Why Presence and Curiosity Matter in Leadership and Life with Nina Cashman

Nina Cashman: The root of all well-being is to constantly be learning, because you never learn at all. That's essentially what we're here to do is learn, right? As spiritual beings, having this human experience, we're here to learn.

Alex Cullimore: Well, hello, Cristina. Welcome back. It’s the second time today. Not that anybody listening to this will feel that way, but for us.

Cristina Amigoni: We know what it feels like. Everybody else will just get these weeks apart and have no idea what just happened.

Alex Cullimore: Anybody who’s on the YouTube channel would be like, “Looks the same.”

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, exactly. I changed my hair just to make it look like it was a different podcast at this point.

Alex Cullimore: All right. Well, then you'll just have to look for my signal, because I look the same. Yeah. speaking of returns, we just had a return guest on. We got to talk to the wonderful Nina Cashman, who's a master trainer at iPEC and an executive coach. Among other things, also, just recently is finishing up a master's program in happiness. We ended up talking a lot about that.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. I love Nina's energy. Nina was my first friend when I moved to Colorado 22 years ago. Just being around her energy is just this magnetism of just wanting more of that energy. I remember when we first met, we ended up just sitting in a corner at a party somewhere and talking for five hours about everything. That's how it still feels with Nina. I was like, “Oh, can we just keep talking nonstop?” There's so much to talk about and learn from each other. Learning is a big piece that what we talked about in this podcast.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. It also thematically tied back to what we also talked about earlier today. But again, for you, probably a totally different day. Balance.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. We've learned that life is really about learning and balance.

Alex Cullimore: Both our guests today, as well as I think every guest we've ever had on this show, but Nina, especially, is easy to describe as infectious inner energy. It's just easy to get caught up in it. You want to experience more of it. You want to hear what she's doing, and she has so many places where you get to experience that, which we talk about as well. There's just great ways to get a hold of some of that energy. It's a wonderful boost –

Cristina Amigoni: It is.

Alex Cullimore: - personally speaking. I think it's a wonderful boost. I hope other people will as well. That's why we publish these things.

Cristina Amigoni: Agreed. Enjoy.

Alex Cullimore: Enjoy.

[INTRO]

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, co-workers, or even ourselves.

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

Cristina Amigoni: This is Cristina Amigoni.

Alex Cullimore: And this is Alex Cullimore.

BOTH: Let's dive in.

Authenticity means freedom.

Authenticity means going with your gut.

Authenticity is bringing a 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. Today, Cristina and I are joined with a return guest, Nina Cashman. Welcome back, Nina.

Nina Cashman: Hey.

Cristina Amigoni: Hello, Nina.

Nina Cashman: Nice to see you.

Alex Cullimore: We're very excited to have you back. But for a refresher for the audience, you want to give us a little background on who you are, what your story is?

Nina Cashman: Yeah, I'd love to. First of all, thanks for having me. It's nice to see you both again. Congratulations on what I believe is the 167th episode, perhaps. Lucky numbers. Lucky me to be a part of. Amazing.

Cristina Amigoni: It's a lucky number now.

Nina Cashman: I don’t know what number episode I was on the first time.

Cristina Amigoni: It was in the first 10, or 15 first.

Alex Cullimore: I remember the first 10 to 30 for sure.

Nina Cashman: Oh, my gosh. I feel so honored that I get to be in the centurion club, I guess.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah, we're going to eventually just SNL this and you'll get a five-time jacket and you'll get a – 

Nina Cashman: Yeah. I'd be looking forward to that.

Cristina Amigoni: We won't get you the lounge and the DIA, but it's okay.

Nina Cashman: Well, then I don't want it.

Alex Cullimore: Oh, well, then I'm just taking it.

Nina Cashman: No, I'm a part of them, the decade club and the centurion club. Which is an honor, which is a total honor. Anyway, for your guests, my name is Nina and I am an Executive Coach and the Founder of Pave Your Way. I specialize in executive coaching and training other coaches in all different forms of coaching, not just executive coaching. I also do a lot of career coaching. That's a natural niche that falls out of the executive coaching space. When you work with professionals on matters of consciousness, inevitably a little synapses fire, and sometimes people wake up to wanting to make some changes in their lives. Career is often a change that we want to make as humans, as you know. That's my background. Yeah, I'm excited to see what else you guys want to talk about.

Alex Cullimore: It's hard to limit it. We have a lot of options that we can go towards. But one, we'd love just some information on it, is that we understand that you're doing a program that is a master's in happiness. I would love to understand more about that, what that's been like.

Nina Cashman: Yeah. I'm actually graduating in May and super excited about it. For anyone who is watching and is interested in pursuing the field of coaching, or in general, interested in just the dynamics of how the human brain works and what makes us happy and what doesn't, this program has been quite fascinating. It actually does have a certificate program as well for people who aren't interested in doing the full-blown master's degree, there's a certificate program. That's actually where I started in 2019 doing that. It has been quite a ride. It's unexpectedly a little bit different than I think most people would expect.

A lot of people come to me saying a couple of things. One is, “Well, that's an interesting degree. What are you going to do with that?” As if there's no practicality to it, which makes me laugh. Because you –

Alex Cullimore: No practicality in happiness.

Nina Cashman: - understand how practical that is work, right? Secondarily, I think there is a little bit of confusion in the name. I would even question whether or not the field ought to be called happiness studies, but it is called this. I've heard different arguments for why it is and why it could be called other things. The interesting thing is, is it's not really about how do you be happy all the time, because actually, a lot of studies show that when you force happiness, when you pursue happiness directly, it actually has the opposite result. It leads to depression. What it does get it, though, through all different fields, such as literature, philosophy, psychology, science, biology, film, so many poetry, so many different angles, is that when you pursue your well-being, or when you pursue happiness indirectly, by allowing all different aspects of yourself to feel whole, your spiritual well-being, your physical well-being, your intellectual well-being, relational well-being, and emotional well-being, and you're keeping all of that in mind that that is typically what leads innately to a happier life, a more satisfied content person.

Cristina Amigoni: That's very fascinating, especially since we just recorded this morning another episode with a guest that talked about balance. It feels like it's the theme of balance and balancing all of those pieces and finding that balance is all those pieces is how we get the outcome.

Alex Cullimore: We were also talking right before we started recording about therapy work, coaching work, things that this ties in well with both balance and with the idea of more integrated happiness. There's so much of the work that is internal work is connecting the pieces that have become separated somehow, whether it's emotions that are trapped somewhere, whether it's just memories, or traumas that are trapped in a certain place, reintegrating that, or integrating all the different parts of us, and in the balance that we were talking about balance this morning, it's about really finding all the different pieces and what might be a little bit out of sync and bringing all those things more back together as a practice and continually integrating.

So much of coaching work, so much of therapy work, so much of all of our discussions end up being about that integration, instead of the way that, I don’t know, you see on LinkedIn a bunch of like, “Hey, do this skill, do this one thing.” We do very discrete offshoots, but so much of the deeper stuff is that connection layer between all these little silos of our brain, of our existence, of our general well-being.

Nina Cashman: That's such a great point, I think, Alex, because unless you're mindful about these different areas of yourself, it is so easy to be off-balance. I was even shocked in taking the program, even the first time when I did the – it's called HSA. For people who are interested, you can just do the certificate program. Without really the added elements of writing and submitting homework, essentially. With the master's program, it’s definitely a little bit more time-consuming, and there's higher expectations from it and more robust, I would say. The certification, though, is incredible. Even then in 2019, I realized how dim my intellectual element, we call them the SPIRE elements as a way to remember it. SPIRE stands for spiritual, physical, intellectual, relational, emotional.

Even in taking the program and diving into something that stimulated my mind in such a beautiful way was an incredible reminder for me of how off-balance I had allowed that to get and how important it is to someone like me who has a fairly active mind. I would say, I store a lot of energy in my brain. That energy does not have an outlet, it starts to impact me in other ways. That imbalance, as you put it, Alex, then starts to impact my spiritual sense, my connection to greater forces, which then impacts the way I interact with people, my relationships, which, of course, impacts my emotions, which, of course, is going to have a physical impact. So, the whole nine yards. It's like dominoes. That's just a personal example of had I not really learned about the elements, or been given this great opportunity to be mindful about how I show up, whether I show up in a whole way, or in a less than a whole way in these different areas, I would have never really seen how much I was missing intellectual stimulation.

That reading a good book here and there was actually not enough for someone like me. Being in a course and being asked to write and being given challenging assignments. That is one thing, actually, that I loved about the corporate world. Maybe that's why I work too much. That was something that a person like me was very stimulated by. I loved the challenges of trying to figure things out. Even though I didn't say it at the time, looking back, I did love getting those projects that no one else wanted, because I knew that it was a challenge and maybe I could look for the solutions and solve it.

Then, when I went on my own and became a coach, which is such a beautiful profession, and I love doing this and I love working with other people and giving them space to solve their own issues, what I realized is I was neglecting my problem-solving skills in my own life. That's just a primary example of this imbalance idea that you brought to the forefront, Alex.

Cristina Amigoni: That's super fascinating. As you were talking about that, I've realized how that intellectual balance, that intellectual stimulation, I definitely feel when it's missing, which is why I get bored very easily. I learn something, I do it. I learn it enough to help somebody else take over, and then I'm like, I need the next thing. I cannot be doing the same thing over and over and over.

Actually, recently, I've felt imbalanced in other aspects of my life. What I have naturally gone to, which I just realized, actually, is I've gone back to reading, listening to books, binge reading, binge listening, which I had let go for many years, because I was intellectually stimulated in other ways through the work. Even this past weekend, I think I listened to seven or eight or nine podcast episodes. I now read before I go to sleep for hours for a long time, which I wasn't doing. I have started and finished audiobooks, which hasn't happened in many years, in less than a week. It's that like, I need to learn more, I need to learn more. It's helping me then balance the other places, the other parts of the SPIRE that I'm feeling imbalanced on.

Nina Cashman: Yeah, it's funny how sometimes we want to go directly to an area that in our external world seems off, not recognizing that the reason that's off is because of one of the other elements. Again, if you put those elements in a wheel, and one of those elements is flat, when you turn that wheel, the pressure it puts on the other elements is that much harder, right? You think that because the pressure is harder on those other elements that those must be your issues, not recognizing that it's the flat wheel, the imbalance on the other side that's causing the stress and strain to those other elements.

Unless, you mindfully do a check, actually, this course talks about it as a SPIRE check-in. It could be that simple. Do a SPIRE check-in. There's so many ways to do it. I would say, the simplest way is just write down SPIRE, and mentally go through each one and ask like, where is my spiritual well-being right now? What am I doing to fuel that? Where is my physical well-being? What did I do this past week? And make them active questions, not passive questions like, how am I doing in this? But maybe, what did I do today to make myself more fulfilled in my physical SPIRE? Just to really be in it, as opposed to having it be out there.

Until you do that check-in, you actually might not really realize how important some of these different elements are. Another thing I'd say, Cristina, back to the intellectual SPIRE, one of the segments, it was probably my favorite segment so far in the course, but I was a philosophy major, so, of course, I ate it up. We spent, yes, so you would love it. We spent eight weeks reading all the greats. Actually, for better or for worse, it might bore some people, but pretty much every one of those essays I did recently published on my blog, I've been trying to publish all my learnings on my blog.

Cristina Amigoni: They're great. They're great blogs.

Nina Cashman: Yeah, you commented on the one on Ubuntu. What they did a great job of, I felt, was also going for having us revisit the greats from all around the world, not just the US. Yes, we looked at Emerson, which is a great US mind. Revolutionary thinker. It's so great to revisit it. It's like, “Oh, my gosh. I understand Americans so much better when I read Emerson.” Appreciation, actually, for Americans when I read Emerson. Then you read Confucius, or the Tao Te Ching. Then you also have an appreciation for Eastern philosophy. Then you read about Ubuntu that comes out of Western Africa and have a great appreciation for their sense of community. You put all these pieces together, and it gives you a different perspective on the world.

One of the things though, I would say, out of all these great philosophers that I read, also we read some great female ones. It's amazing. Margaret Wheatley was one of them. du Châtelet, a female from the 1800s, totally ahead of her time. So inspiring to read these female minds of those times. They all basically say that the key to a good life is learning, is non-stop learning. That intellectual SPIRE is very important, because it's related to all the timeless wisdom. You read Confucius, I actually just published a blog post with a bright learnings about Confucius. That's what I honed in on.

It's all about the root of all well-being is to constantly be learning, because you never learn at all. That's essentially what we're here to do is learn, right? As spiritual beings, having this human experience, we're here to learn.

Alex Cullimore: I like that a lot. I like the idea of it, too. I can't imagine, honestly, living without continually learning. There's just too much to know and there's too much that is unknown. It will forever be that way. There will always be more to know, which is a relief.

Nina Cashman: Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's funny too, when you think about learning, Alex, as you're talking, it also makes me think of what there is to learn, or how we learn through the soul, or through the spirit, not just through the mind. Because I also, I don't know if you two have sensed this. I'm sure you have experienced this plenty of times. I know that I feel this way sometimes, where my pursuit of knowledge through my brain sometimes becomes too much, where sometimes I have to stop listening to podcasts on my locks, stop reading books, and just sit down and meditate, or go for a walk and connect with nature and look at things intently and closely and really notice my surroundings and be present in conversations, or not be in conversations at all.

That is also a way of learning that allows information to come to you, as opposed to you pursuing information. That is also something that I've realized over time is what is learning. Well, sometimes learning is not always about us always pursuing knowledge, because we're finite beings and knowledge is endless. Knowledge is limitless. That's only going to go so far, right? Limitless being trying to tap into the infinite. If you let go of a lot of your preconceived notions and stay really open and a little bit silent and stop reading, then the infinite can come in. It can come to you. That's another way of learning that has been interesting to me, especially as you consider how the intellectual element works in tandem with the spiritual.

Cristina Amigoni: Well, and how it wants to take over, because we want to rationalize everything. We want to have that logical answer to everything. Sometimes it's just about, what if we just feel, and the feeling is the answer.

Alex Cullimore: I think sometimes we treat those like those are different, but we can also just see it as rational to add that feeling into the equation. What if that is not outside of the realm of it's not that it's not a fact. It's a fact, you're feeling something. If you need the bridge, treat it like a bridge. One thing I'll be curious about, Nina, there's definitely actively pursuing knowledge. Sure, you can read books. There's the more spiritual journeys of trying to understand things just on a visceral level. One other way that is often taught as a way to learn is if you do teaching. So, I'm curious to what reflections you might have from having done blogs about your learnings. How does that also tie into building your own intellectual curiosity?

Nina Cashman: What a great point, Alex. Maybe to what I said earlier, that's why I have enjoyed pursuing this master's program so much more so than even what they offer with the certificate program. There is something about reflecting and internalizing information that you read and processing it internally in your own way and putting your own thoughts into what you learn that cements it more. It's one thing to learn about information. Again, I would say, it gets back to what both of you have talked about, the feeling. It's one thing to let your brain process information. I think it's quite another to feel it.

Sometimes it's hard to feel, especially ancient work, even the logically you get it, until you've allowed it to mean something to you internally. This is actually one of the things that I love about philosophy is it's all based on wisdom that we all innately know. It's wisdom that has not gone away. If you just revisit it and then take some time to reflect upon what it means to you in your life in a modern time, you realize how profound and how deep and actually, helpful, how helpful it is for you to manage your relationships and process your emotions and do all the things that we sometimes struggle with as again, also spiritual beings having a human experience, because I do think a big part of what we're all here to do is experience these extremes of pain and joy. That's a big part of life.

Yeah, you can choose to live in the middle, where it's comfortable and it's numb. But if you choose to live there, then you never get the beauty of intense joy if you don't allow yourself to sometimes experience that intense pain. Somehow, these old philosophers, they were on to something. That's why their work has stood the test of time. Of course, back to what you said, Alex, if I didn't have that opportunity to write about it, and I suppose I wouldn't do that, unless challenged to. I don't know that I'm going to spend my Wednesday writing about the Tao Te Ching. I don't think I probably would have read it, truthfully, had a course not said, read it.

There's just too much distraction in the world. There's too many other books that there's too much entertainment to pull my attention. There's something about being in the rigor of a program that keeps you on track and really activates that. It's not even a desire. It activates the pursuit to do important, sometimes life changing things. I would say, that's the benefit that the program has been for me and probably is for anyone who chooses to be more educated, or whether I say it even with my kids, whether you're in elementary school, to getting your PhD. Usually, it takes a class, or an instructor to challenge you to get the homework done. My kids are not going to be doing math, unless the instructor requires it, due the next day.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, it's interesting because I was thinking about even my IPEC journey and deciding to sign up for the IPEC training. It was definitely more I was drawn to the learning, not the outcome. I'm like, yeah, I have no idea what I'm going to do with a coaching certification. That's not what I'm pursuing. I want to learn. I want to learn about this stuff. That was the draw to it.

Nina Cashman: Yeah. What did you, Cristina, how did you internalize the just in a couple of ways even, what are some of the ways that allowed you to internalize the learning, so you processed it and it became more of a feeling, as opposed to just learning that stayed out here?

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. I think for me, especially going through it, being in the classroom, listening to all those things, I found myself constantly relating to my own experience. Everything that was being taught, I was like, okay, how does that show up in my experience, so that I could go to the feeling of it, not just the intellectual, okay, just ask open-ended questions. I'm like, well, no, it's bigger. How does that relate to my experience when I'm on the receiving end of that? Trying to really, I guess, work that empathy muscle of being inside a person's experience with these tools, with this learning, with this new way of relating to people, with this new way of showing up.

I mean, one of the things that I know I've internalized a lot is that you don't do coaching. You are a coach. It becomes a being, not a doing. Good coaches are never not coaches. You're coaching every conversation, not just the paid hour. That's a lot of how I've connected it to the rest of the SPIRE piece.

Nina Cashman: Yeah, on that note, one of the ways that I integrate coach learnings is really through listening, deep, deep listening. Because it's funny, sometimes I struggle with always a coach, because I know that sometimes, even when I'm at a training, like a coach training for IPEC and I'm sitting at lunch and a student starts asking me a bunch of empowering open-ended questions about – it's just like, can we just talk?

Questions are so important in the same regard, too. One of the things that I do think we all could do more of is actively listen on a deeper level. That is a way of being. The more you do that, the more we all do that, the more connected we are to whatever the experience is. I was also going to mention, this has been interesting for me as someone who's a coach and also a trainer for IPEC is we are currently on a whole section, six weeks in the master's program on coaching, talking about coaching. That's been really cool, because here I'm learning from an amazing, someone at the forefront of positive psychology, Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar, who is the professor of the program, who has been trained under some of the most influential people in the positive psychology movement. I'm learning so many new things.

Talk about listening. It's like, just when you think you're an expert at something, you get this opportunity to learn from another master. When you do, you learn about all these different angles that maybe even on the surface you knew a bit about. And as you listen, and just refrain from, “Oh, yeah. I have that experience, or I've tried that tool.” Just refrain from that. You hear other experiences and it makes you see it differently and at a deeper level. That's also been pretty cool.

Alex Cullimore: That totally makes sense. One thing that I definitely took away from coach training in general was that the A, the idea you don't have the answer, they have the answer. But the other one was starting to remove some of the pressure when you first start in coaching program, you're like, “I'm going to help this person. This is the entire intention. If I haven't removed a block, I'm doing this wrong.” I'm entirely off base. That becomes this huge pressure internally of what's the right question to ask? What do I do? How do I relate to this specifically? How do I calm your own experience, not have that voice to say like, “No, I've tried that. I've done this. Here's the things I did.” Not assume that you know what is there. And not assume that you have to have the perfect question is what I've found in doing things like fishbowl coaching and what I found in doing the ones where just like, one person asks a question at a time.

You'll find the threads. The threads will reappear if you're listening for them. If you find that listening muscle and what a great application of it, if you get a chance to go do a program like you're doing where you have something, you've heard 10,000 times before, or you have a lot of experience with personally, but you get a new angle on and eventually, you'll find all these threads. Eventually you have. If you just let it play out for long enough, you find whatever needed to be said, as long as you just listen well, stay curious and really just poke around.

Nina Cashman: That's a great example, Alex, too, of what we were talking about earlier of the different ways to pursue knowledge and learn. Listening is one of the most practical examples of allowing the infinite to come to you, letting people talk, letting people inform you. Instead of feeling like, you have to take up the space to chime in and to process what you think about it, just really listening so you can receive even more and maybe get some more depth. It is yet another example of the difference between strong pursuit of knowledge, where you're actively pursuing something, as opposed to sitting back and allowing some things in. Yeah, so back to the learning thing as you were talking, it just made me think about that.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah, absolutely.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing. If we think about the SPIRE piece, it's almost you're getting two things happening at the same time, because you're feeding the intellectual side and you're feeding the relational side.

Nina Cashman: Yeah, great point.

Cristina Amigoni: Both of those, which then influences the emotional side if you actually feel that deeper connection.

Nina Cashman: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, think about so many people have said over time, and I tend to agree that what it is we all want is to feel heard, or to be understood. I think that's a big reason why we as coaches actually continue to get clients. I'm realizing, it's less about it probably has most to do with the fact that we give people space to be heard and that we're validating what people are experiencing, because the world has just gotten so busy and not a lot of people have time to give you that space. So, it feels so good when it's given to you.

That's such a great point to see that, Cristina, how these different elements work together by learning of someone else, by learning about them, you're also building rapport and building a relationship.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, the space pieces. I always, with going back to what Alex said too, when you get out of that, I guess, novice coach mentality of like, “Oh, I have to have the perfect question and this needs to remove blocks,” and all these things where it becomes about my experience in the coaching session, not a client's experience in the coaching session. One of the things that, I guess, it's it feeds my spiritual and side of things of the SPIRE is when at the end of a session where 99% was giving space and going wherever the client needed to go and just listening and validating and asking very few questions, because it's more about providing that space where at the end get back into, how else can I help? How was the session? The answer is, this is exactly what I needed. This is the help. You are helping just by this.

Nina Cashman: Just by giving me permission to process and have an experience. That's almost the gold. That's the gold of why we continue to get hired. It's not the fieldwork exercises that we give people, or the sharing of information that we give of people. It's not so funny to you now that both of you have been through and you both are coaches and you both are in the field and working and you've gone through intensive coach training. Isn't it fascinating still how many people think that you're in the business of going around and giving people advice and answers? It's amazing.

Cristina Amigoni: It is amazing. Yeah.

Nina Cashman: This understanding of what we do, especially now when it's so embraced and it's blown up so much. I mean, our industry is just on fire. You don't have to explain it as much as you used to. Even when I first got started in 2014, I felt like it needed more explaining than it does now. Even so, anyone who's never worked with a coach is like, “So, what do you know about life that's going to teach people?” You're like, “Oh, wow. We just got to start at the beginning without one.” That is not what we're here to do. That is not what we’re here to do. If anyone who's wandering around calling themselves coaches is saying that, then they probably have not gone through intense training to be certified, right? There are still a lot of – it's still a pretty cowboy industry.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, it definitely is. The rewarding piece is, especially, we've worked with some clients that we've now worked with intensely for the last three years, is that they have now felt, I guess, the reward, the benefits of having the space of being able to process of having that piece that was missing, that they're the first ones to send us into rooms with other, with people that don't know us at all. All they say, just like, “Just be there. You don't actually have to do anything. Just be you. Just be there. Let whatever has to happen happen.” They'll convince entire departments of leaders to just allow us in the room, because they're just going to be here to be here.

Nina Cashman: In larger group environments as well, not just one on one.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. It usually takes Alex starting with, “How's everybody doing?” Then, we don't talk for an hour. It's just one after the other sharing. Then it's like, “Okay, can we do it again next week?”

Nina Cashman: What you're saying then is just your presence there gives the group a sense that they can express themselves more genuinely, is what I'm picking up on here. Just by you being there and not saying a word.

Cristina Amigoni: Mm-hmm.

Nina Cashman: Isn't that amazing? What that tells me is that you're radiating a sense of genuine understanding and deep listening. They know that. You're mirroring that. Because of that, people feel comfortable opening up, just through your mere presence. That is again, yet another example of not having to show up in this strong pursuit of doing, to your point, Cristina, and just being and showing up with that has such a great influence. That's powerful. What a great example.

Alex Cullimore: It's fun to experience. Yet, sometimes still, I find myself on guard for the one time when we're going to be listening for an hour and at the end of it, they're going to be like, “Well, you didn't do anything.” I still feel like I'm waiting for that. It's never happened. Not once. Everybody does, I think, just end up appreciating that space and they feel that and they let it go and they have some. It's incredible how helpful that is. Sometimes I feel like, I'm at the end of an hour and I'm like, “This is great. I learned a lot.” But I'm still sometimes on guard like, “Oh, are they going to feel that? Because I feel like, I was here. I was definitely present. I was here. I was here to listen.”

I'm waiting for that one time where somebody's going to be like, “Do you even do anything here?” I’ll be like, “No, but yes.” Every time they feel it and they get something out of it and I've never once been proven right in this fear, and still everyone's going internally, I'm like, “This is the time. This is the time they're going to be like, you didn't do anything.”

Nina Cashman: Except provide a very safe space for an emotional release to happen. Again, we were talking a bit before we jumped on and worthwhile bringing up now. There was more and more research behind, and I learned it in my master's program, a lot of backing on this, that if you don't release emotions and process emotions, give yourself permission to be human, as one might put it, that will store itself in the body and become a physical deficiency. Now, not only are you feeling emotionally stressed, that starts to take a physical goal, which of course, influences the other elements as well, spiritual, relational, the whole nine, intellectual, now you're distracted. It's amazing that companies are waking up to the importance of that space. 

Truthfully, I have found, too, in the executive coaching arena that that is probably the greatest benefit that I provide is giving people a space to speak at a deeply personal level. I will say, I might be a little biased, but as I observe a lot of different coaches try and establish internal coaching departments, I find that there is a benefit to having an external coach who's not tied into the system and doesn't have to serve anyone in the organization, other than the client. We as those external forces, we are not serving anyone, but there's no agenda we're attached to other than the agenda of the client. For that reason, it's a very wide-open space. That release that happens, that process that happens in a 50 to 60 to 90-minute session makes someone a better leader, a better person, because they got it off their chest. 

They're not storing it inside anymore, where it stirs and then it causes ulcers and it causes your head to spin, or whatever it is, it's released. Not only was it released, it was released in the presence of someone who was understanding about it. Someone who has worked with enough people to know that it's a very human experience, what you're going through. Isn't that one of the best aspects of our jobs? The more you work with people, of all different titles and all different backgrounds, all different genders, all different sexualities, everything, what you realize is we are so much more alike than we are different. So, nothing shocks you anymore. It's like, yeah.

Maybe that's why Cristina refers to me as the person who goes in with a hammer. It's just like, you've seen enough and you know when someone is still going through even the deeper emotional intensity of being embarrassed about the fact that they are fallible and human. That's even more torture. It's like, just let it loose, just go there, just let yourself feel troubled for a moment. Once that releases, this whole new space is going to open up. Speaking of space, it's not just the space we give them. It's the space that opens up for people afterwards once they're given it.

Cristina Amigoni: Which, and then in turn, they provide it other people. They feel the benefit of having that space. So, then they turn around and provide it to their peers and their teams, or their friend at work, or their families. It's this constant ripple effect of space creation to be able to be human and be okay with it without the shame.

Nina Cashman: Absolutely. Yeah, because shame on top of whatever emotion you're stuffing down, like, come on.

Cristina Amigoni: Just talk about physical ailments. It's my backwards hysteria.

Nina Cashman: Nobody got time for that. We got things to do. That will really distract you. We feel shameful of, again, experiencing what it is where we were put on Earth to do. Part of what we were put on Earth to do is process pain. Anyone who wants to go head-to-head with me on that, I'd love to. There's enough pain in the world. There's enough evidence to show that that is a part of the earthly experience here. To say that you're immune to pain is –

Cristina Amigoni: Your body will say otherwise.

Nina Cashman: Yes. Yeah, your body will say it all. You’re right.

Cristina Amigoni: Or the people that are around you and have to deal with you trying to release your pain on others will say otherwise.

Nina Cashman: Your relational SPIRE will certainly rend all.

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly.

Nina Cashman: You're not feeling this. Everyone else around you is.

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly. Yes. It will let them so much to go into the other stuff.

Nina Cashman: So funny. I read a really cool quote, actually, earlier today, as I was studying as a part of my – I probably put in 20 or 25 hours a week into this program. I was reading an article. Oh, I wish I could reference the author off the top of my head. Maybe I can send it to you if you do podcast –

Cristina Amigoni: We’ll put it in the notes. Yes.

Nina Cashman: With everyone. It was about this idea of how we have the tendency to take credit for when things in our lives are going well externally. I think the article is about triggers. If triggered and triggered in a way that doesn't feel good, then it's someone else's fault.

Cristina Amigoni: Oh, yeah.

Nina Cashman: Then we blame everyone. It's everyone else's fault. Instead of recognizing, and we teach this also in iPEC, that oftentimes, there's a deeper route to our external triggers. That is, and then that's actually where we have control, and that has to do with our internal belief system, some of which do trace back to childhood. The stimulus happens, something happens to us. We process it through the filter of maybe our six-year-old brain and went through some painful experience. It's this person's fault. Now, we're completely out of control. Because what are we going to do with that, instead of –

Cristina Amigoni: Of like six-year-olds.

Nina Cashman: - of it. To some extent, I mean, we can't take ownership for everyone's actions, but we definitely can take ownership for how we're going to engage with another person's actions.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, it's fascinating. I think Dr. Gabor talks about that, too. It's like, you're going to get triggered. It's the same iPEC concept of if somebody pushes a button, because there's a button there to begin with. Instead of reacting and pushing back and blaming the person that pushed the button, or the situation that pushed the button, figure out why there's a button there.

Nina Cashman: Absolutely. I actually just looked this up, too. The article, I'll send to you guys. It's just a book review summary of Martin Goldsmith's book called Triggers, which might be interesting for your crowd to take a look at.

Cristina Amigoni: To conclude this part of talking to you, because we could talk to you forever.

Nina Cashman: Remember our hallway analogies the last time, or was it furniture?

Alex Cullimore: I believe it was hallways.

Cristina Amigoni: It was something. No, we got a –

Nina Cashman: We got on a lot of whole wheel is all I know.

Cristina Amigoni: We've got a flattened wheel on this one.

Nina Cashman: All right.

Cristina Amigoni: Where it’s like, cocoon, cocoon, cocoon.

Nina Cashman: I saw Alex's eyebrows raise during that moment of the podcast.

Alex Cullimore: I love that a bitch. That's a great one. That's perfectly about it, and the pressures that it puts on and just the uneven ride that she really get to feel as you ride over and partially flat.

Nina Cashman: The intention.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. What is your definition of authenticity, three years later, four years later, however it's been?

Nina Cashman: I love that question. I think there's so many definitions. I'm going to go with the vein of what we talked about, because it came up for a reason. Authenticity is being present with another human being. Authenticity is just pure presence. The easiest way to find presence and to put that into practice is to be a good listener. That is the easiest way. It's funny, when we listen to others and we invite others to be themselves, they give off and radiate the energy to us that it's safe to be ourselves. When someone is not a good listener, we don't feel safe to be authentic. That might be a good red flag, actually.

I don't necessarily, I'm getting to the place in my life where sometimes I'm noticing scenarios where my authenticity is not warranted, actually. In fact, the most authentic thing to do maybe would be just to go and put myself in a different setting than that. If someone is present with you, that's an indicator that it is safe to be authentic. When you are present with someone else and interested and curious about someone else, then you're inviting them into their authenticity.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, it's beautiful. Especially if you're the one providing that space and being present with them, because then the focus has shifted from which mask and armor, who do I need to be in this situation to be accepted? Because all you're focusing on is accepting somebody else.

Nina Cashman: Yeah, and how hard does that have to be? It's not. If you just do it. That's one of the things, I think, both of you are really good at. That's why you're on your 160 something episode, really. Because it's just showing up and being present and giving people the space to share of themselves and then sharing that with even a wider audience. I mean, it's exactly what you're doing.

Cristina Amigoni: Thank you. Where can people find you and your fabulous blog posts?

Nina Cashman: Oh, yes. Just go to paveyourway.com. There's a tab for my blogs, and you'll see all those. I love them.

Cristina Amigoni: They’re great. They really are.

Nina Cashman: My God. I don’t know if everyone else does.

Cristina Amigoni: I do.

Nina Cashman: Sometimes I’m like, “I'm the only one who's enjoying this?”

Cristina Amigoni: You’ve got at least one other who reads and likes them.

Nina Cashman: They definitely get some traffic. But it is funny, sometimes you do wonder when you produce content like, did everyone enjoy reading this as much as me? Because it wasn't always that easy. Yeah. So, paveyourway.com and just hit the blog tab. I've been writing actually, since 2014. That's been an evolution over time. Lately, because I have been so busy with this program, I've mainly just been posting my assignments. I'll probably, once I graduate, get back to some different topics, or sporadically, I do as well.

Then lastly, just as a plug for them as well, for anyone who's interested in looking into it, I would say, check out hsa.com, is a great place to start to learn more about the Happiness Studies Academy. Maybe at a base level, learn about the certificate program. Then for those who are coaches, I'm sure a lot of coaches are in your audience and listen to your podcast, might also be interested in the master's program. I'm pretty sure there's a link on the HSA, the Happiness Studies Academy page for the master's program.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, there is. Yeah, there is. Yeah. I've done quite the research on that.

Nina Cashman: Well, maybe –

Cristina Amigoni: Waiting for my moment to be like, “Okay, this is the moment.” Definitely interested. It's just like iPEC. I knew what? Three or four years before I did iPEC that I wanted to do it. It's probably not going to take me three years, but I'm just starting something else that will stimulate me intellectually. So, when that's done, it'll probably be the next thing.

Nina Cashman: You've planted. It's like planting all the seed, right?

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Nina. Always wonderful to talk to you and listen to you.

Nina Cashman: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Alex Cullimore: Congratulations on graduating soon.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Congratulations.

Alex Cullimore: You have a happy day.

Nina Cashman: I appreciate that. I'll post a picture with my cap on.

Cristina Amigoni: Perfect. All right. And thanks, everybody, for listening.

[OUTRO]

Alex Cullimore: Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Uncover the Human. Special thanks to Rachel Sherwood, who help to produce our theme. And of course, our production assistants, Carlee and Niki, for whom we could not do this, or could not publish this. We get to do, basically, the fun parts. And thank you to We Edit Podcasts for editing our podcasts.

Cristina Amigoni: You can find us at podcast@wearesiamo.com. You can find us on LinkedIn. You can find us at Uncover the Human on social media. Follow us. We Are Siamo is W-E-A-R-E-S-I-A-M-O.com.

Alex Cullimore: Please feel free to reach out with questions, topics you'd like addressed. If you'd like to be on the show, reach out. We're around. Thank you, everybody, for listening.

[END]