The Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown and Adam Grant - The Framework for Leading With Both Care and Accountability

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

This episode is a master class in coaching as Aiko Bethea, one of the most respected senior leadership coaches in the country, takes Brené through a current leadership conflict in real time, showing just how hard it is to slow down and lead from your values instead of your urgency. The coaching session is underpinned by Aiko's new "Anchored, Aligned, and Accountable" framework that focuses on why self-leadership is so critical in today's complex operating environment. Together, they dig into the difference between assuming good intent and believing someone is doing the best they can, and why that distinction changes what accountability actually looks like in practice. Aiko also introduces and models the powerful coaching practice of "three levels of listening" and how it's central to developing a coaching mindset. Aiko Bethea — Aiko Bethea, aikobethea.com Dare to Lead Hub — Brené Brown, brenebrown.com Audre Lorde — Mariana Brandman, 2021, National Women's History Museum bell hooks — Asami Robledo-Allen Yamamoto, 2025, National Women's History Museum RARE Coaching | Aiko Bethea (@rare_coach) — Aiko Bethea, n.d., Instagram Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams — Amy Edmondson, 1999, Administrative Science Quarterly This Is Our Reminder of What Courageous Leadership Looks Like — Brené Brown, 2026, LinkedIn One of the Greatest Joys of My Career Has Been… — Brené Brown, 2026, LinkedIn Futurist Amy Webb on What's Coming (and What's Here) — Brené Brown, 2024, Dare to Lead podcast Brené with Aiko Bethea on Inclusivity at Work: The Heart of Hard Conversations — Brené Brown, 2020, Dare to Lead podcast Rising Strong — Brené Brown, 2015, Random House Feeling Powerless at Work? Here's Where Your Agency Still Lives — Jessi Hempel, 2026, Hello Monday with Jessi Hempel Without Accountability, Just Throw It All Away — Aiko Bethea, 2023, LinkedIn (Street Lights newsletter) Post on Learning and Development (#learninganddevelopment) — Aiko Bethea, 2026, LinkedIn Dare to Lead — Brené Brown, 2018, Random House Stop Outsourcing Your Judgment: Brené Brown in Conversation with Leadership Coach Aiko Bethea — Brené Brown, 2026, Fast Company Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is a lesson in vulnerability. It's an opportunity to see what lightning in a bottle looks like and feels like. And it's a very exciting opportunity for Adam and I to introduce you to Icopathia. So I'll start here every now and then on stage when you're interviewing someone. you get this sense that the people in the audience are just, you could hear a pin drop. That's what happened earlier this year when I was interviewing Iko Bathia, one of the most respected senior leadership coaches in the country. I was interviewing Ico at a better up uplift conference. And I was talking to Ico about her new

book anchored, aligned, and accountable, which I'll tell you about in a second. And we basically got into a real life, real time role play while she was coaching me through a leadership conflict that was tearing me up at the time. And when our session at the conference was over, half the audience was in tears and the other half were lining up to talk to ICO. I think about their conflicts and leadership. But Iicopathy is a friend and mentor. She is an absolute partner for me in the dare to lead work. She's one of the most incredible coaches and facilitators that I've ever had the privilege to work with. She is just authored a new book called Anchored, Aligned and Accountable. And she introduces a framework that focuses on why self-leadership is

so critical in today's complex operating environment. In our conversation, we dig in to the difference between assuming positive intent and believing people that are, believing that people are doing the absolute best they can, and holding people accountable. Ico teaches me about this powerful coaching practice of three levels of listening. And she talks about how our bodies and minds are the real machines that we need to master before we worry about AI or machine learning or anything else. I think at a time when many of us are struggling

to find ourselves and to find each other, her anchored aligned accountable framework really offers a clear practical path to building trust and connection. As leaders, as partners, as friends, and I will say as parents, I use it with this framework with my kids. I'm so proud to say that her framework

has become deeply integrated into the dare to lead work and transformation work we do with organizations around the world. So welcome to this master class in coaching. It's a real opportunity to learn. I was going to say at my expense, but no, it's okay. I was worn out by the time it was over. I went back to my hotel room into the conference hotel room, had a little bit of a good cry, an equally powerful laugh, and then took a nap. And just a reminder, your hiatus ends. This is the last hiatus podcast. And then we're back next week with, you can hear, I think you can hear me smiling with a new podcast where we are joined by Roger Bennett,

one of my favorite people in the world to talk about lessons on love, laughter and what the World Cup meant to the world. So I'm glad you're with us. Thanks for hanging in our hiatus. And we're excited to be back with you. Support for the show comes from ServiceNow. AI is moving fast across the enterprise, but without visibility, it's just chaos. Different tools, different models, different teams using AI in completely different ways. ServiceNow turns the chaos into control. With the AI control tower, you see all your AI across the business in one place,

what it's doing, what it's done, and what it's about to do. So you stay in control. To put AI to work for people, visit ServiceNow.com. Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for MintMobil. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills. But it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial.

Give it a try at Mintmobile.com slash switch. Up from payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12-month plan required $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. Welcome to the Curiosity Shop, a show from the Fox Media Podcast Network. Hi, Iko, hey. I cannot tell y'all how excited I am to be here with my friend, teaching partner, facilitation partner, co-conspirator.

What other words would you use? All the things. the things. To talk about, and I think everybody got a copy, anchored, aligned, and accountable. Yeah. I thought it would be fun to tell you a little bit about our relationship and how we met, to start there.

So we were doing a dare-to-lead facilitation training. And jump in and correct me if I get this history wrong, because you know how history is. Yes, yes. Subjective. Yes. And one of our senior facilitators, reached out to me and said,

if you can get Ico Bathia to come to one of your trainings, it would be amazing. We worked together at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and she is such a badass. You really want her in this community. And even if she doesn't want to be in the community,

you want her at least at a training. And I was like, okay, okay. So we reached out and you said yes. Yes. What did you think? I was excited. I didn't know what to expect. So I was excited.

was super excited. Yeah. And I was just ready to learn. That was apparent when she got there. So basically for three intense days, these trains are these facilitation creditations are super intense. I lead them. It's a lot of uncomfortable learning and unlearning. And Ico was like the magnet in the room. Someone would share something. And my instinct would be like, oh, hell no, that is not the way you were going to do this. And I would just be getting ready to form those words, and Iko would say, I'm curious. Tell me more about what you're thinking.

I'm like, yeah, I'm curious too. And that person would share, and at the end of it, it was a problematic thought, but she's like, I really appreciate you so honestly. Honestly, I was like, yeah, me too. I too, whatever she said. And then... I think something I would want to share too,

because I can be a skeptic, and if many of you know my background, you know that I'm probably not the most, I have not always been the most open person all the time. So one of the things that Brunay did in this training, which is very unique, I think many of you might be able to relate to, is that in the training,

I think the composition is, when you're into a room, if you're like the, If there are not a lot of women there, you probably automatically notice how many women are there, right? And you know where they are, what exit were to go. If you're any kind of the only anything, you recognize the other people who are like you, right? Right off. So one of the things, so it was probably like, what, four or five brown people in this room of, I don't know, how many people, 250 or 150 or something.

And what was magical that I had not really seen somebody do before, a white person do before, was that Renee talked about within the first, this was about her. her work, her dare to lead work, and was throwing out the names like Bell Hooks, Audrey Lord, when they were saying these, as if everybody in the room should know these people. And automatically she did something which like flipped the room almost where if you were one of the only or others, you felt like this was your room. And I don't know if you know the power in being able to do that where people who are not usually seen all of a sudden in a room of that many people feel like I belong here. And so when we did meet like during a break, I said, was there like some pre-reading or something I missed?

Because I don't know if everybody here knows who Bell Hooks and Audrey Lord is. And you're kind of surprised or what have you. But the idea that all of these other voices and people you brought into the room as a part of your regular vocabulary and speaking of them as they are teachers and they are people who taught you, it flipped the room. And that is not an easy thing to do is to create equity into a room. where just an identity, not because something weird is happening, because sometimes when you walk into a room, you automatically know that you might be at a deficit.

And not a story you're telling yourself, because that's how rooms work. Sometimes we're not speaking about things, and you're able to flip the room without even doing, I don't know, I don't think you were doing it intentionally because you kind of were a little bit surprised when we talked about it, but that power of being able to do that, and if you do it in a way that's almost like a second nature,

is what we need more of what people should be able to do. And that's what stood out for me. And I thought, oh, she's kind of dope. She didn't even do that on first. It wasn't, oh, this is Renee Brown. It was like, damn, this woman really flipped the room. Yeah. So that's what stood out for me.

Wow. I don't know if I ever told you that. No. I thought that was important to say, yeah. I was scared about what was coming. She's like, what she really did you say? I was wondering why you're posing for a minute. What's happening?

Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't have my career without, to be honest with you, just very specifically the black female mentors and teachers and scholars that shaped my thinking. Yeah, so I, so maybe what I should do better, I'm taking the feedback from that, maybe what I should do better, which I can not do well sometimes, is make assumptions about, you know, Bell Hooks and stop capitalizing her first and last name. She doesn't do that. Like, I should invite people more into the scholarship that framed my life, maybe. And you do that.

And even if any of you have strong ground, even naming people as teachers who are with us now and being able to say that, I'm happy to be amongst those folks too, but in always being so mindful of attribution. I take attribution very seriously. Yeah. Yeah. I have to say, like, that's tough in our business. Yes.

I've already seen two LinkedIn posts that started with, I have a really good idea for building psychological safety. We should get anchored, aligned, and accountable. I was like, yeah, dude, yeah. I said, oh, I agree. Ico's work has really changed me. That's Ico, Githia, AI can't. So attribution is really, to me, very important.

Yeah, yeah. So we became friends. And we spent a lot of time kind of learning together, challenging each other, laughing, inappropriately. And appropriately. And we got into really hard conversations about the gap between great research and our experience is on the ground trying to do what that research said. Psychological safety is a great example of that.

Important research, validated, huge contribution. we are both embedded deeply. So she is a senior dare to lead coach and a senior dare to lead facilitator. When I say senior, I would say if we're involved deeply with a company, she's often the coach for the CEO or someone in the C-suite as part of our transformations.

She's doing the facilitation of the senior leaders going through the dare to lead curriculum. And so we're embedded together and our conversations often sound like damn, this is a good idea, this is tough when you're in front of people. And so we, one day in Houston, eating seafood from good company, we asked, you know, we were like, is it going to be possible to actually build psychological safety the way that the majority of companies are doing it right now,

which I'm not sure or unsure whether Amy intended this, but Ico is like, we'll never build it. it without a conversation about power and identity. You just can't. And I said, I agree. I've never seen it done. And I said, maybe this is something that we'll struggle with the rest of our careers. And then the next thing I know, I'm talking to her, she goes, I have a framework. What do you mean?

And she said, I have a framework. I think we can do it. And I was like, and she said, I think people need to be. anchored in their values, be very clear about what they are, get anchored in their values, make sure intention and impact are aligned and create teams where people are accountable for their anchoring and their values and accountable for the gap between intention and impact. I think we need anchored, aligned, and accountable cultures. Because we went back and forth a lot, right, on safe spaces.

and just about why safe spaces don't work, why brave spaces don't work, why psychological safety could work better, and it's hard to create equity into a room when you're not acknowledging where power sits, right? And power isn't just about your label as you're the CEO of a company. Like there are other ways that power shows up, even if you're the team that has the largest budget,

you have longer tenure, but we also know power shows up just in the systems we navigate, in terms of gender, some faith-based, what's your first language? Do you have an accent or not, the size of your body, how attractive you're considered to be, your race, all these things have signposts and impacts in terms of power. So how do you tell somebody to you, that you're going to be psychologically safe here because I'm going to invite you to tell the truth because the truth is really important and we really need it without understanding that the implications of telling the truth is also connected to you, how much power you.

you're perceived to have, or if you're somebody who automatically has a system exercises power over you based on your identity by default. Because all of a sudden, just because you go into the doors of Acme Company, it doesn't mean you're divorced from society, right? All those things are with you. If you're a mom, and even if you're at a very high level in organization, it feels different. If you have to leave early to go and do something with your kid or your kid is sick, then it does if you're a parent who's a male gender male identifying and you say, I have to go take care of something at home. One gets, oh, ah, that's so great. Another one's like, ah, again. And we know all of these things follow us because we're in a system. So if I don't name it and I don't say, hey, Beth,

I notice X, Y, and Z, I want to hear your voice more. I know that these things may be difficult for you to say because of what the room is made up, but I want to hear your voice and it's super important. And if you feel like there's a limitation or a barrier, let me know we can figure out. Or don't have Beth fix it and say, figure it out, I'm going to tell the whole room. I want to hear everybody's voice. That means I want to hear Bob's voice. I want to hear Beth's voice. I want to make sure that we are creating the space for that.

I mean, it puts a little bit of a warning out in the air of we're all here together, and this is what I need from all of you. And when you see that being breached, what does accountability look like to hold that space and to keep that fidelity to that commitment that you made? Because he can say it all day, right? but if you're actually not holding yourself and the space accountable, was the matter that you said it, because Beth is still going to be ridiculed or not get that promotion

because she dared to say X, Y, and Z. So there is accountability for the person who does hold the space, which has a lot to do with power. That may not even be the person in front of the room, right? It may be the person who has the most influence, even outside of the room. But making sure that you're naming, that you're aware of what the different variables are for folks and vulnerabilities, because we know that vulnerability is not the same for everyone.

And what makes it different? It is in our landscape and other lived experiences, but it's also our identity and where power sits. And we can't ignore it. Yeah, I have to say that I have never seen a company comes successfully through a transformation if they're trying to transform from playing not to lose to playing to win.

I've never seen a company successfully do that without honest conversations about power. And the CEOs who are fearless about doing that are the ones who are putting winning ahead of discomfort. You know, privileging comfort over winning is not going to work in this environment. I mean, I just have to go back to this because I'm such a space girl, but if you look at Artemis and you look at those pictures,

like I put up on LinkedIn a picture of them hugging, and said, we're crying and cheering because this is what it looks like when smart, kind people from different lived experiences come together to face challenges together. We need every voice in the room. We need every different lived experience in the room. And so I don't think without a conversation about power and identity, that happens. That's right. That's right.

And it works in so many ways. Like we have mutual colleagues who are running huge companies. And we know folks who are women over huge companies. And even that part about them being able to own and say, hey, there's some spaces that are going to be barriers against me because I'm a woman in this field. And for them to say that, what does that mean when that person names that? That means that they're not only willing to be vulnerable enough

to name what we already know to be true instead of acting like it doesn't exist and doubling down, but you're also inviting and recruiting people to do their part to support your success and to not be able to look away and act like they don't know that this deficit exists, not because I'm any way less, but because of what a system is. And that helps them, and you look them dead in the eye

that, well, so I want you to know this, so you can't walk around at like, oh, I didn't know. I didn't see that happen. But for me to be able to say, hey, I know it's going to be different for me because I'm maybe the only brown person in the room. I'm maybe the only first-gen person in the room.

I'm the only person who doesn't have this or that. And I want to name that. It doesn't mean I'm saying I'm any less, but I need you all to know it so that people can't, at like they don't know the trap door that's always existing there. Because sometimes you do need people to be able to step into the fold and into the gap. So that whenever that impact happens, they can't say, I didn't know that's what would have happened.

Or they're just so much more vigilant of holding the space. It's not just holding the space in service to you, but holding the space so that it can be the best that it can be, so that it can be impactful. And so that we are all awake at the will. So you can't just walk away and, Totally exonerate yourself from accountability because you can say you didn't know. I'm naming it now because I'm naming how I know I'm walking into this room and what could possibly happen so that you're awake and on the will too, at the will too.

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That's ODOO.com slash Vox. I love the metaphor, the awakening at the wheel. Amy Webb, the futurist, who studies AI and technology. when we were talking last year, I said, you know, and her future predictions about AI and technology. I mean, this is a person at South by Southwest. They line up at 2 o'clock in the morning to get into her session because her futureing and her strategic futureing is so accurate,

especially around technology. And I said, what is happening right now? And she said, we have hit a huge dangerous piece of ice. And what people don't know is that if you weren't raised, where there's a lot of ice, you flame on the brake and steer out of the ice, which really is deadly. With AI and what's coming, keep your foot off the brake, use the gas and steer into the ice, steer into the slide. And when you say we need everybody's hands on the wheel, everybody awake and accountable, we are steering into the ice right now because of the level of uncertainty and complexity, I think, in the world. We need everybody there.

naming what's happening in rooms around power differentials and identity. We are excluding hands on the wheel at a very fraught time. Okay, I have some questions. So Ico gives me her framework. I'm like, oh, God, I think this is going to work. And now we're teaching it as part of Dio to Lead, so thank you for letting us do that. Thankful that you embraced it. No, it's huge.

I got a chance to use it the night that she told it to me with one of my kids. I have two Gen Z kids in their 20s adulting hard. It's exhausting for me. Because we know how the story ends, right? You know, perspective is a function of experience. But you can't do that. It's what my therapist tells me.

So I had a call from one of my kids who said, I'm in this real dilemma with my roommate. And I'm so pissed off, I don't know what to do. And I was like, anchored aligned accountable, anchored a line accountable. And I said this to my roommate, and he got really pissed off, but that's not what I meant. And I said, let's go through this new framework. And we spent 20 minutes going through the new framework. And he was like, I don't think I'm taking accountability for how my stuff is landing.

I was like, I go with the year, 2026. It's been so helpful for me personally and professionally. Would you agree or disagree? These are actual questions that we have not rehearsed. Okay. We haven't rehearsed anything, y'all. So, yeah. That your whole framework is driven by curiosity and generosity.

Yes. So it actually only works. with those components. And a couple of things. I have an assumption. So when we're talking about generosity, how do you define generosity? You have a definition.

Oh, I have a genera. I was like, oh, we, generosity, we always say, what's the, you know, it's the assumption of positive intent. So we talk about generosity as part of big, what boundaries need to be in place,

to be in my integrity, to make positive assumptions about your behaviors and your actions and your thoughts. So for me, it's the assumption of generosity. Yes. And you have a more specific definition you use often,

which is this idea of that people are doing the best that they can. Oh, that one, yeah. So one of the things I want to say is about, is your difference in a nuance in saying that I believe that people are doing the best that they can versus saying I'm assuming good intentions? Yes, I do think, yeah, I'm not feeling like that this week. That's why it didn't come to me.

Okay. Yeah, I'm like people. Yeah, yeah. Just to be honest with you, but it's not a healthy place to work from. It is the hardest part of my research that confronts me every day is working. You're so good at it. It's irritating. Some days, on my good days.

But this idea of knowing that believing that people are doing the best they can with what they've got. Yes, what they've got. In the minute. And that it's not that they're not capable of doing things better or learning, but to assume that people are doing the best they can. I'm just going to give you a quick primer on how that came up. I called bullshit on that. I did not believe that people were doing the best they can.

I spent a year doing a qualitative study on who believes that and who doesn't. And basically, just from a research perspective, the assholes do not believe people are doing the best they can. And generous grace-giving people believe that people are doing the best they can. And my favorite question actually came from my husband, where I said, do you believe people are doing the best they can?

And this is after I came home from a focus group of people in prison who were mostly in recovery, who was like, yeah, I think people are doing the best, I think I'm doing the best I can with what I got right now. And I was like, do you believe it? And Steve was like, I'm not sure, but my life is better when I assume people are doing the best they can. Yes. Yes.

So what? Yes. So I want to say there's a nuance there about why that's different between assuming best intent. Yes. Say it. So when I am assuming best intent, or are you ever going to a meeting and they say like with the norms, what we're going to do is we're going to assume everybody's best intention about everybody. Now, there's a power play in that. Because if someone says something, you know, something really off, like Anna says something that's really off and that's an affront,

if I have to default to, I'm assuming, best intent, She has the best intention. Now, I don't really hold her accountable for what she said. And instead, I swallow whatever it is that I noticed that impacted me. Because the first thing you're saying, wait a minute, Iko. Let's just assume that Anna's got the best intentions. It's very different from saying she's doing the best she can right now because now I have permission to actually hold her accountable.

God. And then the curiosity part comes into play because part of holding people accountable. Have you any of you hear the word accountable, you think, yes, accountability? Or when you hear accountable, you think that's scary and about to be put on a PIP? I'm on the first one. I saw a lot of hits on that second one because accountability sounds scary because the way we do it, and exercised or have been learned in condition to do it, is that it feels punitive. Yeah, there's going to be shaming, et cetera.

So the accountability is something, accountability can be done with generosity. And that's why those two go together. And with that, by my just being curious, and not assuming best intentions, but my being curious and asking Anna, hey, when you said that, what was it that you meant? Tell me a little bit more because I feel like I didn't understand that. By having Anna go back and replay and think about what the hell did I mean when I said that, that's holding her accountable in a way that's really out of curiosity

so that she can actually think about it. And she's like, oh, okay, well, this is what I think I meant. And then I can say, oh, okay, well, this is how it landed, because this is what this word means for us, blah, blah, but I understand what you meant. So now I get to share with her. I don't say, you know that thing that you said, it was blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, where you're not necessarily assuming best intent, but I'm also not thinking she's doing the best she can right now.

I'm not being curious, and curiosity actually is a result of reflects care. Because to be really open and curious about something somebody's saying, now I'm a recovering attorney, litigation attorney. So I had to learn to ask questions in a way that weren't a yes or no, because your training don't ask a question that you don't already know the answer to. But for me to be fully open and curious, it feels really different because now I'm listening for connection. Now I'm listening to really know that I don't know what she meant. Totally different person for me. And now I'm going to be open to what Anna actually says. And I'm like, oh, okay, I get it. And now we're actually in greater connection because I gave the gift,

gift of this critical care of curiosity. I say curiosity is care because you take time to listen, right? You have to take a beat. You have to suspend the stories that you're telling yourself. You have to be open. You have to have a degree of emotional agility to be able to do that, especially if in some way I was activated or landed in a certain way. Curiosity is care. And generosity, believing somebody's doing the best they can, doesn't mean I'm not going to hold them accountable. A lot of times we think with words like empathy and generosity, it means that I can't hold somebody accountable. But they're not mutually exclusive. And the way of how to carry them both so that accountability is not as scary things, actually a thing that we do to grow. I'm getting

smarter and I also am having greater connection with Anna. And one of the things with Bernay and I, when people are asking about, even our friendship, and this idea of don't people get it wrong sometimes, don't they not? My way, um, my way, um, way, um, way, um, way, um, way, um, way way, um, way way of weighing it with somebody's are they willing to learn in the moment and listen and give me the care of being curious and bernet's probably one of the most curious people i know where she's like huh okay but she's also going to call bullshit and say i don't i don't think i agree like i don't want you to fold like a fulton chair i want you to actually bring some rigor to it so that i can understand you better and in that it's not always going to be roses right because if i understand that somebody has this value that is like

the antithesis of mine i might realize i need to reset boundaries I'm not just going to say, oh, we were really curious, and she said some stuff that, I don't know, I mean, I don't even know why you're trying, because you're, I'm going to win that thing. So, yeah, I just do, I'm not recognizing you with those language shifts, but get that. We're trying to have any Morse code going on. So I'm trying to ask. But, lawyer.

So it's really great that understands somebody better into being a connection versus them having to cover or hide or for me to just feel like I have to take whatever somebody's serving me, but I want to at least be clear on what are they serving me, and is the story I'm telling myself, and how do we hold this relationship? So yes, the framework presumes generosity and curiosity, which require emotional agility, they require the ability for you to slow down, they require you to be curious about the other person, they require you to self-interrogate. and those aren't things that are easy to do, and we're woefully underskilled at that.

You know what? I think is so... Yeah, sometimes when I just listen to you talk, I just want to cry. You're really... You've been really important to me. Yeah. I get real mad, real fast.

And you can get real mad and real fast, too. But I think... this idea of curiosity and generosity as acts of care and acts of connection that also don't exist without accountability is kind of the heart of how I experience you as a person. It's how I experience you professionally as a coach and a facilitator, and it's the heart of this. I want to say it one more time because you and I talk a lot about, we're talking about woefully unskilled, one of the things that really came out in strong ground, which I think people struggle with the most right now,

not one of the things, is paradox and the ability to hold the tension of seemingly opposite things. But I think you are just like a bull in a paradox china shop. Like you're not really care whether people do it well or not. You're like, look, you've got to understand curiosity, generosity or care, and care does not exist without accountability. Like, think about that for a minute. Like, that is, that's hard work.

When you think about, when you said woefully underskilled, which I really like that framing, I'll be using that, I'll give you a quarter every time I say it, because it's so nice compared to, like, we suck ass at this. But woefully underskilled, give me a yes or no or weigh in any way you want on the following. Self-awareness, is that one of the woefully underskilled things that are required? Absolutely.

Emotional regulation? Absolutely. Nervous system management? Yes. Mindfulness? Yes. Anything else that I'm missing? Like, these are big skills, right?

I think in practicing all of those, the ability, they all require the, ability to pause. And when you're talking about with Amy Webb and what she was saying, like the, with it, like the more complex we get, the more complexity there is in society, the higher the requirement is for us to pause. And the only way that you can move from reactivity to responsiveness is to have self-awareness. The only way you can have self-awareness, The only way you can have self-awareness is to understand how your body responds to things, which is the nervous system regulation. It's the somatics aspect of it.

It is what your breath is telling you. It's where you sweat. It is also then this cognitive part of who is this person to me. And one of the things I talk about in the book is the different levels of listening. So most people understand like listening to hear. Oh, gosh. Okay. I love, okay, if you're a note taker, warm it up.

Like, get your pen ready. Is this where you're going to talk about third? Yes. Okay, this is. This is a book, y'all. This is wild. But we have the channel one, which is like the listening to here, right? We have channel two, which is listening to understand.

But channel three is very different, and it's listening for connection. Because what I notice in coaching and facilitation is that with Lee, prep the person to think about how do you want it to be? not like the outcome, but how do I want it to be for me and Anna? I want to still be in relationship with Anna. I don't want to hurt her. I want to understand her, like this idea of listening for connection. What I notice is that people have a whole different choice of vocabulary words they use

when they're thinking about connection. Some things I'm not going to say to somebody when I'm thinking are words I'm not going to use. The eye contact is longer. The pausing is more substantial. because I'm creating space for that person to enter. I'm no longer centered on me, but I'm centered on that person, which means everything changes about the energy and the conversation. So when you said the degree of self-awareness,

my mindfulness changes that almost comes in right away. And if you're in a moment where I've got two teenage boys where you're not like, ugh. And if I look at them, I'm looking at them like when they were babies or young, and that nourishment and that care, I voice everything about how I hold them and the conversation changes. And so this idea of the care

that you give people when you're listening for connection changes everything. And I don't think I've ever seen it not shift the way a leader or a person shows up or a person talks to their partner or spouse and when I say, well, we're going to go to Channel 3. It's almost like you see their whole body shift. Now it's not like I have to win.

I need to know how am I going to respond. They're not going to get up on me, all the bullshit that I need me in the book. And now you're just with that person. And you're being who you really hope to be in your most aspirational for. Isn't that good? I mean, let's just pause. Like, yeah. Okay, so what I've called you before, and I've said, I mean, I have to have this really hard conversation with someone we both know. And can we talk about it for a minute? Mm-hmm. You would say what? how do you want it to be? Yeah.

And I was like, I want a freaking win is what happens. I want to win. I want to be understood. I want full disclosure from the other person about their sucking choices. And then you say what? And then I say, how do you want it to be with that person? So it's never really about the issue, right? It's not really about the issue.

Anybody's a coach who knows it. It's never the issue. It's all these other things And when you go back to, well, how do you want to be? So, yes, person, you know, in this, it wouldn't have been applied in this case with the idea of like, how do you want to be as a leader? And if they keep talking about like these transactional things,

I want to be the best. We want to have the highest production and blah, blah, blah, blah. How do you want to be? I would say to you, I want to be clear, kind, and I don't need to be liked, but I want to be clear and kind. Yeah. So I would ask you, okay, how do you feel right now as you're talking about it? Just I want you to go to the issue that's at hand. How do you feel when you think about that?

I don't want to talk about how I feel. Just tell me what to say. What I will say may be really different from what you're going to say. This is exactly what she does. Is this helpful? Yeah. So I don't want to talk about how I feel. Could you just, could you text me what to say? And I'll say, yeah, let's take a beat and let's go on phone right now because what I say is not going to necessarily. work. It's not my relationship. I don't care about the relationship. I just need to know what to say. Okay. And I think that you know exactly what to say, but let's walk through it. Why do you think I know what to say? Because I have unconditional positive regard for you, and I know that you are unconditionally resourceful. Yeah. I just start crying. You're like,

I don't know. Yeah, so this is really one of the things I just have to like, you know, like when you're in a role play and you have to pause it when you're facilitating to tell the room what's happening. Like one of the things that Ico has taught me the most of that's in this book that is I can never unsee and I'm really not good at but I'm working on it is transformation and change requires expansiveness. You changed me with that. And even right now, what you're doing is I'm just trying to push you faster. Just tell me what to say. That's great. I don't need, I mean, my body's like, but who cares? Like, just can you tell me what to say? Look at her right now.

She is not engaging. She's going like this. What are you doing? What's happening? So I do, can we go back to the scenario? Because I want to, I do want to go back to that. And I'll tell you why afterwards. When you think about, let's just call this person Beth, this conversation you want to have with Beth. Yeah. and the thing that happened. Yeah.

I want you to go back to that. How did you feel in the moment when it happened? What I would probably say is pissed off. Okay. Yeah. Pissed off and how did it feel? Was your heart beating fast? What was going on?

Yeah. I mean, I get like my armpits were tingling. My heart was beating fast. I couldn't swallow. I was getting tunnel vision. Yeah, I know that was hard. I want to just take a beat. And let's think about how do you want to feel when you're with Beth?

I'm talking about it. I don't think I don't think I'm talking about it. I can do this without crying. She's not moved. She's not laughing at my jokes. She's just not, she's like, yeah, she's not moving. And what's bouncing off of her onto me is I'm not going to do this with you. I'm asking you a question.

So how do I want to feel with Beth? Like ideally, like what would be my vision, my pie in the sky? I want to be calm. I want to be thoughtful. I want to work from a hypothesis of generosity. I want to be generous. But I also need to be clear. And I want to hold someone accountable

in a way that facilitates change, not fear. That's probably what I really would like the most. And you believe you can do both? I'm not sure. Not right now. So what does it take for you to get to the place where you'd be able to? Honestly, I'm going to need to work out. I'm going to need to work out.

I'm going to need to go walking or play pickleball. I'm going to need to sweat and move my body. I'm not going to be able to do it right now. Okay. That's good. You know yourself well, what you need. Yes, I do know myself well. but I'm feeling time pressure to do this right now while I'm mad.

And I would ask you about what's the driver behind that time pressure? We would go through that because we do know that one of the things we fall into is false sense of urgency. So I would ask you about what is the driver behind it? This is the hardest stuff you've ever said to me in our friendship. Is my false sense of urgency. I want to get out from underneath these feelings that I'm having right now. So what's driving, I'm telling you what you taught me before I would have said, I don't know, I just need to do it right now because I'm coming out of my skin.

I think what I've learned from you is probably firstborn daughter with undiagnosed anxiety kind of things. And I feel like I'm coming out of my skin. And if I do it now, I can be calm again. Yep. So you can get that initial relief. Yes, I need some relief. Yes. And it may be at the expense of what?

being aligned in my values. So this is a reason why we don't fix and we don't jump in because a lot of us, when we're jumping in and we're being a fixer, is for our own dopamine hit. It's not in service to the person in front of us. I mean, was this like a... I mean, like, yeah, yeah. I mean, I got to say that, like, you are so embodied in this work

that it's so scary to sit across from you, when you're in it. Like I want to make a, I want to talk about Ben and Wes or like her kids or my kids. You know, like, but like, yeah, this is hard for me, right? This is, can you tell it's hard for me, really? Oh, thank you.

That's, yeah. I'm having, I'm having a hard time. So I just want to say, as much as we talk about AI and how fast things go into complexity and it's so complicated, blah, blah, blah. The thing that is the hardest is managing this machine.

here. And I would rather jump into a system and be like, we're going to do this, this, this had to be done yesterday, than manage the most complicated system we have on earth. We want to take about AI and all these other things, but we don't want to learn how to manage and embody ourselves. And most of us live from here to here. And if we actually had to be in our bodies all the time, how different would the world be, but we would be dealing with something that's so much more complex than AI and the strategy and strategy. It's culture, right? It would be so much more complicated, and we're more willing to do that externally than managing this here, which is what we are accountable for. We give up that accountability so that we can just jump on the chat to.

That's what it told me to do. That's what my coach told me to do. That's what my mom told me to do, because guess what? When people tell me what to do and they give me the answers and the fixing, guess who doesn't have to be accountable? It's right, because I can be like, they told me. meet. And we're scared. We talk about how it's hard to hold other people accountable. A lot of us don't have the fortitude to hold ourselves accountable. So I'd rather go to chat, CBT, or call my coach, or my therapist, or yell at my mom or do whatever, are the kids, or drive me crazy, versus managing this right here. So the book, you know, this book is really about self-leadership. And we want to read an HBR article or MIT's long review to tell me how to be a better leader,

but I don't want to live in this body, hold myself accountable for my inner landscape and what happens when I'm in living on spaces. The most complicated thing to lead is yourself. And it's easier for me to read, I'm going to read what Washington Wall Street Journal said today about being a leader and doing that. So if it's that easy, we would just do one through three of what HPR tells us to do all the time, right? But the idea of I have to live in this body and hold myself accountable and slow myself down and understand what are my thoughts, what impact is that?

to have, own that in certain spaces I might not have power, doesn't matter how many credentials you have. Are I own in other spaces, I do have power, and now I'm accountable and I can't say, no, I don't have power. And now I have to be awake at the will and be responsible for what I'm doing and how I'm impacting people in a room. I can't pass that off. How much scarier is that than saying, oh, AI's coming to get us and we've got it.

It's a complex world and so blah, blah. you know it's easier for me to do that than to manage this damn yeah yeah i don't i don't there's something have you know did you notice is it just me but did you notice the slowness it is so antithetical to the world because we're actually the ones who get to we get to pump the brakes right? But do we have the mindfulness and presence to be able to pump their breaks? Or is it easier to say, it had to be done yesterday versus asking, huh, what's the driver for that? Does it really have to be? What would the trade-off be? It's easier to be in the frenzy of X, Y, Z. We like to feel my worth is based on how much I produce, how quickly I produce it, and I give the answer and do all these other

things versus what does it take to pump the brakes and knowing that we're all. We're all, the metronome for our own system. And if you're a leading team, you're the metronome for that team and you give people permission to slow down. With my kids, I'm the one who gets to show up and be slower so they can slow down and give them that permission. But many of us don't self-regulate and take accountability for that. And instead we go get on the program, this MPC program of got to do it, got to blah, blah, blah, blah, without asking the questions or creating any type of friction or rigor in a system or even imagining

what would that be like if I did. Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and stretch. Steep. Flip. Or that. And enjoy.

Via Rail, love the way. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, Everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. It's interesting. We took your framework of anchored, aligned, and accountable

and not only are we trying to do it individually in our organization, but we're trying to build what we're calling an above-the-line, anchored, aligned, and accountable organization. So not just at a micro-level, but at a macro level. And the productive challenge, either for me or people on my team, around tell me about the urgency, is fundamentally creating breakdowns that we're having a hard time recovering from. We have built such a mental model.

And a mental model is not only how you see the world, but how you assess your value in the world and at work. We have built such a mental model around urgency. I have built. I mean, I'm the founder, right? So I have built, I have built, and then surrounded myself with like-minded people who have helped me build a mental model of urgency. And when I've taken your coaching and done some of my own work around, can we take a breath for a minute and get curious about why we're doing this so quickly, people are having to excuse themselves and leave a meeting.

Like, there's a real nervous system reaction to your framework. Yeah, yeah. We're not used to silence one. It's a really uncomfortable. Anybody feel like they have to feel in the silence every time it gets quiet. Like, I got to jump in there. So we're not used to silence. Not used to pauses.

We're not used to somebody actually asking us something and waiting for it. for the answer and being really curious about why X, Y, Z, we're not used to that. And so our nervous systems, there is a requisite of a reset. It's either you're going to try something new and get different results, or you're going to stay on the same train and burn out real fast and still be pointing at everybody else about why, or you're going to have a reset to think about how you want it to be and aspire to that. I will say, because there's practicality in businesses to you about sometimes things

do you have to be done at a pace? And one of the things I do know about the framework is when you have done the work of being anchored into your values and really understanding what they are, what drives you, what are the behaviors, actually helps you to make decisions more quickly. Oh, I agree. It helps you to make hard decisions quicker,

knowing that, hey, this may not be how I wanted to be and I don't love it, but this is how I know it has to be. It helps you to understand and be intentional about the compromises you might make because it's really a privilege to be able to every moment be like, I'm in my values and I'm working at this company, and I'm still my values, because you do have some tradeoffs, but it helps you to understand, recognize what they are more quickly,

and for you to be at a negotiate and say, I don't like it, but I'm going to do it at this moment for this reason. So if I'm coach somebody that are like, I can't leave the job, so I'm doing this and making this decision and being in this space, even though the friction with who I want to be is here, because I need to pay for my insurance for my kids. because I need blah, blah, blah, blah. But that's really different than just staying on a train

and being reactive and not taking a beat about why. Because I'm being intentional. I know what my values are. This is why I'm doing that trade-off. And this is why I'm showing up like this right now. I talk about some of the stories and look like I don't, I believe in people showing up as they are. And the moments when I have not,

I know exactly why I didn't do it. Exactly. Yeah. I know what the cost is and I've done the calculation, but I know what I'm doing it. And that's how you live life. a life of regrets. Does you know why you did that? You and I together have taken probably thousands of leaders through values exercises, and we do the same values exercise. And one of the

things that you and I talk about a lot that is, I think you've helped me see it clearer than anyone that I've done that work with, because we facilitate together often, is we'll start the values exercise. We know from the research, 20 years of data, from Because we've taken 170,000 people from 45 countries through there to lead. We have a ton of data. We know that when you're going to work from values, having 10 values is not helpful. Having around two values is really helpful. And we're generous in the invacilitation.

You get to pick 10. But then you have to back into two. What two are the places where all the other eight are forged, right? So for my two values are faith and courage. What are your values? Do you want to share? Justice and loyalty. Justice and loyalty.

So one of the things that we're always struck by is how many times, in fact it happens most times when we're facilitating this, people will say, do you want our personal values, our professional values? And we did an article together recently about the book. And can you talk a little bit about your answer when, because I said to you, what? Why do you think that's a question? And because of the way the Dairy League is kind of set up, we're mostly facilitating with the C-suite and their direct reports. And there are other facilitators that work across the organization. That's usually where we are.

So these are people with a ton of experience, you know, 25 years, 10-year, you know, working. And I asked you, why do you think people ask that question? And can you share your answer? Because I thought it was really connected. to what you're saying right now. This idea of we've learned how to bifurcate ourselves, right? So you're at home, Stephanie, and then you're at work, Stephanie, right? You put your ward pain on.

By the time you get into the door, you're somebody totally different. But the reality is you're the same person in the same body. And that gap, the bigger that gap is between who you are and show up at work as and at home, the more you're going to be in the doldrums and it contributes to the burnout and all these other things. but this idea of knowing that you are the same person and giving yourself permission, when I get home, when I get to work, I'm not all of a sudden not at home, Ico,

who kind of panicked three times when there was a police officer who was driving behind me and I'm wondering what's going to happen next. I'm that same person when I get to work and I turn on my laptop, right? And the idea of giving ourselves not only the reality recognition of that we're the same person, but also giving ourselves grace to make sure that both those, both those people, that one person, but both the identities of at work at home can be folded together. And when you have folks who are saying, are my values different, what about my values at home and at work? You know how much contortion that requires? And the exhaustion and the

acknowledgement that we ask people to do here is knowing what those top two are and how they drive, how you show up in all spaces, knowing that you're not always going to be able to defer to what your choice would have been, but knowing why in this moment I might have to make a different decision. I'm the same person, and I reconcile, I understand why I'm doing this. But can you imagine, I just want you to think about the pretzel people are contorted into to say I have a different set of values between when I'm at home and then when I get to work. And I can just tell sematically from your experiences. You all see that's some real bullshit.

And it's hard. And one of the reasons why I'm asking Brunay earlier about our scenario was how do you feel in your body? Your body's not going to lie. Oh, I hate that part. That's a hard part. Yeah, it's not going to lie. And how do you want it to be? And the relief people get.

So if you need some intrinsic motivation of showing up how you want it to be, It's the next question for, I would have had. Brenna, well, what's the delta? What do you require to get to how you want it to be or what's getting in the way? You have some reality checks around that. What do you mean? So if someone says, I don't know why can't I do both?

I mean, if I say, why can't you show up like that with Beth now? And it takes forever. Because sometimes it's not that I don't know, but I'm scared to say it. Because what if I do tell Beth and then she says this to me, like the idea of possibility of hurt or rejection. What if she goes and tells everybody? What if, blah, blah, blah, it's all the things that get in the way of us being courageous leaders because it's not the fear, it's the armor, like all of the what ifs.

But once somebody has named it, now it's there. Can't change what you're not aware of. But once I realize what the barrier is, I'm like, oh man, what do I have to do about? And I'm willing to do it. Once I realized what the castle in the sky looks like, how I want it to be with Beth, how I want to feel. I don't want to feel pissed off my shoulders are tight and blah, blah, blah. I don't want that. How do I want to feel?

I have an idea of how I want it to feel, so now I'll know it when I get to that place. But I also can name what is getting in the way. And most of us, how do we jump right into you? This is what you need to do, one, two, and three, but not actually bringing the person back into what their solve is and what their intrinsic motivation is. Because the answer I was given to Brune would have been like, we're shit, right? Because it would have been my fix and my thing, and I would have felt great and walked off. But you would have still been sitting with it. But you have now idea of this is how I wanted to be.

And you realize for me to be able to get there, I need to do this other thing, because you know yourself well enough. A lot of people don't know, I need to work out, I need to do this. They don't know it. So now we need to walk through that. And all these gaps in how we don't know how to lead ourselves. but we expect to read an article and to get it, or to call our friend and for them to fix it, or for us to call our parent and ask them,

or to ask chat GPT, but we're the ones in this body and are accountable for it and have to live in it. But we want the shortcuts. You're not good at the shortcut, I got to tell you. No. You are the long way around, which I, yeah, like you are the direct path

into what's real. And I just, we're out of time. Can you believe it? I was going to take, I was going to have her solve with some more of my problems. But, um, um, is she amazing? Thank you. Let's give it up for Ico. Let's do it. Let's give it up. Standing now. Yeah. Awesome. If you need a coach, don't call her. She busy. Thank y'all. Thank you all for listening. I hope you took something out of this that was meaningful for you.

Again, just blown away by Ico's coaching mindset, her abilities to be present, to listen for connection. Just a real mentor for me. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. We have fun things planned and we're grateful for you joining us. The Curiosity Shop is produced by Bray Brown, Education and Research Group, and grant productions. You can subscribe to the Curiosity Shop on YouTube or follow in your favorite podcast app. We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more award-winning shows at podcast.com. Running a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group project. One app for accounting,

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