Season 1, Episode 1: Why "The Gravity Well"

Establishing the Ground Rules

Welcome to “The Gravity Well,” a podcast where hosts Alexander MacGillivray and Jenny Yeremiy tackle heavy ideas in manageable segments. They aim to provide information, ideas, and skills to positively contribute to listeners’ lives. The podcast was born from a conversation during an election campaign, where the hosts realized the importance of preparing for potential negative outcomes, much like the Apollo missions. They emphasize the need for community rebuilding and fostering a collaborative mindset rather than opposition. The hosts discuss the importance of respectful behavior, understanding different perspectives, and creating a safe space for open dialogue. They also explore their own personality traits and how these influence their collaboration. The podcast aims to address various crises by opening dialogues and encouraging contributions from diverse viewpoints.

About Your Hosts

I, Jenny Yeremiy, am a geophysicist and liability (oil and gas site clean-up and restoration) expert turned social and environmental economic activist.

Alexander MacGillivray studied Arts, is a jack-of-all-trades, an independent researcher and has a passion for bringing people together to learn and communicate big ideas.

In this first episode of The Gravity Well, I draw learning and inspiration from two thought leadership branding coaches trained in Positive Intelligence — Angie Alexander and Melanie Richards. Angie and Melanie share their recommendations for defining the ground rules of The Gravity Well community.

I have known Angie since our time at Apache Canada. Angie and I never worked directly together, but peripherally, she has been a steady ally in the roller coaster of our oil and gas careers. She and I had lengthy careers in oil and gas development, Angie as a reservoir engineer and me as a geophysicist. Geophysicists like me work with geologists to identify drilling locations and abandonment recommendations. Reservoir engineers like Angie work hand in hand with a production engineer to determine the economics and producibility of a well or oil field.

Angie and I have identified shortcomings in the executive leadership style — a traditional “command and control” approach that does not allow for debate. Angie became a coach to leaders to support their transformation to Sage Leadership, her coaching brand is based on the Positive Intelligence training system created by Shirzad Chamine.

In the fall of 2022, Angie could see I was struggling with putting myself in public view. We met for coffee and she invited me to her weekly conversation. Have a listen to my first conversation in Angie’s Clubhouse Room. I was hooked the moment I joined Angie’s room as a regular, Thursday morning, 8 AM MST in Clubhouse. Thank you, Angie and my fellow Sage Leaders!

About The Gravity Well Podcast Season One

Alex and I agreed all issues in Alberta are on the table and couldn’t decide where to start. We agreed to take the DelftX Creative Problem-Solving and decision-making course to create a structure and flow to the conversations. Have a listen to the season one program outline here.

Welcome and Introduction to The Gravity Well

Alex:

Welcome to The Gravity Well, what we’re trying to do is tackle heavy ideas in small buckets that anyone can handle. My name is Alexander MacGillivray. Jenny and I have joined forces to bring you information, ideas, and skills with the goal of positively contributing to your insights.

Jenny:

Thank you, Alex. As you said, thank you, Angie, for noticing that we have the welcome message in our chat. We included that for everyone. Alex and I have spent the last four months working together. He and I met at the doors, it’s, I’ll be clear, the doors means, well, during the election when I ran in the election this year, last year, I door knocked. I had the opportunity to knock on Alex’s door, and I had been messaging consistently before and leading up to it that we were in the Apollo 13 moment that we needed. This province needs to put all of its resources on the table and have a discussion about how we’re going to do all the things we want to do. That was my message for months.

Jenny:

And people would hear it and say something interesting about it. But it wasn’t until I started talking to Alex that he said, yeah, but why Apollo 13 was successful? It was because of Apollo 11, and what he meant, I said, “Go on.” Alex said that it’s just like if you follow Michael Phelps, they anticipated negative outcomes and made plans to adjust based on those potential outcomes. For example, if we ran out of oxygen, what would we do? If, we were feeling a pressure change, how would we adjust if we were off trajectory, how would we fix direction? And because they took the time to do that because they took the time to learn what-if scenarios, they were ready when Apollo 13, they were faced with the Apollo 13 moment. That’s the opportunity I saw when I first reached out to when I first met Alex.

Jenny:

It was, “Wow, this is someone that just added a whole new dimension to my thinking”, and it helped me. I was like, wow, I’m reaching out to that guy no matter what happens out of this election. That was probably the best conversation that came out of it. It’s just been like that ever since. I would say that it’s just the way Alex is. He operates with a good heart. He has a good intention, and when he challenges me on something, we’re able to work through it because we both were operating from that place of best intention. That’s why we’re working together. And then what the purpose of this conversation is to, we want to rebuild the community. We have what I feel is a big gap in society where we have, we’re expected to take positions or be in camps and work potentially on opposite sides of the table. All of these things that we say, and it’s expected that we’re in opposition to each other, and that’s not where we need to be. We need to think in terms of “we’re all in this together” type of thinking. Yeah, please go ahead, Alex, add to that. Thank you.

Alex:

Thank you. Yeah. There’s a common saying when people just want to deflect, they say, “There are two sides to every coin, black and white, zero in one, these binary systems of thinking. But they are forgetting there are three sides to a coin. There’s the edge, and that edge is crucial. The edge is what holds the coin together, and it’s these dichotomies.

Jenny:

We’re all in this together.

Alex:

What we’re seeking to do is learn from other people who have varying views and who normally would be dichotomised in terms of opposing sides, and just kind of maybe make an attempt to bridge some gaps and creatively find a way to compete with each other rather than in competition solely that we make a difference over the long term. I mean, it’s a shot in the dark, but it’s worth a shot.

Jenny:

Yeah. Yeah. I like the idea of winning with each other. This concept is that we’re stronger together. Like I said, you give me more view of how I’m seeing something and others, I see Colin is in the audience. Thank you, Colin, for joining. Colin has been an amazing ally that Alex has now had the privilege to meet. Excited to be working with him.

Alex:

It was very nice to meet you, Colin. I’m sorry we didn’t have more time to chat.

Introduction to Angie and her Sage Leadership Crew

Jenny:

We’ll have Colin on in a few episodes. This is exciting to be building things with real people, with real connections. I can speak a bit about Angie. The reason why we have Angie and Melanie here today, and Carol, thank you for joining us, as well, is to speak with this group that I’ve worked with. Angie has a room in Clubhouse. Angie, when you are done with your dinner please pop your Clubhouse link into the chat somehow or tell me how to do that for you, I can do it. But yeah, Angie hosts a clubhouse room on Thursday mornings. I started in that, geez, I guess it must be just over a year, I want to say a year and three months, maybe a year and two months ago. But it’s been such a steady reinforcement of the principles that we’re trying to foster. And Angie, let me get a little bit more background, is Angie and I have known each other for more than a decade. We started working together at Apache Canada, one of the oil companies in Calgary back in, geez, I started there in 2005. Angie was already there, and no, I feel like we both were gone by you by 2009. Maybe you can say when you speak. But anyway, the point is,

Alex:

Did you work for the Apache Oil company or did you make the helicopters? That’s what I’m wondering.

Jenny:

Yeah. Yeah. I haven’t even said yet, but I’m a geophysicist. The oil company, and thank you for clarifying Alex. And yeah, Angie is an engineer, we worked together a little bit and just managed to become good allies throughout the years. I’m super grateful for that. Melanie participates in Angie’s room regularly, as do a few hours that I’m hoping might join pop in for a little bit of this today, too. Merrill, thank you so much for joining us.

Alex:

Welcome.

Jenny:

Merrill is a regular in Angie’s Room. Amazing. Thank you so much for being here. Okay. I guess just a couple more things, we’ll just add, we’ve got some time to just a little bit more about what we’re trying to do. Again, trying to have conversations about the crisis that we’re facing. However you see it, if you see it as just an economic crisis, a financial crisis, or if you see it as a social crisis like health or just belonging, whatever that looks like, or if you see it as an environmental crisis, the climate crisis is here, we need to be talking about it, and we need to do it in a way that’s open and honest. And so go ahead, Alex, your turn.

Alex:

Ultimately, if we’re going to be frank with each other and with ourselves, we’re faced with a polynomial crisis. There are crises on multiple fronts, and it almost becomes exorbitantly confusing to face all of them simultaneously. Why The Gravity Well is important is what we’re trying to do is just pick one and even a small bucket and start locally and open the dialogue so that these crises become manageable. And the more open the doors become, the more brilliant people from all walks of life can contribute, sorry, to whatever capacity they can. It’s a difficult message. It’s something that people who are much more powerful or influential than us trying to approach. There’d be many. Why not give it a shot? I figure the more the merrier. That’s just kind of where we’re trying to open up the dialogue to other people too.

Jenny:

Well, and to your point, thank you for saying that. Alex and I are trying to create a space that anybody can participate in. If we’re experts, people are feeling, “Well, I’m not an expert in that”, no, this is an everyone problem, which means that we need to make space for everyone to be able to feel like they can participate. We’re, that’s why we don’t need to be experts because we’re trying to bring ideas forward and gain that conversation around these problems. We took a course together. Alex and I took a complex decision-making course together, and the intention was for us to have a common language. That’s what we’re going to walk through today, is the common language that we’ve built ground rules. This structure of conversations, which, by the way, we’re referring to a slide in the presentation that we’ve attached to this meeting.

Jenny:

There’s an image of our rules of engagement. That’s what it is. First of all, start with the why we’re talking. Today we’re talking about rules of engagement and why we’re talking about it. Well, because we need to know how to operate in a way that’s safe for people to open up and be able to share their opinions, their questions and concerns in the space. Let’s just start with the who. First of all, Angie, thank you very much for joining us. Can we just take a moment and let you introduce yourself? What we’re going to do, Alex and I will frame the first question as we want people to show up with respectful behaviour. We’re going to describe what respectful behaviour looks like to us in these conversations.

Jenny:

And if you’re willing, we’d love your input on that. Thank you. Okay. Starting with that, I like to model myself. I’ll start with myself and say, respectful behaviour to me looks like we’re using adequate emojis like Angie just did. That’s one of the things I love about Clubhouse is that if you hold down your photo there’s an option to use emojis, which I’ll just give one of those back to Angie, and then there’s an option to do gifts. We’re going to use the tools that this room offers us to help make sure we’re, thank you, Angie, for using the space in a positive way, but make sure that people are moving in the right direction. Respectful to me looks like listening to what somebody’s saying and reflecting on what they’ve offered it is taking a moment to say, “Okay, I hear what you’re saying.” And then taking a moment to say, “And this is what I think you’re trying to”, how we can try and come together on it. To me, it’s showing up in this room and not bringing dialogue that might be offensive. It is making sure that we’re supporting each other like we just did. And so, yeah. Angie, why don’t you weigh in for us on, as a coach, what would you expect from people in terms of your facilitating ability? And Alex, maybe we’ll, both mute at the same time.

Angie:

Yeah, for me I love that you called out using the emojis. We love Merrill down in the audience because we know he’s listening and always giving us the emojis to let us know that he’s here with us, even though we’re not hearing his voice. So respectful. That’s what we’re talking about. I think it is allowing everyone the opportunity to speak and be respectful in how we respond to each other in that case. The other thing that I think as a moderator when you’re leading these conversations, you can create, and you’re doing this, Jenny, being very clear on how your room runs in terms of, and creating that. All of you that come to my room now, I think have that feel of how things go. That helps create that safe place and the respectfulness of it. I do love that when we can challenge each other because that’s where we grow.

Angie:

And having that curiosity from Jenny, this and the others in the room who are PQ trained, the yes and or everything that someone has to say has 10%, at least 10% is right. Being able to, even if we have that initial response, someone is saying something and it’s like, oh, I don’t agree with that at all. If that’s our first response to think, what is it about what they’re saying that I do agree with? Yes, what I like about what you’re saying is this and what it makes me think of. And I think that can create a lot of respectfulness, letting people know that they’re being heard. One thing that I’ve noticed, I don’t spend a lot of time in other rooms anymore, but I have had the experience of being in a room where I’ve spoken and not being acknowledged, had my, and then the moderator says, hardly even says, thank you, Angie. It’s just, okay, Alex, let’s hear from you. Yeah. Having that moment to acknowledge, and thank you for your contributions. I am a fan of reflecting a little bit on what I heard from you. I don’t think that has to be the case, but as a minimum, acknowledge that someone has spoken and that you appreciate their thoughts. I think that’s everything.

Alex:

Thank you for your contribution. Was I supposed to say that?

Jenny:

No, no, I think, as we’re saying, it’s this “pass the torch” type thing, Alex, that Angie is good at. She takes the time, she acknowledges what has been said by somebody, and she allows them the space to potentially say what they haven’t finished saying She’s a very good moderator. And yeah, appreciate your insights there, Angie. Thank you for that. Alex, our next question here was about perspectives versus perception. Did you want to ask Angie this one?

Perception Versus Perspectives

Alex:

Yeah, I’ll just say it real quick. When I was in art college, we’d sit in a studio full of 25 people and we’d be given a single sculpture in a room and asked to paint it. And when you walked around the room, everyone had a different perspective on what that sculpture looked like, but the sculpture itself didn’t change. I’m wondering what your views are on perception versus perspective.

Angie:

Is that for me, Jenny, or do you want to?

Jenny:

I can expand on that a little bit. Thank you, Alex, for you, this. Yeah, I’ll expand on it for Angie a little bit just to give her a little bit more colour on our thinking here. Alex is saying anybody, like any one sculpture in a room like that, wouldn’t be the same. It’s saying that the way we determine what we think is truth, fact, whatever is this construct that only really we have. We’re trying to create a place where people don’t take a position like that sculpture looks like this and say that that sculpture can’t look any other way, but rather say it’s a sculpture and it has these things. We’re trying to create a way to make sure that we’re not being positional versus being able to honour that somebody is just looking at something from their perception or their position.

Jenny:

We’re trying to separate those two things. One of the thoughts I have in that is to just potentially look to another person in the group. I know you do this sometimes, Angie is you’ll say, oh, I don’t know Michelle. If somebody comes in with a question, I disagree with that. You’ll say, what are people thinking? What do we want to say back? Anyway, I’ll just stop there. What are some ways to try and separate people’s position or the word perception, whichever you prefer, versus allowing them to gain some perspective?

Angie:

Yeah, interesting. I love this perspective. It’s great. For me, just my first thoughts around the difference between perspective and perception is that the sculpture, if I think about the sculpture idea, or we’ve probably some of, you’ve probably heard the parable about the elephant in the blind, men blind. It depends a bit on where you’re standing and what you’re looking at. That would be, I guess, your perspective. I can be standing on one side and I see it a certain way, and I’m looking at the same thing as you are and feeling the same thing that you are, but you’re on a different side of it. Your perspective is going to be different where you’re standing and looking at it, the perception could be coloured by my experience.

Angie:

What I’m seeing is maybe I’ve never seen an elephant before. I’ve never seen a sculpture like this before. My description and what I perceive it to be might be different. I think for me, when it comes to that, it’s really about curiosity and being open to say, well, this is what I see, and I know that that’s what I’m seeing and explaining even where I’m coming from. My background is this. I think it’s important when we know in some of the other rooms that I do around with the PQ coaches helping, where are you calling in from and where are you on the PQ journey helps us understand a little bit of the perspective that they might be bringing from that. The more that you know about me, “I live in Calgary, I have an engineering background, I’m a coach.” “This is how I know Jenny” or “how I know people.”

Angie:

All of that helps other people understand where I might be coming from. I think having that openness to share, without judgement, of myself or other people, and consider] what that might look like. And then to your point, I’m describing what I’m seeing, feeling, and perceiving from this experience, and then be open to understanding that someone else is seeing it differently, and how can I start piecing those together? The elephant in the blind men is someone over here talking about, well, it looks and feels like this, and someone over here is, it looks and feels like that, and none of them is fully correct. We don’t have the full picture. Being able to start piecing that all together, and I think especially as moderators being able to be listening to that and creating that picture for others in terms of, okay, I’m hearing this from all of these different perspectives and I’m creating a picture for myself. Let me test it out. Let me see if this is resonating and being open to that. I’ll stop there. I think that was.

Jenny:

No, it’s amazing, exactly what we’re looking for.

Jenny:

Alex, now let’s play the game. Let’s do, as Angie just suggested Angie does, can you parrot back a little bit of what you heard from Angie? Can you offer her some of the things you heard?

Alex:

Well, I found what she said, as per the emojis “a hundred per cent on point”. And I think strangely, in our justice system, for instance, that’s why we have juries because we need at least a minimum of 12 people’s different perceptions of what went on so that they can determine what’s closest to the fact beyond a reasonable doubt. And I think, yeah, here we’re a hundred per cent on point, it’s really important to know other people’s perceptions and perspectives on things based on their backgrounds. And I mean, other than that, I couldn’t add to anything that you said because I truly do feel that you pretty much hit the nail right on the head.

Jenny:

Yeah, I agree, Angie. Thank you. Okay, let’s move forward. Let’s talk about being stuck. I look at this as I said, we could get in a place where it could get positional. Let’s use it because we just described what positional is and trying to make sure that we understand how our experiences come into… Actually, and next week’s conversation, we’re talking to a psychologist who focuses on self-regulation training. I’m excited about that conversation. It’s a conversation, a long time coming anyway, but the point being, as Angie was saying, how our perceptions are a result of our experiences and our perspectives can also be a result of where we are physically in the world, but also where we are emotionally and mentally as well. But understanding those two things, understanding where people are coming from, that’s the opportunity in these conversations. When we’re potentially stuck, when we’re potentially having difficulty, what Alex and I have talked about is we want people to use the tools in this conversation.

Jenny:

Again, we need our participants to help us if we’re getting in trouble. For example, if somebody’s running long, I’m going to go into gifts and I’m going to pull up a clock, but try and do it in a way that’s sort of funny. We’re just wanting to give space for other people to talk. If we can just use, yeah, thank you, Angie. If there’s, and this is just an idea, but I’m curious, especially from Angie’s perspective, we haven’t tried that in your room, Angie and I are playing this out. But I do think I have every once in a while, again, in a helpful sort of funny way, to try and help. Anyway, go ahead, Alex.

Alex:

Sorry to interject as the mediator, but does Melanie have anything to contribute or does Merrill have anything to contribute?

Jenny:

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for suggesting that. If you guys did want to come up on stage, there is the option, in the bottom right corner, there’s the hand you can ask to come up on stage. Yeah, Melanie, of course. Yeah. Thank you for reminding me, Alex, we’d love you to come up and say a few words if you have anything to add. One thing that Melanie offered when we went through our dry run with the PQ coaches is this idea of making sure that we’re doing a feed-forward loop, that we’re making sure that we’re serving not only ourselves, but the people that we’re trying to work with in this, make sure that this positive feedback or feed-forward loop is happening. Thank you for that. That’s been something that Alex and I pull forward still. But anyway, when we’re stuck, we want to use the emojis as we said, but I’m also thinking that we need to look to others either in the audience or on stage to weigh in. Again, just to try and gain some perspective, as we were saying, if two people are sort of stuck in the same position, if you will, then we have to look to a third or audience member perhaps to offer something in the chat. What are your thoughts on that, Angie?

Angie:

Well, these are such great questions. Things that I am like, oh, what do I do in this situation? Because partly with our group, we don’t typically run into some of these problems. The running over the thing I think is always a challenge for me because I’m mindful that sometimes I feel like someone’s taking too much time, and I might backchannel someone when I had a co-moderator, I’d be like, should we be stepping in here? And I’d often get there, no, no, they’re saying good stuff, let it go. And watching what’s happening. If people in the audience are dropping off, that’s often a sign. But I love the idea of setting up the ground rules around using an emoji to kind of let people know. And part of that as we’re doing now, is being clear upfront that that is what we’re we’re going to do. I mean, I’m also a fan of sometimes to maybe step in with somebody, and at times you sometimes have to just kind of be like, okay. Yeah, that’s great, Jenny. And as a moderator, this is the other thing, you can always close my mic. If it gets to that, you can always close my mic, which can be kind of funny too.

Alex:

Thank you. Angie, may I, as a moderator, just would it be wise, just if someone’s going on and on, just suggest like, Hey, maybe we can take that up in the break room.

Angie:

If there is a break room.

Alex:

If there’s a break room.

Angie:

Yeah. Yeah. I think much of it is setting the stage ahead when you even invite people to speak to say, oh, give them some instructions on what it is that you’re looking for from them. And you’ll learn, especially if you have regular people coming into the room, you kind of get to know them a little bit. But I do think that sometimes my experiences with people especially, and you start to sense too when they’re getting a bit of a head of steam. If I were in person, you can sometimes feel when that person is that you can see it in their body language. Like, oh, they’re, they’re going to get up and start walking around because they’re now in lecture mode, for example. But even listening in and being prepared, and it’s a fine balance. It’s like, is this on topic? Is it getting disrespectful?

Angie:

Is it getting judgmental? Are we staying? Being able to come back to the rules that you’re setting, I think is great to be able to, you might need to step in and depending on your own, I hate stepping in. It’s not my favourite thing to do, but I’ll, because when you start to feel like it is being disrespectful to other people, I’ll just say, Alex and I might say it a couple of times, “Can we bring this back for a minute?” And clubhouse can be glitchy too, because sometimes we walk on each other without realising it or someone’s talking and someone else is like, you don’t know. But there are ways to do that. I love using the emoji. I think if you’ve set that up with people, that’s something I hadn’t thought of, Jenny, if you set that up with regulars in your room, somebody who’s going on too long is one aspect that you talked about others.

A moderator’s role in respectful conversation

Alex:

I’m just looking for advice as a moderator so that I can make sure that we stay on point, respect everybody’s time, and have the discussion that was intended. I genuinely appreciate that advice. Thank you so much. Sure.

Angie:

Yeah. Yeah. And ultimately also being flexible, right? That’s the other thing, Jenny, that you’ve probably, there are times when, and this is your room, and you get to decide how it goes and what the topic is. And if you have a topic that you want to stay on tonight to be able to speak to that, especially at the beginning, we’re going to try and stay on topic. We have a very specific thing that we’re working through tonight or, Hey, this is where we’re starting tonight. We’ll see where it goes. Sometimes even setting that at the beginning can be helpful.

Jenny :

Yeah, that’s a great intention. The intention of these is to give people some notice in advance. And Melanie, thank you so much for joining us. I’m going to try and tee up a question for you here first if that’s okay. And then we’ll let Angie weigh in again. But yeah, the intention is that we want to give people information in advance about these conversations, again, expecting as you do, Angie. Just to be clear, Angie does a similar thing with her room right now. She’s reading a book and she’s breaking down the chapters. I have no intention of reading the book because Angie’s doing a great summary of it for me. I get to just enjoy this weekly exploration that she’s doing, whereas others are going to read it, and that’s amazing. She leaves space for this whole range of participation, which I just think is important.

Jenny:

Just some thoughts. I’m trying to frame a question for you now, Melanie, as we’ve said we want to put forward an idea. For example, next week we have a psychologist, like I said, who is focused on self-regulation training. Helping people understand how to regulate themselves and the value that it adds to our well-being and our ability to overcome fears. Because a lot of what we’re dealing with right now is that people are afraid. Some people are financially struggling, people who are experiencing health issues, or people who are concerned about water in our neck of the woods. Let’s be clear, we have a big water shortage concern right now. It’s something that I’m working on and Alex and Colin, for example, who were in the audience earlier are working on it as well to try and bring awareness around this and to try and get people talking about it.

How do we invite people into difficult conversations?

Jenny:

That might be a conversation. The idea is that we give people information in advance of the conversations, take it or leave it, but to be able to work through a specific idea, talking about rules of engagement, what ways do you think is setting up, and this is what I think is a good question for you specifically. You are a very good bridger. You know how to help people get excited and connect with others. How do we help people understand that this is an invitation for something positive rather than this potential burden of information that is heavy for people to take in? I hope that’s a clear question and I’m happy to clarify if you need. Thanks.

Melanie:

Nope, it is. I think just as Angie suggests from a moderation perspective, maybe consider setting up community agreements. There’s a positive intelligence community of practice that I’m in. And one day something subtle happened that made a couple of first-time guests, including myself, a little creeped out. I’m the type of person, I’m going to go back and see if it clears. And then somebody went to social media without, maybe they were overly stimulated, so to speak. In response, a bunch of discussions happen, and there is now a community agreement, and the community agreement is shared at the top of every meeting. It could be a link that you pin at the top of the room, it’s there for people to view, it’s there for a reset, it’s there, maybe it’s on a Google Drive, for example. I think that’s what they do. And it’s shared for general knowledge. It talks about how complex conversations may happen with respect for privacy, with respect for others. And it frames what the standard of conduct is. I haven’t seen this anywhere else before, and it’s quite the same way. And it was something that they created in response to somebody’s creepy comments on social media, for lack of a better word. It might be a suggestion if you’re expecting difficult conversations.

Jenny:

I think it’s brilliant, Melanie, thank you so much. I think especially to set an intention that it’s a community agreement. Yeah, and I love it, like you said, it can be something that we go back to during an episode if we’re stuck as we were trying to describe, right? Is to say, “Remember, we have a community agreement here.” What would our community tell us? Or how does our community weigh in here? At the end of the day, it’s a shared experience. That’s why Angie’s Room is successful for us because we share that room. Right, Angie, do you have some additions to that? Thank you so much, Melanie.

Angie:

Yeah, I think that’s a great idea, especially if there’s a chance that you don’t always have the same people in the room. You always have new people joining. Having that something you can point back to in an in-person type facilitation, you would have them on a flip chart or the whiteboard or something, and you could subtly as a facilitator, if things were getting a little off the rails, I would move myself to be standing by those rules just to bring everybody’s attention to them. And I think you said Jenny earlier, that also it doesn’t have to be just the moderator or moderators that necessarily step in. Sometimes someone else in the room can bring the voice of reason or the question, because oftentimes, if I think about when we get stuck in positions, a good question or two can often pull the group out of that or pull the two.

Angie:

If there are two people, it’s digging underneath the position. That’s the explore power of the sage, as those of us in PQ know to be able to be curious and ask questions and understand what’s important underneath that position. There is a lot of opportunity there. And I think putting it in, I love the idea of pinning it to the top and reminding you can always, it’s good practice to reset a room anyways at some point. Just remind people, if you’ve got new people in the room, here’s what we’re doing. Here’s what we’re talking about tonight. If you want to click on the document, you’ll see the rules of engagement or what we’re doing as well as the topic that we’re talking about. Yeah, I’ll stop there.

Alex:

Melanie. Yeah. Wow. It sounds like there is some weight behind your experience and reasoning behind why you’re setting community standards. I was just wondering if you were willing to email us a sort of draught, like how you kind of set your ground rules so that maybe we could understand how to save face and stay safe at the same time while maintaining kind of open dialogues for a constructive end.

Melanie:

Be happy to ask one of the co-chairs of the committee to have a chance to reconnect with them next Thursday. One publicly and one privately. I’ll try and get back to you by the 19th.

Addressing Our Saboteurs

Jenny:

Yeah, that’s amazing, Mel. I mean, even a public website is enough for us to get that from you. Thank you. She provided in the chat, just in case you didn’t see Alex, what it includes, and I took a picture of it. I’ve got that for us. Melanie, I asked you a question, but is there something that you wanted to offer thinking we could explore our PQ? Both Alex and I took our saboteur tests so we could talk a little bit about that. But before, I assume otherwise, do you have something more to add in terms of what we covered already?

Melanie:

What you’ll love, since you both already took it, is that those community agreements occlude the need to create a space for PQ reps as part of a discussion. I’m glad you’re both in good hands and very familiar.

Jenny:

Heads up. We were talking about Alex and I taking the course together sometime soon. Cool.

Angie:

Yeah.

Jenny:

Think about that timing and won’t be for a little bit, I don’t think. But yeah, we can talk a little bit about Alex and my personality types. Carol, I know Merrill has probably already looked it, but I’ll just say there is a PQ saboteur quiz you can take to find out what might be holding you back, because ultimately what we’re hoping to achieve here is helping people reach their full potential. When we worked together, when we were collaborative and able to solve problems that were stretching our ability, we were reaching a further capability than we thought we could do on our own. We’re looking at our saboteurs together today to talk about what are the things that might be either A, holding us back or B, helping each other, complimenting each other. I’ll start with myself. What we’ll do, and then Alex, if you don’t mind, after, I’ll let you sort of walk through your personality style because in the basis of us trying to make sure that we create a space, like a community, sorry, a community agreement, that we’re doing it from a place of really honouring, understanding ourselves as well as we can and owning sort of our shortcomings and being ready to be humble, if you will, when we need to.

Jenny:

God, now that I say that, my top saboteur is controller, which I hate even saying out loud, but it’s something that creeps up for me, which is as Alex said, I’m excited or hyper about trying to make sure that people are connecting the dots. I have this intention for a meeting, let’s say, and I can get sort of controlling of the style of that discussion. It’s hard for me to let go of, for example, and then hyper achiever. I guess I’m just driven to solve problems in my case, that’s how I’d describe it. But anyway, restless. Yeah, I mean, I don’t do much sitting around. And then yes, I would say that’s where I get more argumentative with people, picturing my hyper-rational self coming out. But yeah, I mean the benefit of [knowing] these.

Jenny:

Angie, since you’re with us, I’ll let Alex, oh, and conversely, I’ll just say a little bit about Alex, which we talked a bit about, and then I’ll let you do the same. And then Angie, maybe when we’re done, you can kind of just say what are some of the takeaways we can talk about in terms of our personalities? What do we do with this knowledge? I’m going to offer, because I’ve already taken this course with Angie a little bit about, what this does for me, and Alex even knows this it helps me look at what Alex’s strengths and potentially the saboteurs are, being hypervigilant is a great trait. Being hypervigilant to a fault is sabotage. With Alex, if you notice, I don’t have hypervigilance as a high saboteur, it’s not something that comes up for me. Alex is vigilant in our working relationship because he’s able to, that is a strength of his, but also when he’s getting frustrated with me, it can be a sign for me now knowing that it’s his hypervigilance. I’m doing something that’s sort of just flip and not clear and we need to be more accurate or more precise in what we’re discussing. That’s just one example of how I think looking at, anyway, I’ll stop there. Go ahead, Alex.

Alex:

Yeah, I scored a 9.4 out of 10 on the hypervigilance categorization. I suffer from continuous and intense anxiety. I’m a reverse engineer. I look at all the worst-case scenarios and hope for the best, but I’m always looking for the worst outcome. And it becomes disabling when it gets in the way of me being able to just extend trust to other people. And as long as I keep it in the reins and acknowledge it for what it is, then I’m quite capable of accomplishing great things. It’s a constant battle there in terms of, it’s like a razor’s edge, walking between hypervigilant and productive. I’m also a pleaser. I try to gain acceptance and affection. Sometimes it’s to a fault, but where I disagree with the synopsis is it becomes resentful. I don’t become resentful, I just kind of beat myself up even more and probably go back to the hypervigilant thing. Those are the two main ones. I mean, I can go on and on through the pages, but those are the two main saboteurs that I’m struggling with on a day-to-day basis. And if I don’t manage it properly, it can become paralytic.

Jenny:

Yeah, thank you, Alex, for being open. But the thing is it hasn’t been crippling, like let’s be clear, just to frame things for people is Alex has been extremely diligent and has been forthright and very collaborative and has, we set out to spoke in August and we said we were going to be launched by January, and we’ve done it and it’s been piecemeal, one bucket at a time, if you will, back to the gravity well message and it’s gotten done because, well, I mean quite frankly, vigilance is a very strong quality in Alex too. It’s kind of this, again, going back to this concept of the two-coin thing what’s our strength? I think a strength of mine is also being able to appreciate others’ perspectives and trying to be able to make sure everyone feels welcome in a space and their input is valuable and that can be controlling sometimes, but I think with the right intention. I don’t know, do you have, just before we hand it over to Angie to give us a little bit of feedback, Alex, do you have anything to offer on what you’ve learned from me based on my personality profile? And do you have it handy here for you to look at?

Alex:

Yeah, I think one of the things that’s been challenging but fascinating about you is you’re a driver. You set out to do something and you have a specific outcome in your mind. And even though we’re both speaking English, sometimes it can be very difficult to translate. And that’s been an amazing challenge. And I would not have taken a course at a Dutch university on the other side of the world if it were not for you driving and motivating me to challenge myself beyond what I maybe my saboteur thought I was capable of. It’s been a real blessing. And I mean it’s only been since August of last year that we set out to do this together, and I’ve learned much and I’ve acquired many new skills and I’m grateful for having the opportunity to have met you and set about something completely different because a little bit of backstory for me if I don’t take up too much of your time, is I was a ditch digger and a security guard and a construction worker and a cook, and learning to code and build websites and stretch out into a new horizon has been a real challenge.

Alex:

But Jenny and her driving forces strangely helped me allow me to utilise the anxiety to do something I didn’t know I could do. And it turns out that her drive helped me succeed so far. I’m looking forward to the future.

Jenny:

Wow, man. Thank you so much, Alex, I just had to weigh in there briefly. Thank you so much. Okay, Angie, can you give us some feedback? What can we do with all this?

How Saboteurs Play Off Our Strengths

Angie:

Yes, I would love it, I’m excited. How much time do we have? A couple of things. First, just a reminder for all of this, for all of us and those who are PQ coaches, this subtle language change. I’m not a pleaser, I have a pleaser saboteur, I’m not a controller, I have a controller saboteur. I think that’s important to just remind ourselves of that. Secondly, it was so interesting because as you were talking, I was pulling up some notes that I have about the different saboteurs. The reminder that our saboteurs overplay our strengths, and Jenny, you said it, there’s nothing. What I’m going to correct or adjust is there isn’t anything good about hypervigilance, but there is a lot of strength in vigilance. There’s hyper achievement, not great, but achievement, high achievement is great. Thinking about the fact that when our saboteurs are dialled back down and we now access those strengths, we call them our sage strengths, and you both talked about them.

Angie:

I just want to remind you what those are. Jenny, first of all, I’ll just go, Alex was talking last, about what you described about Jenny and her ability, she’s a driver, and she’s getting stuff done. If I read to you the strengths that a controller saboteur is overplaying, confident, action-oriented, decisive, persistent challenges, self and others, ability to do the right thing, even if it’s not popular, seeing possibilities and activating self and others towards an outcome, has a can-do spirit. Sounds a lot like ar Jenny for sure. And then the other one that she has high up is a hyper achiever. Again, hyper achiever is not great, that’s the saboteur, but when we dial it back, we’re into that high achiever. Characteristics, strengths, driven, adaptable, self-directed, capable of growing self and others to achieve full potential. That’s all the sage strengths that you were describing, Alex of Jenny.

Angie:

What happens, and I think having listened to Jenny’s stories that the combination of the controller and the hyper achiever saboteur, when they take over, that’s when you see, I mean Jenny is driven and sure that what needs to be done and that can be trying to control all the things and all the people and all the things and this drive to win, do the best, be the best, and get the accolades for that. That’s all those avatars that are at play. And Jenny’s done a lot of work and we’ve seen a lot of being able to dial back into those strengths that we’ve just seen. I think that’s awesome. And then let’s flip back over to Alex. Did you talk about hypervigilant and pleaser? I think those were the two. Hypervigilant, the strengths. Again, vigilance is a good thing. Being able to be heard is one of the strengths, being sensitive and aware of the true risks and dangers to self and others, guardians of the community and institutions. They’re the reliable ones, making sure everything’s okay, taking care of everybody. They feel safe to be around, they’re loyal, dependable, hardworking, capable of perseverance and consistent work towards objectives. They have a seriousness and firmness about them, and we feel good and safe when we’re around them. Again, if the saboteur overplays, it’s into that anxiousness that you were talking about, Alex that always wondering, always wearing, always like, right? And that spills over into the people around you.

Alex:

Thank you. Just might interject a little bit here. Yeah, it’s the anxiety, trying to predict all the variables can be paralytic, right? There’s always going to be a variable that I don’t see. What I’m trying to do is scale things back and just kind of look at what’s at hand so that I’m not overextending variables, that no information provides. I mean, right?

Angie:

Absolutely.

Alex:

I can go to the moon and back, but it’s like really all I have to do is just build a bloody website,

Angie:

Alex. I think there’s absolutely some learning to understand that saboteur and asking yourself some really good questions about what would happen, what’s the worst that could happen, what if it did happen? Kind of coming back to that. Lots of conversations that we can have there. I just wanted to speak to the pleaser also because one of my top saboteurs has strengths that the saboteur is overplaying. Again, it’s taking all these things that we’re good at and overplaying ’em, empathetic, loving and giving, tuned into others’ feelings and needs, emotionally self-aware, and likely has pretty high emotional intelligence. All of those things are probably things that have drawn you and Jenny or Jenny to you. And that is often the case that when there’s a good partnership, it’s the opposite attraction sort of thing.

Angie:

And I think just that reminder of, I thought it was interesting that you said one of the things that didn’t resonate with you around the pleaser was the resentfulness. Because for me personally, with that pleaser saboteur, that is 100% when I know that my pleaser has completely been overplayed because I’m giving and giving and I’m doing things for people, and then all of a sudden I start feeling like, why is it that I do all of this for everybody else and then I have to go pay to get coached? And why is it that as soon as that voice starts to run in my head I’m like, oh, there’s the resentment I give and give and give and I don’t get anything back. Yeah,

Alex:

And maybe this is wrong of me, but resentment, I have a history of addiction. Resentment is the poison that I take to kill the other guy. It’s a futile endeavour. In a strange way, I’m very fearful of it. I just choose to let that person go and move forward and forgive ’em at the same time. Much to my detriment. But no, I just don’t have a place for resentment in my life. It’s bad. It’s a vampire.

Key Takeaways

Jenny:

Yeah. Thank you so much. I see we’re past the hour. Angie, you gave us lots there to take away. I’ll just say the things that stuck with me from this conversation are just really getting clear on what are the good qualities of our personalities and understanding when they’ve overplayed like you said, rather than thinking that it’s who we are. It’s a behaviour shift that has happened. And just acknowledging that Melanie, thank you again for offering your thoughts around setting up a community practice and rules of engagement and membership suggestions. Yes, thank you. I’m going to make sure that we have a space on our website to include some suggestions in that space. Carol or Marilyn, if you have any other suggestions, thank you so much for being here and hope that you will catch some of the other episodes. I’ll just say thank you and that’s my sort of, we’re going to always do a positive and negative and a takeaway in each of these things. That’s my summary and I’ll let you, Angie, I don’t know if you have something quickly to add before, and then we’ll just go around the room.

Angie:

Yeah, thanks. Yeah, great job. And I think even over the hour that we’ve been together, I’ve seen the rhythm starting to build between Jenny and Alex and how you’re going to run the room. I think that’s been great and the openness that you’ve shown to bring us in and sharing your thoughts. And I’m excited to see where this goes for you and happy to be here to support you.

Alex:

Just want to say thank you to all of you for taking the time to listen and contribute where you, me, if you choose. And I do feel that Jenny and I are starting on something quite important and I look forward to learning from all of you in the future. Thanks again.

Jenny:

And Melanie, we’ll leave the last word for you. Thank you so much for joining us.

Melanie:

I’m trying not to cough. In chat, I say thanks for the opportunity to join you and Alexander, my three hypers are part of my top four now with the avoider. And just hang in there. Your transparency and your vulnerability will help continue to lighten the load and thanks for doing that in a safe space.

Jenny:

Amazing. So great. Thank you for being a part of this. This is something that, like Alex said, we feel is special. Thank you for helping us get started. Thank you very much, everyone. Have a great evening. Bye

Angie:

Bye. Thanks, Jenny.

Jenny:

Thanks.

Alex:

Thanks.