Psychological Safety: Your Body Is The Key To Unlocking Connections | Croft Edwards

Psychological Safety: Your Body Is The Key To Unlocking Connections | Croft Edwards

[Roger]

You can say all the right words. But if your nervous system hasn't fully arrived in the room, neither has your ability to authentically connect with the people in it.

[Croft]

"Walked into the room and my body, which had been training to kill, immediately tensed up and armored up and said, this is an unsafe environment. And it was unsafe because people were dancing. People were smiling. People were happy. My body said, no, no, no, we're not going to do that. Fast forward a day to Julio Elia, who's the founder of New Field Network, was talking and I realized my body was numb. And it was numb, not like it couldn't feel and it was numb like it was starting to feel. And that was the moment when I kind of said, there's something here and I don't know what it is, but I think I need to follow this path."

[Roger]

I'm Roger Kastner, and this is What Do You Know To Be True? These conversations are for people who are navigating the space between who they've been, and who they're intentionally becoming.

Today I'm sitting with Croft Edwards. Former Army Lieutenant Colonial. Leadership coach. And coach trainer. In this conversation, we explore why the body is the key instrument in how we create safety with others, and what it actually takes to lead from a place where someone can safe with you and able to work with you.

I’m glad you’re here, let’s dive in.

[Croft]

Croft Edwards. I am a leadership and change coaching consultant. Fundamentally, what I work with is leaders and organizations.

But the beautiful thing about that is every person is a leader in some organization, whether it's a family, whether it's a corporation, whether it's a military. And I think really my superpower is the ability that I'm very good at walking with them. And when it's appropriate, I can walk about half a step ahead of them to kind of say, here's the path that maybe we could explore.

That's who I am and that's what I love to do.

[Roger]

Before you were coaching leaders, you had a career in the U.S. Army and you've done org effectiveness work in high-risk environments, such as oil refineries and mining companies. And now you perform and teach somatic and embodied coaching. That feels like a big arc.

When did you discover the traditional hard-nosed form of leadership wasn't working and turning to the inner experience was the right path for you and your clients?

[Croft]

So my journey really was influenced by the military. When I was 10 years old, my mom worked for a U.S. Senator. Because of that, I ended up in an event at Fort Bliss, Texas, where the guest of honor was World War II General Omar Brandt.

And here I was, this 10-year-old kid killing a summer day. And they reeled him out because by then he was in a wheelchair and he got this reverential clap that nobody else got. And it really caught my ear.

And so because of that, I went out, read his autobiography, read it cover to cover. And I didn't realize it at the time, but it piqued in me this fundamental question I've been studying ever since, which is why was he or any leader for that matter of success? And then that's evolved into what is this thing called leadership and more specifically, how do you do that?

It was greatly influenced by my stepfather, who was a career Army officer, which led me to the Army and went off to college, did ROTC, graduated a week later. I was in the active duty in the Army. The Army was phenomenal.

I love it. I ended up spending another, I spent five years on active duty and then 20 years in the National Army Reserve. When I was in, there was something missing for me.

I was going down the path of special forces. And I started to realize that in the military, my body learned how to armor up, how to be this tough, traditional leader. But what I realized was my heart was saying, but this isn't the path.

And I listened to it, but I didn't know I was listening to it. I actually felt like I'd failed because I decided this wasn't the path. So fast forward, ended up in an organization called the New Field Network and started to get certified as what's called an ontological coach.

Walked into the room and my body, which had been training to kill, immediately tensed up and armored up and said, this is an unsafe environment. And it was unsafe because people were dancing. People were smiling.

People were happy. My body said, no, no, no, we're not going to do that. Fast forward a day to Julio Elia, who's the founder of New Field Network, was talking and I realized my body was numb.

And it was numb, not like it couldn't feel and it was numb like it was starting to feel. And that was the moment when I kind of said, there's something here and I don't know what it is, but I think I need to follow this path. And people would say, how was your training?

And I'd say, oh my God, it was amazing. And they'd say, well, what are you learning? And I'd say, I have no idea.

I have no idea because I was learning something that my body didn't know how to do. And so I couldn't put it into words because, you know, imagine this, you know, tensed up, armored up army officer. And in a sense, I was learning to dance.

And so I was learning that there's so much more, not that there's anything wrong with the leadership I had. It very much served me in an environment, but it limited me to where I could go another input.

[Roger]

You were headed down a path and your body told you it was not the right path for you. And then when, when you're in the new field experience, it was almost like you're, you were given your body permission to feel.

[Croft]

But at the time it didn't feel that way, right? At the time, it actually felt kind of like failure because the military had taught me that they can't have these emotions. You know, there's not a space for them.

It really allowed me to do, which I think is, you know, kind of my superpower was it allowed me to realize that the mastery came from, could I be in both environments? You know, when we talk about the, the, the kind of my superpower, there's two ways I look at it, which I think are very relevant to me in the army special forces. One of the things they do very well is they call it going native.

So what happens, they'll go into some environment and what they do is they adapt to the environment so that in a sense you can't discern them from anybody else in that environment. And so that's why, you know, I'm very good at, I can go, you know, I literally have coached leaders at 3 a.m. 8 miles underground in a coal mine, right? And I've coached leaders in hospitals and I've coached frontline supervisors and I've coached Navy admirals and right.

And it's that ability to go native, to be where they are. There's a way of looking at things called spiral dynamics. In there, there's a way of looking at things called spiral wizardry.

As a leader, can you move on the spiral to where they need you to be as a leader? And the theory is you're kind of a half a step ahead of them. So you offer, yes, I know your world.

Come around the corner and follow me. We've got something cool to do. In ontological coaching, one of the things we call this is this a seductive offer, right?

And so it's kind of like, and we know seductive offers. We see it. There's something about that person.

We go, I want to follow them. We can't put our fingers on it. We don't know what it is.

We just kind of go, yeah, I'm going to follow that. So that's really what I've been working towards doing is how do I, if I'm in a coal mine, how do I show up to a frontline supervisor in a coal mine that they go, oh, you can live in my world. But then a week later, I'm at a medical school working with a senior leadership team, and they go, oh, he's in our world.

But the two worlds probably couldn't merge, but I can live in both worlds. And that's really what I think I do very well, or at least I try to do.

[Roger]

And I want to make sure I'm getting this right. It sounds like, again, in the military career, you found that the head and the heart were not in alignment. Your heart wasn't, that wasn't the right path for you.

So your heart's telling you to go someplace else. As you're moving into this new practice, this new field, it's the head that was saying, wait a minute, I'm not sure I feel safe here. And it was through that experience, those two experiences where your head and your heart became more in alignment, more coherent.

And now when you're working with leaders, they want to make sure you're safe. So before they're able to explore their emotional side, their heart, they need to make sure in the head, you feel safe with them. And that's why being able to be that chameleon, be able to be present in their environment, unlocks the door for you to work with them on that emotional side.

Did I get that right?

[Croft]

Yeah. And it's even deeper than that. I think it's a little bit, the deeper is I'm comfortable in both worlds.

Quick little story, like the coal mines, the coal mine was actually right outside of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, which Alma of University of Alabama, right? I did my MBA at Auburn, which if you know anything about the state of Alabama, Auburn and Alabama are like this. Two of my daughters went to Alabama, but that's a whole nother story, right?

But what I would do was underground in the mine, I actually, I have it right over there. My fart hat was designed to look like an Auburn football helmet. And I purposely did that because I caught more flack, but what it allowed me to do was talk flack back.

And so I'd show up in, I remember we'd be down there and it was almost like you could tell who the consultants were, because they walked down there and they were like, but you couldn't tell I was a consultant because what I did was I literally lived underground with them. And so here I am going underground on this underground train basically. And I'm sitting next to some 25 year rizzled coal miner, but at the same time, maybe on that team, there's a really bright young engineer leader that's going, I want to go here.

We can go there. What I think I can do very well is the coachee is in their fire. It's literally like they're in a furnace.

And I think what I'm pretty good at is I can go in the furnace and I don't get burnt and I'm comfortable there and we'll go wherever we need to go.

[Roger]

So you've said the most difficult person you will ever lead is yourself. In your own reinvention story that you were just sharing, who was that most difficult version of you? And what did it actually take to lead him?

[Croft]

If I go back to that first day in Newfield, when I walked in the room, one of the biggest challenges I had was my arrogance, right? I was literally doing this program on leadership, coaching and leadership. And I said, and I'm, my story was I'm, I'm a captain in the United States Army.

If any organization owns the word leadership, it's the U.S. Army, right? We have a history of that. And so in that moment, that was my challenge.

But now my challenge is I still have them, but they're more stubborn. One of the things Julio Elia, again, the teacher or the founder of Newfield, one of my favorite quotes by him is somebody said to him, oh, I would love to do what you do. He said, it's actually quite simple.

You simply have the same conversation every day for 30 years. And what he was saying was you have to practice. And the practices I'm doing now are different, but they're still complex.

They're probably more complex because I'm a newer, different, deeper observer, but I still struggle with them. And as I keep going, I hopefully I'm getting more adept at it. And I think I am, but I've been my biggest challenge the whole time.

And I do think it's it, not that it's getting easier, but that I'm more adept with my practices.

[Roger]

Maybe this is encouraging for someone who's like, I'm at a more early stage of their journey of becoming their more possible self. It's not that you uncover new struggles. It's the same struggle.

It just unfolds. It opens up, it goes deeper and yet you become more resourced. And there's something, there's something, there's something odd about that and something comforting.

I'm not sure exactly the, the, the different emotions I'm feeling about that. As you described that, this idea of like, okay, the struggles I had when I was 20, I'm going to have when I'm 60 or 80, and yet I'm going to be more resourced to deal with them versus, you know, going and, you know, having to slay new dragons, knowing that I'll be, knowing that I'll have to still slay the same dragons and yet I'll be more resourced to do so. It feels, it feels more comforting.

[Croft]

I was on a call yesterday with one of my clients that, who's now very, very high up in an oil company. In the conversation, they were revealing that they're, they're struggling with their, a part of their team and they were in a meeting, the team said something and they shared that, you know, what I wanted to do was X, the old way of thing, just smash it, blah, blah, blah. And then they centered themselves and kind of went, oh yeah.

But later in the call, we were talking about learning that what this person couldn't see was this has taken them 20 years to get there. And yet they're frustrated because their team isn't somewhere. Wait a second.

How long has it taken you to get to where you could actually have this awareness? It's taken you 20 years, right? So it's just the practice.

And that's why I'm a huge proponent of practice and being a beginner. And what I've, I've done is like, one of my new hobbies is bees. We have a, we have a three and a half acre farm and I have a mentor who's teaching me around bees.

And what I've really committed to is just being a beginner. And when something doesn't go right, I go, oh, what did I want? Instead of I've got to have the answer, I'm going to do this right.

I'm going to, everything is about being a beginner. And it's so much fun because now I've let go of, I'm going to be perfect. Oh, I am where I am.

I'm going to learn where I learn.

[Roger]

Yeah. That beginner's mind is so important. Again, for people at the beginning of their journey, where they've probably been high achievers when they were kids, when they're starting off their career.

And then they find this place where it's like, okay, well, this might not be the right career for me. And I'm taking this, taking the other path. That's more aligned to purpose, more aligned to values.

But now I'm being asked to do things I haven't really done before. And with that high record of achievement, there's probably more, more pressure. And that's why this challenge of making that, that pivot, making, doing that reinvention feels so hard because you're not, you're not ticking off the winds as easily as you did before.

So that, that beginner's mindset seems so powerful. And this question of not, why did I fail? But what does this moment have to teach me?

[Croft]

I do a lot of mentor coaching for new coaches. What'll happen, especially the newer ones that I got to get it perfect. And they'll come in and they'll just, oh, this call was the worst call ever, blah, blah, blah.

And I'll let them give their spiel. And then I'll say, well, I've got some good news. This call was absolutely perfect.

And they look at me kind of like, what? And my response, my follow-up is, for where you are in your journey of learning, this call is revealing where the learning is. And then we go into, and I challenge them, the breakdown right now is you're not letting it be perfect.

You can't coach like you've got 10,000 hours because you don't have 10,000 hours. You've got five and your practice is to look at it as perfect as, oh, I don't know how to do that. Great.

Let me practice it again. Usually what happens for a lot of quickly, once they allow the space to just be a beginner and look at it, it's like a shift in them because they go, oh yeah. Okay.

Now I can focus on what I'm worth because this one call is one step closer to call number 10,000, but you still have 9,994 to go. So enjoy each one of them.

[Roger]

You have to go through these steps, like the 10,000 steps or the 10,000 reps. You don't jump from zero to 10,000, right? You got to take each step.

So to your point, each step is perfect. And the imperfect step is the perfect step. The failure happens when you quit.

[Croft]

And that's the beauty of practice, but we don't see that when we're doing that. If we think, oh, I failed here or what's happened is just perfect for your path. If you're willing to look at that.

[Roger]

Yeah. I have found that I'm very comfortable with a lot of F words. Failure is not one of them.

[Croft]

Yeah. And yet that's probably where you've learned the most, grown the most, or that quote unquote failure caused you to shift direction, which led you to right here. And even right here may not be perfect, but this is leading you to the next Yeah.

[Roger]

So your book and your new program, the liquid accordion go past traditional coaching into the focus on the limiting beliefs and the repeated patterns, even the stored trauma that keep people stuck. Was there a specific moment maybe with a leader where you're working with when you realize talk-based coaching wasn't enough alone to get them unstuck?

[Croft]

I don't know that there was a specific moment, but what I do know is as I would start to access the body, both mine and the coachee's more, the growth seemed to be more profound and larger. There was a moment in my learning where it, I felt like it all came together and I could see, oh, right. And I make the statement, I think the body's the Holy grail in coaching and leadership.

Right. Because if I can't do it in my body, I can't do it. Right.

If I go back to me that first day at Newfield, my body only knew how to armor up. I couldn't see what I couldn't see because my body wouldn't allow it. That day too, when it started to be numb, that just slight feeling, I could start to see something.

And then it's just been that kind of process all along. And then with coachees, it was like yesterday, for instance, the person I was coaching, I very quickly picked up on their neck. It was right there.

They couldn't see it. And when we then allowed the space for what that person wanted to say to come out, so did the emotions. They became very emotional as this, and it was like a, just a flood coming.

And that was why I love the domain of somatics in the body. And because we don't know much about it. We know physiological, you know, the heart does this and scientists, there's this link and blah, blah, blah.

But if I ask a leader to show up open right now and they go, oh, I don't know how to do that. But if I say something simple, like you have grandkids, yeah. Show up in your body like you show up with a grandkid.

Oh, I don't know how to do that. Do you ever show up like that with your team? Oh no, I don't.

Yeah. What would be possible if you showed up in an open body with your team? I think it's cool because whether the coachee realizes it or not, they're the subject matter expert on their body.

They just don't realize that. And the body knows how to listen. We just don't know how to listen to our body.

So we have that intuition and we're going, but we discard it. Instead of going, oh, let me listen.

[Roger]

The body knows how to listen. We just don't know how always how to listen to our body. You mentioned somatics and embodiment.

Do you have a quick definition for both of those words in case someone's not familiar?

[Croft]

Soma is Greek for the body and its fullness or its wholeness. So somatics is fundamentally how we show up in this living, breathing entity called our body. The brain is part of a limbic system.

All of the sensors for the brain are the body. All of these body parts have sensors. They're called nerves and they're constantly collecting data, which is then filtered through the brain.

And then what we do is linguistically, we create stories. But at the same time, we sometimes don't even know them, right? We get scared.

Oh, something happened. I don't know what's going on, right? Our body got that data.

There was a study done. It's interesting what they, they took a person being hit where they couldn't see the fist coming and they slowed it down. And what they noticed is when the fist got right about here, the body started doing this, right?

And pulling away from it, yet our eyes couldn't see it. But then you think about it. If I'm, if I've got a fist coming, there are atom upon atom upon atom of air, which are being pushed.

And eventually that energy hits a hair follicle or whatever. And that data goes, brain goes, right? That's why when you think about it, if somebody, if I said something that shocked you, you would do this in an instant.

The brain just got some data that is life or death, potentially. Suck in oxygen, pull the head back, eyes pop open to scan so that we can make a flight or freeze decision literally that quick. It's universal in humans.

Right? So the body's the Holy Grail.

[Roger]

The body interprets or receives 11 million pieces of data signals per second, but we're only consciously aware of 50 of them.

[Croft]

But even deeper than that, if we go to moods and emotions, I'm in a mood of melancholy. So my sensors are already kind of turned to seek out that data. Oh yeah, here's more of this, right?

Heads down, all of these things collecting that data. The beautiful thing about the body is if I practice in my body, the brain adapts to it. So if a simple example, if I was to take this pen and I was to take it in my mouth and shit like this for five minutes, what would happen is I'm actually engaging which muscles?

My smile muscles. My body would start to be happy. I would start to laugh.

I would start to smile more. So that's why it's such a powerful place coach. And when somebody's in their body, they're not in their story, right?

So I'm not, well, my boss is a jerk, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Shift your body. Well, I'm not even thinking about I'm in my body.

The body is then releasing different neural peptides, hormones, all of those things. Oh, I see possibility. And that can all happen in an instant.

So long-winded definition of somatics or body, but they're all the same.

[Roger]

And I love that little practice you just shared with us, this idea of like, you don't like your mood. You don't like how your current train of thought, you don't like how you're feeling. You get up and move or go, go change your position.

You know, like stand up a little bit more straight or yeah. If you don't want to be taking all the energy in the room, go sit down. Go be a little bit more physically small to invite other people into that space.

A lot of ways that we could use the brain to change the way we're thinking.

[Croft]

Well, you use the body, right? The brain is part of that. The problem, the challenge of using the brain is we think about it, doesn't work.

We shift the body. I have one of my favorite clients. We used to, part of his homework was in meetings.

He was known to, he would sit in the back of the room like this. He was trying to be, let his team to think. But the moment he did this, the team knew it's over.

So, what we would have him do is I'd have him sit in the meeting and I'd have him take his hands and just open his hands and sit with his hands open. But what would happen? I said, here's the only thing is you cannot close your hands.

You have to leave them open. Well, because his hands are open, this is an open pose. He was open and receptive.

He wanted to do this, right? But think about it. And the hands are like, I call them a pivot point because almost every action we take involves our hands.

And so his practice was literally just sitting in meetings like this. And what was fun was I could tell when he was doing it, but over time he started to get good at it and he could be more open in meetings.

[Roger]

The idea of you want to change the dynamic in the room with others or the relationship with someone else. What's the feeling? When have you experienced that?

Now put that into action when you're in that space.

[Croft]

Yeah. I'll ask people, have you ever met like a truly just guru type figure? So when a very spiritual person walks into the room, the room changes.

Why? Because their body is so, we call it energy, we call it vibrating, but that room is different because the leader shows up different. And conversely, we all know the meeting when the boss walks in and they're in this body, right?

Or this body. We already know, right? Because yeah, we know it's going to happen and we can feel it when it starts.

We've all felt this. You've been in a room and the leader walks in and oh, this is not going to be a fun meeting. The leader wants to get results, but what's happening is they don't know how to say, I'm coming in and we've got some difficult things to work on and what I really need is your best.

So I'm going to create a space. We're going to figure this out. Current favorite leaders is phenomenal and he, that's what he focuses on.

He sees his role is to create possibility when he walks in the room. And this is somebody who is very high in adultery, who has a very, very substantial responsibility, but he sees his role is to create potential, right? They're still dealing with very hard and big problems, but he sees it as how do I bring out the most?

So everybody is on their best. Everybody is in those flow states.

[Roger]

So I'd love to get into your superpower of meet them where they are and go one step ahead. What does that superpower mean to you and how does it show up in what you love to do?

[Croft]

Well, I'm very conscious of my body and how do I, how am I showing up right now? And so sometimes I'm just sitting in the back of the room and you wouldn't know that I'm, because when I'm in front of the room and I don't want, I don't want it to be that I'm this guru. I don't assess that, but I do know there are times when I'm in the room.

I'm like, oh, I need to pull back. I need to create space. So how do I create that space?

How do I, to your point, how I create trust. It's the ability to then show up in the body in a way. And in some respects, I can't describe it because what I'm actually doing is experiencing it.

So I can be both, right? So how could I show up as more open? And if you see TED talks would, TED talks are interesting because not that they jump the shark, but they're pretty predictable.

And if you look at the speakers, if you take out all of the sound, most of them look pretty much identical. And again, because I think what it is is they've discovered a formula to build trust, right? Here's the hero's journey.

Here's the breakdown, whatever it is. And here's how they overcame it. I've never done this, but I think it'd be interesting to just take 10 TED talks and cut off the volume.

And I bet you're going to see a very distinct pattern.

[Roger]

I do know they do get trained before they get on stage, stage craft in it. And yet, like, how many times have you watched a TED talk and be like, I don't, I don't trust that guy. Like, I'm not listening to this.

Like, I can't, it doesn't happen very often. I will often hear people comment on, oh, that person said, trust me. Oh, I know exactly never to trust someone when they say, trust me.

Yeah, why do you need to say it if you can show it instead? So what does it look like in your body when you're being trusted? Do that instead of saying, trust me.

[Croft]

I think we know, but we just, we don't know. Fundamentally, we've been taught, if I can memorize and put it on paper, I'm smart. But there are a lot of people that went through school that barely made it that are very successful because they could show up in a correlation between IQ and success.

And yet there's a large between EQ and success, right? Can I interact with other human beings? And that's a, that is a somatic phenomenon.

We're designed to actually be intimate with other human beings, right? The studies where there was one I just read where there was two babies born, there were twins, and one was thriving, one wasn't thriving, and they didn't know what to do. And one of the nurses one night said, you know, screw it, put the two twins together.

And they immediately started hugging. And the one that wasn't thriving, started to thrive. Why?

Because the interaction, because why we need touch, we need intimacy, our bodies need that. And that's why the body is just, I love it. It's a nonstop place of fascination for them.

[Roger]

So once you discovered your superpower, what have you found to be one of the biggest challenges in using your superpower?

[Croft]

Well, again, it's me of getting me out of the way. Like last night, I was facilitating with this group, but I, it wasn't just me with one person. It was me with 21 people.

And how my body shows up here with you may also cause this person to go, wait, I can't trust them. We see the world not as it is, we see the world as we are. So I may have a story that somebody that shows up like X is their Y.

You have the thing, oh, somebody shows up as X is, right? If you, if you don't believe me, just go on Facebook and see our current president, what your, what your friends think. Some think greatest thing since I spread, some think the anti-Christ, but we're not here to talk about that, right?

But it's the same person, but we, we do that. So it's still my challenge is I, I have bad days. I get frustrated, right?

And you know, earlier this morning, I was overwhelmed. I can center, I can practice, but there's no guarantees. And that's why I just go back to just keep practicing, just be keeping curious.

I tell people, you know, Julio Olaya made that statement about 30 years. I am now 22 years into this discourse. And on one hand I go, oh my God, I can see things I couldn't even fathom seeing.

But then I say, and where will I be in eight years when I'm at 30? As we were talking before the show, I had a huge breakthrough in my learning in somatics, but I couldn't see it until about a month ago. I couldn't see it.

But that was the practice. And so it's always just keep practicing, just keep being a beginner. And I think what I'm getting very good at is not beating myself up.

So I, you know, I sliced a, I hooked a ball into the, to the weeds. Yeah, that's going to happen, right? Golfers do that, but what they also do is practice.

And that's where the beauty of whatever you're doing is just keep practicing, keep being a beginner and allows a space to learn. And now it'll, it'll come together.

[Roger]

There's an important nugget of wisdom in there that I think is, is often simplified in you're not going to be everyone's cup of tea. This idea that we can show up in ways that we believe are going to be more trusting, more connecting to give people permission and invite them into a, an open space of safety where we can collaborate and work together. But that's not going to work for everyone.

And you know, the good thing is there's 8 billion people on the planet. We don't have to connect with everyone, but I think that's one of the things I thought early on in my career consulting or, and even in coaching this idea of like, okay, how do I, how do I connect with everyone? How do I be everyone's cup of tea in that lesson of like, well, that ain't going to work.

Came, came pretty quickly in that, in that journey of like, okay, even if I show up and I embody trust, if I embody co-creation, if I embody safety, not everyone's going to be picking up when I'm laying down.

[Croft]

And I'm not going to spend a lot of energy on that. Oh, okay. Didn't resonate.

Didn't work. Great. I'm going to go practice it again.

And I'm going to try with the next person. Just have the next conversation. Yeah.

[Roger]

Yeah. I love that. Croft in this moment, what do you know to be true about your superpower?

[Croft]

Uh, it is a work in progress or process, and I'm just going to keep practicing it. Success for me is I'm, let's see, I'm 57 now. So about 40 years from now, I'm still doing it because I just, I, I'm so blessed.

I love what I do. I get up in the morning and I think, ah, I, I don't want to retire. So I just want to keep practicing it.

And 40 years from now, maybe I'll see something that I don't see the day. I think I will. Right.

So just keep practicing and keep being a beginner.

[Roger]

I love that idea of, I mean, there's the whole, the unfoldment paradigm, like the acorn is not a deficient Oak tree. It is becoming the Oak tree in its process. And this idea of the beginner's mind that we were talking before about like, okay, I need to re I need to relearn.

I need to learn. I need to keep taking these steps. All the 10,000 steps are valuable and you, there are no shortcuts and this idea of the thing that's frustrating me that I can't do yet.

At some point, I will be able to do it and looking forward to not only being able to do it, but the steps along the way. That's what I'm getting from you today.

[Croft]

And those steps are perfect because that's where you are. You can't be anywhere else.

[Roger]

So what did you believe early on about your superpower that you now have come to learn is not true.

[Croft]

I probably, uh, I probably wasn't a beginner. It was probably more arrogance of I have the answer and it's my job to shove it down your throat. My wife.

So the best advice I ever got was my wife early on. We were, I think we were dating or we were early on married. We were at a party and as we were leaving, she was driving in and I remember her knuckles being white.

And she said to me, I'm going to only say this one time, you are politically obnoxious. And it was a gift. She was right.

I thought I had all the answers. And I thought my early definition of leadership was I've got to teach. I've got, they've got to see the across.

And hopefully I'm at a place now where I go, Oh, I totally screwed that up and I'll just go try it again. Right. So like when I'm facilitating now last night, you know, somebody I'll push back.

I'll go, okay, great. Different viewpoint.

[Roger]

I'm really curious about that. That moment that you learned, Oh yeah, I screwed that up. That's okay.

That's part of the process. I'll try again. So there's a lot of similarities between what you've experienced and what I've experienced.

This idea of I need to be the person who brings value. I need to be the person who's right. I need to be an expert in the room and then realizing, Oh, like, you know, the client is always going to be the expert in them.

I have a process. I can create space and I, you know, I can never work as hard. I can never work harder than they do.

You have these little nuggets that we learn along the way. When did you learn that? Oh yeah.

Okay. That didn't work out. I'm just going to go practice again.

[Croft]

Uh, it's, I'm still learning. I don't, I don't know that I'm completely there. Cause there are some times I'm like, Oh yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to push back on you.

Right. But I think it's just that awareness of like, yeah, okay. So somebody else has a different opinion.

Um, but early on as a facilitator, I would be like, Oh, you got, let's go. And I'll, I'll wow you with facts or data or whatever. And, and it was funny last night.

I was for what's bad. I was like, eh, I probably could have done that better. Well, I can't, but I can't go back in the past.

Just chalk it up, put it there and then go to bed.

[Roger]

Cause I'm sure there's nights you've gone to bed thinking and ruminating and staying up like, okay, how do I make that better? I might be projecting there. Um, and then the willingness to let it go of like, no, this is the process.

I did exactly what I was supposed to do. And I learned the lesson I need to learn in this moment. And I'm going to go do it again or practice to not.

[Croft]

Yeah. I don't spend a lot of time actually at night thinking about, I, cause I I'm onto my next thing. I'm, Oh, I got, I'm designing a woodworking project or I've got something gardening or we're doing something with the family or whatever.

So I don't spend a lot of time on it, but I do kind of go, I learned. So I learned something from last night and followed away and I'm working on it and I'll keep practicing it and just keep doing it. And you know, I'm learning stuff from this conversation and fight away and just go and keep being a beginner.

[Roger]

Yeah. The, I did not fail. I learned something.

[Croft]

Yeah.

[Roger]

And you just also mentioned the thing you learned after publishing the book. And we did talk about this before we hit record, but I'd love to hear you share that, that, that process, not necessarily what you learn, but that process of like grinding through the thing, hitting send, hitting publish, and then an answer came. Tell us a little bit more about it.

[Croft]

And there was, and yeah, and it was funny. So basically I realized there was, when I, my, the Liquid Accordion book is about coaching in with and through the body. And I got to a point when I was writing, I was like, I just don't know what else to put.

And so my publisher said, it's probably time to publish it. And I said, okay. But there was a question that was lingering there.

And it was, it's fundamentally about the, the somatic shape of a coach in the coaching call. And it's been there and it's kind of, but I just couldn't see it. So, okay, off we go.

But then I've got the book out. I'm now doing, I've got programs going and, and, and that, but that question kind of came up and I started doing some deep dives and I was in the, you know, Google search and then getting into Gemini and, and then it just kind of hit me like, oh my God, I see something, but I couldn't see it if I hadn't have gone through all of that struggle and all of that. Now, one of the things that I'm a big flow practitioner and in flow, there's a flow cycle.

And the way we get flow or ultimate performance is we have to have a struggle, but we have to have a struggle, which is bigger than we currently can do, but not so big that it's overwhelming. If you think about it, when you're a kid learning to ride a bike, just sitting on a bike was, oh, that was, that was the struggle, but that caused you to get to where you could ride the bike. But at some point, if the bike riding didn't keep challenging you, at some point you kind of give it up.

I think so for this book, I was at a place where I couldn't see, I kind of, it was there, it was, it was cloudy, but it was in the process that I'll, oh, I can see something now I couldn't see. And it's open. It's like a new plateau where I go, oh my gosh, there's so much I could do here now.

And now my energy is kind of like, all right, well, I got to go here. I got to go there. I got to, I got to keep digging, boom, boom, boom.

But it took me five years to write the book. But I couldn't see it for five years because I couldn't see it because I wasn't there yet.

[Roger]

This idea of the challenge, the problem is what creates the flow state. The problem, the challenge is what creates a great story. There's something, there's something connected there about how, you know, how our brains work or how we interpret the world that these flow state, the story and our growth, our potentiality, self-actualization, becoming our possible self, the challenge is not the thing to avoid, but that's where the goodness, that's where the growth, that's where the learning resides.

[Croft]

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And in my case, I didn't even realize it was still, it was, it was there, but I would, I was searching it out, but I wasn't because it was kind of like I was, I was in this, I mean, it was an uneasiness and a, what about this?

And what about this? But when it kind of clicked, I went, oh, holy cow. All the puzzle pieces just kind of fell in because I was like, oh, wow.

And then I kind of had to say, wait a second. It's so obvious. I had to have seen it somewhere else.

And then I, I made the first thing I did after I went out to Google, I said, tell me about X. Couldn't find anything. I had kind of seen the X.

And so I was kind of like, I've, I've seen something, you know, I've been to, I'm now in uncharted territory, but I didn't know that because what I was doing was just doing the practice. I was just being curious. I kept working at it and then all of a sudden, oh, there's something here I hadn't seen before.

[Roger]

So Kroff, if an audience member wanted to ask you a question or follow you, where would you point them to?

[Croft]

Well, the good news is in my case, there's only one Croft Edwards. So all you got to do is type Croft Edwards, but my webpage is Croftandcompany.com. I'm on LinkedIn, Croft Edwards, at Croft Edwards.

My book is the Liquid Accordion, which I love the title. Others may not, but it's pretty unique title. So you just type Liquid Accordion, Croft Edwards on Amazon.

It shows up. So I'm fairly accessible. I'm only on LinkedIn or X, but then yeah, easy to get ahold of emails, Croft, at Croftandcompany.com.

So I say that I'm not worried about a million spammers spamming me. If they do great, I'll just send it to the thing, but conversations I'm always open to.

[Roger]

Croft, thank you so much for coming and sharing your wisdom. I am very excited about this idea of learning to use the body and it's not, I want to correct myself right there. It's not learning to use the body.

I already know how to use my body, but it's more being intentional about using the body to perhaps change, not only how I'm feeling or how I'm approaching something, but then also using the body and how I interact and connect with other people and create that, you know, the thing that I want to achieve, be able to create that not by only using the logic, but using the body to create that in myself and with other people. That feels like a big, a big learning, a big unlock.

So thank you for sharing that. Thank you for being here today.

[Croft]

My pleasure. You're learning to listen to your body. Thank you, Roger.

[Roger]

Okay. Take care. Bye-bye.

Thank you all for being in this conversation with us, and thank you, Croft for sharing how the body is an instrument for safety, creativity and collaboration
 
 What Do You Know To Be True? is a Three Blue Pens production. I’m your host, Roger Kastner. 

We are recording on the ancestral lands of the Duwamish and Suquamish people. 

If you want to learn more about nervous system regulation and leadership, check out this episode with Ashley Douglas on applied neuroscience, and this episode with Sharon Podobnik Peterson on trauma-informed leadership. 

Be well, my friends, and, love you, mean it!