Pointing at the point
Phew! Tim and I have been travelling, delivering, flying, leading, meeting, and talking—so much talking! Listening too, of course, which is central—but then we’ve got to ingest and turn around what we hear and make it an action-item, a jumping-off point for more listening and more to take in. Being a container for energy takes energy. But when we give it, it bounces back to us in new forms, with new elements of light and illumination and curiosity.
Lately, one of our happiest ‘spends’ of energy is in doing the podcast—eight episodes into season one, we’ve hit on something I wanted to really hold up high, and riff a little more about.
In these conversations, we talk about the work—a behind-the-scenes of how Tim and I facilitate, as well as a running capture of our latest thinking. Each episode touches on something that feels like a clue to that sweet spot when the work just works—you know that feeling. Electricity and shared discovery! Things feeling different: breaking through problems and patterns, and treading completely new ground together.
Every episode feels formative, and it’s designed that way:
What matters most as we push back on the status quo?
How can collaborators practice staying in relationship through the work of systems change?
In facilitation, how can we use neutrality to bring more—ideas, voices, clarity—forward?
Is it possible to practice how to better face setbacks, disappointment, and injustice?
Do we need to be big to be impactful? As a new business grows, can we retain the flex and connectedness of being small?
How can we be better at opting out of limiting beliefs?
We’ve all got to pay the bills. As entrepreneurs, how can we keep energy up and lead change with confidence in a startup state?
Then we hit on episode eight like Hey, we should talk about depth. And so we did. And now, we both feel the vibration like we’ve just rung a very large bell.
Jen, our operations manager, listened to the episode and all-caps emailed us right away. THIS SHOULD BE REQUIRED LISTENING FOR ANYONE WHO WANTS TO WORK WITH US. Another listener wrote to tell us she’d designed a retreat she was leading thanks to insights from the episode. Vibration!
Here’s why depth is such a primary actor on the stage of change, whether we’re embracing it or hiding from it: good change requires good vulnerability. If we embrace it, we all step forward. If we hide, our capacity dulls.
Depth is the seat of either momentum, or resistance. To really shift power wealth, and resources for a better community, organization, movement, or world, we cannot simply stay comfortable on the surface. Superficial exploration makes superficial change. Nothing audacious blooms in a place where people are hunkered-down, protecting their turf.
As Tim often says: the amount of change you’re willing to make inside is a direct mirror of the change you’ll see outside.
At-depth, people have insights about themselves and their leadership, blocks, and relationships in a way that allows for a significant shift or transformation to come. But we’ve got to get past the hesitation at the surface, beyond the BUTs that prevent us from seeing beyond our identity, our entitlements, our roles, and our assumptions. No answer worth its salt is easy. We need to weave in multiple, often contradicting perspectives and facets. We need to call ourselves on it when we’re repeating the same stuff we always say about how things are (or should be) and why.
This is depth, and most of our life is not done in it. We are, too often, on auto-pilot—so when depth is present, we really notice its effects. It’s a foreign state. But what an exciting one! What an exciting one. This is where good work takes root.
So! There’s a holiday-season nudge for a new-year, intention-setting listen when you’re scrubbing out the turkey roaster or whipping up your homemade eggnog—if there’s one great, big bell to ring in the new year, it’s this one. Go deep!
