Speaker 1: 0:00

would like to take a minute to ask you, as a listener, to subscribe to this podcast, if you haven't already done so, or share and like it. We're trying to build a community of people working with the toolset of driving transformative change in the world, and every little action counts. Thank you so much for taking the time. And now today's episode. Okay, welcome. So today's episode we're going to discuss the topic of energies, and I was a little bit afraid before getting started with the episode, that this might be sort of a fluffy topic. But, as mentioned in the description of this podcast, we're crosscutting and no topics are off limit. So the energy you bring have you ever been in a meeting with a high energy or high intense person without describing in detail what high energy or high intensity actually means? You know the type of person that comes in. They have a smile, they have there's something constantly. There's a high heartbeat, there is something happening in the world, there's something happening in the conversation and, regardless of your going in position to this meeting, you are affected by this person. Most of the cases when you meet this type of people or persons in any type of interaction, you have some influence happening over you. You either start smiling, your pulse goes up and you get this drive and pulse. I think we've all been there and the most recent I can think of well, one that really struck to me, not because it was the most distinct one, but this person knew about it. It was a consultancy from one of the top consultancy firm and when I was working at H&M. I mean, we're in this meeting and she described it as she has a very high inner pulse, her heartbeat constantly keeps on going, so she needs to maintain a high momentum and it was so interesting to see a person being aware of this type of inner energy, because the energy you bring in to an interaction is usually also reflecting the influence you're able to push and drive. So when you have, for instance, an important presentation, you need to be in a certain state of mind.

Speaker 1: 3:05

So when I do presentations, I try to mentally prepare, and I think this is even the most important aspects that you can bring to the table. It's about the preparation, the mentally readiness for any type of interaction. So when I do presentations, far in advance, I try to visualize, I try to build up a momentum, what is the feeling that I want the audience to receive and act upon and I know this is getting fluffy, but bear with me here. What I'm trying to get to is I build up in my head sort of a state of energy that I want them to be in, and I can give up this secret quite easily and say I want them to be in a state that feels like this is epic. This is something that's visionary thought leadership, even though the content might not always live up to it my content always do, but that's another topic. The thing is really here to mentally Be there in advance and build up to that energy level. What does that feel like?

Speaker 1: 4:23

And up until the moment I step out on stage, and especially the 5-10 minutes leading up to it, I build up internally a driver presentation and I try to get into the right energy mode. And if I'm in the right energy mode, my belief is that this mirrors towards the audience and that basically means that they pick up on the state of mind I'm in, the way I speak, the words, the energy and intensity I am bringing and all of those topics. And when they leave, that is the feeling that I want to have been able to present to them and have them mirroring that and feeling that, and the same things go for all of our interactions. So if you have a meeting and you have, for instance, stakeholders that you need to convince, many people focus the majority of their time of bringing forward the most important points in the presentation, and that might be. Let's fill it with as much fact as possible, and this is all good and well. I said now, bringing up facts to states is good, but it doesn't really paint the picture, the energy that you want to do.

Speaker 1: 5:48

So what I have focused more and more on in recent years is about painting a picture, an energy level, a state of mind, and I try to put the audience because even if it's just a regular meeting, there's still an audience people perceiving you and you are influencing with your words, with the way you are. Even the way you move your arms is influencing people. It's sort of an energy and this is what I'm trying to get to. Energy isn't some new age explanation. Energy in this sense, is more of a state of mind, where you are and you are trying to explain or bring people to that state of mind. And this is where it becomes interesting, because if you perceive every interaction as a transmission of your state of mind or where you are toward somebody that is receiving it. Then all of a sudden, you start realizing, oh, I can't build tovastas and I can't then deliver something to them which they can act or become.

Speaker 1: 7:13

And what I realize more and more is if you want to influence people, if it's a decision or if it's just being a part of more interactions or sort of all kind of just work towards your goals or your agenda, then what you need to do is be aware. Thank you, because when I started moving away from pinning down all the facts into a busy PowerPoint, presenting that and constantly hitting brick walls, why weren't people acting on the things that I suggested? It was the best one. I know what I'm talking about, right? Yeah, but the experts doesn't always win. And when I rather started focusing more and more on getting people to my state of mind, it really got interesting. So how can we do that? Okay, I've already talked you through what I usually do for large presentations, but I think it's more and more about being aware about yourself. That's not the easiest thing in this word.

Speaker 1: 8:28

So being self aware, it is the first stage of building your own conscious state of mind, when you're aware about yourself. So how are other people perceiving me is one of these key questions. How are you being perceived? Am I dressing every day in a suit in the office? Is my hair always in a certain style and proper, or is it messy? All of these things are clues to how other people perceive you. Some of us are very aware of this, very conscious. Other people are not, but you should reflect over that yourself and make conscious decision, because when you know how people are perceiving you, you also know what type of energy or messages that you are sending out. So self-awareness, both on how you look and how you act, so how your hands are moving, conscious gestures that is one way of people perceiving you. Speaking fast or slowly, are you speaking in another pace, which might be perceived as slow? All of these things are visual or audible cues that people pick up upon when you know this and you can adjust them accordingly, because self-awareness leads to setting what is it that I want to achieve? So going in in interactions with target in mind is one of the first things. Okay, what do I want to achieve? Is there a long-term perspective? Should always be one long-term perspective, which might be. I want this promotion.

Speaker 1: 10:15

So you do a self-analysis of yourself. This is my current state, this is the future state. These are the changes. So some of the things you might do is okay. How have other people perceived it? What energy have they gone in through, what are the traits? And you do a change Towards that. I think a fun way of looking at it is to quote dress for the job that you want. And I think, if we break that down, dressing for the job that you want basically also means bring the energy for the decision that you want to be in your favor or the target you want to achieve. Have the energy level of the influence that you want to have. And now we're on to something more and more here.

Speaker 1: 11:03

I think that the further down we drill into this is that it is really about making a conscious decision on where we're going. And I keep on repeating this because, as I'm also analyzing this, as I'm talking through the process, it becomes very abundantly clear that if we don't set clear targets, one we want to achieve, doing some sort of analysis of both yourself and your energy levels and the factors that you can influence, then making the proper adjustments, you will hardly ever achieve the goals. Things don't just happen by random. Well, sometimes they can do, but I mean you can win a lot of, but you still have to buy a ticket. But if you want to increase your chances, you have to work a lot more on the conscious thing you can influence. And the more you actively pursue those conscious things, good things will happen. And when we talk about the energy that you bring, that's the whole picture of you, how people perceive you and all of those topics. So focus so much more on that.

Speaker 1: 12:26

And then what I've also realized is if we're consciously making these decisions, because we want to bring something to an interaction when we are outside of our comfort zone in the beginning, so we might change the way we talk, we might change the way we speak or we increase the pace of our interactions, all of these things which are energy-based in the beginning we are really in a zone of discomfort. And you know what happens in the zone of discomfort with all of these topics. Well, first of all, we grow. I remember my first business presentations when I was so nervous that I could hardly focus on the point at hand. I just wanted to get it over with. But now it's like going up every day. But the thing is, after a while we become comfortable. So in the beginning, when we're driving and making conscious decisions, we find ourselves in more fruitful interactions and more better results of what we're getting out. But we also become comfortable in this role. So, if that might be dressing differently or just increasing the volume, sometimes also of your discussions, what we're slowly getting to is then another state of comfort and we're slowly growing, and that means we consciously also need to analyze okay, I reached this target or I made these changes.

Speaker 1: 14:11

What is next? Growth is a journey. It is a journey, and this might seem very easy from these words, but as soon as you stop the work, the growth also stops. So being comfortable means that you stopped growing, because if you look on a plant and you see, yeah, you're growing, because we can see that the leaves are going and you need to put water in there, the same thing goes for us as humans. But our proof that we are growing is not just the knowledge that we can account for while we're growth, it is also the pain, the pain of growing, the uncomfortable. So what happens next then? Well, it's a constant involvement and we have to really evaluate the interactions, because under the day, if you're a high energy person and you want to be a little bit more mellow, to reach your targets, it is hard. We don't have an inclination to grow, as what I see, so this is also something I thought quite a lot about. So how do we then increase growth? Well, one thing is trying new things, and, but what we tend to do in these situations is over-optimize as well. And now we might go into more of a technical limb, which is something I thought about when I design algorithms, for instance. How do we make sure that we are not over-optimizing, that we're just growing within our comfort zone? And what does that mean? Well, that might mean that something I picked up, for instance, in my university years, was cross-functional pollination.

Speaker 1: 16:16

So many people go to college, university to study one certain topic. It might be your master's in mathematics or political science, but you don't have too much information from other areas. And this also becomes dangerous because you get stuck in your own way of thinking, the way the walls has been set up, to define what or who you are or what the topic you're studying are. So you need to make sure to think and this is a phrase I don't like using, but going to use. You need to make sure you're not stuck inside a box, so you also need to go way out of your comfort zone sometimes. So what is way out of your comfort zone? Well, that might be if you never have struck a tone in your entire life, if you never sang anything and you're the worst singer in the world and you would never even imagine yourself of standing somewhere in front of people singing. That's what you need to do. That's really going way out of your comfort zone. Doesn't mean you need to actively pursue a career as a singer or be good at it, but it means exposing yourself into something you thought you would never do.

Speaker 1: 17:47

Sign up for a cooking class, sign up for a topic. So, if you have studied a lot of engineering, maybe you should read philosophy Absolutely. If you have never thought that you would study anything else than art, well maybe you should sign up for a math class, looking at what are the differences. And this is just to get exposure and understanding of other point of view and exposing yourself to other types of energies, because the feelings are different, and this is what I really like exposing myself to outside of my comfort zone, in a new country with new people to get influence, because this is where the magic happens, this is where growth happens, this is where insights are born.

Speaker 1: 18:42

So energy that you bring is a definition of the things that define you from other people's point of view, the way they perceive you in an interaction, and the things you can influence in order to drive your own growth, but also to reach the targets and the positions that you aim for. This is a tricky topic because it's relatively undefined, but at the end of the day, what is important is that people perceive you and they see the energy that you bring to your interactions. That's why it's important. So don't forget, you can define where you want to go, but you also actively need to understand how to get there, and the facts will only get you so far. There is much more influencing the surroundings than just that, and I think with those words, we have tried to approach a relatively hard topic because it's undefined and I think we have to dig deeper, but we're going to probably do it from other areas. At least, I lifted the box a little bit here around energies and interactions and growth.

Speaker 1: 20:11

I hope you enjoyed this discussion with myself. As usual, it's always a monologue in this podcast. Make sure to subscribe if you like what you hear and looking forward to recording the next one. All the best to take Bye.