Unlocking Your Leadership Energy

Valerie Friedlander 0:00
Hello, my friends, and welcome to another episode of Mindset unlimited today, we are talking about unlocking your leadership energy, how to shift from stress response to intentional action. And we’re talking about this because we’re in a period of time where being able to step into our leadership ability is key, whether you want to be a leader or not, being able to lead in the world, in your own life, your your way, is really important. And as I talked about in the last episode with Amy pons, we were sharing a little bit about how our brains like patterns. You’ve heard me say this a lot, and because of that, when we experience a stressor, our brains go, Oh, here’s this tool to use, because it’s trying to help us trying to reduce the amount of energy we need to expend so that we have more energy to address the potential danger, ie, the stressor, and unfortunately, the tool that it hands us is the tool that we’re most familiar with, which is not necessarily the tool that we want to be using, and especially in a period like the one we’re in, we need to be able to have as much as we can to create something new and yet uncertainty, even if we know that this is uncertainty that’s always been there, yet it is feeling bigger. Uncertainty creates stress, and we are more likely to fall back into the patterns that have created and recreated what we currently know. So we want to talk about, what can you do about that? I have a tool that I really love that I want to share with you back, way back the beginning of this podcast. I have a whole episode where I really dig deep into the Eli and I had a wonderful person recently volunteer to share their Eli debrief experience through the podcast. So this is kind of a precursor to that. But I also wanted to make sure that not only are you going to get from that episode insights from listening to her walk through that process, but also some tips tools that you can use, whether you do the ELI or not. Now I will little hint here is that I am offering a major discount on the ELI right now. I’ll have more about that at the end. But if it sounds like something you might want, I think it’s such an important tool for where we’re at right now to have that understanding of ourselves, because we can’t prepare for all circumstances. We can’t go, okay, when this happens, then I’ll do this. And if this happens, then I’ll do that. There are some things we can do that with, but there’s a lot that we just aren’t gonna know ahead. And so when we have an understanding of our general self and the patterns that are present that are helping us do what we’re trying to do, and that tend to interrupt that and pull us back into our usual patterns, the ones that we might call self sabotage. Well, we want to be able to engage that. And this is a way that we can kind of do that more generally, that it kind of works in all scenarios. So I wanted to make sure that you have some of some of this for you as you move forward, regardless. So what we’re going to be talking about is why, understanding your energy patterns is key to responding rather than reacting in high stress situations, or just stress situations, they don’t have to be high stress. It’s it comes up in these like times where, like, why? So we’ll get more into that. But how the ELI differs from personality tests and provides actionable insights for leadership and resilience definitely needed some of that resilience, the seven levels of energy and how they shape your communication and your decision making and practical steps to start shifting your energy today, even if you don’t take the assessment. So now I’m going to share a little promo for one of my fellow podcasters, because I really want to start shouting those folks out, because there’s some amazing people doing amazing podcasts out there. So little shout out. And then, without further ado, we’ll get started

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Valerie Friedlander 5:25
The way we perceive situations influences how we engage them, and ultimately what we’re creating in our lives. This is about leadership. It’s how we lead our lives. So whether you are someone in a position of leadership, or whether you are just doing life we lead other people, because how we lead our life influences other people. Like it or not, that’s just how it is, and it’s not to say that we manifest everything that comes into our life. I really want to be clear about that there are plenty of things that we did not create, and our perception still influences the dynamics between us and those things, it influences how we engage them. So basically, at the root of it, it’s about relationships, how we relate to ourselves, to our life, to other people, to situations. And because brains like patterns, we build up a story, we build up a history about these certain situations, and go, Oh, this means this. This means that this equates to this. And most of that’s happening in our subconscious. 95% of that is happening in our subconscious. We don’t even see it. So I work with a lot of very self aware people most of the time, as I mentioned with Amy last episode, they’re self aware enough to beat themselves up with that self awareness, oh, I shouldn’t do this. Oh, I shouldn’t do that. The problem that happens is that people have a self awareness, but they don’t have an understanding of what to do with it. There’s like, the surface of, this is the right thing, this is the wrong thing. And now, of course, we have a binary, and then our stress response gets activated and we’re not acting in alignment with what we want to create. So we’re like, oh, I’m out of alignment, and now I’m even further out of alignment. What I like about the ELI is that it helps get to a root of those dynamics. So rather than going this specific thing is wrong or this specific thing is right, or this specific thing, whatever, it helps understand, oh, this is the pattern. This is the perception. So the example I usually give has to do with colors, which is, if you have all these experiences where this green thing has been dangerous, right? Slime, whatever, and you’re like, oh, green. You see something green, and you’re like, Ah, I want to get away from that. Whatever your stress response is, whether it is fight, flight, freeze, whatever, you’re like, oh, beef, if you know that your lens has developed into being kind of blue tinted. Then you could go, Oh, I’m seeing that green thing. I’m having this reaction to it. But how green is it really? What if it were yellow? What would I do differently if it were yellow? How interested Am I in finding out if it’s yellow? And if I am, what could I try to explore in a way that feels safe for me how yellow it might be? So what it does is it gives some curiosity. It’s like it infuses curiosity and infuses expansiveness, to be able to say, Oh, I know that my standard is this, level three. If that’s the case, then what would a level four look like? What might I want to explore related to that? What could I try now? So it works kind of like a tool, essentially a framework for understanding. And it’s not quite that simplistic, but it can be used in a very simple way. Now, I’ve been using this for about nine, almost 10 years now, wow, when I got trained as a coach, this was one of the things that I was also trained in, I did not realize when I signed up for my training. I don’t know if I’ve talked about my history with this, maybe I will do that at some point, not this episode, but I didn’t realize. And then we got to the section where we were learning this and getting certified to administer it, and I was like, whoa. This is so. Cool, and I’ve been using it with clients ever since, and they all love it, whether they do it as just a one off session or whether it’s the first start of a coaching package. It’s really powerful because it allows us to engage the energy behind the actions and behind the experience, instead of just the specifics themselves, which means that we can carry it forward regardless. So it essentially infuses a level of resiliency that we couldn’t do if we were only solving for particular situations while we are engaging particular situations. It allows for those to be applicable in any kind of scenario. It also allows for a deeper understanding when dealing with other people of the dynamics that are at play, because it is a dynamic experience. So I will quickly share some of the reasons people say they want to do this assessment, and what they say when they sign up originally, it has to do with having deep insights into myself, to understand what’s blocking my goal achievement, and to be able to stop repeating old stories in my life, to figure out how to get out of feeling stuck and be less stressed, or at least get out of the stress mode faster, and be able to work in a way that is sustainable. Self awareness and clarity around where to direct my energy. Stop making excuses and feel more empowered to take action. Understand why I keep getting the same things. Stop getting frustrated and overwhelmed and learn to respond better. Stop taking things personally that I know I shouldn’t and feel more confident in my choices I how to be a better leader for my team and be more present in my life. Get out of survival mode. I have all this knowledge, but then things don’t work out the way I expect, and people don’t react the way I expect. Understand why I keep self sabotaging and be more confident and fulfilled in life, understand how I’m coming across to others, and live life more proactively. I’ll share what people actually say they’ve gotten out of it in a moment. But what I want to highlight within this is that a lot of times these folks have done personality assessments, which can be really great in affirming certain experiences that it’s not just you. It can also be really helpful to recognize that other people experience things differently than you. So like, when we say personality type this, personality type that, and like, oh, then you can have more understanding, more empathy, perhaps, for someone who might be showing up a little bit differently to a situation. And while that can be helpful, and I’ve talked about this with like, the love languages and that sort of thing, it can also lead to people putting themselves into boxes. So, oh, I’m just this person, or I’m just that person, oh, I’m a people pleaser, oh, I’m an introvert, oh, I’m an Enneagram eight I’m whatever it is. And again, I don’t want to say that any of those things are wrong or bad, because they’re not. They can be really helpful again, in understanding yourself and honoring what you need and what works for you. And when we put ourselves into a box around it and say, Well, this is just who I am. It limits what we think we have access to. It limits our potential to do something different if something isn’t working for us. And then when we do that, when we create a limit for ourselves like that, then we place the responsibility on somebody else to change, and that’s when our attention goes outward into things that we can’t control, instead of looking at what we do. Have power over where we can make choices which are ourselves. So when we put those boxes around who we are and who we can be in the way we can be in the way we can show up. We lose power, and then again, it’s on other people or on situations, and we’ve handed our power over to other things in a time like this, where it is so important that we own as much of our power is that we can to be able to say, Well, what do I want to do with that? Or who do I want to grow to be? I loved Amy in the last episode, herphrase of what is my favorite version of myself, like I want to. I become my favorite version of myself, and that can be an ever evolving process. What I like about the ELI as a tool, as far as assessments go, is that it isn’t static, it is dynamic, so it allows us to understand a dynamic that’s present in our life that has to do with what’s going on in our life right now, instead of this is who I am, this is the way I am. It will always be like that. The one thing that I struggle with, and I always share this when I’m doing a debrief with someone, is about how the framework is done in levels of energy, so you have level one through seven. I struggle a little bit with this because of the way our brains tend to see hierarchies. We’ve got a lot of conditioning around hierarchies. So we tend to think that the lower numbers, right? Are less than are lower in terms of not as good, and the higher numbers are better. So I always emphasize that that’s not the case, but it’s hard, because those lower levels, or what I will say is the more constricted levels aren’t comfortable. Those are the stress response, and they’re very important. So this is where we need to take a look at like stress isn’t bad in and of itself. It is there for a reason. So having a tool that allows it to be well, we’re just trying to understand the reason. We’re not trying to say that this is wrong. We just want to know what’s happening. Because when we can understand what’s happening, then we can engage it and decide what to do with it when we have choice. Ultimately, what all of this is is about choice, and choice is where our power is. So being able to go, Oh, I’ve got a lot of stress going on. That’s, yeah, that’s great. And how is that working for you? Where is it working? What is it doing? How is it trying to help you, because ultimately, we have a stress response as a way to try and help us. So understanding this is what’s going on, and here are the levels that are helping you do the things you might find that you have higher levels that are actually creating more obstacle in connection because of various factors of the other people that you’re navigating life with, or whatever is, there’s disconnection that can happen. So being able to just understand what the picture is, instead of going this is good, this is bad, this is greater, this is lesser. I want more higher and less lower, all that stuff, really, the more access to the higher levels, as it were, mostly means that you have access there. If you have less there, then you have less access there. And so then you get to decide, well, how is that working for you? What do you want to do with that? So let’s talk a little bit about the levels themselves. I have a whole episode where I deep dive into the levels. So we’re not going to spend a whole lot of time on this, because if you want to, like, really dig in that episode that I did way back at the beginning of this podcast. I cannot believe that it’s been five seasons, but way back then, I did this episode about your more than your personality test. And so I will link that in the show notes if you want a really deep dive into the levels to use. Because, honestly, having an understanding of these levels, you can utilize them like you may look at them and go, oh yeah, no, I see that one. The benefit with the debrief part to like, actually take it yourself. You’ll see your own patterns. And then we work together to go through it. We spend 90 minutes really digging in to make sure that you understand what the patterns are that are showing up for you, the ones that are working for you when life’s going as it normally does for you, and the ones that are working when you’re in stress, and how they relate to each other. So we really dig in. And I mean, I spend about an hour ahead of time, going through and really looking at everything, pulling things forward so that we can make the most of our time together on that so very helpful to dig in, but the framework itself is something that you can absolutely use without having done the assessment. Yeah. So let’s just do a really quick overview. And if you want to follow along, on my Eli page, there’s a little chart, but you know what? I’ll put it in the blog post to the picture of the circle chart is what I call it, for the energy leadership index. So you can follow along if you want. Okay, so let’s dig into what the levels are. Just real briefly I will have in the blog post the circle chart, which is the energy leadership index. And you can also, of course, look at the page that I have for the energy leadership index assessment, where I have a little example of what the report looks like. So in the center, and I think of this kind of like a lens, like, if you think of like a camera lens that expands and contracts, that’s essentially how this works. So that that’s why the circle makes a lot of sense. So in the center of that is what we call the circle of self. This is all catabolic energy. And I didn’t explain catabolic energy in anabolic energy. So catabolic energy is breaking down energy. Anabolic energy is creating energy. So just super simple, again, I go into way more detail in that other episode, but breaking down energy can be very important as can be building creating energy in that circle in the center is the circle of self. You might think of it like ego, but that that gets a little complicated into other things. But this is your self protection. So this is defense mode, armor on protect oneself. Very, very center is the most constricted energy. So this is level one, and the core thought in level one is, I’m wrong. Something’s happening to me, self doubt, guilt, all that sort of stuff. The main feeling is just crappy, fear, overwhelm. This is where you’re avoiding indecisive in action. When we move up from that, we’re in the fight response. Essentially, this is like, You’re wrong. So one is I’m wrong. Two is you’re wrong. So there’s this need to be right. Things are good and bad. There’s conflict, frustration, anger, resentment, and the actions tend to be to fight, to argue. There’s lack of trust, there’s force, push. So you might experience this with yourself. You might experience this with someone else. Level one is usually where it’s coming at ourselves, but I will highlight here that all of the energies are all present all the time, just in different amounts. So it’s not like you either have one or the other. I’m separating them out so that you have an understanding of them, but it’s not one of the other. Again, that other episode, I talk a little bit more about the interactions between the levels and how they might show up in combination, which they do, which is why we do the debrief. Anyway. When we move up to level three, we head into a circle of self mastery. This is where we’re releasing some of that catabolic energy, but it’s still there. So it’s kind of it’s a little bit of a slippery slope, like level three feels a lot better than one and two, but it can be hard to sustain. It takes a lot of energy. I think of level three as, like the I’m making lemonade out of lemons, but I really don’t like lemons, but lemonade is okay. I can do lemonade and I have sugar. You run out of sugar. You’re in one or two, we’re done. So level three, you do you, I’ll do me. You can rationalize it. You take responsibility, accept, forgive, and you’re able to make compromises. You’re able to tolerate. I want to highlight real quick because I didn’t before, but I do like to show where some of these levels can be beneficial, even when we’re like, oh, that’s so bad. Being a victim is crappy. Well, yeah, it doesn’t feel good. But if you actually are a victim, then level one makes a lot of sense. So it’s not bad to be in level one if you are sick, if you need someone to care for you, if things are happening to you, level one makes a lot of sense. If you’re overwhelmed, there is too much to hold. Level one makes a lot of sense. Doesn’t mean we want to stay there, and that’s part of the idea of having a tool like this is to be able to understand the dynamics, so that if it is accessible to do something different, then you can activate that. Or maybe you can go, Oh, I’m in level one, but it’s okay that I need to ask for help, and we can give some grace around that, instead of beating ourselves up around that. And then. Just exacerbating level one, so that awareness is important. Level two, you can get a lot done that way. It’s just that in the process, things may be missed or there might be some harm to some relationships when that energy is utilized without maybe some guardrails or some supports around it when it’s just used by itself. You see a lot of level two, I mean that that one’s pretty predominant in the US right now, so you’re probably very familiar with that, and we have a reaction to that. This, actually, I really want to highlight here. I know I haven’t got it to the other levels, but level two is a dominant level in our society right now. That’s you lose. You’re wrong. That level tends to activate level one, which is overwhelm and shutting down, or level three, I can rationalize, I can release, but it depends on how much our capacity is, whether we can use level three or not. Level one is not going to help us right now. So this is one of the big reasons why I want to engage this right now. And I think this understanding is so critical right now is because with level two being the dominant, if we want to change that, we can’t be showing up with level one. That won’t work for us. So I’m not saying level one’s bad. It makes sense. We need to care for that, and we need to make sure that we’re doing what we can so we’re not staying there so that we can lead more effectively. I wish I thought of that earlier, because I would have put it earlier in this episode, but here we are. So level four, I want to help you concern about other people. I feel for you, compassion, people pleasing can show up here, and one and four tend to combined to create a lot of the codependency people pleasing that like I’m over giving and then I’m depleted. So that sort of stuff can happen with level four. I work with a lot of people who are navigating those dynamics. So that’s a big one level five. I see opportunities. I can reconcile, I can balance the books. I can see a win for everybody, including myself. I understand you. There’s calm here. We’re collaborative, acceptance, trust, things will work out. I don’t necessarily see what the answer is, but we’ll find it. It’ll happen level six. We’re moving into the circle of self transcendence. So this is I’m experiencing life, and that is the opportunity. You’re tapped into intuition. We’re in synergy. We’re experiencing the now there’s a sense I am, you, Joy, inspiration, connection, flow. We’re looking at the big picture. We’re present and connected. Level seven is like this is one we might tap into, but we don’t stay here. My game of life and its rules are created by me, completely non judgmental. We are the same. We’re in passion, fearless, unconditional love, creation, being vision, as Amy said the last time, like knowing that unlimitedness is one thing, but then being in the human experience is another. So this is why I really emphasize it’s not like the higher levels are better levels. I think of them as more expansive viewpoint, but that’s not necessarily going to help us in certain instances. So it’s about access and choice. I’m going to share a couple of the testimonials that people have shared. I shared why they signed up. This is what they’ve experienced when they’ve done the assessment and when they’ve utilized this as a tool. The ELI investment was one of the best personal development investments I’ve ever made. Suddenly, I had this deeper sense of understanding of the sources of frustration, motivation and accomplishment in my life, Valerie has this uncanny ability of quickly knowing exactly who you are and encouraging you to take ownership of your mindset. After taking the ELI, I’ve been able to be more proactive with my reactions and mindset and been able to seek more positive outcomes. The information I gained has not only helped me on a personal level, but has shaped the way I’m growing my business. The ELI assessment Valerie administered was amazing. It was like she knew me for years and I had only just met her. I quickly became aware of the things I was doing and how they were impacting my life. Something that I uncovered in our meeting had me take action to alter the course of my career. I. I did the ELI with Valerie yesterday. What an eye opening experience. This assessment was incredibly accurate, and Valerie offered great insights while helping me connect the dots on a lot of things. The ELI assessment was mind blowing. I think in that session alone, Valerie was able to get and understand me more than 95% of the people in my life. I loved how she was able to help me reprioritize my energy and recognize certain things that give me more energy and that stress is a real thing that can wear on you physically. Valerie makes a big impact in a short amount of time. In our call, I had several AHA and mind blowing moments. Valerie is fantastic to work with and provide so much value with her insights and energy assessment, one of the best investments I’ve made in myself and my business. I share all of that to highlight the impact, and I want you to know that it’s not just me who really finds this to be super valuable, if you like more businessy sort of stuff. Forbes actually has a thing talking about how helpful it is was one of the best assessments anywho the tool is so helpful, if you want to use it, I’m happy to chat with you like I said. I’m doing a sale on it. However, I know that’s not for everybody right now. I know that there’s a lot of factors to consider with that, so I want to make sure that you have this support to meet you where you’re at with this, first and foremost, recognizing that level two is our primary energy in our current society. So go listen to that podcast episode I did way back when to understand all these energy levels and how that’s showing up for you. So you can even check in and see what happens for me. What energy is showing up for me when I am showing up the way I want to show up. What are the dynamics at play? And when I’m in stress response, which energy tends to show up for me? And maybe even just noticing that. The other tool that I want to give you, alongside of this is actually one that’s in my free resources, and it’s tied to my stress release strategies, quiz and guide. So this tool is different than the ELI, obviously I made this one. This is all mine, but I made it because being able to understand what you need to care for your stress response is critical to being able to intentionally engage your stress response. So I have a podcast episode that talks about that, but also this guide has a little cheat sheet in it that walks you through a quick tool. I framed it a little differently in a webinar that I did a while back, and I called it the pinky process, so it’s not framed that way in this guide, but I’m going to give that to you in case you’re just listening in the car and you need something that you can hold on to and remember easily. So the pinky process is first to pause, take a breath. We’re not trying to figure anything out right now. We just noticed that we’re in the stress response. So we’re like, okay, just pause. Pause. Breathe, feel the body, get back into the moment, get back into the present, back into yourself. Then we’re going to check in Insight. That’s I so please pause. I is insight. Check in with yourself. What’s going on with you, what’s happening inside of you. What need do you have right now? So you know, are you hungry? Are you tired? Is there something additionally impacting your capacity and thus magnifying the sense of danger that your brain is picking up from whatever the situation is then and is noticing the narrative. What story are you telling about what’s happening in your body? Talked about this with Amy in the last episode, but we all tell stories about what’s happening. It’s not to say that those stories aren’t true. There might be something actually happening, and we tend to layer that with other stories. So what’s the narrative? Notice the narrative. That’s the end. Notice the narrative. What am I saying? Just to notice it, just to bring it forward. Because sometimes we have this narrative going and we’re not noticing it. It’s just there, and then it’s influencing our perception and our actions. And then k is, know what’s important, what matters to you? What are your values, what what is most important in this situation? And get curious about what you don’t know. So the knowing part, what do you know? What don’t you know? What. What could you do to find out more? So this is goes back to that green thing, right? Like, how green is it really what don’t I know that I am making an assumption about, and then you get to choose what you create. So this is what’s important to me. This is what I know. This is what I don’t know. This is what I’m going to do with what I don’t know. This is what I’m going to do with what I know, whether it’s knowing about something outside of myself or knowing about something inside of myself. So that tool is something you can just tap into, check in run through that checklist, pause, gather some insight in yourself. Notice the narrative, know what’s important and what you know and what you don’t know, and then you choose. So that’s Pinky. The ELI is a nice addition to layer onto that, because you can still use that process, and you will have a deeper understanding of the dynamics going on for you that are the patterns that are underneath all of these things, and then so you can utilize that tool of like, well, what would it look like if I looked At it through this level, I know this is my primary level, but if I tapped into my secondary level or my tertiary level, what would that look like? So that’s something we do in the debrief, is really dig into how do you use these other levels to support you in a different way? So this is what may be working. This is what may be not working so well, or this is how it’s working. These are how all the things are working. How do you feel about how those things are working? And how could we use some of what you like about what’s working to reduce some of what you don’t like about what’s working? And we can give you some actionable tactics, strategies to engage it so that you can be leading your life and directly or indirectly the people around you with that deeper understanding. Okay, if you have questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out and ask me. I’m happy to answer anything, whether it’s just sending you an email back or maybe we need to do another episode. That’s all good. I would love to hear from you. Definitely stay tuned for the next episode where you’ll get to hear an actual debrief and what that experience looks and sounds like thank you so much for joining me today, and I will talk to you all next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai