Episode 93: Self-Awareness Isn't About You | Why Knowing Yourself Changes Every Relationship with Rajiv Mehta

We often think of self-awareness as a personal pursuit—something we do to better understand ourselves, improve our mindset, or become the "best version" of who we are. But what if knowing yourself isn't ultimately about you at all?

In this episode, Dr. Katie chats with leadership advisor and author Rajiv Mehta, who challenges the individualistic view of self-awareness and offers a compelling alternative: we come to know ourselves through our relationships with others. 

Drawing from his work with organizations like NASA, the U.S. Navy, and corporate leadership teams, Raj explains why true camaraderie isn't built through team-building exercises or personality assessments, but through the ongoing practice of seeing ourselves—and one another—more clearly.

Together, Katie and Raj explore why many of our assumptions about ourselves simply "ain't so," how simple reflective tools can transform the way we relate to others, and why healing the "soil" of relationships is the foundation for trust, belonging, and sustained high performance.

If you've ever wondered why some teams, families, and communities seem deeply connected while others struggle despite good intentions, this episode offers a refreshing perspective—and practical ways to begin building stronger relationships from the inside out.

Key Learnings:

• Self-awareness isn't an individual pursuit. Knowing yourself is ultimately about showing up more intentionally in relationship with others.
• Camaraderie is more than connection or belonging. It develops when a group shares a common purpose, trusts one another deeply, and is committed to one another's success. 
• Our thoughts aren't always the truth. Many of our reactions are automatic interpretations rather than objective reality. Learning to question those assumptions creates space for healthier relationships. 
• You don't need to become someone new. The skills required for deeper connection already exist within you—they simply need to be noticed, practiced, and strengthened. 
• Trust is built through shared reflection. Simple practices that help people understand themselves often become powerful conversations that strengthen relationships within teams, families, and communities. 
• Great team-building starts before the team-building event. Activities alone can't create lasting culture. Healthy relationships are the soil where collaboration, trust, and shared purpose grow. 
• Leadership begins with you. If you want greater camaraderie in your organization, don't start by asking your team to change. Start by becoming more aware of yourself and sharing what you're learning.

Resources:

• Rajiv Mehta's Book: Mapping Ourselves
• Website: Mapping Ourselves 
• Free Self-Reflection Tools: The Atlas Care Map and additional resources are available on the Mapping Ourselves website. 
• Connect with Rajiv: LinkedIn

Guest Info:

Rajiv Mehta is a leadership advisor, keynote speaker, and author of Mapping Ourselves. His work helps people better understand themselves so they can build stronger relationships, healthier communities, and cultures rooted in trust and camaraderie. Raj has worked with organizations ranging from NASA and the U.S. Navy to Apple and countless leadership teams, bringing together ancient wisdom and practical, research-informed tools that help people see themselves—and one another—with greater clarity. His approach reminds us that self-awareness isn't just a path to personal growth; it's the foundation for living and working well with others.

Connect with Katie on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. You can also get free resources to help you on your purpose journey at www.katiesandoe.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Hi y'all, I'm Katie Zando, and this is the Spark Something New Podcast. A place where we explore topics and conversations that can help you find different ways to live, to work, and to lead. I am so glad that you're here. So let's spark something new together. Hello, my friends. Welcome back to the Spark Something New podcast. On this week's episode, we're talking about an old word. Camarery. I don't know why I call it old. I just feel like this is a word that was like around in the 1700s. And how do we have more camaraderie? However, I have come to really appreciate this word and the richness and depth of what it represents, and how much of what we have trouble describing in our organizations, with our teams, in different groups that we're a part of is it's really we're looking for camaraderie. This week I sat down with Rajiv Mehta. Raj is a leadership advisor, he's a keynote speaker, and he's author of the book called Mapping Ourselves. Raj's work helps people better understand themselves so that they can build stronger relationships, more trust, healthier communities, and have a stronger sense of camaraderie. So we talk about what the heck this word is. How is it different than words like connection, belonging, relationships, community? And why this word and the tools that he's created have such profound impact and change that organizations like NASA, the US Navy SEALs, and Apple have brought Raj in to do this work. You'll find that he is this rare blend of insight and warmth and practical wisdom that is so refreshing. And his core message is that self-awareness isn't solely for self. It is not solely for your own personal growth and fulfillment, although that is a huge component. But really, it's foundational to community, to connection to other people, to building trust and how we live well with other people. So I hope our conversations spark something new in the way that you think about yourself and the way that you relate to those around you. So enjoy. Raj, welcome to the show, my friend.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

I'm glad to be here.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

He's laughing because I don't know. I'm doing the spitting thing. I gotta like each guest, y'all. I gotta like make them feel like they're I don't have walk-on music, so I'm like, I gotta make it a big deal. So here we go. Raj, I'm excited to chat with you about I'm gonna call it a very old person word. Not that you're old. I'm not calling you old, but I feel like this is a very camaraderie.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Like get that gravitas in there. Very good, very good.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

I feel like it's like a I don't know, like somebody from I like long ago used this term, like, how do we have more camaraderie? So I call it like the old word. Um however, uh the reason why I want to talk about it is you ever you have a wonderful, fascinating perspective about it. And it is so much more than than what I'm teasing about the fact of camaraderie. Because in this day and age, in the work that I do, I hear a lot about the importance of human connection and community. And while we might be more familiar and comfortable with the meaning of those words, they definitely don't have the richness as does camaraderie. So my first question for you is can you define camaraderie?

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Sure, sure. No, of course. I mean, that's a good place to start. And in fact, it you know, it's not like we're replacing these other words. So just for a moment, let's let's talk about community connection, belonging, the words that we use all the time. And so the way I think of it is that sort of community is just kind of like a container. You're part of the New York community, you're part of your family community, you're part of your college alumni organization. And, you know, it's sort of pretty clear whether you're part of the community or not. You don't necessarily know everybody in your community, and and but you accept that there's some container called a community. Connection is um is very, very personal. It's just two people. Connection is the sense that there are some characteristics of the other person that you honestly like. And it gives you kind of the grounding to have a relationship with that person. And so, you know, you're both whatever, you're both Red Sox fans and you're passionate about that. And that allows you to enjoy each other's company, even if you disagree vehemently on something else. But you you have this connection, this bond with each other. Belonging is very different. Belonging is the sense that you are part of this group, and you know that everybody else in that group feels you're part of that group. And you're allowed to be in this group as you honestly are, and you're not getting kicked out. So, you know, Uncle Joe, who shows up at Thanksgiving with these really out of this planet views, he is still welcome at Thanksgiving because he's family. You know you can be there as you are, and you're still going to be invited back. But belonging, I I love this uh Peter Bloch, who's written about community. He also describes this sort of second meaning of belonging, which is kind of like the word. It means you feel the group belongs to you. You have this sense of uh both uh responsibility and some sense of authority to take care of the well-being of the group. So belonging. And so camarader is sort of complementary to these things. Camaraderie happens within a very clear group of people. And so you have a sense of connection, you have a sense of belonging with the people in that group. But in addition, you have a goal that you're working together on. So it could be you're part of a local community volunteer group that's planting trees, or it could be that, you know, you're running IBM. There is this group of people that have a common purpose and you are working on that together. So a SEAL team has a very strong sense of camaraderie. Well, if they don't, they're in serious trouble. But your family does not necessarily have a sense of camaraderie. You're not on some common mission together. And so it's important to recognize that camaraderie is in the context of a group of people with a common purpose. And when you have camaraderie, you know that everybody in the group is dedicated to that common purpose. You know that you're all working towards that, that there's not sort of these competing agendas. You are doing this together. And you sort of have complete faith that everybody on the team is doing their best for the group's goal and for each other's well-being.

SPEAKER_02 7:09

I think of, I mean, certainly when you talk about it that way, I see it that this is so much what leaders want for their teams. They might use the word like team building or collaboration. And really, those are more ways of interacting, but camaraderie is this sense that we are part of this community as like an organization. We we have connection with one another, we have belonging. And what is the the glue really that's keeping us all together is the fact that we have this shared goal or purpose, which then transcends our differences and maybe our personality quirks. And I also see that, my goodness, how much camaraderie shows up in the our home life. I hate to call it our personal. I've I've tried to train myself to stop saying personal and professional because I think the personal is everywhere. Rather, there is professional and home or outside. And like a friend group could have a sense of camaraderie. So this is, I'm setting this up and then I'm gonna ask you a question, Rod. So if this is a correct thinking of the way you look at camaraderie, so there could be a community, I'm using air quotes, a community of like let's say high school friends who have grown up together. And so they're in their adulthood. And so the connection point is, you know, high school and maybe they have kids together, and you know, so there's all these different connection points. And certainly they feel like they belong and the belonging and that group, that friend group belongs to them. And it doesn't mean that that group will always have a sense of camaraderie, but when they do, it might be because let's say one of the friends, if it is a group of women friends, just gave birth and so they're gonna organize food and deliveries and how they take care of it. Um maybe it's a group of men and someone is I don't know, maybe they're struggling with mental health, and so they're all gonna come alongside their friend. And so is that, am I thinking of it correctly, that camaraderie is maybe a outset?

SPEAKER_01 9:18

Yeah, that feels right. Okay. Because, in a sense, in the way you describe it, the group of friends has some common purpose in the moment. Okay, you know, and so just to put more extreme one, I mean, so it could be a group of friends that are getting together for some like expedition. You know, they're going, you know, they're going out backwards camping for the next week, and this is a goal. They want to get from here to there and everyone thrive, everyone succeed, will everyone get there. And so during that time, yes, it's really, really important. Whereas then when they get back to their normal lives, they're all going off in whatever direction, but they're still deep friends. The funny thing is, as I came to appreciate from talking with people that are on SEAL teams and leading SEAL teams, camaraderie does not imply friendship. Doesn't mean you like the people.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

In the sense that, you know, when they're coming back from their missions and going back to wherever they live in Houston or Dallas or whatever, they're not necessarily hanging out with each other. So friendship is not a critical part of camaraderie. It's the sense that when you are on this effort together, you are there for everyone's success. And you will allow each other to be who they honestly are, acknowledging that, tapping into that. But it's not necessarily that you are best buddies. So you don't have to have, you know, and this is so important in the work environment. We work with all sorts of people. They're not necessarily your cup of tea for hanging out on your vacation to Maui. But on that thing, you know that you can completely rely on each other. And that applies for business organizations, it applies for church groups, it applies for clubs.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

So, because that's fascinating, because I was thinking, well, oh my gosh, I have so many questions. What originally came to mind in the green room, y'all, Raj and I were talking about plans for this weekend. And I said one of the things that if there's time and capacity that Sean, my husband, and I love to do is we catch up on some shows. We don't watch a lot of television, but like, you know, have a little time. And there's a show that we've been watching. It's a reality TV show called, well, there's two different ones, Next Level Chef with Gordon Ramsay, and then extracted. It's like a survival thing. And when you describe that friendship isn't necessary to have camaraderie, what made me think of in extraction is part of the, and I'm setting this up, Raj, to see if this is also camaraderie or if this is something different, where it is a survivalist show where there are a number, I forget, it's like 15 people who their goal is to survive out in the wild. But part of the show itself is they each have two family members that are back in quote unquote headquarters, where they get to watch their survivalists and help them. And there's different competitions, and so they can send them things they need to survive. And so for the family members who are in headquarters, they are they have there are times where they have to work together because of the challenge, but they're also in competition with one another because ultimately the goal is that only one survivalist wins. So they want their family or friend to win. So I'm giving you that context to say, is it also camaraderie even when you are maybe not enemies, but you're competing against one another? Like, is that, or am I way overthinking camaraderie?

SPEAKER_01 12:57

He's like, Yeah, well, I think you know, it's like in any of these sort of any word that you use, belonging, connection, camaraderie, community, you you go out to the edges and you discover it's kind of blurry.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Right? It's you know, like if I live in Hoboken, do I can't still keep call myself a New Yorker? Well, maybe you do, you know. So it's like the board. Well, so that's just it. So, you know, like you could argue that in some microscopic time for this hour, you're working in camaraderie because for this hour you've got this task to do so that both of you survive in in this show. But on the whole, as you're describing, you are competing.

SPEAKER_02 13:37

Okay. Okay. And I ask that because one, I'm curious if there are other conditions that are necessary in order for it to be called or for it to be true camaraderie. So we know that there is a group of people, they connect in some way or have some sort of shared identity and a shared goal. Are there any other conditions or qualities or things that need to be present in order for it to be camaraderie?

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Yeah, I think so. Let me answer your question this way. So let's think about what does it take to have camaraderie? It's not like you can click the button, say, you're all on the same team, you're all committed to this goal, go. It doesn't happen. That deep level of sort of common feelings, knowing that you can work with each other and trust each other completely happens over time. It happens through lots of little interactions. One of the most sort of fundamental sort of requirements for camaraderie is that you know each other. You're not pretending that this person is just the loveliest person. You know they're always grumpy. You know this. You know this. You know that they're they are no good at don't put you know meal duty on them. So you know what they honestly are good at, what they're not, what rubs you the wrong way, what you love, and you're allowing them to be. But that requires you to actually know them. And it's sort of what comes as part of that is that honestly, you actually need to know yourself really well because otherwise it's hard for other people to know you. And so it's not sort of a requirement for camaraderie. It's more like the foundation for camaraderie is that you have deep knowledge of yourself and each other. And kind of practically speaking, you have built up kind of shared stories through shared experiences. So this is something that happens over time, consciously, ideally. It's not something you can sort of sprinkle on at the end to say, bingo, we've got camaraderie, let's go. So this is really, really key. It doesn't happen like that.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

I took it, took a big deep breath because here we are. We're back at this know thyself. And uh and I've been, I continually joke that when I work with leaders or or just anybody, how many people will say they know themselves, but they don't really know themselves, like at the depth to which I think when when we're using I think when we're using the term camaraderie, like you know, when when seals work together, like when we're working towards something that is important, that might be high risk, that has a pressure or an intensity to it, uh, knowing each other and knowing thyself, not at a surface level, but at a at a true depth, it requires a lot of work and effort that a lot of people maybe for whatever reason aren't comfortable with it, don't have capacity. So whatever. So that was the laugh at like, here we are, back to know thyself.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Right, right. I I did want to add to what you were just saying, though. We're accustomed to thinking that know yourself implies kind of this go into a monastery and hang out there for five years to really know yourself deeply and and so forth. And yes, that's all lovely and true, but that's not necessarily what I'm talking about. I'm talking about like bring this to the practical level. Know what your day is like, who you interact with, what you enjoy, what you don't, what kinds of situations just get you fried and what sorts of situations you love. This real practical day-to-day knowledge of yourself. And so um this, so one of the key things here is that we have come to think of know yourself, know thyself, if you want to get fancy, as this I mean, we are using the word camaraderie, so I feel like know thyself is like equally as fancy. Right, right. You know, so but like we've come to think of this in kind of this internal self. And I want to emphasize that when I'm talking about know yourself, this is a concept that is plural. We are incredibly social animals. Know yourself includes the people that you interact with regularly, and the whole kind of relationship, the whole ecosystem that we're very much part of. Know yourself is also dynamic. The world is constantly changing, including you. And so, what are you today or this hour is different than what you are at other times. So you have to constantly, in some sense, be aware of the fact that know yourself is contextual. And in that sense, go ahead. Just to close on that sense, know yourself is also, I think of it as holistic. It's like the environment that you're in, the milie that you're in, is really important. So you can't necessarily know yourself that well if you do go off to a cave to study yourself. Because no, it's knowing yourself in the context.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

So, how do you know yourself in the context? Like, I love how you're like, no, this isn't this is at a practical level. This is not at a deep internal level. And I'm like, you just took it to the next existential level, which is like not just know thyself internally, but know thyself dynamically in every shift in context. No, I know that's not what you mean, but I'm like, No, you just took it.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

But what do you think?

SPEAKER_02 18:53

What does what does that look like?

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Well, so let's put it this way. So, over, you know, people that's smart people have been advising us to know yourself for a few millennia. Yeah, right. And so this idea that knowing yourself is valuable, and the idea that most of us don't know ourselves all that well is not breaking news, right? This apparently this has been a characteristic of humans for a long time. And so over the millennia, we have developed many ways, many tools for knowing yourself, meditation and mindfulness and journaling and therapy and so forth. So, given that this is ancient, it might surprise most people to know that in the last 10, 15 years, there's been a huge flowering of innovation in ways to know yourself. How do you do, how do you pay attention to your day-to-day interactions? How do you pay attention to kind of like the spaces that you're in to see how they impact you? And so the I've been involved with a group of a very loose-knit global community of people that have been developing new ideas, developing new techniques, developing new ways. And so I myself have kind of standardized some of these for my purposes to provide people kind of a starter kit of tools to use to pay attention to daily life. And I've taught these to like eight-year-olds and teenagers and 90-year-olds. So they are not complicated. But that's partly because I put in a lot of work to develop easy-to-use tools. But as a easy example, you know, we think that we know the people that are around us all the time that contribute to our well-being. So who are all the people that you care for, who cares for you? You would think this is kind of obvious, but I have led lots of workshops over the years to help people simply think through that. And, you know, it's nothing very complicated. Ask them, write down who do you care for, who cares for you? And then I teach them how to make a very simple diagram of this, like stick figures and arrows pointing one to the other. You know, I care for my mom, I have a sick pet cat, I'm caring for my cat. And, you know, my Facebook friends are always checking in on me, they care for me. And so you make a simple diagram. And what's been astonishing over the years is how much people discover their eyes open to kind of the reality of their care ecosystem. That in the process of this, they've become so much more aware. And they often discover that they have blind spots. You know, they as an example, when my sister-in-law drew her care map with my assistance, she totally forgot to include my wife. Never mind that they talk to each other several times a day. It's just they have been such an integral part of each other's life for decades that they forget that it's a different person. You know, it's it sort of like slips your mind because it's so close. I've had lots of married couples forget their spouse and so forth. You know, and when we reflect on it, it becomes clear sometimes that they are missing in this aspect of your life. And sometimes you're just like, they're so there that you've taken it for granted. And what happens is Is people both discover what's missing? It's like, oh, I wish my brother was more involved. But they also discover how much there is to celebrate because they've been overlooking these people that provide them with so much care that, you know, it allows them to thrive. And they've been just sort of taking that for granted. And so, you know, that that's one sort of simple tool that I had developed. And there's more for paying attention to kind of the spaces that you're in or how you spend your time over the course of the day or the conversations you have that allow you to see day-to-day life much more richly.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

Raj, I'm curious. Um thinking live how to frame this question, I see the relevancy and the aha moments that can happen when we use a tool like who is in my care ecosystem? I love this. Like you're so smart. You just like kind of love it. You're so smart. Um, but in within my care ecosystem, and where I'm where I'm curious is why would we need to think about a care ecosystem as it relates to improving camaraderie amongst a group? So you mentioned you've worked with SEALs, like you've worked with so many amazing groups. And maybe you didn't do this with SEALs, but as I'm thinking about applying this in the professional setting or in a societal setting, why is it important that knowing thyself also means knowing thyself in a care ecosystem? Like, how do we begin to identify? Oh, I need to, I need to know myself in this way better so that I know how to what better connect? Like, so I guess my question is, I'm processing out loud, why do we need to do these things? And how do we know what things to focus on?

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Sure. So two parts to the answer, uh, which I'll give you both at the beginning. One is that we're all human. And so our families are how we spend our time is integral, no matter what you do. Whether you're a Navy SEAL or you're flipping burgers at McDonald's, you are human, you have family. This is so much a part of you, you can't ignore it. You said earlier, we can't separate personal and professional. We, it's the person who is there.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

The second part of it is of course, if you're a SEAL, if you're a stockbroker, if you're a real estate agent, what particularly matters in your life varies. But you have to have the skills to be able to investigate whatever matters to you. And part of the value of what I think of as the starter kit of tools I've developed is that you are learning how to see. You're learning how to observe. You're developing a language, a skill set, a visual uh language to investigate anything you care about. And so if I I'll go back to the first one and then come back to the second with some with some stories. So on the first one, SEALs are people too, right? It's like this is so, this is so so critical to them. And so one, well, this guy wasn't a SEAL, he was just a Navy captain, you know, command.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

Yeah, I don't know. He was just a decorated veteran who like was super amazing. No, I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

But he was sort of on the cusp of retiring. And when I had him draw his care map, one of the things in the care map that I encourage people to do is to kind of draw the people who physically live near you, kind of in the middle of the paper, and the people who live far away, kind of on the edges of the paper. And then you kind of make a circle, ends up being like an amoeba shape, enclosing everyone that's within 20 minutes, enclosing everyone that's within two hours. And he said to me, Look, you know, I've been in Navy, whatever, for 20 odd years. My friends are always all around the world. These circles don't mean anything to me. And I was like, fine, don't draw the circles. Your life is different. Within a month, he came back and said, Raj, I've come to appreciate how important those were. Because as he was on the cusp of retirement and he was settling in one place, he realized because of this exercise that because all of his friends were far away, there was no one he could call, kind of on the spur of the moment, and said, I need to talk. Let's go meet at this bar. And so the lack of having someone that you could just hang out with as a human being turns out to be really, really important. And so this was a discovery. There was another guy, he wasn't a seal, he was a green beret, uh, whatever. But he discovered that his 20 years of experience in special operations had left him with these amazing skills for kind of disappearing in plain sight, of like actively not allowing other people to get to know him. Just part of his practice of living in the world was be invisible. And he realized, this sound hilarious, he realized that now that he was in his civilian life, these skills were gonna make life very lonely. If you actively don't allow anybody in, there's not gonna be anybody there. And he's like, Oh, I got I gotta do something about this. And so he actually made it a point to go and say hi to his neighbors and to be visible in the front yard and things like that. And eventually, honestly, he he's a musician, he discovered other musicians in his neighborhood, they formed a band. And so, no, that those people need this just as much as anybody else. Um, there was uh one person who is one of the senior instructors at the U.S. Naval Academy who was part of this, and he, in using one of the exercises where he paid attention to how he was using his time every day. And every day he found himself struggling to do the little exercises, like which made him aware, which seems kind of funny, but that he was just so oversubscribed on his time that he couldn't do anything. You know, he was just like meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting, and which made him sort of stop and reflect on how he was doing such a poor job of kind of balancing work requirements, family requirements, other things he was interested in. And he had to kind of pause and he had a picture of this. And these sort of reflections of where our own life was going well, where it wasn't, actually allowed him to better serve the cadets. Like he told me a story of one of the cadets at the Naval Academy who was, he was at risk of being thrown out, and he helped him with his own reflections and asked uh the cadet to sort of pay attention to his interactions over the course of the day. And the cadet himself discovered how his own kind of behavior was so, um, shall we put it, off-putting? No, but no wonder, nobody was. And it opened his eyes to the fact that it is possible for people to be nice to him. And it was like an eye-opening thing for for this cadet. You know, who knows what his life circumstances had been, but opening his eyes was a big deal. And I found this as people learn to see by using the starter kit of tool, they are able to teach their friends and family. They're able to then go pursue ideas of their own. And as a trivial example, if the second, I was teaching a bunch of high school kids in rural Michigan, so really rural, like the city nearby had 2,000 people. Um, but so you know, high school kids are high school kids. So this one child who was like so into sports and so forth, he was just curious, like how much time do I spend on each activity? He's simply gonna keep a log and make a pretty drawing of it. Uh, this other child was just hilarious. He was, he had some sort of bedtime that he was supposed to pay attention to. And he was not having this. He was really annoyed at his parents were insisting. And so he was gonna keep track of what time he went to bed and how lively he felt the next day to provide data to his parents that he, you know. And I was like, go do that. You will discover that sleep is kind of useful, but maybe you're an exception. You know, I didn't come up with a tool for tracking sleep. But once you know what you're doing, this is not complicated.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

So I'm having uh I don't know what I'm having.

SPEAKER_03 30:13

I'm having uh a moment where I'm like, Raj, I'm trying to make that connection.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

Okay, because this is like, I don't know if I'm overthinking or underthinking it. So is the work that you do the goal to tea, I hear you, I heard you say teach people different ways to understand themselves so that they've developed the skill, or maybe it's a competency, a competent which is a set of skills, the competency to be able to go and reflect on myself so that regardless of the group, I know how I'm affecting or contributing to camaraderie.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

Um why don't I tell you the little story of how I came to this? Because I myself was surprised at the ending. So I'll skip the long story, but for many years I was teaching, developing these sorts of tools and teaching them for people for, in a sense, their personal benefit. You know, like if perhaps you have an illness, and it's important to be observant of your own illness so that you can you can manage things better. I I was teaching a lot of these workshops, and the good news was people were coming away from these workshops telling me that this was life-changing, that they had learned so much, that it made such a difference to their lives and so forth. So great, isn't this wonderful? You know, which it was. What I found was kind of interesting and unexpected was at the end of these workshops and stuff, what people first wanted to talk about when I asked them, how was that? They would talk about how much they enjoyed being with each other, how much they got to know each other better. Like there was a time when I was leading a session for a group of uh caregivers of people with dementia in Phoenix. It was a uh it was a support group that had been meeting regularly for three years or something. And at the end of it, one of them spoke up and said, We've been meeting for three years. We have gotten to know each other better in these two hours than in the three years that we've been doing this. This is this is mind-boggling. And over time, I found that when people in a group like that group already knew each other, the conversation that began in the workshop simply continued into normal life. And essentially, kind of a non-topic of conversation became commonplace. They started talking about their care ecosystem or how they spent their time in, you know, they had now a language for this, they had a diagram of this, they could talk about it. And those conversations allowed them to sort of tap into their communal wisdom in ways they had never before, even though they had known each other. And more they talked about how this had changed their relationship as a group, that they found kind of a deeper sense of connection and belonging. And for a long time, I thought of that as, isn't that nice? Like icing on the cake. They came to learn this one thing and they came out with this bonus. Isn't that nice? And it wasn't till honestly, to those SEALs that I was working with that one of them said to me, It's like, Raj, you don't seem to understand how important and powerful that is. And he explained to me, he said, all in these senior military officers, um, in his language, he said, if you don't know yourself, if you don't know your team, you're almost guaranteed to lose the battle. And so he said, So we, you know, especially Navy SEAL captains and so forth, they have spent their entire career on how can I know myself? How can I know my team? It's a part of sort of situational awareness is you got to know the people.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

And so it was quite funny. He was very politely essentially saying that, Raj, I know more about knowing yourself than you do. I've been working on this a long time. And so trust me when I tell you that what you have been saying is far more powerful than what you seem to realize. That the fact that going through this process, using these tools, but doing it collectively, this sort of experience of collective self-reflection is so valuable for camaraderie and Raj, camaraderie is really, really, really important.

SPEAKER_02 34:34

Oh, I think I get I think I get it. Wait, were you gonna say something else?

SPEAKER_01 34:38

So I backed into this. It's not like I went out to solve this thing. It was like surprise.

SPEAKER_02 34:43

Okay, so I think I get it because I was wearing a list. Well, I was wearing my Katie hat, but I was also wearing my podcast listener hat and been like, what the heck does care ecosystems have to do with making my helping my team function better or my family? And what you're saying is that these tools, which then I want to ask you, like, what's an example of a tool? But these tools provide new ways and different ways for people to better understand one another, build trust, deepen relationships, and and essentially create or strengthen group identity because we're talking about things so far beyond the what are your core values? What do you, which again, I don't want to, well, that sounds like I'm making fun of it. I believe very deeply in core values, but you're it you're you're suggesting for different ways for people to more deeply understand themselves, which creates more authentic connections, trust. So I think I yeah, okay yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

And and to add to that, it also allows us to know our to become more practiced at knowing ourselves well. So for example, a values, you know, again, not to not to make fun of that stuff, but like, you know, I've so many times organizations use like the values deck to identify your best values. Yeah. And we assume that we actually know what our values are in simply going through the deck so that we can identify. But let me, so there's a professor at San Jose State who did a big study on busyness in America.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

Okay. And what she discovered, which which is like the is like everybody is busy. Everybody thinks they need 48 hours for every day to get right. But what she discovered was that everybody is busy in so many different ways. And if you pay attention to what is making you busy, you start to discover what it is that you value. And so, you know, Joe over here might be spending every making moment that he possibly can doing things for his church. Clearly, he has this deep sense of responsibility for his church community. You know, this person over here is just every spare moment on exercise, this, that, or the other thing, or just on their work or whatever. But through this practice of paying attention to where you spend your time, you may discover what you really value because you have to ask yourself, why am I spending time on that? And so part of this is that we have so many kind of practices, habits, best practices that assume that you know yourself, but you don't necessarily. And how can we become better skilled at paying attention to ourselves?

SPEAKER_02 37:29

Do you have uh, I mean, I know you have tools. Do you have a tool that you could share with listeners that you're willing to share could be helpful? Something that you could share with them in a short amount of time that they could walk away and try this. Well, walk away. I mean, you're not physically here. So, listeners, you're not walking away after they turn off the podcast, that they could try for themselves.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

Yeah. Well, so the like these uh the starter kit of tools that I mentioned, they're they're freely available on the website. So if you go to mapping ourselves.com, you know, we're making maps of our daily life. So mappingourselves.com, one of the menu items is resources.

unknown 38:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 38:06

And you can you can get them there. So mapping ourselves.com slash resources. But as at a at an even more trivial level, you know, we think of let's go back to sort of the care ecosystem. Most people, when you use the word care these days, assume it's something having to do with someone who's sick or for or or fragile. It's like you're caring for your aunt who has Parkinson's, you're caring for a child who has diabetes. But care is this human thing we do for each other all the time. And so, kind of a trivial exercise is just to get a piece of paper and jot down all of the tiny little acts of care that you have given or received over the past day or two. And so you might remind it's like, oh, the barista at this Starbucks was just said hi in such a happy way that it started off my day really well, you know, or Joe brought in donuts to the office because he wanted to celebrate something. I hate donuts, but wasn't that nice of him to be thoughtful? Or that, you know, you went out of your way to help your neighbor because you know she's not doing really well right now. You just stopped in to say hi for two minutes. So if you pay attention to these tiny little moments of acts of care, that alone can be really eye-opening to see how we live in a world that has that or doesn't. But you know, because there are people that are quite lonely and disconnected, but it's still worthwhile doing this.

SPEAKER_02 39:35

I think how powerful that very simple exercise could be where if there is a team in the professional setting that might be struggling with, I don't know, competition or building trust, or I like whatever, maybe just some challenges with relationship building. Oftentimes I hear clients, they'll they'll use it like, oh, there's personality differences, or you know, what have you. And paying attention to say, like, with this team over the course of the day, like jot down as you reflect over, you know, today or tomorrow, what have you, what are the moments where we've cared for one another? And that could be, you know, you spoke up, you were willing to help. And and what you start to do is take the personalities out of it, the stories. You know, there's a lot of stories in our in our head about things. Like I think before when we were talking, you mentioned something like what you think just ain't so, like what you think about someone or situation probably is not the case. And and so taking an a small intentional exercise to say, hey, over the course of the next day, just jot down all the different ways this person was kind to you, or like, is that like an adaptation people could use of the tool?

SPEAKER_01 40:56

So yes and no. The no part is that you have to build an environment of trust to do this. And it it you have to have kind of really deep, sustained commitments. You have to go into it with the deep intentionality that you're gonna form camaraderie, that you're gonna work to really know each other, that this is a commitment, not an activity. And so when leader, you know, so in the in the business context, when leaders want to know, well, I have this going on in my company, I want to come in and help. I'm like, um, no. Lead by leading. You start. You're a human being too. You have these same issues. So start with yourself. Ideally, start with two or three people, five people, the people that you are already closest to, who already you have some trust with, who are going to be willing to do this with you. Start with yourselves. Start using these tools, start talking about it, and see what you learn about each other and see what changes it makes to your relationships, to your lives, and then inspire everybody else by sharing your stories. What did you learn? So it's not telling these people, oh, there's this smart guy in California, he wrote this book, you heard him on this podcast. You need to go do that. No, none of that nonsense. You start with yourself and you share your stories.

SPEAKER_03 42:24

I Roger, I love it. No, that's just nonsense. No.

SPEAKER_01 42:31

Yeah, this is you. It's like you lead. Oh, that's that's why I think these idea that you can sprinkle camaraderie on to fix things. Like, no, this is deep. It starts with the intention.

SPEAKER_02 42:48

I was thinking like it's not, it is what you're what you are saying describing, saying is that it's a commitment, which means this needs to be a practice. This needs to be something that is intentional, sustained, daily. This isn't a personality trait. This isn't, you know, an icebreaker or a something that we're gonna go do as a team together and then we're gonna fix things. And maybe that's why a lot of team building efforts fall flat because they're not truly building camaraderie. They are staying. What are they doing? Are they staying at the surface level or what's the difference? I mean, I know you like I'm speaking generalities, but what's the difference between like team building that just doesn't stick and the type of creating real camaraderie that you're talking about? Is it intention? Is it commitment? Like, what is it?

SPEAKER_01 43:40

So I think like I I am a fan of many of those activities, the team building types of activities, the values deck and all of that. I don't mean to criticize those things. Rather, it's as if we are so if I can use a metaphor, it's like we're planting good seeds in unhealthy soil. So we're doing something that should thrive. But like, you know, think of a great off site. You go off someplace, you all do something, enjoy the day. Next day you're back in the office, everything's the same. It is actually de spiriting to discover that you can have so much fun together, but honestly, nothing's changing. And so we're we're not addressing kind of the fundamental of healing the soil, of creating an environment where there is trust. When you have that, then you go do something fun. It is great because you enjoy spending time with each other in kind of a different way than you do normally. That's fantastic. When you come and do the values deck or any of those other sort of behavioral exercises, you know that everybody else is so deeply knowledgeable about themselves that this is what they think they are, not just kind of, oh, you know, because I've done those values things so many times, it always feels like it's kind of random exercise. You know, it's like sometimes the cards come out quite differently. Um so this this is it. We're talking about building the foundations. And, you know, we cannot take advantage of the military's approach to building camaraderie in normal life. We're not gonna go to boot camp for four years, you know, and we're not gonna get really shot at. They have, well, I mean, as my military friends sort of explained to me, it's like the military in the sense of the multi-thousand, you know, the many thousand years experience of militaries, they have learned what is required to forge camaraderie. It works for them, it's not for normal life.

SPEAKER_02 45:36

Yeah. So basically, don't read a Navy SEAL book about how to no, I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_01 45:42

Um it's just it doesn't apply to you.

SPEAKER_02 45:45

I was, I was, I love the challenge that like this isn't you telling your team we're gonna do this as a team, but like you listening, it starts with you. So if you're a leader, if you're a parent, if you would have like it starts with you. So you speaking to the you, like you speaking to the person, like this is you. What is one inward practice exercise tool, however you want to frame it, that they could do this week to start to notice, to start to heal the soil in whatever space that they are looking to feel a stronger sense of camaraderie.

SPEAKER_01 46:21

So I would urge people to uh, you know, from the resources, the the free thing, there's one of the tools that's called the Atlas Care Map, the one about the care ecosystem. Go do that. But very much to sort of change what you said, don't just do it in your head. Write it as the instructions say, write it down, make the drawing. This tactile analog approach to learning is actually really, really, really key. We learn so much better when we are physically involved. The fact that it slows you down is actually a feature. It's not a bug, it's a feature that it takes time. You're doing it. And so don't intellectualize this. Kind of use your entire self in doing this work. So writing, drawing, uh, I also encourage people as strongly as I can, after you make your drawing, go talk about it with one or two people in your drawing. Share it with them, explain what you're doing, and be open to discovering that their perspective is different. Because it will be. It absolutely will be. I've had so many people in some of my workshops where married couples have come in. I don't tell them one way or the other. A few couples end up drawing a diagram by themselves. Isn't that cute? Most of them each draw their own and then are shocked when they compare. That's so much more powerful. Because you like my wife and I have we've been married 43 years now. I think we've known each other for like 53 years, whatever. But we still, you know, we can be constantly surprised at what the other person thinks. Like and so this is important to draw your map, share it with others, and see how their perspectives differ. It's really the the talking is such a key part of this.

SPEAKER_02 48:20

Yeah. Raj I love this. Thank you. Oh my gosh, thank you for so many things. Thank you for your brilliance. Thank you for because you are you're just really wicked smart. Thank you for your brilliance, thank you for your humor and candor for your man. You have a warmth about you where you can tell like you you love this, and it it comes from a space of just genuine curiosity for yourself and love and compassion for other people. And so I'm just I'm always grateful to meet others who are so gifted and humble and and all those things. So I don't know, I just thank you for being you, Raj.

SPEAKER_01 49:04

Well, thank you for saying all that. I'll try not to let it go to my head too much. But it's it's been it's been just lovely chatting with you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 49:12

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_02 49:17

Y'all, thanks for spending some of your day with me. I'm really grateful for you. And I hope this episode sparked something new for you in the way that you think about your life, your work, your leadership, and your relationships. If it did, I'd love if you would give us a review on whatever platform that you listen to your podcast. And share this episode with anyone who you think might be interested in listening to it. And finally, let me know if there are any other topics that you want to see covered in future episodes. You can connect with me on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on Instagram, all under the handle KB Santa. My friends, take good care of yourselves. Keep shining beautiful lights. And I'll see you next time.