The One Shift That Clears The Noise with Stephanie Au

Shaun Dyke
00:00:01.200 – 00:00:51.130
Well, thanks for joining us today in the arena. My name is Sean Dyke, managing partner with door two.

Look, normally I tee up kind of what are we going to focus on right now? But I’m going to jump us just directly to who I get to sit next to today. This is Stephanie Au my ride or die, as we call each other.

Partner in crime in this business. Just incredibly excited to have you here.

Stephanie Au
00:00:51.690 – 00:00:53.370
Boy, we don’t get to do this often enough.

Shaun Dyke
00:00:53.450 – 00:01:10.010
Rarely. So this is what I wanted to start with because I was laughing at this.

Before we turned the cameras on, you came like blowing in the office, like panting. And I was getting off a call and there was just this harried space and you said, I’m just crazy. And I said, what have you been doing?

What were you doing?

Stephanie Au
00:01:10.330 – 00:01:32.090
Gosh, I was just in Jersey, in Pennsylvania. Yesterday I flew in, I want to say Tuesday. Four and a half hour flight, rented a car, drove 90 minutes, got there, chaotic mess.

There was a fire in one of the hotels. No room supposedly for me. Wrong night, booked all the things, you know, travel.

Shaun Dyke
00:01:32.090 – 00:01:33.369
No room for you because there was a fire.

Stephanie Au
00:01:33.369 – 00:01:51.180
Yeah, travel woos. Well, my room was booked for the wrong night and so I was like, oh please. This is when you learn to be nice to the people that are helping you.

Please, please, please. What options do you have? So they ended up putting me in, in a guest house. So I had a living room, two bedrooms to myself for less than 24 hours.

Shaun Dyke
00:01:51.980 – 00:01:52.540
Good point.

Stephanie Au
00:01:52.620 – 00:02:10.300
So I stayed the night, came out the next morning, did three hours of stuff that we do with clients and then I said, gotta go and hopped on a plane. Hopped on, no, drove 90 minutes from Pennsylvania to Jersey, hopped on a plane, five and a half hours, got home last night. Yes.

Shaun Dyke
00:02:11.020 – 00:03:08.340
The funny part in that is I would like to say that that’s uncommon, but that’s not. Yeah, you, I and many of the people that we get to work with this, it’s a common thing. It’s all the things.

I walked in last night into my house at about 10 o’ clock. And I told my wife, like, you know, sometimes then I think folks think, like, man, like, why do people work longer days? Or.

Who really wants to put in that amount of effort? And I was looking at my watch, and I was like, today was 17 hours from up till back in the house.

And two hours before that, I was narrating into chat my day because I wanted it to pull it out, because I wanted this yesterday captured as a reminder of gratitude, even though it was insane. It was all the things which kind of. That’s the question I want to start with.

Why would anyone subject themselves to this level of complexity and crazy?

Stephanie Au
00:03:09.260 – 00:03:29.500
Well, it’s not work.

It’s a calling. So it’s. I often tell clients I’ve not worked a day in my life since I’ve joined this firm. And it’s about knowing what you’re put on this earth to do.

Trust me, it was a journey for me to figure that out. Sure.

Shaun Dyke
00:03:29.500 – 00:03:30.700
You weren’t cracked with that knowledge?

Stephanie Au
00:03:31.100 – 00:04:03.330
Yeah. Wish would have been, you know, a lot easier to figure out through. Through that way.

And it’s just once you find your calling and you know your purpose and the legacy you want to leave, every day is just a day that you get up and you get to make a difference in people’s lives, and it’s fulfilling. It actually gives you energy. Even though you’re physically tired, spiritually, mentally, you feel rejuvenated. And that’s what purpose can do for you.

Shaun Dyke
00:04:03.970 – 00:04:45.940
Okay, so purpose, big weighty concept and construct. And a lot of people, I think, make it through.

In truth, probably make it through a lot of their life without actually having a full commander understanding of what the heck their purpose is, let alone a reality that once I maybe know my purpose, now somehow I have to figure out how to live to my purpose in an authentic way. And we talk about authenticity a lot, and we’ll chase that here in a minute. But that.

That idea of being true to the purpose that I have recognized for myself. So let’s. Let’s start with if we can, like, one of the things that I’ve.

The many things I admire about you, but one of the things I most admire is that you know it. So you’ve written about it, you talk about it. So talk to us. Just what is your purpose?

Stephanie Au
00:04:47.140 – 00:05:03.450
So to get here. I also want to emphasize this took a lot of. A lot of trial and error and playing with what my purpose is.

So it was a few years in, and as I work with my clients on their purpose statement, they want it and they want it now.

Shaun Dyke
00:05:03.450 – 00:05:03.850
Now.

Stephanie Au
00:05:04.090 – 00:05:05.850
And I say, well, 20 minute exercise.

Shaun Dyke
00:05:05.850 – 00:05:07.130
Just to get my purpose figured out.

Stephanie Au
00:05:07.130 – 00:05:33.020
Yeah. Why is this taking so long? It’s iteration and iteration and iteration before you land on your purpose statement. And when you do, it’s an immediate.

Aha. Experience is what it was for me. And so my purpose statement is to rekindle love and courage, and that’s innate in us humans.

And then the follow up tagline is, because there’s nothing more powerful than a human soul on fire.

Shaun Dyke
00:05:33.020 – 00:05:36.700
Yeah, Great line, Ferdinand Falk. I just said that this morning to somebody.

Stephanie Au
00:05:36.700 – 00:05:38.700
Well, you and I like fire. It’s common. We do.

Shaun Dyke
00:05:38.700 – 00:05:57.910
We do like fire. Rekindle love and courage that is innate in us humans.

Okay, so, but wait, somebody might say, hang on a minute. You’re an executive coach. You coach business leaders as a profession. How are you rekindling love and courage inside of that space?

What would you say to that?

Stephanie Au
00:05:58.150 – 00:05:59.990
Well, executives are humans too.

Shaun Dyke
00:06:00.470 – 00:06:01.390
I mean, most of them.

Stephanie Au
00:06:01.390 – 00:07:35.630
Most of them. Some of them are robotic. Well, I would say, gosh. And it started. It started with me asking myself, which we say it’s reflective.

It’s a very reflective exercise when it comes to purpose, is what do I gravitate towards, what brings me energy? Children do. They bring me a lot of energy. And then I asked myself why. It’s because they are themselves, authentically themselves.

They were born in a world where love is innate and courage is innate. The courage to learn the most difficult things. To touch, to love, to see, to speak to, to crawl, to walk. Those are all really hard things to do.

And it takes courage. And they naturally love their parents.

It’s through life we learn through our environment, through events, through our experiences that have us put on an armor to protect ourselves. Then we love a little less, we’re a little less courageous, we’re more fearful, we’re more guarded, we’re more numb in all sorts of ways.

And I firmly believe that with love, love for your career, love for the people whom you lead, love for your life, love for your family, love for the. For the world in general will get you to a place where you’re more fearless. And you access your courage to go get what you want.

Shaun Dyke
00:07:35.630 – 00:08:39.400
Yeah. You know, it’s. I wrote down a note to chase that. Something kind of fun I hadn’t thought about. So courage would imply that there’s some sort of.

There’s a fear or an inhibition present that I need to push past. And kids are often born uninhibited. Yeah. They learn inhibition yes.

So part of the challenge in this, this rekindling is helping people unlearn all the inhibition that has shown up in them in this process.

I mean, not dissimilar on same reality that when we get to work with people, it’s helping people identify those components that they have put in place. We talk about it in this podcast that there are so many unconscious scripts that people have to guide them.

Like, there is an inhibition present in me that I need to learn to press beyond. Well, need to learn, maybe benefit from learning from. And I guess that’s part of the key piece, isn’t it? To your point? It’s.

It’s helping people identify those and figure out how to press past those.

Stephanie Au
00:08:39.720 – 00:08:45.240
Yeah. Yeah, you always are at choice. Yeah, you always are at choice.

Shaun Dyke
00:08:45.240 – 00:08:50.360
Okay, so that is a. That is a door to ism at choice. So chase that choice for me. What do you mean?

Stephanie Au
00:08:50.360 – 00:09:59.220
Yeah, people tend to want to take a victim mindset. It’s just easier, isn’t it, to blame the world, to blame events, to blame others, versus taking accountability for yourself.

And yeah, sometimes life gives you situations that aren’t the best. You can choose.

You can choose to stay in those situations, or you can choose to do something different that can never be taken away from you that moment of at choice. Or you can choose to mentally wield more power in you, even though you’re in moments of hardship.

That’s unique to humanity. And in that, we can overcome a lot of hardship. And you’re at choice. And when you realize that, I think it encourages you to lean in, to love.

Love for yourself, to get you out of that situation and the courage to do something different because you do have a choice. And you said it earlier, the thing with courage is it’s not absent of fear. It’s knowing that you’re fearful and choosing to do something. Right.

Shaun Dyke
00:09:59.620 – 00:10:14.940
It’s not courage if fear is the present. If I don’t have to press through that, I mean, that’s the game. That’s easy. But when there is a fear base or an inhibition or something concerning.

Which manifests in all kinds of forms, Right. I mean, on embarrassment or humiliation or whatever that is, this knock.

Stephanie Au
00:10:14.940 – 00:10:15.460
Vulnerability.

Shaun Dyke
00:10:15.700 – 00:11:30.060
Yeah, knocking at the back of your mind, that shows up in that it is in those spots. Okay, so it’s not a job, it’s not work, it’s a calling.

The things I get to do because I recognize that I’ve identified a purpose that what I want to do, and then how I lean into that one. Okay, so identification of the purpose, it’s time consuming. It is hard.

It’s an unraveling in a positive way and an unfolding of something that I recognize. Like, yeah, I am not only fulfilled in this, but I’m also relatively good at it potentially.

There’s all these intersection points that feed into it and identifying it as one thing. Now we have to figure out how do we consistently and authentically. And I want you. I love your description of authenticity.

And so if you’ll talk to that. But how do you keep your character strength present whenever being authentic to your purpose? Maybe somebody doesn’t want.

Or maybe it requires you to be vulnerable, or maybe it feels awkward or it’s hard or any of those spaces around it. How did you find that? So first, if you let me take that back or walk that back a bit first, if you’ll.

How you define authenticity and then talk about how you stay consistent with that.

Stephanie Au
00:11:30.780 – 00:13:50.080
Okay. So because I am a person of belief systems and commitment and I ask myself probably at a very early age, why behind the what? Because it motivates me.

Without that, I cannot commit. So because of that, I found that I needed to be me, authentically me. That grounds me in my life. And so my.

My thinking of authenticity is my inside matches my outside. There’s congruency.

I feel anchored in that. And when I cannot be that I’m disconnected with the world, with my profession, with others. It started early on, Sean, with my mom. She’s.

She’s also love her to death. She’s listening, probably. And she’s also one with conviction and belief systems. She sacrificed her life early. She probably finished the fourth grade.

It was during the Vietnam War and she was pulled out of school to take care of her brothers and her other siblings. Start a business early and survive.

And so when she again sacrificed her life in Vietnam to move to the US where my brother and I, she did the best she could with what she knew, which was, hey, Stephanie, first daughter. You also need to sacrifice for the family. You need to be responsible. This is how responsibility loves. This is what we do look like.

Because that’s what she knew.

And I struggle with that a lot because I couldn’t be me. She wanted me to be a version of me she thought would be best for me and for the family. So we fought and we.

And in the firm, we say the most epic battles of all time is a persister to persister. Because if the two belief systems don’t align, and when a persister believes in something, they lock in.

Then we’re constantly, constantly battling each other. I recently realized I thought I was fighting for my freedom and independence. I realized I was fighting to be authentically me not for freedom.

Shaun Dyke
00:13:50.080 – 00:14:29.500
Freedom and independence. Okay a few things inside of that. At some point we’re going to tell the story of the trunk and the car but we’ll get there. So you gave a nod to.

So let’s chase it a bit on. On other episodes we talk a little more explicitly about.

You mentioned persister and so persister is a personality construct inside of the process communication model which sits inside of a workshop that we teach called Influence through human Dynamics which helps you really understand like the the complexity of peoples. And so you made mention to persister. So highlight real. What do you mean what is a persister and how did that affect things?

Stephanie Au
00:14:29.820 – 00:15:38.300
The persistor parts in us because we have, we have persistent parts. Mine is just stronger than some.

And the persistor strengths is people who are there are dedicated, committed, conscientious, observant, purpose driven. So when we lead folks that are persistent and have persistent parts they have to know the why behind the what.

If you’re going to motivate people and we say motivation is part of leading people is you got to know what makes them tick. And for the persister it’s the cause, the why behind. And once they buy it, boy are they committed because then there’s no other option.

And that’s what drives me and that’s why I needed I’ll say need not want a purpose statement to really unlock my potential and my North Star of why I’m here and authenticity I realized is my number one value. Again did an exercise self reflection. I’m going to give a nod to Bernie Brown. It’s rare that you talk to me and I don’t.

Shaun Dyke
00:15:38.300 – 00:15:40.900
Yeah that is true. I’m reading strong ground.

Stephanie Au
00:15:40.900 – 00:15:43.020
Right good. Haven’t started yet.

Shaun Dyke
00:15:43.020 – 00:15:43.420
That’s good.

Stephanie Au
00:15:43.420 – 00:15:46.380
Yeah. Will though and she says gosh, in.

Shaun Dyke
00:15:46.380 – 00:15:48.540
Life I just want to mark that I’m reading one of her books before.

Stephanie Au
00:15:48.540 – 00:15:51.050
You’Re no, we were going to cut that part out.

Shaun Dyke
00:15:53.610 – 00:15:54.250
Winning.

Stephanie Au
00:15:54.250 – 00:17:26.150
Winning. She says you can’t have so many values in your life because you’re going to be incongruent. And when you’re faced to choose, what will you choose?

And you’re not going to be centered in self. There’s a lack of clarity there.

We teach Door 2 when leaders want commitment because all leaders do they have to first have alignment and before alignment there’s clarity. It’s true for us too as humans.

I Feel that if you’re going to be truly committed to your life and the things you want to do and how you want to be, you have to have alignment with self, and you have to have clarity around what it is. Yeah.

So then she says, you really only get two. I don’t know how she came up with two, by the way, two values that @ the end of the day, if you had to choose, these are your two.

And you’re going to want to say family. Everyone puts that in there. And she talks about, I had a hard time crossing that one off as my 2. And she has a process by which she does it.

So I did it. And one of it is, when you’re faced with tough choices, what do you choose? So I realized family is not my number one value.

Because I will get on the plane, like yesterday. I will go do. I will be present for clients. And why do I do that?

And so I realize one is, at the end of the day, if I cannot be authentic, I will not also work with clients. I have actually fired clients because I can’t be me and they won’t be themselves.

Shaun Dyke
00:17:26.150 – 00:17:27.950
It just doesn’t work in general, if that’s the magic.

Stephanie Au
00:17:27.950 – 00:18:07.650
It just doesn’t work. And I don’t do surface level conversations. I really prefer to have intimate dialogue at a party than go mingle with 50 other people.

And I told you early on I needed to be me.

And so I realized authenticity is my number one guiding light. I will gravitate towards people who are authentic. I will be energized around rooms that are authentic. I’m energized when I’m authentically me.

And then the number two value was serving the roles I get to. Because you’re always at choice. I get to serve in my life to the best that I can. Those are my two values. That’s it.

Shaun Dyke
00:18:07.650 – 00:18:25.570
Yeah. First of all, I don’t know what my two values are now. I now want to go to the exercise, and it would be easy to drop family into that.

And so that’s actually really fun. Cause I want to. I want to. What you just did is demonstrating something.

It is vulnerable to say in this format that family is not one of my primary values.

Stephanie Au
00:18:25.570 – 00:18:28.960
Sorry, Jaden Landon. Love you, Stephen. Mom, dad.

Shaun Dyke
00:18:29.040 – 00:18:54.880
But I think they would say, and we’re glad it’s not. They know. They get it and they see. What do you say to the person, though, that says, like, identifying my purpose, living authentically.

To me, that feels selfish. What do we say to the folks that don’t know how to create the connection between. It’s one of the most selfless things you can do.

Like, how do you help people navigate through that one?

Stephanie Au
00:18:55.300 – 00:19:57.700
I say, gosh, it’s not selfish. It’s self full. Because if you’re not whole, you can’t give your best self to anyone else.

So it’s self full. I had to get over that. I really did. It’s. So I’m not sitting here telling you this because I woke up one night and go, oh, yeah. It was a process.

It’s a journey. And I’m still on that journey, still a work in progress. So when I feel the best that I am in my own skin, I can be the best for people around me.

And so remember, my number two value is to serve the roles I get to serve in my life.

The reason why that’s intentionally stated that way is I don’t always get to serve all the roles every day, all the time, to the best that I can. And that was also hard because in the world today, we’re expected, especially women, to be everything and everyone around us.

The best that we can in the way that we are. To serve.

Shaun Dyke
00:19:57.700 – 00:19:58.900
Yeah. Times 10.

Stephanie Au
00:19:58.900 – 00:20:46.990
You know, like, you can multitask, you can be a mom, you can be a powerhouse superhero. Superhero. You can do all the things. And then for men is you got to be strong for everybody around you. That’s sort of the stereotype.

So it was hard for me. I wrestled with that. And then I realized, actually, through one of our co founders, Tom Schenk is the AT choice. It goes back to AT Choice.

Today, you get to be so many roles. Not a lot of people get to be a mom, a daughter, a wife, a sister, a friend, a partner. And you get to serve all those roles.

It’s just in this moment, which one do you choose to be? So if you choose to be a mom, you’re probably not gonna take that coaching call, and that’s okay.

Shaun Dyke
00:20:47.390 – 00:21:06.670
Leans to the number one value we have in the firm is gratitude. It’s finding the gratefulness around that. Okay, so I love this. You’ll like this.

I think I just had a client tell me that the way he looks at it is for people in his life. He says, I want them to experience that they are always the priority.

Stephanie Au
00:21:07.390 – 00:21:10.270
Sometimes I do like that.

Shaun Dyke
00:21:10.270 – 00:22:04.010
And I was like, walk me through that again. But that’s the place, right?

That they are always the priority. Sometimes this realization that it can’t be all the time, but when you are and when I Can.

And when we do, I am here, I am present, I’m in that space with you. So many things I want to chase around that. Okay, let’s go back to the authenticity piece. Your ability to, to do that, that comes with trade offs.

That has a cost in that. So I said I wanted to do it.

So you have to at least just tee up the first one, the car story, which I think is kind of fun on recognizing when you choose to demonstrate and activate that which is authentically you maybe in a little less refined way in our youth, how it shows up. But let’s start with that one for fun and then talk through how you work through those trade offs and the costs in, in being authentic.

It doesn’t come without a cost.

Stephanie Au
00:22:04.250 – 00:23:32.130
Yeah.

I was probably early on wanting to make choices for myself, you know, and maybe I wasn’t as equipped at times at 4, you know, I wanted to choose my own things at 4, my mom tells me so I think I was 16. And this, this goes back to commitment. And, and when I was, when I was. I’ll go back to when I was 15, anticipating driving. Right.

One of the things you really want to do. My kids don’t care about driving. They say I force them to drive. And that’s probably true because we’re. They’re Ubers nowadays.

But back then, driving added to more freedom, more independence, things you can do on your own. And so my mom said, hey, when you turn 16, there’s this beautiful Honda Accord, navy blue, four door, six, sitting on the driveway waiting for you.

Great. That’s a commitment. Okay. So I practice, I studied on my birthday. I already signed up at the dmv. Did that all on my own, by the way, not surprised.

Showed up at the DMV with my dad, sort of sweet talked the person that I was with and he passed me because I don’t think I parallel park really well, by the way. But he felt sorry for me and passed me. And then I was so excited for my car. It came with conditions. So when you.

Shaun Dyke
00:23:32.130 – 00:23:34.330
Those things like that often do as a parent. Yes, yes.

Stephanie Au
00:23:34.330 – 00:23:43.650
So when you listen to me and be the person I want you to be, you get the keys to the car. When you don’t, I take the keys to the car. I was like, oh no, no, no, no, no.

Shaun Dyke
00:23:43.650 – 00:23:45.290
I can see that going, well, that.

Stephanie Au
00:23:45.290 – 00:24:05.560
Is not the commitment we had. That’s not the agreement we had. So then I took it to myself to say, if you’re going to take my car, I’m going to take yours. Mom.

So one day, her beautiful Camry that she loved, I stole it. Or borrowed it. You know why I borrowed it? Because she borrowed mine.

Shaun Dyke
00:24:05.960 – 00:24:14.160
She took your car because she took the keys away. So you took her car? Turnabout’s fair play. Like, is this how this works? It’s fine.

Stephanie Au
00:24:14.160 – 00:24:17.480
Yeah, yeah. We had an agreement. She broke the agreement in my book.

Shaun Dyke
00:24:17.480 – 00:24:19.200
So it’s a fifth, 15 year old.

Stephanie Au
00:24:19.520 – 00:24:20.160
16 now.

Shaun Dyke
00:24:20.160 – 00:24:23.680
16. Oh, so significantly more grown up. We acquired her car. Okay, good.

Stephanie Au
00:24:23.680 – 00:25:05.550
Yes. And so I take it, and I call her from a payphone. This dates me, and I say, hey, mom, you took my car, so I took yours. It’s only fair.

So I’d like my car back, please. So if you leave the keys in the mailbox, I will come pick it up at some point in the next 24 hours, and I will give you back your car.

It’s just what we agreed on. And then we showed up. Me, my bestie, my boyfriend, ex, husband. Don’t need to go in that right now. And his bestie.

The four of us show up to get my car. We. We were just gonna swap. I was gonna leave her car on the driveway. Was like 2 or 3am in the.

Shaun Dyke
00:25:05.550 – 00:25:09.870
Morning, and we’re just gonna roll in, drop her car, grab your car, and go.

Stephanie Au
00:25:10.260 – 00:25:36.300
That’s it. I still don’t know how long she was in the trunk for. I get out with my girlfriend. Okay, so Nan and his bestie was in their car. We both get out.

Kim, at the time, runs up to my car. My mom opens the trunk from inside the trunk, Inside the trunk, takes a belt, and proceeds to tie up my bestie. Kim. And I was like, oh, she took.

Shaun Dyke
00:25:36.300 – 00:25:37.380
Your best friend hostage.

Stephanie Au
00:25:37.380 – 00:25:38.500
Yes, she did.

Shaun Dyke
00:25:38.500 – 00:25:39.220
As one does.

Stephanie Au
00:25:39.410 – 00:26:12.430
But as a persister, she probably thought, you know, this is justified because you took my car, Right? Yeah. That’s the thing with persisters. We will justify our behaviors. And then I’m like, oh, my gosh, let her go. This is about me and you again.

Persistor. Commitment to values and friendship and nothing to do with her. I said, if you let her go, I’ll stay. And so she lets Kim go.

And I said, hey, we had this conversation. And she’s like, you can’t take my car. And I said, well, you can’t take my car. This is my car. We agreed to that for sister.

Shaun Dyke
00:26:12.430 – 00:26:14.430
Persistent. Epic.

Stephanie Au
00:26:14.430 – 00:26:25.150
Yes. And I said, you can call the cops on me. That’s fine. But I’m gonna do this. So it’s your choice. What do you want to do? Fearless. When you’re locked into your values.

Shaun Dyke
00:26:25.150 – 00:26:30.270
Well, because you believe you are right. You don’t believe. No, no, you are right. Yeah.

Stephanie Au
00:26:30.430 – 00:26:32.910
At 16. And so come on now.

Shaun Dyke
00:26:32.910 – 00:26:33.710
Got it all figured out.

Stephanie Au
00:26:34.080 – 00:26:47.920
And she thought about it and she’s like, my dad said, you just let her go. Just let her go. Let her take her car. And she did. And so I drove away with my car. But that happened at 16.

Shaun Dyke
00:26:48.560 – 00:27:10.470
Early practices of learning to stand our ground. So here’s the question.

Sometimes we recognize that we have to stand our ground on something that we believe in and know there are ways we can do that that don’t go as incredibly well. And I have witnessed, I actually get counsel from you and all the time on how to do this. How have you learned to stand your ground with grace?

Stephanie Au
00:27:11.830 – 00:28:48.060
It’s through those moments.

It’s through reflection on, oh, was that a good thing? And I have a value for people. So when I’m all, we’ll call it persistory and driving my belief system, am I seeing the other person?

There’s a quote that we use and we teach in our workshop that is addressing persisters. Do you want to be right? Because here’s the thing about persisters.

We’re often right. Do you want to be right or do you want to get what you want?

Getting what you want is the relationship, the connection, the fact that your kids want to talk to you, the fact that your kids want to be with you and can be themselves. And so I asked myself that. It’s like, I can be right. And by the way, this was why we got a divorce. Now there’s other reasons behind that.

Don’t get me wrong, it takes two to tango. But my ex and I, it was oftentimes I was right. And he would say to me, I don’t need a coach, I need a wife.

And so it’s like, oh, he’s right. So to get what I want, the relationship, I don’t need to be right all the time. The thing is, you don’t change yourself. You are a persister. You will.

The strength of persister, because we’re observant, is we will find the flaw. We will find the thing that, well, you could do this or you can do that better. You don’t have to say it and you don’t have to stay with that thought.

You’ll still think it because you are you. And then you follow up with a different thought.

Shaun Dyke
00:28:48.060 – 00:28:55.440
Yeah, this is counsel you’ve given me where as I’m learning to embrace those Character strengths in myself.

Stephanie Au
00:28:55.440 – 00:28:56.520
You’re a persister in training.

Shaun Dyke
00:28:56.520 – 00:29:53.550
Yeah, I am. Yeah. This is. I think that one of the pieces that you said to me was like, number one, you’re going to see flaw more readily.

Number two, you’re gonna have the courage to state the flaw. And one of the challenges is how do you get better at inhibiting that.

And I think when you tie that back to a purpose statement like rekindling love and courage that is innate in humans. Right. That’s okay. I can now see that congruence of getting my inside and my outside to match one another.

If I tie a few things together in here on knowing your purpose and then wanting to authentically live to that having those strong persister parts that in many ways help you fortify that. We love to say that those with strong persister parts can stand within a, with a.

In a strong wind because their conviction is so strong, they’re going to hold in it. How do you stay intellectually and emotionally open to other ideas?

Stephanie Au
00:29:54.430 – 00:29:56.430
Not early. When I was 16. Yeah.

Shaun Dyke
00:29:56.430 – 00:29:57.269
You didn’t. Right.

Stephanie Au
00:29:57.269 – 00:30:36.010
Yeah. I had to learn empathy. I had to learn other orientation. And it, it actually was more crystal clear when I landed on my purpose statement.

Probably before my purpose statement, it wasn’t as clear.

And coming back to love and courage allowed me to say, okay, I have a thought. They also have a thought. I have a strong belief system. They also have a belief system. Staying curious to what that is so we can find the win.

Win was where I needed to be in the work that needed to be done. And I have to say, joining this firm really helped anchored all of that.

Shaun Dyke
00:30:36.010 – 00:30:37.850
You’re surrounded by it constantly. Yeah.

Stephanie Au
00:30:38.330 – 00:31:00.250
And so I try. I’m not always great at it. Of. Okay, I disagree. Let me hear the other side. Because I do care about this person. This person isn’t. Is.

Is a person who has needs and wants like me. And how do I honor that in a way that I see and hear them?

Shaun Dyke
00:31:00.870 – 00:32:14.000
All right, Steph, so I’m going to dog ear this conversation because we can’t chase this one today.

But one of the things that I want to explore at some point in time is when you look at the current state of society and you look at the tendency to blame, complain, justify other, orient your problems, get entrenched in a well formed and understandably and justifiably logic line. But it is counter to some of those around you.

The adversarial, the oppositional, the antagonistic viewpoints that tend to manifest so prominently today.

These are persistent or Persistor battles that are happening all over the place and the ability to bring grace and curiosity present to those is man, we need that. So we’re going to dog ear that and we’re going to talk about that one. For another one, I’m going to have us wrap with sort of two things.

If you’re in a headspace and number one you’re thinking, gosh, I would love to find my purpose statement. I don’t know what it is and I’m adrift, How do I, what do I do?

Second one for you to try to tackle is if someone out there does know their purpose statement and they’re trying to live more authentically toward it, what advice would you give to those two?

Stephanie Au
00:32:14.240 – 00:32:18.960
Gosh, first, first answer is call doortwo. I mean we, we, we can’t help you.

Shaun Dyke
00:32:18.960 – 00:32:19.600
That is true.

Stephanie Au
00:32:20.320 – 00:33:34.110
Find your purpose statement. So give us a ring or you know. Yeah, chat with us. The advice I would have for people is are you living the life you want?

Are you feeling incongruency with who you want to be and how you show up? In fact, when we get feedback that is disconfirming to our own self image, we want to reject that.

That’s when the blame, complain, defend, justify come in. Yeah, it’s taking that pause and realizing could that be true? It’s not my intent and it sounds like that’s the impact I’m having on others.

So if that’s the impact, if that’s not what I want, then I again am at choice to do something different. If I want that relationship, I can choose not to have that relationship. It’s still a choice.

And if I want that relationship, that relationship with my husband, son, wife, whomever, your team, then there’s a million ways that you can choose differently so that you’re in congruency with who you are. And I’ll tell you once you find that purpose that your true north life is so much more crystal clear and joy is unlocked for you. Don’t you want that?

Shaun Dyke
00:33:34.510 – 00:34:06.000
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean I think that’s, that’s to your point. It’s part of the conversations we’ve had on here. A thank you for those and I think a solid.

It’s part of the conversation we have on here is that perpetual journey of trying to realize self, figure out who I am so that I can be the best that I can be for those around me on an ongoing basis. A thousand other things that we’re going to talk about and we’ll don’t have time for it today. So just thanks and appreciation for you.

Always love you a ton. Thanks for spending time with us and let’s head out. I’m sure we’ve got something else we.

Stephanie Au
00:34:06.000 – 00:34:07.280
Got to get to get on a plane right now.