Connecting with Lauren Grau on Energy Leadership™

Alex Cullimore  0:00 
This week on Uncover The Human we are joined by Lauren Grau. Lauren is a professional coach based in Denver focusing on career transitions and Energy Leadership. Lauren shared some great and immediately usable tips on how we can live a more purposeful and aware life and helped us unpack the Energy Leadership Index. The ELI assessment, which we've mentioned a few times on this program. Lauren has some fascinating insights and I'm really excited to share them. Let's get right into it. Welcome to Uncover The Human where every conversation revolves around enhancing all the connections in our lives,

Cristina Amigoni  0:28 
whether that's with our families, co-workers, or even ourselves.

Alex Cullimore  0:31  
When we can be our authentic selves, magic happens.

Cristina Amigoni  0:34 
This is Cristina Amigoni

Alex Cullimore  0:35 
and this is Alex Cullimore.

Both  0:37 
Let's dive in!

Guests  0:40 
Authenticity means freedom. Authenticity means going with your gut. Authenticity is 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.

Alex Cullimore  1:17 
Welcome back to another episode of Uncover the Human. We are here with our special guest Lauren Grau this week.

Cristina Amigoni  1:24 
Welcome, everybody. I am very excited to have Lauren on this week as one of our first guests. I met Lauren when I went through iPEC training, our coach training program. And, luckily for me, she's still talking to me and decided to be a guest on the podcast. Lauren is as much as Alex mentioned,  is a Denver based Life and Leadership coach, who supports individuals and teams to grow leadership development opportunities, find purpose and satisfaction in their roles, reduce stress, and manage their overall well being during change and transition. She specializes in Energy Leadership, which we'll be talking about quite a bit during today's podcast, a research backed system that allows everyday leader to influence their energy to achieve success in the workplace, at home and in the world at large. Welcome, Lauren.

Lauren Grau  2:14 
Hey, thanks for having me, guys. Let's talk energy, energy, energy.

Alex Cullimore  2:20 
We're very excited to talk about this. I think we've referenced ELI and energy in at least 80% of the podcasts up to this point. So it's really exciting to talk to Lauren, she's specifically likes coaching around energy. Lauren, you wanna talk a little bit just upfront about your journey into discovering Energy and Energy coaching?

Lauren Grau  2:39 
Sure thing, gosh, well, like Cristina mentioned, going through the iPEC coach training program, to get that Certified Professional coach credential, you think you're going in it for one reason, and then you come out with an entirely different set of results and experience. So I don't think I knew what we were getting into. I don't know if you could relate Cristina, I, I had an idea of what the word energy meant to me. But then when you talk about it in terms of leadership, and what that means to lead your own energy, holy cow, the whole world opened up. And so as Alex said, it's a big part of my coaching practice. It's kind of at the core curriculum of the topics of conversation and what clients bring to the table. And it's really, you know, if I could offer a synonym is about perspective. So it's about perspective shift. And I think what I can't wait to dive in with you guys about is like, "Okay, cool. So you have awareness of it. And then what?"  We will talk all about that I'm sure.

Cristina Amigoni  3:45 
Yes, I agree with that Lauren.  I had no idea what I was getting into when I went to the iPEC training. And I didn't expect myself to have a coaching practice afterwards, which I still don't have a full time coaching practice, but the awareness, and just our own introspection and lessons of what's happening with us as individuals, besides how we can help others was huge, huge growth moment.

Alex Cullimore  4:14 
And I have not done the iPEC training, but in my experience, both in being debriefed and doing the ELI assessment with Cristina, and in talking with other coaches and getting to talk to people like you, Lauren, we get to the idea that perspective and energy in both of these regards. Coaching can give you some extra perspective, somebody else can look back at your life, and doing something like the ELI assessment and understanding our energies in where we're coming.  ELI, by the way, just for the record, it's Energy Leadership Index, that is something that you can do a lot of self introspection on, and it's something that's very cool to go through. It's an assessment that represents a point in time since our energies are changing all the time. And it's really interesting to look at that both from what you're feeling personally, what you might be feeling later and giving you perspective on how you might want to show up or change those things in the future. That's my understanding of it coming out at third party and being able to do this from more the, I guess, on the couch portion of coaching.

Lauren Grau  5:12 
I mean, I think you hit on a really cool thing, which is choice. I heard you without maybe using that word I heard you say having the acknowledgement, having the awareness, having the knowledge of what energy levels or perspectives we have access to, how can we consciously choose how we're experiencing life. So even your couch assessment, Alex is pretty spot on.

Cristina Amigoni  5:38 
We converted one of them, Lauren. One by one, we can convert the world to embrace energy.

Alex Cullimore  5:47 
I'm the newest member of the cult now, so here we are.  My membership card in the mail anytime, yes, and get it to me. Let's go start with just the overall spectrum of energies. There's two words that have come up when in understanding of Energy Leadership Index. And they're the two opposite ends of the spectrum. There's more anabolic and catabolic. And can you define those for us, Lauren?

Lauren Grau  6:09 
Absolutely. If you think about it, I mean, this is brain science, right? I like to tell people this is when we're talking about catabolic and anabolic energy. Those are real scientific terms as it relates to energy waves. And when you're talking about catabolic energy, and you're experiencing catabolic energy, if you can imagine hormones like cortisone and adrenaline being released. They are kind of this destructive tearing down force and our connection with things that we need, like fear and motivation, and sadness. So emotions that are real and commonly experienced, but not so uplifting, not so supportive. And when you talk about anabolic energy, we're talking about hormones like serotonin and a little bit more stuff like that the things that are supporting our internal systems, and it's this more positive experience, and where we have more access to things. So it's, without calling it positive and negative, that is kind of what it is. And we try to stay away from calling them good or bad, because those are judgments, right. And I think what I love to do the most is normalize all seven levels of energy. But on an actual scientific scale, it's negative and positive energy. There's two catabolic levels and five anabolic levels, if that's helpful for reference. So when we're talking about catabolic, we're talking levels one and two.

Alex Cullimore  7:38 
That's a good way of putting it and that's something we will probably reference a few times in this levels one through seven. So levels one and two, like you were saying being more on the catabolic side, right? Yeah, right catabolic, and anabolic. And then anabolic being more towards, without assuming a judgment here, more towards the uplifting side of things. And I like what you said, about it being brain science, because I think there's also sometimes a tendency to tune out if you think you hear energy, and you think you're not willing to understand the interpretation of energy, both as a physical manifestation in our body and what we're experiencing anyway.

Cristina Amigoni  8:13 
I really like Lauren, how you explain that we experience all of them. So the normalization of the goal is not to live at level seven all the time. That goal is just to be aware, like we talked about at the beginning, that there are seven levels, and they have different ways of showing up within us and causing our actions to be the same way. And so how do we choose which ones? How do we recognize what's happening? And then make the choice of  "I'm in level two right now, which is the combative level of wanting to punch somebody in the face. And sometimes, well, that's exactly what needs to be happening. I choose to stay in here."

Alex Cullimore  8:53 
That was one thing I found powerful going through it was when you were explaining that there is a purpose to all of these things, they have benefits, they do a lot of work for us. That's why it's unhelpful to think of it with a judgment context, to think of it as you know, levels one and two are bad, they're not bad. They serve great purposes in what we're doing.

Lauren Grau  9:15 
Yeah, you're so right. If you think about the current state of affairs, the world that we're living in, we need people to be pissed, right? We need people to get mad about stuff and create peaceful protests, but advocate for change. So that's a real benefit of what Cristina is talking about is this combative level of level two. But something else you mentioned, Alex, that I had a thought around was potentially some resistance or initial hesitation to tune in our ears. "Wait, what energy? Is this real? Is this a real thing?" Because it does, I think that there it can be seemingly in that woowoo category right there. Could be some trendiness around it in terms of mental health and self care trending right in the last five or 10 years. And I was actually really nervous about getting in front of organizational settings and leaders. And talking about energy, it was a real hesitation, I think Cristina's with me there.

Cristina Amigoni  10:22 
Definitely, I'm still hesitant.

Lauren Grau  10:26 
I found open arms, though, which is kind of cool. I found leaders being very receptive to the topic, really understanding how it's applicable in their environment, and no resistance. So far, I know, we're just getting started, but so far, so good.

Cristina Amigoni  10:44 
It's nice to have good experiences at the beginning so that you can continue. And I agree, even the group energy workshop that you and I have done together when we were in split rooms, and we were talking about the energy levels, I remember getting to energy level seven, which is the most difficult to get to then tangible piece, especially when you're in a workplace setting and you're talking to leaders. And I was extremely pleased and shocked at how embracing they were to the concept of it and recognize how powerful even that type of level is when they show up at work.

Lauren Grau  11:20 
How did you describe it?

Cristina Amigoni  11:23 
How did I describe it? Hmm, good question. I think I just described it as the place where those epiphany moments happen, where you all of a sudden, have either a solution that you were searching for before, and you couldn't get to, or a moment of everything is connected, and you have full faith and you just know. And I know level six is similar to that. But seven is almost that like split second ofyou have no idea what just happened, but something just happened.

Alex Cullimore  11:54 
I'm loving the descriptions, you guys have put out already about some of the levels because I think connecting on those story levels of that moment of epiphany, that's something that I can relate to that it's something I think I hope a lot of people can relate to. That's a very exciting feeling. And when Lauren, you're talking about protests being necessarily having that angry momentum, yeah, I think a protest is a great version of that the level two idea where you are in a reactive mode, you may feel more like you, to Cristina's point, want to punch somebody in the face, but you're moving on that towards an action, it's a worthwhile emotion and energy level to have and push you forward. And I think you've mentioned this, Lauren, you want to help normalize things. And I love that concept. I hope that this conversation helps normalize some of the Energy Leadership in general, I think having these stories and understandings of each level can help us connect to Oh, this is more of a theme of where I'm at. And even though I might be informed by the specific circumstances that I feel like are pushing me into a level one or level two. This is actually very similar in my internal feelings to other times I've been in level two that had nothing to do with the current situation.

Cristina Amigoni  12:58 
So should we describe what each level is, since we've already mentioned two, seven,  maybe a few other numbers in there? It's tarting to sound like a lottery?

Lauren Grau  13:09  
Yeah, I'm starting to realize why Alex asked us to do that in the beginning now.

Cristina Amigoni  13:16  
And we've talked about the levels in other podcasts, I think we've mentioned level three and four a few times. So I think it's a good place to to actually go through all of them.

Lauren Grau  13:24 
Let's do it.

Alex Cullimore  13:26 
We also included some show notes in case people want to read further on this. But yeah, let's go through some brief summary. Lauren, you wanna kick us off?

Lauren Grau  13:34 
Sure. I mean, since I have a counterpart here to contribute, maybe what would be fun is just kind of like describing how we've experienced them and how we've been hearing our clients to experience these levels, not only individually in their personal lives, but in the workplace in their professional lives. So the first place to start is always at the bottom, which is level one, lowest level of energy, very characterized by hopelessness, victimization, so it's things like "poor me, my voice doesn't matter,,no one ever listens to me,  here we go again."  I think about any kind of change I've ever experienced in the workplace, and the thought is that initial stressor of "Oh my god, here we go again. Here it is, again, another change, another email, another this, another that." It's kind of just this like low level sadness, hopelessness. "Can't believe I'm stuck here working for the man." You know, what else? What do you think, Cristina?

Cristina Amigoni  14:41 
Well, as you both know, I love level one. I have a whole cave. I describe it as my cave. It's my safe cave. I've got posters up, I've got wine. I've got a nice fireplace. And it's not a place where I can actually get a lot done, and I actually get nothing done when in there. But yes, change definitely triggers that, change triggers a lot of the "I don't know how I'm going to be able to handle this change, I don't know, I don't have the skills. What if I get judged? What if I get fired?" A lot of that happens, and that's the level one victim. I see it even with my kids with school, every Monday, we've realized that Mondays are tough, because it's a new week. So there's a new subject or a new topic within their classes. So for example, this week is long divisions in math, and so there's that feeling of "I've never done this before, and I'm not gonna be able to do it."  So there's a lot of level one happening in the first half of the day on Mondays.

Alex Cullimore  15:44 
And just to add some color to that I love the cave metaphor, because that's definitely what it feels like internally for me. And just to reiterate, there are good purposes to having all these things, it may sound like that's shut down, it may sound like that's pulling away. But there's vast benefits to having something like a level one where you do feel shut away, and you are protecting yourself. And it really does come down to that protection. For me, that's my best understanding of it is that when you are shut down, when you are more in that place of not being willing to engage in the world, maybe it's because a force feels too strong right in front of you. And you need to pull back into that level one space where you are saving yourself from either engaging in something that you know you can't win, or you need to just protect yourself until you can get to a safer place to start processing things.

Cristina Amigoni  16:29 
I love that. And I find level one to be extremely helpful as an awareness piece. Because you start noticing when you go there, and you start having that choice, once you've gone through some coaching and understanding all the energy levels, whether you want to stay there or not. And it becomes a common language. That's one of the things that I like doing the most about this in groups, especially in workplace, it's because when I'm in experiencing level one, I can easily send a text message to Lauren and say, "Hey, level one, SOS come help. I want to get out of this. And I don't know how to."  And she'll immediately know that she gets to pick up the phone and talk me out of it.

Lauren Grau  17:10 
Well, the first thing I do is validate your experience. Because talking about tricks of the trade, right? One of the first things when I talk about validation, it's not only something you can get from your friend, but you can do for yourself, right? So if you're noticing, "All right, here's where I'm at, I'm in my cave, I am in my cozy wine fireplace, which sounds delightful. You know, what do I do? If I can't phone a friend? What do I do?" And the first thing I would offer is figure out who you're mad at, figure out where the blame is. Whose fault is that? Because that's kind of where we start tapping into level two energy, which is about frustration and anger. If you think about the difference between the statement "Oh, poor me, woe was me? What's the point?  And no, WTF, right? How do I get out of this situation like, I'm not gonna, you know, be a slave to my job. Like, I want to fight back, I want to, I need to protect myself." If you can just you hear the difference and inflection in my voice, there's a little bit of higher esteem there, anger can be super supportive. Don't you think?

Cristina Amigoni  18:26 
There's definitely a shift of energy right there. And that's why this is called the Energy Leadership Index and the energy levels. And yes, you almost perfectly described exactly how I experienced those two level and how fast I go from one to the next.

Alex Cullimore  18:38 
I can't think of a time where I got to level one and then got out of level one without some amount of level two. I think it helps a lot to get that, like you're no longer in your cave. You're like "wait, I got to get out of this cave." You push that boulder out of the way and you go and you're ready to fight a little bit. You got some push to get through that.

Lauren Grau  18:55 
You got it!

Cristina Amigoni  18:56 
Yep, exactly. It's the "nobody gets to tell me that I'm not good enough. I'll show you. I am good enough. Watch this happening."

Alex Cullimore  19:05 
Those are two catabolic phases. We have: one woe is me and two WTF

Cristina Amigoni  19:13 
Yeah, you're the enemy, get out of the way.

Alex Cullimore  19:16 
So those are our two catabolic energies. So moving towards level three, who wants to take a stab?

Lauren Grau  19:22 
Level three reminds me so much of how I experienced change as a project manager in my last leadership role in that regard. You know, if you think about it, a project manager is meant to kind of sustain the team morale, you know, implement the change, but then also keep this kind of energy level afloat. Level three, the best way I can describe it as if you're not 100% behind the mission, right? If you can't 100% see the purpose, but there's some degree of trust that you just have to do this. It's kind of this "everything is fine. You know what, whatever.  It is what it is." that's the level three definitive. You know, those chees  blocks you see at tourist shops when you're on vacation that, I shouldn't say cheesy because many people might own them, but really cliche' phrases like "dream big, or I'd rather be fishing, it is what it is." That's level three.  It is what it is, everything will be fine.

Cristina Amigoni  20:31  
Tomorrow's another day.

Lauren Grau  20:34 
Tomorrow's another day. And if you can feel the difference there, it's your first dip in the anabolic waters. Right? It's your first dip into higher levels of energy, because you are able to kind of throw your hands up and stop fighting, stop the combativeness. Stop the resistance and just focus on what's within your influence of control, "what can I do about this?" You start there.

Alex Cullimore  21:00 
It sounds fairly passive the way you guys are describing,

Cristina Amigoni  21:03 
That's probably one of the best descriptions I've heard of level three, that doesn't make me want to crawl out of my own skin and go up or down. levels. Level Three is not a good level for me to be at. And it does show up in my energy Leadership Index Assessment, even throughout time when I've taken multiples, it definitely shows that I don't experience level three, I don't sit there for very long, either under stress, or in normal days. It's the compromise piece. In my experience at least,  level three for me, it's very much hiding level one and two.  I'll compromise, I'll sacrifice because we need to move on, but as soon as I can, I will go back to my cave, or back to the boxing ring.

Lauren Grau  21:52 
Or one step above it,

Cristina Amigoni  21:54 
Or one step above it.

Alex Cullimore  21:56 
What happens in level four then?

Cristina Amigoni  21:59 
Oh level four. I'll let you describe level four. That's where we live most of the day, isn't it?

Lauren Grau  22:07 
I think so. Yeah. I'd like to think that's why we're in the business that we're in of trying to serve others, support people. Level four is a level of compassion, concern, how can I help? What can I do? So that's kind of the difference between level three being like whatever, let me think about focusing on what I can do. And then level four, you're actually going "okay, actually, what can I do? Somebody tell me how to help?" It also includes self care, self love, all right I have needs that need to be met. Let me look out for me a little bit and willing to see that. But if you can imagine some disadvantages are boundaries, boundaries are really important. If you don't have good boundaries here, then you might always be reaching out to support others. So that I guess, would be considered on the con list.

Cristina Amigoni  22:59 
There's definitely level of judgment in level four, because that tendency is to want to help and support others, which means you're also judging that they can't do it alone. And like you mentioned, if there are not enough boundaries and self care, you burnout, because you're constantly looking at others, you're doing everything and then at some point, you're going to turn around and be like, "okay, when it when is it my turn? When does somebody take care of me?"

Alex Cullimore  23:24 
The old phrase, you can't fill from an empty cup.

Cristina Amigoni  23:26 
Exactly. But it's a great anabolic level. There's a lot of movement, there's a lot of compassion, there's a lot of empathy at that level.

Lauren Grau  23:36 
Yeah, and so I think the cautionary tale here is, just make sure you're looking out for you too.  That messaging goes around a lot. I think maybe a better demonstration of why that can be so problematic is, if you're experiencing level four, and suppressing the rest, that's something I don't know that we've talked about yet, is that even as we're rising up the ladder here, every other energy level below, it still exists, you still have access to it, you can certainly go float back there if you need to. And so if suppression is happening, while you're moving up the ladder, if it's not genuine, or you haven't spent enough time in the lower levels to experience benefits there, then you won't be doing very much good, you won't have the power to to serve very long at level four.

Alex Cullimore  24:26 
I was gonna say like the continuing theme that so much of this is a choice, we get to choose some of this, where this is coming from, especially if we can learn to better identify where we're at. And what we might want to do. It's a it's a great thing to remember there's all of these are available. It's not even once you reach awareness of saying I might be in a level three right now. It doesn't mean you have to stay there or that that's some, you know, permanent sentence.

Cristina Amigoni  24:50  
So continuing up the cave, now we're in sunlight. We see the sun, we're almost on the meadow with level five.

Lauren Grau  24:59 
What's your level five, like, Cristina, what's your level five like?

Cristina Amigoni  25:03 
Oh, I love level five, level five and six are my favorites. Level five for me it's full collaboration. So the difference from the level three of compromise and sacrifice in level five, it's really about we all win or we don't play. So this has to be good for everyone. Nobody gets left behind. And so the collaboration piece is really where resonates a lot with me in level five is because that's where I see the magic happens, is when people get to work together, and they're all there. They're building something that's way beyond their individual capacity, because they're together.

Lauren Grau  25:42 
That makes sense coming from someone with a strong value of connection, community, synergy. Yeah, level five is a win win, right? The level five is that perspective of opportunity. I think about this is tricky actually, this is a tricky level, because sometimes five and three can be interchangeable, don't you think? I think where I was going with that is if you think about experiencing, like a not ideal situation. Okay, so I don't know, a pandemic? Seems like low hanging fruit.,

Cristina Amigoni  26:27 
It's such a unique situation to be in.

Lauren Grau  26:31 
So I'm sure you guys have heard, you know, sentiments like in one statement, "oh, my gosh, this is the worst, right? Listen to how this has impacted my life and everyone else's life around me." And you know, so much easier to see all of the not ideal outcomes of this. And if you think about when you hear someone go, "But you know what? The Earth's doing well, and you know, fossil fuels are down and you know, we're not driving as much. So that's cool. And I've been getting to spend so much time with my family. And you know, I love working from home." And so it's this reach for something else. It's like this reach for the silver lining. Maybe that's the the notion I'm thinking of. But why I said it's kind of tricky is because you want some authenticity behind it.

Alex Cullimore  27:27 
Can't just assume there's a silver lining or trying for something there? Yeah.

Lauren Grau  27:32 
Yeah, and maybe it's something you just dabble in for a minute, just like try on a few different phrases. Going back to that position of choice, "what would I be willing to see as the opportunity here?" And sometimes naturally, you'll go, "Oh, my God, but still the worst things are worse, right? Like the not so great. Things are heavier, dammit."

Cristina Amigoni  27:54 
Yes, exactly. I like the picture you just provided Lauren, because it made me realize how maybe the difference between level three and five in this situation is five is when you actually feel the gratitude. And three is when you're convincing yourself that the silver lining should be something to embrace.

Alex Cullimore  28:17 
That's a good distinction. And I was wondering about the distinction because I thought it was funny that Cristina had said she really hates spending time in level three, but really loves level five. And then Lauren was like, "Yes, they're interchangeable."

It totally makes sense, though. The second it doesn't feel realistic to you, it no longer feels like the opportunity, it no longer feels like you're either forcing something or you're back into that totally passive state of  "yeah, I guess that's good, but here's the rest of the world I have to deal with."

Cristina Amigoni  28:42 
Level three to me is very much of the like, "I know, intellectually that I am to blame too. And there's some responsibility here. But I don't know that I want to embrace that." In level five is when you're like, "yeah, I could have shown up better." And so how do we move on from here and collaborate. So you are actually embracing the knowledge that you have some control in your actions, and it's not just a victim of somebody else's whatever doing.

Alex Cullimore  29:07 
I like that. So it feels sometimes like there's less space to move above this and like a level seven epiphany one, so where are we going with level six then?

Lauren Grau  29:15 
It's tough and maybe a quick pause to recognize the disadvantages as we go up here is really we're moving farther away from the common population. Right? So I think even I would say, if I had to make a statement without any data backing this, if I had to make a quick assumption, mI'd say most of the time, people are experiencing a level five or below in the world, general population. And so as we get higher up, we're kind of disconnecting from those folks. And sometimes, we're seen as aloof, our feet aren't on the ground. I've been called out specifically before for almost invalidating people, it can feel really invalidating when they're stuck in lower levels of energy and you're showing up with your level five, six, or seven. It can create some disconnect.

Like the clash of five and three, right, you've got a five coming in and saying,"look at all this silver lining," you got a three saying "okay, that doesn't apply to me. I don't like the fact I am not ready to engage with that. And I do not agree that that's a silver lining right now. And it certainly doesn't feel like it internally."

Cristina Amigoni  30:32 
There's definitely something in there. I agree, though, actually talking about epiphanies, I think it was in mod two. So in one of the mods when we were in person training with iPEC, that we dug into the levels a lot more, and especially the advantages and disadvantages. I remember having this moment of clarity, when I realized in some situations, I'm experiencing level six, and I'm showing up with this full faith of let's just work together, it's going to work out, we don't have to know exactly how, I know what's going to happen, I can see it, I can feel it, it's just about doing it. And the people around me just looking at me going, "What the hell are you talking about? We have to figure out the details. This is not gonna work out." And that disconnect was definitely difficult.

Lauren Grau  31:22 
What's your spoken, Cristina? Right? Give me what you got. It's kind of that like, how are you possibly feeling that way right now, right? Everything is as it's meant to be. That's the statement that comes up for me is like trust the journey, trust the process, synergy.

Cristina Amigoni  31:39 
Trust, the process, synergy, all of that.  Trust the process was one of the most difficult things for me while going through training, because of just the growth part of the training, and also because of what was happening in my life. It was very difficult to just keep hearing that sentence and actually feel it and I'm like, "yeah, yeah, I get it, trust the process. Still not trusting it?"

Lauren Grau  32:01 
If you've got level six leaders, God, what a blessing, right? Because I think about the difference. Another distinction point here is the difference between levels four and six in the sense that at level four, you're kind of seeing things as problems, right? You're like trying to help people fix their problems. And at level six, which I think would be a characteristic of a good leader is "okay, yeah, of course, I recognize that there are opportunities and issues to solve for, but how can I help others move forward? Right, how can I help them see, to trust the process, get through this all together, while also seeing the opportunity?" So it's that kind of community and connection of "let's do it together. How can I support you in a different light?" Right? Does that make sense?

Alex Cullimore  32:50 
I like that a lot. I like that. Bringing it both from your own personal opportunity and feeling of hope and trust of the process or trust that the vision is there, trust the goal, and then being able to meet people where they're at to say, "Yep, I understand. Yeah, I have an idea in my head of how great this is and we'll be " And I would love to be able to work with what feels like grit and sand, pushing our way towards that. I understand that that's there, I acknowledge that we have to move through it.

Cristina Amigoni  33:19 
Those moments of magic, especially in the workplace, I've seen is when five and six are very present. And there's a lot of interplay, because in six you have the trust, the collaboration, the faith, the "everything is an opportunity. We can do whatever, whatever comes to mind, we'll figure it out." And the five is, "how do we figure it out? It's you know, now let's get down to details. What are the steps to get there?"

Lauren Grau  33:45 
Mm hmm. Creativity,

Alex Cullimore  33:49 
I think we're already interweaving a lot of the things we want to talk about as well. And how this plays out, first of all, in our own lives, but also in group dynamics in an organization, both at work organization or community organization, or even internally with family, friends, etc.

Cristina Amigoni  34:03 
Definitely applicable.

Alex Cullimore  34:05 
So if we round out our levels here, level seven, we've talked a little bit about this, we want to expand more than it's, it's the Epiphany level. I like that description, personally, but if you have anything else.

Cristina Amigoni  34:17 
Lauren, it's on you, I have already described my level seven.

Lauren Grau  34:21 
It's funny, because I think we spend the least amount of time here ever when I'm working with clients about this or in group settings. And it's funny because I've had clients say, or ask, what is the goal to be at level sevenm should I be striving to be at level seven, and then I've had the same set of clients come back the next round and go, I think I realized that's not the goal, because I would lose my relatability to all other humans. And I was like, "Whoa, cool awareness." Right. Level seven is level of illusion, there is no winning or losing, life is just a game. You know, it's this kind of monk, guru image of total non-judgement, total peace, stillness. There's a word in the Sanskrit language I love called Santosha. And it's defined as complete contentment. Like nothing is real. The world is an illusion,

Alex Cullimore  35:25 
The LSD level.

Cristina Amigoni  35:29 
Time doesn't exist, space doesn't exist.

Lauren Grau  35:32 
And I'm sure everyone's felt it, everyone's experienced it momentarily, which is a really common way to experience it.  I share that this one client said recently "I don't think I can be there for very long because I would lose all of my connections with the rest of the world." Ah, yep.

Cristina Amigoni  35:53 
Huge insight on that.

Alex Cullimore  35:55 
That's really where that kind of ties back to being the level six leader that is able to communicate that, you might have that connection. And it might be something you hold as true. Something you really appreciate about the world is that it is just interconnected. You don't feel like there's winning or losing, you feel like everything is everything. Pretty hard to make that case to people who are not also in level seven.

Lauren Grau  36:14 
And especially right now, right? We're in a strange, to use a totally overplayed word, unprecedented times. And if you watched the SNL skit around it, unpresidented times. It's really hard to tap into these higher levels of energy right now, especially when we're talking about being able to see everything as perfect. And just the way it is, you know, it feels unhuman to think that way, right now, it feels unhuman to recognize things as problems needing to be fixed right now. And to share a quick funny story, Cristina and I were running this group Leadership Energy Leadership workshop a couple weeks ago, and we broke out into separate breakout rooms and had our own script, right. So she had no idea what I was going to say to my group. And I didn't know what she was going to say to her group, but I had created the slides. Well, level six and seven, I had put in some slides from a show on Netflix called odd animal couples. And it's what it sounds like, right? It's this show that follows animals that wouldn't normally be friends. And they are. And so to me, this was my way of helping folks understand that. Okay, even in a moment of frustration with humanity, frustration with people that are like us it's really hard to find that connection with or believe that statement like you are me and I am you level six energy kind of thing, because there's so much bad that we're seeing. So try it on animals, right? There's a cute little panda that's playing with a cheetah, and there's a dog with a horse. And so I had inserted these slides. And she said, when we were debriefing, "Laurem I just have to ask you like what's up with the animal slides? When I got there,in the part of the presentation, I just kind of said, here's some cute animals and skipped over."  And I wish I could have done some mental telepathy to let you know what I meant by this.

Cristina Amigoni  38:22 
It was definitely an interesting piece, because that was part of my, I guess, "Oh, you know, I'm sure I can wing this." I know what the slides look like. And so I kind of halfway looked at the slides before presenting, I was very much in a level five, level six states of "I have faith in my own skills and in the group." And so then, during the live presentation with these seven or eight people, I'm clicking through the slides, I see all these animals. And I'm like, and here are some pretty animals. They're all about connecting with each other, as we just talked about. And finally level seven.

Lauren Grau  38:56 
Skip skip.

Cristina Amigoni  38:58 
Oh, there's another one. Oh, I have no idea how many there are. Good, good moment.

Lauren Grau  39:04 
Do you think I'm crazy now, though, after the fact? Do you understand the connection? Sometimes you watch these nature channels, you're like, "Oh, cool. The world. Nature is so cool, right? So fascinating. All this connectivity."

Cristina Amigoni  39:17 
I definitely get the connection. And after I went through my own level one and two, while going through that.  Level one, oh my god, I'm not good enough to be running this workshop on my own. And two, I can't believe the Lauren put a bunch of animal slides and didn't tell me she was gonna do that. I got back to I'm here to coach and to help this team, so let's just move through the animals that get there.

Lauren Grau  39:45 
I love you so much for sharing that. It's great.

Alex Cullimore  39:50 
Ah, good. Well, that was a great summation I think of all the levels. What is missing as we progress to these levels, so much in this podcast, as well as all the episodes before, so that hopefully helps illuminate some of the reasons we're going to these places. One of the things that, Lauren, you've talked a lot about in your work is around a lot of Energy Leadership. And you found some good responses when bringing  these ideas into organizations.  There's one thing you'd brought up a while ago, when we were talking, you said that there are kind of situations where things can be coachable versus things can be chronic? And I don't know if you wanted to talk a little bit about that, because we've talked a lot about energy and reiterated the point that a lot of this is point in time. It's choice, it's where we want to be, or if you want to elaborate a little bit on sometimes it's can be more chronic.

Lauren Grau  40:43 
It's so tough because when leaders ask, okay, well, first of all, when learning about Energy Leadership and learning about the seven levels of energy, I think leaders first places, "okay, great I can acknowledge and recognize that I've got a variety of these within my team." You know, and I'm sure that a lot of people can relate, working alongside a colleague who lives in a constant state of catabolic energy. And then there's shows that make fun of them. I think about the office or there's a show I love called "what we do in the shadows" about vampires, and there's an energy vampire. Have either of you ever seen that?

Cristina Amigoni  41:22 
No, but I have to look at that definitely.

Lauren Grau  41:27 
I digress anyway. So there's this joke around the negative Nellies, right, like the negative Nancies within a workplace. And so I think the first question leaders have is, "how can I help that right? Like, how can I coach around tha?" And it kind of introduces this interesting difference between chronic catabolic energy and just situational? So are they experiencing catabolic energy because of a change or because of a stressor versus this is just where they live in their day to day lives? And what's also an interesting distinction around that in terms of how to address it is how I would describe the difference between where coaching as a supportive modality versus therapy. So if you've got some chronic catabolic energy, it could be related to trauma or just deep rooted stuff we haven't figured out yet, we haven't addressed yet in a supportive way. And so what would it be like to seek some individual therapy around that versus when you're talking about the coaching modality, it's about presenting people with their options, presenting people with the different perspectives they have access to, and then allowing them to make the choice and if they're ready to work through their stuff, and move forward? Great, you're eligible for a good coaching engagement.

Alex Cullimore  42:49 
I like that distinction. That's great.

Cristina Amigoni  42:52 
When you were talking about that, it made me realize how important it would be for a workplace as you know, as we are, we are in our own workplaces. And we work with teams, and with other people, having the language but also the knowledge and awareness of the different energy levels, especially when you're looking at promoting people to leadership positions, or understanding why a team may be thriving, and another one is struggling, I would say understanding how the people in the team and also the leaders are showing up would be a huge advantage. Because if you have a chronically catabolic leader that's leading teams, that's probably causing a lot of problems that you're not not sure how to pinpoint. And you may be either blaming the team itself, so you maybe keep replacing people in the team or you may be sending them to leadership training programs, and the results are not changing anyway. And so a lot of the connecting to the human side of how is this person showing up. And what can we do about that? And is this something that coaching could help with the energy levels? Or is it more chronic that we need to do something else about?

Alex Cullimore  44:05  
I don't know how you guys have felt this in just general coaching circles or when you've had people you are coaching.  Do you feel like there's times, when I guess it's probably one of those things where it just depends, but do you feel like you are able to make connections with people that might feel like they're in more of a chronic catabolic state? Do you feel like there are sometimes inroads from the outside? Or is it, I assume most of this is self driven and you have to acknowledge some of this from within, but I don't know what your guys's experiences are having people come in who may run into either catabolic people constantly in their lives or feel that they are in that state and more chronic level.

Cristina Amigoni  44:42 
What are your thoughts, Lauren, with all your hours and hours and hours of coaching?

Lauren Grau  44:47 
I mean, I think it comes down to a space of acceptance, some some willingness to move on, I think, unfortunately as humans a lot of the time we're not seeking help until we've like hit rock bottom right? We're not seeking support until we realize we don't want to be here ever again, anymore. And so just so long as that's something that someone has some drive, some kind of inspiration or motivation to change, willingness even to change doesn't have to be as powerful as motivation or inspiration, but just an interest in changing and interest in doing things differently, and interest in thinking differently. And so, something I would offer to not only ask ourselves, it's almost like step one, "notice", right, just step one, just recognize where am I at? Okay, I have, for example, these people on the podcast told me about energy. And so now I've got seven ideas of what I could pinpoint every day. And so the first step is just notice what's happening. Is there a pattern? Get to know your mind, get to know your thoughts, and then create some separation from them? And you can do that by asking yourself "What am I thinking right now? What stories am I telling myself? What are my thoughts?" Because then, if you are picking up on that, it's like, creating the divide between I am my thoughts, and I'm just a human having thoughts.  This is a normal part of humanity. "And what's happening? What are my thoughts? How am I feeling? And then it's kind of moving along up the ladder?"v So in other words, "how long do I want to feel this way? How would I rather feel and what needs to be addressed?"  And that's kind of where the coaching supports come in, right? It's like helping co-design, co-create that plan forward. What does need to be addressed? What do you need to be validated around? What can I normalize for you? How can I remind you that this is all part of it? This is life.

Alex Cullimore  47:03 
I like all those connections, it kind of sounds like one of the main through lines is that as long as the person in question or the situation in question, it's willing to be addressed as feeling that there are choices, either within our own reactions, or within what we can do around it. And it doesn't have to be that those are easy choices. It doesn't have to be that those are quick choices. But if we can feel like there may be some momentum, if we don't collapse, that sounds like one of the key points to be able to work with people who may feel more chronically in a state or just people who want to change things in general, just giving that piece of hope. And it doesn't have to be, as you said, as strong as motivation or inspiration. Just the feeling that maybe there's a possibility here.

Cristina Amigoni  47:50 
Yes, I definitely agree. I love that you started with awareness. First, you have to know that may not be working, if you're not even aware that we do have a role on how we show up and our results based on that. And you may not even be disturbed enough, like Tony Robbins would say, to want to make a change, or think that maybe a change may improve things, then you can't even go through the other steps. I mean, if you're living in a bubble of thinking, "this is who I am, I'm never gonna be anything else. And my life is perfect the way it is, then there's nowhere to go."

Alex Cullimore  48:28 
I can definitely relate to that, that feels like one of those. I think I started doing some of this work internally here and there in life. But generally until I started to study more things like this, mindfulness, understanding energy levels. Until you do that. I think it's exactly what you were describing before.  It's when you hit like a rock bottom moment, or when you hit something that what was the Tony Robbins, what do you say? It's when it's when you get disturbed? When you're disturbed? Yeah, it's when it finally feels like something that motivates you. And that's when you start to do the changes. This gives you a whole framework for understanding those things. Maybe before you're at rock bottom. But if you do hit rock bottom, a great framework for how might I get out of this?

Cristina Amigoni  49:10 
Well, what I love about the fact that going through the training, and then also having coaches and being now part of a family of coaches that I can send SOSs to at any point in my life when I need to. It's that once you know, you have the awareness, and then the acceptance and you can go through the journey of that.  The awareness never really goes away. In my opinion. What do you think, Lauren?

Lauren Grau  49:36  
Yeah, it's hard to go backwards on awareness.

Alex Cullimore  49:41 
What are the things that you've done, both organizationally or with coaching clients that have helped promote that kind of awareness, or are there strategies for gaining that if somebody is looking to gain awareness?

Lauren Grau  49:52 
I think that what's ironic is the strategies are coaching strategies, skills that I would use if individually coaching someone can also be used on ourselves. Right? So when we're meeting with teams within organizations, we're teaching them self coaching questions. Here's some questions to ask yourself, right? For example, "what's it costing me to be at this level? Why would I change? Why would I see things differently?" And if there's any kind of motivational output from that question, then maybe that's just the ticket to keep going up, right?  So a lot of this self coaching, validation, because levels one and two are, like we said, the more popular areas, especially when experiencing stress, or stressful circumstances, teaching skills on how to come away from that. So a self coaching question there is, if you're sitting in level one, asking yourself, "what do I need to get angry about to propel me forward?" And so on. So I think we're just teaching people how to coach themselves, and then offering our coaching support along the way until they've put in enough practice it's really what it comes down to.  Its like practicing strategies, practicing using tools and different things like that, that we offer to come away from the stuck state. So one of the things I think about, that I use most often is you've got people that say, "Okay, I want to be a better leader, right?"  So here's a good example of creating awareness and what coaching can help. So someone comes and says, "I want to be a better leader."  Well, very cool. First question I'm going to ask you is, "what does it mean to be a good leader?" Let's talk about all of the characteristics that you think a good leader possesses. Awesome. Okay, I've got these seven things that you've noted. Now, I'm going to circle back and ask you, "where do you currently feel you're at on a scale of one to 10? How dynamic is your communication? how, you know, influential is your leadership? How well are you able to inspire people?" And so now you're getting them to rank themselves where they're at, talk about creating awareness, I think it's so much easier to say I want x and then a coach swoops in and says, "awesome, I'm going to help you get to x  and here's how we're going to create some awareness around what x looks like and feels like an acts like."

Alex Cullimore  52:17 
I like that a lot. The idea that just breaking it down a little more, because we all have lofty goals. And we generally start with lofty goals of "Yeah, I want to be a good leader, I want to have a successful business, I want to have" just whatever it is, is something that is largely intangible, often just some idea of what we want to go to. And we don't do any more breaking down beyond that. We just say, "Man, I'd like to be able to do that." And so that's a great point, just be able to go and say, "Okay, great. What does that mean to you?" Because I've had many times in life, where I can think of times when I'm like, "Yeah, I want to do x." And then think about it. I don't really know what that means. I just, I had a vague notion that sounded good at some point.

Cristina Amigoni  52:55 
I think we've all had those moments, or at least I know I have.  Even better moments is when like, I want x and then you get x I am like "wait no, no, no, I did not want that. That is not what I meant." Awareness. And the quicker you get there, the quicker you can move on and do whatever you need to do to change. But I like the fact that you touched on or just that just a simple idea that coaching is not advising, it's not consulting in that sense of, "Oh, you want to get to x, here's exactly how you're going to get there." We as coaches, we don't do the work for our clients, we don't tell them how to get there, they have to get there on their own, because that's how change happens. Change doesn't happen if it's me telling you to use the new software, instead of Excel. It's you adopting the new software instead of Excel. And the same work happens for us as humans. So going through the steps of breaking it down so that there is buy-in in understanding what does it look like when I'm a better leader? Not, what does it look like when Lauren thinks I am better leader."

Alex Cullimore  54:06  
Also, you avoid falling into the trap of I thought, this is what I wanted. but that was not what I wanted. If you have the time to explore and understand that, then you aren't just pushing towards a goal. At which point you hit it and realize, nope, that was wrong. I just hit this finish line. I didn't realize it and want to be at.  I love the idea of awareness. And I like that idea that's a great starting point. That's a great ability to build out what your steps are going to be. And I really like, because so much of what we've talked about comes down to this, the idea of practice, it's something you have to do, you have to redo, you have to retry, and you have to get better at. So what advice would you guys offer if you have people who are trying to practice these things and they feel like either they've come up short, maybe many times or maybe even just once they feel like they were on a good path or they took a step back and did something that they realized was a repeated pattern they had thought about and they deciced they want to avoid earlier and accidentally fell back into? Or they have the awareness and they didn't move the way they wanted to move?

Lauren Grau  55:07 
I think the tip or or tool that I would offer is to practice getting distance, to practice the separation. And you can do that in a few different ways. For example, one of the skills that comes to mind is thanking your mind. "Thank you mind, thanks for showing up today, doing your job thinking this thought. I hear you, I notice what's happening here." Right. So thank your mind. And just create that little bit of separation. And then if you're feeling brave, move on to challenge your thought. Ask your thought, "okay, why are you here? What's happening? Like, let me try to get a grasp on what is this about? Do I need to address it? If something? Is it something I need to surface and kind of spend some thought around or talk to someone about? But what evidence do I have that this thought is true?" And so it's just this practice of having a dialog playing around with brain that we've been given? It's just doing its job?

Alex Cullimore  56:17 
Well, I like both of those.

Lauren Grau  56:19 
What else? What do you think?

Alex Cullimore  56:21 
I was just gonna say, I like that thanking one. For one, on a personal note, I looked back on a few years of my life where I'd spent time in basically level one for a very extended period of time, felt very closed off. And I had looked back at that for a long time since then, with some amount of regret. And at some point, I did hit an exercise that was like that, which was thanking, like that.  There was a reason to stay in level one, and it pushed through to be able to get to the next pieces. So I really like that thanking one. That's just a personal side note inside story. Cristina, you were going to talk as well on that.

Cristina Amigoni  56:56 
I like the thanking your mind. It's a great trick. And I hadn't actually thought about it, I knew about it, but I've never actually done it to myself, I'm gonna have to start that. The separation piece is huge, that realizing that we're not our thoughts, which is another one of those quotes that you see in cheesy shops sometimes, but we truly are not our thoughts. Our thoughts change all the time. And they're influenced by what we're feeling internally, what's happening externally. And so separating that, one of the things that I noticed is when I spiral into the same train of thoughts, into the same arguments in my head that I'm having with myself and whoever I'm arguing with that's not there in my own mind creating.  I always have a song in my head, I always have music in my head, 24 hours a day even when I'm sleeping. I now have a couple of songs that I pull out when I'm going down the spiral. One of them is the Whitesnake Here I go again on my own as soon as my mind goes on the spiral I start singing Here I go again. And that breaks the cycle like "Oh, wait, no, I don't want to have that argument anymore. I've already had it every single day for the last nine months and I'm always alone in it. The other person is still not showing up.

Lauren Grau  58:13 
Oh my gosh, I think we should have a whole podcast episode on Guilty Pleasures songs.

Alex Cullimore  58:21 
I think we should do an entirely different episode, Lauren, we'll have you back on for this one. We're gonna do all seven episodes and Cristina you've done wine training, you can pair each level with a wine and then we're all going to come up with playlists for what to play each level.

Cristina Amigoni  58:36 
Yes, that would be perfect.

Alex Cullimore  58:38  
And they're all gonna be Whitesnake songs.

Lauren Grau  58:42  
One of the song I thought of was the theme song from the Greatest Showman. Have you guys seen that?

Cristina Amigoni  58:50 
A million dreams is that the theme song.

Lauren Grau  58:53 
No, the other one where she's like:  "This is me, look out cause here I come".  It's kind of like level two but also level five, but also I'm frustrated, I'm done with being trapped,  I'm going to show myself the world

Cristina Amigoni  59:17 
Oh yes. My level two go to songs is the Fight Song. That's all level two for me.

Alex Cullimore  59:29 
That's a very direct interpretation.

Lauren Grau  59:36 
My gosh, level three is totally John Lennon, right?

Cristina Amigoni  59:45 
On level seven is still John Lennon,  Imagine.

Lauren Grau  59:49 
True. We could do probably every level with a Beatle Song.

Cristina Amigoni  59:55 
Yes, we probably could.

Alex Cullimore  59:57 
What's the song that's like "Our house in the middle of the street".

Cristina Amigoni  1:00:02 
we could definitely do a whole playlist on the levels.

Lauren Grau  1:00:05 
Thanks for playing guys, thanks for being interested in talking about energy and weaving it into all the nooks and crannies.

Cristina Amigoni  1:00:14 
Thank you.

Alex Cullimore  1:00:15 
Yeah, thank you so much for joining us. This is such a great tie in just for every piece of life, it's something we can use at work, away from work, and to understand the through line for our lives as we go between work and not work. And something that we can use to understand where other people are and how to approach them, how to approach ourselves. And it's a great framework to introduce awareness for our own minds, our own lives and everybody that we come across, I really like it as a stepping stone for everything. And it is a baseline to return to. So you can really guide yourself.

Cristina Amigoni  1:00:46  
Definitely agreed. It's very huge awareness to know that. And it's pretty powerful. Once you have the awareness and you've done the work and you've worked with coaches, to know that you can always choose, you're not always a victim of what's happening around you. And you have the choice. And here's your menu of choices. What are you going to do about it? And I think earlier you asked, Alex, like how what advice would you give, I would say my biggest advice is get a coach from life.

Lauren Grau  1:01:17  
Take the ELI,

Cristina Amigoni  1:01:18 
Take the ELI, exactly. Look up Energy Leadership. We will put everything in the show notes. Work with a coach in whatever way it's possible, or multiple coaches like I do. But if you think that professional athletes have coaches, for their sports, that they work with every day all day for eight hours or 10 hours a day, and we expect people to go through life alone. It doesn't make a lot of sense. It's not a weakness to have a coach. It's actually something that I think we should all have, to help us go through life and navigate the darkness.

Alex Cullimore  1:01:53 
And if you don't want to go look up coaches and get to them, then I would highly recommend becoming close friends with coaches and starting podcasts with them.

Lauren Grau  1:02:02 
You are speaking from experience, Alex.

Alex Cullimore  1:02:07 
Lauren, thank you so much for joining this. This has been a very fun conversation and anybody looking to find Lauren, Lauren, you're on LinkedIn, I believe so Lauren Grau.

Lauren Grau  1:02:19 
Sure thing. Growth and Gumption, that is my private practice business. It's my favorite job so far.

Alex Cullimore  1:02:27 
Growth and Gumption I love that. That's a great title.

Lauren Grau  1:02:35  
It's how I signed my resignation letter. In growth and gumption, I'm out of here.

Cristina Amigoni  1:02:51  
There's a level seven moment right there.

Alex Cullimore  1:02:54 
Here I go again on my own.

Lauren Grau  1:02:58 
And I specialize in career transition. So most of my clients come to me who are kind of in that moment of "where do I go from here? What do I do? Am I in the right role? I enjoy what I do, or am I just in it for x, y, z, right." So I thought that was an appropriate business title, in Growth and Gumption? Find out right? We spend most of our waking hours at work, make it meaningful, make it something you enjoy.

Alex Cullimore  1:03:23 
I like that a lot.  Growth and Gumption, career transition and energy levels. That's all excellent. Thank you so much, Lauren. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this with us. It's a great conversation. And hopefully a lot of people gain a lot of help from this. I like it.

Lauren Grau  1:03:38 
Thanks to you guys as well. You rock.

Cristina Amigoni  1:03:40 
Thank you. I'm sure we'll have you back and talk more about energy and energy levels, and songs and wine, whichever comes up. Thank you for listening to Uncover The Human, a SIAMO podcast.

Alex Cullimore  1:03:53 
Special thanks to our podcast operations wizard Jake Lara and our score creator Raechel Sherwood.

Cristina Amigoni  1:03:59 
If you have enjoyed this episode, please share, review and subscribe. You can find our episodes wherever you listen to podcasts.

Alex Cullimore  1:04:06 
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 WEARESIAMO.

Cristina Amigoni  1:04:25 
Until next time, listen to yourself. Listen to others and always uncover the human.