Take a moment to feel your bodies. My question to you today is how is your body
relevant to your leadership? What I'm feeling right now is a certain amount
of terror; you guys are way scarrier than Sierra Leonian army... and a lot of excitement
as well. And this is going to be a lot of fun.
My claim is that leadership is embodied. Leadership comes through us. It's not all in your head.
You don't have to believe me, because we will actually be playing with this, be experiencing
this. to experience your work. I talk about the body, there is a couple of
misconceptions than generally come up. To to clear up quite quickly particularly when
we work with corporate groups. Um, the body has been reduced to two things mainly in the
western world. One is the body athletic. You don't need to be muscly like those guys, and
it's not about the body aesthetic. There is only one body that I'm allowed to look like
in that way and she's not here. So it's not the body athletic or aesthetic. So what is
it? These are some leaders I particularly enjoy.
They embody who they are. Not so much whether they are tall or short or whether they are
overweight or skinny or anything like that, but how they hold themselves, how they move
through space. One of my claims is that we move through space like we move through life.
If you look at, say, um, Ghandi and Churchill. Round about the same time in history they
were around. They embody something totally different. Churchill has a kind of stubbornness
to them. "We will fight them on the beaches." This is down, kinda very stubborn kinda quality.
Ghandi humility to him. A completely different quality in his body. So sometimes this happens
accidentally. And I work with leaders to help people to have more awareness and more choice
about what they embody. If circumstances change, then you might need
to change what you embody. So, for example, Churchill at the end of World War II lost
an election. Yea. He thought that he was going to win, but he lost it. The country eeded
something very different at the end of the war, which he didn't embody.
I put my niece on there as (inaudible) heroic when I was looking at the pictures and finding
some slides. She embodies, for me, vulnerability, which is an edge for me at the moment and
also curiosity. That might be an embodied state that would benefit you today.
Who thought about their body before Nick mentioned it today? Other than I'm hungry or I need
the toilet or something like that. Is there in which we can actually... Some people, yea,
okay... Is there a way in which we can actually maximize our state for today? So you can use
your body to get the most out of today. By five p.m., you will be a half of a day closer
to your death. You won't get that time back; I promise you that. So make the best use of
that. The body can be very helpful for that. Ah, actually I'm talking about body language.
That's another thing to clear up. So, um, sometimes people go on body language courses
and learn some gestures. And these, some politicians sometimes do this, and they seem kinda fake, inauthentic.
Have you seen that? Yea? I'm talking about body being, so I'm talking
about who you are as a person. This is what we're going to be playing with not some tricks
to try and fool other people. Yea, it's about who you are, how that's embodied, and what
that opens, and what that closes. Your body leans you in a particularly direction behaviorally.
So it's going to be different for each of you. It's a mirror.
Why now? Um, I mention change. A big thing for me is helping people be, ah, human beings
at work. So bring yourself to work is a motto we have. I think that is very necessary, um...
One reason it's necessary that if you are not feeling this body it can be quite hard
to be compassionate to feel other people and also the bigger body, which (inaudible) will
talk about later. So the earth as well as a critical factor. Um, if that's too big,
just the factor of stress and well being absolutely vital feeling your body for that.
The problem is this: when we are our best selves our leadership is beautiful. I'm sure
on your best days, you all have beautiful leadership. You really embody your values.
All different but all special and wonderful. (inaudible) stuff happens. Stuff grabs us.
Stuff throws us off center in my language. Here there are two dogs. Ah, it's pretty primal
with this stuff. It goes back to being an amoeba actually but definitely back to being
a dog, um, they are both in what I call a disstress response. Two different versions
of it. So one is in the aggressive, tight response. The other one is in more of a fearful,
collapsed response. Both of these are not ideal states for leading in.
In your average day, you might not get bogged up by a big dog, but you might get a scary
email. You might get a phone call you don't expect from a client saying, "ah, yea, our
budget has been cut. We can no longer do that piece of work with you." What other kind of
things that you get that throws you off center? Just a couple people kinda shout out. What
grabs you? What perturbs you? The speakers will grab you today. I guarantee that.
Mmm? (inaudible)
Okay, negative results. What else? Just a couple from people just wanna hear your worlds.
(inaudible) Apathy. Okay, so that throws you off center...
ha! Ok. What else? One more. (inaudible)
Ok. So it's anything outside of your comfort zone. You know? Whatever that is in your world.
This throws into a state that I call off center, which isn't ideal for leadership. Um, this
is a process that I can take you through. It's a quick win. You learn it easily and
quickly, and you can practice it your whole life. We're going to do this experientially.
That's more than enough of me talking, so can you all stand up and walk over to the
dojo area, which is over here. So, um, the exercise that we are going to
do is stimulate the distress response, so you can then center. We're going to do this
in a safe, progress way. We start small and work our way up. The person receiving is in
charge. The first thing to do is check they're not wearing any watches, ring, jewelry, because
I'm going to grab their arm. So, is it okay if I grab your arm?
Yep. Stand to the side. Start gently. Give 'em
a little grab. Now, we need enough to stimulate a physical response, but not so much we tramautive
them and freak them out, they run out in tears, and never come back. You know? So, she says
too much or too little? Do you want more or ...
More. A little bit more... yea. Okay. She stands
fast. She needs more. So I build, put it up fifty percent. Okay, so now we got noticeable
physical response that's enough. So what did you do in your body?
I could fee my body jump. Jump, so you came up. What else?
Ah, my shoulders' tensed. Okay. Anything else?
Ah, breathing stopped. Okay, great. So, um, you're human. This is
fairly typical response. There different variations on it. Abdominal, the jaw tightening is another
one to watch out. It's important that you get really specific rather just say, ah, I
just freaked out or I got stressed. If you get specific you can then undo those things
when you center. So this time.. relax your shoulder. I'll take
you through the ABCs, so you are aware of your body, feeling the felt sense of your
body. Balance, so grounded down, expanded out. Relaxing the center line, relax the tongue,
relax the abdominal muscles. Aahh... that kind of feeling.
Haahh. There we go. I'm going to grab you again.
Ready? Mmhmm.
Okay, so I used the same, ah, degree of grab if not a little bit more. How was it that
time? I could feel the kinda outside of me shake
but the inside stayed very firm. Okay, you probably noticed a lot less movement
as well. Yea, so, this of course, there is the movement that I just like physical give
her, but there isn't the distress response so much being stimulated. Often it will feel...
like, okay, something, I've been grabbed, but it's not so bad. It's okay. It's manageable.
Yea? It's quite different from the first time. Very.
So it's a before and after test. Essentially, you can test experiementially with each other
then you swap roles. Um, start gently. If someone is really, ah, well, either really
centered, done lots of meditation, or has, has various things going on you can grab and
shout, but build up to that. Start gently. Haha.
So safety points... who's in charge here? Me or her? Who's in charge?
She's in charge. She's in charge. The receiver is in charge.
Yea. And also watch out that you don't smash someone's brand new Rolex that probably, that
will stimulate distress response, but there will be a form or something to fill in. So,
grab someone from your home group, pair up with them, you're going to have five minutes
for this, so nice and quick. (Speaking)
Centering is a way of getting ourself together under pressure, so we all have things in life
which surprise us, grab us, shock us whether that's emails or a difficult phone call whatever
it is something comes up. And then it's how do we get us out of the shocked, tense state
to, back to where we can the best leaders we can be.