Episode 816 Invest in Yourself - Interview with Stacy Henry – Part 1
[00:00:00] Thanks for joining us on episode 816 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Stacy Henry owner and coach at center branch, where we grow great leaders. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your colleagues.
[00:00:27] Having the ability to deal well with change is key. And one way to be inspired to do this is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader,
[00:00:39]first and foremost, you have to figure out your group, what are those value? And then are those value. Driving the decisions, the actions, the words, the behaviors that you're exhibiting and in that relates to how other people are experiencing you. A really easy way to [00:01:00] figure out your center branch, to ask other people.
[00:01:03] Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling and the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you.
[00:01:27] Can impact the world
[00:01:29]interview with Stacy Henry. I asked Stacy about her book get rooted and how we can all grow through change. Also ask her to share how these ideas can help you manage and weather change. And Stacy also shares with you the eight values that are the key to really managing change. One reason I like to bring you great interviews.
[00:01:52] Like the one you're going to hear today is because of the power in learning from others. Another great way to learn [00:02:00] from others is through reading books. But if you're like most people today, you find it hard to find the time to sit down and read. And that's why today's podcast is brought to you by audible.
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[00:02:39] Stacy Henry is the owner and founder of center branch, a people centered leadership business dedicated to helping both companies and individuals perform to their highest potential with services that include keynote speaking and workshop, facilitation, women's development and leadership and executive coaching center branch enables people to be their best so [00:03:00] that they and the companies they work for may flourish.
[00:03:02] Stacy brings 25 years of experience to center branch from a variety of global industries as an executive coach and HR business partner for C suite leaders in 2020, Stacy worked directly with the chief financial officer, chief communications officer and the head of strategic development at Collins aerospace.
[00:03:21] When it merged with Raytheon technologies prior to founding center branch, she was the head HR partner for the central functions at Collins aerospace, a Raytheon technologies company. She's also the author of get rooted, helping you identify values so you can understand your roots and using that foundation deal better with change.
[00:03:42]Welcome to the show, Stacy. Thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here. So we're talking today about this book get rooted, you've had quite a history, we just talked about it in the intro, but one of this ideas that I loved and are [00:04:00] resonated with in the book that you touch on real early, is this idea that you can either go through change.
[00:04:06] Or you can grow through change, which, first off sounds like a clever tagline, but again, getting into the book, I know you mean it a little bit different than that. Can you talk a little bit about the difference between those and how our mindset can shift between that? Absolutely. I'll start by saying that.
[00:04:27] Throughout the course of my personal journey whether it was working in small companies, large companies, it didn't matter. There was change happening everywhere. I looked and every time I took a new role or went to a new company, I thought, okay, they won't experience that much change. And boy was I wrong?
[00:04:48] So I started to realize, okay Change is a thing. It is always going to be a thing. And then as I started coaching people, one of [00:05:00] the aspects that we coached about all the time, despite the background of the individual was change. And I heard saying and I admittedly said things like, I didn't have a choice in this change or.
[00:05:18] They the proverbial air quote, they are making the decisions about the change or the change is difficult and I could go on and on and I paused and I realized change is inevitable. Sometimes we don't get the choice in the change. Sometimes we're not choosing it. And if we take this past year, we didn't choose that change.
[00:05:46] What we do have a choice in is how we show up and how we both respond and react to that change. And that's a little bit about what I'm talking about in the [00:06:00] question. Do you go through change or do you grow through change and it really starts with your first choice point and that choice point is, do I.
[00:06:10] Do I hold on to the past and resist the change. It doesn't matter if I resist it and hold onto the past, it's still going to go through it. It's going to happen. Or do I embrace the change? And do I grow through that? And by no stretch of the imagination, do I think that embracing change and growing is the easier choice?
[00:06:31] It's actually the much more difficult choice because we don't know necessarily what. That means sometimes embracing the change feels like you're grabbing a hold of a cactus, but you're going to grow through the experience of seeing what's on the other side versus getting stuck and just forcibly going through the change.
[00:06:55] Yeah, one of my pet phrases and when I'm working with clients, I call them out on this [00:07:00] is hearing clients say I had to. And my answer to that always is no you chose to. And because even if it's an evitable, even if it's something that happened from outside, there's still, you have that power of choice by saying I had to you're abdicating choice.
[00:07:17] You're saying I have no power in this relationship. You're giving up your power. When in reality you have. Cause you, like you said, you could still choose how you react to it. Absolutely agree. Couldn't agree more on that. It's really hard. Like COVID, we'll use that as the example and nobody wants this to happen and nobody enjoys it.
[00:07:37] And we all get tired of the endless zoom meetings and whatnot. It's still yeah. But you can choose to react in a positive way or negative way. In either way. And that has a lot more to do with what happens to you. So as part of that, you talk in the book about, these get rooted is the title and about these values that we're rooted in and how that is part [00:08:00] of the key to weathering.
[00:08:01] Change. So how is it that as individuals we can identify and develop those strong values so that we can indeed grow through change and manage change? So it's a great question. And I'll pause and I'll just give a little bit of a backstory of why. I equate trees and roots to leadership and people.
[00:08:27] And when I think about people and I think about leaders, whether you're a leader of self, where, or a leader of others, we have a lot in common with a tree. So we all show up, right? We all have an outward exterior, same thing with a tree. You could have a ficus, you could have a Palm tree. You could have, I'm looking at the mountains at, all of the giant trees here, they all have the same thing in common, and that is that they have a center branch and they have a root system.
[00:08:58] And that root [00:09:00] system in a tree is really what nourishes that center branch. And I know that when I think about leaders, what we're rooted in nourishing, how we're showing up. And so when you ask the question about. How we're weathering change based on what we're rooted in. I really do think of it like the tree, the ground, that, that tree is rooted in.
[00:09:26] If it's good ground good soil, and the roots are deep, it's going to withstand all of the weather that comes along. And the same thing is true of people when we're able to look inside and really identify. What are we rooted in? What are our core values? Then we're able to really decide is this working for me?
[00:09:57] And from there, [00:10:00] that's going to help us really manage change. And it sounds easy when I say it out loud, people are probably like, Oh, that sounds easy. It's not, it really takes a ton of work looking on the inside. To get crystal clear on what are my roots or what are my strong values that I have today? Do I need to shift anything?
[00:10:25] Yeah. And again, this week we're focusing on kind of that develop yourself or invest in yourself mindset. And I think that's one of the things that I appreciated about the book is you do point out that it is, there is a degree to this that is it's dependent upon self development. It doesn't come from outside.
[00:10:41] You have to work on yourself first a hundred percent. And it's way easier to think about. Others and organizations and everything else than it is to start with self. And I actually start the book by saying, you have a choice to make, we talked about that. And then [00:11:00] we have to look inside and really take stock of what's driving us.
[00:11:06] What's giving us, our. Our decision-making what's really, giving us the thoughts that are being projected outward and investing in ourselves and learning to grow internally is the hardest and the most important step. So let's dive in a little bit. You talk about eight specific values in the book that you identify as a key and you actually highlight them in pairing with the positive side of the corn and the negative side of the coin kind of illustration, but let's dive into those eight values that you talk about and you spend a lot of time on, what are they tell us a little bit about, on what should people take from that?
[00:11:45] Absolutely. So the eight values, when I call them eight roots are in there they're core values and they're universal. And the reason that I selected these eight values it's because they were personally [00:12:00] for me. The ones that made the most impact in kind of the work that I was doing on myself and with others.
[00:12:06] But it's also what I'm finding with my clientele, whether it's individuals or organizations, these are the most common. And to your point I look at a dichotomy and we'll start with the very first one, which is love. And I look at love versus conflict. And there I paused because. I don't want to push back to be really honest for using the word love or for putting it in a dichotomy with conflict, both really, both really for using the word love in the sense of Stacy.
[00:12:44] People in business will read this and I'm sure they will. And it's the most important. It's why it's number one love and the absence of love and the absence of being rooted in love always will lead to [00:13:00] conflict. And in my opinion, it's really strengthening one or the other. And I'll give you an example.
[00:13:09] I thought, okay. That I had always been rooted in love. And I went to an organization that I was quite excited about. And out of the blue, there was a change. I didn't choose the change. And in retrospect, I didn't respond appropriately, but I had a change in my direct leader and this person came in and he and I were.
[00:13:35] Like oil and water. And while I tried very hard to look past that and be the best employer that I possibly could, there were triggers that created conflict. And I don't know if it was purposeful conflict, but it turned out to be later on that conflict that we experienced. Towards each [00:14:00] other actually bled over into the rest of the organization and our team then started having all of this conflict and it wasn't until hell.
[00:14:09] I really took a step back and took stock of what I was rooted in and said, Oh my gosh, I'm contributing. And I thought I was just simply responding. And I actually, because I wasn't responding in love the benevolent true pair of love. I was contributing to conflict and it was a moment for me that was like a light bulb of, Oh no, I'm a part of this.
[00:14:34] And as a part of it, I couldn't blame anyone else. After that point, I had to do my part to get rooted in love versus conflict, and that can, we can apply that to any part of life. It doesn't have to just be in a work environment when you think about our personal relationships. And we think about.
[00:14:53] What we're invested in, are we invested in love or conflict? And it's that [00:15:00] servant mindset too. It's are you looking for us to serve or are you looking to be served? And it is that it is exactly that it's honestly, if we're honest, there's times that we all are looking to be served, not served first that's inherit in the human condition. We do that at times. 100% agree. And that's actually another route in the book. And so when we talk about the eight values, another one is service versus selfishness.
[00:15:27] And it stems from that love group. Am I looking to be of service to those that are around me? Am I really mindfully and like being authentic in choosing. To be of service or. Am I not. And when I'm not, it's usually people don't wake up and say, I think today I'm going to be selfish. That's not what happened.
[00:15:55] What happened?
[00:15:56]again, I used to have a car. I used to lead a team of [00:16:00] leaders. The senior leader. And one of the litanies I used to say is, believe it or not, people usually don't show up to work on Monday thinking, boy, I really hope I stink at my job this week. It's just, that's not the mindset that people it's the same thing.
[00:16:12] Most of us really don't go, Oh, I really want to be selfish today. No, if we don't and it shows up in ways, that's split if you will. And so if you think about a day, any given day, if you're back to back meetings or you're getting up and you're getting your kids ready for school, whether zoom or in person, and you're going about your day.
[00:16:35] You might only have a 30 minute or a 15 minute window and selfishly, we want to protect that time. But by intentionally doing that over and over again, you're strengthening that root of selfishness versus truly serving other people. And I want to point out that. It's important to be selfish with.
[00:16:57] Self-care it's important sometimes to [00:17:00] take the pause, but when that becomes your norm and you're not actively in service, that's going to be the route that shows up for you. And I would even argue that selfishness and self care. Aren't the same thing either, because self care also still comes out of a mindset of service in that if I don't take care of myself, I'm not taking care of anybody else, cause if I'm tired of it, yeah. Stressed out and angry. Then I'm going to bite my, my wife's head or my son's head off when, in reality I shouldn't have, because I'm exhausted because I'm not taking care of myself. Yeah. Absolutely. It's the energy meter or, are we putting in exactly what we're going out?
[00:17:36] And I know you've recently talked about, the energy and that really struck me because it's exactly what we're talking about here, so completely agree. So there are a few others what's. Yeah. Keep going. Versus. Control. This is a biggie. I'm a reformed control freak, and I say that tongue in cheek I used to be a micromanager and I thought I was [00:18:00] doing it in service.
[00:18:01] I really thought I was doing a good thing. And what happened was I just told my team, I didn't trust them by my actions of me doing their work all over again, which was bananas. And I actually had a really. Brave employee tell me that during a performance review and it changed my, it literally changed my world.
[00:18:22] So I applaud her for that. We look at integrity versus dishonesty. And where are you rooted there again, same thing with selfishness people usually don't get up and say, I'm going to be dishonest today. When I talk about integrity, it's doing the right thing. No matter what. And really getting crystal clear on yourself on where's your line in the sand and what is it that's going to happen for you not to step over that line over time, that line washes away and we re readjust, or we draw the [00:19:00] line and it's never in that same space.
[00:19:02] So for this it's really about what have I maybe looked past. Or where is my compass today versus where it was before and taking that internal look to say, am I in integrity, a hundred percent of the time. We talk about joy versus complacency and the importance of why having a joyful mindset is not just things and in black and the lack of joy often it's complacency, and we just stopped.
[00:19:33] Self-monitoring. And then let's go back to that one for a minute. Cause. And again, I have the benefit of having looked at the book and read the book already, but for the listener, joy and complacency, I don't think it's two things that, you know, joy and, unhappiness people would think of joy and, just satisfaction maybe or frustration or, but joy and complacency.
[00:19:55] Can you unpack a little bit more? Why did you put complacency is the [00:20:00] dichotomy for joy? Absolutely. I think complacency has become unfortunately, a new norm in a new value and complacency. When I think about it, I really think about it in the sense of, you're just going through the day.
[00:20:15] You may get up, you may do your thing, whether you're at home or you're going to work, but there's something missing. There's a lack of. Insert word there, there's a lack of something and complacency. You might very well be doing a good job and zero joy in your life. And it's up to us as individuals to determine what gives us joy.
[00:20:46] It's not up to anybody else. And we look to. Toot or alcohol or stuff where the next big job or whatever it is to give us joy. And [00:21:00] we might feel excited, but we don't feel true joy because that feeling goes away. And then he sat back into complacency. So is that temporary feeling of, and I would, again I equate, there's a difference between joy and happiness in that happiness is a temporary state.
[00:21:15] We visit it. Joy is a state of mind. We can live there. It's because it is a recognize or contentment might be another even word too, to satisfactory. Those sorts of analogies for joy there as well, okay. Thank you. That helps because I know when I first read that when I went okay, that's not the two I would have put together.
[00:21:34] Let me read that. Keep going. What else? One that's especially important to me is spirituality versus nothingness. And I define spirituality as my relationship with Jesus and others. They might not, they might define spirituality completely differently, but it's really this idea. Yeah.
[00:21:56]That there's something more and bigger. [00:22:00] Really driving the work that we're doing, both in ourselves and with others. And a lack of that is really, it feels like nothing. And I had somebody described to me once, like he felt this complete void. And at first, when I started talking with him in our coaching sessions, I thought he was referring to a lack of joy and what he was referring to was really.
[00:22:28] A void of nothingness, which was a lack of spirituality. He had no belief system beyond just what he could control and what he could do. And it really, it was quite sad for me. And it made me realize, Oh my goodness, this is a key route. And I bet there so many other people that have this feeling of nothingness.
[00:22:53] When that can be replaced with the spirituality route. So let's say love, service, [00:23:00] trust, integrity, joy spirituality. Is that it? One more so there's progress versus perfection. And I'm also a recovering perfectionist. I say that in air quotes, because it's have you perfectly given up, have you perfectly given up your lack of being a control freak?
[00:23:22] So anyway, sorry. Yeah, I'm getting there the way. My name is Scott. I'm also a recovering control, freak and perfectionist. So I can deal with that. Everyone say hi, Scott.
[00:23:38]Hi, Scott, I'm Stacy,
[00:23:41]a 12 step program for recovering perfectionist. That would be an interesting group, but anyway so progress versus perfectionist or perfection, I had a mentor. Tell me good is good. And I really, I let that sink in. When I say that, now I say that to other people and I say it to myself, stopped [00:24:00] often.
[00:24:00] Good. Is good. And we often think that good has this negative connotation because it's not perfect where it couldn't be better. And in the true sense of the actual definition, it's good. And that's really what progress is. It's saying, okay, it doesn't have to be everything that I think it should or could be because by the way, that's subjective.
[00:24:27] And it's a unicorn and no one really knows what perfection looks like, and we all know what good looks like. So if we strive for good we're making progress well, and that's like Jim Collins. Good to great. Good. Is the enemy right? Yeah. Great. Because, but we also notice, he doesn't say good to perfect.
[00:24:50] Yeah. You can improve, but you're not going to reach. Perfect. Yeah. I was raised Methodist, John Wesley's phrases on to perfection, but then he goes on to say, it's a journey into which you never [00:25:00] reached the destination. It's fine to strive, but you're never going to get there.
[00:25:02] So accept that too. I think we missed one relationship. Versus disengagement. I get right over that one. I apologize. So relationship versus disengagement it comes on the heels of love versus conflict and relationship is really about developing that true sense of knowing those people around you.
[00:25:29] And there's, it's so often that. Because of the busy-ness and because of the social media barriers that we have, that we feel like we have relationships, but we don't because we don't truly know what's going on with somebody, or we might not understand what's happening in their world. And the other side of that root is disengagement and it's really easy to get rooted in disengagement when we're not having authentic.
[00:26:00] [00:25:59] Real conversation and getting curious about people and getting insight into. What's going on with them. So these important, these eight values are the root system, so if, again, going back to your tree analogy, those are the support. But then you also talk about the center branch.
[00:26:19] You referenced that earlier, the the trunk and the core of the tree that goes up from that. And you talk also in the book about that center branch being the. The part that lies. I think you put it as that lies at the heart of our decisions. Which I liked that phrase. Can you talk a little bit more?
[00:26:34] So what's the center branch, how can we identify it? What, how do we make that part? Our own the center branch is it's really the way that I describe it. It's how people are experiencing you. And so it's the outward expression. Of our root system and our center branch, how people are outwardly experiencing us, [00:27:00] either in thought in action in, word, whatever it may be.
[00:27:05] All of that is derived from what we're rooted in. And sometimes there's a disconnect. So somebody may say my center branch, what I, what people are experiencing me as his love. And they're showing up potentially argumentative or in conflict, or looking through a lens of skepticism and they don't realize that they're skew.
[00:27:33] So to figure out your center branch, first and foremost, you have to figure out your roots, what are those values? And then are those values. Driving the decisions, the actions, the words, the behaviors that you're exhibiting and in that relates to how other people are experiencing you a really easy way to figure [00:28:00] out your center branch.
[00:28:01] And it's not necessarily the most fun way, but an easy way is to ask other people and to ask other people, how do you experience me and be ready for that answer and give them permission to be honest. Because a lot of times what we think and what's showing up and how people are experiencing us is completely different.
[00:28:21] And it's not intentional by any stretch of the imagination. Once you. Figure that part out and you can label your center branch. You can work to make sure that you're being authentic to that. So is that center branch always going to be one of the eight values that you talked about or is it more, how what would it look like for somebody maybe?
[00:28:41] I don't know if you would feel comfortable sharing your own, but uh, what would it look like for somebody. Sure and it, no, it doesn't have to be one of the, one of the eight routes. It could be the strongest of the eight roots or it could be something that contributes to that.
[00:28:54] And so my center branch really is my faith in [00:29:00] Jesus and my relationship in Jesus. And I want people to experience me, not necessarily, I'm not going out and saying, here is my center branch. It is Jesus. But the love, the trust, the integrity, the service, all of that contribute to how I'm showing up in the world and how people are experiencing me.
[00:29:24] So if I, if I say that my, my central branches, Jesus, and I'm showing up, tired and being spun out from. PR, perfection and trying to control everything that's going on in, in my life. That's a disconnect. So that's one example. I know another person who very clearly says that her center branch is.
[00:29:52] Growing other people. And so that's how people experienced her in every single situation and she's rooted in and [00:30:00] candor and part of growing other people is really giving some candid advice lovingly and it really, it matches up well. Yeah. So it's that, that, again, it's part of to integrity because if.
[00:30:13] I again it, and I think we've all experienced this, that somebody that says that there are certain thing, fill in the blank with your own message. And then every time you experienced some, it's that's not really how they act, and evidence, again, it's that you can tell me what you believe all day long, but if I don't see it in your actions, Then it feels inauthentic.
[00:30:37] It feels out of alignment. And we, we spot that a mile away. As human beings, a hundred percent, one of the ways that I explain center branch to people what is your center branch. Is I give them this idea of a scale and I call it the say, do ratio. And the center branch is your say, [00:31:00] do ratio, which should always be at 50 50.
[00:31:03] So exactly what you're saying. Are you doing what you're saying? Or are you saying what you're doing and when that's in alignment, usually you're aligned on your center branch as well. And again, like you said earlier, a lot of, we also have to recognize that other people's perceptions of that is an important measure of that, because I know there's points in my life where I've thought I was doing and saying everything.
[00:31:30] And then when I checked in with people discovered, no, that's not actually how others perceived it. And I needed to adjust my behavior. Yes, you're absolutely right. And it goes back to the beginning of our conversation about, when you decide to get rooted in the right routes, you have to be open-minded because as you're looking inside, that's only one lens.
[00:31:51] That's the first lens, it's the starting lens, but there's the other lens of how are people experiencing me and what's their perception. And so a [00:32:00] huge part of this is making sure that you're getting that insight. So that you can measure up against that as well. You can follow Stacy over on LinkedIn as Stacy, Henry Oh one, or you can find out more about her on her website@centrebranch.com.
[00:32:21] Of course I'll have links to all of that over in the show notes as well. Stacy, is there anything else you'd like to share with the listener? I just want to say, thank you so much to the listeners. And, I trust that you've taken a nugget or two through this, and I implore you to get really clear on your roots and then multiply that forward.
[00:32:41]thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoy this episode [00:33:00] please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes rate.
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