Flailing & Flying

In this engaging conversation, Heather and Leah explore the themes of community transformation, resilience, and the importance of creating safe spaces for risk-taking. They discuss the metaphor of flailing and flying as a representation of learning and growth, emphasizing the need for leaders to foster environments where individuals can experiment and learn from their failures. The conversation highlights the significance of joy in the process of flailing and the necessity of self-compassion and reflection in personal growth.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions shared in this episode belong solely to the guest and do not necessarily reflect those of their employer or affiliated organizations.

Host: Heather Gates, MPH, Owner & Strategy Partner, Human-Centered Strategy, LLC 

Guest: Leah Ferguson, DrPH, Executive Director, Thrive Asheville 

Takeaways

• Flailing is a necessary part of learning and resilience.
• Creating safe enough to fail spaces is crucial for growth.
• Leadership requires adaptability.
• Discomfort is a critical part of the learning process.
• Joy can be found in the flailing and experimentation.
• Your value is not tied to your productivity.
• We must support each other in the flail.

Chapters

• 02:43 Exploring Community Transformation
• 05:24 Flailing and Flying: A Metaphor for Resilience
• 11:33 Creating Safe Enough to Fail Spaces
• 17:31 The Role of Leadership in Risk-Taking
• 23:29 Navigating Discomfort and Growth
• 29:24 The Importance of Joy in the Flail

Quoted Resources & Tools in this Episode

• https://thecynefin.co/team/dave-snowden/ 
• https://hbr.org/2007/11/a-leaders-framework-for-decision-making 
• https://www.mos.org/why-did-dinosaurs-have-feathers 

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Transcript

Heather 
Welcome back to the podcast, everybody. I'm glad to have you with us today. Thank you for the curiosity that brought you here to the table where I'm joined by a fellow systems and process enthusiast and podcast pro it turns out. Leah Ferguson, who's based here also, just like me in Western North Carolina. Leah, thanks for coming down to hang out in Henderson County today.

Thank you so much, Heather. I'm really happy to be here. So happy to have you. I know this is going to be fun. Before we get started, I would love for you to introduce yourself in whatever way feels meaningful to you. 

Leah 
Thank you so much. Wow. So for the purposes of this podcast today, I'm Leah Ferguson. I have a doctorate in public health. And I'm a I'm an enthusiast about a lot of different topics. I have enthusiasms and I'm a nerd generalist. So we're going to be talking a lot about things that I do deep dives into. I think when we met, Heather, I was doing the Community Transformation Project, which feels like a really big title when I was like, I'm lead of the Community Transformation Project. CTG. exactly. Transforming communities.

I actually am very interested in transformation in all kinds of ways and in community transformation towards thriving, towards better health. I'm a nonprofit executive because that's the platform that I have to use to do that, but to spend a lot of time doing national work, network building, network weaving.

Heather & Leah 
community organizing, all of those things are things I really love and I've had the privilege and honor to do. I'm obsessed with the words nerd generalist and may need to update my business card. We're not going to take this rabbit hole path, but I will say just as somebody who also, I I introduced you to me as I thought about our shared connectivity as a systems process person.

So think even coming up through public health, where a lot of times people are focused on a condition or a particular problem they're trying to solve. But I too am in this sort of generalist, how does it all work? In service to transformation. It's not change. I tell people, it's like, it's not about change. Change means different. We've all had a bad haircut and painted our house a weird color. That's change. We're talking about improvement. We're talking about transforming in service to better.

we talk here about flourishing, right? That all of this is in service to human flourishing. So yeah, community transformation, was, it's been some time ago. So I'm happy that our paths have crossed, that you are still in the region and that you're here. As we get started, we've been doing, I think we'll stick with it until we get bored of it, is the kind of two-word check-in that I call the and stand on how you're showing up today. How are you today? as you sit with me here? 

Leah 
I am optimistic and anxious. I think I'm really riding both of those things. I feel a turning, you know, when people talk about when you're kind of sensing into the world and you get up every day and I feel actually like there's a lot of like potential optimism happening even in a world that feels like it is on fire and not in a good way. So you feel some turning in the exter, some more kind of sensing into the external environment. I think so, but partly it's because I think I've moved from national work into hyperlocal work and I'm just

totally inspired by the people that I meet every day, the nuance that they bring to the work and to serious challenges and how they're leaning into community. got the chance to listen to women who were in an institutional setting, working to make their lives better as part of a qualitative research project and they just reminded me.

of resilience of the things that we're gonna talk about today of flailing and flying. 

Heather 
Yeah, just the comment you made about working locally resonates. think a lot of times when we see... Working locally, I experience over and over over connection.

and cohesion and collaboration in a way that is inspiring to me too. and Stand for me, I'm feeling very reflecty. I like that word. I was gonna say pondery, but that's not it. I'm feeling reflecty. I think it's a seasonal pattern for me, especially once we get to about November, to me the year is done. And then there's this middle part that's just the holidays.

But I get real like, how are things going? What is nourishing? What is heavy? What needs to shift? What needs to fall away? So I'm, I'm feeling some fall energy in me. And I'm really curious about this conversation. I love conversation with you. You know this. It feels like a fun brain playground when we get to share space.

So I'm just excited to see where it goes. So with that, think we'll get right into it. You gave us a little teaser about flailing and flying. And I wonder if the place to start is in the story that you told me at lunch last time. Does that feel like the entry? Sure. Because I've been thinking more about it. I'm like, here's where that makes sense to me. here's where, cause that's what's, think fun about our conversations is it's not always here's how exactly we see things the same way.

Leah 
It's a very respectful interrogation of things. So, yeah, let's start there. Absolutely. So I guess I'll start a little bit with where the story came from, came to me, how it came to me. I, you know, I love deep dives and researching and I was thinking a lot about leadership, actually. And I was introduced to a framework by a gentleman named David Snowden.

And Snowden is a researcher and academic. He's at MIT in their business school. And he produced something called the Kenevan framework, which is about how leadership needs to adapt to the conditions that you approach. those of us who read books like Servant Leadership or other leadership books, there's this idea that there's a kind of right way to lead. And there is, perhaps, but there's also

what's required of us, especially those who are trying to meet moments and meet communities where they're at, is to be adaptive. And so that led me to really think a lot about adaptive capacity and leadership and how that shows up in the work that I do, the way that I work, and what I'm trying to kind of build in community or assess in community. Usually that's what I'm. really looking at is where's the adaptive capacity in the community and how do we build from there? And so I came upon a lecture that he was giving and he told this story and then I spent a lot of time thinking about it and my partner is a biology teacher, reads a lot of books on biology and the concept comes from evolutionary biology. I am not an evolutionary biologist. So if you're listening, you can write Heather. If you have complaints about Leah, feel free to send them to connect@standintheand.com Yeah, if I butchered this. So the story goes that what we know about dinosaurs is that they evolved into birds.

Leah 
first heard the story, thought of course T-Rex, that was the dinosaur that popped into my head. Same, was like, that feels like a stretch. That's a big bird, right? But actually there were lots of course dinosaurs and some of them were smaller and they would move right up maybe to avoid things like the climate disaster that killed a lot of dinosaurs or they were moving away to avoid predators but they were moving upwards into higher altitudes into trees and things like that and they developed feathers.

And Snowden and others have said that feathers were not an evolutionary result of flight. They actually evolved for warmth. So you're up here, you're up in the mountains or in the tops of trees. And what else can happen to you? Well, you can fall. And so here's where there's a little bit of a black box space that I like to put poetry in. So one of my and’s is science and poetry. Love it. I love those things together. so here, get poetic with me. This story of science and poetry together that gives us something to start from. That's right. And so then it becomes a great working metaphor for what we're going to be talking about in terms of resilience and adaptation. these dinosaurs have got their feathers and they, of course, are on higher altitudes and they fall. Well, if you're going to fall, you better flail because if you don't flail, you hit the ground pretty hard.

and you don't get to live another day. So the ones that got to live another day, they fluff up and they catch some wind and they make themselves a little parachute out of their bodies. And I like to think that a couple of them started to find joy in that falling and flailing. And when they found that joy, they moved their bodies, they experimented, they innovated, and that that evolves over time into flying.

Right? That in and of itself is incredible. But the thing that's even more incredible about it is that because those dinosaurs learned to fly, they used their feathers, they exacted their feathers for flight, it created the capacity for life all over the planet. Because their little poops were full of all kinds of organic material, and they moved that across the planet. Right? So you have this fundamental moment in evolution that really creates the space for us. 

So we need to flail. We need to flail. And also be high enough, Have enough risk in our lives to fall. 

Heather 
Yeah, play that out another step for us. So when you think about this metaphor, how does it serve you in your...in your work and your thinking? What is it shaping for you? 

Leah 
I think, you know, partly it's around creating safe enough to fail spaces. Yeah. So I tend to think of myself often like I'm the mother bird that kicks the kids out of the nest. I'm like, well, you know, you better flail. know, and that I mean, you know, I know if you've ever seen it, but not everyone makes it right. Not all the birds make it. But you do want safe enough to fail opportunities for community.

And that, yeah, and that experience, the sort of experience of flailing is so uncomfortable. Like the discomfort of that, right? Especially in public. And that so, you know, and that you're going to flail and the gracelessness of it. And if you do, and if you don't hit the ground super hard and you do actually live another day and shake yourself off.

It's not like you're like, you know, strutting across, you know, you do that sad little climb. Back up to where they're I might have to like lay for a minute. 

Heather 
Actually failure for me. have to soak it in right. It's like face down on the arena, noticing the dirt, spitting it out. But I have to honor that part. think right when I was thinking, I was thinking about this is because sometimes it does feel like the nudge from external is bounce. like, got to take it in for a second, wrap it in a little self-compassion. And it's probably from that place that I have to be reminded of what the values I'm holding are that got me to wherever I fell from in the first place. Yeah. Right. And that's how I think that's

at least for me, where then the stand back up and the climb and crawl. Cause from the bottom, I have to also give myself permission to never climb again. There's something liberating to me about remembering that for me, I'm not kind of accidentally flailing to, you know, it's not involved. It's some other fancy word that you use. Oh, exaptation Right. But uniquely for us, I think is a species is choice. Yeah.

So I'm always reminding myself, you're at choice. You stay right there on the ground if you want to. And then it lets me kind of remember and of the agency to crawl again. So values for me, when I think about the stuckness even in the and of, on the other side of flail, right? On the fail side of it.

and the stuckness that comes from that, remembering the values that I'm standing in, which, right, all of this separate from perfectionism. That's not what any of this conversation is about. The values that got me there that remind me when I have to look at myself in the mirror, like this is why you do this. And you showed up in your values as you were falling. Self-compassion about the fall.

And then the third one I'd say is, yeah, permission, reminder, you’re at choice. Never climb again. And then I always climb again, but I have to remember. 

Leah 
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right, you know, because you get knocked out of your senses a little bit. Yeah. You know, and in life. And I also think that the instinct is often to protect people from the flail. And when you do that, you steal their learning because we have to learn from...

the experience of what is transformation, but learning through the pain of what it means to exist, right? And so the instinct to protect the people that we care about or commute, whatever, whatever it is from the discomfort, because we don't like it, because it makes us uncomfortable to watch it happen, because it makes us uncomfortable to have to participate in, steals the learning. And you can see it, right? You can see when we've...

Leah 
come through learning. And to say that resilience, as you talked about, bounce, it's not always gonna adapt towards the light, right? I think a lot about this at the individual level.

You know, if I experience trauma, right, I could, if I have access, I can, you know, do all of the things that we attribute to good adaptation, right? I can get a therapist and get, you know, prescribed medications to support and I can do whatever, run a marathon or whatever my thing is to deal with and process my trauma. But if I don't have any of that access, and what I do is use street drugs.

It is the same function. It is the same desire to be resilient, actually. One carries social grace and the other one social stigma. One will shorten my life. One pathway will lengthen my life. But why, you know, so I want, right, for every member of the community to have the opportunity. It's going to lengthen their life and add value to their life. But both of those instincts are the same. And I think that that's one of the challenges is that, you know, we don't always

resilience doesn't always look the way, like look in this positive way, but when we like to call the, what we like to call resilience is the pathway that we prefer for people or for communities. And so, you I just am really conscious of that. Yeah, versus acknowledging all of the actions that are meant to be support, right? Yeah, meant to, they're a response. Response, They're a response to.

what's happening and so if you want to understand it, you have to understand what's happened and then work from there. And if we want to change what resilience looks like, we have to create different opportunities. 

Heather 
I want to come back to something you said a minute ago. You just said a lot of things that I've like five different branches I could take. But the first one, I think, is this notion of

safe enough to fail spaces? Sometimes safe is tricky for me because we can't necessarily guarantee safety. So brave space, whatever the language is. Yeah, what do we mean by that? When you put your leadership hat on, what is safe enough to fail space? 

Leah 
Yeah, so it's an exploration, right? I usually talk about things as good enough to try, safe enough to fail. Lots of things are good enough to try. Almost anything is good enough to try. safe enough to fail is a different metric and it requires some grappling. And part of figuring out what's, and so really it's really in the exploration of what is asking the question, what's safe enough to fail in this context, right? And what you're trying to do is you're trying to limit the unintentional harm. So for example- Go ahead. Yeah, sorry. No, just am like exclamation point on this.

I have so much to say, go ahead. Sometimes the analogy is you can swing your arms in a field, you can't swing your arms in an elevator. So how do know when you're in the elevator or in the field, right? And so with other people, and so part of that is how much proximity do I have to creating harm, unintentional harm for other people? Is it just me? And so I think that that's, those are all of the sort of indices that you have to think through and then,

once you've thought them through enough, then you can sort of try whatever risky thing you're trying, you wanna do. I think this is so important, Leah, because I feel like often when in culture we're talking about risk taking and failing, the narrative that's more associated with risk and failure tends to come out of that sort of industry, fail faster, go hard.

Heather 
Yeah. Language in frame. And then we take it to community. We take it to organizations and I hear, you know, fail faster. I'm like, yeah, there's some nuance in here that matters. Right. When failure. borders recklessness that has impacts on trust that take a long time to rebuild. just, I love the way that you described the nuance, right? The and of it. It's not, we take risk or not? It's what does safe enough to fail look like in this context really brings it into situational awareness. And I think about risk taking in community.

for example, or again, organizations, what is the foundation on which risk needs to stand? Right, because I don't think we're taking risks that's related to our values, for example. Right, what are we taking risk on and what are we not? This sort of sturdiness, because I don't think risk is, you know, kind of fireworks all over the place. To me, there's a sturdiness that we're not talking about from which then experimentation can grow.

And without it feels, feels dangerous. I mean, you're talking about like some things you can do in some situations and not another. So that practice, just asking that question because I, yeah, again, I think there's a real, there's a lot of opportunity for, and in this space for risk. And we all individually manage it differently, certainly collectively we do. And so I think to have a set of tools like you're talking about that help us understand, have a conversation.

around what is safe enough to fail look like here. Just feels like a really helpful tool for people. Thank you, yeah, and part of that is coming up with the benchmarking and the how do we know, right? Exactly. so, you know, I think a lot about consent. I worked with a group called Circle Forward, they're really wonderful and they did consent-based governance. And it was wonderful to take

consent, this kind of concept that we tend to compartmentalize to an intimate space. Or an individual, yeah, for sure. Or an individual space into governance, into the way that we interact with other people. part of the practice is to think about a range of tolerance. And when you're in your range of tolerance, and so much of that is actually

Heather & Leah 
that happens at the like feeling level. Yep. Right? And so what I would do working with people, I still do, and I still think about it for myself, is when you're feeling a kind of way, you this is very Southern. Feel some kind of way about it, for sure. Lately I'm just like, does that make you itchy? What about this is making you itchy? But yeah, all these sort of words that we try to use to talk about the somatic and a felt experience. Totally. And it's like what that is an invitation.

to interrogate, right? And if you step over the invitation to interrogate, you miss this really critical part of consent and you also miss wisdom because those things feel very connected to me, right? Our somatic experience, consent and wisdom, because they're all happening at the felt level and where that interacts with our cognitive. It's like our body is

are a bit ahead of our brains. And so if we slow down, then we can really lean into what our brain has to tell us. 

Heather 
Amen. mean, this is, this is why we have made pause buttons. This slowing down so that we can let all the things catch up. Let's get, let's give us, can we kind of paint a specific picture about this just to help kind of root it in pragmatism for folks?

So let's say we're working together and we're in an organization and we want to try something new that feels really risky. So are you suggesting that we're having a group conversation and we're just kind of talking about what are people's, what's the range of tolerance that you have for this or what does that look like from a process perspective? And in particular, then this sort of we're gonna sit with that I'm feeling away about it.

Leah 
So the way that I would do this is whoever's gonna be, the implementers really matter. Like who's gonna be carrying forward, they matter. And they have to be the crafters of the good enough to try proposal. So they craft this good enough to try proposal, work hard on it, bring their best thinking to it. And then the idea is they need to then bring it to the larger group because what you're trying to do is test for risk in that safe enough to fail place.

with a larger sense. And so I think about like an octopus, right? An octopus has that like, it's got a thing that looks like a head, but really all of the tentacles are equally as smart. And they're feeling out into very different places. And so I think, okay, well, that's where, I'm receiving that proposal, my job is to let it land and figure out what's the risk I'm sensing you to. And what I want, if I'm delivering that proposal, my...

tear it up, tell me how it fails because I need to know. That's what I want to know. I didn't come here for you to tell me it was good. I brought it to you because I believe it's good. So I want you to tell me how it fails. And in that, you can make, I think, the best farsighted decisions. It's never going to be perfect. because you are saying, well, one of my questions always as an evaluator, if somebody cares very much about that, I'd be like, well, what do you?

how you're gonna test to make sure that it's safe enough to fail in an ongoing way, how are you gonna adapt based on what you learn. And once it has those component pieces, and if I can help create some of those component pieces as somebody who has that skill set, then that's gonna be a better thing going forward. Yeah, I love the idea of a pitch. Because risk occupies so many different categories, financial risk, legal risk, reputational, relational, and...

different pieces of the organization are going to see those differently. Another piece of that that feels important to me is the frame of the pitch maker that seems in that example, not tied to what's being presented. And I think sometimes whatever we're sharing feels so precious to us that it is hard for people to give that feedback. And so part of the creating that safe space to fail,

even in the pitch phase is creating that culture where it's like, I'm bringing you the best that I can come up with. And it is expected that your part is to question it. just permission to question is an important kind of cultural element. feels like to that, the more you describe this, Leah, mean, the more, again, to me, when I hear people talking about, need to take more risk. It sounds so quick. know, it sounds like it's just, just, it feels more like the just do it.

just do it stuff. And that's where I think we start to get scared of risk as we've had those maybe experiences. This feels so intentional. Just love the and of really thoughtful, embodied, meaningful risk taking. 

Leah 
So I'm going to offer something here though. This is the challenge of being an age where I'm a mama bird.

Eventually you're like, we're done talking about it, go do it. No, but partly it's that I'm often confronted with people who are new to implementation, they're new to risk, they're new to all the things. And I do, and part of the role of being mama bird is to kick them out of the nest. Like just go do it? Not go do it, but be in a situation where I'm watching them flail in a pitch, in a...

where they're getting a lot of heat, where they're getting a lot of feedback, where they're getting a lot of risk, and it is uncomfortable. And you cannot seal the learning and

I'm just, I'm like transported back to those moments of heat that feels like flailing and feels like failing. And what you're saying is flailing is not failing. Flailing is learning. And so that's what you're like, don't rescue the flail. I don't know how this language, I'm like, I hope we're articulate enough for this to come across.

Heather 
Yeah, it's like nurture a fail and a flail differently, right? Because it's not necessary, we might still fail, but that's a different thing than flailing, which in our context, I think what we're saying in a practical sense is that the flailing is the discomfort. It's the questioning. It's the figuring it out. A metaphor came up for me a second ago, again.

This turns very, the biologists out there are going to have a lot to say for us. I'm sure about this. story that I understand it to be, whether it's true or not, can find out is when a butterfly is emerging, looks very flaily, right? It's like kind of, they get looked like they're stuck. if the temptation might be, let me help you get out. And if you pull them out,

they will not survive because the flail in their case is actually helping, helping, not helping, helping them strengthen, it's pump blood through their wings or whatever is actually happening. But that emergence is a critical part of the process. 

Leah 
Same thing with chicks that emerge from an egg. You know, if you watch a chicken emerging from an egg, it's, it looks like it's struggling. Right. You want to, can I crack it open for you? No.

you have to let it do it themselves. And I think that that's part of it. think we so often want, you you don't want to put somebody in a position when they're not ready. I'm not kicking somebody on the nest when I don't think they're strong enough to This is a really tricky, discernment is such an important thing to all things and that we've not actually put a fine point on until this episode. But go ahead, I want you to say more about this because it is a really discerning leadership moment to figure out like,

there's a lot of range in there. Right, and so that's part of, as a leader, it's part of saying like, what are the trial balloons to get you to this place? Right, know, yes, I mean, you. I'm not gonna put you on the national news to give your first ever presentation. Exactly, and I'm not gonna, and we're gonna do a lot of this pitching early with me, right, and I'm gonna be tough with you, and I'm not gonna steal the, but when you're ready, you know.

Leah 
you should have the full experience of it. And I do see a lot of leaders wanting to step in because they see the heat rising and they see it getting uncomfortable. And I actually think that the experience, you know, because I can go back to, but the experience of the people that mentored me who let me flail.

I never walked away from that being mad at them. I might have been frustrated with myself. I could have done better or whatever, but I knew that they respected me enough to let me own it or lose it. I'll tell you, I had a direct report and she was really struggling with a proposal and she had talked to a national consultant that will not be named, but a big.

This is like somebody that if I named you, you'd be like, whoa, right? And they didn't like what she was planning on doing. And so she called me and she said, you know, I got all this feedback and I said, you know, I said, you're feeling a kind of way about that feedback. And I said, here's the thing. If you do it the way that somebody told you to do it, but it didn't feel right to you, if you fail, it's not yours. And if you succeed, it's not yours.

But if you do it the way that it feels right to you, if you fail, it's yours. And if you succeed, it's yours. Right? So I think you should think about that. 

Heather 
Well, yeah. that's, think what I was saying about, about the value side of it for me is I know why I'm doing what I'm doing, even if it doesn't work out. Yeah. And I can stand in that. Yep. cause I think you have to have an anchor. Yeah. You have to have an anchor. So

Listen to me think about that for a second. So there's the anchor in yourself. And then so much of what you're talking about now too is, don't know if I'd call it an anchor, but the role of mentor, use the word mentor, I guess here in this sort of, I believe in you, that is a powerful place because it does feel like as mentor, you're going to keep that

that safe distance and if it goes real suck. It's a little bit of a safety net at some level. So it's holding just to come back to discomfort in the flailing and the struggle and in the trying. Again, we're not saying there's a lot of nuance here. So just like we're not all in, just take the risk, just do it. We're not saying all in, just go struggle.

I hear you saying it's a gradual build. I often think about that as building courage calluses. It's this sort of time builds and then at a certain point, you're ready. And there's the discomfort of the person, let's say giving the talk and the discomfort of the mentor that we're holding the energy of. I think in a lot of this space,

our ability to hold and honor and manage and negotiate our energy is a huge piece of all of it. 

Leah 
It is. And you don't get that, right? You get that from, is your courage callous? I love that. It is. I was thinking a lot about where did I have my big grow moments? And a lot of it actually happened

at the place where I was doing activities that took my physical body to the end of my stamina, right? Like running distance or biking for long periods of time. Partly because what would show up when I was physically exhausted is exactly what shows up for me when I'm mentally exhausted. Which is what? Self-hatred. Yeah, yeah. You're not good enough. All the things. The rude critic, yeah. Yeah.

totally comes up, you can't do all that. And when I would get to that place, but there was no one to blame. Because one of the things that happens when you're in that place is you want to imprint on the blame. Who's making me feel this way? Who's making me feel this way? And in that space, I was like, no, no, this is just what happens. This is just where I go when I'm at this place of just total exhaustion, whatever. And once I could see it in this, that was a safe enough to

Leah 
safe enough to have those emotional spaces. And I would be out and especially if you're distance running or whatever, I'd be out and I'd be like, well, as far as I go out is as far as I gotta come back. And that's just what it is. And I can walk back, I can cry back, I can crawl back, I can sit right here and never not get up again, but this is what it is. then I started being kind to myself.

because I could see it for what it was. That's what I'm saying, like the compassion from the ground. That's right. Yeah, just like, oh yeah, this really sucks. so it was funny because when I was running, somebody's like, how much does distance running take? What's the difference between stamina and endurance? And of course, the linguists out there can say, you're wrong. But this is what I came to without Google. Because I don't own clarity. I don't like, I refuse to Google. That's my Good for you. I'm like, nope, I'm just going make it up.

And if it's wrong, somebody will correct me. So you all Google on her behalf. That's right. Before you take any of this in. For me, stamina was getting to the end of my physical ability, and endurance was going beyond. When you know your body can't do it, but you're all well. And I'm like, one more step, get to that next thing. And I'm doing that thing where it's the small goal. And get to the next thing, get to the next thing, get to the next thing.

And that's, and that to me is life. 

Heather 
Yeah. And I wrote down as you were describing that, right? You're talking about practicing discomfort and I wrote down low risk failure because I think too, I don't know that I've ever thought about it, but I am somebody, I think you're this way. You on purpose do new scary stuff. Is this true? Yeah, same.

And so that feels a little head scratchy to people. I'm like, it's how I practice because doing that, right? So learning to blacksmith, for example. is going to bring up all of your stuff. It's gonna push, it's gonna show me how frustrated of a person I am, it's gonna show me how not patient of a person. And the risk is so low, like failing in that context, like so what? But it's practice because what you just so much it feels like is important about this is like, I know that I feel this way when this happens. And so when I feel that way,

Like you're practicing feeling the thing when the stakes are not as high. So that it's not, I'm going to go get uncomfortable for the first time ever at this really high stakes thing. It's like, you, know, your body processes. So it's, that's an, it's an interesting tool, I think to say what's something little I can do that puts me outside of my comfort zone that lets me feel a little flaily. Let me try to paint and I never have.

Leah 
and how you treat yourself in those moments. And we're all doing it all the time. All the time. Right? You tried to cook something. it didn't go where you decide. The famous safe enough to fail moment is when you're like, I'm going to cook an entirely new thing for new people. 

Heather 
This is such a funny example, literally right now. OK, so anybody who knows me is going be like, this is perfect. I have a little dry race board in the kitchen. course that lays out here's what's happening for dinner this week and who's in charge of it. It used to be specific and now it's just like whatever capable person that lives in this house is in charge. The first two bullets on the thing just say mom experiment number one, mom experiment number two. Because as much as I take risks, I am very lazy. I don't like to cook because I can't handle the disappointment of it. I like good food.

So I'm like, this is ridiculous because this is such good practice. We are not food insecure. We have a lot of privilege. We're going to eat. So a terrible dinner is not going to ruin anything. Why can I not try this? So the past two nights we've had something different. I don't know that we'll have them again, but that I labeled it experiment is interesting to me in the context of this conversation. Because even when we use that word,

Heather 
There is an expectation, right? It's what science is. It is the test that nobody expects to always be correct. I'm doing a lot in creativity right now and trying to bring over this notion of experimentation. I don't know where we lose it, but it's such a part. It makes all this make sense. Like, of course we're going to try stuff. Not all of it's going to work.

What's the safe, right? Then what's the container? So maybe that's what we lost is like, know intuitively we learned to walk through experimentation. It's that maybe we haven't been able to figure out collectively that safe space container to support it, right? Because, and you see it, like why people, why it took seven years maybe to do the podcast is like, what's the internet gonna have to say about today's failure?

And so, yeah, I don't know what the sort of collective thing we could do to honor the experimentation of it and hold that with grace and though, this intentionality that you talked about that I think may be missing too. 

Leah (41:15.735)
Yeah, I think that's the crux of it. I think part of it is, and I think a really essential part of the Safe Enough to Fail is that

Your value as a person is not dependent on what you produce. Period. Hold. We need to breathe that in. Say it again. Your value as a person is not dependent on what you produce. so succeed or fail. I told you that story about my colleague, the person that I was a supervisor to. I said to her, you succeed in this and you fail in this. I got you. And I believe in you. Yeah.

And so it's completely okay. What you choose is what you choose. And right now in this moment, I want you to make a choice that feels right for you. And you can do what the consultant told you to do, make those changes. That's your choice, right? All the choice piece. 

Heather 
But that's the huge part though, is I've got you. Whatever you decide, that's part of, I'm gonna let you hold this. And whatever happens, I've got you. I think that's probably one of the pieces that we don't say enough.

Yeah, even just thinking about delegation, sometimes this comes up of like, fine, you do it. Sometimes feels very detached. Instead of like, right, it's like, go do it and don't f this up. This is very different. This is like, again, not just blindly like go do it, but with all the supports and all the other things that you talked about along the way, but this sort of, I've got you. It's like an important piece of it.

Leah 
Yeah, because if you've done it enough, like you are going to have time where the world just hands you your rear end and you just have to hold it and be like, gosh, right? And I think that part of that is just, and that that is actually just all part of it. And so if you're on the edge, if you're doing things that are big enough and you talked about that, doing stuff, my kids have seen this. I started when I was like 18 years old and I was a person who had a lot of perfectionism.

and I had a lot of anxiety. Same. And I just was terrified of everything. Just tiny. think I weighed like 98 pounds, right? I'm soaking wet, just tiny. I'm very, you can't see me people in the world, but I'm 4'11", so just, I was this tiny person and terrified. And I don't know why, but I just decided that I was gonna do things that made me afraid.

because I just was like, I got to a point where I like, I just don't wanna be a person who's afraid. Like that's gonna stop everything in my whole life. I feel this deeply, yeah. And so the first thing I did was I thought, what's the most terrifying thing I can imagine? And it was to be in community theater. Super. So I was like, I'm gonna go to this tryout for this community theater thing. I'm also a perfectionist, so I really.

knocked it out of the park and got the lead role. And I'm a serious introvert and I have to now go and perform, but of course have incredible stage fright that when you saw me doing that audition, because I was so amped, no one would have ever imagined, right? Like I came in there, like I had had a stage mom my whole life. Tanked up on espresso shots. And so then, and I was terrible.

And I had to play. in the actual show? the actual show. So bad. terrible because I had stage fright every night. stage fright is not one of those things that you can just like magic your way out of. No, it's kind of feeds itself. It really does. And I just parched. Because once you're terrible, then you're actively seeing yourself be terrible. See people looking at you. can see you're terrible. The feedback loop is rough on that. You're just standing there.

Forgetting your lines in the middle of a monologue and they're looking at you and you're just like this isn't going well the director is crying, know, mean not really but really feels that way it was just totally the most terrible and my friends came to see me and they were like And I got I had to do it I had to finish it because I made the commitment I got a little bit better by the end but not much and

And yeah, so I kind of, was right out of the gate, but I didn't stop doing things that made me scared. And people loved me. People who loved me loved me. And we laughed about it. And it's still like, still, it brings me a lot of joy to remember how bad I was at it. 

Heather 
Oh, my family still likes to talk about my one basketball team experience. We don't need to dig into any deeper than that. That was not actually because I was scared. That just was a failure demonstration. It's interesting to hear you talk about this because I, in particular, thinking about creativity, I'm taking a class right now. We're gonna have to do some reflection and thinking about creative things that I've been part of and there's a theme in there. Like, why do you do them? And some...

Like half was like, cause it felt scary. think for me, we do a whole other podcast about fear, but I, my professional path, like day one, I was an AmeriCorps volunteer kind of out of college and day two was September 11th, 2001. And something about that time for me, like scared in a new way.

Heather & Leah 
I buried deep in myself fear cannot win. And still I'm often having to remind myself, because I too, like you, I'm like, I'm a recovering perfectionist. I'm wired with anxious energy on the inside. So this fear cannot win has me constantly turning toward fear. Where so often on the other side is freedom of some sort, even if just from the fear.

Cause once you're on the other side, you have a different story to tell fear. Right? Cause fear, you've said that voice in your head is like, you can't do that. What are you saying? You're like, well, I just did it. And my friends are still my friends. So it's part of the courage callus building. I it's how we rewrite the stories that we tell ourselves. Again, I think part of.

I don't know that your birds in the metaphor from the beginning are thinking that hard about it, but when you're at choice, there's a lot of cognitive cycling that gets processed around this stuff. And I think it can, and part of it is like, also have to be careful to be like, you know, you don't have to do scary stuff all the time. Like we can also from blacksmithing, like there's a lot of heat and hammering and there's quenching. Like there's some and in. Absolutely.

How do I hold that it does require a lot of energy for me to do these things? And what is that sort of recovery intending? Is there anything else, Leah, that's sitting with you that you want to say to folks who are thinking about all the concepts that we've stirred up today, how it might apply to them, tools or lessons even that you have from being on this journey that we want to leave with folks before we tie it up?

Leah 
Yeah, so I want to go back to being reflecty. think that, you know, I think the and of all of this, as you're saying, probably more eloquent than I'm going to say right now is that some of these things can be subtractive, right? Not everything's additive and not everything has to be. And sometimes it's just, you know, it just sucks. that's okay. And I think being able to

be in your own discomfort is critical and giving yourself the healing time in between. that, yeah, I think that we are all enough just as we are in this moment is so critical. And so, yeah, absolutely loved having this conversation with you, super fun. So fun and time evaporates when we start with our.

Nerdy generalizing. know. I didn't even get to bring up imaginal cells. mean, come on. Y'all imaginal. I used the word imaginal the other day and somebody was like, what do you mean? We'll talk about that another day. do just to tag on what you said. The normalizing of this, think is really powerful too. Because when you are the one sweating, it can feel very isolating. And it can feel like...

I think that's why I'm obsessed with talking about all of this and the and and the stuckness is like me too. Y'all Leah too. Y'all. yeah. Cause you see, and now they're doing this and now they're doing this. So I can't do that. Cause I get sweaty or I am nervous. Like absolutely. We all are nervous. So normalizing some of the felt sense of all of this, feels really important. And then so much.

to me I'm taking away today from what you said, it's just how do we support each other in the flail? Because it doesn't have to be, I you talked a lot about leadership and mentorship, so there's a lot of call to leaders I think around this is a curiosity around container building, what are the ways that we're creating the space for people, how do we support folks? And then just an exclamation point on we're already,

enough because I think we get it's it's a whole nother space that we get in when the failure you know I think it's the difference in in shame and guilt and all that stuff is like I I am not a failure this thing failed exactly is a very important distinction it's like that and also just like if you're flailing in your life and and you don't actually find joy that may not be the place for you to flail

Leah 
Interesting. So if you go towards the joy of it, you're going to have a whole lot more stamina and endurance to the flail. And I think that that's a critical piece. So you've got to go where your joy is. you so because I have definitely been like flailing around but laughing with friends. Right. And connecting and finding all the things that I needed to continue to do that.

you know, anyone who's really just like you see them and they've got some mastery, they'll tell a story about their flail. And, but it was, they kept coming back to it. And so it's not just about being in spaces where you're just flailing and you're not feeling it. if you don't find that joy, go find someplace else to flail. You'll find it. Interesting.

I like I had a light bulb there about go towards joy on teams before we've talked about.

things being the right kind of hard. Yeah. Yeah. And so there's some interesting discernment in like, this feels hard to make you coming back to values. It feels hard and it's the right kind of hard because it's in service to my values. Because when I'm done, I actually am loving it by the time the podcast is over, even if I'm sweating in the beginning. It is different. So I think that's a really important, because just a blanket, you know, endorsement of discomfort.

is not the answer. Because so much of what you and I are trying to do in our work is remove unnecessary discomfort. So that's a helpful reminder to just be part of your noticing around the whispers or elements in small ways or big around how the flailing and the joy show up together. This has been a very joyful.

Heather & Leah 
conversation. I appreciate it. I appreciate everybody being along for the ride, especially for all the biologists out there who hung in with us. Feel free to send your feedback and corrections to connect@standintheand.com. Curious what y'all are doing with these podcasts. Are they conversation prompts for teams? Are you sharing them? I hope you are. they're helpful, follow us.

I keep getting feedback that I'm not saying the right words about what you actually do subscribe to a podcast so that you get them as soon as they're posted. We know we're on a cadence that's not routine so thanks for hanging there with us on that. But all the other info, Leah, I you mentioned a couple of frameworks. So we'll link to those in the show notes in case people have more curiosity there about those. Otherwise, appreciate y'all being here. Thank you for being here. Y'all stay curious.

We're right there with you and keep building courage callouses, it matters. Thanks. Bye.