Shandel Sutherland 00:04
Welcome to lead for clarity where we help you, your team and your organization, get to their next level and focus on what's most important. My name is Shandel Sutherland. And I am here with my ever so lovely co host, Melanie Montgomery, Melanie, how are you?
Melanie Montgomery 00:21
I'm fantastic. How are you?
Shandel Sutherland 00:23
Oh, I love this time of year. I love the smell of fall in the air. And everything is like almost getting back to normal, which I crave. I love spontaneity, but I like routine. So I'm kind of happy. We're where we're at right now. All right. So today, we are going to keep on our conversation about the process and how we grow sustainably in our business, our life, whether it be our relationships, spiritually, business, emotionally, this is pretty much a six stage process that we all go through. We never invent anything new. But we've taken all the tools that we have, and really put them into somewhat of a playbook or a way that we think people can quickly accelerate into their next level. Melanie,
Melanie Montgomery 01:10
yeah, definitely. And before we dive into one of these components, today, it may be good to just give a quick reminder of all of the stages in the process,
Shandel Sutherland 01:20
there are six stages in the healthy cycle of growth, you enter into pain, or we if you want opportunity, that's great. And then you go into really purposely connecting and that is the magic, that's the magic sauce, then you go into a time of waiting, which is planting and making it happen, do some really hard work, I think about a farmer getting that field ready for exponential growth. That's what that feels like. And go into progress, where you actually get to see how his hard work is paying off. But what we don't want is people to get over their skis, because the next phase is pruning. And pruning is where you even have to cut some good stuff and you go after the things that you might have missed. And really, I think the hard part of pruning is cutting off the good that used to serve you and doesn't serve you anymore. And then we land back in profit. And profit is why we are in business because we have to be profitable in order to keep paying people growing and keeping the wheel going. And what we love about this cycle is the understanding that when we are profitable and we are at we have achieved that cycle we want to celebrate, because we're all we all know that we're going right back into that pain cycle. And we talked about the other cycle of misery. If you don't deal with the pain correctly, and you don't don't enter in to that purposeful connection, you're going to be in a cycle of misery. And I think we've all seen that. Right, Melanie?
Melanie Montgomery 02:49
Absolutely. And to all of our listeners, the first episode in the season went in depth, I'll link it if you want to go back and review the entire process. And what we're going to talk about today is at the center of that cycle, which is our values, mm hmm,
Shandel Sutherland 03:05
this is what we're all about. We love helping companies discover their values. We love organizations, like abiding by them. And actually a lot of our conflict resolution, whether it's with couples, teams, executive teams, all through organizations always comes down to there being someone is not adhering to the values that that company espouses. And it's really fun work for us when we get to go in. And help companies really define those what makes you great to begin with. And when we do that for an individual, a team and organization, then we help propel them and get them back into that process. And it just fascinates me that so many companies lose their way and including ours in mind, life gets busy, it gets hectic, it's good. It's crazy, I think especially now that we're getting back into from post COVID and really getting to a place where we can all breathe. Boy, we have decimated part of our value system. And I think that's why growth is really hard right now.
Melanie Montgomery 04:07
And we have had so many good podcasts that talk through our values and why they're important. And all of those things which I will link. Maybe we can spend some time today talking about how often should we revisit our values and talk them through and not just revisit in terms of let's talk about what they are, but figure out do these still fit, especially as an individual, and then how we really harness those values to get us through the cycle of growth.
Shandel Sutherland 04:36
That is really good. Well, I know Melanie, you have a really, really beautiful story.
Shandel Sutherland 04:40
It's close to our heart. So let me just give the big picture and then I'll kick it back over to you to for you to share your experience because I think it's really powerful. And what I see is it our values don't change very often but they certainly evolve. And when we evolve as people and we do work that we do work in our soul and are hard, you will see your value shift. And I love that when companies create their values, and they're living by them, and they're growing in them, that's why people come to work there. And sometimes as we see, leadership change or turn over, and like I said, like, sometimes that's within our own self, then we're going to see some little shifts in values. But values are something that we really want to hold as a foundation and an anchor. And then I think, Melanie, you've got a whole great perspective on this as well, to add to that,
Melanie Montgomery 05:32
yeah, definitely, I think that as we grow, like you said, whether it'd be an individual or a team, we start moving in different directions. And things become really important to us that maybe we weren't able to do before. And when I first went through the exercise of defining my values, I came up with two of them, which were integrity and growth. And so that's really what was at the heart of everything that I did was making sure I was acting out of respect and integrity, but also that everything was a learning opportunity. And every time I had a hard conversation or heart to heart with myself, I went back to those two things. And I was going through coaching with Scott, and we started talking through my goals and where I was going and what my values were. And what I realized was that I was at a point where I'd really pushed myself to really embrace that growth mindset. As I got to know myself more. And I was really pushing these different personal growth opportunities, I really just started uncovering parts of myself that now I could value outwardly versus not necessarily knowing how important they were to me, I realized that I needed a third value that demonstrated that personal component where I wanted to be authentic, and I wanted to have authenticity in everything that I did, which meant to me tell people when they upset you, say something if you're bothered. And so adding that third value really helped me lean into that component, which is have those hard conversations, especially with friends, family, people that you're close to.
Shandel Sutherland 07:12
So awesome. And boy, let me tell you, we love your authentic self, Melanie, and the more you become the true you, the more we just love you. And I think that that is a big piece of finding your values is finding like what really, really drives me. And that and then if you take it into an organization, like we'll work with a lot of organizations that aspire to be things, but they're not. And so one of two things, I think we talked about this briefly, but it just to reiterate, here, one of two things is happening. One, we just aspire it and when it needs to go on our goal is not to you know, we don't need everyone to think this is the value needs to go on our bullets are number two, like Wow, that really is and just like, you know, we uncover this beautiful part of our that have made us who we are. I know I did that. Because one of my core values is adventure. And you can look back to when I was a tiny little girl adventure has always been important to me. But when I got really doing my business in my 30s, like it was just go Go, go go go. And I didn't have the adventure. And so then I got back to that. And that's one reason I love garage sales. Because I love I mean, who knows, it's why I love doing these podcasts with you, Melanie, because we never know what's going to happen. It's awesome. Like it's the right thrills my soul. And I think that that's a good way that we maybe you and I both, either we had to uncover it, or I lost my way and we get back to it and it becomes powerful. And that is what this process of having values in the center is all about. Because the pain points get us to purposely connect back to our values. Would you agree with that?
Melanie Montgomery 08:54
Yeah, absolutely.
Shandel Sutherland 08:55
I love I love your story. I love our stories of how this is one of the main things that we do in Shandel Group is help teams and organizations and the leaders live by their values. And we hire for them we fire from them, we promote for them like we do all of these things and I think that's a really empowered place to be.
Melanie Montgomery 09:16
Yeah, absolutely.
Shandel Sutherland 09:17
It's interesting because we just hired a guy yesterday and before we hired her I'd gone through in the interview process I'd gone through our you know our vision statement our our Thrive statement basically our purpose our vision or mission and our values and that thing that stuck back to her when she came back because I was explaining okay now this is one thing it's just yeah I thought about that wow thing that we have to wow people which for our Wow our core values at the bowling alley are we win people over? We own everything, you know, that's ours to own and we work hard as a team. And she remembered that and I Mike all if there was anything of that whole conversation that Here's what I would want you to remember. Because once you know that, you'll always come back to it. And you'll know what to do next. Yeah, definitely, like here at Shandel Group, like, we really live our values, which is we try to be wise, actually, we are wise, which means we put knowledge and we know how to apply it, we are inspiring. We are totally truth tellers, and we're totally fun. And we're you centered, I put one two extra totally, it's fine. So we're understanding that like, we only hire people that want to espouse those values. And man, when we don't espouse those values, there's conflict that happens.
Melanie Montgomery 10:39
I think it's important to talk through when we don't really live our values. That's how we off ramp into the cycle of misery. And it's also the way that we get back to the healthy cycle of growth is to then refocus on our values, especially as we think through individual growth, if one of my values is authenticity, and I'm struggling with telling someone the truth, because I'm struggling to have a hard conversation, I might get out of the healthy cycle into the unhealthy cycle, because I'm avoiding, and I'm deciding, oh, I don't really need to live my value, I can just brush it under the rug. In that moment. I'm now in that unhealthy cycle of misery. And I'm not living my values, that's when you have to really push yourself to say, No, that's your value, you need to go back and have that hard conversation and really get through that tough time. And then in doing so you connect with other people, because they get to know you they understand what you're thinking and feeling we always have to rethink, is what we're doing, really living up to our values.
Shandel Sutherland 11:43
That is money. That's exactly right. You said it perfectly. And I love using the individual as the concept because that's right, you go into numbing, you go through all of that, the cycle of misery. And it's only when you are in the cycle of misery that you finally realize, or someone else helps you realize you're in a cycle of misery that you got to get back to those core values. Wow. You Yeah.
Melanie Montgomery 12:08
And I think it's also important to note that most of the time, especially leaders that we work with, they're don't do this intentionally, people aren't saying, Here's my value, and I'm just not going to do it. It's out of fear is out of frustration, it's out of whatever that is that hard emotion that maybe we aren't tackling. And so we can get off track when we aren't really in control of our emotions, or we're not processing them after we have them. So that we don't understand where they're taking us. And we let those hard emotions take over and let us get into that unhealthy cycle and live outside of my values.
Shandel Sutherland 12:47
Melanie, that is so good. So we called triggers, right? When we get triggered, we usually either a value has been pushed on right where we like, or we're compromising on ourselves. And I was you were talking I'm like, okay, which 1am I, you know, I was kind of tried to put myself and it's true, like I get into the cycle of misery when I leave the totally you or other centered in even in our company, when I get my eyes on myself, instead of what I really, truly desire is to be other centered man, you're right. I am right in that triggered state goes into self protection, and I am no longer thinking about others on my team. I'm thinking how do I protect myself that was excellent.
Melanie Montgomery 13:33
As we talk through this process, I want everyone to hear that if you're in the cycle of misery, if you're not living your values, it doesn't mean you're a bad person. It doesn't mean anything negative, it just means that you're off track and you need to get back on it. I've been in that process so many times where I'm like, Melanie, you're not doing what you need to do. You need to get back on track and really lean into those hard things that you're avoiding right now, as we talk through this, and you start to hear things that are like, Oh, no red flag, maybe I'm over there. That's okay. That's great. The first step is recognizing the second step is really leaning in. And then the next time that you get over into that unhealthy cycle, it'll be an easier process to get back over to that healthy growth.
Shandel Sutherland 14:15
Great, great, great way to say it. Yeah, we call them off ramping. And on ramping, you always are going to get on an off ramp. You're not on the freeway anymore. But every off ramp has an on ramp, except I was teased about you poor people and clean them. You don't have that clip on Washington. But anyway, that's beside the point. That is so true. And I want everyone to hear Melanie when she says is you just have to get back and you get back like we said through your values and connecting back to them. Great, great word. Melanie love it.
Melanie Montgomery 14:49
I think as we then lean into our values, we then are able to really be honest and have truth and trust with the rest of our team, which then that fuels was our way going through the process is where we can be truthful. And we can build that trust. If we don't have trust with our team, with ourselves with our organization, whatever that looks like, then we're not really going to be able to move through that process well, and we always have to go back and really live our values and build that trust backup.
Shandel Sutherland 15:19
Yeah, you're in, you're right smack dab on. And the thing that we do when we off ramp into that Melanie, is we start lying to ourselves, so we're not truthful with ourself. And we are not trusting ourselves. And both of those things go back to that self deception. You know, we're, we're deceiving ourselves, and pulling back can take us through a couple cycles of misery before we ever get our head back straight. And I think as coaches, that's what we do, like we really help people see like, Hey, you're in a cycle of misery. It's okay, like, let's get back. Now, we don't always use that language, right. But we're always going to get people back to their values and get to truth telling to themselves, true telling to their team, and to others and to be trusting. And I do feel like we off ramp when we stopped trusting ourselves, which is right what you're saying, Melanie, about having that confidence to speak, and have it for me like being able to be other centered, not self protecting. When we do that, and we're truth telling, and we're trusting each other, that's going to be a lot, a lot easier. We call it the fuel that takes you around because you're centered on them values instead of protecting yourself. In a sense, we're protecting. When we go into a cycle of misery, we're protecting ourselves, which that's why we call it the victor. Like I just need to be victorious no matter what, right? Versus when we're in the cycle of gut, we're protecting the values at all costs, even again, against me, you know, I don't want to win over my values, I want my values to win.
Melanie Montgomery 16:54
Absolutely. And as we start leaning into personal growth and professional growth, we start to recognize behaviors that don't fit our values. And typically, when I have clients in there first really leaning into this, they start to get frustrated with themselves because they're noticing their behavior that doesn't fit who they want to be in those values. And I always have to have this conversation with them even sometimes a few times of would you even notice that this behavior wasn't okay, a month ago or three months ago? And they would be like, Well, no, I wouldn't have even realized that I was doing something wrong. So recognizing behavior. At first, it's like, Oh, my goodness, I'm doing this all the time. But that's really that first step to be able to recognize it and then change it and fix it. And you're gonna recognize it faster, quicker in the moment and be able to adjust your behavior. There's always that learning curve, where now you're all the sudden, it's right in front of your face, you see it all the time. And that can be really frustrating and hard, because then you can get down on yourself pretty easily.
Shandel Sutherland 17:59
Well said, that is well well said. I love it that Melanie, gosh, we could talk about this stuff forever, which we are going to keep going and I think there might be even more to be said about values because we're so passionate about it that like you said, you'll put some links to the values conversation. Is there anything that you want to really emphasize as we land the plane here?
Melanie Montgomery 18:20
Yeah, I think just always having them there somewhere in front of you is still important and knowing what they are. And then when you're in those hard moments, you can ask yourself, Am I living my values? Am I doing the things that I need to do? And really having them present in your life
Shandel Sutherland 18:36
is so good. When we work with teams, we always have them everyone in the room, the executive team, for example, rate, how are we as individuals following the values? And how are we as a team and organization following those values. And those numbers are fascinating. I love facilitating that. But I would say as a good Sunday night exercise in your Sunday review to look at your values and just say okay, how am I doing on this? Like, am I value? Am I living this? Or what is one step I could do this week to honor that value more? That would be a really good exercise, if people really want to take this on. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, we love you listeners. And as of your you're thinking about the process, we love your questions, because we're just super excited about this time that we have to answer. And so you can find us at Shandel group.com and there is a button there for you to submit your questions. And we hope you do so. But we'll be back next time continuing on the process of growth and we know that as we progress into this fall season that you're all going to grow with us. So have a great day and be the best you can be goodbye
