This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 008 / The Problem Is How You See The Problem With Lisa Kalmin

Episode Date: March 4, 2020

Why do some people view the world with positivity and opportunity, and some with pessimism and skepticism? In this episode, Nicole welcomes guest Lisa Kalmin - Transformational Trainer, Speaker and Author, to share with us how when we choose a responsible approach in our lives, we can create an uplifting, inspiring and transformational space for ourselves. By the time we are 8 - 10 years old, our particular worldview is set. We carry that perspective throughout our life and it influences what opportunities are available to us. While we cannot change the past, through conscious presence and allowing ourselves full freedom to experience the present moment, we can change how we relate to our past and open up the door to growth and expansion. This is Woman’s Work. Learn more about what we are up to outside of this podcast at NicoleKalil.com

When I first met Lisa Kalman 15-ish years ago, it was one of the first experiences I'd had of seeing a woman stand in her full power, unapologetically. And I knew I was hooked, and I wanted some of that for myself. I am Nicole Khalil, and together we are going to redefine what it actually means to be doing woman's work in our world today. In today's episode of You Work, I've invited Lisa Kalman, transformational trainer, sought-after speaker, author, entrepreneur, and my personal coach to join us. She's here to help us all relate to our problems in a totally different way. Ready for some mind-blasting, life-changing advice? Let's do this. Lisa, your book is titled The Problem is How You See the

Problem. And I read the book in one day and then immediately handed it to Jay to read. And so talk to us about really where this book came from and what are the most important pieces of information that you're trying to share? Well, Nicole, thank you so much. First of all, I'm so excited about what you're creating and what you're doing. I've been listening to your podcast and loving them and laughing out loud at parts of it. And I am thrilled to be joining you and the folks that follow you. The problem is, How You See the Problem is the name of my book, because when I did transformational work 33 years ago, which is a long time, I was 28 years old at the time, I was really blown away. What opened up for me is that I had an opportunity through the transformational work I did to reinterpret and

relook at many aspects of my life in a way that was completely freeing and empowering. And so over the last 33 years, I've not only participated in transformational work, I have trained, coached, and started a transformational company. And after many years, over 30 years, I decided to write what I consider the very key principles and distinctions of how to live a transformed life. And then what I mean by that is how to live a life that you experience joy, freedom, aliveness, power, confidence, things like that. So the title, The Problem is How You See the Problem, is really the core of the transformational work that I train and coach, which is

that every one of us as human beings, through our upbringing, through our family of origin, through the cultural and socioeconomic world we lived in, through our experiences, particularly any experiences that might have been negative or hurtful, we develop a worldview. And we talk about, there have been some studies done that by the time we're somewhere in the age of eight to 10, I think it's really more four to five, and you may see this with your daughter, a particular worldview is set. And so when you think about the key influences of what has us see the world the way we see the world, it's our experiences, as I said. It's our family, particularly our parents who played those roles or didn't play those roles. It's our socioeconomic upbringing.

It's our gender. It's our race. It's our peers, not just peers that were our friends, but maybe peers that were maybe our bullies or something like that, our education, our religious upbringing, et cetera. And what happens is if we really think about it, or if you've been with your own children, if those of you have children, you've kind of watched it happen where there's open possibility to their little personalities got set. I have twins that are 10 years old and I saw it happen somewhere probably before four, but definitely by the age of four. And that worldview, that particular perspective, the way we see the world, the way

any person sees the world, influences the set of available possibilities we have. I know that sounds a little sort of lots of words, but what it means is why do some people see the world with positivity or lightness or opportunity? And some people see the world with pessimism or skepticism or distrust. The same event can be seen in many different ways. So the core of the book is that the problem is how we see the problem. In other words, it may not be, quote, a problem. It may see the problem. In other words, it may not be quote a problem. It may be the way we're relating to it or interpreting it. So that's kind of the crux of it. Does that make sense to you? Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things that really stood out to me a couple of lines from your book is how the past fills the present. And if we don't, if we're not conscious of it, or if we

don't make choices that then we end up living a future by default. And, and I might've messed that up a little bit, but talk to us about what, how that, so, okay. Our past helps us or dictates our worldview, but then how does that play out in our present and our future? Yeah, great, great question. So if we think about the present moment, the present moment is exactly that moment, moment, moment, moment, moment. And that present moment is literally like a blank space, like an open space. Because of the perspective we have, basically the hard wiring from our past, from most of our childhood and sometimes from later on, our past automatically fills in the present. It doesn't mean you don't do new things. It doesn't mean you don't think new thoughts or have ideas or imagination of new possibilities. But without conscious presence to stand in the future, and I'll talk about that in a second, a hole on the beach, like you're on the beach and you

dig a big hole, big hole in the sand, big hole on the beach, your past is literally the ocean coming in. I sometimes say it's literally a tsunami coming in because you have so much, so many years of practice, so many years of evidence. It's cellular programming. It's literally cellular programming. So the opportunity of transformation is if we know that the present is this blank space, this open space, the past can fill it in or you can step into the future and bring it into the future and bring it into the present. And what I mean by that is you've heard of visualization, you've heard of affirmations, you've heard of declaring something in the future. And once we use the power of declaration,

this is in the book as well, the power of declaration, and declare it and then demonstrate it, literally act as if, be as if, then you can bring the future into the present. One of my very favorite examples of this is the Declaration of Independence. When the United States began or America began, our forefathers, I don't know if there were four mothers there, I believe there were, they just weren't noted, that they declared something into the future. They declared equality, they declared free nation, they declared that. And then through their way they operated, the way they demonstrated, the way they acted, including having a war with Britain, we began to demonstrate from that. We still use that in the constitution. It's a big deal right

now, um, as a guidepost to how we're to be. It was a step out into the future to bring it into now. In transformation, we often use the power of the words, I am. You know, the words I am are the most powerful words we can speak. Because when you say I am, you're bringing yourself right into the present, but you could put anything after that. I am a confident leader. I am a powerful and successful businesswoman. I am a inspiring entrepreneur. And in living into that and believing that,

and it's not a fantasy. It's not about like, woohoo, aren't I like, you know, a bazillionaire. It's not like that. If I live into that and I demonstrate that and I bring the qualities of that into now, I have taken the future into the present rather than the past into the present. So one of the quotes from your book that just jumped off the page for me is, we can do nothing about our past except change how we relate to it. How do we do that? That is really a big question and one that I think for many of us, it takes years to be competent at or master. So the past events of our life have occurred. We can't go back into the past and change them. who haven't necessarily accessed the kind of personal power they can, is that they look at

the past events and are still either victimized by them, are hurt by them, are resentful about them, are upset about them. And so the way to, especially negative events, harmful events, even horrific and abusive events, the way to kind of take away the power that has over us emotionally is a couple things. So right now, something happened. Let's talk about it from the present, then we'll talk about the past. If right now something happened, I don't know, my father-in-law just had his car stolen and it's not empowering. It's basically negative. The first key to not carrying it forward is to experience whatever is there for you. So if it's hurt, experience your hurt. It doesn't mean you cry on people. It doesn't mean you lose it at work. I'm not talking about that, but allow yourself the time

and the space to experience it. If it's hurt, if you're experiencing anger, if you're feeling sadness, grief, anything like that, to let yourself fully experience it. And some things maybe take longer than others to experience. If you've ever watched a little child when they're really young and they get really upset and they just cry it out or maybe throw a tantrum and when they're finished with it, they're finished with it. Like they're done. And then they're in the next moment, they're joyful and happy. I don't know if you've ever noticed that with your daughter. If we allow ourself to experience, it dissipates. What we fully experience goes away.

What we fully experience dissipates. Once you've experienced the emotion around something, then you can bring in another interpretation around it. Now, if something happens like your car's stolen or you lose a job or something, you may interpretation around it. Now, if something happens like your car stolen or you lose a job or something, you may never like it. It may never be like, woohoo, wasn't that wonderful? And you can begin to say, okay, what are the opportunities here? What is the, you can call it a silver lining, or you can really look at, you know, what is it that this is providing me in my own growth, my own expansion, my own opportunity to be a more powerful, evolved human being. So I'll never forget when I closed down my business in Washington, D.C. And World Works, those are the trainings that you did.

When I closed it down, it felt like a real loss to me. I thought, oh my gosh, this is a big deal. I knew I had a career in transformation. I just didn't know what it looked like. Well, within a few days, literally, some of my graduates from California called and said, we'd love you to come out here and start your business. We love it. It's been inspiring. It's life-defining. And that's how I ended up in Southern California, which has been the most magnificent gift of my life. I love it here. I've created a community here. I found my beautiful wife and

have kids here. So what looked like it was devastating ended up being incredibly empowering. And at the time I didn't know that, but I had to trust. Yeah. One of the things I remember that really was a difference maker for me when I did the trainings was in those moments, you know, how maybe there is my natural tendency was to play the victim role or to feel like a victim. And, you know, there might be some component of it was out of your control or something felt like it was done to you, but having the option and all of those moments to be responsible and to choose how you interact with those moments and choose

how you react and, and all of that. And one of the things, and again, I might butcher it, but that I remember you saying was responsibility is not a 50, 50 game. So when you're in a relationship with somebody, they're not 50% responsible and you're not 50% responsible. It's 100%. We are both 100% responsible all the time. So talk to us a little bit about that. And then I want to add, I think we as women might hear the word responsibility and quickly go into burden or blame or guilt or anything like that.

So talk about responsibility generally, but also maybe from the lens of a woman and how we can let go of interacting or thinking about it in that way. Yeah, that's great. I think culturally, and especially as you're saying with women, that we hear responsibility and it ends up getting framed in more the context of accountability. And I'm accountable for feeding my kids. I'm accountable for taking care of the house, which isn't maybe true. You know, you may have accountabilities. You and Jay have different accountabilities, I'm sure, as I do as well.

And we culturally have been, I think, indoctrinated, as you said, a burden, a duty, an obligation, or sometimes in fault and blame. Sometimes when something goes wrong or doesn't happen, I often hear people say, well, I'll take accountability for that, or I'll take responsibility for that. Even that is this concept that there's this thing out there that we take, as opposed to responsibility being, number one, on a very fundamental level, the ability to respond. One of the key fundamental things I talk about in the book, as well as in transformation, is that events are neutral. Now, I say that sometimes and people look at me like, what are you talking about? That's crazy. What I mean by events are neutral is that events have no inherent meaning, that we make meaning

out of it. We are meaning-making machines. Human beings are meaning-making machines. It is the difference between a human being and an ant. We make meaning out of everything. In fact, human beings are the only beings on the planet whose own being is an issue for them. If you think about it, I'm like, we're the only beings on the planet whose own being is an issue. My dog has no issue being dog.

That's awesome. Well, and it's the gift of our mind. It's the gift of our intelligence. So we as human beings are meaning making machines. So the events are never neutral to us. And they're inherently neutral. So if events are neutral, if we think about a wedding, if you've ever been to a wedding, there is a lot of, the event is neutral, same wedding to everyone,

the same event rather is happening. Some people are super happy and joyful. Some people are excited. Some people are bored. Some people are sad because they're not married. Some people are like, you know, thinking about how much money it costs. All of that is completely personal. Once you know that, what the power of knowing that means, okay, if the event is neutral, then I have an opportunity to relate to it. Again, if it's a negative thing, I just talked about experiencing it. Well, what that gives me is the opportunity to be fully responsible for my interpretations, to be fully responsible for the way that I see life and the way that I picture life and the way that I relate to life. In terms of relationships, I think we're, again, through our culture, we're sort of downloaded in, you know, relationships should be 50-50, whether it's romantic or partnerships, business, et cetera.

And it doesn't mean you don't have a delegation of, quote, duties. But in terms of responsibility in transformational terms, what you're saying about 100%, 100% is so valuable. So when I think about my family, I am 100% responsible for creating the relationship with my spouse that I'm committed to. My 100% doesn't take away their 100%. So if openness is missing, connection is missing, then I'm responsible to create the openness and connection. If trust is missing, I'm responsible to create the trust. If joy, passion is missing, I'm responsible. It doesn't mean that they aren't there participating

in the relationship. When you have a relationship that's 100%, 100%, then it's really powerful because you're not waiting for the other person to fill up something or to make you happy or to bring something that really you can bring yourself. So if I want, if I look at my relationship and say, I want there to be more connection and I come from a 100%, 100% place. Give me some examples about how I might create connection or how I might stand in connection or how I could do that without letting the other person off the hook, as you say. Well, a couple of things. And we're getting a little bit into the distinction from the book and what I think is a fundamental transformational distinction,

not just in my trainings, but in most transformational trainings, which is be, do, have. So oftentimes in, I think, especially Western culture, our Western culture, we're really looking for accomplishment results. We have a high value on results and accomplishment. And I think the women that you're talking to, that's absolutely true. It's been true of me in my life. So we either are looking at gaining have, which is an accomplishment or result. Like for example, once I have that position, then I'll be confident or I'll be happier. Once I have the relationship,

I'll be loved. I'll be satisfied. Or we come from doing this, like when I do the work or when I start my new business and I do that, then I'll have credibility or I'll have money, then I'll be happy. And the cornerstone of one of the other cornerstones of transformation is be, do, have. So what are the ways of being or qualities that I want to be? What are the qualities that the kind of person I want to be is? So, you know, an entrepreneur or a successful businesswoman being confident, being open, being powerful, being courageous, being authentic. And then what actions would I need to take and then what actions would I need to take, and then the results. So there's a powerful relationship between who I'm being. And the power of that is I get to choose who I'm being. I don't have to wait for the result to be happy, to be joyful, to be courageous, to be confident.

So in a relationship, if you're committed to creating connection, one first step is being connected. And I say that not from a place of doing connection, like, okay, honey, I'm going to hold your hand now, but to literally like experience the connection you have with your husband or spouse. So that's being, and then I would invite, for example, if you want to create connection, deeper connection with your spouse or with Jay, not only being it, but then saying, you know what, honey, I noticed I haven't been being fully connected lately and I'm really committed to that. And so I'm practicing that or I'm committed to that.

And I would love to know from you when you experience that I am being connected. And I would love to know from you when you feel like I'm not connected or I'm disconnected so that I can kind of alter course or shift in that way. So actually putting out your commitment, putting out what you want, putting out your commitment and declaration to the person so that they can really be a partner with you. And what I find is that once you kind of put

yourself out there in that way, then they kind of step up to the challenge as well without you saying, okay, now your turn. Right. Yeah. No, I, I, I mean, in the busyness of life, I think, you know, both Jay and I being business owners and having JJ and, you know, it's so easy to, you know, let's put our phones away for periods of time. We were starting with the do. And just that distinction right there, I think makes such a big difference to come from being connected and, and really present and engaged and, and, and standing from the place of this is who I want to be today. And then again today, and then, you know, and just keep, and then the doing this of it becomes easier. And then, you know, lo and behold, you have more connection. It's something I've tested out and practiced a lot in my life and, and, and believe it firmly to play out in the way that you said that it does. Yeah. It's a little, it seems a little mystical when you hear it and practicing really does make a difference. And one easy way to practice for those of you

that are listening is just to wake up in the morning and pick one quality or one way of being you're committed to that day. I'm committed to being joyful. I'm committed to being courageous. I'm committed to being responsible. Whatever committed to being responsible whatever it is that would be inspiring to you and then chew yourself up to it moment by moment and day by day you know hour by hour just say oh yeah I'm committed to being joyful so if the uh you know you step in dog poop which I did the other day um then I'm committed to being joyful, even though I stepped in dog poop, you know? Yep. I love it. So, okay. You're right. It does sometimes sound a little magical. And I remember the first time I heard it, I was like, and so now I'm, you know, totally invested, but what about when like really bad things happen? Like how, how do you either, do you either create a different perspective or choose responsibility

when something horrible, like somebody dies or something along those lines, that to me is still hard. Yeah, it is hard. It really is hard. And it goes a little bit back to what I was saying. When events happen that are really tough and really tragic sometimes, especially if somebody dies, I believe that the process of grief is really personal. And so I don't ever coach somebody to go, okay, how are you responsible for this? And you wouldn't be responsible, obviously, in terms of like an action for anyone's pain or hurt or death or anything like that. And experiencing the grief fully, experiencing the loss, experiencing maybe forgiveness. You know, forgiveness has a way of opening up space when something negative happens as

well. And you can't, I don't believe you can go straight to forgiveness without experiencing the pain or the hurt or the resentment or the anger first. So again, it goes back to experiencing fully. And then even if you can't see or find a empowering interpretation, then at least being in gratitude for, especially if it's something like death, the life you had with that person or the life that you, or the experience that you had with that person. I think that's critical. And I believe that we don't always know, like in the example that I gave earlier, which was a business example, but I don't think we always know in the moment what the bigger sort of universal purpose of things occurring in our life is.

And if you're willing to practice on the smaller things, whether it's the parking place you got or didn't get, whether it's the job interview that went well or didn't, whether it's the client you ended up closing or not closing and going, all right, I'm not happy about that or whatever. How did I, how am I responsible for this? How did I participate in this to generate that? Then I think it gets easier on the bigger stuff. The other thing I think about is we as a collective consciousness on our planet have exactly that, a collective consciousness. And I'm always contributing to the collective consciousness. So the more aware I am, the more uplifted I am, the more elevated I am, the more connected to my source, whether that's God, the universe, however people

participate with that, then I am impacting the collective consciousness in a powerful way. And certainly we all know that our energy impacts the people around us. We've all been in a room where somebody walks in and they're upset, negative, bad mood, whatever, and boom, affects the whole energy. So I'm present to how's my energy affecting my children, my relationship, my clients, my friends, and how do I, how am I responsible to create a uplifted and inspiring and transformational space? So that's one of the things I like to true myself up to and have been basically working on for myself over the last couple of years. I feel like I could talk about this forever. I have been, I have been asking

most of my guests to talk a little bit about failure. It's something I know we as women, you know, it can be scary. We have been sort of socialized to avoid it at all costs. You know, God forbid we shouldn't look perfect at all times and like we don't have it all together. So specifically with failure, any advice or tips about how we might reinterpret failure or come to failure from a responsible place so that it actually works for us or at the very, we can fail forward into something better. Yeah. You know, I'm imagining that you and your other speakers have said things that I think are true, are totally true. Like really believe that failure is also very much a personal interpretation. What you consider a failure, someone else may consider a mild success. What I consider a failure, somebody else might consider, you know, disaster. I don't even know. So one of the things to look at in terms of failure is why do you have it as it is a failure?

Like, what does it mean to have interpreted it as a failure? So it means I didn't get a result I wanted, maybe. It means people looked at me a certain way. I felt judged. It means I felt embarrassed. Whatever it is that has me think it's a failure is some insight into my own personal interpretation about myself. Somewhere there's a wound, I believe, in there that is an unmet need or a childhood wound that is still there that just got triggered by that failure. So the first thing I want to do is figure out why is this a failure to me? And maybe it's just I missed something important to me and I didn't fulfill it. Well, then I get to look at what's the gap? What was the missing ingredient or ingredients that kept me from fulfilling that? And what do

I get to take forward out of that if it's important enough to me? And I think really, if I know why it's bugging me so much or why it hurts so much or why I'm so disappointed, then that goes a long way into moving that from a failure to a lesson. I love that. I don't know that I've ever thought about failure itself as a neutral event, just like everything else that we talked about and how, you know, we all might see that event completely differently, big, small, not a failure. I'm going to do a little bit of internal digging on that because that was a big mind blaster there. Okay. So if you want to learn more about the transformational work that Lisa Kalman is doing,

or learn more about some of the concepts that we talked about today, her book, The Problem Is How You See The Problem, is available on Amazon, or you can follow Lisa on social media, Lisa Kalman or at Lisa Kalman. And I want to leave you with this thought. I think what really stuck out to me was this last piece of conversation. What we think of as failure, just first of all, connecting it to ourselves that it is neutral. The event itself is neutral and we are choosing how to interpret it. And why are we choosing that? Or what from our past is being triggered? Responsibility, choice, gratitude, all of that, all of this is people work.

And it's definitely women's work.