The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 58 - Tension

Transcript:

Jen: Well, hello there you wonderful, generous listeners. One of you reached out to us recently and asked, "How can I help you with the podcast?". What a wonderful question. So, thank you for asking. And we thought we might answer it for all of you. You could help us by sharing this podcast with someone who you think might get some value out of it. How about taking a screenshot of your phone right now and texting it to someone you care about? With a little message like, "Thought of you when I heard this today.".

Pete: Love that. Thank you, listener. The other thing you might want to do is sign up for our weekly Box O' Goodies, which is an email that Jen and I send out every week, with a list of our favorite resources relevant to that week's episode. You can sign up at thelongandtheshortpodcast.com, and you can also browse our transcripts and all of our other episodes, and there's a couple of ridiculous photos, and ways to contact both Jen and I. Thanks for listening.

Pete: Hey, Jen.

Jen: Hey, Pete.

Pete: I was talking with a group yesterday about a topic that I would love your take on, because it's a topic that pertains to a lot of the work that you do as a coach, I think. And the topic is tension.

Jen: Ah, yes. Tension.

Pete: Tension. What do we do with it? How do we create it? Is it generous? And all of the goodness that comes with the word "tension".

Jen: Oh, yes. Let us build up some tension. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: I see what you did there. I see what you did there.

Jen: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Pete: Very clever. Okay, so first, my first question before I just launch into a riff about tension is- what do you think of when you hear the word "tension"?

Jen: Well, as both a person coach and a movement coach...

Pete: [laughter] Person coach.

Jen: ...the word has many connotations.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: On the one hand, I like to both create and release physical tension when I'm working with movement clients. And when I'm working with people clients, not in a movement-specific capacity...unless you consider moving-things-forward movement, which I guess I do consider that movement as well...creating tension is actually necessary in order to be able to make progress and move things forward.

Pete: Yes, okay. You went straight there, where I was hoping we might end up by the end of the call. But let's just double-back.

Jen: So sorry, so sorry.

Pete: This could be the three-minute episode. I want to double-back to what you just said, which is that tension is necessary in order to create change. Mmm. Doubling down on that.

Jen: Yes.

Pete: Could you tell me how, like, because I don't really know, how that manifests itself in the, the body? In the coaching that you were talking about, the physical coaching?

Jen: Yes. Okay. So, when I am working with actors to create characters, one of the things that I try to get them away from is using the word "neutral". In a lot of actor training, this word "neutral" comes up all the time. Where it's like, find a neutral body, find a neutral face, find a neutral breath. And I think we need to get rid of the idea of neutral. There's no drama there. There's no tension there. So what I'm looking for, in the characters I'm helping people to create from a physical perspective is, where do the characters hold their tension? And what are the patterns of tension? And when, as an audience, can we see those patterns change? And then we, as an audience, recognize that change has happened.

Pete: Mmm.

Jen: So, we're able to track the dramatic arc of a character through the way they hold tension in their body. So instead of neutral, I always ask people to replace "neutral" with "ready".

Pete: Wow. That is so fascinating. Huh. I, I am so fascinated by that, because I haven't thought about it in terms of how one uses their body to create tension in themselves and in other people. Where I was thinking about tension, and what I was talking about yesterday around tension was, the, the generous tension that we can create as changemakers for ourselves (to create change in ourselves), but also in other people. To create, deliberately create generous tension for others, so that they can change. And that comes in many different forms. The form that I think of most often, at the moment, is silence. [silence]

Jen: [silence] I see what you mean.

Pete: [laughter] Because, what often happens when we ask a question is, there's a tendency to want to fill, fill the space. With either, us giving an example of how they might answer the question...or them feeling uncomfortable, we recognize they feel uncomfortable, and so we want to fill that, fill that void, fill that gap. But that actually, holding the tension, holding the silence, and giving them permission to sit in that is super generous.

Jen: I might be going in a completely different direction with this but...this morning on a call with a group of clients, someone asked, "How do I keep myself moving in an upward trajectory?". And what she did was drew two axes- one representing, I guess, accomplishment, and the other representing time. And she drew a straight line diagonally up, on the page. And so, I drew my own version, and said, "To me, this represents...", and I turned it so the line was flat, and I said, "...static.". What I'd rather see on your progress chart is up and down, and up and down, and up and down, and up and down- the peaks and valleys that come with forward motion. Because unless you experience a "valley moment", unless you experience a moment of tension, you won't change. Which means you won't make progress. So, this idea that life is a smooth and steady sailing, coasting journey of an upward trajectory is just false. And one of the things we can do, as a generous act for ourselves, is look to create our own tension.

Pete: Yes.

Jen: Not just for others, but for ourselves as well.

Pete: Totally. So, let's go there in a second. Firstly, in terms of how we might create generous tension for others...so, I mentioned silence. I think, honestly, I think we could do a whole episode on silence. It would be awkward because there'd be a lot of silence. But, I just think there's so much magic in just, just being silent. Honestly. Is, the amount of boardrooms I've sat in, the amount of startup pitching investor meetings I've been in, the amount of keynote speeches I've heard where they've done a Q&A, and they just don't listen. People just talk over the top of each other. And no one is silent and actually listening, actively. It's, it blows my mind. And it's such a simple, free, easy-to-access tool that doesn't require anything other than the generous act of being silent. And, I think that creates tension in others. But I do think it also creates tension in yourself, which is why, often, we seek to relieve that tension by speaking, because we don't realize that it's generous. Or we don't realize that maybe there's an introvert on the other side of the table, and they just need some time to think. And so, the silence is generous. But I'm also curious, because I have a few other ideas, how you think about creating tension for other people, beyond just silence and listening.

Jen: Well, one way is to set deadlines. I find that deadlines, or ship dates, or whatever you want to call them, do create a healthy dose of tension. So as an example, you and I, right now, are running our Big Ideas Lab, which someday we'll unpack more on the podcast. But we've got sixteen people who are working on big ideas, that ultimately need to be delivered publicly. And so, our last meeting, we said, "Put the date on the calendar. Put it on the calendar.". Otherwise, you can take all the time in the world to work things out. But if you say, "Three weeks from today, I will deliver, to someone, this big idea.". Now, there's tension. Now, things have to get moving. Now, you've got to get to work. So, the tension of time.

Pete: I like it. The tension of time. The other one I would couple with silence, which I sort of mentioned but didn't call out specifically, is just questions. That, you and I have spoken about a hundred times, the quality of one's life can often be determined by the quality of the questions that- (A.) they're willing to ask themselves, but (B.) they're willing to have other people ask of them. And, we've done an episode on our favorite questions way back when, and I think that sitting with questions, as opposed to opinions and statements, and being comfortable to ask them, is another way of creating tension as well.

Jen: Is this even related?...We'll find out....I heard someone re-frame a question today in a way that I thought was so helpful. Somebody asked her a "what-if" question. And she said that "what-if" questions are low-value questions. And that she will always encourage someone to take a "what-if", and turn it into a "How can I?". So if, for example, it's like, "Well, what if my work isn't good enough? What if nobody likes what I'm putting out there?". She said, "Flip it. And re-frame it as, 'How can I ensure that the thing that I'm building provides the most value to the people I'm building it for?'".

Pete: Love it.

Jen: Take your "what-ifs" and turn them into "how can I?".

Pete: I like that. And I would add to that, "How might I?". I really like the idea of "how might we" and "how might I" questions, as well. Mmm.

Jen: Love it.

Pete: Well, that's good.

Jen: To tie that into tension, once you make a commitment to showing up, you're on the hook. And being on the hook creates tension.

Pete: Totally. Yes, that's a really good call out. Being on the hook creates so much tension. That's why, I think, when we ask questions like, "Who's it for?", and, "What's it for?", people struggle with getting specific, because getting specific with who I seek to serve is putting me on the hook. Getting specific with what I seek to do, what change I seek to make, is also putting me on the hook. And that creates tension. Another interesting way, I think, that tension can be created, and this is sort of what we were talking about on, on the call yesterday, was around receiving compliments and receiving positive feedback. And so, you and I have spoken about good-finding before which is, essentially, calling people out for the good work, or the good thing that they're doing. So, finding good in others. And, we did an exercise where we, everybody went around the room and had three minutes of being in the hot seat, and the rest of us just showered them with good-finding in, in chat, in Zoom chat. And, you could sort of see the physical reaction of the person in the hot seat was like, they were squirming, they were feeling tension just from receiving compliments. Which was kind of remarkable. So I've been noodling on that, and how, I think, if tension, if creating tension is generous, then does it also go that, being generous creates tension? So, in terms of creating tension for others we talked about- we can use silence, we can have deadlines, we can ask really good questions, and we can do some good-finding. How might we create tension for ourselves? Because you sort of mentioned that if tension is all about change...if, if change requires tension, how do we create that in ourselves, so that we can bring forward the change that we want to?

Jen: I mean, part of it is taking risks.

Pete: Mmm.

Jen: Taking risks is generous to yourself. And it does create quite a bit of tension. Tension because outcomes are unknown.

Pete: Yeah, taking risks, I like it. I think another one is related to what we were talking about, about putting ourselves on the hook, which was a commitment to shipping, a commitment to sharing our work regularly. So, whether it's having a podcast once a week, or a blog once a week, or a platform that you share your ideas with a group of friends once a month. Whatever it is, the idea of shipping and sharing our work generously, I think creates a lot of tension in ourselves, but it's a really good tension. That, in order to move things forward, we must talk about and share our work generously. So, calling that out as well.

Jen: Mmm, I like it. Another area in which I know you and I have spoken offline quite a bit about tension is in pricing...

Pete: Mmm. Yep.

Jen: ...That pricing does create quite a bit of tension. Also, putting expiration dates on things creates tension. And I have to say that there have been times where I was so grateful (after the fact) for the tension created, because I probably would not have acted if there wasn't tension. And I can think about my experience with the altMBA as a great example of that. It's like, it is a price point that feels slightly uncomfortable. And you have a certain amount of days to decide if you're going to do it. So, you have to really commit. When I did the writing workshop, which was another great investment- same thing. The class that I'm taking right now, which is on how to turn my in-person content into digital content...expensive and I had to buy it really quickly. And I'm so grateful, because I probably would have sat back and come up with a million different reasons. Or, you know, as a questioner, asked so many questions that I couldn't make a decision. So, in that case, I say thank you to the people who have sold me very expensive things- for making it expensive, for over-delivering, and for making me make a decision.

Pete: Yeah. I mean, pricing is a lever. Right, pricing is a lever that creates tension. And as we've talked about, tension is required in order for us to create change, and in order for us to change ourselves. So it's like, I want to get from Point A to Point B. Well, guess what? Between Point A and Point B, there's tension. And that most of us fall down when we try and avoid that tension. Because you can't get to Point B without working through that tension.

Jen: I think you just made such a great point. Which was maybe the overall point of the whole episode, that you just summed it up so succinctly, which is that the space between Point A and Point B is tension. So if you want to get to Point B, you've got to be willing to push through the tension toward the change you are seeking to make.

Pete: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.