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The Balance of Being and Doing with Tutti Taygerly

Refractive Podcast The Balance of Being and Doing with Tutti Taygerly
Refractive
The Balance of Being and Doing with Tutti Taygerly
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Host Johnny G explores the balance of being and doing with Tutti Taygerly. For over 20 years, Tutti managed a fast-paced and intense career leading design initiatives for startups, creative firms, and huge companies like Disney and Facebook. Today she is an author, a leadership coach, a proud mom, and a passionate surfer. She shares lessons about establishing balance between doing (executing plans, reaching goals, and building an exciting life) and being (bringing intentionality and mindfulness into all our experiences- even the stressful ones). Tutti explores what it means to meditate while on the go and offers an easy-to-use framework for evaluating the balance of doing and being in your life.

Find more information about Tutti at TuttiTaygerly.com, and find her book Make Space to Lead by clicking here.

To book host Johnny Guidry for speaking, facilitation, or coaching, visit RefractiveCoaching.com.

For similarly themed episodes, try Surrender to Greatness, Owning the Turbulence with Jodi Akst, and Learning to Use Intuition.

Automatic transcript follows below; please excuse any misinterpretations by the transcription software.

 Hello, everyone, and welcome to another  episode of Refractive, I’m Johnny G. Today  I’m introducing you to Tutti Taygerly and she’s an executive leadership  coach and professional speaker. She supports CEOs and tech leaders to embrace their unique leadership style  to achieve professional impact. She’s spent  years  as a design leader at design firms, startups and large companies,  including Disney and Facebook. Before taking this turn  to supporting others on their path, she grew up in seven countries  on three continents. But now she settled in San Francisco  as a home base. She spends time  parenting two spirited girls. She obsessively reads,  and she looks forward to paddling out  for whatever the next wave brings. So Tutti welcome to Refractive.  I’m so happy to have you with us.  Thank you so much, Johnny.  And it’s always, I’d say,  like a little bit glowy and embarrassing at the same time to hear  people say lovely things about yourself. But that’s kind of the nature of the stuff  we deal with, right? It’s like the mixture of emotions  all together. Exactly?  Well, if it makes it any easier for you,  since all is really one, you can just pretend  I said it about myself. So. All right, I’m going to do that.  I’m going to picture, Yeah, I’m  going to picture you with all of that. That works, Johnny.  So everybody today  we’re talking about learning how to shift from doing to being. And, you know, if you’re a regular  listener of the show, this is a topic that harmonizes  with a lot of other episodes. And so this is something  that has been a passion for Tutti’s. She really focuses in her work  with other leaders to help them find a comfort zone in this  so that they can transform how they behave in the world so that the world responds  in a more lovely way to them. And so I thought that  this was going to be an amazing topic  for us to bring to the listeners today. It’s certainly something that’s applicable  across the board. And I wonder, Tutti, as we kick off this topic. What is the framework that you see for listeners as we kind of shift our mind into changing a pattern from doing to being? What does that even involve  at the most basic level? Yeah, I think that  as many of your listeners probably already know, a lot of this is observing yourself  and looking at, well, at patterns and behaviors and beliefs  you fall, you fall into. And one thing that I noticed  when I was listening to you is that for me and for many of the really high paced,  high achieving executives, startup founders,  all these people in tech in Silicon Valley trying to create better futures,  sometimes good, sometimes bad. I did work for Facebook, so I know that  there’s unintended consequences. But in this world and from my life. Many of us are so into do do do do do. Yeah.  What ran down your to do list?  Run to the meeting.  Next meeting in your calendar? And then from a corporate perspective,  getting these goals met milestones, lunches, releases  every what is it? three months, six months, every year. So when I talk about shifting  from doing to being, I think it depends where you already are.  Most of my clients and myself,  we are these perpetual motion machines, kind of like a claiming busyness  is this badge of honor. You know, how are you?  How are you?  Oh, I’m too busy.  I’m really busy. I’m swamped. How many times have people been familiar  with that, especially during  just the business of holidays? Right?  But other people, it might be shifting  from being to doing so. I think the framework is really knowing  where you are in this. Are you are  you able to pause and pay attention to heart? spirit? Or are you in this world of mind? And so much of our world really rewards  being so much of our modern world really rewards  being in the mind and the doing. So I think the framework of it  is wherever you are. Is this where you want to be and  how might you shift into different modes? So you know what?  You just said something  that has it’s so central to learning how to go inside  and listen to your highest knowing. But it’s something that I feel. People might not be exposed to until a bit further on  into their into their journeys. You said being in their minds,  being in the doing. And so I think to the casual person who’s maybe just  tuning in to this type of messaging,  like, wait, but going into my mind is not doing going into  my mind is the opposite of doing. I wonder if you could kind of shed  some light on your perspective on how going into your mind  is actually more doing than being. Oh, I love it. I love that catch.  Thank you, Johnny. So.  I’m going to use the framing  and context of the corporate world of tech, which is the one that I’m  very, very familiar with. And you know what, I’m even going to go  even further back into like the educational system  because I have kids in elementary and middle school when most of the time  when we’re going through school, we are using our minds to hit  the particular standards and success criteria  that someone else has set up for us. It’s kind of like,  All right, what do I do in school?  OK, I need to study.  I need to, I don’t know, memorize all the  state capitals in the United States. Whatever it is, I just need to think,  process, use, logic, use reason and doing  that will help me hit that test score, make that grade  get into that best university. And then similarly, in in the world  of in the corporate world, I was used to, it was really about looking  very rigorously at all the data in front of you  and using your mind and logic and arguments to be like,  All right, what do I do with that data? If this happens,  then that and very much like, all right, we’re going to make our decisions  based on logic and rational thinking and minds. So I would thank you so much for that,  for that call out because I can realize  that sounds a little bit confusing. And I might have confused your listeners  even more, actually. But, you know,  but I think that this we’re talking about  like next level awareness, right? Awareness  that when your mind takes over,  when you know, when one of my first spiritual coaches,  she called it the monkey mind, right? So when the monkey mind takes over  like you’re not, you’re not in your center of being right,  you’re you’re. And this is why so many people resist  developing a meditation practice because inevitably  you sit down in a quiet place. You put great effort  into creating a peaceful environment and and you’re all comfortable.  You sit down and it’s like, Oh my God,  I forgot such and such at the supermarket. Oh my gosh, I promised someone I was going to reach out and I never answered it. Oh my goodness, what happened here?  And you know what would be  a really good idea for my next podcast episode, you know, and the mind  kind of like flows in this way. And it’s like,  Ah, I tried so hard to be in in this meditation process,  and I can’t stop my thoughts. So you know what this is? I just can’t meditate.  I can’t do it.  I’m not going to do it anymore.  I’m going to have to find something else.  And that’s it.  And so it’s frustrating  when you get caught up in the prison of the monkey mind without. I don’t know without  maybe learning a helpful system to welcome the monkey mind and and still find a way to be in the being in your fields, in working with tech, working with startups  where you know you’re working  hours a day around the clock to get  like these new systems up and running. How do you balance that chattering mind with the need to go inside  and find serenity? Yeah, I love that  you bring up monkey mind.  That’s like the best analogy  to kind of nail it for for your listeners, then that’s perfect.  It’s just a really great way to know that  when you try to meditate, there are just  all these crazy thoughts going. So this might be a little bit next level,  but most of the people that I work with, their minds are so brilliant. Mm-Hmm.  They are like this super focused high  achievers. Their minds work wonders and miracles. Yeah.  And what they’ve been used to doing for  most of their careers is using these brilliant, brilliant minds to solve the next big thing,  the next big possibility. That’s what they do for these long hours,  like maybe up to  hours a day, and they might have been doing this  for months and years in their life. And that is like a wonderful,  single-minded focus and why I  why I alluded to kind of this mind. Being part of the doing is that it’s  almost like an overall exercise muscle. When you try it,  you get really, really good at it because that’s the system  that we are in to develop our minds. That’s what we do in school  that, you know, that’s what we do at work and what gets really hard for the for for the people I work with  is to stop and yell into the emotions, the relationships, the fact that you can’t  work completely alone. Yes, there may be a couple of examples  of lone geniuses, but I think the work that we do now in  our world is too complex. It’s impossible to do it all alone.  So there comes a point in time  where even with this single minded big, brilliant mind and focus, many people  reach a ceiling knowing that, all right, something’s stopping me.  I can’t.  I can’t get the stuff that I want  to get done. The people around me aren’t doing what  I want them to do, and that often times is is the first trigger point  for when people seek out. Wait, let me find,  is there a different way? Mm-Hmm.  That is typically when they’ll seek out  a coach, when they’ll look for a path and they’ll be like, Wait,  I’m hitting the limitations of my mind. You know,  I keep doing all this stuff,  but yet I can’t break through in this iterative process. What is it? What’s another way to help me is that help a little bit, whether with that example. Do you have your own personal meditation practice or have you found a different  kind of way to harness being? So a couple of different ways for me  personally, the loving kindness meditation  works best for me. Like, I think that for me, this  this background of being silence can be terrifying.  With this background of doing that  is silence can be terrifying. Yes. To me,  it really helps to have a series of words, a series of mantras to help  be little prompts to say, All right. You know, if I’m thinking of someone,  a loved person, a loved one and really wishing them  happiness and peace and, you know, ease and content  and kindness to themselves. It helps focus a little bit  this sense of meditation. So that works really well for me,  and I found that to be a really good entry way  into into meditation for various people. Yeah, absolutely.  And you know, I started meditating regularly for the first time, maybe three years ago,  and I started using an app. So this was back in the day.  Let me see if you remember this, too.  So back in the day,  you would go to Starbucks, and every every week  there was a new little card that they would put out,  and it was either the song of the week or the app of the week,  and you got something for free. Right.  And so many of the apps I never use on  my iPhone came from those things, but I. Love it.  one of the things that that  that was amazing. It was this app called Meditation Studio. And when I downloaded it  and I looked at it, I saw that  there were all of these guided meditations that were as short as two or three minutes and went as long as, like  minutes. And they were organized by topic. And I just, I don’t know.  I just I found the idea of like a five or eight minute meditation  on a topic that felt right to me. I found it a safe way  to start this journey, and I wasn’t  intending to start this journey. Like it wasn’t like I was like,  OK, I need to learn how to meditate. Let me figure this out.  It was just this app,  this beautiful piece of assistance I got from the universe  that was like, Hey, why don’t you consider  meditating for the first time? And it made it a safer space for me. And after doing guided meditations,  eventually I became curious about, Well, what would it be  like to meditate in silence? And, you know, still, to this day, even though I’ve dedicated  a lot of focus to it, I’ve gone for two weeks stays in Buddhist retreats  where you know your entire focus is on kind of being in the moment  and and quieting the noise. Even today, I still. I still have not  reprogramed the monkey mind, I hear from others that eventually over  time, like you said, the muscle develops and your mind  which never stops chattering, but it becomes less chatty over time.  It becomes less of a of a of a  of a automatic reflex through training it  through going into the silence. So there’s so many ways to kind of dig  into moving, from doing into being and whether it’s guided meditation,  whether it’s going out, walking on trails or walking in your city’s  green space or whatever, the case is . So many ways to do that.  And so what has  how do you what does it look like  when you’re shifting into the being and out of the doing? Yeah. Nah, I’m gonna. Can I actually circle back  to another point from the floor before I come back to this to this  this shifting question  because I think they’re related. Many of us, you know,  have this vision that like, you’re either a meditator  or you’re not right, are you someone who can actually sit in silence  and get to like the completely quiet mind?  And, you know, do you have this huge shift  from doing to being, I don’t think that  that’s actually the case. You know, one of my  when my biggest teacher is Shirzad Shameen was the first one who actually said to me  that, Hey, you can.  You can silence your mind  in a two minute meeting,  even in a two minute session, even while you’re in the meeting,  even while you’re interacting with people. It’s more about focusing on your body  and your senses. It’s more than just breathing.  It can be something that you do  with your eyes open to really notice a vivid, a vivid color  to really listen to someone’s voice, to really listen to,  like the timber of the voice of someone else  that you’re working with or talking to. And this can happen in in a millisecond. You know, this can happen  like in a millisecond where you just. zone in  and focus on, let’s say,  the energy of our conversation together. And for me, this was transformational  because you didn’t need  minutes a day or  minutes a day,  you didn’t need this complete perfect meditation mat and cushion in this special altar place for it. Don’t get me wrong, like I have those and those are beautiful times  when you can completely devote to it. But all of these can be integrated  into your regular, into your regular day. Yeah, it can be,  you know, taking a couple of minutes, maybe in while we’re on Zoom now,  but most of the time. But if you’re in the office  before a big meeting, stepping into the bathroom or five minutes and sitting there breathing and grounding  and kind of being and kind of finding that intention for how you want to be in  the next meeting has the doing. Most of my clients, they have the agenda,  they have the presentation, they have the talking points,  they have all that. They know how to do all that.  I help them really center  before the meeting with the intention, all thinking about  how do they want to feel in the meeting ? How do they want to be in the meeting?  And at the end of the meeting,  what do they want everyone else to walk away with?  Yeah, because I think that the reality is. What human beings are still forgetful,  not forget they the content, what we talked about, but it’s the feeling that people  will remember and walk away from. And that’s the layer of being that I think  is often often forgotten amidst  the busyness of getting everything done. I hear you talking about kind of living  intentionally like that’s that’s what I hear  beneath the surface of what you’re saying as you help people kind of say,  what do you want people to walk away  with after this conversation, you know? And that’s a super powerful place  to start from. And I wonder, like what led you to this? I don’t know.  This idea that living by intention  is how you tap into power and. Well, the story that I think  is kind of funny about this because I used to be a designer for many,  many years and there’s many design skill and for digital products,  so there’s many design skills, which is,  you know, what is like color theory, what is hierarchy,  what are the interactions and use cases? You want people there to go there,  you know, even in that Starbucks example, someone sat there, hopefully a design  or some sort of people and said, Hey, you know, how do we get people  to spend more time in our stores? How do we get people to keep coming back?  And so I came up with the idea, Let’s  do you know what it was that music of love Song of the Day, Song of the Week  or App of the Day, App of the week. And then there was probably  some type of execution. How do we make this happen  and how does light your phone know this had  what happens when people open the app? But the number one superpower  I learned of products and experiences that became successful  and really like touched people’s hearts and got people to use  it was intentionality. Yes. The question  we would ask them, all the designers and  the people on my teams would be all right. You know, let’s say you have a feature,  a product idea. What’s your intention?  How people interact with the product,  how they feel afterwards. What’s your intention like? Is it?  It’s surely not your first example, which is to have an iPhone  littered with useless apps. But what if? Starbucks happened to introduce you  to one transformative life changing out because they just  provided options for you. Yeah,  so I’ve always known about intentionality in my my first career,  in my professional life because like, that’s where  some of the magic in the sizzle happens  when you really hit that moment like, wow, bam, I actually hit it with the intention behind a product. And it was only probably about maybe two or three years ago  that I realized that this same intentionality  that I poured my heart and set into making products  that so many people in Silicon Valley pour into making light,  beautiful products and experiences. That intentionality is often so wasted  because we don’t point it at ourselves. Yeah, we don’t pointed out,  how do we want to be the next meeting? How do I want to be today?  How do I want to be in the next month  or in ? And so that for me was  a little bit of the magical bridge  that, like many of us, have these skills. We can pour them into aspects of our work. How do we do it for ourselves? Yes.  Well, this is a this is a really powerful  point that you bring up, and I want to I want to go back  and actually repeat it because I really  want to bring focus to it. Let’s  see if I can paraphrase what you said it was that  this intentionality can be wasted  if we don’t learn to also apply it to ourselves. Is that what you said?  Yeah, and that’s beautiful.  Yeah, wow. That’s really amazing. And you know, I look at… Yeah, I just look at… And listen- All roads lead to Rome,  every path is perfect. This is something that I believe  every path is perfect, even when my path leads me to prison, or even when my path leads me to create  great pain in the life of another person. You know, I truly believe in. I truly believe that every path brings us what we need to be able  to grow into our highest and best self. And so but I can  also, in a loving way,  look back at the years I spent desperately treading water  to keep my nose up, you know, above the water level,  desperately struggling just to feel Minimally appropriate, right, just to feel minimally acceptable  in the world and and- It’s so amazing that I can look back  now, and it’s almost like looking at a small animal in a cage  who is like desperately trying to ensure its survival  when in reality I’m going to feed it all the time, like I’m  taking care of it, right?  Like, it doesn’t need to struggle. It doesn’t need to sit in anxiety  to get its needs met. I’m going to take care of it, like I’m  going to make sure it has every need met. And I’m like, that little animal  in the cage that is like, Oh my goodness,  I need to lay out the perfect plan I need to surround myself  with with just the right people. I need to have this level of income.  I need to have this level of prestige  in my life. And if I do these  things, maybe, maybe, maybe with a little luck, I can glimpse the face of happiness  for a few months. And in reality, I don’t need any of that because I am a spark of the creator. I am my birthright, my birthright. What I was born for is to be amazing. Like, I don’t need to work to be mediocre. I already am amazing. It’s like I’m Superman dressing up  like Clark Kent trying to be average, but I’m Superman. I don’t need to like  why I try to be average. I’m amazing  and I’m not amazing because I’m Johnny G. I’m amazing because that’s  what I was born into in this world. And it’s just the idea of letting  go of these trappings. Letting go of these concepts  that act as limits and stepping into the light of like of my greatness,  stepping into the light of your greatness and like just realizing  the power that is in. Being on this planet. Yeah. Absolutely.  And I would also I completely agree  with everything that you’re saying,  Johnny, and I would also say that. The stuff around us that you kind of gave us examples making a certain income,  you know, having certain things,  getting a promotion, getting a title had actually argue  that they’re they’re necessary. They’re essentially pieces  of feedback to us that the way  we’re showing up in the world, whether at work, whether  with relationships, that it’s working. Yeah, yeah.  Because otherwise, you know,  it is a little bit insular. This sit there  in, you know, in in your own light without getting that feedback in the loops  from the outside world. And some of us, I know many,  many people who can feel bad because they worry that  craving that feedback from  the outside world can mean that they’re selfish, that they’re materialistic,  that they’re focused on the wrong thing by kind of go  back. It’s really that balance. It’s that balance, both between the being  and the doing. It is knowing  your own confidence, your own strengths,  your own light, your own brilliance. I mean, you know, you got  what can you do but look at like,  you know, a three or four year olds, you know, like how completely happy  and confident they are with themselves. Right? Yes.  But we exist within the world. We exist within systems. Yes. And as we,  you and I first started talking about, it’s it’s the support and service  we bring into the world. Yeah.  Those other the other trappings, the  you know, the money,  the promotions, the titles there, whatever it is that we’re looking to ,  as are our goals and external validation. I argue they have a big point  and they have a big part to play in this as well because we are in service  to the world and others and it kind of pulls back,  which I love to  this little balance of being versus doing. I think in each particular moment in time, point in your voice,  it point in your life.  You might be more tips  to one versus another. And I know for me, for much of my life  and most of the people that I serve and work with, the tip is %,  almost like % towards the doing. And it’s  never I think it’s never going to be /. Or it might be for for a second,  for a moment, for five minutes. Yeah, but I don’t think it’s  about achieving that perfect balance. It’s about realizing what the context is  for where you are at this particular point in time and dancing and playing with it  and not getting stuck %. Yeah, in the doing. Yeah.  And that’s really insightful.  You know, I tend to, you know, I tend to like, fall into, let’s say, concepts  when I’m when I’m in an episode and as concepts like I bat for the  I bat for the outfield, right? Like, I’m hitting as hard as I can to go  as far into the concept as I can. And you know,  there are people who are able to kind  of separate themselves from the world and focus on inward development  and let go of all attachment. And there are people like that  in the world.  There’s there’s there’s a few people,  but you know, that’s not what most lives  look like today on this planet. Most lives  look like finding that that balance. Go ahead. What were you going to say?  I was going to say I would, and I’m  a bit of a challenger, but I would say, you have that when you go to your two week  Buddhist retreat. Many of us have that, you know, when  we take like a day to do this or a week to do this when our single minded focus  is self-development learning . So probably not for  days of our life,  but I think we can all attain that. Sorry to interrupt you. Or at least.  I love that,  because here’s here’s the thing, right? We talked about intentionality  a few minutes ago and that the key for me to this, it’s  not how perfectly you release attachment to the,  you know, conditions of the world. Like, that’s not what’s key.  What’s key is my motivations, what what drives  my desire to do this right? Because it doesn’t matter,  even if I were to dedicate my entire life to, let’s say, soul growth. If I’m doing it out of a feeling of insecurity, like if I don’t do this,  then I’m not a good person. If I don’t do this,  then I’m not a good soul. If I don’t do this, then I’m not.  I’m not, you know, meeting the standards  I’ve set. Well,  then maybe you might as well go work. You might as well go work as a startup  and grind your head against the wheel because it’s the same thing.  It’s the motivations is your  is your is your effort in your job  to work – hours a day out of love? Or is it out of fear if it’s out of love? Work as hard as you can give  everything you can to. You have- Have nothing left, because it it  it it’s about it’s about that, it’s about that intentionality. It’s about that intentionality.  If I’m going to renounce the world  and live as a hermit to focus on my soul  growth out of fear. I’m missing the boat.  I’m missing the whole point of this.  If I’m doing it out of love, it’s that  what my loving guidance tells me to do. Great  if I’m going to go open a community center to help underserved youth  and I’m doing it all out of fear. Yeah. Other people might be helped,  but for my own soul growth,  I’m missing the point. So am I doing out of love  or am I doing out of fear? Am I trying to be be out of love? Or am I trying to be out of fear? And if I can answer that in an honest,  clear way, they’re there. My cell has been unlocked  and I walk into freedom. That’s what I believe.  Absolutely. Absolutely.  I completely agree with you.  And one bridge  that I sometimes talk to people about because some people may be like,  What does it mean  to be doing this out of love?  I don’t know what this means. What does it mean to be doing out of fear?  I’m always fearful. I’m always anxious.  When I when bridge to that  that I have to talk to people about is to to monitor your own energy. Now, as you’re going through the day  thinking about your past day, your past week, what were the moments  where you had the most energy? And I’m using the term energy  because I can mean different things  to different people, to an introvert. That energy might be a sense of inward  quiet contentment with someone else. It might be like the excitement  to someone else. It it, it might be pure joy. So what I look at is- track your energy. And you know what your baseline is. Nobody else does.  You know someone else like everyone’s  baseline is different. So look at your energy at work.  Look at where time time disappears because you’re in a sense of flow  and fun. Yes. And find those moments and figure out  how you can do more of it to your example. I know many people who can work  – hour days and they can go for months, sometimes  even years, because this energy is there. This joy, this this service,  this being in doing this from love, not not fear this this nourishment there. And then at some point in time,  it may switch.  So a lot of it is watching that,  that energy level. Oh, see, OK.  So I didn’t even expect  to go into this area, but I love it. I love that the conversation led here  that nothing is forever. Nothing is forever.  This, too, shall pass.  And when we say this, too shall pass.  It’s like the good stuff passes  and the bad stuff passes. And so it may be perfectly appropriate that this piece of living  that may have been intense, that may have been the norm for weeks,  months or years, that is perfect. And then one day, like you  just kind of feel it’s time for a change. And like,  that doesn’t mean something is wrong. It doesn’t mean something is wrong  because what was normal yesterday  doesn’t feel normal today, right? Doesn’t feel like my normal today.  And again, that intentionality,  that being that that awareness is how we key into that.  And I imagine I know for my clients  and I’m sure for yours, that’s most of the reason why people seek help is that they… Their signals Indicate that what’s going on in their life now doesn’t fit. And the question is like,  how could this not fit? This was carefully architected  based on the best information  I had for years and now it doesn’t fit. Something’s wrong.  Yeah, yeah, we do that.  We self-flagellate. We’re like, Oh, something’s wrong.  There must be something wrong with me. I must be crazy.  Like, What is wrong with this now?  And unfortunately, so many times  we’re stuck in the same pattern. Yeah, yeah.  Hopefully, can  I circle back to a question  you asked earlier, which was  how do I help transform and get into go into from from doing to being  one of the things that has always nourished and soothe my soul  since I discovered it in my late twenties? Is it surfing because it gets me outside? It gets me in the rhythms of the ocean  and it gets me into an atmosphere that’s almost completely uncontrollable  because unlike maybe many other sports  or exercise or activities, even snowboarding, which I love,  the wave is always different. The weather conditions  are always different.  The wind,  everything is very, very different. And for many, many years decades, it was the one thing in my life  where I had very little control. I wasn’t very good at it,  but I kept doing it because there was something about it  that was just nourishing and soothing. And one of the metaphors that I use in in a book  that I wrote, which is make space to lead, where I share a lot of the shift  from doing to being one of the one of the acronyms  that I use to help people  shift is the acronym of SURF. Everybody grab a pen, right?  Because we’re about to drop some wisdom  here.  Go for it. Jot some wisdom.  So S is Stop  this like whatever patterns, whatever activity, whatever frantic ness that you’re in? Just stop for a moment.  Just stop. U is to understand. So go inward. Ask yourself questions, be curious, be playful and be like,  What is going on here? Why is this happening?  You know, why am I?  Why am I beating up on myself? You know, the R for me is “Re-” Putting your own word.  There’s a part of me  that really does hate acronyms, so I like this  choose your own adventure piece. We do.  We think rebel, reinvent, recreate  whatever really it is. And the more I can think of, the better, because the more I think of you think of.  Like, what’s the what’s the objective  of like the “Re”? going back and and going back to consider a new way, a new framework. So what’s the  what’s the objective of that? Open, it’s  too open to new and different perspectives to realize that the story that you’d been  telling yourself may not be the only one. Typically,  when we’re in these stages, we’re stuck. So rather than continuing to barrel  through in that same direction, you want to stop.  You want to understand.  And you just want to reevaluate, reveal. Just go back to the stories  you were telling yourself and find a bunch of new ones. You don’t have to be tied to them.  You don’t have to believe them. It’s kind of opening up to the new place,  new possibilities and choices and perspectives.  Oh, it’s beautiful. OK, great. And the last one,  the last one, which is my favorite  and the reason why I went on this long story is what you were talking about  earlier helped trigger this. The last one is F and  that is force and flow, OK, because in each particular moment in time, you might need more of one thing than the other. Yeah, you might need the force, which I call the structure, the focus, the rigor.  You know, that ability to maybe  grind at work, that twelve to  hour days, that use of your mind, just like those forceful structures to keep going. Or you might need the flow.  You might need to ease it up a bit.  You might need to take a vacation, take a couple of days and go to a Buddhist retreat. And that question of force versus flow for each, for each instant, it might be one. It might be the other. It might be bits of both. But for  me, that’s where the SURF acronym  really comes in- Stop, Understand. Revisit.  Make a choice.  F: What do I need right now?  Is it more force? Is it more flow? Is it bits and pieces of each,  and you follow the energy to feel  which one it is? It’s a really, you know, as  you were kind of going through the letters and you got to F.  I loved the idea of force and flow  because in my mind, I’m imagining that  when you’re paddling out, you’re actually developing a process to overcome  the strength of the waves, right? Because you need to go against the waves  to get out to a place where you can catch one  right where you can get away. And then when it comes to the flow,  you’re no longer fighting the direction of the water.  Now you’re harnessing the strength  of the direction of the water. Look,  I’ve never thought about it in that way,  and that’s perfect and beautiful. Yeah. Oh, that’s amazing.  So very metaphor. Thank you for sharing it.  I think it’s important.  Just so you know on the YouTube,  you’re going to now have like letters across your face for this section  where it’s going to be like. Perfect.  And so if, if if listeners have really felt a connection  with your message and want to learn more about how you impact the world,  where can they find you? Where can they learn more?  Yeah, you can find me online. My website is TuttiTaygerly.com T U T T I T A Y G E R L Y  Yeah,  you can find me on Instagram @Tutti And if you want to learn more,  I have a book make space to lead, which is also makespacetolead.com  Wait, hold on.  Did you just say that your Instagram  is like just your first name? My Instagram is just my first name,  too. Yes. Holy cow.  Like what? Like, Wow, that is amazing what that is. I’ve never met someone  who actually had the Instagram handle  of just their first name. That is fantastic.  The funny thing  the funny thing about that is Tutti means “all” in Italian.  So I get inadvertently tagged so often in Italian, where someone’s like, Oh yeah, OK,  there’s another Italian message.  So it’s hilarious. I love it. I love the things that I get tagged  on. It’s fabulous. So well,  thank you so much for being with us. I just I feel energized after our conversation. It just feels- we use this word a couple of times, but it feels nourishing  and I’m really grateful it does. I’m similarly grateful  that we were able to do this together. All right, everybody, I am- I just appreciate very much you tuning in  to Refractive and remember, as always, go out, add to the world, do your best  and never forget to aim your light. Thank you, everybody. Take care.  

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