Peggy McAllister

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  00:49

Who is Speaker: Peggy McAllister?

Speaker: Peggy McAllister  00:52

That’s a question we could go on for days. And you could ask 2000 people and they’d have 2000 different responses. My response today is, in my work, I work as an executive coach. And I do what I would call the deeper inner work with leaders versus consulting with them about how to be more strategic. I’m helping them look at the ways that some internal ways that they process things get in the way of being strategic. And with teams, I started my career as a university counselor, so I have a graduate degree in psychology. So the deeper work has always been of interest to me. And it took me a while to find my way into doing that with executives. Yeah.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  01:54

What do you think is that deeper work, a lot of times we’re so bias or sometimes jumping into that strategic work. And it could be maybe because of how we’re incentivized, but what are you seeing when you’re coaching, when you’re working with leaders and that inner work and work on themselves? What are some of the things that were or maybe patterns that you’re seeing when you’re working with leadership?

What are some of the things that they struggle, maybe with some of the things that they get easier, but maybe the environment doesn’t allow them to act in a way, that maybe they feel is a hole or more organic way of doing things? Because a lot of times I talk to people, and they’re like, no, I know, this is the right thing to do. But guess what, I also have a college student and I have to pay their tuition. So I have to do what I’m incentivized for.

Speaker: Peggy McAllister  02:47

Yes. Yes. So many people these days are hitting up against that edge of, I’ve been doing what my company, what society has said I need to do and I don’t feel like I can do it for much longer or I can’t do it anymore. So there has been, I think, and we’re going in a direction, I don’t know, let’s see where this goes. But so many people right now are just done with living up to other people’s expectations, which is different from being in service to something that matters. And I want to make that distinction. But what I’m seeing with a lot of my own clients is, I’ve been doing this, I’m really good at this. And it’s feeling really empty, I’m exhausted, and I want to do something that has more meaning for me, not because I’m going to lose salary or lose the esteem of my colleagues.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  03:57

Or even identity. Sometimes it’s like I’m going to lose my identity. This is what people have known. And then letting go of that maybe identity. So could we explore, what is the identity? And why does it matter in Leadership?

Speaker: Peggy McAllister  04:11

Yeah, yeah, that’s where I really like to play. So identity, as I would describe it today is a story that you have believed about who you need to be, not even exactly who you are, but who you need to be in order to be okay, in order to be successful. So for some of us, as little ones, if we were gifted with being an athlete, and we were always winning the awards, we grow up thinking that’s how I be the best me, I’ve got to just keep winning the awards, or if I’m the one who was always the responsible one in the family.

We often carry that into our work and we’re taking other people’s work on, no, it’s not a problem, no problem, give it to me. Other people learn to be the nice person. So always denying their own needs and taking care of everyone else. And all of these things lead to burnout if they are not managed at some point. So a lot of high achievers are burning out right now. They don’t give themselves permission to take a break. Because if my identity is, I’m always at the top, I’m always making those numbers, I’m always exceeding the numbers. If that is the case, then if I stop, I must be a failure. If I just pause and go do something that has nothing to do with succeeding, I’m failing and that’s not okay with who I am.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  06:06

 It’s really interesting that you say that, because I’ve been in several situations like that, where you think that’s the case. And then the only thing that separates you from the identity and then different perspective is just actually letting go of that identity and just trying something for so short, where your perspective changes, and you’re like, how silly was I to think that? And I don’t know, do you see that? Sometimes is that what it takes? Just letting go even for a little second and saying, what’s the worst thing that could happen?

Speaker: Peggy McAllister  06:43

That’s a great question. And what’s funny is with these identities, there is some sense of danger of stepping outside of it that we can’t even name like if I said, tell me what you think could happen? Your brain can’t come up with it but your nervous system, feel some sort of, danger, 911 alert. I can’t step beyond that edge. Can I tell a story? 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  07:16

Yeah. 

Speaker: Peggy McAllister  07:18

And this is a story told by a wise one from 150 years ago or so, who grew up around many nomadic tribes would come through his town, so he began to get to know them. And he followed them. And he learned a lot, he was always curious about what made things happen and how people thought about things. And this one tribe had very specific, protocols that they followed, that were passed down through the centuries around how we do everything. So everybody had a role, when a storm came up, you get the 10 poles, you get the cooking stuff, you get the camels, blah, blah, blah. 

And they had one very specific thing that they did. Every week, when the parents wanted to go off to gather the food, they would gather all the children in the oasis. And like the kids 10 and under, and one of the parents would take their finger and would start drawing a line, a circle in the sand around the outside of them. And so she go around. Drawing the circle around them. So imagine you’re sitting in the circle. And she says to them, and they hear this every week from one or the other parents. 

If anyone crosses this line, you’re going to die. Now imagine you hear that every week as you’re growing up, if anyone crosses this line, you’re going to die, every time you stop at an oasis and parents have to go away. So now imagine that Miljan is seeing his 18-month-old cousin, Joanna, crawling around getting really close to that line. She’s just curious, she’s just want, she’s just wow, this is so cool where we are. Oh, my goodness. And Miljan sees her getting close to that line. What are you going to do if she gets close?

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  09:43

Yeah, probably pull her back, right?

Speaker: Peggy McAllister  09:45

You’re going to pull her back. Yeah. And what kind of energy is going to be in the pulling her back if you’ve been told every week of your 10 years of life, that you’re going to die if you crossed the line? How are you going to pull her back?

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  10:01

Probably very reactively and very, yeah. I can’t, I don’t think I will be probably gentle, maybe.

Speaker: Peggy McAllister  10:13

You probably be pretty forceful. No, stop. And so Joanna, and you through the years, through the month, got this in your nervous systems that line is a no. And so now imagine it’s 20 years later, and I meet you on the street, and I’m sitting alone, I hear you now have a family, tell me more. And we’re talking and as we’re talking, I’m getting down on the ground. I’m looking like I’m picking something up, but I’m really drawing a circle around your feet in the sand. And then I say, Miljan come here a minute, and I walk 50 yards away, I’m going to show you this rose. Now you’re standing there with a circle around your feet, what are you going to do? 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  11:07

Yeah. I don’t know. And this is something that’s bringing up, it’s just like, it’s such a simple story. But if I really look at my life, and that metaphor of the line, and how we’ve been shaped, what’s coming to me is the cultural influence and the rituals, and the line like, there are things, it’s not that line in my life but there are certain things that represent that description and I might get really creative and say what’s there? Or I might just in the back of my head, maybe try to avoid for whatever reasons not to cross that line. And maybe, I was thinking about this recently how we do things and we believe things, but as we get older, we get a little bit more creative, and thoughtful about how we avoid things or maybe how we perceive and deal with whatever story we tell ourselves or wherever we make up.

And you and I have had this discussion about growing up in another country in a different culture, how you’re shaped into by your society. So, when I came to United States, that identity that we talked about earlier, started getting questioned, right? And as soon as I let go, what I thought I should be what my culture and what I was, as soon as I started suspending, do I really think I am what has been handed down to me from others? It changes that identity. So I don’t know if I answered your question. As far as what I would do, I would say I will get creative not to get out of that circle as a metaphor. If I’m still clinging to that identity, right? If I may be gone past it, I might say, yeah, no problem. Now I don’t claim to that identity or that ritual. So, I might have no problem crossing it.

But if I still cling to that identity, I would get very creative as far as not to, because there might be, still some fears. And that also, another thing that maybe reminds me of, is we don’t have to go down the culture wise, but I come from a region where, it’s very culture, we kill each other because of the culture and because of that identity. But that’s another thing that we cling to it in a way that, same way that we cling to religion. And, you might say, if I do this I’m going to go to hell, or I’m going to do this. And that line might represent 10 commandments, let’s just say. So I’m not going to do that. So anyway, I don’t know if that answers your question. But I want to explore that a little bit, and maybe we can bring it to a professional setting. How could somebody have that same feeling about decision that they’re making as executive?

Speaker: Peggy McAllister  14:33

Yes, yes. Great. So I love how you’ve brought in all the nuances of identity to, because we have an identity that comes around our culture, our religion, our gender. I mean, there’s our race. There are so many things that I am an X. And as soon as we say I’m an X, we are looking through the lens of X. And we see everything in a way that supports that X until something cracks it open. So what the wise one who told this story said, is that circle in the desert is actually a hypnotic trance. Because the kids weren’t going to, we know the kids weren’t going to die if they crossed the line. And it was a way to keep them safe, which is what the start of our identity is about. It’s to keep us safe.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  15:37

So it’s a survival kind of mechanism.

Speaker: Peggy McAllister  15:39

It’s a survival, and it’s an inculturation mech, yeah, it’s a way to help us to fit in to our society somehow or another. And we all find our own ways. So, three or four years ago, I was working with a guy who was a knockout superstar. Like from high school, he was always the award winner, the leader, everybody wanted him to take things over. So in this global multibillion dollar organization, he found he was barely in a role for six or eight months before they promoted and promoted and promoted him. And he got to a point where his old, the way he was used to getting things done was, he was the quarterback on the football team. He was calling the place, but he was also running most of the place. So now, his organization was so huge, he couldn’t do it all anymore.

And so he came to me and he said, I need to find a new way, so he thought it was going to give him some new strategy. And I said, so let’s call him Sam. Sam, what’s been your success formula? Because obviously, you’re being recognized everywhere for what you bring. And he said, well, it’s just, I just don’t fail. I said, you don’t? I was a little. And he said, no, very seriously, I don’t fail. And I said, what would happen if you did? The room got silent. And I could feel this anger starting to fill the room. And I said, what’s happening? He said, I am so ready to just walk out the door. And so we began just being curious. And this is what it takes to start unlocking some of these mechanisms that are driving us, that are not giving us any choice, we need to be curious. So somehow, he stuck in there in the process, and began getting curious. 

And he remembered that when he was a kid, his father gave him explicit instructions that, you can’t fail, because if you fail, you’re a failure. And I won’t ever talk to you. I mean, that was the message, you must be the winner, not even number two, you always have to be number one, or else something really horrible is going to happen. And he took that in, but it went into his subconscious. So it’s not like he was always thinking, boy, dad’s going to do this. But it was the circle in the sand that kept being drawn for him. And then he didn’t even recognize he was in the circle. It was just who I am. I’m just the winner, I always. My success formula, I just don’t lose. When he saw that, and this doesn’t usually happen this quick. 

But in that room, as he heard himself speak this, he said, that’s a bunch of BS. How did I? I’m smart. I know how to do. How did I buy into that? And then he began saying, so what would it look like if I weren’t the quarterback carrying all the plays? And he began being okay with experimenting with his team’s not going to get it right the first time. They’re going to have to run the place, they are going to be learning, discovering and within, I don’t know, a very short amount of time, his team, the revenue, all the markers way up very short amount of time. 

And it took him being curious and sitting in that huge discomfort of, what do you mean I can always win? What do you mean? And so when we get to that edge of I’m supposed to be the winner, I’m supposed to be the one who has all the answers. When we’re pushed to the edge of, what if that’s not really so?  If we can stay in that tension a bit and be curious, all sorts of new ways of bringing success to our teams, to our organizations are going to start moving, it opens up innovation, it opens up everything because we know what Agile curiosity is, a key factor there.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  20:57

That [inaudible 20:59] experimentation experience. The empiricism that, Agile is specifically founded on is very interesting. So what I mean, why is that direct experience? And we were discussing about that in a work like what’s going on in our heads and a lot of times we can come across maybe too theoretical or too soft. How do you help leaders practice this? Because I tell people, you can’t just say you have to be more empathetic, or you have to look from somebody else’s perspective, I can say that, I can suggest by the person, let’s make a decision if they want to do that or not, right?

So what type of things do you do maybe to help people experience or come up with that? Oh, shoot now, now I see. I heard somebody recently say, they had that moment. And they’re like, I now realize what kind of asshole I was to my team and to the people that I work with. And it’s amazing because I’ve had those sometimes those kind of realizations that I didn’t see in retrospect, looking back, but that a lot of times is based through experience, you can see that not maybe in the moment. So maybe could you share, what are some of the things as a coach that you do with executives and  people that you coach?

Speaker: Peggy McAllister  22:38

Yeah, I would say one of the tools that I discovered 12,13 years ago, it’s called the leadership circle. And it’s a brilliant tool for unlocking all this. So it’s a 360. And if you can picture a circle with an equator, through the middle of it, the bottom of the circle will show all of the ways that your leadership is being sourced from fear. The top of the circle shows all of the ways that you source your leadership from a desire to make a difference, from a desire to be in service to something that’s bigger than you. So the bottom are all the ways that we learned how to stay safe as a kid. 

And these ways are ways that we see everything as a problem and try and make sure that the problem gets solved, versus looking at what do we want to create is what we’re asking at the top. And so leaders that I give this to it’s a 360. So they’re asking 15 to 20 people in their organization to answer these questions that will then show them how others are experiencing them compared to how they experienced themselves. And so the first step to unlocking these more reactive patterns that keep ourselves, our own gifts locked up, keep our organizations locked up, is to begin becoming aware of them. So if for instance, you’re shown that your biggest reactive tendency is to want to control everything, it’s called autocratic. So you take the steering wheel no matter what. 

And that is keeping your team, your organization from really developing their capacity to deliver and you’re keeping everything in a small little box. So what I first do with somebody doing this is I send them out to do some discovery work and to just begin writing down all the instances when they have found that they are grabbing the steering wheel. And nine times out of 10 they’ll say, oh my god, I knew I do it, did it some, I’m doing it all the bloody time. Like five times in one meeting, I’m taking the steering wheel. And what I asked them to do is write down, what was the story in your head when you took the reins? What were you telling yourself about the situation? 

Why I need to take charge the other person or people? What are you telling yourself about you? And as they begin, I’m taking the curtains away, the blinders and really paying attention to how they’re processing their experience. That begins to, it’s almost like the reactive is a mechanism that stored back in their primitive brain, their lizard brain. And the way it keeps taking charge is that it hasn’t come into consciousness, the drivers haven’t. So as you begin tracking, what am I telling myself when I’m taking charge, about all those things, the people, situation? You begin seeing patterns and then like Sam, you go.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  26:34

Well, it’s almost like, I think the way that I describe it, and it’s either an operating system. So that reactive is one type of operating system and then when you move to creative, it’s a separate operating systems. And within that operating system, you have a lens that you’re looking through. So as soon as you, and I tell people, it’s not necessarily an upgrade, it’s a different operating system. And you’re looking through different lens through and everything looks different. Once you start looking to that from reactive in a creative way, right?

Speaker: Peggy McAllister  27:09

Yes, yes, that’s beautifully said. And I would also say, it’s like moving from Dos to Windows. Dos isn’t bad. It’s just not as sophisticated. It’s doesn’t have the capacity that Windows does. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  27:29

So maybe to expand this and some of the readers are familiar with this concept. It’s based on cognitive development, right? So even creative is not necessarily that integral, which is the operating system after this one, or the after the creative one. And a lot of people believe that in order to operate in today’s environment and complex environment, we really need to upgrade to that integral view, a more holistic view. What are your thoughts on that?  Most people are operating from creative and reactive operating like 80 or so generally speaking over the years people have. What are your thoughts in a sense of how do we progress? Because you can’t also skip, you can’t just upgrade. How do we work with leaders that are maybe more reactive, that want to cling to that and maybe coming back to that experience? Is it maybe just helping them be self-more awareness and creating more and more awareness around what they’re doing?

Speaker: Peggy McAllister  28:34 

That’s a huge piece of it. And they have to be ready. If you’re not ready, you’re not going to notice it. But I have to tell you that. Most of the time, when I’m working with pretty reactive people, they’re in pain, they’re stressed, they don’t want to be holding their whole life that tightly but they are. So, self-awareness is a key through all of it through the reactive and the creative to begin opening up your capacity. There’s a theory by a guy named Michael Washburn called the identity project. And he describes this movement that we have into identity and then as the identity begins dissolving. 

And if you picture a bell-shaped curve when we’re born, what he says is at the bottom, the foundation of our whole life wherever we are is what he calls the ground of being, now that may sound woo woo, you can but, it is a when a baby is born for instance, they don’t know when a hands hanging down. They don’t know that’s a me. That’s just one more curiosity. Oh, that’s something floating in the air. They feel and experience and interconnectedness with everything, that’s the ground of being this interconnected, like the ecosystem.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  30:08

Is that what Robert Keegan and others have called the shift from subject to object? And what I mean by that, you start looking at your, I’ve experienced in a way, where it’s tied to the identity, but you start looking at yourself from other perspectives, and you’re almost looking at yourself and trying to observe what am I doing here? And that’s really about awareness. I think if you can see how am I coming across to others? What am I seeing that they’re not seeing? Or what they’re seeing that I’m not seeing? Is that what we’re talking about when it comes to awareness being…?

Speaker: Peggy McAllister  30:50

Yes, this mechanism that’s driving the reactive when it comes out and we begin noticing, it begins on blocking, it begins.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  31:07

I don’t know if you’ve read the Sapiens, from Harare, it’s a really good book about essentially, history of humankind. And for instance, that with my son being born and listening and reading to that, was like that little shift, at least in my perspective, just like, around my identity, because it talks about those beliefs and identity that as humans, what we did in order to survive, and that was really tied to my identity growing up in the Balkans. And then when I realized, I mean, it’s funny as it sounds, but it’s like there’s more to history than last 5000 years ago, or 3000 years ago, right? And there’s just certain things that start clicking in my head where, it’s almost like, that was part of at least my development. And when I started taking things in looking from a more objective perspective, it was an interesting how my identity shifted, or just how I process things, how I see things unnecessarily identity, which it did change. But it’s also interesting and I want to hear your thoughts on this. 

And so being part of the Balkans where I’m from, being an Orthodox Christian, now if my friends are, all hardcore, Orthodox Christians, let’s just say, or Serbs, or whatever, and we don’t fight against Muslims, other Christians or Catholics, so now, if I’m saying, I don’t hate Muslims, I see them as even though my father was in three different concentration camps, Muslim concentration camps, he himself said, there are only good and bad people. 

But your society still expects you to act in certain ways. So, if we go back to that person that was achiever in a sense, and that ingrained  that you don’t have to be number one, his parents or his dad maybe still expects him to be number one, let’s just say. So now you’re dealing with this, now I don’t see things the way that my father does and that sometimes can be conflicting in our heads. So I’m interested to hear your thoughts on that piece where you’ve transcended your old ways of thinking, but you’re still not necessarily, to some extent influenced by those close to you that may not have.

Speaker: Peggy McAllister  34:05

Yes, this happens a lot in marriage. One partner has some big [inaudible 34:15] and changes, and the other is still living in the old container. And how do you manage that? That is, again, there’s no rules, it’s a journey of discovery. It is sometimes by living in a bigger way, just your presence can invite other people to step beyond the line of a circle. But nothing is going to convince somebody to cross that line until they’re ready, until they’ve had the aha, until they had this mechanism, begin becoming more clear, as you said, what has seemed like who I am to be like, oh, this is a story about who I am. Like in the story with the desert, the kids had the whole desert. And we have this whole desert of who we are to express but we live in a small slice of it. So I don’t know if I’ve answered your question.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  35:24 

I’m curious. This is more of like as I said, a discussion that doesn’t has some structure to it, but doesn’t. But I’m curious because, a lot of times, I’m asking myself these questions. And I love to hear other people’s thoughts on it, because I don’t have the answers. And it’s good to hear other people’s perspectives. How do we lead effectively in today’s environment? How besides self-awareness, what are some of the practice even, a lot of times, and I still struggle with this, but meditation is one of the good practices to be self, to kind of with all the craziness around ourselves, but how do we leave or as leaders, how can we lead more effectively?

Speaker: Peggy McAllister  36:19

Yeah, I think when you say meditation, slowing down, and taking pauses is essential now. Just going for the sake of going is again, being run by a part of your identity that told you if you stop something horrible is going to happen. And for all of those questions that keep us at an edge, that keeps us living out of old stories. Is that really true? Is a great question. Is that really true that something horrible is going to happen if you just stop for a minute? If your organization is on a trajectory and you can tell, we need to stop here, we need to pause, we need to reassess. So pausing is critical right now, making room for other perspectives is critical right now. 

So if we just go, shuum, we tend to go with just our perspective, so we’re missing all the perspectives. And we know in complexity, the more perspectives we bring in, I know like in scrums and things, you’ve got to have a lot of perspectives coming into what’s the best solution, you can’t just, okay, I know what we’re doing, let’s gear up and go. So this pause, this making room, this space, also, if we’re spinning in our heads in stories, if we’re just oh my god, going from one thing to another to another, we fail to notice what’s actually here that could be informing our next step? So slowing down, making room, listening, looking.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  38:19

You think like, COVID, I agree, and I can relate to this story too, because I feel lately, or at least over the last year or so, I’ve done the same thing, it’s like, I got to do this, I got to do that. And I’ve been like, and it’s funny though, because coming from a different country and having something especially my parents and not having anything, so we’ve gone from having to not having so, we’ve gone through that, so I know how it is. I tell people, it’s not that bad, especially United States, not to have anything, there’s so many opportunities even back home, but this fear of, oh, what happens if I don’t have enough work? What happens? So I overcompensate by overworking. 

And then I’m like okay, at what point do I slow down and enjoy life, right? And for instance, now, I’m going to back home for two months, and I’m trying to slow down and exactly like you’re saying, take that breeder. And almost, I should be doing that more frequently, and basing it out. But I can relate to that. I think to some extent, it’s that identity, but it’s also maybe a little bit of fear to or what’s going to happen if I don’t make enough where I can pay the bills and things like that, but deep down I know, as humans, we figure things out. What’s the worst thing that can happen, right? And it’s interesting that you say that because I can really relate to that too. 

Speaker: Peggy McAllister  40:03

So you’ve got this frontal lobes that are saying, what’s the worst that can happen? But you’ve got this old mechanism that’s wired for safety saying, I can’t Oh my gosh, that’s wired to look for threat, threat, threat. Where’s the treat right? So this telling this, we’ve got this, we’re fine. If you don’t notice that your fear is getting quieter, then that might not be the mechanism that’s going to help. And right now we’re all being faced with our fears. 

The world has put a lot of pretty dangerous situations in our face. So how do we walk in this? And I would say, so there is self-awareness, giving ourselves pause. But also for those of us who are very self-sufficient recognizing that we can’t go alone anymore, that we’ve got to be all in this together. So collaboration is important. The old paradigm of even things like IP, all the things that might be limiting to I own it, it’s mine. That’s not going to work anymore.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  41:39

But that’s going to be tough, because what you’re saying is that letting go of ego. 

Speaker: Peggy McAllister  41:45

It’s going to be. It’s asking a lot of all of us. Yes. And the part that have been the warriors protecting that line in the sand? Yeah, that line is everywhere.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  42:02

You’ve run a retreat, I think a couple of times a year and what is it called again?

Speaker: Peggy McAllister  42:09

It’s called Return to Wholeness.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  42:11

Return to wholeness, and I was seriously considering it. And I think that’s maybe how I found out or got introduced to some of your work. What does that mean to return to wholeness in the context of what we’ve been talking about?

Speaker: Peggy McAllister  42:29

I was beginning to tell you about Washburn, so I’ll return to that. We entered life not knowing there was a me that started and ended here. We experienced this interconnectedness of everything. But as we entered the identity, we went into a sense of separation. And so that’s the moving into the reactive, where we’re always looking around for how can I stay safe? How can I stay loved? How can I stay belonging, connected? Oh, if I do this, something  bad going to happen. 

That’s the reactive that begins developing as teenagers, we watch them, oh, my gosh, my hair is the part wrong side that sort of, and then we move into what the leadership circle calls the creative, which is the full flowering of the identity, which is, I can do this, I can help make this happen. And we work with others. But there’s still a lot of I and me. We’re  very clear on our gifts, and we use them well. 

So if you picture the creative at the top of the bell-shaped curve, when we begin relaxing our grip on the identity, when we begin letting all of these stories of who I thought I needed to be, we hold them lightly. And we open more to being an instrument for some purpose that’s bigger than us. How can I be in service? It’s not about me anymore, it’s about this larger thing. That is the return to that’s the beginning the dissolving of this. I’m only this.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  44:21

And that’s almost like letting the returning to wholeness is letting go of that ego because probably as a kid, or as a newborn, you don’t have much of an ego. It starts like you said, growing probably. So as you become more interesting. I haven’t thought about it from that perspective, but that makes a lot of sense. And I think another thing that maybe we haven’t talked about which is that, reactive side is still within us. So as you go to wholeness like you said, they’ll have that, it’s just that or perhaps the current needs require us to operate or to upgrade, or whatever you want to call it. But that reactive, we still can pull on it right? When we need to. So I think a lot of people misunderstand that, but that goes away, doesn’t really go away, Is there, right?

Speaker: Peggy McAllister  45:22

And we’d like it to go away. Yeah. The reactive is when fears in the driver’s seat. And the more conscious we get, we can go ah, you know what? Right now fear is in the driver’s seat. But my team needs me to operate from a different place. But I’m self-aware enough that I know, this fear is running in me. So I asked, what is the purpose that I can best serve in this next meeting with my team? What do they need? What does the organization need? And we begin asking purposeful questions that place this young one in the child seat in the backseat, put them in the seat belt, and we take over driving the car, they may still be screaming. No, but we’re driving.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  46:13

That’s really another thing that I’ve been thinking about is we becoming like, COVID has forced this even more to work across countries and cultural lines. So if you think of somebody working with somebody, let’s just say right now in Afghanistan, where there’s a lot of fear, right? So from their perspective, it’s different from somebody maybe in the Western world, they’re going to be thinking about something else. So as a leader, trying to empathize and trying to at least acknowledge that somebody else may have not, may not be at the same, what is it called? Like a hierarchy of needs or because in a sense, I’m trying to satisfy my basic safety needs, where you’ve already got that met, and you’re thinking about, so is it also about awareness when it comes to leadership in organizations being aware of that cultural context, right?

Speaker: Peggy McAllister  47:12

The cultural context? Yes. And if you think about Afghanistan, trauma, is we’ve got a whole country in trauma right now. Wherever, whether they’re holding the guns, or whether the guns are being held on them, the whole country…

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  47:30

I’m just using that as an example. There are so many other places. I mean, I tell people even going back to the Balkans, it’s same thing, people have gone through wars and they have certain beliefs. There’s even a cultural stuff where this is you’re supposed to be told what the elder tells you or do what the elder tells you. So it’s just, as we continue to collaborate and work across the globe, I think one of the key things will leaders will be to understand a little bit more than empathize with the people that are not part of their culture.

Speaker: Peggy McAllister  48:05

Absolutely. Yes, some cultures are much more cerebral, much more just here. And other cultures are more this, like when we’re coaching a lot of Asian cultures, there is very much a complying part of how they grow up. That can have more of a reactive piece to it, but it can also have in its full blossoming in the creative, it can be a looking out for all my team and being respectful of elders and those who have more, but not saying, not holding back when something needs to be said. So there’s a, yeah, respecting getting to know. And again, that’s where Curiosity with these times and our work. It’s a real key curiosity. Yeah.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  49:11

So maybe as we’re finishing here, what is something that you would like us to leave the audience with? What is maybe a message or something to think about when it comes to leadership, when it comes to wholeness and being a better leader?

Speaker: Peggy McAllister  49:29

Yeah, two things that I would ask you all to just be thinking about, and the first would have to do with the circle in the desert. What is the circle that is still keeping you more contained than you need to? That it’s still keeping you operating from some level of fear and shield versus a more natural flowing of your gifts out into the world?

And two, as you let yourself, you might even as you’re walking one day, imagine  there’s a line in the sand in front of you. What is keeping you from crossing that line and what is inviting you to step over? What would call you to enter the larger desert? What is a purpose that inspires you right now in this day and time? Because purpose will pull you further and further into your wholeness. It’s fear and safety that keeps us acting in these labels, roles, containers that are too small for what the world needs right now.