The Positive Response: Rewiring Your Responsitivity

What if you could change the way you respond to almost anything, in the time it takes to take a breath?

This episode is your toolkit. Phil and Pen get practical and give you the tools to consciously shift your response patterns, communicate more positively, receive feedback with grace, and start spreading a culture of Responsitivity around you.

In part two of their Responsitivity series, Phil and Pen move from awareness into action. Four key areas: how to shift your internal mindset in the moment, how to change the way you communicate in real time, how to receive both compliments and challenging feedback without defaulting to the negative, and how to help the people around you do the same.

From the Neural Reframe, takes you from a full vent all the way through to a genuine positive reframe, to the simple but powerful shift of changing yes but to yes and, this episode is packed with tools you can use before your next meeting, your next conversation, or your next difficult moment at work or at home.

And here is something worth sitting with: filtering is not the same as lying. You do not have to tip the whole bucket of your truth into every conversation. As a leader, you only ever need some of the truth, not all of it. Choosing what is useful to share is not dishonesty. It is smart communication. It is leadership.

In this episode you'll discover:

• The Neural Reframe and the 2% Truth: two internal tools to change the story running in your head
• The Intentional Impression: how putting one word in your head before a conversation can completely change how you show up
• How to receive a compliment without deflecting it, and why deflecting is not humility
• How to shift the mood in a room, a team or an organisation one conversation at a time

By the end of this episode, we want you to try one thing. Before your next conversation today, put one word in your head. Just one. And notice what changes.

Responsitivity ripples. And it starts with you.

Transcript

What Responsitivity Really Means

SPEAKER_01 0:00

If we can get into the mode of responsitivity, really responding positively, we will differentiate ourselves from other people. And people will want to work with us, and that is gonna be a huge difference in terms of where life can take you. Yes, we are all about relationship, conversations, communication, but you do have to live with yourself and your own thoughts, Philip. It starts with a chat, it starts with your own chat in the old head. We're always in a coffee morning with ourselves, aren't we? And if you cannot lead yourself, how are you leading a team or an organisation? I do think that is the the question that we probably need to challenge ourselves with a bit more. Filtering is not the same as faltered. Like it's not the same as lying. It's filtering can be really kind and useful. Really helpful. And actually, you know, if you think about it as a leader and a team member, think about it on a non-conflictual basis. I do not want all the information my web developers have. I definitely don't want that bucket. I definitely just want some of that truth. Today is gonna be really about tools because we explored this concept in terms of the sort of the neuroscience, the patterns that we fall into. The internal, why it matters, why it's so important, some stats around it. That was all in episode one. So this is really gonna be about right. Now we understand this, now we started becoming aware and recognising these response patterns. How can we consciously make that shift? Hello, my name's Philip Waller. My name is Penelope Waller, and we are two of the directors at 4D Human Being. And welcome to the 4D Human Being podcast. What's it all about, Pen? It's all about your personal and professional relationships, it's about your communication skills, how you lead, how you work and build teams, how you are looking after yourself and your well-being, and how you are much more at choice. What do we mean by that? Well, sometimes we can get a little caught in patterns in life, and we can all be a little bit on our automatic pilot. So 40 human being is all about helping us get back to choice and being a four-dimensional human being, and your fourth dimension, of course, is intention. So whether it's about your impact, your leadership style, your team dynamics, whether it's about your well-being, whether it's about your communication or your presentation skills. Anything that involves human beings interacting with other human beings, 4D Human Being are here to help. We're gonna take a deep dive and look at some tools, insights, theories that are gonna help you go from a 3D human doing to a 4D human being so that you can happen to the world rather than the world simply happening to you. We open with a I don't know if we caught Humphrey, but if we did, that was obviously. That was Humphrey with a with a positive response to life. He's always positive. He's definitely responsivity. I think he's taken it to the extreme feel, to be honest. Everything is everything is a joy. Which is sort of nice in a way. Yeah, although slightly well, it's all a sliding scale, isn't it, life? And we want to be able to move up and down as opposed to get stuck anywhere. Exactly. Whether that's at the negativity, the positivity, or in between. And super segue, Phil, because maybe too many of us are stuck down the negative end of responsitivity. Disgust. So, in our first episode of these two episodes on responsitivity, if that word, if you're if you're thinking they keep mispronouncing the word responsibility or positivity, if you go back to the previous episode, we were talking about the mindset that we can have, which can be very negatively biased, and we mashed up the words response and positivity. Responsibility. I was gonna say Phil when you said that. I was gonna I thought you were gonna say, if you as listeners have not created a new neural pathway that where this word is firmly embedded in your brain since the last time. You haven't listened to that episode enough times, basically. So responsitivity is our positive response, our responsitivity to what we really notice. I mean, we all know it, we we're all to some extent aware of it, and we kind of gripe about it. Oh, she was a bit oh, she's always got the always mine, or he it came up a few times in sort of sort of social settings and you know, things that we do, hobbies and things, people that we didn't really know, and we caught it and we said we really need to talk about this because it is simply a habit. It's endemic. Yeah, it's endemic. So it's the experience, it's the default response to it could be a big thing like a piece of feedback or a difficult conversation, or it could be How are you? How are you? How is your holiday? It's a nice sunny day, isn't it? And notice if you notice if you think about a sort of a scale from really positive to really negative and all the places in between, just notice where other people tend to sit. I would say at the very least, it tends to tip on the negative side of neutral. Yes, and of course, right in the middle of this is the reminder, the reawakening, the 4D, the intentional dimension that we do have a choice. Even if someone says, Oh, seven days in a row of rain and dark skies, oh yeah, it's been really nice snuggling up on the sofa with some movies and my dogs. Yeah, we always have a choice to pull out the more positive response. And this is not about ignoring the negative. We want to kind of beat that drum again at the beginning of this episode. This is not about being a kind of Pollyanna response and pretending that everything's fine. It's about choice. It doesn't mean we can't look at the difficult, it doesn't mean we can't address the problems. We need to. It's when we get caught in that kind of culture, that response that is permanently negative. We look for the negative. We talked about the negative bias in the last episode. That's the mindset. It's a really natural thing. We have to consciously work to override it. It's no good just saying, Oh, I'm gonna aim to be more positive today and then getting on with your day, because those neural pathways will want to keep doing what they've done before. We have to be conscious of that. And they, and as we said on the previous episode, this is not just a nice to have, this is impacting how you feel, what people think about you, how you're making other people feel, therefore, your opportunities, your career. Hugely important. Hugely important. It's an absolute differentiator if we can grapple and get hold of really being conscious and intentional about how we respond. And if we can, if we can get into the mode of responsitivity, really responding positively, we will differentiate ourselves from other people. And people will want to work with us, and that is gonna be a huge difference in terms of where life can take you. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we've had a very good example in the UK of the difference between messaging right from the get-go of what's possible versus what's the problem. And again, not to say we can't address the problem, we have to, but yeah. And what's the uh what's the focus? So today is gonna be really about tools because we explored this concept in terms of the sort of the neuroscience, the patterns that we fall into internal, internal, why it matters, why it's so important, some stats around it. That was all in episode one. So this is really gonna be about right now. We understand this, now we've started becoming aware and recognising these these response patterns. How can we consciously make that shift? What can we do? Absolutely. So we've looked at you. If you if if you're only ever at home on the sofa with just you, episode one is definitely for you. If you do go out into the world, and we all do, of course, and have any conversation. We all do, of course, because this is everything from moments when you know we just had a tree down here, how we respond to each other in moments like that to shop or shop posts. Do you know what I've just thought though, Phil, in terms of the list of sort of tools and techniques we're going to talk about, I didn't notice on there you had Humphrey as a sort of consultant or a coach because he literally needs to walk into a room. And he likes to do it. I just came in, I just came into the house. I forgot you were dropping the dogs off today. And I've got glass at the sort of top of my window. Bearing in mind he's not an enormous dog. Yeah, he's not an enormous dog. And I'm just putting my key in the lock, and this face pops up in the glass at the top of my door. He's a jumper. He's like Zebedee. Yeah, he's a he's a jolly Zebedee. I know if anybody doesn't know Zebedee, you can now uh you can now locate our age based on the TV show in the uh many decades ago. Magic round, and he was on a spring, this character was on a spring. And that is Humphrey. But he is quite a good example in a non-verbal way, although occasionally he bites. He's a very good example of how his response influences how you feel and how you respond. Definitely not thinking, where have you been, you've been hours. He's you're here. Yeah. Let's party.

Four Tool Areas To Practise

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Okay. So, where are we going to start, Phil? Today we're really going to get practical and we're going to look at how we can really shift to that responsitivity, and we're going to look at tools in four key areas. We're going to look at tools to really shift that internal mindset. We've got we've got one, we've picked a favourite each. Well, also because yes, we are all about relationship conversations, communication, but you do have to live with yourself and your own thoughts, Philip. It starts with a chat, it starts with your own chat in the old head. We're always we're always in a coffee morning with ourselves, aren't we? Number two, we're going to look at ourselves, so you in communication. So this is us maybe going out into the world or at work or maybe just on the phone to um the waterboard. Yeah, who knows? Yeah. Yeah. So you in communication, some tools for in the moment, how can we change this dynamic? It's like, it's like at the moment in the UK when you're walking the dog and you pass somebody who, you know, you probably know who they are, you've seen them walking their dogs and everything, and they go, Oh, it's hot, isn't it? And that is a real choice. How you respond to that. Okay, and you could say, Yeah, isn't it glorious? Oh God, I know, isn't it all? But the t-shirt reads every interaction is an invitation to responsitivity, isn't it? Okay, number three, we're going to look at receiving, and we're going to look at two aspects of this. One, which might be surprising, is receiving compliments. I'm going to look at that, and then Penelope is going to look at receiving feedback, the dreaded word, and of course that's challenging feedback, man. Challenging feedback, and of course, that could be both positive feedback and less positive feedback. And then, number four, we're going to look at how you can spread a culture of responsitivity, how you can help others uh have a more of a default towards what's possible, and even to turn those conversations around or particular or those individuals around. Make it like gamify, make it tough for them to stay in the well of doom. Yeah. Okay, so the first one we're going to look at is the internal

Neural Reframe From Vent To Reframe

SPEAKER_01 11:14

shift. So two tools. And I'm going to start with the neural reframe. Now, the neural reframe has three parts. The first part is a lot of fun. The first thing you can do for yourself or for others is have a good vent. So this is your opportunity to really activate those neural pathways. This is usually not very difficult for people. If you've got a gripe, you've got something difficult going on, or even if you think about the weather and your default is oh, it's so hot. Have a vent. Yeah, yeah. Really have a like all the negative. All the negatives, the worst version of it that you can that you can tell. You can say it out loud, you could write it down if you're doing this on your own, if you're doing it with a team, get them to do it in pairs. Oh moan, moan, complain. It could be about yourself, it could be, oh God, I did this terrible presentational meeting at work. Could be about a situation, a meeting. Yeah. Could be, I mean, it could even be possibly about somebody else. That's a that's that that's another level of doing this. But you can use this for anything, really. When the negative thoughts come, yeah. This is a great practice. So you could even you could even put scenarios, you could put, you know, the hot weather or the roofs leaking, or you could put terror terrible hours. You could put all those things on bits of paper and pull them out of a hat, and you could have immediately just give yourself 10 seconds to have your worst response. What's annoying? It's gonna be so expensive, I haven't got any money, or the roofs leaking, ah, the previous vendors. The next piece, which people often don't do with a positive reframe, is you want to go into a completely neutral space. This is so important for your for the shift in the brain. What that does, firstly, we're removing all of the emotive language. So if you said, oh, Dave stormed out of the meeting and he was, you know, red-faced and furious. It's not Bob this way. It's not Bob, it's Dave. You're going to take all of that hot language out of the narrative and you're going to go into a new, very, very neutral facts, facts, facts. At 3 42. At 3.42. Dave left the room, but the meeting didn't actually finish until 4 p.m. He left the room and he took uh his laptop with him, and we have not seen him since. So that might be factual. Dave left the room at 3.42 in quite a hurry. So that's fine, but that's not furious and stormed off. So facts. Then the reason that's important is you are shifting through your the hemispheres of your brain, if you like, through your corpus callosum, you're integrating because you're reducing from that amygdala, you're reducing all that heat from your emotional brain, and you're going into that prefrontal cortex, that rational, it's just facts. Now, you part of you might be thinking this isn't true. Let me tell you, that is your emotional brain, and we talk so much at 4D. Your emotional dimension is not the same as your intellectual or your intentional dimension, they're not the same thing. But the emotional dimension really loves to convince us that it's right. 100%. So you're going to go mute and quickly. And very quickly, exactly, and much quicker. So this is why we have to do this work because the amygdala of the limbic system activate much quicker emotionally. And then the third version of the story you're going to tell is going to be the positive reframe. And this begins in phrases like, what I know is, what I learned about myself, what I'm pleased about, what I would do next time. All of the positive phrases around what did work, what we were pleased about, even if it was a sort of car crash of a project. What I was really pleased about is that we're all still talking to each other, and actually we've agreed that we're going to do a debrief on it. What I'm really pleased about is Julian and I actually ended up really working out that we could we could collaborate well together. There's going to be something. It might simply be what I'm really pleased about is that I came home in one piece and intact, and I took care of myself after a really tough day. So find the positive reframe. That's your own work. That's internal. The more you do it, the more it becomes a natural default, or at least part of your responsibility. Well, for me, the biggest gift of doing this work over many, many years has been the speed with which the emotional brain is firing all those thoughts around how awful things are, the speed with which you can find that positive reframe and the nervous system calms, and then you've got much more chance when we go into section two about how we respond, how we communicate, you've got much more chance of implementing those tools when the nervous system is. I couldn't agree more. And it ties in slightly. I'm going to bridge to yours because it ties in with something that probably most listeners will have heard and you may well use in your own organisations, which is assume positive intent. It's we're in that kind of ballpark, and yours absolutely is more active than that. So that's a neural reframe. That's number one, how you can literally internally change the movie or the radio show that's running in your head. Rewrite that play.

Find The 2% Truth

SPEAKER_01 16:03

And the second way we're gonna look at responsivity for that internal narrative is what we would call the two percent truth. And we could do a whole podcast podcast on this. Or a podcast. Or a podcast. I don't know. Do you know why I think I said that? There was this guy on on TikTok last night talking about the Aldi pad tie. Oh, and it's got it's gone in. As the most incredible thing you can buy, and it's so rarely available because people are sort of hot all over the pad tie of Aldi. Stop it. Other supermarkets are available. You're vibing out on an Aldi pad tie. Yeah. Padcast. Anyway, so the 2% truth. Now, this phrase is used in different ways in terms of learning and development and coaching. So you may have heard it, but it may have been in a different context. In this context, what we mean by this, and the reason I say we could do a whole podcast on this, is because the 2% truth is about challenging your own internal belief system about what is the truth. It's a very big topic. And when I've introduced it to coaching clients, initially they kind of look at me a bit strangely. And then when they come And then you and then and then you and then you you get off your beanbag and your cross legs of guru wisdom. And then they go, ah, because one of the reasons that these these kind of negative thoughts can come into our head, um, or actually one of the impacts of these negative thoughts coming into our head is that we can then think that's the truth. So let's imagine, for example, that you have a really difficult meeting, there's some some difficult conversations going on, you're left feeling upset, you come out of that meeting, all these thoughts are going on inside your head, and what your brain is doing, it's formulating the narrative of what just happened, which in your mind becomes the truth. And this ties into what we were just talking about, which was that lovely amygdala, yeah, that emotional response really does anchor into it is the only truth. Yes, yeah, and the reason I said we could do a whole podcast or podcast without this is because there is so much we could learn and understand about our memories and about our beliefs and what's truth. What gets laid down, yes, and so you come out of a meeting, that truth starts to get laid down. Every time you think back to it or you talk about it, you are laying it down again, you are reaffirming the truth of it, and actually it can shift slightly, it could become even more negative, and that becomes your truth. Now, when I have these conversations with clients and I say, yes, that that feels true because that's was that was your experience and that's what's been laid down in your brain. That might be 98% of your truth. Let's can we relate this to the weather? Yeah. Something really simple. That it is true that it's hot. Yes, that is that is true. And it's true that it's difficult, and it's true that it's sticky, and it's true that it makes it harder to sleep at night. That might be 98% of the truth. And then a 2% truth might be there's a lovely cool breeze in the woods. Yeah. Or or whatever it might be for you. Yeah. Or my my cacti are doing extremely well. Exactly, exactly. So so a 2% truth could be that I was seen to respond very well in the meeting. I got some good feedback after that meeting, or it might be that it was important to go through that difficult meeting for the longer-term view of what we're going to achieve. So there'll be something that's still true, yeah. Um, but it might even be just a really small portion of your truth. But can you find something that's true and positive that you can really, really own? And that can be your narrative. Now, because what so just to give you an example, so 98% true could be that Dave is really unfortunate. Awful, awful. The 2% truth might be he really cares. Yeah, he really cares about his job, he is passionate. Um and I guess the first step is can you find that 2% positive truth? I would argue it's it's pretty often, if not always, there. So you've got to look for it because your amygdala, you know, your limbic system's up and you're all emotional with the 98% of teaching. No, he's annoying. So you've got to work hard to find that 2% truth. The second piece that can feel really challenging about this, and this some of you may may relate to this, is that when I talk to clients about this, it can feel like you're lying or not being honest enough because you're not sharing, perhaps, or you're not really fully saying that the meeting was terrible. That 98%, you're just slightly trying to squeeze it to one side and sort of expand that 2% of it. And then it can feel like, well, that is true that Dave really cares about his job, but it's also true. Well, you know, do you know what I love about this as well? Which the with the neural reframe and this tool, it's never too late because you can have had a terrible sort of experience with one other person or a meeting, the narrative could all could have also continued for a while, even after the meeting, and that it's never too late to start shifting that narrative. So, actually, you know, when I look back on that meeting, and you can shift it weeks and months late, you can you can shift memories with with people using this, and as you say, you can start to expand, people might start to remember it. Well, it was kind of 60% not great, but then 40% was actually we got a lot out of it. Exactly. Yeah, and my question would always be whilst your sort of automatic quick response brain will hold on to that 98% of well that that feels like my truth, my offer would be see if you can find that 2% of positive truth, and see if you can focus on that a little internally and even take the next step of that's the only part of that situation experience that you are going to verbally share externally because you do not have to share 100% of your truth. You can pick that 2% and decide that that's going to be the most useful part of your truth. It's still true, but that's gonna be the most useful part of your truth to share. And if we can let go of feeling like I must have the other night, I must tip the bucket of all fact. Do you know what makes me? I often say this to people that filtering is not the same as falsehood. Like it's not the same as lying. It's filtering can be really kind and useful. Really helpful. And actually, you know, if you think about it as a leader and a team member, think about it on a non-conflictual basis. I do not want all the information my web developers have. I definitely don't want that bucket. I definitely just want some of that truth. Yeah. So that is your 2% truth, which we which we've kind of categorised as an internal tool in terms of responsivity. Of course, it will have an impact on how you respond to other people. So I love that. So find the gift. It's always there. I mean, you could literally put that through every interaction, communication, relationship you have. Okay, so that's your internal responsitivity response.

Intentional Impressions Lead Your Response

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Number two, this is you in communication. I'm gonna start with the absolute 4D classic, the heart of all we do, intentional impressions. And this is about putting a word in your head. This is about setting an intention. This is your foundation stone, your core, your your base. It's the anchor, it's everything underneath. You know, we can put lots of tools on top of this. If you do this one thing in life, yeah, you can really change the game. So we will go to a default response, as we've said. Often that will be negative. Dave's in the room. Dave's in the room. I'm thinking annoying. Annoying. I'm ready. That's the word I'm holding in my head, whether I'm aware of it or not. Yes. Now, what's interesting though is if Dave were you, Penn, I wouldn't, I would automatically have a much more competitive, compassionate response. So we have we we do have choice. So we have choice. If you think exactly, if that was somebody that you loved, or you know, a family member that you loved, just scave that, um, you'd probably have a very different response to it. So we definitely have choice. Now, the intentional impression tool gives us that choice. Your emotional response is default. What you can do is put one word in your head to have a different impression, a different impact, and let your message be driven from that word. So you might be irritated with Dave in the room, or uh as soon as you know someone's walking up to you, maybe you're hot and bothered and they talk about the weather. If you put a word in your head, you will, it's like you, it's like Google, you'll give your brain different instructions. So as soon as you put a different word in your head, like open or warm, you might not be able to get to motivated and caring and loving towards Dave, but you might be able to get to open, curious. So you put a word in your head, you set your intention. So as soon as you this is this is great for you know, family Christmases. We talk about we talk about it, you know, for that annoying person. How do you want to show up? You know what? This goes even deeper into identity. Who do you want to be? Because we're not just the person that we are with our most favourite people, we are also the person we are in those annoying moments, in those hot and bothered moments, in those traffic jams when a tree's cross, you know, come down over the road. Take a breath, put a word in your head. Maybe you want to be motivating, maybe you want to be energized, but put that word in your head and let that word inform how you respond, and that will give you responsivity. Obviously, if you choose a positive word. So tell your brain what to do, otherwise, it will keep defaulting to the pattern. This is your absolute keystone to shifting those default meeting if you know it's going to be a challenging meeting, or as things start heating up, take a beat, put a word in your head. And if you cannot lead yourself, yeah, how are you leading a team or an organization? I do think that is the the question that we probably need to challenge ourselves with a bit more. Agreed, agreed. Second all, this is very closely related. Yeah, very closely related, and this is a real core one for us as well. And this is the yes, but to yes and. It's so simple, it's so powerful.

Swap Yes But For Yes And

SPEAKER_01 26:48

When we say it, we kind of go, Oh, well, yeah. Change the word but to the word and or so. And we can kind of shrug our shoulders and go, well, that's yeah, that feels like oh being the computer thought that was really worth a an alarm. Well, do you know what the alarm says, Phil? The the Heartstopper movie is being released on Netflix tonight, so we've got a note in our diary for that. We do like heartstopper. Sometimes you can sometimes you can get your devices to give you a positive response, money. Just a moment of your yes but to the yes and we've talked about this so many times on the podcast because it's so powerful. So I'm not going to go into it in huge detail here. If you have somebody who's coming to you with a negative moment or information or even a you know something nice, the brain often wants to go to the yes but yes, but you know, things were difficult. Yes, but sneaky, sneaky negative response. Exactly, especially this is weird, we know when someone says something went really well, maybe it's just sort of it's sort of we I think we talked about it in the previous episode. We can sort of masquerade it can masquerade as humility to say, well, yeah, but I could have done better. If you just catch the language itself, yes and is very difficult then to give a negative response. So, yes, and I thought that particularly, Dave. I'm gonna give Dave a win here. I thought particularly you and Dave did an amazing job, and I really learned from you. So you can use the yes and to build the responsivity. Yeah, yeah. So so those are a couple of really, really sort of key, key language tools. Uh, another one to think about is going off of the neural reframe, which we spoke about earlier, so that real kind of internal shift into more positive thinking. How does that then get verbalized? So, some of those key phrases that Philippa gave you earlier on in the podcast around positive framing, can we actually use them not only internally for ourselves, which is very, very useful and healthy for us and our brains and our mindset, can we actually use them for other people? So, had a really difficult meeting, things have not gone well in the team, the delivery hasn't been hasn't been done, and we spoke last time about a huge statistic in business um in terms of the motivation of people when they feel like their manager tends to focus on things that go wrong rather than things that go right, which is a which is a real sort of a pitfall of leadership. So, can we find phrases such as what really worked was, what I'm pleased with, what we've learned from this is, or can we ask those questions to our team? Look, it's been a tough week. What are we pleased with? What have we learned from this? What are we gonna do differently next time? You will find and mine all of the problems anyway, you will just be framing it in a much more positive way, and and that makes a huge difference in terms of that relationship. Yeah, absolutely. So language, language, language. The final ones I'm gonna give are really basic in terms of the physicality because when we are in a negative

Body And Face As Switches

SPEAKER_01 29:44

mindset or negative emotional state, so those two, intellectual and emotional, one of the easier ways to interrupt those patterns, those intellectual patterns, the narrative in our head or the emotional storm that's that's going through us. One of the easiest ways to interrupt that isn't necessarily through the intellectual or the emotional, it can be through the physical. When we can change the state, we change the story, as Deb Darner would say. So, one of the things we can do, I've got a little friend coming up here to say hello. One of the things we can do, I'm gonna give you two things on the physical. One is to sit back and expand. So when we're when we're forward and narrow, we're in fight or flight, and we're probably gonna we've got our target in our sight line, and we're gonna kind of give them what for. When we can sit back and expand, and that might include your hands, let your palms up. Not too far, but don't go into retreat. No, we don't want to go. We just want to let the spine just a centimetre an inch back so that we're not in fight. Drop it back just slightly, expand the shoulders, take up more space. And when you can then your nervous system will respond, that will start to change, and you'll have a little bit more space to open up and to not go on the attack or the negative. So you can really use the body, open space, slow speed, and soften those muscles. It's quite difficult to enter into responsivity when sort of the jaw and the hands are clenched. That's right. That's really hard. Exactly. If you cleanse, if you clench your whole body and clench your teeth and say, Yeah, no, I'm really pleased about you. So if we can soften the body a bit more, soften the body, take up more space, it's such a hack to have a have a much more positive response. And the second one, which I learned this years ago, it was such a win for me. If you scrunch your face up and sort of close your eyes a bit, like you're concentrating, actually, that's that really feels like I'm gonna find the problem here. So sometimes our face can be kind of like, mmm. Now it might feel like we're just being curious, but it's also kind of it's got this kind of slight sort of grimace to it, like we're we're closing our eyes, something's not quite right, our face is scrunched up. If you open up your face and open up your eyes, it feels quite difficult to go to the negative, to go to the problem. Actually, what that facial expression is communicating to my brain is oh, what's happening? Curious, what's something, something good here, something surprising, something interesting. Ah, there's a kind of curiosity, and curiosity and fear very rarely live together. So when we squunt up our face, oh something's wrong here, niggle-niggle, isn't it? It's like but when we open up the face, it becomes very difficult for us to be on the attack. You wouldn't sort of, you know, be about to have a fight with your eyes wide open and kind of face open and like really looking. We go into a kind of narrow tunnel. I often coach as well around what I call the facial shrug, which is a much subtler version of this because we can feel when your face goes into the change. Um it doesn't mean we're aware of it, we can feel it physically, it doesn't mean we realise the impact of it. I mean, I always tell people record yourself. But sometimes I see people doing a facial shrug, which is like a yeah, yeah. And we do that and we don't realise we're doing it. Um and even that alone, yeah, it just sends messages to our brains in terms of what we're then gonna say. And remember two things on this again. I'm gonna say again, if you can't lead your own face, how can you do other people? And secondly, secondly, remember there's more signals going from your physical, from your body to your brain than your brain to your body. If you are smiling, lifting your shoulders back, yeah. Your brain, it's not hearing we're we we're looking for the negative, it's hearing, oh, what's possible here? Yeah, yeah. So you can tell your brain how to think and feel it's amazing. So true. So, area three that we're looking at today is around feedback. Now, again, we have done whole sort of series on this, we talk about this an enormous amount. This is just a tiny, tiny thing to think

Receiving Compliments And Challenging Feedback

SPEAKER_01 33:55

about, simply because whether it's good feedback or challenging feedback, we can often slip into the negative, both as the as a giver and as the receiver. So I'm gonna start with compliments because we're I'm gonna give you one tool on compliments, because this is something that many people actually do find difficult, and it might be cultural, it might be your own upbringing, but it's something that I think a lot of people find difficult. And when we deflect, when we don't allow compliments in or we respond with a negativity, we've lost and they've lost. Everybody loses in this. It's like somebody coming to you. If you imagine this, it's like someone coming to you with a really nice gift that they've made for you, and they they put it into the palm of their hand and they they pass it out to you, and you literally swipe it away and see if you can get it. It's like it's the oddest thing, isn't it? And so they're kind of left in a bit like, ooh, that was a bit ouched. And you're and you're and you're you're left sort of defended and a bit grumpy. It's the oddest thing. If you think about comp if you think about a compliment, like a like a cake that someone's baked for you, you wouldn't just shove it back in their face. Chuck it on the floor. Chuck it on the floor, you'd you'd you'd take it. Even if you didn't eat lemon drizzle, even if you didn't like it, you'd go, oh, that is so kind of you. Wow, look at the way you've done that design on the top. And that is leading us into how this tool works. So receive with care. Find something specific that you can appreciate. Because we're not this isn't just saying, oh, thanks. With a compliment, take a breath, say something about it that you've really heard. Really brief, very short. We don't need a long sort of essay on uh on uh the uh quality of that compliment, just something that you can acknowledge. If they say, Oh, you did a really good bit of work there, thank you, I have to say I I was really pleased with this part of it. Or thank you, I have to say the people that I ended up working with the team were just a real joy to work with. Or even that's really meaningful to me. Yeah, exactly. And you can also come you can also thank them. So if they say, you know, um, oh, you know, I I love that you're you've gone more corporate, you're wearing much more, you know, you're wearing suits more often. Thank you. I'm really, I'm really glad that you notice that because I have made an effort to to change how what I wear. So I really appreciate you noticing that. So you can also thank them for the for noticing something or for thanking you. So find something that you can thank them for. Yeah, receive the gift and say thank you. It's so much more mature as well, isn't it? Grown up. Say thank you. That's even if it's thank you, that's really kind of you to say that. Even if you feel like I don't think I did a great job, that's really kind. At least start with that. There's plenty of space to explore. The other thing that sits in here is let's say it's around a piece of work that you've done, someone has sort of you know given you some very positive feedback or complimented you on it. The other thing I like about what you're saying is it's taking ownership of it. I think sometimes we find it very difficult to own and acknowledge our strengths or things we've done well, and we sort of hope other people will, maybe consciously or subconsciously, we you know, we might might like getting praise and good feedback. We're not always really good at owning it ourselves. And very often in my character, I ask people to start sentences with things like, you know, as a leader, I, or what's really important to me as a leader, or what I do as a leader. And sometimes that I position can be quite hard for us. So that for me, that really ties in with the first piece we looked at, the internal. Yeah, because it's both the neural reframe and the 2% truth. Because at some point in your life and your career, I feel really strongly about this. You have to own that it would be a lie to deflect that you're good with numbers or you're you're great at presentations. If you aren't good at those things and you consistently get good feedback on them, to keep deflecting and not owning, actually, that's something I'm good at, which is a truth. There's something about owning the truth of it, isn't there? That's right, that's right. Uh, of course, not all feedback is uh positive. Sometimes it can be very challenging to receive feedback. So uh we're not gonna spend a huge amount of time on this because it's a huge topic, and we, you know, we we've got other podcasts on it. I'm sure we're gonna visit it. A 40 on demand series on difficult conversations, which has so many tools around how we can give and receive feedback in difficult conversations. So that's coming on to 40 on demand in the next few weeks. Yeah, so I'm gonna just gonna say two or three, two or three things in here. So the first thing I'm gonna say is let's assume for this first one that the difficult feedback is given well intended. So somebody has taken the time to think about it, had the courage to have this conversation with you and found a way to hopefully quite skillfully give you that that piece of feedback for your own learning and development. So let's assume positive intent. We may not like hearing it, it still might be difficult to hear. If we can recognize what that person has done and how that was probably also difficult for them, can we again go in with the gratitude? Now, it might be that we can expand that gratitude into a much wider, broader conversation. Brilliant. If we don't feel we can, then at the very least, can we say thank you for taking the time to give that some thought and give me that feedback? Nothing in what I just said says, well, I fully agree with you and I'm absolutely rubbish at my job, it's purely acknowledging thank you for taking the time to give me that feedback. And even that alone will probably shift the dynamic of the conversation. I think that if you feel that feedback is coming from a really difficult place and maybe there's some history there, let's say, that response is so disarming because again, we often talk about this change the game, but if you feel you've you you there's a bit of a bias going on or something, something else is going on, and you get some difficult feedback, the expectation in that game is that you're gonna take the role of either you're gonna fight back or you're gonna be the victim or you're gonna be you know um be upset with them. That's the that's the expectation. So to then play the game of thank you so much for taking the time, that's a w that's really unnerving if someone is expecting you to crumble or to fight. Exactly. Because now they're now you're the grown-up in the room, you're the one really taking standing there and really owning actually that you are there giving me this difficult and I'm gonna appreciate that. And it might be that that's the end of the conversation, particularly if it's if it's something that's said in a sort of public forum in a meeting, it might be that that's just enough. You don't have to say you agree with it, you're just gonna thank the person for taking the time to give you that feedback. It might be then that you can go away and think about it. I would also say that if your if your sort of emotional self is is quite upset about it, doing the the thank you for taking the time to give me that feedback and then going away and thinking about it so that you then can think about well, what might be the truth or the useful piece in there, the positive reading of what might I be able to respond to when I've calmed down a bit. The second thing I would say on this is again, if you find if you find the feedback that you're getting quite difficult, first of all, can you acknowledge? Thank you for giving me that feedback. Can you then respond to that feedback with what I can accept about that or what I can do following that feedback? What's the piece? If you can think in the moment, you might need to go away and think about it, but it's similar to the 2% truth, which is what's the piece of this that feels I can take that on board, possibly respond to and possibly act on. So phrases such as what is really useful to me in that is this. It doesn't have to be the whole thing they said, it can be a piece. And the other phrase that's really useful is what I can do, what what what I'm going to do off the back of that feedback is this. And again, it might not be that you feel like you can fully respond and act on the whole piece of feedback, you might be able to use that positive language and action on a section of it. Yeah, that's really nice. So those are a couple of really quick things to think about when responding to challenging feedback. Very nice. So on to section four, which is how we spread responsitivity into the world, the ripple effect into culture,

Spreading Responsitivity Through Teams

SPEAKER_01 42:23

culture, into teams and organizations. And we're going to look at a few tools of how what you can do in the moment. If you feel like whether or not, you know, you might be starting an organization, you might have a startup, you might be starting a new team, building a new team, entering a new team, about to lead a new team, you might be in a situation where you've already got some dysfunction or you've already got a culture that's quite difficult, or maybe even quite a toxic culture. So you could be anywhere on that spectrum. You know, it's like health, isn't it? We want to take care of our health before we get unhealthy. But if we have got unhealthy, we also really want to get better. So I'm going to do the first one on this because this feels like the sort of foundational bit. And the first tool, if you've got, let's say you're in a meeting and you've got, you know, five people around you and they're all sort of moaning and looking at the negative and blaming, and that's that kind of very negative culture is out there, very negative communication is just rippling through, and everyone else is just jumping on the bandwagon, everyone else is following. It's very, very contagious. The first thing you want to do is really actively listen. Because there's a big difference trying to shift a culture of negativity by just generally saying, Oh, can we all be a bit more positive here? Because the first thing that we need as the other people need is to be heard. So even if you're finding it really difficult, even if you're thinking it's very unreasonable, if you're hearing, well, you know, accounts should have come up with this, and actually I had to work too much overtime and I couldn't get that done, and then the report wasn't sent to me on time. What can you really listen to and acknowledge that's going to make that person feel heard? So, Bob, I'm going back to Bob, Bob, I'm really hearing how stressful that was for you. And I'm and I'm I really want to acknowledge that you had to work a lot of overtime and sometimes were kept waiting for reports that never came, and that is not okay. So I really hear that. So active listening, because really, when we get into our negative mindset, when we're complaining, most of us want to be heard, and it's the piece that's missed. So I just saw and and to go into responsitivity without hearing anybody is almost more annoying. It's it's like you haven't even got the foundation. Yeah. So I saw such a beautiful example. This is on social media yesterday. I mean it brought tears to my eyes. So it was in an American kindergarten, and there were three little little boys, and they were all absolutely having scream and crying meltdowns because they hadn't been allowed to go outside to play because they had they hadn't listened to the teacher and they'd been misbehaving. And this other teacher came in and said, you know, this this male teacher, he was amazing. He said, He said, You know, what's got going on here? And yeah, they were just all sort of crying and sharing. And he said, I'm here to listen to you. So I need you all to sit down and stop crying so that you can talk to me and tell me what's wrong. And so they that took some that took some self-regulation, didn't it? So they sat down, he sat down with them, and he went to the first child. So let's start with you. You tell me. And the the boy continued crying, and he said, You're crying now, so you're gonna have to wait your turn. I'm gonna go on to boy number two. And he went all the way around and he asked them why they were crying, and they explained why they were crying. And then he said, I've listened to you now, yeah, so now it's your turn to listen to me. Is that fair? And it was absolutely amazing. It was so beautiful. Because usually, as a parent, you want to do the talking first. I literally think that's the map. Yeah. That is literally the meeting. That's the meeting map, isn't it? It was amazing. It was amazing. And they and they they were left with nowhere because he absolutely had listened to them. I absolutely love it. I'm gonna do my second one because it's so near to the active listening and it's the appreciation anchor. So off the back of listening, can you really appreciate something that they've that they've done that they've done? So you might say, I really appreciate how open and honest you can be about this. I really appreciate that you've come to this meeting when it must be really difficult to come here and um sit with a team that actually, you know, is has been very difficult to work with. So, what can you really appreciate? Anchor it in, give it, give them a win, value something about them. When we feel heard and validated, you have got a foundation. Now you can start to put the responsitivity icing on the cake, but you must, must, must have the cake because icing on nothing doesn't, it's just a mess, isn't it? It's just a mess. Especially as you get older, Phil, you sort of don't want too much icing. You don't want too much icing. And then you can't eat too much icing, can you? You know, they're just that that saccharin positivity with no foundation. Too much. Too much. So the the next one on helping others shift. Now, this is this is my sneaky favourite, okay? Okay. And we don't often talk about this in terms of a communication skill. It's not always used positively and well, but sometimes it's really, really useful. And necessary. And necessary, which is the deflection. So somebody is, you know, talking about how awful the management is and they're standing by the coffee machine and saying, oh, yeah, they're so awful. And what we can do is we can either sort of join them or sort of, you know, try to try to understand them. And that's that's fine, it's got its place. But one thing we can do is just very subtly deflect them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just take them on a different turning. Take them on a different turning and they won't even notice you've done it. And it can be with a with an offer or a statement or or a uh something you've noticed, or it could be with a question. So, as an example, someone's saying, Oh, you know, the management are really, really awful. And you're listening and you're nodding, and then you go, Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, you agree. Yeah, I I really hear you. And I really I really liked the way that Dave ran that meeting the other day, and that he got us all to sort of share what was really working in the team, and and just notice when you start sort of slightly turning people down a different path, or it could be a question. I really, really hear you. I wonder what has really worked this week in the team for you. Those kind of questions and observations, they can slightly blindside people, and those who are really determined for the you know, to stick in the negative, you know, they might dig in for a bit, it starts getting really, really hard. Now, I always say this one with caution because deflection is a is a kind of sneaky communication tool. I don't know if we I think we could use it a little bit more because I think we think to be sort of polite and in relationship with somebody, we have to kind of sync up with where they are. It's not always the most useful thing to do. Well, funnily enough, we can link this really directly to mental health because we were talking about generalized anxiety disorder. And when we're when we have a generalized anxiety, it's almost like a free-floating anxiety. Within the same five minutes, we can be anxious about the you know, our workload, and the next thing we're anxious about, something's wrong with our car, because that anxiety is almost looking, it almost needs something to attach itself to. You think of it more like a free-floating, you're looking for something. And I think the same thing can happen with negative culture, that once we've got that bedded in, actually, people are almost sort of just finding other things to complain about. So deflection can be very useful because in this is not to ignore the problem, exactly as we said at the beginning, but sometimes giving our brains something positive to focus on. This is great for rumination at night. You know, when you you know when you have those moments where you're irritated with somebody and you can't let it go. You can't let it go, you can't let it go. If you start thinking about what you're going to pack for your holiday, you would your brain can can probably go, you know, it depends on what you've got going on. But deflection internally and externally can be very useful, but simply just to see whether or not we've got the records got stuck, yeah. And we need to look somewhere else for a moment. And I'm sure uh, you know, at a much deeper level, if you know if people are interested in this, then you know, meditation and mindfulness is a is a whole kind of other arena. And obviously, you've done a very long retreat on this where you really get familiar with those kind of ruminating thoughts and how how the brain's just doing what it does, the brain is doing what it does. So I and it can be really hard for us, as you've said, to shift into that more positive mindset, particularly if something's embedded in the culture quite negatively. So, in a way, it can be a real gift to give to a colleague or somebody else to perhaps just offer, but there's a different path here. Should we just go down there for five minutes and see what it's like? Or sometimes just, you know, I know that we I know there's a lot of issues with this particular project. And I, you know, I really I've really heard you there, Dave. I wonder if we can have a look at the team off-site plans for the meal. Go down here. Yes, let's take 20 minutes and all decide what food we want to eat on the you know, on the on the the first evening. Like there is a space for it because you can change, you can shift the tone, you can shift the mood in the room. So sometimes, you know, let's just go somewhere else, you know. If it's the same with environment, if you've had a room that has had a lot of negativity and a lot of difficulties, have the meeting in a different room. Yeah, go somewhere else. You know, we can shift to positivity in many different ways, both verbally, but also in how we set tone and set environments. Yeah. So there's lots to think about with responsivity. It's important for our mental health and our well-being. It's important in terms of uh

Responsitivity As Leadership Strategy

SPEAKER_01 51:37

how we think about ourselves and our self-esteem. It's important in relationships and work relationships, it's important in terms of how we're seen, how we make other people feel, how we motivate them, the culture we're creating. I mean, it's it's hugely, hugely important. And talking about this, you know, we've we've kind of scratched the surface, really, and we're we're really not talking about uh, as Philip said, becoming Pollyanna and going around saying everything's wonderful all the time. It's just recognising the patterns that our brains get into. Yeah. And how can we be more aware of that and how can we sometimes make a different choice? Yeah, like we say, this is this is your one life. How do you want to keep showing up? And I want to come back to a couple of things on this. One is this is not just a private matter, this is cultural, this is relational, this is about your leadership. And I would argue that this is a strategic act every day to get the best out of yourself, the best out of your team, the best out of your organization. And teams take their cues from their leaders. You know, we say we've said it a million times, but people don't leave companies, they leave leaders. You have that in your power, you know, even when the market's tough, even when we've got as much change going on as we've got at the moment, to be the leader that people want to work with, to know that even if they do bring a problem, you can hold that and you can help them see it differently is amazing. Responsitivity ripples. You can be the contagious that ripples it out, and that will just continue and continue. Something else I liked that you said, uh, Phil, in our in our sort of pre-notes was it's about leveling up. It's about recog, it's about recognising that for lots of us, the the kind of scales of positivity and negative negativity are slightly out of kilter based on probably what we've inherited, what we've learned, the way that the brain works. So it's not about oh, I must become the most amazing positive, it's just about can we just get a little bit more balance and level up in terms of that posity and negativity? Absolutely, absolutely. To have actually more balance for ourselves and for others. And I would use leveling up also in a second way, which is when we're faced with negativity or difficulty, we can level down and meet them there, or we can pull them up, yeah, and we can we can level them up to join us in a more in a more possibility positivity mindset. We always, always have that choice. Yeah, and gamify it because you know the tough nuts are the most satisfying to bring into positivity. Exactly. If you can crack them and shift their thinking and their communication. So remember, every interaction is an invitation. The most negative, difficult, Moni, they are your real test cases. If you can help them get into a positive mindset, if you can use responsitivity with them and make it much, much harder to stay down that well of negativity. You are going to have a better conversation, a better culture, and a better business. Yeah. Loads of our 40 on demand series uh refer to this, talk, talk to this. Many, many personal profile, well-being, and managing different conversations, definitely. So there's loads and loads on our website, also for free, and then you can go behind the paywall and get our full series in terms of um this this development and this work. It's hugely, hugely important. It's how we are shaping our narrative, and our narrative is shaping our culture. So uh changing lives. Changing lives with responsivity, Phil. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the 40 Human Being Podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show.

Share The Episode And Connect

SPEAKER_01 55:14

Do take on board some of the insights, tools, and tips because every time that you try something new to get back to choice, you are making a vote for the you that you want to become. And I I love that phrase, Pen. I do too. And please do share this episode with somebody that you know would really benefit from the lessons and learnings we've been chatting about today. And of course, if you're interested in more from 4D Human Being, do get in touch. We run workshops, trainings online, in person, conference events and keynotes. We've got the 4D on demand platform for your whole organization. And we do have a free essentials membership where anybody can sign up for absolutely free to access some of our insights, tools, and tips. So do get in touch with us if you'd like to hear more. We cannot wait to hear from you and to carry on the conversation.