Elizabeth O’Neill: Founder Energy and Team Energy

Founders (and their energy) have an outsized impact on their teams but anyone can bring an entire team up or down with the energy they bring to their interactions. People’s energy gradually syncs which affects team performance.

Elizabeth explains some of the levels of energy people have, from the lowest where you can feel stuck, burnt out and judged through to the highest, most creative & visionary. People will experience different levels in different situations and none are all good or bad. You will be challenged to identify situations you’ve experienced where a different energy could have been more helpful for you and your team. You will also learn some habits to help you manage yourself and your team to perform more sustainably and effectively.

Slides

Transcript

Elizabeth O’Neill 

So I’m going to start with this today. A few months ago, back in the beginning of the summer, Mark, reached out to me and asked if I reckoned I had another talk in me for Bos. And my first reaction when I saw this email was, Yes. This is the place that years ago when I came as an attendee for the first time, it just felt like home. And so of course, I would want to come back and talk about yet another topic that I’m so passionate about, and that has really helped me profoundly in my own work and in my own practice.

So I’m going along all summer, you know, feeling excited, anticipating this moment when I’m going to be here with all of you. And then I had to sit down and plan this thing out. And you know, that part went well. But then I was in my car just after that, driving along, and I just felt this like stabbing pain in my chest. And not long after that, I start seeing these getting these images, because I’m a pretty visual person. So I have this image for those of you who used to be across the street. I have this image of tripping down those stairs onto the stage. Then there was this other image of me standing on the stage completely forgetting what I was going to say, you know, basically like the stuff of our collective nightmare of public speaking. So fortunately, I was able to notice early on. This is just my inner critic. You know, coming up, it’s what it likes to do three weeks before a talk, when I’m going to be up on stage.

And so the reason why I’m bringing this up with you today and starting it in this way is that, first off, we are all a work in progress. All right, I am a living example. And second, this is energy. So I can come up here and do a talk filled with self doubt and anxiety and fear, or I can do a talk filled with confidence and self assurance and the passion that I have about this, right? Those are two starkly different talks, both for me and probably for all of you. And so that’s energy.

So energy is the force behind everything that we do. It shapes what we think, how we feel, how we act. It influences our tone of voice, our body language, our facial expressions. It influences how we respond to people and how they respond to us, and a lifetime of observation and personal experience helps us all spot this instantly. It’s the difference between us being here in this room today and a year ago when we were here at Bos 2021 behind a Zoom screen. We know it when we feel it. We know it when we experience it.

And so in 20 years of me working with leaders and teams, I’ve noticed an interplay between energy and our work, and I’m guessing that you probably have too. When we are in a high energy place, we are motivated, we’re created, we’re visionary, we’re better problem solvers. We get more done. It feels light. It feels pretty non judgmental. When we’re in a low energy place, though it’s very much the opposite. So we’re far less creative. We can be pretty unmotivated. Judgment is actually very high. We’re unfocused. It can feel very helpless.

And so, we don’t talk about energy in this way, but raise your hand if you’ve ever been in a meeting where, like, the vibe is quiet, but you can sense that people have things that they want to say and they’re just not saying it.

Yeah, I know I have to, right?

How about have you ever been in a meeting where the conversation is just sort of effortless. People are building on each other’s ideas in this really kind of in this way where everything is just flowing.

Yeah, which one, which meeting would you rather be in? Right? Which one feels better? Which one makes you want to kind of come back and do more of that thing, right?

And so the energy we draw on and the degree to which we draw on high energy versus low energy basically determines how successful we will be in life. We don’t often talk about energy in that way, right? But that’s the truth. So energy can be influenced by countless factors, our past experiences, how we’re feeling about our work, whether or not we got a good night’s sleep the night before, and it’s constantly moving up and down based on the experiences that we’re having in this moment.

So meet this guy. He’s feeling pretty good today. He’s kind of in this, like, get it done, kind of mood. He likes his job. He’s pretty focused. He knows what is going on in the day ahead, so his ability to show up and the energy that he has is going to impact his degree of success, right?

But now he’s surrounded by a team. So she got up, she felt great this morning. She loves her work. She was just told she writes content for this team, and she was just told to put more of herself into her writing. And that felt amazing, because no one’s ever told her that before, so she’s feeling fantastic about what’s going on and this meeting that she’s coming into.

This guy, though. This guy, a month ago, started as head of growth, and has been starting to have these conflicts with the founder about decision making, and he’s not really feeling like he actually can make the decisions that he was told that he was going to be able to make this company. So he’s coming in feeling pretty frustrated and resentful right now. And so the degree to which a team can harness its energy is going to determine how successful it is, right?

Oh, and let’s not forget about the founder. So the founder just found out that the release that was planned for last week is actually going to be postponed for another month, and so she’s trying to find the kind of optimism and motivation that she can bring to this team. But right now she is really teetering on the edge of burnout, and so the patterns of our energy affect us in our results in profound ways. They affect us as individuals, and they also affect our teams.

So today we’re going to do three things. I’m going to take you through four types of energy that I commonly see in the people that I work with as a coach. So I work with people on their inner game and interpersonal dynamics and helping teams get aligned as they scale. So we’re going to go through those types of energy, and then you’re all going to do some small group discussions about the kind of energy that you typically show up with in certain scenarios that I’m going to share with you. Okay, so get ready for that. And then I’m going to close with a framework that you can use for how to shift your energy when you realize it’s not really working for you in the situation that you’re in. Okay? All right.

Four Types of Energy

I’ve really kind of consolidated these for the purposes of our conversation today. But when we look at these you know, helpless is at the bottom because it’s where we have our narrowest field of vision. It’s our narrowest perspective and creating is at our broadest. It’s where we’re the most open minded. It’s where we see things most clearly and most broadly. And before I get go through each one of these, one important note is that none of these are good or bad, okay, none are right or wrong. They all serve an important purpose, and they all function for us in really important ways. Okay, the purpose is to know that you’re using it with intention, right? It’s serving you in a particular way.

First Energy Type: Helpless

So when you’re in helpless energy, can feel like you’re stuck. You might feel defeated, exhausted. This is a place of like, high internal judgment and shame. It’s a place of burnout. So if anyone was in the winter online session, I did a talk on burnout for Bos, this is the place of burnout, for sure.

Individuals: In individuals, you can spot it. When someone is quiet, less available, they might be less available, physically or mentally.

Teams: In teams that have a lot of this helpless energy, people, there’s going to be more silence, you know, more drawn out pauses. And so when you think about a culture, Dharmesh had some really good words yesterday about culture and how it’s really the company’s operating system. What do you think this helpless energy does to a company’s operating system? What does it result in for your ability to solve problems, be creative, get shit done, right? So a company and a culture with a lot of helpless energy is going to have a lack of creativity and decision making is going to be a lot slower. You know, think about it, if, as an if, as individuals, we struggle to make decisions when we’re in this then as a collective, it’s a it’s also that much harder, right?

Second Energy Type: Conflict

Individuals: So conflict is kind of like a fighter energy. It’s where we feel frustrated, critical, impatient, resentful, and in individuals, you can spot it sort of on your team, if you see a lot of blaming or defending, over generalizing, over explaining, interrupting. Those are all signs of this conflict energy in an individual.

Teams: Now, for teams, teams that are using a lot of conflict energy at the moment, they’re going to look and seem triggered. So they’re going to be in their style under stress, whether it’s silence, where they kind of shut down and kind of just go into themselves, or, you know, violence, which isn’t, hopefully physical violence, but more tone of voice and body language. You know, these are team dynamics, where some people might just be kind of shut down and checked out in a conversation while others are talking over each other, trying to win an argument, trying to get the last word. That’s conflict energy.

So what do we think conflict energy does to a company culture, a company operating system? This is a culture of defensiveness, where people are more focused on protecting themselves, and when your people are more focused on protecting themselves, they’re not going to have the space to be creative, and they’re not going to feel like it’s safe, or have the courage to really put those crazy ideas out there that are going to help with your company’s innovation, and so as a result, you’re going to get less forward movement.

Third Energy Type: Tolerating

So tolerating is a place where, you know, it’s kind of like good enough. So this is a place where we have our eye on a longer term goal. We know where we want to get, get to. But in the meantime, there’s something that we are maybe surviving or feeling like we have to sort of rationalize in the moment.

And in teams like this, isn’t necessarily, you know, a bad energy, but people might show up like they’re they’re showing up more in body than in spirit, you know. So like they’re getting it done, they’re pretty focused. And in teams, you can actually make quite a bit of progress when people are in this space. And so culturally, it’s useful in the short term. This is especially true for, you know, any team that’s been trying to meet a milestone, for instance.

You know, you know, you just have to go heads down and crush it and get it done. It’s perfectly okay, right? And it’s very necessary in that moment. But that can be damaging in the to innovation in the long term, right? Because you’re not able to really get at that creativity that’s needed for innovation. The other thing that’s important about this energy is that you really understand what’s behind it. So if it’s in fact, hey, we’re just in this period where we got to get something done and that, and we’re just going to survive this moment, because we know we’ve got this, you know, this, this end state out there that’s fantastic. Sometimes it’s a symptom that there’s a bigger misalignment happening in your company or with certain individuals, and oftentimes that can be really related to values.

Fourth Energy Type: Creating

Creating is a place where we’re at our most visionary, right? We are, if we’ve ever been in the zone, you know, that’s that creating energy that you’re harnessing. We don’t view things so much as problems, more opportunities. So like, what can we learn from this? How do we fix it? Right? It’s that type of energy that you’re drawing on.

Individuals: They look resourceful, curious, they have a lot of ideas. They’re using a lot of their own discretionary effort. This is the kind of thing where, like, they might be ideating on a weekend about us, you know, a problem that you’ve been working on at work, right.

Teams: In teams, communication just moves moves easier. It’s not that there isn’t conflict, but it’s, you know, one of my clients calls it arguing forward, right? You’re moving forward, and it’s healthy conflict, and because of that, work moves faster. And so for a company’s, you know, cultural operating system, it results in a company and a culture that has more objective problem solving, psychological safety, which is kind of, you know, one of these buzz words, but it’s important. It’s that like hidden ingredient that a lot of companies overlook, right?

But when your people don’t feel like they can be safe enough to share their ideas, then they’re going to limit that creativity that they can bring.

And then, you know, it’s a hell of a lot more fun being in this kind of culture than in some of the others.

And so this is sort of a quick primer on energy. And there’s one other concept that I want to share around this, which is this idea of intensity. So there are different levels that we’re moving in and out of all the time, and then the intensity can vary as well. So let’s say you’ve got a founder who is, like hijacked by stress, and that big ball right there. That’s the degree of intensity of that stress. And so there’s this idea called entrainment, which is that one person’s intensity can sort of pull and bring along everyone else. And so that founder, who’s hijacked by stress, is going to nudge everybody in the direction of that energy. You know, they’re not all going to end up in the same place as the founder, but they’re all going to kind of like, go down a notch, right? And so this has profound impacts on what a team can accomplish.

Audience Activity

So all right, so that’s the quick primer. Now, over to you. Okay, so what I’d like you to do is get together in groups of, you know, four, try not to go more than that, because it’ll just get too hard to. Listen to Mark, he knows what he’s talking about. So gather into groups of four. Make sure you all know each other. Okay, and then I’m going to run a few scenarios by you. That you may have experienced in the past, or you can probably imagine what this situation is like for you, and you’re going to think about your own energy and how that might impact teams. So gather together and we’ll get the situation going.

Okay, all right, so here’s the first situation. Okay, it looks like you all have gotten together. Are we good? Okay, we’re good enough. Okay? So, quick instructions. Quick instructions. Super quick, super quick. So, two questions, okay, that you need to discuss together, and then we’re going to come back, and I want to hear some themes and what you’re noticing. Okay? So first off, in this situation, what is your energy level and why? Okay, be open minded. Call up whatever is coming up. Okay, there’s no judgment. There’s no right or wrong answers here. Okay, so that’s the first thing, what’s your energy level and why? And then how does your energy impact the team’s energy? Okay, so we’ll talk about this for a few minutes, and then we’ll come back together. Go for it.

All right, let’s, let’s kind of come back together. So quick show of hands. Let’s do a quick show of hands. So raise your hand if, in this situation, you typically access a lot of creating energy.

All right, how about tolerating? I heard at least one person say they were okay. All right.

How about conflict? Yeah, good, yeah.

How about helpless? yeah, good.

Elizabeth O’Neill 

So there’s a variation, right? We don’t all show up in the same way with this scenario. So who wants to share what they noticed when they responded to this. Adrian?

Audience Member 

So we had a lot of different kinds of immediate reactions. I was like, Yeah, that’s amazing. We just like, do this whole thing, and then April’s like, Oh, but I don’t know. I’m thinking ring in the bell. But like, now we gotta deliver on this thing. And then we got a product who was like, Wait, sales, little did you promise we now have to deliver on but we don’t necessarily have. So we had a lot of different perspectives. Founder over here is going like, Oh my gosh. Like, okay, what did we just sign a deal with the devil, kind of a concept, so we had almost all of the emotions at one table,

Elizabeth O’Neill 

Yes. And what I also love about that example Adrian, is that what it also shows is that we can, we vacillate, right? We can start off in one place and move to another place and then go back to that other place and then right? It’s, there’s a lot of movement in that way. Yeah, awesome.

All right, let’s do the next scenario. Okay, so you are two months into refactoring the product for the second time, and you just find out it’s going to take a month longer than expected. Okay? Talk once yourself, two minutes, two minutes.

All right? How did this one go? I’m gonna need some warning on. How did this one go? Who assumed in the beginning that everyone’s responses would be similar. Anybody, yeah? Why?

Audience Member 

To work it was for the second time and just find out for the when you set us up, but the second time you just find out. you go from you kind of touch on helplessness and then head straight for conflict.

Elizabeth O’Neill 

Yeah, one way ticket to conflict. So who let’s do? Oh, yeah, sorry. Is.

Audience Member 

So I think what’s interesting is, you said that, you know, these changed moment to moment in our lives, right? And no one’s right or wrong. But what surprised me was, as we talked, my energy is a very creating energy. And then someone else in our group brought up the fact that, well, I you know, there might be conflict, and I realized you can, not only do they vacillate moment to moment, they can exist in the same moment, right? And so I was like, yeah, it’s okay to say, you know, it’s okay to have a conflictive energy, and then maybe you can make that productive, right? So there’s this layering of these responses that I hadn’t thought about before.

Elizabeth O’Neill 

Yeah, that’s a really great insight. And it starts with becoming aware, right, that that’s actually happening in that moment, because otherwise it’s like you can just feel like something it’s happening to you, and you’re not quite sure what the hell is going on. Yeah. Great insight.

So show of hands. So who responded creating on this one? Okay, how about tolerating? Conflict? helpless? yeah, so what does this show of hands reveal? Right? There’s no one way to respond, and so when you’re in your team, right? Remember, this is an ecosystem where everyone is it’s like an organism where people are moving, you know, and interacting all together. And if everyone is having a different experience with this same situation, then you know, that’s what creates the friction, right? Awesome. All right.

Last scenario so a customer posts a scathing tweet about the inferiority of your product and Your completely incompetent customer support.

Thank You. Who felt like they should be at a level or a type of energy that they weren’t really at? Who wants to comment on what that’s like?

Audience Member 

Well, I think I. My first reaction, and then some of us here was, you know, your first reaction, instinctively, instinctively, is helpless, right? Ah, somebody gave us a bad review. But then why not kick it into high gear and go creative? And I’m using what I know like I’m from up in Quebec, and we have this big utility called Hydro Quebec, their social media accounts takes those kinds of negative reviews and turns them into brilliantly hilarious responses. So people follow them just to see how they’re going to react to these negative reviews. It’s brilliant. And so, yeah, you become creative. You got to turn it on. That’s your choice. Do you want to be helpless? Do you want to be creative and address it? And I think we kind of all reached a consensus, even the Irishman.

Elizabeth O’Neill 

That is a very cool reframe right? Now, and that’s kind of what we do, right? And we’ll get, we’ll get to have a shift in a minute, but yeah, I mean, you know, acknowledging, like, Hey, this is like the first reaction that I have. But then, what are my other options here? Yeah, that’s really neat.

Audience Member 

I felt, I felt quite the same, starting in conflict and then going to creating, to solve the problem, take care of the customer.

Elizabeth O’Neill 

Yeah. I mean, like, this is, like, a typical scenario of like, it’s gonna trigger your style under stress. And people usually do one of two things, right? They either go into conflict, which is like, you know, or they’re like, Oh, God, what? You know, I have no business running this company. What am I doing? Right? So it’s one of the two. And then, you know, and then what happens next? Is the thing to get really curious about, who else wants to share any other Okay, yeah,

Audience Member 

if I could just ask a question like one of the things I noticed in our table was a difference between people looking at from a staff point of view versus a founder or principal point of view, and the different kind of energy got those two different levels. Could you comment a little bit about that? Because it seems like that’s a that’s a job to be done for senior staff.

Elizabeth O’Neill 

Let me make sure I understand what you’re saying. So as a founder, your experience going through something like this is different from if a teammate is going through something like this. Is that what you meant? Or the..

Audience Member 

Right. Which I think probably describes me, a third of people or more in this room would be people who, for whom, at attack on the product it also has feels like a personal attack. Hence, the helpless is quality, right? But a marketing professional, a sales professional looks at this and who’s really at the top of their game, April, is going to say, this is a huge opportunity. This is how you turn it into the creative. And of course, then part of the job is how you turn the founder right, turn that corner from the helpless, to be able to evoke right the creative part. And that turning seems like a really important job, an important job from senior members of the team to be able to put that asset to work. And just that revelation coming from, like, the things I’ve been hearing, I was wondering if you could comment on that for a minute, because, like, how to do that, and how to elevate that, and how to empower your staff to do that.

Elizabeth O’Neill 

I love that comment. And you know, what this gets to is like, what’s the compliment of your team, right? And so first off, knowing yourself as a founder, right? Like, what are the things that really trigger me, and what are the things that you know where I’m going to go into this place, because that’s just something I’m working on, and I’m practicing, you know, out of, and then who can I surround myself with on my team, who’s going to show up in a different way, with a different lens on this situation, right? If you are surrounded by people who are all like, oh fuck, right, then it’s going to be very, very difficult to like, move forward in a constructive way, right? But if you have a compliment of people who can bring some of that. That’s the entrainment in the opposite direction, right? It’s now you’re pulling towards this place of solutioning and and figuring out, like, how do I capitalize on this thing that could be a PR nightmare. But now you know is, you know people are, it’s like, trending, right in a good way, right? Yeah, great. Great comment.

Okay, all right, so now we’re going to shift to, you’ve gotten, kind of, like, deep into the space of energy and you know, great, now you know, oh, that’s, you know, that’s helpless energy, or, Oh, that’s, you know, conflict energy. But how do you shift it right? When you realize that it’s not working for you in that moment? And so I’ve got five steps here for this framework, and I’m also going to bring you back to that story that I started with, where, you know I was going through all of that myself in preparation for being here today.

1. Awareness: Understand the level you’re at

Awareness is the number one thing to get you moving in the right direction. So go through, you know, those, those types, figure out where you’re at. For me, who wants to guess where I was when I was driving in the car and I got that stabbing, you know, chest pain. What’s that? Yeah, when I was on the road. Oh, was on the road, I was that I was helped, you know, I sort of just dove into this, like helpless place for a moment, right? So the first thing is like understanding where, what is that, right?

2. Ask Yourself: What is it telling you about the situation that you’re in?

The next thing is to ask yourself, So for me, you know what it was telling you was, hey, this is totally brand new content that I’m sharing. I haven’t done this talk yet in front of a live audience, right? And so it’s telling me that, yeah, sure. You shouldn’t be on kind of alert. You want to make sure that you present this in a really good way. You want to make sure that this content is relevant and that people care about it, right?

3. Decide: What you want to shift and what you can shift

So, you know, I came to that sort of, you know, proverbial fork in the road of I can either show up one way or I can show up another way. And I sure as hell want to show up in this way where I’m exuding all of the passion and confidence that I have about this, right?

4. Reflect: What do you need to address in order to shift it?

Well, I had to do a couple things. So in coaching, we talk about outer blocks and inner blocks.

Outer blocks are the things that you know with some skill you can master, right? So content, I started testing my content with whoever would listen right? Making sure that it’s stuck and that it could keep people’s attention and that they cared about it.

Inner blocks, but inner critic, that was something that I had to continue to work on. And so for me, what I do, and what helps me is, you know, some of the things that probably some of you do as well, but meditation, you know, like meditation for me, is like a daily reset just sort of brings me right back down where I can be more clear headed.

The other thing that I started to do was visualizing, so like visualizing everything from being here, saying all these things, getting off the stage. How do I even want to feel when I end this, I don’t want to have that like, adrenaline drop, right? I want to just feel like normal and like I’ve given a good talk, and I can continue and have a great lunch with all of you, right? And so visualizing all of those pieces, it makes your brain think that you’ve been there, right? Cognitively you think that you’ve had that experience. So it’s been a super useful tool for me.

And the other thing that I do is I reframe so I check in and so something that might feel like anxiety, I check in and say, like, Hmm, is that really anxiety? Maybe that’s actually excitement. Because anxiety and excitement feel very similar to each other.

5. Be Patient With Yourself

And then the last step in this framework is be patient with yourself. So think about this, all of those automatic responses that you have to things, those were developed over a lifetime of experiences and patterns, and they take time to rewire. You are you are rewiring the neuro physiology, and so that takes some time. And so be patient with that.

Ending

So I’m going to leave you with a habit challenge. And so if you have a calendar app, or even if you have an old school you know, paper calendar to become more aware of your own energy, start to check in on a daily basis, you know, what is it? Is there? Is there a pattern here? Is there an average? Right? Are you fluctuating? If you’re fluctuating, write down, what brings your energy up and what brings it down? Start to notice the circumstances, situations, people, whatever. You know, other habits that you might have, other routines that you have that affect your energy. And then the last thing is, you know, start to just kind of explore quick and easy tools for yourself that work for you, on how you can nudge yourself up in those moments like this isn’t going to be drastic. You’re not going to go from helpless to creating in, you know, two seconds, but when you need that little nudge, you know, find those things and make note of them so you can have them as a resource when you need them.

And that is my talk. Thank you.

Q&A

Mark Littlewood 

Fantastic, right? We’re going to take a couple of questions. No one’s, hey, and Mary Lorraine at the back it’s. Ray, go.

Audience Member 

Thank you so much for a wonderful talk. I was wondering about the metaphor of the pyramid, right? Because the way you describe the different moods, they seem to become less positive, right as you go down, but they don’t. Is not intuitive to me that they are they connect, like when we did the example before right helplessness turns to creativity, or perhaps to rage, helplessness does not turn to tolerance.And the and I was sort of wondering what your thinking was in terms of the way stages connect. Do you see people who are tolerant and then the next and their one step move is to move them into creative? Is it they are tolerant, and their one step move is, frankly, they go from tolerant to feeling helpless, and that’s the route by which they get to creative, necessarily. How do you think about the route to us achieving higher levels of enlightenment?

Elizabeth O’Neill 

Great question. And you know, one thing I want to make note of is that within, within each of these levels, so these are sort of composites, right? And so within each of these, there are nuances, right? And so there’s different, you know, you can feel really intense level of conflict, or you can feel that level of conflict that’s great for, like, motivation, right? You know, and it’s the 11th hour and you’re procrastinating, and that’s that fire, that kind of, you know, gets you, gets you going. And so within that, there’s, you know, lots of gradations. And in my experience, you know, I think that we tend to, we tend to move in a bit of a linear fashion. And so it’s not often that we can go from like feeling helpless to feeling creative immediately, there is usually a more gradual process, but not always, and it’s unique to individuals. Does that help?

Mark Littlewood 

Mary Lauren?

Audience Member 

Thanks. You said that no type of energy is good or bad. They all serve a purpose, and when they’re used with intention. I’m curious if there’s an example that you’ve encountered of how to use one of those energies that you’re in that isn’t necessarily aligned with the work at hand or the way you need to be showing up, or what needs to be done with your team, or if it’s more about, you know, recognizing that you’re in that energy that isn’t helpful, and then figuring out how to move to an energy that is helpful.

Elizabeth O’Neill 

Yeah, that’s a good question. And sometimes it just feels like it’s a bit beyond our control. Which is why, when we think about this it’s we’re not just we’re not just who we are at work, and then we’re who we are in the rest of our lives, right? It’s we are in between all of these things all the time. So I think about a client of mine who has been dealing with burnout for a while, and has found that, because they’re waiting on, you know, the next release, there is no fix at work. And so he’s finding different outlets outside of work to fulfill feeling that sense of purpose and accomplishment and completion, you know, like everything from like going out and chopping wood, or, you know, whatever else kind of you know is personally helps to trigger some of that positive energy. So my answer would be like, look broadly at what can help in the moment, and sometimes it’s not going to be in the exact situation that you’re in, you might need to utilize other aspects of your life to help make that shift. Did I answer that question? It’s, please elaborate if I if, if I didn’t quite get it.

Audience Member 

I guess what I’m trying to get at is, like, is there a time when it’s, you know, you may think, Oh, I really need to be in, like, creating energy, and I’m just stuck in helplessness. But actually, it turns out helplessness is really useful in this situation, or are you is that, like, kind of not the case that it is about, you know, finding a channel to get to a different energy, whether it’s in work or not. Does that make sense?

Elizabeth O’Neill 

Um, I think so. What I’m hearing is that, like you, logically, we know that the kind of energy that you really want to show up with is creating, but you’re in this place of like, you know, this is what it is, right? When we

Audience Member 

That that’s good, is there a way that that’s helpful? Or no?

Elizabeth O’Neill 

I mean, I think that it is. Sometimes it is just what it is, and we have to accept that. Because when we get into a place of like, I should be right. I’m the founder of this company, and even though this really sucks for me right now, I should be showing up for my team in this way that’s going to motivate and inspire everybody else, because that’s what everyone expects me to do when we get into that kind of paradigm, the should is judgment which is going to like suppress that ability for us to get to that creative place. So it actually makes it harder to shift out of it when we have expectations around where we should be versus where we are. You know, sometimes the best thing to do is to just acknowledge, like, yeah. Like, this is hard right now, and I’m feeling completely low energy, and I feel like I just want to watch Netflix all night, and I’m going to let myself do that, and by acknowledging and validating that, it sort of just releases it so that more becomes possible.

Mark Littlewood 

Okay, so we’re going to say one more, but we’re basically running out of time, but it’s your first time, and you haven’t asked a question yet. So Brian, I think,

Audience Member 

Hi, yeah, great. Talk a lot. A lot of it has been about kind of transitioning between the different energy levels. And I might be outing myself as awkward here, but when I was looking at all the descriptions of each I felt I had energy of each one of those levels. Like, is that not a good thing? Is that I mean normal, or..

Elizabeth O’Neill 

Absolutely normal. We’re all, I mean, hell on this in this one hour, I think I probably went through every single one of these, right? So we all have it, and we’re all moving through them all the time. You know, the thing to start to take notice of is like, what are your patterns, right? And what, how are those patterns affecting what you want to accomplish, and so, but absolutely, we have access to all of them, and we’re constantly moving in and out of all of them. Yeah, good question.

Mark Littlewood 

Great. Elizabeth, fabulous. Thank you. Thank you.

Elizabeth O’Neill 

Thanks everybody.

Elizabeth O’Neill

Elizabeth is an expert in helping founders and their teams get aligned and positioned for growth. As a People & Culture consultant and Executive Coach for early stage startups, she’s on a mission to make the startup experience feel more human.

With twenty years of experience working with leaders and teams, she’s found that the secret to creating a sustainable culture is having just the right amount of process, being unapologetic about your values, and knowing yourself and your people. She holds her BA in Psychology from the University of Chicago, a MSW from Columbia University, and is an iPEC-certified coach. You can follow her on her Medium at Founder Connect.

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