Here is the full transcript of executive coach and consultant Dr. Lani Nelson Zlupko’s TEDx Talk: Staying Stuck or Moving Forward @ TEDxWilmington conference.
Listen to the MP3 Audio: Staying stuck or moving forward by Dr. Lani Nelson Zlupko @ TEDxWilmington
TRANSCRIPT:
Dr. Lani Nelson Zlupko – Executive Coach & Consultant
People come to see me when they have problems. These could be problems of personal problem; it could be a family problem; it could be a career challenge. Or it could be an organizational crisis.
But they come to see me when they haven’t been able to figure out how to get past this problem on their own. The good news is I absolutely love helping people get past problems.
The key is moving past a problem doesn’t mean we get to a place where we pretend it never happened. If we do this right, moving past a problem means that we are more strong, more whole, more the person we were ever meant to be than before the problem happened.
There have been some key shifts in the art and science of helping people over the last 30 years. And I want to share those insights with you.
Let’s begin with two different people, two very different problems. And I want you to see if you can figure out why they’re stuck and how they can move forward.
Let’s take Deborah. Deborah is very discouraged. She has the same problem every day. She starts her morning with the mommy pledge. Perhaps you know the mommy pledge. It goes like this: I’m not going to yell at these kids today, right?
But Deborah sees her kids as very difficult. They refuse to eat what she serves for breakfast. They won’t wear the clothes that she sets out.
So her day becomes not only a physical battle but a verbal battle. And inevitably she loses her patience. She drops her filter and she starts screaming things that she knows are harmful to her kids. She says things, like “Why are you so bad?” “And what kind of monsters are you?” “Kids your age shouldn’t act that way”, and “I can’t stand you.”
Well, she puts the kids to bed and the tears start. She says to herself: “What’s wrong with me? What kind of monster screams at her own kids? And why are my kids so bad?”
Well, let’s take a look at Keith. Keith is a hard-working professional, shows up everyday, ready for work. He’s smart, he’s diligent. He likes his coworkers, he’s a team player. But for the third year in a row, Keith has been overlooked for a promotion. And this year, his company is experiencing deep layoffs.
So Keith says, “My situation has gone from being frustrating to now I’m really afraid.” He asks me what if my boss doesn’t see my value? What if I get let go in the next round of layoffs? What’s going to happen to my home and my family?
A key feature of people who remain stuck is that they are using a problem-focused lens. They are asking problem-focused questions — questions like what’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with them? What’s going to happen if things go badly?
You know, what happens when we ask problem-focused questions? We get problem-focused answers. We know this from research, right, researcher bias.
If you ask me why you have problems, I might just go digging around in your life and figure all the things you’re doing that are contributing to you having that problem. I might even go digging back into your childhood and think of all the different complications that you have that have led you having this problem.
And while this might be very informative, what we’re going to find out is why you’re stuck, right? This — we run two risks here.
The first is you’re going to over-identify with your problem. By the way this problem might be an epidemic, right, not so unique to you.
And secondly, perhaps more problematically is this is going to shed very very little light on how to move past it.
What’s more? We now know from a variety of fields of research over the last three decades that talking about a problem for too long, not only isn’t helpful, it’s harmful. Across different spectrums we’ve learned this.
Now it’s absolutely true that if we’re going to get past a problem we have to start by talking about it. We have to name it out loud. We have to say the words and we need to get validated. We need to feel heard and understood. That is the crucial first step.
However there is a point of diminishing returns. We might call this in neuroscience wiring neurons associated with negative events, right. We might say from behavioral science that we are now conditioning and emphasizing the very behaviors we wish we were diminishing.
We might say biochemically that we are just firing negative bio-chemicals in our bodies and marinating in them. Not only is that harmful to you, but if you understand interpersonal neural chemistry, that’s not helpful to anybody around you.
More compelling than this is that we have learned, if you’ve got the privilege to study large populations of people suffering from a wide array of problems, and you try to look for the single greatest predictor of who’s going to suffer long-term dysfunction as a result of experiencing any one problem, too often what you’re going to find it isn’t even related to the problem itself. It’s related to who stays stuck and who moves forward.
So research is going to tell us something that you already know and I already know, that there is not a single tragedy or event or crisis that definitely spells doom to everybody that encounters it. You’ve seen this.
You’ve seen people go through unthinkable challenges and some of them have come out all right on the other side. Not only just all right but strong and whole and thriving.
You’ve also seen people not had this happen. They’ve experienced a problem that maybe you’ve overcome and somehow they’re still hung up on it.
Well, what if I were to tell you that if we look at this process, we can examine who gets stuck, right. This is a cautionary tale. We can examine this, and we can examine what are the procedures and policies and habits and behaviors of people that move forward despite how hairy or scary their problem is.
What if I were to tell you that that process is available, it’s learnable, and it’s universal.
Let’s take a look at what it sounds like. I call it turn, learn, and move forward. That’s the words I use for it.
So if you are experiencing a problem for too long — what do I mean by too long? Right. Too long — your indicator that you’re there for too long as you are becoming somebody you’re not proud of, you’re weaker, you’re more afraid, you’re more desperate, you’re more angry, you’re more bitter. This is how we know we’re stuck too long.
If you become stuck for too long what we need to do then is back away from the problem and turn in a different direction and begin to learn. Be an avid agile learner of all kinds of strategies. The good news is there are hundreds – hundreds or thousands of empirically-backed strategies that work for people. All you have to do is know that and start learning and you will move forward.
Let’s take a look.
First step. Let’s say you’ve been stuck for too long and you want to get moving. I say get moving and get on the arrow. What is the arrow?
Here’s a tip. The arrow is about 180 degrees the opposite of whatever you’re experiencing as your problem. You get moving and you get started. Pick an adjective or an experience, right, that’s 180 degrees the opposite. Start making that your goal.
A lot of my clients come in and they know exactly what they hate about their lives. Then I say to them so what do you want. What do you want to experience?
Well, I don’t want to have this. All right. When we’re not going to be able to study not having that till we have name of what we want. So let’s name it and let’s get on the arrow.
Let’s take Deborah. Deborah needs to start learning how to redirect her children in calm effective ways. Is this learnable? Yes it is.
She needs her children to learn how to be cooperative. Is that learnable? Yes it is.
Right. Keith. Keith needs to learn how to get recognized and appreciated and promoted. Is that learnable? Apparently he was born with that gene. But guess what he can learn it, he can study it, he can make that happen.
The next thing we need to do is watch out for all-or-nothing polarized to thinking. This is when we say things like I’m a good mom or I’m a bad mom. I have good kids. I have bad kids. My boss loves me. My boss hates me. This is unproductive. It doesn’t point to any growth whatsoever and it’s going to keep you stuck.
Get on the arrow. I don’t know anybody that’s perfect in every area. I don’t know anybody that’s a complete failure in any area. Right, we’re all on the arrow. We’re all learning, becoming a little bit better, inching ourselves along.
So we want to say: do I yell a lot at my kids? I’m yelling at my kids. I want to learn how to be more effective tomorrow.
Keith says you know what I need to do — I got overlooked three times in a row. I’m going to get myself invited to a key meeting this week where I share my talents out loud. This is what we want to make happen.
We’re going to experience bumps and you know I laugh – my clients say there’s not a bump, this is a catastrophe. And I say it’s a bump, right? Let’s watch our words. It’s a bump.
Now when we experience a bump, what we need to make sure we watch out for is the idea that it’s the end — it’s the end of us, it’s complete ruin. We got to watch out and view it as an opportunity. I am aware that the problem that you might be experiencing right now might not feel like a bump.
And I am also aware just like you are that there have been people that you know that have not done well on the other side of that bump. I do know that but I want you to understand that that is an option, not a sentence. That’s an option and it is one I do not endorse, no matter how big your bump is, no matter what your bump is we don’t want to see it as a bump that not only we can move forward from but we can thrive on the other side.
All right. I know somebody’s going to throw a tomato at me right about now and say but wait you haven’t met my problem, right? You clearly don’t know my teenagers or my boss or my cancer diagnosis. There’s going to be at least three hang-ups that show up in this process that are going to keep you unnecessarily stuck.
The first is EGO. You know what ego says. Ego says all right, I know you’ve studied tens of thousands of people and observed who can move on. But you know what my version of this problem is so special, it’s so unique that I’m not going to be able to get over it.
All right. So all those other people, yada-yada, thousands of people but the papa-papa-papa mine was handcrafted by the universe to torture me, because it’s very special. So I’m just going to stay here devastated by my problem.
The next hang-up is going to be FEAR. Fear really has the same voice no matter who we are. Fear says it’s not going to work. It won’t happen. I can’t get better. I am basically in a catastrophe in a downward spiral and I’m going to wind up in a van by the river. That’s where fear goes. It doesn’t matter what – unless you have kids and then you wind up in there going to head to juvie, that’s pretty much where –
And not only are we going to wind up there but I don’t know if you know this but apparently that is a permanent location that nobody ever gets out off, right? It is permanent; it is catastrophic; and it is fatal. That’s what fear tell — is it apparently we’re all still here. So fear lies, right.
The next hang-up is going to be pride and it sounds a little bit like this. I don’t need to turn and learn. Okay I’m doing everything right. I show up every day doing the right things and apparently I’ve hit this wall. So I’m just going to wait for the wall to move, all right.
If those kids they just better learn how to respect me, right, or that boss — that boss just should appreciate me. Okay so I’m just going to have a staring contest at this wall until something else changes.
What do we say to PRIDE? Listen up pride. First of all if you are doing everything right it shouldn’t hurt quite this bad.
Second of all, don’t ever put power in other people’s hands about your life. All right. If you have something that is making you less the person you were meant to be, it is time to turn and look in a new direction and I guarantee you your win is over here. It just looks a little different than what you think it looked like.
And if you have the humility and the ability to turn and be a learner amazing things are going to happen.
Let’s go back here. Persist. Anything you’re ever going to want to do that matters in your life is going to require persistence, right?
So sometimes my clients will get a little excited and they’ll say all right all right I’m going to try a strategy and they’ll show up to work and say notice me, right. And the world sort of sneezes in their general direction and keeps on going.
So persisting once is about as effective as looking at a three-year-old and saying come here you know what you need to do with that shoe you need to tie that you’re welcome right, that’s not what we do.
I’ve seen you. I know you can persist. I have seen you get down on one knee and get up in that little kid’s face and start talking bunny ears and caves and loops and you’re going to do this six different ways till Sunday. You’re going to do it until win – until desired results are achieved. And that’s what we’re talking about.
Anything important that you ever need to make happen is about persistence and you’re going to do this thing six different ways till Sunday until you get desired results.
Now here’s the most amazing thing for me about this. This is what I absolutely love about being part of this journey with people: Do you realize what we’re going to do if you persist? You’re going to overcome that problem that you thought was going to be the thing that threatened to unhinge you.
And you’re going to be able to face life unafraid, not just unafraid of that problem, you’re going to face life unafraid of problems, because while the individual strategy may differ, the little steps that we take might vary. The process stays universal and it’s available.
What we’re going to do is we’re going to say to you: you know what, no matter what crops up you’re going to get to the other side of it and be more the person you were meant to be, because what’s going to happen is you’re going to turn; you’re going to learn; and most of all, you’re going to commit to always moving forward.
Thank you.
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