Are You A Leader, Now ?

 Post Election, and on Veterans Day, I am finding solace thinking about leadership. I taught leadership development for 7 years. Here is some truth about leadership:

Leadership begins when you are asked to take responsibility for what you say and what you do. This process begins when you are a child. 

Many of you will have memories of those lessons.

Leadership is how you treat other people, not because someone is watching or a TV crew is following you.

 It is how you behave because you have become an adult who thinks deeply about your actions, your purpose, and your impact on other people.

Leadership is something you do every single day.

Not only on days when you are given a prize, or elected, or promoted.

You can’t be given the status.

 Leadership is not something you just “start” doing.

. 

It is a part of your soul that you have grown, nurtured, developed.

 Leadership is made of your values and purpose you have held onto when faced with tough choices and difficulties.

 Leadership is a process of becoming.

Leaders will fail, we may not achieve what we set out to do, but we tried our damn hardest.

We make mistakes and we apologize when we do.

We do things that humble and embarrass us in front of other people because we are human.

It is not the achievements or failures that count.

All leaders have a purpose.

That purpose is etched in your soul.

You earn and work and strive towards that purpose over your lifetime.

It is your purpose that counts.

Are you a leader?

What is your purpose?

Are You A Leader ?

 Post Election, and on Veterans Day, I am finding solace thinking about leadership. I taught leadership development for 7 years. Here is some truth about leadership:

Leadership begins when you are asked to take responsibility for what you say and what you do. This process begins when you are a child. 

Many of you will have memories of those lessons.

Leadership is how you treat other people, not because someone is watching or a TV crew is following you.

 It is how you behave because you have become an adult who thinks deeply about your actions, your purpose, and your impact on other people.

Leadership is something you do every single day.

Not only on days when you are given a prize, or elected, or promoted.

You can’t be given the status.

 Leadership is not something you just “start” doing.

. 

It is a part of your soul that you have grown, nurtured, developed.

 Leadership is made of your values and purpose you have held onto when faced with tough choices and difficulties.

 Leadership is a process of becoming.

Leaders will fail, we may not achieve what we set out to do, but we tried our damn hardest.

We make mistakes and we apologize when we do.

We do things that humble and embarrass us in front of other people because we are human.

It is not the achievements or failures that count.

All leaders have a purpose.

That purpose is etched in your soul.

You earn and work and strive towards that purpose over your lifetime.

It is your purpose that counts.

Are you a leader?

What is your purpose?

The Fierce Act of Partnering and Boundaries

 by Sarri Gilman, LMFT

I am embarking on a new partnership with my boundary work. I’d like to share what it means to me to form partnerships and honor my needs and boundaries.

To me, any business that wants to thrive in our times, needs to partner.

I have been forming partnerships to launch and grow efforts for three decades and the truth is, partnering is a fierce act that is not for people who are afraid.

I can’t take risks and at the same time, hold back.

I can’t be trusting while at the same time, suspicious.

The Partnership Handshake

My approach to partnering has been the following:

1.   All my business deals for three decades have been made with a handshake. It means we honor our word to each other. Our purpose, our mission together, is meaningful to each of us. (This included property purchases, million dollar funding agreement, subsidiary formation, etc.). Sure each deal has been followed with a legal paper trail, but I never once needed to reference the paper trail in any of my business partnerships. Why?

2.   Because, we put our truth on the table. All of the truth. The truth includes, “What do we need this partnership to yield?”  This involves looking into the future, the future we can’t see and say, “If the partnership yields X, Y and Z, it would be worthwhile.” 

3.   Define failure, define success, and decide what we each need to contribute to aim for success.  Could we live with either outcome and support each other as partners? Is there something to be gained even in failure? 

4.   Your purpose and my purpose are pointing in the same direction. Our mission unites us.

I have partnered with new people as well as those I have extensive history with – and I can say as long as we honor our word, put our truth on the table, understand each other’s purpose, and define failure and success, all things have worked out fine.

Worst Partnership Advice

But each time I have boldly dared to venture into partnerships, here is a list of some of the worst advice I have heard:

1.   “Get yourself a lawyer.” I have never gotten myself a lawyer in a partnership. I have used lawyers collaboratively with all partners. If we are trying to keep the truth on the table, it has helped to work with attorneys collaboratively to keep all the truth on the table where we can both see it.

2.   “Don’t do it! The partner will just use you, take everything, and toss you out.”

This has never happened. All of my partners have valued my work and my abilities and I have valued and needed my partners abilities.  I was never crushed, cast aside or tossed out of a partnership. Nor have I crushed anyone. All of my partners elevated the work, made new possibilities happen, and were heartbroken when I wanted to move on to something else.

3.   “What if the partner loses their job and someone new comes in and they crush you?”

This has never happened. I have “a way out“ of each agreement. We are partners, not prisoners. If I find myself dealing with disagreeable people at the partnership table, I would exit.

However, I have never been given disagreeable new representatives.  I am relationship-oriented and who I work with is always very important to me. All of my previous partners have worked to be sure that I like who I am dealing with and have been more than happy to change out someone on their team if I found it wasn’t a good fit with my working style.

Partners and Boundaries

It helps that I am able to bring a strong sense of my boundaries to the partnership table and ask about the boundaries of my partners. Boundaries are part of all relationships, and they are about needs. What boundaries do you need to care for yourself in the partnership?  These conversations are challenging as sometimes it can be scary to state your boundaries. But if you are able to explain your personal boundaries up front, your partner can decide if that is something they can deal with or not. I have always been clear about “ownership” - who owns what in the partnership. I have protected the parts I own and am responsible for. I have also been very clear about “responsibilities”.  I only partner with people who can elevate the effort because they carry some responsibilities, making it easier to accomplish the purpose.

Some additional boundaries for me are around advance notice to plan my schedule, who I am working with on a team. I have some limits on the hours I can be available, and clarity on what I am paid in the partnership.

Are you ready for partners? What has worked for you in partnerships?

 If you find yourself struggling and need assistance, I offer boundary consultations. More information can be found on my website:  Sarrigilman.com

Boundaries, Medicine, and You

What makes your life worth living is one of the most intimate and important things for you to know about yourself. What matters most to you may be under construction. What matters most will change many times over the course of your lifetime.

In the book Being Mortal, you get to stand inside Dr. Gawande’s head as he asks the most important questions about where is the line, the boundary, where medicine does more harm than good.

On every page of this book I thought of my conversations with clients over the years. What is most important to you right now? Since I don’t have any medicine to offer, when my clients are struggling with serious health issues, as a therapist my tools are to help people know, truly know, what matters most to them and sort out how they want to proceed with their medical care.

As I read Being Mortal, Dr. Gawande explains what he has learned through these conversations. But he is honest about how ill-equipped he was to have these conversations, regrets he had, and how he sees other doctors struggling as well, and the insight he gained about boundaries.

The book made me think about my dad, who passed away 11 years ago this month. There was a point when he was in the hospital, on life support, with absolutely nothing his medical team could offer him.

I became aware that his doctor couldn’t deal with the fact that he had nothing to offer. I found myself stepping in with my therapy skills, helping the doctor process his own thoughts, and helping him understand that he needed to tell my father the truth so my father could decide what mattered most. It took several conversations but I finally broke through when the doctor cried as he explained he had nothing to offer my dad. And my dad chose to be removed from life support and released from the narrow confines of the hospital bed where he was freezing most of the time, and go home.

I was the person who literally turned off the machines and unplugged my father from “life support”. Though nothing truly dramatic happened, he didn’t die when the machines went off. I rode with him in an ambulance home. He spent his remaining time where he wanted to be.

I review this moment over and over in my head, not second guessing any of it. Just because it was the most intimate conversation I ever had with my dad, hearing him say what mattered most for his remaining days was to be at home. And to hear him choose to be unplugged from life-support (what a provocative word) and leave the hospital, knowing he would not return for treatment or a cure.

On the pages of Being Mortal, I finally had some closure. I felt relieved watching a doctor come to terms with the boundary, finding the line, and understanding how important it is for a person to decide what matters most to them.

“When I was a child, the lessons my father taught me had been about perseverance: never to accept the limitations that stood in my way. As an adult watching him in his final years, I also saw how to come to terms with limits that couldn’t simply be wished away. When to shift from pushing against limits to making the best of them is not often readily apparent. But it is clear that there are times when the cost of pushing exceeds its value.”- Dr. Atul Gawande

The Best Way to Care for Your Emotions or What to do about the Guy in the Pool

We are feeling beings.

Emotions are like a weather system; they are always passing through. Stay aware and recognize your emotions. Your emotions belong to you. Pay attention to your feelings. If you do not take care of your feelings, they will become very troubling. 

My friend Phil asked me to share some of the best ways to care for your emotions.

First, never ever take a feeling at “face value”. What you see at first is only the face of an emotion - anger, sad, embarrassed, anxious, etc. There is always more behind that surface of a feeling.

You need to Unmask it. Get to know what is behind the surface of the feeling.

Be curious and ask yourself questions about your feelings. Do an investigation. I promise you will make discoveries. As you get better at investigating feelings, you can do this with others, but for now, practice with yourself.

What brought this feeling to the surface?  What happened?

What story am I telling myself about what happened? Am I willing to hear any other point of view?  I may not be able to because my own emotion is demanding all the space in me.

Does this emotion want me to take action? What action?

If the feeling is very strong you may want to blast your emotion at someone.

Is this action the way I want to behave? Will this action solve the problem?

(These actions are usually crazy, and not going to solve the problem.)

Our emotions are terrible at problem solving!

This is where you step in and take care of your feeling.

Offer your feeling some better ideas about how to solve the problem. Is there a way I can care for this feeling, address the problems that have brought on this feeling?

Are there actions I would like to consider? 

What is familiar about this situation from my past? Did I take good care of my emotions back then in a previous situation? Could I do better now?

Here is an example of how it works. I was at the pool, waiting for a lane to open to swim laps. When a lane opened, someone from another lane, went and took the new lane. He pointed to his old lane and said “Swim in the that one!” The lane was against a wall with a ladder hanging over it.

I was fuming angry.

But I jumped in the water and started swimming as I did not think a fight with this guy would resolve the swim lane issue.

I was angry while swimming.

I asked myself if I came to the pool to be angry or to relax?

Relax.

Then could I please let go of the anger and enjoy my swim?

That worked for 2 strokes.

Back to anger.

Remember I came to relax.

How about if I think about ways to deal with this asshole later, when I am done swimming.

Would you like to call him an asshole? Would that make you feel better?

Not really.

 Do you come to the pool wanting to call people names?

Not really.

He is an asshole, but I don’t think it will actually make you feel better to call him names.

I understand what he did was wrong, but what is it about this that makes me so angry?

Well, I experience quite a bit of male dominance around the gym. Some of the men are very rude around waiting their turn on equipment.

So this sort of thing happens here.

How would you like to address that problem? What do you need?

I started thinking about ways to change my gym schedule, and to purchase some equipment for home. I also thought of some things I will say if someone crowds my space at the gym from now on.

Did this feeling have a past?

Yes, this sort of dominance and pecking order was very common in elementary school. Can I remember when this happens that old feeling and take better care of the situation now?

So I came up with ways to address the feeling, I bought some home equipment, I acknowledged that some days I don’t want to deal with this behavior in the gym. I picked my swim times for the least crowded times. I decided to not let anyone crowd my space at the gym. I asked them to please back up and let them know when to expect me to be finished on a machine. But I do not give up my space.

I feel more empowered. I don’t even feel angry when someone crowds my space, I just step in and say, you need to wait your turn. This anger in the pool led me to address something that had become a series of problems.

While I was busy being curious and interviewing my feeling, the guy in the pool, randomly grabbed another good lane for me and offered it up with an apology. (I didn’t even expect that.)

Just blasting the guy in the the pool in the moment would not have allowed me to really and truly address the source of the feeling I was having. It wouldn’t have helped me with my feeling.

Before you share your feelings with someone, there needs to be a signal, an agreement that you are both willing to “go there”.

Part 2:

Ways to care for each others' feelings.