Breaking Through Anxiety and Discomfort by Walking Through It Together
Episode Notes
On this week's episode of 52 Humans, Paul chats with Erin Weed, Founder of The Dig. She shares an inspiring story from TedX Boulder, where a speaker's coach eased the anxiety of the entire room through patience and empathy.
About the Guest
Erin Weed
Founder
The Dig
Erin Weed helps leaders get epic clarity about who they are, what they stand for and how to express it authentically. She is the wizard behind the curtain of many viral TED talks and has worked with 1,000+ leaders to share their most authentic messages with the world.
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Paul Wolfe
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another weekly episode of 52. Humans the vodcast on stories of human first leadership, I'm your host and human first leadership advocate Paul Wolf. And I hope this show can be a source of inspiration to us all to transform our workplaces and our lives by returning to the humanity that binds us. Today, I am very, very excited to chat with V. Aaron weed about human first empathetic leadership. Aaron is a founder of the dig an amazing speaker and a wonderful human being. Little side note, I met Aaron, August of 2021, when I went through the dig process, and Aaron helped me crystallize my ideas for my book, and what this current chapter of my career is. So Erin, thank you for being here. Welcome to 52 Humans.
Erin Weed
Thank you so much. It's such an honor to be here.
Paul Wolfe
I appreciate it. Talk to us a little bit about like the dig, and you're speaking and like you, when we were chatting just a few minutes ago, I said you kind of wear all these amazing hats. And you do so well. I'm like, What's everything you've got? Your hand? And?
Erin Weed
Yeah, well, I would say the umbrella that's over everything as I help people on Earth, their purpose and turn it into words and share messages that matter and all the different ways so. So I have my hands on a lot of things. I'm training facilitators right now to do the day with their clients, and always working with thought leaders and speakers, volunteer, TEDx, speaker, coach for TEDx boulder. And yeah, that's the main stuff, trying to write a book in my abundant free time, you're
Paul Wolfe
in your free time. Feeling just for everybody, my dig word is better, which is so like, perfect, like, yeah, my dig session, if you haven't checked out the dig, or you don't know what it is, go check out Aaron's site, because it is amazing. So I love the fact that you kind of are helping people get to their operating systems, learning more about themselves, getting to their word, as you call it. And I think that fits so well with human first and empathetic leadership. So can you talk to us a bit about you know, how you've seen empathetic and human first Leadership in Action? Or how you you experienced it?
Erin Weed
Yeah, so I thought long and hard about this, because I feel like I'm very lucky to see this a lot. I'm surrounded by pretty amazing people. But I kind of decided to talk about the story that probably gives people the most anxiety and that's around speeches. So and as you know, because we've worked together in this capacity to, to bravely look deep within inside yourself and come up with a message and turn it into a talk and get on a stage and deliver it to people. It's just, it can be one of the most anxiety producing things ever. And I remember a few years ago, I was coaching for TEDx. TEDx Boulder, and a gentleman was giving a talk and this this person had completely worked so hard, Not only had he developed his talk, he was a teacher, it was talking about, like a different slant on education. And you'd also created the set for TEDx boulder that year, so was so into the event, the process and pretty much everything we do at TEDx is all volunteer so so we're all there, just picking our heart and soul. So this gentleman who works so so hard on his talk, and as the coach, I'm always sitting in these audiences and I have a practice of I am just like, just sending from my like, third eye to there's like just magic energy, just potent belief and rooting for them and love and appreciation, all the things and so, so I'm sending this to this speaker, as as he's on stage, I'm sitting way in the back. And about a minute or two in I started noticing there was a problem, like he was really struggling to get the words out. And as a former TEDx speaker, myself, I know the certain kinds of stress and strain that he was feeling standing on that stage in front of 1000s of people.
And, and so again, I'm sending more good energy, more good energy, but I'm sensing this is not going well. And it's starting to get to the point where this person is standing on stage and is absolutely choking words out and you know, that feeling in the room that you get, like when you just like, know that the speaker is not okay. And so everybody kind of like starts nervously looking around and oh my gosh, and it's what's happening in that moment. Is that everybody Do you in the room is now having like an awkward anxiety experience because this person is having this experience of like, anxiety is incredibly contagious. And so. So the discomfort in the room is palpable. This speaker on stage was a lovely human being is struggling and so smart and so prepared, right. And so that's not coming across clearly. And so my nervous system was just like getting wrecked at this point, watching this whole thing and feeling into the whole thing.
But then all of a sudden, there's there is a leader who shows up in this moment, and he was the curator of this particular TEDx event. And he happened to have the speaker's script. In his hand, he somehow I don't know if he had it all the time, or just like somehow, in a matter of moments, was able to come up with the script, but he physically had a paper script of this person's talk. And he, out of nowhere, hollers out his next line. And the speaker is like a little stunned at first, he's like, oh, yeah, that's my line. And so then the speaker says the line, and then the curator, says, the next slide. And the speaker, repeated the line. And this went on, probably for 10 minutes, while this speaker finished their talk, line by line, it was it was like the speech version of holding hands, and doing something together. And the curator, I have chills even just sharing the story, because there was a part of me as a as a coach way, in the back of the room, there was a part of me that was just like, let the dude leave, like, over, there was some kind of like, epic beauty of walking through it in the struggle in this curator did not abandon him, he did not hurry the process, he just kind of made a decision that this was going to take as long as it was going to take, right, and this speaker got through it, and finish that talk line by line.
And I will tell you something, Paul, if you went on YouTube today, you would never know this happened. Because the miracle of video editing is that we simply took out all of the prompts. And so this person can actually say that they gave a successful TEDx talk, and they did. It's true, you know, and it just kind of reminded me of this very, very valuable lesson that you can abandon people when they need you the most and sometimes showing up so publicly is not humiliating for them. It is a it is a declaration that we are all human first, right?
Paul Wolfe
Yes, I the store. That's amazing. Because as a as a speaker, my biggest fear that you know this from working with me, my biggest fear is like missing a line, like in a script I've written or not. And like, yeah, that's never happened to me. But that does like run through your mind. I'm sure it runs through your mind when you before you go on stage to think about oh, shit, like, what if I like, what if something doesn't work? You know, you all this technology, Navy and confidence monitors and all that. That's what did. So you know, I love the you're sending positive energy from your third eye to his third eye, because that's just that's who you are. I know you. And that's just who you are. How do you think and I don't know if you get a chance to talk to either the curator or the speaker after but like, what do you think that that the feelings were between the two of them or from either one of them? Did you get a chance to talk to either one of them?
Erin Weed
You know, I've never talked to the speaker since. But I did talk to the curator because I work with him still and, and he's a very, one of the things I admire about him and he's very non sensationalist, he doesn't go down the rabbit hole, he doesn't turn something into something that it doesn't need to be. And I think that's a valuable lesson within itself. Especially when it comes to things like speaking or putting yourself out publicly in some way. At the end of the day, like everybody moved on with their life. And if they're taking anything from the experience, it's it's probably positive and of this nature of how I'm sharing with you in a learning capacity. So the curator basically just said to me, we got through it. And the video looks great. I was
Paul Wolfe
gonna say, I mean, that's the beauty of it with technology, like it's seamless to everybody that wasn't there. But like, the humanity of that and helping like because my guess is that curator knew like what that person the speaker was feeling. We you know, you kind of sense it even if you haven't been there, and they kind of empathize or at least sympathize with it. And then he just like, I'm just gonna, like, see this sort of the end I love like, that's such an amazing story. Like I feel a warmth now because that is truly another human helping another human who he may not have had a really deep relationship with. And that's kind of part of what I'm out there talking about is we're all human beings first, and we need to just support each other in the best way that we can.
Erin Weed
Right? And the reason the whole room felt anxious is because the whole room has this shared fear of what this person was experiencing. Absolutely you know what I mean? Like what ties us together as human beings more than the things that scare the shit out of it is like absolutely spot on spot on.
Paul Wolfe
Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that story. I appreciate the story. I appreciate you and I appreciate you taking the time to be on the vodcast with me today, Hugh. Thanks for joining us today on 52. Humans if you enjoy this episode, please click the Follow button above I so appreciate all of the support that I'm getting. If you have a story of human first leadership, give the link in the caption a click there you can also rewatch this episode or past weeks for inspiration. Lastly, please reflect on one way that you can bring greater empathy and kindness into your workplace or your life this week. It's those small acts of humanity and kindness that create a better work culture and ultimately a better world. I'm Paul Wolf, and I'll see you next time on 52 Humans
Angela: Paul, thank you so much for that sweet words, kind words. And thanks for having me on.
Paul: Absolutely. And so, you know, tell tell the audience a little bit because you, you and I were chatting before and I was talking about the title is going to use for you. And it's a great title. But like you, you do so much. Can you talk to us a little bit about what you're doing kind of what your focus is?
Angela: Yeah, so my background is in Organizational Psychology, like you said, and that is basically in short, studying behavior at work. So my firm has a we have a process that we use to basically operationalize culture building. So a lot of people are talking about culture as a buzzword. But we're particularly focused on building inclusive culture and bringing everybody along because we can't do that without leadership role modeling without involving every layer in the organization. So we're really focused on kind of a long term culture change and transformation.
Paul: Oh, that's wonderful. It's such great work. And yeah, you're right, the culture word gets used a lot. And I think a lot of folks don't necessarily understand it. So helping educate people and helping people change culture is such it's just important work.
And I'm sure in that work, you've seen human first, you've probably seen examples of human first leadership and non human first leadership as we, those of us in the HR space have all seen both of those. Can you tell us a give us a story, give us an example that's specific about how you've exhibited or how you've seen how you've seen it in your work or the work you do with accompanies?
Angela: Yeah, I actually have a personal example. And it kind of transcends into all the examples that I see now working with organizations and my clients. So I'll take you all back to 2015, which seems like lightyears away at this point. I was early in my career, early if I say maybe more mid career, but I had just started with a very large organization leading up their talent management delivery team. And I was brand new to the organization probably just a few weeks in, and my world absolutely flipped upside down. So think about you're fired a new job, started a new career really, because I was jumping into a leadership role pretty much for the first time in my career. And, and my, my dad was put into hospice during that time, unfortunately, it was kind of a very rapid deterioration of his health. And I was as a type A perfectionist personality. I was absolutely beside myself because I wanted to do my best in this new role. I didn't get myself myself the space to say, wow, there's a lot happening around me. My dad is not doing well, let me let me take a pause. It actually took out the leader that I was imported into again, brand new leader, right didn't know anything about me. I had proven nothing zero. To kind of call out like, Angela, like, can I tell him what was going on with me? Right? And he was, so just like, voting of Kyle, I have to give Kyle a shout out and I hope to send this to him too. He's like the most even yield like center person I've ever seen. And he's like, Angela, I need you to take all the time you need and I just, I'm like wait, I just started like you don't know me. I've proven myself because again, in my head, I'm like, I've got to prove myself to earn this. I have to prove myself have permission to handle a life event that NOTICE This big. And that was a flaw in my end, right. But I had learned I had been conditioned through all the other leaders that I worked with if that was how things were, be titled to sat me down, and you said, and we'll take all the time that you need. Don't think about PTO, forget that PTO bucket have a crew time that you were taught when you started. And just the support, the support and the the, to be a centered leader to someone who was just kind of centering me in that moment. They felt very human and empathetic. And I and I bounced back, you know, in time, right, I had to take some time off. My dad unfortunately, ended up passing away —
Paul: I'm sorry,
Angela: — during that period. Thank you, thank you. But it made me even more, I guess, like open and communicative with this leader who will get ahead just not right. But in the end, the kindness Kyle Gerjerts shared is something I will never forget.
Paul: That is like — like that is I could not ask for a better example of what my book is about. And what I'm like out there crusading about a follow up question. So thank you, one for sharing the story. I'm sorry about your dad. Sadly, it's a fact of life. We all kind of have to go through a point and everybody deals with it differently. How did you now that you've had like, clearly it's been a few years? How did you once you got through all that? How did you then think about Kyle? Since you use his name, I'm going to use his name Big shout out to Kyle for for approaching a situation like that. How did you think about him? I think more from like, an engagement, loyalty. Like clearly, you know, it's seven years, eight years later now and you're still talking about it.
Angela: Yeah, and then everything. Obviously, the the openness, the trust was instant, because I was in a position of great vulnerability, and he did not use that he didn't weaponize that he didn't use that as a, you know, something to get back at me later on, like it was it was very, very honest and authentic. So that allowed me to be more open with him in our relationship and our with his leadership. So it set the foundation for our entire working relationship.
Paul: Right? Well, I appreciate you bringing up you, didn't you weaponize it or use it against you, but he set the stage for psychological safety, like from almost the beginning of your relationship with him? And I guess last question for you has it did that interaction with him? Has it changed the way that you've approached your team? Were you more open with your team? I it's it's always interesting, you know, you hope it's kind of a trickle down or kind of, you know, you know, spread the love spread the warm kind of event. But did that have any impact on how you lead your team or you as a leader?
Angela: Yeah, it's a it's a big chunk of, of how I approach psychological safety with my team, getting my team choices, opening up the conversation for health conversation. And again, it's to your point, it's about knowing that this person has a whole human life outside of work, and be able to talk about that at work, and say, you know, what, we can negotiate timeline, we can move things along, we can't recreate the time that you'll have with your dad or with your mom who's sick, or your kids who are going to their math practice, or whatever it is, you can recreate that. So having those open conversations, being authentic, being vulnerable yourself as a leader, all of that affects the way that I lead and how I teach other leaders to lead with my work.
Paul: It's that's so great to hear. It's so great that you're out there helping other leaders become better vulnerability, like it is a scary thing. But it is so impactful in shaping relationships, or reshaping relationships. And I think leaders need to be more vulnerable. And I think, you know, work in life, we talked about that a life I think it's all just life now. And we haven't you have humans that work at companies and that we lead and we need to think about them and show up for them like that. So thank you so much for sharing the story.