Culture Focused Practice

 Hello my friends. This is Dr. Tara Vossenkemper, and you are listening to the Culture Focused Practice Podcast. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being with me.

Alright, if slowing down makes you feel like you are falling behind, you are not alone. Just in case you thought that you were, you're not alone and you're also not wrong for feeling that way.

So this episode we're talking about rest not equal in stagnation, and it's more specifically why integration is the hardest work you'll do. We will be tackling the emotional underbelly of integration. Why does rest feel so unsafe? Who the fuck knows? Why do we even seasoned leaders resist it?

This is episode one of two on why integration is very wildly undervalued and arguably one of the hardest things you're going to have to do as a leader.

Before we go further, make sure you hit subscribe. The more you subscribe, especially if this resonates with you, the more that this podcast reaches people who need it in the same way that you might. So do me a solid hit subscribe, and let's keep going, shall we.

Lemme cover the agenda real quick. Just to give you some maybe parameters or structure for the episode. There are five key things we'll talk about.

First, we're gonna cover a cultural narrative around rest. Second, we're gonna talk about why integration feels so uncomfortable. Third, we will get into the hidden emotional labor of integration. I love this. Fourth, signs you are resisting rest. And then fifth and final, we're gonna do some reflection prompts. So something for you to focus on as you leave the episode. Something to take with you.

Okay. Agenda item number one, the cultural narrative around rest. First, that rest equals laziness. Why? Why does this continue to be a cultural narrative? I know that, and I say cultural, I should say, and I think most of my listeners are based outta the states, but I am in this United States, and so there's something around slowing down, not hustling super hard, not grinding, you know, there's something around that that not everybody, but people see as lazy. There's something around not producing that is misconstrued as maybe like a disinterest in working hard or, um, not being productive , you know, or being lazy.

What's really interesting is the notion that the more time that we spend doing things, the less time we spend thinking. So even by way of constantly engaging in a task, for example, we're not grappling with maybe some of the bigger problems we need to be grappling with.

And so I think that, I just think that's interesting more than anything else, that we spend time you know, responding to emails or putting out these little fires that maybe somebody else at our, on our team could do, when we could instead spend time thinking about bigger problems or like vision related things.

I'm getting into productivity when the point of this whole thing is that the narrative is rest equals laziness, and the reality is that when we rest, we're allowing our brains to help condense down whatever it is that we're grappling with or that we've been working on. It allows for future production, not that it needs to be weaponized as rest equals production. That's not what I'm trying to say this for.

I'm trying to say that we need to rest in order to actually condense and synthesize things that are in our head.

So that's cultural narrative number one, that rest equals laziness. I would contend it does not. This is why we're talking about this.

There's two more cultural narratives around rest. Second one is that we praise hustle, but not stability.

It's so hard to say this because I don't do like maintenance of stability very well. So it's funny because I know how important stability is and I know how fucking unsexy it is also, and, and I know how poorly I do it.

In some people's case. Like myself, stability is really hard to maintain and I know how important it is, but I can't have any part of it because I'm gonna mess it up. And so it's getting people in place to maintain the stability.

But the reality is the narrative around this all is that stability is boring and that hustle is perceived as well, somebody's working harder again, or they're grinding, or they're hustling, or that's the thing that we actually need to be seeking to do.

Rather than stability is as important if not, I would say more so because you can't build on something that's not stable in the first place. You can hustle all day, but if you're not able to build systems and infrastructure and stability in that process, whatever it is that you're building is gonna fall apart.

Third cultural narrative around rest, systems thinkers get bored when the fire is out. Yes and no. Like, no, there's always different systems to think of, like even if there's no fire. A systems thinker is now going to just expand whatever it is that they're thinking about to more short-term vision and maybe long-term vision.

We use EOS, we use the entrepreneurial operating system at my practice developed by Gino Wickman, and so there's already a long-term vision in place, which you know, traces back to short-term vision and sort of immediate rocks or quarterly goals.

When the fires are put out, what that really allows for people to do is to focus on the next most important things, either the most important priorities or rocks or goals.

And then once those are done, then fuck yeah. You get to keep going. And so that's not necessarily true. I think that's the, again, the narrative is that systems thinkers get bored when the fire is out, but the reality is that it frees them up to think about things that they're probably more interested in the first place.

So. Fun facts. Don't quote me on that. These are fun takes. Fun takes from Tara Vossenkemper.

Okay. Agenda item number two, why integration feels so uncomfortable? Ooh, bro. Oh my God. Okay, number one, I'm not doing enough. I'm not doing enough. I don't know if you all can contend with enoughness, but abs o fucking, literally, that is a thing for me.

Like it's a thing, it's a thing where I question what I'm doing, if I'm doing enough, if I'm being of value, if it's useful for others, or helpful for others, or have I given enough, am I, am I working hard enough? Am I sort of matching the intensity of others around me?

And then coupled with a perception that's skewed. So it's sort of a, it's a little bit of a conundrum, a little bit of a mind fuck, you know?

But my point is the, I'm not doing enough. When we shift into something like we are needing to rest and slow down, this is probably gonna come up right away. Ah, fuck, I'm not doing enough. I need to be doing more.

It's just, it's going to happen. So this is one of the reasons why integration is so difficult to do. And by integrating, again, we're talking about resting and stabilizing and bringing everything together and letting it sort of settle into its right space.

Immediately, a lot of people, maybe not everybody, you could be one of the exceptions.

I would be interested if you were, but a lot of people as entrepreneurs are going to question what they're doing and whether or not it's enough. So really fun to be in that space. I'm being sarcastic.

Second reason why integration feels so uncomfortable? Honestly, there's just nothing external. Like you don't get any wins.

There's no quick dopamine hits, there's no quick wins. There's not anything that you are doing necessarily.

Okay. So this was either in so good they can't ignore you or in Deep Work, both books written by Cal Newport and he writes about this famous journalist whose name, I have no idea, but how this journalist did all of this research for this town and he got all of these stories and then his specialty was long form journalism, which is I guess the distinct way of writing.

And he had all the content for the article or for what he was writing, but he couldn't put it together. And so he basically spent two weeks lying on a picnic table just looking up at the sky. And then at some point it all crystallized for him and he knew how he was gonna write this long form what have you about this town or the city.

That did not happen in spite of those two weeks, it happened because of those two weeks. And so when you're laying there on this picnic table, if you are like that journalist or you are you, and you're thinking about something or you've integrated something and all of a sudden you need to stop and slow down and like let it be, you might very well feel like you're doing nothing.

Again, they're not doing enough.

But also like you're doing nothing and that you're getting no feedback about what you're doing, period.

I don't think I can overemphasize how difficult that space can be when you go from building or creating or trying to do something and implement something to letting it exist, and then you step back and you're not involved and you're not putting out fires, you're not solving issues, or you're not planning or you're not scheming or whatever.

That space is hard. That space is hard to be in.

And you've got no feedback around you. Now, all you have is a system or whatever it is that you created that you then stepped out of and you're looking at it and it's going well, and then it's sort of like, and that's it. Is that really it? There's not, you know, there's not, like I said, this external validation, there's no quick wins.

Sort of crickets, you know? And so after having done something, a big launch, a big project, whatever, that quiet space can absolutely bring up the lack of external validation that maybe you don't need in in daily life, but you've gotten used to in the recent past. And it also can bring up the lack of quick wins.

It's just silence now, and something about that silence is exceptionally loud and difficult to contend with for a lot of people stepping away from something they've just created and letting it stabilize.

The third piece for why integration can feel so uncomfortable is there's an identity high of constant problem solving.

I just spoke to this about like the, there's no quick wins. Sort of the flip side of no quick wins is it is, I'm not gonna say intoxicating, but I will say that it is very fun. I enjoy problem solving. I enjoy poking and seeing where are the issues, how are we gonna fix 'em? Okay, well how's that gonna fit with this, you know?

It sort of stretches and works my like systems oriented brain, but it also requires that I have in depth knowledge, but I also need to be able to zoom out. And there's something about this like song and dance of being in all of these different little areas and how it relates. I love it. I love doing that.

I'm not gonna say I feel high, but I mean, there's sort of like an identity high, you know, the sort of like this, yes, I did it. It it feels very rewarding to be solving problems on a con constant basis specific to a project, not constant basis like in perpetuity, but there's a project we're doing solving problems to make that thing come to fruition. That's a different type of rewarding experience.

So the lack of that, it's just gone. Once the integration takes place, it's, it's gone. You just have emptiness then.

And that's a uncomfortable place to be in for a lot of people.

Moving on. Agenda item number three, the hidden emotional labor of integration.

One piece to this is that when you sit with stillness, you might experience some self doubt. I would say though, that what really can come up is grief and loss. And it might not be a loss of identity. It might not be a loss related to the amount of work that you were doing or a loss related to the, you know, the, uh, details of the project.

But it could be that there is grief now that's a part of this stillness. Like you were actively a part of something. You were actively working on something, you were bringing a thing to life, and then now it's out of your hands and existing elsewhere and you're stepping back and there is emptiness.

And so there could be grief in there, there could be doubt, also. I'm not, that's not the sort of thing that I have doubt about. My shame and doubt tend to live in different places. It's not typically related to self-doubt after I've launched a project or it's been integrated.

I think, 'cause I'm constantly thinking of things as an evolution, sort of like an evolution or a work in progress. So if we launch something in my mind, it's like, hell yeah, we got the first iteration off the ground.

And of course something's gonna go wonky or sideways or wrong, or we're gonna have to like tweak as we go. So I'm like constantly thinking like it will evolve. I'm not thinking this is reflective of me as a person, you know? No, it's not that. It's, this is a project we're working on integrating seamlessly and we can't integrate something seamlessly unless it's living inside of a system, so then we can see where the kinks need to be worked out.

So it might be though for you that when you shift into that stillness after a project, you do feel some self-doubt. You feel self-doubt about what you created, what if it's good enough or not, if it's gonna last, if the team is gonna like it, if the community's gonna like it, if it's as incredible in existence as it was in your head.

Or it might be that you're living with some grief now. You have grief coming up in this empty space where you're sort of questioning like, where am I gonna, where am I gonna spend my time? What am I gonna work on? You feel sad that it's gone. I mean, it could be any number of things, but this really is speaking to the emotional labor of that integration where once it's done, there's gonna be shit that comes up.

A second piece related to the hidden emotional labor of integration is- it's funny because you might be frustrated when- you are constantly needed when you're doing some sort of project or implementing something or trying to integrate something. And then when it's done, you might start to feel invisible.

Like you might have gotten used to or started to enjoy the constant need. It's sort of an ego builder, you know, like, everybody needs me. I'm so important, I'm so valuable.

And then it's like integrated and going well, and you're less needed. And so it ends up feeling. Swamp, like kind of, kind of like flat, you know, sort of like, oh, I guess I wasn't that important.

So it might be where you start to feel kind of invisible or almost like a lack of importance in the system or the process or the people who are keeping it stable, so that's just something to kind of be aware of.

And then the third piece about the hidden emotional labor is that there might be a fear of stagnation.

When I tell you this is exactly spot on for me. I do not like to feel, uh, I do not like to feel stagnant at, in any area of my life. I don't like feeling stagnant. I don't like feeling things are set in stone forever. I, yeah, so this is for sure the thing that comes up for me in something like, again, a project getting off the ground and then it's done and maybe I'm not needed as much.

It might not be where I feel the invisibility from not being asked questions anymore. I might actually feel relief from that, and it might not be where I feel self-doubt about the project, but you're damn fucking toot in' that I'm gonna feel stagnant soon after and I'm gonna wanna do something else.

And I don't even know if it's fear of stagnation or if it's discomfort with stagnation. I don't think that I feel afraid of stagnation, but I deeply dislike it. Immediately, what comes to mind for me is a funky pond with no filtration, no flowing water.

I know there are living things that thrive in that environment. I am not one of them. I do not thrive in stagnant water. It's disgusting.

We used to walk by this pond at my old, old, old house, actually two houses ago, and every spring and summer. And you would just see it would start out beautiful and there were all these lily pads and turtles and frogs and you'd see, you know, mosquito larva and dragon flies. God, I love a dragon fly. They are incredible creatures.

And every year the exact same thing would happen. It would start to get overgrown with this film pond scum on the top and then like overly buggy and oh just, ugh. It was just went from so beautiful to like funky in a matter of a month.

So yeah, don't love stagnation.

All right. Agenda item number four, signs you are resisting rest. Just pay attention to this. See if it's you.

Number one, endless tweaks to systems that work. I think there's a difference between constantly digging into a system when nobody is talking about it being an issue or problematic. And there is addressing issues as they arise and there is addressing issues that maybe nobody else has spoken about but as a visionary, you know it's gonna be a problem in a matter of, you know, you know it's gonna break some, this specific thing is gonna break. I need to figure out how to fix it in advance of it breaking.

There is a fine line between endless tweaks to a system and. Being a visionary that can anticipate the disruption of something or anticipate something breaking.

What I'll say though is that I think some of the thing that goes along with visionary and sort of leaning into this integration thing and trying to figure out how do I rest and not equate that with stagnation is a need to assess if what you're doing is a product of avoiding rest and avoiding this need to integrate and just let things settle, or if it's actually a priority to work on.

So if you are, let's say you launch something and your whole team, it's launching at the beginning of the quarter, and by the end of the end of the quarter, you want it to be going really well, I would anticipate that you're working a lot more on those tweaks and trying to figure out the, the kinks in the system in that quarter.

But when that quarter ends and the next one begins, and you're still doing the same thing, assuming also that you have fixed most of the tweaks in that initial quarter. If you're still working on things in the second quarter, from my perspective, that would be way more reflective of your discomfort with rest than it is about the need for the system to be tweaked.

So take that with a grain of salt. Second, sign your resisting rest. Fixing things that aren't broken. So not even just endlessly tweaking a system, but going to fix things that don't actually need to be fixed.

This is hard too because there are some things that might not be broken that you are seeking to change, and my thought is, what's the timing and intention of changing those things?

So if you know that you have something that you want to do in a matter of, you know, it's on your three year picture, but you're working on it right now when you have other important priorities. And it's not even technically broken yet, and you have other things you could be doing, that is probably just a way that you're resisting the rest that is needed.

And so it might also be, you know, there's some cases where you have quarter where there's not much in the way of rocks. Maybe you have, you know, in my case, we have my Integrator out on leave right now. So it's like our rocks, they're modified this quarter, they're less than what they would be if we had an integrator in full swing with us.

And so the reality is that there are always sort of like projects and things I could be working on, but if I start to prioritize something that's not broken. By way of either avoiding my current rocks or I just don't want, I don't want quiet space. I don't want to rest. That's a different sort of problem.

And so, if you do find yourself constantly fixing things that aren't even necessarily broken, it might be a sign that you are resisting rest. You're resisting some of the, the settling after the integration of something.

And then the third sign that you might be resisting rest is that you have hypervigilance disguised as strategy.

If you are constantly seeking to anticipate all of the ways in which something won't work or all of the ways in which you're going to have issues, and you are, you know, 2, 3, 5, 10, 15 years down the road, and by constant I mean like it's pretty incessant that if you're not spending time actively working on something, you're sort of thinking, thinking, thinking, well how are things gonna go wrong? You know, I think about. Mad-Eye Moody and Harry Potter "constant vigilance!"

If you are that person, that could really just be a sign that you're resisting the internal need to slow down, that it's so uncomfortable that you just are like, Nope, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna anticipate the problems. The reality is that you're not gonna be able to because who the fuck can, but that's neither here nor there.

The other reality is that slowing down is uncomfortable. I think it is. Maybe you don't think it is.

Slowing down, down, shifting from doing something is a distinctly uncomfortable experience and staying in a hypervigilant mode isn't going to make that discomfort go away.

It's just gonna make you stay in hypervigilant mode so that you can avoid the discomfort from slowing down. Because in your mind, you haven't slowed down at all yet.

Ooh, okay. I told y'all this was part one, right?

So in part two, we're gonna get more into the tactical aspects of integration. So right now this is just about, you know, again, some of the cultural narratives around it, why it feels uncomfortable, what could be happening for you, not only that emotional labor, but also signs that you're resisting rest. And you know, I would say resisting integration as well.

'cause I think integration is sort of a function of being able to rest. By integration. I'm so sorry. I should say synthesis. I think synthesizing and like letting concepts and projects and things sort of settle internally, comes from rest, not in spite of it.

So I'm gonna leave you with a couple of prompts to reflect on and think about. And then tomorrow again, we'll get into more of the tactile stuff related to integration and rest. You can answer all of these if you want, or just choose one journal on it. Think about it. Talk about it with a friend, talk to your dog.

It doesn't matter. Just do something with it.

Three questions.

Number one, what part of your worth is tied to output?. I love this question. What part of your worth is tied to output? Number two, what scares you more? Burnout or boredom? I know that answer for me. Boredom. Ah, boredom. excruciating. Number three, whose pace are you trying to match? Man, I love that question too.

So I'm gonna say 'em again real quick. What part of your worth is tied to output? What scares you more? Burnout or boredom? Whose pace are you trying to match? And that my friends, is the end of this episode.

Like I said, part two coming up next, we're gonna shift over into tactical stuff, more about method, less about mindset.

In the meantime, make sure you subscribe to the podcast, share it with a friend if you think it would resonate with them, and that's it.

Otherwise, I will see you on the next episode. Thanks for being here with me. I appreciate you endlessly. Thanks. See ya.