Standing By the Water: Owning What You See

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Imagine feeling a greater sense of control over the circumstances in your life. As the saying goes, you can't direct the wind, but you can adjust your sails. But how do you know how and when to adjust your sails? Hello, I'm Terry Novichek, and thank you for joining me on this journey to discover and develop one's element, that place where interests and talents collide and the heart, mind, and body work in balance, where work and learning bring joy, where you come to realize your element is everything. Today's episode walks us through the process of owning our current circumstances. I feel a need to give a bit of a warning here, but this may make you feel worse before making you feel better. It's like going to the dentist. Once you get past the pain, you will look and feel better later. I have a dentist appointment later this week, so I'm trying to psych myself up for it. I mentioned in the last episode that Element Education's theme for the year is the picnic. The intention behind the metaphor is making sure we take time to relax, reflect, and rejuvenate. We find as we continue navigating our way through new social norms that personal accountability has become more challenging. While some people insist they want everything the way it was four years ago pre-COVID, others are excited about change. The workforce is probably the biggest example right now. We see some people looking forward to getting back to the way things were, while others have decided that they now want more flexible schedules, more time working from home, a shorter commute, maybe even completely different work or no work at all. Some are choosing different communities and even different states to live in. As those who want change make their changes, those who don't want change are feeling a bit out of sorts because, well, we all know one person's change can result in change for others. Part of the change was a shift in personal accountability. Personal accountability described by Roger Connor and Tom Smith in their Wisdom of Oz series is the choice to rise above one's circumstances and demonstrate the ownership necessary to achieve desired results. The Oz principle is Element Education's model for personal leadership, learning from yesterday and taking charge of what we do today. Our society spent a couple of years with a lot of free passes, easy money from government, easy grades from schools, and extended deadlines for nearly everything. COVID became the magic word. This in turn shifted our desire and in some ways our ability to face challenges. COVID gave us so much time to put ourselves first and only. As we come out of it, we're a little rusty on some of our social skills, like keeping commitments, arriving on time, putting devices aside, adhering to rules of the road, and considering others' situations and perspectives. More than ever, we are seeing personal accountability and autonomy butting heads. As humans, we are motivated by autonomy. In fact, self-control is the number one factor in productivity and happiness. But we have to remember with autonomy comes personal accountability. You don't give a child the autonomy to use a sharp knife until you know they have the skills and self-control to handle it properly. Autonomy also requires vulnerability, the willingness to be exposed to harm, whether physical or emotional. The child who uses a knife rather than having someone else cut his food risks the chance of cutting himself or making a mistake and being judged as careless or incapable. So back to the picnic. Let's meander over toward the water. Maybe it's a pond, a lake, a fountain, whatever best fits your picnic place. But looking at that water, reflect on what you see, not just on the outside, but on the inside as well. Think about who and what you are. What are you feeling and thinking? As you reflect on the last week, how well did your thoughts and actions align with who you want to be? A colleague recently shared a personal reflection with me, and I was really touched by its eloquence. She said, That is not who I am, not who I want to be, nor be perceived as. I found solace in knowing someone else is struggling just like I am. I'm trying to be my best, and sometimes I slip up. I find myself wanting this reflective pond to be a wishing well. Today we hear from Strider Spillane, CEO of Leader Prep, who walks us through the process of slipping up. We have a choice in how we respond to the words and actions we recognize later could have been better. And while leader prep's expertise is company culture and collaboration, groups of people are groups of people, the same mindset and behaviors around personal accountability come into play in our communities, our social groups, and our families. So let's see what Strider has to say. All right. Hi, Strider. Great to see you today. I haven't seen you in a while.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

It has been a while, but it's wonderful to be with you again.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

So, you know, I had mentioned to you earlier that how you popped into my head was whenever I talk about personal accountability, I always think of you in leader prep, uh, the work you've done with our organization. And something that I have seen a lot of that seems to be at a higher rate than before COVID. And I don't know if it's because during COVID we were all taking care of ourselves and we kind of lost some of our social skills and all of that. But, you know, autonomy is one of the key motivators for people. People want a sense of control, but yet I am seeing people back away from that. And I feel like there's a little connection with the personal accountability. And I don't know if it's because we're rusty, um, you know, because there is some criticism that comes with that, a chance of being wrong, you know, that vulnerability. And I'm just wondering, like in the work that you've been doing, are you seeing a trend there? Or what insight do you have on that?

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Thank you. And and absolutely, I would say there's there's a trend, but more so there's an effect. There's a repercussion to the fact that we went from an in-person environment to a virtual environment. And a lot of organizations have switch gears right back, thinking that we could just flip a switch. And those social norms, I'm gonna say that their social norms have shifted. It's not that they've lost what what they had before, they've had to adjust in a virtual environment. And now we're asking and expecting all of these adjustments to be made instantly. Um, to where I can sit in a room with you, as we are right now, and I can be hyper aware of my eye contact with you, hyper aware of our interactions leading up to this meeting, hyper aware of all the situations going on outside of these doors. Whereas during a virtual environment, we controlled everything. We could turn the camera on, we could turn the camera off, we could turn off our microphone, um, we can make it to where the background, our backdrop was a beautiful Hawaiian vacation. Everything was in our control. And what we've done is now that control is is it's not gone, but we definitely need to own the adjustments that are necessary for us to get back in the driver's seat. Something you said there about uh autonomy, and I'm gonna use it almost interchangeably with uh accountability, because it is something that people often shy away from. And and you spoke to this already, but I'm gonna put you on the spot. Why is it that people don't want to be personally accountable? Why is it that we find so many people shying away from that?

SPEAKER_00 8:51

I feel like we're out of practice. I think during COVID, decisions were made for us. You know, this is where you will go, this is how you will get your food. And the decisions we made were pretty much within our households. So now we're back out into the big world. And um, you know, when you bring up the camera thing, I was thinking, wow, you know, that's a really good point. And I remember when we all switched to the camera, there were people that were perfectly comfortable in social settings that didn't like the camera because they just don't like being on camera. And I sure I know that one. I am one of those. And um so then we got used to being on camera, and like you said, you can, you know, manipulate it however you want, even turn it.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

I'm gonna switch switch the word there. Let's not say manipulate, but let's be intentional. So we can be intentional in how we control that virus.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Okay, control, control, manipulate, but yeah, but like I can decide how much of me I'm gonna let you see. Yes. And and so, yeah, now we're back out again.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Let's talk about that because that's a good example for us to kind of carry through. And I think the listeners will be able to uh exercise this a little bit as well, because I I hate to talk just to talk. If we can talk about something that's applicable, that we can actually utilize um that makes a change, then it's worth it. Right. So so let's use your experience that you just gave with the camera. Think about when we were doing virtual virtual meetings, what were some intentional adjustments that you as Terry made um to become more uh not manipulative, but we're saying controlling, more controlling of the experience you were creating. So with the cameras being on, what were some things that you started to do differently to control the experience you were creating for those who are in the meeting with you virtually?

SPEAKER_00 10:45

I would say I actually spent more time resisting it because for me, I felt having the camera on was important. When you have it off, that's like being in the next room or well, doing something else and not being engaged. Okay. But so I just brought that up because it was still kind of an uncomfortable thing, just because I don't like being in front of the camera. But like I said, I mean people didn't see any more or less of me than they would have if I was sitting on a table. It's just that whole you know what it was? It's because when you're on that, you see yourself. So when you and I are looking at each other in a room, I don't see myself.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

It's easy. It's easier then not to worry about what you're wearing, how you're wearing it. Okay. So then what did you do intentionally during those uh virtual meetings to not let that seeing yourself be a disruptor?

SPEAKER_00 11:44

What was you did? Really tried to not look at that little box in the bottom.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Some people even went to the extent of changing the settings so that way they couldn't see themselves, blocking it out. In your case, for example, ignore the bottom right corner of the screen. That's something you intentionally did because you knew that it would get in the way. Um, what else? What else would you do in preparation for those meetings to make it more effective, more impactful, um, and and create the right experience that you're trying to create in a meeting?

SPEAKER_00 12:14

Are you saying if I was intending or if I was organizing?

SPEAKER_01 12:16

I'd say if you're organizing. I think a lot of us are in a leadership position as well, or ones setting up the calls. Um, so in those environments where you're setting it up and you are expected to bring value to those who are joining in, what's something you would do in preparation for that?

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Um, well, it would be establishing the expectations of the group.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

Great. You have these collective expectations well in advance. What else?

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Make sure all the technology works. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

You you probably need the test road, right? Do the test run, make sure the audio and the the uh the visual is working. Excellent. So you're doing the test run of the technology. You got the the outline. What else?

SPEAKER_00 12:57

Make sure that I'm in a quiet area.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

You're aware of your environment.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

That the distractions are gone. I set myself up intentionally in a corner of a room where nobody can walk behind me, my background doesn't change, you're not seeing dirty dishes, you're just seeing the same wall.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Yes. Let's just go with these three things then so far. We could dig deeper and spend more time. But I would ask all of your listeners to do the same thing. Think about those one or two, in this case, we're going to use three things that you adjusted intentionally so that you'd have that autonomy or that control in a virtual environment. Because what happened, Terry, is as soon as we flipped a switch and we said everyone come back, everyone be in a room together, everyone go back to how you were, those benefits and values that you saw by implementing things like, let's have an outline ready to go before I walk into the room. Let's make sure the technology is there and working and we actually have all the seating and the tables that we need. And then let's be aware of the environment, the environment that's going on here in the office today that's impacting everyone. Let's be aware of all of those things so that when we have a meeting today at 130, it is the most effective and most productive that it can be. That's taking ownership of the meeting. That's taking ownership of the experience you're creating. That's autonomy being created in your world that you can impact. But what we're seeing as what we would say is the social norms that are just missing, what we're seeing is people haven't yet put the intentional effort in creating what those new uh those new elements are that they should be aware of in order to create the right experience.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Can we play with that in a family setting, what that looks like in the home?

SPEAKER_01 14:40

I like that idea. And that's frankly where my natural place goes. I have three daughters and a son. And uh, and my three daughters, as uh, we've made adjustments. One of them is through the charter school, one of them is homeschooled, one's public schooled. So literally three different environments. And then I have my son who's three. So right now he's just coasting through life, get gets whatever he needs from his sisters and the mom and dad. As we made these adjustments, and I've been talking to you about a work environment, but as we made adjustments during COVID in our family environment, in our learning environment with our children, there's been a lot of that adjustment that was uh too abrupt. We thought we could switch gears and send this kid back to school and send this daughter upstairs to do her homework, and we'd expect a certain result. Well, they haven't implemented any of these adjustments. They haven't taken the time to say, how do I most effectively work in this new world? We expect, as the parent, for them to somehow be able to flip the switch and adapt back to these social norms that existed pre-COVID. They just like an adult can't, they can't. We need to spend the time with our children in a home environment and identify, okay, what is some work that, let me see, would it be helpful if I gave like a key example with the daughter? Okay. So one of my daughters goes to school two days a week. It's through a flex type of program. And uh, and so when she's home, we expect that she knew exactly what she needed to be working on so that when she shows up to school, she's prepared. Well, we found out, and I'm not gonna use her name and embarrass her, but we found out that she was missing about three or four assignments that were just completely not done. And in her mind, she said, okay, well, I'll get those done while I'm at school. And at school, they were saying, Okay, well, mom and dad need to be on top of that at home. And then next thing you know, these three assignments are completely missing. Well, instead of hounding her and saying, honey, this is your responsibility, you should have been on top of this. Or instead of calling up her teacher and saying, Why does she not know about these three missing assignments? And why are we just now finding out? We each owned it in our family, my wife, myself, and my daughter. And we stayed up until about midnight. This is just a few nights ago. Stayed up till about midnight helping her through these assignments, sitting down, reading the, we were reading about, I'm gonna say the names wrong in Greek mythology, so I'm not even gonna try.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

But we're reading through these uh these different stories that I couldn't tell you about, let alone my wife or my daughter. And together we're taking away what we need in order to fulfill these assignments. So instead of us blaming whose fault it is, whether it's the teacher, to the daughter, the mom, the dad, instead we needed to be clear on what the assignments were, what needed to be accomplished, and then we all just jumped in at first. And that meant staying up till midnight and knocking them out. Well, now we can start to create some new patterns and new norms for her to be successful moving forward, but we had to hit that pause button, that that reality that says, listen, we didn't switch gears from COVID to post-COVID to pre-COVID with uh on off. We need to take the time to adapt. In order to adapt, we need to first get really a bearing on where we are today. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 17:56

It does. And I really like that idea of that co-ownership. And so you're not doing the work for her. I mean, you're not looking at it like, well, we're the parent we should have known, or we should have done this, and so now we're gonna make up for it by doing the work for her. Like you did put some on, you know, but at the same time, you didn't put everything on her and say, well, you're the student, it's all your job. And that was that's great.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

She just hasn't gotten back into a habit coming out of virtual, completely virtual, to being in school. She hasn't found where the balance is of what is expected to be done in the classroom versus at home. And I think all of us to some extent haven't quite figured out the balance of okay, if we're virtual some of the time and in person other times, if we're meeting together or we're over a conference call, what is that balance and what's the expectation? Before we can talk about autonomy, before we can talk about personal accountability, we need to be clear on what is the expectation, what's the result we're after. When we clearly articulate what that purpose is, what the result is, well, now we can spend the energy and and create some ownership and accountability and autonomy to that effect of uh of moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

So is was that your next step then? Like you you've got this cleaned up. How do we not get here again?

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Part of it is that fear of never wanting to get back to this. I think we could all relate to that, those moments where this can't happen again. But what came about was an expectation from mom, myself, and my daughter of what's expected to be delivered on these assignments, and how can we build this into our habits moving forward to my daughter? How can we build this into your studying habits and your time adjustments of how much you spend uh doing reading and studying in the classroom versus at home? How can you build it in so that going forward, these expectations are met and we don't fall back to this point? Um, it it really became a byproduct of that intense night of work up until midnight was digging into the expectations, understanding it clearly, and we had to in order to knock out three that were late. Um, understanding that clearly, now a byproduct of it is we can build this into our daily habits with my daughter. And if she needs help and support from mom and dad, we can build this in as well because now we have a better grip on what's expected of her.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

And so, how what's the accountability system? Like, how how do you keep each other accountable for that? That's the And I realize this is a new thing. You guys are still working through it.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

I think it's great though, because it goes back to the core of what we do at leader prep, which is organizations come to us and say, we need help with accountability. We need an accountability process. You cannot force somebody to be accountable. You can give people responsibilities. I could give my daughter responsibilities. Her teacher can give her these assignments all day long. Ownership, though, a true accountability is a personal choice to rise above your circumstances and demonstrate the ownership necessary to achieve the desired results. That is something that my daughter learned through this experience is the ownership that falls on her to achieve the desired result of these three assignments that she fell behind in. So she started to implement changes on her own so that she could own the pieces that she was responsible for. There's also now ownership and accountability on my plate and on my wife's plate and on the teacher's plate as well. Because we, as a team, allowed it to get to that point. Now her teacher, for example, knows to stay on top of it and check in with her and not just assume that these are being done delayed, but instead checking in on where she's at. Mom and I also have an ownership that we're built in to her success, that we have personal ownership in how she's doing in these different areas so that it doesn't get back to that point. Um, so each. Each one of us had to own the piece of of the success, and that meant owning a piece of the failure as well. So if you want to say what's the accountability process, it's inserting ourselves into the problem first, because if you're not part of the problem, you can't be part of the solution. So we inserted ourselves into part of the problem, my wife, myself, and my daughter. And then once we inserted ourselves into the problem, then we were able to together find the solution and own our piece of that moving out of that. That created greater personal accountability on each one of us in a different way, in a way that could only be done if we were each equally invested in their the success in the result.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

But moving forward, you you mentioned that you guys have, you know, what are the the habits that you've built so you don't get back to that place? Do you check on each other to make sure? Do you have a checklist in the house?

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Is it it's my favorite word and it's feedback. Feedback, feedback, feedback. It even exists in the family. It's saying, Hey Cassidy, how are things going on this assignment this week? I just dropped her name. I know that's okay. However, it's checking in with her and saying, How are things going in this area? Um, how how are you enjoying the next three chapters of that story we were reading about? Um, whatever did happen to Charmedius, I probably said his name wrong, but that was one of the names that we were dealing with. But it's checking in with her. And then her response to me is feedback as to whether or not she's staying on top of what she's owned. Her response to me is also giving me a glimpse of where I can insert myself and help in different ways. But having that dialogue ongoing is feedback. It's it's structured in some cases, whether you're checking in at the end of the week, the most effective feedback is unstructured. The most effective feedback comes in candid 101 communication. And that's the exact same advice I give myself as a parent. I give any parents that are listening. I would give to a CEO, I would give to a team mentor, is that candid interaction that you're having is an opportunity to gather feedback to check in and see how we're doing at instilling these different uh needed adjustments in our accountability.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Um, can we go back to the workplace? Please. Um, and really it's not even a workplace thing. It it's anywhere. It's it's in your communities, your neighborhoods, your churches, your clubs. The idea of speaking up to the right people versus you know, the gossip or like speaking up, but speaking to the wrong person, and then it becomes the water cooler gossip and kind of becomes this toxic environment again in neighborhoods, in you know, it happens anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

And and this is what I love about in the workplace or the caveat of in a club or in a family or in church, in a community, doesn't matter. It's all the same. Right. If if we start to create different habits or autonomy, as you were saying, uh if we start to create different ones for different environments that we're in, you're gonna lose that battle every time. You are going to find yourself juggling almost a uh Terry one, Terry 2, Terry 3, Terry 4. The only way to create improvement and real self-mastery is to focus on implementing these changes to create 2.0 Terry, 2.1 Terry, 2.2 Terry. And as you do that in your church environment and your work environment and your home environment, the change will absolutely um bring value in in each of those environments. So, to your question there of all right, how do we avoid what we see, which is oftentimes what we're seeing, is a lack of accountability where people like to point the finger and go off the path and start to play the blame game, start to um, you know, come up with all sorts of reasons why it shouldn't be done that way. That's the on the path, off the path uh model that that we've talked about in the past. Um, it's it's the idea that says if you're on the path, you're taking three necessary steps when you see an issue, an obstacle, when you see a problem. The first step is see it. It's to recognize this is a problem. The second step, which is where most people falter and it takes the most effort, is to own it. That's where it doesn't become water cooler talk. Instead, I'm owning it. When we saw the problem with my daughter, we saw three behind uh assignments. The ownership step that was necessary was my wife and I and my daughter stepping in and actually all involving ourselves in the problem. The same could be said in the work environment when a problem comes up. Are we owning it? Are we inserting ourselves as part of the problem so that we can then become part of the solution? And then your third step is to do it. You have to see it, own it, do it. See the problem, make sure you're clear on what the issue is. We knew what the three missing assignments were. Own it, jump in. Doesn't matter whose fault it was or who you think should have done differently or who you think should be accountable for, let's all own it. And then let's take action, let's stay up till midnight and get it done. If we if we saw more of that on the path behavior, naturally what you would see is off-the-path excuses playing the blame game goes away. And when it does occur, it's very short-lived because you have others who are helping others in the work environment, in the church environment, in the community environment, helping them own it, helping them take that step, the next step.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

So when I think of a neighbor example, let's say you have a neighbor whose sprinklers overflow onto your property, you're annoyed, you don't say anything, but you tell your other neighbors, oh yeah, you know, neighbor A, can you believe it? Oh, I know the waste of water. We live in California. I get, you know, all that kind of stuff talks. And then I don't know, maybe your plants die because they get overwatered. So if I'm understanding what you're saying, I have not owned that because I had a chance to do something about it, which is talk to the neighbor.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

You stayed at the see it step. And uh, and and frankly, that's great. We we hit the see it step. You're aware of it. And frankly, frankly, I've seen people who've studied that up and down, and they've probably looked at what caused the leak. You probably have all of the reasons why they failed as a uh as a member of your community. You have looked at what the HOA rules are, you spent all this time in the see it mode, but we haven't yet stepped into the own it, the next step, the ownership of that. You're not saying um it's your fault. You're you're not owning it saying I caused this. But what you are doing is inserting yourself into the problem. You're jumping in and saying, okay, how can this be fixed? And then you take action. Maybe that does require a conversation with the owner, with the HOA. Maybe it does require you to actually go in there and make the adjustment yourself so that your plants don't keep dying. Um, but taking that ownership step is is the gap. That's what's missing in your scenario there.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

So you mentioned the F-word. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Feedback. You have to follow it up right away.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

Actually, no, but no, no, no, but but fault.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

Oh, you whoa.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

That that F-word. So I um I I think that that might, you know, as you're talking, I'm thinking that might be what sticks, gets people stuck in that see it, is because own it feels like fault. Yeah. And in my sprinkler situation, I mean it clearly isn't your fault that your neighbors sprinklers are, you know, but if it keeps going on and you're not doing anything about it, then it does become your fault. But I wonder that's really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

I haven't spent that much time thinking about the fault until now, because spending time finding fault, there's we're gonna have to start using something other than the F-words because uh the finding fault is is where we're off the path. If you're spending any time finding fault or foregoing another fault, yeah, we're foregoing productive work to find fault. Um, if we are doing that, we aren't on the path, seen, owning it, and doing it. Instead, we've stepped off the path. We're off the path now, lost in the weeds, finding blame, trying to point the finger, trying to explain why it's not my fault, um, trying to find all the reasons why this should not have occurred. All of that's off the off-the-path behavior. Um, and so if you find yourself finding fault as opposed to finding a solution, you're off the path.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

And so that brings us back to what you started with. What is your intention? What is the expectation? So if my intention is just to turn my neighbors, other neighbors against that one or make them feel bad or something, you know, then well, I guess I've succeeded. But but my intention really should be I don't want your water in my yard. And so griping to the neighbors, the other neighbors, is not going to fix that.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

I think that's exactly right. It goes full circle to what's the expectation and what am I really trying to achieve? When you're clear on that, you quickly identify when you're not progressing on the path and when you've stepped off the path and you're finding faults because you're not making any headway towards the result that you're after. Um, so I think that's a beautiful circle to this idea of personal accountability. It's not a one-and-done switch, it's a process and it's something that requires your individual ownership, just like it requires my ownership as strider.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

All right, strider spillane. And there we have it, the crucial act of owning our current circumstances. Going back to my water neighbor example with Strider, if my intent is for my neighbor's water to stop spilling into my yard, telling other neighbors to rally support for my opinion that the water neighbor is wasteful and insensitive, that doesn't solve the problem. It only creates a new problem because now we have assumptions and likely undeserved judgments, all brewing, which can then lead to high emotion and a mob mentality. The next thing you know, the water neighbor is now being judged for not trimming his trees, leaving his lights on too long, and so on and so forth. Before long, the story the neighbors create in their head about the water neighbor has developed into this crime novel. End result, everyone now is cranky. The water is still running over to my yard and has now killed my plants. The problem has only gotten worse. I asked Strider later, how would things have looked different if Cassidy did not take ownership? Or maybe you or your wife didn't. It's not like we can control other people's willingness to own their role in a situation, right? And he said, if one of us, myself included, chose not to own our part of the situation, or in other words, chose to not be part of the solution, the story would change in two ways. One, there would have been an undesirable result. It would have taken longer to complete the task, and likely the submitted assignment would have less accurate or missing information. And two, that person would not have experienced the growth and development from the situation. They would have missed out on that opportunity to build their skill set or build a stronger relationship with the group. When working with others who are not ready to own their part of the situation, you can explain to them how their unique value will help to achieve a more desirable result. The growth and development that personal ownership creates turns every situation into an opportunity for personal development. So back to the wishing well. This is the part I referred to at the beginning where it may get a little uncomfortable. Think of a current situation in which you are feeling discouraged, incapable, or otherwise frustrated. Perhaps a relationship, something going on in your workplace, your family, your neighborhood. How do you feel about it? How is it impacting you? How do you wish you were feeling about it? How do you wish things could be different? While you can likely think of a long list of reasons how that situation is someone or something else's doing, take a minute to think about the role you have played in the current situations. Perhaps you're thinking to yourself, but I did nothing wrong. But is the truth that you just did nothing? Or maybe you're saying, I told somebody about it, in other words, you pass the buck. But the truth may be you didn't tell the right person. Or maybe you told the right person, but your intent was to make the person feel bad or to dump on the other person rather than working together on finding solutions. Think of the term ownership in the literal sense. While this can't be said across the board, of course, more often than not, people who own their homes or own their cars tend to take better care of them. There's a higher level of investment, which leads to a higher level of attention or commitment. When you think of your role as a parent, a child, a worker, student, partner, friend, are you thinking and behaving as an owner willing to invest and commit? While owning a situation can at times feel bad, as you build the habit, it actually becomes quite freeing. No longer a victim, you begin to feel a higher sense of control and pride. You become able to recognize when your reality may not be the reality. And while it doesn't feel good at first, it does give you the power to be part of the reality. As Strider states, you can't be part of the solution if you aren't willing to be part of the problem. Once you're in a place where you can see and own your role in a situation, you're able to grow and work on real solutions. Join us in the next episode where we discuss ways to develop those solutions. In the meantime, focus on just one situation and just on your role. The more you take ownership of your current circumstances, the closer you get to your element.