17. Do Your Own Work

Hi everyone, I’m Saralyn Hodgkin. And this is the podcast to practice your leadership.

What is the work? I stand in a place of just like if faced with the conversation of you’ve got to do your own work, and of course, the conversation then turns to what the hell is the work? And I come to this place of just seeing over and over again, conversations of, oh, well, what does my team need to do? Or what what certification do I get? What training do I need to go to? and so on? Where do I need to go over here? How do I need to do differently? How can I change my productivity?

All these externalized questions that I continue to see people get curious about, which are totally important, and they have their place. But what I am most curious about is are you doing your own work? Are you doing your own work? Are you reflecting on who you are? How you show up? What that looks like? Are you getting curious about that inner team that creates voices and emotions in you and and not stomping them out? But actually being curious with who are they what wisdom do they provide? And how are they protecting you? Not how to get rid of them? Or how to quiet them to the point of not being relevant but more searching inside yourself about who am I? How do I show up? Why is that is that aligned with my intention?

And I get really curious about what it means to do your own work around self authoring your leadership, being able to grow still being able to pause and reflect. I was listening to Chloé Valdary, who was doing a talk with Simon Sinek on his podcast, A Bit of Optimism. It’s one of the latest ones in August 2021. And it enters into this conversation from a point in a place of you know, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion work. And I’ll let you listen to the podcast. I won’t do a good enough justice to summarize it, but one of the curls for me that I picked up was that entering into DEI work as a team as an organization, sure all important but what really resonated for me with what Chloe was saying was DEI work starts with you doing your own damn inner work.

That if you can come to a place of being able to notice and get curious about where you’re shaming or othering others, shaming another in yourself, which all perpetuates toxicity in all the places you show up. Can you actually get curious about that? And as a practitioner, a professional, a leader, can you understand your self worth, your blind spots, your triggers, your shadow work, which Chloe gets into? Can you stand in the presence in reality of the good, the bad, and the ugly and feel the fullness of yourself feel the places of disalignment?

And do the hard work of introspection, doing the hard work of practicing your your boundaries? Doing the hard work of realigning your relationships with your inner team members? Can you do your own damn work so that as we face challenging times, you can intentionally walk into the question how do I want to be in these times of change? How do I want to be in this relationship? How do I want to show up? How do I want to create some space to be more responsive rather than reactive?

How can I take some spaces of pause and reflection to reimagine what productivity looks like for me so that it includes not busyness, but it includes breathing, integration, slowing down? Can I look at relationships as a form of what really matters, and my work, and how I show up? Can I start to get clear on what my personal work is and as I use my currency of energy, where I decide to invest it.

When can I stand in those places of paradox and complexity and hold, even see the two different emotions I have at this time, or hold the weight of where I can influence and where I can’t. And find the adaptable developmental practices that helped me survive all those waves with intentionality and consciousness. There’s this place for me of a conversation, where the entrance ways are on all, we got to do our DEI work, oh, we got to work on our team dynamics. Oh, we got and so on and so forth, right?

Especially in some of the social innovation spaces I show up in are some of the really complex team dynamics that are happening. And I stand in this place of are you doing your own work? Do you know what it is? You don’t have to be perfect at it. But are you being conscious and intentional? What does that look like for you? And then, you know, there’s a place I’m standing right now also of what does that look like for how I model that to my, to my kids, especially as they go into this really complex environment called school? Oh, gosh, oh, wow.

Like it’s a really hard place where you’ve got to perform for other people’s standards, and you’ve got to climb that ladder, and the way that it’s dictated to you, all the social dynamics are just pepper sprayed with hormones. And anyway, that’s a whole conversation in itself. But what is the best that I can do to hold just at least the fertile ground at home for my kids to use learning and reflection to show up in who they are at this moment? and find those places of learning? And it’s just like, Okay, how can I take these, these life lessons and bring them into my intentional practice for me to develop who I am, because that is ever changing?

This is a continuum of a journey of doing my own work. So I, you know, what is the practice here? What is the learning here? For me, it’s that I’ve been doing my own work intentionally, probably since my dad died when I was 13. And it’s a lifelong journey with multiple threads.

And where it shows up for me professionally is that I continue to self author my leadership, explore my inner team, have my practices to grow still, or explore the stories and the discomforts and the places of healing that I need most, and really work at standing in venues, and spaces, and community where I see other humans and relations that I can learn from and be with, in order to, in order to grow in myself and try.

And as Chloe and Simon Sinek said in that podcast is help humans be better humans as we play and lead on this planet. So all, do your own work, practice your leadership. I learn right alongside you.

Thanks all, I’m Saralyn. You can find me at holonleadership.org. I walk alongside you as you practice your leadership.