Show Notes

At the center of the Universe dwells the Great Spirit. And that center is really everywhere. It is within each of us.

– Black Elk, Lakota Medicine Man and Holy Man

 

Without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness, nothing will change for the better in the sphere of our being as human.

–  Vaclav Havel, former President, Czech Republic

Following A Thread

Early in the interview, Renee tells us about a thread that has run through her life – ” a deep belief in our capacity to be well and to thrive”.  Her thread runs like this:

• The journey begins with pursuing a degree in Exercise Physiology.
• She has a stint in a heart center working with heart patients, in which she uncovers a deeper desire to be upstream rather than downstream of an illness, so she turns her focus on wellness.
• Working in EDS’ corporate wellness center she notices an uptick in employees experiencing stress and traces it to certain activities in the business.  Concurrently, smoking cessation programs are found to be more successful when paired with a mindfulness practice.
• After being promoted to a leadership position she discovers her belief that a core role of leadership is to support the success and wellbeing of the team.
• The business areas with employees feeling the most stress are those working with mergers and acquisitions.   Renee is asked to develop an approach for Change Management to help reduce stress and its effects.
• It was a short yet crucial jump from a focus on employees facing change to the value of developing leaders across the company to take a deeper dive into how they learn, lead, create and perceive the world.   This began with the work of Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline (overviewed here). 
• The leadership transformation programs were paradigm busters and gave leaders new frameworks to build a different kind of relationship with themselves (one definition of wellbeing) and then naturally with customers, employees,  community partners and other countries in which they operated.
• Renee ultimately founded Wisdom Works with her husband, David.  Their unique offer is the conscious evolution of leadership with the specific frame of supporting leaders in operating from a foundation of wellbeing.
• In 2018 Renee and David packaged their collective experience in wellbeing with the Be Well Lead Well Pulse^®

We all have threads, how would you trace yours?  In my view, a thread is closely tied to our life’s purpose.

Wellness or Wellbeing?

Wellness – as it is typically used in the U.S., refers to lifestyle behaviors such as nutrition, sleep, exercise, and even breath.  But early on, as Renee shares in the interview, forward thinkers such as Halbert Dunn, M.D., Ph.D. were describing wellness in ways that included the ‘spirit of man’.  I found an absolutely fascinating article written by Dr. Dunn; in it he says this about Knowing Thyself:

“Psychology tells us through laboratory demonstrations that our perceptions of the outer world are indissolubly linked with the concepts and emotions fixed in our minds and body tissues. Without a knowledge of one’s inner self, understanding of the outer world cannot have breadth and depth. A mind tortured with prejudice, hate, and fear projects itself in distorted human relationships.”

In reading about Dunn and the impact he had on the holistic wellness movement I’m reminded of all the shoulders we stand on.

It’s easy to draw a line from High-Level Wellness, as he describes, to the effectiveness and impact of a person who is leading others.

My favorite definition of wellbeing, a la Renee, is “our internal resourcefulness to meet the demands of our external world”.  She adds another aspect to include how we are in relationship with others – that we exist in relationship.   These are both in line with how Dr. Dunn considered wellness in the 1950’s!

Here’s what the Be Well Lead Well Pulse^® measures.  You can see how the aspects of wellbeing we discussed, plus more, are reflected:

• Thriving – your evaluation of your own wellbeing now, plus the optimism you hold for your future.
• Fuel – how you energize yourself physically, mentally and emotionally; this includes diet, movement, rest + breath.
• Flow – aka being in ‘the zone’; engagement, presence, mindfulness and the feeling of bringing value to your work.
• Wonder – continuously evolving your worldviews and perspectives with appreciation and awe; learning and growing.
• Wisdom – tapping into and integrating your purpose, vision, and innate genius and bringing equanimity and lightness to life.
• Thriving Amplified – creating the conditions where others thrive; energizing and maximizing their impact and growth.

You can tell by reading the descriptors of the dimensions of the Be Well Lead Well Pulse^® that this is a thorough and generous assessment

Wellbeing and the Role of a Leader:  Thriving Amplified

I can’t help but make ties to Servant Leadership in this category of wellbeing. Can you imagine the world if we all supported each other in such a fundamental, life-enhancing way?

Like the ability to empathize requires us to be aware of our own emotions, supporting others’ wellbeing requires that we are connected to our own.  We begin with ourself.

I wrote a few blog posts several years ago that sprouted from my experience cycling.  One post links engagement, a cycling team’s paceline and the concept of distributed leadership as outlined in this article by Nick Petrie of CCL (Center for Creative Leadership).  In short, employee engagement requires the effort of leaders and members of the team.

Renee speaks passionately and often about creative vs. reactive leadership:

“The Be Well Lead Well Pulse dimensions promote a generative, open, present and connected stance to leadership, rather than leading from reactivity and fear.”

The creative orientation is a characteristic of leaders who achieve sustainable results. You can learn more about this in earlier show notes from my interview with Jacqui and Renee, owners of Anytime Fitness Bishop Arts.

The Value of the Be Well Lead Well Pulse^® Assessment

I’m a believer in a good assessment and this certainly is one.  Seeing my collective answers to their well-crafted questions reflected back to me gave me a perspective I could not have arrived at on my own.  The combination of elements are unique to anything I have ever encountered and I was able to make connections that I would not have otherwise made.

Based on the report, I was able to see that although I was feeling a bit shaky and unsure in my current situation, I did have an optimistic view of my future.  Life can be challenging and some days I feel swallowed by uncertainty and even fear.  But when asked, I honestly feel optimistic that I am evolving and that something good is cooking within me.  I lean on this feedback when my energy and mood are low.

I’ll close with a quote by Warren Buffett that sums up the link between wellbeing and leadership:

The process of becoming a leader is much the same as the process of becoming an integrated human being

Thanks for reading, and remember…Elevate Your Part of the World!

LeeAnn

Show Notes

Culture Eats Strategy for lunch.

 – Peter Drucker

Anytime Fitness Bishop Arts is in the 97th percentile of clubs (of 2,475 clubs) in the Anytime Fitness franchise system and quite easily achieved status as a Platinum Club.   Several metrics combine for this designation:  member retention, financial results, team member retention, and their PLEASE scores, which are based on the club’s alignment with corporate values.

I have a colleague who likes to say, leaders get the organizations they deserve.  Owners Jacqui Bliss and Renee Reed have a lot to be proud of and they are getting exactly what they worked hard for and thus deserve.

The Platinum Club accolade does not surprise me one bit.  I’ve been a member of AF BAD (Anytime Fitness Bishop Arts District) for two years and from the moment I walked in I could feel the culture.  My experience and their offer continues to improve, so I conclude that I was not shown dogs and ponies.  It’s also an easy place to be; the community is friendly and eagerly supports your goals.  Even with the neighborly atmosphere, the sweat pours, heart rates rise and strength is built.

The Big Ideas of this Podcast:

• How to achieve a High-Performing Culture
• Ways to stay relevant in the changing world of fitness (or any industry!)
• How business partners navigate difficult times by staying focused on the future and leaning on each other’s strengths

A Culture that Works at Anytime Fitness Bishop Arts

Jacqui and Renee are doing so many things right, but I’m highlighting a few of the ones that stand out the most in this interview.

Establish and Keep Rhythms 

Experts on business execution and operational excellence agree on the value of setting and keeping rhythms.  The right amount of structure will set an organization free.  Here’s how:

• Rhythms cut down on reactivity. The organization is constantly updating and reporting on important information rather than responding to last-minute, ad hoc requests. Keeping on top of strategies and initiatives reduces fire drills.
• Honored rhythms build trust. When meetings with employees are given priority rather than scheduled over, the leader is sending the message that the employee, and the team, are valuable and key to the organization’s success.
• Regular meetings give team members a reliable communication channel to discuss issues that impact them.
• Team members share knowledge such as successes that can be amplified, and mistakes so they avoid being repeated.
• Meeting rhythms cut down on last-minute and ad hoc meetings so that more focused time can be devoted to the most important work.

The AF BAD club’s meeting rhythm includes weekly meetings with the entire team to cover general updates and operational topics.  They discuss the successes and challenges they observe with individual members and check in on the PLEASE values set by Corporate, focusing on how the values are being implemented at their location, with their members.

Weekly one-on-one meetings are also held with every team member.  Anything is open for discussion at these meetings: personal/professional development, career goals, personal check-ins, individual projects and initiatives, complaints, requests and so on.

A Creative vs Reactive Orientation

Jacqui and Renee articulated over and over what they cared about and what they want to bring into being during our conversation.  This way of thinking is called a Creative Orientation.  Quite simply, keeping your sights on goals, vision, values, and purpose results in more passion and less drama; more sustainable results and fewer rollercoaster rides.  Leaders who lead this way build motivated, inspired and high-achieving organizations.

A Focus on the People

Jacqui and Renee keep a larger than normal staff so that 1) members have consistent access to trainers and the club manager when they have questions, and 2) so that the team members have colleagues working with them most of the time.  As they say in the interview, it’s no fun being the only employee at work!  While one can argue this has a short-term negative impact to the bottom line, it results in long term employee and member retention.

An Inclusive Environment

Inclusion and diversity are powerful words these days. The AF BAD club is a microcosm of Oak Cliff, with all the shapes, sizes, ages, races, gay, straight, trans, and decorated people you can imagine.  If you’re not comfortable with all that, this probably isn’t the place for you.  Lately, the most impressive form of diversity I’ve experienced are folks coming in that are highly ‘deconditioned’, meaning significantly out of shape.  The story I tell myself is that they have been made to feel welcome here.  Both Renee and Jacqui have shared that the stories they’re hearing about the visions people want for themselves and their lives has been touching and inspiring.

Inclusion is good for business and good for humankind.

Staying Relevant

Most industries have experienced significant shifts in the past decade or so – just look at the retail, taxi, and news industries as proof.  The fitness industry is no exception.  Any business wanting to thrive in today’s environment must innovate and find ways to stay fresh and exciting.

Renee and Jacqui  stay relevant by:

• Investing in leadership and organizational development. An organizational coach taught them about meeting rhythms and tracking and communicating metrics.
• Committing wholeheartedly to their decisions. I see many individuals and organizations who invest money for development but then either don’t stick with it or they improv.  Improvising means that they implement only part of the recommendation, or they combine advice from several experts rather than stick with one approach.  Renee talks in the interview about burning the ships – giving themselves no way out except through to completion.  100% Commitment.
• Employing new technology that gamifies working out with friendly competition and reports meaningful statistics to the users.
• Updating equipment and renovating the space.
• Always researching and learning. “Jacqui is the gas”, says Renee.  They, and most people on their team, have advanced degrees and are continual learners.  Each team member has a history as a college athlete or a story of personal transformation.  Jacqui and Renee have built a fantastic, high-performing team.
• Using Social Media in positive ways to tell good stories.

If you want to make it in today’s world it requires constant evolution.

Navigating Partnerships 

Many small, independent businesses are run by owners who are also life partners.  The current statistics on divorce rates hover somewhere around 50%, which poses an additional test for these business and life pairings.  What happens to the business when the personal relationship falters (and vice versa)?

Renee and Jacqui beautifully illustrate a new composition.  With the same dedication and commitment with which they seem to run the rest of their life, they have made their way to a very positive and respectful business collaboration.  They are also parents to an exceptional son and they’re doing a fantastic job in their shared parenting – vacationing and spending holidays together as a family.

Based on the success Jacqui and Renee have experienced in their situation, here are a few questions to consider if you find yourself in one that is similar:

• Re-assess your vision for the business. Do you still feel strongly about it and want it to succeed?  Do you want to continue to be a part of it?
• When the emotional dust particles settle, is your business partner someone who you respect and who you feel has a similar work ethic? Was the business partnership working, even if the life partnership wasn’t? Are you a good team?
• Are you willing to ‘do your work’ and learn about your contributions to the breakdown and declare to improve in those areas?
• Can you move past the hurt and work without resentment?
• Can you (eventually) be ‘all in’ again?

I’m not an expert in this matter, but it seems if you can answer ‘yes’ to these questions you have a good starting point for the next iteration of your evolving business.

I’m glad you’re here, and always remember… Elevate Your Part of the World!

LeeAnn

Show Notes

Passion is the result of a good life design, not the cause.

Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

I knew that Christian’s story would be interesting because while he was building his residential development business he also finished a Masters degree in Transpersonal Psychology at Naropa University in Boulder, CO.   This all came on the heels of an existential exit as a professional golfer as a result of a career-ending back injury.  Let all that sink in!

He now owns and operates Christian Chernock Properties, a design + build firm in Dallas that focuses on the revitalization of historic and conservation districts.  His intellect and focus on sustainable and future-focused design pushes the edges – and some local residents’ buttons, too!

Christian’s background as a high performing athlete and his ongoing commitment to ‘leave it all on the field’ have been instrumental to his success.

Here’s what to listen for in the interview.

• How Christian integrated the concepts of Lifestyle Design, self-awareness and professional support to move him through this critical life transition.
• Lifelong passions as clues for living a fulfilling life.
• The importance of finding and giving oneself over to the right teachers and to committing to deliberate practice in service of your greatest desires.
• Reduce overwhelm and build confidence by breaking big goals into manageable milestones and do-able steps.
• The challenge of architecting an environment that elicits pride 100 years from now while also addressing historic preservation, increasing density, rising rents, and building codes. Generating an evolutionary future that respects the past and protects the sense of place is a tall order!

The Details

Designing a Life: 

Unbeknownst to me, there is a term for putting intentional thought and then creating a strategy for realizing it:  Lifestyle Design.  Tim Ferris coined the term in his book, The Four-Hour Work Week.  I have always called it ‘visioning’ and do ‘visioning’ work with individual clients and with teams and organizations.  In fact, clarity around what one is expending time and resources towards is important, especially as it evolves.

Stanford professors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans have written a fantastic book that applies design thinking principles to life and career:  Designing Your Life:  How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life.  Check out their Designing Your Life website, read this article on LinkedIn or as Christian says, “just google lifestyle design”!

Self-Awareness

Self-awareness means that you are conscious of various aspects of yourself:  your thoughts, your feelings and emotions – including emotional and physical responses; your moods; your capabilities; your beliefs and biases; and the impact your behaviors and actions have on others, and more.

Self-awareness is a foundational skill in development and change.  Christian’s sports psychologist, ‘Psycho-Dave’, gave Christian the practice of moving golf tees from one pocket to the other each time he had a negative thought.

Try these self-awareness practices:

• Do a daily ‘mood check’. Bring awareness to what mood you’re currently in.  Find descriptive words better than good, or fine. For example: try hopeful, joyful, anxious, resentful, excited, etc.  Leaders (all types) have an exponential impact on the mood of their organization, so it’s important that you recognize yours.  You can’t change something you’re not aware of.
• Set a reminder to take 30 seconds – one minute several times a day to notice if/where you are carrying tension in your body and relax it. We all have our favorite places!
• Notice what you pay attention to. Do you find more things wrong or right with people and situations?
• Like Christian, notice negative thoughts (especially victim-oriented ones!) and move a piece of jewelry (watch, ring, bracelet) from one hand to the other.  You can also copy Christian’s practice of moving an item(s) from one pocket to the other.  Your mood and emotions (and relationships!) are influenced by your thoughts.

Finding Flow, or Timeless Awareness

• When faced with the rest of his life ahead of him and previous plans shattered, Christian asked himself where he found passion. Since childhood, he would get lost in designing and building things, first with Legos and then through architecture classes in high school.
• From Wikipedia: “… a flow state, also known colloquially as being in the zone, is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting loss in one’s sense of space and time.”

Questions to ponder:

• During what activities do you find yourself in this ‘timeless awareness’?
• Do you remember experiencing these times during childhood? If so, what were you doing?  If you don’t remember, maybe someone close to you does.  Ask them.
• Do you know what contributes to your sense of flow, and can you craft an environment that promotes this feeling?

Deliberate Practice and Using a Coach

• The term, deliberate practice, was coined by Anders Ericsson. Basically, he makes the distinction that practice alone won’t result in improved performance.  We all know about having to unlearn ineffective approaches.  In order to reach a level of mastery, or expert performance, one must engage in practice with these components:

Aspects of Deliberate Practice:

• Grounded in a well-developed field where people have reached expert levels of competitive-based performance (most sports, music, chess, dance).
• Requires a teacher who can provide practices designed to help improve performance.
• Effective training techniques have already been established.
• Demands stretch – moving outside of one’s comfort zone.
• Based on well-defined, specific goals.
• Requires a person’s full attention and conscious actions.
• Feedback – first from an expert or coach, then from self-assessment.
• Mental representations – what something looks, feels, sounds like when a goal is reached.
• Typically involves building on existing skills; fundamental skills are important.

Strictly speaking, most of our professional lives aren’t a good fit for a ‘perfect’ deliberate practice. However, a person focused on developing their effectiveness could follow the same guidelines and get fantastic results.  I found Christian’s advice on how to use a coach spot on! I would extend this to most approaches for improvement.  Commit to a path, practices and instructions to get the best results.

Breaking Down Goals

• Christian’s description and examples of breaking down a vision into smaller goals may be the best I’ve heard. Here’s how it goes:
• Goal: Play in a PGA Tour (starting with the goal and working your way down)
  • Play a Junior Tour
  • Become a top amateur and collegiate player
  • Become an All-American
  • Win a tournament
  • Finish top 5
  • Finish top 10
  • Improve driving and five-foot putts (Deliberate Practice)
  • Hit ‘x’ number drivers; practice five-foot putts for ‘x’ amount of time (Deliberate Practice)
  • Get instruction (Deliberate Practice)

• Goal: Develop a Multi-Family Project (working from bottom-up)
  • Manage small renovation projects
  • Volunteer at Habitat for Humanity
  • Learn specific skills from people who already do this well
  • Manage larger renovation projects
  • Small single-family new build project
  • Large single-family new build project
  • Small multi-family new build (4 plex)
  • Medium multi-family new build (8 plex)
  • Small apartment complex (20+ units)

Luck and wishful thinking don’t make achievements like this happen. We’ve heard of the saying, An overnight success that took 10 years.  Look at any level of sustainable achievement and a process like this goal-breakdown and some semblance of deliberate practice underlies it.

A Perspective That Creates Space

Admittedly, I have been one to want to keep the neighborhood where I have recently re-located quaint and community-focused.  The first time I met with Christian he provided me with a new perspective on density, human migration and how to design the built environment for the world we live in today and that will support us in the future.  He expands on this during this podcast.

The era when the historic Oak Cliff neighborhoods were built has passed.  Even as new homes are built in the old style, they are designed with today’s lifestyle standards in mind. Our focus and energy are much better placed on the positive mark we want to make – the beauty we want to create and the modern communities we want to establish.  We can do this while honoring the sense of place we love while also preserving the best of the beautiful and historic places.

And we’re back to managing polarities, see the Show Notes from Episode 2 with David Spence

As always, I’m curious about what you learned from this conversation.

Elevate Your World,

LeeAnn