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Welcome to episode 158 of the Non-Anxious Leader Podcast. I'm Jack Shitama. Today's episode drops on Monday, January 17 and that means just two days until the live Q and A, which is Wednesday, January 19 at 01:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time and you still have time to qualify for that live Q and A. If you are already on my list, you will definitely get one more link Two for Tuesday email.

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You can send to somebody when they click it and sign up for my email list, you automatically qualify. And if you're not a member of the list, just go ahead and go to thenonanxiousleader.com subscribe before 04:00 A.M. Eastern Tuesday and you'll get that email. Then you can refer somebody and qualify. I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday and if you can't make it but you qualify, it's going to be recorded so you can watch it at your convenience.

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So without further Ado, here is episode 158. The Long Term Cost of Surrounding Togetherness Pressure. The idea for this episode actually came to me when I was listening to a podcast on Bucket Lists. It referenced research by Cornell professors Thomas Gilovich and Victoria Medvec that found that 76% of people regretted living life according to other people and their expectations. This is surrounding together as pressure at work, and it clearly has long term costs because most of these people were surveyed when they were at the end of their lives. If you want a deeper dive into all of this, go back and listen to episode 24 where I cover Bronnie Ware's book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

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I also go deeper into Gillevich's and Medex research in that episode. For a quick summary the top five regrets of the dying, in order, are number one, I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. Number two, I wish I hadn't worked so hard. Number three, I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings. Number four, I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

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And number five, I wish I had let myself be happier. In general, I think you would agree that that is a life that is self differentiated, being able to be true to yourself, being able to express your feelings, being able to stay connected to others. But today I want to focus on the aspect of having the courage to live a life true to yourself instead of living a life that others expect of you. If this is not surrounding togetherness pressure, I don't know what is. The question is, why aren't we able to self differentiate.

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Why are we adaptive or reactive in the midst of surrounding togetherness pressure? According to the research, there are two kinds of fear that keep us stuck. The first is the fear of failure, and at the heart of this is the fear of change. In family systems theory, the concept of homeostasis reminds us that we are more comfortable with the way things are, even when they are not ideal. There's a reason we get stuck, and that's because we're afraid that if we try to change, we will fail.

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Second kind of fear, behind the regret of a life that is not well lived is the fear of the perception of others. This is surrounding togetherness pressure. Whether it is real or perceived, it keeps us stuck. It's related to the fear of failure because we can be afraid of looking foolish because we tried something and didn't succeed. And remember, this is about process, not content.

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Self differentiation is being able to claim your own goals and values in the midst of surrounding togetherness pressure. The goals and values vary from person to person. Being able to reflect on what you really believe and where you feel God is leading you in life is important work. If you don't do this, you'll end up going along with what others want because you haven't figured that out for yourself. The process is about the reflection, doing the inner work, about knowing what you believe and where you feel led to go.

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The content can be anything that depends on who you are and what God is calling you to do. But even if you do figure it out, the second part is acting on it. Even when you feel pressure from others not to do what you believe or more simply to act on it when you are afraid. The antidote to this kind of fear is counterintuitive.

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The antidote to the fear of change, the fear of failure, and the fear of other people's perceptions is vulnerability. I'm going to read to you what I wrote in my first book, Anxious Church, Anxious People, How to Lead Change in an Age of Anxiety. Vulnerability is an essential element of leadership through self-differentiation. When you say, this is what I believe, this is where I think we should go. You are putting yourself out there and becoming vulnerable. You are opening yourself up to attack and criticism.

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If you do this without staying connected emotionally, it is narcissism. You are succumbing to the temptation to be invulnerable. Yes, you are self defining, but you are afraid to engage emotionally less you be attacked. Leadership through self-differentiation is not self defining than putting up emotional armor so that you won't be hurt by the inevitable attacks. It is self-defining and engaging emotionally despite the fact that you know you will be attacked.

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The key to managing anxiety is knowing your own inner workings well enough to not let the attacks bring you down. It is difficult work in her book Daring Greatly How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Brene Brown puts it this way, "Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they are never weakness." She goes directly at the cultural myth that vulnerability is weakness, contending that it's the opposite. Edwin Friedman argues that leaders not only need to learn to embrace vulnerability, they need to learn to love it.

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This indeed takes courage. Friedman and Brown are on the same page. As Brown writes, Vulnerability is not weakness, and the uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure we face every day are not optional. Our only choice is a question of engagement. Our willingness to own and engage with our vulnerability determines the depth of our courage and the clarity of our purpose.

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The level to which we protect ourselves from being vulnerable is a measure of our fear and disconnection. To be an effective leader, you need to not only learn to choose purpose and connection over fear and disconnection, but you also need to learn to love it, to embrace it. Author Seth Godin writes in his blog post out on a Limb that when you are doing important work, you will say to yourself, this might not work. He writes," at some level, this might not work is at the heart of all important projects everything new and worth doing, and it can paralyze us into inaction." In this case, he is referring to projects, but this also applies to leadership.

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It is the essence of choosing adventure over safety. To be a leader implies that you are going somewhere. This, by definition, involves change, and change is scary. What I want you to do is to think of adventure and vulnerability as synonymous. Then learn to embrace them.

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To love the feeling of putting yourself out there. Why? Because it's the only way to lead positive change. Further, if you can withstand the inevitable sabotage, people will find this kind of vulnerability attractive. That excerpt from my book focuses on leadership through self differentiation, but self differentiation itself is no different.

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If you are trying to improve who you are in your family of origin or in your work system, there will be change and there will be pushback. You will feel that surrounding togetherness pressure. And the question is, will you able to manage the balance between self definition and emotional connection? Will you be able to stay true to your values while engaging with others without engaging in a conflict of Wills, respecting that they are uncomfortable with what you are trying to do, but also remaining connected to them because you care about them and you know that interdependence requires it? Back in 2015, I read the book The One Thing, The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan, and it changed how I thought about achieving significant results.

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I started to realize that it was more about the effort and doing one thing at a time, one little thing at a time to move things forward. I set the goal of writing a book about family systems theory, but I realized I needed to start writing regularly first. And so I set a smaller goal of starting a blog and an even smaller goal of writing. The first post. Was I worried about what other people thought?

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Yes. Was I worried that maybe I wouldn't succeed in writing a book? Yes. Was I worried that nobody would buy it? Yes.

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But one of the things that I realized was that there was really no downside to this. What would the worst thing that could happen be? It would be that I put all this effort in and nobody cared. Nobody paid attention. But in the same way I felt that it would be worth doing because it was something I felt called to do.

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I recall a conversation with somebody I mentor a few years ago where I said, one of the things I've really learned is to embrace discomfort, to really lean into uncertainty and just try things, even if I know that they might not work, as Seth Godin says. And I think this is the kind of vulnerability that Brene Brown is talking about. And whether you apply that to your work life, to your Ministry, or trying to change within your family of origin, this is the place where living life becomes an adventure. Living life becomes something that is worth doing. And if you can remain true to yourself, you will have no regrets.

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I came across a quote just this morning from Karen Lamb that says," A year from now you will wish you had started today." Whether you are trying to lead change or simply trying to improve your life surrounding togetherness, pressure will work to keep you from moving forward. Learning to lean into the discomfort that comes from exposing yourself to failure, disapproval, and even ridicule from others is hard, but it's the only way through. It is what non-anxious leaders do.

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That's it for episode 158. Don't forget to connect with me at thenonanxiousleader.com and I hope I see you at the live Q and A on Wednesday, January 19 at 01:00 P.M. Eastern. Until next time, thanks and goodbye.