, connect, create real communication for leaders, but that's also for your body. And then illuminate. Become an inner switch leader. Those are the the seven principles. And I think when we focus on those as a system, how are you being open? What are you doing to learn? Are you just letting go? It's actually goes to my five hours of mindset.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:48:05) - Then it's drop in just. Go from doing to non doing. Just observe, watch, integrate. Live with intention. Connect, focus on that connection and then illuminate. And I'm thankful that you're here today. I'm thankful this conversation with Susan, I hope you got a lot from this episode. As always, you can listen to it wherever you listen on podcast. If you want to watch on YouTube, if you subscribe to YouTube, thank you so much. There's also a lot that I shared during the week, whether it's about these episodes or just other content. And lastly, as always, invite you to be a part of the impact driven leader community where we have a book club, we have a roundtable where we have a support system to help leaders through processes just like this, to be able to deal with the challenges of leading. We all need it, including myself. I've had to deal with it recently, and I'm thankful for examples such as Susan that give us the functional pathway to work through it.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:49:02) - Sometimes we're on top of it. Like she has shared great about being in the routine of human yoga, and other times it's knowing I need to do more of that because that's when I'm at my best. Thanks for being here and as always, have a good one.
