How do you bring unity and alignment to a world of chaos and confusion? In this episode, Jimmy and his special guest, Rachel Ricther of Inlign, share practical strategies to help you contribute to the success of your organization through alignment of your principles of life.
Episode Keys
- Why it is vital to spend time each week to reconnect with your principles as a person.
- Who you connect with in life is based on the common areas of interest and beliefs that are shared such as freedom and unity.
- How to create a more productive and profitable organization by aligning your team with the company’s principles of operations.
- What is needed to become a productive leader of a team of diverse individuals.
- When you must make the tough decisions in your company to achieve optimum growth results!
Podcast Transcription
JW:
Good morning! It is a beautiful Monday. I tell you what folks, I don’t know how you do it when you live in the land of paradise as I do, you wake up, you look outside the sun, rising from the east, as it always does, and the smile upon my face as it always is. That’s the way to start a week. Hey, this is Jimmy Williams with Live a Life By Design, your Monday morning moments of motivation to help you become bigger, better, and bolder in all that you do in life. You know, I gotta be honest with you folks. I just have come off, as I said in the last episode, a 31 day sabbatical, and it has been tough to sleep. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Hey, how can you not sleep after having 31 days of rest, rejuvenation, education, experimentation with some different things I’m doing with exercise, diet, travel. Yeah, I packed it all in folks, but why I have a difficult time sleeping is because I have such a powerful motive movement to want to continue to be inspirational to you, our listeners, to my team, to my family, to those of my friends that are around me. And we want that for you as well. So today we are gonna focus on an area that you can take some skills. I hope you learn today. Immediately apply them to your world in your professional career. Today I have with me a very special guest. I’ll get to her in just a moment, but I’m gonna tell you, she made such an impact on us. We were receiving emails and social media posts about who is this lady and how do we get in touch with her? And her team has been inspiring to me to be very Frank. Now I’m going to share with you today her name in a moment, but I wanna talk a little bit about why you and I need someone with her expertise and her team to get us back to where we maybe were before the last two and a half years. Maybe we were never where we needed to be. That’s okay. Her role, her job, her team has some very specific processes that have been tested in the trenches. If you will, that give you that alignment you need for the entire team to quote, pull that sled all in the same direction, same speed with the same cadence. That’s what we’re like. That’s what we want. Gallup poll has put out an annual poll that I always am intrigued to see. I study this poll for couple of reasons, but the more first and foremost reason is because this poll tells me we have a great number of inefficiencies and ineffectiveness in our organizations in the United States.
JW:
I hate to even tell you this, but at one point they said that 86% of those people in the organization experienced greater than two hours per day of ineffective labor. Let that soak in a minute, 86% of the people you hired. If you have an organization of a hundred people, 86 of them have at least spent on average average, two hours per day being ineffective. What does that mean? Disruption, distractions, mind not focused, again, not in alignment with the purposes, goals and functions of the organization that has hired them to perform certain services. You know, too many of us are just not focused on the ultimate mission of the organization. And, and it creates dysfunction. Not only at work, it creates dysfunction in our own lives, cuz I don’t know about you, but a lot of us have a difficult time turning it off at 5:00 PM, going home to our families and just saying I’m in a totally different world. Everything else is behind me. That just doesn’t happen for a lot of us. We’re so invested mentally, cognitively empowering in our companies and our organizations in our agencies. If we work for a government agency that we just somehow can’t just turn it off like a light switch. But in Episode 172 we were honored here at Live a Life By Design to introduce my newest best friend. I call her Rachel Richter of Inlign. Inlign a consulting firm that helps leaders, teams and organizations create greater alignment to maximize business performance. And if there ever was a need for these types of services, I promise you, it truly is today. You know, the pandemic brought about positive and negative aspects about all of our companies. First it forced us to make certain our processes and procedures were documented properly to function in a different environment than the traditional office space. But second it tested the efficiency of each of us to stay motivated and connected to the vision and purposes of the organization without the structure that once was used for this purpose. So let’s get her to join us in just a few minutes this morning and help us gain some perspective and perhaps directive to getting back into alignment or getting to alignment. If we’ve never been there in the first place. It is an honor to join me this morning on Live a Life By Design, my good friend from the east coast with the most Rachel Richter. Good morning!
RR:
Good morning, Jimmy! It’s a lovely time to be here with you today. And I’m so excited for this next conversation that we’re about to have.
JW:
I gotta tell you Rachel, every time I talk to you, I feel like I’ve got to get out my water boots. Let me explain why this lady is so empowering with her words and her compassion for what she does. I feel like I’m drinking from a water hose, Rachel.
RR:
Oh my gosh. I love that Jimmy. Thank you. And by the way, our latest newsletter was on compassion. So my mind was like has been there all week. This is very cool.
JW:
All of, so you know, this is crazy. She and I have not talked before this. We haven’t in preparation. This it’s amazing how we’re connected at the mind and the heart for leading great companies. So Rachel, I just wanna dive into this for a few minutes. You heard my opening preamble. The fact of it is, is I feel like we have a lot of inefficiency and a lot of ineffectiveness going on in not just companies but organizations, governmental agencies. I wanna, I wanna read to you a corporate innovation leader at Hurst. One of your, your clients said lack of alignment is the number one reason that transformation initiatives fail Inlign’s approach is revolutionizing. The way organizations are solving this issue. That’s what we all want, right? Transformative performance. So let’s talk a little bit. What, what can I do today? If I come to your team at Inlign and say, look, we’ve got a great organization. We’ve grown tremendously, but in the last two and a half years, we just simply may have lost our way a little bit. According to our current performance reports, how can you help me get back on track?
RR:
I love that question actually. And the very simple answer is simple, but not simplistic is we’re gonna start wherever you are. Now. That seems like an obvious thing to say, but let’s be honest. This is the part that paralyzes most people with decision fatigue is from where I sit. I could go anywhere and should I be somewhere else before I even start? Or is there like a threshold I need to cross? If we just take, take a moment, step back, inquire and act where you are inquire and act where you are now. What do I mean by that act three parts, align, connect, and help people thrive together, including yourself. Why do I say inquire and act well within the first part of alignment, the first question, the first inquiry is where would you like to create greater alignment? What is your intention with doing that? So focusing on where you would like to do this first, where would you like to maximize business performance? Initially, if, for instance, that’s your intention. If you’d like to create transformation, where do you wanna do that? Initially? In other words, where would you like to see your team’s actions, your own actions, accurately reflect priorities and intentions. So if it’s your priorities, intentions, where do you wanna see that? If it’s at the team level, where do you wanna see the team’s actions accurately reflect their priorities and their tensions, and also mutually benefit those of the whole enterprise. So is this between two people, is this within a leadership team, a department inquire and act where you are, where do you wanna do this first? And what’s your intention? Does that make sense? Are we tracking here?
JW:
That’s perfect. See, so, so let me, let me take the stance of one of our emails we received after your first episode, you helped us with the person and I won’t using names day, of course, to protect their innocence here as they say on TV. But what I wanna say is this, here was the question. I, the statement was about the person. I feel like I am contributing at my height, but I just don’t feel I’m putting forth the end product as much as I would like to, as I did in the past. So for example, this person said they’d been to a company for 15 years. They’re in a senior level position with supervisory requirements and obligations and they don’t feel don’t laugh. This isn’t just people first hired 15 years. This person, she did not feel like she is in alignment with her organization again, 15 years, Rachel, how is that possible?
RR:
You know what? That’s interesting to me. I know you’re shocked, but most how do I put this? Unless there was a really great alignment all the way through that organization, where at every level people could understand how their actions impacted the whole. I would say that most senior leaders sometimes feel that because a lot of them lack white space for being able to step back and get back into alignment. And then even if they have the white space, they don’t necessarily know what to do with it.
JW:
I love it. And you’re talking about this white space. It’s a time we need to think realign. I call it basically my weekly review. I have to stop. See where I’m at. Give me a few minutes to myself. Actually it turns into about an hour to myself and go, let me see what’s going on in my world. Get back to where I need to be, because is it not true that sometimes the winds of the world’s happenings can blow us away from where we wanna be on our steady stay true north? You know, is that not true?
RR:
I completely agree with that. In fact, unless we build it into our schedule, that’s the idea of being intentional with our actions. It doesn’t happen because like going to the gym or anything else, unless you build in time for it, there’s always something else you could be doing, right? Like there’s infinite possibilities, especially now with how connected we are with our devices. So unless you put it on the calendar or schedule it or make it your own time every week or every month, however, whatever cadence you’re using, it doesn’t happen. And so I would just take it a step further and say, if, what if a person goes about their days asking, well, what’s my intention with doing this. Is this going to create the impact that I’m looking to create? Why is this something that’s important? How is it connected to everything else? If we have that lens in mind, really being intentional with our actions, then we get to, I guess it gives more horsepower to the white space when we sit down and have it. And so then it’s combined.
JW:
Absolutely. I love that. Now let me take it from the opposite side of this, Rachel. So today I gotta tell you, this is gunfire, man. You’re getting it from both sides here, coming at you today. You’re doing good. She’s had her coffee folks. I think these are good. So let me take it from the standpoint of either CSU ownership and so forth. Take for exist. Example, a person that’s had leadership in the company, maybe a founder that’s been there 20, 25 years that has seen this company evolve. Okay? So, so companies to me are living, breathing beans. It is evolving to something because your markets do change the needs of your customer base and demands. If you will may change, then my alignment may have to shift or evolve with some of those changes, but I don’t ever lose sight of my core principles of why I’m functioning in this role and why I set up the company to start with. So for example, as the leader, what can I do to help bring about that, that education and edification of my team to keep them in alignment once we get them there.
RR:
Oh, that’s really great. So those are the other two steps. So we walk through a line, right? Where would you like to create greater alignment? What is your intention for doing so, where do you wanna do this first? Where do you wanna see your team’s actions? More accurately reflecting, not only their own priorities and intentions, but also mutually benefiting those of the whole enterprise? Well, once you answer that question, the next part connect who is involved with creating this greater alignment. So clarifying the stakeholders involved and here is the key part that we don’t really focus on. A lot of the time, understand their intentions, not your intentions for engaging with them. You’re really clear on that part now, but their intentions. What are their intentions after that, ask those involved the right questions to have what most leadership usually lacks or, or can’t get enough of, or wants more of greater transparency and visibility by asking the right questions. You can create greater transparency and, and visibility into what’s actually happening. Not what you think is happening or what should be happening as the case may be. And then within this focus, you connect the strategy of whatever you’re trying to do to your leadership priorities and their needs. So you’re going to aggregate and reconcile these needs and priorities across your stakeholders. Why so that you can understand the meta, the 50,000 foot view that connects everything so that you understand not only the picture of what’s all going on, how these stakeholders fit, what their needs or intentions are and how you can connect to it. But then it brings me to the next part of act thrive. How can you cultivate this greater alignment with everyone, with an asterisk, we’ll get back to that involved to drive result and thrive together. And by everyone, I do mean those aligned with the roles they serve in the organization. So not everyone necessarily is coming on this bus, right? It’s the people who are actually in roles that serve the organization and are aligned with themselves as people. So working with those, you’d like to see greater alignment, take action, to truly reflect their priorities and intentions. And you’re asking yourself, how can I cultivate it with them to drive results and have everyone lifted up. So you’re tying the thing you care about to what they care about. You’re always keeping outcomes at the forefront of all actions.
JW:
So, so really then you’re saying, I’m sorry to interrupt. You’re saying though, really that there is a melding, if you will, of not just the person’s development needs and alignment, but that also, if you will, is, is aligning to the corporation or an entity’s needs for alignment. So help me a little bit there. So how does, how does one communicate to make that type of a merger, if you will, of those alignments between the personal and the professional side that’s needed by the organization from that individual?
RR:
That’s a great question. So people are people the best way you could ever win. If you will, a negotiation is to win together. It’s for both people to come out of it, feeling good, not feeling okay or, well, I didn’t get this, but they didn’t get that, but actually win together. And what do I mean by that? You’re really tying what you care about to what they care about. So if you understand their needs and their intentions, you can plug in how you see the world and what your needs and your intentions are around anything, whether it’s personal or professional or a team or a department as in, from the organization perspective and a department perspective, or from the department perspective and a team perspective or from the team and the individual, because at the end of the day, an organization, I agree with you.
RR:
It’s, it’s a living and breathing thing, but I like, see, this is why I’m happy. I, I have a background in mathematics. I tend to look at things through, through mathematics to get to truth. And when I look at an organization, I see it as a set and any set mathematics is defined by its components. So what is this set defined by an organization is defined by its people. The organization does not transform itself. People do. So where does alignment need to start with an individual? And you do that by engaging them so that they actually care about the transformation. Why? Because it benefits the thing they care about. So as long as everyone’s in agreement, that this is necessarily the same intention, it could be vastly different intentions. As long as they’re mutually beneficial, you can work with that.
JW:
This is the reason folks that we have Rachel on this show. I am gaining so much. I wish you could see over here. I’ve made copious notes already, Rachel. But my point here you’re doing is helping us draw this to being actual made, to stick. If I may steal the title of chip Heath and a book with his brother, making these things stick together that are not just pie, the sky principles. It’s not just something you print in it and put it in a conference room or at the front desk and you go, Hey, these are our principles. We’re such a great company. You really don’t want this to be. We’re putting it out there as a facade. You want it to be the actual principles, the constitution, if you will, as to why you exist and how we expect the function of each one within our organization to function on that behalf. Right? So, so take me back just a little bit more. I wanna go a little elementary here. I’ve got a client who has someone that has been there so long that you would think this person could quote the manual of their operating processes and she probably can, but you think also she would contribute to that leadership function that is inherent in her role for the organization, but she has this situation of this is the way we’ve always done it. Have you ever run across this Rachel?
RR:
Oh, all the time.
JW:
So that’s my pet peeve. I’m just gonna be honest with you. I can’t stand it when I get that response, but this is how we’ve always done it. Right? Well, there’s a new sheriff in town. Explain Rachel, why that particular thought and mindset is hazardous to the performance. And may I even say it ultimate success of an entity?
RR:
I really, really like that question, actually. So if we take it back a second, you know how you talked about those statistics, right? Right. Well, when we see things fall apart in projects, on teams with a lack of engagement, a lack of innovation, et cetera, why does this matter? Well, ideally we are creating greater alignment through actions, right? That’s how you do it. You act, you don’t just put words on posters, through initiatives that change organizational processes, culture, and customer experiences. Why two things that you both you and I both know, most people would understand. It’s very simple to meet the needs of the business and the needs of the market now. And in the future, if you don’t do either one of those, you’re not gonna be around for the long run. Right? On the other hand, when we don’t create alignment through these actions and initiatives, what do you get death by a thousand cuts, misaligned actions reduce organizational success.
RR:
And as you said, with all the moving parts and people today, especially it’s more important than ever to create this alignment. And that’s why it’s so detrimental to go well, we’ve always done it this way. And then the question becomes well, when that was created, it served a purpose. Otherwise wouldn’t have been done that way. Now is the situation today in any way, shape or form materially different than when that thing was implemented, because if it is that thing, however, awesome. It was at the time, not saying it’s not, is it really serving you anymore?
JW:
Everything has a shelf life. Rachel is my philosophy in life just because it was great. 10 years ago, doesn’t mean it’s still great today, right? Whether it’s a service product or even a policy, right. Things change. Now, I’m going to take this on a very broad perspective if you will. So we’ve talked about individual alignment and then how to get that to the corporate level. I want to really, I hope you got your seatbelt on Rachel. Here we go. I wanna sign and apply this approach because it will work. In my opinion, what I’ve studied from you read, read, I’ve done some reading. Since we last spoke in July, I will tell you that I believe we can apply this alignment on a cultural and sociological basis for our country. Let me explain where I’m going recently. I wrote, I write an article every week and it’s called invest in yourself in our local newspaper.
JW:
Typically it’s about those things of retirement planning, money, financial planning, generally, but I just felt this overwhelming compulsion and need to have to write about something with our country’s unity at this point. Or shall I say lack of it? I’m not gonna get political. I don’t care. Who’s a, what an R D I don’t care. I’m just talking about down to the basics so we can take what you have as your processes and applied on a national and international level to bring greater peace, unity. And dare I say it better growth for our country, which that rising tide raises all ships in the Harbor. Are you with me? So why wouldn’t we? And how could we apply some of this alignment to our citizenry to think about the great constitution of which we were founded. It still applies today. It has been amended several times, but again, everything changes for once in a while, but at some point, those core principles are why we were founded, right? Freedoms to be who we wish to be. What are your thoughts in terms of utilizing alignment on a non corporate basis, putting more on a sociological basis?
RR:
Jimmy I’m rarely speechless, but this is actually one of the rare-
JW:
I did good, didn’t I?
RR:
I can’t tell you how happy I am that you went there because here’s the thing that now it’s gonna be an open secret of like anyone who ever listens to this. That’s one of the reasons that I actually created it, like this is so that it can be universally applicable because to me, universally applicable again from a mathematical standpoint means you can’t break it.
JW:
Right.
RR:
So, you know, and, and usually the simplest things are the most universally applicable, for instance, equals MC squared simple, but not simplistic. Obviously F=ma. I’m just naming equations now. But the point is the simple bite size ones. They have a massive effect and impact. And this, if you think of our actions, accurately reflecting our priorities and intentions, what if you do this as an individual, every action you’re taking accurately reflects your priorities and your real intentions, not, not the intentions of self sabotage and things that get in the way, but the things that your, that your heart is really speaking to you on, right? Imagine if your family unit did that and your community and the larger community abroad, and then your state, and then the country actually did that. Now again, when we get everyone with an asterisk in alignment, that is not agreement, it is what intentions do I have when we’re seeing differently on an action or priority basis, but our intentions are mutually beneficial.
RR:
We can work from there to actually create actions that work for everyone involved. It’s when our intentions are not mutually beneficial. When we have bad actors, shall we, shall we speak? There’s actually far less of them than I think a lot of us might realize there, there are very few real bad actors out there. Most of the time, it’s just two ships passing in the night without ever recognizing that they were in the same ocean. Most of us, when we have conversations, the biggest thing we can do to help create this alignment is to not other each other, to create connection and by connection. I mean, the energy that exists within us connection to ourselves and between us connection to one another, when we can share and receive without judgment, when we’re able to engage at a level that is going to bring us together, not pull us apart when we can mutually benefit from being and lifting each other up.
RR:
When was a time in your life where you saw this dynamic, that’s a, that’s an aligned level of living and aligned dynamic. And the biggest rule I have when talking to anyone in any conversation, no matter what the context is, is the only conversation I will ever walk away from is one where I am seeing that a person’s intent is actually not beneficial, mutually beneficial to me. And even then I might stick around to try to see and, and figure it out if that’s really the case, as long as no one in that engages in othering each other, we can actually see a lot clearer as to a way forward. What do I mean by that? There was a woman I was speaking with, after an event we held and she was, she was tangentially related to the people at this, at this big event with a bunch of executives. But it was like a personal event, kind of a party afterwards. And one of the biggest and most interesting things that happened that night, we got on this fun tangential conversation about what we wear to the airport. And I told her, but ever since, yeah, no, seriously, this totally relates.
JW:
Well, don’t laugh. I used to dress up and I was younger. I’d wear a suit and tie on every flight during the week. Cuz you didn’t know who you, you know, that deal. You don’t know who you’re gonna meet. I have seen people wearing pajamas to the airport nowadays, this, this is 2022 folks. I mean, whatever, you know, I don’t judge them, whatever. So that caught me. I’m sorry if I left when you said that.
RR:
No, that that’s great. That’s great. So I you know, dress for where you’re going. If you will. I remember wearing a jacket out to California and on the back of it, in these massive, big obnoxious letters, it said, all you need is love. Now what’s interesting is that flight and everyone, since every time I’ve worn that jacket, knock on wood. I’ve been treated better by TSA agents, by the people standing behind me who might be annoyed than taking extra time to put whatever it is on out on the conveyor belt, when you’re going through security. And I shared this with this woman, we were just chat chatting. And she goes, well, Jesus loved everybody. And I said, oh yes, that is a you know, I’m not, I’m not Christian, but that is a beautiful idea from a beautiful soul, like truly beautiful.
RR:
And I agree and, and I said, so what do you wear to the airport? And she kind of took a step back, visibly paused. And I said, oh really? Anything, you know, what, what, what strikes your fantasy? She goes, I wear a Trump hat. Now here I am posting an event around alignment to maximize business performance. And I’m at a party afterwards, lots of drinking going on. And and she said, I wear a Trump hat. And I said, and I looked her in the eyes and this is after she had said, you know, Jesus loves everybody. And I said, I’m not going to other, you, we have far more in common than we do not.
JW:
Right.
RR:
Total shift of like, and then, and then she started to list off, well, do you know about this going on and that going on? Or are you aware of this? I said, we could talk about those things, but I’d rather talk about the things that at the intention level of what we both care about and go from there because that’s how we’re gonna be able to, to move forward together and see things clearer and understand each other feel seen and heard. It goes back to what you were saying about compassion, compassion. Unlike what’s said on Google, the, the definition on Google goes something like this sympathetic pity and concerns of others, you can’t, you can’t get more othering than the definition of compassion on.
JW:
Yeah. That’s a real isolator.
RR:
And yeah. And that’s literally what’s, we can kinda collectively scratch our heads and wonder who created that, but we redefined it a bit and talked about it’s a thoughtful act of truly seeing and hearing ourselves or each other in the moment.
JW:
Yeah. That’s a great, great idea and great concept. I will say to you that again, you did, what I always do is I go back and think what are the 99 things that we have in common or seek to have in common, toward peace within our communities, but not only that piece within our own mindset. So to me, you can’t have peace out there until I have peace in here, right? So I have to make peace with myself and it, and it goes back to far more things in religion and politics. To me, it goes back to how you are just to the general public. Are you being a kind human? So don’t laugh. We’ve got some, t-shirts being made up our director of marketing. I came up with the airplane flight back during my sabbatical. And I said, I got a great idea. And, and of course now you do know the right of poo poo. You use that in your organization.
RR:
Oh, you tell me more about that.
JW:
We call it encompass capital management. We call it the right of poo poo, which mainly means this at any time, Jimmy brings up in an idea that is truly not as great as he says it may be in his mind. Cuz I come up with only great ideas as you know, Rachel that the team has the right to go a, a poo poo and then they have to come up with a better idea. So you can’t just exert and initiate the poo. Right? You have to have a better idea to follow that up, cuz it’s easy to say no, it’s hard to say, well, no and here’s reasons why, and here’s what we should do. And I’m a, I’m not a butt person. I’m an and person. So if you look at conjunctions, I’m really more of the and type because I think that’s so less isolating if you will.
JW:
So, so going back to your thought process. So as a country, if we think about this and I have friends of every ethnic creed, I don’t care. I have sought in my life to color it with as many of the palette that I can. Okay. And as many different backgrounds culturally and every one of them all agree with me on one matter. Now I hope you agree with me today. You don’t have to you’re my guest, but they agree with me on one matter. My entire premise in life is I wish to live in peace and to allow you to do the same, what can we do today? That the two of us can find peace within ourselves to share with those others around us. That’s all I ask.
RR:
I love this. And I actually have like something I said to someone the other day completely applies here. Two things I’ll say the first relates the second. So I realized a long time ago, I, I had been an extremely bullied growing up and I realized in my adult years that no matter what I did or what I said, I would never be able to be friends with someone who is not friends with themselves.
JW:
Oh great. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
RR:
And how do you become more friends with yourself, which then means that you can be more friends with others? Compassion.
JW:
Agree.
RR:
Most people who do not go through the world connected to themselves are compassionate for themselves. And so if we go back to that idea of connection, that idea of the energy that exists within us and between us. But if we focus on ourselves, it’s within us, the energy that exists within us, when we feel recognized and valued by ourselves. When was the last time someone has done that on a regular basis for themselves, when we give and receive with ourselves without judgment, when we don’t walk through the world, judging ourselves. And when we benefit from lifting ourselves up, if we do that more that’s that’s connection. And at the same time, the prescription of compassion, it’s like doctors twice a day, do it for a month. You’ll feel lighter.
JW:
Yeah, yeah, that’s right. That’s right.
RR:
Like that’s how it works. And then you can be better friends with yourself and also treat others this way. Which means that we are not creating disconnection, which I believe is the biggest one of the major forces driving negative outcomes in our organizations in our lives today.
JW:
One of the things that I ask, one of our clients who is a psychiatrist that obviously, you know, psychiatrist, psychologists different in the fact that psychiatrists can issue medications to help people. I asked him, I said, what is the number one factor of most of your patients not to get into the weeds or any HIPAA violations here? Just what’s the number one factor you see most of your patients for what reason? And he said, if it boils down to nothing less than this, Jim, this is my entire career. So he’s gonna medical school. He’s done all. I mean he’s got years and years of training, very successful at what he does. And I ask him, I said, what is that? And he said, it boils down to one thing, being totally honest with oneself, that you are congruent in your actions with the thoughts that you as spouse. And I said, wow Steve, you and I got a lot more to talk about. I’m gonna try to get him on the episode, but we have a lot to talk about. So what he’s really saying, and I don’t want to take your company out of, you know, the, the structure you have it, but he’s really saying that’s nothing more than internal alignment.
RR:
I was gonna say, that’s not taking out of our company’s contacts. Alignment has existed since the beginning of time, we have simply there actions, priorities, and intentions. If your intention is to not cut yourself down and treat yourself with compassion, then you’re needing to check yourself on your thoughts and prioritize what you wanna act on. It’s as simple as that, we have choice at what we decide to go forwards with. We don’t have to believe every single thought that comes through our head, our actions in line with the intentions that we sincerely hold, not of fear, anger, resentment, and the wins of the day, but the things that we hold deeply and fundamentally.
JW:
Love that. Now let me tell you something. My wife, a great philosopher in her own, right? Although her degree is not in philosophy much more wise than I am and much younger than me. She’s still 29. She hasn’t aged today since I don’t understand how that’s working, but she hasn’t, I’m 57 and she’s only 29. And I’ll let you add that up. But that’s a joke by the way. She’s not.
RR:
I’m laughing.
JW:
Women, women are always 29 in my book. You ladies do not age in my opinion. So what she told me one day, she said, life, isn’t that hard. It’s that we attempt to make it harder by the dishonesty of ourselves and then reconciling to others, you with you. So what I’m saying is you can’t find the true friendship of someone if you’re not honest with them. But to be honest with Rachel, I must first be honest with myself. You with me.
RR:
Yeah. That’s that’s why I said I could never, you could never be friends. You could never be real friends with someone else who isn’t friends with themselves.
JW:
Yeah. Now I didn’t tell you what I’m putting on the t-shirt. I just mentioned we have a t-shirt would you like to have a t-shirt when we get it printed? I I’ll get it sent to you.
RR:
My gosh. Of course. Absolutely.
JW:
You don’t even know what I got on it yet. You sure you’ll wear it here. It goes. I think so on the t-shirt it’s gonna have a heart in the middle and it’s gonna have the figure of the little, the man you would use off of like, if you’re doing slides on a deck and it shows the man or, or human figure, let me say not man human figure. And all it says on there is be a kind human for human kind. Huh?
RR:
I
JW:
Love it. Don’t don’t you use it. I’ve got a copyrighted, Rachel.
RR:
I love it. Listen, the whole reason I started this company, the reason I go on I, I connect with people on this. And the reason I work with individuals is all alignment means nothing without the, without context around it. And the biggest context there is, is connection and thriving. And you cannot create connection or be happy in your life without creating alignment within yourself and the world around you. And so that’s the entire alignment is the how. So we, we can’t just will it into existence. We have to work on it. And it keeps us honest when we want our actions, parties, and intentions aligned and being kind as the action and the intention is for all humankind to be kind to each other. And that’s, that’s beautiful. I I’m so happy you shared this with me.
JW:
So if alignment is the, how may I go as a little step further? That piece must be the why.
RR:
Yes.
JW:
I love it. That could be on a t-shirt too. Rachel. Hey, listen, you have been outstanding today. So we’re gonna put in the show, knows how to get in touch with Rachel and her team is she’s got a whole team of professionals that do nothing but help get you your organization in alignment so that you can have that bigger, better, and bolder future that each of us crave. So Rachel, I’ve gotta ask one last word of advice for our listeners across 58 countries. You are touching the lives of people in countries all over this globe. And I would like your last comment to be. What words of advice would you leave us with today?
RR:
Oh, that’s beautiful. Thank you for that. Intentional actions. Matter more than perfect ones. So you can iterate from wherever you are to achieve the results you want.
JW:
I like that
RR:
Alignment. Isn’t a steady state. It’s a practice. So as long as you keep practicing, it’ll keep happening.
JW:
To me, alignment has no terminal point. May I say that? That’s from my old days of statistics, sorry. We, math people speak the same language here rates. I love it. But there’s no terminal point to peace or alignment in my opinion of life. Thank you so much for joining us. Rachel Richter with Inlign, you are just a delight to have on this show and thank you for the bright light. You’ve shown me what a week I am going to have, knowing that I’ve got to spend a few moments with you this morning. Thank you again.
RR:
Absolutely. It’s been a pleasure, Jimmy,
JW:
And our challenge for this week, you know, our listeners send us such great commentary on emails, postings of social media. But the challenge this week is I just wanna do this. I want you to take that few moments. She called it and referred to it as white space. Take that few moments. The radio’s off TV’s off. There’s no kids around you. Just take time for yourself so that you can look inside yourself and see that if you aren’t aligned in the areas of your belief and principles of life, you espouse to be, you find a way to get there. I encourage you to get online and look in the show notes. You’ll have her website for Rachel’s company. She’s got a free newsletter. I subscribe to it. It is outstanding. Great information. It’s a short read, but powerful and impactful for helpful information for you for your week. This week, go out in the world, make the world a better place. If you wanna be bigger, better and bolder, why not start from the common ground we all share and then start making our world bigger, better and bold. We’ll see you next week here on Live a Life By Design. It’s truly been my honor to spend some time with you today.