WEBVTT
00:00:00.959 --> 00:00:03.759
Welcome to the Formation Practice.
00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:04.719
I am Dr.
00:00:04.879 --> 00:00:06.080
Ella Thompson.
00:00:06.480 --> 00:00:10.560
In episode one, I told you why I am here.
00:00:10.960 --> 00:00:17.920
I introduced this space as something quieter and more demanding than a traditional leadership podcast.
00:00:18.239 --> 00:00:26.879
Not a place where we talk about success, productivity, or visibility, but a place where we ask a deeper question.
00:00:27.760 --> 00:00:32.560
Who are you becoming while you are carrying what you carry?
00:00:33.119 --> 00:00:42.159
That question matters because many leaders are succeeding externally while quietly fragmenting internally.
00:00:42.479 --> 00:00:45.439
They are producing, performing, and showing up.
00:00:45.679 --> 00:00:56.399
They are meeting deadlines, carrying teams, sustaining institutions, and holding more than anyone around them fully understands.
00:00:57.119 --> 00:01:01.840
But beneath the visible competence, something else is happening.
00:01:02.079 --> 00:01:05.920
They are tired in a way that sleep does not fix.
00:01:06.159 --> 00:01:12.879
They are praised for strength while privately resenting what strength has cost them.
00:01:13.920 --> 00:01:24.560
They are effective but not whole, visible but not grounded, performing leadership without being formed by the responsibility they carry.
00:01:26.400 --> 00:01:30.159
So today I want to begin with a foundational distinction.
00:01:33.120 --> 00:01:37.040
Formation is not performance.
00:01:37.280 --> 00:01:48.560
And until we understand that difference, we will keep making the mistake of thinking of output as growth.
00:01:48.959 --> 00:01:52.719
Let's talk about what this performance trap is.
00:01:53.439 --> 00:01:57.599
Performance is concerned with what can be seen.
00:01:57.920 --> 00:02:07.920
It asks how you did, what you produced, how much you accomplished, and how impressive it looked from the outside.
00:02:08.159 --> 00:02:11.280
Performance is not inherently wrong.
00:02:11.599 --> 00:02:14.080
Leaders have responsibilities.
00:02:14.400 --> 00:02:16.000
Work must be done.
00:02:16.319 --> 00:02:23.199
Sermons must be preached, meetings must be led, classes must be taught, decisions must be made.
00:02:23.520 --> 00:02:29.759
The problem is not performance and that it exists.
00:02:30.240 --> 00:02:36.879
The problem is when performance becomes the measure of your formation.
00:02:37.919 --> 00:02:41.120
Because you can perform well and remain unhealed.
00:02:41.280 --> 00:02:45.520
You can be articulate and still be unexamined.
00:02:45.759 --> 00:02:48.800
You can be productive and still be misaligned.
00:02:49.039 --> 00:02:55.360
You can be celebrated publicly while privately living in depletion.
00:02:57.199 --> 00:03:02.000
That is why performance alone is a poor witness to formation.
00:03:02.400 --> 00:03:06.240
Performance shows what you can produce under pressure.
00:03:07.360 --> 00:03:12.080
Formation reveals what pressure is producing in you.
00:03:12.319 --> 00:03:14.000
Those are not the same thing.
00:03:14.319 --> 00:03:20.560
Formation is slower than performance and it asks different questions.
00:03:21.439 --> 00:03:24.000
Performance asks whether it worked.
00:03:24.319 --> 00:03:27.759
Formation asks what it required.
00:03:28.159 --> 00:03:31.680
Performance asks whether they approved.
00:03:36.479 --> 00:03:39.599
Performance asks whether you produced more.
00:03:44.879 --> 00:03:54.240
Whether your calling, your capacity, and your cost are still living in alignment with one another rather than in silent contradiction.
00:03:55.039 --> 00:03:59.360
Your calling is what you have been built and positioned to do.
00:03:59.680 --> 00:04:06.400
Your capacity is the energy, health, and resources you have available to sustain it.
00:04:06.800 --> 00:04:12.560
Your cost is what doing it is requiring of you.
00:04:13.680 --> 00:04:18.879
When those three are in alignment, you lead from wholeness.
00:04:19.120 --> 00:04:24.560
When they are not, you eventually feel it.
00:04:24.800 --> 00:04:35.920
Not always as collapse, but as resentment, numbness, or the quiet loss of joy in work that once felt like purpose.
00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:40.240
Many leaders are not struggling because they lack talent.
00:04:40.639 --> 00:04:44.959
They are struggling because their lives have become incoherent.
00:04:45.439 --> 00:04:51.680
Their calling is large, but their capacity is underprotected.
00:04:51.920 --> 00:04:56.639
Their responsibilities are real, but the costs go unnamed.
00:04:56.800 --> 00:05:01.600
Their gifts are visible, but their recovery is low.
00:05:01.920 --> 00:05:10.639
And eventually, what is misaligned internally begins to surface externally.
00:05:11.759 --> 00:05:20.160
That is why formation must be practiced, not admired, not quoted, not performed, practiced.
00:05:20.560 --> 00:05:28.000
It is the slow intentional work of allowing responsibility to refine rather than to deplete you.
00:05:28.160 --> 00:05:43.439
It is the development of your character, your judgment, your restraint, your discernment, and your capacity to tell the truth about what something is costing you before the cost becomes a crisis.
00:05:45.279 --> 00:05:53.439
So let's talk about why high capacity people confuse performance with formation.
00:05:55.360 --> 00:06:05.600
High capacity people are especially vulnerable to this confusion because when you are capable, people reward you for carrying more.
00:06:06.560 --> 00:06:16.160
They call you dependable, they call you gifted, they call you strong, they call you excellent, they call you the one who always gets it done.
00:06:16.399 --> 00:06:27.040
And sometimes those words are true, but praise becomes dangerous when it conceals the cost of what is being carried.
00:06:27.439 --> 00:06:41.279
You can be praised into depletion, you can be affirmed into overextension, you can be celebrated for a version of yourself that is no longer sustainable.
00:06:42.000 --> 00:07:00.879
This is especially true for women, for caregivers, for leaders, administry, for educators, for administrators, for founders, for anyone whose work involves both responsibility and emotional labor.
00:07:01.519 --> 00:07:03.439
You learn to read the room.
00:07:03.680 --> 00:07:07.040
You learn to anticipate needs before they are spoken.
00:07:07.199 --> 00:07:17.680
You learn to stabilize tension, solve problems before they become visible, and carry what no one assigned, but everyone benefits from.
00:07:18.560 --> 00:07:23.439
And because you do it, people assume you should.
00:07:24.480 --> 00:07:30.879
But here's the thing: capacity is not consent.
00:07:31.839 --> 00:07:37.439
Just because you can carry something does not mean it belongs to you.
00:07:37.759 --> 00:07:47.040
This is one of the reasons I wrote I Am Not Your Mammy, care expectation, and invisible labor, and the soon-to-be released companion book.
00:07:47.199 --> 00:08:05.360
I didn't sign up for this because many leaders, and particularly women, have been formed inside systems that taught them to confuse care with obligation, competence with availability, and responsibility with self-erasure.
00:08:05.680 --> 00:08:08.240
Formation interrupts that pattern.
00:08:08.480 --> 00:08:22.879
It teaches you to ask whether this is yours to carry, what it is costing you, and what kind of person you are becoming by continuing to carry it this way.
00:08:24.560 --> 00:08:28.639
Those are not easy questions, but they are necessary ones.
00:08:29.519 --> 00:08:35.200
There is a danger in ungoverned strength.
00:08:36.559 --> 00:08:42.720
One of the greatest dangers of a gifted leader is ungoverned strength.
00:08:42.960 --> 00:08:53.120
Strength without discernment, capacity without boundaries, excellence without recovery, availability without wisdom.
00:08:53.759 --> 00:08:58.320
Ungoverned strength often looks admirable at first.
00:08:58.799 --> 00:09:04.720
Organizations will use it, communities will depend on it, families may normalize it.
00:09:05.039 --> 00:09:10.080
Over time, however, ungoverned strength becomes expensive.
00:09:10.399 --> 00:09:17.600
It costs clarity, health, creativity, and the ability to tell the truth without guilt.
00:09:18.799 --> 00:09:26.480
It costs your capacity to rest without anxiety and to lead without resentment.
00:09:27.039 --> 00:09:30.559
Formation does not destroy strength.
00:09:30.879 --> 00:09:34.320
Formation governs strength.
00:09:34.639 --> 00:09:36.720
That distinction is important.
00:09:37.679 --> 00:09:45.919
Formation is not asking you to become smaller, to stop caring, or to abandon responsibility.
00:09:46.240 --> 00:09:46.559
No.
00:09:47.519 --> 00:10:03.679
It is asking your strength to come under wisdom because strength that is not governed will eventually become a site of extraction rather than a source of genuine authority.
00:10:05.360 --> 00:10:10.399
Governed strength knows when to say yes and means it.
00:10:10.720 --> 00:10:15.279
It knows when to say no and does not apologize for it.
00:10:15.440 --> 00:10:19.519
It leads from a place of formation rather than obligation.
00:10:19.840 --> 00:10:24.240
That is the leader formation is building.
00:10:24.639 --> 00:10:29.360
Not a small leader, but a more coherent one.
00:10:30.399 --> 00:10:33.600
Let's now consider a formation practice for the week.
00:10:33.759 --> 00:10:34.879
Three questions.
00:10:35.120 --> 00:10:38.080
Write them down and answer them honestly.
00:10:38.320 --> 00:10:45.039
Not as the version of yourself trying to impress anyone, but as the person who wants to become whole.
00:10:45.360 --> 00:10:52.879
First, where am I performing well but not being formed well?
00:10:54.639 --> 00:11:02.960
Second, what responsibility am I carrying that receives praise but lacks proper support?
00:11:03.759 --> 00:11:13.679
Third, what would it look like to govern my strength this week instead of simply sending it or spending it?
00:11:14.639 --> 00:11:17.679
Sit with those questions, let them do their work.
00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:30.639
Formation begins not with pretending, not with performing, not with approving, but with truthful attention to what is actually happening in you.
00:11:31.840 --> 00:11:34.720
Formation is not performance.
00:11:35.279 --> 00:11:38.720
Performance may show what you can do.
00:11:46.320 --> 00:12:01.440
If you are carrying responsibility in this season, remember this: you are not only accountable for what you produce, you are also responsible for how you are being formed by what you carry.
00:12:01.759 --> 00:12:03.600
That is the deeper work.
00:12:04.480 --> 00:12:06.639
That is the practice.
00:12:08.559 --> 00:12:20.240
If this episode gave language to something you have been feeling but had not yet named, share it with someone who is carrying more than they can say out loud.
00:12:20.720 --> 00:12:23.679
Search for the formation practice with Dr.
00:12:23.919 --> 00:12:28.000
Ella Thompson on all major podcast platforms.
00:12:28.240 --> 00:12:30.879
Subscribe and come back next week.
00:12:31.120 --> 00:12:34.080
Follow me on social media as well.
00:12:35.519 --> 00:12:36.559
My name is Dr.
00:12:36.720 --> 00:12:37.919
Ella Thompson.
00:12:38.240 --> 00:12:41.039
This is the Formation Practice.
00:12:41.519 --> 00:12:50.000
This week, do not only ask what you accomplished, ask who you are becoming.
00:12:50.879 --> 00:12:52.639
And I will meet you then.
00:00:00.959 --> 00:00:03.759
Welcome to the Formation Practice.
00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:04.719
I am Dr.
00:00:04.879 --> 00:00:06.080
Ella Thompson.
00:00:06.480 --> 00:00:10.560
In episode one, I told you why I am here.
00:00:10.960 --> 00:00:17.920
I introduced this space as something quieter and more demanding than a traditional leadership podcast.
00:00:18.239 --> 00:00:26.879
Not a place where we talk about success, productivity, or visibility, but a place where we ask a deeper question.
00:00:27.760 --> 00:00:32.560
Who are you becoming while you are carrying what you carry?
00:00:33.119 --> 00:00:42.159
That question matters because many leaders are succeeding externally while quietly fragmenting internally.
00:00:42.479 --> 00:00:45.439
They are producing, performing, and showing up.
00:00:45.679 --> 00:00:56.399
They are meeting deadlines, carrying teams, sustaining institutions, and holding more than anyone around them fully understands.
00:00:57.119 --> 00:01:01.840
But beneath the visible competence, something else is happening.
00:01:02.079 --> 00:01:05.920
They are tired in a way that sleep does not fix.
00:01:06.159 --> 00:01:12.879
They are praised for strength while privately resenting what strength has cost them.
00:01:13.920 --> 00:01:24.560
They are effective but not whole, visible but not grounded, performing leadership without being formed by the responsibility they carry.
00:01:26.400 --> 00:01:30.159
So today I want to begin with a foundational distinction.
00:01:33.120 --> 00:01:37.040
Formation is not performance.
00:01:37.280 --> 00:01:48.560
And until we understand that difference, we will keep making the mistake of thinking of output as growth.
00:01:48.959 --> 00:01:52.719
Let's talk about what this performance trap is.
00:01:53.439 --> 00:01:57.599
Performance is concerned with what can be seen.
00:01:57.920 --> 00:02:07.920
It asks how you did, what you produced, how much you accomplished, and how impressive it looked from the outside.
00:02:08.159 --> 00:02:11.280
Performance is not inherently wrong.
00:02:11.599 --> 00:02:14.080
Leaders have responsibilities.
00:02:14.400 --> 00:02:16.000
Work must be done.
00:02:16.319 --> 00:02:23.199
Sermons must be preached, meetings must be led, classes must be taught, decisions must be made.
00:02:23.520 --> 00:02:29.759
The problem is not performance and that it exists.
00:02:30.240 --> 00:02:36.879
The problem is when performance becomes the measure of your formation.
00:02:37.919 --> 00:02:41.120
Because you can perform well and remain unhealed.
00:02:41.280 --> 00:02:45.520
You can be articulate and still be unexamined.
00:02:45.759 --> 00:02:48.800
You can be productive and still be misaligned.
00:02:49.039 --> 00:02:55.360
You can be celebrated publicly while privately living in depletion.
00:02:57.199 --> 00:03:02.000
That is why performance alone is a poor witness to formation.
00:03:02.400 --> 00:03:06.240
Performance shows what you can produce under pressure.
00:03:07.360 --> 00:03:12.080
Formation reveals what pressure is producing in you.
00:03:12.319 --> 00:03:14.000
Those are not the same thing.
00:03:14.319 --> 00:03:20.560
Formation is slower than performance and it asks different questions.
00:03:21.439 --> 00:03:24.000
Performance asks whether it worked.
00:03:24.319 --> 00:03:27.759
Formation asks what it required.
00:03:28.159 --> 00:03:31.680
Performance asks whether they approved.
00:03:36.479 --> 00:03:39.599
Performance asks whether you produced more.
00:03:44.879 --> 00:03:54.240
Whether your calling, your capacity, and your cost are still living in alignment with one another rather than in silent contradiction.
00:03:55.039 --> 00:03:59.360
Your calling is what you have been built and positioned to do.
00:03:59.680 --> 00:04:06.400
Your capacity is the energy, health, and resources you have available to sustain it.
00:04:06.800 --> 00:04:12.560
Your cost is what doing it is requiring of you.
00:04:13.680 --> 00:04:18.879
When those three are in alignment, you lead from wholeness.
00:04:19.120 --> 00:04:24.560
When they are not, you eventually feel it.
00:04:24.800 --> 00:04:35.920
Not always as collapse, but as resentment, numbness, or the quiet loss of joy in work that once felt like purpose.
00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:40.240
Many leaders are not struggling because they lack talent.
00:04:40.639 --> 00:04:44.959
They are struggling because their lives have become incoherent.
00:04:45.439 --> 00:04:51.680
Their calling is large, but their capacity is underprotected.
00:04:51.920 --> 00:04:56.639
Their responsibilities are real, but the costs go unnamed.
00:04:56.800 --> 00:05:01.600
Their gifts are visible, but their recovery is low.
00:05:01.920 --> 00:05:10.639
And eventually, what is misaligned internally begins to surface externally.
00:05:11.759 --> 00:05:20.160
That is why formation must be practiced, not admired, not quoted, not performed, practiced.
00:05:20.560 --> 00:05:28.000
It is the slow intentional work of allowing responsibility to refine rather than to deplete you.
00:05:28.160 --> 00:05:43.439
It is the development of your character, your judgment, your restraint, your discernment, and your capacity to tell the truth about what something is costing you before the cost becomes a crisis.
00:05:45.279 --> 00:05:53.439
So let's talk about why high capacity people confuse performance with formation.
00:05:55.360 --> 00:06:05.600
High capacity people are especially vulnerable to this confusion because when you are capable, people reward you for carrying more.
00:06:06.560 --> 00:06:16.160
They call you dependable, they call you gifted, they call you strong, they call you excellent, they call you the one who always gets it done.
00:06:16.399 --> 00:06:27.040
And sometimes those words are true, but praise becomes dangerous when it conceals the cost of what is being carried.
00:06:27.439 --> 00:06:41.279
You can be praised into depletion, you can be affirmed into overextension, you can be celebrated for a version of yourself that is no longer sustainable.
00:06:42.000 --> 00:07:00.879
This is especially true for women, for caregivers, for leaders, administry, for educators, for administrators, for founders, for anyone whose work involves both responsibility and emotional labor.
00:07:01.519 --> 00:07:03.439
You learn to read the room.
00:07:03.680 --> 00:07:07.040
You learn to anticipate needs before they are spoken.
00:07:07.199 --> 00:07:17.680
You learn to stabilize tension, solve problems before they become visible, and carry what no one assigned, but everyone benefits from.
00:07:18.560 --> 00:07:23.439
And because you do it, people assume you should.
00:07:24.480 --> 00:07:30.879
But here's the thing: capacity is not consent.
00:07:31.839 --> 00:07:37.439
Just because you can carry something does not mean it belongs to you.
00:07:37.759 --> 00:07:47.040
This is one of the reasons I wrote I Am Not Your Mammy, care expectation, and invisible labor, and the soon-to-be released companion book.
00:07:47.199 --> 00:08:05.360
I didn't sign up for this because many leaders, and particularly women, have been formed inside systems that taught them to confuse care with obligation, competence with availability, and responsibility with self-erasure.
00:08:05.680 --> 00:08:08.240
Formation interrupts that pattern.
00:08:08.480 --> 00:08:22.879
It teaches you to ask whether this is yours to carry, what it is costing you, and what kind of person you are becoming by continuing to carry it this way.
00:08:24.560 --> 00:08:28.639
Those are not easy questions, but they are necessary ones.
00:08:29.519 --> 00:08:35.200
There is a danger in ungoverned strength.
00:08:36.559 --> 00:08:42.720
One of the greatest dangers of a gifted leader is ungoverned strength.
00:08:42.960 --> 00:08:53.120
Strength without discernment, capacity without boundaries, excellence without recovery, availability without wisdom.
00:08:53.759 --> 00:08:58.320
Ungoverned strength often looks admirable at first.
00:08:58.799 --> 00:09:04.720
Organizations will use it, communities will depend on it, families may normalize it.
00:09:05.039 --> 00:09:10.080
Over time, however, ungoverned strength becomes expensive.
00:09:10.399 --> 00:09:17.600
It costs clarity, health, creativity, and the ability to tell the truth without guilt.
00:09:18.799 --> 00:09:26.480
It costs your capacity to rest without anxiety and to lead without resentment.
00:09:27.039 --> 00:09:30.559
Formation does not destroy strength.
00:09:30.879 --> 00:09:34.320
Formation governs strength.
00:09:34.639 --> 00:09:36.720
That distinction is important.
00:09:37.679 --> 00:09:45.919
Formation is not asking you to become smaller, to stop caring, or to abandon responsibility.
00:09:46.240 --> 00:09:46.559
No.
00:09:47.519 --> 00:10:03.679
It is asking your strength to come under wisdom because strength that is not governed will eventually become a site of extraction rather than a source of genuine authority.
00:10:05.360 --> 00:10:10.399
Governed strength knows when to say yes and means it.
00:10:10.720 --> 00:10:15.279
It knows when to say no and does not apologize for it.
00:10:15.440 --> 00:10:19.519
It leads from a place of formation rather than obligation.
00:10:19.840 --> 00:10:24.240
That is the leader formation is building.
00:10:24.639 --> 00:10:29.360
Not a small leader, but a more coherent one.
00:10:30.399 --> 00:10:33.600
Let's now consider a formation practice for the week.
00:10:33.759 --> 00:10:34.879
Three questions.
00:10:35.120 --> 00:10:38.080
Write them down and answer them honestly.
00:10:38.320 --> 00:10:45.039
Not as the version of yourself trying to impress anyone, but as the person who wants to become whole.
00:10:45.360 --> 00:10:52.879
First, where am I performing well but not being formed well?
00:10:54.639 --> 00:11:02.960
Second, what responsibility am I carrying that receives praise but lacks proper support?
00:11:03.759 --> 00:11:13.679
Third, what would it look like to govern my strength this week instead of simply sending it or spending it?
00:11:14.639 --> 00:11:17.679
Sit with those questions, let them do their work.
00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:30.639
Formation begins not with pretending, not with performing, not with approving, but with truthful attention to what is actually happening in you.
00:11:31.840 --> 00:11:34.720
Formation is not performance.
00:11:35.279 --> 00:11:38.720
Performance may show what you can do.
00:11:46.320 --> 00:12:01.440
If you are carrying responsibility in this season, remember this: you are not only accountable for what you produce, you are also responsible for how you are being formed by what you carry.
00:12:01.759 --> 00:12:03.600
That is the deeper work.
00:12:04.480 --> 00:12:06.639
That is the practice.
00:12:08.559 --> 00:12:20.240
If this episode gave language to something you have been feeling but had not yet named, share it with someone who is carrying more than they can say out loud.
00:12:20.720 --> 00:12:23.679
Search for the formation practice with Dr.
00:12:23.919 --> 00:12:28.000
Ella Thompson on all major podcast platforms.
00:12:28.240 --> 00:12:30.879
Subscribe and come back next week.
00:12:31.120 --> 00:12:34.080
Follow me on social media as well.
00:12:35.519 --> 00:12:36.559
My name is Dr.
00:12:36.720 --> 00:12:37.919
Ella Thompson.
00:12:38.240 --> 00:12:41.039
This is the Formation Practice.
00:12:41.519 --> 00:12:50.000
This week, do not only ask what you accomplished, ask who you are becoming.
00:12:50.879 --> 00:12:52.639
And I will meet you then.
