LLI 55 Love Like a Leader: Intimacy, Vulnerability & the Power of Not Knowing

00:00:00: What does it mean to love like a leader?

00:00:03: Relationships.

00:00:05: Iteration number 55 of the Love Louder podcast, Iterations on Becoming Human.

00:00:12: It is in our intimate relationships, the closest ones, that we get the chance to face our shadows,

00:00:23: to face patterns and habits that are destructive.

00:00:30: But it does not only show in the relationships close to us,

00:00:39: but also in how we face life, how we meet acquaintances and just other people's strangers.

00:00:51: So what does it mean to love like a leader, to love in the broadest sense, not only romantically,

00:01:03: but to infuse your being, your doing, your doing with love.

00:01:10: And sometimes that means showing up without knowing.

00:01:16: I thought wisdom came from experience.

00:01:26: But I have experienced a lot and I've seen very experienced people who are not necessarily wise.

00:01:36: Then I thought it might be from learning, but then you can gain a library of knowledge and still not be wise.

00:01:46: And when you call yourself wise, someone who calls themselves wise, they make a fool out of themselves instantly.

00:02:00: The same is with present. When you have to say you're present, you are just really trying to prove that you're here while being absent.

00:02:10: And have you noticed that?

00:02:15: Maybe when you have a friend or a person, when they told you like, "I am here, I am present, I am here."

00:02:29: Or I know better that it actually severes the connection between you, the two of you, or might be two people, it might be you and a group.

00:02:41: So loving like a leader sometimes just is showing up without knowing the answer.

00:02:56: Showing up without knowing the answer but staying. That is self-leadership.

00:03:04: It is being vulnerable with yourself and being able to show it, to share it.

00:03:18: Being daring, daring to show it, because you're always able to show vulnerability. It's just sometimes we fear to show up as a person who does not know.

00:03:36: How often has it been in a group where someone was talking about a certain subject and it seemed like everyone understood and you did not and then you just nodded and went along?

00:03:52: Not daring to ask, "Hey, what does it actually mean?"

00:03:59: How often does it happen when we are in a discussion with a friend or a loved one?

00:04:07: That gets intense when we fall into that notion of knowing better, knowing how things are supposed to be.

00:04:23: Instead of facing the ambiguity, instead of facing that neither ours nor the viewpoint of the other person is more or less correct, it is just an exchange.

00:04:42: But when we have closed our hearts, when we are to focus on pushing and forcing our own will onto another person, we will not be able to see it and really we lost the connection.

00:05:03: We are not in this relationship in that instant.

00:05:10: Instead of facing the ambiguity which is crazy, we tend to run for the answer or we cave in.

00:05:27: We tend to look for solutions immediately and we try to impose what we think on others.

00:05:40: And this can happen very subtly.

00:05:44: Sometimes it doesn't even happen by you speaking up.

00:05:50: Sometimes it just is refusing to listen.

00:05:56: [BLANK_AUDIO]

00:06:05: to hear the voice of the other one, the word spoken, but not pausing.

00:06:09: Till the sun, to let it sink, to being open that there is another possibility.

00:06:26: That's why loving like a leader sometimes just shows up as saying, "I don't know, but I care, so yeah, I stay."

00:06:40: And you do not even have to say that you stay. It is sufficient. Show it to embody it.

00:06:52: That is self-leadership. That is facing your own not knowingness.

00:06:58: That is facing the uncertainty that you can find in yourself and that uncomfortable feeling that is very often connected to it.

00:07:11: It is also meaning surrender, the surrender of control.

00:07:17: That means loving like a leader. That means infusing, pairing leadership and love.

00:07:27: And that's how you will reach out to the world in your intimate relationships.

00:07:39: With your friends, acquaintances, colleagues, strangers, it will show because all of a sudden the connections you will, you experience, they get a different taste, a different quality.

00:07:53: All of a sudden it is not about being the expert anymore. It's about being human.

00:08:08: It's about dropping the mask of professionalism, the mask of the expert unlearning it,

00:08:19: and leaning into intimacy and from there you can lead and it will be much more impactful.

00:08:31: It will have an impact while with the other one you are very limited.

00:08:47: You are very limited in that space when you try to put up a mask of knowing, of knowing better, of having the answer.

00:08:59: And that's how a tepid says human beings because sometimes we just get afraid to be vulnerable, to say that we don't know.

00:09:08: We get afraid to show that we're uncertain and all the feelings connected to it.

00:09:16: And practicing to dropping that notion and to facing this uncertainty in ourselves,

00:09:39: meeting each other in that knowingness not knowing together, it creates true intimacy and it is the base of a powerful leadership.

00:09:54: That is what loving like a leader means to me.

00:10:00: It's just one aspect and my invitation to you for today is for us today to really notice when we try to have the answer right at hand,

00:10:19: when there is a question coming up to have the answer right at hand, when there is a situation that feels uncomfortable.

00:10:32: Now it's tricky.

00:10:37: This one is tricky because sometimes we fall into saying, "I don't know" very quickly.

00:10:45: Sometimes we fall into saying, "Oh, I don't know. I didn't know so I did that."

00:10:49: Which then is us tricking ourselves into, "Oh, I could not have known. I could not have done it another way."

00:11:01: Sometimes it's this that we try to avoid the situation that we try to face where there is.

00:11:11: So be aware of that and see if you can find a place of not knowingness that is just real and true to your heart, that is vulnerable,

00:11:35: and that is disruptive at the same time.

00:11:40: Just notice, be gentle with yourself.

00:11:48: Love a little louder.

00:11:52: Shang.

00:11:53: [BLANK_AUDIO]