Coaching Through iPEC’s COR.E Dynamics: Environmental Influencers

 This episode includes our interpretations of copyrighted works done by the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching or iPEC. 

Cristina Amigoni: It's about knowing that it doesn't have to impact everything when something environmentally goes out of control. 

[INTRODUCTION] 

Alex Cullimore: Welcome to Uncover the Human where every conversation revolves around enhancing all the connections in our lives. 

Cristina Amigoni: Whether that's with our families, coworkers, or even ourselves. 

Alex Cullimore: When we can be our authentic selves, magic happens. 

Cristina Amigoni: This is Cristina Amigoni. 

Alex Cullimore: This is Alex Cullimore. Let's dive in. 

“Authenticity means freedom.” 

“Authenticity means going with your gut.” 

“Authenticity is bringing 100% of yourself not just the parts you think people want to see, but all of you.” 

“Being authentic means that you have integrity to yourself.” 

“It's the way our intuition is whispering something deep-rooted and true.” 

“Authenticity is when you truly know yourself. You remember and connect to who you were before others told you who you should be.” 

“It's transparency, relatability. No frills. No makeup. Just being.” 

[EPISODE] 

Alex Cullimore: Welcome back to this episode of Uncover the Human. We are continuing our COR.E Dynamics influencers series. We are going to do the environmental influencer today. We talked about physical that one is fairly straightforward. Environmental is also fairly straightforward. It's just taking that kind of physical feel and putting it from the inside of our bodies to what is outside of us. So, Cristina, let's dive into environmental influencers. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. This is another one that it's easy as in straightforward with a lot of self-reflection and preparation. So, I guess it's easier for me once you learn some lessons. 

Alex Cullimore: Yes, I think your microphone just pumped out by the way. 

Cristina Amigoni: What the hell is going on with my technology. 

So, I use the word easy for environmental. And of course, my microphone decided to disconnect. So, let's talk about equipment. Technology is part of the environmental influencer. Technology and equipment are definitely testing my patients do that. 

Alex Cullimore: That's a great example of both sides of the influencer coin. So, you can have something like a microphone, which can give us a better audio quality and have improvements in our overall podcast efforts. And at the same time, the availability and presence of working and or not working technology can become a drain on our energy when it starts to break, or isn't working the way it should or falls out, or just gives us other bumps in the road. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, well, I'm trying to ignore the flickering on my screen right now. 

Alex Cullimore: Good. This is so perfectly timed. The universe is ready to mess with your environment to go – It’s, “Oh, easy, is it?” 

Cristina Amigoni: Let’s see how that impacts my performance on this podcast. We talked about equipment, technology being a big piece of equipment that we are stuck using right now. It's clearly not having a performance impact so far. But other pieces of the environmental influences are anything from setting surroundings, lighting, sunlight, artificial light conditions. So, the weather, raining, sunny, snowy, hot, cold, sand, no sand, and any of those. Preferences on when you like to work, do you prefer, are you a night owl? Do you prefer daytime or nighttime, early mornings, any of those things? What else have I forgotten. Clothing. Oh, comfortable clothing. 

Alex Cullimore: Yes. Well, clothing. I do this, when you think about equipment and clothing, I mean, we can very much get caught up in things like I need the right equipment, the right clothing, figuring out what that means and what works with our budget and availability is always important. But that clothing can absolutely be a huge portion, and any piece of equipment can be a huge portion of the environmental influences. If you're sitting in a shirt that's uncomfortable for long enough, I mean that can be a distraction from what you're doing. Whatever that is, is influencing your ability to perform. 

So, these are all great examples. Or you can have something that really is enhancing that. For every Olympics, we have a brand-new uniform that like speed skaters are wearing or a brand new like swimsuit, and this is the new style, and these kinds of equipment do influence performance. So, when we think of environmental, it is all of those things. It is everything from the actual physical environment like weather, and lighting, and time of day, all the way to all of our clothing and equipment. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, for sure. So, some choices when you're talking about environmental influencers. A big piece about environmental influencers is that besides things like clothing, which you can choose what to wear and what not to wear in different circumstances, whether we can't control the weather, no matter how much we like to. Technology, apparently, we can't control the technology either. There goes that. 

Alex Cullimore: To a limit. 

Cristina Amigoni: So, maybe instead of inventing AI, we could invent a laptop that lasts for more than five seconds and stops flickering on Zoom call. Or a microphone that doesn't get unplugged on the podcast. Either way. Let's go with the moon rockets and AI first. So, a lot of these things we can't control. What do we choose? We have choices to make, like in everything, the only thing we can control is our choices on how we react. Are we going to remain victims of the environment? Are we going to leave the environmental influence that it's causing us to not perform, if we can? Are we going to accept it, change it? Or are we going to change our perspective on the environment? There is no right or wrong on any of these. There's no judgment. Sometimes leaving is the best choice, and sometimes changing our perspective, and sometimes figuring out how to change the environment is possible. So, all of them can be different places. It's more about what do we choose? Where do we fit with our control? 

Alex Cullimore: Yes. Sometimes it's when it's not possible to change any of that. It's just about accepting that like, “Okay, this is going to not be optimal and that's okay.” This is just where it’s going to have to be, and now what's the next best thing I can do if I can't change that? Those are our choices and we'll revisit those choices again, when we talk about the social influencer, because those are definitely, those are the same kinds of choices we have, to remain the victim. Do we leave? Do we accept? Do we change? Do we change our perspective? 

Cristina Amigoni: So, should we get coaching? 

Alex Cullimore: Sure, let's jump in. 

Cristina Amigoni: Which one would you like to be? Client or coach? 

Alex Cullimore: Coach first last time, so you go for it. 

Cristina Amigoni: All right. All right. So, when you think about environmental influencers, what are the ideal conditions for you to accomplish work at top performance? 

Alex Cullimore: That’s a given. When I think about general performance, if I think about structures of days, I think I'm more engaged in the mornings. I tend to have kind of a more of an afternoon slump, which is another reason that Friday afternoons can be especially challenging because you're worn out in a week, and then it's kind of also the afternoon, that can be just an extra fun time to try and accomplish anything of any actual like, anything that requires a lot of mental effort can be difficult at that point. I'm more mentally alert and a little bit more creative often in the mornings. So, it's also – so one thing is kind of trying to capitalize on the most active and available hours for me. Not the same for everybody. 

I know lots of people that are way more active at times where I'm actually asleep, or at times where it's just something that I'm a little bit more tired in the afternoon, but other people come alive then. So, that's not universal. But that's definitely true for me. I prefer quiet and lack of distractions, where possible, especially, if it's coming in to do like work. Especially, anything that requires mental effort, it can be fairly quickly distracted by lots of things, or allow myself to be distracted or choose to be distracted, especially if they're available. 

So, limiting some of those distractions is helpful. Just having some quiet space, or like having noise cancelling headphones for that reason, because just small noises won't kind of change the entire trajectory of my focus. Those are probably the things that come up most often. Also, just like comfortable enough clothing. You still want to like look professional enough and that might not be all full sweats is as comfortable as that could be. But feeling both, like well put together and comfortable are helpful to kind of feel like I'm ready to take this on. 

Cristina Amigoni: Right. Those are very important, yes, to understand, especially, the different types of concentration. There's different types of required performance. So, it's not just about the influencers. But what kind of performance am I required to do now. So, there's that impact. Does noise impact the performance that I'm supposed to be doing now? A quiet room where nobody speaks and you're facilitating may not be ideal, if you actually want to make sure that you're facilitating to people that are human, and alive, and awake. 

Anyway, heads down work and work that you have to do on your own, and then the quietness, and so being able to control those, or create the environment that it's ideal for you. It's a big piece of understanding. So, when you think about the ones that you cannot control, or times when you have not been able to control the environment, what are the impacts? What are some examples? There's like four questions in that one. So, ignore the compounding and meandering of the questions. 

Alex Cullimore: I'm going to try to answer all. 

Cristina Amigoni: It’s the flickering of the screen. IT no longer coach properly – 

Alex Cullimore: Environmental influence is pulling away from your performance. 

Cristina Amigoni: My coaching performance is in the dumps, because of my technology issues right now. So, I will go with one controllable environmental influence, which is my giant mug. 

Alex Cullimore: Giant mug of tea. I will take solace and comfort in this mug. The impacts of when things aren't lined up, that's an interesting question. So, I think there's definitely examples of like times where if there's heavy mental meetings in afternoons when I'm particularly in a slump, or I haven't had enough mental warmup time, or gap between, for whatever reason, I'm in like more tired or empty mental space, and there still has to be like an important meeting or something at that like 3:30 hour or something, where it's all starting to fade to a mental blur. 

It has an impact on like, A, how I can deliver in those meetings, how well I can pay attention, how well I can really listen to the things that need to be listened for, as well as documents and for the future record things like action items I need to take out of that. So, it can definitely be some impact on having needing to revisit things if I'm not able to concentrate on that as easily. Other things like distracting environments. It's kind of the same impact, I guess. It becomes harder to focus and keep all the energy I have moving at a given time on the task at hand, on what needs to happen. 

I guess most of it ends up falling back to a lot of that kind of distraction. Is it pulling away from the ability to do something? Or is it allowing for better ability to do something. And when it isn't as detracting states, a lot of pulling the focus. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. That's very good insight. Good awareness of what's the direct impact of environmental influencers when they're not working for you, but against you, and lack of focus. So, when you think about some of the things you cannot control, environmental influencers, what techniques have you found, or if you have any, where you can work around them? Let's say, having to wear business clothes when it's a historical heatwave in Chicago, and it’s 175 degrees. 

Alex Cullimore: That's a great example, which was definitely something we experienced just a couple months ago. So, on something like that, I think things that have been helpful, strategies have been helpful are A, acceptance is a huge one. Just being like, “Yes, this is uncomfortable.” This is just where, this is where it's at. I don't feel like this is in control. But same thing is like being hungry or being too hot or too cold, and this is something actually I learned over the last year and a half or so when I started taking more cold showers is that you can acknowledge and it's actually less painful to focus on and allow for that space where you are uncomfortable and really know that you're uncomfortable and not just like keep telling yourself over and over again, “Oh, I wish it wasn't so hot.” But be like, “Yes, this is hot. I’m going to survive this and here's what – I could do this. Is it hot enough that I really need to like duck inside a shop right now? Or is this just something that like, yes, it's painful, and I'll just need to push through for this block and it's okay. I'll just get through it and walk to this next place, or whatever.” 

I think acceptance has been a huge portion of like things that can't be controlled. And also, just leaning into it, like, “Hey, this is uncomfortable.” And knowing that and kind of focusing on like, “Yes, this is uncomfortable.” Actually, half of the discomfort and the prolonged discomfort for me tends to come from trying to suppress that. It’s like, “It's hot, but I can't talk about that right now.” If I push that down, then it really compounds that effect. Or if you step into a cold shower, and all you're doing is panicking, and you're kind of trying to avoid or thinking about the fact that you're feeling cold or whatever, it's going to make it worse. If you can think about like, “No, I am old. I see that this is happening.” I can notice that there's all this stuff coming up, your body's not going to be as much, at least for me, into an alert moment where it's like telling you there's something wrong and you're trying to ignore it. It's trying to get louder so they can remind there's something that I don't like right now. When you acknowledge it, like, “Yes, okay.” So, it's like pushing that warning button and be like, “Yes, I hear the warning. I know it's there.” 

Cristina Amigoni: It's very insightful how the steps of listening, acknowledging, and validating are not just very helpful when we're communicating with others, and making sure that they feel heard, and they can process whatever is going on, so that they can move through it, and then come up with some actions, if that's the desired outcome. But for ourselves, too. 

So, like you said, first, listen to my body, listen to what is the dialogue? What is the resistance? What are even the words that my mind is saying? It's like, “Oh, my God, it's too hot. I can't believe I'm going to be sweaty. This is really uncomfortable.” So, listening to those words, and then acknowledging like, yes, it is this 175-degree weather in Chicago sucks in business clothes. Then, how that has allows you to then be able to move through it, accept it. So, the acknowledging, the validating is like, yes, it’s uncomfortable, and now that you're in acceptance is actually less energy draining. It's less bothersome. It's not as loud. So, you're able to just continue through life with that. Not for long, but at least enough to get through the day. Yes, very fascinating. 

Alex Cullimore: That's a good exploration into some of those things, and I think acceptance is a big portion of that. I actually, have like a security system on my house that just kind of came with it. It hasn't actually been hooked up to like the police. I have a different system for that. But it was supposed to be for like smoke alarms, and burglar alarms, or whatever. But it also has monitors on the doors. So, occasionally, if one of those monitors runs low on battery, it'll start beeping at me until I say, “Yes, I get it. It's got low battery.” I don't actually have to fix that for it to stop beeping at me. It just will beep until I'm like, “Yes, I acknowledge that.” And you'll say, “Okay, this has been acknowledged.” 

So, that's sometimes how I think about like the internal warning systems when we're like, “God, it's really hot in Chicago right now.” Your body's trying to tell you that. You can either just keep hearing that beep over and over again, or be like, “Yes. I know. I know that's a problem. I now have it on my list. That's okay.” 

Cristina Amigoni: Good. That's great self-coaching. So, what you're saying is that I should acknowledge this screen. I'm like, “I get it. You're tired. It's been a long day already and a long week. Just a few more minutes, please.” 

Alex Cullimore: Well, this is actually a good transition point. Let's talk about this impact of this say – you've got the impact of the influencer to flickering. It makes it very hard to have a Zoom. So, knowing these things that are true, you've got a screen that is showing your Zoom call, which is imperative for us recording a podcast. What are the things that come up? What are the things you start to think about in terms of what can you do about something where you can't stop it from flickering right now? I mean, if it was that easy, it'd be that easy. 

But if it's not that easy, what are the things that come up for you? What are the things you tried in the past that might work on something like this? Or just might help you with the current situation? Would you like more compounded questions? I can throw some more. 

Cristina Amigoni: The flickering is influencing your coaching. So, my complaining about the flickering is influencing your coaching. Some of the things. Humor, I mean, doing this, actually allows me to not get frustrated. Am I frustrated? Yes. Am I like throw the laptop out the window frustrated? We're going to stop recording and give up on this whole thing? No. So, using humor, not focusing. Part of that, we talked about meditation and how that helps in the physical sense. Also, the mental. But for an environmental piece is, I can forget about the flickering. So, not actually notice it. If I know I need to focus on faces, facial expressions, or something else. It can become just a background thing that yes, it's there if I want to acknowledge it, but it doesn't actually necessarily have to be completely disruptive, until unless I choose to make it disruptive. 

That helps a lot. Those are most of them. And any techniques, I mean, this in the moment, it's a little bit difficult. But figuring out what can be done. Is this, am I stuck in this moment? And if I am, can I survive a few more minutes? 

Alex Cullimore: That sounds like a lot of that acknowledgment piece of understanding what is the impact and what can I do about this? And what is weighing the pros and cons? Like, yes, it might be more frustrating. But is this enough that I should reschedule a podcast? Or should I do, should we push through? Either those are valid responses. It's not to say there's one that's better or not. It's just the acknowledgement of it gives you a chance to make that conscious choice. That's a great example of just, what am I going to do about this? You can either have it as a victim, or you can kind of make it into humor. That's a great strategy there, you've got some of those. 

So, when you think about, I think we can all hopefully relate to you, and hopefully, have noticed in ourselves enough that those occasional ones were like, something is distracting, and we aren't in this space yet, or whatever other influence we aren't easily getting into that space of acknowledging and accepting that what's happening. So, if you find yourself in the middle of that train of like, it's starting to get away from you, and you're really distracted by some environmental thing, let's say, flickering of a laptop screen as a random example. If that was the case, and you find yourself – and this time, you've obviously kind of diffused it with some humor. But let's say that wasn't the case, or you felt like you were down the train. What are the things that you can do for yourself that might get off that train before it's just carrying away and taking all of your energy? 

Cristina Amigoni: That's a good question. I would say the first one would be to figure out what are my expectations. So, our frustrations about something that happens, it’s not that something that happens that we're frustrated about. It's actually the fact that it's not aligned with the expectations of how we thought it was going to happen. So, if I pause to ask myself, this seems to be very irritating me. I noticed from a sim –I noticed the physical reaction before anything else and the physical reaction that sends data to tell me like, “Okay, I had an expectation. The expectation is not being met and I have a choice based on that.” Is the expectation going to make it so that it's completely ruined? It's now unusable? Whatever performance I was supposed to do, it's just not possible? Or is it something that I can, again, I can push through and figure out, and know that it's not going to be perfect? 

So, there's a couple of things is like, firstly, acknowledgement of what expectations do I have, that are being challenged? That already helps with that pause from situation to reaction. Just having that internal dialogue of what's the physical, and what's the expectation, and now I'm already focused on something else. So, I no longer notice the flickering of the screen, but I am focusing on unpacking what's in my head. Then, the next step is letting go of perfection. I think, a lot of us have the tendency to want things to be perfect all the time. The more we learn to let that go, the more it's like, “Oh, God, this is not going to be perfect. But maybe we can make it entertaining with some humor and complaining about the flickering on the screen every three seconds. 

Alex Cullimore: Yes. That's a great awareness and also a good point or that like, “Hey, it's not like complaining has to be back. We all need to vent and complain.” We sometimes use that word and it can feel very negative or we can have a lot of negative connotation, but yes, absolutely. Just being able to vent that, accept that, say like, “This is frustrating.” Or, “Yes, this is really pulling me away.” I mean, you can do that in meetings. You can talk about being hungry, “Hey, I'm just I'm just distracted. I was planning on eating lunch three hours ago. It didn't happen, whatever that is.” Great examples. 

Cristina Amigoni: That's never happened before either. 

Alex Cullimore: No. That's never happened. 

Cristina Amigoni: That's a very good point. Actually, I think forgiving ourselves for being frustrated, it's a big step and not judging ourselves. Then, having the courage to be vulnerable about it. That's a big piece that I've learned for environmental influencers is understanding where I don't perform well and where I do, and what situations and things that I cannot control, like heat. I don't function well in heat. But if I am upfront about it with the people that are expecting a performance of me, and I can tell them right away, like, “Hey, this heat is going to impact how I show up.” So, if you have expectations of me being perfect, let's debunk them now, because it's not going to happen. I will do my best with remedies. But this is going to be the situation. 

Alex Cullimore: That's great. So, so there's two angles of expectations that come up then that feel important. So, you've got the ability to, as long as you can help establish and manage expectations for other people, then it helps you maybe, let go of the stress of like, “I know this is going to be influencing this. I want to just address it and acknowledge it so that it can just be out in the open and we can both start from the same footing instead of expecting that it needs to be perfect.” Or assuming that this other person thinks that we now can't perform or something, because we know we can't right now, just be able to address that that is open in there. 

You also mentioned in your previous answer, you're talking about how, you know there's an expectation that may not be being met when you’re starting to feel frustrated. What does that expectation? And that sounds like that also gives you a conscious choice as to what part of the expectation is important for meeting a larger performance goal? Or something that is, what's the larger initiative here that I think, that I wanted to get done? And how much does this expectation need to be met for me to continue working there. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, I think really understanding that letting go of expecting environmental stuff to work as we want it to work, It's a big thing. It really allows for a lot of freedom. I mean, if we go back to again, like if I think of meditation, and one of the things that has helped me, is actually dealing with environmental stuff, and moving pretty quickly from there's very little that frustrates me that's environmentally uncontrollable lately, because I moved very quickly to acknowledging a little bit like you have explained when we were coaching you. Acknowledging like, yes, this is not the ideal. It's not what I would have chosen, and I can still deal with it, because the expectation is X. If the expectation of X is not that we go to Chicago when it's only perfect weather, but the expectation is that we go to Chicago to facilitate a leadership training. Then what can I do in that environment. I can let go of the fact that my hair is going to look like crap for a week because of the humidity and the heat, and not really care about that. I can let go of wanting to walk around as much in the city as I would like to because it's too hot and having to take Ubers and cabs. 

So, there's a lot of things that we can let go of once we are aware that that's not the actual point. The goal is not experiencing perfect weather in Chicago. That wasn't the goal for the visit. The goal wasn't even to get there on that day. The goal was to get there on the day we were supposed to be there. And talk about environmental influencers is when your flights are canceled, and then you're delayed by 27 hours, and you're spending most of it in the airport. But we still made that work, because we just went through like, again, the goal wasn't for us to be in Chicago and doing. The goal was for the participants to be able to have a facilitated session. So then, the shift of the focus goes into how can I make that happen in the best way possible? I'm not going to be there. But how can we make that happen so they're not impacted as much?  

Alex Cullimore: Yes, That's a great example of like, “Hey, what's the core goal?” It's not to say you can't try and strap on extra ideals and extra, like, here's what the expectation would be, and here's what I would like it to be. But at the core, what are we really trying to accomplish? It sounds to me in that answer, there's an important distinction to be made, and something that helps you, when you think about like, what do I really need to have done here? And so, really getting clear on like, what's the overall goal? What are the important parts of this? And how can I acknowledge the gap in what I expected versus reality? And how can I allow that to be? So, what's a maybe quick phrase or mantra you would use to remind yourself to stay focused on that large why? 

Cristina Amigoni: I would say, it's pausing long enough to acknowledge what's actually going on. What's the dialogue in my head? So, once I can listen to the dialogue in my head, as opposed to react to it, or let it energize me into frustration in an autopilot way, then it's that question. It's like, what's the core goal here? What are we trying to achieve? And is it achievable in a different way? So, that really gives the pause for me to open up and think of the alternatives. 

I also then – what's interesting is that I then create a file cabinet, not of assumptions, but of plan Bs, and Cs, Ds, Es, Fs, Gs, all of them. So, the next time I'm already ready to face a similar situation. Our Chicago trip, for example, when we were delayed by 30, whatever, however many hours, it impacted facilitation because we had to transfer facilitation of the day to somebody else. But also impacted the fact that we had the material with us. 

So, we've learned the lesson. Put it in the file cabinet, and now we don't assume that we're actually going to be able to fly and be there when we're supposed to. So, we ship the material or we have it printed locally somewhere so that it can be picked up. So, you kind of decrease the impact as you learn these lessons. And flying is a big one, because there's so little we can control in flying, that if we get really frustrated, we will be frustrated for life when it comes to traveling by plane. I mean, there's just – it's rare when it's something goes exactly as planned.  

I've learned after twice, it took me twice, not just once. Well, it took me once internationally and once domestic, direct flights. So, I'll put it that. But it took me twice to realize that your luggage may not arrive, even though you have a direct flight and it should be straightforward. So, I now permanently travel with a carry on that has two days’ worth of clothing, no matter where I go. Even if it's a two-hour flight, I will not assume that the luggage will arrive. Then, I also go around at destination and look at where shops where I could possibly shop if my luggage never arrives for the remaining of the vacation. So, what's my plan C, I guess. 

Alex Cullimore: That's great. So, every one of these frustrations then becomes an opportunity for something that could be done maybe differently, or its own retro for what can be done differently next time. I love the phrasing of it for two reasons. First of all, because you're seeing an opportunity, and what is the problem. But secondarily, there's no suggested endpoints in that. It's not like, “Oh, I have a plan B and plan C”, and now everything goes perfectly in life all the time. No, it's just knowing that like, of course, we're going to be on a learning process, and it's great acknowledgement of like, hey, so we're just going to have to learn this whenever it comes up, and it will. In some abstract unknown way, like if it was a green screen. It's just going to happen. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. As you said, it's not about having the plans that are going to work out exactly the same way, because they're not. It's about knowing that it doesn't have to impact everything when something environmentally goes out of control. But then, you have the internal resilience to figure it out. Let's figure out what the next thing is. 

Alex Cullimore: You've already answered some of this. But I'm curious if you have any other tips for things that help you get into that mind space of seeing things as an opportunity, or seeing what you can do with something? What are things that you'd like to tell yourself, and what are ways you can remind yourself to get into that in future minds? 

Cristina Amigoni: That's a good question. Yes, I think some of it is understanding what am I attached to and can I let that go? Well, and the answer is yes. How can I let it go, is more of a question, rather than a yes or no question there. I would say is when the crisis is passed, so once I figure out, okay, this is plan B, and this is what we're going to do, is to go back and reflect not only on what can I put in my file cabinet to potentially avoid this, or make it a little bit less difficult next time. But also, what's underneath. What's underneath the initial frustration, the initial reaction of something environmentally going wrong? Because that's usually a much, much deeper type of work that's beyond – well, I had this expectation that I would be facilitating in Chicago instead of having to get somebody else to do it. 

That's not it. That's the easy way out. That helps for the moment. But that's actually not the real reason. The core, if I were to say, the core underneath that kind of amygdala reaction, the threat, the threat is not missing the plane, and the threat is not being the facilitator. The core threat is if this facilitation happens without me, then why am I needed? Am I still needed? Where's my worth in here? Then, why is my worth attached to actually having to be present and in front of the stage? That's the much deeper work that kind of comes up, and it's the much deeper work that it's worth working with a coach, because that's very hard self-coaching type of work. 

Alex Cullimore: Yes. So, when those expectations end up being almost threatening to some portion of identity or worth, that feels like a particular at this. Right back to spiritual influencers. That's where we feel like, “Oh, now our individuality is not there. Our ability to live, the vision that we're hoping for is not there, and understanding what parts that are really attached to that, and what parts it just feel attached to that becomes an important unpacking.”  

Those are all great insights about how these tend to influence more, where we can we can do things about some environmental factors. This is why we talked about physical and environmentalist is more straightforward, because we can understand some physical things we can understand. Some environmental things. Usually, the resolution of those is down to those deeper work levels of getting to what are my real expectations? What can really be changed? If it's a more surface level environment, I just prefer to work this way. Great. I like that. Then what can we do to make that happen more often than not, and when we can't make that happen? What do we do? 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Some things are just pretty straightforward. I clearly like tea. Now, I travel with tea bags, but I also travel with my own tea mug, because I can't guarantee that I find that tea mug, and the last trip we had, there wasn't like a straight forward hot water heating thing. So, I use the microwave. Now, if they didn't have a microwave and there was no way for me to get hot water, then that would have been a challenging thing. But we didn't get there. 

Alex Cullimore: And then we'd have to unpack with the expectation. Having a tea is what that tea really means to you or where that comes from. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. 

Alex Cullimore: I don’t think you have too much to coach on environmental stuff beyond that, other than just knowing the choices available to us and knowing that usually that's hiding something that might be a little bit deeper that's worth investigating. So hopefully, with that, you get a good example of what you can do for environmental factors, what those really mean, what can you change, what should you change, and how do you give yourself the permission to accept, leave, or change your own perception of it. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. There's always something deeper, but at the very least, you can get into your ideal state, and then deal with the challenges when they come up. 

Alex Cullimore: With that, go forth and conquer environmental influencers. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Go forth and don't go to Chicago when it's supposed to be 175 degrees. Or come fix my flickering screen, whichever. Thanks for listening. 

Alex Cullimore: Thank you, everybody, for listening in. 

[OUTRO] 

Cristina Amigoni: Thank you for listening to Uncover the Human, a Siamo podcast.  

Alex Cullimore: Special thanks to our podcast operations wizard, Jake Lara; and our score creator, Rachel Sherwood.  

Cristina Amigoni: If you have enjoyed this episode, please share, review and subscribe. You can find our episodes wherever you listen to podcasts.  

Alex Cullimore: We would love to hear from you with feedback, topic ideas or questions. You can reach us at podcast@wearesiamo.com, or at our website, wearesiamo.com, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook. We Are Siamo is spelled W-E A-R-E S-I-A-M-O. 

Cristina Amigoni: Until next time, listen to yourself, listen to others and always uncover the human. 

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