Alicia:

Hello, and welcome to Soul of a Leader podcast, where we ignite soulful conversations with leaders. On today’s episode, Dr. Alicia and Dr. Eileen sit with the founder of Aspire Consulting Partners, Dr. Chris McNiven, to discuss resilience and thriving in a time of change.

Eileen:

Hello, and welcome to Soul of a Leader podcast. Today we have Dr. Chris McNiven. He is a futurist, and focused on creating opportunities for leaders in organizations to articulate and accomplish all they aspire to be. He founded Aspire Consulting Partners eight years ago. As an organizational development and design thinking firm, Aspire partners with leaders and organizations so they can thrive and make a positive impact in the world.

Eileen:

He mentors several young leaders, facilitates online graduate courses, and loves coaching his son’s soccer team. In the quiet moments, you can find him teaching baristas how to make a perfect French press, or enjoying the company of his wife, Jennifer, and their boys. Well, welcome, Chris. Thank you so much for joining us.

Dr. Chris:

Thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

Alicia:

Welcome, Dr. Chris. I’d like to hear about that cooking that you have.

Dr. Chris:

It’s good to meet you, Dr. Alicia.

Eileen:

So, today we have you here because I’ve known Chris for a couple of years, more than a couple of years, a handful of years, and I really was inspired to have him on our program podcast because of the way he leads people on his team and how he coaches executives. And there is the Love Well, Live Well, and Lead Well. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?

Dr. Chris:

Sure. I’d love to. Love Well, Live Well, Lead Well for us is… It’s more than just a cute little saying. I love that it has that flow to it. Right? But it’s really a reflection of who we at Aspire are, our beliefs about life, and fortunately, also our beliefs about our work. Love Well has everything to do with our orientation towards ourselves, others in the world.

Dr. Chris:

If you think of it as a spectrum, on one end you have Love Well, right? And as we move towards that end, we’re rooted in the knowledge that we have purpose and worth and value. And so we can be agents of resilience and thriving, whether it’s for us or for others or the companies we work for. And on the other end of the spectrum, maybe is more like Fear Much. And that’s more of an uncertainty regarding who I am. And when I have that uncertainty, there’s a fragility maybe in how I respond or how I overcompensate or misapply strengths and those sorts of things. So Love Well is all about our orientation towards ourselves to others in the world. It’s kind of the under the waterline piece for us.

Dr. Chris:

Live Well is a patchwork of choices and decisions we get to make for ourselves that promote our wellbeing. So think about self-care. This could be as tactical as our daily routines of sleep and nutrition and movement. And it can be broader things related to practicing mindfulness or our understanding of how we are connected interpersonally with others. And so how do we live well in those moments?

Dr. Chris:

Lead Well becomes frequently the demonstrated by in the workplace. So if we’re loving well and we’re living well, we’re able to lead well. In Lead Well, we think of it in terms of three. There’s a living mission piece to it, so that’s everything about our identity and our impact, how we use power and make decisions. There’s a building health piece to it, and that’s all about building trust and trustworthiness, creating spaces where people can belong, enabling them to adapt and grow.

Dr. Chris:

And then there’s an improving performance piece to it. And that’s all about execution and achieving, which has to do with measuring and keeping commitments, sustaining performance, and having grit. How do we work through those challenging times? So it’s our orientation to ourselves, others in the world, our ability to navigate this patchwork of choices to promote self-care. And then Lead Well has everything to do about how we become agents of thriving in organizational life. So it’s a little bit.

Alicia:

Yeah, I’m impressed by it. I tell you, Dr. Chris, I was reading your bio, and I pondered a little bit about your title Love Well, Live Well and Lead Well. And so one of my questions to you will be, how do you see the spirituality connected to all three of those together? Specifically for a time now that we’ve dealt with COVID-19, what individuals need to understand. How do they connect better so that they can lead better? And how can they live well? And then how can they love well?

Dr. Chris:

Right. I love this. So this is one of… You’ll have to tell me. You’ll have to back me off my soap box if I get too far on it, but-

Eileen:

It’s a good soap box.

Dr. Chris:

Oh, thank you. I don’t know how you think about this without thinking about things in spiritual terms. Right? When I think about human beings… And not to get too nerdy, but that’s what we do. We’re nerdy do-gooders over at Aspire. So I think of humans as this unified trichotomy, right? And we’ve got these, the mind, the body and the soul. And you can try to pull those things apart and look at them, but there is a weaving and a mutuality and an influence inside of each of us, that it’s hard to separate those out.

Dr. Chris:

And then when you… I love the fact that you took it to other people too, right? Because we’re part of these systems. And how I show up the practice of self-care sometimes could feel selfish, but if I’m not doing that, then actually I’m also not able to care for others as well, too.

Dr. Chris:

So I think spirituality, having this orientation, even the idea of Love Well, we’ll go back there, that idea of Love Well, that I have a purpose, worth and value… I think what COVID-19 really did for me and for our team, I can only speak of our experience, is that it crystallized for us an uncertainty that probably is there all the time, right? The world is an uncertain place, and we may have illusions of control, or I’m the captain of my ship sort of thing. But in a lot of ways, it’s uncertain, the world is uncertain. And COVID just crystallized that for us.

Alicia:

Absolutely.

Eileen:

And Dr. Chris, with that, when you’re saying COVID crystallized it, myself, I believe there is a God and that each one of us has a purpose on this earth. And it’s even supported in a book that I recently read on managing yourself. It’s the first by Harvard Business Review on what is your God-given purpose in life. And with COVID-19 and all these leaders, what do you think will sprout from this?

Eileen:

I speak on forgiveness. Alicia and I are very spiritual. I’m thinking, compassion, empathy. You talked a little bit about others in the world in a trust and spaces to belong. And especially when we’re all here, wondering if we connect with each other, what will happen? Will I receive COVID? What will happen? So what are your thoughts about all that? It’s a long question, but I think it’s aligned in what you’re saying.

Dr. Chris:

It sure is. Thank you, Dr. Eileen. I guess my hope is that work has a humaneness to it that maybe we’ve been missing for a while. I like the ideas, the virtues of gratitude and humility. I think those are two pieces that are really… When we walk with gratitude and humility, our experience of the world and of others is meaningfully different. And so I would hope that our work worlds [inaudible 00:09:16] some of those markings, in addition to compassion and empathy, I think it changes how we interact with each other.

Dr. Chris:

A lot of my routines got disrupted significantly. All the outside regulators of my time. Right? So whether that is the routine of my travel in work or my children’s education or those soccer games that I love to coach, none of those outside attending religious services, right? Any of those things, those things aren’t the same. I mean, we were trying to figure out our way, but they’re not the same. And so I think maybe there’s an opportunity here, too, for us to be a little more intentional and in creating, and I love this word, co-producing ways forward together. Right? So as opposed to just having these structures and rhythms placed on me, the three of us get to choose to be together here at this time to have this conversation. I hope more of that happens.

Alicia:

And so I agree with you. It’s the challenge that we are going to be faced with after COVID-19 or during COVID-19 is, how do we begin to look at things differently? A lot of our time has been really demanded by things we thought were important. I think being on stay-at-home has allowed us to really think about what’s really important now. We all are forced to re-look at what’s of value, really where my passion is at. So I would ask a question to you. How do we deal with the challenges in a very spiritual and passionate way?

Dr. Chris:

Let me make sure that I’m hearing the question correctly. We have the opportunity now to make these choices. Are you asking, when we’re through this, when we’re through the crisis of this, how do we maintain some of these behaviors? [crosstalk 00:11:26]

Alicia:

Yeah. How do we maintain some of these behaviors? How do we do it more in a passionate and a spiritual way? A lot of times, people’ll use the word, “I’m just busy, busy, busy.” Now it’s like, whoa, a life-changing situation has impacted all of us. You’re really not that busy now because we can’t be busy. 

Dr. Chris:

Yeah. I wonder if-So to the passion and spirituality part, I wonder if we have an opportunity to have these sorts of conversations in more regular ways, right?

Alicia:

Yes.

Dr. Chris:

I think if we keep… The way this goes back to “normal”, the old way of being, is if we lack intention about how we want to move things forward. Right? So one of the reasons why I love this podcast… So I’ve got my 12-year-old son listening to you all. He loves it.

Alicia:

Oh, [crosstalk 00:12:30].

Dr. Chris:

So, so talk about… You picked up a follower right there.

Alicia:

Yes, yes.

Dr. Chris:

The way that we have this is that we make these sorts of conversations regular, routine. Right? So I don’t know what it’s like for you all. For our team, we gather virtually on Monday mornings, right? We’re across the country. And so we gather on Monday mornings on our team call and using video. And we have a prompt that we start, and the prompt usually has to do about, what’s one unexpected moment of joy that I had this week? Or-

Alicia:

Excellent.

Dr. Chris:

… what is something that I’m really not happy about that COVID’s introduced into my life? And what is one thing that I wouldn’t have had otherwise? Right? So I think we can be honest about it, but I think we have to get past that surface level of interacting. We have to [inaudible 00:13:27] that’s seen, being seen and seeing the other person. That’s where we need to stay at with each other, I think.

Alicia:

Yes.

Eileen:

Well, and being seen and seeing another person, what I like and what I heard Dr. Chris was earlier in your… Your answer was humility. And there’s a quote by CS Lewis, and it says, “True humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is thinking of yourself less.” And what I’m hearing, when you do these daily conversations, it’s about joy. It’s about helping your coworkers. It’s about connecting with humans and being kind and bringing that spirituality and that energy back. And that’s what I call the soul, right? That’s why we’re here.

Dr. Chris:

Yes, absolutely.

Eileen:

Each one of us have a soul in mind, body, spirit, like you said. And by connecting that way, as you are doing, you’re raising the vibration, one, and two, you’re really intentionally thinking about how you and your team are going forward.

Dr. Chris:

Right. And I’m not holding us up as the example. I think we take good swings at this and we do our best. But there’s lots of really great practices out there. There’s lots of people who are acting with joy, who are choosing joy. Right? I love that, that despite my perceived circumstance, I am choosing joy. I see this on the front lines of some of our clients who are in skilled nursing, for example. They choose joy, and that joy radiates to the people they care for and those family members. And it’s amazing. Right? So choosing joy, like you said, Dr. Eileen, that idea of gratitude, humility… I love that Lewis quote, right? “It’s not thinking less about myself, but thinking less often about myself,” or itself.

Eileen:

Self. Correct.

Dr. Chris:

Right? Yeah, yeah. I was like, “It’s close.” Yeah, I’m in the ballpark.

Alicia:

Right.

Eileen:

And I’m hoping that quote is used more now today than ever before, as we have this time to really go look in and look around us and understand what’s really important. And it’s about being with each other in a different manner and not so busy, as Dr. Alicia said. And it’s about intentionally connecting with others. So, this is exciting. It’s an exciting time, and I hope we all bloom out after it.

Alicia:

Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah. Another good point I want to bring out is all about connection. And that’s one of the values. We have some value cards. And I think about being connected. We’re connected now. And another important point is we don’t have to be perfect at it. You just got to understand, be purposeful in understanding what draws the connection and what’s the intent and where the true passion is at in what you’re doing, and why we’re doing it, and how we are leading others. So I would ask another question of you, Dr. Chris. What is a learning point that you look at as far as your team? What are some good key learning points that you would share with the listeners?

Dr. Chris:

We have our team call. And we recently did a… A tool that we use with clients, we applied for ourselves and we’re kind of investigating it. And it’s a predictor of workplace behavior. And what we saw when we looked at the data together was that we’re a pretty balanced team. We are pretty adaptable, pretty fluid, but the thing that requires, or the thing that is required for that [inaudible 00:17:45] to go for our adaptability, for our flexibility to really happen is that we have to trust each other. And trust requires us to be honest with ourselves and honest with each other about our rules, about how we’re doing, about what we need.

Dr. Chris:

And so that level of transparency and vulnerability in some ways, to say, “I need this from you,” or, “I’m struggling in this area,” or, and this happens a lot with do-gooders, I think, is a humility that is kind of backwards a little bit maybe. And so it’s like, “I don’t want to live into the fullness of who I am.” Like, “No, no, no, you…” Right? As opposed to me stepping into the fullness of all the power that I actually have, not the power in a bad way, but like that internal God-given or created or intended, that part of who I am that is naturally effective in certain areas. And so I think it’s us trusting one another, with each other, and being honest and direct and owning our pieces, I think, again, not rocket science, right?

Eileen:

What you just said is great. And it’s about the fullness of who I am, really opening your heart, your soul, to figure out who you are. And Dr. Alicia had said earlier that we have these values decks, Soul of the Leader cards, which we can use, and we’ve used with people to discover who they really are and the fullness of who they are. People haven’t taken the time, and now we have the time to do it, and to move forward to say, “Who am I? Who am I?” instead of listening to others. And this values decks really lays it out and really explains it on how you discover who you are by these words.

Dr. Chris:

I wonder, have you found in your… Turning the tables on the interviews for a second, have you all found that there’s been this progression, where people were uncomfortable with the silence and some of the reflective pieces that happen when we’re in silence or disconnected a little bit, but over the weeks, people have started to feel a little more comfortable and practice, maybe even unwittingly, mindfulness or other things and be able to get to those value pieces?

Alicia:

Yeah. And I had to say that, yes, what probably happened at the beginning with myself and others is it’s that fear factor. And so when everybody got quiet, there was a distance, a disconnect. It’s because we all trying to figure this out. Or really, is this reality? Is this really happening? And so we saw that in clients. But when you pull out the values card and time goes on with what’s going on, you began to sit back and say, “Okay, where’s that inner strength that I need right now?”

Dr. Chris:

That’s right.

Alicia:

Where’s the wisdom? I told a client a couple of days ago, “We have to use wisdom now.” It’s a lot of information. We living in a time where communication is at our fingertips in seconds. You have to use a spirit of discernment at that point, because you can take in so much information, and you have to now decide, “Is this my faith working, or is this my fear working?” And so I can… And Dr. Eileen can probably bring more into it, but I think at the beginning it was more fear.

Eileen:

Agree. And Dr. Alicia, you did say wisdom. Wisdom is not learned by taking classes. Wisdom is gained in the silence-

Alicia:

Absolutely.

Eileen:

… in prayer, meditation, inner thought, discovering who you are, becoming self-aware. That’s where wisdom comes. And there’s a quote. I can’t remember who said it. But when we’re younger, it’s, oh, you’re the warrior. And then at middle life, you’re the king. And then as you get older, you’re the sage. Well, I think that’s going to be wiped out, and that after this, as we hopefully are all connected, more of us will become sages and gain that wisdom, and that what I want to call a deep confidence of your, like what you said, your mind, body and soul weaving that wisdom and spirituality. It’s not arrogance. It’s not narcissistic. It is connecting to others and knowing what your purpose is and moving forward on that.

Dr. Chris:

Right? And I think to have that clarity around purpose requires a connection with others, right? We’re not these free and clear of everyone individuals, no matter how hard we try to isolate, right? We influence and are influenced. And to have clarity around purpose, I really think it involves a lot of those being receptive to and listening well across multiple inputs, multiple voices speaking into us.

Alicia:

Yeah, so one point about listening well… And I did some research a few years back, and one leader said she likes to listen. She listens more, talk less. And so I will ask you a question. Does it take a lot of courage as a leader to first listen and then move? And what level of courage do you think a leader needs at this time?

Dr. Chris:

I do think it takes courage. I think it takes courage to listen well, probably in a couple of fronts. Silence is this ambiguous thing. We’re not really sure what’s going on with the other person. Maybe we don’t even really fully know what’s going on in ourselves. And so to allow these spaces of silence, to listen well and through the noise to notice, what’s the message being said? And how is the person presenting? And where is that aligned? And where is that not? And to maintain a position of curiosity about the other. I think all those things take courage, because it requires us not to bring that spotlight back to us so that we’re in charge and we’re in control. So I think it takes a lot of courage.

Eileen:

Thank you.

Alicia:

Yeah. I agree. It takes a lot of courage to lead. And there’s some days I just wanted to sit down and not do nothing, Dr. Chris. It’s that leadership in you be like, “You can’t just stop.” It’s something about it. But so it takes a lot of courage.

Dr. Chris:

Yeah.

Eileen:

And what do they say? One minute of courage can change your life if you just pull through that fear, which I say sometimes, “Fear is false evidence appearing real.”

Alicia:

Yes.

Dr. Chris:

Oh, that’s good.

Alicia:

Always false evidence appearing to be real.

Eileen:

We’re harder on ourself, sometimes, than others.

Dr. Chris:

I think that we would be well-served now and with whatever comes, stability, prosperity, struggle, hardship, to recklessly pursue an understanding of who we are and who we’re created to be. When we start there, I honestly believe we are able to love well and live well and ultimately lead well.

Eileen:

Thank you for joining us on Soul of a Leader podcast. We are igniting a new way of leading with your soul in interviewing ordinary people with extraordinary impact. Thank you for listening to the stories of our leaders, who will help and guide you on your leadership journey. For more information on our podcast, please visit our website at wwwsoulofaleader.com. Thank you for listening.