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Welcome to Episode 242 of the non-anxious leader podcast. I'm Jack Shitama. Before we get into today's episode, I want to let you know that Family Systems 101, that is the free book study on my book, If You Met My Family, You'd Understand begins in about one month. It begins on Tuesday night, September 26th at 7:00 PM Eastern time. It's going to run for 11 weeks. It's going to skip one week, that is Thanksgiving week in the US, and finish up on Tuesday, December 12th. If you want to go deeper in your understanding of family systems theory and you want to be able to apply it better in your personal and professional life, then this is the course for you.

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I will put a link to more information in the show notes. I talk a lot about self differentiation. A key part of this is taking healthy stance. This means the ability to self-define while showing you care for others. It's holding that tension between self-definition and emotional connection. Most of us have a hard time doing this. We either self-define in unhealthy ways, which is reactivity, or we don't take a stand at all. We give in, which is adaptivity. When I encourage people to self-differentiate, people sometimes interpret this as selfishness or self-centeredness. When you self-define, you are expressing your needs, your goals, and your values. So it seems like you're making it all about yourself. What Family Systems theory teaches us is that self-definition isn't just making demands. It's knowing who you are and what matters to you and being able to express this without making a demand. In really challenging situations, this may mean that we need to set a boundary across which we don't want another to cross. But in many situations, it's simply letting others know how we feel and what's important to us. Then we make a decision about how strong a stand we want to take.

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If you're like me, there are many times when I willingly choose to give in for the sake of my family, congregation, or community. Much of this depends on how important these relationships are to me. That is, how much I value emotional connection in the situation. But some of it also revolves around how important my own goals and values are in the situation. If I take time to reflect, I often find that I'm not willing to take a stand, that is, to die on that hill as it's not that important to me. One leadership maxim I've always found helpful is pick your battles. The church I attend recently decided to go from two services to one. For quite some time, there has been a traditional service at 09:00 AM and a contemporary service at 11:00 AM. The contemporary service has struggled for a long time, and at this point, the decision was made to go ahead and just do one service at 10:00 AM. I have no problem with this and I look forward to seeing how it works. One question I did have for our pastor is when they were going to do Sunday school and they decided to do it after worship.

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If worship is at 10:00, then Sunday school is going to be at 11:00 or so. My own feeling is that actually doing Sunday school during the worship hour would be better because that makes it easier for parents. But I decided in my mind at the time when I was having this conversation that it wasn't worth me sharing that opinion to tell the pastor that I thought that may be not the best decision. One thing I should note is that I was once the pastor of this congregation from 1996 to 2000. I try to stay in the background and not intrude on my pastor's leadership. I did mention that I thought there was an advantage to having Sunday school at the time of worship. But I also acknowledged that the pastor was making the decision that he thought was the best one possible. And I decided that I would try to encourage him. And so I said, well, there's a coffee shop right down the street. And if you want to offer an incentive for parents to go get a cup of coffee while their kids are in Sunday school, then I will fund that. That I will donate the money that they can get a gift certificate to get a free cup of coffee.

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What I decided in that moment was that emotional connection that is supporting my pastor was more important than taking a stand about what I thought was best. As you've heard me say before, it's okay to give in to agree with something that isn't what you think as long as you take responsibility for the decision. Own it and don't get resentful. Realize that you are choosing emotional connection over self-definition. That's okay. This leads me to the idea of interdependence. A non-anxious leader is not independent. They are interdependent. They realize that they need others as much or more than others need them. They know that despite the fact that it results in surrounding togetherness pressure, emotional connection is the glue that holds relationship systems together. The idea for this article was sparked by an article in the Washington Post, Forget Independence, teach your kids this instead by Jennifer B. Wallace. Wallace is the author of a new book, Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic and What We Can Do About It. And this article is adapted from that. I'll put a link to the article in the show notes, but the Washington Post does have a paywall, so I'm not sure that you will be able to access it.

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In the article, Wallace writes, quote, What research suggests is that a lasting self-worth cannot come from approval based solely on external rewards, such as trophies, college acceptance letters, and fancy job offers. Rather, an understanding of one's inherent value comes from knowing one's place in a community, from the sense that others value you and that you add value to others. Researchers call this mattering. Only by building interdependence can kids gain social proof that they do indeed matter. End quote. What Wallace has found is that children who have been taught skills that lead to interdependence are better able to handle setbacks and better able to handle an uncertain future because they are grounded in their communities. In other words, they have healthy emotional connection to the relationship systems to which they belong, whether that is their family of origin, a school, a congregation, or a local community. Wallace also notes that parents of healthy achievers did things differently. They acknowledged that it takes courage to ask for support. They taught their kids they should never worry alone. They made their kids do chores not to teach a work ethic, but to help their children see that their contributions to the household were needed.

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And they valued volunteer opportunities over grades. Most importantly, they modeled interdependence, and I think this is the key takeaway for me. This is something we can do as non-anxious leaders for the relationship systems that we lead. Wallace shares three things that parents can do to help model interdependence for their children. And I think we can take these same suggestions to heart as leaders. The first is to show them when you've had to lean on others. In other words, to show them when you have needed support. Wallace notes that high achieving students can often feel alone and are not able to ask for help. In fact, one student told her that no matter how high the water got, she would rather drown than ask for help. I resonate with this attitude because I often don't easily ask for help. So how do you model that when you are not one of those people who can do it very easily? I think the first thing you can do is admit it. You can say, it's not easy for me to ask for help, but I'm working on it. Another thing you can do is to model how to find the right answers.

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I know many times in my time as a leader, I've had to go to architects or accountants or human resource professionals or attorneys to get helpful advice. Just showing that you don't know the answers is a way to model interdependence. The second thing that Wallace suggests you can do is to normalize social comparison and name it as an obstacle. That is, let people know that comparing yourself to others is normal. It's part of the human condition, and it can sometimes result in shame or envy. According to Wallace, the best thing you can do is not only acknowledge it, but show how you manage those uncomfortable feelings. For example, you might say, Well, I see that church down the street is doing really well, and sometimes that makes me feel envious, but I'm really working on focusing on what we can do. This gives others permission to have feelings of social comparison, but also lets them know that there's a way to work through it. This is related to the third suggestion that Wallace has, and that is to model healthy competition. She suggests celebrating out loud the strength that you see in your children's friends.

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I do think that this is something I did pretty well with my kids, that when one of their kids that they were competitive with did well, that I would say, well, that's great. They should be proud of what they've done. And I think we can do the same when we see others in our same line of work, whether that is a nonprofit or a congregation or even a for-profit organization, when they're doing well, we can celebrate that and say, wow, that's great, I'm happy for them. Of course, you don't want to be disingenuous. You don't want to lie if you're not happy for them. But you can take some time to reflect and think about whether or not you want to feel that shame or envy, or if you want to model healthy competition, and then you can craft a statement that is in line with what you really believe. What I love about this concept of interdependence is that it shows that self-differentiation is about knowing where I end and the other begins and that we need each other. It's not just about where I end and you begin and I don't need you at all.

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I'm just going to go on my merry way and self-define. No, I want to be connected to you. I want to help you because that matters, and I want to be able to count on you when I need you because that helps you to matter as well. I guess this was a little bit of a rant to try to bring the self-differentiation pendulum back to that middle, to that sweet spot between self-definition and emotional connection. But I do think it is helpful to keep in mind that as leaders, we don't do this alone. What we try to do is function in a way that is best for the system that we lead so that everyone can function in healthy ways. And when we do that, that reinforces, that emphasizes interdependence. That's it for episode 242. Don't forget, you can find a link in the show notes to find out more about Family Systems 101, the free book study on my book. If you met my family, you'd understand a family systems premer. You can connect with me at jack@christian-leaders.com or get more information at thenon-anxiousleader.com. Until next time, thanks and goodbye.