199. The Power of Mindfulness in Leadership with Pam Marcheski

Get ready to transform your leadership style entirely. Join us for an engaging discussion with Pam Marcheski, the mastermind behind Intentions to Actions Leadership. You'll learn how mindfulness can be a game-changer for decision-making and team performance. Pam shares her compelling journey from a high-stakes retail executive role to becoming a mindful leadership consultant, inspired by Dan Harris's "10% Happier." Discover practical steps you can take to be more present and intentional as a leader, creating mental space that enhances your ability to respond thoughtfully in any situation.

We tackle the critical components of resilience and self-awareness, emphasizing the transformative power of recognizing and embracing difficult emotions without judgment. Pam and I delve into the practice of noticing and naming feelings to manage reactions more effectively, enhancing your leadership capability. Learn to distinguish between your thoughts, emotions, and true self, and explore techniques like RAIN (Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Not Identify) that can revolutionize how you process emotions mindfully.

Lastly, we highlight the importance of presence in leadership, particularly in virtual settings. Discover how turning on your camera and eliminating distractions can significantly improve meeting focus and engagement. We'll guide you through creating a practical mindfulness kit filled with tools for daily life, including grounding techniques and sensory experiences. As we reflect on our leadership journey, we're grateful for our milestones and the support from our community. Dive in with us to embrace the power of mindfulness and elevate your leadership impact.

🌐 Connect with Pam:
• Website: https://intentact.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pammarcheski/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/intentionstoactions/

📚 You can purchase Pam's book at Amazon:
• Becoming Fearless: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C6VWKGXK/

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• 11:07 (Cont.) 199. The Power of Mindfulness in Leadership with Pam Marcheski

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:00

Being present is a superpower. In a fast-paced world full of distractions, our ability to be mindful and present has become a key superpower of truly impactful leaders. When we are mindful, present and intentional, we make better decisions, we make more considered decisions and we unlock the full power of our teams. In today's episode of the Leadership Project, I'm joined by Pam Marcheski of Intentions to Actions Leadership, and Pam provides two powerful and practical frameworks we can implement to become a more mindful and present leader. Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Leadership Project.

Mick Spiers: 0:44

I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Pam Marcheski. Pam is the principal owner of Intentions to Actions Leadership. I'm already liking the title here already of Pam's business, and she helps businesses and individuals focus on the power of mindfulness in leadership. So we're picking up some really key actions here, or key words mindfulness, intentions and actions. So you can imagine what today's conversation is all going to be about how we can be more mindful and present as leaders and how we can convert our intentions into actions. So, without any further ado, pam, I would love it if you would say hello to our audience and I'd love to know more about your background prior to your current organization and what inspired you to be focused on mindfulness and leadership.

Pam Marcheski: 1:40

Well, good morning Mick. It's great to be with you and the Leadership Projects audience, so I really am honored to get to be here with you today. Thanks for the questions. You know my background.

Pam Marcheski: 1:52

Before I opened Intentions to Actions Leadership six years ago, I was in retail with various Fortune 500 companies and I spent about 25, 26 years in that industry and did many different roles. My last role I was a vice president with JCPenney and had the honor of having to get to visit and be with lots of stores and thousands of individuals throughout the organization. Six years ago, I made the transition to move out. I was at the time living in Washington and wanted to get to California where my son and some of my family were, and I made the decision to go out on my own and really go into mindful leadership development and business consulting because I really felt like there was a need and it had been such. I had been starting practice in mindfulness several years before and I saw how powerful it was, how important it was and it was a valuable offer. And so here we are today.

Mick Spiers: 3:00

It's wonderful, pam. Tell me more in your background. How did you personally discover mindfulness? So you know it's a Pam. Tell me more in your background. How did you personally discover?

Pam Marcheski: 3:05

mindfulness. So you know it's a great question. I always tell people I didn't find mindfulness, you know, in any like wasn't any like real deep understanding of anything. I just knew that in the last years of my time I was feeling like I wasn't as responsive as I'd like to be. So I have a pretty good toolbox. I knew that toolbox and leadership was pretty good. It had progressed in many different ways. But I felt like the toolbox wasn't opening the way I wanted it to and a little bit too reactive. Maybe my decision making wasn't quite as clear. A little bit too reactive, maybe my decision-making wasn't quite as clear.

Pam Marcheski: 3:48

And I fell upon mindfulness and in the book 10% Happier by Dan Harris and I was in an airport because at that time I was in an airport every week and picked up the book and read it and it was so practical in the understanding of how do we actually create some space and the power of the breath and that this didn't have to be something big and hard to do but that there's great power in that.

Pam Marcheski: 4:13

And so I started practicing on the airplane, at the airport, at home and I just found it was so powerful in just that, those few moments of what it was able to do for me and how my presence changed, my reactivity changed, my decision making changed, my strategy changed in just those minutes. So that's how I fell upon it and then I really got enhanced. When I was coming out of JCPenney's I came down and took the MP course that I'm now certified in. Just for myself I signed up. I was this high charging, you know A-type person going into this mindfulness three-day intensive, but it was about performance and enhancement and awareness and really that I take performance to the next level. I loved the course so much that I really did make the decision right there that I was going to stay and I was going to do what it takes to get certified. And that's really really where it started to enhance. I could see so much power in it.

Mick Spiers: 5:16

Thanks for sharing that, pam. It's a common story what you said about being reactionary. I think there'll be leaders listening to this interview right now who, if they're honest with themselves, would go yeah, I do that too. So they get into this reactive mode where they're thinking at 100 miles an hour, they're acting at 1,000 miles an hour, so their actions are even faster than the speed of thought, if you like, and they're not taking the time to really consider their actions before they do act, before they make that decision. And what I'm hearing from you is when you caught yourself in that mode, you took action, you brought mindfulness into your world and your decision-making greatly improved. If someone is listening to the show and going yeah, I was Pam in that airport, I'm doing that. I'm firefighting every day where I'm just bang, bang, bang, bang bang how does someone even start to slow down and realize the benefits of mindfulness?

Pam Marcheski: 6:22

It's a great question. How does somebody just start? Well, the fact that you just noticed you've started. I mean that right there is the powers and the noticing and that awareness. So noticing, right there I would say noticing is that gift You've started. Our conditions in our world have changed tremendously today, and that's without judgment, that's just the reality. So our world is very complex, it's very fast and there's very little boundaries. But your brain's a muscle, so, like any other muscle, you have to use some tools in order to work that muscle so that it shows up most effectively for you. Right. Minus boundaries equals your mind state. So if you want to implement something right now, you have to decide can I reduce the complexity, can I slow things down, or can I create some boundaries and that can make an impact right there in just minutes, so I want to unpack that a little bit already.

Mick Spiers: 7:19

So first of all, thank you. Around the notice, that is the key step. We can't fix what we're not aware of, so the noticing is really key. I like what you're saying here about boundaries and I've seen this in some of your material, pam that over time our boundaries have bled. We have less natural boundaries in our lives today. Tell us more about what do you think has happened in the world that has destroyed those boundaries that's a pretty severe word, but destroyed those boundaries and how does one start to put them back in place?

Pam Marcheski: 7:56

Well, if we think about decades ago and many people who might be listening today might not even this might be totally preconceptual because they were born into this. But you know, decades ago we would go to work, we would come home and there would be some space. We wouldn't be connected to email. We've been connected to a phone. We wouldn't be connected at all these levels and we might talk to our cat or a dog or the people within our house, but we'd have. We'd have some breathing room, you know, and the muscle of the brain needs a little bit of breathing room.

Pam Marcheski: 8:29

Kids would go to school. They might have a bad day, they might have somebody that's upset with them, but they would come home and, yeah, maybe they'd get on the phone, but they wouldn't be so attached to it. There was those natural boundaries. Those are gone and they are not coming back. You know, genie's not going back into the bottle. So that's really those are probably the last boundaries, that natural boundaries. I guess per se that we might've had. Technology isn't bad, your phone's not bad, but it does add that complexity, Information. Today, you know, if we used to care about something, we'd have to do some work to really research and go out and really find that information. But now we care about everything and we research everything, and that is an overload, and so those are the things that are really about that complexity that you have to really just be mindful about how much are we taking in?

Mick Spiers: 9:27

Yes, a really interesting reflection there that we are in a 24-7 connected world. We've got smartphones and smart devices that have changed the world forever, sometimes in good ways, but in other ways those boundaries are just gone, unless we intentionally put them back in place. I want to come back to another part about this reactionary. Pam got a curious question to ask you. I'm going to say that there's going to be some leaders listening to the show that are in that reactionary mode. They're in that firefighting and they will convince themselves that they are a very good leader because they're decisive and they keep things going. How do we get someone to really recognize the benefits of stopping reacting?

Mick Spiers: 10:12

and taking a little bit of time to have a considered response instead of an immediate reaction.

Pam Marcheski: 10:58

I love. That question, you know is can somebody be really reactionary and be an effective leader? And I've heard this, you know you hear this often, but but the truth is that reactivity generally comes at the expense of your people. So if you're leading other people, I do believe that people have gotten very good at being reactionary. That's true, true, and the reality is, I don't know that that's necessarily good, because reactionary is that I'm making a decision, that I'm instantly doing something, but that's not really what the role of a leader is. The role of a leader is to be responsive. The role of a leader is to understand what are the conditions that people are working in. And then how are you creating the right conditions for them to operate at the highest level? And your reactivity, while it might be efficient for you, is not always efficient for your people. So it's not about you, it's about them. And how are you showing up for them? That's what's important.

Mick Spiers: 11:53

Yeah, I love it, pam, and that's what we need to remind ourselves. It's our role to create the environment where they can do their very best work, and a reactionary decision maker is not necessarily doing that. I'm going to throw another statement out there, pam, and say that what we need to be doing is to think about what response is going to serve us and the team well at that moment. And guess what? Not even making the decision is sometimes a better response. It could be to ask better questions, because if you're just making the decision is sometimes a better response. It could be to ask better questions because if you're just making the instant, reactionary decision all the time, you're not collecting diversity of thought, you're not giving opportunities for your team to learn and grow, for the team to feel seen, heard and valued. You might be a go-getter and working at a cracking pace, but you're not bringing the team with you. How does that sit with you?

Pam Marcheski: 12:45

Oh my gosh, you're like music to my ears. You're speaking to my heart, right there. It's so true, we can react, and we can react really quickly and we see it right. We can communicate instantly and we can give all the answers. That's not empowering, that's not creating leadership where people can think for answers. That's not empowering. That's not creating leadership where people can think for themselves. It's not giving people a sense of purpose and a sense of actually doing anything. If I have a problem and I can instantly text you and you can instantly solve it for me, why do you need me? Right, so you're not. It's efficient, for sure, right, but not everything at work helps, but everything that helps works, and that's a quote that I heard from father Gregory Doyle, who is here in Los Angeles running this amazing organization called homeboy industries, and I love this, love that quote, because it might work, but it doesn't help.

Mick Spiers: 13:45

What I'm going to throw out here is now the word multiplier, and what's happening in this situation is, once again, the leader might convince themselves by making a quick decision. I'm unblocking the team and I'm letting them get on with things, et cetera, but you're actually becoming a choke point in the business, because what they learn is dependence. They learn to come to you for all the answers and, yes, that might unblock their productivity for that moment, but it doesn't teach them how to make their own decisions. It doesn't give them the empowerment that you mentioned and the skills to make their own decision in the future. So I hate to break it to all the leaders in the audience, but you're a human being.

Mick Spiers: 14:29

You only get 24 hours in a day. Do you want one of you making decisions or do you want to empower your team so they can make their own decisions? Now, all of a sudden, there's seven of you, or there's 15 of you, or there's 20 of you, however big your team is. If you do what Pam is saying, you create this multiplier effect where people feel engaged, empowered and can do their very best work. Pam, you mentioned MPIC and you stumbled across the program that you now teach yourself which I think is wonderful. By the way, tell us more about what MPIC is.

Pam Marcheski: 15:06

Yeah, thank you for asking.

Pam Marcheski: 15:07

I think MPIC is such a powerful course.

Pam Marcheski: 15:10

It's an eight-module course and it was designed by the University of Southern California, the medical department and the mindfulness department, and it was tested with the BMX Olympic team and this course is really designed to help individuals in their performance and teams perform at their highest. And so in this course we really get down to understanding how the brain works and putting it to practice. So there's a lot of practical application, along with various different meditations and the understanding of the mind and the whole concept of it, or the whole purpose behind it, is that each module builds upon one another so that we understand, kind of, how our mind works, how to set our intentions. Resilience, how to be with pain and suffering both physical and mental pain and suffering. Resilience, how to be with pain and suffering both physical and mental pain and suffering, our conversation in our head that we all have, and how to work with our story in our head as well. So these are the various that are all brought in, all of it, so that one can show up at their highest level of performance.

Mick Spiers: 16:18

Let's unpack that part about resilience a little bit more. So how does MPIC teach someone to embrace resilience and what role that can play in their high performance, in their leadership, in the way that they go about their work?

Pam Marcheski: 16:32

Yeah, that's a good question because resilience comes up a lot today. Everybody talking about you know we need to be more resilient. Human beings are naturally resilient. That's why we're here. So I always try to emphasize with everybody resilience is something that's naturally inside of all of us.

Pam Marcheski: 16:46

In today's world sometimes, and in high pressure worlds, we might not remember that. So resilience is really about knowing when we're in a space of maybe difficulty and being able to notice it and learning how to sit with it and knowing that we're able to pass through all of those things. We don't have to dismiss it, we don't deny it. We also don't have to up the story of it right, of what's happening. So we take the story away and we really teach people how to pay attention to what's showing up. What are you really feeling and really sensing into the body? We use the body a lot because the thinking mind the candle to the feeling body. That's a quote by Judson Brewer and I absolutely love it. Everything that's happening, we're feeling somewhere. So resilience is really how do you tap into what you're feeling, how do you send into it before you react to it, deny it, dismiss it or judge it, and then allow yourself a little bit of space and what power there is in that and what we're able to move through.

Mick Spiers: 17:52

Really loving this, pam, and I think it's going to go nicely into what we talk about with your MCIT program as well, or your MCIT breakdown, mkit program as well, or your mkit breakdown. This notice and name has come up again, and what I'm hearing here is noticing and naming emotion and physical feelings, and what I'm taking from what you're saying is to to really unpack it and go well, what is this? What is this feeling that I'm feeling? Why am I feeling it? Why am I feeling it now? Why am I feeling it now and almost unpacking it to go well, is it even true? And if it's not true, am I going to dismiss it? If it is true, what is it alerting me to? And once I know what it's alerting me to, I can have a better response, and this enables me to either withstand whatever that trauma is that's happening in my life or let it go and move forward. How does that sit with you?

Pam Marcheski: 18:49

Yeah, I think it's a really good summarization of that mix. I appreciate that you know. The essence really is to know that everything's inside every human being. There's the thoughts and emotions. They're what we have, they are not what we are. So if we can remember that thoughts and emotions are what you have, they are not what you are, and you can learn to name them without judgment.

Pam Marcheski: 19:15

And you can really sense into them. There's incredible power with that. Then, when you take that time to be with that, then you can get into, like you explained kind of, what's the story here, you know what are the facts behind that, and really decide is there a decision that needs to be made or not be made? But the first part is really to recognize. It could be anger, it could be sadness, it could be happiness. All of those things are inside every one of us. Just naming it and being with it and really tapping into how that feels in the body. And it might've been years ago where it wasn't as necessary, but in today's world, when things are so reactive, it's super important so that you can really care for yourself at the highest level and be more responsive for yourself.

Mick Spiers: 20:01

There's two things there. I'm hearing that I want to unpack a little bit further, Pam, and we'll do it one at a time, but I'll tell you what both of them are. The first one is the word judgment. The second word I'm going to throw at you is the word identity, and about that it's not you is what you were saying before. So let's talk about judgment. That sounds a lot easier said than done. Judgment, that sounds a lot easier said than done. So when we have these feelings to be able to notice and name it without judgment, I'm going to say a lot of people may struggle with that, Pam. How does someone remove the judgment when they're processing these feelings and emotions they might be having?

Pam Marcheski: 20:39

Yeah, it's easy, said hard do I mean? That's just a fact. It's worth it. But it is easy, said hard do. Thoughts and emotions are what you have. They are not what you are, and when they're really, really heavy, it's hard not to have the judgment around it, the blaming of somebody else, the blaming of ourselves. But if you can really just that's the power of mindfulness, to see what is really showing, what is the emotion I'm feeling, and then how do I feel it in the body, and even if there's judgment, to just say, okay, I see judgment there. That's part of the practice as well.

Mick Spiers: 21:17

So if you feel the judgment, notice and name the judgment as well. I like that. I'm wondering what power language comes in here, the language of our own inner narrative, or even the language we use out loud? So when you say, it's not you, it's just an emotion. How can we perhaps use language to almost reframe the way that we speak about ourselves?

Pam Marcheski: 21:43

You know one way that is kind of a fun, playful way, because I always try to encourage, like let's not make it a heavy hold. One way is to name that persona. You know we teach this in MP, because I use this a lot in my coaching is why don't we just name that? For me an example I have impatience, Notice, I didn't say I am impatient. And when I have impatience my persona is pushy Pam. So when I see pushy Pam show up, I can just welcome her. Oh, there she is, Pushy Pam. I can kind of hold her on my hand and I can see her and in that moment, you know, I can be with that and I don't have to dismiss her, I don't have to judge. She's there, Right. And when you can be playful with it and you can name it and you don't make it part of your identity, then you can determine. Okay, do I?

Mick Spiers: 22:31

need to. Is this going to?

Pam Marcheski: 22:32

be about. Sometimes, where she Pam's there for a while, I can invite her to sit down next to me, but she doesn't have to be attached to me. I don't want to have to own me, and that's the power of it.

Mick Spiers: 22:45

Yeah, all right, I love this, and I think you can apply that with almost any emotional feeling that you're having. So I am not angry, I have anger right now. Or I am not frustrated, I have frustration right now. And then this idea of having a persona is a good way of processing that again and not attaching yourself and almost labeling yourself as you know, I always do this and then you start getting into beating yourself up and a lack of self-compassion.

Mick Spiers: 23:15

Yeah, really powerful. I hinted towards this M-Kit before Tell us more about the M-Kit and and what it all means in terms of how we can bring this into something that the audience can start almost applying straight away yeah, thanks so much, mick, for uh talking about and asking about it, because the m kit to me.

Pam Marcheski: 23:36

I call it the stop, drop and roll of mindfulness and it's the uh five, uh, tangible reminders to bring mindfulness into your daily life. One of the things I learned early on, or I noticed early on, is that people, when they hear about mindfulness or even start to practice it, I don't think that it's hard for people to believe that it has value, but it is intangible. You know, if I go to the gym and I do a bunch of push up every day and I do it for a long period of time, I'm going to see physically my muscles and my arms change. Now in mindfulness you don't necessarily always see that. We also know that the world is really loud and we do what's externally out there. We do the tangible before the intangible. So we feel internally, we know that, but we'll do what's out in front of us. So I wanted to create something where people could have these reminders of how to bring moments throughout a mindfulness into their daily life and how to make it practical and tactical. So my partner, who's so creative, helped me design this. So we really created a kit, an actual kit. So you get an actual kit. You can kind of see them there on my back and in the kit is how to notice. So they get. They get the notebook and some prompts on how to really start to see some of our habit patterns and know that judgment, you know, and just making note of that right. So getting getting used to the practice of just noticing.

Pam Marcheski: 25:04

We talk about grounding because that's really important and grounding is really about stopping and connecting with the body, because we already shared a little bit about how important it is to be able to use your body and your breath as a way to allow yourself to settle. And really what you're trying to do when you're grounding is you're settling your prefrontal cortex and your parasympathetic nervous system. So the grounding lets you to sense into that and that's a tangible reminder that you can have with you all the time. I always have one with me in my handbag or in a pocket, especially if I'm going out of place where I might have impatience, and so I ground into it and I use it as my reminder. And then we talk about the breath and we do a one minute timer and a lot of people you'll find those timers right in front of the computer, even some using with family as a reminder to just create a minute in between meetings, conversations, anything that's important, to learn how to train yourself to create that space.

Pam Marcheski: 26:08

Then we teach RAIN, rain, which is the acronym uh, recognize, allow, investigate, not identify. And so they learn how to be more responsive through that um, so and oh and then we have some fun with food in there. There's a good treat in there. It's really small, so it'll torture you because you want to eat them all at once. And that's the whole point small bites, taking in all the senses, because when we do that we can really expand our mind, we can expand our curiosity, we can see how we're always rushing, so it's a great way to to use your senses all right, really powerful pep.

Mick Spiers: 26:36

So we've got notice, ground sense, pause and respond, and I also picked up something here that it doesn't even have to take that long, like ground sense, pause and respond. And I also picked up something here that it doesn't even have to take that long, like when you're talking about on pause. There you're talking about a one minute timer. For those that are thinking I don't have time for this, I'm sure you have one minute in your life to stop to think of things around you and to take in a more multi-century existence, because then you're going to pick up so many more things. So if you want to make better decisions, coming back to what you started with at the start, pam, one minute doesn't cost you the world at all. If you're going to make a better decision from that one minute, so let's unpack it a little bit more.

Mick Spiers: 27:20

We've covered notice quite a bit, so I'm going to go now to ground. Tell us more about how someone can start intentionally putting ground into action.

Pam Marcheski: 27:31

So grounding is really sensing into the body.

Pam Marcheski: 27:34

So how do we sense into what's showing up so we can be grounding when, say, we're feeling very anxious, so somebody has anxiousness, or if somebody is feeling it having that edginess, you can use the item to really hold on to it and touch almost into it and breathe into it and feel your nervous system. And what you're really doing is it's kind of a hack of the brain and the body is you're creating and you're slowing them down. So you don't have to deny that it's there. But you can just breathe right into it and feel and sense into whatever your hands, your seat on the cushion, your feet on the ground, anywhere that you can have that physical presence. Because the body is there for us all the time as a place to anchor. We just have to sense into it and the grounding into the breath. Where do you feel the breath? In the body, and not shallow breathing, but really taking in those intentional breaths, and so you can really give the body and the mind what's necessary in order to settle and be grounded yeah, really good.

Mick Spiers: 28:44

So some really practical things there that people can do to start connecting back to themselves. And the word I'm picking up here is regulate to be able to regulate our body and our mind before we make that impulsive, reactive decision. It's going to help us be more cognitive at the moment. We're going to be more sensory, which is the sense in the next one as well, to make sure that when we're making that decision, that we're making it with all of the bits of information that we have around us, all of its information, the feeling, the reaction of other people around us. So the emotional intelligence to be able to not only notice and name what I'm going through, but to pick up and notice a name. Sometimes we hear people say the ability to read the room. You're not doing that if you're not grounded and you're not taking the time to notice ground sense. It's also about those around you. How does that sit with you, pam?

Pam Marcheski: 29:40

Yeah, I love how you're explaining that, because you read the room as a perfect way of you know I use the quote often that what we emote, we promote, um, so we all are picking up cognitive reappraisal um is is real, you know, and I think that presence right now just physical, but also just really being present it's a superpower today in this really distracted, loud, reactive world, to be actually fully present. It's powerful. That is one of the greatest powers that a leader truly has today If they can do that. Practice and grounding is essential in order to be fully present.

Mick Spiers: 30:23

I fully agree with you on the presence. I've got a key question to ask you here. So people do really notice it, Like when someone is present and fully paying attention to you and they're in the moment I'm going to say, you feel seen, you feel heard, you feel like you matter to that other person. Yeah, the first thing I want to unpack is the opposite. So when you're not present, you might be distracted by your smartphone or you're thinking about a completely different meeting. You might be thinking about the meeting you just came from and you're still replaying that in your mind and you're not fully present in this meeting. How do you think the people on the receiving end feel about that? They feel unseen, unheard, that they don't matter to you because you can't even give them the time of day to be fully present with you. How does that sit with you? Pam, about the opposite of presence is quite disrespectful.

Pam Marcheski: 31:27

I think you nailed it right it is disrespectful, because it's so important for people to feel heard and seen, and it's not very efficient. Let's just be real. If you're distracted because you can't drop the last meeting and you can't fully shop for this meeting, you're not fooling anybody because you can't be in two places at one time. So you're more efficient when you're present. You'll make better decisions when you're present. So it's the right thing to do and it's more efficient thing to do.

Pam Marcheski: 32:03

Look, time has been time since the beginning of time to do. Look, time has been time since the beginning of time. One thing about presence today, if you really want to be more present, is stop talking about time. You know it's that's. I notice this often, that everybody wants to explain the busyness of life. We get it. I have, I have a lot going on. But when you're saying to people, oh, I just got off another meeting or'm just jumping into another meeting or a meeting, you're saying right there to your audience I'm not really fully present, so just the conversation around it erodes the presence. So there's a discipline there in how you speak and how you show up.

Mick Spiers: 32:46

Yeah, I love it, Pam, and I got to stick up my hand here and say this is a trap that I often fall into, where I do go into back-to-back meetings, and just a couple of weeks ago kind of why I brought this up I did find myself in one of those days where my first meeting didn't go so well, and then what happened for the rest of the day was a complete knock-on domino effect, where I went into the second meeting still thinking about the first meeting. I went into the third meeting still thinking about a second. It was a completely ineffective day, I feel, for the people that I was meeting with that day, because they would have noticed that I was always distracted. I felt horrible at the end of that day because I went oh, I was not on my game today. I just was not on my game today. What I did the next day, though? Coming back to resilience, I let go, I forgave myself and I reset. I apologized to some of the people that I knew that I'd done this to, and the next day I got back into the practice of intentionality.

Mick Spiers: 33:49

I looked at my schedule. I built in five-minute gaps between meetings. I set an intention at the start of every meeting. How do I need to show up for this meeting? What do I need to achieve? What kind of questions am I going to ask in this meeting? At the end of that meeting, quick replay in my mind clear it Ah, the next meeting. How do I need to show up for this meeting? And when I got that intentionality back in there, the next day was one of my best days I can remember in recent history, immediately after a really bad day. So it really works, and you touched on this before, Pam. We sometimes attach a badge of honor to busyness, but busyness is not productive. Busyness is not effective. All it is is chasing around being reactionary. So I stick up my hand. I do not always get this right, but I know the power of it when I do.

Pam Marcheski: 34:46

I love it. You're such a good human, right, but I love everything you said was so perfect, because this is I always tell people mindfulness isn't so you can be a perfect human. It's so that you know that you are human, right, this is a. This is a practice. I don't yeah, I'm not practicing because I think that I'm going to show up my perfect self. I'm a hundred percent confident that I'm going to be a good human, and a good human that means that I'm going to have my moments. I'm just like you. I've had days where it's like I teach this stuff and there's something I said well, I'm done, right, but your reflection was great, right, like we. Good reflection, that's wise reflection. Now, how, what do you want to do with that? How do you want to respond? And you responded to it right. So, yeah, I think that's fantastic. Yeah, good for you, bravo.

Mick Spiers: 35:31

All right, brilliant. Now the key question I want to ask you is we now live in a hybrid world. We have people that are working in the office some days a week. They're working from home. Some people work from home all the time. How do we make our presence feel digitally? So, if you and I are catching over StreamYard right now, I feel very connected to you right now because you're showing me your full presence. How do we, as leaders, if we're on Zoom meetings or Teams meetings all day? How do we do it in a virtual world?

Pam Marcheski: 36:04

That's a great question, Mick. I get this often, and one is turn your camera on. I mean that has become really common, right? Like if there's a big meeting and you know people are going from meeting to meeting, oftentimes not turning their camera on. If you want to be present and you can't physically be there, you need to turn your camera on, and then you need to move your phone away from you and you need to turn off every, every distraction that you can on the computer, Because if you get pinged or ding, it's going to hit your nervous system. That's just the reality.

Pam Marcheski: 36:39

And so you just you have to be very intentional about what boundaries you can create so that you can be as present as possible. And you won't be perfect, but that's okay, we're not looking for perfection here, but can you be intentional, you know? Can you really really ask yourself can I be as intentional as possible If you want to be fully present? And I think, just starting there with the camera, turn off every prompt that you can notice, use that as a lesson of mindfulness. How hard that is. Like I can't turn my notifications off, I might hear from this person or that person, right, and how the ego kicks in there and I can't we probably could Right so really looking in and participating. It takes more effort to be present virtually, but it's so worth it.

Mick Spiers: 37:30

All right, that's our next call to action for the audience today. For those that are going into meetings all day today, camera's on and I dare you to turn your notifications off. Give it a go, I'm sure. Whatever that notification is, it can wait 25 minutes for whatever this meeting is. If your partner is about to go into labor, we'll give you a leave pass, but apart from that, turn your notifications off. Yeah, yeah, all right, love it. Okay, now, when we went through notice, ground sense, pause, respond. You spoke about RAIN.

Mick Spiers: 38:04

So, recognize, allow, investigate and non-identify. Let's unpack that. So recognize, I think makes sense. Let's go to allow In the RAIN acronym. What does allow mean?

Pam Marcheski: 38:16

Well, when you recognize it right, allowing means to sense into it and not try to deny it, explain it, judge it, it's just allow it. If it's there, it's there right. If I have anxiousness, I have anxiousness. If I have hunger, anger, it's learning how to just allow that without having to do anything with it.

Mick Spiers: 38:36

Okay, and then we had investigate. So investigate what is this? What is this thing? Why is it coming into my life? Why is it coming into my life now? And then I love this non-identify. Tell us more about non-identify.

Pam Marcheski: 38:50

Yeah, non-identification is really such a core concept in mindfulness, but a core concept in anything that can be powerful. When we don't identify, when it's something that we have not who we are, then we don't attach to it, we take the ownership out of it and we don't make it who we are. I am angry. No, I have anger right now. Yeah, I don't, I don't get to, I don't have this angry person right, or I have sadness, all of those things. It's not dismissive, it's it's saying that in this moment this is happening and in this moment this is happening. How do I really want to respond?

Pam Marcheski: 39:29

And when we don't identify with it, we can add more objectivity, we can be more open and we can get some more clarity and more perspective and even find some humor in it, Right. So there's a lot of times that we can playfulness and humor into it. So there's a lot of times that we can playfulness and humor into it. Rain sometimes today gets taught with the N being nurture, and that's just really kind of the idea of caring for yourself. I personally it was originally introduced as non-identify I find the power in non-identification, so I teach it from that standpoint.

Mick Spiers: 40:07

Yeah, I quite like it. It was one of the ones when I was doing my research before our interview today, pam. This really caught my attention. This idea of non-identifying no, it's not you, it's just, that's what's happening right now. Okay, really good, all right, you've given us lots to think about, pam. I really like this, my summary and call to action for leaders out there.

Mick Spiers: 40:27

If you find yourself in reactionary mode all the time, firefighting, instant decision-making, please I'm going to be blunt stop kidding yourself that that makes you a good leader, because you're decisive and you're leading from the front, et cetera. You are not bringing your team with you. You are not necessarily making the best decision. You're not necessarily taking the actions that serve you and your team the best way. So listen to what Pam is saying about the mindfulness, about the presence, about the power of presence. When you're present, your team feels seen, they feel heard, they feel valued. When you're present, your team feels seen, they feel heard, they feel valued. How do we go about it? We notice and name what's going on around us, we ground ourselves, we sense ourselves and we sense our environment. So we're in a multi-sensory environment now where we're going to make a richer decision because we're taking in all of these points. Then we pause could be just a minute, like Pam said and then we respond. And when we make that response, instead of rushing and making a reactionary decision, we're making a considered response.

Mick Spiers: 41:41

You can all do this. This is your call to action. Start today. You can do it in a virtual world. Turn your camera on, turn your notifications off, notice ground sense, pause, response. You can take on this acronym of RAIN to recognize, to allow, investigate and to non-identify. Don't attach yourself to these feelings. You're a human being. You're experiencing something right now. You're experiencing it for a reason, potentially, but it's not you, it's just an emotion right now that's drawing your attention to something, and then you can process it. You can decide is this real? What is it alerting me to? Is it something that I need to be aware of, or can I actually go? No, you know what I'm going to dismiss that one, I'm going to let that one go and I'm going to move forward. So many powerful actions that you can take from our discussion with Pam today. Thank you, pam, it's been really wonderful.

Pam Marcheski: 42:41

Great summary. Thank you so much, pam oh thank you, Pam.

Mick Spiers: 42:45

I'd like now to go to our rapid round. So these are the same four questions we ask all of our guests.

Pam Marcheski: 42:51

Okay.

Mick Spiers: 42:52

What's the one thing you know now, Pam Marcheski, that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Pam Marcheski: 42:58

Love that question when I was 20,. What I would want to know is everything changes. Everything's inside every one of us and nothing's permanent, because at that time you know this will never end. Or when I was having a hard moment. Even a good moment, everything changes.

Mick Spiers: 43:17

Yeah, I love this. Everything is temporal. This too shall pass. By the way, that applies to good times and bad times. So if you're going through a tough time right now, this too shall pass. If you're going through some good times, guess what? Sorry, this too shall pass. So, life is a roller coaster. Yeah, very good. What's your favorite book?

Pam Marcheski: 43:38

I have a lot of great books that I love, but I don't know mine. I guess because I wrote it in my own words, which I love, but also truly mine. I guess because I wrote it in my own words, which I love. But also truly, though, I love the book the Book of Joy by Dolly Lund. It's just a. It's an easy read and just a practical reading, a fun read about how to bring joy and happiness into your life and others. I love it.

Mick Spiers: 44:00

Yeah, love it. Ok, very good.

Pam Marcheski: 44:06

What's your favorite quote? There's so many good ones, it's all inside. That's my own quote right now. It's a reminder to myself. So I always speak a lot of quotes and quips. I would say right now, I think, the one that I shared with you a little bit earlier. That's really resonated with me since I heard it and it and not everything that works helps, but everything that helps works. And it's that reminder that in today's world but there's a lot of different advice out there, there's a lot of um people sharing what they think works. You know, this works right. Does it help? You know? And I think that if, if we're offering things that help, it will work, but really staying with what is our intention and the actions that we're putting behind it and what are the consequences of it and I think for leadership, it's a really important thing to investigate, especially today. So it's to me, a very, very powerful quote.

Mick Spiers: 45:05

Yeah, I'm really liking this, this, uh, pam, and the whole thing around intentions, actions, consequences and thinking about what is going to serve us well at any point in time. Even if it does work, is it the best action or is there other other actions that might have a better, long-term, sustainable response and consequence? As an example, because sometimes things that work work in the short term don't work in the long term. So, really stopping and thinking about what is going to serve me and others well at this point yeah, really powerful, pam.

Pam Marcheski: 45:41

Yeah, there's a lot of corporations out there that you can see very reactionary today. Because it works, does it help?

Mick Spiers: 45:50

Good question.

Pam Marcheski: 45:51

Sit a little longer with it.

Mick Spiers: 45:54

Yeah, very good, all right, Pam. And finally, there's going to be people that are really interested in everything we've been talking about today, whether it's MPIC or MCIT, about discovering mindfulness in their own leadership and their own life, and how they might get started if they do find themselves to be sorry to say it, pam, reactionary Pam, sitting at the airport. If you find yourself in those shoes, how do people find you? If they'd like to know more?

Pam Marcheski: 46:21

Yeah, so if people want to find more, you can find me at my website at intentactcom. We close those intentions and actions right there, intentactcom. You can email me at pam at intentactcom and you can find me on LinkedIn under Pam Marcheski.

Mick Spiers: 46:41

Thank you so much, pam. It's been a great conversation. I took many things from today. I feel richer for having this conversation, many reminders of making sure I keep going with my intentional actions, about me being present in the moment with my team and with others. I'm going to take away the call to actions today as well as a solid reminder, and I know the audience will as well. Thank you so much for your time and your wisdom today.

Pam Marcheski: 47:07

Thank you, mick, it was a joy to be with you.

Mick Spiers: 47:10

You've been listening to the Leadership Project. In the next episode, we are celebrating episode 200. This has been an incredible journey that we've been on and my team and I are incredibly proud of the content that we've been bringing you. In episode 200, we'll reflect back on the last four years and some of the key learnings that we've taken about what it means to be a leader. We can't wait to bring you this episode later this week. Thank you for listening to the Leadership Project at mickspearscom. A huge call out to Faris Sadek for his video editing of all of our video content, and to all of the team at TLP Joanne Goes On, gerald Calabo and my amazing wife, say Spears. I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to the Leadership Project YouTube channel, where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, facebook and Instagram. Now, in the meantime, please do take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey as we learn together and lead together.