I’ll share a story about how I was messing up at work because I was doing everything so fast and for the sake of doing it. I learned that going slow and softening into the moment gave me more clarity and stronger execution.
The presenter opens with greetings, checks in with the audience, and introduces the main idea that being soft can be a strength worth exploring. This orients viewers to the video's focus and tone.
The speaker contrasts cultural assumptions that softness equals weakness and describes how moving too fast and being rigid hurt their work and wellbeing. Viewers learn the idea of being 'energetically soft and soulfully strong' and why slowing down matters.
Through examples of complex projects and repeated feedback about attention to detail, the host describes burning out and discovering that relaxing and opening up improved performance. This chapter shows a practical turning point and real-world benefit of softening.
The speaker lays out three key takeaways: softness creates clarity, openness is a form of strength, and being receptive to change allows growth. This section helps viewers distill actionable perspectives to try in their own lives or work.
A metaphor of a pebble polished by tides and the 'onion' of layers illustrates how difficult experiences can refine and soften us when we remain open. This encourages viewers to reframe hardship as formative rather than purely negative.
The host reiterates the main points, invites viewers to share if they're struggling, and closes with well wishes and practical reminders. This brief conclusion offers encouragement and next steps for reflection.
Hello, cadre. Good day, good day. Happy Friday. I'm super excited to be here. I was gone last week, so it's great to be back in action. How are you? How was your summer? How are you feeling? What's bubbling up to the surface right now? Is it a feeling? Is it a thought? Is it What am I doing? I feel like this part of summer is like getting so busy and everybody is trying to calm down a little bit given the extra social expectations on their calendars. And I know that it can be a lot, but today I wanted to talk about how being soft is a strength and often it's not looked at that way.
We associate softness with femininity and like being weak, like at least in the personal training world, like you look at, cushy bodies as somebody who might be weak and it's like, couldn't be farther from the truth, at least energetically. And so I like to think of that as being energetically soft and soulfully strong. That's a great combination to have. And I learned that I was approaching life in a really hard and rigid way pretty regularly and often in my career because, I don't know, I'm American.
I'm just like, go, go, let's make money, let's do this. Got deadlines, we got projects, we got revenue to gain and save. And so It was a lot. I burned myself out a lot in my early stages of my career and I still go through bursts and bits of some of that. So it's easy to do. We have goals, we want to accomplish them. And in that process, I learned that my speed was actually affecting the quality of my work because I am like, I'm a mover and a groover if you're into that kind of thing. I like to go.
If there's a problem, I want to solve it. If there's something that I can get done now, I want to do it. I don't want to save it for later. And eventually when I started to get into more like detailed project work, It was really hard to kind of step back and slow down because I was missing very important things because I was overlooking details and not being very thorough. It wasn't like roles that I had previously had where it was just like grind it out, like let's knock this out, check this out, go, go, go, like bada bing, bada boom.
Now I'm in this like deep complexity of multiple things, multiple stakeholders. Multiple tools, multiple potential solutions and avenues, and operationally there could be everything was multifaceted. It was like on my annual reviews that could use work at paying attention to detail. Like for, I think it was like 2 years in a row, I got it. And I still, I tried. Once I got that feedback, I tried, but it was like still not that great in my second annual review at this said company. Finally, I just learned that the reason I wasn't good at details is because I was not softening.
I was rigid, go. I was forceful. I was like trying to make stuff happen. And once I caught on to that, I just like chilled back. I like relaxed in my body more. I tried to have more openness, just energetically and mentally. And so it was a significant shift. And then I never got that feedback on my annual reviews again about the detailed thing. shining stars. So I want the reason I bring that up is because it's really hard to get out of that mindset sometimes. And I've learned that like softness creates clarity.
And that's like my first objective and takeaway for you today is softness creates clarity. When we're hard and being narrow minded, like we are not able to focus on the big picture or even allow other creative solutions to make themselves present because we're just, we're not open and into it, right? We're going the direction we want to go. And that really limits us into making mistakes or not seeing the best possible avenue. Secondly, being open is a form of strength. We have to be open to, like I said, see all possible solutions.
We have to be open to receive feedback. We have to be open to other people's points of view and the way that other people live their lives, even though that's not how we live or how we grew up or what our values are. It doesn't matter. It's got to be different. We've got to be open and let people be themselves and let the business flourish when those changes happen and we have no control, the business is going to do what it's going to do and you got to be open and roll with it. And when you are, going to be able to rise to the occasion with whatever solution came to you versus the people that are upset about change and are like, in the grumpies about it.
are not going to be able to be open to see what a possibility is. And that change is actually can be really good. Sometimes not, but you never know if you don't try or aren't at least, you guessed it, open to it. And finally, thirdly, that the things, you know me, I got my little handy dandy, the things that shape us, soften us. And my favorite metaphor and analogy for this is A beautiful pebble or rock is sitting on the ocean floor and the tide comes with the sand and comes and goes and it slowly polishes that rigidity of the rock and it turns it into a gemstone.
I have seen firsthand in my life how these really tough, sharp, uncomfortable, being in situations I don't like and that just like, that you just don't want to be in or deal with, those things shape you the most. That hardness, that, it's like scraping away the layers. Like as a yogi, I believe we're all onions. We've just got all these layers. We're slowly peeling off all the gunk until we get into our inner blissful state that is just covered up in all of our gunk. And so let that hardness, let that unfortunate circumstance shape you, allow you to allow your openness to see how like this is teaching me something, even though I don't like it, I'm going to grow from this, you know, commit to that, right?
So again, energetically soft, soulfully strong. And softness creates clarity. Being open is a form of strength and things that shape us can often soften us if we are open and allowing them to be. So hope that helps and resonates. If you're going through something right now, let me know. I'm curious to see because not all of life is comfortable. But there are these situations we're put in these situations so we can grow. And so I hope you're growing and loving and opening and the days you're not, you're learning from it.
So hope you have a great day and a lovely weekend. I will catch you next time, next Friday. Be well, drink a lot of water, spread kindness and stay open.
