cavnessHR Culture Podcast Show Notes

Daniella Young: Hello, this is the cavnessHR Culture Podcast, and I'm your host, Daniella Young. Our guest today is Colin Dingelstad. Colin, are you ready to be great today?

Colin: Totally. I'm excited to be here.

Daniella Young: Colin is the owner of Beyond Social Conditioning, where he helps you focus on your perfect self. This is the rawest, most pure version of you. Simply imagine that you're alone on this planet and there's nothing left. No parents, no teachers, no friends, nothing. How would you behave differently if nobody judges you and the only person you need to make happy, fulfilled, and at peace is the person in the mirror? He believes that big changes don't need to take longer than twelve weeks and is a true expert in creating measurable behavioral change that's aimed toward your perfect self.

Daniella Young: I'm so excited to have Colin as our first guest. All of this discussion and leadership and culture change that we're going to talk about always has to start with personal transformation first. Also, I'm really excited because Colin is from and in the Netherlands. So, I love that our culture podcast out of Seattle, Washington, America is just eliminating global boundaries right out of the gate.

Daniella Young: So, Colin, welcome.

Colin: Happy to be here. What a great introduction.

Daniella Young: Colin, tell me something that you are super excited about these days.

Colin: I'm super excited about getting some sleep back. I just finished twelve days of sleeping six hours every night, just to see if I could be more productive. It was an interesting journey, to say the least.

Daniella Young: Okay, so what did you find? Because I think a lot of entrepreneurs think that if they sleep less, they're going to be more productive.

Colin: Yes, I track everything. In the first couple of days, the first four or five days, my productivity skyrocketed, and I was like, "I'm going to do this for the rest of my life." I already did the measurements if I would just sleep two hours more every night for the next ten years. It would save me about seven thousand hours. I was pretty excited about it until day seven, day eight came in. I started to feel it, not even that I was that tired. I did have some dips, but I was still more productive than usual, just because I track everything. I slept two hours less than normal. But I was at least an hour more productive. On my feet, I started to get a rash, and I knew this was only from the sleep deprivation. Proving my body just didn't care about that. I just focused on the day, my work ethic, my vibrancy, just where I live my life. So, I set a goal, I wanted to do this at least twelve days, and ideally the rest of my life. But after twelve days - and that was two days ago now - I decided to not continue and get some sleep back. Just because I was really feeling it. Maybe I would've adapted if I would've stuck with it, but I'm feeling much better now.

Daniella Young: Probably a good experiment, and I think most of the research backs up that the eight hours is kind of crucial. I can tell you, I still tell everyone that I have a baby, which is why I'm always tired. Except she's almost three and a half, but they still don't sleep all that well. I'm just now starting to feel...haven't slept through the night in four years, and just now starting to get there. Sleep deprivation, that can be rough, man.

Daniella Young: Colin, in the business world, we share a lot about how mentoring young people is important and developing leaders is important. I love this topic and I think it's super true, that senior people need to develop leaders. Why this is so interesting for me to hear from you about is that I have the experience where I graduated college. I was immediately commissioned into the US Army as a Lieutenant, which is basically somebody handing you, at twenty-two years old, a leadership, and saying "Congratulations, you're a leader, go forth." There were all these things that I had to do to develop myself. Of course, I had help, but there are some things I had to learn, and if I learned them faster. I probably would've been better earlier on. What are your thoughts on how people can work on themselves to become better leaders?

Colin: Probably the first thing is having your own values straight. Think about everything you do and why you do it. Then, whenever someone challenges your point of view, you've at least thought about it. So, you're more secure with who you are, and then whenever you change something, or somebody challenges you and you think, "He's right." You've already thought about it, then it's just small changes you have to make. Most people choose whatever feels good or act in the moment or act on their feeling without ever thinking why those feelings were in the first place. Why do they think the way they think? A lot of it has to do with your past. But also, the way you look at the future, how secure you are with yourself, all of these things. It all just starts with being clear on who you are. If you are not clear on who you are, how are you supposed to lead other people?

Daniella Young: So true. I love that you said, "Know who you are, but also be open to other people's ideas and insights." So many times, I think that young or new leaders think they need to stand their ground no matter what. I love how you grounded that in, "Know what your values are." That way, you're actually more open to other people's insights. Because you already know who you are, and you know when you need to pivot. That was really, really helpful.

Daniella Young: Colin, earlier when you and I were chatting, you mentioned that part of your work is helping other people to overcome trauma and use that to develop who they are today. I was checking out your website and I love a couple of things - if you get an opportunity, you guys, check out Beyond Social Conditioning, Colin's website - and he talks about a few things. He's not a psychologist, but he has found it problematic that so many professionals in transformation kind of cut you off at a certain time. That's not how life happens, that's not how breakthroughs happen. I think that's so interesting and I just wanted to hear you talk a little bit more about trauma, vulnerability, and that time aspect.

Colin: Totally. The time aspect is the duration of the sessions. Because the whole business model is aimed at keeping you there for a long period of time. But usually, if you only have forty-five-minute or sixty-minute sessions, you are usually just getting started. Then you just got cut off, because the next person is in line. Then you have to come back next week without really feeling like you were understood. It's a great relief and you'll probably feel better about yourself, 'cause you said whatever was on your mind. But when it came down to the real things, it's difficult to get there within forty-five minutes or sixty minutes. You can, but sessions that take longer, especially in the beginning, are really powerful.

Colin: But the trauma release sessions, it's all about thinking about your past, really thinking about whatever negative experience has happened to you. Simply thinking about, "If I think about that experience, does it still affect me? Does it involve some sort of feeling, behavior, emotion that's still in there?" If it's still doing something with you, if you think about somebody who did something to you in the past, maybe it appeals to whatever difficult situation that you've been in. Then you haven't dealt with it, and it's not in the right place for your mind, and it can always pull back up. What you ideally want is that feeling that's kind of neutral. That's when you know that you've truly overcome. But that's not the case. Most people just hide under their blankets before they want to face themselves, and that can lead to a lot of issues, which is pretty scary. But once you actually face your former self and make peace with yourself and make peace with your inner child from when you were younger, that's when real change happens.

Daniella Young: So great, and so true. I think that everyone has experienced trauma. If they say they haven't, they probably just have not realized it yet. I also think that everything has two sides to it, right. Everything is not just good or bad, nothing in life is that simple. You talked about anything that you've been through in your life, you can get to a neutral point. It's also interesting that things that seem good and amazing right now in the future probably also get to that neutral point. What advice would you give to listeners? I've heard a lot of people scared to share their personal stories, their personal trauma, especially with people in a professional setting. Worried that they have to make up lies about where they're from, what they've been through. What would you say to people about how vulnerability can actually help to build them up or build a culture around them?

Colin: That's a good one. First thing I would say is, all your fears from your past are probably not true anymore. When you were younger, you might have got bullied. Or people taught you not to speak up or not to express yourself fully because you might look different. But now at this moment in time. It will actually give you power and people can actually connect with you. You will actually do people a disservice by holding, by cropping everything up inside of your own body and always thinking about what other people might think of you. Because the truth is, almost everybody thinks about what other people think about them. It only needs one person to be a leader in that setting and actually let go. Not only do it for yourself, but also do it for other people.

Daniella Young: Interesting how we judge ourselves for trauma or experiences that we've been through in ways that we would never judge other people. I've sort of done this exercise before. Where you think about other stories that you've heard of hard things that other people have been through. You don't think that they're a worse person, you think that they're an amazing person. But we don't so often look at ourselves with that same sort of lens or forgiveness. It sounds like that's one of the things you help your clients to do.

Colin: It's also one of your strengths, the same with what you said at the beginning. People want to look really tough for the people around them, want to be a leader. But then the people around you never know when to pick you up when you are down. If you are always tough. Nobody knows when you are actually in a really dark place, and they actually need to lift you up. If you don't show anything, they're unable to help you. That will eventually mess everything up in the long run.

Daniella Young: Oh my god, listeners, I love this. I love what Colin's saying. Let me tell you: leaders always think they need to look perfect. But actually, when you're in a leadership position. You already are given this haze of perfection and a lot of times you need to let yourself not be perfect.

Daniella Young: I had this experience. I was in the Army, I was a Lieutenant, we were actually deployed to Afghanistan. I always thought, "Man, I gotta be perfect. Especially as a female officer, I gotta run fast, I gotta jump higher, I gotta be smarter, I gotta do everything perfect." And I did. One day we went to play volleyball, and I literally can't play volleyball. I fall on my face in the sand. It's horrifying. I realized that my soldiers loved it. It took me a while to realize, "Oh, they needed that. They needed to see me not be good at something." Part of being a leader, what you learn - we talked about mentoring yourself - find things to not be perfect at. Especially because you probably want your people to strive to improve. You need to be putting yourself out there.

Daniella Young: Can you tell me a little bit about the personal journey that your client might go through when they start with you, and how you think that'll play - obviously it's going to play into their personal life. But how can it play into their professional life, whether they're an entrepreneur, or whether they're a career person?

Colin: That's a good one. It'll never be perfect. So, whatever I'm going to say, it will not be.

Daniella Young: Understood.

Colin: What I usually do is, we have the first session where we actually go into dive deep into what you actually want, where do you want to be. A lot of the difficult things about changing people is that you don't really measure it in the beginning. Okay, this is where we are, this is where we want to be. Let's actually write it down so we can actually look back at the things that we worked on and see if we actually made progress. Once we've done that, then we immediately dive into the past. Depending on the person, maybe they don't have any issues with that, and then we can skip that part. So, it's never perfect. Usually, we can dive right into the past and go back to everything and really dissect everything. Look at every little detail, every negative event that shaped you. Then eventually you formulate a clear plan on all the habits, patterns, and behaviors that have shaped you to the person that you are today. Not only shape you, they keep you in a rut. They're just the same. You have been doing these patterns all over again. That's probably the reason why you're stuck, 'cause these patterns are holding you back. Once you actually know them, then we can actually work on them. Once we actually have some rapport, I know your past, we know what has been holding you back. Then probably in an ideal world, next session would be some sort of trauma release. Actually, facing your inner demons, taking them head-on, not pushing them in some sort of corner or not thinking about them or largely thinking that you're over them, 'cause it doesn't work. It largely doesn't work. You just have to get rid of the feeling. The way you get rid of the feeling is by facing yourself. Even though the session will take a little bit longer than just, say, facing yourself.

Colin: Then, let's say we've dealt with your past. Now we're going to look at your future. What will actually make you excited when you wake up? What will truly make you excited? When do you want to jump out of bed if you are working toward which goal, and which patterns, behaviors, which kind of person do you need to be? Let's strip down all the layers of your social conditioning. As we already discussed, what if you are alone in this world? No parents, no friends, no media, no marketing, no teachers, nothing that influences you. What will make you excited? What kind of person would you be proud of if you looked in the mirror? Actually, actively creating that person, because that's probably your true authentic self. Once you're working toward your true authentic self, and toward a brighter future externally. Then you've dealt with your past. Your future's pretty bright. You know you're working toward something. Then we can focus on living in the present moment, 'cause you've dealt with everything else.

Daniella Young: Awesome. Awesome. Let me ask you, Colin, 'cause on your website, there are all these pictures of amazing outdoor things, and I know that you came from an outdoor company beforehand. Do you take your clients on hikes through the Netherlands? Because I'm really trying to decide if I'm going to fly to the Netherlands right now to come work with you.

Colin: All my coaching is done online, so that's the big benefit. I noticed that I can have a big office. I can let you come in, but it's much easier if you're in your own living room being comfortable. If it gets too much, which has happened before. Then you can just turn off the camera, grab a cup of tea or hot chocolate or whatever you want. Then come back whenever you're ready. You're not going confined in this room with me. It gives a sense of freedom somehow, and people open up easier when they know that they can turn off or just shut down their laptop any moment they want. Instead of them having to physically look me in the eye and then walk out. Somehow the trust aspect gets enhanced when we do things online. So that's why I do everything online. But in an ideal world, I would take time to go climb, maybe do some amazing hikes, but it doesn't have to. You don't need it. What I do - yes, it would probably help you to get you outside of your home environment and do something crazy and have a really amazing time. But usually, once we're done - let's say it will take twelve weeks maximum - when we're done. I want you to be a leader. I don't want you to keep coming back to me. Maybe you want me to do a check-up every month. But I don't want you to come back to me every week. I want you to be a leader who is actually able to inspire other people. I want you to be so busy with your own life that you don't need coaching. Obviously, you want trainers and other coaches in different aspects that you want to conquer. But just being so busy that you don't need another coach on how to change your behavior, or life coach, or therapist. But just that you are the leader who inspires other people, and who is so tough that she or he doesn't need another coach.

Daniella Young: That's perfect. That's said by such a good leader. Because good leaders should always be wanting to essentially promote and help their people move onto the next thing. You see people that are in leadership positions that are not good leaders are generally trying to hang on to people, and they're worried that the job will end, or the money will end. You just have this wonderful perspective of, there's plenty out there. Coach online, you can keep everyone feeling comfortable. You, of course, have much more reach because you're online. Your clients could be anywhere in the world. But also, it is twelve weeks, you want them to have transformation and move onto the next thing. Find their perfect world. Then for you, your world has also changed a lot, ever since you've started embracing this path for yourself as an entrepreneur.

Colin: Yeah, it's a constant process. I basically describe it, before we start, like moving toward your perfect self. Let's say you are standing in front of the mountain, and on top of the mountain is your perfect self. It's a difficult road. You have to get past friends, family, everyone that tries to hold you back. Eventually, you face yourself. That's the most important one. Eventually, you'll reach the top, but once you've reached the top, you've got a better view. Then you see all those other mountains that you can conquer. It's a never-ending process, but it all starts with you trying to get to the first mountaintop.

Daniella Young: Colin, are you providing a gift or a discount today for the listeners?

Colin: Yes. Let's give away five free coaching sessions. Sixty minutes.

Daniella Young: Wow. A ton of value. Colin, what is the best way to get in touch with you?

Colin: I would say I'll send you the link. Then the link will be

wherever you're watching is on, you'll click on it, it will

probably be https://www.beyondsocialconditioning.com/your-coaching-session

Daniella Young: Okay, so the link will be in our show notes. If you're interested in connecting with Colin, jump on that link. Go find his Beyond Social Conditioning website, it's really really awesome. All of the links for these show notes will be available, and they're found at www.cavnesshrblog.com.

Daniella Young: Colin, twenty seconds, what's the last piece of advice or knowledge you can give to our listeners?

Colin: Whatever you do, do something. If you have a goal, just make small steps. You have to realize that everything that you do right now is probably just you being on your typical state. The only way to get out of it is by doing something different. So just do something.

Daniella Young: Whatever you do, do something. Powerful. Thank you so much, Colin. Thank you, listeners, and remember to be great every day.

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cavnessHR Culture Podcast Show Notes

A talk with Colin Dingelstad

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