[MUSIC] Hey there, my name is Shane Kraddock and this is The Interage Podcast where I share a different take on how to lead and live a sustainable high performance life. Over the course of different episodes, I'm going to challenge the belief that tension, stress, and struggle are essential to success and creativity. My experience is that there's an easier way, there's a better way, and indeed there's an essential way that we need to explore for the times that we live in. So let's go ahead, let's jump in and explore. [MUSIC] Hello there, Shane Kraddock here, welcome to today's episode of The Interage. And today we're going to be talking about a distinction between being engaged and being involved. In other news, I hope, first of all, all is well in your world. I, recording this obviously in July 2024, this comes out on the 22nd of July. But regardless of what time of the year, or even what year you're listening to this, I hope all is well. In this month, I'm kind of a key focus for me is going to be around audios, actually, apart from this podcast, which I really enjoy doing. I'm also in the middle of recording an audiobook version of my very first book, which was called Inspire Me, which is available on Amazon and other stores, if you're interested. It's a very different book to my most recent book, The InterCEO, because it's kind of a more dip in, dip out book. There's no real narrative to it. It's very much kind of designed to be picked up and give you a bit of inspiration in less than 60 seconds. It's kind of designed in a similar way to my weekly email, which you can check out at shanecrotter.com. And then the second part of the audio journey this month is that a big thank you to listener Anna Black, who sent me an email. I know Anna is down in Cork in the south of Ireland, and he would just let me know, which I hadn't really realised that Spotify now have audiobooks available to listeners. So we're in the middle of just converting The InterCEO format and kind of so it can be played in Spotify, and that should happen. I think the first week in August, I think is what's going to happen there. It's already available on Audible, that's The InterCEO. So if you're a less Spotify user, it could become in your way as part of your free minutes that they give to, I think, premium subscribers. Before we get into today's episode, just a couple of things, you're probably like me, I listen to different podcasts. Some I like, some I don't like, some I dip in, some I don't dip in, some I stay with and some I avoid. But what I have realised is that by certain podcast hosts asking me to like and subscribe their podcast, that actually does work, and all I can say to you is a podcast host. If you like this podcast, it does help me to spread the word and help other people like you. So if you like it, I would really appreciate if you could like the podcast and even subscribe, because it does help in terms of the way the different platforms flag podcasts and make them available to people. So that's that enough about that. So today, we're going to be talking about a distinction between being engaged and being involved, and I've realised in my own journey as a coach, as an advisor, and just as a human being, that when it comes to the inner side of things, distinctions are incredibly valuable to bring some clarity in terms of no distinction, can help you see something you hadn't seen before. So for in my book, the inner CEO that I mentioned, there is one chapter that I call vital distinctions. It's actually chapter 18 in the book. And there's a quote at the start of that book that I'm going to read by Mark Twain. And it goes like this quote, "The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. 'Tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning." End quote. So that's Mark Twain. So it's just, again, subtle distinctions that really help your clarity. And the very first distinction that I cover in that chapter is the distinction between here versus there. Now, I'm not going to get into what's written in the book other than to say that I often refer to this with clients where I say, "Listen, we all over here and we all over there here represents your reality." It's important to get in touch with what's actually going on, not what you think is what's going on. And then we all over there, as in, what are my goals? Where do I want to be? What's the dare that I'm looking at? What are the faraway hills that I think are greener? But a key statement that I was told by a mentor years ago was don't make here run, don't make here run, because very often that's what the mind will do. It'll say, "What I want to be there, and until I'm there, I won't be happy. I won't be fulfilled. I won't have peace of mind." It's a hugely important distinction. If you have the book, it's worth maybe reading that chapter 18 at the start. The one I'm going to focus on today is engage versus involve. And so I just want to read out to you this part of the book and then add a few bits to it that are not in the book. So here we go with the book. I have clear memories of playing football on the green outside my home as a child, and the sheer exhilaration and joy have just been fully involved in the game itself of playing for the sheer joy of it. In those games, I always played to my best level. More often than not, I was in some version of flow. But then there were other games where I was playing against somebody that I really, really, really wanted to beat. In particular, I was thinking a really good friend of mine, Barry. Right, we always be competitive playing soccer in particular. So I didn't enjoy those games nearly as much. Looking back, it's because I was too invested in the outcome. I still performed well, but usually not at my best. Without realizing that I was wrapped up in my thinking about those games, there was more inner interference. So I had less attention available to play the game. This is just a simple illustration of a point that seems to be true in every field and in every aspect of life, that the more engaged you are, the better your performance and the higher level of enjoyment. But the more attached you are to the outcome, the more compromised your performance will be. When you want something too much, your enjoyment level goes down, but so does your performance. Without doubt, when in this mode, you will also experience dramatically higher levels of anxiety, frustration, stress, and anger. Now, in the book, there is a quadrant, which is a visual. I'll try and explain it here to you to see if it comes across. If you can imagine on a whiteboard quadrant in front of you, on the vertical scale, you've got engagement. So at the top of that vertical, you've got high engagement at the bottom low. Then on the horizontal, you've got high attachment to the right, low attachment to the outcome to the left. So if you go down to the bottom, right-hand corner quadrant, that would be high attachment, low engagement, which is visual thinking. I want a good outcome, but I'm not really engaged in making it happen, which we're thinking. The bottom left quadrant is low engagement, low attachment. So you're not really attached to either, and you're kind of checked out. That's what I call the checked out zone. Then if you go to the top right-hand zone, you've got high attachment and high engagement, and I would call that stressful success. That is where most people that I deal with are when we start, that they are very attached, they're all in, but they're too attached almost. And so it becomes stressful because they're afraid of not hitting the outcome. And that actually bizarrely compromises the performance to get there. And then you've got the top left-hand quadrant, which is high engagement, and then low attachment. And that's what I'm going to call the flow success zone, where you're all in, wholehearted, but you're not overly attached at all to the outcome. And therefore, you're more able to perform at a higher level, which actually increases your probability of achieving a favorable outcome. And this is what I mean as well, in terms of what I'm talking about, being engaged versus being involved. Another way of saying being engaged is that your whole heart is you're all in. Everybody is just saying, right, let's just go for it. I'm not attached to the outcome, I'm not listening to whether I like this or I don't like it. I'm just all in. Now, we are today at the moment in a time where business is actually struggling with very high levels of disengagement from employees. It's a real issue. And there are certain things that organizations can do to improve that. I often talk to leaders about that side of it. And there is definitely a trend of leaders looking to improve this, because they know otherwise they're going to lose talent, which will affect their ability to perform. But it is a two-way contract. So I think it very often the narrative in the media and in the discourse of conversation is that it's very much what's the employer going to do about it. And really the employee also needs to think about, well, what am I doing about it? And so today I'm actually focusing more on that side, is that the person working in an organization or you working with your sole entrepreneur or even a business owner or somebody working in the business, what are you doing about your level of engagement? Because engagement very much is under your control. Now, when you don't understand clearly that you're not your mind, well, then you will listen to what your mind says. And your mind is full of personal preferences, likes and dislikes. And so very often what I'll find is that people will fall into the trap of listening to their thinking. So that's really the essence of what the inner CEO book is about, is that you're not your mind. You're not your thinking and you have to understand that so that you can become the master of your mind. And then how do you do that? I remember talking to a director of a business years ago who had fallen out of love completely with their business. And they weren't kind of another director of the business with them, but they had fallen out of love with the business. And so they were disengaged, they were involved, as in they were showing up and doing stuff, but they weren't really all in. And so I was challenging them to say, listen, you know, whether you stay with the business or not, you're really knocking your ability to make that decision. You're also knocking your own clarity. Because when you get disengaged, you really affect your mood, you affect the quality of thinking, your quality of clarity goes down. So my advice was, look, let's start working with your mind. Let's identify those thoughts that you're kind of you're being hypnotized by. Let's step out of that. Let's just go all in. And what does all in wholehearted you look like in the business? What would you be doing that you're not doing? What kind of energy would you be bringing in? What's your mindset at the start of a day? So, fair enough, you mightn't feel right now that you're liking it, but can you still bring your whole self to the business? And she kind of got that and decided to do it. And it did make a big difference to her mood, to her stays, to her levels of clarity, which ultimately helped her in time to make a clear decision about the business. Now, just as I'm talking about this as a side note, I just want to let you know as well that I'm going to be doing something new soon. It's going to be what I call it, going deeper limited email series, where I'm going to share kind of longer-form emails about some of the things that I haven't shared in my book or my podcast or my email, because maybe I've been holding back and thinking, well, would people really be interested in that? But my guess is that some people will. So if you'd like to go a little bit deeper with me on some of the topics where I'll be talking about things like spirituality, my own views on things like the power of intention, energy, healing, I might even mention the word God, who knows, right? But if you'd like to have access to that, it's called going deeper. And if you're the only way you can get it really is if you're on my email list. So you can go to sharingcraddock.com, that's 1D in Craddock. And you can opt into the email list. You get all sorts of goodies anyway, and you don't get spammed. But essentially, that's going to be the way that I'm going to communicate about this going deeper email series, which is going to be starting soon. So just in case of interest. So back to engagement. What about you? What areas of your life are you engaged in? But more importantly, what areas are you disengaged from? It could be a client. It could be a key relationship in business, or even personal. Question to ask is, think about the areas that you're not fully happy with. Maybe you're avoiding and look at what level of your heart is in it. Are you fully all in? Or have you decided all I just don't like this? And I'm going to give you a little challenge. What if for one day you just went all in, either in your business or your life or that relationship that you're just not into at the moment? But what if for one day you just went all in, you ignored your thinking, and you just decided I am bringing my absolute best today to this area? And I'd love you to see what would happen over that day. Because I think the one thing you will see is that your improvement in your energy, your state of mind, your mindset, which is really from my point of view, the most valuable thing. And I'm convinced that if you saw that and got a taste of it, I think you go another day, I think you keep going. Now, it doesn't mean that somebody might say, "Well, Shanny, you're saying that my situation, I find it hard to be all in because I just don't like it." He's saying, "Just accept it and just suck it up." No, but I am saying that if you really want to change a situation, whether it's a business, a sales issue, a pitching issue, growing your business, improving your personal relationship, improving your health, whatever it is, it requires you, I think, to go all in. And it's unlikely you're going to get a great result unless you go all in, wholehearted, absolute all in. And what the benefit, though, is that you're much more likely to go into the flow, just like that story at the start of the book and the other CEO, or I was talking about playing soccer, just playing what I'm really thinking about, but just going all in, bringing my full self. It's much more likely that you're going to cause a really positive change. So I think that's the challenge I'm going to throw to you. Could you do for one day and think about the areas that maybe if you reflect a little bit, yeah, okay, I'm not really all in here or I'm avoiding this person or this situation. So that's maybe the close, that challenge yourself to be more wholehearted in some area, be more engaged regardless of what you're thinking about the situation, because it is the catalyst to better things. But there's nothing like trying that out for yourself. That's it for this week, Ciao for now. [Music] [Music]
