Happy Saturday! And Almost Happy New Year!

Welcome to all the new members of the community and a quick reminder of what you can expect from me in each edition of this newsletter …

1. My thinking is here in the newsletter. Links are for diving deeper.

2. I strive to deliver ‘news you can use’.

3. I also share insights into human behavior and topics I’m thinking about.

4. I include amusing or interesting “slice of life” moments.

5. The Q&A feature is based on questions that come up in conversation - please send me yours!

6. I’d like to hear your thoughts- ‘reply’ to this email or reach out directly to: [email protected]

The Secret to New Year’s Resolutions

I have a funny relationship to goal setting. I think of a goal as a fixed marker, like a goal post. Yet I’ve made enough journeys around the sun to know that things don’t always work out as planned due to factors beyond our control and so a course correction or recalibration is required as the year goes on.

This combination of belief and experience (is that ‘wisdom’?) has made it challenging at New Year’s to set personal “goals” for the new year. There are too many external forces that might interfere with my ability to attain the goal. Failure never feels good so that contributes to my aversion. Why bother?

As a believer in self-improvement and personal growth, I’ve landed on “intention” as the best way to approach my “goals” and “resolutions” for the new year. Intention feels like a resolution - “a formal statement of decision or opinion” - but without the rigidity. Setting an intention is setting your mind to something that you wish to achieve or do. It feels a little more ambiguous which, to me, in the dynamic world we live in, makes it more achievable.

I intended to write my first book faster than the six years it eventually took yet I was ok with it taking longer because I understood that the demands of running a business also needed significant amounts of my attention. I couldn’t do both simultaneously and do both well. In fact, when I was in the writing process, I would shut out the outside world - no social media, no email, in order to get lost in thought. Had I set a resolution that I would have a finished book by a certain date, I would have had to deal with either disappointment in myself for not meeting that goal or guilt for ignoring the needs of my company. Or both.

What has helped me with my alignment to intention at this time of year is the self-reflection that kicks in as the sun sinks lower on the horizon each fall. I turn inward and reflect on the year that’s been. Through that process I develop self-empathy - an understanding of where I’m coming from and what is prompting that behavior. That awareness of self let’s me make modifications to behavior because I better understand the motivators of the behavior I seek to change.

It’s like trying to transplant a tree. If you pull at the ends of the branches, it’s going to bend and flex and snap back into place. If you dig up the roots, you’ll be able to move the tree to a different location where hopefully it will flourish anew.

Neuropsychologist Julia DiGangi, PhD, wrote a great piece in Oprah Daily (you may need to sign-up to read it fully) this month about how 80% of resolutions fail by the third week of January because we don’t understand how our brains work. She shared that the self-reflection, which I had been doing intuitively, is the key to bringing about behavior change that lasts.

Here’s the basic steps I follow in case it helps you with your intention setting.

1. Reflecting on the past year, what stands out as something I’d want to do differently in the future?

2. Focusing on that, remove the external influences and other people from the situation. I can’t control them no matter how much I’d like to. 😀 

3. Explore my role in the situation. What was prompting the behavior that I’d now like to change?

4. What do I need to do to change that? This might mean bringing it into a session with my therapist or energy healer.

5. Record somewhere what my intention is. I’ve written them down in the past and sometimes I’ve recited them while lighting a candle and meditating on the candle. I’ve found that by putting it out in the universe it helps manifest and keep you accountable.

6. Keep myself accountable with grace. Have awareness of how it’s going and give myself permission to “get back on the horse” if I fell off.

Let me know how it goes and please share these tips with a friend.

Happy New Year!

The Unexpected Benefits of Making a Change

I knew I was stressed being a CEO and entrepreneur but I didn’t realize how stressed I was until I stepped out of the role and into the Chairman position at Ignite 360 back in September.

It took a “year-in-review” from my Oura Ring app to bring into focus what that stress had been doing to me as you’ll see in this photo. Check out the “Readiness” green line. The graph is divided by months along the horizontal axis.

I would have expected the month 10 (Oct) scores to go up because I was on vacation in Europe for most of that time, getting lots of sleep, sightseeing and generally living a lower stress existence. But I was surprised to see the readiness numbers stay elevated in November and December as well. While I haven’t been completely stress free during this time, the day to day stress is absent and that, along with increased movement and diet changes, seems to be having an impact.

My insight from these last few months is that sometimes you really have to step out of something in order to see the full picture. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to have down time the past few months. It’s given me a chance to recover and prepare for the new year ahead.

In other words, “being productive” isn’t just about generating output, it can be about regenerating and healing as well.

Q&A: I thought empathy was about others. If that’s true, how can I have self-empathy?

Great question! Self-empathy is an actual thing although less understood and studied at this point. I think of self-empathy as observing and understanding yourself. It’s similar to self-awareness although I don’t think it’s exactly the same thing. Let’s say you are having issues with Step 1, Dismantle Judgment, of the 5 Steps to Empathy. In order to dismantle your judgment, the type of judgment has to be identified - bias, stereotype, past experience, etc. And that includes the source event that generated the judgment. By understanding (self-empathy) what caused the judgment to come about, the thinking can be reframed in order to diminish or eliminate being judgmental in the situation.

 This article in Psychology Today goes into greater depth on self-empathy.

Looking Back on Year 1 of Reading Between the Lines

Yes! Year one of this newsletter is now in the books. Thanks to everyone for sharing their feedback. I appreciate the support and your thoughts help make this stronger.

In the past year, the number of people in this community has TRIPLED! It’d be cool to keep that pace up if you could please share this newsletter with 2-3 friends like you.

Here are the 5 most read editions from the past year (based on open rates)…

We Will Find Our Way: 2023 Layoffs & Inflation - This post from February 8 looked at current events and offered insight from the Navigating to a New Normal participants about their real struggles dealing with inflation. Building on that here is a further link in the post to this thought piece on the Ignite 360 site. It’s interesting to see where we were then and where we are now.

I’ve Got Some Big News - The second most read edition dropped on September 9 with an advance share of the news that I’d be moving into the Chairman role. And a link to a Good Things Utah appearance on strengthening relationships with your kids during back to school.

Happy Women’s History Month - The March 9 newsletter looking at the women who have played an influential role in shaping who I am in the workplace was featured in this March edition.

Point Taken: The Power of Perspective Taking in 2023 - Appropos to this edition, back on January 17 this newsletter dropped sharing thoughts on setting intention and reflecting. Plus it includes a link to my first Good Things Utah appearance. I remember being so nervous I couldn’t sleep. I’m more comfortable on-air now but still get a healthy dose of nerves.

Why We Need a Little Christmas Now - This was the last edition prior to this one and it clearly struck a chord. If you didn’t get to check it out, it’s still relevant today.

Here are 3 other editions that you might find insightful…

How Empathy Works in Times of War and Terror - I got more feedback on this October 21 edition than any other to date. The content here remains relevant as we struggle to reconcile our feelings toward governments and organizations compared to civilians.

Is Your Boss Having Magical Thinking About Empathy? - The Businessolver State of Workplace Empathy study is always eagerly anticipated by people working in empathy. The 2023 results found a noticeable gap in how CEOs perceive themselves vs people in organizations which I explored in this May 25 edition.

Pride, Hubris and Enablement - Remember the Titan submersible? How about the Bud Light and Target controversies over their inclusion of trans people in their marketing and products? This June 25 edition made an impact and I was asked last month to give a live talk to an industry lunch & learn group based on this content.

All the back catalog issues of Reading Between the Lines are available here.

I hope you liked this edition.

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Reading Between the Lines delivers of-the-moment insights into empathy and human behavior; expect practical tips on using the skill of empathy in everyday life and exclusive updates to keep my community close. All on a biweekly basis.