Amazon review summarizing my rating

Summary

Conscious leaders take radical responsibility, learn through curiosity, embrace emotions, speak candidly, eliminate gossip, practice integrity, generate appreciation, excel in their strengths, balance work with rest and play, question assumptions, adopt an abundance mindset, view challenges as growth opportunities, and focus on collaboration. Shift from blaming to finding solutions, embracing change and the potential for failure as part of growth.

“Our judgements about the world tell us a great deal about ourselves and very little about the world. They reveal something about our reactions, beliefs, listening filters, unconscious habits, or expectations.”

Key Takeaways

• 4 states of being: to me, by me, through me, as me

1. Radical responsibility: take full responsibility, avoid blame, victim mentality → proactive stance
2. Learn through curiosity: Learning, growing > being right. Feedback is always valuable
3. Feel all feelings: Embrace, process, release (> repress) emotions
4. Speak candidly: Reveal judgements / projections to be known, not correct
   • Judgments reveal more about oneself than others. Be curious
5. Eliminate gossip: Gossip is always harmful; address issues directly
6. Practice integrity: Make and keep clear agreements, don’t withhold info
7. Generate appreciation: give sincere, unarguable, specific, succinct gratitude
8. Excel in your zone of genius: operate in areas of natural strength and passion
9. Live a life of play & rest: Balance work with play, maintain energy and creativity
10. Question assumptions: Explore the opposite opinions and beliefs by reframing
11. Sourcing approval, control, security: You already have the 3 core needs
12. Abundance mindset: Mindset of sufficiency and abundance > scarcity
13. Growth mindset: All people and circumstances are opportunities for growth
14. Win-win mindset: Competition, compromise → collaboration
15. Be the resolution: Shift from blaming to finding solutions and addressing it

• Change: stepping into the unknown, accepting the possibility of failure

Notes

Two lives

• Unconscious vs conscious leader*
• “They keep their cards close to their vest because in this game, information is power, and influence comes from managing people by manipulating perception.”
• 1. only people who live the culture
• 2. only work with people who ++ energy
• 3. be a master delegator
• “Responsibility is something you take”, should never have to “hold” accountable

Leading from above the line

• Tell yourself the truth
• Threat to self, ego, identity
• Shifting: below → above the line
  • Closed → open, defensive → curious
• Yerkes-Dodson law: inverted U curve of arousal and performance on difficult tasks
• Context > content: “how are we talking about the content?”
• 4 states of being: (not stages)
• 1. To me: happening to me, reactive
  • Victim consciousness
  • “Why me?”
• 2. By me: creating with, causal, “should”
  • Creative consciousness
• 3. Through me: something beyond self, ego
  • Mission and purpose
  • ↑ listen for, not figure out
  • Surrender, letting go of control
• 4. As me: one consciousness
  • Me doesn’t exist at all
• 15 commitments:
  • 1-2 are essential to master
  • 3: emotional intelligence
  • 4-9: ways of being in the world
  • 10-12: world views
  • 13-14: new way of being in a relationship
  • 15: be the solution we want to see in the world

1: Taking radical responsibility

• Blaming self, other, or system
• Victim, victim, hero mentality: all bad
• 5 levels of motivation:
  1. Toxic fear: blame, shame, guilt
  2. Extrinsic motivation
  3. Intrinsic motivation
  4. Play, creativity, expressing genius
  5. Love
• Complete internal locus of control
• How can we fix this → what can we learn
• “I wonder what this is here to teach me about myself and life?”
• Benign → benevolent world: gratitude

2: Learning through curiosity

• 4 competencies of sustained success:
  1. Self-awareness:
  2. Learning agility:
  3. Communication:
  4. Influence:
• ↑ basically all EQ
• Learning, growing > being right
• Awareness → acceptance
• Presence vs drifting: need to shift
• 4 methods for shifting:
  1. Continuous breathing: 4 breaths
  2. Posture: big movement
  3. Wonder: open-ended curiosity
  4. Appreciation: value feedback
• Unknown unknown: feedback
• Feedback is always valuable!!

3: Feeling all feelings

• Don’t resist, judge, or apologize for feelings
• Feelings are physical sensations
• “I feel” + 1 of 5 core emotions
• Emotions often manifest in regions of body:
  1. Fear → belly
  2. Anger → back, shoulders, neck, jaw
  3. Sadness → heart area, throat, face
  4. Joy → core of body, spine
  5. Sexual → erogenous zones
• Skill is in releasing, not repressing emotions
• Thought-generated emotion: looping thoughts reinforcing / recycling emotion
• Process for releasing emotion:
  1. Locate, precisely describe sensation in the body (bits flowing, popping, etc.)
  2. Breathe
  3. Allow, accept, appreciate emotion
  4. Match experience with expression
     • Move and vocalize (90 seconds)
     • If not, can harden into a mood
• Sexual creative energy*

4: Speaking candidly

• “The team that sees reality best wins” - Jack Welch (don’t lie, withhold)
• ↑ facts, thoughts, feelings, emotions
• Withhold → withdraw → projection: seeing other person through judgements about them and believing them to be right
• ↑ viscous cycle of relational disconnection
• Judgements tell you more about yourself than other person
• “Our judgements about the world tell us a great deal about ourselves and very little about the world. They reveal something about our reactions, beliefs, listening filters, unconscious habits, or expectations.”
• Reveal judgements to be known, not correct
  • Telling you about me, not you
• Own your projections: approach w. curiosity
• Practice candor to understand yourself, not to change others
• 3 concentric circles of candor:
  • Truth: accuracy of info we reveal
  • Openness: completeness of reveal
  • Awareness: how self-aware am I
• “How is this true about me? What am I not facing in myself?”
• Unarguable: thoughts, feelings, sensations
  • “I’m having the thought that…”
• —
• Listening filter: internal lens that influences what we hear and how we respond
  • To fix, diagnose, correct, avoid conflict, defend, personalize
• ↑ listen to understand content, feelings / emotions, base desire / gut
• Start conscious candor only when you have a shared commitment

5: Eliminating gossip

• Gossip: any statement made with negative intent, unwilling to share if subject present
• 2 reasons it’s good:
  1. Gets unspoken info into open
  2. Allows people to release pent up negative energy
• ↑ better to vent than to repress
• ↑ based on 3 assumptions:
  1. People won’t tell the truth to one another
  2. People don’t know how to release negative energy in a healthy way
  3. Takes too long to thoughtfully process negative emotions and feelings
• Reasons for gossip:
  1. Being right, one-ups-man-ship
  2. Validate righteous perspective
  3. Control others
  4. Get attention
  5. Divert attention
  6. Create pseudo-alliances
• Clearing model:
  1. Affirm a meaningful relationship
  2. Establish a time to talk
  3. Present the facts
  4. Make up, tell your story
  5. Reveal your feelings
  6. Own your part in the issue
  7. State specifically what you want
• Response ↑:
  1. Mirroring, check for understanding
  2. Is there more?

6: Practicing integrity

• Acknowledge all authentic emotions, express the unarguable truth, take 100% responsibility, keep agreements
• Agreement: anything you’ve said you will or won’t do
• 1. make clear agreements
• 2. unilateral or bilateral: “whole body yes”
• 3. write it down
• 4. renegotiate if necessary (<10%)
• Integrity inventory:
  • Unfelts: emotional intelligence
    • Withholding information
  • Unkepts: conscious communication
    • Broken agreements
  • Unown: healthy responsibility
    • Blaming, victim
• Pay attention to level of integrity around you

7: Generating appreciation

• Gratitude vs entitlement
• Appreciation:
  1. Sensitive awareness: presence, subtle differentiation
  2. Increase in value
• Masterful appreciation: sincere, unarguable, specific, and succinct
• Focus on the what people do well, not where they need to improve
• “What you focus on grows”

8: Excelling in your zone of genius

• Focus on your spikes / zones of genius
• 4 zones: incompetent, competent, excellence, genius
• 4 top false beliefs that trigger the upper limits problem:
  1. Feeling fundamentally flawed
  2. Disloyalty, abandonment
  3. More success = bigger burden
  4. Outshining someone important to them
• Flow = zone of genius; effortless, fun
• Seek activities that give you energy

9: Living a life of play and rest

• Play, improvisation, laughter
• Rest, renewal, rhythm
• Play → energy (eg. children high energy)
• Yes, and…: take what’s given and adapt
• 8 play personalities:
  • Joker: nonsense
  • Kin-esthete: push body and see result
  • Explorer: new experiences, POVs
  • Competitor: new games, rules, #1
  • Director: planning, organizing
  • Collector: collection of antiques
  • Artist: making things
  • Storyteller: eg. writing, movies
• Persona play
• Energy management: honoring of natural rhythms
• Workaholism: compulsion to work to avoid being with self in the moment, what is arising in them

10: Exploring the opposite

• Notice your desire to be right
• Reframing
  • Is it true? Can you absolutely know that it’s true? How do you react / what happens when you believe that thought? Who would you be without that thought?

11: Sourcing approval, control, security

• 3 core wants:
  1. Security: survival, safety of self
  2. Approval:
  3. Control:
• Wanting implies not having
• What if you already have control, approval, and security?
• “Pain is not inevitable, but suffering is”
• Whole, perfect, and complete

12: Having enough of everything

• Enough time, energy, love, money, space
• Scarcity becomes default mindset
• How do you company yourself to others?
• Mindset of “there is enough and we are enough”
• Look at time, money from different perspectives
• 3 truths of sufficiency:
  1. Money is like water: regardless of flow, you direct where it goes
  2. What you appreciate appreciates
  3. Collaboration creates prosperity
• Sufficiency meditation

13: Experiencing the world as an ally

• All people, circumstances as allies that perfectly suited to help me learn the most important things for my growth
• Avoid being simplistic, competitive, comparative
• Pressure is a catalyst
• Disrupt yourself

14: Creating win for all solutions

• Create win-wins / win-for-alls
• Competition, compromise → collaboration
• ↑ requires all above commitments

15: Being the resolution

• Assigning blame → being the solution
• Finding what’s wrong → what’s missing
• What is it like to be the solution?

The Change Formula

• Change: stepping into the unknown, accepting the possibility of failure
• If I changed, what am I afraid would happen?
• Altering core pattern, identity
• V * D + FS > resistance = change
  • Vision: preferable future
  • Dissatisfaction with status quo
    • Create a “burning platform”
  • First steps: motivation → action
• Are you willing to…
• Allow → accept → appreciate