Full Transcript for The Third Element: Why Emotions Belong in Leadership

It was a ⁓ somewhat of a gradual process. So, first of all, ⁓ Maria just allowed the space for me to deal with my anger, which was the emotion that covered up the underlying emotions of ⁓ loneliness and betrayal and abandonment and such. So she helped me get through the layers because she just was comfortable with emotions herself. And as I worked through Christine Courtney: Okay. Randy Lyman: The layers and I became more clear than that helped my leadership. And then about God, I think it was about a year into our relationship, year and a half, I was at a business communications retreat where I had a huge emotional release and about something a family member had said twelve years earlier. Well, I came back to work four days later and a challenge I'd been working on with my mind and my actions for two months trying to fix. People in my business who were not competent, and Maria always said, everything's a mirror. You have to look at yourself. Well, I went through this emotional release, and four days later, when I arrived back at work, the challenges with the people who were incompetent either resolved themselves immediately, or a few of the people that were I was having challenges with, they just left my life immediately. So me being a physicist, looking at cause and effect, the cause was my emotional release of old emotional trauma. And then the effect was that Physical reality, the relationships, the challenges I was having in my life resolved themselves without me having to change my thoughts anymore, without me having to take more action. And that to me was like, holy cow, is this real? So I started looking at when I had a problem I couldn't solve with my thoughts and my ideas and my planning and my action. I would ask, okay, where's the underlying emotional wound that I can deal with, that the trauma that I can work through those old emotions and solve the problem? And I found more often than Christine Courtney: Yeah. Randy Lyman: Not that that was a solution to the challenges I had was looking at myself and my own emotional trauma and finding ways through different different exercises, meditation, breath work, etc., to work through those. And so for me as a scientist, I'm like, wait a minute, this doesn't logical. This isn't what I learn in school. This isn't what people teach me. What's really going on here? And the deeper I dug into it and the more I experimented. The the more convinced I was that our unhealed emotional wounds cannot be pushed down forever. And even if we are able to push them down, it it's a distraction from being at our very best. Christine Courtney: Yeah, it's so interesting because you you know, you s you've said that overachievement is often driven by those emotional wounds that you just mentioned, right? How does that how do you see that? 'Cause you work with a lot of leaders and founders on a day to day basis. How do you see that? What does that look like in different folks? Randy Lyman: Well, in the first part of

our life, I think it's really part of the the human experience. The plan is okay, we're gonna have some trauma to drive us. Ego needs something to conquer. Ego needs something to fix. And people say, we're gonna kill the ego. No, we never kill the ego. It's not the idea. The idea is for the the ego to partner with our higher self through our intuition and through our and to partner with our emotional ⁓ self to Connection with our inner child. And we don't want to kill the child. We're not going to let emotions run the show. We're not going to let the child run the show. But if we ignore it, it's going to ask for attention and find its way into ⁓ diluting the clarity of our thoughts and disturbing the deliberateness of our actions. So we have no choice, in my opinion, and my experience, we have no choice but to address those emotional challenges or they'll find their way into our reality. Christine Courtney: Interesting. And when when if people are out there and certainly, you know, we're here I know you're out in in the West, but we're over here in New York, I'm I am surrounded by overachievers every day, right? Where w that's the city is built on that. ⁓ cer s certainly in the business world. And sometimes I feel like that they are a hundred percent bought in to the fact that if they that we're told, right? Don't get emotional about this. Put your emotions away. Like everything is kind of like squash that down. Be logical. You know, be more reason reason reason this through. How do they see, how do what are the inklings that might come up in their their daily life that they know, like, ⁓ maybe I do need to look at this emotional piece a little bit more? Is it just that they're short tempered or like what Randy Lyman: So for well, again, I didn't really answer that clearly, but I'll take another stab at it. So when we're younger, we need something to drive us forward and emotional drama, trauma, emotional ⁓ wounds, so to speak. That energy that we're trying to avoid feeling drives us to overachieve. And that gets a lot done. A lot happens when we're trying to avoid our emotions, and we can We can do that through success, through achievement, through study, through action. And the ego s will protect us from everything except itself. And it protects us from physical pain, it protects us from emotional pain. And in doing that, it often causes us to really accomplish a lot. Well, my challenge was at about the ages 28, 29. I had achieved a lot through pushing down my emotions, but now those emotions that wanted to be felt were getting in the way of my relationships. I'm not talking about just my relationships at home or with my family, the relationships I had with the people I was leading. And I'm not it's not like, hey, we all have to go out and and party afterwards or have beers or spend Thanksgiving together. That's not what I'm talking about when I'm talking about relationships. What I'm talking about relationships is when I deliver a message and

I have to relate to somebody else, and they have to relate to me to hear the message, and we have to relate to each other in order to accomplish things as a team. And so those business relationships were being affected by my emotional trauma that wanted to be felt. And that caused me to be less effective than I could be. So at first, my early 20s, my mid-20s, it drove me to success. In my late 20s and definitely in my 30s, the emotions I was avoiding that decided They're gonna come out regardless. Those got in the way of my success and those held me back. So what was a driver became ⁓ really a challenge and a problem. And once I realized that and I had some guidance from the people around me, and just being luckily, lucky enough to discover what I discovered, then I was able to change my approach. Christine Courtney: Interesting. And what do you when you started to change it? And I know you gave us some hints to that, but for the person out there listening, certainly they could pick up your book and and they can try some of I assume that there's some exercises or there's some ⁓ in terms of things that they could try. But ⁓ mentioned some meditation, some breath work. ⁓ there's things like that people could do even today if they were listening, right? I mean they could be ⁓ Randy Lyman: Absolutely. So in chapter seven of my book, I share 14 different exercises, types of exercises people can do. And the ones that I always come back to for left brain people is write it down the problem. Take and make now I used to say three columns. Now I say four columns. Left column, what's the problem? Second column, what's the logical solution? Third column, where is the judgment? Where are we blaming? Where are we ⁓ Judging ourselves, whatever that might be. And then the fourth and most important column for me always is what feeling or emotion is underneath that judgment. So again, the problem, second, the solution, third, what is the judgment? And fourth, what is the feeling? So this is a real safe way for left-brained people like myself to kind of ⁓ slip into a position of, hey, I'm gonna bring up the emotion here, and my thinking mind is still in charge. And I'm still safe. I'm not gonna be blindsided by an emotion that jumps up out of nowhere and and ⁓ takes control of my life, because the first time I was looking at my emotions, I was afraid that those old emotions I'd push down were gonna take over and ruin my life. And they don't. When we ask for guidance and I we surrender to whatever's bigger than us and say, Hey, I wanna, I wanna find a way to work through this, then the universe guides us, and that's Really undefined, but I believe in higher power. And we're guided to solutions and we're guided to people and we meet people and we encounter situations that help us get through one layer at a time to whatever we're ready to feel. But the ego for me said, ⁓ my God, if I open Pandora's box of emotions, it's gonna make a mess of my life. And it doesn't. It's messy, yes, at times. And yes, it's can be painful, but the rewards are so huge. And Not only are we pushing down our negative emotions when we turn off our emotions, we're we're turning off the positive emotions of happiness, of joy, of love, of connection with the people in our life that we really want to connect with, our family, our friends, our community. So it's not like we can just we have two switches. ⁓ one is negative emotions, one's positive emotions, and we'll just turn off one and and not the other. Nope. When we decide we're gonna dive in, they all come up. But I'll guarantee they won't ruin our life. If we try and hold them down forever, they will find a way to ruin our life. They're like a they're like a child. If you have children, you understand. If not, you've seen a child that goes up to their parent and they'll ask for attention and they'll talk louder and then they'll tug on their pant leg. And if they don't get their attention, that child might go break something. to get their parents' attention. And our emotions are the same way. They get louder and louder and eventually they'll break something until they get our attention. Christine Courtney: I love that. I love the the four columns. I wrote that down ⁓ because I I I think oftentimes we people are used to doing just the first two. Like going, okay, what's the real problem? I I hear myself like when I feel a lot, I start going, What what's going on underneath this? What's the problem going on? And then I think I'm thinking, okay, well let me just come up with some solutions and then I'll be able to feel better. Right. But I think those last two are really key, you know. Judgment huge. I mean, how many times did we what you said? I've heard a version of that myself. Like, ⁓ I don't want to become one of those people, you know, or I don't want to be like her that does this or I hi I I can't be ⁓ breaking down all the time. That's what'll happen if I start to look at this or allow this emotion to come up. So I think that's super powerful powerful. And then you made me think of something when you were talking about defining those feelings underneath. Because we haven't done that work, honestly, since kindergarten. Because that's about the years where we start to learn to read. Because we you know, my business, we have a we work a lot in education and so we run a lot of ⁓ programs, after school programs and so through here in New York City and in other s in other places as well. But the ⁓ the interesting thing that one of the things we try to do with young people through the entire elementary school middle school and high school, which they kind of don't get very much, is that how are you identifying the feeling that's going on for you in and expanding that vocabulary, right? Because a lot of times we'll say to the little ones, for instance, you can't how do you feel right now? And they cannot say mad, sad or glad because those tend to be the things people say. But then to

to really go, what is that feeling? And we give them a big sheet of like these emotions and like let's start to learn what do these emotions feel like. Because then I feel like you can kind of look at it easier. But I find that we as humans need that. Sometimes I need that. How many times do I a day do I tell my kids I'm I'm annoyed or, you know, I'm frustrated? But I those are there's probably a lot more feelings than just those two. Randy Lyman: There are and there's some tools now that are helpful. There's a a emotional I forget what it's called. Christine Courtney: ⁓ there you go. Randy Lyman: So a friend of mine in Miami sent me this as a PDF. I was in Miami a couple of weeks ago. And so it says, okay, I'm feeling angry. Okay, why am I feeling angry? What what level or what flavor of angry am I feeling? And then we just can become aware of it while having our mind be engaged. What the mind does not want to do is just turn over the exposure of the emotions to chance. Christine Courtney: I love it. Randy Lyman: Because that's scary for the thinking mind. So to have a system that takes us through it, that's helpful. And another ⁓ another technique I share is breath work. Now there's a hundred different ways to do breath work, and my opinion is anything that works is helpful. Anything that works. And if If a person just needs to go for a walk, or here's another one that really works, is if for for guys, a lot of times we have physical energy we've pushed down because we're we live in a physical world. So a plastic bat and a pillow and go beat the crap out of the pillow with the plastic bat. And that seems really silly, and it is really silly, but I can tell you that'll help get some of the energy moving. So emotions are bigger than time and space. They will store like gasoline in a metal can. I can pour that gas out 20 years later and it's still going to burn. But once I burn it, it's gone, and emotion is the same way. And emotions can only be felt and experienced and released through a physical experience, through a somatic experience through our body. Our mind is disconnected. From our body. Our mind only lives in the past or the future, our thinking mind. And our body only lives in the present moment. And the emotional energy has to come through a physical experience in the present moment. So no matter how much we want to think our way through a solution, our mind cannot release that old emotional energy that's trapped like gasoline stored in a metal can. Christine Courtney: Yeah, I mean I think that I know plenty of women, middle aged women I that would be happy with the bat and a pillow as well. So I can understand. ⁓ yeah, really, really true. Like you you could see it. Even when I asked you that question, you started to answer it and then you stopped and you took a breath. And then once you took that breath, because we're often so holding our breath, then your your ideas came like lightning, right? And so sometimes it can be just that. Like if you're up speaking, you're doing a presentation and you find I know for myself sometimes I'll realize like why is my why am I having trouble maybe with my words or I'm and then I just take a moment to breathe. Everything starts to flow a little bit better. So that was that was cool to ⁓ see that in action there. Do you see any correlation in your work with executives ⁓ between what ⁓ become b between burnout And kind of ⁓ the work that you do? Like do you see a di the way that it affects p how people burn out too in their jobs? Randy Lyman: Physically burnout comes when we are physically tired from pushing down emotions that want to come through. So when we're when we start off on a path as an executive, as an entrepreneur, whatever we're doing, we have all these emotions, these positive emotions that are driving us. I want freedom someday. I want to be able to take care of my family. I want to, whatever that might be. I want ⁓ success so I'll be happy, or I want money so I'll be happy. Those are all emotional motivations. And then along the way, as we're working towards those positive emotions, we shut off our emotions. And then everything builds up. And it takes physical energy to hold those emotions down. So two things happen: one is we are working physically, taking ⁓ mental energy and physical energy to push down the emotions, and that takes away from What we're able to accomplish. And then as we shut down those emotions, those positive emotions that motivated us, that inspired us, of looking for freedom, looking for happiness, looking for time with our family. We shut all those off along the way. And so those positive emotions that were inspiring us are no longer available to inspire us. And those two things happen. Again, the expenditure of energy and the losing access to those positive emotions. And then we burn out because what are we? Just a machine? We're human beings. So we are a human ego. That is part of the path that we're on. But we're also a spiritual being. And we are a soul with positive energy and Aspirations and goals and those things don't just come from our mind. It's part of the spiritual human experience. But when we shut that off, suddenly we're a robot and that robot runs out of fuel. Christine Courtney: Yeah, what is that what do you think it is? Like there's so much more space, I feel like, in the workplace today, ⁓ for vulnerability and trust. And certainly, you know, many, many, many people have watched Brene Brown's talk on vulnerability now for years and have have started to r to embrace like, okay, it's important for me as a leader to allow myself to be a little bit more vulnerable. But where do you think like Does that are people really doing it or are they just like what it ha do you think it's seeping in this idea of how 'cause what you're talking about to me sounds very vulnerable, but I don't know if it's Yeah. Randy Lyman: Scary as hell. For me, it was really scary. So for me, I had multiple

businesses, I had multiple departments within those businesses, and I was able to experiment with a group of seven people. I didn't have to ⁓ make this, I didn't have to go through this experiment with my entire company because what if I fail? What if I say I don't have all the answers to the people I'm leading? Can you help me? And then they lose respect for me. Then I lose my business. That was the extreme position, but that to me, in my mind, was a possibility. I took the risk on a smaller group. It was successful. And I learned to navigate that. And I made a few mistakes along the way, but no big ones. And that's what I have to offer through my coaching today. I can share with people, hey, this is what I did, and it worked. And I can explain it to you from a place of logic and reason and experience. And you then, whoever I'm coaching, can can show up. Be a better listener, that's easy. To teach the people that they're leading how to make decisions. So before they engage people to say, hey, help me make this decision, those team members know how to make a decision. I train people on how to disagree so the team members can disagree with each other. And still work towards a solution. So there's a lot of steps that can be taken to prepare the team before myself as a leader become completely vulnerable. Now I'm going to step my way into being vulnerable, and I'm going to have to become comfortable with that one step at a time. But when I get to a place where I can say, hey guys, I don't have the answer. Let's let's engage the way we talked about, and I need your help making this solution. Christine Courtney: Love Randy Lyman: People are going to actually have more respect for me. One, because I'm having respect for them. That's really huge. When I respect them and I ask for their help. But second, they're going to say, wow, this leader, Randy, Christine, whoever it is, is so confident in who they are that they can admit their mistakes and they can be vulnerable and they're calm. They must really have their shit together. That's really what it comes down to. And when and and when we can we are that calm and we are that confident, then and we are also vulnerable. Christine Courtney: Yeah, right. Randy Lyman: That shows a level of strength that fair that very few leaders really can embody, vulnerability and calm. Christine Courtney: So interesting 'cause it's it is It's the opposite of what we think it's gonna be, right? We think that if we're really true and honest and vulnerable, that it's gonna be hysterical or it'll be ⁓ out of control or unleashed in some way. But you're right. It's like once you've identified that and let that go a little bit, it is more calm. And that's ultimately what people want, whether it's in a parent or in a relationship or in a work relationship, is somebody who you can kind of count on to be ⁓ emotionally kind of stable, right? Doesn't mean you're not don't have emotions, but you can you know how to calm them. Randy Lyman: We know how to calm them and address them. And and so I'm gonna unpack this a little further. For men, as we're going through junior high and high school. Christine Courtney: Great. Randy Lyman: We're all trying to find our way as men. We're young, we're boys and young men who are trying to figure out how do I fit in as a man in society. Well, there's testosterone and there's hierarchy. And if I at that point in time show any caring or compassion for others, then I'm seen as weak and I'm a target for someone else to pick on so they feel strong and they look strong to the to the tribe, to the crowd, to whoever that is. And so men especially have To fight their way through junior high and high school to establish themselves as masculine. So we turn off all of our ⁓ feminine traits of caring and compassion and intuition and connection. And then we get out in the workplace and nobody tells us, hey, you're not in high school anymore, or now you don't have to prove yourself. You can take on some of these feminine traits, and nobody tells us here's the real the real key. The feminine traits of human interaction make us better leaders. So, and even women have to show up with the masculine in the way of logical thinking and discipline and order and structure and boundaries. And women in leadership positions already know how to do that. But then when either women or men think, ⁓ I need to be masculine, I need to be tough, I need to tell people what to do, then we alienate the people we're trying to lead. So yes, we need the masculine traits to be able to think and plan and interact and set boundaries and goals. But even men and myself especially needed to embrace the feminine traits of the human experience in order to get people to trust me. And to follow me. And when I did that, they respected me more and I accomplished more. I had more success and and my businesses flourished. Christine Courtney: That's great. You know, it's it's interesting when you describe that because I was thinking of ⁓ I you know, I grew up with all sisters and and ⁓ it wasn't until I had my son that I really saw like ⁓ you know, I read this book called The Male Brain to try to understand like wow, I don't even know how to raise a boy. You know, I I've always been surrounded by so many women and and one of the things as I was going through it when I saw him change in those middle school years to just like what you said, right? To protect himself or c shut down those emotions. Somebody had told me this once and it really worked. But I ⁓ they said, ⁓ you know, you should get him a dog because Boys love their dogs and you will often see in those in those years when they can't show really outward love to anybody or ⁓ you know, affection or vulnerability that that dog is a real help in that way, ⁓ because somehow it's ⁓ socially acceptable or something. But it's so true. I see my son now who's twenty one, you know, he's he is so kind to our dog who's still around and so loving.

And so even if he's mad at all of us, he is so he turns into, you know. jelly with that dog. So anyway, that's just a side tip of my own. But I think ⁓ I think it's so helpful for, you know, kids at that age. I see so many struggling. Randy Lyman: Brings them into the present moment and it gives them permission to be in touch with their emotions. And I talk about that in I mentioned that in the book, how pets can help us ⁓ connect with a deeper part of ourselves. And it's just a natural thing that happens. But again, it's it's what you gave him is you gave him permission to feel. You gave him permission to express his caring. You gave him permission to embrace that part of himself that he had to shut off to survive middle school and high school. Christine Courtney: So now you just mentioned the book. So let's talk about it 'cause it's very it's it's ⁓ it's great. I think it I think there's not enough work out there that goes between personal growth and ⁓ business, right? It's really at that intersection. So tell us a little bit about the third element. What's that core idea out there and who out here needs to read it? Randy Lyman: So the the core idea is that everything in the universe fits into one of three categories in no particular order, our our thinking, mind, and thoughts and information, our physical body and the physical reality we live in, and our emotions. So we're taught to be smart and work hard so we'll feel good, but along the way we shut off our emotions. So what I do is I clarify how all those are part of our life. I share my stories about how I became aware of my emotional wounding and work through it. And I Dig deep into the law of attraction, which quantum physics is talking about every moment today, how moment to moment our reality is created for us out of energy, into solid matter, to have the experience we're meant to experience. And I explain this in the book, down to the quantum level, with simple stories and ways that people can relate to. And my opinion is that anybody who is having challenges being clear and calm. And avoiding blame and avoiding irritation. That's pretty much everybody, right? We're all irritated by something, can find peace through understanding. And the book is all about the book, my book, The Third Element, is all about understanding how to work with our emotions, how our emotions influence our reality. Christine Courtney: Yeah. Randy Lyman: And how we can take a logical approach to our emotions. So I'm a scientist. I'm still look at everything from a left brain approach, but my answer is always, what am I feeling or what do I need to feel? So I I help with understanding, I help with examples, I help with exercises people can do, and I give people light at the end of the tunnel. Why am I gonna open Pandora's box of emotions? Why even look at this? Well, because life's gonna be better. You're going have better health, more success, better financial success, better relationships, and all that. So this

is what the book is about. It's to share the access to the buttons and the levers that I've learned to push and pull and make my life better so that other people can understand the rules of the game of life. They're simple. And here's the things that you, the reader, can do to improve your life. Christine Courtney: That's great. So let me ask you, this is totally different, but I it's something I'm always just curious in. When you were growing up, what were the kinds of experience, foundational kind of ⁓ experiences that you had as an adolescent? Like were you playing sports? Were you ⁓ musician? Like what were the things about you that you loved to do at that age that now you look at yourself and you're like ⁓ yeah, this is why I like to do this or this is why I'm good at this. Were you building things? What were you into? Randy Lyman: Well, I I live most of my younger years on my bicycle because I'm all about motion and movement and freedom and I enjoyed that and it it kept me in good shape. ⁓ I like to build things. Christine Courtney: Yeah. Randy Lyman: Whether it was out of wood or then later in my later years, out of metal. So I I like to to do that. ⁓ and then but I wanna I want to touch on two things that really influenced me shutting off my emotions in my early life. If I go back to when I was in kindergarten in 1965, they didn't ask us about our emotions then. Even in kindergarten. And then I had a couple families in ⁓ a couple of friends in in my neighborhood, and their families were very emotional and their life was a mess. Christine Courtney: I I get true. Randy Lyman: And I saw that okay, emotions mean lack of success and drama and turmoil and a mess. And so that's what led me to shut down my emotions. Now, today we have lots of ways to deal with our emotions and lots of activities. My book is really helpful and there's other books as well where people can say, ⁓ I I understand emotions are important. I'm gonna look at this and I'm gonna figure out how to become emotionally aware. And that's a different reality we live in today. But for me, anything physical and mo and movement is helpful. And to be able to build components out of, excuse me, build systems out of components, whether it's out of wood or out of metal, that's what I enjoy. Christine Courtney: That's probably also how you built companies. You were to say good. Randy Lyman: That's how I build companies. I all the components and I put them together into systems. And that's how I that's how I address emotions in my book, The Third Element, as I talk about all the different components, our thoughts, our actions, and our emotions, and how we bring those all together into harmony to live a better life. Christine Courtney: That's great. Well, Randy, I'm excited ⁓ for to read the book. I hope some of you out there read it. You can see in our show notes we'll have ⁓ we'll have more information about that and how you can also get in touch with Randy, ⁓ whether it's through LinkedIn or in his Instagram at I am Randy Lyman, ⁓ also on Facebook, and you can get his book on available on Amazon, right? Anything else, Randy, that people should know? Randy Lyman: They don't have to do everything perfectly. When we start down the path of emotional awareness, of emotional healing, it's gonna be messy at times. We're gonna make mistakes, but that's part of the process. We don't okay, if we're building airplanes and medical equipment, we wanna do it perfectly. But if we're looking at learning to be a better leader, if we're looking at emotional awareness, we're gonna make mistakes and that's okay. Christine Courtney: I love it. Thank you. Thanks for being on today. And thank you guys for listening. ⁓ and we'll see you here next time in the studio on stepping into your leadership. Bye.