So there's that thing that happens when an intensive meets an intensive. It's a spark. It's a glimmer.
It's the thing that happens that keeps us on the phone for three hours when we only booked one. It's the laughing. It's the shimmer under the skin. It's the joy. It's the relief. It's the Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, like that. That zoom cuts off the sound, because we're talking at once, because there's too much happening.
Because- because we are finally home with each other.
We are having a business meeting that makes sense. That feels like it might go somewhere. That clicks. Of course, it's always possible to have the disdain anyway. Intensives are not saints.
But oh, the joy of having somebody who feels like they get us. Who feels like they know us. Who feels like we don't have to explain all those things that we have to explain and explain and explain and... demure, and turn aside, and explain and explain.
And we don't have to encounter that glazed over look that happens when you explain to the wrong person. And they don't want the explaining, they just want to move on. It's funny, because the disdain- the culturally cultivated disdain- comes from so many places. And sometimes it shows up even between intensives.
There was a guy I met at a networking event once and he absolutely did not want to be talking to me for more than 10 or 15 seconds. But I could see the intensive under the surface. And I was so sad. Mostly for him.He excused himself rapidly to elsewhere. Presumably to someone who seemed like they would be more profitable in the long run, which... that's kind of what networking is like sometimes.
But that's not the networking that I like. The networking that I like feels like weaving a web. Feels like sitting down at the loom. Feels like- feels like sitting in a circle and throwing that ball of yarn back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth. Until we have what is truly a physical, interdependent web where any pull changes everyone's experience. And somewhere in that is the possibility of doing business together.
Somewhere in that we find each other. And it turns out that I can make everyone's experience worse, but I can also make everyone's experience better. And someone, someone understands that at the level that brings me into their organization. That makes them trust me, that makes them want me to say what I see. And so I do, and things are not the same afterward.
That's what I always want to be doing. Things should not be the same afterward. Let me change things with you. Let me hear what you really dream of. Let me know where the places are that my greatest talents meet your greatest needs. Because you are part of the world. As we all are, you are part of the world. And I will never not be the person who came here to make that better. That spark, that brilliance, that shine, that interconnection, that 'I want to do it.' I want to help you. I want to be in your world, even if we are both busy and don't have a lot of time.
And maybe won't speak for six months or eight months or two years. But then you'll come back and you'll want- you want to talk. You'll want to tell me something. You'll think of something. You'll see someone wearing well made breeches in Williamsburg and it will spark a train of thought that will make you text me when you get back to your hotel. I want to be connected.
We are all connected. I want to honor that connection. I want to live in that connection. I want to live in the hum of the electricity of the wires. And.... And I want to sit in absolute peace and solitude. So that I can come to those wires with something. Something of mine to offer. I am generative at my core. It means that I need to be alone to be together. And I love intensives. Because intensives, even if they don't get it in their bones, will get it in their hearts. And they will know that when I have told them that, I mean it most sincerely.
Or they'll have trauma, and it will be hard. Either one is true, all of it is true. We are so complex, and so beautiful.
And meanwhile expansives, expansives are this other world. Understanding expansives is the other 50% of why I made this framework the way it is. Because when you watch expansives meet, it's like watching the most choreographed of dances. It's perfectly even. Symmetrical. Three steps inward. Say hello, hang the coat, sit precisely in the chair. Unfold the napkin.
There's a ritual basis to expansive existence that I can only admire from afar. Even now as I'm recording, I know that I chose to start recording instead of lighting the candle on my altar. I will go back and light the candle on my altar after I have finished my recording. Because I knew if I stood up I might not do the recording.
The words were right on the tip of my tongue and I had to do that first. And I had promised I would do it first and I wouldn't be fully present at the altar if I was lighting the candle when I needed to be recording. And so I am now recording. But that's not how expansives work.
Expansives have such deep patterning. Expansives have such deep respect for duty, for containers, for process, for the rhythm of breath. I cannot enter that choreography without making a disaster of it. And that's where the friction is.
But when expansives meet expansives, there's this relaxing. This shedding of an exoskeleton, because they know they can trust each other to show up in this precision-based way. They know they can trust each other to hold similar standards and expectations. They know that expectations are important. I can only tell you about expansives from outside expansives. Because I am not an expansive. Not even a tiny little bit.
But I can tell you the breathtaking beauty of expansives with expansives. The clockwork, precision, gorgeousness. Intensives are often the ones who will notice that there is a pattern and describe it broadly. Expansives are the ones who will come back with the calculations down to the millisecond. So that we can all know when that thing is going to happen next, and next. And next. They won't know in their gut, but they will know from their calculations.
That is extraordinary and beautiful. If you are gifted with an expansive intimately in your life, then you know whereof I speak. You know the beauty of the evenness of the breath. It looks to me like Japanese Tea Ceremony looks to me. Intensives can learn the rituals. We can pour ourselves into the shape for short periods.
But expansives... Expansives with expansives are at ease. There is no stress, there is no tension, there is no fear of forgetting. There is just knowing. There's the ease of the knowing. And it is gorgeous.
This was the week where we talked about differences and similarities in type. Next week, we'll talk a little bit about how and what to redistribute and delegate, so that everybody's doing what they love to do. And also there may be some bonus content that's a little bit off the beaten track.
I am working my way up to opening a substack. I will be putting the transcripts, just as they come out, in the substack as a kind of a separate playlist. But also I will be offering additional thoughts. And sometimes the interplay between the substack and the podcast will be that I will have more commentary that feels like it wants to come out in spoken word, and so it'll be here. Looking forward to having you joining me.
Thanks for tuning in.
