HoCoSo CONVERSATION
HoCoSo CONVERSATION
"Leading Dynamically: The four principles of leadership - PART 1" with Patrick Ghielmetti
Patrick Ghielmetti, president of Ghielmetti & Associates, is Jonathan Humphries' guest for this episode of the HoCoSo CONVERSATION.
Patrick is a transformational leadership coach, and conducts workshops and cultural change programs across 35 countries. In part 1 of this discussion, we’ll be looking at the principles of leadership, looking at the differences between a change versus a transition; the four principles being :
- Commitment
- Responsibility
- Authenticity
- and Contribution
We’ll be looking at the difference between static and dynamic leadership, acceptance versus resistance, how it’s important to react from a neutral position which is acceptance: not judging, not good or bad or right or wrong, only from the opportunity for growth.
The question is: Are you committed to generating your results? The need to lead dynamically is a requirement for this, and the four principles of leadership support our choice.
We’ll also be looking at how we put aside ego to grow as a leader and make better decisions going forward. What we are committed to, makes the difference. “I’ll handle it because I said so”. Our wellbeing ultimately determines our values. For example, when I say to myself “I will make this happen whatever it takes".
Stay tuned for part 2 as we look at responsibility, being responsible and the four levels of responsibility.
Join us for this enlightening conversation!Follow our journey and our discussion with some of the most renowned and influential people of our time.
In the same category:
"How to transition from a Static to a Dynamic Leadership style" with Patrick Ghielmetti, Part of the Hospitality Resilience Series
"Agile Leadership: Transforming teams and individuals - Being agile and doing agile" - PART ONE - with Markus Feller
“Personal Transformation: Living with a positive mindset to create new results” – with Simone Gibertoni
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Jonathan Humphries [00:00:01] I am your host, Jonathan Humphreys, welcome to the HoCoSo conversation. These are unfiltered conversations with people sharing their life journeys and learnings to help us become better versions of ourselves.
Jonathan Humphries [00:00:16] It is my absolute pleasure to be joined today by Patrick Ghielmetti, from Ghielmetti & Associates. Patrick is a behavior-based coach and is an experienced facilitator of dynamic transformational leadership programs across 35 countries. He is passionate about changing the world one leader at a time. His illustrious career spans 30+ years in hospitality mainly with Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, one of the most prestigious hospitality companies in the world, where he held many senior leadership positions. During today's discussion, we will be exploring the difference between dynamic and static leadership, the four principles of leadership: Commitment, Responsibility, Authenticity and Contribution. And we will talk about what it takes to be a truly transformational leader. Thank you so much for joining the HoCoSo conversation.
Jonathan Humphries [00:01:17] Good morning, Patrick. It's an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast this morning and to explore various topics together, and we've had many conversations over the last several months. Welcome back to Switzerland, first of all.
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:01:34] Thank you so much, and thank you for having me, Jonathan, I feel very honored that you have me on your podcast and thank you so much for the invite.
Jonathan Humphries [00:01:41] You're absolutely welcome. You know, it's a shame that we didn't have the opportunity to record any of the previous conversations that we had. And I know that you've been a guest on the Hospitality Resilience Series as well. We explored different topics there, connected to wellbeing and resilience, but obviously your focus from a professional perspective has always been on leadership and leadership development, transformation of leaders and helping, you know, indirectly and directly organizations transform themselves, either through a cultural perspective or a different kind of approach and a different kind of thinking. And based on our previous conversations, we wanted to really explore the topic of leadership and the principles of leadership. And I know that you have four principles of leadership that you communicate and share with the various clients that you have and the various leaders and the teams that you help move forward in the right direction. And I thought we could start with those principles, the four principles, explore those in terms of what they mean to you. And the basis of all of these conversations, as you know, from listening to the previous one, this is about personal experiences. It's really also about examples where you can share examples of, you know, you don't need to name particular names, but where you can give examples without breaching any confidentiality. I think that's really helpful for the audience. And you recommended a book by William Bridges called Transitions.
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:03:24] I did indeed.
[00:03:25] Which I've just taken the pleasure of reading over the last two weeks of vacation where I really needed the opportunity for some R and R readings, one of those great treasures that really helps in that regard. And I would say, given you know, my particular position at the moment and how I'm feeling, that book resonated with me very strongly. And William Bridges talks about endings, the importance of endings, the allowance of time for a neutral zone and within that neutral zone is boredom, sometimes questioning, but also chaos when things are just kind of in a melting point, a melting pot of different ideas, different situations. And then there's also the new beginnings, and I think we can relate to that both. Well, I could relate to it both professionally and personally. As I find today, most of these things are intertwined anyway, professional and personal. How we're feeling and doing personally affects us massively professionally and vice versa. So we could have a look at weaving in transitions because I know that you've been through, you know, and I think everybody's been through transitions.
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:04:45] I think everybody goes through transitions. You know, moving a home, even if it's couple blocks down the road, is a transition of sorts. Everybody goes through transitions, absolutely.
Jonathan Humphries [00:04:53] Yeah. Although interestingly, he makes a difference between a change and a transition, which I liked. Right. So we can change our environment; that is an opportunity for transition. So we have a house that we could, you know, start a new relationship or start a new job or start a new position of responsibility; that in itself is a change. The question is whether we also, then, allow ourselves to connect it with an opportunity for transition, which is an opportunity to rediscover or discover a new version of ourselves that we can apply in to that new situation and maybe learn from leaving things behind that are no longer relevant to our current situation. So I thought we could explore that. I really liked that theme. I know it's been around since the 70s and I know that he's done new versions of that, and lots of people have adapted this. Taking it on board,
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:05:55] but it's dealing with the current and relevant right. If you think it's been written in the 70s, early 80s, I believe, I mean, it's been around for a long time, but it's still very current and relevant in many, many ways.
Jonathan Humphries [00:06:05] Totally, totally. And I think given you know, the situation that we've all found ourselves in the last 18 months due to the pandemic, I think the question of, you know, what our relevance is, what we're doing, why we're doing it, how we're doing it has opened up this desire and need to discover a new way forward, which in itself is an opportunity, right, to transition and change. So I think we'll start with the framework of, let's say, easier topics that I'm,
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:06:40] not sure if it is
Jonathan Humphries [00:06:41] I don't know if it is, but we'll see. Let's start with the four principles of leadership and you very clearly have articulated these as commitment, responsibility, authenticity and contribution. And I thought what we could do is we could explore each of those in detail for the audience. And maybe let's start with commitment. With that, you've labeled it number one.
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:07:08] So I don't know why to start with that one, but I do start with that one. Before we go there, Jonathan, I think in previous conversations, you and I talked about leadership in a more generic sense and that there are two ways to lead statically and dynamically. And that's not for the conversation today and obviously a big promoter of dynamic leadership, just in one sentence that mean there's a situation, there's an event, and I'm in acceptance of that event. And then I make conscious choices leading to potentially new results. And in that space, I will most likely always be a little bit uncomfortable. And it will require of me to take risks, in a nutshell, so distinction between dynamic and static.
Jonathan Humphries [00:07:53] So let's explore that a little bit, because it's probably context setting. Isn't that for for the four principles and you've talked about the difference between, so you have acceptance, but you also have rejection or resistance. So it's acceptance and resistance to a given situation or a new piece of information or a new environmental impact that's going on or a new relationship that's been maybe brought to you, a new role that you've been given, a new responsibility or the other way around. Maybe it's, you know, especially in these times, maybe it's a reduction or you've been asked to create more efficiencies in the organization, you know, multitask change teams, there's lots of different possibilities at this particular point in time. So maybe just for context, we could expand on that dynamic versus static and then the acceptance versus resistance just to set the scene for the audience.
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:08:56] All right. So two ways of leading dynamic versus static. In dynamic, there is an event and we are in acceptance to that event, meaning I react to it from a place of neutral. I don't judge the event as right or wrong, as good or bad, and I don't give much emphasis to the emotions linked to that event. So whether I liked the event or disliked the event becomes quite relevant, excuse me, becomes quite irrelevant. I define this acceptance. The point of view that I'm offering for consideration, only once you are in acceptance, is there a way forward to create a new vision right now in the present moment, supported by conscious choice or conscious choices. When you lead that way, dynamically, that presents the option for growth, for evolution to create new results that previously have not been generated. That's the good news. The bad news is that in that space, we will find ourselves what I label outside of comfort, outside of the comfort zone that we typically operate in, and it will require to take risks, that these are prices to pay being outside of comfort and the willingness to take risks; that's dynamic. The opposite, the static cycle is the same event, but instead of being in acceptance, there is a certain degree of resistance at play. Resistance comes from beliefs that we created in the past. They may well have served us in the past. Typically that's stilled in us by our parents very typically right. And they may have served us for a while, and some of them may serve us for the entire lifespan; core values that have been instilled. But that other beliefs that have been generated in my youth, they may no longer being of service to me, they have been outdated because the environment around me does change. So when I lead that way, that's also a form of leadership. We then go into automatic or robotic reaction, meaning it is not operating from a conscious choice. The best that we create in that space is same same, meaning; we don't elevate, we don't evolve, we don't generate a new result at best, we stagnate, we survive and we get to be right in these scenarios. We get to play it safe in these scenarios, we just don't elevate. There are great benefits to this. It is within our comfort and I have the feeling to be in control. I prefer to inhibit the illusion of control because, believe it or not, I’m controlled by this. So that's why I label it illusion of control. That's static leadership. I want to be very, very clear that one of these cycles is not better or worse, because then we would label it again as good or bad. It just depends what you're committed to. And that will bring me to my first principle of leadership. It depends what you are committed to. Are you committed to lead dynamically? Rephrase that. Are you committed to generating new results that we previously have not generated? If you are committed to that in my see, and the only way to do this is through dynamic leadership. If you're committed to staying sane and I'm here to survive. You know, we might as well lead statically because it's plain easier, and it has benefits, too. When I talk about the four principles of leadership, if you choose dynamically, there are certain principles of leadership that support that choice: commitment, responsibility, authenticity and contribution. There are many, many principles of leadership. You know, you could name 20 or 50, most likely if I have chosen those four, they have been given to me at some point when I was learning leadership in the domain of transformation. And yes, we can start with commitment as maybe the first one to explore a bit further. Does it make any sense or you want to talk more about dynamic and static.
Jonathan Humphries [00:13:24] I think it makes I mean, I think it makes perfect sense. I think also, maybe I'll just put a different angle on it. I mean, there is also what seems to be the difference between subjectivity and objectivity here. So you talk about being neutral to the events.
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:13:40] Yes. Yes.
Jonathan Humphries [00:13:42] The ability to kind of step back and look at it objectively, rather than subjectively through our ego, emotions, allows us maybe to explore other solutions and other ways of doing things and also open up a discussion and dialogue with those around us. To say, look this is the situation from a neutral or objective perspective rather than launching into a solution that is based on ego or emotion.
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:14:14] Beautifully, beautifully said.
Jonathan Humphries [00:14:16] Yeah. And I mean, I can maybe talk to this experience recently in one of my positions. You know, I was asked to essentially find cost savings, reduce the budgets, change my own contract, reduce the cost of my own contract and also reduce the cost of the team. And the first thing I did was just trying to step back from the whole situation. You know, having spent three years building up the team, the program, you know, making it world class and then being told, OK, let's let's cut it, let's cut it without impacting it, right? That's let's cut the costs without impacting the quality.
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:14:58] Tough mandate.
Jonathan Humphries [00:14:59] Yeah, tough mandate, right? So my kind of initial reaction was, but I've just spent three years building this up and getting everybody bought into this. And that was the whole emotional reaction, which I just kind of then put to one side. And then I said, like, you know, at the end of the day, this is business, right? It's business. Other people have objectives. They need to meet those objectives. This is part of those objectives. OK, so how can I do this in the cleanest and most efficient and possible efficient way and clearly communicating what's going on and being fair? Right? So, you know, going through that process and trying to be objective. I say it's not easy, but actually what it does is it allows for different kind of dialogue. So the first thing I did was reach out to various stakeholders and people just to understand their rationale why it's happening. Is there any opportunity? Is there margins here that we can look at to negotiate? The answer was no, but I then understood the rationale for what was going on. So that helped in terms of my decision making going forward as well. So I moved in that particular situation to accept and I say I would say within 24 hours. Right from resistance, you know, I would say, ten years ago, seven to 10 years ago, I'm pretty sure my period of time in that resistance would have probably would have been a little longer. And actually, the discussion that we had on acceptance and resistance came to mind as well. And I'm also going to link in, I did a podcast recently with Mark Hardy and we talked about stoicism and leadership, and there's a lot of alignment here, which is quite interesting. And he was saying that from his observation, a lot of leaders put down their own successes, which are based on subjectivity and emotion and ego.
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:17:01] Ego, for sure.
Jonathan Humphries [00:17:02] Yeah. And they put it down to their great leaders. And he said, what's interesting about that is if you flip it around and start to look at things’ objectivity objectively, you start to realize and you know, as I appreciate it many times, it's not down to me. It's down to the team, it's down to the people that make things happen. And he said therefore, as a leader, you can really then also, you know, place a lot and if not most of the credit on the individuals within the team and you realize it's not down to you, you're in a position that you can look at things objectively and you can make those decisions. But ultimately, if you do it in the right way, you open yourself up to get feedback before you make those decisions, and it's much more collaborative than you can kind of get. You can make a better decision ultimately that everybody buys into it, which I think kind of ties in with dynamic leadership as well.
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:17:57] Totally, totally. It's packaged maybe differently, and I've listened to Mark's podcast, but it's maybe packaged different but it's the same thing. Yeah, yeah.
Jonathan Humphries [00:18:05] So I like the fact that there's a lot of consistency. I think irrespective if we're talking about stoicism, which is thousands of years old or dynamic leadership, which maybe is a little bit more modern.
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:18:18] Possibly, yes, possibly. Yes.
Jonathan Humphries [00:18:22] You know, Marcus Aurelius, I'm sure, was a dynamic leader, right? So there we go. Anyway, let's go to commitments and let's explore that in terms of what it means to you, Patrick.
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:18:38] Yes, kind of the premise, you know, everyone is committed. The question is to what are you committed. And to me, it made the big impact basically a very, very brief definition, as simple as it gets: to me, it means I'll be or do whatever it takes. Simple as that. And it's not doing that much more important word in here is the being. Because in my book, it's attitudinal. It's a stake in the ground. It's an attitude. You know, when someone gets married in front of the priest, you say, I am committed. You're not saying I do commitment. You know what I mean? So to me, it is a stake in the ground. For me, it is whatever it is, I will handle this. I get this done. I notice how often people use words like trying, hoping, wishing. That to me is not commitment. Commitment to me is I'll handle it because I said so and it is important to me. I personally love making public declarations surrounding commitments because it does increase the sense of accountability. So I give you an example. Many moons ago, I was working in a hotel environment. My boss said, one fine morning, "Patrick, meet me at six o'clock outside of the hotel, we're going for a run". And I was not a runner, but I was playing up to my boss, you know, to probably appease him, and it was a people pleaser at the time, a lot less now. And I said, why not? And I was there at six o'clock and it was in Chicago and we ran 1.5 K north and 1.5 K south. A total of three K's and I was exhausted. And my boss after this 3k run declared with full passion and enthusiasm "Let's run the Chicago Marathon together in four months from now." And you know, I was intrigued at best but for sure not committed at that time. But I came home and I told my lovely wife Margaret, you know, Robert's declaration and that I'm considering it possibly to do as well. And my wife knows I wasn't the runner. And she was kind of, in a very gentle way, but kind of laughing it off. And in that moment, there was something that clicked because I’ve a very competitive side, and I said "I'll show you". And I got committed in that moment, I became crystal clear. I will run that marathon whatever it takes. I signed on. Lots of obstacles along the way, including the Chicago weather, including Runner's low. There were so many obstacles in the way, and I will cut the story very short, but I did run it and, in four hours and 10 minutes. 10 minutes faster than my boss, which was important to me at the time and I did finish. And to me, the reason why is that I'm using this example not to brag. I'm using this example as a scenario. That was when commitment was at play. And I realized that commitment is one of those principles that I feel very grounded in. I declare that seven I will be running a hotel. It took me thirty-three years, but I was running a hotel as a general manager when I was 40. I declared at some point I will have dinner with Renee Fleming. Not sure if you know she's a big, one of the mega opera soprano stars. And I said I will have dinner with her. I had dinner with Renee Flemming. So I'm very grounded in commitment, and I happen to believe that people who lead dynamically and support their dynamic leadership by operating from a place of commitment, the potential to succeed in generating those new results is way more likely if you bring commitment to the equation. Let me stop there, and that's it's pretty provocative what I say here, but it is based on knowledge that was given to me that I have put into practice for years and still practice. And I'm absolutely convinced that one of the reasons why I generate at times, except results, is because I’m operating from a place of true commitment the way I like to define it. Does it make any sense?
Jonathan Humphries [00:23:26] Perfect. Yeah, I interpret this as a way of being.
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:23:31] That's exactly, it's not a doing, it's a way of being perfect. Couldn't agree more.
Jonathan Humphries [00:23:36] Yeah. Which means it's a value like a core value.
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:23:41] Beautiful.
Jonathan Humphries [00:23:42] And I totally buy into the whole public declaration aspect. I think it depends where you are as a as a person, I need to be able to make that public declaration. And I know that when I make that public declaration, I'm all in. I've run a couple of marathons; New York Marathon.
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:24:05] I know you did.
Jonathan Humphries [00:24:09] And that was after I had said to myself, I'm never running another marathon after running the Zurich marathon. And then a few months later, one of my very good friends at the time, he said, you know, he's going to run the New York Marathon for cystic fibrosis for his son. And he was getting a group of friends together, and he said, would I join? And I said, Yes, absolutely. And then it became the public declaration of, we're doing this together, right? So.
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:24:40] And if I may interrupt, it also plays into contribution and we'll talk about this later. Yeah, that was, I think that was a combination of both, a for sure commitment and contribution. And we'll talk about this later.
Jonathan Humphries [00:24:54] Yeah, it really it really is. Yeah, I think that that contribution is it is a very high motivating factor as well. But let’s, I'm intrigued by this story about Renee Fleming, the opera singer. I'm not into opera. I'll just say that openly, but I'm intrigued by how you were able to do this. So, when did you declare that you would like to have dinner with her? And how did this come about? How did you make it happen?
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:25:20] You really want to hear that story?
Jonathan Humphries [00:25:24] Yeah of course.
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:25:24] First and foremost, it wasn't "I would like to have dinner with her", that wouldn't have worked. It was "I will have dinner with her".
Jonathan Humphries [00:25:31] Ah, OK.
Jonathan Humphries [00:25:32] To me, that's because anybody can say I would like to have dinner. I hope to have dinner with her or I wish I could have dinner with her, or I will try to have dinner with her. I wouldn't have had dinner with her. OK. So I became crystal clear that I needed to shift my being into "I will make this happen". And it almost didn't, but it did. I happen to live in Bangkok at the time. I knew that Renee Fleming would come for a concert, which for sure, I would go because I go to every concert that she sings in when I am in town. And I knew the agent, the Bangkok agent over Renee Fleming, and I just declared, I will find a way. And I had tea and scone with that agent for more, for many times to enroll her in my commitment. I got her on board. And, you know, every single attempt that we tried failed. Initially, I tried to get her into the hotel that I was managing, that didn't work. I tried. I tried two or three or four avenues and it was always a no and almost gave up. But I didn't because I reminded myself of: Hold on; I said I’ll made this happen. And in a final attempt, I said at some point the woman needs to eat after the concert. You know, can we get her into the hotel that I manage for a meal post-concert? And initially it was a no, and the agent came back to me, said, you can meet her after the concert, you know, for a quick handshake jointly. Probably 100 other people. And I almost yielded. But that would not have qualified as I will have dinner with Renee Flemming. So I said, not good enough. And we went back with this invitation. And finally, the YES came and it came with a small entourage of people that you would have taken up. I couldn’t care less about the entourage. And we'd put the entourage around, you know, Miss Fleming and myself. And I was 2 hours in her presence.
Jonathan Humphries [00:27:37] Two hours?
Two hours. And the dinner was irrelevant. And she was not the singer. She was Renee Fleming as a beautiful, genuine and real, authentic and vulnerable woman in my presence. And I will never forget that evening. You know I told my wife, Margaret, it would be nice to have on my tombstone “He had dinner with Renee Fleming” because it was a very, very key moment for me. And again, you know, was there some luck that she wasn't back at the same time that I was? Yes. Was there some luck that I was in a position of privilege, quote unquote and ran a luxury hotel? Yes, but that was all that was going for me. The rest that I created came from a place of nothing else but committed to make this happening.
Jonathan Humphries [00:28:28] It's brilliant. It's brilliant. Congratulations.
Jonathan Humphries [00:28:32] Well, it's it was a very, very special moment. And again, I don't want to say just to brag, this is an example for me that, you know, I created my own company that I have now, from a place of commitment. I told you beforehand, at seven years old, I was a little boy, I declared I will run a hotel. That was, of course, it was a boy's dream, but deep down it was anchored. And it was coming from a place of commitment and I made it happen.
Jonathan Humphries [00:29:00] I think I like the language. I will make this happen,
Jonathan Humphries [00:29:05] whatever it takes
Jonathan Humphries [00:29:06] Yeah whatever it takes, and it's the commitment to oneself to start with. I also think that, you know, you highlighted, OK, there were these things that came together that allowed a greater opportunity for this to happen. But I'm also a great believer that once you've committed to something, you see the opportunities much more clearly. And therefore, if you hadn't had that commitment to have dinner with her and made it your personal commitment to have this experience, maybe you wouldn't have seen all of the different combination of opportunities that came together at that particular time where you knew that that has the highest probability of making this happen. If there was less on the commitment, you might have said, Oh, there might be another chance after the first two times of approaching her. And there might be another time but somehow you knew that the stars were kind of aligned in a way that this was a real opportunity, that you created it.
Jonathan Humphries [00:30:12] It was. But two more comments, despite, as you call it, the stars were aligned. There were moments where everything fell apart. And in my observation, when people are confronted with that, we give up very easily, and we go to Oh, but I tried it and that to me, if you go to that, it's not wrong. But it is no longer being committed. Committed you know the Nike logo "just do it". But it's more than just do it. It is just do it, whatever it takes. And so very often on our journeys, we are confronted by things that would give us the perfect excuse to give up, the perfect excuse. I make the provocative statement when you're operating from a place of commitment, giving up is not an option. Now, if something changes and you get off your commitments, as I do no longer want that, that's a different thing. But then you need to question yourself. Is it abandoning? Is it giving up? Is it escaping or is it hold on, something changed in my commitment. Can I make a different? That's a different one.
Jonathan Humphries [00:31:27] Exactly, yeah.
Jonathan Humphries [00:31:29] And the second thought that I had. You either are committed or you're not. There is no gray area here. You know, it's not "I'm a little committed". No, you're a little committed to me, then the word try or hope there is room again. There's room for an excuse, there's room to rationalize it. Why it's not working. No, it's just I am committed. Handle it.
Jonathan Humphries [00:31:51] Very good. Very clear.
Jonathan Humphries [00:31:54] It's not God's gospel. It's the truth. But it has become a truth for me. And in the leadership work that I do facilitate, I offer it as a perspective to consider.
Jonathan Humphries [00:32:05] Patrick, I know that we've got three other principles to focus on as well. We've talked about and given examples of big commitments. But surely this just translates on a daily basis as well. Right? I mean, if it's a way of being, then it's just it's a way of operating as a way of leaving. So irrespective. So, you know, if you say I'm going to send an email or I'm going to follow up with somebody or make an appointment, or I'm going to meet that person for lunch, we're going to have this podcast together.
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:32:44] Yes.
Jonathan Humphries [00:32:44] At the same time, you know, we're all limited by our priorities, our time, our energy, the things that we can do well, the things that we can't do well. So surely we have to be careful what we commit to as well. Can we talk about that a little bit? It just in terms of like, how do you prioritize what you're going to commit to and therefore what you can't commit to? And I guess you also have to be very clear that you can't commit to things or you can't do them because otherwise, if we commit to everything that's also., it's going to set us up for an impossible situation. So I, I think, being committed is we have to be selective, surely, about what we're committed to and how we communicate.
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:33:37] Could not agree more with you. I'm listening to the words that you're choosing. I said, I can't be committed. I will probably say for me what resonates more? I choose not to be committed to certain things. Because I think it's a choice. I have a choice and every moment to get committed or not get committed. Yes, and you are correct if I get committed to a thousand things to my day. And I know that I can't do a thousand things, then commitment becomes completely irrelevant. So it is a choice to what you get committed to. And I love that you say it in your daily life, you’re absolutely right to be talked about big things in life. But it is, you know, I am committed to doing a daily walk in my life because I know it helps my mental well-being. That is a commitment. And are there few days a year, few days, that I don't do it? The answer is yes. OK. I just noticed and realized I haven't make good on my commitment that day. I go back to dynamic and static. OK, what do I do with it now? I can be in acceptance. OK, great. I had a failing. OK, great. No more. No less. Or I can be in resistance and beat myself up for not having done it or whatever, right? So that goes back to how do I react to that event? But you are correct. It is a choice which commitments that are dear to me and pick them wisely. I would agree with that. Don't make a thousand and then only make good on 10. Then to me, my credibility is at stake. But if I know what they are, get committed and handle them coming from a place of being, not having to, it's a place of choice and a place of being.
Jonathan Humphries [00:35:18] So is it therefore important that we're clear on our priorities before we commit? Our personal priorities. I mean personal, which are obviously linked professionally and as a leader, as an individual to say, look, these are my priorities. And therefore it makes commitment a lot easier.
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:35:40] It probably makes it easier and I relate to what you're saying, but there is a but that's formulating. I also think at times I just know that something is important to me, whether it's a priority or not. But I just know it's important and I then frequently go to if it's really important, I make the commitment. It doesn't mean that I know how to do it yet. OK? it doesn't mean that I need to know what actions I need to take within a certain timeframe. No, for me, the commitment is just, I'm going to handle this. The actions come later. The doing is not less important. In fact, the actions are incredibly important because otherwise you're not going to make it. But to me, it's not the beginning. The beginning is a being, is a mindset and a choice in the moment. So I hear you on the priorities, but I think that can really work. But there are times when I just know intuitively something is incredibly important to me and I choose to get committed to whether it's a priority or not. And so I think I relate and I don't, and I've never been confronted with that question before. It's an excellent question.
Jonathan Humphries [00:36:56] Well, I guess I want to differentiate between other people's priorities and my own personal priorities. Yeah, right. So I want to make the differentiation there. So for me to make something a priority, it has to be important. Personal relationships. Family. My role. The different roles I have, right? You are fulfilling those roles. So those are priorities that I’ve clearly said, you know, I'm going to focus on those. So, you know, once they become personal priorities. Then it allows, therefore, the focus and then the commitment.
Patrick Ghielmetti [00:37:48] Agreed. And I think it plays into what I tried to communicate earlier. It all comes back to choice. What are you choosing to commit to? And these are your own commitments and the commitments that are expected of you by others. It all goes back to choice. You have a choice to say, yes, I'm going to commit this or and you have a choice to say no. It goes back to choice.
Jonathan Humphries [00:38:21] Thank you for listening to the HoCoSo conversation. We hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please do share us with your friends and community. Take a look at our previous episodes and look out for our next ones. We look forward to you joining us on this unique exploratory journey.