Tribal Leadership

160: Christine Comaford: I had to reach to a deep place inside myself

Intro    Welcome to the Fast Leader podcast where we explore convenient yet effective shortcuts that will help you get ahead and move forward faster by becoming a better leader. And now here’s your host customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligence practitioner, Jim Rembach.

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Jim Rembach:   Okay, Fast Leader legion I’m almost not excited to have this guest on the show today because I will be greatly disappointed if I only have her on once. Christine Comaford was born in Hollywood, California and raised in Palos Verdes California and Greenwich, Connecticut. She has one older sister. Her parents divorced when she was 16 and then remarried when she was in her 30’s she cried tears of joy during the entire ceremony. Christine’s parents were both entrepreneurs and renegades in their own way. Her mom is an immigrant with English as her third language, Russian and Spanish were her first. She is an artist with fiber and jewelry as her primary mediums. She taught Christine about adaptability, her father led human resources in the early days of Mattel toys and Gallo Wine. He taught her about entrepreneurship and tenacity. Christine was always involved in business ventures from lemonade stands to Girl Scout cookies. She got her first job at the age of 14 at a bakery and discovered she loved business even more than she thought. She often questioned authority and the rules which led her to dropping out of high school and negotiating her way into college at 17. 

She quit college once she fell in love with computers, why get a computer science degree when she could just teach herself a program and then get a job. And that’s what she did after a few small companies she got a job with Microsoft. She had to pretend to be male to get an interview but that’s another story. Later she launched and took public’s five companies and then retired. The phone kept ringing and she was asked to use the cool tools she had shared with her employees to get great success, Smart Tribe Institute was the result. Now she works with companies of all sizes that want to create peak performance leaders in emotionally engaging and resilient cultures. She knows people are tribal and that when company cultures provides safety belonging and mattering it yields powerful and sustainable results. Christine currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband Jeff Herron. Jeff does special effects and visual effects for major motion pictures. He’s done over a hundred so you’ve probably seen his work. She has three step kids all grown. Christine Comaford, are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Christine Comaford:   I’m ready. 

Jim Rembach:   I’m glad you’re here. I’ve given my Legion a little bit about you but can you share what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better. 

Christine Comaford:   My current passion is that Smart Tribe Institute it is really helping people step in to who they truly are. I find the vast majority of people even the eight billionaire’s I’ve worked with and two US presidents haven’t fully tapped their amazing potential. And when they learn to be emotionally agile when they learn to be resilient and adaptable at a deep profound level when they learn how to bring that experience to others we can do anything. 

Okay, so wait a minute, you’re talking about those that you’ve worked with and still they have issues with not being able to bring their full self, I can only imagine what the rest of us have issues with.

Christine Comaford:   Here’s the thing. Everybody is showing up the best they can with the resources they have. We bring them more resources than they can show up in entirely new ways. And yeah, it’s super wicked, courageous for as U.S. president and billionaires people we think are super accomplished to have the guts to say, I want to go to the next level. That’s like huge courage. 

Jim Rembach:   That is a good point. And when you start thinking about the next level it does require push. And that push oftentimes, if you’re already at a certain point well it doesn’t matter if you are or not you need others to help do that. 

Christine Comaford:   Because we all have blind spots that’s where they’re blind, right, you can’t see anyone. And when somebody says, wow I know I’ve got some blind spots I can’t see them but I’m getting these responses that I don’t want to get or I can’t seem to get over this hump or have these perpetual behaviors that I want to change, can you help me syndrome and see (4:20) and shift and when we say yeah, we’re about being emotionally agile. Jim, the human being will go to whatever behavior feels best whatever behavior on their behavioral menu feels best or if there isn’t a better choice a good feeling choice they’ll pick whichever behavior feels less bad. As leaders we have this amazing opportunity to help our people expand to edit to increase their range of behaviors that feel good. So, if accountability doesn’t feel good they’re not going to be accountable. What if we could take and make accountability feel good. So, we’re going to talk about creating more behaviors that feel good that actually get people what they want. Gosh! 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, so as you were talking I started thinking—you said several things there and it brings me to something that you had in the book, so that for me I often find disconnect and confusion with, and quite frankly in a book it’s difficult to read so I’m going have to ask you for a larger map of it, and that is the emotion wheel. And so I think when you start talking about being able to connect with self, you guys can’t see this when she’s showing me a big picture of it, of your video.

Christine Comaford:   But I give you guys a picture if you want it.

Jim Rembach:   Definitely. 

Christine Comaford:   A nice pretty big color wheel. 

Jim Rembach:   And so looking at the emotion wheel and you see how it connects at the core, talking about the hub and the spindle of it, is oftentimes people will say something and describe themselves or a particular feeling or something like that maybe that they’re always used to actually describing themselves with and it connects back to fear. And so when you talk to them about fear they’re like, no, no, no I’m not scared—really? So the whole self-actualization piece to me I think is a major gap.

Christine Comaford:   Yeah. So here’s the thing, there are a lot of sub-flavors if you will. In the emotion wheel when you see the image of it that will get you, in the scared piece of pie the scared sector it can be rejected, it can be insecure, it can be anxious, it can be overwhelmed. How often do you hear people say that they’re overwhelmed? All the time. So, here’s the thing, if you look at Travis Bradbury’s recent research only 36 % of humans know how they’re feeling in any given time. If we don’t know how we’re feeling, how can we get to how we want to feel? So, we need to first step back and say okay, the emotion wheel’s great for this, you’re upset or whatever, what exactly is going on? You look at the emotion wheel you figure out what’s going on here then you can do one of the practices in the book. You can do maneuvers of consciousness which takes you through a process of resisting what is happening that you’re not enjoying to getting really curious to getting kind of amazed that it could even happen to getting in full appreciation. And in about 12 minutes you will shift your emotional state powerfully that’s how resilient we are. We can get in this hamster wheel where we’re just ruminating and obsessing about a particular thing or we can just grab power your tribe. We can use maneuvers of consciousness tool and we can get into something that we want.

Jim Rembach:   Okay, I had this conversation just yesterday with the guidance counselor at my at my kid’s school. I have a daughter who right now is a freshman like many freshmen do she’s having some struggles. And then also when you start talking about the enormity and the impact of that year on your academic career it’s pretty significant. And I told her I said look, people don’t come out of the womb knowing how to achieve they have to learn that. When you start to have resiliency you have to learn how to become resilient in order to achieve.

Christine Comaford:   Yes. And often when we have a problem we hyper focus on it—ow, this feels bad, ow, I don’t like this and we keep staring at it. What I want us to learn how to do, because it’s so powerful, and you can do this with your daughter and it would be awesome is to say, yep, that’s bad we want to consent to it, that’s bad that’s painful we’re feeling overwhelmed whatever that’s super stressful consent to it we don’t resist it. And then we say and what would you like? And then we can go through the outcome frame and you can even do it with around your experience at school. What would you like? Okay, cool, something she can create and maintain not like someone magically we do something for her something she can create maintain. What would you like?

Second question, what will haven’t I do for you? How will you feel? What benefits will you get? Grab the emotion wheel because people are going, oh, I feel good. No, good is not an emotion. Okay, how will you know when you have that particular outcome question? 

Number three, how will you know? Well, when I’m getting these grades and when I show up at school and I’m not super nervous. We need to get evidence and criteria in question number three. 

Question number four, when we’re with whom would you like this? I just want to (9:19 inaudible) and I just want this right now. 

And then question number five, what a value might you risk or lose to get it? To get that outcome that you want in question number one, what that you value might you risk or lose? Wow, well I’m going to have to maybe stretch a bit. I’m going to have to maybe do more homework? I’m going to have to maybe get a guidance counselor. I’m going to have to not hang out with my friends quite as much, whatever, I’m going to have to tell people that I’m scared and I need help there’s always an ego risk there. 

And then question number six, what are your next steps? And by the time you’re done with an outcome frame please you guys do them for fifteen minutes. Please go deep if you’re going to do an outcome frame give it what it needs. When we go and we do now come frame for 15 minutes our reptilian and our mammalian brain takes it from being a fantasy to a reality. Because when we go in for 15 minutes we start to see, we start to hear, we start to feel, all the good feelings the visuals, the auditory, the kinesthetic experiences of being in that desired stage then we can actually start to create it otherwise it’s kind of like a glib fantasy.

Jim Rembach:   I think that’s an excellent point. As you were talking I’m like, Okay, well I hit on that, I hit on that to try to direct her and help her move forward. But it’s all those other pieces that I didn’t have and it’s going to allow me to close the loop, so thank you for sharing that. Ultimately, what we’re doing is we’re getting to the point where we can actually have and create a resiliency cycle. In the book you talked about this resiliency cycle and if you could hit on those real quick please.

Christine Comaford:   In the beginning we are needing to release resistance. Something happening it doesn’t feel good we’re not enjoying it and we are sitting there resisting it. When we’re resisting we’re giving it a lot of energy and that energy is actually what we need to do something to create what we want. First, we want to release that resistance and the maneuvers of consciousness that I mentioned is a great process because it takes you from being super resistant to really appreciating whatever that experience is. Next, we have to increase rapport with ourselves. We have to say, okay, so now that I’m not resisting anymore what would I? How am I feeling? What part of me is having a challenge with this?  

And we give you a bunch of tools and power your cards for that and next we get to make new meaning. Hey, because this is happening it actually means that, oh, it’s cold and rainy and wet outside, oh, bummer this means traffic’s going to be really bad. Oh, t’s cold and rainy and wet outside this means that I can sit down with Joe, who I’ve always been wanting to hang out with have a cup of coffee let traffic pass and establish this really cool relationship. We choose the meaning that we make. Stuff happens all the time we get tons of sensory input playing into our brain stem but we choose what it means. Nothing is good or bad only thinking makes it so. 

Next, we want to anchor that outcome. We figured out the outcome that we want. We’ve made the meaning that we want around it. Your daughter—it’s so awesome that I’m having this challenge at school because it’s really helping me stretch and grow and get to know myself and deepen my relationship with my dad, this is cool. Then when we learn how to anchor that we can set a visual auditory kinesthetic anchor in our body. For instance, we can anchor that good feeling so that when we have those hard days we can trigger that anchor and flood our systems with positive visual auditory kinesthetic cues. Then if we’re working with others we want to enroll, engage others. We want to build that tribal agility so everybody else has these tools and then we want to expand that tribal power so as a team we can adjust and adapt.

Jim Rembach:   When we start talking about being able to get into the team aspects of it and when we refer to the different transformations that organizations are just really being enforced to have to go through right now, for multitude of different reasons, is there’s a there’s a whole lot of emotions that come into play that could cause us to focus on those bad things instead of the positive things. You talk about to me it just jumped out, I’ll give everybody the actual page number, to me it was kind of subtle but it led on to some really important things. And that was on page 104 where you talk about people misunderstand one another daily. Why? Because we speak different languages and we’re not talking about English and Spanish we’re really speaking different languages at a subterranean or subconscious or primal level everyone deletes distorts and generates and formulates about the environment differently. And therefore every human has his or her own unique map of the world his or her map is created based on the environment in which he or she was raised in and a multitude of other factors. As a revolt as a result we are all essentially speaking different languages and this is how misunderstandings occur. So, we have to be aware of that going into, and we’re trying to create this tribal power and the resiliency, and understand something that you call the Meta Programs, tell us about that?

Christine Comaford:   Yeah. So, we often think back into the last time when somebody was upset based on what you said and you said to yourself or to them, but that’s not what I meant. It doesn’t matter what you meant, sorry, it matters what they received. The meaning of the communication is the message received it’s not the message sent its how it was received. This is why meta-programs which were discovered by Leslie Cameron Bandler in the 70s and refined in the 80’s there are over 60 meta-programs we’re just going to talk about four. Meta Programs are so powerful because they are the lens through which we experience the world. This is not personality testing that’s like the third floor of the building this is Meta Programs or the sub-basement. What’s interesting about Meta Programs is once you start to, and you guys will figure them out in a sec, once you start to decode somebody’s Meta Programs you understand the structure of their identity. You understand the structure of their belief system. 

Let’s go over a few of them. For starters toward or away, is a person motivated by going toward pleasure goals, goals, goals achievement, achievement, achievement? Or are they motivated by away, solving problems, mitigating risk, preventing disaster? We need to understand that because if we are goals, goals, goals toward oriented people toward pleasure we don’t think about the pain but we’re trying to sell an idea to our team engage them in a project deal with a conflict whatever and they are away, the person we’re talking to is all about mitigating risk solving problems preventing disaster, we’re not going to be speaking the same language. If we can sit down with them with that away person and say, wow, I have a problem I really need your help I want to avoid this bad thing from happening. They’ll be like, Oh, she’s speaking my language. When we use Meta Programs the person’s most primal part of their brain their creature neurology their reptilian mammalian brain says, they’re the same as me I don’t have to resist them. 

Okay, so the first one is to ward away. Start to think guys, are you more to ward or more away? There’s no right answer be who you are but also these are contextual. At work you might be one Meta Program around parenting, around money around romantic love you might be another. Let’s pick it a couple more to illustrate this point. The next are options or procedures: are you all about lots of choice lots of possibility “the world of my oyster” I want to be able to shock and jive and change and pick a bunch of different things? Or are you more motivated by a proven step-by-step process? Sometimes people get confused here. Option people like to create procedures for somebody else to follow.

A procedure person if you interrupt them while they’re walking through their five-step process or whatever they will start back at the beginning because it interrupted their flow it messed up their procedure. A procedure’s person is compelled to get to the end of the process so make sure that the end of the process is where you want it to be. You’re working with one of our clients. 

We use a lot of Meta Programs in sales and marketing and we laid out the whole process for their procedural prospects, sales prospects, and they came back to me and they said, it’s not working they’re not buying anything more. And I said, what was the last step in the process? They said, the close the sale is closed. They said, whoa, whoa, whoa the last step in the process should be the project is completed and we meet to discuss the next one. They’re like, oh, whoa, options, procedures know which one you are. And then next let’s look at active reflector. Active reflective, active is like Nike, just do it. Active people have a short sentence structure, they don’t use a lot of words they all about action, action, action they get really impatient, go, go, go. 

Reflective people want to consider, ponder, understand, analyze then they’ll make a decision. Active people sometimes decide too fast and make mistakes and have to rewind. Reflective people sometimes they take too long, they procrastinate, etc. You need to understand who you are and who you’re talking to. Ideally put active reflective persons together on a project. Let’s just do one more general a specific. In Power your Tribe we show you all the decoding questions and all the ways to figure out with somebody else and a ton of examples of Meta Program language. General specific, high-level in that net executive summary, specific people like lots of details and then they can start to understand what that high-level vision is. If a specific person is talking to or selling to a general person pretty quickly the general person will drop out of rapport they’ll be like, whoa, too much information just give me the net-net. Likewise, if a general person is selling to a specific person the specific person might not trust them, well, this was a little too high-level this guy doesn’t really know what he’s talking about, this is too flaky what’s he leaving out? So, high level explanation of Meta Program, super-powerful, beautiful stuff. 

Jim Rembach:   Well it is. And as you were talking you mentioned it about sales and marketing is I do create a lot of marketing content and material and communications and things like that and so what I try to do is use both ends of these things within a particular sentence. You’re talking about somebody going towards a goal and avoiding a fear. If you put that all into one sentence you actually appeal to both people because they’ll pick out the part that connects with them. 

Christine Comaford:   Okay, Jim, you just this before. The human brain deletes, distorts and generalizes, so, yes everybody what Jim said is really important. You can do a blended Meta Program message because a person will delete this stuff that’s not relevant to them, beautiful. 

Jim Rembach:   Absolutely. Gosh! Like I said, I didn’t want you on the show just once– 

Christine Comaford:   I’ll come back. 

Jim Rembach:   –we’re going to talk about that. There’s a whole lot of going back to the emotion wheel and everything that we’re talking about. There’s so much frustration as well as some of the positive things when you get these things right just the power and the ability to perform and exceed and overachieve is just tremendous but it’s loaded with emotion. 

Christine Comaford:   The connection between people the loyalty between people the confidence that you can build it’s just awesome the peace, yeah, it’s beautiful.

Jim Rembach:   Absolutely. One of the things that we look on the show to kind of help give us a little bit of emotional charge are quotes, is there a quote or two that you like that you can share?

Christine Comaford:   I love “Leap and the Net will appear.” I’ve taken so many risks in my life because I really felt like the right thing to do and people were like, you’re nuts you really shouldn’t do that, but I just felt it. I think all of us have like a little Spider Man sense, like a little spidey sense, my spidey sense was saying, go brave.

Jim Rembach:   I’m glad you have taken those risks because you’ve been able to produce some of the things like you have within the Power your Tribe and I’m sure you’ve affected a lot of lives in the process. With that for you to get to this point and take those risks and pit it and do all that there’s a lot of humps that I’m sure you’ve had to get over, is there a time where you’ve gotten over the hump that you can share? 

Christine Comaford:   January 15, 2015 my stepson died. He was 21, totally healthy kid, totally happy kid, super athletic using my prior book, Smart Tribe, to help not end, because it’s too big to end, but reduce binge drinking at Sonoma State University, he was doing all this amazing stuff he’d always been just this amazing child, and he died at 21. When I got the phone call from his dad, my ex-husband I fell to the ground it’s like my body couldn’t stay standing and I had a bunch of commitments to people and again, I’m super, super crazy responsible, and I had a really hard time functioning for a week. So my amazing assistant Alexis took care of smoothing things out for everybody. 

But it was hard to show up for people because I had like 40 executives that were flying down to the Dominican Republic to do this huge strategic retreat and they really needed my help. I had 300 people that were gathered in this other place I had all these big huge, gnarly commitments that I had to meet. And I had to reach down into myself at a level that I hadn’t reached down to even with my divorce, even with the death of my dad, I do reach to such a deep place inside myself and then of course I would find myself. And when I got was that even though I’m super responsible I realized that I’m more supported than I ever knew and that people really want to help. And knowing that has been huge for me because now I can let myself receive in a ways I couldn’t before. 

Jim Rembach:   Well thanks for sharing that and I’m sure, I can speak for myself and I’m sure the rest of the legion say we’re sorry about the loss of your stepson. For me I find myself in that story in a couple of different moments not the depth that you’re talking about but I know also that those days are coming in front of me so I appreciate you sharing that. When you start thinking about all of these things that you have going on right now, obviously family is very important to you, you have the work with the Power of Tribe in the Institute, speaking, all of these things, coaching, when you look at all of that that’s sitting on your plate, what’s one of your goals?

Christine Comaford:   I have so many. I think the biggest one is really to know that when I one day leave this life that I have really made a profound difference. That’s why I’m working now, you know I retired when I was 40 and here 55 here I am working. People are so remarkable and I do hospice volunteering as well and I just helped my 40th patient pass. The honor the privilege, leadership is a privilege, to help somebody step in to who they truly are there’s nothing like it. And to be able to do that every day, which all of us can, that’s what I live for.

Jim Rembach:   And the Fast Leader Legion, and even the southern boy here, wishes you the very best. Now before we move on let’s get a quick word from our sponsor. 

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Jim Rembach:     Alright, here we go Fast Leader legion it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Christine, the Hump Day Hoedown is a part of our show where you give us good insights fast. I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us a robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Christine Comaford, are you ready to hoedown?

Christine Comaford:   I’m ready to hoedown.

Jim Rembach:   What do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today?

Christine Comaford:   Time management.

Jim Rembach:   What is the best leadership advice do you have ever received?

Christine Comaford:   Putting yourself out there is more important than smart.

Jim Rembach:   What is one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success?

Christine Comaford:   Tremendous tenacity. 

Jim Rembach:   What do you feel is one of your best tools that helps you lead in business or life?

Christine Comaford:   Meditation.

Jim Rembach:      What would be one book that you’d recommend to our legion, it could be from any genre, and of course we’re going to a link to Power your Tribe on your show notes page as well.

Christine Comaford:   Power your Tribe or Smart Tribe.  

Jim Rembach:   So, we’ll put a link to both of your books on your show notes page and you’ll be able to find that legion at the fastleader.net/Christine Comaford. Okay, Christine, this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question. Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25. And you’ve been given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you. But you can’t take everything back you can only choose one. What skill or a piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

Christine Comaford:   I would take back compassion, compassion for others and their challenges. Because when I was  25 I really didn’t get that everybody’s doing the best they can and I was really judgmental and really being able to take back what I see now around compassion and letting people be who they are I think would be lovely to have brought back then.

Jim Rembach:   Christine, it was an honor to spend time with you today, can you please share with the Fast Leader legion how they can connect with you. 

Christine Comaford:   Yes. Go to poweryourtribe.com that’s our new book website and then if you want to learn about a ton of other stuff about us you can go to our YouTube channel, Christine Comaford. You can follow us on Twitter @comaford and you can go to our company website, www.smarttribesinstitute.com.

Jim Rembach:   Christine Comaford, thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom the Fast Leader legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump. 

Thank you for joining me on the Fast Leader show today. For recaps, links from every show special offers and access to download and subscribe, if you haven’t already, head on over the www.fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster.

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