Anese Cavanaugh is devoted to helping people show up and bring their best selves to the table in order to create significant positive impact in their lives. She is the creator of the IEP Method® (Intentional Energetic Presence), an advisor and thinking partner to leaders and organizations around the world, and author of Contagious Culture: Show Up, Set the Tone, and Intentionally Create an Organization That Thrives.
My time with Anese has resonated with me for weeks. She is a living example of a contagious presence. I’m buzzing as I think about it. Enough gushing, here’s Anese:
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Takeaways from part one with Anese,
How do you make people feel? We’re always impacting those around us.
How we impact ourselves. How we make ourselves feel.
How we impact the world around us. What have I left? What is my imprint?
The importance of words and how it affects how we show up.
Biggest Lesson: eat and serve more ice cream!
Questions for entrepreneurs, leaders, and managers
How are you showing up? What does this mean for you?
How intentional are you in the words you use and the impact you’re having on the world around you?
What is a good first step for you to start paying attention to your impact?
Share your responses on the comments section below.
Remember to sign up for email updates at http://inspiredandintentional.com/subscribe
Join us next week as we continue our conversation with Anese Cavanaugh. Until then, be inspired and intentional.
Resources
Anese Cavanaugh.com – http://www.anesecavanaugh.com/
Contagious Culture Book – http://www.amazon.com/Contagious-Culture-Intentionally-Organization-Thrives/dp/1259584577/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1455686232&sr=8-1&keywords=contagious+culture
Top secret resources page – http://IEP.IO
Anese’s resource kit – http://blog.anesecavanaugh.com/resourcekit
Anese Cavanaugh’s Busy Blog Post – http://blog.anesecavanaugh.com/from-anese/busy-work-life-balance
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Complete Manuscript/Notes from the Podcast Episode
Todd:
Anese Cavanaugh, thank you so much for being on the Inspired and Intentional Podcast.
Anese:
Todd, thank you so much for having me.
Todd:
Well, what is IEP?
Anese:
The magical question. IEP stands for Intentional Energetic Presence and it is a body of work that I have been building through my own life practice and working with clients, athletes and executives and designers and all sorts of people for many, many years. About 14 years now out on my own. Intentional Energetic Presence is about how you shop in the world. It’s intentionally bringing the best of yourself to everything that you do. If you take those three words you’ve got intentional, intention which is what you want to have happened. Energy, which is the energy you bring to this table and how you take care of yourself so you can sustain yourself and thrive in all the great things that you have to do. In the presence, which is all about how you show up and how present you’re in this moment and how you’re present to people in your life and all that good stuff. Put those three together and you got the IEP method.
Todd:
How did IEP come about?
Anese:
I started my career working with athletes many, many, many years ago. I had got my degree in physiology and was fascinated. I think I can look back to, honestly I was like 13, 14, 15 years old and really being fascinated by how people create impact, how they took care of themselves impacted their moves, I was really fascinated by that. I started to really look at how do this impact people when they were playing sports or just people in my own family or friends and what not. This obsession kind of started earlier and when I went to school I decided I wanted to work with athletes, I wanted to study nutrition and I worked in the athletic training room and I really loved that.
I started to realize this theme which was, as much as I cared about the athletes and their games and doing really well out on the field, I cared a lot more about them feeling really good and If they felt really good and if they got along really well then winning ways just a kind of an outcome. It was like a side effect which was a major bonus and of course they loved that, but I was just more interested in the people. Then I went into working with people in corporate and it’s like a super long story about the evolution of my career. I went and worked with big oil company and I was doing health and productivity and kind of found the same themes. Cared very much about the results of the organization, cared very much about how well they did but again it was about the people.
Very, very long story short I was just this kind of like Goldilocks, trying on different things and realizing that in all of the things the thing that was most important to me was how people showed up and how good they felt. It was really important to me that they created impact with … Feeling good wasn’t good enough that they felt really good if they didn’t have any good impact on the world and it wasn’t enough if they made really great impact, that they didn’t feel really good. I really wanted them to have all of it.
In 2002 I had just had my first baby and I had decided I was never going to work again. That lasted for about a year and I really missed my work but I didn’t want to go back to work for anybody and so I started my own business. It was dealing in leadership development, it’s just a combination of integrating ergonomics and health and performance and all that into leadership. In 2009 I realized I was really owning something and created my own models so that I keyed model but I keyed method is the model that is a result of years and years and years of playing with the athletes and executives and designers and all these people. I’m just kind of pulling these three pieces together so that we’ve got the method.
Todd:
Lots of things there. You said 13 to 15 years old?
Anese:
Yeah.
Todd:
That’s pretty observant for a 13 to 15 year old.
Anese:
I was. I was super observant. I had … I can’t remember. When I was 14 I got a job a Baskin-Robbins. Such a great job and I truly like such a great job. I can remember I was going through a really challenging time, my parents had split and it was like a really … it was not a pretty split and I was really mad. I can remember scooping world class chocolate and being in the … in my little, the big freezer container and I was scooping this world class chocolate, I will never forget it, and I was thinking about how upset I was about this and how my life was just going to be over like blah, blah, blah.
All of a sudden I was scooping I realized I was like uh I actually … I get to decide if I let this ruin my life and I thought I would be really unhappy all the time or I can start with I have and have a really great life. There was something about that moment that day. Everything that day I just … that was when I got my first glimpse of intention and when I got my first glimpse of deciding and really being more of the author of your life and just having things happen to you.
Todd:
Wow! I’m just picturing you scooping that ice cream out and having that revelation and so much so that you remember it.
Anese:
I still remember it. Sitting here Todd talking to you I get goose bumps because I can still remember. I don’t know if divine intervention, angels got like all over the universe like I had so much … I feel like at that time in my life I had so many things and people and everything just watching out for me. It was the message that I needed at that moment because I can literary, just sitting here I get goose bumps thinking about things like I remember coming out of the vault freezer. I mean, it happened really fast and I had my, I remember it was two scoops of ice cream from this guy and I was different. That moment, that scooping that changed my life. I can’t walk into a basket and I was done with the world class chocolate because it’s like very special.
Todd:
I’m sure you just want me to be just quiet for a moment and be speechless.
Anese:
I don’t know if I’ve ever told that story in a Podcast before, I’m not sure.
Todd:
Wow. Cool. I’m glad it’s here, that’s awesome.
Anese:
You can’t help, you heard to here it.
Todd:
You had to here it first, yeah actually.
Anese:
You heard it here first. Yeah.
Todd:
Wow, and the fact that you acted on it and did something with it, you could have easily just let that pass.
Anese:
No, it changed me so I was the oldest of four. We had four girls in our family I was the oldest and I remember going home and it didn’t mean like my life turned into all these roses and I was skipping daisies out there but it changed. There was something in it that all of a sudden I was super motivated to do. I became really, really in tune into more things and really in tune to what I was going to create with my life and I just started creating.
Todd:
Wow, that’s great. Well, that’s a great Podcast we’ll talk to you later. That’s … what a great … End it there.
Anese:
The lesson of the story, eat more ice cream. That’s the lesson of the story.
Todd:
Amen.
Anese:
Amen.
Todd:
If I can only get Baskin-Robbins as a sponsor this will definitely will help out.
Anese:
Like hell all right. You should totally.
Todd:
This will help in that journey. One thing out of the story is, what do you really mean by how people create impact?
Anese:
Yes. I thinking about impact in a couple of ways. I think about as how you make other people feel. What’s the impact you have on the people on your life, your team, your children, your spouse, your partner whoever or how do you make people feel? A perfect stranger, somebody in the grocery store, your interaction with the person standing behind you back in the line or the checker or whatever will always have an impact. When we think that impact is how you make people feel is really big in customers service and sales and all that cost is more obvious but we’re always having an impact, so that’s one. The other part of impact that I look at is how we make ourselves feel because we are internal dialogue. How we take care of our bodies, the food that we eat, our self talk that has an impact and the way that we make ourselves feel gets projected out upon other people so its all related.
The third way I will look at impact is in what we actually get done in the world, the results that we create, the good that we leave on this planet, the stamp that we … What is it when I’m gone, what have I left, whats the imprint I’ve left? I think of it that way and I mentioned earlier I noticed and I see this now also with a lot of the people that come to me for support, is there are people who can create really, really great impact and they create really great results in there. Maybe they make a ton of money here. They are top performing in their company or whatever but they’re exhausted and they’re burn out and their relationships are falling apart and what they are missing is they’re missing a self care piece. That’s not sustainable.
Then there are people who are really great at self care and they are shockers all aligned and they keep really well and they exercise and they work from 9:00 to 5:00 and they have a really good work-life, pretty good balance, but they’re not good a t creating impact. They need more support around the intention and leadership skills and what not. Then there is the third group of people who are great at self care and they’re great at creating results but they leave dead bodies wherever they go. Meaning that they are … the people that follow them they don’t love working for them. The people that they lead they’re getting things done at the expense of how those people are feeling. When you look at that and that term of impact, there is people impact, there is self care impact, there is results impact and you really need … I believe that we really want to shoot to do as well in all three areas as possible.
Todd:
Great. Well, language seems pretty important to you and I don’t remember if I … Is the problem with information we have now. I don’t know if I heard on a Podcast, read it on a blog, read it in your book or what but I thought I recall you saying something about being “Busy”. I’ve scoured on my notes and on your website I do know you said this because I actually quoted it so I can make sure I got the part of it right. You said, “while feeling amazing doing so, let’s ditch burnout, busy and overwhelm all together, shall we?” Talk to me about the word we use and the importance to the concept of showing up. Especially that busy one.
Anese:
Especially busy one, okay. Such a hot button for me and you’re right it’s everywhere. I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of places I’ve given talks specifically on busy. I went on Sirius Radio last year trying to boycott busy. What I have found is that this word busy, and you think about go out tonight see somebody randomly and just start, “Oh, how are you doing?” Nine times out of ten they will go, “Oh my God I’m so busy.” Then they break into this song and dance of how busy they’re and how they … whatever. They just keep going on and on and on. The thing is, is that I think that busy has become the new fine. Its just like the new default answer, its just the default. We’re not present in busy. One thing I’ve noticed is that the more that we use that word, the more we believe it, the more we create the energy of busy, the more its contagious.
If you ever noticed like … I’ve noticed this in a while, I’m not sure if it’s because people are more sensitive to it around me or it’s because its getting better. I would notice, I’d be with a team and one person would start talking about how busy they’re and all of a sudden this competition almost starts so people start to talk about and complain about how busy they’re and all the stuff they got to get done. Then it becomes a brag fest, “Well I went to bed at 3:00 o’clock last night and blah, blah, blah and got two hour of sleep or whatever.” My beef with this word is to just make sure that if you want to use that word make sure that its energizing and life giving for you and that its cautious. I think we use it really unconsciously and I think that it propagates more of the same problem.
I’ve replaced it like I personally opt … We all have the same amount of hours and I guess we have a lot to do but I think if we can take a step back form it. My word for busy now is richly scheduled or I feel really, really, really well used or I’m on purpose. My language five years ago would have been, “Oh my gosh I’m busy.” and I would have gotten overwhelmed thinking of all the things I had to do but now if I’m present in the moment I can be ten thousand busy as I was five years ago and I feel so much more space. That’s a very long answer to your very short question.
Todd:
Well, I asked because I was trying to … My wife has her own business and we’ll get to that in a little bit. She has her own business, we have two kids, she has me to deal with, she has church, we have life, we have dog, we have everything and its busy.
Anese:
Yeah absolutely.
Todd:
I was trying to share with her some of that like, “Gosh, we have been singing about busy and it’s a tough thing and I like that richly scheduled.”
Anese:
The thing I would ask both of you … The thing is that when she .. Here is the thing, to pay attention to, for anybody listening to this, when you talk about how busy you are and you start to give a download of all the things you have to do, is that energizing for you? Do you feel good? Or is there another way to think about it? What I found is that a lot of people get into this unconscious use of that word and it actually becomes more and more exhausting and it doesn’t serve us. You might have, she probably … Yes, you guys have all the stuff going on, we all have stuff going on. If I get really present to what is happening right now, I’m not busy anymore. I’ve got 50 things I need to get done today but I don’t feel busy at all in this moment because I’m just with you.
If I start to talk about how many things I need to do tonight Todd, when I start to tell you how things aren’t well this week I’ll probably start getting exhausted, right? It’s my relationship with it. Again, if using the word busy lights people up and they feel really energized then knock yourself out. It’s just one of those words I find it’s really useful to look at why are you using a word and is it serving you or has it become a default or are you trying to propagate more busy to show how important you’re or to prove your worth or whatever? There’s so into … There’s a blog up somewhere in my site from a year or two ago and it’s the ten reasons why we abuse the word busy. You can read that its interesting. I don’t remember of a time when I got too busy, I cant remember.
Todd:
Real quick side note on that, I’m famous for my side notes. You said it’s the new fine or … ?
Anese:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Todd:
I always got tired of that and I don’t know if you ever seen the movie Anchorman? With Will Ferrell?
Anese:
Yeah.
Todd:
Steve Carell plays this guy, the weather man, who’s a complete idiot and he just kind of says all this non sequiturs and he says … We’re not to get into the story. Basically, he uses the word fantastic totally out of context, “It was fantastic.” Well, my son saw that, my 14 year old saw that and he thought that was hilarious. Where he just said, “Fantastic” He started saying fantastic. I thought, “I’m going to start going and answer … That’s my new fine.” That was my word for 2015. I’d say people say … It’s the common, “How are you?” “Good, fine.” You’d be fine saying that and it’s pardon on your so word but I say any time I said, “Fantastic.” they would stop, smile and go, “Really?” Usually walk away and I would explain the story to him, I would just tell him what was up and it made him leave happier and I felt happier like, “Well, that’s a very interesting thing.” This year I have changed my word because I said fantastic its now spectacular anyway.
Anese:
No, its so great and you’re speaking to why words are so important. I think what’s most important about that, to me what you’re sharing is that you can rule with this. Fantastic, you’re embodying it you really feel it. Its not just some new word that you’ve created just to … It’s not just a dummy word like you really mean it. When you use it and you stand behind your language and you’re present to it, then other people catch that and that’s probably the contagious element. It’s powerful, if you think abut the language in general, to me it represents how … It can be a huge representation of how present we’re or not to our lives.
On of my biggest appeals, I literally felt physically pained by this, is when I ask somebody how they’re doing and they say, “Hanging in there.” or I ask if they’re happy and they go, “Oh, happy enough.” It literally, Todd, it pains me. I feel a flinch in my heart, makes me go, “Oh gosh.” That language is … That might be becoming a default, well they don’t realize it because when I ask them like, “Really? Are you really just doing fine?” They go, “Oh, well actually it’s not that bad.” The words that we say, the way that we talk about ourselves, the way that we answer that question, how are doing?, it has a big, I believe, it has a big impact on our physiology.
Todd:
Yeah, no doubt about it. Let’s be honest, there are few time that I said, “Fantastic.” and they’d say, “That sounds really sarcastic.” It was true because of … That’s all right, it still brought a smile into all of our faces.
Anese:
Right.
Todd:
The concept of IEP or Intentional Energetic Presence, how does it help a leader who wants to create a financially sound, people inspiring organization?
Anese:
Well, I think that when people come to me for doing work on culture, culture change, culture optimization or whatever, they often think that it has to do with some initiatives they’re going to put in or foosballs tables or are they going to feed their people lunch, they going to start a karaoke night or once a month they are going to do a beer night or everyone goes out together or whatever. Though I’m being a little bit flipped, those are some of the things that sometimes people will think will help shift culture. Those are things that can be fun, structures to put in. Really, the way that you should culture the way in, my mind, you build a really healthy business and help the environment and financial will be included in that, obviously, is you look at how every single person is showing up. That starts with you as a leader first.
Whether you’re the janitor or the CEO, how you show up, how’s the impact? When I think about your question on creating a financially sound, people inspired organization, to me it comes down to each person coming to the table bringing their best selves to the table. They are intentional about their presence, taking really good care of themselves bringing their best to that table. That leads to healthy results. I also think that accountability is really big here so people being really clear about what their roles are and what their intentions are as a team and what their intentions are in their jobs. That leads to financial success, and then my hope is, and I know you’re really big in this, is the open book management around transparency, and being really authentic about, you know, “Here is what’s happening in the company and here is what we’re doing.” Like, “Here’s how we’re going to work on it together and all the good stuff.”
IEP at the base of it all is just simply having people come to the table with the best of intent and then having leadership skills and the communication skills to really help create the culture and environment they want to create to create that financially sound company.
Todd:
We all have heaviness in our lives sometimes.
Anese:
Absolutely.
Todd:
How do you … I mean, this is a huge question. Can you answer it in like 2 minutes or we can move on? No, I’m just kidding.
Anese:
Sure, sure.
Todd:
All right, no. How do you handle that?
Anese:
Your question makes me think of 2 scenarios. One is where the leader has just had a bad day. The leader of the team, he’s got to go in and he’s got to give a client presentation, or a leader team meeting or whatever. Something has happened that’s got him in a different state, he’s maybe angry, he’s frustrated, he’s sad, whatever. He’s got to go in and lead. One way to do that is to cancel the meeting or to go in there and to bring all that anger and frustration with you. There’s several ways you can handle it but cancelling is not going to work well. Going in in a really unproductive, blimey angry state, that’s not going to help your team. You can go in, you have to show up.
There’s a tool, an IEP method called the presence reboot and there’s another tool called the energizing xylophone where the person … It’s anybody, even just before you go and talk to your kids. When you notice where you are it, you notice where you want to be from a present stand point, and then you do whatever you need to do in that moment to take care of yourself. It might be calling your friend real quick and having a good cry and maybe during the way, it might be grabbing some water, it might be taking a quick walk around the walk or whatever. You do whatever you need to do to just get yourself to the next healthiest place possible. Then you set an intention around how you want to show up and you step into that, and then you walk into that room and you lead.
We don’t always have luxury to go walk around the block. Sometimes, just imagine Todd before you and I get on this call, I get a call from my son or something and we get to arguing or whatever and my state is not great but I’m coming on this call with you. I don’t have time to … I’m not going to get that call and be like, “Oh, Todd, you can’t believe just what happened, I want all your listeners to hear about this.” I’m not going to do that and I’m not going to cancel on you so I just do a quick presence reboot which basically just means, “Here’s my map, I’m going to take deep breath, here’s who I want to be. When I show up I want to be really present.”
If I can just step into presence, then I can shift my state in a way that I can be with you without worrying about what just happened with my son. The trick of that is that I have to promise myself that I’m going to go back after this call and I’m going to go deal with whatever just happened. I’m going to call my friend, or I’m going to call his dad, call him, whatever. I’m going to deal with that. I’m not doing a spiritual bypass and completely ignoring what just happened but I am setting myself up so I can be more present with you and as a team or whatever. Makes sense?
Todd:
Yap. It makes perfect sense and-
Anese:
That’s like the individual leadership fitness state you know. From a team’s standpoint something bad has happened, I go in with my team and let’s just say we’ve had our worst quarter ever. Or we’re going to do a round of loss or whatever. A lot of people think that the way to get through that is they pretend it’s not happening, or they just put on a really bold face and this façade as a strong leader and they have all the answers to something. I think that’s the biggest mistake we can make. I think as a leader you go in, you stay present with your team, you speak to what’s happening, you name it. You name the discomfort, you name the pain or the anxiety or whatever. You speak to that team really really honestly with the commitment that you as a leader, the team are committed to helping them move through this period of time and how do they want to navigate through it. Include them in that conversation.
I think the important thing on that is to not pretend like the hard stuff is not happening, to give it attention and voice. The more that you can be honest and authentic about it, the quicker you’ll be able to process through it and the more you’ll be able to learn from it.
Todd:
I may or may not have had a family thing that I’m going to have to deal with when we hang up, I’m just saying. It’s funny you brought up your son.
Anese:
Oh, yeah he’s … My phone is blowing up right now, I’ve got like 8 texts from him. We can thank my son-
Todd:
Here we are, parents. We’ve got to do stuff.
Anese:
Parents, that’s the dance, right?
Todd:
Yap.
Anese:
That’s the dance.
Todd:
Around IEP, what resources, I mean you have a ton of resources, but are there a couple that you would point our listeners to and then you can link them to short notes?
Anese:
Absolutely. If they go to my site, and it’s cavanaugh.com, there’s videos, there’s interviews, there’s all sorts of … There’s tools they can download for free. We also have a store of other tools if they want to get deeper into it. The book, for sure grab a copy of the book. It’s on Kindle, it’s an article, it’s on hard copy, that’s easy to get. Then there are other resources, it’s kind of special, I don’t know how we will have it up, but we’ll have it up as long as we can. It’s a site called iep.io which is a special kind of a secret resources page. It’s got stuff from the book, it’s got extra tool-kits, it’s got, oh gosh, it’s got some of my text from talks that I’ve given in the last 6 months. Just stuff like that, just an extra good, it’s just for people that are … For Podcast and talks and stuff.
Todd:
That’s great. I will definitely point them to that and just go and get it while you can.
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