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Translator: Rhonda Jacobs Reviewer: Ellen Maloney I am definitely

not the hero of this talk, but if I do my job properly, you will be.
You will be the hero that goes on a journey today and discovers a
gift that could change your world. First let me tell you a story that
will give you context for everything I'm about to share with you. I
was nine years old, and I was horror stricken as I watched my two
older brothers, Perry and Mark, in a vicious fight. They were
strangling each other on the floor. My nine-year-old brain actually
believed that I was about to lose one or maybe both of my
brothers. When it was all done, they vowed that they would never
speak to each other again. And they didn't ... for several years. So
here's how it went down in my house. The phone would ring, and
Perry would answer it, discover that it was for Mark; he would say
to me, "Go tell your brother Paul wants to talk to him." I was
drawn into the space between ... for years. Fast-forward - my
brother Mark got into trouble. My dad kicked him out of the
house, held the hard line, even though my mother's heart was
breaking. She would secretly bake cinnamon buns, and come to
me and say, "Would you take these to your brother, and tell him
that I love him." I was drawn into the space between. That was 50
years ago. And I have lived in and have worked in the space
between ever since. And what I want to do today is to help you
understand the power of what can happen when we step into that
space. In order to do that, I'm going to share a true and
remarkable story with you about Paula and her manager, Ziad, in
which they go on a journey from depleted brains to very
energized brains. So I'd like you to meet Paula. Paula started her
job, like most of us do, wanting to be a high performer. She was
highly engaged, wanted to contribute to the organization, but
what happened in her company was there was a reorg, and
leaders took their eye off the ball, leaving Paula without the
support, the guidance, the coaching that she so desperately
needed. And although Paula had started out engaged, she
became exhausted. Although she had started out dedicated, her
brain became depleted. And here's what we are seeing across
North America: massive amounts of employees, managers and
leaders who are engaged but exhausted; they're dedicated but
depleted. So it's very difficult to become our best selves when our
brain is depleted. But why is that? Let's take a minute and peek
inside this three-pound blob of tofu that nestles into your
cranium and understand why that is. This brain of ours, it only
comprises two percent of our body weight. But how much energy
does it burn every day? It is metabolically expensive. It burns 20
percent of our energy reserves every single day, far more than any
other organ in our body. Heart, lungs, liver, they're all important
but they can't come close to the energy draw that the brain does.
So what happens if you are engaged but exhausted? If you are
dedicated but depleted, you will lose access to one very important
thing. And the first thing you lose access to is your executive
function. So all the autonomic functions of the brain that control
your immune system, your digestive system, your fight-or-flight
mechanism, they keep running, but the first thing you lose access
to is the executive function. Because the body is very judicious in
its use of fuel. So, the executive function - what is it? Well, let's
take a look here. With an energized brain, you can focus your
attention; you can regulate your emotions; you can connect the
dots in surprising ways; you can anticipate the downstream
implications of any decision or behavior; and you can make really
smart decisions. But when your brain becomes depleted, and you
lose access to the executive function, you get easily distracted;
you can react very impulsively; you lose the thread; you fail to see
the downstream implications; and you make really unwise
decisions. This is not a bad person, this is just a person with a
depleted brain. So, this is where Ziad enters the story. In the
reorg, he became Paula's new manager. And he sat down with
her, and after hearing a few things from other leaders and other
managers in which they said: When she's on her game, Paula is
amazing; she's bright, and she can be highly productive, but she's
begun to struggle with stress and sickness and absenteeism. And
in fact, she became absent so often that leaders had seriously
considered "freeing up her future." Ziad sat down with Paula and
said, "I don't need to know what's happening in your personal life,
that's not my business. But I do want you to know that I'm in your
corner, that I've got your back. So what can we do to take some
stuff off your plate, to make this work for you?" Does the
approach sound okay so far? It's not okay so far; it's actually a
train wreck. My biggest work with leaders is helping them switch
and shift from parenting ... to partnering. Ziad is taking a classic
parenting approach, assuming that he knows best and trying to fix
Paula's situation by taking stuff off her plate. And sometimes
when people try to fix us, it actually creates more frustration and
more depletion. Every time they had that type of a conversation, it
was deeply unfulfilling as both of them walked away. It was in this
time period that Ziad happened to come to one of my sessions
around energizing people's brains. And he learned that it's not
magic. In fact, it's not something you're either born with or not,
it's a trainable skill. Anyone can learn how to do it. And it's all
about understanding what matters most and connecting on what
matters most. Ziad learned that in any situation, there are things
that matter most to us. So, for instance, in some situations,
belonging, inclusion, acceptance, feeling part of the tribe, social
relationships, that is the thing that is deeply energizing for our
brains. But there are other situations where we feel a little bit off
balance and security is the thing. So, systems, structures,
consistency, rules and fair play. But in other situations, it's all
about freedom, it's all about autonomy and independence, the
ability to get our fingerprints on things, take a risk and make
decisions. But in other situations, it is all about significance, the
ability to do quality and excellent work, make progress, achieve
great results, move the needle. And in some situations, it is all
about meaning, purpose, legacy, the greater good, changing the
world. And it's very important to understand and connect on what
matters most to the person in the specific situation they are in.
Ziad came into this and what mattered most to him in this
situation was freedom. He needed to get free of hand-holding a
problem employee. And so he assumed that freedom must be the
thing that mattered most to Paula as well. So his approach was:
How do we take stuff off your plate? How do we free up mind
space for you because I know this is stressful for you? And as I
said, what happened was it was deeply unfulfilling for both of
them. What he learned was that for Paula, significance was the
deal. And here's how he learned that. You don't have to be a mind
reader, you don't have to be a therapist, you don't have to be an
expert coach to find out what matters to another person. In fact,
the people who are best at it do one simple thing: they ask.
What's most important to you in this situation? So Ziad came back
from that training session, had a simple conversation with Paula,
and said, "Paula, this has been difficult. I'm wondering if you and I
could do a re-do of some of our conversations because I know
they've been frustrating. I want to ask you one question: What
matters most to you in this situation?" Her response was instant.
She said, "I want to be seen as a high performer. I want to be seen
as somebody who is highly productive. But every time I meet with
you, you take stuff off my plate, you take challenges away from
me, you take learning opportunities away from me. I want more
challenges at work." And Ziad is thinking: Who would have
thought that somebody who is struggling with stress and sickness
and absenteeism wants more challenge at work? And he didn't
know if she could really step up and do it, but he thought, let's
give it a go. And he started giving her challenge after challenge,
and coming along side of her, and helping her out, and what
happened was every time he did, she stepped up and she hit it
out of the park. Well, when you start to understand what matters
most, possibility very fluidly flows from that. And they started to
see new ways of Paula adding value, and stepping in, and being
innovative. And when that starts to happen, it's very natural to
move into partnering together for progress. So what was
happening inside the brains of our two journeyers here? What was
happening was there were some powerful, high performance
hormones that were flowing. Thanks to the work of Dr. Loretta
Breuning and the Mammal Institute, we know what happens
inside the minds of mammals when you put them in certain
situations. So for instance, you see the mother and her cub. There
is a powerful hormone that is richly flowing in this situation. Some
of you know what it is. It's oxytocin. Not to be confused with ...
Oxycontin. When you create connection between two mammals -
and we're mammals so we can learn from this - connection
releases oxytocin. Well, who cares about oxytocin? Well, oxytocin,
when it's present in our brain, it produces a sense of trust, rapport
and bonding. Some of you are thinking, yeah, there are people in
my world that I could use more trust with. Is there something you
can do that creates connection and unlocks oxytocin inside the
brain? There absolutely is. What does she see? Anybody, what
does she see? You can tell by her body language. What is that?
She sees food. She sees lunch. When a mammal senses possibility,
dopamine is released in our brains. And when dopamine is
released, something powerful happens: motivation, creativity,
ingenuity, innovation, goal orientation. If you know somebody
who is unmotivated, the first place their therapist will look is their
dopamine levels. Is there something you can do that's a
benevolent brain hack that will release dopamine inside another
person? Absolutely. Helping them see a glimmer of possibility, of
potential, of opportunity. Mammals love to outdo each other. It
guarantees the survival of our species. We feel intensely
pleasurable when we make progress, when we have an
achievement, when people value and respect us. Why do we feel
so pleasurable? Because serotonin is flowing in our brain. And
when serotonin flows in our brain, we feel invincible, it unlocks a
sense of agency, belief, confidence, self-efficacy. Is there
something you can do that can unlock that inside another
person's brain? There absolutely is. Partnering with them for
progress. Now, anybody can connect on what matters most.
Anyone can help someone see possibility. Anyone can partner for
progress. Why don't we do it? The surprising reason we don't do
it - it's not because we're bored in their presence; it's not because
we're tethered to our devices; we are - but here's the big reason:
You put yourself in others' shoes. And you're going: Aren't we
supposed to do that? Let me tell you. When you put yourself in
someone else's shoes with all of your assumptions, your
judgments, your conclusions, your beliefs, here's how the
narrative goes: "If I were in your shoes ... " and what comes out
next is your autobiographical fix for their situation. This happened
to me powerfully several years ago. My third child, Tyler, was
finishing up university in the East coast. I was seated in my dining
room and I got the phone call that every parent dreads. Now, the
story turns out well, but it was chilling in the moment. He began
to describe the situation: "We're in the hospital, we're going to
make it through, but it's been tough." And he described the
vehicle - and I'll only keep this slide on for a moment - but the
vehicle had rolled several times. When it landed, it caught on fire.
Four of them had been able to get out of the vehicle, but his best
friend Holly had been stuck in the front seat and the door was
jammed. She was able to extricate herself from the vehicle, they
grabbed hold of her, and they got far enough away that when the
vehicle blew up, none of them lost their lives. I sat there with
unbelievable gratitude on that day that my son Tyler and his four
friends had lived through this. We all know it doesn't always
happen that way. I better move it to the next slide. There's my son
Tyler. The next night, I was out with a friend who knows Tyler very
well. And I simply told him the story of what happened to Tyler. I
said, "You wouldn't believe what happened to Tyler." I told him.
No sooner had I finished, and he said, "Well, you won't believe
what happened to me in Chicago last weekend!" I was slack-
jawed, because I had put something out there that was so
important to me, and it was summarily dismissed. And he told his
story. Because I love my friend, and I want to invest in him, I
phoned him up the next day, and said, "Could we go out for
coffee?" We went out for coffee. I said, "Do you remember I told
you the story about Tyler?" He said, "Oh, yeah." I said, "Do you
remember how you responded?" He said, "Not really." I said,
"Well, here's what you said." He said, "Did I actually say that? I
can't believe that." When I drilled down into what he was trying to
achieve, what do you think it was? Because it wasn't one-
upmanship. What it was, was: I want a sense of rapport and
connection. I want to show you that I understand your Tyler story
by sharing mine. He put himself in my shoes, and he heard
enough to respond. That was Thanksgiving several years ago.
Tyler came home that Christmas and you can imagine what that
was like. After Christmas, I was out with another friend who knows
Tyler well, and I had mentioned what had happened to Tyler. No
sooner had I finished, and he said, "What was it like the first time
you saw him again?" I said, "I was in my basement. I heard him
come through the front door. I came running up, I grabbed hold
of Tyler, and I hugged him, and I hugged him; I didn't want to let
go because it was the first time I saw him since the accident." My
friend invested five seconds. "What was it like the first time you
saw him again?" And what happened was another whole layer of
what matters most came out of a father who almost lost his son.
My energy level after the first conversation was through the floor.
My energy level after the second conversation was through the
roof. People rarely leave your presence neutral. They will leave
your presence engaged or depleted. (Applause)

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