This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 005 / 6 Steps For Fact-Checking Your Feelings With Julie Gordon

Episode Date: February 12, 2020

It’s ok to have your feelings, but your feelings shouldn't have you. In this episode, Nicole welcomes her first guest Julie Gordon, who breaks down her 6 step system for fact-checking your feelings. Often times our reactions get amplified by our past, and how we react isn’t always circumstantial to what’s in front of us. Julie walks us through the importance of identifying those feelings, and gives examples and strategies on how to auto correct our emotional course if necessary. As women, it is assumed we are emotional beings. Whether you express your feelings in more of an internal or external way, we ALL have them, and by implementing a fact-check system we can only improve our communication with others, and our understanding of ourselves. Learn more about what we are up to outside of this podcast at NicoleKalil.com

Hi there. I am Nicole Khalil and together we are redefining what it actually means to be doing woman's work. It's been said that women are more emotional and that we have a tendency to overthink a little. And by it's been said, I mean, I've said that. And while our thoughts and feelings are valid, how do we make sure that they're not getting in our way? How do we make sure that they don not getting in our way? How do we make sure that they don't keep us from accomplishing what we want to accomplish or having the conversations that we want to have? My dear friend, Julie Gordon, joins us today to talk about how we can fact check our feelings. Julie is a mom of three, a wife, and a VP of organization and development at Sutton's Creek

Incorporated, which is a pharmaceutical consulting firm. And we met 15 years or so ago at a transformational training. And to say we became fast friends is an understatement. Julie has probably one of the highest levels of attraction power of any human on the planet. Like people just gravitate towards her and I was no exception. And she has legitimately the best first impression of any human. I think I like studied her because as a natural introvert, her ability to connect with people instantly is just something that is really cool to watch. Anyways, I am so excited for her to join us today.

In this training that we did together, somebody once said, it is okay to have your feelings, but your feelings can't have you. And I think for both of us, that was a turning point and a starting point for us to really consider how to navigate through our feelings effectively. Julie, thank you so much. I'm so excited. Let's get going. All right. So you've shared with me that you have a six-step system, a six-part system for fact-checking your feelings. Talk to us about how that works. Wonderful. Thank you so much for having me. Yay. Yay. So the number one thing I want people to know about feelings is feelings is a lot like a tree. You only see what's above ground,

but there's a very deep rooted system of roots that can actually substantially be larger than the tree. And so what I want people to understand is people only see what's above ground. And usually what is really fueling the reaction is below ground. So I think if someone, and again, Nicole and I have done extensive training on this, but if you can realize that there's a strong possibility that the reaction you're having is more a button being pushed, that you probably, that the person that pushed it didn't install, it might start to get you to realize that what you're experiencing, the feelings you're having may not be necessarily relevant to the situation that's in front of you. So I'm going to unpack that a little because it was a little complicated. Often our reactions get amplified by our past, right? So the circumstances in the life we lived

is usually where all those buttons get installed. So it's important work for you to remember that if you're working with a colleague and he says something that upsets you, if you're at home and you're with your husband and he says something and upsets you, oftentimes he's pushing a button that he didn't install. So I think that's one of the things that's hard sometimes to reconcile that what's going on for us reactionally isn't necessarily in that moment. So that's the first thing. And that's a big thing. Nicole, would you remember when we went through those trainings and we talked about the iceberg? Did it, was it relevant for you? Yes. And it's hard at times to be okay with the fact that what's my reaction I'm having may not necessarily be circumstantial

to what's in front of me. It may be more about how I process information. So that's one of the first things. And it's a big thing to realize. I think the second step is you've got to take a minute and just feel whatever you're feeling. It's not good, bad, right or wrong. It's neutral. So be angry, be sad, be happy, be frustrated, be wherever you are. But then if you can quite quickly auto-correct your emotional course and take a breath and make a decision to choose something else. Because often we get more aggressive if we actually try to curb the feeling in the moment. So I'll give you an example. If my son's crying because he's upset and I just want to say, stop crying. I haven't made it any better for him because I haven't actually let him experience

whatever's going on for him. And when he's seven, everything's an experience. It's heightened. It's strange. It's weird because he's growing. And I look at it through the lens of a 46 year old. And I'm like, Oh, you don't need to cry over that. That's stupid. But what I need to do is I need to say, Hey buddy, why don't you have a seat? Why don't you cry or have a moment and figure out what you're feeling? And then let's figure out a solution. So what I want you to never do is diminish the feeling because it doesn't go away. And we all have friends or we've all done this ourselves where we push and push and push and push it down. And then someone comes into the office and mentions that the coffee maker's broken and you lose your mind. Right? Well, the coffee maker being broken feels like an appropriate thing to lose your mind over,

but that's just me. But yes, point taken. But it tends to be the little tiny things that are really insignificant that set you off. And that's usually a strong indicator that you've pushed so much down that it has, it has kind of erupted like a volcano. The next thing, and this is step three, is I want you to realize that fundamentally, whatever you're feeling, you want to name. So you want to kind of quantify, is it, I'm feeling, is it mistrust or anger or fear or jealousy? You need to identify what it is, because if you can identify it, then fundamentally you can start to destigmatize whatever the experience is. Okay.

Once you can say, okay, this is what that is, then I want you to label it more definitively, almost like a pro-con spreadsheet where you're listing, here's what I'm feeling, anger, jealousy, mistrust, fear. And on the second side of it, I want you to start listing, I felt threatened. I felt devalued. I felt mistrusted. And what's really funny is I'm actually not writing down a pro-con spreadsheet. Nicole will be laughing in the background because she's like, I'm, I am allergic to Excel. I am not an Excel person when she is an Excel person. It's funny. As you were talking, I was like, okay, let me get my spreadsheet going. Yeah. Let me get my spreadsheet. But I want you to almost mentally configure two lanes. Okay. Here's the feeling and here's the statement around it.

And oftentimes when you do that, step three and four is identify the feeling and then identify the statement that really triggered you. Okay, I felt devalued, mistrusted. I felt unheard. I felt confused, whatever that is. Because often when you can put it down, you've taken it, you've kind of, it's really, you've released it a little, and it's not holding a space in your body or your mind or your heart or wherever. Now, the fifth thing you need to do is go back and

recognize number one, which most likely when someone came in and said the coffee pot was broken, they were not, I was not being unheard. I was not being, yeah, I was not being mistreated that you, there's a disconnect between what happened in number one, which is identifying there's a strong possibility or reaction has more to do with you than them. And it allows you to kind of go, oh yeah, so the coffee pot's broken. And what it doesn't do is it doesn't devalue the experience you had. Because think about it this way. You're going to train yourself to check in with how valid the feeling is. Your feelings are critical. Sometimes they won't be valid in the moment or they won't be real, but they're no less important for you to evaluate.

Okay. So you go back and go, huh? So maybe this circumstance really wasn't violating or anger filled or hurtful. Maybe it was me. And then the last piece, and it's kind of one of those funny ones, step six is perfect that you and I are having this doing the podcast today, is that call a friend or a colleague or your spouse or someone in your space that always is trustworthy enough to give you a perspective that maybe you've missed. And this is who Nicole and I became for each other very quickly is as we laugh before we started recording is I feel way too much and she doesn't feel enough.

So together we're like this uber woman where we can give each other a perspective to balance out the feeling and the thinking because there's two personality profiles are all about feeling and two that are all about thinking. And sometimes you need to tap into each to neutralize the feeling so that you can actually clear the path to figure out a solution to whatever the situation is. So that in a nutshell is the six system, the six step system. Yeah. So Julie, do you think each of us individually might have go-to feelings or emotions that might play out stronger for one person versus another? So as you were talking, I was thinking, you know, about the feelings that come up for me and how I would put them. And I feel like, you know, anger, frustration, you know, those ones are easier for me both

to feel and to communicate. I feel annoyed. You know, those ones are easier for me both to feel and to communicate. I feel annoyed. You know, I feel frustrated. But I feel hurt or I feel devalued or I feel betrayed or anything like that. Those are harder feelings for me to feel. And as we talked about, you know, being each other's kind of accountability buddies and our feelings, I remember you often saying, like, it's okay to feel those things and communicate those things. And for me, it took a lot of courage to say to somebody those, you know, kind of harder feelings for me.

So long winded question, but do you find that people have an easier time feeling and communicating certain feelings over others? Oh, a thousand percent. So I think what's really interesting, and we can use you as a little case study here. So at some point in your life, a belief got formed that you were maybe too much for people or when you were authentic and or authentically annoyed, or you were bossy or pushy or controlling, that it was negative. There was a perception that that is negative. And often the reason why we're less comfortable having an emotion is at some point, there's a permanent placeholder that it's wrong or bad or damaging. And so oddly enough, it really kind of all goes back to the cognitive and emotional development of where you are between the ages of eight to 10. As much as I am really

wildly mindful as a parent that I don't want to ever do any, you know, permanent damage to my kids. These are the years of their life where they're really taking all of that in. They're taking in what's okay. They're taking in what's not okay. They're taking in what's bad. And I have three children with three completely different personalities, and it's amazing to see. So when we talked a little bit about the tree or the buttons, fundamentally, at some point in your life, someone installed a button in you. So for you, oddly enough, it'd be interesting to know if you can remember at what point those feelings that were less easy for you to identify with as an adult

got really stifled and maybe the flame or the fire got put out. It installed a button. And I would wager a guess in your marriage to Jay or in your professional career as a coach or as an executive with a financial firm, you can remember someone pushing that button that you clearly know they didn't install, but you had as big of a reaction to it as if they had. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So can you give us an example of, you know, where this might have played out in your professional life? Sure. Or maybe you've observed it in somebody else professionally.

Interestingly enough, in what I do every day is I work in pharmaceutical consulting. Our clients are small, medium, and large size pharmaceutical clients. And they're calling because they have a lot of questions about the FDA submission for a product they're working on. The FDA, like the IRS, like the government, like any large agency, people are really afraid they're going to make a mistake. So when they call me, they're really vulnerable. When they call me, there's usually large teams of people. And what I find often is I look at it like a lot of lanes, like a freeway with 12 lanes. There's 12 people on a call. They all know the destination is the same, but they all want to travel in I really need to hear their feelings about their opinions. I also need to give them a space to be very transparent about what they like or don't like of someone else's opinion. And then I need to, at some point, circumvent the fact that if we all have the

same goal in mind, ultimately we're going to have to start merging lanes to create a singular path that we can buy into and agree to, to get to our goal. And so where I often see what I said to someone not too long ago, it's people engineering. It's what I do all day long is I help people kind of get themselves out of their own way. And so professionally, I use this idea of the tree and the buttons all the time. I can only see what's in front of me, but I can't see the 25 years it took for you to stand in front of me. So if you're going to have a reaction to something I'm going to say, I often will call it out. It looks like that you had a reaction to something I said. I'd love to understand what you heard me say. And I do that often. I also realize in my role, I'm feedback rich. I'm really good if you tell me I've done something wrong or you tell me you need me to do more or less of something pretty quickly. What I'm not good with, if you come to me six months from now

and said, you did something six months ago because I have no control over changing it. But I also realize everyone's different. I am really good with confrontation. I'm really good with difficult conversations. Half of the population are scared to death of it. So two things, when I use this in professional, I got to meet people wherever they are, not where I am, where they are. And I got to stand next to them and And everything they say is okay. I laugh about this. We took our kids to Legoland a couple of years ago.

And when you get in the elevator, when the elevator door closes, it's like a disco dance party. And it plays that song. Everything is awesome. You know, the Lego song. That's the philosophy I have every day. Everything is awesome. You could come to me and tell me your colleague was offensive to you. You could come to me and tell me your vice president is going to tank a product.

It doesn't matter what you come to me with professionally. Everything is awesome. Let's talk about it. And more often than not, when I just let people purge a little bit, like I felt this, I thought this, like the member number three and four, where they identify the feeling and then the statement. Once they do that, I'll often say to them, okay, do you think it was this person's intent to hurt your feelings? Are they a difficult personality? Are they unkind? And so often when you kind of ask those questions, the person goes, oh, they're not. Oh, so maybe this was more about me, or maybe I misinterpret the circumstance. Sometimes they get there. More often than not, they do. Sometimes they don't because they need to be right that the person's wrong,

which brings me to something else. You and I doing the training, we learned that there's two types of people in the world. There's people that are responsible and people that are victims. This work we're teaching you about is about being responsible. It is certainly an easier path to be a victim because if you're a victim, no one's ever going to really challenge or question your contribution to your situation. Your feelings are real. They're justified. You can think or feel anything you want and you will really never evolve out of that space so I'm going to give you a personal example I had a very interesting situation happen to me personal about around the time Nicole and I met it would have been so easy for me to stay a victim because I was having this outpouring of empathy and emotion and care.

And I'm so sorry this has happened to you. And what can we do to help you? And do you need to take time off work? And it was strange because there was all this attention that was giving me a justifiable mechanism emotionally to not be responsible. And then I did the trainings with Nicole and I realized I am 100% responsible for myself and my actions and that I maybe probably need to look at myself differently. And I remember in that moment, at some point, all of the outpour of empathy felt artificial. And I didn't want to have people feeling bad for me or sorry for me or concerned on that level. And I thought, okay, there's a reason why I have put this in my life. There's a, there's a reason that I played a role in this. And I remember that was the turning point for me because I don't really have a lot of respect for people that feel that stuff is happening to them because I have been that.

And once you see it, it is not attractive and it doesn't really give you a ton of room to choose something else. And so for me, that was the aha to choose a more responsible life. It doesn't mean my life is perfect and it doesn't mean that stuff absolutely doesn't pop up every once in a while. And I'll literally say, why did that happen? And then I have to remember, okay, so this is my life. I'm an adult. I choose it. Why did I generate that? Why am I having the reaction to that? And I have two choices. I get the victim lane or the responsibility lane. And I promise you my life has been significantly better choosing responsibility. It doesn't mean that I like that my dad got cancer.

It doesn't mean that I like that my sister got sick. It doesn't mean that I love all of those things, but they're part of the path I'm on and I can choose a thousand percent how I'm going to react to it. And so this fact checking your feelings, and I do it all the time. It's not as if I am, you know, on the, on the, you know, the mountain of evolvement, but it's one of those things where I remember when I made a decision that I was going to do it. And Nicole, you've been a big part of that journey to just help kind of auto-correct what I can't see in the moment. Yeah.

I mean, so much of what you said, there's so many important things in there. I think two things really jump out at me. Number one, I don't know if this is the golden rule of communication, but maybe it should be. There's two parts of all communications. It's what somebody said and then what they heard that you said, right? And understanding that we're all coming at everything with different perceptions, different experiences, different histories, and creating an opening and having a conversation to understand what somebody heard that you said. I mean, game changer in a marriage,

for sure, but obviously in every other part of your life. So thank you for sharing that. Any personal examples of anything where that's worked? What, what I've said and what I, you heard that I said? Yes. So interestingly enough, when my husband and I were newly dating, we were going somewhere in the evening and he came home and he said, are you going to wear that tonight? And I got angry. I do think we should create a list of like things you should never say to your spouse. Jay texted me the other day, how much do you weigh? And I was like, what are you doing? Have you lost your mind?

And then I realized he was trying to sign us both up for a global entry because we're traveling internationally and, you know, it's a pain to do. But yes. Okay. Keep going. Sorry, I cut you off. But anyway. That's a perfect example. Your husband literally rationally needed a piece of information, a simple number, so he could fill out documentation so you could travel internationally easier. And you go to the guy that told you were fat when you were eight, your dad's question that you were wearing to high school. It literally is a little bit of an emotional time machine in the dumbest way ever. But I think truly, if you can create some small system where you can have your

reaction, like Jay, really, what's my weight? And then go, Oh, or what do you need it for? And he's going to tell you, and then you're going to go, oh my God, I just made that whole emotional situation up in my mind. So my husband did come home and he said, Hey, are you going to wear that tonight? And I, I like burst into tears. Like I was the, it was this big reaction of list of remembering my dad thinking what I was wearing was maybe too tight. Remembering being questioned for something I chose to wear to school. Or I remember a college boyfriend that was like, God, if you only lost like 15 pounds, you'd look like someone so-and-so on MTV. Like I just, it all swirled back and I took a breath and I said, I was thinking about that. Why? And he said, yeah,

I think I just want to wear, be casual too. Is it okay if I just wear jeans to match you? Like he was worried about being, he didn't want to dress up. So his, the whole intent of him asking was simply, are you going to wear that tonight? And then that gave me a cue as to what I wear. But this is what, if you can remember most people around you, and again, this is a generality, but most people around you in your life, if you're a good person, you've welcomed good people into your life. Like my husband's not ever questioning my weight or what I look like. It was a really simple question, but look how loaded my reaction was.

Look how deep the roots of that reaction were. And he asked a question about what I was wearing. Think about that perspective for a second in work. Would it be safe to assume that I manufactured a whole emotional scenario about my body and what I was wearing? And he asked me a neutral, non-emotional question. Is there power in choosing to fact find, doing a little bit of emotional pro-con list with what, what's the feeling and the statement? Do you think there's value in that in your life? Yeah. I mean, even just simple follow-up questions, just so I understand, what did you mean by that question? Or, you know, tell me more about that. We have such a,

I think all of us as humans have a tendency to think we know what people are saying. And like you said, bring all of our stuff to it. And you can get much deeper, I think, with people, like you said, that you've invited into your life and that love you and you know who they are and all that. But even professionally, even at work, to just put a pin on your reaction for just a minute and ask one or two follow-up questions before you turn into a rage monster. Or at least that's what I do sometimes. Very true. I used to think that it was all about the question. But the question, not unlike the tree, has a deep set of roots.

So I stopped really relating to the question and I would always follow up with, tell me why that's important for you to know. And it works anywhere in life. Like my kids will come home. So obviously there's been a lot going on in the news with the helicopter crash. And we actually, my husband is a college coach at Pepperdine and they heard it while they were at a camp. And I remember my four-year-old came to me and he said, mommy, what happened to what happened in the plane crash? And I immediately go into, well, let me answer the question. And I thought, wait a second, he's four. And I said, love, why is that important for you to understand? And he said, mommy, one of my friends at school was very, very sad. And he was wearing a Lakers jersey. And he said, mommy, one of my friends at school was very, very sad. And he was wearing a Lakers

jersey. And he said, something very bad happened. And I said, okay. And I said, how did that make you feel? And he said, well, I didn't understand. And I said, okay, well, what have you been thinking about? Because as he's developing as a person, I want to also be really mindful that I ask him what he's feeling and thinking because they're equally as important parts of the puzzle. You know, as you and I know, that's an evolution as we get older to really be masterful in both the feeling thinking space, because half of the population's one half is the other. And he said, well, I think it was really nice that he wore that man's jersey. And I was just really sad that he was upset. And I realized it wasn't really the question. It was why he was asking the question. So if you think about it in the same way of the

follow-up question, if you can take five minutes and believe that maybe what's going on for the person in front of you may not be in alignment with your reaction and just have a couple of questions to follow up with, it tends to go a long way because more often than not, that's, you have no idea what's going on for people. There's a great quote going around is like, before you judge the person in front of you, remember they have a whole world of hurt and happiness that you'll never know. And it allows you to go, okay. Cause look, we can make everything about us because we're a singular entity. We're with ourself all the time. We're the person that knows each ourselves the most. It's really easy to get trapped in that ancillary dynamic that I am the only

filter. And if we can create some system around choosing to step outside of that, not, please no, I'm not saying diminish the feeling. The feelings are real. I want you to experience them, but I also want you to realize there's a lot of other factors that influence them that may or may not be supportive for you in that environment. Mm-hmm. I know for both of us, the, you know, responsibility coming to situations or from situations with a responsibility lens versus a victim lens, and also this concept of fact-checking your

feelings, I'm guessing that that has helped you build a healthier relationship with failure over the last, you know, 15-ish years since we did those trainings. Talk to us. I submit that failure is a healthy and important component to building confidence. And I know we as women sometimes struggle with failure and avoid it at all costs and think we're supposed to be perfect and all of that. Can you give us an example, as my last question for our time together, of where you have failed forward in your life, whether it be personally or professionally or however? Yeah.

Before I answer the question about failed forward, I obviously immersed in three kids, 12, seven, and four. I stopped using the word failure because the word failure has such a negative connotation. It seems really final. Like there's no other shot around it. And I think about them and they ask for a do-over all the time. Every game we play, can I have a do-over? Or was that a practice hand? Like they think of these moments where they don't have this grand success as they're really trying to learn how to be better. And I also think as we get older, failure and success feel really polarizing

and they're actually companions. And so for me, failing forward is more of a perspective I've chosen because I don't expect that I'm going to learn fluent Mandarin if I listen to one Rosetta Stone tape. I don't think I'm going to be the best basketball player if I shoot hoops one day a week. It's this amalgamation of effort and time. And so I think the biggest example that I've had is that I've stood in three completely different industries and I could choose to think that the first one I exited was a failure. I could choose to think the second one I exited was a failure, but the reality was I was the common denomination in all of the careers, my, all of my careers. And I, it was like, it was like climbing a staircase for me.

And I tripped, I'm sure multiple times. And I thought, okay, I'm going to give myself a do over. But failing forward for me is the only way to do this. Right. And yeah. And the one thing I will also mentioned is hindsight is that extraordinary vantage point you have when you're out of the woods and you can look back at the forest and say, here's exactly why it needed to get dark and weird for me to be here. I try to initiate a

faster response mechanism to perspective. And it's that fact finding feelings that helps me when I'm in a circumstance where I'm like, I don't like any of this. This doesn't serve me. I shouldn't be here. I'll stop and think, why would I be here? What's the lesson for me here that may lead to something else? And that has been the best thing ever. I think the biggest circumstance I have personally was going from a really not an awesome relationship, kind of a mediocre, indifferent relationship, which is really sad to ever say, to then meeting my husband and going, oh, so this is true partnership. This is extraordinary. This is something I never, I had no real identity to recognize it. And then professionally having the courage to make a left

hand turn in my career, going 90 miles an hour into an industry that I knew nothing about. But having someone, which was you say, all of the things you possess that I can't teach you will allow you to be successful here. You were successful here. I know you'll be successful here. Trust me. And I did. And it was like jumping off a cliff and having, praying to God that someone's going to get you to fly because sweet Jesus, that was a giant shift to enter to area from entertainment into financial services. Well, I have always admired your courage and your bravery. Thank you so much for sharing with us today how we can all be better at fact-checking

our feelings. I'll leave us with the thought I started with, which is it is okay for all of us to have our feelings. Me too. You know, Julie's been really helpful at letting me have my feelings and encouraged me to have my feelings, which was a little bit harder for me. But it's not okay for you to have to let your feelings have you, meaning that your feelings have control over you and the choices that you're making and how you move out of those feelings. And I am so grateful, Julie,

for your friendship and for your perspective and for these amazing tips and ideas that you shared with us today. If you want to learn more about fact-checking your feelings, check us out on NicoleKhalil.com. And let's all do this work together. It is most certainly woman's work.