Marlene D. Chism / CEO. Author. Keynote Speaker

Every stuck moment in your career traces back to a conversation you avoided.

Leadership expert Marlene Chism spent 21 years as a blue collar worker before making the leap to become one of the leading authorities on workplace conflict and difficult conversations.

In this episode, Marlene reveals the three life tragedies that keep you trapped, the SAND framework for getting unstuck, and why willingness is the only thing standing between you and the change you desperately want.

If you've been avoiding a crucial conversation or know you want more but can't figure out what that looks like, this episode will give you the clarity and courage to finally move forward.

5 Key Takeaways:

1. The Three Life Tragedies framework reveals exactly which stage of stuckness you're experiencing and provides the specific pathway forward, whether you don't know what you want, don't believe it's possible, or are too afraid to act.
2. The SAND model diagnoses where your resistance lives by identifying if you're Stuck in patterns, Attached to how things should be, Negative in thinking, or Distracted from what matters, giving you a precise target for change.
3. Willingness is the fulcrum point of all transformation, requiring only that you ask "Am I willing to try? Am I willing to fail? Am I willing to be uncomfortable?" to create immediate pathways forward without needing certainty.
4. The Performance Coaching Model provides a systematic blueprint for difficult conversations, teaching you how to analyze problems, achieve leadership clarity, and create accountability without destroying relationships or avoiding crucial issues.
5. Shifting from "How do I do this?" to "Who can help me do this?" eliminates the paralysis of not knowing and accelerates transformation through strategic relationships and willingness to invest in expertise.

GUEST BIO:

Marlene D. Chism is the leading authority on stopping workplace drama and building drama-free cultures that drive growth and reduce costly mistakes. Known for getting to the root problem, simplifying the complex, and increasing leadership clarity, Marlene works with C-Suite executives and decision-makers, offering frameworks and tools to navigate difficult conversations and increase accountability. As a recognized expert on the LinkedIn Learning platform, she has produced six educational video courses on high-stakes topics including working with high conflict people, having difficult conversations, and anger management. Marlene is the founder of The Performance Coaching Model and author of four commercially published books: Stop Workplace Drama (Wiley 2011), No-Drama Leadership (Bibliomotion 2015), 7 Ways to Stop Drama in Your Healthcare Practice (Greenbranch 2018), and From Conflict to Courage (Berrett-Koehler 2022), which was nominated for an international award from GetAbstract. She holds a bachelor's degree in Communications with a minor in Psychology from Drury University, a master's degree in Human Resources Development from Webster University, and is an advanced practitioner in Narrative Coaching. After spending 21 years as a blu

Paul Povolni (Voppa) is the founder of Voppa Creative and a creative leader with over 30 years of experience in brand strategy and design. Based in Jackson, Mississippi, he has worked with clients internationally, leading teams in award-winning branding while serving as a coach and speaker. Paul delivers workshops and keynotes on brand strategy, creative thinking, and organizational culture, and hosts The Headsmack Podcast: Conversations with Misfits. His work centers on helping organizations lead with Clarity, Creativity, and Culture.

Headsmack Website

Voppa Creative Website

Transcript

Paul Povolni (03:00.18)
Hey, welcome to the Head Smacked podcast. My name is Paul Povolni and I have another misfit with me. I have Marlene Chisholm with me and she says that every, every big problem in an organization can be traced back to a conversation that should have happened, but didn't. Marlene is known for getting to the root of the problem, simplifying the complex and increasing leadership clarity.

Marlene D Chism (03:04.588)
You

Paul Povolni (03:29.888)
As a coach, she works with decision makers, offering frameworks to navigate difficult conversations and increase accountability. She's a recognized expert on LinkedIn learning with six courses on topics like high conflict people and difficult conversations. Marlene is the founder of the performance coaching model and author of four books, including her latest from conflict to courage. Marlene, how you doing?

Marlene D Chism (03:53.316)
Fantastic and thanks so much for inviting me.

Paul Povolni (03:56.49)
I'm looking forward to this conversation. think we're to have a great time. I love a lot of the stuff that you're doing and that you're working on and that you've written about. And so I look forward to diving into all of those things today. And so I appreciate you doing this. All right. So what I like to do is in starting our conversation, I do like to know a little bit more about you, a little bit about your backstory, your, your, your origin story. So tell me a little bit about yourself. You can go as far back as you feel would be relevant.

Marlene D Chism (04:11.226)
Thank you.

Paul Povolni (04:26.114)
But tell me the origin story of Mali.

Marlene D Chism (04:28.73)
Well, let me start with yesterday.

Paul Povolni (04:31.15)
hahahaha

Marlene D Chism (04:34.266)
No, my backstory, you know, for over 21 years, I was a blue collar worker in manufacturing. And I went through a reinvention and it seems like a whole lifetime ago, which it has been, I mean, another universe ago, but it was 21 years. I was 40 when I left, but I went through a lot of searching, understanding that we are in some ways, we are products of our upbringing, our culture.

Paul Povolni (04:52.364)
haha

Marlene D Chism (05:04.014)
what we're exposed to and what we think is a good job, what we think is a great life. you know, once some of your lower level needs are met, I've gotten married and was really in a happy place in my life. And I, from that place, I started wanting more. Now I didn't want more before that because I guess when your needs aren't fulfilled, you're just on survival mode. But after I found who I was going to be with and we, you know, got our house and everything,

I just started wanting something more and I would look around and I would think, do other people do all day long? I I knew what I was doing because every single day, you I would work on a line and so you would pack cheese, stack skid, drive a forklift and on Friday nights you would tear down equipment for sanitation. And I thought, I know what to wear, I know when to clock in and I know what life is like here, but what would it be like to do something else? And that was the first question. And then I think I went through what I call the three life tragedies.

And that is when you know you want something more, but you don't know what it is, then you know what it is, but you don't believe it's possible. And then finally, you know what it is, you believe it's possible, but you have to take that jump. So that's about as far back as is going to be interesting to you, I think. But it was quite a journey, quite a journey.

Paul Povolni (06:15.694)
Hahaha

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Well, I do want to dive in all three into all three of those. think those are wonderful things to talk about as well as situations that people find themselves in. And so, you know, let's get started there. What was the first one again? And talk a little bit about that.

Marlene D Chism (06:36.474)
The first life tragedy is when you know that you want something more, but you don't know what it is. So it's the dissatisfaction with where you are in life, whether that's in your relationship with your family or with your partner, your friends, or whether that's you think that you have more to give, you know, intellectually, or that you're hungry for certain kind of growth. And so I think what I've learned since then, and thank goodness I've had this long life experience now,

I used to think, that only happens to blue collar people that want to be professional or that only happens to people that were raised in certain environments. But the truth is you can be at the top of your game as an executive and you can go through those three life tragedies because life keeps calling us to experience more and to expand. And what I didn't know then was that understanding would help me later in the work that I'm doing now. But I thought it was unique to me at the time.

And there was a little bit of shame associated with that, that, my gosh, I wasted time and didn't get my degree early. And I had all these narratives and stories about it, but I think it's the human experience that any time we're not happy and we're really, really searching, it feels bad because we crave certainty. And what I've learned since then is that we can have a little bit of clarity. And the only clarity you need sometimes is just the light of a candle. And for mine, like, you

Paul Povolni (07:50.583)
Yeah, yeah.

Marlene D Chism (08:00.868)
People will stay in a situation, a job, whether they're an executive, whether they're a founder, whatever, they'll stay in a situation because they'll say, I don't have clarity, I don't have clarity. What you don't have is certainty. You have the clarity that you don't want this. And so for me, I remember the point of distinction, the point of choice, where I said, I really don't know for sure what I want. I thought I wanted to be a professional speaker, but I didn't really know what that included.

Paul Povolni (08:28.227)
Yeah.

Marlene D Chism (08:28.254)
And I thought, I don't really know for sure if that's what I want because I haven't experienced it. And I don't even know if I can be successful, but here's what I do know. This isn't it. And the this isn't it was a match. It's all it took for me to take the next step and set my quit date.

Paul Povolni (08:42.316)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (08:46.902)
Yeah, wow, that's so good. And I feel that, you with, you know, we went through the pandemic, we went through a turmoil of people kind of resetting their lives, questioning their lives. You know, we suddenly we're thrown into isolation. We're suddenly rethinking our job and, know, can we work remotely? Is this really what I want to do with my life? So, you know, when people are in that place that they're feeling

that stuckness, they're feeling like they're stuck and they don't know what the next thing is. They feel there's something more, but they don't know what it is. Do you have any kind of frameworks or tools that you use to kind of help people get clarity on those things or get, get out of that? mentioned clarity is the knowing of something needs to change, but what are some other things to kind of help them move beyond that stuckness?

Marlene D Chism (09:26.296)
Yeah.

Marlene D Chism (09:31.94)
That's a great question. One of the pieces that I have is sort of a framework because I found myself searching for what I call purpose. And I know a lot of people say, but I'm not called by God or the universe or whatever your spiritual beliefs are. And we're looking for signs and the discomfort is the sign. And that you're getting the sign now that you don't like this, that you don't want it, that you're sick of it, but you're afraid to let go. So kind of...

Paul Povolni (09:51.992)
Mm-hmm.

Marlene D Chism (09:59.352)
you can see the signs and we are meaning making machines and the signs are around us, but we still get to interpret. So that can be dangerous or it can be good depending on where you are. I've seen that drive people crazy. So what I did early on, I had some clients, some coaching clients, maybe in year five or six, but I saw that same pattern of people like, well, you know, the universe said, or God said, and I thought, yeah, but what would you say? Cause like, if you wouldn't say the same thing, there's a little bit of danger there. So I came up with something to give people,

Paul Povolni (10:21.623)
Yeah.

Marlene D Chism (10:28.09)
an anchor because what we're missing is some sort of anchor. wanting a parent to say it's okay or this is where you need to go or a coach to tell you what to do and it doesn't matter. Only you are going to bear the consequences of that responsibility. So this is my framework. If you don't know what your purpose is, I'm going to tell you what it is. It's to discover, develop and deliver your gifts to the world. So if you don't know you're in discovery mode, give yourself a period of time and discover, explore. You don't have to attach to it, it.

take the new job, can volunteer, can interview, you can shadow, you can work part time, you can do things to say, I'm in exploration mode. And for me, I do that still. I'll explore, I'd like to do this thing. It's really not connected to my business, but for some reason I feel called. Sometimes I just want to learn something. So I'll do it. It'll be an okay success, but I just think, it was much better in my mind than the reality of it.

Paul Povolni (11:16.951)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (11:22.35)
Hahaha

Marlene D Chism (11:23.514)
There's nothing wrong with just discovering, know, discover, developing. And once you get to discovery mode, which I did, like I was in discovery mode going back to college. Then I joined Toastmasters and learned about speaking. And that was really fun. And I got that acknowledgement of you're good at telling stories and you're good at putting things together in a framework. So you're developing, developing, developing, developing. And then you start to deliver. You're doing it for pay, for free webinars.

podcast, you're delivering your gifts. And then at some point you're in exploration mode again, so you start to juggle. It's not just one thing, it's four or five things. And sometimes you're in discovery mode, and sometimes you're in development mode, and sometimes you're in delivery mode. And so the more you have in those three areas, I think the more fulfilling your life can be.

Paul Povolni (12:13.932)
Yeah, I love that. That is so good. And I think that's a head smack for somebody right there. And I think, you know, probably with the exploration phase, I think a lot of people hesitate in that because of the fear of failure. So how do you deal with getting over that fear of failure? Because, you know, experimenting, exploring, trying new things, pursuing a, you know, a passion or an interest, you know, there's that, that hesitation of what if I fail? How do you, how do you help people deal with?

the sometimes a paralyzing feeling of what if I fail? What if, what if I don't succeed?

Marlene D Chism (12:48.302)
Chances are you will. But it depends on your definition of failure. So is it a success to try? If that's a success, then it doesn't matter whether you met someone else that's been doing it for 10 years, whether you met their standards. We have to determine, and this is hard because we all want this acknowledgement and this yay, this applause from other people, the likes, the agreements.

And you have to decide what is a success for me. And perhaps there's three levels. Maybe the one level is that I tried. The second level is three people bought something and the next level is it becomes my career. So if you set your own standards, that's one of the tools that I would share. Another one is something that I call the fulcrum point of change. And it's a model and a method that I developed. And the idea is that nothing happens until you're in a state of willingness.

So willingness is the fulcrum point of change. And the way that I don't really do individual coaching anymore, but I do group coaching. And so this is one of the concepts that I work with. If you feel stuckness and fear around something, if you can get to neutral, you're gonna be okay. And what I mean by neutral is on the number line of zero to 10, or on the number line of minus 10 to positive 10.

Minus 10 is a complete failure and positive 10 is the best success you could have ever experienced. If you can be okay with either spectrum, like the total failure, oh, I'm an idiot too, I totally won. If you are willing to experience either one of those, because the truth is there's a yin and yang with everything. There's a heads, there's a tail, anything good, there's gonna be the other side of it. It does not matter. And so the stories we make up, like if I get this big client, oh my gosh, I'll feel so successful.

You do until that big client is not happy with something you did and they start telling you that they're not satisfied. They thought you would be more than you are. Then was that big client everything you wanted? Yes, you just didn't expect the other side of that. So you have to get to neutral. You've got to get at the fulcrum point of change to make something happen.

Paul Povolni (14:45.934)
I'm

Paul Povolni (14:52.16)
Right. And I think some people also have this life where they live with regrets or live with a bucket list that never got fulfilled because they were too scared to experiment. Try, you know, one of the things that I'm pretty happy with in my life is that I've always pursued areas of interest and I've failed at some of them. I've realized that it's not something I want to do. It's not something that I want to pursue, but at least I, I

Pursue the curiosity. And I think that's something that that people need to be courageous in doing is pursuing the curiosity of interest is, you know, I'm interested in something, you know, I'm going to give it a shot. I'm going to give it a hundred percent. I'm going to give it time and then see where it goes from there. And I think that's a healthy way to do stuff, right?

Marlene D Chism (15:39.396)
Well, it is, and I love your mindset about that because if we're in exploration phase, we're trying it, we're seeing if we like it. And it doesn't mean we don't want to do it because it's difficult. There's things I choose to do that I'm not good at and I still enjoy it. And it's weird. I'm one of the weird people like that, but I love to play dominoes. I don't win a lot, but I think it's fun. I mean, I don't want to strategize that much. I just kind of look at the colors and I have a good time, but.

Paul Povolni (16:01.335)
You

Paul Povolni (16:06.808)
Yeah.

Marlene D Chism (16:07.474)
And bowling, I love to bowl, but like I went with a group not long ago, a group that I'm in, a business development group and bowling was the activity. And I thought, wow, I love to bowl, but I've got long nails. And I thought, you know, I don't want to be a sissy here, but I really don't want to have a nail crack down the middle. And so I had told a friend of mine on the phone that wasn't connected with this event. said, I'm not going to go. I'm just going to cheer people on. And she said, maybe if you just...

Paul Povolni (16:18.775)
you

Marlene D Chism (16:33.602)
like roll the ball, like you don't look good, but you just do it anyway. Just, and I thought I will, because I wanted to have the experience. I wasn't willing to like hurt myself for one hour of fun and then be in pain for like two months while you have a crack down on your thumbnail. So that's just an example of I'm willing to look stupid, to have a good time enjoying the crowd. Cause I don't need to win. I don't need to get strikes. What I need to do is feel the excitement of being with the team as long as they're not out to win. And it's okay that I'm the loser.

Paul Povolni (16:39.16)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (16:48.002)
Hahaha

Marlene D Chism (17:02.434)
I'm fine with it.

Paul Povolni (17:03.756)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think that's the thing is, is being willing to try stuff, even if you possibly fail, but I think people still have a tough relationship with failure. And I think that gets them, you know, that stops them from pursuing a lot of things because they think that, you know, failure is the worst thing that could ever happen. And I think one of my guests said once, that, they don't, they don't fail. either lose, they either win or they learn. And I think when

Marlene D Chism (17:31.245)
That's true.

Paul Povolni (17:32.566)
I think when you have that perspective of failure, changes everything because you're no longer saying, well, I fail. Therefore I am a failure. It's like, no, I, that thing didn't work. I learned and I move on. Right.

Marlene D Chism (17:45.474)
Right, and something I learned in it, I took a narrative coaching course. It was really interesting. And this has helped me a lot, this one concept that your story is the source of your suffering.

In other words, the way you interpret something makes you, it's the source of your suffering. And if it's the source of your suffering, it can be the source of your salvation. And it was something that when my mom was going through, like when she was in nursing care and she's passed since, but when she was there, it was weird how my interpretation of what was going on.

shifted my level of patience because when she was alive and I was helping to take care of her, and I a lot of people can relate to this if they're in that sandwich generation, but I would get so aggravated. I would think she's not trying and she doesn't care. And I was impatient wanting her to grow like I had grown. And we try to make people be who they are instead of accepting them. But when she went into nursing care and started losing a little bit of cognitive ability,

I remember one day I thought she can't help it and it changed my level of patience and I thought certain things were funny. And I actually would just kind of go along with her story instead of battling with her about how things were. So that reminded me of the saying that your story is the source of your suffering. How you're interpreting will change the way you relate to people.

Paul Povolni (19:03.373)
Right, right, right. That is so good. And I think that's something that people need to consider as well is, you know, the meaning you give something affects the suffering of that, of the experiencing of that is the meaning you give to it or the story, like you said. That is so good. So what is the other tragedy you had talked about?

Marlene D Chism (19:23.034)
So the first one is, you know what you want, you don't know what it is. The second tragedy is you know what you want, but you don't believe it's possible. That's, I think, the hardest tragedy because once you think you want something, if you have a belief of I'm not worthy or I'm not smart enough or only these things don't happen to me, that belief will be so strong that you'll look for evidence to support that belief. And so to believe that it's possible,

is just to, I think it's to expose yourself to it more and to be around others that have done it and watch the stories you make up about why you think it was easier for them. their parents, I used to say, well, they started out on a yacht and I started out on a rowboat one or a nomad. So we tell ourselves things to make ourselves feel better about our lack of success or where we think we ought to be or the judgment we have about where we are. But the reality is in reality,

We don't really know if we're ahead or behind because we don't know when we're gonna die. We don't know what our spiritual lessons are. We don't really know. We're making up a story once again that I should have been further than I am now versus this is where I am and there's really good about it that I haven't recognized. And I don't know what someone else was willing to sacrifice. This was interesting not long ago again at this business development.

conference that I was at, someone said, well, what have you learned? And I saw I've learned three things. Number one, I haven't been trying like when I see what everybody else has been willing to say. Number one, I haven't been trying. Number two, a blind squirrel gets in that every now and then and number three, a dead clock is right twice a day. So the business I've had has been the blind squirrel and the dead clock. And I jokingly say that, but when you start to

Paul Povolni (20:55.171)
Ha ha ha.

Paul Povolni (21:03.299)
Hahaha

Marlene D Chism (21:09.988)
really dig into what other people have, they have a natural ability, then that's just their blessing, right? You can't be jealous of that. It's just what they were given. It's their gift. But you see what people have done to sacrifice, to get to where they are, and you're not willing to do that. And if you can own that, you can say, I'm thrilled for them. I don't want to stay up all night. I don't want to sacrifice weekends. I want certain things that require me to be okay with not being all I could be if I would sacrifice.

I think we have to be comfortable with our choices.

Paul Povolni (21:41.645)
Yeah. Yeah. A couple of things that come to mind in, what you just said there, which was really, really good is, and one of the reasons I start my podcast with hearing people's origin stories is, you know, I've interviewed, you know, a lot of people that have had incredible success. mean, success that is way beyond what most people even imagine. You know, I've talked to people that have made a hundred million dollars in six months, $50 million from one webinar, you know, and we talked to, you know, we hear those stories. hear those achievements.

And we're like, well, I could never do that, but I like to kind of go back and hear their origin story and just hear the journey to that place where they were able to hit that success. And I think once we hear those stories, we realize, it's not, you we, don't just see them on the yacht while we're on the rowboat. We realize that they started in a rowboat too, except they made some decisions along the way that kind of led them to be able to be on that yacht. And I think that that makes a big difference, you know.

Marlene D Chism (22:36.186)
did. Yeah, there was some circumstances, someone they met, a decision that thought that they didn't think turned out, but it turned out they met someone. There's always you can trail it back to decisions and thoughts you had. And then there's luck too, you know, we don't understand all of that. It's like the universe conspired, you know, for your commitment. And so there's that too. And I think just keeping your mind.

Paul Povolni (22:49.123)
right.

Marlene D Chism (23:00.428)
in a good place, you know, is really half the battle with this. But yeah, that second tragedy is, you know, you want something more and you don't believe it's possible. So that's that second one. You can stay stuck there for a very, very, very long time.

Paul Povolni (23:14.753)
Right. Right. And the other thing that you said too is, you know, are you willing to pay what they paid for it? And, know, I think we, a lot of times see people that have achieved a certain level of success. And when we understand what it took to get them there, they sacrificed a lot of things. And, you know, and we look at ourselves and say, do you know what? I don't think I want to sacrifice my family or I don't want to sacrifice having children or I don't want to sacrifice, you know, my health or.

Marlene D Chism (23:31.203)
Yes, indeed.

Paul Povolni (23:44.205)
You know, I, I want a healthy marriage. want, I want to be around my children. want to go to their games and you know, we look at people and they say, well, yeah, I missed a lot of kids games. I'm in my third or fourth marriage. You know, I sacrificed that. so, you know, something pays for the sacrifice and.

Marlene D Chism (23:57.626)
Exactly.

Marlene D Chism (24:01.6)
It does. Yeah. You know, I used to say this was something that guided me and it probably kept me from certain levels of success and I truly own this choice because it's just something that's true to me. But one of my my decisions is that I will never do anything for which I may feel resentment. And so what that means is if someone says, well, we'd love to speak at our conference and we don't have money this year, but we promise you that next year we will hire you for the

Paul Povolni (24:21.455)
Mmm.

Marlene D Chism (24:30.936)
Like I say, no, it's not about the promise. It's about what can we do now? What's equitable? What's fair now? Because if I put my faith in someone else's promise that they can't possibly keep for whatever reasons, then I'm setting myself up for a bad feeling about them and that's not good for your inner being. So I just wouldn't say I don't do anything that I would be resentful for. If I do something free, fee, whatever I do, I do it because I want to and because I see value in it.

Paul Povolni (24:48.367)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (24:56.685)
Right. Yeah. And I think it's, I think it's good for people to also have those things decided on like, here are my core values. Here are my things that I will do and will not do and sticking with them because then you are able to step into experimenting and exploring and trying and moving past stuckness with a clarity on who you are and what matters to you and what you're about. Right.

Marlene D Chism (25:21.688)
That makes a big difference.

Paul Povolni (25:23.543)
Yeah. And so what's the fourth, third tragedy?

Marlene D Chism (25:26.796)
It's you know what you want, you believe it's possible, and now you have to be willing. It's that fulcrum point of change. Now that you have some belief, you have to face what you talked about, your fears. have to be willing. You have to be willing to fail. You have to be willing to be embarrassed. You have to be willing to... The worst feeling, I think, in growth is that awareness that we all seek. But when we seek higher and higher levels of it, depending on where we're wanting to go, the natural thing that...

I want to say thing the natural experience that comes from an elevated awareness is aversion. Because when you thought you were pretty good and then you're living in this life, I've made it happen, know, high five, let's raise the roof. And then you find out you're like mediocre at best, that is so painful. And so once you've had a little bit of wisdom and age on you, you're like, you get ready to grow, fulcrum point of change, I'm going to

Paul Povolni (26:09.721)
Hahaha.

Paul Povolni (26:15.641)
Yeah.

Marlene D Chism (26:22.456)
make the decision and I'm going to be so embarrassed at some point of what I thought was good, but that's because your understanding changes and your standards change. So what was success five years ago is really a failure now because you have a new standard and new awareness.

Paul Povolni (26:39.791)
Yeah. Wow. I love that. And so one of the things that you've talked about, uh, and you've used the word several times in our conversation already, and I want to kind of dive in a little deeper into that is that clarity can change any situation. Talk about that for a little bit. How clarity is, you know, I love the idea of clarity. have a t-shirt that says clarity through action. Um, you know, sometimes you got to step out of the boat and realize the water holds. so, um, so talk a little bit about.

Marlene D Chism (27:01.422)
Love you!

Paul Povolni (27:08.943)
clarity from your perspective and how you help people with that and how to help people get unstuck.

Marlene D Chism (27:14.68)
Yeah, when I first started understanding this, and most of mine comes from experience and just my own narrative and what I've learned and the research I've done, but I had a saying, a three-part saying in my first book, Stop Workplace Drama, and the first saying was, all drama, there's always a lack of clarity. So if in all drama, and I define drama as any obstacle to your peace and your prosperity, and that creates these other things that are manifestations of that internal

drama. So if drama, if in all drama, there's always a lack of clarity, the next piece of that is the one with clarity navigates the ship. And then sometimes I'd say, and everyone else shovels coal. So if you're, if you're shoveling coal, like on the Titanic, you're not, you're not guiding the ship, you're shoveling coal to keep it going. So that happens in leadership a lot. You wonder why you're shoveling coal and the troublemaker is the one, you know, kind of guiding the ship. So

Paul Povolni (27:56.269)
Hahaha

Marlene D Chism (28:09.626)
In all drama, there's always like a clarity. The one with clarity navigates the ship and clarity can change any situation. Now, I've altered that since my first understanding to say that it's not really accurate to say that clarity can change any situation because if someone died, if your business blew up, the clarity does not change what happened, but it changes your experience of what happened. So it will change any experience. that clarity, even about your past,

the clarity about what you want, what you don't want, the clarity about what worked, what didn't. It will change your experience of even your past. And so the first question I ask when there's any kind of drama or conflict, I will say, I'll say, where's there like a clarity? And I wanna share how that came to me. I started getting coaching clients that were, in my opinion, in my assessment, a lot more successful than me.

Paul Povolni (28:48.207)
Yeah.

Marlene D Chism (29:07.554)
had big titles, had backgrounds for executives, C-suite, project managers, whatever. And I remember sometimes when they would start talking, back then I didn't really have much of a process. I'm just learning my coaching process. But I would think, my God, this is popcorn in the wind. There's so much here. And I felt this need to understand everything that they were saying and even understand their business, their role, what they did professionally. And one day something calming came over me.

a voice or something, an inner voice said to me, you don't need to know everything they know. They know what they know. They already have learned and studied their experts at what they do. You don't need to know that and you don't need to give them advice. Your job is to help them gain clarity. That's your only job. And you'll do that through listening, through asking questions, through clarifying what they want, what they don't want, and digging into why they want it. Because usually what we say we want is not the first thing. It's usually about three or four layers deep.

Paul Povolni (29:55.727)
Hmm.

Marlene D Chism (30:07.906)
And so I learned that every single time I hear a lot of drama and a lot of complaining, I'll say, where are they unclear? That is always my first question.

Paul Povolni (30:15.543)
Yeah. Wow. So how do you, for somebody that is feeling the unclarity, they're feeling stuck, they're feeling anxious, they're feeling like they don't know where to go to next, whether it's their personal life or whether it's with their business, what are some steps that they can take to start getting some clarity?

Marlene D Chism (30:36.324)
So one thing that I think they can do is ask the question, what do I want? And that's a big, big question. And sometimes that is too big of a gap for people. They know what they don't want. So maybe that's where you start because in knowing what you don't want, you could write a list of everything you don't want. And on the right side of the column, you could say, OK, what's the opposite of that? So that gives you some clarity right there. That's one way to get clarity because we have no trouble saying, I don't want, don't want, I don't want, I don't want to argue.

Paul Povolni (30:56.846)
Mmm.

Marlene D Chism (31:03.49)
I don't want to go into debt. I don't want to lose my business. I don't want employees that are not, you know, don't take initiative. So what do you want? I want to stay in business. I want to have employees that take initiative. Then you can start defining that. So that's a good way to start with what you don't want.

Paul Povolni (31:17.007)
Yeah, love that.

That is so good. And so, you when it comes to, you know, you mentioned also conflict and culture and things like that, you know, that it happens and drama happens when there's some place that doesn't have clarity. Do you have a set of questions that you ask or a set of things that you expect from people to be able to answer or talk about that helps identify?

where they're stuck and if they're stuck and where the problem lies.

Marlene D Chism (31:50.298)
Yeah, so there's, I want to share this framework first. I call this the sand method and it has to do with the releasing resistance, which is still attached to the focal point of change. I know these are weird terminologies, know, weird words that you haven't heard, but the first thing I look at when I'm trying to see if someone's in resistance, because stuckness is a level of resistance internally. And I often say there's no conflict unless there's an inner conflict first.

So if you clear up your inner conflicts, you'll clear up everything else. Everything starts internally. You can blame the situation, you can blame other people. And while there's truth and facts in that, the real truth is if you're conflicted internally, you'll create conflict externally. So I look for where are they stuck, attached, negative or distracted. Those are signs of resistance.

And so if someone's really negative, what I might do to work with them is to say, I want you to just shift your language for one week, just try this instead of talking about what you don't want, talk about what you do want. Instead of criticizing, look for where there is value. Instead of being negative about yourself, look for ways to forgive yourself or to make a course correction because you can change it if you don't like it. If you've recognized it, there's no reason to stay in the pattern.

So I look for the resistance first. And so that would be my first step is to say, where are they if I was coaching? And I do this with myself too, stuck, attached, negative or distracted. And leaders can do this with their employees if they are inclined to be more of a mentor and a coach with their employees instead of a disciplinarian, you can just say, so they're in resistance because they have the signs. They're really stuck on the way we did it last year. Okay, so.

Paul Povolni (33:29.014)
Hmm.

Marlene D Chism (33:29.848)
So my three levels of questions, if I were teaching this to managers, let's say mid managers, and there's different things I teach to different levels, but if there's a lot of negativity and stuckness, the questioning, the coaching to empowerment goes like this. What do you want? What are your choices? And are you willing? It goes in that order.

So the first question is, what do you want? When you ask someone this, and I've asked entrepreneurs, I've asked founders, and it's really interesting, so your listeners can try this with someone that's complaining in a place of stuckness. When you say, you gotta hear them first. Like no one likes to get advice and be judged. We all wanna be heard and acknowledged. Our pain is real. So if you say, that sounds difficult, or I hear you and it sounds like you're really unhappy, really stuck. If they say yes,

you've cleared the first part, which is listen and acknowledge. Then the next part is, so what is it that you want? Or you could say if a magic genie was here and they could wave a wand, what would you want? When you ask that question, what you're saying is we're in a boat, we're going to an island. What island are we going to? So here's what they're going to say instead. You need to hear what happened last year that was unfair.

Paul Povolni (34:34.158)
Yeah.

Marlene D Chism (34:40.782)
That's a distraction. That means they don't want to talk about what they want. They're focused on a problem. And you say, I understand that happened. I know about that. But the real question is, what do you want? Well, last week, what someone did to me, like, or I can't have what I want. So you have to answer the first question because you can't help someone if they don't know what they want. You can't want it for them. And so if the island is 5,000 miles away, you could then say, well, what do you want this week?

Paul Povolni (35:04.046)
Yeah.

Marlene D Chism (35:11.394)
Like in other words, shorten the gap because if it's too big, it's too big and they're gonna drown in that. They don't have the resources to get there. So what do you want is the first question. And then after you say, do you, after they say, well, I want, they're gonna do this. This is another distraction. I want Jack to be fired. Well, what do you say to that? You go, wow. Well, I'm not gonna fire Jack. And now you're playing verbal ping pong. See, I can't have what I want. That's what I want.

Paul Povolni (35:13.56)
Yeah.

Marlene D Chism (35:39.202)
Instead, what you do is objections die on agreement. So you say, well, if that was possible, what would that give you that you don't have now? Well, I could get my work done and I wouldn't have to stay over every day, an hour till six. So what you want is to leave work at five. And what you want is to have more collaborations to this argument. Yes, that's what I want. See, they think that firing Jack is the way to get there. So I call that getting stuck on the rock called how?

if this will happen, then I'm going to be happy versus what I really want. The core of it is I want to have peace and prosperity. That's all I ever want. And I think I know the way to get that. But the truth is, if I knew that, I could have already done it. So when we're coaching people, say, what do you want? And we try to find what's peace and prosperity for them. I want to feel happy in my job. I want to feel like my work matters. I want to make more money.

Paul Povolni (36:08.014)
Hmm.

Marlene D Chism (36:34.018)
You can say, what would that give you that you don't have? And we all want to make more money. So it's going to be material things or some sort of security is what it's going to be. So it's what do you want? And then after that, it's like, well, let's explore your choices. And so I say responsibility is at first the recognition of choice. If someone cannot recognize their choices, they can't be responsible. So when someone says, don't have any choices, they're in victim mode and you cannot solve that.

Paul Povolni (36:55.182)
Hmm.

Marlene D Chism (37:00.282)
People have to see their choices and feel empowered and have autonomy in order to move forward in those choices. So what are your choices? And like, I don't know what my choices are. Then I would say that I want you to think about that and let's talk again tomorrow. The mistake we make as coaches and leaders is to say, well, you got three choices. You can like it, you can love it, or you can leave. And so people are like, oh, wow, like I knew it. I knew you wouldn't support me. But if they come up with, well, I can quit. I could.

Paul Povolni (37:20.889)
Yeah. Yeah.

Marlene D Chism (37:30.565)
I could get a different degree and elevate my pay or I could work a third shift or I could do whatever, work part time from my computer at home. there's different choices, but they have to be willing to take those choices. And so if we look at someone as a victim and we make it better, we've not helped them to grow their wings. So what do you want? What are your choices? And then it becomes, are you willing to pay the price for a period of time?

Paul Povolni (37:43.725)
Hmm.

Marlene D Chism (37:54.884)
to sacrifice that sleep, to get that degree, to do the things to get on that yacht. Like, are you willing? Because willingness is where change happens. And if they have excuses, they're not willing.

Paul Povolni (38:03.318)
Yeah. Right. Right. Now, which one of those is the hardest hurdle or the hardest mindset to get through? Because it seems to me like maybe the first one is, you know, understanding what you want. I mean, you can, you can maybe deal with, you know, I want that person fired, but what about even like bigger choices? Like, what do I want with my life? I feel stuck. And we kind of talked about this earlier on is feeling this stuckness in life. Um, is that the hardest one that people have to get over?

Marlene D Chism (38:11.652)
you

Marlene D Chism (38:31.374)
don't know for sure. I wish I did know, but like as you asked that question, this is what I suppose, and I've never, I've never like really entertained, which one's worse? I think whatever stage we're stuck at is the worst, but the first one, if you don't get there, you can't go anywhere else. So yes, from that perspective, if like, it's hard to say what you want, you know why? Because if you don't believe it's life tragedies again, if I say what I want and I can't have it, I feel like a failure.

And if I say what I want, I also have to dig a little deeper. yeah, I want to be a millionaire beyond Dancing with the Stars. Okay, why? What would that give you? Like the real reason we want anything, this is my theory, is peace and prosperity. You think the thing that would get, you're talking about the how-to versus what you really want. What we always really want is expansion. We want peace, we want prosperity. If we have cancer, if we have an illness, the...

Paul Povolni (39:01.039)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (39:07.789)
You

Marlene D Chism (39:27.702)
only thing we want is to be whole again. That's the only thing we want. We don't say, I'd to have that jet, you I got to do that before I die in three months. We don't say that. We say, well, I want, I want to feel good again. I would, I will never take it for granted again. I'll stop smoking. I'll stop drinking. I'll work out because all I want is this expansion, which is a healthy body. And so we don't appreciate what we already have until that's gone. And the things we think we want, we're not very honest and truthful with ourselves or with others.

Paul Povolni (39:32.035)
Right, right.

Marlene D Chism (39:56.75)
So digging and drilling down, and it always boils down to a feeling in a sense. It boils down to an experience, not really the jet or the new home or the place in Italy, which can be fun. If you've got those kinds of resources, maybe that feels good, but we really want to feel good and we want expansion. We want peace and prosperity. We want a problem to be gone, and we want an opportunity to be born. And so that's really what we want. And if we kind of know that, we can say, well, what would

What do I want today? Like I know that I have felt good just doing things to step out of my comfort zone. For example, sometimes when I travel, I'll look for places that offer Lindy Hopper or swing dance. even though I'm like a single older woman, not single, but I don't have a partner with me. Like I'm a woman by myself going to a place I don't know.

Paul Povolni (40:40.387)
Ha ha ha.

Marlene D Chism (40:51.524)
There's something thrilling about knowing that I have the courage and the willingness to do it, even though I'm scared to death that I'm gonna like not have fun or not get asked to dance or, know, like I call it reentry when I do something like that. I walk in and it's like I'm entering a different atmosphere from the Earth's orbit. I'm like, this feels horrible. And then one, I get to know the people and I start having fun. It is a thrill like I cannot even explain.

Paul Povolni (41:00.239)
Hahaha

Paul Povolni (41:09.7)
Yeah.

Marlene D Chism (41:15.608)
And the only reason it's a thrill is because I stepped outside of what was comfortable for me and I did something which only reinforces my own self-trust and resilience.

Paul Povolni (41:25.785)
That is so good. That is so good. Well, and I think, I think that there is growth in, you know, trying things that are totally outside of your regular category of doing things as well, because it might not necessarily be immediately tied into who you are and what you do and your profession, your interests or whatever, but you can learn something from it. You can gain something from it, even if it's just a head smack, you know, just something in that moment, you know.

Marlene D Chism (41:50.504)
shit.

Paul Povolni (41:52.473)
that it's like, wow, okay, yeah, I hadn't thought about this situation in my real life until I saw it from this perspective, because I'm trying something different,

Marlene D Chism (42:02.134)
Mm-hmm. And speaking of a head smack too, I think you'll like this story. When I was before, I was really, I mean, it was my first few months being out of my job and I didn't understand what it meant to be a professional. And I didn't understand networking. There was so much I didn't understand. I respectfully say I was a blind man with a cane searching for the next curb.

And I went to a professional conference on the advice of some people that I knew that, you know, I was in a professional organization just trying to find my way around. And I went to this event in Fort Lauderdale. I'd never been to a conference. I didn't understand conference life. And I really felt like a fish out of water. And I looked around and there wasn't anything I wanted to learn. And this is really funny to me now.

Paul Povolni (42:25.039)
Hmm.

Marlene D Chism (42:49.026)
It was about publishing and about PR. And I'm like, I never want to write a book. I just want to be a professional speaker. Well, if you're going to be a speaker, you better write books. And like, I don't want any of this. just want to, do you become a professional speaker and get paid for it? And I was just wandering around trying to make this happen. And on the last night, there was this banquet and it was an awards banquet and it was a black tie, kind of a black tie event. And so I dressed up and knew how to dress. And I noticed at the table, there were, there were award winners at my table.

And that totally intimidated me. And I remember thinking, I hope nobody asks me about myself because I don't have anything interesting to say. And there was a woman there from Atlanta, Georgia, or maybe Washington, DC, and another one from Atlanta, Georgia. And I remember I had all these negative thoughts. thought, I live in, know, hillbilly, town of Springfield, Missouri. And they're living in these metropolitan places.

Paul Povolni (43:38.487)
Hahaha.

Marlene D Chism (43:41.985)
I feel so embarrassed. And one of the women said to me, and I remember thinking, okay, I feel like I'm coming out of my skin. My anxiety was so high because I was self-judging and because I hadn't been in that experience. And I was afraid to be kind of found out. people don't think about you near as much as you think they do. That's one thing I thought. But I'm sitting there and one of the women said, well, you look beautiful tonight. And I kept thinking to myself,

Paul Povolni (44:03.536)
Right, right.

Marlene D Chism (44:11.524)
just stay here, even though you're miserable, stay here. I just wanted to take off so bad if I could get a meal in my room and just get out of this situation. And this was my mantra. I said, when it comes to growth, and I was so committed to my growth, I said, for me, comfort is not a requirement. It's not a requirement that I'm comfortable. It's a requirement that I sit here and feel whatever is going on. So I remember thinking comfort's not a requirement, comfort's not a requirement.

Paul Povolni (44:30.563)
Hmm.

Marlene D Chism (44:38.426)
What I've learned since then is just talk about other people. They want to talk about themselves. They're not curious about you really. And so this woman said, you look beautiful. And I said, thank you. And the other woman said, are you having a good time? And I said, no, actually I'm quite miserable. But fortunately for me, comfort is not a requirement. They both went away. So that's where I was at that time, 25, 26 years ago.

Paul Povolni (44:41.901)
Ha ha ha ha.

Paul Povolni (44:54.415)
Ha

Paul Povolni (44:58.361)
Wow

Paul Povolni (45:04.887)
Yeah, I love that comfort is not a requirement. cause you know, we, we, we sometimes can be lazy and expect that comfort is the only way. And if we don't feel good about it, if we're not comfortable in it, if we're not, have peace, then, you know, that's the ultimate way of living. But I think it's sometimes when we get into those uncomfortable spots, into those things that we're not used to, when we try things and we fail and that's not comfortable failure is not comfortable.

But we find growth in those times. We learn something, we learn something that doesn't work. We learn something that we might like. We learn something new or a new perspective or a new way of looking at things. And you look at, you know, any great discoveries, any creative discoveries, scientific discoveries. It's sometimes, you know, taking something from totally unrelated and solving a problem that you're having because you're looking at it from a different perspective where you've got new information or new insight or new way of looking at it.

And I think we hurt ourselves when we don't allow ourselves to try those different things that sometimes are uncomfortable.

Marlene D Chism (46:08.706)
Yeah, and you know, something that's really fun for me now, and I've learned this over time, but I don't need to be important. You know, I don't, I don't need to be important. I'm so interested in curious because I crave knowing the experiences of other people and how they see things. And, you know, we're all seeing this world so differently. And we know just enough not to bump into the furniture as far as like, we don't see things the same way. We just kind of know that.

Paul Povolni (46:34.541)
Yeah.

Marlene D Chism (46:38.318)
of how things are. And so for me, I'm so interested in neuroscience and psychology and how people think and what their experiences were and what their drama is. And I really want to be a safe space for people to just be who they are. I'm just curious. And I think getting rid of the need to be important or successful has been amazing to enjoy other people and not be competing with them in your head. And like I was early on, was really

I was so much judging myself that I couldn't be in the same room with other people because I had stories about what it was. And I don't have those stories now. Like I know everybody's got pain, everybody's got a different path, they've got a different life lesson, and I'm just interested to know what it is.

Paul Povolni (47:25.263)
Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about personal responsibility. One of the things that you talk about is that truth can hurt or set you free. Um, you know, it's, and it's dependent on your relationship with personal responsibility. So let's talk about that for a second. Talk about truth and personal responsibility.

Marlene D Chism (47:41.691)
That was a huge concept for me to take on a new direction. And it's still a big concept for me when I'm not happy about something, because if I'm not taking responsibility for it, like I'm the only one that can take responsibility for my inner world. Yes, people can upset me and people can do wrong things and people can be uncivil. And there's all kinds of things people can do and there's facts around that. But when I had that awareness,

I learned something that I've kind of used and sort of tweaked it in my own way, but it's a concept by a company called the Oz Principle. Have you ever heard of them? The Oz Principle. Yeah, it's an old leadership book and they're probably still in business, I don't know, but I learned some version of their concept of living above the line. And living above the line, above the line is responsibility. And so,

Paul Povolni (48:22.319)
That sounds familiar, but I don't know it that well.

Paul Povolni (48:37.997)
Hmm.

Marlene D Chism (48:38.488)
living below the line is, I believe it was blame, resentment, justification and judgment. So what I've learned since then is that even my experience that I shared with you where I was in self judgment, that's not living above the line, because I'm not being responsible to myself and to my journey. I'm being judgmental of my journey and it's blocking my connection, it's blocking my prosperity. And so when we're blaming other people,

it's saying that if you would be different, I would not feel how I feel. And maybe that's true and maybe it's not, but part of it's just a story I'm telling myself. And so it's always, what do you want? What are your choices and are you willing? so it's, know, responsibility is the recognition of choice and you can only be as honest as your level of self-awareness. So when...

Paul Povolni (49:11.247)
Hmm.

Marlene D Chism (49:31.579)
you know, when you say, well, I'm honest, I'm honest, I'm honest, or when you get disappointed because someone's not honest. What I remind myself is, well, if they're not honest with themselves, they're not going to be honest with me. And we can only be as aware, as honest as our own level of self-awareness. And that is, what do we want? What do we stand for? What's my values? What's my experience? And our awareness isn't a one and done. This insight came to me the other day.

Paul Povolni (49:43.704)
Mmm, yeah.

Marlene D Chism (49:58.319)
There's not this finish line on EQ and self-awareness. Like it's not like, see these EQ speakers and awareness type speakers going, self-awareness is the key and you're either self-aware or you're not, or your EQ is there. It's not a there or not. It's ongoing depending on what life circumstances you throw yourself into or what occurs because like I don't know myself as a person going through a divorce because I've never had that experience.

So I don't have the awareness. I can judge someone else all day long, but I don't have that experience. I don't know myself as someone facing a terminal illness. So my self-awareness is not in those areas because I haven't had it. You see what I'm saying?

Paul Povolni (50:24.109)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (50:38.615)
Right, right, right, right. Yeah. And I think, yeah, we, we do. Yeah. It's hard to say that there's a finish line. And I mean, you know, I'm a Christian and, I, I believe in the Bible and Paul, says, you know, I haven't finished. still race. I've got a race ahead of me. I don't feel like I've finished. And I think we're all kind of like that in, you know, we, think that there's a, this ideal place that we'll once get to and

Marlene D Chism (50:55.45)
race

Paul Povolni (51:05.593)
You know, we've finally achieved, we're finally happy because even when we see people that get to those levels that we look at as having achieved, you talk to them and they're like, I'm not satisfied. I'm not happy. can, I can go out and buy a yacht tomorrow if I wanted to, but I just feel like I'm, still, I'm not there. don't feel like I'm fulfilled. And so I think we do have different versions of ourselves. do have different, situations that change.

everything and we don't know how we behave when become that new person that that happens to like for me my mother passed away a couple of months ago and I've never been motherless before you know and I I'm having to adjust what life is like being that you know now that there was no way to prepare for it you know there's but there's now a new version of me that I could not have planned for that I have to now adjust to

Marlene D Chism (51:50.788)
You know,

Marlene D Chism (52:00.667)
I love what you're saying and I couldn't agree more. Insights that I've had even four years later, it's interesting how my awareness has changed. And I heard someone at a party the other night talking about their mother-in-law and how they were so negative and so difficult and she's got her needs met and yet she's so negative. And we keep saying, we're not gonna deal with that negativity. I thought, I see myself in that. I see what I used to do and how it's not good. It's not how I

Paul Povolni (52:29.538)
Right.

Marlene D Chism (52:30.168)
be again and I said can I share a perspective that I hope is healing for you? Sometimes people just want to be acknowledged and understood even in their negativity and we've all been negative depending on our energy system and everything so I used to be mad at my mom and think she didn't try, she didn't try hard enough and like maybe trying for her is different than what it is for me and so what I it's like one of my

philosophies, I try to live it, I don't always, but is to listen first and radical listening, meaning that if I can listen and acknowledge, it doesn't mean I agree, it doesn't mean that I don't see your choices, but if I can meet you where you are, know, weep with those that weep and cry, you know, that's a spiritual concept too. There's so many, you're a Christian and really, you know, my upbringing was that and there's so many verses.

Paul Povolni (53:14.892)
Right.

Marlene D Chism (53:20.44)
you know, that have helped me and one right now that I think is really useful for us in our country and the situation that we're in, while everybody's pointing fingers, you know, at each other for being a hypocrite, that the idea of pull the log out of your own eyes so you can clearly see the move the splinter out of someone else's, for me that keeps me grounded to say, while I think I have this awareness, I'm not them.

Paul Povolni (53:37.785)
Ryan.

Marlene D Chism (53:43.32)
And so where do I lack awareness? Where do I do that same thing? Where have I done that same thing so that I can have compassion instead of, I'm the sage on the stage and do what I say? No, everybody's on their same journey.

Paul Povolni (53:43.671)
Right.

Paul Povolni (53:53.899)
Right, right, right. Yeah. Well, one of the interesting things about that, that reference that you shared is, know, the log and the splinter are both made of the same thing. They're both made of wood, right? And so we look at the splinter in somebody else's eye or the login and we miss the login hours. And sometimes it's because the very thing that we're angry about is something that we're not willing to deal with. That's inside of us, you know, that's an arrow and I, you know,

Marlene D Chism (54:20.186)
So true. And once we forgive ourselves and we stop judging, you know, for me, I've done a lot of work on just stop judging your journey. Like it's just your journey. You don't need to like hide it, but you don't need to display it either. It's just your journey. And so once you make peace with a lot of that, you're just so much more compassionate because like the other day, someone that young, that's 39 was kind of struggling with some stuff. my gosh, I don't have, I'm this, I'm this, I'm this.

And she said, Marlene, how can you be so chill? And I said, no one has ever called me chill because I've been an anxious, person most of my life. But when she asked that, said, I think I can tell you why. Because I've been 39, I've been 49, I've been 59. I haven't been 69 yet, but I have been those ages and it's all going to be okay. And it really is.

Paul Povolni (54:55.215)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (55:03.342)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and we started talking about truth and truth can set you free and it can hurt. When, does it set you free and when does it hurt?

Marlene D Chism (55:16.992)
It hurts if it's been something you've not been willing to see or that you were unaware of and someone else sees it as a truth, but you don't. If you're misunderstood and someone says, you're really impatient or you're really aggressive or like I've often been told I'm really intense and I don't see myself as intense because I'm funny, but I am intense in certain ways and I forget that I'm getting so intense with someone else like back off.

Paul Povolni (55:41.007)
you

Marlene D Chism (55:43.757)
And so I think whenever someone sees something in us that we think is a bad thing, instead of just saying, yeah, I can be intense, I really can, it's funny. If I think it's funny, it's not a bad thing. If I think you shouldn't be intense and women should be more feminine, then I think it's a bad thing. So now that hurts. And now I want to work on it because I want to be understood. So when we make peace with things that others see about us, whether it's true or not true,

Paul Povolni (55:49.325)
Mm-hmm.

Marlene D Chism (56:09.912)
We can be like at peace with that and say, yes, some people perceive me that way and women have been conditioned to be this or that. And that's just how that is. And I'm OK with it because when people know me, they like me. And so I think it hurts when we want to deny something that others see. And when it sets us free is when we own it and say, what are my choices? Am I OK with it or do I want to shift some of that?

Paul Povolni (56:19.085)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (56:24.463)
Mmm.

Paul Povolni (56:31.097)
Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, one of the things you talked about is, you know, change and clarity and getting unstuck. so talk a little bit about, that state of being that, that place where change happens, talk a little bit about that and how, how we do that, how we get to that place, because, you know, it's, it's been a great conversation. We've talked about so many great principles that I think are going to help a lot of people as they listen to this.

But let's talk about that state of being that allows change to happen.

Marlene D Chism (57:03.898)
That's willingness. Willingness is the focal point of change. So we can say, am I willing to try? Yes or no. Am I willing to fail? Yes or no. What does failure look like? So am I willing to be surprised? Yes or no. Am I willing to be uncomfortable? Yes or no.

because in the willingness, and this, it's a forgiveness work in a way. There's a spiritual component to this that when, like for example, some of the coaching I used to do with this, when someone really had resentment towards someone, I would say journal, journal, journal, and let all your anger out and go ahead and let the blame out. Look at your dark side. Look at all the things you're thinking that you're not gonna say.

And then when you feel like you've exhausted it, say, but I'm willing to see it differently, or I'm willing to be willing to see it differently at some times, there's a willingness that does the work. It's not the actual, you don't have to do penance. You don't have to like bow down 10 times or like, you know, thumb some beads. mean, you don't need to do it. You just need to say, I'm willing to explore, willing to see it differently. And in that state, you've cleared out all this stuck, attached, negative, distracted stuff. You've cleared it out.

Paul Povolni (57:55.439)
Mm.

Marlene D Chism (58:14.776)
because whatever comes is like, it's just okay. Like, wow, I'm willing to, willing to feel some discomfort here, willing to have a bad year in business to try this new direction. But I'm also willing to be really successful. So like you don't get stuck in the, I'm willing to have a hard time and have a bad business this year. Well, be willing for it to be the opposite of that too, because anything you create has both sides anyway. So the more ready you are for both sides of it, the easier and more in flow you're gonna be.

Paul Povolni (58:38.319)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (58:45.155)
Wow. That's so good. And what about if, you're in that state and you've got that willingness, but you feel powerless, like you feel like, I don't think I have the ability to do it. don't think, that I'm capable of doing it. How do you deal with that?

Marlene D Chism (59:02.67)
Well, that would be negative probably on the stuck attached to negative distracted. So you're back in resistance. So the key is notice resistance. And it's not a one-time deal. So at every level, like, okay, now I have this resistance if I can't do it. So am I willing to be uncomfortable in that not knowing today? Am I willing to do 15 minutes of research? Am I willing to reach out to someone who might know who, not how that's a Dan Sullivan strategic coach concept.

Paul Povolni (59:08.312)
Mmm.

Marlene D Chism (59:32.123)
Am I willing to ask someone that does know? Am I willing to pay for that knowledge? Because sometimes we're just stuck. We don't want to pay for the knowledge. Like there's been a lot I don't know how to do and I got to pay someone for it it's expensive. But if I want it and I don't know how to do it, I can either go to school and learn it and go against the grain of what I like to do or I can just pay someone that already knows. And maybe they can teach me along the way if I want that. But there's always a lack of willingness in resistance, always. So if you feel I'm stuck, I'm this, it's like, okay, I'm resisting.

Paul Povolni (59:40.399)
Yeah.

Marlene D Chism (01:00:01.326)
So what did I need to be willing to do?

Paul Povolni (01:00:04.493)
Wow. This is so good. I can't believe it's already been an hour. This is amazing. So talk to, you know, you've, you've got a lot of things available online and I want you to talk a little bit about the performance coaching model that you have online. Talk a little bit about that.

Marlene D Chism (01:00:19.864)
So I authored a book and it's already four years old. can't believe it's from conflict to courage, how to stop avoiding heart leading. And in chapter seven, there is what a blueprint for difficult conversations. So long story short, at some point I recognize that leaders are meant to have conversations about performance and behavior. They do not have the skills, the capability or even the capacity to do it. And so if you can learn a skillset,

Paul Povolni (01:00:25.152)
Hahaha

Marlene D Chism (01:00:46.458)
that helps a lot with that anxiety. If you know where to start, if you know how to analyze the problem. And so that was in chapter seven, it's called the blueprint for difficult conversations. And then last year when I had knee surgery, maybe it was a year and a half ago, it was in 2025, 2024, into 2024, I built an online course called the Performance Coaching Model that teaches all of that process and step. So that really it's usually sold in corporations that decide to have me in for

you know, day or two workshop and then we filter people into that so they can study it deeper and in sections in five minute segments. And so it's the performance coaching model that teaches you how to analyze the problem, how to have leadership clarity, employee clarity and accountability.

Paul Povolni (01:01:32.239)
Wow, that's awesome. So what's a question that you wish that I hadn't asked you or a head smack that you want to share as we wrap this up?

Marlene D Chism (01:01:39.802)
Gosh, I don't know. feel like you've asked me almost everything. Yeah, I mean, I feel like I don't know because you've asked me everything. That's not a good ending, is it? I should have.

Paul Povolni (01:01:50.627)
No, that's wonderful. It's been an amazing conversation and I do appreciate you coming on and sharing what you have. do believe you've given a lot of practical high value steps that people can take, especially if they need clarity, if they're feeling stuck, if they don't know how to take next steps in their business, in their life. I think they've got a lot of things that they need to go back and listen to this a couple of times and apply it.

I think that change happens not only when we just learn, I think when we apply and we execute, think that's where the change happens. And I believe that's part of this podcast is, know, one idea well executed can change everything. And so I think there's a lot of great ideas that have been shared today. And so if people want to get ahold of you, I know you have performancecoachingmodel.com. What are some other ways for them to get ahold of you, to be a part of your world, to learn more about you?

Marlene D Chism (01:02:44.058)
I'm on LinkedIn, so you can look for me Marlene Chisholm. I'm on LinkedIn. Also, my web is MarleneChisholm.com and my email is Marlene at MarleneChisholm.com. And the reason everything's Marlene Chisholm is because I'm too creative and I've renamed things a thousand times and I think I'm going to keep the same name. So it's just under my name.

Paul Povolni (01:03:03.073)
Yeah. Well, Marlene, this has been an amazing conversation. Thank you so much for your time and I appreciate you coming on and be sure to check out those links. Marlene Chisholm.com, performancecoachmodel.com, coachingmodel.com, as well as check her out on social media. Thank you so much, Marlene.

Marlene D Chism (01:03:15.77)
Thank you.

Marlene D Chism (01:03:21.911)
Thank you.